This Day in History: 06/02
1826: Sarah Parker Remond born
1939: Marian Wright Edelman born
1826: SARAH PARKER REMOND BORN
Sarah Parker Remond was born in 1826 in Salem, Massachusetts, one of eight children. Her mother Nancy was the daughter of a man who fought in the Continental Army. Her father John was a free black who arrived from the Dutch island of Curacao as a boy of ten. The Remonds built a successful catering and hairdressing business in Salem.
Sarah received a limited education in the primary school and educated herself by reading newspapers and books she borrowed or bought from the Anti-Slavery Society, which sold many titles at a cheap price. Along with cooking and sewing, Nancy Remond taught her daughters that being black was not a crime.
In l835, Sarah and her sister passed the entrance examination to Salem High School. A few days later, the segregationist school board forced them to leave school. The Remonds were outraged and soon moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where Sarah attended a private school for blacks. Sarah's father campaigned to desegregate the Salem schools, and when he succeeded in 1841, the family came home.
Sarah's family included many abolitionists, and from childhood she learned of the horrors of slavery. Her home was a haven for black and white abolitionists. Charles Remond, her older brother, was the American Anti-Slavery Society's first black lecturer. Sarah became determined early in life to fight the prejudice she encountered because of her color.
In May 1853, she purchased a ticket to attend the opera Don Pasquale at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston. She was forcibly removed from the theater and pushed down a flight of stairs, because she refused to sit in the segregated gallery. She suffered an injury, sued the managers, and won her suit.
In 1856, the American Anti-Slavery Society hired a team of lecturers, including Sarah and her brother Charles, to tour New York State. Sarah and the others addressed many antislavery meetings in Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania between 1856 and 1858, though they faced prejudice many times. Some boarding houses and hotels refused to give them a room, and they had to seek shelter in private homes.
There was another Massachusetts woman in that group, Abby Kelly Foster, who had encouraged Sarah to become a lecturer. "I feel almost sure," Sarah wrote to Abby, "I never should have made the attempt but for the words of encouragement I received from you. Although my heart was in the work, I felt that I was in need of a good English education."
Over time, Sarah proved to be such a good speaker that she was invited to lecture in Great Britain, which her brother had done ten years earlier. As she sailed for England in September 1858, she was concerned that she might find prejudice there, as well, but she was warmly welcomed.
"I have been received here as a sister by white women for the first time in my life," she wrote. She was the first educated black woman the British had ever seen. She spoke out against the sexual exploitation of enslaved black women and drew the attention of British abolitionists to the indignities suffered by free black people in America.
Between 1859 and 1861, Sarah gave over forty lectures in England, Scotland and Ireland. The press generously covered her speeches and the reactions of her enthusiastic audiences. She raised a sizable sum of money for the anti-slavery cause.
Despite her busy schedule, she attended classes at Bedford College for Ladies in London from October 1859 to mid-1861. She studied history, elocution, music, English literature, French, and Latin.
She was living in London in 1861 when an English women's magazine published a series of articles on the Lives of Distinguished Women. The June issue featured A Colored Lady Lecturer.
In this brief autobiography, Sarah described her strong desire to learn and the bitterness she felt because she was deprived of an education simply because she was black. She stressed that "prejudice against color has always been the one thing, above all others, which has cast its gigantic shadow over my whole life."
After the Civil War began, she sought the support of the British for the Union cause.
I appeal on behalf of four millions of men, women, and children who are chattels in the Southern States of America. The sum of sixteen hundred millions of dollars is invested in their bones, sinews, and flesh - is this not sufficient reason why all the friends of humanity should endeavor with all their might and power to overturn the vile system of slavery?
At the end of the Civil War, Sarah lectured on behalf of the freedmen, soliciting funds and clothing for them. She was an active member of the London Emancipation Society and the Freedman's Aid Association.
She visited Italy several times while living in England. In 1866, she moved to Florence and entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital as a medical student at the age of 42. She received a medical diploma in 1871, and practiced medicine in Italy for more than twenty years.
She apparently never returned to the United States, and seemed to prefer her self-imposed exile to life under "the gigantic shadow" of racism. On April 25th, 1877, she married Lazzaro Pintor, a native of Sardinia.
Sarah Parker Remond, this remarkable woman who achieved so much during her lifetime, died on December 13, 1894 in Florence. She was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
SOURCE: http://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/2006/11/sarah-parker-remond.html
1939: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN BORN
Dates: June 6, 1939 -
Occupation: lawyer, educator, activist, reformer, children's advocate, administrator
Known for: founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund, first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi state bar
Also Known as: Marian Wright, Marian Edelman
About Marian Wright Edelman:
Marian Wright Edelman was born in and grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, one of five children. Her father, Arthur Wright, was a Baptist preacher who taught his children that Christianity required service in this world and who was influenced by A. Phillip Randolph. Her father died when Marian was only fourteen, urging in his last words to her, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education."
Marian Wright Edelman went on to study at Spelman College, abroad on a Merrill scholarship, and she traveled to the Soviet Union with a Lisle fellowship. When she returned to Spelman in 1959, she became involved in the civil rights movement, inspiring her to drop her plans to enter the foreign service, and instead to study law. She studied law at Yale and worked as a student on a project to register African American voters in Mississippi.
In 1963, after graduating from Yale Law School, Marian Wright Edelman worked first in New York for the NAACP Legal and Defense Fund, and then in Mississippi for the same organization. There, she became the first African American woman to practice law. During her time in Mississippi, she worked on racial justice issues connected with the civil rights movement, and she also helped get a Head Start program established in her community.
During a tour by Robert Kennedy and Joseph Clark of Mississippi's poverty-ridden Delta slums, Marian met Peter Edelman, an assistant to Kennedy, and the next year she moved to Washington, D.C., to marry him and to work for social justice in the center of America's political scene. They had three sons.
In Washington, Marian Wright Edelman continued her work, helping to get the Poor People's Campaign organized. She also began to focus more on issues relating to child development and children in poverty.
Marian Wright Edelman established the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) in 1973 as a voice for poor, minority and handicapped children. She served as a public speaker on behalf of these children, and also as a lobbyist in Congress, as well as president and administrative head of the organization. The agency served not only as an advocacy organization, but as a research center, documenting the problems and possible solutions to children in need. To keep the agency independent, she saw that it was financed entirely with private funds.
Marian Wright Edelman also published her ideas in several books. The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours was a surprising success.
In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was elected President, Hillary Clinton's involvement with the Children's Defense Fund meant that there was significantly more attention given to the organization. But Edelman did not pull her punches in criticizing the Clinton administration's legislative agenda -- such as its "welfare reform" initiatives -- when she believed these would be disadvantageous to the nation's neediest children.
As part of the efforts of Marian Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund on behalf of children, she has also advocated pregnancy prevention, child care funding, health care funding, prenatal care, parental responsibility for education in values, reducing the violent images presented to children, and selective gun control in the wake of school shootings.
Among the many awards to Marian Wright Edelman:
1991 - ABC's Person of the Week - "The Children's Champion"
MacArthur "genius" award
More than 65 honorary degrees
SOURCE: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm
1939: Marian Wright Edelman born
1826: SARAH PARKER REMOND BORN
Sarah Parker Remond was born in 1826 in Salem, Massachusetts, one of eight children. Her mother Nancy was the daughter of a man who fought in the Continental Army. Her father John was a free black who arrived from the Dutch island of Curacao as a boy of ten. The Remonds built a successful catering and hairdressing business in Salem.
Sarah received a limited education in the primary school and educated herself by reading newspapers and books she borrowed or bought from the Anti-Slavery Society, which sold many titles at a cheap price. Along with cooking and sewing, Nancy Remond taught her daughters that being black was not a crime.
In l835, Sarah and her sister passed the entrance examination to Salem High School. A few days later, the segregationist school board forced them to leave school. The Remonds were outraged and soon moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where Sarah attended a private school for blacks. Sarah's father campaigned to desegregate the Salem schools, and when he succeeded in 1841, the family came home.
Sarah's family included many abolitionists, and from childhood she learned of the horrors of slavery. Her home was a haven for black and white abolitionists. Charles Remond, her older brother, was the American Anti-Slavery Society's first black lecturer. Sarah became determined early in life to fight the prejudice she encountered because of her color.
In May 1853, she purchased a ticket to attend the opera Don Pasquale at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston. She was forcibly removed from the theater and pushed down a flight of stairs, because she refused to sit in the segregated gallery. She suffered an injury, sued the managers, and won her suit.
In 1856, the American Anti-Slavery Society hired a team of lecturers, including Sarah and her brother Charles, to tour New York State. Sarah and the others addressed many antislavery meetings in Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania between 1856 and 1858, though they faced prejudice many times. Some boarding houses and hotels refused to give them a room, and they had to seek shelter in private homes.
There was another Massachusetts woman in that group, Abby Kelly Foster, who had encouraged Sarah to become a lecturer. "I feel almost sure," Sarah wrote to Abby, "I never should have made the attempt but for the words of encouragement I received from you. Although my heart was in the work, I felt that I was in need of a good English education."
Over time, Sarah proved to be such a good speaker that she was invited to lecture in Great Britain, which her brother had done ten years earlier. As she sailed for England in September 1858, she was concerned that she might find prejudice there, as well, but she was warmly welcomed.
"I have been received here as a sister by white women for the first time in my life," she wrote. She was the first educated black woman the British had ever seen. She spoke out against the sexual exploitation of enslaved black women and drew the attention of British abolitionists to the indignities suffered by free black people in America.
Between 1859 and 1861, Sarah gave over forty lectures in England, Scotland and Ireland. The press generously covered her speeches and the reactions of her enthusiastic audiences. She raised a sizable sum of money for the anti-slavery cause.
Despite her busy schedule, she attended classes at Bedford College for Ladies in London from October 1859 to mid-1861. She studied history, elocution, music, English literature, French, and Latin.
She was living in London in 1861 when an English women's magazine published a series of articles on the Lives of Distinguished Women. The June issue featured A Colored Lady Lecturer.
In this brief autobiography, Sarah described her strong desire to learn and the bitterness she felt because she was deprived of an education simply because she was black. She stressed that "prejudice against color has always been the one thing, above all others, which has cast its gigantic shadow over my whole life."
After the Civil War began, she sought the support of the British for the Union cause.
I appeal on behalf of four millions of men, women, and children who are chattels in the Southern States of America. The sum of sixteen hundred millions of dollars is invested in their bones, sinews, and flesh - is this not sufficient reason why all the friends of humanity should endeavor with all their might and power to overturn the vile system of slavery?
At the end of the Civil War, Sarah lectured on behalf of the freedmen, soliciting funds and clothing for them. She was an active member of the London Emancipation Society and the Freedman's Aid Association.
She visited Italy several times while living in England. In 1866, she moved to Florence and entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital as a medical student at the age of 42. She received a medical diploma in 1871, and practiced medicine in Italy for more than twenty years.
She apparently never returned to the United States, and seemed to prefer her self-imposed exile to life under "the gigantic shadow" of racism. On April 25th, 1877, she married Lazzaro Pintor, a native of Sardinia.
Sarah Parker Remond, this remarkable woman who achieved so much during her lifetime, died on December 13, 1894 in Florence. She was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
SOURCE: http://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/2006/11/sarah-parker-remond.html
1939: MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN BORN
Dates: June 6, 1939 -
Occupation: lawyer, educator, activist, reformer, children's advocate, administrator
Known for: founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund, first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi state bar
Also Known as: Marian Wright, Marian Edelman
About Marian Wright Edelman:
Marian Wright Edelman was born in and grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, one of five children. Her father, Arthur Wright, was a Baptist preacher who taught his children that Christianity required service in this world and who was influenced by A. Phillip Randolph. Her father died when Marian was only fourteen, urging in his last words to her, "Don't let anything get in the way of your education."
Marian Wright Edelman went on to study at Spelman College, abroad on a Merrill scholarship, and she traveled to the Soviet Union with a Lisle fellowship. When she returned to Spelman in 1959, she became involved in the civil rights movement, inspiring her to drop her plans to enter the foreign service, and instead to study law. She studied law at Yale and worked as a student on a project to register African American voters in Mississippi.
In 1963, after graduating from Yale Law School, Marian Wright Edelman worked first in New York for the NAACP Legal and Defense Fund, and then in Mississippi for the same organization. There, she became the first African American woman to practice law. During her time in Mississippi, she worked on racial justice issues connected with the civil rights movement, and she also helped get a Head Start program established in her community.
During a tour by Robert Kennedy and Joseph Clark of Mississippi's poverty-ridden Delta slums, Marian met Peter Edelman, an assistant to Kennedy, and the next year she moved to Washington, D.C., to marry him and to work for social justice in the center of America's political scene. They had three sons.
In Washington, Marian Wright Edelman continued her work, helping to get the Poor People's Campaign organized. She also began to focus more on issues relating to child development and children in poverty.
Marian Wright Edelman established the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) in 1973 as a voice for poor, minority and handicapped children. She served as a public speaker on behalf of these children, and also as a lobbyist in Congress, as well as president and administrative head of the organization. The agency served not only as an advocacy organization, but as a research center, documenting the problems and possible solutions to children in need. To keep the agency independent, she saw that it was financed entirely with private funds.
Marian Wright Edelman also published her ideas in several books. The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours was a surprising success.
In the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was elected President, Hillary Clinton's involvement with the Children's Defense Fund meant that there was significantly more attention given to the organization. But Edelman did not pull her punches in criticizing the Clinton administration's legislative agenda -- such as its "welfare reform" initiatives -- when she believed these would be disadvantageous to the nation's neediest children.
As part of the efforts of Marian Wright Edelman and the Children's Defense Fund on behalf of children, she has also advocated pregnancy prevention, child care funding, health care funding, prenatal care, parental responsibility for education in values, reducing the violent images presented to children, and selective gun control in the wake of school shootings.
Among the many awards to Marian Wright Edelman:
1991 - ABC's Person of the Week - "The Children's Champion"
MacArthur "genius" award
More than 65 honorary degrees
SOURCE: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/marianwrightedelman/p/m_w_edelman.htm