Lydia Maria Child – 1802-1880

Child was a pioneering abolitionist author, whose 1833 An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans contained a comprehensive history of slavery and appealed not only for abolition but for equality of education and employment for blacks. The first book of its kind, its publication created a sensation. Child continued to campaign for abolition until the end of the Civil War, after which she wrote An Appeal for the Indians (1868) and other works advocating just treatment for Native Americans. Chisholm, Shirley (1924– 2005) The daughter of immigrant parents from British Guiana (now Guyana) and Barbados, Chisholm grew up in Brooklyn, where she later taught school and became active in the civil rights movement and in Democratic politics. She was elected to Congress in 1968—the first African- American woman to serve in the House—and was a powerful liberal voice in that body until her retirement in 1983. She subsequently became a lecturer and college professor.