ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT, Ala. — Donna Ferguson spoke at Anniston Army Depot’s Women’s History Month Luncheon March 12 at the Berman Varner House.
Ferguson, the chief of the Behavioral Sciences Education and Training Division for the U.S. Army Military Police School in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., shared a message meant to inspire.
“I hope today I can leave you with some things,” said Ferguson, “that I can invest or deposit something in you that will cause you to no longer stand where you stood before.”
She explained the reason behind Women’s History Month was to highlight the need for equal opportunities in society.
“Celebrating Women’s History Month is about changing a culture and its mindset about what was, what currently is and what should be in our future,” said Ferguson, as she detailed how women have historically moved not only themselves forward, but the nation as well.
She briefly shared stories of influential women – Harriet Beecher Stowe, an abolitionist and author who spoke out against slavery; Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic; Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross; tennis great Billie Jean King; Sally Ride, who was the first woman in space; and Maya Lin, who, at 21-years-old, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“If you are pregnant with a purpose in life, if you cultivate the seeds on the inside of you, then you can become what you were created to do,” said Ferguson.
She asked the crowd to contemplate, for a moment, how our nation and our world would be different if those women had not succeeded in their endeavors.
“What might the nation be like without those women?” Ferguson asked. “They were birthing purpose in the future, not realizing, through their diligence to simply become what was in them.”
Ferguson encouraged the crowd to follow in the footsteps of those who have made history – to be trailblazers, even when that means laying down and creating a path for those in the future to trod upon.
“You can become what you seek, but you have to be purposeful in doing it,” said Ferguson. “The reason I can go to the places I have been is because the doors were opened previously.”
