Lyrical Lady Legends

To forget about Foxy would be horrific. She has performed alongside my favorite rapper, JIGGA, on many hits!!! This is definitely one of my faves. Her rap flow was raw, hard yet sexy! We should've got more music from her!

Lyrical Lady Legends...My FAVE!

"i'm not the one to sleep with, eat quick. Wanna cheap chik?

Better go down to freaknik."

Lyrical Lady Legends

Lyrical Lady Legends

THIS USED TO BE MY SONG ONCE UPON A TIME!!!

WHEN MY ULTIMATELY SINGLE ASS HAD A MAN!

Lyrical Lady Legends

WHAT GIRL DOES NOT LOVE A RUFF NECK?!?!?!

DEFINITELY BEFORE MY TIME BUT TO NOT INCLUDE MC LYTE IN THE LIST OF THE BEST IS AN INSULT TO THE BEST OF THEM AS A GROUP!

Lyrical Lady Legends

GIRL WHAT'S MY WEAKNESS?? MEN!!!

LOL...sorta before my time BUT I love them!

They're on tour too!

Lyrical Lady Legends...

I just felt like posting my favorite videos by female emcees this weekend! WHO YOU CALLIN' A BITCH?!?!?!?

FOR COLORED GIRLS....my opinion

I'm not sure which of you went to see the long anticipated film this past weekend but I certainly made an event of it with my baby sister, mother, auntie (whose expecting her first...YAY!!), and my grandmother after dinner at Maggianos!

I was excited to see the film but the movie disappointed me :( a great deal, sadly.

Reason being, and please don't shoot me loyal Tyler Perryans...i'm one too. I didn't think the film accurately captured the essence of the delight and plight that being a "colored" woman exudes.

GRANT IT, I did not read the book nor have I seen the play although the film does have me anxious to get my paws on them both. I felt the film captured the common struggles of women across all income, and racial lines. With the exception, of Janet's character, I don't think any issues that were unique to "colored" women, black women were depicted. ALL sexually active teen girls risk facing the scary reality of an unplanned pregnancy, lots of wives/women of crazed veterens/addicts are abused, many women are sex and attention deprived, etc. Instead I feel that if a colored woman's story was to be told, then it should have captured; how our men can't get jobs because they're black NOT veteren and alcoholic, in fact, some have not a thing wrong with them. It could have focused more on how our women are up against this still newly discovered culture of the "down low" brother because of our community's homophobia and our men's fear of being found out or labeled a sissy if they are with other men, it could have captured the absense of the effects of a successful father figure in the house of our many single mother households and those households that are thriving against the odds for lack of resources, education and the abundance of poverty in our community, our overly sexualized public personas that say nothing about our strength, legacy, and journey, etc.

I simply thought the movie did a great job of depicting issues relateable BY ALL women NOT just "colored" women. While that's not a bad thing but a great thing...the movie was for COLORED girls and we do really have our own set of issues that are purely unique to US!!!!!

MOST IMPORTANTLY, it could have captured how much WE SIMPLY ROCK!!!!!!

BLACK WOMEN RUN ISH!!!!

An Icon transitions....

My readers know that I am all about female empowerment and uplifting my fellow Black woman. With that, today the world mourns the death of a female pioneer, civil rights activst, and sorority sister of Delta Sigma Theta sorors everywhere....Dr. Dorothy Height. Dr. Height, former President of the National Counsil of Negro Women, has passed away at the age of 98 of natural causes.

Dr. Height is deserving of this post because (I've always dreamed of meeting her) she chose to live a life of service, fighting for equal rights for her fellow man and woman...especially Black men and women. It is because of women like Dr. Dorothy Height, that I, a young black woman, can vote, work in any position that a man can, and attend any university I choose. Of course with the exception of those established all male institutions like the historic Morehouse University.


Last year, the first bill that President Obama signed was a bill by the name of the Lily Ledbetter Act. That act made it mandatory for women to be treated equally in a place of employment and that they be paid equally and as fairly as their male counterparts. Such an act was only possible after decades of work and struggles from women such as Dr. Height. So as women that are either seeking new employment, going off to our jobs, sending our children off to daycare this morning, casting votes in national elections for individuals that would further fight on our behalf and enact acts such as the Lily Ledbetter Act....let us NOT forget about the service, life, and accomplishments of Dr. Dorothy Height.


Dr. Height has also been the recipient of the two highest awards available to a civilian in the United States of America; The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

THANK YOU Dr. Height!!!! We are forever grateful!!!

My friends and family have been listening to me say how much I loved Mo'nique's heartfelt, sincere thank you speech after she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her speech was a personified illustration of humility and gratitude. I saw the movie Precious and she really did deserve that award ***side eye*** to Samuel L. Jackson and whatever his look was about.

What I liked the most about her speech is that she thanked Hattie McDaniel. Hattie McDaniel is the first African American to ever win an Academy Award and the first African American actress to win the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind***

**Much to the dismay of my family, I LOVE Gone With the Wind**

However, I realized that many people didn't know who she, Hattie McDaniel, was and since I am behind in my posts on women, it's women's history month and Oscar night was a BIG night for women, I figured I'd have a post in tribute to Hattie McDaniel.

Hattie McDaniel was not just an actress. She was a singer, songwriter, comedienne, radio performer. She has two stars on the Hollywood walk of fame. One is for her work in films and the other for her work in radio as she was the first African American woman to perform on radio. She is also the first Academy Award winner to receive a United States postal stamp bearing her image. She has been inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and is probably one of the most, if not THE most, celebrated African American in film history for her achievements!!!

CONGRATS TO MO'NIQUE VIA HATTIE MCDANIEL!!!

Josephine Baker and the Banana Dance

Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American expatriate entertainer and actress. She became a French citizen in 1937. Most noted as a singer, Baker also was a celebrated dancer in her early career. She was given the nicknames the "Bronze Venus" or the "Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole Goddess" in anglophone nations. In France, she has always been known as "La Baker".

Baker was the first African American to star in a major motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down[3]), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II[4] and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de Guerre.

MOST OF US IN OUR GENERATION, WATCHED THE BANANA DANCE AS BEYONCE PERFORMED IT IN HER DEJA VU VIDEO....IT IS THE DANCE FOR WHICH JOSEPHINE BAKER IS THE MOST FAMOUS FOR PERFORMING.

BEVERLY JOHNSON...

NOOO, not Betsey Johnson...BEVERLY Johnson!!

Beverly Johnson was born October 13, 1952 in Buffalo, New York to middle class parents. As a child Beverly participated in Athletics and had dreams of, one day, becoming a lawyer. She pursued those dreams by first working toward a Criminal Justice degree (like moi...LOL) at Northeastern University.

While in college Beverly, after the encouragement of some friends, tried out for modeling and she ended up on the cover of Glamour magazine. It was the first of many covers for the young, beginner model. It was in 1974, however, that Beverly Johnson, would shatter the norm and break barriers by gracing the cover of VOGUE magazine!!! She was the first African American woman to land such a job...thus, paving the way for models that would come later like Tyra Banks, tantrum having Naomi Campbell and the beautiful Selita Ebanks, among others.

After a tremendously successful career as a fashion model, Beverly Johnson has been featured in films such as How To Be A Player and even has her own line of hair weave...that looks fab even though I haven't tried it myself. Beverly Johnson was also named to be one of the MOST influential people of the 20th century which is pretty huge, if you ask me!!! WHO SAYS SUPER MODELS CAN'T DO ANYTHING ELSE??!?!?!?

Ursula Burns...BLACK WOMEN IN HISTORY**

You may have seen her gracing the cover of a few popular magazines recently and she's on the cover of the current Black Enterprise Magazine....Ursula Burns. She is the FIRST, in 2010, the FIRST African American woman to be named Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune 500 company, Xerox.

Ursula Burns' story is one of a hardworking woman who started from the bottom and worked her way up through perserverance and determination. Burns' has had a long tenure at the Xerox Corporation. She started as a Mechanical Engineer intern in 1980, worked for the company after graduation and over the years, has steadily climbed the ladder toward her current position as the first African American Woman to lead a major United States Corporation.

According to the dailyvoice.com, Burns' has quite the background as well. She is "a graduate of Polytechnic Institute of NYU, holds a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University. She serves on several professional and community boards, including American Express, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, MIT, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the University of Rochester.

More than a corporate "Big Wig" Ursula Burns is also a mom. She has one son and one daughter.

GET IT GIRL!!!!!!!!!!

Mary Jane Patterson...*Black Women in History*

Mary Jane Patterson was born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her parents were slaves as well in North Carolina but it was when her dad receive his freedom papers that he decided to move his family out of North Carolina and further up north that Mary's first glimmer of light had shone.

Henry Patterson moved his family to an area that presented more promise and opportunity to them as ex slaves, in Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin, at the Northern end of the United States, had quite a great number of free blacks and most of them worked, owned businesses and attended school. Oberlin College was a representation of that fact. It had admitted it's firts Black student in 1835 (30 years before the abolishment of slavery), and became the nation's first coeducational institution of higher education. So, it wasn't a wonder when Mary Jane Patterson decided that she'd enroll in some classes at the college.

Oberlin College had two different programs for men and women, and she, Mary Jane Patterson, enrolled in the program for the women. It was a two year program that was designed for each female student to earn a "literary diploma." Not to much surprise, the program for the men was 4years long and lead to a full Bachelor of Arts degree. Mary Jane Patterson, took no prisoners. She completed the requirements for her literary diploma and then enrolled into the Bachelors degree program traditionally for men.

While matriculating through her Bachelor degree studies, Patterson studied Latin, Math, and Greek. In 1862, 3 years before slavery was abolished by the Emancipation Proclamation, Mary Jane Patterson and twenty two other students received their degrees from Oberlin College. Patterson was one of two blacks completing the program and the only woman.

She is held in high regard as the first BLACK WOMAN TO OBTAIN A 4 YEAR DEGREE but that is debateable. She is also the first African American to be promoted to the position of Principal at a high school in the Nation's Capital.

After completing her education, Mary Jane Patterson spent the rest of her life working as an educator in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

Patterson died in her home at the age of 54 on September 24, 1894. Her home is now a historical landmark in Washington, DC.

KUDOS to Mary Jane Patterson for her achievements!!!!

She shattered the norm and broke the mold.

Bridget "Biddy" Mason was born August 15, 1818 as a slave. Like many slaves she had little education, if any at all, but became very well known for her skills in midwifery as a result of her knowledge of herbal medicines and midwifery itself.

In 1847, her Biddy's master Robert Smith became a mormon and moved, with his household and slaves (90 people in all), to Utah Territory. On this arduous 2,000-mile trek across the country, Biddy's responsibility was to herd the cattle, prepare meals, act as a midwife, and take care of her own children. (She had three daughters, Ellen, Ann and Harriet, whose father was reputedly Smith.) In 1851, Smith moved everyone again to San Bernardino, California, where Brigham Young was starting another Mormon community. moved, with his household and slaves (90 people in all), to Utah Territory. On this arduous 2,000-mile trek across the country, Biddy's responsibility was to herd the cattle, prepare meals, act as a midwife, and take care of her own children. (She had three daughters, Ellen, Ann and Harriet, whose father was reputedly Smith.) In 1851, Smith moved everyone again to San Bernardino, California, where Brigham Young was starting another Mormon community.

Biddy learned through friends in the African-American Los Angeles community that California had been admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state; slavery was prohibited. But such slave owners were rarely challenged, and if they were, they rarely lost the case. In the winter of 1855, Smith decided to move once again, to Texas, a slave state. Their departure was interrupted by the Los Angeles sheriff, who served Smith a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Biddy.

Biddy's daughter Ellen had been dating a free black man, Charles Owens, the son of an esteemed business owner in Los Angeles' African-American community. Charles and his friend Manuel Pepper, who was dating the daughter of another of Smith's slaves, helped Biddy file her petition with the court for her freedom. Since California law at the time prohibited blacks, mulattos and Native Americans from testifying in court, Biddy could not speak on her own behalf, but the judge did meet with her privately to hear her story. Robert Smith did not appear in court so, on January 19 (another source says January 21), 1856, the judge granted Biddy her freedom, as well as that of her three daughters (some sources say all the other slaves of Robert Smith were freed as well).

Biddy moved to Los Angeles, accepting the invitation to live with the Owens family. (Her daughter Ellen later married Charles.) She quickly became well regarded as a nurse and midwife, assisting in hundreds of births to mothers of all races and social classes. A couple sources say she was immediately offered a job after the trial by Dr. John S. Griffin, a Los Angeles doctor who had become interested in the case. What is certain is she soon became financially independent, saving her money and living frugally. Ten years later, in 1866, she bought a house and sizeable property on Spring Street for $250, becoming one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. She instructed her children to never abandon it.

In 1884, Biddy sold a parcel of the land for $1500 and built a commercial building with rental spaces on the remaining land. The area ultimately became the central commercial district of Los Angeles. Through continued wise business and real estate decisions, she acquired many parcels of land that, as the town developed, became prime urban lots -- and she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. Her grandson, Robert Curry Owens, a real estate developer and politician, was the wealthiest African-American in Los Angeles at one time.
Biddy became known as Grandma Mason -- generously donating money to charities (she would occasionally pay the expenses of both Black and white churchs), visiting prison inmates with gifts and aid, and giving food and shelter to the poor of all races. Needy people often lined up in front of 331 South Spring Street. One source says she also ran an orphanage in her house.
In 1872, Biddy and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first black church in Los Angeles. It is now known as 8th and Townes, and is presently housed in a modern building at 2270 South Harvard Street.
Biddy died January 15, 1891, at the age of 73, and was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen cemetery in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles. Nearly a century later, her accomplishments were finally given due respect when a tombstone marked her grave for the first time in a ceremony attended by Mayor Tom Bradley and about 3,000 First A.M.E. Church members, on March 27, 1988. The following year, November 16, 1989, was declared Biddy Mason Day and a memorial of her achievements was erected at the Broadway Spring Center (a parking garage built at the site of her home), between Spring Street and Broadway at Third Street.

First Black Sorority....

Alpha Kappa Alpha is the first greek letter, sorority organization established by and for African American women. The sorority was found January 15, 1908 in Washington, DC on the campus of the historical black college/university Howard University. The sorority was later incorporated January 29, 1913. There were 9 founding members the most famous of which to non-sorority members is Ethel Hedgeman Lyle.

Ethel Hedgeman Lyle was inspired to establish the sorority by the lack of constructive, organizations that promoted service and sisterhood. Her desire was also fueled by her husband's membership in the FIRST greek letter fraternity for African American men, Alpha Phi Alpha. IT wouldn't surprise me to find out that this relationship is the one that would set the mode for the long standing relationship the fraternity and sorority would share in the coming decades....being the first two organizations and all.

To implement her idea, Hedgeman began recruiting interested classmates during the summer of 1907. Eventually, nine women including Hedgeman were instrumental in organizing Alpha Kappa Alpha in fall 1908. With Hedgeman serving as the temporary chairperson, the women wrote the sorority's constitution, devised the motto and favorite colors, and named the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. Later in 1909, seven sophomores expressed interest and were accepted without initiation. The first initiation was held in a wing of Miner Hall on Howard University on February 11, 1909. On May 25, 1909, Alpha Kappa Alpha held the first "Ivy Week", a celebration which included planting ivy at Miner Hall.

Fast forward to today, 102 years later Alpha Kappa Alpha still stands as an influential, intellectual, body of women all of the world seeking to better their communities and make a difference through economic empowerment, SERVICE TO ALL MANKIND, and various programs meant to uplift and empower the family unit as a whole. For more information on Alpha Kappa Alpha visit their website at http://www.aka1908.com/

FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA HAS BEEN FORMALLY INDUCTED AS A MEMBER OF THE PRESTIGIOUS SORORITY among other well known philantropists, intellectuals, celebrities.

Strength in voice....

In the Black Community the church has long, since slavery, been a safe haven, place of worship, fellowship, and good news (gospel). During slavery, the slaves would often use songs that we now call "old negro spirituals" to communicate or express their feelings. Thus....gospel music is a staple in the black community. It's moving and emotional content tend to speak directly to a people that, in the United States, has experienced the most unique of struggles....Gospel music is bigger than ever and the voices are more popular than ever. One of the greatest gospel singers of all, in my opinion, would have to be Mahalia Jackson.

Mahalia Jacskson was born October 26, 1911 in New Orleans, Lousiana. She was third child of John Jackson and Charity Clark. In 1916, her father sent her to live with her aunt Mahalia "Duke" Paul. Aunt Duke didn't allow secular music in her house, but Mahalia's cousin would sneak in records. Even at a very young age, Mahalia had a booming voice and she would sing hymns and old-time gospel tunes around the house. She attended the McDonough School No. 24 in New Orleans through the eighth grade.

Jackson is viewed by many as the pinnacle of gospel music. Her singing began at the age of four in her church, the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church in New Orleans. Her early style blended the freedom and power of gospel with the stricter style of the Baptist Church.

In 1927, at the age of 16, she moved to Chicago and found work as a domestic. But soon after, she found plenty of work as a soloist at churches and funerals after joining the Greater Salem Baptist Church choir. Her unique contralto voice caught the attention of many small churches from coast to coast. Larger, more formal churches frowned upon her energetic renditions of songs. After performing with the Prince Johnson Singers, she began recording for Decca Records in 1937. When the records did not sell as well as expected, she became a beautician. However, after five years of touring with composer Thomas A. Dorsey at gospel tents and churches, Mahalia's popularity and success garnered her another record contract, this time with Apollo Records, from 1946 to 1954. She then switched to Columbia Records, from 1954 to 1967, where she attained broad recognition as a spiritual singer.

Throughout the 1950s, Mahalia's voice was heard on radio, television and concert halls around the world. Her shows were packed in Europe, and her audience very enthusiastic at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, at a special all-gospel program she requested. In 1954, she began hosting her own Sunday night radio show for CBS. She performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956 where she catapulted gospel music into America's mainstream. She sang for President Dwight Eisenhower and at John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball in 1960.

From the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott until her death, Mahalia was very prominent in the Civil Rights Movement. Very close with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she often performed at his rallies--even singing an old slave spiritual before his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. She also sang at his funeral five years later.
Despite her doctors ordering her to slow down, Mahalia refused and collapsed while on tour in Munich in 1971. She died of heart failure on January 27, 1972, at her home in Evergreen Park, Illinois.

Charlotte Ray....1st Black, female attorney

There aren't really any pictures that one can use, and be sure it's actually a picture of Ms Charlotte E. Ray and little is known about her personal life, but she holds the title of the first African American female Attorney. Charlotte Ray was born in New York. Charlotte's dad was a journalist, Congressional Minister, AntiSlavery Activist, and an active conductor on the Underground Railroad. Ray studied at the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, DC and was a teacher at the historic Howard University by 1869, four years after slavery was abolished.

Charlotte Ray studied Commercial Law at Howard University and it was there that she would receive her law degree in February 1872. She was the first woman to graduate from Howard University's School of Law. Also in 1872, Ray was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar making her the first female attorney in Washington, D.C and the first black woman attorney in the nation. As someone pursuing a career in law myself, I have been told the Washington, DC bar in among the hardest in the nation. Kudos to Charlotte Ray for making it!!

Charlotte Ray opened her own law practice in the Nation's Capital but due to racial oppression, she couldn't get enough business and wasn't allowed to practice. She closed her practice and returned to Long Island, New York and worked as a teacher. She met and married a man with the surname of Fraim, and died in Woodside, New York 1911.

Rest In Peace Charlotte Ray