Famous and Notable Black Women Posters, “Ho...-Hu...-”
for the social studies classroom, home schoolers and theme decor.

Billie Holiday
Nora Holt
belle hooks

Lena Horne
Whitney Houston

Billie Holiday
née Eleanora Fagan
b. 4-7-1915; Philadelphia, PA
d. 7-17-1959

Billie Holiday, nicknamed “Lady Day”, was a jazz singer and songwriter, manipulating phrasing and tempo with her voice. Holiday took her stage name from actress Billie Dove.

A statue of jazz singer Billie Holiday is located at the corner of Lafayette & Pennsylvania Ave, Baltimore, MD.

Nora Holt (no commerically available poster)

Nora Holt
née Lena Douglas
b. c. 1885-1890; Kansas City, KS
d. 1-25-1974; Los Angeles, CA

Nora Holt has been described as classical composer-blues singer-cabaret star-educator-radio personality-courtesan-public school teacher-magazine editor-social activist. (Hot from Harlem author Bill Reed)

Probably the first African American to be awarded a master's degree in music, Holt's thesis was a piece for symphony orchestra called Rhapsody on Negro Themes.

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, bell hooks (no commerically available poster)

bell hooks
née Gloria Jean Watkins
b. 9-25-1952; Hopkinsville, KY

bell hooks, the pen name of Gloria Jan Watkins, is a feminist and social activist whose writng focuses on the interconnectivity of race, class and gender. She is a professor of English and has published numerous books of poetry and nonfiction.

belle hooks quotes ~
• “No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women... When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.”
• “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is-it’s to imagine what is possible.”
• “When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.”
• “Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment...‘dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love -- which is to transform us.’ Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.”
• “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.”
• “Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.”
• “When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us.”
• “I am passionate about everything in my life – first and foremost, passionate about ideas. And that's a dangerous person to be in this society, not just because I'm a woman, but because it's such a fundamentally anti-intellectual, anti-critical thinking society.”
• “Being oppressed means the absence of choices.”
• “One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library...”
• “I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer ... education as the practice of freedom ... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created.”

Lena Horne
b. 6-30-1917; Brooklyn
d. 5-9-2010; NYC

Lena Horne, a singer and actress, has recorded and performed alone and with notables such as Duke Ellington. Horne's career spanned from 1933 as a member of the Cotton Club chorus line, through film, TV, nightclubs, concerts and recording to 2000. Lena Horne was also a civil rights activist working with Eleanor Roosevelt and Medgar Evers.

• An Evening with Lena Horne, DVD

Whitney Houston
b. 8-9-1963; Newark, NJ
d. 2-11-2012; Beverly Hills, CA

Whitney Houston is noted as one of the best selling singers in the world with over 200 million albums and singles.

Alberta Hunter
b. 4-1-1895; Memphis, TN
d. 10-17-1984

Blues singer, songwriter, and nurse, Alberta Hunter started her musical career in the early 1920s, and became a successful jazz and blues recording artist. Hunter retired from performing in the 1950s and became a nurse; she resumed her singing career in her eighties.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault
b. 2-27-1942; Due West, South Carolina

Journalist and foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, and the Public Broadcasting Service, Charlayne Hunter-Gault was the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia.

Zora Neale Hurston
b. 1-7-1891; AL (raised in FL)
d. 1-28-1960

“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.” Their Eyes Were Watching God

• more Zora Neale Hurston posters