March is Women’s History Month!
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have produced countless prominent women leaders and trailblazers over time. March is Women’s History Month and there’s no better time to celebrate their contributions. Here are some women pioneers who have impacted history that came from HBCUs!
Oprah Winfrey – Tennessee State University
Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, media executive, actress, and billionaire philanthropist. She graduated from Tennessee State University in 1986 with a degree in speech communications and performing arts. She’s best known for being the host of the beloved talk show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. The show won 16 Daytime Emmy Awards and its success helped her become the world’s first Black woman billionaire in 2003.
Kamala Harris – Howard University
Kamala Harris is a proud graduate of Howard University, having earned her B.A. in political science and economics there. On January 20, 2021, she became the first woman, the first African American woman, the first Indian-American, the first person of Asian-American descent, and the first graduate of an HBCU to be sworn in as the Vice President of the United States of America. As she said in her election acceptance speech, she “may be the first, but [she] will not be the last.”
Bessie Coleman – Langston University
Bessie Coleman was an American aviator and the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license in the U.S. When she was eighteen, she saved enough money to attend the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston University), but only completed one semester because she could no longer afford tuition. Because flying schools in the U.S. denied her entry, she taught herself French and moved to France, earning her license from France’s well-known Caudron Brother’s School of Aviation in just seven months. Coleman was known for performing flying tricks and specialized in stunt flying and parachuting. Her legacy lives on as an inspiration and a pioneer of women in the field of aviation.
Althea Gibson – Florida A&M University
Althea Gibson was the first African American tennis player to compete at the U.S. National Championships in 1950, and the first Black player to compete at Wimbledon in 1951. She attended Florida A&M University on a sports scholarship and graduated from the school in 1953.
Janice Bryant Howroyd – North Carolina A&T State University
Janice Bryant Howroyd is a North Carolina A&T alumna, an entrepreneur, businesswoman, and author the first black woman to own and operate a billion-dollar company in the U.S. She is the founder and chief executive officer of the ActOne Group, the largest privately held, minority-woman-owned personnel company founded in the US. The employment agency business hit No. 3 on the 2011 industrial/service companies list with $1.4 billion in revenues and has over 17,000 clients across the globe and a presence in 19 countries.
Wilma Rudolph – Tennessee State University
The legendary athlete, Wilma Rudolph was the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at a single Olympics. Despite being told as a child she would never walk again, she overcame her disabilities and became known as “the fastest woman in the world.” Rudolph studied education at Tennessee State University, where the indoor track and dormitory are named in her honor.
Lillian E. Fishburne – Lincoln University
Lillian E. Fishburne is the first African American woman to become a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. She is one of only 41 African Americans who have achieved the honor of being a flag officer in the United States Navy as of January 2010. Fishburne obtained her B.A. in 1971 from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), and later enrolled in the U.S. Navy Women’s Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island, where she was commissioned as an Ensign.
Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles – Founders of Spelman College
The founders of Spelman College, Sophia B. Packard, and Harriet E. Giles were two missionary women who journeyed together from New England to Georgia with the mission of creating an educational opportunity to uplift recently freed Black women. On April 11, 1881, Packard and Giles, supported by a village of allies and advocates, began the Spelman legacy. With only a pad and pencil, they held the very first class of the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in the basement of Father Quarles’ Friendship Baptist Church. Within just three months, enrollment had increased to eighty students, and soon after, the student body grew to over 200 students, ranging in age from 16 – 52. In the summer of 1882, business magnate and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller became a devoted investor of the Seminary, affording Packard and Giles the opportunity to purchase the present campus site, then occupying five frame buildings on nine acres of land. In 1884, the school was renamed Spelman Seminary in honor of Rockefeller’s wife, Mrs. Laura Spelman Rockefeller and her parents Harvey Buel and Lucy Henry Spelman, both activists in the antislavery movement. In 1924, our name was changed to Spelman College.
Mary Mcleod Bethune – Founder of Bethune-Cookman University
Mary McLeod Bethune, the inspirational founder of Bethune-Cookman University was an educator, a civil and women’s rights pioneer, and an activist. As one of the most influential women of her generation, Dr. Bethune opened a boarding school, the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in 1904. She created “pencils” from charred wood, ink from elderberries, and mattresses from moss-stuffed corn sacks. She also founded the Mary McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses, which at the time was the only school of its kind that served African American women on the east coast. Eventually, Bethune’s school became a college, merging with the all-male Cookman Institute to form Bethune-Cookman College in 1929. It issued its first degrees in 1943.
Elizabeth Evelyn Wright – Founder of Voorhees College
Elizabeth Evelyn Wright is the founder of Voorhees College. When she was ten, she and her family moved to Talbotton, GA for her to have better educational opportunities. She caught the attention of a northern teacher who encouraged her to apply to the Tuskegee Institute. George W. Kelley, a Massachusetts judge, funded her schooling and she completed Tuskegee Institute in 1894. While at Tuskegee, Wright’s role models were Booker T. and Margaret Murray Washington. The Washingtons inspired Wright’s commitment to uplifting and educating African Americans, which led to her interest in teaching. In 1897, she started the Denmark Industrial School in Denmark, SC in a room above an abandoned store. As the school grew, Ralph Voorhees, a northern philanthropist, donated around $5,000 for about 280 acres of land. As a result, in 1902, the first building of Voorhees Industrial School was opened after completion, named in honor of Ralph Voorhees. Wright continued to honor her mentors by modeling the school after the Tuskegee Institute.
