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GBN’s Daily Drop: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner – Inventor of the Sanitary Belt (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner – Inventor of the Sanitary Belt (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 4, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Friday, March 4 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022, about inventor Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner who, along with the sanitary belt, patented her creations of a serving tray attachment for walkers, a wall-mountable back washer and an accessible toilet paper holder:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

 

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

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 Friday, March 4th, 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 Inventors we call “You Know We Did That, Right?”

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was determined to help women everywhere when she invented and patented an adjustable sanitary belt with an in-built, moisture-proof napkin pocket in 1956. When a company showed interest in licensing her design, they quickly reversed course after discovering that Kenner was Black.

Then once Kenner’s patent expired, her design became public domain and she never got paid for it. But still determined to make a difference, Mary and her sister Mildred, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, invented a serving tray attachment for walkers, a mountable back washer, and an accessible toilet tissue holder – earning four more patents for her life-enhancing creations.

To learn more about Kenner, check out Marc Lamont Hill’s video segment on BNC News about her as well as links to other 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, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can give a positive rating or review, share [links to your favorite episodes] on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, March 3 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver about the lineage of women freedom fighters in America:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

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, March 3rd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver from her 1998 essay, “Women, Power and Revolution”:

“I think it is important to place the women who fought oppression as Black Panthers within the longer tradition of freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells-Barnett, who took on an entirely oppressive world and insisted that their race, their gender, and their humanity be respected all at the same time.”

To learn more about Kathleen Cleaver and to read more of her work, check out the 2001 book Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, Cleaver’s personal papers that now reside at Emory University, where she was once a law professor, and links to other 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, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 2, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday,  March 2  entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Sojourner Truth, the formerly enslaved protestor and advocate for women’s rights, prison reform and the abolition of slavery:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, March 2nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

In 1827, while slavery was still legal in New York, Isabella Baumfree escaped to freedom with her baby daughter. She went to court to recover her son and two years later she became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man.

In 1843 Baumfree renamed herself Sojourner Truth and began advocating for the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, prison reform and the end of capital punishment across the entire United States.

The first Black woman in America to attain national fame for protesting, Truth was honored in 2009 with a bust in the U.S. Capitol Building, and in 2020 as part of the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument unveiled in New York’s Central Park.

Truth was also very recently honored when New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a new state park in Ulster that will be named the Sojourner Truth State Park, and it will open later this year.To learn more about Sojourner Truth, read her autobiography The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, the biography Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter, and for children, there’s My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth written by Ann Turner and illustrated by James Ransome.

Also, do yourself a favor and check out the Sojourner Truth Project online where they compare the original transcription by Marcus Robinson of Truth’s speech in 1851 with the version that became popularized 12 years later. Other sources are also provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

1851 Sojourner Truth Speech – excerpt read by ST:

“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man.  I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion…”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: “We Got Game” – For Which Movie Did Denzel Washington Win His Best Actor Oscar? (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: “We Got Game” – For Which Movie Did Denzel Washington Win His Best Actor Oscar? (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 25, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Friday, February 25 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 and is the year’s first foray into our Black Trivia category called “We Got Game”:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, February 25th, 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 Trivia we call “We Got Game”:

Okay, so today’s daily drop episode is going to be a little unique, as it’s the first time presenting the Trivia category, which is a multiple choice question that we want to give you time to answer. So, what I’m going to do is read the question, I’ll read the choices, and then I’ll prompt you to pause the episode if you want to take longer than the 10 seconds that I’m going to let pass before I share the answer. Sound good? Ready to see if you got game? All right, here we go:

For which movie did Denzel Washington win the Academy Award for Best Actor? Was it…

A. Malcolm X?  B.Training Day  C. Glory… or D. Fences?

Now go ahead and pause the episode now if you want to take more than 10 seconds before you hear the answer. Otherwise, I’ll be back in 10… Okay, time’s up. The answer is… B. Training Day.

Including his recent nod for The Tragedy of MacBeth, Washington has been nominated by the Academy for his acting ten times, and so far, he’s won twice, once in 1989 as Best Supporting Actor for Glory and then for Best Actor in 2001’s Training Day.

Washington was nominated for his role in Fences in 2017 but lost the Best Actor gold guy to Gary Oldman, star of The Darkest Hour. Still, a win might have felt like déjà vu to Washington that year – he won the Best Actor Tony Award for the same part in 2010.

To learn more about Denzel Washington and his award-winning career, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Sources:

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the 1st African American Graduate of West Point (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the 1st African American Graduate of West Point (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 24, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, February 24 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first African American graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, February 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Justice came slowly to Henry O. Flipper, the first African American West Point Academy graduate, but come it did. After graduating in 1877, Flipper became the first non-white US Army officer to lead the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.

During the Apache Wars and the Victorio Campaign though, Flipper was court-martialed for alleged improprieties, but in 1994 his descendants pushed to get Flipper’s case reviewed, and President Bill Clinton pardoned Flipper after it was concluded that his conviction was unjust.

West Point now bestows an annual Henry O. Flipper Award to graduates who exhibit, quote, “leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties.”

To learn more about Henry O. Flipper, read his autobiography, The Colored Cadet at West Point: Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U. S. A., First Graduate of Color from the U. S. Military Academy, the 2015 biography Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate by Jane Eppinga, or Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point complied and edited by Theodore D. Harris.You can also check out the West Point Military Academy and US Army videos on his legacy that are on YouTube, and links to other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Sources:

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like GBN’s Daily Drops, please consider following us wherever you get your podcasts, give us a positive rating or review, share your favorites on social media or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Harlem Renaissance Visionary Aaron Douglas – “The Father of African American Art” (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Harlem Renaissance Visionary Aaron Douglas – “The Father of African American Art” (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 23, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, February 23 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 and offers a quote from renowned Harlem Renaissance artist and arts educator Aaron Douglas:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, February 23rd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today we offer a quote from Kansas-born artist and arts educator Aaron Douglas:

“Labor has been one of the most important aspects of our development . . .  It is a thing that we should be proud of, because we have that part of our life that has gone into the building of America. Not only of ourselves, but in the building of American life.”

As a young artist in the 1920s, Douglas illustrated Alain Locke’s The New Negro: An Interpretation as well as James Weldon Johnson’s collection of poems, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Douglas established an expressive, geometric style that drew upon his study of African art and his understanding of the intersection of cubism and art deco.

Douglas created a style that soon became the visual signature of the Harlem Renaissance and earned him the moniker “The Father of African American Art.”

Aspects of Negro Life: Song of the Towers by Aaron Douglas, 1934 (courtesy nypl.org)

Douglas went on to paint several public murals including the Aspects of Negro Life mural series at the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library, which is still there today.

Douglas influenced artists such as Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, and he schooled countless others while serving as chair of the art department and HBCU Fisk University for over 25 years.

To learn more about Douglas’ life and work, you could read the 1995 biography Art, Race and the Harlem Renaissance by Amy Helene Kirschke, take a look at several of his works on wikiart.org, watch the New York Met’s video about his work on YouTube and check out the links to other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Sources:

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Escaped as George Washington Ate (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Ona “Oney” Judge – the Enslaved Woman Who Escaped as George Washington Ate (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 21, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop Podcast for Monday, February 21, 2022, based on the  “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format. It’s about Ona “Oney” Judge, who was enslaved by George Washington and Martha Washington, escaped and despite Washington’s position of power as President, was never caught.

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, February 21th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today, on President’s Day, we are honoring someone who was all too familiar with America’s first president George Washington — and her name was Ona “Oney” Judge.

Ona “Oney” Judge knew there was no time like dinnertime to make her escape. Enslaved by President George Washington and his wife, Martha, in 1796 Judge secretly booked passage on a boat and left the then capital, Philadelphia, as the Washingtons ate, determined not to return to their plantation in Mount Vernon and remain enslaved.

Judge hid in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, by then a free state, and as president, Washington knew the scrutiny would be bad if he used a slave catcher. Instead, he sent emissaries after her three times, but Judge refused to return.

Though she was technically was still a fugitive when Washington died in 1799, she was finally left alone, free and “never caught.” On February 25, 2008, Philadelphia celebrated the first “Oney Judge Day” at the President’s House site.

To learn more about Judge, read the 2018 book Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar or the 2020 children’s book Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition, also by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, you can watch the Museum of the American Revolution’s Ona Judge Virtual Tour on YouTube or check out the links to other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

I also want to take a second to make a personal note that whenever I’m presenting anything I will say “an enslaved person” or “people” because no one was born a slave and that’s a status that’s put upon them by society. But if it’s the term like “slave catcher” or it’s a title of a book I will say what is written. Other than that though? “Enslaved person, enslaved people.” Happy President’s Day.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.  Additional music included and permitted under Public Domain license was “Stars and Stripes Forever” composed by John Philip Sousa.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Ann Lowe – Fashion Designer for Harlem, Hollywood and the White House (LISTEN)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Ann Lowe – Fashion Designer for Harlem, Hollywood and the White House (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 16, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, February 16 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about haute couture designer and entrepreneur Ann Lowe.

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, February 16th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

As New York’s Fashion Week for 2022 concludes, today we take a look at esteemed designer and dressmaker Ann Lowe.

In 1914, when Ann Lowe was sixteen years old, her mother, who was a seamstress, died suddenly. Though grieving, Lowe finished her mother’s last job—creating four ball gowns for the First Lady of Alabama and launching her career as a designer of haute couture.

Years later, although she received no credit for either, Lowe made both actress Olivia de Havilland’s distinctive flower-covered dress for the 1946 Academy Awards and Jacqueline Kennedy’s iconic wedding dress in 1953.

Her store, Ann Lowe’s Gowns, opened in Harlem in 1950, and in 1968, when she opened a second location, Lowe became the first Black woman to own a boutique on Madison Avenue.

To learn more about Ann Lowe’s life and career, read Something To Prove: A Biography of Ann Lowe America’s Forgotten Designer by Julia Faye Smith, check out her designs on the Fashion Institute of Technology’s website, the National First Ladies Library lecture on Lowe that’s on YouTube, as well as links to other sources provided in today’s show notes as well as in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Other sources for Lowe:

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley – Dressmaker, Author and Confidante to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (LISTEN)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley – Dressmaker, Author and Confidante to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 12, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast, on Lincoln’s birthday, is based on the Saturday, February 12 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022. It’s about the amazing Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, an enslaved woman owned by her own father who managed to buy her freedom and become dressmaker and confidante to first lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

(Btw, GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22!)

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this 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, February 12th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today, on Lincoln’s birthday, we are honoring 19th century dressmaker and designer Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley.

Against all odds, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley had perseverance, talent and style. Owned by her own father, Keckley was born enslaved in 1818. Despite being treated brutally, she eventually became an accomplished seamstress, and in 1855 Keckley had earned enough money to purchase her and her son’s freedom.

She then built a dressmaking business and became dresser and confidante to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1863 she founded a relief association for newly freed Blacks. Keckley published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, in 1868.

To learn more about Keckley, you can read her autobiography, which is in the public domain and online at the internet archive, check out The Elizabeth Keckley Reader, Volumes 1 & 2, which are two collections of essays and other published works about Keckley, check out the dresses she designed online, including the one for Mary Todd Lincoln that resides at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, and watch her short biography on YouTube produced by the Smithsonian Channel.

Keckley, played by Gloria Reuben, is also a featured character in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Black Lexicon – What “The Drinking Gourd” Means (LISTEN)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Black Lexicon – What “The Drinking Gourd” Means (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 11, 2022

[Image via National Park Services; nps.gov]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Friday, February 11 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that explains the term “The Drinking Gourd.”

(Btw, GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22!)

You can also follow or subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just listen every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, February 11th, 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? “The Drinking Gourd.”

“The Drinking Gourd” is a term from African American folklore used by enslaved people to reference “The Big Dipper” constellation. Thus, instructions along the Underground Railroad to “follow the Drinking Gourd” meant to follow the North Star as a guide on the path to freedom.

The term also referred to the hollowed-out gourd used by enslaved people and indentured workers to hold drinking water. The folksong “Follow the Drinking Gourd” was first published in 1928 and has been sung and recorded over the decades.

Right now you are listening to a taste of singer/songwriter Richie Havens’ version from the 1991 album, Songs of the Civil War.

Several children’s stories also employ the phrase and its lore, such as Jeanette Winter’s 1992 illustrated book Follow The Drinking Gourd and the 1993 Morgan Freeman-narrated and Taj Mahal-scored half-hour visual audiobook illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan also titled Follow The Drinking Gourd, which is currently available on YouTube. Links to these sources are provided in today’s show notes.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)