Why We Love Our Black Women Sheroes

They are movers and shakers and whether crowned or uncrowned these Black women have made an impact in the community. These unique individuals have given so unselfishly of themselves to better the common good in hopes that the world will listen, act, and join them in their mission.

During this women’s history month, we at NewsOne are honoring the remarkable accomplishments of 10 sheroes whom we love and who have demonstrated the noblest qualities of humanity:

1) Michelle Obama: She is the 44th First Lady, an attorney, Mother, and wife. Mrs. Obama has focused her attentions on the issues that face military families, the plight of homelessness, helping working women balance career and family, encouraging national service, promoting the arts and arts education, and fostering healthy eating and literacy amongst our youth. As a Mother to two young girls, Sasha and Malia, the First Lady has led a staunch campaign against childhood obesity, an effort which she wants to leave as her legacy. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign challenges the problem of childhood obesity, so that today’s youth can reach adulthood at a healthy weight and possibly avoid all of the chronic ailments that plague those whom are overweight.

2) Dr. Mae Jemison: Dr. Jemison was working as a general practitioner in Los Angeles, Calif., when NASA selected her and 14 others for astronaut training. Dr. Jemison completed her training as a mission specialist with NASA in 1988. In September of 1992, as a mission specialist aboard the Shuttle Endeavour, Jemison became the first African-American female astronaut and the first Black woman to orbit the earth. In 1993, Dr. Jemison resigned from NASA and founded the Jemison Group, Inc., which focuses on the integration of science and technology into daily life. Among her current projects are several that focus on improving health care in Africa and advancing technology in developing countries. She also created The Earth We Share, a science camp for 12 to 16-year-olds that helps improve students’ problem-solving skills.

3) Ruby Dee: An actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years, Dee, who has also worn the hats of writer and activist, is the sheer epitome of a phenomenal woman. Miss Dee and her late husband, actor Ossie Davis, collaborated on several projects that promoted Black heritage, which was evident in their 1981 series “With Ossie and Ruby” for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). In civil rights matters, Miss Dee was front and center at countless demonstrations, lending her full-fledged support to demonstrations like the Dr, Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington. Among others, Dee has been a member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Delta Sigma Theta sorority, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dee and Davis were personal friends of both Dr. King and Malcolm X, with Davis giving the eulogy at Malcolm’s funeral in 1965. In 1999, Dee and Davis were arrested for protesting the fatal shooting of an unarmed West African immigrant Amadou Diallo by White police officers of the New York City Police Department. Miss Dee has been the recipient of countless awards and accolades and at 88 years young, she is still unstoppable.

4) Dr. Patricia Bath: A true ground breaker, Dr. Bath, an ophthalmologic surgeon, inventor, and activist for patients’ rights, has dedicated her life for the right to sight. Cataracts affect African Americans at higher rate than Caucasians and Dr. Bath’s invention of the Laserphaco Probe in 1986 increased the accuracy and results of cataract surgery, which had previously been performed manually with the more riskier and harsher mechanical grinder. Dr. Bath became the first African-American female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. In the late sixties as an intern at Harlem Hospital in New York City, Dr. Bath conducted a study documenting her observation that blindness among Blacks was nearly double the rate of blindness among Whites. She concluded that this was largely due to many African Americans’ lack of access to ophthalmic care. With this finding, Bath established a new discipline known as Community Ophthalmology that is now studied and practiced worldwide. She also helped bring eye surgery services to Harlem Hospital’s Eye Clinic, which has since helped to treat and cure thousands of patients. In 1975, Bath became the first African-American woman surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center, and eight years later, Dr. Bath was named chair of the Ophthalmology Residency Training Program that she also co-founded, at Drew/UCLA. She was the first woman in the country to hold such a position. In 1976, she co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness (AIPB), an organization that aims to “protect, preserve, and restore the gift of sight” for all persons, regardless of race, gender, age, or income level. Dr. Bath holds four patents for her invention which is also utilized overseas. Although now retired, Dr. Bath, now 69, continues to devote her time to her lifelong cause, the prevention, treatment, and cure of blindness.

5) Areva Martin: A developmental disabilities advocate superhero, who has come to the rescue of countless families direly seeking advocacy training and resources for their special needs children, Areva Martin has been their source of salvation. A Harvard law school graduate and co-founder of one of the premier Black-owned law firms in Los Angeles, through grassroots outreach programs and legal initiatives, she has made immeasurable strides in the quality of diagnosis and treatment options available to the families of thousands of special needs children in her South Los Angeles community. As a Mother with a child who has autism, her son’s diagnosis has only fueled Martin to help empower people who have been dealt a hand that has left them powerless. An author, lecturer, and broadcasting legal analyst, Martin has a dream and she is feverishly working toward achieving it and that is to create a top-notch center in L.A. for special needs children that will provide parents with even greater access to diagnosis and treatment plans for their children.

6) Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: As the 24th President of Liberia and the first elected female Head of State in Africa, Sirleaf has worked hard at good governance, while advocating for the rights of women and the importance of education to provide a better future for her country and its people. Born on October 29, 1938, Sirleaf entered politics in 1972 by not holding her tongue, criticizing the then regime and speaking truth to power. After fighting for freedom, justice, and equality in Liberia in all of the high-level government and business posts for over four decades, in 1997, she contested the Presidential elections and was exiled to the Ivory Coast but kept monitoring the political goings-on in her native land. In 2005, Sirleaf successfully contested the 2005 presidential elections, resulting in her historic inauguration on January 16, 2006, as President of Liberia. During her time in office, Sirleaf has spent more than four years rebuilding post-conflict Liberia. The Mother of four sons and 11 grandchildren has revived national hope by strengthening the institutions of national security, leading the revitalization of the national economy and infrastructure, including the construction of more than 800 miles of roads, and restoring Liberia’s international reputation and credibility. In 2010, Newsweek magazine listed Sirleaf as one of the 10 best leaders in the world, Time placed her among the top ten female leaders, and The Economist called her “the best President the country has ever had.”

7) Marlene Jennings: Jennings, an attorney, was the first Black woman from Quebec to be elected to Parliament in the history of Confederation. She is also one of the few parliamentarians with a physical disability, having become partially blind due to an illness last year. Jennings was first elected as the member of Parliament for NDG-Lachine in June 1997, then re-elected in November 2000, June 2004, January 2006 and in October 2008. Professionally, she has been active at the trade union level and in the areas of employment equity and communications for women, aboriginal peoples, and ethnic and racial minorities. Now 60 years old, Jennings still ardently campaigns police ethics, race relations, and minority women’s issues, and has volunteered in many community associations.

8) Cathy Hughes: A radio maven, entrepreneur and a force to be reckoned with Hughes went from being a stereotypical statistic, a young black unmarried teen mom, to becoming a major boardroom player. She now stands front and center as CEO and president at the forefront of corporate America, as she runs two of the largest minority-owned broadcasting companies in the U.S., Radio One, which owns NewsOne, and TV One. Hughes, who grew up poor in an Omaha, Nebraska, housing project knew she wanted to be in broadcasting by the time she was 8 years old. She has had plenty of obstacles on the way to the top but met her challenges head on. Hughes managed to raise her son and receive a college education although she never had the opportunity to graduate. The 64-year-old managed to land her first radio gig in 1969 as a volunteer at an all-Black Omaha radio station. A mere six years later, Hughes served as a station manager to the Howard University radio station in Washington D.C. In 1978, Hughes took a job as the general manager of WYCB-AM in Washington, D.C., the move established her as the first African-American to hold such a position in the Washington, D.C., media market. Hughes continued to soar purchasing radio stations across the country until she put Radio One on the map. The company currently has a network of 69 radio stations, located in 22 American cities, with 13 million listeners. In 2004, Hughes launched TV One, a cable television channel that targeted at African Americans. Hughes has used the power of her broadcasting medium to empower blacks, to infuse her community with positive images and vital information that is pertinent to their very existence and she has done so with a thoroughness and integrity.

9) Rev. Alveda King: Deemed the “voice of the voiceless” and an enemy of pro-choice advocates everywhere, King, the niece of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believes that unborn babies have a right to life. She says her mother wanted to abort her so she could continue college but her Grandfather was able to convince her to keep her child. King, a pro-life activist and evangelical minister is driven by a strong spiritual conviction which is to keep the controversial issue of abortion before lawmakers. The mother of six, who once had an involuntary and a voluntary abortion herself is fighting to keep women from undergoing what she feels is the extremely painful and emotional detriment that she underwent after losing her unborn children. A staunch Democrat, even once holding office as a Congresswoman in Georgia’s 28th district from 1979 to 1981, the very conservative and fundamentalist King is currently also campaigning for women everywhere to go to their pastors and speak out for the rights of the unborn. King firmly believes that the abortion industry specifically seems to target and harm the black community. She says that Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. “Are we being targeted? Isn’t that genocide?” King, 60, claims that we are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population and is crusading to offer women alternatives to abortion.

10) Thelma Golden: In a white male dominated profession, Golden broke the barriers by becoming one of the world’s most revered curators. As director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City’s Harlem, Golden has been a staunch supporter, a true driving force in the arts world. Golden spent ten years at one of the world’s most premiere art museums the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, and there, she tried to get the public to look beyond stereotypes and to open up the mainstream museum to African-American and other previously under-represented artists and art-lovers. Golden then made the decision to join the famed Studio Museum in the year 2000 and within five years she was at the helm of the world-renowned institution. Golden came in like gang-busters with a plan to showcase forward-facing art from throughout the African Diaspora. The Queens, New York native who at age 12, knew that someday she would be a curator also serves on numerous international art prize committees and is a juror for nearly all of the public art commissioned in New York City. She also travels the globe in search of new black artists to champion.

I thought there was a typo in the title, but no, they’re actually spelling it that way.

You're obviously a die-hard racist for even noticing the spelling. We must be tolerant and accepting of the rich tapestry of the black culture. To point out a difference in word usage is hurtful, offensive and most inappropriate.

It's off to Diversity Camp for you, Tijeras_Slim! When you get back after a much-needed re-education, I'm sure you'll embrace the glorious rainbow that is multiculturalism. Resist we much to the white man's imperialist spelling!

/s <- as if that's really needed

Carol Swain. Raised in poverty. Teenage mother. Five advanced degrees. Princeton. Vanderbuilt. Christian, conservative, black woman.

Her latest book, Be the People.

1) Today I am proud to announce the formation of "News One For White America." No, wait, that would be racist...I better not.

2) I thought that once we had our first Black President, this whole black/white thing was going to be meaningless and go away? Instead, I hear the President's pastor damming fellow Christians as "white devils" who are haters. (And I know this, because he hates them.)

I don’t have a problem with any of their sheroes except the first one named.

I guess someone feels that taking vacations makes one a shero.

The rest of her crap is just a phony publicity campaign that only fools the ignorant.

LOL I just had a thought. Putting the wide load at the top of the list is about as smart as giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for getting elected by 95% of blacks.

#1 - Michele: is a nasty Wookie and taxpayers’ money parasite.

# 3 - Ruby Dee: While a very good actress is also a hardcore Soviet Marxist and has been since the 1940’s, along with her late husband Ossie Davis. She stayed trust to Moscow even after the massacres of freedomfighters in Hungary in 1956, the crushing of the Czech “Velvet Revolution” in 1968, the genocide of Cambodia, Laos and So. Vietnam from 1975-79, as well as the Red Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 and resultant genocide, Maos’ slaughter of between 40-60 million Chinese citizens from 1948-Tienamen Square; Castro/Che’s murder of over 14,000 Cubans, Kim Il Son/Jong’s killing of millions of their own citizens, etc.

However, most black groups and writers either don’t know of this background or chose to ignore as part of “black solidarity”.

That’s the problem.

"Shero" is more of a Womyn Thing than a Black Thing: think of the people who brought us "herstory." Or maybe you'd rather not think of them; I understand.

Sexist, hes obvoisuly a dyhard sexyst!!!!!!

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