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Esther Popel (July 16, 1896 - Jan 28, 1958)

Early Life and Education
Esther Popel Shaw was born on July 16, 1896 to Joseph Gibbs and Helen King Anderson in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She had an elder sister named Helen and a younger brother named Samuel. According to the 1900 United States Census her father was mail man and the family lived at 703 State St. Shaw graduated from Central High School in Harrisburg in 1915 and went on to Dickinson College in the fall. She became the first African American woman to enroll at the college and also the first to graduate in 1919 according to the 28th president of Dickinson College, Nancy A. Roseman. Shaw chose to pursue the Latin Scientific curriculum which emphasized modern languages including French, German, Latin and Spanish. When she graduated she received Dickinson's top academic prize, the Senior Patton Memorial Prize for excellent scholarship and she was inaugurated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation, Shaw became a teacher, an activist and a mother. On April 11, 1925 she married Andrew Shaw; their daughter, Esther Patricia, was born on June 1, 1926.

Career as Poet
In order to support herself, Shaw was a teacher meanwhile being an activist. Her teacher career spanned four decades working at Douglass Junior High School in Baltimore and Shaw Junior High School in Washington, DC. She began taking a position at Francisco in the same city where she taught from the late 1920's until her retirement in 1952. During her career she taught classes in French and English as well as Algebra and penmanship. During her career as a teacher, Shaw was active in African-American and women's rights organizations. In the early 1920s she was member of the College Alumnae Club, a group of college-educated African-American women activists who supported education, especially for African-American girls. She served as vice-president and president during her involvement with the organization. In 1923 the club became the National Association of College Women (NACW) and Shaw became a charter member and was appointed chair of the Committee in the Constitution. In addition, she served as secretary of the NACW's excecutive board for 19 years, during which she was a spokeswoman. In 1933, Shaw represented NACW when the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom presented disarmament petitions to president Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. In 1942 she became the NACW's wartime liaison to the Washington Department of the Office of Price Administration.

Other positions that Esther Shaw held included a consultant to the Educational Policies Commission and a member on the board of the Southeast Settlement House for African-Americans. For the Commission, she was appointed by the National Education Association and the Department of Superintendence to develop long-range plans to improve Education in the United States.

Creative Works
Historians have generally recognized Shaw as an activist and poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She had a prosperous career as a poet. In 1915 she published her first book of poetry, Thoughless Thinks by Thoughtless Thaughter while she was only a senior in high school. Forty years later she privately published the anthology "A Forest Pool" and dedicated it to the memory of her mother, who had recently passed away. Her anthology became her only collection; it contained twenty-seven lyrical and political poems. Privately publishing her collection, it appears that publication has difficult for her. She also became friends with Langston Hughesand Marita Bonner. Shaw's poetry style has been listed as lyrical, religious and political.

She also contributed to other works. She Published poems in The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races which was the official publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP)and Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, published by the National Urban League. She wrote one her most recognized poems, "Flag Solute" Which juxtaposes the Pledge of Allegiance with the Lynching of George Arwood on Maryland's Eastern Shore. . The young African-American was accused of attacking an elderly whit woman named Mart Denston in Princess Anne, Maryland. The incident received a large amount press coverage. In 1934, The Crisis published Esther's poem and featured it on the cover of the November 1940 issue. Other of her most recognizable poems include "Blasphemy-American Style," "October Prayer," "Night Comes Walking" and "Little Gray Leaves." . Shaw also served on the editorial board for the Negro History Bulletin that was a publication of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History established by Carter G. Woodson. When Woodson passed away in 1950, Shaw was named among the individuals that would carry on his legacy. In addition to her contribution to the Bulletin, Shaw regularly published book reviews in the Journal of African American History and the Journal of Negro Education. In her publications she voiced her opinions about race relations in the United States. In 1952, a heart condition forced her to retire from teaching. In her retirement she took up, painting as a hobby. On January 28. 1952 Shaw passed away from a stroke; she was buried in the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Washington, DC.