Dr. Barnes Birthday Scholarship Fundraiser

African - American First Ladies of Distinction

(Activism)

"We cannot accurately comprehend either our hidden potential or full range of problems that besiege us until we know the successful struggles that generations of Foremothers waged against virtually insurmountable obstacles."
– Darlene Clark Hines



Elizabeth Freeman

Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Betts) (c.1784–1829), an abolitionist, was the first enslaved person to successfully sue for her freedom, inspiring Massachusetts to abolish slavery and paving the way for the state’s complete freedom in 1790.

Maria Stewart

Maria Stewart (1803 – 1879), a journalist, lecturer, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist, was the first to address a mixed gender and race audience on the topic of abolition in Boston on September 21, 1832.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary

Mary Ann Shadd Carey (1823–1893), an abolitionist, journalist, publisher, and lawyer, became the first Black woman newspaper editor. In 1853, she founded The Provincial Freeman with the motto, “Self-reliance is the true road to independence.”

Mary Burnett Talbert

Mary Burnett Talbert (1866–1923), a civil rights and anti-lynching activist, was the first to receive the NAACP Spingarn Medal Award in 1922 and was celebrated internationally for her leadership in women’s rights and racial justice.

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913 – 2005), a civil rights activist and seamstress, was the first to be known as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement” because of the roll she played in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955.

Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King (1927 - 2006), a civil rights activist, a gifted musician and singer, the wife of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., was first Lady of Civil Rights Movement between the years of 1955 and 1968.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 – 1977), a civil rights activist, was the first to bring the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the entire nation during a televised session at the 1964 Democratic Convention.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross) (1820 – 1913), an abolitionist, humanitarian, Civil War spy, was the first to become a conductor of the Underground Railroad and was the first to be honored on a U.S. Postage Stamp in 1978.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth(Isabella Baumfree) (1797 – 1883), an abolitionist and women’s rights activist, was the first to have a sculpture permanently placed in the Emancipation Hall of the Capitol Building in 2009.


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