Herbert Julian

Herbert Julian (1897-1983), pilot and promoter. Julian was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, part of a prosperous family, and was educated in England and Canada. While in Montreal he learned to fly an airplane, which had been invented less than two decades earlier. Although pilots of African descent had recently served in World War I for European countries, when Julian made a solo flight in 1919 he became the first to do so in North America. He later wrote of flying that “at the controls of a plane you feel free, complete master of your own destiny for once, clear of all the petty restrictions and annoyances of the world below…[this is] the one place where all men really are equal, where it makes no difference what colour a man’s skin may happen to be, where all that matters is your own skill.” Julian also invented a new parachute, but when he traveled to Washington D.C. to file the patent, the office clerk refused to believe that a black person could invent anything and said “What do you want to file, music?” He then tried to register his patent in Canada under the name “parachuttagravepresista,” but the authorities used the less flamboyant term “aeroplane safety device.” Julian sold his invention for $25,000 and moved to New York, arriving in a chauffeur-driven limousine. He was one of tens of thousands of black people who came to New York from the South and the Caribbean during the 1910s and 1920s, making the Big Apple one of the world’s most prominent centers of black culture, economics, and politics.

In 1923 Julian planned a parachute jump into Harlem, placing signs around Harlem that read “Watch the clouds” and renting a lot with the advertisement “Watch the clouds this Sunday – Julian is arriving from the sky here.” In order to fund the jump he secured endorsements from numerous black businesses, including a mortician who paid $100 for the right to display his body if the parachute did not open. As his pilot flew over the city, he exploded noise bombs to gain the attention of people in the streets below, climbed onto the wing, and jumped off. Thousands of people chased after him on the ground as he descended from the sky in a scarlet-colored “devil costume,” opened a bag of flour to create a “dramatic long white trail,” unfurled a banner advertising a local eye doctor, barely missed ramming into an elevated train station, and landed on the roof of the post office. He was carried to the nearby headquarters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), an organization founded by fellow West Indian migrant Marcus Garvey to promote black economic and cultural independence. There Julian read advertisements for his sponsors and encouraged the audience to support black businesses until he was arrested for disorderly conduct. At his trial he passed out cards reading “Hubert Julian, M.D., World’s Champion Daredevil Parachutist,” later explaining that “M.D.” stood for “Mechanical Designer,” and was banned from flying over New York for six months. Exactly six months later he made another jump, this time while playing a gold-plated saxophone produced by one of his new sponsors. In the decade of the “Roaring Twenties” when celebrities were achieving unprecedented fame and the term “Harlem Renaissance” came to symbolize a flowering of northern black cultural expression, Julian’s jumps made him one of the most famous African Americans in the country and a symbol of the country’s most prominent black community. As historians Shane White, Stephen Garton, Stephen Robertson, and Graham White wrote of him: “Julian’s embrace of modernity, his love of speed and the machine, even the way he exploited, to a quite remarkable extent, the new art of advertising, all seemed to usher in a new age for African Americans, one full of possibilities.” White newspapers initially mocked him as the “Ace of Spades,” but a black writer gave him the nickname “The Black Eagle of Harlem.” This title became so widely known that for decades the post office delivered to his home letters addressed “The Black Eagle, U.S.A.”

In 1924 Julian announced that he would make a 4,600-mile solo flight from New York to Liberia. Several white pilots had already made transatlantic flights, but none had flown solo, and all had taken the much shorter trip between North America and Europe. Julian would be the first pilot to make the trip alone and the first one of color to do it at all, and his destination was also symbolically important to people of African descent as one of only two African countries that was not under European colonial rule. He purchased an old plane, named it Ethiopia I in honor of the only other independent nation in Africa, and painted on its side “Dedicated to the advancement of the Negro race.” In order to finance his flight he started a fundraising drive in black newspapers asking each reader to donate one dollar for this “scientific undertaking” and charged admission to see “the mighty Ethiopia I that I am going to attempt to fly to Africa, land of our fathers.” On Independence Day, 30,000 people crowded the streets and shores of Harlem to watch the flight. Unfortunately, the plane crashed into the sea due to mechanical failure after traveling only 1,500 feet and Julian suffered a broken leg. His plans for future transatlantic flights fell through due to a lack of funding, but he made shorter flights and parachute jumps throughout the United States. During the 1927 funeral procession of entertainer Florence Mills, he dropped rose petals on the 200,000 mourners. He also appeared at UNIA events, at gatherings of the religious leader Father Divine, and with an all-black flying group called The Five Blackbirds. He later stated that “though you may think that parachute jumps over Harlem were a strange way of working for racial advancement, I honestly believe it really did contribute something useful and valuable.” In 1930 he was invited to Ethiopia for the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie, and during the ceremony he parachuted to within fifty feet of the throne. When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Julian helped to train more than 3,000 troops in defense of the country but then returned to Harlem when the resistance failed. During World War II he worked with the air force of Finland and challenged Herman Göring, a top German official and former fighter pilot, to a plane duel in order to avenge the Nazi’s “cowardly insult to the honor of my race.” He also worked with Oscar Micheaux, one of the only black filmmakers of the time, on the 1940 film The Notorious Elinor Lee. They planned a film about Julian’s life, but the funding fell through; Hollywood would not make a biopic about an African American until the early 1950s. All of this generated a huge amount of publicly, as did his expensive wardrobe, which included a monocle, walking stick, and silk umbrella. One writer called him “a publicist without peer.”

After World War II Julian founded the import-export business Black Eagle Associates. When the company began selling weapons in war-torn regions around the world, Julian became wealthy, but his international reputation was permanently tarnished. When he was arrested in the Congo in 1962, a Ghanaian working for the United Nations told him “This is one of the saddest days of my life. When I was an undergraduate, I worshipped you as a hero. Most of my African contemporaries did the same.” He was released but banned from returning to the Congo. He remained in the public eye by appearing on television talk shows, writing the autobiography Black Eagle in 1965, attending a Muhammad Ali fight in London in 1966, and telling Jet Magazine in 1974 that he was, at the age of 77, planning a rescue of the recently-deposed Emperor Selassie. Herbert Julian died in New York in 1983. In Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel Jazz, which is set in Harlem during the 1920s, one of the first lines reads “A colored man floats down out of the sky blowing a saxophone,” and in 2017 his story was told anew in the documentary The Black Eagle of Harlem. His efforts as one of the first black pilots helped pave the way for later aviators like Bessie Coleman, the Tuskegee Airmen, and Ronald McNair, and while Muhammad Ali, Billy Porter, and others carried on his tradition of combining self-promotion with international racial uplift and economic empowerment.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Viola Davis Desmond

Viola Davis Desmond (1914-1965), Canadian entrepreneur and activist. Viola Irene Davis was born in Halifax, the largest city in the province of Nova Scotia. Part of a prominent middle-class family, her grandfather had been a barber and her father operated a real estate agency and car dealership. After high school, Davis taught in Halifax’s segregated schools while saving money to open her own beauty parlor. Because the local beauty schools did not admit blacks, she studied at the Field Beauty Culture School in Montreal and the Apex College of Beauty Culture and Hairdressing in New Jersey. In 1937 Desmond opened Vi’s Studio of Beauty Culture, which became one of the most important businesses in Halifax’s black community. One resident later recalled that she “took all of us kids from this area under her wing, and was like a mother to us all.” She studied chemistry and began selling her own hair care products, selling them throughout Nova Scotia to black women who were denied service by white hairdressers. Canada had no laws requiring racial segregation, but there were no laws banning it either, and so most businesses chose to segregate or reject black customers. She also opened the Desmond School of Beauty Culture, making plans to establish franchises operated by her graduates.

In 1946 her car broke down in the town of New Glasgow, and while it was being repaired she went to the local movie theater. The employees required her to purchase a balcony ticket, stating “I’m not permitted to sell downstairs tickets to you people.” She sat on the ground floor anyway and refused to move until the police forcibly removed her, causing knee and hip injuries. She was then further humiliated by being placed in a cell with male prisoners, but she put on her white gloves and sat upright for more than twelve hours. Because Canada had no laws that either required or banned racial segregation, so Desmond was instead tried for tax evasion: the tax on ground floor tickets at the theater cost one cent more than the tax on the balcony tickets. The local magistrate insisted that the matter had nothing to do with race and found Desmond guilty, fining her $26 dollars. She appealed the case to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, telling one reporter “I didn’t realize a thing like this could happen in Nova Scotia – or any other part of Canada.” Although one judge argued that her arrest may have been a “surreptitious endeavour to enforce a Jim Crow rule by misuse of a public statute,” it affirmed her conviction because of an error by her attorney.

The case helped inspire other black Canadians to press for civil rights laws, which finally passed in the 1960s. It also, however, took a heavy toll on Desmond. Her sister later wrote “A person like my sister, who was such a hard worker, had always been told if you do hard work, you’re going to win…She felt that she should have won the case, and she was bitterly disappointed.” Her marriage ended, and she closed her businesses in Halifax and moved to Montreal. She later relocated to New York, hoping to work as a consultant for the entertainment industry, and died there suddenly of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage at the age of fifty. In 2010, the government of Nova Scotia granted Desmond a formal apology and posthumous pardon, the first in Canadian history; it was signed by the lieutenant governor, who was also the first black and the second woman to hold that post. Her sister declared “What happened to my sister is part of our history, and needs to remain intact…We must learn from our history so we do not repeat it. If my parents were here today, it would warm their hearts to see Viola recognized as a true Canadian hero.”

©David Brodnax, Sr.

U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan

U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), lawmaker. Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston, the daughter of a Baptist minister and a housewife. While in high school, a speech by the prominent black attorney Edith S. Sampson inspired her to pursue a legal career. She was also shaped by her grandfather, who taught her “the lesson of independence and being one’s own person…I never had to apologize for whatever I was doing…I didn’t look around for excuses for non-achievement. I just decided that what one wants to do, one proceeds to do it.” At Texas Southern University, she became a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and a nationally ranked debater who helped her school defeat Yale and tie Harvard. After graduating in 1956 with a history-political science double major, she graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1959, then taught political science at Tuskegee University for a year before opening a private practice in Houston. She first gained the attention of Democratic Party leaders by helping to organize black voters for John F. Kennedy’s successful 1960 presidential campaign. The Civil Rights Movement was bringing an end to the practices that had prevented southern blacks from voting since the late 1800s, and after making two unsuccessful runs for the Texas House of Representatives in 1962 and 1964, in 1966 she was elected to the Texas State Senate, making her Texas’ first black state senator since 1883 and its first ever black female member. During her two terms in the state senate she helped pass laws that created the Texas Fair Employment Practices Commission, established the state’s first minimum wage law, and required antidiscrimination clauses in business contracts. In 1972 her colleagues elected her president pro term: the person who leads the senate in the absence of the lieutenant governor. Texas had a tradition of honoring the president pro term each year by naming them “Governor for a Day,” and Jordan was so honored on 10 June 1972, making her the first and still only African American woman to serve as governor of a state.

In 1972 Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing a district that included most of downtown and inner city Houston. She became the second black woman to serve in Congress and the first black congressperson from a former Confederate state since 1901. She worked with the several other black and female congresspersons but also established close relations with white lawmakers, especially fellow Texans, in an effort to gain power and influence within the system. This resulted in her being appointed to the House Judiciary Committee. In July 1974, this committee held hearings on whether or not to approve articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon for interfering with an investigation into his allegedly illegal activity, including firing government officials who were part of the investigation, and for failing to pay taxes. In a speech given during these hearings, Jordan laid out the concept of constitutional government and how it applied to the current situation. She began by noting that when the Constitution was initially written, “I was not included in that ‘We, the people.’ I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included.” She then addressed the specific pieces of evidence against Nixon, using quotes from James Madison and a former Supreme Court Justice for each one to argue that they supported impeachment.  In closing, she stated “If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that eighteenth century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth century paper shredder.” This speech helped persuade the Judiciary Committee to approve three articles of impeachment. A week later, Nixon resigned from office. Despite having served in Congress for less than two years, she had become one of the most prominent politicians in the country. One billboard in Houston read “Thank you, Barbara Jordan, for explaining the Constitution to us.”

During her three terms in Congress, Jordan sponsored or cosponsored more than 300 bills and resolutions, including the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which required banks to improve their efforts to make loans and other services available to poor and minority communities, and expanding the Voting Rights Act to include people of Asian, Native American, and Latinx ancestry. In 1975 she served on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, which is in charge of appointing Democratic representatives to various committees and advising party leaders on policy. During the 1976 presidential election season, she was briefly considered as a vice presidential candidate and asked to give a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Like her Judiciary Committee speech two years earlier, she noted how her very presence represented changes in American society, beginning “It was one hundred and forty-four years ago that members of the Democratic Party first met in convention to select a Presidential candidate…But there is something different about tonight. There is something different about tonight. What is different? What is special? I, Barbara Jordan, am a keynote speaker…I feel that notwithstanding the past my presence here is one additional piece of evidence that the American Dream need not forever be deferred.” She also addressed ongoing problems of inequality and the government’s role in addressing them, asserting “We believe that the government which represents the authority of all the people, not just one interest group, but all the people, has an obligation to actively – underscore actively – seek to remove those obstacles which would block individual achievement – obstacles emanating from race, sex, economic condition. The government must remove them, seek to remove them.” In 2009, the American Rhetoric organization ranked this speech fifth “Top 100 Speeches of the 20^th Century” list; her 1974 Judiciary Committee speech is ranked thirteenth.

Jordan decided not to seek reelection in 1978. She became a professor of ethics and public policy at the University of Texas and served as a member of the Board of Jurors for the Peabody Awards. She published her autobiography Barbara Jordan, a Self-Portrait in 1979. She was elected to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 1984 and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1992 she was again a keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, giving her speech from a wheelchair due to her long struggles with multiple sclerosis and leukemia. The candidate nominated there, Bill Clinton, awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and also considered nominating her to the U.S. Supreme Court but decided not to do so due to her poor health. In the last few years of her life she chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which attacked “hostility and discrimination against immigrants as antithetical to the traditions and interests of the country” but also drew criticism for recommending that immigration be reduced. Barbara Jordan died of pneumonia in Austin, Texas in 1996. After her death, it was revealed that she had been a closeted lesbian; although this was not known at the time, this also made her the first lesbian to serve in the Texas legislature, to serve in the U.S. Congress, and to give a keynote address at a major party political convention. She was the first black woman buried in the Texas State Cemetery, which was originally a burial ground for Confederate soldiers. Named in her honor are the main terminal at the Austin airport, several K-12 schools in Texas, and the Jordan/Rustin Coalition, which mobilized African Americans in California to advocate for marriage equality.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Blanche Calloway

Blanche Calloway (1902-1978), musician and entrepreneur. Blanche Dorothea Jones Calloway was born in Rochester, New York, the daughter of a lawyer and a music teacher, and as a child moved to Baltimore after her father died. She grew up at a time when recorded music and the new genres of jazz and blues were still in their early stages. As a child she sang in church, won talent contests, and was inspired by jazz pioneer Florence Mills and by her mother, who gave her music lessons but also discouraged her from pursuing a career in music. Calloway studied at Morgan State University but then left to join a cabaret troupe called the Smarter Set Co., starting as a “Bronze Beauty” but making her way up to chorus girl and then featured singer. In 1921 she joined the musical Shuffle Along, which was one of the first black productions on Broadway and also helped launch the careers of Fredi Washington, Paul Robeson, and Josephine Baker. Two years she later got her first major notoriety with another black musical, Plantation Days, which toured around the country. When it ended in Chicago in 1927, Calloway decided to stay there and became one of the featured performers at the Sunset Café, one of the leading jazz clubs in the country. She also formed her own band, Blanche Calloway and Her Joy Boys, which included future legends Louis Armstrong, Cozy Cole, and Ben Webster. In the late 1920s she moved to Philadelphia and joined another group called Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy, experiencing success there until Kirk dismissed her. The reasons for her firing are unclear; some accounts say that the owner of the theater where the group performed saw that she was more popular than Kirk and encouraged her to take over the group, while other accounts say that she herself decided that she could run the group more successfully and decided to take over. In either case, she then reformed the Joy Boys with new musicians. This made her the first woman to ever lead an otherwise all-male jazz band.

During the 1930s Calloway’s band recorded more than three dozen songs, including many of her own compositions. Her 1931 recording of “Just a Crazy Song” included the call and response “Hi hi hi/ho de ho de ho”; this likely inspired her younger brother Cab Calloway’s song “Minnie the Moocher,” which was released later that year and became one of the most popular jazz songs of all time. Her composition “Growlin’ Dan” was a response record, featuring an interaction between “Dan” and “Minnie” in its lyrics. The lyrics of “There’s Rhythm in the River” had a strong religious component: “He wasn’t on the level/He’s going to the devil/Deep down where the evil spirits roar/”Cause he kept on repeating/His lying and his cheating, oh Lord!/There’s rhythm in the river, rhythm in the river/Forty days and nights my tears have poured,/My heart is all a’quiver,/Rhythm in the river, oh, Lord!” Other songs were somewhat suggestive; for instance, “I Need Lovin’” and “Catch On,” which stated in part “Now I ain’t good and I ain’t bad/Just a brown-skinned girl who can’t be had.” Nearly all of her compositions featured strong-willing women, challenging the dominant image of passive, demure femininity; “Louisiana Liza,” for instance, describes a “Southern maid, I’m afraid, is sure to make you fall/She knows her stuff, calls your bluff, and brother, that ain’t all!” This was also true of Calloway’s stage high-energy, animated performing style, which heavily influenced her brother’s public persona. In an era when jazz was a hugely popular musical genre, critics praised the Joy Boys as one of the top jazz groups in the country, with the black newspaper Pittsburgh Courier calling her “one of the most progressive performers in the profession.” During her tours around the country, though, she also faced racial and gender discrimination, the latter coming not only from whites but also from black men who thought that women should not lead a band or serve in any musical capacity except singer or dancer. When the Joy Boys stopped at a gas station in Yazoo, Mississippi, she used the washroom reserved for white women only, leading the police to pistol whip one of her band members and to place him and her under arrest. While they were in jail another band member fled with the money, forcing Calloway to disband the group and sell her car in order to get out of the state. Over the next few years she formed several other groups, including one consisting entirely of women, but they struggled to get bookings and she was forced to declare bankruptcy. By the early 1940s, her performing and recording career was largely over.

Calloway briefly returned to Philadelphia, becoming active in Democratic politics, before resettling in Washington D.C. There she managed the nightclub Crystal Caverns, where she helped launch the career of R&B star Ruth Brown by signing her to perform at the club and then facilitating a record deal with Atlantic Records. Calloway later moved to Miami, where she became one of the only female disk jockeys in the country at WMBM, the most prominent black radio station in the city. She quickly moved up to program director and served in that capacity for twenty years. Over the next two decades she also worked with the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Urban League. Although black men had gained the right to vote in 1870 and black women in 1920, racism prevented nearly all African Americans in the South from exercising this right until the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but one story holds that Calloway cast a ballot seven years earlier in 1958 and thus became the first black woman in Miami to vote. In 1968 she founded Afram House, a mail-order cosmetics company for black women. She lived the last few years of her life in Baltimore, where she died of breast cancer in 1978. In 2003 her niece wrote and starred in a biographical musical called “Blanche and Her Joy Boys.” “The mission of an artist in the 21^st century is to heal,” the younger Calloway declared, “I’m grateful to be the channel. That’s what Aunt Blanche was, that’s what Daddy was. The Calloway entertainment tradition is about bringing joy to people.” Blanche Calloway’s career was comparatively short and less memorable than that of her brother or other male jazz musicians of the pre-World War II era, but she was nevertheless the first African American woman to find success as a singer, songwriter, bandleader, performer, and executive, paving the way for Sylvia Robinson, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monáe, Beyoncé, and others.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

Pharaoh Hatshepsut

Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1508–1458 B.C.), Egyptian monarch. Hatshepsut was born the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I; her name means “foremost of noble ladies” in ancient Egyptian. When her father died, Hatshepsut and her half-brother Thutmose II became co-rulers of Egypt. Her brother also died several years later, leaving a young son. Following Egyptian tradition, Hatshepsut continued to rule Egypt as its regent until her nephew was old enough to take the throne, but while he was still young she took the unprecedented step of declaring herself pharaoh. Although several other women had also ruled Egypt, Hatshepsut was the first to take power in a time of stability rather than during a crisis. She also reigned much longer than any woman before her: more than twenty-two years. Under her leadership, Egypt entered a new era of peace and stability. Hatshepsut renewed trade with the nation of Punt (now Somalia), which no Egyptian had visited for more than 500 years, and her agents brought back ivory, leopard skins, and myrrh trees. The increased wealth from trade led to hundreds of building projects that made Egyptian architecture among the best in the world. These achievements included the world’s tallest obelisks and her burial temple Djeser-Djesru (“sublime of sublimes” or “holy of holies”), which was built into the side of a cliff. These buildings, along with the accompanying art pieces, were also used to defend Hatshepsut’s right as a woman to rule the country. Carvings on temple walls, for example, declared that her father and the gods had intended for her to become pharaoh since the time that she was conceived, and statutes of Hatshepsut depicted her in the same clothes that male pharaohs wore, including a false beard. Although Egypt was largely at peace, there were also successful military campaigns in Syria, Nubia (now the Sudan) and the eastern Mediterranean, with Thutmose III serving as the head of her armies. After Hatshepsut’s death, though, subsequent pharaohs tried to take credit for her accomplishments or erase her from the historical record, even destroying her statues and chiseling her name and images from her buildings. Some scholars have concluded that they were concerned about “future generations of potentially strong female kings...not remaining content with their traditional lot as wife, sister and…mother.” These efforts were successful. Hatshepsut’s story was largely unknown for many centuries, and many people believed that Cleopatra had been Egypt’s only long-ruling female leader until new artifacts surfaced in the 1800s, more than 3000 years after her death. In recent years, some scholars believe that they have identified her mummy, although this is still being debated.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

James Parker

James Parker (1857-1908), police officer and entrepreneur. James Benjamin Parker was born a slave in Georgia and gained his freedom when the Civil War ended. Details about his early life are scarce, but various reports later stated that he worked as a police officer, train porter, journalist, mail carrier, newspaper salesman, and waiter in his home town, Chicago, Saratoga Springs, and New York City. In 1901 he was in Buffalo, working as a waiter for a catering company. Buffalo was then hosting an international fair called the Pan-American Exposition, and among the eight million visitors was U.S. President William McKinley, who greeted members of the public on September 6. Parker stood in the long line to meet McKinley, who had an underwhelming record on civil rights but was still more progressive than the previous president and was also symbolically important to African Americans as a Civil War veteran. Just in front of Parker was Leon Czolgosz, who approached the president and fired a hidden pistol, hitting McKinley twice at point blank range. Parker, who was said to be well over six feet tall and 200 pounds and was nicknamed “Big Jim,” immediately attacked Czolgosz. The accounts vary on the specific details. One Secret Service agent said that Parker punched Czolgosz in the neck and tackled him to the ground. Another witness said “with one quick shift of his clenched fist, he knocked the pistol from the assassin’s hand. With another, he spun the man around like a top and with a third, he broke Czolgosz’s nose. A fourth split the assassin’s lip and knocked out several teeth.” At first it appeared that McKinley would recover from his injuries, and Parker was praised around the country as the “tawny lion of the Exposition” who had saved the president’s life by preventing Czolgosz from firing more shots. In an interview several days later, he said “just think, Father Abe freed me, and now I saved his successor from death, provided that bullet he got into the president don’t kill him.” In another interview he declared “I heard the shots. I did what every citizen of this country should have done. I am told that I broke his nose – I wish it had been his neck. I am sorry I did not see him four seconds before…I am a Negro, and am glad that the Ethiopian race has what ever credit comes with what I did. If I did anything, the colored people should get the credit.” He also declined offers to sell his photograph or to appear in museums or on stage, telling one newspaper “I do not think that the American people would like me to make capital out of the unfortunate circumstances. I am glad that I was able to be of service to the country” and another “Many [African Americans] have written to me, telling me they were proud of me, and I could not after that turn myself into a dime museum freak.”

Some political leaders called for him to be offered a government job as reward for his actions. He was especially lauded by other African Americans, who noted that even as their race suffered from voting disenfranchisement, segregation, employment discrimination, racial violence, and impoverished conditions little better than slavery, a black man had stepped in to protect the leader of the country. This contrast was highlighted by the fact that Parker was a former slave, that McKinley was a Civil War veteran, and that in the decades since the war many white Americans had forgotten or chosen to ignore the loyalty of African Americans, the rebellion of white southerners, and the indifference or betrayal of some white northerners. Booker T. Washington praised him in a speech, black residents of Savannah made plans to “present a substantial testimonial,” and the black newspaper Savannah Tribune wrote “the life of our chief magistrate was saved by a Negro. No other class of citizens is more loyal to this country than the Negro.” This article turned out to be inaccurately premature, as eight days after the shooting McKinley died from gangrene and inflammation of the pancreas. In spite of this, many continued to praise Parker for his actions. Black Journalist John Mitchell noted that in the South, Czolgosz would be given rights that were denied to Parker and argued that white America’s failure to stop violence against African Americans had finally led to one of their own being killed, writing “President McKinley is the victim of the same lawlessness which he and the nation have tolerated.” The Rev. Lena Doolin Mason used Parker’s example to call for equal rights in her poem “A Negro In It,” writing:

“He knocked the murderer to the floor,

He struck his nose, the blood did flow;

He held him fast, all nearby saw,

When for the right, the Negro in it.

J.B. Parker is his name,

He from the state of Georgia came;

he worked in Buffalo, for his bread,

And there he saw McKinley dead.

White man, stop lynching and burning

This black race, trying to thin it,

For if you go to heaven or hell

You will find some Negroes in it.

You may try to shut the Negro out,

The courts, they have begun it;

But when we meet at the judgment bar

God will tell you the Negro is in it.”

When Czolgosz went on trial, though, Parker was not called to testify and the white witnesses denied his role. Some white newspapers now claimed that Parker had lied to get money and fame. African Americans became convinced that the Secret Service guards had conspired to lie because they were ashamed that a black man had done their job, and Parker himself said that “it looks mighty funny” that he had not been called to the witness stand. Although he was included in a widely produced 1905 drawing of the assassination, the offers of a government job never materialized. Black hopes that his heroism would lead to better race relations did not materialize. Only a month after McKinley’s death new president Teddy Roosevelt had dinner with Booker T. Washington at the White House, and a southern senator declared “we shall have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back in their places.” Parker left Buffalo and became a public lecturer on the East Coast; some reports state that he also became a traveling salesman for the black magazine Gazetteer and Guide. His experiences in 1901, though, helped lead to mental illness and alcoholism. He was placed in a mental hospital in 1907, and after he died a year later, his body was given to a medical school to be dissected. Although he was largely forgotten, his actions became part of a long narrative of African American loyalty in the face of racism that eventually led to victories against that racism.

©David Brodnax, Sr.

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.

Solomon Linda

Solomon Linda (1909-1962), South African musician. Solomon Popoli Linda was born near the town of Pomeroy, a member of the Zulu ethnic group. At the time of his birth, South Africa was ruled by a tiny white population that kept the black majority in an impoverished, oppressed state, stripped of their land, unable to vote, and barred from nearly all professions. He began singing at weddings and feasts at a young age, combining Zulu traditions with ideas that he learned from touring African American singers. In 1931 he moved to Johannesburg, where he worked in his uncle’s furniture store while singing in a group called the Evening Birds. The group won numerous competitions and rapidly grew in popularity due to its sense of style, which included pinstriped suits and bowler hats, but even more so because of its music. Linda almost singlehandedly created the isicathamiya musical style, including multiple bass singers and fasi pathi, a high falsetto lead part that he sang himself. In 1939, the Evening Birds were spotted by a talent scout and recorded several songs at Gallo Records, the only recording studio in sub-Saharan Africa. One of these was a song that Linda improvised on the spot and entitled “Mbube” (“lion”), inspired by a childhood memory of chasing lions away from the family cattle. “Mbube” eventually sold more than 100,000 copies; the original master recording was re-pressed so many times that it finally disintegrated. The Evening Birds also recorded other songs, including “Yetulisgqoko” (“Take off Your Hat”), which criticized police brutality and ended with the words sikhalela izwe lakithi (“we mourn for our country”).

After the group broke up in 1948, Linda continued to perform throughout South Africa while also raising a family. By then the racial oppression in his country had grown even worse and become known as apartheid ("separateness"). In 1952, the American folk singer Pete Seeger recorded his own version of “Mbube,” which he entitled “Wimoweh” (a misspelling of the chant “uyimbube”). It became even more popular in 1961 when it was re-written as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and recorded by the Tokens. The song went to number one on the American charts and has been recorded by more than 160 other musicians; one journalist describes it as “the most famous melody ever to emerge from Africa…a tune that has penetrated so deep into the human consciousness over so many generations that one can truly say, here is a song the whole world knows.” Linda did not benefit from this, though, as he had sold his rights to the song to Gallo Records for less than $2; South African law did not allow blacks to own royalties. Seeger sent Linda a check for $1,000 and instructed his publishing company to send additional payments to Linda’s family, but this never happened. Even Linda did not realize that he had been swindled; “he was happy,” his daughter later recalled, “he didn’t know he was supposed to get something.” He collapsed on stage in 1959 and was diagnosed with kidney failure, which finally took his life three years later. When he died, he was so poor that his grave had no tombstone and his family could not pay for proper Zulu burial rites.

Under South African law, the rights to “Mbube” should have reverted to them in 1987, but they received no compensation, even after the song was introduced to a new generation in Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King. In 2000, though, a South African journalist wrote an article telling Linda’s story and estimating that the song had earned $15 million over the years. Linda’s family brought a lawsuit and in 2006 agreed to a settlement that included back royalties and additional payments for any future use; the publishing company also agreed to pay for a memorial to Linda. By then, he had also earned recognition as one of the pioneers of South African music, inspiring later artists such as Miriam Makeba and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

©David Brodnax, Sr.