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Carrie Derick’s 155th Birthday



Until modern times, few women were recognized in the world of academia. Carrie Derick, a Canadian botanist and geneticist, upended that norm. Born 155 years ago today, Derick was a trailblazer who fought for women’s rights and helped pave the way for women in education.

In 1890, Derick graduated at the top of her class from Quebec’s McGill University where she would remain for her MA studies. She went on to attend the University of Bonn in Germany, where she completed enough research to earn a Ph.D in 1901. Unfortunately, she did not receive an official doctorate because the school did not award Ph.Ds to women at the time.

Derick persevered, continuing in her career as a botanist and geneticist and in 1912, became Canada’s first female professor at her alma mater, McGill University. She continued to teach there until her retirement in 1929, upon which she was made the first female professor emeritus in Canada.

Throughout her life, Derrick was an advocate for women’s rights and causes, serving as president of the Montréal Suffrage Association from 1913 to 1919.

Today’s Doodle honors Derick, a true pioneer and visionary.

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Chava Flores’s 97th Birthday



In 1946, after trying his hand at various different professions, Chava Flores, a musician and music lover, began work at a small printing press. That decision would lead him to create Álbum de Oro de la Canción, the magazine that would eventually secure Chava’s status as “The musical chronicler of Mexico City.”

Through the magazine, Chava met Mexico’s most influential songwriters and composers, inspiring his own vibrant musical style that he showcased over his long career as a composer. His repertoire was as singular as it was prolific, spanning more than 200 songs (like ”Sábado Distrito Federal”). Chava’s talents expanded beyond the realm of music into other arts, landing him roles in films like Mi Influyente Mujer and Rebeldes sin Causa.

Today’s Doodle celebrates the legacy of Chava Flores, a prolific musician and actor who chronicled urban life in Mexico through his unique approach to songwriting.

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Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2017



Today we celebrate the work and life of Martin Luther King Jr.

King was born in Atlanta in 1929. He began his pastoral career in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954, a year before Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat. Montgomery's community leaders chose King to organize the resulting bus boycott. From then on, his was the most powerful and lyrical voice in the effort to end segregation in the United States. King's message of nonviolence and love -- delivered in magnificent speeches and masterful writing -- shaped the American civil rights movement and inspired activists worldwide. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Today's Doodle, by guest artist Keith Mallett, captures one of the major themes of King's speeches and writing: unity. "All life is interrelated," he said. "We are all made to live together." King urged Americans of all races to keep "working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation, and peace."

Martin Luther King Jr. may seem like the sort of leader who comes along only once every century or so, but King himself would disagree with that notion. He taught that we are all capable of lighting the way to "the bright daybreak of freedom and justice," and that we can unite to show that "love is the most durable power in the world."

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Ed Roberts’s 78th Birthday



Today’s Doodle pays tribute to an early leader of the disability rights movement, Ed Roberts. After contracting polio at age 14, Roberts was paralyzed from the neck down. He used a special wheelchair with a respirator during the day and slept in an 800-pound iron lung at night. Despite his limitations, he continued his studies via telephone hookup, attending in person a few hours a week. His mom, Zona, encouraged him persevere despite the odds.

Roberts’s activism began in earnest as early as high school, when he was denied his diploma due to his inability to complete Physical Education (PE) and Driver's Ed. After petitioning, not only did he earn his diploma, he went on to college, becoming the first student with severe disabilities to attend the University of California, Berkeley. There, he led other Berkeley students with severe disabilities in creating the Physically Disabled Students Program, the first of its kind.

Roberts went on to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from Berkeley, and later returned to lead the Berkeley Center for Independent Living, which inspired many similar centers around the U.S. In 1976, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him Director of the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, and in 1983 he co-founded the World Institute on Disability.

His mother Zona describes: “I watched Ed as he grew from a sports-loving kid, through bleak days of hopelessness, into self-acceptance of his physical limitations as he learned what was possible for him to accomplish. His years at UCB were great ones as he both enjoyed his college status and got in touch with his leadership qualities. He took great pleasure in watching people with disabilities achieve greater acceptance.”

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Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday



Bessie Coleman didn’t just chase her dreams – she soared after them.

Born in Texas to a family of 13 children, Coleman walked four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school. She was a proficient reader and excelled in math, and managed to balance her studies while helping her parents harvest cotton. Even from an early age, she had her sights set on something big.

At age 23, Coleman moved to Chicago where she worked two jobs in an effort to save enough money to enroll in aviation school. After working for five years, she moved to Paris to study, as no school in America would admit her due to her race and gender. Just a year later, Coleman became the first female pilot of African-American and Native American descent, and the first to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

In order to earn a living, Coleman made a plan to become a stunt pilot and perform for paying audiences. However, she was again denied enrollment in a stunt training program in the US, and in 1922, traveled to Europe where she completed her training in France and Germany.

Returning to the US, Coleman excelled at exhibition flying, performing complex stunts in flight for packed audiences. It was during this time that she acquired the nickname “Queen Bessie.” She was an adept, daring, and beloved pilot, until her untimely death at the age of 34.

Although Coleman didn’t live to fulfill her ultimate dream of starting an aviation school to train people of color, she inspired a generation. As Lieutenant William J. Powell writes, "Because of Bessie Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.”

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Lunar New Year 2017



With traditional foods, glowing lanterns, and lots of red, today’s Doodle welcomes the Year of the Rooster.

A time of celebration with family and friends, Lunar New Year falls on the first new moon between January 21 and February 20 each year. While this means the date is always changing, the traditions surrounding the holiday have long been the same. In the US, Asian-American communities host festivals across the country – the oldest and largest of which is in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

At these events, red decor and envelopes abound, while lion dancers, giant puppets, and firecrackers fill the streets. Legend has it that many of these traditions stem from fending off the Nian, a mythical beast that would attack an ancient village each New Year’s Day. With the help of a mysterious old man, villagers discovered that the creature was afraid of the color red, as well as loud noises — and so the festivities began. Although the Nian never did return, the celebrations most certainly did.

Here’s to health, happiness, and good fortune in the new year!

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Fred Korematsu's 98th Birthday



Today Google’s US homepage is celebrating Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, civil rights activist and survivor of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. January 30th, 2017 would have been his 98th birthday and is officially recognized as Fred Korematsu Day in California, Hawaii, Virginia and Florida.

A son of Japanese immigrant parents, Korematsu was born and raised in Oakland, California. After the U.S. entered WWII, he tried to enlist in the U.S. National Guard and Coast Guard, but was turned away due to his ethnicity.

He was 23 years old and working as a foreman in his hometown when Executive Order 9066 was signed in 1942 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The order sent more than 115,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States to incarceration.

Rather than voluntarily relocate to an internment camp, Korematsu went into hiding. He was arrested in 1942 and despite the help of organizations like ACLU, his conviction was upheld in the landmark Supreme Court case of Korematsu v. United States. Consequently, he and his family were sent to the the Central Utah War Relocation Center at Topaz, Utah until the end of WWII in 1945.

It wasn’t until 1976 that President Gerald Ford formally ended Executive Order 9066 and apologized for the internment, stating "We now know what we should have known then — not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans.”

Fred Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in 1983 after evidence came to light that disputed the necessity of the internment. Five years later President Ronald Reagan signed the The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 citing "racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a lack of political leadership" as the central motivation for Japanese internment.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s most distinguished civilian award.

Fred Korematsu can be remembered fighting for civil rights and against prejudice throughout his life, famously saying:

"If you have the feeling that something is wrong, don't be afraid to speak up."

The doodle by artist Sophie Diao–herself a child of Asian immigrants–features a patriotic portrait of Korematsu wearing his Presidential Medal of Freedom, a scene of the internment camps to his back, surrounded by cherry blossoms, flowers that have come to be symbols of peace and friendship between the US and Japan.

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Celebrating Edmonia Lewis



Edmonia Lewis wasn’t afraid to reshape convention. As the first woman of African American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame as a sculptor, Lewis is known for incorporating African American and Native American cultural themes into her Neoclassical style sculpture.

Born in New York in 1844 to a father of Afro-Haitian descent and a mother of Mississauga Ojibwe and African American descent, Lewis was adopted by her maternal aunts after her parents’ death when she was nine years old. At age 15, Lewis enrolled in Oberlin College, which is where she became passionate about art. Unfortunately however, her time at Oberlin was fraught with discrimination by many of her peers and the surrounding community. It was due to this that she was prevented from enrolling in her final term, and therefore was unable to receive her degree.

After her time at Oberlin, Lewis moved to Boston in 1864 to pursue a career as a sculptor. She was consistently denied apprenticeship until she met Edward A. Brackett, a sculptor whose clients included some of the most well-known abolitionists of the time. Lewis worked under Brackett until 1864, when she launched her first solo exhibition. Her work paid homage to the abolitionists and Civil War heroes of her day, including John Brown and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Her work was very well received and with her success, she traveled to Rome, Italy.

In Rome, Lewis joined a circle of expat artists and established her own studio. During this time, Lewis began sculpting in marble, focusing on naturalism and themes relating to African American and Native American people. Her work commanded large sums of money, and she continued to receive international acclaim until her death in 1911.

Today’s Doodle art depicts Lewis sculpting one of her most famous works, The Death of Cleopatra, which is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Her realistic portrayal of Cleopatra’s death received acclaim from critics, who called it “the most remarkable piece of sculpture in the American section" of the show. The vibrant colors of the Google letters also pay tribute to Lewis’s Native American roots - her Native American name was Wildfire.

Decades later, Lewis’s legacy continues to thrive through her art and the path she helped forge for women and artists of color. Today, we celebrate her and what she stands for – self-expression through art, even in the face of adversity.

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100th Anniversary of the Mexican Constitution



Today’s Doodle was created to honor the centennial of Mexico’s Constitution Day. It’s been one hundred years since Mexico’s leadership drafted the Constitution of Mexico, the foundational document that marked the end of the revolution. Led by revolutionary Venustiano Carranza, the constitutional congress set out to clearly lay out the rights of Mexico’s people, setting a standard followed in years to come by other countries worldwide.

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Pramoedya Ananta Toer's 92nd Birthday



It might be said that Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s pen was his sword. Known as ‘Pramoedya’ or “Pram,’ this Indonesian writer was a proponent of human rights and freedom of expression who fought against Japanese and Dutch colonialism in his country.

Born on February 6, 1925, in a village called Blora on Java, Pram was exposed to political activism through his father, and came to journalism while working as a stenographer for a Japanese news agency. Incarcerated from 1947–1949 for being “anti-colonial,” he wrote his first novel,The Fugitive behind bars.

His novels throughout the 1950s continued to hold a mirror up to the impact of colonialism. Following a coup and suspected of ties to the Indonesian communist party, Pram was sent to the Indonesian island of Buru in 1969 where he spent over a decade as a political prisoner. When refused pen and paper, Pram turned to oral storytelling, sharing a story with his fellow prisoners about a Javanese boy named Minke who spurns Indonesia’s hierarchical society in the last years of Dutch colonization. Granted a typewriter towards the end of his term, he brought Minke’s tale to life through the four-volume Buru Quartet, his most well-known work. In fact, the books were smuggled out of Indonesia by Pram's friend, a German priest, to avoid being taken or destroyed, and have now been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide.

Today’s Doodle celebrates Pram’s birthday with an animation of the industrious novelist seated at his typewriter, hard at work.