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Maggie Lena Mitchell was born on July 15, 1864, on the Van Lew Estate in Richmond, Virginia, just before the end of the Civil War. Scholars believed that her birth year was 1867, until in 2009 documentation was found to the contrary, Census information, as well as a diary passage identified her year of birth as 1864. Her mother was Elizabeth Draper, a former slave who worked as an assistant cook for Mrs. Elizabeth Van Lew, who was an abolitionist, Unionist and spy for the Union during the Civil War. It was during this time that Elizabeth met Eccles Cuthbert, an Irish American, who was a reporter for the New York Herald. While there is documentation that Cuthbert was Maggie’s biological fath

Jewel S. Lafontant-Mankarious was born as Jewel Carter Stradford, on April 28th 1922, in Chicago, into a very interesting family of class and achievement. Her father was a noted attorney, C. Francis Stradford who was the co-founder of the National Bar Association and her mother was Aida Arabella Stradford, a South Carolina school teacher who was a descendent of Scipio Vaughan an African American artisan and former slave. After gaining his freedom Scipio inspired the “Back to Africa” movement in an effort to encourage his family to connect with their roots in Africa, specifically the Yoruba of West Arica in the early 19th century. Vaughan married Maria Conway who contributed Yoruba Nigeri

Lt. Col. Merryl Tengesdal stands in front of a U-2 Feb. 9, 2015, at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. Tengesdal is the only black female U-2 pilot in history. Tengesdal is the 9th Reconnaissance Wing inspector general and a U-2 pilot. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Bobby Cummings) As a child she imagined flying amongst the stars, thousands of miles above the earth’s surface, and today Lt. Col. Merryl Tengesdal is one of eight female pilots to ever fly the U-2 and the only black female pilot during the aircraft’s history. A Bronx, N.Y. native, Tengesdal is a U-2 pilot and 9th Reconnaissance Wing inspector general who was recently selecte

Emily Greene Balch was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts on January 8th, 1867. Hers was a prosperous family. Her father was a successful attorney and had been secretary to the United States, Senator Charles Sumner. As a young girl, she attended private schools and was a member of the first graduating class of Bryn Mawr in 1889. Her major was economics but in her last year, she did an independent study in the then-new science of sociology. Upon her graduation, Bryn Mawr granted her a fellowship to go to Paris where she studied under Emile Levasseur and authored Public Assistance of the Poor in France which was published in 1893. She completed her formal studies with various courses at both

I do not know who to credit for this photo...but it says so much to me. Wishing all a Happy Valentines Day. Despite the commercial aspects, it is a really good time to take stock, feel and share the love!

Kris Machnick is not going to let a little thing like a birthday stand in the way of her goals. She celebrated her most recent lap around the sun by training hard at Pacific Edge Climbing Gym in Santa Cruz, California, an integral part of her preparation—which also includes CrossFit, weightlifting, aerobic activity, and endurance work—for an upcoming ice climbing expedition in Hemsedal, Norway. Of course, she still made time to celebrate with friends and family later that day—after all, you only turn 80 once. Climbing in Norway is a return home for Machnick, who was raised in Kristiansund N., located a brisk 63 degrees north of the equator. She was born on the cusp of World War II, and her s

I have been mourning the loss of this amazing woman, reading her volumes and treasuring her anew. When I saw this article I knew I wanted to share it here. It is no small wonder we wanted to hear what she had to say! “The utmost of ambition,” Robert Frost once wrote, “is to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of”: not on university syllabi but in the memory of a generation. Few poets achieved that ambition more evidently, or more obviously, than Mary Oliver, who died, in Florida, on Thursday, at eighty-three. Though she grew up in Ohio and spent her last years in warmer climes, Oliver and her poetry cleaved closely for most of her adult life to Truro and Provincetown, Massac