Showing posts with label African-American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label African-American. Show all posts

Monday, May 30, 2022

May 30: Countee Cullen, American poet and writer

BORN MAY 30:

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was a Black American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, and part of the Harlem Renaissance. Rare for a Black man in his time, he graduated with a master's degree in English from Harvard (after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from NYU). He was briefly married to the daughter of civil rights icon W.E.B. Du Bois; she filed for divorce when a few months after their wedding, he wrote her a letter confessing his love for men. Ten years later he married another woman and lived with her until his death some six years later. Overshadowed today by his colleague Langston Hughes, Cullen's work nevertheless expresses the experience of Black people in his day; one of his better-known poems, "Heritage," repeats its first line as a refrain: "What is Africa to me?" as he places his imagined homeland against his life as a "Christian" and an American. Also notable is his, "Yet Do I Marvel."

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Thursday, May 19, 2022

May 19: Malcolm X, American Muslim minister and civil rights activist

BORN MAY 19:

Malcolm X (1925-1965) was an American Muslim minister and icon of the civil rights movement. Born Malcolm Little, upon his release from prison at age 22 (for larceny and breaking and entering), he changed his name to "X," eschewing his "white slavemaster name" and using "X" as a signifier for his unknown African name. (After making the pilgrimage to Mecca as a member of the Nation of Islam--he had converted in prison--he changed his name again to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz). He stood against the mainstream non-violent civil rights movement--he called Martin Luther King Jr. a "chump" for his perceived cooperation with the "white establishment." Rejecting that strategy, he famously argued that black people should advance their cause "by any means necessary." Dozens of streets, schools, colleges, and libraries have been named after Malcolm X. He was assassinated in 1965, most likely at the hands of the Nation of Islam, though some look to the NYPD, the FBI, or the CIA.

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Friday, April 29, 2022

Apr. 29: Duke Ellington, American jazz composer and performer

BORN APRIL 29:

(Edward Kennedy) "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974) was an American jazz composer and performer who fronted his own jazz orchestra for half a century. Some of jazz's biggest names were associated with his work, including singers Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, saxophonist Johnny Hodges, composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, trumpeter Cootie Williams, and many more. He performed on radio, in film ,and on TV, touring Europe and crossing color lines. His compositions (too many to number) include "Take the "A" Train"; "In a Sentimental Mood"; "Mood Indigo"; "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)"; "Cocktails for Two"; "Black and Tan Fantasy"; " Solitude"; and many more. Nearly 80 of his performances hit the charts, and he earned 14 Grammy awards between 1959 and 2000 (three of them posthumous) out of a total 24 nominations. One of these was a Lifetime Achievement Award, and nine of his recordings (seven singles and two albums) are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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Monday, April 25, 2022

Apr. 25: Ella Fitzgerald, American jazz singer

BORN APRIL 25:

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) was an American jazz singer who got saddled with silly nicknames like "the First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella." These don't come close to expressing the purity of her voice or her masterful phrasing, timing, and intonation. Her ability to improvise (including "scat singing") put her in a class by herself. Her rendition of the nursery rhyme "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with the Chick Webb orchestra put her on the map; her association with manager Norman Granz led to the formation of Verve Records to produce her music. She did movies and TV guest spots, and had long, fruitful collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and The Ink Spots among others. She gave her last performance at age 76 and died three years later in poor health, having received fourteen Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's impossible to pick out single performances, but try "Mr. Paganini," "How High the Moon," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" for starters.

#TJBLCalendar

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Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Apr. 5: Booker T. Washington, American educator, author, and presidential advisor

BORN APRIL 5:

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was an American educator, author, and presidential advisor. He was born enslaved on a Virginia plantation and taught himself to read and write around age 9 or 10. He worked hard to put himself through college and, at 25 years old, was chosen to lead a new teacher's training college in Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute. He oversaw students in building the school, which emphasized practical trades: his students would not just learn to make buildings and to grow crops and farm animals, but to teach others to do the same. He saw education as the solution to the oppression of American blacks, especially in the South. His two autobiographies, The Story of My Life and Work and Up From Slavery, are worth reading, though the latter is a more polished version of the first and might be read alone.

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Monday, April 4, 2022

Apr. 4: Maya Angelou, American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist

BORN APRIL 4:

Maya Angelou (1928-2014), born Marguerite Annie Johnson, was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist who published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry. She is also credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. The first of her autobiographies, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of her life up to the age of 17 and and is widely read in high schools and colleges (perhaps more than any other book by an African American woman)--and widely challenged for its unvarnished portrayal of violence and sexuality, and use of "crude" language. Angelou has received numerous honors, including reciting her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton.

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Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Feb. 23: W. E. B. Du Bois, American scholar and activist

BORN FEBRUARY 23:

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. After becoming the first African American to earn a doctorate at Harvard, he became a professor at Atlanta University. He was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. He worked for full civil rights and increased political representation for blacks, and fought for the independence of African colonies from European powers, making several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. Dr. Du Bois was a prolific author. He opened his seminal work, the collection of essays titled The Souls of Black Folk, with this central thought: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line."

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Friday, February 18, 2022

Feb. 18: Toni Morrison, American novelist

BORN FEBRUARY 18:

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) was an American novelist whose book about a haunted home, Beloved, won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize; a few years later she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her books address the harsh consequences of racism in the U.S.; Song of Solomon, about the life of an African-American man in Michigan; The Bluest Eye, about the aspirations of an "ugly" black girl to have blue eyes--thus becoming "white"--in 1941; and eight more. Highly decorated, including receipt of the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, she also wrote children's books, short fiction, plays, poetry, and non-fiction.

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Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Feb. 9: Alice Walker, American author and activist

BORN FEBRUARY 9:

Alice Walker (1944) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and activist. She was the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1983), for her third novel (of seven?), The Color Purple. The frequently-censored epistolary novel follows the life of Celie, a poor, uneducated 14-year-old girl living in the Southern U.S. in the early 1900s. It was adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg (nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Whoopi Goldberg for Best Actress as Celie, and Oprah Winfrey for Best Supporting Actress, but won none) and a musical on Broadway.

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Friday, January 7, 2022

Jan. 7: Zora Neale Hurston, American writer

BORN JANUARY 7:

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American novelist, short story writer, and anthropologist whose work slid into obscurity for decades; interest was revived partly through the efforts of author Alice Walker. Novel Their Eyes Were Watching God; folklore collection Mules and Men; play (co-written with Langston Hughes) Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life.

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Saturday, December 25, 2021

Dec. 25: Cab Calloway, American musician

BORN DECEMBER 25:

Cab Calloway (1907-1994) larger-than-life American performer and bandleader, dubbed the "Hi-de-ho" man and noted for his energetic scat singing. A regular performer at Harlem's Cotton Club, he mixed jazz with vaudeville, sustaining a career that spanned over 65 years. He received the National Medal of Arts from the US Congress in 1993, and a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. Songs included "Minnie the Moocher"; "Saint James Infirmary"; "Kicking the Gong Around"; "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"; and many more.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Nov. 24: Scott Joplin, American musician and composer

BORN NOVEMBER 24:

Scott Joplin (1868-1917) African-American composer and pianist known as the "King of Ragtime" for writing over 100 ragtime pieces. He was brought out of relative obscurity by new recordings of his work in the early 1970s, and also partially due to the use of his "The Entertainer" and other pieces by composer Marvin Hamlisch for the 1973 film The Sting. His opera Treemonisha was produced in full for the first time in 1972, leading to a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

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Thursday, September 23, 2021

Sep. 23: John Coltrane, American jazz musician

BORN SEPTEMBER 23rd:

John Coltrane (1926-1967) American jazz saxophonist and composer known especially for the "bebop" and "hard bop" genres. Compositions include "Blue Train"; noted performance "My Favorite Things." He has been named a saint in the African Orthodox Church.

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Saturday, September 4, 2021

Sep. 4: Richard Wright, American author

BORN SEPTEMBER 4th:

Richard Wright (1908-1960) American writer known for his novel Native Son, an early portrayal of systemic racism; and his personal memoir Black Boy, which details his own experiences of racism in America.

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