IWD 2020: Women who changed our world in the last 100 years, March 08, 2020 Gratiana Lovelace (Post #1286)

As we annually celebrate International Women’s Day this year on March, 08, 2020, I wish to also highlight some of the many women who have made a difference in our lives around the world in the past 100 years.

Speaking for myself, I will highlight below four of these influential women from the U.S.–though there are so many more to choose from.  And I hope that my readers from the U.S. and other countries will also suggest additional influential women biographies and their resource links in the comments below.  Cheers!

Margaret Sanger – a nurse advocate for family planning resources and women’s reproductive health, in part possibly inspired by her own mother’s 18 pregnancies with only 11 live births; though Sanger was not without her critics, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood in 1966, praising her work with minorities;

Eleanor Roosevelt – advocate for human rights, especially for women and children, which culminated in her participation in the United Nations “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” project;

 

Shirley Chisolm – A civil rights activist and the first Black woman to run for Presidential office in 1972  and who was elected to congress from the state of New York, serving from 1969-1983;

Prof. Maya Angelou – Civil Rights activist, author of numerous books, and a literary icon who famously wrote and performed the beautiful “On the Pulse of Morning” poem for Bill Clinton’s 1993 inauguration; as well as, her authoring a plethora of inspiring poems, such as Angelou’s stirring poem “And Still I Rise”;

And happily, TIME Magazine has also thought to feature influential women of the last 100 years.