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Nominate
a heroine
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We invite you to
nominate yourself or someone you know who is a heroine in
her community. We’ll be featuring some of these women on this
website.
We look forward to hearing about women who are changing the world.
Please e-mail us at
nominate@sisters-shoulders.org
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Farewell
to a heroine
Winson
Hudson
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 “Oh,
come my dear children and sit by my knee
And let me tell you the cause to be free.
If I don't tell you, you would never know—
Where you came from and where you should go.”
On April 24, 2004 Winson Hudson passed away at the age of
87. This heroine of “Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders”
spent her life working to correct injustices. She was a civil rights
pioneer who began trying to register to vote in 1937 and with unwavering
dedication succeeded twenty five years later. She and her sister
Dovie established a county branch of the NAACP in 1961 and later
pushed for the first desegregation lawsuit.
She spent her life standing up to oppression and questioned where
will young people today find this courage and dedication. She was
honored with the NAACP’s Freedom Award for Outstanding Community
Service and the Second Congressional District Unsung Hero Award.
We think Winson Hudson is an inspiration to for all of us to fight
for what we believe in. For more information, read her autobiography
co-written with Constance Curry: “Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs
of a Freedom Fighter.” |
Award-Winning
Journalist Brings a New Voice to Mississippi
Donna
Ladd
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 “We
believe Mississippi can be something truly spectacular.”
Donna Ladd, an award-winning journalist and editor from Philadelphia,
Mississippi, credits her illiterate mother with her lifelong quests
for learning and for social justice. Despite the fact that Katie
Ladd Smith never went to school, she was the wisest and most intelligent
person her daughter has ever known. She pushed Donna to “learn
everything,” telling her, “That’s your ticket.
You don’t have to stay here.”
Ladd did leave after graduating from Mississippi State in 1983.
“But then I got out in the world and saw that prejudice was
everywhere,” she says now.
She spent 18 years reporting on social and health issues in New
York City and Colorado Springs. While studying for her master’s
degree at the Columbia University School of Journalism, she returned
to Mississippi to research the struggles of Neshoba County, where
three civil rights workers were brutally murdered in 1964. It was
a life changing event.
"I saw the potential, the creativity, the progressive-minded
people without an outlet," Ladd says. She moved back to Mississippi
after graduating from Columbia and in 2002 started the Jackson Free
Press, a weekly alternative magazine, to provide a forum for progressive
ideas and help change Mississippi. The overwhelmingly positive feedback
from the community has fueled Ladd’s hope.
"If you can face history squarely and be hopeful about the
future, that's a winning combination.” |
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“We
had no idea that we were changing the whole political future of
America…
We were going because we didn’t have shoes for our children
and decent houses to stay in…”
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