The challenge of Women’s History today – to remember, to appreciate, and to speak their names

It is baffling to the writer that so many Americans claim a dislike for history. He thinks that this is because of the way in which they were taught the subject and that they were so often excluded from it. After having Ms. Georgia Phillips – not related – teach it in the fifth grade, however, he was totally hooked on history for a lifetime.

It is with that same enthusiasm and joy that he approaches history today, especially Black history and the Black aspects of women’s history. How could one not remember and appreciate these most significant humans and want to speak their names so that the world would come to know them.

This year the National Women’s History Alliance has made the task here easier by adopting as its theme, “Moving Forward Together! Women Educating and Inspiring Generations.” It thus helps the writer to focus on his earliest development and the individuals most influential in that education and inspiration. 

Mrs. Blanche Jennings and Ms. Annie Phillips were the two women who helped the writer preserve his life, appreciate what it means to be in a family, realize the cruelties of racism, and focus on the potentials that could be developed despite such an environment of racial oppression. 

Ms. Phillips had only four years of formal schooling and was the most truly self-made individual this writer has ever met. Mrs. Jennings graduated from Jackson College when Dr. Charles Ayer was president. They became lifetime, “thick as thieves” friends. Together they began the socialization that prepared him for life in Rosedale, Mississippi, and beyond. For the role played by these women and their assistants – older sisters Catherine and Ethel Phillips – he is proud to speak their names. 

Realizing his was not the only such life, the writer challenges others to remember and appreciate the women who played those roles in their lives. Not only that, speak their names with pride and frequency so everybody knows who they were and how you feel about them. That is memory for you, but it becomes history for the rest of the world.

Leaving the confines of the family and home, for the next 14 years the writer was influenced by Mrs. Annie Randall, Mrs. Blanche Wade, Ms. Irma Reid, Mrs. Bertha Watson, Mrs. Nellie Burke, Ms. Georgia Phillips, Mrs. Fredricka Taylor, Ms. Laura Franklin, Mrs. Sallye Griffin, Mrs. M. B. Holmes, Mrs. Lillie Smith, Mrs. Mable Johnson Moore, Mrs. O. P. Lowe, Ms. Lillie Crusoe, Ms. Jane E. Stockard, Dr. Jane McAllister, Mrs. Gloria Evans, Mrs. Ada Wilson, Mrs. Eva Woodard, Mrs. Margaret Walker Alexander, Mrs. Katherine Mosley, Dr. Cleopatra Thompson, Mrs. Ruth Lee Shirley, Mrs. Bernice Bell, Dr. Lelia Rhodes, Mrs. Earnestine Lipscomb, and Mrs. Lillian Hall. 

These women guided and oversaw his educational development, helping him reach certain potentials and dream of even higher heights. In very specific ways, they helped him find his place and vocation.

Again, because millions of other people have travelled similar roads, not at Rosedale Colored School and Jackson State College, Women’s History challenges them to remember and appreciate the women who saw them through. 

The truth is that in most instances women make up the majority of the teaching force. Furthermore, at the lower levels, where intellectual foundations are formed, the overwhelming majority are female. Genuine history cries out for these women to be recognized by us speaking their names for the jobs that they have done and continue to do.

The theme for Women’s History Month stresses women educating and inspiring generations. It does not, however, suggest or imply that this limits the conversation to parents and licensed educators. Because education is a lifelong process, people learn as long as they are alive and do so through every sense possible. The same goes for the idea of being inspired. Therefore, the theme opens the door to talk about women across the board. The only limitation is the inevitable chance of omitting significant heroines.

Having admitted the inevitability of omissions, let us selectively mention several women who deserve being called out for their excellence in their areas of endeavor. In politics, there are Jasmine Crockett and Liz Chaney, both of whom have been courageously outspoken at the national level. They are reminiscent of Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, and others. 

In the media, there are Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow. Although Hazel Brannon Smith and Ida B. Wells were independently-based, they were fore-runners in being courageous, outspoken journalists. 

In the area of research and writing, there stand Isabel Wilkerson and Nikole Hannah-Jones. 

In music, we have seen flashes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone in some of the work of India Arie and Erykah Badu. 

All of this is worthy of remembering and celebrating in Women’s history.

History is about us. Some of it is written. Some of it still needs to be written. That is as important to realize regarding Women’s history as it is regarding world history, U.S. history and Black history. 

This year we are challenged to recognize the women who have made a difference as well as those who portray history in the making. Yes, let us appreciate them all, for the sake of those living now and those who are still to come.  Appreciate these women and speak their names.