The iconic “A Great Day in Harlem” photograph of 57 jazz musicians taken by Art Kane in 1958 was the inspiration for the recently recreated “A Great Day in Animation” photo of 54 Black professionals in animation.
The homage was the brainchild of Disney visual effects supervisor Marlon West (who GBN is exceedingly proud to have as a regular contributor – check out his latest #MusicMonday playlist for Juneteeth here), and was taken just a few weeks ago by Randy Shropshire with Jeff Vespa as production lead.
For decades, West has been moved by “A Great Day in Harlem,” as well as Jean Bach’s Oscar-nominated film of the same name, which documents how the photo came to be.
“I’ve had a framed copy of that photo in my office or somewhere for 30 years,” West tells Variety. “And I thought it would be cool to do the same thing with Black animators.”
Aided by his friends and colleagues Bruce Smith, Peter Ramsey and Everett Downing Jr., West began putting together a list of animation professionals to include, aiming for legends like Floyd Norman, whose work on 1959’s “Sleeping Beauty” made him Disney’s first-ever Black animator, and his close collaborator Leo D. Sullivan.
“In the original photo, Coleman Hawkins is standing front and center. He was one of the elders of those folks,” West explains. “I just envisioned Floyd Norman standing in Coleman Hawkins’ spot, and all of us radiating out from him, and Leo Sullivan and other grandmasters who have upped the game.”
It was also important to West to invite up-and-comers such as Latoya Raveneau, who recently directed “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” and Chrystin Garland, a background painter and designer on series like “Solar Opposites.”
“If people look at this photo 10 or 20 years from now, [I hope] they’re like, ‘There’s so-and-so when they were just starting out!” West says.
(2022 photo: Pictured above: Aaron Spurgeon, Abelle Hayford, Ayo Davis, Breana Williams, Brie E Henderson, Bruce W. Smith, Camille Eden, Carole Holliday, Chris Copeland, Chrystin Garland, Constance Allen, Deborah Anderson, Devin Crane, Eric, Ramsey, Everett Downing Jr., Floyd Norman, Frank Abney, Jay Francis, Justin Copeland, Kaela Lash, Kai Akira, Karen Toliver, Kelley Gardner, Kemp Powers, Kenny Thompkins, Kwesi Davis, Latoya Raveneau, Layron DeJarnette, Lennie Graves, Lenord Robinson, Leo D. Sullivan, Leo Sullivan Jr., Lyndon Barrois Jr., Lynne Southerland, Maimuna Venzant, Marcella Brown, Marlon West, Marshall Toomey, Morenike Dosu, Peter Ramsey, Pixote Hunt, Ralph Farquhar, Reginald Hudlin, Robert Tyler, Ron Husband, Ron Myrick, Shabrayia Cleaver, Shari B. Ellis, Shavonne Cherry, Shay Stone, Sidney Clifton, Swinton Scott, Tara Nicole Whitaker, Tyree Dillihay, Umaimah Damakka)
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done a #Juneteenth playlist for GBN. This year it shares a Sunday with Father’s Day.
While I didn’t grow up with the holiday, it’s believed to be the oldest African-American holiday, with annual celebrations on June 19th in some parts of the country dating back to 1866. Well.
Since becoming aware of it, I’ve been all-in for years. As a father and son, I am thrilled with the one-two holiday punch.
I’ve tried to gather a set of tunes that can be enjoyed while the grill is full of food, with folk sitting around the table, or when you’re chilling around the crib.
From its Galveston, Texas roots, is now one of five date-specific federal holidays along with New Year’s Day (January 1), Independence Day (July 4), Veterans Day (November 11), and Christmas Day (December 25).
Juneteenth will coincide with Father’s Day not only this year, but also in 2033, 2039, 2044, and 2050. It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986.
Do enjoy another free-wheeling and eclectic collection celebrating this uniquely American holiday by your friend and selector.
On Memorial Day 2022, we take a look at the African American origins of the federal holiday established to remember America’s fallen soldiers.
To read about it, read on. To hear about it, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and Editor-in-Chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, May 30th, 2022, which is also Memorial Day, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Although May 30, 1868 is cited as the first national commemoration of Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery, events lead by African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina to decorate the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers occurred on May 1, 1865, less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered.
Reports of this early version of Memorial Day or “Decoration Day” as it was called, were rediscovered in the Harvard University archives in the late 1990s by historian David Blight, author of the 2018 biography Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
When Charleston fell and Confederate troops evacuated the badly damaged city, those freed from enslavement remained. One of the first things those emancipated men and women did was to give the fallen Union prisoners a proper burial. They exhumed the mass grave and reinterred the bodies in a new cemetery with a tall, whitewashed fence inscribed with the words: “Martyrs of the Race Course.”
And then on May 1, 1865, something even more extraordinary happened. According to two reports that Blight found in The New York Tribune and The Charleston Courier, a crowd of 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves with some white missionaries, staged a parade around the race track.
Three thousand Black schoolchildren carried bouquets of flowers and sang “John Brown’s Body.” Members of the famed 54th Massachusetts and other Black Union regiments were in attendance and performed double-time marches. Black ministers recited verses from the Bible.
Despite the size of the gathering and newspaper coverage, the memory of this event was “suppressed by white Charlestonians in favor of their own version of the day,” Blight stated in the New York Times in 2011.
On May 31, 2010, near a reflecting pool at Hampton Park, the city of Charleston reclaimed this history by installing a plaque commemorating the site as the place where Blacks held the first Memorial Day on May 1, 1865.
During the dedication of the plaque, the city’s mayor at the time, Joe Riley, was present to celebrate the historic occasion which included a brass band and a reenactment of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment.
In 2017, the City of Charleston erected yet another sign reclaiming the history and commemorating the event:
“On May 1, 1865 a parade to honor the Union war dead took place here. The event marked the earliest celebration of what became known as “Memorial Day.” The crowd numbered in the thousands, with African American school children from newly formed Freedmen’s Schools leading the parade. They were followed by church leaders, Freedpeople, Unionists, and members of the 54th Massachusetts 34th and 104th U.S. Colored Infantries. The dead were later reinterred in Beaufort.”
To learn more about African Americans’ role in the creation of Memorial Day, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In the wake of the recent Kentucky Derby upset, today we take a brief look at Oliver Lewis, the jockey who won the very first Derby, and the history of Black jockeys at the event.
To read about it, read on. To hear about it, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, May 9th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Jockey Oliver Lewis won the inaugural Kentucky Derby atop the colt Aristides on May 17, 1875. One of thirteen Black jockeys in the fifteen-strong field, Lewis set an American record with his time of two minutes, 37.75 seconds over the mile and a half distance. (For the record, the Kentucky Derby became a 1.25 mile race in 1896).
Although Blacks dominated horseracing in the late 1800s, winning fifteen of the first twenty-eight Kentucky Derbies, by the early 1900s, they’d been pushed out of the sport, which also had become less accessible to the working classes.
James Winkfield won the Kentucky Derby in 1901 and 1902, but after 1921 there were no Black riders in the race until Marlon St. Julien in 2000.
To learn more about Oliver Lewis and the long heritage of African American people in horse racing, including the recent group of Black women owners who made history at the annual Kentucky Oaks Day horse racing event in Louisville when their horse “Seven Scents” scored first place during competition, you can watch the Kentucky Derby video on the history of Black Jockeys on YouTube, and check out the links provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
[Wilma Rudolph and her parents Ed and Blanche Rudolph as they rode in a parade after Olympic victory in Rome. Rudolph agreed to participate only if the event was desegregated. This was the first desegregated public event in Clarksville, Tennessee. Photo credit: Bob Ray via https://digital.library.nashville.org/digital/collection/nr/id/2227/]
On Mother’s Day 2022, we offer a quote from three-time Olympic gold medalist and international track star Wilma Rudolph, who rightfully and fatefully choose to believe her mother.
To read it and about her, read on. To hear it and more about Rudolph, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, May 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
US athlete Wilma Rudolph shows the gold medal she won at the Women’s 100 meters Summer Olympic Games sprint event on September 2, 1960 in Rome, Italy. (AP Photo)
Today, for Mother’s Day, we offer a quote from three-time Olympic Gold Medalist and National Track and Field Hall of Famer Wilma Rudolph, who had polio as a young child:
“My doctors told me I’d never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.”
Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely in June 1940 and after contracting Scarlet Fever, pneumonia, polio and infantile paralysis, Rudolph wore braces on her legs until she was nine years old.
Because there was so little medical care available to Black people in 1940s Clarksville, Tennessee, Wilma’s mother Blanche took her on weekly bus trips 50 miles away to Nashville to get Wilma treatment at Meharry Medical College.
Blanche and other family members also massaged Wilma’s weakened leg four times a week until Wilma had enough strength to no longer need braces, or the orthopedic shoe she wore until she was 11.
By the time she was 16, Wilma was running in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, bringing home a bronze medal in the 400-meter relay.
Rudolph earned a college scholarship to Tennessee State and in 1960, she headed to Rome with the goal of becoming the best woman runner in the world. She surpassed that goal, winning three gold medals and breaking world records in the 100 and 200 meters.
She was nicknamed “The Tornado” and became an international track star. Rudolph graduated college with a degree in elementary education, and taught for the majority of her life after she retired from athletics. Let’s hear a clip from Rudolph describing the last race she ever ran before she retired:
“It was Palo Alto, California, Stanford University, Russia versus the United States. I was running well, but the heart wasn’t there anymore. I mean, what do you dowhen you win all of it? To keep yourself motivated, you have to be a little bit hungry, to be there and stay there and to stay on top.
And this particular day, we were running a relay we were behind when we started off. And you always think on a staggered start and you know, on a staggered start that, okay, she’s gonna catch her in the turn. And by the time that baton is passed, we were going to be even. That didn’t happen. And then when they pass it the next time I said, well, by the time they get to the next person, we will be even, or be one step ahead.
And by the time it got to me, I saw that we were behind, and I made myself a promise that day I said, if you catch the Russian it’s history – retire. If you do not catch the Russian, you will have to run another four years for the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. I caught the Russian. I retired, it became history.
It was the fastest single race that I’ve ever ran in the history of my career. And to get a standing ovation in my home country, outdoors, which I’ve never had before, I think it was the grandest moment in my career. I retired that day, and I have never regretted it.”
Rudolph passed in 1994 of brain cancer, the same year her mother Blanche passed. Rudolph has been honored with a U.S. postage stamp, induction into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and National Women’s Hall of Fame, and in 2012 her hometown built the Wilma Rudolph Event Center. A life-sized bronze statue of Rudolph stands near the entrance of the building.
To learn more about Wilma Rudolph, watch videos of her Olympic races on YouTube, read her 1977 autobiographyWilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph, Wilma Rudolph: A Biographyfrom 2006 by Maureen Margaret Smith and the children’s book Wilma Rudolph: Athlete and Educatorby Alice K. Flanagan and check out the 1977 movie Wilma starring Cicely Tyson, Shirley Jo Finney and Denzel Washington, available on Vudu.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
[Image: Composite portrait of Bridget “Biddy” Mason and the First African Methodist Episcopalian Church at the intersection of 8th and Towne in Los Angeles, California, circa 1940. Photos courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library and California State University Dominguez Hills.]
Today, GBN highlights and celebrates 19th century entrepreneur and community builder Bridget “Biddy” Mason, who won her freedom in court and in her time became the wealthiest Black woman in Los Angeles.
To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, May 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Ever hear the one about the enslaved mother of three who sued for her freedom, won… and became the richest Black woman in Los Angeles? It’s no joke.
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Mississippi and is reported to have been taken from her mother as a young child. She learned about herbs and midwifery from older enslaved women and when her owner Robert Smith converted to Mormonism, he decided to move to Utah and join the community there.
Mason and her three children were part of that trek – literally – she had to walk the 2,000 miles behind the wagon caravan, tending to the livestock, her owners and her children along the way. After a few years in Utah, Smith relocated to a Mormon enclave in San Bernadino, California.
We end our celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth today with a short tribute to a seminal architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong.
To read about Armstrong, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 30th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we’d like to close out #JazzAppreciationMonth, with a short tribute to a primary architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong:
[“St. Louis Blues” by Louis Armstrong]
“No him, no me,” is how jazz innovator Dizzy Gillespie described the impact of musician Louis Armstrong.
Widely believed to be the first great jazz soloist, Armstrong’s improvisations on the cornet and trumpet influenced every jazz musician after him and elevated the musical style to a new, exciting standard.
Born in August of 1901, during one of the more challenging times of his childhood, Armstrong was sent to a home for boys in 1912 after firing his stepfather’s gun in the air during a New Year’s Eve celebration.
While at the “Colored Waifs Home for Boys” as it was called, Armstrong learned how to play the cornet. When Armstrong was released, as he worked odd jobs he was mentored on his horn by one of the best players in town — Joe “King” Oliver – and eventually replaced Oliver on cornet in Kid Ory’s band.
Armstrong soon reunited with Oliver when Oliver formed his own band in Chicago, which lead to Armstrong’s first recorded solo on record, 1923’s “Chimes Blues.”
[Excerpt of “Chimes Blues”]
Armstrong soon left his mentor to join Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra, the top Black big band in New York. But the big city lifestyle and creative restraints Armstrong encountered lead him back to New Orleans to play with his wife Lil Armstrong’s band at the Dreamland Café.
Armstrong also began recording with his studio band – first the Hot Five and then Hot Sevens – even though they weren’t who he played with for live performances.
These recordings with smaller groups of musicians were an early influence on what would that become the norm after the swing band/orchestra’s hey day in the 1930s that ushered in the bebop era in the 1940s.
Armstrong’s stop-time solos on numbers like “Cornet Chop Suey” and “Potato Head Blues” changed jazz history, featuring daring rhythmic choices, swinging phrasing and incredible high notes.
[Excerpt “Potato Head Blues”]
Armstrong also innovated with his vocals, and his riff-style “scat” singing was emulated by popular singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
[Excerpt of “Heebie Jeebies”]
Armstrong’s influence on other musicians was impactful and immediate. A young pianist from Pittsburgh, Earl Hines, assimilated Armstrong’s ideas into his piano playing, and together, they made some of the greatest recordings in jazz history in 1928, including their duet on “West End Blues”:
[Excerpt of “West End Blues”]
“West End Blues” proved without a doubt that popular dance music like jazz music was also capable of producing high art.
As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he toured in Europe, began recording hit songs of the day and appeared in Hollywood movies such asPennies From Heaven and High Societywith Bing Crosby, The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart and New Orleans with Billie Holiday. Armstrong also recorded with a smaller six-piece combo, the All Stars.
The personnel of this combo would frequently change, but Armstrong would perform live with his All Stars until the end of his career. Members, at one time or another, included Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Sid Catlett, Barney Bigard, Trummy Young, Edmond Hall, Billy Kyle and Tyree Glenn, among other jazz legends.
During this time in the 1940s and 1950s, Armstrong had hits with his versions of songs such as “That Lucky Old Sun,” “A Kiss to Build a Dream On,” “Blueberry Hill” “La Vie En Rose” and one of the biggest hits of his career, his version of “Mack The Knife”:
[Excerpt from “Mack The Knife”]
As times advanced and changed, Armstrong’s style was seen as outmoded and outdated. He received criticism for remaining silent on politics and not lending his voice to the fight against racism and for civil rights.
Even when Armstrong did speak up, as in 1957 when he called out President Eisenhower for allowing Governor Orval Faubus to use the National Guard to prevent the Little Rock Nine from integrating Little Rock Central High School, he was met with criticism from whites and Blacks alike – the former for saying anything and the latter for seeming to speak out too late.
Yet and still, Armstrong kept on with doing what he wanted to do musically and defying all odds and at the height of the British invasion of the rock and roll era, he scored a #1 Billboard pop hit in 1964 at the age of 63 with his version of “Hello, Dolly”:
[Excerpt of “Hello, Dolly”]
In 1965, Armstrong started performing the Fats Waller tune “Black and Blue” live again a decade after removing it from his repertoire. He changed a lyric from being “I’m white inside” to “I’m right inside” and turned it into a protest that he would continue to play for the rest of his life:
[1965 version of “Black and Blue” from East Germany]
Three years later however, Armstrong’s version of “What A Wonderful World” did not get the same reception in the United States. But it was a number one hit overseas in England and South Africa in 1967, and after its appearance almost two decades later in the 1986 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, “What a Wonderful World” became a signature tune and perennial favorite of Armstrong’s, known the world over to this day.
[Excerpt of “What a Wonderful World”]
Armstrong’s home in Corona, Queens, which he shared with his fourth wife Lillian from 1943 until his passing in 1971, was declared a National Historic Landmark in in 1977. Today, the house is home to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which annually receives thousands of visitors from all over the world.
Even though his most famous nickname was “Satchmo” for his “satchel mouth,” New Orleans native Armstrong was more lovingly known among musicians as “Pops,” as he was the father of it all.
You can also watch the 1957 documentary Satchmo the Great which is currently posted on YouTube, Ken Burn’s Jazz miniseries on PBS, and be on the lookout for what Apple Original Films announced last year would be the definitive Louis Armstrong documentary produced by Imagine Entertainment where the story will be told entirely through Armstrong’s own words titled Black & Blues: The Colorful Ballad of Louis Armstrong.
And speaking of Louis Armstrong’s words, let’s hear a bit of him speaking about love and life from an audio clip posted on louisarmstronghouse.org:
[Clip of Louis Armstrong speaking]
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from Louis Armstrong’s music are included under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today, GBN celebrates Brad Lomax, the Black Panther Party member and disability activist who helped lead the “504 Sit In” to demand the federal government provide accessibility in a federal buildings and institutions.
To read about Lomax, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 28th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
As a young adult, Black Panther Party member Brad Lomax was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When he started using a wheelchair every day, Lomax began to notice an often unseen “ism” — ableism.
Public buildings and transit without ramps. Inaccessible schools, housing, and workplaces. Lomax joined the Center for Independent Living, the Bay Area group which successfully lobbied for curb cuts on street corners.
In 1977, Lomax helped lead a protest that became known as the “504 Sit-In” in the San Francisco Federal Building, where disabled activists took the federal government to task for not implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which required accessibility in all federal programs and institutions.
The protest lasted longer than any other sit in in United States history. The protestors were assisted by Lomax’s fellow Black Panthers, who delivered provisions to the activists daily.
After a month, the government finally began to implement Section 504 in all federal programs and institutions and this action helped pave the way for the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today, GBN celebrates revolutionary and insightful comedian, writer and actor Richard Pryor as we highlight a joke from his 1983 comedy concert film Here and Now, which is as relevant now as it was almost 40 years ago.
To read about Pryor, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, April 27th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category for Black Comedians we call “Yeah, You Funny” and it’s a quote of a joke from groundbreaking and innovative comedian Richard Pryor, taken from his self-directed 1983 concert film/documentary entitled Here and Now:
“I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now: relaxed! ‘Cause when I heard the police car, I knew they weren’t coming after me!”
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor, Sr. was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940 and by his early 20s was a working comedian in nightclubs around the country, performing material that was funny but ultimately considered middlebrow and safe.
Pyror was about to perform another standard set in 1967 when, as he shared in his 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions, he had an epiphany and walked away.
When he returned to comedy the next year, what he did was nothing short of revolutionary. Not only did he use profanity, he tackled social issues, racial issues and told real life stories as well as created characters to tell stories and delivery laser sharp satire and commentary on the human condition.
Pryor recorded several critically and commercially successful Grammy award winning comedy albums in the 1970s, starred in television specials, his own short-lived television series, several movies like Uptown Saturday Night, Which Way Is Up?, Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, as well as his wildly popular comedy concert films, 1979’s Richard Pryor: Live In Concert, 1982’s Richard Pryor: Live on The SunsetStrip and 1983’s Here and Now, which he also directed and where today’s quote is from.
Pryor’s difficult childhood and troubles with substance abuse informed his comedy as well – making his searing observations all the more poignant and intimate when he chose to turn his commentary inward.
Pryor had health challenges from the mid-1980s until his passing in 2005, but worked whenever he could, and remained acknowledged and respected for his contributions to the evolution of stand-up comedy as an art form.
Known as “the comedian’s comedian,” in 1998, Pryor was the first comedian to receive the now-coveted Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, and in 2006 was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Pryor was unveiled in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois with the title “Richard Pryor: More Than Just a Comedian.”
You can also watch the 2013 documentary Richard Pyror: Omit the Logic, now on Hulu, the 2019 documentary I Am Richard Pryor, or the 2021 episode of ABC.com’s Superstarseries dedicated to Pryor.
There are also several DVD collections available of his feature films and his filmed concerts, and of course, his comedy albums. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
For #JazzAppreciationMonth, we explore the term “bop” — a word often used today to describe a song with a good groove. I
ts musical reference origins however, are rooted in the early 1940s when “bop” was used to describe an new and exciting intricate form of jazz. To read about it, read on. To hear about it, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 26th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s phrase is another one in honor of #JazzAppreciationMonth… “Bop.”
“Bop” is a slang term most currently used to mean a really good song, but originally used to reference the jazz genre “bebop,” “rebop” or “hard bop.”
Invented in the 1940s and 1950s by musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Christian, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Mary Lou Williams and Thelonious Monk – right now you’re listening to the song called “Be-Bop” by Dizzy Gillespie, originally written, recorded and released by him in 1945.
The “bop” style of playing consisted of intricate phrasings and harmonic improvisations over chord melodies of standards as well as original compositions. Dizzy Gillespie even titled his 1979 autobiography To Be or Not to Bop.
To learn more about the term “bop,” links to sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
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Armstrong also began recording with his studio band – first the Hot Five and then Hot Sevens – even though they weren’t who he played with for live performances.
As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he toured in Europe, began recording hit songs of the day and appeared in Hollywood movies such as Pennies From Heaven and High Society with Bing Crosby, The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart and New Orleans with Billie Holiday. Armstrong also recorded with a smaller six-piece combo, the All Stars.
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To learn more about the term “bop,” links to sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.