[NFBOH-Cleveland] The National Federation of the Blind of Ohio, Cleveland Chapter Celebrate Women History Month

[Suzanne Turner]

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND OF OHIO, CLEVELAND CHAPTER

CELEBRATE WOMEN HISTORY MONTH

 

During March, the Cleveland Chapter will introduce powerful and influential
Women celebrating Women History Month. Each week, you will come familiar
with two individuals who have made a significant impact as a female leader
in the National Federation of the Blind. Some you will know, but others you
may not. Hopefully, you will have an opportunity to meet them in the future.
Therefore, I highly encourage you to stay tuned into all of Cleveland's
communication outlets for their empowering stories. 

 

Read Below: How Did March Come to Be Women's History Month?Bottom of Form

 

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ruth Bader
Ginsburg honored for Women's History Month, 2015. Allison Shelley/Getty
Images 

 

by Jone Johnson Lewis <https://www.thoughtco.com/jone-johnson-lewis-3524783>


Jone Johnson Lewis has a Master of Divinity, and is a humanist clergy member
and certified transformational coach. She has been involved in the women's
movement since the late 1960s. 

Updated February 28, 2019 

     On February 28, 1980, President Jimmy Carter wrote:

"From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American
Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to
build this Nation. Too often, the women were unsung and sometimes their
contributions went unnoticed."

These words, part of his message establishing the first Women's History Week
in 1980, marked the beginning of a new chapter in American history; one in
which recognition of women and their work, and the promotion of their rights
became a more explicit concern. That initial effort was expanded in 1987,
when March was designated as Women's History Month
<https://womenshistorymonth.gov/> .

The Beginning: Women's History Week 

     In 1978 in California, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County
Commission on the Status of Women began a "Women's History Week"
celebration. The week was chosen to coincide with International Women's Day,
<https://www.thoughtco.com/international-womens-day-3529400>  March 8.

The response was positive. Schools began to host their own Women's History
Week programs.      The next year, leaders from the California group shared
their project at a Women's History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.
Other participants not only determined to begin their own local Women's
History Week projects, but agreed to support an effort to have Congress
declare a national Women's History Week.

     Three years later, the United States Congress passed a resolution
establishing National Women's History Week, which had ample bipartisan
support.

     This recognition encouraged even wider participation in Women's History
Week. Schools focused on special projects and exhibitions honoring women.
Organizations sponsored talks on women's history. The National Women's
History Project <http://www.nwhp.org/>  began distributing materials
specifically designed to support Women's History Week, as well as materials
to enhance the teaching of history through the year, to include notable
women and women's experience.

Women's History Month 

     In 1987, at the request of the National Women's History Project,
Congress expanded the week to a month, and the U.S. Congress has issued a
resolution every year since then, with wide support, for Women's History
Month. The U.S. President has issued each year a proclamation of Women's
History Month.

To further extend the inclusion of women's history in the history curriculum
(and in everyday consciousness of history), the President's Commission on
the Celebration of Women in History in America met through the 1990s. One
result has been the effort towards establishing a National Museum of Women's
History <https://www.nwhm.org/>  for the Washington, D.C., area, where it
would join other museums such as the American History Museum.

     The purpose of Women's History Month is to increase consciousness and
knowledge of women's history: to take one month of the year to remember the
contributions of notable and ordinary women, in hopes that the day will soon
come when it's impossible to teach or learn history without remembering
these contributions.

 

 

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