The best works of art inspire conversation and change. They challenge our intellect and force us to see things in new lights. Ava DuVernay‘s latest film, Selma, has done all of the above as people–young and old—are talking about the Civil Rights Movement and the larger subject of humanity.
The $11.2 million box office hit highlights the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and chronicles his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery to secure equal voting rights. Our appreciation for Dr. King is deepened through this film and we are reminded of his leadership and sacrifice. But as we speak about Selma and the movement of Dr. King, we are also compelled to explore another less discussed matter: women, living and remembered, whose works of greater good left imprints on our society.
Whether they served as the backbone to the world’s greatest men, or initiated causes of their own, these eight women activists have each took on instrumental roles to better the lives of us all.
Check them out on the next pages …
Coretta Scott King
The wife to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Coretta Scott King was a solid supporter to her husband and individual force in the American Civil Rights Movement.
The mother of four traveled all over the world to advocate on behalf of racial and economic justice, women’s and children’s rights, gay and lesbian equality, environmental justice and a myriad of other social causes, according to The King Center.
After her husband was assassinated in 1968, King founded The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in honor of her husband’s dedication to the dream. Today, The King Center sits inside of a 23-acre national historic park which includes Dr. King’s birth home and attracts over one million visitors a year.
Through this initiative, Mrs. King provided local, national and international programs that have educated tens of thousands of people in Dr. King’s philosophy; she guided the creation and housing of the largest archives of documents from the Civil Rights Movement; and she spearheaded the campaign to establish Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday. Coretta Scott King died in 2006 and is buried beside her husband at The King Center.
Mary-Pat Hector (@MaryPatHCEO)
Mary-Pat Hector is a passionate 17-year-old National Youth Director for the Rev.Al Sharpton‘s National Action Network.
She is also the founder of Youth in Action, an organization she started at 10 years old to mobilize other young people to take a stand on youth issues.
Hector speaks throughout the country educating youth on violence and other issues crippling her generation. She even spoke in Washington, DC enlightening others on jobs for youth and providing programs across the country for them as alternatives to criminal involvement. Through her platforms, Mary-Pat hosts teen-safety workshops for schools and trains students in youth advocacy.
Winnie Mandela (@WinnieMandela)
Winnie Mandela attended Jan Hofmeyr School of Social Work in Johannesburg as South Africa was in the midst of apartheid. Among the completion of her studies, she was offered a scholarship to study in America, but instead chose a career in South Africa as the first black medical social worker at Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg.
She eventually met world leader Nelson Mandela and the two married in 1958. After constant arrests resulting from his fight for equality, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. Winnie raised their two daughters alone, and continued the fight against apartheid with the African National Congress.
She too was arrested
and spent a year in jail where she was placed in solitary confinement and tortured. After being released, Winnie continued speaking out against apartheid, and was given the name “Mother of the Nation.” She became president of the ANC Women’s League in 1993, and was elected to Parliament in 1994 and 1999. She resigned in 2003.Valeisha Butterfield (@Valeisha)
Modern day woman Valeisha Butterfield has built quite a name for herself among the political and social arenas. From 2009 to 2011, Butterfield served as Deputy Director of Public Affairs for International Trade under U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration.
Prior to that, Valeisha was Executive Director of Russell Simmons’ Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to voter education and youth empowerment, for over six years. She also worked as the Director of Diversity and Inclusiveness for the Alzheimer’s Association, and as the Field Coordinator to Chief Justice Henry Frye of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Today, she is the Co-Founder and Chair of National Board of Directors for WEEN (Women In Entertainment Empowerment Network). WEEN is a global non-profit organization of women and men committed to supporting, promoting and defending the balanced, positive portrayal of women in entertainment and society. The non-profit currently has more than 45,000 active members and provides educational programs for young women worldwide.
Juanita Abernathy
Juanita Abernathy was an activist in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. She married the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Juanita Abernathy rallied the black community in Montgomery for the boycott and survived numerous death threats.
In 1957 while Reverend Abernathy was away with Dr. King, Juanita and her infant daughter were in their home when white supremacists bombed it. Fortunately,
they both survived and she continued fighting in the movement. In 1961, Abernathy moved to Atlanta and enrolled her children into white schools to protest segregation. She went to the March on Washington, and walked the frontlines of the march from Selma to Montgomery.Today, Juanita Abernathy sits on the Board of Trustees for the Morehouse School of Religion. She is also on the board of directors for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) and the Atlanta Fulton County League of Women Voters. On January 18, Juanita Abernathy will be one of Oprah’s honored pioneers in a special television event, Oprah Winfrey Presents: Legends Who Paved The Way.
Dr. Hawa Abdi Diblaawe
Dr. Hawa Abdi Diblaawe, born in Mogadishu, Somalia, came from poverty and had to raise her four sisters after her mother died. Her father was an educated man who worked hard in the city’s port to make sure that she could become a doctor.
Hawa studied medicine in Kiev and became Somalia’s first woman gynecologist. She later studied law and received her degree at the Somali National University in Mogadishu, and eventually became an Assistant Professor of Medicine.
Dr. Hawa opened a clinic on her family’s ancestral land in the Afgooye Corridor and using the land’s profits to service free health care to all of her countrymen. Dr. Hawa began housing and caring for her employees on the land when the civil war erupted in 1991. The residents’ families soon followed in search of safety and in 2012, Dr. Hawa’s land housed more than 90,000 refugees, mostly women and children. Dr. Hawa Abdi still fights for the women, children and elderly of the Hawa Abdi Village with her two daughters, Dr. Deqo and Dr. Amina. In 2012, the doctor was nominated for a Nobel Peace Price.
Eunique Jones Gibson
Eunique Jones Gibson is the creator behind Because of Them, We Can. The campaign was started from Jones Gibson’s desire to share our rich history and promising future through images that refuted stereotypes and built our children’s self-esteem.
What started as just a Black History Month Instagram project, posting an image once a day of a child dressed as one of our most prominent leaders, Eunique knew that wasn’t enough and she had to extend this idea. On the last day of February in 2013, she resigned from her job to push Because of Them, We Can full time.
Today her campaign is committed as ever before to encourage and empower people of all ages and hues to dream out loud and reimagine themselves as greater than they are, simply by connecting the dots between the past, the present and the future.
Rosa Parks
In refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Rose Parks helped to initiate the American Civil Rights Movement.
After Parks was found guilty for violating segregation laws, the black community boycotted the busing system. Dr. King led the boycott, which went on for over a year, and consequently Rosa Parks lost her job. Prior to Parks’ arrest, in December 1943 she joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP as the chapter secretary. She worked closely with chapter president Edgar Daniel (E.D.) Nixon.
In 1987, she co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, to serve Detroit’s youth, and when she died in 2005, Parks became the first woman in the nation’s history to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.