I picked Gayl Jones, as the final person to feature for Black History month, for a silly reason. We share a birthday. The only thing is Gayl was born twenty-eight years prior to me being born. Like her mother, Lucille Wilson Jones, Gayl was a writer.

Jones allowed her characters to tell their own stories. The subject matters were powerful. She wrote about racism and sexual abuse. Because these topics were maddening, her female characters had the characteristics of someone crazy.

After graudating from Connecticut College, Jones attended Brown University, where she would received her Doctorate of Arts in creative writing. While there she studied under Michael Harper, a poet. It was Harper who introduced Jones’ novel, Corregidora, to Toni Morrison, who becomes her editor.

In trying to find more information on such a private woman, I came across a New York Times article, dated July 19, 1998. It’s entitled Chronicles of a Tradegy Foretold. You can read the article for yourself…here.

Born: November 23, 1949

Wallace Thurman wrote his first novel at the age of ten. I wished that was me, but I wasn’t lonely as a child. Thurman was lonely and very sickly as a child. He suffered from heart attacks. He attended school in several different states.

He started the magazine called “Outlet” and “Fire!! Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists” and “Harlem: a Forum of Negro Life.” He worked at other magazines as the editor. But Thurman is well known for his novel “The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life.” That novel focused on the discrimination of blacks within the black community. He wrote other things such as plays and books that he collaborated with other authors on.

He died at the age of thirty-two from tuberculosis. His life was still long enough for him to become a novelist, an editor, a columnist, a publisher, and a few other things.

Born: August 16, 1902 – Died: December 22, 1934

As I am a bibliophile, it’s only natural that I end Black History Month focusing on authors and poets. The funny thing with that is I am choosing people I’ve heard of but never read any of their works.

Zora Neale Hurston is a name I’ve heard over and over again over the years. Her most popular novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God. It was even made into a televison movie. I missed that as well.

Hurston was an anthropologist, an author, and folklorist. She was around during the Harlem Renaissance era. Hurston attend Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University. At Howard University, Hurston was apart of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. She also co-founded The Hilltop; the university newspaper. At Barnard College, she received a scholarship but most importantly she was the only black student. It was there that she earned her BA in anthropology. I really liked anthropology when I took it back in the late 90s.

Later on in life Hurston collaborated with Langston Hughes where they worked together to create Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts. This makes me so excited because I was a semi-finalist in a poetry contest entitled The Mule Bone Competition. I had tickets to attend The Mule Bone, but I didn’t get to go. I hope to get that chance again to see what I had missed. I also like Langston Hughes as a poet.

Born: January 7, 1891 – Died: January 28, 1960

I know the history of African Americans was so unfair, but I can never grasp the term of people/a person being a piece of property, belonging to someone (another person) else. I cannot understand it. And I don’t ever believe I will. Dred Scott is a man who took his slave masters to court. He stated that him and his wife were slaves in a states where slavery was illegal. one would think that he would have won since it was illegal, but he lost. Seven out of nine people thought if they ruled in Scott’s favor then they would be taking away the property of the slave master. Are you serious? Can this be true? It must be since I found the same statements on several different websites.

The case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, began in 1846, it wasn’t until May 26, 1857 that they were freed from slavery. A little over a year later, Dred Scott died. He spent a good part of his life fighting for his freedom only to die so soon after he was granted what was rightfully his. But he was free, and that is what is more important.

Born: 1799 – Died: September 17, 1858

Sarah Breedlove, was born on a cotton plantation down in Mississippi. Her parents were slaves and once they died she and her sister continued to work those fields in order to make it. Sarah Breedlove was better known as Madame C.J. Walker. She was an inventor, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and a social activist.

When Walker started experiencing hair loss, she came up with a hair product to help stimulate growth. She came up with several products that she went door to door selling. As time went by she hired others to do the same expanding her business. In 1908, Madame C.J. Walker, opened Lelia College in Pittsburgh; there students studied to become “beauty cultruists.”

Because of her hair care products, Walker was the first African American woman millionaire. I can truly see how this was possible. Simply because African American women don’t mess around when it comes to the condition of their hair.

I always wonder how those who change their name came up with the idea for their new name. Well for Breedlove, when she married husband number three, Charles Joseph Walker, she changed her name to Madame C.J. Walker.

Born: December 23, 1867 – Died: May 25, 1919

Another pick by my daughter, James Meredith, the first African American man to attend the University of Mississippi. Meredith was not allowed to enter the University. The governor at the time did not hide the fact that he was against Meredith attending the school. Things got so bad that President John F. Kennedy had to send troops to keep the crowds in control because riots had broken out.

When Meredith sat down at a desk in the white students would all get up and move. It’s a good thing he was a Civil Rights activist, because they were really trying him. Meredith served in the United States Air Force. I can’t fathom how it is that African Americans were good enough to fight the wars for the United States, but not good enough to be classed as anything of greatness here on the US soil.

Born: June 25, 1933

I asked my daughter which person I should do for today’s post, and while she ran off the usual Rosa Parks and others well known, I didn’t want to do any of them. Not until I heard her tell me Shirley Chisholm was the first Governor of Georgia. My head almost rotated 360 degrees from that.

So this post on Shirley Chisholm is for my daughter’s sake.

Shirley Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents that were immigrants. Her father, Charles Christopher St. Hill, was from the British Guiana and her mother, Ruby Seale, was from Christ Church, Barbados. Chisholm’s parents had sent her back to Barbados to live with her grandmother for seven years. I threaten to send my daughter to boarding school all the time when she steps out of line. Chisholm appreciated her parents reasoning behind it once she was an adult.

Shirley Chisholm became the first African American woman elected into Congress; she was the first major African American candidate to run for the office of the US Presidency. She was also the first African American woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Chisholm was an educator, an author, a politician, and a congresswoman.

Born: November 30, 1924 – Died: January 1, 2005

Shirley Chisholm wrote two books:

Unbought and Unbossed (her autobiography) You can find this line in between the cover:

“Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason.”

The Good Fight

I didn’t realize she was also mentioned in quite a few songs.

Nobody Beats the Biz by Biz Markie (one of my favorite songs.)

Mama and Me by Nellie McKay

Maad Crew by Redman and Method Man

LL Cool J on his Todd Smith album

Spread by Outkast (lyrics song by Andre 3000)

Math is not my favorite or best subject, even if I did go as far as pre-calculus in high school and statistics in college. Yes I did pass both, but I am no mathmatician. Elbert Frank Cox was the first African American to receive a PhD in math. Cox was a very talented man. He was skilled in physics and the violin. He was offered a scholarship to attend Prague Conservatory in Bohemia for the talents in playing the violin. He worked at Howard University. Cox received his PhD at Cornell University. There is a scholarship in his honor: Elbert F. Cox Scholarship Fund.

He had four children, all boys, with his wife, Beulah. There really much else to say about him, except he paved the way for many at Howard because it was said he was a great professor. Because of him his students excelled.

Born: December 5, 1895 – Died: November 28, 1969

Cabin in the Sky is one of my all time favorite black and white movie. I enjoyed it for two reasons one the singing and the other because of the devotion and selflessness of the character Ethel Waters played. That was my first time seeing and hearing the talented Ethel Waters.

She was a singer and actress. I’ve read things where she had a problem with Lena Horne, but each of these women had a talent that could not be compared to each other. I find it funny that they were both in Cabin in the Sky. The way they felt about each other in real life may have shown through because they did a great job disliking each other.

“I never was a child. I never was coddled, or liked, or understood by my family.”

This quote makes me wonder if this is why she had the fiery temper she was known to have. Her outburst on the set of Cabin in the Sky, when Lena Horne was pawned over when she got hurt, may have hurt the possibilities available to her in acting. Waters had a bad childhood. It is said that she is the product of her mother being raped.

Born: October 31, 1896 – Died: September 1, 1977

Fun fact, Ethel Waters is the great-aunt of another singer I truly enjoyed when she had music out, Crystal Waters.

To find out more on Ethel Waters read her two autobiographies.

His Eye is on the Sparrow by Ethel Waters with Charles Samuels

To Me, It’s Wonderful by Ethel Waters

Count Basie had a skill I would hope to have in my next life; he had the ability to play the piano accompanying others by ear only. No music sheets and no practice prior to the performance. This may be due to the piano lessons his mother paid for when he was young, but I believe it was a natural talent he was blessed with.

William James Basie a.k.a Count Basie, was a jazz pianist, composer, band leader, and organist.I remember him in Cinderfella; the Jerry Lewis movie. There he was playing the big band leader, of course.

Basie won ten Grammy Awards, one of which was a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Who can believe a man that gave up on school, only getting to junior high school, would be honored in such a way? This award was given after he had been dead for over 18 years. The point is he was recognized for his talent and the contributions he made to the world.

Born: August 21, 1904 – Died: April 26, 1984

Count Basie died of pancreatic cancer, something that seems to be running rampant in this day an age; claiming many lives.