Avengers of the Week | GenderAvengers from Baltimore

We thought it appropriate to give Baltimore some love this week. Meet four gender avenging women who have made Charm City proud.

Juanita Jackson Mitchell

The first African American woman to practice law in Maryland, Mitchell became the president of Maryland's NAACP Baltimore City branch. During that time, she was a major supporter of making Maryland the first southern state to integrate. She was later appointed to the White House Conference on "Women and Civil Rights" and has an NAACP award (the Juanita Jackson Mitchell Award for Legal Activism) named after her to “honor her feats as a black woman in the legal field”.

Enolia McMillan

McMillan was one of the first Black teachers at a white school in Maryland. After retiring from education, she succeeded Juanita Jackson Mitchell as the president of the NAACP Baltimore City branch and later went on to become the first woman president of the national NAACP.

Henrietta Lacks

After being diagnosed with cervical cancer, tissue samples from Lacks’ tumors were taken without consent during treatment and went on to be cultured into the HeLa cell line, the immortal cell line still used in scientific research today. Lacks’s family was not made aware of her invaluable contribution to science until 24 years later in 1975.

April Ryan

2017 winner of the National Association of Black Journalists "Journalist of the Year" award, Ryan has served as a White House correspondent and is currently the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks. Ryan is also the originator of the popular #WeAreBaltimore hashtag on Twitter.

Two @NAACP branch presidents, a medical miracle, and founder of #WeAreBaltimore @AprilDRyan are this week’s @GenderAvenger #AvengersOfTheWeek. #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avengers-of-the-week-baltimore-genderavengers