Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture 4 volumes

Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture

Advisory Board Kathleen E. Bethel African American Studies Librarian Northwestern University Library Evanston, Illinois Dr. William H. Wiggins Jr. Professor Emeritus of Afro-American Studies and of Folklore Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana Dr. Raymond Winbush, Director Institute of Urban Research Morgan State University Baltimore, Maryland

Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture Volume 1 A–C JESSIE CARNEY SMITH, EDITOR

Copyright 2011 by Jessie Carney Smith All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture / Jessie Carney Smith, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-35796-1 (hard copy : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-35797-8 (ebook) 1. African Americans—History—Encyclopedias. 2. African Americans—Social life and customs—Encyclopedias. 3. African Americans—Intellectual life—Encyclopedias. 4. African Americans—Race identity—Encyclopedias. 5. African Americans—Biography—Encyclopedias. 6. African Americans in popular culture—Encyclopedias. 7. Popular culture—United States— Encyclopedias. I. Smith, Jessie Carney. E174.E54 2011 9730 .0496073003—dc22 2010039279 ISBN: 978-0-313-35796-1 EISBN: 978-0-313-35797-8 15

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This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Greenwood An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents Alphabetical List of Entries

vii

Guide to Related Topics

xv

Preface

xxxiii

Introduction

xxxvii

Timeline Entries A–Z

xlvii 1

Appendices Appendix A: Selected List of African American Films

1559

Appendix B: Selected List of African American Radio Shows

1581

Appendix C: Selected List of African American Television Shows

1587

Appendix D: Selected African American Pop Culture Collections at Research Centers, Libraries, and Universities

1607

Selected Bibliography

1627

Index

1655

About the Editor and Contributors

1713

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Alphabetical List of Entries Aaron, Hank Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem Activists. See Social Activists Actors and Performers Adams, Yolanda Adoptions Aerosol Art Affirmative Action Africa and the African Diaspora African American English. See Black English African Americans in the U.S., 1619–2010 African Cultural Influences Afrocentric Movement Afro-Hispanic Blending Aiken, Loretta Mary. See Mabley, Moms Ailey, Alvin Ali, Laila Ali, Muhammad Anderson, Marian Angelou, Maya Apollo Theater Appropriations of Black Folklore Architecture Armstrong, Louis ‘‘Satchmo’’ Ashe, Arthur

Ashley, Maurice Association for the Study of African American Life and History Astronauts Aunt Jemima Automobile Racing. See Car Racing Baby Face. See Edmonds, Kenneth Badu, Erykah Baker, Ella Baldwin, James Bambara, Toni Cade Bands and Bandleaders Banks, Tyra BAPS (Black American Princesses) Baptisms Baraka, Amiri Barbecue Barbershops Barden, Don Barkley, Charles Baseball Basketball Beale Street Bearden, Romare Beautillions. See Cotillions and Botillions Beauty Pageants

viii

Beauty Shops BeBop Music Belafonte, Harry Berry, Chuck Berry, Halle Berry, Mary Frances Bethune, Mary McLeod Beyonc
e Big Apple (Dance) Biracialism Black Arts Movement Black Bottom, The (Dance) Black English Black Enterprise Black Entertainment Television (BET) Black Hebrews Black History Month Black Nationalism Black Panther Party Black Power Movement Black Studies Black Theology Blake, James Riley Blige, Mary J. Bling and Grillz Blues and Blues Festivals Blues, Delta. See Delta Blues Bond, Julian Bonds, Barry Bontemps, Arna Bookstores and Bibliophiles Botillions. See Cotillions and Botillions Boxing Bradley, Ed Brazile, Donna Break Dancing Brimmer, Andrew Brooke, Edward Brooks, Gwendolyn Brown, Elaine Brown, James Brown, Jim Brown, Judge Joe

Alphabetical List of Entries

Brown, Tony Brown v. Board of Education Bryant, Kobe Buffalo Soldiers Bunche, Ralph Buppies (Black Urban Professionals) Business and Commerce Caesar, Shirley Calloway, Cab Calypso Music Campanella, Roy Campbell, Naomi Canada Car Racing Carey, Mariah Caribbean Cultural Influences Carmichael, Stokely Carroll, Diahann Carson, Benjamin S. Carter, Stephen L. Cartoons and Cartoonists Carver, George Washington Catlett, Elizabeth Censorship and Offensive Language and Lyrics Chamberlain, Wilt Chaney, John Chappelle, Dave Charles, Ray Charter Schools Cheerleading Chesnutt, Charles W. Chicago Defender Children and Youth Chisholm, Shirley Chitlin Circuit Churches Circuses Civil Rights Cases Civil Rights Movement Class Structure, Upper, Middle, Underclass Clothing and Fashion Industry Collectibles, Black Color Purple, The (film)

Alphabetical List of Entries

Coltrane, John Combs, Sean (Diddy) Comedy and Comedians Comics (Books). See Graphic Novels and Books Communities, African American Composers Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Congressional Black Caucus Consciousness and Identity, African American Consumerism, Shopping, and Brands Cookbooks Cool J, LL. See LL Cool J Cooper, Anna Julia Cornrows Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cosmetics Cotillions and Botillions Country Music, Black Cowboys and Rodeos Crime Crisis (magazine) Cullen, Countee Dance and Dance Companies Dandridge, Dorothy Davis, Angela Davis, Miles Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Davis, Shani Deadwood Dick. See Love, Nat Dee, Ruby. See Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Deejaying Delany, Samuel R. Delta Blues Dickerson, Chris Diddy. See Combs, Sean (Diddy) Double Dutch Douglass, Frederick Dove, Rita Dozens Dreadlocks Drugs and Popular Culture

ix

Du Bois, W. E. B. Dunbar, Paul Laurence Dungy, Tony Dupri, Jermaine Ebonics. See Black English Ebony Economic Development Edelman, Marian Wright Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Baby Face’’ Education: Public and Private Elder, Lee El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. See Malcolm X Ellington, Duke Elliott, Missy Ellison, Ralph Employment, Unemployment, and Income Entertainment Industry Essence Europe Evangelism. See Television Evangelism Evers, Medgar Ewing, Patrick Expos, Black Family Life Family Reunions Farrakhan, Louis Fashion. See Clothing and Fashion Industry Federal Theatre Project: Negro Theatre Unit Federal Writers’ Project Feminism Fiction 50 Cent Film and Filmmakers Film Festivals Fish Fry Fitzgerald, Ella Folk Foods Folklore Food and Cooking Food, Folk. See Folk Foods

x

Football Foreman, George Foster, Rube Fox, Vivica Foxx, Jamie Frankie and Albert/Johnny Franklin, Aretha Franklin, John Hope Franklin, Kirk Frazier, Joe Freedom Riders Freeman, Morgan Funerals Gambling and Gaming Games, Video Games, and Toys Gangs Gangsta Rap Garvey, Marcus Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Gay, Tyson Gay and Lesbian Culture Gaye, Marvin Genealogy and DNA Testing Gibson, Althea Gillespie, Dizzy Giovanni, Nikki Globalization Goldberg, Whoopi Golf Gospel Choirs and Singing Groups Governors and Mayors Graffiti Art. See Aerosol Art Graphic Novels and Books Graves, Earl G. Great Migration Greek Letter Organizations Greene, ‘‘Mean Joe’’ Gregory, Dick Gumbel, Bryant Hair and Hairstyles Haley, Alex Hamer, Fannie Lou Handy, W. C. Hansberry, Lorraine Harlem Globetrotters

Alphabetical List of Entries

Harlem Renaissance Harris, E. Lynn Harvey, Steve Hayes, Isaac Head Start Hendrix, Jimi Herc, Kool DJ Higginbotham, A. Leon Himes, Chester Hip-Hop Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS Initiatives and the Black Church Holiday, Billie Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations Holyfield, Evander Hooker, John Lee Hopkins, Lightnin’ Horse Racing and Jockeys Housing as Lifestyle Houston, Charles Hamilton Houston, Whitney Hudson, Jennifer Hughes, Cathy Hughes, Langston Hughley, D. L. Humor Hurston, Zora Neale Hush/Bush Harbors Ice Cube Ifill, Gwen Imes, Mo’Nique. See Mo’Nique Inventors and Inventions Iverson, Allen Jackson Five Jackson, Janet Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Michael Jackson, Reggie Jackson, Samuel L. Jakes, T. D. James, LeBron

Alphabetical List of Entries

Jazz and Jazz Festivals Jemison, Mae Jet Jim Crow Johnson, Jack Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, John H. Johnson, Magic Jokes Jones, James Earl Jones, Quincy Joplin, Scott Jordan, Barbara Jordan, Michael Journalism and Journalists Joyner, Tom Joyner-Kersee, Jacqueline ‘‘Jackie’’ Judges Juke Joints. See Nightclubs, Entertainment Spots, Dives, and Juke Joints Jump Rope Rhymes/Games Juneteenth Keys, Alicia King, B. B. King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther Jr. King, Martin Luther Jr., National Holiday Kwanzaa LL Cool J Labor Movement Language Latifah, Queen Law and Law Schools Law Enforcement Leadbelly Lee, Spike Legal Defense Fund Lewis, Carl Lewis, John R. Libraries and Research Centers Literature, Classic African American Literature, Contemporary African American

xi

Lorde, Audre Louis, Joe Love, Nat ‘‘Deadwood Dick’’ Lynching Mabley, Moms Madison, Joe Malcolm X March on Washington Mardi Gras Mardi Gras Costumes and Masks Marley, Bob Marley, Ziggy Marsalis, Wynton Marshall, Thurgood Marxism Mashed Potato (Dance) Mays, Willie McDaniel, Hattie McGruder, Robert G. Jr. McKay, Claude McKnight, Brian McMillan, Terry McNair, Steve Medical Schools Medicine, Folk Medicine, Health, and Healing Megachurches and Ministers Men, African American, Images of Metcalfe, Ralph H. Micheaux, Oscar Midwives and Midwifery Military Million Man March Million Woman March Minstrelsy Miscegenation Mo’Nique Modeling Monk, Thelonious Montgomery Bus Boycott Morrison, Toni Morton, Jelly Roll

xii

Moseley, Walter Motown Records Muhammad, Elijah Multiculturalism Murphy, Eddie Music. See Bebop Music; Blues and Blues Festivals; Delta Blues; HipHop; Jazz and Jazz Festivals; Musicians and Singers; Popular Music; R & B; Rap Music and Rappers; Soul and Funk (Music) Musicians and Singers NAACP Nation of Islam National Association of Black Journalists National Bar Association National Black Arts Festival National Black Theater Festival National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) National Dental Association National Medical Association National Urban League Nationalism, Black. See Black Nationalism Naylor, Gloria N
egritude Negro Baseball Leagues New Orleans Newspapers and Periodicals Newton, Huey P. Nightclubs, Entertainment Spots, Dives, and Juke Joints Norton, Eleanor Holmes Notorious B. I. G. Nurses and Nursing Obama, Barack Obama, Michelle Oliver, King Olympics O’Neal, Shaquille Operation PUSH Organizations and Associations Owens, Jesse

Alphabetical List of Entries

Paige, Satchel Pan-Africanism Parker, Charlie Parks, Rosa Passing Payton, Walter Pendergrass, Teddy Perry, Tyler Philanthropy Photography Pickett, Bill Pimp Walk Pinchback, P. B. S. Pippen, Scottie Pittsburgh Courier Playwrights Plessy v. Ferguson Poetry Jams Poets and Poetry Poitier, Sidney Politics and Government Politics and the Black Church Pop Music Population Powell, Adam Clayton Jr. Powell, Colin Prince Prison Reform Prophets and Spiritualists Prostitution Protest Marches Pryor, Richard Public Enemy Publishers and Publishing Quilts and Quilting Traditions R & B (Rhythm & Blues) Race and Ethnicity Race Records Race Riots Racial Profiling Radio Shows and Hosts Ragtime Rainbow Coalition Rainey, Ma Randolph, A. Philip

Alphabetical List of Entries

Rap Music and Rappers Rap, Crossover Forms Raspberry, William J. Rastafarianism Reggae, Reggaeton Reid, Antonio ‘‘L. A.’’ Religious Customs and Traditions Reparations Rice, Condoleezza Rice, Jerry Richie, Lionel Robeson, Paul Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Max Robinson, Randall Robinson, Smokey Robinson, Sugar Ray Rock and Roll Rock, Chris Rodman, Dennis Roker, Al Roots, Television Miniseries Rosewood Ross, Diana Rudolph, Wilma Russell, Bill Scat Singing Science and Scientists Scott, Jill Scott, Wendell Oliver Scottsboro, Alabama Shaft Shakur, Tupac Shange, Ntozake Sharpton, Al Shepherd, Sherri Shucking Signifying Signifying Monkey, The Simmons, Russell Simpson, O. J. Single Parenting Sit-in Movement Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

xiii

Slang and Unconventional English Slave Narratives Slim, Iceberg Smiley, Tavis Smith, Bessie Smith, Emmitt Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Todd. See L L Cool J Smith, Lovie Smith, Mamie Smith, Tubby Smith, Will Snoop Dogg Social Activists Sororities. See Greek Letter Organizations Soul Soul and Funk (Music) Soul Food Soul Train South, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Sparks, Jordin Spirituals Sports Sports Announcers and Commentators Sports Classics Steele, Shelby Stepping Stewart, James ‘‘Bubba’’ Still, William Grant Stringer, C. Vivian Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Sullivan, Leon H. Superstitions Sykes, Wanda Tap Dance Taylor, Koko Taylor, Susan L. Technology Television Television Evangelism Tennis

xiv

Terrell, Mary Church Theater and Drama Thomas, Clarence Thompson, John R. Thornton, Big Mama Till, Emmett Louis Toni Morrison Society. See Morrison, Toni Townsend, Robert Toys. See Games, Video Games, and Toys Track and Field TransAfrica Travel and Tourism Truth, Sojourner Tubman, Harriet Tucker, Chris Turner, Tina Tuskegee Airmen Tyson, Cicely Tyson, Mike U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Uncle Tom Uncle Tom’s Cabin Underground Railroad United Negro College Fund Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Urban Culture Van Peebles, Mario Van Peebles, Melvin Vandross, Luther Vick, Michael Video Games. See Games, Video Games, and Toys Voodoo, Tricks, and Tricksters, etc. Voting Patterns Walker, Aaron ‘‘T-Bone’’ Walker, Alice Walker, Madam C. J. Ward, Clara Warwick, Dionne Washington, Booker T.

Alphabetical List of Entries

Washington, Denzel Waters, Muddy Wayans Brothers Wedding Customs and Traditions Welfare Rights Movement Wells-Barnett, Ida B. West, Cornel R. West, Kanye Wheatley, Phillis Whitaker, Forest White, Walter Whitfield, Lynn Wilkens, Lenny Wilkins, Roy O. Williams, Deniece Williams, Juan Williams, Vanessa Williams, Venus and Williams, Serena Williamson, Sonny Boy I, and Williamson, Sonny Boy II Wilson, August Winans, BeBe Winans, CeCe Winfrey, Oprah Womanism Women and Sports Women and the Civil Rights Movement Women, African American, Images of Wonder, Stevie Woods, Tiger Woofing/Wolfing Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. Wright, Richard Yard Art Young, Andrew Young, Whitney Zoot Suits Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities. See Hurston, Zora Neale Zydeco Music

Guide to Related Topics Art, Artists, the Arts Aerosol Art Architecture Bearden, Romare Cartoons and Cartoonists Catlett, Elizabeth National Black Arts Festival Photography Quilts and Quilting Traditions Yard Art Business, Entrepreneurs Barbershops Barden, Don Beauty Shops Bookstores and Bibliophiles Brimmer, Andrew Business and Commerce Campbell, Naomi Chitlin Circuit Clothing and Fashion Industry Combs, Sean (Diddy) Consumerism, Shopping, and Brands Cosmetics Dupri, Jermaine Economic Development Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Baby Face’’

Employment, Unemployment, and Income Entertainment Industry Franklin, Kirk Garvey, Marcus Graves, Earl Gregory, Dick Housing as Lifestyle Hughes, Cathy Jackson, Michael Jakes, T. D. Johnson, John H. Johnson, Magic Jones, Quincy Joyner, Tom LL Cool J Labor Movement Lee, Spike Motown Records Night Clubs, Entertainment Spots, Dives, and Juke Joints Photography Pinchback, P. B. S. Prince Prostitution Publishers and Publishing Reid, Antonio ‘‘L. A.’’ Simmons, Russell

xvi

Snoop Dogg Travel and Tourism Walker, Madam C. J. Winans, BeBe Winfrey, Oprah Young, Andrew Civil Rights Baker, Ella Belafonte, Harry Berry, Mary Frances Bethune, Mary McLeod Bond, Julian Brooke, Edward Brown, Elaine Carmichael, Stokely Civil Rights Cases Civil Rights Movement Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Congressional Black Caucus Cooper, Anna Julia Davis, Angela Douglass, Frederick Edelman, Marian Wright Evers, Medgar Farrakhan, Louis Freedom Riders Garvey, Marcus Goldberg, Whoopi Gregory, Dick Hamer, Fannie Lou Higginbotham, A. Leon Houston, Charles Hamilton Hughes, Cathy Jackson, Jesse Johnson, James Weldon King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther Jr. King, Martin Luther Jr. National Holiday Legal Defense Fund Lewis, John R. Malcolm X Marshall, Thurgood

Guide to Related Topics

Montgomery Bus Boycott Muhammad, Elijah NAACP Newton, Huey P. Norton, Eleanor Holmes Obama, Barack Obama, Michelle Parks, Rosa Powell, Adam Clayton Jr. Protest Marches Randolph, A. Philip Reparations Robeson, Paul Sharpton, Al Simmons, Russell Sit-in Movement Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Taylor, Susan L. Terrell, Mary Church Till, Emmett Louis Truth, Sojourner Tubman, Harriet U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Underground Railroad Warwick, Dionne Wells-Barnett, Ida B. West, Cornel White, Walter Wilkins, Roy O. Women and the Civil Rights Movement Young, Andrew Young, Whitney Collections Bookstores and Bibliophiles Collectibles, Black Libraries and Research Centers Cross-Cultural Influences African Cultural Influences Afrocentric Movement

Guide to Related Topics

Afro-Hispanic Blending Caribbean Cultural Influences Cultural Movements Black Arts Movement Harlem Renaissance National Black Arts Festival National Black Theater Festival N
egritude Customs, Trends, Traditions Consumerism, Shopping, and Brands Cotillions and Botillions Funerals Greek Letter Organizations Quilts and Quilting Traditions Religious Customs and Traditions Superstitions Wedding Customs and Traditions Dance, Dancers Ailey, Alvin Big Apple (Dance) Black Bottom, The (Dance) Break Dancing Dance and Dance Companies Dandridge, Dorothy Mashed Potato (Dance) Stepping Tap Dance Education, Educators Ailey, Alvin Ashley, Maurice Baraka, Amiri Berry, Mary Frances Bethune, Mary McLeod Black Studies Black Theology Bond, Julian Bontemps, Arna Brimmer, Andrew Brooks, Gwendolyn

xvii

Brown v. Board of Education Bunche, Ralph Carter, Stephen L. Charter Schools Cooper, Anna Julia Davis, Angela Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Delany, Samuel R. Edelman, Marian Wright Education: Public and Private Franklin, John Hope Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Giovanni, Nikki Harris, E. Lynn Head Start Higginbotham, A. Leon Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) Houston, Charles Hamilton Hurston, Zora Neale Johnson, James Weldon Jordan, Barbara Law and Law Schools Literature, Classic African American Literature, Contemporary African American Lorde, Audre McMillan, Terry Medical Schools Morrison, Toni Pinchback, P. B. S. Plessy v. Ferguson Raspberry, William J. Steele, Shelby Washington, Booker T. West, Cornel Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. Entertainers, Entertainment Actors and Performers Apollo Theater Brown, Judge Joe Calloway, Cab Cartoons and Cartoonists

xviii

Chappelle, Dave Charles, Ray Chitlin Circuit Circuses Comedy and Comedians Comics (Books) Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Cotillions and Botillions Country Music, Black Dandridge, Dorothy Davis, Ossie and Dee, Ruby Deejaying Delta Blues Dozens Entertainment Industry Expos, Black Foxx, Jamie Freeman, Morgan Goldberg, Whoopi Graphic Novels and Books Gregory, Dick Harvey, Steve Hughley, D. L. Humor Jackson Five Jackson, Janet Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Michael Jokes Mabley, Moms Minstrelsy Mo’Nique Murphy, Eddie Nightclubs, Entertainment Spots, Dives, and Juke Joints Poetry Jams Pryor, Richard Race Records Rainey, Ma Rock, Chris Shepherd, Sherri Shucking Signifying Signifying Monkey, The

Guide to Related Topics

Sykes, Wanda Townsend, Robert Tucker, Chris Voodoo, Tricks, and Tricksters, etc. Washington, Denzel Wayans Brothers Williams, Deniece Williams, Vanessa Winans, BeBe Winfrey, Oprah Family Adoptions Children and Youth Family Life Family Reunions Genealogy and DNA Testing Haley, Alex Single Parenting Fashion, Dress, Designers, Appearance Bling and Grillz Clothing and Fashion Industry Combs, Sean (Diddy) Cornrows Cosmetics Dreadlocks Hair and Hairstyles Modeling Pimp Walk Zoot Suits Festivals, Celebrations, Events Beauty Pageants Black History Month Blues and Blues Festivals Cotillions and Botillions Family Reunions Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations Jazz and Jazz Festivals Juneteenth

Guide to Related Topics

King, Martin Luther Jr., National Holiday Kwanzaa Mardi Gras Mardi Gras Costumes and Masks National Black Arts Festival National Black Theater Festival Films, Filmmakers, Actors Bambara, Toni Cade Belafonte, Harry Berry, Halle Beyonc
e Blige, Mary J. Carey, Mariah Carroll, Diahann Chappelle, Dave Combs, Sean (Diddy) Dandridge, Dorothy 50 Cent Film and Filmmakers Film Festivals Fox, Vivica Foxx, Jamie Freeman, Morgan Goldberg, Whoopi Gregory, Dick Harvey, Steve Hayes, Isaac Holiday, Billie Houston, Whitney Hughley, D. L. Jackson, Janet Jackson, Samuel L. Jones, James Earl Jones, Quincy Latifah, Queen Lee, Spike McDaniel, Hattie Micheaux, Oscar Mo’Nique Murphy, Eddie Perry, Tyler Poitier, Sidney

xix

Prince Pryor, Richard Robeson, Paul Rock, Chris Roots, Television Miniseries Ross, Diana Scott, Jill Shaft Shakur, Tupac Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Snoop Dogg Townsend, Robert Tucker, Chris Turner, Tina Tyson, Cicely Van Peebles, Mario Van Peebles, Melvin Washington, Denzel Wayans Brothers Whitaker, Forest Whitfield, Lynn Williams, Vanessa Folklore Influences Appropriations of Black Folklore Fish Fry Folklore Frankie and Albert/Johnny Medicine, Folk Quilts and Quilting Traditions Shucking Soul Voodoo, Tricks, and Tricksters, etc. Foods Barbecue Cookbooks Fish Fry Folk Foods Foods and Cooking Soul Food

xx

Games Double Dutch Dozens Gambling and Gaming Games, Video Games, and Toys Jump Rope Rhymes/Games Woofing/Wolfing Gender and Identity BAPs (Black American Princesses) Consciousness and Identity, African American Gay and Lesbian Culture Health and Healing, Medicine Carson, Benjamin S. HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS and the Black Church Jemison, Mae Medical Schools Medicine, Folk Medicine, Health, and Healing Midwives and Midwifery National Dental Association National Medical Association Nurses and Nursing Tubman, Harriet History African Americans in the U.S., 1619–2010 Human Rights Affirmative Action Edelman, Marion Wright Franklin, John Hope Freedom Riders Higginbotham, A. Leon Houston, Charles Hamilton Jordan, Barbara King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther Jr.

Guide to Related Topics

Legal Defense Fund Malcolm X Marshall, Thurgood NAACP Norton, Eleanor Holmes Robinson, Randall Sullivan, Leon H. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Images of African Americans BAPs (Black American Princesses) Black Buppies (Black Urban Professionals) Class Structure, African American Upper, Middle, Underclass Consciousness and Identity, African American Jemima, Aunt Jim Crow Men, African American, Images of Uncle Tom Women, African American, Images of Language, the Spoken Word Black English Censorship and Offensive Language and Lyrics Language Shucking Signifying Signifying Monkey, The Slang and Unconventional English Law, Legal Issues Berry, Mary Frances Brown, Judge Joe Brown v. Board of Education Civil Rights Cases Higginbotham, A. Leon Houston, Charles Hamilton Johnson, James Weldon Jordan, Barbara Law and Law Schools Law Enforcement Marshall, Thurgood

Guide to Related Topics

Norton, Eleanor Holmes Pinchback, P. B. S. Plessy v. Ferguson Thomas, Clarence Libraries Libraries and Research Centers Magazines, Journals Black Enterprise Crisis (magazine) Ebony Essence Graves, Earl G. Jet Raspberry, William J. Material Culture Aerosol Art Architecture Bling and Grillz Cornrows Cosmetics Double Dutch Dreadlocks Hair and Hairstyles Jump Rope Rhymes/Games Kwanzaa Mardi Gras Costumes and Masks Quilting and Quilting Traditions Soul Food Yard Art Zoot Suits Military Buffalo Soldiers Military Tuskegee Airmen Models Banks, Tyra Berry, Halle Campbell, Naomi

xxi

Modeling Williams, Vanessa Music, Musicians, Composers Adams, Yolanda Armstrong, Louis ‘‘Satchmo’’ Badu, Erykah Bands and Bandleaders Banks, Tyra Bebop Music Belafonte, Harry Berry, Chuck Beyonc
e Blige, Mary J. Blues and Blues Festivals Brown, James Caesar, Shirley Calloway, Cab Calypso Music Carey, Mariah Charles, Ray Chitlin Circuit Coltrane, John Combs, Sean (Diddy) Composers Country Music, Black Dandridge, Dorothy Davis, Miles Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Deejaying Delta Blues Dupri, Jermaine Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Baby Face’’ Ellington, Duke Elliott, Missy 50 Cent Fitzgerald, Ella Foxx, Jamie Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Kirk Gangsta Rap Gaye, Marvin Gillespie, Dizzy Gospel Choirs and Singing Groups Handy, W. C.

xxii

Hayes, Isaac Hendrix, Jimi Herc, Kool DJ Hip-Hop Holiday, Billie Hooker, John Lee Hopkins, Lightnin’ Houston, Whitney Hudson, Jennifer Ice Cube Jackson Five Jackson, Janet Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Michael Jazz and Jazz Festivals Jones, Quincy Joplin, Scott Keyes, Alicia King, B. B. LL Cool J Latifah, Queen Leadbelly Marley, Bob Marley, Ziggy Marsalis, Wynton McKnight, Brian Minstrelsy Monk, Theolonious Morton, Jelly Roll Motown Records Musicians and Singers Notorious B. I. G. Oliver, King Parker, Charlie Pop Music Prince Public Enemy R & B (Rhythm and Blues) Race Records Ragtime Rainey, Ma Rap Music and Rappers Rap, Crossover Forms Reggae, Reggaeton Reid, Antonio ‘‘L. A.’’

Guide to Related Topics

Richie, Lionel Robeson, Paul Robinson, Smokey Robinson, Sugar Ray Rock and Roll Ross, Diana Scott, Jill Scat Singing Shakur, Tupac Slim, Iceberg Smith, Bessie Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mamie Snoop Dogg Soul and Funk (Music) Sparks, Jordin Spirituals Still, William Grant Taylor, Koko Thornton, Big Mama Turner, Tina Tyson, Cicely Vandross, Luther Walker, Aaron ‘‘T-Bone’’ Ward, Clara Warwick, Dionne Waters, Muddy West, Kanye Williams, Deniece Williamson, Sonny Boy I and Williamson, Sonny Boy II Williams, Vanessa Winans, BeBe Winans, CeCe Wonder, Stevie Zydeco Music News Media Brazile, Donna Brown, Tony Chicago Defender Hughes, Cathy Ifill, Gwen

Guide to Related Topics

Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, John H. Journalism and Journalists McGruder, Robert G. Jr. McKay, Claude National Association of Black Journalists Newspapers and Periodicals Pittsburgh Courier Publishers and Publishing Raspberry, William J. Smiley, Tavis Taylor, Susan L. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Wilkins, Roy O. Williams, Juan Wright, Richard Organizations, Organizational Founders and Leaders Association for the Study of African American Life and History Bond, Julian Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Congressional Black Caucus Greek Letter Organizations Jackson, Jesse NAACP National Association of Black Journalists National Bar Association National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) National Dental Association National Medical Association National Urban League Operation PUSH Organizations and Associations Rainbow Coalition Randolph, A. Philip Robinson, Randall Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

xxiii

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Sullivan, Leon H. TransAfrica U.S. Commission on Civil Rights United Negro College Fund Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Washington, Booker T. White, Walter Wilkins, Roy O. Young, Whitney Philanthropy Joyner, Tom Philanthropy Simmons, Russell Walker, Madam C. J. Winans, CeCe Winfrey, Oprah People Aaron, Hank Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem Adams, Yolanda Ailey, Alvin Ali, Laila Ali, Muhammad Anderson, Marian Angelou, Maya Armstrong, Louis ‘‘Satchmo’’ Ashe, Arthur Badu, Erykah Baker, Ella Baldwin, James Bambara, Toni Cade Banks, Tyra Baraka, Amiri Barden, Don Barkley, Charles Bearden, Romare Belafonte, Harry Berry, Halle Berry, Mary Frances

xxiv

Beyonc
e Blake, James Riley Blige, Mary J. Bonds, Barry Bradley, Ed Brooks, Gwendolyn Brown, Elaine Brown, James Brown, Jim Brown, Judge Joe Brown, Tony Bryant, Kobe Bunche, Ralph Caesar, Shirley Calloway, Cab Campanella, Roy Campbell, Naomi Carey, Mariah Carroll, Diahann Carson, Benjamin S. Carter, Stephen L. Carver, George Washington Catlett, Elizabeth Chamberlain, Wilt Chaney, John Chappelle, Dave Charles, Ray Chesnutt, Charles W. Chisholm, Shirley Coltrane, John Combs, Sean (Diddy) Cooper, Anna Julia Cosby, Bill Cullen, Countee Dandridge, Dorothy Davis, Angela Davis, Miles Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Davis, Shani Delany, Samuel R. Dickerson, Chris Douglass, Frederick Dove, Rita Du Bois, W. E. B. Dunbar, Paul Laurence

Guide to Related Topics

Dungy, Tony Dupri, Jermaine Edelman, Marian Wright Edmonds, Kenneth ‘‘Baby Face’’ Elder, Lee Ellington, Duke Elliott, Missy Ellison, Ralph Evers, Medgar Ewing, Patrick 50 Cent Fitzgerald, Ella Foreman, George Foster, Rube Fox, Vivica Foxx, Jamie Franklin, Aretha Franklin, John Hope Franklin, Kirk Frazier, Joe Freeman, Morgan Garvey, Marcus Gates, Henry Louis Jr. Gay, Tyson Gaye, Marvin Gibson, Althea Gillespie, Dizzy Giovanni, Nikki Goldberg, Whoopi Graves, Earl G. Gregory, Dick Gumbel, Bryant Haley, Alex Hamer, Fannie Lou Handy, W. C. Hansberry, Lorraine Harris, E. Lynn Harvey, Steve Hayes, Isaac Hendrix, Jimi Herc, Kool DJ Higginbotham, A. Leon Himes, Chester Holiday, Billie Holyfield, Evander

Guide to Related Topics

Hooker, John Lee Hopkins, Lightnin’ Houston, Charles Hamilton Houston, Whitney Hudson, Jennifer Hughes, Langston Hughley, D. L. Hurston, Zora Neale Ice Cube Ifill, Gwen Iverson, Allen Jackson, Janet Jackson, Jesse Jackson, Mahalia Jackson, Michael Jackson, Reggie Jackson, Samuel L. Jakes, T. D. James, LeBron Jemison, Mae Johnson, Jack Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, John H. Johnson, Magic Jones, James Earl Jones, Quincy Joplin, Scott Jordan, Barbara Jordan, Michael Joyner, Tom Joyner-Kersee, Jacqueline ‘‘Jackie’’ Keyes, Alicia King, B. B. King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther Jr. LL Cool J Latifah, Queen Leadbelly Lee, Spike Lewis, Carl Lewis, John R. Lorde, Audre Louis, Joe Love, Nat ‘‘Deadwood Dick’’

xxv

Mabley, Moms Madison, Joe Malcolm X Marley, Bob Marley, Ziggy Marsalis, Wynton Marshall, Thurgood Mays, Willie McDaniel, Hattie McGruder, Robert G. Jr. McKay, Claude McKnight, Brian McMillan, Terry McNair, Steve Metcalfe, Ralph Micheaux, Oscar Mo’Nique Monk, Thelonious Morrison, Toni Morton, Jelly Roll Mosley, Walter Muhammad, Elijah Murphy, Eddie Naylor, Gloria Newton, Huey P. Norton, Eleanor Holmes Nortorious B. I. G. Obama, Barack Obama, Michelle Oliver, King O’Neal, Shaquille Owens, Jesse Paige, Satchel Parker, Charlie Parks, Rosa Payton, Walter Perry, Tyler Pickett, Bill Pinchback, P. B. S. Pippen, Scottie Poitier, Sidney Powell, Adam Clayton Jr. Powell, Colin Prince Pryor, Richard

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Public Enemy Rainey, Ma Randolph, A. Philip Raspberry, William J. Rice, Condoleezza Rice, Jerry Richie, Lionel Robeson, Paul Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Max Robinson, Randall Robinson, Smokey Robinson, Sugar Ray Rock, Chris Rodman, Dennis Roker, Al Ross, Diana Rudolph, Wilma Russell, Bill Scott, Jill Scott, Wendell Shakur, Tupac Shange, Ntozake Sharpton, Al Shepherd, Sherri Simmons, Russell Simpson, O. J. Slim, Iceberg Smiley, Tavis Smith, Bessie Smith, Emmit Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lovie Smith, Mamie Smith, Tubby Smith, Will Snoop Dogg Sparks, Jordin Steele, Shelby Stewart, James Bubba Still, William Grant Stringer, C. Vivian Sullivan, Leon H. Sykes, Wanda

Guide to Related Topics

Taylor, Koko Taylor, Susan L. Terrell, Mary Church Thomas, Clarence Thompson, John R. Thornton, Big Mama Till, Emmett Louis Townsend, Robert Truth, Sojourner Tubman, Harriet Tucker, Chris Turner, Tina Tyson, Cicely Tyson, Mike Van Peebles, Mario Van Peebles, Melvin Vandross, Luther Vick, Michael Walker, Aaron ‘‘T-Bone’’ Walker, Alice Walker, Madam C. J. Ward, Clara Warwick, Dionne Washington, Booker T. Washington, Denzel Waters, Muddy Wayans Brothers Wells-Barnett, Ida B. West, Cornel West, Kanye Wheatley, Phillis Whitaker, Forest White, Walter Whitfield, Lynn Wilkens, Lenny Wilkins, Roy O. Williams, Deniece Williams, Joan Williams, Sonny Boy I and Williams, Sonny Boy II Williams Vanessa Williams, Venus and Williams, Serena Wilson, August Winans, BeBe

Guide to Related Topics

Winans, CeCe Winfrey, Oprah Wonder, Stevie Woods, Tiger Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. Wright, Richard Young, Andrew Young, Whitney Places, Geography Africa and the African Diaspora Beale Street Canada Communities, African American Europe Globalization Great Migration New Orleans Pan-Africanism Population Rosewood Scottsboro, Alabama South, The Urban Culture Politics, Political Activities, Activists, Government Baraka, Amiri Bethune, Mary McLeod Black Panther Party Bond, Julian Brazile, Donna Bunche, Ralph J. Chisholm, Shirley Douglass, Frederick Governors and Mayors Hamer, Fannie Lou Higginbotham, A. Leon Houston, Charles Hamilton Jackson, Jesse Johnson, James Weldon Jordan, Barbara Judges

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Lewis, John R. Marxism Metcalfe, Ralph National Bar Association Norton, Eleanor Holmes Obama, Barack Obama, Michelle Pan-Africanism Pinchback, P. B. S. Politics and Government Politics and the Black Church Powell, Adam Clayton Powell, Colin Political Reform Rice, Condoleezza Sharpton, Al Thomas, Clarence U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Voting Patterns Young, Andrew Protests and Activists Ashe, Arthur Black Panther Party Black Power Movement Brooke, Edward Carmichael, Stokely Civil Rights Movement Davis, Angela Davis, Ossie and Dee, Ruby Douglass, Frederick Du Bois, W. E. B. Garvey, Marcus Madison, Joe Malcolm X March on Washington Marley, Bob Million Man March Million Woman March Montgomery Bus Boycott Muhammad, Elijah Newton, Huey P. Protest Marches Race Riots

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Sit-in Movement Social Activists Underground Railroad Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Women and the Civil Rights Movement Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr.

Religious Customs and Traditions Sharpton, Al Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Sullivan, Leon H. Television Evangelism Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. Young, Andrew

Race, Racial Pride

Science, Scientists

Biracialism Black Nationalism Black Power Movement Black Studies Black Theology Consciousness and Identity, African American Jim Crow Miscegenation Multiculturalism Passing Race and Ethnicity Race Records Race Riots Racial Profiling

Astronauts Carver, George Washington Inventors and Inventions Jemison, Mae Science and Scientists Technology

Religion and Spirituality Baptisms Black Hebrews Black Theology Caesar, Shirley Churches Funerals HIV/AIDS and the Black Church Hush/Bush Harbors Jackson, Jesse Jakes, T. D. Malcolm X Megachurches and Ministers Muhammad, Elijah Nation of Islam Politics and the Black Church Powell, Adam Clayton Jr. Prophets and Spiritualists Rastafarianism

Social Issues, Economic Issues Class Structure, African American Upper, Middle, Underclass Crime Drugs and Popular Culture Gangs Great Migration Labor Movement N
egritude Population Prostitution Welfare Rights Movement Social Groups BAPs (Black American Princesses) Black Buppies (Black Urban Professionals) Class Structure, African American Upper, Middle, Underclass Gangs Greek Letter Organizations Sports, Sports Figures, Gaming Aaron, Hank Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem

Guide to Related Topics

Ali, Laila Ali, Muhammad Ashe, Arthur Ashley, Maurice Barden, Don Barkley, Charles Baseball Basketball Blake, James Riley Bonds, Barry Boxing Brown, Jim Bryant, Kobe Campanella, Roy Car Racing Chamberlain, Wilt Chaney, John Cheerleading Cowboys and Rodeos Davis, Shani Dickerson, Chris Double Dutch Dungy, Tony Elder, Lee Ewing, Patrick Football Foreman, George Foster, Rube Frazier, Joe Gambling and Gaming Gay, Tyson Gibson, Althea Golf Greene, ‘‘Mean Joe’’ Harlem Globetrotters Holyfield, Evander Horse Racing and Jockeys Iverson, Allen Jackson, Reggie James, LeBron Johnson, Jack Johnson, Magic Jordan, Michael Joyner-Kersee, Jacqueline ‘‘Jackie’’ Lewis, Carl

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Louis, Joe Love, Nat ‘‘Deadwood Dick’’ Mays, Willie McNair, Steve Metcalfe, Ralph Negro Baseball Leagues Olympics O’Neil, Shaquille Owens, Jesse Paige, Satchel Payton, Walter Pickett, Bill Pippen, Scottie Rice, Jerry Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jackie Rodman, Dennis Rudolph, Wilma Russell, Bill Scott, Wendell Simpson, O. J. Smith, Emmitt Smith, Lovie Smith, Tubby Sports Sports Announcers and Commentators Sports Classics Stewart, James ‘‘Bubba’’ Stringer, C. Vivian Tennis Thompson, John R. Track and Field Tyson, Mike Vick, Michael Wilkens, Lenny Williams, Venus and Williams, Serena Women and Sports Woods, Tiger Television Shows, Radio Shows, Performers Adams, Yolanda Ali, Laila

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Banks, Tyra Barkley, Charles Black Entertainment Television (BET) Bradley, Ed Brown, Judge Joe Carroll, Diahann Cosby, Bill Cosby Show, The Deejaying Gregory, Dick Gumbel, Bryant Harvey, Steve Hayes, Isaac Hughes, Cathy Hughley, D. L. Joyner, Tom Mabley, Moms Madison, Joe Radio Shows and Hosts Robinson, Max Rock, Chris Roker, Al Shepherd, Sherri Smiley, Tavis Soul Train Television Television Evangelism Williams, Juan Winfrey, Oprah Theater, Playwrights Baraka, Amiri Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Dove, Rita Federal Theatre Project: Negro Theatre Unit Hansberry, Lorraine Hughes, Langston Hurston, Zora Neale National Black Theater Festival Perry, Tyler Playwrights Robeson, Paul

Guide to Related Topics

Shange, Ntozake Theater and Drama Wilson, August Wright, Richard Women’s Issues Cooper, Anna Julia Feminism Height, Dorothy Lorde, Audre National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) Prostitution Taylor, Susan L. Walker, Alice Womanism Women and Sports Women and the Civil Rights Movement Women, African American, Images of Writers, Writing, Authors, Poets Angelou, Maya Baldwin, James Bambara, Toni Cade Baraka, Amiri Black Arts Movement Bontemps, Arna Brooks, Gwendolyn Carter, Stephen L. Chesnutt, Charles W. Cullen, Countee Delany, Samuel R. Davis, Angela Davis, Ossie, and Dee, Ruby Douglass, Frederick Dove, Rita Du Bois, W. E. B. Dunbar, Paul Laurence Edelman, Marian Wright Ellison, Ralph Farrakhan, Louis

Guide to Related Topics

Federal Writers’ Project Fiction Franklin, John Hope Gates, Henry Louis Giovanni, Nikki Graphic Novels and Books Haley, Alex Hansberry, Lorraine Harlem Renaissance Harris, E. Lynn Himes, Chester Hughes, Langston Hurston, Zora Neale Johnson, James Weldon King, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther Jr. Lorde, Audre McKay, Claude McMillan, Terry Micheaux, Oscar Morrison, Tony Mosley, Walter

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Naylor, Gloria Perry, Tyler Playwrights Poetry Jams Poets and Poetry Publishers and Publishing Robinson, Randall Scott, Jill Shange, Ntozake Slave Narratives Steele, Shelby Taylor, Susan L. Tubman, Harriet Uncle Tom’s Cabin Walker, Alice Washington, Booker T. West, Cornel Wheatley, Phillis White, Walter Wilson, August Wright, Richard

Preface Scope and Purpose The Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture is a four-volume set that features more than six hundred entries on entertainment, history, sports, art, writing and publications, food, business, organizations, and more. Although there are other reference works that embrace African American culture, the focus is usually away from popular culture. The intent of this encyclopedia is to give a panoramic view of contemporary African American popular culture and, as much as possible, trace the history and/or impact of events that affect or involve popular culture. The entries here tell what people do, say, and wear, as well as where and how they lived or live. There are some ties to folklore as well, for that topic, too, is central to popular culture. The entries highlight the life and work of people who have contributed to the arts, education, civil rights, entertainment, the news media, music, protest, religion and spirituality, sports, and other areas, as well as provide general entries on issues, places, and topics in those areas. Although the Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture strives to be comprehensive, it was not possible to include every African American who has helped to shape popular culture and every contribution that he or she made. Nor does it discuss every event that occurred in African American popular culture. The scope of this work is limited to African Americans; however, scattered references are made to other people and other cultures, with information that helps to give a full picture of the topics of discussion. Discussions of African influences are not designed to examine African culture but to elucidate the influence of Africa on the topics and people discussed here. The selection process for what to include in the encyclopedia was a challenge. An advisory board of scholars from different backgrounds—folklore and religion, urban studies and race relations, and information science—guided the process. The contributors suggested topics and people as well, which helped to ensure a

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broad coverage. Thus, the mix of individuals and group entries is deliberate. Not every hip-hop artist is listed, nor is every actor and performer included; yet, when searching various published works, especially those devoted to icons, such as Gladys L. Knight’s Icons of African American Protest, and Matthew C. Whitaker’s African American Icons of Sport, the temptation to include information on all of the stars included in those books weighed heavily on the choices made. On the other hand, topics that are important in African American culture but barely developed in the literature were certain to be selected. Examples are Cotillions and Botillions, Black Expos, and Circuses. Most of the entries are brief (five hundred to fifteen hundred words) yet a representative number of lengthy articles from five thousand to eight thousand words, such as ‘‘African Americans, 1619–2010’’; ‘‘Business and Commerce’’; and ‘‘New Orleans’’ are also included in the mix. More than one hundred and forty contributors wrote the entries in this book, most of them scholars and researchers in U.S. colleges and universities, as well as professional writers. This encyclopedia has also benefited from work done earlier by others. Many of these experts have published books in Greenwood’s and ABC-CLIO’s award-winning encyclopedias and other reference works, such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, edited by Anand Prahlad (2006), and their contributions were crafted from those books. Information about contributors is found in the ‘‘About the Editor and Contributors’’ section at the end of the set. This encyclopedia is intended for libraries (school, college, graduate, and public), educators, and the general public. Secondary audiences include researchers, entrepreneurs, journalists, organizations, and writers.

Arrangement of Entries The entries are arranged in alphabetical order. Since the entire work is about African Americans, few entries begin with ‘‘African American’’ or ‘‘Black,’’ unless these terms are needed for clarity or are part of a name or term, such as ‘‘Black Power Movement.’’ For entries on individuals, the listing is under the popular or best-known name of the person; for example, the comedian Moms Mabley is found under ‘‘Mabley, Moms,’’ not ‘‘Aiken, Loretta Mary,’’ her real name. Numerous cross-references are included to refer the reader to additional topics related to the subject; for example, the entry on ‘‘Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)’’ also refers the reader to ‘‘Law and Law Schools’’ and ‘‘Medical Schools.’’ In addition, words in the text are presented in boldface type to show that they are names of entries included in this encyclopedia.

Features of the Encyclopedia Special features are provided to help make the work more readable and userfriendly. In the front of the book, there is an extensive timeline, which helps the reader put names and events into a better context of when the events occurred,

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from 1619 through the present. The ‘‘Guide to Related Topics,’’ which appears in the front of the each volume is a convenient list of entries grouped under broad topics. Each entry ends with a list of ‘‘Further Reading’’ references or, for some musicians, a ‘‘Discography,’’ to help the reader find additional information. A comprehensive selected bibliography appears at the end of volume four. The appendices include four useful lists: Selected List of African American Films; Selected List of African American Radio Shows; Selected List of African American Television Shows; and Selected African American Popular Culture Collections at Research Centers, Libraries, and Universities. The encyclopedia ends with a comprehensive index.

Acknowledgments The size of this publication necessitated the work of a team of researchers/ writers who would prepare the entries according to a specific set of guidelines. I am grateful to the contributors for their work, whether they prepared one entry or multiple entries. There are those who at first agreed to write several articles yet as the need arose to extend that list, they were always willing and eager to write more. Gladys L. Knight and Delano Greenidge-Copprue are primary examples; thus, to them I frequently referred to the work as ‘‘our book.’’ Thank you Gladys and Delano for understanding, appreciating, and producing such fine entries. My loyal coworker, Cheryl Jones Hamberg, is another who never learned to say ‘‘enough is enough.’’ When asked if we could meet one deadline, then another, her response was the familiar and borrowed comment, ‘‘Yes we can!’’ Thank you, Cheryl, for your online searches, for remaining vigilant for current articles and publications, and for writing several articles as well. Jason Harrison, my assistant, photocopied materials and retrieved books from the shelves with a smile. Thank you, Jason. To my family and friends, thanks for your continuing interest in what I love to do—write. To my editor, Anne Thompson, thanks for your encouragement, guidance, patience, and suggestions for making the encyclopedia a better product. Our telephone conversations and e-mails were important to my sanity during the three years of work on this set. I am grateful to Bridget Austiguy-Preschel for production management, P. Sangeetha of KnowledgeWorks Global Limited for work on the production phase of this encyclopedia, and media editor Jason Kniser for selecting the illustrations. Jessie Carney Smith

Introduction Popular culture has many meanings. It has been defined as prevailing elements in a society preserved through language or everyday living. According to some writers, it is simply ‘‘what we do.’’ Popular culture may involve the sharing of ideas, beliefs, sayings, places, events, and customs of ordinary people as opposed to the elite, and passed on through such popular mass media as the Internet, television, movies, music, radio, newspapers, clubs, and concerts. Popular culture includes elements from entertainment, sports, music, dance, fashion, food, literature, games, transportation, and other aspects of life. However it is defined, popular culture is captured in the customs and practices that surround our lives. For African Americans, pop culture has been influenced widely by elements of mainstream American culture and by the culture of other ethnic groups. It is, in reality, group interculture. Historically, much of what that culture has embraced has been influenced by the developments within the segregated communities in which African Americans live, work, play, struggle, or prosper. It is vast in scope, depth, and reach, and, when explored, will help to define in a different detail what African American life is about. It is against this backdrop that the Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture has been developed. While the rich heritage of African Americans is well documented and much of what has been hidden about their past has been brought in full view, the approach to their lives through the lens of popular culture has yet to emerge as a published, encyclopedic work. We know that popular culture is seen, interpreted, and understood best when those elements that shape it are identified. Hence, when possible, the discussions in this encyclopedia take into account the historical development of a topic as well as the impact of that topic on African American popular culture. As Debra Newman Ham wrote in her essay ‘‘African Americans in the U.S., 1619–2010,’’ ‘‘From the shores of Africa to the urban metropolises of the United States, the voice of people of color have echoed the voices of those who have been oppressed

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throughout the world.’’ We could never understand the issues we face in contemporary society without understanding the history of our African ancestors in America. Nor could we understand their resiliency after being forced from the world that they knew—Africa—to a world that was entirely new and perhaps frightening and threatening to their security—America. There was a movement of Africans to the New World after the Europeans discovered its existence and came here as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; these Africans came as free people. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, however, millions of Africans were forced into slavery in the Caribbean and Latin America, and nearly a century later, into North America. It is almost inconceivable that the slave trade could victimize from nine to twenty-five million Africans. Yet, as they came in chains, these Africans found ways to endure the harsh oppression that the slavery system forced on them. While on board the vessels of their captivity, some resorted to mutiny against their captors. Some jumped overboard in a futile attempt to regain their freedom. Still others were actors and devised ways to cope with their captivity. The cramped conditions on the large slave ships, the human disease and filth that the captured men, women, and children faced, and in general the horrific conditions associated with the journey meant loss of life for the slaves as well as for many crewmen who crossed the Atlantic with them.

Slaves Culture’s Influence on American Popular Culture There are no pleasant stories to be told about the conditions forced on slaves. Although the first twenty Africans in British America came in 1619 and were sold by a Dutch captain as indentured servants in Jamestown, Virginia, masses came later, not as indentured servants but as slaves. American planters forced them to tend to their cotton, rice, sugar, indigo, wheat, and tobacco plantations and to perform household tasks. By the end of the Revolutionary War, most northern states had emancipated their slaves and the few who did not emancipate them did so a few decades later. The enslaved population in the South remained sizeable. Some brought their talents with them to this country and were skilled artisans. In addition to toiling on cotton, tobacco, rice, and other plantations, some ran steamboats, labored as masons, became crafty with ironwork, specialized in blacksmithing, carpentry, hostelry, and coopering. Others brought specific manufacturing techniques from their native land—Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, or Zaire. Some of the female slaves became maids, cooks, hairdressers, milliners, and seamstresses; they already had knowledge of appliqu
e, embroidery, and piecework and used their talent to produce a uniquely American art form. They practiced their crafts on the plantations where they lived but were also hired out to serve other plantation owners or local businesses and may have received a small stipend for their services.

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Along with their crafts, slaves brought with them from Africa a medicine similar to that already practiced in colonial America. They found medicinal value in certain plants, minerals, and herb concoctions that they made, and though they lacked formal training, became involved in the art of healing. There were men and women self-trained practitioners, and the older women servants were wise in midwifery and folk cures. Since the slave master knew the importance of keeping his family as well as his slaves healthy, the practice of medicine was allowed. Some of the men and women became so skilled and popular that they were granted freedom. The practice of medicine and midwifery are discussed in this encyclopedia under ‘‘Medicine, Health, and Healing’’ and ‘‘Midwives and Midwifery.’’ The Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture addresses other talents of enslaved men and women; for example, the origin of African American foods is traced first to Africa and then to the plantations where the cooks lived. Frequently they used their talent to turn their food rations into tasty dishes. Gwendolyn M. Rees’s entry ‘‘African Cultural Influences’’ tells us that, ‘‘Despite Africa’s rich contributions to American culture, the misconception that Africans made no contribution to the United States or the world’s culture exists.’’ Ancient Africans used vegetables such as beets, cabbage, celery, cucumbers, garlic, greens, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, okra, onions, ground peas (peanuts), and yams; fruits such as coconuts, dates, figs, grapes, olives, plums, raisins, and watermelons; grains such as barley, rice, and wheat; and nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts, and pine nuts. They used seasonings such as cinnamon, cumin, dill, honey, mustard, salt, pepper, rosemary, and vinegar. Meats such as beef, fish, goat, and mutton were prepared, as were beer, coffee, fruit juices, wines, poultry, and dairy products. Thus, the slave cook was experienced with foods that she prepared for the master and, whenever possible, for her family. Various entries in this encyclopedia on ‘‘Food and Cooking,’’ ‘‘Folk Foods,’’ ‘‘Soul Food,’’ and ‘‘Cookbooks’’ trace the development of recipes and food preparation from Africa to the slave period in America, and to trends in African American popular culture. Slave women of necessity made quilts from scraps to provide warmth in the cold plantation cabins or, from better fabrics, to provide covering for the owner in the big house. As we see in our discussion ‘‘Quilts and Quilting Traditions,’’ Harriet Tubman (the Underground Railroad conductor who led over three hundred enslaved blacks to freedom) was a self-taught quilt-maker who in 1843 made a patchwork quilt. Musicians emerged as well, and were used to provide entertainment for the slave master’s family and for social gatherings that whites held on the plantations. Musical forms such as blues, jazz, ragtime, black gospel, and zydeco were developed in the old Louisiana Territory by West Africans and their descendants. Some of these forms originated in the West African country of Mali. Many songs that the slaves sang endured. Called ‘‘sorrow songs,’’ these songs did, in fact, remind former slaves of the suffering that they experienced, but were used as well to communicate a hidden message to fellow slaves concerning an escape or a way to freedom. We capture this experience in the discussion ‘‘Spirituals’’

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which were popularized by Fisk University’s Jubilee Singers as early as the 1880s. Many of these songs were created by African Americans held as slaves. Their exact development is unknown, as this music was not originally written down during its creation but transmitted as an oral tradition and later taught more by rote than through notated music. The majority of these songs were created between 1700 and 1865, and spoke of various subjects, such as God, heaven, and freedom. Further, this encyclopedia includes a number of discussions of various forms of music, which tell us that the music and songs of African peoples enslaved in the Deep South and their descendants had a lasting and profound impact on American and world culture. Our pop music, rap, and hip-hop of a later period owe their existence to the unique musical genres of the African American South. Early Slave Writing As harsh as the ‘‘peculiar institution’’ of slavery was, blacks managed to form their own churches, schools, benevolent societies, and businesses. Free blacks worked as domestics, draymen, barbers, innkeepers, street vendors, sailors, stevedores, blacksmiths, and liverymen. Some enslaved blacks were able to purchase their freedom and that of their families because, in time, they were paid enough to do so and saved their monies. Of those who learned to read and write, the ‘‘Slave Narratives,’’ or, as contributor Lean’tin Bracks defines here in her discussion of the topic as ‘‘the autobiographical experiences of enslaved people of African descent,’’ were born. We know also that some of these narratives were handed down orally from those who were illiterate to those who could record them. Through this medium the writer tells the reader of the inhumane and immoral conditions of slavery. According to Bracks, ‘‘This form of expression became the foundation for future literary forms such as poetry, essays, novels, and other works by African Americans. The slave narrative is America’s most indigenous literary form.’’ It is also ‘‘America’s most indigenous literary form.’’ Abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery, wrote three slave narratives: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). These works have become a part of current popular culture and they are well-studied in academic programs. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself (1861) by Harriet Jacobs, brought a new dimension to slave narratives. Jacobs addresses the immorality of slavery and her experiences as a woman. Her work, too, is studied in popular culture, especially in courses in women’s or gender studies and African American literature.

Early Black-Owned Businesses Africans were involved in business ventures long before they were brought to America. We see in the entry ‘‘Business and Commerce,’’ prepared by the editor,

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that, on coming to America, the enslaved did not lose their skills nor their will to be entrepreneurs, only their opportunity. Free blacks, of course, did become entrepreneurs and were seen in almost all southern cities working as barbers, butchers, mechanics, shoemakers, and artisans. They also manufactured furniture, pottery, and bricks. Some maintained restaurants and hotels. The fine caterers of antebellum America, the fashionable dressmakers, and the highly skilled hairdressers—most of whom worked outside the South—were black. When America’s first settlers came, they constructed laws to discourage black entrepreneurship but blacks found other ways to endure. Some, though not all, black-owned businesses survived slavery but succumbed to the changed business requirements that came during the industrial age. This encyclopedia embraces the activities of black entrepreneurs and documents when they owned and operated their businesses. Today black businesses and business leaders help to shape popular culture and promote financial independence and a sense of pride of ownership. Sports and Sporting Events Sports and sporting events are a sizeable part of American and African American popular culture. While some sporting activities emerged during contemporary times, the reverse is true of horse racing and boxing. For mainstream America, horse racing and boxing became forms of entertainment as well profitable sports. Slaves spent time training and caring for the horses that the wealthy bred on big farms and plantations, yet some were already skilled in their native land while they served West African horse tribes. It was natural, then, for them to become jockeys because they knew the horses and the horses knew them. Since much betting occurred during these events, the riders and jockeys were often more closely regarded than the horses. By the 1800s, diminutive slaves were used as jockeys in the American South. Despite the fact that the jockeys were slaves and governed by the rules of slavery that existed, they were also permitted to cross state lines to race horses in the North. The South became known for producing most of the black jockeys seen then at major races. These jockeys were seen in heralded marches between 1823 and 1883. Accounts of horse racing, including those jockeys who won astounding races between 1861 and 1911 and the early Kentucky Derbies, are presented here in Frederick D. Smith’s article, ‘‘Horse Racing and Jockeys.’’ Boxing, as a sport, has been one of the most important forms of entertainment in African American popular culture. Writer Delano Greenidge-Copprue notes that, ‘‘through the lens of boxing, the world has had the opportunity to witness the exploits of African Americans of tremendous character and of selflessness. People like Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis . . . shattered racist stereotypes, becoming figures larger than the sport.’’ These boxing icons did not invent the sport but continued to popularize it. One of the nation’s most important black boxers in the history of the ring is Tom Molineaux, a slave who ‘‘forged into a pugilist of historical significance and acclaim.’’ Following the path of some

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enterprising slaves previously noted, he ‘‘fought his way from slavery to freedom’’ by beating a fellow bondsman. While it has been said that the sport ‘‘always attracted poor and marginalized men,’’ Molineaux proved that men of color had intellect as well. A strong and powerful boxer, he also was well acquainted with science. The black race has produced many powerful prizefighters. On July 4, 2010, the nation acknowledged the anniversary of the work of a black champion who hit a racial nerve. Jack Johnson, whose life is chronicled in this encyclopedia, was victorious over white fighter and former champion Jim Jeffries in a match held in Reno, Nevada, in what was billed by the sporting world as the ‘‘Fight of the Century.’’ Although the results produced racial unrest around the country, it failed to take away the historic fact—that Johnson was America’s first African American heavyweight boxer. Sports figures seemed to have received wide public recognition early on, perhaps due to the nation’s fascination with sports. The old Negro Baseball Leagues produced a number of stars who later joined Major League teams, and then baseball’s black icons became popularly known. As an example, Jackie Robinson emerged and went on to become a legendary character. Baseball also gave us men like Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds; football gave us players O. J. Simpson and Emmitt Smith and coaches Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith. There are Olympic winners who are icons in track and field (Jesse Owens and Wilma Rudolph). There are icons in golf (Lee Elder and Tiger Woods); in tennis (Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, and multiyear Grand Slam–winners Venus Williams and Serena Williams); in basketball (Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James); in speed skating (Shani Davis) and in motorsports (James ‘‘Bubba’’ Stewart). From Celebrations to Education The majority of African Americans were emancipated in 1865. When President Abraham Lincoln read the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freeing slaves, many never heard his message. In Texas, for example, slavery continued for another two years. Black Texans received the news on June 19, 1865; that day became known as Juneteenth. Some contend that the president’s message was deliberately held from black Texans for the benefit of the master. Juneteenth is celebrated annually on June 19 and has become the longest running African American holiday; increasingly it has permeated African American popular culture. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s also spurred Juneteenth celebrations and blacks within and beyond Texas regard the celebrations as a symbolic day of freedom. The Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture includes an entry on Juneteenth and gives a separate entry on ‘‘Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations.’’ Many of these events have connections to the slavery period and the activities that slaves used to bring a joyous time in their lives. African Americans remained troubled in the post-Civil War period. They had expected a new era of freedom, which eluded them. Although there were gains in civil rights legislation and political representation in local and state

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governing bodies, and the U.S. Congress, the infamous Ku Klux Klan did much to thwart blacks’ progress. From the 1870s to the turn of the century and beyond, the Klan and those with similar views spurred racial unrest and violence. Lynching became commonplace, as writer Amy Kirschke discusses in her article by that title; she sees it as ‘‘a subject often revisited in popular culture.’’ In the 1890s, ‘‘lynching became an act almost exclusively focused on controlling African Americans,’’ she writes. Lynchings reminded blacks that ‘‘they had less protection under the law as citizens than they had enjoyed as slaves.’’ Those who recorded lynching statistics included Tuskegee Institute (now University), Ida B. Wells-Barnett (the renowned anti-lynching crusader and black journalist), the NAACP, and the National Urban League. Since lynchings occurred in most all of the southeast and beyond the region as well, many were secret affairs and thus not recorded. Discussions of race, race relations, and civil rights permeate this work. Neither emancipation nor Reconstruction ensured freedom for all of America’s citizens. The nation was pitifully slow to deal with the question of full citizenship for the newly freed black population. The various amendments to the Constitution (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth) were slow to be accepted, for they dealt with issues of slavery, due process of law, and citizenship. Former slaves wanted an education and schools were established for that purpose. Hence, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were founded. While those established by the American Missionary Association (such as Atlanta University, Dillard, Fisk, Hampton, LeMoyne, Tougaloo, and others) had charters that prescribed a racial mix of the student body, others, particularly the public institutions, did not. In the entry ‘‘Historically Black Colleges and Universities,’’ we see black colleges emerging as early as 1837, 1854, and 1856. Black churches and white abolitionists were largely responsible for their founding. Writer Fletcher F. Moon reports that, ‘‘The overwhelming majority of HBCUs were founded in the years immediately following the Civil War, after the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and gave blacks full citizenship, including the right to pursue higher education.’’ Without the work of independent philanthropists and organizations like the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, American Missionary Association, and the Peabody Fund, and political organizations such as the Freedmen’s Bureau, the private institutions might not have been founded when they were. The publicly supported black colleges came on the scene later, or after 1890 when the Second Morrill Act caused them to be born in southern and border states as public land-grant institutions. They offered agricultural, industrial, mechanical, normal, and technical education and attracted former slaves or their descendants who were able to hone many of the skills that they had during slavery, or that were handed down to them after slavery ended. One of the early HBCUs—Howard University, founded in 1868—provided professional studies to black people, such as medicine and law. Other black medical and law schools followed. Howard also trained many key and iconic civil rights lawyers who were

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instrumental in the passing of civil rights legislation that has a lasting and historic impact on African American and American public education. Men like Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, whose lives are chronicled in this encyclopedia, were part of the legal team that argued and won the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (also presented here in a separate entry.) Icons of African American Culture Luminaries Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois emerged as two of black America’s most powerful leaders. So influential were these men, as their entries in the encyclopedia reveal, that they have become icons in African American culture—Washington as educator and Du Bois as scholar and a race man. Many of their beliefs and the views that they espoused are today’s issues as well. Their works are often cited and studied to some degree throughout a black child’s educational career. Washington became a race leader during the later part of the 1800s. He founded Tuskegee Institute (now University) in Alabama and was known among U.S. presidents and influential leaders. He called for the development of industrial skills, economic and business development, and other forms of self-empowerment. Du Bois, on the other hand, had a liberal arts philosophy; he also openly fought racism, and wrote in The Souls of Black Folk the much-quoted statement, ‘‘The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.’’ As well, the voices of other black citizens would not be silenced. Organizations like the NAACP and the National Urban League emerged in the early part of the 1900s and remain active in the struggle for ‘‘freedom and justice for all.’’ The country knew the work of fiery journalists such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Others helped the race to understand and appreciate its work and worth (for example, Walter White and James Weldon Johnson), founding the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History) and Negro History Week (now Black History Month). Both the organization and the monthly celebration still give African Americans an opportunity to showcase and promote their works, and mainstream America a concentrated period to focus on such contributions. Through his work as editor of the Crisis (magazine), Du Bois was a literary benefactor of the Harlem Renaissance; it, too, is included here in a separate entry as well as referenced frequently throughout the encyclopedia. Writers of the renaissance include Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and others. Their successors included Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, and Alice Walker. The Harlem Renaissance also ushered in African American artists, including musicians and bandleaders such as Cab Calloway, and playwrights, including Lorraine Hansberry. By the 1960s, the modern Civil Rights Movement had emerged. It had been stimulated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and into 1956 and the heroic deed of Rosa Parks, which would set in motion a movement involving blacks and whites that brought about sweeping changes in every aspect of African American life. Following the Congress of Racial Equality (already

Introduction

xlv

established), new protest groups were born; they included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Martin Luther King Jr. became known worldwide for his nonviolent crusade for social justice, freedom, and equality. King and his followers were active in the historic March on Washington, demonstrations in Chicago, Memphis, and elsewhere. There were numerous sit-in movements and freedom rides through the South and to some extent elsewhere. We recognized the work of women activists such as Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer; and male leaders including Andrew Young, John Lewis, and Jesse Jackson. By the time the concentrated efforts toward freedom for blacks subsided, African Americans had gained many new freedoms as well as a stronger sense of racial pride. Some called it black pride. The cultural impact of the movement continued, as works by black artists, writers, musicians, and others increased in demand and in value. Unlike what was seen in earlier periods, popular culture icons were never hard to find. Through the work of the media, the hip-hop artists, rock-and-roll musicians, stage and screen actors, filmmakers, cartoonists, playwrights, poets, and writers, African American popular culture was recognized. Today we cite such icons as comedian and philanthropist Bill Cosby; television show host and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey; popular radio show host and philanthropist for HBCUs Tom Joyner; and nationally-known talk show host and media commentator Tavis Smiley. At the helm of it all is Barack Obama, America’s first African American president, and his wife, Michelle Obama, our first African American first lady and an achiever in her own right. Indeed, the election of President Obama signaled a major turning point in American and African American history—a time of unequalled achievement for the black race. Cross-Cultural Influences on Popular Culture As enduring and powerful as the African influence was, and continues, on African American popular culture, Caribbean influences helped to shape that culture as well. Writer Tomeiko Ashford Carter notes in her article ‘‘Caribbean Cultural Influences’’ that ‘‘Some Caribbean influences that have become a part of African American popular culture include those found in politics, literature, religious movements, hairstyles, clothing, geographical development, food, acting, and music.’’ Chief among the political leaders referenced is Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), both chronicled in separate entries in this encyclopedia. Although born in Jamaica, Garvey moved to Harlem later and worked for black consciousness and mobility. The son of Jamaican immigrants, Colin Powell, also discussed in separate entry, is one of African America’s most respected military officers and statesmen. Singer and actor Harry Belafonte was born to Jamaican immigrants; later on he befriended Martin Luther King Jr. and was active in the Civil Rights Movement. He also spearheaded the ‘‘We Are the World’’ music project benefit to provide relief to those suffering from famine in Ethiopia. There are also actor Sidney Poitier, musician Bob Marley and reggae music, and writers and new wave artists. One of the

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notable Caribbean movements that impacted African American culture is the religious movement Rastafarianism, chronicled here as well. We find popular foods, such as jerk and curry spices carried over into African American culture. Added to this is Afro-Hispanic blending, now seen in African American popular culture. The contribution of African Americans and their impact on popular culture cannot be denied. Thus, the commitment, insight, and fortitude of African Americans of the past who made our culture popular must be expanded by those of the present and future who seek to explore new frontiers. As David Satcher wrote in his introductory essay to The Covenant with Black America, ‘‘America’s new frontier is not the wilderness, or the air, or the sea; it is the inner cities, the barrios, and the reservations, where disparities persist and where dreams are dim.’’

Timeline 1619

The first African settlers in North America reach Jamestown, Virginia, on a Dutch ship. The cargo of twenty is divided, with fifteen purchased as indentured servants and not as slaves.

1638

The first colony to recognize slavery as legal is Massachusetts.

1664

Maryland is the first colony to enact legislation prohibiting marriage between black men and white women. The colony also passes legislation recognizing slavery as legal.

1688 February 18

The Quakers are the first religious group to pass an antislavery resolution in Pennsylvania. This is also the first evidence of a formal antislavery resolution being passed in American history. Despite these actions, slavery is a thriving business in the state.

1706

New York is the first state to pass legislation declaring that the legal status for children is determined by that of the mother. North Carolina and Georgia soon follow with a similar measure. Other southern states enact similar laws.

1754

Benjamin Banneker, a free black, and the first African American scientist, builds a striking clock with seasoned wood, the first clock known to be constructed in the colonies.

1773

Phillis Wheatley publishes Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, and becomes the first African American and the third woman in the United States to publish a book of poetry.

1775–83

Efforts of African American philanthropists are demonstrated as early as the period of the Revolutionary War. Through mutual aid societies, they provide social services and address the economic needs of the black community. Free blacks combine their resources to purchase the freedom of

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Timeline some in bondage. Fraternal orders also join early philanthropic efforts to support their members in sickness and death.

1787

Religious leaders Richard Allen and Absalom Jones establish the Free African Society in Philadelphia; it is organized as a mutual aid society, a church, and a political entity. Prince Hall establishes the Negro Masonic Order in the United States; it is the first African American self-help fraternal institution.

1792

Benjamin Banneker publishes Benjamin Banneker’s Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of our Lord, 1792. An astronomer, inventor, and mathematician, Banneker is the first African American to publish almanacs and continues to issue them each year for ten years.

1793 February 12

Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Law, which declares it a criminal offense to harbor a runaway slave or to interfere with the slave’s return to his or her owner.

1800s

Slave-born William Tiler Johnson, known as the ‘‘Barber of Natchez,’’ owns three barbershops and a bathhouse in Natchez, Mississippi. He establishes his first barbershop in Port Gibson. Although he hires slaves as apprentice barbers, Johnson has a predominantly white clientele. Christiana Carteaux Bannister, abolitionist and entrepreneur, is one of the earliest-known black women to run a successful hairdressing business in nineteenth-century New England. She has a predominantly white clientele.

1808

Federal legislation that prohibits the importation of new slaves into this country becomes effective.

1809

The Abyssinian Baptist Church is established in New York City, founded by Thomas Paul. Later, it becomes one of the most noted African American churches in the United States.

1816

The American Colonization Society is established for the purpose of resettling free African Americans to outside the United States.

1827

The first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, is published, by Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russworm. Robert Roberts’s The House Servant’s Directory, the first cookbook with recipes by an African American, is published. In the 1800s, three other cookbooks by African Americans are known to be published as well. One of these, What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking (1881), the second-known such cookbook, becomes popularly known.

1828

African American book collectors begin to organize reading rooms and library companies for blacks in Philadelphia, and later establish such rooms in institutional libraries.

1829 September

David Walker issues his militant antislavery pamphlet, An Appeal to the Colored People of the World. Circulated in the South, it is the first work of its kind written by an African American.

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xlix

1831

The most significant slave revolt in the United States to date is held, led by Nat Turner in Virginia. The insurrection lasts for two days, and fiftynine whites are killed. This insurrection represents the first major battle in the efforts to end slavery.

1832

Black women in Boston organize the African-American Female Intelligence Society. Its purpose is to educate ‘‘women of color.’’ The first African American woman to deliver a public lecture is Maria Millet Stewart, an abolitionist and feminist, who gives a public address in Boston.

1834

David Ruggles, abolitionist, printer, pamphleteer, and bibliophile, is the first-known African American bookseller. He opens a store in New York City.

1845

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, is published and becomes one of the most popular and well-known slave narratives ever. In subsequent years the abolitionist and orator writes two other narratives about his life: My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).

1849 July

1850s

1857 March 6

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She returns to the South at least twenty times to lead enslaved black Americans to freedom. She rescues at least three hundred slaves from bondage. Black military regiments are organized and fight in many military campaigns, in the Ninth and Tenth Calvary and the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry, popularly known as the Buffalo Soldiers. When the military is racially integrated in 1952, the men join various parts of the armed forces. They remain popular icons in African American culture. The U.S. Supreme Court makes its historic Dred Scott decision denying African Americans citizenship in the United States. The decision also denies the power of Congress to restrict slavery in any federal territory.

1860s

While the exact date of the first African American cotillion, or the presentation of young women to society, cannot be documented, some claim that the cotillion dates back to the period following the emancipation of blacks. The cotillion remains one of the most popular events held for young women of the black middle class to teach them social graces and moral values. The botillion (also beautillion), or the male counterpart of the cotillion, is a rite of passage for black males, elevating them from boyhood to manhood. Although the date of its founding is unclear, the botillion has gained in popularity in recent years.

1861

The narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself (1861), by Harriet Jacobs, brings a new dimension to slave narratives. Through its focus on the female perspective, it influences and appeals to the moral consciousness of audiences.

l 1863 January 1

1865 March

Timeline

The Emancipation Proclamation is issued, freeing slaves in those states that rebelled against the Union. Following its passage, fugitive slaves flood Union lines in Virginia, Tennessee, and the southern coast. African American men are admitted to service in the Union’s armed forces. Abolitionist Harriet Tubman becomes a spy and guide for the Union. For her work as a nurse in the Sea Islands and as an efficient scout, the secretary of war issues her a formal commendation. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, is created and expected to last for one year. In March 1866, the permanent Freedmen’s Bureau Bill is first vetoed by President Andrew Johnson but passed in April over his veto.

June 19

Juneteenth, the most well-known freedom celebration, comes on June 19, 1865, after slaves in Texas finally learn that they are legally free. Texas makes Juneteenth an official state holiday beginning January 1, 1980. Several other states observe Juneteenth as an unpaid state holiday as well. The celebration becomes reinvigorated during the last half of the twentieth century.

December 13

Slavery is outlawed in the United States when the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified.

1866

The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 is passed, granting African Americans the rights and privileges due them as American citizens.

1870 March 30 1875 March 1

The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified and secures voting rights for all male U.S. citizens. The U.S. Congress passes a civil rights bill banning discrimination in places of public accommodation. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the bill. When the Kentucky Derby, now America’s premiere racing event, is first held, Oliver Lewis rides the three-year-old Aristides to victory, becoming the first jockey of any race to win the event. Thirteen of the fourteen jockeys in the first race are African American. They also dominate the sport for many years.

1879

Twenty-thousand or more African Americans living in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas become exodusters, migrating to Kansas in the spring of this year.

1884

Ida B. Wells (later Wells-Barnett), a school teacher from Memphis, is taken from the first-class railroad accommodation for which she had paid and relocated to the segregated section for blacks. She sues the company, but her successful suit is later overturned.

1885 February 20

Princeville, North Carolina, is incorporated this year and is recognized by some as the oldest town incorporated by African Americans.

Timeline

li Princeville is the official successor to the community previously known as Freedom Hill, established in 1865 by freed slaves.

1888

Isaiah Thornton Montgomery and Benjamin Green establish what some also consider America’s first all-black town, Mound Bayou, located in Mississippi.

1890

Mississippi introduces a grandfather clause into its constitution to prevent blacks from voting. According to the clause, voting is restricted to the descendants of persons who voted before 1866. A poll tax and a socalled literacy test are adopted as well. Nearly all of the former Confederate states adopt similar methods of black disfranchisement by World War I.

1891

Daniel Hale Williams founds Provident Hospital in Chicago. This is the nation’s first black-owned hospital, and it is maintained by an interracial staff of doctors. Later (1893) Williams performs the first successful openheart surgery.

1892

Ida B. Wells (-Barnett) publishes articles and editorials in the Memphis Free Speech and the New York Age, beginning the first phase of the antilynching movement.

1893

Expositions that embrace African Americans are seen in the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. The exhibits demonstrate the progress of black women.

1895

The Cotton States and International Exposition is held in Atlanta. A special building features the accomplishments of African American women and the race in general. It is at this expo that Booker T. Washington gives his famous ‘‘Atlanta Compromise’’ speech on September 18, as he envisions a new Garden of Eden for whites and blacks. Some scholars say that Washington’s speech is the best statement of his philosophy on racial advancement and political accommodation with the prevailing racial ideology of this period in history.

October

Under the leadership of I. Garland Penn, the National Association of Colored Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists, which in 1903 becomes the National Medical Association, is founded in Atlanta. Twelve doctors are the founding members. They see a need to launch a national medical association for members of their race, who were denied membership in local and national medical associations that serve mainstream American medical doctors. In March 1909, the organization’s Journal of the National Medical Association is first published.

1895

Activist and educator Mary Church Terrell becomes the first African American member of the Washington, DC, school board. W. E. B. Du Bois receives his doctorate in history from Harvard University, becoming the first African American to do so.

1896 May 18

The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the concept of ‘‘separate but equal’’ public facilities when it decides the case Plessy v. Ferguson. The decision

lii

Timeline upholds Louisiana law providing separate railroad cars for black and white passengers and becomes the legal foundation for such segregation throughout the nation. The National Association of Colored Women is organized in Washington, DC, with Mary Church Terrell as founding president. It is formed after two leading African American women’s organizations merge—the National League of Colored Women and the National Federation of Afro-American women. The new organization supports the major women’s reform movements, including moral purity, temperance, suffrage, and self-improvement. It also advocates an end to the practice of lynching.

1897

The American Negro Academy, an organization that promotes African American literature, art, science, and higher education, is founded.

1900

The National Negro Business League is founded in Boston, with Booker T. Washington as founder and president. The league promotes business among African Americans and works through chapters established throughout the country.

1901

Poet and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson composes the song ‘‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’’ which later becomes known as the Negro National Anthem or the Black National Anthem. His brother, John Rosamond Johnson, writes the lyrics. The song is originally intended for a group of five hundred school children in Florida. The anthem is still widely sung, especially in the African American community, during Black History Month (February).

1902

Annie Turnbo Malone runs a multimillion-dollar hair care empire in St. Louis and founds Poro, one of the first successful African American hair care businesses in the county. Later she becomes one of America’s first black woman millionaires.

1903

The Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank is founded in Richmond, Virginia, with Maggie Lena Walker as founder and president. She is the first African American woman to own and operate a bank.

1903

W. E. B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folk, which becomes a classic and monumental work in African American literature. He declares that the ‘‘problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,’’ which remains an oft-quoted thesis.

1905 July 11–12

The Niagara Movement, the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is founded and announced in Niagara Falls, with W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter among its leaders. The leaders have to move to the Canadian side for their first meeting, due to being denied accommodations on the U.S. side. Robert Sengstacke Abbott launches the Chicago Defender, which he uses to encourage blacks to leave the oppressive South and migrate to

Timeline

liii the North. The Defender becomes one of black America’s most influential newspapers.

1906

The first African American Greek letter social fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, is founded at Cornell University. African American troops from the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division are accused of attacking the town of Brownsville, Texas, where they are stationed, and killing civilians. Although the soldiers dispute the charges, President Theodore Roosevelt orders three companies dishonorably discharged. A race riot erupts in Atlanta, Georgia, and continues for several days. After an unsubstantiated newspaper account of black attacks on white women, gangs of white males respond by attacking African Americans. For many years afterward, race relations in the city remain tense.

1907

Educator and religious worker Nannie Helen Burroughs proposes to the Baptist Convention that an observance be held to honor women in the church. The first such celebration, called Women’s Day, is held the last Sunday in July 1907, in Nashville, Tennessee, and gains widespread popularity.

1908

Jack Johnson becomes the first African American heavyweight boxer when he defeats Tommy Burns in a match held in Sydney, Australia. The first African American Greek letter social sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, is founded at Howard University. A massive, week-long race riot occurs in Springfield, Illinois, following a white woman’s false claim that a black man raped her. Sometime later, the woman claims that a white man had beaten her instead.

1909 May 12–14

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded in New York City, in partial response to the Springfield race riot the previous year. Those who sign the original charter included Jane Addams, John Dewey, W. E. B. Du Bois, William Dean Howells, and Oswald Garrison Villard. Moorfield Story, a Boston lawyer, is elected president. James H. Anderson founds the New York Amsterdam News, which becomes the leading black newspaper for African Americans in the twentieth century.

1910

Madam C. J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker) develops a method for caring for black hair and sets up profitable marketing strategies that revolutionize the hair care industry for blacks. She also establishes a chain of beauty parlors throughout the United Sates, the Caribbean, and South America. Later she becomes a millionaire.

November

The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is first published, with W. E. B. Du Bois as editorial leader. Its name comes from a discussion before the NAACP’s board, when member Mary White Ovington mentions James Russell Lowell’s poem, ‘‘The Present Crisis.’’ It is ‘‘first and foremost a

liv

Timeline newspaper,’’ but also reviews opinions and literature and gives information on race and other news of the day deemed important to black people. After heavyweight champion Jack Johnson defeats white boxer Jim Jeffries, race riots spring up across the nation. A film of the fight captures Johnson’s strength and spurs among whites a deep fear of black male power.

1911 October

The National Urban League (NUL) is founded when the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York, the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, and the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes merge. Its cofounders include George Edmund Haynes and Eugene Kinckle Jones. The NUL becomes a leader among African American organizations and also provides professional social services to the African American community. The Negro Society for Historical Research is founded in New York City.

1914

Inventor Garrett Morgan receives a patent for the first gas mask. The mask allows firefighters who enter smoke-filled places to breathe while performing their duties. It protects engineers, chemists, and workers whose assignments take them near noxious fumes and dust.

1915

The Negro Book Collectors Exchange is founded by a group of booklovers during a meeting of the American Negro Academy in Washington, DC. Its mission is to bring together all literature by people of color. Carter G. Woodson, known as ‘‘the Father of Black History,’’ helps to found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History at the Wabash YMCA in Chicago. The name of the organization is changed in 1972 to become the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The Great Migration begins, as African Americans leave the racially violent South, where educational and economic opportunities are poor, and settle in cities in the North and West. Some half-million blacks from the South relocate by the end of the migration in the 1960s. African Americans regain their voting rights after the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Guinn v. United States, rules unconstitutional Oklahoma’s grandfather clause that exempts from state voting requirements any person whose ancestors voted before January 1, 1866. D. W. Griffith’s controversial film The Birth of a Nation is released. It is inspired by Thomas Dixon’s overtly racist novels. The film gives a racist interpretation of the Civil War and Reconstruction, promotes the white supremacist view of culture, and glorifies the Ku Klux Klan. Efforts to prevent its release are ignored. Following its release, the NAACP is unsuccessful in its campaign to ban the film from theaters.

1916

The Journal of Negro History, the first American black historical research journal, is published, with Carter G. Woodson as founder and first editor. For six decades the journal remains the main outlet for black and white scholars interested in African American history.

Timeline

lv

1917

The Messenger, America’s only radical black newspaper at the time, begins publication, with Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph as its founders. The journal criticizes black conservative leaders as well as the NAACP. It also publishes works of many writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance period of the 1920s. The East St. Louis race riot erupts during the massive black migration after the beginning of World War I. The bloody riot comes in the wake of failed labor strikes in the local steel and mining town of East St. Louis. Dozens of African Americans are killed and numerous others injured. Marcus Garvey founds the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and also establishes its newspaper, the New York Negro World.

1919

Some thirty-eight race riots occur in various cities this year: in Longview, Texas; Chicago, Illinois; Elaine, Arkansas; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Omaha, Nebraska, marking what becomes known as ‘‘Red Summer of 1919.’’ The most serious race riot of this period occurs in Chicago on July 27, when a black man crosses an invisible color line on Chicago’s Twenty-Ninth Street beach, spurring white segregationists to stone him until he drowns. Violence erupts, leaving fifteen whites and twentythree blacks dead. Over five hundred people are injured. There is also huge property damage and, following widespread bombing and arson, thousands of blacks are left homeless. Federal troops are called into Chicago to quell the riot. The city establishes a special commission to study the problem and seek solutions for its racial problems. James Weldon Johnson, now the head of the NAACP, responds to the racial climate and activities in the nation around this time, calling it ‘‘Red Summer.’’ He warns African Americans that, although many are fighting for peace in World War I, it does not follow that white domination in the United States will end.

1920

The Negro Baseball League, comprised of eight teams from midwestern cities with sizeable black populations, is organized by Andrew Rube Foster. The league flourishes until 1948 and enables African Americans to play on their own segregated professional baseball teams. Filmmaker Oscar Micheaux responds to D. W. Griffith’s racist film The Birth of a Nation by releasing Within Our Gates, a film that depicts the violence of whites against blacks. Female citizens are granted the right to vote when the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified on August 26; nevertheless, black women of the South, like black men, for the most part remain disenfranchised. Herbert Pace founds Pace Phonographic, the first black-owned record company. It records albums in a variety of musical styles, ranging from opera to spirituals and blues, and releases them under the Black Swan label.

1921 May 31

A race riot, known as the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Riot, erupts and leaves a string of disasters. After an African American bootblack is falsely accused of raping a white woman, violence occurs and the black neighborhood is devastated, leaving from 36 to 175 black dead and 11,000 homeless.

lvi

Timeline The musical Shuffle Along, by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, is produced and performed by African Americans in New York City, and becomes one of the most popular shows on Broadway this season year. It runs for over a year, for a record 504 performances. It also launches the careers of Josephine Baker, Caterina Jarboro, and Florence Mills.

1922

The Harlem Renaissance, a cultural revolution involving African American artists, poets, writers, and musicians begins and flourishes throughout the Harlem section of New York City. While the movement has lost most of its motion by 1929, its remnants extend into the early 1930s. The first book of poetry published during the Harlem Renaissance is Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows. James Weldon Johnson’s The Book of American Negro Poetry, an anthology, is also published.

1923

Opportunity magazine, the official organ of the National Urban League, is launched in January.

1924 March 21

July 8

1925 May 8

1926

The Civic Club dinner is organized and promotes young black writers and poets in New York City’s literary community. It also supports and helps to launch the Harlem Renaissance. The dinner tradition begins when Charles S. Johnson, called the ‘‘godfather of the Harlem Renaissance,’’ invites Jean Toomer and about a dozen young and other unknown poets and writers to dinner at the Civic Club. Although the informal gathering aims to honor Jessie Redmon Faucet and her recently published book, There is Confusion, it becomes a well-advertised literary symposium. William DeHart Hubbard is the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event, in the long jump. The first Negro League World Series is held. The Kansas City Monarchs are victorious over the Philadelphia Hilldales. A. Philip Randolph organizes and becomes founding president of the allblack Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the nation’s first African American labor union. The union seeks to bargain with the Pullman Company for improved working conditions, higher wages, and increased benefits. Later, the union merges with the American Federation of Labor. Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance publish the only issue of the avantgarde literary magazine Fire! Historian Carter G. Woodson establishes Negro History Week as a way to promote the history and culture of his race. The celebration coincides with the birthdays of educator Booker T. Washington, President Abraham Lincoln, and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In 1976, the recognition becomes known as Black History Month.

Timeline

lvii

1927

The all-black basketball team known as the Savoy Big Five begins playing. They are later renamed the Harlem Globetrotters.

1928

Oscar De Priest, a Chicago Republican, is elected to the U.S. Congress, becoming the first African American elected to the federal legislature in the twentieth century.

1929 October 29

William Grant Still is the first African American composer to have a symphonic work performed by a major orchestra. The Afro-American Symphony, presented by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, is his first work. The ‘‘Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work’’ campaign is launched in Chicago as a boycott of white merchants who refuse to hire blacks. It is an outgrowth of the ‘‘Double Duty Doctrine’’ that black ministers preach from their pulpit and through mass meetings and promotional efforts in newsletters. The aim also is to assist black businesses financially and to promote the economic and social development of the black race. The strategy soon spreads to other cities, including Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington (DC), New York, Boston, Richmond, Pittsburgh, and a number of smaller cities. The efforts are known by other titles, such as ‘‘Jobs for Negroes’’ and ‘‘Don’t Spend Where You Can’t Work.’’ The movement is sustained until World War II. Charles Hamilton Houston begins his tenure as vice dean and later dean of the law school at Howard University. Under his leadership, the law school is reorganized and becomes a major training ground for civil rights lawyers and civil rights cases. Houston is credited for laying the legal foundations of the modern Civil Rights Movement.

1930

The Temple of Islam is organized in a black community in Detroit. The organizer, Wallace D. Fard, later receives godlike status within the sect. His successors include Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan. The organization becomes known as the Nation of Islam.

1931

Nine black youths, called the Scottsboro Boys, gain international attention when, after traveling on a freight train, they are accused of raping two white women near Scottsboro, Alabama. Although credible evidence is lacking, an all-white jury convicts them anyway, resulting in the death penalty for all nine. The U.S. Supreme Court overturns their convictions, yet five of the youths serve lengthy prison sentences. Their plight, known as the Scottsboro Case, symbolizes racism and injustice against blacks in the South.

1933

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints to his administration a group of prominent leaders who become known as the ‘‘Black Cabinet’’ and who advise him on minority or black issues. Among the members are Mary McLeod Bethune, Ralph Bunche, William Henry Hastie, and Robert C. Weaver.

1935

The National Council of Negro Women is founded, with Mary McLeod Bethune as its first president.

lviii

Timeline The Federal Arts Project, an activity of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), is founded. Among those African Americans who benefit through employment are artists Aaron Douglas, Richmond Barth
e, Augusta Savage, and Archibald Motley Jr.

1936

Sprinter Jesse Owens becomes an authentic American hero as he wins four gold medals at the summer Olympics in Berlin. As he ties one record and breaks three others, he dispels the rhetoric of black inferiority espoused by Adolph Hitler, who refuses to shake his hand or to acknowledge the superior accomplishment of Owens and other black athletes. Owens wins the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter relays and breaks his own record in the long jump. Now with celebrity status, he enjoys a hero’s welcome when he returns home. Interviews with former slaves are collected between 1936 and 1938, as the Works Progress Administration holds interview sessions with 2,194 former slaves who live in seventeen states.

1937

After defeating Jim Braddock, Joe Louis becomes boxing heavyweight champion of the world. He is the second African American to hold this title as well as the first of his race permitted to fight since 1915, when Jack Johnson lost the title.

1939

Marian Anderson sings before seventy-five thousand people on Easter Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, following the refusal of the Daughters of American Revolution to allow her to perform in their facility, Constitution Hall. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt is so incensed with the DAR’s ruling, clearly racially inspired, that she resigns her membership from that organization. The NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDEF) is established under the direction of civil rights lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston. LDEF aims to mobilize the best legal talent to fight racial discrimination and segregation.

1940

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. becomes the first African American general when he is appointed to the rank of brigadier general. Hattie McDaniel is the first African American to win an Academy Award. She is honored for her supporting role, ‘‘Mammy,’’ which she played with dignity in the film Gone with the Wind. After her movie debut in The Golden West in 1932, she appears in over three hundred films during the next two decades. McDaniel is recognized as a singer, vaudeville performer, and actress. Frederick O’Neal and Abram Hill establish the American Negro Theater in Harlem, New York.

1941

Labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph organizes a March on Washington for jobs. He garners the support of the NAACP, the National Urban League, and other leading black organizations and threatens a massive demonstration with one hundred thousand African Americans in protest on July 1. The march is canceled when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9902 which establishes

Timeline

lix the Fair Employment Practices Commission and aims to eliminate discrimination in hiring practices for defense industries. Organized by the Army Air Corps, twelve blacks are inducted into military aviation training at a new center located near Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Later the four squadrons of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, renamed the 99th Fighter Squadron, are known as the Tuskegee Airmen. In combat, these pioneer black units build impressive records and lead the air force toward racial parity. The pilots fly their first combat mission in 1943. After Joe Louis defeated Max Schmeling in the heavyweight title bout in 1938, he had a remarkable record of wins—seventeen in four years and fifteen of them by knockouts. When he fights his only serious contender, Billy Conn, Louis comes from behind and knocks out Conn in the thirteenth round to retain his image as a powerful boxer.

1942

Founded this year as the Committee on Racial Equality and later renamed the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), CORE plays an essential role in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and remains dedicated to securing equality for people worldwide. James Farmer is one of its organizers. CORE workers later help to organize and cosponsor the 1963 March on Washington.

1943

Racial unrest erupts in several cities, including Beaumont, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Detroit, Michigan; and Harlem, New York.

1944 April 24

Frederick D. Patterson founds the United Negro College Fund to coordinate fundraising efforts of forty-one private, accredited, four-year black colleges. Chartered in New York, and now relocated to Virginia, it continues to aid significantly in the survival of many of its member institutions.

November

Ebony magazine is first published. Founded by John H. Johnson, founder of Johnson Publishing, it is patterned after Life magazine but dedicated to African American life and culture. The next year it becomes the first advertising enterprise owned by blacks to attract advertising from whiteowned companies. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., representing Harlem, is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The win makes him the first African American congressman from the East.

1945

Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American player to join a Major League Baseball team in modern times. He leaves the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball Leagues and signs on to the Dodgers’ farm team, the Montreal Royals. He starts the season in 1947 and is chosen the first Rookie of the Year for any Major League Baseball team.

1946

William H. Hastie is appointed governor of the Virgin Islands, becoming the first black governor of any state or territory since P. B. S. Pinchback was acting governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873.

lx

Timeline

1947

Sixteen (eight white and eight black) members of the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, stage a Journey of Reconciliation to test the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that outlawed segregated interstate bus travel which relegated blacks to the back of the bus. Four of the protestors are arrested in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, an event that puts CORE and its efforts in the national spotlight. The Cleveland Indians sign Larry Doby to their team, making him the second African American to play Major League Baseball. He is also the American League’s first African American player.

1948

President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981 ending racial segregation in the military and requiring ‘‘equal treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.’’ The U.S. Armed Forces are integrated after President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981. Roy Campanella signs as catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Satchel Paige signs with the Cleveland Indians, further integrating Major League Baseball.

1949

Major League Baseball honors Jackie Robinson by naming him Most Valuable Player in the National League. Pitcher Don Newcomb is named Rookie of the Year.

1950 April 15

1951

1954 May 17

1955 December 1

The first African American player drafted by the National Basketball Association is Duquesne University’s Charles ‘‘Chuck’’ Cooper, who signs with the Boston Celtics. Gwendolyn Brooks is the first African American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize in any category; she is awarded the poetry award for her second volume of poetry, Annie Allen, published in 1949. Althea Gibson is the first African American woman to play in the Wimbledon (England) tennis tournament. Later (1957) she wins the singles and, with Darlene Hard, the doubles, becoming the first African American woman Wimbledon champion. Activist and educator Mary Church Terrell joins the sit-ins to challenge racial segregation in Washington, DC, restaurants and public accommodations. Her actions help to persuade the Municipal Court of Appeals to outlaw racial segregation in the District of Columbia’s restaurants. The U. S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, rules unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling overturns the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that approved the ‘‘separate but equal’’ doctrine in public places. The United States has its first African American general in the air force, when Benjamin O. Davis Jr. is elevated to that rank. The Montgomery Bus Boycott marks the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. When Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a

Timeline

lxi white passenger and her arrest follows, the protest sparks the year-long boycott and leads to the December 13, 1956, ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing bus segregation in the city. Contralto Marian Anderson is the first African American soloist to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old from Chicago, is kidnapped and lynched in Mississippi. He is accused of whistling at a white woman. Two white men are accused of the crime but acquitted. The act influences the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and adds to the impetus on the Civil Rights Movement. The tragedy receives worldwide attention.

1956

1957 February 14

The University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) acting under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, enrolls Autherine Lucy, making her the first African American to enter the school. The university claims that her safety is at risk and then expels her after several days. Later, the NAACP protests and the federal court responds by ordering the school to reinstate her and to protect her as well. Lucy is expelled a second time on the grounds that she maligned the university’s officials when she took the school to court. By 1992, the university’s attitude has changed significantly, and it endows a fellowship in her honor. The home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Jr. is bombed, resulting from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Birmingham home of another minister, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, is also bombed. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is formed and becomes a network of nonviolent civil rights activists who mainly come from black churches. Martin Luther King Jr. is the founding president.

August 29

The first major civil rights legislation in over seventy-five years is passed when Congress approves the Voting Rights Bill of 1957. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 becomes law. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the act—the first of its kind since Reconstruction. The law provides for a commission to monitor violations in the area of civil rights and provides for the Justice Department to protect black voting rights through litigation against those who interfere with their voting. The Little Rock Nine receive national attention when they are escorted to class at Central High School in Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus orders the National Guard to the school under pretense of maintaining order. Although the Supreme Court has ordered school integration, Faubus blatantly defies the order and obstructs the integration process. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responds by sending one thousand federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the law, halt obstruction of justice, and to protect the nine students.

1958

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is founded. Its owner, Alvin Ailey, brings to the repertory company seven dancers who are devoted to modern dance classics as well as new works that he creates.

lxii

Timeline Berry Gordy Jr. forms Motown Records, the first record label owned and operated by an African American entrepreneur. The company plays an important role in the promotion and mainstream popularity of several notable African American recording artists and musicians of the twentieth century, including Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, the Jackson Five, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson, and Lionel Richie.

1959

1960 February 1

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, opens on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre; it is awarded the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play of 1959. Hansberry thus becomes the first African American to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first African American playwright to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award. The Sit-in Movement begins in Greensboro, North Carolina, when four students from nearby North Carolina A & T State University occupy seats in a whites-only lunch counter at a local F. W. Woolworth’s retail store. The students—Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair (later Jibreel Khazan), and David Richmond—come to be known as the Greensboro Four. After this, similar protests are staged at numerous sites throughout the South, including Nashville, Tennessee; Montgomery, Alabama; and Houston, Texas. The site of the sit-in is now a civil rights museum, which formally opened on February 1, 2010.

April 15–17

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In order to assist students in structuring and publicizing their antisegregation protests in the sit-ins, Ella Baker, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, invites student activists to the conference. Martin Luther King Jr. also extends his support to the students. Thus, delegates to the conference are southern lunch-counter sit-in participants, northern college students, a few white students, and members of several organizations. Following SNCC’s establishment, student sit-ins occur throughout the South and result in desegregation of many restaurants and lunch counters. The Civil Rights Bill of 1960 is passed. Signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the ruling prohibits anyone from intimidating black voters and calls for oversight of black voter registration.

1961

Civil Rights activists launch the interracial Freedom Rides by traveling on buses into the South. They test the South’s compliance with the Interstate Commerce Commission’s order to desegregate public transportation. One of their buses is bombed in Anniston, Alabama. The riders are physically abused and harassed, and some buses set afire. Riders in Rock Hill, South Carolina, known as the ‘‘Rock Hill Four,’’ remain in jail rather than pay their fines for trespassing, thus creating the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s ‘‘jail no bail’’ policy.

1962

The Albany Movement begins in Georgia to protest discrimination in all public facilities in the city. The movement is supported by SCLC,

Timeline

lxiii SNCC, the NAACP, and CORE, and is led by Martin Luther King Jr. He and many demonstrators are beaten and jailed. The University of Mississippi admits it first African American student, James Meredith, over the objections of Governor Ross Barnett. Following Meredith’s admission under escort by federal marshals, rioting erupts.

1963 August 28

1964

The largest civil rights demonstration to date, the March on Washington, with a quarter of a million participants, is held to lobby Congress to pass a civil rights bill. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Martin Luther King Jr. and some two hundred demonstrators are arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting racial segregation. While jailed, King writes his famous ‘‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’’ which becomes one of the most significant and most quoted of writings of the twentieth century. Four young African American girls are killed when white racists bomb the church in which they are enrolled in Sunday school—the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr. urges African Americans to continue their struggle despite the murders. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed, outlawing discrimination in public accommodations and employment. The act also establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and aims to enforce existing civil rights laws. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is founded. Later that year, party representatives, including Annie Devine, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Unita Blackwell, confront leaders of the Democratic Party at the national convention in Atlantic City. Hamer testifies on national television before the credentials committee, describing the physical abuse she and others suffered as they attempted to vote. Freedom Summer is held in Mississippi, initiating freedom schools and registering voters. Civil rights workers who are involved in black voter registration efforts—James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman—are killed. President Lyndon B. Johnson responds by ordering two hundred naval personnel to search for the missing young men. They are found buried near Philadelphia, Mississippi. The nation is plagued with race riots that erupt in various places. Police brutality in Harlem leads to violence that extends over four nights and spreads to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Other riots begin in Jersey City, Rochester, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In his acceptance speech, King expresses his dedication to ending racial injustice. Actor Sidney Poitier wins an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the film Lilies of the Field, becoming the first African American to receive that award.

lxiv 1965 January 2

Timeline

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference launches a voter drive in Selma, Alabama. The drive escalates into a nationwide student protest movement.

February 21

While speaking before the Organization of Afro-American Unity in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City, Malcolm X is shot and killed by black Muslims.

March 7

Protesters, led by Martin Luther King Jr., march peacefully from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery in a voting rights protest. They are attacked by state troopers with tear gas and clubs on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in what history records as ‘‘Bloody Sunday.’’

August 11–21 A riot in the Watts section of Los Angeles, or the Watts Riot, occurs, resulting in thirty-four deaths, nine hundred injuries, and over three thousand five hundred arrests. The riot ushers in a period of violent confrontation in inner cities. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1966

Activist and SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael is elected chairman of SNCC. He takes a militant stance and launches the Black Power Movement as a part of the Civil Rights Movement. His movement also embraces the ‘‘Black is Beautiful’’ concept. Carmichael’s militancy helps to separate SNCC from the moderate leadership of some civil rights organizations.

July 1–9

CORE supports the ‘‘Black Power’’ concept. Although SNCC adopts it as well, the SCLC and the NAACP refuse. Kwanzaa, a seven-day celebration from December 26 through January 1, is founded by Maulana (formerly M. Ron) Karenga. The celebration is also adopted by people of African descent worldwide as an alternative to Christmas celebrations. It is controlled by African Americans to honor and celebrate the heritage of people of African descent. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California. Constance Baker Motley is confirmed as a district court judge, becoming the first African American woman to sit on the federal bench. The first African American man to win one of the premier Grand Slam titles in tennis is Arthur Ashe. The first popularly elected African American member of the U.S. Senate is Edward W. Brooke III (Democrat), of Massachusetts.

1967

Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, becoming the first African American to hold that high post. Boxing great Muhammad Ali refuses to be drafted in the U.S. military. In consequence, he is stripped of his title of heavyweight champion of the world. Miscegenation laws are declared unconstitutional and all similar laws existing in the states are nullified. This is the result of the U.S. Supreme

Timeline

lxv Court’s ruling in the Loving v. Virginia case involving the relationship between an African American woman and a white man.

1968

President Lyndon B. Johnson, appoints the Kerner Commission, consisting of eleven members, on July 28, 1967, following numerous race riots in major northern and western cities. The Kerner Commission Report, published the same year by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, warns that the United States is becoming ‘‘two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.’’ The report is the nation’s first comprehensive study of race issues in the United States as well as the federal government’s first official document admitting that racism did, in fact, exist. If not addressed, the report predicts a major crisis within major cities. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated on April 4 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is visiting to help the sanitation workers in their strike. Following King’s death, riots erupted in 125 cities across the country. The Black Arts Movement begins, extending to 1972. Black Studies (or Afro-American Studies) programs are initiated in colleges and universities across the country. An adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s unpublished writings, To be Young, Gifted, and Black, becomes the longest-running drama off-Broadway in 1968–69. Medal-winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos give the Black Power salute when the U.S. national anthem is played at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico. In consequence, they are stripped of their medals by Olympics officials.

1969

Charles Diggs, a Democrat from Michigan, founds the Democratic Select Committee (DSC), the precursor of the Congressional Black Caucus. It works to protect the fundamentals of democracy for all Americans, especially African Americans. It remains one of the most influential voting blocs in the U.S. Congress.

1970 August 7

1971

Activist Angela Davis is implicated in a shootout in a San Rafael, California, courthouse during an attempted escape. Her name is added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List and she is finally captured and jailed. Davis is acquitted of all charges on June 4, 1972. The Congressional Black Caucus of the House of Representatives is formally organized; it aims to influence congressional party politics. At first an all-Democratic group, later it includes Republican members. Charles C. Diggs Jr., a Michigan congressman, becomes its first head. Shaft, a movie directed by Gordon Parks and including theme music by Isaac Hayes, is released. It quickly becomes the most financially successful blaxploitation film. The People United to Save Humanity (Operation PUSH) is founded by activist and religious leader Jesse Jackson. Later on the name is

lxvi

Timeline changed to People United to Serve Humanity. Through Operation PUSH, Jackson negotiates employment agreements between blacks and white businesses. The organization also advocates black educational excellence and black self-esteem.

1972

Democratic Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm becomes the first African American to make a serious bid for the presidency of the United States. Barbara Jordan, a Democrat from Texas, is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She is the first African American woman from the South to win election to Congress. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, popularly known as the Tuskegee Study, is released. It recounts the results involving several hundred black men who had syphilis but were left untreated during a U.S. Public Health Service study conducted from 1932 to 1972. The experiment, in which the men were used without their informed consent, is exposed to a national audience when a whistle-blower leaks the story to the press. Public outcry silences health officials who try to defend the study. The Brownsville (Texas) raid of 1906 is brought to light again when President Richard M. Nixon grants honorable discharges and $25,000 pensions to 153 African American soldiers accused of participating in the raid.

1973

The first African American mayor of Los Angeles is Tom Bradley, who also becomes the first of his race to head a major American city without a black majority.

1974 April 8

Henry ‘‘Hammering Hank’’ Aaron hits home run 715 and breaks the long-standing record of Babe Ruth. Frank Robinson is hired as manager of the Cleveland Indians for the next season, becoming the first African American manager in Major League Baseball. The NAACP wins a court order to desegregate the public schools in Boston. This is achieved by busing black youngsters from Roxbury to the predominantly white schools in Charlestown. Racial violence erupts.

1975

The Voting Rights Act of 1975 expands the act of 1965; it is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford. The law abolishes literacy requirements for voting.

1976

Barbara Jordan addresses the Democratic National Convention, becoming the first African American to serve as keynote speaker for a national political party’s convention. Olympian Jesse Owens is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford, for his ‘‘inspirational life’’ and for his success in exemplifying the ideals of freedom and democracy.

1977 January 27– February 3

The epic miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley’s best-selling book by that title, is broadcast on ABC-TV for eight consecutive nights. The

Timeline

lxvii final episode breaks all ratings to date. Haley is also awarded the National Book Award and a special Pulitzer Prize for his book, published in 1976.

1978

The first Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival is held as a fundraiser in a small, rural community. Since then it has expanded to attract blues enthusiasts and performers from all over the world, and has included John Lee Hooker, B. B. King, Muddy Waters, and Charlie Parker. Scientists Guion S. Bufford Jr., Frederick Gregory, and Ronald F. McNair join NASA’s space program and begin preparation to become astronauts in future space missions.

1979

The Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, opens its National Archives for Black Women’s History.

1981

The disease AIDS gains national attention and is regarded as a risk for African Americans. Previously the claim was that AIDS only affected gay white men.

1982

The Voting Rights Act is extended twenty-five years. States must now eliminate discriminatory practices and reconstruct electoral district lines to favor minority voting strength. Pop singer Michael Jackson releases his Thriller album, which becomes an immediate hit. More than forty million copies are sold, as it becomes the best-selling album of all time.

1983 August

Guion Stewart Bluford joins the eighth Challenger shuttle and becomes the first African American in space. Chicago elects Harold Washington as mayor, making him the first African American to hold that post. Activist, essayist, and novelist Alice Walker becomes the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for a work of fiction for The Color Purple. In 1985, the controversial book is made into a film. Later Walker coins the term ‘‘womanism,’’ which originated from the term ‘‘womanish,’’ used in black folk culture. Vanessa Williams is the first African American elected Miss America. When embarrassing photographs that she posed for early on were made public in the middle of her reign in 1984, she relinquished her crown to another African American beauty queen, Suzette Charles.

1984

The Cosby Show premieres on NBC during its fall season. Comedian Bill Cosby is featured as Cliff Huxtable, who is an obstetrician married to a lawyer, played by Phylicia Rashad. The Huxtables and their four children live in a brownstone in New York City. The show runs for eight seasons and, from 1985 to 1988, is television’s most popular show.

1985

The first African American woman appointed as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress is Gwendolyn Brooks. August Wilson wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play Fences. In 1987, Fences also wins the Tony Award for best play. The play recounts the frustrations

lxviii

Timeline of a garbage collector who once was a star player in Negro League baseball before Jackie Robinson joined the major leagues.

1986 January 16

A bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. is placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda and is the first such recognition given any African American.

January 20

The first national holiday honoring an African American is celebrated in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr. Although President Ronald Reagan signed the bill two years earlier authorizing the holiday, the holiday is first celebrated this year. The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) initiates the largest Black Family Reunion Celebration ever; it is held on the National Mall in Washington, DC, as well as in major cities all over the country. Initiated by then NCNW chair Dorothy Height, it comes in response to growing negative publicity about the ‘‘vanishing black family.’’ Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated weekday talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Three years later she buys her own television and motion picture studio, called Harpo, to become the first African American woman to own her own production company.

1987

The first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is ‘‘Queen of Soul’’ Aretha Franklin. General Colin L. Powell becomes the White House national security advisor.

1988

The National Black Arts Festival begins in Atlanta and grows in attendance each year. It features arts and crafts, films, lectures, plays, and cultural events to showcase the work of blacks nationwide. The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community establishes the Zora Neale Hurston Festival. Held in Eatonville, Florida, the last week of January each year, it aims to preserve the Hurston legacy and to celebrate her life as writer, folklorist, and anthropologist. For her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison wins a Pulitzer Prize. Florence Griffith Joyner, popularly known as ‘‘Flo Jo,’’ wins three gold medals in track and field at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea. She ties the record that Wilma Rudolph set in 1960. Jackie Joyner-Kersee wins gold at the Seoul Summer Olympics in the heptathlon event, the most demanding of all events in women’s track and field. The win makes Joyner-Kersee the best all-around female athlete in the world. Debi Thomas is the first African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics at Calgary, Canada. She wins the bronze medal in ice skating.

1989 August 10

General Colin L. Powell is named chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush, Powell is the first African American and the youngest person to hold this post.

Timeline

lxix

November 7

David Dinkins is elected the first black mayor of New York City.

November 7

The nation’s first black elected governor is L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia. Ron Brown is the first African American to chair the Democratic Party and the first of his race to head a major political party. Larry Leon Hamlin founds the National Black Theatre Festival to unite U.S. black theater companies and ensure their survival. The festival is held biennially in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and attracts over sixty-five thousand people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes a report showing the current risks of AIDS in this country. The report shows that African Americans are twice as likely as whites to contract the disease. Further, one-fourth of men with AIDS are African American, and African American women constitute one-half of the cases of women with AIDS. Seventy percent of babies born with AIDS are black.

1990

The first African American woman and the first District of Columbia native elected mayor of Washington, DC, is Sharon Pratt Kelly. President George H. W. Bush vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1990, then reverses himself and signs this year.

1991 March 3

1992 August 3 September 7

Rodney King is arrested by police officers while driving at high speed in Los Angeles. Four officers physically abuse him, fracturing his skull and damaging one of his legs. The assault is captured on videotape and then broadcast, galvanizing international attention on police brutality in Los Angeles. Later, the offices are indicted for assault with a deadly weapon and then cleared of the charges. The verdict ignites one of the worst race riots in the history of this country. After the federal government indicts the officers for violating King’s civil rights, two are convicted and jailed. President George H. W. Bush nominates Clarence Thomas to become the 106th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, arousing considerable controversy. The nomination draws substantial protest from organizations such as the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus. Lawyer Anita Hill, a former employee of Thomas, accuses him of sexual misconduct years before. After the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocks on his nomination and information is leaked about Hill’s complaint, the committee reopens hearings, this time to national television. When the hearings end, Thomas is confirmed and becomes the second African American associate justice of the Supreme Court. The National Civil Rights Museum, located in Memphis, is dedicated in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The museum is the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where King was fatally shot. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois becomes the first black woman elected to the United States Senate. The nation’s first African American and first woman to serve as U.S. surgeon general is M. Joycelyn Elders.

lxx September 12

1993 October 7

1994

1995 October 16

Timeline Mae C. Jemison, America’s first African American woman astronaut, embarks on an eight-day STS-47 mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavor—a joint program of the United States and Japan. She flies from and returns to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature—the world’s highest literary prize—is Toni Morrison. When President Bill Clinton is inaugurated, poet Maya Angelou reads her poem written especially for the occasion, ‘‘On the Pulse of Morning.’’ She is also the first African American poet to participate in a presidential inauguration. A record number of African Americans are appointed to positions in President Bill Clinton’s administration. Among them are M. Joycelyn Elders, the first African woman to become surgeon general, and Hazel R. O’Leary, the first female secretary of energy. He also appoints blacks to serve as secretaries of agriculture and commerce, and as head of veterans affairs. Rita Dove becomes the first African American poet laureate of the United States. She is also the youngest person to hold that post. The case against white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, who had been tried twice previously for the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, is reopened and brought to trial again. De La Beckwith is convicted. David Levering Lewis wins the Pulitzer Prize for his seminal work, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919, and later another Pulitzer for the second volume. Survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre in Florida, are approved to share $150,000 from the Florida legislature. During the massacre, a white mob which claimed it was searching for a black man for allegedly assaulting a white woman, burned the homes of all blacks who lived in the small community of Rosewood. The Million Man March—a rally held in Washington, DC, is masterminded by Louis Farrakhan, who calls it a ‘‘day of atonement.’’ The event is an opportunity for African American men to assume responsibility for their lives and communities. Among the spin-offs of the march are greater black voter registration and more political activism.

October 25

The Million Woman March, patterned after the Million Man March, in which African American women come together to demonstrate their solidarity, occurs in Philadelphia. More than three hundred thousand women meet and engage in prayers, speeches, and music, demonstrating their concerns for challenges such as women in prison, independent schools, hiring practices, women in business and politics, and human rights abuses.

1996

Sean (Diddy) Combs, hip-hop artist, sells over $100 million in recordings and is named ASCAP songwriter of the year.

Timeline

lxxi Talk show host Oprah Winfrey adds a feature on The Oprah Winfrey Show—a book club—and single-handedly creates a reading phenomenon in popular culture. Oprah’s Book Club becomes an immediate success and one of the most influential forces in publishing history. Works chosen include a number of African American writers and luminaries, such as Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Toni Morrison, and Ernest J. Gaines. When Winfrey announces her selection on her show, sales for the book skyrocket, sometimes into the millions, turning struggling writers into instant successes and propelling many titles to the top of the best-seller list. Some call this phenomenon ‘‘the Oprah effect.’’ Her club continues at least through 2009, and by 2010 her book club series is available on Kindle (a wireless reading device).

1997

Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, conductor, and composer, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music. For his compositions, he has earned nine Grammys. Marsalis was named director of jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City in 1991. Descendants of African Americans involved in the infamous Tuskegee Experiment (1932–72) receive an apology from President Bill Clinton.

1998

The first African American woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School is Lani Guinier.

2000

Donna Brazile rises to fame when she manages Al Gore’s presidential campaign and becomes the first African American woman to lead such an effort. Venus Williams is the first African American woman to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson did so in 1957. Golfer Tiger Woods wins all four major golf championships—the British Open, the Masters, the PGA Championship, and the U.S. Open. He is the youngest person ever to reach this record. In 1997, he became the first African American to win the Masters, and in 2005 he would become the fourth winner of that event. The African Methodist Episcopal Church elects its first woman bishop—Vashti Murphy McKenzie.

2001

General Colin L. Powell is named secretary of state and Rod Paige secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration, becoming the first African Americans to hold the posts. Condoleezza Rice is the first African American woman to be appointed national security adviser. The first African American woman to lead an Ivy League university is Ruth Simmons, who becomes the eighteenth president of Brown University.

2002

Halle Berry wins an Oscar for best actress for her role in Monster’s Ball. She is the first African American woman to receive the honor. At the same time, Denzel Washington wins an Oscar for best actor, making this the first time in history that the top honors awarded by the motion picture academy are given to African Americans.

lxxii 2003

2004 January

Timeline Libraries in the black colleges come together to form the HBCU Library Alliance. The consortium serves as gatekeeper for history, culture, and the African American experience. As the libraries unite, they engage in several projects that strengthen their cause, such as ‘‘A Digital Collection Celebrating the Historically Black College and University.’’ It contains scanned images of primary resources from these libraries and their archives. Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires. Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET), is the first African American man on the list. Condoleezza Rice is confirmed as U.S. secretary of state, replacing Colin Powell and serving under President George W. Bush during his second term. She is the first African American woman to hold that post.

2005

Hurricane Katrina, the most deadly, destructive, and costly storm the United States has seen, strikes the coastal communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and devastates over ninety thousand square miles. It reaches landfall in southeastern Louisiana on August 29. After the storm hits New Orleans, the levees are breached, and by August 30, four-fifths of the city is flooded. Since New Orleans, with a heavy African American population, sustains the worst damage, the government’s tardy response symbolizes the deep racial and class divide that exists in this country. In particular, the neighborhoods in the Lower Ninth Ward are comprised largely of African Americans and the poor underclass. Between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand people become stranded on rooftops or take refuge in the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. When evacuation finally occurs, many poor African Americans are relocated to surrounding cities and states, with Houston receiving the largest influx. Since many of the evacuees do not return, New Orleans changes from a predominantly African American city to a predominantly white city.

2006

Deval Patrick is elected governor of Massachusetts, becoming the state’s first African American leader; he is reelected to office in 2010. He is only the second elected African American governor, following L. Douglas Wilder who won that office in Virginia in 1990.

2007

Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, leads his team to win Super Bowl XLI played, becoming the first African American coach to win the honor. As the Colts defeat head coach Lovie Smith’s Chicago Bears, the two coaches also become the first two African Americans to play each other in the Super Bowl. Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s record for the most lifetime home runs, hitting his 756th. He completes the season with 762 homers.

2008

Newswoman Gwen Ifill moderates the U.S. vice presidential debates aired on national television.

Timeline

lxxiii David Paterson becomes the first African American governor of New York. Though not elected to the office, as lieutenant governor, by law he automatically moves up following the resignation of Eliot Spitzer.

2009 January 20

Barack Obama is inaugurated as the first African American president of the United States and becomes its 44th leader. He is nominated for the presidency at the Democratic Party’s 2008 Convention in Denver, becoming the first African American presidential nominee of a major political party. He changes the way campaigns are conducted and raises a record-breaking $745 million, much of which is raised online in small donations. His campaign involves twenty-four-hour cable television programming, online news outlets, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and other nontraditional media, all of which have a significant impact on the political race. His oratorical skills are a hallmark of his campaign; he calls for change in the nation’s leadership, using the slogan ‘‘Yes we can!’’ Obama wins handily over his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, with 365 electoral votes.

February

Eric Holder is confirmed and becomes the first African American attorney general in the United States, the country’s chief law enforcer.

June 25

Popular culture icon Michael Jackson collapses at his Los Angeles area mansion and dies of cardiac arrest. A memorial service is held in the singer’s honor at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 7 and shown on national television. The service features performances by such well-known entertainers as Mariah Carey, Usher, John Mayer, brother Jermaine Jackson, and Stevie Wonder. It is watched by an estimated 31.1 million American viewers. The week following his death, Jackson breaks Billboard chart records as the top nine spots are for sales of Jackson-related releases. Ten weeks after his death, on September 3, Michael Jackson is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale, California.

2010 February

After winning a gold medal in the thousand-meter speed skating event in the 2006 Olympics held in Turin, Italy, Shani Davis wins his second gold medal in the same race during the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada. He is the first person to win back-to-back gold medals in this winter games event.

A Aaron, Hank (1934– ), Baseball Player, Corporate Executive Henry Louis Aaron, commonly known as Hank ‘‘The Hammer’’ and ‘‘Hammering Hank’’ Aaron, is best known for breaking baseball legend Babe Ruth’s career records of home runs on April 8, 1974, while scoring his 715th run with the Atlanta Braves baseball team. As a teenager, Aaron had the opportunity to see the African American baseball player Jackie Robinson play in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama. Inspired by Robinson’s presence in baseball, Aaron set a goal for himself to become a major league baseball player. He achieved his goal and went on to become a legendary baseball player and a baseball icon. Born in Mobile on February 5, 1934, he was the third child of Herbert and Estella Aaron. He grew up poor but managed to become a star high school athlete at Josephine Allen Institute. While in his junior year, he was able to play with a semiprofessional baseball team known as the Mobile Black Bears, a popular Negro Baseball Leagues team in Mobile. Aaron made the decision to leave high school during his junior year when he was offered a contract to play with the Indianapolis Clowns of the American Negro League. In 1954, Aaron joined the majors, signing with the Milwaukee Braves. Two years later he had become the most revered twenty-three-year-old in baseball. He hit three home runs in the 1957 World Series as the Braves beat the New York Yankees to take the series. By the time the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, Aaron had become a superstar. He continued his stellar career with numerous home runs, stolen bases, and Gold Glove Awards, driving in runs, throwing out runners, and maintaining a batting average over .300. After Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in the home ballpark of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a near melee erupted.

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Aaron continued to play baseball, but with the Milwaukee Brewers, until 1976, when he retired. In total, Hank Aaron’s career status was 755 home runs. It was not until 2007 that Aaron’s home run record was broken by Barry Bonds, who hit 756 home runs, though Bonds’s home run record. Aaron has received many awards for his contributions from his peers, including being recognized in 1982 in the highly coveted National Baseball Hall of Fame and respected recognition within the baseball industry. From Aaron’s experiences as a baseball player, he has been able to use his skills in corporate America, working in various capacities within upper management of the Atlanta Braves baseball team. I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story is Hank Aaron’s autobiography; it explores Aaron’s career in baseball in addition to his personal views on the racism he endured while being one of the few African American Major League Baseball team players. His autobiography made the New York Times best-seller list in 1991. Further Reading Aaron, Hank. 1992. I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story. New York: Harper Torch. ‘‘Hank Aaron Biography.’’ Biography.com. http://www.biography.com/articles/Hank-Aaron -9173497. Schwartz, Larry. ‘‘Hank Aaron: Hammerin’ back at racism.’’ ESPN.com. http://espn.go .com/sportscentury/features/00006764.html. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1999. Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Gale Research. [unsigned]

Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem (1947– ), Basketball Player, Writer At 7 feet, 2 inches tall, he was as graceful as gifted athletes who were one foot shorter. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dominated nearly every level of Basketball: high school, college, and professional. The exception was Olympic basketball only because he boycotted the 1968 games in response to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement struggles of that time. Abdul-Jabbar’s athletic prowess alone could make him a pop culture icon. He is the NBA all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points, and among four legends (Wilt Chamberlain, Charles Barkley, and Karl Malone are the others) who amassed about as many career points, rebounds, and assists. Under his birth name, Lew Alcindor, the collegian was a three-time Player of the Year. His UCLA Bruins won national championships each of those years. Because dunking basketballs was banned in the college sport from 1967 to 1976 by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, many observers called that period the era of the ‘‘Lew Alcindor rule’’ since those observers suspected that the change was made specifically to minimize Alcindor’s potential to dominate scoring. Instead, he is synonymous with the ‘‘sky hook,’’ the soft, short-to-mediumrange shots he rained down on helpless defenders.

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There are other pop culture dimensions to this remarkable athlete. When he changed his name from Alcindor to AbdulJabbar, he joined Muhammad Ali as a star American athlete with a non-Christian name who was practicing a form of Islam. After a remarkably long professional career, twenty seasons that ended when he was age forty-two, the intellectually curious Abdul-Jabbar wrote at least five books, including an autobiography called Giant Steps, named after a John Coltrane song and inspired by one of Abdul-Jabbar’s passions, jazz. Lew Alcindor Years Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born April 16, 1947, in New Kareem Abdul Jabbar brushes Boston Celtic Robert Parish aside as drives to the hoop York City to Ferdinand Lewis Sr., during first period action of game 2 of the a transit policeman, and Cora, a NBA World Championship finals on May 31, department store clerk. Lew’s 1984 at the Boston Garden. (AP/Wide World parents were tall, 6 foot 3 inches Photos) and 5 feet 11inches for father and mother respectively, and young Lewis grew much taller, to 7 feet, by high school. He was enrolled at Power Memorial Academy, a Roman Catholic school, where he averaged more than 30 points a game. Alcindor’s dominance was attributed to talent: his variety of dunk, hook, and short jump shots in the low post that made him a nightmare to guard. After a feverish courtship that was closely supervised by parents and coaches, Alcindor chose to attend UCLA in 1965. At that time freshmen were not eligible to play varsity sports, so Alcindor took time to adjust to campus studies. He averaged 30 points a game playing freshman team basketball. Number 33 (his jersey number) was as great as advertised when he began varsity play in 1966–67. Alcindor averaged 29 points per game and nearly 16 rebounds his sophomore year. His college career average was 26 points and nearly 16 rebounds in 88 varsity games. Alcindor was routinely double- and triple-teamed by opponents, yet he scored effortlessly. Just before a January 20, 1968, showdown with powerhouse Houston University at the Astrodome, Alcindor was poked in the eye and he suffered a scratched

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cornea. Alcindor played the Houston game with blurred vision and scored only 15 points. Houston’s star center Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and outplayed Alcindor. The Cougars upset the Bruins. In a rematch during the NCAA tournament that year, a healthy Alcindor and UCLA handily beat the Houston 101–69. That summer, Alcindor was among a handful of leading collegiate stars who declined to represent the United States in the Olympic Games at Mexico City. At a conference, cited in A Hard Road to Glory, Alcindor said he was acting in solidarity with the civil rights struggle: ‘‘Somewhere each of us has got to make a stand. I take my stand here.’’ Alcindor finished his college career and his Bruins were NCAA champions in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Professional Career Alcindor was drafted by the NBA Milwaukee Bucks, a new franchise with a losing record. In addition to changing from amateur to professional basketball player, Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (which means ‘‘noble, powerful servant’’). He was an immediate force and averaged nearly 29 points and 15 rebounds per game and was named Rookie of the Year. In his second season, Abdul-Jabbar led the Bucks to the 1971 NBA title. He secured a championship ring for teammate Oscar Robertson, arguably pro basketball’s best all-round player during his prime in the 1960s. In 1971 however, an aging Robertson focused on getting the ball to his graceful young giant of a teammate. Abdul-Jabbar missed the chance to go head-to-head against Bill Russell, but he had a few titanic battles with the other giant, Wilt Chamberlain, then with the Los Angeles Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar stayed with Milwaukee until 1975 and demanded a trade to a cosmopolitan city. He returned to Los Angeles and played for the Lakers. In 1980, the seasoned superstar was paired with Magic Johnson, a lanky, exuberant rookie. That combination marked the era of ‘‘show time,’’ a 1980s run of NBA championships and the Lakers mystique–Kareem, Magic, and their talented teammates, plus the Lakers girl dancers, and movie stars like Jack Nicholson and Dyan Cannon watching from courtside seats. Sky hooking with devastating efficiency, Abdul-Jabbar averaged 20 or more points for the first 17 of 20 seasons. When he called it a career in 1989, AbdulJabbar was a member of six championship teams, was a six-time Most Valuable Player, and was a 24.6 point career average scorer. In 1980, Abdul-Jabbar, notorious for his militancy and aloofness, changed his image by appearing in the movie spoof Airplane! as a pilot. Shortly before retirement he wrote Giant Steps, an autobiography. This launched Abdul-Jabbar’s postbasketball career as an author. In A Season on the Reservation (2000), he chronicled his experience coaching White Mountain Apache Indian high school basketball players. Brothers in Arms (2005), was a tribute to the all-black 761st tank battalion in World War II. A close friend of Abdul-Jabbar’s father was a member of that unit. In 2007, Abdul-Jabbar penned On the Shoulders of Giants, which included a tribute to the pre-NBA New York Renaissance basketball team.

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Further Reading Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem. 1983. Giant Steps. New York: Bantam Books. Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, and Alan Steinberg. 2000. Black Profiles in Courage. New York: Harper Paperbacks. Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, and Anthony Walton. 2005. Brothers in Arms. New York: Broadway Books. Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, and Raymond Obstfeld. 2007. On the Shoulders of Giants. New York: Simon & Schuster. Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, and Stephen Singular. 2000. A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches. New York: William Morrow. Ashe, Arthur. 1988. The African-American Athlete in Basketball. Vol. 3 of A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete. New York: Warner Books. Heisler, Mark. 2003. Giants: The 25 Greatest Centers of All Time. Chicago: Triumph Books. Wayne Dawkins

Activists. See Social Activists

Actors and Performers For most of the twentieth century, African Americans were limited to acting and performing in segregated spheres. The result, however, sustained rich traditions that blended African and American forms of artistic expression and developed a distinct African American popular culture. Since the mid-1960s, African Americans have gradually assimilated into mainstream culture, enjoying intermittent periods of popularity in mainstream and so-called black television series and films, and, attaining celebrity status as performers. By and large, particularly in the realm of acting, African Americans continue to be underrepresented or typecast in stereotypical roles. The art of acting and performing was not new to the African slaves who arrived in America as early as the 1600s. West African traditions highly regard storytellers who masterfully performed their tales by embodying their character’s voice, behavior, and facial expressions, sometimes with the accompaniment of music. Storytellers, or griots, were both amateurs and professionals; either way, the performance had to be riveting and convincing to win the admiration of the audience. Music, song, and dance were a daily part of social life, work, play, and sacred ceremonies and rituals. Individuals within the society frequently specialized in assorted fields of art, such as basket weaving, hairstyling, playing musical instruments such as drums and flutes, singing, and dancing. Africans in bondage in America continued the practice of oral storytelling, singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments. However, the mixing of Africans from different regions and societies during the Middle Passage, the tumultuous voyage across the Atlantic from Africa to America, and the forced acculturation process prevented the retention of original art forms. Slaves had to be resourceful when creating musical instruments; some devised instruments out

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of traditional objects, like gourds. Many Africanisms survived in such customs as clapping hands and stomping feet (an African dance style) in worship or dance styles, and dancing in a circle (ring shout). Spirituals, a form of religious singing, as well as work songs, chants, and field hollers were developed within the confines of slave life. Early Black Entertainment The earliest forms of black entertainment were remarkable considering the prevalence of racism in American society. In 1821, free blacks founded African Grove Theater in New York City; however, the group enjoyed a short run owing to racists who shut them down. In the 1850s, spirituals were popularized with the emergence of the Fisk Jubilee Singers at the historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The group performed for mostly white audiences in the United States and around the world, helping to popularize spirituals and cast a positive light on black culture. Many white composers and scholars traveled the South to document spirituals. Rural spirituals in their raw, simplistic forms frequently differed from the polished, operatic style of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. In 1892, a professional African American group, Colored Opera Company, performed at Carnegie Hall. The successes of such performers as the Fisk Jubilee Singers and others were frequently overshadowed by the dominating presence of blackface minstrel shows. Minstrel shows combined acting, singing, dancing, and other activities. Among the most popular minstrel shows were those that featured white actors in blackface who parodied stereotypical images such as lazy and happy blacks and the mammy figure. The shows ridiculed black dress, speech patterns, and behavior. During the Civil War, blackface among white performers lost popularity, while black minstrel troupes emerged with gusto. Among the first black minstrels were William Henry Lane and Thomas Dilward. Many black troupes wore blackface and performed for white audiences, using the same disparaging methods as their white predecessors. Other troupes, such as the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, featuring Ma Rainey, toured black communities in the rural South. Their performances included blues singing, comedy, and other routines that were not offensive to blacks. The early nineteenth century saw the rumblings of new opportunities for black performers showcasing African-inspired jazz and blues music. Despite the scant opportunities for African Americans to obtain professional musical careers, African American composer Scott Joplin popularized ragtime music. Blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Robert Johnson, who originally performed in black troupes or vaudeville acts or in homespun enclaves for black neighborhoods, were eventually marketed by white-owned record labels. A number of white performers, singers, and musicians were influenced by African American blues and jazz music. From the start of American film history, blacks were either represented negatively or excluded from films. In the classic silent film by a white filmmaker, The Birth of a Nation (1915), Klansmen were depicted as the heroes; blacks were portrayed as villainous predators. African American film director Oscar Devereaux Micheaux produced silent films and sound films featuring all black actors, representing a broad spectrum of black life, bringing dignity and complexity to his

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characters. Mainstream films, however, restricted blacks to inferior roles. Hattie McDaniel was notoriously typecast as the overweight, dark-skinned mammy, one of few roles available to African American women. Between the 1930s and 1940s, African American popular culture experienced a surge in new artistic expression in the Harlem Renaissance and films featuring all-black actors produced by independent black studios and mainstream studios for black audiences. Harlem, a predominately black neighborhood in New York, was the home of an artistic explosion in literature, theater, art, dance, and music. Nightclubs like the Cotton Club were ablaze with activity such as all-black dance groups and performers, including Billie Holliday, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong. Whites frequented these clubs to learn the new dance trends and hear the latest music and jazz slang. The Apollo Theater, located in Harlem, catapulted many singers such as Billie Holliday to stardom. Harlem was one of few locations blacks could see black performers without having to sit in segregated seating areas. Among the popular actors of this era were Nina Mae McKinney, Stepin Fetchit, Lorenzo Tucker, Lena Horne, and Bill Robinson (also known as Bojangles). Nina Mae McKinney was born in South Carolina in 1913. She started out as a dancer and appeared as the protagonist in the all-black film Hallelujah! (1929). She and world-renowned opera singer Paul Robeson appeared in Sanders of the River (1935). Bojangles, a popular tap dancer, appeared in The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and One Mile From Heaven (1937). In films produced by black filmmakers, an assorted array of black actors were employed and featured as the heroes and protagonists in their own world, roles that were largely denied them in real life or mainstream media. A number of talented singers and musicians appeared in black films, such as Cabin in the Sky (1943), which featured Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington, and Stormy Weather (1943) with Horne, Cab Calloway, and famed dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham. Black entertainers, such as Louis Armstrong, a trumpeter and singer, and Cab Calloway, a bandleader and singer, occasionally appeared in mainstream films featuring predominately white casts, demonstrating how music and performers in African American popular culture were gradually permeating white culture. The Civil Rights Era and Beyond Between the 1950s and 1960s (the Civil Rights Movement era), few African Americans became mainstream stars. However, some made significant impact in the music industry and in film and television history. Popular musicians like Nat King Cole broke into mainstream singing stardom. Actors such as Sydney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge also became iconic trailblazers in the centuries-old pursuit for inclusion in American society. Bill Cosby appeared in a groundbreaking role as a member of an interracial spy team in the 1960s television series, I Spy. Poitier was repeatedly depicted in a positive manner, successful, clean-cut, and authoritative. Although Dandridge challenged the all-pervasive happy-and-childlike black and presented sober portrayals, she was frequently typecast as a different stereotype—a tragic mulatto, a helpless victim of life.

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Notwithstanding the growing prestige of African American actors and performers, blacks still were largely underrepresented; they often contended with racism and discrimination in the industry and were yielded limited control in their careers. In 1958, dancer Alvin Ailey established the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, a modern dance company that incorporates moves inspired by the African American experience. The company grew in prominence over the years. Motown Records, which Berry Gordy Jr. founded in 1959, helped to eliminate some of the hassle blacks experienced trying to establish themselves as performers, launching the careers of some of the biggest names in music, such as Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Jackson Five, and Stephanie Mills. In the 1960s, R & B singers such as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Al Green made hit records. These artists were very popular with both black and white audiences. Black actors and artists became increasingly popular to mainstream audiences in the 1970s. Afrocentric clothes and hairstyles started out as trends in blacks communities. Eventually, black styles were appropriated by whites. Popular discos in urban centers played music by black performers as well as whites who were influenced by soulful rhythms and singing styles. Black performers, such as singer Donna Summers and actress Pam Grier, became sex symbols. African American actors were cast in films and plays produced by black playwrights. Louis Gossett Jr., who debuted in A Raisin in the Sun (1961), appeared in a number of films throughout the 1970s, and continues to act to this day. Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones were other prominent actors in the decade. Among the iconic black films were The Wiz, the all-black adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (1939), Sounder (1972), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), a film about the tragic life of singer Billie Holliday, and Roots (1977), a television miniseries. African Americans, like Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier, became the action stars of so-called blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Mainstream films occasionally featured African Americans. In television, shows like The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Sanford and Son, featured mostly black casts and appealed to both African American and white audiences. In the 1980s and beyond, African American entertainers continued to remain in the spotlight, whereas actors enjoyed intermittent success. In the 1980s, African American singers were primarily enjoyed by black audiences. The Cosby Show was considered a revolutionary television series, featuring a middle class family, headed by Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby), a doctor, and wife Claire (Phylicia Rashad), an attorney. The show was heavily criticized because it was believed that the show misrepresented blacks, although, in truth, a black middle class has existed since slavery times. The 1990s featured several black shows, such as Martin, In Living Color, and Living Single. The popular Arsenio Hall Show was hosted by an African American. The Oprah Winfrey Show, which debuted in 1986, continues to dominate ratings and heavily influence popular culture. (She also appeared in black films, such as The Color Purple and Beloved). One of the most important developments in television was the creation of Black Entertainment Television (BET) in 1980. It continues to provide black programming, movies, game shows, and videos for predominately black audiences. (Channel One, another black television network, was launched in 2004). In the new millennium, rap artists and performers such as Beyonc
e Knowles appeal to wider audiences than ever before and greatly influence the stylistic

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tones of nonblack artists. Black actors, however, appear infrequently in the media, save for networks like BET and Channel One. Tyler Perry is currently one of the biggest producers of black films. These films employ an assortment of new and prominent African American actors and actresses; the films appear in mainstream theaters but are mostly viewed by black audiences. Further Reading Gottschild, Brenda Dixon. 1996. Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Southern, Eileen. 1997. The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: Norton. Sylvester, Melvin. ‘‘African-Americans in Motion Pictures: The Past and Present.’’ Long Island University C. W. Post Campus (October 2009). http://www.liunet.edu/cwis/ cwp/library/african/movies.htm. Time-Life Books. 1994. Creative Fire. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books. Gladys L. Knight

Adams, Yolanda (1961– ), Neo-gospel Singer, Songwriter, Radio Host When composer/producer Thomas Whitfield heard the voice of Yolanda Adams singing lead with the Southeast Inspirational Choir of Houston, his discovery would become part of the renaissance of gospel music. Their collaborative album, ‘‘Just As I Am’’ (1988), on the Sound of Gospel Label, reached number eight on the gospel charts. Since her debut, she has sold over four million albums, made music videos, recorded with the legendary Albertina Walker, and other gospel and R & B luminaries. Adams has changed labels six times. Her numerous accolades include: four Grammys, four GMA Dove Awards, seven NAACP Image Awards, two Soul Train Awards, three BET Awards, and she was the recipient of the first American Music Contemporary Gospel Artist Award. Her change from a gospel label to Elektra in 1998 resulted in the album, ‘‘Mountain High Valley Low,’’ that reached double platinum. Its crossover single, ‘‘Open My Heart,’’ reached number one on the gospel charts and number ten on the R & B charts. Elektra increased her media coverage with magazine interviews and television appearances on The View, Oprah, Rosie O’Donnell, and Tonight shows. She was inducted into the Stellar Awards Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2007, Adams was invited to the White House to perform in ‘‘The Salute to Gospel Music.’’ Her song, ‘‘Hold On,’’ was part of the ‘‘Yes We Can’’ support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Adams infuses traditional gospel with R & B, jazz, and new jack sounds. Her appeal to crossover audiences is with lyrics that vary from biblical principles to inspirational or socially relevant messages. Along with her signature sound, her worldwide sold-out performances, including the ‘‘Sisters of the Spirit Tour’’ with Shirley Caesar, Mary Mary, and Angela Christie, also increased gospel music record sales, earning her iconic status in the industry. Adams has been criticized for hosting the Soul Train Awards, for her style of dress, and for lyrics with

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unclear messages promoting intimacy other than with God. She explains that her songs do not need standard biblical references to reach people. Yolanda Adams was born in Houston, Texas, on October 27, 1961. Major and Carolyn Adams, her parents, exposed her to a variety of musical genres and introduced her at age four to singing in church. Her marriage to ex-football player Tim Crawford in 1997 produced one child, Taylor Ayanna, but ended in divorce. Her choice to teach school and sing on the weekends resulted in her becoming one of today’s ‘‘Divas of Gospel’’ (also the title of a team-up album with Walker and others). In 2007, she began hosting the Yolanda Adams Morning Show that airs on Radio One stations. Whether performing, recording, or through her radio program, she sees her mission as breaking new ground in gospel music, helping others with their problems, and letting people know how ‘‘cool God is.’’ Further Reading Carpenter, Bil. 2005. Uncloudy Day: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. Current Biography Yearbook. 2002. New York: H. W. Wilson. Kernodie, Tammy L. ‘‘Work the Works: The Role of African-American Women in the Development of Contemporary Gospel.’’ Black Music Research Journal 26 (Spring 2006): 89–109. Simpson, Alphonso. ‘‘A Thin Line between Saturday Night and Sunday Morning: The Secularization of Sacred Song in the African American Religious Culture.’’ International Journal of African American Studies 2, no. 2. http://www.siue.edu/~mafolay/ JournalInfo/Vol-2/Issue2.pdf. ‘‘Yolanda Adams.’’ Atlantic Records. http://www/atlanticrecords.com/yolandaadams. Gloria Hamilton

Adoptions Adoptions refer to the legal process of taking a child or children as one’s own. In recent years, the number of African American adoptive parents has swelled, changing the face of African American popular culture. Transracial adoptions (adoptions involving parents who do not share the same race as their adopted children), however, continue to spur decades-long debates. Before the 1950s, formal adoptions among African Americans and transracial adoptions were virtually nonexistent. Following the emancipation of slaves in 1863, African Americans continued to be excluded from mainstream society and were denied basic rights. Although African Americans utilized many segregated services, adoption services were not extended to them. Following traditions rooted in their ancestral past, African Americans embraced the orphaned black children of biological parents who had been neighbors, friends, relatives, or church acquaintances. In Africa, familial ties extended beyond bloodlines. Because laws and societal attitudes discouraged interracial mixing of any sort, whites did not generally adopt nonwhite children. When whites did adopt black children, the family was frequently met with aggressive backlash.

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The gradual increase in the number of interracial adoptions, beginning in the 1950s and cresting in 1970 with 2,500 adoptions, was attributed to publicizing strategies, progressive laws, the Civil Rights Movement, and the low number of available white children brought on by new birth control methods and legalized abortion. Whites, however, mostly adopted the socially more acceptable nonblack children. African American adoption (and foster care) agencies appeared concurrently with interracial adoption agencies in the 1950s. To this day, black-run agencies focus primarily on finding African American adoptive parents for black children. Many African Americans contend that African American parents are essential to the development of African American children, particularly in passing on identity and racism coping strategies. In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) passed a resolution arguing the case for black adoptions and against transracial adoptions. In 1994, the NABSW adjusted its proposition by stating that transracial adoption should be considered only after all other efforts have been exhausted. Proponents of transracial adoptions contend that any parent can provide a healthy home and learn how to provide for the specific needs of black children. Historically, there has been a gaping need for African American parents for the large percentage of black children who were without homes. However, in recent years the number of African American adoptive parents has increased. In Illinois, for example, a survey in the late 1990s showed that 80 percent of adoptive parents were African American. According to Sarah Karp, this figure underscored the fact that, in Illinois, ‘‘more African Americans are adopting now than 10 years ago.’’ Success stories such as these do not appear in mainstream media but continue to be limited to the black press and in black communities. Further Reading Adoption History Project. ‘‘African-American Adoptions.’’ http://www.uoregon.edu/ ~adoption/topics/AfricanAmerican.htm. Fogg-Davis, Hawley. 2002. The Ethics of Transracial Adoption. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hollingsworth, Leslie Doty. ‘‘Symbolic Interactionism, African American Families, and the Transracial Adoption Controversy.’’ Social Work 44 (September 1, 1999): 443. Gladys L. Knight

Aerosol Art This public painting tradition is associated with graffiti, which had its origins in New York City. The traditions of graffiti reached their aesthetic peak in New York in the 1970s. This movement began, though, in the 1960s, an era marked by social unrest. For example, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, and the women’s liberation movement, and protest against the Vietnam War, set the tone for the times. The emergence of the graffiti tradition was

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one among many forms of social protest, as reflected in the ‘‘bombing’’ (painting) of subway trains in direct response to the bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam by the United States. As such, aerosol art is best understood in the contexts of New World African resistance movements and communities, which have historically employed coded languages and subversive tactics to break out of confined spaces. Aerosol art should further be considered in the context of the visual culture of New York City, which has, as one of its most prominent features, large-scale advertising. So aerosol artists—who traditionally refer to themselves as ‘‘writers’’ and are often offended by the term ‘‘graffiti artists’’—were simultaneously in dialogue with the corporate world, political authorities, the masses of upper- and middle-class New York inhabitants, tourists, the masses of poor people, and each other. Ivor Miller compares aerosol art to celebrations of Caribbean carnival in New York City, in that they both represent instances of New World Africans taking over public spaces that have historically been denied to them. Miller writes: ‘‘Some have compared the artwork on trains to Trojan horses, while others view it as assaults on the very nerve centers of the city.’’ Like participants in other resistance movements, New York aerosol writers had strong communities that were characterized by the construction of new identities and language and by a belief in the importance of maintaining links to ancestral spiritual traditions. In true guerrilla fashion, early artists stole their aerosol paint from stores, then stole into train lay-ups dressed in the uniforms of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and spent the night painting. Like other artists within a community, they were consistently inspired and challenged by each other’s creations. Artists renamed themselves, many being guided by the belief that names convey someone’s spiritual essence. Some of the most prominent figures in the movement were PHASE 2, DAZE, VULCAN, RIFF, BLADE, COCO 144, MICO, STAY HIGH, and CASE 2. Names were a central feature of aerosol culture, functioning in part to camouflage the identities of artists but always with some deeper significance. Many artists use several names, and signatures are an important element of the paintings; in fact, at times the art has revolved around the signature. Like many other forms of New World African expression, aerosol art is marked by syncretism, or fusion. Artists had a diversity of cultural backgrounds, although the most pervasive influences came from African American, Caribbean, and Latin American sources. Artists also drew from a wide range of influences in developing their individual styles, including calligraphy, Egyptian hieroglyphics, underground comics by authors such as R. Crumb and Vaughn Bod
e, the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets, science fiction art and literature, and advertising. The kinetic element of aerosol art is one of its distinguishing features. As Miller describes the artists, ‘‘When painting surfaces that could be reached while standing, they moved in fluid, dance-like gestures to achieve the flowing lines important to their elegant styles.’’ This does not consider the many paintings done in seemingly impossible places, while artists hung in the air. However, the motion inherent in the painting process is only a part of what is involved with the tradition. The style of aerosol art seeks to breathe rhythm into the Roman alphabet. Miller suggests parallels between patterns in African visual art, African American quilting, funk music, and Hip-Hop rhythms. There is a close association between hip-hop and aerosol cultures, including overlaps in dialect, speech, and dance forms. PHASE 2, for example, was

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the artist responsible for rap pioneer Kool DJ Herc’s posters, and he is also himself a rap artist. Aerosol painting is stylized in such a way as to suggest dynamism, motion, and rhythm, whether one imagines jazz or hip-hop. The effects of the paintings were intensified when they were viewed on moving trains. In part because of efforts made by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to stop what it saw simply as acts of vandalism, the tradition of aerosol art has moved away from the trains as a canvas of first choice. Murals painted on landscapes such as handball courts and other public, community sites represent one of the many contemporary directions in which the tradition has grown. Many of the most famous aerosol artists have by now become successful in the mainstream art world, following a trend of galleries showcasing their art—much of which is now on canvas. For example, PHASE 2, WAYNE, and MARE represent artists who have taken the reins in developing careers and businesses in publishing, videos, graphic design, fashion, and other forms of art. (Although art critics have often suggested that artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat were graffiti or aerosol artists, many in the aerosol communities do not claim them. For many aerosol artists, membership in the community rests in part on commitment to ideals consistent with black and Latin power movements.) The tradition of aerosol art and graffiti has by no means perished. To the contrary, like hip-hop, the music it is most associated with, aerosol art has taken the globe by storm and is popular among marginalized and counterculture groups around the world. It has even become appropriated by mainstream commercial culture and is used in advertising to appeal primarily to youth cultures. The tradition has also entered the electronic realm and is featured on many different Web sites, some of which are devoted specifically to this art form. Although art in this form is inherently temporary, photographers and fans have ensured its legacy by devoting Web sites and other publications to photographs that were taken of paintings going back to the 1970s. Aerosol art is an American art form, an innovative style and language rooted in African-derived aesthetics, now with multiethnic, multinational communities. See also: Gangs Further Reading Chalfant, Henry, and James Prigoff. 1987. Spraycan Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Miller, Ivor L. 2002. Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Anand Prahlad

Affirmative Action The term ‘‘affirmative action’’ is normally used to discuss positive actions taken to increase the representation of racial or ethnic minorities or women in areas of employment, business, and education. The spectrum of affirmative

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action programs runs from targeted outreach and recruiting to positive considerations in determining the successful job candidate, contract winner, or person awarded an admissions seat. The term ‘‘affirmative action’’ first appeared in Executive Order 10925 issued by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961. The Executive Order included a provision requiring federal government contractors to ‘‘take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.’’ Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act expanded the coverage of this nondiscrimination notion of affirmative action from federal contractors to most private employers and prohibited discrimination based on sex. Executive Order 11246, issued on September 24, 1965, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, superseded Executive Order 10925. This order also required federal contractors to file, and caused each of its subcontractors to file, compliance reports as prescribed by the secretary of labor. During the formative years of affirmative action, the United States considered itself principally a black or white nation. In the 1960 census, whites constituted 88.7 percent of Americans, with blacks making up another 10.6 percent of the population. No Hispanics/Latino designation existed, thus they were classified based on their race, rather than on their ethnicity. In 1960, over 99 percent of blacks were born in the United States, and because of the ‘‘one-drop’’ rule declaring that anyone with one drop of black blood in him or her was, in fact, a Negro, American society presumed that all blacks were descendants of chattel slaves. President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 commencement speech at Howard University laid out a rationale for affirmative action that went beyond assuring that blacks were not victims of discrimination and instead providing blacks with positive benefits. ‘‘You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line in a race and say, ‘you are free to compete with all others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.’’ The Nixon administration significantly expanded the use of affirmative action. Nepotism was rampant in the construction trades of Philadelphia, which led to several building trade unions being virtually all-white. Intent upon integrating these trade unions, Department of Labor administrators created the Philadelphia Plan. The plan required contractors’ bids to produce minority group representation in all trades and in all phases of federally funded construction projects. Nixon’s secretary of labor, George P. Shultz, strongly endorsed the policy. The Philadelphia Plan was subjected to several months of contentious legislative battles in Congress. Generally, the liberal Democrats lined up in support of organized labor and the Republicans sided with the president. The program won a vote of confidence from both houses of Congress in December 1969. Originally proponents justified affirmative action programs as efforts to dismantle discriminatory institutional practices in order to promote a more equitable dissemination of opportunities in society. Due to federal court decisions rejecting social justice rationales for affirmative action, since the early 1990s, the justifications for affirmative action have increasingly touted the benefits of

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diversity. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 opinion Grutter v. Bollinger upheld an affirmative action admissions plan by the University of Michigan Law School. The plan sought to assure the benefits of diversity obtained from the inclusion of a critical mass of underrepresented minorities with a history of discrimination who without this consideration would not be represented in sufficient numbers in the student body, including African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Americans. Affirmative action has been one of the most successful programs in American history. It significantly opened up positions at the very top of this society for blacks, women, and other minorities in education, business, and employment. Without it, white males would still almost exclusively dominate U.S. leadership positions. Further Reading Anderson, Terry H. 2004. The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action. New York: Oxford University Press. Bowen, William G., and Derek Bok. 1998. The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Johnson, Lyndon B. June 4, 1965. ‘‘To Fulfill These Rights.’’ Commencement Address at Howard University. Lemann, Nicholas. 1999. The Big Test: The Secret History of The American Meritocracy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kevin Brown

Africa and the African Diaspora African cultural heritage and African diasporic tendencies have gone through numerous changes. This is especially so since some scholars regard both as part of the Africanisms that one hears a lot about with respect to African American culture in general and black disaporic cultural heritage in particular. By intellectual cum academic implications, Africanism, according to Joseph Holloway, is seen as ‘‘those elements of culture found in the New World that are traceable to an African origin.’’ To some scholars, Africanism has, in fact, been a neglected as well as a controversial sphere of intellectual inquiry in the United States since the pioneering research study of Melville J. Herskovits. African Carryovers into American Culture In providing the impetus needed to trace or reestablish and point the way toward Africa’s diasporic implications in the Americas, it is very important to recall historical anecdotes, including the earlier scholarly debates that were fomented by Herskovits and E. Franklin Frazier. As scholars, both were established intellectual

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giants in their fields of study, at Northwestern and Howard Universities, respectively. Herskovits emphasized in his book, The Myth of the Negro Past, that very significant African contributions were known to have been made to several segments of American culture to bring about what we see today as black American or African American heritage. Frazier, in his sociological studies, opposed such notions, as he felt that black Americans (or today’s African Americans) did lose their African heritage during slavery, and that African American culture did evolve independently of any African cultural or traditional influences. While these debates were raging, other scholars postulated, with similar rich and very useful research, that what is known as the Atlantic World, which forms part of the black diasporic experiences, started to form in the last half of the fifteenth century. In subsequent years, the fortunes of four continents became intertwined and interdependent; the repercussions of the interconnections continue to be felt as the black diaspora as we know it today, which brought together elements of blackness from Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In the black diasporic sense, one is discussing or focusing attention on what has, over the years, been recorded as ‘‘African carryovers,’’ as studied and popularized in Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, published in 1926 by Newbell Puckett. In his anthropological study, Puckett’s early excursion into these African terrains showed that several Africanisms were carried over into southern cultural and traditional heritage. Through proper research and documentation, Puckett presented not less than ten thousand folk beliefs and tales of southern blacks, with evidence of their origins as well as the preservation of African traits in African American customs that relate to burials, religiosity, customs, and such folk beliefs as the presence of ghosts, voodooism, and outright witchcraft. While Frazier, Herskovits, Puckett, Franklin and Moss, Holloway, and others were holding court in a variety of ways about African carryovers into African disaporic spheres, Carter G. Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois carved niches for themselves with their authenticated studies of the same with much more positive intensity and factoid. In 1936, Woodson published his authoritative book, The African Background Outlined, in which he described such major African survivals as technical skills, the arts, spirituality, attitudes, folklore, and traditional hospitality and generosity. In it he also provided information on African influences in religion, music, dance, drama, poetry and, indeed, oratory. In 1939, Du Bois came out with Black Folk, Then and Now, which bore results that were similar to Woodson’s. Du Bois’s book complemented his earlier work, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), in which he pointed out that the problem of the twentieth-century would be that of the color line, a prophetic statement that has held sway till this day in the twenty-first century. As the pioneers of the debates and the intellectual arguments were becoming gray in age and scholarship, their students began to take the mantle of the research on the African diaspora, either to add to or to reduce the earlier influences that they exhibited. For example, Lorenzo Turner, a former student of Herskovits, published his own study on the African diaspora titled Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1949). The work, which was sparked by an earlier study,

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fleshed out several aspects of a 1940 study by Guy Johnson, Drum and Shadows. Johnson made an extensive reexamination of African retentions in the Georgia Sea Islands and the nearby Gullah communities of the mainland. Turner’s work served as the earliest impetus in drawing the expected or needed direct link between Africa and the United States with linguistic retentions; he went on to cite varied spheres (or derivations) in black speech patterns from the Niger-Congo as well as Bantu family of languages with African emphasis. While slavery and the slave trade, in their dispersal of African cultural heritage, tried to do away with African ways of life and sociocultural norms, Turner’s study refuted that destruction. He paid specific attention to the identities of African ethnic groups, listing over five thousand words that had originated from Central and West Africa. Turner pointed out that, indeed, West African cultures did shape and mold black (or today’s African American) cultural heritage. Back to Africa Movement In modern times, a scholar like Claude A. Clegg III of Indiana University has done a study to show that while the black heritage did not end in the diaspora, several black leaders saw the need to return to Africa. That, in fact, is what happened with several black Americans–then called freed Negroes–who decided in the mid1800s to return to West Africa. Freed American slaves went to Liberia, where they rebuilt the capital and, in honor of the late President James Monroe, renamed it Monrovia, while the freed British slaves went to Sierra Leone, which had its capital named Freetown. Inter alia, the whole drama is summed up neatly by Clegg: Perhaps unbeknownst to Charity Hunter [of North Carolina] and many of her fellow sojourners, the idea of black Americans emigrating from the United States, voluntarily or otherwise, as solution to racial conflict was as old as the republic itself. As early as the Revolutionary period, Thomas Jefferson proposed relocating African Americans beyond the boundaries of the new nation. Similarly, as late as the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln still envisioned a great black exodus that would purge the country of African Americans [Blacks] once and for all. Colonization, as this idea became known, rested upon the contention that Blacks and whites— due to innate racial differences, polarized societal statutes, and pervasive racism— could not live together in social harmony and political equality within the same country.

Clegg, in his 2004 book’s epilogue, subtitled ‘‘Everything Is Upside Down,’’ has shown how the diaspora-based blacks returned to Liberia, styling themselves as Americo-Liberians. In April 1980, their leadership of the country was ended through a coup d’etat led by a native Liberian soldier called Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe. In the putsch, the elected president, William R. Tolbert Jr., was shot to death in his presidential mansion, and several of his top officials were taken prisoner. A few days later, on April 22, 1980, Clegg writes that ‘‘thirteen of the prisoners, mostly cabinet officials, were taken to a nearby beach, tied to posts, and executed before a group of invited journalists.’’ Several Americo-Liberians

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returned to the United States to join the diasporic black population and, since the mid-1980s, they have had a change in their racial description or identity, which used to be Negroes and black Americans, to today’s African Americans. As historians have documented, the black diasporic extension goes beyond the United States to the various areas in what was then known as the New World. In From Slavery to Freedom, John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss Jr. document the fact that, in 1619, twenty Africans were shipped as indentured servants on a Dutch ship to Jamestown, Virginia; the rest of the story is the history that we now know as the African American experience. In The Atlantic World, 1450–2000, Falola and Roberts have shown that while connected by the Mediterranean and the Islamic world for centuries, direct contact between European and Africa (excluding North Africa) remained minimal until the mid-fifteenth century. The pursuit of gold and slaves brought the Portuguese down the coast of West Arica in the 1440s, ‘‘conducting slave raids on the islands and the archipelagos off the coasts of Mauritania and Morocco. In 1444, a group of men led by Lancarote de Lagos sailed partway up the Senegal River, attacked a settlement, and seized captives.’’ In some instances, contact between West Africans and the Portuguese involved peaceful trade rather than violence. For example, in 1442, the Tuareg people in West Africa traded with Portuguese merchants; some of the exchanged goods were slaves who would come to the New World. This is the origin of what Rutgers University professor Van Sertima has authenticated in his book, They came Before Columbus—that in St. Augustine, Florida, there were black men and women before 1619. Coming to America It is important to point out that, as Falola and Roberts have spelled out, in contrast to the experiences of European servants and Indians, whose early ordeals in the Americas were slavish in totality, African peoples shipped abroad often had greater personal and legal freedoms in the early Atlantic World than they would later on. As further explained by both scholars, as European colonialism developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European laborers and the surviving indigenous peoples were increasingly able to exact concessions from European governments and rely on imperial policies that generally sought to rein in the excesses of colonial elites. Gradually, the shipped Africans started to be subjected to greater abuse and, in the end, to be treated as slaves by American and European slave owners. Indeed, Ira Berlin has shown that many of the earliest African peoples in the Atlantic World—what he called ‘‘Atlantic Creoles’’—were much more than brute laborers; in the 1490s, black mariners sailed with Christopher Columbus, while black soldiers aided and abetted Hernan Cortes in the conquest of the Aztec empire. It is on the record that between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large numbers of Africans were freed unconditionally—indeed, more than 33 percent in Lima and in excess of 40 percent in Mexico City between 1524 and 1650. Also, freed blacks could be found in large numbers in North America.

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As noted by various scholars, the nineteenth century recorded the largest export of Africans into the Americas as enslaved entities than in any single period in the history of the Atlantic slave trade. That was due to the triggering of civil unrests, including outright warfare or militarism, in many places in African societies. The exported slaves provided a fresh face to the black Atlantic culture; in the late eighteenth century, the concentration of slaves to the slave or black coast in Brazil from West Africa, many of whom were of the Yoruba ethnic or tribal group, were supposedly held in great esteem. Apart from the presence of Africans—as indentured servants, outright slaves, and freed or manumitted blacks—in the New World of the black diaspora, it is also a fact that the black Atlantic, as Falola and Roberts have pointed out, experienced a demographic shift that was driven by commercial motives of the slave trade. The cultural consequences were very profound for both black and white peoples. Interestingly, as many scholars have documented in their works, the mutual benefits of the presence of blacks in the diaspora have included the fact that, just as enslaved Africans carried African religions (i.e., traditional and foreign), languages, material culture, and architectural practices in their varied forms into the New World, so did it happen that European slave traders and manumitted (or freed) African slaves, who returned to their ancestral homes on the African continent, did bring back with them literacy, mathematical knowledge (or numerics), Christianity, European languages, new consumer goods, artisan knowledge and, indeed, building styles. Former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Eric E. Williams, in Capitalism & Slavery (1998), showed how the black diaspora extended to the Caribbean, where slave-cultivating plantations were supervised by the wives of the male absentee owners. He made it abundantly clear that Africans were enslaved and transported to the Caribbean and other parts of the New World for economic but not racist reasons; he added that his research at University of Oxford showed that the first people to be graduated from indentured servitude to outright enslaved status were native Indians, followed by poor whites of the United States; it was when both groups died in droves because of poor diet and also from the hard labor that Africans were captured or bought to serve as suitable substitutes. In fact, Catherine Clinton of Harvard University, in The Plantation Mistress (1984), called the wives of plantation owners the plantation mistresses, further describing these hardworking white women in her book as being the ‘‘proper slaves.’’

Further Reading Assensoh, A. B., and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh. 2001. African Military History & Politics, 1900–Present. New York: Palgrave St. Martin’s Press. Blassingame, John W. 1979. The Slave Community. New York: Oxford University Press. Clegg, Claude A., III. 2004. The Price of Liberty: African American and the Making of Liberia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Clinton, Catherine. 1984. The Plantation Mistress. New York: Knopf. Creel, Margaret Washington. 1988. A Peculiar People: Slave Religion and Community. New York: New York University Press.

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Drake, St. Clair. 1991. Black Folk Here and There. San Francisco: University of California Press. Falola, Toyin, and Kevin D. Roberts. 2008. The Atlantic World, 1450–2000. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Frazier, E. Franklin. 1963. The Negro Church in America. Boston: Beacon Press. Herskovits, Melville, J. 1958. The Myth of the Negro Past. Boston: Beacon Press. Holloway, Joseph. 1990. Africanisms In American Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Van Sertima, Ivan. 2003. They Came Before Columbus. New York: Random House. Williams, Eric E. 1998. Capitalism & Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Woodson, Carter G. 1939. The African Background Outlined. New York: Holt. A. B. Assensoh and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh

African American English. See Black English

African Americans in the U.S., 1619–2010 From the shores of Africa to the urban metropolises of the United States, the voices of people of color have echoed the voices of those who have been oppressed throughout the world. There is no way to understand the contemporary issues facing African Americans without understanding the history of Africans in the United States. During the long night of slavery, African Americans sought liberty, resisted domination, and protested by leading mutinies on board slave ships, by running away, by working with the Underground Railroad, by leading uprisings, and by participating in work slowdowns. The history of the resiliency of the people kidnapped from the African continent and brought to North America begins to emerge from the earliest documents relating to the slave trade and enslavement in the American colonies. Slavery in North America 1619–1865 The forced movement of Africans to the Western Hemisphere constituted one of the largest population shifts in the history of the world. Some scholars offer archaeological and ethnological evidence to claim that Africans traveled to the New World before the Europeans discovered its existence. Historical documents confirm that African workers and slaves sailed with the Europeans as they explored the Americas and began to conquer the peoples of the Americas in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Yet, African presence before Columbus was minuscule compared to the millions brought to the New World in chains from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Settlements utilizing the enslaved African laborers in the Caribbean and Latin America antedated North American communities by almost a century.

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The Atlantic Ocean route between Africa and the Americas was often referred to as the Middle Passage and slavery in America was called the ‘‘peculiar institution.’’ Scholars’ estimates of the number of Africans victimized by the slave trade range from nine to twenty-five million. The trade in humans and the labor of those African captives in the New World netted untold riches to their European and American captors for many generations. Ship logs and slave trading records from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries show people of color not only as victims of a cruel system of slavery and oppression but also as actors who found effective ways to cope with the or escape from the confines of enslavement. Even on board the vessels of their captivity some of the millions of captured Africans mutinied against the European crews and took command of the ships that held them. Other unsuccessfully tried to regain their freedom by jumping ship or fighting their captors. Unfortunately, the superior technology of the European slavers—both in weaponry and transportation—subdued the Africans captives as effectively as it did the Native Americans in the New World. To secure their valuable African captives, the slave trading vessels had low decks, which allowed the chained captives to sit up but not stand. Some large slave ships carried between five and nine hundred Africans of all ages and both sexes. Between the cramped conditions, human disease, and filth, many Africans (and many of the European crewmen) lost their lives as they crossed the Atlantic, but millions survived to find themselves bound in intergenerational slavery. The monetary benefits were so great to the slave traders and owners that the trade of Africans to the United States lasted from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The first twenty Africans in British America were sold by a Dutch captain as indentured servants in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The settlement, founded in 1607, was only a dozen years old when the Africans came. Within a few decades most of the young Atlantic seaboard colonies were importing Africans, not as workers but as slaves. As the Atlantic coastal settlements increased in number and population in North America in the seventeenth century, European ships with Africans for sale as slaves appeared regularly. Planters were interested in using Africans as forced laborers on their tobacco, rice, sugar, indigo, and wheat plantations. Africans were used in urban and rural areas to construct buildings, roads, and forts. They also performed many household tasks. Most colonial historians acknowledge the vital role played by the African workers in both the planting of settlements and their protection from Native Americans in British America. The Constitution of the United States outlawed the African slave trade on January 1, 1808, but the law was largely ignored. With the invention of the cotton gin at the turn of the nineteenth century, cotton production began to increase and the value of enslaved people of color multiplied exponentially. Cotton production intersected with the growing textile industry in Great Britain and the New England states and led to revolutionary production rates. Most slaveholders in the South had few slaves, but there were large plantations where hundreds of enslaved Africans who, by the Civil War, were producing more cotton than anywhere else in the world. As slave property

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became increasingly valuable, slaveholders were strongly determined to protect their right to hold human property. Although the government of the United States was ambivalent about the rights of free people of color and virtually unanimous in the denial of rights to slaves, the Constitution of 1787 allowed southern states to count three-fifths of the enslaved population to determine the number of members from their states in the House of Representatives. By the time George Washington was inaugurated, African Americans made up about 20 percent of the American population. By the end of the Revolutionary War most northern states had provided for the emancipation of slaves in their boundaries. The few northern states that did not accomplish this by the end of the Revolution did so within a few decades afterward. As the number of slaves was diminishing in the North, by the time of the Civil War more than half of the population of Virginia, for example, was made up of African Americans, the vast majority of whom were slaves. In South Carolina, the slave population was more than 400,000 and the white population was fewer than 300,000. The 1860 census indicates that the total number of African Americans in the United States was 4,441,83. Slaves numbered 3,953,760 and 488,070 were free, and there were 26,922,537 whites. African American Artisans Although the vast majority of African Americans—male and female—did labor in the fields, a small percentage of both slaves and free blacks in the South also worked as artisans who toiled in tobacco factories, made barrels, ran steamboats, labored as masons, and specialized in many other crafts before and during the Civil War. Although enslaved persons who were trained as artisans usually utilized their skills on their owners’ plantations, it was not uncommon for them to be hired out to other plantations. Men performed various services such as blacksmithing, carpentry, hostelry, and coopering. Women were sometimes hired out as maids, cooks, hairdressers, milliners, and seamstresses. Those who hired the bondsmen and bondswomen gave their owners payment for the slaves’ service but the artisan usually also received a small sum. Many industrious slaves would scrupulously save the small amount they received until they had earned enough to purchase their own freedom at an amount stipulated by their owners. Sometimes, because the children followed the legal status of the mother, men would purchase their wives first, and then themselves and their enslaved children. The slave had no rights, a truth U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney—himself a Maryland slaveholder— reinforced when he stated in the 1857 Dred Scott decision that blacks had no rights that whites were bound to respect. Therefore, an owner did not have to agree to sell or give the slave a percentage of their hired wages, but many did. Some owners bought enslaved laborers for the purpose of hiring them out. Striking Blows for Freedom: Slave Resistance Famous slave mutinies and revolts dispel the view that African slaves were docile or content with their fate. Fear of slave revolts was quite common in the

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British American colonies from the earliest days of settlement. A perusal of any colonial newspaper indicates that runaways, acts of slave resistance, and smallscale slave rebellions were common. For example, in the spring of 1741 a series of fires broke out in Manhattan. Many believed that these fires were the work of rebellious slaves. Hysteria in the city led to the arrest of numerous enslaved persons. Especially after the successful rebellion of Afro-Haitians over the French and Creole colonials at the turn of the nineteenth century, white slave owners experienced a widespread dread of slave reprisals. As the size of the slave population sometimes grew to equal or exceed the number of whites in some southern states, slaveholders realized that a unified revolt by those held in bondage could signal doom for their owners. Fears increased in 1829 when a free black man in Boston named David Walker wrote a pamphlet entitled (in part) Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World. The pamphlet called for blacks to rise up and overthrow their oppressors. The pamphlet caused much alarm in the South and was outlawed in various states. The governor of Virginia, John Floyd, cited Walker’s pamphlet as one of the causes of a major slave revolt in 1831. Small-scale slave revolts and plots were relatively common. Occasionally, however, revolts reached alarming proportions. This was particularly true with the Nat Turner insurrection in Southampton, Virginia, in 1831. Turner, who felt that God revealed to him the method of liberating the slaves, told only a few trusted companions about his plan because he understood that rebellions often failed because someone informed the authorities. Turner’s strategy was to go to one household at a time, kill all the whites, free the slaves, and thereby add to the number of those who were in his rebel brigade. Before the whites stopped Turner and his followers about sixty whites had lost their lives. Subsequently, the terrified state of Virginia government hanged Turner, but not before he dictated his confessions, which were subsequently published. Probably the most famous mutiny of captured Africans was on board the Spanish vessel Amistad. After the sale of Africans in the Caribbean in 1839, Africans were loaded on board the schooner Amistad. The Africans succeeded in murdering the white crewmembers except a few who were ordered to steer the ship back to Africa. About fifty Africans led by a Mende warrior named Cinqu
e forced the crew to comply during the day but at night the crew sailed the ship to the northwest, eventually landing off the coast of New York, where local authorities captured the Africans. The Amistad case, ultimately tried in the U.S. Supreme Court, added more fuel to the controversy between the northern and southern states. Former president John Quincy Adams, who defended the Amistad captives, presented a series of arguments so cogent that the Court freed the Africans. Missionaries and well-wishers helped the Africans who had survived the litigation process return to West Africa. Although enslaved African Americans resisted slavery in many ways, the most common method was to run away. Sometimes fugitives fled into areas unsettled by Europeans; other times they were able to ally with Indians. Occasionally blacks formed runaway communities called ‘‘maroons’’ in swamps or

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backwoods areas. Many blacks ran away during the Revolutionary War. Some simply sought freedom elsewhere. Others fled to the British troops—both during the Revolution and the War of 1812—who hid them from their owners and took many blacks with them as they moved to their next battle or troop evacuation. Pennsylvania began to abolish slavery through its Gradual Abolition Act in 1780. That meant that many enslaved people in the upper South lived very close to Pennsylvania communities where there was a free black population where they could hide. White and black abolitionists helped many enslaved people through the Underground Railroad, which was, in truth, neither underground nor a railroad. It was a series of secret travel routes and hiding places established for the purpose of guiding runaways from the slaveholding states to the northern states or to Canada. Hundreds of runaways conducted to the North attempted to blend into the large free black communities in New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and cities in other states. There is little specific information about the number of runaways during the two and a half centuries of slavery. Even using a low estimate of three hundred Maryland runaways a year for two hundred-fifty years means that possibly seventy-five thousand slaves escaped from Maryland. Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman claimed to have led over three hundred slaves out of Maryland. There were thousands of runaways in northern cities and Canada. In 1850, when the U.S. Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law making the penalties more severe for those who aided runaways, many fugitives living in northern cities moved into Canada. Scholars estimate that over ten thousand fugitives fled into Canada in 1850 because of the law. Yet, the exodus of runaways from the South did not cease. As northern abolitionist sentiment began to grow, accounts of daring slave escapes were extremely popular. One of the most popular related to the escape of an enslaved tobacco factory worker named Henry Brown. Henry ‘‘Box’’ Brown got his nickname ‘‘Box’’ when he mailed himself from Richmond, Virginia, to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society office in 1849 to escape from slavery. A husband and wife team, William and Ellen Craft, also gained great celebrity for their Christmas escape in 1848. Ellen, who was very light, dressed as a man, and her husband, William, who had a brown complexion, pretended to be her slave. They took public conveyances and arrived in Philadelphia and appeared at the Underground Railroad office of William Still, safe and sound. Not all runaway accounts were successful or thrilling but all were daring. Frederick Douglass’s fianc
ee made him a sailor’s uniform; he borrowed a black sailor’s identification papers and took the train to Philadelphia. African American sailors were common in the antebellum period. Strides toward Freedom: Free Persons of Color From the seventeenth century on there was a growing free black population in the British colonies. This population grew quickly in the antebellum years. African Americans were usually emancipated for diligent work, good conduct, familial connections, or commendable service. The methods for manumission

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included court actions, instructions in owners’ wills, self purchase, purchase of one’s own family member’s freedom with money earned when hired out, governmental decrees, or rewards for military service. Several thousand gained their freedom serving alongside their owners during the colonial wars. Free blacks were rarely accorded the same privileges as white citizens. States changed their laws relating to free blacks depending on the political climate and— more importantly—the size of the African American population. Free blacks usually could not legally marry, carry firearms, or testify against whites in court. Laws relating to slavery varied from state to state. Free people of color—especially children—lived under the threat of being beaten or kidnapped by whites who would sell them into slavery. One of the reasons that whites formed the abolition societies was to try to protect free blacks from kidnappers. States passed and repealed laws prohibiting blacks from assembling as groups in public places without whites being present. State governments often vacillated about the right of free blacks to hold and bequeath property. Whites often sought to restrict the type of work blacks could do because whites did not want to compete with them. In spite of numerous restrictions, free blacks formed their own churches, schools, benevolent societies, and businesses. Many churches were a part of larger denominations, which met periodically in various states to discuss both religious and political matters. Census records indicate that increasing numbers of free blacks could read and/or write. Free persons of color worked as domestics, small farmers, innkeepers, street vendors, ship caulkers, stevedores, sailors and boatmen, draymen, barbers, teamsters, blacksmiths, and liverymen. Back to Africa? In their quest for full political rights, free people of color were extremely articulate in their protests against the ‘‘peculiar institution,’’ but they also began to explore alternative solutions to racial problems. One example was Paul Cuffe, a Massachusetts free man born in 1759 of African and Native American ancestry, who learned to articulate the doctrines of freedom for oppressed African Americans. He eventually became an active exponent of African colonization in general and of the British Sierra Leonean scheme in particular. Even when the Massachusetts courts abolished slavery in 1783, the social, economic, and political problems that blacks encountered remained complex. Cuffe reasoned that the best avenue for blacks to pursue was to reestablish contact with West Africans for the purpose of colonization and trade. Finally in 1815, at a personal expenditure of $4,000, Cuffe took nine free black families, totaling thirty-eight individuals, to settle in Sierra Leone. Some emigrationists began to formulate ideas for the colonization of black Americans along the lines that Cuffe had planned. Others envisioned trade ventures, and still others wanted to evangelize Africans. Many whites simply hoped to rid the United States of its free black population. In December 1816, Robert Finley, a New Jersey clergyman, visited Washington to see if he could get support for a colonization scheme. There he met with a number of influential

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men including Elias Caldwell, Bushrod Washington, Henry Clay, John Randolph, and Daniel Webster, as well as about forty-five others. The responses of those who met with Finley were varied. Finally, on December 28, 1816, these delegates took the title American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United States. Soon the organization was known simply as the American Colonization Society (ACS). The newly formed society sought to recruit Paul Cuffe to lead their first emigrant expedition, but he died before the plans for their first group of settlers could be formulated. Black leaders in Philadelphia, led by James Forten, Richard Alien, Absalom Jones, and Robert Douglas, immediately held a protest meeting. In addition to criticism by blacks, the ACS encountered considerable resistance from the federal government to pleas for funding their projects. Consequently, funds for the colonization scheme had to be solicited from the public. Thus, the ACS had to establish an African settlement largely at its own expense. Those black Americans who joined the first expedition as emigrants also worked for the United States government. A March 3, 1819, act of Congress authorized President Monroe to deliver African captives taken from slave ships to United States agents who would be stationed on the West African coast. The emigrants were laborers hired to build shelters and to provide some shelter for the ‘‘recaptives.’’ During the entire nineteenth century, only a small minority of the free black population chose to emigrate to Liberia. The nearly unanimous rejection of the ACS plans led to a series of meetings known as the Negro Convention movement. Frederick Douglass, who felt that the whole idea of colonization was rooted in racism and Negrophobia—fear and hatred of blacks—wrote and spoke out against it on many occasions. In his antislavery newspaper, North Star, Douglass’s editorials lambasted the U. S. Senate about colonization. The vast majority of black Americans were adamant about remaining in the United States. In spite of all the doubt on the part of blacks and the suspect motives of some of the members of ACS, some blacks left almost every year after 1820 throughout the century to go to Liberia. Some blacks chose to emigrate to Haiti in the 1820s, but many were dissatisfied there and returned to the United States. Black Abolitionists and their Allies The small free black population during the period up to 1860, however, aided by sympathetic whites, was most outspoken—and most creative—in their protest against slavery, as an institution many of them knew from firsthand experience. Sermons called for liberty, hundreds of newspaper articles, books, poems, speeches, and tracts echoed a call for liberty not unlike that of the American colonies from their perceived oppressor in the eighteenth century—Great Britain. With the Declaration of Independence, doctrines of equality and the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness reached the ears of the free persons of color and slave alike, and the oppressed longed to throw off the oppressor.

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Quakers, for example, were speaking, writing, and petitioning in the national and slate legislatures against slavery from the eighteenth century until emancipation. In addition to formal methods of protest, grassroots networks emerged to fight against slavery. Members of both races acted as conductors on the Underground Railroad. There is a virtual avalanche of records relating to antislavery efforts by great abolitionists, white and black, in the United States. These include the writings of people like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Salmon P. Chase, Martin Delaney, Theodore Weld, and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper. Antislavery and proslavery political debates divided the nation, led to violence and, ultimately, to the Civil War. Galvanized by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Stowe published ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly,’’ in forty installments from June 1851 to April of 1852 in the Washington, DC, antislavery weekly, the National Era. The story riveted the attention of thousands of readers and engendered outrage in many about the institution of slavery. The furor over the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the controversy over slavery in Nebraska and Kansas, the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, and the John Brown attack on Harper’s Ferry all polarized the nation, but the election of President Abraham Lincoln in 1860 led southern politicians to finally do what they had been threatening for decades—secede from the Union. The Civil War and Afterwards The dawn of freedom after the Civil War ushered in a freedom struggle that has now lasted over a century and a half. It is sometimes too easy to forget how brief the time has been since the emancipation of the vast majority of the African American population in 1865. A little more than 140 years has elapsed since the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution declared slavery illegal in the United States. During this relatively brief period, African Americans have demonstrated a remarkable progress, bridging a gap from powerlessness to strength, from illiteracy to scholarship, and from plantation house to the White House. The Civil War Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 led to secession and secession to war. Lincoln hated slavery but promised during his campaign that he would work to limit slavery to the states were it existed but not abolish it completely. Southerners realized that as new states entered the union soon there would be enough votes in Congress to legally abolish slavery by outvoting southern representatives. They hated and feared what Lincoln and the Republican Party might do to the southern economy and way of life. Southern states, beginning with South Carolina, in 1860, seceded to form the Confederate States of America. Lincoln and the U. S. Congress declared war to save the federal union.

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Before and during the early years of the war, President Lincoln envisioned paying masters to free their slaves and providing freed people with education or a colonization in another country, but few of the abolitionists Lincoln consulted offered practical suggestions about future plans for a free black population. In the opening months of the war, no clear policy evolved. Free blacks who offered themselves for military service were turned away. President Lincoln remained as reluctant to allow black men to enlist as soldiers as he was to declare the slaves free, and blacks were allowed only a limited role in the war effort for the first three years. Nevertheless, when the Union soldiers entered the South, thousands of African Americans fled from their owners to Union camps. The question of slavery that had been avoided, argued, and compromised upon from the time of the Constitutional Convention could no longer be ignored. The Union officers did not immediately receive an official order on how to manage this large addition to their numbers. Some Union officials sought to return the unfortunates to their owners but others kept the blacks within their lines, dubbed them ‘‘contrabands of war’’ and put them to work on fortifications, food preparation, and a myriad of other tasks. Over five thousand contrabands greatly aided the war effort with their labor. After Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which was effective on January 1, 1863, black soldiers were officially allowed to participate in the war effort. African Americans served as support workers, spies, scouts, soldiers, and seamen. Thousands of them lost their lives in the pursuit of freedom. Some returned home as heroes basking in the praises of their officers, wearing Congressional Medals of Honor and other badges of courage, and celebrating a new day of freedom. Yet, the nation still wavered about the postwar status of African Americans. During the time the contrabands and soldiers were in the Union camps, they sought out any who could teach them how to read and write and looked for chaplains who could legally perform wedding ceremonies. Sometimes hundreds of black couples— who had been together during slavery, a system that did not sanction legal marriage—were joined in matrimony in mass ceremonies. African Americans as well as whites were outspoken about questions of race, civil rights, and full equality for the newly freed population during the Civil War era. Emancipated blacks were forced to begin their trek to full equality even without the aid of ‘‘forty acres and a mule,’’ which many believed had been promised to them. Reconstruction and Its Aftermath ‘‘Reconstruction’’ is a term used to describe the methods of reorganizing the southern states after the war, to provide the means for readmitting them into the union, and to define the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. During the Civil War, only African Americans in Confederate states were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but after the war, the Thirteenth Amendment liberated all U.S. slaves wherever they were and the Fourteenth Amendment declared them to be U.S. citizens. (Some slaveholding states like Maryland had not joined the Confederacy so the slaves there were not freed in 1863.)

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The Thirteenth Amendment The Thirteenth Amendment declared that ‘‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.’’ It was ratified December 6, 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment In part, the Fourteenth Amendment declared ‘‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’’ It was ratified July 9, 1868. Even after the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for the newly freed black population. President Lincoln wanted leniency for the southern states and believed that colonization of former slaves was desirable, since he feared that blacks and whites could not live together peaceably. His efforts to find a relocation site for the black population in Mexico or on a Caribbean island were unsuccessful, and his discussions with black leaders to outline his colonization plan were fruitless. In spite of Lincoln’s hesitancy, he proposed that the rebellious states recognize the permanent freedom of ex-slaves and provide education for them. Following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, the newly freed population found that it did not have a friend in President Andrew Johnson. He was as determined that African Americans should not gain full citizenship as they were determined to acquire it. Black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches, and schools united to work tirelessly to give the emancipated ones the opportunity to learn during the years after the war. The Fifteenth Amendment Immediately after the Civil War, Congress attempted to protect the newly freed African American population. The Fifteenth Amendment declared that ‘‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.’’ It was ratified February 3, 1870. African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, buy the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Enemies of the race, however, rallied against the four million people formerly in bondage and began to

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find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood. Some southerners tried to impose laws that virtually reduced African Americans to slavery again, but with the aid of radical Republicans in the U. S. Congress, blacks were able to retain some of their hard-won rights. People of color were elected to national, state, and local offices during this period and many black Republicans—Lincoln’s political party—were appointed to public office. The Freedmen’s Bureau, operational from 1865 to 1872—was officially called the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The bureau aided many black families in their efforts to farm, find family members who were sold during slavery, and get educated. As Union soldiers and northern teachers, preachers, businesspeople, and missionaries traveled into defeated areas of the Confederacy, they discovered aspects of slave life and culture hitherto unknown to them. African American Spirituals, folk songs, churches, African folk traditions, and linguistic traits caused many northern observers to reassess their views about black creative ability. Because masters and mistresses feared literate slaves, every slaveholding state had passed laws forbidding African American education. This accentuated a longing for learning among the newly freed blacks that impressed almost every chronicler of the South in the period during and after the Civil War. Freedmen’s Bureau officials and thousands of white missionaries and teachers traveled throughout the former Confederacy to teach the education-starved blacks how to read and write. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the many opportunities to unlock the shackles of ignorance. Grandfathers and grandchildren, mothers and sons sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom. The old often clutched their Bibles, longing to be able to read its pages for themselves. One-room schoolhouses, poorly paid teachers, and nascent institutions of higher education sprang up throughout the South. Almost all Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)—such as Howard, Fisk, Morgan, and Spelman—were founded within five years after Confederate Commander General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox courthouse in Virginia. The 1900 census reports indicate that in the period between the Civil War and the turn of the twentieth century, the majority of the African American population broke the bonds of illiteracy. Although the post-Civil War period seemed to promise a new era of freedom for African Americans, troubles soon set in. Gains in civil rights legislation and political representation in the state and local legislatures and in the U. S. Congress were eroded in several decades. Congressional reports chronicle the Ku Klux Klan death threats to those blacks who dared to participate actively in the political and economic arenas of the South. Tenancy, sharecropping, and peonage bound many poor African Americans in a new kind of bondage from the 1870s through the turn of the century. Blacks had to begin anew to strive for social and political rights in their homeland. Booker T. Washington Era The 1870s, the period when African American educator Booker T. Washington was gaining ascendancy as a race leader, provides a bittersweet backdrop for

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the African American quest for full citizenship. The vote proved elusive, and civil rights began to vanish through court action. Lynching, racial violence, and slavery’s twin children—peonage and sharecropping—arose as deadly quagmires on the path to full citizenship. After the presidential election of 1877, the federal government virtually turned deaf ears to the voices of African Americans. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and delivered a speech at the 1895 Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, calling for blacks and whites to cooperate in the economic arena even if there was social separation. In 1896 the U. S. Supreme Court dealt a crushing blow to the struggle for freedom by declaring in the Plessy v. Ferguson case that it was legal to provide ‘‘separate but equal’’ accommodations for blacks on public conveyances. The concept of racial separation long antedated Plessy and had crept through the fabric of American life, North and South. Race riots and other types of racial violence by whites against blacks ushered in a reign of terror in much of the South. The voices of the nation’s black citizens were not silenced by the onslaught of racial repression. Black journalists like Ida B. Wells-Barnett and T. Thomas Fortune, up-and-coming scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson, and educators such as Booker T. Washington, John Hope, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell, and Fanny Jackson Coppin spoke out against lynching and other forms of violence. Black leaders being trained at African American colleges and universities and a few integrated and mainstream universities formed the relentless vanguard for civil rights and equal opportunity for all in the twentieth century. African Americans were educated in unprecedented numbers; hundreds even received degrees from institutions of higher learning, and a few, like Du Bois and Woodson, earned PhD degrees. At this time, African Americans also demonstrated their genius in music, painting, sculpture, literature, and dance. Both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League (NUL) held their organizational meetings in 1909. Founded by blacks and whites, these organizations began relentless, strategic efforts to achieve full citizenship for blacks. This period at the turn of the twentieth century has been called the nadir of black history because so many of the gains earned after the Civil War seemed lost by the time of World War I and because racial violence and lynching reached an all-time high. The century of work of these organizations document the unswerving efforts on the part of blacks and their white allies to ensure that the nation provide ‘‘freedom and justice to all.’’ World War I and Postwar Society The war era galvanized the black community in its efforts to make the United States truly democratic. African American blood had been shed in every American war, yet people of color were still second-class citizens. Black soldiers who served in segregated units during World War I (and later, World War II) were leaders in protest against racial injustice, on the home front and abroad. Black soldiers who felt that they were treated better in France than they were in the United States became even more determined to struggle for their rights. Blacks and whites in

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the newly formed NAACP and other organizations continued to lead the onslaught against discrimination and segregation. Numerous NAACP protests document the efforts taken to prevent mistreatment of African American men and women in the military. Painstakingly, one case at a time, one law at a time, the civil rights groups confronted the racial inequities in U.S. legal and social systems by taking hundreds of cases to court. Great were the efforts taken during this period on the part of blacks and whites to erase the legacy of slavery. African American artists, actors, and writers led the battle against intellectual and artistic bias. Between the wars and even during the deprivations of the Great Depression, there was a crescendo of African American artistic expression in the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. Paintings, drawings, classical music, jazz, blues, poetry, drama, novels, plays, and more abounded during this era. Blacks participating in the war effort abroad gave the world a taste of African American artistic genius, and the world seemed to long for more. The United States, however, was still reluctant to award full citizenship to blacks. The Depression, the New Deal, and World War II The stock market crash of 1929 caused soup lines to become the order of the day for the skilled and unskilled alike in urban areas across the nation. African Americans in cities and rural areas, already in poverty in most areas before the Great Depression, were especially hard hit. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in 1932, he promised a ‘‘new deal’’ for all Americans that would provide them with security from ‘‘the cradle to the grave.’’ Although there were inequities in the New Deal programs that were established, many blacks had opportunities to receive benefits and obtain employment in an unprecedented fashion. Yet none of the New Deal programs actually ended the Depression. It was the growing storm clouds in Europe, the rise of Nazism, American aid to the Allies and, ultimately, U.S. entry into World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor that sent the country into a war production level that revitalized the nation’s economy. Remembering their experiences in World War I, African American soldiers and civilians were increasingly unwilling to quietly accept a segregated military or the discriminatory conditions they had previously endured. Northern black troops sent to the South for training often had violent encounters with white citizens there. Black-owned newspapers protested segregation, mistreatment, and discrimination. Labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened a march on Washington by more than one hundred thousand blacks in 1941 to protest discrimination in the military and in defense industries. In the face of rising protests, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 reaffirming the ‘‘policy of full participation in the defense program by all persons, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.’’ The Civil Rights Era The postwar era marked a period of unprecedented energy against the dual system of citizenship in many parts of the nation. Resistance to racial segregation

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and discrimination with strategies such as civil disobedience, marches, protests, boycotts, Freedom Rides, and rallies received national and international attention as newspapers, radio, and television documented the raw wounds of racial repression in a way that technology had never before allowed. Beginning in 1951 with a case in Charleston, South Carolina, Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (Ink Fund) attorneys and their expert witnesses became increasingly skilled in their presentations about the damaging effects of racism and segregation on black children. Before critical prosecutors, they learned how to phrase their replies, present the type of evidence that provided the strongest support for the fund’s cases, and regularly attempted to enlist well-known psychologists to testify or submit findings to strengthen their presentations in the battle against segregation. A few years after the South Carolina cases, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund brought before the U.S. Supreme Court a series of cases relating to segregated school that became collectively known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. They wanted to show that segregation should be challenged in a variety of settings throughout the nation, not just in the South. The Court heard the Brown arguments in 1953 but sent the case back to the Ink Fund with a number of detailed questions that needed to be addressed. The Court wanted to know if the Congress and the states assumed that racial segregation was the norm for American society, or if the original intent of the amendment was, among other things, to present segregation in the United States. Thurgood Marshall reargued the Brown case again in 1954. The Ink Fund submitted the reports by a committee of scholars as well as other evidence required by the Supreme Court justices. After hearing the case a second time, the justices unanimously decided that racially separate schools were inherently unequal on May 10, 1954. This paved the way for future Supreme Court decisions that would declare all racial segregation unconstitutional. Success crowned these efforts: the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 helped bring about the demise of the entangling web of legislation that seemed to inextricably bind blacks to second-class citizenship. One hundred years after the Civil War, blacks and their white allies still pursued the battle for equal rights in every area of American life. The twentieth century did not bring an end to the quest for full citizenship, but major milestones in civil rights laws are on the books for the purpose of regulating equal access to public accommodations; equal justice before the law; and equal employment, education, and housing opportunities. African Americans have taken advantage of unprecedented openings in many fields of learning and the arts. A myriad of historical resources prove that the quest for full equality on the part of African Americans has been relentless and, though fraught with difficulty to this hour, successful. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, many blacks in the South were enfranchised. This led to the election of hundreds of African American local state and national government officials and the formation of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. Several black leaders made unsuccessful bids for

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the presidency of the United States and a number of blacks served as members of presidential cabinets. Although there have been numerous blacks who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, there have only been five African American U.S. senators: Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce during the Reconstruction era in the nineteenth century and Edward W. Brooke, Carol Moseley-Braun, and Barack Obama. After serving only the first half of his senatorial term, Obama was elected by a wide margin of the popular and electoral votes to be the president of the United States on November 4, 2008. The quest for full citizenship on the part of African Americans is not over but a vast distance has been covered since 1619. Further Reading Blassingame, John, ed. 1977. Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews and Autobiographies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Foner, Eric. 1996. Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction. Rev. ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Franklin, John Hope, and Albert A. Moss, Jr. 2004. From Slavery to Freedom. 8th ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Ham, Debra Newman, curator. 1998. Exhibit: ‘‘The African American Odyssey: Quest for Full Citizenship.’’ http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/. Ham, Debra Newman, ed. 1993. The African American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Hine, Darlene Clark, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold. 2008. The African American Odyssey. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Quarles, Benjamin. 1991. Black Abolitionists. New York: Da Capo Press. ‘‘Welcome to Obama for America.’’ www.barackobama.com. Williams, Juan, with Dwayne Ashley and Shawn Rhea. 2004. I’ll Find a Way or Make One: A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. New York: Amistad. Williams, Juan, and Julian Bond. 1987. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–63. New York: Viking Penguin. Debra Newman Ham

African Cultural Influences U.S. culture has been strongly influenced by the enslaved Africans brought to its shores early in its history. Despite Africa’s rich contributions to American culture, the misconception that Africans made no contributions to the United States or the world’s culture exists. The contributions of African peoples have been omitted or appropriated; African names for people, concepts, nations, and entities have been replaced with European names, or renamed for those who brought them to European nations. Africa has made many unique contributions not only to American culture, but to that of the world as well.

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Foods The Nubian Ta-Seti dynasty (Sudan) preceded the first Egyptian dynasty by two hundred years. Archaeologists now know that cultivated plants from this Sudanese agricultural complex moved north into Egypt with the massive migrations of Africans during Egypt’s predynastic and early dynastic eras. During that time, no vegetable products entered early Egypt from the Mediterranean or Asia. Ancient Egypt was not a sudden, miraculous flowering of African genius; it was the center of a vast web, whose strands were comprised of Africa’s main cultures, and as such, Egypt drew foods, products, and goods from the entire African continent. Among the foods known to be used by ancient Africans are such vegetables as beets, cabbage, celery, chickpeas, cucumbers, fava beans, garlic, greens, molokhiya (jute leaves), leeks, lentils, lettuce, mushrooms, okra, onions, radishes, peas, ground peas (peanuts), and yams. In the category of fruits, they used coconuts, dates, figs, grapes, olives, plums, pomegranates, raisins, and watermelons. Grains included barley, rice, and wheat. They used nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts. Seasonings included benne seed (sesame seed), cinnamon, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, fenugreek, honey, marjoram, mustard, salt, pepper, rosemary, and vinegar. Their meats included beef, fish, goat, and mutton. Among their beverages were beer, coffee, fruit juices, kola beverages, tisanes, and wines. Dairy products included butter, cheese, milk and yogurt. They also used poultry and breads. The cooking method of roasting meat is many thousands of years old, and probably began in Africa. It has many African regional names; a few are: Nyama choma (East Africa), brochettes (French-speaking Africa), and Coupe-Coupe (Central Africa). In the United States it is referred to as Barbecue, from the Indian word barbecoa. African Foods and Beverages Popular in American Culture Coffee Buna, or what we now call coffee, originated in the African country Abyssinia (now called Ethiopia). Buna (coffee) and probably its requisite jebena (coffee pot) were cultivated, developed, and refined in Ethiopia long before Arab traders learned about this popular beverage. A more accurate scientific name for what we refer to as coffee would be Coffea Abyssinia or Coffea Ethiopia, to denote its place of origin; instead of being named Coffea Arabica for the traders who introduced it to Europe. Our word coffee comes from Kaffa, Ethiopia’s coffee-growing region. Folklore holds that circa AD 850 an Abyssinian (Ethiopian) goatherd named Kaldi noticed that his goats were frolicking after eating some ‘‘bright red berries.’’ He also felt a heady sense of elation after chewing the berries, so he took some home. When his wife tried the berries, she advised him to take them to monks to examine. Over time, Ethiopia’s Christian monks developed and improved methods of roasting, grinding, and brewing the beans to make a beverage.

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Another account tells coffee was introduced to Arabia by Sudanese slaves who chewed the berries along their long journey from the Sudan to Arabia. The Arabs liked coffee because it was a nonalcoholic stimulant. Coffee has also been ground and mixed with butter, and consumed like chocolate for sustenance among various African peoples. Ground coffee beans are still mixed with ghee (clarified butter) in parts of Ethiopia; in Kaffa, the drink is brewed with the addition of melted ghee, which lends a distinctive, buttery flavor. Ethiopians serve coffee with plenty of sugar, or in the countryside, salt. Coffee is traditionally served with Injera bread, barley, peanuts, or popcorn, which is an old traditional Ethiopian snack. Ethiopians have a beautiful traditional ‘‘coffee ceremony’’ when they extend hospitality to visitors, or which they perform for special occasions; the Japanese have a similar ‘‘tea ceremony.’’ Today, coffee is an integral part of the morning routines in the homes and offices of many Americans; it also has culinary uses. Strong black coffee is the defining ingredient in southern red-eye gravy. Cornmeal, Cornbread, and Grits Cornbread prepared by slaves emerged from memories of African cornmeal pones, breads, and mushes made from ground mealies. The making of cornbread by African women began in Africa, and the knowledge of it was retained by the enslaved Africans who were brought to America. Slaves would also grind dried corn (hominy) and prepare the dish we know as grits. Cornbread along with grits would leave the exclusive domain of being merely the food of slaves to become a major cuisine staple at white southern tables. Cocoa It has long been thought that cocoa was first used by the Aztecs of Mexico. Recent findings indicate that the ancient Olmecs cultivated cocoa in equatorial Mexico from 1500 to 400 BC; and that the Olmecs were the first people to develop a drink using water, crushed cocoa beans, and spices. A significant body of scientific, archeological, and linguistic evidence has further identified these ancient Olmecs (~1500 BC) as being ancient Africans of either Mende or Nubian stock. Ivan Van Sertima and others have presented much evidence that suggests these West Africans or Nubians were present in ancient Egypt. Despite the evidence of findings that point to an early African presence in the Americas, the theory that ancient Africans were present in the Americas, along with numerous findings that strongly support the theory are still being resisted by some archaeologists. Kola (Cola) The African word ‘‘kola’’ has been Europeanized to ‘‘cola.’’ West Africans made the first kola (cola) drinks with dried or fermented kola nuts and water. Kola nuts, which have a bitter taste, are also chewed in many parts of West Africa. Ancient Egypt’s pharaohs enjoyed a restorative drink made from kola

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nuts and other ingredients which they imported from West Africa. Kola nuts are native to Africa and play an important role in many African cultures. In Nigeria, etiquettes for a ‘‘kola nut ceremony’’ are observed in which Igbo hosts extend hospitality to their guests. The kola drinks we have today were preceded by the first kola beverages made by West Africans; cola drinks are extremely popular in today’s American culture. Peanut Butter Peanut butter, or as it is known in Ghana, ‘‘ground pea paste,’’ is a well-known snack or lunch staple for American children. The use of the peanut as a spread or a sauce comes from West African culinary traditions where many delicious peanut dishes abound. Today peanuts, which are also called groundpeas, pinders, or goobers, are very popular American snacks. During the U.S. Civil War, the tasty goober was celebrated in the song, ‘‘Eating Goober Peas’’ by Union soldiers fighting on southern soil. George Washington Carver, the renowned African American chemist, was able to find some three hundred uses for the peanut, including such items as cosmetic creams, shampoos, medicines, soap, and fuel. Potato Chips Potato chips were invented by the African American chef, George Crum, in Saratoga, New York, in 1853, and were first called Saratoga Chips. It is thought that Crum made the ultra-thin potato fries out of frustration with a customer’s complaint about his fries. Some references will actually omit Crum’s African ancestry by referring to him as an Indian. Potato chips and cola beverages are now as American as apple pie. Clothing: Cotton, Indigo, and Tie-Dye/Ombre Dye Patterns Africans have been making cotton and linen clothing from the earliest times. Linens have commonly been depicted and found in the tombs of the ancient pharaohs. Ethiopians and Sudanese (Nubians) who both pre-date the ancient Egyptians, possessed the skills to make fine, sheer garments from cotton. Examples of fine Ethiopian cotton clothing may be obtained today from Ethiopian specialty stores. The traditional Ethiopian cotton dresses for women are reminiscent of the attire of ancient Egyptian ladies depicted on tomb murals. Cultivation, processing, and the spinning, weaving, and dyeing of cotton and linen are old, time-honored African industries. Cotton and Indigo The popular American clothing staple, denim blue jeans, owes its existence to the long-standing African technologies involving cotton and indigo plant crop cultivation, their harvesting or processing, the extraction of indigo dye, and the

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cloth-dyeing process. When it was found that Africans of the Senegambia were adept in the cultivation and processing of their indigenous cotton and indigo, and they were expert in the extraction and use of indigo dye, Europeans, particularly the French, wanted that technology for themselves. Slave owners in Louisiana commonly sought to purchase Africans who possessed this expertise. Africans primarily used indigo as a fabric dye, which produces a deep blue color; but they also used indigo powder to brighten white fabrics. The use of powdered indigo, called ‘‘bluing’’ in laundry, became a part of American culture as well; today synthetic compounds replace the use of natural indigo as a whitening agent. Bluing water was also given penned fowls in order to clean out their digestive tracks in preparation for slaughter. Without the cotton and indigo technologies of the Mande people of West Africa, Levi Strauss could not have had made the sturdy work pants we now call blue jeans, the leading icon of American clothing today. Tie-dye and Ombre Clothing Designs West Africans originated many methods of dyeing fabrics. Two that have gained popularity around the world are the tie-dye and the dip-dye (Ombre) procedures. In the tie-dye method, fabric is wrapped or stitched tightly in various patterns, then placed into a dye bath. The portions of the fabric that were tightly bound or stitched resist or take up less dye than the unbound areas of the fabric. Depending on the number of desired final fabric colors, the fabric when dry may be re-bound in other areas and placed in dye baths for other colors. The tie-dye method is a uniquely African innovation, though credit for its innovation is erroneously attributed to other cultures. In the dip-dye method, fabric is only partially dipped into a dye bath, and held, allowing the dye to migrate upward from the fabric’s submerged edge. Progressive lowerings of the fabric in a dye bath, and the shortening time durations of fabric immersion cause a graduated effect of color intensity in the fabric, popularly called Ombre. Africa’s Contributions to the Art World Adinkra Symbols in Wrought Iron Balconies of New Orleans Africans brought rich and unique artistic contributions to the world of art in the form of African cultural traditions. Unique African designs known as Adinkra symbols still exist in the beautiful wrought iron balconies of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Adinkra symbols are the artistic representations of popular wise sayings of the Akan peoples of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. These symbols often are stamped on cotton cloth to record historical events, Furthermore, they do more than merely depict characters; they express traditional attitudes/concepts, or relate folktales in the form of abstract figures. Originally Adinkra, which means ‘‘goodbye’’ in Akan, was used for royalty only, and for funerary cloth. In West Africa, Adinkra symbols have also been used in pottery and metalwork (Absodee). Enslaved Africans, who were skilled metal craftsmen and smiths, incorporated various Adinkra designs in the wrought iron fences they built in New Orleans

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during the 1850s. Examples of these symbols worked in wrought iron are the heart-shaped Sankofa figure, which means ‘‘return to get it,’’ and symbolizes the importance of learning from the past, atop St. Louis Cathedral, and on a fence at 1301 Chartres Street; the Asase Ye Duru figure, which means ‘‘the Earth has weight,’’ and symbolizes providence and the importance of the Earth in sustaining life, on a door at 710 Royal Street; Dwennimmen (‘‘Ram’s horns’’), which symbolizes humility and strength, can be seen in the metalwork lamp in front of Tujaque’s at 823 Decatur and the fence at 910 Ursuline Street; and Eban, which means ‘‘fence’’ and symbolizes love, safety and security, can be seen on some French Quarter balconies. Artists and Sculptors African American artists have enriched and expanded the world of art by introducing new perspectives, art forms, and styles. A few outstanding African American artists and their media are: Harriet Powers, who was born a slave in 1837 and used traditional African appliqu
e techniques to create ‘‘story quilts’’; Faith Ringgold (1934– ), who advances the art form of the story quilts that appeals to and informs children; and Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937), who depicted empathetic scenes of black family life in The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor. Five years after William Edmondson (1870–1951) began to sculpt limestone works, he began to receive critical acclaim from the art world, and he became the first African American to have a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art. Selma Burke (1900–1995) completed a sculptured bas relief portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which was unveiled in the Recorder of Deeds office in Washington, DC, by President Harry Truman in 1945. In 1946, a dime was minted honoring President Franklin Roosevelt. The dime bore a striking resemblance to Burke’s 1945 Roosevelt sculpture, however it was initialed ‘‘JS’’ for Treasury Department engraver John Sinnock; Selma Burke has yet to receive official credit for her work. Cubism and Architecture Designs African Americans have not only contributed to the richness of art, but have also influenced artists with their style and point of view. The geometric style of painting that uses square and rectangular shapes is called cubism. This style was popularized by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was directly influenced by African sculptures and art forms. Innovative uses of African-influenced geometrics are not limited to the artist’s canvas, but are seen in architecture such as the familiar futuristic theme building of Los Angeles International Airport, which was designed by the African American architect, Paul Williams. His work with the Ambassador Hotel, the renovation of the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the interior of Saks Fifth Avenue department stores all brought Williams widespread attention and even commissions from U.S. presidents Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Williams is best known as the ‘‘architect to the stars.’’ His clients included such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Tyrone Power,

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and Zsa Zsa Gabor. His architectural career lasted fifty years, and he completed three thousand projects. He has been acknowledged as being largely responsible for defining the architectural style of Los Angeles, and of Southern California. Permanent Body Adornments Pierced Ears Africans have been piercing their ears since the times of the Egyptian pharaohs as far back as 1400 BC. From the arrival of the first African Americans in America to the present time, the African custom of ear piercing, and the wearing of gold or silver earrings in the United States, remained in vogue with young black women. The popularity of ear piercing and the wearing of earrings also exemplifies how African customs have influenced American culture and many cultures around the world. Gold Teeth Across the African continent from Morocco to Madagascar, from West Africa to the Congo, to Ethiopia, the wearing of a gold or silver cap on a front tooth is a very old, time-honored tradition. Traditionally, acquiring a gold tooth marked a rite of passage in the life of a young African American: for example, high school graduations, attaining adulthood, entering the workforce, and so on. Music and Dance The Spirituals, the blues, jazz, Ragtime, zydeco, and black gospel music were all developed in the old Louisiana Territory by West Africans and their descendents. Some of the music forms originated in the West African country of Mali, but all of them have common roots in West Africa or central Africa. African American music has a unique characteristic called syncopation, which sets it apart from the music of all other ethnicities. The music and songs of African peoples enslaved in the U.S. Deep South and their descendents have had a profound and lasting impact on American and world culture. Much of U.S. popular music, including rap and Hip-Hop, owes its existence to the unique musical genres of the African American South. Further Reading Barton, Paul. ‘‘Black Civilizations of Ancient America (Muu-lan) Mexico (XI).’’ Gigantic Stone Head of Negritic African during the Olmec (Xi) Civilization. Race and History.com-BLACK CIViLIZATIONS OF ANCIENT AMERICA http://www .raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/ancientamerica.htm. Breneman, Judy Anne. 2009. ‘‘Harriet Powers: A Freed Slave Tells Stories Through Quilting.’’ Patches from the Past. http://www.historyofquilts.com.hpowers.html.

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Carney, Judith A. 2001. Black Rice: the African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ‘‘Dr. Selma Burke.’’ October gallery.com. http://www.octobergallery.com/artists/burke.htm. Fisher, Angela. ‘‘Africa Adorned: A Continent Speaks Through Its Decorative Art.’’ National Geographic (November 1984): 600–33. Gibbon, E. ‘‘The Congo Cookbook.’’ http://www.congocookbook.com/. Hall, Gwendolyn M. 1992. Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Holloway, James E. 2005. Africanisms in American Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Raya, Emilio. ‘‘Henry Ossawa Tanner.’’ African American History through the Arts. http://cghs.dadeschools.net/african-american/reconstruct/tanner.htm. Reese, Jennifer. ‘‘Paul Williams.’’ Via: AAA Traveler’s Companion. http://www.viamagazine .com/top_stories/articles/architecture99.asp. Ukaegbu, Fada O. ‘‘The Kola Nut: As an Igbo Cultural and Social Symbol.’’ IgboNet. http://kaleidoscope.igbonet.com/culture/kolanutseries/jukaegbu/. Van Sertima, Ivan. 1976. They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in America. New York: Random House. Wynn, Linda. ‘‘William Edmondson.’’ Tennessee State University. http://www.tnstate .edu/library/digital/EDMONDS.HTM. Gwendolyn M. Rees

Afrocentric Movement The Afrocentric Movement refers to the academic focus on African history, culture, thought, and influence that was sparked by Molefi Kete Asante after he published Afrocentricity in 1988. This movement, which spanned the 1980s and 1990s, marked a definitive moment for African American popular culture, stimulating not only academic interest and discourse in race and diversity, but inspiring African-influenced dress and paraphernalia, literature, art, and renewed interest in modern cultural traditions like Kwanzaa and celebrations like Black History Month. The term ‘‘Afrocentric’’ came to embody all things concerning African or African American culture. For example, a number of Afrocentric bookstores and gift shops emerged in this period, specializing in books and items (such as black dolls, figurines, and other knickknacks) that were not sold in mainstream stores. The Afrocentric Movement was not the first of its kind. Interest in Africa and promotion of African American history, education, culture, and viewpoint emerged as early as the nineteenth century. Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in 1816 to provide a denomination wherein blacks would not suffer the degradations of segregated worship services. The AME Church, a prominent denomination in the black community, is well known for blending Afrocentrism with religious doctrine. Henry McNeal Turner, a bishop of the AME Church and one of the first black politicians elected during Reconstruction, advocated Afrocentricity and back-to-Africa

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trips in a time when prevailing views of Africa and its inhabitants were overwhelmingly negative. In the early twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois, a prominent black scholar, published numerous books and articles on black topics. Marcus Garvey initiated a spectacular movement following a doctrine that emphasized black history, black economic power, and black beauty. In 1930, Wallace D. Fard Muhammad formed the Nation of Islam, creating a unique religion wherein Africans and African Americans played a figurative role. The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s greatly influenced black artistic and literary expression in New York and inspired the N
egritude Movement in French-speaking countries and Negrismo in Spanish-speaking countries. Black Power and Black is Beautiful ideology framed much of the discourse, literature, films, hairstyles, and dress that were so popular in the 1960s and 1970s. It is during the Black Power Movement era that Black Studies programs emerged and spread nationwide in colleges and universities. With the publication of Afrocentricity in 1988, the Afrocentric Movement took off, yielding fresh new interest in black studies in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and predominately white institutions. HBCUs primarily led the way in Afrocentric education, providing texts by African and African American authors. Although predominately white higher education institutions incorporated some Afrocentric teaching in assorted courses, many black students had to supplement much of their education on their own. Independent black bookstores housed a number of books by Afrocentric authors, such as Asa Hillard and John Henrik Clarke. Afrocentricists promote a distinct ideology. They affirm and advocate for African and African American history and experience. In doing so, they challenge Eurocentric education and history. (Historically, American society has minimized and disregarded the narratives of Africans and African Americans.) The study of Egyptian history, the ancient kings, deities, and culture frequently play heavily in Afrocentricism. Afrocentricists tend to oppose assimilation into mainstream white culture and support efforts to sustain black culture and heritage. Many African American scholars, writers, directors, and others ascended to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, helping to bring Afrocentricism to the forefront of African American popular culture and, to a relative degree, mainstream white culture. Intellectuals, like Henry Louis Gates Jr. popularized African American history. Toni Morrison emerged as a Nobel Prize-winning, best-selling author of African American literature. Spike Lee directed hard-edged films about race and promoted Afrocentric clothing and accessories through his own notorious fashion and the styles of characters like Radio Raheem, who wore an African emblem necklace in Do the Right Thing (1989). Through Sondra, a character in the popular 1980s television series, The Cosby Show, issues such as apartheid and exploitative diamond mining practices in Africa were brought forth. In southern cities, colleges, and universities, Afrocentric dress and hairstyles could be seen everywhere as children and adults took to wearing hairstyles (Dreadocks, braids, and naturals, often embellished with cowrie shells) and clothes that reaffirmed their African roots and traditions, such as African robes

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and T-shirts imprinted with the African continent. At some HBCUs, students wore kente cloths, a Ghanaian fabric, during graduating ceremonies. In predominately white institutions, students interested in the Afrocentric Movement were sometimes deemed radical, even though multiculturalism was widely embraced on many campuses during that era. The Afrocentric Movement is not without its opponents. Some blacks perceived Africa as an insignificant and backward continent. Others contended that assimilation was the answer to African American advancement in American society. Many white critics argued that Afrocentricity is exclusionary and based on erroneous ideas. Many Afrocentricists contend that critics who diminish the movement perpetrate long-held racist ideas that white culture is superior to African culture and deny the richness, progressiveness, and value of African society. In the new millennium, Afrocentricity is not as prominent as it once was in mainstream media. African American artists, writers, musicians, and directors do not appear with the same frequency as they did in the previous decades. However, for many African Americans, the movement is not simply a trend that may have come and gone, but a way of life that blends a sense of identity and a unique lifestyle that sets African Americans apart from mainstream white culture.

Further Reading Asante, Molefi Kete. 1988. Afrocentricity. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Austin, Algernon. 2006. Achieving Blackness: Race, Black Nationalism, and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press. Austin, Algernon. ‘‘Afrocentricity.’’ World Ages Archive.com. http://www.worldagesarchive .com/Reference_Links/Afrocentricity.htm. Livingston, Carmen. ‘‘Afrocentric Movement Rises, Focuses on Culture, Tradition.’’ Daily Collegian. http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1991/03/03-15-91tdc/03-15 -91dnews-04.asp. Schlesinger, Arthur M. 1992. The Disuniting of America. New York: Norton, 1992. Gladys L. Knight

Afro-Hispanic Blending Afro-Hispanic blending involves the fusion of African, African American, and Hispanic cultures. The blending is evident in religion, dance, music, Creole languages, folktales, and, in some cases, food, in regions where large populations of Africans or African Americans and Hispanics live together or in close proximity. These cultural fusions have greatly influenced African American popular culture, demonstrating how black life and culture is a fluid and dynamic force, constantly changing and adapting to its surroundings.

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South America, Central America, and the Caribbean The Atlantic slave trade, which lasted four centuries, beginning in the 1500s, brought millions of Africans to South America, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean. The forced transplantation of African slaves to these environments naturally caused a demographic and cultural transformation that melded the customs of the African slaves and their captors, indigenous inhabitants, and local residents. Brazil had one of the largest populations of slaves, numbering from 3.5 to 5 million. These slaves greatly impacted religious practices and beliefs. Candombl
e is one of several religions in Brazil that is strongly influenced by African rituals, drumming, and dancing. Vodou (Voodoo), a religion commonly practiced in parts of the Caribbean, and Santer
ıa, which is considered an Afro-Cuban belief system, share similar attributes of Hoodoo, a spiritual practice originating in the American South. Vodou, Santer
ıa, and Hoodoo have their roots in West African religions featuring deities, roots, and charms. The belief in multiple deities, or gods, originates in West African belief systems and is common in many Latin American countries. In Cuba, where a large population of slaves from Yoruba was imported, deities meld the personalities of Yoruba gods and Roman Catholic saints. Much of the music, song, and dance in Latin America also has roots in West African traditions. Among the many Afro-Hispanic dances in Latin America are the rumba and el Juego de Man
ı. Both dances have Afro-Cuban origins. El Juego de Man
ı is a martial arts dance form where a solo dancer performs in the center of a circle of individuals. The dancer, generally male, moves aggressively, kicking, flipping, stomping, and frequently wielding weapons in time with the rhythm of the drum, while dodging opponents who try to strike at him. African Folklore traditions remain strong in many Latin American countries. In Ecuador, where the population is predominately African, and in Honduras, proverbs, riddles, and oral storytelling continue to be practiced. African-derived folk heroes, such as Anancy, an African spider trickster, and Brer Rabbit, are popular in these countries. Other Afro-Hispanic blends are evident in some of the dress styles and food customs. The traditional dress of a black woman who lives in Bahia, a state in Brazil, incorporates West African, European, and Spanish styles. An example of AfroBrazilian dress ‘‘include sandals or low-heeled shoes; pano-da-costa (a shawllike embroidered cotton cloth of the West African coast); a silk skirt with laced petticoats; a large embroidered headdress; bare arms and back; ornaments such as bracelets, bangles, and gold trinkets; a waist pendant; beaded necklaces; a white starched cotton or silk ruffled blouse; earrings of turquoise, coral, silver, or gold; and a balangand~a on the waist.’’ Plantains, a fruit that resembles a banana, is a staple in Africa and one of the most popular foods in some Latin American countries. North America The African Diaspora changed the face of Latin America, as well as the United States, a country that imported millions of African slaves during the

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Atlantic slave trade. A distinct African American culture emerged during slavery. Among the earliest examples of Afro-Hispanic hybridization in the United States was in jazz. Popular African American musicians, such as Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton, utilized Latin American rhythms, which already had origins in African music. Intercultural sharing and mixing continued into the era of the Harlem Renaissance that spanned the 1920s and into 1930s. The Harlem Renaissance, a monumental artistic and literary movement of the 1920s, impacted other parts of the world, spawning N
egritude among African descendents in French-speaking countries and Negrismo in the Spanish Caribbean. Musicians of the time also fused Latin rhythms with jazz. With the influx of immigrants from Latin American countries and the Caribbean settling into or near predominately urban black neighborhoods, cultural mixing was sure to follow. Afro-Hispanic blending was evident in the disco rhythms of the 1970s, Hip-Hop culture, notably the dance style known as Break Dancing that emerged in the 1980s, and the music form known as reggaeton that originated in Puerto Rico in the 1990s. Puerto Rico Puerto Rico, an island located in the Caribbean, is a commonwealth that belongs to the United States. The population in Puerto Rico is mostly of Spanish origin. A considerable percentage of the population has African ancestry. Like other Latin American countries, Puerto Rico imported African slaves, resulting in their diverse population, which includes individuals with a varied degree of African features, dark skin, and black hair. (The majority of the population declare themselves as white.) Black hair care products, such as perms and hair grease, are commonly found in Puerto Rico. Although most Puerto Ricans are Roman Catholic, Santer
ıa and other African-based religions are practiced. Music plays a large role in Puerto Rican culture. Traditional Puerto Rican music amalgamates African, Amerindian, and Spanish music. Puerto Rican youth created a contemporary music genre called reggaeton in the 1990s. Reggaeton fuses West Indian reggae music and traditional Latin American forms, such as salsa, Latin pop, and merengue. Reggaeton is currently popular in the United States, as well, and often features rap. Further Reading Andrews, George Reid. 2004. Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. Moehn, Frederick J. 2006. ‘‘Brazil.’’ In The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore. Anand Prahlad, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pinn, Anthony B., and Benjam
ın Valent
ın, eds. 2009. Creating Ourselves: African Americans and Hispanic Americans on Popular Culture and Religious Expression. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Gladys L. Knight

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Aiken, Loretta Mary

Aiken, Loretta Mary. See Mabley, Moms

Ailey, Alvin (1931–89), Dancer, Choreographer, Educator Alvin Ailey Jr., a gifted African American, made an indelible mark in the world of dance and theater. Ailey was born January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas, to Lula Elizabeth Cooper and Alvin Ailey. His father left the family before Ailey’s first birthday. In 1942, Ailey and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where he attended George Washington Carver Junior High School and Jefferson High School. During high school, his career in dancing began when Ailey met Lester Horton, the founder of the first multiracial dance company in the United States. Through Horton, Ailey developed his talent as a dancer and choreographer and later became owner of Horton’s dance company in 1953 after Horton died. Ailey’s exposure to the performing arts expanded when he moved to New York. In 1954, joining high school friend, Carmen DeLavallade, on Broadway the duo performed in House of Flowers and in 1955 appeared in the film, Carmen Jones. Ailey also appeared in Broadway productions The Carefree Tree, 1955; Harry Belafonte’s Sing, Man, Sing; and Jamaica, by Lena Horne in 1957. He was also cast in the films: Call Me by My Rightful Name, Two by Saroyan, and Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright. Ailey’s talent and artistic vision continued in 1958, when he formed his dance company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in Brooklyn, New York. He collaborated with Pearl Lang in 1970, changing the school’s name to the American Dance Center, located in Manhattan. Ailey’s company performed worldwide, featuring a multicultural group that fused various dance techniques that were used to create modern dance classics for ballets and selected contemporary choreographers. Ailey choreographed approximately fifty dances for his company and other dances for the American Ballet Theater, the London Festival Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet. Ailey had several popular pieces, including, Blue Suites, produced in 1958, and Revelations, his signature piece, in 1960. His creative expression blossomed after working with dancers such as Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, and Karel Shook. Known for his unique technique of incorporating his African American experience in his choreography, his best pieces are said to be drawn from his personal experiences. Cry, a solo performed in 1971, is one of his more significant works, depicting his sentiments for his mother’s sacrifices and as a tribute to African American women, especially mothers. The famous Revelations heavily incorporates African American experiences. Ailey’s dedication to dancing provided a stimulating experience for both audience and students. His vision realized through his school provides the opportunity for anyone to dance. Ailey’s dream came to fruition when his dance theater expanded beyond theater performances. Known as the Ailey School since 1982,

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the institution trains national and international students and holds community outreach and multidisciplinary summer workshops for inner-city children. His impressive talent won Ailey several awards, including the Dance Magazine Award (1975), NAACP Spingarn Medal (1976), Capezio Award (1979), United Nations Peace Medal (1982), Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (1987), Kennedy Center Honor and New York City’s Handel Medallion for achievement in the arts (1988), and honorary doctorates from Princeton University, Bard College, and Adelphi University. Ailey died December 1, 1989, leaving his mother, stepfather, and a halfbrother, Calvin Walls. Further Reading Ailey, Alvin, and A. Peter Bailey. 1995. Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group. Dunning, Jennifer. 1996. Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Encyclopedia of World Biography. http://www.notablebiographies.com/A-An/Ailey-Alvin .html. Renee Latchman

Ali, Laila (1977– ), Boxer, Television Host Pioneer women’s boxing champion Laila Ali, a super middleweight, changed the course of women’s sports when she decided to enter an unknown arena for African American women and become a boxer. Her beauty, grace, charm, and privileged upbringing seemed inconsistent with those who practiced their sport in the boxing ring, yet these attributes, coupled with her ability as a pugilist, added a new dimension to popular culture. Women’s boxing, a growing sport, began to receive nearly equal fanfare as male fighters but its history is not as long as that of men. For African Americans, boxing can be traced back to 1809, when Tom Molineaux launched his professional career in England, and during slavery in the United States, when the boxing sport was popular among slaves. Yet for women, history lacks female counterparts such as Molineaux, Jack Johnson, and Joe Louis. Women’s boxing was in its heyday at least in 1908, when the Hyatt Lake Tahoe was regarded as the unofficial national headquarters for that sport—the number one arena for women’s boxing. At the time, matchmaker Bill Dickson was called the ‘‘Father of Women’s Boxing.’’ For the sport and for African American women boxers, Laila Ali, who emerged later, has helped to write a new chapter in history. Born December 30, 1977 (some sources give her birth year as 1978), in Miami Beach, Florida, Laila Ali, also known as ‘‘Lay Lay,’’ is the daughter of boxing icon and former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, and the third of his four wives, Veronica Porsche Anderson. Laila grew up in Los Angeles, where she

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lived with her mother and sister. She studied at the University of Southern California and received a BA degree in business management from Santa Monica College. Later, she owned a balloon and Halloween mask shop in California. At first a shy, quiet child, Ali became defiant, restless, and rebellious by the time she was a teenager and in 1995 spent three months in juvenile hall for shoplifting. The next year she worked at a beauty salon in Marina Del Ray and became motivated by a televised women’s boxing match featuring champion Christy Martin. Confident that she could do as well, Ali began to train for the sport. Her rigorous training included two-mile runs and two-hour workouts in a gymnasium each day. Then she sought her father’s advice in summer 1996 when she moved her training to Berrien Springs, Michigan, where Muhammad Ali had an 81-acre spread. Laila Ali impressed many when she made her boxing debut on October 8, 1999, at the Turning Stone Casino Convention Center on the Oneida Indian Nation in Verona, New York. There she beat her opponent, April Fowler, in 31 seconds. She fought under the moniker ‘‘Madame Butterfly,’’ although some writers identified her as ‘‘Laila ‘She Bee Stingin’ Ali.’’ Both nicknames are reminiscent of her famous father’s phrase, ‘‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.’’ She was called ‘‘brash, brazen and almost as pretty as her pop,’’ who often commented on his own good looks. Laila admits that she takes her confidence as a boxer from her famous father. In November 1999, Ali transitioned into mainstream women’s boxing, winning her second bout on November 10, when she scored a technical knockout against Shadina Pennybaker at the Mountaineer Race Track in Chester, Virginia. Ali’s boxing debut led to her quick success as a fighter, as the 5 foot 10 inch powerhouse gained a 15–0 record that included her June 8, 2001 majority decision over Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, a Philadelphia lawyer and the daughter of African American boxer Joe Frazier. This was the first time that two African American women fought in a pay-per-view match. The contest between the talented boxers attracted widespread pre-fight publicity, raising and achieving high hopes and expectations due as much to their lineage as to their talents. The decision of any of Ali’s children to box was reason enough for media spotlight on the fight and a focus on women in boxing. Ali and Frazier-Lyde went on to become champions and members of the Women’s International Boxing Association. Ali was Super Middleweight Champion, Women’s International Boxing Association (2002) and held the same title in the International Women’s Boxing Federation (2002). In September 2002, the Woman’s Boxing Archive Network (WBAN) named Ali Fighter of the Month, and later Fighter of the Year (1992). Her career success as a boxer gave her a record 24–0, with 21 knockouts. Laila Ali demonstrated her versatility outside the boxing ring. She appeared on several television shows, including Dancing with the Stars in mid-2007, where she came in third place. When the revived show American Gladiator premiered in January 2008, she was the new female host and worked alongside Hulk Hogan. She joined the CBS team as contributing correspondent on The Early Show in January 2008. She is coauthor (with David Ritz) of Reach! Finding Strength, Spirit, and Personal Power (2002). Ali married Johnny ‘‘Yahya’’ McClain in 2000; he became her manager and

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helped to guide her career. After their divorce in 2005 and his separation as manager, in 2007 she married former NFL player Curtis Conway. In addition to three stepchildren with Conway, Laila has a son, Curtis Muhammad Conway Jr., born in 2008. Her boxing career began in 1999 and continued until she retired in 2007. Among women boxers, Ali matured into a strong, contentious opponent who ruled the ring. She commanded serious media attention whether or not she had a familiar family name or walked in the largest possible footprints. Further Reading Ali, Laila. www.lailaali.com/. Horn, John. 2001. ‘‘Laila Ali.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 27. Detroit: Gale Group. ‘‘Laila Ali Claims Her Seventh-Straight Win with First Round Knockout in California.’’ Jet 98(July 3, 2000): 52. ‘‘Laila Ali Victorious in Battle against Jacqui Frazier-Lyde.’’ 2001. Jet 100(June 25, 2001): 51–54. ‘‘Laila Ali Biography.’’ Women Boxing Archive Network. http://www.wban.org/bio/laili.htm. Smith, Jessie Carney. 2003. Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events. 2nd ed. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. Who’s Who among African Americans. 2010. 24th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Cengage Learning. Jessie Carney Smith

Ali, Muhammad (1942– ), Boxer, Humanitarian A humanitarian and popular boxer known the world over, three-time heavyweight Boxing champion Muhammad Ali often referred to himself as ‘‘The Greatest.’’ His exploits in and outside of the ring—in a career that spanned twenty years—make him one of the most written about and popular athletes in U.S. history and culture. As noted in African Americans and Popular Culture, his contributions to popular culture are demonstrated in the way he ‘‘revolutionized sports with his supreme boxing skills’’ and his ‘‘uncompromising views on race and politics.’’ He is greatly admired and often invited before crowds at public events. Beginning of the Legend Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky to Cassius Marcellus Sr. and Odessa Clay, the younger Clay would later change his name to Muhammad Ali after converting to the Nation of Islam’s brand of Islamic-Christian Black Nationalism. The Clays provided a middle-class upbringing for Ali and his younger brother Rudy, who also competed as a professional boxer. Ali’s introduction to boxing came at the age of twelve in 1954 when someone stole his new bicycle from outside a Louisville auditorium. Crying and angry, he reported the theft to policeman Joe Martin, who invited Ali to the Columbia

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gym to learn to box. As a young boy, Ali initially took up boxing to get revenge on the perpetrator who took his bicycle. In his early years of boxing he was trained by Martin and his friend Fred Stover, both of whom recognized the youngster’s naturally quick feet, fast reflexes, and discipline as assets for his future boxing success. Ali spent most of his time talking about boxing history, training at the gym after school, and running several miles a day before school. As an amateur he amassed an incredible 100 win, 6 loss record, six Commonwealth of Kentucky Golden Glove titles, two AAU titles and two national Golden Muhammad Ali standing over a fallen Sonny Liston in a Glove titles. boxing ring, 1965. (Library of Congress) In 1960 at the age of eighteen, as a member of the U.S. boxing team, he won a gold medal as a light heavyweight at the Rome Olympics. Following the Olympics, Ali turned professional and beat his first nineteen opponents over a three-year span. Always a gregarious talker— even as a small boy, according to his mother, Odessa Clay—it was during his Olympic experience that his future theatrical, bombastic, and outspoken persona would take shape. Ali learned from the wrestler Gorgeous George that theatrics and bragging was a good strategy to bring fans out to his fights. Gorgeous George was said to taunt his opponents and loudly declare he was ‘‘the greatest.’’ A Conscientious Boxer In his first several years as a professional, Ali went through several trainers. By the time he fought reigning heavyweight champion Charles ‘‘Sonny’’ Liston, his trainer was Angelo Dundee. Dundee would remain his trainer for the balance

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of his career. Ali’s fluid style and quickness were too much for the lumbering Liston, and on February 25, 1964 at the age of twenty-two, Ali became the heavyweight champion of the world. The rematch with Liston in June 1965 saw Ali win with a first-round knockout that caused critics and aficionados to wonder whether the mafia-managed Liston ‘‘took a dive.’’ On August 14, 1964, Ali married his first wife, Sonji Roi. The couple divorced several years later. By 1964, cognizant more than ever of the racial disparities and segregation in the United States, Ali joined the pro-black, quasi-religious Nation of Islam (NOI). Ali had come under the tutelage of Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X before his first fight with Liston. After joining the NOI, the boxer had his name changed from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali by the Nation’s aged founder, Elijah Muhammad. Ali’s conversion and decision to defy a military draft board by not enlisting in the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam caused significant anti-Ali sentiment. Ali applied for conscientious objector status in 1967. After the Selective Service Board denied his appeal, the World Boxing Association took away his championship title and boxing license. He was also sentenced to five years in prison by a federal court in Houston, Texas. For the next three years, from 1967 to 1970, Ali was out of boxing while his lawyers fought to appeal the earlier rulings. During this period Ali traveled the country giving lectures at colleges and to those in the peace movement. Returning to the Ring and Retiring Ali returned to boxing in 1970. After the long layoff his skills were rusty, but he still managed to knock out journeyman boxer Jerry Quarry in three rounds in October of that year. Some boxing observers have commented that Ali never regained his former quickness and reflexes. Shortly after his fight with Quarry, he had the first of three monumental matches with Joe Frazier. Ali won two of these matches. He had other memorable fights with boxers Ken Norton, George Foreman, and Leon Spinks. Ali had always said he would leave the sport on top and not in the poor condition of many former fighters. By the time he retired from boxing in 1981 at the age of thirty-nine, Ali was beginning to show advanced signs of neurological dysfunction. He had been hit too many times and stayed too long in boxing. In 1982 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease that has robbed him of certain motor and sensory skills. Although slowed by the illness, he travels extensively as an ambassador of goodwill and Islam. In 1996 he carried the Olympic torch in Atlanta, Georgia, on its last leg. Ali has nine children; one of his daughters, Laila Ali, boxed professionally and retired undefeated. He currently resides on a farm in Michigan with his fourth wife Lonnie and adopted son Asaad. Further Reading Boyd, Todd, ed. 2008. African Americans and Popular Culture. Vol. 2. Westport, CT: Praeger. Hauser, Thomas. 1992. Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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Remnick, David. 1999. King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. New York: Vintage Books. Whitaker, Matthew C., ed. 2008. African American Icons of Sport: Triumph, Courage, and Excellence. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Carter B. Cue

Anderson, Marian (1897–1993), Singer Marian Anderson was considered one of the great contraltos of the twentieth century. The Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini said, ‘‘a voice like hers is heard but once in a hundred years.’’ As the first African American to sing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Anderson was celebrated internationally and became a permanent symbol of excellence and achievement in popular culture. Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 27, 1897. The eldest of three daughters born to John Berkley Anderson and Anna Delilah Rucker, Marian’s talent was nurtured in her church choir and in the public schools of Philadelphia. It was evident that her voice was worthy of serious musical training, but her family could not afford private study. With a voice that was unusually beautiful in richness and vibrancy, she continued to perform whenever possible and she seized any opportunity to learn from whatever sources were available. The Union Baptist Church, where she was a member, made it possible for young Anderson to study privately. After being denied admission to the Philadelphia Music Academy because of her race, she was introduced to the Marian Anderson was amazingly popular despite racial discrimination in the United States. Her performance at voice teacher Giuseppe the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 remains a symbolic event Boghetti, who agreed to in the Civil Rights Movement. (Library of Congress) teach her privately.

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By the early 1920s, Anderson and her accompanist Billy King toured throughout the United States in mostly self-managed concerts. These performance dates helped her hone her artistry and provided her with financial resources with which to assist her family. In 1925, Anderson won a major competition, which resulted in her New York Philharmonic Orchestra debut. After this successful performance, she moved to Europe for further study and for artistic validation. She studied German lieder with Raimund von Zur M€uhlen in London. In 1930, she was awarded a Rosenwald Fund fellowship to study formally in Germany. Although her lieder singing dramatically improved (this was an area in which she had been criticized), the German public was more fascinated with her interpretation of African American Spirituals. Anderson successfully toured Europe for the next two years. She partnered with Finnish pianist, Kosti Vehanen, who became her regular accompanist for the next ten years. After a well-received concert in Paris, impresario Sol Hurok offered to manage Anderson and presented her in concert in the most prestigious venues throughout the United States. Her New York Town Hall recital in 1935 was reviewed favorably although she performed with a broken ankle. Over the next several years, Anderson sang as many as seventy concerts in a five-month period. By the later half of the 1930s, Anderson was a celebrated artist in Europe and in the United States, but she continued to face racial prejudice that still prevailed in her country. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) denied her use of Constitution Hall for a concert. In response, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and arranged to have Anderson perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert was held on Easter Sunday morning April 9, 1939, and more than seventy-five thousand people attended. Millions more heard the recital live on radio broadcasts. This not only catapulted Marian Anderson into major stardom but made her a civil rights icon among African Americans. In 1955, Anderson made operatic history when she debuted as Ulrica in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, making her the first African American to sing at the company in a major role. Although she was past her vocal prime, the occasion was still hailed as a major achievement. Anderson continued to add to her accomplishments and honors. She sang at Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second presidential inauguration. Under the Eisenhower administration, she was sent by the State Department on a tour of India and the far east. She was also appointed as an alternate delegate to the Thirteenth General Assembly of the United Nations. Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. Marian Anderson gave her last public performance at Carnegie Hall on Easter Sunday in 1965. Her other awards include the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977, Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award of the city of New York in 1984. Marian Anderson died of congestive heart failure on April 8, 1993. She was 96 years old.

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Further Reading Anderson, Marian. 1956. My Lord, What a Morning. New York: Viking. Keiler, Alan. 2000. Marian Anderson, A Singer’s Journey. New York: Scribner. Story, Rosalyn. 1990. And So I Sing. New York: Warner Books. Robert Sims

Angelou, Maya (1928– ), Poet, Writer Maya Angelou was catapulted to fame through the publication of her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970). She is also well known for her poetry. Born Marguerite Ann Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Angelou’s early life was fraught with adversity. Her parents, Bailey Johnson, a doorman and naval dietician, and Vivian Johnson, a trained nurse and real estate agent, divorced when Angelou was three years old. She and her brother, Bailey (who coined the name Maya), were sent to live in Stamps, Arkansas, with their father’s mother, a religious and industrious woman named Annie Henderson who owned a store in a rural, segregated black community. In 1935, Angelou and her brother moved to San Francisco, California, to live with their mother and her boyfriend, ‘‘Mr. Freeman.’’ Tragedy ensued when Freeman raped sevenyear-old Angelou. After Freeman was sentenced for his crime, he was murdered. Angelou believed her spoken testimony at his trial caused his death; thus, she refused to talk to anyone Maya Angelou in an early photo, is one of the premier but Bailey for five years. U.S. poets of the twentieth century. (National Archives) After this double ordeal,

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Angelou and Bailey moved back to Arkansas, where a woman named Bertha Flowers coaxed Angelou back to talking with poetry and literary classics. Angelou and Bailey moved to California in 1940 to live with their mother and her new husband. Angelou was one of three blacks enrolled at George Washington High School. One summer, Angelou visited her biological father. Shortly thereafter, a physical altercation occurred between Angelou and her biological father’s girlfriend. In the aftermath, Angelou ran away and lived with several homeless teenagers. She returned to her mother at the end of the summer. In 1945, Angelou graduated from high school and gave birth to her only son, Clyde Bailey. In the ensuing years, she married three times. Her last name is a modification of Angelos, the surname of her first husband, a Greek soldier. Her third marriage ended in 1981. Angelou’s path to fame was circuitous. In the 1940s, she made a living as a busgirl, a cook, a cocktail waitress, and, for a brief time, engaged in prostitution. In the 1950s, she sang and danced professionally, including in the famous opera, Porgy and Bess. While living in Africa in the 1960s, Angelou wrote for the Ghanaian Times and the African Review. Upon her return to New York, she embarked on a literary career and participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Her six autobiographies explore both the harrowing trials and profound triumphs in her life, thus helping to bring the experiences of the racially oppressed in general, and African American women writers in particular, to the forefront of African American culture. Poems such as ‘‘Still I Rise’’ and ‘‘Phenomenal Woman’’ are celebrated for their soulful language and inspirational themes and reflect a woman who has transcended the trials and tribulations of her youth. Angelou is known for her distinctive voice and rhythmic diction, which make her live poetry readings phenomenally popular events. Angelou’s other accomplishments are numerous. She starred in the TV miniseries Roots (1977), cowrote the 1979 television version of her first autobiographical novel, and, in 1981, began teaching at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Angelou has augmented her popularity with contemporary audiences by appearing at Bill Clinton’s 1993 presidential inauguration, the Million Man March in 1995, and through her personal and professional association with television mogul Oprah Winfrey. She has also received numerous distinguished awards and honors. In 1972, Angelou was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ’fore I Diiie. Angelou was also a recipient of the Langston Hughes Medal in 1991, the Spingarn Medal in 1994, and a NAACP Image Award in 1997. Her other awards include three Grammys for her spoken word albums, the National Medal of Arts in 2000, and the Lincoln Medal in 2008. She has received thirty honorary degrees. Further Reading Angelou, Maya. 1969. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Random House. Angelou, Maya. 2008. Letter to My Daughter. New York: Random House.

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Angelou, Maya. 1978. Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women. New York: Random House. Angelou, Maya. 1978. Still I Rise. New York: Random House. Collins, Grace. ‘‘Maya Angelou.’’ 1991. In Notable Black American Women. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale Research. Lisandrelli, Elaine Slivinski. 1996. Maya Angelou: More Than a Poet. Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Gladys L. Knight

Apollo Theater The Apollo Theater, located in Harlem, has helped launch the careers of legendary performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Mariah Carey, and Lauryn Hill. The theater was one of the first in the United States to feature African American artists and be open to African American and other minority audiences. The classical revival building that houses the Apollo Theater was built in 1913 and designed by architect George Keister. Located at 253 West 125th Street in Harlem, the theater was operated as a burlesque and then movie theater until it was purchased by Frank Schiffman and Leo Brecher in the early 1930s. On January 26, 1934, the theater was reopened under the name 125th Street Apollo. Harlem of the 1920s and 1930s was a mecca for African American life and culture. New residents, who came from the American South as well as the Caribbean, brought new energy and influences. The Harlem Renaissance saw the flourishing of African American literature, drama, music, visual art, and dance. For many artists in Harlem, the Apollo Theater was the first outlet for their work. The famous Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest started in 1934 The Apollo Theater, located in Harlem, New York City. and was hosted by Ralph (Getty Images) Cooper. Among those

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who won the contest and went on to great careers were Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, the Jackson Five, and Luther Vandross. Besides launching careers, the contest is known for the Tree of Hope, an old tree stump performers rub for good luck; a very vocal audience that is unafraid to share its opinion, good or bad, of a performer; and the ‘‘executioner’’—the man who removes performers audiences disapprove of by sweeping them off the stage with a broom. Audiences at the Apollo Theater began to decline in the 1950s and 1960s as jazz, swing, and big band music lost popularity and Rock and Roll began to dominate the charts. The Apollo Theater did host rock-and-roll shows, most notably the James Brown concert in 1962, but continued to lose business. The growth of television also contributed to the theater’s decline. In 1975, the theater was converted to a movie theater. In 1981, former Manhattan borough president Percy E. Sutton and a group of investors bought the theater at a bankruptcy sale. The theater received state and city landmark designation and was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Reopened in 1985, the theater once again hosts a variety of musical events and Amateur Night, which is part of the nationally syndicated program Showtime at the Apollo. The State of New York purchased the theater in 1991 and it is now managed by the nonprofit Apollo Theater Foundation. Multimillion dollar restoration and refurbishment work is ongoing to preserve and enhance the physical and cultural presence of the Apollo Theater. Further Reading Cooper, Ralph and Steve Dougherty. 1990. Amateur Night at the Apollo: Ralph Cooper Presents Five Decades of Great Entertainment. New York: HarperCollins. Fox, Ted. 1983. Showtime at the Apollo. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Schiffman, Jack. 1984. Harlem Heyday: A Pictorial History of Modern Black Show Business and the Apollo Theatre. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Mary K. Huelsbeck

Appropriations of Black Folklore In this practice, the dominant white society lifts elements of black Folklore out of their cultural contexts and uses them for profit, to enhance social status, or for a variety of other reasons. It is sometimes referred to as ‘‘cultural poaching’’ or ‘‘theft.’’ At best, appropriation does not benefit African American culture; at worst, it mocks, degrades, or economically exploits it. The processes of cultural borrowing and cross-fertilization are inherent aspects of folklore. The nature of folklore is to spread across geographical, national, ethnic, or other socially constructed boundaries. A proverb, tale, dance, or musical

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form may originate in a particular locale (or might arise independently in differing locales) and spread or diffuse to other regions and groups of people. Some methodologies are devoted to tracing the diffusion of a given item of folklore and speculating on its origin and path of diffusion (the historic-geographic method, for example). Until now, though, no methodology or theory has been concerned with the political and economic power dynamics between groups of people whose relationship involves borrowing folklore. In the United States and other parts of the African diaspora, cultural borrowing and the diffusion of folklore between peoples of African and European descent have played a critical role in the development of national, cultural, and ethnic identity. At the grassroots level, foods, beliefs, musical and dance traditions, proverbs, tale motifs, performance styles, and so on have been exchanged among Americans from many different heritages, including European and African. The banjo was borrowed from Africans by Europeans, and in turn, African Americans borrowed Scottish and Irish American tunes. Such cultural exchanges constitute the very fabric of many Western nations. They also represent some of the possibilities inherent in day-to-day interactions between people of relatively the same class. A number of elements distinguish such cultural borrowings from the phenomenon of appropriation. First, appropriation involves business and is largely driven by the impulse to make a financial profit. Elements of the subordinate culture are lifted out of the culture and used as a commodity. In the United States, the most obvious examples are music and dance, which include style and fashion. By way of illustration, Elvis Presley was reported to have frequented African American juke joints and clubs in order to fashion a persona, style, and song repertoire based on performance aesthetics and song materials of the artists he saw perform in little-known clubs and other venues. Presley went on to make millions, whereas the people upon whom he based his persona remained just as poor as always; in fact, they became poorer. For the subordinate or colonized are, in fact, poorer upon each occasion that traditions that have sustained them become trivialized, made into spectacle, or otherwise reshaped in the larger context of the dominant popular culture. Although appropriation seems to be always linked to profit motive, it serves other important needs for many in the dominant culture. Among others, bell hooks has suggested that appropriating elements of black culture fills a psychological void for members of mainstream white society, easing their modern and postmodernist angst and identity crises. She theorizes that, ‘‘Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.’’ According to hooks, this impulse on the part of white society rests on the colonial perspective of dark-skinned people as primitive, and thus, having greater access to bodily pleasure. It is along these lines that one can view the commonplace appropriation of black folklore by white American youth culture. In some cases, such appropriation has served ideological ends that strive for freedom from the confines of mainstream American social values and lifestyles—as in the case of Deadheads wearing Dreadlocks, for example. In other cases, more materialistic values are expressed—as in the overwhelming adoption of gangster rap (Gangsta Rap) or HipHop styles by white youth culture. In all cases, however, business interests find a way of profiting from and, hence, promoting such trends.

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As more and more black artists become successful, the phenomenon becomes more complex. It is especially complicated by the eagerness with which artists seem to embrace opportunities to market themselves, their art, and elements of their culture. Despite the protest against self-commodification by such writers and thinkers as Mwalimu Haki R. Madhubuti and Amiri Baraka, the phenomenon is so widespread by now that it is sometimes difficult to separate elements of black culture and folklore from popular culture. Underlying the contemporary, surface reality, however, are the same basic power relationships that have historically existed between African Americans and mainstream white America. The embrace of commodity culture and materialism by African Americans usually reflects a simple desire to better one’s self in the most basic ways. Appropriation becomes apparent when one compares the profits gained by the individual artists and those garnered by the businesses that promote them. Some of the most damaging effects of appropriation include the distortion of cultural meanings, the reinforcement of commonly held racist notions about African Americans, and the reinforcement of the dominant/subordinate power relations between those of African and those of European descent. If the increasing prominence of the media as the major source of information and formation of ideas about history and culture is problematic for the arts of the dominant culture, it is devastating for minority groups such as African Americans. In the former case, the efforts of educational institutions are undermined by the quick and easy, usually superficial, and in many cases distorted information provided by the media. In the latter case, however, mainstream media are often the only source of information about African American culture. Thus, such televised and cinematic images as savage Vodou (Voodoo) rites, drug-smuggling Rastas, gun-toting rappers, decadent Mardi Gras revelers, buffoonish women-chasing preachers, and Santer
ıa child abductors, combined with existing stereotypes, unfortunately often comprise the entire sum of knowledge about these areas of African American culture and folklore to which many Americans are privy. See also: Appropriations of Black Folklore Further Reading hooks, bell. 1992. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press. Madhubuti, Mwalimu Haki R. 1973. Book of Life. Detroit: Broadside Press. Anand Prahlad

Architecture Mainstream or dominant notions of architecture as high art often remove it from its social context and situate it around great buildings, prestigious schools, and master architects. To write of an African American architecture then is both to redefine conventional theories and histories of architecture and to offer counterhistories that take African American architects, buildings, vernacular

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forms, and spatial environments seriously. African American architecture can be understood as concerned with both African American architects and the forms and spatialities designed, built, or occupied by African Americans. African American Barbershops, churches, schools, Beauty Shops, and other community structures would then be considered legitimate objects of study. Otherwise, a discussion of African American architecture could simply be a reductive examination of structures and spatial environments built and constructed by African American professional and nonprofessional architects and/or builders. While such an approach would be fruitful in its own right, it would also participate in a continuing erasure of blackness from architectural form and Africans and African Americans from architectural theory and history. This trend tends to implicitly diminish or exclude African American men, women, designs, vernacular, and folk forms, as architecture tends to be raced white and gendered male. The exclusion of African Americans from architectural history, theory, and practice can be traced back to the exclusion of blackness from architecture, as architectural theorist Darell W. Fields illustrates in his informative book, Architecture in Black. This erasure reflects a purposeful exclusion of the insights of the Greek historian Herodotus about Africa and its contribution to architectural theory and history. Herodotus’s recognition of the exchange of African and Greek culture was revised by the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel with his Enlightenment Era displacement of the Egyptian pyramids from the African to the Asiatic style and his erasure of Africans and African Americans from architectural history and theory, by extension, in his influential book, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Significantly, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History informed Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on the Fine Arts. Both texts continue to have influence in contemporary architectural schools and commonplace conceptions of architecture. Africa was a symbol of a land and a people outside of history. Of course, such a continent was viewed as incapable of knowledge, theory, technology, and architecture, so Hegel defined Africa away from architecture. Hegel’s erasure is extended in the American context to the contributions of enslaved and free African American artisans in the construction of plantation mansions and churches. Slave Narratives speak to the African American contribution to the construction of buildings in both the North and the South. According to Bradford C. Grant in ‘‘Accommodation and Resistance: The Built Environment in the African American Experience,’’ free and enslaved African Americans were invaluable to the white architects in terms of the design and structure of significant projects such as the city of Washington, DC, the U.S. Capitol, and the White House. Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is a magnificent structure and landscape where the enslaved functioned as more than labor; slave designers and builders were instrumental in its construction. Monticello symbolizes the material extension of Hegel’s erasure of African architectural theory and practice to the United States. Grant provocatively illustrates how Monticello was constructed in a manner that hid or camouflaged the enslaved and their labor. African American architectural theories, forms, practices, and practitioners have been masked in a similar fashion for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Recently, architectural writers and critics such as Melvin Mitchell, Carl Anthony, Dolores Hayden, Dell Upton, Karen Hudson, Richard K. Dozier, John Michael Vlach, bell hooks, Cornel West, and J. Yolande Daniels situate African American architecture in history, forms, and community. Mitchell’s germinal The Crisis of the African America: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power provides a useful introduction and exploration of African American architectural history and theory from the late 1800s to contemporary African American architecture. Mitchell correctly situates Booker T. Washington as the primary force in the development of African American architects and an African American architecture. Washington’s power as an arbiter of black America to white patronage allowed him to be the most significant sponsor of African American architecture and architects in what is arguably the most fertile period of African American architecture (1891– 1921) since, ironically, the enslavement. Washington willed into being Tuskegee Institute and provided a space where black workers, designers, and builders could practice. Here they could make their own materials (such as bricks) and construct buildings around the needs of segments of the African American communities. Washington hired the first black graduate of an architectural school, Robert R. Taylor, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1892. Taylor would go on to be the father of African American architecture, constructing several structures and educating a number of prominent African American architects. Given the prevalence of spatial segregation, African American architects had to depend on black clients such as historically black schools and churches. Tuskegee could be thought of as architecturally African American because Washington constructed his school to meet African American needs and desires, and as spatially African American through the use of African American designs, materials, and bodies. African American architecture was not relegated to African American clients. For example, Paul R. Williams built numerous structures in the Southern California area such as the Beverly Hills and Ambassador hotels, and Harvey Gantt constructed several public and private buildings in North Carolina. While African American architectural history and African American architects are important to African American or black architecture, it is black architecture manifested through form and spatiality (the ideology and politics of space) that is most relevant to African American folk and vernacular culture. From hidden hush harbors and slave cabins to slave neighborhoods and black ghettos and suburbs, African American experience has been shaped in the race house of the United States. Yet, as with African American music and rhetoric and their impact on American expressive culture, African and African American forms influence American architecture. Bradford C. Grant writes about how theorist Carl Anthony states that ‘‘architectural characteristics such as steep hip roofs, wide overhanging roofs, central fireplaces, porches, and earth and moss construction suggest the influence of the African slave.’’ Black towns with stores, homes, and churches have been built in various parts of the United States. However, there is one African American structure that was once ubiquitous throughout the southern United States: the shotgun house. Typically consisting of three or four individual structures set side by side, the shotgun house was an elongated, narrow, ornamentally unadorned single-story structure with a forward-slanting gable roof, porch, and a single door in the front and back. It

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was thought the structure was referred to as a shotgun house because one could discharge a gun through the front of the structure and a bullet would exit unimpeded through the back. (Of course, this wouldn’t work with a shotgun, as the pellets would spread out and some would hit the interior walls.) More likely, the term emerged from the western African term ‘‘to-gun,’’ meaning a place of assembly. John Michael Vlach provides a useful cartography of the structure in ‘‘The Shotgun House: An African Architectural Legacy,’’ where he maps the form’s use in the sugar plantations of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Vlach believes the Haitian shotgun house can be traced back to the 1700s. In addition, he discovered the unique form of the shotgun house in West Africa. Hundreds of shotgun houses existed throughout the southern United States. John Biggers’s folk- and vernacular-influenced paintings such as Shotgun, Third Ward #1 gave the shotgun house iconic status and conveyed the connection of the form to Africa and African American notions of community. Remnants and variations of the shotgun house still exist, providing tangible evidence of how African American structural vernacular forms, like their musical and rhetorical counterparts, travel across material and cultural boundaries. Like the shotgun house, the porch is a form that is important to African American architecture and aesthetics. While the origin of the porch has been attributed to a number of locales, recent scholarship indicates that the antecedents of the porch originated in West Africa and then spread throughout the Caribbean and the southern United States. Architectural theorists such as Beatrice Columbia refer to the ideological contents of spatial form that reveal that unoccupied built space is not empty but instead produces a subjectivity that presupposes particular subjects, inhabitants, and values. This links the porch to African American aesthetic because, as bell hooks writes in Yearning, ‘‘Aesthetics is more than a philosophy and theory of art and beauty; it is a way of inhabiting space, a particular location, a way of looking and becoming.’’ The porch embodies an African and African American response to geography, temperature, and community. The porch reflects a valuing of communal interaction; the transmission of communal knowledge, ritual, and information through extrafamilial contact; and a different conception of the separation of private and public spheres. According to scholars interested in West African and African American cultures, porches are quasipublic spheres of communal activity outside of homes where cooking, cleaning, playing, and talking occur and are highly valued. Porch tropes permeate African American folk- and vernacular-influenced literature, song, and rhetoric. Porches serve as secular hush harbors, spaces beyond the oppressive gaze of white privilege where African Americans can speak their minds and practice some of the pleasures they usually keep to themselves. As a folk and vernacular architectural form, porches, and the way black folks occupy them, reveal the power, racial, and gender relations often overlooked in more rarefied notions of architecture as high art. Along with the slave cabin, shack, and shotgun house, the jook, or juke joint, is a black folk and vernacular form outside the official narrative that challenges what is considered architecture as well as who defines it and what purpose it serves. Jook joints in rural areas were often made of found materials and ornamented with African American signage, artifacts, posters, and information. Like

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African American beauty shops and Churches, jook joints link black architecture to black spaces, culture, needs, and desires. Jook joints were significant elements of the heavily folk-influenced black Chitlin Circuit that remains central to any notion of black culture. A study of black architecture and the chitlin circuit would make a significant contribution to the study of African American folk culture. Black architecture is about more than bodies and theories. African American vernacular architecture reflects and produces black landscapes, the African and African American construction that Rhys Isaac referred to as ‘‘an alternative territorial system.’’ These alternative territorial systems represent and produce alternative ways of being and building that reflect African American visions, knowledge, and social desires. This is why a focus on black architectural form may be more important than a singular focus on black bodies. A focus on bodies can reduce the notion of a black architecture to little more than a discussion about inclusion. If ‘‘existence is framed in space,’’ as J. Yolande Daniels argues in ‘‘Black Bodies, Black Space: A-Waiting Spectacle,’’ then to understand black existence means that one must take seriously the black architecture that frames it. Black existence then is inextricable from black architecture. Further Reading Daniels, J. Yolande. 2000. ‘‘Black Bodies, Black Space: A-Waiting Spectacle.’’ In White Papers, Black Marks: Architecture, Race, and Culture. Lesley Naa Norle Lokko, ed., 194–217. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fields, Darrell W. 2000. Architecture in Black. London: Athlone Press. Grant, Branford C. 1996. ‘‘Accommodation and Resistance: The Built Environment and the African American Experience.’’ In Re-Constructing Architecture: Critical Discourses and Social Practices. Thomas A. Dutton and Lian Hurst Mann, eds., 202–34. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. hooks, bell. 1990. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press. Mitchell, Melvin L. 2001. The Crisis of the African-American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power. New York: Writers Club Press. Vlach, John Michael. 1986 ‘‘The Shotgun House: An African Architectural Legacy.’’ In Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, 58–78. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Vorris Nunley

Armstrong, Louis ‘‘Satchmo’’ (1901–71), American Music Innovator, Jazz Trumpeter, Vocalist When trumpeter Wynton Marsalis arrived on the New York jazz scene in the 1980s, it was generally assumed by jazz purists, scholars, and others that he would be crowned the ‘‘heir apparent’’ to not only the long and storied legacy of New Orleans jazz but also that of the great trumpeter Louis Armstrong. There were others whom Marsalis had to move aside to assume his mantle during his early years, including

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Miles Davis who, like trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and others, took great umbrage with Armstrong’s social behavior: his grinning and smiling and what was generally considered ‘‘Uncle Toming’’ on the stage to curry favor with white audiences. Still, as biographer Terry Teachout explained in Pops, A Life of Louis Armstrong, it was Miles Davis who, acknowledging the debt all musicians owed to Armstrong, said, ‘‘You can’t play nothing on trumpet that doesn’t come from Louis Armstrong.’’ It’s an unassailable fact that Armstrong revolutionized early twentieth-century jazz music in much the same way that Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk ushered in the sound of Bebop Music in the 1940s. Armstrong’s pop culture status was assured at a time when it was assumed his best days had long passed. His recording of ‘‘Hello, Dolly,’’ a Broadway show tune, zoomed to the top of the charts in 1964 and reintroduced sixty-two-yearold Armstrong to music lovers worldwide. He appeared with Barbra Streisand in the 1969 movie version of Hello, Dolly. In 1968, at age sixty-six, Armstrong became the oldest artist to score a number one hit on the United Kingdom record charts with his recording of ‘‘What a Wonderful World.’’ Early Life in New Orleans Most of his biographers agree that Armstrong’s rise to prominence and eventual stardom was based as much on his drive to escape the poverty into which he was born as his talent. Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901. He believed that he was born on July 4, 1900, and many biographies cite that date; however in the 1980s, Armstrong expert Tad Jones found a baptismal certificate in New Orleans that was compelling proof of birth one year later in August. As a boy Armstrong helped support his mother and sister by singing on the street for coins. Armstrong was especially fond of the Karnofsky family, New Orleans Jews who took him in as a child and lent him the money to buy his first horn, a cornet. At age eleven, the juvenile court sent him to the Jones Home for Colored Waifs because he fired a pistol into the air on New Year’s Eve. During his eighteen-month stay in juvenile custody, young Louis received formal music training and played in the home’s brass band. Not only did Armstrong know the sounds of the musicians of his hometown but also the gripping loneliness of an early life without a family. In many ways the story of Louis Armstrong is a classic Horatio Alger tale—the young man abandoned and alone in a city of ill repute who is trying to find his way. In 1918, and before his seventeenth birthday, Armstrong married Daisy Parker. Still searching for direction, Armstrong found guidance in King Oliver, the bandleader who would become his mentor, who led him from the streets of New Orleans onto the big musical stage. Not much is known about the bandleader Joe Oliver, a garden yard man turned musician who got his start playing in brass bands, but he is generally remembered for having brought Louis Armstrong to Chicago to play in his Creole Jazz Band in 1922 and for having—along with Armstrong—cut what is generally considered the first major body of recorded work by a black jazz ensemble. The Creole Jazz Band was the city’s most popular.

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In December 1923, Armstrong and Daisy Parker divorced. Between 1925 and 1928, Armstrong made a number of his best recordings with two combos, the Hot Five and Hot Seven. ‘‘West End Blues’’ was among the exceptionally expressive and powerful tunes. The band included Armstrong’s second wife, Lil Hardin, who was the pianist. The couple married in 1924 and divorced in 1938. In the 1930s, Armstrong’s new manager, Joe Glaser, who was a mobster wheelerdealer, helped Armstrong straighten out his legal messes, his debts, and mob troubles. Competing gangsters wanted Armstrong under contract and the musician had to briefly go underground to avoid bodily harm. His nicknames ‘‘Satchmo’’ (a combination of ‘‘satchel’’ and ‘‘mouth’’), and the less well-known ‘‘Dipper Mouth,’’ and ‘‘Gatermouth,’’ referred to his large mouth and enormous grin. Face of American Popular Music In February 1941, Armstrong became the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time magazine. His group, the Louis Armstrong All-Stars, included such notables as Earl ‘‘Fatha’’ Hines, ‘‘Big’’ Sid Catlett, and Cozy Cole. The band made numerous recordings and appeared in over thirty films, including Cabin in the Sky (1943), Paris Blues (1961), and A Man Called Adam (1966). Armstrong invented scat singing because he often times had problems with his embouchure—the position of the lips, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument—and, regardless of singing, was unable to play the trumpet. His instrument created the problem. He had a hit with his playing of and scat singing on ‘‘Heebie Jeebies’’ when, according to legend, the sheet music fell to the floor and Armstrong started singing nonsense syllables. The sound of Armstrong’s voice was described endearingly as like iron filings or a piece of sandpaper calling to its mate. In 1942, Armstrong divorced his third wife, Alpha Smith, after a three-year marriage. In October of that year Armstrong married Lucille Wilson, who remained his wife until his death. They adopted a son, Clarence Hartfield. Life, music, and politics intersected throughout Armstrong’s life, and always there were charges that Armstrong did the race more harm than good on and off stage, but more often on. Armstrong was criticized in 1949 for accepting the title ‘‘King of the Zulus.’’ In New Orleans’ African American community, this was the honor role as head of leading a black Carnival Krewe during Mardi Gras. Armstrong, earthy and unpretentious, heartily accepted the recognition by his homeboys. During the heated battles of the Civil Rights Movement, Armstrong denounced President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s position on integration (Armstrong called Eisenhower ‘‘two-faced’’ and ‘‘gutless’’ because of his tepid stance on school integration). Still, some critics felt that ‘‘Pops’’ Armstrong shirked responsibility to his race. Musicians, including Billie Holiday, criticized Armstrong for playing in front of segregated audiences and for not taking a more active stand with regard to civil rights, suggesting that he was an Uncle Tom. On the other hand, the FBI kept a

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file on Armstrong after he recommended that President Eisenhower go to Little Rock and take the hands of the black students trying to integrate the high school. Armstrong also played before one hundred thousand exuberant West Africans in 1956 during a celebration of Ghanaian independence. A return trip to Africa in 1960 drew criticism from the former Soviet Union with a Moscow radio broadcast denouncing Armstrong’s trip as a ‘‘capitalist distraction.’’ According to Albin Krebs for the New York Times, Armstrong answered with a laugh: ‘‘I feel at home in Africa. I’m African-descended to the bone, and I dig the friendly ways these people go about things.’’ In 1965, when asked to comment during the Selma, Alabama, assault by police on civil rights marchers, he said, ‘‘They would beat Jesus if he was black and marched. Maybe I’m not on the front line, but I support them with my donations. My life is music. They would beat me on the mouth if I marched, and without my mouth I wouldn’t be able to blow my horn.’’ Both examples, quoted by Krebs in Armstrong’s obituary in the New York Times, suggested he was not simply a ‘‘Tom’’ but probably a race man. Louis Armstrong Forever It was not unusual for Armstrong to play more than three hundred gigs per year throughout his career, but in the late 1940s his bookings tapered off as a result of the changes in public mood and taste. Ballrooms, long the preferred venues for early jazz, closed, and along came the miracle of television. Other types of music also became more popular, and so Armstrong was unable—and one thinks he knew it unwise—to continue to front a sixteen-piece band. During the final years of his life, Armstrong’s concern with health and weight evidenced itself in songs like ‘‘Cheesecake,’’ ‘‘Coroney Chop Suey,’’ and ‘‘Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.’’ A lifelong marijuana user, Armstrong wrote down his feelings about the plant and his thoughts about life, sex, money, and almost anything else on whatever he could find at the time. Armstrong died on July 6, 1971, in his home in Corona, Queens, in New York City. He is buried in Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York. In the twenty-first century, Armstrong’s house was converted into a museum. Armstrong and his music live on in scores of popular movies and TV shows, including Harlem Nights (1989), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Something’s Gotta Give (2003), and American Gangster (2007). Further Reading Berendt, Joachim-Ernst. 1978. Jazz: A Photo History. New York: Schirmer Books. Crouch, Stanley. 1978. ‘‘Laughin’ Louis.’’ The Village Voice, August 14. Giddins, Gary. 1988. Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong. New York: Doubleday. Krebs, Albin. ‘‘Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer Dies,’’ New York Times, July 7, 1971. Louis Armstrong House Museum. www.louisarmstronghouse.org.

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National Portrait Gallery. ‘‘Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy’’ http://www.npg.si.edu /exh/armstrong/index.htm. Song facts.com. www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=10089. Teachout, Terry. 2009. Pops, A Life of Louis Armstrong. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. 2000. Jazz: A History of America’s Music. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Kip Branch and Wayne Dawkins

Ashe, Arthur (1943–93), Tennis Player, Author, Social Activist Arthur Ashe was a top-ranked Tennis player, who won both Wimbledon and the United States Open during his career. He was best known for his work to end apartheid in South Africa and for his fight against the disease HIV/AIDS that ultimately claimed his life. Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was born in Richmond, Virginia, on July 10, 1943. His parents were Arthur Ashe Sr., a caretaker for Brook Field, part of the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department, and Mattie Cunningham Ashe. When Ashe was six, his mother passed away. Ashe began playing tennis at the age of seven and was a skilled player even at a young age. He was able to play tennis on the outdoor courts in the park where his father worked. He trained first with Ronald Charity and then with Walter Johnson, who was a mentor throughout Ashe’s tennis career. During the 1950s and 1960s, Richmond, Virginia, was still part of the segregated South and it Tennis star Arthur Ashe. (Courtesy ProServ, Arlington, VA)

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was very difficult for Ashe to play in tournaments because of his race. In order to play in more tournaments, he would travel during his summer break to areas outside of Richmond. In 1960 and 1961, he won the National Junior Indoor Singles title. It was at this time that Ashe moved from Virginia to St. Louis, Missouri, to finish his last year of high school. Ashe finished high school as the fifth-ranked junior player in the country. After graduating, he attended the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) on a tennis scholarship. While still in college, Ashe became the first African American to be named to the Davis Cup Team. He graduated from UCLA in 1966 with a degree in business administration. After that, Ashe joined the U.S. Army and was stationed at West Point. He continued to play tennis while in the military and within two years of graduating, Ashe had won the U.S. Amateur Championship and the U.S. Open Championship. In 1968, he was ranked the number one tennis player in the United States. He was also very interested in social issues, including the plight of those living under the policy of apartheid in South Africa. Ashe tried several times during the early 1970s to get a visa to play in the tennis tournament held there. It was not until 1973 that he was granted the visa and won the doubles tournament with Tom Okker. While in South Africa, Ashe was able to see firsthand how apartheid affected those living under its regime. In 1975, Ashe won the Wimbledon Tennis Championship, becoming the first African American to win the tournament. Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion, chronicles the year leading up to Ashe’s Wimbledon victory. On February 20, 1977, Ashe married Jeanne Moutoussamy. In 1979, Ashe suffered a major heart attack which forced him to retire from tennis temporarily. He returned to be a major force in tennis and was captain of the Davis Cup Team from 1981 to 1985, leading the team to victory in 1981 and 1982. In 1983 Ashe suffered a second heart attack. During this time, he underwent bypass surgery. It was during this surgery that Ashe was most likely infected with the HIV virus. Almost a decade later, the newspaper USA Today received information that Ashe was living with the disease. It began working on a story about Ashe and the illness. Ashe came forward about his illness, and then he strove tirelessly to educate the public about the disease. He established the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS, which campaigned to increase the amount of money spent to battle the disease. On February 6, 1993, Ashe passed away from complications due to AIDS. The foundation Ashe established has since joined forces with the Weill Cornell Medical College to fund an international health care worker HIV-training program that sends doctors and nurses to the most needed areas of the world. As a fitting tribute to Ashe’s legacy in tennis, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) named the newly built stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center the Arthur Ashe Stadium.

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Further Reading Ashe, Arthur. 1975. Arthur Ashe: Portrait in Motion. New York: Ballantine Books. Ashe, Arthur. 1993. Days of Grace: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Arthur Ashe tribute site. http://www.arthurashe.org. Theresa Mastrodonato

Ashley, Maurice (1966– ), Chess Player, Educator Maurice Ashley has reached celebrity status and is a recognized icon in popular culture: he is the first and only African American to receive the highest title in chess, International Grandmaster. As noted on his Web site, he is ‘‘an ardent spokesman and advocate of the intellectual and character building effects in young people,’’ and he uses his game to benefit young people, especially at-risk youth. He also helped to stimulate an interest in chess-playing among African Americans, to the extent that many households now own chess sets. Ashley’s high accomplishments in the intellectual field of chess have helped to shatter old stereotypes of the mental acumen of African Americans. Much has been said about African Americans in such Sports as Baseball, Football, Tennis, and Basketball, but virtually little about their involvement in certain other sports. Even so, in the 1800s, Theophilus Thompson was the earliest-documented African American chess expert. A native of Frederick, Maryland, at age seventeen Thompson learned much about the game by observing local chess matches. Then he worked on various chess problems and published articles on the game in the Dubuque (Iowa) Chess Journal as well as in a book entitled Chess Problems (1873). After that he left public view. It was not until 1960 that eighteen-year-old Walter Harris defeated several masters and placed fifth in a junior championship played in Omaha, Nebraska. He became the first African American to receive the rating of Master by the United States Chess Federation. As laudable as these accomplishments were in African American history and popular culture, they do not equal Maurice Ashley’s success. Maurice Ashley was born in Jamaica on March 6, 1966, and moved to Brooklyn with his family twelve years later. He was educated at City College of New York. Although he lived in the inner city, Ashley had a firm grounding, steered clear of the drug dealers who traded in his community, and focused on his studies. After watching his brother play chess with a friend, Ashley began to read chess books to learn the game well. By age fourteen, he had become a chess player. While in his teens, he developed game strategies as he played the game with other African Americans in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, particularly with the Black Bears School of Chess, an informal group of young black players. He also encountered Willie Johnson, a friend’s friend and an Expert-level player, which, in chess, is one step below the Masters. Johnson helped him stay focused and also

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helped him buy more chess books or to enter tournaments. Ashley’s heroes were not chess players but African American tennis greats Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil, and ice-skater Debi Thomas. By 1989, Ashley had become a coach for the Raging Rooks chess team at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Junior High School in New York City, and in 1991 led the team to the National Junior High School Championship. In 1993, Ashley became the first ever African American International Master in U.S. history. He also finished first place in the prestigious Enhance International. He opened the Harlem Chess Center in 1999 and continued to teach the game to young blacks. In addition to winning various chess competitions, in 2002, Ashley was the first African American in 157 years to qualify for the U.S. Championship. He was awarded the title Grandmaster of the Year (2004) by the U.S. Chess Federation. He became one of fewer than five hundred grandmaster in the world. Ashley has served as commentator for various chess matches, and in 2004 hosted the ESPN broadcasts of the Man vs. Machine chess competition. Continuing his tradition of sharing his talents with others, in 2005 he published Chess for Success: Using an Old Game to Build New Strengths in Children and Teens. A renowned speaker and consultant, he has received numerous awards for his work. Further Reading Maurice Ashley Web site. http://mauriceashley.com. ‘‘Brooklyn, N.Y., Chess Player Becomes First Black Grandmaster.’’ Jet 95(April 1999): 38–48. Decker, Ed. 1997. ‘‘Maurice Ashley.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 15. Detroit: Gale. Smith, Jessie Carney. 2003. Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events. 2nd ed. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. ‘‘This Week in Black History.’’ 2004. Jet 105 (March 22): 25. Who’s Who among African Americans. 2010. 24th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Cengage. Frederick D. Smith

Association for the Study of African American Life and History The Association for the Study of Afro American Life and History (ASALH), founded by Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950), is an organization whose primary purpose is preserving and studying the historical records of African Americans. To meet the community’s sense of identity, the name of the organization has evolved into the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. The organization has also laid the foundation for the publication of the Journal of Negro History and the development of Black History Month. The Association of Negro Life and History (the original name) was founded on September 9, 1915, in Chicago, Illinois, at the Wabash YMCA by Carter G. Woodson. Woodson was the son of former slaves who taught him the importance of education, the importance of culture, and a respect for the past. In the years

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after the Civil War and into the twentieth century, racial discrimination took hold in the United States and African Americans were considered intellectually incapable of functioning on an equal level with whites. African Americans had no meaningful historical records to counter such racist concepts. Woodson got his first sense of black history when his family traveled to West Virginia to work in the mines. A black Civil War veteran owned a tavern where the miners would go to relax. The owner was very interested in black history and had several books on black life and black history. Woodson read these books and other materials about blacks with a keen interest. He went on to pursue his education, earning a PhD from Harvard University in 1912, making Woodson the second African American to receive this degree. After that, he clarified the need for research in the area of African American history, the need to encourage others to study the discipline, and to produce material that can be used to educate others. Woodson co-organized the Association of Negro Life and History, which was supported by the community and other scholars in African American Studies such as E. Franklin Frazer, Arthur Schomburg, and Alain Locke. Also to meet the organization’s goals, the Journal of Negro History began publication the following year, in 1916. Woodson was further inspired to initiate the observance of Negro History Week in 1924, which evolved into Black History Month in 1976. The name of the organization was changed to the Association for the Study of Afro American Life and History (ASALH) in 1972 and has subsequently evolved into the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. ASALH has impacted how African Americans view themselves as American citizens and their contributions to the development of the United States of America and the world. Further Reading ASALH [Association for the Study of African American Life and History]. http://www .asalh.org. McKissack, Patricia and Frederick. 2001. Carter G. Woodson: The Father of Black History. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. Smith, Jessie Carney, and Joseph M. Palmisano, eds. 2000. ‘‘Association for the Study of African American Life and History.’’ In The African American Almanac. 8th ed., 49, 189, 659. Detroit: Gale Group. Lean’tin L. Bracks

Astronauts The United States inducted its first set of astronauts, people who have made a spaceflight or who have trained to make such flights, in 1959, and the first space flight occurred in 1961. Although not as widely known as sports figures and entertainers, African American astronauts enjoy near celebrity status in popular culture.

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Major Robert H. Lawrence, who never made it to space, was instrumental in the development of the American space program. He received his doctorate in chemistry from Ohio State University in 1965. Lawrence participated in the Manned Orbiting Laboratory at the age of thirty-two. Logging more than 2,500 flight hours, Lawrence was recognized for being a talented pilot scientist. Lawrence died while conducting high-speed landings during a training exercise on December 8, 1967. With an extensive U.S. Air Force background and a PhD degree in aerospace engineering/laser physics, Guion ‘‘Guy’’ Bluford Jr. is probably best remembered for being the first African American to fly in the Space Shuttle program. He entered the program in 1978 and completed his first shuttle mission on August 30, 1983. He logged 688 hours in space before retiring in 1993. Postretirement, Bluford continues to give back to the community via service on boards relating to aerospace issues. He currently travels the country as a motivational speaker. Frederick D. Gregory entered the NASA space program in the same 1978 class alongside Bluford. After having logged over 700 hours using various aircraft, Gregory piloted the orbiter Challenger in 1985. An orbiter is a spacecraft designed to orbit a celestial body without landing on its surface. Four years later, he became the first African American to serve as commander of a space shuttle flight aboard orbiter Discovery. Before retiring in 2005, Gregory served as NASA deputy administrator, associate administrator for the Office of Space Flight, and associate administrator in the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. He and his fellow classmate Bluford set the stage for other astronauts of color to follow them. In September 1992, Mae C. Jemison became the first African American woman to fly in space as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. (She was preceded by Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut to fly in the Challenger space shuttle in 1983.) Jemison was born in Alabama but grew up in Chicago. Jemison received her doctorate in medicine from Cornell University in 1981. After interning and working in California medical facilities, Jemison served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone for two years. There Jemison managed the health delivery system for U.S. Embassy and Peace Corps personnel. Jemison returned to the United States in 1985 and began training for the NASA program in 1987. After she left NASA in 1993, a charter school in Detroit was named after Jemison. Now living in Texas, Jemison is the president and chief executive officer of BioSentient Corporation, based in Houston, a medical technology company that markets and develops mobile equipment. Yvonne Cagle entered the NASA training program in August 1996, completed training in 1998, and is now qualified to travel into space as a mission specialist. Cagle received her MD degree from the University of Washington in 1985, and certification in Aerospace Medicine in 1988 from the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base. Novato, California, is her hometown but she was born in West Point, New York. Major Michael P. Anderson was the payload commander for the Space Shuttle Columbia and died when it exploded on February 1, 2003. This sixteen-day flight

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was his second space shuttle mission. Anderson earned physics degrees from the University of Washington and Creighton University. Astronauts in Current Popular Culture Although there were no African Americans candidates in the NASA program as late as September 2008, several were selected for recent ventures. Among them is Leland D. Melvin, who began training with the NASA program in August 1998. Melvin received a MS degree in materials science engineering from the University of Virginia in 1991. After exhibiting excellent wide receiver skills on the University of Richmond football team, Melvin was selected for the 1986 NFL college draft by the Detroit Lions. However, due to hamstring injuries his football career was cut short. After traveling for nearly thirteen days aboard the STS-122 and completing the mission of delivery and installation of the European Space Agency’s Columbus Laboratory, Melvin completed his first space flight in 2008. Melvin gives back to the profession by speaking to students and encouraging them to consider mathematics, engineering, and technology related careers. Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr. began training with NASA in August 2000. In 2007, Drew completed his first space flight aboard STS-118 and has logged over 305 hours. As a command pilot, Drew accumulated 3,300 hours in flying time. Drew received the Master of Aerospace Science from Embry Riddle University in 1995 and the Master of Strategic Studies in Political Science from the U.S. Air Force Air University in 2006. Robert L. Satcher Jr. was selected by NASA in 2004. Satcher has completed his training and is now qualified to travel into space as a mission specialist. Satcher’s zeal for learning is evident by his earning of the PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1993 and the MD degree from Harvard Medical School one year later in 1994. Currently, Satcher teaches in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Northwestern University as an assistant professor. Further Reading Astronaut Biographies. 2008. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio_former.html. Burton, Von L. 2007. African American Astronauts. http://www.raahistory.com/. Gubert, Betty Kaplan, Miriam Sawyer, and Caroline M. Fannin. 2002. Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science. Westport, CT: Oryx Press. Hardesty, Von. 2008. Black Wings: Courageous Stories of African Americans in Aviation and Space History. New York: HarperCollins. Jemison, Mae. 2007. ‘‘Career Profile: Biomedical Engineer.’’ Journal of Chemical Education 84, no. 10: 1569–70. Jemison, Mae. 2001. Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments from My Life. New York: Scholastic Press. Orbiter. 2008. In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com /dictionary/orbiter. Angela M. Gooden

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Aunt Jemima Today, the term ‘‘Aunt Jemima’’ is often used by African Americans as a disparaging description of a black woman who disregards her African American culture and identifies with or allows herself to be measured or exploited by white cultural expectations. An Aunt Jemima, according to one definition in the online Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) is the female counterpart to an Uncle Tom, an equally disparaging term for a black man who is said to ignore his African American roots and who appears too compliant with white culture. As an Advertising Icon This advertising character based on the antebellum slave ‘‘mammy’’ figure was used to promote Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour, the first nationally distributed ready-mixed food, and one of the earliest products to be marketed via personal appearances and advertisements featuring its namesake. The name Aunt Jemima was derived from an old slave song that was adapted to the stage by a popular minstrel show performer and brought to the world of advertising to marry advances in food production with popular nostalgia for the antebellum South. The concept of Aunt Jemima thus appropriately might be said to be a subject of white American folklore as well as African American Folklore. In 1889, a duo of speculators in St. Joseph, Missouri, named Chris Rutt and Charles Underwood created the self-rising pancake mix that would eventually bear Aunt Jemima’s name. They had purchased a bankrupt mill and planned to make it successful by developing a new product that would create demand for flour in a depressed market. Thus, they settled on developing a foolproof and less labor-intensive pancake mix that would only require the addition of water. They experimented with a variety of recipes in the summer of 1889 before settling on a mixture of wheat flour, corn flour, lime phosphate, and salt. The product was originally named ‘‘selfrising pancake flour’’ and sold in bags. In the fall of 1889, Rutt was inspired to rename the mix after attending a minstrel show, during which a popular song titled ‘‘Old Aunt Jemima’’ was performed by men in blackface, one of whom was dressed as a slave mammy of the plantation South. The song, which was written by African American singer, dancer, and acrobat Billy Kersands in 1875, was a staple of the minstrel circuit and was based on a song sung by field-hand slaves. The words to the first verse, published in Maurice Manring’s Slave in a Box, are: I went to church the other day,/ Old Aunt Jemima, Oh! Oh! Oh! /To hear them white folks sing and pray, Old Aunt Jemima, Oh! Oh! Oh! /They prayed so long I could not stay,/ Old Aunt Jemima, Oh! Oh! Oh! /I knew the Lord would come that way,/ Old Aunt Jemima, Oh! Oh! Oh!

Rutt and Underwood contributed the name but failed to market their product successfully and sold their milling company to a larger corporation owned by R. G. Davis of Chicago. He transformed the local product into a national one by

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distributing it through a network of suppliers and by creating a persona for Aunt Jemima. Davis hired Nancy Green, a Kentucky slave in her childhood, to portray Aunt Jemima at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. She served pancakes from a booth designed to look like a huge flour barrel and told stories of her ‘‘memories’’ as a cook on an ‘‘Old South’’ plantation. Her highly publicized appearance spurred thousands of orders for the product from distributors. Davis also commissioned a pamphlet detailing the ‘‘life’’ of Aunt Jemima. She was depicted as the historically real house slave of a Colonel Higbee of Louisiana, whose plantation was known across the South for its fine food and most notably its pancake breakfasts. The recipe for the pancakes was a secret known only to the slave woman. Sometime after the Civil War, the pamphlet said, Aunt Jemima was remembered by a Confederate general who had once found himself stranded at her cabin. The general recalled her pancakes and put Aunt Jemima in contact with a ‘‘large northern milling company,’’ which paid her to come North and supervise the construction of a modern factory to produce large quantities of the secret mix. This pamphlet formed the fundamental background for decades of future Aunt Jemima advertising. The story was expanded upon and illustrated in an advertising campaign in American women’s magazines during the 1920s and 1930s. The ads were the work of James Webb Young, a legendary account executive at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in Chicago. He collaborated with the great American painter N. C. Wyeth, who was famous as the illustrator of books such as Treasure Island and The Last of the Mohicans. The ads were usually full page and full color, and they ran regularly in Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The Saturday Evening Post. They were panoramas depicting the leisure and splendor of the plantation South as the Higbee plantation hosted grand gatherings of visitors from across the region. Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour was marketed as perhaps the ultimate labor-saving product by drawing an explicit parallel between the work of a house slave and the work the product saved a housewife. A line from a 1927 advertisement read, ‘‘Make them with Aunt Jemima Pancake Flour and your family will ask where you got your wonderful southern cook.’’ Nancy Green, the original Aunt Jemima, continued in the role until her death in an auto accident in 1923. She was replaced by Anna Robinson, a heavier woman with a darker complexion. The image on the box and in ads was adjusted to resemble her more closely. Later, actresses Aylene Lewis and Edith Wilson portrayed the mammy in some advertisements, and Lewis performed as Aunt Jemima at Aunt Jemima’s Pancake House in Disneyland, which opened in 1957. However, the advertising character, which had often been the subject of criticism in the African American press, came under greater scrutiny in the 1950s and 1960s. Local chapters of the NAACP pressured schools and county fair organizers not to invite Aunt Jemima to appear. Wilson was the final woman to play Aunt Jemima in advertisements; in 1967, Quaker Oats fired her and canceled its TV ads. Quaker Oats also took Aunt Jemima’s name off the Disneyland restaurant in 1970; Lewis was the last woman to portray Aunt Jemima on the company’s behalf. Throughout the 1960s, Aunt Jemima’s skin became lighter, and Quaker Oats made her look thinner in print images. In 1968, the company replaced her

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bandanna with a headband and made her look somewhat younger. Her image still appeared in print advertisements, but for the most part the character did not speak or appear to live on a slave plantation. In 1989, Quaker Oats made the most dramatic alteration to Aunt Jemima since her introduction one hundred years earlier, removing her headband to reveal a head full of graying curls and adding earrings and a pearl necklace. The company said it was repositioning the brand icon as a ‘‘black working grandmother.’’ In 1993, Quaker Oats created a series of television ads for the pancake mix featuring the singer Gladys Knight as a spokeswoman and using Aunt Jemima’s face only as a logo. The campaign ran very briefly. While Aunt Jemima now maintains a low profile in the advertising world, the former slave continues to rank as one of the most recognizable trade names in North America. Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix and Syrup remain market leaders in the United States, and in the 1990s Quaker Oats even licensed the use of her name and image for a line of frozen breakfast products manufactured by another company. For African Americans, Aunt Jemima represents the tenacity of American racism, embodying the long-standing need for white Americans to perpetrate the mammy stereotype that romanticizes slavery and plantation life. In her essay ‘‘‘Now Then—Who Said Biscuits?’ The Black Woman Cook as Fetish in American Advertising, 1905–1953,’’ Alice Deck argues that Aunt Jemima symbolizes the white fixation on domestic, black, female bodies, a practice that invokes the magical qualities of blackness while reinforcing the subordinate position of African Americans. A close parallel would be the portrayal of Uncle Ben on rice boxes. Despite African American objections to her image dating from roughly the 1920s to current days and the wider controversy surrounding her image in the late twentieth century, Aunt Jemima remains one of the most successful advertising icons of modern times. Further Reading Deck, Alice. 2001. ‘‘‘Now Then—Who Said Biscuits?’ The Black Woman Cook as Fetish in American Advertising, 1905–1953.’’ In Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender, and Race. Sherrie A. Inness, ed., 69–94. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kern-Foxworth, Marilyn. 1994. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Westport, CT: Praeger. Manring, Maurice M. 1998. Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Urban Dictionary. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Aunt%20Jemima. M. M. Manring

Automobile Racing. See Car Racing

B Baby Face. See Edmonds, Kenneth

Badu, Erykah (1971– ), Singer, Songwriter Erykah Badu is a gifted and extraordinary artist who blends Soul, Hip-Hop, and jazz sounds from the past to the present and calls it soul music. Erykah Badu was born Erica Wright on February 26, 1971, in Dallas, Texas. Badu’s father, William ‘‘Toosie’’ Wright Jr., was absent from the household, thus leaving her mother, Kollen Wright, and grandmother, Thelma Gibson, both local theater actresses, to rear Badu and two younger siblings. The two women encouraged Badu’s love of music, dance, singing, painting, and acting. Not one to be afraid of the stage, Badu performed in many competitions and usually walked away with top honors. As a teen, Badu was accepted and enrolled in the theater program at the Dallas Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Later on, Badu changed from the theater program to music and dance. She became a member of the female rap crew MC Apples with a sound of freestyle rap for a local radio station. It was during this time that Badu decided to shed what she termed as the slave name, Erica Wright. Badu changed the spelling of the first name to Erykah, in which ‘‘kah’’ means inner self. The surname Badu is Arabic meaning ‘‘to manifest light and truth.’’ After high school Badu enrolled at Grambling State University in Louisiana to study theater. Four years later, she left the university and returned home to Dallas without completing the degree.

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While pursuing a music career, Badu worked various jobs to support herself including an opportunity at Steve Harvey’s Comedy House. Badu and a cousin, Robert ‘‘Free’’ Bradford, formed the band Erykah Free and produced opening acts for several hip-hop groups, namely the Wu-Tang Clan, D’Angelo, A Tribe Called Quest, and Arrested Development. As the duo became popular, only Badu would sign a record label contract with Kedar Entertainment, a division of Universal Records. Kedar Massengberg, owner of the record label, was interested in promoting only Badu, thus causing a stressful relationship between the cousins. Bradford, however, received production and songwriting credits on Badu’s debut album Baduizm. The album became number one on the Billboard R & B chart and number two on the pop album chart. Badu’s jazz sounds have been compared to earlier artists Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Nina Simone with a mixture of the R & B sounds of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Chaka Khan. Badu has received several music awards and nomination honors. In 1998, she won two Grammy Awards for Best R & B Album and Best Female R & B Performance. She was also the recipient of four Soul Train Awards, one American Music Award, and two NAACP Image Awards. She continues to be recognized for her unique style of sound and fashion attire, and was named by People magazine as one of 1998’s ‘‘50 Most Beautiful People.’’ Further Reading Badu, Erykah, as told to Michael Hall. 2010 ‘‘Growing Up.’’ Texas Monthly 38 (June 2010): 6:30–32. ‘‘Erykah Badu.’’ 1999. Contemporary Musicians. Vol. 26. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC. ‘‘Erykah Badu.’’ 2000. Newsmakers 2000, 4. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC. Phelps, Shirelle, ed. 1999. ‘‘Erykah Badu.’’ In Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 22. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center.http://galenet .galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC Sharon D. Brooks

Baker, Ella (1903–86), Civil Rights Activist, Community Organizer During the modern Civil Rights Movement and beyond, the general population focused on the work of black men, virtually disregarding the contributions of all except one or two black women. Records show, however, that black American women played crucial roles in the fight for equality. One such woman was Ella Baker, a pivotal behind-the-scenes activist who refused to go unnoticed or to stay behind the scenes. She pioneered in the work of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and an organizer of grassroots organizations

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nationwide. Baker’s work touches many arenas in African American popular culture, particularly in human rights, women’s rights, and in the work of activists to achieve those rights. Ella Josephine Baker was born December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Blake and Georgianna Ross Baker. She grew up in Littleton, North Carolina, a racially segregated community, where her life was steeped in southern black culture. She knew the importance of self-help and sharing of economic resources throughout her community, and thus knew how to build strong community ties. The Bakers were educated and ensured that their three children were educated as well. Ella graduated from Shaw University, a historically black college located in Raleigh, with a degree in sociology. While at Shaw, she envisioned a career as a social activist and practiced activism by protesting the school’s conservative dress code. Although African Americans had difficulty finding employment and many turned to teaching, Baker vowed that she would not follow that path. Instead, she moved to Harlem on the eve of the Great Depression. Baker was disturbed by Harlem’s poverty and hunger, and immediately resolved to seek relief through political means. She developed a radical perspective, attended political meetings and rallies, and started down a political path that would become central to her life from then forward. She helped to found the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL) to aid blacks in developing economic power by becoming involved in consumer cooperatives or buying clubs, cooperative grocery stores, and cooperative distribution networks. Later she became YNCL’s national director, serving affiliate chapters throughout the Northeast and Midwest. Baker also worked for the Worker’s Education Project, a program of the federal Works Progress Administration, which was designed to equip workers with basic skills and to teach them various topics that the working class needed to know. The workers participated in literacy and consumer education programs. Baker began a new career in 1938, with the NAACP. First she was a field secretary and later became director of branches. Her assignments took her throughout the South as she raised funds for the organization and recruited new members. The relationships that she established in the South and her familiarity with the political situation there served her well in the future, when she joined the black struggle for freedom. As time passed, Baker became conflicted over the organization’s philosophies and leadership style and, in 1946, resigned her position. She continued to serve the organization but now as a volunteer. She was elected president of the New York City branch of the NAACP in 1952, becoming its first female director. Her activism continued as she fought to desegregate the local public schools. Baker joined Stanley Levison and Bayard Rustin in founding the organization called In Friendship, which raised funds to support the emerging Civil Rights Movement in the South. After the organization folded in 1957 and the SCLC had been established, their efforts turned to the new organization which now coordinated the movement. Levison and Rustin knew Martin Luther King Jr. and the importance of his work. They persuaded him to bring Baker on board to work for SCLC, and in 1958 she relocated to Atlanta for that purpose. At first

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Baker directed the Crusade for Citizenship program and its voter registration drives in the South, and, at the same time, headed SCLC’s Atlanta headquarters. She was active in the training initiatives for movement leaders held at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. Before long, Baker became frustrated over King’s dominance in the organization and the management style of the male leadership. The men expected women to stay behind the scenes and support visibility of male leadership. They resented female leadership, especially when it came from a strong woman such as Baker. The year 1960 was a pivotal one in Baker’s life, in the Civil Rights Movement, and in African American life and culture in general. On February 1 that year, four students from North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro shocked the nation when they staged sit-ins at the local F. W. Woolworth’s store. They were followed by well-organized sit-ins in Nashville, and by similar actions throughout the South. On Easter Sunday, Baker held a meeting at Shaw University of sit-in leaders from across the South; it was designed to strengthen the protest movement. She left SCLC and successfully encouraged the students to found their own organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Baker also believed in the independent student-oriented group rather than one that was leader-centered. Since Baker needed financial support to live, she took a job with the Young Women’s Christian Association. She also had a part in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a grassroots political party that rose to fame at the 1964 Democratic National Convention by attempting to unseat Mississippi’s all-white delegates. Baker remained adviser to SNCC, serving as a role model and intellectual mentor to many young people in the organization. She also worked as a consultant for the Southern Conference Education Fund, working to gain white support of the movement. Her activism continued yet expanded to other political areas; for example, in 1972 she openly supported the Free Angela campaign and sought the release of activist Angela Davis from prison. Despite Baker’s failing health, during the 1970s and 1980s she continued to lend her support to a number of political, women’s, and other organizations, until her death in New York City on December 13, 1986. Black Women in America characterized Baker as ‘‘a historical bridge connecting the social movements of the 1950s and 1960s to the legacy of Black resistance and social protest in the decades that followed.’’ Further Reading Branch, Taylor. 1988. Parting the Waters: An American in the King Years 1954–63. New York: Simon & Schuster. Crawford, Vicki L., Jacqueline Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods. 1993. Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941–1965. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hine, Darlene Clark, ed. 1993. Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing.

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Ransby, Barbara. 2003. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Ransby, Barbara. 1993. ‘‘Ella Josephine Baker.’’ In Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1992. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research. Jessie Carney Smith

Baldwin, James (1924–87), Novelist, Essayist, Playwright James Arthur Baldwin, one of the major writers and intellectuals of the twentieth century, was born in Harlem, New York, on August 2, 1924, to Emma Berdis Jones who, when her son was a toddler, married David Baldwin, an itinerant preacher from Louisiana who never accepted James as his son. The tension between Baldwin and his stepfather would form the basis of James Baldwin’s work. From a young age, Baldwin was an avid reader. By the time he entered fifth grade, he had read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin cover to cover so much that his mother moved the book to a higher shelf beyond her son’s reach. But he was not deterred in his reading. When not in school, he could be found in the public libraries of New York City, where he read and borrowed books from the two Harlem branches before trying the main library on 42nd Street. Books had become Baldwin’s passport beyond the confines of Harlem. Rather than become a product of the world he was born into, Baldwin turned to words as a means of transforming the world around him. In school, Baldwin received praise and acceptance that could not always be found at home. Yet, to consider school a completely utopian space for Baldwin is to misread the social climate of the United States during his childhood. ‘‘When I was nine or ten,’’ Baldwin recounted in Notes of a Native Son, ‘‘I wrote a play which was directed by a young, white schoolteacher, a woman, who then took an interest in me, James Baldwin, author of the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), wrote and gave me books to read and, in order to about the effects of race, religion, and corroborate my theatrical bent, decided to sexuality on personal identity. (Sophie take me to see what she somewhat tactlessly Bassouls/Corbis Sygma)

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referred to as ‘real plays.’’’ Despite his teacher’s condescension, Baldwin remained dedicated to writing. At Frederick Douglass Junior High School (P. S. 139), Baldwin edited the school newspaper, which gave him the opportunity to work with acclaimed Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen. Baldwin’s literary leanings continued at DeWitt Clinton High School, where he contributed several pieces to the school’s magazine and served as editor-in-chief of the paper. Following his graduation in 1942, Baldwin left home and worked construction in New Jersey for a short while before being fired, returning in 1944 to New York City, this time to Greenwich Village. There he started his life as a writer in earnest by beginning work on what would become his first novel. Even so, the mark of David Baldwin remained on the artist as a young man, as Baldwin declared that the key to his work was ‘‘the rhetoric of the storefront church,’’ where, for a while in his youth, he had preached in an attempt to gain the acceptance of his indifferent stepfather. In 1945, Richard Wright helped Baldwin win a fellowship, and, the following year, Baldwin arrived on the writing scene with a review in The Nation. After having received a Rosenwald Fellowship, Baldwin decided to live a life of greater artistic and personal freedom. One symbolic move was tossing his engagement rings into the Hudson River, thereby marking his rejection of heterosexual relationships and his open acceptance of his preference for homosexual relationships. Then, on November 11, 1948, he set sail to France on a one-way ticket. While Baldwin had hoped to escape the racial prejudice he encountered in the United States, he saw in France the persistence of racial discrimination. Nevertheless, Baldwin would remain in France, aside from stints in the United States for lectureships and in support of the fight for civil rights, joining such figures as Lorraine Hansberry, Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X in the struggle for racial and social equality. During the 1950s, Baldwin published two novels, his semiautobiographical Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and Giovanni’s Room (1956), along with a collection of personal essays and reflections called Notes of a Native Son (1955). With Go Tell It on the Mountain, Baldwin established himself as a major black male contributor to American letters, putting him within conversations that included Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. The theme of personal conflict that Baldwin explored so expertly in his first novel he extended into an exploration of sexual identity in Giovanni’s Room, in which his male protagonist is torn between homosexual and heterosexual love. Notes of a Native Son dealt with the burden of race and helped establish Baldwin has one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century. During the 1960s, when liberal dissent was the order of the day, Baldwin continued to prod the conscience of an American culture that alienated and segregated cultural others. Within the first three years of the 1960s, Baldwin published three influential works: Nobody Knows My Name (1961), The Fire Next Time (1963), and a substantial novel, Another Country (1962). With these three works, Baldwin built upon the foundations he had created in the previous decade by analyzing the psychic costs of prejudice based on differences in race and sexual

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orientation. Despite his efforts to right the wrongs of racism, black militants waged their own campaign against Baldwin, in part the result of Baldwin’s own literary patricide in his essay ‘‘Everybody’s Protest Novel.’’ This essay grew out of Baldwin’s nearly lifelong reading of Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. At the root of all protest, Baldwin argued, was sentimentality, which reduced human beings to caricatures. Baldwin then applied this theory to Richard Wright’s Native Son. In the process, he undercut the stature of Wright and his novel, the first novel by an African American that was a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection. Yet Wright was a literary lion with a loyal following, especially among black militants of the 1960s. Despite the ire Baldwin attracted from militants, he continued his persistent critique of race relations during the 1970s, turning his attention to black cinema and what he and others saw as the exploitation of black people in his The Devil Finds Work, published in 1976. Baldwin enjoyed extensive lectureships on both sides of the Atlantic and was a prominent novelist and social critic whose voice was heard. Shortly after midnight, however, on December 1, 1987, Baldwin’s voice was silenced as he passed away in St. Paul de Vence, in southern France, leaving in his wake a triumphant narrative of what it means to be a person of conscience, humility, and keen intelligence. Readers seeking an introduction to the poetic intensity of Baldwin’s writing are invited to read his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Baldwin himself said, ‘‘Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.’’ Baldwin’s eloquent and elegant writing style is seen as well in novels such as Giovanni’s Room and Another Country, along with his often anthologized short stories, in particular ‘‘Sonny’s Blues.’’ Baldwin’s enduring legacy is made evident in his insightful essays, and his most powerful and influential statements are collected in a Library of America edition edited by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. Further Reading Baldwin, James. 1984. Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press. Friedrich, Otto. 1987. ‘‘Bearing Witness to the Truth James Baldwin: 1924–1987.’’ Time 30 (December 14). Harris, Trudier. 2001. ‘‘James Baldwin.’’ In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Bambara, Toni Cade (1939–95), Writer, Filmmaker, Educator Toni Cade Bambara was born Miltona Mirkin Cade in New York City on March 25, 1939. Bambara’s mother, Helen Brent Henderson Cade, was a chief influence in her development as an artist. Having grown up during the

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Harlem Renaissance, Helen Cade encouraged a similar artistic sentiment in her children. As a child, Bambara spent innumerable afternoons in the New York Public Libraries, particularly the Harlem branch, with its photograph of Gwendolyn Brooks. Bambara cited Brooks, along with Langston Hughes, who visited the library on occasion and spoke with young people, as early influences on her artistic sensibility. Following her education in a range of schools, both public and private, in New York, New Jersey, and parts of the southeastern United States, Bambara attended Queens College of the City University of New York, where, in 1959, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts. That same year, she won the John Golden Award for Fiction as well as the Long Island Star’s Pauper Press Award for nonfiction. In the fall of 1959, Bambara entered graduate school and served as a social worker for the Harlem Welfare Center. In 1960, Bambara published a second short story in the Massachusetts Review. She spent 1961 in Milan, studying at the Commedia dell’ Arte and working as a freelance writer. Upon her return to the United States in 1962, Bambara resumed work as a social worker and as a scholar, two roles that she would always see as fundamentally linked. ‘‘It’s a tremendous responsibility—responsibility and honor—to be a writer, an artist, a cultural worker . . . whatever you call this vocation,’’ Bambara said. In 1965, she graduated from the City College of New York with a master’s degree in American studies, and took on teaching duties at City College until 1969. From 1969 until 1974, she served on the faculty of Rutgers University, followed by appointments at various institutions including Duke University, Atlanta University, and Spelman College. Respected as a scholar, Bambara garnered accolades as an artist and editor as well. She was a pioneer of the black women’s fiction of the 1970s. As Bambara continued to write and to hear the stories of black women in her community, she expressed to the scholar Addison Gayle her discontent with the way black women were rendered invisible. Male experts and white feminists both, according to Bambara, failed to capture, in their sociological studies, the feelings of black women. To address this absence, Bambara published The Black Woman: An Anthology in 1970, a work that arrived on the social and cultural landscape the same year as The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker, along with the poetry of Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and others. Bambara’s two collections of short stories, Gorilla, My Love, published in 1972, and The Seabirds Are Still Alive, published in 1977, placed Bambara in the pantheon of black women writers that includes Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Paule Marshall, and Gloria Naylor. As a writer, Bambara experimented with time, resisting linear plots and preferring flashbacks, and made use of complex imagery and black dialect. In 1980, Bambara published her first novel, The Salt Eaters, which won the American Book Award. Three years later, Bambara began work on a second novel exploring the Atlanta child murders. When she died in 1995, Bambara had written over 1,800 pages. Toni Morrison, Bambara’s close friend, edited the manuscript, making it a more streamlined 676 pages; it was published in 2000 as the posthumous Those Bones Are Not My Child. As Morrison explained, ‘‘You have ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Then you have this Tom Wolfe book. And that’s

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Atlanta. Boom. Over. . . . And I thought, ‘No, no, no.’ No one is talking about Atlanta from the point of view of these people who knew it—not the political way, not the way the marketers knew it, but on the streets, in the houses, in the schools. So, it just seemed to me, absolutely, that the history of the world was incomplete if this book wasn’t published.’’ Bambara’s novel helps expand our collective vision of the city of Atlanta. Readers seeking to learn more about Toni Cade Bambara might begin with her landmark anthology, The Black Woman. The lineup of writers collected in that anthology represents some of the most important voices in American and African American letters: Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, Nikki Giovanni, and Audre Lorde, just to name a few. Gorilla, My Love remains an important short story collection, filled with unforgettable characters and writing style. The Salt Eaters, Bambara’s first novel, offers an interesting meditation on African American identity, and her posthumous novel, Those Bones Are Not My Child, remains a powerful testament to Bambara’s devotion to the problems of the black urban United States.

Further Reading Boyd, Valerie. 1999. ‘‘Morrison Brings Friend’s ‘Bones’ To Print.’’ Books, Atlanta Journal– Constitution, October 17. Deck, Alice A. 2003. ‘‘Bambara, Toni Cade.’’ In Black Women in America. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Evans, Mari, ed. 1984. Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. New York: Doubleday. Glickman, Simon. 1996. ‘‘Toni Cade Bambara.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research. Stanford, Ann Folwell. 2001. ‘‘Bambara, Toni Cade.’’ In The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Bands and Bandleaders, 1920s–1950s African American music in the period from 1920 to the 1950s was dominated by big band jazz music. This form was produced by bands comprised of four sections: saxophone, trumpet, trombone, and rhythm, and consisting of twelve to fifteen members. Though beginning in the Jazz Age, big bands’ most prolific period was during the Swing Era of the 1930s and 1940s and its peak was ended with the birth of Bebop Music in the 1940s. The bands were commonly housed at jazz clubs, including the Cotton Club and Savoy in New York and the Sunset/Grand Terrace Caf
e in Chicago. Big band music was also spread nationally through radio broadcasts and records. The African American big bands, led by individuals including

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Louis Armstrong, Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Cab Calloway, helped define jazz and American music for three decades. Big band music’s development in the early 1920s can be partly attributed to the contributions of musician Fletcher Henderson. Born in Georgia in 1897, Fletcher Henderson grew up listening to classical European music in his household and this contributed to his eventual formation of the jazz orchestra. After attending Atlanta University, Henderson moved to New York to pursue a career in chemistry, but after struggling to find work, he entered the music scene. In 1921, Fletcher Henderson became the musical director for the black-owned record label, Black Swan, and led and performed in various groups for the label. Henderson made a good living working for the label, but after securing a position as a bandleader at the Club Alabam in Harlem, Henderson’s career took off. The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra became one of the dominant bands in New York while playing at the Alabama and the Roseland Ballroom. By the 1930s, it was one of the most important black musical groups in the United States. Although Fletcher Henderson lacked the acclaim as a bandleader of many of his contemporaries and followers, his band included many notable musicians. Among them were Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, and Roy Eldridge. While an outstanding musician and arranger, one of Henderson’s most important contributions to big band music was the development of multi-instrumentalist Don Redman, whose arrangements were vital in the transition from the jazz age to the Swing Era. Don Redman (1900–64) was raised in a middle-class household in Maryland. Redman’s father was a noted musician and music educator and his mother was a singer. As a child, Redman trained on multiple instruments; by the age of twelve, he was proficient on all wood instruments. In 1922, after studying at the Boston Conservatory and traveling with Billy Paige’s Broadway Syncopaters, Redman joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. With that orchestra, Redman was instrumental in creating a new jazz sound. While playing both clarinet and alto saxophone with the group, Redman made his mark as an arranger. Redman drew from his diverse musical background and arranged songs that combined European classical, African American brass band, and church music. More specifically, influenced by the call-and-response tradition of African and African American music, Redman created a relationship between the soloists and ensembles. In addition, Redman combined the written harmonies of European classical music with the improvised solos of African American music, creating a big band aesthetic that influenced many later bandleaders. In his arrangements, Redman left blank spaces for improvised solos. Because they were not band- or musician-specific, Redman’s arrangements became the source for the generic big band sound. In 1927, Redman left the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and became the musical director and leader of McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, a Detroit-based band. While having many successful years with the group, Redman left and formed the Don Redman Orchestra, which held residence at the legendary Connie’s Inn and recorded for Brunswick Records. Although he was not as prolific as other bandleaders of the time, the Don Redman Orchestra was very popular. The early work of Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman set the stage for the birth of the Swing Era.

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Chicago bandleader Earl Hines (1903–83) also made notable contributions prior to the birth of the Swing Era. Hines was born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, on December 28, 1903. While trumpet was his first instrument, Hines eventually moved to the piano and started playing professionally in 1918. Hines moved to Chicago in 1923, playing with several bands until forming his own in 1928. From 1929 to 1948, the Earl Hines Orchestra achieved national recognition through tours and radio broadcasts. Hines’s band featured some legendary personnel including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Billy Eckstine, and Ella Fitzgerald. While an important bandleader, Hines is more known for his style of piano playing that influenced pianists for years to come. The Swing Era The Swing Era (1935–46) was the period in which swing and big band music dominated American popular music. Although swing music was performed by many bands during the 1920s and early 1930s, many scholars and fans mark big band leader Benny Goodman’s performance at the Palomar Ballroom on August 21, 1935, as the beginning of the Swing Era. Swing’s ascendance had as much to do with economic developments as it did with musical ones. The Great Depression had an extremely negative effect on the recording industry. Between 1927 and 1932, record sales declined over 90 percent. Live and movie theaters, once a popular venue for jazz music, switched their focus to the less-expensive and growing talking-movie genre, putting many musicians out of work. In addition, the end of Prohibition in 1933 affected jazz musicians as alcohol could now be purchased and consumed at home, lessening the relevance of the speakeasies that formerly employed many musicians. Alongside this was the advent of radio, whose technology allowed fewer musicians to entertain more consumers. The end result of these economic factors was that jazz musicians could be had for cheap and big bands became more commonplace. Although Benny Goodman has been credited with the origins of swing and was very much its public face, Duke Ellington (1899–1974) was the Swing Era’s most prolific bandleader and took big band music to new artistic heights. Edward Kennedy ‘‘Duke’’ Ellington was born on April 29, 1899, to James Edward and Daisy Kennedy Ellison. Unlike other African American big band leaders, Ellington had a rather modest Washington, DC, upbringing. Ellington’s parents had piano training, and before reaching his tenth birthday, Ellington received piano lessons from a local teacher. Although able to play the piano, Ellington first fell in love with the visual arts. He attended a vocational high school with dreams of one day becoming a commercial artist. After his interest in school waned, Ellington dropped about of high school and began to earn money by playing the piano locally. In the early 1920s, Ellington and his then band moved to New York in an attempt to make a mark on its thriving African American music scene. In 1923, Ellington’s band, then known as the Washingtonians, landed a permanent gig at the Hollywood Club (later renamed the Kentucky Club) near Times Square. During their four years spent at the Kentucky Club, Ellington and

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his orchestra performed and recorded prolifically. In 1927, Ellington and his band became the house band at the Cotton Club, Harlem’s most renowned club. During their years at the Cotton Club, Ellington’s twelve-piece orchestra rose to national prominence due to weekly radio broadcasts, extensive recording, movie appearances, and other types of exposure. After leaving the Cotton Club in 1931, Ellington and his orchestra continued to record and perform extensively. The Swing Era proved to be Ellington and his band’s creative peak. In this period, Ellington’s band diversified its repertoire, featuring extended works, tone poems, blues, novelty numbers, and experimental pieces along with its traditional popular works. In 1938, twenty-three-year-old Billy Strayhorn joined the orchestra and it began its most fertile period. During his time with Ellington, Strayhorn composed or collaborated on over two hundred works, including the band’s most famous song, ‘‘Take the A Train.’’ Ellington and Strayhorn’s partnership lasted nearly three decades, ending with Strayhorn’s death in 1967. Ellington’s career began to decline during the later stages of the Swing Era in the late 1940s. After experiencing a brief career resurgence in the 1950s, Ellington performed and recorded extensively until his death in 1974. Standing alongside Duke Ellington as one of the great African American big band leaders is Count Basie (1904–84). Born William Basie in Red Bank, New Jersey, on August 21, 1904, Basie grew up in a working-class household. Like Henderson and Redman, Basie had a diverse musical background as he was exposed to player pianos, theater shows, traveling carnivals, and more as a youth. Growing up, Basie studied both piano and drums, actually preferring the drums until shifting his focus after failing to equal the skills of friend and future Ellington band member, Sonny Greer. Around 1924, Basie, seeking a career in music, moved to Harlem where he met Fats Waller, Willie the Lion Smith, and James P. Johnson—all notable stride piano players. Waller acted as a mentor to Basie, helping develop his piano skill and helping him get work. In 1927, Basie moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and established himself on its burgeoning jazz scene. Basie performed with Walter Page’s Blue Devils and two minor groups before joining Benny Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra. After Moten’s death, Basie became bandleader until the group dissolved. Basie then formed his own group that included many of Moten’s former musicians. This nine-piece group, known as Count Basie and the Barons of Rhythm, held residency at the Reno Club in Kansas City. After a short stint in Chicago, the band moved to New York and began headlining at the Roseland Ballroom. Initially, the band received mediocre reviews, but adjustments garnered them success. Along with their Roseland job, Basie and his orchestra recorded for the Decca label. With Decca, Basie recorded many of his blues-influenced pieces, including ‘‘One O’Clock Jump’’ and ‘‘Good Morning Blues,’’ that would prove to be his unique contribution to jazz music. Basie also performed and recorded with many of the most notable vocalists of the time, including Jimmy Rushing, Billie Holiday, and Big Joe Turner. In 1938, Basie and his orchestra moved on to the Savoy with continued success. The decline of the Swing Era caused much turnover in the Count Basie Orchestra, which once included saxophonist Lester Young and drummer Jo Jones, among others.

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Although his prominence decreased after the Swing Era, Basie continued to work extensively until the 1970s. Basie’s slide piano and penchant for the blues provided listeners with an almost exotic sound during the Big Band Era. While not reaching the musical heights of his peers, bandleader Cab Calloway (1907–94) wowed audiences with his showmanship. Cabell ‘‘Cab’’ Calloway was born on December 25, 1907, to a middle-class family in Rochester, New York. Calloway’s parents, recognizing their son’s aptitude for music, saw that Cab began taking voice lessons at a very young age. After graduating from high school and briefly attending college, Calloway moved to Chicago to pursue a career in music, eventually becoming leader of the Alabamians, an eleven-piece outfit. The Alabamians were soon hired at the Cotton Club, and after a poor opening showing, Calloway left the group, eventually becoming bandleader of the upstart Missourians. The Missourians landed at the Cotton Club and proved to be very successful. While the band was definitely comprised of good musicians, audiences were drawn to Calloway’s stage presence and enthusiasm. Calloway dressed in elaborate wardrobes, danced around the stage, and upped the energy level of typical big band shows. In addition, Cab was a dynamic vocalist who could sing all over the tonal scale. Calloway also championed Scat Singing, as evidenced by his most popular song, ‘‘Minnie the Moocher.’’ Cab Calloway remained a popular bandleader and public figure during and after the Swing Era by producing records and radio shows, and appearing in films including Stormy Weather. Calloway’s lively stage activity and vocal ability set him apart from other bandleaders during the Big Band Era and helped him become one of the legendary figures in jazz history. Bandleader Jimmie Lunceford’s (1902–47) approach to big band music differed from those of contemporaries Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, but his popularity and artistry rivaled and arguably eclipsed the two swing legends. Lunceford was born in 1902 in Fulton, Missouri, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Fisk University. While teaching high school in Memphis, Tennessee, Lunceford formed a student jazz band that turned professional in 1929, and recorded for RCA in 1930. In 1934, the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra was hired at the Cotton Club, which already housed big bands led by Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. Lunceford was able to find his niche in the big band landscape by valuing the ensemble over soloists. Lunceford’s orchestra also played a two-beat swing rather than the common four-beat. Sharp musicianship, humorous lyrics, and top-quality showmanship made the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra one of the leading black big bands in the United States. While a recording ban in 1942 damaged the orchestra as it triggered a mass exodus of musicians, Jimmie Lunceford remained a popular bandleader until his death in 1947. Bands of the Later Swing Era Lionel Hampton (1908–2002) was a popular bandleader who emerged in the later Swing Era and had a career that spanned over sixty years. Hampton was born in 1908, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. As a teenager, Hampton trained on the xylophone and drums and, when he was around 18 years old, moved to California to pursue a career in music. While in California, Hampton

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began playing the vibraphones, which became his principal instrument after playing them during a performance with Louis Armstrong. After spending four years with the Benny Goodman Orchestra in New York, Hampton formed his own band in 1940. The Lionel Hampton Orchestra quickly ascended to the top of the big band world and Lionel Hampton was known for his energy, showmanship, and musicianship. Hampton was also a noted educator as his band graduated many legendary jazz talents, including Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Clark Terry, Quincy Jones, and Illinois Jaquet. The latter’s tenor saxophone solo on Hampton’s classic ‘‘Flying Home,’’ bridged swing with the emerging R & B genre and stands as one of jazz’s most celebrated solos. Bandleader, vibraphonist, and arranger Lionel Hampton remained active until his 2002 death and is one of the true greats in jazz music. A number of factors led to the decline of the Big Band/Swing Era. World War II had a negative effect on swing as many musicians were drafted and economic resources were geared toward the war, making big band tours and performances less economically viable. In addition, a musicians’ strike led to a recording ban that lasted two years. In this period, no swing bands were recorded, decreasing the popularity of big bands greatly. Vocalists, who were not apart of the union, were able to record in this period and they began to dominate the American musical landscape. Finally, the birth of bebop in the 1940s created a new and fresh jazz aesthetic, lessening the relevance of the more traditional and straightforward big band music. The music of these African American bandleaders had a huge impact on the United States from the 1920s into the 1950s and left a long-lasting legacy in American music. Further Reading Goia, Ted. 1998. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press USA. Erenberg, Lewis A. 1998. Swingin the Dream: Big Band Jazz and the Rebirth of American Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schuller, Gunther. 1991. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Langston Collin Wilkins

Banks, Tyra (1973– ), Model, Television Host, Actress Tyra Banks, a top fashion model, was the first African American woman to grace the magazine covers of GQ (Gentlemen’s Quarterly) and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. Such recognition kept her highly visible as an American icon. Tyra Lynne Banks was born December 4, 1973, in Los Angeles, California, and raised with an older brother Devin. Banks’s parents, Carolyn London, a medical photographer, and Don Banks, a computer consultant, divorced when Banks was six years old. Both parents have maintained a supportive role in managing Banks’s

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career. Upon graduation from Immaculate Heart High School, Banks planned to attend Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. That plan was ultimately changed when at the age of seventeen and weeks before college enrollment she was offered an opportunity in the Modeling industry. Elite Model Management offered Banks a modeling job in Paris, France, for the fall haute show in 1991. Other designers were impressed by Banks’s grace on the catwalk and booked her to model in twenty-five shows, which was very unusual for a first-time model. After the Paris show Banks was offered several contracts representing such designers as Todd Oldham, Ralph Lauren, and Chanel. A long-term contract with Cover Girl cosmetics made Banks the second African American woman to achieve that recognition. In addition to becoming the first African American woman to achieve cover status on GQ (Gentlemen’s Quarterly) and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, she also appeared on the cover of Victoria’s Secret catalog and Essence magazine. Another honor for Banks was to be featured in People’s magazine ‘‘50 Most Beautiful People’’ in 1994 and 1996. In 1997 she received recognition as Supermodel of the Year. She retired from modeling in 2005. The following year, Time magazine named Banks as one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People. Banks began an acting career with movie credits in Higher Learning, Love and Basketball, Coyote Ugly, Larceny, Felicity, The Apartment Complex, and the thriller Halloween: Resurrection. Along with movie credits Banks made television appearances and became the host of two very popular shows. Banks has also added television to her career. In 2003 she created and became the executive producer of the television show America’s Next Top Model. The program is open to all women without prejudice or discrimination who aspire for an opportunity to win a modeling contract. The highly rated show was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and the GLADD Media Awards. The Tyra Banks Show began in 2005 as a daytime talk show with Banks as the host. That show was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won several Daytime Emmy Awards. Her multifaceted career has yielded financial success. Banks established an endowment at her alma mater, Immaculate Heart High School, which provides Tyra Banks Scholarships for African American girls. She founded a summer camp called ‘‘T-Zone’’ for teenage girls and provides opportunities to such girls from various backgrounds to build self-esteem. The teens participate in various discussions including relationships, diversity, stereotypes, beauty, and body image. Banks wrote the book, Tyra’s Beauty Inside and Out, which discusses beauty and health. She shares words of wisdom as a motivational speaker to bring encouragement to the daily lives of young people. Further Reading Finkleman, Abigail. 2009. ‘‘Banks, Tyra.’’ Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present. Vol. 1. Ed. Paul Finkelman. New York: Oxford University Press. Brennan, Carol, and Sara Pendergast. ‘‘Tyra Banks.’’ 2005. In Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 50. Detroit: Thomson Gale.

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Stewart, Pearl. ‘‘Tyra Banks: It All Began Right Here.’’ Black Collegian, 40, no. 2 (January 2010): 8–11. Thieme, Darius. 2003. ‘‘Tyra Banks.’’ In Notable Black American Women, Book 3. Detroit: Gale Group. Sharon D. Brooks

BAPS (Black American Princesses) The popular culture of contemporary African Americans includes discussions and experiences of a number of people who are somehow set aside from black masses. They are identified by such terms as Buppies (Black Urban Professionals), as well as BAPS, or Black American Princesses. While a Buppy is not gender-restrictive, BAP is, and by its very definition, embraces females only. Both terms, however speak to group interculture and group and selfpride. A BAP is best defined by the authors of The BAP Handbook, who call her African America’s pampered female from a middle-to-upper-class family. She feels a ‘‘sense of entitlement’’ and is accustomed to nothing but the best. She is poised and confident, giving the world the idea that she has everything. BAP culture is a journey of privileged black females from birth throughout life. Even if not born into a privileged family, one may become a BAP by engaging in hard work and observing the BAP culture. On the other hand, a princess may appear in ‘‘all shapes, sizes, and colors.’’ There are, however, cultural differences and varying intrinsic traits between a BAP and another type of princess; for example, a JAP, or Jewish American Princess. The mind-set of a BAP begins early. The parents are eager to provide the best for their little princess and give her a ‘‘solid value system.’’ She is taught to be respectful and considerate; is allowed some selfish moments; and is overindulged, spoiled, but never obnoxious or intolerable. Misconceptions of a BAP are that, like the singer Madonna’s song and nickname, she is a ‘‘Material Girl.’’ While a BAP lives a privileged life, she is far from the term ‘‘shallow’’ used to define her. There is now a Miss Black American Princess pageant for 13 to 17-year-olds. Some sources mistakenly describe a BAP as a wealthy, uncultured African American girl. As well, a 1997 film, B.A.P.S., depicts Halle Berry and Natalie Desselle—two women whose images of the black American princess cast doubt on her refinement; however the movie is considered a spoof. Self-assessment tests help blacks to determine whether or not they are a BAP or a ‘‘wannabe.’’ Sure signs of BAP-ism are insisting on parking illegally and protesting the towing of your car, insisting on the original and not a copy, habitual weekend trips to Europe, assuming that the world is your oyster, maintaining a

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standing weekend hair appointment, and insisting on cleaning the house or apartment before the cleaning lady comes. Parents arrange music lessons for their BAPS and engage them in the original BAP sports, such as tennis, skiing, horseback riding, hockey, and swimming. BAPs take ballet. They visit museums and the theater with people of the same background, wealth, and set of values. As children, they join Jack and Jill and annually attend conventions with their parents, such as the national medical, dental, or bar associations; the Links, Inc.; the Boul
e; or sororities or fraternities. BAPS have their own car, attend certain colleges, college homecomings, and churches; join a selective sorority; and visit resort areas on spring break. For lowmaintenance hairstyles and peace of mind, they wear sporty braids, locks, or twists, and remain impeccably dressed and groomed. After college, graduate, and professional school, BAPS join service organizations such as the Links, the Moles, and the Girl Friends. They converge in cities across the country to continue networking, shop, and attend professional meetings of their own. As she was taught early on, a BAP gives back to her community and recognizes her civic duty. The lifecycle for a BAP is continued with her marriage and a little BAP or two of her own. Further Reading Johnson, Kalyn, Tracey Lewis, Karla Lightfoot, and Ginger Wilson. 2001. The BAP Handbook: The Official Guide to the Black American Princess. New York: Broadway Books. Jessie Carney Smith

Baptisms Baptisms, a religious ritual, involve the immersion of a human body in water. Baptisms indicate purification, a spiritual conversion, and a spiritual rebirth. Since slavery times, baptisms, particularly those held outdoors, have played a monumental role in African American life and have functioned as a major archetypal motif in assorted mediums of African American popular culture, such as art, dance, and literature. Religious beliefs were deeply entrenched in the culture of African societies, but Christianity and practices such as baptisms, were virtually unknown in most regions in Africa. Africans, mostly from West Africa, were introduced to Christianity when they were transported to North America as slaves. Although African slaves were often prohibited from religious worship, some slaves either engaged in religious activities in secret or were permitted by their slave masters to conduct worship services in their slave quarters. The Baptist faith was one of the most prominent religions practiced by blacks in the South, and outdoor baptisms were one of the denomination’s most distinctive features.

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Outdoor baptisms were commonly practiced by blacks between the slave years and the 1950s, when racial segregation had not yet been abolished. Because blacks mostly conducted baptisms themselves in their own communities, the practice emerged as a unique cultural expression. Baptisms frequently commenced with a procession, led by the preacher and deacons, that led from the designated worship place or church building to a river or lake. Individuals in the procession sang Spirituals, like ‘‘Wade in the Water’’ and ‘‘Take Me to the Water.’’ (Popular spirituals concerning traditional black baptisms are still sung today in black churches.) The children and adults who were baptized at these gatherings commonly dressed in white robes and descended into the water, where the preacher would speak words over them and submerge them underwater. Baptisms were frequently followed by fellowship at the church. Generally, the experience was considered uplifting to all the participants and attendees and functioned as an important solidifying moment for the community. Baptisms were so much a part of the new culture of the African descendants in the New World and the collective experiences and memories of subsequent generations of African Americans that it emerged as a reoccurring theme in works that reflected black life. It should come as no surprise that the majority of these pieces were created during two critical artistic movements in African American history: the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Among the artists who explored African American baptisms in artwork were Howard Cook, Clementine Hunter, William W. Johnson, and Romare Bearden. Cook, a white artist from Springfield, Massachusetts, utilized assorted methods, such as etching, woodcutting, waterpainting, and oil painting. He produced a number of works depicting America’s diversity in New Mexico and several southern states. River Baptism (1935), a wood engraving, shows an African American woman wading in a pool of water, with arms outstretched and her face filled with spiritual bliss. Other images in this piece include a preacher who prepares to baptize another woman and a solemn crowd huddled on the shore. In 1944, African American artist William W. Johnson produced I Baptize Thee, a vibrant rendering of an outdoor baptism of an African American male in a white robe. Two males stand at his side dressed in black with their eyes closed. On the shore is a man in a white robe waiting his turn to be baptized and African Americans dressed in their Sunday best clothing. Hunter and Bearden were other vaunted artists who depicted baptisms in their artwork. Clementine Hunter chronicled her personal memories of life on a plantation in her paintings. In 1945, she created Panorama of a Baptism on Cane River, which portrayed a serene scene comprising a church, a procession, an outdoor baptism, and trees. Hunter’s Baptism (1964), an oil painting, displays a church and a procession of women shrouded in white and led by two individuals in black. Next to the procession is a woman in bright blue water flanked by two individuals facilitating her baptism. All of Hunter’s characters have no facial features; consequently, the paintings are void of the poignant emotions that are present in other artist’s works. Bearden, who specialized in abstract collage styles, created The Prevalence of Ritual: Baptism (1964). Bearden’s work is vastly different from artists like

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Johnson and Hunt. Rather than create bold caricatures of black life, he melded eclectic images within a single frame. For example, in Bearden’s 1964 treatment of an African American baptism, he combined fragmented images, such as African masks, the face of an African American boy, and a hand, within the backdrop of an outdoor scene and a church. Dance and literature were other mediums in which African Americans found creative ways to represent African American baptisms. Alvin Ailey, the celebrated African American dancer, choreographer, and founder of the eponymous dance company, drew from his upbringing in a black community in Texas to create expressive dances. In Revelations, an iconic dance performance, Ailey features a baptism scene. He uses colors and human motion to signify the baptism process. Everett LeRoi Jones, also known as Amiri Baraka, produced the play The Baptism (1964). This play was deemed controversial because of offensive language and dialogue. Afrocentric art, dance, and literature experienced a revival in the 1980s and 1990s. Among the themes that reappeared in black art, literature, and film by classic and modern artists was the outdoor baptism scene, an iconic image that played a poignant role in early black life. See also: Churches Further Reading Chapman, Abraham, ed. 1970. Black Voices: An Anthology of African-American Literature. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gips, Terry, et al. 1998. Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection. San Francisco: Pomegranate. Jervis, Rick. ‘‘Outdoor Baptisms Dwindling.’’ USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com /news/religion/2009-08-04-riverbaptism_N.htm. Manning, Susan. 2004. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Matthews, Terry. ‘‘The Religion of the Slaves.’’ Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. http://www.wfu.edu/~matthetl/perspectives/twelve.html. Gladys L. Knight

Baraka, Amiri (Everett LeRoi Jones, 1934– ), Poet, Playwright, Social and Political Activist, Educator Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones on October 7, 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Coyt LeRoy Jones, a postal worker, and Anna Lois (Russ), a social worker. Baraka grew up in a middle-class home and would go on to become recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Black Arts Movement—a cultural flowering that began around 1960 and lasted until about 1975, putting forth a black aesthetic rooted in black cultural experience.

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Following his education in the Newark public school system, Baraka attended Rutgers University in Newark before transferring to Howard University, where he graduated with his BA degree in 1954. After graduation, he served two years in the United States Air Force, followed by a stint at Columbia University where he studied comparative literature. During the 1950s and 1960s, Baraka lived and worked on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which afforded him a firsthand introduction to the world of literary arts. As a resident of the Lower East Side, Baraka forged relationships with avant-garde writers and edited Yugen and Floating Bear. ‘‘What I learned in the Village,’’ Baraka explained to Ted Wilson, ‘‘is the literary equivalent of what you’re born Amiri Baraka, poet and leading figure in the with in the first place. You can do anyBlack Arts Movement. (Library of Congress) thing you want to do. You want to write a poem this way or that way, do it. But then the idea of having to come through all that academic stuff and then rebel against that and do what those white poets were rebelling against, made me know I could do what I wanted to do in the first place.’’ As he matured as an artist, Baraka’s work acquired its leftist political edge, earning him recognition as one of the more radical writers in American and African American letters. During the 1960s, Baraka was explosive and prolific, publishing 12 works, which included five plays, three books of poetry, three works of nonfiction, and one work of fiction. Buoyed by Thurgood Marshall’s legal victory of Brown v. Board of Education, along with the progress of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing during the 1960s, and Baraka contributed to the raising of a revolutionary consciousness with his work in theater. His plays from the early 1960s, in particular The Baptism and The Toilet, feature homosexual characters who represent the burgeoning counterculture. Seeing theater as a medium for effective social change, Baraka infused his subsequent plays with a distinct black consciousness. Two of his most well-known plays from the 1960s are Dutchman (1964) and Slave Ship (1967). Both plays mark Baraka’s transition from a Beatnik sensibility to that of the Black Arts Movement. In Dutchman, Clay, a young black student,

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while riding the subway, is seduced by a white woman, who later kills him. In Slave Ship, Baraka created a play in which actors and audience alike experience a trans-Atlantic crossing in a slave vessel. Similar to Ralph Ellison, whose 1952 novel Invisible Man examines the metaphor of invisibility for humanity in general and for African Americans in particular, Baraka extended the particular black experience of the Middle Passage to a larger experience that crossed racial and cultural borders. When faced with racial injustice, audience and actors alike are, quite literally, in the same ship. Along with his work as a playwright, novelist, and poet, Baraka taught at the New School for Social Research from 1961 until 1964, with shorter appointments held at Columbia University and San Francisco State University. In 1961, with the feminist and Beat poet Diane di Prima, Baraka founded the American Theater for Poets. Even as early as the 1960s, Baraka showed the impulse to use his success to foster the success of other artists. Baraka’s move from the Village to Harlem encouraged him to reinvent the framework of his art, moving from the western classics to his vernacular roots. ‘‘But actually, when I got to Harlem, then I went back to my real model,’’ Baraka explained. ‘‘I still had a jazz model all the time but then it became clearer and clearer that I could use that; I could be James Brown if I wanted to; I could be John Coltrane if I wanted to. That was my heritage, my legacy, it wasn’t picking and choosing anonymous circumstances. That’s who I was anyway, the Blues, country blues, James Brown.’’ In an attempt to define the concept ‘‘black aesthetic,’’ Baraka collaborated with writer and filmmaker Larry Neal on the anthology Black Fire, published in 1968 and hailed a ‘‘literary landmark’’ by Hoyt Fuller. In the 1970s, Baraka returned home to Newark and officially changed his name to Amiri Baraka (‘‘Blessed Prince’’) in recognition of his adherence to the Kawaida faith, a blend of orthodox Islam with traditional African practices. He continued in his quest to foster art in his community by opening the Spirit House Theater. In 1992, with his wife Amina, Baraka opened Kimako’s Blues People, an arts space in Newark. In 2001, Baraka was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the James Weldon Johnson Medal for his significant contributions to American and African American life and culture. From 2002 until 2004, Baraka served as poet laureate of New Jersey, but refused to rest on his laurels and produced volumes of poetry that remain powerful statements of black consciousness: Somebody Blew Up America and Other Poems and Un Poco Low Coup. Readers seeking an overview of Baraka’s life might begin with his 1984 autobiography. Readers seeking to chart Baraka’s artistic development might begin with his fictional work, The System of Dante’s Hell, which will serve as a point of comparison for his play Slave Ship. Those readers seeking to explore the roots of Baraka’s artistic vision are encouraged to read his nonfiction work titled Blues People.

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Baraka’s trademark radical consciousness takes root in the possibility of what he calls a ‘‘better tomorrow.’’ As he explained to Wilson, ‘‘There are some things happening that speak of a better tomorrow. That’s my hope and I think that we all have to get clear again that the things we started to do in the 60s and 70s that are not completed have to be picked up before we leave the planet. We have to leave a clear legacy to the next generation.’’ Further Reading Bordman, Gerald, and Thomas S. Hischak, eds. 2004. ‘‘Baraka, Amiri.’’ The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Turco, Lewis. 1996. ‘‘Baraka, Amiri Imamu.’’ In The Oxford Companion to TwentiethCentury Poetry in English. Ian Hamilton, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Ted. 2007. ‘‘Ted Wilson Interviews Amiri Baraka.’’ Black Renaissance (Fall): 8– 13, 15–23, 142. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Barbecue The story of barbecue in African American popular culture is deeply rooted in the history of black people. Although it is defined as a means of cooking meat slowly over embers, or hot, white ashes, barbecue is considered as a social gathering, festival, or cookout as well. Barbecue establishments have become a traditional business, ranging from early roadside stands to sit-down or drive-through restaurants. They have become a cultural icon for many African American entrepreneurs. There are accounts of roasting meat on sticks as far back as 1526, and some credit the Spanish for demonstrating this method. By 1668, the word ‘‘boucan’’ was used to refer to a method of preparation. Various accounts of barbecuing in different cultures occur as well. For African Americans, however, barbecuing may be traced to the Senegambia region of West Africa, where open braising of meat was a common practice. The African heritage of slaves who were relocated to the West Indies was demonstrated as they continued the practice. Thus, slaves who came from the West Indies to the South, particularly to South Carolina, brought with them their method of cooking pork. Whatever its real history, barbecuing has become a product of techniques used by different cultural groups or regions that now have blended to fit the appetites of different people. Folklorist William H. Wiggins Jr. recounts a folktale of an emancipated slave who rejected his former master’s low wages that consisted of the head, feet, entrails, and tail of a slaughtered hog. The former slave tells his master that he is ‘‘eating further up on the hog than that,’’ and now eats ribs, backbone, pork chops, and other parts. This, according to Wiggins, gave rise to the African American phrase, ‘‘eating higher on the hog.’’ Juneteenth and other freedom celebrations

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often evoke rituals of slavery time, and call for barbecue to link celebrants with their slave ancestors in rite and symbol and to acknowledge racial progress. Some celebrants also use as their Juneteenth motto: ‘‘From the pigpen to the palace.’’ Through the years, church celebrations in the African American community, whether urban or rural homecomings, revivals, or other occasions, have led to a survival of the traditional open-pit barbecue when whole hogs were cooked from eight to ten hours, turned regularly, and brushed with a specially prepared sauce. Barbecuing became popular in the South after the Civil War, when servants cooked whole hogs for special occasions for whites. As slaves were freed, they maintained their special technique for barbecuing and later opened roadside stands, or the American South’s first restaurants. They used the open-pit methods; that is, they cooked their meat over a hole in the ground. When health officials set standards for sanitation requirements as early as the late 1800s and into the 1900s, many blacks were unable to meet the standards and white barbecue businesses flourished instead. Many retained black cooks to prepare their dishes. The blending of cooking technique spread in various ways. Some claim that, as slaves were relocated from the Deep South to Texas, they took their talents for barbecuing with them and later applied them to beef—a meat in great abundance in that state. Blacks who migrated from the South to the North, Midwest, and elsewhere also may have preserved similar techniques for cooking, as black barbecue joints and Soul Food restaurants opened there. This may account for the barbecue joints tucked away in urban streets and corners that were known for their good products. A popular notion in American culture is that only blacks are able to cook ‘‘real’’ barbecue. Racial segregation in the South and beyond rarely kept whites from patronizing black barbecue establishments located in the black community. In fact, their patronage helped to make some black barbecue establishments became nationally known. This is true of both Bryant’s and Gates’s establishments located in Kansas City, Missouri. Arthur Bryant founded Bryant’s Barbecue in 1970, while George W. Gates opened Gates’s old Kentucky Bar-B-Que in 1946. In addition to his specialty, ribs, Gates offers barbecued chicken, beef, and turkey. The mail order businesses that both firms established enabled them to distribute their meats and sauces nationwide. Some elements in popular culture have a negative view of barbecue. According to Wiggins, Black Muslims, for example, believe that a slave mentality will be perpetuated among African Americans who eat pork and perceive pork as ‘‘being symbolic of the hated white man.’’ A common practice today, however, is to avoid pork and other soul foods, as well as the traditional method of cooking with pork, fat, or drippings, since they are detrimental to one’s health. Reliance on such foods leads to high blood pressure, obesity, and heart disease, thus causing many in the black community to eat healthier foods instead. While barbecue was important earlier in freedom celebrations in the African American community, it is also important today in communitywide celebrations that emerged well after the modern Civil Rights Movement. Various festivals

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and celebrations, such as blues festivals, cook-off contests, and the popular Memphis in May event each year are all racially integrated and embrace an activity long practiced in the African American community. Street fairs, family reunions, football games (especially Sports Classics and college homecomings) are times for offering up barbecue ribs for the fans. Traditionally, when blacks visit their native communities for such events, they frequent barbecue joints for the down-home style dish that they remember well. In Nashville, for example, the Untouchables, a social club for black men, has existed for over fifty years; the members get together each July 3 for an all-night barbecue. Using the open-pit method, they barbecue a whole hog which they serve the following day to their families and friends. The event is simply a Fourth of July festivity as well as a reunion for former celebrants, those who return home at that time. Further Reading Elie, Lolis Eric, ed. 2004. Cornbread Nation 2. Chapel Hill, NC: Published in Association with the Southern Folkways Alliance, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi by the University of North Carolina Press. Smith, Jessie Carney. ‘‘Barbecue Establishments.’’ 2006. In Encyclopedia of African American Business. Vol. 1. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Thompson, Kathleen. 2006. In The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, Vol. 1. Anand Prahlad, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Wiggins, William H., Jr. 1987. O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Jessie Carney Smith

Barbershops The barbershop historically served as a center of cultural exchange and a repository of black oral expression in the African American community. They were—and are—a place for the various strata of the black community to mix. Politicians have been known to frequent these and other black businesses to solicit votes for candidates who assert their interest in the black community and its needs. Regarded as a place for gossip, more importantly they are a source of black male discourse, affirmation, and understanding. As noted in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folk Culture, barbershops are ‘‘repositories of African American folk culture, stock markets of cultural exchange, and schools of knowledge production.’’ In the antebellum United States, African Americans dominated the barbering business. Black barbers of this era who had an exclusive and pampered white clientele also had economic advantages. One such barber was slave-born William Tiler Johnson (1809–51), known as the ‘‘Barber of Natchez,’’ who owned three barbershops and a bathhouse in Natchez, Mississippi. He was freed in 1820. His extensive

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diary, dated 1835–51, notes his expenditures and investments. After working as an apprentice, Johnson established his first barbershop in Port Gibson and sold it when he moved to Natchez in 1830. There he purchased the shop owned by his brotherin-law, James Miller, a free black barber in the city. Johnson served a predominantly white clientele but hired slave apprentice barbers in his shops. Alonzo F. Herndon (1858–1927), was a prosperous barber, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a great economic and social leader. Born a slave near Social Circle, Georgia, and emancipated at age seven, he worked on a farm and then did odd jobs in small towns in Georgia. He also learned barbering—one of the most lucrative professions for a black man in the segregated South. Herndon opened his first shop in Jonesboro but left to practice his profession throughout the state from about 1878 to 1882. He also had short stays in Rome, Georgia, and in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but realized his dream for success in Atlanta. His determination to succeed led him to become a first-class barber. He joined the city’s most prominent black barber, Dougherty Hutchins, whose success was seen in the pre-Civil War period. Herndon soon operated a five-chair shop and by 1893 owned three more shops. Although his black clientele served him well, the shop that brought him recognition throughout the South was the Crystal Palace—his business for white clientele. Located on Peachtree Street, his elegant shop, which opened in 1902, boasted twenty-five chairs and twenty baths and showers. Herndon traveled to Europe, where he learned to enhance his skills and his service to his customers. He also upgraded his shop with elegant furnishing that he saw while in Paris, such as beveled plate glass, which he copied. He also bought gold mirrors and bronze and crystal chandeliers during his travels. He added white marble walls and floors, and porcelain barber chairs. Those who frequented the Crystal Palace included judges, lawyers, doctors, and political figures. His access to these important and prosperous white men enabled Herndon to increase his wealth, which he invested in real estate and in the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, for which he is more widely known. Despite the respect that white and black Atlantans held for Herndon, he remained vulnerable to racism. During the Atlanta race riot of 1906, the Crystal Palace was damaged, four of his barbers were injured, and a bootblack was killed. Black Leaders as Barbers Among other African American men who once operated lucrative barber shops were Cincinnati barber William Watson, a former slave who prospered enough to purchase freedom for his mother and siblings. In 1820, abolitionist and barbershop-owner John Bathan Vashon (1792–1854) opened the first public bathhouse west of the Alleghenies. Daniel Hale Williams (1856–1931), pioneer physician and hospital founder who became internationally known for performing the first open-heart surgery, spent a part of his early life working as a barber to earn a living. In 1892, John Henry Merrick (1859–1919) cofounded many businesses in North Carolina, including North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, for

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which he is best known. After a stint as co-owner, in 1892 he became sole proprietor of the Merrick and Wright Barbershop. Eventually he owned about nine racially segregated shops and accommodated white and black clients in different shops. He invested his profits in real estate. African American barbershops with a large white clientele fared well until the late nineteenth century, when Italian and German immigrants competed for their clients. Perhaps due to racial restrictions still in effect, the immigrants drove them from downtown areas where their businesses had flourished. When laws were established requiring formal training for barbers, African Americans also lost their monopoly on the business. Henry M. Morgan (1893–1961) helped to resolve this problem for blacks and established the first national chain of barber colleges for blacks. In 1934 he founded Tyler Barber College in Tyler, Texas, followed by such colleges in Houston, Dallas, Little Rock, Memphis, and New York City. The colleges soon produced 80 percent of the black barbers in the country. Barbershops and Beauty Shops have been among the most popular blackowned businesses in the black community. For example, of the ten most numerous types of such businesses in Chicago in 1938, beauty parlors headed the list with 287, grocery stores with 257, and barber shops with 207. Joseph Pierce’s study of retail stores owned and operated by blacks in sample cities in 1944, including such cities as Atlanta, Baltimore, Durham, Houston, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Washington, and others, showed 600 beauty shops and 404 barber shops. The existence and prosperity of these businesses depended largely upon a black clientele. Barber and beauty shops comprise more than one-fourth of the businesses studied and were important among the recommendations that Pierce gave for improvement of the black businesses. He called for better-trained barbers; however, the successful operators saw that ‘‘students of economic and social conditions and their record-keeping devices . . . [were] adequate and sound.’’ From the earliest accounts of African American barbering businesses to recent times, those African American barbers who were successful owned and operated several shops within a city or expanded their businesses to nearby towns. Their larger shops hired several barbers each who had a chair of his own. Many African American artists and scholars have addressed the barbershop in their works. These include Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, and Richard Wright. Barbershop talk is the subject of several separate works, including Melvin Murphy’s Barber Shop Talk: The Other Side of Black Men (1998) and Melissa Victoria Harris-Lackwell’s Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (2004). The black barbershop was highlighted with the release in 2002 of the comedy film Barbershop, starring Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, and Anthony Anderson. The lively conversation included such significant issues as Rosa Parks’s contribution to the Civil Rights Movement, Arizona’s refusal to recognize the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday, reparations for blacks, and blacks and white people who act like each other. Notwithstanding the stereotypical images in the film, Barbershop included many typical discussions that occur in a real life business venture of that type.

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Further Reading Davis, Edwin Adams, and William Ransom Hogan. 1954. The Barber of Natchez. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Dupont, Jill. ‘‘Barbershops.’’ 2009. In Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present, Vol. 1. Paul Finkelman, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Ingham, John N., and Lynne B. Feldman. 1994. African-American Business Leaders. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Nunley, Vorris. ‘‘The Barbershop.’’ 2006. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folk Culture, Vol. 1. Anand Prahlad, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Pierce, Joseph A. 1947. Negro Business and Business Education. Repr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971. Jessie Carney Smith

Barden, Don (1943– ), Entrepreneur, Casino Executive Don Herbert Barden, born in Inkster, Michigan, in 1943, is the first African American to own and operate a national casino company. Barden Companies, which operates casinos and develops real estate, is ranked among the ten largest African American companies in the United States. Barden’s first venture, a record store, was launched after he dropped out of college at Ohio’s Central State University in 1963. It was merely the stepping-stone to other entrepreneurial pursuits. He traded the record store for a public relations firm. When advertising failed to produce the expected financial rewards, Barden sought opportunities in real estate. He was also a popular television news anchor and a talk show host in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1972 he was elected as the first African American to serve on the Lorain City Council. Further political ambitions were deferred after an unsuccessful bid for the Ohio state senate. Barden’s vision to expand cable television to low-income urban black communities was realized through skillful negotiation with cable franchises. Barden Communications earned lucrative profits with a two percent market share. By 1981, Barden Cablevision owned the cable television franchise to black communities in Detroit, Michigan. A 1983 partnership with McLean Hunter solidified a fifteen-year cable contract for the Detroit market. Never one to rest on his laurels, Barden’s developed a keen interest in casino gambling. At the opportune moment in 1984, he sold his cablevision business and purchased the Majestic Star riverboat casino in Gary, Indiana. Barden’s proposal to build a horse track with slot machines in Detroit was opposed and abandoned. An international investment deal with General Motors to manufacture and sell GM vehicles in Namibia garnered little profit. In 2001, he acquired three casinos through bankruptcy, in Las Vegas; Tunica, Mississippi; and Black Hawk, Colorado, significantly increasing his holdings. He spent $253 million to purchase the Trump Casino-Hotel riverboat in Gary, Indiana. After lobbying heavily in Pennsylvania, he won the bid to build and operate a casino

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on the Pittsburgh waterfront. To seal the deal, Barden pledged $7.5 million a year for thirty years to fund a new hockey arena. Legal wrangling and financial woes delayed the project until 2007. Barden takes risks, but he carefully considers the stakes and weighs the bets. His foresight, wisdom, flexibility, and ability to ferret out opportunities for quick investment have contributed to his phenomenal success. He resides in Detroit with his wife Bella Marshall and son Keenan. Further Reading Bray, Hiawatha. ‘‘Wired for Success.’’ Black Enterprise 22 (June 1992): 134–37. Dingle, Derek T. 1999. Black Enterprise Titans of the B.E. 100’s: Black CEOs Who Redefined and Conquered American Business. New York: Wiley. Hamill, Sean. ‘‘For Casino Owner, Winning a License Was Not a Matter of Luck,’’ New York Times, A20, December 12, 2007. LoDico, John, and Rebecca Parker. ‘‘Don Barden.’’ 1999. Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale Research. Janette Prescod

Barkley, Charles (1963– ), Basketball Player, Sports Commentator Charles Barkley was named one of the National Basketball Association’s fifty greatest players during the league golden anniversary in 1996. He played sixteen professional seasons, from 1984 until 2000. In the twenty-first century, Barkley assumed new roles as commentator and pitchman. A pop culture icon because he has stretched beyond sport, Barkley is a man of strong opinions. He has the uncanny ability to offend and endear himself to fans, often at the same time. Barkley’s winning formula is unvarnished honesty. At the peak of his NBA stardom he famously counseled that children should not look to sports stars and celebrities as role models; parents and teachers, he said, were better choices. On another occasion he riled leaders of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) by saying that wildlife were fit only to eat or wear. Barkley said that as he chomped on a hamburger. He makes no apologies for his outrageous statements. Barkley corrects critics who say he speaks before his thinks. To the contrary, he insists. He makes off-color comments after pondering the consequences. His friend Michael Jordan said Barkley utters opinions that people like him are often thinking, but are too squeamish to say in public. Charles Wade Barkley was born February 20, 1963, in Leeds, Alabama, the only child of Frank and Charcey (Glenn) Barkley. The boy’s parents separated and later divorced. Young Charles was raised by his mother, a domestic worker,

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and a grandmother, a beautician who also worked in a meat packing plant. At age nine, Charles spent most of his spare time playing basketball. He failed, however, to make his high school basketball team on the initial try. Charles succeeded by his junior year. At that time he was oddly shaped for basketball, 5 feet 10 inches tall but wide at 220 pounds. By senior year, he grew to 6 feet 4inches and 240 pounds. During his senior year, Barkley’s rebounding and scoring talent earned him a scholarship offer from Auburn University in his home state. At Auburn, Barkley’s notoriety took root. His weight ballooned to 300 pounds and there he was tagged with nicknames such as ‘‘Boy Gorge’’ and ‘‘round mound Phoenix Suns forward Charles Barkley shoots over of rebound.’’ Nevertheless, Houston Rockets forward Robert Horry during the Barkley led the Southeastern first quarter in their playoff game May 11, 1995, in Phoenix. (AP/Wide World Photos) Conference in rebounding his freshman, sophomore, and junior years, and led his Auburn team to its first appearance in the NCAA tournament. Barkley skipped his senior year to try and make it in the NBA. In 1984, Barkley was an intriguing prospect. He was often listed as 6 feet 6 inches tall, a laughable claim since his credible height was 6 feet 4 inches. Barkley routinely outjumped and outmuscled much taller opponents. He rejected a $75,000 contract offer from the Philadelphia 76ers and reported to camp unsigned, a risky ploy for an unheralded rookie. But after an outstanding tryout, Barkley agreed to a $2 million, four-year contract. He was mentored on the court by Julius ‘‘Dr. J’’ Erving, whose team had won the championship a year before Barkley’s arrival. In his rookie season, Barkley was the only 76er to play in every regular season game and he averaged 14 points and nearly 9 rebounds per game. Barkley also racked up numerous technical fouls

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and fines for haranguing officials. The next season, Barkley became a starter and his scoring and rebounding averages improved. In 1987, Erving retired and the 76ers became Barkley’s team. Management acquired talented players to complement their leader and the 76ers won more games and pushed deeper into the playoffs. In 1989–90, Barkley’s team won its division with a 53–29 record. After winning the first round of the playoffs, they succumbed in the second round to the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. That year Barkley averaged 25 points, nearly 12 rebounds, and he rung up a record $36,000 in fines for offenses that included allegedly spitting on a referee, making a bet with an opponent over who would score a winning basket, and fighting during a game against the Detroit Pistons that escalated into a bench-clearing brawl. That year a vote by his peers got him named Sporting News Player of the Year. Barkley narrowly lost NBA Most Valuable Player to Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson. By the early 1990s, Barkley was an established NBA all-star. Former taunts about his girth like ‘‘round mound’’ and ‘‘Boy Gorge’’ were replaced with ‘‘Sir Charles.’’ He was also an incorrigible bad boy. More than thirty people picketed the 76ers arena when Barkley joked after a hard-fought overtime win: ‘‘This is a game that if you lose, you go home and beat your wife and kids.’’ He defended his remark as a jocular aside that was not intended for the newspapers. Four months later in March 1991, Barkley spit in the direction of an adult spectator who yelled racial epithets, but missed and splattered an eight-year-old girl. Barkley was chagrined and he apologized. MVP, Reluctant Role Model Barkley’s eight-year run with the 76ers ended in 1992. He was traded to the Phoenix Suns. In Philadelphia, Barkley had been the shortest player ever to win an NBA rebounding title, averaging 14.6 in 1986–87. His productivity continued as a Phoenix Sun. Barkley earned the NBA Most Valuable Player Award during the 1992–93 season. He led the Suns deep into the playoffs twice, but championships eluded him. In 1993, Barkley recorded his ‘‘I am not a role model’’ commercial for Nike sporting goods. He was a member of the gold medal-winning 1992 and 1996 U.S. Olympic ‘‘Dream Teams’’ of NBA stars. In movies, Barkley played a hulking adversary in Space Jam, the 1996 animated feature that starred Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny. Injuries began to take a toll on Barkley’s body and productivity. In the summer of 1996, he was traded to the Houston Rockets. A devastating knee injury—torn quadriceps tendon—ended Barkley’s playing career. When he was done, in 2000, Barkley joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Karl Malone as the only superstars who recorded at least 23,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, and 4,000 assists. Reliably, Barkley joked about his forced retirement from professional sport: ‘‘Now I’m just what America needs—another unemployed black man.’’ Barkley would not be unemployed for long. He deftly used humor as a blunt-talking analyst with Turner Network Television and CNN. He became cohost with NBA champion Kenny Smith and moderator Ernie Johnson on Inside the NBA, a TNT network postgame show.

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Barkley has been fodder for several autobiographies and books, including Outrageous: The Fine Life and Flagrant Good Times of Basketball’s Irresistible Force (1992), written with Roy S. Johnson; I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It (2002), by Barkley and with an introduction and edited by Michael Wilbon; and Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man: Race, Power, Fame, Identity, and Why Everyone Should Read My Book (2006), a collection of interviews of notable people on the subject of race, conducted by Barkley and edited by Michael Wilbon. All has not been rosy with Charles Barkley’s image in recent years, however. He has acknowledged being a compulsive gambler and was charged with a civil suit to repay $400,000 he owed to a Las Vegas Casino. He told the New York Times on May 20, 2008, that he had paid the debt. He also said that he planned to quit at that point, at least for a few years. In late 2008, he was arrested for drunken driving and served three days in the Maricopa County Jail in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2009 and was required to attend an alcohol treatment program. Despite his problems, Barkley was still able to get work as an advertising pitchman, which emphasized his sense of humor. For example, a 2010 Taco Bell box meal advertisement showed Sir Charles at this clowning best, strutting through a crowd and reciting a verse. He is also the set-up and punchline in T-Mobile cellular telephone commercials with twenty-first century NBA superstars Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat) and Dwight Howard (Orlando Magic). Wade and Howard took turns poking fun at Barkley’s awkward golf swings or ineptitude at playing video games. Barkley self-effacingly asked for doughnuts or virtually pulled Howard’s hamstring while playing a video basketball game. Charles Barkley, an NBA legend, retired from his sport at the end of the twentieth century, yet he remains fresh and visible in the twenty-first century as a commentator and funny man. Further Reading Barkley, Charles, W. 2002. I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It. Michael Wilbon, ed. New York: Random House. Barkley, Charles W., and Roy S. Johnson. 1992. Outrageous: The Fine Life and Flagrant Good Times of Basketball’s Irresistible Force. New York: Simon & Schuster. Fifty Greatest NBA Players. http://www.nba.com/history/players/50greatest.html. Malone, Karl. ‘‘One Role Model to Another: Whether He Likes It or Not, Charles Barkley Sets an Example that Many will Follow.’’ Sports Illustrated 78 (June 14, 1993): 84. Sandomir, Richard. ‘‘Barkley Says Gambling Debt Is Paid.’’ New York Times, May 20, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/sports/basketball/20barkley.html?refbasketball. Wayne Dawkins

Baseball The African American experience or deeply woven into the game of baseball from its inception. During slavery, African Americans in bondage played baseball during time away from the concentrated labor of southern plantations, and

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in the antebellum northeastern United States, African Americans participated in white amateur baseball. All-black teams, too, can be found in the early landscape of baseball, where teams such as the Colored Union Club, the Monitors, the Philadelphia Pythians, the Brooklyn Uniques, and the Philadelphia Excelsiors served as harbingers for the Negro Baseball Leagues of the twentieth century. In the 1870s, predominantly white colleges had black baseball players. John L. Harrison played for Marietta College; the Walker brothers, Moses Fleetwood ‘‘Fleet’’ and Weldy, played for Oberlin College; and Julius P. Haynes for Dartmouth. In the 1890s, Amherst College was led by their African American captain, James Frances Gregory, whose brother, Eugene, pitched for Harvard. Formed in 1876, the National League practiced a ‘‘tacit prohibition’’ of black players. Black players could be found in minor league clubs, but they were denied the opportunity to play against the best white players. Of John ‘‘Bud’’ Fowler, who began his professional career in 1878, a journalist from Sporting Life noted in Rogosin and Riess, ‘‘He is one of the best general players in the country, and if he had a white face would be playing with the best of them.’’ Despite the odds against him, in 1883, ‘‘Fleet’’ Walker, of Oberlin fame, entered the highest ranks of white baseball as a catcher for Toledo. In a career spanning fifty-one games, he batted .253 and established himself as an outstanding defensive catcher. Yet, for all his skill, ‘‘Fleet’’ Walker suffered indignities at the hands of white fans and players, even teammates, including one of his pitchers, who said, according to Rogosin and Riess, that Walker was ‘‘the best catcher I ever worked with, but I dislike a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used anything I wanted without looking at his signals.’’ Toward the end of the 1883 season, ‘‘Fleet’’ Walker’s brother, Weldy, joined him on the Toledo team, making the Walker brothers pioneers across baseball’s color line over a half century before Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Despite individual achievements by African Americans, such as pitcher George Stovey of Newark setting an International League record with thirty-four wins in one season and Frank Grant of Buffalo batting .366 in 1887 and leading the league in extra-base hits, white resentment against black success mounted to the extent that after 1889, no black players could be found in the International League. One of the results of this embargo was the formation of black professional clubs such as the Philadelphia Orions, the St. Louis Black Stockings, and the Cuban Giants, who became a famous barnstorming club, playing against allblack teams, college teams, even professional white teams. The ‘‘Cuban’’ part of their name was used to reduce racial prejudice and ‘‘Giants’’ was homage to the National League team in New York City. Twentieth-Century Black Baseball By the turn of the twentieth century, black participation in baseball was particularly pronounced. African Americans played baseball in sandlots, while enrolled in colleges and universities, even while enlisted in the armed services. The sport, too, was popular among many of the leaders of the race, such as the activist

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Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and the diplomat, writer, and educator, James Weldon Johnson. Johnson had attended Atlanta University, and the city of Atlanta became known as one of the hotbeds of black college baseball. Along the way, a bumper crop of talented black players were making the game their own. Andrew ‘‘Rube’’ Foster, born in Calvert, Texas, in 1879, was an outstanding pitcher, compiling back-to-back fifty-win seasons, and an entrepreneur who founded the Chicago American Giants in 1911 and the National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, or the Negro National League (NNL), in 1920. Launching with six teams in the Midwestern United States, the NNL was a financial success but began to suffer with Foster’s failing health. With the onset of the Great Depression and Foster’s death in 1930, the NNL folded in the following year. Gus Greenlee revived the Negro National League in 1933 on the strength of money he had gained through running illegal lotteries. Greenlee owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords, a club that featured some of the greatest players of alltime. Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, James ‘‘Cool Papa’’ Bell, and Judy Johnson would all go on to become inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a result of their skill and perseverance. In 1937, the white-owned Negro American League (NAL), featuring the Kansas City Monarchs from Foster’s day, began operations. As a result, Negro League baseball became divided geographically into eastern (NNL) and western (NAL) clubs with a highly celebrated and well-attended East-West All-Star Game. To remain financially solvent during the Great Depression, Negro League baseball was innovative. Night games were played to encourage day laborers to attend games after work. Even so, the game itself faced labor struggles as players would jump teams, often during the same season, for higher wages. Some of the better players would travel to the Caribbean for winter ball for additional income. It was a barnstorming life for Negro League baseball players. As Gloria Naylor wrote in her 1993 novel, Bailey’s Caf
e, with prose that bristles with a jazz-like cadence: ‘‘so the Northern games are where he goes all out and hopefully gets himself voted into the East-West Classics and his team into the Negro World Series, which makes it September but not quitting time because with all of this the pay hasn’t been too great and there’s always winter ball in Florida for the tourists or maybe Cuba, leaving just enough time to start preseason barnstorming again in February.’’ While George Herman ‘‘Babe’’ Ruth revolutionized white professional baseball, making it a game of power as he blasted behemoth homeruns at Yankee Stadium (known in the lore as ‘‘The House That Ruth Built’’), Negro League baseball was a game of speed, defense, and pitching. Lacking the economic resources of white professional baseball, the Negro Leagues favored pitchers because the baseballs were often scuffed, allowing hurlers to challenge the laws of physics with their offerings. Growing up in Gasoline Point, near Mobile, Alabama, author Albert Murray as a boy watched Satchel Paige pitch, and in his novel Train Whistle Guitar, he offers readers a near-mythic account of Paige. After securing two outs in the bottom of the ninth with a one-run lead, Gator Gus (modeled after Satchel Paige) waved all players off the field and struck out

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the final batter with an array of ‘‘mess-merizing curves followed by his special of specials the fadeaway.’’ As the case of Satchel Paige indicates, showmanship was one of the hallmarks of Negro League. Pitchers and batters might engage in prolonged bouts of playing the Dozens; batters would turn their backs to home plate, pivoting just as the pitch was delivered and displaying vicious torque with their swings. The Indianapolis Clowns, too, became baseball’s equivalent of basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters. By the 1940s, Negro League baseball had become a lucrative cultural institution filled with civic pride. The players themselves were heroes, demigods, symbols of hope. The Color Line is Broken Then came April 15, 1947, and Jackie Robinson. Robinson’s crossing of Major League Baseball’s color line spelled the end of the Negro Leagues. In 1951, the NNL folded. The NAL, with its western orientation, (the eastern seaboard of the United States had been designated as ‘‘Jackie Robinson Country’’) lasted until 1960. In 1990, the Negro League Baseball Museum opened in Kansas City, Missouri, and has proven instrumental in conserving the lore, legacy, and legends of Negro League baseball. In the summer of 1945, Wesley Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began scouting for talent in the Negro Leagues, and in October 1945, he signed Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs, not necessarily for his skill, but for his character. Robinson opened the 1946 season with the Montreal Royals and led the league with a .349 batting average and runs scored. In 1947, Robinson conducted spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers in Cuba, where race relations were less strained, and went on to garner Rookie of the Year honors, along with leading the Dodgers to the National League pennant. Along the way, Robinson showcased the speed, defense, and timely hitting that characterized Negro League baseball. ‘‘When Jackie Robinson first started playing, everyone was surprised at his antics. He stole second base. He stole third. Jackie Robinson stole home! It was something unheard of,’’ observed Curt Flood, former outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball’s National League. Rhoden notes in Forty Million Dollar Slaves: ‘‘Jackie Robinson dancing off the base, dancing and worrying the pitcher, and wanting him to throw to first base, and saying things. That style of baseball came from the old Negro Leagues, that is the way they played. Now you add to it the hit and run, the sacrifice, the stolen base, the hit behind the runner, the jockeying on and off base, that’s the style that Jackie Robinson brought.’’ When black athletes began integrating white professional sports, they brought with them a dynamic combination of ingenuity and innovation that transformed both the sporting and the social landscapes of the United States. With Robinson’s success, the door was open, but not wide, for black baseball players to play in the major leagues. By 1953, six of the sixteen teams in Major League Baseball had black players. But change was coming. As the historian David Halberstam has noted in his study of the October 1964 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League and the New York

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Yankees of the American League, ‘‘most astute baseball observers believed now that the entire American League was inferior to the National League because it had lagged behind in signing black players.’’ The effect of black players on National League baseball in the early years of integration was undeniable—five consecutive Rookie of the Year awards (1949–53), seven consecutive Most Valuable Player awards (1953–59). They brought speed with Lou Brock, Maury Wills, and Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader; they brought power with Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, and Barry Bonds, the all-time homerun leader; they brought pitching with the likes of Paige and Bob Gibson, whose 1.12 earned run average in 1968 remains an unsurpassed mark of excellence. In 1975, Frank Robinson, former player, became the first African American manger in Major League Baseball when he took the helm for the Cleveland Indians. Strides continue to be made in the front office of ball clubs as well as league administrative offices. Baseball, in all, is full of innovative African Americans who have shaped the national pastime in ways both measurable and immeasurable. To this day, Jackie Robinson’s jersey number from his days with the Dodgers, 42, is the only number retired in all of Major League Baseball, to commemorate his achievement as a player and as a cultural icon, ushering in a wave of acceptance and appreciation that transcends the game to the larger American cultural experience. Readers seeking to form a foundation for the Negro Leagues are invited to explore Robert Peterson’s Only the Ball Was White as well as Don Rogosin’s Invisible Men: Life in Baseball’s Negro Leagues. Full of in-depth research and deep insight, one of the finest studies on Jackie Robinson remains Arnold Rampersad’s Jackie Robinson: A Biography. See also: Negro Baseball Leagues Further Reading Halberstam, David. 1995. October 1964. New York: Random House. Murray, Albert. 1998. Train Whistle Guitar. New York: Vintage. Naylor, Gloria. 1993. Bailey’s Caf
e. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Riess, Steven A., and Donn Rogosin. 1996. ‘‘Baseball.’’ In Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, eds. New York: Macmillan Library Reference. Rhoden, William C. 2006. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. New York: Crown. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Basketball The game of basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith, a Canadian of Scottish descent, at the Springfield, Massachusetts, Young Men’s Christian Association Training School in 1891. Naismith’s game, one of humble origins,

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beginning with thirteen rules, two peach baskets, and a soccer ball, and designed to keep children fit during winters in Massachusetts, has grown into a multibillion dollar sporting spectacle full of narratives of triumph. It did not take long for basketball to gain popularity in the United States. By the turn of the twentieth century, public schools and churches alike began to incorporate basketball into their educational programs because it was physically vigorous, safer than boxing, and cost less than American football. During its nascent years, basketball was dominated by Jews and second-generation Eastern European immigrants. As a result of its popularity among Jewish immigrants, New York University (NYU) and City College of New York (CCNY) both enjoyed highly successful basketball programs. In 1934, NYU, with its Jewish starting five, won the basketball national championship. CCNY, with a student body that was predominantly (over 85 percent) of Jewish descent, featured some of the most important figures in the history of the game. Bernard ‘‘Barney’’ Sedran, who stood at 5 feet 4 inches and weighed 115 pounds, small even for his era, earning him the nickname ‘‘Mighty Mite,’’ was a CCNY basketball standout who went on to a thirteen-year professional career; he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1962. Long-time CCNY coach Nathan ‘‘Nat’’ Holmes, for his skill as a technician of the game, earned a berth in the Basketball Hall of Fame as well. African American Players Emerge The postwar boom of the American 1950s brought with it a move to the suburbs for people of Jewish descent, and this move meant a transition in the population of the urban game of basketball. While African Americans did play basketball at predominantly white universities before the 1950s, as was more often the case, they played basketball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As African American players became increasingly recruited by predominantly white institutions of higher learning following the boom of the suburbs, the style of the game itself evolved. ‘‘Whereas white players had for decades run, passed, and shot in predictably set patterns, blacks jazzed up the game with the faster, louder, more explosive improvisations that came right off the urban ghetto courts,’’ wrote scholar William J. Baker. ‘‘In order to compete, whites have had to adapt to a more imaginative, innovative style of play that features the cross-over, between-the-legs dribble, the look-off pass, the double-pump move to the basket, and the demonstrative slam dunk.’’ Some combination of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan constitutes the black style at its best; it is, according to Kirsch, ‘‘an artistry that borders on wizardry, a hard-won, practiced accuracy that is nevertheless full of surprises.’’ One of the results of basketball being developed in a nation itself divided by the color line was two different styles of play. Films like Hoosiers (1986) and Glory Road (2006) both illustrate the difference in styles of play. African American players have a long tradition of court magic, beginning with two barnstorming professional teams that began during America’s Jazz Age and the Harlem

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Renaissance. The Harlem Globetrotters and the New York (Harlem) Renaissance ‘‘Rens’’ Big Five both took the game of basketball and transformed it into an African American art form: ‘‘Alongside jazz, blues, rap, and various types of dance, basketball,’’ according to Ostrom, ‘‘has begun to be considered not just a sport but also part of African American popular cultural expression, a link to understanding innovation and experimentation in other aspects of culture, such as literature.’’ The Rens and the Globetrotters alike took on all-white teams, often outclassing their competition. While the Rens and the Globetrotters ruled the ranks of black professional basketball, some black student-athletes played at white institutions in a racially divided United States. Paul Robeson, valedictorian of the Rutgers College Class of 1919, played hoops for the Scarlet Knights. During the end of the 1920s, Columbia University in the City of New York and the University of Southern California both had rosters with black players. Yet, integration was not without its struggles. In the Southeastern Conference, Perry Wallace of Vanderbilt University was the only African American to play varsity basketball until the 1969–70 season, his senior year. ‘‘College sports in the twentieth-century American South,’’ Martin explained, ‘‘did not exist in a social and cultural vacuum. The region’s pervasive system of white supremacy and racial segregation controlled athletic policy just as tightly as it did university admissions.’’ This dynamic would later be shattered with University of Southern California fullback Sam Cunningham, the older brother of Randall Cunningham, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, who rushed for three touchdowns in a 1970 Football contest against the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama. At a convention the following year, a white football coach told Eddie Robinson, the legendary Grambling coach, that ‘‘Sam Cunningham made more progress in integrating the races than anybody else. More than any of your leaders have ever done.’’ Social and political factors aside, Cunningham’s performance did signal the significant value of black athletes in the sports industry. The increased visibility of African Americans in basketball is particularly pronounced at the professional ranks. The National Basketball Association (NBA), started in 1949, was 20 percent black in 1960 and 75 percent black by 1995, and in 2010, over 80 percent of the players are people of color, suggesting the value of the innovative play of African Americans in a sport that continues to generate billions of dollars globally each year. Develops Along Gender Lines Basketball, too, developed along gender lines. A year following the invention of basketball by Naismith, Senda Berenson, a physical education instructor at Smith College, modified Naismith’s rules, making her the founder of woman’s basketball. According to Davis, Berenson’s ‘‘womanly and vigorous’’ version of basketball disallowed ‘‘batting or stealing the ball’’ and ‘‘holding the ball for longer than three seconds.’’ On April 4, 1896, the first intercollegiate women’s basketball occurred between California and Stanford, and by 1925, thirty-seven states

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boasted tournaments for female basketball players. Mildred ‘‘Babe’’ Didrikson, celebrated and vilified for her athletic prowess in Track and Field as well as Golf, was prominent on the basketball court as well, leading her team to the Amateur Athletic Union Championship in 1931. Along with track and field, basketball was deemed an appropriate sport for women at black colleges. Three-time All-American and three-time national champion, Lusia Harris, standing at 6 feet 3 inches, dominated the landscape of women’s college basketball during the 1970s as a member of the Delta State Lady Statesmen. During her four-year tenure, the Lady Statesmen won 109 games against only 6 losses, and Harris scored 2,981 points, averaging nearly 26 points per game, to go along with 1,662 career rebounds, or 14.4 boards per game. She was the dominant player on the dominant women’s college basketball team of the 1970s. Harris’s stellar play and leadership earned her a spot on the first-ever U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team, and, in the 1976 Olympiad, she made history by scoring the first points ever recorded in women’s Olympic basketball competition. ‘‘[Lusia] broke ground for women’s basketball and paved the way for so many other players who are playing today,’’ Pat Summit, the legendary head coach at the University of Tennessee and Harris’s teammate on the 1976 team said. According to Rhoden, ‘‘Without the success, the international success, that we enjoyed, without the college game growing and growing each year, there’s not a WNBA, and so many times people forget about the pioneers in sports. Lucy as a player was a great pioneer.’’ Harris was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992, where she is recognized as ‘‘[o]ne of the greatest centers ever to play women’s basketball.’’ Following in the path forged by Lusia Harris was Cheryl DeAnne ‘‘Silk’’ Miller, a basketball prodigy who dominated high school and college basketball. During her four years at Riverside Polytechnic High School, from 1979 until 1982, ‘‘Silk’’ Miller, the sister of former NBA All-Star Reggie Miller, averaged nearly 33 points per game, and led her school to 132 wins against 4 losses. During her senior year, Miller became the first woman ever to dunk a basketball during a regulation game. Following high school, the highly recruited Miller took her game to the University of Southern California, where she led the Trojans to national championship titles in 1983 and 1984, along with setting the school record in points, boards, and free throws. As a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, Miller earned a gold medal. In 1986, her jersey number at USC was retired, and in 1995, she was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. At 6 feet 3 inches, Miller was a force. Ann Meyers said, ‘‘Cheryl plays like a man, and that’s the highest compliment I can give her.’’ Meyers herself is a standout player at University of California at Los Angeles who faced Miller in competition, along with being the first woman to receive a basketball scholarship to a major university, as well as the first captain of the U.S. women’s Olympic team and the first woman to sign an NBA contract. Miller accepted the compliment for what it was, but also, with a laugh, pointed out one of the glaring disparities between male and female basketball players. ‘‘The only thing missing,’’ Miller said, ‘‘is a paycheck.’’ Currently, women playing

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basketball in the United States have two professional leagues, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the American Basketball League (ABL). Both leagues, however, do not generate the amount of revenue as the NBA, which has invited considerable speculation about gender equity in sports. The growing popularity of basketball throughout the United States, along with its international reach, has brought black men into heightened visibility. Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man and cultural commentator, wrote in a 1970 article for Time magazine ‘‘Without the presence of Negro American style, our jokes, tall tales, even our sports would be lacking in the sudden turns, the shocks, the swift changes of pace (all jazz-shaped) that serve to remind us that the world is ever unexplored, and that while a complete mastery of life is mere illusion, the real secret of the game is to make life swing.’’ The jazz or seemingly improvisational nature of basketball has been captured by a number of stars that have graced the hardwood of the professional game. Whether we consider the play of big men like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Bill Russell, or Shaquille O’Neal, or the dynamic guard play of Jerry West, Earvin ‘‘Magic’’ Johnson, Michael ‘‘Air’’ Jordan, or his ‘‘Air’’ apparent Kobe Bryant, the game of basketball remains one of possibility, one that encourages inner-city and rural child alike to dream of life on the court. As a metaphor, basketball is a game that, at its best, represents the transcending of limitations and demonstrates the dynamic nature of teamwork and individual success. Because its professional practitioners enjoy celebrity status, the game itself embodies the virtues of the Horatio Alger myth of struggling upward through hard work. ‘‘Black sports heroes transcended the narrow boundaries of specific sports activities and garnered importance as icons of cultural excellence; symbolic figures who embodied social possibilities of success denied to other people of color,’’ writes scholar Michael Dyson in his influential study of Michael Jordan. ‘‘But they also captured and catalyzed the black cultural fetishization of sports as a means of expressing black cultural style, as a means of valoring craft as a marker of racial and self-expression, and as a means of pursuing social and economic mobility.’’ Dyson points to the limitations that occur when sports are made a fetish. While the lucrative world of professional sports feeds into the popularly held view of the United States as a land of possibility, dreams are undone with a misstep, with an injury. For this reason, Harry Edwards encourages dreaming with open eyes. ‘‘Today it is desirable, even necessary that black youths and black society as a whole continue to harbor dreams of achieving excellence in sports . . . ,’’ he writes. ‘‘But all involved must learn to dream with their eyes open, always remaining fully cognizant of participation’s pitfalls no less than its positive possibilities, of its potential as a dead end trap no less than its promise as a vehicle for outreach and advancement.’’ The tales of success, of excess, and of failure that come with basketball should serve as a cautionary tale of the pitfalls and possibilities of the game that began in a gym with two peach baskets and a soccer ball to while away a winter’s day. See also: Olympics; Women and Sports

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Further Reading Canepa, Nick. 1984. ‘‘Two Women Who Are . . . Just Slightly Ahead of Their Time: Cheryl Miller Plays Her Game ‘Like a Man.’ ’’ San Diego Evening Tribune, OLYMPICS-3. Edwards, Harry. 2004. ‘‘Crisis of Black Athletes at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century.’’ In Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America. Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, eds. New York: Routledge. Kirsch, George B., Othello Harris, and Claire E. Nolte, eds. 2000. Encyclopedia of Ethnicity and Sports in the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Martin, Charles H. 2004. ‘‘Jim Crow in the Gymnasium: The Integration of College Basketball in the American South.’’ In Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America. Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, eds. New York and London: Routledge. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. http://www.hoophall.com/hallof-famers/ tag/lusia-harris-stewart. Ostrom, Hans, and J. David Macey, Jr., eds. 2005. ‘‘Basketball.’’ The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Rhoden, William C. 2006. Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. New York: Crown. Robinson, Eddie and Richard Lapchick. 1999. Never Before, Never Again: The Stirring Autobiography of Eddie Robinson, the Winningest Coach in the History of College Football. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Beale Street In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Beale Street, first known as Beale Avenue, became a hub of the Memphis, Tennessee, African American community, playing a crucial role in the development and popularizing of the blues, and later in the development of jazz, Rhythm and Blues, and Rock and Roll. (Sun Records is located in Memphis, as was Stax Records and Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland.) In 1909, W. C. Handy composed ‘‘Memphis Blues,’’ which was first titled ‘‘Boss Crump Blues,’’ referring to a powerful politician of the era. ‘‘Memphis Blues’’ is often considered the first written blues composition. Beale Street went downhill after the Great Depression, but in 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and eventually through commercial development was rebuilt into a tourist attraction, with many nightclubs and restaurants, including one owned by blues great B. B. King. In the decades after 1966, during the process of revitalizing the neighborhood, however, many African American businesses were displaced from the area. Further Reading Beale Street. ‘‘Beale Street Brass Note Walk of Fame.’’ www.bealestreet.com. Lovett, Bobby L. 2002. ‘‘Beale Street.’’ In Encyclopedia of Tennessee. University of Tennessee Press, 2002. [Online version.] http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php ?EntryID=B019.

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McKee, Margaret, and Fred Chisenhall. 1981. Beale Black and Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Street. Baton Rouge: Louisana State University Press. Hans Ostrom

Bearden, Romare (1911–88), Painter, Printmaker, Collagist, Author, Composer Of all the artists of his generation, Romare Bearden ranks high among those who had an intensely analytical and intellectual approach to the process of making art. Going by the social status of his family in New York—his family’s love of the arts, and the company of artists and performers with whom he grew up—it appeared inevitable that Bearden’s art would reflect an intellectualization that places him high in the hierarchy of those who favor a cerebral, rather than intuitive, approach to form. His disciplined, contemplative approach to art, his embrace of art that is grounded in enduring principles and syntax, bears that out. Fred Romare Howard Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 2, 1911, to Bessye and Richard Howard Bearden. Both of his parents were college-educated, and many members of the extended Bearden family were passionate about the arts. Bearden’s great grandparents, Henry B. Kennedy and Rosa Kennedy, and his grandmother, Rosa Catherine (Cattie) Bearden, were into painting. His maternal grandmother, Carrie Banks, gave Bearden a lesson in art that he would later put to good use: she advised him to simplify his efforts. Growing up in Charlotte, Bearden had the good company of another member of the extended family, one who was a source of creative inspiration—Charles Alston—who was some years older. Bearden’s father was a pianist and friend of jazz artists such as Duke Ellington. Bearden’s uncle Harry was a good pianola player who loved opera, while his aunt, Anna, was a church organist in Greensboro who also taught piano and organ. Add to this the activities of a gregarious and politically active mother, and it was clear that Bearden, an only child, had no excuse not to become an artist. Bessye wielded considerable clout in her capacity as editor of the Chicago Defender, a newspaper that was acknowledged as the most powerful voice for blacks nationwide. The Bearden household at 140th Street in Harlem was a social fulcrum for writers, musicians, and artists, including African American artists Aaron Douglas and Charles Alston, Duke Ellington, the writer Countee Cullen, poet Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and social activist, actor, singer, and athlete Paul Robeson. In his last year in high school, Bearden developed an interest in cartooning. Until his high school years, his interest was mainly in sports; he cared little for art and took only those art courses that were mandatory. His mother wanted him to become a physician. In 1929, Bearden entered Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania, from which he transferred to Boston University. In 1932, he transferred again, this time to New York University, where he declared a major in

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mathematics. He would eventually graduate in 1935 with a degree in education, although he continued drawing cartoons and had his work published in the Medley, a monthly journal at New York University, on which he later worked as art editor. His cartoons also appeared in other national publications such sources as the Crisis (magazine) [the major political publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)], and the Baltimore Afro American, a weekly publication on which he served as editorial cartoonist from 1935 to 1937. One of the earliest influences on Bearden was Elmer Simms Campbell, the popular African American cartoonist whose cartoons had appeared in Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New Yorker among others. Upon being advised by Campbell, Bearden studied art with the German
emigr
e George Grosz at the Art Students League in New York. Grosz was a superb draftsman, caricaturist, and painter, credentials that were obviously not lost on Campbell nor, as it turned out, on Bearden. Through Grosz, Bearden was exposed to a new world of neoclassical art and, in particular, the work of Dominique Ingres and William Hogarth. New York of the 1930s was not the most comfortable zone for African American artists to operate. It was bad enough to be black in the years before the Civil Rights Movement. To be a black artist during the Great Depression needed more than commitment: it demanded fortitude and a cohesive network of kindred spirits. Bearden depended on a coterie of friends, among whom were the writers Claude McKay and Bill Attaway, and a fellow artist, Jacob Lawrence, through whom Bearden secured his first studio at 33 West 125th Street. For regular income, Bearden got employment as a caseworker with the New York City Department of Social Services in 1938, a job that he held on to full-time until 1966 when he chose to work part-time, which he did until 1969. In 1940, Bearden had his first solo exhibition at the 306 Studios. His work in the 1940s was executed in a variety of media, which ranged from watercolor or gouache and casein on paper to oil on canvas, with a style that oscillated between representational and abstract rendition. The multinuanced and storied collage works that would become his stylistic hallmark would become more fully developed in the 1960s. Meanwhile, in 1942, Bearden joined the U.S. Army and served with the all-black 372nd Infantry Division in the 15th Regiment, from which he was honorably discharged in 1945. Soon after, Bearden became a member of artists in the stable of the gallerist Samuel Kootz, who exhibited his work alongside others like Carl Holty, Robert Motherwell, Fernand Leger, and Alexander Calder. In a way, working with such a team deepened Bearden’s commitment and his quest for enduring art. Among those that his association with Kootz brought him in contact with was Carl Holty, who became one of Bearden’s closest friends and a teacher who exerted enormous influence on him. The two eventually coauthored a book, The Painter’s Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting (1969). In 1950, Bearden took a two-year leave from his employment and, using the G.I. Bill, traveled to Paris, France; there, for nine months, he studied philosophy,

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French, and Buddhism. While he did not produce work in Paris, the totality of his experience had a significant impact on his perspectives about art, his own American culture, and, most importantly, his creative approach. In the early 1950s, Bearden went into music and wrote a number of songs. He collaborated with Dave Ellis, founded Bluebird Music, and became a member of American Society of Music Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1955. But it was apparent that his prospects lay more in making art than in writing music. While Bearden continued to write music and exhibit in the 1950s, perhaps one of the most significant moves he made was his marriage to Nanette Rohan, a dancer and choreographer, in 1954. In the 1950s, Bearden had utilized collage in his work. But it was in the 1960s that he developed collage to a style that radically changed Bearden’s stylistic trajectory. The style that would typify Bearden began in 1963 when a group of African Americans, including Hale Woodruff, Charles Alston, Emma Amos, and Richard Mayhew met in Bearden’s studio and formed the Spiral, which was meant to provide the group a common platform from which to address bothersome sociopolitical issues of the day. Bearden’s idea that Spiral produce a collaborative piece from a pile of cutout pictures having been met with little enthusiasm, he turned them into a series called ‘‘Projections’’ with the encouragement of Codler and Ekstrom, the gallery that represented him for the rest of his professional life. The resultant exhibition brought Bearden to the national limelight. Bearden’s compositions are built from fragments: of faces, bodies, limbs, and dresses, arranged in a choreographed medley akin to the improvisations of jazz music. Using a smorgasbord of materials—patterned fabrics, pieces of magazine cutouts, glossy and matte paper, and spray paint, among others—Bearden portrayed subjects that reflect his own world. His published works include A History of African-American Artists (Bearden and Henderson, 1993) and Six Black Masters of American Art (Bearden and Henderson, 1972). He contributed to asserting African American presence in the art world with his involvement with a number of causes, which included the formation of the Spiral group, the establishment of Harlem Cultural Council, the founding of Cinque Gallery, and the founding of the Studio Museum in Harlem. He exhibited in major museums and spaces across continents and was elected to the American Academy of Design, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. President Ronald Reagan presented him with the National Medal of Arts. Bearden died in New York in 1988. Places to See Bearden’s work include, among others, the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Howard University Art Collection, Washington, DC; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

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Further Reading Bearden, Romare. 1934. ‘‘The Negro Artist and Modern Art.’’ Opportunity (December): 371–72. Bearden, Romare, and Harry Henderson. 1972. Six Black Masters of American Art. Garden City, NY: Zenith Books, Doubleday. Bearden, Romare, and Harry Henderson. 1993. A History of African-American Artists from 1792 to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books. Bearden, Romare, and Carl Holty. 1969. The Painter’s Mind: A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting. New York: Crown. Driskell, David. 1976. Two Centuries of Black American Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum. Fine, Elsa Honig. 1973. The Afro-American Artist: Search for Identity. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Glazer, Lee Stephens. 1994. ‘‘Signifying Identity: Art and Race in Romare Bearden’s Projections.’’ Art Bulletin 76, no. 3 (September): 411–26. Schwartzman, Myron. 1990. Romare Bearden: His Life and His Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams. dele jegede

Beautillions. See Cotillions and Botillions

Beauty Pageants The African American community has long recognized the beauty of its women by electing them queens of various beauty pageants. In fact, such pageants are historically important and have served to bring communities together in a common area of interest. Once beauty pageants were well-established, they grew in popularity and became an important event in the African American community. The racial climate in America would keep beauty pageants segregated until the 1940s; before and since then, African Americans have hosted their own as a means of promoting racial pride and preserving elements of African American culture. Beauty contests generally occur annually, beginning with local competitions and moving on to national and even international ones. They range from contests for children to those for young women, from those for married women to those for plus-sized women. They may offer a variety of benefits other than the honor of having won the contest, such as scholarships, speaking tours, wardrobes, and so on. In beauty contests, beauty may come in the form one’s physical appeal, but more importantly in the demonstration of a talent, personality, or intelligence. For a number of years, many such contests have been shown to broad audiences via television.

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Black Is Beautiful, Too As early as the 1890s, black beauty contests were held as a means of promoting the dignity of the race. The black press must be credited with some of the efforts to promote black culture as it printed and distributed in the black community photographs of glamorous and beautiful women and, as Maxine Leeds Craig notes in Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?, they showed that ‘‘black women are beautiful, too.’’ Such actions led to the promotion of black beauty pageants. An early effort was seen in 1891, when a black newspaper, published in Chicago and called the Appeal, opened a contest under the heading ‘‘Who is the Most Beautiful Afro-American Woman?’’ Clearly the effort was designed to increase the newspaper’s circulation, for it printed ballots in each issue, encouraged readers to vote, and asked them to distribute copies of the paper to their friends. Newspaper readers continued to support black beauty pageants from the 1890s well into the twentieth century. Other black newspapers followed the efforts of the Appeal; for example, in 1914 the New York Age, then one of black America’s most popular newspapers, sponsored a contest called ‘‘Chosen Fifteen Most Beautiful Negro Women in the United States.’’ Selections came from photographs that readers submitted. The ‘‘Chosen Fifteen’’ were selected on October 14, and winners from the local area were given a solid gold pin which read ‘‘One of the Chosen Fifteen.’’ Their photographs were published on the front page of the Age and also displayed in the Manhattan Casino where the final ceremony was held. Craig notes: ‘‘The winners were all, not surprisingly, light-skinned women.’’ Complexion became an important issue for contest judges, whether they served on panels or constituted audiences who submitted ballots. Other contests followed; for example, the Chicago Defender for May 2, 1925, identified a black beauty contest held in Baltimore, referring to it as the city’s first. The Defender had its own beauty contest, as it sought the ‘‘Prettiest Girl.’’ In 1925 as well, the Golden Brown Chemical Company, which marketed its line of cosmetics for black women, sponsored its first and only National Golden Brown Beauty Contest. Through the contest, the company aimed to promote its beauty products line as well as racial pride. Over one thousand mail-in entries were received. The winner, Josephine Leggett, star of the play Shuffle Along, received more than three hundred thousand votes. She, too, was light-skinned, which caused some consternation among those who questioned the complexion of such winners as a means of promoting racial pride among so many who were not fair. In the 1920s, fraternal groups sponsored black beauty contests as well; among such groups was the Knights of Pythias. There were also Mardi Gras queens, sponsored by Louisiana’s migrants and crowned at the Mardi Gras ball. In 1927, the black press was still active in promoting beauty contests to boost its sales and promote racial pride, as seen, for example, in the Oakland (California) Western American’s Miss Golden State contest. When the contest ended, Mrs. Richard York, a pale-skinned beauty, won the popularity contest after her supporters

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bought the largest number of subscriptions, while light-brown Marilyn Adams won the beauty prize. In 1947, the Miss Fine Brown Frame contest was held in Harlem’s Golden Gate Ballroom. Bandleader Buddy Johnson, who wrote the hit ‘‘Miss Fine Brown Frame,’’ presided. Controversy arose over the complexion of two contestants: Evelyn Sanders, a dark-complexioned woman whom the audience favored, and a light-skinned contestant. In the end, Sanders won. In 1940, the black journal, Our World, launched its ‘‘Most Beautiful Negro Woman’’ contest, offering the winner a one-thousand-dollar wardrobe, a gown by a noted Paris designer, and a trip to Paris and other places abroad. During the 1950s and early 1960s, such contests continued. Craig identifies some of them accordingly: Miss Negro Press Photographer’s Ball (mid-1940s), Miss Bronze California (1960s), and its spin-off, Miss Bronze Northern California. The latter two developed into annual staple affairs. At times, the issue of skin color in the selection of beauty queens was still a problem. For many years, the black community continued to hold its own segregated black beauty contests, and some continue. When the forty-eighth Miss America contest was held in September 1968, two protests were underway as well. One condemned the very idea of beauty contests while the other was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s event at the nearby Ritz Carlton Hotel, where the NAACP staged its first Miss Black America contest— a competition similar to that for the Miss America contest. It was open to young African American women to showcase their gifts in such areas as speech, talent, style, and poise. Saundra Williams was the first winner. Laren Arrington founded the Miss Black USA pageant in 1986 and held its first event in Washington, DC, the next year. A celebrity panel of judges who served the contest came from the fields of sports, entertainment, the fashion industry, and media. The twenty-one talented contestants who came from across the nation were said to represent the dreams of African Americans, from those of our ancestors to the Harlem Renaissance, and to the present day. Tamiko Gibson, who was Miss Maryland, was elected the first Miss Black USA. The contest continues and also provides scholarships, as it celebrates scholastic achievement of its winners. Miss Black USA Princess Program, a component of the Miss Black USA Program, was announced in 2009 and comes in response to the development of Walt Disney’s first black American princess, Tiana, in a Disney animated film, The Princess and the Frog. The Princess Program planners knew that becoming Miss Black USA was the dream of many little girls, their parents, and grandparents, and thus offer the program to help shape their dreams. The competition is open to young ladies who, by August 8, 2010, are between the ages of five and ten and live within the continental United States. The successful candidate receives an official Miss Black USA tiara, a chance to be mentored by a young woman in the contest for older girls, and an opportunity to appear on stage during the Miss Black USA finals.

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College queens, such as Miss Fisk, Miss Spelman, and Miss Howard University, represent another category of beauty contest winners. Supporting the queens from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and some of the traditionally white schools as well is Ebony magazine’s publication of the photographs of their queens in one of its issues each year. Campus queens may also include homecoming queens and those representing classes, such as Miss Freshman and Miss Sophomore. While by 2010 there have been a number of black homecoming or school queens on traditionally white college campuses, the reverse has occurred as well. For example, in 2010, Miss Hampton University elected its first white student to that post. Beauty and the Racial Mountain In 1921, during the Roaring Twenties, several hoteliers in Atlantic City staged a local ‘‘bathing beauty’’ contest, or the ‘‘Inter-City Beauty Contest,’’ the forerunner of the Miss America contest. The contest was postponed during the early years of the Great Depression and reestablished in 1932. It was suspended again and resurrected in 1935. By the 1950s, the Miss America contest was mainstream and included pomp and pageantry reminsicent of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of England. The Civil Rights Movement and the various human rights movements of the 1960s spurred women of all races to become more politically active and vocal about what they considered fair treatment for themselves. They were adamant about the secondary role in which society put them and protested the gender bias that they received. They also resented the fact that their appearances in beauty contests often cast them in a demeaning role, causing society to see them as ‘‘sex objects’’ rather than beauty queens. Jennifer Lee describes the trailblazing beauty pageant that finally involved a black winner, the Miss Subways pageant. It was held from the 1940s to 1977, and was ‘‘one of the first integrated beauty pageants in the country.’’ Lee called the pageant ‘‘a cutting-edge civil rights battleground.’’ Success came only after black groups protested the contest’s racial exclusion practices. According to Lee, some historians regard the pageant as important, though symbolic, for it was a ‘‘stepping stone for racial integration. Just as activists would go on to organized discrimination or exclusion in transportation and in the work place, black women chose beauty pageants as a battleground.’’ It was not until 1948, however, that the first black Miss Subways was chosen. She was Brooklyn College student and psychology major Thelma Porter; her photograph was featured in national black newspapers as well as on the cover of Crisis (magazine) and other black journals. As was the practice, a photograph of the contest winner was also prominently displayed on the thousands of subway cars in such urban cores as New York, the Midwest, and much later in the Deep South. Maxine Leeds Craig calls the subway pageant ‘‘one of many struggles that were going on in local ways to end discrimination,’’ and helped to end ‘‘formal and informal segregation.’’

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In 1974 and 1975, when Marcia Hocker, who had straight hair and fairly light skin, held the Miss Subways title for several months, she asked subways pageant officials to shade her image on the subway posters because she did not want to be mistaken for white. After Thelma Porter’s election, black women did, in fact, begin to enter and win traditionally white beauty contests throughout the country. In 1962, for example twenty-year-old Clintona Jackson won such a contest in Detroit—the International Freedom Festival Pageant. This coincided with their gain in acceptance ‘‘as models, movie actresses and as Miss America, America’s ultimate symbol of beauty and womanhood,’’ writes Sue Jewell in From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond. Jewell is among those who question whether or not this occurrence was the result of mainstream America’s acceptance of those cultural images that are unique to black culture, or whether the black queens approximated the traditional standards of beauty set by white America. Whatever the case, in 1960 Corinne Huff, who was Miss Ohio, was the first black woman to win a state title and then enter the Miss USA contest. It was not until 1970, however, that the Miss America pageant had its first African American contestant—Cheryl Adrienne Brown—who entered as Miss Iowa. In 1984, the country finally had its first African American Miss America—Vanessa Williams—who represented New York. Williams did, in fact, present a positive cultural image but was also the first to resign her title amid scandal. Provocative photographs taken of Williams the previous year emerged during the middle of her reign. Despite this turn of events, Williams remained a popular culture icon as singer and actress. Since Williams left that post, six African American women have held that title: they are Suzette Charles (1984, from New Jersey and the runner-up contestant who replaced Williams), Debbye Turner (1990, Missouri), Marjorie Judith Vincent (1991, Illinois), Kimberly Clarice Aiken (1994, South Carolina), Erica Dunlap (2004, Florida), and Caressa Cameron (2010, Indiana). Black women won other beauty pageants. Miss World (established in 1951), went to Grenada native Jennifer Josephine Hosten on December 3, 1970; and the title Miss Universe (established in 1952) went to Trinidad-Tobago’s Janelle Commissiong in 1977. By 1999, two other black women had held the title. There were Ms. Senior America (1989, Josephine Gentry-Huyghe) and Miss USA, Carol Anne-Marie Gist (1990, Michigan). Chant
e Laree Griffin was elected Miss Teen of America for 1996–97. She had been crowned Miss Teen of California in 1995. In 2002, four of the five teen finalists were black. The modern Civil Rights Movement did much to arouse an interest in black pride. To demonstrate their pride, many who sponsored black beauty pageants rejected what they considered white America’s views of beauty, such as fair skin and straight hair. They selected as their queens young women who reflected the elements of black pride, such as darker skin color and afro hair styles. In fact, this was commonplace on many historically black college campuses. Still, in recent times critics of the black-only beauty contests argue that, while the American dream is within the grasp of African Americans (if they would seize it), and many racial barriers have been removed, some blacks self-segregate socially.

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What if we had a white pageant, they ask. Then there are those who question the need for pageants at all. Further Reading Bargzie, Simah. 2002 ‘‘African American Beauty Pageants: Beauty Contests with a Difference.’’ Pioneer, A&E, March 7. Craig, Maxine Leeds. 2002. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Jewell, K. Sue. 1993. From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond. New York: Routledge. Lee, Jennifer. ‘‘There She Is, from a Trailblazing Beauty Pageant.’’ New York Times, City Room, April 21, 2009. http:www.cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/21. ‘‘People & Events: Breaking the Color Line at the Pageant.’’ PBS: American Experience, Miss America. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/missamerica/peopleevents/ e_inclusion.html. Smith, Jessie Carney. 2000. ‘‘Beauty Industry and Models.’’ In Black Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events. 2d ed. Detroit: Visible Ink Press: 466–470. Sones, Michael. ‘‘History of the Beauty Pageant.’’ http://www.beautyworlds.com/ beautypageant.htm. Stewart, Dodai. ‘‘Black Beauty Pageants Raise Many Questions.’’ Jezebel.com. http://jezebel .com/5240756/black-beauty-pageants-raise-many-questions. Jessie Carney Smith

Beauty Shops The beauty parlor industry in the African American community has successfully lifted most of its owners—and most of them women—from the clutches of racial segregation, prejudice, and poverty to economic independence, self-reliance, and self-acceptance. The industry embraces small shop owners, large enterprises, training, and beauty products for African American women. Its work is still important in African American popular culture. Many of the fine artisans in the antebellum United States worked outside the South; they were also African American. Catering, hairdressing, barbering, and fashionable dressmaking were the popular businesses for blacks of that era. A few of these businesses catered to blacks, but to survive in the racially segregated United States, they catered to whites. It was not until self-help activities for blacks were encouraged and observed that black economic development occurred and these professions began to thrive in the black community. One of the earliest-known black woman artisans was Christiana Carteaux Bannister (1819–1902), an abolitionist and entrepreneur who ran a successful hairdressing business in nineteenth-century New England. Born in North Kingston, Rhode Island, she moved to Boston while still a young woman and worked as a wigmaker. With a natural ability for styling hair, she opened a hairdressing

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salon there when she was thirty years old. Soon she opened salons in Worcester, Massachusetts, as well as in Providence, Rhode Island, and maintained a white clientele. In 1853, she married Edward Bannister, who worked in her shop as a barber and became a celebrated landscape painter later on. Their salons became popular meeting places for white and black abolitionists. As the century progressed, there was a phenomenal increase in beauty shops owned by black women. Much of this came in response to the revolution in black hair care, the emergence of several leading hair care enterprises, and products created especially for black women. Icons of the Beauty Industry African American beauty parlors have been shaped by the work of several black entrepreneurs who are still celebrated as icons in the beauty culture industry: Annie Turnbo Malone, Madam C. J. Walker, and Sarah Spencer Washington. They owned manufacturing companies and some established beauty parlors as well, where their products were showcased and sold. Annie Turnbo Malone (1869–1957) ran a multimillion-dollar empire in St. Louis and founded the Poro Company, one of the first successful African American hair care businesses. Madam C. J. Walker (1867–1919) developed a method for caring for black hair, founded a manufacturing company, set up beauty schools, developed profitable marketing strategies, and established a chain of beauty parlors throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and South America. Both Malone and Walker became millionaires. Between 1913 and 1915, Sarah Spencer Washington (1889–1953) owned a small hair salon in Atlantic City, where she worked as a beauty operator. In 1919, she founded a firm later known as Apex Beauty Products. The company operated eleven beauty schools. Other leading hair salon owners and stylists of the twentieth century were the Cardozo sisters. Elizabeth Cardozo Barker (1900–81) opened her shop in her Washington, DC, apartment in 1929. Four years later, her sister, Margaret Cardozo Holmes (1898–1991) joined her. In 1937 they relocated the shop and renamed it the Cardozo Sisters Hair Stylists. Sisters Emmeta Cardozo Hurley and Catherine Cardozo Lewis joined them in the mid-1940s. The already thriving enterprise expanded to five storefronts and occupied a city block near Howard University’s campus. They had twenty-five employees and served as many as two hundred clients daily. At times Barker and Holmes passed for white in order to visit white salons and trade shows to learn new hair techniques, procedures, and business operations. They also had a tremendous influence on the hairdressing industry and pressured the industry to meet the needs of African American clients and cease discriminatory practices. By the time the salon was sold in 1971, the sisters had grossed over $325,000 annually. Their business was called one of the best-equipped and most popular salons in the city and was a prototype that subsequent generations of salon operators emulated. Among those who helped to revolutionize the industry was Christine Moore Howell (1899–1972), manufacturer and cosmetologist. She became successful in

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the two unique businesses that she opened in Princeton, New Jersey—Christine’s Beauty Salon and in 1936, Christine Moore Corporation—a modern laboratory that produced her line of beauty and hair care products. Moore served an interracial clientele. Only highly trained, creative women, regardless of race, were hired in her salon. Her customers included middle-class black women as well as white and black women who were on the social register and arrived for their appointments in chauffeur-driven limousines. Although black customers were few in number for a while, when she began to specialize in the permanent wave, the numbers increased. Howell served on the first New Jersey Board of Beauty Culture Control, which regulated beauty shops and beauty culture training for all salons, whether white- or black-owned and operated. Other icons of the beauty industry include Rose Morgan and Joe L. Dudley. In the 1940s, Rose Morgan’s Rose Meta House of Beauty, located in New York City, was this country’s largest black-owned beauty shop. She opened a second salon in Harlem in 1955—a flamboyant and elaborate shop. In 1976, Joe L. Dudley (1937– ) founded Dudley Products in Greensboro, NC. He began to manufacture black beauty products and became owner of a chain of beauty supply stores and beauty shops, and a beauty college. African American Barbershops, beauty shops, and other businesses played a vital role in the modern Civil Rights Movement. In the 1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. used these political incubators as a recruiting ground for civil rights workers. Customers spent several hours in beauty parlors, for example, and were a captive audience. While they received service, the women spent their time discussing political and social issues without the threat of white backlash. Their clientele was black and consisted of a full cross section of the black community. The one-room shops attached to homes as well as those housed in their own buildings were almost always black-owned. When campaigning to become the Democratic nominee for the U.S. presidency in January 2008, Barack Obama made deep inroads into the black areas of South Carolina. He visited Salon Fabulous located in a trailer park on the outskirts of Columbia, as owner Danyelle America, an Obama campaign volunteer, wove extensions into a client’s hair and, at the same time, discussed the Democratic primary. The walls of her small shop were decorated with Obama posters, including one of Obama sitting in a barber’s chair under the banner ‘‘The Future is Now.’’ The campaign had targeted black beauty shops and barbershops. This political strategy continued historical traditions in the black community, where beauty parlors serve as a place for social meetings, informal discussions, and debates for local blacks. Beauty shop and barbershop culture is also embraced in the literary works of black writers. Hortense Thornton addresses this matter in ‘‘The Barbershop and Beauty Parlor in Afro-American Literature.’’ In such literature, readers meet all strata of the black community and become aware of the unlimited range of subjects that are discussed. The businesses provide ‘‘an environment conducive to unrestrained community expression.’’ The black beauty shop was highlighted with the release in 2005 of the comedy film Beauty Parlor, a spin-off of the successful

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Barbershop comedies and starring Queen Latifah and a colorful cabaret of stock supporting players, including Alfre Woodward, Kevin Bacon, and Andie MacDowell. Further Reading Blackwelder, Julia Kirk. 2003. Styling Jim Crow: African American Beauty Training during Segregation. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Pilkington, Ed. ‘‘Obama Has Given People a Little More Hope.’’ Guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/23/usa.uselections2008. Thornton, Hortense. 1979 ‘‘The Barbershop and Beauty Parlor in Afro-American Literature.’’ Pacific Coast Philology 14 (October): 76–83. Walker, Juliet E. K., ed. 1999. Encyclopedia of African American Business History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Jessie Carney Smith

BeBop Music A style of jazz music, bebop, or bop, emerged shortly after World War II (WWII) and was a reaction against the dance tunes of Swing Era jazz produced by big bands. As a music form, bop thrived from about 1945 until 1955, with its prominence particularly pronounced from 1947 until 1951, with the transatlantic touring of one of its leading figures, Charlie Parker, the alto saxophone player from Kansas City, Kansas. Bop musicians insisted that their music be taken seriously, and as a result they created music with complex chord progressions that made their music very difficult to dance to. Bop music in its uniqueness and speed created a cult of personality where individual style was especially celebrated. Along with Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, the major ‘‘cast of cats’’ who took bop music to soaring levels include Theolonius Monk on piano, the drummer Art Blakely, and vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Louis Armstrong, by the time of the bop artists an elder statesman of jazz, dismissed bop musicians as ‘‘young cats playing them weird melodies,’’ wrote Sellman. Because of the war rationing of shellac, the recording material used to create vinyl albums, early bop is largely unrecorded. It developed in small nightclubs in New York City, with Harlem serving as the hub of the bebop landscape. Charlie Parker’s early impressions on bop offer strong insight into the goal of bop musicians—to speed up the pace of music to be commensurate with their experiences of New York City. According to Eric Lott, Parker described bebop as ‘‘the music of today’’ with ‘‘a sort of combination of the Midwestern beat and the fast New York tempos.’’ Along with Parker, Dizzy Gillespie was instrumental in making use of Afro-Cuban elements in his music. The insistence upon experimentation and intellectualism were hallmarks of this new style of jazz. To highlight the shift in jazz that occurred after WWII, compare the wideranging and epic pieces of Duke Ellington with the short ballad structures of

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bop artists, where music becomes, especially by the emergence of John Coltrane, ‘‘sheets of sound.’’ As Daniel Linden notes, ‘‘If Duke represents the broad, communal sense of Harlem and its humanity that is made up of individual characters, Charlie Parker, or Bird, represents a highly focused zoom-in on the plight of the individual.’’ Along with this ‘‘plight of the individual,’’ we hear a younger generation of artists improvising on canonical jazz pieces. The style of Bird and the larger bop culture became perfectly suited for the counterculture that was occurring in the United States with members of the Beat generation. Dizzy Gillespie, in particular, with his iconic beret, glasses, soul patch, and up-turned bell on his trumpet, represented the type of intellectualism that began to bloom among postwar youths who longed to rebel against social convention. This trademark of music’s bebop generation had its literary equivalent in the writings of the Beat generation. One of the leaders of the Beat generation was Jack Kerouac, a young writer who dropped out of Columbia University to pursue a life of writing and adventure. In his most famous novel, On the Road, Kerouac offers a sketch of Charlie Parker that explores what bop music meant to the Beats: ‘‘Here’s a guy and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody else’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. . . . He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing.’’ Bop musicians spoke to and for the postwar youth, and their statements, much like music in general, crossed color lines. ‘‘The Beats identified with what they found in Bird’s music,’’ Daniel Linden notes, ‘‘and the common pulse of a wider range of people became increasingly evident.’’ Yet for all the romantic idealism that surrounds a figure such as Charlie Parker, his life, for all its soaring greatness in terms of artistic achievement, came to an end in the apartment of Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, sister of Lord Rothschild, following a long struggle with drugs, particularly heroin, and alcoholism. In his own remembrance of the short lives of jazz musicians, Ralph Ellison, in his essay ‘‘The Golden Age, Time Past,’’ observers that ‘‘we feel guilt that the fury of their passing was the price paid for the art they left us to enjoy. . . . most notably of all, Charlie Parker, called ‘Bird,’ now deified, worshipped, and studied and, like any fertility god, mangled by his admirers and imitators.’’ Following the passing of Bird on March 12, 1955, bop contended with the growing presence of cool jazz, a style embodied in the album Birth of the Cool by trumpeter Miles Davis. Cool jazz featured slower tempos and aimed to soften the dissonances of the high modernist bop era music. The backlash came with hard bop, a return to the dissonant tones of bop but infused with elements of blues and gospel. The conversation occurring between cool jazz and hard bop created broader avenues for jazz musicians to develop their art. Towards the end of the 1950s, jazz musicians were beginning to find work in Hollywood. Duke Ellington composed original music for Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Paris Blues (1961), and Quincy Jones showcased his mastery of the jazz idiom by composing music

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for In the Heat of the Night (1967) and The Wiz (1978), starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and Nipsey Smith. The young cats who created bop music challenged the old guard of jazz artists, much as the old guard itself had challenged social convention as they developed their own style of playing. American transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay, The American Scholar, originally delivered as a Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard in 1838, insisted that ‘‘Each generation must write its own books,’’ and the same sentiment can be seen in the evolution of bop. According to Sellman, Louis Armstrong lamented that bop offered ‘‘no melody to remember and no beat to dance to,’’ yet the bop artists and intellectuals were charting a course that was moving away from minstrelsy to a profound expression of their very beings. Further Reading Ellison, Ralph. 1998. ‘‘The Golden Age, Time Past.’’ The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. Robert G. O’Meally, ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Hodeir, Andr
e. 1976. ‘‘Bop.’’ Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. www .oxfordmusiconline.com. Kerouac, Jack. 1976. On the Road. New York: Penguin. Linden, Daniel. 2009. ‘‘The Jazz Cadence of Duke and Bird.’’ Literature of the Jazz Age Seminar paper. Manhattan School of Music. Lott, Eric. 1998. ‘‘Double V, Double-Time: Bebop’s Politics of Style.’’ In The Jazz Cadence of American Culture. Robert G. O’Meally, ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Patrick, James. ‘‘Parker, Charlie.’’ Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. www .oxfordmusiconline.com. Sellman, James Clyde. 1999. ‘‘Jazz.’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds. New York: Basic Books. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Belafonte, Harry (1927– ), Singer, Actor, Social Activist Harry Belafonte has been a singer, actor, and an advocate for civil rights and humanitarian causes since the early 1950s. During the 1950s, Belafonte experienced success on the pop music charts as well as at the Hollywood box office. This success enabled Belafonte to record music and introduce artists who otherwise would be overlooked, like Miriam Makeba, and make films, such as Island in the Sun (1957), deemed controversial for their time. Belafonte also used his visibility and influence to support the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s and continues to support humanitarian missions to Africa today. Born Harold George Belafonte Jr. on March 1, 1927, in New York City, Belafonte lived in Jamaica with his grandmother from 1935 to 1940. After attending

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high school in New York City, Belafonte joined the navy and served during World War II. After the war, he studied at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School with the likes of Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Mathau, and Sidney Poitier. While Poitier and Belafonte competed for roles at the American Negro Theater, it was Belafonte who won a Tony Award for his performance in John Murray Anderson’s Almanac in 1953. Belafonte began singing in clubs to help pay for acting classes. Signed by RCA Victor in 1952, Belafonte found success quickly with the single, ‘‘Matilda,’’ in 1953. ‘‘Banana Boat Song,’’ Belafonte’s signature song, appeared on the millionselling album Calypso in 1956. Belafonte received Grammy Awards for two albums: Swing Dat Hammer (1960) and An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1965). Besides debuting on the pop charts in 1953, Belafonte also made his film debut in Bright Road (1953). Other notable film roles during the 1950s include Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). In 1959, Belafonte was the first African American man to win an Emmy Award for the television special Tonight with Belafonte. Frustrated with the roles offered, or lack thereof, he quit making films until the early 1970s. Belafonte produced and starred with Sidney Poitier in Buck and the Preacher (1972). Along with Bill Cosby, Belafonte and Poitier starred in Uptown Saturday Night (1974). Belafonte produced the film Beat Street in 1984 but did not have another starring role in a film until White Man’s Burden (1995) and Kansas City (1996). The 2006 film Bobby was Belafonte’s last film role. In the late 1940s, Belafonte met Paul Robeson, who greatly influenced his political activism. In 1956, Belafonte met and became close friends with Martin Luther King Jr., who would also have a great impact on his life. When King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, Belafonte bailed King out. Belafonte spoke at the civil rights March on Washington in 1963 and financially supported the Freedom Rides and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1964. President John F. Kennedy appointed Belafonte as a cultural advisor to the Peace Corps in the early 1960s. Belafonte was honored with the Martin Luther King Non-Violent Peace Prize in 1982. In 1985, he was one of the organizers of the ‘‘We Are the World’’ song used to raise funds and awareness to the plight of famine-stricken Africans. UNICEF named Belafonte a goodwill ambassador in 1987, and in 2002, Africare awarded him the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award for his work in Africa. Along with being honored for humanitarian work, Belafonte has also been recognized for his artistic achievements, including a Kennedy Center Honor in 1989, the National Medal of Arts in 1994, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Further Reading Belafonte, Harry. 2001. The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music. New York: Buddha Records.

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Fogelson, Genia. 1991. Harry Belafonte. Los Angeles: Melrose Square Publishing. Lakin, Pat, and Sheffield Abella. 2002. Harry Belafonte. New York: McGraw-Hill School Division. Mary K. Huelsbeck

Berry, Chuck (1926– ), Singer, Composer, Guitarist A highly imaginative and creative pioneer of Rock and Roll, Chuck Berry is considered by many to be the first great rock star. He put the essential music pieces together in the 1950s to help invent rock and roll and was one of Chicago-based Chess Records’ most successful artists in the mid-to-late part of the decade. Berry was one of rock music’s first great lyricists, having written numerous songs with brilliant lyrics about American culture, especially teenagers’ lives: cars, school, and young love. He gave rock and roll some of its first trademark guitar licks, such as the riff in ‘‘Johnny B. Goode,’’ a staple of every rock guitarist’s repertoire. Berry grafted blues, R & B, country music, and swing jazz into his music and became one of rock and roll’s first great stylistic innovators. He combined country and western with the blues in his first hit, ‘‘Maybellene’’ (1955), and overcame the racial divide of the 1950s while allowing rock music to acknowledge its black roots. In his autobiography, Berry states his marketing intentions: ‘‘The songs of Muddy Waters impelled me to deliver the down-home blues in the language they came from, Negro dialect. When I played hillbilly songs, I stressed my diction so that it was harder and whiter. All in all it was my intention to hold both the black and the white clientele by voicing the different kinds of songs in their customary tongues.’’ Born in 1926 into a black working-class family in St. Louis, Charles Edward Anderson Berry was active in the Baptist church, where he sang in the choir. The guitar fascinated him at an early age. As a teenager, he was taught to play a four-string acoustic guitar by St. Louis jazz guitarist Ira Harris. In the mid-1940s, he served three years of a ten-year sentence for robbery. In prison he began a gospel quartet and blues group whose performances brought them occasional performance privileges outside the gates. After marrying Themetta Suggs in 1948, Berry studied cosmetology and worked a variety of jobs, including beautician, prior to embarking on his music career. In 1950, he purchased his first electric guitar from Joe Sherman, who had a show on radio station WEW, where Berry was caretaker. Berry began performing professionally in St. Louis clubs with the Stevens Trio and then Sir John’s Trio (also known as the Johnnie Johnson Trio) in 1952. Led by pianist Johnnie Johnson and with drummer Eddie Hardy, this trio became one of the top mid-1950s club bands in the St. Louis area. While performing mainly blues with the combo, Berry incorporated country music characteristics from his background as a child listening to country radio stations. The trio’s unique sound made many take notice of their music and caused their original black audience to become desegregated. Initially bluesmen at heart,

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Berry and Johnson took the blues into previously uncharted territory with this unique blend of blues and country styles, turning it into the new rock-and-roll sound. Rooted in swing jazz and urban blues, Berry’s definitive guitar style was as widely imitated as were his witty lyrics. He was one of the first brilliant guitarists of rock and roll; his expert playing set the standard by which later guitarists have been judged. Famous for his duckwalk, one of the most recognizable stage moves in rock and roll, Berry has performed it for years, sliding in a crouched position while playing his guitar. Though he claims he started doing the move to cover wrinkles on his only suit during a multinight booking at Brooklyn’s Paramount Theater in 1956, it soon became his trademark. Berry was highly influenced by T-Bone Walker, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, and Louis Jordan, and particularly by Jordan’s guitarist, Carl Hogan. Through Ira Harris’s teaching, Berry was indirectly exposed to Charlie Christian’s guitar style. Muddy Waters, who thought highly of Berry’s talent, introduced him to Leonard Chess, head of Chess Records. Berry traveled to Chicago to perform for Chess, but it was a song on his audition tape, ‘‘Ida Red,’’ that convinced Chess to sign Berry to the label. Berry later reworked the song into ‘‘Maybellene,’’ the first of his string of hits from the 1950s, and followed with other classics, such as ‘‘Roll Over Beethoven’’ (1956), ‘‘School Day’’ (1957), ‘‘Rock and Roll Music’’ (1957), ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen’’ (1958), and ‘‘Johnny B. Goode’’ (1958). Consisting of witty lyrics full of clever insinuations about cars and girls, ‘‘Maybellene’’ helped lay the groundwork not only for the new rock-and-roll sound, but also for the new music’s stance. Released on August 20, 1955, ‘‘Maybellene’’ became a number one hit (for eleven weeks) on the R & B charts and a number five hit on the pop charts, allowing Berry to cross over successfully to the largely white pop charts, a rarity for black artists at that time. Berry claims that he was able to make the transition to the pop charts because of his clear diction, which allowed the white pop audience to understand what he was saying (unlike other black artists). According to James Heneke, he also attributes his crossover success to his knack for language, since his songs depicted the experience of being a teenager in the changing 1950s society, whether he was describing boredom in the classroom, as in ‘‘School Day,’’ or the liberating appeal of rock music, in ‘‘Rock and Roll Music.’’ Berry’s success on the charts continued throughout the 1950s with such other classics as the number one R & B hits ‘‘School Day’’ and ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen.’’ With lyrics about the boredom and frustration of the routine of school, ‘‘School Day’’ became very popular with teenagers as it cashed in on their desire to escape and hear music on the jukebox. Recorded at Chess on January 21, 1957, the song used the twelve-bar blues pattern and call-and-response with guitar fills imitating the voice throughout, thus establishing Berry not only as an R & B or a rockand-roll musician, but also as a true pop star. As big a breakthrough as ‘‘Maybellene,’’ ‘‘School Day’’ inaugurated a period when every single by Chuck Berry made the charts, an achievement that carried him successfully into the next decade. ‘‘Sweet Little Sixteen,’’ released in February 1958, was Berry’s biggest hit to

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date. It reached number one on the R & B charts and number two on the pop charts. The song’s lyrics cleverly referred to Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, and New Orleans, in the hope that residents of those cities would identify with the song. In addition, Berry shrewdly mentioned American Bandstand and was booked by Dick Clark to perform it on the show—one of his many Bandstand appearances over the years. As Berry combined his rockabilly style guitar with a lively backbeat rhythm and high, youthful, clear tenor voice, he enjoyed multiple mid-1950s hits that became rock-and-roll standards, including ‘‘Johnny B. Goode,’’ with which he gave the new music an archetypal character in addition to a classic sound. With an urgent, fast-paced tempo and strong rhythmic emphasis, ‘‘Johnny B. Goode’’ utilized blues elements: bent pitches (especially during the guitar introduction and solo); call-and-response (with his trademark interplay between guitar and exciting piano parts); and twelve-bar blues pattern. ‘‘Johnny B. Goode,’’ a highly influential song, became one of the first anthems of rock and roll. Its guitar-solo introduction has been one of the most copied riffs in rock-and-roll history. Berry’s classic songs, numerous cross-country tours with rock-and-roll package shows, and appearances in early rock-and-roll films—Rock, Rock, Rock! (1956), Mister Rock and Roll (1957), and Go, Johnny, Go! (1958)—made Berry a major star. He profoundly influenced many musicians who followed, including some of the most popular rock and pop artists and groups of the 1960s and thereafter: the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan. Having greatly influenced many of the best early rock-and-roll guitarists, including Buddy Holly, Carl Wilson, George Harrison, and Keith Richards, Berry is sometimes referred to as the ‘‘Father of Rock Guitar.’’ He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 1984 and was cited as one of the most influential and creative innovators in the history of American popular music. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1985. Berry was the first musician inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the inaugural induction ceremony in 1986; his longtime pianist and friend, Johnnie Johnson, was inducted in 2001 in the sidemen category. On September 2, 1995, backed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Berry performed at the opening concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. He released Chuck Berry: The Autobiography, in 1987, and that same year a documentary film, Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, was released. It included guest appearances by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and heartland rocker Bruce Springsteen. President Bill Clinton acknowledged Berry, who on occasion still performs today, as one of the twentieth century’s most influential musicians, and presented him the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors Award in December 2000. Further Reading Berry, Chuck. 1987. Chuck Berry: The Autobiography, 90–91. New York: Harmony Books.

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Henke, James, ed. 2000. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Guidebook, 74. Cleveland, OH: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Lisa Scrivani-Tidd

Berry, Halle (1966– ), Actress, Producer, Model Halle Berry is talented, beautiful, and versatile; she charts her own course in choosing roles in both television and movies, and has broken new ground for roles for black actresses. For her 2001 performance in Monster’s Ball she became the first and remains the only African American woman to win an Oscar for best performance by an actress. For that performance she also won awards from the Berlin International Film Festival, the National Board of Review, and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). She is one of the highest-paid actors in the motion picture industry, commanding eight figures. Her name on the marquee guarantees audiences. In 2007 she received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Since 1992 People magazine has acknowledged her as one of the most beautiful and best-dressed women in the world. At age forty-two, she was named the sexiest woman alive by Esquire, and in 2009 Ebony featured her as one of twenty-five African American women ‘‘who make everyone stand up and take notice.’’ Named Halle Maria, she spent her first four years in Cleveland’s inner city but grew up in the suburbs. Her African American father, Jerome, and white mother, Judith, divorced when Halle was four. Growing up, she identified herself as black, excelled in her classes, and overcame shyness by participating in many school activities. From her early childhood she dreamed of being an actress but chose broadcast journalism when she enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College. Berry arrived on the public stage by winning the Miss Teen Ohio and the Miss Ohio USA contests. She was the first black American to enter the Miss World contest. Her pageant success allowed her to join Bob Hope for a USO tour. Her road to stardom began in Chicago, where she studied acting and pursued a Modeling career. A talent agent encouraged her to move to New York. One of her early roles was a teenaged model on a weekly ABC television show, Living Dolls, that was cancelled after thirteen episodes. She moved to Los Angeles, where she earned parts that showcased her beauty. Determined to be taken seriously, she has evolved from being typecast as cute and cuddly and ‘‘window dressing.’’ Her first critical acclaim came as a crack addict in Jungle Fever, a film by Spike Lee. Her filmography includes roles in action movies and comedies, and characters with historical significance. Berry was the first black woman to play the Queen of Sheba; she won her first NAACP Image Award for the miniseries ‘‘Queen.’’ She made HBO ratings history, won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a SAG Award for her starring role and also executive produced Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. She has won Essence magazine, Bambi, two Black Reels, People’s Choice, MTV, and three BET awards. In 2005, she won a worst actress Razzie Award for her performance in Catwoman. She attended the ceremony, accepted the award,

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and determined to never to appear there again. She is a popular guest on talk shows. Her celebrity status has brought scrutiny of her private life in news magazines and tabloids, especially her failed marriages to baseball player David Justice and musician Eric Benet. Separated from Canadian model Gabriel Aubry resulted in a daughter. Berry uses her iconic status to advance causes for diabetes and ovarian cancer. Further Reading Burgess, Marjorie, Ashyia N. Henderson, and Sara Pendergast. 2007. ‘‘Halle Berry.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 57. Detroit: Thomson Gale. Johnson, Melissa Ewery. 2010. Halle Berry: A Biography. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Mask, Mia. 2009. Divas on Screen: Black Women in Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. McCann, Bob. 2010. Encyclopedia of African American Actresses in Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Niven, Steven J. 2008. ‘‘Halle Berry.’’ In African American National Biography, Vol. 1. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Gloria Hamilton

Berry, Mary Frances (1938– ), Educator, Historian, Lawyer, Civil and Human Rights Activist During the 1970s, Mary Frances Berry became the first black woman to lead a major American research university and soon after became the first black woman to serve as the chief educational officer in the United States. Still, Berry is perhaps best well known for her tenure on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and for her work with other human rights activists to call for the release of South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela. Born to George and Frances (Southall) Berry on February 17, 1938, in Nashville, Tennessee, Mary Frances Berry was reared in the city. While extenuating economic conditions forced the family to place Berry and her older brother into an orphanage for a period, her matriculation at then all-black Pearl High School provided a haven from the poverty and the cruelty of the racist South and offered her a lifelong mentor in teacher Minerva Hawkins. Following Berry’s graduation from Pearl in 1956, she attended Fisk and Howard universities. Having received her bachelor’s degree from Howard in 1961, she began her graduate studies there before transferring to the University of Michigan. She was awarded a PhD in 1966, and then solidified her expertise in U.S. constitutional law history by earning her JD in 1970. Berry’s long and distinguished administrative career began at the University of Maryland, where she eventually served as director of the Department of AfroAmerican Studies. By 1974, she had been promoted to provost of the school’s

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Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences. While the position made her the highest-ranking black woman on the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, Berry’s next appointment was the earliest in a series of firsts for an African American woman. In 1976, she became the president of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the following year she was tapped by President Jimmy Carter to serve as assistant secretary for education. Three years later, Carter once again called on Berry, this time to serve as a member of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. However, the recommendations of an Affirmative Action report Carter commissioned her and Blandina Cardenas Ramirez to conduct were not welcomed by incoming president Ronald Reagan. His opposition to the report’s recommendations to set timelines for amending historic racial and gender discrimination in the workplace led to Reagan’s unsuccessful attempt to remove Berry. Dubbed ‘‘the woman the president could not fire,’’ Berry, much to the dismay of the Reagan administration, remained steadfast in her commitment to the commission’s role as a Washington watchdog. She also assumed the co-leadership of the Free South Africa Movement (FSAM) with TransAfrica executive director Randall Robinson and Congressman Walter Fauntroy in 1984. FSAM built a powerful coalition of government and corporate opposition to South African apartheid and was instrumental in the release of Mandela and the end of apartheid. Since then, Berry has remained involved in the struggle to secure racial and economic justice as well as women’s rights and family welfare. She served as chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during a six-year term from 1999 to 2004. A widely respected academician and activist, Berry has received over thirty honorary degrees and was named one of the women of the century by the Women’s Hall of Fame. Further Reading Berry, Mary Frances. 2009. And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Berry, Mary Frances. 1993. The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women’s Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother, New York: Viking. Harroun, Debra G. 2006. ‘‘Mary Frances Berry.’’ In Contemporary Black Biography: Profiles from the International Black Community. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Crystal A. deGregory

Bethune, Mary McLeod (1875–1955), Educator, Activist, Presidential Advisor, Organization Leader Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, renowned race leader, was the most influential African American woman during the first half of the twentieth century. She founded a school that evolved into Bethune-Cookman University, led organizations

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dedicated to improving African American lives, advised at least four presidents of the United States, and was the first African American woman to head a federal agency. Bethune was born on July 10, 1875, near Mayesville, South Carolina; she was the third youngest of Samuel and Patsy McLeod’s seventeen children. Bethune’s parents and most of her siblings were former slaves. She was born in a log cabin built by her father and brothers on land that the McLeods owned and farmed. Bethune had no opportunity to begin her formal education until a school for African American children, the Trinity Presbyterian Mission School, near Mayesville, opened in 1885. Three years later she received a scholarship to attend Scotia Seminary for Negro Girls (now Barber-Scotia College) in Concord, North Carolina. After graduating in 1894 and desiring to become a missionary in Africa, Bethune matriculated at the Bible Institute for Home and Foreign Missions of the Chicago Evangelization Society (now Moody Bible Institute). Once Bethune completed a two-year course of study, however, the Presbyterian Mission Board in New York rejected her request to do missionary work. In 1896, the Mission Board sent Bethune to Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, in Augusta, Georgia; Bethune taught at the school founded by Lucy Craft Laney for one year. Laney, who was also the principal of Haines, served as a mentor to Bethune. Bethune then transferred to Kindall Institute in Sumter, South Carolina. On May 6, 1898, she married Albertus Bethune (who also taught at Kindall before finding other employment), and gave birth to Albert McLeod Bethune Sr. on February 3, 1899 (Bethune’s grandson and legally adopted son, Albert McLeod Bethune Jr., was born in 1920). The couple separated eight years later. Bethune taught at Palatka Mission School in Palatka, Florida, for five years. In October 1904, with an initial enrollment of five girls, Bethune founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona, Florida. In less than two years, the elementary school’s enrollment, with Bethune as principal, grew to 250 students. In 1907, the school moved from a rented house to its permanent location on Second Avenue (now Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard). In 1912, the institute opened the McLeod Hospital and Training School for Nurses; the hospital closed in 1927. A high school, the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, was established in 1918, and in 1923 the school became coeducational when it merged with Cookman Institute. By 1931 the school became a junior college known as Bethune-Cookman College, and it became a four-year college (now Bethune-Cookman University) in 1942, the same year that Bethune resigned from the presidency. Four years later she accepted the presidency again for a term of one year. Bethune, a member of various educational organizations, served as president of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools (1923–24) before it was renamed the American Teachers Association, Florida State Teachers Organization (1919), and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (1936–50). Bethune’s involvement with additional organizations enhanced her reputation as a women’s rights and civil rights activist. She was president of the Florida Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (1917–25), founder and president of the

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Southeastern Federation of Colored Women (1920–25), and president of the National Association of Colored Women (1924–28). At that time, the NACW was the leading secular organization for African American women, and the NACW presidency was considered the highest office for an African American woman. During Bethune’s tenure, the NACW became the first national African American organization to establish its national headquarters in Washington, DC; the location reflected two of Bethune’s objectives for the NACW: to increase the organization’s national visibility and to become involved in international issues. Expanding upon her goals for the NACW and recognizing the need to bring the various African American women’s organizations together, Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) in 1935. Bethune served as the organization’s president until 1949, established national headquarters in Washington, and welcomed twenty-two national African American women’s occupational and professional organizations, eighty-two metropolitan councils, and many life members. Bethune, who consistently strove to empower African American women and concurrently sought civil rights for women and men, was also vice-president of the National Urban League (1920) and vice president of the NAACP (1940–55). Bethune used politics to advance her causes. She advised Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, and served on national commissions as early as the Coolidge Administration in the 1920s, when she was appointed to the National Child Welfare Commission. Bethune was appointed as an administrative assistant in the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration in June 1936, and on August 1936 she organized the Federal Council on Negro Affairs (the Black Cabinet) which brought together African American officials to advocate social change. When Bethune was promoted to director of the Division of Negro Affairs, National Youth Administration in January 1939, she became the highest-ranking African American woman in a federal agency. In April 1945 President Truman appointed Bethune, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Walter White as associate consultants to the United States delegation at the organizational meeting of the United Nations. Bethune’s work cited above and her many additional efforts to improve African American lives continue to benefit subsequent generations. Bethune’s legacy includes her well known ‘‘My Last Will and Testament,’’ written shortly before her death on May 18, 1955. The document, originally published in Ebony (1955), encourages African Americans to continue to advance the race. Further Reading Bennett, Lerone, Jr. ‘‘Chronicles of Black Courage: Mary McLeod Bethune Started College with ‘1.50 and Faith.’’’ Ebony 57(February 2002): 156, 158, 160–61. Hanson, Joyce A. 2003. Mary McLeod Bethune and Black Women’s Political Activism. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

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Hine, Darlene Clark. 2008. ‘‘Mary McLeod Bethune.’’ In African American National Biography, Vol. 1. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. McCluskey, Audrey Thomas, and Elaine M. Smith, eds. 2001. Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Smith, Elaine M. ‘‘Mary McLeod Bethune.’’ 1993. In Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. 1. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing. Linda M. Carter

Beyonc
e (1981– ), Singer, Songwriter, Actress, Entrepreneur Beyonc
e Knowles is a multitalented singer, songwriter, and actress who has a tremendous vocal range which allows her to perform a variety of songs, although her roots are in the rhythm and blues genre. Beyonc
e Gisele Knowles was born September 4, 1981, to Matthew Knowles, a medical equipment salesman and later her manager, and Tina Beyince, a hairdresser. Beyonc
e was named after her mother in an effort to make sure the Beyince family’s Creole name did not die out. Beyonc
e has a younger sister Solange. Much of Beyonc
e schooling was accomplished via tutors. In 2000, Knowles’ received a high school diploma. Beyonc
e’s interest in music began as a child. She was active on the Houston, Texas, beauty pageant circuit singing for the talent portion of the shows. Beyonc
e sang as soloist for two years in the church choir of St. John’s United Method Church. In 1990, Beyonc
e partnered with La Tavia Roberson, appearing as Girls’ Tyme. The pair added Kelendria Rowland in 1992. The group performed under several names including Somethin’ Fresh, Borderline, Clich
e, the Dolls, and Destiny. In 1993, LeToya Tuckett joined the group, which began performing under the name Destiny’s Child. Destiny’s Child signed with the Silent Productions branch of Elektra Records in 1995. Elektra dropped the group in 1996, but the group signed with Columbia Records the same year. Their first album, Destiny’s Child, sold over a million copies. It was followed in 1999 by The Writing’s On the Wall, for which the group won two Grammy Awards. The group’s success was bittersweet as Luckett and Roberson left the group claiming Matthew Knowles was biased in his treatment of Beyonc
e. Michelle Williams joined Destiny’s Child and in 2001 the trio went on to release The Platinum’s On the Wall (2001), Survivor (2001), 8 Days of Christmas (2001), This Is the Remix (2002), and Destiny Fulfilled (2004). Beyonc
e released her first solo album Dangerously in Love in 2003. The album went multiplatinum. This album was listed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 200 definitive albums in music history. Beyonc
e released B’Day in 2006 and I Am . . . Sasha Fierce in 2008.

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Beyonc
e has performed with many singers including Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, Missy Elliott, Luther Vandross, Shakira, and Kanye West. Beyonc
e has written and produced over sixty-five songs. She has had three albums and twelve singles hit number one on the Billboard charts including the 2009 singles ‘‘Diva’’ and ‘‘Halo.’’ Beyonc
e cites as the high point of her career her performing ’’At Last,’’ to which President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama danced at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball in January 2009. Beyonc
e has contributed to several movie soundtracks including: Men in Black (1997), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Osmosis Jones (2001), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), and Dreamgirls (2006). Her talent has resulted in numerous awards including four MTV Music Awards, fourteen Grammy Awards, and nine Billboard Music Awards. Beyonc
e is also the first African American and only the second woman to win the American Society of Composer, Artists, and Performers Songwriter of the Year Award (2001). She is also the first woman to win the International Artist Award at the American Music Awards (2007). Beyonc
e made her acting debut in the 2001 MTV Production of Carmen: A Hip Hopera, in which she played Carmen. Beyonc
e went on to perform in a variety of movies including Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), The Fighting Temptations (2003), the 2004 documentary Fade to Black, The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006), Cadillac Records (2008), and Obsessed (2009). Beyonc
e and her mother designed the clothes worn by Beyonc
e and Destiny’s Child since the start of Beyonc
e’s career. In 2005, the pair entered into a licensing agreement with Tarrant Apparel to produce the House of Dereon couture line and Dereon ready-to-wear clothing. Beyonc
e has endorsed several products including L’Oreal, Pepsi, the perfume ‘‘True Star’’ for Tommy Hilfiger, and Armani. An active philanthropist, in 2004, Beyonc
e founded the Survivor Foundation to provide temporary housing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She also provided relief for survivors of Hurricane Ike, and established the Houston based Knowles-Roland Center for Youth. Most recently Beyonc
e donated her salary from the movie Cadillac Records to the nationwide drug Singer and actress, Beyonc
e Knowles. (Shurehabilitation centers Phoenix House. tterstock)

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Beyonc
e has had managed to keep her personal life very private. Her stage persona is nothing like her private life. On stage Beyonc
e becomes Sasha Fierce, but in private she is quiet and shy. Beyonc
e admitted in 2006 to suffering from severe depression following the breakup of the original members of Destiny’s Child. Beyonc
e has had only two serious personal relationships. A seven-year relationship as a Houston teen and the second with rapper and businessman Shawn Corey Carter aka Jay-Z. Beyonc
e dated him from 2002 before marrying him in April 4, 2008 in a small private ceremony attended by close family and friends in New York City. See also: Entertainment Industry; Women, African American, Images of Further Reading Beyonc
e Knowles. (Homepage.) http://www.beyonc
eonline.com. Knowles, Beyonc
e, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, and James Patrick Herman. 2002. Soul Survivors: The Official Autobiography of ‘‘Destiny’s Child.’’ New York: Reagan Books. Sanchez, Brenna, and Bob Jacobson. 2009. ‘‘Beyonc
e.’’ Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 70. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Anne K. Driscoll

Big Apple (Dance) This African American group social dance was briefly popular in the late 1930s. Related to the ring shout and the cakewalk in form, the dance begins with couples marching in a counterclockwise circular formation. A caller directs steps to the dancers, and at times, allows couples to enter the center of the circle to ‘‘shine,’’ or demonstrate spontaneous virtuosic movements. The big apple derived its name from the Big Apple Night Club located on Park Street in Columbia, South Carolina, where it first gained popularity. The dance spread across the country when it became the centerpiece of traveling stage shows featuring teenage dancers. By 1937, the dance reached the Savoy Ballroom in New York, where its format solidified further to include comic, eccentric steps from earlier dances, including a modified version of the Charleston; the Suzy-Q, in which dancers traveled sideways while twisting their feet with one foot on the toe and the other on the heel; the ‘‘spank the baby,’’ in which dancers fanned their bottoms with one hand as if scolding an errant child; the peck, in which dancers facing each other thrust their necks forward, imitating the pecking motion of chickens; the shorty George, in which dancers slinked from side to side with their arms pointing downward at the sides of their bodies; and truckin,’ an exaggerated walking style in which dancers traveled around the circle with one admonitory finger raised upward. Black choreographer Frankie Manning staged performance versions of the dance at the Savoy that emphasized both its playful and its virtuosic possibilities. White songwriter and bandleader Tommy Dorsey penned ‘‘The Big Apple’’ in

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1937, and the song quickly became a number one hit. The dance also became a commodity, as it was disseminated by teachers at the Arthur Murray dance studios. By the spring of 1938, the big apple achieved its maximum visibility as a cottage industry of sorts, producing distinctive fashions sold in department stores, special-event dance parties at nightclubs, and a widely reported big apple event in Washington, DC, at the White House. Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, a troupe of professional dances, performed the big apple in the 1939 film Keep Punching. The dance faded quickly from the national scene. Filmmaker Mura Dehn documented versions of the big apple in her 1950 film The Spirit Moves. See also: Dance and Dance Companies

Further Reading Courlander, Harold. 1963. Negro Folk Music, U.S.A. New York: Columbia University Press. Emery, Lynne Fauley. 1988. Black Dance from 1619 to Today. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Books. Malone, Jaqui. 1996. Steppin’ on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Thomas F. DeFrantz

Biracialism Biracialism, or ‘‘mixed race,’’ is a term used to specify a racial ancestry of two races. In particular, mixed race has often been associated with colonialism and slavery. Although our society has become more liberated and accepting towards biracialism, two centuries later those with black and white ancestry, in particular, remain the most discriminated mixed race in the twenty-first century. Despite barriers from the past regarding issue of biracialism, today the United States continues to become more liberated and diverse. In addition, according to Lee and Bean, today 1 in 40 people acknowledge being multiracial; by 2050, 1 in 5 people will identify themselves as being multiracial. Those who are biracial, who once dealt with personal identity and group categorization issues, benefit from being biracial today. ‘‘Along with increased immigration are rises in the rates of racial/ethnic intermarriages, which in turn have led to a sizeable and rowing multiracial population.’’ Indeed, with the increase in biracialism today, the nation’s one black and white society is diminishing rapidly. Today a majority of people from mixed races do not have to deal with issues regarding personal identity. Instead, they represent and acknowledge their racial ethnicities. Many African Americans who are biracial are mixed with, but not limited to, European, Asian, Latin America, Native American, and Creole. Currently, the DNA Print Genomics performs DNA analysis to determine the percentage of a person’s genetic makeup to determine if they fit in the narrow categories, which consist of white, black, East Asian, Native American, or other mixed race. Because the options for one’s selection of race are so parochial, many

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people who are biracial often are offended when they have to classify themselves as ‘‘mixed race’’ because their options are limited to four choices. As an example, President Barack Obama revealed that when he applied to Harvard’s law school, he did not provide his race on his application to the school. While in the past many biracial people were advised not to claim all ethnic backgrounds and instead select one racial identity, if the person had a black genetic element they were considered black, which meant the biracial person had to abandon the rest of their genetic makeup. However, issues regarding one’s biracial identity create problems in the United States. Today, DNA testing confirms there are people who look white yet their genetics verify that a majority of their recent ancestors were African. In addition, people who look black possess genes clarifying that the majority of their recent ancestors were European. This particular DNA test is known as biogeographical ancestry assessment. When individuals have their DNA tested, the majority of the samples reveal that the most Americans are biracial. In American Psychologist, cited in Racial Science Now, sociologist Troy Duster contends, ‘‘Some percentage of people who look white will possess genetic markers indicating that a significant majority of their recent ancestors were African. Some percentage of people who look black will possess genetic markers indicating the majority of their recent ancestors were European.’’ Although there are many types of biracial people in the United States, some of the genetic makeup includes Afro-Asians, Afro-Arabs, and Afro-Latino Americans. The culture of Afro-Asians dates back to 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act limited their immigration. Many Chinese men worked in the United States, but had left Chinese wives behind in China and now could not bring their wives to join them. Although the men had relocated to the United States for opportunities to advance in life, many whites were upset about Chinese being employed in their country and taking some positions that whites desired. As a result, the Chinese were often treated poorly and discriminated against. Many Chinese lived in black communities and had children with black women. As an example famous golfer Tiger Woods has a genetic makeup that consists of black, Chinese, Native American, and Thai descent. His mother is Thai and his father was half-black. Afro-Arab refers to people who are mixed with black and Arab ancestry. A large number of Afro-Arabs live in North Africa, East Africa, and Middle Eastern countries. Currently, more than half of the Arab population resides in Africa. As a result, many of the people of African descent who reside in the United States marry and produce biracial children. Afro-Latin Americans in the United States who are Afro-Latin American are also biracial; however, those in Latin America simply refer to such people as black. This particular group, which is composed of millions of blacks, varies from diverse countries such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Brazil, for example, is the second-largest nation with inhabitants of African ancestry; there are currently 90 million people of African descent out of their 190 million population. Overall, biracialism, which was once viewed negatively, is now becoming more socially accepted in the United States. As this nation continues to advance towards diversity, interracial marriages and biracialism will continue to flourish.

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Further Reading Abraham, Carolyn. ‘‘Molecular Eyewitness: DNA Gets a Human Face.’’ Racial Science Now. 2007. Lee, Jennifer, and Frank D. Bean. 2004. ‘‘America’s Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification.’’ Annual Review of Sociology 3:221–42. Mason, Ernest. 1979. ‘‘Alain Locke on Race and Race Relations.’’ Phylon 40 (4th Quarter): 342–50. O’Hearn, Claudine O. 1998. Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural. New York: Pantheon Books. Root, Maria P. 1992. Racially Mixed People in America. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Monique Leslie-Akassi

Black Arts Movement The Black Arts Movement (BAM) or Black Aesthetic Movement is the 1960s and 1970s literary counterpart of the Black Power Movement; it reflects anger and nationalism, a revolutionary stance, and independence. BAM as a continuation of the development of African American literature and culture calls for an art that is by the people, functional, political, and one focused on black people without seeking white validation. The attitude and thrust are found historically in the literature since its beginning with such writers as Martin Delany, James Whitfield, David Walker, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Sterling Brown. The critical stance of BAM was articulated and defined by such writers as Addison Gayle Jr. in Black Expression and the Black Aesthetic, a collections of essays; Larry Neal, who advocated and explained this artistic revolution which was culturally relevant and original; both Neal and Amiri Baraka, who recognized the African essence of the aesthetic; and Ron Karenga, who connected African roots with black culture in the institution of Kwanzaa. The artist and works, even those using the more ‘‘acceptable’’ European forms and subjects, continued to be exploited with little or no recognition of his ability and genius. However, it became more and more apparent that black writers were no longer willing to accommodate to the exclusion of their own individuality. This dissatisfaction with the status quo and emphasis on black cultural pride, identity, and the people parallels the sentiment in the Black Power Movement. Additionally, BAM reexamined many of the issues prevalent in the Harlem Renaissance. Like the renaissance, much of the artistic revolution was in the same place; for BAM the city was Chicago. BAM addressed renaissance themes such as art, African American identity, history and folk tradition, urban setting, and color. The question in the renaissance was who should judge black art; BAM answered: black people. Thus, the guidelines for art and the criteria for

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judging reflected the political focus of the times. Major critical voices and articulators of BAM were Tom Dent, David Henderson, Calvin Hernton, Askia Tour
e, Leroi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), Larry Neal, Addison Gayle, Jr., Hoyt Fuller, and Ron Karenga. The generally agreed upon formal beginning of BAM is with the assassination of Malcolm X and Jones’s name change to Baraka and his establishing of the Black Arts Repertory Theatre School (BART). However, preceding BART, black writers like Dent, Hernton, Henderson, and Tour
e had been members of the Umbra Workshop, a group of writers who espoused the same ideology as BART. Baraka was better known than the others; he was an acclaimed writer whose works were often integrationist, but which illustrated his contention that art should be a weapon. Poetry and the oral tradition were dominant in this period as in the renaissance. Drama was second in influence and popularity, and prose, which was least accessible, followed. This period also saw, as was apparent in the renaissance, a proliferation of literary and art periodicals, most of them short-lived. Major critics, poets, and spoken word artists of the period include Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee), Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Carolyn Rodgers, Gil Scott Heron, and the Last Poets. A poem of the movement that became a manifesto, written by Baraka, ‘‘Black Art,’’ presents BAM militancy and theory in both language and the message. He indicates that poems are to be political weapons and a call to action. The urgency of this call is sounded in his poem ‘‘SOS.’’ Madhubuti’s ideology reflects the independence of the movement as does the fact that he began by publishing and selling his own poetry. Sonia Sanchez, like Larry Neal, demonstrated the movement’s demand for the artist’s language to be the language of the streets or the vernacular, in the African oral tradition. Like Giovanni and others, Sanchez called for poetry that was germane to black people and black life. Critical analysis of the poetry was presented by Stephen Henderson in Understanding the New Black Poetry, which discussed the form, language usage, and symbols, and essays by such critic/poets as Carolyn Rodgers in her essays ‘‘Black Poetry—Where It’s At’’ and ‘‘The Literature of Black,’’ which analyze form, language, and European art versus black art. The Last Poets were a group of black poets who combined poetry and music that demonstrated the militancy of the period both in live/street performances and on their spoken word albums. Like the poetry that promoted the oral and street guerrilla warfare, BAM promoted plays to speak directly to the needs and hopes of black Americans. BAM playwrights, critics, and directors include Ron Milner, Ed Bullins, Sonia Sanchez, John Walker, Barbara Ann Teer, and Woodie King. This period saw theater groups, publishers, and periodicals, not all long-lived. Thus, there were publishers such as Dudley Randall, Broadside Press, who published such poets as Gwendolyn Brooks; Hoyt Fuller, managing editor of Black World, a publication of the Johnson Publishing Company; and Haki Madhubuti, Third World Press. Periodicals included Umbra Magazine, Black Dialogue, Black Drama, Liberator, Freedomways, and Negro Digest/Black World. BAM was criticized for being misogynistic, for reducing the black experience to the vernacular, and for confrontation. In spite of the criticism and its short life, it had a major impact. Black writers who wrote about their own identity without

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apologies to other groups opened the doors for other racial groups such as Native Americans, Asians, and Latinos to explore their own identities. Even though men were dominant in the 1960s, there is a proliferation of women writers who surfaced in the 1970s. The emphasis on the language of the street/vernacular has led to a burgeoning of spoken word poets, Hip-Hop, and urban literature. See also: Harlem Renaissance Further Reading Bambara, Toni Cade, ed. 1970. The Black Woman: An Anthology New York: New American Library. Baraka, Amiri, and Larry Neal, eds. 1968. Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing. New York: William Morrow. Gayle, Addison, Jr., ed. 1971. The Black Aesthetic. New York: Anchor Books. Gayle, Addison, Jr. 1976. The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in America. New York: Anchor Books. Napier, Winston, ed. 2000. African American Literary Theory: A Reader. New York: New York University Press. Helen R. Houston

Black Bottom, The (Dance) The black bottom is a jazz dance contemporaneous in origin with the Charleston. It is performed to a fast tempo and danced on the off beat. It includes forward and backward motion, some shimmying and light slaps on the bottom. Trying to pin down the first appearance of a social dance is virtually impossible, and in the case of the black bottom claims have been made for New Orleans, Nashville, and Detroit. The claim for New Orleans seems to have no other basis than the jazz connection. The Detroit claim is based on the fact that a section of that city is called Black Bottom. Nashville enters the competition because Nashville-based black musician Perry Bradford introduced the song to the white community with his recording of ‘‘The Original Black Bottom Dance,’’ which was issued with dance instructions. Bradford himself said that he invented the dance, but his autobiography also claimed that he discovered Bessie Smith and that his recording of ‘‘Crazy Blues’’ with Mamie Smith sold a million copies, among other things. His claims may all be true, but there’s no verification of most of them. What is certain is that the popularity of all jazz dance rocketed with Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle’s black revue Shuffle Along (1921), a landmark production in many ways. Its choreography included virtually all of the popular jazz dances of the time, which was a major reason for its enormous popularity. Some music historians say that the show established the Tap Dance as a legitimate theatrical form. It also introduced a number of important black performers, including Florence Mills and Josephine Baker. With Shuffle Along, white New York began to dance the Charleston and the shimmy and other black dances to the hot jazz of

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the 1920s. Then, in 1924, the black bottom was featured in Irving Miller’s 1924 production Dinah. It was added to the dance repertoire in nightclubs and speakeasies, but it did not reach its full popularity until 1926. In that year it was performed in George White’s Scandals of 1926 by diminutive white dancer Ann Pennington to the song ‘‘Black Bottom,’’ which was written by white songwriters Ray Henderson, Buddy DeSylva, and Lew Brown. It became the rage in the United States and even in Europe. In 1927, for example, the Roseland Ballroom in New York hosted a black bottom dance marathon. A number of black performers wrote and recorded black bottom songs, from ‘‘Black Bottom Stomp’’ by Jelly Roll Morton, to Blind Boy Fuller’s ‘‘Black Bottom Blues I Crave My Pig Meat.’’ Although the black bottom lasted only about two years as a popular social dance, it was incorporated into tap routines as a solo challenge dance, and the influence of it is still seen on the tap stage. See also: Dance and Dance Companies Further Reading Emery, Lynne Fauley. 1988. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970, 2nd rev. ed., new chapter by Brenda Dixon-Stowell, foreword by Katherine Dunham. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Co. Norton, Pauline. ‘‘Black Bottom.’’ Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press. http://www.grovemusiconline.com. Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. 1968. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York: Macmillan. Kathleen Thompson

Black English Black English, or African American English, is the vernacular English spoken by many people of African descent. The word ‘‘Ebonics,’’ another term for language spoken by African Americans, is itself a blend of ‘‘ebony’’ and ‘‘phonics’’ (literally defined, ‘‘black sounds’’). Ebonics is known by several evolutionary nomenclatures—Negro speech, Negro English, Negro American dialect, ‘‘bad English,’’ African American Vernacular English, Black English, African American English, and Pan African Communication Behaviors, among others. Of all the names associated with Ebonics, current scholars most often use African American English (AAE) when referring to language spoken by many persons of African descent. It should be noted that all black people do not speak Ebonics. Conversely, there are non-African Americans who speak the language because they have grown up in communities in which Ebonics was the primary vernacular. In addition, nonblack entertainers use Ebonics as a means to connect to black audiences and to adopt Hip-Hop vernacular into entertainment routines.

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The term ‘‘Ebonics’’ was coined in 1973 by Robert Williams, noted psychologist and critic of racial and cultural biases, when he spoke at the Cognitive Language Development of Black Children conference. However, the word catapulted into the national consciousness in 1996 when the Oakland Board of Education declared that Ebonics is a language of its own; it is not a dialect of English, and teachers would use Ebonics to teach Standard English in the Oakland schools. Because the general public misunderstood the proposal and thought that teachers would be ‘‘teaching’’ Ebonics, a firestorm of controversy was ignited. The scholarly community had a problem deciding upon a definition for AAE. Persons from several disciplines have been interested in Ebonics—educators, researchers, linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, politicians, and, of course, English teachers. It has been a challenge to classify Ebonics since parties involved cannot agree upon the status of AAE. Some have called Ebonics ‘‘bad English.’’ Others have referred to it as slang, dialect, and language. Even the Urban Dictionary, which allows the community to define its own language, offers ninety definitions for Ebonics. When scholars looked at Ebonics objectively—void of racial biases, negative value judgments, and other prejudices that cloaked hypotheses ‘‘experts’’ in various fields voiced about the language—they discarded anecdotal theories and formed two plausible hypotheses about the evolution of Black English. The first one, the dialect hypothesis, is based upon the oral tradition. When slaves were brought from Africa to the United States, they were not taught the English language because laws forbade anyone from educating slaves. So without formal training slaves learned the language as well as they could. It was natural for them to employ their own native sounds and speech patterns to the new language to which they were exposed. Thus, Ebonics was passed from generation to generation and became the speech of some African American families and black communities. The second hypothesis indicates that Ebonics began as a pidgin language, a vernacular with a very limited vocabulary and simple grammar that permitted communication between groups of people who have no common language. For example, pidgins developed with the slave trade in Africa and with the importation of West African slaves to Caribbean plantations. Over time, Black English became a Creole language, the blend of English and several West African languages that became the primary speech spoken. Prior to the 1960s, noncomplimentary anecdotal theories about AAE were bantered around. However, the 1960s saw the birth of the Black Arts Movement, which spawned a respect for the study of Ebonics. The movement celebrated various facets of black culture, which included Black English. During this same decade, William Labov, J. L. Dillard, Geneva Smitherman, and other linguists argued vehemently in defense of Ebonics. Close examination revealed grammar, structure, and sound rules in West African languages that are apparent in Ebonics. For instance, the absence of the verb ‘‘to be’’ in West African languages is also absent in Ebonics. Standard English, ‘‘They are speaking about jazz’’ becomes ‘‘They speakin’ about jazz’’ in Ebonics code. Other commonalities between the two languages include the repetition of a noun subject with a

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pronoun (My boss, he is a hard taskmaster); the same form of the noun for singular and plural usage (one book; seven book); and the same verb form for all subjects (I know; you know; he know; we know; they know). Relative to sound, the absence of consonant pairs in the West African vernacular is true in Ebonics (pronounced jus instead of just and mus instead of must). The /r/ sound is dropped from words (pronounced mow instead of more; flo instead of floor), and the absence of the /th/ sound in West African languages and Ebonics is substituted with the /d/ sound in words with the initial /th/ spelling (pronounced dis instead of this, dat instead of that) and is substituted for the /f/ sound in words ending with / th/ (pronounced earf instead of earth, wif instead of with, fif instead of fifth). The connection of Ebonics to West African languages solves the dilemma of AAE being regarded as a deficient language. Scholarly research revealed two plausible theories that account for the history and evolution of Ebonics. Linguists acknowledge that nonstandard dialects are highly structured language systems. So now that many linguists admit that Black English has the tenets that make it a bona fide language, more and more educators and other professionals view Ebonics with a newfound respect for what the language means to African Americans and Black culture. See also: Slang and Unconventional English Further Reading CNN Interactive. 1997. ‘‘Amended Resolution of the Oakland Board of Education: Oakland School.’’ Board Amends Ebonics Policy. http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/ 16/black.english/ebonics.amend.html. Lewis, Bryan C. 1996. ‘‘Black English: Its History and Its Role in the Education of Our Children.’’ http://www.geocities.com/athens/ithaca/3638/blacktalk.html?200911. Monaghan, Leila. 1997. ‘‘Views of Linguists and Anthropologists on the Ebonics Issue (Part 1).’’ http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/ebonics/LingAnthro1.html. Rickford, John R. ‘‘The Oakland Ebonics Decision: Commendable Attack on the Problem.’’ San Jose Mercury News, Op Ed, December 26, 1996. http://www.stanford.edu/ ~rickford/ebonics/SJMN-OpEd.html. Rubba, Johanna. 1997. ‘‘Ebonics: Q & A.’’ http://cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/Ebonics.html. Jewell B. Parham

Black Enterprise (1970) With a belief that civil rights must include economic access, Earl G. Graves founded Black Enterprise (BE) with the mission of helping African Americans close the wealth gap. Since August 1970, the magazine has played a vital role in educating black readers on financial matters and empowering black businesses, entrepreneurs, professionals, and families. When BE was launched, Graves had no previous publishing or journalism experience. He had a degree from Morgan

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State University in business, served in the army achieving the rank of captain, sold real estate, and worked three years as an administrative assistant to Senator Robert Kennedy until Kennedy’s assassination. With the determination to equip the black community with the skills to expand their participation in the American marketplace, in 1968, he established Earl G. Graves, a management consulting firm. In 1970, his subsidiary, Earl Graves Publishing, published Black Enterprise. The first issue featured the achievements of businessman and mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, Charles Evers. Through the years, Graves has provided practical ‘‘how to’’ business information to subscribers, and convinced Wall Street and Madison Avenue of the value of black consumers. After ten issues, the company posted revenues of $900,000. By its twentieth year, the business finance magazine targeted to an African American audience earned $15.1 million. It has become a staple in the African American community. In 1973 the magazine published a market analysis of advertising responsiveness among upscale blacks and upscale whites and its first list of top one hundred black businesses. Through scholarly research articles, recurring lists, surveys, and statistics, the magazine has chronicled and documented the changing landscape of black businesses and the growth of black professionals and politicians in American popular culture. In 1999, a compilation of the lists was the basis of a book by Derek T. Dingle entitled Black Enterprise Titans of the B.E. 100s: Black CEOs Who Redefined and Conquered American Business. Articles in the journal inspire readers to follow Graves’s leadership model and accept his message that it is possible to ‘‘succeed in business without being white.’’ Black Enterprise has evolved into a multimedia company with wealth creation and empowerment tools available in print, via radio, television, and online at blackenterprise.com. The Web site provides access to current information on business, politics, careers, entrepreneurs, B.E. 100s, and lifestyles. The parent company hosts networking entrepreneurs’ conferences. The magazine gives awards for community champions, business innovators, and teen entrepreneurs. BE has a circulation of over 3.7 million, mostly upscale, college-educated readers, and 500,000 annual subscribers. Earl Graves Sr. still writes the publisher’s page. President and CEO Earl Graves Jr. continues the legacy of his father, celebrating black advancements in corporate and political America and preaching wealth building and business ownership. A company or individual featured in BE has reached a pinnacle of success. During the presidential primaries, BE was the first national magazine to endorse Barack Obama. In February 2009, the president’s first exclusive print interview was with Derek T. Dingle, BE editor in chief. In July 2009, Dingle was one of seven black journalists invited on Air Force One for a roundtable with the president. Further Reading
Bell, Gregory S. ‘‘Earl Graves.’’ 2009. In African American National Biography, vo. 3. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Dingle, Derek. 2009. ‘‘Black Enterprise Exclusive: Interview with President Barack Obama.’’ Black Enterprise 40 (April): 62. Dingle, Derek. 2009. ‘‘Our Historic Flight on Air Force One with President Obama.’’ Black Enterprise 40 (September): 10. Gates, Henry Louis Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. 2008. African American National Biography, Vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press. Graves, Earl G. Sr., and Earl G. Graves Jr. 2005. ‘‘Black Enterprise 35.’’ Black Enterprise 36 (August): 81–83. Whigham, Marjorie. 1990. ‘‘20 Years of Black Enterprise: A Portrait of Earl G. Graves Ltd.’’ Black Enterprise 21 (August): 63. Gloria Hamilton

Black Entertainment Television (BET) Black Entertainment Television (BET) was launched in 1980 by Robert Louis Johnson (born April 8, 1946, in Hickory, Mississippi). Targeting African American audiences, BET provides music, entertainment, and news. This leading cable channel began with limited airtime, showing music videos for only two hours on Friday. Many of these neophyte videos brought once-regional groups to a national audience and introduced a diversity of talent never before seen on mainstream television and in popular culture. Video Soul started in 1981 as BET’s first music program with Donnie Simpson as host for fourteen years. Here viewers got to see mostly Rhythm and Blues (R & B) performers and performances not seen on other music channels. Johnson picked up the longstanding Bobby Jones Gospel show from a Nashville affiliate in 1980 and it continues to remain popular today. On any given Sunday, viewers are exposed to a range of performers, from seasoned gospel singers to up-and-coming Hip-Hop gospel artists during the one-hour show. Five days a week, urban music lovers can tune in to the latest as they countdown the hits on 106 & Park. Guests who have appeared on 106 & Park since it premiered on September 11, 2000, include Jamie Foxx, Janet Jackson, Tom Cruise, and Fifty (50) Cent. Programming includes nonmusic shows as well. One such show is the successful Comic View, which has been on the air for over fifteen years. This standup comedy show allows numerous unknown comedians an opportunity to perform in front of a live audience in various venues. Well-known hosts of Comic View include Cedric ‘‘The Entertainer’’ Kyles, D. L. Hughley, and Gary Owen (distinguished as the first white male to host). News programming included BET Tonight (hosted by Ed Gordon and later Tavis Smiley). Both shows presented news and commentary often not seen elsewhere with a black focus. Memorable shows include Gordon’s interview with O. J. Simpson shortly after his civil trial related to his wife’s murder and Smiley’s interview with Fidel Castro. Other networks affiliated with BET include BET J

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(programming targeting the multicultural and more sophisticated audiences) and BET Gospel (featuring gospel talent and programming). Ready to focus on other ventures and with an offer he could not refuse, Johnson sold the black-owned BET to Viacom in 2001 for $3 billion. With this deal, Johnson made history by becoming the first black billionaire. Not everyone shared the same delight about this exchange. Viewers expressed their dismay at the loss of the only black-owned network by writing letters to Viacom and through dialogue on various radio talk shows. Debra L. Lee, BET veteran for over twenty years, was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in 2005 and remains at the helm. In 2008, BET switched gears and began to offer more original shows to further satisfy the diverse interests of viewers and increase advertising sales. Reality shows such as Baldwin Hills (spotlighting wealthy African American Los Angeles teens) and College Hill (focused on eight African American college students who share a home for a semester) have received favorable viewership. BET series include Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is, American Gangster, and Sunday Best. According to Nielsen Media Research, BET now reaches eighty-seven million homes.

Further Reading Bramhall, Joe. Black Entertainment Television. Hoover’s Company Records database. University of Texas at Austin Library. July 19, 2010. http://premium.hoovers. com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/subscribe/co/people/bio.xhtml?ID=ffffrfsrjfffffffff&OID= 1108877. Pulley, Brett. 2004. The Billion Dollar BET: Robert Johnson and the Inside Story of Black Entertainment Television. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Tait, Alice A., and John T. Barber. 1996. ‘‘Black Entertainment Television: Breaking New Ground and Accepting New Responsibilities?’’ In Mediated Messages and African-American Culture: Contemporary Issues, ed. Venise T. Berry and Carmen L. Manning-Miller. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Angela M. Gooden

Black Hebrews The emergence of Black Hebrews as a religious sect can best be understood within the context of the African American cultural and religious experience in the United States as it was being shaped by slavery and continuing discrimination. However, neither their presence nor their influence could be contained solely on the shores of North America because of the visionary leadership of this sect. Often misunderstood and maligned, Black Hebrews continue to practice their faith today, sometimes being referred to as Black Hebrew Israelites or Hebrew Israelites, Black Jews, or African Hebrew Israelites. Ultimately, some members of this

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religious group felt led to go on a pilgrimage that later found them and others reconsidering what it really meant to be a black or a Jew. Black Hebrews are a religious group with their own particular set of rituals that have developed over a long history emanating from the 1880s in such unlikely places as Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Lawrence, Kansas. Their Jewish congregations were also seen in northern urban centers as well. Some early leaders believed in a godhead that was black, others thought of themselves as heirs of the ten lost tribes of Israel, while some attempted to link Black Nationalism with their religious ideology. Early converts formed a deep spiritual identity with the struggles of the Hebrew biblical Israelites. Paradoxically, it was the introduction of Christianity to black slaves that drew many of them to develop an affinity for the Hebrew scripture even while rejecting the Christian religion of their masters. In later years, the real life drama of the Jewish community who survived the Holocaust and sought refuge in a newly formed nation called Israel provided the kind of symbolism sought by many blacks in the United States at that time. These later converts had become disillusioned with the political, economic, and social systems of their day and yearned for a more authentic religious experience that could transform them and their society. The continued blatant discrimination against blacks prompted some Black Hebrews in later years to support leaders who envisioned traveling to a land that would welcome them, allowing them to practice their Jewish faith as the true followers of God, believing that the United States offered no hope for a better or brighter future than what the present afforded them. Finding such a land, they reasoned, would allow them to shed their old ‘‘servant’’ identity and reclaim their heritage as the ‘‘chosen’’ people. Because the early 1960s in the United States was a tumultuous time of selfdetermination by blacks, it became an opportune time for the Ben Ammi sect of the Hebrew Israelites to propose moving to Israel. A small group of them did travel to Liberia on their trek to the ‘‘promised land,’’ but during the acclimation to their new surroundings and the resultant loneliness, many became discouraged. Nevertheless, this new Black Hebrew Israelite Nation did eventually plant its feet on Israeli soil but not without generating a huge controversy about what it meant to be a Jew. At first unwanted and unwelcome, some were able to obtain Israeli citizenship many years later. Today, there are thousands of persons who claim identity as some form of Black Hebrews in the United States and in Israel. Dressing in African styles, following some Hebrew customs and traditions, and maintaining a vegan diet, they represent a religious sect that seeks to positively influence the communities in which they reside by living healthy, honorable lives. Further Reading Chireau, Yvonne and Nathaniel Deutsh, eds. 2000. Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press. Cohen, Benyamin. ‘‘The Prince and I: to many, the African Hebrew Israelites are just an offbeat fringe cult with odd customs. No meat! No caffeine! No medicine!

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No Chanukah! Multiple Wives! But spend the day with them and you’ll find out a whole lot more.’’ American Jewish Life Magazine (March–April, 2007). http:// 0-find.galegroup.comwaldo.library.nashville.org:80/ips/start.do/prodId=IPS. Nemerofsky, Jesse. ‘‘The Black Hebrews.’’ Society 1, no. 32 (Nov–Dec, 1994). http:// 0-find.galegroup.com.waldo.library.nashvile.org/ips/start.do/prodId=IPS. Vivian C. Martin

Black History Month Black History Month is widely celebrated in American popular culture. While African Americans call for continued recognition of the achievements of their people, the widespread attention given to black history and culture that emerged after the Black Arts Movement of late 1960s and 1970s, and the 1976 bicentennial celebration spurred white Americans to join the recognition at least during each February, when Black History Month is celebrated. Historian, educator, and publisher Carter Godwin Woodson is heralded as the ‘‘Father of Black History’’ and a pioneer in multiculturalism due to his success in forging an intellectual movement to teach Americans, both white and black, about cultural diversity and the history of black people. In 1915, he helped to found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), as it was known then, and the next year established and began his term as life editor of the Journal of Negro History. He promoted black scholarship and the contributions of blacks through the journal as well as through the Associated Publishers, a subsidiary of ASNLH founded in 1921. Still, Woodson felt that his efforts were incomplete. Woodson realized that young people, teachers, and lay persons needed to know more about their own history and culture. He was disturbed that blacks were generally excluded from textbooks, or if included, their lives were couched in their participation in American culture as slaves but not for the heroic deeds of some who were enslaved. He realized that many blacks knew little about their history and whites knew even less; they also placed little value on learning more about African American history. Many textbooks indoctrinated readers in the inferiority of blacks and the humiliation surrounding slave experiences. With other components of ASALH in place, in February 1926, Woodson established Negro History Week as a way to reach young people, teachers, and lay persons who, in his view, should know their history and culture. He believed that Negro History Week would at least give churches, schools, and organizations a time to concentrate on and commemorate black culture by holding special events of historical significance. The celebration deliberately coincided with the birthdays of three important leaders who were influential in the lives of black people—educator Booker T. Washington, President Abraham Lincoln, and orator and freedom fighter Frederick Douglass. To aid in the celebration, ASALH published history kits equipped with useful items for exhibits, lectures, pageants, and curriculum

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development. Woodson’s efforts gained attention in the African American community but were slow to be used in mainstream America. The bicentennial year 1976 called attention to elements of African American culture not yet recognized, appreciated, or celebrated by others. In that year, Black History Week was replaced by Black History Month, providing a longer period of concentration on black achievement. At the same time, ASALH changed its name to become the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History and still later the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Black History Month celebrations and the acknowledgments of black achievement are now widespread occurrences in popular culture. In February in particular, businesses, government offices, schools, colleges, churches, organizations, and other entities prepare displays, provide featured speakers, publish brochures, and engage in a variety of means of recognizing the contributions of blacks and the black tradition. Each annual celebration focuses on a specific theme that ASALH determines. Woodson’s efforts have been successful, both in building the foundation for rethinking American identity and in the promotion of multiculturalism. Further Reading ASALH: Founders of Black History Month. http://asalh.org. Jaynes, Gerald D., ed. 2005. Encyclopedia of African American Society. Vol. 1. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1999. ‘‘Carter G. Woodson.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Gale. Jessie Carney Smith

Black Nationalism Black Nationalism is the belief that African Americans should have social, economic, and political institutions that are separate from those of whites. It is a belief that runs counter to the achievement of Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle for civil rights, and it is unlike the accommodation practices of Booker T. Washington. Black Nationalists, above all else, exhibit strong racial pride, and this belief is a thread that runs through the African American experience. Because of its strident radicalism, Black Nationalism is sometimes referred to as Black Separatism, and this belief we find during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United States. One of the debates that raged during the early nineteenth century was over African Colonization, a movement to return blacks in the United States to Africa. Before the establishment of the American Colonization Society in 1817, a white-led organization that officially disbanded in 1912, black America debated the idea of colonization. One of the leading advocates of African Colonization was the African American mariner and entrepreneur Paul Cuffe (1759–1817). Cuffe was a self-made man from Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts,

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the seventh son of an African father and a Wampanoag Indian mother. A man large in bearing and proficient in seafaring, Cuffe owned six ships and amassed great wealth during his lifetime. His ships were operated by all-black crews (Cuffe made it his practice to hire black mariners only), and traded commodities throughout the West Indies, London, and the United States. Nearly a century before Marcus Garvey and his Back to Africa movement, wealthy African Americans had been considering the idea. In Philadelphia in 1787, the Free African Society was established by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones to counteract the closing of the doors of white churches to people of color. The Free African Society provided African Americans a place of worship as well as a place to organize politically, thus fulfilling the function of the black church in the broader context of African American culture, where politics and religion often intersected and where the church often provided a voice for those who might otherwise have remained voiceless. Absalom Jones, too, would go on to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In September 1829, African American abolitionist David Walker published his Appeal . . . to the Colored Citizens of the World, a work that, according to historian Sterling Stuckey, in James Sellman’s article, made Walker the ‘‘father of Black Nationalist theory in America,’’ according to James Clyde Sellman. As opposed to moral suasion, or arguments that called for nonviolent means towards the abolition of slavery, Walker’s Appeal called for violent measures and the immediate establishment of black civil rights. Nine months following the publication of his Appeal, a work that caused a bounty to be placed on its author’s head, $10,000 if brought in alive, $1,000 if brought in dead, Walker died, and his death remains a mystery. While not, strictly speaking, beneath the umbrella of Black Nationalism because of its interracial composition, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, is Black Nationalist in spirit because it provided an institutional presence for African Americans in the United States. One of its founders, W. E. B. Du Bois, in 1919, set up the first Pan-African Congress, held in Paris following World War I; this meeting helped foster global awareness of blackness and black consciousness. During the 1920s, with the Harlem Renaissance in full swing, and Harlem serving as the de facto center of the black world, Marcus Garvey launched his Universal Negro Improvement Association, also known as the Back to Africa movement. While Garvey’s project failed, and he was accused of fraud, his beliefs were firmly within the tradition of Black Nationalism, earning Marcus Garvey recognition as Jamaica’s first national hero. In the United States, a land where sport is integral in the popular culture and the national character, the Negro Baseball Leagues, started by Rube Foster in 1920 and revived by Gus Greenlee in 1933, were institutions of civic pride for black Americans. ‘‘As blacks were phased out of integrated sports through legislation, intimidation and coercion,’’ William C. Rhoden writes, ‘‘they relied on a sports world of their own. In some ways, though perhaps only in retrospect, the suffocating humiliation of colored only–white only was the best thing that happened to African Americans. Segregation forced African Americans into a spirit

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of cooperation and nudged them toward a hazy concept of ‘unity’ predicated as much on survival as on true kinship. Segregation forced African Americans into a spirit of interdependence that celebrated the particle of existence that mainstream society attacked: their humanity.’’ This preservation of humanity we see with the Nation of Islam, particularly one of its most famous ministers, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, or Malcolm X, a speaker whose style and whose charismatic articulation of Black Nationalist ideology made him iconic in African American popular culture. In one of his more famed speeches, ‘‘The Ballot or the Bullet,’’ originally delivered in April of 1964, Malcolm X explained, ‘‘The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community. . . . The man who’s controlling the stores in our community is a man who doesn’t look like we do. He’s a man who doesn’t even live in the community. So you and I, even when we try to spend our money in the block where we live or the area where we live, we’re spending it with a man who, when the sun goes down, takes that basket full of money in another part of the town.’’ Black Nationalism offered, above all else, a way for black pride to blossom in the face of institutions and individuals often geared toward crushing the humanity and dignity of African Americans. In our own age of Globalization, separatism is, at best, anachronistic, for people of color have been a part of the United States since its inception. ‘‘The fantasy of an America free of blacks,’’ Ralph Ellison wrote, ‘‘is at least as old as the dream of creating a truly democratic society.’’

Further Reading Ellison, Ralph. 1995. ‘‘What America Would Be Like Without Blacks.’’ In The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison. John F. Callahan, ed. New York: Modern Library. Malcolm X. ‘‘The Ballot or the Bullet.’’ Available at teachingamericanhistory.org. Rhoden, William C. 2006. Forty Million Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. New York: Crown. Sellman, James Clyde. 1999. ‘‘Black Nationalism in the United States.’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. New York: Basic Books. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Black Panther Party (1966) The Black Panther Party for Self Defense, eventually changed to the Black Panther Party, was an organization established in 1966 that existed through the late 1970s. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale were the founders of the group on October 15, 1966. This particular group focused on promoting black power and self-defense of the African American neighborhoods that suffered from police

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A teacher leads his students with the black power salute and slogans at a Black Panther liberation school, San Francisco, December 1969. (Bettmann/Corbis)

brutality through the rhetoric of agitation during the Civil Rights Movement. Their uniforms consisted of blue shirts, black pants, black leather jackets, black berets, and shotguns. The group was founded on socialist doctrine and Black Nationalist notions. In 1967 the group marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of the ban on weapons. During this year, they also began publishing a newspaper, The Black Panther; the paper was very successful, circulating a quarter of a million copies. In 1968, the organization began metastasizing rapidly in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Newark, and Chicago; membership reached five thousand. Although the organization only allowed African Americans to join the group initially, it eventually began to appeal to people nationally; therefore, the members began to allow people who were not African American to join. The diversity within the group led to the counterculture of the 1960s, which dealt exclusively with fighting against the American government in regards to conservative views on controversial issues during the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually the party began focusing less on racial issues and more on the black communities’ poverty and health issues. The group’s good deeds were often obscured by their militant approach and issues with the U.S. government. When the leader Huey Newton was on trial for manslaughter in 1968, the organization’s members began to dwindle. In the 1970s the organization eventually reduced significantly. As the group became fragmented, the strength of the organization began to decline. On

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August 22, 1989, Newton was shot dead in a drug dispute. His death led to a downward spiral in the Black Panther Party’s fight for the black race. The Black Panther Party’s original platform statement from its ‘‘Ten Point Plan’’ described in depth the need for all African Americans to be free from illtreatment. In addition, the Black Panthers fought for power and control over their communities. Other issues of concern were decent housing, excellent education that reveals the true American history, free health care, and fair treatment for those who are incarcerated. Overall, the Black Panthers wanted to fight for peace and fair treatment for the black race. Today the Black Panther Party is often falsely criticized as being a hate group. The party represented an organization based on love and defending the oppressed black race while effectively communicating and seeking resolution between blacks and whites in the United States. The party’s fight for equality, justice, and freedom continues today. Ultimately, the party, one of the most powerful groups for social change in the United States, has left a permanent imprint in American history. Further Reading Austin, Curtis J. 2008. Up Against the Wall: Violence in the Making and Unmaking of the Black Panther. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. Seale, Bobby. 1991. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. ‘‘The Ten Point Plan.’’ Black Panther Party. http://www.blackpanther.org/index.html. Monique Leslie-Akassi

Black Power Movement During the 1950s and 1960s Martin Luther King Jr. and others emerged as leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. For more than a decade an unprecedented number of marches, ‘‘sit-ins,’’ and other protest activities took place demanding an end to segregation. King’s nonviolent protests were predicated on an integrationist ideology in which African Americans would ‘‘not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’’ During the mid1960s, however, a different and competing philosophy emerged. The Black Power Movement advocated unity, community building, a recognition of blacks’ African heritage, and the development of independent black organizations. The integrationist goal of the Civil Rights Movement was rejected. Black Power advocates believed that African Americans should focus on improving their own communities rather than integrating into white society. Where Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers found their inspiration in the nonviolent teachings of Mohandas Ghandi, Black Power advocates preferred Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Franz Fanon.

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The posthumously published Autobiography of Malcolm X was widely read and highly influential. During his life and after his death, Malcolm X influenced black activists. Malcolm X was a minster for the Nation of Islam. He was a separatist who believed that African Americans should control their own communities. He also rejected nonviolent protest. Malcolm X was, in many ways, the inspiration for the Black Power Movement. Kwame Ture, then known as Stokely Carmichael, was the first to utter the phrase ‘‘black power,’’ which became the movement’s slogan. Carmichael was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) charismatic leader. Frustrated by the lack of progress toward desegregation in the late 1960s, some SNCC insiders rejected Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders’ commitment to nonviolent protest. They advocated a strategy of self-determination and self-defense. During a1966 protest march in Mississippi, SNCC field workers Stokley Carmichael and Willie Ricks used the chant of ‘‘Black Power’’ to distinguish their new direction from Martin Luther King’s nonviolent approach. To them the phrase ‘‘Black Power’’ meant blacks taking political and economic control of their own communities in the Deep South and elsewhere. The 1960s was a decade of turmoil and change. Images ranging from police dogs attacking peaceful civil rights protesters to cities burning during urban riots were staples of nightly newscasts. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. Thousands of students protested the Vietnam War on college campuses across the nation. The Black Panthers, another group associated with the Black Power Movement, were organized in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They advocated armed confrontations with the authorities but they also focused on issues that adversely affected the black community, including access to health care, housing, and the treatment of prisoners. African American artists and writers were inspired by the Black Power Movement. They believed that the cultural heritage, history, and the African roots of black Americans were critical to redefinition of black identity. The negative connotations long associated with dark complexions were rejected. Black became beautiful. The Black Arts Movement was, as Larry Neal explained, ‘‘a cultural revolution in art and ideas.’’ Writers and artists challenged traditional western standards for art and literature and sought to develop a ‘‘black aesthetic.’’ It was, as Neal stated, the ‘‘aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept.’’ The Black Power salute, consisting of an upraised arm and a clenched fist, became a symbol of solidarity. Spiral, a collective of African American artists, was established in 1963 to discuss the commitment of African American artists to the Civil Rights Movement and to debate the necessity of defining a black aesthetic in the visual arts. Artists used protest themes in their work. Black Liberation Theology was another outgrowth of the Black Power Movement. James Cone, the originator of Black Liberation Theology, promoted the use of Christianity to advance racial consciousness and empowerment. The Black Power Movement faded almost as quickly as it appeared. By the end of the 1960s the Civil Rights Movement had achieved its goal of eliminating the legal barriers to racial equality. The Civil Rights Act of 1964,

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the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 ended the era of state-sanctioned discrimination and segregation. Mass protests declined after Martin Luther King’s Jr. assassination. Ideological feuds among civil rights organizations hastened the movement’s demise. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counterintelligence Program, which used covert methods to sabotage protest activities, contributed to the Black Power Movement’s disintegration. By the early 1970s the Black Power Movement was eclipsed by antiwar protests. The Black Power Movement was short-lived but it had a lasting influence on America’s economic, political, and social institutions. The movement suffered from rhetorical excesses of some of its adherents. However, many who were seen as radicals in the 1960s used their organizational and leadership skills to become elected officials at the state, local, and national levels. Others moved into academia where they pioneered Black Studies programs. The continuing influence of the Black Power Movement can be seen in literature and the arts, on stage and on the screen. Echoes can be heard in musical genres ranging from jazz to Hip-Hop. One important legacy is the way in which African Americans view themselves: as individuals with pride and dignity comprising an integral part of the American mainstream. Further Reading Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles V. Hamilton. 1967. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Vintage. Malcolm X, and Haley, Alex. 1965. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley, New York: Ballantine Books. Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G. 2004. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Peniel, Joseph E. 2006. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt. Seale, Bobby. 1996. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Baltimore: Black Classic Press. Leland Ware

Black Studies Black Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program that encompasses the study of arts, humanities, and social behavioral sciences that relate to African Americans, to gain a full understanding of their experiences. Propelled by the desire of black students and black academics who wanted to include an accurate depiction of black experience and contribution in education, Black Studies emerged as an academic program in colleges and universities in the 1960s. Many factors contributed to the development of Black Studies. The black college student population increased, and approximately two-thirds of them were enrolled in white colleges. There were also the influences of the Civil Rights Movement

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and the Black Power Movement that gave voice to their dissatisfaction with the lack of courses and the inaccurate content being taught about African Americans’ experience. Additionally, black students felt their heritage, culture, and lives were underrepresented and misrepresented in college and university curriculums. Additionally, the strong presence of the Black Student Movement influenced the rise of Black Studies. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 further intensified the desire for the establishment of Black Studies among students. Triggered by what many black students perceived to be an insensitive attitude by their colleges’ and universities’ administrations, black students in several universities protested for five months in 1968. However, from as early as 1966, Merritt College implemented Black Studies courses. In the fall of 1968, black students aligned with the Civil Rights Movement in their quest to end racial segregation and the exclusion of African American Studies from the curriculum of universities. There were several protests in both Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Traditionally White Universities (TWIs) before Black Studies programs were officially implemented. One of the first prominent advocators for Black Studies was Nathan Hare, a sociology professor at Howard University. Hare’s first book, The Black AngloSaxons (1965), disapproved of black middle-class abandonment of black culture for white culture. Hare’s belief that blacks were being assimilated into white culture prompted a five-month strike at Howard University, the strikers calling for the implementation of Black Studies in the university’s curriculum. Hare and four other professors, two of them white, were fired at the end of the semester. In 1968, he was hired by San Francisco University to coordinate the first Black Studies program in the United States. Following Hare’s success, in 1969, Robert Singleton and Molefi Asante created the Journal of Black Studies. In 1970, the University of California, Los Angeles, launched a Center for Afro-American Studies, a subset of Black Studies. There was also a National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in 1972. In addition, in 1974, the National Council of Black Studies was founded. Maulana Karenga’s Introduction to Black Studies was published in 1982. Created by Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University approved its doctoral program in African American Studies in 1988. Many other colleges and universities introduced Black Studies programs into their curriculum in the 1960s and 1970s. Black Studies are also known as African American Studies. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is one of the many African Americans who is renowned for his comprehensive research of African American studies and continually contributes to the development and expansion of the African American studies programs. Further Reading Aldridge, Delores P. 2000. ‘‘Status of Africana/Black Studies in Higher Education in the U.S.’’ In Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Delores P. Aldridge and Carlene Young, eds. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

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Bobo, Jacqueline, Cynthia Hudley, and Claudine Michel, eds. 2004. The Black Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. Wolford, Gloria. The Negro Search for Identity.’’ The Bryan Times 23 April 1969: 7. The Bryan Times Online. Web. July 20, 2010 Renee Latchman

Black Theology Although the term ‘‘black theology’’ percolated in the mid-twentieth century theological discussions, its roots extend back to the time of institutionalized slavery of blacks in the United States. Though it was not called such then, black theology was fashioned out of the prevailing theology of that time, which attempted to justify slavery and then formed itself into a life-sustaining theology that gave credence and authenticity to the life and witness of Jesus as the incarnate reflection of God. In a very simplistic way, theology is about the manner in which individuals seek to understand through spiritual eyes their relationship with the known and unknown aspects of the seen and unseen world that impacts their lives. While religion for some may merely represent an inquiry into the existence or power of a deity, as important as that may be, black theology in the United States seeks to question the black experience vis-a-vis the American culture, and asserts a response that acknowledges the dignity and acceptability of blacks by God. Emerging from a convergence of African history, culture, and traditions, and the American experience of black slaves becoming chattel, black theology provided a new sense of identification for black slaves, and much later, for blacks espousing the Black Power Movement. For black slaves this identification was one that had largely been formed by an affinity with the Hebrew slaves spoken of in stories found in the Old Testament of the Protestant Bible wherein God repeatedly comes to rescue the Hebrews and provides for their physical and spiritual needs. In the New Testament of that same Bible the figure of Jesus was seen as the one sent by God to redeem God’s people. During the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, the materialization of a black theology served to affirm pride in black heritage and remind African Americans of a God who saw them as people of worth and declared them also to be God’s heirs. In the United States, the 1960s and 1970s were turbulent times of societal unrest. Blacks more vigorously clamored for equal treatment as citizens, while other segments of the American population fought vigorously to preserve the piteous racial status quo. At issue was the manner in which the races saw themselves, and the way in which they portrayed and spoke about themselves to others and to each other. The unrest also emanated from blacks in their corporate existence as the church. But the vehement protests by the black church were a demonstration of how the church viewed its role to be a witness to the life of Jesus

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Christ. By mirroring the tension inherent in this tempestuous and sometimes disconnected dialogue between the races, black theology sought to balance the themes of reconciliation and prophetic judgment. The conversation of black theology is that god’s righteousness and justice will prevail throughout history against oppressors that deny others their humanity. The proclamation of black theology is that God acts in and through the oppressed and the oppressor to liberate, restore wholeness, and bring about reconciliation. Likewise, black theology proclaims a prophetic message to the forces of oppression, recognizing and confronting the peculiar relationship others have with blacks in the United States, and seeking to make those relationships consistent with the love and truth of God. In like manner, it also turns its attention to the myriad ways in which blacks relate to each other and others, confronting hypocrisy on that front as well. It was the gospel that had first been introduced to black slaves as a way to pacify them that also demonstrated to them the contradictory manner in which one’s life can be out of sync with one’s stated beliefs. Most of the early slaves came out of an African culture that was very different from the wanton destruction of life which they witnessed every day under slavery. In their African culture, life was revered and celebrated. In various ways across the centuries, blacks took for themselves a gospel out of the one that had been thrust upon them. They made it their own in a way that became a theology of healing and empowerment. Thus, the God of the oppressed becomes one like them in their own particular bondage and liberates them to develop their whole personhood. This God could understand their need for freedom because God became like them in all of the ways they experienced the world on a daily basis. Black theology in popular culture is unapologetically a theology of hope, liberation, and the sovereignty of God. Its appropriation of American theology in a way that preserved the historic continuity of African Americans and their forebears was inevitable if blacks in the United States were to have a viable relationship with the God of their ancestors. Only by doing so were they affirmed as persons loved by God and affirmed in the knowledge that their God saw their suffering and was willing and able to relieve them of their pain. Today, black theology in popular culture recognizes the multitude of ways in which blacks still need to be freed and continues to listen for those God conversations that demonstrate god’s covenantal relationship with blacks, as well as with all persons. See also: Wright, Jeremiah A. Jr. Further Reading Chireau, Yvonne and Nathaniel Deutsh, eds. 2000. Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press. Cone, James H., and Gayraud S. Wilmore, eds. 1993. Black Theology: A Documentary History. Vols I–II. New York: Orbis Books. Lincoln, Eric C., and Lawrence H. Mamiya. 1990. The Black Church in the African American Experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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McCall, Emmanuel L., ed. 1986. Black Church Life-styles: Rediscovering the Black Christian Experience. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press. Roberts, Deotis J. 1987. Black Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. Wilmore, Gayraud S., ed. 1989. African American Religious Studies: An Interdisciplinary Anthology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Vivian C. Martin

Blake, James Riley (1979– ), Tennis Player A rising international tennis star, James Blake became one of the best tennis players in the country and in the world. He was inspired by the accomplishments of his hero, the iconic tennis great Arthur Ashe. After turning professional in 1999, Blake went on to be named Rookie of the Year in 2000 and took his first American Tennis Professionals singles title in 2001. Blake is now ranked number ten in the world. His place in popular culture has been carved out as a superb tennis player and as a fashion model as well. Tennis had long been a popular sport in the African American community and organizations that endorsed and supported the game were established as early as 1916, when the American Tennis Association (ATA) was formed. The ATA’s founders sought relief for African Americans with an interest in tennis but who were denied access to white organizations, such as the Lawn Tennis Association. Several black colleges, including the former Hampton Institute (now University), Central State, and Morehouse College hosted ATA championships. African American tennis players of that period included Tally Holmes (a founder of the ATA) and Lucy Diggs Slow; they were the first to win men and women’s singles, respectively. Later, the ATA supported Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, then Lori McNeil and MaliVai Washington. Iconic tennis players Venus Williams and Serena Williams did much to promote the game in popular culture. By the time James Blake entered the scene, racial barriers in tennis matches had broken down, leaving a clear path cut for his achievements. Blake was born on December 28, 1979, in Yonkers, New York. His father introduced him to tennis. It was on the tennis court that his interracial parents met. Tom (who is African American) and Betty (a white Britton) married, and sons James and his older brother Thomas were born. The Blakes took their sons with them wherever the father played. James Blake entered the court at age five, playing with his older brother, Thomas Jr. After the Blakes moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, the brothers took tennis lessons at the Trumbull Tennis Club, where James met Brian Barker, who began coaching him when Blake was twelve. Still, the brothers maintained ties to Harlem and regularly played there. They also volunteered at the Harlem Junior Tennis League, which introduced tennis to inner-city youth, and participated in the league’s tennis clinics. There James Blake learned about Arthur Ashe, the first black man ranked number one in international tennis.

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Thomas Blake Jr., who was three years older, taller, and physically stronger than James, developed his game more quickly than his younger brother. By age thirteen, James Blake was diagnosed with a curvature of the spine popularly known as scoliosis. Rather than undergo surgery, he wore a brace, removed it when on the tennis court, and went on to be a successful player despite his problem. While a student at Harvard University with a major in economics (1997– 99), James Blake joined the tennis team. During his freshman year, he was named number one collegiate player in the country. In later years, he was named All-American (1998) and number one–ranked collegiate tennis player (1999). He was named Rookie of the Year for the World Tennis Team (2001). He dropped out of college to become a professional tennis player; he and Thomas moved to Tampa where James lived and trained with Thomas. As Blake’s game improved, he won a number of tennis titles and progressed in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). In 2001, he debuted as a Davis Cup team player. He reached number twenty-two in national rankings, then, unfortunately, broke his neck. Six weeks later he suffered yet another health catastrophe, a severe viral infection (a debilitating case of shingles) brought on by his father’s death. He recovered, but with some facial paralysis, and went back on the tennis court. Blake won the ATP singles title and was successful in the ATP doubles title in 2002, as well as the ATP doubles title in 2003. When he played but lost a thrilling five-set match in the quarter finals in 2005 against Andre Agassi, who was also his idol, he reached the national spotlight in tennis. He remains active in the sport and played in the 2010 Wimbledon matches. His good looks, affable demeanor, graciousness off the court, and fashion sense also helped to fuel his popularity; thus, in 2002 be began a career in Modeling, with GQ and Vogue magazines. People magazine also named him the Sexiest Male Athlete that year. In 2003, he changed his appearance by shaving his head. [Blake prefers to keep focused on the game of tennis.] In 2009, Blake launched a new men’s apparel collection with Fila, having switched sponsors from Nike to Fila in January. Called the Thomas Reynolds Collection (identified with an R-dot logo), his line is named as a tribute to his late father, who instilled values in him on and off court. His apparel collection is ‘‘something that I really care about for my career and hopefully beyond that,’’ he said in a Women’s Wear Daily interview. ‘‘I hope I will endure a little longer than my body.’’ His line includes tennis apparel as well as footwear, golf wear, and accessories. His blue collared shirt is a trademark for his long admiration for basketball icon Michael Jordan, while his linear Fila trademark is a nod to tennis legend Bjorn Borg. Blake remains in the national spotlight with his rank as number ten in the tennis world. Perhaps his new apparel collection will further spotlight his talent. Further Reading Payne, Maya R. 2003. ‘‘Raising a Star: Family Values Underscore James Blake’s Success in Tennis and Life.’’ Special Supplement: Golf & Tennis Challenge. Black Enterprise 34 (September): 130, 134, 138.

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Smith, Jessie Carney, and Linda T. Wynn, eds. 2009. Freedom Facts and Firsts. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. Stamatel, Janet P. 2004. ‘‘James Riley Blake. Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 43. Detroit: Thomson Gale. Who’s Who among African Americans. 24th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2010. Frederick D. Smith

Blige, Mary J. (1971– ), Singer, Record Producer, Actress Mary Jane Blige, more commonly known as ‘‘Mary J. Blige,’’ is a Grammy Award–winning recording artist who is most famous for her ability to combine soul and Hip-Hop music. This ability has earned Blige the title of ‘‘Queen of Hip-Hop Soul.’’ Born on January 11, 1971, in the Bronx, New York, Blige is the daughter of Thomas Blige, a jazz musician and Cora, a nurse. She has three siblings—an older sister, LaTonya Blige-DaCosta, a younger half-brother, Bruce Miller, and a younger sister, Jonquell. Her parents’ relationship was rocky and often physically abusive. Blige lived briefly in Savannah, Georgia, where she sang in a Pentecostal church. Her father deserted the family in 1975, which forced Blige’s mother, Blige, and sister La Tonya to move to the Schlobohm Housing Project in Yonkers, New York. The move to Yonkers was difficult. Blige’s mother struggled to support the family, Blige was molested at age five, and her mother suffered from alcoholism and depression. As a teenager, Blige began using drugs and ultimately quit high school, beginning a series of low-paying jobs. Blige’s first break came in 1988 when she recorded an Anita Baker song ‘‘Caught Up in the Rapture’’ in a recording booth at a local mall. Her mother gave the tape to a friend who passed it on to R & B recording artist/record producer Jeff Redd and Andre Harell, chief executive officer of Uptown Records. In 1989, Blige began working for Uptown, singing backup for Redd and other Uptown recording artists. She signed with Uptown Records in 1991, and with the help of Sean (Diddy) Combs, helped produced her first solo album What’s the 411?, which went multiplatinum. This was followed by the 1995 album My Life. In 1997, Blige switched from Uptown Records to MCA and hired Shuge Knight as her financial advisor. The split from Uptown led to severing of her ties with Combs. The pair did not work together again until her 2003 album Love and Life. Other Blige album releases include Mary (1997), No More Drama (2001), Reflections: A Retrospective (2006, for which Blige received eight Grammy nominations), and Growing Pains (2008). She writes many of her own songs basing them on life experiences. Blige has had ten singles reach Billboard’s top ten, including the 2008 release ‘‘Just Fine.’’ In 2001 Blige and Universal Records were accused of copyright infringement by Leonard Jones and James White. The pair claimed that Blige’s song ‘‘Family

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Affair’’ was based on similar lyrics to their ‘‘Party Ain’t Crunk.’’ The suit was dismissed in 2009 for lack of evidence. Blige has also pursued an acting career since the late 1990s, appearing on such television programs as The Jamie Foxx Show (1998), Strong Medicine (2001), Ghost Whisperer (2007); and in movies such as Prison Song (2001), I Can Do Bad By Myself (September 2009), and in the as yet untitled and unreleased biography of jazz singer Nina Simone; and the off-Broadway play The Exonerated (2004). Blige married Martin Kendu Isaacs, a record industry executive, on December 7, 2003, in a small private ceremony at her home in Bergen County, New Jersey. She credits Isaacs’s support and love as tremendous steps in eight years of being clean and sober. Through this marriage Blige became stepmother to Isaacs’s three children: Jordan, Nasir, and Briana. Prior to marrying Isaacs, she was involved with K-Ci Hailey (1991–1997) and Nas (1997–1998). In 2008, Blige and Steve Stoute founded the Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN). FFAWN’s purpose is to help young women gain life and job skills, confidence, and self-esteem. FFAWN focuses on single mothers in Yonkers and surrounding communities but plans on expanding to the state of New York and eventually across the country. The first step toward this goal is the opening of the Mary J. Blige Center for Women which is being built in cooperation with Westchester Jewish Community Services. The center opened October 22, 2009. See also: Soul; Soul and Funk (Music)

Further Reading Brown, Terrell. 2007. Mary J. Blige. Broomall, PA: Mason Crest Publishers. Mary J. Blige. http://www.mjblige.com. Mayo, Kierna. ‘‘Real Love: Mary J. Blige & Kendu Isaacs.’’ Essence 38 (June 2007): 136–45. Anne K. Driscoll

Bling and Grillz ‘‘Bling’’ and ‘‘grillz’’ are two slang terms that refer to flashy jewelry and accessories. From the late 1990s to the present, bling and grillz have dominated HipHop fashion in African American popular culture. Bling also may be referred to as ‘‘floss,’’ ‘‘bling bling,’’ or other slang terms. Bling specifically refers to any attention-grabbing and shiny ornamentation, such as gold, platinum, and diamond jewelry. Many terms used to describe the various types of jewelry and precious metals have also emerged. For example, gold may be referred to as ‘‘ghetto gold,’’ and diamonds may be referred to as ‘‘ice.’’ Bling may also be used to describe any flamboyant accessory or dress. Although rap artist B. G., short for

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‘‘Baby Gangsta,’’ is credited for having coined the term bling in the late 1990s and for eulogizing it in the rap song ‘‘Bling Bling’’ in 1999, the development of bling in African American popular culture extends as far back as the 1970s, if not earlier in some form or fashion. Grillz, also called ‘‘gold fronts,’’ which is considered a type of bling, refers to the precious metal or stone-studded caps or fittings which cover the top or bottom row of teeth. For a flashier effect, individuals will wear fittings on both rows of their teeth. This ornamentation may be referred to as ‘‘grill,’’ ‘‘dental grill,’’ ‘‘front,’’ and ‘‘golds.’’ The term originated in the 1980s and was popularized in rap songs, such as ‘‘Grillz’’ by Nelly, Paul Wall, and Ali & Gipp in 2005. The Development of Body Embellishments Bling and grillz are mostly associated with rappers, but the phenomenon of showy body ornamentation within African American communities stems from Africa. Body embellishments signified beauty, social and economic status, and tribal identity. In West Africa, where gold and other precious metals, stones, and jewels are abundant, men, women, and children frequently adorned their bodies with gold necklaces, arm, wrist, and ankle bracelets, and piercings. Many variables, such as shininess, quality, weight, and quantity, indicated the level of hierarchal status or esteem one could achieve within each community. Following centuries of oppression and degradation during slavery in North America, when African Americans had limited opportunities and resources to primp and groom themselves, blacks established distinctive styles and fashion trends. Many of these trends functioned as a way to express an African-based aesthetic that included vibrant colors and designs and elaborate hairstyles. (In dominant white culture, dark, somber colors, and subdued designs often were the rule.) With the development of middle- and upper-class and lower-class black communities, distinct styles emerged. Whereas middle- and upper-class blacks tended to follow fashion trends in mainstream white society, working-class blacks developed often radically different styles and preferences. The concept of showy ornamentation was linked to the lowincome and working-class black communities in the South and urban North. In these environments, reputation could be attained through flashy clothes, dress, and accessories, swaggering manner of walking, and black vernacular dexterity. Flashy styles were appropriated by black celebrities and individuals who frequented popular Nightclubs, Entertainment Spots, Dives, and Joints. In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem celebrities, such as jazz artist Duke Ellington, epitomized flashy style with his Zoot Suits and slang-laden communication style. In the 1940s and 1950s, black men wore glossy, processed hairstyles and brightcolored suits for a night on the town. In the 1970s, flashy sequined costume trends among black entertainers, such as Earth Wind & Fire and Donna Summers, a disco star, augmented the decoration’s popularity and appeal. In the North and South, African American men and women brandished gold dental caps and gold chains. For men, gold jewelry signaled masculinity and sex appeal. For women, gold jewelry connoted glamour, as well as urban sophistication.

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When, in the late 1970s, Rap and Hip-Hop culture emerged, gold continued to play a prominent role in fashion styles and trends. Rappers, such as Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, Slick Rick, and L L Cool J popularized gold chains, rings, and other flashy accessories. Many rappers contend that they were largely influenced by the hustlers (and later, gang members) on the street, who were among the few in the community who ostentatiously displayed their ill-gotten wealth with expensive jewelry and clothes. As young, impressionable preteens and adolescents (sometimes younger), they wore earrings in one ear or cheap gold chain necklaces. Gold functioned as a rite of passage and a status symbol. Since the 1980s, rap stars continued to mirror and initiate fashion trends in black communities. Salt-n-Pepa, a popular all-woman rapping group, based their style, including nose piercings, doorknockers (large gold earrings), gold teeth, and oversized, boyish clothes, on fashion trends in black ghettos. Male rappers increasingly wore larger pieces and a greater amount of jewelry than ever before. The film I’m Gonna Git You Sucka! (1988), which parodied this fad, featured black characters who died from gold overdoses. Into the 1990s, male rappers added heavily jeweled Rolex watches, an assortment of religious, zodiac-influenced, and Afrocentric medallions, grills, four-finger rings, and other pieces to their collections. When, in the mid-1990s, B. J. coined the term ‘‘bling,’’ bling was already wellestablished in the rap industry. Rap stars who could not afford real bling wore borrowed or fake jewelry. Jewelry designers and sellers have capitalized on the growing trend. In this same time period, Jay-Z, a rap mogul, introduced platinum to urban fashion, temporarily replacing the massively popular gold. Another trend included large diamonds worn in each ear. In the twenty-first century, bling is a household word. In 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary added the term to its dictionary. Hip-hop stars, as well as professional black athletes and nonblack celebrities, appear in the media wearing bling. However, like most slang terms that originate in black communities and spread to mainstream society, the terms ‘‘bling’’ and ‘‘grillz’’ will eventually lose their popularity. Further Reading Daniels, Cora. 2007. Ghettonation: A Journey into the Land of Bling and Home of the Shameless. New York: Doubleday. Oh, Minya. 2005. Bling Bling: Hip Hop’s Crown Jewels. New York: Wenner Books. Gladys L. Knight

Blues and Blues Festivals The blues is a musical form and genre that was created by African Americans in the South, most likely during the wake of emancipation in the turn of the nineteenth century. Blues festivals are events that take place in cities in the United

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States and abroad that center around assorted performances of blues musicians and singers. These festivals attract large crowds and include black and nonblack performers. The immense popularity of these festivals, coupled with the mainstreaming of blues music the world over and the influence of the blues on new music forms and artists, demonstrates the prominent role blues music plays in popular culture.

Origins Scholars cannot, with certainty, identify the exact location and date in which the blues first surfaced in the South. However, it is known that the blues was created by African Americans, originally in the confines of their racially segregated communities in juke joints and other locations sometime during the period following the emancipation of slaves in 1863. East Texas, the Mississippi Delta, and the Piedmont regions were active centers wherein the blues and blues singers thrived. The blues came out of the unique life and cultural experiences of Africans in the New World. These experiences brought forth such new music forms as the slave ring shouts, the field hollers, and Spirituals. Out of these traditions, the blues was formed. Like any music form, the blues has distinct features. According to Kathleen Thompson, blues songs characteristically include ‘‘a twelve-bar form in common time, in which each stanza comprises three phrases, each four measures long . . . [and] certain characteristic chord progressions, keys, and ‘blue notes,’ which are quarter tones that lie between the minor and major third notes of the scale or between the minor and major seventh.’’ There are blues songs that do not follow these patterns. Spontaneity and individual expression were African-derived virtues that African Americans continued to embrace in the New World. Another feature of blues music may include African-derived call-and-response patterns. To be sure, blues was considered a secular form of music, and, as a result, it was not condoned by all African Americans. Some African Americans deemed blues ‘‘devil’s music,’’ owing to the frequently coarse and overtly sexual lyrics, not to mention the songs were generally performed in locales where alcohol was consumed and couples danced, sometimes provocatively. Blues lyrics are another feature that set the blues apart from other traditional African American music forms. The term ‘‘the blues’’ is synonymous with a somber, moody, and melancholy feeling; the lyrics, as well as the melodic patterns, of the music genre are characteristically plodding and gloomy. The lyrics frequently cover the subjects of unrequited love, heartbreak, poverty, sorrow, voodoo magic—themes that were relevant to African Americans. The blues largely gave voice to frustrations that concerned the vicissitudes of every day black life, as well as the oppressive forces that relegated blacks to the lowest economic, social, and political station in society. The blues, however, brought African Americans much enjoyment, as well as emotional release. Women were among the most popular blues singers, and many of them traveled the circuit of southern black towns in vaudeville shows.

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Development of the Blues as Mainstream Popular Music Field Research A few farsighted scholars and researchers recognized the cultural and artistic significance of the blues music that emerged in the early twentieth century. Generally, the study of African American life and culture was of little concern to mainstream academics at that time. However, some individuals such as Howard W. Odum, a sociologist, documented and preserved blues music in spite of the societal stigma placed on anything associated with African American life. John Lomax, a musicologist and folklorist, also played a figurative role in recording assorted original black songs, not just blues music. The early work of folklorists helped to preserve a rich and important part of American history that otherwise would have been lost. However, it was the recordings of rising blues artists for the public, beyond the world of academia, that made a greater impact on popular culture. Classic Blues Era One of the most seminal developments in blues music, in terms of bringing the music to wider audiences, was the commodification of so-called race music by white-owned record labels, beginning in the early twentieth century. Among the pioneers of published blues music were African American composers, W. C. Handy, known as the ‘‘Father of the Blues,’’ and Artie Matthews, and white musician, Hart A. Wand. Their songs were published during the first decade of the 1900s. In the 1920s, record companies like Paramount and Columbia catapulted the careers of several blues singers, most of them women. In 1920, Mamie Smith was the first blues singer to release a record. Her record generated enormous response from African Americans; consequently, blues music was initially targeted to black audiences. Smith’s popularity helped pave the way for multitudes of African American women. Among the famous blues singers of this era were Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, also known as the ‘‘Mother of Blues,’’ Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, and Viola McCoy. Bessie Smith was born in 1892 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a child, she sang while her older brother played a guitar to make money for their family. In 1912, she joined a troupe as a dancer. Eventually, she joined Columbia Records, produced records, and continued to perform in black troupes. Ma Rainey, who was born nearly a decade before Smith in Georgia, spent most of her childhood traveling with her parents’ troupe. Like Smith and the majority of women who sang the blues, Rainey started out performing in vaudeville acts. In 1923, Rainey signed a contract with Paramount. Ethel Waters, born in Pennsylvania in 1896, emerged from an adverse childhood and abusive marriage to become one of the major blues stars of her time. She performed in Atlanta, New York, and elsewhere. Her first record was released in 1921. Over the course of her recording career, she signed on with assorted record companies, such as Cardinal Records, Black Swan (a company owned by African Americans), and Paramount. Women were not the only stars of the blues. A number of male blues singers emerged in the 1920s. Kathleen Thompson described these men as country blues

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singers who were commonly ‘‘solitary [men] with a guitar, sometimes a harmonica.’’ Among the country blues singers, many of them hailing from the South, were Blind Lemon Jefferson, Peg Leg Howell, and Charlie Patton. Blind Lemon Jefferson was born blind in Texas in 1893. He recorded for Paramount Records in Chicago in the mid 1920s. Peg Leg Howell was so-named because he lost his leg when he was shot during a fight. Howell was born in Georgia in 1988. A selftaught guitarist, he was famous, in part, for his slide guitar playing, a trademark sound of early blues music. He recorded with Columbia Records in 1926. Charlie Patton, known as the ‘‘Father of the Delta Blues,’’ was born in Mississippi in 1891 and recorded for Paramount Records in 1929. Big Band Era and Beyond Blues music continued to flourish during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s, with considerable changes. Beginning in the 1930s, many classic blues singers were either dropped by their record labels or opted out to pursue other interests. Between the late 1930s and 1940s, new blues singers like Muddy Waters and Billie Holliday emerged. By the late 1940s, B. B. King emerged and went on to become a major figure in the development of the blues. Some of these artists incorporated changes to traditional blues music. For example, Billie Holliday employed orchestras and big band ensembles that were wildly popular during the Harlem Renaissance. Blues singers in Chicago moved away from the ‘‘slow cadences of earlier country blues,’’ writes Kathleen Thompson, and employed new styles, ‘‘intense, hard-driving instrumentals and raw, shouted vocals that reflected the urgency of life in the city.’’ Progressively, blues music was becoming associated with cities in the North rather than the South. Coinciding with the surge of blues music in cities like New York and Chicago was the Great Migration, the mass movement of blacks who left the rural South to seek out work and better opportunities and to escape oppressive customs and laws. Cities like New York, home of the Harlem Renaissance, and Chicago were hotbeds for blues and other African American music traditions. Blues artists performed at black clubs and integrated venues. Singers like Billie Holliday toured the nation and the globe, popularizing blues music to wider audiences than ever before. Performances on television and in film also helped to further expose blues music, augmenting the wealth and fame of African American artists. However, these artists were still obligated to follow the strict code of Jim Crow while traveling in the South and were not impervious to the racism that was prevalent throughout the nation. Blues music continued to evolve and permeate mainstream American culture in the late 1940s and beyond. One of the new developments in blues music was the emergence of white blues singers, like Doc Pomus, who sang during the 1940s. White singers reached audiences who, because of the racial climate in the United States, refused to listen to ‘‘race music’’ by black artists. Another development, starting in the late 1940s, was the creation of Rhythm and Blues, which fused blues, jazz, and upbeat sounds which greatly appealed to younger audiences,

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black and white. (Rock and Roll eventually evolved from R & B.) During a blues resurgence in the 1960s, blues festivals appeared in several cities throughout the world. These festivals were sometimes named after iconic blues figures, and they featured an assortment of blues singers and groups; among them were locally and nationally known performers. Many of these festivals continue to appear annually to this day, while new festivals proliferate, drawing blues enthusiasts as well as new audiences. In addition to festivals, radio, television, and films played important roles in the mainstreaming of blues music. Films, in particular, have helped to rejuvenate public interest in the blues, as well as boost the careers of blues singers. Examples of popular films about the blues include Lady Sings the Blues (1972), starring singer Diana Ross as Billie Holliday, Crossroads (1986), which is based loosely on blues singer Robert Johnson, and Mo Better Blues (1990), which featured Denzel Washington as a modern day blues musician. In 2003, the documentary The Blues was released. Blues in the New Millenium Blues music has come a long way since its start as an isolated phenomenon in black communities in the South. In the new millennium, the number of blues singers and festivals continues to proliferate. Among the new blues singers are many whites whose presence divides the black community. Some welcome and support white blues artists. Others view the appropriation of the blues by whites as problematic. According to Anand Prahlad, appropriation of black folklore, like the blues, ‘‘is sometimes referred to as ‘cultural poaching’ or ‘theft’’’ and ‘‘does not benefit African American culture; at worst, it mocks, degrades, or economically exploits it.’’ Indeed, at some blues festivals and clubs, blues singers and groups are predominately white, resulting in the loss of opportunities for black blues singers, as well as misrepresenting the historical role of blacks in blues music. See also: Delta Blues Further Reading Davis, Francis. 1995. The History of the Blues: The Roots, The Music, The People. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Garon, Paul. ‘‘White Blues.’’ http://www.bluesworld.com/WHITEBLUES.html. Jackson, Buzzy. 2005. A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them. New York: Norton. Oakley, Giles. 1997. The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. The Original Blues Festival Guide. (October 2009). http://www.bluesfestivalguide.com/. Palmer, Robert. 1981. Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta. New York: Penguin Group. Prahlad, Anand, ed. 2006. ‘‘Appropriation of Black Folklore.’’ The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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Thompson, Kathleen. 2006. ‘‘Blues.’’ The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore. Anand Prahlad, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Gladys L. Knight

Blues, Delta. See Delta Blues

Bond, Julian (1940– ), Civil Rights Activist, Politician, Educator, Organization Official A noted public servant, Horace Julian Bond is a staunch advocate for human and civil rights. He continues to advocate social justice through his work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Bond was born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee. It was through his father that Bond met W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1957 Bond and his family moved to Georgia, where he first witnessed the segregation of the South. In 1960 he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. Bond and other students organized in Atlanta and kicked off their nonviolent protest with a full-page ad in the city newspaper. Bond assisted and contributed to the work, ‘‘An Appeal for Human Rights,’’ which brought attention to the lives of blacks who lacked the chance for achievement or advancement. He founded the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR). In the spring of 1960, Bond traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina, to meet with other activists; it was here that he helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He would eventually become the communications director for SNCC. In 1961 Bond left Morehouse College one semester short of meeting requirements to graduate; he would return to Morehouse in 1971 to complete his requirements and earn a BA degree in English. He took a staff job on the protest paper, the Atlanta Inquirer, in 1961, where he would become the managing editor. In 1965, he ran for an open seat in Georgia’s House of Representatives; he won the one-year term. Because of Bond’s open opposition to the Vietnam War, the Georgia House of Representatives voted not to seat him. He was elected two more times to the Georgia House of Representatives before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House of Representatives had violated Bond’s right to free speech. During Bond’s tenure in the Georgia General Assembly, he sponsored more than sixty bills that became law. He established the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, which at the time was the largest black caucus in the country. Bond was cochair of the Georgia Loyal National Delegation to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. At the 1968 convention Bond was nominated for vice president of the United States; he withdrew his name because he was too young at age twenty-eight to accept the nomination. This made him the first black person nominated by a major political party.

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He has served on various boards of organizations which work for social change. In 1995 Bond was elected to a fourth term on the National Board of the NAACP. Since his election in 1998 Bond has served as chairperson of that board. Bond is also an established writer. He has published A Time to Speak, A Time to Act, a collection of essays. He has written poetry and articles that have appeared in various national publications, such as the Los Angeles Times and American Negro Poetry. Bond has narrated several documentaries, including A Time for Justice and Eyes on the Prize. These documentaries are a collection of Bond’s writings which elaborate on his life and work in the South. He won an Academy Award for A Time for Justice and received a nomination for an Academy Award for his work on The Shadow of Hate. In addition to his Academy Award and twenty-five honorary degrees, Bond received the National Freedom Award in 2002. Currently Bond lives in Washington, DC, and is a professor at American University and the University of Virginia. Further Reading Southern Poverty Law Center. http://www/splcenter.org/center/history/bond.jsp. Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. 2009. ‘‘Julian Bond.’’ In Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present. Vol. 1. Paul Finkelman, ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Warren, Nagueyalti. 1999. ‘‘Julian Bond.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale Research. Catherine Culver

Bonds, Barry (1964– ), Baseball Player Second generation Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds has been described as one of the sports all-time great players due to his batting abilities, which culminated in breaking the all-time home run record of Hank Aaron in 2007. Bonds’s legacy has been questioned by fans and media after widespread allegations of steroid use. These allegations notwithstanding, Bonds remains an American sports icon. Barry Lamar Bonds, the oldest of three children, was born in Riverside, California on July 24, 1964, to Bobby and Patricia Howard Bonds. The son of Bobby and godson of Willie Mays (both professional baseball players with the San Francisco Giants), young Barry was groomed to be a professional baseball player. The competitive Bonds excelled in football, basketball, and baseball in high school. Bonds was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team but turned down the contract. Instead, he enrolled at Arizona State University where he was an All-American baseball player. At the end of his junior year in 1985, Bonds was drafted in the first round by the Pittsburgh Pirates. As a twenty-one-year-old rookie, his exceptional skills

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San Francisco Giants’s slugger Barry Bonds watches the ball flying over the right field wall after hitting his 73rd record-breaking home run on October 7, 2001, in San Francisco, California. Bonds has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a company that prescribes nutritional supplements to elite athletes. (AFP/Getty Images)

placed him in the starting lineup as a center fielder and lead batter. In 1990 Bonds was named league Most Valuable Player (MVP). Although a baseball player of exceptional talent, Bonds’s personal and professional life have caused problems for him and the teams for which he has played. Incidents such as arguments with coaches, physical altercations with teammates, ignoring media interview requests, and divorce have influenced how he is perceived. However, after hitting 34 home runs, Bonds won his second MVP award in 1992. Following the 1992 season Bonds became a free agent and was picked up by his father’s old team, the San Francisco Giants. Bonds’s contract with the Giants made him the highest-paid player in Major League Baseball. Bonds lived up to expectations, and from the late 1990s into 2000 he won eight Golden Glove awards, three MVPs, and became the first player in professional baseball to hit 400 home runs and steal 400 bases. But Bonds’s ultimate feat came in 2007 when he broke Henry ‘‘Hank’’ Aaron’s all-time home run record of 755. The previous year, Bonds managed to avoid being indicted by a federal grand jury for tax evasion and perjury charges stemming from alleged steroid use. Charges of widespread doping sent shockwaves throughout professional baseball, which led to Senator George Mitchell’s report (Mitchell Report) documenting doping. In

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2007, investigators and the U.S. attorney stated they planned to continue their investigation, and would have enough information to convict the beleaguered and injury-plagued Bonds. To date, Bonds has not suffered legal or professional repercussions, or come under much scrutiny from fans or the general public. Further Reading Fainaru-Wada, Mark. 2006. Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports. New York: Gotham Books. Pearlman, Jeff. 2006. Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero. New York: HarperCollins. Carter B. Cue

Bontemps, Arna (1902–73), Poet, Writer, Educator, Library Administrator A major player in shaping modern African American literature from the Harlem Renaissance forward, Arna Bontemps produced a variety of works for adults, young children, and youth, and promoted aspects of black folklore. His works ranged from a serious theme to simple stories that preserved and promoted African American culture. Born Arna Wendell Bontemps in Alexandria, Louisiana, on October 13, 1902, to Paul Bismark and Maria Caroline Bontemps, Arnaud Wendell Bontemps spent the first three years of his life in his hometown and then relocated to Los Angeles with his family. He had a passion for books. After developing a writing career, he used as the main character in his first novel, God Sends Sunday (1931), his Uncle Buddy—a drinking man who told him slave tales, preacher and ghost stories, and tales in dialect. Before attending predominantly white San Fernando Academy, a boarding school, his father cautioned him not to ‘‘go up there acting colored’’—advice that he resented during that formative part of his life. He graduated from Pacific Union College in 1923 with an AB degree; with the desire to become a writer, he moved to New York, following the cultural revolution taking place there, the Harlem Renaissance. Bontemps taught at Harlem Academy and wrote and published poetry. His literary career soon emerged, as his first creative work was published in 1924, in the Crisis (magazine), earning him a poetry prize; numerous prizes followed. He expanded his relationship with African American authors and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, especially Langston Hughes, with whom he had a lasting relationship and collaborated on some of his writings. Bontemps’s numerous writings, published between 1931 and 1973, included, in addition to God Sends Sunday, works of fiction such as Black Thunder (1936), Drums at Dusk (1939), and The Old South (1973). His works for children and teenagers included

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Popo and Fifina (1932), Sad-Faced Boy (1938), Slappy Hooper (1946), Chariot in the Sky (1951), and Lonesome Boy (1955). He wrote biographies of Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and Booker T. Washington. Other writings included The Poetry of the Negro, edited with Langston Hughes (1949); The Book of Negro Folklore (1958); They Seek a City, with Jack Conroy (1945); One Hundred Years of Negro Freedom (1961); The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (1972); and American Negro Poetry (1963). By 1932 Harlem’s black writers, artists, and musicians were leaving for more fertile ground. Bontemps, who had married Alberta Johnson and started a family, moved to Oakwood Junior College in Huntsville, Alabama, where he taught from 1931 to 1934. He left for Chicago, where he taught at Shiloh Academy (1935–38) and also served on the Federal Writer’s Project, Works Progress Administration (1938–42). He received his MLS from the University of Chicago in 1943, then moved to Fisk University as head librarian (1943–64) and greatly enhanced the special collections on black culture into a world-renowned research resource. After retiring, Bontemps became writer-in-residence, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle (1970–73), and professor (1966–69). While there he initiated the emphasis on black literature that took hold in Black Studies programs. He was visiting professor and curator of the James Weldon Johnson Collection at Yale University in 1969. Bontemps returned to Fisk as writer-in-residence (1970–73). He died in Nashville on June 4, 1973. Further Reading Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. 1997. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: Norton. Patti, Nicholas. 1995. ‘‘Arna Wendell Bontemps.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale Research. Smith, Jessie Carney. 1978. ‘‘Arna Wendell. Bontemps.’’ In Dictionary of American Literary Biography. Littgleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Smith, Jessie Carney. 1999. ‘‘Arna W. Bontemps.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Gale Research. Jessie Carney Smith

Bookstores and Bibliophiles African American bookstores and bibliophiles (book lovers) have played an integral part in black intellectual life. The early bibliophiles often became booksellers as well, and their collections formed the nucleus of many of the outstanding special black collections in libraries, particularly those in the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The work of these pioneers continues and has been the inspiration for building numerous private collections that are in black homes today. Such collecting is a trend in African American popular culture. Two early African American booksellers were David Ruggles and Robert Adger. The first known African American bookseller was David Ruggles (1810–49),

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an abolitionist, printer, and pamphleteer of the 1830s. He was a bibliophile as well. Ruggles opened a bookstore at 67 Lispenard Street, New York City, in 1834 and sold antislavery works and stationary. Robert Mara Adger (1837–1919), a Philadelphia merchant and an abolitionist, was also involved in numerous activities for racial uplift. He built an enormous private collection and became a bookseller as well. He produced catalogs of his collection in 1894 and 1906, attracting the interest of bibliophiles. Richard B. Moore (1893–1978), was well-known in Harlem for his work as a book dealer, collector, historian, and lecturer. He came to the United States from Barbados in 1908 and began his career by selling books door to door. Moore acquired a personal collection of thousands of works that refuted the stereotypical images of blacks that many whites held. He opened a bookshop on 125th Street in Harlem in 1942 and used the space to house, but not sell, parts of his collection. His Frederick Douglass Book Center featured the works of Caribbean authors and also served as a meeting place for Caribbean political activists who lived in New York. In 1941, Alfred Ligon (1906–2002) opened Aquarian Book Shop in South Central Los Angeles; after it was destroyed during the Los Angeles riots in 1992, he reopened the store in a strip mall. Like many other black bookshops, his became an intellectual beacon and attracted many young activists during the Civil Rights Movement. Ligon introduced activists to black history and culture. The store also became a stopping place for black writers who promoted their books and held books signings there. Ligon was called the dean of black book collectors and had the oldest continuously operated black bookstore in the country. Over the years, owners of black bookstores became the keepers of black culture and continued to maintain their shops as an expression of pride, history, and cultural identify. The black consciousness movement of the 1960s and early 1970s spurred an increasing interest in publishing and purchasing black books. The largest growth years for black bookstores came between the late 1960s and through the 1990s. By 1999, there were over 500 black book-vending enterprises in the United States, ranging from mail and Web site ventures to full-service commercial stores. In 2008 only about 150 of the physical bookstores were known to exist. Examples of the older and contemporary stores are the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit and in Atlanta; Black Images Book Bazaar in Dallas; Bread and Roses in Sherman Oaks, California; Third World Books in Chicago; Alkebu-Lan Images Bookstore and Gift Shop in Nashville; Liberation Books in New York City; and Drum and Spear Books in Washington, DC. In recent years, and during an uncertain economy, black booksellers have reinvented themselves and stepped up methods of competing with megaretailers. Even so, many had to make the hard decision to close their stores.

Book Collectors as Cultural Keepers ‘‘Black bibliophiles run through our history like an unseen hand,’’ wrote Tony Martin in Black Bibliophiles and Collectors. This statement holds for the early collectors in our history as well as for those of contemporary black America. African

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American book collectors are responsible for many of the major developments in our culture. They established black America’s early historical societies, its first literary and debating societies, and special collections of African Americana. By 1915, interest in collecting books by black authors had become so widespread that a group of black booklovers organized the Negro Book Collectors Exchange during a meeting of the American Negro Academy in Washington, DC. Its mission was to bring together all literature by people of color, and serious bibliophiles were elected officers. They included Henry Proctor Slaughter, Arthur Alphonso Schomburg, Charles Douglass Martin, John Edward Bruce, and Daniel Alexander Murray. These men held sizeable personal libraries that later became a part of the special African American collections at Atlanta University, Howard University, and the Library of Congress. The leading bibliophiles of 1800s and early 1900s—many of them wealthy— lived in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, DC. They bought private collections and also helped to build collections for organizations. Jacob C. White Jr., of Philadelphia, is an example. As secretary for many local black organizations, he gathered documents for their libraries as well as for his own. Some bibliophiles established private museums in their homes and included book collections in the museum as well. For example, William H. Dorsey, a wealthy Philadelphia bibliophile, devoted several rooms in his home to his museum. As far back as the 1820s, these collectors also organized reading rooms and library companies for blacks in Philadelphia; they also helped to build institutional libraries. Over the years, many works by and about black authors were largely ignored and sometimes discarded as worthless. Flea markets and secondhand shops often sold these works for as little as a few cents. Pathetically, white teachers often told their black students that blacks had no history and that there were no books by and about them. Because of such misinformation and unfamiliarity with black literature, the efforts of many book collectors became increasingly significant, for they preserved black history and culture and had documentation to refute the arguments of pseudo scholars. Early African American book collectors included those mentioned as booksellers, the officers and members of the American Negro Academy, and others, such as Benjamin W. Arnett, Arna Bontemps, Benjamin G. Brawley, W. Montague Cobb, Anna Julia Cooper, John Wesley Cromwell, Owen Dodson, William H. Dorsey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles L. Heartman, Clarence L. Holte, Harold Jackson, Charles Spurgeon Johnson, Alain LeRoy Locke, Jesse E. Moorland, Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, Henry Proctor Slaughter, William Grant Still, and Monroe Nathan Work. Contemporary collectors include those with a broad interest in Afro-Americana, such as Charles L. Blockson, and those with a narrow interest who collect black cookbooks, fiction by black women writers, and books on black memorabilia. Their collections enrich a number of libraries. For example, Holte sold his collection to Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria; Blockson’s collection went to Temple University; the collections of Jackman and Slaughter are at the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center; Schomburg’s collection is at the Schomburg Center

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for Research in Black Culture in Harlem; the Moorland Collection is a part of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University; and some of the Du Bois materials are at Fisk University. Further Reading Newman, Richard. 1996. ‘‘Book Collectors and Collections.’’ In Encyclopedia of AfricanAmerican Culture and History, Vol. 1. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, eds. 398–403. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Rogers, Emma. ‘‘How Black Booksellers are Reinventing Themselves.’’ Black Issues Book Review (May–July, 2004). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mOHST/is_3_6 /ai_n6059310. Sinnette, Elinor Des Verney, W. Paul Coates, and Thomas C. Battle, eds. 1990. Black Bibliophiles and Collectors: Preservers of Black History. Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Walker, Juliet E. K., ed. 1999. Encyclopedia of African American Business History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Jessie Carney Smith

Botillions. See Cotillions and Botillions

Boxing Boxing is one of the most important sports in African American popular culture; through the lens of boxing, the world has had the opportunity to witness the exploits of African Americans of tremendous character and of selflessness. People like Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis, for example, shattered racist stereotypes, becoming figures larger than the sport. Boxing, too, has afforded us the opportunity to witness epic falls from grace. In short, the elemental aspect of boxing, one of the most enduring metaphors of survival of the fittest in all the sporting landscape, continues to underscore the collective struggle of humanity to prevail in light of trying circumstances. Yet, as famed author Joyce Carol Oates has observed, ‘‘Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.’’ How, then, do we account for boxing’s appeal beyond the ring? In one of the early works of the western literary tradition, the Aeneid, from the first century BC, the Roman poet Virgil writes, ‘‘And now, if any one of you has courage, / a keen heart in his breast, let him step forward / and lift his hands bound up with leather gauntlets.’’ Nowhere in this edict is there mention of physical brute strength, but instead a ‘‘keen heart,’’ highlighting the intangible elements of character that are revealed and that endure beyond the physical aspects of boxing. In our own time, athletics have often been viewed as a way out of debilitating circumstances to a life of promise and prosperity. The struggle upward remains one of

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the strong narrative threads of the lore and lure of boxing. Gerald Early, author of The Culture of Bruising, has noted that boxing has the ‘‘longest history of black participation’’ and that it ‘‘has always attracted poor and marginalized men.’’ In this regard, one of the most important black boxers in the history of the ring is Tom Molineaux. Born a slave on March 23, 1784, Tom Molineaux was forged into a pugilist of historical significance and acclaim. He gained his freedom, along with $500, by beating a fellow bondsman in a bout. In 1809, Molineaux made his way to New York City, and from there sailed to England and launched his professional career as a boxer. Two of the most important prizefights in the history of the ring occurred between Tom Cribb and Molineaux. Cribb was the English bare-knuckle champion, a man who, in the eyes of his adoring public, represented all that was right and proper about England. Molineaux, called the ‘‘American Othello’’ and ‘‘the Great American Moor,’’ was seen as an impostor. Their first fight, which took place in December, 1810, was shrouded by blinders of racism and nationalist pride, but what became evident after the forty-round battle in which Molineaux finally conceded defeat as a result of exhaustion was a new respect for a black American who had fought his way from slavery to freedom—literally. Of Molineaux, Pierce Egan, the leading British sportswriter of the day, writes in Rhoden’s Forty Million Slaves, ‘‘Molineaux proved himself as courageous a man as ever an adversary contended with.’’ Molineaux, too, offered irrefutable evidence about the intellect of men of color; as Egan further observed, Molineaux ‘‘astonished everyone, not only by his extraordinary power of hitting and his gigantic strength, but also by his acquaintance with the science, which was far greater than any had given him credit for.’’ The second bout between Molineaux and Cribb, on September 28, 1811, was decided in the eleventh round, when Cribb knocked Molineaux to the canvas, and Molineaux was counted out. Between those two fights, Molineaux had become a celebrated boxer in England, yet word of his exploits went largely unrecorded in the United States, where the institution of slavery, geared towards crushing the hope of Africans becoming Americans, continued to hold sway, but paradoxically. As Frederick Douglass noted in his second autobiography, ‘‘It is plain, that everything like rational enjoyment among the slaves, is frowned upon; and only those wild and low sports, peculiar to semi-civilized people, are encouraged.’’ The irony here is that excellence in sport by black athletes threatened the established racial hierarchy. Forty years following Douglass’s observation, Charles Dana notes in Rhoden’ Forty Million Slaves, ‘‘We are in the midst of a growing menace. The black man is rapidly forging to the front ranks in athletics especially in the field of fisticuffs. We are in the midst of a black rise against white supremacy.’’ These words of warning, charged with the fervor of a doomsday prophet, became flesh in the form of Jack Johnson, the hard-hitting black heavyweight from Galveston, Texas, when, on December 26, 1908, he defeated Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia to become the first African American heavyweight champion of the world. While Johnson was a menace in the ring, obliterating white opponents in a racially segregated American society, he was considered a social menace outside the ring as well, enjoying a lavish lifestyle that featured dating white women.

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Johnson struggled upward his entire life. Dropping out of school in fifth grade, he took on work as a stevedore and as a cotton picker. He honed his craft as a boxer by competing in battle royals, blindfolded boxing matches that pitted a collection of fighters against one another. In 1897, Johnson began his professional career, and by 1903, he had become the ‘‘colored’’ world champion. His defeat of Tommy Burns in 1908 was as historic as it was unsettling to white supremacist ideology; the performance of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Summer Olympiad in Berlin would produce similar sentiments. With Johnson, a black man, wearing the belt of heavyweight champion of the world, promoters began searching for what they termed the ‘‘Great White Hope,’’ a boxer capable of defeating Johnson in the ring and restoring, symbolically so, the idea of white supremacy. Following five title defenses, Johnson faced Jack Jeffries in Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910, a heavily symbolic date. Johnson defeated Jeffries handedly, and race riots ensued. Johnson reigned supreme until 1919, when he lost to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba (many historians believed that the fight was fixed). Johnson’s exploits, both in and out of the ring, continued to cast their shadows across the boxing landscape. In many ways, Joe Louis, the second black heavyweight champion of the world, was the antithesis of Jack Johnson. When Louis defeated James Braddock in 1937 and claimed the title, his reign was marked more by modesty than flamboyancy, by service to nation more than self-promotion. A hero of the Great Depression, Joe Louis grew to represent the power of American democracy over Nazi tyranny in his historic fights against Germany’s Max Schmeling. Schmeling won their first contest with a twelfth-round knockout in 1936, but before their 1938, Joe Louis, heavyweight champion of the world and a more seasoned fighter, was growing into his identity as the Brown Bomber and the people’s champion. Before his second fight against Schmeling, according to Ashby, Louis, visiting the White House, was told by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that ‘‘Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany.’’ Louis did, with a first round knockout before seventy thousand spectators in Yankee Stadium. Louis reigned as the world’s heavyweight champion until 1949, and during that twelve-year span he defended his belt twenty-five times. Like boxers, black writers and intellectuals have used violence as a creative force. In his autobiographical Black Boy, Richard Wright explored his early encounters with the critic Henry Louis Mencken, noting that he ‘‘was fighting, fighting with words. He was using words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. Could words be weapons? Well, yes, for here they were. Then, maybe, perhaps, I could use them as a weapon?’’ Following the fall of Louis from his reign as champion, the 1950s witnessed a range of great black heavyweight champions, from Ezzard Charles to Joe Walcott to Floyd Patterson to Sonny Liston, but perhaps none of these men capture the connection between words and fighting as prominently as the boxer from Louisville, Kentucky, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, but known today as Muhammad Ali. From his self-proclaimed title as ‘‘The Greatest’’ to his seemingly spontaneous poetry with such lyrics as ‘‘Float like a butterfly / And sting like a bee,’’ Ali used his fists as well as his words to voice stirring ideas about social justice. While his

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boxing exploits continue to exist more on film than in living memories, what will remain, more than his gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympiad at Rome, more than his sixty-one professional victories, will be his words, his unrelenting sense of justice, and his courage to use his platform as heavyweight champion of the world to fight for those who could not always fight for themselves. The 2001 film Ali, directed by Michael Mann, earned an Oscar nomination for Will Smith, who plays the lead role. The film represents an interesting study of the intersections between the sport, popular culture, and American history. One of the finest books written on the sport of boxing remains Joyce Carol Oates’s On Boxing. A collection of essays, Oates’s work offers deep insight into the lives and careers of Johnson, Louis, Ali, and Mike Tyson. Along with Oates, Gerald Early’s The Culture of Bruising opens the door on the enduring significance of boxing in the African American experience. Ali Rap, produced by ESPN Films, also explores the connections between boxing and popular culture. Women, too, have set an important trend in the world of boxing as Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, was voted, in 2006, as the second most likeable female athlete, behind Serena Williams and in front of Venus Williams (Boyd). In all, boxing, more than a fringe sport, remains an important lens through which to view African American popular culture. See also: Sports Further Reading Ashby, LeRoy. 2006. With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Boyd, Todd. 2008. ‘‘The Changing Face of Tennis.’’ In African Americans and Popular Culture. Vol. 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Briley, Ron. 2005. ‘‘Johnson, Jack (1878–1946).’’ The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature. Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey, Jr., eds Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Douglass, Frederick. 1994. Autobiographies. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. New York: Library of America. Early, Gerald L. 1994. The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press. Edmonds, Anthony O. 1995. ‘‘Tom Molyneux.’’ African-American Sports Greats: A Biographical Dictionary. David L. Porter, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Oates, Joyce Carol. 2006. On Boxing. New York: Harper. Rhoden, William C. 2006. Forty Million Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. New York: Crown. ‘‘Tom Molineaux.’’ International Boxing Hall of Fame. www.ibhof.com. Virgil. Aeneid. 2004. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam. Wright, Richard. 1998. Black Boy. New York: Harper. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

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Bradley, Ed (1941–2006), Broadcast Journalist Ed Bradley was an African American journalist who was best known as a correspondent on CBS’s 60 Minutes. In recent years, he became a broadcast icon on that Sunday evening television show. Born Edward Rudolph Bradley Jr. on June 22, 1941, in Philadelphia, Bradley spent nearly forty years working in news at CBS, earning dozens of the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism, including the lifetime achievement award from the National Association of Black Journalists in 2005. Over the course of his career, Bradley won the 1995 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award grand prize and television first prize for a documentary on violence in the United States; the 1977 Alfred I. DuPont–Columbia University Award for a report on jury deliberations, America’s first report of its kind; twenty Emmy awards; and an assortment of other honors. He even received posthumous recognition—a 2007 George Foster Peabody Award—for his story on rape allegations against three members of the 2006 Duke University lacrosse team. Ed Bradley graduated from Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University) in Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1964 and taught elementary school in Philadelphia for three years afterwards. During that time, he also worked as a radio deejay and announcer at WDAS, where he got his start in news by covering the Philadelphia race riots. That assignment fueled his passion for journalism, and he soon accepted a job with New York’s WCBS radio, an allnews station. Bradley moved to Paris in 1971. Shortly thereafter, he began television reporting as a stringer for CBS News. In 1973, he was wounded by mortar fire in Cambodia. He returned to the United States and was assigned to the CBS Washington bureau. In 1976, he became the network’s White House correspondent, a post he held until 1978, and anchored the Sunday evening newscast from 1976 to 1981. Bradley joined 60 Minutes in 1981, replacing Dan Rather on the distinguished news magazine. Don Hewitt, creator of 60 Minutes, noted in his book Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television, that he hired Bradley because he was a minority, a great reporter, and a great gentleman. As a 60 Minutes correspondent, Bradley was known for developing stories on some of the most fascinating people and compelling issues in the world. His subjects included the reopening of 1995 murder case of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, an examination of the impact of nuclear testing on a town in Kazakhstan, and interviews with diverse personalities such as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and singer-actress Lena Horne. It was the Lena Horne interview, cited in ‘‘RTNDA and RTNDF Mourn Ed Bradley’’, that Bradley considered one of his best: ‘‘If I arrived at the pearly gates and St. Peter said, ‘What did you do to deserve entry?’ I’d just say, ‘Did you see my Lena Horne story?’’’ In 1994, Bradley endowed a scholarship in his name to help aspiring journalists of color. A $10,000 award is presented by the Radio-Television News Directors Association each year.

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Bradley died from complications of leukemia on November 9, 2006, in New York City. His survivors include his wife, Patricia Blanchet. See also: Journalism and Journalists Further Reading DeLuke, R. J. ‘‘Ed Bradley: Journalist and Jazzman.’’ All About Jazz. (February 23, 2004). http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=1073&pg=3. ‘‘Ed Bradley: 1941–2006.’’ CBS News.com. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/ 60minutes/bios/main13501.shtml. Hewitt, D. 2002. Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television. New York: Public Affairs. Klatell, J. M. ‘‘CBS remembers Ed Bradley.’’ CBS News.com (November 10, 2006). http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/09/national/main2167456.shtml. ‘‘RTNDA and RTNDF Mourn Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes, Winner of Paul White and First Amendment Awards.’’ RTDNA (November 9, 2006). http://www.rtdna.org/ pages/posts/rtnda-and-rtndf-mourn-ed-bradley-of-60-minutes-winner-of-paul-whiteand-first-amendment-awards43.php?g=11. Sullivan, Patricia. ‘‘Ed Bradley of ‘60 Minutes’ dies at 65.’’ Washington Post, November 10, 2006. Marilyn L. Roseboro

Brazile, Donna (1959– ), Political Strategist, Political Commentator, Columnist Already well-recognized in Democratic political circles, Donna Brazile was brought to greater public view in fall 1999, when Vice President Al Gore named her campaign manger for his 2000 presidential campaign. This made her the first African American woman to hold such a position in national party politics. Brazile was a veteran organizer in the Democratic Party, where she was a formidable grassroots organizer. Once she joined Gore, however, her rise to fame never wavered and she went on to become known as a powerful and formidable political strategist in American and African American popular culture. A Louisiana native who was born in New Orleans and grew up in nearby Kenner, Donna Brazile is the daughter of Lionel Brazile, a janitor who also had a moonlighting job to support his family, and his wife Jean, a domestic worker. Due to her parents’ low income and the fact that there were nine children in the family, Brazile grew up in an impoverished household. She regularly read the local newspaper and developed an interest in politics early on. When she was nine years old, Brazile distributed leaflets for a local politician who was running for the city council and who promised her neighborhood that it would get the playground that it needed. After the candidate won, Brazile continued her local community activities by organizing its first female baseball team. In 1976, while still in her teens, Brazile became a volunteer for Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, who was a Democratic presidential hopeful on the Carter-Mondale ticket. She stuffed envelopes at the local headquarters.

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After graduating from Louisiana State University with a degree in industrial psychology and much later teaching at the University of Maryland (College Park), she became a scholar at Harvard University, and now teaches at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Following college, her political activism continued as she became a lobbyist for the National Student Education Fund located in Washington, DC. Coretta Scott King hired her to work for the King Foundation and to assist with the planning and reenactment of the 1963 March on Washington, in which Martin Luther King Jr. played a prominent role and gave his famous ‘‘I Have a Dream’’ speech. Brazile became national director of that effort in 1983. At this time as well, civil rights supporters led a successful drive to establish King’s birthday as a national holiday. In 1984, Brazile was called for further involvement in political campaigns. Her political progress was fully ignited. Jesse Jackson tapped her to work for his presidential campaign as mobilization director and director of his Rainbow Coalition. In that year as well, Walter Mondale hired her for what became his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. presidency. Brazile made history again in 1987, when she was hired as national field director for Dick Gephardt’s bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. presidency. This was the first time that an African American had held such a position for a mainstream American presidential candidate. It was due to her skill that Gephardt won the Iowa caucus in 1988. By now, Brazile was known for her superb organizational and persuasive skills useful to those seeking high political office. Michael Dukakis recognized her gift and in 1988 made her national field director for his presidential campaign. From 1990 to 1999, Brazile was chief of staff for Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1998, Brazile headed the Voter/Campaign Assessment Program for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. After that, she was cast in a brighter spotlight when she began her work with the Al Gore for President 2000 Campaign, first in May 1999 as deputy campaign manager and national political director, then, in October of that year as his campaign manager. When Gore lost the election and, although the vote count was questionable, Brazile was devastated: ‘‘I was the first Black person to run a major presidential campaign and that campaign ended up not going the distance to get every vote counted,’’ she wrote in her memoir. ‘‘I had sacrificed. . . . I had taken a pay cut. I had endured death threats and I kept going every day. But the campaign was now officially over.’’ Then she sat down and cried. Others cried as well, and Brazile felt that she had endured the longest political season of her life and had scars and wounds as evidence. Her ‘‘optimism about American politics was shattered,’’ and, after her experiences in that campaign, she could ‘‘no longer preach the gospel of political participation,’’ she added. Brazile spent four decades in meaningful and highly visible service to innumerable state and local campaigns. She has also worked for every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000. There is no doubt that the media has also cast Brazile in full view. The Wall Street Journal in 1987 named her among ‘‘the powers that (might) be in national politics.’’ She regularly contributes commentaries on the ‘‘Backtalk’’ section of Ms. magazine and, according to ‘‘Commentaries,’’

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provides ‘‘insightful political commentary from an insider’s perspective.’’ In 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine named her as one of its twenty ‘‘remarkable visionaries’’ on its O Power List. Recognitions of her stellar achievement continued. Washingtonian magazine named her one of the ‘‘100 Most Powerful Women;’’ Essence magazine called her one of the ‘‘Top 50 Women in America;’’ and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gave her its highest award, the Award for Political Achievement, in 2005. Her sense of community spirit continues. After New Orleans suffered through the catastrophic hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Gustav (2008), Brazile worked for its full recovery and is credited for leading the state in its rebuilding process. She has long had a passion for encouraging young people to vote, insisting that they work through the system and do what they can to make it stronger as well. She believes that they should also run for public office. Commenting in Ms. magazine, she argued in 2006 that women candidates could benefit from the corruption scandals of that time that occurred inside Washington’s Beltway involving Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. ‘‘Scandal and corruption first brought women into politics around the turn of the 20th century,’’ she wrote, and ‘‘women became a powerful voice for reform.’’ She advised women candidates to campaign against ‘‘the culture of corruption’’ and also to ‘‘adopt platforms that include such issues as health care, education, jobs and the environment. In that way, women can benefit from the political moment without losing the battle to avoid old gender stereotypes.’’ Influenced by women of power, Brazile credits Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisholm, C. DeLores Tucker, Betty Friedan, and others for giving her and other women ‘‘wings to soar.’’ Brazile published her best-selling memoir, Cooking with Grease: Stirring Pots in American Politics in 2004. The book tells of the thirty years that she had spent in politics when the work was published, and the life and times of a tenacious political organizer. She is regularly seen as a Democratic Party strategist on CNN, NPR, and ABC, and is certain to appear on these networks when serious political issues arise. She is founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates, based in Washington, DC, a general consulting and grassroots advocacy group as well as a training firm. Donna Brazile remains a major player in American political history. She is a woman on the radar and an icon among political strategists. Further Reading Brazile, Donna. http://donnabrazile.com/viewNews.cfm?-id=446. Brazile, Donna. 2004. Cooking with Grease: Stirring Pots in American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster. Brennan, Carol. 2000. ‘‘Donna Brazile.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 25. Detroit: Gale Research. Commentaries by Donna Brazile. Ms. magazine. http://www.msmagazine.com/radar/ 2006-06-21.donnabrazilefull.asp. Who’s Who among African Americans. 2010. 24th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. Jessie Carney Smith

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Break Dancing Break dancing is a form of dance expression that incorporates intricate body movements, coordination, style, and aesthetics. It is the oldest known Hip-Hop style of dance. Break dancing began as a part of the hip-hop movement in New York during the early 1970s. It was an alternative to the violence of urban street gangs. Crews would challenge each other to dance and use this art form to settle neighborhood disputes. Onlookers determined the winner by choosing the team that used more difficult moves. There are four main parts of break dancing: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. Toprock includes any movements done while standing. A dancer must be coordinated, flexible, have style and rhythm. Toprock is the ‘‘warm-up’’ for breakdancers. Downrock, or footwork, includes any movement involving the dancers’ feet and any footwork performed on the floor. Downrock is usually performed with dancers’ hands and feet simultaneously on the floor. In downrock, the dancer uses quick foot speed and control by performing fancy moves. These moves usually become more complicated and are then called power moves. Power moves require stamina and strength. The dancer must have a lot of upper-body strength because he or she is dancing on his or her hands. Power

Break dancers perform in a competition. (Bettmann/Corbis)

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moves include the windmill, swipe, and flare. Some of these moves are borrowed from martial arts and gymnastics. Break dancing usually ends with a freeze. As its name suggests, the freeze requires the dancer to stop all movement while maintaining a pose. Some freezes may require dancers to do handstands on one or both hands. A suicide, which is a kind of freeze, ends a routine. Then the dancers make viewers believe that they have lost all control by collapsing onto their stomachs or backs. During the freeze of the dance, team members and other onlookers usually begin to cheer and help bring the dancer(s) to his or her feet to show support and camaraderie. Break dancers dance to progressive jazz, soul, funk, electro, disco, and R & B. Most break dancing occurs in music where there is an actual break or where breaks in the song have been looped together. This gives a very repetitive sound and offers the dancer the opportunity to display his or her abilities. The beat of the music is fast to keep the dancer moving and the crowd entertained. Break dancers dress fashionably. In the 1980s, break dancers typically wore Adidas, Pumas, or Fila tennis shoes with wildly woven shoelaces. Some break dancing teams coordinated their outfits with the same shirts, hats, and shoes and this unity posed a threat to the opposing team. Male break dancers wore nylon track suits which allowed them to move freely and slide on the floor with ease. Male break dancers now wear baggy pants, T-shirts, Kangols ‘‘trucker’’ hats, or bucket hats. Their hats are usually tipped to the side. Young women have recently begun to break dance. As seen in many other arenas, females were originally viewed as outsiders in break dancing. Females were typically seen standing on the sidelines cheering for the crew that they wanted to win. Stars like Britney Spears use break dancing in their music videos and in their live performances. Break dancing also gave the world of social dance new ideas: full body contact with the ground became acceptable, spinning and other moves were possible through manipulation of the body, and fighting moves could become a part of dancing. This form of dancing is very free and hyped because of its moves. Break dancing has changed the life of its dancers forever. Nightclubs and other settings for break dancing will never be the same. See also: Dance and Dance Companies; Jazz and Jazz Festivals; Soul and Funk (Music) Further Reading ‘‘Breakdancing.’’ NPR. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/breakdancing. Hager, Steve. 1984. Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music, and Graffiti. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Tanz, Jason. 2007. Other People’s Property: A Shadow of Hip-Hop in White America. New York: Bloomsbury. Jemima Buchanan

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Brimmer, Andrew (1926– ), Economist, Academic, Entrepreneur President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Andrew Brimmer as the first African American governor of the Federal Reserve Board in 1966. The Federal Reserve Board is the central bank of the United States, which attempts to provide a stable financial system for the national economy. Brimmer is an icon among economists, whether in the black community or elsewhere. His demonstrated concern for economic justice in the black community had a direct impact on black people. Brimmer has equal concern for America’s poor in general, as seen through his work as one of the developers of the federal Anti-Poverty Program. He is also an authority in the world banking system and this country’s foreign debt obligation to Third World countries. Andrew Felton Brimmer was born in Newellton, Louisiana, to sharecropper and warehouse worker Andrew Brimmer Sr., and Vella Davis Brimmer. After graduating from an all-black high school in St. Joseph, he relocated to Bremerton, Washington, and soon enlisted in the U.S. Army. After serving in the army for two years, Brimmer received an educational grant and a fellowship that allowed him to complete his BA (1950) and MA (1951) at the University of Washington, where he studied economics. In 1951 Brimmer received a Fulbright scholarship to study in India. From 1952 to 1957, Brimmer worked and completed a PhD in economics at Harvard University. While working on his PhD, Brimmer researched global economies and the American economy but he became an expert in how the American life insurance companies use money and investment policies. His expertise was shared in his book, Life Insurance Companies in the Capital Market, published in 1962. During the time he was working on his book he was teaching at Michigan State University as an assistant professor of economics. Given the opportunity to work at the U.S. Commerce Department in Washington, DC, in 1963, Brimmer was promoted as the assistant secretary for economic affairs. It was in 1966 that Brimmer peaked his U.S. federal government employment; he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to fill a vacancy on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of Governors, on which he served until 1974. Since his time on the Federal Reserve Board, Brimmer has continued to work in academia in a variety of positions. In 1976, Brimmer created his own economic consulting firm, Brimmer and Co., an economic research and economic analysis firm that provides consulting work to diversified business. Brimmer continues to publish and lecture on economic issues relating to global and U.S. economic issues. Black Enterprise magazine has provided an outlet for Brimmer to explore and discuss economic matters in the African American business community. Brimmer is of the belief that it is not only discrimination that has been the economic problem faced by black Americans but the lack of marketable skills and education to advance in any industry being pursued. However, Brimmer believes that these marketable skills and education were a choice. In his view, African Americans

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should focus on attaining employment as salaried managers and skilled crafters with the major American companies in order to grasp the attention of the larger community. He has consistently supported black economic development and decried discrimination against black-owned businesses and in hiring practices. Further Reading ‘‘Andrew Brimmer.’’ NNDB. http://www.nndb.com/people/652/000062466/. ‘‘Andrew Brimmer Biography.’’ The History Makers. http://www.thehistorymakers.com/ biography/biography.asp?bioindex=480. ‘‘Andrew F. Brimmer, PhD: Summary of Service to Tuskegee University.’’ Tuskegee University. http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/story.asp?S=7233446. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1999. ‘‘Andrew F. Brimmer.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Detroit: Gale. [unsigned]

Brooke, Edward (1919– ), Civil Rights Activist, Lawyer, Senator, Attorney General Edward William Brooke III has been known for his passion for people and justice. He spent most of his life fighting for equal rights, trying to administer change through legal means. Brooke was born October 26, 1919, in Washington, DC, to Helen Seldon and Edward W. Brooke. He had two older sisters, Edwina and Helene, deceased before his birth. After Dunbar High School in Washington he attended Howard University, earning his BS degree in 1941. Brooke followed in his father’s footsteps and became a lawyer after experiencing racial discrimination while fighting in Italy during World War II. Brooke’s experience made him increasingly sensitive to those who faced discrimination. After the war, he started his own law firm in the Roxbury section of Boston but shortly left and ran for a seat at the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Brooke garnered an upright, respectable reputation for himself despite unsuccessful attempts to win a seat in the House of Representatives. His good standing in the public’s eyes and in the political arena earned him the position of chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, assigned to him by the Republican governor of Massachusetts. This was only the beginning of Brooke’s career in politics and in his drive to improve the quality of life for African Americans and other minorities. In 1962, in another bid for a seat in the House of Representatives, Brooke, a Republican in a heavily Democratic state, won the votes and hearts of the people of Massachusetts. As a result, he became the first African American to hold a seat in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction as well as the first African American who was appointed a state attorney general in the United States. He then served as legal counsel to the NAACP, the Aeronautical and Space Sciences,

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Banking and Currency, Government Operations committees, the Armed Services, and the Joint Committee on Bicentennial Arrangements. Other committees he served on include: Appropriations, Special Aging, Banking, Housing, Urban Affairs, Select Equal Education, Select Standards and Conduct, and Joint Committee on Defense Production. Brooke used his influence in his various offices to fight corruption and segregation, and to provide better educational, housing, and health opportunities for all. He was instrumental in lobbying for the antidiscrimination amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1968; in extending the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and in proposing the celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. as a public holiday, honoring King’s life and work. In recognition of all his efforts to produce change in the lives of his fellow African Americans and other minorities, Brooke was awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for black achievement in 1967 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004. He also received a Bronze Star and a Distinguished Service Award during his tenure as a captain in the army. In 1966 Brooke wrote his first book, The Challenge of Change: Crisis in Our Two-Party System, discussing his beliefs about civil rights and his political principles. His autobiography, Bridging the Divide: My Life was published in 2006. Brooke’s consistency in providing quality of life for African Americans, other minorities, and the people of his state allowed him to be seen as a symbol of hope and an opportunity for change. After being diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing two mastectomies, Brooke embarked on educating everyone, especially men, about this presumably feminine disease. Further Reading Brooke, Edward William, III. 2006. Bridging the Divide: My Life. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007. 2008. Prepared under the Direction of the Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives, by the Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Carter, Linda M. 1999. ‘‘Edward W. Brooke.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale. Renee Latchman

Brooks, Gwendolyn (1917–2000), Poet, Writer Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks, whose literary career was characterized by its prolificacy and longevity, was the first African American writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize and one of the twentieth century’s most preeminent and influential writers.

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Brooks, the eldest child of David and Keziah Brooks, was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. Shortly after Brooks’s birth, the family moved to Chicago’s South Side, where Brooks and her brother, Raymond, were raised. Brooks was a frequent contributor of poetry to a column in the Chicago Defender prior to her graduation from Englewood High School in 1934 and Woodrow Wilson Junior College (now known as Kennedy-King College) in 1936. She married businessman and poet Henry L. Blakely II in 1939 and bore two children: Henry L. Blakely III and Nora Brooks Blakely. After Richard Wright recommended Brooks’s poetry to editors at Harper and Brothers, the company published her critically acclaimed first book, A Street in Bronzeville, in 1945; one of the volume’s most memorable poems is ‘‘The Mother.’’ Four years later, Brooks received even greater critical recognition upon publication of her second volume of verse, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Annie Allen; which includes ‘‘The Children of the Poor’’ and ‘‘The Anniad.’’ In 1953, Brooks showed her versatility as a writer with the publication of her first prose work, the novel Maud Martha. In subsequent years, while teaching creative writing at various colleges and universities, she published at least thirty additional books, including Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956), as well as three other children’s books; two autobiographies, Report From Part One (1972) and Report From Part Two (1996); and more volumes of verse, such as The Bean Eaters (1960), which includes ‘‘We Real Cool’’ as well as ‘‘The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till’’ and In The Mecca (1968), which includes poems honoring Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Brooks attended an African American Writers’ Conference held at Fisk University in 1967 and then became more active in the Black Arts Movement, especially in Chicago, where she held poetry workshops as well as contests and mentored Don L. Lee (now known as Haki R. Madhubuti) and other members of the younger generation of African American poets. Brooks, who consistently portrayed African American life in her works, demonstrated an even greater commitment to the black race when she began publishing her new work through African American presses such as Broadside Press, Third World Press, and Brooks Press and began traveling across the United States as she visited institutions of higher learning, public schools, prisons, and other places. In addition to receiving the aforementioned Pulitzer in 1950, more than seventy honorary degrees as well as lifetime achievement awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Book Foundation, Brooks garnered more honors. Western Illinois University founded the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center in 1970, and Chicago State University established the Gwendolyn Brooks Chair in Black Literature and Creative Writing in 1990. Brooks was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976, appointed the Library of Congress poetry consultant in 1985, named the National Endowment of the Humanities’ Jefferson Lecturer in 1994, and awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1995. From 1968 until her death on December 3, 2000, in Chicago, she was the poet laureate of Illinois.

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Further Reading ‘‘Gwendolyn Brooks.’’ The Poetry Foundation. www.poetryfoundation.org. Kent, George E. 1989. A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Sullivan, James D. 2008. ‘‘Gwendolyn Brooks.’’ In African American National Biography, Vol. 1. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. Linda M. Carter

Brown, Elaine (1943– ), Political Activist Elaine Brown rose from obscurity in Philadelphia’s ghetto to become head of the Black Panther Party (BPP). She ranked second-in-command to Huey P. Newton, who, along with Bobby Seale, founded the organization in Oakland, California, in 1966, to protect local communities from racism and police brutality. For a while, and especially under Brown’s leadership, the Panthers kept women at the forefront and respected their contributions. In time, however, the gender issue led to the usual complaints about the power given to women. As the highest-ranking woman in the organization, Brown occupied a highly visible position in African American popular culture and was a role model for women activists of the 1960s and beyond. Brown was born March 3, 1943, in Philadelphia, the only child of Dorothy Clark, a working-class mother. She claims that Horace Scott, the son of Emmett Scott Sr., is her father but the claim was never substantiated. Emmett Scott Sr. was secretary to Booker T. Washington, founder and president of Tuskegee Institute, as it was first known. Scott Sr. was prominent in a variety of organizations. Brown was raised by her mother and grandmother. She was exposed to many cultural activities and took ballet and private piano lessons as well. She enrolled in Temple University as a prelaw student and also pursued her musical interests at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. Brown dropped out of school and in 1965 moved to Los Angeles, where she hoped to become a professional songwriter. While working as a waitress at Hollywood’s Pink Pussycat, Brown was introduced to various political and social philosophies and began to discuss with a friend such leftist ideas as communism, socialism, Marxism, and Leninism. When serving as a volunteer piano teacher for children in the Jordon Downs projects in Watts, she became curious about the Black Power Movement. Her interest in activism was demonstrated also when she joined the Los Angeles Black Congress and in 1967 became a staff member of its newsletter, Harambee. Her involvement in other activities brought her in touch with activist Angela Davis, who became a member of the Communist Party. Brown joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in 1968 and the next year was named minister of information for the Los Angeles chapter. She helped to found a chapter of the BPP in Bridgeport,

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Connecticut. Brown was engaged in a number of BPP activities that led to her rise in 1974 to become chair of the BPP, the first woman to hold this high post. Under her leadership, the party became an influential force in politics on Oakland. She also led its voter registration drive which, in 1977, led Oakland to elect its first black mayor, Lionel Wilson. Working through the Panther’s school, the Oakland Community Learning Center, Brown and the Panthers promoted education of black youth. In 1977, the program received a commendation from the California State Assembly. Brown also had an interest in holding a political office; however, her campaigns in 1973 and in 1976 for a seat on the city council were unsuccessful. She was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1976. In 1977, Elaine Brown left the Panthers and returned to a career in music. She also released two albums, Seized the Time (1969) and Until We’re Free (1973). Her autobiography, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story, was published in 1992. She also worked as a freelance writer for Essence magazine and as a paralegal. Brown relocated to Atlanta, where she founded Mothers Advocating Juvenile Justice. In 2002, she published The Condemnation of Little B: New Age Racism in America. She has one daughter, Erica, named in honor of Ericka Huggins of the BPP. Further Reading Brown, Angela D. 1993. ‘‘Elaine Brown.’’ In Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing. Brown, Elaine. 1992. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Pantheon Books. McClendon, John H., III. 1993. ‘‘Elaine Brown.’’ In Notable Black American Women, Book 2. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1996. Notable Black American Women, Book 2. Detroit: Gale Research. Jessie Carney Smith

Brown, James (1933–2006), Singer, Composer James Brown was born on December 3, 1933, to Susie and Joseph Gardner in Barnwell, South Carolina. Brown’s life began during the Depression Era in the Jim Crow–ridden South. He was to have been named after his father, but a mix-up during birth registration caused him to be known as James Joseph Brown Jr. He and his family lived in extreme poverty. His parents’ marriage dissolved; his father eventually sent him to live with an aunt in Augusta, Georgia, who ran a house of prostitution. Soon after this move, Brown was given up for foster care. As a seventh-grade dropout, James did several things to earn money, including shining shoes, selling and trading old stamps, and singing in talent contests. As a youngster, Brown recognized his own ability and knew that he was a natural-born entertainer.

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Brown entertained soldiers from Camp Gordon during the beginning of World War II. He taught himself to play the harmonica, and he learned to play the piano, drums, and guitar from others. Louis Jordan, a popular jazz and R & B performer, inspired Brown. After short-lived attempts at Boxing and Baseball, Brown soon focused his attention on music. Brown’s first professional musical endeavor began with Bobby Byrd and the Gospel Starlighters in 1952. This group eventually became a secular band and changed its name to the Famous Flames. They toured in Macon, Georgia, and in March 1956, they recorded ‘‘Please, Please, Please.’’ This song was number five on Billboard magazine’s Top 40 R & B Singles. It was only the beginning for Brown’s career. Brown personally financed a recording entitled The James Brown Show Live at the Apollo in 1962. Released the following year, the record was a major success. Brown’s performance was electrifying. He slid across the stage, engaging the audience to participate as fans screamed and others sang with him. This production was done against the wishes of Brown’s label manager, Syd Nathan, because Nathan saw no profitability in recording a show with songs that everyone already knew. Needless to say, Nathan was wrong. With a gift for writing songs that appealed to ‘‘the people,’’ Brown penned songs that were celebrated for years to come. Songs like ‘‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’’ and ‘‘I Got You (I Feel Good)’’ (1965); ‘‘It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World’’ (1966); and ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ (1968) all seemed to artistically express things that were going on in the minds of black Americans during that time period. The United States was entering the crowned Civil Rights Movement era and blacks were feeling a sense of pride that had for years been hidden, hushed, or absent. As an African American pop star, Brown recorded several hits and albums in the 1970s that helped to solidify his stature as the true ‘‘Godfather of Soul.’’ Some of these songs included ‘‘Hot Pants’’ (1971), ‘‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine)’’ and ‘‘Super Bad’’ (1970), and ‘‘Soul Power’’ (1971). Brown did not limit himself to black audiences; he crossed racial barriers as he recorded ‘‘Living in America’’ for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV in 1985. His last projects, Long Overdue and Star Time (a 4-CD boxed set with his career hits), were released in 1991. Brown’s contribution to the musical arena became even more evident through the years with the invention of digital sampling. Hundreds of hits in all genres sampled Brown’s drum beats, horn lines, and musical arrangements. The ‘‘Godfather of Soul’’ lived up to his title. He died on December 25, 2006, in Atlanta, Georgia, from congestive heart failure due to complications from pneumonia. He was married multiple times and fathered several children. Further Reading Brown, James. 2005. I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul. New York: New American Library.

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George, Nelson and Alan Leeds, eds. 2008. The James Brown Reader: 50 Years of Writing about the Godfather of Soul. New York: Plume. Johns, Robert L. 1999. ‘‘James Brown.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale. Jemima Buchanan

Brown, Jim (1936– ), Professional Football Player James Nathaniel ‘‘Jim’’ Brown is considered by many to be the greatest running back to ever play professional football, if not the greatest pure athlete of our time. A National Football League Hall of Famer who played his entire professional career with the Cleveland Browns, Brown still holds the record for most yardage averaged in a single National Football League (NFL) season. Remarkably, Brown, who was born February 17, 1936, never played a single down of football in his thirties. Although Brown played in an era of 12- and 14game NFL seasons, it took other running backs who played in longer seasons more years to eclipse Brown’s career rushing yardage total of 12,312. Brown played for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, the Sporting News named him the greatest professional football player ever. True to the legacy that Brown maintains today, he quit the game in his prime at the age of 29 to pursue a movie career. Had Brown continued to play well into his prime, he likely would have set a career rushing record that no one could surpass. Brown did not fade quietly. He starred in a string of movies, some of which were controversial and others were rated X-rated. Brown has been one of the leading former athletes advocating against gang violence and advocating for athletes’ rights. He also has famously criticized two of today’s most famous athletes—Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods—for not being more outspoken for social causes. Brown currently works as a consultant for the Cleveland Browns. Brown was born on predominantly black St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, to Theresa Brown, a housekeeper and Swinton Brown, a professional boxer. Early on, the boy was raised by his grandmother, but at age eight, he moved to Roosevelt in Long Island, New York. He attended Manhasset High School, in Manhasset, New York, where he eventually starred in football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and track. While a student at Syracuse University, Brown played three seasons of football (1954–1956). He was a unanimous first-team All-American in his senior season, in which he finished fifth in voting for the Heisman Trophy. He set Syracuse records for highest rush average (6.2 yards per carry) and most rushing touchdowns (6). In a 61–7 season finale rout of Colgate, he ran for 197 yards, scored 6 touchdowns, and kicked 7 extra points. His total of 43 points scored set another school record. Brown also continued to be a multisport star. He was the second-leading scorer on the basketball team as a sophomore, when he also earned a letter in

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track. As a senior, he was a first-team All-American in lacrosse after scoring 43 goals to rank second in the nation. Brown’s college career was merely a sneak preview for what he would do in the NFL to make his name a household word for sports fans for generations. He was the first-round selection of the Cleveland Browns in the 1956 NFL draft, and he proceeded to become the most efficient running back in the history of professional football. When Brown left the game, he held the NFL records for most yards in a single season (1,863 in 1963), most yards in a career (12,312), rushing touchdowns (106), total touchdowns (126), and all-purpose yards (15,549). He was the first player to reach 100 touchdowns, and still one of the few who have reached that mark despite the NFL’s expansion to 16 games in 1978. Brown’s first four NFL seasons were only 12 games, and his last five seasons were 14 games. He still holds the record of leading the NFL in all-purpose yardage for five seasons, and he is the only player in NFL history to average over 100 rushing yards in a career. He was also a great pass receiver from his running back position, logging 20 touchdown receptions. He holds the NFL record for six games with at least 4 touchdowns, leading LaDainian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk who each have five such games. Brown had a bruising running style—the likes of which had never been seen before or afterward—that enabled him to run over, around, or through would-be tacklers. He once said that his intent was to inflict more punishment on the defender than the defended inflicted on him. One of his weapons was a trademark stiff-arm blow, in which he would drop or push through a defender with his free hand, which tucking the ball away in his other hand. For his career, he averaged 5.2 yards per carry, the equivalent of gaining a first down on every two carries. Only Barry Sanders (5.0) has reached that same plateau. Brown’s 1,863 yards rushing in 1963 remains a Cleveland franchise record, the oldest franchise rushing record of any NFL team. Brown was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. He is also a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Acting Career Jim Brown debuted as an actor in the 1964 film Rio Conchos. He abruptly retired from football in 1965 during filming for The Dirty Dozen, a war picture in which he would star in 1967. His other notables films included 100 Rifles where he starred with Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch, in which Brown was featured in Hollywood’s first interracial love scene. He also starred in Three the Hard Way in 1974, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988, and Original Gangtas in 1996. He also appeared as a coach in Any Given Sunday (1999), a football movie, which also featured Jamie Foxx and Al Pacino. Brown solidified his role as an activist in 1988, when he founded Amer-I-Can, which aims to steer kids clear of gangs and also teaches life-management skills to youths and adults in urban areas and to adults in prison. Although he has

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had a history of violence with women, including being arrested and sentenced to six months in jail for smashing his wife’s car with a shovel, in 1999, he remains an American sports icon. Further Reading The Amer-I-Can Program. http://www.amer-i-can.org/. Brown, Jim, with Myron Cope. 1964. Off My Chest. New York: Doubleday. ‘‘Football’s 100 Greatest Players.’’ The Sporting News ‘‘Jim Brown.’’ National Football League. http://www.nfl.com. Whitaker, Matthew C., ed. 2008. African American Icons of Sport: Triumph, Courage, and Excellence. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. David Squires

Brown, Judge Joe (1947– ), Lawyer, Judge, Television Personality Judge Joe Brown is the syndicated court TV show from Big Ticket Television Productions, syndicated by CBS Television Distribution and aired during the day on various television stations. The slogan for the show is ‘‘It’s Joe Time.’’ The show is presided over by Judge Joe B. Brown, who until 2000 was a sitting judge for District 9 of the Shelby County Criminal Courts in Memphis, Tennessee. As a result of being assigned in 1997 to the appeal of the case of James Earl Ray, who was convicted for the April 4, 1968 assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and an appearance on the ABC TV show Nightline, Joe B. Brown came to the attention of the producers of Court TV’s reality show Judge Judy. Feeling Joe B. Brown would play well on a television reality court show; the producers offered him the job. Judge Joe Brown, the TV court reality show that premiered in September of 1998, focuses on small claims cases. The show also has a bailiff and a reporter. The show’s cases are gleaned from applications submitted through the Judge Joe Brown TV show Web site. The Judge Joe Brown show is one of the higher-rated syndicated court reality TV shows on the air. It is filmed on a set in Los Angeles. For the first few years, Brown traveled between Memphis and Los Angeles performing both jobs. Joe B. Brown was an only child, born July 5, 1947, in Washington, DC. Brown was raised in Los Angeles and attended Dorsey High School. He later attended UCLA, earning a degree in political science, and continued on to complete law school; he received the JD from UCLA in 1973. To earn money for school, Brown loaded trucks, dug ditches, and worked as a substitute teacher. In the early 1970s, Brown moved to Tennessee, where he held positions at Legal Services and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and reportedly became the first African American prosecutor in Memphis. Brown opened a law practice in 1978 and in 1990 was elected judge of Division 9 of the State Criminal Courts for Shelby County, Tennessee, which includes Memphis.

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Before the TV series, Judge Joe B. Brown gained notoriety for the less-thanusual sentences given out to those convicted of crimes. One of the unusual sentences Brown meted out during this time on the bench was that of instructing a victim to take something from the home of the thief. Brown gave such a sentence to show the thief how it feels to have your possessions taken. Brown was assigned to the appeal of James Earl Ray and presided over testimony given by the King family in support of James Earl Ray’s appeal. Brown was later removed as judge from the case on the grounds of bias for James Earl Ray. Joe B. Brown is married and lives Los Angeles. Further Reading Blue, Rose, and Jennifer M. York. 2002. ‘‘Judge Joe Brown.’’ In Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 29. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. Judge Joe Brown. http://www.judgejoebrown.com/. Sharon D. Johnson

Brown, Tony (1933– ), Broadcaster, Producer Tony Brown’s Journal was the longest-running public affairs show in U.S. network television history and was the creation of former social worker–turned– television producer Tony Brown. Brown’s provocative and informative program focused on issues and topics relative to African American life. A proponent of self-help and economic independence, Brown has written books and published articles encouraging African Americans to take control of their economic destinies. Brown’s business model of ‘‘control of distribution’’ is commonplace today among Internet-based business owners, self-published authors, and youthful music producers. William Anthony Brown, the youngest of Royal and Catherine Davis Brown’s five children, was born April 11, 1933, in the coal mining town of Charleston, West Virginia. The effects of poverty and segregation caused Brown to be raised by family friends instead of his biological parents from the time he was two months old until he was twelve years old. After graduating from high school, Brown enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1953. He later matriculated through Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, earning a BA in 1959 and a MSW in 1961. Upon finishing graduate school, Brown worked as a psychiatric social worker, and in his spare time wrote articles for the Detroit Courier. By 1962 he had left social work completely and began working full-time as a journalist for the Courier, eventually rising through the ranks to become the city editor. As a journalist, Brown knew of the power of the media in reaching people, so in 1968 he took a position at WTVS television in Detroit. At WTVS Brown

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was asked to produce the station’s first African American public affairs show. The program was Colored Peoples Time or C.P.T. This was followed by the program Free Play. In 1970, Brown moved on to become the executive producer of the popular show Black Journal, based in New York. Black Journal, like Brown’s earlier work, focused on political, educational, and socioeconomic issues affecting African Americans. Brown married in 1971; to this union a son Byron Anthony Brown was born. Brown and his wife divorced several years later. In 1971 as well, Brown negotiated a deal with PepsiCo to underwrite Black Journal and the show was renamed Tony Brown’s Journal. In its prime, Tony Brown’s Journal was shown on eightyfive television stations across the United States. In 1980 Brown founded Black College Day to draw attention to the economic plight and long-term prospects of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In the mid-1980s, as a part of his self-help message, Brown asked people to participate in his Buy Freedom campaign, which told black consumers to shop with black business owners. In 1988 Brown combined his passion for entrepreneurship and broadcasting to produce, write, and direct a polemical film on the ills of drugs like cocaine entitled The White Girl. The film received mixed reviews from critics and theatergoers, but Brown maintained the goal of the film was to educate the masses, hinder the spread of drugs, and control the film’s distribution. In 1995 Brown wrote a book Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown. In 2004 Brown was appointed dean of the Scripps-Howard School of Journalism at Hampton University. Further Reading Bailey, Peter. 1972. ‘‘Black Excellence in the Wasteland.’’ Ebony (March):44–48. Brown, Tony. 1997. Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown. New York: HarperCollins. Carter B. Cue

Brown v. Board of Education The most significant legal decision addressing the constitutional rights of African Americans in the twentieth century, it overturned the infamous 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that upheld the doctrine of ‘‘separate but equal.’’ In Brown v. Board of Education and its companion cases, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed equal protection challenges from four different states, Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, and Virginia. Lawyers for the NAACP spearheaded these challenges to statutes that either required or permitted local school districts to segregate black public school children from whites. A fifth companion case, Bolling v. Sharpe, involved a due process challenge under the Fifth Amendment to segregation in the public schools of the District of Columbia.

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In the Kansas case, the lower federal district court concluded that the separate black and white schools were equal in terms of facilities and other tangible resources. In two of the companion cases—Briggs v. Elliot from South Carolina and Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County from Virginia—the lower federal courts sustained the validity of segregation. Both federal district courts, however, found that the black schools were inferior to white schools in terms of resources and ordered the defendants immediately to begin to equalize the facilities. In Gebhart v. Belton, the Delaware Supreme Court decided to admit the black plaintiffs to white schools based upon a determination that the schools the black children attended were inferior in terms of resources to those of white students. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court had a number of options available to it for resolving the issue of segregation in public education. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the unanimous opinion for the Court. Warren had recently replaced Chief Justice Fred Vinson, a known supporter of segregation, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack in September of 1953. Warren assumed that the physical facilities and other tangible factors of the public schools attended by black and white students were equal. Given the tangible equality of segregation in this context, the Court was forced to identify the harm resulting from segregation. In one of the most quoted phrases from Brown, the Court stated: ‘‘[t]o separate [African American youth] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone’’ (Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S., 494). The Court went on to quote approvingly from the district court in Kansas: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of law; [f]or the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school.

Chief Justice Warren buttressed his conclusion that segregation in public schools inflicted psychological harm on African Americans in his (in)famous footnote number eleven, which cited studies by social scientists. The first cite in footnote number eleven was to the work of eminent black psychologist Kenneth Clark, the author of the famous ‘‘doll study.’’ A year later, the Court issued its decision on implementing the Brown ruling. In what became known as Brown II, the Court required public schools to effect a transition to a ‘‘racially nondiscriminatory school system.’’ The Court left the precise parameters of what this meant to the discretion of school authorities. Chief Justice Warren in this opinion went on to note that orders and decrees should be entered to admit the plaintiffs to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with ‘‘all deliberate speed.’’

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Despite the Court’s ‘‘all deliberate speed’’ language, school desegregation efforts met considerable resistance in the Deep South. One month after the original decision in Brown, eight governors of states that had been part of the Confederacy and three representatives sent by the governors of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas met in Virginia. They unanimously vowed not to comply voluntarily with the Supreme Court’s decision. On March 12, 1956, a group of southern senators and congressmen presented the Southern Manifesto, which was conceived by Senator Strom Thurmond. The manifesto asserted their intention to use every legal tactic possible to resist desegregation. The Deep South states implemented several measures to resist desegregation including: closing public schools instead of integrating them; delegating control of the public schools to the governor or the state legislature in hopes of frustrating federal court orders directed at local school officials; providing tuition grants to pay for segregated private schools for those who did not wish to attend integrated schools; denying state funds to schools attended by pupils of different races; abolishing compulsory schooling; criminalizing teaching in or attending an integrated school; and firing teachers who advocated desegregation. Later Supreme Court decisions seriously restricted the ability of American society to desegregate its public schools. According to reports by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, at its zenith in the 1980–81 academic year only 37.1 percent of black schoolchildren attended majority white schools. At least 32 percent of black schoolchildren always attended schools where at least 90 percent of the student body was composed of minority students. Looking back from the hindsight of so many years since the decision, while Brown did not lead to the integration of America’s public school students, it was essential to the dismantling America’s racial apartheid. The Supreme Court used its opinion in Brown to strike down segregation and racial discrimination by state government wherever it existed. In 1964, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned segregation and racial discrimination by many private entities and individuals including in employment, public accommodations, and by recipients of federal funds. There can be little doubt that much of the progress in race relations since 1954 resulted from the resolute efforts of lawyers for the NAACP and this courageous decision by the Supreme Court. Further Reading Brown, Kevin. 2005. Race, American Society and the Law: Four Perspectives on Desegregation and Resegregation. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Brown v. Board of Education I, 347 U.S. 483, 494 (quoting Brown v. Board of Educ.,) 98 F. Supp. 797 (D. Kan. 1951). http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court =us&vol=347&invol=483. Gralia, Lino. 1976. Disaster by Decree: The Supreme Court Decisions on Race and the Schools: Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Greenberg, Jack. 1994. Crusaders in the Courts: How A Dedicated Band of Lawyers Fought for the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Basic Books.

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Kruger, Richard. 1976. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Ravitch, Diane. 1980. The Troubled Crusade: American Education 1945 to 1980. New York: Basic Books. Kevin Brown

Bryant, Kobe (1978– ), Basketball Player Kobe Bryant was the brash high school phenomenon who bypassed college and zoomed directly to the National Basketball Association. He could finish his career as the game’s greatest player. Bryant is a pop culture icon because of notoriety that clings to him: critics have called him arrogant, selfish and selfabsorbed. He clashed with teammate Shaquille O’Neal and the established big man superstar was moved to another team in order to accommodate the younger Bryant. A sexual assault scandal in 2003 tarnished Bryant’s reputation (and suggested he was naive and immature), yet he recovered and resumed his amazing feats on the hardwood. With four NBA championship rings and an Olympic gold medal before his thirtieth birthday, Bryant is an indisputable winner. It appears his assault on NBA records should continue for many years. Kobe Bean Bryant was born August 23, 1978, in Philadelphia to Joe ‘‘Jellybean’’ and Pam Bryant. The parents named their son after the expensive cut of Japanese beef after eyeing the entr
ee on a menu. Kobe’s father was a college basketball star, then an NBA journeyman player for eight seasons. Joe Bryant moved his family to Pistola, Italy, in order to continue playing professional basketball. Young Kobe played the game overseas and became bilingual. The Bryant family returned to Philadelphia when young Kobe was thirteen. He made the varsity of Lower Merion High School in the tony Philadelphia suburbs and led his teams to state championships. He also earned 1996 national high school player of the year honors from USA Today and Parade magazine. Bryant escorted R & B sensation Brandy to his senior prom. Bryant appeared to be a slam-dunk top college prospect. In addition to his athletic prowess, his higher-than-average SAT scores predicted academic success. Bryant, however, announced that he would skip college at age seventeen to play in the NBA. Media pundits at that time said Bryant was delusional, nevertheless he was the thirteenth prospect drafted and the first high school guard—a tall one at 6 feet, 6 inches—to be selected. Bryant was chosen by the Charlotte Hornets, and then he was immediately traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. There, Bryant was paired with another new arrival, Shaquille O’Neal, the dominating center with the outsized ego and playful persona, formerly of the Orlando Magic. During Bryant’s 1996–97 rookie season, he averaged nearly 8 points per game mostly as a reserve player, and scored the most points by a reserve–24–during a late-season victory. The next season Bryant doubled his scoring output to 15 points per game and was poised for greatness.

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With O’Neal and a talented cast of role players, Bryant’s Lakers were good but not good enough to compete for championships. That condition changed when former Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson arrived. Bryant thrived and averaged 22.5 points during the 1999–2000 seasons. The Lakers won their first of three consecutive championships in the Kobe-Shaq era. The next year Bryant’s scoring average soared to 28.5 points and he was among league leaders in other offensive categories. Before the 2001 playoffs, Bryant married Vanessa Laine, an eighteen-yearold dancer he met on the set of a video shoot. During the 2002 season, when Bryant was twenty-three, he became the youngest player to win three NBA championships. Drama Unfolds Bryant’s year 2003 was tumultuous. The Lakers lost to the champion San Antonio Spurs during the playoff semifinals. Stories circulated that Bryant and O’Neal feuded, and that the younger star hogged the ball. That summer Bryant traveled to a Colorado resort in order to have knee surgery. Eagle County, Colorado, authorities issued an arrest warrant for Bryant after a nineteen-year-old female resort employee alleged that he sexually assaulted her. Bryant surrendered to police, then was released on $25,000 bond. He appeared at a news conference with his wife and admitted to the infidelity, and insisted that the sex with the employee was consensual. Three days after the arrest, Bryant bought his wife a $4 million, eight-carat, purple diamond ring. Media pundits called the rock an apology gift; Bryant denied such speculation. Soon, the employee’s sexual assault allegations unraveled because of inconsistencies, and by 2004 all charges against Bryant were dismissed. Nevertheless, his reputation was sullied. Bryant lost endorsement deals with Sprite and McDonalds. When O’Neal criticized him, Bryant retaliated by calling his teammate out of shape and undependable. During the 2004 season, the Lakers returned to the NBA finals but lost in five games to the Detroit Pistons. Bryant averaged 24 points per game but failed to make the all-star team. Instead, he was named to the All-NBA and defensive first teams. O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat, coach Jackson’s contract was not renewed, and Bryant signed a seven-year, $136 million contract extension. In season 2004–05, the Lakers had a losing record despite Bryant’s prolific scoring. The next season Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. In 2006, Bryant scored 81 points in one game that broke the team record and was the league’s second-highest output after 100 points by Wilt Chamberlain in 1962. Bryant competes with fellow Philadelphian Chamberlain in another category: he became the second NBA player to score more than 50 points in four consecutive games. The 2007–08 season was rocky at the start when Bryant publicly demanded to be traded; then he retracted the request. His team advanced to the finals but lost to the Boston Celtics. In summer 2008, Bryant was a member of the U.S. Olympic

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Men’s Basketball gold medal team. Next year, Bryant had a high-scoring season— 30.2 points per game—and he was backed up by Pau Gasol, a dominating center acquired from the Memphis Grizzlies. The Lakers won the 2009 NBA championship and Bryant silenced critics who said he would not win without Shaq. The Lakers beat the Orlando Magic, but promoters and fans had anticipated a showdown between Bryant and LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers. Before the Cavaliers were derailed by the Magic, Nike sneakers ran a series of commercials with hand puppets depicting Bryant and James. The commercials returned in 2010, and many fans were able to see a championship battle of the superstars. James’s Cavaliers failed to reach the final round. Bryant’s Lakers played the Boston Celtics. Los Angeles avenged the 2008 championship loss to Boston in a nail-biting seven-game series that was not decided until the final minute. Bryant was named Finals MVP. He is now a five-time NBA champion. Further Reading Jackson, Phil, and Michael Arkush. 2004. The Last Season: A Team in Search of its Soul. New York: Penguin Press. Samuels, Allison. 2007. Off the Record: A Reporter Unveils the Celebrity Worlds of Hollywood, Hip-Hop & Sports. New York: Amistad. Shapiro, Jeffrey Scott. 2004. Kobe Bryant: The Game of His Life. New York: Revolution Publishing. Wayne Dawkins

Buffalo Soldiers Several thousand Buffalo Soldiers served in many military campaigns, including the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and the raids against Pancho Villa. Although they had been relegated to historical obscurity by many, increasingly they have become icons in African American history and popular culture. They were also the first African Americans to serve the military during peacetime. Their responsibilities included helping to settle the West by escorting settlers and herds of cattle, and conducting campaigns against American Indian tribes. Since colonial days, African Americans have served their country in military conflicts, yet often in segregated units. There were sixty-five regiments in the regular U.S. Army during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Six of these were comprised of black troops who reported to white officers. In spring and summer 1867, the Ninth and Tenth Calvary moved westward and some of their companies were assigned to Indian Territory; others were stationed at posts and camps along the Kansas Pacific Railroad to guard the construction underway. For many years the Ninth and Tenth fought the Indians on the Texas frontier, the Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Arizona. They also rounded up border

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scum, cattle thieves, murderous politicians, greedy land and cattle barons, and others. The black regiments were reorganized in 1869, when the number of units was reduced to four; these were the Ninth and Tenth Calvary and the Twentyfourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry. Afterward, the Buffalo Soldiers were moved to the South, where racial tensions were high, both in the community and in the segregated military bases. When the military was racially integrated in 1952, the men joined various parts of the armed forces. The western Indians, unaccustomed to seeing black soldiers, gave them the endearing nickname ‘‘Buffalo Soldiers’’; to the Indians, their hair and coloring reminded them of the coats of their buffalo. Twenty-three of these men won the nation’s highest award for military valor for their bravery during the Indian wars and the Cuban campaign—the Medal of Honor. An expanding interest in the soldiers has emerged. The Ninth and Tenth Horse Cavalry Association, founded in 1866 and still in operation, has become prominent in its research on historical data on the soldiers. The organization has chapters throughout the United States. The Buffalo Soldiers were honored in 1992, when an impressive Buffalo Solders Monument was unveiled in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, a descendant of one of the Buffalo Soldiers, was one of several forces behind the erection. Statues have also been erected on other sites. In 2000, a Buffalo Soldiers National Museum was established in their honor in Houston, Texas. A film, The Buffalo Soldiers, featuring Danny Glover, was released in 1997. There are also artists’ portrayals in paintings of actual episodes from the soldiers’ campaigns. Further Reading Buffalo Soldiers. http://www.buffalosoldiers.com/. Leckie, William H., with Shirley A. Leckie. 2003. The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Calvary in the West. Rev. ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Schubert, Frank N. 1997. Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870–1898. Wilmington, DE: SR Books. Jessie Carney Smith

Bunche, Ralph (1904–71), Diplomat, Educator, Political Scientist Ralph Johnson Bunche earned the distinction of being the first African American to win a Nobel Peace Prize on September 22, 1950, becoming a cultural icon. The prize was awarded for his role in facilitating the mediation between Israel and Egypt in 1948. Bunche was born to Fred Bunch and Olive Agnes Johnson Bunch on August 7, 1903, in Detroit. However, the family bible

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incorrectly lists the date as 1904 and as a result, numerous publications reflect this year as the official date. After the death of his mother in 1917, Bunche and his sister Grace moved to Los Angeles with their maternal grandmother, Lucy Johnson, and she later added an ‘‘e’’ to their last name. Bunche graduated at the top of his class in 1922 but was denied the opportunity to participate in the citywide honors event because of his race. One year later, Bunche began his college career at the University of California, Southern Branch. Four years later, he gave the commencement address as valedictorian. Bunche used this platform to discuss his vision on social education. In 1928, Bunche received his masters in political science from Howard University. While working toward his As a high official of the United Nations for PhD at Harvard, Bunche taught 25 years, Ralph Bunche led peacekeeping classes at Howard. He is credited efforts in troubled areas of the world. (Carl Van Vechten Collection/Library of Congress) with organizing the political science department there. Bunche became the first African American to earn a doctorate in political science in 1934. While still at Howard University, Bunche cofounded the National Negro Congress (NNC) as an effort to ease the class divisions between black and white workers. Later, as the NNC began to grow, so did some of its missions; much to Bunche’s disgust it turned into a front for the American Communist Party. In 1941, Bunche took his political ideas outside of academia and joined the federal government’s Office of Strategic Services. There he was involved in postwar planning for the organization that would later become the United Nations. Bunche’s leadership and commitment to human equality enabled him to remain resilient during difficult times. Bunche served as president of the American Political Science Association (APSA) beginning in 1953 and they continue to honor him by hosting the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. This intensive summer program was designed to increase the number of African American students pursuing advanced degrees in political science. Bunche served as undersecretary of the United Nations from 1955 to 1971, which afforded him the opportunity to gain international recognition. In the United States, he worked to improve the civil rights of African Americans and also marched with Martin Luther King Jr.

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Admiration for Bunche is evident by the numerous schools and institutions named after him. In May 1997, the U.S. Department of State renamed the oldest federal government library after him. Ruth Ethel Harris and Ralph Bunche married on June 23, 1930. Their children are Joan, Jane, and Ralph Jr. After a year of various health issues, including diminishing eyesight, coma, and kidney dialysis, Bunche died on December 9, 1971. Further Reading Bennett, Lerone Jr. 2007. Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing. Clarkin, Thomas. 2009. ‘‘Ralph Johnson Bunch.’’ American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press. Cockayne, James, and David M. Malone. ‘‘The Ralph Bunche Centennial: Peace Operations Then and Now.’’ Global Governance 11, no. 3 (2005): 331–50. International Political Science Abstracts, EBSCOhost. Greaves, William. 2001. ‘‘Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey’’ [video recording]. New York: William Greaves Productions. Henry, Charles P. ‘‘Ralph Bunche: American Diplomat.’’ Crisis (15591573) 111, no. 4 (July 2004): 20–23. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost. Angela M. Gooden

Buppies (Black Urban Professionals) Buppie is a term used to refer to middle-class blacks; it consists of variations of the term yuppies or young urban professionals and black urban professionals or black upwardly mobile professionals. The terms buppies and yuppies are used to define the middle-class socioeconomic status in terms of income and education. The individuals are top-earning Baby Boomers. Their personal income and their education defined them in the late 1980s. Enter the Generation X group in the middle 1990s. These are twenty-year-old to early thirty-year-old Americans looking for new pathways to the corporate ladder. With Affirmative Action programs gone, the buppies’ culture gone, a boost into the corporate world sent only a few to the executive suites. Generation X may be the first to embrace entrepreneurship as a primary goal in climbing the economic ladder and entering the once-closed doors to the upper executive suites. Another group of black urban professionals interested in entrepreneurship is known as YEO. The Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) is composed of entrepreneurs under the age of forty who are founders, cofounders, owners, or majority stockholders of companies grossing $1 million or more a year. YEO provides mentoring, entrepreneurship education, and peer networking to members. Atlanta, Georgia, was profiled in 1988 as a city for black professionals, or buppies. Atlanta served as a model for urban racial harmony, power sharing, and minority opportunities. The foundation of the city’s progress was listed as the

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largest academic complexes in the nation—the seven colleges composed of Atlanta University Center. This center created the large pool of buppies. The term buppie, originally used to describe the rising socioeconomic status of young black urban professionals, is also being used to describe the economic and political conditions of blacks in Africa. After being deprived of wealth and opportunities by apartheid, signs of increased influence started appearing in South Africa. Cars and houses that are usually signs of increased wealth, dotted townships. ‘‘Black Diamonds’’ is also a term used to describe the middle class in South Africa. The University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing states that since 2005, about fifteen thousand people a month have moved out of townships into more affluent neighborhoods. Buppies are affecting the economy and the political landscape. Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Bohos notes on Post-Soul Black Culture is Nelson George’s 1992 collection of essays after the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s. Buppie is one of the cultural types he wrote about that covers the late 1980s and early 1990s. George’s writing chronicles the urban life of uppermobility black Americans. His writing also serves as an edification of the meaning of black Urban Culture and the movements that influenced the black culture life styles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During that period young blacks were moving up economically through music, film, sports, city life, and politics. After two decades or more, evidence of the influence of the buppies and Generation X can be seen in the corporate world, social arena, and the political front. The past movements of upper-mobility African Americans have attracted national and international attention. These movements have brought muchneeded hope to future generations that the American dream is reachable.

Further Reading George, Nelson. 1992. Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture. New York: HarperCollins. Pank, Phillip 2008. ‘‘Black Group Can Now Afford to Drive the Top Brand. Our Target Audience is the Township.’’ Times (United Kingdom), June 5. ‘‘The Rise of the Buppie.’’ 2007. Economist 385 (November): 54. Satchell, Michael, and Sandra R. Greggs. 1988. ‘‘Black Power in the Big Peach.’’ U.S. News and World Report 105 (July 25): 24. Orella Ramsey Brazile

Business and Commerce African Americans have always played a meaningful part in shaping popular culture. They were involved in business long before they were brought to North America as slaves. In their mother country, Africa, blacks had seen their own people work

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as traders. When they reached the United States, many did not lose their will to be entrepreneurs—they lost only their opportunity. Even the plantation economy demanded artisans and craftspersons to operate it, and blacks had roles that went beyond planting, hoeing, and reaping. In urban settings the enslaved worked at such jobs as artisans, musicians, and dressmakers; they enhanced or developed skills that would be economically useful to them once they were freed. Some were allowed to hire themselves out and earn the money needed to purchase their own freedom and that of their families. Many free blacks did become entrepreneurs. They were seen in almost all southern cities working as barbers, butchers, mechanics, and artisans. Some even manufactured furniture, pottery, and bricks. Both slave and free blacks produced materials for the local markets. Some maintained restaurants and hotels. The fine caterers of the antebellum United States, the fashionable dressmakers, and the hairdressers—most of whom worked outside the South—were black. Slave Narratives Have Stories to Tell African American business developments are recorded in the stories that slaves told. Later, some of these narratives were published individually or collectively. This occurred despite the restrictions that the American slave system placed on those who labored under bondage. Some slaves were known to excel in business and at times to earn enough money to buy their freedom as well as that of their families. One may note with interest the use of Slave Narratives (a source not to be overlooked) for biographical information. As examples may be cited nineteenth-century entrepreneur Lunsford Lane and his Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. (1842), and three slave narratives by Frederick Douglass: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), My Bondage and My Freedom (1885), and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). Lane, of Raleigh, North Carolina, sold smoking tobacco that he and his father processed, and used the profits to purchase his freedom. Among his various notable deeds, Douglass headed the Freedman’s Bank in 1874. Other slave narratives tell of successes in such businesses as cabinetmaking, grocery store ownership, and in various enterprises. African American Enterprises and the Industrial Age Those black-owned enterprises that survived the slavery period succumbed to the changed business requirements that came during the industrial age. Business operations had to be efficient, thus calling for a positive response to the requirements for modernization. Black businesses during slavery were, for the most part, located outside the South and involved skilled trades, such as blacksmithing, painting, plumbing, and shoemaking. As noted, catering and hairdressing were also popular, as were barbering, hotel and restaurant management, and various small enterprises. While a few businesses catered to blacks, most did not, and for survival, if nothing more, fit their enterprises into the whole black and white economy instead. There were also black-owned businesses that served only white clients. A separate black and

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white economy could not coexist; however, in time, black leaders encouraged self-help activities in an effort to strengthen the black economy and weaken ties with the white economy. Historians found that almost as soon as the first settlers came to North America, they constructed laws to discourage black entrepreneurship. From the end of the Civil War to the modern civil rights era, whites drove blacks out of their trades. Even those cited earlier that slaves had practiced and dominated so well were later closed or severely curtailed. Fortunately, black businesses found other ways to survive. Many were born out of churches and fraternal societies and aimed to provide essential needs that blacks could not find otherwise. From these businesses—the fraternal societies in particular—came banking and insurance companies that clearly strengthened the black economy. The Freedman’s Savings Bank, established to serve the financial needs of blacks, was penetrated by the white banking business and, of course, led to blacks’ mistrust of the banking industry when the bank failed. That the reasons for failure lay outside the black community was hardly acceptable to the black community. The failure rate of banks during this period, however, appears to have been no greater for blacks than for whites. Some business historians suggest that the slave society shaped those businesses that blacks entered early on. The successful early businesses were primarily those that whites chose not to operate, thus leaving opportunities for blacks to become shoemakers, draymen, and liverymen. The Encyclopedia of African American Business embraces the activities of black entrepreneurs, documenting when and where blacks owned and operated their businesses. For example, in 1863, blacks owned twelve types of businesses, which included bakery, catering, dressmaking, fishing and oystering, and sailmaking. By 1913, blacks owned seventy-two types of businesses, which included automobile service and garage, architecture, banking, bottling and soda water–making, drugstore, electrical, employment bureau, haberdashery, hotel keeping, insurance, jewelry, printing and publishing, real estate, stationery, undertaking, and wood and coal. As African Americans began to take a fuller share of American prosperity, they also played a larger role in shaping the economic development of the black community. By no means, however, has the gap between white and black wealth and economic influence been bridged; rather, blacks are simply more visible in far more economic arenas than they were in the past. Economic progress continues to lag behind improvements in civil rights. After the Civil War, the South’s economy was decidedly segregated by race. Whites refused to patronize black businesses, and certainly after 1873 few black businesses in the South survived. Those that continued or emerged after that time had black clientele, and black businesses as a whole remained relatively small. The transition into the industrial age was difficult for the small, black entrepreneurs who had little capital and limited management skills—both essential to survival. As we assess the role of blacks in economic endeavors, we cannot overlook the important work of W. E. B. Du Bois and Atlanta University. Du Bois edited the proceedings of various Atlanta University conferences, specifically its conference on ‘‘The Negro in Business’’ (1899). The university was

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concerned with the extent to which blacks were entering into business life and thus devoted its fourth annual conference to that theme. The statistics, reports on various enterprises, and recommendations for strengthening black businesses have been important to the economic development of the black community. In 1907, Booker T. Washington published his seminal work The Negro in Business. He reported on many successful blacks and what they have done in the field. The aim was to encourage increasing numbers of young blacks to seize the opportunities open to them in the business field. Washington was wellpositioned to publish his work. His activities with the National Negro Business League (NNBL) often put him in contact with black entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs. He had traveled the country and noted the number of black men and women, often in remote districts or small towns, who were engaged in various lines of business. Their lives and work document black business history during this period. Persons included in his findings were engaged in such occupations as agriculturalists, bankers, caterers, hotel keepers, inventors, journalists, manufacturers, newspaper owners, realty company operators, town builders, and undertakers. As well, his book gives accounts of black entrepreneurs whose work had made them highly visible. The Negro Yearbook, published by Tuskegee Institute (as it was previously known) in Alabama from 1912 to 1947, documents black business development in the United States and to some extent in foreign countries. Much credit for the establishment of the publication is owed to Booker T. Washington, educator, the school’s president, and, as noted, a founder of the National Negro Business League—a key organization among black businessmen. The yearbooks give statistical information, biographical information, topical essays, and data on thentimely topics that relate to business history. The early yearbooks document the NNBL’s importance to black business development and the effects of World War I on business activity that peaked in the 1920s. It was at this time that building and loan associations, insurance companies, banks, real estate agents, chain stores, steamship lines, and other enterprises came on the scene. The Golden Age of Business Development Black businesses increased rapidly during much of the first half of the twentieth century, particularly during what was called the golden age, or up to the 1930s. Many of these businesses, however, followed new lines and still served segregated markets. During this time the black real estate market emerged and blacks built hotels, theaters, homes, offices buildings, and other facilities and financed them through black banks and loan associations. Transportation, leisure, and entertainment enterprises were seen as well, often in response to segregated facilities that existed, if they were available to blacks at all. Blacks, for example, built their own railroad lines, municipal transportation systems, summer resorts, car rental companies, automobile repair shops, and automobile manufacturing companies. These businesses are also documented in The Negro Handbook, a useful source on aspects of black business for the periods when the

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work was published. There are discussions on ‘‘The Negro Market’’ and lists and assets of black banking institutions; savings and loan associations; funeral and burial insurance companies; and limited life, mutual aid, assessment health, and accident companies. African American organizations have been active in the development and promotion of black business leaders and their work. Their involvement has been seen, for example, in the work that the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), later known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. ASNLH discussed the subject of blacks as entrepreneurs at a special session held during its annual meeting in Washington, DC, in 1925. The association studied the economic activities of blacks since the Civil War and reported interesting, important, and useful facts that shed light on blacks as business people. There are limitations in the results; for example, data failed to indicate which businesses that appeared to be controlled by blacks were actually owed by whites. The report discusses blacks as local entrepreneurs, developments in black banking, and the development of insurance companies. Blacks took an early interest in establishing banks and savings institutions, such as the True Reformers Bank in Richmond and Binga State Bank in Chicago; however, insurance companies were the more prosperous black business enterprises among the race. Black insurance companies helped to perpetuate the segregated economy that was seen early on. Many white-owned companies refused to insure blacks, and if they did so, premiums were decidedly higher for blacks than for whites. Among those black insurance companies discussed in The Negro as a Business Man are Standard Life Insurance in Atlanta, the first old line legal reserve corporation organized among blacks; and North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance in Durham, North Carolina, which would become the nation’s largest black-owned insurance company. Among the classic publications on African American business is Abram L. Harris’s The Negro as Capitalist: A Study of Banking and Business among American Negroes (1936). The results of a study, the book explores the rise of capitalism, the accumulation of black wealth prior to 1860, the economic base of the black middle class, and black banks. Added to this is Vishnu Oak’s three-volume series, The Negro Entrepreneur; each volume approaches black business from a different perspective. Titles in the series are The Negro Newspaper, The Negro’s Adventure in General Business, and Negro Insurance and Banking. The scope of the second work is broad and includes business ventures popular in the late 1940s, when the work was completed. Studies on Business and Business Education Emerge Atlanta University and the National Urban League combined their interest in studying business and business education among blacks and on February 1, 1944, launched a study that ended on February 1, 1946. Joseph A. Pierce, of the Atlanta University faculty, directed the study and published the results in Negro Business and Business Education (1947). Pierce examined only those businesses

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owned and operated by blacks. The study reported on issues or operations, such as banking, consumer cooperatives (including the Colored Merchants Association), life insurance companies, building and loan associations, and problems of business education training among blacks. As seen throughout studies and reports of black business operations, the racial climate of the nation played an important part in making black businesses necessary as well as in causing their demise. Results of the investigation gave Atlanta University information that it needed to go forward with a proposed graduate school of business administration to serve the needs of blacks and the business community. The National Urban League and its local branches gained information to make their services more valuable to the nation and to enlarge job opportunities for blacks. Cooperating black institutions were to be linked with their communities so that they would be positioned to identify community needs and to render better service to those communities. Clearly, activities that followed this investigation helped to shape the development of black business and business education around that time. As late as 1971, when John Seder and Berkeley G. Burwell published Getting It Together: Black Businessmen in America, they found that information about successful black businessmen of that period remained incomplete. They mirror other findings, showing that, during the 1920s, thousands of black businesses were founded, many of them banks and insurance companies that survived the Great Depression and were operational in the 1970s. Some are still operational. As black businesses emerged rapidly—many short-lived—the investigators were hard put to keep up with their contributions. But they stressed an important fact—the need to interview the business leaders to gain deeper insights into their lives than had been previously known and published. Recent and important newer studies, histories, and accounts geared to black business development have made great strides in identifying trends from the 1790s through the 1990s, giving biographical sketches as well. These include John N. Ingham and Lynne B. Feldman’s African American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary (1994). The authors cast their net widely, covering leaders in a broad range of southern cities, major northern centers, and the West. The most recent and comprehensive work on black business is Juliet E. K. Walker’s The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship (1998). With this work, Walker took the field of black business information in a new direction. Using hundreds of primary and secondary sources, she traced black business development from the 1600s to the 1990s, giving accounts of the work of slaves and free blacks, and then the work of black entrepreneurs later on. Stories of black millionaires, early automobile manufacturers, and others dispel the myth that black businesses were always small, unproductive, and unsuccessful. Juliet Walker continued her scholarly and comprehensive work in the field with the publication of Encyclopedia of African American Business History (1999). Walker points out a primary flaw and omission in black business scholarship: it remained on the margins of the scholarly exploration of the African American experience. An important information source, the work discusses the African American business experience from the 1600 to the 1990s, and includes

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biographies, topical issues on black business history, and business participation in certain industries. Following the trend of larger enterprises to acquire smaller ones, companies such as Motown Records (founded by Berry Gordy Jr.), Wally Amos’s Famous Cookies, Essence magazine (later owned by AOL Time Warner), Def Jam Recordings (founded by Russell Simmons (and later his clothing line Pfat Farm), are examples of black-founded enterprises that have become either wholly owned by whites, or almost so. BET (Black Entertainment Television) is another example. For students and scholars interested in primary research materials on the subject, including data relating to a wide variety of enterprises from one-to-twoperson operations such as Barbershops and Beauty Shops to multinational operations, the sources that Debra Newman Ham gives in ‘‘Federal Records for African American Business History’’ (Encyclopedia of African American Business) are worthy of pursuit. These records are available at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) headquartered in Washington, DC, and NARA II in College Park, Maryland. Regional record centers located throughout the United States are useful as well. A guide to such records is the publication Black History: A Guide to Civilian Records in the National Archives. Among the bureaus, branches, and/or divisions represented in the records are the Department of Commerce (under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration); it was during this period that records relating to black businesses multiplied. Records of the Division of Negro Affairs, located in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce, are important for information on insurance companies, lending institutions, conferences on blacks in business (1940–53), architects, real estate agents, journalists, hair care producers, funeral directors, and other topics. Other insurance companies, New Deal agencies, World War II agencies, the black press, Office of War Information, and so on, are represented in the records as well. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have developed a number of entrepreneurial programs for their students. Examples are the Center for Entrepreneurship and E-Business at North Carolina Agricultural State University in Greensboro, and the gender-conscious program at Tennessee State University in Nashville, the Women’s Institute for Successful Entrepreneurship. Useful sources for these data are reports from the programs published in newsletters, and, of course, write-ups in journals. The work of the African American press cannot be overemphasized as a vital source of information on black business leaders and the development of black businesses. It was that press that preserved black history when mainstream publishers, presses, and journalists failed to recognize its worth, gave no credence to developments in the black community, and found no market in disseminating the news from black people. From the antebellum newspapers, including Freedom’s Journal founded in 1827, to the present, that press has advertised black businesses, such as heat-cleaning and sewing, and products that targeted black people, such as hair care products that Madam C. J. Walker manufactured later on. More recent newspapers such as the Afro-American, Chicago Defender, and

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the Pittsburgh Courier published accounts of the black business community. Long-standing journals such as Crisis (a publication of the NAACP), Opportunity (official publication of the National Urban League), and Southern Workman provide a wealth of information on black businesses and document the lives of many black business leaders. Outside the South, the white press also advertised black businesses. Black popular publications, such as Jet and Ebony, join the scholarly ones in casting the net even wider and deeper, sometimes supplying details otherwise overlooked. For the business field, Black Enterprise magazine has been, and continues to be, the chief source of current information, whether statistical, biographical, or simply newsworthy highlights. Along with articles and sketches on well-known business leaders, magazines such as Black Enterprise and Ebony include in their monthly publications emerging black entrepreneurs—people to watch. These publications almost always identify blacks promoted to top positions in corporate America. Perhaps the decade of the 1960s ushered in a new approach to journalism by mainstream publishers, as they began to give coverage to the black community, including business leaders and business developments. Along with such highly recognized newspapers as the New York Times and the Washington Post, papers that in the past had given more than passing recognition to the black community, papers of major cities in the South expanded their coverage. Examples are the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Charlotte Observer, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Popular mainstream magazines, such as Time and Newsweek, and more specialized ones, such as Business Week, have helped document African American business developments. Biographies Define Business Development Increasingly, biographical information on African American business leaders is made immediately available to researchers, whether they are in academia and seek to fulfill assignments for term papers, or are part of the general public with a need to fill. The sources update the field of biographical works since William J. Simmons published his seminal work, Men of Mark (1887), Monroe A. Majors issued his Noted Negro Women (1926), and Hallie Q. Brown brought out her pioneer work on black women, Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (1926). It was not until 1992, however, that the first major contemporary work on black women’s biography was published. At that time the editor of this encyclopedia published the first of her series of works on women, Notable Black American Women; Book II was issued in 1996, and Book III in 2003. Coverage extends to early black women entrepreneurs, such as former slave and pastry chef Quaimo, former slave and tradeswoman Eleanor Eldridge, and a hair salon owner, Christiana Carteaux Bannister. Beginning in the 1860s, Bannister, an activist in the abolition movement, ran her business in Boston where she lived with her husband, the prominent artist Edward Mitchell Bannister. As early as the 1860s, Madame Carteaux Bannister, as she was known, advertised her ‘‘Shampooing

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and Hair Dyeing’’ business in abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, the Liberator. She closed her business sometime in the 1890s. Bankers are included as well, such as Maggie Lena Walker and contemporary black women entrepreneurs, such as entertainment booking agent Ruth Jean Bowen. Added to that set are this editor’s Notable Black American Men (1999) and Book II (2007), where entries span the gamut from early furniture manufacturer Thomas Day to current corporate executive Kenneth I. Chenault. In recent years, scholars have published reference works on African Americans that provide biographical information on business leaders and business educators. Such works are comprehensive in the subject areas included yet important for the entire field of business. Examples are Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston’s Dictionary of American Negro Biography (1982); Darlene Clark Hine’s two-volume set Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia (1993) and the three-volume second edition of her work (2005). In addition to biographical data, there are discussions on women in business. In 2004 Henry Louis Gates Jr. added to the biographical references on blacks by publishing African American Lives, followed by his multivolume African American National Biography (2008). There are other important biographical sources continuously published, such as Contemporary Black Biography and Who’s Who among African Americans, and the mainstream publications that have increased their coverage of blacks, such as Current Biography, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in Commerce and Industry. The multivolume American National Biography, published in 1999, is a good example of the increasingly comprehensive coverage of African Americans in standard reference works. While the earlier Dictionary of American Biography was mostly concerned with white men, its contemporary successor covers women and blacks far more inclusively. Researchers also benefit from the immediate access to information that online searches provide. There are Web sites for organizations, individuals, businesses, and so on. For example, the history of the Citizens Trust Bank in Atlanta, and the history of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund are both available online. Repositories of primary resources are essential for gathering data that may or may not be available in published sources. Those in various state libraries and archives, archives in academic institutions, and papers of historical societies are among this group. Fortunately, some of these institutions will respond to online requests without charge or provide additional and in-depth research for a fee. Special African American collections are another essential source; those at the Woodruff Library at Atlanta University, Fisk University in Nashville, the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, are among the comprehensive collections available. For example, Fisk has the papers of the McKissack and McKissack architectural firm as well as those of James Carroll Napier, a founder of Citizen’s Bank in Nashville—one of the oldest continuously operating African American banking institutions. Napier was once register of

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the U.S. Treasury and president of the National Negro Business League; he also supported black self-sufficiency. Contemporary African American Business Leaders African American business leaders continue to serve as important influences on popular culture. They have the respect of their communities and also serve to enhance the economic development of local and broader communities. In earlier times, such leaders provided employment for the black unemployed who had difficulty finding jobs in mainstream America’s businesses due to racial segregation. Some of black business leaders became well-known throughout the mainstream United States and went on to hold important positions in industry and elsewhere. John H. Johnson, founder and publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, remained a popular culture icon during most of his life until he died, while Earl G. Graves, of Black Enterprise fame, continues to make his mark as business and publishing icon. Sports figures such as Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson excelled on the Basketball court and afterward went on to success in several initiatives. Jordan earns income from a line of athletic shoes and owns a basketball franchise, while Johnson owns sports clubs, a Pepsi Cola distribution plant, and movie theater complexes. Recording artist, record producer, and actor Sean (Diddy) Combs blended music and urban fashion to become one of the world’s most widely known Hip-Hop artists and one of the most influential people in popular culture. Others in the music field include rap artists Dr. Dre and Ice Cube; and record industry officials such as Berry Gordy Jr. of Motown fame, Kenneth ‘‘Baby Face’’ Edmonds, Quincy Jones, Antonio ‘‘L. A.’’ Reid, and Sylvia Rhone. There are media executives, such as Cathy Hughes and Renetta McCann, television show hosts and producers such as Oprah Winfrey and Damon Wayans, and music promoters such as Suzanne de Passe. Government official and economic idol Andrew Brimmer has served the field well as economic adviser. Megachurch leaders such as T. D. Jakes are known as much for their work as preachers as for their entrepreneurial activities. The corporate world has placed a number of African Americans in top leadership posts; the leaders include Kenneth Irvine Chenault, Ann M. Fudge, Dennis Fowler Hightower, Richard Dean Parsons, Franklin Delano Raines, and Paula A. Sneed. See also: Wayans Brothers Further Reading Association for the Study of African American Life and History. http://www.asalh.org/. Finkelman, Paul, ed. 2009. Encyclopedia of African American History. 5 vols. New York: Oxford University Press. Ham, Debra Newman. 2006. ‘‘Federal Records for African American Business History.’’ In Encyclopedia of African American Business, Vol. 1. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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Harmon, J. H., Jr., Arnett G. Lindsay, and Carter G. Woodson. 1929. The Negro as a Business Man. Washington, DC: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Ingham, John N., and Lynne B. Feldman, eds. 1994. African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. National Business League. http://www.eaglenews.com/NBL/NCPR.html (the successor to the National Negro Business League). National Urban League. http://www.nul.org/. Owens, Shelhea. 2006. ‘‘Black Businesses in Large Cities: A History.’’ In. Encyclopedia of African American Business, Vol. 1. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 2006. Encyclopedia of African American Business History. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Walker, Juliet E. K. 1999. Encyclopedia of African American Business History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Walker, Juliet E. K. 1998. The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrpreneurship. New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA. Washington, Booker T. 1907. The Negro in Business. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1971. Jessie Carney Smith

C Caesar, Shirley (1938– ), Gospel Singer Shirley Caesar, known as the ‘‘First Lady of Gospel,’’ is a pioneer in modern gospel music and one of the most renowned gospel singers in African American popular culture. Caesar’s gospel singing career began when she was just eight years old. She honed her skills in the close-knit and spiritually minded environment of her home and community in Durham, North Carolina. Deeply motivated by her strongly held religious beliefs, Caesar would credit God for her prodigious career. Hers was a voice that matured in her twenties as she toured with a professional gospel singing group, the Caravans, and she has had an extraordinary solo career spanning the 1970s to the present. Caesar tirelessly serves her church and local community as a pastor and through her outreach ministries. Born Shirley Ann Caesar on October 13, 1938 in Durham, North Carolina, her singing career and spiritual foundation had its start at home. Her father, Jim Caesar, was constantly singing, whether at home or at work. This practice was akin to the African tradition of infusing every part of life with art, song, and the spiritual. Caesar’s father and her mother, Hannah, instilled their large family, including twelve living children, with a firm spiritual foundation. The surrounding black community buffered the harsh realities of racism and segregation by providing solidarity, support, and acceptance. The Pentecostal church was the heart of community and family life. At the age of twelve, Caesar experienced a personal spiritual conversion that cemented her purpose and direction in life. This experience was supplemented with an active church and singing life. The community participated in bible studies, worship services, and singing contests, known as ‘‘quartet battles.’’ Jim Caesar and his Just Come Four Quartet were not easily beat during the quartet

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battles. Although Shirley Caesar’s father died when she was eight, he made a lasting impact on his children’s lives, many of whom got involved in singing. Shirley Caesar’s music career had its start in the early stages of the gospel industry. Black music, such as blues, jazz, and gospel, originated from the homespun Spirituals and other music forms of slavery days. Unlike blues and jazz, in the late 1940s gospel music had not yet reached mainstream audiences or developed into a major industry. Like blues music of the early twentieth century, gospel music started within the confines of black communities. Gospel singers and groups traveled locally and throughout the South, from church to church, performing at schools and other venues on small budgets, relying on their own resources and the generosity of church members. Caesar also traveled the ‘‘gospel circuit,’’ performing with several groups, including family members and Thelma Bumpass and the Royalettes. Caesar’s first break came in 1958, when she was invited to sing with the Caravans, one of the most popular gospel groups of the time. Caesar sang with this group for eight years, performing at larger venues, including the Apollo Theater in New York City. The group also appeared on the television show, Jubilee Showcase. In 1966, she signed on with Hob Records and launched a solo career. Caesar’s career was punctuated by prestigious awards from African American and mainstream establishments and high-profile gospel collaborations. In 1972, she received a Grammy Award for ‘‘Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man from Galilee.’’ In 1974, she and gospel legend James Cleveland produced two albums, King and Queen of Gospel, Volume One and King and Queen of Gospel, Volume Two. In 1975, she received the Ebony Award for Best Female Gospel Singer. Two years later, she experimented with contemporary gospel music while signed on with Roadshow Records; however, two records later, she returned to her traditional gospel roots. Into the new millennium, Caesar continues to accumulate awards for her traditional gospel music, including NAACP Image Awards, an Essence Award, Dove Awards, Stellar Gospel Awards, Grammy Awards, and others. Caesar’s musical achievements were augmented by high-profile appearances. Beginning in the 1970s, Caesar was a fixture at national and mainstream events. In 1976, she sang for armed forces in Germany. In 1978, she sang the ‘‘Star Spangled Banner’’ at a New York Knicks basketball game and a New York Giants football game. She has also performed at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC. Caesar’s musical career was not the only aspect of her life that was flourishing. In 1983, she married Harold Williams. In the same year, she embarked in a leadership role in ministry, sparking controversy. (Historically women did not enter leadership positions in the church.) In 1984, Caesar received her BS degree in business administration from Shaw University, a historically black college affiliated with the Baptist church, located in Raleigh, North Carolina, and her organization, the Shirley Caesar Outreach Ministries, celebrated nearly fifteen years. Through this organization, Caesar implements multiple programs to provide food, clothing, and other assistance to individuals and families in need. The Shirley Caesar Outreach Ministries also coordinates gospel events, as well as informative

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workshops to address social issues relevant to black communities. In 1987, Caesar successful campaigned for city council in Durham. In 1996, Caesar joined the stage with Whitney Houston and CeCe Winans at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in a tribute to gospel music. This was a crucial moment for Caesar, as well as gospel music, in being recognized by one of the most prestigious secular award shows in the nation. On that day, the Grammy Awards bestowed Caesar with yet another award; this one was for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album. Amid the changing face of gospel music, now a multibillion-dollar industry, including nontraditional music, such as Christian rap, Caesar’s career is as vibrant as ever. Further Reading Caesar, Shirley. 1998. The Lady, the Melody, and the Word: The Inspirational Story of the First Lady of Gospel Music. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. Darden, Robert. 2005. People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Continuum. ‘‘Shirley Caesar: A Global Sensation.’’ http://www.shirleycaesar.com/home.html. Gladys L. Knight

Calloway, Cab (1907–94), Bandleader, Singer, Dancer, Songwriter, Author* Caben Calloway III was best known for his innovative style of scat singing and his signature song ‘‘Minnie the Moocher,’’ memorable for its ‘‘hi-de-ho’’ lyrics. Calloway’s career spanned more than sixty years, and he was one of the first African American artists to break racial barriers and perform for mostly white audiences. Calloway was born in Rochester, New York, on December 25, 1907, and was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Influenced by a family of musicians, he joined the Baltimore Melody Boys during high school and studied voice under the tutelage of a local jazz artist, William ‘‘Chick’’ Webb. After he graduated from high school, Calloway briefly pursued a law degree at Crane College in Chicago, Illinois. He realized quickly that he couldn’t resist the lure of a career as a musician, and he dropped out of school to follow his dream. He stayed in Chicago and tried playing the drums and saxophone before achieving success as a scat singer. After he appeared in the 1927 musical theater show Plantation Days, he was hired for his first solo performance. Calloway formed his first band, the Alabamians, in 1928. The group disbanded in 1929, when Calloway formed the Missourians. The Missourians began touring in 1929, and they quickly experienced great success. The band’s popularity escalated and led to Calloway’s first big musical theater gig as a cast member of the New York production of Fats Waller’s Hot Chocolates.

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In 1931, Calloway renamed his band after himself and replaced Duke Ellington as orchestra leader at Harlem’s famed Cotton Club. That same year, he made his first recordings. One of those recordings, ‘‘Minnie the Moocher,’’ was a worldwide hit and became his signature song for its nonsensical ‘‘hi-de-ho’’ lyrics. Calloway’s early music contained heavy allusions to drug use and sex, but he toned down his performances and the content of his songs in the mid-1930s. Over the years, Calloway ensemble members included jazz notables Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Hinton, and Cozy Cole. In the early 1930s, he was immortalized as an animated character in a series of Betty Boop cartoons. Calloway’s popularity continued throughout the 1930s, and he had dozens more hit singles, including ‘‘St. James Infirmary,’’ ‘‘The Jumpin’ Jive,’’ ‘‘Lady with the Fan,’’ ‘‘Zaz Zuh Zaz,’’ ‘‘Kickin’ the Gong Around,’’ ‘‘The Scat Song,’’ ‘‘Reefer Man,’’ ‘‘Are You Hep to the Jive,’’ and ‘‘Are You All Reet.’’ He went on his first of many European tours in 1934. He also appeared in several feature films, including The Big Broadcast (1932), International House (1933), The Singing Kid (1936), Manhattan Merry-Go-Round (1937), Stormy Weather (1943), Sensations of 1945 (1944), St. Louis Blues (1958), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and The Blues Brothers (1980). George and Ira Gershwin used Calloway as the model for the character of Sportin’ Life in their 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. Although he turned down the lead role in 1935, he performed in a road version of the musical in 1952 and made the soundtrack recording of the 1959 film version. After disbanding his orchestra in 1958, Calloway went solo for several years. He returned to the stage in 1974 to play the part of Horace Vandergelder in an all-black run of Hello Dolly. In 1976, Calloway wrote his autobiography, Of Minnie the Moocher and Me. His ebullient performance in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers renewed his popularity and exposed him to younger audiences. He continued to play engagements throughout the 1980s and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1992. Calloway died on November 18, 1994, at the age of 86. *Adapted from The Great Depression and the New Deal: A Thematic Encyclopedia, ed. by Daniel Leab, Kenneth J. Bindas, Alan Harris Stein, Justin Corfield, and Steven L. Danver. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.

Further Reading Calloway, Cab. 1976. Of Minnie the Moocher and Me. New York: Crowell. Fretner, Shaun. 1997. ‘‘Cab Calloway.’’ Contemporary Black Biography. Detroit: Gale Research. Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. 1999. ‘‘Cab Calloway.’’ In Notable Black American Men Vol 14. Detroit: Gale.

Calypso Music Originally a West Indian folk dance, calypso is the music that accompanies the carnival season in Trinidad and Tobago. With carnival beginning after Christmas and concluding before Ash Wednesday, the season is one that offers

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plenty of opportunity for calypsonians to ply their trade in a number of ways. With roots extending to slavery and connecting to the colonial struggle in the Caribbean, modern calypso is a dynamic and highly versatile music form with a range of influences and inflections, yet the steel pan drums make the music distinctively Trinidadian. Calypso is derived from gayup or gayap, organized communal work and work songs brought to Trinidad by Africans who labored on plantations. Gayup has a call-and-response structure, and it was a radical music, one that expressed resistance to colonialism. In the early formation of calypso, the music, both as dance and song, was an integral part of the carnival season. During slavery, French planters ushered in Lent with masquerade balls while the Africans in slavery celebrated the season with end-of-harvest rituals derived from West Africa. With time, the distinct celebrations of the French planters and the African slaves merged into canboulay (from the French cannes br^ul
ees). With Emancipation in 1834, canboulay and gayup both became integral elements of calypso. In the nineteenth century, the lyrics of calypso were often subversive in nature, offering political and satirical commentary, along with double entendres, and this subversion was underscored by many of the songs being performed in French Creole. In the battle of the tongues, English was the official language of political power in Trinidad, and as a result, French Creole was viewed as the politically subversive tongue. Calypso sung in French Creole was associated with kalendas, a form of cultural expression that includes stick-fighting and verbal jousting. The 1870s witnessed marches by stick fighters asserting their territorial dominance, their actions underscored by a war of words (piccong or mepri) as calypsonians asserted their dominance while demeaning their rivals. This type of expression thrives today in the verbal battles that play out in Hip-Hop culture, which is a variation on ‘‘playing the Dozens.’’ Toward the close of the nineteenth century, the Trinidadian middle class asserted its influence over the development of calypso, and the lyrics shifted from French Creole to British English. (Lyrics would later evolve into Trinidadian Creole.) Calypso was a urban music, one that was based in Port of Spain, although the music did develop in rural areas as well. One of the earliest calypso tunes we have on record is ‘‘Jour Ouvert,’’ which celebrates the start of carnival season. Since calypso at its inception was interested in urban matters, the early songs explore the underworld of Port of Spain, often dealing with pimps, prostitutes, and obeahmen (sorcerers). A famous calypsonian of this time was Bodicea, and her reputation was such that a fellow calypsonian said, ‘‘She disgrace every woman in Port of Spain,’’ writes John Storm Roberts. Much like Trinidad with its wide range of cultural influences, calypso reflects some of these influences. Along with the samba of Brazil, calypso and its practitioners make use of a variety of musical idioms, ranging from belairs and old kalendos, the improvised songs that accompanied French Creole drumming and dance, a tradition that began during slavery and one with roots extending to West Africa; in this music, too, there are influences from Venezuela, in particular the bongo, paseo, pastillo, and castillan, from Cuba, from Rhythm and

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Blues, as well as elements of African religious music. Calypso, too, changed with the times. In the 1920s, its instrumentation was largely Venezuelan with stringed instruments. Sam Manning was one of the stars of the 1920s, and his ‘‘My Little West Indian Girl’’ is a good example of the calypso of this era. During the 1930s, American jazz band instrumentation–dominated by brass instruments–became the vogue. During the Great Depression, calypsonians created the first calypso boom in the United States, and major record labels Decca and the American Recording Company were among those supplying the demand for calypso. During World War II, carnival was suspended, and following the war, calypso brought about the instrument that would come to typify the sound of the music today–the steel pan drum, crafted from the fifty-five-gallon oil drums of Trinidad. During the 1950s, calypso gained popularity in new and unexpected ways. Harry Belafonte, born in Harlem of West Indian parents, helped bring about the second calypso boom. His best-selling 1956 album, titled Calypso, was the singer’s third album. It spent seventy-two weeks in the American Top 40, and for thirty-one weeks was the number one selling record in the United States. Calypso featured two classic songs, ‘‘Jamaica Farewell’’ and ‘‘The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).’’ ‘‘Day-O’’ is an excellent example of the call-and-response of gayup, and ‘‘Jamaica Farewell,’’ in some regards, plays homage to the calypso of the 1920s with its Venezuelan influences. Calypso was a commercial and international success, making him the first solo artist (although he had never visited Trinidad, much to the ire of traditionalists) to sell over one million records. The following year, Belafonte released Matilda, and the single by that same name featured elements of American jazz instrumentation together with steel pan drums. Along with his husky voice, Belafonte was transformed into a sex symbol with his clean-shaven face and unbuttoned shirts, earning him the title ‘‘King of Calypso.’’ While his commercial success did create controversy, as calypso, in the purest sense, is a music meant for carnival tents, Belafonte’s success serves as a testament to the wide appeal of the music as a whole. While Belafonte rode the commercial wave of success, the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco) was emerging as a calypsonian of the highest order, one whose music has garnered him such accolades as Road March champion (most popular song) eight times along with Calypso Monarch (performer of the year) eleven times, spanning four different decades, serving as a testament to both his longevity and his creativity. According to Sellman, Caribbean scholar Peter Manuel has noted that Mighty Sparrow and Prime Minister Eric Williams, author of Capitalism and Slavery and leader of the People’s National Movement, are the ‘‘two most important figures in modern Trinidadian culture.’’ The Mighty Sparrow’s first success was his 1956 song, ‘‘Jean and Dinah.’’ The song commented on the condition of prostitutes following the closing of American military bases in Trinidad following World War II and is very much in the tradition of early calypso that offered ‘‘street news’’ on the underworld.

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For ‘‘Jean and Dinah,’’ the Mighty Sparrow was the Road March champion of 1956, and in the following year, he penned ‘‘Carnival Boycott,’’ capturing the spirit of carnival and showcasing his range as an artist, able to move from soulful social commentary to playful satire. His lines, void of political and social commentary, encourage participation by all ‘‘regardless of color, creed, or race’’ and celebrate the joyous nature of carnival. The 1950s also witnessed the emergence of Lord Kitchener and Lord Melody, Calypsonians who worked within the tradition of street news and whose innovative use of words and rhythm moved the music to new heights. During the 1970s, Lord Shorty (Garfield Blackman), who in life stood at 6 feet 4 inches, took calypso and infused it with elements of soul music, creating in the process ‘‘soul calypso’’ or soca, which introduced electronic instrumentation and moved away from lyric-based calypso. Through his innovation, Lord Shorty set into motion a conversation that continues today regarding the definition of calypso. In 1978, Lord Kitchener, one of the emerging stars of calypso during the 1950s, created controversy when he infused soca elements into his ‘‘Sugar Bum Bum.’’ Given the diversity of Trinidad, calypsonians of Indian descent have created chutney soca, ‘‘chutney’’ being a term used in Trinidad to signify Indo-Pakistani descent. And given the prevalence of rap music on the international stage, calypsonians have created rapso, and a prominent practitioner of this new calypso form is Brother Renaissance. With all the changes, showing the fluid nature of the music, calypso remains a vibrant music with a broad range of influential artists such as Tiger (Neville Marcano), Mighty Sparrow, Black Stalin (Leroy Calliste) and the Mighty Chalkdust (Hollis Liverpool) who manage to create electrifying music with political edge and humor that explores fully the range of artistic creation and human experience. See also: Reggae, Reggaeton; Soul and Funk (Music) Further Reading Fairley, Jan. ‘‘Calypso.’’ Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com. Larkin, Colin, ed. ‘‘Belafonte, Harry—Calypso.’’ Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th ed. Ed. Oxford Music Online. www.oxfordmusiconline.com. Roberts, John Storm. 1998. Black Music of Two Worlds: African, Caribbean, Latin, and African-American Traditions. 2nd ed. New York: Schrimer Books. Sellman, James Clyde. 1999. ‘‘Calypso.’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. New York: Basic Books. Sellman, James Clyde. 1999. ‘‘Mighty Sparrow (Francisco Slinger).’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. New York: Basic Books. Sparrow, Mighty. 1956. ‘‘Jean and Dinah.’’ Available at Habits of Waste: A Quarterly of Popular Culture. http://www.habitsofwaste.wwu.edu. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

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Campanella, Roy (1921–93), Baseball Player Roy Campanella, whose father was Italian American and whose mother was African American, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948, one year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the same club, and became one of the great catchers in the major leagues. Even more significantly, he was the first African American catcher to make it in the big leagues, establishing himself at a position analogous to quarterback in Football. The catcher calls all the pitches, and Campanella’s pitchers were white in his first year, although Don Newcombe joined the team in 1949. To assume such leadership on the top National League team of the era required not only considerable playing ability but also the right personality. Campy brought all the necessary attributes to the plate and behind it. A powerful and consistent hitter, as well as an outstanding defensive catcher, Campanella three times won the National League Most Valuable Player Award, in 1951, 1953, and 1955. His greatest season was 1953, when he set major league records for most home runs (41) and runs batted in (142) by a catcher. He also recorded the most putouts (807) by a catcher. Campanella was fond of saying, ‘‘You gotta have a lot of little boy in you to be a good ballplayer.’’ He never lost that boyish enthusiasm, which contributed to his leadership. His zest for playing and his ease in communicating with other players earned him respect. He would keep up a steady chatter with hitters and generally ignore racial comments. As Jackie Robinson was the right person to integrate the major leagues, Roy Campanella was the right man to integrate the crucial position of catcher. Unfortunately, Campanella did not necessarily gain full recognition for his accomplishments from Robinson. By 1957, Campanella’s skills were eroding. The Dodger great had started playing at fifteen in the Negro Baseball Leagues and had put in almost a full career there before signing with the Dodgers. Now in his tenth year in the majors, he was thirty-five and a veteran of two decades of playing professional Baseball, sometimes year-round. Limited to 103 games because of injuries in 1957, he hit just .242 with 13 home runs and 62 RBIs. Nonetheless, he was looking forward to joining the Dodgers for their inaugural season in Los Angeles and driving home runs over the short left-field wall in the new stadium. Tragedy, however, intervened on a January 1958 night when he lost control of his car on a slick spot and slammed into a telephone pole. The accident left him a quadriplegic permanently confined to a wheelchair. Roy Campanella compiled a ten-year record of 242 home runs, 856 RBIs, and a .276 batting average while helping the Dodgers win five National League pennants and the 1956 World Series—the Brooklyn Dodgers’ first and only world championship. He also left behind a vast storehouse of goodwill as one of the most popular Dodgers ever to play. His election to the Hall of Fame in 1969 was a tribute to his accomplishments as a player. Not to be overlooked, however, is the role he played in integrating Major League Baseball. The way that he played

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the game helped ease the transition of African Americans into the majors, setting the example for such catchers as Elston Howard, the first African American to play for the Yankees, and Johnny Roseboro, who followed Campanella behind the plate for his Dodgers. See also: Mays, Willie; Paige, Satchel; Sports Further Reading Campanella, Roy. 1959. It’s Good to Be Alive. Boston: Little, Brown. Goodwin, Doris Kearns. 1997. Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kahn, Roger. 1972. The Boys of Summer. New York: Harper & Row. Edward J. Rielly

Campbell, Naomi (1970– ), Model, Entrepreneur The image of supermodel Naomi Campbell has graced the cover and pages of numerous magazines in Europe and the United States for over twenty years, making her one of the world’s most recognizable women. A top-earning model, who often was paid in excess of $10,000 a day, Campbell’s business endeavors and personal interests have gone beyond the runway and ventured into other areas such as restaurant ownership, acting in film and television, authoring a novel, developing a popular line of cosmetics, and being a vocalist on several albums. The mercurial Campbell continues to be a notable fashion diva and businesswoman who has greatly influenced contemporary popular culture. Early Life and Modeling The daughter of two Jamaican immigrants, Naomi Campbell was born May 20, 1970, in Streatham, a neighborhood in London, England. Campbell’s father (whom she has never met) was of Jamaican and Chinese ancestry; he deserted his family prior to Naomi’s birth, leaving young Naomi’s upbringing solely to her mother, Valerie Morris. During Campbell’s childhood her mother traveled extensively throughout Europe performing with the dance troupe Fantastica. Campbell and her younger brother were often left in the care of a nanny. Possessing a long, lean build plus being inspired by her dancer mother, Campbell was granted admission to the Italia Conti stage school to study ballet. Ten-year-old Naomi excelled at Italia Conti and later she did equally well at the Dunraven School. In 1979, as a seven-year-old, she appeared in a music video for the late Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley. Between 1981 and 1982, at the age of twelve, Campbell was cast in videos of British rock bands Culture Club and Pink Floyd. Campbell’s life would take an unexpected turn when she was fifteen years of age. In 1985 Campbell and some of her friends were hanging out at a shopping mall

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when she was approached by a woman who said she was a Modeling agent. The modeling agent was Beth Boldt, herself a former Ford model, and at the time of meeting Campbell, head of the Synchro music agency. At the end of Campbell’s school year her mother finally consented and let her go see Boldt about becoming a model. Campbell left school at fifteen and signed an exclusive contract with the Elite Model Agency. During the first years of her career Campbell did routine ‘‘catwalk’’ modeling but was eventually signed to do ad work for highconsumer-recognition American companies like Olympus and Lee Jeans. These ad campaigns introduced the British Campbell to American audiences that rarely saw models of African descent. By this time Campbell found herself working closely with some of the icons and legends of the fashion indusSupermodel and tabloid newsmaker, Naomi Campbell. try. Fashion notables such as (Shutterstock) Calvin Klein, Ozzedine Alaia, Issac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, and Francois Nars have helped make Campbell a household name. In 1986, less than a year after Campbell began modeling full-time, she was pictured on the cover of Elle magazine—the first black model to be so. In 1988 Campbell had another first when she was on the cover of Vogue Paris. However, this particular cover shot was not without some controversy. Vogue Paris had a long-standing practice of not putting any black models on their covers, but this all changed after Campbell friend and mentor, the designer Yves St. Laurent, threatened to cancel all of his advertising from the magazine if they did not at least consider Campbell. In short order she was on the cover of Vogue UK, Vogue Nippon, and Time magazines. In the same year, Campbell had a cameo role on the Bill Cosby–created sitcom The Cosby Show.

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Other Endeavors Because of her widespread appeal and popularity, Campbell became sought after in other fields. Having an artistic background, it was a natural transition for Campbell to move into the arts. In 1991 she was featured in the rapper Vanilla Ice’s film Cool as Ice. In 1994 she was asked by her close friend Quincy Jones to do the vocals on the single ‘‘Heaven’s Girl’’ in the album Q’s Jook Joint. However, one of Campbell’s greatest musical successes of 1994 was her collaboration with Japanese singer Toshinobu Kubota on La, La, La Love Song— the album by that title sold a million units and reached number one in the Japanese record industry. Campbell’s music never really caught on with American and British listening audiences, but she has been popular with Asian audiences. Campbell’s other artistic endeavor in 1994 was the release of her first novel Swan, about a prominent model who is blackmailed by her enemies. The book was ridiculed widely and deemed a failure by book reviewers, especially after it was revealed that the book was ghostwritten by writer Caroline Upcher. Campbell continued her quest in entrepreneurship in 1995 when she and fellow models Claudia Schiffer, Christine Turlington, Elle MacPherson, and Italian restaurateur Tommaso Buti opened the Fashion Caf
e in New York. Eventually other locations of the restaurant opened in Spain, England, Mexico, the Philippines, Louisiana, and Jakarta (Indonesia). However, the stylish restaurants with their camera lens-shaped doors and interior catwalks had all closed by 1998 due to mismanagement. In 1999 the enterprising Campbell started a perfume business, and by 2005 Design House of Naomi Campbell had released seven women’s fragrances popular the world over. Campbell has been involved in a lot of charity work and fundraisers for inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa—particularly on behalf of her close friend, former South African president Nelson Mandela. Her good works have been overshadowed by frequent, highly publicized, anger-related outbursts. In 1998 Campbell was accused of physically assaulting her personal assistant. In 2006 she was once again arrested—this time for assaulting her housekeeper. Campbell has participated in anger management and substance abuse classes. In 2008 she was charged for allegedly assaulting a Heathrow Airport policeman and threatening a British Airways staff member. See also: Reggae, Reggaeton Further Reading Frankel, Susannah. 2002. ‘‘Naomi Campbell: A Model of Privacy.’’ [Belfast, UK] Independent, People section, February 16. Gostin, Nicki. Naomi Campbell. 2007. Newsweek (March 19): 81. Jones, Lesley-Ann. 1993. Naomi: The Rise and Rise of the Girl from Nowhere. London: Vermilion. Carter B. Cue

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Canada ‘‘Among other good trades,’’ Henry Walton Bibb wrote in his 1849 autobiography, ‘‘I learned the art of running away to perfection. I made a regular business of it, and never gave it up, until I had broken the bands of slavery, and landed myself safely in Canada, where I was regarded as a man, and not as a thing.’’ These words capture some of the sentiment surrounding Canada for persons of color, particularly in the nineteenth century. In the African American collective search for a place to call home, Canada proved to be a place of promise, of progress, and of struggle. In 1628, the first African slave, a child named Olivier Le Jeune, arrived in Canada, ushering in its era of slavery. From 1628 until 1759, Canada received 1,132 black slaves who were transported from British colonies in North America and French colonies in the West Indies. The largest influx of slaves occurred in 1783, when British Loyalists, finding themselves uprooted in the new American republic, headed north to Canada, bringing with them some 2,000 black slaves. Along with those persons of color in bondage, roughly 3,500 free black Loyalists made the move north to Canada following the American Revolutionary War. The black Loyalists, former slaves who fought on the side of the Crown with the belief that, if the British won, they would be granted their freedom, settled mainly in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Slaves in Canada were permitted to learn how to read and to write, a practice that was strongly discouraged in the United States (See also: Language). And as early as 1793, the abolition of slavery began to occur in Canada, making Ontario a veritable promised land for black men, women, and children in bondage in the United States, where, in 1793 as well, the Fugitive Slave Act had been passed. In 1796, nearly 600 maroons were transported from Jamaica to Nova Scotia because their radical nature was perceived as a threat to slavery on the island. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Canada was a place where literate black slaves and free black citizens resided, and was a place that was beginning to attract black refugees from the United States fleeing slavery. It is estimated that some 30,000 fugitives, along with some 800 free blacks, used the Underground Railroad to escape slavery on the soil of the United States for freedom beneath Canadian skies. One notable example is John Ware. Born a slave in Texas, John Ware, one of the greatest cowboys of his generation, would go on to own a ranch in Alberta, Canada (See also: Cowboys and Rodeos). Born a slave in Maryland in 1817, Samuel Ringgold Ward was able to explore the fullness of his life as a newspaper editor and pastor after he fled the United States for Canada in 1851. Canada, too, had no legacy of Jim Crow that hindered the progress of African Americans in the United States. Citizens in Canada, black and white, were equal in the eyes of the law, yet at times those eyes were jaundiced with racial prejudice. In 1850, for example, the Common School Act established separate schools for blacks and whites, and following the

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Civil War, thousands of black refugees who had fled to Canada for asylum returned to the United States, while thousands stayed; social inequalities in the United States continued to make Canada an attractive destination for many African Americans in the late nineteenth century. The twentieth century witnessed the systematic battling of racial prejudice. This battle was initially led by the black churches, and what followed was a series of victories leading to social reform. In 1906, the Niagara Movement began in Canada, leading, in 1924, to the establishment of the Canadian League, which would become the Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1960, the nation drew up a Bill of Rights that legally banned discrimination based on race, and between 1960 and 1995, some 300,000 West Indian and 150,000 African immigrants called Canada their home. As a testament to our age of Globalization, one of the largest West Indian carnivals in the world is Caribana, held in Toronto, where Calypso Music captivates over one million people every summer. Further Reading Beauchamp, Michael. (Accessed June 29, 2009) Bland, Sterling Lecater, Jr., ed. 2001. ‘‘Henry Walton Bibb (1815–1854).’’ African American Slave Narratives: An Anthology. Vol. 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Brown, Nikki, and Stentiford, Barry M. 2008. ‘‘Canada.’’ The Jim Crow Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ‘‘Caribana 2009–Toronto Caribana.’’ www.caribanatoronto.com. Walker, James W. St. G. 1999. ‘‘Canada.’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. New York: Basic Books. Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Car Racing For much of auto racing’s history, only the track was black. Yet, from Charlie ‘‘The Negro Speed King’’ Wiggins in the 1920s; to Joie Ray, ‘‘the Jackie Robinson’’ of motorsports; to entrepreneur Leonard W. Miller in the 1970s; to Willy T. Ribbs since then, African Americans have overcome countless speed bumps and left an indelible mark on the sport. Pioneers The first race held by and for African American drivers is believed to have been a relatively impromptu event staged by four mechanics driving borrowed roadsters on a half-mile dirt track in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1911. According to a 1929 article in the Indianapolis Recorder, the cars ran lap after lap with no end or winner declared.

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The famous five-hundred-mile race in Indianapolis, Indiana, headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan, was first held the same year, but African Americans would be denied participation in it for a half-century. Still, interest around the speedway remained high during the early years. Significantly, a mechanic named Charlie Wiggins began in 1923 to build his own race car. He would become known as the ‘‘Negro Speed King.’’ In 1924, African American business leaders in Indianapolis, led by William ‘‘Pres’’ Rucker, formed a racing league they named the Colored Speedway Association. That same year, they held the first Colored Speed Championship, later to be known as the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes Series, part of a professional auto racing circuit for drivers and mechanics of color. The 100-mile championship race was held on the one-mile track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Malcolm Hannon won the first race. The series was held at first throughout the Midwest during the 1920s, and then expanded by the 1930s to Langhorne, Pennsylvania; Atlanta; Los Angeles; and Fort Worth, Texas. Top prize was $500; sometimes, qualifiers received a $200 guarantee. Wiggins, a four-time champion, dominated, winning in 1926 and then edging his brother Lawrence for a third straight and final victory in 1933. The race was not held in 1934 or 1935 and was run for the last time in 1936. The final run featured the greatest African American drivers of that first generation, including Wiggins, Wilbur Gaines, Bobby Wallace, Leon ‘‘Al’’ Warren, winner Bill Carson (who averaged 57.69 miles per hour), and runner-up Sumner ‘‘Red’’ Oliver. Wiggins was among those injured in a thirteen-car pileup on the fourth turn of the second lap. The race was shortened to 50 miles. Oliver prospered as a driver through the 1950s and as a mechanic afterward on the U.S. Auto Club (USAC) championship circuit. In the 1970s, he became a crewmember on the Patrick Petroleum-Wally Dallenbach Indy car team. Mel Leighton, meanwhile, was emerging as a top sprint-car driver on the West Coast, winning four races at the Los Angeles Carroll Speedway in 1947. He also served as treasurer of the Southern California Timing Association during much of World War II. However, the American Automobile Association (AAA), which sanctioned major races in 1902–55, would never allow Leighton to race at Indianapolis. In 1959, though, Leighton was on Rodger Ward’s Indy-winning team. One of Leighton’s contemporaries was Wendell Oliver Scott of Danville, Virginia, who became the only African American driver to win a race in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. It was actually Scott who broke the color barrier in stockcar racing on May 23, 1952, at the Danville Fairgrounds Speedway. The next year, he became the first African American to obtain a NASCAR racing license. When Scott won a NASCAR race in 1963, he was not declared the winner until hours after the race. Two decades later, Scott claimed that NASCAR officials did not want him ‘‘out there kissing any beauty queens or accepting any awards.’’ Also postwar, Joie Ray became the first African American licensed by the AAA and thus the first to compete in sanctioned open-wheel races. A promoter once billed him as the ‘‘Jackie Robinson of auto racing.’’ He drove his first race

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on Easter Sunday, 1947, in Mitchell, Indiana. His career spanned seventeen years as a sprint-, midget-, and stock-car driver. There is no record of how many featured races Ray won, but his family has reported that it was four. Ray barnstormed across the Midwest, competing in up to fifty events a year. He towed his six-cylinder Ford, ‘‘Southern Star,’’ sometimes nearly a thousand miles to the next race—once even sleeping in a jail cell along the way because he could find no other accommodations in town. Sources have reported incorrectly that he was the first African American driver to race in NASCAR’s top series, at Daytona in 1952, but also that Joie Ray was a white driver from Portland, Oregon. Taking Ownership Former drag racer Leonard W. Miller took an entrepreneurial approach to breaking down racing’s racial barriers. Born in Philadelphia, Miller tinkered with the family 1937 Ford as a teen. He built a 1940 Ford club coupe hot rod convertible in 1953, ordering custom parts from George Barris’s Kustoms of America in Southern California. Then, in the late 1950s, while serving in the Third Army’s 45th Ordinance Battalion, Direct Automotive Support Company, Miller learned to repair jeeps and trucks under extreme conditions, worthy of pit road. Mentored by Leighton and Oliver, Miller spent fifteen years directing an auto-racing organization and creating opportunities for African American drivers in NASCAR as a motorsports mogul on a miniscule budget. He found limited success marketing the idea of changing the complexion of racing to the Detroit automakers and southern racing fans, but his efforts were progressive and produced some changes. Miller also formed friendships with Wendell Scott and Malcolm Durham, who backed Miller and Benny Scott under the aegis of Black American Racers Association (BARA) and Vanguard Racing in the early 1970s. Miller founded BARA, which once counted five thousand members, in 1972. Wendell Scott was named honorary chairman. BARA secured sponsorship from Brown & Williamson Tobacco. The partnership devised an initiative called ‘‘The Road To Indy,’’ which started by entering Benny Scott in Formula Super Vee competition in Sports Club Car of America (SCCA), IMSA, and the Robert Bosch VW Gold Cup series on tracks such as Watkins Glen International, Laguna Seca, and Pocono Raceway. On May 4, 1975, at Laguna, in Monterey, California, Scott was the fastest qualifier but lost in a photo finish. Miller also signed twenty-three-year-old Coyle Peek of Long Island as Scott’s backup and sent Peek to the United Kingdom for development with S.H.A.R.P. Racing to race in British Formula Ford, a highly competitive entry-level series. It was a milestone: the first time an African American team, on its own dime, had sent an African American driver overseas for professional racing development. Peek finished frequently in the top ten, including a second place. But when he returned to the United States, Peek at first could obtain neither car nor corporate support despite Miller’s efforts.

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Brown & Williamson eventually backed Benny Scott in Formula 5000 events against racing legends such as Mario Andretti. With Grant King as chief mechanic, Scott qualified BARA’s entry 24th of 30 teams for the inaugural Long Beach Grand Prix, an invitation-only event held September 28, 1975. He finished 11th. Despite BARA’s modest success, Brown & Williamson discontinued its sponsorship of all motorsports two months later. BARA failed to find a replacement sponsor. Ron Hines, BARA’s secretary for its five years, was the first Ivy League– educated African American racing engineer. He also published BARA’s monthly newsletter. He wrote half of the articles contained in the 1974 Black Racers Yearbook, the first known history covering African American racing antedating World War II. Miller attempted several more NASCAR grassroots efforts between 1994 and 1999 with his son, Leonard T. Miller, and obtained sponsorships from General Motors and Dr Pepper. In 2005, Miller Racing Group became the first African American team owners to win in NASCAR history, at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Virginia. Call Him Mr. Ribbs William ‘‘Willy’’ Theodore Ribbs, Jr. may have been the most popularly known and most versatile of African American racers, starting out as a Formula One driver and moving through NASCAR, CART, and the Indy Racing League. After graduating from high school in 1975, he competed in the Formula Ford Series in Europe. He won the Dunlop Championship his first year, and then returned to the United States, where his debut was inauspicious. He was entered to drive a Winston Cup car owned by Will Cronkite in the 1978 World 600 at Charlotte, but after skipping two practices and a traffic arrest, Ribbs was replaced by Dale Earnhardt. Ribbs moved on to Formula Atlantic, winning a pole at in 1982. The next year, he won five races in the SCCA Trans-Am Series and was named Pro Rookie of the Year. He returned to NASCAR in 1986, driving three races. His best finish was his first: 22nd place at North Wilkesboro Speedway. That same year, Ribbs became the first African American to drive a Formula One car, when he tested for Brabham, a British racing car manufacturer and team, in Portugal. In 1990, Ribbs joined the CART circuit in a car sponsored in part by comedian Bill Cosby. Ribbs finished in the top ten twice that year. During the Molson Indy Vancouver race that year, a track marshal, Jean Patrick Hein, who was pushing another car off the track, ran out in front of Ribbs’s car, which struck and killed Hein. In 1991, Ribbs became the first African American to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. He switched teams in 1994 and finished in the top ten at Michigan International Speedway and in the Denver Grand Prix. In 1999, he finished 26th after a crash in an IRL event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After three top tens in the SCCA in 2000, Ribbs signed to drive for Bobby Hamilton Racing in

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the Craftsman Truck Series. He competed in 23 of 24 races, with a best finish of 13th, and was 16th overall in points. Frustrated by racing’s racial politics, Ribbs lashed out. In 2006, Ribbs was quoted referring to NASCAR as ‘‘al-Qaeda’’ and ‘‘Neckcar,’’ the latter a pejorative reference to the ‘‘redneck’’ image of white drivers and fans. Ribbs lingers elsewhere in popular culture as the namesake of Willy T. Ribbs Middle School featured on the Disney Channel cartoon show The Proud Family. At the Vanguard Benny Scott’s story was highly unusual. He was a second-generation African American race car driver; his father, Bill ‘‘Bullet’’ Scott, raced midgets in Southern California in the 1930s. The younger Scott earned a master’s degree in psychology and taught at Los Angeles Harbor College while competing in foreign stock-car events in Southern California in the 1960s. In 1969, driving an advanced tubular chassis Renault with a Gordini engine, he won the Foreign Stock Car Association of Southern California title, his first championship. He moved into road racing, driving an Austin Healy Bug-Eyed Sprite in the H-Production class and Formula B cars at Riverside International Raceway in California and earned his SCCA license. Scott was recommended by Mel Leighton to Leonard W. Miller, who was looking for a gutsy, brainy driver. So, in 1971, Miller organized Vanguard to field Scott in Formula A and prepare him over time for Indy. Scott drove the Vanguard Formula A in the L & M Continental 5000 Championship and SCCA events. He was also featured in the first Champion Spark Plug national magazine ad featuring an African American driver. Vanguard also fielded a white driver, John Mahler, at Indy in 1972, hoping he would help develop Scott. Vanguard, however, disbanded before the plan could be carried out. In 1978, Scott returned to finish the season as a replacement for BARA’s Tommy Thompson, who had been killed in a crash in a Formula Super Vee race at Trenton Speedway in New Jersey. Scott never competed again, lacking sponsorship. Off Track NASCAR has struggled with racial issues for years; only about eight percent of its fans are African American. It has implemented several initiatives to address this, forming a diversity council, supporting a driver diversity program, and offering internships to minority students. In 2008, however, a former Nationwide series official filed a lawsuit alleging she had been subjected to racial and sexual discrimination and sexual harassment. To increase the number of African Americans in auto racing, North Carolina A&T State University’s motorsports program, directed by Thurman Exum, was established. It provides the most comprehensive racing curriculum at a historically black college. There is also the Association for Diversity in Motorsports, a

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grassroots outreach organization developed to impact and increase participation in racing among fans, racing crews and drivers, and team ownership.

Further Reading Ashe, Arthur R., Jr. 1988. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete, 1919–1945. New York: Warner Books. Donovan, Brian. 2008. Hard Driving: The Wendell Scott Story. New York: Steerforth Press. Miller, Leonard W. 2004. Silent Thunder: Breaking Through Cultural, Racial, and Class Barriers in Motorsports. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Miller, Leonard W. with Andrew Simon. 2010. Racing While Black: How an AfricanAmerican Stock Car Team Made Its Mark on NASCAR. New York: Seven Stories Press. Richard Kenney

Carey, Mariah (1970– ), Singer, Songwriter, Record Producer, Actress Mariah Carey, America’s best-selling female recording artist of the 1990s and the World Music Awards’ best-selling female artist of the millennium, leads all other singers (except the Beatles) with the most number one singles. Carey, who has a five-octave vocal range, writes most of her songs and produces most of her records. Carey was born on March 27, 1970, in Long Island, New York, the youngest of three children of Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer of African American and Hispanic descent, and Patricia Carey, an Irish American vocal coach and a former soloist with the New York City Opera. Carey’s parents divorced when she was three years old. In 1987, Carey graduated from Harborfields High School in Huntington, Long Island, moved to New York City, and pursued a singing career as she held various jobs. Carey was a backup vocalist for Brenda K. Starr, and in 1988 the R & B (now salsa) singer introduced Carey to Tommy Mottola, the president and CEO of Sony/ Columbia’s music division. Mottola, after listening to Carey’s demo tape, offered her a recording contract. Her debut album, Mariah Carey (1990), earned two Grammy Awards: Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female (for ‘‘Vision of Love’’) and Best New Artist; it produced four number one singles: ‘‘Vision of Love,’’ ‘‘Love Takes Time,’’ ‘‘Someday,’’ and ‘‘I Don’t Wanna Cry.’’ The title track from Carey’s second album, Emotions (1991), is her fifth number one single. MTV Unplugged (1992), Carey’s first nonstudio album and first live album, features her sixth charttopping single, ‘‘I’ll Be There,’’ a remake of the Jackson Five hit. In 1993 Carey released her third studio album, Music Box, and two more number one songs: ‘‘Dream Lover’’ and ‘‘Hero.’’ That same year, Carey married Mottola in New York City, and the wedding reportedly cost a half million dollars. Her fourth and fifth studio albums were Merry Christmas (1994) and Daydream (1995); Daydream has

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three number one singles: ‘‘Fantasy,’’ ‘‘One Sweet Day,’’ and ‘‘Always Be My Baby.’’ The next studio album, Butterfly (1997), contains two number one singles: ‘‘Honey’’ and ‘‘My All.’’ Butterfly was released the year that Carey and Motolla separated; they divorced in 1998. Carey garnered two number one singles, ‘‘Heartbreaker’’ and ‘‘Thank God I Found You,’’ with Rainbow (1999), her seventh studio album. In 2001 Carey’s two Glitter projects (the film that marks her first starring role, and her eighth studio album) did not match her previous successes. Carey’s workaholic lifestyle led to her hospitalization for extreme exhaustion. Carey’s ninth studio album, Charmbracelet (2002), like Glitter, failed to generate a number one single, yet she returned to the top of the charts with her tenth studio album, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005), which was the year’s best-selling album. It received the Grammy for Best Contemporary R & B album and two additional Grammys for Mimi’s first number one single, ‘‘We Belong Together’’: Best R & B Song and Best Female R & B Vocal Performance. With the album’s second hit, ‘‘Don’t Forget About Us’’ (on the platinum edition), Carey tied Elvis Presley with seventeen number one singles. Her eleventh studio album, E = MC2, with sales of 463,000 copies in its first week, marks her biggest opening-week total. Carey’s eighteenth number one single, ‘‘Touch My Body,’’ placed her ahead of Presley and second only to the Beatles for artists with the most number one singles. In 2008 Carey appeared in two films: Tennessee and Don’t Mess with the Zohan. The following year, Carey released her twelfth studio album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. Mariah Carey wrapped up her (latest) ‘‘Angels Advocate’’ tour on Saturday night, February 27, 2010, at the Colosseum (Caesar’s Palace), in Las Vegas, performing to a sold-out crowd. On April 30, 2008, Carey married actor and television personality Nick Cannon at her estate in the Bahamas. Further Reading Mazurkiewicz, Margaret, ed. 2009. Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 69. Detroit: Gale. Shapiro, Marc. 2001. Mariah Carey. Toronto: ECW Press. Sischy, Ingrid. ‘‘Mariah Carey.’’ Interview (September 2007): 156 et seq. Linda M. Carter

Caribbean Cultural Influences Caribbean influences in African American culture include aspects of African American life that result from, have been shaped directly by, or are intermingled with remnant elements of Caribbean societies and their citizens found in the United States. Generally, such elements have been adopted through mass communication or have been brought over by immigrant populations from the island nations and dependencies located in the Caribbean Sea that were once or still are controlled by France, England, the Netherlands, Spain, and to a lesser degree, the United States. The contributions of Caribbeans to African American popular

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culture are significant because they confirm and augment particular black diasporal experiences in the United States since both the Caribbean and the United States share a history of enslavement and transatlantic trade of people of African descent. Some Caribbean influences that have become a part of African American popular culture include those found in politics, literature, religious movements, hairstyles, clothing, geographical development, food, acting, and music. Political Leaders Some Caribbean political leaders, like Trinidadian prime minister Eric Williams (1911–81) migrated to the United States, participated in African American culture (Williams taught at the historically black Howard University), and returned to their native countries after a brief period of residence in the United States. Still, there are Caribbean political leaders who influence(d) African American culture more obviously. One primary example is Marcus Garvey (1887–1940), called the ‘‘black Moses.’’ Garvey was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, and is best known for his black nationalist ideas in the 1930s. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), an organization that encouraged black consciousness and mobility. Although Garvey founded UNIA in Jamaica in 1914, he later moved to Harlem to help mobilize supporters and to raise funds. Garvey’s movement gained momentum in Harlem and across the world. In 1925, however, the leader was sent to the federal penitentiary on charges related to the stock sale of his Black Star Line steamship fleet. Due to the efforts of his second wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, Garvey was released and returned to Jamaica. He continued to print his black consciousness publications in Jamaica and later in England, where he died from a stroke in 1940. Another example of a political leader is Colin Powell (1937– ). Powell is one of the most respected African American military officers and statesmen. Born in Harlem, New York, Powell is the son of Jamaican immigrants. He graduated from City College of New York in 1958. Because of his training in the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC) while at City College, he was eligible to be named second lieutenant in the U.S. Army when he graduated. Over the course of his career, Powell has held increasingly important military and political roles, including national security advisor in President Ronald Reagan’s administration (1987–89); chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–93)—Powell was the first African American and youngest person to hold this office—under Presidents George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton; and secretary of state under President George W. Bush (2000–04). Powell is cofounder with his wife Alma of America’s Promise, an alliance to ensure the success of American youth from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Literature Several Caribbean writers have impacted African American popular culture over the decades. Established writers like Cyril Lionel Robert ‘‘CLR’’ James

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(1901–89, Trinidad), Aime Cesaire (1913, Martinique), Edward Braithwaite (1930, Barbados), Derek Walcott (1930– , St. Lucia), and Vidiadhar Surajprasad ‘‘V. S.’’ Naipaul (1932–, Trinidad) have variably contributed politically and artistically to Caribbean, European, and (African) American cultural milieus, paving the way for subsequent and other prominent Caribbean writers. Paule Marshall (1929– ), who was born Valenza Pauline Burk in Stuyvesant Heights (now Bedford Stuyvesant), New York City, to Barbadian immigrants, retains an artistic interest in the common folk sayings and practices she learned from her mother, relatives, and family friends at the kitchen table. Like many of her contemporaries, Marshall’s writing concerns issues of black diasporal connection, Caribbean ancestry, and rejections of American consumptive culture, all of which can be found in one of her most popular works that combines African American and Caribbean heritage, Praisesong for the Widow (1983). Jamaica Kincaid (1949– ) immigrated to the United States from St. John’s, Antigua. She is best known for her lyrical yet minimal writing style, which often reflects themes of familial relationships, dual national identities, and displacement. These themes can been seen in her best known work, Annie John (1985). Caryl Phillips (1958– ) was born in St. Kitts but grew up in Leeds, England. Many of Phillips’s works adopt postcolonialism, the black diaspora, and human commonalities as themes. One of his most impressive works that seeks to connect African American and (Afro) British sentiment is Crossing the River (1993). Other contemporary writers like Audre Lorde (1934–92, New York, born to Grenadan immigrants), Maryse Cond
e (1937– , Guadeloupe), Elizabeth Nunez, (1944– , Trinidad and Tobago), and Edwidge Danticat (1969– , Haiti) have contributed greatly to Caribbean, European, and (African) American literary landscapes. Religious Movements More notable Caribbean movements that have impacted African American culture include Rastafarianism, Haitian Vodou (Voodoo), and Santar
ıa. Rastafarianism is a religious, political, and cultural movement begun in Jamaica in 1930 that borrows elements of Christianity but embraces the notion of a black messiah based on biblical references made in the Song of Solomon (1:5–6); that recognizes a descendent of that messiah as Prince Tafari Makonnen, who was named emperor of Ethiopia in 1930; that embraces the black racial determination principles of Marcus Garvey and Jamaican scholar Walter Rodney; that finds reggae an acceptable form of political music; and that advocates passive resistance. The hairstyle of Dreadlocks (now more commonly called ‘‘locks’’ to remove any pejorative connation), in which hair is allowed to grow uninhibited in coils, was begun by a subgroup of Rastafari called the Youth Black Faith and has been adopted by many African and European Americans as a viable natural style. Also, the wearing of red, green, and gold (known as ‘‘Rasta colors,’’ also the colors of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association), has at times been duplicated in the United States to symbolize black diasporal solidarity. Like

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the development of Rastafarianism, the founding of the African American Muslim sect, called the Nation of Islam, is believed to have been influenced in part by the principles of Garveyism. The most obvious influence of Caribbean religious movements on the development of geographical regions in the United States is the settling of Louisiana, particularly the city of New Orleans. New Orleans, originally a part of the French colony of Louisiana (1718–67, 1800–03), became a refuge for French-speaking Haitian immigrants after the Haitian Revolution in 1804. These immigrants brought with them religious beliefs that, at times, combined Roman Catholicism and the African-based Vodou, particular food ways, and cultural practices, all of which the New Orleans pre-Lenten celebration of Mardi Gras displays. The geographical regions of the southern and northeastern United States have had particular Spanish influences that helped to shape their unique African and Hispanic American religious cultures. Aspects of the Cuban religion Santar
ıa, which means ‘‘the way of the saints,’’ can be found in some religious practices in these American regions. Like Haitian religious influences in New Orleans, Santar
ıa also is a mixture of Roman Catholicism (as handed down by the Spanish in Cuba) and African worship of orishas, deities whom African slaves in Cuba worshipped secretly as Roman Catholic saints. Practitioners of Santar
ıa revere the orishas, develop personal relationships with them, and make offerings to them. Many black Cuban immigrants to the United States practice the religion, mainly in southern Florida and in New York City. Food Many Caribbean foodways have influenced African American cultural palates, particularly in regions where Caribbean immigrants have settled like New York and Florida. Most notable are fried plantains and ‘‘jerk’’ and curry spices. Fried plantains are the saut
eed versions of the hard-bodied cousin to the banana, which offer a sweet and crunchy alternative to traditional sides. Plantains are delicacies that can be found in many countries throughout the Caribbean (and elsewhere), including Jamaica, Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago, for example. Jerk and curry spices also have found their way into fusion versions of African American foodstuffs. Jamaican jerk, a spice consisting of cinnamon, garlic, pimento, thyme, Scotch bonnet peppers, and nutmeg, to name a few ingredients, is rubbed onto meat before it is cooked. West Indian curry is believed to have been brought over to the Caribbean by English colonists via India. Jamaican curry, in particular, is an adaptation of the East Indian original version and can contain cumin, turmeric, and coriander, among other ingredients. Curry also can be rubbed onto meats or included in soups and stews. Actors Caribbean actors also have had lasting impressions on the (African) American dramatic scene. Harry Belafonte (1927– ), actor, singer, and political activist, was

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born Harold George Belafonte to Jamaican immigrants. In 1935, Belafonte’s mother returned to Jamaica with her son. The family moved back to Harlem in 1940. Belafonte eventually joined the U.S. Navy. While in the navy, Belafonte came to appreciate American politics. In 1948, Belafonte returned to New York, where he became involved in Harlem’s American Negro Theater. There he met Sidney Poitier, who became a lifelong friend. Belafonte won a Tony Award in 1953 for his performance in Almanac, and he starred in Carmen Jones, a remake of George Bizet’s opera Carmen (1954). He turned to music and is best known for his album Calypso (1956). During the Civil Rights Movement, Belafonte befriended Martin Luther King Jr., raising funds to bail King out of the Birmingham, Alabama, jail in 1963. Belafonte spearheaded the 1984 ‘‘We Are the World’’ music project to provide relief to famine victims in Ethiopia; costarred in White Man’s Burden (1995), a film depicting a reversal of race roles in the United States; and, most recently, appeared in a 2006 depiction of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, called Bobby. Belafonte has remained politically outspoken, in 2002 criticizing blacks serving on President George W. Bush’s cabinet. Sydney Poitier (1927– ) is an actor, director, and producer, who is known for his appeal to mainstream American audiences. Poitier grew up in the Bahamas though he was born in Miami, Florida. After joining the U.S. Army to fight in World War II, Poitier returned to New York and eventually got involved in the American Negro Theater. His work there led to impressive onstage and film roles including A Raisin in the Sun (1959); Lilies of the Field, which won him the 1963 Oscar for best actor—a first for any African American; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). In later years, Poitier would accept more diverse roles, would start directing and producing films, and would win many awards for his lifetime work in his craft. Sheryl Lee Ralph (1956– ) was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Jamaican immigrants. Ralph has come into her own largely through dramatic works that depict African American life. Her most notable work includes the Broadway play Dream Girls (1981), for which she garnered Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations; the film Sister Act II (1993); and the television show Moesha (1996–2001). She now writes, directs, and produces. Music Several different Caribbean musical styles have influenced and been co-opted into African American music. Latin musical styles like salsa and mambo have lent upbeat tempos and rhythmic percussions (often via various drums like the timbales, congas, and bongos) to traditional African American music and to more experimental African American music forms like jazz and Hip-Hop. These crossover Latin forms were popularized by Latin performers like Tito Puente Sr. and Sheila Escovedo. The staccatoed, easy beats that are laced with Jamaican dialect make reggae dancehall music an attractive form for African American music writers and producers to incorporate into their existing styles as well. Bob Marley was instrumental in introducing his laid-back musical style into

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European and African American popular culture; and Trinidadian Calypso and accompanying steel pan music, which was characterized by its culturally rich lyrics and its airy percussion beats, was integrated into African American popular music primarily, but not exclusively, through the musical efforts of Harry Belafonte in the 1960s. Rap Music and Caribbean Americans Rap music, a part of the totality of the creative culture called hip-hop (which includes music, Break Dancing, and art styles like graffiti), has greatly impacted African American popular music and other media genres for nearly thirty years. Rap’s innovative beats and extended verbal play owe their origins to the improvisation of African American art forms as varied as the blues, jazz, Scat Singing, jive, Rhythm and Blues, call-and-response, Signifying, toasting, funk, hand games and rhymes, and Black Arts Movement poetry, and prison chain gang and slave work songs and chants; they owe other debts though to African and Afro-Caribbean music (namely, salsa, mambo, and reggae, among others) and to samplings of other American and European music forms. Still, the development of rap music and hip-hop in the United States, particularly in New York City, is due largely to collaborations and song- and dance-styled ‘‘battles,’’ between youths of African American and Caribbean immigrant heritages. In addition, disc jockeys often ‘‘mixed’’ the melodies of the songs with Jamaicaninspired beats. Christopher (‘‘Biggie Smalls’’ or ‘‘Notorious B. I. G.’’) Wallace, for example, was a Jamaican American rapper who sang, wrote, and produced rap music. Understanding the commercial power of the rise of the artistic movement in the 1980s, Hollywood movie executives capitalized on the moment. Movies like Beat Street (1984), Breakin’ I (May 1984), and Breakin’ II (December 1984), depicted the communion between African American and Caribbean-immigrant musical and cultural creations. Recognized and contemporary Puerto Rican American musicians and hip-hop singers like Tito Puente Sr., James Whipper (‘‘Prince Whipper Whip’’), Jennifer Lopez, Christopher Lee Rios (‘‘Big Punisher’’), Angie Martinez, and Joseph Cartagena (‘‘Fat Joe’’), helped to solidify the presence of Caribbean traditions in largely African American music arenas. Contemporary Caribbean Influences on African American Popular Music Much of the widespread and consistent influence of Caribbean music and artists on the American popular culture music scene has come in recent years. Singer Rihanna is an example of this new wave of artists. Rihanna, whose real name is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, was born in Saint Michael, Barbados, to Ronald and Monica Fenty. Rihanna’s break onto the American music scene came in 2003 when she was introduced at the age of fifteen to American music producer Evan Rogers. Eventually Shawn Carter (‘‘Jay-Z’’) of the mostly African American R & B and hip-hop studio, Def Jam Recordings, signed her to his label.

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It is obvious that Caribbean Americans have influenced all facets of African American popular culture. See also: Aerosol Art; Reggae, Reggaeton Further Reading Candelario, Ginetta. 2007. Black Behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Davis, Stephen, and Peter Simon. 1983. Reggae International. London: Thames and Hudson. Hirsh, Arnold R., and Joseph Logsdon. 1992. Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992. Palmer, Colin A. 2006. Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Poitier, Sidney. 2000. The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography. San Francisco: HarpersCollins. Rivera, Raquel Z. 2003. New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tomeiko Ashford Carter

Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Ture) (1941–98), Civil Rights Activist Stokely Carmichael was an important and controversial leader during the Civil Rights Movement. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on November 15, 1941. When he was seven years old, he moved to New York City with his parents and four sisters. Carmichael graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1960. In the fall of 1960, he enrolled at Howard University in Washington, DC. He led the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), a student protest organization that challenged segregation and discrimination. He participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides and was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. Carmichael also began to collaborate with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Carmichael graduated from Howard University in 1964 and joined SNCC during the ‘‘Freedom Summer’’ project in Mississippi. Southern blacks had been effectively disenfranchised in the South since the Reconstruction Era of the late nineteenth century. A coalition of civil rights groups mounted an effort to register African American voters. Hundreds of white students from northern colleges were recruited to participate in the effort. Carmichael was appointed regional coordinator of SNCC projects in the Mississippi Delta, where he organized the voter registration drives. During the spring of 1965, Carmichael organized the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. The Black Panther was the symbol for their organization. Carmichael was the first to chant the phrase ‘‘black power,’’ which became the slogan for the Black Power Movement. In Black Power: Politics of Liberation in America Carmichael defined Black Power as ‘‘a

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call for black people in this country to unite . . . to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.’’ In May 1966, Carmichael succeeded John Lewis as chair of SNCC. Carmichael had a charismatic presence and was a mesmerizing orator. His speeches challenged the white establishment in confrontational terms. During this period an ideological rift developed inside of SNCC. Some insiders advocated separatism and Black Nationalism. Others wanted to adhere to SNCC’s commitment to nonviolence and racial integration. Carmichael’s colStokely Carmichael, an effective leader of the leagues became increasingly disturbed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee by the excesses of his celebrity. Some (SNCC), brought the concept of black power began to refer to him as ‘‘Stokely into the U.S. civil rights struggle. In 1967, Starmichael.’’ Carmichael, an advocate of militancy rather Under Carmichael’s leadership, than nonviolent cooperation, broke with SNCC and joined the more radical Black SNCC became enmeshed in a tangle of political and personal crises, Panthers. (Library of Congress) infighting, and fatigue. SNCC was targeted by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, in which covert efforts were employed to disrupt protest groups. In 1967, Carmichael was given a letter of expulsion from SNCC. Carmichael subsequently joined the Black Panther Party in California, where he served briefly as the prime minister of that organization. Carmichael cut a wide swath, but he burned a lot of bridges. In 1968, Carmichael began slowly to fade from the American consciousness. He married a South African singer, Miriam Makeba, and changed his name to Kwame Ture. In 1969, Ture and Mekeba moved to Conakry, Guinea, where he worked as an aide to Prime Minister Ahmed Sekou Tour
e. Ture organized the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, where he served as chair. Ture and Makeba separated in 1973 and were divorced. Ture later married Marlyatou Barry, a Guinean physician. That marriage ended in divorce after producing a son, Bokar. Ture died of prostate cancer on November 15, 1998. A radical to the end, Ture’s telephone greeting to callers was ‘‘ready for the revolution.’’ Further Reading Carmichael, Stokely, and Michael Thelwell. 2003. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture]. New York: Scribner.

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Hogan, Wesley C. 2007. Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Peniel, Joseph. 2006. Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. New York: Henry Holt. Leland Ware

Carroll, Diahann (1935– ), Singer, Actress Diahann Carroll, born Carol Diann Johnson, is an American singer and actress whose career spans more than fifty years. Her premier parts include playing Barbara Woodruff in the 1962 Broadway production No Strings, for which she won a Tony Award; her groundbreaking role in 1968’s Julia, a prime-time television show in which she played a widowed nurse with a young son and became the first black actress to star in her own show; and the divisive diva, Dominique Deveraux, in the nighttime soap opera Dynasty. She received an Emmy nomination and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her work on Julia. Carroll also earned critical acclaim for her movie portrayal of Claudine, a single mother raising six children in Harlem, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1975. She has received numerous nominations for her dramatic and comedic performances. When Carroll was just sixteen years old, she and a friend tried out for Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts television show. She was selected to appear on the show and won first prize along with an invitation to be a guest on Arthur Godfrey’s radio program for the next three weeks. Afterwards, she continued to sing in a variety of venues. She got her first film role at nineteen, playing the friend of Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones, based on the opera Carmen. Carroll’s first starring role was House of Flowers, a Broadway musical. In 1959, the twenty-fouryear-old Carroll took on the role of Clara in the George Gershwin classic, Porgy and Bess, with Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sidney Poitier. Throughout her career, Carroll has appeared in more than one hundred television shows, films, and theatrical productions; she has more than twenty-five recordings to her credit. In recognition of her body of work, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Diahann Carroll was born Carol Diann Johnson on July 17, 1935, in the Bronx, New York, the first child of John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel Faulk Johnson, a homemaker. Carroll has a younger sister, Lydia. When Carroll was ten years old, she earned a Metropolitan Opera scholarship to the High School of Music & Art, where Billy Dee Williams later joined her as a classmate. She went on to New York University for a brief time before pursuing her career full-time. Carroll married her first husband, casting director Monte Kay, in 1956. They had one child, Suzanne Kay Bamford, a media journalist. The couple divorced in 1963. Ten years later, Carroll married Las Vegas boutique owner Fredde Glusman,

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divorcing him after three months. Robert DeLeon, a managing editor for Jet magazine, was Carroll’s third husband. They were married in 1975, and he was killed in an automobile accident in 1977. She married singer Vic Damone in 1987. They were divorced in 1996. Carroll also had long-time relationships with British talk show host David Frost and Sidney Poitier, her costar in Porgy and Bess and Paris Blues. In 1998, Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery and radiation treatment and has been cancer-free for more than ten years. Since her bout with cancer, she has engaged in a campaign to educate women about the disease. Further Reading Carroll, Diahann, with Bob Morris. 2008. The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way. New York: HarperCollins. Carroll, Diahann, with Ross Firestone. 1986. Diahann: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown. Film Bug. http://www.filmbug.com/db/98000. Tavis Smiley Show. ‘‘Diahann Carroll.’’ http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/ 200810/20081017_carroll.html. Marilyn L. Roseboro

Carson, Benjamin S. (1951– ), Pediatric Neurosurgeon Benjamin S. Carson is a pediatric neurosurgeon whose successful career has propelled him to become one of the most important figures in medicine, as well as popular culture. Carson’s success is underscored by his humble beginnings and race. He transcended obstacles that have historically limited the future outlook of African American children and youth. He would go on to appear on television and magazine covers. Carson, the author of three books, is the subject of a documentary and made-for-television movie. He is also the recipient of prestigious awards, such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and titles, such as one of the nation’s foremost physicians and scientists. As a modern day hero, he is honored by African American media, magazines, and scholars. Benjamin Solomon Carson’s life began on September 18, 1951, in Detroit, Michigan. His early childhood was fraught with disadvantages and challenges. His mother, Sonya Carson, dropped out of school in the third grade and married, at only thirteen years old, a preacher, Robert Solomon Carson. Carson’s parents divorced when he was eight and his older brother was ten. Exacerbating Carson’s difficult life was his struggle with anger and poor academic performance. Sonya, who worked up to three jobs at a time to support her sons, nonetheless was actively involved in her children’s education. For one, she prohibited her children from watching television so they would focus on their homework. She also insisted that her sons read books in addition to their regular assigned schoolwork

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and prepare reports on what they read. Benjamin Carson attributes to his mother the subsequent positive change in his life. In the process of reading, Carson discovered that he enjoyed learning; his grades improved, and, eventually, he learned how to control his anger. Carson’s rise from poor student to academic star took place in the turbulent milieu of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement. Civil rights leaders and organizations launched protests against discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow in the South. The high-profile marches, sit-ins, and other demonstrations were chronicled by mainstream and black news nationwide. It was, however, the images of white mobs attacking black and white nonviolent activists that sparked global empathy towards the cause of civil rights. The civil rights act of 1964, which eliminated segregation, is considered one of the most important laws in American history; it launched the beginning of a new world for African Americans in the South. However, in northern cities, like Detroit, racism, poverty, unemployment, police brutality, and other social ills plagued African Americans, resulting in violent outbreaks in black ghettos. Carson was in his mid-teens when a riot erupted in Detroit in 1967. The riot was triggered by police officers who raided a nightclub where a welcome home party for Vietnam veterans was taking place. In protest, blacks rioted. Police and the National Guard intervention did not immediately alleviate the crisis. The riot lasted five days. In the aftermath, ‘‘43 people lay dead, 1189 injured and over 7000 people had been arrested,’’ according to The Detroit Riots. Detroit continues to be a city that is riddled with crime, unemployment, and other social problems. The social problems that surrounded Carson, however, did not hinder his ambitions. After graduating from high school, Carson attended college, a route in which African American youth remain largely underrepresented. Carson received a degree in psychology at the prestigious, predominately white Yale University in 1973 and then went on to the University of Michigan medical school. He married his wife, Candy Rustin, in 1975; they have three sons. In the decade of the 1970s, Carson entered the medical field when African Americans were slowly breaking into American society and advancing in professional careers. The definitive moment in Carson’s career was the surgical separation of Siamese twins, Patrick and Benjamin Binder of West Germany, in 1987. This procedure is considered highly dangerous. Successful separations were rare and usually resulted in the death of one of the siblings. Carson headed a team of seventy individuals. Planning for the procedure took five months, and the actual surgery lasted for over twenty hours. Carson’s successful surgery was a major media event; both babies survived. For African Americans, Carson’s accomplishment was an especially important moment in history. Since the nineteenth century, African Americans have honored the achievements of blacks in history. One of the most prominent icons in black history was Daniel Hale Williams, one of few African Americans in the medical field who triumphed over a racist society to become a surgeon. Born in 1856, Williams is heralded as one of the pioneers of heart surgery. He died in 1931, a hero among

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African Americans but scarcely recognized, if at all, by mainstream society. Carson represents one of the most widely recognized African American icons in history. Moreover, he is a modern role model for black youth and children. Carson’s accomplishments continued to be chronicled in mainstream news as he regularly received awards and honors for his achievements. In 1994, he received an Essence Award. In 2001, CNN, Time, and the Library of Congress recognized Carson as one of the most prominent figures in the United States. In 2006, the NAACP awarded Carson the Spingarn Medal, and, in 2008, President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Carson remains committed to youth and the community, and vocal about his religious beliefs. In addition to public speaking, he is a cofounder of the Carson Scholars Fund. He has written three inspiring books, his autobiography, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), Think Big (1992), and The Big Picture (2000). Actor Cuban Gooding Jr. portrays him in a 2009 made-for-television movie, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. See also: Medicine, Health, and Healing

Further Reading Carson, Ben, and Murphey, Cecil. 1990. Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Association. Carson, Ben, and Murphey, Cecil. 1992. Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992. Rutgers.edu. The Detroit Riots–1967. http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm. Gladys L. Knight

Carter, Stephen L. (1954– ), Law Professor, Writer Stephen Lisle Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University and a popular nonfiction and fiction writer. Carter was born in Washington, DC, on October 26, 1954, one of five offspring of Emily and Lisle C. Carter Jr., a lawyer who was employed by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations prior to becoming a college professor and administrator. Carter attended public schools in New York City, Washington, and Ithaca, New York, before receiving his BA degree from Stanford University in 1976 and his JD degree from Yale Law School in 1979. From 1979 to 1980, Carter was a law clerk for Judge Spottswood Robinson III in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and from 1980 to 1981, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

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prior to brief employment as an associate at Shea and Gardner, a law firm in the nation’s capital. Since 1982, Carter has taught at Yale Law School. Although Carter made history at Yale in 1991 when he became the youngest faculty member to be promoted to the title of the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, and his articles appear in law reviews, he has gained even greater prominence beyond academe for his book-length publications. One of Carter’s most well known nonfiction works is his first book, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991), where he introduces the term, the ‘‘‘best black’ syndrome’’ to describe the tendency by employers and schools to seek the best African American rather than the best person. To illustrate his point, Carter recounts an ironic incident from decades earlier when he applied for admission to various law schools. He was rejected by Harvard after officials assumed he was white; yet the decision was reversed when the officials realized he was African American. Carter’s additional nonfiction includes The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (1993); Confirmation Mess: Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process (1994); Integrity (1996); Dissent of the Governed: A Mediation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty (1998); Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy (1998); and God’s Name in Vain: How Religion Should and Should Not Be Involved in Politics (2000). As a widely read author, Carter is recognized as a public intellectual who generates dialogue on topics related to his aforementioned books and other timely issues; thus he continues to appear on talk shows and write for popular periodicals. In 2001 Carter received a $4.2 million advance from the Knopf Publishing Group, a division of Random House, for two novels. The advance was reported to be one of the highest for a debut novel. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), stayed on the New York Times Best Sellers List for eleven weeks and was the Today show’s first book club selection. The Emperor of Ocean Park, a legal thriller, and Carter’s next two best-selling novels, New England White (2007), a campus thriller; and Palace Council (2008), a political thriller, introduce affluent, highly educated African American characters to the mainstream American reading public. His fourth novel is the spy thriller, Jericho’s Fall (2009). Carter, the recipient of various honorary degrees and other awards such as the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction-Literature and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, lives with his wife, Enola G. Aird, and their two children near New Haven, Connecticut. Further Reading Berkeley, Christopher. ‘‘Stephen L. Carter.’’ 2008. In African American National Biography, Vol. 2. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Nelson, Michael. 2003. ‘‘Stephen L. Carter: The Christian as Contrarian.’’ Virginia Quarterly Review 79 (Summer): 487–97. Linda M. Carter

Cartoons and Cartoonists Cartoons refer to drawings or illustrations with captions in newspapers and magazines and animated illustrations in film shorts and television programs. Cartoonists are individuals who draw cartoons and frequently write the storylines and captions for cartoons. For most of the twentieth century, African American cartoonists were limited to the black press, where they produced positive and relevant black images to large African American audiences. These images were critical to African American popular culture, functioning as a defense against the offensive and stereotypical depictions of African Americans in mainstream cartoons. Over time, black cartoonists and some white cartoonists helped to bring positive black characters and cartoons into the mainstream. The Civil Rights Movement also played a prominent role in the increasing number of black cartoon characters and cartoonists in the industry. Although African American cartoons and cartoonists have increasingly flourished over the years, the American cartoon industry continues to be dominated by whites. In the early twentieth century, American cartoonists portrayed Africans and African Americans in disparaging ways, reflecting the prevalence of racism in American society. Many cartoons featured white protagonists who encountered Africans. Africans were commonly illustrated in grass skirts with bulbous eyes and excessively large mouths and dark skin, and they were depicted as savages, cannibals, and inferior to whites. In Frederick Burr Opper’s cartoon strip, Happy Hooligan, his white protagonist, Happy, encounters African savages in ‘‘Alphonse, Gaston and Their Friend Leon in Darkest Africa,’’ a strip that appeared in 1903. In that strip, Happy devises a plan to save himself from the Africans’ plans to eat him or force him to be their king. Early twentieth-century cartoonists depicted African Americans in no better light than Africans. According to Str€omberg, African Americans appeared in comics with physical traits similar to Africans, ‘‘bubble-lipped,’’ bug-eyed, and dark-skinned; women, in particular, were frequently portrayed as mammies and domestics in headscarves and aprons. The ubiquitous image of blacks eating watermelon, gaping and looking buffoonish, appeared in short films as well as the printed page. Although William Marriner’s Sambo was depicted as a protagonist, his appearance, large eyes and mouth, big, wooly hair, patched pants, and antics continually reinforced negative stereotypes. In most popular cartoons, like Felix the Cat, Moon Mullins, and Hairbreadth Harry, according to Str€omberg, blacks were confined to inferior roles, such as ‘‘servants, maids, janitors, bellhops, and the like.’’ These depictions, however, reinforced the real-life inferior status of most African Americans in the early twentieth century, where racial

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segregation was the rule in the South, and African Americans, throughout the nation, were denied economic, social, and political advancement in mainstream society. The depictions also demonstrated how racism was deeply ingrained and tolerated in society. Notwithstanding the realities of blatant racism in everyday life and the oppressive conditions African Americans faced, an increasing number of African Americans attended college, entered professional careers, and made important contributions to the world. A substantial number of African Americans became cartoonists, creating positive black cartoon characters for the African American community. The 1930s signaled a wave of black cartoons and African American cartoonists. Elmer Simms Campbell, who was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, was the first African American cartoonist to publish in mainstream publications. He began his career with Esquire in 1933. The first African American woman cartoonist, Jackie Ormes, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1911, debuted in 1937 with her comic strip, Dixie to Harlem, in the African American newspaper, Pittsburgh Courier. In the same year, she created the comic strip, Torchy Brown, which, Str€ omberg writes, featured ‘‘an intelligent, self-reliant Black career woman, whose stories showed her fighting racism, sex discrimination, and environmental hazards.’’ Positive black characters like Torchy, and historic African American figures that appeared in the black press in the 1950s, served as powerful role models that helped to counteract the barrage of negative images that persisted in mainstream cartoons for several decades. The mainstreaming of black characters and cartoons and the reimagining of formerly derogatory black characters were influenced largely by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. During this movement, the struggle for civil rights and issues such as discrimination, racism, and racial exclusion, made headlines in newspapers and on television. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a prominent civil rights organization, waged battles against segregation, as well as the rampant disparaging portrayals of blacks in films, advertisements, and other media forms. Finally, in 1965, African American cartoonist Morrie Turner published Wee Pals, a comic strip that featured diverse children, thus promoting integration and multiculturalism. In 1966, Marvel Comics featured its first major black superhero, the Black Panther. (Storm was the first major female black comic book superhero in 1975.) In 1968, Franklin, an African American character, was added to the mainstream comic strip, Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz. Although blacks continued to be depicted in negative ways in this period, a number of mainstream cartoonists began making progressive changes, eventually doing away with racist and stereotypical imagery. In 1972, the inner-city, all-black cartoon series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids debuted on television and ran until 1985. Since the 1990s, African American cartoonists have appeared with increasing frequency. Robb Armstrong’s Jump Start and Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks are among the most popular cartoons to appear in mainstream. Barbara Brandon is the only African American woman cartoonist to be nationally syndicated, with

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her comic strip Where I’m Coming From, portraying the lives of young African American women. Although African American cartoonists are thriving in a climate in which images are censored more than ever before, black cartoonists, characters, and cartoons continue to be underrepresented. Further Reading ‘‘Crusaders with Pen and Ink—African American Cartoonists.’’ 1993. Ebony 58 (January): 36, 38, 40, 42. Foster, William H. 2005. Looking for a Face Like Mine. Waterbury, CT: Fine Tooth Press. Goldstein, Nancy. 2008. Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Lehman, Christopher P. 2007. The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907–1954. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Str€ omberg, Frederik. 2003. Black Images in the Comics: A Visual History. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books. Walker, David. ‘‘Black Hole: Why Aren’t There More Black Superheroes?’’ MSN.com. http://paralleluniverse.msn.com/comic-con/black-superheroes/story/feature/. Gladys L. Knight

Carver, George Washington (1864–1943), Scientist, Researcher George Washington Carver remains a central figure in popular culture due to his ingenious ability to produce over four hundred products from the peanut, pecans, sweet potato, and other sources. He developed an interest in plants at an early age and through this interest he was able to help poverty-stricken African American farmers in the South later on. Carver assisted these farmers by sharing information on rotating crops and alleviating their malnutrition with the protein from the peanut. Carver was born near Diamond Grove, Missouri, in 1864, to a slave mother. Little is known about his father, who was killed before Carver’s birth, but it is commonly believed that he, too, was a slave on a neighboring farm. It is reported that Carver’s mother and sisters were kidnapped by raiders. Carver and his older brother were raised by Moses and Susan Carver, the owners of young George and his family. As was common in the nineteenth century, Carver was not permitted to attend school because of the color of his skin. He had a desire to learn and a love of plants from an early age. In the 1870s, he was sent to Neosho, Missouri, for schooling, but before long Carver realized that he knew as much as his teacher. He left and traveled to Fort Scott, Kansas, and then through out the state; he went on to Iowa and Missouri, supporting himself by working odd jobs in his quest for an education. In 1890, Carver began studying art at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. In search of a more secure future, he left Simpson College to study agriculture at Iowa

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State. He was the only African American student at Iowa State. In addition to teaching freshmen at Iowa State, Carver worked as a botany assistant and managed the greenhouse. He earned his master’s degree in agricultural science in 1896. Carver’s professors witnessed his abilities in the study of cross-fertilization and mycology. In 1896, Booker T. Washington, the founder and principal of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, asked Carver to head the agricultural department at his school. Carver accepted and not only took his knowledge to Tuskegee but he brought his contacts as well. He knew three U.S. secretaries of agriculture: James Wilson and Henry A. Wallace, both of whom taught Carver, and Wallace’s son, Henry C. Wallace. In addition to giving financial support, the secretaries granted access to presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Upon Carver’s arrival at Tuskegee, he faced a number of challenges: lack of money, lack of facilities for classes and laboratories for experiments, lack of interest in agriculture, and rampant poverty and malnutrition of rural minority farmers. Booker T. Washington and Carver had numerous conflicts due to Carver’s inaptitude at administrative tasks. Carver was not fired from Tuskegee due to his contacts, teaching, and research. Despite numerous invitations to work at more affluent institutions, Carver remained at the school where he could bring the most help to his fellow African Americans. His primary goal was to assist in ending the cycle of debt and poverty brought about by the dependency on sharecropping and cash crops like cotton. In his work, Carver used then-current technology, which relied on available and renewable resources. He shared his knowledge with others who had no connection or affiliation with Tuskegee. He used outreach programs, bulletins, and a wagon set up as a mobile classroom to reach as many as people as possible throughout the rural area where the school was located. Carver used these tools to teach area farmers to improve their soil without using commercial grade fertilizers, to make paints from particular types of clay, and to grow crops that eventually replaced purchased wares. One of the crops Carver encouraged farmers to grow was peanuts. He encouraged area farmers to alternate crops in planting seasons, such as an exchange between cotton and peanuts. Due to this practice, peanut supplies were large, resulting in lower prices for the crops. This motivated Carver to develop uses for peanuts and products made from them. His knowledge of peanuts helped to alleviate malnutrition in the rural parts of the South; he shared the information with others that peanuts were a valuable source of protein. He only patented three of his five hundred inventions, reasoning that his inventions were a gift from God, therefore he could not sell them. He accepted only a part of his salary and with his thrifty spending habits he was able to donate his life savings to encourage more research in agricultural science. Carver never married. He was a role model to many Tuskegee students and provided monetary and personal support to them. As well, he was a role model to all African Americans, becoming one of the most well-known African Americans of his time. With Booker T. Washington’s death in 1915, Carver was free of Washington’s shadow and stepped into the limelight left vacant.

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In 1916, Carver was appointed to the Royal Society of Arts in London, England. In 1921, he testified at a congressional hearing on tariffs. He won the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1923 for the vast advances he made in agriculture. Carver made quiet stands against segregation, but he never made public statements on any racial or political issue. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the Young Men’s Christian Association sent Carver on a lecture tour of white campuses during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite never earning more than $1,200 a year, Carver accumulated $60,000 in his lifetime—a respectable sum in those years. In 1940, he used his savings to found the George Washington Carver Foundation, whose goal is to support scientific research; this continues today at Tuskegee University. Carver died on January 5, 1943, and was buried on the Tuskegee campus. A monument was erected in his honor near Diamond Grove, Missouri, near his birth site. He was featured on a U.S. postage stamp in 1948 and again in 1998; in the later series he is heralded among ‘‘the most memorable and significant people, places, events, and trends of each decade of the twentieth century.’’ Further Reading McMurray, Linda O. 2008. ‘‘Carver, George Washington.’’ In African American National Biography, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbothan, eds. New York: Oxford University Press. Myers, Aaron. 1999. ‘‘George Washington Carver.’’ In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and the African American Experience, 2nd. ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Basic Books. Smith, Jessie Carney. 1999. ‘‘George Washington Carver.’’ In Notable Black American Men. Jessie Carney Smith, ed. Detroit: Gale. Catherine Culver

Catlett, Elizabeth (1915– ), Sculptor, Printmaker, Painter, Multimedia Artist Elizabeth Catlett is a consummate artist, trailblazer, and devoted student of relevant and committed art. Although she had the choice of focusing on painting, in which she majored at Howard University, Catlett’s inquisitive and exploratory spirit had the better of her and she ended up exploring other media: ceramics, lithography, and sculpture—areas in which she has left a substantial body of work, many pieces of which, like her 1968 linocut Sharecropper, have become national icons. Beyond the passion and empathy that suffuse her work and the intensity and sensitivity with which they are rendered, there is the unmistakable connection between the artist as a maestro of the various media that she works in, and Catlett as a socially astute and politically sensitive persona. It is this fusion of medium and vision that has earned Catlett the national and international recognition that she enjoys. Her role as an artist is as important as her commitment to social justice and her advocacy for using art as a causative agent of change.

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Catlett, who was born in Washington, DC, on April 15, 1915, to John and Mary Carson Catlett, is the youngest of three children. Catlett, whose grandparents on both sides were slaves, received a sound education, no doubt because both of her middle-class parents were teachers. Her father, who died soon after Catlett was born, was a multidimensional individual who demonstrated skills in both the arts and the sciences. A sculptor, musician, and composer, he taught mathematics as in Washington, and also at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Catlett received her elementary, high school, and university education in Washington. After her elementary education at the Lucretia Mott Elementary School, she attended Dunbar High School, after which she gained admission to Howard University in 1932. There she studied with Lois Mailou Jones and James A. Porter, who influenced Catlett’s decision to major in painting. Howard University during Catlett’s time was a vibrant center for creative engagement and scholarly discussions on the place of the African American artist in a society grappling with racial dissonance. It was the institutional base of Alain Locke, the intellectual power behind the emergence of the ‘‘New Negro’’ that focused on the empowerment of the African American artist. James A. Porter, a young faculty member who taught painting, would go on to write Modern Negro Art, the book that blazed the trail in chronicling the history of African American artists. At Howard University, Porter mentored Catlett, exposed her to the work of Mexican muralists, and assisted in getting her a job at the mural division of the federal Public Works of Art Project in 1934. In 1935, Catlett graduated cum laude from Howard University and secured employment as a teacher in Durham, North Carolina, where she taught art in a black high school and exercised oversight for art in eight additional elementary schools. Catlett left two years later, appalled at the prevalent socioeconomic conditions in which students learned. In 1938, Catlett went to study with Grant Wood at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where, in 1940, she became the recipient of the first MFA degree ever awarded by the university. Although Catlett’s embrace of social causes came as a result of her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the antecedents for creating relevant art dates back to the late 1930s when, as a student at the University of Iowa, she took Grant Wood’s advice to heart and began focusing on subjects that she is most familiar with: her own people. Looking back at the influence of Wood on her career, according to Bearden and Henderson, Catlett remarked that her attitude and artistic perspective were shaped by racism: ‘‘Grant Wood, one of the first white people that I had contact with, emphasized that we should paint what we knew most intimately . . . and my people have always been just that—what I know most intimately.’’ Catlett’s ‘‘people’’ would eventually include those in Mexico, to which she first traveled in 1946. Quoted in Samella Lewis’s book, she said: ‘‘I decided a long time ago that mine is with the only people in the United States that call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister,’ and with the Mexicans who are trying to get food and freedom for everybody.’’

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Under the watchful direction of Grant Wood at Iowa, Catlett found her comfort level in sculpture, a medium that was not available while she was studying at Howard. By the time she graduated in 1940, she had become quite proficient in sculpting. Her Mother and Child, a limestone sculpture that she carved while at Iowa, won first prize in 1940 at the American Negro Exhibition in Chicago. That same year, Catlett studied ceramics at the Art Institute of Chicago, married her first husband, Charles Wilbert White—an artist who is remembered for his superb draftsmanship and powerfully rendered subjects, and secured employment as chair of the department of art at Dillard University in New Orleans. After a number of other positions and studies, she received a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship in 1946 and traveled to Mexico with Charles White. She became enchanted with life in Mexico and took advantage of the presence of notable Mexican sculptors and artists—Francisco Zuniga, Jose L. Ruiz, and Jose Elarese—to expand her knowledge of sculpture and the new culture and make lithographic work at the Taller de Grafica Popular. Catlett made the acquaintance of leading Mexican artists, including David Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and Leopold Mendez. In 1947, she married Francisco Mora after divorcing Charles White and decided to settle in Mexico permanently. The oeuvre of Catlett is a testimony to her staunch belief in the power of art to present and represent the fundamental tenets and socioeconomic conditions of the black and underprivileged peoples of the world. This principled stand has been a critical factor in the subject matter favored by Catlett, in the audiences that she has consistently been interested in cultivating, and in the style in which she has continued to express her concerns and apprehensions. As one who has devoted her entire life to the cause of employing art to speak for the downtrodden, her lithographic prints exert looming presences because of their ability to capture in economic lines the dignity and pride that her subjects exude despite the oppressive and brutal conditions under which they labor and toil. One of her most popular prints is Sharecropper, a 1968 linocut that depicts a compact and elegant woman who radiates strength and resoluteness even as she covers her head from the inclement weather with a large hat. In her 1975 linocut, Harriet, Catlett presents a messianic Harriet Tubman directing her people to freedom. The indomitable presence of Tubman is captured in swirling lines that symbolize her stature as a leader and catalyst. Catlett’s prints resonate with empathy for the multitude of poor, underclass, and overworked peoples, especially women workers and nursing mothers. In her life as well as in her work, Catlett has been consistent in using her art to critique the arrogant and disdainful manner in which many artists have continued to work, seemingly oblivious to the abject poverty that stares the poor in the face. It is an elitist approach that Catlett finds unacceptable: ‘‘I can’t do what white people with money want at the same time I’m doing what my people need.’’ Furthermore, Catlett believes—and, indeed, charges— that artists would benefit humanity if they would serve people’s needs. ‘‘We ought to stop thinking we have to do the art of other people. We have to create an art for liberation and for life.’’ Her sculptures are equally recognized for the fullness of their authority and presence. Whether they are full figures or busts, Catlett’s

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sculptures do not glamorize the penchant of the rich to indulge in art that induces pure contemplation at the expense of the poor. ‘‘I want the ordinary person to be able to relate to what I am doing. Working, figuratively, is the dues I must, want and am privileged to pay so that ordinary people can relate to my work at and get lost trying to figure out what it means. True art always comes from cultural necessity.’’ Catlett, who is the subject of several publications, has received numerous honors and awards in addition to having a string of solo exhibitions and group shows at national and international venues. In 1996, she was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of Iowa. In 2006, the Art Institute of Chicago made Catlett the first recipient of its Legends and Legacy Award, in addition to organizing an exhibition to commemorate its acquisition of an acquisition of five of her prints that date to the 1940s. Some of the places to see Catlett’s work include the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, Illinois; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museum of African American History, Detroit, Michigan; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York. Further Reading Bearden, Romare, and Harry Henderson. 1993. A History of African American Artists from 1792 to the Present. New York: Pantheon Books. Brenson, Michael, and Lowery Stokes Sims. 1998. Elizabeth Catlett Sculpture: A FiftyYear Retrospective. Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. Carroll, Valinda. ‘‘Samella Lewis Catlett Collection at the Hampton University Museum.’’ International Review of African American Art 21, no. 1 (2006): 59–61. Freeman, Linda. 1999. Elizabeth Catlett: Sculpting the Truth. Video recording. Chappaqua, NY: L&S Video. Herzog, Melanie. 2000. Elizabeth Catlett: An American Artist in Mexico. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Herzog, Melanie. 2005. Elizabeth Catlett: In the Image of the People. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago. LaDuke, Betty. 1991. Africa: Through the Eyes of Women Artists. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Lewis, Samella. 1994. African-American Art and Artists. Berkeley: University of California Press. University of Iowa Alumni Association. ‘‘The University of Iowa Presents: The Distinguished Alumni Awards: Elizabeth Catlett Mora.’’ July 21, 2008. http://www. iowalum.com/daa/mora.html. dele jegede

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Censorship and Offensive Language and Lyrics Needless to say, language is an essential element of African American popular culture. Language performs a variety of functions, such as serving as a vehicle for conveying information and providing entertainment. At times, readers and listeners accuse writers and speakers of crossing the line between appropriate and inappropriate expression. Thus, issues of offensive language, lyrics, and censorship continue to command attention and generate discussion. Ever since African men, women, and children were taken from their native countries, transported to North America via the traumatizing Middle Passage, and sold into slavery, African Americans have been subjected to verbal abuse. A documented example is found as early as 1773 with the publication of the first book by an African American, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Included in the book’s front matter is an attestation, signed by eighteen of Boston’s most prominent men, that Phillis Wheatley wrote Poems, yet they describe Wheatley, prior to her enslavement, as ‘‘an uncultivated Barbarian.’’ Furthermore, Wheatley’s first name may be perceived as an insult to her, for she was given the name of the slave ship Phillis that brought her to the United States. Slaves and free people of color were referred to by such derogatory terms as coon, coon jigger, darkie, mammy, pickaninny, and sambo. Although slavery was abolished, African Americans were granted voting rights, Jim Crow laws were struck down, and integration expanded opportunities for African Americans in education, employment, as well as housing, African Americans continued to hear and read disparaging racial comments throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Racist language is prevalent in the twenty-first century. On April 3, 2007, Rutgers University’s Scarlet Knights vied for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship and lost to the University of Tennessee’s Lady Volunteers, 59 to 46. The next day Don Imus, on his nationally syndicated radio show, Imus in the Morning, that was simulcast on MSNBC, stated that the African American players on the Rutgers team were ‘‘nappy-headed hos.’’ After hearing Imus’s racist and sexist comment, Bernard McGuirk, the show’s executive producer, described the championship game as ‘‘the jigaboos versus the wannabees.’’ Swift condemnation from prominent African Americans including then presidential candidate Barack Obama led to the cancellation of Imus’s show. Later that year, the Women in Sports Foundation presented the 2006–07 Rutgers team with the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award for reacting to the controversy with grace and dignity. Also in 2007, the NAACP, at its 98th Annual National Convention in Detroit, held a mock funeral and ‘‘buried’’ the N-word. On January 4, 2008, Kelley Tilghman, a Golf Channel anchor, said on air that young players attempting to challenge Tiger Woods should ‘‘lynch him in a back alley.’’ When Obama was elected the forty-fourth president of the United States on November 4, 2008, a number of political and media pundits began to proclaim that Obama’s victory ushered in a new era—postracial America. Yet less than one month after the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2009, a controversial cartoon published in the New York Post brought to the forefront the centuries-old practice of comparing African Americans to simians. The cartoonist, Sean Delonas,

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capitalized on the actual killing of a chimpanzee by Stamford, Connecticut, police after the animal attacked a woman. In the cartoon, a policeman states that the next stimulus bill will require a new writer. Many believed that the cartoonist was comparing the ape to President Obama, who had recently signed the stimulus plan. A number of individuals were indignant because they believed the cartoon was suggesting that the president should be assassinated, and protesters picketed outside the newspaper’s headquarters; ultimately, a weak apology was issued. In June 2009, another Obama family member became the victim of the simian comparison when Rusty Depass, a Republican activist and former South Carolina election commission chairman, remarked that a gorilla that escaped from the Riverbanks Zoo was Michelle Obama’s ancestor. One month later, a Boston police officer was suspended after calling Henry Louis Gates Jr. a ‘‘jungle monkey’’ in an e-mail to the Boston Globe and his fellow National Guardsmen. In August 2009, Costco, after receiving complaints from customers, removed from its shelves an African American doll wearing a cap with the words ‘‘Lil’ Monkey’’ and hugging a monkey. African Americans are not always the victims of offensive language; sometimes they are the verbal offenders. Tiger Woods, when angered on the golf course, has been known to curse. Serena Williams, during the September 12, 2009 semifinal match at the U.S. Open, reacted to a questionable call by a line judge with anger and profanity for which she was penalized a point and fined $10,000 by the U.S. Tennis Association and $82,500 by the Grand Slam Tournament Committee. Of course athletes are not the only celebrities to use offensive language. Many of today’s African American comedians, following in the footsteps of such comedic icons as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, frequently use profanity in their standup routines. A number of the younger comedians launched or advanced their careers on Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam, which was produced by the Hip-Hop mogul, aired on HBO from 1992 to 1997, and featured an abundance of profanity. Eddie Griffin, who appeared on Def Comedy Jam, was invited to perform at the 14th Annual Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf and Tennis Challenge’s benefit concert after he agreed to refrain from using profane language. When he started using offensive language during his routine, Black Enterprise officials cut off Griffin’s microphone and terminated his performance. Legendary comedians Dick Gregory and Bill Cosby, noted for their ‘‘clean’’ routines, question the consistent use of profanity in comedy. Profanity was also used in Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam, which aired on HBO from 2002 to 2007. African Americans frowned at the use of derogatory works in the title of such works as Dick Gregory’s autobiography, Nigger (1964), and Sam Greenlee’s novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1969). When Ntozake Shange published her prize-winning, controversial, and dramatic chorepoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1976), many in the black community also considered the word ‘‘colored’’ offensive and archaic, and it was still used by some whites to refer to and degrade blacks. Although questionable language is a staple of African American urban novels such as Wahida Clark’s Thug Lovin’ (2009), it is more widespread in music. As early as 1988, with the release of 2 Live Crew’s sexually explicit Move Somethin’, record albums began to be released in ‘‘clean’’ and ‘‘dirty’’ versions. The group’s next album, As Nasty as They Wanna

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Be (1989), included a parental advisory label, and, in 1990, it was the first album to be proclaimed obscene by a federal court judge in the United States. Luther Campbell, a member of 2 Live Crew, mounted a media campaign complaining that the judge’s ruling violated the First Amendment. Later that year, 2 Live Crew won an acquittal of all obscenity charges. Also in the 1990s, prominent civil rights activist C. DeLores Tucker began campaigning against misogynistic and sexually explicit lyrics in rap music. She protested the NAACP’s nomination of Tupac Shakur for one of the organization’s Image Awards, and she purchased Time-Warner stock so she could attend the company’s 1995 shareholders’ meeting and insist that the record executives read the rap lyrics out loud; they refused. One year later, Shakur’s All Eyez on Me album was released on February 13th, and on September 13th, the rapper was murdered in Las Vegas. After Shakur’s death, Tucker filed a slander suit against his estate claiming that songs on All Eyez on Me defamed her character. Although Shakur made derogatory comments about Tucker in several of the songs on the album, the suit was dismissed. In April 2007, Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Recordings, called on record company officials and broadcasters to remove or bleep three words: the Nword, ho, and b****. A few weeks later on May 3rd, Al Sharpton led more than three hundred individuals on a March for Decency in New York City. One of the participants was Kurtis Walker, who is better known as Kurtis Blow. His 1980 single, ‘‘The Breaks,’’ was rap music’s first certified gold record. Sharpton announced that the group was marching for standards rather than censorship, and they stopped at the offices of Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group before ending the march at the Apollo Theater where they commemorated posthumously the 74th birthday of James Brown. Brown had asked rap artists to refrain from sampling his lyrics if their songs contained offensive language. As long as offensive language and lyrics are found in newspapers, magazines, and books as well as on television, radio, and the Internet, it seems likely that individuals will continue to question and debate issues concerning appropriateness, respect, tolerance, and censorship. See also: Rap Music and Rappers Further Reading Asante, Molefi Kete. 1998. ‘‘Identifying Racist Language: Linguistic Acts and Signs.’’ In Communicating Prejudice. Michael L. Hecht, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Asim, Jabari. 2007. The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kennedy, Randall. 2002. Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. New York: Pantheon. Kilgore, Adam. ‘‘For Rutgers Players, a Great Run Spoiled.’’ Washington Post, E3, April 11, 2007. http://www.proquest.com. O’Connor, John J. ‘‘Television View: The Curse of Incessant Cursing.’’ New York Times, A1, July 31, 1994. http://www,proquest.com. Wright, John D. 2001. The Language of the Civil War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Linda M. Carter

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Chamberlain, Wilt (1936–99), Professional Basketball Player Wilt Chamberlain—known as ‘‘Wilt the Stilt’’ and ‘‘The Big Dipper’’—forced changes in the way basketball was played and governed because of his enormous size. He once scored 100 points in a game and averaged more than 50 that season. He also, quite notoriously, once claimed to have had sex with twenty thousand women in his lifetime. Wilton Norman Chamberlain was born August 21, 1936, in Philadelphia, but barely survived childhood. He missed a year of school because of pneumonia. He grew to 6 feet by age ten and excelled at track and field. Scoring, rebounding, and blocking shots virtually at will, even when triple-teamed, he averaged 31 points in 1953 as a 6 foot 11 inch sophomore at Overbrook High School, which lost the city championship game despite his 29 points. In his junior year, Chamberlain scored a record 71 points in one game and led undefeated Overbrook to the championship. As a senior, he scored 74, 78, and 90 points in consecutive games on the way to another title. He set a high school record with 2,252 points in three years. Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk In his debut for the Kansas University, Chamberlain scored 52 points and grabbed 31 rebounds, both college records. He made first-team All-American and led KU to the NCAA final, where it lost 54–53 to North Carolina in overtime. Chamberlain also won the Big Eight high jump title three times. He averaged 30.1 points as a junior but decided to leave KU and turn professional. The NBA then did not accept players who left college early. Forced to wait a year, he played for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958 for $50,000—five times the average NBA salary. Becomes Pride of Philadelphia The Philadelphia Warriors claimed homegrown Chamberlain as a territorial draft pick. His $30,000 rookie salary was the NBA’s highest. He debuted with 43 points and 28 rebounds. His fourth game was against his old NCAA nemesis, Bill Russell, now of the Boston Celtics. Chamberlain outscored Russell, 30–28, but the Celtics won. Their rivalry became arguably the NBA’s greatest of all time. They met seven times in league playoffs; Chamberlain’s team prevailed only once. He averaged 37.6 points and 27 rebounds as a rookie, regular-season records, and was Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year, but the Warriors lost to the Celtics in the playoffs. Chamberlain set several untouchable records, averaging 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds in 1961–62. On March 2, 1962, he scored 100 points. In summer 1964, Chamberlain befriended seventeen-year-old Lew Alcindor in a playground league, but Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—as Alcindor later named himself—became unfriendly rivals as pros. The Warriors moved to San Francisco, but Chamberlain was traded back to the Philadelphia 76ers. Finally, in 1967, he outbattled Russell in a division

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series, and the 76ers defeated the Warriors for Chamberlain’s first title. He was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, who lost the 1971 conference series to rookie Abdul-Jabbar and the Milwaukee Bucks but won their 1972 playoff series. Badly injured, Chamberlain led the Lakers to their first NBA title, over the Knicks. Chamberlain retired a year later, holding numerous records for scoring, rebounding, and durability. Later on, the San Diego Conquistadors of the rival American Basketball Association signed Chamberlain as player-coach for $600,000. He was MVP four times and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978. He inspired rule changes involving lane width, offensive goaltending, and inbounding the ball. After retiring, Chamberlain played in the International Volleyball Association. He was offered $5 million to box Muhammad Ali in 1971 but refused. In his 1992 autobiography, he claimed his sexual encounters numbered about twenty thousand: ‘‘1.2 women a day, every day since I was fifteen years old.’’ He appeared in the movie Conan the Destroyer, made money in stocks and real estate, opened a popular Harlem nightclub, and invested in brood mares. After playing at 7 feet 1 inch and 300 pounds, Chamberlain remained in peak condition, though he suffered from an irregular heartbeat. In 1999, his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he lost fifty pounds. He died October 12, 1999, of congestive heart failure. Further Reading Chamberlain, Wilt. 1992. A View From Above. New York: Signet Books. Chamberlain, Wilt., and David Shaw. 1973. Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door. New York: Macmillan. Cherry, Robert. 2004. Wilt: Larger than Life. New York: Triumph Books. Pluto, Terry. 1992. Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA in the Words of the Men Who Played, Coached, and Built Pro Basketball. New York: Simon & Schuster. Pomerantz, Gary M. 2005. Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era. New York: Crown. Richard Kenney

Chaney, John (1932– ), College Basketball Coach When John Chaney retired in 2006 as the men’s basketball coach at Temple University in Philadelphia, the college game lost one of its most colorful and controversial coaches. For almost twenty-five seasons it was Chaney and his raspy voice and unkempt demeanor who prowled the sidelines as his Temple Owl players went against the best and some of the finest collegiate basketball teams on the national stage. The unbuttoned shirt, the sagging eyes, and Chaney’s bullish intensity were familiar and formidable to opposing coaches and players alike. Chaney’s NCAA tournament r
esum
e places him third in the categories of most tournament games coached and most tournament games won, behind only Eddie Sutton and Guy Lewis. During his career, Chaney amassed a record of 741 wins, including a 516–252 record at Temple, where he won seven Atlantic 10

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Conference titles. Only Bob Knight, the former Indiana University coach; Eddie Sutton, formerly of Oklahoma State and Kentucky; Lute Olson of Arizona; and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, still active coaches, have more wins. Chaney guided his Owl teams to 17 NCAA tournament appearances that included five regional final Elite Eight visits, but no trips to the Final Four championship round. He was twice named National Coach of the Year and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001. Chaney-coached teams played a smothering matchup zone combined with a ball-control offense that placed a premium on committing few turnovers. Throughout his career, Chaney was known to recruit and develop basketball players who came from broken homes, violent neighborhoods, and poor schools. Chaney was also known for a demanding work ethic that included having his players practicing at 5:00 a.m. for several hours, during which he lectured as much about life as basketball. ‘‘They just want to bounce the ball and dribble the ball, but I talk about things that are going to stay with them for the rest of their lives,’’ Chaney told ESPN in a documentary. ‘‘Somewhere along the line, it will reverberate and they’ll remember it.’’ Chaney had a knack for polishing mostly lightly recruited prospects into journeyman NBA players. They included Rick Brunson (1997–2005), Duane Causewell (1990–2000), Eddie Jones (1994–2007), Mark Macon (1991–98), Aaron McKie (1994–2006), and Tim Perry (1988–95). Chaney was born January 21, 1932, in Jacksonville, Florida. He played black college basketball at Bethune-Cookman College, as it was known then, before the NBA drafted from that talent pool. He played professionally in the Eastern League during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the six-time all-pro earned a reputation as a ferocious defender. In 1978, Chaney led Cheyney State College, a small black school in suburban Philadelphia (now Cheyney University), to the Division II national championship. He began coaching at Temple University in 1981. To some, Chaney the coach was also known as an intimidator. In 1984, he grabbed George Washington University coach Gerry Gimelstob by the shoulders at halftime of a game. In 1994, Chaney had a heated exchange following a game against the University of Massachusetts in which he threatened to kill University of Massachusetts coach John Calipari, who in 2010 coached the University of Kentucky. Chaney’s volcanic temper was mostly tolerated by fans and longtime observers aware of the coach’s hard-knocks life. They were not so sympathetic when, in 2005, the coach inserted a player he called a goon and instructed him to commit hard fouls because Chaney accused rival St. Joseph’s College of setting illegal screens. St. Joe’s player John Bryant was knocked in the air and he suffered a broken arm. Chaney apologized for instigating the rough play and he was suspended for five games. Further Reading Associated Press. 2006. ‘‘Longtime Temple Coach Cheney Retires.’’ March 13. http:// sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2366357.

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ESPN. 2008. ‘‘Black Magic’’ (documentary). March. Link to ‘‘All Things Considered’’ (NPR) story on this documentary: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/ mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=88206667&m=88292995. Thomas, Ron. 2002. They Cleared the Lane: The NBA’s Black Pioneers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Kip Branch

Chappelle, Dave (1973– ), Comedian, Actor, Writer, Producer David Khari Webber Chappelle, after signing a contract to continue his hit variety show on the Comedy Central network for two