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.
Tag Archives: African Descent
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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.
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.
Etta Horn
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.
Izora Armstead
American singer best known as one half of the duo Two Tons O’ Fun, which later became The Weather Girls.
Clara Byrd Baker
American educator and community leader
Amanimalel
7th century BCE queen of Napata, a kingdom of Kush.