At age 17, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. She also attracted the attention of the local black radio station, WVOL, which hired her to do the news part-time. She worked there during her senior year of high school, and again while in her first two years of college. Winfrey's career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family's property.
Melba Pattillo was born on December 7, 1941, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Beals grew up surrounded by family members who knew the importance of an education. Her mother, Lois Marie Pattillo, PhD, was one of the first black graduates of the University Of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1954 and was a high school English teacher at the time of the crisis. Her father, Howell Pattillo, worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. She had one brother, Conrad, who served as a U.S. marshal in Little Rock, and they all lived with her grandmother, India Peyton.
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine on February 22, 1892. Her parents got a divorce in the 1900s when Edna was eight years old. Her father was a teacher and had a gambling problem. Edna lived with her mom and her sisters; Norma, and Kathleen live in a bad area. Her mom was a nurse trying to help the family.
Ida Tarbell Ida Tarbell was born in 1857, only two years before the birth of the oil industry; key event that would later have a major impact in Ida’s label of Muckraker. At the age of three; her father, Franklin Tarbell, moved his family to a small oil town in Rouseville. There, Ida spent her childhood attending Mrs. Rice’s home school and playing amongst the oil derricks. In the article "Pioneer Women of the Oil Industry," written in 1934, Ida speaks of the problems her mother and many other women had civilizing the oil towns. Around the year 1870 the Tarbells moved to Titusville; where a church and school were already established.
The abuse ended when she was fourteen years old; Oprah credits her father for saving her from the abuse. Oprah had a son when she was 14 years old who died as an infant.Because of her teen pregnancy, she often had suicidal thoughts. As a teen, she learned 20 new vocabulary words a week and she was crowned Miss Black Tennessee in 1972. In highschool, Oprah was elected President of Student Council and she was also selected “most popular” in high school as a senior. She graduated from Nicolet High School
Then in 2007, is what the police believe, Sowell started killing the women he brought back to his home on Imperial Avenue. During Anthony’s childhood he was raised by his single mother. Anthony’s mother had three children, Anthony a daughter and another son. Anthony’s mother also took in her seven grandchildren. Sowell’s childhood consisted of watching his mother beat on his nieces and nephews while he and his brother watched, from a different room.
Kenneth and Mamie received their bachelor and masters from Howard University. Mamie did her master thesis on, “The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children, She did this because of her work with the all black nursery school and her future husband wrote the thesis with her and added the research on self-identification in Black children and she had two children during this time, Katie in 1940 and Hilton in 1943, all the she completing her degree (Butler, 2009). Kenneth went to Columbia University in 1937 and Mamie in 1938 graduated magna cu laude. Mamie worked at a law office for a while. That is where she saw firsthand how segregation had a damaging effect.
The suit sparked her career as a journalist. “Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against white supremacy” (Baker 1). Her writings made it difficult to lead a normal life. They got her fired from her job and almost killed when she began to write the facts about lynching. Wells was born as a slave during the second year of the Civil War six months before the publication of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in the town of Tuskegee on February 4, 1913 (Badertscher) She received a good education despite the discrimination against African Americans in that era. Her mother was a schoolteacher and home-schooled Rosa until she was 11 years old. Rosa then lived with her aunt in Montgomery, attending the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls. She was forced to drop out of Booker T. Washington High School because of her family illness, but received her high school diploma in 1934 (Badertscher) Rosa Parks was later married to Raymond Parks. He was a barber and supported Rosa through thick and thin and they were both members of the NAACP.
She believes that Henry is having an affair with Nancy, a young mulatto girl. She begins to mistreat her, and invites a nephew to come rape Nancy. Fed up with the abuse, she seeks help with two abolitionist neighbors. She eventually makes connections with the Underground Railroad, and flees to Canada. 25 years later, Nancy visits her mother in Virginia.