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BLACK HERSTORY Celebrating Black Women

AMANDA GORMAN Wordsmith. Change-maker. is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, as well as an award-winning writer and cum laude graduate of , where she studied Sociology. She has written for the Times and has three books forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

CORETTA SCOTT Advocate. Activist. She entered the world stage in 1955 as wife of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as a leading participant in the American . Her remarkable partnership with Dr. King resulted not only in four children, who became dedicated to carrying forward their parent’s work, but also in a life devoted to the highest values of human dignity in service to social change.

MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE Educator. Stateswoman. Philanthropist. Mary McLeod Bethune used the power of education, political activism, and civil service to achieve racial and gender equality throughout the United States and the world. The first person in her family born free and the first person in her family afforded a formal education, Bethune emerged from abject and oppression of the South to achieve greatness.

ELLA FITZGERALD Musician. trailblazer. Dubbed "The of Song," was the most popular female singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

ALTHEA GIBSON Athlete. Lobbyist. Gibson’s inclusion in America’s biggest tennis event wasn’t just about gaining acceptance in the sporting world, but seen as a momentum builder for blacks in the game of life. What did for baseball by being in the Brooklyn Dodgers’s starting lineup at first base on April 15, 1947, did for tennis when she made her historic debut.

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AMAZING WOMEN! Ida B. Wells

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