Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At 6, her parents separated, and she and her mother moved in with her maternal grandparents in Taunton, Massachusetts. While growing up, her mother was committed several times to a mental sanitarium. From a young age, Douglas was an avid reader, and by her teens, she began to write. At 16, she contributed to the children’s publication St. Nicholas Magazine, and in the following year, won a prize for her story “An Early Morning Paddle.” After graduating from Taunton High School, Douglas studied English at Wellesley College, where she edited the college literary magazine and joined the suffrage club. In 1912, the same year she received her degree, her mother died of cancer. After working in various department stores, she met and married Kenneth Douglas, who was 30 years her senior. Soon, she discovered she married a con artist, who committed forgeries and theft crimes and tried to scam her father, whom she hadn’t been in touch with for 19 years. While her husband was in jail, Douglas’s father reconnected with her and persuaded her to file for divorce and reunite with him in Miami, Florida. Douglas began to work at her father’s paper, which later became The Miami Herald, writing the society column, covering tea parties and social events. Not long after, she received the responsibility of the editorial page. When the US entered WW1 in 1917, 27 years old Douglas took a writing assignment and became the first woman in Florida to enlist in the Naval Reserve. The following year, she joined the Red Cross and got stationed in Paris as a nurse. On her return to the US, Douglas was appointed assistant editor at The Miami Herald; she wrote a daily column, The Galley, addressing social issues close to her heart, such as women’s suffrage, civil rights, and urban planning for the growing population. In 1923, at 33, Douglas had a nervous breakdown and left her job in the newspaper. She began to work as a freelance writer, selling articles and short stories to various magazines, which enabled her to purchase a house in Coconut Grove. Douglas wrote about life events such as murders, fires, and hurricanes, and her own experiences, from WW1 to the life of the pioneers in South Florida. Between 1920 to 1990, she published over 100 stories and articles. In addition to writing, Douglas also taught at the University of Miami, served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Press, was the book review editor of The Miami Herald, and wrote plays for the Miami Theater. In 1942, Douglas was asked to write about the Miami River. During her research, she became aware of the threats of the demolition of the Everglades and wrote about it instead. In 1947, after five years of work, she published the book The Everglades: River of Grass, in which she discussed the construction of the Tamiami trail that was built around and through the Everglades and the construction of dams and canals that would drain the wetlands and destroy its wildlife and ecosystem. The book became a best-seller and initiated Douglas’s second career as an activist and spokeswoman for conservation. She played a crucial role in defeating plans to construct an airstrip within the heart of the Everglades, alter the natural water flow within the grasslands, and promote initiatives to restore the natural ecosystem. In 1969, at 79, Douglas founded the Friends of the Everglades, which enabled her to advocate for preserving the Everglades nationally and internationally. Thanks to her efforts, the Everglades was declared a National Park in 1947, an International Biosphere Preserve in 1976, a legislatively designated wilderness area in 1978, a Wetland of International Significance in 1986, and, in 1991, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Everglades Protection Act passed, which fund water treatment facilities in the area. She was awarded by President Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her tireless work in 1993. All this time, Douglas never stopped writing; in 1951, she published her first novel, Road to the Sun, and in 1987, her autobiography, Voice of the River. Throughout her life, she published ten books and 20 short story collections. She died at the age of 108. Read more...

Winona LaDuke was born in Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish mother and an Ojibwe father from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. From a young age, she was fascinated by her father’s powwows and tribal culture and traditions. At 5, her parents divorced, and LaDuke moved with her mother to Ashland, Oregon. After high school, she attended Harvard University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 1982. During school, she joined a group of Indigenous activists and assisted the civil rights activist Jimmie Durham in his research on the effects of uranium mining in Navajo reservations. After graduating, LaDuke moved to White Earth to work as the reservation high school’s principal. Soon, she became involved with the Anishinaabeg’s lawsuit to reclaim lands promised to them in a federal treaty in 1867. Initially, the reservation spanned 837,000 acres, but due to government policies allowing lumber companies and non-Native groups to seize the land, more than 90 percent were taken away by 1934. In 1985, at 26, LaDuke founded the Indigenous Women’s Network – a collective of 400 Native women activists and organizations committed to enhancing the representation of Native women, empowering them to participate in tribal politics and cultural endeavors actively. She also worked with Women of All Red Nations to raise awareness of the forced sterilization of Native American women. In 1989, LaDuke received her master’s in community economic development from Antioch University. That same year, LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP), a non-profit organization that works on buying back reservation lands. By 2000, WELRP bought 1,200 acres, preserving them in a conservation trust for future transfer to the tribe’s possession. Focusing on sustainable development, WELRP has supported many initiatives, including indigenous farming, local food systems, local wild rice crop protection from patenting and genetic engineering, renewable energy, sanitation improvement, and a diaper service that reduces waste from disposable diapers while saving money. In the early 1990s, LaDuke joined forces with the musical due Indigo Girls to arrange a series of concerts to raise awareness of Native issues. In 1993, they founded together Honor the Earth, a non-profit organization promoting financial support for Indigenous environmental justice. In 1996 and 2000, LaDuke delved deeper into politics when serving as Ralph Nader’s running mate on the Green Party presidential ticket. She also was involved with the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests and led the protests against the Line 3 pipeline of 2020-2021. LaDuke is a strong advocate for the cultivation of marijuana and industrial hemp on Indigenous tribal lands to generate economic benefits and foster local economic self-reliance. Since 2017, she has devoted most of her time to farming and established Winona’s Hemp & Heritage Farm to create an economy led by Indigenous women that focuses on local food, energy, and fiber while prioritizing environmental sustainability. Read more...

Jovita Idar was born in Laredo, Texas. Her parents advocated for Mexican Americans’ civil rights, and she and her seven siblings grew up in a socially and politically active household. Idar attended the Methodist Holding Institute in Laredo, earning her teaching certificate in 1903. Afterward, she moved to Los Ojuelos, where she taught Chicano children (Mexican-Americans with no Anglo heritage). There, she experienced the segregation and poor conditions of this community. Upon the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Idar resigned from her teaching position and returned to Laredo to work in her father’s newspaper, La Crónica (The Chronicle), which advocated for Mexican-American rights. Using a pseudonym, she focused on the loss of Mexican culture and the use of the Spanish language, Mexican-Americans’ poor living and working conditions, and lynching. She also used this platform to promote women’s suffrage and wrote articles encouraging women to vote. In 1911, the Idar family organized the First Mexican Congress to unite Mexicans to fight injustice. That same year, she founded and served as the first president of the feminist organization La Liga Feminil Mexicaista (the League of Mexican Women), which encouraged women to break out of the domestic sphere, offered study sessions for women, and established bilingual schools for children. Over time, the organization provided food and clothes to those in need. She also founded the El Etudiante, a bilingual education newspaper for teachers which offered practical methods for bilingual education. During the Mexican Revolution in 1913, 28 years old Idar crossed the border to help people injured in the attack on the city of Nuevo Laredo. She joined the La Cruz Blanca (the White Cross) and volunteered as a nurse. In 1914, on her return to the US, she began to write for the El Progreso newspaper. Following a criticizing article she published about US President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to send US troops to the border, the Texas Rangers came to newspaper offices to shut it down. However, Idar argued that per the First Amendment, the newspaper could publish opinion articles and physically block the entrance to the office. The Texas Rangers left but returned the next day while Idar was away and destroyed the newspaper’s presses. The incident did not hold her back, and she continued to publish her articles in other papers. Several months afterward, her father died, and she became the editor of La Crónica. Two years later, she founded another paper called Evolución. In 1917, at 32, she married Bartolo Juárez, and soon after, they moved to San Antonio, Texas. There, she became active in the Democratic Party, co-founded with her husband the Democratic Club, and served as editor of the Methodist Church publication El Heraldo Cristiano. She continued to promote equal rights for women and established a free kindergarten. She also volunteered as a translator at the county hospital and taught hygiene and childcare classes to women. She died at 61 from a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by advanced tuberculosis. Read more...

Born Esther Clark in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. Growing up, she learned shooting, herbal medicine, and food preservation. At 23, she married Amos Short, and soon after, they began their gradual journey west. First, they traveled to Michigan; then to Illinois, and in 1845, they settled near Fort Vancouver in the Oregon territory. Their land was managed by the Hudson’s Bay Company – a British fur trading business that tried to keep the northern part of the Columbia River under British rule. The company repeatedly tried to evacuate the family; on one incident, they forced Short and her children into a boat and sent them adrift onto the Columbia River. After an incident in which she slapped a French-Canadian Lieutenant and toppled him to the ground, the company finally left the family alone. Following the death of her husband in 1853, Short claimed 640 acres of land under the Donation Land Claims Act, which promoted homestead settlements in the Oregon Territory. About 30 years before women in the territory of Washington could own property. That same year, 47 years old Short opened a restaurant on her land. The following year, she opened her first of two hotels. She permitted ferry boats to land on her property, and in 1855, she donated part of the land to the city to establish a public park. Esther Short Park became one of the oldest public parks in the West. With these actions, Short helped to build and develop the area, which became the City of Vancouver in 1857. She died at the age of 56. Read more...

Laura Clay was born in White Hall, Kentucky. Her parents were abolitionists, and her mother, who supported women’s rights, insisted that her six children, including her four daughters, would receive a good education. During the Civil War, she attended a girls’ school in Lexington and Mrs. Sarah Hoffman’s Finishing School in NYC. Afterward, she returned home and helped her mother run the estate. In 1878, her parents divorced, and her mother, who inherited White Hall, remained homeless since the law in Kentucky enabled men to claim all their wives’ property in case of a separation. It led Clay and her sisters to join the women’s rights movement. Clay also joined the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Club and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1881, her sister Mary Barr Clay (who later served as president of the American Woman Suffrage Association – AWSA) and Lucy Stone, then president of the AWSA, appointed Clay, at 32, to chair the organization’s annual meeting in its first time to be held in Louisville, Kentucky. Following the convention, she co-founded the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association, the first suffrage organization in the South. In 1888, Clay and her sisters founded the Kentucky Equal Rights Association (KERA) and served as its first president for 24 years. Under her leadership, the organization worked tirelessly to improve the legal status of women. Among its many achievements are protecting married women’s property, wages to women, joint guardianship of children, raising the age of marriage consent for girls from 12 to 16, establishing juvenile courts, requiring state women’s mental facilities to have female doctors on staff, persuading Central University and Transylvania University to admit women students, and inspiring the University of Kentucky to build its first women dormitory. In the next decade, Clay became active in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and worked alongside some of the movement’s most prominent figures, including Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Lloyd. She gave speeches throughout the country promoting women’s suffrage and founding suffrage societies in various states. Soon, she was appointed chair of NAWSA’s Southern Committee and, in 1896, was elected as its auditor. In 1903, she was elected chair of the organization’s new Increase of Membership Committee, serving there for 20 years. Clay believed that the states should grant women voting rights, so in 1913, she left the KERA and the NAWSA, opposing Susan B. Anthony’s support of a federal amendment. In 1916, she was appointed vice-president-at-large of the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference, which also supported the states’ rights approach over the federal amendment. She continued to be active in various women’s rights organizations, and in 1920, at 71, she established the Democratic Women’s Club of Kentucky. In the last decade of her life, she left the public eye and focused on promoting women’s rights in her Episcopal church, where she worked on allowing women delegates to church councils. She died at the age of 92. Read more...

Tarana Burke was born in the Bronx, New York, into a low-income, working-class family. At 7, an 18-year-old man raped her; as a teen, she was sexually assaulted. These events and the support of her mother motivated her to community activism and improve the lives of girls who struggle with extreme hardships. After high school, she attended Alabama State University before transferring to Auburn University in Montgomery. There, she organized protests and press conferences advocating for racial and economic justice. By graduation, Burke joined the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, an organization promoting youth development. She continued to work for the 21st Century when she moved to Selma, Alabama. At the time, she began to work with survivors of sexual violence, providing support and counseling. In 2003, at 30, Burke co-founded the Jendayi Aza, a program that assists African American girls in their journey to adulthood. Within three years, the program became Just Be, Inc, which provides health and well-being workshops for young women of color. During this time, she began to use the phrase “me too” when talking with survivors of sexual assault. Over time, “me too” developed into a movement to raise awareness of sexual abuse and to provide a safe space for survivors to share their stories. It offered survivors leadership training programs based on “empowerment through empathy.” In 2008, Burke moved to Philadelphia, where she worked at Art Sanctuary Philadelphia, a non-profit that uses black art to build communities and promote cultural understanding. In 2017, following the publication of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse allegations, actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women to post “Me Too” if they had experienced sexual harassment. Overnight, survivors worldwide began sharing their stories using the hashtag MeToo. Burke used this momentum to expand the conversation around sexual violence and its scope and to broaden the movement. While promoting the Me Too movement, she continued to work for her community, serving as the director of the Black Belt Arts and Cultural Center and as special project director at the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma. Later, she served as senior director of the Girls for Gender Equality organization, which provides personal development programs for young women of color. Today, Burke gives lectures across the US and organizes workshops to educate people about sexual violence, focusing on the unjustified blame and shame survivors take on themselves. Read more...

Naomi Rebekah Wolf was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She studied English literature at Yale University and then at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. During her college years, Wolf encountered class hierarchy for the first time, as well as sexism and antisemitism. These experiences influenced her views and writing in her future career. When she presented a feminist theory as her doctoral thesis, her tutor rejected her proposal and told her that her subject does not exist. Wolf did not complete her Ph.D. at the time but formed her writing into her first book, The Beauty Myth. Published in 1991, Wolf’s book challenged beauty norms, the unrealistic standards of beauty, and the cosmetics industry for its women’s exploitation. This ground-breaking book became an international bestseller and was nominated by The New York Times as one of the 70 Most Significant Books of the Century. At 29, Wolf became a leading spokeswoman for what was later referred to as The Third Wave of the Feminist Movement. Two years later, Wolf published her second book, Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How to Use It, in which she wrote on women’s empowerment and sexual liberation. Following its release, she began writing for various publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, exploring in her essays a wide range of topics, from abortions and suppressed sexuality to ISIS and Edward Snowden. In 1996, at the age of 34, Wolf was asked to advise on women issues in President Clinton’s re-election campaign and to give her input on reaching female voters. She was not paid for her contribution but was called on again as a formal consultant in Al Gore’s bid in the 2000 presidential election. In 1997, Wolf published her third book Promiscuities: A Secret History of Female Desire, in which she argued that schools need to teach about sex rather than encouraging abstinence. In the same year, she co-founded the Board of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership – a non-profit organization dedicated to developing young women’s professional skills and training them in ethical leadership. In the next two decades, Wolf published ten more books. Read more...

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, one of six children of working-class parents. She discovered her love for books from an early age and performed poetry readings in front of her church community. Educated in the segregated public school system, she was very aware of racism, and being taught by mostly black women shaped her perspective as a girl of color. After high school, she studied English at Stanford University and continued postgraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Later she completed her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1976, at the age of 24, she began her long-life academic career. First, she taught English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Southern California, then African and Afro-American Studies at Yale, Women’s Studies at Oberlin College, and English at the City College of New York. In 1978, at 26, she published her first poetry collection titled “And There We Wept” under the name “bell hooks.” The pen name she chose is a tribute to her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. She persisted in righting the name in lowercase letters to focus the attention on her work and ideas rather than her name and personality. In 1981, she published her first book, which she had worked on since she was 19, “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism.” In the book titled after Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, hooks explored the civil rights movement and feminist movements throughout the decades and examined how hundreds of years of racism and sexism affect Black women today. The book was recognized for its contribution to feminist thought and was named “One of the twenty most influential women’s books in the last 20 years.” Three years later, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was published, in which hooks accused second-wave feminism of racism and argued that the privileged white women’s experiences overshadowed the opportunity for multiracial feminist solidarity. During the 1980s, hooks organized a support group for Black women named the Sisters of the Yam. The group and its name were the inspiration for her 1993 book Sisters of the Yam: Black women and self-recovery, in which she celebrated Black sisterhood. The importance of sisterhood and the call to come together from an empowering point, rather than from a victim position, became a key notion in feminist thinking. After years of exploring and highlighting various aspects of racism in feminist theories, hooks developed a more active approach to solving the problem, as can be seen in her 1995 book Killing Rage: Ending Racism, in which she suggests that rage is a source of love and strength that can lead to positive change. In 2004, at 52, hooks returned to Kentucky to serve as Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College. There, she established the bell hooks Institute in 2014 and the bell hooks Center in 2021. Over the years, hooks published more than 40 books, poem collections, scholarly articles, and five children’s books. In her work, she addressed racism, sexism, patriarchy, sexuality, and geographic influences. In her innovative approach, hooks changed common perceptions of the subjects she explored and redefined feminist theories and Women’s Studies. She died of kidney failure at the age of 69. Read more...

Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Sarah and Angelina Grimkè were the sixth and thirteenth out of fourteenth children of a wealthy planter and slaves owner family. As a child, Sarah’s inspirations to acquire education were dined by her father, and she was not allowed to go to school because of her gender, so she taught herself mathematics and history from her brothers’ books. When Sarah was 13 years old, her little sister Angelina was born, and she insisted to be her godmother. Throughout their lives, the Grimké sisters had a close relationship, and often Angelina called her older sister mother. In 1818, the 26 years old Sarah traveled with her father to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, for the first time, she met members of the Quaker religion and got identified with their views on slavery abolition and gender equality. On her return to Charleston, surrounded by enslaved human beings, her abolitionist views became stronger. Three years later, she moved to Philadelphia and converted to Quakerism, and in 1829, Angelina joined her in place and faith. In 1835, 30 years old Angelina wrote a letter of support to the abolitionist journalist William Lloyd Garrison, who published the letter in his paper The Liberator without her permission. Unauthorized Individual acts were not accepted in the Quaker tradition, and the sisters were harshly criticized for sending the letter. On the other hand, the abolitionist movement embraced them and invited them to join the American Anti-Slavery Society. Their intellect, passion for the cause, and first-hand knowledge as slave-owners made them the perfect agents of the abolitionist movement, and the Grimké sisters became one of the first women to speak publicly about slavery. At first, they faced a female-only audience, and within a few months, their crowd has grown, and they began to speak before both men and women. At the time, women did not speak in front of men, and it was considered a disgrace. After been scold for their behavior, they became aware of the scale of the oppression against women, and they began to identify themselves as feminists. In 1836, Angelina wrote an Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, in which she urged white southern women to join the abolitionist movement. She claimed that slavery is prohibited by Christianity and the US Declaration of Independence and explained how it hurts society. She pleaded for freeing slaves, teaching them to read and to ignore wrongful state laws. In that same year, Sarah addressed the church, writing the Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States. In 1837, the sisters traveled through the Northeast, giving lectures on abolition and women’s rights. Their publications and public speaking drew negative attention and criticism for addressing such controversial topics. After the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts denounced them from speaking in churches, Sarah wrote a series of letters, known as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, defending women’s rights for public speaking. In 1838, at the age of 33, Angelina married the abolitionist Theodore Weld. Two days later, she addressed the Massachusetts state legislature, becoming the first woman in the US to speak in front of a legislative body. During her speech, a mob of anti-abolitionist gathered outside the building and threw rocks through to window. After this event, the Grimké sisters stopped speaking in public but continued to promote the cause privately, attending antislavery meetings and publishing pamphlets, including the American Slavery as It Is Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a collection of stories and testimonies from Southern newspapers. In 1839, the sisters moved to a farm in New Jersey and opened a boarding school that later developed into the Raritan Bay Union cooperative. In 1864, they moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, where they were active members of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association and even tried to vote in 1870. Read more...

Anne Henrietta Martin was born in Empire, Nevada, and grew up in Reno. Graduating from Bishop Whitaker’s School for Girls at 19, she went to study history at the University of Nevada and then for a second B.A. and M.A in history from Stanford University. In 1897, at 22, she founded Nevada State University’s history department, heading the department for two years before resuming her studies at Columbia University, Chase’s Art School in NYC, the University of London, and the University of Leipzig. Then, she worked as an art history instructor at the University of Nevada for several years. In 1909, at 34, Martin took a leave of absence and traveled to Asia and Europe. While in England, she became associated with leaders of the suffrage movement, joined the socialist Fabian Society, and became an active member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), working alongside Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst. She organized meetings and street protests and published short stories and political articles under the pen name of Anne O’Hara. In the fall of 1911, she returned to Nevada, joined The Equal Franchise Society, and was elected as its president the following year. Under Martin’s leadership, the campaign for women’s rights prospered. She went on a speaking tour throughout the state, convincing male voters to enfranchise women. Her goal was achieved on November 3rd, 1914, when women’s suffrage passed by popular vote in Nevada. Following her success, she was asked to join the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) but left for the more militant organization of the National Woman’s Party, elected as its first national chairman in 1916. In addition to this position, Martin served as president of the Nevada Women’s Civic League and the delegate to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. At 43, Martin decided to exercise her new right and became the first woman to run for US Senate. She ran as an independent candidate representing Nevada in 1918 and 1920, addressing various social topics, such as labor issues and the nationalization of railroads and other public utilities. Though she lost twice, she did win 18% of the vote in 1918 and 20% in 1920. In 1921, Martin moved to Carmel, California. For the next 30 years, she advocated for social causes, women’s equality, and farmers’ markets, believing it would benefit both consumers and laborers by eliminating the cost of middlemen. She died at the age of 76. Read more...