Anna Marie Wooldridge (August 6, 1930 – August 14, 2010),[1] known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist and songwriter. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s.[2][3] Lincoln made a career out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards, as well as writing and singing her own material.
After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka.[6]
During the 1980s, Lincoln's creative output was smaller and she released only a few albums. Her song "For All We Know" is featured in the 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. During the 1990s and until her death, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records.
Her lyrics often reflected the ideals of the civil rights movement and helped in generating passion for the cause in the minds of her listeners. In addition to her musical career, she ventured into acting as well and appeared in movies such as The Girl Can't Help It (1958), Nothing But a Man (1964) and For Love of Ivy (1968). Lincoln explored more philosophical themes during the later years of her songwriting career and remained professionally active until well into her seventies.[8] She often visited the Blue Note jazz club in New York City.[9]
Lincoln's television appearances began in 1968 with The Name of the Game. In March 1969, she appeared in Alice Childress's Wine in the Wilderness, the first of the 10-episode series "On Being Black" presented by WGBH-TV Boston, featuring individual dramas written, produced and performed by Blacks.[11] Lincoln appeared in Mission: Impossible (1971), the TV movie Short Walk to Daylight (1972), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1974), and All in the Family (1978).
Lincoln was married from 1962 to 1970 to drummer Max Roach, whose daughter from a previous marriage, Maxine, appeared on several of Lincoln's albums.
Lincoln opened a national conversation by highlighting natural hair. When she was branded as a "glamour girl" by the media, she started to don her natural hair as a way of both asserting her agency as a person with values, opinions, and beliefs invested in celebrating Black womanhood.[12] Lincoln also produced the "Naturally 62" fashion show, which featured Grandassa models wearing natural hair. Before the mid-1960s, African-American women were expected to straighten their hair with the use of a hot comb. This fashion show aligned with the "Black is beautiful" movement that celebrated natural black beauty.[citation needed]
Lincoln died on August 14, 2010, in Manhattan, New York, eight days after her 80th birthday.[1] Her death was announced by her brother, David Wooldridge, who told The New York Times that she had died in a Manhattan nursing home after suffering deteriorating health since undergoing open-heart surgery in 2007. No cause of death was officially given. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered.[13]
