This year marks the 36th year since Congress declared March as National Women’s History Month.
So why do we celebrate women and remember their history in 2024 after so many accomplishments were made over the years?
Some would argue that modern-day women are still fighting for equal rights and the freedom to pursue their dreams.
So this year, Johnson Attorneys Group would like to invite you to recognize, honor and celebrate the accomplishments of women in history by sharing some of those contributions to society since its establishment back in the 1980s.
In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women’s History Month in perpetuity. A special Presidential Proclamation is issued every year which honors the extraordinary achievements of American women. President Jimmy Carter’s Message to the nation designating March 2 to 8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
Indeed, American women made history after they fought and won the right to vote in 1920. The accomplishment had its start with the women’s suffrage movement, some 70 years earlier in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, according to History.com.
Still it wasn’t until 1924 that women actually placed their votes in the territory of Wyoming. Also, the same state later elected our country’s first female governor Nellie Tayloe Ross in 1924. Meanwhile, women began to serve in the military in 1948, just three years after WWII. Next, women sought after equal pay for equal work in 1963. That same year, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space and pilot Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly an airplane across the Atlantic ocean, 1928.
These are just a few of the extraordinary accomplishments made by women in modern times.
A Mother’s Work to Save Lives
This month we celebrate all the important roles women have filled and we honor their contributions to society that made life better for everyone as well as their role in the family.
Indeed, women have made a huge impact on society from educating and raising our children to influencing politics, society and more. One woman who has made an impact on our law firm is Candace Lightner who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) back in 1981.
She lost her 13-year-old daughter Cari Lightner in a collision with a repeat drunk driver on May 3, 1980 in Fair Oaks, California. Candace Lightner carried her daughter’s photograph everywhere she went and shared her story. She worked together with other mothers and fathers to change drunk driving laws in California. Today, MADD is a national organization that raises money to help survivors and families of victims of DUI crashes. Families who have lost a loved one also hold photos of their loved ones as a reminder of their loss to other would-be drunk drivers.
Prior to the founding of MADD, roughly 25,000 people lost their lives in alcohol-related crashes and it represented 50 percent of all traffic deaths, according to statistics reported by MADD. By 2021, drunk driving deaths were at their lowest level since 1982 with 13,384 fatalities or about a fourth of the total 42,939 deaths from traffic collisions in 2021, according to statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
Johnson Attorneys Group has been a longtime supporter of MADD and we created the Never Drink and Drive Scholarship as a way of encouraging young people to speak out about the dangers of drunk driving as well as enlighten others as Candice Lightner did in the early 1980s.
How You Can Celebrate Women’s History Month
- Read a book from your local library about achievements and contributions by famous women. Here’s a few we recommend: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman; The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston; A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. Find out more at the Los Angeles Public Library.
- Get support from a women’s organization: the National Association of Women Lawyers, Women in Technology International, National Association of Professional Women.
Johnson Attorneys Group has been helping our clients recover losses for nearly two decades. We hope this information is valuable, timely and helpful. However, if you are seeking answers to questions about a legal issue or would like to speak with an attorney, please contact us as soon as possible. Our law firm is a proud, longtime supporter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
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