Etta James
Blues and jazz singer Etta James experienced early success, but is also known for a major comeback later in her life.
Tag Archives: African Descent
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Bernardine Evaristo
“When I won the Booker Prize in 2019 for my novel Girl, Woman, Other, I became an ‘overnight success’ – after forty years working professionally in the arts.”
Marie van Brittain Brown
She collaborated with her husband, an electronics technician, to design and create the first closed-circuit television security system, changing home security for generations to come.
Michelle Obama
American first lady, lawyer, bestselling author and producer
Michelle Buteau
American comedian, actor and writer
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.