This Women's History Month, The Wright Museum is celebrating women who are "Beyond Strong." From politics, to education, to civil right and a hand full of "firsts," click through this gallery to find out about black women leaders you may or may not know.
*The Wright Museum does not own the rights to any of the images used in this document.
2. Marian
Anderson
Anderson was an active
supporter of the civil
rights movement, giving
benefit concerts for the
Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) and the
NAACP.
1897 -1993
3. Toni Cade Bambara
Toni Cade Bambara,
born Miltona Mirkin
Cade, was an African-
American author,
documentary film-
maker, social activist and
college professor.
1939 -
1995
4. Roberta Byrd Barr
African American
educator, civil rights
leader, actress,
librarian, and television
personality.
1919 - 1993
5. Ruby Doris Smith
Robinson
Ruby served as the
Executive Secretary
Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
from its earliest days in
1960 until her death in
October 1967.
1942 - 1967
6. Katie D. Morgan Barton
She spent her life
fighting for black
equality and serving her
community. Katie never
envisioned she would
become the first black
woman to serve on the
Pasco City Council.
1918 - 2010
7. Shirley Graham Du Bois
Shirley Graham Du Bois
was an American award-
winning author,
playwright, composer,
and activist for African-
Americans and other
causes.
1896 -
1977
8. Dorothy Celeste Boulding Ferebee
Dorothy Celeste
Boulding Ferebee was
an African-American
obstetrician and civil
rights activist.
1898 -
1980
9. Margaret Bush Wilson
Prominent 20th Century
Civil Rights leader, who
served as the first
African American
woman to head the
national NAACP board of
directors.
1919 - 2009
10. Vivian
Jones
Vivian Juanita Malone
Jones was one of the first
two African American
students to enroll at the
University of Alabama in
1963 and the university's
first African American
graduate. (Pictured: Registering
for classes at the University of
Alabama)
1942 - 2005
11. Yolanda King
Yolanda Denise King was
an American activist and
first–born child of Coretta
Scott King and civil rights
leader Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
1955 - 2007
12. Vada Somerville
Founder of the NAACP Los
Angeles Chapter, first
African American dentist,
and was a leader in civic
involvement organizations,
including the Los Angeles
League of Women’s Voters,
the Council on Public
Affairs.
1882 - 1973
13. Juanita Jackson
Mitchell
Juanita Jackson Mitchell,
the first African-American
woman to practice law in
Maryland, was a civil
rights leader, community
activist, and lawyer.
1913 - 1992
14. Victoria Jackson Gray
Adams
American civil rights
activist from Hattiesburg,
Mississippi and was one of
the founding members of
the influential Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party.
(Pictured in center – Photo Source
NY Times)
1926 - 2006
15. Frances Mary Albrier
She fought for social
equality and justice
throughout her life and
received numerous
awards for her lifetime of
service, including the
NAACP’s “Fight for
Freedom Award.”
1898 -
1987
16. Prathia Hall
Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall was a
leader and activist in the
1960s Civil Rights
Movement, womanist
theologian, and ethicist.
1940 - 2002
17. Mildred Loving
Loving was thrust into the civil
rights movement when she and
her husband were arrested by
the sheriff of Central Point, Va.,
for violating Virginia's Racial
Integrity Act of 1924; she was
part of the 1967 Supreme Court
case that struck down anti-
miscegenation laws, which is still
on the books in 16 states.
1939-2008
18. Clara Luper
In 1958, Luper, then a high
school history teacher,
helped ignite a national
movement by leading a
sit-in protest at the lunch
counter of the Katz Drug
Store in Oklahoma City.
1923 - 2011
19. Barbara Charline Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan
was a lawyer, educator, an
American politician, and a
leader of the Civil Rights
movement.
1936 -
1996
20. Nina Simone
Nina Simone was an
American singer,
songwriter, pianist,
arranger, and civil rights
activist who worked in a
broad range of musical
styles including classical,
jazz, blues, folk, R&B,
gospel, and pop.
1933 - 2003
21. Patricia Stephens Due
Patricia Stephens Due was
one of the leading African-
American civil rights
activists in the United
States, especially in her
home state of Florida.
1939 – 2012
22. Pauli Murray
Anna Pauline "Pauli"
Murray was an American
civil rights activist,
women's rights activist,
lawyer, and author.
1910 - 1985
23. Josephine St. Pierre
Ruffin
An African-American
publisher, journalist, civil
rights leader, suffragist,
and editor of Woman's
Era, the first newspaper
published by and for
African-American women.
1842 - 1924
24. Maria Stewart
Her dedication to fighting
black oppression through
teaching, writing, and
speaking was relentless.
1803 -
1879
25. Mary Church Terrell
Mary Church Terrell was
one of the first African-
American women to earn
a college degree, and
became known as a
national activist for civil
rights and suffrage.
1863 -
1954
26. Harriet Tubman
Little known fact: did you
know that the former
slave also served as a spy
for the Union during the
Civil War and was the first
woman in American
history to lead a military
expedition?
c. 1922 - 1913
28. Amelia Boynton
Robinson
Civil rights pioneer who
championed voting rights
for African Americans;
brutally beaten for
helping to lead a 1965 civil
rights march, which
became known as Bloody
Sunday.
1911 - 2015
29. Josephine
Baker
A dancer and singer who
became wildly popular in
France during the 1920s.
She also devoted much of
her life to fighting racism.
1906 - 1975
30. Anna Julia
Cooper
Anna Julia Cooper spent
her lifetime of over a
century redefining the
limitations and
opportunities for women
of color in a society set up
for their disempowerment
and subjugation.
1858 -
1964
31. Amy Ashwood Garvey
Amy Ashwood, feminist,
playwright, lecturer, and
pan-Africanist, was one of
the founding members of
the Universal Negro
Improvement Association
in Jamaica, and the first
wife of Marcus Garvey.
1897 -1969
Notas do Editor
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Anderson entertains a group of overseas veterans and WACs on the stage of the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium, 1945
National Archives and Records Administration
Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/11/writing-and-storytelling/
Image Ownership: Public Domain http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/barton-katie-d-morgan-1918-2010
Image: Closing plenary at the 2006 Out & Equal Workplace Summit. Keynote Speaker: Yolanda King. Entertainment: Chicago Gay Men's Chorus.
Source: http://flickr.com/photos/tyreseus/244919119/
Juanita Jackson Mitchell (1913-1992), seated in office. Paul Henderson, circa 1951. Maryland Historical Society, HEN.00.B1-040.
https://hendersonphotos.wordpress.com/baltimores-black-history/people/henderson-collection-reference-photograph-box-00-b1-110/
From left: Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Jackson Gray and Annie Devine in Washington in 1965.
Corbis
Image from Magnum Photos. Source: http://pinkexplosions.com/2013/02/03/women-of-black-history-month-prathia-hall/
The Oklahoman , June 10, 2011 Source: http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2006/07/who-is-clara-luper.html
U.S. Congress, restored by Adam Cuerden - Black Americans in Congress. Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives Notes: Published in Black Americans in Congress 1870–2007, published by the Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives. The image is on page 453 as numbered in the document; 461 as automatically numbered by the PDF.
Public Domain
Portrait of the singer Nina Simone, October 1969. Photo: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Source: http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/nina-simone-documentary.html
Patricia Stephens Due at a memorial service in Gainesville.
Image Number
DUE002
Year
1991
Date Note
Photographed in June 1991.
Series Title
General: General collection
Specific: Patricia Stephens Due Papers, N2015-1, Box 10, Folder 3
Source: https://www.floridamemory.com/fpc/Due/DUE002.jpg
Carolina Digital Library and Archives - Carolina Digital Library and Archives. "Murray, Pauli, 1910-1985." 5 July 2007. Online image. UNC University Library. Accessed 8 April 2011. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/vir_museum&CISOPTR=431.
This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain in the United States. See the NPS website and NPS copyright policy for more information. Source: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/buildings/terell2.jpg
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/02900/02909v.jpg;
National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Library of Congress).
Published in: American women : a Library of Congress guide for the study of women's history and culture in the United States / edited by Sheridan Harvey ... [et al.]. Washington : Library of Congress, 2001, p. 417.
