This is the archive for October 2010
From wikipedia:
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American blues and jazz vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, rock and roll and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her best-known recording was her version of the spiritual, "His Eye is on the Sparrow", and she was the second African American ever nominated for an Academy Award.
Listen to Ethel Waters, accompanied by Her Ebony Four, sing Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night, free from redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 04:08 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Valery Ponomarev, and Wynton Marsalis.
He won the Down Beat critics' poll for the 'New Star of the Year' in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat 'Jazz Hall of Fame' in 1972 in the critics' poll.
Brown was born in Wilmington, Delaware. After briefly attending the University of Delaware and Maryland State College (University of Maryland, Eastern Shore), he moved into playing music professionally, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded trumpeters in jazz.
Visit CliffordBrown.net.
Posted by courier at 12:32 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Harriet Powers (October 29, 1837 – January 1, 1910) was an African American slave, folk artist and quilt maker from rural Georgia. She used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Only two of her quilts have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Pictorial Quilt 1898. Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Southern quilting. Her work is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.
Powers was born to slaves near Athens, Georgia. For most of her life she lived in Clarke County, mainly in Sandy Creek and Buck Branch.
Read The Quilt Craft of Harriet Powers, by Gary F. Fedde, originally published in Ebony Jr., presented free by Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:17 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Telma Louise Hopkins (born October 28, 1948) is an American singer and television actress. A member of the 1970s pop group Tony Orlando and Dawn, she later starred in several television sitcoms, including
Bosom Buddies, Gimme a Break!, Family Matters, Getting By, and
Half & Half. Currently, she appears on a recurring basis as Marilyn Persons on the TBS sitcom
Are We There Yet?
She started her career as a background singer in Detroit, Michigan, singing on many of the Golden World/Motown hits and working with legendary acts like The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye. She played Darren Roanoke's mother in the
The e Guru.
Read an interview with Telma Hopkins, free from www.classicbands.com.
Posted by courier at 09:27 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Charles "Teenie" Harris (1908–1998) was an accomplished African-American photographer.
Harris was born in 1908 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, the son of hotel owners in the city's Hill District. Early in the 1930s he purchased his first camera and opened a photography studio. He freelanced for the Washington D.C. news picture magazine, Flash!. From the 1936 to the 1975 Harris chronciled life in the black neighborhoods of the city for the Pittsburgh
Courier, one of America's oldest black newspapers. He was nicknamed "One Shot" because he rarely made his subjects sit for retakes. Harris took more than 80,000 images during his career. The body of his work constitutes arguably the largest and most complete photographic documentation of a minority community in the United States.
Read an interview with Charles Harris, free from pbs.org
Posted by courier at 04:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
"Blind" Lemon Jefferson (October 26, 1894 – 12 December 1929) was an influential blues singer and guitarist from Texas. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s.
Despite his commercial success, Jefferson stands alone in a category of his own. His musical style was extremely intense and individualistic, bearing little resemblance to the typical Texas blues style of the 1930s. Jefferson's singing and self-accompaniment seemed only loosely connected, and he appeared to improvise his accompaniment. His irregular vocal style and his freely structured field holler rhythms made the tension between his guitar and his voice wildly unpredictable. He was not influential on younger blues singers as they did not seek to imitate him as they did other commercially successful artists. However, he may have been an important influence on the next generation of blues singers and guitarists, such as Lightnin' Hopkins.
Listen to Blind Lemon Jefferson perform "Black Snake Moan," free from youtube.com.
Posted by courier at 12:55 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Bill Spiller ( October 25, 1913–1988) was one of the pioneers in the efforts to desegregate sports in the twentieth century. After being denied entry in the 1948 Richmond Open held in Richmond, California by the PGA of America, Spiller spent many years challenging the segregation policy of the PGA of America. The professional golf at the time was controlled by the PGA of America which required tournaments to give it final say over who could participate. One of its rules was that participants must be Caucasian. A golfer who was otherwise qualified (such as Spiller) could be denied tournament entry for not being Caucasian.
Read "He Went Down Swinging," by Bill Plaschke, free from the Los Angeles Times.
Posted by courier at 12:40 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Marjorie Stewart Joyner (October 24, 1896 – December 7, 1994) was born in 1896, in Monterey, Virginia. She was the granddaughter of a slave owner and a slave. In 1912, she moved to Chicago and began studying cosmetology. She graduated A.B. Molar Beauty School in Chicago in 1916, the first African American to achieve this. There she met Madam C.J. Walker, an African American beauty entrepreneur, and the owner of a cosmetic empire. Always an advocate of beauty for women, Joyner went to work for her and oversaw 200 of Madame Walker's beauty schools as the national advisor.
Read more about Marjorie Joyner and her invention, free from blackinventor.com.
Posted by courier at 03:58 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Lucy Terry (c.1730-1821) is the author of the oldest known work of literature by an African American.
Terry was kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery as an infant. She was owned by Ebenezer Wells of Deerfield, who allowed her to be baptized into the Christian faith at about five years of age during the Great Awakening.
Read Lucy Terry Prince's poem, "Bars Fight," free from the Alamo Community Colleges website.
Posted by courier at 12:27 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
George Neves Leighton (b. October 22, 1912, in New Bedford, Massachusetts) is a retired African-American judge.
The son of immigrants from the African Cape Verde Islands, Leighton graduated from Howard University in 1940 and from Harvard Law School in 1946. He was in private practice from 1946-1964, was a judge with the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois from 1964-1969, and was a judge with the First District Appellate Court of Illinois from 1969-1976.
Read more about George Leighton, free from SouthCoastToday.com.
Posted by courier at 12:33 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Hadda Brooks (October 29, 1916 – November 21, 2002), was a noted American pianist, vocalist and composer. Her first single, "Swingin' The Boogie", which she composed, was issued in 1945. She was billed as "Queen Of The Boogie." Highlights of her life included singing at Hawaii's official statehood ceremony in 1959 and being asked for a private audience with Pope Pius XII.
She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, by her parents, who had migrated to California from the South. Her mother Goldie Wright was a doctor, her father John Hapgood a deputy sheriff. Her grandfather, Samuel Alexander Hopgood, moved to California from Atlanta, Georgia, and proved to be an enormous influence on Brooks. He introduced her to theater and the operatic voices of Amelita Galli-Curci and Enrico Caruso.
Read more about Hadda Brooks, free from SFWeekly.com
Posted by courier at 12:32 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Enolia Pettigen McMillan (October 20, 1904 – October 24, 2006) was the first female national president of the NAACP.
Born Enolia Virginia Pettigen in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Elizabeth Fortune Pettigen and John Pettigen, Enolia Pettigen attended Frederick Douglass High School and later Howard University with the help of a scholarship from Alpha Kappa Alpha and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in education in 1926.
Read Enolia McMillan's obituary in the Baltimore Sun.
Posted by courier at 08:05 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Samuel Lloyd Haynes (September 19, 1934 – December 31, 1986) was an African-American actor and television writer. Haynes was a member of the Bahá'í Faith.
Haynes served in the Marines from 1952–1964 and during the Korean War. He was a public-affairs officer for the Naval reserve with the rank of Commander.
See a summary of Lloyd Haynes' acting career, free from the Internet Movie Database.
Posted by courier at 07:59 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Chavis (c. 1763-1838) was a black educator and Presbyterian minister in the American South during the early 19th century.
The exact date of Chavis's birth is not known. It is believed that he was born in either 1762 or 1763. One source claims he was born on October 18, 1763, but with no evidence given.
Information about Chavis's early life is scant as well, with few records to document it. It is believed that he may have been the 'John Chavis' who was employed as an indentured servant by a Halifax lawyer named James Milner. A 1773 inventory of Milner's estate does list an "indentured servant named John Chavis." Since Milner possessed a large library, it is likely that Chavis received some schooling during his period of service.
Read excerpts from John Chavis: African American patriot, preacher, teacher, and mentor, 1763-1838 by Helen Chavis Othow, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:03 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
George Washington Williams (October 16, 1849-August 2, 1891) was an American Civil War veteran, minister, politician and historian. Long before its use in the Nuremberg Trials, he used the term "crimes against humanity" after he witnessed the brutality of King Leopold II's Congo (1885-1908), in which some 10 million people lost their lives.
Read the History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 by George Washington Williams.
Posted by courier at 06:45 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Victoria Spivey (15 October 1906 - 3 October 1976) was an American blues singer and songwriter.
Life and career
She was born Victoria Regina Spivey in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Grant and Addie (Smith) Spivey. Her father was a part-time musician and a flagman for the railroad; her mother was a nurse. Her sisters were Addie "Sweet Peas" Spivey, also a singer and musician, who recorded for several major record labels between 1929 and 1937; and Elton Island Spivey, who also followed a professional singing career.
Learn more about Victoria Spivey, free from redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 12:34 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William Boyd Allison Davis (October 14, 1902 – November 21, 1983) was an educator, anthropologist, writer, researcher, and scholar. He was considered one of the most promising black scholars of his generation, and became the first African-American to hold a full faculty position at a major white university when he joined the staff of the University of Chicago in 1942, where he would spend the balance of his academic life. Among his students during his tenure at the University of Chicago were anthropologist St. Clair Drake and sociologist Nathan Hare. Davis, who has been honored with a commemorative postage stamp by the United States Postal Service, is best remembered for his pioneering anthropology research on southern race and class during the 1930s, his research on intelligence quotient in the 1940’s and 50’s, and his support of “compensatory education” that contributed to the intellectual genesis of the federal program Head Start.
Read more about W. Allison Davis, free from the University of Chicago.
Posted by courier at 10:12 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Arna Bontemps
From wikipedia:
Arnaud "Arna" Wendell Bontemps (October 13, 1902 - June 4, 1973) was a well-known American poet and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance. As the librarian at Fisk University, he established important collections of African-American literature and culture, establishing it as an important goal of scholarly study.
Bontemps was born in the city of Alexandria, Louisiana to the son of Charlie Bontemps and Marie Pembrooke Bontemps. His birthplace at 1327 Third Street has been recently restored and converted for use as the Bontemps African American Museum. It is included on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Read about Arna Bontemps poetry, free fromthe University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Posted by courier at 12:00 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Doris "Dorie" Miller (October 12, 1919 – November 24, 1943) was a cook in the United States Navy noted for his bravery during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He was the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross, the third highest honor awarded by the US Navy at the time, after the Medal of Honor and the Navy Distinguished Service Medal (today the Navy Cross precedes the Distinguished Service Medal).
Miller was born in Waco, Texas, on October 12, 1919, to Henrietta and Connery Miller. He was the third of four sons and grew up in a strong and loving household. He enjoyed playing with his brothers but was also a considerate child. He often helped around the house, cooking meals and doing laundry, as well as working the fields. Miller was a good student and a fullback on the football team at Waco's A.J. Moore High School. They called him the "Raging Bull" because of his size (5 ft 9 in, over 200 lb - 1,75 m, over 90 kg).
Read more about Dorie Miller, free from the U.S. Navy.
Posted by courier at 12:57 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Arthur (Art) Blakey (October 11, 1919–October 16, 1990), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Also known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, he was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was (and remains) profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. Over more than 30 years his band the Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only the often exceptionally fine music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's group is equivalent only to those of Miles Davis in this regard. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
Visit Art Blakey's website.
Posted by courier at 12:57 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Francis James Grimké (4 November 1852 – 11 October 1937) was a Presbyterian minister who was prominent in working for equal rights for African Americans. He was active in the Niagara Movement and helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Grimké was the second of three sons: Archibald and John were his brothers, born to Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman of European and African descent. After having become a widower, the senior Grimke began a relationship with Weston. It appeared to be a caring one; he moved with her out of the city to his plantation where they and their family would have more privacy, and she was his partner in the house. He and Nancy gave the boys their first lessons in reading and writing.
Read “Victory for the Allies and the United States a Ground of Rejoicing, of Thanksgiving,” by the Rev. Francis J. Grimke, free from blackpast.org.
Posted by courier at 12:26 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Eugene Bullard (9 October 1894 – 12 October 1961) was the world's first Black military pilot.
He was born Eugene Jacques Bullard in Columbus, Georgia, in the United States of America. His father was born an American slave known as "Big Chief Ox" and his mother was a Creek Indian; together, they had ten children. Bullard stowed away on a ship bound for Scotland to escape racial discrimination (he later claimed to have had witnessed his father's narrow escape from lynching as a child).
Read more about Eugene Bullard in the book, Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science, by Betty Kaplan, free from googlebooks.com.
Posted by courier at 12:17 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Faith Ringgold (born October 8, 1930) is an African American artist, best known for her painted story quilts.
Faith Ringgold was born and raised in Harlem and educated at the City College of New York, where she studied with Robert Gathmey and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. she was taught by her grandmother to sew. She was greatly influenced by the fabric she worked with at home with her mother, who was a fashion designer, and has used fabric in many of her artworks. She is especially well-known for her painted story quilts which blur the line between "high art" and "craft" by combining painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling. Her work is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and other museums, mostly in New York City.
Posted by courier at 12:13 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Sargent Claude Johnson (1888–1967) was one of the first Californian African-American artists to achieve a national reputation.
He was known for Abstract Figurative and Early Modern styles. He was a painter, potter, ceramist, printmaker, graphic artist, sculptor, and carver. He worked with a variety of media, including ceramic, clay, oil, stone, terra-cotta, watercolor, and wood. He was in the Communist Party for most of his life.
Read more about Sargent Johnson, and see examples of his art, free from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Read an interview with Sargent Johnson about his career in the Bay Area art scene, free from the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.
Posted by courier at 12:27 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Fannie Lou Hamer (born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977) was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader.
She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant champion of civil rights.
Visit Fannie Lou Hamer's page at the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Posted by courier at 12:51 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Adapted from wikipedia:
Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (born October 5, 1932) is a politician from Los Angeles.
She became the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, in 1972, representing California’s 37th District. She was selected to serve as vice chair of the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami and later on the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In 1973, she became the first member of Congress to give birth while in office. She did not seek re-election to Congress in 1978, instead she ran for Attorney General of California, winning the Democratic nomination over Los Angeles City Attorney Burt Pines, before being defeated in the general election by Republican George Deukmejian.
Visit Yvonne Burke's Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors website.
Posted by courier at 12:42 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Carrie Allen McCray (October 4, 1913 – July 25, 2008) was an African-American writer born in Lynchburg, Virginia, whose published works include
Ajös Means Goodbye (1966),
The Black Woman and Family Roles (1980), and her first-person memoir,
Freedom’s Child: The Life of a Confederate General’s Black Daughter (1998). Her poems have appeared in such magazines as
Ms. and
The River Styx.
Read more about Carrie Allen McCray and the images of black women in the media, free from the Harvard University Gazette.
Posted by courier at 12:32 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Adapted from a University of Pennsylvania article:
Dudley Weldon Woodard was born October 3, 1881, in Galveston, Texas, where his father worked for the U. S. Postal Service.
Woodard was a smart child whose curiosity was supported by his family. After finishing his primary education in his home state, Woodard attended Wilberforce College in Ohio, receiving a bachelor degree (A. B.) in mathematics in 1903. He then received a B. S. degree in 1906 and an M. S. degree in mathematics at the University of Chicago in 1907. From 1907 to 1914, Woodard taught mathematics at Tuskegee Institute for seven yearsfrom 1914-1920 and then moved to join the Ohio's Wilberforce University faculty . In 1920, he moved to Howard University, then the most prestigious African American university in the country. At Howard, he also held the post of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
Learn more about Dudley Woodard, free from the University of Buffalo Mathematics Department.
Posted by courier at 12:52 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. (October 2, 1935 - December 8, 1967) was a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut.
At the age of 16, he graduated in the top 10 percent from Englewood High School in Chicago. At the age of 20, he graduated from Bradley University with a Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry. At Bradley, he distinguished himself as Cadet Commander in the Air Force ROTC and received the commission of Second Lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve Program.
Read more about Robert Henry Lawrence, free from the Real African-American History website.
Posted by courier at 12:52 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Virginia Proctor Powell Florence (October 1, 1897 - 1991) was a trailblazer in both African-American history and the history of librarianship. In 1923 she became the second African-American to be formally trained in librarianship, after Edward Christopher Williams. However, she was still the first Black woman in the United States to earn a degree in library science.
Read "Virginia Proctor Powell Florence: A Remarkable Oberlin Alumna Librarian," free from Oberlin College via Google Docs.
Posted by courier at 12:24 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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