Where’s Her Movie? – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Where’s Her Movie? Educator/Publisher, Charlotta Bass – 24 In A Series

“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne

Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass (February 14, 1874[1] – April 12, 1969) was an American educator, newspaper publisher-editor, and civil rights activist. She also focused on various other issues such as housing rights, voting rights, and labor rights, as well as police brutality and harassment.[2] Bass is believed to be the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States; she published the California Eagle from 1912 until 1951.[3] In 1952, Bass became the first African-American woman nominated for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party.

Due to her activities, Bass was repeatedly accused of being part of the Communist Party, for which there was no evidence and which Bass herself repeatedly denied. She was monitored by the FBI, who continued to view her as a potential security threat up until she was in her nineties. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Lawyer, Charlotte E. Ray – 23 In A Series

Charlotte E. Ray (January 13, 1850 – January 4, 1911) was an American lawyer. She was the first black American female lawyer in the United States.[1][2] Ray graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872. She was also the first female admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, and the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.[3] Her admission was used as a precedent by women in other states who sought admission to the bar.[4]

Ray opened her own law office, advertising in a newspaper run by Frederick Douglass.[5] However, she practiced law for only a few years because prejudice against African Americans and women made her business unsustainable.[6] Ray eventually moved to New York, where she became a teacher in Brooklyn. She was involved in the women’s suffrage movement[7] and joined the National Association of Colored Women.[8] — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Gymnast, Dianne Durham – 22 In A Series

Dianne Patrice Durham (June 17, 1968 – February 4, 2021) was an American artistic gymnast. In 1983, she won the all-around senior title at the women’s US National Championships, becoming the first African American athlete to do so. She was Béla and Márta Károlyi’s first elite athlete in the United States, helping establish their coaching credentials outside of the state-sponsored program of their native Romania, and trained with Mary Lou Retton, who called Durham her “best competition”. After injuries and competition stipulations prevented her from competing in the 1984 Summer Olympics, Durham retired from competition in 1985. She later ran the Skyline Gymnastics school in Chicago.. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Scientist, Valerie Thomas – 21 In A Series

Valerie L. Thomas (born February 8, 1943) is an American scientist and inventor. She invented the illusion transmitter, for which she received a patent in 1980. She was responsible for developing the digital media formats image processing systems used in the early years of the Landsat program. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Fashion Designer, Anne Lowe – 20 In A Series

Ann Cole Lowe (December 14, 1898 – February 25, 1981) was an American fashion designer and the first African American to become a noted fashion designer.^[1] Lowe’s one-of-a-kind designs were a favorite among high society matrons from the 1920s to the 1960s. She was best known for designing the ivory silk taffeta wedding dress worn by Jacqueline Bouvier when she married John F. Kennedy in 1953 — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Activist, Mary Church Terrell – 19 in a series

Mary Church Terrell (born Mary Eliza Church; September 23, 1863 – July 24, 1954) was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree, and became known as a national activist for civil rights and suffrage.^[1] She taught in the Latin Department at the M Street school (now known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School)—the first African American public high school in the nation—in Washington, DC. In 1896, she was the first African-American woman in the United States to be appointed to the school board of a major city, serving in the District of Columbia until 1906. Terrell was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909) and the Colored Women’s League of Washington (1894). She helped found the National Association of Colored Women (1896) and served as its first national president, and she was a founding member of the National Association of College Women (1910) — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Actress, Maria Félix – 18 in a series

María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña, known as María Félix (Spanish: [maˈɾi.a ˈfeliks]; 8 April 1914 – 8 April 2002), was a Mexican film actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of Mexican cinema, her taste for the finesse and strong personality garnered her the title of diva early in her career.^[3] She was known as La Doña, a name derived from her character in the film Doña Bárbara (1943), and María Bonita, thanks to the anthem composed exclusively for her, as a wedding gift by her second husband, the Mexican composer Agustín Lara. She completed a film career that included 47 films made in Mexico, Spain, France, Italy and Argentina.^[4] She was also considered one of the most important female figures in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Activist, Dolores Huerta – 17 in a series

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW).^[1] Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers’ contract that was created after the strike.^[2]

Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers’, immigrants’, and women’s rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights^[3] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[4] She was the first Latina inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in 1993.^[5]^[6]

Huerta is the originator of the phrase, “Sí, se puede“.^[7] As a role model to many in the Latino community, Huerta is the subject of many corridos (Mexican or Mexican-American ballads) and murals.^[8]

In California, April 10 is Dolores Huerta Day.^[9] — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Activist, Claudette Colvin – 16 in a series

Claudette Colvin (born Claudette Austin, September 5, 1939)^[1]^[2] is a pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. 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. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.^[3]

Colvin was one of five plaintiffs in the first federal court case filed by civil rights attorney Fred Gray on February 1, 1956, as Browder v. Gayle, to challenge bus segregation in the city. In a United States district court, she testified before the three-judge panel that heard the case. On June 13, 1956, the judges determined that the state and local laws requiring bus segregation in Alabama were unconstitutional. The case went to the United States Supreme Court on appeal by the state, and it upheld the district court’s ruling on November 13, 1956. One month later, the Supreme Court affirmed the order to Montgomery and the state of Alabama to end bus segregation. The Montgomery bus boycott was then called off. — Wikipedia

Where’s Her Movie? Sculptor, Selma Burke – 15 in a series

Selma Hortense Burke (December 31, 1900 – August 29, 1995) was an American sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement.^[1] Burke is best known for a bas relief portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that inspired the profile found on the obverse of the dime.^[2] She described herself as “a people’s sculptor” and created many pieces of public art, often portraits of prominent African-American figures like Duke Ellington, Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington.^[3]^[4] In 1979, she was awarded the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award^[5]

— Wikipedia