Category: Activist / page 19

Frances “Fannie” Barrier Williams
Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams


Frances "Fannie" Barrier Williams was an educator and women's rights activist. Williams was born on Feb. 12, 1855, in Brockport, New York. Her father was a profitable businessman, and the family – one of the few African American families in Brockport – associated with the white elites with little discrimination. Williams graduated from Brockport State Normal School (now SUNY-College at Brockport) in 1870, the first African American graduate from that school. After college, Williams taught at a school for Black students in Hannibal, Missouri, where she experienced considerable discrimination. She […]
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson


Marianne Williamson is an author, lecturer and activist, and was a 2020 and 2024 Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Williamson was born in Houston, Texas, on July 8, 1952. She studied theater and philosophy for two years at Pomona College in Claremont, California, dropping out her junior year. In 1983, she began lecturing on "A Course in Miracles." She published her first book, "A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles," in 1992. In 1989, Williamson founded Project Angel Food, a non-profit […]
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey


Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, actress, producer and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show "The Oprah Winfrey Show," which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011 and was the highest-rated television program of its kind. Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in rural Mississippi and spent much of her youth in inner-city Milwaukee. In high school, she was sent to Tennessee to live with her father, where she was was an honors student and joined the school's speech team, placing second in the nation […]
Victoria Woodhull
Victoria C Woodhull


Victoria Claflin Woodhull was an activist and a leader of the U.S. woman's suffrage movement, and the first female candidate for president of the United States as the nominee for the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Woodhull was born September 23, 1838, in Homer, Ohio. In 1953, at age 15, she married Canning Woodhull and subsequently had two children. Because husband was an alcoholic, Woodhull often worked outside the home to support the family. She divorced her husband in 1864 and married Colonel James Harvey Blood in 1866. Possibly because […]
Frances Wright
Frances Wright


Frances Wright was an social reformer and author. She advocated for universal education, the abolition of slavery, birth control and women's rights. Wright was born September 6, 1795, in Dundee, Scotland. Following the death of Wright's parents when she was two years old, she and her siblings were sent to live with different relatives, with Wright going to live with her aunt and maternal grandfather in England. In 1813, she and a sister moved to Scotland to live with their uncle James Mylne, a strong opponent of slavery. From 1818-1820, […]
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai


Malala Yousafzai is an advocate for women's education from Pakistan. In 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate at age 17 when she shared the Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi. Yousafzai was born in Mingora, Pakistan on July 12, 1997. In 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her school bus. She was targeted because of her previous activism for education, including her experience as a blogger for BBC on her experience living under the threat of the Taliban, which she initially did using […]
Zitkala-Ša
Zitkala-Ša


Zitkala-Ša, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Native American suffragist, writer and activist. Born Gertie Eveline Felker on February 22, 1876 near the Yankton Agency in Dakota Territory, Zitkala-Ša took her mother’s surname as a young woman and changed her name to Gertrude Simmons. When her sister-in-law accused her of abandoning her Native American heritage, she took the name Zitkala-Ša – which translates into English as “Red Bird” – and used it primarily in her writing, her work with the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and personal correspondence. […]