February is Black History Month, and while African-American women like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Ida B. Wells, and Shirley Chisholm deserve to be celebrated, stories like Hidden Figures remind us that history is full of trailblazing black women who haven’t received nearly as much attention as they deserve. Here are just 6 of them.
1. Sister Rosetta Tharpe invented rock music… in the 1930s.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a gospel singer popular in the ‘30s and ‘40s, but she has been called the Godmother of Rock and Roll. Check out this video of her performing!
Despite her groundbreaking guitar playing that influenced practically every early rock musician – seriously, Wikipedia cites “Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis” as musicians she influenced – she hasn’t been nearly as recognized as later male and white rockers. Recently she’s started getting the credit she deserves. There’s also been speculation that she was lesbian or bisexual, which could well mean that a queer black woman invented rock.
2. Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat before Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks was actually not the first black woman arrested in Alabama for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger: nine months before that incident, Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same reason. So why didn’t she become the face of the Montgomery bus boycott? The answer is sad but pragmatic: Colvin was a pregnant 15-year-old, and the NAACP were concerned that she would not attract as much public sympathy as the more ‘respectable’ Parks – even though Parks had a radical record of activism that included much more than just the act she’s most famous for.
3. Cathay Williams, the black Mulan.
Born a slave in Missouri, Cathay Williams was 17 when she was impressed by the Union as “contraband” and forced to work as a cook and washerwoman for the troops. After the Civil War ended, she decided to join the Army to get a pension. To enlist, she disguised herself as a man, “William Cathay.” Her military career only lasted two years before her ruse was discovered, but she was the first black woman to enlist in the U.S. Army, and the only one documented to have served as a man.
4. “Stagecoach” Mary Fields – where do we even start?
Mary Fields was the first African-American female star route mail carrier, which sounds cool enough, but that doesn’t even begin to cover how badass this woman was. She was 61 when she joined the U.S. Postal Service, but when snowstorms became too intense for her horses, she would haul the sacks of mail over her shoulder and walk. She got her nickname because she never missed a delivery, even when she was attacked by a pack of wolves.
She was a larger-than-life character: six feet two inches tall, a pistol under her apron, and with a love of drink—the mayor of Cascade, Montana actually gave her a special exemption from a law banning women from saloons—but despite a reputation for brawling (she was fired from a construction job for punching out coworkers who were angry about working for a woman), she was a kind soul. Every year she treated the town children to a party for her birthday. One of those children grew up to be the celebrated movie star Gary Cooper, who wrote her a wonderful eulogy: “Born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, Mary lived to be one of the freest souls to ever draw a breath, or a .45.”
5. Stephanie St. Clair, Harlem’s Queen of Crime
Madame St. Clair might not be a “heroic” figure, but if white guys like Al Capone get to be legends, she should too. She ran Harlem’s number rackets during Prohibition, and during the Depression, she went to war with the Mob. When white gangster Dutch Schultz, who had tried and failed to encroach on her territory, was later assassinated by the Mafia, she infamously sent a telegram reading “So You Sow – So Shall Ye Reap.”
But while she was absolutely ruthless – she once ran a full-page ad telling would-be suitors that “if they do not stop annoying me, I shall publish their names and letters in the newspaper” – she was also a community activist. She ran ads informing Harlem’s black community of their legal rights, advocating for voting rights, and even exposing police brutality. When police arrested her in response, she reported the names of officers she had bribed in her racket, resulting in more than a dozen officers being fired.
6. Marsha P. Johnson, the black trans womxn who sparked the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement
The Stonewall riot of 1969 is often considered the event that catalyzed the gay liberation movement. Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans woman and prominent AIDS activist, sex worker, and drag queen (when asked what the “P.” stood for, she said “Pay it no mind,” which is the same answer she gave when asked about her gender or sexuality), has been identified as the first patron to resist the police that night and thus spark a riot – and a movement. After Stonewall, she and fellow drag queen Sylvia Rivera went on to found Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization helping homeless trans women and drag queens of color.
Go forth with the new information you have about these amazing figures in Black Herstory – they’ve been hidden for too long!