50 Black SheRoes: Part 2, Arts and Fashion

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Arts and Fashion SheRoes

Toni Morrison	Alice Walker
Maya Angelou	Lorraine Hansberry

• Toni Morrison – in 1982 became the first black winner of the Nobel Prize in literature
• Gwendolyn Brooks – first black winner of the Pulitzer Prize, in 1950 for Annie Allen
• Alice Walker – first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, in 1982 for The Color Purple
• Phyllis Wheatley – the first black published writer; a book of her poems was published in England in 1773
• Sonia Sanchez – a prolific poet and professor, very active during the Black Arts movement
• Juanita Hall - the first black winner of a Tony award, for playing Bloody Mary in South Pacific
• Maya Angelou – poet and widely aclaimed autobiographer; nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Die in 1971
• Ntozake Shange – black feminist, playwright, poet; won an Obie award for her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf
• Lorraine Hansberry – playwright and author; best known for her play A Raisin In The Sun, the first play written by a black woman to appear on Broadway

Donyale Luna covers British Vogue, March 1966
Naomi Sims covers Ladies Home Journal, November 1968	Beverly Johnson covers American Vogue, August 1974

• Donyale Luna – one of the first notable black models and the first black covergirl; first African American to cover British Vogue and named model of the year in 1966
• Naomi Sims – widely regarded as the first black supermodel; notably the first dark-skinned model to receive wide fame
• Beverly Johnson – first black model to land the cover of American Vogue in 1974

Part 3: Singers and Actresses