March 8

Today is International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is “Women in leadership: Achieving

an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” It is to celebrate the tremendous efforts by women and

girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19

pandemic and highlight the gaps that remain.

Unfortunately, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making according to

the UN Secretary-General’s recent report. Women are the Heads of State or Government in 22

countries. At this rate, gender equality among Heads of Government will take another 130 years.

Women are at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 as front-line, health sector workers,

scientists, doctors, and caregivers yet they get paid 11% less globally than their male

counterparts. We see positive results when women lead. Woman, especially young women, are

leading diverse and inclusive movements online and on the streets for social justice, climate

change, and equality in all parts of the world.

So, on this International Women’s Day, join women in calling for Generation Equality so as to

have an equal future for all.

Tomorrow we will learn about Madam C.J. Walker.

March 9

Madam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on a Louisiana plantation where her parents had

been enslaved prior to the Civil War. Her family worked as sharecroppers. Sarah’s parents died

when she was 7 so she moved in with her sister and brother-in-law. She married at age 14 to

escape harsh treatment from her brother-in-law and had a daughter but lost her husband when

she was just 20. She moved to St. Louis and lived with her brothers while she took in laundry.

She suffered a scalp malady that caused her to lose her hair. She tried several treatments,

including those made by Annie Malone, a black entrepreneur. She then moved to Denver and

began selling Malone’s products door to door. She married Charles Joseph Walker and began

making and marketing her own hair care products. Her most successful product was Madam C.J.

Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower. She maintained beauty schools alongside her factories and

trained women as hair culturists who became Walker Agents.

Madam Walker was the first black woman to become a self-made millionaire. She was very

generous with her fortune and helped to counteract social injustice and racial violence.

Unfortunately, she died of hypertension and kidney failure at the age of 51. She did not let

racism stop her from achieving the goals that she built her identity around. If you would like to

learn more, watch the Netflix series titled “Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J.

Walker.”

Tomorrow we will learn about Billie Holiday.

March 10

Billie Holiday was born illegitimately to a black teen in Baltimore around 1915. She was named

Eleanora and took the surname Holiday at age 3 when her father married her mother. She chose

the name Billie after an actress named Billie Dove. She grew up lonely and poor and after her

father abandoned, she and her mother at the age of 10, she moved to New York and earned most

of her own living running errands for a local brothel owner. Her education ended at the 5 th grade.

In 1931 she started dancing at a Harlem nightclub to support her sickly mother. She was asked

to sing for tips and later debuted at the Apollo, a famous nightclub in Harlem. She toured with

the Count Basie and Artie Shaw bands from 1937-1938 but was excluded from hotel rooms and

concert halls because she was black. Unfortunately, she escaped from the pain with alcohol and

drugs and could never recover from it. She served time in prison for drug possession but was

able to recover enough to perform for a while. She died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959.

You can learn more about Billie Holliday in a new movie on Hulu called The United States vs.

Billie Holiday. It tells the story of her career in the 1940’s when the government targeted her in

a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs. Their ultimate goal was to stop her from singing

her controversial ballad, “Strange Fruit” which was about the lynching of black men.

Tomorrow we will learn about Ma Rainey.

March 12

Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in 1886. She performed as a young teenager and became

known as Ma Rainey after her marriage to Will Rainey in 1904. She was known as the “Mother

of the Blues” because of her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing,

and a moaning style of singing. She toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and made over 100

recordings. She retired in 1935 and died in 1939.

You can learn more about Ma Rainey in the Netflix movie “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” The

movie takes place in 1927 when she joins her band for a recording session in Chicago.