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

Alice Walker
A'lilia Walker
Madame C.J. Walker
Maggie Lena Walker
Margaret Walker
Dinah Washington

Ethel Waters
Faye Wattleton
Dorothy West
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Phillis Wheatley
Mary Lou Williams

Alice Walker
b. 2-9-1944; Eatonton, Georgia

The Color Purple is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by African-American author Alice Walker.

Madame C. J. Walker, Great Black Innovators Art Print

Madame C.J. Walker
b. 12-23-1867; Delta, Louisiana
d. 5-25-1919; Irvington, NY

Madame C. J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, was the daughter of ex-slaves. Yet, though she was born into poverty in 1867, she became a leading African American businessperson and the richest black woman of her time. Her childhood in rural Louisiana consisted of long hours in the cotton fields. Her family lived in a one-room shack. She married at age 14, and six years later her busband died of unknown causes. She eventually made her way to St. Louis. There, while experimenting with various chemicals, she discovered a mixture that supposedly stimulated hair growth. She began going door to door to well her new product. She also popularized the use of the modern hot comb, which allowed black women to straighten and style their thick hair. By combining her “Wonderful Hair Grower” and hot comb, she soon made a name for herself. She married a newspaperman named C. J. Walker. Although the marriage did not last, she chose to keep his name and was known from then on as Madam C.J. Walker. In the early 1900s, few avenues of opportunity were open to women. One that was, however, was women's cosmetics, and Madam Walker went into it with gusto. Her company grew rapidly. Her accomplishment are all the more remarkable because, as a black woman, she had to triumph over both racism and sexism.

A'Lelia Walker (1885-1931), the daughter of C. J. Walker, was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She hosted artists, writers, musicians and actors at “The Dark Tower,” a converted floor of her 136th Street townhouse near Lenox Avenue as well as her country house in Westchester County. A'Lelia Walker is featured in the Harlem Renaissance composite poster.

• Harlem Renaissance Map poster
• Madame C.J. Walker-Amazon.com

Maggie Lena Walker
née Mitchell
b. 7-15-1867; Richmond VA
d. 12-15-1934

Successful businesswoman, financier, and civic leader Maggie Lena Walker is the first American woman to establish and manage a bank. The bank, which evolved out of the Right Worthy Grand Council of the Independent Order of St. Luke, operates today as the Consolidated Bank and Trust, the oldest black-owned and managed bank in America.

Walker was committed to improving the quality of life for her people both economically and socially through civic organizations, such as the NAACP and the National Negro Business League.

Her residence in Richmond, Virginia, was established as a national historic site by congressional legislation in 1978.

Maggie Lena Walker quotes ~
• “Let us put our money together; let us use our money; Let us put our money out at usury among ourselves, and reap the benefit ourselves.”
• “Small plans have no magic to stir people's blood.”

Jubilee, Margaret Walker

Margaret Walker
b. 7-6-1915; Birmingham, AL
d. 11-30-1998; Chicago, IL (breast cancer)

Margaret Walker gained national attention with the 1942 collection For My People. Her novel Jubilee, first published in 1966, was about her grandmother's life as a slave.

Singer Dinah Washington, 1963, Photographic Print

Dinah Washington
née Ruth Lee Jones
b. 8-29-1924; Tuscaloosa, AL
d. 12-14-1963

Dinah Washington, a blues, R&B and jazz singer, was one of the most influential vocalists of the twentieth century.

• Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Best of Dinah Washington, CD

Stars of the Harlem Renaissance - Ethel Waters Poster

Ethel Waters
b. 10-31-1896, Chester, PA
d. 9-1-1977; Chatsworth, CA

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, into unhappy circumstances. Her mother was just 12 years old, and Waters was raised in poverty in Philadelphia by her grandmother. Still in her teens, Ethel was already divorced and working as a chambermaid for $4.75 a week when her friends convinced her to sing at an amateur night competition at a local club. She won first prize and a steady job, and soon she was performing on the black vaudeville circuit. She was billed as “Sweet Mama Stringbean” because she was tall and skinny.

Waters began to record blues songs at the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance in 1919, and by 1921 she was a huge star. Her single “Down Home Blues” sold more than 500,000 copies in six months, and she drew rave reviews for her Broadway appearances in two important black revues, Africana and Blackbirds of 1928. But she never lived in luxury. In fact, she gave away most of her money to Harlem's poor. “There's an old saying that charity begins at home,” she said, “and all Harlem is home to me.”

Ethel Waters career lasted much longer than the Harlem Renaissance itself. She remained a popular stage, screen, and radio actress for many years. In the early 1950s, she played the title role on the television show Beulah – the first national TV show that featured an African American as its main character. Waters also received two Academy Award nominations for her work in the movies Pinky (1938) and A Member of the Wedding (1953), and she wrote two autobiographies. She died in 1977.

• more women in music posters
• more Stars of the Harlem Renaissance posters

Life on the Line by Faye Wattleton

Faye Wattleton
b. 7-8-1943; St. Louis, MO

Faye Wattleton, the daughter of a fundamentalist Church of God preacher, became a nurse-midwife in Harlem, the director of the Planned Parenthood office in Dayton, Ohio, and later president of national Planned Parenthood from 1978 to 1992.

The Living is Easy, Dorothy West

Dorothy West
b. 6-2-1907; Boston, MA
d. 8-16-1998

Dorothy West won the Opportunity short-story prize in 1927 (shared with Zora Neale Hurston). She also was the youngest writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, founding and editing literary magazines The Challenge and New Challenge.

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett
b. 7-16-1862; Holly Springs, MS
d. 3-25-1931; Chicago

Ida Wells-Barnett, active in the women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, is best remembered today for her journalistic campaign against racial lynching. Threats against her life and the destruction of her Memphis, TN, newspaper office only produced stronger and louder editorials and investigative journalism on the subject.

FYI - Ida Wells was arrested for refusing to give up her train seat to a white man 71 years before Rosa Parks.

Ida B. Wells quotes:
• “I will not begin at this late day by doing what my soul abhors; sugaring men, weak deceitful creatures, with flattery to retain them as escorts or to gratify a revenge.”

• more women posters

Phillis Wheatley
b. c. 1753; Senegal
d. 12-5-1784; Boston

The woman known as Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal, kidnapped in 1761 and shipped to America on a slave ship named “Phillis”. She was purchased John and Susanna Wheatley, a wealthy Boston merchant, who tutored her with their son Nathaniel. Wheatley's published poetry helped her gain her freedom but she died in poverty, from complications of childbirth. One of her poems was in praise of George Washington; she was a supporter of the colonists seeking independence.

Mary Lou Williams, née Mary Elfrieda Scruggs
b. 5-8-1910; Atlanta, GA
d. 5-28-1981; Durham, NC (cancer)

Self taught pianist Mary Lou Williams grew up in Pennsylvania, working as early as age six to help support her large family. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded over a hundred records with such greats as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, as well as being a friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.

• Mary Lou Williams on Culture Map poster
• Piano Lesson collage by Romare Bearden
• Live at the Keystone Korner, CD

Vanessa L. Williams
b. 3-18-1963; Millwood, NY

Actress and singer Vanessa Williams was the first woman of African American descent to win the Miss America crown (1984).

Venus Williams
b. 6-17-1980; California

Serena Williams
b. 9-26-1981; Saginaw, MI

Sisters Venus and Serena Williams have both been ranked as the World No. 1 female tennis player.

Our Nigro or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, Harriet E. Wilson

Harriet E. Wilson
b. 3-15-1825; Milford, NH
d. 6-28-1900; Seattle, WA

Harriet “Hattie” Wilson is traditionally considered the first African-American novelist of any gender to publish a novel, her autobiographical Our Nig, on the North American continent.

Nancy Wilson
b. 2-20-1937; Chillicothe, Ohio

• The Very Best of Nancy Wilson: The Capitol Recordings 1960-1976

Oprah Winfrey
b. 1-24-1954; Kosciusko, Mississippi

“When I look at the future it’s so bright it burns my eyes.”- Oprah Winfrey

Since 1986, Oprah Winfrey has been one of the most successful TV talk show hosts in America. Much of her success comes from her natural ability to empathize with her guests. In 1985, she made her acting debut in the movie The Color Purple. Her performance won high praise and an Academy Award nomination. Ms. Winfrey often speaks out about a number of important issues, especially the problem of child abuse. (text from an out of print poster)

• Oprah Winfrey (Biography) at Amazon.com