Helen Marie Black (June 2, 1896 – January 31, 1988)[1] was an American cultural and civic leader, journalist, and publicist.

[1][2] After Helen's birth, the family relocated first to New York City and then to Chicago, where her father established a brokerage firm.

[2] Several years later they moved again to Utah, where her father invested all his savings in a mineral wax mine near Salt Lake City.

[4] While Black intended to pursue a college degree in journalism, she was hired as an assistant to the society editor of the Rocky Mountain News right after graduation.

[4] Black was next promoted to features writer, in which capacity she interviewed Charles Lindbergh, Helen Keller, Harry Houdini, and Queen Marie of Romania.

[4] Following a hospitalization in 1926, Black quit the paper and became a publicist and fashion show coordinator for the Denver Dry Goods Company.

[5] Black, who had begun volunteering as the symphony's publicist in 1932,[6] joined with Jeanne Cramner and Lucille Wilkin to create one musician's organization in the city and pay union salaries.

[10] The Denver Women's Press Club and the Rocky Mountain News honored her with a September 26, 1983 black-tie dinner at which the annual Helen Marie Black Arts and Letters Award was launched.