Anita Florence Hemmings facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anita Florence Hemmings
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | June 8, 1872 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
|
| Died | 1960 (aged 87–88) New York City, New York, U.S.
|
| Alma mater | Vassar College |
| Occupation | Librarian |
| Spouse(s) |
Andrew Love
(m. 1903) |
| Children | 3 |
Anita Florence Hemmings (June 8, 1872 – 1960) was known as the first Bi-racial woman to graduate from Vassar College. After graduation she became a librarian at the Boston Public Library.
She married a doctor, also of African-American and European ancestry, and they both passed as white as adults, for socioeconomic benefits. They did not tell their children about their biracial ancestry.
Personal life
Anita Hemmings was born June 8, 1872, in Boston to Dora Logan (maiden; 1856–1941) and Robert Williamson Hemmings, Sr. (1843–1908). Anita was raised as an Episcopalian. After attending local schools, she was admitted to Vassar College, which she had dreamed of attending since she was a child. She is believed to have been the first African American to graduate from Vassar.
After graduation, she became a librarian in Boston.
Siblings
- Elizabeth "Libby" N. Hemings (born 1876), married Walter Gilbert Alexander, MD (1880–1953), on May 3, 1904, in Boston. They later divorced.
- Frederick John Hemmings (né Frederic Henderson Hemmings; 1873–1956), earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from MIT in 1897.
- Robert Williamson Hemmings, Jr. (born 1882), studied art and in 1903 won a bronze medal and scholarship from the Eric Pape School of Art for a black-and-white sketch. He had graduated June 26, 1899, from the Sherwin School, a high school for African Americans in Roxbury.
Husband
Anita married Andrew Love, MD (né Andrew Jackson Love; 1861–1948), on October 20, 1903, in Boston at Trinity Church. Their marriage license indicates their race as African American.
About thirteen years earlier, in 1890, Love earned a medical degree from the Meharry Medical Department of Central Tennessee College in Nashville, a historically black college distinguished for having the first medical school in the South for African Americans. Dr. Love did post-graduate studies at Harvard Medical School in the summer of 1905.
Like some other Black Americans of mixed ancestry, especially at the time, as adults Anita Hemmings and her husband passed as white for socioeconomic benefit. They did not inform their children of their biracial ancestry.
Children
- Ellen Parker Love (1905–1995), a 1927 graduate of Vassar. On June 6, 1934, in Manhattan, she married Charles Beckinton Atkin (1906–1987).
- Barbara Hope Love (1907–2007). On June 9, 1930, in Manhattan, she married William Adair Hurt (1907–1965). They later divorced.
- Andrew Jackson Love, Jr. (1911–1982), jazz musician. He attended the Horace Mann School until around 1937, then transferred to the Mount Herman School in Northfield, Massachusetts, graduating around 1930. He studied pre-med at the University of Wisconsin for two years (1930 and 1931), then devoted himself to music and became an acclaimed jazz vocalist. He was a founder of the jazz trio, the Tune Twisters. Around 1939 it recorded a nationally popular jingle for Pepsi; this was an innovation in broadcast advertising considered one of the first of its kind.
Secondary and higher education
Anita Hemmings attended preparation school at Girls' High School in Boston and Northfield, where she had been roommates with Elizabeth Baker (maiden; 1868–1943), who, on September 23, 1896, married William Henry Lewis (1868–1949).
Fulfilling a childhood dream, Anita attended Vassar, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1897. Based on her appearance and visible European ancestry, she was apparently assumed to be white. About the time she graduated, a Boston newspaper reported that Fred J. Hemmings, an African American, had graduated from MIT, and he had a sister at Vassar. Her story came out.
Later, rumors circulated that she should have been valedictorian, but they were false. Some said that Anita was the most attractive woman in her class. Classmates believed that she may have had 'Indian blood', as she was darker skinned than some girls and had straight black hair. She sang soprano in the glee club and was the featured soloist at the local churches in Poughkeepsie.
In 1997, Vassar African-American studies students petitioned college president Frances D. Fergusson to recognize Anita Hemmings at that year's centennial celebration. Writing about it in Vassar Quarterly, Olivia Mancini, a local journalist, said this recognition "brought [Hemmings’] graduation and presence to a level of honor that it should have had a hundred years ago." Vassar has acknowledged Anita Hemmings as the first African American to graduate the college, and noted that for almost all of her college career, she was thought to be white.
In popular culture
In November 2017, it was announced that Zendaya will produce and star in a biopic of Hemmings' life titled A White Lie, based on the 2016 novel The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe. This explores Hemmings' life in a fictional way. Reese Witherspoon will also produce the project and Monica Beletsky will write the script. TriStar Pictures will distribute the film.
