Written by Chelsea Thompson | 3/8/2021

Women’s History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. Although, often when you talk about great women you bring up either rosa parks or Michelle Obama. Therefore, we are bringing up 5 female Urban Intellectuals to show everyone why women are important too! 

Ella Baker

Ella Baker is a Civil rights activist and behind-the-scenes organizer. Because of the work, she did with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). And the Southern Christon Leadership Conference (SCLC). Also, she worked beside some prominent Civil Rights leaders of the 20 century, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Thurgood Marshall, and W. E. B. Du Bois. She served as an organizer on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and guide students who were leading campus sit-ins.

Furthermore, she continued her activism in later years and was passionate about solving school desegregation problems ending the Apartheid in South Africa, and addressing police brutality issues in the U.S. “Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest – Ella Baker

Diana Ross

Diana Ross is a singer, songwriter, actress, and twelve-time Grammy nominee. That spans over four decades. Also, Ross achieved twelve number one hits as a solo singer. She finally ending her role as the lead singer of the Supremes in 1970. She gave a golden globe award and academy award-nominated performance in 1972’s Lady sings in the blues. Most importantly, she became the first African American woman to co-host the Academy Awards in 1974. Furthermore, Named “female entertainer of the century”.

“I think a responsibility comes with notoriety, but I never think of it as power. It’s more like something you hold, like grains of sand. If you keep your hand closed, you can have it and possess it, but if you open your fingers in any way, you can lose it just as quickly.” – Diana Ross

Dr. Dorothy Height

Dorothy Height is a Civil Rights and Women’s Rights activist. She Began her speaking career in high school as an anti lynching actvist. Also, Dorothy Broadened her activism after the founder of National Council of Negro Women came to visit the YMCA where she worked. She worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on several different campaigns and initiatives. Although,  Height subsequently used her position to call on the black community to make itself more independent, placing special emphasis in the 1990s on drawing young people into the organization to join in the war against drugs. Also,  illiteracy, and unemployment.

She also served as a social services expert on local, state, and federal government committees concerned with women’s issues. Furthermore, Before retiring in 1996, she helped secure funding for a national headquarters for the NCNW in the historic Sears House in Washington, D.C., where the organization also housed its Dorothy I. Height Leadership Institute. The numerous honors bestowed upon her include the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1994) and the Congressional Gold Medal (2004).

Deolinda Rodrigues de Almeida

Rodríguez de Almeida was born in Catete, Angola, on 10 February 1939. Her Methodist parents were school teachers, and she was a middle child, with four other siblings. She moved to Luanda and lived with her cousin, the poet Agostinho Neto. Who went on to become the first president of Angola. Although, she was educated in the Methodist Missionary schools and taught writing and translating while a young girl. By the late 1950s she had begun to question the paternal attitude of both the government and the church. In 1956, Rodríguez joined the MPLA as a translator.

While a sociology student on scholarship at the Methodist University of São Paulo. In 1959, she exchanged correspondence with Martin Luther King Jr. Fearing she would be extradited from Brazil because of the Portuguese Imperial relationship between its colonies and her support of the growing Angolan Independence movement, Rodríguez de Almeida moved to the United States the following year and studied at Drew University. 

Because she wanted to be an active participant in Angola’s independence, Rodríguez did not finish school and decided to leave the U.S. In February 1961, she was recruited to participate in the MPLA attack on “Fortaleza”, later gaining the honorary title of “Mother of the Revolution”.

Rodríguez traveled to Guinea-Bissau and Congo Kinshasa, where she co-founded the Organização da Mulher de Angola. The women’s division of the MPLA. She received guerrilla training in Kabinda and joined the Esquadrão Kamy. She returned to Angola in 1962. Therefore, Rodríguez was executed in prison.

Dame Eugenia Charles 

Dame Charles was the first female attorney of Dominica and only female Prime Minister. She served as head of state longer than any other Prime Minister of Dominica. Also, Dame helped to found the Dominica Freedom Party in the 1970s and led it for over two decades. She worked with the U.S President Ronald Reagan to orchestrate the 1983 United States Invasion of Grenada. Dedicated herself to the reconstruction of housing, roads and other infrastructure destroyed by Hurricane David. In 1981 she faced two attempted coups d’état. That year Frederick Newton, commander of the Military of Dominica, organised an attack on the police headquarters in Roseau, resulting in the death of a police officer. Newton and five other soldiers were found guilty in the attack and sentenced to death in 1983. The sentences of the five accomplices were later commuted to life in prison, but Newton was executed in 1986.

In 1981, a group of Canadian and American mercenaries, mostly affiliated with white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan groups, planned a coup to restore former Prime Minister Patrick John to power.

Conclusion

Women are important just as anyone else. They deserve their respects and praise for the marvelous things they did. If you want to lose weight then  join us today and help us Inspire others to shed pounds naturally. 

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: