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.
Parents and immediate family
Major was born on July 29, 1894, in her parents' home on Wentworth Avenue at the western border of the Douglas section of Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. Her father was Herbert Hodges and her mother was Mae Powell Hodges. Major reported that her mother's grandfather had migrated from North Carolina to Indiana seeking freedom. Soon after her mother died while giving birth to her, she was adopted by her mother's sister, Maud Lawrence, and her husband David. The Lawrence family had sufficient wealth to give Major an extravagant debutante ball. While yet unmarried, Major kept Hodges as her family name.
On December 15, 1917, Major married H. Binga Dismond in a military ceremony at Camp Logan in Houston. They were divorced in 1933 but remained cordial. In 1942 she married musician Gilbert Holland, a baritone whose voice was heard frequently on radio programs of the 1930s. Her last marriage was to a prominent mortician from Atlantic City, New Jersey, John Richard Major. The ceremony took place in Buenos Aires during a trip they took to South America, probably in 1946. This was her third marriage and his fourth. She was widowed by 1953 and did not remarry during the remaining three decades of her life.
Other names
Major's first name, Geraldyn, was sometimes (wrongly) given as Geraldyne or Geraldine. Her nickname, Gerri, was sometimes given as Jerry or Gerry. While married to H. Binga Dismond she was known as Geraldyn Dismond, Mrs. H. Binga Dismond, or (rarely) Geraldyn Hodges Dismond. During her brief marriage to Gilbert Holland she was known as Geraldyn Holland, Geraldyn Hodges Holland, or Geraldyn Dismond Holland. After marrying John Richard Major, she was called Geraldyn Major, Geraldyn Hodges Major, and Geraldyn Dismond Major. During the last three decades of her life her name was usually rendered as Gerri Major. During her marriage to H. Binga Dismond, she sometimes called herself and was sometimes called "La Dismond." In writing the "Social Whirl" column for the Afro-American she called herself simply Gerry.
Early life and education
Major was born in Chicago on July 29, 1894. Her birth name was Geraldyn Hodges. When her mother died giving birth to her, Major's father arranged for her adoption by an aunt and uncle who lived nearby. In a biographic sketch published in 1927, Major's first husband explained that her father was "overcome by the sudden loss of his wife ... [and] never forgave the innocent cause of his bereavement." Following elementary school, she attended Wendell Phillips High School and subsequently was awarded a work-study scholarship at the University of Chicago, from which she graduated with a Bachelor in Philosophy degree in 1915. On October 8, 1913, while being a university student, she chartered the Beta Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, along with 4 other college women.