ContextSotomayor clarifying her 'wise Latina' remark during her confirmation hearing.Read More: Latinx Voices
Their StoryThe first Latina and third woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, appointed in 2009. She grew up in a Bronx housing project, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, and has written about both in her memoir.Her memoir 'My Beloved World' is the fullest primary source for her own story.See Their Full Story
“ I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life. ”
ContextThe line that became a flashpoint in Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, on lived experience shaping judgment.Read More: Latinx Voices
Their StoryThe first Latina and third woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, appointed in 2009. She grew up in a Bronx housing project, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, and has written about both in her memoir.Her memoir 'My Beloved World' is the fullest primary source for her own story.See Their Full Story
ContextFrom the memoir of the first Latina US Supreme Court Justice, on effort outweighing self-doubt.Read More: Latinx Voices
Their StoryThe first Latina and third woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, appointed in 2009. She grew up in a Bronx housing project, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, and has written about both in her memoir.Her memoir 'My Beloved World' is the fullest primary source for her own story.See Their Full Story
“ The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues. ”
“ My question is, why are people so quick to assume that locking away an increasingly large proportion of the U.S. population would help those who live in the free world feel safer and more secure? ”
Their StoryScholar and activist whose work on race, gender and the prison system has shaped decades of organising. Briefly jailed and tried in the early 1970s after guns registered in her name were used in a courtroom takeover, she was acquitted and went on to a long academic and activist career arguing for the abolition of prisons and policing.Her memoir and lectures, widely available online, are the fullest primary sources.See Their Full Story
ContextSor Juana, a self-taught nun and scholar in colonial New Spain, defending everyday domestic knowledge as a form of philosophy.Read More: Latinx Voices
Their StoryKenyan environmentalist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, which has since organised the planting of tens of millions of trees across Kenya, led largely by women. She died in 2011.Her memoir 'Unbowed' and her Nobel lecture are the fullest primary sources.See Their Full Story
Widely credited to this person; primary source not yet confirmed.
ContextOften described as the first self-made female millionaire in the US.
Their StoryBorn Sarah Breedlove to formerly enslaved parents in Louisiana in 1867, she built a line of hair care products for Black women into a business empire, becoming widely regarded as the first self-made female millionaire in America. She employed thousands of Black women as sales agents.Biographies by her great-great-granddaughter A'Lelia Bundles are the fullest primary-adjacent sources.See Their Full Story
ContextAdichie's own working definition of the word, from her widely shared TEDx talk.Read More: Black Literature
Their StoryNigerian novelist and essayist whose books, including 'Half of a Yellow Sun' and 'Americanah', are read worldwide. Her TEDx talk 'The Danger of a Single Story' and essay 'We Should All Be Feminists' brought her ideas to an audience well beyond literary fiction.'We Should All Be Feminists' is a short, direct entry point before the novels.See Their Full Story
Their StoryPoet, essayist and librarian who described herself as 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.' Born in New York in 1934 to Caribbean immigrant parents, she used poetry and essays to name what others left unsaid about race, sexuality, class and illness.Her essays 'The Master's Tools' and 'Uses of the Erotic' reward the full text.See Their Full Story
