Check out Women Making America a fabulous new book by my dear friends Heidi Hemming and Julie Hemming Savage. This is a page-turning comprehensive, chocked-full of prints and photographs, clearly and compelling written book–a must have for readers of all ages. Suggestions for book groups and teachers are at www.womenmakingamerica.com
Today, Sat., Feb. 21st, The Washington Post printed a letter to the editor from Heidi and Julie critiquing the “idea that it is men who make history and women who help them.” Their issue was with a caption the Post published on 2/19 for a photograph of “Thurgood Marshall and some of the Little Rock Nine on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court” in which the the woman standing beside Marshall was identified as the teenagers’ “chaperone.” To which Heidi and Julie responded, “It doesn’t seem like too much to ask that women be recognized as co-participants in historical events. . . . Chaperone? The woman is Daisy Bates, who recruited the young people who made the stand at Little Rock Central High School . . . . According to Ernest Green, the first black graduate of Little Rock High, ‘Daisy Bates was the poster child of black resistance. She was a quarterback, the coach. We were the players.'”
For some reason, I can’t directly link to their letter, but you can search for it at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com
Comments