17 Women From Black History Whose Names You Should Know

Over the last few months at #BBATX, we’ve been exploring resilience. We’ve been using our programs to amplify women and nonbinary thought leaders, creatives and business-owners who demonstrate a soft power—an unmatched toughness—in both their failures and successes. From their stories, we’ve collectively redefined what it means to recover, reclaim and remain standing.

We’ve also had the pleasure of learning the truths of each other’s icons and motivations. In this post, you’ll find 17 women from Black history who have touched each member of our team in unique and transformative ways. We hope you gather as much inspiration from their legacies as we do.

Ida B. Wells

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Angela Davis

Angela Yvonne Davis is an American political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991, and was briefly involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement.

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

Madam CJ Walker

Sarah Breedlove, known as Madam C. J. Walker, was an African-American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a political and social activist. Walker was considered to be the wealthiest African American businesswoman and wealthiest self made woman in America at the time of her death in 1919.

Roberta Flack

Roberta Cleopatra Flack is an American singer. She is known for her #1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love", and for "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway.

Pat McGrath

Pat McGrath MBE is a British make-up artist. She has been called the most influential make-up artist in the world by Vogue magazine and other commentators.

Every Black Woman Who Doesn't Fit The Mold and Ms. Peng

When it came time for Mélissa Peng to share her icons from Black History with us, she went just a little rogue. Peng used the moment to highlight the Black women in her life who have refused to fit the mold and have worked to break stereotypes, including her mom (on the right).

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life.

Nina Chanel Abney

Nina Chanel Abney is an American artist, based in New York. She was born in Chicago, Illinois. She is an African American contemporary artist and painter who explores race, gender, pop culture, and politics in her work

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu is a prominent international contemporary visual artist known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film and performance work. Born in Kenya, she has lived and established her career in New York for over twenty years.

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was an African-American publisher, journalist, civil rights leader, suffragist, and editor of the Woman's Era, the first national newspaper published by and for African-American women.

Jasmine Robinson

#BBATX committee member Jasmine Robinson is all about self-love this month. She nominated herself as an icon in Black History, because she has dedicated her life to helping fellow Women of Color defy all odds through her nonprofit, the Collegiate Mom Coalition.

Mary Kenner

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was an African-American inventor most noted for her development of the sanitary belt. Racial discrimination prevented its adoption for thirty years.

Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the civil rights movement. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin is an American nurse and was a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus.

Celia Cruz

Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso was a Cuban singer and the most popular Latin artist of the 20th century, gaining twenty-three gold albums during her career. She received a star in the "Walk of Fame" in Hollywood. The U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 1994.

Nikki Giovanni

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr. is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator.