Week 4 Roundup: Black Women Making History — The First Trailblazers
Donyale Luna | Fashion
PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA
Supermodel Donyale Luna was the the first Black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue. She began modeling in 1965 and was known for being on Covergirl 11 times.
Luna helped open the way to acceptance and celebration of black beauty in the fashion world and was the first black woman to obtain the star-studded status of “supermodel.”
If there was one woman who marked the historic beginning of black models in the fashion industry, it was Donyale Luna.
Wilma Rudolph| Sports
"Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday."
PHOTO: TIMELINE
Wilma Rudolph is a track and field icon. She was the first woman to win three gold medals in the same olympic game. Despite being told she was never going to walk again after suffering from polio and scarlet fever, she overcame her diagnosis and went on to break multiple world records. After winning her three gold medals, her home town in Tennessee arranged a segregated parade to honor her. She advocated for a non-segregated event and refused to attend the celebration unless it was integrated, which her town then agreed to.
Ida B. Wells | activist
Ida B. Wells is best known for co-founding the NAACP. She is perhaps one of the most famous black women in the United States. Her newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight, covered the brutal realities of lynching in the United States. Despite various attacks to the newspaper's headquarters and to her own personal safety, Ida B. Wells never stopped pursuing the truth. She was also very active in the women's suffragette movement - despite frequent clashes with white suffragettes.
Madam c.j. Walker | Leadership
Madam C.J. Walker was the first Black woman to become a self-made millionaire. She built her business empire by selling products made for Black women. Her hair care company developed a series of products for the “Walker System” which helped Black women maintain their hair and deal with hair loss. Walker surpassed many obstacles in her early childhood to become successful. She was born in 1867 to parents who had been enslaved, and she became an orphan at age six. She was then married early at fourteen. Despite these hardships, she started her business selling products directly to Black women. Her products became widely popular and stood out on the market because most other hair care products for Black women had been made by white manufacturers. As an extremely successful entrepreneur, Walker was also dedicated to philanthropy. She funded scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute and donated money to the Black YMCA, NAACP, and other Black and educational charities.
PHOTO: SMITHSONIAN
Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark | STEM
Mamie Phipps Clark was born in 1917 and grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. From a young age she knew that she wanted to grow up and help other children. Despite many challenges, Mamie obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Howard University and went on to work with children in an all-black nursery school. Influenced by her work there, she chose to write her master’s thesis on “The Development of Consciousness to Self in Negro Pre-School Children”, a topic focused around the formation of racial identity and self esteem. In 1943, she earned her Ph.D. from Columbia and was the first Black woman in her program, and only the second Black person to earn a doctorate from the university. Clark later developed the extremely important research methods that combined the study of child development with racial prejudice, including The Clark Doll Test. Soon enough, her work became vital to the Civil Rights Movement as her research and testimony was used in the 1954 landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education.
PhIllis Wheatly | WRITER
Piece of Miss Wheatley’s verse:
The dispensations of unerring grace,
Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise;
Let then no tears for her henceforward flow,
No more distress'd in our dark vale below,
Her morning sun, which rose divinely bright,
Was quickly mantled with the gloom of night.
PHOTO: Engraving attributed to Scipio Moorhead, circa. 1773.
In 1773, America was a British colony and much of its productive output was accomplished via the labor of enslaved Africans. Miss Phillis Wheatley was one of those enslaved people - and she was also one of the first black women to have her poetry published in the Western world.
Despite hideously racist criticism - largely from white, slave-owning men, including founding father Thomas Jefferson - and otherwise impossible circumstances, Miss Wheatley was a poetic genius and an artist of rare talent and skill.
Having learned to read and write at a young age due to the intervention of her buyers, she fostered within herself a deep and intensely dignified style that celebrated her African heritage, her struggle as a woman, and her hopes for a better future through the power of poetry. Unfortunately, her profound work was not enough to save her from an eventual decline into poverty alongside her free husband, nor did it prevent her early death at age 31.
It is thanks to the contributions of Phillis and women like her that we have been blessed with so much incredible literature and verse in America.
Bessie Smith | entertainment
PHOTO: MUSIC THEATER INTERNATIONAL
Bessie Smith was a vivacious blues singer in the 1920s and 30s, during the Jazz Era. Known as the Empress of the Blues, her records were sold by the millions and she collaborated with many other notable musicians, including Louis Armstrong.
Despite being born into poverty and growing up under incredibly difficult circumstances, Bessie became one of the highest paid African-American women of her time. Her songs touched on female sexuality (Smith was known to be bisexual and often expressed her attraction to women through her lyrics) and racial discrimination, which greatly resonated with her audience. She was known for pushing the rigid boundaries and expectations imposed on women during the early 20th century, mostly by being her unapologetically eccentric, loud, and free-spirited self.
Her fearless personality garnered a great deal of attention and respect—when the KKK appeared at one of her shows, she marched off the stage and chased them away—and her style of music continued to influence later artists, like Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin.
PHOTO: GASTRO OBSCURA
Abby Fisher | Chef
In 1832, Abby Fisher was born into Slavery in South Carolina. She learned to cook in plantation kitchens in the south and then, after the civil war, she moved to San Francisco.
Abby opened up a preserves business and started working on a cookbook. She was one of the first black cookbook authors of the time. She struggled writing the cookbook due to her lack of education, but she persevered.
She described her recipes to writers who then assembled the recipes for her. Fisher’s cookbook helped to immortalize the culinary imprint of African-Americans.