Lottie Willia Bland

Willia Bland was born in Chadbourn, North Carolina, to Addie Suggs and Marion Buck on May 28, 1925. Her father worked the railroad in the South and, arriving in Baltimore, became a painter, paper hanger and lecturer, who held court in barber shops to spellbound listeners. Her mother was a talented seamstress who taught her daughters, how to sew. Influenced by her father, Willia loved language, diction and acting. Influenced by her mother, she loved fashion and dancing. She decided to enroll in Carson Modeling School, which was Baltimore's first African American school of its type. She graduated in 1967. With her world opening up, Willia became a model and taught the craft. Then, as a volunteer at Provident Hospital, where her sister Dorothy had studied to become a nurse, she developed the Provident Hospital Auxiliary's Annual Fashion Show fundraiser, becoming its director and producing it until 1995. In 1968, Willia and friend Lucille Banton established Flair Modeling Studio to enhance self-esteem among women of color by helping them realize their own possibilities. For many years, Flair was the only black modeling agency in Maryland. In the years preceding Flair's inception, Willia and daughter, Andrea Bland-Travis, worked as a team training models and dancers, producing fashion shows, facilitating outreach programs and operating Flair's dance school. This year, with Willia Noel Montague at the helm, Flair will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Willia always offered that her modeling classes were designed to develop self-esteem. Flair also took workshops and fashion shows to sororities, churches, the Links, Baltimore City and County after-school programs and recreation centers, among many others. In 1975, she developed Flair Dance Studio and Shawan Patterson Jackson, teaching students from 3 to 80. Flair's dances have appeared on stages throughout the eastern seaboard. In 1990, her dancers were the only African American dancers, among 200 others, selected to "Tap Around the Harbor," in celebration of Harbor Place's 20th anniversary. Flair was also the producer of the Miss Baltimore Scholarship Pageant, an affiliate of the Miss America Pageant. During World War II, Willia worked with FBI classified files in Washington. In 1951, she broke the segregation barrier at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Baltimore, working as a ward secretary for the cardiac research unit, then as Outpatient Clinics manager, then as the hospital's Director of Volunteer Services. In 1969, she became the first African American to serve on the board of the Maryland Association of Hospital Auxiliaries; 1972, she became president of the Maryland Council of Directors of Volunteer Services; from 1974-1983 she was the only civilian chosen to serve on the Surgeon General Public Health Services staff, becoming its chief, where she was responsible for policy and direction of seven national hospitals. Willia has received multiple awards. Among them, she has been cited as one of Baltimore's most influential women, a "Living Maker of Negro History," and received numerous beauty pageant tittles. Willia Bland was predeceased her sons, Harold Leighton Mitchner and Jefrey Craig Bland. She is lovingly remembered and survived by her daughters, Diane Mitchner Brown and husband Michael Anthony Mallick and husband Hugh Mallick; and Misty and husband Derek Drummond; Mona Hanson, Willia Noel Montague and Mari Andrea Travis; And great-grandchildren, Michael Antonio Bernal, Maria Bernal, Gemma Mallick; Madison Drummond; and Nolan and Harper McCormick. She is also survived by many loving relatives, her Flair and church family and friends.

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Lottie Willia Bland

May 28, 1925 - February 18, 2018