Category Archives: race history

nina mae mckinney

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Nina Mae McKinney (June 13, 1913 – May 3, 1967) was an American actress. Dubbed “The Black Garbo”, she was one of the first African-American film stars and was one of the first African-Americans to appear on British television, featuring in the demonstration film broadcast each morning for the benefit of installers and engineers. 

 

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Career

Born Nannie Mayme McKinney in Lancaster, South Carolina, Nina Mae was indeed “The First Black Movie Star,” the first black actress in starring roles who appeared in over 30 films (more than Horne or Dandridge), some films are considered lost, some are not as available to the public. McKinney moved to New York when she was a teenager and began her career performing as a dancer. She was spotted dancing in Blackbirds of 1928 by the director King Vidor and cast in the lead role of Hallelujah!, one of the first all-black films by a major studio and Vidor’s first sound film, for which he was nominated for the best director Oscar in 1930. In the film, McKinney dances the “Swanee Shuffle”, a seductive dance which became a minor fashion. After Hallelujah! McKinney signed a five year contract with MGM, however, the studio seemed reluctant to star her in feature films. Her most notable roles during this period were in films for other studios, including a leading role in Sanders of the River (1935), made in the UK, where she appears with Paul Robeson. After MGM cut almost all her scenes in Reckless (1935) she left Hollywood for Europe where she acted and danced, appearing mostly in theatrical shows and cabaret. She returned to the United States at the start of World War II where she married Jimmy Monroe, a jazz musician. After the war she moved to Athens, Greece and lived there until she returned to New York in 1960.

 

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smoke and rain

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New York is experiencing torrential downpours today.  Early this morning the rain took a break, so I decided to go for a run after hearing that the thunderstorms would return in 45 minutes.  It was sprinkling when I took off, but since my hair is already curly, this didn’t bother me at all.  It was actually kind of nice.  I was surprised though by all of the smokers in the park huddling under trees or umbrellas for an early morning cigarette.  The second hand smoke was much more disturbing than the rain.  I’ll never understand why people under a certain age smoke.  With people over a certain age (I’m unclear on what age I mean exactly), I sort of understand because cigarettes used to be marketed as not only cool, but healthy.  But now we all know the deadly truth, so what gives?

now:

kid putting cigarette out

yay, kid!!

then:

asthma cigarettes

ummm…. not for children under 6!? treats foul breath and diseases of the throat!? omg! a greater pack of lies could not exist.  it makes me wonder what is the “cigarette” of today.  what deadly vice, chemical, food, or beverage are they touting as healthy that in 25-50 years from now we will all recognize as lethal?  high fructose corn syrup maybe…

drs smoke camel

 

throat cigarettes

By the way, the weather lady was wrong and the storms rolled in early and I got totally drenched, but I must admit that I enjoyed running in the downpour.  I never would have guessed that either.

the movie glory

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I just finished watching Glory for the 5th time.  It might be my favorite movie.  This movie was actually the catalyst for my whole “biracial” revelatory aha moment.  While watching Glory for the 4th time, I realized that, seeing as this was the history of our country, it is a miracle that I (a black and white person) even exist.  Truly.  And then I realized that I didn’t really exist.  There was no recognition of the miracle.  Not even an internal, personal one.  I realized that the history depicted in the film was the truth and that I had fallen victim to it’s legacy and failed to know myself fully.  

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Watching the movie tonight, I was again blown away by Denzel Washington.  “The tear” is one of the most memorable moments I have witnessed on screen.  I also kept searching for the moment that might have triggered the big realization. My guess is the part where Matthew Broderick (as Robert Shaw) takes the 54th out with the other “negro regiment.”  The other leader is an ass to say the least.  He not only refers to the black soldiers as “little monkey children,” but he is extremely immoral in every sense of the word.  He treats his soldiers like animals, they act like animals.  Robert Shaw treats his soldiers with respect, like men.  In turn they are respectful and respectable men.  

The most poignant moment for me this viewing though was when Broderick and Denzel Washington’s character (whose name escapes me), were discussing the predicament that was life in America at that time.  And arguably still is to a certain extent.  Denzel says “It stinks real bad.  And all of us are in it.  Ain’t no one clean.”  Broderick asks, “How do we get clean?”  There wasn’t a definitive answer, but if I had to glean one from the film it’s that we become clean when we decide to die fighting for what we now know to be right, no matter how many wrongs we may have committed in the past.  

Thank you Edward Zwick, for the movie Glory.  I think it should be required viewing for every American.

re:mixed race people were once banned from memphis

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I have been searching and searching for more information on this.  I can’t find anything!  I’ve also been looking for information and photographs of the Mary Loiselle.  Again, nothing.  On MemphisHistory.org I found another account of Marcus Winchester’s life that does not mention the ban on persons of mixed-race and questions the “accusation” that his wife was indeed a Negro. 

He married Mary Loiselle of New Orleans somewhere around 1823.  Mary was said to be a woman of color, but in this context it is hard to say what that meant.  Many slaves by this time looked white.  In any case the idea that she was a Negro hurt Winchester’s reputation and contributed to a number of business reversals that were to follow him to his grave.

Marcus acted as an agent for the proprietors and opened the first store. He was one of the first five members of the Quarterly Court and was elected register in 1820. When Memphis was incorporated in 1826, Winchester became the first mayor. He operated a ferry and served as postmaster until 1849, although his loyalty to the Jacksonians came under question when he supported Davy Crockett for Congress.

Because of his marriage and the deep rifts occurring along race lines leading up to the Civil War, Winchester’s career declined. A whispering campaign by members of the Murrell Clan alienated Winchester from the community.  Ultimately Winchester moved his family to a home a few miles outside the city.  

The idea that she was a Negro… That says a lot.

I searched through the guide to the Winchester family papers on TN.gov.  I find it “interesting” that in all of the correspondence listed for Marcus, there is no mention of a wedding or a wife or children.  One can glean that he was in New Orleans around the time he is said to have married.  There is also a later request for a deed for a “lot south of town of Memphis” which gives credence to the town’s ban of mixed race people.

I am so curious about this.

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mixed race people were once banned from memphis

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Marcus WinchesterCity Councilman Bill Boyd began with a genealogy quest, but unearthed a love story worthy of Rhett and Scarlett and an eventual demise worthy of Jimmy Hoffa.

Boyd, 73, knew most of the history of his great-great-grandfather, Marcus Winchester. He was the city’s first mayor, an aristocrat whom one historian calls “the most graceful, courtly, elegant gentleman that ever appeared upon Main Street.”

Several historians have written about Winchester’s colorful past. He grew up on a palatial Middle Tennessee farm near Gallatin, son of Gen. James Winchester, one of the original owners of the land now called Memphis. In fact, it was James Winchester who gave the city its name, likening it to the Egyptian city on the Nile.

… It was Marcus, the eldest, whom Winchester dispatched to West Tennessee in 1818 to inspect a land acquisition by the Winchesters and partners Andrew Jackson and John Overton.

Boyd says Marcus and a surveyor arrived in 1819 “to lay out a subdivision. The owners were anxious to get the town laid out so they could sell lots.”

Boyd, who would become a member of the West Tennessee Historical Society and the Descendants of the Early Settlers of Shelby County, says Winchester quickly rose to prominence.

…Marcus himself was a member of the city’s first Quarterly Court and town register. When the city was incorporated in 1826, he became its first mayor. But the historical accounts indicate the seeds of his undoing were planted in 1823 when he married “a woman of color.”

Attorney Lee Winchester, 85, an indirect descendant of the mayor, says that while many landowners lived with women of mixed race, it was rare, even illegal, for them to marry. Marcus threw caution to the wind. He wed Amirante “Mary” Loiselle in New Orleans, her hometown, where mixed-race marriages were legal.

“She was reputedly one of the most beautiful women ever seen in this part of the country. Her father had her educated in France, and she was brilliant. She was also one-sixteenth black. It was enough for her to be ostracized by what was then a pretty raggedy social society,” says Lee Winchester.

Shelby County historian Ed Williams says the divisiveness of politics and social tensions leading up to the Civil War turned Winchester into a target. Eventually, city aldermen “passed a law that anyone of mixed race could not live within the city limits of Memphis. It made it necessary for Mrs. Winchester to live about a half-block outside the city limits.”

Lee Winchester says Marcus remained with his wife.

“He was a pretty fine man, and the romance that brought him down was probably one of the most perfect romances that there was.”

Mary died in 1840, and Marcus Winchester remarried two years later, but his failing business and a series of lawsuits would impoverish him.

By Michael Lollar

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/may/26/first-mayor-receives-a-grave-injustice/

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i am an american

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763px-japaneseamericangrocer1942
 San Francisco, Calif., Mar. 1942. 
A large sign reading “I am an American” placed in the window of a store, at 13th and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war. Photo by Dorothea Lange.

http://community.livejournal.com/vintagephoto

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 relocating 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast into internment camps for the duration of the war. The personal rights, liberties, and freedoms of Japanese Americans were taken away from them by their own country. Since World War II, a Japanese American struggle continues to obtain reparation from the U.S. Government.

August 10, 1988 H.R. 442 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides for individual payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee and a $1.25 billion education fund among other provisions.

October 9, 1990 The first nine redress payments are made at a Washington D.C. One hundred seven year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angeles is the first to receive his check.

The Civil Liberties Act was an official apology made to Japanese Americans in 1988 by Congress.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Japanese_American_life_under_U.S._policies_after_World_War_II

 

I’ve never been one to make much of a case for reparations for African American slavery, but I can’t help feeling like if “they” got it “we” should too.  It seems to me that this is further evidence of the dehumanization of black people.  Black people don’t deserve reparations?  They should be grateful to find themselves in America today instead of in the jungle?  They were created to work and don’t need much in return?  That’s what the implications of reparations for some, but not for those treated the worst while doing the most to make this country what it is- what it should be, but isn’t right now- today.  It’s kind of like the one-drop rule in a way.  Only applies to black people.  Asians, Hispanics, Indians can mix with whites for a couple of generations and their legacy is then white.  There is no one-drop to follow them around and accuse them of denying something or being ashamed or self-hating.  Their blood is not tainted.  Of course neither is mine, yet these implications remain.

 

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christia adair

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Christia Adair (1920)

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In 1920, Christia Adair took some schoolchildren to meet the train when Republican Warren G. Harding was campaigning for the presidency. After seeing him shake hands only with the white children, she became a Democrat.
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[b.1893 – d.1989]

Christia Adair was a teacher, a community leader, and a tireless activist for the rights of women and African-Americans. Born in Victoria on October 22, 1893, Adair spent her early years in Edna, then moved to Austin with her family in 1910. She attended college first at Samuel Huston (now Huston-Tillotson University) and then at Prairie View Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M.) After graduation she moved back to Edna, where she taught elementary school.

She married Elbert Adair in 1918, and they moved to Kingsville. There she opened a Sunday school, and also began her community activism. She joined a multiracial group opposed to gambling, and then became involved in the suffrage movement. At that time neither blacks nor women could vote, and anyone who knows her feminist history knows that there was some racism in the suffrage movement. Indeed, after the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, blacks were still turned away from the polls because of racist whites’ tactic to deter them: the white primary. Since the South was wholly Democratic at that point, the primary basically decided the election. Thus excluding African-Americans from the primary effectively disenfranchised them. Adair had this to say:

“Back in 1918 Negroes could not vote and women could not vote either. The white women were trying to help get a bill passed in the legislature where women could vote. I said to the Negro women, “I don’t know if we can use it now or not, but if there’s a chance, I want to say we helped make it. 

“We went to the polls at the white primary but could not vote…We kept after them until they finally said ‘You cannot vote because you are a Negro.'”

This was a smart strategy, because that gave them grounds to sue. And sue they did. The Adairs had moved to Houston in 1925, and Christia had become very active in the Houston chapter of the NAACP. As executive secretary, she was a driving force behind the landmark lawsuit, Smith v. Allwright, which overturned the white primary – and helped set the stage for Brown v. Board of Education.

In the Jim Crow South, these activities made Adair and her colleagues targets for racist whites. The chapter received bomb threats with alarming regularity. The Houston police were not helpful. In fact, they were a hindrance. According to Adair’s entry at the Handbook of Texas Online:

In 1957 Houston police attempted for three weeks to locate the chapter’s membership list. While the official charge was battery – the illegal solicitation of clients by attorneys – Adair believed the real purpose was to destroy the organization and its advocacy of civil rights. She testified for five hours in a three-week trial over the attempted seizure of NAACP records. Two years later, on appeal to the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall again won a decision for the organization. Adair never admitted having membership lists or having member’s names. In 1959 the chapter disbanded and she resigned as executive secretary, though she later helped rebuild the group’s rolls to 10,000 members.

Now that’s a hardcore sister. And she didn’t stop there. She was a lifelong leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church and a precinct judge for more than 25 years. She also helped to…

* desegregate Houston’s public buildings, city buses, and department stores
* win Blacks the right to serve on juries and be considered for county jobs
* convince newspapers to refer to blacks with the same courtesy titles used for 
whites
* desegregate the Democratic Party in Texas

Any one of her achievements is impressive. Taken together, they’re downright amazing. And folks noticed. Adair was recognized by many for her brave and principled activism. Zeta Phi Beta sorority named her Woman of the Year in 1952. In 1974 Houston NOW honored her for suffrage activism. In 1977 she was selected as one of four participants in the Black Women Oral History Project, sponsored by the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College. That same year the city of Houston named a park for her. And in 1984, she was named to the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. Adair died just a few years later at the age of 96, on New Year’s Eve 1989, leaving behind her an indelible legacy of justice and equality.

Above bio from: NOW National Organization for Women
Photo and paragraph directly below photo from: ‘The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present’ edited by Kathleen Thompson and Hilary Mac Austin 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22067139@N05/3395503109/

WOW!!!  Such an important woman.  How had I not heard of her before?  Thank you, Omega!


re: miranda july

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I love this because I have some of these same thoughts when I stand in line at the school where I vote….

Here’s why you should vote: you are going to really love it, the whole strange procedure. You get to walk right into a building that you would never normally be allowed in, often an elementary school. You can pause in the hallway to look at all the weird school-art and feel the eerie vibe of hundreds of kids living their endless kid lives right nearby. Then you follow the arrows to the voting room and look at the faces of the volunteers – who are these people? There is a hush of secrecy, the voting booth is clunky, the whole thing seems fake somehow. You consider filling in all the bubbles, like you did on the SATs. But you don’t. You vote. You walk back outside feeling like you just gave blood or something, lightheaded from citizenry. You are wearing a sticker that says “I Voted” and you wish you could continue to get stickers like this throughout the day: I Ate Dinner, I Went To Sleep, I Got Out Of Bed, I Went To Work.  But alas, it is just this one thing that we all do together, savor it.- Miranda July 

mairakalman

mammy two-shoes

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Speaking of cartoons…

While researching Jackie Ormes I somehow found my way to the ListVerse 10 Great Female Cartoon Voice Actors.  I was  so pleased to see Lillian Randolph as number one.  I was not aware of Lillian Randolph beforehand. I was honestly just glad to see a woman of color on the list, not to mention at the top of it.  Biracial Cree Summer is also on the list.  Anyway, my pleasure was kind of short-lived when memories of Mammy Two-Shoes resurfaced.  

I loved Tom & Jerry as kid.  I remember watching it in the morning before school. Any racial overtones/offenses were lost on me at the time.  But as an adult watching that cartoon, I have been shocked by the appearance of Mammy Two-Shoes.  In my opinion it looks like Mammy Two-Shoes has paws for hands, but maybe that’s just how they draw hands.

From ListVerse:  http://listverse.com/entertainment/10-great-female-cartoon-voice-actors/

Lillian Randolph

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Lillian Randolph(December 14 1898-September 12 1980) was an African-American actress and singer, a veteran of film, radio and television. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, she was the younger sister of actress Amanda Randolph. 

She worked in entertainment, from the 1930’s well into the 1970’s, appearing in hundreds of short subjects, radio shows, motion pictures and television shows. Randolph is best known as the maid Birdie Lee Coggins from “The Great Gildersleeve” radio comedy and subsequent films and television series, and as Madame Queen on the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” television series from 1951 to 1953. Her best known film role was that of Annie in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” She appeared in several featured roles on “Sanford and Son” and “The Jeffersons” in the 1970’s.

Her most profilic acting role, hoever was her uncredited voice-over part as Mammy-Two-Shoes in William Hannah and Joesph Barbara’s “Tom and Jerry” theatrical cartoon series for Metro Goldwyn Mayer during the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Randolph made a guest appearance on a 1972 episode of the sitcom “Sanford and Son” as Hazel, a distant relative of the Fred Sanford character.

In the Tom and Jerry shorts of the 1940’s and 50’s, the only human character was an unnamed lady who was always after Tom (originally named Jasper), a cat, to catch Jerry, a mouse. Radio and film veteran Randolph provided the voice. The character is considered to be a racial stereotype known as a “Mammy”, a servant or maid of African descent, often overweight, loud, and heavily accented, and this has lead to some controversy. The shorts though, never stated that she was a maid and it is implied that she was the owner of that huge house with the well-stocked refrigerator. Also, the name “Mammy Two Shoes” was never used in the cartoons; it was given years later by the media, as typically only the character’s feet were shown. The shorts would be edited in the 1960’s. In some, Randolph’s voice was replaced with a plain-sounding one, and in others, she was replaced entirely with a thin white woman (voiced by June Foray.) Recent DVD releases have somewhat restored the original character.

From http://mammytwoshoes.tripod.com/history.html

By the early 50’s, Mammy was a supporting character just as important as Spike or Nibbles. However, in 1954, the Supreme Court declared racisism unconstitutional, which took a great affect on Hollywood movies and cartoons. So Mammy was forced to retire in 1952’s “Push-Button Kitty”. The new law pressured MGM to reissue the cartoons with her in them. The “White Mammy Two-Shoes” versions were created back in the 1960s for CBS when they were airing these cartoons. The work was done by Chuck Jones’s crew when Jones was making new Tom and Jerry theatricals. I recall reading Chuck’s remarks that at the time MGM still had most of its old animation artwork on file, so it was pretty much just a matter of retracing and repainting the original pencil animation and photographing it against recreated backgrounds. This new “White Mammy” material was then cut into dupe negatives of the cartoons in question to replace the original “Black Mammy” footage. Voice actress June Foray was brought in to redub the soundtracks. (Incidentally, that voice is supposed to be Irish.) Instances where the “White Mammy” has a “Black Mammy” voice (or vice versa) is a result of carelessness. Picture and sound elements on film masters are stored separately. What happens is simply that someone isn’t paying attention and matches a newer “White Mammy” picture element to the original “Black Mammy” sound element (or vice versa). 

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Click here to hear mammy two-shoes   http://mammytwoshoes.tripod.com/sounds/mousecatcher.wav

jackie ormes

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jackie ormes 1st black female cartoonist

 

From http://www.comixology.com/articles/96/Black-and-White-and-Color

Ormes’ story is a fascinating one. Born of a middle-class family in 1911, she went to what appears to have been an integrated high school and was tapped to do art work for her senior yearbook. After graduating in 1930, she worked as a freelance reporter for the Pittsburgh Courier—she appeared to enjoy covering boxing matches—and by 1937 she had begun drawing her first comic strip, which chronicled the journey of a young southern black woman, Torchy Brown, to the big city in the north. Torchy’s story only ran for a year, and it was seven years before Ormes returned to comics, in 1945, with a single-panel comic called Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger. Ginger was a stylish and shapely young woman, bearing—one feels—a strong resemblance to Ormes herself; Patty-Jo was her sassy and strong-minded younger sister. Each week, Patty-Jo would let loose some sort of pronouncement to an often oblivious and always silent Ginger. These pronouncements might be as innocuous as your average Family Circus panel, but more often they reflected Ormes’ own concerns and interests, as well as the events of the day.

Ormes was a staunch supporter of the March of Dimes and of the right to vote, and both issues saw plenty of play and support in her weekly cartoon. In the 1948 panel above (click image for full-sized view), which ran about a week before the presidential election, Patty-Jo comments on the hot topic of racial inequality in the year’s political campaigns: Goldstein notes that Harry Truman had been flogging his civil rights cred (he had just integrated the military with Executive Order 9981), Thomas Dewey was running ads in the Courier itself promising “citizenship for all,” and Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats were in the vanguard of segregation protection, for the sake of “the integrity of each race,” of course. Ormes pulled no punches, and didn’t shy away from addressing critical events in the African-American experience: the 1955 cartoon below, in which Patty-Jo refers to a white boy whistling at her like a tea-kettle, appeared six weeks after the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till, beaten to a pulp in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. Maybe discussing Ormes’ development along with the history of the song “Strange Fruit” isn’t such a stretch after all.

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/22067139@N05/2342110476/

The Patty Jo character went on to become this nation’s first positive image ‘Negro’ character doll that hit the toy stores in time for Christmas (1948). The Patty Jo dolls are now collector’s items. In the late 70s, arthritis limited her artistic work, however Ormes remained a serious artist, painting murals, portraits (specializing in children’s faces) & panels that decorated her home. She was also a passionate doll collector & member of the Chicago Chapter of the United Federation of Doll Clubs. In the 1950’s as her arthritis became worse, doll collecting began.

Retiring from cartooning in the 1960s Ormes had approximately 150 dolls, including a German-made doll, which was the predecessor to the Barbie of today. The oldest in her collection was 50 years old. Ormes was celebrated in Chicago’s black social & fashion circles. She was also on the board of directors of the DuSable Museum of African-American History and Art. Ormes’ strips were syndicated in black newspapers across the country, making her the only nationally syndicated black woman cartoonist until the 1990s. 

Jackie Ormes died in Chicago on January 2, 1986.

Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine 

September 4, 1937:
Torchy Brown in “Dixie to Harlem” depicted the escapades of a teenage country girl, starry-eyed and slightly wacky, abounding in pluck, optimism, and determination. Dinah Dazzle, her friend’s cousin, visits from New York City, inspiring Torchy with fanciful daydreams. Here she heads North by train to try her luck at the Cotton Club in Harlem, in a setup ripe for week after week of humorous scenes. While presenting a funny, entertaining story, this strip reflected the real struggles of people moving from the South to the North. Ormes mocks the predicament of passing for white as youthful Torchy puzzles in the southern train station whether to go in the direction of the “Colored” arrow or to the more comfortable “White” section. http://www.jackieormes.com/tbdh.php