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kemetic-dreams · 2 years ago

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Hannah Elias was one of the richest African women who ever lived, but because she was a sex worker who ultimately became the largest Black landlord in New York, she is largely unknown to Us...

Hannah Elias was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometimes during 1865 at 1820 Addison Street, one of nine children. Her father Charles Elias was a "negro with Indian blood in him" who ran a large, well-regarded catering operation, her mother Mary Elias was "almost white", and they sent her to public school. In 1884, to attend her sister Hattie's wedding in style, Hannah borrowed a ball gown without permission from her employer, leading to a sentence at Moyamensing Prison and her banishment from home.

On her own

Supporting herself as a sex worker at a "resort" owned by Emelyn Truitt in Manhattan's Tenderloin neighborhood, she met wealthy glass-factory owner John R. Platt, forty-five years her senior. She left the brothel when her twin brother David and suitor Frank P. Satterfield asked her to live with the latter in a boardinghouse in east Philadelphia. She became pregnant and gave birth at the Blockley Almshouse in December 1885, giving the child up for adoption.

Affair with John R. Platt

After Elias reunited with Platt, he gave her large sums of money, "volunteerd [sic] to start her in the boarding-house business", at 128 W 53rd Street, where as proprietress she rented a room to Cornelius Williams. She then moved into a mansion at 236 Central Park West, passing as Sicilian or Cuban. Williams later fatally shot city planner Andrew H. Green in front of Green's Park Avenue home, confusing him with Platt.

Blackmail case

When Platt, prodded by his family, accused her of blackmailing him out of $685,385, the affair merited The World's lead story on 1 June 1904, describing her as his "ebony enslaver". Asked about allegations that she had been blackmailed as well, she responded "I have read in the newspapers that I have been, and I am frank to say that there must be some truth in a story which is given so much in detail." The novelty of a Black woman with the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars, living in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York, caused the Seeing New York electric bus tours to make Elias's house a stop. Platt initially refused to swear a criminal complaint, but relented, allowing police serving a criminal warrant to break down her door, where they were escorted to Elias by her Japanese butler, Kato. At the time she said: "I have no fear. I have done no wrong, and every one of the poor people I have helped is praying for me in the time of my affliction." She was arraigned in Tombs Court on June 10, 1904.

Held on $30,000 bail, meetings at the house of R. C. Cooper at 318 W. 58th St. and 149 W. 43rd St. raised money for her release. When Platt was "asked directly about Hannah Elias he aimed blows at the reporter with his umbrella and shouted: 'Don't talk to me about Hannah Elias.'" The story spread, leading to detailed court coverage in the Baltimore Sun as she took the stand and described how her money was kept in "15 savings banks" as well as "houses and lands worth $150,000, furniture and plate, worth $100,000, and jewels valued at as much more." After losing his initial court case, the court of appeals eventually ruled against Platt, allowing her to keep his gifts.

Later life

In 1906, newspapers reported that Elias evicted white tenants from several apartment buildings on West 135th Street with a note reading, "in the future none but respectable colored families were to occupy the flats". She was rumored to have continued in this vein, named in a 1912 article titled "Negroes Crowding Whites" as the purchaser of a $250,000 apartment building at 546–552 Lenox Avenue; however, she refuted these claims through her lawyer, Andrew F. Murray, in 1906. By 1915 she was living in a penthouse in one of her "numerous properties" at 501 W. 113th St. She joined forces with noted Harlem developer John Nail but later left for Europe with her butler, Kato, never to return.

Her death date is unknown.

#elias #african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #afrakans #africans #brown skin #african culture

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shewhoworshipscarlin · 4 years ago

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Tim Moore

Tim Moore (December 9, 1887 – December 13, 1958) was an American vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show. He proudly stated, "I've made it a point never to tell a joke on stage that I couldn't tell in front of my mother."

Moore was born Harry Roscoe Moore in Rock Island, Illinois, one of 13 children of Harry and Cynthia Moore. His father was a night watchman at a brewery. Tim Moore dropped out of grammar school to work at odd jobs in town and even danced for pennies in the streets with his friend, Romeo Washburn.

In 1898, Moore and Washburn went into vaudeville in an act called "Cora Miskel and Her Gold Dust Twins." It was booked by agents and traveled through the United States and even Great Britain. As Moore and Washburn grew older, the act became less effective and Miss Miskel sent them back to their parents in Rock Island. Shortly after this, Moore joined the medicine show of "Doctor Mick" (Charles S. Mick), who sold a patented quack remedy called Pru-ri-ta. Doctor Mick travelled through the Midwestern states, with songs and dances provided by Moore and four Kickapoo Indians. The young man also worked in a carnival sideshow and gave guided tours as a "native" tour guide in Hawaii.

Moore left Doctor Mick, first to become a stable boy and later a jockey. He also tried his hand as a professional boxer under the name "Young Klondike" in 1905, and found it lucrative. He returned to performing in 1908, with a troupe of minstrels called "The Rabbit's Foot Company." By 1909, he was back in vaudeville and had met and married his first wife, Hester. They performed as a team, "The Moores - Tim & Hester", appearing in the United States and abroad. In 1910, the couple was part of an act called the Four Moores. By 1914, both Moores were co-stars of an act that was billed as Tim Moore and Tom Delaney & Co. The couple toured China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the Fiji Islands and Hawaii with a vaudeville troupe. The marriage ended in divorce in 1915, and in September, Moore married a vaudeville actress named Gertrude Brown. After more than a year on the road in vaudeville in the United States, the Hawaiian Islands, Australia and New Zealand, he returned to boxing once more as "Young Klondike", training in New Zealand. He fought there and in Australia, England, and Scotland. Before this, Moore fought as "Young Klondike" in the US, with Jack Johnson and Sam Langford as some of his opponents. Moore also made his way into films by 1915, playing the part of an egotistical musician in His Inspiration.

Moore became well known for his one-man presentation of Uncle Tom's Cabin, where he would play the role of both Simon Legree and Uncle Tom, applying white chalk to half his face, and burnt cork to the other. Moore literally took his one man act into the street of San Jose, California, for the sale of War Stamps in 1918.

n 1923, Moore and his wife co-starred with Sandy Burns, Fannetta Burns, Walter Long, and Bobby Smart in a silent film comedy, His Great Chance, directed by Ben Strasser (North State Film Corp.) The following year, the Moores toured vaudeville together in "Aces and Queens". Subsequently, he went on tour as one of the stars of producer Edward E. Daley's "black and white musical comedy sensation", Rarin' to Go, for three seasons on the Columbia Burlesque Wheel (1925, 1926 and 1927 editions).

In 1928, Moore took time off from his vaudeville bookings to try his luck once more on the Great White Way – Broadway. This time he met with enormous success as the star comedian of Lew Leslie's hit musical comedy revue, the Blackbirds of 1928. Moore's co-stars were singers Adelaide Hall and Aida Ward and renowned tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. The hit musical scored high in Paris and London as well as on the road throughout the states. In 1931, Moore and his then vaudeville straight man at the Alhambra, Andrew Tribble, performed one of their funniest routines in Oscar Micheaux's first talking picture, The Darktown Revue.

At the time the troupe was booked in 1936 in the United Kingdom, King Edward VIII had just abdicated the British throne for love of American Wallis Simpson. There was a wave of anti-Americanism, with women picketing performances of the Blackbirds, carrying signs disparaging American women. Yet the next season saw the return of the revue as Blackbirds of 1937, its last edition in England. Two years later, on Broadway, Lew Leslie presented the last edition of the Blackbirds (1939); the principal singing star was Lena Horne. Moore's last Broadway show was Harlem Cavalcade (1942), produced by Ed Sullivan and Noble Sissle. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Moore was one of the top comedians headlining at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He also performed on radio as a dramatic actor.

In 1948, CBS hired Flournoy Miller as a casting advisor for the planned Amos 'n' Andy TV series. They had failed to locate Tim Moore for the role of George "Kingfish" Stevens, a role which was created and voiced on radio by white actor Freeman Gosden. It was Miller's job to trace the actor's whereabouts. Meanwhile, in January 1950, Moore went to New York to perform at the Apollo and appear as guest star on CBS-TV's Toast of the Town. After fulfilling these engagements, Moore returned to Rock Island. A few months later, Flournoy Miller called the manager of the Apollo and finally received Moore's address. Moore did voice tests at CBS radio studios in Peoria and Chicago, and then was brought to CBS-TV in Hollywood for a screen test. He returned to Rock Island. Shortly after this, he was signed by Columbia Broadcasting System to star in a new television adaptation of Amos 'n' Andy. As the radio series had developed in prior years, the scheming but henpecked Kingfish had become the central focus of most of the plots. In the television version, Moore played the character more broadly, with louder and more forceful delivery and a distinctive Georgia drawl, exaggerated for comic effect. Moore's Kingfish dominated the calmer and soft-spoken "Amos 'n' Andy" characters. Early in his career, Moore had developed a "con-man" routine he used for many years while in vaudeville; re-working some aspects of his old act produced the television character Kingfish.

Moore was very popular in the show and for the first time in his career became a national celebrity as well as the first African American to win stardom on television. When leaving a train in Albuquerque to buy some Native American pottery, the proprietor recognized him immediately, saying, "You, you Kingfish." This was the first time it happened in Moore's 52 years in show business. The show aired on prime-time TV from June 1951 to June 1953. Although quite popular, the series was eventually canceled due to complaints about ethnic stereotyping. Shortly after the television show left the air, there were plans to turn it into a vaudeville act in August 1953, with Moore, Williams, and Childress playing the same characters. After the series was canceled, it was shown in syndication until 1966 when increasing condemnation and pressure from the NAACP persuaded the show's owners (CBS, which still owns the copyrights) to withdraw it from further exhibition. It was resurrected in the early days of home videotape through public domain video dealers who had acquired episodes from collectors of used 16mm TV prints, although the copyright was never in the public domain. Illegally produced copies continue to be sold over the internet. The series itself would not be seen on a regular basis again until independent network Rejoice TV began re-airing episodes in 2012.

Moore married his last wife Vivian Cravens (1912–1988) eight months after Benzonia's death; Moore fired a gunshot in his home because of his "mooching in-laws" (stepson, stepdaughter, and her husband) when he found that the last of the New Year's roast beef had been eaten by them. Moore related, "These free-loaders have eaten everything in the house. My wife protects them and every time we talk about it, we get into an argument. The argument got a little loud and the next thing I knew, the big boy (his stepson Hubbard) jumped out of his chair. I ran upstairs and got out my old pistol. I didn't want to hit anybody."

When the police arrived at the home, Moore, pistol still in his belt, told them, "I'm the old Kingfish, boys. I'm the one you want. I fired that shot. I didn't want to hit anyone, although I could have. Anyway, you should have seen the in-laws scatter when I fired that gun." The shot Moore fired hit the china cabinet; he was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, with police calling him the "funniest prisoner in police history." Moore was initially ordered held on $1,000 bond; the judge changed his mind and released Moore on his own recognizance. Tim and his wife reconciled, with Vivian's pleading for the charges to be dropped. Moore entered a not guilty plea before the case went to trial on March 24. He received a $100 fine and a year's probation as his sentence.

Because of the "Roast Beef Scandal," Moore was once more in demand and even received a testimonial tribute dinner from the Friars Club of Beverly Hills, and appearing on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. The publicity also won him an extended performance engagement at the legendary Mocambo nightclub.

Moore died at age 71 on December 13, 1958 of pulmonary tuberculosis in Los Angeles, four days after his birthday. There was no money to pay for his hospital care or for his funeral, Moore having received his final $65.00 residual payment from Amos 'n' Andy in January 1958. At one time, Moore had made $700 per week.

After a large funeral at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, he was buried at Rosedale Cemetery. At the funeral service, 10,000 fans and mourners passed his open coffin; attendance was star-studded and included Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Charlie Barnet, Noble Sissle, Erskine Hawkins, Louis Prima, Freeman F. Gosden, Charles Correll, Spencer Williams, Jr., Alvin Childress, Ernestine Wade, Amanda Randolph, Johnny Lee, Lillian Randolph, Sammy Davis, Jr., Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Andy Razaf, Clarence Muse, Roy Glenn, Mantan Moreland, Pigmeat Markham, Willie Bryant, Earl Grant. Sammy Davis, Jr. later related that Frank Sinatra organized the effort to pay Tim Moore's funeral expenses. Moore's grave remained unmarked from the time of his burial until 1983; fellow comedians Redd Foxx and George Kirby raised funds for a headstone. There is now one marking the graves of Moore and his wife, Vivian, who died in 1988.

In spite of his achievement as the first major African American television star, Moore is still not honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Moore_(comedian)

#black history month #actor #vaudeville

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Ralph Ellison

Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American novelist, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). For The New York Times, the best of these essays in addition to the novel put him "among the gods of America's literary Parnassus." A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left upon his death.

Early life

Ralph Waldo Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born at 407 East First Street in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap, on March 1, 1913. He was the second of three sons; firstborn Alfred died in infancy, and younger brother Herbert Maurice (or Millsap) was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison, a small-business owner and a construction foreman, died in 1916, after an operation to cure internal wounds suffered after shards from a 100-lb ice block penetrated his abdomen, when it was dropped while being loaded into a hopper. The elder Ellison loved literature, and doted on his children, Ralph discovering as an adult that his father had hoped he would grow up to be a poet.

In 1921, Ellison's mother and her children moved to Gary, Indiana, where she had a brother. According to Ellison, his mother felt that "my brother and I would have a better chance of reaching manhood if we grew up in the north." When she did not find a job and her brother lost his, the family returned to Oklahoma, where Ellison worked as a busboy, a shoeshine boy, hotel waiter, and a dentist's assistant. From the father of a neighborhood friend, he received free lessons for playing trumpet and alto saxophone, and would go on to become the school bandmaster.

Ida remarried three times after Lewis died. However, the family life was precarious, and Ralph worked various jobs during his youth and teens to assist with family support. While attending Douglass High School, he also found time to play on the school's football team. He graduated from high school in 1931. He worked for a year, and found the money to make a down payment on a trumpet, using it to play with local musicians, and to take further music lessons. At Douglass, he was influenced by principal Inman E. Page and his daughter, music teacher Zelia N. Breaux.

At Tuskegee Institute

Ellison applied twice for admission to Tuskegee Institute, the prestigious all-black university in Alabama founded by Booker T. Washington. He was finally admitted in 1933 for lack of a trumpet player in its orchestra. Ellison hopped freight trains to get to Alabama, and was soon to find out that the institution was no less class-conscious than white institutions generally were.

Ellison's outsider position at Tuskegee "sharpened his satirical lens," critic Hilton Als believes: "Standing apart from the university's air of sanctimonious Negritude enabled him to write about it." In passages of Invisible Man, "he looks back with scorn and despair on the snivelling ethos that ruled at Tuskegee."

Tuskegee's music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by composer William L. Dawson. Ellison also was guided by the department's piano instructor, Hazel Harrison. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent his free time in the library with modernist classics. He cited reading T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land as a major awakening moment. In 1934, he began to work as a desk clerk at the university library, where he read James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Librarian Walter Bowie Williams enthusiastically let Ellison share in his knowledge.

A major influence upon Ellison was English teacher Morteza Drezel Sprague, to whom Ellison later dedicated his essay collection Shadow and Act. He opened Ellison's eyes to "the possibilities of literature as a living art" and to "the glamour he would always associate with the literary life." Through Sprague Ellison became familiar with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, identifying with the "brilliant, tortured anti-heroes" of those works.

As a child, Ellison evidenced what would become a lifelong interest in audio technology, starting by taking apart and rebuilding radios, and later moved on to constructing and customizing elaborate hi-fi stereo systems as an adult. He discussed this passion in a December 1955 essay, "Living With Music," in High Fidelity magazine. Ellison scholar John S. Wright contends that this deftness with the ins-and-outs of electronic devices went on to inform Ellison's approach to writing and the novel form. Ellison remained at Tuskegee until 1936, and decided to leave before completing the requirements for a degree.

In New York

Desiring to study sculpture, he moved to New York City on 5 July 1936 and found lodging at a YMCA on 135th Street in Harlem, then "the culture capital of black America." He met Langston Hughes, "Harlem's unofficial diplomat" of the Depression era, and one—as one of the country's celebrity black authors—who could live from his writing. Hughes introduced him to the black literary establishment with Communist sympathies.

He met several artists who would influence his later life, including the artist Romare Bearden and the author Richard Wright (with whom he would have a long and complicated relationship). After Ellison wrote a book review for Wright, Wright encouraged him to write fiction as a career. His first published story was "Hymie's Bull," inspired by Ellison's 1933 hoboing on a train with his uncle to get to Tuskegee. From 1937 to 1944, Ellison had over 20 book reviews, as well as short stories and articles, published in magazines such as New Challenge and The New Masses.

Wright was then openly associated with the Communist Party, and Ellison was publishing and editing for communist publications, although his "affiliation was quieter," according to historian Carol Polsgrove in Divided Minds. Both Wright and Ellison lost their faith in the Communist Party during World War II, when they felt the party had betrayed African Americans and replaced Marxist class politics with social reformism. In a letter to Wright, dated August 18, 1945, Ellison poured out his anger with party leaders: "If they want to play ball with the bourgeoisie they needn't think they can get away with it. ... Maybe we can't smash the atom, but we can, with a few well chosen, well written words, smash all that crummy filth to hell." In the wake of this disillusion, Ellison began writing Invisible Man, a novel that was, in part, his response to the party's betrayal.

In 1938 Ellison met Rosa Araminta Poindexter, a woman two years his senior. They were married in late 1938. Rose was a stage actress, and continued her career after their marriage. In biographer Arnold Rampersad's assessment of Ellison's taste in women, he was searching for one "physically attractive and smart who would love, honor, and obey him--but not challenge his intellect." At first they lived at 312 West 122nd Street, Rose's apartment, but moved to 453 West 140th Street after her income shrank. In 1941 he briefly had an affair with Sanora Babb, which he confessed to his wife afterward, and in 1943 the marriage was over.

At the start of World War II, Ellison was classed 1A by the local Selective Service System, and thus eligible for the draft. However, he was not drafted. Toward the end of the war, he enlisted in the United States Merchant Marine. In 1946, he married Fanny McConnell, an accomplished person in her own right: a scholarship graduate of the University of Iowa who was a founder of the Negro People's Theater in Chicago and a writer for The Chicago Defender. She helped support Ellison financially while he wrote Invisible Man by working for American Medical Center for Burma Frontiers (the charity supporting Gordon S. Seagrave's medical missionary work). From 1947 to 1951, he earned some money writing book reviews but spent most of his time working on Invisible Man. Fanny also helped type Ellison's longhand text and assisted him in editing the typescript as it progressed.

Published in 1952, Invisible Man explores the theme of man's search for his identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of the first-person narrator, an unnamed African American man in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate, and self-aware. Through the protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is "invisible" in a figurative sense, in that "people refuse to see" him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel also contains taboo issues such as incest and the controversial subject of communism.

Later years

In 1964, Ellison published Shadow and Act, a collection of essays, and began to teach at Bard College, Rutgers University and Yale University, while continuing to work on his novel. The following year, a Book Week poll of 200 critics, authors, and editors was released that proclaimed Invisible Man the most important novel since World War II.

In 1967, Ellison experienced a major house fire at his summer home in Plainfield, Massachusetts, in which he claimed more than 300 pages of his second novel manuscript were lost. A perfectionist regarding the art of the novel, Ellison had said in accepting his National Book Award for Invisible Man that he felt he had made "an attempt at a major novel" and, despite the award, he was unsatisfied with the book. Ellison ultimately wrote more than 2,000 pages of this second novel but never finished it.

Ellison died on April 16, 1994 of pancreatic cancer and was interred in a crypt at Trinity Church Cemetery in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.

Awards and recognition

Invisible Man won the 1953 US National Book Award for Fiction.

The award was his ticket into the American literary establishment. He eventually was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received two President's Medals (from Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan) and a State Medal from France. He was the first African-American admitted to the Century Association and was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Harvard University. Disillusioned by his experience with the Communist Party, he used his new fame to speak out for literature as a moral instrument. In 1955 he traveled to Europe, visiting and lecturing, settling for a time in Rome, where he wrote an essay that appeared in a 1957 Bantam anthology called A New Southern Harvest. Robert Penn Warren was in Rome during the same period, and the two writers became close friends. Later, Warren would interview Ellison about his thoughts on race, history, and the Civil Rights Movement for his book Who Speaks for the Negro? In 1958, Ellison returned to the United States to take a position teaching American and Russian literature at Bard College and to begin a second novel, Juneteenth. During the 1950s, he corresponded with his lifelong friend, the writer Albert Murray. In their letters they commented on the development of their careers, the Civil Rights Movement, and other common interests including jazz. Much of this material was published in the collection Trading Twelves (2000).

Writing essays about both the black experience and his love for jazz music, Ellison continued to receive major awards for his work. In 1969, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the following year, he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France and became a permanent member of the faculty at New York University as the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, serving from 1970 to 1980.

In 1975, Ellison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his hometown of Oklahoma City honored him with the dedication of the Ralph Waldo Ellison Library. Continuing to teach, Ellison published mostly essays, and in 1984, he received the New York City College's Langston Hughes Medal. In 1985, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 1986, his Going to the Territory was published; this is a collection of seventeen essays that included insight into southern novelist William Faulkner and Ellison's friend Richard Wright, as well as the music of Duke Ellington and the contributions of African Americans to America's national identity.

In 1992, Ellison was awarded a special achievement award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; his artistic achievements included work as a sculptor, musician, photographer, and college professor as well as his writing output. He taught at Bard College, Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, and New York University. Ellison was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Legacy and posthumous publications

After Ellison's death, more manuscripts were discovered in his home, resulting in the publication of Flying Home and Other Stories in 1996. In 1999 his second novel, Juneteenth, was published under the editorship of John F. Callahan, a professor at Lewis & Clark College and Ellison's literary executor. It was a 368-page condensation of more than 2000 pages written by Ellison over a period of 40 years. All the manuscripts of this incomplete novel were published collectively on January 26, 2010, by Modern Library, under the title Three Days Before the Shooting...

On February 18, 2014, the USPS issued a 91¢ stamp honoring Ralph Ellison in its Literary Arts series.

A park on 150th Street and Riverside Drive in Harlem (near 730 Riverside Drive, Ellison's principal residence from the early 1950s until his death) was dedicated to Ellison on May 1, 2003. In the park stands a 15 by 8-foot bronze slab with a "cut-out man figure" inspired by his book, "Invisible Man."

Bibliography

Invisible Man (Random House, 1952). ISBN 0-679-60139-2

Flying Home and Other Stories (Random House, 1996). ISBN 0-679-45704-6; includes the short story "A Party Down at the Square"

Juneteenth (Random House, 1999). ISBN 0-394-46457-5

Three Days Before the Shooting... (Modern Library, 2010). ISBN 978-0-375-75953-6

Essay collections

Shadow and Act (Random House, 1964). ISBN 0-679-76000-8

Going to the Territory (Random House, 1986). ISBN 0-394-54050-6

The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison (Modern Library, 1995). ISBN 0-679-60176-7

Living with Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings (Modern Library, 2002). ISBN 0-375-76023-7

Letters

Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray (Modern Library, 2000). ISBN 0-375-50367-6

#03/01 #04/16

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chinarsi · 5 years ago

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( DACRE MONTGOMERY + HE/HIM ) — Hey, were you just talking to ANTONELLO LUCCHESE ? The THIRTY year old is a STRIP CLUB OWNER/UNDERBOSS who resides in MANHATTAN. HE has been living in NYC for TWENTY-SIX YEARS, and is known to be EFFICIENT and AFFECTIONATE, but can also be IMPULSIVE and PERVERTED. Word on the street is they’ve got some heavy ties with THE GUERRAS so I’d steer clear if you know what’s good for you.

**TW: **implied attempted murder, child abuse, abandonment; mental illness mention

First name: Antonello

Middle name(s): Giuseppe / “Pinky”

Surname: Lucchese

Age: 30

Date of birth: November 19, 1990

Religious values: Raised Roman Catholic but considers himself agnostic and a vitalist

Location: Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York

Occupation and length of time: Underboss/Strip club owner, 15 years

Affiliation: Guerra

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Relationship status: Divorced

Nationality: Considers himself Italian American ( fathers’ side is from Palermo, Sicily, mothers’ side is from Eastern Germany )

Languages known: English, Italian, German, Russian

Style of speaking: Politically incorrect

Birth Country: United States

Hometown: Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Parents: Bill and Teresa Lucchese

Siblings: Amy Lucchese

Pets: Amethystine python, Jinn, and an albino boa constrictor, Rasputin

Height: 5'11

Weight: 183 lbs

Eye color: Light blue

Hair color: Dark brown

Build of body: Stocky, muscular, aka a brickshit house

Tattoos: None

Piercings: Earlobe

Typical clothing: Business casual to very casual, button-downs/linen pants and vintage suits (*Three Looks by Jenna Marbles plays quietly in the background*)

Personality: “ Did you guys come by ? “ ( Ends at 8:32 ; it’s worth the watch, I swear lmao )

“ Como se dice ? How you say what happing ? whA HAPPING HEA. ” ( Starts at 2:52, ends at 11:36 )

Likes: Winning, music, Friedrich Nietzsche, indulgence, working out, and reading

Dislikes: Birds, uncertainty, technology, anything grape flavored, waiting, swimming in open water/the ocean, drama, younger generations

Pet peeves: Being ignored or interrupted, knuckle cracking, people eating with their mouths open

Hobbies/past times: Running, swimming, cooking, fencing, journaling, marksmanship, knife throwing, reading, avid glass collector and tobacco aficionado

Guilty pleasures: An old soul; loves red wine, Telenovelas, listening to either Nina Simone or Amy Winehouse, and pain

Talents: Can play piano, coronet, drums, braid hair and relocate an entire family in less than 48 hours

Education: Highschool dropout

Fears: Heights, dying alone, being asked to go to Italy

Goals: Settle the family dispute and to keep his ex-wife in the dark about what he does

General attitude: Quiet, reserved, snarky

General intelligence: Somewhat above average

General sociability: Average to below average

Illnesses (if any): Traumatized, most likely very depressed, bat shit crazy and probably a bit of a sociopath, but views seeing a Dr./Therapist is just as dangerous as becoming an informant.

Allergies (if any): Cats, amoxicillin/penicillin

Sleeping habits: Sleeps 3-4 hours normally, gets up early and stays up late, is sometimes up for days

Energy level: Depends on the day, could be moderate, low and very rarely high

Eating habits: Eats more than three times a day, mostly pasta, meat, bread, and sweets

Memory: Fair and remembers faces well but tends to repress quite a bit from his life/childhood, under certain circumstances it is poor

Any unhealthy habits: Overspending, binge eating, smoking, not getting enough rest, binge drinking, uses recreational drugs daily

Peaceful or violent: Unpredictable

Weapon (if applicable): Gun, golf club, curling iron, hands

Favorite types of food: Anything you put in front of him

Favorite types of drink: Water, wine and Ski soda

Favorite colors: Black, earth and neutral tones

Favorite types of music: 1. 2. 3.

Hobbies/past times: Running, swimming, cooking, fencing, journaling, marksmanship, knife throwing, reading, avid glass collector and tobacco aficionado

Guilty pleasures: An old soul; loves red wine, Telenovelas, listening to either Nina Simone or Amy Winehouse, and pain

Strengths: Efficient, passionate, observant, protective, loyal, brave, affectionate, poised, fair, chivalrous, playful, honest, romantic

Weaknesses: Intolerant, childish, negative, stubborn, short-tempered, impatient, perverted, aggressive, blunt, reclusive, paranoid, impulsive, secretive

Wcs: His ex wife, house mom/house dad/business partner, fwb, old friends, regular/associate turned bff, rival that manages to win & screw him over, fwbs that get involved/find out about his double life and are put in danger

Quirks/facts:

* Nicknamed “pinky” by a small group of friends when his now ex-wife found out he spent his life savings on a strip club and attempted to sever his pinky finger with a pair of thinning shears, also due to the simple fact, he never leaves the house without his grandfather’s gold teamster pinky ring placed on that exact finger

* In most situations he’s the extremely respectful, strong and silent type

* Extremely quick to anger, doesn’t take much to aggravate and provoke him, but he can also be an unpredictably warm, affectionate, goofy individual

* Agnostic and believes you should indulge in all of your desires but always in gentle moderation

* Has a machivelian yet moral mindset

* His respect for women knows no bounds

* Has a really loud sneeze and goes into sneeze fits

* Brutally honest

* Likes to go on late night/early morning shopping trips

* Gets too emotionally attached to people that shouldn’t matter

* Always carries a tiny notebook with him

* No shame in his game but cautious, composed, and always aware of his surroundings

* Has to move things around in a certain pattern before going to sleep

* Experienced alot but tends to keep to himself, there’s very few people that actually know him

* Bruises super easily

* Writes and eats with his left hand but is right hand dominant

* Likes to memorize numbers instead of saving contacts in his phone

* Gets homesick very easily

* Brushes his teeth up to five times a day

* Generous with his money, purely for selfish and superstitious reasons, but only for close friends and associates

* Likes to stay off social media

* Gets his heart broken too often

* Holds grudges like no other

* Will be loyal to the mob until he takes his last breath and would rather die than be forced to send anyone to prison

* Firmly believes in the healing power of sit-downs

* Would never take advantage of a drunk woman, but defintely would get drunk just to get taken advantage of

* Don’t fuck around though, has high libido and occasionally low stamina; a wrong look alone could get you pregnant

* Sanctioned hits directly from the boss have always made him uncomfortable and nervous, no matter who he’s working under

* Takes murder very seriously

Bio: Antonello Guiseppe Lucchese was born three months prematurely to Bill and Teressa on a chilly November night in Brooklyn, New York.

He doesn’t remember much from his childhood other than he never really had a mother and father, but figures he might have gotten luckier not having them around. Apparently, his mother worked numerous jobs to keep a roof over their heads for years, until dealing with the constant absence of his father became too much to bear. Then, at just the fragile age of three and four years old, both Amy and Antonello Lucchese were carted off to Crown Heights, New York to permanently stay with a mixed family of uncles, cousins, and loving grandparents, almost all the surviving members of the Lucchese crime family in a small three-bedroom apartment.

Most of their wives had passed away or left them by the time they’d arrived, so it was a lot like growing up in a dingy old bar but, both children grew up and learned quickly from their mistakes. Learned to use them to their advantage, but every once in a while there would be unnecessary punishments, overdramatic arguments, dinners missed and uneasy, awkward mornings, but. It was more than what anyone else could have given them, so they were grateful nonetheless.

Everything changed drastically for Antonello when he entered the fifth grade. Things became easier to deal with at home, but not exactly in the way anyone had expected. Especially not his grandmother. He’d always clung to her for guidance, support, and love but the moment the family exposed the young heart to their lifestyle, he broke away and heedlessly dove in.

No one had forced him into anything, but as the years passed, most relatives and himself included were absolutely convinced that he was made for it, and it was made for him. Although it was in his blood, after all, a large number of them also knew it marked the end of his innocence, and the beginning of ruthless trek towards a twisted, egotistical version of manhood and success.

In the span of six years, he’d become the youngest in the family to rise through the ranks in a proud, composed fashion and landed a spot right beneath his grandfather. He was creative, intelligent and respectful in a way that the elders of the Italian mob began to appreciate more than the efforts of his own immediate family, so soon after Antonello realized the long list of dead or incarcerated relatives were mostly rats, scumbags, and hypocrites, coincidentally, he was asked to leave.

Then while out at the local bowling alley, his cousins spotted one of his better friends groping his girlfriend. He didn’t even make it twenty-four hours after his grandmother had broken the news of the heartless eviction, and the younger boy spent almost two weeks in the hospital. Luckily, her grandson wasn’t around long enough to suffer any harsh consequences, or god forbid a life sentence but, one punishment that should have been totally unrelated, would slowly begin to ruin his life.

Out of pure fear of her older brother and grandparents, Amy Lucchese decided to finish her high school career at home and cut all ties with him. Shortly after the devastating blow, a family friend was contacted and made arrangments for him to stay in East Harlem.

Present: Has resided in East Harlem for the past fifteen years, staying moderately silent and unlocatable until being promoted to underboss. Currently works for the Guerra family, laundering money and holding meetings through his own business until the doors open every evening. He is recently divorced, lives alone above an old pizza joint and prefers a conventional lifestyle even though he loves what he does.

Although Show N' Tail opened in 2017, the wide variety of male and female dancers, elaborate drag shows, light shows, warm and cozy atmosphere, has made it one of the most decadent and revered clubs in the area.

#( about. )#tw

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sazvariboy · 5 years ago

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#Repost @blackhistorystudies • • • • • • Madam C.J. Walker died of hypertension on May 25, 1919, at age 51, at the estate home she had built for herself in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. At the time of her death, Walker was sole owner of her business, which was valued at more than $1 million. Her personal fortune was estimated at between $600,000 and $700,000. Today, Walker is widely credited as one of the first American women to become a self-made millionaire. Walker left one-third of her estate to her daughter, A'Lelia Walker—who would also become well-known as an important part of the cultural Harlem Renaissance—and the remainder to various charities. Walker’s funeral took place at her home, Villa Lewaro, in Irvington-on-Hudson, which was designated a National Historic Landmark, and she was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. In 1927, the Walker Building, an arts center that Walker had begun work on before her death, was opened in Indianapolis. An important African-American cultural center for decades, it is now a registered National Historic Landmark. In 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp of Madam C.J. Walker as part of its “Black Heritage” series. #sarahbreedlove #hair #blackhistory https://www.instagram.com/p/B9KA09ClKwa/?igshid=dw8dtgiheqpe

#repost #sarahbreedlove #hair #blackhistory

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trascapades · 2 years ago

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🕊💐#ArtIsAWeapon

Peaceful transitions and deep gratitude #DorothyPitmanHughes

Reposted from @nmaahc Our museum mourns the passing of renowned Black feminist activist, organizer, writer and child-welfare advocate Dorothy Pitman Hughes (1938-2022).

Pitman Hughes will forever be remembered by many from this photograph with #GloriaSteinem standing aligned with fists raised in the Black Power gesture. But the life and legacy of Pittman Hughes extends beyond this photograph with Steinem. Before and after this photograph was taken, Pittman Hughes was a tenacious activist for #feminism, children, education, and community empowerment.

Born one of eight children to Milton Lee and Lessie Ridley in Charles Junction, a small community in Lumpkin, Georgia, the legacy of Black home ownership, political activism, and entrepreneurism carried her experiences living in a mill town carried her through a career as a nightclub singer, domestic, and business owner.

She became well-known in New York’s activist circles and was particularly focused on Harlem. Pittman Hughes established a daycare center for children of all races and ethnicities, and over the course of her career in childcare, she established 3 daycare centers across New York City. This advocacy for children led her to leadership roles in local politics and the creation of the Agency for Child Development. During this moment she met Gloria Steinem. They became fast friends and conducted a speaking tour to discuss racism, sexism, and classism, later co-founding the Women's Action Alliance.

By the 1980s, Pittman Hughes transitioned away from strictly community organizing and back to her entrepreneurial roots; she opened Harlem Office Supply, Inc., to focus on economic empowerment, especially for Black women. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Pittman Hughes continued to advocate for Black businesses and homeownership as a key feature in Black community uplift and was outspoken about her dreams for Harlem and its residents, which in turn would inspire other Black cities and neighborhoods across the United States.

Image 1📸 Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, 1971. Photo by Dan Wynn. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Images 2&3📸 reposted from @danwynnarchive Rest in Peace Dorothy Pitman Hughes. The world is forever changed for the better because you rose up and led the way to fight for justice. Our condolences to your loving family. ❤️ Photo from @guardian

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love-frozen-universe · 2 years ago

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Southern State Brooklyn.

New York City has long been known for its diversity and progressive values – the city of immigrants, birthplace of the Harlem Renaissance, but the city has a barbaric past from the slave market of Wall Street to draft riots in 1863 where innocent black New Yorkers were attacked ending in a death toll of over a hundred. The sale and keeping of slaves in New York City was common since its founding and it wasn't until 1841 that New York State finally abolished the practice. In 1991 when Federal Plaza was being constructed in Lower Manhattan, an excavation found intact human skeletal remains located 30 feet below Broadway, a 6-acre burial ground containing upwards of 15,000 intact skeletal remains of enslaved and free Africans who lived and worked in colonial New York. Now a public monument, the African Burial Ground is a reminder of the city’s history that is often neglected.

Slavery was introduced to New York City when the Dutch settled the colony, bringing with them 11 African men in 1626 and three women in 1628. When the English captured the city in 1664 nearly 9% of the 8000 settlers were Africans (slaves and freed) and their ownership was transferred to the British who institutionalized slavery, classifying them as chattel that worked involuntarily. In British New York City, killing a slave was illegal, but unlike the Dutch who had allowed slaves to marry in church, under the British they could not be married and families were split up.

Slavery continued to be an important source of the city’s labor force into the early 18th century, with 40 percent of white households owning slaves, making New York the largest slave-owning colony in the north. In 1711 a slave market was established at the foot of Wall Street. The market was located at the present-day intersection of Wall and Water Streets, then at the water’s edge, and was intended for the hiring, buying, and selling of slaves. It became known as the Meal Market, the official public market for goods including corn and grain, with slaves continuing to be bought and sold.

By this time 20% of the city's population was enslaved blacks. On April 6, 1712, nine white New Yorker's were killed in what would become the city's first slave uprising. On April 6, 1712, twenty-three enslaved blacks armed with guns and knives set fire to a building on Maiden Lane. When the fire soon spread, the slaves attacked the white colonists who rushed to put the fire out, killing nine of them. British soldiers dispatched militia units and soon captured the twenty-three slaves. Six off the captured committed suicide, but the rest were executed, most burned alive. Laws were quickly established following the revolt making it illegal for slaves to meet and allowing slave owners to punish their slaves as they saw fit. But not even forty years later there would be another slave uprising in New York City.

Between 1700 and 1774 the city legally admitted around 6,800 slaves, with prominent NYC families such as the Schuylers, Livingstons, Van Cortlands, Beekmans and Waltons profiting from the trade.

In 1741 a slave uprising burned down homes, businesses, the seat of the royal government, the walls of the Governor’s residence at Fort George (the Battery). The uprising lasted six months and resulted in the execution of 30 black men and the deportation of 72. After the decade of the 1740s – when New York would have the second largest slave population in the Thirteen Colonies – Manhattan’s slave population would peak at 21% before starting a slow decline leading up to the Revolution. The slave market on Wall Street wasn’t dismantled until 1762.

After the war, more prominent white New Yorkers began to push for gradual emancipation and in 1799 children of slaves were free. In 1809, marriage between slaves was legalized with separation of families prohibited. In 1827, New York State Governor Tompkins abolished slavery, but complete abolition was not achieved until 1841 when the state revoked a law that made nonresidents able to hold slaves for up to 9 months. But the city still held ties to southern slaveholding states until the Civil War and blacks were often kidnapped in the street and transported to the South for sale.

The city profited enormously from slavery, so much that in leading up to the Civil War Mayor Fernando Wood originally proposed secession rather than loose profits from the cotton trade with the South.

Ｙｏｕｒ　Ｌｉｎｋ：　https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSlor-h7C-UZWEX3I-AJZz2yT_rpTHd_U

#11/7/2022.

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eug3n362 · 2 years ago

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She’s going places! One of the top-funded Black woman founders in tech, Sevetri Wilson, just raised $35 million in a Series B venture funding round, Forbes reports. Venture Capital funding is finally improving for Black business owners. Take Terri Burns, the youngest and first Black woman to partner with Google’s venture capital firm, or Julia Collins, the first Black woman to co-found a company valued over $1 billion. Black-led venture capital teams are forming to keep the Black dollar circulating in the Black community. Venture Capital firms such as Jumpstart Health Investors raised $55 million for Black healthcare entrepreneurs; Serena Williams’ firm Serena Ventures raised $111 million to invest in diverse founders, and Harlem Capital Partners is also a minority-owned firm that invests in diverse entrepreneurs. Thanks to more funding, Black entrepreneurs are now able to upscale their businesses; Joanna Smith raised $12.1 million in venture capital for her edtech company created to curb chronic absenteeism in K-12 schools, Tope Awotona raised $350 million for his scheduling app, Calendly, while Nigerian ed-tech startup, Ulesson, raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. Now serial entrepreneur, tech founder, author, speaker, and wealth generator Sevetri Wilson is up next! Growing up with three siblings and a single mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Wilson knew...

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lboogie1906 · 9 months ago

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Effa Louise Manley (March 27, 1897 - April 16, 1981) was one of the first women of any race to run a baseball team. She was co-owner, along with her husband Abe Manley, of the Negro League Baseball Team the Newark Eagles. She was born in Philadelphia to Bertha Brooks and John Marcus Bishop. She graduated from William Penn Central High School.

She moved to Harlem and worked in a Millinery shop until she began her career in baseball. She married George Bush (1920) a chauffeur. She married Abraham Manley (1933-1952) he worked as a numbers gambling kingpin.

On November 13, 1934, the National Negro League owners gave her husband a franchise team, the Brooklyn Eagles. Star team players included Leon Day, Rap Dixon, and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe. Abraham Manley assigned her day-to-day management of the team.

In March 1936, the owners of NNL elected her husband as vice president. By 1941, she was overseeing the day-to-day operations, marketing, and fiscal management of the Newark Eagles. She did press interviews, made playing schedules, booked accommodations for the players on the road, publicized the games, purchased equipment, and negotiated contracts.

She supported civil rights and charitable endeavors. She was mainly responsible for organizing boycotts against white-owned businesses that refused to hire Black employees. She raised money for the Harlem Women’s Club. She donated money to the victims of the Ohio and Mississippi River Valley floods. She was treasurer of the New Jersey NAACP.

During WWII, she supported the war effort by working as a local warden for the Newark Defense Council, the Price Control Board, and the Colored Women’s Division of the Jersey City War Saving Committee. She was the secretary and treasurer of the Women’s Volunteer War Service Committee.

In 1946, the Newark Eagles became the Negro League Champions where they defeated the Kansas City Monarchs in seven games. In 1948, the Eagles were disbanded. She married Henry Moton Clinton (1953). She married Charles Wesley Alexander (1956). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #womenhistorymonth

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indomitablekushite · 3 years ago

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Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World

“Declaration of the Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World”: The Principles of the Universal Negro Improvement Association After fighting World War I, ostensibly to defend democracy and the right of self-determination, thousands of African-American soldiers returned home to face intensified discrimination, segregation, and racial violence. Drawing on this frustration, Marcus Garvey attracted thousands of disillusioned black working-class and lower middle-class followers to his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The UNIA, committed to notions of racial purity and separatism, insisted that salvation for African Americans meant building an autonomous, black-led nation in Africa. The Black Star Line, an all-black shipping company chartered by the UNIA, was the movement’s boldest and most important project, and many African Americans bought shares of stock in the company. A 1920 Black Star Line business meeting in Harlem’s Liberty Hall brought together 25,000 UNIA delegates from around the world, and produced an important statement of principles, the “Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World.” Preamble Be It Resolved, That the Negro people of the world, through their chosen representatives in convention assembled in Liberty Hall, in the City of New York and United States of America, from August 1 to August 31, in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty, protest against the wrongs and injustices they are suffering at the hands of their white brethren, and state what they deem their fair and just rights, as well as the treatment they propose to demand of all men in the future. We complain: 1. That nowhere in the world, with few exceptions, are black men accorded equal treatment with white men, although in the same situation and circumstances, but, on the contrary, are discriminated against and denied the common rights due to human beings for no other reason than their race and color. We are not willingly accepted as guests in the public hotels and inns of the world for no other reason than our race and color. 2. In certain parts of the United States of America our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races when accused of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and inhuman treatment is even practiced upon our women. 3. That European nations have parcelled out among them and taken possession of nearly all of the continent of Africa, and the natives are compelled to surrender their lands to aliens and are treated in most instances like slaves. 4. In the southern portion of the United States of America, although citizens under the Federal Constitution, and in some States almost equal to the whites in population and are qualified land owners and taxpayers, we are, nevertheless, denied all voice in the making and administration of the laws and are taxed without representation by the State governments, and at the same time compelled to do military service in defense of the country. 5. On the public conveyances and common carriers in the southern portion of the United States we are jim-crowed and compelled to accept separate and inferior accommodations and made to pay the same fare charged for first-class accommodations, and our families are often humiliated and insulted by drunken white men who habitually pass through the jim-crow cars going to the smoking car. 6. The physicians of our race are denied the right to attend their patients while in the public hospitals of the cities and States where they reside in certain parts of the United States. Our children are forced to attend inferior separate schools for shorter terms than white children, and the public school funds are unequally divided between the white and colored schools. 7. We are discriminated against and denied an equal chance to earn wages for the support of our families, and in many instances are refused admission into labor unions and nearly everywhere are paid smaller wages than white men. 8. In the Civil Service and departmental offices we are everywhere discriminated against and made to feel that to be a black man in Europe, America and the West Indies is equivalent to being an outcast and a leper among the races of men, no matter what the character attainments of the black men may be. 9. In the British and other West Indian islands and colonies Negroes are secretly and cunningly discriminated against and denied those fuller rights of government to which white citizens are appointed, nominated and elected. 10. That our people in those parts are forced to work for lower wages than the average standard of white men and are kept in conditions repugnant to good civilized tastes and customs. 11. That the many acts of injustices against members of our race before the courts of law in the respective islands and colonies are of such nature as to create disgust and disrespect for the white man’s sense of justice. 12. Against all such inhuman, unchristian and uncivilized treatment we here and now emphatically protest, and invoke the condemnation of all mankind. In order to encourage our race all over the world and to stimulate it to overcome the handicaps and difficulties surrounding it, and to push forward to a higher and grander destiny, we demand and insist on the following Declaration of Rights: 1. Be it known to all men that whereas all men are created equal and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of the just and Almighty God, do declare all men, women and children of our blood throughout the world free denizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of all Negroes. 2. That we believe in the supreme authority of our race in all things racial; that all things are created and given to man as a common possession; that there should be an equitable distribution and apportionment of all such things, and in consideration of the fact that as a race we are now deprived of those things that are morally and legally ours, we believed it right that all such things should be acquired and held by whatsoever means possible. 3. That we believe the Negro, like any other race, should be governed by the ethics of civilization, and therefore should not be deprived of any of those rights or privileges common to other human beings. 4. We declare that Negroes, wheresoever they form a community among themselves should be given the right to elect their own representatives to represent them in Legislatures, courts of law, or such institutions as may exercise control over that particular community. 5. We assert that the Negro is entitled to even-handed justice before all courts of law and equity in whatever country he may be found, and when this is denied him on account of his race or color such denial is an insult to the race as a whole and should be resented by the entire body of Negroes. 6. We declare it unfair and prejudicial to the rights of Negroes in communities where they exist in considerable numbers to be tried by a judge and jury composed entirely of an alien race, but in all such cases members of our race are entitled to representation on the jury. 7. We believe that any law or practice that tends to deprive any African of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice. 8. We declare taxation without representation unjust and tyran[n]ous, and there should be no obligation on the part of the Negro to obey the levy of a tax by any law-making body from which he is excluded and denied representation on account of his race and color. 9. We believe that any law especially directed against the Negro to his detriment and singling him out because of his race or color is unfair and immoral, and should not be respected. 10. We believe all men entitled to common human respect and that our race should in no way tolerate any insults that may be interpreted to mean disrespect to our race or color. 11. We deprecate the use of the term “nigger” as applied to Negroes, and demand that the word “Negro” be written with a capital “N.” 12. We believe that the Negro should adopt every means to protect himself against barbarous practices inflicted upon him because of color. 13. We believe in the freedom of Africa for the Negro people of the world, and by the principle of Europe for the Europeans and Asia for the Asiatics, we also demand Africa for the Africans at home and abroad. 14. We believe in the inherent right of the Negro to possess himself of Africa and that his possession of same shall not be regarded as an infringement of any claim or purchase made by any race or nation. 15. We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers. 16. We believe all men should live in peace one with the other, but when races and nations provoke the ire of other races and nations by attempting to infringe upon their rights[,] war becomes inevitable, and the attempt in any way to free one’s self or protect one’s rights or heritage becomes justifiable. 17. Whereas the lynching, by burning, hanging or any other means, of human beings is a barbarous practice and a shame and disgrace to civilization, we therefore declare any country guilty of such atrocities outside the pale of civilization. 18. We protest against the atrocious crime of whipping, flogging and overworking of the native tribes of Africa and Negroes everywhere. These are methods that should be abolished and all means should be taken to prevent a continuance of such brutal practices. 19. We protest against the atrocious practice of shaving the heads of Africans, especially of African women or individuals of Negro blood, when placed in prison as a punishment for crime by an alien race. 10. We protest against segregated districts, separate public conveyances, industrial discrimination, lynching's and limitations of political privileges of any Negro citizen in any part of the world on account of race, color or creed, and will exert our full influence and power against all such. 21. We protest against any punishment inflicted upon a Negro with severity, as against lighter punishment inflicted upon another of an alien race for like offense, as an act of prejudice and injustice, and should be resented by the entire race. 22. We protest against the system of education in any country where Negroes are denied the same privileges and advantages as other races. 23. We declare it inhuman and unfair to boycott Negroes from industries and labor in any part of the world. 24. We believe in the doctrine of the freedom of the press, and we therefore emphatically protest against the suppression of Negro newspapers and periodicals in various parts of the world, and call upon Negroes everywhere to employ all available means to prevent such suppression. 25. We further demand free speech universally for all men. 26. We hereby protest against the publication of scandalous and inflammatory articles by an alien press tending to create racial strife and the exhibition of picture films showing the Negro as a cannibal. 27. We believe in the self-determination of all peoples. 28. We declare for the freedom of religious worship. 29. With the help of Almighty God we declare ourselves the sworn protectors of the honor and virtue of our women and children, and pledge our lives for their protection and defense everywhere and under all circumstances from wrongs and outrages. 30. We demand the right of an unlimited and unprejudiced education for ourselves and our posterity forever[.] 31. We declare that the teaching in any school by alien teachers to our boys and girls, that the alien race is superior to the Negro race, is an insult to the Negro people of the world. 32. Where Negroes form a part of the citizenry of any country, and pass the civil service examination of such country, we declare them entitled to the same consideration as other citizens as to appointments in such civil service. 33. We vigorously protest against the increasingly unfair and unjust treatment accorded Negro travelers on land and sea by the agents and employee of railroad and steamship companies, and insist that for equal fare we receive equal privileges with travelers of other races. 34. We declare it unjust for any country, State or nation to enact laws tending to hinder and obstruct the free immigration of Negroes on account of their race and color. 35. That the right of the Negro to travel unmolested throughout the world be not abridged by any person or persons, and all Negroes are called upon to give aid to a fellow Negro when thus molested. 36. We declare that all Negroes are entitled to the same right to travel over the world as other men. 37. We hereby demand that the governments of the world recognize our leader and his representatives chosen by the race to look after the welfare of our people under such governments. 38. We demand complete control of our social institutions without interference by any alien race or races. 39. That the colors, Red, Black and Green, be the colors of the Negro race. 40. Resolved, That the anthem “Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Fathers etc.,” shall be the anthem of the Negro race. . . . 41. We believe that any limited liberty which deprives one of the complete rights and prerogatives of full citizenship is but a modified form of slavery. 42. We declare it an injustice to our people and a serious Impediment to the health of the race to deny to competent licensed Negro physicians the right to practice in the public hospitals of the communities in which they reside, for no other reason than their race and color. 43. We call upon the various government[s] of the world to accept and acknowledge Negro representatives who shall be sent to the said governments to represent the general welfare of the Negro peoples of the world. 44. We deplore and protest against the practice of confining juvenile prisoners in prisons with adults, and we recommend that such youthful prisoners be taught gainful trades under human[e] supervision. 45. Be it further resolved, That we as a race of people declare the League of Nations null and void as far as the Negro is concerned, in that it seeks to deprive Negroes of their liberty. 46. We demand of all men to do unto us as we would do unto them, in the name of justice; and we cheerfully accord to all men all the rights we claim herein for ourselves. 47. We declare that no Negro shall engage himself in battle for an alien race without first obtaining the consent of the leader of the Negro people of the world, except in a matter of national self-defense. 48. We protest against the practice of drafting Negroes and sending them to war with alien forces without proper training, and demand in all cases that Negro soldiers be given the same training as the aliens. 49. We demand that instructions given Negro children in schools include the subject of “Negro History,” to their benefit. 50. We demand a free and unfettered commercial intercourse with all the Negro people of the world. 51. We declare for the absolute freedom of the seas for all peoples. 52. We demand that our duly accredited representatives be given proper recognition in all leagues, conferences, conventions or courts of international arbitration wherever human rights are discussed. 53. We proclaim the 31st day of August of each year to be an international holiday to be observed by all Negroes. 54. We want all men to know that we shall maintain and contend for the freedom and equality of every man, woman and child of our race, with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. These rights we believe to be justly ours and proper for the protection of the Negro race at large, and because of this belief we, on behalf of the four hundred million Negroes of the world, do pledge herein the sacred blood of the race in defense, and we hereby subscribe our names as a guarantee of the truthfulness and faithfulness hereof, in the presence of Almighty God, on this 13th day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty. Source: UNIA Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, New York, August 13, 1920

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legrandepapillon · 7 years ago

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At the Pool (pegtha)

Summary: Peggy takes a break and meets a new ‘friend’. Prompt: Person A's sister teaches swimming lessons and is waiting for her so they can go to lunch. Person B is picking up their child from lessons, and is very attractive. Despite the other single parents vying for B's attention B shamelessly flirts with A. Author’s Notes: more marggy (after all that smut lololol). i think they’re my new fave ship. + more butch!Peggy. also, i get my prompts from here but i never really remember where i got them from. if any of you guys notice a prompt that you posted that i did, please let me know! i’d love to have your opinions on my work

Contrary to popular belief—popular being amongst her sisters and the rowdy boys that she occasionally had the misfortune to call her friends—, Peggy Schuyler didn’t mind socializing outside of her various protests, rallies and marches. In fact, she often times thoroughly enjoyed being in an environment where there wasn’t an end goal, where she didn’t need to shout to be heard, where there weren’t so many eyes on her and what she was doing. Shocking, right? And unlike her brother-in-law Hamilton, who so hypocritically criticized her rigorous work ethic, she was completely capable of taking a break from the mountain of work she somehow always managed to accumulate out of nowhere. Like most humans that didn’t run on 5 hour energy, coffee and redbull, she enjoyed being able to kick back and relax.

She just never had the time to do so.

When wasn’t deployed to wherever the army sent her for her station, she was at the little floral shop in Harlem her mother had co-owned helping her mother’s best friend and co-owner, Martha, keep up with the workload. Or she was taking on pro-bono cases she did to help fight an unjust system that worked against disenfranchised and marginalized people—she had gotten her law degree before joining the military because someone had bet her that she wouldn’t be able to handle the stress, and figured she could use the dusty degree for some good. Or doing some public speaking at schools and colleges around Harlem, trying to reach out to the kids there in hopes that she could help cultivate the next President or Nobel Peace Prize winner. She already had a mountain of work lined up for her right this moment, and she had just gotten back into the city on leave.

The money she got for her public speaking affairs and the flower shop was good because it allowed her to help out the impoverished, crime-riddled communities that she had been adopted out of, so she had to keep working at that on a daily grind.

The rest of her spare time was spent organizing various protests for Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ and Feminist rights, many of which often intersected. It was frequent that she found herself at a ‘Black LGBT Lives Matter’ rally alongside her favorite protester and closest friend, John Laurens or at an ‘LGBTQ+ Womens Rally’, co-organized by a determined Maria Lewis. She used her father’s status in the government to give a voice that shed light onto big issues, since she knew he had the platform available. But this didn’t exactly allow for her to have time for normal human things—like spa days, or going out, or even dates.

Peggy is eventually faced with just how stressed she is from her workload when Eliza, finally fed up with almost never seeing either of her sisters—Angelica was just as, if not more busy than Peggy was—had instructed her to pick her up from the local YMCA so that the three of them could grab lunch and a movie. Eliza taught swimming listens to kids from the ages of four to eight at the Y, something she got to do because she was a stay-at-home mother. Sometimes Peggy envied her—all the free time she had. Sure, she was a Mom first and she was always with her kids, but sometimes her husband would watch them for the night so that she could go out or just relax for a moment.

There was no one for Peggy to share her workload with.

Considering that neither Angelica nor Eliza had afforded her the opportunity to decline the lunch date, Peggy finds herself pulling into the parking lot of the community center at eleven—which is thirty minutes before Eliza said her morning lessons ended. It’s a surprisingly nice Saturday—a bit warm for Peggy’s tastes, but sunny and bright. Spring was sweeping over New York, and the Y is packed with cars. It’s Spring Break for the kids in schools right now, which is probably why there were so many people at the center. She knew Eliza had mentioned there’d been some sports and arts programs gearing up for the week of Spring Break, and wonders vaguely if her sister is teaching in one of said programs.

Peggy is lost so deep in thought that she doesn’t really pay attention, and accidentally bumps into another woman on her way inside the center. Reflexively, Peggy reaches out to grab the womans arms to steady her, all while profusely apologizing.

“It’s okay, darlin’, it happens,” the voice says, thick with a Southern twang that Peggy knew wasn’t native to New York. Releasing the woman’s arms, Peggy finally gets a good luck at the woman’s face. She’s gorgeous, probably the most beautiful woman that Peggy had seen in New York yet. With long, dark curly hair streaked with blonde strands, wide green eyes brimmed with thick, black eyeliner and unmarred, smooth tan skin, the woman possessed an unconventional beauty. The lines of her face were sharp, with high cheekbones. Her eyes were deeply set and a bit wide, almost as though she was in a state of perpetual shock. She wore heavy makeup—highlighter, foundation, mascara and striking candy apple red lipstick—but it didn’t make her look like a clown, but like some sort of goddess. Both of her arms were sleeved with tattoos, and there was another one of a heart with the name ‘Frances’ over her left breast.

If Peggy were even to ignore her physical features and judge the woman by her clothing, she’d guess she’s a biker. Or at least, she hung with a biker crew. With tight black skinny jeans, high-heeled leather boots, and a tight black spaghetti-strap blouse. The chick dressed—at the least—awfully sexily to be hanging out around the family-friendly YMCA, but Peggy isn’t one to judge.

“Sorry again, ma’am,” Peggy says, putting both of her hands up in placation. The woman smiles a shiny white, perfect smile at her before turning and hurrying into the Y—which reminds Peggy of why she’s there in the first place.

The young soldier makes a beeline for the swimming pool, checking her watch to find that the class would be ending in twenty-five minutes. Once there, she waves at her sister—who’s in the water with a little freckled girl, helping her learn to float—and decides to take one of the seats that are lined up against a wall by the lifeguard ladder. She notices that parents are slowly starting to trickle in, filling in the seats beside her as they wait for their children to be done with their class. Most of them are Dads—probably put on babysitting duty for the weekend while Moms went to treat themselves after being with the kids all Spring Break—but there are a few mothers there too.

Peggy almost doesn’t notice when her nose is filled with a familiar perfume, but eventually a hand on her arm alerts her to the fact that the woman she’d bumped into in the parking lot has chosen a seat beside her.

“Oh! Hi, again,” Peggy says, surprised that the woman was sitting with her. The woman gives a finger waggle as a wave, and the younger of the two gestures towards the pool. “Your kid in the class?”

“Yeah, my little Frankie,” Biker Bombshell says, pointing to the freckle-faced girl that Eliza had been helping earlier. Both women watch as the little girl floats in circles, shouting ‘I’m floating! I’m floating!’ in elation. “You?”

“Me…? Oh! Oh, no. My sister is the instructor, I’m here to pick her up,” Peggy points at Eliza, who has moved on—she’s now with what looks to be a toddler, trying to prevent him from gulping down the chlorine water.

By now, the fathers around them have noticed this woman and her striking beauty—and all of them seem to have made it a mission to get her number. One father even sits on the other side of her as he enters the swimming center, in an attempt to get her attention. But he’s swiftly ignored by the bombshell beauty, who is giving Peggy all of her attention.

“Oh, just where are my manners? I’m Martha, darlin’. Martha Manning. You are…?”

“Peggy Schuyler,” the younger of the two responds, extending her hand for the woman to shake. She notices that Martha’s hands are really soft, despite her rough exterior, and they’re also well-manicured. Sharp, well-filed blood-red nails stand out against Peggy’s hand and she flushes at how domestic it looks with her hand in Martha’s.

Dropping the handshake, Peggy chooses instead to change the subject. “I hope you don’t take an offense or anything, but your accent… you’re not from here, are you?”

“No, I’m not. My ex-husband and I moved here from Charleston, South Carolina after we had li’l Frankie. We’re divorced now, but my little girl loves New York so much. I couldn’t bring myself to make her go back to South Carolina. I notice your tattoo… you’re in the military?”

She gestures to the ARMY STRONG tattoo on Peggy’s bicep, something she’d gotten while drunk after she completed BT. She hadn’t intended on joining the military becoming her career, it had just been something she’d signed herself up for on a whim when her father had told her she needed to find a direction in life. Though, he'd probably meant doing something with that law degree she didn't use. After waking up with the tattoo, however, she’d decided that it was pointless to try to find something new to do. The army paid well, she always had a place to sleep at the barracks, and a lot of her deployment time was spent around computers or planes anyways.

“Uh, yeah. I’m an avionic mechanic,” she says. “I work on the planes and shit, basically.”

“That’s hot,” Martha says, a flirtatious smile on her lips. One of the fathers that had been watching her approaches now, opening his mouth to interrupt the two of them. Immediately, the flirty smile slips from Martha’s face and her eyes narrow icily. “I’m sorry, don’t you see we’re having a conversation?”

Taken aback by the sudden fury and iciness that emanates from the woman, the father raises his hands in defense and mumbles an apology before returning to his seat. Sighing in annoyance, Martha turns back to Peggy, “I’m sorry. It’s like everywhere I go, men are hounding me.”

“I wish I could relate to you,” Peggy shrugs. She’d always been a bit more tomboyish growing up—trading in the frilly dresses and ribbons her parents wanted her to wear for slacks and dress-shirts. Philip Schuyler didn’t mind so much—he’d always wanted a son, but he and Catherine had never gotten around to adopting one. He treated Peggy like his son—more than happy encourage ‘boyish’ behavior within his daughter. Even going so far as to allow Peggy to stay out late after giving her sisters a curfew. When she’d realized she was a lesbian, Philip just got even more lax—without having to worry about his daughter going out and getting pregnant, he pretty much allowed Peggy to do whatever she wanted.

Despite all of these perks that came with being ‘butch’, one of the downfalls was that unless it was a woman, Peggy never really got flirted with. Now that she’s older and knows her sexuality, she’s perfectly fine with going unbothered by the men she encountered. But when she was younger, she’d always thought something was wrong with her. Boys flirted relentlessly with both Eliza and Angelica—there’d been more than a few times they had sent their scrapper sister to go deal with a boy that couldn’t take the hint—but none really showed an interest in her. To this very day, Peggy had never had a man approach her in any effort to flirt with her.

“No, honey, ya don’t,” Martha snorts, glaring at another man who’d found himself staring at her tits. He flushes and looks away, at least having the decency to be ashamed of his creepiness. “I deal with shit like that all the time. It’s a shame that I have to put up with this just because I wanna look sexy.”

“Here, here. But hey, the attention isn’t all unwanted, is it? There’s gotta be someone you don’t mind flirting with,” Peggy says optimistically, looking around at the men gathered at the pool. Some of them were fairly attractive—in fact, some of them were really attractive. She may be a lesbian, but she could recognize when someone’s features were aesthetically appealing no matter what the gender and some of the guys were handsome.

“Yeah, there is,” Martha says, though she’s not looking at any of the men. Peggy flushes, cheeks turning a bright shade of tomato red, when she realizes that the mother is looking at her. Unfortunately, she is unable to say anything, as they’re interrupting by the woman’s daughter hurrying over to where they sit.

Frankie jumps into her mother’s lap, still soaking wet from the pool, and wraps her arms around her. Peggy gently scoots a little to the side to avoid getting wet, but waves at the young girl goodnaturedly.

“Hi, angel,” Martha says, giving her daughter a giant kiss on the cheek. Frances giggles and returns the kiss. “Did you have fun today?”

“Yes! Miss Liza taught us how to float, Mommy! Did you see me floating!?”

“I did! Go get your clothes on—we’re gonna get pizza and then you get to go to Daddy’s house this week.” Frances nods and hops out of her mother's arms to grab her duffel bag before darting towards the locker room to change. Martha stands, running her hands over her now wet jeans, and Peggy for some reason feels the need to stand to.

Martha’s a little taller with her heels, so Peggy feels small and shy for just the splittest of moments—which isn’t the status quo for her, as she’s usually very suave, outgoing and electric. “Well, we’ve gotta get goin’ soon. But I’ll see you next Saturday, right Peggy?”

“Of course!” Peggy exclaims, too quickly for her own liking. Clearing her throat, she relaxes. “Yeah. But just in case I don’t, we should exchange numbers. You know, for just in case.”

Martha agrees and the two women put their numbers in each other’s phone—Peggy blushing when she realizes that Martha had inserted some kissy-face emojis beside her own name. Giving another light wave and a wink, the older woman disappears into the locker rooms—probably to help her daughter.

“Hey! Sorry class ran a little late,” Eliza’s voice says from behind her, startling her little sister. She gives a quizzical look at Peggy’s frightened little jump, but says nothing. “Ready to go? Angelica found a nice little sub shop in Upper Manhattan.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

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everythangculture · 4 years ago

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Day 24 - Eartha Kitt Singer and Actress Eartha was the daughter of an African American and Cherokee descent woman sharecropper in South Carolina. Little is known about Eartha’s father, except that he was the son of the owner of the farm she was born on, it is suspected that her father raped her mother. At the age of 8, Eartha was sent to live with an aunt in Harlem, NY at which point Eartha also began getting abused. As a teenager she dropped out of high school and started working in a factory, while sleeping in subways or at friends’ houses. Eartha’s career in show business began because of a dare from a friend to audition for the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. Her audition was a success and she stayed with the company for 5 years performing in the US and internationally. After leaving the dance company, Eartha became a successful singer in nightclubs in Paris and the US. Her 1953 recordings of “C’est si bon” and “Santa Baby” made the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the 1950s Orson Welles (a famous actor and director) called her, “the most exciting girl in the world” as she transitioned her career into acting. In the 1950s she performed in broadway shows and also played Catwoman for the final season of the Batman television series in 1966. Her career continued to grow and led to her being invited to lunch at the white house in 1968. During the lunch with the Mrs. Johnson, Eartha voiced anti-Vietnam War statements and those statements led her to being blacklisted by Hollywood and the FBI. Eartha moved to Europe and continue working. In 1978 she earned her first Tony for her work in Timbuktu! An all black remake of Kismet. In the 80s she returned to music and made her biggest hit song “Where is My Man”. She wrote three autobiographies and earned a Grammy later in her career. In the early 2000s she received her second Tony nomination. In 2007 and 2008 she won Daytime Emmy Awards for her role as Yzma in the Emperor’s New School. #ThankYou #blackhistorymonth #Day24 #EverythangCulture #Podcast #Black #Excellence #Honor #Remember #Learn #Listen #Grow #Unity #Culture #Heritage #Women #Love #EarthaKitt #CivilRights #CatWoman #PopCulture #Legend https://www.instagram.com/p/CLtQ_ktpHyq/?igshid=slqamu6icsmk

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blackkudos · 6 years ago

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Amanda Randolph

Amanda E. Randolph (September 2, 1896 – August 24, 1967) was an American actress, singer and musician. She was the first African-American performer to star in a regularly scheduled network television show, appearing in DuMont's The Laytons.

Early life

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Randolph was the daughter of a Methodist minister and a teacher. She had a younger sister, Lillian who also became an actress, and a brother, Steve Gibson, who was the leader of the Rhythm and Blues group, the Five Red Caps. However, new research shows that, although the preceding statement is widely quoted and believed, it isn't true. James "Jay" Price, a member of the Red Caps from 1952-8, says that, while Steve Gibson and Lillian Randolph jokingly called each other "sister" and "brother," they weren't related at all. The story apparently started with the December 31, 1953, article in Jet Magazine, referenced above. It appeared in Major Robinson's gossip column, which carried the most outrageous (and unverified) claims from press agents. Most telling is that, in the 1910 United States Census, Amanda and Lillian's mother was about 50, far too old to have given birth to Steve Gibson on October 12, 1914.

Career

Music

The Randolph family moved frequently. At the age of 14, Randolph began earning extra money playing piano and the organ in Cleveland, Ohio. Around 1919, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where she recorded several piano rolls of hot jazz and blues music for the Vocalstyle company of Cincinnati while working as a musician in Ohio's Lyric Theatre. These are the only known rolls recorded by a black female pianist. Randolph did her work for the company under the name Mandy Randolph. She is shown as the performer of "The Yellow Dog Blues", by W. C. Handy in 1919, Vocalstyle roll # 11562. Randolph also wrote music she recorded for the Vocalstyle company; she is shown as both the performer and composer of "I'm Gonna Jazz My Way Right Straight Thru Paradise", and as the co-author of "Cryin' Blues" with H. C. Washington.

Randolph also cut audio recordings, accompanied by Sammie Lewis. A record album was produced in 1996 by Document Records called, Blues & Jazz Obscurities (1923-1931), containing the six duets the pair produced. Still working under the name Mandy Randolph, she recorded "Cootie Crawl" (G11425) on April 30, 1923, and "I Got Another Lovin' Daddy" for Gennett Records.

She was invited to join the Sissle and Blake musical, Shuffle Along, in New York in 1924 and went on to do Lucky Sambo as one of the Three Dixie Songbirds (sharing the bill with its star, Tim Moore). in 1925, she was part of Sissle and Blake's The Chocolate Dandies. Randolph then worked in musicals at New York's Alhambra Theater until 1930, following that with work in Europe and England for a year.

Randolph worked on the vaudeville and burlesque circuits as a comedian and as a singer, noting that Abbott and Costello also got their start the same way. Randolph took a four-year hiatus from show business in 1932; she married and helped her husband run their restaurant in New York called The Clam House, which was a favorite of those in the entertainment industry. She then returned to performing, playing piano at a Greenwich Village club called The Black Cat. She made more records, this time recording for Bluebird Records. The label began in 1932 and was owned by RCA Victor Records. She did the vocals with her own band, billed as Amanda Randolph and her Orchestra. The records were made in New York City on October 8, 1936. On that date, Amanda cut: "Please Don't Talk About My Man" (Bluebird 6615), "Doin' The Suzie-Q" (Bluebird 6615), "Honey, Please Don't Turn Your Back On Me" (Bluebird 6616), "For Sentimental Reasons" (Bluebird 6617), "He May Be Your Man But" (Bluebird 6617), and "I've Got Something In My Eye", (Bluebird 6619-B). She also recorded "After Hours"; some of these songs can be heard on radio station KBRD which also broadcasts on the internet.

Films, radio and television

Randolph's film career began in 1936 with Black Network. She went on to do several Oscar Micheaux films, among them: Swing, Lying Lips and The Notorious Elinor Lee. Broadway roles in The Male Animal and Harlem Cavalcade soon followed. Around the same time, Randolph broke into radio, helped by people she met at The Clam House, who got her a CBS audition. She began working on various radio shows: Young Dr. Malone, Romance of Helen Trent and Big Sister.

She went on to become a regular cast member on Abie's Irish Rose, Kitty Foyle, and Miss Hattie with Ethel Barrymore, where she had the role of Venus. Randolph also appeared on Rudy Vallée's radio show and on Grand Central Station.

She continued working in films until the 1960s, and was one of the first black women to become a comedy favorite on television. Randolph was the first African-American performer to star in a regularly scheduled network television show, appearing in DuMont'sThe Laytons. This short-lived program was on the air two months in 1948.

During the 1948-1949 television season, Randolph starred for about a year in her own daytime musical TV program for DuMont,Amanda, which aired Mon-Fridays from 12noon to 12:15pm ET, making her the first African-American woman with her own show on daytime television. Randolph did not settle in California until 1949, when she earned a role in Sidney Poitier's No Way Out. Even though she was working in New York and her younger sister, Lillian, had been working in Hollywood for some time, newspapers often got the two sisters mixed up, doing a story on Amanda but with a photo of Lillian and vice versa. She then became a regular on the top early black TV show of the decade, Amos 'n' Andy, as Sapphire's mother, Ramona Smith, from 1951 to 1953; she also played the same role for the show's radio version from 1951 to 1954.

Randolph then began working with her sister, Lillian, who played Madame Queen on the radio and television shows. She was the star and titular character in Beulah from 1953 to 1954, assuming the role from Lillian. Randolph also did some work for CBS Radio Workshop in 1956, playing the role of the folk heroine Annie Christmas in The Legend of Annie Christmas.

Randolph had a recurring role as Louise the Maid on CBS's The Danny Thomas Show and appeared in the show's 1967 reunion program, which aired shortly after her death. She guest-starred on the NBC anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show. In 1955, Amanda opened a restaurant in Los Angeles called "Mama's Place", where she did the cooking.

Despite all her film and television work, Randolph found herself slightly short of the requirements for a much-needed Screen Actors Guild pension at the age of 70; both sisters struggled for roles in the late 1930s. A role was written for her to gain eligibility.

Personal life

Randolph married Arthur Sherman in Cincinnati on September 12, 1918, by Rev. James Parkhurst Foote (1878–1949), minister of Zion Methodist Episcopal Church. They later divorced.

Her second marriage was to Harry Hansberry sometime after 1940. Hansberry was the owner of the "Hansberry's Clam House" (aka "Edith's Clam House") at 146 West 133rd Street, New York City's most famous gay speakeasy in Harlem, The couple had two children before separating. They were estranged when Hansberry died of a heart attack in 1961.

Death

Randolph died of a stroke in Duarte, California, on August 24, 1967, aged 70. She is survived by a son, Joseph, and a daughter, Evelyn. She is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills beside her sister, Lillian.

http://wikipedia.thetimetube.com/?q=Amanda+Randolph&lang=en

#Amanda Randolph

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