Enabling Others
These messages focus on individuals who have opened the doors for others through the lives that they led.
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Hopeful Adventures
Barbara Hillary’s mother moved from South Carolina to New York City to give her and her sister better-educated opportunities. Her father died when she was only one year old. Her mother cleaned homes and strongly encouraged her daughters to get a good education....
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From Tennis to a Passion of Service
Andrea was born in Chicago in 1965. Growing up, she was a rising star as a tennis player. In high school, she was the top-ranked player in America for those under the age of 18. At age 15, she was the youngest player ever to be qualified to compete at Wimbledon at...
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Alice Dunnigan: Asking Tough Questions
Alice Dunnigan was born in Kentucky in 1906. Her father was a sharecropper and her mother took in laundry. She was raised in a strict family that valued education. She had learned to read before entering the first grade. Since the local schools only provided 10 years...
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Judith Cohen: Saving Apollo 13
Apollo 13 kept the world on edge when an oxygen bank ruptured in the service module. Life support systems were disabled. The solution was to use the backup systems on the lunar module. Millions of people rejoiced when Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, and...
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Margaret McFarland: A Neighborhood Genius
Margaret McFarland was born near Pittsburgh in 1905. Her father died when she was 5 and her mother never remarried, and she had a lifelong regret for a lack of fathering growing up. Her mother however did provide inspiration for her future interests in child...
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Funding the Civil Rights Movement
Mollie Moon was born in 1912 in the state of Mississippi. She trained as a pharmacist but also studied education and social services. After a career as a pharmacist, she refocused her life’s work on to one of lifting up the status of African Americans. She worked on...
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The Golden Thirteen: Collective Intelligence at Work
The U.S. Navy had a long history of limiting the roles of African Americans to positions where they would not come into contact with White sailors. When President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order prohibiting ethnic and racial discrimination in the defense...
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Giving One’s All
Charles (Chuck) Feeney was born in 1931 in New Jersey. In high school, a financial contributor made the largest donation his high school had ever received. This was the crucible moment that would influence Chuck’s later life. After serving in the Air Force during the...
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A World War II Hero
The Tsukamoto family had lost all hope. They owned a grape ranch in Sacramento California. As a result of Executive Order 9066, one of the most despicable acts of the federal government, they and other citizens of the U.S. of Japanese descent were being sent to...
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Augustus Julliard – Enabling Talent
Augustus Julliard was born at sea as his parents were immigrating to America from France. His father was a cobbler and Augustus’ upbringing was like many of middle-class Americans. He never attended college. Augustus began his career in the textile industry in...
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