Thursday Thirteen

Names of women that you should know.

1. Dolores Huerta, founder of the nation's largest farmworkers union. Born on April 10, 1930, Huerta co-founded the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers', immigrants', and women's rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

2. Ruby Bridges, one of the first black children integrated into an all-white school. She is now chair of the Ruby Bridges Foundation, which she formed in 1999 to promote "the values of tolerance, respect, and appreciation of all differences". Describing the mission of the group, she says, "racism is a grown-up disease and we must stop using our children to spread it."

3. Edie Windsor, whose lawsuit against the federal government paved the way for marriage equality. In the 2013 landmark civil rights case, the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of "marriage" and "spouse" to apply only to opposite-sex unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Justice Kennedy wrote: "The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."

4. Harriet Tubman, (1822 - 1913), was a former slave and spy who led hundreds of slaves to freedom.  She was an American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era was an active participant in the struggle for women's suffrage.

5. Ida B. Wells, (1862 - 1931) iconic writer, activist, and suffragette. Wells was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, feminist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

6. Hillary Clinton, (1947 - ), former senator and secretary of state, and winner of the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election.

7. Rosa Parks, (1913-2005) was a seamstress trained in civil resistance who helped launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She was an American civil rights activist, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".

8. Vera Rubin, (1928 - 2016), was an astrophysicist who confirmed the existence of dark matter. The American astronomer pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion, by studying galactic rotation curves. This phenomenon became known as the galaxy rotation problem. Although initially met with skepticism, Rubin's results were confirmed over subsequent decades. As described in her New York Times obituary, she "transformed modern physics and astronomy with her observations showing that galaxies and stars are immersed in the gravitational grip of vast clouds of dark matter. Her work helped usher in a Copernican-scale change in cosmic consciousness, namely the realization that what astronomers always saw and thought was the universe "is just the visible tip of a lumbering iceberg of mystery."

9, 10, and 11. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, who hold it down for women in the judicial branch. Stick with it, ladies!

12. Kathrine Switzer, (1947 - ) was the first woman to enter the Boston Marathon. This occurred in 1967. It was not until 1972 that women were welcome to run the Boston Marathon officially.

13. Elizabeth Blackwell, (1821 - 1910), was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. The British-born physician was also the first woman on the UK Medical Register. She was the first woman to graduate from medical school, a pioneer in promoting the education of women in medicine in the United States, and a social and moral reformer in both the United States and in the United Kingdom. Her sister Emily was the third woman in the US to get a medical degree.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 486th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.