Gerri Major

Gerri Major (1894–1984) was an African-American woman who lived in Harlem during a career that stretched from the 1920s through the 1970s. She was successful in a number of overlapping vocations, including journalist, editor, newscaster, publicist, public health official, author and community leader. An article celebrating her 80th birthday stated that "Gerri was definitely one of the 'new Negroes' of the early 20th Century," adding that by the end of the 1930s she had become "one of the best known black women in America."

During World War I, she was a major in the American Red Cross. Thereafter, she became a society columnist and editor for African American newspapers in her home city of New York as well as in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Baltimore. In 1936, a newspaper reporter said her talent for writing vivid prose, her editing skill and her ability to maintain 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." At the time of her death in 1984, she held joint positions as associate editor of Jet and senior staff editor of Ebony magazine.

During all of her adult life, she was an active participant in civic organizations that worked to improve the health, education and general well-being of New York's African American community, and for 10 years (from 1936 to 1946) was a publicity specialist for the Central Harlem Health District.