Sunday, December 7, 2014

A00043 - Marion Barry, Washington's "Mayor for Life"

Marion Barry, in full Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr.   (b. March 6, 1936, Itta Bena, Mississippi, U.S.— d. November 23, 2014, Washington, D.C.), American civil rights activist and politician who served four terms as mayor of Washington, D.C.  Barry received a bachelor’s degree from LeMoyne College (1958) and a master’s degree from Fisk University (1960). He was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was selected as its first national chairman. In 1971 Barry was elected to the Washington, D.C., city school board and in 1974 won a seat on the city council. He was elected mayor in 1978 and twice won reelection, in 1982 and 1986, serving as a strong advocate of statehood for the District of Columbia. In 1990 Barry was convicted of a misdemeanor drug charge and sentenced to six months in prison. Following his release from prison, Barry reentered politics in Washington, D.C., winning a seat on the city council in 1992. In 1994 he was once again elected mayor; he left office after his term expired. In 2004 he was elected to the Washington, D.C., city council, and he was reelected in 2008 and 2012. He wrote (with Omar Tyree) the autobiography Mayor for Life (2014).

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A00042 - Ali Mazrui, Controversial Scholar of Africa

Ali Al Amin Mazrui,  (b. February 24, 1933, Mombasa, Kenya - d. October 12/13, 2014, Binghamton, New York, United States), Kenyan American political scientist. After receiving a doctorate from the University of Oxford, he taught at Uganda’s Makerere University (1963–73) and later at the University of Michigan (1974–91). At SUNY–Binghamton (now Binghamton University) he founded and directed the Institute of Global Cultural Studies. He also taught at many other universities worldwide, was a consultant to numerous international organizations, and wrote more than 30 books on African politics and society as well as post-colonial patterns of development and underdevelopment, including The African Predicament and the American Experience: A Tale of Two Edens (2004). For television he wrote the nine-hour BBC-PBS co-production The Africans (1986) and was featured in the documentary film Motherland (2009). Mazrui received numerous honors and awards, including the Association of Muslim Social Scientists UK (AMSS UK) Academic Achievement Award (2000).

Thursday, September 11, 2014

A00041 - Charles Powell, Multi-Sport Talent

Charles Elvin Powell (April 4, 1932 – September 1, 2014) was an American professional football player.
Powell was born in Texas. He and his younger brother Art Powell, a great NFL wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders in the 1960s, grew up in the Logan Heights area of San Diego, California. 

Powell played professional baseball and football as well as boxed. His greatest success was as an NFL player and a boxer, even fighting Muhammad Ali.

Charlie starred in football, basketball, track and baseball at San Diego High School.  In 1950, as a 6'-3", 230-pound defensive end and offensive end, with tremendous power and speed, he was named the California high school football player of the year. In track, he ran 100 yards in 9.6 seconds and threw the shot put 57 feet 9¼ inches. In basketball, he was a second-team all-league center. As a high school baseball player, he hit balls out of San Diego Balboa Stadium. He turned a down an offer of a tryout by the Harlem Globetrotters. 

After High School, Charlie was recruited by Notre Dame and UCLA to play football, St.  Louis Browns baseball owner Bill Veeck, who had acquired the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige from the Cleveland Indians, signed the power-hitting outfielder to a professional baseball contract. He was sent to the Stockton Ports, a Class B minor league team.

After playing pro baseball in the summer of 1952, Charlie suddenly abandoned his pro baseball career and signed a pro football contract with the San Francisco 49ers. At 19, he became the youngest player in NFL history. In his first game, he started against the NFL champion Detroit Lions and had multiple sacks against QB Bobby Layne totaling 67 yards in losses.

Powell played five seasons in the NFL for the 49ers (1952–53 and 1955–57) and two for the Oakland Raiders (1960–61).

Powell was also a professional boxer. In March 1959, on television, he knocked out Nino Valdes of Cuba who was the number 2 ranked heavyweight fighter in the world at the time.  Powell fought Muhammad Ali  (who was then known as Cassius Clay) at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on January 24, 1963. He was knocked out in the third round. He finished his pro boxing career with a record of 25-11-3. In his career, Charlie also fought Floyd Patterson, losing to him in 6 rounds.



Powell was a member of the Breitbard San Diego Hall of Fame. Powell died on September 1, 2014, at age of 82 after living with dementia for several years.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A00040 - Idris Muhammad, Multi-Genre Drummer

Idris Muhammad (Arabic: إدريس محمد‎; born Leo Morris; November 13, 1939 – July 29, 2014) was an American jazz drummer who recorded extensively with many musicians, including Ahmad Jamal, Lou Donaldson, and Pharoah Sanders, among many others.

At 16 years old, one of Muhammad's earliest recorded sessions as a drummer was on Fats Domino's 1956 hit "Blueberry Hill".   He changed his name in the 1960s upon his conversion to Islam. In 1966, he married Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, former member of the singing group known as the Crystals.  Brooks converted to Islam with Muhammad and went for a time under the name Sakinah Muhammad. They separated in 1999. Together, they had two sons and two daughters, and Muhammad had one daughter from a previous marriage to Gracie Lee Edwards-Morris. Pharoah Sanders's son Idris is named after Idris Muhammad

Muhammad was an endorser of Istanbul Agop Cymbals. 

In 2012, Xlibris released the book Inside The Music: The Life of Idris Muhammad, which Muhammad wrote with his friend Britt Alexander.

He died on July 29, 2014.

The principal discography of Idris Muhammad reads as follows:
  • 1970: Black Rhythm Revolution! (Prestige)
  • 1971: Peace and Rhythm (Prestige)
  • 1974: Power of Soul (Kudu)
  • 1976: House of the Rising Sun (Kudu)
  • 1977: Turn This Mutha Out (Kudu)
  • 1977: Could Heaven Ever Be Like This
  • 1978: Boogie to the Top
  • 1978: You Ain't No Friend of Mine
  • 1979: Fox Huntin'
  • 1980: Kabsha (Theresa Records)
  • 1980: Make It Count
  • 1992: My Turn
  • 1998: Right Now

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

A00039 - Vincent Harding, Civil Rights Author and Speechwriter for Dr. King

Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American historian and a scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society.  A social activist as well, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as There Is A River and Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals, he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Illiff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. 

Harding was born in Harlem, New York, and attended New York public schools, graduating from Morris High School in the Bronx in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the City College of New York, where he received a B.A. in History in 1952. The following year he graduated from Columbia University, where he earned an M.S. in Journalism. Harding served in the United States Army from 1953-1955. In 1956 he received an M.A. in History at the University of Chicago. In 1965 he received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by Martin E. Marty. 



In 1960, Harding and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, moved to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the Southern Freedom Movement (also known as the American civil rights movement) as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and Movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "A Time to Break Silence" which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.

Harding taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and of the Institute of the Black World, both located at Atlanta. He also became senior academic consultant for the PBS television series Eyes on the Prize.



Harding served as Chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal, located at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.  Harding taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

A00038 - Judith Cummings, First Black Woman to Head a National News Bureau for NYT

Judith Cummings (December 27, 1945, Detroit, Michigan - May 6, 2014, Detroit, Michigan) was the first black woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, serving as chief correspondent in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1988.

Cummings was born on December 27, 1945, in Detroit and attended Howard University, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1967.

In 1971, her career in journalism began after she was recruited by the Times in their minority training program. Prior to this, she was a speech writer for Clifford L. Alexander Jr., the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 1979, Cummings was a general assignment reporter for the Times, where she covered crime and major events in New York City. Unsatisfied with the fact that Blacks and other minorities were pigeonholed into covering local beats, she joined others in filing a federal lawsuit against the paper for neglecting to promote journalists of color to cover national stories.

The Times agreed in a settlement to expand their minority hiring, training and promotional practices. Cummings became a correspondent for the Los Angeles area in September 1981 and became the bureau chief four years later.


In 1988, Cummings retired to care for her parents. 

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

A00037 - Jimmy Ellis, Champion Boxer and Ali Contemporary

James Albert "Jimmy" Ellis (February 24, 1940 – May 6, 2014) was an American boxer from Louisville, Kentucky in what many call boxing's golden era. Fellow top heavyweights included Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, George Chuvalo, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, Buster Mathis, Cleveland Williams, and Earnie Shavers, among others.

Ellis held the WBA World Heavyweight Championship from 1968 to 1970. He was a skilled boxer with a good chin and much better punching power than many expected.

Monday, May 5, 2014

000036 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Boxer Wrongly Convicted of Murder

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder and later freed via a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison.
In 1966, police arrested both Carter and friend John Artis for a triple-homicide committed in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey.  Police stopped Carter's car and brought him and Artis, also in the car, to the scene of the crime. On searching the car, the police found ammunition that fit the weapons used in the murder.  Police took no fingerprints at the crime scene and lacked the facilities to conduct a paraffin test for gunshot residue. Carter and Artis were tried and convicted twice (1967 and 1976) for the murders, but after the second conviction was overturned in 1985, prosecutors chose not to try the case for a third time.


Carter's autobiography, titled The Sixteenth Round, was published in 1975 by Warner Books. The story inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" and the 1999 film The Hurricane (with Denzel Washington playing Carter). From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.

Monday, April 21, 2014

000035 - Lou Hudson, Jump Shot Master

Louis Clyde Hudson (July 11, 1944 – April 11, 2014) was an American National Basketball Association (NBA) player.

Lou Hudson graduated from Dudley High School in Greensboro. As a junior at the University of Minnesota, Hudson averaged 24.8 points and 10.7 rebounds and was named an All-American.  After starring at the University of Minnesota, Hudson was selected by the St. Louis Hawks with the 4th pick of the 1966 NBA Draft.

Hudson was named to the 1967 NBA All-Rookie Team after averaging 18.4 points per game in his first season. At 6'5", Hudson could play as either a guard or a forward, and he had a long and successful professional career. Hudson went on to average at least 24 points per game for five consecutive seasons beginning in 1969-70, and scored 17,940 points in 13 seasons (1966–1979).  He was a six time All-Star with the Hawks (who moved to Atlanta in 1968), and he earned the nickname "Sweet Lou" for his smooth and effective jump shot. 

Hudson's jersey number was retired by both the Atlanta Hawks and the University of Minnesota.

After his NBA career ended in 1979, Hudson sold restaurant equipment in Atlanta and briefly worked as a radio announcer for the Atlanta Hawks. In 1984, Hudson relocated to Park City, Utah, where he became a real estate investor and served on the Park City city council in the early 1990s.  In Park City, he created a recreation basketball league where he served as coach for 20 years before suffering a major stroke on a Park City ski slope in February 2005. He made public appearances as an "ambassador" for the "Power to End Stroke" organization.

In 2014, he died after a stroke, aged 69.




Friday, March 28, 2014

000034 - Ahmad Kabbah, President of Sierra Leone

Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (February 16, 1932 – March 13, 2014) was the third President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by professions, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme.  He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992.
In early 1996, Kabbah was elected leader of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the party's presidential candidate in the 1996 presidential election. He was elected President of Sierra Leone in the 1996 presidential election with 59% of the vote defeating his closest rival John Karefa-Smart of the United National People's Party (UNPP) who had 40% in the runoff vote and conceded defeat. International observers declared the election free and fair. In his inauguration speech in Freetown, Kabbah promised to end the civil war, which he indeed achieved later in his presidency.

An ethnic Mandingo, Kabbah was Sierra Leone's first Muslim head of state.  Kabbah was born in Pendembu, Kailahun District in Eastern Sierra Leone, though he was largely raised in the capital Freetown. 

Most of Kabbah's time in office was influenced by the civil war with the Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh, which involved him being temporarily ousted by the military Armed Forces Revolutionary Council from May 1997 to March 1998. He was soon returned to power after a military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led by Nigeria. Another phase of the civil war led to United Nations and British involvement in the country in 2000.

As President, Kabbah opened direct negotiations with the RUF rebels in order to end the civil war. He signed several peace accords with the rebel leader Foday Sankoh, including the 1999 Lome Peace Accord, in which the rebels, for the first time, agreed to a temporary cease fire with the Sierra Leone government. When the cease fire agreement with the rebels virtually collapsed, Kabbah campaigned for international assistance from the British, the United Nations Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to help defeat the rebels and restored peace and order in Sierra Leone.
Kabbah declared the civil war officially over in early 2002. Tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans across the country took to the streets to celebrate the end of the war. Kabbah went on to easily win his final five year term in office in the presidential election later that year with 70.1% of the vote, defeating his main opponent Ernest Bai Koroma of the main opposition All People's Congress (APC). International observers declared the election free and fair.
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was born on February 16, 1932 in the rural town of Pendembu, Kailahun District in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone to devout Muslim parents. Kabbah's father was an ethnic Mandingo and a deeply religious Muslim of Guinean descent and a native of Kambia District in the north of Sierra Leone. His mother was also a Muslim and a member of the Mende ethnic group from the Coomber family, a Chieftaincy ruling house based in the small rural town of Mobai, Kailahun District. Kabbah's first name Ahmad means "highly praised" or "one who constantly thanks God" in the Arabic language. Kabba himself was a devout Muslim and a member of the Mandingo ethnic group. Kabbah was a fluent speaker of his native Mandingo language and was also a fluent speaker of the local Susu language. Though born in the Kailahun District, Kabbah was largely raised in the capital Freetown.
Though a devout Muslim, Kabbah received his secondary education at the St. Edward's secondary school in Freetown, the oldest Catholic secondary school in Sierra Leone. Kabbah married a Catholic, the late Patricia Kabbah, (born Patricia Tucker), who was an ethnic Sherbro from Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone. Together the couple had five children. Kabbah received his higher education at the Cardiff College of Technology and Commerce, and University College Aberystwyth, Wales, in the United Kingdom, with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in 1959. He later studied law, and in 1969 he became a practicing Barrister-at-Law, member of the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, London.

Kabbah spent nearly his entire career in the public sector. He served in the Western Area and in all the Provinces of Sierra Leone. He was a District Commissioner in Bombali and Kambia (Northern Province), in Kono (Eastern Province) and in Moyamba and Bo (Southern Province). He later became Permanent Secretary in various Ministries, including Trade and Industry, Social Welfare, and Education.

Kabbah was an international civil servant for almost two decades. After serving as deputy Chief of the West Africa Division of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York, he was reassigned in 1973 to head the Programme's operation in the Kingdom of Lesotho, as Resident Representative. He also headed UNDP operations in Tanzania and Uganda, and just before Zimbabwe's independence, he was temporarily assigned to that country to help lay the groundwork for cooperation with the United Nations system.

After a successful tour of duty in Eastern and Southern Africa, Kabbah returned to New York to head UNDP's Eastern and Southern Africa Division. Among other things, he was directly responsible for coordinating United Nations system assistance to liberation movements recognized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), such as the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, and the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) of Namibia.
Before his retirement in 1992, Kabbah held a number of senior administrative positions at UNDP Headquarters in New York, including those of Deputy Director and Director of Personnel, and Director, Division of Administration and Management.

After the military coup in 1992, Kabbah was asked to chair the National Advisory Council, one of the mechanisms set up by the military to alleviate the restoration of constitutional rule, including the drafting of a new constitution for Sierra Leone. He reputedly intended his return to Sierra Leone to be a retirement, but was encouraged by those around him and the political situation that arose to become more actively involved in the politics of Sierra Leone.


Kabbah was seen as a compromise candidate when he was put forward by the Mende-dominated Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) as their presidential hopeful in the 1996 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, the first multi-party elections in twenty-three years. The SLPP won the legislative vote overwhelmingly in the South and Eastern Province of the country, they split the vote with the UNPP in the Western Area and they lost in the Northern Province. On March 29, 1996, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was sworn in as President of Sierra Leone. Guided by his philosophy of "political inclusion" he appointed the most broad-based government in the nation's history, drawing from all political parties represented in Parliament, and ‘technocrats’ in civil society. One minority party did not accept his offer of a cabinet post.


 The President's first major objective was to end the rebel war which, in four years had already claimed hundreds of innocent lives, driven thousands of others into refugee status, and ruined the nation's economy. In November 1996, in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire, Kabbah signed a peace agreement with the rebel leader, former Corporal Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
The rebels reneged on the Agreement, resumed hostilities, and later perpetrated on the people of Sierra Leone what has been described as one of the most brutal internal conflicts in the world.
In 1996, a coup attempt involving Johnny Paul Koroma and other junior officers of the Sierra Leone Army was unsuccessful, but served as notice that Kabbah's control over military and government officials in Freetown was weakening.
In May 1997, a military coup forced Kabbah into exile in neighboring Guinea. The coup was led by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council,  and Koroma was freed and installed as the head of state. In his Guinea exile, Kabbah began to marshal international support. Just nine months after the coup, Kabbah's government was revived as the military-rebel junta was removed by troops of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the command of the Nigerian led ECOMOG (ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group) and loyal civil and military defense forces, notably the Kamajos led by Samuel Hinga Norman. 

Once again, in pursuit of peace, President Kabbah signed the Lome Peace Accord with the RUF rebel leader Foday Sankoh on July 7, 1999. Notwithstanding repeated violations by the RUF, the document, known as the Lomé Peace Agreement, remained the cornerstone of sustainable peace, security, justice and national reconciliation in Sierra Leone. On January 18, 2002, at a ceremony marking the conclusion of the disarmament and demobilization of ex-combatants under the auspices of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), he declared that the rebel war was over.

Although elected as president, he faced the task of fighting a brutal enemy. His most crucial military support was however from outside. Nigeria was the foremost participant as they crucially intervened under the leadership of the late General Sani Abacha, who was then the military head of his country. On February 1998, he sent his troops to push out the infamous military junta and rebel alliance of Johnny Paul Koroma and Sam Bockarie, known as Maskita. The rebels, however, continued their attempt to dethrone Kabbah's government, despite signing numerous peace accords with President Kabbah. In May 2000, Foday Saybanah Sankoh, who was then part of Kabbah's cabinet, kidnapped several UN troops, and then ordered his rebels to march to Freetown. Trouble was looming as the capital was once more threatened with another January 6, 1999 scenario. But with the timely intervention of the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, 800 British troops were sent to Freetown to halt the impending rebel march to the city. President Kabbah was very grateful to the British Prime Minister, calling his intervention "timely" and one that "Sierra Leonean people will never forget".
As president, Kabbah opened direct negotiations with the RUF rebels in order to end the civil war. He signed several peace accords with the rebel leader Foday Sankoh, including the 1999 Lome Peace Accord, in which the rebels, for the first time agreed to a temporary cease fire with the Sierra Leone government. When the cease fire agreement with the rebels virtually collapsed, Kabbah campaigned for international assistant from the British, the United Nations Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to help defeat the rebels and restored peace and order in Sierra Leone.
In October 1999, the United Nations agreed to send peacekeepers to help restore order and disarm the rebels. The first of the 6,000-member force began arriving in December, and the United Nations Security Council voted in February 2000 to increase the force to 11,000, and later to 13,000. The UN peacekeeping forces were made up mainly of soldiers from the British special forces, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The African Union special forces sent to Sierra Leone to assist the government in fighting the rebels were made up mainly of soldiers from Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Zambia and The Gambia. The international forces, led by the British troops, launched many successful military operations in repelling the RUF rebels and retook many of the areas of the country that were under the rebel control. The rebel lines of communication were severely destroyed and many senior rebel leaders were captured or fled the country, including the RUF leader Foday Sankoh, who was captured.
The fragile rebels finally agreed to be dissarmed.  In return the Sierra Leone government, lead by Kabbah, offered the rebels amnesty, career opportunities and mental institutions. The child rebels were reinstated in public schools, also offered mental institutions and reunited with family members. In 2001, United Nation forces moved in rebel-held areas and began to dissarm the rebels.
The civil war was officially declared over in early 2002 by Kabbah. Tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans across the country took to the streets celebrating the end of the war. Kabbah went on to easily win his final five year term in office in the presidential election later that year with 70.1% of the vote, defeating his main opponent Ernest Bai Koroma of the main opposition All People's Congress (APC). International observers declared the election free and fair.


As the first leader after the civil war, Kabbah's main task was to disarm the different parties involved in the war and to build unity of the country.  Time magazine called Kabbah a "diamond in the rough" for his success as the first civilian elected ruler of Sierra Leone in 34 years and his role in the end of what became a decade long conflict from 1992 until 2000.  Although he himself was not considered corrupt, Kabbah was accused of an inability to deal with corrupt officials in his government many of whom were said to be profiting from the diamond trade. Kabbah struggled with this problem and invited the British to help set up an anti-corruption commission. 

Kabbah left office in September 2007 at the end of his second 5-year term. Constitutionally, he was not eligible to seek re-election. His Vice-President, Solomon Berewa, ran as the SLPP candidate to succeed Kabbah but was defeated by the opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC.
Kabbah was the head of the Commonwealth's observer mission for the December 2007 Kenyan election, as well as the head of the African Union's observer mission for the March 2008 Zimbabwean election.

Kabbah died at his residential home in Juba Hill, a middle class neighborhood in the west end of Freetown at the age of 82 on March 13, 2014, after a short illness.  Following the announcement of Kabbah's death, Sierra Leone's president Ernest Bai Koroma declared a week of national mourning; and he ordered the country's flags to be flown at half mast throughout Sierra Leone.
A state funeral was held for Kabbah. Kabbah's funeral service was attended by several former Heads of State, international delegations, former and current government officials, regardless of their political paties, and members of the civil services. 
On March 21, 2014, Kabbah's casket was carried by soldiers of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces into the Sierra Leone House of Parliament were members of parliament paid their last respects to the former Head of State. On March 23, 2014 Kabbah's casket was brought to the National Stadium, as thousands of Sierra Leoneans lined the streets of Freetown to say goodbye to their former leader. Kabbah's body was then carried by soldiers to the Mandingo Central Mosque in Freetown where an Islamic prayer service was held before he was finally laid to rest at the Kissi Road Cemetery, next to his mother Hajah Adama Kabbah's grave. 

Kabbah's wife Patricia, an ethnic Sherbro, died in 1998.  They had five children: Mariama, Abu, Michael, Isata and Tejan Jr., and three grandchildren: Simone, Isata, and Aidan.
 

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

000033 - Jackie Ormes, First African American Woman Cartoonist

Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist, known for her strips Torchy Brown and Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger.
Jackie Ormes was born Zelda Mavin Jackson in the Pittsburgh area town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. Ormes started in journalism as a proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly African American newspaper that came out every Saturday. Her 1937-38 Courier comic strip, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, starring Torchy Brown, was a humorous depiction of a Mississippi teen who found fame and fortune singing and dancing in the Cotton Club.
Ormes moved to Chicago in 1942, and soon began writing occasional articles and, briefly, a social column for the Chicago Defender, one of the nation's leading black newspapers, a weekly at that time. For a few months at the end of the war, her single panel cartoon, Candy, about an attractive and wisecracking housemaid, appeared in the Defender.
By August 1945, Ormes's work was back in the Courier, with the advent of Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger, a single-panel cartoon which ran for 11 years. It featured a big sister-little sister set-up, with the precocious, insightful and socially/politically-aware child as the only speaker and the beautiful adult woman as a sometime pin-up figure and fashion mannequin.
Ormes contracted with the Terri Lee doll company in 1947 to produce a play doll based on her little girl cartoon character. The Patty-Jo doll was on the shelves in time for Christmas and was the first American black doll to have an extensive upscale wardrobe. As in the cartoon, the doll represented a real child, in contrast to the majority of dolls that were mammy and Topsy-type dolls. In December 1949, Ormes's contract with the Terri Lee company was not renewed, and production ended. Patty-Jo dolls are now highly sought collectors' items.
In 1950, the Courier began an eight-page color comics insert, where Ormes re-invented her Torchy character in a new comic strip, Torchy in Heartbeats. This Torchy was a beautiful, independent woman who finds adventure while seeking true love. Ormes expressed her talent for fashion design as well as her vision of a beautiful black female body in the accompanying Torchy Togs paper doll cut outs. The strip is probably best known for its last episode in 1954, when Torchy and her doctor boyfriend confront racism and environmental pollution. Torchy presented an image of a black woman who, in contrast to the contemporary stereotypical media portrayals, was confident, intelligent, and brave.
Jackie Ormes enjoyed a happy, 45-year marriage to Earl Clark Ormes. She retired from cartooning in 1956, although she continued to create art, including murals, still lifes and portraits. She contributed to her South Side Chicago community by volunteering to produce fundraiser fashion shows and entertainments. She was also on the founding board of directors for the DuSable Museum of African American History.
Ormes was a passionate doll collector, with 150 antique and modern dolls in her collection, and she was active in Guys and Gals Funtastique Doll Club, a United Federation of Doll Clubs chapter in Chicago.

Monday, February 10, 2014

000032 - Inez Andrews, Gospel Singer

Inez Andrews (April 14, 1929 – December 19, 2012) was an American gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist. Her soaring, wide-ranging voice — from contralto croon to soul-wrenching wail — made her a pillar of gospel music. The Chicago Tribune stated that "Andrews' throaty contralto made her low notes thunder, while the enormous range of her instrument enabled her to reach stratospheric pitches without falsetto" and that "her dramatic delivery made her a charismatic presence in church and on stage."

Andrews started singing in the church as a child and performed gospel music on the road in various gospel groups from the 1940s before joining The Caravans in 1957. Fellow member from The Caravans in the 1950s, Shirley Caesar, once dubbed Andrews “The High Priestess” for her ability to hit high notes, and, in 2013, stated, "there never was and never will be another voice like Inez Andrews." Another early member of the The Caravans, Albertina Walker often said, "nothing ever worked for the Caravans until Inez started whistling” — hitting the high notes. She sang lead on The Caravans first breakthrough hit, "Mary Don't You Weep", and also had hits as a solo artist with crossover recordings such as "Lord Don't Move That Mountain." She was referred to in 2012 by the New York Times as "the last great female vocalist of gospel’s golden age,” ranking among the likes of other music legends from the "Golden Era" of Black Gospel (1945-1960) - Mahalia Jackson, Marion Williams, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Clara Ward. 

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 14, 1929, Andrews traveled a tough road to gospel stardom. She began singing as a child in church and began songwriting as a young mother in Birmingham. Andrews was working six days a week, ten hours a day for eighteen dollars a week, while "washing, ironing, cooking, keep up with the kids." With her busy life in her youth, she felt that life had to have more to offer her. As she pondered that prayerfully, she picked up "a pencil and a brown paper bag" and began to write. Thus began her songwriting career. Andrews began her singing career in the 1940s with two groups in Birmingham, Alabama; Carter’s Choral Ensemble and the Original Gospel Harmonettes. By the mid-1950s, the Harmonettes were one of the nation’s top gospel groups, with Andrews the understudy for the group’s lead singer, Dorothy Love Coates. Coates recommended Andrews to the Caravans, and she eventually moved north to Chicago to became widely known as that group's first successful singer, leading them to the high of their popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s.  In the 1960s, Andrews solo work and songwriting further ensconced her in the gospel pantheon. Her songs were recorded by many artists, including The Mighty Clouds of Joy and Aretha Franklin.  Andrews became one of the major stars of gospel's golden age, The Caravans songs such as "Lord Keep Me Day By Day", "Remember Me", "I Won't Be Back" and several other hits in which Andrews was lead vocalist, including "Mary Don't You Weep", "I'm Not Tired Yet", "Make It In", "He Won't Deny Me" and "I'm Willing".
In 2006, she released a reunion album with The Caravans, Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, and original soprano Delores Washington, entitled Paved the Way.  
After a stellar career with the Caravans, she left the group in 1962 and had huge success with her crossover hit, "Lord Don't Move the Mountain". Andrews recorded on many labels after the 1950s and had many albums and hit songs to her credit, some of which she composed herself.

Andrews was a dedicated Christian and family person and raised seven children during her career in gospel music. She died on December19, 2012 at the age of 83.She had been diagnosed with cancer months earlier.  Andrews is survived by seven children, 19 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

In 2002, Andrews was inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame. It was announced prior to her death that Andrews would be honored with the Ambassador Dr. Bobby Jones Legend Award at the 2013 Stellar Awards.  The award ended up being presented posthumously.


The discography of Inez Andrews includes the following:


Studio Albums
  • 1963 - The Need Of Prayer
  • 1964 - Letter To Jesus
  • 1972 - Lord Don't Move That Mountain
  • 1975 - This Is Not The First Time I've Been Last
  • 1979 - Chapter 5
  • 1981 - I Made A Step
  • 1982 - My Testimony
  • 1984 - Lord Lift Us Up
  • 1986 - Jehovah Is His Name
  • 1987 - The Two Sides Of Inez Andrews
  • 1988 - If Jesus Came To Your Town Today
  • 198? - Close To Thee
  • 1990 - A Sinner's Prayer
  • 1990 - Lord Lift Us Up
  • 1990 - My Testimony
  • 1990 - I Made A Step In The Right Direction
  • 1990 - Inez Andrews
  • 1991 - Raise Up A Nation
  • 1991 - Shine On Me

Live Albums
  • 1974 - Live At The Munich Gospel Festival

Compilation Albums
  • 1999 - Headline News
  • 2005 - Most Requested Songs

Singles
  • 1972 - I'm Free / Lord Don't Move The Mountain
  • 1975 - Help Me / God's Humble Servant
  • 1980 - I'm Free / Lord Don't Move The Mountain (re-release)
  • 19?? - Close To Thee

Sunday, February 2, 2014

000031 - Bert Andrews, Photographer of Black Theatre

Bert Andrews (March 21, 1929–January 25, 1993) was an American photographer, who chronicled black theatre in New York City. In a career that spanned over three decades he photographed many of the leading African American actors of the stage and screen including James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Diana Sands, Louis Gossett, Jr., Billy Dee Williams, Morgan Freeman, Alfre Woodard, Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson.

Bert J. Andrews was born in Chicago on March 21, 1929, the son of John and Frieda Andrews. At a young age, he moved to Harlem, where he grew up. His career began in the entertainment industry as a songwriter, singer and a dancer. In the early 1950s, while serving in the army, Andrews began studying photography. 

In 1953, soon after his discharge from the army, Andrews began his work as an apprentice for Chuck Stewart, who was well known for his photography of jazz musicians. He served in that capacity until 1957, when he branched out on his own, photographing among other things, stills for black theatre productions in New York City.

One of his first assignments as a freelance photographer was the 1957 production of the play, Dark of the Moon, which was produced by the YMCA Drama Guild at the Little Theatre. This production was staged by Vinnette Carroll and featured among the cast Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Browne and Clarence Williams III. 

Throughout his long career, Andrews would photograph numerous productions of important plays including The Blacks  (1961), The Blood Knot (1964),To Be Young, Gifted and Black (1969), The River Niger (1972), Bubbling Brown Sugar (1976), A Soldier's Play (1982) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984).

His photographs have also appeared in numerous major publications, such as Time, Life, Ebony, Newsweek and the New York Times. 

On January 29, 1985, a fire destroyed his studio at 750 Eighth Avenue at the corner of 46th Street in New York City. Somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 images were lost, spanning roughly thirty years of work. However, through the help of various theatre companies, Andrews was able to obtain prints of a significant number of his photographs including approximately 2,000 from the Negro Ensemble Company. 

In 1988, the Bert Andrews Photographic Collection of Blacks in the Theatre was established at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The following year, a collection of these photographs were published in the book In the Shadow of the Great White Way: Images from the Black Theatre (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989).

Andrews died of cancer at the Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on January 25, 1993 at the age of 63.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

000030 - Leslie Lee, Playwright

Leslie Lee (b. November 6, 1930, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania - d. January 20, 2014, New York City)was a Tony Award-nominated playwright.

Leslie Lee was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on November 6, 1930. He was Executive Director of the Negro Ensemble Company and a founding artist of La Mama E.T.C.  He was also Signature Theatre's Playwright-in-Residence during the 2008-2009 Season celebrating the Historic Negro Ensemble Company. His plays have been produced both on and off Broadway, and he wrote extensively for film and television.

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and English from The University of Pennsylvania, Lee worked for several years in cancer research at Wyeth Laboratories in Villanova, Pennsylvania. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Theatre from Villanova University.
 
Lee taught for The Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing Program at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, MiddleSex Community College, Hunter College, Wesleyan College, Rutgers University, The New School University, Goddard College, The Negro Ensemble Company, and The Frederick Douglas Playwriting Workshop. In 2008, the U.S. Department of State sent Lee as a Cultural Envoy to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to teach Playwriting at the Intwasa Arts Festival.
 
Lee's acclaimed play The First Breeze of Summer, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and starring Leslie Uggams, enjoyed a successful revival in 2008 at Signature Theatre, winning nine Audelco Awards. The First Breeze of Summer was originally produced by the Negro Ensemble Company and went on to win an Obie Award for Best New American Play as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award. Subsequently, the play moved to the Palace Theatre on Broadway, where it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. Many of his plays have been produced by the Negro Ensemble Company, the Black Rep in St. Louis, and Crossroads Theatre Company in New Jersey. His plays include The War Party, Colored People's Time, Blues in a Broken Tongue, The Rabbit's Foot, Black Eagles, Elegy to a Down Queen, Cops and Robbers, Hannah Davis, The Ninth Wave, The Book of Lambert, Mina, Sundown Names and Night-Gone Things and the musicals Golden Boy with songs by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, and Phillis with Micki Grant. His new musical Before The Dream, written with Charles Strouse, had a recent reading in New York.
 
Lee's television and film work includes The Vernon Johns Story, with James Earl Jones and Mary Alice; Two Mothers, Two Sons; The Killing Floor, with Alfre Woodard and Moses Gunn; and adaptations of Richard Wright's short story Almos' A Man, with LeVar Burton, and The First Breeze of Summer. His documentary work includes Langston Hughes, the Dreamkeeper; The Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment; Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey; and Culture Shock: Huckleberry Finn.

Leslie Lee passed away at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City due to complications from congestive heart failure on January 20, 2014, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as he was making final revisions to his musical about King (written in collaboration with Charles Strouse).

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

000029 - Albon Holsey, Business Leader

Albon Holsey (May 31, 1883, Athens, Georgia - January 16, 1950, Tuskegee, Alabama) was an African American business leader.

According to Albon L. Holsey, slavery deprived blacks of the opportunity to learn the art of business. Through his efforts with the National Negro Business League, the Colored Merchant’s Association, and writings about black business topics, Holsey attempted to assist African Americans in competing and succeeding in the world of commerce.

Holsey was the son of Albon Chase Holsey and Sallie Thomas Holsey. As a boy, he attended Knox Institute in Athens, Georgia, and later he matriculated at Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Holsey joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute in 1914, during the time that the famous educator, Booker T Washington, headed the institution. He was hired as an assistant to Washington’s secretary, Emmett J. Scott. During his tenure, Holsey worked as secretary to president Robert R. Morton and assistant to president Frederick D. Patterson, served as associate editor of the Tuskegee Student and possibly acted as director of public relations. Between 1938 and 1944, Holsey was also on loan to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. While working for the government, he was involved in projects related to black farmers. Holsey worked at Tuskegee for thirty-six years.

A brief chronology of the Holsey's life reads as follows:

1883
Born in Athens, Georgia on May 31

1906
Marries Basiline Boyd on October 3

1914
Joins staff of Tuskegee Institute

1929
Expands Colored Merchants’ Association nationally

1930
Receives Harmon Foundation Award for achievements in business

1950
Dies in Tuskegee, Alabama on January 16

Holsey wrote numerous articles, most related to business topics, including the article “Learning How to be Black,” in which Holsey described the experiences of African American children that triggered their consciousness of color and the “deadly toll” on the manhood of the race. In “Public Relations Intuitions of Booker T. Washington,” Holsey described Washington’s common sense approach to keeping good relationships with various constituencies involved with Tuskegee Institute. The Public Opinion Quarterly published Holsey’s lengthy review of a book on the subject of black newspapers in 1948. Holsey, in a chapter in The Progress of a Race , recapitulated the first twenty-five years of the NNBL. He was business manager ofCrisis , the official publication of the NAACP, during the time that W. E. B. Du Bois edited the periodical.

Holsey was a member of the Masons and Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. The 1928–29 edition of Who’s Who in Colored America lists his political and religious affiliations as Republican and as African Methodist Episcopal.

After a brief illness, Holsey died on January 16, 1950, in John Andrews Memorial Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, at 67 years of age. Funeral services were held on January 26 in the Tuskegee Institute chapel. His wife, Basiline Boyd Holsey, whom he married on October 3, 1906, survived him. A sister, Annie Holsey of Baltimore, and brothers, Augustus J. Holsey and Crosby Holsey of Baltimore and Cleveland, respectively, also survived him. He was buried in Tuskegee.

Monday, January 27, 2014

000028 - Arnold Pinkney, Jesse Jackson Campaign Manager

Arnold Pinkney (January 6, 1931, Youngstown, Ohio - January 13, 2014, Cleveland, Ohio) was a political strategist and civil rights activist who helped elect Ohio's first black congressman and managed Jesse Jackson's unsuccessful 1984 presidential campaign.  
Pinkney was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on January 6, 1931. His father died three months before he finished high school, so he worked in steel mills to help his family make ends meet. 
Pinkney graduated from Albion College in Michigan, where he won letters in football, track, baseball and basketball. During a stint in the Army, he played baseball with major leaguers. Paul O’Dea, a scout for the Cleveland Indians, told him that he had a shot at making the big leagues by his late 20s, but advised him to go to law school instead. “Your race needs more lawyers than baseball players,” Mr. Pinkney recalled Mr. O’Dea saying.  
Pinkney took the advice and attended what is now Case Western Reserve University School of Law, but he dropped out for financial reasons. He then became one of the first black agents hired by the Prudential Insurance Company of America and later opened a successful insurance agency. As a civil rights activist, he led a membership drive for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and joined the picketing of a Cleveland supermarket that had refused to hire blacks.
Pinkney began his political career by helping out on local campaigns for judges, then volunteered for Carl Stokes’s mayoral campaign. Louis Stokes tapped him to be his paid campaign manager in 1968.  Pinkney was later president of the Cleveland Board of Education and twice sought the city’s mayoralty, losing in a three-man race in 1971 and again in 1975. After the second defeat, he moved to Shaker Heights, a Cleveland suburb.  
Mr. Jackson said he had chosen Mr. Pinkney to run his 1984 campaign because he was experienced in national campaigns as a “voice of pragmatism.” 
Arnold Pinkney had a long career in Democratic political campaigns including the 1968 campaign of Louis Stokes, who became Ohio's first black member of Congress. He also advised Jackson, Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes and Gov. Richard Celeste.
He was special adviser to the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and was co-founder of Pinkney-Perry Insurance Agency, Ohio's oldest and largest minority-owned insurance company.