The 31 days of March are special to American women. We observe National Women’s History Month with recognition of the progress, contributions, and accomplishments of women. The 2012 theme is “Women’s Education — Women’s Empowerment.”
Helen Reddy addressed the issues of women’s education and empowerment for me when she sang “I am woman, hear me roar.”
The education of women in the United States lagged behind the education of men by two centuries. The first institution of higher learning, Harvard, was built for male students 201 years before women could pursue a college degree. Mount Holyoke (Massachusetts) was built in 1837 as a separate women’s seminary, and Oberlin (Ohio) enrolled four women during the same year. Oberlin became the first college to graduate an African-American woman when Mary Jane Patterson completed her studies in 1862.
Charlotte Forten Grimke, one of the 2012 honorees listed by the National Women’s History Project, left a powerful legacy in several cities along the Atlantic Coastline. Grimke (1837-1914) taught former slaves in a small school on St. Helena Island as part of the Port Royal Experiment.
The legacy of Mary Gordon Ellis is well known in Jasper County. A public building is named in her honor. Elected senator in 1928, she was the first woman elected to the South Carolina Legislature. She served as a teacher/principal and later as superintendent of schools in Jasper County. According to the S.C. State Museum, Gordon was fired when she sought to improve schools for black children.
This column is dedicated to Danica Patrick and Dorothy Whitaker. Patrick finished 38th in Monday’s Daytona 500. She finished the race in spite of adversity. She continues the history of women in NASCAR started by Sara Christian in 1949. Whitaker, one of my relatives, started as a union organizer for a New York City local union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Before retiring, she served on the union’s Women’s Committee and as a member of the Executive Board rising to President of the local affiliate.
Perhaps the lyrics of the song by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton speak for countless women: “I am woman, hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore/….You can bend but never break me/ ‘Cause it only serves to make me/ More determined to achieve my final goal/ And I come back even stronger/Not a novice any longer/ ‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul.”