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Biography & Autobiography. Reference. Self-Improvement. Young Adult Nonfiction. HTML:"An incredible book about the strength of women . . . an important book and a read that is nothing if not timely with current politics." �??FangirlNation A #1 Bestseller in 21st Century U.S. History for Teens Still I Rise takes its title from a work by Maya Angelou and it resonates with the same spirit of an unconquerable soul, a woman who is captain of her fate. It embodies the strength of character of the inspiring women profiled. Each chapter will outline the fall and rise of great women heroes who smashed all obstacles, rather than let all obstacles smash them. The book offers hope to those undergoing their own Sisyphean struggles. Intrepid women heroes are the antithesis of the traditional damsels in distress; rather than waiting for the prince, they took salvation into their own hands. Celebrate girl power! Women leaders in history celebrated in this book include: Madame C. J. Walker�??first female American millionaire Aung San Suu Kyi�??Burma's first lady of freedom Betty Shabazz�??civil rights activist Nellie Sachs�??Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize recipient Selma Lagerlof�??first woman Nobel Laureate Fannie Lou Hamer�??American voting rights activist Bessie Coleman�??first African-American female pilot Wilma Rudolph�??first woman to win three gold medals Sonia Sotomayor�??first Hispanic Supreme Court justice Wangari Maathai�??Nobel Prize winner Winnifred Mandela�??freedom fighter Lois Wilson�??founder of Al-Anon Roxanne Quimby�??cofounder of Burt's Bees "Inspirational . . . If you need a little encouragement in your life during these difficult times, the lives of these women will give you hop… (more)
User reviews
Fannie Lou Hamer was an African American woman born in Mississippi in 1917 and who didn't know her place. She had two miscarriages and then went into the hospital to remove a tumor and wound up with a "Mississippi appendectomy" or a hysterectomy. This got her fired up and involved in the Civil Rights movement where she found out she had the right to vote. When she and a group of them went to the county seat to register to vote, they faced a literacy test and were forced to list where they worked and where they lived which meant that the Klan would know and they could lose their jobs and the Klan could attack their homes. Which is what happened to her. She lost her home and her place on the farm sharecropping. That just made her more determined. When she and a group were headed out on a bus and stopped to get something to eat, the police arrested the others who had gotten off the bus and when she realized this she got off and made sure she got arrested too. Realizing that she was a rabble-rouser they had some men beat her as hard as they could with sticks. Fannie Lou Hamer continued to fight for voting rights and became known for saying during the Democratic National Convention of 1968, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!" It made her the voice of voting rights. In 2009 she was put on a US stamp. Hamer never gave up and never stopped fighting.
Other women this book includes is Dr. Ruth who was a sniper in the Israeli Army and a educator on sex, Joan Rivers who fought hard to make it in a man's world of humor, Claudette Colvin the first woman to be arrested for sitting in the wrong section of the bus, Mildred Loving who married a white man and fought a harsh legal battle to stay married to him, Carrie Fisher who battled bipolar disorder and Maya Angelou who grew up in poverty, rape, drugs, illegitimacy, and rose to become a famous actress and writer and whose poem is the basis of the title of this book: "You may shoot me with your words/ You may cut me with your eyes/ You may kill me with your hatefulness/ but still, like air, I will rise." This is an incredible book that contains a list of unbelievable women who are too amazing to read about. I really loved this book and I give it five out of five stars.
Quotes
In the words of Oprah, “Turn your wounds into wisdom”.
-Marlene Wagman-Geller (Still I Rise:The Persistence of Phenomenal Women p 17)
Each one of us has the chance to be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud.
-Maya Anglou
I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.
-Fannie Lou Hamer
When Carson asked if men ever liked her [Joan Rivers] for her mind, she responded that no man ever put his hand up a woman’s dress looking for her library card.
-Marlene Wagman-Geller (Still I Rise: The Persistence of Phenomenal Women p 120)
You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well I took masses of opiates religiously.
-Carrie Fishe