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$1 million grant goes to record black women’s histories

FILE- In this Oct. 6, 2015 file photo, Ursula Burns speaks at the Eighth Annual John Wooden Global Leadership Award Dinner in Beverly Hills, Calif. Burns, a trailblazer among African American women in the business world, wants to help make sure that the stories of other pioneering women like her are not forgotten. The HistoryMakers, an oral archive that's recorded the stories of more than 3,300 African Americans over the last 20 years, has launched The WomanMakers initiative with a $1 million gift from Burns, the former head of Xerox. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for UCLA Anderson/AP Images, File)
FILE- In this Oct. 6, 2015 file photo, Ursula Burns speaks at the Eighth Annual John Wooden Global Leadership Award Dinner in Beverly Hills, Calif. Burns, a trailblazer among African American women in the business world, wants to help make sure that the stories of other pioneering women like her are not forgotten. The HistoryMakers, an oral archive that's recorded the stories of more than 3,300 African Americans over the last 20 years, has launched The WomanMakers initiative with a $1 million gift from Burns, the former head of Xerox. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for UCLA Anderson/AP Images, File)

By DEEPTI HAJELA / Associated Press 3 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – A trailblazer among black women in the business world wants to help make sure that the stories of other pioneering women like her are not forgotten.

The HistoryMakers, an oral archive that’s recorded the stories of more than 3,300 African Americans, launched The WomanMakers initiative with a $1 million gift from Ursula Burns, the former head of Xerox.

“We have to value our own stories,” Burns said in a phone interview about the project that will focus on African American women. “We have to teach ourselves to actually value ourselves in our society.”

Burns, 61, was chair and CEO of Xerox from 2009 to 2016. She spent her entire career at the company, working her way up from an internship in 1980 and, upon becoming CEO, was the first black women to head a Fortune 500 company. Burns left Xerox after the company was split in two.

The initiative was kicked off at a Jan. 31 luncheon in New York City, where Burns presented Julieanna Richardson, who founded The HistoryMakers in 1999, with the monetary gift in honor of her late husband, Lloyd Bean.