I have been writing this blog for 14 years, so I’ve gotten into the habit of viewing life through a blog lens. If something seems blogworthy to me, I take note of it. I have accumulated pages upon pages of blog fodder notes. It has reached a point where I have more potential blog posts than I’ll ever be able to write in my lifetime. And some of my notes are so old and vague that even I don’t know what they mean anymore. I find that equally tragic and intriguing.
Today I came across a note that I had to Google for more insight. It simply said, “Overlooked Obituaries Project.” I’m really glad I’m revisiting it, because I’m finding it as fascinating as I did when I first took note of it.
It is simply this: Amisha Padnani, the digital editor on the obituaries desk at The New York Times, who happens to be a woman of color, noticed that, historically, their obituaries were overwhelmingly of white men. Very significant women, and men of color, had been overlooked. She decided that it was high time to right this wrong. You can learn more about how this project was born here. You can also submit suggestions for overlooked obituaries here.
Since the project has been going on since 2018 (yes, as per usual, I’m so far out of the loop you can’t even see the loop from here), there are a lot of fascinating overlooked obituaries to check out on the project’s page, which you can find here. But here are a few of the fascinating people they’ve covered:
Charlotte Brontë, who wrote “Jane Eyre”; Emily Warren Roebling, who oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband fell ill; Ida B. Wells, who campaigned against lynching; Diane Arbus the photographer; Sylvia Plath the poet; Henrietta Lacks whose cancer cells led to a medical revolution; Eleanor Abbott, the creator of Candy Land; Jimmy Reed, the bluesman; Pamela Coleman Smith, the tarot deck Artist; Inge Lehmann, the discoverer of Earth’s inner core; Go-won-go Mohawk, the trailblazing Indigenous actress; Margaret E. Knight, the innovator of the flat-bottomed paper bag; Mariama Bâ, voice of African feminism; Willy de Bruyn, cycling champion who broke gender boundaries; Lorenza Böttner, Transgender artist who found beauty in disability; Bill Hosokawa, journalist who chronicled Japanese American history; and Min Matheson, labor leader who faced down mobsters.
What I love most about the above is that each of these people sound interesting. They each led unique lives and are living proof that we can all find our own ways to make a mark on the world. They renew my faith in mankind. They all deserve a lot of credit, but even if they had nothing else to recommend them, I’d read about them simply because of their pure individuality.
Amisha Padnani even came out with a book based on the project entitled Overlooked: A Celebration of Remarkable, Underappreciated People Who Broke the Rules and Changed the World. And there’s two others that, at the time of this writing, have yet to come out, entitled The Woman Who Heard the Sun and Other True Stories Overlooked by History and Hidden Heroes: Ten Overlooked Trailblazers.
The overlooked obituaries on The New York Times website appear to be coming out about twice a month, and I don’t know about you, but I plan to bookmark the page and revisit it often. It never hurts to be reminded that life is full of potential and possibilities. And it’s nice to think that even if you’re feeling overlooked, that can change. Eventually. You never know.
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