The Resume

(November 11, 1896-March 27, 1977)
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana
Birth name was Lola Shirley Graham, Jr.
Married W.E.B. Du Bois (1951)
Author, playwright, composer and activist
Director of the Chicago Negro Unit of the Federal Theater Program (1934-36)
Wrote the novels ‘There Once Was a Slave’ (1947) and ‘Zulu Heart’ (1974)
Wrote the plays ‘Deep Rivers’ (1939), ‘Track Thirteen’ (1940), ‘Elijah’s Raven’ (1941) and ‘Dust to Earth’ (1941)
Wrote the music and libretto for the opera ‘Tom Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro’ (1932)
Wrote biographies for young readers of George Washington Carver, Paul Robeson, Phyllis Wheatley, Pocahontas, Booker T. Washington, Julius Nyerere and W.E.B. Du Bois

Why she might be annoying:

She tried to knock over a decade off her age, claiming 1907 as her birth year.
She divorced her first husband, Shadrach McCants (1927), but claimed in interviews and her autobiography to have been widowed.
She joined the Communist Party.
She joined W.E.B. Du Bois in renouncing their American citizenship and moving to Ghana (1961).

Why she might not be annoying:

At thirteen, she wrote an editorial to an Indianapolis newspaper protesting racial discrimination after she was denied access to a YWCA swimming pool.
She was named USO director for Fort Huachuca in Arizona, a base that quartered over .15,000 black soldiers (1942)
She was a field secretary for the NAACP in New York City (1942-44).
She delivered the keynote address at the convention of Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party (1948).
She had to flee Ghana after the military coup that overthrew President Kwame Nkrumah (1967).

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• Born on Veteran's Day [November 11th] (Ranked: 1896)
• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 63]
• Children's Book Authors
• Civil Rights Activists
• I am a Hoosier [Indiana]
• I Attended Oberlin College
• I Died in 1977 (Ranked: 80)
• I Have Breast Cancer
• I was Cremated
• I'm a Communist
• Known By a Middle Name
• Little People [5'3 and Shorter] - Female A-K
• My Spouse is at Least Ten Years Older than Me
• Opera Singers and Composers
• Playwrights
• Profiles 38251-38500 (Ranked: 38399)
• We Died on the Same Day (Ranked: 19770327)

Year In Review:

For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2023, Out of 55 Votes: 52.73% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 14 Votes: 71.43% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 51 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 31 Votes: 51.61% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 99 Votes: 65.66% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 32 Votes: 59.38% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying