Four Black Industry Pioneers We Should Have Heard Of Before Now
We are a small team of white women in a middle-class America. We acknowledge that privilege.
We also believe in creating a better world where humans of all colors, creeds, and nationalities are heard and seen and intrinsically valued. We know it is our responsibility to work with intention toward that better future.
To that end, we’d like to share some Black voices that have inspired us, magnifying their stories with gratitude for their legacies during Black History month: Four Black, female creatives who changed our industry and who we should have heard of before now.
DOROTHY HAYES,
smasher of glass ceilings and pioneer in the field of graphic design. Hayes, a Black, southern woman trying to break into a male-dominated field in the 1950s, had just about every card stacked against her. That didn’t stop her.
After graduating from Alabama State College, she left the heat and humidity of Mobile for the hustle and promise of New York City, determined to make her mark on the world. She studied graphic arts at Cooper Union School of Art and the New York Institute of Advertising, landing a job that should have been her big break, only to find it an empty gesture.
“I was employed by a well-known broadcasting company and led to believe that I would hold a design position, yet I was never allowed to do anything but non-creative work. I was frankly told that my employment was simply a form of tokenism.” - Dorothy Hayes, Print Magazine Article, “Black Experience in Graphic Design”
Nevertheless, she persisted.
In 1970, determined to be an asset to other Black creatives, she organized “Black Artists in Graphic Communication,” an exhibition that showcased 49 graphic designers.
Hayes eventually opened her own firm, Dorothy’s Door, and went on to be a professor at New York City Technical College, where she inspired countless others to create, design, and make their voices heard.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS,
the first Black person—woman or otherwise—to win a Pulitzer Prize. In 1950 she received the award for her book of poetry, Annie Allen. A Chicago resident, she was Poet Laureate of our own state of Illinois (a title that is now in vogue, thanks to Amanda Gorman’s stunning performance at President Biden’s inauguration) and taught at several universities, including four Illinois schools.
While Brooks is revered amongst those who read poetry, she is less known by those of us who don’t read as much verse as we should, meriting her a place on this list.
Brooks wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning volume—a story about a Black girl from the South Side—when money was tight. Bills went unpaid. By the time she won, the electricity in her home had been cut off and she didn’t know how to tell the interviewers that their plugged-in cameras weren’t going to work.
Thankfully, an anonymous do-gooder had paid to get the power back on.
From that moment on, Brooks used her pen and influence to lift up other writers, to tell the truth, to speak on real issues like poverty and race, and to give voice to a community that had gone unheard for so long.
“I know that the Black emphasis must be not against white but FOR Black… In the Conference-That-Counts, whose date may be 1980 or 2080 (woe betide the Fabric of Man if it is 2080), there will be no looking up nor looking down.” - Gwendolyn Brook
Hear an audio recording of We Real Cool.
CAROL H. WILLIAMS,
the advertising genius behind taglines like Secret’s “Strong Enough For A Man, But Made For A Woman,” and Procter and Gamble’s “My Black Is Beautiful” campaign. Williams was—and is—a history maker, currently working as owner, CEO, and Chief Creative Officer of her own agency, Carol H. Williams, which just happens to be the largest independently owned African American one in the United States.
But before the CLIOs, Woman of the Year awards (from both Chicago and the state of California), Lifetime Achievement Award, and myriad other accolades, Williams started off as a copywriter in “Chocolate City,” her name for the ad floor reserved for Black copywriters.
The year: 1969. The place: Leo Burnett Advertising.
After just three days on the job, Williams took herself, uninvited, to the 13th floor, where she found a group of white men puzzling over how to advertise Pillsbury Best biscuits—they couldn’t imagine biscuits for breakfast.
Williams, brave, bold, and brilliant, brought them this line, unsolicited, the very next day: “Nothing is quite as good as biscuits in the morning, it’s Pillsbury’s Best time of day.” Pillsbury bought the line and Williams took her place at the table.
By the time she left Leo Burnett, she was Vice President of the agency.
SYLVIA ABERNATHY, SELF-CALLED LAINI,
a Chicago-based designer active in the 1960s. Activist and artist rolled into one, she’s best known for spearheading The Wall of Respect on the South Side—a collaborative mural created to lift up Black artists.
The mural was sponsored by the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), who was seeking “themes, attitudes, and values… to unite Black artists and Beautiful Black people….” They received plenty of proposals, but Abernathy’s idea was chosen. It became a place where the community could gather together for conversation, poetry readings, and more.
While the wall was damaged and later torn down, it lives on in spirit and photos.
Less information exists on her design work, but Abernathy had a keen eye for typography and a knack for creating a visual representation of sound: the perfect combination for an album designer. She is thought to be the first Black woman to ever design a record cover, including Sun Ra’s Sun Song, released in 1966—the same year that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved to Chicago.
Abernathy was instrumental in breaking down barriers in the male-dominated, predominately white world of graphic design.
Thank you, Dorothy, Gwendolyn, Carol, and Sylvia, for believing in the value and beauty of your own work enough to stand up for yourselves—and all those who would follow. Thank you for fighting to be heard and seen, shaping our industry into what it is today. Thank you for your voices, your strength, and your power. We respect the footsteps we follow and pledge to tread carefully, listen well, and lift others up as we carry on, together.
Sources:
On the life of Dorothy Hayes:
https://www.printmag.com/post/the-black-experience-1968
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/mobile-al/dorothy-hayes-6541598
https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/the-black-experience-in-graphic-design-1968-and-2020
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/risdposters/203/
On the life of Gwendolyn Brooks
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/29/530081834/remembering-the-great-poet-gwendolyn-brooks-at-100
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks
https://200.hc.com/timeline/1949-harper-brothers-publishes-the-pulitzer-prize-winning-annie-allen-by-gwendolyn-brooks/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-prj-brooks-day-20150528-story.html
On the life of Carol H. Williams
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/02/26/line-employees-only-stories-being-black-advertising-1969-2020
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/02/17/we-all-know-their-work-history-black-professionals-iconic-advertising
https://carolhwilliams.com/
On the life of Sylvia “Laini” Abernathy
https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/laini-sylvia-abernathy
https://2018.artdesignchicago.org/programs/the-wall-of-respect-public-art-and-black-liberation-in-1960s-chicago
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/as-not-for-the-critique-goes-on