Preview

biographical sketch

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
986 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
biographical sketch
Arcatia Young
Dr. Tom Liner
February 5, 2014
ENGL 1102

The Story of Coretta Fowler

Coretta Fowler is a strong black woman who did nothing but strive for excellence all through her life. She had it rough growing up but being born the baby of the family made things a little easier. She was born on September 28, 1969 in Warwick Ga to the late Inez and sonny Young she was the last of 16 children out of the girls. As you can already imagine life was kind of hard juggling 16 children out of one house but they learned to appreciate what they had which it wasn’t much but they had to make do with what they did have.

Before moving into an integrated school Coretta Went to an all-black school where they had limited books and space. They didn’t have many books and the teachers only knew enough to get them by. Growing up in school of course it was a task for her and this family because people still had a great deal of hatred in their hearts for black people. She says she remembers when she and her brothers and sisters would miss school just to march for equal rights for them. She was often picked on for not having clothes on that matched they gave her the nick name “colors” because her skin was a different color than theirs and her clothes never matched. However, she never said a word to degrade them she just kept her eyes on the prize which was getting an education.
After she graduated high school she decided to attend college for cosmetology because she would always be the one in the house stuck with doing all the girls of the family hair she began to get better at it every time she did her siblings hair this was something that just came natural to her. However she never went to get enrolled for that because the next week her mother died. Coretta was so depressed because the week before as she as brushing through her mother’s hair as she did on a daily basis. Her mother was telling her that if she ever gets admitted to the hospital that she

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The power and fervor illustrated within Maya Angelou’s numerous works resulted from the tribulations that she overcame. As a young African-American, discrimination vastly influenced Angelou’s life. However, Angelou refused to succumb to such unfair racial bigotry and strived for her voice and inequalities to be heard. Maya Angelou, herself, claims that although “ We may encounter many defeats...we must not be defeated…in fact, it is necessary to encounter the defeat, so that you can know who you are, and what you can rise from.” With strong devotion, Angelou worked eagerly to convey her beliefs and assure confidence to those who also felt insecurities within their own identities from racial discrimination. Angelou’s vigorous efforts were successfully…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Alberta Turner Biography

    • 2163 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Her determination impacted many individuals around her, which gave them the strength to stand up to racial injustices as well.…

    • 2163 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Life of Shirley Chisholm

    • 3452 Words
    • 14 Pages

    She started her work career as a Director of a day nursery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This experience gave her an acute awareness of her social surroundings. She saw first-hand how minorities were in substandard housing, inadequate schools, subjected to drugs and police brutality and no basic civil rights. This was when she determined that bad government had a connection to the fate of these minorities. She joined the Bedford-Stuyvesant Political League and gained lots of experience and political insight. She helped her neighbors to register to vote, unemployed to get jobs, students to get scholarships and fought with the league for 10 years and gained lots of respect and connections.…

    • 3452 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    When reflecting on history, it is evident that there has been much struggle for Black people, especially woman. The poem, “I am A Black Woman,” by Mari Evans, portrays a relationship between Black women of our history and today’s society. By the usage of vivid and inspiring words, Evans is able to capture the reader’s attention. It is clear that the speaker is a very strong black woman. She portrays this in a way that she describes moments where she has struggled and when other black women of history have struggled as well. She implies that those hard times have made her the person she is today, which is the main point of this poem.…

    • 877 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Her school was segregated, but in her case the teachers took more of an interest because they lived in the same neighborhoods. Ay school dance no one would dance with her, a boy name Richard Kennedy who was in her class told her that “if you give me a dime , I will dance with you, which she didn’t do, and she was the only one not dancing.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racism has always been an issue in the United States. African Americans were always treated badly and were denied basic rights like eating at a certain restaurant or even sitting at certain place in a bus. However on December 1st one woman had had enough of the unfair treatment and finally took a stand. Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat and give it to a white bus rider and was arrested. Her arrest ignited a bus boycott lead by Martin Luther King and for 381 days African Americans carpooled, walked, or found other ways of transportation to get around town. Rosa’s dream was to see racial harmony and after taking a stand she made her dream come true. She is still significant to our society because it shows that one person and a simple action can make a change.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Claudette Colvin was born on September 5, 1939 in Alabama. Claudette is well known for a few things but this is the most important. On March 2nd 1955 she refuses to move seats for a white woman and is punished. She was drug off the bus by the police and brought to jail. She became one of the four plaintiffs in “Browder vs Gayle” which ruled that that Montgomery's segregated bus-system was unfair for many people.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    "She probably will be remembered as a woman who challenged everyone. She challenged the white political leadership of the state to do what was fair and equitable among all people and she challenged black citizens to stand up and demand their rightful place in the state and the…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Augusta Savage Research

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Highlighting racial bias and the identification of Race, she sculpted the life stories of the African American community, and displayed the struggles that black…

    • 383 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ethel Payne

    • 3055 Words
    • 13 Pages

    She was the granddaughter of slaves. Her father was a Pullman Porter who moved to Chicago from Memphis, Tennessee, as a part of a great black migration.…

    • 3055 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Claudette Colvin is a black rights activist who was born on September 5 1939 in Montgomery, Alabama. She was adopted by C.P. Colvin and Mary Anne Colvin. Her dad made money mowing lawns, and her mother was a handmaid. She was raised in a poor neighborhood where she realized the separation of whites and blacks. Colvin was slapped by her mother for interacting with a group of young white males. Years later, when she was fifteen, Colvin was getting out of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, when she got on a bus. The events that took place on that bus would impact her life. While riding the bus, the driver ordered her to give up her seat for a white person. Colvin’s friends immediately gave up their seats, however, Colvin refused and she was arrested. At the time Colvin went to Booker T. Washington High School, which she had to drop out of after her arrest. She was arrested by police, and were to stand trial. She was at first supported by Women’s Political Council, as well as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On May 6th, Claudette Colvin Whoever it was Rosa Park’s case that managed to unite the black community. “Colvin was considered and dismissed -- some say because it turned out she was pregnant (after her arrest), some say it was because she was poor and of a lower caste in the black community (because of her darker skin)”.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sojourner Truth, with a birth name of Isabella Baumfree, was born on an unknown date of 1787 in Swartekill, New York. Born into slavery to James and Elizabeth Baumfree, the family of at least fifteen was owned by the Hardenbergh in Esopus, New York. Sojourner Truth was sold for the first time at age nine to a violent man, getting separated from the rest of her family. In 1815, Sojourner Truth fell in love with a slave on a neighboring farm and had a child, but their love was forbidden and the two never saw each other again. Truth was then forced to marry another slave and they had three children together (“Sojourner Truth” 2013). Sojourner Truth faced many hardships at such a young age that contributed to her lifelong stance against slavery.…

    • 2247 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Class Divided

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    She separated her class between the blue eyed and the brown eyed kids to simulate what a MINORITY person had to go through compared to a non-minority person. Back in the 1960’s racism was everywhere, schools were segregated, and Dr. Martin Luther King was on a mission to change that. His STATUS was a hero, not just for black people but for everyone. He was trying to bring down the walls of PREJUDICE for everyone, not just minorities. He wanted equality for everyone and to break the STIGMA that everyone thought of minority people. Dr. King was fighting against what he called the Triple Evils, POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM. He believed that these were forms of violence in a vicious cycle. He thought they were interrelated, all-inclusive and stood as barriers to people living in what he called the Beloved Community. This was a place he was trying to reach for all of us, a place where poverty, hunger and homelessness wouldn’t be tolerated because human decency will not allow it. All forms of discrimination, BIGOTRY, and PREJUDICE would be replaced by a feeling of brother and sisterhood(thekingcenter.com) It was a beautiful dream for everyone to live in so when he was shot and killed, RIOTS and PANIC filled the streets. Everyone to this day remembers where they were when he was…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., died at age 78. Coretta Scott King created the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She traveled the world making speeches and carrying Luther King's civil-rights work legacy of equality, peace, nonviolence, and justice by her commitment to these…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Black History Paper

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Coretta Scott King, rightfully nicknamed the "First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement”, has left a legacy as large and impacting as her husband the late, Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout her lifetime (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) Coretta Scott King advocated for civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, world peace, and many other causes and movements in order to promote the equality of all people. King became an important and highly influential figurine in the civil rights movement alongside husband Martin Luther King Jr. She gave speeches voicing the unfair treatment of blacks and publicly supported non violent protests. During Martin Luther King Jr’s life Mrs. King fully supported the mission and dream of Dr. King, to unite black and whites across the nation. Mrs. King quickly became the rock Dr. King needed and remained loyal to her husband even through his many arrests and hardships. Even following the death of her…

    • 1091 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays