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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 8:21 am
William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois
(b. Feb. 23, 1868, Great Barrington, Mass., U.S.--d. Aug. 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana), American sociologist, the most important black protest leader in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. He shared in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and edited The Crisis, its magazine, from 1910 to 1934. Late in life he became identified with Communist causes. Early career Du Bois was graduated from Fisk University, a black institution at Nashville, Tenn., in 1888. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. His doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, was published in 1896. Although Du Bois took an advanced degree in history, he was broadly trained in the social sciences; and at a time when sociologists were theorizing about race relations, he was conducting empirical inquiries into the condition of blacks. For more than a decade he devoted himself to sociological investigations of blacks in America, producing 16 research monographs published between 1897 and 1914 at Atlanta University, where he was a professor, as well as The Philadelphia Negro; A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United States. Although originally Du Bois had believed that social science could provide the knowledge to solve the race problem, he gradually came to the conclusion that in a climate of virulent racism, expressed in such evils as lynching, peonage, disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation laws, and race riots, social change could be accomplished only through agitation and protest. In this view, he clashed with the most influential black leader of the period, Booker T. Washington, who, preaching a philosophy of accommodation, urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard work and economic gain, thus winning the respect of the whites. In 1903, in his famous book The Souls of Black Folk (e-text here), Du Bois charged that Washington's strategy, rather than freeing the black man from oppression, would serve only to perpetuate it. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community into two wings--the "conservative" supporters of Washington and his "radical" critics. Two years later, in 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the Niagara Movement, which was dedicated chiefly to attacking the platform of Booker T. Washington. The small organization, which met annually until 1909, was seriously weakened by internal squabbles and Washington's opposition. But it was significant as an ideological forerunner and direct inspiration for the interracial NAACP, founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent part in the creation of the NAACP and became the association's director of research and editor of its magazine, The Crisis. In this role he wielded an unequaled influence among middle-class blacks and progressive whites as the propagandist for the black protest from 1910 until 1934. Both in the Niagara Movement and in the NAACP, Du Bois acted mainly as an integrationist, but his thinking always exhibited, to varying degrees, separatist-nationalist tendencies. In The Souls of Black Folk he had expressed the characteristic dualism of black Americans: One ever feels his twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. . . . He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. Black nationalism and socialism Du Bois's black nationalism took several forms--the most influential being his pioneering advocacy of Pan-Africanism, the belief that all people of African descent had common interests and should work together in the struggle for their freedom. Du Bois was a leader of the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900 and the architect of four Pan-African congresses held between 1919 and 1927. Second, he articulated a cultural nationalism. As the editor of The Crisis he encouraged the development of black literature and art and urged his readers to see "Beauty in Black." Third, Du Bois's black nationalism is seen in his belief that blacks should develop a separate "group economy" of producers' and consumers' cooperatives as a weapon for fighting economic discrimination and black poverty. This doctrine became especially important during the economic catastrophe of the 1930s and precipitated an ideological struggle within the NAACP. He resigned from the editorship of The Crisis and the NAACP in 1934, yielding his influence as a race leader and charging that the organization was dedicated to the interests of the black bourgeoisie and ignored the problems of the masses. Du Bois's interest in cooperatives was a part of his nationalism that developed out of his Marxist leanings. At the turn of the century, he had been an advocate of black capitalism and black support of black business, but by about 1905 he had been drawn toward Socialist doctrines. Although he joined the Socialist Party only briefly in 1912, he remained sympathetic with Marxist ideas throughout the rest of his life. Upon leaving the NAACP he returned to Atlanta University, where he devoted the next 10 years to teaching and scholarship. In 1940 he founded the magazine Phylon, Atlanta University's "Review of Race and Culture." In 1945 he published the "Preparatory Volume" of a projected encyclopaedia of the black, for which he had been appointed editor in chief. He also produced two major books during this period. Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (1935) was an important Marxist interpretation of the Reconstruction era (the period following the American Civil War during which the seceded Southern states were reorganized according to the wishes of Congress); and, more significantly, it provided the first synthesis of existing knowledge on the role of blacks in that critical period of American history. In 1940 appeared Dusk of Dawn, subtitled An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept. In this brilliant book, Du Bois explained his role in both the African and African-American struggles for freedom, viewing his career as an ideological case study illuminating the complexity of the black-white conflict. Following this fruitful decade at Atlanta University, he returned once more to a research position at the NAACP (1944-48). This brief connection ended in a second bitter quarrel, and thereafter Du Bois moved steadily leftward politically. Identified with pro-Russian causes, he was indicted in 1951 as an unregistered agent for a foreign power. Although a federal judge directed his acquittal, Du Bois had become completely disillusioned with the United States. In 1961 he joined the Communist Party and, moving to Ghana, renounced his American citizenship more than a year later. The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois was published in 1968. (ELLIOTT RUDWICK [d. 1985]. Professor of Sociology and of History; Senior Research Fellow, Center for Urban Regionalism, Kent State University, Ohio, U.S. Author of W.E.B. Du Bois: Propagandist of the Negro Protest.) Brittanica Biography W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University A Very Good Biographical Sketch which I wanted to use here, but was too long
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, February 20, 2004 - 8:30 am
Althea Gibson (August 25, 1927 - September 28, 2003)
Tennis, which first came to the United States in the late 19th century, by the middle of the 20th century had become part of a culture of health and fitness. Public programs brought tennis to children in poor neighborhoods, though those children couldn't dream of playing in the elite tennis clubs. One young girl named Althea Gibson lived in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s. Her family was on welfare. She was a client of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She had trouble in school and was often truant. She ran away from home frequently. She also played paddle tennis in public recreation programs. Her talent and interest in the game led her to win tournaments sponsored by the Police Athletic Leagues and the Parks Department. Musician Buddy Walker noticed her playing table tennis, and thought she might do well in tennis. He brought her to the Harlem River Tennis Courts, where she learned the game and began to excel. The young Althea Gibson became a member of the Harlem Cosmopolitan Tennis Club, a club for African American players, through donations raised for her membership and lessons. By 1942 Gibson had won the girls' singles event at the American Tennis Association's New York State Tournament. (The American Tennis Association - ATA - was an all-black organization, providing tournament opportunities not otherwise available to African American tennis players.) In 1944 and 1945 she again won ATA tournaments. Then Gibson was offered an opportunity to develop her talents more fully: a wealthy South Carolina businessman opened his home to her and supported her in attending an industrial high school, while studying tennis privately. From 1950, she furthered her education, attending Florida A&M University, where she graduated in 1953. Then, in 1953, she became an athletic instructor at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Gibson won the ATA women's singles tournament ten years in a row, 1947 through 1956. But tennis tournaments outside the ATA remained closed to her, until 1950. In that year white tennis player Alice Marble wrote an article in American Lawn Tennis magazine, noting that this excellent player was not able to participate in the better-known championships, for no reason other than "bigotry." "If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of players, then it's only fair that they meet this challenge on the courts," Marble wrote. And so later that year, Althea Gibson entered the Forest Hills, New York, national grass court championship, the first African American player of either sex to be allowed to enter. In her historic debut at the 1950 U.S. Nationals, Gibson defeated Barbara Knapp in straight sets. Her second-round match on the grass of Forest Hills was against Louise Brough, who had won the previous three Wimbledons. After being routed 6-1 in the first set, Gibson recovered to win the second set 6-3 and led 7-6 in the third when a thunderstorm struck, halting the match. When it resumed the next day, Gibson dropped three straight games to lose the match. Gibson then became the first African American invited to enter the all-England tournament at Wimbledon, playing there in 1951. She entered other tournaments, though at first winning only minor titles outside the ATA. In 1956, she won the French Open. In the same year, she toured worldwide as a member of a national tennis team supported by the U.S. State Department. She began winning more tournaments, including at the Wimbledon women's doubles. In 1957 she won the women's singles and doubles at Wimbledon. In celebration of this American win -- and her achievement as an African American -- New York City greeted her with a ticker tape parade. Gibson followed up with a win at Forest Hills in the women's singles tournament. In 1958 she again won both Wimbledon titles and repeated the Forest Hills women's singles win. Her autobiography, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, came out in 1958. In 1959 she turned pro, winning the women's professional singles title in 1960. She also began playing professional women's golf and she appeared in several films. Althea Gibson served from 1973 on in various national and New Jersey positions in tennis and recreation. Among her honors: 1971 - National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame 1971 - International Tennis Hall of Fame 1974 - Black Athletes Hall of Fame 1983 - South Carolina Hall of Fame 1984 - Florida Sports Hall of Fame In the mid 1990s, Althea Gibson suffered from serious health problems including a stroke, and also struggled financially though many efforts at fund-raising helped ease that burden. She died on Sunday, September 28, 2003, but not before she knew of the tennis victories of Serena and Venus Williams. Other African American tennis players like Arthur Ashe and the Williams sisters followed Gibson, though not quickly. Althea Gibson's achievement was unique, as the first African American of either sex to break the color bar in national and international tournament tennis at a time when prejudice and racism were far more pervasive in society and sports. No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. - Althea Gibson About.com Bio Althea Gibson Photo Gallery ESPN SportsCentury Top 100 Athlete Biography Sports Illustrated Top 100 Female Athlete Biography
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Friday, February 20, 2004 - 1:31 pm
Nella Larsen (April 13,1893-March 30, 1964) Nella Larsen was an American novelist and short story writer famously associated with the Harlem Renaissance era, which one writer has called "an era of extraordinary acheivement in black American art and literature areas during the 1920's and 1930's." Nella Larsen's appearance was much like that of Homer Plessy, a civil rights activist, who was seven eights white and one eights black. Plessy believed that he should be entitled to all the rights and privileges of a white citizen. As a result, Plessy took his case to the Supreme Court which ruled for "separate but equal public facilities and institutions for non-white citizens." Nella was a light skinned black women with limp hair and white facial features. Nella Larsen was born on April 13,1891, in Chicago and died on March 30,1964. Her mother was of Danish decent and her father was West Indian. She later in her life married a physicist, Elmer S. Imes, on May 3, 1919, and fourteen years later divorced him in 1933. She was an extremely educated woman. She attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1909 to 1910. She then continued her education at the university of Copenhagen from 1910 to 1912. She also studied nursing at Lincoln Hospital in New York City from 1912 until 1915. She then began her career as an assistant superintendent of nurses from 1915 to 1916, and became a nurse at Lincoln Hospital in New York City. Larson was diagnosed with a sickness in 1925 which led her a few years later to pursue her career as a writer. Although Nella Larsen was considered legally black she wanted to be able to identify herself with both races black and white. Nella relates some of her own personal experiences, ideas, thoughts and beliefs into her novels, including Quicksand which was her first novel and appeared in 1928, and Passing, her second novel which appeared in 1929. Both novels depict bits and pieces of Larsen's life; they involve semiautobiographical accounts of women whose racial and sexual confusion contribute to their unfulfilled quest for an identity. Larson was a modern woman; because of that she addressed different women's related issues such as women's sexuality and power. Larsen wrote about how males expect women's sexuality to be confined to their desires, in addition to addressing the issues of race. Larson expresses these thoughts in her first novel Quicksand through the main character Helga Crane, who is trapped by the occurences of her own reproductivity. Helga finds herself not being able to escape; she's trapped within the confinds of motherhood. At the same time Larson addresses the issue of race also through the character of Helga, who is an illegitimate, half-white and half-African-American female who is at the same time experiencing the post Civil War era. Helga's problems were not only race and class; unfortunately Helga's life revolved around the lack of socialism and extreme fantasy with is an issue that most women had in the early 1900s. Nella Larsen's second novel Passing on the other hand concentrates on the issue of skin color. As we can see from our own experiences, everyone is not the same shade. Many people of color were affected by this both dark- and light-skinned especially during Nella Larsen's era. While the light-skinned black people were dominating the black establishments, the dark-skinned black people were feeling rejection from their own kind. Passing addresses this issue through the character of Clare Kendry who was also an atrractive light skin fine haired women who manages to escape poverty by passing for being a white women. She marries a wealthy white man who also believes that she is white as well. Her journey across the color line is completely sucessful until she reunites with her old friend Irene. Irene Redfield is married to an attractive and sucessful black physician who Clare finds herself attracted to and he to her, so Clare decides to pursue him. Irene was aware of Clare's threat to her marriage and arranges for Clare's disappearence. Clare falls to her death from an open window just before her husband is about to confront her with his discovery of her black roots. Passing can be related more to Nella Larsen's actual life; she was also a light-skinned women who dominated the black intellectual etablishments and because of her color could have and may have at some points in her life passed for a white woman. I don't think Nella Larsen wanted to cease being black and become white, but she wanted to have equality in part because she was partially white, and in part because she wanted blacks and whites to have equal rights. Nella Larsen's work contains an overall view of a black world which once existed, but only in a female's perspective. Nella Larsen seems like she was not satisfied with just being a member of the black elite; she wanted more. She in fact seemed trapped by her narrowness, and because of her black experiences yearned to live in a whole world. Nella expressed these feelings and awarenesses through her writings. Nella Larsen was a great writer. Unfortunately her literary career was too brief for her to express all of her talent. She had the potential to create even greater work.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Friday, February 20, 2004 - 1:40 pm
Angela Yvonne Davis b. 1944 link
Angela Yvonne Davis was born January 26, 1944, to B. Frank, a teacher and businessman, and Sally E. Davis, who was also a teacher. Davis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, at a time of great political unrest and racism in the United States. As a child, Davis's parents had many Communist friends and she subsequently joined a Communist youth group. Davis traveled to Germany in 1960, where she spent two years studying at the Frankfurt School under acclaimed scholar Theodor Adorno. From 1963 to 1964, Davis attended the University of Paris. Davis, then returned to the United States and attended Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts. After earning her B.A. (magna cum laude) in 1965, Davis flew to Germany, where she conducted graduate research. Upon returning to the U.S., Davis enrolled at the University of California at San Diego, where she began pursuing her master's degree, which she received in 1968. It was at the University of California at San Diego that Davis began closely studying the Communist party. In 1968, Davis became a member of the Communist party, as well as a member of the Black Panthers. It was her involvement in these radical groups that caused Davis to be watched very closely by the United States government. After teaching for only one year, it was also these radical associations that resulted in her dismissal from her position as assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1970, Davis became only the third woman in history to appear on the FBI's most wanted list. Davis was charged by the authorities with conspiracy to free George Jackson with a bloody shootout in front of a courthouse in California. The FBI also asserted that Davis armed prisoners in the Marin County courthouse with guns that were registered in her name. After the warrant was issued for her arrest, Davis spent two weeks evading police. During this time, a sign went up in windows of houses and businesses all across the United States. The sign read, "Angela, sister, you are welcome in this house." Finally, Davis was discovered in a Greenwich Village hotel, and was formally charged with murder and kidnapping, even though she didn't actually take part in the shootout in Marin County, California. Davis spent sixteen months behind bars, until her subsequent acquittal on all charges. After her release from prison, in 1971, Davis's essays were published in a collection entitled If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance. In her essays, she details her belief in Communist theory, as well as her thoughts on racial oppression in the United States. Davis's friends then convinced her that she should draft an account of her life in the 1960s and 1970's. The result was Angela Davis: An Autobiography. In 1980, Davis ran for Vice President of the United States on the Communist Party ticket. Davis's next book, Women, Race, and Class was published in 1981. Women, Race, and Class became an instant feminist classic and a text for many classes on sexism, racism, and classism. Then, in 1989, Davis published the first collection of her speeches, entitled Women, Culture, and Politics. This book documents Davis's speeches from 1983 to 1987. Today, Angela Y. Davis continues to be a strong force for political and social activism, as well as the reformation of the prison industrial complex. She is also an accomplished cultural theorist. Davis is now a tenured professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and spends much of her time delivering speeches to eager audiences around the country.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Friday, February 20, 2004 - 2:01 pm
February 20: 1929 Writer Wallace Thurman's play Harlem opens in NYC. It is the first successful play by an African American playwright.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Friday, February 20, 2004 - 2:04 pm
Alvin Ailey
Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey founded the world famous Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. He was born January 5, 1931, in the Central Texas town of Rogers, in Bell County. He died in New York December 1, 1989, of blood dyscrasia. Alvin was the only child of his 17-year-old mother, Lula. His father abandoned them when Alvin was six months old. Mother and son moved to Navasota, eventually settling in Los Angeles. To get buy, they picked cotton and did domestic work. Ailey showed an early interest in art, drawing pictures during much of his childhood. He discovered dance while on a junior high school field trip to see the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Eventually, he took dance classes from choreographer Katherine Dunham. But his most important influence would come from choreographer Lester Horton, who taught dance in Los Angeles. Horton's troupe was racially mixed and included American Indian and Japanese influences. Ailey began studying with Horton in 1949, leaving behind his romance language studies at UCLA. In 1953, the year Ailey made his performance debut, Horton died and Ailey took over the company. His Broadway debut came the next year in Truman Capote's House of Flowers. Staying in New York after the play closed, Ailey studied ballet, modern dance and acting. One of his teachers was choreographer Martha Graham. Over the next ten years, Ailey appeared on and off Broadway and on film as a dancer, choreographer, actor, and director. He choreographed Leonard Bernstein's Mass, which was the debut performance of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Samuel Barber's opera, Antony and Cleopatra, which was the inaugural production of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Theater. Ailey's choreography for Blues Suite (1958), his first financial and critical success, marked the beginning of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. World fame quickly followed. In 1965, Ailey left dancing to concentrate on choreography and running his company. The group was the resident company of the Brooklyn Academy of Music for three seasons starting in 1969. It became the first American dance company to tour the USSR in fifty years. The Leningrad performance in 1970 received an ovation lasting more than twenty minutes. Two years later, Ailey headquartered his dance school and repertory ensemble at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. The company's honors include the Dance Magazine Award, 1975; The Capezio Award, 1979; the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, 1987; and Kennedy Center Honors, 1988. Alvin Ailey received honorary doctorates from Princeton University, Bard College, and Adelphi University. In 1979, he was awarded the Spingarin Medal of the NAACP. He racially integrated his formerly all-black dance company in 1963 after encountering reverse racism. Bibliography: Ron Tyler, ed., The New Handbook of Texas, Vol. 1 (Austin, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, 1996) pp. 74-75.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 7:31 pm
Jan Ernest Matzeliger (1852-1889) "Every Shoe worn by civilized man is a memorial to Jan Ernest Matzeliger. " -Jan Ernest Matzeliger The shoe industry owe its supremacy to a Black Man named Jan Ernest Matzeliger. A pioneer in the art of shoemaking, Matzeliger enriched America and other nations by billons of dollars. His invention along, directly produced a dozen or more millionaires; created work for hundreds of thousands, and contributed immensely to what is regarded as one of the distinctive features of civilization, the wearing of shoes. The state of Massachusetts, the center of the world's shoe trade, has particularly beneffited from Matzeliger's ingenuity. At the age of twenty-five(25), Matzeliger moved to Lynn, Massachusetts where he found work in the factory of M.H Harvey. Here, he operated a machine for turning shoes. Natually, his attention was drawn to shoe machinery. Observing the time-wasting method of lasting shoes(pleating the leather around the shoe) by hand, Matzeliger decided to invent a machine that would do it. Such machine had been the tender dream of many a creative youth eager to make a fortune. Inventors had burned barrels of midnight oil and promoters had spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the attempt to change the lasting of shoes from hand to machine method. When Matzeliger announced his intention, his white fellow workers made fun of him. That a Black Man should succeed where some of the best white inventors had failed seemed ludicrous. They boasted, moreover, that whatever else was done by machinery, nothing could ever supersede hand lasting. With this attitude prevailing, the Lasters felt secure in their positions. Skilled Lasters were the gentlemen of the shoe trade, earning from $20 to $40.00 a week, a very good salary at that time. It took Matzeliger twelve(12) years to perfect his idea, but it was all worth it. With his new invention, the United Shoe Manufacturing Company rapidly drove competitors out of the shoe business. Within a few years, it controlled ninety-eight(98%) percent of the shoe machinery business. A tremendous expansion in the shoe industry followed. Shoe stocks became a gold mine for investors. Earnings increased more than 350% while wages increased but 34%. And the price of footware decreased. Sales of shoes abroad increased approximately $16,000,000 annually. They mocked him because of his color, and labeled his machine "niggerhead." However, as the value of his machine grew, Matzeliger became to be claimed as White by those who earlier made mockery of him. On his death certificate, they listed him as "mulatto." However, Waldemar Kaempfert, a noted scientific writer plainly clarify who Jan E. Matzeliger was when he said "a poor half-breed son of a Dutch engineer and a native Black woman . . . This messenger from a foreign land solved in principle the final problem of making shoes by machinery." Black Pioneer Biography Black Inventor Biography with pictures of his invention
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 7:39 pm
National Civil Rights Museum
The National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM) was opened in 1991 at the site of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The Museum exists to assist the public in understanding the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement and its impact and influence on the human rights movement worldwide, through its collections, exhibitions, research and educational programs. From 1968-1982 the businesses for the Lorraine Motel languished and in 1982 the property was foreclosed. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation initiated efforts to save the Lorraine Motel and later purchased the property for $144, 000. In 1987 the Lorraine Civil Rights Foundation broke ground for what is now the National Civil Rights Museum. In September 28, 1991 the Museum opened in what was once the Lorraine Motel. The Museum currently occupies 4 acres of land, encompassing 40,000 square feet. It chronicles the history of the civil rights movements: 1600’s - present. The facility includes a Museum Shop, Gallery, Auditorium, 19 Exhibit halls, 2 Multi-purpose Rooms, Archives and Library. The National Civil Rights Museum is a non-profit organization. Museum Website
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 11:51 am
February 21: 1965 Malcolm X was assassinated, 11 months after his split from Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam. 1987 African Americans in Tampa, Florida rebelled after an African American man was killed by a white police officer while in custody. February 22: 1865 Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery. This will allow Tennessee to become the first former confederate state to be re-admitted to the Union. 1898 Black postmaster lynched and his wife and three daughters shot and maimed for life in Lake City, S.C. 1989 DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince win the first rap Grammy for the hit single "Parents Just Don't Understand."
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 11:57 am
Idlewild Resort Idlewild, was once a vibrant summer resort for African-American families. Jim Crow laws prevented blacks from renting or owning homes in then-popular Lake Michigan vacation spots. So in 1915, middleclass families from Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and St Louis in particular, soon even New Yorkers met here each summer to cavort, renew friendships, fish, hunt, swim, sing, dance and party safe from the wounds of racism. The resort thrived until the mid-1960s. Idlewild, inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, hosted some of the nation's most prominent thinkers and Black businesspersons of the day. Such luminaries as Madame C.J. Walker, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, and Zora Neale Hurston vacationed here. W.E.B. Du Bois and Dr. Daniel Hale Williams owned homes here. Dr. Williams even built a hotel. Idlewild, 'the Resort That Segregation Built' Activists Work to Restore Vacation Spot in Mich. By Tom Nugent IDLEWILD, Mich. -- Whenever John O. Meeks looks back on the glory years of America's "Black Eden" summertime resort, the first thing that comes to mind is a 1960s vision of the youthful Four Tops splashing around Idlewild Lake in a borrowed pontoon boat. "They were just four young kids back in the early sixties, and nobody had heard of them yet," says the 80-year-old Meeks, a retired dry-cleaning entrepreneur from Detroit. "Like kids everywhere, those guys loved to spend time on the water. But then around nine o'clock at night, they'd hit the stage at the old Paradise Club. . . . They had the magic, and none of us were surprised when they later became big stars for Motown Records." Although Meeks didn't know it at the time, he was witnessing the final chapter in the saga of Idlewild -- a summertime mecca for affluent, socially prominent African American families who vacationed there from all across the Midwest each year. Frequently described as "the resort that segregation built," Idlewild had already been a center of black entertainment and culture for nearly half a century before the Four Tops launched their career there. Within a few years of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, the resort -- once a regular stop on the entertainment circuit for such giants as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Count Basie -- would go into swift decline, as black performers and vacationers deserted for mainstream resorts such as Miami Beach and Las Vegas. Increasingly run down, the resort 60 miles north of Grand Rapids sank into obscurity. That appears to be changing. In recent months, preservationists and local community activists such as John Meeks have been conducting a campaign to revitalize Idlewild -- while also preserving it as a national landmark dedicated to the history of American pop culture. "In many ways, Idlewild was the black equivalent of other ethnic entertainment resorts, such as the 'Borscht Belt' in the Catskills, where Jewish entertainers like Joey Bishop and Jerry Lewis got their start. The resort declined after segregation ended, but now we're seeing a growing interest in revitalization," said Prof. Ben C. Wilson, chairman of the Africana Studies program at Western Michigan University and co-author of a recent book about the resort, "Black Eden: The Idlewild Community." "I don't think there's any question that Idlewild was the foremost African American summer resort in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. If you wanted to watch major black entertainers or meet influential cultural figures during your vacation, this was the place to be." Opening in 1915, the sprawling lakeside resort became a vacationland for the elites of black society in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and New York. African American entertainers and artists performed for audiences that included black celebrities such as Joe Louis and pioneering Chicago heart surgeon Daniel Hale Williams. But the Idlewild culture wasn't restricted to music. Over the years, many of the legendary "Harlem Renaissance" artists and thinkers of the 1920s and 1930s, including novelist Zora Neale Hurston, poet Langston Hughes and scholar-activist W.E.B. DuBois, would gather here to trade ideas and gain inspiration. A frequent 1960s visitor, Loretta Long, who now appears as "Susan" on the television program "Sesame Street," says she is determined to help organize a campaign that will "tell the nation about what went on in this amazing town for five decades. "My mother ran the Hickory Inn Restaurant in Idlewild," said Long, "and many of the entertainers who performed at the clubs would show up there for dinner or a snack after their show. . . .We've been kidding Levi Stubbs [lead singer for the Four Tops] that he still has a tab he needs to pay!" Long, who frequently returns for visits, has been seeking corporate contributions for a recently opened local historical and cultural center. She hopes there eventually can be an educational "boot camp" where disadvantaged urban kids could study in the morning, then swim and play after lunch. It would not be easy to restore the resort's former grandeur, however, Long said. Idlewild lies within Michigan's poorest county, with a 15 percent poverty rate, double the statewide rate. "The population of Idlewild today is mostly elderly and on limited incomes," says Lewis Walker, another Western Michigan professor and co-author, with Wilson, of a book on the resort. "For that reason, we need some national leadership to devise a master plan for redevelopment." Another well-known figure who wants to see a renaissance at Idlewild is crooner Jerry "The Iceman" Butler, a baritone who sang at the resort during its twilight years. Now a Cook County Commissioner in Chicago, Butler recently recalled for reporters: "The music and the applause tended to soothe a lot of problems related to segregation. We couldn't stay in the finest hotels, and certain restaurants didn't want to serve you. But Idlewild secluded you from all that." While the national campaign goes forward, Meeks has been active locally. Soon after retiring here in 1994, he bought and refurbished the town's only remaining guest accommodations, the 17-unit Morton's Motel. Meeks says his "obsession" with revitalizing the area is paying off. "My son and daughter told me I was crazy to pour $300,000 into this town," said Meeks during a recent tour of several former cultural sites, including the Flamingo Club, the El Morocco and the Hotel Casa Blanca. "But I've loved Idlewild ever since I started coming up here in 1954. I want it to survive. And we're starting to make some progress on revitalization. We've had 35 new construction permits this year, and several new businesses have opened." Last summer, Meeks helped launch the "Jazz and Blues in Idlewild" festival. The concert drew 600 people. "What we need is for a few people with the wherewithal to come together and help preserve this great old resort. And it shouldn't just be African Americans. Idlewild has a specialness for everyone in America today," Walker said. "It speaks volumes about the ability of an oppressed people to come together and do something wonderful." Idlewild Article
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 9:44 pm
Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin Banneker was a self-educated scientist, astronomer, inventor, writer, and antislavery publicist. Banneker built a striking clock entirely from wood, published a Farmers' Almanac, and actively campaigned against slavery. Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, in Ellicott's Mills. He was the descendent of slaves, however, Banneker was born a freeman. At that time the law dictated that if your mother was a slave then you were a slave, and if she was a freewomen then you were a free person. Banneker's grandmother, Molly Walsh, was an English immigrant and an indentured servant who married his grandfather, an African slave named Banna Ka. The name Banna Ka was later changed to Bannaky, and then changed to Banneker. Molly served seven years as an indentured servant after which she acquired and worked her own small farm. Banna Ka was brought to the Colonies by a slave trader. Molly Walsh purchased Banna Ka and another African. Molly's and Banna Ka's daughter Mary (Benjamin's mother) was born free. Benjamin's father, Rodger was a former slave who had bought his own freedom before marrying Mary. Banneker was educated by Quakers and quickly revealed to the world his inventive nature. Benjamin Banneker first achieved national acclaim for his scientific work in the 1791 survey of the Federal Territory (now Washington, D.C.). In 1753, he built the first watch made in America, a wooden pocket watch. Twenty years later, Banneker began making astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a 1789 solar eclipse. His estimate made well in advance of the celestial event, contradicted predictions of better-known mathematicians and astronomers. Banneker's mechanical and mathematical abilities impressed many, including Thomas Jefferson who encountered Banneker after George Elliot had recommended him for the surveying team that laid out Washington D.C. Banneker is best known for his six annual Farmer's Almanacs published between 1792 and 1797, in his free time, Banneker began compiling the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris. The almanac included information on medicines and medical treatment, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses all calculated by Banneker himself. On August 19, 1791, Banneker sent a copy of his first almanac to secretary of state Thomas Jefferson. In an enclosed letter, he questioned the slaveholder's sincerity as a "friend to liberty." He urged Jefferson to help get rid of "absurd and false ideas" that one race is superior to another. He wished Jefferson's sentiments to be the same as his, that "one Universal Father . . . afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties." Jefferson responded with praise for Banneker's accomplishments. Benjamin Banneker died on October 25, 1806. Biography
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Monday, February 23, 2004 - 7:54 am
February 23: 1869 Louisiana governor signed public accommodations law. 1895 William H. Heard, AME minister and educator, named minister to Liberia. 1965 Constance Baker Motley elected Manhattan Borough president, the highest elective office held by a black woman in a major American city. 1979 Frank E. Peterson Jr. named the first black general in the Marine Corps. He also was the first African American pilot to win Marine Corps wings.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Monday, February 23, 2004 - 7:59 am
Sammy Davis Jr.
Son of a black vaudeville star and a Puerto Rican dancer, Sammy Davis Jr. became a world-class actor, singer and dancer. At the age of four he starred in a short act called "Will Mastin's Gang, featuring Little Sammy." In 1932 he made his debut in the Warner Brothers film Rufus Jones for President. Davis played the part of Rufus, a little boy who dreams of becoming President one day. He continued appearing with the Will Maustin Gang throughout the 1930s. In 1943 he was drafted to serve in a Special Forces unit during World War II. Davis' autobiography Sammy: An Autobiography, describes in detail the racial prejudice he encountered during his years in the army. This racial prejudice continued throughout his career and lifetime. After the war he was supposed to be cast with Elvis Presley, another war veteran, for Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones. At the last minute the casting was changed, however. Presley later confided to Davis that the change of casting was racially motivated. Despite these challenges, Davis' career flourished. In 1946 he recorded "The Way You Look Tonight" with Capitol Records. A few years later he opened for Frank Sinatra at the Capitol Theatre in New York. Sinatra and Davis continued their friendship for many years. Soon after, Davis landed a tour with Mickey Rooney and appeared with Bob Hope in a benefit show. The three performers appeared together at Circo's in Hollywood and on the Colgate Comedy Hour. Davis appeared solo at the Capacabana in New York, and was discovered by Decca Records in 1954. He released two albums with Decca Records: Starring Sammy Davis, Jr. and Just for Lovers. Davis' career took off in the mid-50s. He appeared on Broadway with the Will Mastin Trio (formely the Will Mastin Gang) in 1956 in Mr. Wonderful. He made solo appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. He performed in The Benny Goodman Story (1955) and Porgy and Bess (1959). His "Rat-Pack" group of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford starred with him in Ocean's Eleven (1960), Sergeants Three (1962), and Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964). Davis also starred in two serious dramas of Anna Lucasta (1958) and A Man Called Adam (1966). He appeared again on Broadway in 1964 in a musical version of Clifford Odets drama Golden Boy. In 1972 Davis made a No. 1 hit on the Top 40 charts with "Candy Man." In 1954 he almost died in a car accident where he lost his left eye. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor enlightened him on the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Davis converted to Judaism after reading Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews in the hospital. One paragraph about the ultimate endurance of the Jewish people intrigued him in particular: "The Jews would not die. Three centuries of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush."1 As an African-American, his later affiliation with Judaism sometimes caused him personal anguish. The Jewish community never fully embraced him as a member. After his marriage to Swedish actress May Britt and involvement in the Republican Party, the African-American community ostracized him. Sammy Davis Jr. continued performing well into the 1980s, despite heavy drinking and drug use which contributed to his poor health. In the early 1980s he performed in two Cannonball Run films with Dean Martin. In 1989 he performed in the movie Tap with Gregory Hines and then traveled on tour with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He died from throat cancer in 1990.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Monday, February 23, 2004 - 11:28 am
Harold Washington
(b. April 15, 1922, Chicago, Ill., U.S.--d. Nov. 25, 1987, Chicago), American politician who gained national prominence as the first African-American mayor of Chicago (1983-87). Washington graduated from Roosevelt University (B.A., 1949), earned a law degree from Northwestern University (1952), and established a private law practice in Chicago. He succeeded his father, a part-time Methodist minister, as Democratic precinct captain before working as a city attorney (1954-58) and a state labour arbitrator (1960-64). He then served in the Illinois House of Representatives (1965-76), the Illinois State Senate (1976-80), and the U.S. House of Representatives (1980-83). During his second term in Congress, Washington was persuaded by black leaders to enter the 1983 mayoral race in Chicago. Campaigning for reform and an end to city patronage, he won the Democratic nomination by upsetting incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley, the son of four-term mayor Richard J. Daley. In the general election Washington narrowly defeated Bernard Epton, a virtually unknown white Republican, in a record voter turnout tinged with racial overtones. Washington was often unable to implement his programs during his first term in office because the opposition in City Council controlled a majority of the 50 council seats. After a court ruled that several ward boundaries violated the law by disfranchising minority voters, new elections in those wards finally gave him control of the council in 1986. The following year he was easily reelected to a second term even though he had pushed through an unpopular $70 million property tax increase. While his years were somewhat tumultuous, Washington did have a great many accomplishments. He is probably most noted for bringing opportunity to the underprivileged. He helped increase significantly the number of city contracts awarded to minority businesses, as well as helped open doors for minorities to obtain top positions in City Hall. In this spirit, Harold Washington made Illinois the first state to honor Martin Luther King by creating a state holiday. He created the first citywide Ethics Ordinance, and by writing the city's own Freedom of Information Act, he encouraged everyone to become informed and involved with community operations. Harold Washington had always said that he would stay in office till the day he died, hoping to outlast former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was in office for 20 years. He only served a little more than four years; he died on Wednesday, November 25, 1987, 1:36 P.M., at his desk in City Hall. The official cause of death: cardiac arrest. Mayor Washington was buried at Oak Woods Cemetery, 1035 E. 67th St., on November 30, 1987. Bio Bio from Chitown Ads.com
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 7:25 am
Mahalia Jackson
(1911-1972) Singer Mahalia Jackson has been acclaimed America's greatest gospel singer by world press and publicity. She is certainly the best known, with a career that included television, radio, and concerts. Her early repertoire leaned heavily upon songs of her Baptist beginnings such as "Amazing Grace," and "The Day is Past and Gone." She recorded her first record in May 1937 for Decca, "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares," and the Baptist hymn "Keep Me Every Day." From that point on, Jackson's talent and deep-rooted faith ensured that she had the whole world in her hands. Wilfred Mellers, in Gospel Women of the Night, says: "The magnificent voice and the fervent faith are almost inseparable; a voice of such vibrancy, over so wide a range, creates a sound that is as all-embracing, as secure as the womb, from which singer and listener may be reborn." Mahalia Jackson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 26, 1911 or 1912, and died of heart failure in Chicago on January 27, 1972. She was the daughter of Charity Clark, a laundress and maid, and Johnny Jackson, a Baptist preacher, barber, and longshoreman. Mahalia Jackson was raised without the presence of her father. Her mother died when Jackson was five. She was raised by an extended family of one brother, six aunts, and several half-brothers and sisters—children of her father. Her grandparents had been born into slavery and were laborers on Louisiana rice cotton plantations. Some of her relatives were entertainers and played valses, quadrilles, polkas, and mazurkas at parties for white people. They also played blues and rags in Ma Rainey's Circus. The strong musical life of New Orleans in the early 1900s made a profound impression upon the young Mahalia Jackson. She lived next door to a Holiness church whose rhythms and instruments appealed to her growing musical development. Jackson knew well the standard hymn tradition of the Mount Moriah Baptist Church where her family worshipped. In addition to the sacred music, she was surrounded by music of the Mardi Gras, street vendors, and the bars and dance halls of New Orleans's black community. These were the early days of the birth of jazz in Storyville—a place where Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Jelly Roll Morton got their start in the 1920s. During childhood, Jackson had to work to help support her family, even while she attended grammar school. Biographical accounts differ concerning the time at which she left school—the fourth or the eighth grade. An autobiography written with Evan McLeod Wylie in 1966, Movin' On Up, states that Mahalia Jackson moved from New Orleans to Chicago in 1928 at sixteen years of age (41). There she joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church and its choir. At Salem, she also began a career in gospel singing as a member of the Johnson Gospel Singers. Jackson's real ambition after arriving in Chicago was to become a nurse; however, she worked as a laundress and studied beauty culture at Madame C. J. Walker's and the Scott Institute of Beauty Culture. With that training, Jackson began the first of her several business ventures. She opened a beauty shop. In 1936 Jackson married Isaac Hockenhull, a college-educated entrepreneur. He encouraged her business aspirations but realized the great potential of her developing musical talent as a bigger source of income. A moving chapter of Laurraine Goreau's book, Just Mahalia, Baby, tells how Hockenhull, or "Ike" as he was called, persuaded Jackson to audition for the Works Projects Administration (WPA) Federal Theatre production of Hot Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan. In a well-known story, Ike told Mahalia Jackson, "Halie, nobody can touch your voice. You've got a future in singing. It's not right for you to throw it away hollering in churches. Woman, you want to nickel and dime all your life?" (78). Auditioning reluctantly, Jackson sang the old spiritual, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." Even though she won the audition, she turned down the offer as from Decca records to sing the blues. It was Hockenhull's desire to see Jackson turn to the more lucrative world of blues and popular music. Her steadfast refusal to sing the blues throughout her long career is documented in an exchange with Louis Armstrong. Returning to Chicago from a European tour in 1937, he tried to persuade Jackson, saying: "Got you a spot with the band, make you some real green, get to move around. You don't have to show me, I know what you can do with the blues." She replied, "I know what I can do with it too, baby, and that's not sing it. Child, I been reborn!" (Gorean, 75). Just as a subsequent marriage in 1965 to musician Sigmond Galloway, Jackson's marriage to Ike Hockenhull ended in divorce. A historic moment in gospel music brought together Jackson and the "Father of Gospel Music," composer Thomas A. Dorsey, also of Chicago in 1929. He became her musical advisor and accompanist from 1937 to 1946. Jackson sang Dorsey's songs in church programs and at conventions to promote the new songwriter's compositions. Their association in fourteen years of travel was highly successful. Her signature performance of "Precious Lord Take My Hand," composed by Dorsey, became one of the most requested songs in her growing repertoire. Vocal Style, Delivery and Repertoire Gain Fame for Jackson The Jackson swinging beat coupled with an intense, expressive, and emotional performance met with resistance in many black churches. Some felt the music to be too jazzy—too worldly for church worship. Viv Broughton commented in his book, Black Gospel: The more sophisticated and middle class black people in the northern cities weren't quite so taken with the idea of shouts and moans and Holiness excesses. It was all so retrogressive to them, a harking back to old indignities and to old African roots they would quite happily prefer to leave behind (53). However, by 1947 Jackson had become the official soloist of the National Baptist Convention. Besides the traditional Baptist hymns and Dorsey songs, she excelled in, and became nationally known through the songs of the Baptist preacher, the Reverend W. Herbert Brewster of Memphis. Her recording on Apollo Records of "Move On Up A Little Higher" sold more than two million copies in 1946. She featured songs of other notable Chicago songwriters who were markedly increasing in number under the influence of Dorsey and the rising tide for gospel music in churches, in concert, and on record. Among them, Jackson recorded "I Can Put my Trust in Jesus" and "Let the Power of the Holy Ghost Fall On Me" by Kenneth Morris, a selection that earned her the French Grand Prix du Disque in 1949. During the 1950s she was featured on the noted Chicago journalist Studs Terkel's television program. By 1954 she had her own radio and television show while owning a flower shop in Chicago and traveling to perform concerts. Signing her most lucrative record contract with Columbia Records in 1954, Jackson's concerts were increasingly heard in concert halls with fewer in the churches. Likewise, her repertoire expanded to include arrangements with orchestra in place of the piano and organ that she previously used. From the Columbia releases came "Down By the Riverside," "Didn't It Rain," "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho," "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," and that New Orleans staple, "When the Saints Go Marching In." Among the notable achievements of Jackson, many are "firsts" for those in the gospel music field. She appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall in 1950 and at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958. Author Tony Heilbut notes Jackson's political concerns: During the sixties, Mahalia was a loyal friend and supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King... . He loved her music... . She began featuring 'We Shall Overcome' at concerts. At King's funeral Mahalia sang his last request, "Precious Lord" (103). Earlier, Jackson was featured at the 1963 March on Washington rally at which King made his famous speech, "I Have a Dream." On that occasion, she rocked thousands on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial with the Reverend Brewster's classic, "How I Got Over." Jackson strongly supported the civil rights movement and was a militant supporter of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She also supported Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and sang at the 1961 inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. Jackson Experiences European Success Jackson first toured Europe in 1952. Music critics there heralded her as the world's greatest gospel singer, a rare artist with a wide range. Jackson's recordings had been introduced in Europe by the French jazz historian, Hugh Panassie, who was impressed by her voice and singing style. With a weekly radio program on ORTF (all-France radio), Panassie played Jackson's recordings regularly. The radio show was widely listened to in Great Britain and in other countries in Western Europe. In Paris she was called "The Angel of Peace" and became widely celebrated throughout the continent, singing to sold-out and standing-room-only crowds. At London's famed Royal Albert Hall, critic Max Jones spoke of her charm. "When she dances those little church steps at the end of a rocking number, you need a heart of stone to remain unsmiling" (Broughton, 54). Jackson told Jones in one of hundreds of interviews for the press, "I don't work for money. I sing because I love to sing" (Broughton, 56). Her concerts consisted of seventeen to twenty selections even when a crowded schedule called for concerts on successive nights. She toured Europe in 1952, 1962, and 1963-1964. She also sang in Africa, Japan, and India in 1970. She met heads of state and royalty, including Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and members of the royal family in Japan. The many historic accounts of Jackson's life usually speak of her generosity to family, friends, and young people. She received the Silver Dove Award "for work of quality doing the most good for international understanding." Jackson, according to biographer Laurraine Goreau, had an unfulfilled dream to build a temple where young people might study gospel music, religion, and academics. She established a Mahalia Jackson Scholarship Foundation for young people who wished to attend college. Among the friends of Mahalia Jackson were most of her contemporaries in the gospel music field: Roberta Martin, Sallie Martin, Willie Mae Ford Smith, J. Robert Bradley, Robert Anderson, officials of Thomas A. Dorsey's gospel music convention, including the Ward Singers, and Rosetta Tharpe. Jackson encouraged the careers of Della Reese, Aretha Franklin, and James Cleveland. She had scores of friends throughout the country and around the world, among them radio and television personalities such as Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shore, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Percy Faith, Harry Belafonte, Albertina Walker, Brother John Sellers, and New York promoter Joe Bostic, who presented Jackson at Carnegie Hall and at his spectacularly successful gospel concerts at Randall's Island. She knew the Lyndon Johnsons, John F. Kennedys, and Harry S. Truman. Tony Heilbut devotes a complete chapter in his book, The Gospel Sound, to "Mahalia the Queen." He calls her "the vocal, physical, spiritual symbol of gospel music. Her large (260 pounds), noble proportions, her face, contorted into something resembling the Mad Duchess, her soft speaking voice and hugh, rich contralto, all made her gospel's one superstar" (89). Henry Pleasants, author of The Great American Popular Singers, stated: "She would land on a note or a word she particularly liked, or wished to emphasize, and mouth it, or repeat it, or repeat parts of it, or shake it, or bite into it in a manner which often reminded me of a terrier puppy playing tug-o'-war with an old sock or shoe (201.) In a later entry in the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, which Pleasants coauthored with gospel music historian Horace C. Boyer, it was stated: Jackson was not the first, and possible not the finest, gospel singer, but it was largely through her compelling contralto voice and her personality that people of all races throughout the world came to respect gospel music as an idiom distinct from classical black spirituals (524). Selected songs of Mahalia Jackson are published in Favorites of Mahalia Jackson, the World's Greatest Gospel Singer (New York: Hill and Range Songs, 1955). Some of her noted recordings include: In the Upper Room with Mahalia Jackson, EMI 335X 1753; Mahalia Jackson Recorded Live in Europe (1961), Columbia Records C88526 LP; Mahalia Jackson—World's Greatest Gospel Singer and Falls-Jones Ensemble, Columbia Records CL 2004, CS8759; Mahalia Jackson's Latest Hits, Columbia CL1473 CS 8264; and Silent Night— Songs for Christmas, Columbia CL1903, CS8703. Despite her doctors ordering her to slow down, Mahalia refused and collapsed while on tour in Munich in 1971. She died of heart failure on January 27, 1972, at her home in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Women in History Biography Gale Group Biography A Very Good Fan Website
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 7:44 am
February 24: 1864 Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College. 1987 Mayor Harold Washington of Chicago wins a close primary election against former Mayor Jane Byrne.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 7:52 am
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931) the founder of Provident Hospital, was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a barber who was deeply religious and imparted a sense of pride in his eight children. When his father died of tuberculosis, Daniel was nine years old. His mother, Sarah Price Williams moved the family to Baltimore to live with relatives. Daniel was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Baltimore for three years. By age 17, he had also studied and become a successful barber and lived with the Anderson family in Janesville, Wisconsin where he worked in their barber-shop. He attended high school and later an academy where he graduated at the age of twenty-one. He began his studies of medicine as an apprentice under Dr. Henry Palmer, a prominent surgeon. Dr. Palmer had three apprentices and all were accepted in 1890 into a three-year program at the Chicago Medical School, which was affiliated with Northwestern University. It was considered one of the best medical schools. Daniel graduated with an M.D. degree in 1883. Dr. Williams' began practice in Chicago at a time when there were only three other black physicians in Chicago. He secured an appointment at the South Side Dispensary, where he could practice medicine and surgery. He had appointments with the City Railway Company and the Protestant Orphan Asylum. He also maintained his affiliation with Northwestern University Medical School for four years while serving as an anatomy instructor. Considered a thoughtful and skilled surgeon, Dr. Williams' practice grew as he treated both black and white patients. But he was acutely aware of the limited opportunities for black physicians. In 1889, he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health (now known as the Illinois Department of Public Health), and worked with medical standards and hospital rules. He was aware of the prejudice against black patients in hospitals and the inferior treatment that was often dispensed. In 1890, Reverend Louis Reynolds, whose sister Emma was refused admission to nursing schools because she was black, approached Dr. Williams for help. This led to the founding of the Provident Hospital and Nursing Training School in 1891. The first years of the hospital were challenging, but successful. Dr. Williams insisted that his physicians remain abreast of emerging medical discoveries. He himself earned widespread renown as a surgeon in July 1893 when a young man named James Cornish entered the Hospital with chest stab wounds. Dr. Williams performed a new type of surgery to repair a tear in the heart lining, saving his life. While proud of his accomplishments at Provident Hospital and those of the staff, Dr. Williams recognized that the hospital would need to grow to accommodate patients. In 1896, with substantial volunteer support, a new 65-bed hospital was opened. In 1893, a friend, Judge Walter Q. Grisham, requested that he apply for the position of surgeon-in-chief at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He served at Freedmen's Hospital from 1894 until 1898. He established a model internship program for graduate physicians and helped guide other improvements leading to a decline in the hospital mortality rate and a large number of surgical cases. In December 1895, he helped organize the National Medical Association (NMA), which was, at the time, the only national organization open to black physicians. He was selected to serve as its first vice president. In 1898, he married Alice Johnson, a school teacher that he had met in Washington D.C., and they returned to Chicago. He returned to Provident where he became chief of surgery and in 1902 performed another breakthrough operation, successfully suturing a patient's spleen. He continued to develop his private practice in Chicago and to expand his involvement in community affairs. In 1900, Dr. Williams was invited to become a visiting professor of surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, one of two black medical schools in the country. He told the group at Meharry that there were now ten black hospitals in the country, where a decade before there had been none. Dr. Williams felt these hospitals had helped reduce the high mortality of blacks and that their role in training could make even larger contributions. His speeches were printed and influenced black leaders in other cities to consider starting hospitals. Throughout his career, he urged black physicians to become leaders in their communities. Despite his national prominence, Dr. Williams faced differences with Provident's administrators and other physicians, principally over hospital privilege issues. Yet, he continued working at Provident and maintained an active national travel schedule until 1912, when he resigned from Provident after being appointed attending staff surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago (now known as Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center). He served as an attending surgeon at St. Luke's Hospital until 1926. He remained in active practice in Chicago until he suffered a stroke in 1926. He then moved to Idlewild, Michigan where he lived in retirement until his death in 1931. Dr. Williams received many honors, including being named a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons (1913) and being awarded an honorary degree from Howard University School of Medicine. At his death, he left donations to many organizations he had supported including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Meharry Medical College, Howard University and other institutions. These gifts helped provide expanded medical education opportunities for black students. Dr. Daniel H. Williams' Story
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Hippyt
Member
09-10-2001
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 3:54 pm
Slave's victory in court found in documents Harris County judge saves lawsuit from deterioration By HARVEY RICE Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Her name was Emeline, and she was free. A white man in Houston snatched away that freedom, forcing her and her children to become his property. In 1847, there was little a black person could do about it. Emeline chose to fight for what was hers, taking the rare and courageous step of filing a lawsuit. The man who later founded what is now the prestigious Baker Botts law firm took her case and shrewdly managed to pick a jury of prominent men who did not own slaves. They ruled in Emeline's favor. The story of a black woman who could neither read nor write yet had the backbone to face down a system that was stacked against her was precariously close to disappearing along with the crumbling paper that bore it. State District Judge Mark Davidson plucked it from among thousands of deteriorating pre-Civil War documents that the Harris County district clerk's office is trying desperately to preserve. Davidson, an amateur historian, in January persuaded District Clerk Charles Bacarisse to use a meagerly funded restoration program, aided by a $5,000 contribution from Baker Botts, to preserve Emeline's case. The judge pored over the fragile, yellowed documents and pieced together a tale of uncommon courage that appears especially relevant during Black History Month. "There are, at the very least, dozens of stories that will tell the African-American history of Houston that nobody has ever mined," Davidson said of the thousands of decaying papers not yet preserved. In Emeline's case, he marveled at her audacity in suing her captor. "The courage it took to make a public claim for freedom against someone that had life-and-death control over her is striking," Davidson wrote in a synopsis of the case. "It took a lot of fortitude," agreed Howard Beeth, historian at Texas Southern University and co-editor of the book Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston, who read the synopsis. Emeline, whose full name is not known, was the daughter of Rhoda, a Tennessee slave who had several children by her owner, Donelson McCaffery, according to the testimony of James Kirkman of Philadelphia. The papers provide no further information about Kirkman. "Although we cannot account for the integrity or character of the slave owner McCaffery, he seemed troubled by the peculiarity of owning his children and their mother," Davidson wrote. Wanting his children to be free, McCaffery sent Rhoda and her children to Philadelphia, where under the laws of Tennessee and Pennsylvania, they were emancipated after living outside slave territory for six months. Emeline's mother returned to Tennessee and was employed by Thomas and Patsy Martin, but whether she returned free or as a slave was disputed in the lawsuit. It was there that she gave birth to Emeline in 1821. Emeline moved to Rapides Parish, La., in 1839, where she had two boys, John and William. How she finally arrived in Harris County is unknown, but once she arrived, slave owner Jesse P. Bolls forced her and her sons into slavery. In 1847 she filed her lawsuit, titled Emeline, a free person of color v. Jesse P. Bolls, in a bold attempt to regain her freedom at a time when slaves had no rights under the law. For reasons that may never be known, Peter Gray -- a prominent lawyer, city alderman and state representative in 1847 -- agreed to take Emeline's case. "Somehow, she won the backing of Peter Gray, and that probably was the decisive alliance she made at the time, but we don't know how that happened or why," Beeth said. Emeline's case promised no fat attorney's fee or large judgment, and Gray, who in 1861 supported Texas' secession from the Union, was no abolitionist. "More likely is that he saw this as a case in which someone was being denied freedom and justice and saw the court system he had helped create as a way to right a wrong," Davidson mused. Emeline, unable to write, made her mark when the lawsuit was filed. The fact that the district judge presiding over the case, C.W. Buckley, owned two slaves did not bode well for Emeline. But Gray made extraordinary efforts on her behalf, getting written testimony from witnesses in Tennessee and Louisiana, a process requiring hours of laborious writing and copying, Davidson noted. "Gray took a remarkable leap of faith both that his client's version of the facts was accurate and that the witnesses would tell the truth in support of a black person's claims of freedom from a white person," Davidson wrote. Judge Buckley called the case to trial in November 1848, 18 months after it was filed, with an extraordinary jury. None of the 35 members of the normal jury pool, which heard all the other cases, was chosen to hear Emeline's case. Davidson said the jury appeared to be prominent men handpicked for the trial. "I think he was convinced that a normal jury would be unpredictable, so he bent the law, in fact, to handpick the jury," Beeth said. "And that jury behaved as he hoped it would." Davidson draws no conclusion, but notes that "apparently the 12 people summoned to hear the case was the jury that decided it." There is no record of closing arguments, but Davidson sums up the high stakes. Had Emeline lost, he said, "At the very least, Bolls could have been expected to punish her by separating her from her children by sale in one of the weekly slave auctions." For Bolls, losing a lawsuit brought by a woman he regarded as a slave would have brought disgrace. "In the town of 5,400 inhabitants that Houston was at the time, the social stigma would have been great," Davidson concluded. The jury found that Emeline should remain free and fined Bolls $1.
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Reiki
Member
08-12-2000
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 9:05 pm
Carl Anderson 27 February 1945 --- 23 February 2004
Carl Anderson, the actor and singer who was Golden Globe Award-nominated for playing Judas in the film, "Jesus Christ Superstar," and appeared in Broadway's Play On!, died Feb. 23 after a battle with leukemia. In addition to film, theatre, TV and concert work, he sang on a pre-Broadway album of Frank Wildhorn's The Civil War. Mr. Anderson was 58. He was born in Lynchburg, VA, in 1945, to a steel worker father and a seamstress mother, according to his official website. Mr. Anderson got his first taste of performing when he sang in Baptist church. He also sang in high school. While serving for two years in the Air Force, he was involved in the World Wide Air Force Talent Contest, allowing him to sing at military bases around the country, strengthening his talent. He was noticed by a talent agent while singing with a band in Washington, DC. Part of his band's act was performing songs from the concept album of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar." According the official Carl Anderson website (here), "The concert touring company of Jesus Christ Superstar was auditioning and, on the last day of auditions, 27 June 1971, Carl — who had been delivered to New York City not knowing why he was there — auditioned for and landed the role of Judas. Two days later, he was in rehearsal." He would later say in interviews that he stepped into the Broadway role of Judas when Ben Vereen suffered throat problems. They alternated the part for a time, and Mr. Anderson then headed west to perform in the Los Angeles company of the rock opera. But he was soon plucked from rehearsals for a screen test for film director Norman Jewison. Weeks later, he left the L.A. show to begin shooting the film of the rock opera in Israel. Playbill On-Line could not independently confirm dates of Mr. Anderson's Broadway appearance in Jesus Christ Superstar. The Internet Broadway Database information for the production is incomplete. Mr. Anderson was Golden Globe-nominated for New Star of the Year and Actor in a Leading Role-Musical or Comedy. In 1992, Mr. Anderson again played Judas in a North American touring revival of Jesus Christ Superstar, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the movie. He would play it on tour again as late as 2002 03. The most recent national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, with rocker Sebastian Bach in the title role and Carl Anderson as Judas, dawned Nov. 1-17, 2002, at the LaMirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in California before traveling the country. The new staging borrowed elements from the 2000 Broadway revival, but was altered and made militaristic than on Broadway. Mr. Anderson is heard as solo artist on a number of albums in the Epic, Polydor and GRP labels, as well as on the hot-selling "Jesus Christ Superstar" soundtrack, which was reissued on CD in recent years. Singing jazz, pop and adult contemporary music over the years, Mr. Anderson had a notable hit recording, "Friends and Lovers," a duet with 1980s soap opera actress and singer Gloria Loring. The Official Website of Performing Artist Carl Anderson Playbill Online obituary I saw the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar when I was a little girl and much to my father's dismay would go around the house singing "Jesus Christ!" at the top of my lungs. It has always been a favorite of mine I had the privilege of seeing Carl perform the role of Judas in the 1992 revival tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. Well done Carl.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 9:37 pm
Oh, that is too sad. I watch the film every time it comes on. I even had my kids knowing all the words to the songs. He was wonderful in that role, and I loved his voice.
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Hippyt
Member
09-10-2001
| Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 11:13 pm
I saw him live on stage. I'm very,very sad to hear this. He was a great talent.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 7:30 am
Count Basie
(pianist; born August 21, 1906, Red Bank, NJ; died April 26, 1984) Clip of Taxi War Dance Count Basie rose from humble beginnings playing in Harlem nightclubs to become one of the most exciting piano players and big band leaders of our time. He became known as the "jump king" in his early days and went on to excite audiences all over the world for more than four decades. Both of Basie's parents were amateur musicians. His father played the E-flat horn, and his mother, a piano player, taught her son, born William, to play the instrument that would make him famous. In a school band, Count played the drums, but was discouraged when another boy played better than him, so he decided to try his hand at the piano. The boy, Sonny Greer, later went on to play the drums in Duke Ellington's band for 31 years. Basie had the privilege, during his teenage years, of studying with two of the masters of jazz piano, Fats Waller and James P. Johnson. It was Johnson from whom he learned his signature "stride" style piano playing. Basie played Harlem nightclubs and "prohibition hideaways" in the 1920s. He and his band members popularized the "breakfast dance" festivals which were held every Monday morning from 7:00 to 9:00, and were the current rage. When Basie was 20 years-old, he left New Jersey for Kansas City, then known as the "gateway to the West." He found a job there playing the organ in the pit of a movie theater, but later got his first band job with a group called the "Blue Devils," with bassist Walter Page. From this experience, Basie learned the distinctive "jump rhythm" that became a Basie trademark. After six months with the Blue Devils, Basie left to do solo work. He soon joined up with Bennie Moten, a top black leader in the Mid-West. When Moten died in 1934, Basie started a band of his own, which he would take on the road two years later. Basie introduced the "breakfast dance" to packed houses in Kansas City. During Basie's period here, he earned the nickname, "Count," because of his stylish mode of playing piano. The locals thought that since there was already a Duke Ellington and an Earl Hines, then there was no reason why there shouldn't be a Count. Soon, on week nights, WHB Radio in Kansas City began broadcasting Basie's band's performances from various night clubs. One night, the musicologist John Hammond happened to be listening and was so struck by what he heard that he called Benny Goodman to tell him to give the band a listen. Goodman agreed with Hammond that the band definitely had talent, so he arranged some extra dates for Basie in the Kansas City area. The locals soon started calling Basie the "Jump King" because of the band's restless, driving rhythm. In 1936, Basie took the band out on the road, and in 1937, Decca Records signed them on. Basie became recognized as one of the country's leading jazz bands by the end of that year. In December of 1938, the band debuted on Broadway, sending crowds jitterbugging up and down theater aisles. Throughout the 1940s, Basie and the band continued touring and recording enormously popular records, selling 3,000,000 in 1944 alone. By the end of the decade, though, the fad of big band music had cooled, so Basie reduced the size of his band to eight pieces. With his second big band in 1952, Basie developed a more smooth, polished style than the one before. This had brilliant arrangements by Neal Hefti, Buster Harding and Ernie Wilkins, plus a new breed of soloist who combined bebop ideas with a sense of blues and swing. Star sidemen included trumpeters Joe Newman and Thad Jones, and saxophonists Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Frank Foster and Frank Wess. With this band Basie continued to be one of the most influential and popular of all bandleaders right up until the time of his death. He toured constantly, made classic albnums with several singers, including Tony Bennett and Sarah Vaughan, but his finest vocal discs feature the band's original Kansas City blues shouter Jimmy Rushing, or his post-war equivalent, the urbane Joe Williams. He continued touring with a big band right up until the last years of his life. He died in 1984 at the age of 78. The Kennedy Center Honors Count Basie BBC Radio 3 Bio
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 12:14 pm
February 25: 1870 Hirman R. Revels of Mississippi was sworn in as first black U.S. Senator and first black Representative in Congress. 1964 Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston for world heavyweight boxing championship. 1991 Adrienne Mitchell, first African American woman to die in combat in the Persian Gulf War is killed in her military barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia .
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 12:18 pm
Black Inventors and Inventions: A Story This is a humorous and revealing story that is told about a group of white people who were fed up with African Americans, so they join together and wish us away. They passed through a deep dark tunnel and emerge in sort of a twilight zone where there is an America without black people. At first these white people breathe a sigh of relief. At last, they say, all of the blacks have gone!" Then suddenly, reality sets in. The "NEW AMERICA" is not America at all --- only a barren land. 1. There are very few crops that have flourished because the nation was built on a slave supported system. 2. There are no cities with tall skyscrapers because Alexander Mills, a black man, invented the elevator, and without it one finds great difficulty reaching high floors. 3. There are few if any cars because Richard Spikes, a black man, invented the automatic gear shift, Joseph Gamble, also black, invented the Super Charge System for Internal Combustion Engines, and Garrett A. Morgan invented the traffic signals. 4. Furthermore, one could not use the rapid transit system because its precursor was the electric trolley, which was invented by another black man, Elbert R. Robinson. 5. Even if there were streets on which cars and a rapid transit system could operate, they were cluttered with paper because an African American, Charles Brooks, invented the street sweeper. 6. There were few if any newspapers, magazines and books because John Love invented the pencil sharpener, William Purvis invented the fountain pen, Lee Burridge invented the Type Writing Machine and W.A. Lovette invented the Advanced Printing Press. They were all black. 7. Even if Americans could write their letters, articles and books, they would not have been transported by mail because William Barry invented the Postmarking and Canceling Machine, William Purvis invented the Hand Stamp and Philip Downing invented the Letter Drop. 8. The lawns were brown and wilted because Joseph Smith invented the Lawn Sprinkler and John Burr the Lawn Mower. 9. When they entered their homes, they found them to be poorly ventilated and heated. You see, Frederick Jones invented the Air Conditioner and Alice Parker the Heating Furnace. Their homes were also dim. But of course, Lewis Latimer invented the Electric Lamp, Michael Harvey invented the Lantern and Granville T. Woods invented the Automatic Cut off Switch. Their homes were also filthy because Thomas W. Steward invented the Mop and Lloyd P. Ray, the Dust Pan. 10. Their children met them at the door -- barefooted, shabby,motley and unkempt. But what could one expect. Jan E. Matzelinger invented the Shoe Lasting Machine, Walter Sammons invented the Comb, Sarah Boone invented the Ironing Board and George T. Samon invented the Clothes Dryer. 11. Finally, they were resigned to at least have dinner amidst all of this turmoil. But here again, the food had spoiled because another black man, John Standard invented the refrigerator. What would this world be like without us? Taken from The Logicalthinker's Black Inventors Page
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 2:27 pm
Thanks for posting that Essence. I'd read it a while ago and forgot where.
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