Women’s History Month always brings the same names: Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, maybe Susan B. Anthony if we’re feeling inclusive. But American history is bursting with women of color whose contributions have been systematically erased from textbooks, documentaries, and collective memory. These women changed the course of science, politics, arts, and activism—and it’s time you knew their names.
Claudette Colvin: The Real Rosa Parks
Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did the exact same thing in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested, manhandled by police, and became one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the case that actually ended bus segregation. Why don’t we know her name? Civil rights leaders deemed her too young, too dark-skinned, and too pregnant (by a married man) to be the face of the movement. The politics of respectability chose Parks over Colvin, and history followed suit.
Yuri Kochiyama: Bridging Black and Asian Liberation
Yuri Kochiyama was a Japanese American activist who transformed from an apolitical housewife into a radical coalition builder. After experiencing incarceration during WWII, she moved to Harlem and became deeply involved in the Black liberation movement, working alongside Malcolm X until his assassination (she cradled his head as he died). She fought for political prisoners, reparations for Japanese American internees, and Puerto Rican independence. Kochiyama showed us that solidarity across communities of color isn’t optional—it’s essential.
Marsha P. Johnson: Trans Revolutionary
Before Stonewall became a sanitized symbol, Marsha P. Johnson was throwing bricks and founding movements. This Black trans woman co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Sylvia Rivera, providing housing and support for homeless queer youth. She was a sex worker, an activist, and a force of nature who refused to be respectable. Her suspicious death in 1991 was ruled a suicide despite evidence suggesting foul play—a reminder that even in death, trans women of color are disposable to the system.
Jovita Idár: Journalist and Revolutionary
In 1913, Texas journalist Jovita Idár physically blocked the door to her newspaper office when Texas Rangers tried to shut it down for criticizing President Wilson. This Mexican American woman founded La Liga Femenil Mexicanista to provide education for Mexican children, served as a nurse during the Mexican Revolution, and used her pen to fight racism and advocate for women’s suffrage. She understood that the border was a weapon and journalism was armor.
Patsy Mink: Breaking Every Barrier
Patsy Mink was the first woman of color elected to Congress (1965) and the first Asian American woman to run for president (1972). She co-authored Title IX, the landmark legislation that banned sex discrimination in education and revolutionized women’s sports. Despite her achievements, she faced racism and sexism at every turn—law firms refused to hire her, colleagues dismissed her, and history barely remembers her. But every girl playing soccer or studying engineering owes her a debt.
Why We Don’t Know These Names
The erasure isn’t accidental. History is written by those in power, and powerful people prefer narratives that don’t challenge their authority too deeply. Women of color who were too radical, too queer, too young, too dark, or too controversial get edited out. We get sanitized heroes who fit into neat categories, not the messy, complicated, fierce humans who actually did the work.
Textbooks love Harriet Tubman—after she’s been scrubbed clean of her gun-carrying, skull-fracturing, spiritually-guided radicalism. They love Sacagawea as the helpful guide, not as the kidnapped child bride navigating her own survival. They love Pocahontas as a Disney princess, not as Matoaka, a girl whose real story involves colonization, kidnapping, and death at 21.
What You Can Do
Learn their names. Share their stories. When someone mentions Women’s History Month and rattles off the same three women, drop some knowledge. Support organizations documenting the contributions of women of color, like the National Women’s History Museum’s initiatives or local cultural centers.
Buy books written by and about these women. Support scholars of color doing the archival work to unearth these histories. Push for curriculum changes in your local schools. Demand that history classes teach the full story, not the comfortable version.
These women didn’t fight for inclusion in the history books—they fought for liberation. The least we can do is remember them.
