#national medal of arts

[soupsnakessss]

Mindy & BJ with the kids in the White House on March 21st, 2023.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

#mom and dad #I love this family #mindy kaling #bj novak #Katherine #Spencer #mindy x bj #national medal of arts #sightings

[rougedraconteur]

#julia louis dreyfus #president joe biden #National Medal of Arts

[music-despite-everything]

Happy birthday, Adrienne Rich!

Adrienne Cecile Rich, born May 16, 1929, in Baltimore, Maryland, and died March 27, 2012, in Santa Cruz, California, was an American poet, essayist, and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse." Rich criticized rigid forms of feminist identities and valorized what she coined the "lesbian continuum," which is a female continuum of solidarity and creativity that impacts and fills women's lives.

Her first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was selected by renowned poet W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Auden went on to write the introduction to the published volume. She famously declined the National Medal of Arts, protesting the vote by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

---

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law, 1963

1

You, once a belle in Shreveport, with henna-colored hair, skin like a peach bud, still have your dresses copied from that time, and play a Chopin prelude called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections float like perfume through the memory." Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake, heavy with useless experience, rich with suspicion, rumor, fantasy, crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge of mere fact. In the prime of your life. Nervy, glowering, your daughter wipes the teaspoons, grows another way. 2 Banging the coffee-pot into the sink she hears the angels chiding, and looks out past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky. Only a week since They said: Have no patience. The next time it was: Be insatiable. Then: Save yourself; others you cannot save. Sometimes she's let the tap stream scald her arm, a match burn to her thumbnail, or held her hand above the kettle's snout right in the woolly steam. They are probably angels, since nothing hurts her anymore, except each morning's grit blowing into her eyes.

3 A thinking woman sleeps with monsters. The beak that grips her, she becomes. And Nature, that sprung-lidded, still commodious steamer-trunk of tempora and mores gets stuffed with it all: the mildewed orange-flowers, the female pills, the terrible breasts of Boadicea beneath flat foxes' heads and orchids. Two handsome women, gripped in argument, each proud, acute, subtle, I hear scream across the cut glass and majolica like Furies cornered from their prey: The argument ad feminam, all the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours, ma semblable, ma soeur! 4 Knowing themselves too well in one another: their gifts no pure fruition, but a thorn, the prick filed sharp against a hint of scorn... Reading while waiting for the iron to heat, writing, My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun-- in that Amherst pantry while the jellies boil and scum, or, more often, iron-eyed and beaked and purposed as a bird, dusting everything on the whatnot every day of life.

5 Dulce ridens, dulce loquens, she shaves her legs until they gleam like petrified mammoth-tusk. 6 When to her lute Corinna sings neither words nor music are her own; only the long hair dipping over her cheek, only the song of silk against her knees and these adjusted in reflections of an eye. Poised, trembling and unsatisfied, before an unlocked door, that cage of cages, tell us, you bird, you tragical machine-- is this fertillisante douleur? Pinned down by love, for you the only natural action, are you edged more keen to prise the secrets of the vault? has Nature shown her household books to you, daughter-in-law, that her sons never saw?

7 "To have in this uncertain world some stay which cannot be undermined, is of the utmost consequence." Thus wrote a woman, partly brave and partly good, who fought with what she partly understood. Few men about her would or could do more, hence she was labeled harpy, shrew and whore. 8 "You all die at fifteen," said Diderot, and turn part legend, part convention. Still, eyes inaccurately dream behind closed windows blankening with steam. Deliciously, all that we might have been, all that we were--fire, tears, wit, taste, martyred ambition-- stirs like the memory of refused adultery the drained and flagging bosom of our middle years. 9 Not that it is done well, but that it is done at all? Yes, think of the odds! or shrug them off forever. This luxury of the precocious child, Time's precious chronic invalid,-- would we, darlings, resign it if we could? Our blight has been our sinecure: mere talent was enough for us-- glitter in fragments and rough drafts. Sigh no more, ladies. Time is male and in his cups drinks to the fair. Bemused by gallantry, we hear our mediocrities over-praised, indolence read as abnegation, slattern thought styled intuition, every lapse forgiven, our crime only to cast too bold a shadow or smash the mold straight off. For that, solitary confinement, tear gas, attrition shelling. Few applicants for that honor. 10 Well, she's long about her coming, who must be more merciless to herself than history. Her mind full to the wind, I see her plunge breasted and glancing through the currents, taking the light upon her at least as beautiful as any boy or helicopter, poised, still coming, her fine blades making the air wince but her cargo no promise then: delivered palpable ours.

#poetry #poemsociety #poemblr #poems and poetry #poem #adrienne rich #snapshots of a daughter-in-law #santa cruz #yale series of younger poets award #national medal of arts #national endowment for the arts

[haute-lifestyle-com]

President Biden Honors International Association of Blacks in Dance with National Medal of Arts #janetwalker #hautelifestylecom #theentertainmentzonecom #iabd #dance #ballet #finearts

https://www.haute-lifestyle.com/arts-culture/fine-arts-dance-symphony/6256-international-association-of-blacks-in-dance-receives-national-medal-of-arts-award.html

#janet walker #haute-lifestyle.com #the-entertainment-zone.com #National Medal of Arts #International Association of Blacks in Dance #biden administration

[smashpages]

The National Book Foundation will present a lifetime achievement award to Maus creator Art Spiegelman in November — the organization’s 2022 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which has never been given to a comics artist before.

Read more

#national book foundation #medal for distinguished contribution to american letters #art spiegelman #maus

[neil-gaiman]

Tonight I gave Art Spiegelman the National Book Awards Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. And we're both being banned. Some of you may think this is a good thing because you don't like my books or you don't care for Maus. But I guarantee that there are books you love on the banned lists too. That's why libraries and librarians fight for their rights to have all the books on the shelves and for your rights to read them. And it's why I support them.

[krispyweiss]

Bruce Springsteen, Gladys Knight, José Feliciano among National Medal of Arts Recipients

The Boss will visit the commander-in-chief at the White House March 21 as President Biden bestows the National Medal of Arts upon Bruce Springsteen.

Gladys Knight and José Feliciano are the other musicians to receive the nation’s highest honor for artists and patrons.

Springsteen is “one of our greatest performers and storytellers,” per the National Endowment for the Arts, which called Knight an “exceptional talent (who) influenced musical genres …. and inspired generations of artists” and credited Feliciano with “enriching the goodness and greatness” of the United States.

“The … recipients have helped to define and enrich our nation’s cultural legacy through their life-long passionate commitment,” NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson said in a statement.

“We are a better nation because of their contributions.”

The event - which honors nine additional artists and entities - streams here at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.

3/21/23

#bruce springsteen #bruce springsteen and the e street band #gladys knight #gladys knight and the pips #josé feliciano #the national medal of arts

[soberscientistlife]

James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. Over his career, he has received three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985. He was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009 and the Honorary Academy Award in 2011. Suffering from a stutter in childhood, Jones has said that poetry and acting helped him overcome the disability. A pre-med major in college, he served in the United States Army during the Korean War before pursuing a career in acting. Since his Broadway debut in 1957, he has performed in several Shakespeare plays including Othello, Hamlet, Coriolanus, and King Lear. Jones worked steadily in theater winning his first Tony Award in 1968 for his role in The Great White Hope, which he reprised in the 1970 film adaptation earning him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Jones won his second Tony Award in 1987 for his role in August Wilson's Fences. He was further Tony nominated for his roles in On Golden Pond (2005), and The Best Man (2012). Other Broadway performances include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2008), Driving Miss Daisy (2010–2011), You Can't Take It with You (2014), and The Gin Game (2015–2016). He received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2017. Jones made his film debut in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964). He received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Claudine (1974). Jones gained international fame for his voice role as Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, beginning with the original 1977 film. Jones' other notable roles include in Conan the Barbarian (1982), Matewan (1987), Coming to America (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Sandlot (1993), and The Lion King (1994). Jones has reprised his roles in Star Wars media, The Lion King (2019), and Coming 2 America (2021).

Source: African Archives

[violetsandshrikes]

Notable Women in Zoology: Professor May Roberta Berenbaum 

An American entomologist with a research focus on chemical communication between herbivorous insects and their host plants, as well as the implications of these interactions on the organisation of communities + the evolution of species.

She is also:

A member of the National Academy of Sciences (and editor-in-chief of its journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Previously served as the editor of Annual Review of Entomology (1997-2018)

A member of the American Philosophical Society

A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Serves as the head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois

Holds the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair in Entomology (highest title a professor can hold at the University of Illinois)

Awarded the National Medal of Science in 2014

Chaired the Committee on the Future of Pesticides in U.S. Agriculture (2000) and the Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America (2007)

Has written numerous magazine articles + books about insects for the general public

Organiser of the Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois

Dr. Bambi Berenbaum, famous entomologist and love interest of Agent Mulder in The X-Files, is named after her

#may berenbaum #international women's day #zoology

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Ossie Davis was born in Cogdell, GA, on this date December 18, 1917. The highly successful writer, director, actor, and producer established a phenomenal career, remaining throughout a strong voice for artists’ rights, human dignity, and social justice.

Mr. Davis made his Broadway debut in 1946 in Jeb, where he met his wife and fellow actress, Ruby Dee. He went on to perform in many Broadway productions, including Anna Lucasta, The Wisteria Trees, Green Pastures, Jamaica, Ballad for Bimshire, A Raisin in the Sun, The Zulu and the Zayda, and the stage version of I’m Not Rappaport. In 1961, he wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed Purlie Victorious.

Ossie Davis was a leading activist in the civil rights era of the 1960s. He joined Martin Luther King, Jr., in the crusade for jobs and freedom and to help raise money for the Freedom Riders. He eulogized both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X at their funerals and remained an activist throughout his life.

He received innumerable honors including the Hall of Fame Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement in 1989; the U.S. National Medal for the Arts in 1995; the New York Urban League Frederick Douglas Award; NAACP Image Award; and the Screen Actor’s Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. Ossie Davis enjoyed a long and luminous career in entertainment along with his wife and fellow performer, stage and screen collaborator, and political activist, Ruby Dee.

CARTER™ Magazine

#ossie davis #ruby dee #carter magazine #historyandhiphop365 #carter #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #history #cartermagazine #today in history #staywoke #blackhistory #blackhistorymonth

[soupsnakessss]

Mindy Kaling receives the National Medal of Arts from President Joe Biden during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, March 21, 2023.

#bj is killing me here #mindy kaling #bj novak #so happy for Mindy about this she deserves it! #national medal of arts

[moodyfish]

The creators of She-Hulk legitimately don't know what they're doing

I think a lot of people have heard the director state

"There's a lot of talk about her body type and we based it on Olympian athletes and not bodybuilders."

Does anyone want to know a specific "Olympian" they based She-Hulk's body off of?

"Olympian Misty Copeland was a body that we referenced, you know, of someone who was very, very, very strong, but also could walk through the world and operate in the normal world at a scale that is very large, but it's still very human because she has to go on dates she has to work in a regular office."

Misty Copeland. Misty. Freaking. Copeland. She is a goddess and an icon. Here are some of her greatest accomplishments.

"2008 Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts and was named National Youth of the Year Ambassador for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2013. In 2014, President Obama appointed Copeland to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. She is the recipient of a 2014 Dance Magazine Award and was named to the 2015 TIME 100 by TIME Magazine." - American Ballet Theatre

Misty Copeland is an amazingly talented person, who has dealt with immense struggles due to her body type, but she is not an Olympian. She's a ballerina. Ballet, by definition from Oxford Languages,

"...is characterized by light, graceful, fluid movements."

I'm especially pissed because when growing up, I was a ballerina. And my sister was a Track & Field thrower. When I heard of She-Hulk as a kid, I always imagined her looking like my sister. Looking like her build - not the ones of prima ballerinas.

While writing this, I've been sitting here thinking about how many great ACTUAL Olympians they could have used as inspiration for She-Hulk's build.

Raven Saunders aka The Hulk. 2020 Tokyo Olympics Silver Medalist in Shotput.

Hidilyn Diaz. 2020 Tokyo Olympics Gold Medalist and Record Holder in 55 KG Weightlifting.

Tamyra Mensah-Stock. 2020 Tokyo Olympics Gold Medal in Freestyle Wrestling.

There are so many incredible female Olympians they could have used as inspiration. There are so many strength-based sports. The Summer Olympics alone have 33 sports.

But they specifically wanted She-Hulk's build to be inspired by

"not bodybuilders."

Even if this meant putting more work on the VFX Artists of the show who made her larger to begin with. Sean Ruecroft, a VFX Artist who worked on Infinity War and Moon Knight, took to Twitter to let people know the struggles Marvel put their team through.

"I was at a company that did VFX for this. Apparently, she was bigger early on, but the notes kept saying to ��make her smaller.'"

They put more work on the artists, pushing them into the same inspiration that was used for Natasha Romanoff.

"...light, graceful, fluid movements."

The creators didn't want a Hulk. They wanted grace, sex appeal, and a tiny waist on an hourglass figure.

#she-hulk #she hulk #shehulk #rant #Olympics #athletes #marvel #Disney

[californiastatelibrary]

.

Today, Jan. 30 California celebrates Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. Where does Fred Korematsu come in? Mr. Korematsu was an American civil rights activist who stood up to the U.S. government’s wrongful incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast during World War II. Even without support from his family or community, he disobeyed the government’s orders, and as a result, spent over two years in various prisons and wartime incarceration sites. His case went to the Supreme Court, and in 1944, the Court ruled against him, claiming the mass incarceration was a “military necessity.” Nearly 40 years later, the government finally issued apologies and reparations to the camp survivors who remained, and in 1998 President Bill Clinton awarded Mr. Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

In the same year (1998), California also launched the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. The program, managed by the California State Library, funds projects that educate the public about civil liberties injustices carried out based on an individual or group’s race, national origin, immigration status, religion, gender, or sexual orientation (including, but not limited to, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II). Over 400 projects have been funded since the program’s birth, including video and audio broadcasts, books, graphic novels, photo collections and exhibits, museum displays, arts performances, material preservation, educational guides, websites, public art and monuments, and more. To learn more about the program, visit library.ca.gov/grants/civil-liberties.

#california #libraries #civil liberties #constitution #fred korematsu

[gone2soon-rip]

HARRY BELAFONTE (1927- Died April 25th 2023,at 96.Congestive Heart failure). American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Caribbean-American pop star, he popularized Jamaican mento folk songs which was marketed as Trinbagonian Calypso musical style with an international audience in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "The Banana Boat Song", with its signature "Day-O" lyric, "Jump in the Line", and "Jamaica Farewell". He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in several films, including Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award,and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category and was the oldest living person to have received the honour.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Belafonte

#Harry Belafonte #American Singers #American Musicians #American Civil Rights Activists #American Actors #Actors #Civil Rights Activists #Musicians #Calypso music #Notable Deaths in 2023 #Notable Deaths in April 2023

[toasttt11]

lex zegras

Alexandria Olive Zegras

Number: 4

Class: Sophomore

Position: F

Height: 5”6

Hometown: Bedford, NY

S/C: L

NHL: NYI

Prev School: USNTPD

NHL

• Selected 2nd overall (first round) by the New York Islanders in the 2022 NHL Draft.

International

• 2024 World Junior Championship- Gold Medal, 8 G, 14 A, 22 P

• 2023 World Junior Championship - bronze medal, 9 G, 13 A, 22 P

• 2022 U18 World Championship, Silver medal with 12 points in six games

• 2021 U18 World Championship 5 points in five games

• 2020 Youth Olympic Games silver medal, four points in four games

• 2021 Five Nations gold medal, led the team in scoring and assists

Sophomore Year (2023-24)

• 12 goals and 14 assist in 20 games

Freshman Year (2022-23)

• NCAA Midwest All-Region Team

• Big Ten All-Tournament Team

•40 goals and 42 assists, 82 points.

Before Michigan

• Played two seasons with the USNTDP

• Totaled 240 points (140-100--240) in 107 games with the USNTDP, the most points and goals ever in USNTDP history.

• First on the team in scoring in 2021-22 with 75 goals, 51 assists for 126 points in 54 games

•First on the team in scoring and assists in 2020-2021 with

• Scored 110 points (29-21--50) in 50 games with the U17 team in 2020-21 with 65 goals, 49 assists for 114 points

Personal

• Born February 4, 2004

• Daughter of Julie and Gary Zegras

• Has Three siblings, Trevor, Griffin, Ava.

• Intended major is Bachelor in Fine Arts

#lex zegras au #alexandriazegrasau #jack hughes x reader #nhl x reader #jack hughes #jh86 #luke hughes #quinn hughes #quinn hughes x reader #nico hischier x reader #ch86 #nico hischier #qh43 #lh43 #mat barzal x reader #trevor zegras x reader #rutger mcgroarty #rutger mcgroarty x reader #umich hockey #luke hughes x reader #lz4

[ausetkmt]

Black women have made important contributions to the United States throughout its history. However, they are not always recognized for their efforts, with some remaining anonymous and others becoming famous for their achievements. In the face of gender and racial bias, Black women have broken barriers, challenged the status quo, and fought for equal rights for all. The accomplishments of Black female historical figures in politics, science, the arts, and more continue to impact society.

Marian Anderson (Feb. 27, 1897–April 8, 1993)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Contralto Marian Anderson is considered one of the most important singers of the 20th century. Known for her impressive three-octave vocal range, she performed widely in the U.S. and Europe, beginning in the 1920s. She was invited to perform at the White House for President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1936, the first African American so honored. Three years later, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing at a Washington, D.C. gathering, the Roosevelts invited her to perform on the steps of the Lincon Memorial.

Anderson continued to sing professionally until the 1960s when she became involved in politics and civil rights issues. Among her many honors, Anderson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Mary McLeod Bethune (July 10, 1875–May 18, 1955)

PhotoQuest / Getty Images

Mary McLeod Bethune was an African American educator and civil rights leader best known for her work co-founding the Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Born into a sharecropping family in South Carolina, the young Bethune had a zest for learning from her earliest days. After stints teaching in Georgia, she and her husband moved to Florida and eventually settled in Jacksonville. There, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute in 1904 to provide education for Black girls. It merged with the Cookman Institute for Men in 1923, and Bethune served as president for the next two decades.

A passionate philanthropist, Bethune also led civil rights organizations and advised Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt on African American issues. In addition, President Harry Truman invited her to attend the founding convention of the United Nations; she was the only African American delegate to attend.

Shirley Chisholm (Nov. 30, 1924–Jan. 1, 2005)

Don Hogan Charles / Getty Images

Shirley Chisholm is best known for her 1972 bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination; she was the first Black woman to make this attempt in a major political party. However, she had been active in state and national politics for more than a decade and had represented parts of Brooklyn in the New York State Assembly from 1965 to 1968. She became the first Black woman to serve in Congress in 1968. During her tenure, she co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus. Chisholm left Washington in 1983 and devoted the rest of her life to civil rights and women's issues.

Althea Gibson (Aug. 25, 1927–Sept. 28, 2003)

Reg Speller / Getty Images

Althea Gibson started playing tennis as a child in New York City, winning her first tennis tournament at age 15. She dominated the American Tennis Association circuit, reserved for Black players, for more than a decade. In 1950, Gibson broke the tennis color barrier at Forest Hills Country Club (site of the U.S. Open); the following year, she became the first African American to play at Wimbledon in Great Britain. Gibson continued to excel at the sport, winning both amateur and professional titles through the early 1960s.

Dorothy Height (March 24, 1912–April 20, 2010)

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Dorothy Height has been described as the godmother of the women's movement because of her work for gender equality. For four decades, she led the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW )and was a leading figure in the 1963 March on Washington. Height began her career as an educator in New York City, where her work caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt. Beginning in 1957, she led the NCNW and also advised the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994.

Rosa Parks (Feb. 4, 1913–Oct. 24, 2005)

Underwood Archives / Getty Images

Rosa Parks became active in the Alabama civil rights movement after marrying activist Raymond Parks in 1932. She joined the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943 and was involved in much of the planning that went into the famous bus boycott that began the following decade. Parks is best known for her December 1, 1955, arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat to a White rider. That incident sparked the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott, which eventually desegregated that city's public transit. Parks and her family moved to Detroit in 1957, and she remained active in civil rights until her death.

Augusta Savage (Feb. 29, 1892–March 26, 1962)

Archive Photos / Sherman Oaks Antique Mall / Getty Images

Augusta Savage displayed an artistic aptitude from her youngest days. Encouraged to develop her talent, she enrolled in New York City's Cooper Union to study art. She earned her first commission, a sculpture of civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois, from the New York library system in 1921, and several other commissions followed. Despite meager resources, she continued working through the Great Depression, making sculptures of several notable Black people, including Frederick Douglass and W. C. Handy. Her best-known work, "The Harp," was featured at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, but it was destroyed after the fair ended.

Harriet Tubman (1822–March 20, 1913)

Library of Congress

Enslaved from birth in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in 1849. The year after she arrived in Philadelphia, Tubman returned to Maryland to free her family members. Over the next 12 years, she returned nearly 20 times, helping more than 300 enslaved Black people escape bondage by ushering them along the Underground Railroad. The "railroad" was the nickname for a secret route that enslaved Black people used to flee the South for anti-slavery states in the North and to Canada. During the Civil War, Tubman worked as a nurse, a scout, and a spy for Union forces. After the war, she worked to establish schools for formerly enslaved people in South Carolina. In her later years, Tubman also became involved in women's rights causes.

Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753–Dec. 5, 1784)

Culture Club/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Born in Africa, Phillis Wheatley came to the U.S. at age 8, when she was captured and sold into enslavement. John Wheatley, the Boston man who enslaved her, was impressed by Phillis' intellect and interest in learning, and he and his wife taught her to read and write. The Wheatleys allowed Phillis time to pursue her studies, which led her to develop an interest in poetry writing. A poem she published in 1767 earned her much acclaim. Six years later, her first volume of poems was published in London, and she became known in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The Revolutionary War disrupted Wheatley's writing, however, and she was not widely published after it ended.

Charlotte Ray (Jan. 13, 1850–Jan. 4, 1911)

Charlotte Ray has the distinction of being the first African American woman lawyer in the United States and the first woman admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia. Her father, active in New York City's Black community, made sure his young daughter was well educated; she received her law degree from Howard University in 1872 and was admitted to the Washington, D.C., bar shortly afterward. Both her race and gender proved to be obstacles in her professional career, and she eventually became a teacher in New York City instead. 

#10 of the Most Important Black Women in U.S. History #Black Women #Black Women Matter #Black Lives Matter #us history