The Power of Black Womanhood: Honoring Legacy, Lineage & Leadership

“She Moved History: Honoring Black Women Who Built Bridges We Still Walk On”

Black History Month is incomplete without honoring the brilliance, resilience, and world-shaping leadership of Black women.

Black women — cisgender, transgender, queer, nonbinary, gender-expansive — have built movements, protected communities, advanced justice, shaped culture, and created pathways many of us now walk.

Yet their stories are often minimized, erased, or filtered through others' lenses.

This month, we pause to honor the women who changed the world before anyone said their names out loud.

---

Pioneers Who Made the Impossible Possible

Sojourner Truth

Enslaved. Freed. Orator. Abolitionist. Women’s rights pioneer.

Her speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” remains one of the most powerful critiques of racism and sexism ever recorded.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Journalist. Anti-lynching crusader. Co-founder of the NAACP.

She risked her life to document racial terrorism and refused to be silenced.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Civil rights activist. Co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

Her testimony — “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired” — shook America awake.

Marsha P. Johnson

Black transgender woman. LGBTQ+ rights pioneer. Stonewall activist.

Her courage created an entirely new generation of queer liberation.

Madam C.J. Walker

Entrepreneur. Inventor. America’s first self-made female millionaire.

She transformed beauty culture while advocating for economic independence.

---

Why Their Leadership Still Matters

Because they survived what should have broken them.

Because they created change without applause.

Because they shaped justice movements with strategy, pain, and genius.

Because they remind us what resilience looks like when institutions are not built for you.

This month, we honor their power.