She sought a variety of jobs to support herself, including the sort of domestic work that so often came to dominate the lives of Black women in an era that offered them few options.ĭelilah, however, found a meaningful escape route by becoming a massage therapist. But her writing career was interrupted by the death of her parents in her mid-teens. The Cincinnati Enquirer published another column by her when she was 15. She was first published in the Cleveland Gazette when she was 12. While this may or may not be accurate, it’s fair to say Delilah Beasley is among the earliest and most prominent examples of African American massage practitioners.īorn in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1871, Delilah always seemed destined for a writing life. She has in some quarters been called the first African American massage therapist. Delilah lived a life immersed not just in journalism, but massage therapy and bodywork as well. After all, she was a major historian of the African American experience in the Golden State, publishing her results in the landmark book Negro Trailblazers of California (1919), and was also the first Black woman to become a columnist for a major city newspaper when she joined the staff of the Oakland Tribune in 1915.
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