Friday, March 27
Leontyne Price (1927 - )
Born in Mississippi, Price began to play the piano at a very young age and developed her singing ability soon after.  She left a burgeoning teaching career to pursue music education in college.  She acted in stage plays before her opera singing career blossomed during the 1950’s.  She first made her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1961.  She is the fifth Afro-American to sing leading roles at the Met and have performed in over 201 performances there.

Thursday, March 26
Rosa Parks (1913-2005)
Born in 1913 in Alabama, she grew up becoming aware of the racism that was prevalent in her day and time.  She became active in the Civil Rights movement after marrying her husband Raymond who was a member of the NAACP.  She is famously known for her refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955 in Montgomery.  This was the catalyst for the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott and the career and leadership jumpstart of a then relatively unknown minister named Dr. Martin Luther King.  She moved with her husband to Detroit and became a secretary for Congressman John Conyers until she retired in 1988

Wednesday, March 25

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)

Hansberry was born in Chicago’s south side.  Her parents were middle class (her father was a prominent real estate broker and her maternal uncle was a well-known scholar) and moved to an all white neighborhood.  The prejudice her family experienced there was the inspiration for her famous play, A Raisin in the Sun.  It was the first Broadway production written by an African American woman. 

 

Tuesday, March 24

Lil Hardin (1898-1971)

Born as Lillian Hardin in Tennessee, she demonstrated a proficiency for playing the piano and singing.  Her early years were spent learning to play spiritual and classical music but she was drawn to jazz later.  She was already an experienced musician when she met Louis Armstrong in Chicago in the early 1920’s.  They married in 1924 and collaborated on many songs together.  Reportedly, it was Hardin who encouraged her husband to embark on a solo career that soon became enormously successful.

 

Monday, March 23

Mae Jamison (1956-)

Born in Alabama and raised in Chicago, Jamison knew at a young age she wanted to become a physician.  She entered Stanford University at age 16, earned degrees in chemical engineering and Afro-American Studies.  She received her doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell University.  She was influenced by Commander Uhura on Star Trek to apply to be an astronaut for NASA.  She was accepted in 1985 and became the first Afro-American woman to travel in space aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

 

Sunday, March 22

Billie Holiday (1915-1959)

Raised in Baltimore, Maryland as Eleanora Fagan, Holiday was an enormously influential Jazz singer, especially during WWII.  She worked with Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Artie Shaw.  “Strange Fruit is one of her most emotional and famous songs detailing the brutality of racism and lynching. 

 

Saturday, March 21

Sally Hemmings (1770?-1835)

Born a slave sometime during the early 1770’s, Hemmings was originally owned by a man named John Wayles.  After his death, he bequeathed Hemmings to his daughter Martha who later married Thomas Jefferson.  Regarded as a mulatto high on the social scale at Monticello, Jefferson’s homestead, she is also reportedly the half-sister of Martha.  After Martha’s death, it is reported that Hemmings and Jefferson had a love affair and parented several children.

 

Friday, March 20

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)

Wells was born in Mississippi months before Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation in 1862.  She grew up to become an outspoken advocate against racism and sexism and honed her talents to become a skilled investigative journalist.  After she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a railroad car, she led a de-segregation campaign against the railway in 1884.  She was an editor of several publications and gained a reputation for her anti-racist writings.  She eventually relocated to Chicago to continue her work.

 

Thursday, March 19

Diana Ross (1944)

Born in Detroit, Michigan and a graduate of Cass Technical High School, Diana (or Diane as her peers called her) grew up from the infamous Brewster Projects to become one of the biggest acts of the Motown music label.  She was the frontwoman for the highly influential singing trio The Supremes, and she had a hugely successful career as a solo artist. 

 

Wednesday, March 16

Suzanne de Passe (1947)

Born in New York, de Passe began to work for Motown Records during the late 60's and quickly rose up the ranks to be an executive of the label's founder Berry Gordy.  She is most famous for helping to develop the career of the Jackson 5.  She is the first and only Afro-American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for screenwriting for the 1973 film Lady Sings the Blues which starred Diana Ross.

 

Tuesday, March 15

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) she escaped to freedom in 1826 a year before slavery was abolished in New York State.  She changed her name in 1843 and became an advocate for civil rights and women's rights.  She made her famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.

 

Monday, March 16

Althea Gibson (1927-2003)

Born to a sharecropper family in South Carolina, she relocated with her family as a young girl to Harlem, New York where she discovered her love of tennis.  After rigorous tennis training, she won her first national championship.  She won her first Grand Slam title in 1955.  She was the first African American to win a title at Wimbledon.  She is a graduate of Florida’s A&M University.

 

Sunday, March 15

Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915-1973)

Along with Memphis Minnie, Tharpe is considered one of the first female guitarists.  She was born in Arkansas and developed her musical gifts in Gospel music and Blues.  She was one of the first mainstream artists to use electric guitars and she is also one of the first to record gospel records during the late 1930s. 

 

Saturday, March 14

Coretta Scott King (1927-2006)

Born and raised in Alabama, King studied music before she met her husband Dr. Martin Luther King.  She was a very important part of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960s.  After MLK’s assassination, she became a public leader of the Movement and founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. 

 

Friday, March 13

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

Hurston was born to a mother who was a schoolteacher and a father who was a preacher.  She was raised in Eatonville, Florida which is reported the first all Black town to be incorporated in the U.S.  Before she earned her B.A. in Anthropology in 1927, she was a member of the Harlem Renaissance with other writers like Langston Hughes.  She had published many critically acclaimed books like Mules and Men (1935) and her famous Their Eyes Where Watching God (1937).

 

Thursday, March 12

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

Born in Topeka, Kansas to a schoolteacher and a janitor she her first poem published when she was 13 years old.  Her first poetry book, A Street in Bronzeville in 1945 by publishing house giant Harper and Row.  She published Annie Allen in 1950.  She is the first Afro-American to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry.  She was made Illinois Poet Laureate in 1968.  In 198, she was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame.

 

Wednesday, March 11

Oprah Winfrey (1954-)

Born in poverty and hardship, Oprah Winfrey was able to rise above her adverse circumstances to excel in the field of communications.  She has won multiple Emmy Awards, donated millions of money to charity, opened up her own school in Africa, publishes her own magazine and is an Oscar-nominated actress for her role in The Color Purple.   She has been declared as one of the richest African Americans of the 20th century with a net worth of over 2.7 billion dollars.

 

Tuesday, March 10

Madame CJ Walker (1867-1919)

Born as Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana to slave parents, she was the first in her family to be born free.  She worked as a laundress in St. Louis and reportedly had a vision in which an apparition gave her a recipe for hair products.  She changed her name in 1906 Madame CJ Walker, developed and marketed her “Wonderful Hair Grower” and by 1917, she had the largest business owned by a Black person and became one of America’s first millionaires.  

 

Monday, March 9

Ma Rainey (1886-1939)

Born as Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett , Ma Rainey began her career in entertainment on the infamous vaudeville circuit in the southern United States.  She was very popular with audiences and continued to perform.  By the time she recorded her first record with Paramount in 1923, she already had years of performing experience behind her.  She is the one of the first Blues recording artists and was the mentor of Blues legend Bessie Smith. 

 

Sunday, March 8

Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965)

Born in Cleveland Ohio, Dorothy Dandridge began performing at an early age and moved to Hollywood to become a star.  One of her first movie appearances was in a 1937 Marx Brothers feature called A Day at the Races.  Despite the stereotypical roles for Black women that were available to her, she became more popular due to her singing ability.  N 1954, she was cast for the title role of the all Black musical adapted from a Georges Bizet opera called Carmen Jones.   She played opposite of Diahann Carroll, Pearl Bailey and Harry Belafonte.  She is widely recognized and celebrated as a sex symbol.

 

Saturday, March 7

Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005)

Born to Caribbean parents, she received her BA from Brookyn College and her MA from Columbia University in 1952.  She became the first Black woman to be elected into Congress in 1968 which she served New York’s 12th District for seven terms.  In 1972, she was the first major party Black candidate for President of the United States. 

 

Friday, March 6

Betty Shabazz (1936-1997)

Originally a Detroit native, she attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and grew disillusioned by the racism she encountered there.  To distance herself from the prejudice she moved to New York and attended nursing school.  She soon met Malcolm X at a speech he was giving at a mosque which influenced her decision to become a Muslim.  Soon she and Malcolm married.   After her husband’s assassination, she continued her education which culminated when she earned her Ph.D. in 1975.  She became a professor at New York’s Medgar Evers College a year later. 

 

Thursday, March 5

Alice Walker (1944-)

An alumnus of Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College, Walker started her writing career as an editor of feminist magazine Ms. during the 70’s.  After several books she published, she is best known for the Pulitzer winning novel The Color Purple.  The book became a bestseller and the movie made in 1985 and the 2005 Broadway play both were huge successes.

 

Wednesday, March 4

Angela Davis (1944-)

University professor and political and civil rights activist Davis first came into notoriety in 1970 when she joined the Black Panther Party and was named as an accomplice when a gun that was issued in her name was used to kill a judge.  She was the focal point of an intense FBI manhunt while she hid underground.  She was captured and sent to prison.  Nearly two years later, she was acquitted of all charges and released.  She currently is a graduate professor at the University of California.

 

Tuesday, March 3

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)

Born to former slaves, Mary grew up with a love of education and was able to attend college with the help of benefactors.  In 1904 and with an initial investment of $1.50, she was able to open up her own school for girls in Daytona, Florida.  She started off with six students and within six years, the student body increased to over 100.  The school soon merged with the Cookman Institute for Men to become the Bethune-Cookman School.  She was a civil rights leader, one of the few women college presidents of her era and a close friend and advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor.

 

Monday, March 2

Josephine Baker (1906-1975)

Born in St. Louis, Missouri Josephine Baker knew she wanted to perform from a very early age.  She danced and did comedy on the infamous vaudeville circuit, perfected her skills as a chorus girl in Harlem before she became an international star in Paris.  She was the first Black woman to headline in a major motion picture, and was the first and last to star in the Ziegfield Follies.  She was also the first American born woman to receive the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military honor, for her espionage work in WWII. 

 

Sunday, March 1

Daisy Bates (1914-1999)

As a journalist, civil rights leader and author, she played a very important part in the integration of the Little Rock school system in 1957.  She and her husband L.C. Bates published a Black newspaper, The Arkansas State Press.  She was an advisor for the Black teenagers who attempted to enroll into Little Rock Central High School, also known as the Little Rock Nine.