Eartha Kitt was an American actress, singer, cabaret star, dancer, stand-up comedian, activist and voice artist. She had a distinctive singing style and is best known for her Christmas song “Santa Baby” and for playing Catwoman in the television series Batman. Kitt was born in 1927 near the town of North in South Carolina. Her …
Viola Desmond was a Black Nova Scotian businesswoman who challenged racial segregation at a film theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946. Her actions sparked the modern civil rights movement in Canada. Desmond was born Viola Davis in 1914 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her parents, James Albert and Gwendolin Irene were active in the …
Zadie Smith is a British novelist, essayist, and short story writer best known for her novel, White Teeth. Smith was born in 1975 in London, England. Her mother, Yvonne Bailey had grown up in Jamaica and moved to England in 1969 and her father Harvey Smith was English. As a child, Smith enjoyed tap dancing …
Octavia E. Butler was a world renowned African-American science fiction novelist and the first African-American woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer. Her novels include Patternmaster, Kindred, Dawn and Parable of the Sower. Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, California. Her father died at an early age, and …
Elizabeth Gaskell was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victoria era. She is best known for her novels Cranford and North and South, and for writing the biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë. Gaskell was born Elizabeth Stevenson in 1810 in Chelsea, London. Her mother, Elizabeth died when she was young and …
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer. She is best known for her 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School. Asker was born in New York City in 1947. Her father left the family before Acker was born, and her mother remarried quickly. Acker grew …
Mary Barbour was a Scottish political activist, community leader and social policy pioneer who became one of the first female Labour Councillors on the Glasgow Town Council, the first woman Bailie on Glasgow Corporation and one of Glasgow’s first female Magistrates. She is best known for her part in the Red Clydeside movement in the …
Pauli Murray was an American civil rights activist, women’s rights activist, lawyer and author. She was the first woman to be awarded a J.D.S degree from Yale and the first black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. She also co-founded NOW, the National Organization for Women. Murray was born in 1910 in Baltimore, …
Liliuokalani was Hawaii’s first queen and final sovereign ruler before the islands were annexed by the United States in 1898. Liliuokalani was born Lydia Kamakaeha in 1838 in Honolulu, Hawaii to the High Chieftess Analea Keohokālole and High Chief Caesar Kaluaiku Kapaʻakea. Her mother served as an adviser to King Kamehameha III. Liliuokalani was educated …
Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator and activist known as “The First Lady of The Struggle” due of her commitment to gain better lives for African Americans. She founded the National Council of Negro Women and served as president of the National Association of Colored Women. Bethune was born Mary Jane McLeod in 1875 near …