Women’s History Month


Mr. Talford, a 77-year-old Charlottean, reached out to FTS in 2020. His driveway was just over the property line and when a real estate company purchased the land, they obtained a demolition permit to tear it down, leaving him without access. Alesha Brown, right, successfully argued that Talford acquired the property through adverse possession and was now the lawful owner. He received a deed officially transferring the property to him so similar challenges won’t arise in the future.
Seeing Seniors Displaced ‘Pissed Off’ This Charlotte Attorney. Now She Fights Gentrification.

Alesha Brown founded For The Struggle in 2019 to stop the displacement of seniors in west Charlotte’s rapidly gentrifying, historically Black communities. 'We owe them that,' she said.

Nida Allam
NC’s First Elected Muslim Woman Hopes to Hold the Door Open 

When you’re the first to do something, it’s hard to find a mentor. Whoever follows Durham’s Nida Allam won’t have that problem.

North Carolina-born actress, dancer, and singer Ariana DeBose arrives at the Oscars Sunday. She shattered boundaries with her Academy Award win for "Best Supporting Actress." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Beyond ‘The Slap’: NC’s Ariana DeBose Is the Real Story of This Year’s Oscars

The Wilmington-born actress, singer, and dancer became the first openly queer, Afro-Latino actress to win an Oscar.

Kizzmekia Corbett, a North Carolina-born immunologist with the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Health, played a pivotal role in developing the Moderna COVID vaccine. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Survived COVID? Thank a North Carolina-Born Scientist Named Kizzmekia

Long before Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett’s research helped develop America’s anti-COVID vaccines, she stood out from the crowd. 

Wiggins' father, a lumberjack, died on the job when she was a child, and she later lost several children to whooping cough because the mill would not allow her time off to take care of them. She began organizing among her neighbors, Black and white, for more pay and better working conditions, arguing their case to lawmakers and anyone who would listen until she was ultimately assassinated.
Ella May Wiggins Gave Her Life for NC Worker Rights

Ella May Wiggins, a North Carolina textile worker, battled for all workers’ rights, establishing an early interracial labor union in the 1920s. 

Ella Baker of Littleton, NC was a strategizing genius and the secret weapon behind much of the Civil Rights movement's success. Paired with Fannie Lou Hamer's charismatic force, the duo set the stage for the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Fannie Lou Hamer And Ella Baker Didn’t Take a Seat at the Table, They Flipped It

In 1964, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer changed the landscape of US politics with a Black-led party, opening the door of democracy wider for all.

Sarah Keys Evans was serving in the Women's Army Corps in 1952 when she was arrested after refusing to give up her bus seat for a white Marine at the Roanoke Rapids bus station. Her lawsuit would go on to change the country.  (Image via US Army.)
Let’s Make Sure These Chapters of NC’s Black History Aren’t Forgotten

It’s Black History Month in North Carolina, and many of our state’s most significant moments are still seriously overlooked.