Black History Month: Why Is It Needed? Extraordinary Black Contributors

"Carolivia Herron draws on her experience as an African American Jewish woman living in Washington, D.C. to reimagine the traditional form of 'the epic' through her writing." (I got to briefly meet this lady when she was a visiting professor at the university where I worked; she was very nice & didn't condescend to me (for being "uneducated"--i.e., no college degree--) as some of the resident professors did. https://jwa.org/people/herron-carolivia
 

OneEyedDiva said:
I first became aware of the Great Kings and Queens of Africa decades ago when Budweiser published a poster with their pictures and an article was done about them in Ebony magazine. We certainly were never taught about these magnificent, powerful, beautiful rulers in our schools. I was so happy to find this video, also sponsored by Budweiser, when I searched to see if the poster was still available.

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The Histories - Audiobook, by Herodotus | Chirp (chirpbooks.com)


Why put a Greek history book on this thread? Simple: while we have generally been taught that western civilization began in Greece, Herodotus (the Father of Greek history) wrote that it was the ancient Egyptians who virtually spoon fed the basics of civilization to the ancient Hellenic people. This encyclopedia in written as opposed to audio form is about 700 pages. A full 10% or 70 pages are devoted to the African origin of Greek history. Virtually every value that is cherished in the Western world began in Africa --- the true founders of Western Civ.
 
"Black Africans were part of The Roman Empire at its height when the Roman Empire included territorry stretching all the way into North Africa."
"prominent Black Africans made History in Ancient Rome like the Emperor Septimus Severus who was Rome’s first African Emperor.
Another important person from Africa who made an impact on the Roman Empire was Lusius Quietus.
He was an African Roman officer from Morocco who rose from Roman Calvary Officer to first becoming a Senator, then thereafter becoming Govenor of Judea in the Roman Empire." Entire article: https://www.afrikaiswoke.com/africans-in-ancient-rome/
 
 
African Americans & The Railroad System

The link between African-Americans and the growth of American railroads is much deeper than carrying luggage or preparing a sleeping car.
The entire southern railroad network that was built during the slavery era was built almost exclusively by slaves. Some of the railroads owned slaves, other railroads hired or rented slaves from slave owners. And the most shocking thing was that women as well as men were actually involved in the hard, dangerous, brutal work of railroad construction and continued to work for railroads after they were built in lesser roles. But in the construction phase, little difference between the abilities, considered abilities, for Black women, and White women would never have been considered for any of those jobs.
Railroad.jpg
 
American-opera-singer-Matilda-Sissieretta-Jones-circa-1895.jpg

Matilda Sissieretta Jones, née Joyner, byname Black Patti or Madame Jones, (born January 5, 1869, Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.—died June 24, 1933, Providence, Rhode Island), American opera singer who was among the greatest sopranos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unfortunately, no recordings exist of her acclaimed voice.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Matilda-Sissieretta-Jones
 
"Maggie Lena Walker was one of the most important Black businesswomen in the nation, and today too few people have heard of her...[She] was the first Black woman in the nation to organize and run a bank. And she did it in the segregated South in the former capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. But that’s not all...": https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blog...pJobID=1941695552&spReportId=MTk0MTY5NTU1MgS2
 
Pink Biz said:
View attachment 150522

Matilda Sissieretta Jones, née Joyner, byname Black Patti or Madame Jones, (born January 5, 1869, Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S.—died June 24, 1933, Providence, Rhode Island), American opera singer who was among the greatest sopranos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unfortunately, no recordings exist of her acclaimed voice.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Matilda-Sissieretta-Jones
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Wow Pink Biz! I just came on to post about this! She was the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall. Thank you for posting this.52452458_10218796165163938_6069073597119332352_n.jpg
 
A friend of mine who is a historian posted about this on Facebook. The practice of wet nursing.
"The children of slaves grew healthy while many white families lost their children to ill health. This made many westerners force slave mothers to breastfeed their white children so that they could develop better and survive the early months of childhood."
In addition to their plantation duties, many female slaves were taken into the homes of their masters to serve their mistresses, cook, clean and wash for them. If a mistress had too many children, the domestic worker was made to help in caring for the child. After a while, female slaves were made to take the place of low-class women paid to breastfeed babies, a practice known as wet nursing."
https://face2faceafrica.com/article...orced-to-breastfeed-white-babies-in-the-1600s
 
We started watching this documentary about Stax Records last night. It's pretty interesting and available for free on YouTube, although the audio was cut in one section -- I presume for copyright reasons.

Booker T and the MGs were the session musicians at Stax and they backed some of the all time great soul and blues artists like Otis Redding and Albert King. But their recording studio was in a bad part of Memphis where there was a lot of crime and violence. I read a bit about that somewhere, I forget where, and we haven't reached that part yet in the video. We're only about 1/3 of the way through.

Respect Yourself Stax Records Story​

 
As an example of the fact that true talent will emerge whenever it is allowed to, I offer Dave Drake (also known as Dave the Potter) whose talent as a artistic Pottery Maker and Poet flourished during slavery. He lived about 20 miles from my current residence and produced some of the finest Pots on the East Coast. His owner taught his slaves to read and write despite it being against the law. Dave signed his name to many of his creations and also inscribed small poems on them. Today they are extremely valuable. We do have a couple of them in our local Aiken County Museum.

Oak Spring Garden Foundation - Dave the Potter and His Historic Ceramics (osgf.org)

Dave The Potter 2.jpg
 
Irwin said:
We started watching this documentary about Stax Records last night. It's pretty interesting and available for free on YouTube, although the audio was cut in one section -- I presume for copyright reasons.

Booker T and the MGs were the session musicians at Stax and they backed some of the all time great soul and blues artists like Otis Redding and Albert King. But their recording studio was in a bad part of Memphis where there was a lot of crime and violence. I read a bit about that somewhere, I forget where, and we haven't reached that part yet in the video. We're only about 1/3 of the way through.

Respect Yourself Stax Records Story​

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Thank you for posting this Irwin! I'm pretty sure this is the same documentary my former supervisor put on DVD for me. I think he did it in two parts. I have to pull that out and compare. He is of Polish ancestry and shared my love of good soul music. I believe his basement looked like a record store from the way he described it. Unfortunately during Hurricane Sandy his house was demolished and nothing was salvageable. Booker T and the MGs were famous for Green Onions but here's my favorite by them. Stays in my Favorite Jazz & Instrumentals playlist.

 
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OneEyedDiva said:
Wow Pink Biz! I just came on to post about this! She was the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall. Thank you for posting this.View attachment 150922
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Sissieretta Jones sang for kings, presidents, and to audiences around the world, becoming the highest paid African-American entertainer of the late 19th century. She headlined at Carnegie Hall and was hailed as one of the greatest sopranos of her time, yet she never performed on the operatic stage. A real shame.

When it was offered to costume her so that her colour would not be prominent…her reply was ‘No, I will not hide my race, I am proud of who I am.’

By 1896, however, she abandoned her career as a soloist to become the lead singer of Black Patti’s Troubadours, a vaudeville company and I feel so sad about that.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
Thank you for posting this Irwin! I'm pretty sure this is the same documentary my former supervisor put on DVD for me. I think he did it in two parts. I have to pull that out and compare. He is of Polish ancestry and shared my love of good soul music. I believe his basement looked like a record store from the way he described it. Unfortunately during Hurricane Sandy his house was demolished and nothing was salvageable. Booker T and the MGs were famous for Green Onions but here's my favorite by them. Stays in my Favorite Jazz & Instrumentals playlist.
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I'd never heard that one before. It kind of reminds me of Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, which they put out about three years later. I wonder if Steve Winwood's playing was inspired by Booker T's.

We watched the rest of the video this evening. It was well worth the watch for anyone who loves blues and soul music, or Shaft! :)

My wife and I went to Memphis about 12 or so years ago where I picked up the Back to Stax DVD... Ah, on checking YouTube, it's available to stream! Great music! Here's the video:
 
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Emmanuel Taylor Gordon (center front) with friends in White
Sulphur Springs, Montana. He would go on to become a world
famous singer in the 1920s, at the height of the Harlem
Renaissance. With his musical partner, J. Rosamond Johnson,
Gordon was a crucially important figure in popularizing African
American spirituals as an art form, giving many listeners their first
experience of black spirituals.

Gordon's story: working in the White Sulphur Springs brothels as
an errand boy, traveling the country in John Ringling's private
railway car, performing on vaudeville stages from New York to
Vancouver to Los Angeles, performing for royalty in England,
becoming a celebrated author with a best-selling 1929
autobiography, and his long bout of mental illness, adds depth to
the history of the Harlem Renaissance and makes him one of the
most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.
 
This is Sarah Boone. She was born into slavery and married a freedman at age 15. When her family relocated to New Haven Connecticut, she took up dressmaking as a profession. In the course of her work she noticed the difficulty of flattening out creases in the sleeves and bodies of women's dresses. Ironing at the time was done on a wooden plank propped between chairs or on the kitchen table. Sarah developed a design of a tapered board on a stand. By rotating the fabric around the board, it completely smoothed any portion of a dress. As a result, her design was issued US Patent # 473,653 on April 26, 1892. Mrs Boone was one of the first Black American women to be issued a patent and her design for the ironing board is still used today.

Ironing Board Inventor.jpg
 
Why is it so amazing the things BLACK people have accomplished?" Why shouldn't they have? Music, inventions, medicines, etc.?? They're people with the same talents, intelligence, etc. born with as much as any other race of people. As a young adult I once had a dream of myself and 2 black men being chased at night by white men through some woods to hang us. I felt strong horrible fear. I woke up before they caught us. I think the dream came from some black and white T V show. ... I had no idea why black people were frowned upon (hated-?)
 

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