2024: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 45: Derrick Bell and Critical Race Theory

Appendix 45

Derrick Bell 

and

Critical Race Theory

Derrick Albert Bell Jr. (b. November 6, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. October 5, 2011, New York City, New York) was an American lawyer, legal scholar, and civil rights activist. Bell first worked for the United States Justice Department, then the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he supervised over 300 school desegregation cases in Mississippi.

After a decade as a civil rights lawyer, Bell moved into academia where he spent the second half of his life. He started teaching at the University of Southern California, then moved to Harvard Law School where he became the first tenured African American professor of law in 1971. From 1991 until his death in 2011, Bell was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law, and a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.  While he was a visiting, he was a professor of constitutional law.

Bell developed important scholarship, writing many articles and multiple books, using his practical legal experience and his academic research to examine racism, particularly in the legal system. Bell questioned civil rights advocacy approaches, partially stemming from frustrations in his own experiences as a lawyer. Bell is often credited as one of the originators of critical race theory.  

Bell was born on November 6, 1930, to Derrick Albert and Ada Elizabeth Childress Bell. He was raised in a working-class family in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised a Presbyterian. Bell's maternal grandfather, John Childress, was a blind cook on the Pennsylvania Railroad. His paternal grandfather was a minister in Dothan, Alabama. 

Bell attended Schenley High School and was the first member of his family to go to college. He was offered a scholarship to Lincoln University but could not attend due to a lack of financial aid, choosing to attend Duquesne University instead. There, he was a member of the college's Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) and graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1952. He then served as an officer for the United States Air Force for two years, one of which he spent in Korea.

In 1957, Bell received a LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law where he was the only Black graduate of his class. In 1960, Bell married Jewel Hairston who was also a Civil Rights activist and educator. They would go on to have three sons: Derrick, Douglas, and Carter. They were married until Jewel died in 1990. He later married Janet Dewart.

After graduation, and with a recommendation from then United States associate attorney general William P. Rogers, Bell took a position with the newly formed Department of Justice in the Honor Graduate Recruitment Program. Due to his interests in racial issues, he transferred to the Civil Rights Division. He was one of the few Black lawyers working for the Justice Department at the time. Bell was the first academic in law that created a casebook that explored and examined the law's impact and relationship on race and racism. Along with this, he examined how race and racism shaped law-making, during a time when connecting these ideas was not considered legitimate.

In 1959, the Justice Department asked Bell to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Rather than give up his NAACP membership and compromise his principles, Bell left the Justice Department.

Bell returned to Pittsburgh and joined the local chapter of the NAACP. Soon afterward, in 1960, Bell was recruited by Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP's legal arm and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. (LDF). Bell would join the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Pittsburgh, crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil-rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert L. Carter, and Constance Baker Motley.  Bell was assigned to Mississippi where during his trips to the state, he had to be very cautious. For example, once while in Jackson, he was arrested for using a white-only phone booth. After returning to New York, "Marshall mordantly joked that, if he got himself killed in Mississippi, the L.D.F. would use his funeral as a fund-raiser." When Bell was in Mississippi, he provided legal support to Mississippi schools, colleges, voting rights activists, and Freedom Riders. He also supported James Meredith's attempt to attend the Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) Law School in 1962.

While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith to secure admission to the University of Mississippi, over the protests of Governor Ross Barnett.  

Later in life, Bell questioned the approach of integration they took in these school cases. Throughout the South, often the winning rulings and the following desegregation caused white flight, ultimately keeping the schools segregated. Later, as an academic, these practical results led him to conclude that "racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it."

Bell's first law faculty position began in 1967 at the USC (University of Southern California) Gould School of Law. There, he succeeded Martin Levine as executive director of the new Western Center on Law and Poverty. Among his notable cases was a class action suit against the Los Angeles Police Department on behalf of the city's black residents. During Bell's directorship, the Western Center's work was recognized in 1971 with a trophy bestowed by the Community Relations Conference of Southern California.

In 1969, Black Harvard Law School students helped to get Bell hired. They had protested for a minority faculty member and Derek Bok hired Bell to teach as a lecturer. Bok promised that Bell would be "the first but not the last" of his Black hires. In 1971, Bell became Harvard Law's first Black tenured professor. During his time at Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, Race, Racism and American Law, and produced a steady stream of law review articles. He resigned from his position at Harvard in protest of the school's hiring procedures, specifically the absence of women of color on the staff.

In 1980, Bell started a five-year tenure as the Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law. There, he also taught a course on "Race, Racism and the Law" using his textbook of the same name. Later, Bell's tenure was interrupted by his resignation following a protest, due to the university's refusal to hire an Asian-American candidate he had chosen for a faculty position.

Bell's full time visiting professorship at New York University began in 1991. After his two-year leave of absence, his position at Harvard ended and he remained at NYU where he continued to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights. He related these issues to music in a book of parables and introduced the Bell Annual Gospel Choir Concert, which is a tradition at the school today. During his time at NYU Law, Bell supported a student organization who were demanding that the university hire more faculty of color. Taking advice from Bell, the student organization led silent protests outside faculty meetings.

During the summer of 1981, under the auspices of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bell conducted a multi-week seminar in Race Relations Law for 14 lawyers and judges from across Oregon. The University of Oregon School of Law was not the only place Bell fought to create a more diverse and inclusive faculty.

Following his return to Harvard in 1986, after a year-long stint at Stanford University, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office. The goal was to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two professors on staff, both of whose work promoted critical race theory. The sit-in was widely supported by students, but divided the faculty, as Harvard administrators claimed the professors were denied tenure for substandard scholarship and teaching.

In 1990, Harvard Law School had 60 tenured professors. Three of them were black men and five were women. With that said, none of these women were African American. Displeased with this dearth of diversity among the faculty, Bell decided to protest with an unpaid leave of absence.  Students supported the move which critics found "counterproductive," while Harvard administrators cited a lack of qualified candidates, defending that they had taken great strides in the previous decade to bring in black faculty members. Bell detailed the story of this protest in his book Confronting Authority.

Bell's protest at Harvard provoked angry criticism and backlash. Opposing Harvard Law faculty called him "a media manipulator who unfairly attacked the school," noting that other people had accused him of "depriv[ing] students of an education while he makes money on the lecture circuit."

Following his leave of absence at Harvard, Bell accepted a visiting professorship at NYU Law in 1991. After two years, Harvard had still not hired any minority women, and Bell requested an extension of his leave, which the school refused, thereby ending his tenure. It was not until later, in 1998, that Harvard Law hired a civil rights attorney and a United States assistant attorney general nominee Lani Guinier, who became the law school's first black female tenured professor.

In March 2012, five months after his death, Bell became the target of conservative media, including Breitbart and Sean Hannity, in an exposé of President Barack Obama. The controversy focused on a 1990 video of Obama praising Bell at a protest by Harvard Law School students over the perceived lack of diversity in the school's faculty. Bell's widow stated that Bell and Obama had "very little contact" after Obama's law school graduation. She said that as far as she remembered, "He never had contact with the president as president." An examination of Senior Lecturer Obama's syllabus for his course on race and law at the University of Chicago revealed significant differences between Obama's perspective and that of Derrick Bell, even as Obama drew on major writings of critical race theory

In 1970, Bell published Race, Racism, and American Law, a textbook of more than a thousand pages containing the idea that racial progress would be achieved only when it aligned with white people's interests.

Bell is arguably the most influential source of thought critical of traditional civil rights discourse. Bell's critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal and conservative positions on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies. His book Race, Racism and American Law, is considered foundational in the field of critical race theory. 

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case prompted Bell's interest in studying racial issues within the education system. This was due to the Supreme Court's decision and its evident lack of progress for black students. During the 70s, Bell studied and wrote about the effects of desegregation noting that this decision was not due to a moral shift in nature, but rather because of the "convergence" of efforts in dismantling Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. Additionally, it had to do with the concern of the white elite that the United States would lose the public relations battle to communism and, thereby, tarnish the reputation and global influence of the United States. The injustices initially set by segregation were not undone but instead created new issues for black students at predominantly white institutions. Consequently, Bell came to the conclusion that American educational systems should focus on improving the quality of education for black students, as opposed to, national integration. His early work on education contributed to his creation of critical race theory, alongside Kimberle Crenshaw, Alan Freeman, Cheryl Harris, Patricia J. Williams, Charles R. Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, and Richard Delgado. 

In the 1970s, Bell and these other legal scholars began using the phrase "critical race theory" (CRT) a phrase based off of critical legal studies, a branch of legal scholarship, that challenged the validity of concepts such as rationality, objective truth, and judicial neutrality.  Critical legal theory was itself a takeoff on critical theory, a philosophical approach originating out of the leftist Frankfurt School.  Bell continued writing about critical race theory after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University.  He worked alongside lawyers, activists, and legal scholars across the country. Much of his legal scholarship was influenced by his experience both as a black man and as a civil rights attorney. Writing in a narrative style, Bell contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic, social, and political dimensions from a legal standpoint. In addition to this, Bell's critical race theory was eventually branched off into more theories, describing the hardships of other groups, such as AsianCrit (Asian), FemCrit (Women), LatCrit (Latino), TribalCrit (American Indian), and WhiteCrit (White).  His theories were based on a number of propositions.

1. Racism is ordinary, not aberrational.
2. White-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material, for the dominant group.
3. ("Social construction" thesis) race and races are products of social thought and relations.
4. Dominant society racializes different minority groups at different times, in response to shifting needs such as the labor market.
5. "Intersectionality and anti-essentialism" thesis. No person has a single, easily stated, unitary identity. Everyone has potentially conflicting, overlapping identities, loyalties, and allegiances For example, a person who has parents with different religious views, political views, ethnicity, etc.
6. ("Voice-of-color" thesis) because of different histories and experiences to those of white counterparts, matters that the white people are unlikely to know must be communicated to them by the racialized minorities.

CRT led to the creation of the ideas of microaggressions, paradigmatic kinship, the historical origins and shifting paradigmatic vision of CRT, and, according to it, how in-depth legal studies show law serve the interests of the powerful groups in society. Microaggressions are subtle insults (verbal, nonverbal, and/or visual) directed toward people of color, often automatically or unconsciously.

As an example, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status. Similar themes can be found in another well-known piece entitled, "Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?" from 1995.

His 2002 book, Ethical Ambition, encourages a life of ethical behavior, including "a good job well done, giving credit to others, standing up for what you believe in, voluntarily returning lost valuables, choosing what feels right over what might feel good right now".

Between the years of 1970 and 1980 Bell published many pieces of work. Other than his two most read books, Race, Racism, and American Law, and Serving Two Masters. His other mentionable books are Silent Covenants, written in 2004, a book questioning the Brown v. Board of Education's legacy. His 2004 memoir, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth, where he dives into how he stuck to his beliefs. He wrote about how staying true to himself was how he was so successful. 

Along with Bell's contributions to critical race theory, in his early articles, he exhibited multiple analyses of legal doctrine. He discussed the legal doctrine through his outsider narrative scholarship. He would conclude that the rule of law "sought to convey an objectivity that may exist in theory but is impossible in the real world". In his narrative stories, he would create hypothetical legal doctrines that put forth the idea that racism is a permanent neutral principle. In doing so, he called “the nation to repent”, rather than having policymakers listen to him or change policies. His deconstructionist legal doctrine would include an “interest-convergence thesis” which assumed that the United States legal system would adapt legal doctrines meant to remedy black injustices only when the doctrine would further benefit the interests of whites. In his doctrine, he also critiqued Brown v. Board of Education and titled it the “Revisionist Brown Option” which was his alternative answer to what Brown should have said in the court case. His doctrine also consisted of the concept “racial fortuitous corollary” and “racial preference licensing act”.

Bell published a number of works of short fiction which deal with similar themes to his nonfiction works. These include the science fiction short story "The Space Traders".  Here, white Americans give over the black population of the United States to extraterrestrials for solutions to the former's problems. Bell explained, "[It's] better [to] risk the unknown in space than face the certainty of racial discrimination here at home." An adaptation of the story appeared as part of the 1994 made-for-television anthology film Cosmic Slop.  

"The Space Traders" and other works of short fiction by Bell appeared in Bell's collection Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism.

On October 5, 2011, Derrick Bell died at the age of 80 from carcinoid cancer at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. 

Derrick Bell has been memorialized at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law with the Derrick A. Bell Constitutional Law Commons which was opened on March 20, 2013, in the school's Barco Law Library. Bell was also honored with the renaming of the school's community law clinic that provides legal assistance to local low-income residents to the Derrick Bell Community Legal Clinic.  Two fellowship positions within the school are also named for Bell. There continues to be lectures regarding Bell's teachings and concepts at NYU Law School, and Harvard Law School. They discuss Bell's teachings of racism in America and explore the future of race relations and racial justice in the United States. 

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2024: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 44: Ray Charles, The Genius, The Legend, The Icon

Appendix 44

Ray Charles

The Genius

The Legend 

The Icon

Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (b. September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia – d. June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, California) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential musicians in history and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians, he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. 

Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records.   He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia on My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. {"Hit the Road Jack" from 1961 and "I Can't Stop Loving You" from 1962 were his other No. 1 hits.} His 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200. Charles had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboard charts; 44 on the US R&B singles chart; 11 on the Hot 100 singles chart; and two on the Hot Country singles charts.

Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by Louis Jordan and Charles Brown. He had a lifelong friendship and occasional partnership with Quincy Jones. Frank Sinatra called Ray Charles "the only true genius in show business," although Charles downplayed this notion. Billy Joel said, "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley."

For his musical contributions, Charles received the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Polar Music Prize. Charles was one of the inaugural inductees at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He has won 18 Grammy Awards (five posthumously), the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, and 10 of his recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Rolling Stone magazine ranked Charles No. 10 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and No. 2 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2022, Charles was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.  

Charles was born on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia.  He was the son of Bailey Robinson, a laborer, and Aretha (or Reatha) Robinson (née Williams), a laundress, of Greenville, Florida. 

During Aretha's childhood, her mother died. Her father could not keep her. Bailey, a man her father worked with, took her in. The Robinson family—Bailey, his wife Mary Jane, and his mother— informally adopted her and Aretha took the surname Robinson. A few years later Aretha became pregnant by Bailey. During the ensuing scandal, she left Greenville late in the summer of 1930 to be with family back in Albany. After the birth of the child, Ray Charles, she and the infant Charles returned to Greenville. Aretha and Bailey's wife, who had lost a son, then shared in Charles's upbringing. The father abandoned the family, left Greenville, and married another woman elsewhere. By his first birthday, Charles had a brother, George.

Charles was deeply devoted to his mother and later recalled, despite her poor health and adversity, her perseverance, self-sufficiency, and pride as guiding lights in his life.

In his early years, Charles showed an interest in mechanical objects and would often watch his neighbors working on their cars and farm machinery. His musical curiosity was sparked at Wylie Pitman's Red Wing Cafe, at the age of three, when Pitman played boogie woogie on an old upright piano. Pitman subsequently taught Charles how to play the piano. Charles and his mother were always welcome at the Red Wing Cafe and even lived there when they were in financial distress. Pitman would also care for Ray's younger brother George, to take some of the burden off their mother. George accidentally drowned in his mother's laundry tub when he was four years old.

Charles started to lose his sight at the age of four or five, and was blind by the age of seven, likely as a result of glaucoma. Destitute, uneducated, and mourning the loss of her younger son, Aretha Robinson used her connections in the local community to find a school that would accept a blind African American pupil. Despite his initial protest, Charles attended school at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in Saint Augustine from 1937 to 1945.

Charles further developed his musical talent at school and was taught to play the classical piano music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. His teacher, Mrs. Lawrence, taught him how to use braille music, a difficult process that requires learning the left-hand movements by reading braille with the right hand and learning the right-hand movements by reading braille with the left hand, then combining the two parts.

Charles's mother died in the spring of 1945, when he was 14. Her death came as a shock to him; he later said the deaths of his brother and mother were "the two great tragedies" of his life. Charles decided not to return to school after the funeral.

After leaving school, Charles moved to Jacksonville to live with Charles Wayne Powell, who had been friends with his late mother. He played the piano for bands at the Ritz Theatre in LaVilla for over a year, earning $4 a night (US$46, in 2023 value). He joined Local 632 of the American Federation of Musicians, in the hope that it would help him get work and was able to use the union hall's piano to practice, since he did not have one at home. He learned piano licks from copying the other players there. 

Charles started to build a reputation as a talented musician in Jacksonville, but the jobs did not come fast enough for him to construct a strong identity, so, at age 16, he moved to Orlando, where he lived in borderline poverty and went without food for days. It was difficult for musicians to find work. Since World War II had ended, there were no "G.I. Joes" left to entertain. Charles eventually started to write arrangements for a pop music band, and in the summer of 1947, he unsuccessfully auditioned to play piano for Lucky Millinder and his sixteen-piece band.

In 1947, Charles moved to Tampa, where he held two jobs, including one as a pianist for Charles Brantley's Honey Dippers.

In his early career, Charles modeled himself on Nat King Cole. His first four recordings—"Wondering and Wondering", "Walking and Talking", "Why Did You Go?" and "I Found My Baby There"—were allegedly done in Tampa, although some discographies claim he recorded them in Miami in 1951 or else Los Angeles in 1952.,

Charles had always played piano for other people, but he was keen to have his own band. He decided to leave Florida for a large city, and, considering Chicago and New York City too big, followed his friend Gossie McKee to Seattle, Washington, in March 1948, knowing that the biggest radio hits came from northern cities. There he met and befriended, under the tutelage of Robert Blackwell, the 15-year-old Quincy Jones. 

With Charles on piano, McKee on guitar, and Milton Garred on bass, The McSon Trio (named for McKee and Robinson) started playing the 1–5 A.M. shift at the Rocking Chair. Publicity photos of this trio are some of the earliest known photographs of Charles. In April 1949, he and his band recorded "Confession Blues", which became his first national hit, soaring to the second spot on the Billboard R&B chart. While still working at the Rocking Chair, Charles also arranged songs for other artists, including Cole Porter's "Ghost of a Chance" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Emanon". After the success of his first two singles, Charles moved to Los Angeles in 1950 and spent the next few years touring with the blues musician Lowell Fulson as Fulson's musical director.

In 1950, Charles' performance in a Miami hotel impressed Henry Stone, who went on to record a Ray Charles Rockin' record, which did not achieve popularity. During his stay in Miami, Charles was required to stay in the segregated but thriving black community of Overtown. Stone later helped Jerry Wexler find Charles in St. Petersburg. 

After signing with Swing Time Records, Charles recorded two more R&B hits under the name Ray Charles: "Baby, Let Me Hold Your Hand" (1951), which reached No. 5, and "Kissa Me Baby" (1952), which reached No. 8. Swing Time folded the following year, and Ahmet Ertegun signed Charles to Atlantic.^]

In addition to being a musician, Charles was also a record producer, producing Guitar Slim's number 1 hit, "The Things That I Used to Do". 

In June 1952, Atlantic bought Charles's contract for $2,500 (US$28,684 in 2023 dollars). His first recording session for Atlantic ("The Midnight Hour"/"Roll with My Baby") took place in September 1952, although his last Swing Time release ("Misery in My Heart"/"The Snow Is Falling") would not appear until February 1953.

In 1953, "Mess Around" became his first small hit for Atlantic. During the next year, he had hits with "It Should've Been Me" and "Don't You Know". He also recorded the songs "Midnight Hour" and "Sinner's Prayer" around this time.

Late in 1954, Charles recorded "I've Got a Woman". The lyrics were written by bandleader Renald Richard. Charles claimed the composition. They later admitted that the song went back to the Southern Tones' "It Must Be Jesus" (1954). It became one of his most notable hits, reaching No. 2 on the R&B chart. "I've Got a Woman" combined gospel, jazz, and blues elements. In 1955, Charles also had hits with "This Little Girl of Mine" and "A Fool for You". In following years, hits included "Drown in My Own Tears" and "Hallelujah I Love Her So". 

Charles also recorded jazz, such as The Great Ray Charles (1957). He worked with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, releasing Soul Brothers in 1958 and Soul Meeting in 1961. By 1958, he was not only headlining major black venues such as the Apollo Theater in New York, but also larger venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival, where his first live album was recorded in 1958. Charles hired a female singing group, the Cookies, and renamed them the Raelettes. In 1958, Charles and the Raelettes performed for the famed Cavalcade of Jazz concert produced by Leon Hefflin Sr. held at the Shrine Auditorium on August 3. The other headliners were Little Willie John, Sam Cooke, Ernie Freeman, and Bo Rhambo.  Sammy Davis Jr. was also there to crown the winner of the Miss Cavalcade of Jazz beauty contest. The event featured the top four prominent disc jockeys of Los Angeles.

Charles reached the pinnacle of his success at Atlantic with the release of "What'd I Say", which combined gospel, jazz, blues and Latin music. Charles said he wrote it spontaneously while he was performing in clubs with his band. Despite some radio stations banning the song because of its sexually suggestive lyrics, the song became Charles' first top-ten pop record. It reached No. 6 on the Billboard Pop chart and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1959. Later that year, he released his first country song (a cover of Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On") and recorded three more albums for the label: a jazz record (The Genius After Hours, 1961); a blues record (The Genius Sings the Blues, 1961); and a big band record (The Genius of Ray Charles, 1959) which was his first Top 40 album, peaking at No. 17.

Charles' contract with Atlantic expired in 1959, and several big labels offered him record deals. Choosing not to renegotiate his contract with Atlantic, he signed with ABC-Paramount in November 1959. He obtained a more liberal contract than other artists had at the time, with ABC offering him a $50,000 (US$522,603 in 2023 dollars) annual advance, higher royalties than before, and eventual ownership of his master tapes — a very valuable and lucrative deal at the time. During his Atlantic years, Charles had been hailed for his inventive compositions, but by the time of the release of the largely instrumental jazz album Genius + Soul = Jazz (1960) for ABC's subsidiary label Impulse!, he had given up on writing in favor of becoming a cover artist, giving his own eclectic arrangements of existing songs.

With "Georgia on My Mind", his first hit single for ABC-Paramount in 1960, Charles received national acclaim and four Grammy Awards, including two for "Georgia on My Mind" (Best Vocal Performance Single Record or Track, Male and Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist). Written by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, the song was Charles' first work with Sid Feller, who produced, arranged and conducted the recording. Charles' rendition of the tune would help elevate it to the status of an American classic, and his version also became the state song of Georgia later on in 1979.

Charles earned another Grammy for the follow-up track "Hit the Road Jack", written by R&B singer Percy Mayfield. 

By late 1961, Charles had expanded his small road ensemble to a big band, partly as a response to increasing royalties and touring fees, becoming one of the few black artists to cross over into mainstream pop with such a level of creative control. This success, however, came to a momentary halt during a concert tour in November 1961, when a police search of Charles's hotel room in Indianapolis, Indiana, led to the discovery of heroin in the medicine cabinet. The case was eventually dropped, as the search lacked a proper warrant by the police, and Charles soon returned to music.

In the early 1960s, on the way from Louisiana to Oklahoma City, Charles faced a near-death experience when the pilot of his plane lost visibility, as snow and his failure to use the defroster caused the windshield of the plane to become completely covered in ice. The pilot made a few circles in the air before he was finally able to see through a small part of the windshield and land the plane. Charles placed a spiritual interpretation on the experience, claiming that "something or someone which instruments cannot detect" was responsible for creating the small opening in the ice on the windshield which enabled the pilot to eventually land the plane safely.

The 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and its sequel, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2, helped to bring country music into the musical mainstream. Charles' version of the Don Gibson song "I Can't Stop Loving You" topped the Pop chart for five weeks, stayed at No. 1 on the R&B chart for ten weeks, and gave him his only number-one record in the United Kingdom. In 1962, he founded his own record label, Tangerine, which ABC-Paramount promoted and distributed. He had major pop hits in 1963 with "Busted" (US No. 4) and "take These Chains from My Heart" (US No. 8). In 1964, Margie Hendrix was kicked out of the Raelettes after a big argument.

In 1964, Charles' career was halted once more after he was arrested for a third time for possession of heroin. He agreed to go to a rehabilitation facility to avoid jail time and eventually kicked his habit at a clinic in Los Angeles. After spending a year on parole, Charles reappeared on the charts in 1966 with a series of hits composed with Ashford & Simpson and Jo Armstead, including the dance number "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Let's Go Get Stoned", which became his first number-one R&B hit in several years. His cover version of "Crying Time", originally recorded by country singer Buck Owens, reached No. 6 on the pop chart and helped Charles win a Grammy Award the following March. In 1967, he had a top-twenty hit with another ballad, 'Here We Go Again". 

Charles's renewed chart success, however, proved to be short lived, and by the 1970s his music was rarely played on radio stations. The rise of psychedelic rock and harder forms of rock and R&B music had reduced Charles's radio appeal, as did his choosing to record pop standards and covers of contemporary rock and soul hits, since his earnings from owning his master tapes had taken away the motivation to write new material. Charles nonetheless continued to have an active recording career. Most of his recordings between 1968 and 1973 evoked strong reactions: either adored or panned by fans and critics alike. His recordings during this period, especially 1972's A Message from the People, moved toward the progressive soul sound popular at the time. A Message from the People included his unique gospel-influenced version of "America the Beautiful" and a number of protest songs about poverty and civil rights. Charles was often criticized for his version of "America the Beautiful" because it was very drastically changed from the song's original version. On July 14, 1973, Margie Hendrix, the mother of Ray's son Charles Wayne Hendrix, died at 38 years old.  Margie's death led to Ray having to care for the child. The official cause of her death is unknown.

In 1974, Charles left ABC Records and recorded several albums on his own label, Crossover Records. A 1975 recording of Stevie Wonder's hit "Living for the City" later helped Charles win another Grammy. In 1977, he reunited with Ahmet Ertegun and re-signed to Atlantic Records, for which he recorded the album True to Life, remaining with his old label until 1980. However, the label had now begun to focus on rock acts, and some of their prominent soul artists, such as Aretha Franklin, were starting to be neglected. In November 1977, Charles appeared as the host of the NBC television show Saturday Night Live. 

In April 1979, Charles' version of "Georgia on My Mind" was proclaimed the state song of Georgia, and an emotional Charles performed the song on the floor of the state legislature. In 1980, Charles performed in the musical film The Blues Brothers. Although he had notably supported the American Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, Charles was criticized for performing at the Sun City resort in South Africa in 1981 during an international boycott protesting that country's apartheid policy. He later defended his choice of performing there, insisting that the audience of black and white fans would integrate while he was there.

In 1983, Charles signed a contract with Columbia. He recorded a string of country albums and had hit singles in duets with singers such as George Jones, Chet Atkins, B. J. Thomas, Mickey Gilley, Hank Williams Jr., Dee Dee Bridgewater ("Precious Thing") and his longtime friend Willie Nelson, with whom he recorded "Seven Spanish Angels".

In 1985, Charles participated in the musical recording and video "We Are the World", a charity single recorded by the supergroup United Support of Artists (USA) for Africa.

In 1990, Charles participated for the first time in the Sanremo Music Festival with the song Good Love Gone Bad, written by Toto Cutugno.  

Before the release of his first album for Warner, Would You Believe, Charles made a return to the R&B charts with a cover of the Brothers Johnson's "I'll Be Good to You", a duet with his lifelong friend Quincy Jones and the singer Chaka Khan, which hit number one on the R&B chart in 1990 and won Charles and Khan a Grammy for their duet. Prior to this, Charles returned to the pop charts withm "Baby Grand", a duet with singer-songwriter Billy Joel. In 1989, Charles recorded a cover of the Southern All Stars' "Itoshi no Ellie" for a Japanese TV advertisement for the Suntory brand, releasing it in Japan as "Ellie My Love", where it reached No. 3 on its Oricon chart. In the same year, he was a special guest at the Arena di Verona during the tour promoting Oro Incenso & Birra of the Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari. 

In 2001–02, Charles appeared in commercials for the new Jersey Lottery to promote its campaign "For every dream, there's a jackpot".In 2003, Charles headlined the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., attended by President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.  Also, in 2003, Charles presented Van Morrison with Morrison's award upon being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the two sang Morrison's song "Crazy Love" (the performance appears on Morrison's 2007 album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3). In 2003, Charles performed "Georgia on My Mind" and "America the Beautiful" at a televised annual banquet of electronic media journalists held in Washington, D.C. His final public appearance was on April 30, 2004, at the dedication of his music studio as a historic landmark in Los Angeles.

Charles possessed one of the most recognizable voices in American music. He was a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.

Charles' style and success in the genres of rhythm and blues and jazz had an influence on a number of highly successful artists, including, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, and Billy Joel. 

Ray, a biopic portraying his life and career between the mid-1930s and 1979, was released in October 2004, starring Jamie Foxx as Charles. Foxx received the 2005 Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.

In 1979, Charles was one of the first musicians born in the State of Georgia to be inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. His version of "Georgia on My Mind" was also made the official state song of the State of Georgia. And, in 1981, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

In 1986, he was one of the first inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony. He also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.

Charles won 17 Grammy Awards from his 37 nominations. In 1987, he was also awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Finally, the Grammy Awards of 2005 were dedicated to Ray Charles.

On September 23, 2013, the United States Postal Service issued a forever stamp honoring Charles, as part of its Musical Icons series. And, in 2022, Charles was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the third African American to be inducted after Charley Pride (2000) and Deford Bailey (2005). He was also the 13th person to be inducted into both the Country and Rock Halls of Fame.

Charles stated in his 1978 autobiography, Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story, that he became hooked on women after losing his virginity at 12 years old to a woman about 20. "Cigarettes and smack [heroin] are the two truly addictive habits I've known. You might add women," he said. "My obsession centers on women—did then [when young] and does now. I can't leave them alone," he added.

Charles was married twice. His first marriage lasted less than a year; his second lasted 22 years. Throughout his life, Charles had many relationships with women with whom he fathered a dozen children.

Charles' first marriage to Eileen Williams lasted from July 31, 1951, until 1952.

He met his second wife Della Beatrice Howard Robinson (called "Bea" by Charles) in Texas in 1954. They married the following year on April 5, 1955. Their first child together, Ray Charles Robinson, Jr., was born in 1955. Charles was not in town for the birth because he was playing a show in Texas. The couple had two more sons, David and Robert. They raised their children in View Park, California. Charles felt that his heroin addiction took a toll on Della during their marriage. Due to his drug addiction, extramarital affairs on tours and volatile behavior, the marriage deteriorated, and she filed for divorce in 1977. The divorce was finalized after 22 years of marriage.

Charles had a six-year-long affair with Margie Hendrix, one of the original Raelettes, and in 1959 they had a son, Charles Wayne. His affair with Mae Mosley Lyles resulted in a daughter, Renee, born in 1961. In 1963, Charles had another daughter, this one by Sandra Jean Betts, named Sheila Raye Charles. Sheila Raye, like her father, was a singer/songwriter; she died of breast cancer on June 15, 2017.  In 1977, Charles had a child with his Parisian lover Arlette Kotchounian whom he met in 1967. His long-term girlfriend and partner at the time of his death was Norma Pinella.

Charles fathered a total of 12 children with ten different women:

• Evelyn Robinson, born in 1949 (daughter with Louise Flowers)
• Ray Charles Robinson Jr., born May 25, 1955 (son with wife Della Bea Robinson)
• David Robinson, born in 1958 (son with wife Della Bea Robinson)
• Charles Wayne Hendricks, born on October 1, 1959 (son with Margie Hendricks, one of the Raelettes)
• Robert Robinson, born in 1960 (son with wife Della Bea Robinson)
• Renee Robinson, born in 1961 (daughter with Mae Mosely Lyles)
• Sheila Robinson, born in 1963 (daughter with Sandra Jean Betts)
• Reatha Butler, born in 1966
• Alexandra Bertrand, born in 1968 (daughter with Mary-Chantal Bertrand)
• Vincent Kotchounian, born in 1977 (son with Arlette Kotchounian)
• Robyn Moffett, born in 1978 (daughter with Gloria Moffett)
• Ryan Corey Robinson den Bok, born in 1987 (son with Mary Anne den Bok)

Charles held a family luncheon for his 12 children in 2002, ten of whom attended. He told them he was mortally ill and $500,000 had been placed in trusts for each of the children to be paid out over the next five years.

At 18, Charles first tried marijuana when he played in the McSon Trio and was eager to try it as he thought it helped musicians create music and tap into their creativity. He later became addicted to heroin for seventeen years. Charles was first arrested in 1955, when he and his bandmates were caught backstage with loose marijuana and drug paraphernalia, including a burnt spoon, syringe, and needle. The arrest did not deter his drug use, which only escalated as he became more successful and made more money.

In 1958, Charles was arrested on a Harlem street corner for possession of narcotics and equipment for administering heroin.

Charles was arrested on a narcotics charge on November 14, 1961, while waiting in an Indiana hotel room before a performance. The detectives seized heroin, marijuana, and other items. Charles, then 31, said he had been a drug addict since the age of 16. The case was dismissed because of the manner in which the evidence was obtained, but Charles' situation did not improve until a few years later.

On Halloween 1964, Charles was arrested for possession of heroin at Boston's Logan Airport. He decided to quit heroin and entered St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, where he endured four days of cold turkey withdrawal. Following his self-imposed stay, he pleaded guilty to four narcotic charges. Prosecutors called for two years in prison and a hefty fine, but the judge listened to Charles' psychiatrist, Dr. Hacker's account of Charles' determination to get off drugs and he was sent to McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.  The judge offered to postpone the verdict for a year if Charles agreed to undergo regular examinations by government-appointed physicians. When Charles returned to court, he received a five-year suspended sentence, four years of probation, and a fine of $10,000.

Charles responded to the saga of his drug use and reform with the songs "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "Let's Go Get Stoned" and with the release of Crying Time, his first album since kicking his heroin addiction in 1966.

Charles enjoyed playing chess. As part of his therapy when he quit heroin, he met with psychiatrist Friedrich Hacker, who taught him how to play chess. He used a special board with raised squares and holes for the pieces. When questioned if people try to cheat against a blind man, Charles joked in reply, "You can't cheat in Chess... I'm gonna see that!" In a 1991 concert, he referred to Willie Nelson as "my chess partner". In 2002, he played and lost to the American grandmaster and former United States champion Larry Evans.

In 2003, Charles had successful hip replacement surgery and was planning to go back on tour, until he began having other ailments. He died on June 10, 2004, of complications resulting from liver failure at his home in Beverly Hills, California. His funeral was held at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles eight days later, with numerous musical figures in attendance. B. B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis each played a tribute at the funeral. Charles' body was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery. 

Ray Charles final album, Genius Loves Company, released two months after Charles' death, consists of duets with admirers and contemporaries: B.B. King, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, James Taylor, Gladys Knight, Michael McDonald, Natalie Cole, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Norah Jones and Johnny Mathis. The album won eight Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (for "Here We Go Again", with Norah Jones), and Best Gospel Performance (for "Heaven Help Us All", with Gladys Knight); he also received nods for his duets with Elton John and B.B. King. The album included a version of Harold Arlen and E. Y. Yarburg's "Over the Rainbow", sung as a duet with Johnny Mathis, which was played at Charles' memorial service.

2024: 1930 Chronology: Appendix 43: Elza Soares, Brazil's Singer of the Millennium

Appendix 43 

Elza Soares

 Brazil's Singer of the Millennium 

Elza da Conceicao Soares (nee Elsa Gomes da Conceicao; b. June 23, 1930, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – d. January 20, 2022, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), known professionally as Elza Soares, was a Brazilian samba singer. In 1999, she was named Singer of the Millennium along with Tina Turner by BBC Radio. 

Elza was deemed dangerous by the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), and in 1970 her house in the Jardim Botanico neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, was machine-gunned by regime agents. Inside were her partner, the Brazilian soccer star Garrincha and their children. The living room, where the young children were, was destroyed by the blasts. Elza and Garrincha had to flee to Italy, where they were received by Chico Buarque de Hollanda who was also in exile.

Elza Gomes da Conceicao was born on June 23, 1930, in Padre Miguel, Rio de Janeiro.  Her father Avelino Gomes was a factory worker and guitarist, and her mother Rosária Maria da Conceicao was a washerwoman. She was born in the Moça Bonita, a favela in the Padre Miguel neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.  During her childhood, Soares played on the streets, spun wooden tops, flew kites, and fought with boys. Despite poverty and having to carry buckets of water on her head, Elza believed that she had a happy childhood. However, when she was 12, she was forced by her father to marry Lourdes Antônio Soares, also known as Alaúrdes, and within a year gave birth to her first child, João Carlos. Soares liked to sing, and when she needed money for medicine for her son, she participated in a vocal contest presented by Ary Barroso at Radio Tupi.  She was given money for participating and was then able to buy the medicine. When she was fifteen, she gave birth to her second child, who died. After her husband became ill with tuberculosis, she began working at the Veritas soap factory in the Eugenho de Dentro neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.  At twenty-one, she was a widow, left alone to raise her children: four boys and one girl. But Elza dreamed of becoming a singer.

When she was thirty-two, Elza had a relationship with the Brazilian soccer star Garrincha, the man who, at the time, was deemed to be one of Brazil's greatest soccer star, second only to Pele.  Garrincha was the father of eight children and was idolized by the Brazilian people. Elza was vilified by Brazilian society, with many accusing her of breaking up Garrincha's marriage. She was shouted at in the street, received death threats, and her house was pelted with eggs and tomatoes. 

On April 13, 1969, Elza's mother died in a car accident. Garrincha, Soares, and her daughter Sara were also injured in this accident. Garrincha was driving drunk on the Presidente Dutra highway when a truck merged into the lane. Everyone in the car was hurt, and Dona Rosário was thrown from the vehicle and killed. Soares and Garrincha remained married for sixteen years (1968–1982). Garrincha's friends did not accept Soares as his wife, instead calling her a "witch." Soares tried to curb her husband's dependence on alcohol by visiting bars and pleading with them not to serve her husband. The couple had one child, a boy, born in 1976. He was named after his father, Manuel Francisco dos Santos, and received the nickname Garrincha Jr. In 1983, Garrincha died of cirrhosis, which devastated Soares, even though they were already separated.

On January 11, 1986, her son, Garrincha Jr. died when he was 9 years old in a car accident as he was coming back from visiting his father's hometown, Mage.  It had been raining and the driver lost control of the vehicle. The door opened and the boy was thrown into the Imbarie River.  Soares was disconsolate and considered ending her own life. She left Brazil and toured Europe and the United States.

After many years of searching for her long-lost daughter, they were reunited after Soares returned to Brazil. On July 26, 2015, Soares lost another son, Gerson, when he was 59 years old. He died of complications of a urinary tract infection.  

Soares had six children: João Carlos, Gerson, Gilson, Dilma, Sara, and Garrincha. She died at her residence in Rio de Janeiro, on January 20, 2022, at the age of 91.

In 1958, Soares spent eight months touring Argentina with Mercedes Batista.  She became popular with her first single "Se Acaso Voce Chegasse", on which she introduced scat singing à la Louis Armstrong, adding a bit of jazz to samba, however, Elza said that she did not know American music at the time.  Elza moved to Sao Paulo, where she performed at theaters and night clubs. Her husky voice became her trademark. After finishing her second album, A Bossa Negra, she went to Chile to represent Brazil in the 1962 FIFA World Cup and met Louis Armstrong.

From 1967 to 1969, Soares recorded three albums with the record label Odeon, partnering with singer Miltinho. The albums were titled Elza, Miltinho e Samba (Volumes 1–3). The songs in these albums were mostly in the potpourri style with duets.

In the 1970s, Soares toured the United States and Europe. In 2000, she was named Best Singer of the Millennium by the BBC in London, where she performed a concert with Gal Costa, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Virgínia Rodrigues. During the same year, she played a series of avant-garde concerts directed by José Miguel Wisnik in Rio de Janeiro.

Soares scored a number of hits in Brazil throughout her career, including "Se Acaso Você Chegasse" (1960), "Boato" (1961), "Cadeira Vazia" (1961), "Só Danço Samba" (1963), "Mulata Assanhada" (1965), and "Aquarela Brasileira" (1974). Elza Pede Passagem produced no major hit singles, but it was considered representative of the samba-soul of the early 1970s.

In 2002, her album Do Cóccix Até O Pescoço album earned a Grammy nomination. The album was recorded with Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Carlinhos Brown, and Jorge Ben Joi.  In 2004, Soares released Vivo Feliz with the single, "Rio de Janeiro", a homage to her city of birth. While not as successful in sales as her previous release, the album carried on the theme of mixing samba and bossa nova with modern electronic music and effects. The album included collaborations with Nando Reis, Fred 04 (former leader of the mangue beat band Mundo Livre S/A), and Ze Keti.

In 2007, Elza was invited to sing a cappella the Brazilian National anthem at the opening ceremony of the 2007 Pan American Games.

Soares joined Jair Rodrigues and Sen Jorge for Sambistas (2009). In 2016, A Mulher do Fim do Mundo was released internationally with the translated title Woman at the End of the World.  She also performed at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she sang "O Canto de Ossanha" by Baden Powell and Vinicius de Moraes.

Her album A Mulher do Fim do Mundo was released in 2015. It was praised by critics as one of the best MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira - Popular Brazilian Music) albums of the past years. She won the award for Best Album in pop/rock/reggae/hip-hop/funk. This album was also nominated for Best Album of Brazilian Popular Music and Best Song in Portuguese at the 17th edition of the Latin Grammy Awards.

Her album Deus É Mulher was ranked as the 2nd best Brazilian album of 2018 by the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone magazine and among the 25 best Brazilian albums of the first half of 2018 by the Sao Paulo Association of Art Critics.

The follow-up Planet Fome was considered one of the 25 best Brazilian albums of the second half of 2019 by the Sao Paulo Association of Art Critics.  For this album, Soares planned a cover of "Comida", byTitas, featuring the then current members of the band (Branco Mello, Sergio Britto and Tony Bellotto), but she ended up choosing to save the song for later and it was released in October 2020 to mark the album's first anniversary and to celebrate its nomination for the Latin Grammy Award.