Dolly Parton - Women's History Month - 18

 

Dolly Parton is an undisputed legend for her contributions to music. 

Parton has long been a philanthropist, but she does so with little publicity or fanfare. This is why many people may not realize her incredible contributions, particularly to Sevier County—the poverty-stricken part of Tennessee where she grew up.

Here is just a sampling of some ways that Parton has been helping make the world a better place, and doing so without expecting anything in return.

She is also just an all-around beloved figure for the quiet way she gives back, particularly to her own community in East Tennessee.

Often donating funds with little or no fanfare, Dolly Parton—who grew up in poverty—always knew she'd give back if she became a success.

Here are just some of the ways that Dolly Parton makes her community and the world a better place.

PAYING FOR STUDENTS’ BAND OR CHOIR UNIFORMS AT PREDOMINANTLY BLACK SCHOOLS

GIVING FREE BOOKS TO KIDS

One of Parton's most well-known projects is her Imagination Library. Run through her non-profit, the Dollywood Foundation, the initiative was started in 1995 to increase literacy in Sevier County. Every child, regardless of income, was mailed an age-appropriate book each month until they reached the age of 5.

INCENTIVIZING KIDS TO FINISH HIGH SCHOOL.

In the early 1990s, Parton discovered that the high school dropout rate in Sevier County was over 30%. She astutely realized that the lack of education was not only impacting the individual lives of local youth, but also making it difficult for the county to prosper. So, she started The Buddy Program, which targeted students in 7th and 8th grade. Parton met personally with the students to explain the program. It was very simple: the students needed to pair up. If both they and their partner graduated high school, Parton would hand each of them a check for $500. In addition, both partners had to sign a contract that they would be each other's support system and do everything they could to help each other graduate.

The program was a rousing success and soon the dropout rate plummeted to under 6%.

OFFERING FREE COLLEGE TUITION FOR ALL DOLLYWOOD EMPLOYEES

Since it opened in 1986, the Dollywood theme park has been a source of tourism and employment in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Three million people visit the theme park annually, making it the state's biggest tourist attraction. In 2022, parent company Herschend Enterprises announced that all 11,000 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees of Dollywood and the company's other ventures who wanted to pursue higher education would have their fees paid for.

SUPPORTING VICTIMS OF THE GATLINBURG FIRE

In 2016, a complex series of wildfires spread through the Smoky Mountains, greatly impating the towns of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. 

Through the My People Fund, about 900 families received $1,000 a month for 6 months. In the final month, the support was raised to $5,000 due to incoming donations that the foundation had received. And if that weren't enough, they also opened the Mountain Tough organization to assist in home site cleanups and provide a helping hand to those in need on a case-by-case basis. In total, $12.5 million from the foundation went to people in the county impacted by the fire.

USING SONG ROYALTIES TO REBUILD A PREDOMINANTLY BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD

Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You is one of the most recognizable songs of all time. But not everyone realizes that the song was written—and originally performed—by Parton. Though the song was already a #1 hit for Parton, it really skyrocketed to success after Houston's iconic 1992 rendition. As the songwriter, Parton earned royalties from the ballad and it's estimated that just in the 1990s alone she earned $10 million from the single.

So what did she do with all of the money? During a 2021 appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Parton divulged that she'd invested the money in a strip mall located in a predominantly Black part of Nashville.

“It was just off the beaten path from 16th Avenue and I thought, ‘Well I am going to buy this place, the whole strip mall.’ And thought, ‘This is the perfect place for me to be,’ considering it was Whitney. I just thought, ‘This was great. I’m just going to be down here with her people who are my people as well. And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’”

HELPING SAVE THE BALD EAGLE

Since 1990, Dollywood has been home to an eagle sanctuary, which is run in partnership with the American Eagle Foundation.

In 2003, she was given a Partnership Award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for her efforts in saving the bald eagle.

SOURCE: My Modern Met "7 Ways Country Legend Dolly Parton Quietly Gives Back to Make the World a Better Place" By Jessica Stewart on October 12, 2022

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I was glad to see a statue of Dolly in front of the Sevier County Courthouse when I visited Sevierville TN a few years ago. It may have been her look when she first started, but we all know she looks more like the following photos!

Raye Montague - Women's History Month -17

Today's (Jan 21) A Mighty Girl Community Pick is in honor of Raye Montague's birthday: "The Girl With A Mind For Math: The Story of Raye Montague" by Julia Finley Mosca.

As a 7-year-old during WWII, Raye Montague toured a captured German submarine and immediately set her sights on becoming an engineer. Little did she know that sexism and racism would challenge her dream every step of the way – even at college where she ended up studying business because the engineering department would not accept black students.

“You’re female, you’re black and you’re going to have a segregated school education—so you’re going to have three strikes against you,” Montague recalled her mother saying in a 2012 interview with Rhonda Owen of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “But you can do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be.”

Raye ended up working at the US Navy as a typist, studying engineering at night.

All along, her plan was to rise in the ranks. She studied computer programming at night, and was eventually promoted to a digital computer systems operator and a computer systems analyst. After one year, she asked her boss for another promotion. He told her that if she wanted the job, she would have to work nights—a problem for Montague because the buses did not run late and she did not know how to drive. Determined to push forward, she bought herself a 1949 Pontiac and taught herself to drive—slowly. If she left her house at 10 p.m., she would make it into the office by midnight.

Montague was promoted, but her struggles did not end there. She told Good Morning America that she was surrounded by male staff who thought she was “the help.”

 In around 1970, Montague’s supervisor gave her six months to create the first successful computer program for ship design, failing to disclose that their department had been trying unsuccessfully to accomplish the task for years.

“I hate to say this, but he was a racist,” Montague said. “So he decided ... to get rid of me.”

When Montague’s supervisor saw how committed she was to meeting his deadline, he supplied her with a full night staff. Word of the program they created reached then-President Richard Nixon, who asked to see plans for a computer-designed warship, quickly. This prompting from the president led to Montague and her team creating the first computer-designed Naval ship plans in under 19 hours.

She was the first person to design a ship on a computer and the Navy's first female ship designer -- and today the girl who refused to give up on her dream is celebrated as a pioneer who changed ship design forever. - A Mighty Girl Facbook, Jan 21, 2023

In honor of her work, Montague was granted the Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award in 1972. Her program became central to the design of warships and submarines, and she worked for the Navy for 33 years. When she retired in 1990, Montague was given a flag that flew over Washington, D.C., along with a certificate saying that it had been raised in her honor.

 

“Can you imagine that from a grateful nation?” Montague asked during her Good Morning America interview. Then, as if still in disbelief about how far she had come, she exclaimed, “A little girl from Little Rock!”

Source of most quotes is Smithsonian Magazine article about Montague upon her death at 83 in 2018.

 

Rhiannon Giddens - Women's History Month -16

 

Rhiannon Giddens

I first saw Rhiannon Giddens and the Carolina Chocolate Drops in a free outdoor concert at Lake Tomahawk back around 2017 or so. I loved her talent and the many ways she expressed it through different instruments, as well as her opera-trained voice.

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The following comes from her own web page as well as Wikipedia.

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The acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present.

She is a founding member of the country, blues and old-time music band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she is the lead singer, fiddle player, and banjo player.

A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient,.[...] she recently won a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for They're Calling Me Home, which she made with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. Giddens is now a two-time winner and eight-time Grammy nominee for her work as a soloist and collaborator. The MacArthur Genius Grant said  "Giddens's drive to understand and convey the nuances, complexities, and interrelationships between musical traditions is enhancing our musical present with a wealth of sounds and textures from the past.

Giddens’ lifelong mission is to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins..,,,

Smithsonian Magazine calls her “an electrifying artist who brings alive the memories of forgotten predecessors, white and black.”

Giddens was featured in Ken Burns’s Country Music series, which aired on PBS, where she spoke about the African American origins of country music.

Giddens is of multiracial ancestry. Her father, David Giddens, is European-American. Her mother, Deborah Jamieson, is a descendant of African Americans and Native American tribes including the Lumbee, Occaneechi, and Seminole.

Giddens is an alumna of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics,^[8] and a 2000 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory at Oberlin College, where she studied opera. Giddens earned an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for her lasting impact on the UNCG community and work in music. She sang "Calling me Home" by Alice Gerrard at a virtual commencement after accepting the degree in December 2020.^[

For the 2020 Spoleto Festival USA, Rhiannon Giddens was commissioned to create an opera based on the Arabic language autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, a highly literate and cultured Torodbe (Muslim cleric) from the Fula people of modern Senegal, who was enslaved in an intertribal war against the Imamate of Futa Toro and brought aboard a slave ship to Charleston, South Carolina in 1807.^[44] Giddens wrote the libretto and served as lead composer with help from co-composer Michael Abels. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world premiere of Omar was postponed until 2022. in 2023 she wond the Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for Omar.

In July 2020, Giddens was named Artistic Director of the cross-cultural music organization Silkroad (arts organization). The position had been vacant since 2017 when Silkroad's founder, Yo-Yo Ma, stepped down.

Here she sings "I'm on my Way."

Here she's singing with Paul Simon "American Tune" at  Live at Newport Folk Festival in 2022 (sound quality isn't good)

Here's a Carolina Cholate Drops full session. Again the sound is not sudio quality...2012. 

Here's a Tiny Desk Concert by Rhiannon Giddens from NPR in 2020

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Julia Morgan - Women's History Month -15

 "Architect Julia Morgan, who was born on Jan 20, 1872, is often remembered as one of the first great American female architects. She was the first woman to be licensed as an architect in California and designed over 700 buildings in 50 years. She was also one of the first women to study civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1897, Morgan became the first woman admitted to Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a prestigious architecture school. Some of her most notable works are the Hearst Castle, Asilomar YWCA, and the St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. In 2014, Morgan became the first woman to receive The American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal." -- via the National Women's History Museum

Sekmet goddess of Egypt, Karnak temple, Women's history month 14

 Translation of the text written in gold at the entrance to the temple of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, Karnak temple.

""I only ask you to enter my house with respect. To serve you I do not need your devotion, but your sincerity. Neither your beliefs, but your thirst for knowledge. Enter with your vices, your fears and your hatreds; from the greatest to the smaller ones, I can help you dissolve them. You can look at me and love me as a female, as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, but never look at me as an authority above yourself. If the devotion you have for any god , It is greater than the one you have for the God that is within you, you offend them both and you offend the ONE."

Frida Kahlo - Women's History Month - 13

 Frida Kahlo

 “I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.”

Frida Kahlo - Xochimilco,Mexico City (1936).

Frida Kahlo, photographed (below) in 1944 by American photographer, Sylvia Salmi (1909-1977). Sylvia Ester Salmi was a prominent and highly respected American photographer who, during the 1930s and 1940s, took portraits of numerous great artists and intellectuals of the time, including Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and, in Mexico, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco and Leon Trotsky.

Britannica says this:

Frida Kahlo de Rivera, original name Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón, (born July 6, 1907, Coyoacán, Mexico—died July 13, 1954, Coyoacán), Mexican painter best known for her uncompromising and brilliantly coloured self-portraits that deal with such themes as identity, the human body, and death. 

In addition to her work, Kahlo was known for her tumultuous relationship with muralist Diego Rivera (married 1929, divorced 1939, remarried 1940).

In 1925 Kahlo was involved in a bus accident, which so seriously injured her that she had to undergo more than 30 medical operations in her lifetime. During her slow recovery, Kahlo taught herself to paint, and she read frequently, studying the art of the Old Masters. 

She was considered a surrealist.

Frida Kahlo, the communist

"The Two Fridas "

A mural of Frida in Bali

Joan Baez, Women's History Month - 12

 "Action is the antidote to despair."

(Photo by European Pressphoto Agency)

Joan Baez in Berlin for the world premiere on Feb. 17, 2023, of her documentary film, “I Am A Noise,” wearing the Ukrainian coat of arms on her chest. She put an important voice to music, to become a noise all over the world where injustice was at work. Bravo, m’lady. Premiere coming to North America in March.

Celebrating her 82nd birthday, American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist Joan Baez (who was born on 9 January, 1941 in Staten Island, New York).

Songs of acclaim by Joan Baez, widely known as the most accomplished interpretive folk singer of the 1960s, include: these well known songs:

1. Phil Ochs' "There but for Fortune" (1965) https://youtu.be/S4BYOJ1tc-k

2. Bob Dylan's "Farewell, Angelina" (1965) https://youtu.be/qcwP2ulxDdY

3. Bob Dylan's "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word" (1968) https://youtu.be/wzCBjrLw-0Y

4. Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" (1974) https://youtu.be/oNx2rH6hHog

5. "Diamonds & Rust" (1975, a song about her close relationship with Bob Dylan) https://youtu.be/1ST9TZBb9v8

6. the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (a hit single released in 1971 from her album "Blessed Are...") https://youtu.be/wanJQC5KAfo

7. Earl Robinson's labour anthem "Joe Hill" (first performed by her at Woodstock in 1969) https://youtu.be/_f2J4ceCikI

8. "Sweet Sir Galahad" (a song about her brother-in-law, first released as a single in late 1969, also sung by her at Woodstock, and used as the opening track on her 1970 album "One Day at a Time") https://youtu.be/xDOHGl3DiiM

9. "Here's to You" (co-written in 1971 with Ennio Moricone for the soundtrack of the film "Sacco & Vanzetti", directed by Giuliano Montaldo) https://youtu.be/R4xWbRBLj2I

10. We Shall Overcome", a gospel song which became a key anthem of the American civil rights movement https://youtu.be/nM39QUiAsoM

She was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s; Baez was already an internationally celebrated artist and did much to popularise his early songwriting efforts. Baez also performed fourteen songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment.

Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 7 April, 2017.

Source: Women Hold Up Half The Sky a group on Facebook.

This YouTube is a fan's copy, but it has a whole concert on it!

Dorothy Pitman Hughes - Women's History Month - 11

 Raising their arms in solidarity for women's rights, ...Gloria Steinem on L, Dorothy Pitman Hughes on R,

Last year, (Dec 1, 2022) Dorothy Pitman Hughes died at 84. She encouraged Steinem to start MS Magazine with others.

Wikipedia offers these details of her life:

She was...born Dorothy Jean Ridley; October 2, 1938... [and is known as]... an American feminist, child-welfare advocate, activist, public speaker, author, and small business owner. Pitman Hughes co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance. Her activism and friendship with Gloria Steinem established racial balance in the nascent feminist movement.

She ...was born in Lumpkin, Georgia, to Lessie W. Ridley and Melton Lee Ridley. When she was ten years old, her father was beaten and left for dead on the family's doorstep; the family believes it to be a crime committed by Ku Klux Klan members. In response to her family's experiences, Ridley decided as a child to devote her life to improving the circumstances of people through activism

Ridley moved from Georgia to New York City in 1957, when she was nineteen.There she and her siblings sang in the group "Roger and the Ridley Sisters." Through the 1960s in New York, she worked as a salesperson, house cleaner, and nightclub singer. She began her activism by raising bail money for civil rights protesters. Ridley married Bill Pitman and they had a child before divorcing. Then Pitman met and married Clarence Hughes.

In the late 1960s, needing care for her own children (by 1970, she had three daughters) Pitman Hughes organized a multiracial cooperative day care center on the West Side, the West 80th Community Childcare Center, which would be profiled by New York magazine columnist Gloria Steinem. Pitman Hughes and Steinem became friends, with Pitman Hughes, who was comfortable on stage, encouraging Steinem to begin speaking in public with her about the Women's Movement. The two of them traveled around the country for two years, sharing the stage. Based on the publicity the duo received, Pitman Hughes encouraged Steinem to found a female-operated media source, Ms. Magazine, with other partners, beginning as a special edition of New York. Although she is widely cited as co-founder, Pitman Hughes had no formal role at the magazine.

Pitman Hughes organized the first shelter for battered women in New York City and co-founded the New York City Agency for Child Development, pioneering child-care and noting that "too many women were being forced to leave their children home alone while they worked to feed their families". Pitman Hughes also co-founded with Gloria Steinem the Women's Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multiracial children's education, in 1971. The two women toured together speaking about race, class and gender throughout the 1970s

Pitman Hughes was a guest lecturer at Columbia University, taught a course called "The Dynamics of Change" at the College of New Rochelle, and was a guest lecturer at City College, Manhattan. In 1992, Pitman Hughes co-founded the Charles Junction Historic Preservation Society in Jacksonville, Florida, using the former Junction homestead to combat poverty through community gardening and food production.

In 1997 Pitman Hughes became the first African-American woman to own an office supply/copy center, Harlem Office Supply, Inc., and to become a member of the Stationers Association of New York (SANY). In May 1997, Pitman Hughes began to offer HOS stock at $1.00 a share to individuals, corporations, partnerships and non-profit organizations focused on African-American children. She wrote about her experiences in Wake Up and Smell the Dollars! (2000), advocating small business ownership to other African Americans as a form of empowerment.

Pitman Hughes was involved in the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), a federal program instituted by the Clinton administration in 1994 designating $300 million of federal, state, and city money for the economic development of Harlem. Pitman Hughes later became a critic, when a Staples store opened nearby and her business was forced to close. The programs brought large businesses like Old Navy and Disney into Harlem to create jobs but ultimately created more competition for locally owned businesses. "Some are convinced that empowering large corporations to provide low paying jobs for our residents will bring economic empowerment to the community.... [But] without African-American ownership, there is ultimately no local empowerment" stated Pitman Hughes, believing resources were being unevenly distributed among small businesses in Harlem. Pitman Hughes later wrote Just Saying... It Looks Like Ethnic Cleansing (The Gentrification of Harlem) providing advice to African American business owners who might want to utilize similar government programs such as the JOBS Act, signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2012.

Pitman Hughes and Steinem spoke again in 2008 at Eckerd College where they reenacted their raised fist pose together. Steinem partnered in Pitman Hughes' efforts in the Northside community of Jacksonville, Florida, to combat hunger with community gardens, by appearing as a speaker and funding support.

Oprah Winfrey honored Pitman Hughes as one of America's "Great Moms"

Janelle Monaé portrayed Pitman Hughes in the 2020 film The Glorias.

On December 1, 2022, Pitman Hughes died at the home of her family in Tampa, Florida, at age 84.