Women’s History Month

Her Story is Our Story

Every March, we celebrate the women—past and present—who have broken barriers and enriched our lives. LA County Library invites you to discover these stories through our virtual programs, interactive resources, and curated reading lists.

The Evolution of a Movement

The journey to national recognition started close to home. In 1978, Sonoma County, California, hosted a “Women’s History Week” that sparked a movement across the country. By 1980, a coalition led by the National Women’s History Alliance successfully lobbied for national recognition, leading President Jimmy Carter to issue the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week.

In 1987, after successful lobbying by the National Women’s History Project, Congress officially designated March as Women’s History Month. Today, we continue that legacy by sharing the stories of women who changed the course of history.

Keep scrolling to discover how you can celebrate Women’s History Month with LA County Library.

Learn More with a Good Book

Women’s History Month

Women Change Makers

Each of our Cultural Resource Centers has highlighted a courageous and influential woman for you to get to know.

Angela Davis Highlighted by our Black Resource Center

Angela Yvonne Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, in a neighborhood known as “Dynamite Hill,” a community targeted by racist bombings during the Jim Crow era.

Growing up in the deeply segregated South profoundly shaped her political consciousness. Davis went on to study philosophy at Brandeis University and continued graduate work at the University of California, San Diego, and in Frankfurt, Germany. She became nationally known in 1970 when she was accused of involvement in a courthouse shooting in California. After being placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and spending over a year in jail, she was acquitted of all charges in 1972, an event that solidified her global status as a symbol of political resistance and state repression.

Davis has long been open about her sexuality and identifies as a lesbian, an aspect of her identity that informs her intersectional political framework. She has emphasized the importance of recognizing how race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect in systems of oppression. Although she was once a member of the Communist Party USA and closely associated with the Black liberation movement, her activism has consistently extended beyond a single ideology. She has worked in solidarity with global movements for Palestinian rights, anti-apartheid efforts in South Africa, and contemporary prison abolition campaigns. Her openness about being a Black lesbian activist was particularly significant during the 1970s and 1980s, when LGBTQ+ identities were even more stigmatized within many political movements.

Less widely known is Davis’s early involvement with the Black Panther Party (though she was never a formal member) and her leadership in the Che-Lumumba Club, an all-Black branch of the Communist Party in Los Angeles. She also played a key role in the campaign to free the “Soledad Brothers,” including George Jackson, whose death in prison further galvanized abolitionist movements. Despite being dismissed from her teaching position at UCLA in 1969 due to her political affiliations, she later returned to academia and built a distinguished scholarly career.

Davis is a prolific scholar and author whose work bridges philosophy, feminism, race theory, and prison studies. Among her most prominent books are Women, Race & Class (1981), Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), and Freedom Is a Constant Struggle (2016). Her scholarship is foundational in the development of abolitionist theory, particularly arguments for dismantling the prison-industrial complex. She has received numerous honors, including the Lenin Peace Prize in 1979 and induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. Beyond awards, her academic career, most notably as a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has influenced generations of scholars and activists. Today, Angela Yvonne Davis remains one of the most influential voices in movements for racial justice, feminist liberation, LGBTQ+ rights, and prison abolition, continuing to challenge institutions and inspire global activism.

Resources

Books

Online Resources

Zitkala-Sa photo credit National Museum of American History

Zitkala-Sa Highlighted by our American Indian Resource Center

Native American rights activist, musician, writer, and educator Zitkála-Šá (1876 – 1938) was born on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota.

Of mixed heritage and raised by her Yankton Dakota Sioux mother, Zitkála-Šá (Red Bird in Lakota) was taught Yankton traditional ways and stories, which laid the foundation for her appreciation of Sioux culture.

At 8 years old Zitkála-Šá went to a Quaker boarding school at White’s Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana where she was forced to cut her hair and given the name Gertrude Simmons. Zitkála-Šá, along with many other Native American students, was punished for speaking her Native language and practicing her culture. Despite the traumatic experiences she had at boarding school, she chose to pursue further education in music at Earlham College and the New England Conservatory, excelling as a violinist. During this time, she was also recognized as a skilled orator and won second place in a statewide competition.

Eventually she became a music teacher at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Under her Sioux name Zitkála-Šá, she wrote articles for popular magazines about how poorly Native Americans were treated as a people by the government and boarding schools. After being dismissed from her teaching position, Zitkála-Šá returned to the Yankton Reservation to care for her sick mother and gathered stories for her book Old Indian Legends published in 1901, preserving Sioux stories and culture.

In 1902, she worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, marrying Captain Raymond Talephause Bonnin who was also Yankton Sioux. They were assigned to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation Agency in Utah where they had a son. Like before, Zitkala witnessed the mistreatment of the Uintah and Ouray peoples by White employees of the Reservation Agency.

Completed in 1913, Zitkála-Šá wrote an opera with Bringham Young University professor William F. Hanson called the Sun Dance, which was about the sacred Sioux ceremony banned by the federal government.

During the years of 1916 until her death, Zitkála-Šá was active in advocating for Native American rights and instrumental in passing the Indian Citizenship Act, ensuring all Native Americans born in the United States would receive full citizenship rights. Both her and her husband lobbied, testified before congressional committees, and did their own investigations to assist Native Americans in getting access to resources, education, health care, and cultural preservation. Her efforts in cofounding the National Council of American Indians help prompt the Meriam Report, which influenced federal government policies on Native Americans.

Image Source: National Museum of American History

Resources

Books

Red Bird Sings by Gina Capaldi
Zitkála-Šá: Native Writer and Activist by Becca Becker
Old Indian Legends by Zitkála-Šá
American Indian Stories by Zitkála-Šá
Help Indians Help Themselves by P. Jane Hafen

Additional Resources

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin Encyclopedia of World Biography Online
Gertrude Simmons Bonnin Notable Native Americans
Zitkála-Šá | Unladylike2020 PBS video
Zitkála-Šá, Native American Citizenship and Rights Activists Honored on New Quarter Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum

Tammy Duckworth - photo credit Wikimedia Commons

Tammy Duckworth Highlighted by our Asian Pacific Resource Center

Senator Tammy Duckworth (1968 –) is an Army National Guard veteran and Senator who has represented Illinois since 2017.

She was born in Bangkok to a Thai Chinese mother and an American father, and her childhood was shaped by frequent moves across Southeast Asia before her family settled in Hawaii. Growing up in a household that sometimes relied on public assistance gave Duckworth firsthand insight into the importance of social support systems, an experience that would later shape her public service and advocacy.

Her commitment to service led her to the U.S. Army, where she became a helicopter pilot. In 2004, while serving in Iraq, her aircraft was struck by enemy fire and she lost both legs and partial use of her right arm. Duckworth’s recovery did not end her service; instead, it deepened her resolve to advocate for veterans and people with disabilities, helping push for improved care, accessibility, and long-term support for those who serve.

Duckworth brought that advocacy into government, first through leadership roles supporting veterans and then through elected office. In 2012, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois, becoming the first Thai American woman elected to Congress and the first woman with a disability to serve in the House. Her election expanded representation in meaningful ways, signaling that leadership can — and should — reflect the diversity of the nation.

In 2016, she made history again when Illinois voters elected her to the United States Senate. There, she has championed veterans’ services, infrastructure improvements, reproductive rights, and policies supporting working families. In 2018, she also became the first sitting senator to give birth, helping modernize Senate practices and highlighting the realities faced by working parents in public life.

As a woman, a veteran, a person with a disability, and a proud member of the AANHPI community, Senator Tammy Duckworth represents the power of visibility and lived experience. Her legacy is not only found in legislation, but in the doors she has opened and the narratives she has expanded. Like so many women change makers before her, Duckworth reminds us that progress often begins when someone refuses to be invisible and instead insists on being fully seen.

Image source: WikiMedia Commons

Resources:

Adult Book

Everyday is a Gift: A Memoir by Tammy Duckworth

Children's Books

DVD

A Life of Service: The Story of Senator Tammy Duckworth

Online Resources

Video

Maria Elena Salinas Photo credit Valder Beebe Show - The Real Story Maria Elena Salinas

María Elena Salinas Highlighted by our Chicano Resource Center

María Elena Salinas is a pioneering Mexican American journalist who became known as “the voice of Hispanic America.”

Salinas is best known for her decades of work in Spanish-language television news in the United States. She was co-anchor at Noticiero Univision, one of the most watched Spanish-language newscasts in the US. In her work, Salinas has interviewed Latin American heads of state, rebel leaders, dictators, and every United States president since Jimmy Carter.

During her career, Salinas helped bring Latino perspectives into mainstream national conversations. Her work has covered issues such as immigration, education, voting rights and social justice. She has volunteered in organizations that encourage immigrants to participate in politics and has also been involved with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists which is dedicated to the advancement of Latino Journalism. Her efforts have earned her numerous awards and distinctions including a Peabody Award, The Broadcast Legend Award and an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2017, she was inducted into The National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Salinas was born in Los Angeles California to parents who immigrated from Mexico. She lives in Maimi Florida with her two daughters.

Photo Credit: Valder Beebe Show - The Real Story Maria Elena Salinas