This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated March 29, 2024
We often hear the refrain, “We all come from somewhere,” meaning that unless our roots are Indigenous, we or our ancestors arrived in America from some other place. Among our diverse community, what is true for every one of us – what we all have in common – is that we all came from someone, and that is a woman.
But besides being the reason we all exist, women are so much more than that and have always contributed so much to our society in spite of the obstacles and limitations society has placed in their way. March is Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day was March 8. It is important that we recognize and celebrate and learn about the history women have made and continue to make, including right here in Brooklyn.
That includes women like Emily Warren Roebling. She was initially known – or, quite frankly, not much known at all – as the wife of Washington Roebling, the chief engineer initially overseeing the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. When he became seriously ill, Emily – an engineer in her own right – took over the chief duties and project management for a decade, coordinating with her incapacitated husband until the Bridge was completed.
She was the first person to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, riding across the span in a carriage at the grand opening in 1883, where she was honored by New York City Congressman, Abram Stevens Hewitt, who referred to the new bridge as “an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred.”
Emily Warren Roebling went on to advocate for women’s causes, earn a law degree from NYU, win awards as an author, and meet world leaders in Europe. She did all of this in the 1800s, decades before he or any other woman had a constitutional right to vote.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Flatbush. James Madison High School, her alma mater, has a courtroom that is part of their law program named in her honor.
Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her law degree from Columbia Law School, all in the 1950s. At the time she earned her law degree, she was tied for first in her class and had become the first woman to have served on two major law reviews, having done so at both Harvard and Columbia.
She is most well known for the nearly three decades she served as a justice on the United States Supreme Court, but in the decades preceding her tenure on the highest court, Ginsburg worked as a law professor, founded the first law journal dedicated to women’s rights, and fought for women’s equality as an attorney, including arguing multiple cases before the Supreme Court. Prior to being confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, she served as a federal judge for fifteen years.
Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected to Congress, right here in Brooklyn in the 1960s. A graduate of Brooklyn College, Chisholm advanced her own education while working in the education field, earning her master’s degree while going to class at night. She went from working as a teacher’s aide to being a teacher, then a director at early education centers, to a leadership role in the city’s Bureau of Child Welfare.
After several years of involvement in local Brooklyn political clubs, Chisholm was elected to the state Assembly in 1964. Four years later she would be elected to the House of Representatives, and four years after that she mounted what was ultimately considered to be the first serious presidential run by an African American candidate in American history. At the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1972, Chisholm finished in fourth place, which did confirm that she had made a serious run for president.
Women in Brooklyn are, to this day, making history. When she was elected in 2022, Iwen Chu became the first Asian woman in the New York State Senate, representing parts of southern Brooklyn. In the local community groups, volunteer elected boards and councils, and community-based organizations I have dedicated my time to over the past decade, they have been predominated and often led by strong, smart women who get things done. I know I am here because of my mother, but I am also where I am in life because of the many women who have inspired and motivated me, and from whom I have learned so much.
