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

Patti LaBelle
Nella Larsen

Edmonia Lewis

Patti LaBelle
née Patricia Louise Holte
b. 5-24-1944; Philadelphia, PA

Singer and actress Patti LaBelle has been called the Godmother of Soul, the High Priestess of Good Vibrations and the Queen of Rock & Soul as well as having been listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

• Patti LaBelle at Amazon

Patti LaBelle quote ~
• “The smallest deed is greater than the grandest intention.”

Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen
née Walker
b. 4-13-1891; Chicago, IL
d. 3-30-1964; Brooklyn

Nella Larsen wrote two novels and several short stories that were critically acclaimed.

Nella Larsen quotes ~
• “What are friends for, if not to help bear our sins?”
• “Authors do not supply imaginations, they expect their readers to have their own, and to use it.”
• “She hated to admit that money was the most serious difficulty. Knowing full well that it was important, she nevertheless rebelled at the unalterable truth that it could influence her actions, block her desires. A sordid necessity to be grappled with.”

Edmonia Lewis
b. ca. 7-4-1845; Albany, NY
d. c. 1909-1911; Rome, Italy or Marin Co. CA

Sculptor Edmonia Lewis was born to a Chippewa mother and an African father, who named her “Wildfire.” She grew up with her mother's family in Albany, New York, and spent her childhood “fishing and swimming and making moccasins.” In the fall of 1859 she was admitted to Oberlin College, and she later studied sculpting privately with Edmund Brackett. Lewis became known through the bust of such famous men as Abraham Lincoln, John Brown and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Her statue The Death of Cleopatra received much critical acclaim; it weighted two tons and took four years to complete. Her most popular work is Forever Free, which shows an African-American man and woman at the moment of their freedom, removing their shackles. [women artists]

• Child of the Fire: Mary Edmonia Lewis and the Problem of Art History's Black and Indian Subject

Audre Lorde
b. 2-18-1934; NYC
d. 11-17-1992; St. Croix (breast cancer)

Writer and activist Audre Lorde was the State Poet of New York from 1991 to 1992.

Audre Lorde quotes ~
• “For women . . . poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”
• “Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
• “. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are — until the poem — nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.”