This is the archive for May 2010
From wikipedia:
Patricia Roberts Harris (May 31, 1924 – March 23, 1985) served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (which office later became United States Secretary of Health and Human Services) in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. She was the first African American woman to serve as a United States Ambassador, representing the U.S. in Luxembourg under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the first to enter the line of succession to the Presidency.
Read more about Patricia Roberts Harris, free from the National Women's Hall of Fame.
Posted by courier at 12:04 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Countee Cullen (May 30, 1903–January 9, 1946) was an American poet. He was adopted by Reverend and Mrs. Frederick Ashbury Cullen.
Cullen was minister at Salem Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem, and thus Cullen was raised a Methodist. He went to DeWitt Clinton High School in New York and started writing poetry at the age of 14. He went to New York University in 1922 and graduated in 1923 after publishing poetry in
The Crisis, under W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity, of the National Urban League.
Read three of Countee Cullen's poems, free from the web site of the English Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Posted by courier at 12:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Henry Ransom Cecil McBay, born May 29, 1914, was a chemist and a teacher.
McBay was born in in Mexia, Texas. His father was a barber who eventually became an embalmer and funeral director; his mother was a seamstress. Both parents had left school after the seventh grade because there was no high school for African-Americans in Mexia. By the time Henry was in high school, however, oil had been discovered in Mexia and the quality of life of its residents had improved. One result of that improvement was that a high school for African-Americans had opened—and McBay was able to receive a good education.
Read "Henry C. McBay, Reflections of a Chemist", by Kenneth R. Manning, a chapter from Henry C. McBay - A Chemical Festschrift: Proceedings of a Symposium in Honor of the First Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar at M.I.T. by by William M. Jackson (Editor), Billy Joe Evans (Editor.)
Posted by courier at 12:19 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William Whipper (1804–1876) was an African American abolitionist and businessman. He advocated nonviolence and co-founded the American Moral Reform Society, an early African American abolitionist organization.
Born February 22, 1804 to an African American house servant and her white employer. William Whipper epitomized the unique prosperity that Northern Blacks were able to attain in the mid-1800s. Willian had three siblings Alfred, Benjamin and Mary Ann. Whipper was a successful businessman and played a key role in the antislavery movement as a reformer.
Read a speech by William Whipper, free from blackpast.org.
Posted by courier at 07:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Vivian G. Harsh (May 27, 1890 - August 17, 1960) On February 26, 1924 she became the Chicago Public Library system's first black librarian. Harsh first began working for the Chicago Public Library as a junior clerk in 1909 after graduating high school[1]. She later went on to graduate from Simmons College Library School in Boston. Harsh was named director of the new George Cleveland Hall branch in 1932.
Learn more about Vivian Harsh, free from Answers.com.
Posted by courier at 05:00 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Mamie Smith (May 26, 1883, Cincinnati, Ohio – September 16, 1946, New York City) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, who appeared in several motion pictures late in her career. As a vaudeville singer she performed a number of styles including jazz and blues. She entered blues history by being the first African American to make vocal blues recordings in 1920.
Early years
Smith was born Mamie Robinson in Cincinnati, Ohio. She toured with African-American vaudeville and minstrel shows until settling in New York City in 1913, where she worked as a cabaret singer. She appeared in songwriter Perry Bradford's musical
Made in Harlem in 1918.
Listen to Mamie Smith sing Going Crazy with the Blues, one of 14 of her songs available free from redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 04:43 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (born May 25, 1878, Richmond, Virginia, died New York City, November 25, 1949) was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet and an expressive face.
A figure in both the Black and White entertainment worlds of his era he is best known today for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s.
Learn more about Bill Robinson, free from Americaslibrary.gov.
Posted by courier at 01:46 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Anthony Burns (31 May 1834 – 17 July 1862) was born a slave in Stafford County, Virginia. As a young man, he converted to Baptism and became a "slave preacher". 1850 would prove a vital year in Burns' life because of the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law that said that all slaves must be returned to their master regardless of where they were discovered, a major setback to abolitionists' efforts to emancipate all slaves. Vigilante groups with members of both races sprang up in retaliation, attacking convoys leading fugitive slaves back into bondage in the Deep South where the hopes of escape were slim. This law would later cause Burns great troubles when he became a fugitive himself.
Read excerpts from The trials of Anthony Burns: freedom and slavery in Emerson's Boston, by Albert J. Von Frank, free from Google books.
Posted by courier at 05:26 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Olivia Ward Bush Banks (May 23, 1869 - 1944) was an American author, poet and journalist of African American and Montaukett Native American descent. Ward celebrated both of her heritages in her poetry and writing. She was a regular contributor to the
Colored American magazine and wrote a column for the
New Rochelle Westchester Record-Courier.
Born May 23, 1869 in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, Ward was the third of three daughters of Eliza Draper and Abraham Ward, both of whom were of mixed African-American and Montaukett descent. Ward’s mother died when she was about nine months old, and her father moved with the family to Providence, Rhode Island. When her father remarried there, he gave young Olivia to her mother's sister Maria Draper for care, who reared Olivia as her own. She attended local schools in Providence, and studied nursing in high school. She also became interested in drama and poetry.
Read excerpts from The Collected Works of Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 04:10 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Paul Edward Winfield (May 22, 1939 – March 7, 2004) was an American television, film, and stage actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film
Sounder which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Winfield also portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the television miniseries
King, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Winfield was born in Los Angeles, California to Lois Beatrice Edwards, a union organizer in the garment industry. His stepfather from the age of eight was Clarence Winfield, a city trash collector and construction worker. He attended Manual Arts High School, the University of Portland, Stanford University, Los Angeles City College and the University of California at Los Angeles.
Watch Paul Winfield as Martin Luther King in the trailer to the film, King, free from videodetective.com.
Posted by courier at 03:54 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Fats Waller (born Thomas Wright Waller on May 21, 1904 — December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer and comedic entertainer.
A skilled pianist -- widely recognized as a master of stride piano -- Waller was one of the most popular performers of his era, finding critical and commercial success in his homeland and in Europe. Waller was also a prolific songwriter, with many songs he wrote or co-wrote still known to modern audiences, such as "Honeysuckle Rose", "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Squeeze Me". Fellow pianist and composer Oscar Levant dubbed Waller "the black Horowitz" in a favorable comparison to Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz. A prolific composer of novelty swing tunes in the 1920s and 30s, Waller sold many of his compositions for relatively small sums, and as they became hits, other songwriters had already claimed them as their own. Thus many standards are alternatively, controversially attributed to Waller.
Listen to Fats Waller, free from redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 05:47 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Lydia Cabrera (Havana, Cuba, May 20, 1899 - Miami, Florida, September 19, 1991) was a Cuban anthropologist and poet.
Cabrera was born in Havana; She was an authority on Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions. Over her lifetime she published over one hundred books; little if any of her work is available in English. Her most important book is
El Monte, (Spanish: "The Wilderness") which was the first major anthropological study of Afro-Cuban traditions. Upon her death, she donated her research collection to the library of the University of Miami. A section in Guillermo Cabrera Infante's book,
Tres Tigres Tristes, has a section written under Lydia Cabrera's name, in a comical rendition of her literary voice.
Read a review of Lydia Cabrera's Afro-Cuban Tales, free from the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association and Washington State University.
Posted by courier at 04:58 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays. Her most famous work,
A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family's legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago during her childhood.
Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, Hansberry was the youngest of four children of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie Louise Perry, and niece of William Leo Hansberry. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood.
Posted by courier at 03:59 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Big Joe Turner (born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr., May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", Turner's career as a performer stretched from the 1920s into the 1980s.
Read more about Big Joe Turner, free from
thesoulguy.com.
Posted by courier at 05:55 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Frederick McKinley Jones was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 17, 1893. and was a successful African American businessman who manufactured refrigeration system for trucks and railroad cars.
Jones was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was orphaned at the age of nine. He was then raised by a priest in Kentucky. Jones left school after grade six and left the rectory to return to Cincinnati at age sixteen, where he got a job as an apprentice automobile mechanic.
Read more about Frederick Jones, free from heavydutytrucking.com.
Posted by courier at 05:09 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Nathan Francis Mossell (July 27, 1856 – October 27, 1946) was the first African American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1882.
Nathan Mossell was born in Hamilton, Canada in 1856. His father was Aaron Albert Mossell I, and his mother was Eliza Bowers. He had a sibling: Aaron Albert Mossell II who married Mary L. Tanner (1866-?) and was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania law school. Aaron was the uncle of Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1898-1989), who was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in the United States.
Posted by courier at 12:35 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.
He was one of the first important soloists in jazz (beating cornetist/trumpeter Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months and later playing duets with Armstrong), and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist of any sort. Forceful delivery, well-constructed improvisations, and a distinctive wide vibrato characterized Bechet's playing.
However, Bechet's mercurial temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim.
Listen to Sidney Bechet's performance in The Sheik, free from redhotjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 12:13 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Mary Esther Wells (May 13, 1943 – July 26, 1992) was an American singer who defined the emerging sound of Motown in the early sixties. Along with The Miracles, The Temptations, The Supremes, and The Four Tops, Wells was said to have been part of the charge in black music onto radio stations and record shelves of mainstream America "bridging the color lines in music at the time."
With a string of hit singles mainly composed by Smokey Robinson including "Two Lovers" (1962), the Grammy-nominated "You Beat Me to the Punch" (1962) and her signature hit, "My Guy" (1964), she became recognized as "The Queen of Motown" until her departure from the company in 1964, at the height of her popularity. In other circles, she's referred to as the "The First Lady of Motown" and was one of Motown's first singing superstars.
Learn more about Mary Wells at her official website.
Posted by courier at 05:16 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Photo: www.arts.state.al.us
Albert L. Murray (born May 12, 1916 in Nokomis, Mobile County, Alabama) is an African-American literary and jazz critic, novelist and biographer.
He attended the Tuskegee Institute and received a Bachelors degree in 1939. He later earned a M.A. from New York University in 1948. In 1943 he entered the U.S. Air Force, from which he retired as a major in 1962.
Murray began his writing career in earnest in 1962, after he retired from the military. His first book
The Omni-Americans (1970) received critical acclaim.
Read an interview with Albert Murray, free from St. John's University.
Posted by courier at 12:06 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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William Grant Still
William Grant Still (May 11, 1895 - December 3, 1978) was an African-American classical composer who wrote more than 150 compositions. He was the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony of his own (his first symphony) performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television. He is often referred to as "the dean" of African-American composers.
Read a 1974 interview with William Grant Still, free from the University of Michigan.
Posted by courier at 12:15 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Henry Bibb (1815-1854) was an author and abolitionist who was born a slave. After escaping from slavery to Canada, he returned to the US and lectured against slavery. Migrating to Canada, he founded a newspaper
Voice of the Fugitive.
He was born to a mixed-race enslaved woman, Milldred Jackson, on a cantalonia, Kentucky plantation on May 10, 1815. His people told him his white father was James Bibb, a Kentucky state senator, but Henry never knew him. As he was growing up, Bibb saw each of his six younger siblings, all boys, sold away to other slaveholders.
Read Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Written by Himself, free from the University of North Carolina Library.
Posted by courier at 12:11 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Rudolph Fisher (May 9, 1897 Washington, DC - December 26, 1934) was an African-American physician, radiologist, novelist, short story writer, dramatist, musician, and orator. Fisher's parents were John Wesley Fisher, a clergyman, and Glendora Williamson. Fisher had three children.
His first published work, "City of Refuge", appeared in the Atlantic Monthly of February 1925. He went on in 1932 to write
The Conjure-Man Dies, the first novel with a black detective as well as the first detective novel with only black characters. Fisher was also a physician, dramatist, musician and orator. Fisher was an active participant in the Harlem Renaissance, primarily as a novelist, but also as a musician.
Read The city of refuge: the collected stories of Rudolph Fisher by Rudolph Fisher and John McCluskey, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions). Williams wrote and arranged for such famed bandleaders as Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Visit the website of the Mary Lou Williams Foundation.
Posted by courier at 12:06 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Jimmy Ruffin (born May 7, 1939) is an American soul singer, and elder brother of the late David Ruffin of The Temptations. He had several hit records between the 1960s and 1980s, the most successful being "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted."
Jimmy Ruffin was born in Collinsville, Mississippi, the son of a minister, and was approaching his second birthday when his brother David was born. As children, the brothers began singing with a gospel group, the Dixie Nightingales. In 1961, Jimmy became a singer as part of the Motown stable, mostly on sessions but also recording singles for its subsidiary Miracle label, but was then drafted for national service. After leaving the Army in 1964, he returned to Motown, where he turned down the opportunity to join the Temptations to replace Elbridge Bryant, and instead recommended his brother David for the job. Preferring to start a solo career, Jimmy Ruffin recorded for Motown's subsidiary Soul label, but with little initial success.
Read an interview with Jimmy Ruffin.
Posted by courier at 06:32 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William Howard "Willie" Mays, Jr. (born May 6, 1931) is a retired American baseball player who played the majority of his career with the New York and San Francisco Giants before finishing with the New York Mets. Nicknamed The Say Hey Kid, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, his first year of eligibility. Many consider him to be the greatest all-around player of all time.
Review Willie Mays' career statistics, free from baseball-reference.com
Posted by courier at 04:49 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (May 5, 1865 — June 12, 1953) was a prominent clergyman, author, and father of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
A. Clayton Powell was born in Franklin County, Virginia to Anthony and Sallie (Dunning) Powell. Published sources list him as the child of Sally Dunning, an African-Cherokee slave woman, and Llewellyn Powell, a white slave owner of German descent.
Read Glory Days: Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., by Judith Newman, free from scholastic.com.
Posted by courier at 12:31 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From The African American Registry: was born on May 4, 1860. He was an African-American doctor, poet, and medical association administrator.
He was born near Tates Creek, Madison County, KY. Thomas was the youngest of 15 children of Edward and Eliza Burton, who were slaves. His father died when he was five and his mother died when he was nine.
Read What Experience Has Taught Me: An Autobiography of Thomas William Burton, free from the University of North Carolina.
Posted by courier at 04:27 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Aaron Lewis (May 3, 1920 – March 29, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer best known as the musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Born in LaGrange, Illinois and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he learned classical music and piano from his mother starting at the age of seven. He continued his musical training at the University of New Mexico and also studied anthropology. He served in the Army in World War II. While stationed in France on a three-year tour of duty, he met and performed with Kenny Clarke. Clarke was an early developer of the bop style and Lewis composed and arranged for a band he and Clarke organized. Lewis returned from service in 1945 and resumed his university studies.
Learn more about John Lewis at allaboutjazz.com.
Posted by courier at 03:57 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Roscoe Lee Browne (May 2, 1925 – April 11, 2007) was an American actor and director, known for his rich voice and dignified bearing.
Browne was the son of Baptist minister Sylvanus Browne and his wife Lovie (born Lovie Lee). Born in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne first attended historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he became a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1946. He undertook postgraduate work at Middlebury College in Vermont, Columbia University in New York City, and at the University of Florence in Italy.
Watch an interview with Roscoe Lee Browne, free from YouTube.com.
Posted by courier at 01:10 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Oliver White Hill, Sr. (May 1, 1907 – August 5, 2007) was a civil rights attorney from Richmond, Virginia.His work against racial discrimination helped end the doctrine of "separate but equal." He also helped win landmark legal decisions involving equality in pay for black teachers, access to school buses, voting rights, jury selection, and employment protection. He retired in 1998 after practicing law for almost 60 years. Among his numerous awards is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Bill Clinton in 1999.
Hill was born as Oliver White in Richmond, Virginia in 1907. His parents separated while he was still a baby, and he took on his stepfather's last name. The Hill family moved to Roanoke and then to Washington, D.C., where he graduated from Dunbar High School.
Learn more about Oliver Hill, free from National Public Radio.
Posted by courier at 04:40 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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