QUEst for Blackness
(November 2010)
QUEst #1: I was the first BLACK woman to own a radio station. I am a dynamic speaker and received numerous accolades for my provocative oratorical style. I’m broadcasting BLACKNESS, can you hear me? Who am I?
ANS: Dorothy Brunson (Source: http://citypaper.net/articles/2003-01-23/om.shtml) ****
QUEst #2: When I realized that my son had no BLACK, super-hero toys to play with, I founded my own company to make super-hero action figures. My dream of providing BLACK children with toys that “look like them” has turned into a multi-million dollar business. My company is one the few BLACK owned businesses to obtain shelf space in major stores across the country. Are you ethnic enough to know who am I?
ANS: Yla Eason (Source: http://sunman.3wpages.com/Yla_Eason.htm) ****
QUEst #3: For more than 75 years, I placed French, African, Caribbean and American themes in some of the country’s most prestigious art galleries, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Art. For over 47 years, I guided the creative endeavors of some 2500 students while on the faculty of Howard University. Despite racial discrimination that caused me to submit my artwork through the mail for two decades, I managed to enter the mainstream art world in recent years. Among my heralded exhibits was a 1995 show at Washington’s Corcoran, one of the galleries from which I hid my identity for 50 years. Look at the art of being BLACK. Who am I?
ANS: Lois Mailou Jones (Source: http://www.loismailoujones.com) ****
QUEst #4: I am one of a handful of BLACK theoretical physicists in the world. After becoming the first BLACK woman to receive a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I went on to conduct research in physics at AT&T Bell Laboratories and later joined the faculty at Rutgers University. In 1995, I became the first woman to serve as Chairman and the first BLACK to serve as a Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. What has your ignorance lead you to do? Who am I?
ANS: Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson (Source: http://www.strawberrylady.com/blackhistory/jackson/ShirleyAnnJackson.htm) ****