Profiles In Black Cartooning: Zelda “Jackie” Ormes

In celebration of Black History Month, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has partnered with Black Nerd Problems to spotlight Black comics creators and cartoonists who have made significant contributions to free expression. Visit CBLDF.org throughout the month of February to learn more! Zelda Jackson Ormes, better known as Jackie, was the first African American woman to make a living as a cartoonist. Between 1937 and 1955, her strips were syndicated extensively nationwide in the Black press, featuring Black women front and center in roles and social situations they were never accorded in the mainstream media of the day. Ormes got her start in journalism while she was still in high school, reporting for the Pittsburgh Courier, which had a nationwide distribution. For her first assignment she covered a boxing match — with the Courier’s sports editor as a chaperone since “I was just a punk,” she said later. She relished the excitement of the news business, recalling in an interview that she “had a great career running around town looking into everything the law would allow, and writing about it.” Torchy Brown via Toonful Talent [divider type=”space_thin”] In 1937 Ormes tried her hand at cartooning with her first strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem. Through the heroine Torchy, a southern transplant to New York who became a performer at the Cotton Club, Ormes was able to address not only racism and prejudice, but also women’s careers and other issues she felt strongly about. She l…