Henrietta Vinton Davis (August 25, 1860 – November 23, 1941) was an African-American elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator. In addition to being "the premier actress of all nineteenth-century black performers on the dramatic stage", Davis was proclaimed by Marcus Garvey to be the "greatest woman of the Negro race today". Davis worked with Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), in several capacities. From its founding in 1919 until its dissolution in the mid-1930s, she held major leadership roles in the UNIA. At the first international UNIA convention in 1920, she was elected as International Organizer. In 1927, after Garvey was deported to Jamaica, Davis was elected and served as President-General of the UNIA, Inc. from 1934-1940. Biography Henrietta Vinton Davis was born in Baltimore to Mary Ann Johnson and her husband, musician Mansfield Vinton Davis. Parents Shortly after her birth, her father died. Within six months her mother had remarried to an influential Baltimorean, George A. Hackett, a member of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. He worked to defeat the 1859 Jacobs bill that was crafted to enslave the children of free African Americans and deport their parents from the state of Maryland. Hackett died in April 1870 after a short illness. Upon his death Mary Ann Hackett moved with her daughter Henrietta to Washington, D.C. Educational Background Henrietta was educated in the public schools. Death and Burial On November 23, 1941, Davis died in Saint Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, D.C., at the age of 81. She was originally buried in Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Her remains were transferred to National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland, in 1959, after Columbian Harmony closed that year. Career Teaching At the early age of fifteen, she passed the necessary examination and was awarded the position of a teacher in the public schools of Maryland. After a period of time teaching in Maryland, Davis moved to Louisiana to teach. She later returned to Maryland to care for her ailing mother. She had the certificate of the Board of Education. Administrative Work In 1878, while still in her late teens, she became the first African-American woman to be employed by the Office of the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, D.C.; she worked as a copyist under George A. Sheridan. In 1881, noted abolitionist, civil rights activist, and Davis' family friend Frederick Douglass was appointed Recorder of Deeds. Drama and