Celebrating Black Herstory Month: 27 Women you Should Know
February is Black History month! This year, we decided to celebrate each day by highlighting 27 fearless and powerful black women we look up to who have made history and whose stories must be told for the rest of time. These women are creatives, activists, lovers and change makers. They’ve written some of the most recognized stories of our time, have created change within laws, politics and human rights. We believe it is important to continue to tell their stories as we know there are still people out there who have not heard their names….until now.
Fanny Lou Hamer
Born and raised in Mississippi, she became one of the most passionate, and powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements and a leader in the efforts for economic opportunities for African Americans.
In 1964, Ms. Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) and helped organize the voter registration initiative Freedom Summer, which increased African American voter registration in the South. That same year, she announced her candidacy for the Mississippi House of Rep., but was barred from the ballot. A year later, Hamer protested the 64’ election. In 1971, Hamer helped found the National Women’s Political Caucus.
Ms. Hamer also utilized economics as a strategy for greater racial equality and single-handedly ensured 200 units of low income housing were built.
Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams is a political leader, voting rights activist and New York Times bestselling author. She’s received degrees from Spelman, the University of Texas and Yale Law School.
In 2018, Abrams became the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia, winning more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history that year. Abrams was the first Black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the US, and was the first Black woman and Georgian to deliver a Response to the State of the Union. After the mismanagement of the 2018 election by the Secretary of State’s office, Abrams launched Fair Fight to ensure every American has a voice in the US election system.
Her political infrastructure and strategy was central to the increased turnout among the state’s Black, Latino and Asian voters that laid the groundwork for both President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in November and the Democrats’ performance in the Senate races.
Abrams is a recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award and has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her work to promote non-violent change via the ballot box.
Abrams has also written eight romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery, in addition to the New York Times best-selling Lead from the Outside
and Our Time is Now.
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was an black abolitionist and women’s right activist who is widely known for her speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” which was delivered at the Ohio Women’s Right Convention in 1851. Though most known for her work in both the abolition of slavery and women's rights movements, she also participated in other causes such as prison reform, property rights and universal suffrage.
Truth was enslaved from birth until adulthood, with the given name Isabella Baumfree. She escaped with her infant daughter in 1826 and later in 1828 fought for her son's freedom after he had been illegally sold in Alabama. She became the first Black woman to win a lawsuit in the US. Isabella Baumfree later became Sojourner Truth when leaving NYC in 1843 to go live in the countryside to pursue her calling of “testifying the hope that was in her.” As an abolitionist and traveling preacher, Isabella understood the importance of fighting for freedom.
During the American Civil War Truth gathered supplies for Black volunteer regiments and recruited Black troops for the Union Army. In 1864 she helped integrate streetcars in Washington, D.C to help force their desegregation and there she was also received at the White House by President Abraham Lincoln.
In 1870, Truth worked tirelessly for 7 years without success at securing land grants from the federal government for former enslaved people. She is the first African American woman to have a statue in the Capitol building and in 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazine's list of the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time".
Farah Tanis
Farah Tanis is a transnational Black feminist, human rights activist. Executive Director of @blackwomensblueprint working at the grassroots to address the spectrum of sexual violence against women and girls in Black/African American communities. She is the national co-chair of the March for Black Women. From 2010-2016, she chaired the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the U.S. ever to focus on Black women and their historical and contemporary experiences with sexual assault and reproductive violations.
She is the producer of Mother Tongue, a theatrical production addressing Black sexual politics. She is founder and lead curator at the Museum of Women’s Resistance (MoWRe), internationally recognized as a Site of Conscience. Tanis is a NoVo Foundation – Move to End Violence Program, Cohort 3 Movement Maker, a U.S. Human Rights Institute Fellow (USHRN) and a member of the USHRN Task Force on the international human rights treaty, CERD – the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and CAT – The UN Convention Against Torture.
Tanis is the recipient of several awards for her human rights work, including a 2014 Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. Magazine Wonder Award. Tanis also served on the Board of Directors of Haki Yetu working to end Rape in the Congo region of Africa and served on the Board of Right Rides which provides safe rides home to women and LGBTQ people in New York City.
Ella Baker
Ella Jo Baker was born on December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia and grew up in North Carolina. She migrated to New York in the 1920s, was a major part of that ground crew for over 50 years, and her legacy lives on in today’s social movements.
She spent nearly half a century raising the political consciousness of Americans, and played a major role in three of the 20th century’s most influential civil rights groups: the National Association or the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”).
Ella Baker referred to by some as the ‘mother of the civil rights movement’ - a lesser-known figure without whom Dr. King’s work—and nothing less than the entire civil rights movement of the 1960s—may not have succeeded, and whose absence from the iconography of American history is a disservice to all citizens.
She has also been called "one of the most important American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement." She is known for her critiques not only of racism within American culture, but also of sexism within the civil rights movement.
Utilizing her iron will and a gift for listening, Baker helped local leaders carefully craft and implement targeted campaigns against lynching, for job training and for black teachers to get equal pay. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parks, and Bob Moses.
Baker’s influence was reflected in the nickname she acquired: “Fundi,” a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches a craft to the next generation. Baker continued to be a respected and influential leader in the fight for human and civil rights until her death on December 13, 1986, her 83rd birthday.
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, philosopher, abolitionist, academic and author and a founding member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). She is well known for her work and influence on racial justice, women's rights, and criminal justice reform. In 1971, Davis became America’s most famous “political prisoner” as she awaited trial as a suspected conspirator in the attempt of kidnapping and murder. Davis was eventually acquitted of all charges, but for a time she was on the FBI's Most Wanted list.
Davis learned about racial prejudice from a young age as she grew up in a neighborhood in Alabama called “Dynamite Hill” due to the many targeted Ku Klux Klan attacks and her acquaintance with some of the young Black girls killed in the Birmingham Church Bombing. As a teenager, she organized interracial study groups which were often broken up by the police.
In the 1960s she joined several groups, The Black Panthers and the Che-Lumumba Club to name a few; she spent most of her time working with the latter which was an all-black branch of the Communist party. Her association with Communism almost cost Davis her profession as a professor at the University of California Los Angeles; a case which she took to court and won her her job back later leaving when her contract had ended in 1970.
Today, Angela Davis is a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz and after spending some time traveling and lecturing, and continuing her work as an activist and promoting women's rights and racial justice, she has written and published several books. Swipe left for a list of Davis’ most popular books.
Coretta Scott King
Coretta Scott King, American Civil Rights Activist and wife of famed civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Coretta Scott King created her own legacy in the movement to end injustice globally.
Active in racial justice politics and the peace movement before marrying Martin King, Coretta Scott King spoke up earlier and more forcefully against American involvement in Vietnam than her husband did, and her critique of American economics and war making continued for decades after his death.
Throughout her marriage, King appeared side by side with her husband fighting against injustice, taking part in the Montgomery bus boycott (1955) and efforts to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She also openly criticized the movement’s exclusion of women.
Scott King’s peace activism included a global vision and, in many ways, her commitments to global peacemaking helped inspire Martin’s. After her husband’s assassination in Memphis, Coretta Scott King stepped in to fill the political void. Four days later, she led the march he was supposed to have headed. “I gave a speech from the heart and some people ‘saw’ me for the first time,” she recalled.
Scott King’s activism did not simply uphold her husband’s legacy but expanded it. In the 1980s, she took an active role in the anti-apartheid movement and in 1984 was arrested outside the South African embassy. To the end of her life in 2006, she continued her international peace work. She remained active in various women’s organizations and she became a vocal advocate of gay rights and a supporter of same-sex marriage.
Throughout her life, Coretta Scott King carried the message of nonviolence and social justice to almost every corner of the globe.
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Chisholm was an American politician, educator and author. Chisholm became the first black woman to be elected to the US Congress in 1968 and in 1972, she became the first black candidate for a major’s party nomination or President of the United States of America and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
Chisholm became aware of gender and race inequality at a young age, which drove her, after her career in childhood education to join local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. This paved the path for her well deserved seat in Congress.
Her 1972 Democratic Party Presidential nomination was received with discrimination. She was not allowed to take part in televised debates and was only allowed to make one speech after having to take legal action.
She retired from congress in 1983 and taught at Mount Holyoke College and co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women.
Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, Patrisse Cullors
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi are civil rights activists and co-founders of the international Black Lives Matter movement. The BLM movement began in July 2013 following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer 17 months earlier.
Alicia Garza is an organizer, political strategist, activist and writer. She is the principal at Black Futures Lab and the Black to the Future Action Fund, director of strategy and partnerships at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and host of the Lady Don’t Take No podcast. She wrote The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, in 2020 which talks about the building of a movement.
Opal Tometi is an human rights advocate, strategist and writer who ensures “that race, immigration, and gender justice remain at the forefront of global conversations.” Before BLM, Opal spent eight years as Executive Director at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), an organization that helps black immigrant communities mobilize and advocate for social and economic justice.
Patrisse Cullors is an artist, organizer, educator and public speaker. Cullors is founder of grassroots Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now. From 2016 to 2018 Cullors worked as a Senior Fellow at MomsRising which focuses on ground-breaking Federal legislation that will change the outcomes of maternal mortality for women, especially Black women.
Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama is an attorney and author who was first lady of the United States of America from 2009-2017. She is the first black first lady and is married to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. During her time as first lady and beyond, Obama has focused her attention on social issues such as poverty, healthy living and education.
When Barack Obama decided to run for president, Michelle Obama took a prominent role in his campaigning, leaving her career as Associate Dean at the University of Chicago. She was referred to as “The Closer” for her persuasiveness among uncommitted voters who attended rallies.
As first lady, Michelle Obama initiated Let’s Move! a program aiming to end childhood obesity within a generation and passed The School Lunch Program which provides free and reduced priced meals for low-income children in schools. During her second term as first lady, Obama spearheaded the Reach Higher Initiative to help students understand job opportunities and the education and skills they need for those jobs.
In 2015, Obama joined President Obama to launch Let Girls Learn, a U.S. government-wide initiative to help girls around the world go to school and stay in school. She then supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 and received widespread praise for her acclaimed speeches.
Madam C.J Walker
Born Sarah Breedlove, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist, Madam C.J. Walker was “the first Black woman millionaire in America”. She rose from poverty in the South to become one of the wealthiest African American women of her time. Walker used her position to advocate for the advancement of black Americans and for an end to lynching.
In 1905 Walker moved to Denver, Colorado, where she married ad-man Charles Joseph Walker, renamed herself “Madam C.J. Walker,” and with $1.25, launched her own line of hair products and straighteners for African American women, “Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower.”
Walker employed 40,000 African American women and men in the US, Central America, and the Caribbean. She also founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917. Walker’s business grew rapidly, with sales exceeding $500,000 in the final year of her life. Her total worth topped $1 million dollars, and included a mansion in Irvington, New York dubbed “Villa Lewaro;” and properties in Harlem, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
Walker contributed to the YMCA, covered tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute, and became active in the anti-lynching movement, donating $5,000 to the NAACP’s efforts. Just prior to her transition, Walker revised her will, bequeathing two-thirds of future net profits to charity, as well as thousands of dollars to various individuals and schools.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is a TV personality, actress, entrepreneur and one of the richest and most influential women in the United States. At age 19 Winfrey became a news anchor for the local CBS television station and later a reporter and co-anchor for the ABCnews affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1977 in 1977 Winfrey became cohost of the Baltimore morning show People Are Talking which she was very successful at and it was later renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 1986, her show became the highest-rated television talk show in the United States and earned several Emmy Awards.
Her role in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple won her several other roles. She then formed her own television production company, Harpo Productions, Inc., in 1986, and a film production company, Harpo Films, in 1990.
In 1996 Winfrey started her on-air book club. Each book selected to be read and discussed quickly rose to the top of the best-seller charts, and Winfrey’s effect on the publishing industry was significant.
In 2000, Winfrey launched her highly successful magazine: O, the Oprah Magazine and O at Home in 2004.
Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes is an Award-winning writer and producer who created the hit TV shows 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'How to Get Away with Murder' and ‘Scandal’ as well as the new hit series Bridgerton.
Rhimes has written for some well-known films such as Crossroads and Princess Diaries 2, which helped her rise to fame.
In 2019, Rhimes won a Golden Globe for Rhimes for Best Television Series—Drama. She has also won several GLAAD Media and NAACP Image Awards for her tackling of important issues in terms of race and sexuality and in 2017, she signed a multi-year deal to produce new series and projects for Netflix.
Alice Parker
Alice H. Parker was a black inventor known for her patented system of central heating using natural gas. The concept of central heating was discovered before Parker but her design stood out because hers used natural gas instead of coal or wood.
Not much is known about Alice Parker but it is said she was inspired for her heating system design because her fireplace was not effective enough in her New Jersey home to get her through its winters.
Dr.Shirley Jackson
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, a theoretical physicist, educator and famous black inventor, has made many advances in science.
Jackson has conducted breakthrough basic scientific research that has enabled others to invent the portable fax, touch tone telephone, solar cells, fiber optic cables, and the technology behind caller ID and call waiting.
She is now the 18th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological research university in the United States, and recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top 50 universities.
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was a poet, essayist, autobiographer and novelist born in New York City. Lorde’s writing focused on lesbian feminism and racial issues. She attended Hunter College and received a B.A. in 1959 and a master’s degree in library science in 1961. She was a librarian for several years before publishing her first volume of poetry, First Cities, in 1968.
Lorde’s career took off in 1968 with her first volume of poetry, First Cities. Her second volume, Cables to Rage was published in 1970 and third volume, From a Land Where Other People Live in 1973 which earned her a lot of praise and was nominated for a National Book Award.
Lorde battled breast cancer which later spread into her liver; a battle that caused her death after more than a decade. She died on November 17, 1992, on the island of St. Croix.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a writer of short stories, novels and non-fiction and a feminist activist whose work has been translated into over 30 languages.
She was born and raised in Nigeria where she obtained her secondary education and gained multiple academic prizes. She studied medicine and pharmacy while at the University of Nigeria while at the same time editing the Catholic medical student magazine, The Compass.
Ngozi moved to the United States at the age of 19 where she contributed to her university’s journal. She graduated in 2001 with a degree in communication and political science and then obtained a Master’s in Creative Writing and Master of Arts in African studies from John Hopkins university and Yale.
She received the Commonswealth Writer’s Prize for her work Purple Hisbiscus and an Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction for Half a Yellow Sun which also was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
She has received other awards and honors and published two other novels: The Thing Around your Neck and Americanah and a popular essay “We Should all be Feminists.”
Marsha P. Johnson
Marsha P. Johnson was a back trans woman, activist, sex worker and drag artist who was a force behind the Stonewall Riots and surrounding activism that sparked a new phase of the LGBTQ+ movement in 1969.
Marsha was born Malcom Michaels Jr. to a family of 7 children, her being the 5th. After High School, she joined the Navy for a brief period and then relocated herself to Greenwich Village in New York City to discover herself. She turned to prostitution in order to survive and soon after found a trans community to become a part of.
Marsha was known as the self-made drag queen of Christopher street. When she settled on her name, Marsha P. Johnson, the P stood for “Pay it no mind.” She became the drag mother of her community and to the struggling and homeless LGBTQ youth. She became extremely successful and toured the world with the Hot Peaches.
Janet Mock
Janet Mock is an American writer, television host, director, producer and transgender rights activist known as the first transgender woman of color to write and direct an episode of television.
She was born in Hawaii and is the second of five children. At age 18, Janet went to Thailand to have her gender reassignment surgery. This is when she chose her first name, Janet after singer Janet Jackson.
In 2011, after attending school in NY for journalism, Mock began working for People Magazine where 5 years into her job she became Web Editor. When she heard of the many transgender children that were committing suicide, shes shared her story on Marie Claire magazine as a form of encouragement.
Mock published her first book in 2014 in which she wrote about her early years. This was the first memoir written from the perspective of a young transgender person. She then produced a HBO documentary called The Trans List, created the Allure magazine column “Beyond Beauty Binaries,” started an interview podcast series called Never Before with Pineapple Street Media, and served as a correspondent for Entertainment Tonight, a contributing editor for Marie Claire, and a host for MSNBC.
In 2017, her second memoir Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me was published and wrote, directed, and produced episodes of the TV series Pose on FX.
Jane Bolin
Jane Bolin was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first black woman to work as corporate counsel for the city of New York, the first black woman to be admitted to the Bar Association of the City of New York and most significantly, the first black woman judge in the United States.
Bolin began attending Wellesley College in 1924, one of two black women to enter that year. She later recalled her life at Wellesley as a lonely time where she was ignored socially and received little encouragement from the faculty. As a senior, when she told her adviser about her plans to become a lawyer, she was sternly instructed to think of something else. There was no future for a black woman as a lawyer, she was told. Upon graduating in 1928 Bolin was named a "Wellesley Scholar" a distinction given to the top 20 women in their class.
In 1937, Bolin was named Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of New York, serving on the Domestic Relation Court. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia appointed Jane Bolin Judge of the Domestic Relations Court in 1939, where she served for 40 years. During her tenure with two other judges she achieved two major changes: the assignment of probation officers to cases without regard for race or religion, and a requirement that publicly funded private child-care agencies accept children without regard to ethnic background.
In addition to her work on the bench, Bolin served on the boards of many agencies and organizations including the Child Welfare League, the National Board of the NAACP, the New York Urban League, the Dalton School, and Wiltwyck School for Boys, which she helped found with Eleanor Roosevelt and others.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She was an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist.
Best known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman. Angelou received several honors throughout her career, including two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009.
Angelou published several collections of poetry, but her most famous was 1971’s collection Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Before she became renowned for her poetry and memoirs, Angelou was a bonafide professional dancer, touring Europe in a production of Porgy & Bess, studying with Martha Graham and performing with Alvin Ailey.
Angelou undertook many civil rights activities. She was northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This organization, which was created in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and originally known as the Southern Leadership Conference, advocates for the rights of African Americans in the United States.
The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou wrote, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice."
Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977).
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison is one of the most celebrated authors in the world. A Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, editor and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed African American characters who are central to their narratives. Among her best-known novels are The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, Jazz, Love and A Mercy. Morrison earned a plethora of book-world accolades and honorary degrees, also receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Morrison’s work has inspired a generation of writers to follow in her footsteps.
Toni Morrison was born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. The second of four children, Morrison’s birth name was Chloe Anthony Wofford. Although she grew up in a semi-integrated area, racial discrimination was a constant threat. She turned her attention to her studies and became an avid reader. When she was twelve years old, she converted to Catholicism and was baptized under the name Anthony after Saint Anthony of Padua. She later went by the nickname “Toni” after this saint.
In 1949, Morrison decided to attend a historically Black institution for her college education. She moved to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University. After graduating with her Bachelors she then attended Cornell University for her Master of Arts in English. In 1955, she began teaching English at Texas Southern University but returned to Howard University as a professor.
Morrison did not publish her first novel called The Bluest Eye until she was 39 years old. Three years later, Morrison published her second novel called Sula, that was nominated for the National Book Award. By her third novel in 1977, Toni Morrison became a household name.
Morrison later became a professor at Princeton University in 1989 and continued to produce great works, including Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992). In recognition of her contributions to her field, she received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first African American woman to be selected for the award.
Morrison also wrote children’s books with her son until his death at 45 years old. Two years later in 2012, Morrison published the last book they were working on together and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in that same month.
Tarana Burke
Tarana Burke is an activist, community organizer, executive, and founder of the ‘me too’ Movement. As a teenager she led campaigns and launched initiatives around issues like housing inequality, racial discrimination and economic injustice.
She attended HBCU University of Alabama where she later worked for 21st Century. At this job, she encountered many women of color who were survivor of sexual assault and violence. As a survivor herself, she began to support those women by providing resources and creating safe spaces for them to share their stories and co-founded an African-centered Rites of Passage program called Jendayi Aza. This program later evolved into her non-profit JustBe, Inc.
Burke became a global leader and helped to get a larger conversation started around sexual violence. Her hashtag #metoo has been used over 19 million times.
Josephine Baker
American-born French dancer and singer who became one of the most popular music hall entertainers in France in the 1920s. She was born in Missouri to two entertainer parents. She began by performing on the streets for tip money when she couldn’t get work until she was discovered by a theater troupe.
She moved to NYC around the age of 15 and participated in the celebration of black life and art known as the Harlem Renaissance. Her success later took her to Paris. During World War II, Baker joined the fight against the Nazi regime. She aided the French military by passing on secrets she heard while performing in front of the enemy.
When she returned home she had to face discrimination and segregation. She was strongly opposed to this during her performances which helped her get recognized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
She adopted 13 children from various countries and took them on the road to show that cultural and racial harmony could be achieved. She continued to fight racial injustices through the 1970s and performed late into her life, with her last performance being in 1975. This performance ended with a standing ovation and she later transitioned the same year.
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an academy Award-winning actress, comedian, radio host, author and television personality. Goldberg began to perform on Broadway shows as a young child. At 19 years old she moved to California and became active in the theater community, establishing a presence as a stand-up comedian.
She developed The Spook Show, a one-woman stage show noted for its humour, satire, and drama, which she performed throughout the United States and Europe. This performance led her to the Broadway Show Whoopi Goldberg which was a stepping stone to her debut in Hollywood in The Color Purple, which got her an Oscar nomination and won her a Golden Globe award.
She later had smaller successes in film and television until ultimately landing a spot sa a co-host on the television talk show The View.
Have you heard of any of these wonderful women? A few? None of them? We’d like to invite you to continue to explore black culture and history way past the month of February!