This Black History Month, we honor 16 pivotal Black women, whose labor and leadership in the areas of civil rights, science, education, and the arts broke down barriers, liberated communities, and expanded access to knowledge, justice, and freedom for all.
Black women have never waited for justice—we have demanded it, built it, and defended it at every turn. Throughout history, we have been the architects of change, the moral compass of movements, and the backbone of progress. From the Underground Railroad to today’s voting booths—from the courtroom to the picket line—we have led with unwavering intuition, boundless power, and unshakable resilience. We have mothered revolutions, birthed justice, and carried this nation on our backs—even when history tried to erase us.
We stand on the shoulders of Harriet, Sojourner, Ida, and Fannie—women who refused to yield, who carved liberation from oppression, who laid the foundation for our fight today. We celebrate the brilliance and defiance of Patricia Stephens Due, who risked everything to desegregate the South; Mae Jemison, who shattered the sky and redefined possibility; Annette Gordon-Reed, who unearthed hidden histories and reclaimed our truth; and Nikki Giovanni, whose words became the heartbeat of a movement. Their blood, their brilliance, and their unshakable will fuels the movements that will free this nation. We are the truth-tellers, the bridge-builders, and the protectors of democracy. We do not wait for justice—we create it.
When Black women rise, justice follows. When Black women lead, the nation moves.
This Black History Month, we do more than honor our past and present—we reclaim our power, we defend our future, and we make it clear: when Black women rise, justice follows. When Black women lead, the nation moves. We are the force that history cannot contain, the voice that injustice cannot silence, and the future that this nation cannot ignore.
Sections
- Honorees
- Support organizations that sustain and uplift Black women
- Get involved
Honorees
Weekly list updated Fridays this February.
Week 1:
Patricia Stephens Due was a civil rights activist who famously led nonviolent demonstrations against segregation in Tallahassee. Born in Quincy in Gadsden County, she was a student at Florida A&M University in 1960 when she was arrested for sitting in the “whites only” section of a local Woolworth’s lunch counter.
She refused to pay bail for the sit-in arrest, and remained jailed in the Leon County jail for 49 days, credited with staging the first jail-in.
Mae Jemison is an engineer, physician, and astronaut. Born in Decatur, Alabama, in 1992, she became the first Black American woman to go to space.
After graduating from Cornell Medical School in 1981, she interned at the Los Angeles Medical Center and served in the Peace Corps, before she applied and was admitted to the NASA astronaut training program in 1987. As part of the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor, she orbited Earth 127 times.
Annette Gordon-Reed is an attorney, historian, and educator. Born in segregated East Texas and graduate of Harvard Law School, she rose to prominence for her 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,” which examined the relationship of President Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and her children. Her work garnered a National Book Award for Nonfiction and MacArthur Fellowship.
She authored over a half-dozen books, is the recipient of numerous honors, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Nikki Giovanni was a poet, author, activist, and educator. She was a leading purveyor of the Black Arts Movement that emerged from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Her prose elevated Black pride, celebrated Black love, and humanized the Black experience. Her notable collaboration with fellow literary James Baldwin helped to elevate her stature as a thought leader of Black culture.
She authored dozens of collections of poetry, children’s books, and audio recordings.
Week 2:
Byllye Avery is a health care activist for Black women and families. In 1970 at age 33, Avery became a widowed mother of three while a graduate student at the University of Florida when her husband died unexpectedly, prompting her to go to work toward improving wellness in her community.
In 1983, she formed the National Black Women's Health Project, a national nonprofit that became the Black Women's Health Imperative.
Katherine Johnson was a mathematician for NASA, who determined the calculations that sent Americans to space during the 1960s Space Race.
Born in West Virginia, she joined the space agency in 1953. Her calculations were responsible for sending John Glenn’s orbit around Earth in 1962, and the Apollo 11 mission that put Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins on the Moon in 1969. Her work in the space program was dramatized in the critically-acclaimed 2016 film, “Hidden Figures.”
Johnnetta Cole is an anthropologist and educator. Born in Jacksonville, she was the first Black woman president of Spelman College (1987-1997), the oldest HBCU women's college in the U.S.
She entered college at age 15, and earned a doctorate in anthropology from Northwestern University in 1967. She joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1970, then promoted to provost in 1983.
She later served as director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and chair and president of the National Council for Negro Women.
Bernice Johnson Reagon was a musician, activist, and educator. In 1961, she began participating in protests to desegregate her native Albany, Georgia, and served in youth chapters of the NAACP and SNCC. Reagon founded the SNCC Freedom Singers, and performed at the March on Washington. She was integral in forming acapella singing groups the Harambee Singers, and Sweet Honey in the Rock. Reagon was vocal director of the D.C. Black Repertory Theater, and curator for the National Museum of American History. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Week 3:
Eula Johnson was an activist who led efforts to end segregation in Broward County, Florida.
In 1959, she was the first woman elected president of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP. In 1960, Johnson and Dr. Von D. Mizell organized wade-ins at whites-only beaches. Broward County sued Johnson for being a public nuisance. After a judge refused to end the protests, Broward beaches were desegregated in 1962. In 2016, John U. Lloyd Beach State Park was renamed Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park.
Alexa Canady is a pioneering physician who was the first Black American woman to become a neurosurgeon.
Born in Lansing, Michigan, she graduated from the University of Michigan in 1971, and its medical school in 1975. Canady then attended a surgical internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital, the first woman and Black person enrolled in the program. In 1976, she was the first Black woman in the U.S. enrolled in a neurosurgery residency, at the University of Minnesota, completing it in 1981.
Septima Poinsette Clark was an educator and activist in the South during the Civil Rights Movement.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, she began teaching at age 18 in a segregated school outside of Charleston, as the city banned Black teachers. In 1919, she joined the local NAACP to successfully protest the ban, which ended in 1920. In 1956, Clark was fired from teaching for supporting integration. In 1962, she joined SCLC, where she worked with MLK to develop educational programs to improve voting access.
bell hooks was a poet, author, activist, and educator, whose work examined race, gender, and class, through the lens of Black womanhood.
Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at age 19, she started work on her first book, “Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism,” published in 1981. After obtaining a doctorate in literature in 1983, she worked as a college professor for decades, and wrote over 30 books. The bell hooks Institute at Berea College was dedicated in her honor in 2014.
Week 4:
Marian Wright Edelman is a lawyer, activist, and child advocate.
Edelman was born in South Carolina, and graduated from Spelman College and Yale Law School. She became the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar in 1964, and directed the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Mississippi office, advocating for Head Start programs in the state. In 1973, she founded the Children's Defense Fund. Edelman's work earned her dozens of awards and honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship and Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was a pioneering physician and author, who was the first Black woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S.
Crumpler was born in 1831 to free parents, and raised by a midwife aunt. She pursued nursing in Massachusetts, and was admitted to New England Female Medical School, now part of Boston University, graduating in 1864. After the Civil War, she worked in the Freedmen's Bureau treating the poor. In 1883, she became the first published Black American medical writer.
Tananarive Due is an author and educator.
Due was the first-born of attorney John D. Due Jr. and activist Patricia Stephens Due. Raised in Miami, she interned at The Miami Herald in high school and studied journalism at Northwestern University, then joined the newspaper's staff. An Afrofuturist novel writer, she published her first book, "The Between," in 1995, and a memoir with her mother, "Freedom in the Family," in 2003. Due has received accolades that include an American Book Award and NAACP Image Award.
Leontyne Price is a vocalist who was the first Black American opera singer to achieve international acclaim.
Born in Mississippi in 1927, she practiced piano starting at age three, and eventually studied voice at Julliard, graduating in 1952. She started her career on Broadway, then toured opera houses in North America and Europe. In 1961, she debuted at New York's Metropolitan Opera, giving over 200 performances through 1985. Price is a Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree and recipient of over 20 Grammy awards.
Support organizations that sustain and uplift Black women:
- National Council of Negro Women
- The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
- Win With Black Women
- The African American Policy Council
- National Pan-Hellenic Council
- Black Women's Health Imperative
- National Black Midwives Alliance
- Black Voters Matter
- Association for the Study of African American Life and History
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
Get involved:
- Take action and volunteer with the ACLU of Florida
- Stay informed with
