Mrs. Molly Byrd, Mrs. Willie Bell Williams, Mrs. Pearl Madlock, Mrs. Magdalena Devers, Mrs. Lena Lofton, Mrs. Josie Young, Mrs. Sadie Young. Black Women’s History Roll Call.

Sis, who moved the world for you? Who opened spaces for you that they might never have been allowed to exist in safely? Who sling-bladed and trampled down the path for you? Who told you, “Keep on being with boldness” when the world said, “Be invisible”? Told you to keep speaking your authentic truth when the world said, “Be silent”? Told you to keep moving on up when the world said, “Be still”?

When I ask myself these questions, the names on my roll call fill my spirit. These women, now elders and ancestors, set examples of personal agency against obstacles and stand as models of constantly overcoming. They are the builders of my foundation, and they were and remain streams of empowerment flowing to the mighty river of Black Women’s History for me before I even recognized it.

I didn’t realize Black women’s history was made of more than the historical actors whose names we remember until I began studying to become a professional women’s historian.

Black women’s history is Maria Stewart in the 1830s, the first woman of any race to engage in public speaking, then considered immoral and “promiscuous” for women. Her speaking style and radical manifesto on freedom broke ground for Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. But the history is also all the unnamed Black women who stood with Maria Stewart shouting, “Girl, say our say!” Those women to whom Stewart could carry the weight of her anger and the pain of her persecution, even as they rejoiced together in her power.

Black women’s history is Ida B. Wells in the 1890s who risked her life to expose the lies behind the lynching of innocent Black men, women, and children and defended the honor of Black women. It is Mary Church Terrell, Harriet Tubman, and other Black women leaders who, along with Wells, formed the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 to fight for Black women’s right to vote, desegregation, social equality, and the protection of Black communities. And it is Nannie Helen Burroughs and her work in education to build job training so that Black women could aspire to become more than maids.

But Black women’s history also includes those women without wealth, education, or extraordinary stage presence who made up women’s clubs and church congregations, doing their do to make a better world.

Black women’s history is Rosa Parks and all the everyday women with tired feet who stood behind her and Joanne Gibson Robinson during the Montgomery Bus boycotts in 1955. Black women’s history is Rosa Parks and all the commonplace Black women who bravely supplied Mrs. Parks with intimate and brutal testimonies in her work to protect Black women from sexual assault.

Black women’s history is indisputably the remarkable outcome of the actions of remarkable and renowned women.

But what I learned is that Black women’s history is also the heroic acts of everyday women who made change and won justice, often putting their lives on the line to do it. Women who were maids, small business owners, cotton choppers, hairdressers, and housewives—just like women in my family and community.

Like “Miz” Molly, as we used to call her in our little southern town, who wore work pants under her clean white dresses and drove people to the cotton fields, to Memphis for doctor’s appointments, and to the voting booth. Or Miz Willie Bell and Miz Pearl who faced down a solidly resistant school board to get Black children into white classrooms with new books and better learning opportunities.

Or Miz Magdalena who operated as the neighborhood “reporter,” both sharing important news about organizing for social equality and telling our mamas everything we kids had done the second they got off work. Or Miz Lena Lofton, soft-spoken and beautiful, who opened a café for Black teenagers to come hang out safely from the minefields of segregation.

Or Miz Josie Young, my grandmother, who was a role model for how to resist and how to insist on equal treatment and respect. Or Miss Sadie Young, my mother, who fought to open a community center and library in our town while educating people about their rights to good food and driving them to reliable medical care.

Though their names will never be in history books, each of these women moved the world for me and our community. In their fight for social and equal rights and their refusal to be held bound by discrimination, they were coursing streams to the river.

These women are so big in my world that I could never fathom how the world expected them to stay small. They were ordinary women who did extraordinary things. They captured my imagination and admiration because they moved through a world where being both Black and a woman takes a special kind of strength and an immeasurable amount of resilience – often at considerable cost. In their mutual reliance on one another, they became my model for understanding the superpower of sisterhood.

Coming behind these women taught me that all of us are historical actors. All of us, as Black women, are Black women’s history.

So, Sis, who moved the world for you? And who will you move the world for?