GNWL 2025 Black History Month: Champions of Change

Girl Now Woman Later recognizes and appreciates these two great women from different time and space who stood as an example of determination, multitalent, creation, perfection, stamina, and as role models to young girls and boys. Thus, the role models featured below, will remind us that one’s circumstance is not a barrier, but a power within: Alma Thomas and Aïda Touré

THEN: Alma Thomas

On September 22, 1891, Alma Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia. Thomas’s family wanted her and her siblings to have a better education and opportunities and to be free of racial violence. This motivation prompted them to move to Washington, DC. There, in 1924, she obtained an Art degree from Howard University and becoming the first to earn that degree, she then pursued teaching as an art teacher. However, she later made her way into becoming a respectable and notable abstract painter. Using colors to represent beauty and happiness became a style for which she was known for and compared with renowned expressionist artists such as Henri Matisse and Howard professor Loïs Mailou Jones.
Alma Thomas remembered her segregated childhood in not being able to visit a museum or see a representation. So, what did she do? Not only did she become the first Black woman at 81 years old to hold a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972, but she also was a key figure and one of the benefactors in the establishment of the first African art Gallery known as ‘The Barnett-Aden Gallery”. On February 24, 1978, Alma Thomas passed away at the age of 86. Even past 1978, her legacies and contributions continue to be forever present.

NOW: Aïda Touré

Born in Gabon in 1973 to a Muslim father and Gabonese mother, Aïda Touré developed her multidimensional talents (Sufi poet, painter, and composer) by studying in France and New York City where she developed her talents as a Sufi poet first. Drawn by her culture and her upbringing, there is no surprise that Islam is present in her creativity as such. She has authored three Sufis poems (Unmanifest Poems, The Sublime Sphere and Nocturnal Light).

Painting allows Aida to transcend her skills by bringing forms and visuals from the spirituality in her poems into an outlook of beauty. In 2015, her second expedition, “Luminous Dark Matter,” Aïda dedicated to Black History Month to honor the origin of creation showcasing Black women in ancient historical settings. Aïda has gained multiple awards under her belt, and she is featured in U.S. and Canada textbooks. Aida is an example of breaking barriers proving once again that a female can become a talented, or multi-talented woman, if allowed (and provided the opportunity) to do so!