As she walked to school each day, Autherine Lucy was always in danger. She was the first African American student to attend the University of Alabama, and many white people did not want her to attend. On her third day of school, she had to lock herself in a classroom after an angry group of white students chased her and threw rotten eggs. However, thirty-two years later, Lucy was honored by the same college that tried to keep her from attending.
The founder of the Mississippi Health Project and the Southeast Neighborhood House, Dr. Dorothy Ferebee provided healthcare to the most vulnerable members of the African American community. She advocated for public health, civil rights, and women’s rights in her roles as president of the National Council of Negro Women, an international delegate for the U.S. government, and a pioneering obstetrician.
A Quaker abolitionist and teacher, Prudence Crandall bravely defied prevailing patterns of racial discrimination when she opened one of the first schools for African American girls in Connecticut in 1833. Though supported by leading anti-slavery activists—among them William Lloyd Garrison—Crandall, a white woman, faced legal harassment and social ridicule for her efforts to educate free blacks in the North.
A member of a prominent activist and religious family, Catharine Esther Beecher was a nineteenth century teacher and writer who promoted equal access to education for women and advocated for their roles as teachers and mothers. Embracing traits associated with femininity such as nurturance, Beecher argued that women were uniquely suited to the moral and intellectual development of children, either as mothers or as educators.
Writer, lecturer, abolitionist and suffragist, Julia Ward Howe not only authored the Civil War anthem “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but she also co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association.
Known as the founder of the Girl Scouts, Juliette Gordon Low created the largest and most successful organization for girls in the world. She is best remembered for her sheer determination and tireless efforts to promote and sustain the organization through the early part of the twentieth century.
A prominent essayist of the American republic, Judith Sargent Murray was an early advocate of women’s equality, access to education, and the right to control their earnings. Her essay, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” was published a year before Mary Wolstonecraft’s renowned 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women.
At the turn of the century, Maggie Lena Walker was one of the foremost female business leaders in the United States. She gained national prominence when she became the first woman to own a bank in the United States. Walker’s entrepreneurial skills transformed black business practices while also inspiring other women to enter the field.
During the Rape of Nanking (1937-38), the Chinese women refugees under Minnie Vautrin’s protection gratefully addressed her this way.
The daughter of former slaves, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune became one of the most important black educators, civil and women’s rights leaders and government officials of the twentieth century. The college she founded set educational standards for today’s black colleges, and her role as an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave African Americans an advocate in government.