Can you name Famous Black Women who've had BC?

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TripleNeg
TripleNeg Member Posts: 836
edited June 2014 in Black Women or Men With Breast Cancer
Can you name Famous Black Women who've had BC?
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  • TripleNeg
    TripleNeg Member Posts: 836
    edited January 2008

    I'm just curious because I haven't seen any in the media except for Roberts. I wanted to do a powerpoint tribute to give hope and inspiration to AA women who come here. Any help you can give would be appreciated! God is able, Stephanie

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  • celia088
    celia088 Member Posts: 2,570
    edited January 2008

    I remembered Diahann Carrol, then i looked up a list on wikipedia of famous breast cancer people.  Here are just a few of the African Americans: 

    Diahann Carroll, actress

    Ruby Dee, actress

    Doris Coley, one of the Shirelles

    Faith Fancher, tv journalist 

    Syvilla Fort, dancer and choreographer

    Hattie McDaniel, actress (Gone With The Wind)

    Minnie Riperton, singer 

    The website is:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_breast_cancer_patients_according_to_survival_status

    (sorry but i guess you have to cut and paste this link)

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  • AnnNYC
    AnnNYC Member Posts: 4,484
    edited January 2008

    Audre Lorde, poet

    (http://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Journals-Audre-Lorde/dp/1879960265) 

    Nikki Giovanni, poet

    (http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200702/20070226_giovanni.html)

    June Jordan, poet

    (http://thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com/2007/07/june-jordan-archival-papers-radcliffe.html)

    Danitra Vance, actress/comedienne (Saturday Night Live)

    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danitra_Vance)

    Related to BC:

    Renee Syler (until Dec 2006, an anchor on CBS Early Show) had prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction because both her Mom AND DAD had had BC -- and she had spent 4 or 5 years having biopsies, lumpectomies, worries.

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  • celia088
    celia088 Member Posts: 2,570
    edited January 2008

    (more from the website i posted earlier)

    Edward W. Brooke III - the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the US Senate when he was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966.  dx'd with breast cancer in 2002 and, since then, has assumed a national role in raising awareness of the disease among men.

    Edna Campbell -  professional basketball star

    Judy Eason McIntyre - politician, Oklahoma State Senator

    Richard Roundtree - actor  (double mastectomy and chemo)

    Shirley Graham DuBois - author, playwright, composer, activist, wife of  W. E. DuBois

    Bea Gaddy - Baltimore City Council member and advocate for the poor

    Alvaleta Guess - film actor and Broadway performer

    Fannie Lou Hamer - anti-segregation activist

    Shirley Horn - jazz singer

    June Jordan - professor of African-American studies, poet and author of 28 books

    Dorothy Perry Thompson - professor and poet

    Geraldine Warrick-Crisman - television executive and former assistant New Jersey state treasurer

    Syreeta Wright - singer/songwriter and ex-wife of Stevie Wonder 

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  • TripleNeg
    TripleNeg Member Posts: 836
    edited January 2008

    Thanks Dylan. I couldn't find pics for Alvaleta Guess or Geraldine Crisman. Can someone find them for me? God is able, Stephanie

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  • AnnNYC
    AnnNYC Member Posts: 4,484
    edited January 2008

    Hi Stephanie,

    All I could find for Alvaleta Guess was this poster from B'way musical "Swinging on a Star" -- she is second from the right:

    http://www.tullman.com/star/reviews.html

    And I too couldn't find anything for Geraldine Crisman...

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  • AnnNYC
    AnnNYC Member Posts: 4,484
    edited January 2008

    Lorraine Hansberry

    (http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/hansberry.html)

    American playwright and painter, whose A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959) was the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. It also won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award as the best play of the year.

    She was only 35 when she died of BC in 1965.

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  • AnnNYC
    AnnNYC Member Posts: 4,484
    edited January 2008

    Blanche Calloway, pianist and bandleader (1902-1978)

    http://www.nfo.net/usa/c1.html#BC

    http://www.nfo.net/usa/bcallowa.jpg

    Etta Jones, jazz singer

    http://wc09.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=Bl2jb7i7jg72r

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE1DC1731F936A35756C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

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  • TripleNeg
    TripleNeg Member Posts: 836
    edited January 2008

    I have two discrepencies I need help with. Nikki Giovanni and Lorraine Hansberry's bio's shows they both had lung cancer not breast cancer. Can someone find some supporting references? God is able, Stephanie

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  • AnnNYC
    AnnNYC Member Posts: 4,484
    edited January 2008

    Hi Stephanie,

    The link under Nikki Giovanni's name in my post above is to an interview on the Tavis Smiley show -- the intro says she's "a breast cancer survivor" -- but now I think that must be a mistake.  She and Tavis Smiley don't say anything about it in the interview -- and since you mentioned lung cancer, I re-Googled "Nikki Giovanni" "lung cancer" and that is correct.

    About Lorraine Hansberry -- my googling actually found others asking the same question.  She died 3 months after diagnosis, and there is mention of breast, lung, pancreatic, liver, duodenal cancer.  And this was in 1965 -- so maybe it's impossible to say for certain which was the primary and which were the metastases...

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  • TripleNeg
    TripleNeg Member Posts: 836
    edited January 2008

    OK. Thanks! Does anyone here know how to covert a Powerpoint to YouTube? I've put a lot of work into it and now I can't get it to load on YouTube. Any suggestions? I can email it to you if you PM me and give me your email address. God is able, Stephanie

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited January 2008

    Stephanie,



    Don't forget about Hoda Kotb; she's an NBC journalist who was diagnosed recently.

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  • tammy609
    tammy609 Member Posts: 1
    edited May 2008

    Singer Kelly Price's mom was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in 1998. Last I heard she was doing well.

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  • omo
    omo Member Posts: 193
    edited June 2008
    I really could not think of a single lady, butI've gone thru the list so now I knowEmbarassed
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  • Yogi70
    Yogi70 Member Posts: 654
    edited June 2008

    Roxie Roker, actress, best known as Helen on The Jeffersons and Lenny Kravitz's mother. She was also Al Roker's cousin.

    Let's not forget our brothers, Richard Roundtree, for one and I just recently read about a brother by the name of William McGhee AKA Bill McGhee, William Bill McGhee he was an actor.

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  • sushanna1
    sushanna1 Member Posts: 764
    edited June 2008

    This is a really interesting thread.  Thanks Stephanie for starting it. 

    I hadn't thought about Edward Brooke in years and was interested in knowing that he had breast cancer and is still alive.  Also was interested in learning about Lorraine Hansberry, Ruby Dee and Hattie McDaniel.

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  • Shirlann
    Shirlann Member Posts: 3,302
    edited July 2008

    Hi, often, the final cause of death is lung cancer, or liver, or brain.  But this is sometimes breast cancer metastasized.  It is truly breast cancer, but it has moved on to the other organs and I guess technically, this is what they die of, but it is breast cancer metastasized.

    Hugs, Shirl 

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  • lvtwoqlt
    lvtwoqlt Member Posts: 6,162
    edited July 2008

    bump

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  • crymsintears
    crymsintears Member Posts: 1
    edited October 2008
    This morning my boyfiriend posed a curious question, and that is what brought me here.  He asked why we didn't see any famous or celebrity African American women on television talking about breast cancer.  Also he was curious about the percentage of African Amverican women getting mamagrams compared to Caucasian women.  I found this thought provoking.  He is right Oprah has had several guest that have had double mastectomies due to either being stricken with BC or because they were geneticall;y predisposed to the disease.  I have found the information here to be interesting.  I feel as if all women should have free mamograms regardless of Health Insurance coverage.  That is the one way to keep so many from dying needlessly.Smile
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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Member Posts: 1,376
    edited October 2008

    Part of the issue with mammography is Amer Cancer Society recommendations. They seem to be stuck on 40 as the magical mammogram age unless there is a strong family or personal history. I had my first mammo at 25 (history of fibroadenomas) after my mom died of the disease.

    I've seen recommendations that African-American women and women with a strong family history (first degree relative with BC) begin mammos at 35 or at least 10 years before their first-degree relative was diagnosed. My mom was diagnosed at 44 and I had to fight my insurance company tooth and nail to get my mammo at 25. I feel like screaming "Are you happy NOW?!?" 

    But younger women also tend to have dense breasts and traditional film mammos don't necessarily catch changes in young women. And there are still lots of docs telling women in their 20s and 30s that they are too young to get BC. Yeah, right...

    This is such a complex issue that really doesn't have to be. I hope Hoda Kotb and Robin Roberts keep talking about BC, I really do... 

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  • roseg
    roseg Member Posts: 3,133
    edited October 2008

    Locally famous?

    Carmen Turner - was the head of the Washington Metropolitian Transit Authority for 7 years.

    There is a station and a maintenance facility named after her. If your name is on a building I figure that you're famous.

    I believe that Coni Rices' (Sec't State) mother had breast cancer too.  

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  • Daffodil
    Daffodil Member Posts: 829
    edited October 2008

    You might want to contact Andrea Roane, News Anchor at WUSA-9 in Washington, DC. She sponsors Buddy Check 9 to get women to do their self-checks and get their mammograms. DC has an abysmal rate of breast cancer, and she has been such a leader. She has hosted my breast cancer luncheon several times and is such a lovely person. She can probably give you more names!! I am attaching her blog.

    Good project!!!

    http://www.wusa9.com/life/community/persona.aspx?plckPersonaPage=PersonaBlog&plckUserId=8977f724bb534293b2789bfc37d6e6cf&U=8977f724bb534293b2789bfc37d6e6cf&sid=sitelife.wusa9.com

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  • PinkyLee
    PinkyLee Member Posts: 648
    edited October 2008

    There was a program on the view a couple of weeks ago regarding breast cancer.  My sister say it, I was in the hospital.  Robin Robinson was a member of the team. 

    Here is another famous black woman who lost her battle early to breast cancer:

    Patricia Roberts Harris May 31, 1924 - March 23, 1985, served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the last United States Secretary of health, Education and Welfare and the first United States Secretary of the Health and Human Services in the administration of president Jimmy Carter.  She was the first African American woman to serve as a United States Ambassador, representing the U.S.  in Lusembourg under President Lydon B. Johnson and the fist t enter the line of succession to the Presidency.  Harris aseved as the first secretary of health and human services unitil Cater left office in 1981 following the split of HEW .  She ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Washington, DC in 1982, was later appointed a full-time professor at the George Washing nation law Center until her death from breast cancer on Mar`ch 23, 1985.  Ms. Harris is interred at Rock Creek Cemetery in NW Washington, DC

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