#HiddenHerstory

[trascapades]

🎨#ArtIsAWeapon

#Artwork: Ethiopia, 1921

#Artist: Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

Information and images from @nmaahc - Born #OnThisDay [June 9] in 1877, Meta Vaux Warrick created art that drew heavily from Afrocentric themes. She was known primarily as a sculptor, but also wrote poetry and painted...

The exposition America’s Making ran for two weeks in 1921 in a New York City armory, intended to celebrate the contributions of the nation’s immigrants. W. E. B. Du Bois, the noted writer, philosopher, and editor, organized the “Americans of Negro Lineage” section of the exposition. He commissioned Fuller to create an artwork that would symbolize the musical and industrial contributions of African Americans to the development of the United States. Fuller, who had studied both in Paris and at the Pennsylvania Museum School of the Industrial Arts, opted to take a different conceptual direction with her allegorical sculpture Ethiopia (1921). Referring to African Americans, Fuller wrote, “Here was a group who had once made history and now after a long sleep was awaking, gradually unwinding the bandage of its mummied past and looking out on life again, expectant but unafraid and with at least a graceful gesture.” Created at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, Ethiopia is widely considered the first Pan-African American work of art...

Warrick’s work represented a new black identity that emerged during the Negro Renaissance. Follow the link in our bio to learn more. #HiddenHerstory #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory

Image 1: 📸 Gift of the Fuller Family, Copyright Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

Image 2: 📸 Courtesy of Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

#MetaVauxWarrick #BlackArtists #Sculpture #BlackWomenArtists #BlackGirlArtGeeks

MORE INFO ABOUT META VAUX WARRICK FULLER:

[sugamama69]

RP from Smithsonian National Museum African American History and Culture #NMAAHC #OnThisDay 100 years ago, the 19th Amendment was ratified, formally granting women the right to vote. African American women were largely excluded from the growing women’s suffrage movement because of their race. Early suffragettes like Mary Church Terrell and Charlotte Forte Grimke took up the cause, despite the racism they faced. In 1913, Ida B. Wells formed the Alpha Suffrage Club, believed to be the first organization focused on African American women’s suffrage in the United States. After the passage of the 19th Amendment, African American women still faced barriers exercising their right to vote. This could include waiting hours to register, facing violence, or taking new tests. It took 95 years—3 generations of African American voters—after the 1870 Enforcement Acts, before Congress would enforce equal voting rights for African American men and women, with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 2013, SCOTUS struck down a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, holding that the racist practices which necessitated the law no longer present a problem. #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory #HiddenHerstory https://www.instagram.com/p/CECM0KKJE8H/?igshid=1xtb4jzx1ztox

[usnatarchives]

To mark the 50th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm’s historic entry into the U.S. House of Representatives, her oath of office and a record from her service on the House Rules Committee is now on display at the National Archives Museum from February 2 through April 9, 2019.

When Shirley Chisholm took her oath of office on January 21, 1969, she was the only new woman to enter Congress that term and just one of nine African American members in the House of Representatives. 

As a freshman member, Chisholm did not hesitate to speak up and—when needed—make herself heard. As a Representative for Brooklyn, New York, she vigorously appealed her appointment to the Committee on Agriculture and persisted until she was reassigned to the Veterans Affairs Committee. She accepted the change, remarking “there are a lot more veterans in my district than trees.” 

In 1972, she was also the first woman and the first African American to seek the Democratic Presidential nomination as well as a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971.

In 1977, Shirley Chisholm made history again when she became the first black woman and second woman ever to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee, which sets the conditions for debating legislative bills on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

In the August 3, 1978, minutes from the committee’s hearing on proposed legislation to extend the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, Chisholm expressed her support for the amendment. The next day, she introduced a bill calling for a vote on the ERA deadline extension legislation, which ultimately passed Congress on October 6. The ERA remains unratified.

During her seven congressional terms, “Fighting Shirley” was an outspoken champion for economic justice and racial and gender equality. Shirley Chisholm died on January 1, 2005, at age 80.

This Featured Document is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation, through the generous support of The Boeing Company.

Photo: Shirley Chisholm, shortly after her election to Congress in 1968. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7452354

[supportblackart]

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Via @nmaahc 🔈🔉🔊 Hear the voices of the formerly enslaved in the collection of the @librarycongress. From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Works Project (FWP) captured the voices of the formerly enslaved. Paulina Johnson and Felice Boudreaux (pictured here), sisters, were once enslaved on the plantation of Dermat Martine, near Opelousas, Louisiana. As their enslavers were French, they are inclined to use a Creole patois than English. Turn the volume up to hear an excerpt from Pauline on their experience as enslaved children. The voice is a re-enactment of the words of Pauline documented by the FWP. For more stories visit LOC.GOV and search “federal writers project” or visit @nmaahc’s website (LINK IN @NMAAHC’s BIO) for our latest blog “To Freedom: Voices of the formerly Enslaved.” #SupportBlackArt #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory #HiddenHerstory #MerryChristmas https://www.instagram.com/p/Br1QktYjNlA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1n7nafs493wwo

[mdsc951]

Mahalia Jackson was born #OnThisDay in 1911. Jackson sang what many called the soundtrack of the civil rights movement. Full of power and spiritual resolve, Jackson used her singing talent to inspire, nourish and strengthen the participants of the civil rights movement. As a child growing up in New Orleans, Jackson sang at church and as a teen traveled and performed with gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey. For many, Mahalia Jackson's voice represented mystery and majesty. In describing the legendary gospel singer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who chose her to sing at the March on Washington in 1963, said, "A voice like hers comes along once in a millennium." Jackson won 5 Grammy Awards, including Best Soul-Gospel Performance in 1977 for the song, “How I Got Over.” Read more on our blog: https://s.si.edu/3TXGR0T #APeoplesJourney #HiddenHerstory "The Queen of Gospel," Mahalia Jackson, belts out hits in the Universal Studio, 1961. Photograph by Lacey Crawford. Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (at Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) https://www.instagram.com/p/CkQR7oGLah_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nmaahc]

The Washerwomen Strike of 1881 in a Post-Civil War South

In the decades following the Civil War, many African American women found employment as domestic workers. During this time, despite the intense labor and resources their work required, the average black laundress earned wages from $4 to $8 a month.

In the Summer of 1881, twenty African American laundresses formed the Washing Society to advocate for higher wages, respect, and autonomy over their work. The Washing Society was a trade organization that used door-to-door canvassing to recruit laundresses in Atlanta into the organization. In just three weeks, 3,000 black women laundresses in Atlanta, Georgia went on strike.

The Washing Society members successfully established a flat rate of $1 per dozen pounds of wash, effectively raising their own wages in spite of the City Council’s imposed fees, and local authorities’ arrests and home visits. Other workers in the domestic industry such as cooks, maids, and nurse were inspired by the efforts of the Washing Society. The strike served as a reminder to the community, of the importance of African American labor in the post-Civil War South.

[kimilat]

In August 1962, eighteen African American people from Sunflower County, Mississippi, including activist Fannie Lou Hamer, traveled 26 miles from Ruleville, Mississippi to the courthouse in Indianola, Mississippi, to register to vote. Upon their arrival at the courthouse, the group was intimidated by men with rifles in the back of their pickup trucks who were circling the building. Upon entering the courthouse, the prospective voters were denied the right to vote due to an unfair literacy test. When the group was on the way home, Indianola police pulled the bus over and arrested the driver for driving a bus “of the wrong color.” Hamer used her powerful voice to sing songs that helped to calm the other passengers. Her voice would prove to be a powerful force in the movement for years to come.⠀ ⠀ This month marks 100 years since the #19thAmendment went into effect. Follow #19SuffrageStories to hear from @librarycongress @USNatArchives @smithsonian about the many, diverse women who fought for voting rights, long before and after the amendment passed. #HiddenHerstory #APeoplesJourney⠀ ⠀ 📸 Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture © The Louis Draper Archive - #regrann Reposted from @nmaahc https://www.instagram.com/p/CDtr0DjA5mN/?igshid=9fm87xspa2yl

[trascapades]

⚖️#ArtIsAWeapon

#WomensHistoryMonth

Image: Civil rights activist #MyrlieEvers speaking at a NAACP rally in 1963

📸 Courtesy of Bettmann/Getty Images

Reposted from @nmaahc Civil Rights activist Myrlie Evers-Williams was born #OnThisDay in 1933. This Vicksburg, Mississippi, native was an honor student at the HBCU Alcorn A&M College. While enrolled, she met and married Medgar Evers.

The couple opened and managed the first @NAACP Mississippi State office and lived under constant threat of violence and death. Medgar was assassinated outside of the family’s home in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. Following her husband’s murder, Evers-Williams continued to advocate for voting rights, economic stability, fair housing, equal education, and equal justice.

In 1976 she told the Los Angeles Sentinel that she feared the progress made in previous generations could be lost if people did not take action. “It appears that attitudes have changed and those rights we fought and died for are being taken away from us,” she said.

Evers-Williams published her autobiography ��Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be” (1999). Additionally, she edited a book of her late husband’s journals, speeches, and letters, titled, “The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero's Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches" in 2005. #SmithsonianWHM #HiddenHerstory #WomensHistoryMonth

#MedgarEvers

[andreastalentmanagement]

Harriet Tubman meant business while she was here on this earth, she left her mark in this world. Make sure you’re leaving your mark. Do great things, and honestly. Repost from @nmaahc • In 1863, Harriet Tubman helped free more than 700 African Americans during the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina – a feat that earned her the nickname “General Tubman.” Tubman guided Union soldiers along the Combahee River to capture Confederate land; becoming the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War. Tubman also served as a spy, cook, scout and nurse in the Union Army during the Civil War. #HiddenHerstory #MilitaryAppreciationMonth #APeoplesJourney 📸Collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture shared with the Library of Congress https://www.instagram.com/p/CDopi5wANYm/?igshid=1b2e7nq13ibiy

[doriansbookshelf]

Reposted from @nmaahc Poet and writer Margaret Walker used her first novel, Jubilee, to craft a semi-fictional account about a biracial enslaved woman born during the American Civil War. The book, which took thirty years to write, takes place in Georgia and Alabama, spanning slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Literature professor Joyce Ann Joyce has cited Jubilee as “the first truly historical black American novel.” Critical studies of the book emphasize Jubilee as the prototype for novels that present black history from a black perspective. ⠀ ⠀ Walker, who was born in 1915 into a family of storytellers, musicians, ministers, and teachers, first heard about slavery through bedtime stories that her maternal grandmother would tell her. As she grew older, she pushed her grandmother for more details with the intent of writing stories based on what she heard. Later on in life, she conducted extensive research on every facet of the black experience regarding the Civil War. She stated, “most of my life I have been involved with writing this story about my great-grandmother, and even if Jubilee were never considered an artistic or commercial success, I would still be happy to just finish it.” #HiddenHerstory #APeoplesJourney⠀ ⠀ 📸 Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, © William R. Ferris⠀ - #regrann https://www.instagram.com/p/B92gQp6gyv7/?igshid=891jple8k2ue

[smithsonian]

A story “Mad Men” overlooked: Caroline R. Jones, who spearheaded advertising that changed how Americans thought about some of the world's most popular brands.

Jones built a trailblazing career as an advertising executive, starting as a copywriter in the early 1960s and eventually founding multiple firms. Her clients included American Express, the National Urban League and Kentucky Fried Chicken (her agency developed the slogan “We Do Chicken Right!”).

Throughout her career, Jones struggled against the assumption that her ads should only address African American consumers. Many times her targeted ad campaigns were so successful that companies used them for national work—but, in one case, replaced African American figures with white models.

Jones died in 2001, but her story lives on through items of hers at our National Museum of American History. More about her life on their blog. 

[mdsc951]

'Willa Beatrice Brown-Chappell', born OnThis Day in 1906, achieved numerous firsts. Most notably, she was the first African American woman to earn her pilot's license in the United States. Brown-Chappell also earned a mechanic’s license, making her the first woman to hold both that and a pilot’s license. Additionally, she was the first African American woman Congressional candidate, and the first African American officer in the United States Civil Air Patrol. Brown-Chappell dedicated her life to fighting for gender and racial equality in the military. Brown lobbied for integration of the U.S. Army Air Corps and the Civilian Pilot Training Program. She is also a co-founder of the Cornelius Coffey School of Aeronautics, the first private flight school owned and operated by African Americans. She is responsible for the training of hundreds of pilots, including many who became part of the elite Tuskegee Airmen. #HiddenHerstory #APeoplesJourney Willa B. Brown Photograph, Accession number 1987-0095, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. (at DuSable Museum of African American History) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeeQM3qJLd7/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nmaahc]

Hidden Herstory: African American Women and the Struggle for Equality

African American women have always been part of the African American struggle for full equality. Early freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Anna Julia Cooper fought against multiple oppressions.

 In our new YouTube video, scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw explains how the intersections of these oppressions manifest today in the term she coined, "intersectionality."

[schooloffeminism]

#APeoplesJourney: African American Women and the Struggle for Equality African American women have always been part of the African American struggle for full equality. Learn how early freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Anna Julia Cooper fought against multiple oppressions. Scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw explains how the intersections of these oppressions manifest today in the term she coined, "intersectionality." Voiced by Jouelzy and scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. #HiddenHerstory

[parkhslib]

#WomensHistoryMonth

According to WomensHistoryMonth.gov, “Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as ‘Women’s History Week.’ Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as ‘Women’s History Week.’ In…

[trascapades]

🏳️‍🌈✊🏿📷 #ArtIsAWeapon #Stonewall50 #HappyPride Reposted from @nmaahc - African American women have always been part of the African American struggle for full equality, even as they navigate multiple intersections of identity. Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson (1st image) was a prominent figure in the Stonewall Rebellion and an advocate for LGBTQ rights. In 1970, she co-founded S.T.A.R. with Sylvia Rivera. [Swipe ⬅️] Lucy Hicks Anderson (1886-1954), in the 2nd image, was an African American woman of trans experience who worked as a chef and an entrepreneur during the Prohibition era. She was arrested for charges of perjury after being accused of “lying” on her marriage certificate. Jackie Shane (3rd image) was a pioneering African American trans woman singer who was nominated for a Best Historical Album Grammy award for her album, “Any Other Way.” Stormé DeLarverie was a drag king and lesbian entertainer who performed at the Jewel Box Revue, North America's first racially integrated drag revue. She said this about Stonewall, “It was a rebellion, it was an uprising, it was a civil rights disobedience – it wasn't no damn riot.” Learn more about this community with our new LGBTQ+ collections portal. (link in bio) #HiddenHerstory #SmithsonianPride 📸: 1. Photographic slide of Marsha P. Johnson at a New York City Gay Pride Parade, © Ron Simmons, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Ron Simmons, 2. Lucy Hicks Anderson, 3. Jackie Shane publicity photo. #LGBTQ #lGBTQIA #Pride #Liberation #StonewallRebellion #FreedomFighters #LoveIsLove #BlackTransWomen #MarshaPJohnson #JackieShane #SylviaRivera #StorméDeLarverie #TraScapades #ArtIsAWeapon (at The Stonewall Inn) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzRIxvplcl5/?igshid=sy98bpvpree2