In light of Tina Turner’s passing, we’re highlighting Elza Soares (1930 - 2022), a Black Brazilian samba singer.

In 1999, she was named Singer of the Millennium along w/ Tina Turner by BBC Radio. With her husky voice, she was often referred to as the “Brazilian Tina Turner.” Born in Padre Miguel, Rio de Janeiro, she became popular with her first single "Se Acaso Você Chegasse", on which she introduced scat singing à la Louis Armstrong, adding a bit of jazz to samba. Her husky voice became her trademark.

Rest in Peace and Power to the Incomparable, Tina Turner.

📸: Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. November 25, 1969. Wow. Such a loss…

🎥: About Radical D.C. Organizer, Kimi Gray.

A native Washingtonian, Kimi Gray was a national figure on public housing because of her efforts to revitalize a Northeast Washington community where she lived for more than three decades.

Source: C-SPAN.

#blackwomenradicals Chronically neglected by the D.C. Housing Authority, the residents were often without heat or hot water for weeks at a time. Kimi took on management duties for her development. 

#blackwomenradicals

Honoring #BlackWomenRadicals at the Vanguard of the Labor Movement: Nannie Helen Burroughs ✨

100 years ago, Nannie Helen Burroughs organized and launched a Black women’s labor organization, the National Association of Wage Earners (NAWE) in 1921. “Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) devoted her life to improving the lives of Black women & girls. She often went up against men who could not imagine women in leadership positions &, throughout her career, campaigned for the rights & dignity of Black women.”

Happy 82nd Birthday, Claudette Colvin (Sept. 5, 1939)!🎈Colvin is a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement & a retired nurse aide.

On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

Mae Mallory (June 9, 1927 – 2007) was an activist of the Civil Rights Movement & a Black Power movement leader active in the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known as an advocate of school desegregation and of Black armed
self-defense.

#blackwomenradicals “Mallory was born in Macon, Georgia, on June 9, 1927. She later went to live in New York City with her mother in 1939.”

#blackwomenradicals

Starting in less than 30 minutes: Our event on "Radical African Feminist Movement Building" with host @NanaYBrantuo and panelists @stillSHErises, @wunpini_fm, @RosebellK, @kinnareads & Gathoni Blessol!

We're already filled to capacity for the event but we will be livestreaming! The first question for this event is: "What is a radical African feminism mean to you?"

#blackwomenradicals
#africanfeminisms

Some books 📚 for every time one of your elected officials tries to say the Civil Rights Movement was only about “non-violence”:

📖: “This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible”
by Charles E. Cobb Jr. You can read an excerpt from Charles E. Cobb’s book here: “Guns made civil rights possible: Breaking down the myth of nonviolent change”: salon.com/2014/06/14/gun…

Happy Birthday, Eartha Kitt (January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008)🎈

She was a singer, actress, dancer, comedian, activist, author, and songwriter known for her highly distinctive singing style.

📸: Photos licensed from Johnson Publishing Company.

#blackwomenradicals “Eartha Mae Keith was born on a cotton plantation near the small town of North, South Carolina, or St. Matthews on January 17, 1927.”

Today is the birthday and the death date of Ella Josephine Baker (December 13, 1903 – December 13, 1986), who died on her 83rd birthday in 1986.

A civil rights activist & leader, Baker was a key organizer & strategist in some of the most influential organizations of the time. Baker was a formidable force & primary strategist in organizations including the NAACP, Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Baker was the founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Happy Birthday, Fannie Lou Hamer (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)! 🎈She would have been 102 years-old today.

Hamer was a Black American voting & women's rights activist, community organizer & a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.

#blackwomenradicals “Hamer was the co-founder and vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.”

#blackwomenradicals

Today in history in 1951, Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant) passed away at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland at the age of 31.

Her cells, known as “HeLa cells” were stolen & taken without her consent for medical research. “Henrietta Lacks was only 31 when she died of cervical cancer in 1951 in a Baltimore hospital. Not long before her death, doctors removed some of her tumor cells. They later discovered that the cells could thrive in a lab, a feat no human cells had achieved before.”

#OTDIH in 1832, teacher, journalist, abolitionist, lecturer, & women’s rights activist, Maria W. Stewart (1803—December 17, 1879) gave her second public lecture “Why Sit Ye Here & Die” in Franklin Hall in Boston, the meeting site of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. 📸: The cover of the book “Maria W. Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches” (1987) edited & introduced by Marilyn Richardson.

On #LesbianVisibilityDay, we are sharing vintage photos of Black lesbian radicals & their contributions to Black political movement building.

BLACK LESBIANS WILL NOT BE ERASED.

📸: 1972, The Black Lesbian Caucus at NY Gay Pride.

#blackwomenradicals
#LesbianDayOfVisibility 📸: Angela Davis came out as a lesbian to Out in 1997.

#blackwomenradicals
#LesbianDayOfVisibility
#LesbianVisibilityDay

Happy 106th Birthday to Fanny Jackson Coppin! 🎈

Coppin was the second Black American woman in the country to earn a bachelor’s degree and the first Black American woman to become a school principal.

#blackwomenradicals "Born an American slave, Coppin's freedom was purchased by her aunt at age 12. Fanny Jackson spent the rest of her youth working as a servant for author George Henry Calvert, studying at every opportunity."

#blackwomenradicals