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"Any woman who has a great deal to offer the world is in trouble. And if she's a Black woman, she's in deep trouble." –Hazel Scott

Over that grand expanse of time during February and March when Black Americans are honored and American women are acknowledged for their great works, I am often struck by what is missing, or better, who is missing out on the mass praise and adulation.

And while I realize that it's set up that way--there are only so many days in the month and only time for so many acknowledgments—I still can't ignore the urgent feeling that causes me to question, futilely: 'Why wasn't this woman or that woman named? And where is she? And what about her?' In my head, I scream: Where my sisters at?! Indeed, it is the contributions of great Black women who are often overlooked. Black women artists, musicians, intellectuals, politicians, scientists, educators, performers, organizers, writers, poets, and on and on and on, we fit so neatly, so snug and sure, into both categories, both months, and should count for a respectable number among the honorees. Yet, it seems that in terms of national recognition, we barely make the cut, with the exception, of course, of the tried-and-true historical giants whose names simply cannot go unnoticed lest the whole celebration be rendered a sham.

Certainly, I do not believe that there is an intentional plan designed to exclude. Not at all. Recognition precedes exclusion. In order to dismiss someone, you have to see them first, know them, or at least know of them, their existence. As Black women straddle duo terrains of race and gender in this country, perhaps we are stretched too thin, pulled to the point of invisibility. We get lost (or tossed) in the hungry endeavor of naming important names, and the careful consideration given to those deemed most worthy to represent these two months. I suppose it is necessary to create the very best list, a masterful list of names and deeds in order to substantiate the designations of Black History Month and Women's History Month. Nevertheless, it might be more instructive if we continued to expand the list year after year beyond the familiar. Honestly, if we can discuss the magnificent art of Jacob Lawrence, is there not room in the conversation for Augusta Savage, the gifted sculptor whom Lawrence studied under at the Uptown Art Laboratory, the studio she established in Harlem? When we consider the poetic prowess of Edna St. Vincent Millay, can we also give a nod to Pulitzer-prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks? Where there was Martin L. King, Jr. , there was Ella Baker, a fierce freedom fighter who dedicated fifty years of her life to civil rights, and helped form the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). When we hear the clarion call of Louis Armstrong's trumpet, props are due to his second wife, prolific pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong who was a major influence in his career, and an integral part of his solo success. When we marvel at aviator Amelia Earhart, may we also look up to Bessie Coleman, the first American woman, Black or White, to receive her international pilot's license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in 1920. How about Paul Robeson and Leontyne Price in the same breath? Shirley Chisholm and Bela Abzug in the same sentence? Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt? Madame C. J. Walker and Eli Whitney? Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams.

Then there is the crusading preacher/politician, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and his second wife, pianist Hazel Scott, the subject of my latest biography and whose fascinating life story inspired the subject matter for this piece. While Powell, Jr.'s life has been documented in numerous biographies and his political accomplishments as the first Black congressman from the East Coast are duly noted, Hazel Scott has been largely forgotten. Despite the fact that she was the first Black woman to host her own television show in 1950, and one of very few artists to refuse to play before segregated audiences in the South, a Juilliard-trained jazz/concert pianist of international renown who was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era for her outspoken advocacy of civil rights, the 'better half' of one of the most high-profile black couples in American history, throughout my seven-year journey of researching/writing her biography, the repeated response I received from editors, publishers, and agents, was: “No one knows her." As if to say, if her name is not known, it is not worth knowing. It was even suggested to me by one editor at a major publishing house that I had no business writing a book about a Black woman because I am a Black woman. So even our own history is not safe in our own hands?

While I considered this episode a curious and absurd one, I was and continue to be reassured by the example of generations of Black women who came before and cleared the way for generations more; those women who understood that they could work from the margins and still affect the masses. Those who have passed along a thick-skinned, persevering quality that is so innate, so ingrained it is hardly noteworthy but as natural as breathing. Author James Baldwin characterizes it in his seminal work Another Country, he writes: “ This quality involves a sense of the self so profound and so powerful that it does not so much leap barriers as reduce them to atoms—while still leaving them standing, mightily, where they were. Although I, personally, may be frustrated by what I perceive as the cavalier way in which the lives and works of under appreciated, pioneering Black women have been ignored, it occurred to me that recognition was not what they were after anyway. What they wanted was so much bigger, broader, and more relevant than what someone else thought of them. Freedom was the thing—the freedom to express themselves through their various disciplines in the style of their own choosing without restrictions, limitations, or judgment. These legendary Black women—known, lesser known, and unknown—make up an amazing amalgam of the best our country has to offer. From those who did their thing on the world stage to the woman next door who looked after the whole neighborhood; to those who legislated on behalf of women and children so that we could all live better lives, to the Black mothers and grandmothers who, with a look, a touch and a smile let you know that you were the best and brightest girl the world had ever seen; to the Sunday morning minister who stood boldly in the pulpit after having been told that no woman belonged there, and went on to inspire us all to keep on keeping on and judge not by the appearance of racism, sexism, discrimination, and envy. These are the women, larger than any list, who have upheld the hopes and dreams and expectations of an entire community; a community that has benefited by their exemplary performance, their dignified presence, their example. With every forward march toward the accomplishment of their goals, they moved with a steady but graceful stride while carrying the weight of the entire race on their backs; and in so doing, they have defined Black womanhood for the world.

Karen Chilton is the author of Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC (University of Michigan Press, 2008)