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

Gwen Ifill
Judith Jamison
Mahalia Jackson
Shirley Jackson

Harriet Jacobs
Mae Jemison
Georgia Douglas Johnson
Sissieretta Jones

Gwen Ifill
b. 9-29-1955; NYC, NY

Journalist, television newscaster, political analyst, and author Gwen Ifill is the managing editor and moderator for Washington Week (PBS) and a senior correspondent for The NewsHour (PBS). She moderated the 2004 and 2008 Vice Presidential debates, and is the author of the book The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

Dancing Spirit by Judith Jamison

Judith Jamison
b. 5-10-1943: Philadelphia, PA

Judith Jamison, who studied dance from age 10, was invited to dance in 1964 by Agnes de Mille in her ballet “The Four Marys” at the American Ballet Theatre. In 1965 Jamison joined the Alvin Ailey Dance company and became their principal dancer through 1980. Among her notable roles was Ailey's “Pas de Duke” (1977) with Mikhail Baryshnikov set to the music of Duke Ellington, she starred in the Broadway musical “Sophisticated Ladies”, also set to Ellington's music.

Mahalia Jackson
“The Queen of Gospel Music”
b. 10-26-1911; New Orleans, LA
d. 1-27-1972; Chicago

Mahalia Jackson was an internationally known gospel singer and civil rights activist. Her signature song was “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”.

• Gospels, Spirituals & Hymns by Mahalia Jackson, Audio CD

Shirley Jackson
b. 8-5-1946; Washington, DC

Physicist Shirley Jackson, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked at Fermilab, CERN, and Bell Laboratories. She has taught at Stanford, Aspen Center for Physics, and Rutgers, currently serving as President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jackson is also the first woman and first African-American to serve as Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Harriet Jacobs
b. 1813; Edenton, NC
d. 3-7-1897; Washington, DC

Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, a book by former slave Harriet Jacobs, was published in 1861. It was the first slave narrative written by a black woman.

Jacobs was born and grew up a slave. She was abused repeatedly by her owners, and she spent seven years hidden in an attic to escape him. Later, she fled to be with her children and lived as a runaway slave. She was eventually bought by a woman who gave Harriet her freedom. (Text for a poster that is no longer available.)

Quote:
“The bill of sale!? Those words struck me like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York!... I well know the value of that bit of paper, but much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it. I am deeply grateful to the generous friend who procured it, but I despise the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or his.” The quote refers to Cornelia Willis, her employer and friend, buying her freedom for $300 in 1852.

FYI - Jacobs published her story with the name ‘Linda Brent’.

• History Through Literature posters

Mae Jemison
b. 10-17-1956; Decatur, AL

Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, served as a STS-47 Endeavour Mission Specialist. Jemison is also a medical doctor, and served in the Peace Corps.

• Mae Jemison in Women of Science composite poster
• Find Where The Wind Goes: Moments From My Life

Georgia Douglas Johnson
b. 9-10-1880; Atlanta, GA
d. 5-14-1966; Washington, DC

Georgia Douglas Johnson was a teacher, poet and playwright, noted also for her “Saturday Salons” that she hosted for forty years. Here her friends, such as Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Anne Spencer, Richard Bruce Nugent, Alain Locke, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimke and Eulalie Spence “could freely discuss politics and personal opinions.” Johnson called her home “Half Way House” for friends traveling through Washington, DC.

• Harlem Poets Poster Set

Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones
b. 1-5-1868; Portsmouth, Virginia
d. 6-24-1933; Providence, RI

Opera soprano Sissieretta Jones was known as the “Black Patti” in reference to the Italian singer Adelina Patti. In addition to singing for four presidents (Benjamin Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt) she sang for the British royal family, toured with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and had great international success.

Her opera career in the US was stymied by racism so she formed the Black Patti Troubadours which toured the vaudeville circuit. She left performing in 1915 to care for her mother, and died penniless in 1933.

Lois Mailou Jones - Les Fetiches Wall Poster

Lois Mailou Jones
b. 11-3-1905; Boston, MA
d. 6-9-1998

Painter Lois Mailou Jones was a noted teacher, professor and mentor. Her oil painting Les Fetiches, done in Paris during her first sabbatical from Howard University, combines traditional African forms with Western techniques and materials, and is one of her best known works.

• more Notable Women Artists Posters
• more masks posters

Barbara Jordan
b. 2-21-1936; Houston, TX
d. 1-17-1996

Barbara Jordan liked to tell people that when she was born she already had three strikes against her. She was born poor, black and female at a time when to ba any one of those things was to be almost totally without power in America. Yet Barbara Jordan eventually took her place among the most powerful people in the nation. Barbara Jordan strongly believed that it is not enough just to have power – you must use it to benefit others.

Barbara Jordan was born in a poor section of Houston on February 21, 1936. At that time, segregation – of whites and blacks – was still an accepted way of life in the South. Blacks could not eat in the same restaurants as whites. They had to drink from separate “Coloreds Only” water fountains. And they were expected to sit in the back of the bus, and give up their seat if a white person wanted it. But Barbara's parents didn't stress how difficult life could be for blacks in America. Instead, they constantly told their children to become educated. As Barbara's father told her: “No man can take away your brain.” In high school, Barbara joined the debate team and discovered the special gift that would serve her throughout her life: a rich, powerful speaking voice.

Barbara decided she wanted to become a lawyer (see Edith Spurlock Sampson). She went to Texas Southern University near her home, and then on to Boston University Law School. After graduation, she moved back to Texas, setup a law office and ran for the Texas state legislature. Twice in a row she lost to a wealthier, better-known white candidate. But Ms. Jordan didn't give up, and in 1966 she was elected to the Texas state senate – making her the first black woman ever elected to a state office in Texas. In 1972, she was elected to the U.S. congress as a member of the House of Representatives. And in 1976, she received another great honor when she became the first black woman ever chosen to give the “keynote” speech of the Democratic National Convention.

In 1978, Rep. Jordan retired from politics and accepted an offer to become a teacher at the University of Texas. She took the job because she wanted to go back to Texas and help the people who had helped her first get elected 12 years earlier. All of her life, Barbara Jordan worked to make life better for other people – especially poor black people. When she died in 1996, she was eulogized as a hero. But she only wanted to be remembered as “someone who made a difference.” - text from no longer available poster

Barbara Jordan quotes ~
• “Art has the potential to unify. It can speak in many languages without a translator. Art does not discriminate - it ignores external irrelevancies and opts for quality, talent and competence.” 1993
• “Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.”
• “I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’ ”
• “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

A Kind of Grace: The Autobiography of the World's Greatest Female Athlete

Jackie Joyner-Kersee
b. 3-3-1962; East St. Louis, IL

Jackie Joyner-Kersee won three gold, one silver and two bronze Olympic medals. She has been voted the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated.