Activist

Oretha and her sister, Doris Jean Castle, were vital leaders of the civil rights movement in New Orleans.

Suffragist

Modernly, Cooper has been referred to as the Mother of Black Feminism after her book A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South sparked a new era of Black feminist thought, challenging the prevailing narratives of race, gender, and class.

Grimke (1837-1914) hailed from a triumvirate of intellectual and abolitionist families: born into the prestigious Forten family, she later married into the equally renowned Grimke family, and shared familial ties with the influential Purvis family. She was an activist, educator, and a diarist whose published works gave rare insight into the life and perspective of a free Black woman in the North, pre-civil war.

Activist

"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired".

"We find the negro woman figuratively struck in the face by contempt from the world about her. Within her soul, she knows little of peace and happiness. But through it all, she is courageously standing erect, developing within herself the moral strength to rise above and conquer false attitudes...The wind of the race's destiny stirs more briskly because of her striving."

Clubwoman

Sociologist, Activitst

Morial (1932-2024) was a staunch voting and civil rights activist, the wife of the first Black Mayor of New Orleans, Ernest "Dutch" Morial, and mother of Marc Morial, the second Black Mayor of New Orleans.

“I’m not afraid of Dutch Schultz or any other man living. He’ll never touch me.” After Schultz was shot in the stomach while on the toilet at his favorite restaurant, St. Clair sent a telegram to his hospital bed that read “So You Sow — So Shall Ye Reap.” signed “Madam Queen of Policy.”