Category: Female

14Mar

March 14, 1977- Fannie Lou Hamer

GM – FBF – “You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap” – Fannie Lou Hamer

Remember – , “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” – Fannie Lou Hamer

Today in our History – March 14, 1977 –

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was a civil rights activist whose passionate depiction of her own suffering in a racist society helped focus attention on the plight of African-Americans throughout the South. In 1964, working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer helped organize the 1964 Freedom Summer African-American voter registration drive in her native Mississippi. At the Democratic National Convention later that year, she was part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated group of activists who openly challenged the legality of Mississippi’s all-white, segregated delegation.
Born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. The daughter of sharecroppers, Hamer began working the fields at an early age. Her family struggled financially, and often went hungry.
Married to Perry “Pap” Hamer in 1944, Fannie Lou continued to work hard just to get by. In the summer of 1962, however, she made a life-changing decision to attend a protest meeting. She met civil rights activists there who were there to encourage African Americans to register to vote. Hamer became active in helping with the voter registration efforts.
Hamer dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights, working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This organization was comprised mostly of African American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South. These acts often were met with violent responses by angry whites. During the course of her activist career, Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot at. But none of these things ever deterred her from her work.In 1964, Hamer helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was established in opposition to her state’s all-white delegation to that year’s Democratic convention.
She brought the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the entire nation during a televised session at the convention. The next year, Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi, but she was unsuccessful in her bid.Along with her political activism, Hamer worked to help the poor and families in need in her Mississippi community.
She also set up organizations to increase business opportunities for minorities and to provide childcare and other family services. Hamer died of cancer on March 14, 1977, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

13Mar

March 13, 2009- Anne Wiggins Brown

GM – FBF – “I take the world very personally. I take history personally; I want to place myself in the larger context.” – Marianne Wiggins

Remember – “I write on a visual canvas, ‘seeing’ a scene in my thoughts before translating it into language, so I’m a visual junkie.” – Marianne Wiggins

Today in our History , March 13, 2009 – Brown, Anne Wiggins (1912-2009) – The Fist lady to praform “BESS” in the broadway production of “PORGY AND BESS”.

Broadway performer Anne Wiggins Brown was born August 9, 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland to Dr. Harry F. Brown and Mary Wiggins Brown. Her father, the grandson of a slave, was a respected physician, and her mother was of black, Cherokee, and Scottish-Irish decent. Brown was a talented singer from a young age, but when her parents tried to enroll their daughter in a private Catholic elementary school with a music program, she was denied entrance because she was African American.

Brown began her training at Morgan College (now Morgan State University), after which she applied to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Once again she was denied admittance because of her race. Brown did not give up and in 1928, when she was just 16 years old, Brown auditioned for and was admitted to the Julliard School in New York, becoming the first African American vocalist to attend the school. While at Julliard, Brown was awarded the prestigious Margaret McGill scholarship.

Brown got her big break in 1935 when she sang the part of Bess in the world premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Colonial Theater in Boston. The play, which featured an all-African American cast, focused on the lives African Americans living in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1920s. After a successful opening, Porgy and Bess was moved to the Alvin Theater in New York in October 1935. Although Brown’s performance was highly praised, the opera received mixed reviews. Many African Americans, including Brown’s father, believed that the play was racist and portrayed stereotypes of black people.

Brown continued to appear on Broadway in such shows as Pins and Needles (1937) and Mamba’s Daughters (1939). The successful singer/actress also continued to play Bess in multiple revivals of Porgy and Bess including the Broadway revival in 1942. Although she had gained fame and success, Brown was still forced to deal with the reality of segregation in America. Brown encountered prejudice on many occasions and was even denied use of a performance hall in Baltimore, her hometown.

Brown’s experiences persuaded her to live in Europe. In 1946, she traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to perform in the Royal Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess and afterwards decided to remain there. Brown began touring from Copenhagen and gave recitals throughout Europe. In 1948, while traveling in Norway, she met and married her husband, the philosopher, journalist, and Olympic medal skier Thorleif Schjelderup. The couple settled in Norway and raised two daughters together.

In 1953, Brown began the transition from performer to voice coach and director, and in 1967 she put on a Norwegian production of Porgy and Bess. In 1998 Brown was awarded the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Music in America by the Peabody Institute as a way to apologize for their admission denial. Anne Wiggins Brown passed away in Oslo, Norway on March 13, 2009. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

12Mar

March 12, 2015- Willie T. Barrow

MafGM – FBF – “I am about doing the work of our people in Chicago or the Nation” – Willie T. Barrow

Remember – ” I am proud to with Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH to support the people of our great City” – Willie T. Barrow

Today in our History – March 12, 2015 – Religious leader and civil rights activist Reverend Willie T. Barrow was born on December 7, 1924 to Octavia and Nelson Taplin, a minister. Barrow was raised in Burton, Texas, where as a student she led a demonstration of rural African American schoolchildren against a segregated school system. Barrow later attended Warner-Pacific Theological Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and helped build a church in that city in the 1940s.
Upon graduation, Barrow was ordained as a minister and began her career as both a spiritual and social activist. From 1953 to 1965, she was a field organizer for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where she was responsible for the organization of transportation, shelter, meetings and rallies for demonstrations, including the 1965 March on Selma, Alabama. During the 1960s, Barrow was among the founding members of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, Illinois, a program that provided spiritual guidance and practical assistance to communities in need. Later, in 1968, she led a three-person delegation to North Vietnam and participated in the negotiation of the Vietnam Peace Treaty.
Barrow went on to serve as co-chair of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the organization that grew out of Operation Breadbasket. At the Coalition, she coordinated activities and served as an aide to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. Barrow also served as associate minister of the Vernon Park Church of God in Chicago, and was active in the National Urban League and National Council of Negro Women.
Barrow was honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree from Monrovia, Liberia and a Leadership Certificate from Harvard University. She also received awards from the League of Black Women, the Christian Women’s Conference, and the Indo-American Democratic Organization. In September of 1997, a street on Chicago’s South Side was renamed in her honor; and, that same year, the Reverend Willie Barrow Wellness Center was opened to bring affordable and accessible health care to needed areas in Chicago. She authored the book, How to Get Married and Stay Married, which was published in 2004.
Reverend Barrow passed away on March 12, 2015 at the age of 90. Reserch more about the NAACP, SCLC and Operation PUSH and people who are Civil Rights Activeist and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

11Mar

March 11, 1959- Lorraine Vivian Hansberry

GM – FBF – “Seems like God don’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams – but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Remember – “There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Today in our History – March 11, 1959 – A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre – Lorraine Vivian Hansberry – Playwright(1930–1965) was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Nannie Louise Hansberry, a teacher, and Carl Hansberry, a real-estate broker. Her progressive parents examined her birth certificate, and after seeing the word “Negro” printed by the hospital, immediately crossed it out and wrote “Black.” The Hansberry family bought a house at 6140 S. Rhodes Ave. in Washington Park—a white, upper-middle-class neighborhood that the playwright later described as “hellishly hostile.” They were violently attacked by their neighbors, who were constantly trying to get the family to leave the neighborhood. The Hansberrys refused, and agreed to stay in their home at all costs. “I [remember] my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our house all night with a loaded German Luger, doggedly guarding her four children,” Hansberry wrote.
The Hansberrys’ white neighbors were so intent on pushing them out of the neighborhood (and the family was so intent on staying) that the Hansberry v. Lee case made it to the Illinois Supreme Court. When the state ruled against the Hansberry family, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision, allowing the family to stay in their home. Thanks to the Hansberrys’ persistence, it was no longer legal for white residents in the United States to push African Americans out of their neighborhoods. While writing for the progressive black newspaper Freedom, Hansberry discovered Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” published in his book Montage of a Dream Deferred. “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”
The young author began working on a play exploring the struggles of a poor, black family living in Chicago, loosely based on her own family’s story. Originally titled The Crystal Stair (a line from the Langston Hughes poem “Mother to Son”), A Raisin in the Sun centers on the Youngers, a lower-class family who is offered a sum of money to stay away from the white neighborhood where they have purchased their dream home.
A Raisin in the Sun made history, becoming the first play written by a black woman (a 29-year-old, no less) to ever be produced on Broadway. But the journey to the Great White Way wasn’t easy—it took over a year for producer Philip Rose to raise enough funds to bring the play to New York. After short pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia, New Haven and Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway on March 11, 1959 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, starring Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger, a struggling son with big dreams, Claudia McNeil as his mother Lena and Ruby Dee as his hardworking wife Ruth. Hansberry wrote two screenplay adaptations of A Raisin in the Sun, but both were rejected by Columbia Pictures for being too controversial. The third time proved to be the charm, and a draft that more closely resembled the stage play was greenlit. Poitier, Dee and McNeil all reprised their roles for the film, which won a special award at the Cannes Film Festival. After a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer, Hansberry died at the age of 34, the same night her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, closed on Broadway. A passage from the play is engraved on her gravestone: “I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care. The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living. Which is why I have lately become an insurgent again.”
Robert Nemiroff, Hansberry’s ex-husband, became a champion of the late playwright’s work after her death. He adapted many of her unpublished poems, stories and letters into the play To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which premiered off-Broadway in 1968. Singer-songwriter Nina Simone, a close friend of Hansberry, wrote a song of the same name in her memory.
After the success of A Raisin in the Sun on the Great White Way, Nemiroff teamed up with Charlotte Zaltzberg to write the book for a musical adaptation of Hansberry’s groundbreaking play. Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan wrote the score, a mix of jazz, blues, gospel and of course, traditional musical theater. “It is a strange [musical] but a good one,” The New York Times reported. “It warms the heart and touches the soul.” Starring Joe Morton as Walter Lee, Ernestine Jackson as Ruth and Virginia Capers as Mama Lena, Raisin won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. On the 30-year anniversary of the beloved drama’s Broadway premiere, PBS aired an uncut, three-hour TV adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle. Director Bill Duke told The Los Angeles Times, “This play transcends time and race. It applies to all poor people. What Lorraine says is something that should be said often: Folks that don’t have money, folks that society looks down its nose at, are some of the noblest spirits among us.”
Raisin returned to the Great White Way for the second time, starring stage and screen great Phylicia Rashad, Tony winner Audra McDonald and rapper-turned-actor Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in his Broadway debut. “At this point of my life, it’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever done because it’s so intense, it’s so emotional, it’s so hard,” Combs told the Associated Press. The production made history at the Tony Awards when Rashad was honored with the Best Actress in a Play trophy, becoming the first African-American woman to receive the honor. Director Kenny Leon reassembled his leading players for a 2008 adaptation of the production, which was seen by 12.7 million viewers on ABC.
Five decades after Raisin first opened on Broadway, playwrights still continue to be inspired by Hansberry’s gripping drama. Bruce Norris’ homage to the iconic story, Clybourne Park, was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. As part of its 50th anniversary season, Maryland’s Center Stage produced Clybourne Park in repertory with the world premiere of Beneatha’s Place, focusing on the untold story of Walter Lee’s younger sister. Dubbed The Raisin Cycle, the new plays have introduced the Younger family to a brand new audience.
Now, director Kenny Leon (who also helmed the 2004 revival) brings the Younger family back to their very first Broadway home at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Why did he want to bring the drama back after only ten years? “This is the play that keeps on giving,” he told Broadway.com. “If all the other great American plays—Death of a Salesman, Streetcar, A Moon for the Misbegotten—if they have been done every four or five years, surely [it’s time] to revisit A Raisin in the Sun.” Featuring Denzel Washington as Walter Lee, LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Lena and Sophie Okonedo as Ruth, the new production opened officially on April 3,2014. Research more by watching this great American Play with your babies and make it a champion day!

09Mar

March 9, 1902- Louise Beavers

GM – FBF – “I’m your mammy child, I ain’t no white mother. It’s too much to ask of me. I ain’t got the spiritual strength to beat it. I can’t hang on no cross, I ain’t got the strength.” – Louise Beavers

Remember – “the third Negro woman in this country to [ever] have my face on the big screen,” – Louise Beavers

Today in our History – March 9, 1902 – A great black actress was born who will be the 3rd only black to be on the big screen and on Television.

1930s and 1940s film actress Louise Beavers was merely one of a dominant gallery of plus-sized and plus-talented African-American character actresses forced to endure blatant, discouraging and demeaning stereotypes during Depression-era and WWII Hollywood. It wasn’t until Louise’s triumphant role in Fannie Hurst’s classic soaper Imitation of Life (1934) that a film of major significance offered a black role of meaning, substance and humanity. Despite the fact that Louise was playing yet another of her endless servile roles as housekeeper Delilah who works for single white mother Claudette Colbert, this time around her character was three-dimensional and not merely a source of servitude and/or or comic relief. She had her own dramatic story and brilliantly handled the heartbreaking co-plot of an appeasing single parent whose light-skinned daughter (played by Fredi Washington) went to cruel and desperate lengths to pass for white. While Louise certainly championed in the role and managed to steal the lion’s share of reviews right from under the film’s superstar, the movie triggered major controversy and just as many complaints as compliments from both black and white viewers. This certainly did not help what could have been a major, positive shift in black filmmaking. Instead, for the next two or more decades Louise was again forced to retreat into secondary status with precious few opportunities to shine.

Ms. Beavers was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 9, 1902 and moved with her family to the Los Angeles area at age 11. A student at Pasadena High School and a choir member at her local church, her mother, a voice teacher, trained Louise for the concert stage but instead the young girl joined an all-female minstrel company called “Lady Minstrels” and even hooked up for a time on the vaudeville circuit. A nursing career once entertained was quickly aborted in favor of acting. Her first break of sorts was earning a living as a personal maid and assistant to Paramount star Leatrice Joy (and later actress Lilyan Tashman). By 1924 she was performing as an extra or walk-on in between her chores. A talent agent spotted her and gave her a more noticeable role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin(1927). She went on to gain even more visibility, but was invariably stuck in the background cooking or cleaning after the leads. Despite this her beaming smile and good nature paid off.
Following scene-grabbing maid roles to such stars as Mary Pickford in Coquette (1929) Linda Watkins in Good Sport (1931), Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933), Constance Bennett in What Price Hollywood? (1932) and Jean Harlow in Bombshell(1933), Louise received the role of her career. Her poignant storyline and final death scene deserved an Oscar nomination and many insiders took her snub as deliberate and prejudicial. Five years later her compatriot (and close friend) Hattie McDaniel would become the first black actor to not only earn an Oscar nomination but capture the coveted trophy as well for her subordinate role in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Despite their individual triumphs, both ladies continued to trudge through more of the same, albeit steadily. Occasionally Louise was rewarded with such Hollywood “A” treats as Made for Each Other (1939) with Carole Lombard, Holiday Inn (1942) starring Bing Crosby, and especially Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. In The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), she offered lovely moments as the baseball star’s mother.

Although film offers dried up in the 1950s, Louise managed to transfer her talents to the new TV medium, and was one of a number of character actresses hired to play the wise-cracking, problem-solving maid Beulah (1950) during its run. “Beulah” was one of the first sitcoms to star a black actor. She also had a recurring role in Disney’s “The Swamp Fox”. In 1957, she made her professional stage debut in San Francisco with the short-lived play “Praise House” as a caregiver who extols the Bible through song. Her last few films, which included The Goddess (1958), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) and the Bob Hopecomedy The Facts of Life (1960) were typical stereotypes and unmemorable.

A long time bachelor lady who finally married in the 1950s, the short and stout actress was plagued by health issues in later years, her obesity and diabetes in particular. She lost her fight on October 26, 1962, at age 60 following a heart attack. In 1976 she was posthumously inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Research more about this great American actress or watch the orgional “Imatation of Life” (1934). Make it a champion day!

08Mar

March 8, 1954- Mattwilda Dobbs

GM – FBF – “I was so afraid for myself if I would have married” Martin L.King. -Mattiwilda Dobbs

Remember – ” Music that I sing is not for the masses but most for the people who enjoy Opera” – Mattiwilda Dobbs

Today in our History – March 8, – The First black to preform at New York’s Town Hall on March 8, 1954.

Mattiwilda Dobbs (July 11, 1925 – December 8, 2015) was an African-American coloratura soprano and one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. She was the first black singer to perform at La Scala in Italy, the first black woman to receive a long-term performance contract at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the first black singer to play a lead role at the San Francisco Opera.

Dobbs was born in Atlanta, Georgia, one of six daughters of John and Irene Dobbs, who were leaders in the state’s African-American community. She began piano lessons at the age of seven, and sang in community and church choirs.
Dobbs attended Spelman College where she studied home economics and considered becoming a fashion designer. Her teachers encouraged her to study music, however, and she began to study voice, graduating with a degree in Spanish and music in 1946. Following her graduation, she moved to New York City and studied with German soprano Lotte Leonard while completing a Master’s degree in Spanish at Columbia University.

Dobbs won a number of scholarships, including the Marian Anderson Award in 1947, and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. The funds from these awards enabled her to move to Europe in 1950 and pursue her studies there, notably with Pierre Bernac.

Dobbs initially performed in Europe as a concert recitalist, however after winning the International Music Competition in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1951, she went on to sing at the major festivals and opera houses throughout the continent. She made her professional operatic debut at the Holland Festival, as the Nightingale in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, in 1952. She made her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival, as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, in 1953. Her success at this festival led to a performance contract at London’s Covent Garden from 1953 to 1958.

Her La Scala debut in 1953 was at the invitation of conductor Herbert von Karajan. Dobbs performed the role of Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri, which also marked the first time a black artist sang in that opera house. In a review of her performance, the British magazine Opera called her “the outstanding coloratura of her generation”.

She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as the Woodbird in Siegfried, in 1953. She also appeared at the Paris Opéra, the Vienna State Opera, and at the opera houses of Hamburg and Stockholm. In 1954, she sang before Queen Elizabeth II and the King and Queen of Sweden at Covent Garden Theatre.

In the 1960s Dobbs continued to perform in Europe, particularly in Sweden, where she lived with her husband. Her successful, high-profile European career is considered significant in setting an example to younger black female singers such as Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle.

Her American Dobbs sang the role of Zerbinetta again in her first appearance in the United States at New York’s Town Hall on March 8, 1954 and received great critical acclaim.Next was a recital with the Little Orchestra Society, in New York City, in 1954. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut, as Gilda in Rigoletto, on November 9, 1956. In a review of her performance, Carl Van Vechten wrote that Dobbs’ was “glorious … a warm and brilliant coloratura, and the best Gilda in my experience.” Although African-American singer Marian Anderson had performed at the Met the previous year, Dobbs was the first African-American to be offered a long-term contract by the Met. In eight seasons, she performed 29 times, including Zerbinetta, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Oscar in Un ballo in maschera. She also appeared at the San Francisco Opera in 1955, where she was the first African-American to play a lead role.

Following the example set by other African-American performers, Dobbs refused to perform for segregated audiences. She later stated that this hurt her career as she declined offers of work in the southern states. When the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium was de-segregated in 1961, Dobbs was the first person to sing to an integrated audience in the city. After de-segregation, she performed in Atlanta in a series of operas produced by Blanche Thebom.
Dobbs retired from performing in 1974, and began teaching at the University of Texas, where she was the first African-American on the faculty. She continued her teaching career as professor of voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C., before retiring to Arlington County, Virginia.
In 1989 Dobbs was elected to the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera.

Dobbs’s coloratura soprano was praised for its freshness and agility, as well as tonal beauty, and was considered an ideal voice for sound recording. However, she can be heard in relatively few recordings, as she spent her early career in Europe. When she returned to the United States in 1954 Roberta Peters had become a top soprano recording artist.
Dobbs’s notable recordings include Die Entführung aus dem Serail (in English), opposite Nicolai Gedda (who was born the same day as she was, July 11, 1925) and conducted by Yehudi Menuhin, Les pêcheurs de perles conducted by René Leibowitz, and a recital of opera arias and songs, released in 1998 by Testament Records. She sang both Olympia and Antonia in a complete recording of The Tales of Hoffmann featuring Leopold Simoneau and Heinz Rehfuss, and conducted by Pierre-Michel Le Conte, which was issued in 1958 by Epic in stereo in the USA and by Concert Hall in Europe, and reissued on CD in 2008. She also recorded the title role of Zaide under Leibowitz in Paris in 1952, and excerpts from Rigoletto alongside Rolando Panerai.

In 1954, the King and Queen of Sweden awarded Dobbs the Order of the North Star.
In 1979, Dobbs received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Spelman College.
In 1980, the Library of Congress held an exhibition on her life.
In 1983, Dobbs received the James Weldon Johnson Award in Fine Arts from the Atlanta National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Martin Luther King, Sr. wanted his son Martin Luther King, Jr. to marry Dobbs, as her father was an active civil rights activist and a friend of his.
Dobbs was married twice. Her first husband, Spaniard Luis Rodriguez, died of a liver ailment in June 1954, fourteen months after their wedding. In late 1957 she married Bengt Janzon, a Swedish newspaperman and public relations executive. Janzon died in 1997. Dobbs was the aunt of the first black Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson and sang at his inauguration in January 1978.Dobbs died from cancer on December 8, 2015 at her home in Atlanta at the age of 90. Research more about this great American abd share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

06Mar

March 6, 1972-Zoe Dusanne

GM- FBF – Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Zoë Dusanne

Remember – “The NAACP in Seatle needs a new vision and I want to help them travel down that road with all of the recources that I can gather” – Zoe Dusanne

Today in our History – March 6, 1972 – the Seattle Art Museum honored Zoë Dusanne with an exhibition of contemporary art.

Described by those who knew her as exotic, flamboyant, and colorful, Zoë Dusanne, was an art dealer and collector who opened Seattle’s first professional modern-art gallery, the Zoë Dusanne Gallery, in 1950 and who worked tirelessly to both introduce modern art to a northwest audience and to promote northwest art and artists to a larger international art community.

Dusanne was born Zola Graves on March 24, 1884 in Kansas to Letitia Denny and John Henry Graves, a stonemason. Although she was self-taught with respect to modern art, her artistic bent was nourished early in life by her parents. When the Graves family lived in Iowa at the turn of the 20th century, for example, Letitia took the young Zoë on summer trips to Chicago to attend the theater and to visit the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1903 Zoë spent one year at Oberlin College followed by a semester at the University of Illinois, Urbana. It was during this time that Zoë met her first husband, George Young, whom she married in 1904. The union produced Zoë’s only child, Theodosia, in 1909. By 1912 Zoë was separated and decided to follow her parents to Seattle. A divorce from George followed after her arrival in Seattle. Zoë’s second marriage, in 1919 to Dr. Frederick Boston, lasted only a few years.

In 1928 Zoë and then teenaged Theodosia left Seattle for New York. Sometime during her residence in New York, Zoë began using the last name Dusanne. While living in Greenwich Village, Zoë’s passion for collecting modern art began in earnest. At the height of the Great Depression Zoë found that artists were the first to feel the impact of hard times, and often sold their works at a fraction of their earlier value. Little by little during these years Zoë amassed a collection of modern art which she brought back to Seattle in 1942.

In 1947 at age 63, Zoë built a home overlooking Seattle’s Lake Union that was specifically designed to double as an art gallery, and on November 12, 1950, Dusanne opened her collection to the public. From the mid-1940s until the late-1950s, Zoë was a force to be reckoned with as she worked to introduce modern art to a Pacific Northwest audience and to promote northwest art internationally. She sold and donated her own works to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), and facilitated the donation of many others. She lent works to the Henry Art Gallery and to SAM for exhibition. At Zoë’s urging, Life magazine featured the four artists who would later became known as the “mystical” painters of the “Northwest School”—Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves—in its September 28, 1953 issue. The Life magazine article propelled the “Northwest School” to national prominence. Zoë also traveled to Europe persuading Peggy Guggenheim to donate a Jackson Pollock to SAM.

Despite her influence within the greater Seattle community, Dusanne could not stop the 1958 demolition of her home and gallery necessitated by the building of the Seattle Freeway. In 1959 she reopened in a new location but was unable to recapture the luster and glory of her original gallery. In 1964 she closed the gallery permanently spending the remaining few years of her life with her daughter. In 1977, five years after her death on March 6, 1972, the Seattle Art Museum honored Zoë Dusanne with an exhibition of contemporary art that included works by many of the artists whom Zoë had promoted. It was a fitting way to honor a woman whose influence on culture in Seattle was considerable. Research more About this great woman and share with your bibies. Make it a champion day!

05Mar

March 5, 1985- Mary McLeod Bethune

GM – FBF – “The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

Remember – “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

Today in our History – March 5, 1985 – Mary McLeod Bethune is Honored With Her Image on a U.S. Postage Stamp.

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (born Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida. She attracted donations of time and money, and developed the academic school as a college. It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University. She also was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of what was known as his Black Cabinet. She was known as “The First Lady of The Struggle” because of her commitment to gain better lives for African Americans.

Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields with her family at age five. She took an early interest in becoming educated; with the help of benefactors, Bethune attended college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. She started a school for African-American girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. It later merged with a private institute for African-American boys, and was known as the Bethune-Cookman School. Bethune maintained high standards and promoted the school with tourists and donors, to demonstrate what educated African Americans could do. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942, and 1946 to 1947. She was one of the few women in the world to serve as a college president at that time.

Bethune was also active in women’s clubs, which were strong civic organizations supporting welfare and other needs, and became a national leader. After working on the presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was invited as a member of his Black Cabinet. She advised him on concerns of black people and helped share Roosevelt’s message and achievements with blacks, who had historically been Republican voters since the Civil War. At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North. Upon her death, columnist Louis E. Martin said, “She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.”

Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark,[3] her house in Washington, D.C. as a National Historic Site,[4] and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. The Legislature of Florida is expected to designate her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida’s two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Research motr about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

27Feb

February 27 1988- Debi Thomas

GM – FBF – But I like it when my patients are impressed not knowing that I was an Olympian. – Debi Thomas

Remember – “I got a bronze medal and I can’t complain about that, the only African-American to get a medal in the Winter Olympics.” – Debi Thomas

Today in our History – February 27,1988 – Olympic ice skater who became the first black athlete to win a medal at the Winter games reveals she lost her medal to bankruptcy after being diagnosed as bipolar and struggling to pay medical bills.
Debi Thomas began the first African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics when she took home the bronze in 1988. Thomas, 50, now lives in a trailer in Virginia with her fiance and says she struggles to pay her bills. She also lost her bronze medal when she had to file for bankruptcy after she was diagnosed as bipolar and couldn’t afford to pay her medical bills.

During the Winter Olympic games 30 years ago a then 20-year-old Debi Thomas had won a bronze medal in figure skating, making her the first African American athlete to win a medal in the Winter games.

Now, Thomas is living in a trailer in Richlands, Virginia with her fiance, struggles to pay her bills and lost her bronze medal to the bank after being forced to file bankruptcy following a bipolar diagnosis.

‘It may look (to) people on the outside like it’s insane, but I don’t care,’ Thomas told the New York Post. ‘I don’t care about living in a trailer. People are so obsessed with material things, but I only care about knowledge.’

Thomas, 50, said she has left her skating days behind her – and she hopes others have too. The former orthopedic surgeon now spends her time practicing hypnosis and selling tiny pieces of gold for a company called Karatbars. She also earned a certificate in Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, which the Post reports she uses to hypnotize people to cure them of ailments.

Thomas is also working on an autobiography called ‘In Right Light it Looks Gold’.

The former Olympic athlete told the outlet that her choice of work doesn’t provide her a steady income, and she still struggles to make ends meet but she’s okay with that.

‘I always know that sometimes if you want to be a visionary, you’re going to have to commit to that and you may go through some financial struggles,’ she explained.

It seems Thomas’ struggles began in April 2012 when, according to the Washington Post, she got into a domestic dispute with her fiance Jamie Loone outside her home.

Thomas pulled out a shotgun and fired it, trying to scare Loone. The police were called and Thomas reportedly threatened to harm herself. She was taken the hospital for a psychological evaluation and diagnosed as bipolar.

Thomas, who claims she no longer suffers from the disorder and refuses to take medication because she doesn’t believe in it, told the Post she couldn’t afford her medical bills following her diagnose and filed for bankruptcy.

She was $600,000 in debt when she filed.

The one-time household name had to close her private orthopedic practice and had to hand over her bronze medal, worth a reported $2,200, to the bank. She had won the medal in 1988 during the ‘Battle of the Carmens’ at the Winter games against Germany’s Katrina Witt, who took gold.

‘I lost (the medal) to bankruptcy,’ Thomas said.’They can take away the medal, but they can’t take away the fact that I won it.’

Thomas said she wasn’t upset about losing the bronze medal, and no longer focuses on her past competing in the Olympics.

‘I got really detached from skating,’ she said. ‘People who are still so focused on my skating career, I’m just like, ‘Come on, that was thirty years ago. Why does it matter?”

She added: ‘I’m not proud of how I performed in the Olympics at all. The biggest disappointment isn’t that I didn’t win the gold, it’s that I didn’t skate my best.’

Besides winning her bronze medal, Thomas was the 1986 world champion and two-time US national champion. Research more about this great American hero and share with your babies. I will be speaking at North Atlanta High School as part of their Black History Month Program, so I will be gone most of the morning but back this afternoon. Make it a champion day!

February 25, 1911 – Sarah Rector

GM – FBF – ” I was told that the papers will leave us alone if I signed the papers to let Mr. T.J. Porter be Sarah’s parent.” – Joseph Rector

Remember – ” I don’t know the difference between one dollar nor a million dollars but they say I am rich” – Sarah Rector

Today in our History – February 25,1911 – Some say that Sarah Rector NOT Madam C.J. Walker is the first Black Female Self Made Millionaire. Sarah Rector received international attention at the age of eleven when The Kansas City Star in 1913 publicized the headline, “Millions to a Negro Girl.” From that moment Rector’s life became a cauldron of misinformation, legal and financial maneuvering, and public speculation.

Rector was born to Joseph and Rose Rector on March 3, 1902, in a two-room cabin near Twine, Oklahoma on Muscogee Creek Indian allotment land. Both Joseph and Rose had enslaved Creek ancestry, and both of their fathers fought with the Union Army during the Civil War. When Oklahoma statehood became imminent in 1907, the Dawes Allotment Act divided Creek lands among the Creeks and their former slaves with a termination date of 1906. Rector’s parents, Sarah Rector herself, her brother, Joe, Jr., and sister Rebecca all received land. Lands granted to former slaves were usually the rocky lands of poorer agricultural quality. Rector’s allotment of 160 acres was valued at $556.50.

Primarily to generate enough revenue to pay the $30 annual tax bill, on February 25,1911 Rector’s father leased her allotment to the Devonian Oil Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1913, however, her fortunes changed when wildcat oil driller B.B. Jones produced a “gusher” that brought in 2500 barrels a day. Rector now received an income of $300.00 per day. Once this wealth was made known, Rector’s guardianship was switched from her parents to a white man named T.J. Porter, an individual personally known to the Rectors. Multiple new wells were also productive, and Rector’s allotment subsequently became part of the famed Cushing-Drumright Field in Oklahoma. In the month of October 1913 Rector received $11,567.

Once her identity became public, Rector received numerous requests for loans, money gifts, and even marriage proposals from four Germans even though she was 12. In 1914 The Chicago Defender published an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by grafters and her “ignorant” parents, and that she was uneducated, dressed in rags, and lived in an unsanitary shanty. National African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois became concerned about her welfare. None of the allegations were true. Rector and her siblings went to school in Taft, an all-black town closer than Twine, they lived in a modern five-room cottage, and they owned an automobile. That same year, Rector enrolled in the Children’s House, a boarding school for teenagers at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

When Rector turned eighteen on March 3, 1920, she left Tuskegee and her entire family moved with her to Kansas City, Missouri. By this point Rector, who now owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house and bakery and the Busy Bee Café in Muskogee, Oklahoma, as well as 2,000 acres of prime river bottomland, was a millionaire.

The family moved into what would be known as the Rector Mansion. Legal wrangling over Rector’s estate and some mismanagement continued until she was twenty. That year Rector married Kenneth Campbell, and the couple had three sons, Kenneth, Jr., Leonard, and Clarence. Much was publicized about her “extravagant” spending on luxuries. Her marriage to Campbell ended in 1930, and in 1934 she married William Crawford.

When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. Sarah Rector was buried in Taft Cemetery, Oklahoma. One of the saddest stories in our history, share with your babies and make it a champion day!