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April

Black Women's History Calendar

The Black Women's History Timeline is a dynamic and empowering resource that highlights the monumental contributions of Black women throughout history. From trailblazing leaders and activists to innovators in science, culture, and business, this timeline offers a curated journey through their achievements and legacy. Each month, we spotlight key figures, events, and movements that have shaped the course of history and continue to inspire future generations. This timeline not only celebrates Black women's resilience, brilliance, and leadership but also educates and empowers communities to honor their invaluable impact on the world.

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April 4, 1928

Maya Angelou, author, poet, civil rights activist, actress, read poem she composed at President Clinton’s inauguration (1993) is born.

April 7, 1915

Billie Holiday, jazz singer, began her career in Harlem in 1931, toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, hailed as “Lady Day,” the most influential female jazz singer in America is born.

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April 9, 1887

Florence Price, first African-American woman symphony composer, is born.

April 9, 1917

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, who defied bus driver in 1944 who ordered her to give up her seat and move to the segregated back, kicked the sheriff when arrested, and had Thurgood Marshall win her case (6-1) on grounds of promoting and protecting national travel is born. 

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April 9, 1939

Marian Anderson, renowned Opera Singer, performs for 75,000 outside of the Lincoln Memorial after being denied the use of every Washington, DC indoor auditorium.

April 10, 1838

Lucy Higgs Nichols, an escaped slave who served as a nurse for the Union Army during the American Civil War, is born.

April 11, 1908

Jane Bolin, the first African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School (1931), first to join the New York City Bar Association (1932), the first to join the New York City Law Department, and the first to serve as a judge in the United States when she was sworn into the bench of the New York City Domestic Relations Court (1939) is born.

April 15, 1894

Bessie Smith, “Empress of the Blues”, who began her career around 1902 and learned country blues from Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, is born.

April 15, 1896

May Edward Chinn, first black woman doctor in Harlem (1936-80), worked with George Papanicolaon on the Pap smear to identify cervical cancer, is born.

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April 15, 1915

Elizabeth Catlett, best known for her depictions of the female African-American experience in the 20th century, is born.

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April 16, 1921 

Marie Maynard Daly, biochemist and the first African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry (1947), is born.

April 17, 1983

Alice Walker wins Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Color Purple.

April 23

Barbara Johns Day in Virginia. As a highschooler, Barbara Johns  led a walk out of Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, to protest unequal conditions. Her protest was one of the cases that led to the 1954 Brown v.  Board of Education Supreme Court decision that called for the integration of public schools.

April 23, 1933

Annie Easley, one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA, a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, is born.

April 26, 1888

Sarah Boone patents ironing board.

April 27, 1906

Alice Dunnigan, first African-American journalist accredited to cover Congress (1947) and the White House, Supreme Court and State Department, who documented the Klu Klux Klan’s actions when no “white” newspaper covered them,, is born. 

April 27, 1927

Coretta Scott King, civil rights, human rights, and peace activist, is born

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April 1, 1895

Alberta Hunter, blues and cabaret singer who starred in “Showboat” with Paul Robeson in London, and  who sang for President Carter, is born.

April 1, 1911

Augusta Baker, who created bibliography in 1939 of suitable children’s books to represent African-American history and culture, is born.

April 29, 1880

Lillian Bertha Jones Horace, pioneering educator and writer, Texas’s earliest known African American woman novelist, one of only two known black southern women novelists of the early to mid twentieth century (Zora Neale Hurston is the other); one of only two black women nationally to own a publishing company before 1920, and the only black woman nationally to author a utopian novel before 1950, is born. 

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