Humanities › History & Culture African-American History and Women Timeline (1930-1939) Share Flipboard Email Print Mary McLeod Bethune. Hulton Archive / Getty Images History & Culture Women's History Key Events History Of Feminism Important Figures Women's Suffrage Women & War Laws & Womens Rights Feminism & Pop Culture Feminist Texts American History African American History African History Ancient History and Culture Asian History European History Genealogy Inventions Latin American History Medieval & Renaissance History Military History The 20th Century View More By Jone Johnson Lewis Women's History Writer B.A., Mundelein College M.Div., Meadville/Lombard Theological School Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late 1960s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. our editorial process Jone Johnson Lewis Updated March 10, 2019 1930 • Black women called for white Southern women to oppose lynching; in response, Jessie Daniel Ames and others founded the Association for the Prevention of Lynching (1930-1942), with Ames as director. • Annie Turnbo Melone (business executive and philanthropist) moved her business operations to Chicago. • Lorraine Hansberry was born (playwright, wrote Raisin in the Sun). 1931 • Nine African-American "Scottsboro Boys" (Alabama) were accused of raping two white women and convicted quickly. The trial focused national attention on the legal plight of African-Americans in the South. • (February 18) Toni Morrison was born (writer; first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature). • (March 25) Ida B. Wells (Wells-Barnett) died (muckraking journalist, lecturer, activist, anti-lynching writer and activist). • (August 16) A'Lelia Walker died (executive, arts patron, Harlem Renaissance figure). 1932 • Augusta Savage began the largest art center in the US at the time, the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in New York. 1933 • Caterina Jarboro performed the title role in Verdi's "Aida" at the Chicago Civic Opera. • (February 21) Nina Simone born (pianist, singer; "Priestess of Soul"). • (-1942) Civilian Conservation Corp employed more than 250,000 African-American women and men. 1934 • (February 18) Audre Lorde was born (poet, essayist, educator). • (December 15) Maggie Lena Walker died (banker, executive). 1935 • The National Council of Negro Women was founded. • (July 17) Diahann Carroll was born (actress, first African-American woman to star in a television series). 1936 • Mary McLeod Bethune was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the National Youth Administration as Director of Negro Affairs, the first major appointment of an African-American woman to a federal position. • Barbara Jordan was born (politician, first African-American woman from the South elected to Congress). 1937 • Zora Neale Hurston published Their Eyes Were Watching God. • (June 13) Eleanor Holmes Norton was born (though some sources give her date of birth as April 8, 1938). 1938 • (November 8) Crystal Bird Fauset was elected to the Pennsylvania House, becoming the first African-American woman state legislator. 1939 • (July 22) Jane Matilda Bolin was appointed justice of the Domestic Relations Court of New York, becoming the first African-American woman judge. • Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar—about playing the role of a servant, she said, "It's better to get $7,000 a week for playing a servant than $7 a week for being one." • Marian Anderson, denied permission to sing at a Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) hall, performed outdoors for 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest of their refusal. • Marian Wright Edelman was born (lawyer, educator, reformer).