American poet Amanda Gorman
Credit: © Kathy Hutchins, Shutterstock

February is Black History Month, an annual observance of the achievements and culture of Black Americans. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature Black pioneers in a variety of areas.

American poet Amanda Gorman performed at the presidential inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021. She read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at a pivotal time in United States history. She became the youngest poet to read at a presidential inauguration. The poem, composed for the occasion, included references to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, just two weeks before the inauguration. In the attack, rioters supporting outgoing President Donald J. Trump stormed the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Biden won. As a twenty-two-year-old Black woman, Gorman spoke for millions of people who were scared, frustrated, and distraught over the recent events. Gorman quickly gained widespread attention after the inauguration as a symbol of hope and a gifted poet.

Amanda Sarah Chase Gorman was born March 7, 1998, in Los Angeles, California. Her twin sister is the filmmaker Gabrielle Gorman. Growing up, Amanda was challenged with a speech impediment that involved difficulty pronouncing some speech sounds. She shares this struggle with President Biden who overcame a childhood stutter. In 2014, at age 16, she was named Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate. In 2017, she was named the first National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States by the youth writing program Urban Word. She earned a B.A. degree in sociology from Harvard University in 2020. Gorman’s work includes themes of feminism and racial oppression.

Gorman’s writings have been published in a number of newspapers and periodicals. She also has written and presented poems for a variety of special events. Such events include the Library of Congress ceremony held when the writer Tracy K. Smith began her term as U.S. poet laureate in 2017, and the inauguration of a new university president at Harvard in 2018. Gorman’s first published collection of poetry was The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough (2015). A special collectible edition of her poem “The Hill We Climb” was published in March 2021.

In Gorman’s first children’s book, Change Sings: A Children’s Anthem (2021), a girl with a guitar invites other children to join a musical journey on which they discover ways to help people in their community. The book was illustrated by the American author and illustrator Loren Long.

Call Us What We Carry: Poems was also published in 2021. It includes the poem “The Hill We Climb” as well as a collection of new poems in which Gorman explores struggle and hope both in the past and during current events.

American gymnast Simone Biles receives the Presidential medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden during a ceremony where President Joe Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to seventeen recipients in the East Room of The White House on July 7, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Credit: © Oliver Contreras, SIPA USA/Alamy Images

With seven Olympic gold medals, one silver, two bronze, and now a President Medal of Freedom, Simone Biles has quite a collection! Simone Biles, an American gymnastics star, is the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport. In 2019, she surpassed the record previously held by Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, winning 25 world championship medals. Biles has been celebrated internationally for her grace and athletic skill in executing the most difficult moves in women’s gymnastics.

On July 7, 2022, Biles received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden, becoming the youngest living person in United States history to earn the honor. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honor awarded by the president of the United States for outstanding service. The medal recognizes individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, or to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

The honor was established on July 6, 1945, as the U.S. Medal of Freedom by President Harry S. Truman to recognize notable civilian service that aided the United States during a time of war. On Feb. 22, 1963, after extensive study by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg and Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President John F. Kennedy reintroduced the medal as an honor for distinguished civilian service in peacetime. It was renamed the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Recipients have included educators, diplomats, former presidents and first ladies, authors, scientists, medical researchers, military leaders, humanitarians, religious leaders, civil rights activists, business executives, journalists, athletes, and performers.

Biles was a star of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won a team gold medal as well as individual gold medals in the all-around, vault, and floor exercise events, plus a bronze medal on the balance beam. By winning five medals, Biles tied the record for the most medals won by an American woman gymnast in a single Olympics. Her four gold medals tied the world record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympics by a female gymnast.

In 2019, Biles became the first woman to win five world championships in the all-around event. She is the first Black American to hold the women’s world all-around champion title. She won the world floor exercise title five times, the balance beam title in three times, and the vault title two times. Biles won the United States national all-around championship seven times. She was also a member of the American team that won gold medals in the 2014 and 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

At the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Biles brought attention to the intense pressure Olympic athletes face. (The games were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) After balking on the vault event in the team final, she withdrew from the rest of the team competition and four individual events—all-around, vault, uneven bars, and floor exercise—citing mental health issues. Biles went on to win a bronze medal on the balance beam. She also won a team silver medal.

Simone Arianne Biles was born on March 14, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio. She grew up in Texas, raised by her grandparents. Biles was introduced to gymnastics at the age of six on a day-care field trip to a gym in Spring, Texas. She began copying the moves of gymnasts practicing in the gym, attracting the attention of a coach. Biles soon enrolled in recreational classes at the gym under instructor Aimee Boorman, who became her coach. Biles, who stands only 4 feet 8 inches (1.42 meters) tall, entered her first competition in 2011. She won her first gold medals in 2013. Within two years, she became one of the most celebrated and dominant gymnasts in history.

U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters Program 2022 quarters.
Credit: US Mint

Check your change for some new faces! The United States Mint has released the first of the American Women Quarters Program. The program will feature prominent women in American history. The mint is a place where coins are made. In the United States and most other countries, only the government may mint (manufacture) money. American mints are supervised by the United States Mint, a division of the Department of the Treasury. Mints now operate in Denver, Colorado; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Francisco, California; and West Point, N.Y. They make only coins.

The first five women featured on quarters will be the poet and scholar Maya Angelou, the first American woman in space Dr. Sally Ride, the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and activist Wilma Mankiller, the Hispanic suffragist and politician Nina Otero-Warren, and the trailblazing Asian American actress Anna May Wong.

On the other side of the quarter will be George Washington facing right, a design made by Laura Gardin Fraser. Fraser’s design was submitted for the 1932 commemorative quarter for George Washington’s 200th birthday. However, the treasury secretary chose a different design by John Flannigan.

The mint began shipping quarters featuring Maya Angelou on Jan. 10, 2022. Angelou was an American writer who drew from the Black American storytelling tradition. She wove humor, wisdom, and folk sayings into her writing. Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She spent much of her early life in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou was best known for her series of autobiographical writings, especially I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970). It tells about the author’s childhood in the segregated rural South and her transition to urban life. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, in 2011. Angelou died on May 28, 2014.

Make sure to keep an eye out for these legendary women in your pocket change. The mint will be releasing more quarters in the American Women Quarters program through 2025.

August 21, 2015

First Lt. Kristen Griest (left) carries a fellow soldier during combat training at Army Ranger School at Fort Benning on April 20, 2015. Credit: Spec. Nikayla Shodeen, U.S. Army

Today, Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver became the first women ever to graduate from the elite U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Griest and Haver, both graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, received their coveted “Ranger tabs,” the decoration for having completed the course. However, they will not be eligible to join, like their fellow male graduates, the 75th Ranger Regiment, a combat-oriented Special Operations Force. That regiment still excludes women.

First Lt. Shaye Haver during Ranger School training on July 12, 2015. Credit: Pfc. Yvette Zabala-Garriga, U.S. Army

This is likely to change very soon, however. The results of studies done by all four military branches are due to be presented later this year. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said that, barring drastic (and unexpected) opposition in the reports, all ground combat positions will be open to women—as early as next year.

Finishing the difficult Ranger course is an outstanding achievement for any soldier. The course has a 58 percent “washout” rate (failure to finish)—and this among already fit and hardened troops. Over 61 days, “students” get very little sleep as they balance, climb, dangle, hike, parachute, run, rappel (descend a rock face by rope), shiver, and often go hungry, all while carrying heavy packs and weapons—and often each other. All this is done under extremely stressful conditions in the heat of Georgia woods, in the cold of the mountains, and in the swamps of Florida. Physical fitness is raised to fanatical levels, and endurance is prized above all else. How much can you take?

But it’s not all about brawn. To be a Ranger you need brains, too. Aside from combat and squad tactical training (emphasizing raiding and reconnaissance), students must demonstrate innovative leadership ability, solve complex problems, and overcome seemingly impossible odds.

The Ranger graduation ceremony is held at the appropriately named Victory Pond parade ground at Fort Benning. The sense of joy and accomplishment students feel upon graduation is accompanied by one of great mental and physical relief.

Other World Book articles

• Airborne troops
• Infantry

July 12, 2013

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban, spoke today at the United Nations (UN) on the occasion of  “Malala Day.” She told a specially convened youth assembly that books and pens scare such extremist groups as the Taliban. A Taliban gunman shot Malala in the head on a school bus in October 2012 because of her campaign for girls’ rights, including the right to an education.

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai spoke today to a special youth assembly in the plenary chamber at the United Nations.  (© Mario Tama, Getty Images)

“They are afraid of women,” Malala told the forum, noting that the Taliban’s attack had only made her more resolute: “Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, courage and fervor was born. . . I speak not for myself but for those without a voice,” she continued, stating that she is fighting for the rights of women because “they are the ones who suffer the most.”

According to the UN Statistics Division, fully one-quarter of all young women worldwide have not completed primary school. Malala’s native Pakistan ranks among the lowest in terms of female literacy and the enrollment of girls in school.

After Malala presented UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with a petition demanding universal education, he addressed the special assembly: “She is calling on us to keep our promises, invest in young people and put education first.” He credited Malala with bringing the issue of women’s education to worldwide attention. Her petition bore more than 3 million signatures.

After being shot, Malala Yousafzai was flown from Pakistan to the United Kingdom for treatment. She now lives in Birmingham, England.

Additional World Book articles:

• Pakistan 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• Fifty Years of Defending Human Rights for All (a special report)

A Saudi Arabian court sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for defying the nation’s ban on female drivers. She was found guilty of driving a car in Jeddah in July. Since the 1960′s, educational and occupational opportunities for Saudi woman have increased somewhat. However, the Saudi government continues to enforce a strict version of Sunni law known as Wahhābism. Under this version of Islamic law, women are not allowed to drive or travel without the permission of a male relative.

On September 25, Saudi King Abdullah announced that women will be permitted to vote and run as candidates in municipal (city) elections beginning in 2015. Saudi activists praised the decision as an important step in efforts to loosen restrictions on Saudi women. King Abdullah also announces that women will have the right to serve on the Shura Council, an advisory board that the king can consult. All members of the board are appointed by the government.

Additional World Book articles:

• Human rights
• Shari`ah
• Woman’s suffrage