Mae E. Jemison (1956-) is the first African American female astronaut.  In 1992, she flew into space aboard the Endeavour, becoming the first African American woman in space.

Mae C. Jemison is an American astronaut and physician who, on June 4, 1987, became the first African American woman to be admitted into NASA’s astronaut training program. On September 12, 1992, Jemison finally flew into space with six other astronauts aboard the Endeavour on mission STS47, becoming the first African American woman in space. In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison has received several awards and honorary doctorates.

Early Life and Education

Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama. She is the youngest child of Charlie Jemison, a roofer and carpenter, and Dorothy (Green) Jemison, an elementary school teacher. Her sister, Ada Jemison Bullock, became a child psychiatrist, and her brother, Charles Jemison, is a real estate broker.

The Jemison family moved to Chicago, Illinois, when Jemison was three years old to take advantage of better educational opportunities, and it is that city that she calls her hometown.

Throughout her early school years, Jemison's parents were supportive and encouraging of her talents and abilities, and she spent a considerable amount of time in her school library reading about all aspects of science, especially astronomy.

During her time at Morgan Park High School, she became convinced she wanted to pursue a career in biomedical engineering. When she graduated in 1973 as a consistent honor student, she entered Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship.

As she had been in high school, Jemison was very involved in extracurricular activities at Stanford, including dance and theater productions, and served as head of the Black Student Union. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the university in 1977. Upon graduation, she entered Cornell University Medical College and, during her years there, found time to expand her horizons by studying in Cuba and Kenya and working at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.

Career as a Medical Doctor

After Jemison obtained her M.D. in 1981, she interned at Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center and later worked as a general practitioner. For the next two and a half years, she was the area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia where she also taught and did medical research.

Following her return to the United States in 1985, Jemison made a career change and decided to follow a dream she had nurtured for a long time: In October, she applied for admission to NASA's astronaut training program. The Challenger disaster of January 1986 delayed the selection process, but when she reapplied a year later, Jemison was one of the 15 candidates chosen from a field of about 2,000.

First African American Woman Astronaut

On June 4, 1987, Jemison became the first African American woman to be admitted into the NASA astronaut training program. After more than a year of training, she became the first African American woman astronaut, earning the title of science mission specialist — a job that would make her responsible for conducting crew-related scientific experiments on the space shuttle.

When Jemison finally flew into space on September 12, 1992, with six other astronauts aboard the Endeavour on mission STS47, she became the first African American woman in space.

During her eight days in space, Jemison conducted experiments on weightlessness and motion sickness on the crew and herself. In all, she spent more than 190 hours in space before returning to Earth on September 20, 1992. Following her historic flight, Jemison noted that society should recognize how much both women and members of other minority groups can contribute if given the opportunity.

Honors

In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison received a number of accolades, including several honorary doctorates, the 1988 Essence Science and Technology Award, the Ebony Black Achievement Award in 1992 and a Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College in 1993. She was also named Gamma Sigma Gamma Woman of the Year in 1990. In 1992, the Mae C. Jemison Academy, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan, was named after her.

Jemison has been a member of several prominent organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. She has also served as an advisory committee member of the American Express Geography Competition and an honorary board member of the Center for the Prevention of Childhood Malnutrition.

Career After NASA

After leaving the astronaut corps in March 1993, Jemison accepted a teaching fellowship at Dartmouth. She also established the Jemison Group, a company that seeks to research, develop and market advanced technologies.

Citation Information

Article Title

Mae C. Jemison Biography

Author

Biography.com Editors

Website Name

The Biography.com website

URL

https://www.biography.com/astronaut/mae-c-jemison

Access Date

June 3, 2021

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

February 17, 2021

Original Published Date

April 2, 2014

 

 

Josephine Baker   (1906-1975)

World renowned performer, World War II spy, and activist are few of the titles used to describe Josephine Baker. One of the most successful African American performers in French history, Baker’s career illustrates the ways entertainers can use their platforms to change the world.

On June 3, 1906, Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents, both entertainers, performed throughout the segregated Midwest often bringing her on stage during their shows. Unfortunately, their careers never took off, forcing the young Baker to look for odd jobs to survive. If she was unable to find work she would often dance on the streets, collecting money from onlookers. Eventually, her routine caught the attention of an African American theatre troupe. At the age of 15, Baker ran off and began to perform with the group. She also married during this time, taking her husband’s last name and dropping her first name, becoming Josephine Baker.

Baker flourished as a dancer in several Vaudeville shows, which was a popular theatre genre in the 20^th century. She eventually moved to New York City and participated in the celebration of black life and art now known as the Harlem Renaissance. A few years later her success took her to Paris. Baker became one of the most sought-after performers due to her distinct dancing style and unique costumes. Although her audiences were mostly white, Baker’s performances followed African themes and style. In her famed show Danse Sauvage she danced across stage in a banana skirt. Baker was multitalented, known for her dancing and singing she even played in several successful major motion pictures released in Europe. 

When Adolf Hitler and the German army invaded France during World War II, Baker joined the fight against the Nazi regime. She aided French military officials by passing on secrets she heard while performing in front of the enemy. She transported the confidential information by writing with invisible ink on music sheets. After many years of performing in Paris, Baker returned to the United States.

Her return home forced Baker to confront segregation and discrimination that she had not experienced since she was a child in St. Louis. She often refused to perform to segregated audiences, which usually forced club owners to integrate for her shows. Her opposition against segregation and discrimination was recognized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1963, she was one of the few women allowed to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Her speech detailed her life as a black woman in the United States and abroad:

"You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.”

Baker continued to fight racial injustices into the 1970s. Her personal life was a testament to her political agenda. Throughout her career, she adopted 13 children from various countries. She called her family “the rainbow tribe” and took her children on the road in an effort to show that racial and cultural harmony could exist. Baker remained on stage late into her life and in 1975 she performed for the last time. The show was sold out and she received a standing ovation. Baker passed away on April 12, 1975.

By Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow | 2017

• MLA – Norwood, Arlisha. "Josephine Baker." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

  Chicago- Norwood, Arlisha. "Josephine Baker." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/josphine-baker.

Editors Note: According to the National Archives 6,520 African American women served in WW II.  Retired Army Col. Edna Cummings has said, “I believe that people are aware that Black women served during World War II, but I do not believe they know the full scope of their service.”

Despite their facing segregation and discrimination and given the worst jobs to do, African American women served their country honorably and well.  So HERSTORY begins its’ celebration of Black History Month by honoring the Black women veterans of World War II.

                         **************************************************

During World War II, Black newspapers rallied African-Americans behind the “Double Victory” campaign to fight the war against ethnic oppression abroad as well as racial oppression at home. But the African-American women who served during this time also had a third enemy – the one that held them back because of their gender.

The Double Victory campaign was inspired by a letter published in the Pittsburgh Courier on January 31, 1942 entitled “Should I Sacrifice To Live ‘Half-American?” In the letter, James G. Thompson explained that the first V was “for victory over our enemies from without” and the second V was “for victory over our enemies from within.” The paper would later proclaim “this slogan as the true battle cry of colored America.” The Pittsburgh Courier debuted its Double V logo the next week in the February 7 edition, and would continue to print it as part of its masthead for the remainder of the war.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers was hard at work on a bill to create a women’s branch of the U.S. military. Many women had served as volunteers during World War I but were not eligible for veteran’s benefits since they had not been official members of the U.S. military. Rogers wanted to make sure that this did not happen again during this new war.

Once the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC) was established, Mary McLeod Bethune went into action. Bethune was the head of the Negro division of the National Youth Administration as well as founder of what is now Bethune Cookman University. She was also an advisor to four presidents, including President Franklin Roosevelt. She had seen how Black young people, especially Black women, struggled to find good jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s. With her access to the highest reaches of the U.S. government, she used her influence to ensure that Black women would be able to have meaningful opportunities within the WAAC. Ones that would position them to be eligible for those educational and professional veteran’s benefits too.

In general, the women who joined the WAC were subjected to sexist assumptions about their virtues and ability to make meaningful contributions to the war effort as a part of the military. Male soldiers and officers were vocal about their beliefs that women had no place in the service. Inside and outside of the military, a common assumption was that these women had enlisted so that they could “service” the male service members. They were not issued weapons nor given any weapons training – even when ordered into hostile areas – because brandishing a gun was considered “unladylike.” However, the Black women who served had to deal with a unique set of challenges.

These challenges included being subjected to double segregation. Black men in the military were segregated only on the basis of their race. Black women were separated by their race and gender. To get into the WAC, a woman had to meet high standards of morality and femininity; white women might be able to loosen up a little once they were officially in. But Black women had to meet the highest of these standards at all times. Even when they continued to maintain those standards, they were more often than not perceived as only capable of performing domestic duties despite their educational and professional backgrounds.

The stripes that the Black female officers wore made them even more of a target. It enraged some members of the American public that a white soldier who held a lower rank was expected to salute these women and follow their orders. This led to Black female officers experiencing encounters with the police because they were assumed to be imposters and worse. One was hospitalized after being beaten up on a train platform in Tennessee.

However, despite these unique challenges, Black female soldiers fought back in creative ways. They used the power of their personal connections and of the Black press to overturn discriminatory policies and practices, such as having the “Colored” signs removed from the mess hall tables during the first WAAC officer training class. They studied Army policies until they knew them backwards and forwards. So when Major Charity Adams responded “Over my dead body, sir” to a general’s threat to have her replaced after refusing his frivolous order, she had the documentation to back her up when he attempted to have her court martialed. They even went as far to stop work, effectively going on strike, when pigeonholed into intolerable working conditions at the Fort Devens Hospital in Massachusetts in 1945.

Despite these extra burdens, Black women who served in the WAAC/WAC during World War II went on to distinguish themselves. The 6888^th Postal Battalion Directory was given the “impossible” task of getting the backlog of mail moving in six months. They cleared the backlog in three. Black female officers trained all of the Black women who enlisted in the corps. They showed the top brass what Black women were capable of achieving, if only given a chance.

by Kaia Alderson

Kaia Alderson's debut historical novel Sisters in Arms: A Novel of the Daring Black Women Who Served During World War II was published in August by William Morrow/Harper Collins and was named November's selection for Stephen Curry's book club. 

Here's the story behind Black History Month — and why it's celebrated in February

NPR        February 1, 2022

JONATHAN FRANKLIN

 Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.

This year's theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed unique burdens on Black health care professionals.

"There is no American history without African American history," said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in "everything we think of as 'American history.' "

First, there was Negro History Week

Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.

It was Carter G. Woodson, the "father of Black history," who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

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Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)

The idea wasn't to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation's consciousness.

"Woodson's goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a 'serious area of study,' " said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.

The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.

Colleges and universities also began to hold commemorations, with Kent State University being one of the first, according to Kaplan.

Fifty years after the first celebrations, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month during the country's 1976 bicentennial. Ford called upon Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history," History.com reports.

Why February was chosen as Black History Month

February was chosen primarily because the second week of the month coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was influential in the emancipation of slaves, and Douglass, a former slave, was a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery.

Lincoln and Douglass were each born in the second week of February, so it was traditionally a time when African Americans would hold celebrations in honor of emancipation, Kaplan said. (Douglass' exact date of birth wasn't recorded, but he came to celebrate it on Feb. 14.)

Thus, Woodson created Negro History Week around the two birthdays as a way of "commemorating the black past," according to ASALH.

Forty years after Ford formally recognized Black History Month, it was Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, who delivered a message of his own from the White House, a place built by slaves.

"Black History Month shouldn't be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes," Obama said.

"It's about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans, high and low, famous and obscure, and how those experiences have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America," he continued.

(Canada and the U.K. also commemorate Black History Month in February, and Ireland celebrates it in October.)

There's a new theme every year

ASALH designates a new theme for Black History Month each year, in keeping with the practice Woodson established for Negro History Week.

This year's Black Health and Wellness theme is particularly appropriate, Dulaney said, as the U.S. continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"As [Black people], we have terrible health outcomes, and even the coronavirus has been affecting us disproportionately in terms of those of us who are catching it," Dulaney said.

"There's never been a time where Black people and others should not celebrate Black history," Broussard said. "Given the current racial climate, the racial reckoning that began in wake of George Floyd's murder ... this is an opportunity to learn."

ANTONIA HERNANDEZ  (1948 - )  According to Antonia Hernández, she “went to law school for one reason: to use the law as a vehicle for social change.” Decades later, she can claim numerous legal victories for the Latinx community in the areas of voting rights, employment, education, and immigration. From legal aid work, to counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, to head of a major civil rights organization, Hernández has used the law to realize social change at every turn.

Antonia Hernández was born in Torreón, Mexico in 1948 to Manuel and Nicolasa Hernández. Her father had been born in Texas, but his family returned to Mexico after government officials forced Mexican Americans to leave the U.S. during the Great Depression due to job shortages. Hernández was the oldest of seven children. When she was eight years old, her family moved to the Maravilla Housing projects in East Los Angeles, where her parents worked in chicken factories, manufacturing, and gardening. Hernández endured taunts of “mojada” (“wetback,” a pejorative term for Mexican immigrants to the U.S.) from her classmates and neighborhood children. Despite the taunting, Hernández worked hard as a child, both in school learning English and on the weekends, selling her mother’s tamales across East L.A. alongside her father. In the summers, the family members were all migrant workers, picking crops from farm to farm. Hernández became politically active at a young age with the support of her father, who drove her to civil rights and Chicano movement protests in the 1960s. Her determination to fight for racial justice would continue through all her future endeavors.

Hernández graduated from Garfield High School in East L.A. and attended East Los Angeles College before she was admitted to UCLA as part of an affirmative action program. There she earned her B.A. in History in 1970, as well as her J.D. at the UCLA School of Law in 1974. Soon after passing the California bar exam, Hernández became a U.S. citizen. Reflecting on her U.S. citizenship in 1985, Hernández told the Los Angeles Times "I love [this country] more than most because I don't take the rights and privileges of an American citizen for granted. I remembered there was a knot in my throat when I took the oath [of citizenship]."

Committed to working in civil rights law, Hernández began her career as a staff attorney with the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice. There she worked on a class-action lawsuit (Madrigal v. Quilligan, 1978) that alleged the USC/Los Angeles County Medical Center conducted sterilization procedures on women who had just given birth and had not consented to the procedures. They lost in court, but the press attention the case garnered led the medical center and the state of California to enact reforms intended to prevent such violations in the future. Hernández then took a position as staff counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1979-1981, the first Latina ever to hold that position.

From the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hernández moved to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), where she served as Regional Counsel in Washington, D.C. In 1985, she became President and General Counsel of MALDEF. As President, Hernández directed the organization’s litigation efforts and advocacy programs as well as managed a multimillion-dollar budget and several field offices. MALDEF pursued important voting rights cases while under Hernández’s leadership. They filed federal suits in California, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan that led to an end to gerrymandering and other discriminatory practices that prevented Latinx candidates from winning elections in those districts. MALDEF also defended The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Congress expanded to cover Texas and other Southwestern states in 1975. These efforts included an amendment that explicitly outlawed discriminatory election practices and a provision that protected the rights of non-native English speakers. MALDEF also organized nationwide campaigns to promote Latinx participation in the 1990 and 2000 censuses, to better ensure equitable political representation for the Latinx community. Hernández led MALDEF’s legal pursuit of Latinx-majority voting districts across the country, most notably for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (Garza v. County of L.A., 1990) and a Chicago-area congressional district (King v. Illinois State Board of Elections, 1995).

Voting rights were not the only cause that Hernández took up while leading the civil rights organization. MALDEF also played a significant role in the 1994 battle against Proposition 187 in California, which barred undocumented immigrants from accessing public education, hospitals, and other services. The courts eventually struck down most of the act’s provisions. MALDEF won key victories in Texas and California to remedy racially discriminatory financing in public school systems. MALDEF also fought for Latinx students with lawsuits to ensure bilingual and multicultural education as well as greater access to higher education. Immigration and education issues came together in MALDEF’s successful campaigns for the rights of undocumented students in California to attend state universities; pay the same tuition as other state residents; and access scholarships in lieu of state and federal financial aid for which they were ineligible.

In 2004, Hernández accepted the position of President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Community Foundation (CCF), a philanthropic organization devoted to improving the lives of those in L.A. County. During her leadership of the organization, CCF has granted nearly two billion dollars to housing, education, health, and immigration-related initiatives.

Hernández is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute. She has received honorary degrees from Whittier College (1998) and Brown University (2016).

Hernández is married to fellow attorney Michael Stern, whom she met while clerking for the California Rural Legal Assistance Office in Santa Maria as a law student. Together they have three children.

 

MLA – Brandman, Mariana. “Antonia Hernández.” National Women’s History Museum, 2020. Date accessed.

Chicago – Brandman, Mariana. “Antonia Hernández.” National Women’s History Museum. 2020. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/antonia-hernandez

Spanish Translation Provided By: NBCUniversal Telemundo

Photo Credit: Markle Foundation, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Works Cited

“Antonia Hernandez: President & Chief Executive Officer.” California Community Foundation. Accessed November 27, 2020. https://www.calfund.org/about-ccf/ccfstaff/presidents-office/

Espino, Virginia. “Hernández, Antonia (1948- ).” In Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Vicki Ruíz and Virginia Sánchez Korrol, 317. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

“Honoring The Public Service of Antonia Hernández.” Press Release by Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, California’s 40^th Congressional District. March 31, 2004. Accessed November 25, 2020. https://roybal-allard.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=129815

“Oral Histories: Antonia Hernandez.” CSPAN/American Bar Association’s Women Trailblazers in the Law Project. October 22, 2007. Accessed November 17, 2020. https://www.c-span.org/video/?294199-1/antonia-hernandez-oral-history-interview

Ramos, George. "New Head of Mexican American Legal Defense Fund: Antonia Hernandez Not Afraid to Say She Loves U.S." Los Angeles Times. August 5, 1985.

Ruiz, Vicki L. From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Sandoval, Maria, Julia Victor, and Claudia Cabrera. “Antonia Hernandez.” SJSU WOMS 20. Women of Color. Accessed November 27, 2020. http://prof.chicanas.com/20/?page_id=629

“Sisters in Suffrage.” National Organization for Women. Accessed November 25, 2020. https://now.org/sisters-of-suffrage/

Stewart, Jocelyn Y. "COVER STORY; THE ADVOCATE; as the President of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Antonia Hernandez Speaks for Millions: [Home Edition]." Los Angeles Times. Sep 12, 1999.