"An Opportunity to Remember Who Creates Change": A Conversation with Khadijah Costley White on Women's History Month
In 1987 U.S. Congress passed a law declaring March as the first Women's History Month, and 39 years later in March 2026 the National Women's History Alliance has named this year’s Women's History Month theme as "Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future."
Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies Khadijah Costley White, who researches politics, social change, and identity in media, and, as an activist and organizer, founded a community non-profit, SOMA Justice, in Maplewood, NJ, said, "Women's History Month is linked to America's history of women's activism and protests for better working conditions, autonomy, and to gain the opportunity for democratic participation. Americans sometimes overlook the importance of protest and activism in making change happen, and Women's History Month gives us an opportunity to do that."
SC&I spoke with Costley White about how journalists can help elevate the ongoing importance of Women’s History Month, as well as the women from history who continue to impact her perspective and the reasons their legacies endure.
SC&I: How can journalists help support this year's Women's History Month initiative?
KCW: The importance of journalists has always been to highlight stories that help the public both understand what’s happening in our democracy and figure out how they can actively participate in it. Journalists, especially those concerned with women's roles in and contributions to society, can shed a light on initiatives that support women and the challenges they face.
For me, creating a sustainable future means creating a way of living that supports and opens space for people right now and for people who will come after us. So, sustainability is about imagining a collaborative world that is in balance on four levels, personal, environmental, societal, and global.
Women's History Month is linked to America's history of women's activism and protests for better working conditions, autonomy, and to gain the opportunity for democratic participation. Americans sometimes overlook the importance of protest and activism in making change happen, and Women's History Month gives us an opportunity to do that.
Khadijah Costley White
SC&I: Which women in history, whether widely known or overlooked, have most influenced your thinking and work on race, gender, activism, and democratic participation?
KCW: Some of the women I always find myself going back in time to think about include Ida B. Wells, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Wells was a journalist, a teacher, and an activist who pushed for both women's and Black people's suffrage and liberation. As a feminist and a suffragist (during a time when she didn’t claim the word "feminist," as it wasn't widely used) she intimately understood that women's suffrage movements were often racist. Suffrage movements frequently excluded Black women and Black people. In fact, many white women suffragists used anti-black racism to try to advocate only for themselves to get the access to the vote, not for Black people to also gain the right to vote.
So, Wells held a really unique position back then in pushing for freedom in movements that either didn't think of Black women as equal among Black men or think of Black people as equal among white women. And even though she was born 100 years before I was, she's a guiding light for me because much is the same today around the way that Black women navigate American society.
Besides Wells, I think about a professor named Jo Ann Gibson Robinson who helped start the Montgomery bus boycott in the late 1950s in Montgomery, Alabama. This boycott kicked off what we understand as the modern Civil Rights Movement. The boycott really helped put Martin Luther King, Jr. at the forefront of the movement. Robinson wrote a book about the boycott, called the "Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It." As a professor, Robinson reminds me to take up the work right where I am to make things better for my students, my colleagues, and my community.
Eleanor Roosevelt's impact was also significant. She's exactly what I imagine when I think about what it means to be a true ally and to use one’s position to help others. As a First Lady, she joined the NAACP, lobbied against lynching, defied segregation, and pushed for Black enfranchisement. In journalism, she pushed newspapers to hire women reporters by holding press briefings that only allowed women.
I like to think about these women because they created spaces that people did not think could exist in the movements they were dedicated to. They also believed deeply in the importance of collective action and collective advocacy to make the world better. Those are all principles by which I live my life, and I advocate for every human being to live with dignity and to have the opportunity to pursue the things they care about.
Some of the women I always find myself going back in time to think about include Ida B. Wells, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Khadijah Costley White
SC&I: What lessons from these women do you think today's students can draw on when navigating current media and political landscapes?
KCW: Ida B. Wells reminds women to tell their own stories. Eleanor Roosevelt reminds women to make and tell their own stories. Jo Ann Gibson Robinson haunts me a bit because most folks do not know her, and so she has taught me that women will often get written out of their own stories in the work and labor that they put into movement making and organizing. I keep this at the front of my mind as a professor who also has a community nonprofit where we do a lot of outreach, advocacy, and organizing.
SC&I: Is there a woman whose contributions to democracy or social change you believe deserves more attention during Women’s History Month, and if so, why?
KCW: I would say Zora Neale Hurston. She is quite famous today, but she didn't get to see how successful she was and how important her legacy is. She reminds me to write, think, and put on paper what I can, and while it might not matter to a ton of people now, maybe in the future, someone will pick it up, and it will mean something to them. She also makes me think about my work as "ripple work." I might not get to see what little changes I might make in people’s lives in my volunteer time. Just like ripples in the water, I see where it starts but I don't see how far that wave will go. I am doing my best to push forward possibilities for my students, myself, and my children, and to think about the world and how I can help make it a place where everyone gets to live with dignity.
Images provided by Pexels and Khadijah Costley White.
