During February and March, students seek subjects for essay assignments centering on black leaders and female role models.   They are encouraged to focus on the familiar, extraordinary heroes and heroines.   Yet, the happenings in the circle of our own daily lives, outside the realm of history books, inform us of many more pacesetters who should be added to the pantheon of  Ahonored citizens.  Thanks to an alert from Brooklyn’s-own  Children’s Times Associates, we have learned about a new,  must-read book  that attempts to correct this in terms of the Apanoramic story of black women.    for teachers, parents, students and everyone else:  Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s A SHINING THREAD OF HOPE: The History of Black Women in America is for everyone:students, teachers, parents, young and older.    Informative and inspiring, THREAD OF HOPE chronicles, in the words from the book’s cover,  Athe lives of black  women from indentured servitude in the early American colonies to the cruelty of antebellum plantations, from the reign of the lynch law in the Jim Crow South to the triumphs of the Civil Rights era.  Tracing the accomplishments as well as the suffering of black women through the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the Civil Rights movment and the present day,  Hine and Thompson challenge preconceived notions and move black women from the fringes of American history  to a central position in our understanding of the forces and events that have shaped this country.  More than a story of struggle, black women’s history is very much a story of hope…  This book tells the stories of  unheralded women whose lives and work still impact on all of us, but whose names are virtually unknown.   Of immediate consideration, for this month,  is  Mabel  K. Staupers.   Due to her efforts during World War II, Nurse’s Day, in  May,  is a salute to nurses of color, as well.  Hine and Thompson  remind us that  Stauper’s aggressive fight against quotas established by the U.S. Army Nurse Corps led  to the end of discriminatory practices against Black nurses in the army and navy (January 10, 1945).   Stauper helped Ato dispel entrenched beliefs about the alleged inferiority of black health-care professionals and paved the way for the integration of the American Nurses’ Association. In a related note,  The Children’s Times Associates is spearheading a movement to have a school  in New York named after Mabel K. Staupers.  Clara Barton is so honored.  Why not Mabel K. Staupers?