Michelle Buteau
American comedian, actor and writer
Tag Archives: African Descent
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Norma Shirley
Jamaican chef Norma Shirley built a reputation in the U.S. serving “New England food with Jamaican flair” at her Massachusetts restaurant in the late 1970s. But as she told Essence magazine, “It’s my dream to open another restaurant in Jamaica where Blacks would be the majority clientele.”
Sonia Boyce
Sonia Boyce became the first woman of African descent to represent the U.K. at the Venice Biennale in 2022, the year she turned 60.
Theresa Ruth Howard
Founder of “Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet” (MoBBallet), which “preserves, presents, and promotes the contributions and stories of Black artists in the field of Ballet, illustrating that they are an integral part of dance history at large,” in 2015.
Melanie George
American dance educator, choreographer, dramaturg, and scholar, and an activist working to deconstruct the hierarchies of dance.
Hattie Canty
In 1990, Hattie Canty was elected the first African American, first woman, and first guest room attendant to be president of the Las Vegas Hotel and Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a role in which she improved conditions for tens of thousands of workers.
Hattie McDaniel
The first African American to win an Oscar
Lubaina Himid
In 2017, 63-year-old Tanzanian-British artist Lubaina Himid became the oldest artist to win the acclaimed Turner Prize, as well as the first woman of African descent.
Mary Seacole
1800s Jamaican nurse and businesswoman
Mary Fields
“Stagecoach Mary” Fields may seem like an unconventional mail carrier by today’s standards, but the gun-toting, hot-tempered, six-foot-tall Mary was exactly the right person to protect her cargo in 1890s Montana.