African American History and Women [page 2]

1925

• founding of the Hesperus Club of Harlem, the first women's auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

• Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong recorded "St. Louis Blues"

• Josephine Baker performed in Paris at "La Revue Negro"

• (June 4) Mary Murray Washington died (educator, founder of the Tuskegee Woman's Club, wife of Booker T. Washington)

1926

• first Negro History Week promoted by Carter G. Woodson

• YWCA adopted an interracial charter

• African American women were beaten in Birmingham, Alabama, for attempting to register to vote

• publication of Hallie Brown's Momespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, profiles of notable African American women

• Violette N. Anderson became the first African American woman attorney to present a case before the U.S. Supreme Court

• Bessie Coleman died (pilot)

1927

• Minnie Buckingham was appointed to fill her husband's remaining term in the West Virginia state legislature

• Selena Sloan Butler founded the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, focusing on segregated "colored" schools in the South (merged with PTA in 1970)

• Mary White Ovington published Portraits in Color, biographies of African American leaders

• funeral for actress Florence Mills drew more than 150,000 in Harlem

• Nella Larsen's novel, Quicksand, published

• Josephine Baker played in La Sirene des tropiques

• Tuskegee established a women's track team

• Coretta Scott King born (activist, singer)

• (February 10) Leontyne Price born (singer)

• (April 25) Althea Gibson born (tennis athlete, first African American to play in American Lawn Tennis Association championship, first African American to win at Wimbledon)

1928

• publication of An Autumn Love Cycle by Georgia Douglas Johnson

• (April 4) Maya Angelou born

1929

• Regina Anderson helped found Harlem's Negro Experimental Theater

• Augusta Savage won Rosenwald grant for Gamin' and used the funds to study in Europe

• Bessie Smith recorded "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"

• (May 16) Betty Carter born (jazz singer)

• (October) stock market crash, a sign of the oncoming Great Depression, where African Americans, including women, were usually the "last hired, first fired"

• (1929-1934) Maggie Lena Walker chaired Consolidated Bank and Trust, which she created by merging several Richmond, Virginia, banks

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[Biographies of Notable African American Women]

Events in this timeline include:

• events featuring African American women
• birth and death dates for many notable African American women
• general African American events which had significant impact on African American women and families as well as men
• events involving key women whose work influenced African American history, for instance the involvement of many European American women in anti-slavery work
• birth and death dates for key women whose work was important in African American history, for instance in anti-slavery or civil rights work

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