African American History and Women

What's included? See note below timeline.

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Women and African American History: 1980-1989

1980

• Angela Davis ran for Vice President on the Communist Party ticket

1981

1982

1983

• The Color Purple, a novel by Alice Walker published in 1982, won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, making Alice Walker the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction

• Toni Morrison became the first African American winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

1984

• Leontine T. C. Kelly became the first woman bishop of any major American religious denomination, the United Methodist Church

• Vanessa Williams became first African American selected as Miss America; when she resigned after a scandal involving nude photographs, Suzette Charles, Miss New Jersey, became the second African American Miss America

1985

• Patricia Roberts Harris died (lawyer, politician, diplomat)

1986

• Willie B. Barrow became President of Operation PUSH

• Ella Baker died (civil rights activist)

1987

• Carrie Saxon Perry, elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, becoming the first African American woman mayor of a large American city

1988

• Florence Griffith-Joyner becomes the first American woman to win four medals in one Olympics

1989

• Oprah Winfrey, first African American woman to host a nationally-syndicated talk show, founded Harpo Productions to produce television shows and movies

• (January 29) Barbara Harris elected first woman bishop of the Episcopal Church

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[1492-1699] [1700-1799] [1800-1829] [1830-1839] [1840-1849] [1850-1859] [1860-1863] [1864-1869] [1870-1879] [1880-1889] [1890-1899] [1900-1909] [1910-1919] [1920-1929] [1930-1939] [1940-1949] [1950-1959] [1960-1969] [1970-1979] [1980-1989] [1990-1999] [2000-]
[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