Athens Arts League and High Cotton Arts are joining with groups and individuals across the nation is celebrating Women’s History Month with a 10-portrait exhibit, “Women of Substance,” by local artist Karen Wright Middleton throughout March. 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.

“There are so many women from which to choose in honoring them this month,” said Middleton. “These 10 women were the first to come to my mind. I had to limit my selections or the collection could have gone on forever. This month-long observation is so important because it promotes solidarity, understanding and support among women.”

Featured are:

Ruth Bader Ginsberg, American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in September 2020. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve

on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor.

Jane Goodall, English primatologist and anthropologist, seen as the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960. In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace.

Mother Teresa, 1910-1997, (Saint Teresa of Calcutta) nun and missionary, founder of Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that manages homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. Also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children’s and family counseling programs, as well as orphanages and schools. Recipient of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

Helen Keller, 1880-1968, Tuscumbia native and author of 14 books, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Losing her sight and hearing at 19 months, at age 7, she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan, who taught her language, including reading and writing. She learned to speak and to understand other people’s speech, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College of Harvard University. She toured the U.S. and 35 countries, advocating for those with vision loss. She was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1971.

Amelia Earhart, 1897-Declared dead 1939, first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, earning U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross; instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. Often compared to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for lasting impact on women’s causes. During attempt to become the first female to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1968 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1973.

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005, African-American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott, honored by Congress as “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement.” In 1955, Parks rejected a bus driver’s order to vacate a row of four seats in the “colored” section in favor of a white passenger. NAACP believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws, and she helped inspire the black community to boycott Montgomery buses for over a year. The case resulted in a November 1956 decision that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Sally Ride, 1951-2012, American astronaut and physicist, in 1983 became the first American woman in space and the third woman in space overall. Ride remained the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She worked for two years at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego. She served on committees investigating the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters, the only person to participate in both.

Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906, American social reformer and women’s rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. A Quaker committed to social equality, she was an early member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and the New York Women’s State Temperance Society. In 1863, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the Women’s Loyal National League, collecting nearly 400,000 signatures in support of the abolition of slavery. In 1866, they initiated the American Equal Rights Association, campaigning for equal rights for both women and African Americans. In 1869, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, which became in 1890 the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting in her hometown of Rochester, N.Y. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton presented to Congress an amendment giving women the right to vote, which was eventually ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.

Harriet Tubman, c. 1822-1913, American abolitionist and political activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue some 70 slaves, including family and friends, using the network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. One group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman — or “Moses” — never lost a passenger. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada. During the Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women’s suffrage.

Sacagawea, c. 1788-1812, a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, at 16, helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea with her 2-month-old son and French trader husband, traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American populations and contributing to the expedition’s knowledge of natural history in different regions. The National American Woman Suffrage Association adopted her as a symbol of women’s worth and independence.

Middleton’s own artistic endeavors have included work as a painter, actress and published author. She currently has a studio at High Cotton Arts, 103 W. Washington Street, in downtown Athens. During the month of March you may go by and see this deeply thoughtful exhibit during High Cotton’s regular business hours, Wednesday-Thursday

10 a.m.-2 p.m. or Friday and Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.