Week 2 Roundup: Black Women Making Recent History
shirley chisholm | leadership
PHOTO: WASHINGTON POST
Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968. She served as a representative for New York’s 12th congressional district from 1969 to 1983. A fighting force in politics, she started her career in education working as a nursery school teacher. She entered the world of politics in 1964 when she became the second African American to serve in the New York State Legislature. Four years later, she ran for Congress and won a seat. While serving in Congress, Chisholm pushed for numerous pieces of legislation that aimed to advance gender and racial equality — she was dubbed “Fighting Shirley” for her efforts. During her terms, she also founded the Congressional Women’s Caucus and became the second woman in history to join the House Rules Committee. After retiring from Congress in 1983, Chisholm returned to her educational roots and began teaching at Mount Holyoke College. However, she still stayed involved in the political world, founding the National Political Congress of Black Women in 1984.
Tyra Banks | fashion
"This is for everybody that has been told that they are not good enough because of their body, their age, their everything. #BanX is here to tell you that you ARE friggin’ fierce no matter what anybody says!"
PHOTO: ALLURE
Tyra Banks made her runway debut at age 18 in 1991. After paving the way on the catwalk, a number of designers initially turned her away, declaring her too curvy to work with. She later became the first Black model to front Sports Illustrated and one of the first Black models to sign a contract with Victoria’s Secret. She is also one of the few Black models to achieve “supermodel status.” Today, she has made history as the oldest model on SI, making this the second time the 45-year-old supermodel has broken down barriers on the cover of SI.
Angela Davis | Activist
Angela Davis holds many titles: activist, author, academic, and philosopher. She rocketed to the public's attention in the midst of the United State's Civil Right's Movement and second-wave feminism, but maintains a voice in our political climate today. She is best known for her work in the prison abolition movement.
PHOTO: NEW YORK TIMES
Dr. Mae C. Jemison | STEM
Mae C. Jemison was the first Black woman to be admitted to the astronaut training program in 1987. In 1992, she became the first Black woman to enter space when she boarded the Endeavour. From the time she was in middle school, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in biomedical engineering. Jemison attended Stanford University where she earned a Bachelor's of Science in chemical engineering, and later attended Cornell University Medical College and earned her M.D. in 1981. After medical school, she became a general practitioner and served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia. While she was the medical officer there, she taught and continued her medical research. In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison earned the 1998 Essence Science and Technology Award and the Ebony Black Achievement Award in 1992. After her career as an astronaut, she accepted a teaching fellowship at Dartmouth, and founded the Jemison Group, a company seeking to research and develop advanced technologies.
PHOTO: NASA
Serena Williams | SPorts
PHOTO: GLAMOUR
Serena Williams is a professional tennis player known for changing the game of women's tennis. Her strength and talent have led to a legacy of women's empowerment in sports. She is known as the former number 1 ranked singles player in tennis, and for her stances on body positivity, BLM, and women's empowerment. She encourages her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., to be the best that she can be.
edna lewis | chef
"Over the years since I left home, I have kept thinking about the people I grew up with and about our way of life. I realize how much the bond that held us had to do with food."
PHOTO: EATER
Edna Lewis was well known in the culinary world. She was born on April 13th, 1916, in a tiny rural community. She lived with her family in a small community of emancipated slaves that her grandfather helped to create. Growing up, many modern appliances were not available so they used the resources they had. Edna loved the memories and the creativity that was created around food. At age sixteen, she moved to New York City and began working as a laundress. A couple years later, she got married and began to work towards becoming a chef. She became the head chef at a restaurant and always made sure to tie her Southern roots into her food. At the time, it was very surprising to see a woman chef but even more surprising to see a Black chef. Edna didn't let this stop her from following her dreams.
Pam Grier | entertainment
PHOTO: VINTAGE EVERYDAY
Pam Grier is a Black actress who starred in many films throughout the 1970s and continues to work in the film industry today. She is considered the first Black woman to star in an action film — which, at the time, was an industry dominated by male actors — and to appear on the cover of Ms. Magazine. Grier, having lost a sister to cancer and been diagnosed with cancer herself, has used her influence to promote health education. She established the Pam Grier Community Garden and Education Center in collaboration with the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum, its goal being to inform visitors about organic gardening, nutrition, and a multitude of other health practices.
Toni Morrison | Author
Toni Morrison was a Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning author, activist, and poet who revolutionized the genre of literary fiction with her rich, soulful work and tireless creative spirit. Some of her stories include The Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Tar Baby, and A Mercy.
Morrison was born under the name Chloe Ardelia Wofford and grew up in the segregated world of the early 1930s-50s. Her parents’ experiences with racism - including her father’s traumatic witnessing of a lynching at age 15 - informed her own perspectives and made her deeply conscious of her race and the meaning it held in Jim Crow America.
She defied these assigned meanings and forged her own vibrant, proudly black identity by reading extensively and enrolling at Howard University in 1949. Nurtured by a community of boundary-breaking black scholars, she launched and then thrived in a writing career that bore all the hallmarks of world-shifting classic literature.
Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, by getting up at three or four a.m. every morning before she got up and took care of her two young children, which she did as a single mother. The book eventually became her seminal work and propelled her to great literary acclaim. She went on to receive the National Book Award, the Barnard Medal of Distinction, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in addition to many other awards - including both of the aforementioned Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.