WiM Celebrating Women’s History Month

When I moved to Arkansas, my number one priority after getting my house in a livable state was connecting with people. I didn’t know anyone in the area, so I needed to find my people fast. One of the first groups I joined was the Fayetteville chapter of Business and Professional Women (BPW). As a result of my involvement with that wonderful group of women, I became much more deeply educated about the courage and sacrifices so many women have made to help women today gain access to voting privileges, more equitable pay and job opportunities previously reserved for men.

I am deeply grateful for the hard, and sometimes tortuous work, those women did to pave the way for later generations of women including my sisters and me. Here are just a few examples:

• Florence Nightingale prayed that God would give her a task that would define her life. She trained and organized nurses to care for wounded soldiers, which earned her notoriety for pioneering modern nursing.

• Susan B Anthony dedicated her life to women's suffrage. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery, the right for women to own their own property, to keep their earnings, and the right to attend higher learning institutions.

• Sojourner Truth went from slavery to becoming an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth century. She became a preacher and national speaker. She dictated her autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, and was able to live off the sales of the book. She is famous for her speech entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” which she delivered at a women