Women's March around the world.

Women's March in Washington D.C.

Hello everyone, today on Traveling Activist with your host Zachery Ramos the Women's March is our main topic of the day. As women around the world march let us remember great women from the past that have helped society grow and benefit women's rights. Susan B. Anthony played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movements. Elizabeth C. Stanton was an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Mary McLeod Bethune was a civil rights leader and educator who served in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet" and supported women's rights organizations. Maya Angelou has been involved in working for civil rights for several decades. These women are just a few out of thousands of female and male activist for women around the world. To all of you who are marching today I respect you all for your hard work and dedication. 

Mary Mc. Bethune was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 1935, Bethune became a special advisor to President Roosevelt on minority affairs. That same year, she also started up her own civil rights organization, the National Council of Negro Women. Bethune created this organization to represent numerous groups working on critical issues for African-American women. She received another appointment from President Roosevelt the following year. In 1936, she became the director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. One of her main concerns in this position was helping young people find job opportunities. In addition to her official role in the Roosevelt administration, Bethune became a trusted friend and adviser to both the president and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt.

 Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her work helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

After the Civil War, Anthony began to focus more on women's rights. She helped establish the American Equal Rights Association in 1866 with Stanton, calling for the same rights to be granted to all regardless of race or sex. Anthony and Stanton created and produced The Revolution, a weekly publication that lobbied for women's rights in 1868. The newspaper's motto was "Men their rights, and nothing more; women their rights, and nothing less."

Elizabeth C. Stanton was an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early women's rights movement.  Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed various issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the economic health of the family, and birth control. 

Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, together with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while women, black and white, were denied those same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, about twenty years after her break from the original women's suffrage movement.

Maya Angelou is a poet and award-winning author known for her acclaimed memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and her numerous poetry and essay collections. An icon embraced by both women's rights groups and civil rights champions, the beloved 86-year-old luminary will be remembered for many milestones. The release of her first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969; her friendships with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X; delivering the inaugural poem at Bill Clinton's swearing-in ceremony in 1993; and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Obama in 2011.

Angelou's words give her readers courage and hope. She shared her experiences because "too many people tell young folks, 'I never did anything wrong ... I have no skeletons in my closet.'" Young people then see themselves as bad people, and "they can't forgive themselves and go on with their lives." But Angelou's story, if nothing else, speaks to the great heights that can be reached from even the darkest of places.

That's really what Maya Angelou was all about — not just the black experience, not just the female experience, but the humanity behind it all. "I speak to the black experience," she said, "but I am always talking about the human condition — about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive."

You can learn more about them from reading these wonderful women's biographies. I was lucky to find them and, read them this month in memory of those who fought for women's rights in time for today's march that is happening all over the world. The images are from their biographies and, from today's Women's March. If you or a friend of yours is marching today I thank you for taking a stand and, continuing the fight for women everywhere.  That's it for today's special entry on the Women's March on Traveling Activist with your host Zachery Ramos.