This is the archive for November 2010
From wikipedia:
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 3, 2005) was an American politician, educator and author. She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first African American woman elected to Congress. On January 25, 1972, she became the first major-party African American candidate for President of the United States. She received 152 first-ballot votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.
Read Shirley Chisolm's speech for the Equal Rights Amendment, free from AmericanRhetoric.com.
Posted by courier at 12:38 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
The Reverend and Hon. Mr.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., (November 29, 1908 - April 4, 1972) was an American politician and pastor who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives (1945–71). He was the first person of African-American descent elected to Congress from New York. In 1961, after sixteen years in the House, he became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. As Chairman, he supported the passage of important social legislation but was removed from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th Congress following allegations of corruption.
Powell was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was a Baptist minister and pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.
Powell attended Townsend Harris High School. As an undergraduate, he studied at the City College of New York and Colgate University. In 1931, he received a Master of Arts in religious education from Columbia University. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha.
Learn more about Adam Clayton Powell Jr., free from the United States House of Representatives.
Posted by courier at 12:20 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Charles Henry Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was an African American artist, muralist, and teacher. Alston graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, then attended Columbia College and Teachers College at Columbia University where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts.
Alston began his art career while still a student, illustrating album covers for jazz musician Duke Ellington and book covers for poet Langston Hughes. He was influenced by Mexican muralists, Diego Rivera, in particular, who tied their murals into early twentieth century social movements. Alston painted murals throughout Harlem, including depression-era murals as part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. The best known of his mural works is one of a series of murals created by Alston and other Harlem artists for the Harlem Hospital Center.
Read an interview with Charles Austin, free from the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.
Posted by courier at 12:08 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Eddie South (Louisiana, Missouri, November 27, 1904 - April 25, 1962) was an American jazz violinist.
South was a classical violin prodigy who switched to jazz because of limited opportunities for African-American musicians, and started his career playing in vaudeville and jazz orchestras with Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Wade, Charles Elgar, and Erskine Tate in Chicago.
He was influenced by Hungarian folk music and Roma music starting with a visit to Europe in the 1920s, and adapted the music to jazz. In 1927 he started his own group, Eddie South and his Alabamians, named after the Alabam club where they played in Chicago, and, along with pianist and composer Henry Crowder, toured with them in Europe from 1928 to 1930.
Listen to Eddie South "By the Waters of the Minnetonka, free from YouTube.
Posted by courier at 12:57 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Marshall Walter ("Major")
Taylor (November 26, 1878–June 21, 1932) was an American cyclist who won the world one-mile track cycling championship in 1899 — after setting numerous world records and over-coming strong racial discrimination. Taylor was only the second African-american athlete to achieve the level of world championship — after boxer George Dixon.
Learn more about Marshall Taylor, free from the majortaylorassociation.org.
Posted by courier at 04:01 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William DeHart Hubbard (born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 25, 1903 - June 23, 1976) was a track and field athlete who was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event; the running long jump at the 1924 Paris Summer games.
He subsequently set a long jump world record of 25 feet 10¾ inches (7.89 m) at Chicago in June 1925 and equaled the world record of 9.6 seconds for the 100-yard dash at Cincinnati, Ohio a year later.
Read more about William DeHart Hubbard, free from the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan.
Posted by courier at 12:27 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Bessie Virginia Blount, born November 24, 1914, in Hickory, Virginia, was a physical therapist, inventor, and forensic scientist. She is also known by her married name, Bessie Blount Griffin.
Bessie Blount attended the Panzer College of Physical Education and Hygiene in East Orange, New Jersey, and Union Junior College.
Inventions
During World War II as part of her work with wounded soldiers, Blount devised an apparatus to help World War II amputees feed themselves. She invented the electronic feeding device in 1951. It was a feeding tube which delivered one mouthful of food at a time, controlled by biting down on the tube. The American Veterans Administration did not accept her invention, so she sold it to the French government.
Learn more about Bessie Blount, and see a schematic of her feeding device, free from About.com.
Posted by courier at 12:55 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
R. L. Burnside (born Robert Lee Burnside, November 23, 1926 - September 1, 2005) was a Delta blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s. In the latter half of the '90s, Burnside repeatedly recorded with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fanbase within the underground punk blues music scene.
Watch R.L. Burnside play "Big Boss Man," free from dailymotion.com.
Posted by courier at 12:26 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William J. Powell (November 22, 1916 – December 31, 2009) was the first African American to design, construct and own a professional golf course in the United States. Powell was fond of saying "The only color that matters is the color of the greens".
Powell was the grandson of Alabama slaves and was born in Greenville, Alabama. During his youth moved with his family to Minerva, Ohio. In high school there, he played golf and football. Later, at the state's historically African-American Wilberforce University, he played on the golf team.
Read more about William J. Powell, free from the Ohio State University.
Posted by courier at 04:58 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was the first important jazz musician to use the instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". While Hawkins is most strongly associated with the swing music and big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.
Lester Young, who was called "Pres", in a 1959 interview with
The Jazz Review, said "As far as I'm concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? As far as myself, I think I'm the second one." Miles Davis once said: "When I heard Hawk I learned to play ballads." Hawkins was nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean".
Learn more about Coleman Hawkins, and listen to his music, free from the Red Hot Jazz website.
Posted by courier at 12:14 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Charles Sidney Gilpin (November 20, 1878 - May 6, 1930) worked as an apprentice in the Richmond Planet print shop before finding his career in theater and becoming one of the most highly regarded actors of the 1920s. He first came on stage as a singer at the age of twelve. In 1896, Gilpin joined a minstrel show, leaving Richmond and beginning a life on the road for many years. While not on stage in theaters, restaurants, and fairs he worked odd jobs as a printer, barber, boxing trainer, and railroad porter. In 1903, Gilpin joined Hamilton, Ontario’s Canadian Jubilee Singers.
Two years later he performed with the red cross and the candy shop of America traveling musical troupes. He also played his first dramatic roles and honed his character acting while he appeared with Robert Mott’s Pekin Theater in Chicago for four years, until 1911. Soon after, he toured the United States with the Pan-American Octetts and spent some time with Rogers and Creamer’s Old Man’s Boy Company in New York. In 1915, Gilpin joined the Anita Bush Players as it moved from the Lincoln Theater in Harlem to the Lafayette Theater, a time when many famous black theatrical careers were launched.
Read more about Charles Gilpin, free from inRich.com.
Posted by courier at 12:21 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William Attaway (19 November 1911 in Greenville, Mississippi – 17 June 1986) was an African American novelist, short story writer, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter. His parents were William S. Attaway, a physician and Florence Parry Attaway, a teacher. At the age of six, the Attaways moved to Chicago, Illinois to escape the segregated South.
Read more about William Attaway, including a high school review of his novel Blood on the Forge, free from mswritersandmusicians.com.
Posted by courier at 12:08 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Howard Thurman (born 1899 in Daytona Beach, Florida - April 10, 1981 in Daytona Beach, Florida) was an influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. He was Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard and Boston universities for more than two decades, wrote 20 books, and in 1944 helped found the first racially integrated, multicultural church in the United States.
Learn more about Howard Thurman, free from PBS.org.
Posted by courier at 12:30 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
November 17, 1904–April 14, 1976) was both the first African American Governor of the United States Virgin Islands and the first African American judge on a Federal appeals court. He was considered by some as a pioneer of the civil rights movement in the United States.
Read an interview with William H. Hastie, free from the Trumanlibrary.org.
Posted by courier at 04:37 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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W.C. Handy photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1941
William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958) was an African American blues composer and musician, often known as "the Father of the Blues."
Hear W.C.Handy's Memphis Blues Band perform "St. Louis Blues," streaming in RealAudio, free from redhotjazz.com
Posted by courier at 12:51 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Sarah Jane Woodson Early (November 15, 1825 - August 1907) was an American educator, temperance activist and author. She was the first African-American woman college instructor.
Sarah Jane Woodson, the youngest child of Jemima and Thomas Woodson, was born in Chillicothe, Ohio on November 15, 1825. Family history has claimed that Thomas Woodson was the oldest son of Sally Hemings and President Thomas Jefferson.
Read Sarah J. W. Early's Life and Labors of Rev. Jordan W. Early, One of the Pioneers of African Methodism in the West and South, free from the University of North Carolina.
Posted by courier at 12:26 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Mabel Fairbanks (November 14, 1916-October 2001) was an African-American figure skater and coach.
She fell in love with figure skating in the 1930s when she saw Sonya Henie in movies. She could not skate in the 1930s because she was not allowed to join a skating club due to being African-American. She was secretly coached by Maribel Vinson Owen at night when African Americans were allowed admission to ice rinks. She eventually left the United States and became a show skater.
Read more about Mabel Williams, free from the Women's Sports Foundation.
Posted by courier at 11:18 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil (November 13, 1911 – October 6, 2006) was an American first baseman and manager in Negro league baseball, most notably in the Negro American League with the Kansas City Monarchs. After his playing days, he became the first African American coach in Major League Baseball, and also worked as a scout. In his later years he became a popular and renowned speaker and interview subject, helping to renew widespread interest in the Negro leagues, and played a major role in establishing the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
Read more about Buck O'Neill, free from the baseballhalloffame.org.
Posted by courier at 12:45 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (November 12, 1914 in Huttig, Arkansas – November 4, 1999 in Little Rock, Arkansas) was an American civil rights leader, journalist, publisher, and author who played a leading role in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957.
Bates' mother was murdered while resisting three local white men who were attempting to rape her. Her father left the family shortly after her mother's death and she was raised by friends of the family, Orle and Susie Smith.
Read and listen to more about Daisy Bates, free from National Public Radio.
Posted by courier at 12:53 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
LaVern Baker (November 11, 1929 – March 10, 1997) was an American rhythm and blues singer.
She was born Delores Baker in Chicago, Illinois. She is occasionally referred to as Delores Williams because of an early marriage to Eugene Williams. She was the niece of blues singer Merline Johnson and was also related to Memphis Minnie.
She began singing in Chicago clubs around 1946, often billed as "Little Miss Sharecropper", and first recorded under that name in 1949. She changed her name briefly to "Bea Baker" when recording for Okeh Records in 1951, and then became LaVern Baker when singing with Todd Rhodes and his band in 1952.
Visit the LaVern Baker exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Posted by courier at 03:20 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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Sinbad, June 2008
wikipedia photo(born November 10, 1956)[citation needed], better known by the stage name Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became well known in the late 1980s and 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series, and starring in the films
Houseguest, First Kid and
Jingle All the Way.
Early life
Sinbad was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of Martha and the Baptist Rev. Dr. Donald Adkins. He has five siblings, named Donna, Dorothea, Mark, Michael, and Donald. Sinbad attended Benton Harbor High School, where he was in the marching band as well as the math club. He attended college from 1974 to 1978 at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, where he lettered two seasons for the basketball team.
Watch Sinbad perform, free from YouTube.
Posted by courier at 12:34 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Benjamin Banneker (November 9, 1731 – October 9, 1806) was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac author and farmer.
It is difficult to people in the world to verify much of Benjamin Banneker's family history. Some writers have stated that he was a grandson of a European American named Molly Welsh, who came to colonial America as an indentured servant. Researchers have questioned this, as Banneker described himself only as having an African ancestry. None of Banneker's surviving papers describe a white ancestor or identify the name of his grandmother. The first published description of Molly Welsh as having come from Europe and as having been white was based on interviews with Molly's descendents that took place during and after 1836, long after the deaths of both Molly and Benjamin.
Read Dear Benjamin Banneker by By Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:49 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Eartha Mary Magdalene White (November 8, 1876 - January 18, 1974) was an American humanitarian, philanthropist, and businesswoman.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, White was the 13th child of a former slave. She was adopted by Clara English White at a very young age and the two had an extremely loving relationship. It was from her mother's example that White sought to improve the condition of the poor and helpless people in Jacksonville.
Learn more about Eartha White, free from the University of North Florida.
Posted by courier at 12:56 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From the African-American Registry:
Used with permission
On this date in 1950 Alexa Canady was born. She is an African-American Neurosurgeon.
Canady was the first Woman and First African American to become a Neurosurgeon in America. From Lansing Michigan, Alexa Irene Canady is the daughter of Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady and Clinton Canady Jr. Her father was a graduate of the School of Dentistry of Meharry Medical College, practicing in Lansing. Her mother was a graduate of Fiasco University was active for years in civic affairs of Lansing. She also served as national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Read more about Dr. Alexa Canady, free from the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine.
Posted by courier at 12:46 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
William Wells Brown (November 6, 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in the Southern United States, Brown escaped to the North, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer. Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama, and wrote what is considered to be the first novel by an African American.
Read
Clotel; or, the President's Daughter by William Wells Brown, one of
three of his works available from Project Gutenberg.
Posted by courier at 12:05 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
James Herman Banning (1900–1933) was an American aviation pioneer. In 1932, James Banning, accompanied by Thomas C. Allen, became America's first black aviator to fly coast-to-coast.
Dreaming from boyhood of being a pilot, Banning eventually learned to fly from an army aviator after being repeatedly turned away from flight schools due to his race. He later became a demonstration pilot on the west coast, flying a biplane named "Miss Ames" (he had attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa).
Read more about James Banning at Engines of Our Ingenuity, episode number 2230, by John H. Lienhard, free from the University of Houston .
Posted by courier at 12:36 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Eileen Jackson Southern (1920 in Minneapolis – October 13, 2002 in Port Charlotte, Florida) was an African American musicologist, researcher, author and teacher.
She attended public schools in her hometown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In childhood, as she developed as a pianist, young Eileen was introduced to and became partial to the music of those she calls the "piano composers," including Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Claude Debussy. In addition, her piano teachers, mostly white, were concerned that she would know music by black composers and introduced her to R. Nathaniel Dett's In the Bottoms, among other such compositions.
Read The music of black Americans: a history, by Eileen Southern, free from Google Books.
Posted by courier at 12:28 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Lois Mailou Jones (November 3, 1905 – June 9, 1998) was a prize winning artist who lived into her nineties and who painted and influenced others during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond during her long teaching career. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts and is buried on her beloved Martha's Vineyard in the Oak Bluffs Cemetery.
Dr. Jones began painting as a child and had shows of her work when she was in high school. "Every summer of my childhood, my mother took me and my brother to Martha’s Vineyard island. I began painting in watercolor which even today is my pet medium."
Visit the Lois M. Jones homepage.
Posted by courier at 12:11 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From The Black Renaissance in Washington:
James Lesesne Wells was a leading graphic artist and art teacher, whose work reflected the vitality of the Harlem Renaissance.
He was born in Atlanta, Georgia on November 2, 1902. His father was a Baptist minister and his mother a teacher. At an early age, he moved to Florida with his family. His first experience as an artist was through his mother, who encouraged him to help out with art instruction in her kindergarten classes. At the age of thirteen, he won first prize in painting and a second prize in woodworking at the Florida State Fair.
See examples of James Lesesne Wells' art work, free from Negroartist.com.
Posted by courier at 12:44 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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From wikipedia:
Sippie Wallace (born as Beulah Thomas, November 1, 1898 in Houston, Texas; died November 1, 1986 in Detroit, Michigan) was an American Texas-styled blues singer, and songwriter. Although her recording career stretched throughout most of the '20s, her best work was done from 1923 to 1927 when she was recording with Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, and Clarence Williams. She recorded over 40 songs for Okeh Records, many written by herself or her brothers, George and Hersal Thomas.Among the top female blues vocalists of her era, Wallace ranked with Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, and Bessie Smith.
Wallace was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1982, and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Posted by courier at 12:17 AM. Filed under: In Quotes
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