African Descent Archives - Page 30 of 51

Wangari Maathai

Kenyan environmental activist

Rachel Pringle Polgreen

In the 1770s and 1780s, hotelier and brothel owner Rachel Pringle Polgreen was one of the first mulatto women to own and operate a business in colonial Barbados.

Laura Wheeler Waring

With Edmonia Lewis, Meta Vaux Warrick, and Augusta Savage, Waring is one of the foremost Black American female artists of the first half of the twentieth century.

Amy Sherald

Rising to fame after being hand-picked by former First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait, Amy Sherald is today one of the best-known Black American artists.

Carrie Mae Weems

Decades before the #BlackLivesMatter movement stamped itself into our collective psyche, Carrie Mae Weems was living its message by example through provocative artwork about racial representation.

Etta Horn was a prominent welfare rights advocate. As an activist, she worked alongside other anti-poverty organizers to improve the living conditions of low-income DC residents. Though she had many successes, Horn is widely celebrated for her work with the Citywide Welfare Alliance.

Mary Treadwell

Mary Treadwell was a notable DC-based activist and community organizer. Treadwell is most noted for co-creating Youth Pride, Inc., a job-training program that assisted inner-city youth. She also advocated for the decriminalization of abortion, particularly as part of her work advocating for bodily autonomy as a form of Black liberation.

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Eleanor Holmes Norton was the first woman appointed to chair the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and continues to fight for DC statehood in her third decade as a congresswoman.

Mary P Burrill

Mary P. Burrill was a celebrated playwright whose works inspired many prominent writers of the New Negro Movement/Harlem Renaissance. She used her plays to confront many topics, including, but not limited to, lynching, the Black experience, and bodily autonomy for women.

Nkenge Touré

Nkenge Touré is an activist whose expansive collection of speeches and written works confront issues around reproductive justice, Black feminism, and women’s rights.