Jorjet Harper is an artist, writer, editor, historian, and more. Her grandmother, Minnie Buckingham Harper, was the first woman of African descent to serve in any legislative body in the United States (West Virginia, 1928). Minnie's Chicago-based granddaughter Jorjet was entertainment editor for OUTlines newspaper, and continues to write for the LGBT media today, including Windy City Times. For 10 years, she was a staff writer with HOT WIRE: The Journal of Women's Music and Culture (1984-1994), and was published often in the Chicago feminist newspaper Blazing Star. Two volumes of her humor columns have been published: Lesbomania (1994) and the sequel Tales From the Dyke Side (1996).
Jorjet also performed for many years as a singer/songwriter, and her song “Paris Was Yesterday” appears on the anthology album High Risk (2000). She has edited a number of LGBT books, including Out and Proud in Chicago (2008); Tracy Baim's Obama and the Gays (2010) and Barbara Gittings: Gay Pioneer (2015). Jorjet creates and presents extensive slideshows about influential women, including International Superstar/WWII Resistance Fighter/Civil Rights Activist Josephine Baker; Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut; Greek Poet Sappho; French Artist Romaine Brooks; the Literary and Artistic Women of Paris in the 1920s; and the incredible Women of the Harlem Renaissance. Harper has been doing various types of art since the 1960s, including photography, watercolors, oil paintings, silversmithing, and custom doll making. Her works have been shown in galleries, and currently reside in several private collections. Harper was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1998. Website: http://www.chicagogayhistory.com/biography.html?id=533
