Famous Alabama Black Women

Most of us know famous black women who either hail from or adopted Alabama as home.  One of the most famous names is Rosa Parks.  But, do you know that Coretta Scott King was an Alabama native? Margaret Murray Washington, third wife of Booker T., wasn't born in Alabama (she's from Mississippi), but she did her most important work in Alabama.  Although the famed writer would call Eatonville, Florida her home, Zora Neale Hurston was born in Alabama.  So were writers Margaret Walker Alexander and Sonia Sanchez.  Activist and scholar Angela Davis is from Alabama as well.  The list goes on and on and on for these wonderful women.  Finally, I know this is reaching, but the mothers of three of my all-time favorite musicians were from Alabama: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Karen Clark-Sheard (and her sisters, the Clark Sisters). I'm sure I can find more.  We've also produced several famous political women, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman.  Let's also not forget the current Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Regina Benjamin, hails from Alabama; so does freshman Congresswoman Terri Sewell.  Whether it's because of or in spite of, Alabama has produced some phenomenal, historical black women.

Chaka Khan I'm Every Woman

Black Women in Alabama

"Only the BLACK WOMAN can say "when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me." ~Dr. Anna Julia Cooper


Since they landed in America, Black women have held a precarious position within American society.  From the enslavement period through the twenty-first century, Black women have been identified with and defined by their race and their gender.  Power relationships often dictated how they were defined by others.  Many times, for example, they had no control over how they were depicted.  At other times, however, Black women were historical agents, actively creating and carefully constructing the images that they wanted others to see.

I hope to tell the stories of black women from a variety of socioeconomic levels and to show how their lives were shaped by the dynamics of race, class, and gender in Alabama and vice-versa.  Sounds so academic... I want to present historical black women from Alabama--women who had an effect on their communities, raised families, worked jobs, served in churches, taught school, worked as domestics, were seamstresses, cooks, nannies, nurses, housewives, but whose lives were important.