March is Women’s History Month. Women’s History Month is a celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture and society and has been observed annually in the month of March in the United States since 1987. I always post information about well-known women such as Harriet Tubman, Daisy Bates, Shirley Chisholm, Dorothy I. Height, and Phillis Wheatley on my social media to share their accomplishments and contributions to America.

This year I had the pleasure of speaking to the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society, New Jersey chapter for their March meeting. In honor of Women’s History Month, I told the stories of how my grandmothers, Gladys Denson Mays and Ernestine Wright Hatchett, received their education in rural Arkansas during the 1930s and 1940s. My maternal grandmother, Ernestine Wright Hatchett, attended a private high school in Woodruff County, Arkansas in the 1940s. My paternal grandmother, Gladys Denson Mays, had to move 100 miles away from home to attend high school in the 1930s. After graduating high school, they both continued their education at Historically Black Colleges and Universities obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I also shared my research methods of utilizing newspapers, school, and church records to extend my research from the oral histories I had been told about them.

It was an honor to be able to celebrate the two women in my life that started my family’s educational legacy. So, this year’s Women’s History Month was even more special and eventful than ever. I’ve said it once, and I will continue saying it, I just never know where this genealogy journey will take me. I’m just blessed to be on this ride.