Hebh Jamal is a young leader in the fight against Islamophobia. In a post 9/11 world, she is trying to change the image and rhetoric that surrounds Muslims in America. In 2017, the Trump administration announced the “Muslim ban,” essentially banning US entry to travelers coming from seven different countries consisting of majority Muslim populations. Hebh spoke out against this travel ban and organized a citywide walkout that involved thousands of local high school students. These students left their classes to protest Donald Trump’s election and fight bigotry. Since Trump’s ban, Hebh has continued to organize protests, rallies, and be a strong progressive voice in the resistance against Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric.
“We are called “kids” when we use our voice to enact change, but we’re not kids…”
—Hebh Jamal
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Hannah Camilleri found her activism after posting about being sexually harassed at a gig. She quickly found many responses from other girls who had experienced similar harassment at these events and sprang into action. Hannah and her friends founded Girls Against in 2015 to open up the discussion between fans, bands, and organizers to put an end to harassment at gigs. Since its inception, Girls Against has gotten support from bands, been featured in publications, and continue their blog covering feminist ideas and the music world.
“Because we’re all teenagers, we understand and fear the same things [the people messaging us] do.”
—Hannah Camilleri
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Thandiwe Chama is a Zambian educational rights activist, who got her start when her school closed down due to a lack of teachers. Though she was only eight years old at the time, Thandiwe helped lead her classmates in the search for a new school, and she has persisted in her activism ever since. At sixteen years old, she was awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize for her efforts to help more and more children gain access to education. She also advocates for the rights of African individuals living with AIDS and HIV. Through her activism, she has gained international recognition and has brought more awareness to these diseases as well as to educational issues in her home country.
“…I love knowing my rights and my responsibility as a child.”
—Thandiwe Chama
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Daisy grew up in a small sawmill town of Arkansas called Huttig in a shotgun house with her biological mother and father. In a horrible turn of events, her mother was raped and murdered by three local white men, and the case was never solved due to lack of devotion to the case. After her mother’s death, Bates was then handed off to be raised by family friends and she never saw her biological father. As one could imagine, the death of her mother and the events that followed impacted her for life, even though they occurred early in her childhood. Because Daisy had to confront the existence of racism very early in life, it drove her to become a lifelong activist.
“No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.”
—Daisy Bates
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Several months prior to the arrest of Rosa Parks, Montgomery-born Claudette Colvin, a fifteen-year-old high school student, refused to give up her own seat on a segregated bus on a ride home from school and was arrested. She would later become one of four female plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, a supreme court case that resulted in the desegregation of busses in Montgomery and Alabama.
“I knew then and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it.”
—Claudette Colvin
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Mackenzie is a young girl who many adults should strive to be like. Mackenzie was diagnosed with a disorder called complex regional pain. Dealing with chronic pain constantly, she often turned to books to help keep her mind off the physical and emotional pain. She didn’t want other kids to suffer with pain as she had in the past, so she created Sheltering Books when she was just fifteen. Sheltering Books is a nonprofit organization that collects and donates books to homeless shelters and hospitals. Her nonprofit also helps develop reading spaces, such as libraries and reading rooms, where these books can be kept, used, and read. Mackenzie is an incredible young girl because she never let her disability prevent her from doing the things she wanted to accomplish in life or let stereotypes define her abilities and potential. Instead, she turned her disability into her inspiration.
“When I read, it’s a real escape.” —Mackenzie Bearup
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a pioneering guitarist and singer who became known as the “godmother of rock and roll” and the “original soul sister.” She was born in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. Her mother was a singer and mandolin player who performed at her local church. Sister Tharpe proved herself to be a prodigy and picked up the guitar at the age of four. By the age of six she was touring the South with a traveling evangelical troupe that included her mother. At the age of twenty-three, she recorded her first albums with Decca Records. Her first recordings, which were a mix of gospel and what would later be known as rock and roll music, were instant hits. Sister Tharpe was a pioneer in her guitar technique, which featured heavy distortion. She was the first great gospel recording artist and brought gospel music into the mainstream. She also influenced several musicians, including Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Carl Perkins. Sister Tharpe continued recording and traveling on tour, gaining a worldwide following. She died in 1973 at the age of fifty-eight. Sister Tharpe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 2018.
Sister Gertrude Morgan was an American artist, musician, poet, and preacher. She was born in 1900 in LaFayette, Alabama. Sister Morgan left school before she completed the third grade. Sometime around 1917 her family moved to Columbus, Georgia, where she worked as a servant and a nursemaid. In 1939, she moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she lived until her death. Throughout her life, Sister Morgan received many revelations from God. In 1956, God urged her to begin painting. Her paintings depicted religious subjects. Sister Morgan was a street preacher, and she used both music and her artwork in her sermons. Around 1960, Sister Morgan met an art dealer while preaching on the street. He invited her to his gallery to perform and display her work, and her popularity took off. She worked with whatever material was available to her, including cardboard, window shades, Styrofoam trays, plastic utensils, jelly glasses, blocks of wood, her guitar case, and the back of a “For Sale” sign that a real estate agent placed outside her home. She began exhibiting her work at galleries all around the country. Sister Morgan died in 1980.
Yolanda Adams is an American gospel singer, record producer, actress, author, and radio show host. She was born in Houston, Texas, in 1961. She earned a degree in radio/television broadcasting from Texas Southern University and went to work as a teacher after college. Adams first gained attention as a singer with Houston’s Southeast Inspirational Choir, where she was a lead singer. In 1982, the choir released a single called “For My Liberty” that featured her as the vocalist. Her first mainstream breakthrough came with the release of Mountain High… Valley Low in 1999. The album won a Grammy award and went double platinum. Adams went on to win four more Grammy Awards, five BET Awards, six NAACP Image Awards, six Soul Train Music Awards, two BMI Awards, and sixteen Stellar Awards. She made history as the first gospel musician to win an American Music Award. In 2009, she was named Billboard magazine’s top-selling gospel artist from 1999–2009. In 2016, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for her volunteer work. In 2017, she was inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame. She hosted a radio program, The Yolanda Adams Morning Show, from 2007–2016. In 2010, she published her book Points of Power. The title comes from one of the segments on her radio program. Adams was the spokesperson for Operation Rebound, a program sponsored by FILA Corporation that helped inner-city schoolchildren. She said, “I truly believe that my songs bring the answers and the solutions, as opposed to just talking about the problems. My music at its core is joyful.”
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Black Women by Becca Anderson and MJ Fievre, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Black women were making surprising contributions to the military and to public service while the country was still shape-shifting from thirteen colonies into the union we know today. After the Civil War ended, many Black women moved north and west to escape the oppression in the South. They followed the expansion westward, pushing up against the boundaries of territories, and were pioneers who contributed to the wellbeing of often-untamed lands. These next women were pioneers in their own rights, brilliant trailblazers who were the first of their kind.
“Stagecoach” Mary Fields became the first Black American woman to hold a star-route delivery contract with the United States Postal Service.
Carolyn R. Payton became the first Black American and first woman appointed director of the US Peace Corps when she was appointed to the position by President Jimmy Carter.
Lisa P. Jackson became the first Black American to be named administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She was appointed to the position by President Barack Obama.
The first Black American woman four-star admiral was Michelle J. Howard. She was the first woman to rise to the rank of four-star admiral in the US Navy. Howard was also the first Black American woman to command a US Navy ship, the USS Rushmore. When she retired, she was serving as both commander of US Forces in Europe and as the commander of US Forces in Africa. She was the first woman to command operational forces for the US Military.
Lorna Mahlock became the first Black American woman to hold the rank of brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps.
Loretta Lynch was the first Black woman to become US attorney general.
Paulette Brown became the first Black American woman president of the American Bar Association.
Carla Hayden became the first woman and first Black American to be the librarian of Congress.
Andrea Jenkins became the first openly transgender person of color elected to public office in the United States.
Stacey Abrams of Georgia became the first Black American woman to be a major party nominee for state governor.
Ilhan Omar became the first Somali American Muslim person to become a legislator when she was elected to Congress representing Minnesota.
Black women have proved their worth through their service to country and community. Often balancing the difficulties of home life with a successful career, they have excelled in military and public service. Let’s not forget, these are fields that are dominated by White men. When asked to picture a brigadier general, chances are the last thing that comes to mind is a Black woman. But Black women can be brigadier generals too. We can be anything we set our minds to becoming.
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Black Women by Becca Anderson and MJ Fievre, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Cathay Williams was the first Black female to enlist in the US Army. She was born enslaved in 1844 in Independence, Missouri, to an enslaved woman and a freed man, which made her status that of a slave. During her adolescence, Williams worked as a house slave on the Johnson plantation. In 1866, she signed up for a three-year period of enlistment with the US Army as a Buffalo Soldier. The US was mired in the American Frontier Wars at the time, and Buffalo Soldiers were African American soldiers stationed in the Western US. Only a cousin and a friend knew of her enlistment. Both of them were stationed with the regiment she signed up to join. At the time of her enlistment, women were not allowed to serve, so she signed up under the assumed name “William Cathay.” She served for two years until complications from smallpox led a military physician to discover that she was female. She was discharged from the army in 1868. After she was discharged from the army, Williams went on to work as a cook in New Mexico and later Colorado. She married, but it ended disastrously when her husband stole a team of horses and money from her. She had him arrested. It is believed she may have owned a boardinghouse. She worked as a seamstress for a time in Pueblo, Colorado. In 1875, a reporter from St. Louis heard rumors about a Black woman who had served in the army during the American Frontier Wars. He went to Colorado and interviewed Williams, and her story was published in the St. Louis Daily Times on January 2, 1876. In her old age, Williams suffered from complications of diabetes and neuralgia, and could only walk with a cane because her toes had been amputated. She applied for a disability pension, claiming her service in the army qualified her, but her disability claim was denied.
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Black Women by Becca Anderson and MJ Fievre, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a transgender rights activist who has been fighting for transgender rights for over forty years. She’s originally from Chicago but moved to New York City in the 1960s and learned quickly that there was a need for increased safety protections for her and her peers. She helped lead the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and suffered a broken jaw during the police action. She was also part of the rebellion at Attica State Prison where inmates held correctional officers hostage until their demands for better living conditions were discussed. In the 1980s and 1990s, she lived in California and helped her community, which was impacted by the AIDS epidemic. She most recently served as executive director of the Transgender Gender Variant Intersex Justice Project, which helps transgender, gender variant, and intersex people inside and outside of the prison and detention system.
This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Black Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
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