She announced the observance at the March 2 meeting of the commissioners and told about an exhibit she set up in the lobby of Leath Memorial Library, Rockingham., celebrating women.
The Women’s History Project was founded in 1980 and the month was a national observance declared by Congress in 1987.
“The mission of this project is to recognize and celebrate the historic and diverse accomplishments of women,” Covington said.
She said learning true stories of women’s history has a positive effect on everyone.
“Women have contributed significantly to building our society and culture,” she said. “History looks different when contributions of women are included with those of men.”
President Barack Obama’s proclamation this year for the observance pays tribute to the efforts of women in preserving and protecting the environment for present and future generations, Covington said.
In her exhibit at the library, she has an oil painting of Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave herself born in 1820 who assisted many slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
One of her own family pictures shows her great-great-grandmother with her son who were born during slavery.
Another painting is of Mary Church Terrell who was born of a freed slave and became the first black woman to earn a college degree in America. Before she died in 1954 at 90 she had become an advocate for African Americans and women’s rights.
Paintings of Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt show women who worked together, Covington said, as advocates of human rights, women’s rights and civil rights.
Other paintings show Alice Coltrane, wife of John Coltrane, who was famous in her own right as a harpist; and Aretha Franklin, singer. Also part of the exhibit is a book about Katherine Hepburn written by Toni Morrison who won a Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature.
The Civil Rights Era, she said, is represented by a painting of Malcolm X’s wife and daughters.
Present day women represented in the exhibit include First Lady Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Richmond County Register of Deeds Linda Douglas.
Contact reporter Tom MacCallum at 997-3111, ext. 15; e-mail tmaccallum@yourdailyjournal.com.
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