Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks, born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, moved to Chicago, Illinois where she was reared and launched her literary career. Marrying Henry Blakely in 1939, the couple had two children. Brooks’s formal education consists of an associate degree in literature and arts … Read MoreGwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
A free woman of African descent living in Querétaro, Mexico, Isabel de Olvera joined a relief expedition to the recently colonized province of New Mexico in 1600. She traveled as a servant to a Spanish woman. Little is known about Olvera, except for an extraordinary … Read MoreIsabel de Olvera (?–?)
Inez Maxine Pitter Haynes, the middle sibling of the Pitter sisters, was born February 06, 1919 to Edward A. Pitter and Marjorie Allen Pitter, in Seattle, Washington. In 1936 she graduated from Garfield High School and entered the University of Washington as a pre-nursing major, … Read MoreInez Maxine Pitter Haynes (1919-2004)
Hattie McDaniel is best known as the first black Oscar winner. She won the award on February 29, 1940, for Best Supporting Actress for her role as “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind. McDaniel’s career began three decades earlier. She gave her first public performances as a grade school … Read MoreHattie McDaniel (1895-1952)
Hannah Diggs was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on November 1, 1923. Several of her relatives were teachers, and her parents instilled in her a love of reading and an appreciation for education. She became the valedictorian of her high school class before enrolling at … Read MoreHannah Diggs Atkins (1923-2010)
In 1938 Frances Mary Albrier became the first woman elected to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. She also founded the East Bay Women’s Welfare Club whose goal was to get black teachers hired in the Berkeley schools. This campaign saw success with the hiring … Read MoreFrances Mary Albrier (1898-1987)
Florasina Ware was the quintessential activist, known in Seattle for raising a strong voice on behalf of children, the elderly, and the poor. Dissatisfied with the quality of the Central Area schools attended by most of the city’s black students, she pressed school officials for academic … Read MoreFlo Ware (1912-1981)
The Fannie Jackson Coppin Club was established in 1899 by members of the Beth Eden Baptist Church, one of Oakland, California’s oldest African American religious institutions (est. 1889). The club was named in honor of Fannie Jackson Coppin (1837-1913) who was born a slave in … Read MoreFannie Jackson Coppin Club
Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland was born into abject poverty in Greenwood, Mississippi on August 29, 1944. She experienced extreme racism, lack of options, and little support to change her life. As a teenager she quit school, turned to prostitution and theft as a way … Read MoreEndesha Ida Mae Holland (1944-2006)
In the early twentieth century Progressive era reformers largely ignored the needs of African American women. Lacking settlement houses and other resources African American reformers such as Elizabeth Ross Haynes turned to one of the few institutions available to them, the YWCA. Ross Haynes was … Read MoreElizabeth Ross Haynes (1883-1953)
