Page 4
~~~~
B la c k
H
M
onth
m m m m
.
“ >for Empress of the Blues
■
f
In 1903, on the streets ot
_
i,
Chattanooga, Tennessee, you could
,
„
c
l
-
/
l i
hear Bessie Smith sing for nickels
and dimes. Twenty years later, you
could hear her everywhere. On
February 15, 1923 - after failing
several auditions, including one for
the b lack -o w n ed B lack Sw an
Records - the self described “tall
and fat and scared to death” singer
made her first recordings. With
“Down Hearted Blues” by Alberta
Hunter on the A side and “G ulf
Coast Blues” on the B, she was a
hit, and Columbia Records was soon
known as the house that Bessie built!
I f e v e r an A frican
A m erican a rtis t w as c a lle d
“untrained,” it was Bessie Smith.
She honed her craft before listeners
with little cash and less patience for
anything but the real thing - their
blues, their truths.
By the time her record hit,
not only was she “ready,” she had
built a small following o f fans who
knew her name. Bessie Sm ith’s
records soon sold 100,000 copies
per week, making her the highest
paid black perform erofher day. No
wonder she was called the “Empress
of the Blues.”
F
for Father of Baseball
By C i . a h ) A nderson . E d .D,
®lje F ortiani» ©bsseruer
Focus
February 9, 2000
b a s e b a ll,” and his N ational
A sso c ia tio n o f P ro fessio n al
Baseball Clans became known as
the Negro National League. As the
first president of the league, Foster
provided Black players a place to
play and investors with financial
opportunities. The Negro National
League initially included such teams
as the Kansas City Monarchs, the
Indianapolis ABC’s, the Chicago
American Giants, The Detroit Stars,
i ,1,. w «.».»m
the St. Louis Stars, and the Westem
An
Cuban All-Stars,
five-year jail terms to anyone caught
reading it - and in Dahomey, the
sentence was life! Still Garvey
flourished, with an estimated six
million active followers.
for Hollywood
fiy
J am s A bams
caustically, “I ’d rather get paid
$ 1,500 a week to play a maid, than
$15 a week to be one.” Such were
the options o f the day.
1
for Islam
Bv S chomblrc C enter
Science Tem ple o f A merica in
Baltimore, arguing that African
Americans were in fact Moors from
Morocco who had been stripped o f
their identity (and religion) by
whites. Following A li’s death, his
teachings were expanded by one of
his fo llo w e rs, W a lla c e Fard
M uham m ad
m y ste rio u sly
disappeared, the movement was
headed by Elijah Muhammad, who
eventually moved its headquarters
to Chicago.
As the Nation o f Islam was
growing, other African Americans
were drawn to Islam through the
M uslim M ission o f A m erica,
established in 1920 by Sheikh
D a a ’w ud F aisal, a B erm udan
immigrant to New York. Still others
jo in e d g roups o f A hm adiyya
Muslims, inspired by immigrants
from East Asia entering North
America via West Africa.
Islam was first introduced
On December 15, 1939,
to North A m erica by enslaved
as a full regiment o f media troops
Africans from Muslim regions of
storm ed A tlanta for the film
West Africa, though there is no
premiere o f Margaret Mitchell’s
indication that their beliefs were
book, dear ole Dixie might have
perpetuated into the succeeding
been Gone With the Wind, but its
generation o f African Americans.
forGarveyism
dear ole Mammy was here to stay.
T he re lig io n did not have a
Her myth, for years so carefully
significant impact on the African
fantasized, was now more real than
By J a m s A dams
American community until the early
In the 1920s, with a proud plan for ever. There, in Technicolor, was
20,h century.
African uplift, a fanciful plumed hertoo-beautiful portrayal by Hattie
In 1913, Noble Drew Ali
commodore hat, uniformed parades McDaniel. Significantly, McDaniel
( 1886-1929) founded the Moorish
ofthe men and women ofhis African was ra c ia lly barred from the
nation-in-the-making, and himself premiere but broke the blackout on
as its provisional president, Marcus Academy Awards night in
1940, winning an Oscar
Garvey had seized the imagination
for
the role, the first ever
o f the Pan-African world. Raised
aw
ard
ed an A fric a n
and educated in Jamaica, he had
American.
gone o f to see the world. He returned
O ther attempts
home from his youthful travels in
Europe and the Americas matured to enshrine Mammy had
- d isg u ste d w ith racism and been made over the years.
determined to end it. In 1914, with In 1912, a sta tu e to
on
the
superior skills as an orator and an M am m y
organizer, he founded the Universal Washington, D.C., Mall
Negro Improvement Association. was proposed. And as
C a th e rin e
Within five years, his empowerment h isto ria n
philosophy spread throughout the Clinton has written, “Most
United States. In 1920, in New treacherous o f all, for over
100 years she has haunted
Y ork’s Madison Square Garden,
his first convention attracted over kitchen shelves; even with
Come and experience Portland's premiere Hot Tubbing By-The-Hour
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We feature private Hot Tubs complete with shower, towels, and music
from
her
head
after
a
crowd to rid itself o f the shackles o f
80lh « Stark • 256-4TAN
1980s update, we still
colonialism and segregation, he
issued the call: “Up you mighty recognize this pernicious
Tanning
incarnation grinning down
race, you may be what you will.”
Tubbing
G arv ey w as in d u strio u s. So at us - Aunt Jemima.”
Hair Care
A ssessing her
su c c e ssfu l w as his w eek ly
Massage
film
h isto ry ,
newspaper. The Negro World, that ow n
said
colonial governments meted out M cD aniel
In 1920, Andrew “Rube”
Foster brought the various Black
baseball teams together into
an association similar to the
white leagues. Rube Foster
had been involved in every
a sp e c t o f th e g am e,
beginning when he was a
small boy. He had little
formal education. When he
was old enough, he quit
e le m e n ta ry sch o o l and
b e c a m e a p ro fe ssio n a l
baseball player. Fostersoon
learned that he was a better
organizer and businessman
than he was a professional
baseball player. His greatest
Marcus Garvey was the drivingforce behind the back-to-A frica movement
achievement came when he
and proposed to resettle A frican Americans in Liberia: To this end, his
organized Black baseball
organization purchased three ships and created the Black Star Line.
leagues for all the aspiring
When funds from subscribers vanished and the Black Star Line collapsed,
young baseball players and
the blame fell on Garvey. Though many people believed he was framed.
fans.
Garvey was convicted o f mail fraud in 1925 and served two years in
He became known
as “the father o f Black
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