Women Activists Educational Posters, “H-I-J”
for the social studies classroom, home schoolers and theme decor.

Fannie Lou Hamer,
née Townsend
b. 10-6-1917; Sunflower Co., MS
d. 3-14-1977; Mound Bayou, MS

Fannie Lou Hamer was a plain-spoken activist remembered and loved for her use of Bible verses and hymns to demand civil rights.

Fannie Lou Hamer quotes ~
• “Nobody's free until everybody's free.”
• “I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
• “One night I went to the church. They had a mass meeting. And I went to the church, and they talked about how it was our right, that we could register and vote. They were talking about we could vote out people that we didn't want in office, we thought that wasn't right, that we could vote them out. That sounded interesting enough to me that I wanted to try it. I had never heard, until 1962, that black people could register and vote.”
• “When they asked for those to raise their hands who'd go down to the courthouse the next day, I raised mine. Had it high up as I could get it. I guess if I'd had any sense I'd've been a little scared, but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do to me was kill me and it seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember.”

Ida Husted Harper
b. 2-18-1851; Fairfield, Indiana
d. 3-14-1931; Washington, DC

Ida Husted Harper was a journalist who documented the women's suffrage movement in the United States.

• The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony by Ida Husted Harper

Dorothy Irene Height
b. 3-24-1912; Richmond, VA
d. 4-20-2010; Washington, DC

Social activist Dorothy Height, a 2004 recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, initiated food, child care, housing, and career educational programs. In 1986 she began the Black Family Reunion Celebration to emphasize the positive aspects of the African-American family.

Dorothy Height quote ~
• “We've got to work to save our children and do it with full respect for the fact that if we do not, no one else is going to do it.”
• “No one will do for you what you need to do for yourself. We cannot afford to be separate. . . . We have to see that all of us are in the same boat.”
• “Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It's important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It's the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.”

Julia Ward Howe
b. 5-27-1819; NYC
d. 10-17-1910; Portsmouth, RI

Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist, political and social activist, poet, playwright, and philosopher, is most famous for her poem set to music as the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

One of the phrases in the Battle Hymn “grapes of wrath” was used by John Steinbeck as the title for his 1939 novel.

• Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 - Volume I by Laura Howe Richards
• Diva Julia: The Public Romance And Private Agony of Julia Ward Howe

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks (no commecially available poster)

bell hooks
née Gloria Jean Watkins
b. 9-25-1952; Hopkinsville, KY

bell hooks, the pen name of Gloria Jan Watkins, is a feminist and social activist whose writng focuses on the interconnectivity of race, class and gender. She is a professor of English and has published numerous books of poetry and nonfiction.

Dolores Huerta
b. 4-10-1930; Dawson, NM

Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later became the United Farm Workers.

In non-violent civil disobedience activities advocating for farmworkers' rights Huerta has been arrested twenty-two times.

• Latino Heritage
• History of Labor posters

Anne Hutchinson
b. July, 1591; England
d. 8-20-1643, killed by Indians in what is now Pelham Bay Park, NY.

Anne Hutchinson, née Marbury, was a key figure in the development of religious freedom in the American colonies. She taught that salvation was through inward grace and not through performing religious works.

• American Jezebel, The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans

Jovita Idar
b. 9-7-1885; Laredo, Texas
d. 6-15-1946; San Antonio, TX

Jovita Idar, teacher, journalist, political and civil rights activist worked to advance the civil rights of Mexican-Americans.

Jovita Idar quote ~
• “Educate a woman and you educate a family.”

Sophia Jex-Blake
b. 1-21-1840; Hastings, England
d. 1-7-1912

Physician, teacher and feminist Sophia Jex-Blake, one of the first female doctors in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, campaigned for medical education for women and was involved in founding a medical school for women in London and one in Edinburgh, where she also started a women's hospital.

• Sophia Jex-Blake: A Woman Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Medical Reform

“Mother” Jones
née Mary Harris
b. 8-1-1837; Cork, Ireland
d. 11-30-1930; Silver Spring, MD

Mary Harris Jones, a labor and community leader, organized the Children's Crusade of 1903 and the families of mine workers. She also was the founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies. Being radicalized by the death of her husband and four children from yellow fever in Tennessee, and then the loss of her home and business in the 1871 Chicago Fire, she was called “the most dangerous woman in America” in 1902 and the “grandmother of all agitators”.

Carl Sandburg reports that the song “She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain” refers to Mother Jones.

Mother Jones quote ~
• “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

• Mother Jones Magazine
• Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America

Barbara Jordan
b. 2-21-1936; Houston, TX
d. 1-17-1996

Barbara Jordan liked to tell people that when she was born she already had three strikes against her. She was born poor, black and female at a time when to ba any one of those things was to be almost totally without power in America. Yet Barbara Jordan eventually took her place among the most powerful people in the nation. Barbara Jordan strongly believed that it is not enough just to have power – you must use it to benefit others.

Barbara Jordan was born in a poor section of Houston on February 21, 1936. At that time, segregation – of whites and blacks – was still an accepted way of life in the South. Blacks could not eat in the same restaurants as whites. They had to drink from separate “Coloreds Only” water fountains. And they were expected to sit in the back of the bus, and give up their seat if a white person wanted it. But Barbara's parents didn't stress how difficult life could be for blacks in America. Instead, they constantly told their children to become educated. As Barbara's father told her: “No man can take away your brain.” In high school, Barbara joined the debate team and discovered the special gift that would serve her throughout her life: a rich, powerful speaking voice.

Barbara decided she wanted to become a lawyer. She went to Texas Southern University near her home, and then on to Boston University Law School. After graduation, she moved back to Texas, setup a law office and ran for the Texas state legislature. Twice in a row she lost to a wealthier, better-known white candidate. But Ms. Jordan didn't give up, and in 1966 she was elected to the Texas state senate – making her the first black woman ever elected to a state office in Texas. In 1972, she was elected to the U.S. congress as a member of the House of Representatives. And in 1976, she received another great honor when she became the first black woman ever chosen to give the “keynote” speech of the Democratic National Convention.

In 1978, Rep. Jordan retired from politics and accepted an offer to become a teacher at the University of Texas. She took the job because she wanted to go back to Texas and help the people who had helped her first get elected 12 years earlier. All of her life, Barbara Jordan worked to make life better for other people – especially poor black people. When she died in 1996, she was eulogized as a hero. But she only wanted to be remembered as “someone who made a difference.”

• more Famous African American Women

Barbara Jordan quotes ~
• “Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. Art does not discriminate - it ignores external irrelevancies and opts for quality, talent and competence.” 1993
• “Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.”
• “I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’ ”
• “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”