April 24, 2017 - 17:17
So, I know that I am very late--but I wanted to do an art piece of many black women activists that i'm sure many of us hadn't learned about before. I hope you all like it! I provided small biographies of some of the women that are featured in the piece.. Thanks!
Elaine Brown
Elaine Brown was Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party from 1974-1977. She also ran twice for a position in the City Council of Oakland, California and has been in reforming prison and education systems and juvenile justice (1970s). While a part of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party she helped establish the party’s first Free Breakfast for Children program outside of Oakland. In 1971 Brown became editor of the The Black Panther paper, and soon after was elected the first female member of the Panther Central Committee.
Afeni Shakur
At the age of 19 Shakur became a part of The Black Panther Party and had one of the more influential experiences which was meeting Malcolm X. In 1969 she was imprisoned for 11 months facing countless charges, and during her imprisonment she became pregnant with her son the famous rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. She went to court and then was acquitted on 156 accounts. Currently, she is head of Amaru Entertainment which has access to Tupac's unreleased albums and music. In 1997, she founded the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, in his memory, which is a Youth Arts Center dedication to teaching Creative Writing, Drama, Art, and Dance, based in Stone Mountain GA. In 2004 she founded the "Makaveli Branded" clothing line in which all the brands go to TASF.
Claudette Colvin
Born on March 2nd, 1995, Claudette Colvin was a 15 year old woman who felt compelled to remain in her seat after being asked to give up her place on a bus for a white woman. Miss Colvin was arrested on several counts, one of them being violating segregation laws. Because the vent of her refusal occurred three months from the famous Rosa Park's refusal, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People momentarily considered her case to challenge segregation laws. However, due to her young age and pregnant, her case was passed because the National Association did not wish to have negative attention to be brought to the case due to how using Colvin to challenge stereotypes would, if anything, would reinforce negative stereotypes surrounding young black woman.
Shirley Chisholm
Chisholm was a woman who left a lasting impression on the world of politics and in how society views women. After working extensively in childcare and becoming entangled with the world of politics, Chisolim began to work in the New York state sassemble where she then proceeded to make history in 1968 where she became the first woman elected to join the United States Congress. Shortly thereafter, in the following three years Chisholm became the first African American woman to run for the Democratic party's nomination. Although she originally ran without the intention of progressing far in the election, Chisholm hoped that her aspirations and strives would inspire hope and ambitions in others as well. She worked diligently to ensure that immigrant workers received their rights, improved access to education, and the expansion of childcare for woman.
Anna Julia Cooper
Anna Julia Cooper was born in 1858 to her enslaved mother in North Carolina. She spent her life redefining the limitations and opportunities for women of color and in 1892, she wrote a book called A Voice From the South. Cooper also founded the Colored Women’s League of Washington in 1892, and 1899 helped open the first YWCA chapter for black women because they were not allowing black women into YWCA. From After she retired from M Street School in 1930 she became president of Frelinghuysen University. This school was founded in order to provide classes for DC residents that did not have access to a higher education. She also worked for Frelinghuysen for 20 years, as president and then as registrar. Anna died in 1964 a decade after leaving Frelinghuysen at the age of 105.
Septima Clark
Septima Clark was part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1961. After becoming an instructor on South Carolina's Johns Island in 1916, Clark returned in 1919 to her hometown in Charleston to teach at the Avery Institute, where she later proceeded to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored people. Clark was not able to recruit and hire African American instructors in Charleston, so once accepted Clark gathered signatures in favor of getting the city to hire African Americans, and was instrumental in ensuring the process was successful. The project was taken over by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1961, where she then migrated to join the SCLC as its director of education and teaching. Under Clark, 800 citizenship schools where created.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis studied in Brandeis University in Massachusetts where she studied philosophy with Herbert Marcuse. In the 1960's, Davis studied as a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, where she became associated with the Black Panthers and working with an all-black branch of the communist party known as the Che-Lumumba Club. Hired to teach at the University of Chicago in Los Angeles, Davis' support and association with communism resulted in several conflicts with the school's administration. They fired her, however, after fighting the school in court she got her job back, only to leave in 1970 after her contract expired in 1970.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917 in Montgomery County Mississippi. In 1962, she became active in helping and encouraging blacks to register to vote. Fannie Lou Hamer also worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which fought racial segregation and injustice in the South. Hamer worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which was an organization of African-American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South. During the course of her activism within the committee Fannie was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot at. In 1964, Fannie helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. In 1965 Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi but unfortunately, was unsuccessful.
Coretta Scott King
Although famous for being the wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King established a distinguished career aside from working with her husband. Coretta took a part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, journeyed to Ghana to help solidify the nation's independence in 1957, and also worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 1964. Although Scott King is often referred to as a public mediator and as a liaison to peace, following her husband's assassination, she founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta and served as the center's chief executive officer and president.In 1981, a museum complex was dedicated to the center on the site.
Work Cited
Brown, Elaine (1943- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Taylor, F. Kenneth. "BIOGRAPHY: The Shakur Family Pt. III: Afeni Shakur." F. Kenneth Taylor. N.p., 21 Feb. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
"Claudette Colvin." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 10 Feb. 2017. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
Vaidyanathan, Rajini. "Before Hillary Clinton, there was Shirley Chisholm." BBC News. BBC, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
"Anna Julia Cooper's Biography." Anna Julia Cooper Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
"Angela Davis." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 27 May 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
"Fannie Lou Hamer." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 17 Jan. 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.
"Coretta Scott King." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 15 Jan. 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.