#activists

exchangealumni:

Our next #HERstory features an accomplished musician, politician, and writer. Gertrude Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-sa, was a Sioux woman, born in 1876 in South Dakota.  She was a talented violinist, and won a scholarship to the Boston Conservatory of Music.  In 1913, Gertrude became the first Native American woman to write an opera, titled Sun Dance.  Her passion for music remained with her for the rest of her life, but she moved on to politics when she realized that she could advocate for the rights of Native Americans across the country. 

In 1916, Gertrude moved with her husband to Washington, where she became the secretary of the Society of the American Indian.  There, she edited American Indian Magazine, and wrote books about the mistreatment of Native Americans in Oklahoma.  In 1926, Gertrude founded the National Council of American Indians, where her investigations led to important reforms in rights and greater equality for Native Americans.      

March is Women’s History Month! To celebrate, we’re spotlighting our exchange alumni, famous stories, and unsung heroes. These women have shown us all that #ItOnlyTakesOne to raise the bar, set a new standard, or make a positive impact. Share your favorite stories for Women’s History Month with us on social media by tagging them with #ItOnlyTakesOne.

Photo Credit: 1,2,3

deenoverdami:

I’m going to give my pre-blackout selfie to address greatness where greatness is due. Here is my Women’s History Month Featured Woman#2-Maryam Qaasim.

Maryam Qassim is a Somali woman who has held several high positions of political respect in her country. She previously served as the minister for Women’s Development and Family affairs and as the minister of Human Development and Public Services.

#Herstory

countessofleslandia:

Yuri Kochiyama

Often in the discussion of civil rights history, Asian-Americans are overlooked.  Let’s reverse that trend and learn a little bit about Yuri Kochiyama.  The disappearance of her father following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and her subsequent imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp inspired a lifetime of human rights activism and scholarship. She met her husband, Bill Kochiyama, while “interned” in Jerome, Arkansas.

In 1960, she relocated to Harlem, where she became familiar with the one and only Malcolm X.  She has advocated on behalf of Puerto Rican sovereignty, peace movements, the rights of political prisoners, and nuclear disarmament.

Author Diane Fujino does Kochiyama significantly more justice in her NPR Brief.

For her whole story, check out Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama

Kochiyama was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, as if she couldn’t get any cooler.

This interview is also amazing

friendlycloud:

Remarkable Women in History by Country: Chile

Gabriela Mistral

She was the first person from Latin America to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Working as a teacher in the early twentieth century, she started publishing poetry. She strove to give children of all social classes the opportunity to go to school. Her quick promotions caused resentment and she therefore went to Mexico and assisted the Minister of Education in reforming schools and libraries.

When she became more famous, she toured the world and served as consul in several nations.

In 1945, she received her Nobel Prize. After her death in 1957, three days of national mourning were declared in Chile. Her face appears on the 5,000 peso bank note.

Masterlist of Countries: remarkable women in history

One Last Dream

A factory farm pig sees a butterfly for the first time in his life and has a dream about beauty and color. It is his last dream:
https://goo.gl/UCO9EZ (Writer/Director: Noam Rabinovitch)

Designed by Nir Vana- https://goo.gl/M1NNRk

ANIMAL LIBERATION NOW!

Follow us for more Animal Liberation related content.

Here’s a press photo I took of my old friend and Activist Powerhouse, Mason Dunn; speaking at the Boston City Hall Pride Flag raising to kick off Pride Week in Boston. I believe this was the year we got Trans Public Accommodations passed. I was essentially proud as both a photographer and activist to have gotten this photo of Mason giving a passionate speech, with Governor Baker, who signed the law with a little fanfare as possible, in the background!

(Still and all, thanks Gov. Baker! You might not have been excited to sign the law, but you did it! Which is a damn sight better than the horrible anti-trans laws some other governors are actively trying to pass. I’ll take quiet allyship over vocal hostility any day!)

#tdov #trans #nonbinary #intersex #genderqueer #gendernonconforming #transdayofvisibility #transgender #transsexual #transexual #transwoman #activism #visibility #transvisibility #mapoli #transrights #allyship #activists #massachusetts #boston (at Boston City Hall Plaza)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbxx-S-uZTM/?utm_medium=tumblr

Just a really fun selfie I took with the incredibly badass Pidgeon Pagonis at MBLGTACC a couple of years ago!

#tdov #trans #nonbinary #intersex #genderqueer #gendernonconforming #transdayofvisibility #transgender #transsexual #transexual #transwoman #activism #visibility #transvisibility #mblgtacc #activists (at Western Michigan University)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbxJ0x-OnhD/?utm_medium=tumblr

DECEMBER 12 - SOJOURNER TRUTH

Sojourner Truth,born Isabella (“Bell”) Baumfree, was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843. Her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title “Ain’t I a Woman?,” a variation of the original speech re-written by someone else using a stereotypical Southern dialect; whereas Sojourner Truth was from New York and grew up speaking Dutch as her first language.

During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army; after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.

In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazine’s list of the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time”.

Text for today’s post was taken from Wikipedia. Please consider donating a few minutes to make a submission to Celebrate Women before the year is over.

DECEMBER 8 - AURELIA BROWDER

 Nearly eight months before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider - and one month after the arrest of teenager Claudette Colvin - a woman by the name of Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman was arrested for taking a stand against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama.

She was selected as the lead plaintiff in the historic 1956 case Browder v. Gayle lawsuit - a case which ultimately led to the US Supreme Court ruling that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment. She remains, to this day, and unsung hero in the civil rights movement.

DECEMBER 1 - ROSA PARKS

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Though she was not the first to resist bus segregation - preceded by Irene Morgan,Claudette Colvin and several others - Parks undeniably served as an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement.

“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired,” she wrote in her 1992 autobiography. “But that isn’t true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Parks’ many recognitions include the NAACP’s 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Upon her death in 2005, she became the first woman to lie in honor at the Capitol Rotunda.

NOVEMBER 30 - LYDIA MARIA CHILD

Remembered for penning the popular children’s poem “Over the River and Through the Wood”, Lydia Maria Child often shocked audiences from the 1830s to the 1960s with her extremely liberal views. She called for the emancipation of slaves without any compensation to slaveholders, believing that women could not make significant progress in their rights until slavery was abolished.

Child’s 1833 work An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans is said to be the first anti-slavery book published in the United States. She also wrote fictional short stories in support of her anti-slavery beliefs, often exploring how sexual exploitation affected both the enslaved and the slaveholder’s family. The more she delved into these concepts, the more negative reactions she received from readers.

This was not, however, Child’s first taste of controversy. In the mid-1820s, she published a historical romance novel entitled Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times, writing under the anonymous pseudonym “an American”. The book caused quite a stir in the literary community due to its central relationship - an interracial marriage between a white woman and a Native American man.

Decades later, Child would publicly endorse Native American rights, compiling various pamphlets throughout the 1860s. One of her pieces, An Appeal for the Indians, called upon government officials and religious leaders to make a difference, leading to the establishment of the US Board of Indian Commissioners in 1869.

NOVEMBER 28 - JEANESHA BOU

Recently nominated for the 2015 International Children’s Peace Prize alongside Afghanistan’s Aziza Rahim Zada and Liberia’s Abraham Keita, 17 year-old Puerto Rican activist Jeanesha Bou has become a vocal opponent of human trafficking, hoping to prevent future victims and eradicate this form of modern-day slavery.

Bou’s efforts began around 14 years-old, when she began organizing workshops and other activities to raise awareness of human trafficking, particularly targeted toward youths and children in her community. As part of the It’s About Trafficking project of the Ricky Martin Foundation, she has worked with immigrants from the Dominican Republic in a project that combines literacy programs with education about human trafficking.

For her next big step, Bou aims to produce an educational documentary to prevent future victims, focusing on the most vulnerable population in Puerto Rico - children and youths searching for the ‘American Dream’.

Watch a short video about Bou’s work below:

NOVEMBER 24 - AZIZA RAHIM ZADA

Fourteen year-old Aziza Rahimzada may be soft-spoken, but she has become a powerful voice for children in Afghanistan’s refugee camps. For four years, she’s stood up against the appalling conditions these children face every day, fighting to make Afghanistan’s famously corrupt government address the needs of refugee children.

In September, she was named one of three global finalists for the prestigious International Children’s Peace Prize, but Aziza - who has been dubbed “Afghanistan’s Malala” - says that the important thing about the nomination isn’t the attention to her, but the attention towards her cause: “My work is only for kids,” she says. “I will continue to work for them because in Afghanistan children’s rights are violated in all levels.”

Today’s post includes text originally written by A Mighty Girl. Read the full post here, and be sure to follow them on Facebook,TwitterorPinterest for even more inspiring women.