Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

#OnThisDay in 1933, Unita Blackwell, an outspoken critic of racial and economic inequality, was born. Blackwell, along with Fannie Lou Hamer, helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. She worked tirelessly to challenge the racially segregated Democratic Party, and bring humanity to the education, housing, and well-being of poor Mississippians. Doing so brought their plight to the forefront of public discourse and policy. Blackwell was instrumental in advocating for the desegregation of schools. She produced pamphlets and diagrams to show how state segregation was fostered by the unlawful distribution of state taxes and funds. In a 1965 interview with The New York Amsterdam News, Blackwell said that despite witnessing 13 Ku Klux Klan cross burnings, she refused to be frightened or leave the state. “I expect to see this state take its place as a decent place to live. It should be. Even some of the poor whites have begun to realize their desperate economic plight.” Blackwell estimated that over the ensuing years she was jailed at least 70 times on contrived charges, and often humiliated, assaulted, and beaten. In 1976, Blackwell became the first Black female mayor elected in the state of Mississippi (Mayersville). She died in 2019 at the age of 86. #WomensHistoryMonth 📸 Courtesy of Anthony Barboza / Getty Images.

Civil Rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams was born #OnThisDay in 1933. This Vicksburg, Mississippi, native was an honor student at the HBCU Alcorn A&M College. While enrolled, she met and married Medgar Evers. The couple opened and managed the first @NAACP Mississippi State office and lived under constant threat of violence and death. Medgar was assassinated outside of the family’s home in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. Following her husband’s murder, Evers-Williams continued to advocate for voting rights, economic stability, fair housing, equal education and equal justice. In 1976 she told the Los Angeles Sentinel that she feared the progress made in previous generations could be lost if people did not take action. “It appears that attitudes have changed and those rights we fought and died for are being taken away from us,” she said. Evers-Williams published her autobiography “Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be” (1999). Additionally, she edited a book of her late husband’s journals, speeches, and letters, titled, “The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches" in 2005. #SmithsonianWHM #WomensHistoryMonth #APeoplesJourney 📸 Myrlie Evers-Williams ca. 1958. Photograph by Francis H. Mitchell. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a closer look at the favorite objects from members of our staff. Today, we are spotlighting Auntaneshia Staveloz, Supervisory Program Manager, whose favorite object is this banner used by the Oklahoma Federation of Colored Women's Club: https://s.si.edu/3R2DOVO. “This banner embodies both my personal and professional mission. It speaks to the idea of giving back to others and working together in solidarity around shared goals and an equitable society.” #SmithsonianWHM

This #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a closer look at the favorite objects from members of our staff. Today, we are spotlighting Adele Hixon Day, Chief Advancement Officer, whose favorite object is Miss Brown To You by Barkley Hendricks (1970): https://s.si.edu/3Fh7yf2. “I love the red on red, the attitude in the posing of her neck and judgement in her eyes. This piece is the visual representation of quiet rage.” #SmithsonianWHM

This #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a closer look at the favorite objects from members of our staff. Today, we are spotlighting Shanita Brackett, PMP, Associate Director for Operations whose favorite object is the hot comb from a travel hair care kit used by Anna Mae Queen Holmes: https://s.si.edu/4kJAZXg. “The hot comb is near and dear to me because my mother owned a hair salon for over 25 years. I was able to see her blossom in entrepreneurship as a small business owner. Every day, I saw her transform women into their most confident selves.” #SmithsonianWHM

This #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a closer look at the favorite objects from members of our staff. Today, we are spotlighting Denise Robinson Simms, Associate Director for External Affairs, whose favorite object is the Brass Ring Used at the "Marriage of Negroes," (1830s) on our Searchable Museum: https://s.si.edu/43EH6Gh “This small and mighty object is my favorite because it is an enduring symbol of resistance, perseverance, and the power of love to lead and fortify us through the darkest times. With this ring, Rev. Alexander Glennie informally married over 400 enslaved African Americans in South Carolina’s All Saints Episcopal Parish. These couples temporarily wore this expandable brass wedding ring during the wedding ceremony, and after the service, the ring was removed so it could be used again and again for other ceremonies. Enslaved men and women could not be officially married because the law defined them as property, but with the help of people like Reverend Alexander Glennie, they made a way out of no way.” #SmithsonianWHM

Join us as we honor the legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune and the countless Black women who have led movements for social change. From education to activism, their impact continues to inspire generations. Throughout the museum, explore engaging experiences inspired by our special exhibition, “Forces for Change: Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women’s Activism.” Creative Activations (L2 – Explore More! Gallery) 🎨 Art inspired by flowers associated with Mary McLeod Bethune & Sybrina Fulton 📝 Writings by poets & playwrights featured in the exhibition Live Performances (Heritage Hall Stage) 🎶 Cabaret by Roz White, honoring influential Black women in the arts 🎤 Spoken word by students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Sweet Home Café (Concourse Level) 🥧Indulge in Sweet Potato Pie—a tribute to the pies Mrs. Bethune baked to fund her school, now Bethune-Cookman University. 📍Plus, don’t miss the exhibition on L3! Discover the stories of Mary McLeod Bethune and other trailblazing Black women. Join us for this powerful celebration! 🖤✨ Free. Registration required: https://s.si.edu/41IOTjN #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory

This #WomensHistoryMonth, we are taking a closer look at the favorite objects from members of our staff. Today, we are spotlighting Dr. Michelle Commander, Deputy Director, whose favorite object is a Cabin from Point of Pines Plantation in Charleston County, South Carolina: https://s.si.edu/4iju99j. “I selected the Point of Pines Plantation Slave Cabin in part because I am a descendant of enslaved people from South Carolina, where I grew up in the shadows of the very plantations on which my maternal forebears labored. As a scholar of slavery and its global afterlives, I find the history of the families that lived in this cabin breathtaking, as it quite literally demonstrates how close we are temporally and otherwise to that brutal era. The cabin's presence in the museum—and the fuller story imparted throughout the exhibitions in this space— offer lessons for our times, reinforcing the humanity and sheer strength of African Americans, particularly their collective insistence on survival and the creation of freer futures.” #SmithsonianWHM

Black women often faced gender inequality in similar measure to race-based discrimination, positioning their activism as revolutionary. Pauli Murray was one such activist. She became one of the world’s unsung human rights icons and prolific activists. Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1910, Murray dedicated her life to excelling against what she termed “Jim and Jane Crow” discrimination that saw Blacks as inferior to Whites, and women inferior to men. Murray knew firsthand the sting of both after being denied admittance into the University of North Carolina and being ignored as the only female at Howard University’s Law School in the 1940s. Murray’s insight was critical in changing separate but equal laws, including Plessy v. Ferguson. Murray worked alongside Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to include women in the Equal Protection Clause that allowed women the same protections against discrimination as racial minorities. Murray was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Ginsburg credits lawyer and activist Pauli Murray for inspiring an amicus brief she wrote for the historic 1971 Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed, which was the first time the nation’s highest court recognized women as victims of sex discrimination. In 1977, she became the first African American Episcopalian priest and is celebrated today as an early pioneer of same gender loving, non-binary person rights. She also joined with George Houser, James Farmer and Bayard Rustin to form the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Murray played an important role in several civil, social, and legal organizations including the National Organization of Women (NOW), which she co-founded in 1966. She wrote and theorized extensively on her experiences of black womanhood asserting that, for her, gender, race, and sexuality could not be separated. Learn more about other woman activists like Murray: https://s.si.edu/4knM1BI. #WomensHistoryMonth #SmithsonianWHM 📸 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Milton Williams Archives, © Milton Williams.

What became known as Bloody Sunday occurred #OnThisDay in 1965 in Selma, Alabama. The march was named for the 600 marchers who were attacked while crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge. Law enforcement officers attacked unarmed marchers with billy clubs and sprayed tear gas. Activist Amelia Boynton Robinson was brutally beaten by Alabama state troopers during the march. This photo drew national attention to the cause of civil rights and captured the brutality of the African American voting rights struggle. Robinson was a leading organizer of the march, working directly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Robinson had a history of activism, co-founding the Dallas County Voters League in 1933, and held African American voter registration drives in Selma from the 1930s to the 1950s. Later that year, the Voting Rights Act passed, a landmark federal achievement of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory #WomensHistoryMonth 📸 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © 1965 Spider Martin.