A little known history fact of a 6 year old girl.
In November 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges Hall became the first African American child to desegregate an elementary school. Although she only lived a few blocks from the William Frantz Elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana. Marshals had to escort Ruby because of angry segregationist mobs that gathered in front of the school. For an entire year, she was the only student in her class since white parents pulled their children from the school in protest. Click on the link a see her story!


Ruby Bridges story

From the American Revolution to the present, African American women have played a myriad of critical roles in the making of our nation. Their labor and leadership, their motherhood and patriotism, and their intellect and artistic expression have all enriched both the African American community and the nation at large. In slavery and freedom, their struggles have been at the heart of the human experience, and their triumphs over racism and sexism are a testimonial to our common human spirit.

For the entire month of February I will give you a little known Black History fact - the purpose is to educate people about African-American history, focusing on African Americans' cultural backgrounds and reputable achievements. This is also a way to show how they have made a difference in the world as we know it. Enjoy!

Dr. Susan McKinney Steward


1848-1918
Dr. Susan McKinney Steward was the first black woman to formally enter the medical profession with recognizable success. Highly motivated and determined, she overcame two major obstacles, being black and female.

In 1870, she graduated from the New York Medical School for Women and Children as class valedictorian. The focus of her work was the practice of homeopathy, as defined by Webster's New Dictionary as "a system of curing disease by drugs in very small doses, which produce in healthy person, symptoms like those of the disease."

World's first African-American woman pilot honored with U.S. Stamp
By Agnes Barr

A brief ceremony hosted by the Des Moines, Iowa, International Airport honored Bessie Coleman, the first woman to earn an International Aviation License and the world's first licensed black aviator. The Bessie Coleman Commemorative is the 18th in the U.S. Postal Service Black Heritage series.

During the ceremonies, Richard Watkins of the postal service in St. Louis, presented framed enlargements of the Bessie Coleman Stamp to William Flannery, Des Moines airport director, and to me as a representative of The Ninety-Nines Iowa Chapter. Members Jane Walter and Martha Matthews also attended.

Bessie Coleman was born in Texas in 1892. During World War I, she read about the air war in Europe. She became interested in flying and became convinced she should be up there, not just reading about it. She started looking for a flying school but what she didn't realize was that she had two strikes against her: She was a woman and she was black.

She heard that Europe had a more liberal attitude toward women and people of color so she learned to speak French and earned enough money to go to Paris to get her license. She encountered many problems but would not let go of her dream and earned her license on June 15, 1921 from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale She returned to the U.S. and began teaching other black women to fly, giving lectures and performing at flying exhibitions.

As she gained increasing fame as a barnstorming air circus performer in a war-surplus Jenny Trainer, she became known as "Queen Bessie." On April 30, 1926, while practicing for a show in Orlando, Florida, she was thrown from the plane and fell to her death.

Thank you, Tuculia.

Did you see that A.N.T. Farm, a Nick show - I think - has a special for black history month? The young singer who stars in the show will share/sing/mimic African American women singers. I don't care for the show, but this one actually looked like a good one.

Hey Lisa,

I did not get a chance to see it but I'll try to see it on the internet. Thanks for dropping by!

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights", and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

Mother Theresa was a Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. She was internationally renowned as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work.

Sojourner Truth was born a slave. After suffering years of abuse at the hands of several different owners, she gained her freedom on July 4, 1827. For the rest of her life, she worked tirelessly to end slavery, to help the many freed blacks who were suffering and to advance women's rights.

Sojourner traveled constantly, powerfully speaking and singing at meetings all over the Northeast and Midwest, often with Frederick Douglass. In 1850, she published an account of her life, Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Her last campaign was fought to secure land in Kansas and Missouri for freed slaves who were living in misery on the East coast. She died in 1883 and was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Sojourner's best-known speech, entitled “Ain't I a Woman?” was given in Akron, Ohio in 1851 at the Women's Rights Convention. Although no formal record exists, her speech made a great impact at the convention and has endured as a classic expression of woman's rights. Her devotion to the rights of women and oppressed people was the reason this ministry was named after her. She continues to inspire all who enter Sojourner Truth House.

A true American pioneer, Dr. Susan McKinney Steward was the first black woman to earn a medical degree in the state of New York.

Born in Crown Heights — then known as Crown Hill — in 1847, McKinney Steward grew up in the neighborhood’s socially elite and civically active community. Motivated and driven McKinney Steward worked on the family farm and spent her free time under the tutelage of noted organist John Zundel.

As she grew older she worked as a teacher in Washington D.C. and New York City, using her wages to pay for medical school. In a time when racial and gender obstacles continued to hold many back, McKinney Steward pushed on and in 1870, graduated from the New York Medical School for Women and Children as class valedictorian, with a specialization in homeopathy, a natural treatment of diseases.

After graduation, McKinney Steward opened her own medical practice at her home in Brooklyn. After a slow start, word of her skills began to spread around Brooklyn and despite skepticism of the ability of a black doctor, she attracted a broad, diverse group of patients who affectionately referred to her as “Dr. Susan.”

McKinney Steward would also practice medicine and at the Brooklyn Women's Homeopathic Hospital and Dispensary as well as use her time to attend to seniors at the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People.

A renowned physician throughout her life, McKinney would use her fame to speak out for social reform as well as advocating for women’s suffrage and temperance. She died in 1918.

*Susan King Taylor was born on this date in 1848. She was a black writer.

Born a slave on the Grest Farm in Liberty County, Georgia, her mother was a domestic servant for the Grest family. At the age of 7, Susan (Susie) King Baker and her brother were sent to live with their grandmother in Savannah. Even with the strict laws against formal education of African Americans, they both attended two secret schools taught by black women. Baker soon became a skilled reader and writer. By 1860, Baker befriended two white individuals, a girl and boy, who also offered to teach her lessons even though they knew it violated Georgia law and custom.

On April 1, 1862, at age 14, Baker was sent back to live with her mother around the time federal forces attacked nearby Fort Pulaski. When the Union Army captured the fort, Baker fled with her uncle’s family and other blacks to Union-occupied St. Simons Island. Since most blacks were not educated, word of Baker’s knowledge and intelligence spread among the Army officers on the island. Five days after her arrival, Commodore Louis M. Goldsborough offered Baker books and school supplies if she agreed to organize a school for the children on St. Simon’s Island. Baker accepted the offer and became the first black teacher to openly instruct African American students in Georgia. By day she taught children and at night she instructed adults.

Baker met and married her first husband, Edward King, a black non-commissioned officer in the Union Army, while teaching at St. Simon Island. For the next three years, Susan Baker King traveled with her husband’s regiment, working as a laundress while teaching black Union soldiers how to read and write during their off-duty hours. She also served as a nurse, helping camp doctors care for injured soldiers. In 1866, the Kings returned to Savannah, where she established a school for freed black children. In that same year, Edward King died in September only a few months after their first son was born.

By the early 1870s, she moved to Boston where she met her second husband, Russell Taylor. With nursing being a passion of hers, Baker soon joined and then became president of the Women’s Relief Corps, which gave assistance to soldiers and hospitals.

In 1890, after a trip to care for her dying son, Baker wrote her memoirs, which she privately published them as a book in 1902 as Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd US Colored Troops. Susie Baker King Taylor died in 1912 at the age of sixty-four in Boston.

Born premature on June 23, 1940, in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph was a sickly child who had to wear a brace on her left leg. She overcame her disabilities through physical therapy and hard work, and went on to become a gifted runner. She became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field events at the Olympics, and later worked as a teacher and track coach.

Ella Baker

While we’re constantly reminded of the civil rights leaders who worked in front, those who were behind the scenes often go unrecognized. Ella Baker is one of those people. An active civil rights leader in the 1930s, Ms. Baker fought for civil rights for five decades, working alongside W.E.B Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King, Jr. She even mentored well-known civil rights activist, Rosa Parks.
Ella Baker is quoted as saying, “You didn’t see me on television; you didn’t see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

Diane Nash

A leader and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement, Diane Nash was a member of the infamous Freedom Riders. She also helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Selma Voting Rights Committee campaign, which helped blacks in the South get to vote and have political power.
Raised in Chicago, Nash initially wanted to become a nun as a result of her Catholic upbringing. Also known for her beauty, she would later become runner-up for Miss Illinois. But Nash’s path changed direction when she attended Fisk University after transferring from Howard University. It was there that she would witness segregation first hand, since coming from a desegregated northern city. Her experiences in the South resulted in her ambition to fight against segregation.
Historian David Halberstam considered Nash, “bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been flawless, and she was the kind of person who pushed those around her to be at their best—that, or be gone from the movement.”

Mae Jemison
A physician who volunteered with the Peace Corps and the first female African American astronaut, Mae was also the first black woman to go into space. After her 1992 expedition on the Endeavor shuttle, she left NASA and founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (which sponsors science camps for kids), as well as companies involved in scientific and technological research. Currently, she is a professor at Cornell University and strongly involved in the science community.

Shirley Chisholm

In 1968, Shirley became the first black Congresswoman and in 1972, she became the first black woman to contend for the presidential office. She used her time in Congress and on the campaign trail to voice her opinions on women’s and civil rights, giving a public voice to many of the grassroots campaigns she was involved in prior to her election.

Harriet Tubman
Like Sojourner, Harriet was born into slavery and found a means of escape with the help of her abolitionist neighbors. In 1849, she fled her slave life in Maryland and found respite in Philadelphia. There she formulated a plan to liberate the rest of her family by way of the Underground Railroad, a system that involved moving slaves from one safe house to another under rigid secrecy. She was able to free her family and numerous other slaves throughout the years, taking them as far as Canada and helping them find safe jobs. Later, she worked as a nurse during the Civil War and was a proponent of both women’s suffrage and the abolitionist movement.

As this is the last Friday in February. With Black History Month coming to a close, it’s only right that we highlight a woman who is more that just the first African-American First Lady of the United States.

Michelle Obama has dedication to much-needed campaigns (such as her initiative to end childhood obesity), her involvement in raising daughters Sasha and Malia and her down-to-earth fashion choices.

As First Lady, Michelle continues to support military families, helping working women balance career and family, encouraging national service, and promoting healthy eating and lifestyle habits for children and families living across the country.
I salute you Michelle Obama on the last day of Black History Month!

Michelle Obama recording