Black History Month has past and now it is time to give honour to those great women of our history who held the force and stood their ground for us to be around hear to day.
Celebrate Women History Month today.
GREAT QUEENS OF KMT (ANCIENT EGYPT)
Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, participated actively in the expulsion from Kmt of the Hyksos--Kmt's first invaders and occupiers. Ahmose-Nefertari was born royal heiress and became one of Africa's most brilliant queens. After the twenty-five year reign of Ahmose I, Nefertari governed jointly with her son Amenhotep I. The veneration of Ahmose-Nefertari continued for more than six-hundred years after her death. To her memory was attached a special priesthood, who recited in her honor a prayer only used in addressing the gods.
Ahmose-Nefertari was given considerable authority in the cult of the King of the Gods when she was made "God's Wife of Amen," a position that held a chief role as a priestess in the national religious center, and was provided with goods and property legally documented and published for all to see on a monumental stela set up in the Temple of Amen at Karnak. Her royal titles included the exceptional "Female Chieftain of Upper and Lower Kmt."
Makare Hatshepsut's twenty-one year reign occurred near the zenith of Kmt's second golden age. This was an era marked by great internal stability and international prestige. One of the Hatshepsut's proudest achievements was a highly successful expedition to the African land of Punt--regarded by the Kamites as "God's land." Hatshepsut's royal titles included: "King of the North and South, Son of the Sun, The Heru of Gold, Bestower of Years, Goddess of Risings, Conqueror of all Lands, Lady of both Lands, Vivifier of Years, Chief Spouse of Amen, the Mighty One."
Queen Tiye was the beloved wife of Nebmare Amenhotep III, and the mother of Akhenaten and Tutankhamen. Tiye is one of the most interesting figures in history. Amenhotep and Tiye married while quite young and shared one of the great love affairs of the ages. That she was of great ability and powerful influence is proved by association with her husband in all of his ceremonial records. She was such an integral part of Kamite affairs that on more than one occasion foreign sovereigns appealed to her directly in matters of international significance. The surviving portraits of Tiye show her with distinct African features.
Queen Nefertari was "The Beautiful Companion" of Ramses II. Her two major titles were "King's Great Wife and "Mistress of the Two Lands." After her death, Nefertari was worshipped as a divine Osirian, or a soul which has become deified. Under the attributes of Asr (Osiris), Kmt's lorder of the dead, she was adored as a goddess. Queen Nefertari's body was housed in a 5,200 square foot tomb decorated with vivid wall paintings--the most splendid in the Valley of the Queens--"The Place of Beauty." Her tomb paintings and inscriptions depict Nefertari as a woman of great charm and exquisite taste, adorned with magnificent jewelry and wearing fashionable gowns.
Queen Istnofret, another distinguished African woman, was a contemporary of Nefertari, and was elevated to the position of Great Royal Wife upon Nefertari's death. Queen Istnofret was the mother of Prince Ramses (Senior King's Son). Prince Khaemwaset (one of the most brilliant men of the Ramesside era) and Prince Merneptah--who eventually succeeded his father as King. Queen Istnofret died in approximately year 24 of Ramses II's reign.
Great women like Harriet Tubman
Born a slave in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom, and later led more than 300 other slaves to the North and to Canada to their freedom, too. The best-known conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was acquainted with many of the social reformers and abolitionists of her time, and she spoke against slavery and for women's rights.
During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman served with the U.S. Army in South Carolina, as a nurse, scout, spy and soldier. Most famously she led the Combahee River expedition, under the command of James Montgomery, helping to blow up Southern supply lines and free hundreds of slaves.
In the nearly half-century she lived after the war ended, Harriet Tubman helped a biographer publish her life story, spoke for the rights of women and African Americans, helped organize the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, and set up a home for indigent aged African Americans.
She fought for a military pension, but was only able to win a widow's pension on account of her second husband's service. When Harriet Tubman died, the people of Auburn buried her with full military honors.
The very great Civil Rights Heroine Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks has been called the spark that lit the fire, and the mother of the movement. Her courage to defy custom and law to uphold her personal rights and dignity inspired the African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, to fight for their rights by staging one of the longest boycotts in history.
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