Cover Story - March/April 2009

Great Black Women in History.

By Shoshi Mabina



In The National Association of Colored Women formed in 1893, bringing together more than 100 black women’s clubs, in response to black women’s clubs being refused from exhibiting at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The Black women’s rights founders and leaders of NACW included Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and Anna Julia Cooper. Their original intention was to furnish evidence of the moral, mental and material progress made by people of color through the efforts of our women. In 1910 three of the NACW leaders, Ruffin, Wells-Barnett, Terrell, enlarged their social activism by helping to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). By 1916, NACW had a membership of over 100,000 women who worked to create kindergartens, nurseries, settlements, and homes for working girls, dependent children and the elderly. Two years later nationwide membership grew quickly to 300,000. NACW’s later focus was on civil rights in the military and school desegregation, voter registration, anti-lynching legislation and restoring Frederick Douglass’s home in Anacostia, Washington, D.C.

In the same year NACW was founded, breakthrough came in 1893 when Colorado was the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote. After that a domino effect causing other states to follow suit behind Colorado: Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Alaska and Illinois in 1913, Montana and Nevada in 1914, New York in 1917, Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918 until a national legislation passed in 1920 allowing women to vote.

Even though Black women were given the right to vote in 1920 and Black men were guaranteed the right to vote by the 15th Amendment in 1870, several tactics were created to prevent Blacks from voting. All, but few, Blacks could afford the Poll Tax, qualify for the Grandfather Clause (if your Grandfather could vote then so could you) or pass the literacy test; few of the many strategies set in place to stop Blacks from voting. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned the local laws and traditions used to prevent Black women and men from voting.

Leading to the Voting Rights Act, a chronicle key political events and leaders influenced eliminating grievances for equal rights for women, which allowed for the concept for Women’s History Month to exist. Prior to the women’s movement in the 60s, the women’s right began to take notice on a national scale when the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention occurred in Seneca Falls, NY. At the women’s right convention, Frederick Douglass gave persuasive arguments to supporters and non-supporters attending the convention to sign the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, detailing their reasons for equal rights and set the agenda for the women’s rights movement. Thanks to Douglass, twelve Resolutions were adopted asking for equal rights for women and women’s voting rights.

The women’s movement grew attention during the 60s, when Shirley Chisholm co-founded National Organization for Women (NOW) and founder of the organizations first chapter, New York NOW. Chisholm along with other NOW members worked together to stand against racial, sexual, classism and homophobic oppression of power and privilege by a few.

After the 60s, America celebrated Women’s History Week in accordance with International Women’s Day for the first time in 1978 in Sonoma County, CA. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration of Women’s History Week to a month, and March was accepted as Women’s History Month. The priorities of women’s rights issues has since shifted to a broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as affirmative action, immigration, media activism, welfare and health.

Despite the achievement of the women’s movement, the advancement of women should continue to be encouraged. The timeline is a brief summation on the success of the women’s movement.

Michelle Obama
First Black First Lady of the United States of America.

Susan E. Rice
First Black woman US Ambassador to the United Nations.

Anika Noni Rose
Disney’s first animated Black Princess.

Condoleezza Rice
First Black woman Secretary of State.

Stephanie Tubbs-Jones
First Black woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representative seat in Ohio’s 11th district in 1998.

Mae Jamison
First Black woman to travel in space aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

Gloria Gilmer
First Black woman to deliver the Cox-Talbot Address at the National Association of Mathematicians lecture in 1992.

Shirley Chisholm
First and only Black woman to run for President of the United States in 1972.

Willie Hobbs Moore
First Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Physics in the United States at the University of Michicagan in 1972.

Constance Baker Motley
First Black woman federal judge in 1966.

Lorraine Hansberry
Wrote first Broadway production written by a Black woman in 1961, A Raisin in the Sun.

Althea Gibson
First Black woman to compete at the U.S. Championships in 1950. In 1956, becomes first Black woman to win a Grand Slam title, winning the French Open. A year later, first Black woman to win Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles title.

Euphemia Lofton Haynes
First Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics in the United States in 1943 from Catholic University.

Madame CJ Walker
First Black woman millionaire when she toured the country promoting her hair products for Black women and training sales agents.

Bessie Coleman
First Black woman licensed Pilot in 1921.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Pioneering Black feminist and civil rights leader against lynching.

Octavia V. Rogers Albert
Interviewed freed slaves after Emancipation to make a collection of narratives, The House of Bondage, Charlotte Brooks and Others Slaves in 1890.