KRLemmons African American Biography, African American Poetry, Resources

April 23 Poet of the Day: Michael S. Harper

April 23 Poet of the day is Michael S. Harper.  Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1938, he has published more than ten books and written several collections.  Read about this award-winning Poet Laureate of Rhode Island here:

Additional resources on Michael S. Harper:

Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/michael-s-harper

Lunch Poems: Poetry reading on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY8R7APJ8uM

Michael S. Harper reading “Dear John, Dear Coltrane”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESdDn9njMcM

Modern American Poetry: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/harper/harper.htm

KRLemmons African American Biography, African American Poetry, Resources

April 22 Poet of the Day: Sonia Sanchez

April 22 Poet of the day is Sonia Sanchez.  Born September 9, 1934, this poet, activist, educator is often associated with the Black Arts Movement.  Read more about this multitalented woman here:

Additional resources on Sonia Sanchez:

Poets.org: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/276

Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sonia-sanchez

MSNBC Video: http://www.msnbc.com/the-cycle/watch/sonia-sanchez-on-activism-and-poetry-101378115761

Def Poetry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X8gIrkUTh0

Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/21/poet_activist_sonia_sanchez_at_peace

Art & Power in Movement: http://blip.tv/amherstmedia/sonia-sanchez-art-power-in-movement-4977129

Voices From the Gap: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/sanchez_sonia.php

National Visionary Leadership Project: http://www.visionaryproject.org/sanchezsonia/

Interview with Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/a-qanda-with-poet-laureate-sonia-sanchez/2012/10/24/eb76c68c-1e02-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_blog.html

KRLemmons African American History

April 23 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 23 *

1856 – Granville Tailer Woods is born in Columbus, Ohio. He will
become an inventor of steam boilers, furnaces, incubators
and auto air brakes and holder of over 50 patents. He will
become the first American of African ancestry to be a
mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War.
Self-taught, he will concentrate most of his work on trains
and streetcars. One of his notable inventions will be the
Multiplex Telegraph, a device that sends messages between
train stations and moving trains. His work will assure a
safer and better public transportation system for the
cities of the United States. He will join the ancestors on
January 30, 1910.

1872 – Charlotte E. Ray becomes the first African American woman
lawyer in ceremonies held in Washington, DC admitting her
to practice before the bar. She had received her law degree
from Howard University on February 27.

1894 – Jimmy Noone is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will
become a jazz clarinetist and a major influence on the
swing music of the 1930’s and 1940’s. He will be a band
leader and be best known as the leader of “Jimmy Noone’s
Apex Club Orchestra.” Two of the people most influenced by
Jimmy Noone’s style will be Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey.
He will join the ancestors after suffering a fatal heart
attack, while performing with “Kid” Ory on April 19, 1944.

1895 – Jorge Mateus Vicente Lima is born in Alagoas, Brazil. He
will become a poet, novelist, essayist, painter, doctor,
and politician. He will become best known as a writer,
manipulating Brazilian subjects, at the same time analyzing
Afro-Brazilian culture and heritage. He will become a
fixture in the Brazilian experience during the 1920’s. Even
though he became a physician, he will exhibit his talents
as a writer in writings from his youth. His most famous
writing will be a poem, “Essa Nega Fulo” (That Black Girl
Fulo), written in 1928. The poem will explore the dynamics
between a slave master, the slave and her mistress. He
will join the ancestors in 1953 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1898 – Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr. is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
He will become a composer and bandleader best known as
“Pixinguinha.” By the time he was a teenager, he will be
respected for his talent as a flutist. After traveling with
his first band to France in 1922, he will open the door of
Brazilian music to the world. He will be credited with
assisting to invent the “samba.” He is generally referred
to as the King of Samba and the Father of Musica Popular
Brasileira. He will join the ancestors on February 17, 1973
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1913 – The National Urban League is incorporated in New York City.
The organization is founded in 1910 when the Committee on
Urban Conditions Among Negroes met in New York to discuss
means to assist rural African Americans in the transition
to urban life. Founders include Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin
and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, who becomes the league’s
first executive director.

1941 – New Yorkers are treated to a performance of Cafi Society at
Carnegie Hall by a group of jazz artists that includes
Albert “Jug” Ammons, Hazel Scott, and Art Tatum. It also
marks the first performance of Helena (later Lena) Horne,
who sings “Summertime,” among other songs.

1944 – The NAACP Youth Council and Committee for Unity in Motion
Pictures selects its first Motion Picture Award recipients.
Given to honor actors whose roles advance the image of
African Americans in motion pictures, awards go to Rex
Ingram for “Sahara,” Lena Horne for “As Thousands Cheer,”
Leigh Whipper for “The Oxbow Incident” and “Mission to
Moscow,” Hazel Scott for her debut in “Something to Shout
About” and Dooley Wilson for his role as Sam in
“Casablanca,” among others. The awards will be the fore-
runner to the NAACP’s Image Awards.

1948 – Charles Richard Johnson in born in Evanston, Illinois. He
will become an novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He
will begin his career after graduating from the State
University of New York at Stonybrook with a Ph.D. in
philosophy. He will be mentored by W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph
Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright and John Gardner. He
will be known for his works, “Middle Passage,” “Oxherding
Tale,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” and “Being and Race:
Black Writing Since 1970.” He will win the 1990 National
Book Award for “Middle Passage.”

1954 – Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, of the Milwaukee Braves, hits the
first of what will be 755 career home runs, in a game
against the St. Louis Cardinals. The score will be 7-5 in
favor of the Braves.

1955 – U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review a lower court decision
which would ban segregation in intrastate bus travel.

1964 – James Baldwin’s play, “Blues for Mr. Charlie” opens on
Broadway. Starring Al Freeman, Jr., Diana Sands, and
others, the play reveals the plight of African Americans in
the South.

1971 – Columbia University operations are virtually ended for the
year by African American and white students who seize five
buildings on campus.

1971 – William Tubman, president of Liberia, joins the ancestors at
the age of 76. He had been president of Liberia since
1944.

1998 – James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and then insisted he was
framed, dies at a Nashville hospital at age 70.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.

KRLemmons African American History

April 22 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 22 *

1526 – The first recorded slave revolt occurs in a settlement of
some five hundred Spaniards and one hundred slaves, located
on the Pedee River in what is now South Carolina.

1882 – Benjamin Griffith Brawley is born in Columbia, South
Carolina. He will become a prolific author and educator,
serving as a professor of English at Morehouse, Howard,
and Shaw universities. He will also serve as dean of
Morehouse. His books, among them “A Short History of the
American Negro” and “A New Survey of English Literature,”
will be landmark texts recommended at several colleges. He
will join the ancestors in 1939.

1922 – Charles Mingus is born in Nogales, Arizona. Raised in Watts,
California, he will play double bass with Charlie Parker,
Duke Ellington, and Bud Powell before becoming a bandleader
and composer in his own right. Although not as popular as
Miles Davis or Ellington, Mingus, who also will play piano,
will be considered one of the principal forces in modern
jazz. He will join the ancestors in 1979 succumbing to Lou
Gehrig’s disease.

1950 – Charles Hamilton Houston, architect of the NAACP legal
campaign, joins the ancestors in Washington, DC at the age
of 54.

1964 – A Trinity College student occupies the school administration
building to protest campus bias.

1964 – New York police arrest 294 civil rights demonstrators at the
opening of the World Fair.

1970 – Yale University students protest in support of the Black
Panthers.

1981 – The Joint Center for Political Studies reports that 2991
African Americans held elective offices in 45 states and
the District of Columbia, compared with 2621 in April, 1973,
and 1185 in 1969. The Center reports 108 African American
mayors. Michigan had the largest number of African American
elected officials (194), followed by Mississippi (191).

1981 – Brailsford Reese Brazeal, economist and former dean of
Morehouse College, joins the ancestors in Atlanta, Georgia,
at the age of 76.

1989 – Huey Newton, black activist and co-founder of the Black
Panther Party, joins the ancestors, after being killed at
age 47.

2000 – The Rev. R.F. Jenkins, a pastor active in civil-rights
organizations, who led his church for 25 years, joins the
ancestors in Omaha, Nebraska, after suffering a heart attack
at the age of 87. He was the first African American Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod minister in the Nebraska district. He
and his wife, Beatrice, had come to Omaha in 1954 after
serving pastorates in Alabama and North Carolina. He had
also previously served eight years as a faculty member at
Alabama Lutheran College. He had returned to his hometown of
Selma, Alabama, to take part in a civil-rights march in
1965. He served on the Omaha School District board from 1970
to 1976, and retired from the pulpit in 1979.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.