January 2: Today's Inspiring women

BEATRICE HICKS

Beatrice Hicks was born in 1919. She was an engineer who worked on design, production, and testing of quartz crystal oscillators during World War II, and later chaired the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists in New York (1964).

SADIE ALEXANDER

Sadie Alexander, the first Black woman to attend the University of Pennsylvania Law School and first to practice law in Pennsylvania. She was appointed to the Committee on Civil Rights by President Truman. She was born today in1895.

DEEPER DIVE

Sadie Alexander was a truly inspiring woman. She was one of only a few black female students on a campus full of almost all white men, and she had all white male professors.

All throughout her law career, she fought against housing discrimination and police brutality, and represented civil rights, anti-war, and anti-draft demonstrators, draft resistors, and tenant groups pro bono. She was a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and served on the organization’s national committee. In 1952, she helped create the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, a local agency that enforces civil rights laws, and served on its board.

Alexander’s accolades seem endless. She was a founder of the National Bar Association, and the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., an African-American sorority. For 25 years, she served on the national board of the National Urban League. Read more about her life in this great tribute from U. Penn.