Althea Gibson, the first Black tennis player to win a Grand Slam title, was honored in her hometown of Harlem, NY with a street renaming in her honor on what would have been her 95th birthday.
The intersection of West 143rd Street and Malcolm X Boulevard, where Gibson grew up, is now called Althea Gibson Way.
The ceremony took place last week in front of Gibson’s old apartment building on 143rd Street and was attended by Gibson’s family members, who were given a replica of the new street sign.
Born in 1927, Gibson was the daughter of sharecroppers in South Carolina who moved to Harlem in 1929. There, she was introduced to the Harlem River Tennis Courts in 1941, where she developed her skills.
Gibson won the French Open in 1956, and subsequently took home back-to-back Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open in 1957 and 1958.
As #JazzAppreciationMonth nears its end, today GBN celebrates the “Home of Happy Feet” that was one of the first integrated public entertainment spaces in the U.S., Harlem’s once famous Savoy Ballroom.
To read about the Savoy, read on. To hear about it, 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 bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 24th, 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 Museums and Landmarks we call “Get The Knowledge”:
Located in Harlem, New York, the Savoy Ballroom was known as “The World’s Finest Ballroom” and the “Home of Happy Feet” from its 1926 opening to its 1958 close.
Unlike other ballrooms of the era, the Savoy always had a no-discrimination policy and showcased the finest swing music in the city.
The Savoy offered non-stop music from two bandstands that attracted dancing pros like Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers as well as everyday people looking to have a good time.
Chick Webb, of the prominent house band leaders at the Savoy, had a top 10 hit in 1934 with the song composed by his saxophonist Edgar Sampson that you are hearing now, called – what else – “Stompin’ At The Savoy.”
In 2022, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, unveiled a commemorative plaque for the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue:
To learn more about the Savoy Ballroom, check out welcometothesavoy.com, a site that’s restoring the Savoy with a VR experience, and they have a great collection of photos from the Savoy’s heyday on view now, watch the 1992 television movie Stompin’ At The Savoydirected by Debbie Allen, available on Amazon Prime Video or Roku.
Watch clips about the history of the Savoy on YouTube, or read Swinging At The Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer by Norma Miller. Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org
This has been a bonus 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.
“Stompin’ At The Savoy” by Chick Webb’s Orchestra is 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’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is aboutFreedom’s Journal, the first Black-owned newspaper founded in 1827 #onthisday by Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm. It’s based on the Wednesday, March 16 entry from the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:
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 (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 16th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. It’s in the category of Black Firsts we call, “It’s About Time”:
Fed up with reading racist commentary in the 19th century mainstream press, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm started their own paper – Freedom’s Journal.
Founded March 16, 1827, in New York City — the same year New York State abolished slavery — the four-page weekly was the first Black-owned newspaper in the United States.
It denounced slavery and lynchings, advocated for voting rights, covered international news and celebrated Black achievements.
Although Freedom’s Journal folded in 1829, shortly before Russwurm emigrated to Liberia, its two-year existence helped spawn at least 40 similar papers over the next four decades and kicked off the long standing, time-honored tradition of the Black Press in America.
To learn more about Freedom’s Journal, you can check out the digitized archive of all 103 issues of the paper on wisconsinhistory.org, as well as 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. 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.
Third time is the charm. The twice-pandemic delayed Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala will take place on June 16, 2022, at the Marriott Marquis New York’s Times Square, according to Variety.com.
Originally set for June 10, 2020, the June 16 ceremony will celebrate previously announced songwriters Mariah Carey, Pharrell Williams / Chad Hugo (the Neptunes), Ernie Isley / Marvin Isley / O’Kelly Isley / Ronald Isley / Rudolph Isley / Chris Jasper (the Isley Brothers), Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Steve Miller, , Rick Nowels and William “Mickey” Stevenson.
Paul Williams will receive the prestigious Johnny Mercer Award and Universal Music Publishing Chairman-CEO Jody Gerson will receive the Abe Olman Publisher Award.
Full biographies and a complete list of inductees are available on the Songwriters Hall of Fame website at https://www.songhall.org.
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.comor 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.
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 Projectonline 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.
[Photo: Genelle Guzman-McMillan and family. Credit: Courtesy Genelle Guzman]
In commemoration of the lives lost and forever changed by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., today Good Black News highlights the story of the last person pulled alive from the rubble at the World Trade Center in New York — Genelle Guzman-McMillan.
Trapped under the rubble for 27 hours before being rescued, Guzman-McMillan, a young Black immigrant woman from Trinidad, was working as an office assistant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower when it was hit by a plane hijacked by terrorists.
Guzman-McMillan had made her way down to the staircase to the 13th floor before the entire building collapsed, shattering her leg, injuring her head and burning her face. It took over a day for first responders to find her, and she kept herself alive with thoughts of reuniting with her daughter Kimberly, who was 12 at the time, and through her faith.
After spending over a month in the hospital healing from her wounds, on November 7, 2001 Guzman-McMillan (then Guzman) affirmed the continued gift of her life by marrying boyfriend Roger McMillan, who proposed not long after her rescue. They since have had two more daughters and live in Long Island.
“I was given a new life,” says Guzman McMillan to people.com, now a supervisor for the Port Authority at LaGuardia airport. “I know that God has a bigger plan for me and I just try to do what is right. And encourage people in order to try to move forward despite the adversity in life. My faith is just growing stronger and stronger.”In 2011, Guzman-McMillan wrote her memoir Angel in the Rubble about her experience, which is available on Amazon.
She discusses her story with Robin Roberts on ABC below:
New York’s worthless studios, a not-for-profit space for artists, organized The Plywood Protection Project last summer in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, with the intention of making public art that paid tribute to the racial justice movement.
Tanda Francis, one of the five artists who worked on the project with worthless, used repurposed plywood from boarded-up storefronts to create a sculpture now on display in Queens called “RockIt Black.”
“Rockit Black” sculpture in Queens by Tanda Francis (photo via tandafrancis.com)
“To transform this plywood that was on the streets during the Black Lives Matter actual uprising is… amazing,” Francis told Reuters. “In my work, I actually use the color black and actually try to elevate it, kind of contrast to how it’s been sort of stigmatized in our culture.”
Behin Ha Design Studio erected their contribution called “Be Heard” in Thomas Paine Park in Lower Manhattan.
“Be Heard” by Behin Ha Design Studio in Thomas Paine Park, Manhattan (photo via worthless studios.org)
“New York City was covered in this plywood during COVID shutdowns and, you know, the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests,” said Neil Hamamoto, founder of worthless studios. “To me, it felt important to recycle the material because of its power and rhetoric.”
KaNSiteCurators and Caroline Mardok created “In Honor of Black Lives Matter,” which currently stand in Poe Park in The Bronx.
This is Shirley Chisholm. Best known as the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress who also ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972.
“Fighting Shirley” — as she was known by many in Washington D.C. and her hometown district of Brooklyn, NY — was the oldest daughter of immigrant parents from Guyana and Barbados.
Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher, got a degree in Child Education from Columbia University and by 1960, was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care.
Always aware of racial and gender inequality, Chisholm soon ventured into social justice work and politics by joining local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
In 1964, Chisholm ran for and became the 2nd African American in the New York State Legislature. After court-ordered redistricting in her neighborhood occurred to counter years of gerrymandering, in 1968 Chisholm ran for and won her congressional district seat.
While in the House of Representatives “Fighting Shirley” introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, fought for racial and gender equality, the economically oppressed, and to end the Vietnam War.
Chisholm also fought against “old men that make up the Southern oligarchy” from Day One. She complained about her assignment to the Agricultural Committee — what did agriculture have to do with her constituents in Bedford-Stuyvesant, she argued — and won reassignment even though most Congressional freshmen never questioned their committee placements.
Chisholm was subsequently placed on the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Education and Labor Committee, where she was able to work on initiatives such as the Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).
She was also a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, and in 1977 became the first Black woman and 2nd woman ever to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee.
Chisholm’s quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination was thwarted at every turn. Chisholm was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and only after taking legal action, was she permitted to make just one speech.
Still, many faithful followed the “Chisholm Trail” as she entered 12 primaries and garnered 152 of the delegates’ votes (10% of the total)—despite an under-financed and under-reported campaign.
This collection features early vanguards like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, Jesse Saunders, Chip E., Steve “Silk” Hurley, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, Larry Heard or Mr. Fingers, Marshall Jefferson, Phuture, and many others.
Do enjoy. And as always, stay safe, sane, and kind.
Rochester, New York‘s airport will be renamed to honor 19th-century abolitionist and freedom fighter Frederick Douglass, one of its most famous and influential residents.
According to usatoday.com, the Monroe County Legislature voted Tuesday night to change the airport’s name to the “Frederick Douglass – Greater Rochester International Airport,” adding the Douglass’ name to the existing airport’s title.
This is Shirley Chisholm. Best known as the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress who also ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972.
