BLACK WOMAN IN HISTORY

Bessie Coleman

Every Thursday in the month of February, well be honoring the accomplishments of AfricanAmerican women throughout history as part of Black History Month. First up: Chicagoan Bessie Queen Bess Coleman, the first American woman to receive an international pilots license.

Too poor to stay in college, Bessie took a job as a manicurist in a barber shop, where she overhead stories about the adventures of pilots returning from WWI. She also met some influential men at the barber shop, including founder and publisher of the influential Chicago Defender, who encouraged Bessie to take up aviation and helped her get to France to study, knowing that no American flight schools would accept her.

Because of Bessie Coleman, wrote Lieutenant William J. Powell in Black Wings 1934, dedicated to Coleman, we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream. I was so happy to stumble upon Bessies story because I find her courage and passion so inspirational. I can only imagine the doubts and fear she must have experienced boarding that first boat to France to embark on her own adventure. I like to think that I would have the guts to do that too.

Madam C. J. Walker became the first African American millionaire

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yardrockFebruary 16, 2012BLACK HISTORY

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Celebrating Black History Month!!!! Black History Fact: In 1910, Madam C. J. Walker became the first African American millionaire. Walker was best known for developing and marketing a successful line of beauty and hair products for black women.

Shirley Chisholm, who was known for many things, especially for being the first African American woman elected to the House in 1968 from New York. In addition to her historic election to Congress, it was also fifty years ago that Shirley Chisholm ran for President of the United States, becoming the first woman and first African American to ever be considered a serious candidate for the office when she ran in 1972. Join us as we take a closer look at the life of the one and only Shirley Chisholm.

Photo of Shirley Chisholm (Library of Congress)

Shirley Anita St. Hill (Chisholm was her married name) was born on November 20, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were immigrants her father a factory laborer from Guyana, her mother a seamstress from Barbadosand Shirley would actually spend part of her childhood in Barbados with her grandmother while her parents worked during the Great Depression to make enough money to finally settle the whole family (Shirley had three younger sisters, as well) in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Shirley was a very bright student and attended Brooklyn College on a scholarship (she was admitted to Oberlin and Vassar, too),

graduating cum laude in 1946 with a degree in Sociology. Following her graduation, Shirley worked as a nursery school teacher from 1946-1953 while she also went to Columbia University, earning her M.A. in early childhood education in 1952 (she would marry her first husband, Conrad Chisholm in 1949). In 1953, she became the director of the HamiltonMadison Child Care Center in New York, a job she held until 1959 when she began to work as an educational consultant for New York Citys Division of Daycare until 1964, which is when her political career took off.

Sojourner Truth dedicated her life to equal rights and womens rights. Sojourner Truth died on November 26, 1883 in Battle Creek, Michigan. She had a profound impact on all of our lives.

Marie Van Brittan Brown Born in 1922, Marie Van Brittan Brown was the first person to develop the patent for closed circuit television security. Her mechanism consisted of a motorized camera and four peepholes. The camera could be moved from one peephole to the next, and the cameras images were displayed on a monitor. The door could also be unlocked remotely using an electrical switch. Browns invention was patented in 1969, and became the framework for the modern closed circuit television system that is widely used for surveillance, crime prevention, and traffic monitoring.

Dr. Shirley Jackson Dr. Shirley Jackson was the first black female to receive a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the first black female president of a major technological institute (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). However, she also has a staggering list of inventions to her credit. Her experiments with theoretical physics are responsible for many telecommunications developments including the touch tone telephone, the portable fax, caller ID, call waiting, and the fiber optic cables that make overseas phone calls crystal clear

Dr. Patricia Bath In 1981, Dr. Patricia Bath invented the Laserphaco Probe, which is used to remove cataracts. By 1988, she perfected the invention and received the first of four patents pertaining to the device. Cataracts are an eye disease that can lead to blindness, but previous surgical procedures had many negative side effects. Dr. Baths laser probe made cataracts surgery faster and more accurate, and has been credited with saving thousands from losing their sight.

Dr. Betty Harris After earning her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, Dr. Betty Harris became a research chemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She worked extensively in the area of explosives, and in 1986, she obtained a patent for identifying and determining the sensitivity level of explosives. Her contributions were so significant that in1996, Dr. Harris was one of only eight people selected for inclusion in the National Science Foundations Women in Science profile.

 Mary Kenner Born in 1912, Mary Kenners creativity and ingenuity was evidenced by the five different patents she received during a 21-year time frame. In 1956, Kenner received a patent for inventing the Sanitary Belt. Three years later, she received another patent for inventing a sanitary belt with a moisture-resistant pocket. In 1976, Kenner invented an attachment for an invalid walker. In 1982, she invented the toilet-tissue holder, and in 1987, she received a patent for a backwash that was mounted on a bathtub and shower wall. While these inventions did not make her rich, Kenner stated that she enjoyed the idea of making life more convenient for other people.

Image: Comstock On February 23, 1993, Joanna Hardin invented the CompUrest keyboard stand. As with many inventions, necessity led the way. A computer activist, Hardin suffered from numerous computer-related injuries, leading her to seek a remedy. The keyboard she invented with her friend, Bernard Hirschenson, proved to be that remedy, ridding her of the injuries as well as preventing other typists from suffering joint and nerve wear and tear.

Natalie R. Love In 1992, Natalie R. Love created a removable cover for T-top convertible cars . The cover has removable male and female fasteners to attach and detach it from the vehicle, and seals on each side provide a secure, interlocked barrier to wind, rain and other environmental concerns. This invention replaced glass roof panels that were heavy and inconvenient to maneuver, allowing owners of convertible T-top automobiles to quickly attach or remove and store their covers.

Ella Baker While were constantly reminded of the civil rights leaders who worked in front, those who were behind the scenes often go unrecognized. Ella Baker is one of those people. An active civil rights leader in the 1930s, Ms. Baker fought for civil rights for five decades, working alongside W.E.B

Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King, Jr. She even mentored well-known civil rights activist, Rosa Parks. Ella Baker is quoted as saying, You didnt see me on television; you didnt see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people dont need strong leaders.

Photo Courtesy of commondreams.org Diane Nash A leader and strategist of the student wing of the Civil Rights Movement, Diane Nash was a member of the infamous Freedom Riders. She also helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Selma Voting Rights Committee campaign, which helped blacks in the South get to vote and have political power. Raised in Chicago, Nash initially wanted to become a nun as a result of her Catholic upbringing. Also known for her beauty, she would later become runner-up for Miss Illinois. But Nashs path changed direction when she attended Fisk University after transferring from Howard University. It was there that she would witness segregation first hand, since coming from a desegregated northern city. Her experiences in the South resulted in her ambition to fight against segregation. Historian David Halberstam considered Nash, bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis; as a leader, her instincts had been flawless, and she was the kind of person who pushed those around her to be at their best that, or be gone from the movement.

Septima Poinsette Clark Known as the Grandmother of the American Civil Rights Movement, Septima Poinsette Clark was an educator and civil rights activist who played a major role in the voting rights of AfricanAmericans. In 1920, while serving as an educator in Charleston, Clark worked with the NAACP to gather petitions allowing blacks to serve as principals in Charleston schools . Their signed petitions resulted in the first black principal in Charleston. Clark also worked tirelessly to teach literacy to black adults. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter awarded her a Living Legacy Award in 1979. Her second autobiography, Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement, won the American Book Award.

Photo Courtesy of American Radio Works Fannie Lou Hamer Coining the phrase, Im sick and tired of being sick and tired, Fannie Lou Hamer was a voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Hamer stood firm in her religious beliefs, often quoting them in her fight for civil rights. She ran for Congress in 1964 and 1965, and was then seated as a member of Mississippis legitimate delegation to the Democratic National Committee of 1968, where she was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Hamer died of breast cancer in 1977 at the age of 59. Buried in her hometown of Ruleville, Miss., her tombstone reads I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Photo Courtesy of libinfo.uark.edu Daisy Bates Daisy Bates was an American civil rights activist, publisher and writer who played a leading role in the Little Rock integration crisis in 1957. Before that, Bates and her husband started their own newspaper in 1941 called the Arkansas State Press. The paper became a voice for civil rights even before the nationally recognized movement. Bates worked tirelessly until her death in 1999. After moving to Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, she served on the Democratic National Committee and also served in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, working her magic on anti-poverty programs. In her home state of Arkansas, it has been established that the third Monday in February is George Washingtons Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day, an official state holiday.

Anna Arnold Hedgemen A civil rights leader, politician, and writer, Anna Arnold Hedgemen was also the first AfricanAmerican student at Hamline University, a Methodist college in Minnesota. After college she became a teacher. During her tenure as a teacher, Hedgemen witnessed segregation and decided to fight for its end. After holding a position as assistant dean of women at Howard University in 1946, Hedgemen later moved to New York and became the first African-American woman to hold a mayoral cabinet position in the history of the state. Hedgemen, who died in 1990, is the author of The Trumpet Sounds (1964), The Gift of Chaos (1977) and many more articles for numerous organizations.

Dorothy Height While the name Dorothy Height is recognizable, many of her accomplishments are not. Height, who died recently in 2010 at the age of 98, was a social rights activist, administrator, and educator. After earning her bachelors and masters degrees at New York University, Height later became active in fighting for social injustices. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004. Also during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Height organized Wednesdays in Mississippi which brought together black and white women from the North and South to engage in dialogue about relevant social issues. Dorothy Height is quoted as saying I want to be remembered as someone who used herself and anything she could touch to work for justice and freedomI want to be remembered as one who tried,a motto she lived by until her death.

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Queen Mother Moore (pictured) was a die-hard civil right activist and Black nationalist who stood side-by-side with Jamaican-born scholar and Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, supporting his Back to Africa Movement. Moore was also a hero to countless folks in her beloved Harlem community, where she fought for tenant rights and more solid education for its residents. Although her birth name was Audley Moore, she was renamed Queen Mother Moore by the Ashanti tribe in Ghana who gave her the honorary title on one of her many trips to the Motherland. She had a powerful voice that she used for speaking against the injustices that Black people suffered at the hands of this country that had literally turned its back on them. Moore was once quoted as saying, They not only called us Negroes, they made us Negroes, things that dont know where they came from and dont even care that they dont know. Negro is a state of mind, and they massacred our minds.

Queen Tiye was a queen of the 18th Dynasty, married to Amenhotep III. The daughter of Yuya, high official under Thutmose IV. Her mother was Thuya. Queen Tiye was of Nubian extraction.

Nefertiti: A small fragment of relief from the Amana period. Housed at the Louvre Museum Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they worshiped one god only, Aten, or the sun disc.

Jemison, Mae C. Mae C. Jemison (October 17, 1956 - ) was the first African-American woman in space. Dr. Jemison is a medical doctor and a surgeon, with engineering experience. She flew on the space shuttle Endeavor (STS-47, Spacelab-J) as the Mission Specialist; the mission lifted off on September 12, 1992 and landed on September 20, 1992.

Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou is a celebrated poet, author, activist and educator. Her work in literature has won her critical acclaim both here and abroad. Meanwhile, Angelou has remained at the forefront of politics and racial empowerment by appearing at inaugurations, rallies and sharing tales of discrimination and struggle with the world.
Anna Tibaijuka (United Nations)

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Anna Tibaijuka is the highest ranked African female in the United Nations, heading the UN-HABITAT program. She is a Swedish-educated, Tanzanian-born leader who has fought for the rights of women living in slums or without homes. Since becoming the Executive of UN-HABITAT, she has greatly increased its budget and function in the United Nations.

Harriet Tubman

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As one of American historys most prominent figures, Harriet Tubman was responsible for rescuing around 300 former slaves from the South and escorting them to freedom via the underground railroads that led to Maryland. At one point, a $40,000 reward was being offered for her arrest. Tubman was also a spy during her life. She died in New York in 1913.
Karen Bass

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Karen Bass is currently the U.S. Representative for Californias 33rd congressional district. She is also the first black woman to hold the role of Speaker in any state Assembly. In California, Bass has focused on improving education facilities, health care and the foster care system. Bass served as chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, which seeks to better understand Californias black population and their needs.

Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was a pioneer in the media and communication industries during the early 20th century. She is most remembered for her role in documenting the practice of lynching.

Mary McLeod Bethune

In 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune did something that was almost unheard of in American society at that time. She began a school for young African American girls in Daytona, Florida. That school would eventually flourish and merge with a boys school to become Bethune-Cookman University. Mary McLeod Bethune is also remembered for her innovative work in Civil Rights, including acting as a presidential adviser to a number of our countrys leaders.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth

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A preacher, gender and racial equality activist born into slavery, Sojourner Truth spread the word of God and equality throughout her lifetime. She is best known for her 1851 speech titled, Aint I A Woman
Dame Eugenia Charles (Dominica)

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Eugenia Charles was the Prime Minister of Dominica for 15 years until 1995. She was the first female head of state in the Americas and is currently the longest serving female prime minister recorded in world history.

Zora Neale Hurston

An acclaimed author and folklorist, Zora Neale Hurston contributed greatly to what was known in the world of literature as the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a pioneer for black involvement in the Republican party, a staunch conservative and Republican party favorite.

Stagecoach Mary Fields (c. 1832-1914) was born a slave in Tennessee and following the Civil War, she moved to the pioneer community of Cascade, Montana. In 1895, when she was around 60 years old, Fields became the second woman and first African American carrier for the US Postal Service.

Patricia Bath,first African American female doctor to patent a medical invention. Patricia Bath's patent (#4,744,360) was for a method for removing cataract lenses that transformed eye surgery by using a laser device making the procedure more accurate

Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel in 1941.

Halle Berry made headlines in 2002 when she became the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, for her role in Monsters Ball. Yet this didnt seem

that unusual at a time only a few years removed from the election of the first black U.S. president. It was much more of a shock in 1940 when Hattie McDaniel became the first black person to win an Oscar. Ironically, McDaniels Oscar-winning performance as the character Mammy in Gone With the Wind was not universally viewed as a great achievement by blacks at the time; many criticized her appearance in a film sympathetic to the view of slaveholders. It wasn't the only irony surrounding McDaniels award in keeping with segregation protocols at the time, McDaniel sat at a blacks-only table during the Oscar ceremony. Although McDaniel is best remembered for her GWTW performance, she appeared in more than 80 other films during the 1930s and 1940s. She is also regarded as the first black woman to sing on radio in the United States. Fittingly, she has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring both her singing and film careers.

Wilma Rudolph Thirteen years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, America was still aflame with racial discrimination; and so the victorious emergence of track-and-field athlete Wilma Rudolph at the 1960 Rome Olympics drew international headlines. Emerging from the games with three gold medals -- the first American women ever to do so in track and field in a single Olympics

Coretta Scott King Just 40 years old when her husband, civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King, was slain in Memphis, Coretta Scott King would spend the remaining 38 years of her life maintaining her husbands legacy and continuing his passionate crusade for racial justice. Only two months after his death, she delivered a Solidarity Day speech, calling for women everywhere to "unite and form a solid block of women power to combat racism, poverty and war; then went on to found The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia

Toni Morrison She is arguably Americas preeminent woman of letters, a novelist whose stories pulse with vibrant ideas and indelible characters -- notably, her 1987 slavery saga, "Beloved," which earned her the Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award. Also an essayist, university professor, playwright and, in 2005, an opera librettist, she was the recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature

Maya Angelou When she stepped to the lectern to read her poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, at the 1993 inauguration of President Bill Clinton, 68-year-old writer-poet Maya Angelou had come full circle in a career noted for its unsparing depiction of the black experience. Possessing more that thirty honorary doctoral degrees, Angelou is best known for her many autobiographical books and essays (notably her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), which describe a life defined by milestones, both uplifting and tragic: as a child-rape victim; as a pimp and prostitute; as an actress and director; as a passionate civil rights activist, as an international journalist, and as a beloved university professor.

Alice Walker When Alice Walkers groundbreaking novel, "The Color Purple," debuted in 1982, the publishing community was rocked back onto its heels by its explosive tale of a rural black woman in 1930s Georgia whose life was scarred by racial oppression and sexual violence.

Oprah Winfrey She may well be the most successful media mogul in the nations history, presiding over a broadcast-publishing-entertainment empire that has not only earned her the title of the worlds only female black billionaire, but also, the most influential woman in the world. Yet Oprah Winfrey is also credited with unprecedented philanthropy. Her Angel Network has raised more than $80 million for, among other causes, hurricane relief, veterans aid, charter school grants, college scholarships and local community programs.

Michelle Obama As the country's first African-American First Lady, Michelle Obama has stepped into the role with enthusiasm and compassion, planting an organic White House garden, speaking out on such issues as childhood obesity, military families and equal pay, and winning praise for her fierce devotion to her children and family.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

Winnie MadikizelaMandela (born Nomzamo Winfreda Zanyiwe Madikizela; 26 September 1936) is a South African politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Women's League. She is currently a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee. Although still married to Nelson Mandela at the time of his becoming president of South Africa in May 1994, the couple had separated two years earlier. Their divorce was finalised on 19 March 1996,[1] with an unspecified out-of-court settlement. Her attempt to obtain a settlement up to US$5 million, half of what she claimed her ex-husband was worth, was dismissed when she failed to appear in court for a financial settlement hearing.[2] A controversial activist, she is popular among her supporters, who refer to her as the 'Mother of the Nation', yet reviled by others, mostly due to her alleged involvement in several human rights abuses, including the 1988 kidnapping and murder of 14-year old ANC activist Stompie Moeketsi.

Assata Shakur changed the face of the black revolutionary. She along with other female activists intellectuals like Angela Davis not only popularized the afro; they also brought black women to the forefront of the black liberation movement. In her "Message to My Sistas", Assata proclaimed "BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE." Assata took militant stances against racism, the U.S. prison system, capitalism, and inequalities in education that earned her a place on the FBI COINTELPRO watchlist and subjected her to constant police harassment. Her devastating struggle and resolve to persevere have motivated musicians, politicians, and activists alike.

ANGEL DAVIS
Writer, activist and educator Angela Davis was born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama. Davis is best known as a radical African-American educator and activist for civil rights and other social issues. She knew about racial prejudice from her experiences with discrimination growing up in Alabama. As a teenager, Davis organized interracial study groups, which were broken up by the police. She also knew several of the young African-American girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963.

ACADEMIC CAREER
Davis later moved north and went to Brandeis University in Massachusetts where she studied philosophy with Herbert Marcuse. As a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, in the late 1960s, she joined several groups, including the Black Panthers. But she spent most of her time working with the Che-Lumumba Club, which was all-black branch of the Communist Party

Queen of Sheba

Queen of Sheba: Black or White in Bohemian Manuscript? Image of the Week: But it seems her rich brown skin color was added after the illustration was drawn. This manuscript was made for the court of Emperor Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, where Conrad of Kyeser served as a physician. The Queen of Sheba appears here as a conflation of two passages in the Old Testament of the Bible, one quasi-historical, the other metaphorical. The account of her voyage from Sheba to Jerusalem to visit King Solomon is found in 1 Kings. She has also been identified as the ideal bride in the Song of Songs, traditionally attributed to Solomon. There she describes herself: "I am black, but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem."

Queen Califia The Naming of California

The state of California was named for Califia, reputedly a Black virgin queen. She was said to rule an "island nation" of Amazons, where gold was the only metal. Even as late as 1707, some European maps continued to depict California as an island. While many California children hear the story in school of the origin of our States name, not many are made aware that she was said to be Black. Califia's life and land "at the right hand of the Indies" were described in a novel written about 1510, by Garcia Ordonez Rodriguez de Montalvo, a Spanish writer, and was entitled "Las Serges des Esplandian". To some extent, this document helped to precipitate the Spanish hunt for gold in North America.

BY INFORMATION MINISTER