Category: Activist

Deedra Abboud
Deedra Abboud


Deedra Abboud was a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona in the 2018 election, but lost in the primary. In 202o, she ran for election to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to represent District 2, but lost in the general election . Abboud was born on November 11, 1971, and grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. She converted to Islam after her marriage in 1998. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, she became active in advocating for Muslims through positions such as director of the Arizona […]
Bella Abzug
Bella Abzug


Bella Abzug served as a United States representative from 1971-1977, representing New York's 19th district (1971-1973) and New York's 20th district (1973-1977). Abzug was born July 24, 1920, and grew up in New York's Bronx neighborhood. She received an A.B. from Hunter College in 1942 and then entered Columbia University Law School. She practiced law for 25 years, working on labor and tenants' rights, civil rights and liberties cases. In the 1960's, Abzug cofounded Women Strike for Peace, a group that protested the nuclear arms race and later the American […]
Sadie Lewis Adams
Sadie Lewis Adams


Sadie Lewis Adams was a teacher, suffragist and clubwoman. Adams was born on February 24, 1872, in Staunton, Virginia. She earned a teaching certificate from Hartshorn Memorial College in Richmond, and taught in the Staunton Public School system until her marriage in 1892. In 1910, Adams and her husband moved to Chicago, Illinois. She became active in volunteer activities and women's clubs, including the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first African American suffrage organization in Chicago. After Illinois granted women the right to vote in local elections in 1914, Adams was […]
Jane Addams
Jane Addams


Jane Addams was a settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women's suffrage and world peace. She was the second woman and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1931, and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States. Addams was born on September 6, 1860, in Cedarville, Illinois. Her father, John Addams, was a founding member of the Illinois Republican Party and served as an Illinois State Senator from 1855 to 1870. He was friends […]
Margaret Walker Alexander
Margaret Walker Alexander


Margaret Walker was an African American poet, novelist, educator, and activist. Alexander was born on July 7, 1915, in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in New Orleans. She came from a home immersed in literature and was influenced by her grandmother’s stories of slavery, fueling a lifelong commitment to writing honestly and respectfully about African American life. She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in 1935, and later master’s (1940) and doctorate (1965) from the University of Iowa. During the Great Depression, Alexander worked for the Federal […]
Nina Evans Allender
Nina Evans Allender


Nina Evans Allender was a political cartoonist and suffragist. She served as the official cartoonist for Alice Paul’s National Woman’s Party. Allender was born in Auburn, Kansas, in 1872. Her mother, Eva, left her father and moved to Washington, D.C. with Nina and her sister to work at the Department of the Interior. Allender married an Englishman as a young woman, but he abandoned her after a short while. She then took a job at the Treasury Department and pursued art more seriously. She studied art at the Corcoran School […]
Naomi Bowman Talbert Anderson
Naomi Bowman Talbert Anderson


Naomi Bowman Talbert Anderson was a poet, writer and public speaker who often gave speeches on the experience of Black women and their right to vote. She spoke about the issues of Black women but was an advocate for all genders and races. She worked alongside suffragists to campaign for the first woman’s suffrage referendum. Anderson was born on March 1, 1843, in Michigan City, Indiana, to one of two Black families in the community. At age 12, she was noticed for her poetic talent and was invited to attend […]
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou


Dr. Maya Angelou was a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker and civil rights activist. Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African American family, community, and culture. As a teenager, her love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco's Labor School. At 14, she dropped out […]
Annie Arniel
Annie Arniel


Annie Arniel was a suffragist, women's rights advocate, and member of the Silent Sentinels who picketed the White House in 1917. Arniel was born in May 1873 in Harrington, Delaware. She married in 1891 and was widowed in 1910, thereafter supporting herself and her daughter as a factory worker. In 1914, Arniel and her daughter participated in a Washington, D.C., suffrage parade. The same year, she served as a delegate for the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association to the National American Woman Suffrage Association's annual convention. In 1915, she served as […]
Ella Baker
Ella Baker


Ella Josephine Baker was a civil rights activist whose organizational, behind-the-scenes work made her one of the most important figures in the Civil Rights Movement. She emphasized the importance of a grassroots approach over charismatic leadership within the movement. Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, and grew up in North Carolina. After graduating from Shaw University in 1927, she moved to New York. In 1931, while working as an editorial assistant at the Negro National News, Baker joined the Young Negroes Cooperative League and soon became […]