Famous and Notable Black Women Posters, “D...-”
for the social studies classroom, home schoolers and theme decor.

Dorothy Dandridge
Angela Davis
Ruby Dee

Carmen De Lavallade
Lisa Delpit
Mattiwilda Dobbs

Dorothy Dandridge
b. 11-9-1922; Cleveland, Ohio
d. 9-8-1965; California

Dorothy Dandridge was the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award (1954, Carmen Jones). Dandridge's movie debut was in the Marx Brother's A Day at the Races; she was also in the film musical Porgy and Bess.

• Everything and Nothing : The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy

Angela Davis
b. 1-26-1944; Birmingham, AL

Political activist, educator and author Angela Davis is associated with the civil rights movement, the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party USA, focusing on the abolition of the prison-industrial complex.

Davis was the head of the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department, and currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University.

Angela Davis was influenced by Hertbert Marcuse.

Ruby Dee
neé Ruby Ann Wallace
b. 10-27-1924; Cleveland, OH

Ruby Dee, an actress whose career crossed all major forms of media over a span of eight decades, is also a poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist.

• Black History posters

Carmen de Lavallade, Photographic Print

Carmen De Lavallade
b. 6-3-1931; New Orleans, LA

Dancer, choreographer, professor and actress Carmen De Lavallade danced with Lester Horton, Alvin Ailey and Agnes de Mille.

Lisa Delpit

Lisa D. Delpit, a professor of education and the director of the Center for Urban Educational Excellence, focusing on education and race. She was the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship (1990).

Mattiwilda Dobbs
b. 7-11-1925; Atlanta, GA

Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano, was one of the first African-American singers to have an international opera career. She was also the first African-American member of the faculty at the University of Texas.

Rita Dove
b. 8-28-1952; Akron, OH

Rita Dove was 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry and Poet Laureate of the United States.

Dove's poetry is lyrical, musical - listen to her read her American Smooth at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. American Smooth is a type of ballroom dance, - listen to the flow and rhythm.

Rita Dove quotes ~
• “If we’re going to solve the problems of the world, we have to learn how to talk to one another. Poetry is the language at its essence. It’s the bones and the skeleton of the language. It teaches you, if nothing else, how to choose your words.”
• “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
• “If our children are unable to voice what they mean, no one will know how they feel. If they can’t imagine a different world, they are stumbling through a darkness made all the more sinister by its lack of reference points. For a young person growing up in America’s alienated neighborhoods, there can be no greater empowerment than to dare to speak from the heart — and then to discover that one is not alone in ones feelings.”

• Rita Dove Books

Katherine Dunham Photographic Print

Katherine Dunham
b. 6-22-1909; Joliet, IL
d. 5-21-2006; NYC

Katherine Dunham is a noted dancer and choreographer who brought the dance styles of black people of the Caribbean and the United States to the attention of America at large. ... more at Great Black Innovators posters

• women and music posters
• Eartha Kitt began her career in the Katherine Dunham company.

Jeanne Duval
b. c. 1820, Haiti
d. c. 1862-1870; France

Actress and dancer Jeanne Duval was the Creole mistress of French poet and artist Charles Baudelaire. Duval was painted by Édouard Manet in 1862.