https://www.netflix.com/title/80092926
Why This Matters! Daughters of Destiny.
Season one offers a four part series, with the first part setting up the docuseries, called the “Untouchables.”
Oscar-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth follows a group of rural India’s most disadvantaged children over the course of seven years.
Storyline
In 1996, Dr. Abraham George, an American businessman, born in India, was determined to change the rampant poverty in his home country. Nearly 20 years later, The Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project has produced a generation of engineers, lawyers, scientists and journalists. Daughters of Destiny, follows a unique group of Shanti Bhavan kids, born into the most discriminated against and impoverished families on earth, as they grow up. Daughters of Destiny is an exploration of their lives, of global poverty and opportunity, and the human longing for purpose and meaning.
My only misgivings are those who ingrain their religious slants, which this group does. The outcome is what is important, raising free thinking daughters who raise up their communities. From invisible to unstoppable!
Mellody Hobson
Why this matters! The dialog is changing, therefore the culture will too, all in good time. This year’s BLM protests have forced people to look at what that means, and at Princeton they have stepped up by acknowledging their racist past by stripping away those who promoted it, as in former President Woodrow Wilson. Even though Wilson is considered one of the better presidents in what he accomplished, he still was part of the old dialog of white supremacy.
Princeton announced in June that it would remove Wilson’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs and one of its residential colleges, citing his “racist thinking and policies.”
Hobson, a successful businesswoman and former CBS News contributor, was honored after making a generous donation to her alma mater. She said she’s proud to help erase Wilson’s racist legacy.
“I was most compelled by the symbolism of a Black woman replacing the name of someone who would not have supported my admission three decades ago, and what that would represent for future generations,” she said that would represent for future generations,” she said.
Clara Belle Drisdale
Why this matters! Clara gave her son’s a legacy of what education can do for your station in life. She rose above all obstacles in pursuit of continuing hers.
Clara Belle Drisdale was born in Plum, Texas, in 1885. She was valedictorian of the 1908 graduating class of Prairie View Normal and Independent College (now Prairie View A & M University). She married Jasper Williams in 1917; the couple raised three sons: Jasper, James and Charles.
Clara enrolled at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now NMSU) in the fall of 1928 after taking courses at the University of Chicago. While working as a teacher at the Booker T. Washington School in Las Cruces, she took courses in the summer. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from NMSU in 1937 at the age of 51.
For more than 20 years, during a time when Las Cruces public schools were segregated, Clara taught at Booker T. Washington. She continued her education beyond her graduation date, taking graduate-level classes well into the 1950s.
She provided a shining example of overcoming adversity and served as an inspiration to her family and the people she met throughout her life.
Making education a priority, Clara urged her sons to succeed in higher education and they did just that. All three went to college and graduated with medical degrees. Charles attended Howard University Medical School in Washington D.C. Jasper and James graduated from Creighton University Medical School in Omaha, Neb. They went on to found the Williams Clinic in Chicago, Ill.
Clara went on to receive many honors during her lifetime. She succeeded despite significant obstacles of discrimination placed before her while pursuing higher education. In 1961, NMSU named Williams Street on the main campus in her honor. She received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from NMSU in 1980. Williams passed away in 1994. She was 108.
Clara Belle Williams Day was celebrated on Feb. 13, 2005, at NMSU. Included in the festivities was the renaming of the NMSU English Building as Clara Belle Williams Hall.
Stay tuned for next weeks, “Why This Matters”
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