5 Historical Black Women Pt II

This is Part II of my 5 Historical Black Women series--continuing on spotlighting black women that I find absolutely inspiring. I'll get right into this post by beginning with Ms. Zelda Wynn Valdes (June 28, 1905 - September 26, 2001) who was a prominent black fashion designer during the 1940s-60s. She got her start working as a tailor for her Uncle as well as at a high-end white boutique in White Plains, New York in which she served as the first black woman to work for the company. It was not the most pleasurable work environment for her due to the color of her skin but she was able to get more sewing experience that she wanted which led to her beginning to do her own alterations and dressmaking which allowed her to build up a clientele.

In 1948, Wynn began her self titled design business "Zelda Wynn" which served as her design studio and dressmaking shop on Broadway Avenue in New York, New York making her the first African American to own a business on Broadway.

Valdes' designs accentuated the curves of a woman with low cut dresses in body hugging silhouettes. She was able to balance sexiness with elegance and sophistication. Her designs were adorned on fabulous and famous women of the times such as, Dorothy Dandridge, Diahann Carroll, Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, the list could go on and on--her clientele was that vast

Zelda Wynn Valdes also created the original signature Playboy Bunny look. Hugh Hefner commissioned her to create a design for the Playboy Playmates for the opening of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Illinois in 1960. The look became the first commercial uniform to be patented in the United States. This is still THE Playboy Bunny look that first comes to mind and is still utilized by both the company as well as for mainstream media and everyday people who utilize the costume for Halloween or costumed events.

In 1970, Zelda continued on designing but switched her focus from fashion to costume design. She was asked to design looks for Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem. She created costumes for over 89 of their productions and continued to design for them until her death in 2001.

Next is Elaine Brown (born March 2, 1943). I do not even know where to begin. She is best known as being an activist (specifically focused on prison and education reform), writer and former Black Panther Party chairwoman. She is also a singer with hits such as, "The Meeting" and "The End of Silence." She was born and raised in North Philadelphia by her mother and attended a primarily white school. She eventually moved to Los Angeles, California and worked as a cocktail waitress at a well paying club called the Pink Pussycat. She met, befriended, and had an intimate relationship with editor and writer Jay Kennedy who was both white and married. He provided her with an early education on politics---specifically Civil Rights, Capitalism, and Communism. When the two broke things off, she continued on her political journey by working for Harambee, which was a radical newspaper.

After MLK's assassination and the imprisonment of Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver in 1968, Elaine Brown attended her first Black Panther meeting. She first became exposed to the revolutionary party through local appeals for the Huey Newton Legal Defense Fund. She joined the Black Panthers the same year and became a rank-and-file member. She helped begin the first Free Breakfast for Children Program which was just outside of Oakland. She eventually became the editor of The Black Panther paper and was elected as a member of the Panther Central Committee--becoming the first woman to do so.

In 1973 Elaine Brown made her first run for Oakland city council and had 30% vote. In 1975 she ran again garnering 44% vote. Although she was defeated in the polls, this only demonstrates her commitment and leadership. Huey Newton was impressed by her. When he was forced to flee to Cuba for murder charges, he appointed her to lead the Black Panther Party. She was the only woman to do so and led from 1974-77.

During Brown's time as leader of the Panthers, she focused on electoral politics and community service. However she faced resentment and hostility from the party due to the fact that she was a woman in a leadership role. When Huey Newton returned, she stepped down from the party due to these reasons. Of her experience as leader she stated, "A woman in the Black Power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant. A woman asserting herself was a pariah. If a black woman assumed a role of leadership, she was said to be eroding black manhood, to be hindering the progress of the black race. She was an enemy of the black people.... I knew I had to muster something mighty to manage the Black Panther Party."

After leaving the Panthers, Elaine Brown wrote books such as her memoir, A Taste of Power, (I highly recommend giving this book a read.) which delves further into her life and the struggles of being a chairwoman for the Black Panther Party. In 2003 she co-founded he National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform which helps recently released prisoners post their prison sentence. She also lectures at colleges to promote prison reform and has spoken at over 40 colleges on the issue--continuing on her political work.

There isn't much information on this extraordinary woman but I must talk about Rose Morgan (born in 1912) who was a beautician and business owner. She was born in Mississippi and grew up in Chicago where her father was a hardworking sharecropper. She was influenced by him when it came to business smarts and began her hair business by the age of 14. She attended Morris School of Beauty and worked part time as a hair stylist at a local salon. In 1938, she styled singer and actress Ethel Waters's hair and impressed her with her skills. Waters invited Morgan to New York City as her guest which led to Morgan moving to the city and opening her own beauty salon, the Rose Meta House of Beauty. She had a staff of 20 hairstylists, 3 licensed masseurs, and 1 registered nurse. They transformed a dilapidated mansion into a glamorous salon, but she decided to improve upon that. She bought a newer building and began selling her own beauty/hair products. By 1942, she had the largest African American beauty salon and became a huge success.

In 1955, Rose Morgan married heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis. Their marriage ended in 1958, but during their time together they were the talk of the town (specifically Harlem) as shown in the vintage article above.

Rose Morgan's career only continued to expand to bigger ventures. By 1955 her hair salon expanded and included a dressmaking department as well as a charm school. In 1960 she opened up her first wig salon. During her time as a salon owner, she trained over 3,000 employees. But her success doesn't just incorporate her hair business! In 1965, she was a co-founder of the only black bank in New York, the Freedom National Bank.

Morgan retired during the 1970s. She is definitely a legendary woman whom should be discussed more!

Next is photographer and activist Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (July 9, 1951) who was born in Chicago, Illinois. (All of the greats seem to be from this city!) She was born into an artistic family, her mother was an interior designer and her father was an architect. They encouraged her to explore her artistic abilities and she began her formal artistic training by the age of 8 at the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved to New York and studied at Cooper Union School of Art where she earned a B.F.A. in photography. After graduating in 1975, she worked as a graphic artist and photojournalist for WNBC-TV. In 1976, she met her husband, tennis player Arthur Ashe, shortly after graduating when she was hired to take photographs at one of his tennis matches.

One of Jeanne's most notable works is a series she did during her junior year at Cooper. She did an independent work study in West Africa and went to Cape Coast in Ghana. She wanted to visit the fishing villages in which the transatlantic slave trade took place. She was very inspired because of the correlation she saw between these African fishing villages and black communities on the southeast coast of the United States. She chronicled her inspiration by documenting this inspiration in a photo series she captured in a small community in South Carolina known as Daufuskie Island.

This is a photograph from that series titled, Miss Bertha, from her Daufuskie Island series.

Jeanne's work showcases intimate photography in which the emotions of her subjects are front and center for the viewer to feel as well. That is evidenced in this photograph, Airport, Guayaquil, Ecuador (1978), which was shown at MOMA in New York City. She has a passion for preserving history and taking photographs that both invite the viewer into the world of the photograph as well as challenges the viewer.

Jeanne's biggest inspiration is light. In an interview with Country Times she stated, "I am inspired and driven by light, I don’t pick up my camera and say to myself that I should take a particular shot. I pick it up because of my response to the light, the way the light is rendering a particular subject. Artificial light to me doesn’t have the artistic quality of natural light. And to me light is what this whole process is about. Even when I’m looking in the dark I look for the light in the dark, not using a flash or additional lighting. We see something on a table. But when you look at the light that is on that subject, then you really see what is going on.”

This photograph is Margaret, New York, New York (2013).

Jeanne's life took a turn when her husband, Arthur Ashe, was diagnosed HIV positive nineteen months after their daughter, Camera, was born (1987). He contracted HIV from a blood transfusion while undergoing a heart procedure. Jeanne turned to her passion--the camera--to document the time shared between Camera and Arthur in a photographic journal, Daddy and Me (1993). She continues to preserve Arthur's legacy by having the website dedicated to The Arthur Ashe Legacy that can be viewed here. According to Our Photos Magazine, The Arthur Ashe endowment has been training health care workers around the world to try to defeat AIDS.

Finally, I will end this post with the fabulous actress, singer, and dancer Theresa Harris (December 31, 1906 – October 8, 1985). She was born in Houston, Texas to two parents who were both sharecroppers from Louisiana. Her family relocated to South Carolina when Theresa was 11-years-old and she would later study at UCLA Conservatory of Music and Zoellner's Conservatory of Music. She joined the Lafayette Players which was an African American musical comedy theatre troupe.

Theresa knew she wanted to be an actress and eventually made her way to Hollywood in 1929 where she made her first film debut in Thunderbolt where she sang "Daddy Won't You Please Come Home" (here).

The first film I ever stumbled upon with Theresa Harris was Baby Face (1933), a Pre-Code film starring Barbara Stanwyck in which she played Coco--which was Stanwyck's maid and friend. What caught my attention was the fact that Theresa was not your stereotypical "Mamie" maid like the likes of Hattie McDaniel and later Ruby Dandridge. Theresa had a petite frame and was a very beautiful woman who was able to dress in more sophisticated costumes than the typical African American woman who played maid roles.

During the 1930s, Theresa played maid to a number of huge Hollywood actresses such as, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, and Kay Francis, who typically played socialists or Southern Belles. She was also able to snag a substantial role in Professional Sweetheart (1933) starring Ginger Rogers, in which she begins as Rogers' assertive and fun maid who teaches Rogers' character how to be sexier and ends up replacing Rogers' character as a singer on a radio program. She was uncredited in this substantial role and sadly was uncredited in majority of the films she played in.

Theresa Harris wanted to expand the kind of roles she played in, but never got the chance due to the fact that she was a black woman. She spoke out on her frustrations during the filming of the race film Bargain With Bullets (1937), "I never had the chance to rise about the role of maid in Hollywood movies. My color was against me anyway you looked at it. The fact that I was not "hot" stamped me either as uppity or relegated me to the eternal role of stooge or servant. [...] My ambition is to be an actress. Hollywood had no parts for me." Despite these frustrations, Harris was able to break out of stereotypical roles and show moments of excellence in every film that she was a part of. She was casted in over 90 films in big-time hits such as, Jezebel (1938), Cat People (1942), Phantom Lady (1944), The Dolly Sisters (1945), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The French Line (1953), and the list could go on and on. She was able to exude sex appeal, dignity, and beauty in her films--making the most of the limits of her roles.

She was very respected by studio executives, producers, her costars, etc. because of her hard work and talent. During the 1950s, Theresa married a doctor and retired from films. She was able to live a comfortable life because she carefully invested the money that she made on her films. If you haven't seen any movie with her in it, I highly recommend doing so now especially Baby Face, Professional Sweetheart, and The French Line.

This ends my Historical Black Women Series and I hope you all enjoyed it! There will be more posts like this in the future.

I will see you next week!!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the photographs in this blog post.