Eleanor Roosevelt- A Distinctive First Lady

Today we honor an extraordinary woman, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. We honor her as a Sistah Girl because her life was as inspiring as it was wonderful.

She contributed by fighting racism at every opportunity, she helped those in need and fought for the rights of women, refugees, and African Americans during her tenure as the longest serving first lady of the United States. She advocated for low-cost housing, equal pay for equal work, pensions, and a minimum wage. She also joined to Red Cross during WWI and visited soldiers in the South Pacific.

Eleanor Roosevelt went down in the mines to see the help needed improve working conditions for miners and their families. Mrs. Roosevelt worked with the NAACP to help African Americans gain rights.

She set up food lines during the Depression for those who had no food. She joined the League of Women Voters to help women gain the right to vote. She changed the way First Ladies are perceived and paved the way for future First Ladies to express and work on their own projects.

“Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.”

She was chair of the UN’s Human Rights Commission and was the driving force in creating the 1948 charter of liberties, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that is active to this day.

Eleanor was born in 1884 in New York, New York. She was the niece of President Teddy Roosevelt and married her cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1905. They were married for 40 Years and had six children. She was an intelligent woman who wrote a newspaper column for over 20 years called “My Day” and the first First Lady to hold all female press conferences.

The list is long and her achievements are many so I encourage you to read more about her on your own and take inspiration from her extraordinary life.

So it is our pleasure to honor this Sistah Girl who is a symbol of courage and hope and someone who tried to make this world a better place.

Mahalo

Sistah Girl

www.sistahgirldesserts.com

Nichelle Nichols - A Tribute to a Extraordinary Sistah Girl

This weeks’ honoree gives praise to Nichelle Nichols (aka Nyota Uhuru), an actor that helped

young girls dream the size of a universe.

Starting out as an actor, singer, and dancer, she ended up in a role that became a lifetime gig. She became a television icon on the TV show Star Trek as Nyota Uhuru, a communications officer, and a bad ass. The first Black actress cast as a major player in a tv role. As a communications officer on Star Trek, she broke all the stereotypes usually portrayed by African Americans, especially female roles. Not only was she beautiful to look at, but she was also intelligent, strong and a force to be reckoned with. My favorite scene of her is in an episode called Mirror, Mirror where she must pretend to be someone else. That scene with her costar George Takei proved that she could demand respect from anybody and still be a badass. Check it out for yourself!

Wanting to leave Star Trek for a role on Broadway, she was approached by Martin Luther King Jr. who urged her to stay by stating, 'you cannot, you cannot...for the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful, people who can sing dance, and can go to space, who are professors, lawyers. “If you leave, that door can be closed because your role is not a black role and is not a female role; he can fill it with anybody even an alien." Lucky for us, she stayed and became a television icon and a role model for many people.

“It made me believe that all things good are possible.” Nichelle Nichols

She was one of six children, born on December 28, 1932, in Robbins, Illinois. Born Grace Dell Nichols, but she disliked that name, so she asked her parents for a new one, they offered “Nichelle, a name that means “victorious maiden” (from NIKE and the suffix -elle) * Sadly, Nichelle Nichols passed away on July 30th of this year. Her legacy will live on, and she will be missed.

May her spirit rest in peace.

Sistah Girl

*For more information on this BAD ASS SISTAH GIRL, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichelle_Nichols