Say Their Names! Honoring Nebraska Women This Women’s History Month

By Josefina Loza

Every March, when Women’s History Month arrives, I find myself asking a deeper question than simply who do we celebrate?

I ask: Whose stories built the ground we’re standing on?

As a Latina founder of a branding and public relations agency built right here in Nebraska, I know something about legacy. I know what it means to step into rooms that weren’t always designed with you in mind. And I know the power of story to shift perception, restore truth, and expand possibility.

So this Women’s History Month, I’m honoring Nebraska women not just with posts or quotes, but with storytelling that feels worthy of their impact.

I’m highlighting women who didn’t wait for permission.

Women who led movements.

Women who shaped institutions.

Women who redefined what leadership looks like in our state.

Women like Susette La Flesche, who in the 19th century became a powerful voice for Native rights and reform at a time when Indigenous women were rarely heard in national conversations.

Women like Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman physician, who returned home to Nebraska to open a hospital and serve her community with both medical expertise and cultural understanding.

Women like Malcolm X’s mother, Louise Little, who organized, wrote, and advocated in Omaha long before her son’s name would become globally known.

And contemporary leaders like Ashlei Spivey, whose work continues to shape conversations about equity, health, and representation in our state.

These women did not build for applause.

They built because something in them refused to accept limitation.

At Lozafina, storytelling is never performative. It is preservation. It is amplification. It is strategic memory. When we highlight legacy stories, we’re not looking backward for nostalgia, we’re looking backward for instruction.

Because legacy is not accidental. It is intentional.

And the through line across Nebraska’s women leaders is this:

They turned personal conviction into public impact.

That’s what I want young girls in Omaha, in Scottsbluff, in North Platte, in South Omaha, in every pocket of this state, to see. You do not have to shrink to fit history. You can shape it.

Women’s History Month is not about a moment.

It’s about momentum.

And this year, I’m honoring it the way I know best, by telling the stories that remind us we’ve always had architects among us.

We just have to say their names.