Obiorah Fields - May 2018

WWW.OBIORAHFIELDS.COM 404.994.6218

PRST STD US POSTAGE PAID BOISE, ID PERMIT 411

157 South McDonough Street Jonesboro, Georgia 30236

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Obiorah Fields’ Origin Story

1

Punishments Aren’t Always Fair Spotlight on Yolanda Habal

2

Thank a Veteran This Memorial Day Puzzle Your Brain

3

3 of the Most Formidable Moms in History

4

MOTHERS SHAPE THE WORLD

3 OF HISTORY’S BRAVEST MOMS

Moms make the world go round. After running the gauntlet of childbirth, they raise and guide us throughout our lives, shouldering the tremendous burden and responsibility of motherhood. Mothers are in turn formidable, kind, powerful, gentle, wise, fierce, patient, supportive, empathetic, driven, and full of love. In honor of Mother’s Day, here are three historic moms who never stopped fighting for what they believed in. Before she escaped from New York slaveholder John Dumont, Sojourner Truth had at least three of her children sold away from her. When Dumont went back on his promise to emancipate Truth and her infant daughter in 1826, she took the girl and fled to an abolitionist Quaker family, but she was forced to leave her other daughter SOJOURNER TRUTH (1797–1883)

and her 5-year-old son, Peter, behind. Soon after, she learned that Peter had been illegally sold by Dumont to a slaveholder in Alabama, so she went to court and secured his safe return. It was the first successful case brought by a black woman against a white man in American history. Truth went on to become a prominent abolitionist and a speaker for women’s rights, delivering her famous impromptu speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” in May of 1851. When the Nazis invaded Warsaw in September of 1939, Irena Sendler, a 29-year-old social worker and mother of two, hatched a scheme to rescue Jewish children from the brutal ghettos. Along with many friends and colleagues, she smuggled out nearly 2,500 Jewish orphans, hiding infants on trams and IRENA SENDLER (1910–2008)

garbage wagons and guiding kids through a labyrinth of secret passageways beneath the city.

EMMELINE PANKHURST (1858–1928)

Despite being a wife and the mother of five children — two of whom died tragically young — Emmeline Pankhurst became one of the fiercest advocates for women’s suffrage in the late 19th century. After founding the Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903, she and her cohorts adopted an aggressive strategy to raise awareness for the issue; they began by buttonholing politicians and staging rallies, then progressed to vandalism, window smashing, and arson. She was instrumental in the movement. Pankhurst lived to see women gain the right to vote in 1928.

4 | www.obiorahfields.com | Your Rights, Our Fight

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