It’s an election year, so what better time to remember the journey toward women’s right to vote in America? This slideshow hits the highlights and marjor figures with some great facts and a peppy sountrack.

Do you choose to vote? Why or why not?
I’ll go first. I believe strongly in equality of the sexes, just as I believe in racial equality. But althought I am a registered voter, I choose not to vote for religious reasons. I believe that I should pay my taxes and obey the law, but that otherwise, I should not be involved in politics based on what …read more

All through February, Bridget and I highlighted African-American women past and present who we see as leaders in business, economics, politics, or society at large.
Here they are just in case you missed any:

Madam C.J. Walker, First Black Woman Millionaire
Sojourner Truth, Champion for Abolition and Women’s Rights
Congresswoman Maxine Waters
Carol Moseley Braun, First Black Woman Senator
Rita Dove, First Black Poet Laureate of the United States
Rosa Park, Unintentional Civil Rights Pioneer
Marian Anderson, First Black Singer to Perform at the Metropolitan Opera House
Toni Morrison, First Black Woman to Win a Nobel Prize in Literature

Did we miss any of your favorites this month? Leave …read more

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TONI MORRISON was born in 1931 as Chloe Anthony Wofford, but was known as “Toni” during college, short for her middle name. She holds a BA from Howard University and a master’s degree from Cornell. Morrison started writing fiction during her years as a Howard student. One of her earlier stories eventually evolved into the well-known novel The Bluest Eye, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2000.
Well-known and critically acclaimed works by Toni Morrison include:

Sula (nominated for a National Book Award in 1973)
Song of Solomon (first book by …read more

MARIAN ANDERSON was born in 1897 in Philadelphia. She began her professional singing career while still in high school as a way to earn money to help support her family. Prior to that, Anderson was a member of her church choir from the age of 6, and a self-taught pianist (her parents bought a piano but couldn’t afford lessons). She became so popular as a singer in churches that she started earning money performing for different congregations, and sang at the National Baptist Convention in 1919.
Although she had been performing professionally for several years, Anderson was denied admission to music …read more

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Rosa Parks, dubbed the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, is best known for her refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a White man. The story has been told many times over and over until to some, it may have become so common that it may have lost its meaning. But not for me. Never. You see, I experienced the story first hand for myself because I grew up in Montogmery, the birth place of the Civil Right’s movement. I have heard that story told many …read more

RITA DOVE became the first black US poet laureate, and the youngest to boot, in 1993, and served as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. She was also the second African American poet to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, awarded in 1987. (The first was Gwendolyn Brooks, who won in 1950.)
Dove was born in 1952 in Akron, Ohio. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989. Dove is a former Fulbright scholar and also won Guggenheim and Mellon fellowships. She …read more

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN was the first, and so far the only, African American woman elected to a seat in the US Senate, and the only woman to date elected from the state of Illinois. Braun represented Illinois in the Senate from 1993-1999 after serving in the Illinois House of Representatives as assistant majority leader in the late 1970s. With a law degree from the University of Chicago, Braun was also a former prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office in Chicago in the mid-’70s. She was nominated as a Democratic candidate in the 2004 US presidential election (but she withdrew …read more

An interview by Kotecki-Vest, an editor with BlogHer. Listen to Congresswoman Maxine Waters as she gives her views on the subject of Super Tuesday.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a …read more

“I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations…I have built my own factory on my own ground.”
Madam C.J. Walker
Natioal Negro Business League Convention1912
Madame C.J. Walker’s rise to notariety was the first Black female millionaire who started an empire in hair care for Black women. Her life is certainly an inspiration to women in business, regardless of their race or culture and is …read more