Freedom Sisters

¶ … building of the nation. Education not only means the acquisition of new skills and knowledge through classrooms and lectures but also meant to be the experience gotten while working under a skilled and knowledgeable person. Many scholars and leaders in the past and today's world have thrown light on this topic through thousand of words and enlightened quotes. It is basically a thing which can not only change a person. But in fact it helps in changing the whole society and further to much larger extent than just a society.

As Nelson Mandela said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" Nelson Mandela's words clearly illustrate the importance of education and its role in the development of society. In the modern era the power of education is accepted globally and it is crystal clear from the performance of literate people that only those nations develop in the modern world which possess higher literacy rate and whose youth and people are determined in getting high standard education.

As Edward Everett wrote in his book, "Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army" The most important benefit of education is that once the people get awareness of it, it just passes from generation to generation and this process never stops. Thus in the long run it just spreads and benefits the whole bloc rather than forced to spread. So one kick start is required to run this process and after wards it just continues by itself.

This process continues from generation to generation and after few decades it becomes the soul of society. This process is crystal clear from the examples of East Asian countries. Once few people get aware and become knowledgeable to good extent then they are actually capable of developing generations of educated people. Gilbert K.

Chesterton said, "Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another" The question arises that if few peoples suffer and start this process, will it continue to produce educated generations in the future? Or will this process be required to be repeated every time? In this aspect Marcus Garvey said that education is actually the name of developing teachers and knowledgeable people in the world, which are capable of spreading the information.

He wrote in his book, "Education is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civilization, and the advancement and glory of their own race" We have seen that in recent times the African countries which are still living in the dark world due to lack of education has got the teachings of Marcus Garvey and Gilbert K. Chesterton, and they are working hard to develop their passionate people into knowledgeable persons, thus, producing future knowledge spreaders.

This will ultimately develop the whole nation in the long run and can make the people aware about education and providing them opportunities to change their lives as well like the people in Europe and America. In this aspect few bodies are working hard to spread the education in Africa as well. There is lot of problems which came out as barrier to the process. And biggest of them all is the Racism. Racism is the major cause which has actually restricted many Africans from getting their most basic right.

They got discriminated in getting admission to high standard universities in European and American states just because of their color. As Kofi Annan said, "Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development." Despite a lot of people have proved racism as the supreme height of injustice and man movements are also passed in this aspect.

Scholars also conveyed the idea that it is actually duty of the knowledgeable people to remove the racism part from the society at least from the institutes which are the source of education. "It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person." (Baldwin) This quote from James Baldwin reflects the duty and moral obligation of modern educators to attempt to eliminate racism in today's classrooms.

If the role of education truly is to produce a better society, then the teacher must accept the onus of responsibility for this huge undertaking. Freedom sisters is one of such movement to appreciate the African Women, who are not only affected by race discrimination but further discriminated through gender discrimination, to get better standards of education by having opportunity which is just for them. This movement has produced big names likes of Constance Baker Motley, Shirley Chisholm, and Myrlie Evers-Williams.

They have helped in developing the awareness of education in the society in order to promote the other women of Africa to think beyond the nut shell and helping the others by becoming examples to achieve their dreams. Freedom's Sisters is collaboration between SITES and Cincinnati Museum Center brings to life 20 African-American women, from key 19th-century historical figures to contemporary leaders, who have fought for equality for all Americans. The exhibition is introduced by video and electronic projections of strong artistic images that will seize visitors' emotions.

Organized around the themes of "Dare to Dream," "Inspire Lives," "Serve the Public," and "Look to the Future." Due to such programs, now African women are going for higher education. And now the percentage of African people in the professional colleges is getting higher by very good growth. Yet in numbers they are still very far but the growth is tremendous.

They are now striving hard to get good education from the reputable colleges and universities including the best of the elite schools of United States of America and United Kingdom as well. Even some African countries like of Nigeria have scored the best success ratio in elite countries as well. This shows their passion in breaking the boundaries in order to make their future brighter. Recent stats show that Nigerian students have the highest success rate in degree accomplishment in all the stages of degree programs.

As we can see in the graph that Nigerians were shown with the highest achievement level in all the racial groups among all others. When it comes about passion, the blacks especially African is more passionate to get higher education than the typical Westerners. This is surprising but proved through facts it is proved. A survey is conducted and it is found that Black people (especially African black) once educated have more tendency to get admission in the higher studies as compared to all other races.

This ratio is much higher in the case of women. It is crystal clear from these stats that Africans women are thriving upon breaking educational boundaries in a racist society to help pave the road for the African generation, which refuses to continue to build upon.