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...

Sheryl Denise Swoopes was born in Brownfield, Texas. Her parents divorced before she turned one, and she stayed with her mother. As a child, she used to play basketball with her older brothers, and at the age of 7, she began to compete in a local group. Swoopes went on to play at her high school basketball team and caught the attention of numerous college recruiters. After graduation, Swoopes joined the University of Texas team but left soon without playing a single game. She relocated to South Plains College, playing there for two years before enrolling at Texas Tech, playing with the Texas Tech Lady Raiders. In 1993, at the age of 22, while in her senior year, Swoopes led her team to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship while setting a new record for most points scored in the title game with 47 points, for which she was named the National Player of the Year. In 1994, Swoopes joined the US Women’s Basketball Team. She played with them for more than ten years, winning three Olympic gold medals, two world cup gold medals, and a Goodwill games gold medal. Following her success, in 1996, at 25, Swoopes was the first player to sign with the newly formed Women’s National Basketball Association, WNBA, playing with the Houston Comets and leading the team to win the first WNBA title in 1997. During the 11 years career in the team, Swoopes had scored more than 2,000 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists, and 200 steals. She was also was the first player to be named three times WNBA MVP, three times WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, and four times WNBA champion. In 2008, at the age of 37, Swoopes left Houston Comets to play with the Seattle Storm. In the following season, she joined the Greek team for several years. In 2011, she returned to the US and played with the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock. A year later, she left and played as a free agent. In 2017, she returned to Texas Tech as the Director of Player Development and then as an assistant coach. In 2019, Swoopes founded Back to Our Roots, a non-profit organization that educates and empowers youth through sports and cultures. Read more...

Opal Lee grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. Since she was a child, her family celebrated Juneteenth with food and baseball games. When she was 12 years old, only days after she and her family moved to a new house in a white neighborhood, a mob of 500 white supremacists rioted her home, vandalizing the furniture and setting the house on fire. In 1943, at the age of 16, she graduated from I.M. Terrell High School – the first black high school in Fort Worth. At the age of 26, she received a Bachelor’s degree from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. She returned to Fort Worth and began her life-long career as an educator at Amanda McCoy Elementary School. She met Dale Lee, a principal at Morningside Elementary, and the couple got married. A few years later, they got divorced, and she was teaching during the days while working nights at Convair to support her children. Over the years, she was an active member of her community, serving on the Fort Worth-Tarrant County Community Action Agency board and organizing events for Black History Month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Juneteenth. Lee earned her Master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance from North Texas State University and then worked as a Counselor for Fort Worth Independent School District until she retired in 1977 at the age of 51. Upon her retainment, she took her community involvement to the next level. She was among the founding members of Citizens Concerned with Human Dignity and co-founded the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society, an organization that preserves the history of the city’s Black residence. Lee’s main effort was always toward making Juneteenth a federal holiday, officializing the celebrations of the abolition of slavery. To promote the cause, every year on June 19, she led a 2.5-mile walk – representing the 2.5 years that passed from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865 until the news reached Texas, freeing more than 250,000 enslaved Black people and finalizing slavery in the US. In 2016, Lee turned her focus nationally. At the age of 89, she launched an online petition to make the day a federal holiday, in which she pledged to walk from Texas to Washington, DC, if she receives 100,000 signatures. More than 1.5 million people signed the petition, and on the first week of September, Lee began the 1,400 miles of “Opal’s Walk.” Each day she walked the symbolic 2.5 miles, passing through Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and the Virginias, reaching Washington, DC, in January of 2017. On June 17th, 2021, At the age of 94, Lee witnessed her lifetime efforts paying off as an honorary guest at the signing ceremony where President Joe Biden signed the bill that made Juneteenth a federal holiday. Read more...

Becky Hammon was born in Rapid City, South Dakota. Since the moment she started walking she learned how to dribble. Growing up in a small town where not many girls were interested in basketball, she used to play mostly at the boys’ teams. In her youth, she played at her high school basketball team, been named South Dakota Miss Basketball as a junior, and voted South Dakota Player of the Year as a senior. After her graduation, she was recruited by the Colorado State Rams, becoming one of the best players in the history of the team – setting one record after another, leading her team to 33–3 record, and win the NCAA Tournament’s, Sweet Sixteen. At 22, Hammon signed with the New York Liberty, becoming a fan favorite. Within four years, she was appointed the team’s starting point guard, and in the following season, she became one of the team’s co-captains. In 2003, she began playing with the Tennessee Fury of the National Women’s Basketball League, and in her first season, she led the league’s scoring with an average of 20.6 points per game. In 2004, she joined the Colorado Chill but had to leave after only two games to recover from a knee injury. She returned in the following year, scoring her 2,000th WNBA career point. At the age of 30, she was traded to the San Antonio Silver Stars. With them, she reached a high average of 18.8 ppg and 5.0 APG, leading the team to a 24–10 record and getting them into the playoffs for two consecutive years. During the offseason of the leagues, she played for various clubs outside the US, such as Ros Casares Valencia, Trentino Rovereto Basket, and CSKA Moscow. In 2008, when she learned that she won’t be playing with the U.S. national team in the Olympics, she joined the Russian national team and played with them in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. In 2013, while playing for the San Antonio Stars, Hammon tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. During the year-long recovery, she paved the way to the next step in her career. She began to attend the San Antonio Spurs’ games, practices, and coaches’ meetings and was asked for her professional opinions. After her recovery, she returned to play for one more year before retiring from the WNBA. By the end of her career as a player, she has been a 6 times WNBA All-Star, 2 times All-WNBA First Team, 2 times All-WNBA Second Team, and a Euroleague All-Star MVP. In the summer of 2014, Hammon was hired as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs, becoming the second female coach in the NBA. In the following year, when she became the Spurs’ summer league coach, she made history as the first female head coach in the NBA’s Summer League, and when she led the team to the Las Vegas Summer League title, she became the first female NBA head coach to win a Summer League title. In 2016, Hammon made history once again when she became the first woman to be part of the All-Star coaching staff. Read more...

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas. Her talent in dancing and singing was discovered at a young age, and by the age of 7, she won her first award at a talent show at her school. She attended a music magnet school in Houston, where she performed with the school’s choir as well as her local Church. At age 8, she and her friend Kelly Rowland joined a group called “Girl’s Tyme,” and together they appeared in the talent show “Star Search.” Beyoncé’s father, Matthew Knowles, resigned his job to serve as the band’s manager. He changed their name to Destiny’s Child, and Beyoncé became the lead vocalist. In 1998, Destiny’s Child released their first album that includes the major hit “No, No, No.” Afterward, they became one of the most popular R&B acts. Two years later, the group released its second album, “The Writing’s on the Wall,” which included the #1 singles “Bills, Bills, Bills,” and “Say My Name.” Beyoncé began to focus on individual projects, and in 2003, she released her first solo album, “Dangerously in Love,” for which she won five Grammy Awards. A year later, Destiny’s Child was officially disbanded. In her second album, “B’Day,” she continued to hit the charts with singles such as “Irreplaceable” and “Déjà vu.” In 2008, soon after she married the rapper and producer Jay-Z, she released her 3rd album “I Am… Sasha Fierce,” that includes the iconic “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” as well as “Halo” and “If I Were a Boy.” The album, named after Beyoncé’s alter ego, sold 482,000 copies in its first week. For this album, she won 6 Grammy Awards, out of 10 nominations. In 2009, at the age of 28, Beyoncé sang Etta James’s “At Last” at President Barack Obama’s first inaugural ball (she later sang the American national anthem at his second inauguration). In the following years, she founded Parkwood Entertainment, an entertainment company that manages Beyoncé’s products as a brand in music, movies, and fashion. In 2011, her 4th album “4” was released. The album was Beyoncé’s 4th consecutive number-one album in the US. Not long after giving birth to her first child Blue Ivy, she made her first appearance at the Superbowl halftime show. With 268,000 tweets per minute, the performance became the second most tweeted about moment in history. Three years later, she made her second appearance at the national event. In 2013, Beyoncé once again broke a record when her 5th album “Beyoncé” sold more than 800,000 copies in its first weekend. By that, she made history for becoming the first woman to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for five consecutive number-one albums in the US, a record she will break again in her sixth album. In 2016 she released an hour-long film and an album called “Lemonade,” focusing on her reeling from the romantic and sexual betrayal of her partner. This album, too, hit number one on the US Billboard 200. Beyoncé continues to work on music projects, participate in films, and tour around the world. It was once written about her – “Beyoncé doesn’t release albums; she creates cultural events.” Read more...

Mary Ellen Lawson Dabbs was born in Rusk County, Texas. Her family owned a cotton plantation, and she participated in activities usually reserved only for men. She received her education at the county school and later attended the Furlow Masonic College in Georgia. She graduated first in her class. Back in Texas, she met her husband – a widower merchant with four children who was twenty years older than her. While taking care of his children and giving birth to five more, she helped him in his business. When his sons were older enough, he deeded over his property to them, and Dabbs realized she needs to be independent with an income of her own, so at the age of 33, she decided to end her tempestuous marriage and pursue medicine. The first step was not to have more children, and she stopped having sex with her husband. He physically abused her for that until she reported him to the authorities and moved to Sulphur Springs filing for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Next, she began to study at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, Iowa, then midwifery in St. Louis. At the age of 37, she completed her medical degree. At the time, her divorce was not finalized, and her husband bribed the local sheriff and the district clerk not to notify her about the date of the final hearing, which caused the dismission of the divorce case. She moved to Dallas to practice medicine, but that attempt was unsuccessful, so she returned to Sulphur Springs, where she set up a practice presenting herself as a widow. With her own experience of the unequal results of the divorce prosses, Dabbs began to pay interest in the women’s rights movement. She moved to Fort Worth, where there were already seven women who practiced medicine. She was Texas delegate at the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and was chosen as the state chair of the Woman’s Southern Council. A year later, she co-founded the Texas Equal Rights Association –the Texan women’s suffrage society. At age 41, she was chosen as the president of the “Women’s Congress,” and promoted legislation concerning women’s welfare, such as age-of-consent and the establishment of a women’s industrial school, that became Texas Woman’s University. During the Spanish–American War, Dabbs volunteered for six months as a contract nurse at Camp Cuba Libre, where she contracted tuberculosis. It affected her health for the rest of her life. In 1899, after her house was destroyed by fire, she returned to Rusk, but eventually, she traded her farm and moved to Oklahoma, where she continued to practice medicine. When her tuberculosis was getting worse, she moved to New Mexico in the hope of being cured, but she took her own life when she realized the stage of the disease. She is buried in an anonymous grave for victims of tuberculosis. Read more...

Born in La Vernia, Texas. She received education in county schools, and at 15 years old, she attended Dr. Zealey’s Female College in Mississippi. At age 18, she married Arthur McCallum, and the couple settled in Austin, where he served as a school superintendent. Her first steps into politics were campaigning for woman suffrage and prohibition. She convinced the owner of the newspaper “The Austin American” to publish a regular column in which she wrote editorials against the women’s rights movement’s opposition. At the age of 35, she attended the University of Texas at Austin and became one of the first mothers to study at the university. She dropped out after three years and registered again a few years later, but never completing her degree. In 1915, she was chosen as president of the Austin Women Suffrage Association. Together with Minnie Fisher Cunningham, the president of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, she led a statewide campaign for the women’s suffrage movement, giving speeches and publishing articles. In 1920, after the ratification of the 19th amendment, McCallum shifted her focus toward other political reforms. She became active in the League of Women Voters in Texas and served as its first vice president. She also served as executive secretary of the Women’s Joint Legislative Council, also known as the “Petticoat Lobby,” promoting legislation of women’s and social issues such as school funding, maternal and child health care, restrictions on child labor, illiteracy, prison reform, and stricter prohibition laws. After supporting Dan Moody’s campaign for state governor, asking women to vote for him, she was appointed the Secretary of State, a position she served for six years. McCallum is the only person in Texas to serve in this position under two governors and for more than one term. While in office, she discovered an original signed copy of the Texas Declaration of Independence and helped restore it. She remained active in politics throughout her life, giving speeches, writing her column, and leading women’s demonstrations. She served as an elector during the 1940 presidential election and as a state Democratic committeewoman during the next two presidential elections. She was appointed as the first city planning commission of Austin and leading women. In 1954, after women won the right to serve on juries, 77 years old, McCallum became the first female commissioner of a Travis County Grand Jury. Read more...

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was born in Lake Jackson, Texas, to a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. From a young age, her father noticed her musical abilities, and at the age of 9, she became the lead singer of her family’s band Selena y Los Dinos. At first, the band played at the family’s restaurant, but when it was bankrupt, they played everywhere they could, from street corners to fairs and weddings. Over time their popularity grew, especially Selena’s. At 13, she recorded her first Tejano music LP album, and by 17, she recorded five more albums and frequently appeared at the popular Spanish radio program – the Johnny Canales Show. At 18, while performing at the Tejano Music Awards, she was discovered by the music producer José Behar of label EMI Latin Records. She released an album every year, getting more and more popular with singles hitting the top US Billboard Regional Mexican Albums chart, the US Billboard Top Latin Songs chart, performing all over the US and Mexico, and winning music awards. In 1993 she released her third studio album “Live!” for which she won Best Mexican/American Album at the 1994 Grammy Award, becoming the first female Tejano artists to win a Grammy. Her successes broke barriers in the Latin music world, and she was referred to as the Queen of Tejano music. In 1990, a fan named Yolanda Saldívar founded the official Selena fan club, and Saldívar started working for Selena. Selena’s father discovered that Saldívar had embezzled more than $30,000 from the fan club. On March 31, 1995, Selena confronted Saldívar in a hotel. Saldívar took a gun out of her purse and shot Selena while she attempted escaping. Selena died on the way to the hospital when she is only 23 years old. About 35,000 fans came to the funeral to pay their last respect while the funeral was broadcasted live by the local radio station.   Read more...

Born as Franzisca Bernadine Wilhelmina Elisabet Ney in Münster, Prussia (today German). As a child, she was assisting her father with his job as a stone carver. After graduating from the local school, she announced that she is moving to Berlin to study sculpture, but her parents refused because a good Catholic girl does not move on her own to Berlin as well as women were not accepted to art schools in Berlin. Eventually, her parents permitted her to study sculpture, but instead of Berlin, the 19 years old, Ney moved to Munich. At first, she studied with a private teacher, and later she was admitted to the Royal Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, becoming the first woman to be admitted to the Academy’s School of Sculpture. She graduated with high honors and moved to Berlin to study at the Berlin Academy of Art, where Christian Daniel Rauch was her teacher. Through him, she met many notable and renowned people, who later, after she opened her studio, become her sculptures’ subjects, including the brothers Grimm, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Richard Wagner. Back in Munich, Ney met Edmund Montgomery, a Scottish medical student at the time. They got married, even though she believed that the institution of marriage is a state of bondage for women. She kept her surname, remained outspoken about her view of women’s roles, and often denied she was married. The couple lived for a while in Madeira and Rome before migrating to Thomasville, Georgia, to avoid the Franco-Prussian War and in the hope of establishing a colony of like-minded people in America. Pregnant with her first child, Ney quit sculpturing for nearly 20 years to take care of her family as well as to run the Liendo plantation they bought after moving to Galveston, Texas. In 1890, when she was almost sixty years old, Ney received a commission to sculpture the figures of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin that was supposed to be displayed at the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Fair in Chicago. Although she missed the deadline, the two life-sized statues can be seen today at the Texas State Capitol in Austin and the National Statuary Hall Collection in the US Capitol. In 1892 she set Austin as her new home, a house in a Greek temple style with a studio and large wild garden. She named it “Formosa” and it became a cultural gathering center, which made a great impact on the city’s art scene. She continued to sculpt till her last day, on June 29, 1907. She and her husband, who died four years later, are buried in Liendo plantation. Read more...

Simone Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio. Her early childhood was in foster care since her father wasn’t around and her mother suffered from addiction. When she was three years old, her grandfather began taking care of her and her siblings and eventually adopted them. At age 6, while on a day-care field trip, Biles discovered gymnastics. Soon after, she enrolled in a training program at Bannon’s Gymnastix, where she met her coach Aimee Boorman. At 14, Biles launched her career as a professional gymnast, and in her first competition, she placed first on vault and balance beam, fourth on floor exercise, and third all-around. Only one year later, she competed in the US Classic and placed first on vault and all-around, and second on floor exercise. When Biles was 16 years old, in her debut in the International Federation of Gymnastics Competition, she placed first on floor and all-around, as well as second on vault. By then it was clear that Biles is a promising athlete with virtuosic achievements in her future. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Biles won four Olympic gold medals – 3 individual and 1 with her U.S team. By that, she set a new American record for most gold medals in women’s gymnastics at a single Olympics and became one of the only two American female gymnasts to win both team gold medal and the all-around gold medal at the same Olympic games. After a hiatus, at the age of 21, Biles return competing and once again was added to the U.S national team. In June 2021 she scored her seventh all-around title at the US Gymnastics Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the first woman in history to hold this number of US titles. Read more...