Good Black News: The Daily Drop: Recent Episodes
Lori Lakin Hutcherson
A daily drop of Good Black News offers quick, inspiring facts about people, events, culture, history, organizations or landmarks along with quotes, jokes, games and trivia from goodblacknews.org and the Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022 by Lori Lakin Hutcherson and Workman Publishing. Cover Design by Jeronimo Sochaczewski.
Memorial Day, an American national holiday dedicated to the memory of fallen US soldiers, is celebrated on the last Monday of May. Its beginnings however, started on the first day of May in 1865, when by a group of newly liberated Blacks in Charleston, South Carolina placed flowers on the unmarked graves of captured Union soldiers and held a parade to honor the dead.
- To learn more about what was originally known as "Decoration Day", check out the links to sources below:
- https://www.history.com/news/memorial-day-civil-war-slavery-charleston
- https://www.lx.com/black-legacy/dont-overlook-memorial-days-black-southern-roots/53453/
- https://www.live5news.com/2020/02/18/charleston-claims-first-memorial-day-celebration-with-african-americans-playing-significant-role/
- https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2022/05/28/freed-slaves-started-first-memorial-day-in-the-us/
- https://aaregistry.org/story/the-first-american-memorial-day-is-commemorated/
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Born in 1879, Mary Eliza Mahoney worked hard for nearly two decades to earn her nursing license, overcoming discrimination to become the first African American person to do so in the United States. To learn more about Boston-born and based Mahoney, read Mary Eliza Mahoney and the Legacy of African-American Nurses, watch a short bio on YouTube or check out the links to more sources below.
Sources:
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-mahoney
https://www.essence.com/black-history-month-2019/mary-eliza-mahoney-the-first-black-nurse/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/obituaries/mary-eliza-mahoney-overlooked.html
https://nursing-theory.org/famous-nurses/Mary-Mahoney.php
https://www.biography.com/activist/mary-mahoney
http://ojin.nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutANA/Honoring-Nurses/NationalAwardsProgram/HallofFame/19761982/mahome5552.html
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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The first African American woman to earn a doctorate at M.I.T., Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is responsible for the major advances in telecommunications research that led to the invention of the touch-tone phone, portable fax, fiber optic cables, solar cells, call waiting and caller ID.
To learn more about the current president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological research university in the U.S., check out the links to sources below:
Strong Force: The Story of Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson
https://president.rpi.edu/president-biography
https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/shirley-ann-jackson/
https://www.news10.com/news/local-news/dr-shirley-ann-jackson-a-lifetime-shattering-glass-ceilings-in-math-and-science-for-black-women/
https://youtu.be/mKAgAdHaJw0 (National Medal of Science bio)
https://youtu.be/0CYQAQ1EPSo (Storied Women of MIT)
https://youtu.be/ATcTENr07U8 (An evening with Dr. Jackson NSTMF)
https://youtu.be/xvGPPE-09OE (Brown University Department of Physics bio)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Jockey Oliver Lewis won the inaugural Kentucky Derby atop the colt Aristides on May 17, 1875. Lewis was one of thirteen Black jockeys in the fifteen-strong field.
But even though Blacks dominated horseracing in the late 1800s, by the early 1900s, they’d been pushed out of the sport, with James Winkfield being the last to win in 1902. After an almost 80 year drought, in 2000, Marlon St. Julien was the next Black jockey to compete.
To learn more about Oliver Lewis and the long history of African American people in horse racing, check out the sources below.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-Americans-and-Horse-Racing-1984952
https://kchr.ky.gov/Hall-of-Fame/Pages/Oliver-Lewis.aspx
https://www.derbymuseum.org/Exhibits/Detail/12/Black-Heritage-in-Racing
https://madamenoire.com/1314353/a-group-of-black-women-horse-owners-make-history-after-winning-their-first-kentucky-oaks-day-race/
https://biography.jrank.org/pages/2969/Lewis-Oliver.html
https://www.americasbestracing.net/videos/2022-celebrate-black-history-month-jockey-oliver-lewis
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=151711493456737
https://youtu.be/6kXTvHErwm8 (Kentucky Derby video on Black Jockeys)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
On Mother's Day 2022, we offer a quote from three-time Olympic gold medalist and international track star Wilma Rudolph on when you have a choice, always choose to believe your mother.
To learn more about Wilma Rudolph, read her 1977 autobiography Wilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph, Wilma Rudolph: A Biography from 2006, the children’s book Wilma Rudolph: Athlete and Educator by Alice K. Flanagan, or watch the 1977 movie Wilma starring Cicely Tyson, Shirley Jo Finney and Denzel Washington on Vudu.
Sources:
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/wilma-rudolph
https://olympics.com/en/athletes/wilma-rudolph
https://www.espn.com/sportscentury/features/00016444.html
https://www.usatf.org/athlete-bios/wilma-rudolph
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/13/obituaries/wilma-rudolph-star-of-the-1960-olympics-dies-at-54.html
https://youtu.be/BYQXYVwa4YE (biography mini bio)
https://youtu.be/FPVdpJZJi-o (epic Olympic moments)
https://youtu.be/Xnr0hu1skVY (interview)
Earlier this week, Karine Jean-Pierre was named the new White House Press Secretary from her current position as the Principal Deputy Press Secretary for the Biden Administration. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ-plus person to serve in this position.
To learn more about Jean-Pierre, read her 2019 book Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America, watch her 2020 interview on the Today show and check out links to more sources below:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/politics/karine-jean-pierre-white-house-press-secretary.html
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/karine-jean-pierre-on-her-mental-health-struggle-and-a-blueprint-for-activism
- https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/karine-jean-pierre-building-stronger-more-inclusive-america-n1269166
- https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a37223725/karine-jean-pierre-joe-biden-white-house-career-interview/
- https://youtu.be/BwS75k7ZE94 (MoveOn.org / Kamala Harris moment)
- https://youtu.be/znryYvNxSWw (Psaki and Jean-Pierre)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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On National Nurses Day, we acknowledge Ernest Grant, internationally recognized burn care and safety expert and the first male president of the American Nurses Association. To learn more about Grant, history of nursing as well as African American nurses, check out the links provided below:
Sources:
- https://www.nursingworld.org/ana/leadership-and-governance/board-of-directors/ana-president/
- https://nurse.org/articles/black-history-month-nursing-leaders/
- https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/american-nursing-an-introduction-to-the-past/
- https://www.registerednursing.org/articles/african-american-nurses-making-history/
- https://www.chamberlain.edu/blog/a-celebration-of-10-famous-black-nurses-in-history
- https://www.nbna.org/history
- https://www.nbna.org/files/NBNA%20FALL%202019%20REVJAN07.pdf
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jan.14791
- https://aahc.nc.gov/resources/black-history-month-2021/black-history-month-2021-health-pioneers-interview-dr-ernest-j-grant
- https://youtu.be/zCnnciTWIjY (video interview with Ernest Grant)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Mississippi but was able to secure her freedom in a California court after her owner tried to move her back East to Texas. Mason used her earnings from midwifery to buy property, establish the first AME church in Los Angeles, and build community as the wealthiest Black woman in LA.
To learn more about Mason and her legacy, check out biddymasoncollaborative.com, laconservancy.org to learn more about Biddy Mason Memorial Park in Los Angeles, read Biddy Mason: A Place of Her Own by Camille Gavin and Biddy Mason Speaks Up by Arisa White and Laura Atkins
Sources:
- https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/descendants-of-biddy-mason-the-grandmother-of-la-want-her-honored/2832587/
- https://www.nps.gov/people/biddymason.htm
- https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/09/418616/open-hand-conversation-descendants-biddy-mason
- https://la.curbed.com/2017/3/1/14756308/biddy-mason-california-black-history
- https://www.aclunc.org/sites/goldchains/explore/biddy-mason.html
- https://laist.com/news/la-history/biddy-mason-free-forever-the-contentious-hearing-that-made-her-a-legend-los-angeles-black-history
- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-27-me-25048-story.html?fbclid=IwAR1H9m1KyFEyIncVYBAAUMX3Gv2zQLEWhLaVE5spnl0eg7JvGgclV6LM2-I
History was made 42 years ago in May 1980 when the burgeoning Star Wars franchise added the character of Lando Calrissian to its universe played by 1970s heartthrob Billy Dee Williams. He was the second Black character in popular science fiction film or television to have a significant and recurring role. (The first was Nichelle Nichols' Lieutenant Uhura on the original Star Trek series.)
To learn more about Black Star Wars characters, check out the links below:
- https://nerdist.com/article/black-representation-star-wars/
- https://www.theroot.com/star-wars-black-characters-ranked-1794923523
- https://www.blackenterprise.com/star-wars-7-black-characters-you-should-know/
- https://www.thegeektwins.com/2019/02/star-wars-22-black-actors-ranked-from.html
- https://www.starwarsgeekgirl.com/post-1/highlighting-black-characters-in-star-wars
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social .
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day Calendar" for 2022, we explore words and phrases in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Today's entry takes a look at "Afrofuturism" -- a term used to describe a movement within Black culture from the 1950s to present that uses science fiction and fantasy as frameworks to reimagine the African diaspora in music, art, literature, film, and fashion.
To learn more, read Mark Dery’s seminal 1994 "Black to the Future" essay, Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture by Ytasha L. Womack, Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise fo Astro-Blackness edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, watch Afrofuturism 101 at pbs.org, download the This American Life “We Are The Future” episode on Afrofuturism by Neil Drumming, check out other Afrofuturism-themed podcasts on player.fm, and listen to the awesome “Space is The Place” Afrofuturism playlist curated by Good Black News contributor Marlon West.
Sources:
- https://www.wired.com/story/how-afrofuturism-can-help-the-world-mend/
- https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anxiety/episodes/black-people-are-outer-space
- https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/afrofuturism
- https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/what-is-afrofuturism
- https://www.essence.com/entertainment/a-beginners-guide-afrofuturism/
- https://www.sfjazz.org/onthecorner/we-travel-space-ways-afrofuturism-music
- https://www.npr.org/transcripts/968498810
- https://youtu.be/154XnA1xcis (short video on Afrofuturism)
- https://youtu.be/ppNai6KOXyQ (Afrofuturism in film)
- https://youtu.be/IW1eUuZaF2o (Afrofuturism TedX Masi Mbewe)
Today, on Eid Al Fitr, the celebration of the end of Ramadan, we offer a quote from El- Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Black Muslim leader and Civil Rights activist, more commonly known as Malcolm X.
To learn more about El-Shabazz, watch the 1978 educational documentary El Hajj Malik El Shabazz by Gil Noble and McGraw Hill Films on YouTube, read the classic Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, and The Diary of Malcolm X: El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, which contains the copious notes El-Shabazz made during his 1964 trip to Mecca, edited and annotated by Ilyasah Shabazz and Herb Boyd.
More Sources:
- https://therevealer.org/malcolm-x-why-el-hajj-malik-el-shabazz-matters/
- https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2013.46.20
- https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/one-pilgrims-progress
- https://www.washingtoninformer.com/remembering-el-hajj-malik-el-shabazz/
- https://youtu.be/mRtYluUXZ8Q (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz 1978 documentary)
- https://youtu.be/WBS416EZsKM (discusses OAAU June 1964)
- https://youtu.be/4LHtOJGZHn0 (what is Eid Ul-Fitr video)
Did you know a Black man helped build the most iconic black-labeled whiskey known the world over? In the 1850s, a young Jack Daniel apprenticed under Nathan “Nearest” Green, an enslaved distiller, who employed a special process to make whiskey smooth.
By the 1860s, Green reportedly became the wealthiest African American person in Lynchburg, Tennessee, and seven generations of Green’s family have worked for the Jack Daniel Distillery.
To learn more about Green and his legacy (his son George Green is in the episode's photo), check out nearestgreen.org, read 1967’s Jack Daniel’s Legacy by Ben A. Green (no relation), the first book to highlight Green’s contribution to the iconic whiskey brand, and watch The Story of Nearest Green, the short film featuring Emmy and Tony Award winning actor Jeffrey Wright.
Sources:
- https://www.nearestgreen.com/about-nearest-green/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/dining/jack-daniels-whiskey-nearis-green-slave.html
- https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-nearest-green-americas-first-known-black-master-distiller-164311?fbclid=IwAR3EEs12skCmy7s9BWUHT_4Rk75plFqUadxcOt_qFc8Ctt_2QHozDjrn2M8
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nearest-green-slave-who-taught-jack-daniel-how-to-make-whiskey/
- https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1042481944/uncle-nearest-premium-whiskey-fawn-weaver
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominiquefluker/2022/03/09/how-fawn-weaver-created-uncle-nearest-premium-whiskey-from-hidden-history/?sh=79f9535cfea9
Today, we close out #JazzAppreciationMonth with a short tribute to a primary architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong.
To learn more about Armstrong, check out the Louis Armstrong House Museum, his 1936 autobiography, Swing That Music, his 1954 autobiography Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans, 1999’s Louis Armstrong in His Own Words, and other books like Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong by Gary Giddins from 2001, Pops: The Life of Louis Armstrong from 2009 by Terry Teachout, and All of Me: The Complete Discography of Louis Armstrong by Jos Willems from 2006.
More sources:
- https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/article_1dc3e26d-1f7b-5324-8b21-1389a514a589.html
- https://www.biography.com/musician/louis-armstrong
- https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org
- https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2021/04/apple-original-films-announce-definitive-louis-armstrong-documentary-black-and-blues-the-colorful-ballad-of-louis-armstrong/
- https://nyfos.org/louis-armstrong-performs-black-and-blue/
- https://youtu.be/UGIYaqz5rI0 (Duke and Louis on Ed Sullivan)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LDPUfbXRLM (1965 “Black and Blue”)
Although we dropped in on Duke Ellington earlier this month on April 6th when we shared a quote from him and a snapshot of his career and contributions, today, on his birthday, this prolific composer and musician gets a much-deserved second look.
One thing we didn't share last time about the Black, Brown and Beige maestro? He had synethesia, the neurological condition where sounds and colors blend.
To learn even more about Ellington, check out our April 6th daily drop, and to learn more about synesthesia, check out the links below:
- https://www.npr.org/2008/11/19/97193567/duke-ellington-the-composer-pt-1
- https://www.sfcv.org/learn/composer-gallery/edward-kennedy-duke-ellington
- https://www.composerofthemonth.com/duke-ellington
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/synesthesia
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-synesthesia/
- https://www.healthline.com/health/synesthesia
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
When Black Panther Party member Brad Lomax started using a wheelchair every day after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, he realized he had another "ism" to fight -- ableism. In 1977 Lomax helped lead the "504 Sit In" -- the longest sit in in U.S. History to fight for disability rights from the federal government.
To learn more, read 2020 New York Times feature article on Lomax from its Overlooked No More series, read The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation by Doris Fleischer and Frieda James from 2011, and watch the 2020 documentary Crip Camp on Netflix.
More sources:
- http://sfbayview.com/2014/02/black-history-of-504-sit-in-for-disability-rights-more-than-serving-food-when-will-the-healing-begin/
- https://www.ndrn.org/resource/drib2020-brad-lomax/
- https://www.centerforlearnerequity.org/news/brad-lomax-uniting-the-civil-rights-and-disability-rights-communities/
- http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1371/1539
- https://dredf.org/504-sit-in-20th-anniversary/short-history-of-the-504-sit-in/
- https://newrepublic.com/article/158618/americans-disabilities-act-teach-todays-protesters
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRrIs22plz0 (Crip Camp trailer)
- https://youtu.be/KfBD62gj8cs (short doc on Lomax)
- https://youtu.be/z3Swx-FNQVI (504 sit in short)
Photo credit: HolLynn D’Lil. (Brad Lomax at a rally in 1977 at Lafayette Square in Washington.)
Today we quote of a joke from groundbreaking and innovative comedian Richard Pryor, taken from his self-directed 1983 concert film/documentary Here and Now:
To learn more about Pryor, read his 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions, the 2014 biographies Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him and Becoming Richard Pryor. Also, watch the 2013 documentary Richard Pyror: Omit the Logic, now on Hulu, the 2019 documentary I Am Richard Pryor, or the 2021 episode of ABC.com’s Superstar series dedicated to Pryor.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day Calendar" for 2022, we explore words and phrases in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Today's entry takes a look at "bop" -- a term used today for a song with a good groove -- but was first used in the early 1940s to describe an exciting, new intricate form of jazz.
- Sources:
- https://www.etymonline.com/word/bop
- https://7esl.com/bop/
- https://thewordcounter.com/meaning-of-bop/
- https://amzn.to/3Kijdae (To Be or Not To Bop by Dizzy Gillespie)
- https://www.npr.org/2016/02/18/467259732/a-dive-into-jazz-slang-you-dig
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Born 105 years ago today, we offer a quote from one of the best vocalists ever, the “First Lady of Song” Ms. Ella Fitzgerald.
To learn more about Ella, watch 2019's Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things documentary on Netflix, the 1999 American Masters biography Something To Live For on YouTube, read ELLA: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald from 2018, Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of Jazz from 1994, and watch great clips of her on YouTube with Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie.
Sources:
- http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/about/biography
- https://www.biography.com/musician/ella-fitzgerald
- https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/ella-fitzgerald
- https://thesongbook.org/ellafitzgerald
- https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/749021799/the-joy-of-ella-fitzgeralds-accessible-elegance
- https://goodblacknews.org/2020/04/25/a-remembrance-of-jazz-legend-ella-fitzgerald-on-her-birthday-and-playlist-listen/
- https://youtu.be/myRc-3oF1d0 (Ella and Ellington)
- https://youtu.be/_PMB-wgHM4Y (Ella and Basie)
- https://youtu.be/CPQwHt3f8Yo (Ella and Sinatra)
Link to Ella Fitzgerald Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0LIoz4OZ7wvTwLWZcrevPt?si=c25c660b75c7407d
Located in Harlem on Lenox Avenue, the Savoy Ballroom was known as “The World’s Finest Ballroom” and the “Home of Happy Feet” from its 1926 opening to its 1958 close. Unlike other ballrooms of the era, the Savoy always had a no-discrimination policy and showcased the finest swing music in the city.
To learn more about the Savoy, check out welcometothesavoy.com, a site that’s restoring the Savoy with a VR experience, watch 1992's Stompin’ At The Savoy directed by Debbie Allen on Amazon Prime Video or Roku, watch clips about the history of the Savoy on YouTube, or read Swinging At The Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer by Norma Miller.
Sources:
https://www.welcometothesavoy.com
https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/the-savoy-ballroom-harlem-new-york-1930/
https://welcometoharlem.com/the-savoy-ballroom/
https://youtu.be/H5DyQfcokFk (short YouTube doc on Savoy)
https://youtu.be/Nr8MLXDThug (clip from PBS doc Jazz on Savoy)
https://youtu.be/p9OHZtq8CTk (lindy hoppers at Savoy)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Born on this day in 1856 to free Black parents, Ohio native Granville T. Woods became one of the best and most innovative electrical engineers the U.S. had ever seen, who owned his own business and held over 60 patents.
To learn more about Woods, read 2013’s Granville T. Woods: African American Communication and Transportation Pioneer by David L. Head, Granville Taylor Woods: The First Black American Who Was Granted Forty-Nine Patents by Jonathan Walker from 2011, and Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson by Rayvon Fouché from 2005.
More Sources:
- https://www.biography.com/inventor/granville-t-woods
- https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Granville_T._Woods
- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/obituaries/granville-t-woods-overlooked.html
- https://www.coneyislandhistory.org/hall-of-fame/granville-t-woods
- https://www.pbs.org/video/inventor-granville-t-woods-hm5ftq/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpImTBhCmARIsAKr58cw9kO0RxX2D78YMRVDNDxhc4K4PY_IsNjCsKK5S1_BcRivsE-ohPq8aAgaqEALw_wcB
- https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/granville-woods
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/granville-woods-inventor
- https://youtu.be/4PB6pYrUrr8 (short documentary)
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On this #EarthDay, GBN celebrates Hazel M. Johnson, a working-class woman and mother of seven who became determined to combat environmental racism by exposing and dismantling the "Toxic Doughnut" of refineries, chemical companies and steel mills that encircled the Chicago housing project Altgeld Gardens. Because of Johnson’s grassroots activism, she is now known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice.”
To learn more about Johnson, visit the site of the organization Johnson founded, peopleforcommunityrecovery.org where you can also donate, check out the Chicago Public Library’s information on Johnson, and watch the CBS Chicago feature on Johnson from 2021.
Sources:
- https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/hazel-m-johnson-mother-of-the-environmental-justice-movement/
- https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/29/hazel-m-johnson-fought-for-clean-air-and-water-on-the-southeast-side-a-congressman-is-doubling-down-on-efforts-to-honor-her/
- https://goodblacknews.org/2021/02/20/bhm-good-black-news-celebrates-hazel-m-johnson-the-mother-of-environmental-justice/
- https://q.sustainability.illinois.edu/hazel-johnson-and-the-toxic-doughnut/
- https://www.nrdc.org/stories/four-poets-honor-chicagos-hazel-m-johnson-mother-environmental-justice
- https://www.pbs.org/video/hazel-johnson-pollution-chicagos-southeast-side-lhhtzc/
- https://youtu.be/CR93k85h7TU (CBS Chicago)
In 2016, Dr. Carla D. Hayden became the first woman and first African American person to serve the nation as Librarian of Congress. Hayden also became the first professional librarian to hold the post in over 60 years. To learn more about Dr. Hayden, follow her on Twitter @LibnofCongress, watch her on C-SPAN, read The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening or the children’s book Carla Hayden: Librarian of Congress from the Women Leading the Way series.
Sources:
- https://www.loc.gov/about/about-the-librarian/
- https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-08-10/dr-carla-hayden-the-librarian-of-congress-on-why-libraries-matter
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carla-Hayden
- https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/carla-hayden-41
- https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-7396?
- https://www.chicagotribune.com/people/ct-carla-hayden-14th-librarian-of-congress-1231-20220103-76khacp7wbgc5l75scsqx22ida-story.html
- https://youtu.be/LoFlFxtv0HM (CBS Morning feature)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today features a joke from Emmy and Grammy Award winning comedian Dave Chappelle from his Inside the Actors Studio conversation with James Lipton from 2006. We also discuss highlights of his career as well as the issues that arose from his 2021 Netflix special The Closer.
Sources:
- https://www.looper.com/266269/the-real-reason-dave-chappelle-quit-his-sketch-show/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--IS0XiNdpk (SNL 2016)
- https://youtu.be/3tR6mKcBbT4 (8:46)
- https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/entertainment/dave-chappelle-addresses-trans-netflix-employees-cec/index.html
As we continue to celebrate #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on Billie Holiday, the singer and artist who not only influenced peers and progeny alike with her inventive interpretation and phrasing in songs, but also composed several of her signature songs which in turn became jazz and blues standards.
To learn more about Billie Holiday, read If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday by Farah Jasmine Griffin, check out the 2019 documentary Billie on Hulu, watch clips of Holiday in New Orleans on YouTube take 2021’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday, also on Hulu. And there’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill on Amazon Prime Video. Also watch her classic 1957 performance of “Fine and Mellow” on CBS’s Sound of Jazz and listen to the 2021 podcast on Audible, Billie Was a Black Woman,
Sources:
- https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/940104383/new-documentary-billie-explores-mysteries-of-billie-holiday-and-her-biographer
- https://www.npr.org/2019/08/23/748740849/returning-to-lady-a-reflection-on-two-decades-in-search-of-billie-holiday
- https://www.biography.com/musician/billie-holiday
- https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/billie-holiday-about-the-singer/68/
- https://www.si.edu/spotlight/billie-holiday
- https://youtu.be/YKqxG09wlIA (“Fine and Mellow” on Sound of Jazz)
- https://youtu.be/hKimh-iPd_0 (Billie documentary trailer)
Today we celebrate five-time NBA champion, two time Olympic Gold Medalist, philanthropist, Academy Award winner, author, husband, father and career Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant.
To learn more, read 2018’s The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant, 2022’s The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality by Mike Sielski. Watch the 2015 documentary Kobe Bryant's Muse, now on Showtime, the 2019 All the Smoke video podcast episode featuring one of his final interviews, also on Showtime.
Watch Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel's retrospective on Kobe Bryant from 2020, on Facebook. And watch his Oscar-winning short, Dear Basketball. Also listen to Bryant's family-oriented podcast The Punies about friends who play sports, have adventures and valuable learn life lessons..
Podcasts dedicated to collecting and sharing Kobe Bryant's various interviews, are on listennotes.com.
Sources:
- https://andscape.com/tag/kobe-bryant/
- https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/how-kobe-bryants-mamba-mentality-changed-the-nba/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/sports/basketball/vanessa-kobe-bryant-hall-of-fame.html
- https://www.nba.com/stats/player/977
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kobe-Bryant
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-punies-by-kobe-bryant/id1425055063
- https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/anger-love-and-the-evolving-legacy-of-kobe-bryant
- https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/kobe-bryant
- https://stacker.com/stories/12133/kobe-bryant-life-story-you-may-not-know
- https://youtu.be/98wR6-r2bbI (Kobe Bryant’s Muse trailer)
- https://youtu.be/lUcdx4W8Xes (Dear Basketball)
- https://fb.watch/crjEns3UMg/ (Real Sports retrospective)
On Easter Sunday, we celebrate Thomas A. Dorsey, who not only once worked as Ma Rainey's pianist and musical director, but was also the key architect in revolutionizing the sound of gospel music.
To learn more about Dorsey watch the 1982 documentary Say Amen, Somebody, check out his collection of papers archived at Fisk University, read 1994’s The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church which you can borrow from the Internet Archive, and 2015’s Anointed to Sing the Gospel: The Levitical Legacy of Thomas A. Dorsey by Kathryn B. Kemp. You can also watch 2005’s The Story of Gospel Music documentary.
Dorsey’s hometown of Villa Rica, Georgia holds an annual Thomas A. Dorsey Birthplace Heritage Festival. This year’s is June 25th and 26th.
Sources:
- https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/thomas_dorsey.html
- http://downtownvillarica.com/event/thomas-a-dorsey-gospel-heritage-festival/
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rev-thomas-a-dorsey-mn0000926198/biography
- https://www.songhall.org/awards/winner/Thomas_A_Dorsey
- http://nashvillesongwritersfoundation.com/Site/inductee?entry_id=4259
- https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/25/arts/thomas-a-dorsey-is-dead-at-93-known-as-father-of-gospel-music.html
If you like these Daily Drops, follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links, or tell a friend. Check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In yesterday’s daily drop we celebrated sports legend Jackie Robinson. But did you know his older brother had his own claim to sports fame? Matthew Mackenzie “Mack” Robinson was an outstanding track and field athlete who won a silver medal in the 200-meter event at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, finishing just four tenths of a second behind Jesse Owens.
To learn more about Mack Robinson, his sports accomplishments and his civic=minded local activism, check out the sources below:
- https://archive.kpcc.org/programs/offramp/2016/05/19/48971/hidden-history-mack-robinson-jackie-s-long-overloo/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20091105182719/http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/ro/matthew-robinson-1.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/14/sports/mack-robinson-85-second-to-owens-in-berlin.html
- http://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/k0698c509
- https://around.uoregon.edu/mackrobinson
- https://andscape.com/features/jesse-owens-vs-hitler-wasnt-the-only-story-at-the-1936-olympics/
- https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-hidden-history-of-los-angeles/mack-robinson-s-pasadena-hhla24/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF4YApXTmWI (YouTube short on Mack)
- https://youtu.be/aNLhpEpIO04 (Mack Robinson CBS Los Angeles)
- https://youtu.be/97Icc35DJPM (“Olympic Pride, American Prejudice” trailer)
Seventy five years ago today, Jackie Robinson made sports and national history when he took to the infield as a Brooklyn Dodger and integrated Major League Baseball.
To learn more about Georgia born, California-raised US Army Veteran Robinson, read I Never Had it Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson, watch the 2016 documentary Jackie Robinson or consider donating to the Jackie Robinson Foundation at jackierobinson.org which offers financial aid to Black college students under its JRF Scholars program. Also, check out the following sources:
- https://www.biography.com/athlete/jackie-robinson
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr5P8dcn3n4 (doc trailer)
- https://jackierobinson.org
- https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/robinson-jackie
- https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50059/42-facts-about-jackie-robinson
- https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/baseball-history/jackies-own-words
- https://www.loc.gov/collections/jackie-robinson-baseball/articles-and-essays/baseball-the-color-line-and-jackie-robinson/meet-the-press/
- https://youtu.be/oTsVeTz3pOY (LA Dodgers remembering Jackie Robinson)
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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OnThisDay five years ago, hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar released his fourth album DAMN. and solidified his rep as one of the best to ever flow and rhyme with introspection and vision. Lamar earned a Pulitzer Prize for music for DAMN., the first work outside of the jazz or classical genres to ever do so.
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we offer a quote from and a supersized Drop about one of the finest vocalists and musicians ever to do it, the “Sassy" "Divine One," Ms. Sarah Vaughan.
To learn more about Vaughan, read Queen of BeBop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan, Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan, the music documentary of her performing live 1958 and 1964 called Sarah Vaughan: The Divine One in 1958, watch the American Masters documentary Sarah Vaughan “The Divine One” on YouTube.
Sources:
- https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/sarah-vaughan
- https://www.npr.org/artists/15202481/sarah-vaughan
- https://downbeat.com/archives/detail/sarah-vaughan-and-greatness
- https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/07/05/the-vast-voice-of-sarah-vaughan
- https://www.biography.com/musician/sarah-vaughan
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sarah-vaughan-mn0000204901/biography
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today for #JazzAppreciationMonth we celebrate Nancy Wilson, the Ohio native who from her teen years on stood out as n admired and revered song stylist who sang standards, jazz, pop, rhythm & blues and Broadway with unique, charming and compelling artistry and verve.
To learn more about Wilson, check out the Jazz Profiles series she hosted on National Public Radio, read her 2007 interview on the National Endowment for the Arts website, watch her 1994 interview on Detroit Black Journal on YouTube, her 1962 appearance on Jazz Scene USA currently on YouTube
Sources:
- https://www.grammy.com/artists/nancy-wilson/6926
- https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/nancy-wilson
- https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/news/statement-passing-nancy-wilson-major-force-history-american-music
- https://musicianguide.com/biographies/1608002610/Nancy-Wilson.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/obituaries/nancy-wilson-dead-jazz-singer.html
- https://goodblacknews.org/2022/02/21/music-monday-the-song-is-you-a-tribute-playlist-to-legendary-song-stylist-nancy-wilson-listen/
- https://www.nps.gov/features/malu/feat0002/wof/nancy_wilson.htm
- https://youtu.be/Wj05EY2aP7I (“How Glad I Am”)
- https://youtu.be/npFMr0IGYJA (Jazz Scene USA)
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, we drop in on Oscar Peterson, virtuoso jazz pianist who hailed from Canada, composed the de facto Civil Rights Movement anthem, and was dubbed the "Maharaja of the Keyboard" by none other than Duke Ellington.
To learn more about Peterson, read A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson: The Man and His Jazz and Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing and watch the 2021 documentary Oscar Peterson: Black + White on Hulu.
Sources:
- https://jazzfuel.com/oscar-peterson-jazz-piano/
- https://www.sfjazz.org/onthecorner/oscar-peterson-in-5-songs/
- https://jazz.fm/best-oscar-peterson-albums/
- https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/oscar-peterson
- https://internationalmusician.org/oscar-peterson/
- https://canadianmusichalloffame.ca/inductee/oscar-peterson/
- https://oscarpeterson.com
- https://youtu.be/tCrrZ1NnCuM (Hymn to Freedom video)
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
On #NationalSiblingsDay, we celebrate talented, Tony and Emmy award-winning sisters and Howard University alums Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen. They are also the daughters of poet Vivian Ayers Allen, who GBN "dropped" in on two days ago on April 8th.
Check that out along with more sources on Rashad and Allen:
- https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a29474469/phylicia-rashad-sister-debbie-allen/
- https://www.debbieallendanceacademy.com
- https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Photos-Debbie-Allen-Honored-by-Dance-Theatre-of-Harlem-20220406
- https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/a/aa-an/debbie-allen/
- https://www.biography.com/actor/debbie-allen
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phylicia-Rashad
- https://twitter.com/msdebbieallen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
- https://twitter.com/phyliciarashad?lang=en
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phylicia-Rashad
- https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Wings-Debbie-Allen/dp/0142501417/ref=sr_1_1?crid=9MLZGL59P9HQ&keywords=debbie+allen&qid=1649435175&s=books&sprefix=debbie+allen%2Cstripbooks%2C256&sr=1-1
Just two short days ago, Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially confirmed by a Senate vote of 53 to 47 to become the 116th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and first African American woman ever to serve on the highest judicial body of the nation. Today, we celebrate her and the historic achievement.
Sources:
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-senate-vote-latest/index.html
- https://www.npr.org/2022/04/07/1090973786/ketanji-brown-jackson-first-black-woman-supreme-court
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/kbj/
- https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5007053/judge-ketanji-brown-jackson-outlines-judicial-philosophy
- https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/21/55-things-you-need-to-know-about-ketanji-brown-jackson-00018514
- https://www.biography.com/law-figure/ketanji-brown-jackson
- https://youtu.be/bYhH5J_LYzg
If you like these Daily Drops, you can follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen not only infused the world with her art but also with artists -- her daughters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen as well as the children she's inspired on the site of her former alma mater, the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina, via her “Workshops in Open Fields” program to educate preschool children in the arts.
To learn more about Vivian Ayers Allen, check out Spice of Dawns, her 1952 poetry collection and the Brainerd Institute Heritage website.
Sources:
https://ganttcenter.org/carolina-trailblazers/vivian-ayers-allen/
https://scafricanamerican.com/vivian-ayers-allen/
https://www.worldcat.org/title/spice-of-dawns-a-book-of-verse/oclc/2684559?referer=di&ht=edition#borrow
https://youtu.be/8TbMI5vr9BM
https://twitter.com/phyliciarashadf/status/1101497318203895808?lang=en
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we offer some fun Black Trivia in a category we call "We Got Game." Our April entry in this category tests what you know about U.S. postal history, for as memorable as Chuck D's rhyme is in "Don't Believe The Hype," many of our heroes have indeed appeared on U.S. stamps. To see the question, answer and sources to more information, go to goodblacknews.org.
Sources:
- https://about.usps.com/publications/pub354/welcome.htm
- https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/freedom-just-around-the-corner-black-heritage-stamp-series/black-heritage-stamp-series
- https://uspsblog.com/black-heritage-stamps/
- https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-first-african-american-on-a-stamp-the-black-experience-on-stamps-national-postal-museum/JQVhJgoFEInSLg?hl=en
- https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/african-american-stamp-subjects.htm
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
Today we offer a quote from jazz royalty -- bandleader, composer, pianist, performer -- the one and only Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington in continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth.
To learn more about Sir Duke, read his 1973 autobiography Music is My Mistress, the 1995 biography Beyond Category: The Genius of Duke Ellington, 2016’s Duke Ellington: An American Composer and Icon and 2022’s Duke Ellington: The Notes the World Was Not Ready to Hear.
Sources:
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/when-a-jazz-musician-shook-up-classical-music/83523/
https://www.songhall.org/profile/Duke_Ellington
https://jazzfuel.com/duke-ellington-biography/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/obsessed-with-duke-ellington-one-man-is-determined-to-illuminate-the-jazz-composers-stunning-output/2021/02/11/dac47244-60de-11eb-9061-07abcc1f9229_story.html
https://jazztimes.com/features/columns/duke-ellington-artist-of-the-century/
https://theconversation.com/duke-ellingtons-melodies-carried-his-message-of-social-justice-115602
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/duke-ellingtons-life-and-music#4-characteristics-of-duke-ellingtons-music
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
The most prolific and inventive producer of the millennium, Pharrell Williams offers the same in the fields of fashion, film and philanthropy. GBN is dropping in to celebrate all facets of this beautiful Neptune, born #onthisday in 1973,
To learn more about Pharrell, read Places and Spaces I’ve Been and Pharrell: A Fish Doesn’t Know It’s Wet, his 2016 children’s board book Happy, watch the 2016 documentary Pharrell Williams: Happy Go Lucky, his The Breakfast Club interview, his 2019 conversation with Rick Rubin on GQ’s YouTube channel, or his 2021 appearance on PBS’s Finding Your Roots. Also check out his Netflix series Voices of Fire, Pharrell on The FADER Uncovered podcast, and Pharrell’s own podcast, OTHERtone.
Sources:
- https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/03/us/pharrell-williams-harlem-promise-academy-internships-trnd/index.html
- https://www.npr.org/2015/10/23/451194211/pharrell-williams-in-conversation
- https://www.biography.com/musician/pharrell-williams
- https://variety.com/2022/music/news/pharrell-williams-chanel-adidas-black-ambition-1235208293/
- https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pharrell-othertone-new-podcast-series-1096409/
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-03-23/pharrell-williams-and-black-ambition-ceo-on-empowering-black-entrepreneurs
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day Calendar" for 2022, we explore words and phrases in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Today's entry takes a look at "cutting contest" -- a term first used early in the 20th century as ragtime and jazz emerged as African American musical art forms.
Sources:
- https://paddyreillysmusicbar.us/what-were-competitions-between-jazz-musicians-called/
- https://www.americanbluesscene.com/language-of-the-blues-cutting-contest/
- https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2017/04/cutting-sessions.html
- https://olorisupergal.com/2011/06/21/sax-appeal-who-wins-the-battle-of-the-sax-this-year/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDib9hmvrsQ (1977 TV movie Scott Joplin
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Photo credit: Mike Aremu and Yolanda Brown @Sax Appeal
Today we offer a quote from jazz legend and pioneer, the unparalleled saxophonist, composer and musician, John Coltrane.
To learn more about Coltrane, check out the official website johncoltrane.com, which contains audio interviews with Coltrane, watch the 2016 documentary Chasing Trane, now on Hulu, read Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews John Coltrane: His Life and Music visit or support the John and Alice Coltrane Home in New York,
More sources:
- https://www.johncoltrane.com/biography
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-coltrane-mn0000175553
- https://www.biography.com/musician/john-coltrane
- https://www.jazzwise.com/features/article/how-john-coltrane-made-giant-steps
- https://www.gq.com/story/the-john-coltrane-record-that-made-modern-music
- https://www.jazziz.com/tag/john-coltrane/
- https://youtu.be/MXKPONrVt3c
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check outgoodblacknews.orgor search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Incomparable musical artist Marvin Gaye was born #onthisday in 1939 and it's well known from the 1960s on he helped define R&B, soul and pop music, But what may not be well known about Gaye is that his earliest musical ambitions were to be a singer of Jazz.
To learn more about the swingin' side of Gaye, check out the “Standards of Marvin Gaye” episode of WFIU’s weekly music show Afterglow hosted by Mark Chilla, read Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye biography by David Ritz.
More sources:
- https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/marvin-gaye-tribute-to-the-great-nat-king-cole-album/
- https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-soulful-moods-of-marvin-gaye-mw0000626064
- https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-tribute-to-the-great-nat-king-cole-mw0000654298.
Follow this podcast on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
No fooling, in the U.S. April 1st denotes the start of Jazz Appreciation Month (aka "JAM"), where the art form born out of Congo Square in New Orleans became a unique and true African American and American musical expression that continues to evolve across the decades and centuries.
Started by the Smithsonian Museum of American History in 2001, "JAM is intended to stimulate and encourage people of all ages to participate in jazz - to study the music, attend concerts, listen to jazz on radio and recordings, read books about jazz, and more."
To learn more about the history of jazz, read Jazz: A History of America’s Music, watch the 10-part documentary miniseries Jazz on PBS, read Downbeat Magazine’s The Great Jazz Interviews – A 75 Year Anthology, check out jazzinamerica.org’s timeline and the 1987 album from Smithsonian Folkways The History of Jazz by Mary Lou Williams.
There's also Herbie Hancock’s MasterClass in Jazz online.
- https://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/education/what-jazz
- https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-jazz#want-to-learn-more-about-music
- https://www.nps.gov/jazz/learn/historyculture/history_early.htm
- https://www.jazzinamerica.org/jazzresources/timeline
- https://youtu.be/BMgKXbtQwoo (“What is Jazz” video Smithsonian)
We close out #WomensHistoryMonth with a Drop on Mary Lou Williams, one of the most talented and revered pianists, composers and arrangers in jazz music history. Since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington DC has held an annual Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival - this year's will be held in May.
To learn more about Williams, check out the Mary Lou Williams Foundation, read Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams by Tammy L. Kernodle, Morning Glory: A Biography of Mary Lou Williams by Linda Dahl, watch Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band, on Showtime, listen to NPR’s “All Things Considered” 2019 segment on her and read NPR’s “Turning the Tables” series of features on Williams.
Other sources:
- https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/jazz/jazz---early-years/mary-lou-williams
- https://jazztimes.com/features/lists/five-essential-mary-lou-williams-albums/
- https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/mary-lou-williams-mother-of-us-all/
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mary-lou-williams-mn0000859820/discography
- https://www.knkx.org/jazz-and-blues/2020-02-19/looking-back-at-the-life-of-mary-lou-williams-the-lady-who-swings-the-band
Cora “Lovie” Austin was a Chicago-based blues and jazz pianist, composer and bandleader known as one of the best accompanists of her time, and played with singers such as Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter and Ethel Waters.
Learn more about the "Down Hearted Blues" composer by streaming or buying her music on Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Spotify, and check out links to more sources below:
- https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/austin-lovie-1887-1972
- https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/12400/works
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lovie-austin-mn0000250355/biography
- https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/104856/Austin_Lovie
- https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/104856/Austin_Lovie
If you GBN's Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
173 years ago today, Henry "Box" Brown gave literal meaning to the term "precious cargo" when he ingeniously shipped himself from slavery to freedom inside a crate. To learn more about Brown and his life, read Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, originally published in 1851 or read 2020’s BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom written by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Michele Wood.
More sources:
- https://www.nps.gov/nebe/learn/historyculture/henryboxbrown.htm
- https://www.pbs.org/black-culture/shows/list/underground-railroad/stories-freedom/henry-box-brown/
- https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/brown-henry-box-1815-or-1816-1897/
- https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004665363/
- https://youtu.be/ClN88kn-fTw (video)
If you like GBN's Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we offer a quote from esteemed educator, civil rights activist and founder of Bethune-Cookman University Mary McLeod Bethune that speaks to her formidable and pro-active spirit. To learn more about South Carolina native Bethune, read Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents, Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida: Bringing Social Justice to the Sunshine State and Mary McLeod Bethune: Her Life and Legacy
Also check out the 2016 documentary Mary McLeod Bethune – African Americans Who Left Their Stamp on History, the Mary McLeod Bethune documentary on YouTube, and cookman.libguides.com to access newsreels, videos and audio recordings of Bethune herself.
More sources:
- https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/mary-mcleod-bethune
- https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mary-mcleod-bethune
- https://www.cookman.edu/history/our-founder.html
- https://www.biography.com/activist/mary-mcleod-bethune
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/eleanor-bethune/
- https://youtu.be/cFICMpTFaGs (South Carolina ETV video)
- https://youtu.be/Un9OQO8L83U
Transcript and sources available at goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As the 94th Academy Awards ceremony takes place today, GBN takes a look at all the Black Oscar firsts, from Hattie McDaniel's inaugural win in 1940 for Best Supporting Actress to 2020 winners Mia Neal and Jamaica Wilson in the Make-Up and Hairstyling category.
To learn more about Black Academy Award winners and nominees, read Black Oscars: From Mammy to Minny, What the Academy Awards Tell Us About African Americans by Frederick Gooding, Jr. and check out these sources:
- https://www.oscars.org/oscars
- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/african-american-oscar-winner-oscarssowhite-870533/hattie-mcdaniel/
- https://www.essence.com/celebrity/way-too-short-list-black-oscar-winners/#181415
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees
Follow GBN's Daily Drop on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
On #WorldPurpleDay, we offer a quote from and up-to-date information and links on author Alice Walker's award winning book/movie/musical/movie musical that is The Color Purple.
The Color Purple (1982 novel)
The Color Purple (1985 film)
The Color Purple (2005 original Broadway recording)
The Color Purple (2016 new Broadway recording)
More sources:
- https://alicewalkersgarden.com
- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alice-walker
- https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944/
- https://www.biblio.com/alice-walker/author/248
- https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/02/02/oprah-winfrey-the-color-purple-cast-musical
- https://ew.com/movies/color-purple-cast-new-old/
- https://www.broadway.com/buzz/184083/songwriters-stephen-bray-brenda-russell-allee-willis-on-how-god-alice-walker-and-how-to-books-helped-them-write-the-color-purple/
- https://broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/colorpurple.htm
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Color-Purple
Aretha Franklin, whose voice was rightfully declared a natural resource by her home state of Michigan, was born 80 years ago today. Today's Daily Drop celebrates her legacy by taking a tour through career highlights and offers sources to learn even more about the one and only Queen of Soul.
Read her autobiography Aretha: From These Roots, Respect: The Life and Times of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, The Queen Next Door: Aretha Franklin, An Intimate Portrait by Linda Solomon, watch Amazing Grace on DVD orHulu, the 2021 limited series Genius: Aretha also on Hulu or the 2021 film Respect starring Jennifer Hudson.
Other sources:
- https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/aretha-franklin
- https://www.npr.org/artists/15662553/aretha-franklin
- https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/638355847/aretha-franklin-the-fresh-air-interview
- https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/franklin-aretha
- https://www.biography.com/news/aretha-franklin-facts-list
- https://youtu.be/6S1_skidDFI (Live in Amsterdam 1968)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2efshhuq4 (Kennedy Center Honors 2015)
- The Aretha Franklin Songbook: Playlist of songs composed by Aretha
- "How I Got Over: Aretha Franklin Cover Songs Playlist
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
"Nobody's free until everybody's free" was the still-relevant motto of Mississippi farm laborer Fannie Lou Hamer, who was fired from her job (and worse) simply for trying to vote. Undeterred, Hamer not only helped organize others in her area to vote, she formed the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and clamored for representation at the 1964 Democratic Convention.
Learn more from the documentary Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, her 1967 autobiography To Praise Our Bridges and God’s Long Summerby Charles Marsh, The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like it Is, Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to Americaby Keisha N. Blain and Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson.
More sources:
- https://www.fannielouhamersamerica.com
- https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer
- How The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Started (by Unstripped Voice)
- Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up (Mississippi Public Broadcasting)
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-hamer/
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fannie-lou-hamers-dauntless-fight-for-black-americans-right-vote-180975610/
- https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/hamer-fannie-lou
- https://goodblacknews.org/2021/02/28/bhm-good-black-news-celebrates-fannie-lou-hamer-sharecropper-senate-candidate-voting-and-civil-rights-activist/
Today we offer a quote from internationally famous entertainer Josephine Baker that celebrates her humor and savvy regarding her ticket to fame, fortune and freedom in her adopted homeland of France, and around the world..
To learn more about St. Louis, Missouri native Baker, read 2018’s Josephine Baker’s Last Dance, 2001’s Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart, watch Baker’s movies in the Josephine Baker DVD Collection, 1940's The French Way, and 1991’s The Josephine Baker Story, an HBO movie starring Lynn Whitfield. Documentaries include 2018’s Josephine Baker: The Story of An Awakening, and BBC Wales’ 2006 Josephine Baker: The 1st Black Superstar.
More sources:
https://nmaahc.si.edu/josephine-baker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggb_wGTvZoU
https://www.biography.com/performer/josephine-baker
https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/josephine-baker
https://www.kmbc.com/article/josephine-baker-jazz-age-harlem-renaissance-icon/36751476
Daily Drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Additional music: “J’ai Deux Amours” performed by Josephine Baker and employed under fair use.
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we offer some fun Black Trivia in a category we call "We Got Game." Our March entry in this category tests what you know about NBA MVPs. To see the question, answer and sources to more information, go to goodblacknews.org.
Poet and author Paul Laurence Dunbar was an "O.G." in more than one way -- not only did he sell his poems to passengers while operating an elevator, he was one of the first African American writers to celebrate Black speech and vernacular in his works.
To learn more about Ohio native Dunbar, read The Life and Works Of Paul Laurence Dunbar: Containing His Complete Poetical Works, His Best Short Stories, Numerous Anecdotes And A Complete Biography Of The Famous Poet, pre-order the upcoming 2022 release Paul Laurence Dunbar: Life and Times of a Caged Bird, watch the 2018 documentary Paul Laurence Dunbar: Beyond The Mask and the 2021 episode of the virtual series We, Too, Sing America about Dunbar on YouTube. Dunbar’s poetry also can be found in the public domain.
Additional sources:
- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-laurence-dunbar
- https://www.nps.gov/people/paul-laurence-dunbar.htm
- https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/collections/1/the-complete-poems-of-paul-laurence-dunbar/
- https://www.loa.org/writers/677-paul-laurence-dunbar?gclid=CjwKCAjwoduRBhA4EiwACL5RP64jCvQ0DIpEe7ucDmVTGZSXhkCGxa5u_8RAqFgwph77aW3NrlvzjxoCexwQAvD_BwE
- https://nypl.getarchive.net/media/paul-lawrence-dunbar-a66ea9
- https://ecommons.udayton.edu/dunbar/ (Dunbar Music Archive)
- https://guides.loc.gov/paul-laurence-dunbar/introduction (guide to Dunbar’s works in Library of Congress)
- https://blackmusicscholar.com/in-dahomey-a-musical-theater-analysis/
Sister Rosetta Tharpe is an often under-appreciated and overlooked pioneer of what is now known as rock n roll music, so in honor of her birthday, this bonus episode celebrates Tharpe and her innovate, invigorating and influential music.
To learn more about Tharpe, read Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-And-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle Wald, watch the 2011 documentary The Godmother of Rock and Roll – Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Gibson Guitar-produced short documentary Shout, Sister, Shout: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and performance clips on YouTube. This February, Gibson Guitars also debuted a Rosetta Tharpe Collection of merchandise.
More sources:
- https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/544226085/forebears-sister-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-rock-n-roll
- https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/sister-rosetta-tharpe-1781/
- https://afropunk.com/2019/03/rosetta-tharpe/
- https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/sister-rosetta-tharpe-rocknroll-pioneer/
- https://guitargirlmag.com/featured/%EF%BB%BFsister-rosetta-tharpe-the-godmother-of-gibson-and-rock-and-roll/
- https://www.gibson.com/en-US/Gear/Sister-Rosetta-Tharpe
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Jackie “Moms” Mabley was the first woman comedian in the U.S. to have a long-lasting and successful career. Born #onthisday in 1894, we celebrate the innovative humorist with a joke quote, basic facts and information on many sources to learn so much more.
Sources:
- Moms Mabley: I’ve Got Somethin’ To Tell You (2013 Whoopi Goldberg-directed doc)
- Amazing Grace (1974)
- Killer Diller or Boarding House Blues, (1948)
- “Abraham, Martin & John” (Mabley's Top 40 song from 1969)
Moms Mabley comedy albums available on streaming:
- Moms Mabley at the Playboy Club,
- Moms Mabley at the Geneva Conference,
- Young Men, Si – Old Men – No,
- Moms Mabley at the U.N.
https://www.biography.com/performer/moms-mabley
https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/jackie-moms-mabley
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0531098/
http://www.comedyhistory101.com/comedy-history-101/2018/1/16/history-of-moms-mabley
https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/mabley-jackie
https://www.bustle.com/p/videos-of-the-real-moms-mabley-show-how-spot-on-her-mrs-maisel-character-is-19432334
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today is a good day for Good Black News - March 18 marks the anniversary of GBN's creation, originally as a Facebook page, in 2010. Over the past 12 years, GBN has expanded into its own website, goodblacknews.org, across social media @goodblacknews, and in 2022 into a Page-A-Day Calendar and a podcast (which, for now is based on the calendar). In this episode, GBN's founder and editor-in-chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson reflects on GBN's journey thus far and shouts out those who have given energy and time to voluntarily contribute to GBN.
To readers and listeners alike -- thank you for your support. Onward and upward!
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
On St. Patrick's Day, learn more about journalist, activist and producer Soledad O'Brien, who explored her Irish, Scottish and Afro-Latina heritage on the PBS show Finding Your Roots. O'Brien currently hosts Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brienand produces the HBO documentary series Black and Missing, and mentors college-bound women through her PowHERful Foundation.
Sources:
- The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities, (her 2011 book)
- soledadproductions.com
- historymakers.com
- https://finance.yahoo.com/video/representation-media-begin-see-bias-183115933.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/allisonnorlian/2021/01/18/from-anchoring-the-news-to-becoming-an-outspoken-critic-journalist-soledad-obrien-continues-to-hold-people-accountable/?sh=fac57042ebe5
- https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/soledad-obrien
- https://blackandmissinginc.com
- https://youtu.be/LwUX0il8MwQ (Black and Missing trailer)
- https://youtu.be/J4f8sJesLM0 (Finding Your Roots clip)
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Hear about Freedom's Journal, the first Black-owned newspaper in the U.S. It was founded on March 16, 1827 by Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm.
Sources:
- wisconsinhistory.org
- https://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/newbios/nwsppr/freedom/freedom.html
- https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83030455/
- https://americanantiquarian.org/earlyamericannewsmedia/items/show/93
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/3559045
- https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/bios/samuel-cornish.html
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Freedoms-Journal#ref1200859
- https://maap.columbia.edu/place/29.html
- https://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/subject-guides/africana-resources/john-brown-russwurm/index.shtml
- https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.252
Daily drops of Good Black New are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
Misty Copeland broke barriers in the world of ballet in 2015 when she became the first African American principal dancer for elite ballet company, the American Ballet Theatre. Copeland has authored several books and continues to support and promote the Boys and Girls Club of America, where she first learned to dance.
Sources to learn more:
- Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, (2014 New York Times best-selling memoir)
- Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You, (2017)
- Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy (2021)
- Firebird (2014)
- Bunheads (2015)
- A Ballerina’s Tale (2015 documentary)
- Tell Me More! Misty Copeland And The Ballerinas Of The 152nd Street Black Ballet Legacy from 2021 (WBUR CitySpace-hosted conversation)
- MasterClass on Ballet Technique and Artistry
- abt.com
- https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/10/misty-copeland-black-ballerinas-interview
- https://pix11.com/news/black-history-month/black-ballerinas-misty-copeland-new-book-profiles-unsung-dance-heroines/amp/
- https://www.abt.org/people/misty-copeland/
- https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/05/misty-copeland-principal-american-ballet-theatre-life-in-motion
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Misty-Copeland
Learn about Dr. Saint Elmo Brady, who in 1916 became the first African American person in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry.
Sources:
- Twenty Whites and One ‘Other’, documentary
- ACS.org, the American Chemical Society website,
- The Scale Influence of Substituents in Paraffine Monobasic Acids, the Divalent Oxygen Atom: Thesis by Dr. Brady
- https://chemistry.illinois.edu/spotlight/alumni/brady-st-elmo-1884-1966
- https://chemistry.illinois.edu/acs-national-historic-chemical-landmarks-st-elmo-brady
- https://chemistry.illinois.edu/system/files/2022-02/St.%20Elmo%20Brady%20Bull.Hist_.Chem_._2021_46_83.pdf
- https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/st-elmo-brady
- https://www.science.org/content/article/ancestors-science-st-elmo-brady
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/24322347
- https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/st-elmo-brady.html
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
The bench of musical talent in the Franklin household ran deep. The all-star status of Aretha is known worldwide, but how many know about her Top 10 R&B-hit having, Grammy-nominated eldest sister Erma Franklin? Learn about the singer whose original recording of "Piece of My Heart" climbed the charts in two separate decades, and the woman who dedicated the bulk of her career to helping children.
Sources:
https://ermafranklin.com/biography/
https://www.greymatter.fm/community/erma-franklin-soul-sister-1969
https://youtu.be/L0QAxIKf8G4 ("Piece of My Heart" video)
https://www.smoothradio.com/artists/aretha-franklin/sisters-erma-carolyn-singers-death/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/sep/21/guardianobituaries.arts
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/13/arts/erma-franklin-64-soloist-and-backup-singer.html
https://www.grammy.com/artists/erma-franklin/12601
The formerly enslaved Mary Fields (aka "Stagecoach Mary") worked as the groundskeeper at a convent in the Old West before receiving a donated stagecoach. With it, Fields secured a postal service contract to deliver the U.S. mail, unfailingly protecting her route from wildlife and bandits and becoming beloved by locals in Cascade, Montana.
Sources to more about Fields:
- Deliverance Mary Fields, First African American Woman Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States: A Montana History by Miantae Metcalf McConnell (2016)
- Fearless Mary: Mary Fields, American Stagecoach Driver written by Tami Charles and illustrated by Claire Almon (2019 children’s picture book)
- African American Women of the Old West by Tricia Wagner (2007)
- True First: African American Legends and their Untold Stories(2016 documentary on Fields on AllBlk via Amazon)
- Black Cowboys. (2021 episode about Mary on the podcast)
- https://postalmuseum.si.edu/stagecoach-mary-fields
- https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-fields.htm
- https://www.history.com/.amp/news/meet-stagecoach-mary-the-daring-black-pioneer-who-protected-wild-west-stagecoaches
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot
Additional music used under Public Domain license: “Maple Leaf Rag” composed by Scott Joplin
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day Calendar" we explore words and phrases in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Today's entry takes a look at "sadiddy," a term first seen in 1940s African American newspapers, though likely used conversationally well before then.
Links to "A Way With Words" Soundcloud segments on "Sadiddy":
- https://soundcloud.com/waywordradio/1288-callerrobin-sadiddy?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
- https://soundcloud.com/waywordradio/1358-caller-evita-sadiddy-mp3?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Excerpts of “Sadiddy” by Brandy from Afrodisiac are included under fair use.
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
Also, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we offer a quote from formerly enslaved abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the first Black woman in America to obtain national fame for her activism and protesting, and who was featured in our March 2nd Daily Drop. To learn even more about Truth, check out that episode and its source links.
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can give a positive rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Released #onthisday 32 years ago, the iconic 1990 teen comedy House Party directed and produced by brothers Reginald Hudlin and Warrington Hudlin was a surprise hit that highlighted the talents of rappers Kid 'N Play, music producers Full Force, comedians Martin Lawrence, Robin Harris & John Witherspoon and actors Tisha Campbell and AJ Johnson. It showed Black teen life filled with fun, hijinks and good times, spawning several sequels and the upcoming reboot on HBOMax this July.
Sources:
- https://www.vibe.com/features/editorial/house-party-anniversary-676036/
- https://www.theringer.com/movies/2020/3/9/21171026/house-party-30th-anniversary-history-kid-play
- https://www.bet.com/article/m4pneq/commentary-you-re-remembering-house-party-all-wrong
- https://youtu.be/Z1l5PFs2eTc (iconic dance battle scene)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft3DO85yFqs (2015 mini reunion)
- https://medium.com/film-movies-stories/house-party-a-25th-anniversary-retrospective-d3f00e009b4f
- https://deadline.com/2022/02/hbo-max-moonshot-father-of-the-bride-house-party-release-dates-1234934487/
Daily Drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music included under fair use: “Ain’t My Type of Hype” (House Party Mix) by Full Force.
Follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Rate or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
Today we offer a quote from journalist, anti-lynching and women’s rights activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, from her 1895 book The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States. Learn more about the woman who received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 2020, honored the centennial of the U.S. Suffragist Movement in a mosaic art installation, and in 2022, was added by Mattel to their Barbie Inspiring Women Series.
More sources:
New York Times review of the 1999 biography on Wells
Crusade for Justice - Wells' autobiography
Ida: A Sword Among Lions from 2009 by Paula J. Giddings
To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Linda O. McMurry
To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Mia Bay
https://goodblacknews.org/2021/02/23/bhm-good-black-news-celebrates-ida-b-wells-journalist-anti-lynching-activist-womens-rights-advocate/
https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/11/04/775915510/ida-b-wells-lasting-impact-on-chicago-politics-and-power?fbclid=IwAR31f0ItNqDh6lOmgETL8Hd0WfNXQQfAr6s-c4AU-nd90xgTfQusiJs_HKc
https://goodblacknews.org/2020/08/23/ida-b-wells-portrait-to-go-on-display-august-24th-in-d-c-s-union-station-to-honor-suffragist-centennial/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML8XiKVStWQ
Learn about Mabel Fairbanks, a figure skater who was denied the opportunity to compete for the U.S. because of her skin color. After spending years entertaining by skating in ice shows, Mabel became coach to world pairs champions Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner. gold medalists Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi and the first African American U.S. skating title holder Atoy Wilson.
Sources:
- NPR Code Switch podcast episode about Fairbanks
- 2019 children’s book Ice Breaker: How Mabel Fairbanks Changed Figure Skating (She Made History) written by Rose Viña and illustrated by Claire Almon,
- U.S. Figure Skating Mabel Fairbanks Skatingly Yours Fund set up to support the training and development of promising young figure skaters of color.
- https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-08-21/racism-mabel-fairbanks-figure-skater-telling-her-story
- https://www.nbcwashington.com/celebrating-black-history/mabel-fairbanks-changing-the-face-of-figure-skating/2582568/
- https://www.icetheatre.org/mabel-fairbanks-bio.html
Good Black News daily drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Please follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can give a positive rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
When spouses Dred Scott and Harriet Scott sued for their freedom, on March 6, 1857 the Supreme Court lead by Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled against them and caused outrage by declaring the Missouri Compromise (which had been approved by Congress) unconstitutional as well as denying the right of ANYONE of African descent, free or enslaved, to be a U.S. citizen. Considered one of the worst court decisions ever made, it helped prime the stage for the Civil War.
Sources:
- PBS video What Was the Dred Scott Decision?,
- 2019 book Dred Scott: The Inside Story by David Hardy,
- 2016’s Dred Scott v. Sanford: A Brief History With Documents by Paul Finkelman,
- 2009 book on Harriet Scott called Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier by Lea Vandervelde.
- https://www.pbs.org/video/american-experience-what-was-dred-scott-decision/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/from-a-descendant-of-roger-taney-to-a-descendant-of-dred-scott-im-sorry/2017/03/06/d2871308-0286-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html
- https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-09-22/thursday-the-effort-to-make-dred-scotts-grave-a-place-worthy-of-pilgrimage
- https://www.nps.gov/people/harriet-robinson-scott.htm?utm_source=person&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=experience_more&utm_content=large
Follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and check out goodblacknews.org.
Today we offer a quote from contemporary artist and Black Arts Movement figure Betye Saar, best known for her assemblage style and her 1972 work The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.
To learn more about 95 year-old Southern California native Betye Saar, go to the Museum of Modern Art aka MoMA website, read the 2019 book Betye Saar: Black Girl’s Window, order the upcoming June 2022 release Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight, and watch the 2020 CBS Good Morning feature on Saar.
More sources:
https://www.moma.org/artists/5102
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/momas-heady-introduction-to-betye-saar-the-conscience-of-the-art-world
https://hammer.ucla.edu/now-dig-this/artists/betye-saar
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Betye-Saar
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/23/betye-saar-the-brilliant-artist-who-reversed-and-radicalised-racist-stereotypes
https://youtu.be/T7CFz9xzhIM
Daily Drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing and are on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave a rating or review, share your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, go to goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner invented and patented an adjustable sanitary belt with an in-built, moisture-proof napkin pocket in 1956, even though she never profited from it. She also earned four more patents for other life-enhancing creations.
Sources to learn more about Kenner:
- https://youtu.be/But6oIYOETE
- https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/mary-beatrice-davidson-kenner
- https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/happy-birthday-mary-kenner/
- https://www.vice.com/en/article/mb5yap/mary-beatrice-davidson-kenner-sanitary-belt?fbclid=IwAR3x1M_A-sasjlXjIIhq36PCOHaL42OgpvXQfdz-yeS5CfLva590iIYVyq4
- https://goodblacknews.org/2020/02/05/bhm-mary-beatrice-davidson-kenner-the-forgotten-inventor-who-revolutionized-menstrual-pads/
Daily Drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
You can follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a positive rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we offer a quote from former Black Panther Party member, professor, author and activist Kathleen Cleaver from her 1998 essay, “Women, Power and Revolution.”
To learn more about Cleaver's life and work, check out the 2001 book Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, Cleaver’s personal papers at Emory University, and links to other sources below:
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/kathleen-cleaver
https://www.loc.gov/item/2015669150/
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2020/08/upress_cleaver_papers/campus.html
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/kcleaver.html
https://youtu.be/sx0qIEi3QV8
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing,
If you like GBN's Daily Drops, consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
The first Black woman in America to attain national fame for protesting, the formerly enslaved and self-named Sojourner Truth advocated for the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, prison reform and the end of capital punishment across the entire United States. New York governor Kathy Hochul just announced a new state park in Ulster County will be named Sojourner Truth State Park and open later this year.
Sojourner Truth sources:
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth,
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter,
My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth by Ann Turner and James Ransome.
The Sojourner Truth Project
https://goodblacknews.org/2019/02/01/bhm-aint-i-a-woman-the-life-and-legacy-of-abolitionist-and-activist-sojourner-truth/
https://www.biography.com/video/sojourner-truth-mini-biography-11191875531
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth
https://www.dailyfreeman.com/2022/02/28/new-state-park-in-kingston-town-of-ulster-named-after-sojourner-truth/
https://www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm
If you like GBN's Daily Drops, please follow on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave a positive rating or review, share favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we explore words and phrases in the Black Lexicon in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Our March entry in this category takes a brief look at "Intersectionality," a term first publicly explained by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.
Sources:
“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989)
Intersectionality Matters,Crenshaw’s current podcast on the subject
https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o Crenshaw's Ted Talk on Intersectionality
https://amzn.to/3srgyp8 (Kimberle Crenshaw book On Intersectionality – on pre-order for December 2022)
https://youtu.be/O1islM0ytkE (animated video explaining intersectionality)
and check out other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination
If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodb,lacknews anywhere on social.
Morgan Freeman, the Academy Award-winning actor and "voice of God," offers a quote that succinctly challenges the notion of Black History being celebrated only one month out of the year. Which makes your host, Lori, ask listeners to pitch in suggestions for our Daily Drop bonus episodes at lori@goodblacknews.org - because Black History is More than Just One Month!
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
On 2/27, we celebrate "227" Executive Producer and star Marla Gibbs, 90, for her comedic timing and her common sense (she kept her day job at United Airlines while a cast member of "The Jeffersons" until she was sure it was a bona fide hit).
Learn more about the talented Gibbs here:
- https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/marla-gibbs-interview-the-jeffersons-norman-lear-1235090818/
- https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/marla-gibbs
- https://bestlifeonline.com/marla-gibbs-the-jeffersons-now-news/
- https://www.amazon.com/music/player/albums/B00KJVZ2KS?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
If you like our Daily Drops based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Please give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social, or go old school and tell a friend.
Music: Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Additional music: "The Jeffersons" theme song, written by Ja'net DuBois
""227" theme song written by Marla Gibbs and Ray Colcord
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodbinlacknews anywhere on social.
As the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces dominates global news, this week’s bonus daily drop is dedicated to the Black Ukrainian citizenry affected by the current onslaught. Two Afro-Ukrainians highlighted in this episode are singer/songwriter Gaitana and politician and athlete Zhan Belenuik. We also shout out African American journalist Terrell Jermaine Starr, who is reporting from that country right now.
Sources:
https://www.axios.com/black-ukrainians-fearful-russia-takeover-putin-3e623957-455c-445a-a705-1958013f97f3.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/tokyo-olympics-live-updates/2021/08/05/1025085844/ukraines-first-black-lawmaker-gold-medalist-in-tokyo
http://gaitana.com/en/
https://youtu.be/sLsTn_li5d8 (Gaitana at Eurovision)
Apple Music or Spotify to stream Gaitana
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1111632/beleniuk-racially-abused
https://terrellstarr.com
https://www.blackdiplomats.net
Bonus daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” format, published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodbinlacknews anywhere on social.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we offer some fun Black Trivia in a category we call "We Got Game." Our February entry in this category tests what you know about venerable actor Denzel Washington and his Oscar-winning prowess.
Sources:
- https://www.oscars.org/collection-highlights/denzel-washington
- https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000243/awards
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Denzel_Washington
- https://youtu.be/wLKDfyFjQtc (2002 Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech)
Daily Drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and consider giving a positive rating or review, sharing s on social media, or going old school and telling a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Learn how Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first African American graduate of West Point, engineer and civil servant, went from court-martial to being honored through West Point's annual Henry O. Flipper Award that goes to graduates who exhibit “leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties.”
Sources:
- Henry O. Flipper's The Colored Cadet at West Point: Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U. S. A., First Graduate of Color from the U. S. Military Academy,
- Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate by Jane Eppinga
- Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point complied and edited by Theodore D. Harris
- https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/henry-flipper
- https://www.nps.gov/foda/learn/historyculture/secondlieutenanthenryflipper.htm
- https://www.army.mil/article/217505/west_point_honors_henry_o_flipper_awards_mcdonough_with_flipper_award
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/02/20/first-black-army-officer-is-pardoned-by-clinton/ecd9c698-6e36-4a70-b569-7b55004ba4a6/
- https://youtu.be/WX6dnMYIKUA
- https://youtu.be/3cMfarulnME
Daily drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we offer a quote from influential Harlem Renaissance artist and art educator Aaron Douglas, who is often called "The Father of African American Art."
To learn more about Douglas’ life and work, read the 1995 biography Art, Race and the Harlem Renaissance, see his works on wikiart.org, watch the New York Met’s video about his work on YouTube and check out these links to other sources:
- https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/634ad849-7832-309e-e040-e00a180639bb
- https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.38654.html
- https://www.biography.com/artist/aaron-douglas
- https://www.theartstory.org/artist/douglas-aaron/life-and-legacy/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihCZwa22URM
- https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/american-art-to-wwii/harlem-renaissance/v/a-beacon-of-hope-aaron-douglass-aspiration
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
With the 1986 release of their first single, “Eric B. is President,” Eric B. & Rakim shook up the proverbial hip-hop tree. With Rakim deploying complex rhymes, internal musings, and visual storytelling and Eric B. scratching, mixing and sampling soul classics such as James Brown's "Funky President," their first effort as a duo landed them a record deal and helped advance the ever-changing sound of hip hop.
Sources:
- https://www.okayplayer.com/news/marley-marl-remakes-eric-b-is-president.html
- https://www.whosampled.com/sample/35392/Eric-B.-Rakim-Eric-B.-Is-President-(Original-Mix)-James-Brown-Get-Up,-Get-Into-It,-Get-Involved/
- https://www.songfacts.com/facts/eric-b-rakim/eric-b-is-president
Songs sampled in episode:
- "Eric B. is President" by Eric B. and Rakim
- “Over Like a Fat Rat” by Fonda Rae
- "Funky President (People It's Bad)" by James Brown
- "The Champ" by the Mohawks
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Enslaved by President George Washington and Martha Washington, in 1796 Ona “Oney” Judge secretly booked passage on a boat and left the then capital, Philadelphia, as the Washingtons ate, determined to be free. Despite numerous efforts by the President to get her back, Judge remained "never caught" and lived free the rest of her days.
To learn more about Judge, read the 2018 book Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar or the 2020 children’s book Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; Young Readers Edition, also by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, you can watch the Museum of the American Revolution’s Ona Judge Virtual Tour on YouTube.
More sources:
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/ona-judge-escapes/
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/ona-judge/
https://www.nps.gov/articles/independence-oneyjudge.htm
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-remarkable-story-of-ona-judge
https://blackheritagetrailnh.org/event/lives-bound-together-the-washingtons-and-ona-marie-judge-in-nh-2/
https://youtu.be/O9qf6WWc6QU (Mount Vernon video on Judge)
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Image from https://blackheritagetrailnh.org
When Raven Wilkinson joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955, she became the first African American woman to dance with a major ballet company in the United States. Wilkinson blazed the trail taken up by several Black ballerinas, most famously Misty Copeland, who in 2015 became the first African American principal dancer at an elite ballet company.
Sources to learn more about Wilkinson:
- 2016 documentary Black Ballerina in which Wilkinson is featured
- Stillness Broken, the Columbia University School of Journalism student film about Wilkinson
- 2018 picture book based on her life titled Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/obituaries/raven-wilkinson-dead.html
- https://pointemagazine.com/remembering-raven-wilkinson-trailblazing-black-ballerina/
- http://blackballerinadocumentary.org
- https://youtu.be/D9vKcxlNkq4 (Misty Copeland tribute by The Root)
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
“Euphoria” must describe the feeling 25 year-old Oakland native Zendaya Coleman has on the regular -- from Disney kid to global film and television star -- the Emmy Award-winning fashion icon is also a platinum-selling recording artist, producer and author. And she's just getting started!
Learn more about Zendaya's life and work:
Between U and Me: How to Rock Your Tween Years with Style and Confidence 2013 book by Zendaya Coleman
https://www.gq.com/story/zendaya-february-2021-cover-profile
https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/zendaya
https://www.instagram.com/zendaya/ (129 million followers!)
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In 1966, Donyale Luna graced the March cover of British Vogue. A Detroit native, Luna is widely considered to be the world’s first Black supermodel and served as one of the inspirations for the 1975 Diana Ross film Mahogany.
Sources to learn more about Luna:
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,840625-1,00.html
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/donyale-luna-model-vogue
https://www.thecut.com/2013/07/first-black-supermodel-whom-history-forgot.html
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9658276/The-tragic-tale-of-Donyale-Luna.html
https://www.bygonely.com/donyale-luna-fashion-model/
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Photo: Woodgate/Associated Newspapers/Rex USA
In honor of New York Fashion Week, today we celebrate Harlem-based fashion designer and hip hop icon Daniel Day, better known as “Dapper Dan.” "Dap" made his mark in the 1980s by blending luxury label logos into hip-hop aesthetics. Known first for his jackets and coats, the self-taught tailor dressed artists such as LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Eric B. & Rakim and Salt-N-Pepa and athletes such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather.
To learn more about Dapper Dan, read Dapper Dan Made In Harlem: A Memoir, check out his CBS Sunday Morning interview, his appearance on The Breakfast Club, Dan’s own webpage and a compilation post of some of Dan’s classic, iconic designs.
Other sources:
https://www.gucci.com/us/en/st/stories/advertising-campaign/article/pre-fall-2018-dapper-dan-collection-shoppable
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/fashion/dapper-dan-harlem-gucci.html
https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/dapper-dan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L7C2XlRVAE
https://blavity.com/10-dapper-dan-most-iconic-pieces?category1=fashion&category2=fine-art
https://youtu.be/AP1BC6L7NdA
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As New York’s Fashion Week for 2022 concludes, today we take a look at esteemed designer and dressmaker Ann Lowe, who made Olivia De Haviland's memorable 1946 Academy Awards gown and in 1953, Jacqueline Kennedy's iconic wedding dress.
To learn more about Ann Lowe, read Something To Prove: A Biography of Ann Lowe America’s Forgotten Designer by Julia Faye Smith, see her designs on the Fashion Institute of Technology’s website, and watch the National First Ladies Library lecture on Lowe on YouTube.
Other sources on Lowe:
- https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/jackie-kennedy-wedding-dress
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/29/ann-lowes-barrier-breaking-mid-century-couture
- https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/lowe
- Ohio University YouTube presentation on Ann Lowe https://youtu.be/XJV9OT5ARZg
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As New York’s Fashion Week for 2022 continues, today we offer a fun quote from George C. Wolfe, the Tony Award-winning director of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Bring In ‘Da Noise/Bring in ‘Da Funk on the origin of style.
To learn more about George C. Wolfe, check out the 2018 Oprah Winfrey/Rose Byrne film adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on HBO or Hulu, which Wolfe wrote and directed based on the book of the same name, or head to Netflix for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, his 2020 film starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Or you can watch his TIFF Originals Master Class on YouTube, and read more about Wolfe on the Internet Broadway Database, thehistorymakers.org and theundefeated.com.
Links to these sources are provided in today’s show notes as well as in the episode’s full transcript on goodblacknews.org.
Daily drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
On this Valentine’s Day, we offer an inspirational quote from author, 12-time Grammy winner and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Tina Turner, whose signature song is her number-one pop hit “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
Learn more about Turner’s life and music from her 2018 bestseller My Love Story, her 2020 book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide To Changing Your Life For Good, her 1986 memoir I, Tina: My Life Story, the film What’s Love Got To Do With It? starring Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne and the 2021 documentaryTina, currently available on HBOMax and Hulu.
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical will start a multi-city North American tour in Fall 2022. Visit www.TinaOnBroadway.com to sign up for tour news and announcements.
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Started in 2018 by filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay should be blowing up your timelines with GIFs, memes & videos from Jackson's storied career. #JanFam host Lori appreciates Janet in this ep for her dedication to social causes and charities.
Sources:
Good Black News post on Janet Jackson's Social Justice Music
The Knowledge: Janet Jackson Social Justice Music Playlist
Janet’s contributions to charities and causes like NAACP, UNCF, etc. Janet is now selling tour swag on The Real Real to support the non-profit Girls Leadership.
The 33 1/3 book on Velvet Rope by Ayanna Dozier.
Janet’s True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself with David Ritz.
Podcast Janet Today, Janet Tomorrow, Janet Forever where cousins Courtney & Kam discuss JJ's music & interview musicians, dancers, stylists, etc. who worked with Janet.
https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/why-janet-jackson-appreciation-day-is-trending-super-bowl-britney-spears
https://www.power991fm.com/2022/02/10/janet-jackson-returns-to-the-charts-streams-soar-109-after-documentary-series/
Learn about Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, the formerly enslaved dressmaker who became a confidante to first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1863 Keckley founded a relief association for newly freed Blacks and in 1868 published her autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House,
To learn more, read Keckley's autobiography at the internet archive, The Elizabeth Keckley Reader, Volumes 1 & 2, two collections of essays and other published works about Keckley, check out the dresses she designed online, including the one for Mary Todd Lincoln that resides at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, or watch her short biography on YouTube produced by the Smithsonian Channel. Keckley, played by Gloria Reuben, is also a featured character in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln.
More resources:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/from-slavery-to-the-white-house-the-extraordinary-life-of-elizabeth-keckly
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/obituaries/elizabeth-keckly-overlooked.html
Good Black News Daily Drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we explore words and phrases in the Black Lexicon in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Our February entry in this category takes a brief look at "the drinking gourd."
Sources:
The folksong “Follow the Drinking Gourd” was first published in 1928.
Richie Havens’ version is from the 1991 album, Songs of the Civil War.
Jeanette Winter’s 1992 illustrated book Follow The Drinking Gourd and the 1993 Morgan Freeman-narrated and Taj Mahal-scored Follow The Drinking Gourd visual audiobook illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan is available on YouTube.
Image via National Park Services
Daily drop of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we offer an inspirational quote from avant garde singer, songwriter, model, actor and artist Grace Jones. And after you put some Grace in your ears, you can learn more about her life and career from the sources linked below:
Jones' mind-blowing 2016 autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs,; the 2018 documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami directed by Sophie Fiennes, or the illustrated book Grace Jones A to Z: The Life of an Icon – from Androgyny to Zula by Steve Wide and Babeth Lafon.
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Intro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Outro is excerpt of "Pull Up To the Bumper" by Grace Jones from her 1981 LP Nightclubbing.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Although best known for inventing the three-color traffic light, Garrett Morgan created another life-saving device - the prototype for gas masks used to protect soldiers in World War 1 - and went to incredible lengths to prove the worth of the device.
Learn more about Morgan's life and work here: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/garrett-morgan-patents-three-position-traffic-signal
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/morgan_hi.html
Daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today, on #OperaDay, we offer an inspirational quote from famous contralto Marian Anderson, who is widely known for giving a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939 after being rejected from performing at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution who wanted her concert there to be segregated. Marian did not play that, and with help from friends in super high places, she took her talents to the people and gave a show for the history books.
To learn more about Anderson, read her 1956 autobiography, My Lord, What a Morning, the book about her landmark performance The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America by Raymond Arsenault or the 2011 children’s book The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman.
You can also watch Voice of Freedom, the 2021 PBS documentary about Anderson.
Good Black News Daily Drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022, published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Extra! Extra! Hear all about Ethel Payne, the “First Lady of the Black Press," who as White House correspondent for the Chicago Defender made a name for herself by asking hard-hitting questions to presidents from Eisenhower to Nixon on behalf of her Black readership. (Extended bonus episode on Payne on its way within the week!)
Lori’s Good Black News article on Payne: https://goodblacknews.org/2019/02/03/bhm-extra-extra-read-all-about-ethel-payne-first-lady-of-the-black-press/
More sources:
Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press biography by James McGrath
The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne children’s biography by Lesa Cline-Ransome and John Parra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN2Rf1c3KOw (Ethel Payne: First Lady of the Black Press)
https://library.garrett.edu/collections/special-collections/womens-history-digital-exhibit/ethel-payne-1911-1991
The daily drops of Good Black News are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Former pro running back Jason Wright traded in his cleats for wingtips when he became President of the Washington Football team (now officially the Washington Commanders) and the first Black person to run a National Football League franchise.
To learn more about Wright:
- https://www.commanders.com/team/front-office-roster/jason-wright
- https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/always-connect-never-give-up-an-interview-with-jason-wright
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/07/10/washington-football-team-future-jason-wright/
GBN's daily drops are based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today's bonus episode of GBN takes a look at historical events in Black History that happened #onthisday. Because honestly, pick a day, any day, and there are always #goodblackfacts to be found - like Bob Douglas' induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame or the birth of former home run king Henry "Hank" Aaron. Also, we acknowledge and honor the memory of Trayvon Martin, who would have been 27 years old today.
This bonus daily drop of Good Black News is based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com (50%off thru 2/28/22 with code:CAL50), Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Learn about John Henrik Clarke, a history professor at Cornell University who was a pioneer and forceful advocate for Pan African Studies in colleges across the U.S. So powerful was his influence, in 1985 Cornell opened its John Henrik Clarke Africana Library.
Some of Clarke’s noted works include Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism, a collection of Clarke’s speeches titled New Dimensions in African History, his editing and contributing to William Styron's Nat Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond, and his editing of the 1991 collection of Malcolm X’s writings and speeches called Malcolm X: Man and His Times.
Learn more about Clarke:
https://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/CLARKEJH.pdf
https://africana.library.cornell.edu/
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/john-henrik-clarke-born/
This daily drop of Good Black News is based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Baltimore-based Drs. Elmer Martin and Joanna Martin wanted to teach Black history in a way that would grab kids’ attention—so they did it with wax. Their vision ultimately lead to the creation of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the first African American wax museum in the US.
Learn more about the Martins and the Great Black in Wax Museum here:
http://www.greatblacksinwax.org/index.html
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2001-06-20-0106200116-story.html
https://goodblacknews.org/2021/02/10/bhm-celebrating-baltimores-national-great-blacks-in-wax-museum/
This daily drop of Good Black News is based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Author and historian Carter G. Woodson was known as “The Father of Black History” for creating what lead to Black History Month. Woodson also published The Mis-Education of the Negro in 1933, now available for free download in the public domain. This collection of articles and speeches demanded school systems across America eliminate curricula designed to deliberately “mis-educate” Black children and promote the fallacy of white supremacy.
Learn more about Carter G. Woodson at history.com and biography.com, or pick up the 2014 biography Carter G. Woodson in Washington, D.C.: The Father of Black History.
This daily drop of Good Black News is based on the “A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022, available at workman.com (50% off with code: CAL50 until 2/28/22), Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today we’re celebrating the start of Black History Month with a West African proverb that encapsulates why telling, sharing and amplifying African American stories and perspectives matters.
The “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022” is available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Floyd Norman, the first African American animator at Disney, worked on Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book. Robin Hood, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Mulan, plus Pixar’s Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. Norman was named a Disney Legend in 2007.
Learn more about Floyd Norman in the 2016 documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life on Blu-Ray, the book Norman wrote in 2013 called Animated Life: A Lifetime of Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Stories From an Animation Legend, as well as the page on him at d23.com.
Forty-five years ago #onthisday, the final installment the eight-part miniseries Roots based on Alex Haley’s best-selling book aired on ABC and was the 2nd most watched series finale in U.S. television history. To learn more about Roots, you can read Alex Haley’s book or check out the 1977 miniseries now streaming on HBOMax in its entirety. It’s also available for purchase on Amazon Video and Apple TV.
This bonus daily drop of Good Black News is based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Happy 68th birthday to Oprah Gail Winfrey, who created and owned the nationally-syndicated The Oprah Winfrey Show, A billionaire by 2003, the first Black woman in the world to attain this status. To learn more about Oprah Winfrey and her groundbreaking career, check out the Making Oprah podcast.
Marshall “Major” Taylor not only was the first African American world champion in cycling, he might have been the first internationally known sports celebrity ever. His explosive racing style earned him the nickname “The Black Cyclone.”
Learn more about Taylorin the 2016 biography Major Taylor: The Inspiring Story of a Black Cyclist and the Men Who Helped Him Achieve Worldwide Fame by Conrad and Terry Kerber, in 2019’s The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero by Michael Kranish and from the 2012 Smithsonian Magazine feature article by Gilbert King.
“No mail, no morale” was the motto of the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion, the United States Army’s only all-African American and all-female unit during World War II. In 2018 the battalion’s contributions were recognized with a monument erected in their honor at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
More history of the 6888 can be found in the 1989 memoir One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC by former unit commander Charity Adams Earley, in Dr. Brenda L. Moore’s 1996 book To Serve My Country, To Serve My Race: The Story of the Only African American WACS Stationed Overseas During World War II, and at the US Army website history.army.mil, by searching Six Triple Eight.
In GBN's "A Year of Good Black News" Page-A-Day®️Calendar for 2022 we explore words and phrases in the Black Lexicon in a category we call "Lemme Break It Down." Our January entry in this category takes a brief look at "home training."
As the first Black woman voted into the Texas Senate (1966−1972), lawyer Barbara Jordan was an oratory force of nature. She was subsequently elected to the United States House of Representatives (1972−1979), where she served on the Judiciary Committee. Her opening statement at the 1974 impeachment hearing of Richard Nixon is often cited as one of the best speeches in United States history, along with her keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Jordan also was the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state in America; she was acting Texas governor for one day on June 10, 1972.
After retiring from politics in 1979, Jordan worked as a professor of Ethics at the University of Texas at Austin. Around this time, Jordan was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and eventually had to get around via wheelchair, but that did not stop her from being an active scholar and public servant until she passed in 1996.
If you want to learn more about Barbara Jordan, you can read her biography Barbara Jordan: American Hero by Mary Beth Rogers or her 1979 autobiography: Barbara Jordan: A Self-Portrait, or search and read our Barbara Jordan profile on goodblacknews.org.
A quote from the Jamaica-born, early 20th century Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who lectured on Pan Africanism and sought economic and political freedom for Black people across the diaspora.
A bonus episode in honor of trailblazing fashion industry icon, creative director, editor and journalist André Leon Talley.
LeBron James is a champion on and off the courts. Through his LeBron James Family Foundation, he is creating schools, programs, scholarships and donating to charities to help youth in need everywhere.
Michael Tubbs made history in 2016 when he was elected mayor of his hometown Stockton, CA at 26, the youngest mayor of a major US city ever. While mayor, Tubbs started the SEED program, the nation's first municipal-level basic income pilot. Its success lead to Mayors of a Guaranteed Income, a national initiative where over 40 mayors across the country advocate for the same.
One year ago Amanda Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in United States history when she recited "The Hill We Climb" on the steps of the Capitol.
A brief look at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, formerly the infamous Lorraine Motel.
A quote from Howard Thurman, a theologian, educator and author whose 1949 book Jesus and The Disinherited influenced core leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, including MLK.
Activist Coretta Scott King fought for more than a decade to make the memory of her husband's life, work and purpose a national celebration, winning the ultimate victory in January 1986.
A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech, a sentiment still relevant to this day.
A brief overview on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the most impactful and important American leaders ever.
US Air Force Veteran, former NASA engineer and scientist Lonnie Johnson changed the water toy game forever in 1990 when he invented the Super Soaker.
Learn about Dorothy I. Height, a key activist during the Civil Rights Movement who lead the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) for over four decades and was honored with a U.S. postage stamp in 2017.
Lonnie Bunch, former history professor and Founding Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, made his own history in 2019 when he became the first Black Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Shirley Chisholm made history in 1968 when she became the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress. "Unbought and Unbossed" Chisholm reached even higher when she vied for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972.
Today we offer an inspirational quote from Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author of The Color Purple.
Perhaps most famous for playing the Tin Man in the 1978 movie version of The Wiz, Julius "Nipsey" Russell was also known as the "poet laureate of comedy." His topical commentary in rhyme form provided laughs, food for thought, and the MC handle of one of hip hop's greatest.
A bonus daily drop episode celebrating the achievements and contributions of trailblazing actor, director and activist Sidney Poitier, who passed away yesterday at 94.
In May 2013, Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins made history when he came out as the first openly gay player in the NBA.
An insightful, incisive, inspiring quote from accomplished Harlem Renaissance author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston.
Even though you didn’t know it until right this moment, starting in 1946, U,S, Congress declared that January 5 would be George Washington Carver Day, named for the gifted botanist and Tuskegee Institute professor who invented many uses for peanuts, but DID NOT invent peanut butter.
The Category? Black Girl Magic. The person? Simone Biles.
United States athlete Simone Biles not only holds the record for the most World Championship medals won by ANY GYMNAST EVER, she has several signature moves named after her including: the “Biles (H),” a double-twisting double backflip balance beam dismount, and the “Biles II,” a double backflip with three twists floor combination. No one but the four-time Olympic gold medalist herself has ever landed those moves in international competition. Between all that AND her ability to remove her sweatpants while in a handstand (as seen on her Twitter in 2020), Biles’s status as the best of the best will forever be undeniable.
Additionally, when Biles prioritized her mental health over competition after suffering from a bout of “the twisties” during the 2020 Summer Olympics, she emerged as a champion and advocate for mental health care in sports and in everyday life.
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Today we offer an inspirational quote from Michelle Obama, lawyer, author, former First Lady, from her keynote address at the Young African Women Leaders Forum on June 11, 2011:
“You may not always have a comfortable life, and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once. But don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own."
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/22/remarks-first-lady-during-keynote-address-young-african-women-leaders-fo
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This podcast is a day-by-day audio drop of the entries from the “A Year of Good Black News PAGE-A-DAY® calendar for 2022” authored by Lori Lakin Hutcherson and published by Workman publishing, in addition to bonus entries for days that are combined on the weekends.
Good Black News was founded with the sole mission of highlighting positive news about and achievements of Black People across the globe. The Page-A-Day calendar format magnifies this mission by offering stories, facts, biographies, and trivia on the daily in a fast, fun and memorable way. We also get to celebrate holidays, anniversaries and events with a unique and expansive view that anyone from anywhere can marvel in, enjoy and hopefully share.
For even more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or @goodblacknews on social. You can find and follow the Daily Drop of Good Black News on Spotify, Apple, SoundCloud, Amazon Music or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
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Although the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Black Americans have fought for equal protection under the law for centuries. In 1799, seventy-one People of Colour and Freemen in Philadelphia banded together to petition their Congressman for their rights. Led by Reverend Absalom Jones, the first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the U.S., the Freemen sought protections against the oppression and violence they were subjected to despite being free. They called for a stop to the kidnapping of freed people and demanded the abolition of slavery, as well as the unalienable Rights guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence. On January 2, 1800, Representative Robert Waln introduced the petition to the House of Representatives, where it was tensely debated and eventually sent to committee to die. Today, the Reverend Jones is recognized on the Episcopal Calendar of Saints, the Diocese of Pennsylvania honors his memory with an annual celebration, and the chapel and rectory at the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia are named in honor of Jones.
Learn more: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h327.html
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It’s a Southern tradition to eat black eyed peas for good luck on New Year’s Day. Perhaps listening to them will bring the same providence. 😉
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