RESOURCES:

American Baptist Women's Ministries invites you to celebrate Women's History Month, March 1-31, 2021. During the month of March we will honor 31 outstanding women and their contributions in history. Each has a unique story, so join us each day and read how each woman's story has made a difference. 

Honor a loved one or a woman who has helped sharpen you by giving a gift to American Baptist Women’s Ministries’ 70th birthday celebration. Give a gift or more to share her story (up to 100 characters) in the next issues of Leaders’ Reader. Click here to give now.

During Women’s History month, ABWM curates a gathering every Monday during March. This year, we are hosting an “Iron Sharpens Iron” Table Talk. AB women leaders, partners and friends will be sharing their “Iron Sharpens Iron” moments and advice. Click here for more information!

March 31, 2021
Vivian Lord
As we wrap up our focus on Women’s History Month, it is only fitting that we look to the next generation that will make their own impact on history. Today, we share the story of Vivian Lord, a second grade student from Arkansas who pleaded with a toymaker to start making a female version of the iconic Green Army men figurines. Vivian sent a letter to several toymakers asking them to make the iconic Army figurines as women after noticing that none of the toy soldiers she won at an arcade while on a vacation were women.
     Vivian’s story was shared on Good Morning America, stating she was very happy and thankful that her dream for toy equality came true. https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/story/girls-women-toy-soldiers-granted-viral-letter-toymaker-74673936
     What can we learn from this story and the stories of the other 30 women we have honored this month; simply that when we ask questions or we question if what we are doing is right and fair, we can make the world a better place. 


March 30, 2021
Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga

As we celebrate National Doctor Day today, we want to honor Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, the director of the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science. She has been at the forefront of pediatric HIV/AIDS research for many years and has been recognized for her collaborative research on the transmission of HIV from pregnant women to their newborns during birth, a leading cause of the rapid spread of HIV in developing countries. She is also recognized for her work on early therapy of HIV-1 infected infants. Dr. Luzuriaga was part of a team of researchers that reported the first case of a so-called “functional cure” in an HIV-infected infant.


March 29, 2021
Denisse M. Oller

Denisse M. Oller is a journalist, chef, entrepreneur, educator, manager and motivator. Denisse’s commitment to her community started early on, as she traveled back and forth between Puerto Rico and New York. As she recounts, “I was a straight A nerdy girl solely focused on my formal education.” She understood and embraced the power of education, of communicating ideas, and the strength in joining forces for a common cause as essential components in order to effect change in our society.
     During her time as an anchorwoman, she received 9 Emmy Awards Nominations, of which she won five. Her achievements in journalism did not end there, as she also won several A.C.E. Awards, Gracie Awards, and the Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in investigative reporting. In 2008, she left her anchorwoman position to pursue a career as a chef. She has worked with big names like the AARP, the American Diabetes Association, and Goya). 
     Today, as part of the many roles she plays in her daily life, Denisse effect change through her work as Executive Director for the Joseph A. Unanue Latino Institute at Seton Hall University, which offers programming to empower Latino students. Through the mentorship and leadership programs, students are made aware that they must give back to their communities.


March 28, 2021
Joyce Chen

Our next honoree is Joyce Chen, Chinese American Chef, Restaurateur, and Author. Before there was Food Network, chef, restauranteur and author Joyce Chen was credited with popularizing authentic, northern-style Chinese cuisine in the U.S. Previously, much of the Chinese food that most Americans consumed was a hybrid “chop suey” that was neither authentic nor Chinese in origin. Born in Beijing, China, in 1917, Chen and her family fled the country as communists were taking over. She settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she opened the first Joyce Chen Restaurant in 1958, pioneering the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet concept. In 2014, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp with Chen’s image in honor of her accomplishments and lasting influence on American cuisine.
 

March 27, 2021
Ida B. Wells
(1862-1931)

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Over the course of a lifetime dedicated to combating prejudice and violence, and the fight for African-American equality, especially that of women, Wells arguably became the most famous Black woman in America. Wells was outspoken regarding her beliefs as a Black female activist and faced regular public disapproval. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. A skilled and persuasive speaker, Wells traveled nationally and internationally on lecture tours.
     In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States in articles and through her pamphlet called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases.
     In 2020, Wells was posthumously honored with a Pulitzer Prize special citation for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.


March 26, 2021
Debra Anne Haaland
(1960-)

Debra Anne Haaland is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative from New Mexico's 1st congressional district since 2019. Haaland is a former chairwoman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico. She is one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress.
     In 2012, Haaland served as the state's vote director for Native Americans in Barack Obama's 2012 presidential reelection campaign. She served as the chair of Democratic Party of New Mexico Native American Caucus from 2012 to 2013.
     On December 17, 2020, incoming President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Haaland to serve as United States Secretary of the Interior. If confirmed, she would become the first Native American to run the Department of the Interior, and the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.


March 25, 2021
Katie Stagliano

Katie Stagliano was in third grade when she came up with her plan to help feed the homeless after growing a 40 pound cabbage in her yard. That single crop fed 275 people at her local soup kitchen. It also inspired her non-profit, Katie's Krops, which builds vegetable gardens for the sole purpose of donating the food to the homeless. Now, there are more than 100 gardens in over 30 states being operated by young people like Katie.
     Katie has won several awards including America’s top 10 youth volunteers by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, Global Teen Leader for ‘Three Dot Dash’ – a global initiative recognizing and supporting the efforts of global teen leaders. In 2012 she became the youngest recipient ever of the Clinton Global Citizen Award for Leadership in Civil Society and is a 2010 Sodexo STOP Hunger Scholar.
Her outstanding achievements have landed Katie on the pages of People Magazine, USA Today and Better Homes and Gardens Country Gardens, to name a few.
     Katie is the author of the award-winning children’s book Katie’s Cabbage. She is the designer of the award winning “Eco-Fly” toothbrush distributed by Dr. Fresh


March 24, 2021
Ellen Ochoa
(1958-)

Ellen Ochoa is an American engineer, former astronaut and former director of the Johnson Space Center. In 1993, she became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.^] She was the first Hispanic director and the second female director of Johnson Space Center.
     Ellen received many awards among which are NASA's Distinguished Service Medal (2015), Exceptional Service Medal (1997), Outstanding Leadership Medal (1995) and Space Flight Medals (2002, 1999, 1994, 1993). She and Michael Foale were announced as the 2017 class of the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. Ellen was recognized in Hispanic Executive's 2017 Best of the Boardroom issue for her work as a board director for Johnson Space Center. She was inducted into the 2018 International Air and Space Hall of Fame class.


March 23, 2021
Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink 
(1927-2002)

Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink was an American attorney and politician from Hawaii. Mink was a third-generation Japanese American, having been born and raised on the island of Maui.
     In 1964, Mink ran for federal office and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was the first woman of color and the first Asian-American woman elected to Congress, and also the first woman elected to Congress from the state of Hawaii. She served a total of 12 terms (24 years).
     While serving in congress she introduced the first comprehensive initiatives under the Early Childhood Education Act, which included the first federal child-care bill and worked on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act ; she became the first person to oppose a Supreme Court nominee on the basis of discrimination against women. Mink initiated a lawsuit which led to significant changes to presidential authority under the Freedom of Information Act in 1971. In 1972, she co-authored the Title IX Amendment of the Higher Education Act, later renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in 2002.


March 22, 2021
Wilma Pearl Mankiller
(1945-2010)

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was an American Cherokee activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
     Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she lived on her family's allotment in Adair County, Oklahoma, until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco as part of a federal government program to urbanize Native Americans.
     Returning to Oklahoma in the fall of 1976, Mankiller was hired by the Cherokee Nation as an economic stimulus coordinator.
Under her administration, the Cherokee government built new health clinics, created a mobile eye-care clinic, established ambulance services, and created early education, adult education and job training programs. She developed revenue streams including factories, retail stores, restaurants, and bingo operations, while establishing self-governance allowing the tribe to manage its own finances.


March 21, 2021
Maya Angelou

March 21^st is World Poetry day and it is appropriate that we honor world known poet, Maya Angelou. Maya was a poet, singer, dancer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. Her prolific writing career is perhaps best known by her autobiographies like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which depicts Angelou’s adolescence in which she transforms from a victim of racism into a self-possessed young woman capable of responding to prejudice.
     Maya was born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou had a difficult childhood. Her parents split up when she was very young, and she and her older brother, Bailey, were sent to live with their father's mother in Stamps, Arkansas.
     Perhaps best known for her poems, Maya Angelou recited one of her poems at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inaugural ceremony — marking the first inaugural recitation since 1961.
     Angelou was recognized “as a spokesperson for… all people who are committed to raising the moral standards of living in the United States.” She served on two presidential committees, for Gerald Ford in 1975 and for Jimmy Carter in 1977. In 2000, Angelou was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2010, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., by President Barack Obama. Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death in 2014.



March 20, 2021
Susan Kelly-Dreiss

For over thirty years, Susan Kelly-Dreiss has worked to enact legal protections, implement innovative services and heighten public awareness on behalf of battered women and their children.
     Having grown up in a violent home, Kelly-Dreiss began her career in victim advocacy by helping to start a shelter for battered women in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1976, she joined with a handful of other women to successfully lobby for passage of Pennsylvania’s first domestic violence law, the Pennsylvania Protection from Abuse Act.
     Her accomplishments include: co-founder of the nation’s first domestic violence coalition, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV); she was instrumental in securing federal funding to establish the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence at PCADV; was a founding member of the National Network to End Domestic Violence; she served in leadership positions on family violence task forces under two Pennsylvania attorneys general and she was the recipient of a National Crime Victim Service Award.
     Kelly-Dreiss has mentored and motivated generations of women to carry out the work of the Battered Women’s Movement. Perhaps most importantly, Kelly-Dreiss has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to battered women and their children.



March 19, 2021
America Ferrera

America Ferrera is perhaps best known for her fearless portrayal of "Betty Suarez" on the hit comedy Ugly Betty. This breakthrough role has earned Ferrera an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as ALMA and Imagen awards. She recently finished production on Diego Luna's biography, Chavez, which centers on the civil-rights activist and labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Portraying his wife, "Helen Chavez.
     In addition to her film lineup, Ferrera appeared in the PBS series, Half The Sky. The series gave an intimate and dramatic portrayal of women and young girls in the world that live under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Ferrera joined reporter Nicholas Kristof, and actresses Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union and Olivia Wilde, in an inspiring program that captivates the struggling and empowering stories of females fighting for change.
     In addition to her acting career, she works with many organizations such as serving as an ambassador on the campaign "America4America" joining Voto Latino, the leading non-partisan national youth empowerment organization; she served as an artist ambassador for Save The Children and traveled to West Africa where she raised funds to build a school in southern Mali. And she visited Honduras on behalf of the organization ONE.


March 18, 2021
Flossie Wong-Staal
(1946-2020)

Flossie Wong-Staal was born Wong Yee Ching. She was a Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist. In 1952, her family fled to Hong Kong after the Communist revolution and she attended MaryknollConvent School where she excelled in science. Her teachers encouraged her to further her studies in the United States and also suggested she change her first name to an English name and her father chose to name her Flossie, after a massive typhoon that had struck southeast Asia round that time. At the age of 18 she left Hong Kong to attend the University of California.
     She was the first scientist to clone HIV and determine the function of its genes, which was a major step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS. From 1990 to 2002, she held the Florence Riford Chair in AIDS Research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She was co-founder and, after retiring from UCSD, she became the chief scientific officer of Immusol, which was renamed iTherX Pharmaceuticals in 2007 when it transitioned to a drug development company focused on hepatitis C, and continued as chief scientific officer.


March 17, 2021
Marley Dias

Marley Dias is the activist behind the #1000BlackGirlBooks twitter phenomenon. The hashtag was born out of the avid reader's frustration that she couldn't find any stories where the main characters looked like her. The book drive resulted in more than 11,000 books catalogued with black female protagonists, and counting. Marley also wrote the book Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You as a guide to positive change through activism.
     Marley has spoken at the White House’s United State of Women alongside Michelle Obama and Oprah. She has appeared on Ellen, CBS This Morning, The Today Show and the View. Marley is the youngest member of the Forbes 30 under 30 list to date.


March 16, 2021
Dr. Michelle Reyes

Michelle Reyes (PhD) is the Vice President of the Asian American Christian Collaborative and the Editorial Director at Pax. She is a church planter, pastor’s wife, author, speaker and activist. She is also the Scholar-in-Residence at Hope Community Church, a minority-led multicultural church in East Austin, Texas, where her husband, Aaron, serves as lead pastor.
     Michelle’s work on faith and culture has been featured in Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Mission Alliance, Faithfully Magazine and more. Her forthcoming book on cross-cultural relationships is called Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead to Lasting Connections Across Cultures 
     In this conversation Michelle shares her story of growing up as a 2nd generation Indian-American in predominantly white spaces. She shares how her experiences shaped her narrative and her own cultural identity that led to her passion for building lasting connections across cultures. We also talk about the importance of making space for multiculturalism as we celebrate the birth of Christ.


March 15, 2021
Ruth Graham

You have heard the phrase, behind every great man is a greater woman”. There are many versions to that saying; but the saying holds especially true of our next woman.
     Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham. Her evangelist Billy Graham said this about Ruth; “When it comes to spiritual things, my wife has had the greatest influence on my ministry.”
     Ruth was born at Qingjiang, Kiangsu, China, on June 10, 1920. Her parents were medical missionaries at the Presbyterian Hospital in China. As a young girl there in the small hospital compound, Ruth first sensed the great calling to abandon all for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Until her early adult years, she dreamed of serving as a single missionary in a far corner of the world.
     Ruth enrolled at Wheaton College, outside Chicago, Illinois, where she met Billy Graham. She struggled between what she thought was her calling to the mission field and her blossoming love for the driven young evangelist. Ruth realized her life’s mission was to be bound up in Billy’s passion for evangelism. She treasured her role as the strong woman behind “America’s Pastor” and was Billy’s closest confidant, most trusted advisor, and dearest friend.
     A gifted poet and writer herself, Ruth authored and coauthored 14 books, including “Sitting by My Laughing Fire,” “Legacy of a Pack Rat,” “Prodigals and Those Who Love Them,” and “One Wintry Night.”


March 14, 2021
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta
(1930-)

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW).
     Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike. Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers', immigrants', and women's rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foun dation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, in 1993.
     At 89, Dolores Huerta continues to work tirelessly developing leaders and advocating for the working poor, women, and children. As founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, she travels across the country engaging in campaigns and influencing legislation that supports equality and defends civil rights. In California, April 10 is Dolores Huerta Day.


March 13, 2021
Nikole Lim

Nikole Lim is a speaker, educator, and consultant on leveraging dignity through the restorative art of storytelling. She is the founder and international director of Freely In Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to equipping survivors and advocates to lead in ending sexual violence through their rewritten stories.
     With a background in photography and filmmaking, Nikole has been deeply transformed by the powerful, tenacious, and awe-inspiring examples of survivors. Their audacious dreams have informed her philosophy for a survivor-led approach to community transformation. Her vision is to equip survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence—believing that they will be the ones to bring us all into liberation. In it, her hope is that the world may be transformed by them—just as she has.
     Nikole graduated with a degree in film production from Loyola Marymount University and is currently pursuing a masters in global leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Nikole consults regularly with international organizations including The Salvation Army, International Justice Mission, and Hope International.
     Nikole released her latest book, Liberation Is Here in September 2020. 


March 12, 2021
Lucy Diggs Slowe

Lucy Diggs Slowe was a catalyst for change, influencing a large cross-section of American society with several trailblazing accomplishments. She was an educator and an athlete; winning the American Tennis Association’s first tournament in 1917, becoming the first African American woman to win a major sports title. During this time, her career as an educator skyrocketed, and in 1919 she was asked to create the first black junior high school. In 1922, she was selected as the first African-American woman to be named Dean of Women at Howard University.
     She was also one of the original sixteen founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first sorority founded by African-American women.


March 11, 2021
Reshma Saujani 

Reshma Saujani began her career as an attorney and activist. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, Reshma visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. As Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, she is leading the movement to inspire, educate and equip young women with the computing skills to pursue 21^st century opportunities. In 2019, Girls Who Code was awarded Most Innovative Non-Profit by Fast Company.
     Her work on behalf of young women has earned her broad recognition on lists including: Fortune World’s Greatest Leaders; Fortune 40 Under 40; WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year; Forbes Most Powerful Women Changing the World; and Fast Company 100 Most Creative People, among others.
     Reshma is also the author of Brave, Not Perfect–a movement rooted in her experience, TedTalk, book, and podcast encouraging women to live their bravest, fullest lives.


March 10, 2021
Ann Hasseltine Judson
(1789-1826)

Our next honoree is Ann Hasseltine Judson , known to be one of the first female American foreign missionaries. Ann was a school teacher from Bradford, Massachusetts, when she met Adoniram Judson. Her decision to marry Judson made her the wife of one of America’s first foreign missionaries, appointed in 1812 by the ABCFM. The Judson’s waited with William Carey while American Baptists organized themselves for missions until, in 1814, they were adopted by the American Baptists as their first foreign missionaries.
     Ann was the first person to translate any part of the Bible into Siamese (Thai), translated the Books of Daniel and Jonah into Burmese and wrote a Burmese catechism and wrote A Particular Relation of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire (1823), one of the earliest histories of American mission. Ann remains the most influential missionary woman in American history.
     Her life was incredible and I invite you to read “The Extraordinary Story of Ann Hasseltine Judson, A Life Beyond Boundaries” by Rosalie Hall Hunt. Ann comes alive on these pages and you feel like you made the long journey with her.


March 9, 2021 
Marlena Graves

Marlena Graves is a writer, pastor and speaker who is passionate about the eternal implications of our life in God. She is a seeker of justice. Marlena deeply believes that spiritual formation and justice should never be separated. She is most concerned with those who profess to follow Jesus but speak and behave so unlike him. As a Puerto-Rican influenced by many streams of the faith, she feels as if she dwells on the borderlands of Evangelicalism. She continues to labor alongside others for justice, for human rights.
     Marlena received her M.Div. from Northeastern Seminary and is pursuing her PhD in American Culture Studies where she is researching the influence American culture has on Evangelicals’ view of immigration, race, and poverty. She has been a bylined writer for Christianity Today, (in)courage, womenleaders.com, and Our Daily Bread. She is also the author of “A Beautiful Disaster” and her most recent book, “The Way Up is Down.” She lives with her husband and three daughters in Toledo, Ohio.


Miriam Farhan

Today, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, it is only fitting that we recognize Miriam Farhan from Pakistan. As a child in Lahore, Pakistan, sexism defined entrepreneur Miriam Farhan’s life. “Growing up there is different for a girl, because they’re brought up with the concept that they’re lesser than boys,” she says. “My whole life was influenced by that.”
     Today, 38-year-old Farhan is the owner of The Market Find, a business that collaborates directly with Pakistani textile factory workers and artisans — all of them, women — to make small batches of clutches, quilts and other goods and bring them to market.  She now has a small firm in Montville, NJ. While her life is now solidly anchored in the U.S., her focus continues to be on improving women’s lives back in Pakistan.
Beyond building a business, Farhan is invested in helping the women of Bahawalpur, Lahore, Hala and other remote villages in her homeland. In addition to providing employment opportunities, she donates a percentage of her earnings to women’s educational charities and works with organizations on the ground to provide vocational training to female workers. 
“The concept [of women’s worth] needs to be challenged,” she says. “They can move mountains, change lives, change the world.”



Today we honor and recognize the work of Maya Lin, who in 1981, at the age of 21, won a public design competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to be built on the National Mall in Washington D.C. Her design, one of 1,422 specified a black granite wall with the names of 57,939 fallen soldiers. The memorial was completed in late October 1982 and dedicated in November 1982.
     Lin owns and operates Maya Lin Studio in New York City. She has designed numerous projects, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama and the Wave Field outdoor installation at the University of Michigan, designed the building for the Museum of Chinese in America and the Women’s Table at Yale University. 
     She is also interested in environmental issues, sitting on the Natural Resources Defense Council board of trustees. In addition to being an artist, architect and environmentalist, she authored the book, boundaries in 2000.
     Lin has received numerous awards, including, the National Medal of Arts by former President Barack Obama in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama in 2016.


March 6, 2021
Kizzmekia Shanta Corbett

Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Shanta Corbett is an American viral immunologist at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health based in Bethesda, Maryland.  She is currently the scientific lead of the VRC Coronavirus Team. At the beginning of the pandemic, she started working on a vaccine to protect people from COVID-19. In December 2020, the Institute's Director Anthony Fauci said: "Kizzy is an African American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine”.
     In recognition of her work on the vaccine, Orange County, North Carolina named January 12, 2021. "Dr. Kizzy Corbett Day".


March 5, 2021
Anoyara Khatun

At 12 years old, Anoyara Khatun was a victim of child trafficking until she was rescued by Save the Children. She returned to West Bengal and committed her life to putting an end to the exploitation and trafficking of children. Anoyara has rescued hundreds of children through her efforts and prevented many others from being forced into marriage. She helped unite 180 trafficked children, stopped nearly three dozen child marriages, rescued 85 children from child labour and got 400 children back to school. 
     In 2012, Anoyara was one of the three nominees for International Children’s Peace Prize.  


March 4, 2021
Clarissa Harlowe Barton

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was a pioneering American nurse who founded the American Red Cross in the United States. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk.  Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she did not attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care.  Like many women, she helped collect bandages and other much-needed supplies, but she soon realized that she could best support the troops by going in person to the battlefields. Throughout many major battles of the war, she nursed, comforted and cooked for the wounded, earning the nickname the “Angel of the Battlefield.”
     When her service to the Union soldiers was complete, Barton traveled to Europe. There, she became aware of the Geneva, Switzerland-based Red Cross, which called for international agreements to protect the sick and wounded during wartime and for the formation of national societies to give aid voluntarily on a neutral basis.
     Upon her return home, she worked with influential friends and contacts such as Frederick Douglass, and founded the American Red Cross in 1881. Barton served as president of the organization until 1904, when she resigned at age 83.


March 3, 2021
Mayra Guzman-Kaslow

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, our next honoree is Mayra Guzman-Kaslow. When the outbreak of Covid-19 was first reported on December 31, 2019, in Wuhan, China scientist and chemical engineer, Mayra Guzman-Kaslow, President and CEO of the Puerto Rico-based and women-led pharmaceutical company, GK Pharmaceuticals, first began tracking the disease rigorously. It wasn’t long before one of the organization’s senior scientists, who has experience working in bio-molecular analysis, suggested the team develop a molecular Covid-19 test, so they would be ready when the virus spreads to Puerto Rico.  The company emerged as the first and only organization on the island manufacturing a test of this kind approved by the FDA.
“We need to educate young women who are undecided about what they want to do for a living to pharmaceuticals,” says Mayra. “There’s a great opportunity for women in science, and we need more women scientists, chemists, biologists, and engineers. We are just as capable as men. I want to be a mentor for those young women.”


March 2, 2021
Grace Lee Boggs
(1915-2015)

Grace Lee Boggs, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was considered the eldest human rights activist of our time. Grace was a philosopher who fought for women’s rights, environmental justice, Black power (alongside Angela Davis and Malcolm X), and labor rights. Married to African American activist James Boggs, she wrote a series of books and was involved in many community efforts that ranged from advocating against poor living conditions in Chicago to creating charter schools and youth programs in Detroit.  She was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist.  Grace and her husband founded Detroit Summer in 1992, a community movement bringing together people of all races, cultures, and ages to rebuild Detroit.  
 
Quote from Grace Lee Boggs:
“Women’s leadership in the public sphere didn’t come from the White House or from CEOs. It came only after millions of women came together in small consciousness-raising groups to share stories of our ‘second sex’ lives.”
 

March 1, 2021
Dr. Patricia Bath
(1942-2019) 

If you know someone whose eyesight improved following cataract surgery, you have Dr. Patricia Bath to thank. She became interested in medicine as a child after learning about Dr. Albert Schweitzer’s work for patients with leprosy.  Patricia was an American ophthalmologist, inventor, humanitarian, and academic. Patricia was the  first woman member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, first woman to lead a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, first woman elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center, first African-American person to serve as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University. first African-American woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center and was the first African-American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. The holder of five patents, she also founded the non-profit American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness in Washington, D.C.
     Patricia was often told by her parents to “never settle for less than her best”. Her parents supported her in her pursuit of education and her interest in science. Giving her first chemistry set. She had quite a career with many awards and accomplishments.