Saluting Our Sisters

Miss Jones’ Black History Month Competition

Open to students across the Co-op Academies:

Take a photo or share a photo of a woman of colour who inspires you.
They can be famous, a family member, somebody in school, somebody in the community. They just have to be inspirational to you!
Submit 100 words explaining why they inspire you.

There will be a prize for Co-op Academy Leeds winner and we will be making a big display of them in the library. The trust will also share a selection of them on our website and social media, so everyone can read the tributes of women that inspire us!

Email Miss Jones if you are interested! natalie.jones@coopacademies.co.uk

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou | Academy of Achievement

Miss Jones

The world would be a darker place without the iconic Maya Angelou. Her words and her wisdom are profound and far-reaching.

Angelou was an American writer and civil-rights activist who published seven autobiographies,countless poems and three books of essays. Angelou published her first autobiography, I know why the Caged Bird Sings, in 1969 and her poem Still I Rise is outstanding.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks | Academy of Achievement

Kaneez Fatimah - Year 8

On February 4th 1913, Rosa Parks entered the world, her full name being Rosa Louise McCauley Parks. At a young age her parents separated. Her, her mother and her brother lived on a farm owned by her maternal grandmother in Pine Level, Alabama, which was a deeply racist part of America at the time.

The reason Rosa Parks deserves recognition is that she was a pioneering black woman who blazed a trail for all black people to follow.

Rosa Parks was an inspiration for many people in her time and her legacy lives on today; she is known as the mother of the civil rights movement. When Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus because she was ‘coloured’, she contributed to a massive movement in America. Because of her, and others, this little act of not standing up evolved into black people not taking any buses any more, which was terrible for the buses as they were losing out on their money. Black people walked to their destinations for over a year! This was to show the importance and significance of black people and that they were valued in society.

Parks was fined 14 dollars for refusing to give up her seat, a fine she paid. This shows how even though she was subject to horrendous racism, she took the moral high ground! She was such an important women in black history as she shows that every little step counts and that someone has to start somewhere; she emphasises, to be yourself, always, which is a very important value to have.

We salute you Rosa Parks