Speaker announced for Salem event

Staff report

SALEM

The Salem Historical Society’s 40th Founders’ Day Dinner speaker will focus on a black female cartoonist.

Nancy Goldstein, of Ann Arbor, Mich., will talk about her research and book “Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist,” which was published in 2008.

Goldstein learned about Ormes while researching in the Pittsburgh Courier, once the largest black newspaper in the nation.

She became fascinated with Ormes’ bold verbal and visual commentary in the cartoons.

Ormes, who died in 1985, was born Zelda Mavin Jackson in Pittsburgh and grew up in Monongahela, Pa.

She and her husband, Earl, who was originally from Salem, moved to Salem during the Depression. In 1942, the couple moved to Chicago.

The event also will observe the 204th anniversary of Salem’s founding.

The dinner will be at 6 p.m. April 27 at the Salem Community Center and includes the society’s installation of the 2010 “Citizens of Honor.”

Doors open at 5 p.m. for an auction.

The cost is $20 a person. Reservations may be made calling the society at (330) 337-8514 before Friday.