68. The Origin of Black History Month
Many of you who follow this blog know that February is our favorite time of year. While you may be knowledgeable of Black History Month, your astuteness may fall short on the origin of the same.
What is presently known as Black History Month was originated in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was selected in deference to Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln who were both born in that month.
Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 to train Black historians and to collect, preserve, and publish documents on Black life and Black people (not all that dissimilar from FathersFootprints.com). He also founded the Journal of Negro History (1916), Associated Publishers (1922), and the Negro Bulletin (1937). Woodson spent his life working to educate all people about the significant and vast contributions made by Black men and women throughout history. Mr. Woodson died on April 3, 1950 and left Black History Month as his legacy.
While we appreciate the birthing of Black History Month, let’s not lose sight of several other significant occurrences within our history that took place during the month of February:
February 23, 1868: W. E. B. DuBois, important civil rights leader and co-founder of the NAACP, was born.
February 3, 1870: The 15th Amendment was passed, granting blacks the right to vote.
February 25, 1870: The first black U.S. senator, Hiram R. Revels (1822-1901), took his oath of office.
February 12, 1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a group of concerned black and white citizens in New York City.
February 1, 1960: In what would become a civil-rights movement milestone, a group of black Greensboro, N.C., college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter.
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X, the militant leader who promoted Black Nationalism, was shot to death by three Black Muslims.
Carter G. opened the door and blazed a trail. It is up to present day Blacks to continue to educate our youth on the significance and importance of our history – even if they are resistant.
D’s 2¢
67. The Life Chronology of a Dreamer
I am convinced that many of us go through life without ever really considering how we’ve benefited from the activism and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although it’s difficult to truly know all the bi-products of Dr. King’s work, nothing precludes us from heightening out awareness through some good old-fashioned due-diligence.
To make life a little simpler for my readers I have constructed a timeline of key milestones in the life of Dr. King.
1929 - Born at noon on January 15, 1929 to the Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. at 501 Auburn Avenue, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia.
1944 – Graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and was admitted to Morehouse College at age 15.
1948 – Graduates from Morehouse College and enters Crozer Theological Seminary. Ordained to the Baptist ministry, February 25, 1948, at age 19.
1953 – Marries Coretta Scott and settles in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955 - Received Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts on June 5. Joins the bus boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1. On December 5, he is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesman for the boycott.
1956 – On November 13, the Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is illegal, ensuring victory for the boycott.
1957 – King forms the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and achieve civil rights. On May 17, Dr. King speaks to a crowd of 15,000 in Washington, D.C.
1958 – The U.S. Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since reconstruction. King’s first book, Stride Toward Freedom, is published. On a speaking tour, Martin Luther King, Jr. is nearly killed when stabbed by an assailant in Harlem. Met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problems affecting black Americans.
1959 – Visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. Resigns from pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to concentrate on civil rights full time. He moved to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1960 – Becomes co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Lunch counter sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina. In Atlanta, King is arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. He is sentenced to four months in jail, but after intervention by John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, he is released. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee founded to coordinate protests at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
1963 – On Good Friday, April 12, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor for demonstrating without a permit. On April 13, the Birmingham campaign is launched. This would prove to be the turning point in the war to end segregation in the South. During the eleven days he spent in jail, MLK writes his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. On May 10, the Birmingham agreement is announced. The stores, restaurants, and schools will be desegregated, hiring of blacks implemented, and charges dropped. On June 23, MLK leads 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit. The March on Washington held August 28 is the largest civil rights demonstration in history with nearly 250,000 people in attendance. At the march, King makes his famous I Have a Dream speech. On November 22, President Kennedy is assassinated.
1964 - On January 3, King appears on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year. King attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House on July 2. During the summer, King experiences his first hurtful rejection by black people when he is stoned by Black Muslims in Harlem. King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. Dr. King is the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Peace at age 35.
1965 – On February 2, King is arrested in Selma, Alabama during a voting rights demonstration. After President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, Martin Luther King, Jr. turns to socioeconomic problems.
1966 – On January 22, King moves into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living conditions of the poor. In June, King and others begin the March Against Fear through the South. On July 10, King initiates a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago.
1967 – The Supreme Court upholds a conviction of MLK by a Birmingham court for demonstrating without a permit. King spends four days in Birmingham jail. On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People’s Campaign focusing on jobs and freedom for the poor of all races.
1968 – Dr. King marches in support of sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 28, King lead a march that turns violent. This was the first time one of his events had turned violent. Delivered I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech. At sunset on April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. There are riots and disturbances in 130 American cities. There were twenty thousand arrests. King’s funeral on April 9 is an international event. Within a week of the assassination, the Open Housing Act is passed by Congress.
Because Dr. King had the courage to dream, we don’ have to experience nightmares. Do something to ensure the sacrifice of his life was not for naught. Thank you Dr. King, we are at last free!
Until next time,
65. Pacing herself – A Talk with Latrice Pace of the Anointed Pace Sisters
Those who’ve been following this site over the past year already know that we will occasionally introduce Black artists who have shared their gifts of modeling, acting, singing, photography and writings. In 2009 we brought you Kim Coles, Cynda Williams, Tobias Truvillion, Candice Sanders, David Ruffin Jr, Chenoa Maxwell, Cherie Johnson, Chandra Currelley and others. We’re off to a great start with the first guest of 2010: Ms. Latrice Pace of the Anointed Pace Sisters gospel singing group.
The roots of gospel music can be pursued through the academic discipline of ethno-musicology (going back to Europe and Africa), through a study of the 2,000-year history of church music, and through a study of rural folk music traditions, but for practical purposes, gospel music as we know it began in the late 19th century. Rather than to go into the historical perspective of the origin and milestones in gospel music we’d rather kick it directly with one of gospel music’s current generation performers. We introduce to you Ms. Latrice Pace of the Anointed Pace Sisters.
How did you get your start in the music business?
I was born into the business; and to be honest, I wanted nothing to do with music. I felt everybody in the family was already doing it so I needed to do something different. However, my daddy made sure I knew that Gospel music was a family ministry and there was no such thing as “doing something different” J. Once I graduated from high school I began to sing in the group with my sisters. Shortly thereafter I began to travel with my oldest sister, Shun, as her assistant/road manager. I believe serving her for years opened so many other doors to work with various artist as well as the arts.
Tell us about your company L. Pace Entertainment, LLC.
I’ve been in the music industry for 20 years and in the arts (Urban Theater) for about 15 years. I learned early on that I was my own walking/traveling business. So with my experience along with the influence of my mentor Donald Lawrence, I’m learning that it’s not just about having a professional image before people, but it’s important that every aspect of you, your life, your business – be legitimate and professional. I also have future aspirations to mount my own theatrical production, but during this chapter of my life, L. Pace Entertainment, LLC is about being smart in this business of music. I don’t want to do what I do out of necessity, but simply because I love to do it.
You are part of the gospel group The Anointed Pace Sisters. What are some of the biggest challenges working with family?
When I tell you every family has them, EVERY FAMILY HAS THEM. I was recently watching the reality show about The Jacksons and I was astonished because I saw so many parallels. You’re always going to have that person who feels like their voice (opinions) are never heard. You’re always going to have that person who runs back to mother although we all are adults. You’re always going to have that person who is just going to go against the grain no matter what. You’re always going to have that person who seeks the attention (and that can fluctuate from person to person depending on moods), but the thing that keeps us together and make us work is that we are family. We genuinely love one another no matter what. Our foundation is prayer, prayer keeps us humble, thus helping us to find that middle ground and reason. Through our challenges we gain a greater love and respect for one another. Our reward is unity.
You were cast in Tyler Perry’s “What’s Done in the Dark” as the hilarious nurse Nancy. Describe the experience working with a Tyler Perry Production.
I had so much fun. I’ve also worked with Tyler on two prior productions; I Know I’ve Been Changed and one where he partnered with Bishop Jakes entitled Behind Closed Doors. It has been truly amazing to witness his growth and the things that God promised materializing right before my eyes. Working with him (Tyler) has given me hope. It has strengthened me to hold on to every Word that God has spoken over my life because it will manifest. I also came to realize that performing is a ministry and you feel the weight of that every single night. You feel that responsibility to minister hope to someone who may have been laid off and spent their last (dollar) for a laugh or to be inspired and lifted through song. I loved it and look forward to working with him again.
What can our readers look forward to in the future from Latrice?
I recently shot a webisode with Robert Townsend which aired on The Gospel Music Channel so they can look forward to seeing that among other things as it relates to film and television. I’m finally at the place where I’m embracing the possibility of recording. Lastly, Latrice is going to Broadway, so look forward to that!
We appreciate Latrice taking the time to share with us the details of being a “Pace Sister.” We look forward to hearing more from her in the future. As we often do, we close this column with a quote of relevance: “Adopt the Pace of nature; her secret is patience.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson. Joining Latrice’s fan page is just a click away.
Until next time,
Copyright © 2010
64. Commitment to Blackademics
If you follow FathersFootprints you already know that our content targets a specific ethnicity; and we don’t wait until February to partake. Our features in 2010 will be no different. As a matter of fact, we plan to step up our commitment to Blackademics.
As a Detroit youth I was never interested in history. My parochial education did not lend itself to Black History other than the usual suspects that include Martin Luther King, Jr, Frederick Douglas, and possibly Harriett Tubman. I’m not suggesting that the aforementioned were not key figures in our society; I am simply suggesting that they barely scratch the surface.
My rapid descent on middle age has caused me to realize the significance of the accomplishments of Blacks while in America. My quest for a deeper understanding of who I am has led me to the likes of Claude McKay, Ernest Just, Garett Morgan, Cecil Partee, Robert Elliot, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Emmett Chappelle, George Washington Carver, Mary McCloud Bethune, Alexander Crummell, E. Franklin Frazier, Charles Drew, Margaret Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, Benjamin Banneker, Percy Julian, Mark Dean, George Washington Bush, Jean Baptiste du Sable, Daniel Halle Williams, Lloyd Quarterman, Shirley Chisholm and countless others.
If some of the famous Blacks mentioned in the prior paragraph don’t ring a bell, I implore you to take a few moments to better acquaint yourself with them. If you don’t plan to do your part to become a part of Black history, at least pass some knowledge of self on to future generations.
I close this post with one of my favorite poetic works by the late Anne Spencer.
Black Man o’ Mine
Black Man o’ Mine,
If the world were your lover,
It could not give what I give to you,
Or the ocean would yield and you could discover
Its ages of treasure to hold and to view;
Could it fill half the measure of my heart’s portion. . .
Just for you living, just for you giving all this devotion,
Black man o’ mine.
Black man o’ mine,
As I hush and caress you, close to my heart,
All your loving is just your needing what is true;
Then with your passing dark comes my darkest part,
For living without your love is only rue.
Black man o’ mine, if the world were your lover
It could not give what I give to you.
Until next time,
Copyright © 2010
63. The Year In Review – 2009
FathersFootprints has developed a reputation for sharing the good and the bad associated with the Black experience. 2009 proved to be momentous for Black Americans for several reasons. Our countdown includes unexpected losses as well as unprecedented accomplishments. Our countdown is as follows:
#10 Entertainment moguls Jay-Z and Beyone’ retained their title as Hollywood’s richest couple.
#9 NFL wide receiver Chris Henry dies from injuries sustained from being thrown from a moving vehicle. He was said to have had a domestic altercation with his finance’.
#8 Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson lost his 5 year old daughter due to accidental strangulation of a treadmill cord.
#7 Actress and comediene Kim Coles became the first Black woman to host a prime time game show. In 2009 BET aired “Pay-It-Off”.
#6 Professional boxer Vernon Forrest, a former two-division champion who gained stardom when he became the first boxer to defeat Shane Mosley, was shot to death in what police are called an attempted robbery.
#5 Engineering student and terror suspect Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, attempted to bomb and international flight headed to Detroit, Michigan.
#4 Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was killed July 4 by his 20-year-old girlfriend in a murder-suicide incident.
#3 Entertainment mogul Oprah Winfrey is calling it quits after more than 20 years at the top of the daytime talk show game. Oprah is scheduled to step off the show in September 2011.
#2 Music icon Michael Jackson passed at the age of 50. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.
#1 Former Chicago Senator Barack Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States.
As the year 2009 subsides and 2010 emerges, we brace ourselves for the unfolding of stories untold, dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled, joy and sorrow – but most of all we know that everything must change. The primary change has to be the way we (as Black Americans) think.
I personally want to thank the readers who supported this site in 2009 and we look forward to continuing to bring you quality content in the New Year.
God bless you,
Copyright © 2009
62. The Harlem Renaissance Series: Duke Ellington
The Harlem Renaissance cultural movement started between 1920 and 1930, and was spearheaded from the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, hence the name. It was also known by various other names like, the New Negro movement and the New Negro Renaissance. It marked the beginning of the African American literature along with its music, theater, art and politics. Today’s post is another plug for the world-class musicians of the movement. I bring to you none other than Big Band himself, Mr. Duke Ellington.
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899 – 1974)
Ellington was an African American music composer, pianist, a band leader and the 20th century’s best-known artist. He brought many great artists together and formed one of the most well-known orchestral units in the history of jazz musicians. He recorded for many famous American record companies and also acted in several films.
Duke earned 13 Grammy awards from 1959 to 2000 for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band, etc. He was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame awards for several performances including, Mood Indigo (1931), It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing – 1932), Cocktails for Two (1934), etc.
Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, an Honorary PhD from the Berklee College of Music in 1971, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York City. At his funeral attended by over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, “It’s a very sad day. A genius has passed.” Mercer Ellington picked up the reins of the orchestra immediately after Duke’s death. Before Ellington died, his last words were, “Music is how I live, why I live and how I will be remembered.”
61. The Harlem Renaissance Series: Billie Holiday (Lady Sings the Blues)
Although the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue was a renowned venue for swing dancing and jazz, immortalized in the popular song “Stompin’ At The Savoy”, the Apollo Theater has been the most lasting physical legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. The Apollo opened its doors on 125th Street on January 26, 1914, in a former burlesque house, and has remained a symbol of African-American culture.
One of the most famous clubs for popular music in the United States, it was the first place where many figures from the Harlem Renaissance found a venue for their talents and a start to their careers. The careers of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan (among many others) were launched at the Apollo.
The next portion of this Harlem Renaissance Series will focus on these talented singers and musicians. Today’s feature spotlights the legendary Billie Holiday.
Billie Holliday (1915–1959)
Singer, jazz vocalist Billie Holiday, (born Eleanora Fagan) on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is perhaps one of the most popular and influential jazz singers of all time.
She was born to her unwed parents. Her mother, 13-year-old Sadie Fagan, and her father, 15-year-old Clarence Holiday, married when Billie was three. As a child, she ran errands and scrubbed floors at Alice Dean’s, a “house of ill repute.” That was where she first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, her two biggest influences.
She began to sing at Harlem nightclubs when she could not get hired as a dancer. She used the stage name “Billie Holiday” after her father, who played in a band, and Billie Dove, her favorite childhood actress. She sang at the clubs from midnight until three o’clock in the afternoon for 18 months, only getting paid $2 per night.
Billie was finally recognized as a real talent by John Hammond, a famous jazz enthusiast. He then recommended her to Benny Goodman, a clarinet player who worked in the recording business at that time. It was from there that Billie’s career exploded onto the jazz music scene.
Her recording career is divided into 3 periods. The first is the period in the 1930s, recorded with Columbia, marked by her time with Wilson, Goodman, and Young. Her music was made for jukeboxes, but she turned them into jazz classics. Her popularity never matched her artistic success, but she was widely played on Armed Forces Radio during World War II. From this period came the anti-racism song Strange Fruit, in which she paints a terrifying picture of lynched black bodies hanging from trees. The lyrics of the song were adapted from a poem by Louis Allen.
The next period is her Decca (record company) years in the Forties, marked by recordings with string orchestra accompaniment. While the records from this period are impressive, they’re not as “jazzy.” This period featured Loverman as well as her self-written classics Don’t Explain, and God Bless the Child. In late 1947, she was arrested on drug charges and spent 18 months in a federal reformatory.
On May 31, 1959, she was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York suffering from liver and heart disease. Police officers were stationed at the door to her room. She was arrested for drug possession as she lay dying and her hospital room was raided by authorities.
Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959. In the final years of her life, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 (a tabloid fee) on her person.
The 1970’s film Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross and Billie Dee Williams, was based on the life of Billie Holiday.
60. The Harlem Renaissance Series: Claude McKay
Claude McKay (September 15, 1890 – May 22, 1948)
Claude McKay was born Festus Claudius McKay in Sunny Ville, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, the son of farmers. The youngest of eleven children, McKay was sent at an early age to live with his oldest brother, a schoolteacher, so that he could be given the best education available.
McKay was an avid reader who began to write poetry at the age of ten. In 1907, McKay came to the attention of Walter Jekyll, an English gentleman residing in Jamaica who became his mentor. Mr. Jekyll encouraged McKay to write dialect verse. Jekyll later set some of McKay’s verse to music. Two volumes of Jamaican dialect verse, Songs of Jamaica and Constab Ballads were published in 1912. By then he was just 22 years old.
Mc Kay immigrated to the U.S. to attend Tuskegee Institute after hearing about the work of Booker T. Washington. In no time, the shock of American racism turned him from the conservatism of his youth. Much of his writings are a reflection of that shock he felt about American racism. He also attended Kansas State Teachers College between 1912 and 1914. McKay moved to New York in 1914, where he contributed regularly to The Liberator, the leading journal of avant-garde politics and art at that time.
With the publication of two volumes of poetry, Spring in New Hampshire (1920) and Harlem Shadows (1922), McKay emerged as the first and most militant voice of the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, identified McKay as a leading inspirational force, even though he did not write modern verse. His work was lyrically prosed and he also published sonnets. After 1922, McKay lived successively in the Soviet Union, France, Spain, and Morocco. While in the Soviet Union he compiled his journalistic essays into a book, The Negroes in America, which was not published in the United States until 1979.
McKay wanted readers to know about the vitality and essential health of the uprooted black vagabonds of urban America and Europe. Claude McKay wrote a novel called Home to Harlem (1928) that became the most popular novel written by an African American at that time. After returning to America in 1934, McKay was attacked by the Communists for repudiating their dogmas and by liberal whites and blacks for his criticism of integrationist-oriented civil rights groups. McKay advocated full civil liberties and racial solidarity.
He wrote for various magazines and newspapers, including the New Leader and the New York Amsterdam News. He also wrote an autobiography, A Long Way from Home (1937), and a study, Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). In 1944, he relocated to Chicago and died in 1948 due to congestice heart failure. His second autobiography, My Green Hills of Jamaica, was published after Mc Kay died, in 1979.
59. The Harlem Renaissance Series: Langston Hughes
There are several critical writers that helped to birth and define the era known to us as the Black Literary Renaissance. In no particular order, the literary giants of that era included: 1) Zora Neale Hurston; 2) Langston Hughes; 3) Jesse Redman Fauset; 4) Walter White; 5) Claude McKay; and 6) Rudolph Fisher. Today’s feature highlights the legendary Langston Hughes.
Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967)
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902. However, he lived with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas until he was thirteen when his grandmother died. He went to live with his mother in Lincoln, Illinois. This is where Hughes wrote his first verse and was named class poet of his eighth grade class.
Although his family constantly relocated, Langston remained in Lincoln, Illinois to finish high school. During that time, his writing talent was recognized by his high school teachers and classmates. As a result, Hughes had his first pieces of verse published in the school’s sophisticated magazine. Soon he was on the staff and publishing in the magazine regularly. An English teacher introduced him to poets such as Carl Sandburg and Walk Whitman, and these became Hughes’ earliest influences.
Langston Hughes moved to New York to attend Columbia University for college. Hughes only spent one year at Columbia before being swept into the exciting and newly formed Harlem environment. Here Langston Hughes flourished and being amongst the jazz and blues helped to influence Hughes’ lyrical style. Immediately, Hughes became an integral part of the arts scene in Harlem, so much so that in many ways he defined the spirit of the age, from a literary point of view.
He got to know other writers of the time such as Countee Cullen, Claude McCay, W.E.B. DuBois, and James Weldon Johnson. When his poem “The Weary Blues” won first prize in the poetry section of the 1925 Opportunity magazine literary contest, Hughes’s literary career was launched.
His first volume of poetry, also titled The Weary Blues, appeared in 1926. Setting himself apart from other writers, jazz and blues allowed him to experiment with a very rhythmic free verse. Hughes’s primary writing was for the theater. His drama called, “Mulatto” – became the longest running Broadway play written by an African American until Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” (1958). Langston Hughes died in 1967.
58. The Harlem Renaissance Series: Zora Neale Hurston
Those who follow FathersFootprints.com know that Black History is not just something we feature in February.
The Harlem Renaissance (also known as the Black Literary Renaissance and the New Negro Movement) refers to the flowering of African American cultural and intellectual life during the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the “New Negro Movement”, named after the 1925 anthology The New Negro edited by Alain Locke. Centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, the movement influenced urban centers throughout the United States. Across the cultural spectrum (literature, drama, music, visual art, dance) and also in the realm of social thought (sociology, historiography, philosophy), artists and intellectuals found new ways to explore the historical experiences of black America and the contemporary experiences of black life in the urban North.
Challenging white paternalism and racism, African-American artists and intellectuals rejected imitating the styles of Europeans and white Americans and instead celebrated black dignity and creativity. Asserting their freedom to express themselves on their own terms, they explored their identities as black Americans, celebrating the black culture that had emerged out of slavery, as well as cultural ties to Africa. Wiki
There are several critical writers that helped to birth and define the era known to us as the Black Literary Renaissance. In no particular order, the literary giants of that era included: 1) Zora Neale Hurston; 2) Langston Hughes; 3) Jesse Redman Fauset; 4) Walter White; 5) Claude McKay; and 6) Rudolph Fisher. Today’s feature highlights the lady widely known by her first name.
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) 
Zora Neale Hurston was a utopian, who believed that black Americans could attain sovereignty from white American society and all its bigotry, as proven by her hometown of Eatonville. She was born in 1891 and her father was a Baptist preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter. At age three her family moved to Eatonville, Fla., the first incorporated black community in America. Her father would also become mayor of that town. In her writings she would glorify Eatonville as a utopia where black Americans could live independent of the prejudices of white society.
Zora was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist and an authority on black culture from the Harlem Renaissance. In this artistic movement of the 1920s black artists moved from traditional dialectical works and imitation of white writers to explore their own culture and affirm pride in their race. Zora pursued this objective by combining literature with anthropology. She first gained attention with her short stories such as “John Redding Goes to Sea” and “Spunk” which appeared in black literary magazines. After several years of anthropological research financed through grants and fellowships, Zora’s first novel Jonah’s Gourd Vine was published in 1934 to critical success.
In 1935, her book Mules and Men, which investigated voodoo practices in black communities in Florida and New Orleans, also brought her kudos. The publication of what is considered Hurston’s greatest novel was Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. Published works by Hurston over the next ten years either received mixed reviews or failed according to literary standards. Zora never addressed the issue of racism of whites toward blacks, and as this became a developing theme among black writers in the post World War II era of civil rights, Zora’s literary influence faded. She further scathed her own reputation by railing the civil rights movement and supporting ultraconservative politicians. She died in poverty and obscurity in 1960.
Copyright © 2009
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