Pioneering percussionist, composer, band leader, and drummer Max Roach was born Maxwell Lemuel “Max” Roach in North Carolina to parents Alphonse and Cressie, and worked with dozens of musical greats, including Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Posts published in “Commemorations”
This film image released by Paramount Pictures shows Denzel Washington portraying Whip Whitaker in a scene from “Flight.” (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Robert Zuckerman)
Denzel Washington scored his first Oscar nomination in over a decade this morning for his acclaimed performance as an alcoholic pilot in the hit drama Flight. This is Denzel’s sixth career Academy Award nomination, making him the most honored black actor in history. He’s won twice before: supporting actor for 1989′s Glory and best actor for his villainous role in 2001′s Training Day.
This recognition caps perhaps a career-best year for the A-list superstar, following the box office success of February’s action thriller Safe House and now his return to Hollywood’s most prestigious night.
Meanwhile, Quvenzhané Wallis received her first Oscar nomination ever for her acting debut in Beasts of the Southern Wild. At nine, Wallis is also the youngest actress to ever be nominated in the Academy’s leading actress category.Auditioning for the lead role when she was only 5 years old, Quvenzhané was 6 when filming began in 2010 in Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles, not too far from her hometown of Houma, Louisiana.
Beasts of the Southern Wild won the ‘Grand Jury Prize’ at the Sundance Independent Film Festival and won the Camera d’Or for best first film at the Cannes Film Festival.
To Randall Halstead and other minority officers in the Boston Police Department, the story of Sergeant Horatio J. Homer serves as a beacon of hope and of the power of perseverance.
Homer, who in 1878 became the department’s first African-American officer, ushered in a new era in the city over a 40-year career. In the decade after his appointment, the force hired as many as a half-dozen additional black officers, in large part on his recommendation.
Last week, the department unveiled a plaque honoring Homer at the Area B-2 police precinct in Roxbury, a neighborhood where he once resided. Halstead, a deputy superintendent, presided over the ceremony, which some of Homer’s descendants attended.
“This man set a precedent,” said Halstead. “To move forward, you have to know where you come from.”
The tribute is the latest honor bestowed upon Homer by the Police Department.
Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall in the National Blacks in Wax Museum (Courtesy of Joanne Martin)
With Black History Month just around the corner, there’s a more unique way to learn about the African-American experience besides opening up a textbook.
The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore has been featuring African-American historical wax figures for the past 30 years.
When they opened the first African-American wax museum in 1983, founder Dr. Joanne Martin along with her late husband Dr. Elmer Martin were inspired to create this museum when they realized children in their community felt the color of their skin was a negative trait.
“For children, it becomes as close as we can to help them understand that [these historical figures] were real people who had real challenges, who had to make hard decisions in life,” Martin told theGrio in a phone interview. “[The displays] depict their struggles and hardships in a more tangible way.”
Starting with only four wax figures in their store front in the early 1980s, the museum now has moved into a 15,000 square foot facility and houses over 150 African-American wax figures.
From a scene of Harriet Tubman helping to free a runaway slave to a powerful display of a black man being lynched, Martin’s mission for the museum is to depict compelling, realistic scenes to stimulate a public interest for African-American history.
She believes while children learn about these prominent black historical figures in school, many of them do not know what these men and women look like.
“[Our museum] puts a face on history – brings these people up close and personal,” Martin adds. “As a child growing up, I didn’t even know what Booker T. Washington looked like and I’m from the south! He was one of the most well-known and powerful men during his time. I didn’t know what he looked like until I saw the figure in the museum.”
The museum plans on setting up a national traveling exhibit so other cities can experience these one-of-a-kind wax figures. While the schedule for the exhibit is still pending, Martin tells theGrio that they plan on traveling to Dallas, Jacksonville, and Panama City.
The museum is also hoping to expand again to an even larger, more modern facility in April 2017.
While February or “Black History Month” tends to be the museum’s busiest time, Martin also encourages the community to visit the exhibit throughout the entire year, reinforcing the names of these figures in the minds of young people.
“You’re in a position to teach people history that art, pictures, books or other media won’t allow,” Martin says. “So much history, so much struggle, so many people to be honored, therefore it takes more than a month to be able to do justice to black history.”
article by Brittany Tom via thegrio.com
Writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston (pictured) was one of the most-outstanding authors that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance. Over the course of four novels, an autobiography, and dozens of published writings, Hurston has been an inspiration for distinguished writers, such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, and countless others.
Hurston was the fifth of eight children born to her parents, John and Lucy Ann, in the small town of Notasulga in Alabama. The family uprooted when she was just a toddler, making their new home in Eatonville, Fla. Her father, a preacher, would become mayor of the town, which was one of the first all-black incorporated cities in the United States. After the death of her school teacher mother in 1904, her father remarried and she was sent to boarding school in nearby Jacksonville. Hurston was later expelled after her father stopped paying the tuition.
The music of Prince will be honored at a special concert at Carnegie Hall in March and The Rootsand Talib Kweli will be among those that pay tribute.
The show, the latest in an annual concert series put on by New York entrepreneur Michael Dorf, will raise money for various music education organizations, including Music Unites, the Pinwheel Project and the Center for Arts Education. Past shows have paid tribute to The Rolling Stones, The Who, Joni Mitchell and Elton John among other luminaries.
In addition to Talib Kweli and The Roots, performers at the show who will interpret Prince songs will include the Blind Boys of Alabama, DeVotchKa, Living Colour, Madeleine Peyroux and more. Tickets for the concert, to take place March 7, are available online here.
article by Reggie Ugwu via bet.com
In addition to Talib Kweli and The Roots, performers at the show who will interpret Prince songs will include the Blind Boys of Alabama, DeVotchKa, Living Colour, Madeleine Peyroux and more. Tickets for the concert, to take place March 7, are available online here.
article by Reggie Ugwu via bet.com
Philanthropists Joanna and Daniel Rose have donated funds to Yale University to create the Henry Louis Gates Jr. Lectures. Professor Gates is a 1973 alumnus of Yale and currently serves as Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and is director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
The first Henry Louis Gates Jr. Lecture was delivered by Kwame Anthony Appiah, the Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, and a close friend of professor Gates. Speaking at the inaugural event, Dr. Gates stated, “It is difficult for me to think of a greater honor in the life of a Yale alumnus than to have one’s alma mater create a lecture in one’s name.”
article via jbhe.com
Olivia Stinson, a sophomore at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina was recognized as a 2012 L’Oreal Paris International Woman of Worth. Stinson, a business administration major from Charlotte, was honored for creating the Peers Engaged and Networking (PEN) Pals Book Club for the children of incarcerated parents. At age 13, Stinson used a $500 grant to start the project for children aged 12 to 19. The PEN Pals Book Club has evolved into a full support group for the children of parents who are in prison. She has now added a Be a Reader (BEAR) Book club for children aged 2 to 11. The clubs now not only provide books and other school supplies, but also food and other support. Since the program was established, more than 4,000 children have received benefits from the program.
For winning the Woman of Worth distinction, Stinson’s book clubs will receive a $10,000 contribution from L’Oreal Paris. To learn more, check out Stinson’s Huffington Post blog here.
article via jbhe.com
Emancipation Proclamation Stamp dedication at The National Archives by (left to right) Danny Davis, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ronald Stroman, David Ferriero, A’Leila Bundles, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon. (Photo: U.S. Postal Service)
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, creating what Deputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman called, “a powerful symbol of President Lincoln’s determination to end the war, to end slavery, and to reconstruct the economy of the country without slave labor.
January 1st, 1863, is the day that the 16th President of the United States of America, President Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming that all slaves in the Confederacy were “forever free” because these Southern states refused to rejoin the Union and were in “rebellion” against the United States of America.
Ironically, the Union states were allowed to maintain their slaves because President Lincoln did not want to risk friction among them. Subsequently, freedmen fled to the North to join the Union Army, and slavery became the pivotal focus of the Civil War. The initial conflict began over various other reasons regarding states’ individual rights, such as taxation, the South demanding control over their own political and socio-economic infrastructure, as well as states’ resources.