Women's History Month




 "Ladies Lead the Way:

Yesterday, Today, Always"

 Speakers' Series - 2024


Ladies Lead the Way: Yesterday, Today, Always

The first International Women's Day was celebrated on March 8, 1911.  The United Nations has sponsored this celebration since 1975.  International Women's Day is a global celebration of the social, political, and economic achievements of women - it still takes place on March 8 each year.  

Our national celebration of women first began in 1978 as a celebration in a California school district.  In 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared proclaimed the week of March 8 as National Women's History week, and several years later it was extended to the entire month of March.  The United States has celebrated Women's History Month during March since 1987.  

Ladies Lead the Way in Rochester, NY

Reenah Golden founded the The Avenue Blackbox Theatre located at 780 Joseph Avenue in Rochester in January of 2018. It launched on June 7th, 2018.

Reenah was born and raised in Rochester, NY and is often praised for "re-igniting local theatre". Reenah calls it the place "where cool kids come to play." "It is an inclusive, fully accessible, queer space where social justice & art disciplines converge to create dynamic stage productions, installations, and live art-making events."

Danielle ‘Dee” Ponder is a defense attorney, speaker, and local social justice activist who has dedicated over 15 years to organizing and advocating for marginalized communities.

Dee has worked on issues such as education funding, women’s rights, criminal justice reform, and she has become an active and inspiring voice in the local Black Lives Matter protests. After first joining the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office as the only African American lawyer, Danielle returned in 2020 as the Special Assistant Public Defender, Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

One of her main goals in the new position has been to increase the percentage of lawyers who are people of color. Now, just under 10% of the staff attorneys are from underrepresented communities. Danielle is also an accomplished internationally recognized vocalist and songwriter. In 2017 she created the multimedia show For the Love of Justice, where she shines a light on our criminal justice system through powerful lyrics and thought provoking visuals. Her songs advocate for racial equality, women’s empowerment, and love.                                             -RMSC

Katsi Cook’s work spans many worlds and disciplines, and demonstrates a lifelong career of advancing the superlatives of Indigenous Knowledge.

Katsi draws from a Haudenosaunee traditionalist perspective the idea of Woman as the First Environment. Her groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mothers’ milk revealed the harmful generational impact of toxic pollutants within the St. Lawrence River. She established Canada’s National Aboriginal Council of Midwives and currently serves as Executive Director of the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program.

Of her practice as an aboriginal midwife, Katsi explains, “it’s not just the baby coming into the world, but the ability to raise that baby in a world where it too can reproduce, and reproduce the culture, language, ceremonies, what it means to be Onkwehonwe (Haudenosaunee). It became a practice of recovering culture, of recovering families that are the basis of the culture and the women who are the stalk of the corn that hold it up.”

-RMSC

Do you know some amazing ladies who lead the way?  

Let us know who they are so we can feature them here.

Anna Murray-Douglass

1813-1882

Namesake of Rochester's School #12. The Anna Murray-Douglass Academy.


Anna was born free as a young woman, she found work in Maryland to save money and become independent. She helped disguise and fund the escape of an enslaved male that eventually became her husband. Frederick Douglass. From their home, Anna ran a safe stop on the Underground Railroad and managed all the finances for her husband's travels, often lasting for years at a time. Anna's support is often overlooked.

-Genesee Community College

@artforces/#WEDRAFT2022/#WEDRAFT

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

By Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow | 2017

Zora Hurston was a world-renowned writer and anthropologist. Hurston’s novels, short stories, and plays often depicted African American life in the South. Her work in anthropology examined black folklore. Hurston influenced many writers, forever cementing her place in history as one of the foremost female writers of the 20th century.

PBS Activity for Younger Students     Biography for Young Adults

Born: May 13, 1985 (age 36 years)

Bree Newsome is an artist and activist who seeks to end structural racism and violence against Black bodies. On June 27, 2015, ten days after a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, Newsome climbed a flagpole at the South Carolina Capitol grounds to remove a Confederate battle flag; she was arrested for this and became the focus of media attention.     

PBS for Young Adults: Civil Rights

1823-1893

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was an African American activist, writer, teacher, and lawyer. She was born in 1823 in the slave state of Delaware. Her parents were free African Americans who were dedicated to abolitionism. When she was 10 years old, Shadd moved with her family to the free state of Pennsylvania where she attended school and became a teacher.

Shadd and her family actively helped freedom seekers (people who escaped slavery). The Shadd family’s participation in the Underground Railroad became even more dangerous after 1850 when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This law made it legal to force freedom seekers in free states to return to enslavement. The law could also punish people like the Shadd family, who helped freedom seekers escape.

(1861-1928)

Callie House is most famous for her efforts to gain reparations for former enslaved people and is regarded as the early leader of the reparations movement among African American political activists. Callie Guy was born an enslaved person in Rutherford Country near Nashville, Tennessee. Her date of birth is usually assumed to be 1861, but due to the lack of birth records for enslaved people, this date is not certain. She was raised in a household that included her widowed mother, sister, and her sister’s husband. House received some primary school education.

With the help of Isaiah Dickerson, House chartered the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association in 1898, and was named the secretary of this new organization. Eventually, House became the leader of the organization. In this position she traveled across the South, spreading the idea of reparations in every former slave state with relentless zeal. During her 1897-1899 lecture tour the association’s membership by 34,000 mainly through her efforts. By 1900, its nationwide membership was estimated to be around 300,000.

Teacher Submitted Ideas from Newsela