By Karen and Erica

We love stories of purposeful pivots by retired lawyers. Especially when they focus on women.

One of our friends, Bob Eager, was a corporate lawyer for several decades. After he retired, he founded Own Your History, a project devoted to offering history curricula through intense subject matter modules for students for all ages. One such module is a robust multimedia collection of historical sources on American women’s long road to achieving greater equality. As part of Women's History Month, we decided to spotlight this compelling resource.

Bob is a baby boomer. He was born in Maryland, and attended segregated schools in Baltimore and then in south Georgia. In 1961, at 14, he saw a newspaper photo of a Freedom Ride bus in flames. A classmate condemned the Freedom Riders in racist terms. Bob viscerally rejected that view. He started to think about how history informs our present, and in college chaired a symposium featuring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bob ultimately got a Ph.D. in U.S. history, followed by a law degree. For the next three decades he practiced corporate law in Washington, D.C.

After he retired, Bob’s fascination with history, and his strong sense of its importance, were rekindled. Bob believes that the deep divisions in our country are rooted in denial of our history, the history of “race”, and gender, in particular. To address that denial, he believes that as a country we need to “own” our history, good and bad, honestly and completely. That belief caused him to found Own Your History. Given his personal story, Bob’s principal focus is on “race”, but he also looks at the inequalities imposed on women, and the intersectional nature of prejudice.

The women’s multimedia collection is a fascinating assembly of letters, news articles, thoughts, research about the Equal Rights Amendment, Supreme Court decisions, and other materials, suitable for in class instruction or private rummaging. Those of us who are teachers, or parents, or grandparents, of school age children will enjoy these materials from that perspective. Those of us who are not as connected to school any more will find much to learn ourselves.

One thing those of us who are older know well: it is never too late to learn. We also know the power of history.