(Ehe |í]nrUanh (Ohseruer _____________________
B la c k
H M
istorv
onth
continued
yet history nonetheless; people who
knew o f black valor in World War
I, o f droves trekking North for
opportunity, o f m ore than ten
thousand protesting white violence
in that Silent March down New
York C ity’s Fifth Avenue. They
w ere folks possessed w ith, as
Rampersad wrote, “a growing sense
o f certainty that black America was
on the verge o f something like a
second Emancipation.”
for Porgy and Bess
Bv J anus A dams
On October 10,1935, the curtain o f
Broadway’s Alvin Theatre ran up
on George Gershwin’s Porgy and
Bess. The sh ow ’s success was
shared by two African American
women in leading roles - Anne
Brown as “Bess” and Eva Jessye
behind the scenes as the show ’s
choral director.
So arresting was the voice
o f Anne Wiggins Brown that the
folk opera based on the novel Porgy
made room in its Broadway title for
Bess. Significantly, as culturally
Black as Porgy and Bess was, with
its story o f life on Catfish Row, all
o f the sh o w ’s creative credits
(contracts and royalties, too) went
to whites: Du Bose and Dorothy
Heyward for the novel and the
show 's book; George Gershwin for
the musical score; his brother, Ira
Gershwin, and Du Bose Heyward
for the 1 ibretto. But the authenticity
o f he voices, sonorous and rich,
came from the choral arrangements
by African American composer Eva
Jessy e- the same woman o f African
descent. 1 am a Black woman. And
Annnie Wiggins
B row n
and
Todd Duncan in
“P o rg y
and
Bess, ” 1935.
FOCUS
I am happy to be exactly as God
made me.”
p
for Press (Black)
B y T onya B olden
B la c k
D isp a tc h .
T his
firecracker was launched in 1915
by o n e o f O k la h o m a ’s m ost
indefatigable civil-rights leaders.
Roscoe Dunjee, brotherofhistorian
D ru silla D unjee H ouston. By
midcentury. Black Dispatch had
n a tio n a l re a d e rsh ip , and its
publisher was well-known for his
stinging, winning editorials.
Chicago Defender. This was
the brainchild o f Robert Sengstacke
A bbott, who was born on St.
Sim on’s Island. Georgia. Abbott,
who had a trade (printing) and a
professional degree (law), started
the new spaper in 1905 in his
in Selma, Alabama she posed for this photo at approximately
2 0 years of age in 1947. Mrs. Cain was the proud mother of seven
children. All of her children migrated west to Oregon One of her
daughters, Christina Cain, celebrates 23 years working for the
Portland Development Commission. Christina is, in turn, passing
along her family history to her own young daughter, Adriana.
Onnie Mae would have wanted it that way.
Throughout the month of
February, PDC employees will
remember the rich heritage
of African-Americans. The
Commission is dedicated
to working with the
community to make our
city a better place to, live
and work for all
citizens.
PORTLAND
DEVELOPMENT
(X)M MISSION
Page 7
landlady’s kitchen with twenty cents
and a little credit. A decade later,
the paper had a circulation o f about
250,000 with deep readership in the
South.
New Amsterdam News. It was
founded in 1909 by James H.
Anderson, and in 1936, it was
purchased by two doctors, Philip
M.H. Savory and Clilan Bethany
Powell (New Y ork's first black
radiologist), who became its editor-
in-chief and the force behind the
Onnie Mae Cain
kin hd f°r the i°ve °f ^azz
89.1
____________________February 9,2000