RACHEL LELAND LEVINE, M.D. (1958 - )  is the Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health, having been appointed by President Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She previously served as Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary and the head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corp., becoming the first transgender four-star officer. She has also as professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and the chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders.

Dr. Levine was born October 28, 1957, in Wakefield, Massachusetts with the birth name of Richard L. Levine. Levine has one sister. 

She grew up attending Hebrew School.  Then graduated from Harvard College and Tulane University School of Medicine.   Levine completed her residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in adolescent medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center.  It was during this period that Dr. Levine married Martha Peaslee Levine with whom she has two children.  The couple was divorced in 2013.

Dr. Levine describes her transition as slow, deliberate and filled with research.  The transition began when she started seeing a therapist in 2001.  She announced herself as transgender in 2011.  Levine took the step of attending voice lessons so she would sound more like a woman.

In a statement at the time of her appointment to Assistant Secretary of Health President Bien said “Dr. Levine  will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic – no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability – and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond.”  “She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health effort.”

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For more stories of remarkable women, see HERSTORY on womensvoicesmedia.org

Thurston High School.

Columbine High School.

Heritage High School.

Deming Middle School.

Fort Gibson Middle School.

Buell Elementary School.

Lake Worth Middle School.

University of Arkansas.

Junipero Serra High School.

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Bishop Neumann High School.

Pacific Lutheran University.

Granite Hills High School.

Lew Wallace High School.

Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.

Appalachian School of Law.

Washington High School.

Conception Abbey.

Benjamin Tasker Middle School.

University of Arizona.

Lincoln High School.

John McDonogh High School.

Red Lion Area Junior High School.

Case Western Reserve University.

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NET Charter High School.

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Sal Castro Middle School.

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Forest High School

Highland High School

Dixon High School

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Noblesville West Middle School

University of North Carolina Charlotte

STEM School Highlands Ranch

Edgewood High School

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Providence Career & Technical Academy

Fairley High School (school bus)

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Dennis Intermediate School

Florida International University

Central Elementary School

Cascade Middle School

Davidson High School

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Altascocita High School

Central Academy of Excellence

Cleveland High School

Robert E. Lee High School

Cheyenne South High School

Grambling State University

Blountsville Elementary School

Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)

Prescott High School

College of the Mainland

Wynbrooke Elementary School

Riverview Florida (school bus)

Second Chance High School

Carman-Ainsworth High School

Williwaw Elementary School

Monroe Clark Middle School

Central Catholic High School

Jeanette High School

Eastern Hills High School

DeAnza High School

Ridgway High School

Reginald F. Lewis High School

Saugus High School

Pleasantville High School

Waukesha South High School

Oshkosh High School

Catholic Academy of New Haven

Bellaire High School

North Crowley High School

McAuliffe Elementary School

South Oak Cliff High School

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Sonora High School

Western Illinois University

Oxford High School

Robb Elementary School

Columbine High School.

Heritage High School.

Deming Middle School.

Fort Gibson Middle School.

Buell Elementary School.

Lake Worth Middle School.

University of Arkansas.

Junipero Serra High School.

Santana High School.

Bishop Neumann High School.

Pacific Lutheran University.

Granite Hills High School.

Lew Wallace High School.

Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.

Appalachian School of Law.

Washington High School.

Conception Abbey.

Benjamin Tasker Middle School.

University of Arizona.

Lincoln High School.

John McDonogh High School.

Red Lion Area Junior High School.

Case Western Reserve University.

Rocori High School.

Ballou High School.

Randallstown High School.

Bowen High School.

Red Lake Senior High School.

Harlan Community Academy High School.

Campbell County High School.

Milwee Middle School.

Roseburg High School.

Pine Middle School.

Essex Elementary School.

Duquesne University.

Platte Canyon High School.

Weston High School.

West Nickel Mines School.

Joplin Memorial Middle School.

Henry Foss High School.

Compton Centennial High School.

Virginia Tech.

Success Tech Academy.

Miami Carol City Senior High School.

Hamilton High School.

Louisiana Technical College.

Mitchell High School.

E.O. Green Junior High School.

Northern Illinois University.

Lakota Middle School.

Knoxville Central High School.

Willoughby South High School.

Henry Ford High School.

University of Central Arkansas.

Dillard High School.

Dunbar High School.

Hampton University.

Harvard College.

Larose-Cut Off Middle School.

International Studies Academy.

Skyline College.

Discovery Middle School.

University of Alabama.

DeKalb School.

Deer Creek Middle School.

Ohio State University.

Mumford High School.

University of Texas.

Kelly Elementary School.

Marinette High School.

Aurora Central High School.

Millard South High School.

Martinsville West Middle School.

Worthing High School.

Millard South High School.

Highlands Intermediate School.

Cape Fear High School.

Chardon High School.

Episcopal School of Jacksonville.

Oikos University.

Hamilton High School.

Perry Hall School.

Normal Community High School.

University of South Alabama.

Banner Academy South.

University of Southern California.

Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.

Taft Union High School.

Osborn High School.

Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.

Hazard Community and Technical College.

Chicago State University.

Lone Star College-North.

Cesar Chavez High School.

Price Middle School.

University of Central Florida.

New River Community College.

Grambling State University.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.

Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.

North Panola High School.

Carver High School.

Agape Christian Academy.

Sparks Middle School.

North Carolina A&T State University.

Stephenson High School.

Brashear High School.

West Orange High School.

Arapahoe High School.

Edison High School.

Liberty Technology Magnet High School.

Hillhouse High School.

Berrendo Middle School.

Purdue University.

South Carolina State University.

Los Angeles Valley College.

Charles F. Brush High School.

University of Southern California.

Georgia Regents University.

Academy of Knowledge Preschool.

Benjamin Banneker High School.

1. H. Conley High School.

East English Village Preparatory Academy.

Paine College.

Georgia Gwinnett College.

John F. Kennedy High School.

Seattle Pacific University.

Reynolds High School.

Indiana State University.

Albemarle High School.

Fern Creek Traditional High School.

Langston Hughes High School.

Marysville Pilchuck High School.

Florida State University.

Miami Carol City High School.

Rogers State University.

Rosemary Anderson High School.

Wisconsin Lutheran High School.

Frederick High School.

Tenaya Middle School.

Bethune-Cookman University.

Pershing Elementary School.

Wayne Community College.

J.B. Martin Middle School.

Southwestern Classical Academy.

Savannah State University.

Harrisburg High School.

Umpqua Community College.

Northern Arizona University.

Texas Southern University.

Tennessee State University.

Winston-Salem State University.

Mojave High School.

Lawrence Central High School.

Franklin High School.

Muskegon Heights High School.

Independence High School.

Madison High School.

Antigo High School.

University of California-Los Angeles.

Jeremiah Burke High School.

Alpine High School.

Townville Elementary School.

Vigor High School.

Linden McKinley STEM Academy.

June Jordan High School for Equity.

Union Middle School.

Mueller Park Junior High School.

West Liberty-Salem High School.

University of Washington.

King City High School.

North Park Elementary School.

North Lake College.

Freeman High School.

Mattoon High School.

Rancho Tehama Elementary School.

Aztec High School.

Wake Forest University.

Italy High School.

NET Charter High School.

Marshall County High School.

Sal Castro Middle School.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

Great Mills High School

Central Michigan University

Huffman High School

Frederick Douglass High School

Forest High School

Highland High School

Dixon High School

Santa Fe High School

Noblesville West Middle School

University of North Carolina Charlotte

STEM School Highlands Ranch

Edgewood High School

Palm Beach Central High School

Providence Career & Technical Academy

Fairley High School (school bus)

Canyon Springs High School

Dennis Intermediate School

Florida International University

Central Elementary School

Cascade Middle School

Davidson High School

Prairie View A & M University

Altascocita High School

Central Academy of Excellence

Cleveland High School

Robert E. Lee High School

Cheyenne South High School

Grambling State University

Blountsville Elementary School

Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)

Prescott High School

College of the Mainland

Wynbrooke Elementary School

UNC Charlotte

Riverview Florida (school bus)

Second Chance High School

Carman-Ainsworth High School

Williwaw Elementary School

Monroe Clark Middle School

Central Catholic High School

Jeanette High School

Eastern Hills High School

DeAnza High School

Ridgway High School

Reginald F. Lewis High School

Saugus High School

Pleasantville High School

Waukesha South High School

Oshkosh High School

Catholic Academy of New Haven

Bellaire High School

North Crowley High School

McAuliffe Elementary School

South Oak Cliff High School

Texas A&M University-Commerce

Sonora High School

Western Illinois University

Oxford High School

Robb Elementary School

Ruby Hirose (1904-1960)

Although it is a part of history we do not like to admit, the United States did—and still does—have internment camps to isolate individuals that the government deems “suspect.” Native Americans were sent to live on reservations so colonists could access more desirable land. In more recent events, detainment camps were established at Guantanamo Bay to interrogate and torture those suspected of terrorism. One instance that tends to go under the radar in history class and current news is the Japanese internment camps that appeared on the West Coast after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Dr. Ruby Hirose, a researcher in the Midwest for William S. Merrell Laboratories during World War II, luckily escaped this fate by simply not living on a coast. As such, Dr. Hirose did not leave Ohio and was able to conduct her research without the constraints of living in an internment camp. Unfortunately, her siblings and father were not as lucky as her because they were Japanese-American residents of Washington State.

A graduate from University of Cincinnati, Dr. Ruby Hirose was a Japanese-American biochemist and bacteriologist who conducted vaccine research in infantile paralysis. A sufferer herself, Hirose also conducted research in hay fever—which is basically another way of saying “pollen allergies”. She researched a way to improve pollen extracts to desensitize hay fever sufferers.

In addition to her valuable research on the polio vaccine and on hay fever, she also published a paper titled “A Pharaceutical Study of Hydrastis Canadensis” which can be found in full here. In this paper, she chronicles the history of a native North American plant called Hydrastis Canadensis, also known as Goldenseal, and the history of its use. She chronicles how Native Americans first used this plant for dyes and as a way to treat sores and how Lewis and Clark documented this plant during their journey to the west coast. She also tried to find the best conditions in which Hydrastis would grow.

This research is oddly symbolic of her experience during World War II. She was an American born-and-raised just like Hydrastis Canadensis. She found her “best condition for growth” in research in Ohio as this was a place that allowed her to utilize and embrace her gift as a researcher.

Hirose’s talent and work flourished and ultimately made her one of the 10 women who was recognized by the American Chemical Society for her accomplishments in chemistry in 1940. She gave back to America even though fear mongering during wartime did hold back many of her relatives.

She was buried in the Auburn Pioneer Cemetery in Washington state—the very state that sent her family away to an internment camp during the war. In the end, the research she conducted to improve the quality of life for others will live beyond the confines of wartime limitations. Her efforts will continue to inspire others to discover their passion for science.

Article written by: Alexandra McHale

NYU WOMEN IN SCIENCE

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For more stories of remarkable women, see HERSTORY on womensvoicesmedia.org

Sources:

http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_297429

http://www.doublexscience.org/notable-scientists-overlooked/

http://www.themarysue.com/women-in-science-gallery/

http://images.sciencesource.com/preview/14700646/BW3366.html

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jps.3080190409/abstract

If you think about it logically, there isn't a distinction between them in this case.  Of course "logical" doesn't apply when we are speaking about the radical religious right.

Amy Tan didn’t set out to write a bestseller. In fact, she found solace in the fact that she was able to write The Joy Luck Club with “no expectations.” “I had been told that the typical first book by an unknown writer might sell five thousand copies — if you were lucky,” she told Penguin Random House Books. “I heard that it might last on the bookstore shelves six weeks — if you were lucky.”

But Tan got more than lucky. Her 1989 book ended up on The New York Times bestseller list for more than six months and spawned a 1993 movie — which Tan co-wrote — that brought in $32 million worldwide. “I wrote The Joy Luck Club without the self-consciousness I would later feel when the book landed on the bestseller list,” she continued. “No one had predicted the book’s trajectory, and I was stunned, as if I had won the lottery without having ever bought a ticket.”

Not only was the book a personal achievement for Tan as an author, but it also was seen as a watershed moment, proving that a fictional book featuring intertwined multigenerational stories about Asian Americans could find mainstream success both on bookshelves and the silver screen. Tan was a freelance business writer working 90 hours a week when she decided to bring balance into her life by channeling a more creative form of writing in 1985. “I decided to attend a writers’ workshop, read certain books, and write a short story within the next year,” she told Publishers Weekly in 1989. To apply for the program, she wrote a short story about a girl who was a chess champion and her Chinese mother.

That got her wheels turning in the fiction world. But it was a very real event that launched her journey toward The Joy Luck Club. One day, she had to suddenly go to the hospital since her mother was thought to have had a heart attack. It was on the way there that she realized how little she knew about her family’s Chinese roots, and promised to herself that if her mom survived, she’d go with her to China and soak everything up, Publishers Weekly explained. While her mom’s diagnosis turned out not to be a heart attack, Tan did go with her mother to China in 1987.

Soon she had penned the book about a group of Chinese American women who play together in a mahjong group and their Americanized daughters. “The book exists for me in its own time capsule,” she told Penguin Random House. “It contains the circumstances that led me to write it. In many ways, it is an intimate diary of my ordinary thoughts and strange obsessions, all of which were absorbed into the writing of the book.”

For audiences, there was the relatability of family love and drama woven into the multiple perspectives of different generations throughout time. But for Asian Americans, it was a breakthrough. An actual story about the culture that was so rare on American bookshelves. “When I read the book, it was the first time I felt someone was writing about my life,” actress Ming-Na Wen, who later starred in the films, told The New York Times..

Despite the success in its written pages, the book didn’t find a quick road into the film world. At the time, Asian American roles largely succumbed to stereotypes, be it martial arts action stars or those with exaggerated characteristics. Some of the actresses who were later in The Joy Luck Club described their acting experiences before the movie as being stereotypes without any real depth. “Asian American women were objectified,” Rosalind Chao, who had played a Korean bride in M*A*S*H and laundry man's daughter on a Lucille Ball series, told The New York Times. “Pretty was really all that they cared about.” The last major film that had Asian American characters in the lead was way back in 1961 with Flower Drum Song, but that also had the music of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II behind it.

Most studios quickly passed on the project. “There was a perception that Americans — and that especially Americans in movies — had to be white,” Janet Yang, who was an executive producer for the film, told NPR. “But the selling point was the script… If you put aside the biases about it being an all-Asian cast...it was hard not to be moved. Many other studio executives — in fact, all the other studios that we approached could not put aside those concerns. But it took somebody who was willing to take a leap of faith.”

Finally, they found that somebody in Walt Disney Studios’ Jeffrey Katzenberg, who offered a $10 million budget and full creative control, The New York Times reported.

Yang says the studio was 'nervous' to put the all-Asian cast on display in promotions

Though they got the green light, it didn’t mean that it was smooth sailing. Yang recalled to NPR an incident where director Wanye Wang realized that despite the movie being a completely Asian American story, that very fact was going to be swept under the rug. “I do remember Wayne, who has the most lovely personality… he lost his temper one day in a marketing meeting,” she said. “We were going there to look at posters that they were going to consider for marketing Joy Luck Club and each and every one somehow managed to avoid showing full-on an Asian face.”

She believes that one was a woodcut and very abstract and angular, while another only used the backs of the women. “They clearly were nervous about showing an Asian face in, you know, a larger-than-life image,” Yang continued. “And it was ironic because we thought, well, they went and greenlit this movie. We just shot the whole thing. They say they love the movie, and now they're afraid to sell it.”

Ultimately, the box office success spoke for itself, as the film found success among a broad range of American audiences.

As further proof, some of the actors were quickly cast in big studio and mainstream roles, like Lauren Tom playing Ross Geller’s love interest Julie on Friends and Wen voicing the title character in the animated version of Mulan. Director Wang also got his next film Smoke financed quickly. “I always say that The Joy Luck Club was my green card to Hollywood,” Wen told The New York Times.

However, what seemed to be a shift in Hollywood standards, was short-lived. It took a shockingly long 25 years before another Asian American major studio film was made — Crazy Rich Asians, starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh, in 2018. That, also, translated into big bucks in its time, bringing in $238.5 million worldwide.

That gap in the timeline was noticeable. “It took a really long time before another feature film came out with characters in the United States by a writer in the United States,” Tan told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The difference between what happened then and what’s happening now — it’s money, it’s money, and it has to make a ton of money at the box office.”

But the author is also a fan of the film that found success thanks to the road her film paved. “I loved Crazy Rich Asians and laughed like crazy!” she added. “It’s over the top, but that’s the point, it’s meant to be funny. The part that is true — that doesn’t matter what your income is — is introducing your girlfriend or boyfriend to your parents, and their reaction, and how much you will endure for that love.”

After all, a good story is universal and the more diverse ones there are, the more it captures the much-needed representation that is lacking on screen. “I have had a number of people say to me that they and their mother read this book together when their mother was dying, and that was the last thing they did together,” Tan reveals. “That is so incredibly touching. I’m grateful. It wasn’t through my intention, but this book, in the hands of readers, gets overlaid with their own experiences and emotions, and it becomes their book.”

BY     RACHEL CHANG

Rachel Chang is a journalist and editor specializing in pop culture and travel.

Bans Off Our Bodies ……….. May 14th

Read & then make your plans to join in the fight!

On May 2nd, we learned from a leaked draft opinion that SCOTUS is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, stripping the constitutional right to abortion in spite of fifty years of precedent.

The Supreme Court is making their official decision on abortion rights in June. Once that happens, 26 states could move quickly to ban abortion, meaning millions of people could live without local access to abortion care.

Roe has always been the floor, not the ceiling. Many Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color experience barriers to accessing abortions. The people in your community and across the country deserve the power and freedom to make their own personal reproductive health care decisions.

We have to act NOW, all across the country. Together we will send a strong message that we're not backing down. Supporting abortion access must be protected and defended.

Looking for an event near you?   Enter your zip code at bansoffourbodies.org

Yoshiko Uchida was born on November 24, 1921, in Alameda, California, to parents Dwight Takashi Uchida (1884–1971) and Iku Umegaki Uchida (1893–1966).  She had an older sister, Keiko ("Kay," 1918-2008).

Yoshiko and Keiko enjoyed a relatively privileged upbringing. The family lived in a rented home in an area of Berkeley.  The girls took piano lessons and the family went to concerts and museums, while also taking vacations to the East Coast and to Japan.  As leaders in the Bay Area Japanese community, their parents often hosted visitors from Japan.

Despite being sickly as a child, Yoshiko graduated from high school in 2-1/2 years and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, at age 16.  She majored in English, history and philosophy.

World War II brought dramatic changes for the Uchida family. As a community leader who often hosted Japanese visitors, Takashi was immediately suspect in the eyes of authorities and was arrested on Pearl Harbor day, held first in the Immigration Detention Quarters in San Francisco, then moved to the Missoula, Montana, internment camp.

The rest of the family was forced to leave their home and were sent to the Tanforan Assembly Center where they lived in a former horse stall.  About a week into their stay, they learned that Takashi had been "paroled," and he joined them shortly thereafter. After helping her sister establish a nursery school in camp, Yoshiko became a second grade teacher. Finding that she enjoyed teaching, she decided to seek teaching credentials, having received her Berkeley diploma through the mail. She also took first aid and art classes and joined the church choir.

After five months, the family moved to an interment camp in Utah, where they lived for almost three years.  Yoshiko first worked as a secretary before getting another teaching job. Her father became the board chairman of the camp co-op.  In the camps Yoshida had the chance to see and experience the injustices and ill-treatment Americans perpetrated against the Japanese/Americans.  These experiences would provide the basis for many of her books, both autobiographical and fiction.  Many of her other books deal with issues of ethnicity, citizenship, identity, and cross-cultural relationships. The years she was incarcerated left a deep impression. Her 1971 novel, Journey to Topaz, is fiction, but closely follows her own experiences.

In describing her experiences during those years, Yoshiko wrote: “I worked hard to be a good teacher; I went to meetings, wrote long letters to my friends, knitted sweaters and socks, devoured any books I could find, listened to the radio, went to art school and to church and to lectures by outside visitors.  I spent time socializing with friends and I saw occasional movies at the Coop.  I also had a wisdom tooth removes at the hospital and suffered a swollen face for three days.  I caught one cold after another; I fell on unpaved roads; I lost my voice from the dust; I got homesick and angry and despondent.  And sometimes I cried.”

In May of 1943, she received a full scholarship to graduate school at Smith College in Massachusetts. At the same time, Keiko received a job offer at nearby Mt. Holyoke College.  The sisters left camp on the same day in June. A few months later, their parents left camp to resettle in Salt Lake City, due in part to threats Takashi had received because of his position with the co-op.

Uchida graduated with a M.Ed. from Smith College in 1944, first and took a teaching job at the Frankford Friends' School in Philadelphia. But the demands of teaching made it difficult for her to pursue her interest in writing—and having contracted mononucleosis—she moved to New York where Keiko had settled and took a job as a secretary.  She worked first for the Institute of Pacific Relations (1946–47), then for the United Student Christian Council (1947–52). In her off hours, she wrote short stories, submitting them to publications like the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and generating piles of rejection slips. After taking a class on writing for children at Columbia University, her instructor encouraged her to submit a manuscript she had written of Japanese folk tales she had learned from her mother and adapted for American audiences. The Dancing Kettle, and Other Japanese Folk Tales was published by Harcourt, Brace in 1949 to great acclaim, setting Uchida on the road to a successful career as a writer of children's books. Her second book, New Friends for Susan (1951), was her first with Japanese American characters and was set in prewar Berkeley. 

Over the course of her career, Uchida published more than thirty books, including non-fiction for adults,and fiction  for children and teenagers.  She is best known for her books on the concentration camp experience, the first such books for children written by a Japanese American author. In speaking about her children’s nooks She said, “ I try to stress the positive aspects of life that I want children to value and cherish. I hope they can be caring human beings who don't think in terms of labels—foreigners or Asians or whatever—but think of people as human beings. If that comes across, then I've accomplished my purpose.”

Yoshiko continued to write into her last years. Plagued by health problems in later years, she passed away at the age of seventy on June 21, 1992

For more information including a list of her books go to Wikipedia.

Also see Densho Encyclopedia

First of all Ségolène Royal former candidate in french presidential election, is president of Desire of future for the planet. Kamala Harris heard about Ségolène Royal and her project of solar maternities and our VP appreciates this action. Royal did 16 800 000 of voices in 2007 to the second round the biggest number of voices in all the french elections for a women from 1789.  But she lost against Sarkozy.

Minister of ecology, president of COP 21... she is the more and more popular for March/April 2022. Royal has 2 800 members in her official group on Facebook. For applauding the great and ecological politic led by Mrs Royal you can follow www.instagram.com/segoleneroyalfoundation. Feminism and ecology is the same fight for her. 

Ségolène Royal was the best president of region in France in 2013. She led the region from 2004 to 2014. She prepares lots of action with her NGO. 

Now let's talk about her biggest supporter, Wicem Gindrey, she is journalist , author and singer and she will create the surprise to the socialist party in France with a manifesto in order to create an ecological plan to school. With 10 200 fans on Twitter and 3100 on Instagram, Gindrey should triumph at the end of 2022. Wicem helped and helps Ségolène Royal with a good communication and Gindrey is one of the leaders of the Royal's group on Facebook. 

Ms Magazine Petition

If this were only true for Texas, we could figure the source.  But whatever vile is oozing out of Texas is oozing out of every Republican-controlled state in the country and with all the same results.  Their so-called pro-life only lasts as long as the fetus is in the womb.  Once that baby breaths its' first breath, it is all up to she/he and whoever might love it as to whether it eats, has a roof over its' head, gets a decent education, has medical care or even survives.

Damn those Republicans really have big hearts.  Nawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Given the status of reproductive rights throughout the U.S. right now, it seems appropriate to do something we don't usually do - post an additional frontpage article on an addition to our Resource Library. 

The Repro Legal Helpline is a free, confidential helpline where you can get legal information or advice about self-managed abortion, young people's access to abortion or judicial bypass, and referrals to local resources.

The helpline and its staff are based in the United States and can only answer questions related to U.S. laws.

Additional information about Repro Legal Helpline and reproductive rights can be found in our Resource Library.

Repro Legal Helpline    https://reprolegalhelpline.org

Repro Legal Helpline is run by If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, a non-profit organization made up of advocates, organizers, and lawyers helping to build a future where everyone is free to make their own decisions about their bodies and reproductive lives.

A person’s right to an abortion is protected by the United States Constitution, but many laws and policies keep people from accessing abortion care they want or need. We work to change these laws and policies, with a focus on protecting and lifting up the rights and dignity of the people who are most impacted.

The Repro Legal Helpline is a free, confidential helpline where you can get legal information or advice about self-managed abortion, young people's access to abortion or judicial bypass, and referrals to local resources.

We are not a resource on abortion pills, we cannot provide information about where to buy pills, how to buy them, or how to take them. We also cannot help with tracking or receiving pill shipments.

It has been almost six years since the National Institute of Justice reported the results of a study it funded which included sobering facts on the violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women.  Six years and very little has been done to address the crises.

The study looked at the prevalence of psychological aggression and physical violence by intimate partners, stalking, and sexual violence among American Indian and Alaska Native women.  The results were profound. 

• For American Indian and Alaska Native women, 4 in 5 (84.3%) have experienced violence in their lifetime. This includes:
• 56.1% have experienced sexual violence.
• 55.5% have endured physical intimate partner violence.
• 48.8% have experienced stalking.
• 96% of Native female victims of sexual violence experience violence at the hands of a non-Native perpetrator.
• 21% have experienced inter-racial violence.

The murder rate of Native women is more than 10 times the national average on some reservations. 

Two 2020 laws have requirements that could help address aspects of the crisis, depending on how the Departments of Justice and Interior implement them. But the agencies have missed some of the requirements' deadlines. For example, they have not yet set up a joint commission to explore the issue.

The GAO was asked to review the federal response to the missing or murdered AI/AN women crisis. The report was to examine the extent to which (1) the number of missing or murdered AI/AN women in the U.S. is known and (2)  what steps the DOJ and DOI have taken to address the crisis. GAO reviewed available data on missing persons and violent deaths, relevant reports, and agency documentation, including agency policies and procedures. 

Among the recommendations made by the GOA were that the DOJ develop a plan for how it will accomplish ongoing analyses of missing or murdered AI/AN women data and that DOJ and DOI both develop plans to implement the requirements in Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act of 2019 that remain unfulfilled past their statutory deadlines. 

For more information:

https://www.niwrc.org/

"Examining Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Women"

This past weekend many tributes were made to the late, great baseball star Jackie Robinson, the first  Black man to play in major league baseball in 60 years and the first to open the door for succeeding Black players.  All of the tributes were well deserved, not only for the history he made on the baseball field, but for the accomplishments he made in his personal life.

But as writer Tim Ott explains in his post on Biography , Jackie Robinson’s baseball career might well have taken a different turn were it not for his wife Rachel.

                                                  ********************************

On August 28, 1945, Jackie Robinson entered the office of the Brooklyn Dodgers to meet with team president Branch Rickey.

Keen to introduce the first Black player to Major League Baseball in more than 60 years, Rickey was looking for an individual with impeccable character traits to match his skills on the field. As such, his line of questioning was designed to determine whether the candidate had the makeup to handle this monumental task.

"Do you have a woman?" he asked Jackie, who responded in the affirmative. "Well," said Rickey, "you'll need her."

Indeed, Rachel Robinson would prove an invaluable component of what became known as Rickey's "noble experiment," her strength and support sustaining her husband through the herculean task of demonstrating, on a very public stage, that Blacks could be the equal of whites in a pre-civil rights America.

Jackie and Rachel Isum met at UCLA following her arrival for the fall 1940 semester. Jackie was already the Big Man on Campus, star of the school's football, basketball, track and field and baseball teams, but he quickly fell for the charming nursing student.

As described in the Ken Burns documentary Jackie Robinson, Jackie felt at ease talking to Rachel and was impressed by the drive and determination behind her shy exterior. Rachel also realized her suitor's ambition and loved how he wore white shirts to emphasize his dark skin. "He was never, ever, ashamed of his color," she remembered.

The two were engaged in 1941, but their relationship was tested when Jackie received his draft notice and was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas, the following spring. He sent her a box of chocolates every Friday, though a misunderstanding arose when he mistakenly thought she was also joining the Army, where she would be surrounded by other men, prompting her to return the engagement ring "so he wouldn't think he could tell me what to do."

After earning his honorable discharge in late 1944 (on the heels of being court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a bus), Jackie played baseball in the Negro Leagues as Rachel worked toward completing her nursing degree. Although he enjoyed the camaraderie, Jackie felt the enterprise was disorganized and hated the indignities heaped upon him and his Black teammates as they traveled. As such he was ready to accept Rickey's challenge to integrate baseball, after first proving himself with the minor league team the Montreal Royals.

Two weeks after their marriage on February 10, 1946, Jackie and Rachel left Los Angeles for the Dodgers' spring training site in Daytona Beach, Florida. Rachel was the only wife invited to join the group of players.

Right away, the Robinsons got a taste of the difficulties to come when they were bumped from their flight during a stopover in New Orleans and again after landing in Pensacola, forcing them to board a bus to finish the 400-plus-mile journey across the Florida panhandle. As she remembered in Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait, Rachel wept after her proud husband quietly acquiesced the orders to move to the back.

Things didn't get any easier after their late arrival to spring training. While the players practiced in nearby Sanford, Rickey learned of a possible threat to Jackie's safety, forcing him back to the more progressive Daytona Beach. One scheduled game in Deland was canceled because the stadium lights supposedly didn't work, even though it was daytime. Another in Sanford was halted in the third inning when the police chief threatened to arrest the Royals' manager if Jackie wasn't removed from the lineup.

Although he initially struggled under the pressure, Jackie improved as he drew strength from Rachel's presence. He thought of them as a team, as noted in Burns' documentary, using the term "we" even when referring to something he had done in a game.

Rachel, too, realized the importance of traversing the fire together. "From the moment we were bumped from the American Airlines flights, my role had begun to unfold," she wrote. "My most profound instinct as Jack's wife was to protect him – an impossible task. I could, however, be a consistent presence to witness and validate the realities, love him without reservation, share his thoughts and miseries, discover with him the humor in the ridiculous behavior against us, and, most of us, help maintain our fighting spirit."

The next few months in Montreal delivered a respite between the tensions of spring training and drama still to come. Expecting to encounter difficulties with her housing search, Rachel instead was bowled over by the warm welcome offered by the woman who became their landlord and their neighbors. And while he faced plenty of hostility on road trips, Jackie was immensely popular with the hometown fans.

Later that year, while checking up on Jackie's progress, Dodgers executive Buzzie Bavasi sat in the stands for a Royals game, near the players' wives. Taking note of the magnetic Rachel, he reported to Rickey, "If Jackie was smart enough to pick her as his wife, he's the guy you want."

Jackie's play certainly warranted a promotion to the big club, as he led the International League with a .349 batting average. After the Royals won the Little World Series, Jackie was swamped by delirious Montreal fans. As journalist Sam Maltin famously noted, "It was probably the only day in history that a Black man ran from a white mob with love, instead of lynching on its mind."

Putting an exclamation point on a triumphant year, Rachel gave birth to Jackie Jr. that November.

The following spring, Rachel and the newborn joined Jackie in New York City ahead of his April 15 debut with the Dodgers. They briefly lived in the McAlpin Hotel amid Manhattan's busy Herald Square, often hosting reporters as drying diapers dangled throughout their cramped room, before finding a place in the Bedford-Stuyvesant part of town.

Again struggling with his massive burden, and fighting the instinct to retaliate, Jackie's Major League career got off to a quiet start. Along with enduring the taunts of rival players and fans, he wasn't exactly welcomed in his own clubhouse, as several teammates reportedly had signed a petition to force his ouster.

Rachel made sure to attend every home game, after which she and Jackie walked back together, reliving the highs and lows of the day, before putting it behind them as they entered the sanctuary of their home. Occasionally she joined the team for road trips, during which time, she wrote, she sat up very straight in the stands, "as if my back could absorb the nefarious outbursts and prevent them from reaching him."

Jackie eventually righted the ship amid the abuse, galvanizing fans with his exciting style of play and winning over the teammates who initially wanted nothing to do with him. After the Dodgers advanced to the 1947 World Series, he was named the National League Rookie of the Year and, underscoring how his achievements transcended the baseball field, finished second to Bing Crosby in a radio poll to determine the most popular person in America.

Two years after signing on for the noble experiment, Jackie and Rachel had weathered the harshest storm to prove the undertaking an unqualified success. Their shared battle against entrenched racism was hardly finished, but there was no closing that door that Jackie had emphatically kicked open.

 BY TIM OTT      Updated:  Jan 28, 2021     Original: Feb 4,2021

 Tim Ott has written for Biography and other A+E sites since 2012.

To read more about this remarkable woman, go to Rachel Robinson.  She is so much more than Jackie Robinson's wife.

1. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately
   700 women die each year in the United States as a result of pregnancy or
   delivery complications. (Source: CDC)
2. In 2020, Black women were most disproportionately affected with a mortality
   rate of 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 19.1 deaths per
   100,000 live births, and 18.2 deaths per 100,000 live births for White and
   Hispanic women, respectively. (Source: CDC)
3. The U.S. has an infant mortality rate of 5.6 per 1000 live births in 2019, with a
   health disparity among Black babies at a rate of 10.8 deaths per 1,000 live
   births in 2018. (Source: CDC)
4. Black women are 3 - 5 times more likely to have a maternal death than White
   women in the United States. (Source: AJMC)
5. People from some racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to be uninsured than non-Hispanic whites. (Source: NCBI)
6. Research indicates that 22% of Black women receive a lower quality of care
   than white women and are subject to discrimination in the healthcare field.
   (Source: NCBI) 
7. African-Americans comprise only 13 percent of the total U.S. population,
   however, they make up 30 percent of the COVID-19 cases. (Source: CDC)
8. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a rare but severe
   condition that occurs approximately 2–4 weeks after the onset of COVID-19
   in children and adolescents. MIS-C disproportionately affects children and
   adolescents from racial and ethnic minority groups. More than 70% of
   reported cases have occurred among children who are Hispanic or Latino or
   non-Hispanic Black. (Source: CDC)
9. Pregnant people with COVID-19 are at an increased risk for severe illness
   from COVID-19 —including illness that results in ICU admission, mechanical
   ventilation, and death—compared with non-pregnant people. Additionally,
   pregnant people with COVID-19 might be at increased risk for other adverse outcomes, such as preterm birth. (Source: CDC)

These are but a few facts outlining the widespread discrepancies in the American healthcare system.  IT SHOULDN'T EXIST!  IT IS NOT RIGHT!

Find out more about this issue by going to https://blackmamasmatter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/BMHW22-SM-Toolkit-PUBLIC_-1.pdf

Our healthcare system is broken.  It is time to fix it.  No one in a country as wealthy as ours should ever have to do without equitable healthcare.

Victoria Woodhull   (1838-1927)    The first woman to run for president and the first female stock broker on Wall Street, Victoria Woodhull achieved remarkable success in finance, journalism, and politics. A spiritualist, suffragist, and free love advocate, Woodhull was an iconoclast who fought for her beliefs no matter how controversial they were at the time.

Victoria Woodhull was born in Homer, Ohio on September 23, 1838 to parents Reuben Buckman Claflin and Roxanna Hummel. Woodhull’s childhood was a turbulent one: she received only three years of inconsistent schooling at Homer’s Methodist Church school before her family was forced to leave town under the suspicion that her father had purposefully burned down the mill he owned for the insurance payout. She then spent her early years taking part in her family’s traveling medicine show, telling fortunes and selling homemade medicines.

In 1853, 15-year-old Woodhull married a 28-year-old doctor, Canning Woodhull, and the couple had two children. Her husband was an alcoholic who neglected the family, so Woodhull worked as a seamstress, store clerk, and stage actress to support them. Woodhull’s younger sister, Tennessee Claflin, had set out on her own as a traveling fortune teller and healer. Woodhull eventually joined her sister, promoting herself as a “medical clairvoyant” who could cure the sick.

Tired of his drinking and adultery, Woodhull divorced her husband in 1865. She became an advocate of the free love movement, which argued that individuals should be able to remain with romantic partners as long as they chose and then move on, rather than marry for life. The free love movement also sought to destigmatize divorce and make it easier for wives to leave abusive husbands. In 1866, Woodhull married Union army veteran Colonel James Harvey Blood, after he sought out her services as a healer.

Woodhull and Claflin found success as mediums and their work introduced them to railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who hired clairvoyants to help him contact his recently deceased wife. Acting off financial advice from Vanderbilt, they grew their savings significantly and quickly amassed a fund of almost $700,000 (over $15 million in 2022). In 1870, they used that fund to start a brokerage, Woodhull, Claflin, and Company, making them the first women to operate a financial firm on Wall Street. Struck by the novelty of female stockbrokers, the press referred to them as “the Bewitching Brokers” and the “Queens of Finance.” But Woodhull sought to leverage her financial success to further her political agenda: improving rights for women, workers, and the poor.

She and her sister soon started publishing Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, a newspaper that supported free love, women’s suffrage, and other progressive political reforms. The newspaper was notable for publishing the first English-language copy of Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto and for publishing an account of an affair between prominent minister Henry Ward Beecher and one of his congregants. The allegations raised controversy and led the newspaper to face criminal charges for obscenity.

Woodhull became involved in the women’s suffrage movement in 1869 and her success as a public speaker on behalf of the cause led her to take on prominent roles at suffrage conventions in the next few years. She made history in 1871 when she became the first woman to testify before a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Joined by fellow suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Isabella Beecher Hooker, Woodhull argued in front of the House Judiciary Committee that American women already possessed the right to vote under the 14^th and 15^th Amendments and called on them to draft legislation that clarified women’s right to vote. However, her argument failed to persuade the committee to take action.

Woodhull again made history in 1872, when she became the first woman to run for president of the United States. The new Equal Rights Party, which Woodhull was instrumental in establishing, nominated her for president and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass for vice-president, though he never acknowledged the nomination. In a letter to the New York Herald announcing her campaign (a full two years earlier), Woodhull wrote, “While others argued the equality of woman with man, I proved it by successfully engaging in business; while others sought to show that there was no valid reason why woman should be treated socially and politically as a being inferior to man, I boldly entered the arena of politics and business and exercised the rights I already possessed.”

Her presidential campaign was not taken seriously by much of the public. Aside from her sex, Woodhull was not yet 35, the minimum age to assume the presidency. Further, Woodhull’s political reputation was declining: her radical views supporting free love, communism, and spiritualism alienated many and suffrage leaders distanced themselves from her. Further, her newspaper’s publication of the Beecher affair, and the resulting obscenity charges, meant that Woodhull faced legal trouble and scandal at this time, even spending Election Day in jail. The legal issues lasted for several years, forcing Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly to shut down publication.

Nearing bankruptcy and divorced from her second husband, Woodhull moved with Claflin to England in 1877. She married aristocratic banker John Biddulph Martin in 1883 to and tried to distance herself from her past controversies. She took part in the British women’s suffrage movement and together with her daughter published a journal, Humanitarian, from 1892 to 1901. The journal was known for promoting eugenics, the selective breeding and sterilization of a population intended to lead to desirable genetic characteristics. It was a popular school of thought in the late-nineteenth century, but one that discriminated against those thought to be inferior, whether because of race, ability, or another quality. Woodhull lived in the English countryside until her death in 1927 at the age of 88.

Works Cited

Feeney, Kathleen. "Woodhull, Victoria Claflin (1838-1927), reformer and first female presidential candidate." American National Biography. Feb. 1, 2000; Accessed Feb. 22, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500771

“The First Woman To Run For President: Victoria Woodhull.” National Park Service. Jan. 25, 2021. Accessed Feb. 25, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-first-woman-to-run-for-president-victoria-woodhull.htm

Horne, Eileen. “Notorious Victoria: the first woman to run for president.” The Guardian. July 20, 2016. Accessed Feb. 25, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/20/notorious-victoria-first-woman-run-for-us-president

Independent Staff. “Who was Victoria Woodhull? Meet the first woman to run for president of the United States.” Independent. Oct. 2, 2020. Accessed Feb. 25, 2022. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/woman-president-hillary-clinton-victoria-woodhull-voting-b744479.html

“Victoria Woodhull.” National Women’s Hall of Fame. Accessed Feb. 25, 2022. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/victoria-woodhull/

Woodhull, Victoria C. “The Coming Woman.” New York Herald. April 2, 1870. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/6836678/victoria-woodhull-announces-her/

How to Cite this page

MLA – Brandman, Mariana. “Victoria Woodhull.” National Women’s History Museum, 2022. Date accessed.

Chicago – Brandman, Mariana. “Victoria Woodhull.” National Women’s History Museum. 2022. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/victoria-woodhull

Chief Justice Burger left no doubt about what the 2nd Amendment does and does not mean.  It's time we applied it appropriately and stop the gun violence that is happening daily.

How many more deaths and injuries are we going to allow to happen because sensible gun laws are not passed?

This is an election year.  Make your opinions count by voting out any local, state or Congressional candidate who is supported by and who caters to the lies of The National Rifle Association.