Nina McKinney

Nina Mae McKinney (June 13, 1912 – May 3, 1967) was an American actress who worked internationally during the 1930s and in the postwar period in theatre, film and television, after getting her start on Broadway and in Hollywood. Dubbed "The Black Garbo" in Europe because of her striking beauty, McKinney was one of the first African-American film stars in the United States, as well as one of the first African Americans to appear on British television.

McKinney left school at the age of 15 and moved to New York to pursue acting, where she was reunited with her parents. Her debut on Broadway was dancing in a chorus line of the hit musical Blackbirds of 1928. This show starred Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Adelaide Hall. The musical opened at the Liberty Theater on May 9, 1928 and became one of the longest-running and most successful shows of its genre on Broadway.

Her performance landed McKinney a leading role in a film. Looking for a star in his upcoming movie, Hallelujah!, the Hollywood film director King Vidor spotted McKinney in the chorus line of Blackbirds.He said, "Nina Mae McKinney was third from the right in the chorus. She was beautiful and talented and glowing with personality." And that’s what rocketed her into the world of acting and Hollywood.

In Hallelujah (1929), McKinney was the first African-American actress to hold a principal role in a mainstream film; it had an African-American cast. was nominated for an Oscar for his directing of Hallelujah and McKinney was praised for her role. When asked about her performance, Vidor told audiences "Nina was full of life, full of expression, and just a joy to work with. Someone like her inspires a d In Europe McKinney was nicknamed the “Black Garbo,” because of her striking beauty. In December 1932, she went to Paris, where she performed as a cabaret entertainer in nighttime hot spots or restaurants, including Chez Florence. In February 1933, she starred in a show called Chocolate and Cream in the Leicester Square Theatre in London. She also worked in Athens, Greece, and returned there after World War II.

After touring, she returned to London in 1934 to appear in a British film titled Kentucky Minstrels (released in the United States as Life is Real.) The film was one of the first British works to feature African-American actors. Film Weekly said of McKinney, "Nina Mae McKinney, as the star of the final spectacular revue, is the best thing in the picture—and she, of course, has nothing to do with the 'plot'."McKinney remained in England and worked in a variety of roles. She also sang the popular song "Dinah" during Music Hall, a radio broadcast show.

After taking a break, she tried to make a comeback in Hollywood. She took roles in some smaller films, having to accept stereotypical roles of maids and whores. For example, in 1944 she appeared alongside Merle Oberon, playing a servant girl in the film Dark Waters. In 1951, McKinney made her last stage appearance, playing Sadie Thompson in a summer stock production of Rain.

After World War II, McKinney returned to Europe, living in Athens, Greece until 1960. That year she returned to New York. In 1978, McKinney received a posthumous award from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame for her lifetime achievement *wikipedia

Onesimus  

Cotton Mather was a puritan minister in New England, he was an author and known for his vigorous involvement in the Salem Witch Trials, I only mention him as he relates to the slave he owned named Onesimus. Mather named him after a biblical slave who escaped from his master, an early Christian named Philemon. Onesimus, was born in the late seventeenth century, probably in Africa, although the precise date and place of his birth are unknown.

In the 17th century smallpox had become a serious threat in colonial New England decimating the population, at this time it had been managed by quarantine, incoming ships that came into the Boston harbor were quarantined  and the patients in town were housed in pesthouses. Smallpox was highly contageous and the mortality rate was as high as 30%.

Onesimus showed Mather his smallpox scar and told him: 

"you. take the Juice of the Small Pox, and Cut the Skin and put in a drop: then by 'nd by a little Sick, then a few Small Pox; and no body dye of it; no body have Small Pox any more." Mathers said, He told him that it was often used among Africans. In 1721, five years later, Mather used the information to inoculate people during a smallpox epidemic in Boston.

*cited~excerpt from an  article: http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/

Reports of similar practices in Turkey further persuaded Mather to mount a public inoculation campaign. Most white doctors rejected this process of deliberately infecting a person with smallpox--now called variolation--in part because of their misgivings about African medical knowledge. Public and medical opinion in Boston was strongly against both Mather and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, the only doctor in town willing to perform inoculations; one opponent even threw a grenade into Mather’s home. A survey of the nearly six thousand people who contracted smallpox between 1721 and 1723 found, however, that Onesimus, Mather, and Boylston had been right. Only 2 percent of the six hundred Bostonians inoculated against smallpox died, while 14 percent of those who caught the disease but were not inoculated succumbed to the illness.

It is unclear when or how Onesimus died, but his legacy is unambiguous. His knowledge of variolation gives the lie to one justification for enslaving Africans, namely, white Europeans’ alleged superiority in medicine, science, and technology. This bias made the smallpox epidemic of 1721 more deadly than it need have been. Bostonians and other Americans nonetheless adopted the African practice of inoculation in future smallpox outbreaks, and variolation remained the most effective means of treating the disease until the development of vaccination by Edward Jenner in 1796.

African Americans in The Victorian Era

Many times when you see people of color in vintage photographs it is either in horrid poverty-stricken conditions or on a plantation as slaves. History tends not to tell the truth when it comes to its presentation of African Americans in American society and as it was done in the past, so they still do in the present. African Americans were not the dregs of society as history and the media would have you believe now or then. The photographs below are proof that people of color have always been a stylish and positive  influence in society.....take a look!

.....and more fashions!

.....and still stylin'

.....and still holdn' it down!

......we always were a fashionable people

to this day!

Augusta Savage's "The Harp"

One of the art mediums I loved to do in high school was with clay(sculpturing), I wish that I could do more of it now. I love all forms of art, from sculpturing, drawing and painting to poetry and music, it inspires and fascinates me deep in my soul.

I was researching the Harlem Renaissance period, an era in the 1920's to mid 1930's that began a movement of cultural, social and artistic expression of African American art, photography, music, literature and dance. It took place in Harlem, New York, and ushered in a time of racial pride and identity, much like James Brown did with his song, "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," in 1968. 

African American artists came into prominence at this time, such as, musicians Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, singers Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith, poets Claude McKay and Langston Hughes and many more. Among the many artists was a woman, Augusta Savage who created a beautiful sculpture that was amazing, It was inspired by the poem "Lift Every Voice and Sing" written by James Weldon Johnson in 1899 and set to music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson in 1900.

As an artist and poet, it is from "The Creator" that all creative expression is inspired and along with the poem and the sculpture, I can imagine what it must have meant to her when she completed this masterpiece. I can visualize the sculpture and the poem coming to life as one in metaphysical detail, "poetry in motion"....so to speak, is my personal interpretation of this piece.

A beautiful piece of artwork!

I urge you to look into the history of "The Harlem Renaissance" it is an amazing testament to the magnificent Yah-given talents of African American people, you will be amazed and inspired too, layman and artist alike!

"The Harp"

Augusta Savage

Augusta Savage is remembered as an artist, activist, and arts educator, serving as an inspiration to the many that she taught, helped, and encouraged.

Born Augusta Christine Fells on February 29, 1892, in Green Cove Springs, Florida, Augusta Savage was an important African American artist and arts educator. Savage began making art as a child, using the natural clay found in her community. She liked to sculpt animals and other small figures. But her father, a Methodist minister, didn't approve of this activity, and did whatever he could to stop her. Savage once said that her father "almost whipped all the art out of me."

Despite her father's objections, Savage continued to make sculptures. When the family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in 1915, she encountered a new challenge?? a lack of clay. Savage eventually got some materials from a local potter and created a group of figures that she entered in a local county fair. Her work was well-received, winning a prize and the support of the fair's organizer, George Graham Currie. He encouraged her to study art.

After a failed attempt to establish herself as a sculptor in Jacksonville, Florida, Savage moved to New York City in 1920s. She struggled financially throughout her life, but was able to study art at the Cooper Union, which did not charge tuition. After a year, the school gave her a scholarship to help with living expenses. Savage excelled there, finishing her course work in three years instead of the usual four.

While at the Cooper Union, she had an experience that would influence her life and work in 1923. Savage applied to a special summer program to study art in France, but was rejected because of her race. She took the rejection as a call to action, and sent letters to the local media about the program selection committee's discriminatory practices. Savage's story made headlines in many newspapers.

Despite her efforts, the committee refused to change its mind. Although disappointed, Savage found success in other areas. She started to make a name for herself as portrait sculptor. Her works from this time include portraits of such leading African Americans as W. E. B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey. Savage was considered to be one of the leading artists of the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American literary and artistic movement of the 1920s.

Highly regarded as an artist, Savage was commissioned to create a sculpture for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Inspired by some of the lyrics of the poem "Lift Every Voice and Sing," she created The Harp. The work re-interpreted the musical instrument to feature African-American faces?? depicted as if they were singing?? appeared at the top of the harp strings, and the instrument's sounding board is transformed into a hand and arm. In the foreground, the figure of a young man kneeled, offering music in his hands. Although this is considered to be one of her major works, The Harp was destroyed at the end of the fair. 

*source: biography.com

~And I say, it was destroyed...What a shame.

Black History

Isaiah 1:3

An ox knows its owner and a donkey its master's crib-Israel does not know, my people have not understood.

It is a natural instinct to want to be connected to a place of origin, a beginning, a place of recognition. Unfortunately for Black people who are the victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade there was no place of origin to identify with other than Africa, but there was not a specific area of Africa that could be claimed. As a result Black Americans did what was necessary to cultivate an identity within the confines of a country that was not originally their home nor included them as equal citizens. Although, I believe the contributions of African Americans to this world far exceeds the celebration of more than one month out of a year, in the honorable tradition of Black History Month I will post each week a person or people who has made an impact on our society through invention, music, poetry, fashion, art etc. 

Carter G. Woodson

The origin of Black History Month:

The story of Black History Month begins in Chicago during the late summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans travelled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery.  Awarded a doctorate in Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a black history display. Despite being held at the Coliseum, the site of the 1912 Republican convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Inspired by the three-week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of black life and history before leaving town.  On September 9th, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).

He hoped that others would popularize the findings that he and other black intellectuals would publish in The Journal of Negro History, which he established in 1916.  As early as 1920, Woodson urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering.  A graduate member of Omega Psi Phi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week.  Their outreach was significant, but Woodson desired greater impact.  As he told an audience of Hampton Institute students, “We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.”  In 1925, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility.  Going forward it would both create and popularize knowledge about the black past. He sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February, 1926.

Woodson chose February for reasons of tradition and reform.  It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition. Since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, the black community, along with other Republicans, had been celebrating the fallen President’s birthday. And since the late 1890s, black communities across the country had been celebrating Douglass’. Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the black past.  He was asking the public to extend their study of black history, not to create a new tradition.  In doing so, he increased his chances for success.

Yet Woodson was up to something more than building on tradition. Without saying so, he aimed to reform it from the study of two great men to a great race.  Though he admired both men, Woodson had never been fond of the celebrations held in their honor. He railed against the “ignorant spellbinders” who addressed large, convivial gatherings and displayed their lack of knowledge about the men and their contributions to history.  

More importantly, Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men.  He envisioned the study and and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. And Lincoln, however great, had not freed the slaves—the Union Army, including hundreds of thousands of black soldiers and sailors, had done that. Rather than focusing on two men, the black community, he believed, should focus on the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.

The 1960s had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history.  Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on its way to becoming Black History Month.  The shift to a month-long celebration began even before Dr. Woodson death.  As early as 1940s, blacks in West Virginia, a state where Woodson often spoke, began to celebrate February as Negro History Month.  In Chicago, a now forgotten cultural activist, Fredrick H. Hammaurabi, started celebrating Negro History Month in the mid-1960s.  Having taken an African name in the 1930s, Hammaurabi used his cultural center, the House of Knowledge, to fuse African consciousness with the study of the black past.  

By the late 1960s, as young blacks on college campuses became increasingly conscious of links with Africa, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week at a quickening pace.  Within the Association, younger intellectuals, part of the awakening, prodded Woodson’s organization to change with the times. They succeeded.  In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association used its influence to institutionalize the shifts from a week to a month and from Negro history to black history. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association’s annual theme. *source www.asalh.org

*note: Carter G. Woodson is also the author of The Mis-Education of the Negro

Black History Month (1976)

The expansion of Black History Week to Black History Month was first proposed by the leaders of the Black United Students at Kent State University in February 1969. The first celebration of the Black History Month took place at Kent State one year later, in February 1970.

In 1976 as part of the United States Bicentennial, the informal expansion of Negro History Week to Black History Month was officially recognized by the U.S. government. President Gerald Ford spoke in regards to this, urging Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."

United Kingdom (1987)

Black History Month was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1987. It was organized through the leadership of Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who then served as a coordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council (GLC) and created a collaboration to get it underway. It was first celebrated in London and has become a national institution.

Canada (1995)

In 1995, after a motion by politician Jean Augustine, representing the riding of Etobicoke—Lakeshore in Ontario, Canada's House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month and honored Black Canadians. In 2008, Senator Donald Oliver moved to have the Senate officially recognize Black History Month, which was unanimously approved.

*source:wikipedia

The Tignon Law

Head wraps have always been an expression of culture and style throughout the diaspora of black women. The beautiful colors and artistic design enhances the natural beauty of any woman who wears it. Did you know at one time in the late 1700’s there was a law in Louisiana that prevent black women from uncovering their hair due to the attention the African and creole women were getting from European men?  It was called the Tignon Law, pronounced tiyon.

A Tignon is a head covering made from a large cloth material and is tied around the head, resembling the African Gele. The Law was created under the administration of Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró and required women of African descent, Creole, slave or free to cover their head and hair with a scarf and tone down how they dressed, so as not to attract a white man’s attention, as well as maintain class distinction. 

However, the women took their style to a whole new level by designing elaborate colorful tignons that got them more attention than before.

Today head wraps are becoming more popular as women of color are embracing their natural hair and styles that define their originality.

Kudos to the au’naturale movement!

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder......