Meet 9 lesser-known women behind the civil rights era's biggest achievements

mic.com - Jan. 16 marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day honoring the legacy and achievements of one of the foremost leaders from the civil rights movement. But while male leaders like King and Malcolm X are renowned for their contributions to the influential movement, the role women played in the civil rights struggle goes largely unnoticed. Americans may know the names of Rosa Parks or Coretta Scott King, but the numerous other women who played key roles in the fight for equal rights are too often wiped from the history books.

"There's a Chinese saying, 'Women hold up half the world,"' the late civil rights historian and NAACP chair Julian Bond told NBC News in 2005. "In the case of the civil rights movement it's probably three-quarters of the world."

Here are just nine of the lesser-known women who made indelible contributions to the civil rights era:

Described by President Barack Obama as "the godmother of the civil rights movement" upon her death in 2010, Dorothy Height served as the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, making her, the Washington Post notes, "arguably the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership."

Get to Know 3 Founding Female Members of the NAACP

Oppression—and fighting it—comes in many forms. For Black History Month, we're really enjoying learning more about warriors for equality and conversation, like these three women who were among the earliest founders of the NAACP. Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell and Mary White Ovington are true trailblazers. Click through to read the whole article at Makers. makers.com - On February 12, 1909, a group of white liberals and African-American leaders gathered together to discuss a movement for racial justice, partly in response to horrific lynching practices and race riots.

Both men and women were seated at the discussion table creating what would become the nation's oldest, largest, and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Today, it boasts more than half a million members and supporters throughout the U.S. and the world, who are committed to ending racial injustice.

Here are three of the earliest founding members of the NAACP, including two of the only black women. Get to know their stories below.

1. Ida B. Wells

Wells was born in 1862 in Holly Springs, Miss., and held prominent roles as an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. One of her most formative experiences in racial injustice happened while she was riding the railroad. Wells confronted the train conductor after he ordered her to sit in the black section under the racist Jim Crow laws.

Read the rest here.