I love history. This country is filled with incredible stories of human beings who did incredible things during trying times. They were ordinary people who stood up for what was right.  Many did not get to see the fruit of their labor, but they tended the garden anyway.

It is what we need: People who will tend to the garden even though they don’t get to eat the harvest.

Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass fought to change minds about the evils of slavery from the midst of it.  They lived to see the end of slavery, but the true liberation of their people escaped them.  Tubman helped free slaves one person at a time with the Underground Railroad. Douglass wrote books and gave speeches on the evils of slavery after having escaped from his master.

Because of the work done by Tubman and Douglass, Ida Wells and James Baldwin were able to get an education. Baldwin grew up in Harlem where he was able to attend public school and began a literary career.  Wells, one of the founders of the NAACP, was a graduate of Fisk University. She was also a journalist and suffragist.  Both continued to be a  voice of the movement.

A Georgia minister became the spokesperson for that movement in the 1950s.   Dr. Martin Luther King lead boycotts and organized nonviolent protests in the southern part of the United States. Even though he won a Novel Peace Prize, he did not see the fruit of his labor. But he tended the garden cause he knew fruit was coming.

Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States.  In the face of radical racism, he lead the country in a way that was true to the people who came before him.  Like the slaves who came before him, he was attacked in every  manner, but like cream, rose to the top. His wife, Michelle, set a new standard for what a First Lady is able to accomplish during their time in office.

Black History lives and breathes.

Welcome the stories of women.

Alice Paul was one of the women who lead the campaign for the 19th Amendment.

Delores Huerta is a Latina who co founded the National Farmerworkers Association and a civil rights activist.

Sojourner Truth was an abolitionists and former slave who also contributed to the women’s movement.

Ida B Wells was a journalist and activist who was not afraid to take on racist white women who hindered the women’t movement.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an abolitionist and suffragist who helped co found the women’s right movement.

Susan B Anthony was an abolitionist and suffragist who helped arrange for the U.S. Congress to be presented with the amendment giving women the right to vote.

Again, these women tended the garden, but didn’t eat the fruit.