Gerri Major (July 29, 1894 – August 17, 1984) was an American journalist, editor, newscaster, publicist, public health official, author and community leader.
In 1936, a newspaper reporter said her talent for writing vivid prose, editing, and maintaining a wide circle of influential friends brought her fame and gave her "a unique position similar to that of an arbiter over the local social set.
Major was born on July 29, 1894, in her parents' home on Wentworth Avenue at the western border of the Douglas section of Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood.
[7] In a biographic sketch published in 1927, Major's first husband explained that her father was "overcome by the sudden loss of his wife ... [and] never forgave the innocent cause of his bereavement.
[18] Early in March of that year, she composed and distributed a public announcement for the annual NAACP dance in Harlem's Manhattan Casino.
[30] During the course of a long career, Major was a journalist, editor, newscaster, publicist, public health official, author, and community leader.
"[31] Major's first piece for the Courier, which appeared over the byline, Mrs. H. Binga Dismond, reported on plans for the Urban League's costume ball to be held in November 1925.
[31] From 1925 to 1927, Major wrote a weekly column called "New York Society" in which she reported the doings of prominent members of the African American community.
[32] In 1927, Major began a new column called "Through the Lorgnette of Geraldyn Dismond" which, instead of New York society news, contained essays and reviews on theater, books and cultural topics.
Between 1928 and 1930 Major wrote and presented a review of current events during a New York radio program that aired each week on Sunday afternoon.
"[2] The program was the "Negro Achievement Hour", a variety show featuring talks and music that was carried on two local stations, WABC and WEVD.
[54][note 15] The following year she was chosen by the Newspaper Guild to work on a welfare publicity project in the Central Harlem Health District.
[4][note 16] In 1936 she passed civil service examinations and oral interviews to become a publicity assistant in the New York Bureau of Health Education and Information,[4][34][57] a job she continued to perform until 1946.
[34][58] A news report on Major's appointment said her performance on written and oral civil service examinations and her prior experience resulted in her selection and noted that she was the first African American to be hired into the position.
As Society Editor of the Interstate Tattler, prior to its discontinuing several years ago, she held a unique position similar to that of an arbiter over the local social set and it was during that time that her fame, both as a writer and hostess, is said to have reached its peak.
Calling itself an "international magazine devoted to film art", the journal was an avant garde publication that investigated the cultural aspects of cinema beyond the medium's obvious role in entertaining its audiences.
"[59][note 17] In 1976 Major co-authored a book, Black Society, giving the histories of prominent African American families from colonial times to the twentieth century.
"[31] A month later, as a mark of her social standing, she was runner up in nationwide balloting for "Queen of the Classic" on the occasion of the annual football game between Lincoln and Howard Universities.
[62][note 19] In 1930 she was included among "the Four Hundred" in an article that drew a sharp contrast between the "Harlem of the cabarets" frequented by thrill-seeking white New Yorkers and the "ebony society" to which Major belonged, where fashionable men and women in "tail coats and formal evening gowns" attended "exclusive functions for the brown upper crust" to which "a few white guests" might be invited.
[73][note 23] Her obituary in Ebony listed some of the civic organizations to which Major belonged and mentioned thirty honors and citations that she had received.
She said she had adopted the principles of Communism because she believed that both the Republican and Democratic Parties "uphold the practices of Jim-Crowism, disenfranchisement, and race discrimination by which Negroes are degraded and oppressed.