DID YOU KNOW? for June 13 – 26, 2023 

Zitkala-Ša, Lakota for Red Bird, aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (February 22, 1876 – January 26, 1938) was a political activist who found work wearing many hats – as a Yankton Dakota writer, editor, translator, musician, and educator. Zitkala-Ša recounted her struggles with cultural identity, emphasizing the friction between the majority culture in which she was educated and the Dakota culture into which she was born and initially raised. Her work helped bring traditional Native stories to a mainstream audience and influenced Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Learn more….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitkala-Sa

DID YOU KNOW? for May 30 – June 12, 2023

Alice Ball (July 24, 1892 – December 31, 1916) was a black chemist in Hawaii who at the age of 23 in 1915 discovered a way of treating leprosy before antibiotics. Unfortunately, others claimed credit for it. Scholar Paul Wermager explains, “Not only did Alice Ball overcome the racial and gender barriers of her time to become one of the very few African American women to earn a master’s degree in chemistry, [but she] also developed the first useful treatment for Hansen’s disease. Her amazing life was cut too short at the age of 24. Who knows what other marvelous work she could have accomplished had she lived.” 

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https://www.biography.com/scientists/alice-ball

DID YOU KNOW? for May 9 – 22, 2023

The Indian Citizenship Act, established on June 2, 1924, was enacted by Congress to grant citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. However, some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. Learn more about the Indian Citizenship Act and its precursor, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, which had devastating on Native American people and their culture.

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https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-02/

DID YOU KNOW? for April 25 – May 8, 2023

Florence Lois Weber (June 13, 1879 – November 13, 1939) was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer and director. In 1914, Weber became the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film and in 1917, she became the first American woman director to own her own film studio. Weber has been noted as one of "the most important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films".

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weber

DID YOU KNOW? for April 4 – 24, 2023

Learn More….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Wessels_Williams

DID YOU KNOW? for March 21 – April 3, 2023

Joy Harjo (May 9, 1951 – present) is the first Native American to be appointed as the United States poet laureate, serving from 2019-2022. Harjo has written nine books of poetry, several plays, children’s books and two memoirs. Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. Harjo has received an American Book Award, PEN Center USA literary award, the Wallace Stevens Award for proven mastery in the art of poetry from the Academy of American Poets, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and more. In 2019, Harjo was elected a Chancellor the Academy of American Poets. She directs an arts mentorship program for young Mvskoke women and is a founding board member of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.

Learn More….

https://www.joyharjo.com/

DID YOU KNOW? for March 7 – 20, 2023 

Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was the first African American physician admitted to the American College of Surgeons. A pioneering heart surgeon, Williams performed the first successful human open-heart surgery in 1893 at Provident Hospital in Chicago, IL. As an advocate to end racial disparities in the medical field, he co-founded the National Medical Association in 1895, a professional organization for black medical practitioners because the all-white American Medical Association did not grant membership to black doctors.

Learn more…

https://www.jsums.edu/gtec/dr-daniel-hale-williams/

DID YOU KNOW? for February 21 – March 6, 2023 

Nancy Grace Roman (May 16, 1925 – December 25, 2018) is known to many as the “Mother of the Hubble” for her foundational role in the observatory’s planning and program structure, paving the way for missions like the Roman Space Telescope (formerly WFIRST). She received her BA degree in Astronomy in 1946 from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and her PhD from the University of Chicago. As a female in astronomy, Roman faced many challenges throughout her career. From a young age she was discouraged from going into astronomy by those around her, and struggled with its male dominance and the roles perceived as appropriate for women.

Learn more…

https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/aboutNGR.html

DID YOU KNOW? for February 7 – 20, 2023 

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (October 9, 1823 – June 5, 1893) was an African-American anti-slavery activist, an advocate for women's rights, a teacher, and a lawyer. A pioneering journalist, Cary became the first black, female newspaper editor in North America as a publisher of Canada’s first antislavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. As a member of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), Cary spoke at the NWSA's 1878 convention. She also served as an advocate for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Learn more...

https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-ann-shadd-cary.htm

DID YOU KNOW? for January 24 – February 6, 2023

Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. (December 18, 1912 – July 4, 2002) a United States Air Force (USAF) general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen, was the first African-American brigadier general in the USAF. During World War II, he was commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron which escorted bombers on air combat missions over Europe. Davis flew sixty missions in P-39, Curtiss P-40, P-47 and P-51 Mustang fighters. Davis followed in his father's footsteps in breaking racial barriers, as Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was the first black brigadier general in the United States Army.

Learn more…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_O_Davis_Jr