Thursday, July 24, 2008 |
Maria Fearing (1838-1937) was a teacher, missionary and former slave.
Born to Mary and Jesse on William O. Winston’s Oak Hill Plantation, near Gainesville, Alabama, on July 26, 1838, she spent much of her time with her mistress and the other children. Amanda Winston taught her children and Maria the Presbyterian catechism, told them Bible stories and tales about missionaries in Africa.
After emancipation, Jesse and his family took the surname of a previous owner, Fearing, and Maria learned how to read and write at the age of thirty-three. She worked her way through the Freedman’s Bureau School in Talladega to become a teacher and taught for a number of years in the rural schools of Calhoun County.
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Thursday, July 17, 2008 |
E. Frederic Morrow (1906-1994) was the first black person to hold an executive position at the White House and the first black corporate executive.
Born April 20, 1909, in Hackensack, New Jersey, Morrow was a minister’s son who graduated from Bowdoin College in 1930. Following graduation, he worked for the National Urban League and the NAACP as a field secretary before entering Army service during World War II. After the war, Morrow obtained a law degree from Rutgers University and worked for the public affairs division at the Columbia Broadcasting System. In 1952, Morrow served as an administrative aide and adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on his campaign trail. He was an adviser on business affairs in the Commerce Department when the President appointed him Administrative Officer for Special Projects in 1955. Continue Reading »
Thursday, July 10, 2008 |
Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1904) was an abolitionist, businesswoman and entrepreneur during the Gold Rush.
Born the illegitimate daughter of an enslaved voodoo priestess and a Virginia governor’s son on August 19, 1814, near Augusta, Georgia, Mary had no last name. She witnessed a plantation overseer murder her mother and was sold at the age of nine and sent to work as a linen worker at the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans.
Following her service there, she worked as a free servant to Louis Alexander Williams, a Cincinnati merchant. He promised that after she served for some time, she would be freed. However, Williams, in debt and jealous of his wife Ellen’s affection for Mary, placed her in nine years of indenture with an aging Quaker merchant known as Grandma Hussey in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Indentured servants could be of any race, and Mary was told not to reveal her race since she could pass for white. She also adopted Ellen Williams’ name, becoming Mary Ellen Williams.
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Thursday, July 3, 2008 |
Dr. Mark Dean (1957-) is an American inventor and computer scientist.
Born March 2, 1957, in Jefferson City, Tennessee, Dr. Dean was a bright and energetic child who was often asked by his classmates if he was really black because, according to them, black people were not supposed to be that smart. He excelled both athletically and academically and continued his success in college as he graduated at the top of his class with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1979.
The following year, Dean was invited to join IBM as an engineer. Despite his new position, Dean continued his education and received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University in 1982. As an engineer for IBM, Dean served as the chief engineer for the team that developed the IBM PC/AT, the original home/office computer. Continue Reading »
Thursday, June 26, 2008 |
Lovie Austin (1887-1972) was one of the first female bandleaders in jazz.
Born Cora Calhoun in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on September 19, 1887, she studied music theory at Roger Williams University and Knoxville College in Nashville. In 1923, she moved to Chicago and began touring on the vaudeville circuit. A fancy dresser and a well-liked person, she was often seen around town dressed to the nines and driving her Stutz Bearcat with leopard skin upholstery.
Ranked one of the best female jazz blues piano players of the period, Austin began her career accompanying blues singers such as Ma Rainey. Continue Reading »
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Thursday, June 19, 2008 |
Fela Kuti (1938-1997) was Africa’s most famous musician and Nigeria’s foremost political dissident. The video above is part one of a documentary filled with the words and music of Fela. What better way to learn about him than hearing from the man himself?
Fela coined and invented Afrobeat, a combination of Yoruba music, jazz, Highlife, and funk rhythms, fused with African percussion and vocal styles.
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Thursday, June 12, 2008 |
Ma Rainey (1886-1939) known as ‘the mother of the blues’ was the first black professional blues vocalist.
Born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, on April 26, 1886, Pridgett first appeared on stage in Columbus at the age of fourteen. She joined a traveling vaudeville troupe, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, which described itself as “the leading Negro show in America”.
She began singing in a blues style in 1902, after hearing a blues song at a theater in St. Louis, Missouri. She claimed at that time that she was the one who coined the name “blues”. In 1904, she married fellow Rabbit’s Foot member, William “Pa” Rainey, and began billing herself as Ma Rainey. Continue Reading »
