CHICAGO —

The Rev. Jesse Jackson announced Saturday that he will step down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group he founded more than 50 years ago.

Jackson, 81, announced his resignation during a quiet farewell speech at the organization's annual convention, where the group paid tribute to him with songs, kind words from other Black activists and politicians, and a video montage of Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

In the video player above: See an interview with The Rev. Jesse Jackson from last year

Jackson, who has dealt with several health problems in recent years and uses a wheelchair, capped the proceedings with muted remarks. Flanked by his daughter, Santita Jackson, and his son, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, the once-fiery orator spoke so softly it was difficult to hear him.

"I am somebody," he said. "Green or yellow, brown, Black or white, we're all perfect in God's eyes. Everybody is somebody. Stop the violence. Save the children. Keep hope alive."

The Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes, "a long-time student of Rev. Jackson and supporter" of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will take over as the group's leader, the coalition said in a statement. Haynes is the pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, according to the church's website.

Jesse Jackson has been battling Parkinson's disease for the last eight years. He suffered a host of health setbacks in 2021, beginning with gallbladder surgery, a COVID-19 infection that landed him in a physical therapy-focused facility and a fall at Howard University that caused a head injury.

Jackson has been a powerful advocate for civil rights and a strong voice in American politics for decades.

A protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 to form Operation PUSH, initially named People United to Save Humanity, on Chicago's South Side. The organization was later renamed the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The group's mission ranges from promoting minority hiring in the corporate world to voter registration drives in communities of color.

Jackson has been a driving force in the modern civil rights movement, pushing for voting rights and education. Among other things, he joined George Floyd's family at a memorial for the slain Black man and has participated in COVID-19 vaccination drives to counter Black hesitancy about the drugs.

Before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Jackson had been the most successful Black presidential candidate. He won 13 primaries and caucuses in his push for the 1988 Democratic nomination, which went to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Jackson said in his remarks that he plans to continue working on social justice issues, including advocating for three survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre who this week saw a judge dismiss their lawsuit seeking reparations.

"We're resigning, we're not retiring," Jackson said.

Ron Daniels, who works with the National African-American Reparations Commission, a panel working for financial payments to Black people as compensation for slavery, told convention-goers that Jackson is a "synthesis" of King and another 1960s civil rights leader, Malcolm X.

"He is an authentic genius," Daniel said. "(Jackson) had the unparalleled capacity to frame and articulate ... political strategy in a way common, ordinary people could understand it."

Marcia Fudge, secretary of the U.S. Department Housing and Urban Development, thanked Jackson for paving the way for Black politicians like herself.

"Most people talk a good game but they have no courage," she said. "But you never left us, no matter how hard (things became)."

Santita Jackson implored convention-goers to follow her father's lead and continue to fight for equality.

"Rev. Jackson has run his leg," she said. "What are you going to do?"

___

Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press reporter Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.

JACKSON, Miss. —

The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 has died in hospice care in Louisiana, a coroner's report shows. Carolyn Bryant Donham was 88 years old.

Related video above: 1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found

Donham died Tuesday night in Westlake, Louisiana, according to a death report filed Thursday in Calcasieu Parish Coroner's Office in Louisiana.

Till's kidnapping and killing became a catalyst for the civil rights movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago after his brutalized body was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos.

Till traveled from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi in August 1955. Donham – then named Carolyn Bryant – accused him of making improper advances on her at a grocery store in the small community of Money. The Rev. Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till who was there, has said 14-year-old Till whistled at the woman, an act that flew in the face of Mississippi's racist social codes of the era.

Evidence indicates a woman identified Till to her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, who killed the teenager. An all-white jury acquitted the two white men in the killing, but the men later confessed in an interview with Look magazine.

In an unpublished memoir obtained by The Associated Press in 2022, Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till. Donham was 21 at the time.

The contents of the 99-page manuscript, titled "I am More Than A Wolf Whistle," were first reported by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Historian and author Timothy Tyson of Durham, who said he obtained a copy from Donham while interviewing her in 2008, provided a copy to the AP.

Tyson had placed the manuscript in an archive at the University of North Carolina with the agreement that it not be made public for decades, though he said he gave it to the FBI during an investigation the agency concluded last year.

He said he decided to make it public now following the recent discovery of an arrest warrant on kidnapping charges that were issued for Donham in 1955 but never served.

___

Associated Press writer Allen G. Breed in Wake Forest, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The jury hearing the case against three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights has received instructions from the judge and started deliberating the verdict.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys spent a full day Tuesday in closing arguments that recapped a month of testimony and sought to sway the jury toward their view.

For prosecutors, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao "chose to do nothing" as a fellow officer, Derek Chauvin, squeezed the life out of Floyd.

Defense attorneys countered that the officers were too inexperienced, weren't trained properly and did not willfully violate Floyd's rights.

The two officers who first responded to the scene on the day of Floyd's death were rookie cops. Lane was working his fourth-ever shift, and Kueng was working his third shift. Both said they deferred to Chauvin's years of police experience.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are charged with depriving Floyd of his right to medical care when Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck. Kueng and Thao are also charged with failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the May 25, 2020, killing.

Chauvin has already been convicted of Floyd's murder last spring and was later sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.

Three Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights sat by and “chose to do nothing” as Floyd pleaded for air and then went silent, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday at the start of closing arguments in their trial.

Prosecutor Manda Sertich singled out each former officer — Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane — as the state wrapped up its monthlong case.

All three are charged with depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes. Lane held the 46-year-old Black man’s feet, Kueng knelt on his back and Thao held back bystanders.

Kueng and Thao are also charged with failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the May 25, 2020, killing that triggered protests worldwide and a reexamination of racism and policing.

“Make no mistake, this is a crime.” Sertich told jurors.

Chauvin pleaded guilty in the federal case in December, months after he was convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges.

Closing arguments in the current trial were expected to take most of Tuesday before the case goes to the jury, which appears to be mostly white.

The trial was wrapping up just as another major civil rights trial in Georgia resulted in the conviction of three white men on hate crimes charges in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was chased and shot in February 2020.

In the Minnesota trial, prosecutors have argued that the officers violated their training by not rolling Floyd onto his side or giving him CPR. They said at the start of the trial that the officers stood by as Chauvin slowly killed Floyd in front of them.

They presented weeks of testimony and evidence about the officers’ training, arguing that they knew they had a duty to intervene to stop Chauvin and render medical aid. Prosecutors have argued that Floyd’s condition was so serious that even bystanders without basic medical training could see he needed help.

Defense attorneys argued that the Minneapolis Police Department’s training was inadequate. They also attacked a police culture that they said teaches officers to defer to their seniors, saying that Chauvin called all the shots at the scene. Lane and Kueng, who were both rookies, argued that they deferred to Chauvin.

Lane testified that he asked twice if Floyd should be rolled over but was rebuffed, and that he held his position because an ambulance was on the way.

Kueng testified that Chauvin was his former training officer and that he had considerable sway over his career. He said he trusted Chauvin’s advice.

Thao testified that he was watching the bystanders and he trusted that the officers behind him were caring for Floyd.

At the start of the monthlong trial, U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson selected 18 jurors, including six alternates. Fifteen people now remain — 12 who will deliberate and three alternates. The court did not release demographic information, but the jury appeared largely white, with one woman who appeared to be of Asian descent, among the 12 expected to deliberate.

Lane, who is white, Kueng, who is Black, and Thao, who is Hmong American, also face a separate trial in June on state charges alleging that they aided and abetted murder and manslaughter.

February is all about celebrating Black history, and throughout the month we'll be honoring influential African Americans whose stories you might not yet know. Some are pioneers in their field, some helped spark the civil rights movement, and all have contributed incredible things to not only Black history, but to the history of the United States as a whole.Rosa Parks is a name you probably already know well, when it comes to the Civil Rights Movement and the bus boycott in Alabama. But before Parks, there was Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl that refused to give up her seat in 1955, sparking the flame for change. Check out Colvin's story in the video above.

ST. PAUL, Minn. —

Jury selection began Thursday in the federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers who are charged with violating George Floyd's constitutional rights while fellow Officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin the Black man to the street.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. Separately, they're charged in state court with aiding and abetting both murder and manslaughter.

Legal experts say the federal trial will be more complicated than the state trial, scheduled for June 13, because prosecutors in this case have the difficult task of proving the officers willfully violated Floyd's constitutional rights — unreasonably seizing him and depriving him of liberty without due process.

"In the state case, they're charged with what they did. That they aided and abetted Chauvin in some way. In the federal case, they're charged with what they didn't do — and that's an important distinction. It's a different kind of accountability," said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Phil Turner, another former federal prosecutor, said prosecutors must show the officers should have done something to stop Chauvin, rather than show they did something directly to Floyd.

Would-be jurors have already answered an extensive questionnaire, and were being brought into a federal courtroom in St. Paul in groups, where U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson was questioning them. The process will continue until a group of 40 is chosen. Then, each side will get to use their challenges to strike jurors. In the end, 18 jurors will be picked, including 12 who will deliberate and six alternates.

The judge told potential jurors they should let him know if any responses to their questionnaires have changed. He also asked each to stand and talk about themselves, including where they live, their job history, education, military service, hobbies and families.

He also acknowledged the media attention on the case, saying, "I'm sure all of you know something about what happened to George Floyd."

Magnuson has said he believes jury selection could be done in two days, unlike the state trial for Chauvin, where the judge and attorneys questioned each juror individually and spent more than two weeks picking a panel.

He said the trial is expected to last four weeks.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pinned him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

Chauvin was convicted in April on state charges of murder and manslaughter and is serving a 22½-year sentence. In December, he pleaded guilty to a federal count of violating Floyd's rights.

Federal prosecutions of officers involved in on-duty killings are rare. Prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights; an accident, bad judgment or negligence isn't enough to support federal charges.

Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Kueng, Lane and Thao are all charged with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officer's deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd clearly needed medical care and failed to aid him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyd's right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd's neck. It's not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyd's death.

Federal civil rights violations that result in death are punishable by up to life in prison or even death, but those stiff sentences are extremely rare and federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas that indicate the officers would get much less if convicted.

"This trial is going to present an evolutionary step beyond what we saw at the Chauvin trial because we're not looking at the killer, but the people who enable the killer. And that gets a step closer to the culture of the department," Osler said.

___

Associated Press writer Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- Tracey Williams-Dillard is the granddaughter of an influential journalist who gave a voice to black communities when they weren’t being heard back in 1934.

"He was righting the wrong,” Williams-Dillard said.

Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

is the oldest black-owned newspaper in the state of Minnesota. It was born from oppression -- lifting up voices and stories that might otherwise go unheard. But as publisher, Williams-Dillard is afraid not too much has changed in 86 years.

“You just want everybody to have equal rights. You want everybody to be okay. But it don’t end,” Williams-Dillard said. “We’re talking 1939 youth stabbed, same thing we’re talking today. Shocking video shows Minneapolis police caused man’s death.”

She’s encouraged to see people in the community protesting in the streets.

“This is a peaceful protest," Williams-Dillard said. "This is because people want to see justice. They want to see something different from what we’ve been seeing for way too long.”

It hasn’t all been peaceful. Williams-Dillard was overcome with emotion when she saw her family’s building boarded up for the first time in its history.

“When I walk up to the black press and we realize that we’re boarded up too because the violence is out of hand,” Williams-Dillard said.

They sit only a few blocks away from where George Floyd took his last breath.

“This anger, this goes back beyond Minneapolis around the nation. Some people don’t know all this history, but they feel it in their bones because their parents have lived through it,” the paper’s community editor Mel Reeves said.

Reeves is also a human rights activist and says people of color are sick of seeing their brothers and sisters killed by law enforcement time and time again.

“If you kicked me and you said ‘Oh sorry Mel,’ and then you kicked me again and you said ‘Oh sorry Mel,’ and then you kicked me again…. I’d start to think ‘maybe you’re kicking me on purpose,’" Reeves said.

Even if people aren’t inherently racist, he believes prejudice has been built into American society.

“We’re taught to be racist," Reeves said. "We’re taught to hate ourselves. White people are taught to feel superior, and black people are taught to be inferior. And we know it.”

University of Minnesota professor

Edward Goetz

studies issues of race, class and access to affordable housing.

“Systemic racism refers to racism and disparate outcomes that are built into our systems. That may have been built into our systems for reasons that have nothing to do with race, but that in fact work now to reinforce racial inequity and inequalities,” Goetz said.

For example, in the 20^th century, Goetz says there were explicit forms of racial discrimination in housing. It was illegal for some people to occupy certain types of housing and it created great wealth imbalances.

Even though those overt acts of racism may not happen now, “What that has created over time is a huge disparity in wealth because there’s been a generation or two of white people who have been able to generate a lot of wealth from their housing and have passed that wealth onto subsequent generations,” Goetz said.

Many minority groups don’t have that same privilege. Another element of systemic racism has to do with rules that are built into our systems like the way we fund our local schools – most are funded by property tax revenues and local funds.

“So you have very well-endowed schools in some neighborhoods providing tremendous opportunities and experiences for students, and you have schools in other neighborhoods that are underfunded that don’t have the most recent textbooks or facilities, and this produces disparate outcomes in education which then goes on to have impact on subsequent earnings,” Goetz said.

It’s a cycle that’s hard to break, but systemic racism goes beyond housing and school. According to Goetz, for the same crime, people of color are arrested, prosecuted and jailed more than white people.

“Systemic racism and white supremacy isn’t just a white cop with his knee on the neck of a black man. It’s the system that creates that cop, it’s the system that tolerates that cop, and it’s the system that allows officers like him to escape punishment,” Goetz said.

Acooa Ellis

has also spent time researching systemic racism. She's the Senior Vice President of Community Impact at the

Greater Twin Cities United Way

.

“There are so many people whose heart is literally to protect and serve, but too many… too many where that isn’t the case, and that behavior goes unabated, and it spreads, and it becomes part of the culture,” Ellis said.

Ellis says there are possible solutions like training officers differently, or getting them connected with the community.

“There’s something about policing a person that could live around the corner from you, or go to school with someone that you love,” Ellis said.

Ellis says she’s optimistic change is coming soon. Williams-Dillard says Minnesota Spokesman Recorder will not stop its activism until that change is made.

“My hope for going forward is that we can just be real. Let’s get real about what is happening, let’s get real about our role to be a part of the change. And let’s stop having nice conversations, and have honest ones,” Ellis said.

“We gotta keep the news out there, we gotta remind people that these are real times, and we gotta talk about it,” Williams-Dillard said.

“At some point, we gotta lay down our prejudices and our assumptions about folks, and we gotta see each other as human beings. Can’t stress that enough,” Reeves said.

“I cannot breathe. My heart is so heavy. It’s just so heavy,” Williams-Dillard said.

 

Claudette Colvin, a civil rights pioneer who in March 1955, at the age of 15, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, is seeking to get her conviction expunged.

"I guess you can say that now, I'm no longer a juvenile delinquent," Colvin said at a news conference Tuesday, after filing a motion asking the juvenile courts to seal, destroy and expunge her records.

"Under Jim Crow the bus driver had the authority to ask you to give up your seat to a white person and that was absolutely wrong," she added.

Colvin's legal team had said Monday it planned to file a request Tuesday with a Montgomery County court to clear her record.

Colvin, now 82, was charged with two counts of violating of the city's segregation ordinance and one felony count of assaulting a police officer. She was convicted on all counts in juvenile court, but the segregation convictions were overturned on appeal.

"There were two colored females sitting opposite two white females, that refused to move to the back with the rest of the colored," the 1955 police arrest report said. "Claudette Colvin, age 15, colored female, refused. We then informed Claudette that she was under arrest."

Colvin was placed on "Indefinite probation" for the police officer assault conviction and was never informed that her probation ended when she became of age, her attorney, Phillip Ensler, told CNN.

"So she thought she's been on probation this entire time," Ensler said.

Colvin's case came nine months before Rosa Parks made history for also refusing to give up her bus seat. However, Parks' case received more attention during the civil rights movement in part because Parks' image was more "acceptable to a white" community, Colvin told CNN earlier this year. Parks was older, married and lighter skinned, she said.

Colvin said she "resisted" and was "defiant" when police arrested her on the bus. An officer wrote in the police report that Colvin kicked and scratched him when they put her in the police vehicle.

"People said I was crazy," Colvin told CNN. "Because I was 15 years old and defiant and shouting, 'It's my constitutional right!'"

In Colvin's motion to get her record expunged, she said she wants to see society progress and not regress.

"I want us to move forward and be better," Colvin said in the filing, obtained by CNN. "When I think about why I'm seeking to have my name cleared by the state, it is because I believe if that happened it would show the generation growing up now that progress is possible and things do get better. It will inspire them to make the world better."

While juvenile court motions are typically shielded from the public, Colvin's legal team said in a statement that it released the filing "due to the unique public interest and historical significance of her case."

Ensler, Colvin's attorney, said the expungement of Colvin's conviction is "long overdue justice."

"People think it was just about a seat on a bus but it was about so much more than that," Ensler said.

At Tuesday's news conference, Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey said he was supporting Colvin's motion to "forever set aside and seal the records that taint Ms. Colvin as a violator of the law."

"Her actions back in March of 1955 were conscientious, not criminal; inspired, not illegal; they should have led to praise and not prosecution," Bailey said.

Colvin eventually became one of the plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle in 1956. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the district court's ruling and ordered Montgomery — and the rest of Alabama — to end bus segregation.

Colvin's family and legal team say she is seeking the expungement now because she plans to move to Texas with family soon.

Gloria Laster, Colvin's younger sister, told CNN that Colvin wants to get her record cleared so she can be an example for her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

"This is going to be her legacy to them," Laster said. "I sat down on the bus so that you can stand up and take your rightful place as an American. And that's what she wants for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. This is what she's doing this for."

The Montgomery County district attorney will also file a motion in support of Colvin's expungement.

"I believe that the charges that were (originally) brought, were brought on bogus laws," District Attorney Daryl B. Bailey told CNN. "It was totally unlawful what the state, and law enforcement, did to this woman at the time."

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland, is set for his confirmation hearing on Monday.

Garland is vowing to prioritize civil rights, combat extremist attacks and ensure the Justice Department remains politically independent.

When the 68-year-old appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he's likely to face questions about the investigation of Biden’s son Hunter as well as the fallout from the U.S. Capitol riot.

Garland focuses in his prepared remarks on prioritizing policing and civil rights to combat racial discrimination and says America doesn’t “yet have equal justice.”

If confirmed as attorney general, Garland says it “will be the culmination of a career I have dedicated to ensuring that the laws of our country are fairly and faithfully enforced, and that the rights of all Americans are protected.

Many became familiar with Garland in 2016 when the federal appeals court judge was snubbed by Republicans for a seat on the Supreme Court and denied a hearing.

CHICAGO — When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin goes on trial for the killing of George Floyd, the odds may be in his favor. Following a year of intense protests, the voices calling for accountability may be getting louder but statistically, police prosecutions are rare, even in the face of potentially damning video evidence.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder. The charges stem from a May incident, where he was caught on camera kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.

“I think anyone who watches this video and hasn't even sort of a cursory familiarity with what happened here, I think would have to conclude that this was egregious, unconscionable and unlawful misconduct,” said Jay Schweikert, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice.

In the years following the 2014 killing of unarmed teen Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, the calls for accountability have grown stronger. Yet, it’s extremely rare for police officers to face serious legal consequences for using excessive force or even killing civilians.

“It takes a lot of political will to bring prosecutions against members of law enforcement in the first place,” explained Schweikert. “And in general, prosecutors are very reluctant to do that.”

The Supreme Court also gives police officers a great deal of leeway in their use of force, saying that it “…must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."

“It's one of objective reasonableness, so if their subjective belief is that there was a threat because they're afraid of Black men, that's not objectively reasonable,” said Philip Stinson, criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University.

In Kenosha, this past September, protests and riots broke out after police officer Rusten Sheskey fired seven shots into Jacob Blake’s back, paralyzing him. No charges were filed.

“Many police officers have a fear of Black men and Black boys, and that is what's driving a lot of what we see,” said Stinson.

The 2014 fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland was especially striking, says Schweikert. Rice, who was playing with a realistic-looking pellet gun, was shot dead by an officer just two seconds after he arrived on the scene.

“I think it's shocking, that case in particular, because, as I recall, there wasn't even an attempt to secure criminal charges in that case,” said Schweikert.

Even when charges are secured, officers are seldomly convicted. Juries and courts are reluctant to second guess the split-second, life-or-death decisions of police officers in potentially dangerous situations.

According to a statistical analysis by Bowling Green State University, since 2005, 138 police officers were arrested for shooting and killing someone while on duty. While 44 were convicted of a crime, most were for lesser offenses. Only seven officers were convicted of murder.

“About 1,000 times each year, an on-duty police officer shoots and kills someone,” said Stinson. “And it's actually a very rare event that an officer is charged with murder or manslaughter resulting from one of those shootings.”

It's a rare event that will soon begin inside a Minneapolis courtroom. The question will be whether the Chauvin trial results in an exception or a rule.

March is all about celebrating womanhood, and throughout the month we'll be honoring influential women in history whose inspirational stories helped pave the way for female empowerment and progress. These advocates and pioneers have contributed incredible things to not only women's history, but to the history of the United States as a whole, and are an inspiration to young girls everywhere.Discover the life and accomplishments of Ida B. Wells, an African American woman born a slave who used her talents in journalism and activism to stand up for the rights of women and African Americans.