Bessye B. Bearden papers

1922-1944

Bessye J. Bearden was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1891, the youngest child of George and Carrie Banks. She attended local schools in North Carolina, Hartshorn Memorial College in Richmond, and Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute from which she graduated. In later years Mrs. Bearden did graduate work at the University of Western Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

At the age 20, Bessye Banks married R. Howard Bearden. They had one son, Romare, who became an internationally renowned artist.

Mrs. Bearden managed the New York office of the E. C. Brown Real Estate Company of Philadelphia for many years. She was also the New York representative for the Chicago Defender, starting in 1927, and did free lance writing for other publications. On June 11, 1935 Mrs. Bearden was appointed Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, serving first in the Processing Division, and later, as an auditor. In 1922 she was the first black woman to be elected to local School Board No. 15 in New York City where she served until 1939.

Mrs. Bearden was involved in numerous civic activities and belonged to several organizations, among them the New York Urban League, where she served as secretary of the executive board, the Council of Negro Women where she served as treasurer, and the executive boards of the Harlem Community Council and the Colored Women's Democratic League, of which she was the first president.

Mrs. Bearden died in September 1943 at Harlem Hospital in New York City.