This Black History Month, we’re going beyond the “heroes and holidays” approach to dive deep into the stories that shape our ongoing fight for justice—particularly the leadership of Black women whose contributions sustain movements for citizenship, economic justice, and civil rights.

 

THE FIGHT FOR CITIZENSHIP 

Black Women Leading the Way

The 15th Amendment of 1870 was a hard-won milestone, but it didn’t arrive without Black women. Sojourner Truth had been demanding the right to vote since the 1850s, famously attempting to vote in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1872. That spirit of refusal—refusing to be left out, refusing to accept partial freedom—has carried forward through every generation since. From Reconstruction to the suffrage movement to the ongoing battles at the ballot box today, Black women have never stopped pushing toward full citizenship.

Meet three freedom fighters whose work echoes today:

Fannie Lou Hamer was a pivotal civil rights activist, posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 2025 for transforming American racial justice. Renowned for her fearless voting rights advocacy, she co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Freedom Farm Cooperative, famously stating, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Diane Nash is a pivotal, fearless leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who pioneered non-violent direct action. She famously led the successful Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and coordinated the Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate travel, directly influencing the passage of major civil rights legislation.

Ella Baker was a major force in shaping the development of the Civil Rights Movement in America, championing grassroots, “group-centered” leadership over charismatic, top-down authority. Often called the “Fundi” (a mentor who passes down skills), Baker played pivotal roles in the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

The tactics may have changed from poll taxes to voter ID laws, but the fight continues. These women understood that citizenship isn’t just about legal status but about power, voice, and belonging.

Beyond Rosa Parks: The Women Who Made Browder v. Gayle:

SOURCE: (left to right) Mary Louise Smith (Ware), Aurelia E. S. Browder, and Sue McDonald. Images via the Aurelia E. S. Browder Foundation.

We all know Rosa Parks. But do you know Claudette Colvin, Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith?

Nine months before Rosa Parks, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was handcuffed and dragged off a Montgomery bus, declaring that her constitutional rights were being violated. Civil rights leaders initially rallied around her case but backed away when they discovered she was pregnant—they needed someone “unimpeachable.”

But Colvin didn’t disappear. She became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle—the case that ended bus segregation. 

Another young and little-known witness was 19-year-old Mary Louise Smith. A frequent city bus rider, she decided to protest on October 21, 1955, a month and a half before Rosa Parks. “I am not going to move out of my seat. I am not going to move anywhere. I got the privilege to sit here like anybody else,” she replied when asked to give up her seat to a white woman.

The other two witnesses in the case were Aurelia S. Browder (the namesake for the historic case because her last name came first alphabetically) and Susie McDonald. These two older women were frequent bus riders who could testify to being asked to give up their seats to white patrons. Their bold decision to testify in open court against the laws of Alabama segregation could have been deadly, as it challenged the corrupt forces of Jim Crow and its violent supporters.

While the Montgomery Bus Boycott made headlines, it was these women’s legal challenge that won in the Supreme Court in 1956. Their stories remind us: movements need both the inspiring symbols AND the everyday people willing to put their names on the lawsuit.

 

More Voices You Should Know:

Mary Church Terrell, founding president of the National Association of Colored Women, championed “lifting as we climb”—the philosophy that Black women’s advancement must lift the entire community.

SOURCE: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Ray and Jean Langston in memory of Mary Church and Robert Terrell.

  • Mary McLeod Bethune founded Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School (later Bethune-Cookman College) from grassroots organizing and community building; her work set standards for Black Higher Education. 
  • Maya Angelou, whose poem Still I Rise remains an anthem of resilience and resistance.

 

ECONOMIC JUSTICE

Black Women’s Labor Has Always Sustained America

From domestic workers to union organizers, Black women’s labor has built this country’s economy—often without recognition or fair compensation. Leaders like Dorothy Height and Ella Baker understood that economic justice and civil rights are inseparable.

Today, Black women still face the largest wage gap of any demographic. We’re overrepresented among essential workers and in the care economy—the very work that keeps our society functioning. 

Black women’s work has always sustained America. It’s time America sustains Black women.

INTERSECTIONALITY IN ACTION

Scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the concept of intersectionality—the understanding that we can’t separate racial justice from gender justice, or economic justice from any other kind of justice. Black women experience compounded discrimination, and because of this, offer the most comprehensive vision for liberation.

This is especially critical when we look at Black trans women, who face some of the highest rates of violence in our society. In 2016 alone, 13 of 16 recorded homicides of transgender/gender-nonconforming people were transgender women of color. As transgender rights attorney Ezra Young explains, Black trans women are “vulnerable to the same disparities that other Black women are vulnerable to: they’re over-policed, they are seen as hypersexual… Many, because it’s difficult to get employment, it’s difficult to get social support, are pushed into the underground economy.”

Activist Monica Jones, who was arrested for “manifesting prostitution” simply for being a Black trans woman on the street, puts it plainly: 

“Violence happens to women due to power dynamic—people who have some power and have more power pick on the ones without power.”

 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH RECOMMENDATIONS

Get to know our amazing Women Engaged team members! WE are sharing the books, films, and music that move, inspire, and celebrate us. From historical fantasy to classic musicals to soulful R&B, our Black History Month list has something for everyone.

 

BEYOND BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Discussion questions: 

  • How can WE show up for our ancestors, Black women in our communities, year-round, not just in February? 
  • How will we ensure Black trans women are included and protected in our feminism and our fight for justice?
  • In what ways does your workplace, organization, or community center marginalize Black women’s voices and leadership?
  • Mary Church Terrell championed “lifting as we climb.” How can we embody this philosophy in our own movements and communities?

Additional learning:

As we move into March and Women’s History Month, we carry these lessons forward. Because you can’t understand women’s history without centering Black women. You can’t understand American history without centering Black women. And you can’t build a just future without following Black women’s leadership.