Amplify InBetween: First in Class

Welcome Back!

First, we want to thank you for being with us throughout the year and for reading all of our stories, Amplify included. We couldn’t have made it without you!

The theme of our final Amplify of the year—and our first regular Amplify InBetween—is . . . First in Class!

In our final Amplify piece for 2021, we will look at the first Amplifiers in their class. These ladies were the first to fly, teach, create, disrupt, bring new perspectives and innovation, and inspire generations.

Now, being the first in anything can be scary and lonely, but these Amplifiers showed us that with determination and support, you can do anything.

Here are four first-in-class Amplifiers:

Sarla Thukral, the first to fly

Have you heard of Sarla Thukral, the first Indian woman to receive a pilot license?

Born on August 8, 1914, in New Delhi, India, Sarla Thukral would grow up to be India’s first woman pilot. Even from a young age, Thukral was a girl who wanted to go the distance, and in 1936, at the age of twenty-one, she received her A+ aviation pilot license. She trained at the Lahore Flying Club, where she completed one thousand hours of flights.

Although little is known about her early days, we know she loved to learn new things and had the determination to complete everything she started.

At sixteen, Sarla Thukral married Captain P. D. Sharma, the first airmail pilot in India. He was raised in a family full of aviators; living with her new husband’s family of pilots and aviators influenced Thukral’s decision to fly. Her family, particularly her father-in-law, supported her and taught her how to fly. Thukral dreamed of becoming an aviator, so, at age nineteen, she began taking classes until she reached her one thousand hours of flight training. She was known to fly in her sari. She dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot, but she lost that dream after the death of her husband from an airplane crash in 1939, and after the British suspended training during WWII. The suspension halted Thukral’s dreams of becoming a pilot. With two daughters to support, she switched gears by returning to Lahore and enrolling at the Mayo School of Art. She later received a diploma in Fine Arts and began designing clothes and jewelry. After the Partition of India in August of 1947, Thukral moved with her two daughters to New Delhi, where she met and married R. P. Thukral in 1948. Sarla Thukral spent the rest of her life painting, expanding her custom jewelry business, and working with the National School of Drama until she died in 2008.

Sarla Thukral was a trailblazer who unknowingly opened doors for future women pilots in India. On August 8, 2021, Google honored Sarla Thukral with a doodle on her birthday.

Sallie Herbert Blount, the certified Amplifier

Did you know that the US had a midwife problem in the early twentieth century?

The problem wasn’t that there weren’t enough midwives, but that physicians, obstetricians, and gynecologists felt they had to compete with midwives. To “reduce” this issue, the medical institution demanded certification for midwives. In the early twentieth century, most midwives were Black, Brown, Indigenous, or illiterate folks, with no official medical background and had difficulty meeting the criteria for the midwife certification.

This didn’t deter many midwives, midwives such as Sallie Herbert Blount of Savannah, Georgia. Born in 1891, Sallie would spend her life helping bring babies into the world. Although Blount is one of the most well-known midwives in Yamacraw Village, Savannah, Georgia, not much is known about her early or personal life.

Here are some facts:

In 1938, she was among the first nineteen Black midwives to receive a midwifery license when Georgia required it.
Blount was part of the Midwife Class City of Savannah Health Center, under Miss Helen Bond, R.N.
- Their goal was to improve the health and lives of the African American population in Georgia.
According to Savannah, Georgia, she was the midwife to half the African American population of Savannah during the 1930s—about 1000 (births).
Blount kept records of her patients, children she helped birth, and those who assisted her along the way.
Blount continued midwifery and birthing until she died in 1947.

She and the other eighteen first-class midwives supported each other and their community.

Although much isn’t known about Sallie Herbert Blount, what is known is her dedication to her community, the wellbeing of the children birthed, and the creation of a safe space for future African American midwives.

Fun fact: The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum has an exhibit dedicated to Black Midwives (including Blount) of Savannah, Georgia.

Angela Morley, composer, and pioneer in the LGBTQ+ community

Angela Morley is a pioneer in so many ways, from rising to prominence in the world of composition at age twenty-six—writing two of the most famous theme songs for BBC in the 1950s—to being the first openly trans composer.

Born in 1924 in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, Angela Morley was a pioneering English composer, arranger, orchestrator, music director, and conductor. She was known to go the distance and express herself. Her love for music and composition started at a young age. She even dropped out of high school at fifteen to pursue a musical career in multiple British big bands. Before Morley’s transition, she was drafted twice in the war (WWII). She began focusing on composing music, and later working with the BBC. Her talent was noticed by many, even the American jazz clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman. Not one to stay put, Morley moved from radio to TV and film.

Angela Morley was not only a famous composer, but also one of the first openly trans composers in the world. With the support of her wife Christine Scott, she began transitioning in the 1970s and had gender-affirming surgery in 1972. In the late 1980s, she started working at Warner Brothers, where she was uplifted and embraced by her counterparts like Yo-Yo Ma. Morley let her compositions speak for themselves. Regarded as a pioneer in the LGBTQ+ community, Angela Morley spent her life creating, not only because she loved music, but also because she wanted to express herself. Her ability to move forward, teach, and expand the minds of future composers is what made her a hero to future generations. She never questioned whether she belonged in any space. Instead, she made a space for herself and future queer youth who would follow in her footsteps.

Before her death in 2009, Morley became the first openly trans person to be nominated for an Oscar for a composer for film and TV.

Fun fact: Angela Morley was a composer and musical contributor to movies like Star Wars, ET, and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Dorothy B. Gilliam, the first Black female reporter for The Washington Post

Dorothy Gilliam was a trailblazer and a first-in-class journalist in many ways. She was also an advocate, social justice activist, and media diversity expert who made it her mission not to be the only diverse voice in a room.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 24, 1936, Gilliam was on a mission to see and change the world. Even at an early age, she knew what she wanted: to report on the happenings around her. She wasn’t afraid to speak, listen, and learn. During her first year at Ursuline College, she worked as a secretary for the weekly Louisville Defender, an African American newspaper, and at age seventeen, she became their society reporter. Journalism and reporting allowed Gilliam to expand her world and her community. It’s also what drove her to transfer to the historically Black college, Lincoln University, where she excelled and received cum laude.

After her graduation in 1957, Gilliam began working as a reporter for the Tri-State Defender (part of the Chicago Defender). She worked with famous editor L. Alex Wilson, known for his civil rights activism and for being attacked by a White mob on live TV during the 1957 Little Rock Nine (desegregation of schools). Watching that moment spurred something in Gilliam, who decided to head to Little Rock, Arkansas, to tell the stories of desegregation. Although Wilson told her Little Rock wasn’t a place for “a girl,” Gilliam knew that the crisis was too essential not to report on. While reporting, she met an editor from Jet Magazine. After that, she became a reporter for Ebony (their sister magazine). At twenty-four, Gilliam had traveled, reported, and written many stories, in turn introducing her majority African American audience to different levels and worlds. After earning her master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she became the first Black female reporter for The Washington Post.

The life and facts of The Washington Post’s first Black woman reporter

In 1961, she began working full time at The Washington Post.
In 1979, she began writing the popular column focused on education, race, and politics.
She helped to organize and protest against the New York Daily News after they fired two-thirds of their Black staff.
She was president of the National Association for Black Journalists from 1993 to 1995.
She founded Prime Movers Media in 2004, the nation’s first journalism mentorship program for underserved students at urban schools.

Gilliam was also a journalism professor. She believed in molding future journalists and creating space for them to grow. Gilliam cofounded the Institute for Journalism Education, now renamed the Maynard Institute. In 2019, Gilliam received the Foremother Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Center for Health Research. Gilliam, like our other Amplifiers, wanted to support future generations. She spent—and continues to spend—her days amplifying voices in her community and, of course, advocating for Black Women journalists.

Why we Amplify:

These four women came first, but they were not the last of their kind. They each made an impact and created a space for future generations to follow in their footsteps. With the support of family, friends, and their communities, they went the distance. Each one of these Amplifiers has made an impact in their industry and community, and for that, we thank and honor them.

A hint of what’s to come:

Amplify in 2022 is going to be fantastic! We’ve got a list of potential Amplifiers ready to go.

Next year, we’re following Herstry’s theme method so that every Amplifier will be connected to the HerStry theme of the month. We’re very excited to bring you a new post, a new summer series (I’m very excited about this one), potential digital content, and all the good stuff you know and love.

I hope you enjoyed this year’s Amplify posts. I’m grateful to all who read, liked, and commented. I hope you know that you’re all fantastic and that I wish every one of you nothing but the best.

May the end of this year be great, the next to be even better, and may you continue to Amplify yourself and others.

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