African-American Women's Museum of Art and History

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African-American Women's Museum of Art and History A place to showcase, share, archive and learn about the history of African-American women.

Join us as we celebrate trailblazing women at the 2nd Annual Sneakers Ball Recognizing Trailblazing Women.  Our honored ...
24/01/2025

Join us as we celebrate trailblazing women at the 2nd Annual Sneakers Ball Recognizing Trailblazing Women. Our honored guests include Dorothy Height, Gina Jones, Honorable Sheriff Vanessa Crawford, Dr Paulette Walker Johnson, Dr. Tia Minnis, Yvette Robinson, Jeanne Holmes, Deloris Jordan, Vicki Hayes West and Andrea Lynn White, Esq. Space is limited. Get your ticket today.

Come celebrate trailblazing women who make indelible marks on their communities with jazz from Rick Elliot, VSU student art and dinner.

16/01/2025

"Door Of No Return" in
Goree Island, Senegal 🇸🇳

Join us as we celebrate incredible women who have made an indelible mark on their communities.  Also included in the cel...
08/01/2025

Join us as we celebrate incredible women who have made an indelible mark on their communities. Also included in the celebration will be jazz from Rick Elliott, a silent auction and contest with art from Virginia State University Department of Art and Design students and dinner. Space is limited.

Come celebrate trailblazing women who make indelible marks on their communities with jazz from Rick Elliot, VSU student art and dinner.

31/12/2024

Mabel Fairbanks, an African American figure skater, in 1916.She was born in New York City. As a young girl in the 1930s, Fairbanks discovered her lifetime passion watching a Sonia Henie movie. She then saw a pair of black skates in a pawnshop window and talked the guy down to $1.50. They were two sizes too big, but that didn''t stop Fairbanks. She stuffed them with cotton, found her balance on blades by going up and down the stairs in her building, and took to the nearby frozen lake. It wasn''t long before Fairbanks was sailing across the ice. When a passerby suggested she try out the rink in Central Park, she was soon skating and attaining solid 6.0 judging, but the pro clubs wouldn''t have her because of her race."I remember they said to me, ''we don''t have Negroes in ice shows.'' "But I didn''t let that get in my way, because I loved to skate."
Fairbanks continued to refine her skill and returned to the rink again and again. Then one day, the manager noted her persistence and the shiny pair of new skates her uncle bought her from the Macy''s basement, and he let her inside. From then on, Fairbanks'' ability and sparkle shattered the race barrier at that pivotal rink, and professional skaters started giving her free lessons. In the 1940s, Fairbanks came to Los Angeles and performed in nightclubs like Cyro''s.
When Fairbanks was invited to skate on the road with the Rhapsody On Ice show, she jumped at the chance, even though they said they needed her as "someone to skate in the dark countries." She wowed international audiences, returning to Los Angeles only to find it still blind to her talent but not to her color. "They had a sign at the Pasadena Winter Gardens that read "Colored Trade Not Solicited," she remembers. "But it was a public place, so my uncle had newspaper articles written about it and passed them out everywhere until they finally let me in."
She landed a role on KTLA television''s Frosty Follies show and continued to perform at local showrooms, yet Fairbanks still wasn''t allowed to join professional skating clubs. She got herself and other Blacks in by sending for individual memberships from the United States Professional Skating Association (USPSA), without letting them know they were Black.
Fairbanks opened the door for other young Blacks to compete in skating, but her pro years had passed, so she became a teacher and coach in Culver City and the Hollywood Polar Palace. Famed Olympic medalist Scott Hamilton learned from Fairbanks when he was just a young beginner, and she gave free lessons to those too poor to pay.
While at the Polar Palace, her students included many celebrities and their children, like Natalie Cole, Ricky Nelson, Danny Kaye, and Jimmy Durante. It was Fairbanks who paired the Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner while watching them skate. Many of her Black skating students went on to be Olympic gold medallists because she skated over, around and through walls of racism. Fairbanks'' ability to do and teach has helped cultivate some of the finest skaters of the century. "If I had been allowed to go in to the Olympics or Ice Capades like I wanted to then, I may not have helped other Blacks like I did, and coached such wonderful skaters, and I think all that has been just as important and meaningful."
You could find Fairbanks rink side, coaching pro skaters at Iceland in Van Nuys. While the "official" skating world denied Fairbanks’ contributions, world-renowned skaters sought her out as a coach. Her students include the United States and World Champions Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, Kristi Yamaguchi, Rudy Galindo, and Tiffany Chin. In 1998, Fairbanks was honored with the Silver Achievement Award, Sports Category, at the YWCA''s Leader Luncheon at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles.
She taught and coached on the ice until she was 79 years old and was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a disease that weakens the muscles. Mabel Fairbanks died at 85 in September 2001 in Los Angeles

https://www.facebook.com/share/MoixpSYGbgc3crTV/?mibextid=wwXIfr
31/12/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/MoixpSYGbgc3crTV/?mibextid=wwXIfr

On 18th May 1943, Romay volunteered for the Army. Her five brothers were already serving in the military. She attended basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa and afterwards was assigned to the motor pool at Camp Breckinridge in Morganfield, Kentucky. While there Romay learned to be a mechanic and a driver, a role she carried out with the 6888 whilst serving overseas in Europe.

In December 1945, Romay was honorably discharged and attended fashion school on the GI Bill and went on to have a 30-year career as a fashion designer. In 1957, she met carpenter Jerry Davis, they fell in love and were married for 42 years until Jerry died in 1999.

She also achieved a master's degree in eduction from New York University and a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo aged 78!

More recently in 2022, Romay was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of her service with the 6888 🎖️.

🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support —link in bio— (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup)

Hello,It's not too late! The African American Women's Museum of Art and History is having a fundraiser so that we can ar...
22/12/2024

Hello,

It's not too late! The African American Women's Museum of Art and History is having a fundraiser so that we can archive, showcase and share the stories of trailblazing women who have and continue to make an indelible mark on their communities. Their stories are often untold or lost. Your contribution will help us archive stories of the women in your life who have made a difference to their communities. Help preserve this precious history by making a contribution today.

You can use this link https://givebutter.com/UcicgO to participate in the raffle or donate or you can text AAWMAH to 53555.

Thank you so much for your support.

Best Regards,

Mary Dance

--
Owner, 1 WMD Solutions, LLC
Founder, African-American Women's Museum of Art and History
aawmah-va.org
813-484-4045

By African American Women's Museum of Art and History

The board of the African American Women's Art and History would like to invite you to join us in our fall fundraiser.  W...
13/12/2024

The board of the African American Women's Art and History would like to invite you to join us in our fall fundraiser. We currently having a raffle on Givebutter. The money raised will be use to archive, share and recognize trailblazing women who have left an indelible mark on their communities. Check out the wonderful items we are raffling.

08/12/2024

Sophia Jones, M.D., was the first Black woman to join the faculty at Spelman College in 1885.

Today is Tuesday. https://givebutter.com/UcicgO Join millions of people coming together to celebrate generosity. Celebra...
03/12/2024

Today is Tuesday. https://givebutter.com/UcicgO Join millions of people coming together to celebrate generosity. Celebrating the lived experiences of those who paved the way helps us to remember who we are and where we came from. It serves as historic connective tissue. Honoring their achievements allows us to give them well deserved recognition, acknowledging that we stand on their shoulders and are better equipped for service by the history of their journey. Their stories are in many ways our stories.Please donate today to help us archive and share the stories of women whose accomplishments are often lost or untold. Preserving them is vital as they have, throughout history made indelible marks on the lives of others. We will honor them and we will keep their stories front of mind for generations to come through our website and museum. We will remember the past is prologue.

It's Giving Tuesday.  Please participate in our raffle and support our mission.  Thank you so much!
03/12/2024

It's Giving Tuesday. Please participate in our raffle and support our mission. Thank you so much!

By African American Women's Museum of Art and History

22/09/2024

Eva Beatrice D***s (13 August 1893 – 29 October 1986) was a prominent educator and the third black American woman to be awarded a PhD.
D***s was born in Washington, D.C., on August 13, 1893, the daughter of Martha Ann (née Howard) and James Stanley D***s. She attended M Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School). She graduated summa cm laude from Howard University with a B.A. in 1914. While attending Howard University, where several family members had studied, Eva was initiated into the Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. At the end of her last semester she was awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated's first official scholarship. After a short stint of teaching at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, D***s attended Radcliffe College graduating magna cm laude with a second B.A. in 1917 and a M.A in 1918. While at Radcliffe she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1920 D***s began teaching at Dunbar High School, and in 1921 she received a PhD from Radcliffe (now a part of Harvard University). Her dissertation was titled “Pope and His influence in America from 1715 to 1815”, and explored the attitudes of Alexander Pope towards slavery and his influence on American writers. D***s was the first black American woman to complete the requirements for a doctoral degree, however, because Radcliffe College held its graduation ceremonies later in the spring, she was the third to graduate, behind Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1921, University of Pennsylvania) and Georgiana R. Simpson (1921, University of Chicago).
After her graduation from Radcliffe in 1921, D***s continued to teach at Dunbar High School until 1929 when she returned to Howard University as a member of the English Faculty. An excellent teacher, D***s won a number of teaching awards during her 15 years of service at Howard University. Her publications include Readings from Negro Authors for Schools and Colleges co-authored with Lorenzo Dow Turner and Otelia Cromwell (1931) and The Negro in English Romantic Thought: Or a Study in Sympathy for the Oppressed (1942). In 1934 D***s began writing a column in the Seventh-day Adventist periodical Message Magazine, this continued until 1984.
In 1920 D***s joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and in 1944 she joined the faculty of the then small and unaccredited Seventh-day Adventist Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Chair of the English Department. She was the first staff member at Oakwood to hold a doctoral qualification and was instrumental in assisting the college to gain accreditation. D***s retired in 1968 but returned to Oakwood to teach in 1970 and continued until 1975. In 1973 the Oakwood College library was named in her honor and in 1980 she was made a Professor Emerita. In 1975 the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church presented D***s with a Citation of Excellence honouring her for an outstanding contribution to Seventh-day Adventist education. D***s died in Huntsville on October 29, 1986, at the age of 93.

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