— Florynce Kennedy

BLACK VENUS, Starring Yahima Torres :Saartjie Baartman’s Story (Part 1/2)

Disturbing, but important, watch, think,share, repeat.

KCB

Rev. Addie Wyatt has passed away at the age of 88, at Advocate Trinity Hospital. Wyatt dedicated her life to fight for African-American and women’s rights. Her passion for social justice began when she was denied a job in 1941, as a typist, because she was black. She later became the first female international vice president of a major American Labor Union. TheChicago Sun-Times reports:

In 1941, a teenage Addie Wyatt applied for a job as a typist in Chicago’s meat-packing industry.

Black people weren’t needed for office jobs, she was told. If she wanted work, she’d have to roll up her sleeves, and step onto the shop floor — slopping stew into cans.

The Rev. Wyatt took that job, setting her life’s course as a tireless advocate for the rights of women, African-Americans and anyone else she felt wasn’t getting a fair shake in life.

“She always believed in being fair and honest, and she stood for what was right,” said the Rev. Wyatt’s sole surviving sibling, Maude McKay, 74, of Glenwood. “She just couldn’t take injustice.”

Wednesday, a crowd in Newark New Jersey gathered to celebrate the unveiling of tennis legend, Althea Gibson. Althea Gibson’s singles victory at the French Open in 1956 marked the first time an African-American had won a Grand Slam title. And the next year, after her historic run at Wimbledon, she did it again at the U.S. Open — 11 years before Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win the Open singles title. For two years, 1957 and 1958, Gibson was the No. 1 player in the world. 

“Althea participated in the civil rights movement with her tennis racquet,” said Frances Gray, Gibson’s friend, former caretaker and the co-founder of the Althea Gibson Foundation. “Everything on the tennis court was white — including the ball — certainly the person in front of her.

—

Cathay Williams, First black female to enlist in the Army

Photo from AllensCreations.com

Elizabeth Eckford, unbreakable.

— Pauli Murray - 1970

In 1908, Slowe was one of the sixteen original founders of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She was vital to the drafting of the sorority’s constitution and served as the chapter’s first president But it is very rarely known that in 1917 she became the first African-American woman to win a national title in any sport when she claimed the first women’s title at the American Tennis Association (ATA) national tournament in Baltimore.

African American women have long been a visible and important part of the American defense team. Here, Maj. Charity E. Adams and Capt. Abbie N. Campbell inspect the first contingent of black members of the Women’s Army Corps assigned to overseas service in WWII. Source: National Archives, 111-SC-20079. - National Ocean and Atmospheric Assoc.

Boss.