President Vicente Guerrero

President Vicente Guerrero (1782-1831), Mexican military leader and politician. Vicente Ramón Guerrero Saldaña was born in Tixtla, a small town in southwestern Mexico, to a working-class family of African, Native American and Spanish ancestry. He received little formal education and worked as a mule driver in his early adulthood. When a rebellion against Spanish rule began in 1810, Guerrero was one of the first to join, seeing independence as a way to end slavery, racism and class discrimination. His knowledge of the land, ability to speak Native languages, and innate understanding of tactics made him a natural military leader. By 1815, however, nearly all of the other leaders had been killed or captured, and General Guerrero was now the top-ranked officer in the Mexican Revolution. Despite being outnumbered, he fought a successful guerilla war in the south and won numerous victories. The Spanish commander Agustín de Iturbide enlisted his Guerrero’s own father to try to convince him to surrender, but the son answered “The will of my father is for me sacred, but my Motherland is first.” Finally, Iturbide called for a peace treaty, promising to help create an independent government that guaranteed racial equality. The two generals joined forces in 1821, and in September, the Spanish government finally agreed to recognize Mexico’s independence. Guerrero, who became a high-ranking official in the new government, declared that “We have defeated the colossus, and we bathe in the glow of new found happiness…living with a knowledge that no one is above anyone else, and that there is no title more honored than that of the citizen.” 

Iturbide, however, declared himself emperor and refused to act on his earlier promises, so Guerrero led the effort to force him out of power. In 1828, he himself decided to run for president. His opponent was declared the winner, but Guerrero claimed that the election results were fraudulent and carried out a coup d’état in April 1829, thus becoming Mexico’s first and only black president. In his first address to Congress, President Guerrero announced that “The administration is obliged to procure the widest possible benefits and apply them from the palace of the rich to the wooden shack of the humble laborer.” He abolished the death penalty, raised taxes to assist the poor, and in September 1829 abolished slavery, ending the enslavement of Africans after 300 years. He also successfully defended the country against a Spanish invasion. These policies, however, put him at odds with conservative landowners. In December, an uprising began under his vice-president, and he was forced to leave Mexico City and flee to the south. Several months later, he was betrayed by a former ally, captured, and executed by a firing squad. Although he was only the latest political leader to be forced out of power in a time of great instability, most others sent into exile, not killed; his black ancestry and poor background, though, made him a greater threat. As one historian has written, “Guerrero's execution was perhaps a warning to men considered as socially and ethnically inferior not to dare to dream of becoming president.” In 1925, his remains were reburied, along with those of thirteen other revolutionary leaders, at the Columna de la Independencia memorial in downtown Mexico City. The state of Guerrero, which includes his hometown, is named in his honor; it is the only of Mexico’s thirty-two states named for a former president. He remains one of the most widely known patriotic heroes in a country where people of African descent are often overlooked, ignored or simply forgotten altogether.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Zelda Wynn Valdes

Zelda Wynn Valdes (1905-2001), fashion designer. Zelda Christian Barbour was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, the oldest of seven children in a working-class family. As a child, she learned dressmaking from her grandmother and made outfits for her dolls. When she was thirteen her grandmother declined her offer to make a dress for her, saying “you can’t sew for me. I’m too tall and too big,” but Zelda sewed it anyway; “She was so happy with that dress,” she later recalled, “She was buried in it.” Her sense of style was also shaped by her study of classical piano at the Catholic Conservatory of Music. After graduating from Chambersburg High School she moved to White Plains, New York, and worked at her uncle’s tailoring shop. She then found a job in the stock room of a boutique, working her way up to become the store’s first black clerk and tailor despite the fact that some clients were unhappy seeing a black woman behind the counter. “It wasn’t a pleasant time,” she said many years later, “but the idea was to see what I could do.” In 1935 she opened her own dressmaking business in White Plains. Her success there led to an even larger shop called Zelda Wynn, which opened in 1948 on Broadway, making her the first African American storeowner on the iconic street. She first gained notoriety for dressing the bridal party of the 1948 wedding of Nat King Cole and Maria Cole.

From there Valdes’ client base grew to include many of the black female celebrities of the era: Dorothy Dandridge, Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Marian Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Edna Robinson (wife of Sugar Ray Robinson) and Joyce Bryant. Despite their success and fame these women were often disrespected by white designers, but Valdes provided a space where they could get the clothing and the respect that they wanted. During the post-World War II period large numbers of black women celebrities were gaining notoriety and success across racial lines for the first time in American history, and Valdes’ clothing played an important role in expanding views of celebrity and of beauty. Her aesthetic included elaborate sequin and hand beading patterns woven onto top-quality fabrics like satin and crepe in patterns that were both form-clinging and sophisticated; in her words, “I have a God-given talent for making people beautiful.” Valdes’ work with Bryant to develop the singer develop a new public image accelerated Bryant’s career; her record sales increased, and Life magazine called her the “Black Marilyn Monroe.” Her work with Fitzgerald, which due to the singer’s hectic schedule often had to be done through photographs rather than in-person measurements, was even more lucrative and culturally significant. Fitzgerald’s full figure had led many to label her as unattractive, but Valdes’s dressed led to a more glamorous image and helped to slowly change popular ideas about body shape. Her work also gained more respect for her as a creator. Black women who created clothing had traditionally been dismissed with the label “seamstress” while their white counterparts were called “designers” or “couturiers,” but Wynn insisted on the latter terms. She also drew the patronage of white celebrities such as Mae West and Marlene Dietrich. In 1949 she became president of the National Association of Fashion Accessory Designers, an organization of black women in the design business created by Mary McLeod Bethune to, in the words of historian Tanisha C. Ford, “elevate other black female designers while helping them build networks, address discrimination in the workplace and promote racial diversity in the fashion industry.”

In the 1950s Valdes closed the Zelda Wynn store and opened a new one called Chez Zelda next to Carnegie Hall in Midtown Manhattan, the largest central business district in the world and home to the highest real estate prices on the planet. She employed nine dressmakers and charged nearly $1,000 for each gown. Although some designers focused on either costumes for performance or fashion garments for social events, Valdes was comfortable working in both genres. The most famous example of this was her work on the famous Playboy Bunny costume for Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club. Some stories state that she singlehandedly invented the outfit, but it is more likely that she played an important collaborative role in its creation. In any event, the Bunny costume became one of the iconic symbols of the 1960s and was the first commercial uniform to be registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, although it also drew criticism for objectifying women. Her work also led “Zelda at the Playboy” fashion shows at the Playboy Club. In the 1960s she became the director of the Fashion and Design Workshop for a youth outreach program called the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Associated Community Teams. In this capacity she taught costume design and sewing to thousands of children. In 1970 she became costume designer for Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theatre of Harlem, the country’s first black classical ballet company. Over the next thirty-one years, she created pieces for eighty-two productions. Before Valdes’ work with the company all dancers’ tights were colored pink and labeled “flesh” or “nude” on the assumption that all dancers were white, but Valdes colored the tights for the Dance Theatre to match the skin tone of each dancer. She closed Chez Zelda in 1989 because of her frequent travel and sister’s declining health, but she continued to work with the Dance Theatre until her death in 2001. Although she was largely forgotten at the time of her passing, the success of other black designers in the last few decades and the inclusion of different body types in the fashion industry has led some to look back to the pioneer who helped make this possible.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Capitol Officer Crystal Griner

Capitol Officer Crystal Griner (1984- ), law enforcement official. Griner grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland, a mid-sized town near Baltimore. She attended Mount Hebron High School, where she was a member of the National Honors Society and an award-winning member of the softball and basketball teams. “She played inside for us,” her high school coach later recalled, “like a Charles Barkley-type player because she wasn’t big. She was tough.” Her athletic and academic accomplishments came in spite of the fact that her mother died of cancer right before the start of her senior year. After high school, she attended Hood College in Maryland, where as a freshman she finished near the top of the team in scoring and helped the Cougars reach the NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball Tournament. In 2006 she graduated from Hood with a degree in biology. 

After completing her degree, Griner joined the United States Capitol Police, the law enforcement agency given the responsibility of protecting members of Congress.  As a member of the Capitol Police, Griner was assigned to protect Representative Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who for many years had helped lead efforts against marriage equality and other LGBT civil rights concerns and in 2002 spoke at a white supremacist convention, although he later stated that he had not been aware of the convention’s purpose and that he condemned it. Although U.S. representatives do not automatically receive police protection at all times, Scalise was entitled to such protection due to his role as House Majority Whip: the representative who is elected by other members of his party to coordinate ideas for legislation and encourage support for it. One of the other officers assigned to Scalise is also African American, while the third is Latino. In 2015, Griner married her girlfriend in Maryland, which had legalized same-sex marriage in 2012, three years before the U.S. Supreme Court made it legal throughout the country over the objections of Scalise and many other Republican lawmakers. On 14 June 2017 Scalise, several dozen of his colleagues, and their aides were at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia, to practice for the Congressional Baseball Game, an annual charity event that pits congresspersons from the two major political parties against each other. Griner and her two colleagues were stationed behind near the field while the Republicans practiced. Also present was James Hodgkinson, a downstate Illinois resident who had a history of confrontations with police, including an arrest for domestic assault, and of writing anti-Trump and anti-Republican statements on social media and to newspapers. After Hodgkinson learned that the people on the field were Republicans, he began shooting at them with a rifle and handgun. Scalise and two others were hit almost immediately. Griner and one of the other officers ran onto the field to protect the people there, and all three began returning fire at Hodgkinson, as did members of the Alexandria police department upon their arrival. As they did so, several of the congressmen provided medical aid to the wounded. Griner was hit in the ankle during the ten-minute shootout, during which as many as 100 shots were exchanged. It ended when an Alexandria police officer shot Hodgkinson, who later died of his injuries. 

The actions of Griner and the other officers had kept Hodgkinson pinned down behind the dugout and drawn his fire away from the civilians. Senator Rand Paul observed that “Our lives were saved by the Capitol Police. Had they not been there I think it would have been a massacre.” Her high school basketball coach stated “She put it all on the line as a player, just like she put her life on the line protecting others. She was mentally and physically tough as a player. And those qualities are why she’s now a hero.” Griner, Scalise, and the other injured parties were taken to local hospitals, and all are expected to make full recoveries. Because Griner and her wife were legally married, the wife was able to take an active role in the recovery process in ways that had previously been barred to same-sex couples. While in the hospital, Griner and her wife were visited by the Trumps and by Vice President Mike Pence, who like Scalise and many of the others whose lives were saved strongly opposes LGBT rights. One week after the shooting, Griner threw out the first pitch at the Congressional Women’s Softball Game, which raises money for breast cancer research, from a wheelchair. The soft-spoken officer has no social media presence and has made no public statements about these events, but the actress Martha Plimpton tweeted “A queer Black woman saved Steve Scalise’s life, so let’s send her & him our best wishes & hope his voting record changes from here on out.” The Congressional Baseball Game was also played as scheduled, drawing double the usual crowd and raising more than $1 million for charity.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Simon Kimbangu

Simon Kimbangu (1887-1951), Congolese religious leader. Simon Kimbangu was born in Nkamba, a small town in Central Africa. His homeland had once been one of the most powerful nations in Africa, but by the late 1800s it was weakened from centuries of European and East African efforts to conquer the region and enslave its inhabitants. Two years before Kimbangu’s birth, European countries and the United States held a conference to divide all of Africa between them, and the king of Belgium claimed the Congo as his personal property and used private companies to conquer it. The Congolese people were enslaved and forced to harvest natural resources such as rubber and gold, and those who resisted were beaten, killed, or had a hand severed. As a result, an estimated 10 million people died between 1885 and 1908. The Belgians also tried to convert the Congolese to Christianity, but even those who did were closely supervised by white religious leaders.

Although it is difficult to separate some of the legends about Kimbangu from what actually happened, according to one story, when he was an infant his mother had protected a missionary from harm and was blessed with the promise that “her child would do the work of God.” He began having religious visions as a young child and was educated in a Baptist missionary school. In 1917 or 1918, he felt a calling to ministry and spent several years as a religious teacher. He then, as he described to his followers, spoke directly with God, who told him to heal the sick and declared “I am Christ. My servants are unfaithful. I have chosen you to bear witness before your brethren and convert them. Tend my flock.” Kimbangu was initially reluctant and instead moved to the colonial capital of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), where he worked at an oil refinery, but another vision encouraged him to return home and begin his own ministry in 1921. Over the next few months, his ministry grew rapidly and drew thousands of people from all over the Congo to Nkamba, which became known as “New Jerusalem,” to join the Ngunza (“prophet” in the Kikongo language).  His followers believed that he had the power to cure illness and resurrect the dead through faith healings. This was especially attractive in a region that had been devastated by colonial rule, World War I, and a global influenza pandemic. Additionally, his strict moral code, which banned practices such as drinking, smoking, and polygamy, brought a sense of stability to many people’s lives. He also blended traditional and European practices in a way that resonated with many and made them proud of their heritage. For instance, his white robes symbolized both Christian notions of purity and the Congolese tradition in which white was the color of the dead, making some believe that the ancestors would help restore the Congo to glory, and his staff had a black flag tied to it and was called “The Staff of the Rule of the Blacks.” In one sermon he declared “God had promised Simon Kimbangu that, whenever your enemies confront you, it is you who shall speak: I will send the Prince of Angels, Gabriel, to defend you. Thus God did not renege on his promise when the Whiteman arrived.”

The Belgian authorities, though, saw his movement as a threat. Some of his followers preached that the Congolese should refuse to pay their colonial taxes or even overthrow the colonial government, and although Kimbangu himself never stated these things, he was still accused of believing them. By preaching that God had called him to lead his movement, he implied that white religious leaders were not necessary and should not be in charge. The simple fact that an African man had become more important in the Congo than any colonial leader made him dangerous to colonialism. When one government official came to confront him, Kimbangu read him the story of David and Goliath. Another story held that when soldiers came, he told one to “keep still” and the man was unable to move; he then told another “Have you come to fight God? Who are you looking for? Truly, I know that others are relying on their knives to make me suffer, but the Lord God knows all the plans of men; he sees them like small flowers.” The authorities finally tried to arrest him, killing several members of his flock in the process, but he escaped and continued preaching in hiding. Kimbangu finally turned himself in and was tried before a military court for disturbing the peace and undermining public security. During the trial, which violated numerous Belgian legal rules (for instance, Kimbangu was not allowed an attorney), he told the judge “the Spirit took a black to do God’s work, because the whites were discontented with the work of God.” He was found guilty and sentenced to death by 120 lashes, but this sentence was protested by prominent Europeans, so the king of Belgium commuted it to life in prison. He was sent to the Elisabethville prison and banned from seeing his family or anyone else. Many of his followers were also imprisoned or exiled to remote areas of the Congo, and his movement was outlawed, but it continued to grow under the leadership of his sons and others. So did the anticolonial movement, which was inspired in part by his example but was also increasing throughout Africa and the rest of the world. In 1959 the Belgian government finally gave legal recognition to what was then known as the Kimbanguist Church. A year later, the Congo gained its independence; it is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Simon Kimbangu did not live to see these events, as he died in prison in 1951 after thirty years of confinement. Today the Kimbanguist Church (officially called the Église de Jésus-Christ sur Terre par le Prophète Simon Kimbangu, or Church of Jesus Christ on Earth by the Prophet Simon Kimbangu) is the third largest religious group in the Congo, one of the largest African-founded religious groups on the entire continent, and the first independent African church to be admitted to the World Council of Churches.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana

Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana (1953-1994), Rwandan educator and politician. Uwilingiyimana was born in the village of Nyaruhengeri, the fourth of eight children born to farming parents. She attended Notre Dame des Citeaux High School, where she headed clothing drives and worked to improve relations among the Hutu and Tutsi, Rwanda’s two major ethnic groups. She became certified to teach humanities, mathematics and chemistry and worked at a school in the town of Butare. In 1983, Uwilingiyimana became a chemistry professor at the National University of Rwanda and later earned an advanced degree in chemistry despite criticism from those who thought that females should not study science. Three years later, she created a credit union for teachers in Butare. This drew the attention of the government, which wanted to include talented individuals from southern Rwanda, and so she was appointed her Director of Small and Medium Sized Industries. Although some people opposed placing a woman in a high position of authority, she ultimately won the respect of many of them; one later recalled, “Not only did the men accept her for her competence but the women adopted her for her generosity.” Uwilingiyimana helped create the Seruka (“Show Me”) Association, which provided education, job training and business opportunities for women. 

In 1992, she was appointed Minister of Education. In her short time in this office, she appointed larger numbers of women to high-ranking positions in the school system; encouraged girls to pursue careers in science; ended the policy of expelling pregnant girls from school; helped establish the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a multinational organization that increased girls’ access to education; and awarded scholarships based solely on merit, thus ending the old ethnic quota system. The last of these policies angered Hutu extremists; although the Hutu already controlled the government, some wanted to completely eliminate Tutsi influence and destroy the Tutsi rebels who opposed the government. In 1993, she became the first woman prime minister in Rwanda and the second in all of Africa. Her appointment had been based in part on the president’s belief that she would divide his opponents and their belief that they could control her, but she quickly proved to be a formidable politician by helping to create the Arusha Accords, a peace agreement between the government and the rebels. This was the final straw for Hutu extremists, who in April 1994 assassinated Rwanda’s president and blamed Tutsi rebels for the crime. This immediately led to the Rwandan Genocide, in which soldiers and militiamen murdered Tutsi men, women and children, along with any Hutu who they considered a traitor. This included Agathe Uwilingiyimana. In an international radio broadcast on the night that the Genocide began, she announced “there is shooting, people are being terrorized, people are inside their homes lying on the floor. We are suffering the consequences of the death of the head of state, I believe. We, the civilians, are in no way responsible.” 

She refused to flee the country, instead staying to help restore the peace. She and her family were initially protected in their house by United Nations troops, but Hutu troops ordered them to lay down their arms, so Uwilingiyimana and her family took refuge in a UN compound the next morning. Two hours later, troops entered the compound. Agathe and her husband came out voluntarily to give their children a chance to escape, and they were immediately executed. Their children eventually fled to Switzerland. Agathe Uwilingiyimana was one of the first of 937,000 people killed in only 100 days during the Rwandan Genocide. After the killings ended and peace was restored, the new government gave her an official state burial. FAWE established the Agathe Innovative Award Competition to encourage educational and economic projects for African girls. She is still the only female prime minister in Rwandan history.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Allen Toussaint

Allen Toussaint (1938-2015), musician. Allen Toussaint was born in the working-class Gert Town neighborhood of New Orleans. His early musical instruction came from his father, a railroad worker who also played trumpet, and from a neighbor who gave him piano lessons. While still a teenager he began performing with local stars like Earl King and Dave Bartholomew. In 1957 he entered the recording industry by playing on the Fats Domino song “I Want You to Know” and producing the song “Walking with Mr. Lee” for Lee Allen. Using the pseudonym Tousan, a year later he recorded The Wild Sound of New Orleans, an all instrumental album with songs that he had written. One of them, “Java,” was later a hit for Al Hirt in 1964, becoming the first of many Toussaint compositions that other artists successfully recorded. During the 1960s Toussaint became one of the most important creative forces in R&B and rock music, working behind the scenes as a songwriter, producer, arranger, piano player, and record label executive who found and developed new musicians. As he recalled many years later, “I never thought of myself as a performer…My comfort zone is behind the scenes.” In its impact on R&B music, New Orleans ranked behind only Detroit, Chicago, and Memphis. Toussaint wrote hit songs such as: “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” by Jessie Hill; “A Certain Girl” and “Mother-in-Law” by Ernie K-Doe; “Over You” by Aaron Neville; “I Like It Like That” by Chris Kenner; “Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette”) and “Fortune Teller” by Benny Spellman; “Work, Work, Work” by The Artwoods; and “Ruler of My Heart” by Irma Thomas. When Otis Redding recorded the latter song as “Pain in My Heart” with slightly modified lyrics and himself listed as songwriter, Toussaint successfully sued him for songwriter credit and royalties. His music also reached a wider audience when white rock musicians such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, and the Hollies began recording them. One music critic later wrote, “Toussaint didn’t just play New Orleans R&B, he was the New Orleans R&B guy – an avatar for regional culture that skirted the mainstream but never really became it.”

In 1963 Toussaint was drafted into the army, but he continued to record while home on leave. One of his songs from this period, the instrumental “Whipped Cream,” became a hit for Herb Alpert and was used as the theme song for the TV show The Dating Game. When he returned to civilian life in 1965 he founded his own record label, Sansu Enterprises, writing and producing hits like the Chris Kenner song “Working in the Coal Mine,” a subtle protest against the exploitation of the working class. The rhythm section used on many Sansu songs was a band called the Meters, and their collaboration with Toussaint helped move his music in new directions that more fully reflected New Orleans’ unique cultural heritage, with a slower tempo and heavier syncopation than what was found in most other R&B. One early sign of this was the 1969 Lee Dorsey song “Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky.” The Meters eventually began making albums of their own, and Toussaint produced these as well as work by new artists like Dr. John and the Wild Tchoupitoulas. In 1973 he created a new record label called Sea-Saint and the recording studio Sea-Saint Productions. This studio was used by some of the most popular musicians in the world, including B.J. Thomas, Robert Palmer, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker, Albert King, Little Feat, and Elvis Costello. He also continued to write for other artists. His “Yes We Can Can,” a song about racial pride, became the first major hit for the Pointer Sisters; his “What Do You Want the Girl to Do” was successfully recorded by Boz Scaggs; and “Get Out of My Life, Woman” became a blues standard recorded by many artists. His biggest hit, though, was one that he did not write but produced: Labelle’s 1975 “Lady Marmalade.” In addition to this work with other artists, Toussaint began recording his own music for the first time since the 1950s with albums such as Toussaint (1971), Life, Love and Faith (1972), and Southern Nights (1975). His solo work earned critical praise but did not sell as well as when the songs were recorded by other musicians; for instance, in 1977 his song “Southern Nights” became a number one hit for country musician Glen Campbell. Throughout all of this, few people outside the music industry knew the name of the person who had written, arranged, and/or produced so many popular and influential songs. This was largely due to Toussaint’s unwillingness to enter the spotlight; “I’m not accustomed to talking about myself,” he told one audience, “I talk in the studio with musicians. Or through my songs.”

Toussaint’s success as a writer and producer diminished somewhat after the 1970s, but his work began to find a new audience as his beats and lyrics were sampled by the British pop group Sugababes and by hip hop artists like A Tribe Called Quest, The Beastie Boys, the Black Eyed Peas, and the Notorious B.I.G. His “Hand Clapping Song” has become one of the most recognizable samples in hip hop history, and overall his songs have been sampled nearly 900 times. In 1987 he served as musical director for the successful off-Broadway show Staggerlee. In 1996 he created a new record label, NYNO Records, which focused on New Orleans artists and issued a series of critically acclaimed albums. In 2005, however, Toussaint lost his home, his recording studio, and most of his other possessions in Hurricane Katrina. After taking refuge in a hotel he headed to New York, and a week after the hurricane he performed on the Late Show with David Letterman. He wryly referred to Katrina as “his booking agent” because it compelled him to begin performing live again for the first time in years. This included Festival New Orleans, which helped to bring tourism back to the city. In 2006 he returned to New Orleans to record the album The River in Reverse with Elvis Costello; this was the first major musical work created in the Crescent City since the hurricane. He moved back home permanently in 2009 but continued to give live performances around the world and to record albums of classic jazz and R&B songs. In his albums and his live shows, he increasingly saw himself as the conservator and ambassador for New Orleans’ musical heritage, sharing stories on stage about his half-century in the music industry. After one such show in Madrid in 2013, Allen Toussaint died of a heart attack. A year later his final album American Tunes was released. Before his death he had been inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (becoming only the fourth New Orleans-based musician inducted into the Rock Hall) and had been awarded the 2013 National Medal of Arts by President Obama, who said at the ceremony that he and the other recipients had “used their talents in the arts and the humanities to open up minds and nourish souls, and help us understand what it means to be human, and what it means to be an American.”

©David Brodnax, Sr.