1930 - The United States: Notable Births: A-F

Notable Births

*Muhal Abrams, the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was born in Chicago, Illinois (September 19).

Muhal Richard Abrams (b. September 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois - d. October 29, 2017, Manhattan, New York City, New York) is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazz medium.

Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago. By 1946, he enrolled in music classes at Roosevelt University, but did not stay. He then decided to study independently.  The books of Joseph Schillinger were very influential in Abrams' development.

Abrams' first gigs were playing the blues, R&B, and hard bop circuit in Chicago and working as a sideman with everyone from Dexter Gordon and Max Roach to Ruth Brown and Woody Shaw.  In 1950 he began writing arrangements for the King Fleming Band, and in 1955 played in the hard-bop band Modern Jazz Two + Three, with tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris.  After this group folded he kept a low profile until he organized the Experimental Band in 1962, a contrast to his earlier hard bop venture in its use of free jazz concepts. This band, with its fluctuating lineup, evolved into the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), emerging in May 1965 with Abrams as its president. Rather than playing in smoky night clubs, AACM members often rented out theaters and lofts where they could perform for attentive and open-minded audiences. The album Levels and Degrees of Light (1967) was the landmark first recording under Abrams' leadership. On this set, Abrams was joined by the saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Maurice McIntyre, vibraphonist Gordon Emmanuel, violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist Leonard Jones and vocalist Penelope Taylor. Abrams also played with saxophonists Eddie Harris, Gordon, and other more bop-oriented musicians during this era.

Abrams moved to New York permanently in 1975 where he was involved in the local Loft Jazz scene. In 1983, he established the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

In the 1970s, Abrams composed for symphony orchestras, string quartets, solo piano, voice, and big bands in addition to making a series of larger ensemble recordings that included harp and accordion. He is a widely influential artist, having played sides for many musicians early in his career, releasing important recordings as a leader, and writing classical works such as his "String Quartet No. 2", which was performed by the Kronos Quartet, on November 22, 1985, at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. He has recorded extensively under his own name (frequently on the Black Saint label) and as a sideman on others' records. Notably regarding the latter he has recorded with Anthony Braxton (Duets 1976 on Arista Records), Marion Brown and Chico Freeman. 

Abrams has recorded and toured the United States, Canada and Europe with his orchestra, sextet, quartet, duo and as a solo pianist. His musical affiliations is a "who's who" of the jazz world, including Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, Anthony Braxton,The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Eddie Harris and many others. In 1990 Abrams won the Jazzpar Prize, an annual Danish prize within jazz. In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In May 2009 the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Abrams would be one of the recipients of the 2010 NEA Jazz Masters Award. In June 2010, Abrams was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by New York City's premier jazz festival, known as the Vision Festival.

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*Clarence Adams, a soldier during the Korean War who was captured  by the Chinese and who later defected to China, was born in Memphis, Tennessee (January 1).   Adams was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a prisoner of  war (POW) until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, those 21 Americans were considered defectors.

Clarence Adams (b. January 1, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee - d. 1999) grew up poor in Memphis, Tennessee.  Adams and his family were both usual and unusual citizens of the African American part of Memphis, Tennessee. They were usual because they were part of the second wave of urban bound, fractured family units and because they were habitually victimized by the racism of that time and place. Adams was unusual because he recognized all that was happening to him, knew that it was unjust, and was able to articulate his dissatisfaction as well as his plans for self improvement.

Adams dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army in 1947, at the age of 17.
Adams entered the army on the run from the consequences of an incident in a train yard where black youths entertained themselves with the dangerous sport of train hopping. While train hopping, Adams and his friends administered a spontaneous beating to a white transient because of his persistent demand that they provide him with a black woman to gratify his sexual urges. The next day, police arrived at Adams's home ostensibly to arrest him for that transgression.  But Adams was given a way out of jail. Thus, like many men of his position, Adams joined the army to escape incarceration... and oppression.

After basic training Adams became an infantry machine gunner. He traveled to Korea shortly after the war between North and South erupted in June 1950 and was posted to Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. This was his second tour in Korea, as he had first been posted there in 1948.

In the army, Adams worked himself into the soon-to-be "integrated" army, learned his Military Occupational Specialty of Infantry machine gunner, and was sent to Korea and Japan. He returned to Korea when the war started in June 1950. The army was officially integrated by Executive Order from President Harry Truman in 1948, one year after Adams enlisted. In practical terms, however, Truman's order made little difference for Adams and others like him. While he was in training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he found the same level of racism on and off the base that he had run from in the South. Waitresses refused to serve him in a restaurant, and his officers and non-commissioned officers were all white.

The racism followed Adams in his overseas postings as well. When he served his first tour of duty in Korea with the 159th Military Patrol, Adams was confronted by racist treatment or military inefficiency, or both, when he was court-martialed for driving a fire truck through a wall because he had no idea how to drive it. When he went to Japan the next year, he found that there were cities and postings for whites only, and that the racist mythology about black sexuality followed him and his unit. Nevertheless, through both postings, Adams showed the cultural curiosity and adaptability that would help him survive the Korean War and his years as a prisoner. He never shied away from the indigenous population in either country, and unlike most Americans of any color, he was not intimidated by the prospect of learning the local language and culture.

Adams was sent back to Korea in June 1950 instead of receiving his expected discharge from service. He served with Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. His officers, with the exception of one, were all white; while from the non-commissioned officers downward, it was an all black unit. Despite misgivings about the face of the so-called newly integrated army, Adams advanced from ammunition bearer to gunner on the base gun, the field gun that shot for accuracy for the entire battery. He also partook in the strategic counterattack at Inchon that took Douglas McArthur's beleaguered forces from the Pusan Perimeter at the southern end of the peninsula to the fateful Yalu River crossing that brought the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China into the war.

The PLA counterattack began on November 1, 1950, and it rolled over Adams' artillery unit on November 29. Adams' mostly black unit was left behind without support to provide covering fire for predominately white units that were retreating. Adams' was captured and began a struggle to live long enough to get to the prisoner of war camp ... and then to survive it. Adams' attempts to survive were exacerbated by the first winter's hardships of weather as well as lack of medical treatment. He was forced to endure long lonely marches in the dead of the Korean winter, and only his incredible mental toughness enabled his to carry on even after he amputated three of his toes without anesthesia.

As Adams and his fellow prisoners settled into what would be a three-year incarceration in Korea, first under the Koreans, then under the Chinese, they adapted, survived, and waited anxiously for the end of the war. It was during that time that Adams and other African Americans formed a group called the Progressives to negotiate for better conditions and treatment of all prisoners. From then on, his time as a prisoner was also a period of intellectual growth abetted by the Chinese. He was introduced to literary figures, like Maxim Gorky (the Russian dramatist), Lu Xun (the Chinese literary reformer), and W. E. B. DuBois (the controversial African American scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). In effect, Adams was allowed to acquire the education denied him in the United States because of his class and race.

As the war drew to a close and the prisoners avidly discussed the conditions of the armistice, Adams and many Progressive members became proactive petitioners and speakers on controversial issues related to the war. They were especially concerned with the issues of repatriation of both themselves and the Chinese who were prisoners of the United States. The approach of the armistice also heightened racial and political controversy in the camp, and a number of threats of violence were directed at Adams. Because of those threats and the lifelong accumulation of racism, he made the decision to go to China when he was released.

Once Adams and twenty-two others from his camp arrived in China, they stayed for twelve years. It was during that time that he created, with much assistance from the Chinese government, a life that would have been impossible in the United States. He spent two years in Beijing and five years in Wuhan, China, where he received the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in Chinese language and literature. He was posted to the Beijing office of the Foreign Language Press as a translator. Adams also participated in the politics of the era, joining the Xia Fang labor movement. He married Liu Lin Feng, a college student in Beijing, and they had two children, Della and Louis before they left China. In short, Adams finally got to participate in a society as a full citizen with no diminution of his rights, but he had to live in a so-called Communist dictatorship instead of his own country to do those things.

However, the political circumstances began to change drastically in China in 1966 with the advent of the China's Cultural Revolution.  The social upheaval in the country stressed the relationship between Adams and his wife, estranged him from long-time friends, and even forced him and his wife to make the culturally devastating decision to leave their extended family and move to the United States for their personal safety.

Adams returned to the United States from China via Hong Kong on Thursday, May 26, 1966 citing that he missed his mother.  However, in the eyes of many he was deemed to be a defector and a traitor.

Adams was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C. It was there, before that committee, that Adams once again revealed the courage, intellect, and insightful critique of American society that had been his lifelong habit. The committee wished to question him about radio broadcasts and statements he made from China in opposition to the Vietnam War. However, rather than meekly submit to their charges of treason, Adams insisted on his first amendment rights to freedom of speech. Then, while he had the ear of the public, he once again called the United States to task for the fundamental inconsistency of sending African American soldiers to Vietnam to guarantee freedoms for the Vietnamese that black citizens were routinely denied at home.

The ordeal with the House Un-American Activities Committee did pass and Clarence Adams was left to quietly resume his life.  However, the social and economic adjustment that Adams and his family made to life in America was not without its difficulties.  The Adams family were immigrants ... a people who had fled violence and oppression in China for the safer shores of the United States. They came to American shores by boat. Once they arrived, they too took employment well below their qualifications just to make ends meet. Then, they pursued the American dream by applying all the values ascribed to immigrant success to their first struggling neighborhood restaurant, a local chop suey restaurant. Eventually, they were able to turn that first venture into a string of entrepreneurial successes and secured for themselves the American dream, ... a secure middle-class life. 

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*Clarence Adams, an African American soldier during the Korean War who was captured  by the Chinese and who later defected to China, was born in Memphis, Tennessee.   Adams was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a prisoner of  war (POW) until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, those 21 Americans were considered defectors.

Clarence Adams  (b. January 1, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee - d. 1999) grew up poor in Memphis, Tennessee.  He dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army in 1947, at the age of 17.

After basic training, Adams became an infantry machine gunner. He was sent to Korea shortly after the war between North Korea and South Korea erupted in June 1950.  He was posted to Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. This was his second tour in Korea, as he had first been posted there in 1948.  Adams was captured on November 29, 1950.

During his time a prisoner of war, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. Because of this and other collaboration with his captors, his prosecution by the Army was likely upon his repatriation. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling African American soldiers not to fight:

You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.

Adams married a Chinese woman and lived in China until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution began to impact his family.

Adams returned to the United States from China via Hong Kong on May 26, 1966, citing that he missed his mother.  The House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed Adams upon his return but did not question him publicly. He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis.

Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.

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*Russell Adams, an author, professor and Chairperson of the Afro-American Studies Department at Howard University, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (August 13).

Russell L. Adams (b. August 13, 1930, Baltimore, Maryland), was born to James Russell and Lilly B. (Ponder) Adams. He received his elementary and high school education in Quitman, Georgia.  He received his bachelor of arts degree at Morehouse College in 1952, a master of arts degree at the University of Chicago in 1954, and later a Ph.D. in 1971.

In 1965, Adams worked as an assistant professor and chair department of political science at the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.  In 1969, Adams became an associate professor at the University of the District of Columbia. In 1971, Adams was hired as chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. 

Throughout his work, Adams focused on the emergence of the Afro-American Studies as an academic field in addition to his long interest in cultural and curriculum diversity. Adams published and edited several books, numerous articles, and collections. He is the author of the popular biographical reference book Great Negroes Past and Present (1963), “leading American Negroes”, a series of film strips for which he received the George Washington Honor Medal (1966), and The Pursuit of Power in Black America in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Emergence of Black Politically Oriented Voluntarism (1971).

Adams was a member of many political science and history organizations including National Conference of Black Political Scientists, National Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Adams married Eleanor McCurine and had two children, Sabrina and Russell Lowell Adams. 

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*Benny Andrews, a painter, printmaker, creator of collages and an educator, was born in Plainview, Georgia (November 13).

Benny Andrews (b. November 13, 1930, Plainview, Georgia – d. November 10, 2006) was born into a family of ten on November 13, 1930 in small community called Plainview, Georgia. His mother Viola was very strict on her beliefs, and constantly promoted education, religion and most importantly, freedom of expression. George, Andrew’s father, also taught the same beliefs to his children. George, internationally known as the "Dot Man," was a self-taught artist, and produced many illustrative drawings that influenced Andrews.

Although the importance of education was stressed, Andrews’ number of absences accumulated due to the days he was needed in the field. Andrews graduated in 1948 from Burney Street High School in Madison, making him the first in his family to graduate from high school. Andrews attended Fort Valley College on a two-year scholarship. There was only one art program offered at the institution, however, due to poor grades and the end of his scholarship Andrews left and joined the United States Air force in 1950.

Afterwards, the G. I. Bill of Rights afforded him training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his bachelor of fine arts degree. His first New York solo show was in 1962. From 1968 to 1997, Andrews taught at Queens College, City University of New York and created a prison arts program that became a model for the nation.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago he received the John Hay Whitney Fellowship for 1965-1966 and a CAPS award from the New York State Council on the Arts in 1971 the same year he created the painting No More Games, a noted work which is about the plight of black artists and an iconic reflection of his emerging social justice work in the art world.

In 1969, Andrews co-founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC) an organization that protested the 'Harlem on my Mind' exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They protested the fact that no African-Americans were involved in organizing the show and that it contained no art only photo reproductions and copies of newspaper articles about Harlem. The BECC then persuaded the Whitney museum to launch a similar exhibition of African American Artists, but later boycotted that show as well for similar reasons. In 2006, Andrews traveled to the Gulf Coast to work on an art project with children displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

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*Dorothy Ashby, an American jazz harpist and composer, was born in Detroit, Michigan (August 6).

Dorothy Jeanne Thompson (b. August 6, 1930, Detroit, Michigan – d. April 13, 1986, Santa Monica, California), better known as Dorothy Ashby, established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument, showing the harp could play bebop as adeptly as a saxophone. Her albums were of the jazz genre, but often moved into R&B, world music and other styles, especially on her 1970 album The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby, where she demonstrates her talents on another instrument, the Japanese koto, successfully integrating it into jazz.

Dorothy Thompson grew up around music in Detroit, where her father, guitarist Wiley Thompson, often brought home fellow jazz musicians. Even as a young girl, she would provide support and background to their music by playing the piano. She attended Cass Technical High School, where fellow students included such future musical talents and jazz greats as Donald Byrd, Gerald Wilson and Kenny Burrell. While in high school she played a number of instruments (including the saxophone and string bass) before coming upon the harp.

She attended Wayne State University in Detroit, where she studied piano and music education. After she graduated, she began playing the piano in the jazz scene in Detroit, though by 1952 she had made the harp her main instrument. At first her fellow jazz musicians were resistant to the idea of adding the harp, which they perceived as an instrument of classical music and somewhat ethereal in sound in jazz performances. So Ashby overcame their initial resistance and built support for the harp as a jazz instrument by organizing free shows and playing at dances and weddings with her trio. She recorded withm Ed Thigpen, Richard Davis, Frank Wess and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1960s, she also had her own radio show in Detroit.

Ashby's trio, including her husband, John Ashby, on drums, regularly toured the country, recording albums for several record labels. She played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, among others. In 1962, Down Beat magazine's annual poll of best jazz performers included Ashby. Extending her range of interests and talents, she also worked with her husband in a theater company, the Ashby Players, which her husband founded in Detroit, and for which Dorothy often wrote the scores. In the 1960s, Dorothy Ashby, together with her husband, formed a theatrical group to produce plays that would be relevant to the African American community of Detroit. This production group went by several names depending on the theater production.

They created a series of theatrical musical plays that Dorothy and John Ashby produced together as the theatrical company, the Ashby Players. In the case of most of the plays, John Ashby wrote the scripts and Dorothy Ashby wrote the music and lyrics to all the songs in the plays. Dorothy Ashby also played harp and piano on the soundtracks to all of her plays. She starred in the production of the play "3–6–9" herself. Most of the music that she wrote for these plays is available only on a handful of the reel to reel tapes that Dorothy Ashby recorded herself. Only a couple of the many songs she created for her plays later appeared on LPs that she released. Later in her career, she would make recordings and perform at concerts primarily to raise money for the Ashby Players theatrical productions.

The theatrical production group "The Ashby Players" not only produced black theater in Detroit and Canada but provided early theatrical and acting opportunities for black actors. Ernie Hudson (of Ghostbusters) was a featured actor in the Artists Productions version of the play "3–6–9". In the late 1960s, the Ashbys gave up touring and settled in California, where Dorothy broke into the studio recording system as a harpist
 through the help of the soul singer Bill Withers, who recommended her to Stevie Wonder. As a result, she was called upon for a number of studio sessions playing for more pop-oriented acts.

Ashby died from cancer on April 13, 1986 in Santa Monica, California. 

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*Alvin Aubert, a poet and scholar who championed African American culture and rural life along the southern Mississippi River, was born (March).

Alvin Bernard Aubert (b. March 1930 – d. January 7, 2014, Trenton, New Jersey) was a poet and scholar who championed African American culture and rural life along the southern Mississippi River. He grew up in Lutcher, Louisiana, and attended Southern University, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.  He taught at Southern University, SUNY Fredonia, and Wayne State University.  

A singular voice that emerged in the 1960s, when many others composed fiery poems intended to change the world, Alvin Bernard Aubert wrote primarily about personal experiences from his childhood and adolescence in Louisiana. In 1975, he founded Obsidian: Black Literature in Review, which published aspiring writers and acted as a forum for critical discussion of works by African and African-American writers. Aubert retired in 1992 as professor emeritus of English from Wayne State.

He died on January 7, 2014, in Trenton, New Jersey.  The works of Alvin Aubert include Against the Blues (1972); Feeling Through (1975);  A Noisesome Music (1979); South Louisiana: New and Selected Poems (1985);  If Winter Come: Collected Poems 1967–1992 (1994); and  Harlem Wrestler and Other Poems (1995).

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*Ethel Ayler, a veteran African American character actress with a career spanning over five decades most notably in the role as Carrie Hanks, the mother of Claire Huxtable of the The Cosby Show, was born in Whistler, Alabama (May 1).

In 1957, Ethel Ayler made her off-Broadway debut in the Langston Hughes musical, Simply Heavenly.  Later that year, she debuted on Broadway in the multiple Tony Award nominated musical, Jamaica as an understudy for Lena Horne (also making her Broadway debut).

Another notable early performance was in Jean Genet's play, The Blacks: A Clown Show, which ran Off-Broadway for 1,408 performances and received three Obie Awards including for Best New Play. The impressive cast of black actors included three future Academy Award nominees: James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Throughout her career, Ayler appeared frequently with the Negro Ensemble Company. This included notable performances in The First Breeze of Summer, Eden and Nevis Mountain Dew.

On television, Ayler had a recurring role as Carrie Hanks, Claire Huxtable's mother on The Cosby Show.  She also made memorable performances in the films To Sleep with Anger (1990) and Eve's Bayou (1997).

For her work in To Sleep with Anger,  Ayler received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best supporting female.

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*Thomas Barnes, the first African American Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, was born (November 16). 

Thomas N. Barnes (b. November 16, 1930 – d. March 17, 2003, Sherman, Texas) was the fourth Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force (CMSAF) and the first African-American in that position. He was also the first African-American Senior Enlisted Advisor in any of the Armed Forces of the United States. CMSAF Barnes served as Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force from October 1973 to July 1977. He was key in bringing many African-American related issues to the attention of senior military leaders.

In April 1949, Barnes enlisted the United States Air Force and received his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. He later attended Aircraft and Engine School and Hydraulic Specialist School at Chanute Technical Training Center, Illinois.  In October 1950, he was assigned to the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 62nd Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base, Washington.

In November 1950, Barnes transferred with the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron to Ashiya, Japan, in support of the Korean War.  Shortly after arrival in Japan, he completed on-the-job training for flight engineer duties. Then, due to low unit manning, he performed both flight engineer and hydraulic specialist duties. In September 1951 he transferred to Tachikawa, Japan, and continued flight engineer duties.

Chief Barnes transferred in June 1952 to the 30th Air Transport Squadron, Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, where he attended C-118 school and continued his flight engineer duties in that aircraft. In September 1952, he volunteered for temporary duty with the 1708th Ferrying Group at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, and participated in ferrying aircraft from various depots to Air Force organizations in Hawaii, Japan and Northeast Air Command. Upon completion of temporary duty, he returned to Westover.

In December 1952, Barnes transferred to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and served as crew chief and flight engineer on B-25, T-11, C-45 and C-47 aircraft in support of various requirements of United States Air Force, Headquarters Military Air Transport Service, and the Air Research and Development Command. It was during this time that Barnes applied for commissioning and was accepted but had to turn down the opportunity because the pay cut which officer candidates experience while undergoing training would not allow him to continue to support his wife and children.

Chief Barnes transferred in June 1958 to the 42nd Bombardment Wing at Loring Air Force Base, Maine, and as a B-52 crew chief, flight chief and senior controller. In September 1965 he went to Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, and continued duties as senior controller.

In October 1966, he entered the F-4 Field Training Detachment at George Air Force Base, California, and in December 1966 went to Southeast Asia. There he served with the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing as non-commissioned officer in charge, reparable processing center; senior controller; and non-commissioned officer in charge, maintenance control.

In December 1967, Barnes returned from Southeast Asia to Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, where his duties were T-38 section line chief; non-commissioned officer in charge, maintenance control; and senior enlisted advisor to the commander of the 3646th Pilot Training Wing. He was promoted to the grade of chief master sergeant on December 1, 1969, and was transferred to Headquarters Air Training Command in October 1971 to assume duties as command senior enlisted adviser.

On October 1, 1973,  Barnes was appointed chief master sergeant of the Air Force. At the expiration of the initial two-year tenure, he was extended for an additional year by the chief of staff. In February 1976 he was selected by the chief of staff to serve an unprecedented second year extension. He retired on July 31, 1977. He flew for nine years as a flight engineer on a variety of aircraft, seeing duty in Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam.

Following his retirement from the Air Force, Barnes worked at the First National Bank of Fort Worth as an Employee Relations Officer for seven years. He was then hired by the Associates Corporation of North America and promoted to Vice President/Director of Employee Relations at the corporate headquarters in Las Colinas. After retiring to Fannin County, Texas, he raised Longhorn cattle and two years in a row won the team penning at the Kueckelhan Rodeo.

He died from cancer in Sherman, Texas, where he had been undergoing treatment.

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*Percy Bassett, a featherweight professional boxer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (January 3).

Percy Bassett (b. January 3, 1930, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – d. July 7, 1993, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a native and resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He made his professional debut at the age of 17, on July 31, 1947. The result in his first professional bout was a 3rd round knockout of opponent Joe Camarata. Bassett fought frequently, and had compiled a record of 25-0 before losing for the first time, an eight-round points loss to Brown Lee on December 23, 1948. Bassett avenged that loss just eight days later, with a ten round decision. Bassett continued to fight often, and to win most of the time. Unfortunately for Bassett, he had no mob connections, and never got a title fight. He did get an interim belt while Sandy Saddler was in the army, but never had the privilege of fighting for the championship. Despite this, Bassett faced a number of the top small fighters of his era, including Mario Pacheco, Miguel Acevedo, Redtop Davis, Jimmy Carter, Frankie Sodano, Federico Plummer, Ray Famechon, Lulu Perez, and others.  Bassett's retirement due to a detached retina came after his last fight, a tenth round TKO of undefeated (16-0) Seraphin Ferrer.  Bassett's final record was 64 wins (41 by knockout), 12 losses, and 1 draw.

On December 20, 1950, Bassett fought Sonny Boy West, a well-regarded veteran lightweight from Baltimore with a professional record of 46-7-1. Between the sixth and seventh rounds West began to complain in his corner of double vision, but the fight was allowed to continue. After he was hurt to the body by Bassett, West was floored by a right hand. As he fell, he landed hard on his head. West died of injuries suffered in this bout on December 21st. The official cause of death was given as a "inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion."

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*Percy Bassett, an featherweight professional boxer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Percy Bassett (b. January 3, 1930, Danville, Virginia – d. July 7, 1993) was born in Danville, Virginia in 1930, but his family moved to West Philadelphia when Bassett was 6 years old. Bassett went to Overbrook High School (Wilt Chamberlain later went there) but he dropped out once he began boxing. He had 16 amateur fights and won the prestigious Inquirer Diamond Belt championship in 1947. He turned pro later that year.

Bassett made his professional debut at the age of 17, on July 31, 1947. The result in his first professional bout was a third round knockout of  Joe Camarata.  Bassett fought frequently, and had compiled a record of 25-0 before losing for the first time, an eight-round points loss to Brown Lee on December 23, 1948. Bassett avenged that loss just eight days later, with a ten-round decision. Bassett continued to fight often, and to win most of the time. Unfortunately for Bassett, he had no mob connections.  At the time, the mob controlled the Philadelphia fight game. Thus, Bassett never got a title fight. He did get an interim belt while Sandy Saddler was in the army, but never had the privilege of fighting for the championship. Nevertheless, Bassett faced a number of the top small fighters of his era, including Mario Pacheco, Miguel Acevedo, Redrop Davis, Jimmy Carter, Frankie Sodano, Federico Plummer, Ray Famechon, Lulu Perez and others.  Bassett's retirement due to a detached retina came after his last fight, a tenth round technical knockout (TKO) of undefeated (16-0) Seraphin Ferrer.  Bassett's final record was 64 wins (41 by knockout), 12 losses, and 1 draw.

Bassett's most famous fight was with Sonny Boy West.  On December 20, 1950, Bassett fought Sonny Boy West, a well-regarded veteran lightweight from Baltimore with a professional record of 46-7-1. Between the sixth and seventh rounds, West began to complain in his corner of double vision, but the fight was allowed to continue. After West was hurt by body punches thrown by Bassett, he was floored by a Bassett right hand. As West fell, he landed hard on his head. West died of injuries suffered in this bout on December 21, 1950. The official cause of death was given as a 'inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion.

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*Bobbie Beard, an African American child actor best known for portraying "Cotton" in several Our Gang short films from 1932 to 1934, was born in Los Angeles, California (August 2).

Bobbie Beard (b. August 2, 1930, Los Angeles, California – d. October 16, 1999, Los Angeles, California) was a native of Los Angeles, California. His older brother was Matthew "Stymie" Beard, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters.

As older brother Stymie was the main breadwinner for the Beard family, his success with the Our Gang series opened the door for his siblings. Bobbie Beard appeared as Stymie's younger brother in Hi'-Neighbor!i, Forgotten Babies, Fish Hooky, A Lad an' a Lamp and Birthday Blues. His most memorable appearance was in A Lad an' a Lamp, in which Spanky McFarland keeps wishing that Cotton could be a monkey. Despite his notable presence in several films, Beard never spoke a word.

After departing Our Gang, Beard became an auction dealer in the Los Angeles area. In later years, Beard worked at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles and became good friends with Groucho Marx.  He later served in the Korean War, and spent his final years working for the Los Angeles School Board. 

Beard died on October 16, 1999.

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*Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., the first tenured African American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School who is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory (CRT), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (November 6). He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 1991 until his death. He was also a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.  

Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., (b. November 6, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — d. October 5, 2011, New York, New York) was a legal scholar and educator who strove uncompromisingly to reveal and confront the pernicious racism that he found ingrained in American legal and social structures. He was involved in the desegregation of more than 300 schools. Bell made headlines by quitting several high-profile jobs on the grounds of ethical protest, and he provoked both criticism and praise from his peers by frequently substituting parables and allegories for traditional analysis in his legal writings. He earned a bachelor’s degree (in 1952) from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, and an LL.B. (in 1957) from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, where he was the only black student. He was hired (in 1969) as a lecturer at Harvard Law School and became (in 1971) that institution’s first tenured African American professor. Bell was appointed dean of the University of Oregon School of Law in 1980 but resigned in 1985 after a female Asian American faculty member was not granted tenure and returned to Harvard the following year. Four years later he left Harvard under similar circumstances, informing the faculty and the public that he would not return until the school offered tenure to an African American woman. Bell’s most influential book, Race, Racism and American Law (1973), was a trailblazing work on critical race theory and became a mainstay for law schools.

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*Greg Bell, a long jumper who won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana (November 7).

Greg Bell (b. November 7, 1930, Terre Haute, Indiana) won three national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships, two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships, earned NCAA All-American status three times and was a four-time national AAU All-American. From 1956 to 1958, he was ranked first in the world in the long jump. He set an NCAA record in the long jump, which stood for seven years, and became a charter member of both the Indiana Track and Field and Indiana University Athletic halls of fame.

Bell was inducted into the USA Track and Field (USATF) Hall of Fame in 1988.

As the top long jumper in the 1950s, Greg Bell highlighted an outstanding track and field career by winning the long jump gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games, jumping 25' 8 1/4" while a sophomore at Indiana University. His longest jump came in 1957 when he won the national collegiate title with a 26' 7" effort, a meet record that stood for seven years. That same year, he was voted the Most Outstanding Athlete at the Penn Relays for his victories in both the 100 yards and the long jump. Almost 10 years earlier, Bell was second in the long jump at the 1948 Indiana high school championships. His interest in track and field revived during 1950 while he was stationed in the Army near Bordeaux, France. After a few weeks' training, he won the European Armed Forces Championship in Nuremberg, Germany. Following his discharge in 1954, he enrolled at Indiana University. Throughout his college career, Bell was undefeated in the long jump, winning three NCAA championships. He won the first of three National AAU titles in 1955. Rated the world's best long jumper three times, Bell wound up with a total of 13 26-foot long jumps, the most by any long jumper in history up to that time. Bell was also second in the 1959 Pan American Games and competed in the USA-USSR dual meet that same year. He later became a dentist in Logansport, Indiana, and director of dentistry at Logansport State Hospital.

*****

*Walter Benton, an African American jazz tenor saxophonist, was born in Los Angeles, California (September 8).

Walter Benton (b.September 8, 1930, Los Angeles, California - d. August 14, 2000) first began playing saxophone as a high schooler in Los Angeles. After three years of service in the Army in the early 1950s, Benton played with Perez Prado, including on a tour of Asia. He worked with Quincy Jones in 1957 and Victor Feldman in 1958-59. He led his own group from 1959, recording under his own name in 1960 with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Tootie Heath. That same year he worked with Max Roach and Julian Priester. In 1961, he recorded with Abbey Lincoln, Roach again, Eric Dolphy, and Slide Hampton.  Later in the 1960s, he worked with Gerald Wilson and John Anderson.  

*****

*Bill Berry, a jazz trumpeter best known for playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1960s and for leading his own big band, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan (September 14).

William Richard Berry (b. September 14, 1930, Benton Harbor, Michigan – d. November 13, 2002, ), known as Bill Berry, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of a bass player in a touring dance band.  He spent his early years traveling with his parents.  From the age of five, he took piano lessons at his parents' home in South Bend, Indiana. In high school in Cincinnati, he switched to trumpet, which he played in a Midwest band led by Don Strickland, then served four years in the Air Force.  He studied at the Cincinnati College of Music and Berklee College of Music in Boston and played trumpet with the Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson orchestra. In 1961, he became one of the Duke Ellington orchestra's first white members.

After his working with Ellington, he played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and led his own big band in New York.  In 1965, he joined The Merv Griffin Show, where he remained for fifteen years, moving to Los Angeles with Griffin and reforming his group as the L.A. Big Band in 1971.  Among the most successful of his own recordings was Shortcake (Concord, 1978), an album of jazz for small group in the Ellington style.  He appeared on many albums by other musicians, including Rosemary Clooney (Everything's Coming Up Rosie), Scott Hamilton (Scott Hamilton Is a Good Wind Who Is Blowing Us No Ill), Jake Hanna (Live at Concord), and Coleman Hawkins (Wrapped Tight).

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*Ancella Bickley, a historian known for her role in preserving African Amercan history in West Virginia, was born in Huntington, West Virginia (July 4).

Ancella Radford Bickley (b. July 4, 1930, Huntington, West Virginia) earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University, in 1950,  a master's degree in English from Marshall University  (where she was the first full-time African American student) in 1954, and an Ed. D. in English from West Virginia University in 1974.

With Lynda Ann Ewen, she co-edited Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, published by Ohio University Press. Bickley authored stories and articles in West Virginia's cultural magazine, Goldenseal.  She also conducted and published interviews at Marshall University for the Oral History of Appalachia Program.

In 1993, Bill Drennen, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, recorded a thirty-minute interview with Bickley for the Cultural Conversations series.

Bickley was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar funded through the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA) at Marshall University, in 1999.

The West Virginia State Archives house a collection of documents gifted to them by Bickley, half of the materials relating to the annual West Virginia Conferences on Black History begun in 1988. Another portion of materials donated pertain to the Alliance for the Collection, Preservation, and Dissemination of West Virginia's Black History.

*****

*Robert Blair, a gospel musician and leader of The Fantastic Violinaires, was born (August 6).

Robert Earl Blair (b. August 6, 1930 – d. March 19, 2001) was the leader of The Fantastic Violinaires originating from Detroit, Michigan, from 1965 until his death. He started his music career, in 1965, with the release of Stand by Me by Checker Records. His third album, The Pink Tornado, was released in 1988 by Atlanta International Records, and this was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart. He released fourteen albums over the course of his career.

His music recording career commenced in 1965, with the album, Stand by Be, and it was released by Checker Records.  He released an album in 1988 with Atlanta International Records, The Pink Tornado, and it was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart at No. 34. His music career ended at his death in 2001, and by that time he released fourteen albums with several labels.

Blair died on March 19, 2001 of a heart attack.

*****

*Bobby "Blue" Bland, a legendary blues singer best known for the songs "I Pity the Fool" and "That's the Way Love Is", was born in Rosemark, Tennessee (January 27).

Bobby “Blue” Bland, byname of Robert Calvin Bland (b. January 27, 1930, Rosemark, Tennessee, United States — d. June 23, 2013, Memphis, Tennessee), was a blues singer noted for his rich baritone voice, sophisticated style, and sensual delivery.

Bland began his career in Memphis, Tennessee, with bluesman B. B. King and ballad singer Johnny Ace (all three were part of a loose aggregation of musicians known as the Beale Streeters). Influenced by gospel and by pop singers such as Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, as well as by rhythm and blues, Bland became famous with early 1960s hits for Duke Records such as “Cry Cry Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Turn on Your Lovelight,” and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Joe Scott’s arrangements were pivotal to these successes in which Bland alternated between smooth, expertly modulated phrases and fiercely shouted, gospel-style ones. Long a particular favorite of female listeners, Bland for a time sang some disco material along with his blues ballads. While his recording output slowed in the early 2000s, Bland maintained an active touring schedule, and he was a guest performer with B. B. King and singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Bland was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and he was awarded a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.

*****

*Bobby "Blue" Bland, a legendary blues singer, was born in Rosemark, Tennessee.

Bobby (“Blue”) Bland, byname of Robert Calvin Bland, (b. January 27, 1930, Rosemark, Tennessee - d. June 23, 2013, Germantown, Tennessee), was an African American rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer noted for his rich baritone voice, sophisticated style, and sensual delivery.  From 1957 to 1985, he scored 63 single hits on the R&B charts.

Bland began his career in Memphis, Tennessee, with bluesman B. B. King and ballad singer Johnny Ace (all three were part of a loose aggregation of musicians known as the Beale Streeters). Bland, who, in addition to R&B, was influenced by gospel and by pop singers such as Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, became famous with his early 1960s hits for Duke Records, including “Cry Cry Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Turn on Your Love Light,” and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Joe Scott’s arrangements were pivotal to those successes, in which Bland alternated between smooth, expertly modulated phrases and fiercely shouted, gospel-style ones. For a time Bland, long a particular favorite of female listeners, sang some disco material along with his blues ballads, and in later years he developed the curious habit of snorting between lines. His 1974 song “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” was covered by the band Whitesnake and singers Paul Weller and Paul Carrack; it was also reworked (“Heart of the City [Ain’t No Love]”) for rapper Jay-Z's album The Blueprint (2001).

Although his recording output slowed in the early 2000s, Bland maintained an active touring schedule, and he was a guest performer with B. B. King and singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. He was awarded a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.

*****

*****

*Eddie Bo, a singer and pianist known for his blues,soul and folk recordings, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana (September 20).

Edwin Joseph Bocage (b. September 20, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana – d. March 18, 2009, Picayune, Mississippi), known as Eddie Bo, debuted on Ace Records in 1955 and released more single records than anyone else in New Orleans other than Fats Domino.

Eddie Bo worked and recorded for more than 40 different record labels, including Ace, Apollo Records,  Arrow, At Last, Blue-Jay, Bo-Sound, Checker, Chess, Cinderella, Nola, Ric (for which business his carpentry skills were used to build a studio), Scram, Seven B, and Swan.

Eddie Bo grew up in Algiers, Louisiana, and in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He came from a long line of ship builders with the male members of his family being bricklayers, carpenters and masons by day and musicians by night. Eddie's mother was a self-taught pianist in the style of friend, Professor Longhair. The Bocage family was involved in the traditional jazz community with cousins Charles, Henry and Peter, who played with Sidney Bechet, contributing to jazz orchestras before World War II. 

Eddie graduated from Booker T. Washington High School before going into the army. After his army stint, he returned to New Orleans to study at the Grunewald School of Music. There he learned piano, music theory and to sight read, and arrange music. It was at this time that he was influenced by Russian classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz and was introduced to bebop pianists Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. He began playing in the New Orleans jazz scene, but made a switch to R&B after deciding it was more popular and brought in more money.  Like a lot of other local musicians Eddie frequented the premier blues venue in town, the Dew Drop Inn on LaSalle Street. He played at the Club Tijuana under the name of Spider Bocage, later forming the Spider Bocage Orchestra, which toured the country supporting singers Big Joe Turner, Earl King, Guitar Slim, Johnny Adams, Lloyd Price, Ruth Brown, Smiley Lewis, and The Platters.

Bo's first released record in 1955 was "Baby", recorded for Johnny Vincent's Ace Records. His next release, in 1956 on Apollo Records, was "I'm Wise" which Little Richard later recorded as "Slippin' and Slidin'". After several releases on Ace, he recorded "My Dearest Darling" in 1957 for Chess Records,  the song, co-written by Bo and Paul Gayten, became a national chart hit in 1960 when recorded by Etta James.  From 1959, he recorded for Ric Records, and had regional hits including "Every Dog Has Its Day" and "Tell It Like It Is", and in 1961 recorded the novelty dance song "Check Mr Popeye", reissued nationally by Swan Records, which became one of his best-known recordings though not a national hit.

During the 1960s, Bo continued to release singles on a string of local record labels, including Rip, Cinderella, and Blue Jay, though only a few achieved national distribution. On these records, his style got funkier, and he used more of his jazz training, helping to create a distinctively different and influential New Orleans piano style. He recorded the renowned "Pass The Hatchet" under the nom de disque, Roger and the Gypsies for Joe Banashak's Seven B label as well as "Fence of Love" and "SGB" (Stone Graveyard Business) under his own name. He either wrote or produced most of the titles on Seven B records. He also worked as a record producer, with musicians including Irma Thomas, Chris Kenner, Johnny Adams, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Art Neville, Chuck Carbo, Mary Jane Hooper, Robert Parker, and The Explosions. In 1969, at the height of funk, he had his only national chart hit, "Hook and Sling, Pts. 1 & 2," which reached number 13 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 73 on the pop chart. The song, on the Scram label, was recorded in just one take. He then formed his own label, Bo-Sound, and had another regional hit with "Check Your Bucket."

From the early 1970s Bo worked in the music business only sporadically, after setting up his own renovation business. In 1977 he released two albums, The Other Side of Eddie Bo and Watch for the Coming, which he produced himself. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he recorded with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with whom he toured Europe, and resurrected his Bo-Sound label. He joined Willy DeVille to play on two DeVille records, Victory Mixture, and Big Easy Fantasy, and he toured with DeVille as well. He later joined up with Raful Neal and Rockin' Tabby Thomas playing and recording under the names The Louisiana Legends, The District Court and The Hoodoo Kings. He continued to perform frequently in New Orleans and at festivals elsewhere, and toured intermittently. He also bought a doctor's office and salon on Banks Street which he and his manager converted into an eatery for fans called "Check Your Bucket" after his 1970 hit. Like his home and recording studio it was hit by Hurricane Katrina while Bo was on tour in Paris. Due to Bo's carpentry and bricklaying skills he took on the task of completing the hurricane damage repairs himself.

Eddie Bo died on March 18, 2009, in Picayune, Mississippi, United States, of a heart attack. 

*****

*Richard Boone, a jazz musician and scat singer who became a resident of Denmark, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (February 24).

Richard Bently Boone (b. February 24, 1930, Little Rock, Arkansas – d. February 8, 1999, Copenhagen, Denmark) sang in his Baptist church choir as a boy, then began playing the trombone at the age of twelve. He served with the United States Army from 1948 to 1953 where he played trombone in a military band. Out of the Army, he returned to Little Rock to study music at Philander Smith College. In 1956 Boone moved to Los Angeles where he played venues with other jazz musicians such as Dolo Coker, Sonny Criss, and Dexter Gordon.

Boone worked in the backup band for Della Reese between 1962 and 1966 then became a member of the Count Basie band. In 1970, he followed other African American jazz musicians such as pianist Kenny Drew and saxophonist Ben Webster, and moved permanently to Copenhagen, Denmark. 

In 1973 Boone was hired to play with the Danish Radio Big Band where he performed until 1986. Using Denmark as a home base, Boone was able to tour Europe.

In 1998 Boone issued his final album called "Tribute to Love." It was backed by two other American transplants along with a Danish vocalist and musicians.

On his death in 1999, Richard Boone was interred in Assistens Kirkegard in Copenhagen.

Richard Boone has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Richard Boones Vej" (eng. Richard Boone St.).

Boone's collection of private memorabilia is in the Jazz Collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark.

*****

*Richard Boone, a jazz musician and scat singer who became a resident of Denmark, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (March 14)..

Richard Bently Boone (b. February 24, 1930, Little Rock, Arkansas – d. February 8, 1999, Copenhagen, Denmark) was an American jazz trombonist and scat singer.  Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Boone sang in a Baptist church choir as a boy, then began playing the trombone at the age of twelve. By the time he was 15, Boone had learned enough to go out on the road with Grover Lofton's band. The following year he won a talent contest as a singer with his version of "Embraceable You". His singing was influenced by Nat "King" Cole and his prize was to tour with the eminent Lucky Millinder Orchestra for a month.

When he was 18, Boone volunteered for the army and for six years played trombone in Special Service Orchestras. He travelled to Europe with one of these orchestras.

Out of the Army in 1953, he returned to Little Rock to study music at Philander Smith College. 

With no musical outlet in Little Rock, he moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and worked as a postal clerk. It took him a year to become established as a musician, and eventually he began to get recording dates and studio work. He played with jazz legends like Dexter Gordon and Sonny Criss and toured with the singer Della Reese from 1961 until 1966.

While in Los Angeles, he got to know Count Basie's tenor player and band manager Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Davis called him the next time Basie's band needed a trombone player, and Boone joined and stayed for three years. One night in a California club, after Boone had been in the band a couple of months, Basie began improvising a blues number that the rest of the band did not recognize. Egged on by Davis, Boone went to the microphone and began singing a few words. Running out of lyrics he mumbled wordless syllables. Basie was impressed and called for the same routine the following night. It soon became a showcase for Boone and was so successful that Basie called for it every night. The band featured the number for the next 18 months, and Boone expanded his repertoire to include standards like "I Got Rhythm", "Some of These Days" and "Bye Bye Blackbird".

After he left Basie in 1968, Boone recorded an album, The Singer, under his own name with a big band in Los Angeles. However, his time in Europe with the army band and work there with Basie had given Boone a taste for what he felt was a more relaxed way of life. He returned there often and like many black jazz musicians he was particularly attracted to Denmark.

Boone settled in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1970.  Two years later, he joined the Danish Radio Band, an outstanding orchestra that was to become one of the finest in the world under its resident leader Bob Brookmeyer.  Boone stayed with the band until 1985.

Boone's lucrative job in the trombone section still left him plenty of time to tour Europe, and he played and recorded in many countries, often with American colleagues like Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Benny Carter.  Another expatriate in Denmark was the ex-Basie arranger Ernie Wilkins.  Boone joined him when Wilkins formed his Almost Big Band in 1986.

In 1998, Boone recorded his last album, Tribute To Love, under his own name, with a band of Danish musicians.

*****

*****

*Jim Boyd, the winner of an Olympic boxing gold medal in the Light Heavyweight (173 pound) Division at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (November 30). 

James "Jim" Boyd (b. November 30, 1930, Rocky Mount, North Carolina – d. January 25, 1997, Baltimore, Maryland) joined the Army in 1947 and learned to box while stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. He fought in countless matches during a 10-year military career and seldom lost.

Boyd was the National Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Champion of 1956.  

At 26, Boyd qualified for the 1956 Olympics and won three Olympic matches en route to the gold medal. Instead of immediately turning professional after the Olympics, he re-enlisted for another year in the Army before embarking on a boxing career.

As a pro, Mr. Boyd was managed and trained by Cus D'Amato, the famed boxing aficionado who later would train heavyweight Mike Tyson.  However, at the time he trained Boyd, D'Amato also managed and trained the more flamboyant Floyd Patterson, who then was also an aspiring light heavyweight. Boyd felt that D'Amato showed favoritism toward Patterson.

Additionally, D'Amato would not let his two boxers fight because he was afraid Boyd would win.

Boyd turned pro in 1959 and had limited success. He retired in 1962 having won 2, lost 2, and drawn 3, with 1 KO.

After retiring, Boyd moved to Baltimore in the early 1960s and began working as a nursing assustabt at the Veterans Administration Hospital, then located in Northeast Baltimore. He retired in 1996.

*****

*Art Bragg, a sprinter who competed in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics in the 100 meter dash, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (December 3).

Arthur "Art" George Bragg (b. December 3, 1930, Baltimore, Maryland) attended Baltimore's Morgan State College.

In 1952, he was eliminated in the semi-finals of the Olympic 100 meter event. Running with a pulled muscle, he finished 'a miserable last' in his race. Bragg had been considered the favorite for the title having won the United States Olympic Trials 100 meter in the absence, through injury, of the man judged to be the best American sprinter, Jim Golliday.

The year before the Helsinki Olympics, at the 1951 Pan American Games, Bragg was a member of the American relay team which won the gold medal in the 4×100 meters competition. In the 100 meters contest as well as in the 200 meters event Bragg won the silver medal. In both races he lost narrowly to Cuba's Rafael Fortun.

Bragg continued running after leaving college. In 1954 he won the 100 and 220 yards titles at the AAU Championships. In both, he established new AAU meet records of 9.4 and 21.1 s respectively.

Bragg was famed at the time he was racing for his often slow start to his races with a subsequent fast finish and the disappointments he suffered in his career at the major championships.

In 1954, Bragg was one of the candidates for the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award that is presented annually by the AAU to the outstanding American athlete. If he had won, he would have been the first African-American recipient of the award. In the end, the award went to Mal Whitfield.

Bragg left for California in 1956 and never returned to Maryland. In later years, Bragg lived in Los Angeles and worked for the Los Angeles County Probation Department as a Deputy Probation Officer. 

*****

*Johnny Bright, a professional football player in the Canadian Football League and a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Honour, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and the Des Moines Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame, was born Fort Wayne, Indiana (June 11).

Johnny D. Bright (b. June 11, 1930, Fort Wayne, Indiana – d. December 14, 1983, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) played college football at Drake University. In 1951, Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American, and was awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award. In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. Bright is the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.  In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in his honor. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the Canadian Football League's Top 50 players (No. 19) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.

In addition to his outstanding professional and college football careers, Bright is perhaps best known for his role as the victim of an  intentional, most likely racially motivated, on-field assault by an opposing college football player from Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) on October 20, 1951, that was captured in a widely disseminated and Pulitzer Prize winning photo sequence, and eventually came to be known as the "Johnny Bright Incident". 

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on June 11, 1930, Bright was the second oldest of five brothers. Bright lived with his mother and step father Daniel Bates, brothers, Homer Bright, the eldest, Alfred, Milton, and Nate Bates, in a working class, predominantly African American neighborhood in Fort Wayne.  

Bright was a three-sport (football, basketball, track and field) star at Fort Wayne's Central High School. Bright, who also was an accomplished softball pitcher and boxer, led Central High's football team to a City title in 1945, and helped the basketball team to two state tournament Final Four appearances.

Following his graduation from Central High in 1947, Bright initially accepted a football scholarship at Michigan State University, but, apparently unhappy with the direction of the Spartans football program, transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he accepted a track and field scholarship that allowed him to try out for the football an basketball squads. Bright eventually lettered in football, track, and basketball, during his collegiate career at Drake..

Following a mandatory freshman redshirt year, Bright began his collegiate football career in 1949, rushing for 975 yards and throwing for another 975 to lead the nation in total offense during his sophomore year, as the Drake Bulldogs  finished their season at 6–2–1. In Bright's junior year, the halfback/quarterback rushed for 1,232 yards and passed for 1,168 yards, setting an NCAA record for total offense (2,400 yards) in 1950, and again led the Bulldogs to a 6–2–1 record.

Bright's senior year began with great promise. Bright was considered a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate, candidate, and was leading the nation in both rushing and total offense with 821 and 1,349 yards respectively, when the Drake Bulldogs, winners of their previous five games, faced Missouri Valley Conference foe Oklahoma A&M at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1951.

Bright's participation as a halfback/quarterback in Drake's game against Oklahoma A&M on October 20, 1951, was controversial, as it marked the first time that such a prominent African American athlete, with national notoriety (Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate and led the nation in total offense going into the game) and of critical importance to the success of his team (Drake was undefeated and carried a five-game winning streak into the contest, due in large part to his rushing and passing), had played against Oklahoma A&M in a home game at Lewis Field, in Stillwater.

During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright had been knocked unconscious three times by blows from Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith. While the final elbow blow from Smith broke Bright's jaw, Bright was able to complete a 61-yard touchdown pass to halfback Jim Pilkington a few plays later before the injury finally forced Bright to leave the game. Bright finished the game with 75 yards (14 yards rushing and 61 yards passing), the first time he had finished a game with less than 100 yards in his three-year collegiate career at Drake. Oklahoma A&M eventually won the game 27-14.

A photographic sequence by Des Moines Register cameramen Don Ultang and John Robinson clearly showed that Smith's jaw breaking blow to Bright had occurred well after Bright had handed off the ball to fullback Gene Macomber, and that the blow was delivered well behind the play.  The pictures won a Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for the photographer, Don Ultang of The Des Moines Sunday Register. Years later, Ultang said that he and Robinson were lucky to capture the incident when they did; they'd only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could get the film developed in time for the next day's edition.

It had been an open secret before the game that A&M was planning to target Bright. Even though A&M had integrated two years earlier, the Jim Crow spirit was still very much alive in Stillwater. Both Oklahoma A&M's student newspaper, The Daily O'Collegian, and the local newspaper, The News Press, reported that Bright was a marked man, and several A&M students were openly claiming that Bright "would not be around at the end of the game." Ultang and Robinson had actually set up their camera after rumors of Bright being targeted became too loud to ignore.

When it became apparent that neither Oklahoma A&M nor the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) would take any disciplinary action against Smith, Drake withdrew from the MVC in protest and stayed out until 1956 (though it did not return for football until 1971). Fellow member Bradley University pulled out of the league as well in solidarity with Drake; while it returned for non-football sports in 1955, Bradley never played another down of football in the MVC (it dropped football in 1970).

The "Johnny Bright Incident", as it became widely known, eventually provoked changes in NCAA football rules regarding illegal blocking, and mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.

Recalling the incident without apparent bitterness in a 1980 Des Moines Register interview noted three years before Bright's death:

There's no way it couldn't have been racially motivated. Bright went on to add: What I like about the whole deal now, and what I'm smug enough to say, is that getting a broken jaw has somehow made college athletics better. It made the NCAA take a hard look and clean up some things that were bad.

Bright's jaw injury limited his effectiveness for the remainder of his senior season at Drake, but he finished his college career with 5,983 yards in total offense, averaging better than 236 yards per game in total offense, and scored 384 points in 25 games. As a senior, Bright earned 70 percent of the yards Drake gained and scored 70 percent of the Bulldogs' points, despite missing the better part of the final three games of the season.

Despite irrefutable evidence of the incident, Oklahoma A&M officials denied anything had happened. Indeed, Oklahoma A&M/State refused to make any further official comment on the incident for over half a century. This was the case even when Drake's former dean of men, Robert B. Kamm,  became president of OSU in 1966. Years later, he said that the determination to gloss over the affair was so strong that he knew he could not even discuss it. Finally, on September 28, 2005, Oklahoma State President David J. Schmidly wrote a letter to Drake President David Maxwell formally apologizing for the incident, calling it "an ugly mark on Oklahoma State University and college football." The apology came twenty-two years after Bright's death.

In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in Bright's honor.

Following his final football season at Drake (1951), Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American and finished fifth in the balloting for the 1951 Heisman Trophy. Bright was also awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award, and played in both the post-season East-West Shrine Game and the Hula Bowl.

In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. He is also the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.

Bright was the first pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the 1952 National Football League draft.  Bright spurned the NFL, electing to play for the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovinciai Football Union (WIFU), the precursor to the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Bright later commented:

I would have been their (the Eagles') first Negro player. There was a tremendous influx of Southern players into the NFL at that time, and I didn't know what kind of treatment I could expect.

Bright joined the Calgary Stampeders as a fullback/linebacker in 1952, leading the Stampeders and the WIFU in rushing with 815 yards his rookie season. Bright played fullback/linebacker with the Stampeders for the 1952, 1953, and part of the 1954 seasons. In 1954, the Calgary Stampeders traded Bright to the Edmonton Eskimos in mid-season. Bright would enjoy the most success of his professional football career as a member of the Eskimos.

Though Bright played strictly defense as a linebacker in his first year with the Eskimos, he played both offense (as a fullback) and defense for two seasons (1955-1956), and played offense permanently after that (1957-1964).  He, along with teammates Rollie Miles, Normie Kwong, and Jackie Parker, helped lead the Eskimos to successive Grey Cup titles in 1954, 1955, and 1956 (where Bright rushed for a then Grey Cup record of 171 yards in a 50–27 win over the Montreal Alouettes). In 1957, he rushed for eight consecutive 100-yard games, finishing the season with 1,679 yards. In 1958, he rushed for 1,722 yards. In 1959, following his third straight season as the Canadian pro rushing leader with 1,340 yards, Bright won the Canadian Football League's Most Outstanding Player Award, the first African American or African Canadian athlete to be so honored.

Bright was approached several times during his Canadian career by NFL teams about playing in the United States, but in the days before the blockbuster salaries of today's NFL players, it was common for CFL players such as Bright to hold regular jobs in addition to football, and he had already started a teaching career in 1957, the year he moved his family to Edmonton.

Bright retired in  1964 as the CFL's all-time leading rusher. Bright rushed for 10,909 yards in 13 seasons, had five consecutive 1,000 yard seasons, and led the CFL in rushing four times. While Bright, as of 2017, was 15th on the All-Pro Rushing list, his career average of 5.5 yards per carry is the highest among 10,000+ yard rushers (National Football League Hall of Famer Jim Brown is second at 5.2 yards per carry). At the time of his retirement, Bright had a then-CFL record thirty-six 100-plus-yard games, carrying the ball 200 or more times for five straight seasons. Bright led the CFL Western Conference in rushing four times, winning the Eddie James Memorial Trophy in the process, and was a CFL Western Conference All-Star five straight seasons from 1957 to 1961. Bright played in 197 consecutive CFL games as a fullback/linebacker. Bright's No. 24 jersey was added to the Edmonton Eskimos' Wall of Honour at the Eskimo's Commonwealth Stadium in 1983. Bright was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame on November 26, 1970. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (No. 19) for the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN. 

Bright earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education at Drake University in 1952, becoming a teacher, coach, and school administrator, both during and after his professional football career, eventually rising to the seat of principal of D.S. Mackenzie Junior High School and Hillcrest Junior High School in Edmonton, Alberta. He became a Canadian citizen in 1962.

Bright died of a massive heart attack on December 14, 1983, at the University of Alberta Hospital  in Edmonton, while undergoing elective surgery to correct a knee injury suffered during his football career. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Bright is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Edmonton.

In September 2010, Johnny Bright School, a kindergarten through grade 9 school, was named in Bright's honor, and opened in the Rutherford neighborhood of Edmonton. The school was officially opened on September 15 by representatives of the school district and Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock, and included tributes from Bright's family, several dignitaries, and former colleagues of Bright from both his athletic and educational careers.

*****

*Ronnell Bright, a jazz pianist and actor, was born in Chicago, Illinois (July 3).

Ronnell Bright (b. July 3, 1930, Chicago, Illinois), a jazz pianist, also dabbled in the area of acting,  Bright made a guest appearance as a piano player in the Season 1 episode of The Jeffersons titled "Lionel, The Playboy". as well as similar cameo appearances on two other hit 1970's TV series, CBS-TV's The Carol Burnett Show, and NBC-TV's Sanford and Son.
Bright played piano from a very young age, and won a piano competition when he was nine years old. In 1944, he played with the Chicago Youth Piano Symphony Orchestra. He studied at Juilliard, graduating early in the 1950s. Moving back to Chicago, he played with Johnny Tate and accompanied Carmen McRae before relocating to New York City in 1955. There he played with Rolf Kuhn and put together his own trio in 1957. In 1957-58, he was with Dizzy Gillespie, and acted as an accompanist for Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, and Gloria Lynne over the next few years. His compositions were recorded by Vaughan as well as by Cal Tjader, Horace Silver, and Blue Mitchell. In 1964, Bright became Nancy Wilson's arranger and pianist after moving to Los Angeles. Later in the decade he found work as a studio musician, playing in Supersax from 1972 to 1974.

*****

*Charles Decatur Brooks, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist best known for his Breath of Life television ministry (July 24).

Charles Decatur Brooks, also known as C. D. Brooks, (b. July 24, 1930, Greensboro, North Carolina - d. June 5, 2016, Laurel, Maryland) was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on July 24, 1930, the tenth child of Marvin and Mattie Brooks. Although Methodists at the time, shortly after C.D.’s birth the Brooks family began observing the seventh-day Sabbath in honor of a pledge Mattie Brooks made to God while in a hospital bed suffering from a near-fatal illness. Learning more truth years later from reading Ellen G. White's The Great Controversy, C.D., along with his mother and six sisters, was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church on a Sabbath in 1940. In 1947 after attending an evangelistic tent meeting, C.D. remained under the tent long after the last person had departed. “Charles, I want you to make truth clear,” C.D. distinctly heard a voice say, and then had a vision of himself standing behind the pulpit at the front of the tent, proclaiming the truth with power and clarity. Brooks immediately jettisoned his career plans for dentistry for the ministry, setting his sights on Oakwood.

At Oakwood, Brooks met the love of his life, Walterene Wagner, daughter of John H. Wagner, Sr., a stalwart of 20th century black Adventism. Along with other roles, Wagner was the first president of Allegheny Conference, one of the five inaugural leaders of regional conferences in 1945.

In 1951, Brooks graduated from Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Alabama, with a degree in theology.
 
Brooks and Walterene were united in marriage on September 14, 1952, at the Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brooks would go on to serve the Columbia Union as a pastor, evangelist and administrator until 1971, working mostly in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ohio.

In 1971. C.D. Brooks was asked by General Conference (GC) president Robert Pierson to serve as a field secretary for the Seventh-day Adventist world church, a role he held until 1995, making him the longest tenured field secretary in church history. While serving at the GC, Brooks took on the dual role as speaker/director for the Breath of Life Ministry, a new television ministry of the GC that was produced at the Adventist Media Center in Thousand Oaks, California. Brooks partnered with Walter Arties, Louis B. Reynolds, and the Breath of Life Quartet to produce television programming that reached out to audiences all around the world. As speaker-director of Breath of Life, Brooks took his place among legendary Adventist media revolutionaries such as H.M.S. Richards, George Vandeman, and William Fagal. In 1989 the ministry was broadcast on Black Entertainment Television (BET), and reached a potential audience of more than 90 million people a week.

Brooks was speaker-director of Breath of Life Ministries for 23 years, from 1974 to 1997. In his time at the helm, the ministry brought approximately 15,000 people to Christ, established 15 Breath of Life congregations, and was viewed by untold millions. In 1994 Brooks was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers and Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1996 health challenges forced Brooks to retire from the General Conference and in 1997 he stepped down as speaker-director for Breath of Life. Brooks had a long and productive retirement and in 2007, in honor of E.E. Cleveland, Charles Bradford, and C.D. Brooks, the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center (BCBLC) was established. The center is housed on the campus of Oakwood University in a 10,000-square-foot, $2.5 million state-of-the-art edifice.

On December 1, 2010, the Ellen G. White Estate elected Brooks a lifetime member of the Ellen G. White Estate Board. The North American Division invited Brooks to be its chaplain in residence in 2013, a position he held until his death.

*****

*Clifford Brown, a jazz trumpeter who influenced later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Arturo Sandoval, and Freddie Hubbard, was born in Wilmington, Delaware (October 30).

Clifford Brown (b. October 30, 1930, Wilmington, Delaware – d. June 26, 1956, Bedford, Pennsylvania), a.k.a. "Brownie", died at the age of 25 in a car accident, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players and was also a composer of note with two of his compositions, "Joy Spring" and "Daahoud", becoming jazz standards.

Brown won the Down Beat critics' poll for the "New Star of the Year" in 1954 and he was inducted into the Down Beat "Jazz Hall of Fame" in 1972.

Brown was born into a musical family in a progressive East-Side neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware.  His father organized his four youngest sons, including Clifford, into a vocal quartet. Around age ten, Brown started playing trumpet at school after becoming fascinated with the shiny trumpet his father owned. At age thirteen, upon entering senior high, his father bought him his own trumpet and provided him with private lessons. As a junior in high school, he received lessons from Robert Boysie Lowery and played in a jazz group that Lowery organized. He even began making trips to Philadelphia. Brown took pride in his neighborhood and earned a good education from Howard High.

Brown briefly attended Delaware State University as a math major, before he switched to Marylannd State College, which was a more prosperous musical environment. Brown's trips to Philadelphia grew in frequency after he graduated from high school and entered Delaware State University; it could be said that, although his dorm was in Dover, his classroom was in Philadelphia. Brown played in the fourteen-piece, jazz-oriented, Maryland State Band. In June 1950, he was seriously injured in a car accident after a successful gig. During his year-long hospitalization, Dizzy Gillespie visited the younger trumpeter and urged him to continue to pursue his musical career. Brown's injuries limited him to the piano for months; he never fully recovered and would routinely dislocate his shoulder for the rest of his life. Brown moved into playing music professionally, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded trumpeters in jazz.

Brown was influenced and encouraged by Fats Navarro, sharing Navarro's virtuosic technique and brilliance of invention. His sound was warm and round, and notably consistent across the full range of the instrument. He could articulate every note, even at very fast tempos which seemed to present no difficulty to him; this served to enhance the impression of his speed of execution. His sense of harmony was highly developed, enabling him to deliver bold statements through complex harmonic progressions (chord changes), and embodying the linear, "algebraic" terms of bebop harmony. In addition to his up-tempo prowess, he could express himself deeply in a ballad performance.

His first recordings were with R&B bandleader Chris Powell, following which he performed with Tadd Dameron, J. J. Johnson, Lionel Hampton, and Art Blakey before forming his own group with Max Roach. The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet was a high-water mark of the hard bop style, with all the members of the group except for bassist George Morrow contributing original songs. Brown's trumpet was originally partnered with Harold Land's tenor saxophone. After Land left in 1955 in order to spend more time with his wife, Sonny Rollins joined and remained a member of the group for the rest of its existence. In their hands the bebop vernacular reached a peak of inventiveness.

The clean-living Brown escaped the influence of heroin on the jazz world. Brown stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol.

In June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell embarked on a drive to Chicago for their next appearance. Powell's wife Nancy was at the wheel so that Clifford and Richie could sleep. While driving at night in the rain on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford, she is presumed to have lost control of the car, which went off the road. All three were killed in the resulting crash. Brown is buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware.

Benny Golson, who had done a stint in Lionel Hampton's band with Brown, and were members of Tadd Dameron's Big 10, wrote "I Remember Clifford" to honor his memory. The piece became a jazz standard, as musicians paid tribute by recording their own interpretations of it.

Duke Pearson who had yet to record for Blue Note records wrote "Tribute To Brownie", which was recorded by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet on his 1957 album, Sophisticated Swing. It also appeared on an album by trumpeter Louis Smith, Here Comes Louis Smith with Cannonball again on alto saxophone.
Helen Merrill, who recorded with Brown in 1954 (Helen Merrill, EmArcy), recorded a tribute album in 1995 entitled Brownie: Homage to Clifford Brown. The album features solos and ensemble work by trumpeters Lew Soloff, Tom Harrell, Wallace Roney, and Roy Hargrove. 

Arturo Sandoval's entire second album after fleeing from his native Cuba, entitled I Remember Clifford, was likewise a tribute to Brown.

In 1994, Brown's widow, LaRue Brown Watson, established the Clifford Brown Jazz Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to Brown's memory and inspiring a love for jazz among young people. 

*****

*Tommy Bryant, a jazz double-bassist, was born (May 21).

Thomas "Tommy" Bryant (b. May 21, 1930 – d. January 3, 1982) grew up in a musical family in Philadelpia. His mother was a choir director, his brother Ray Bryant was a pianist, an another brother, Len Bryant, was a vocalist and drummer.  Tommy Bryant began playing bass at the age of 12 and played in many local outfits, including Billy Krechmer's. In the late 1940s, Bryant joined Elmer Snowden's band, staying there until 1952, when he took a tour of duty during the Korean War.  In 1956, he returned and formed his own trio, though he is better known for his work with musicians such as Jo Jones (1958), Charlie Shavers (1959), Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Barney Wilen, Benny Golson, Big Joe Turner and Coleman Hawkins.  In the last ten years of his life, he played in the follow-up band to The Ink Spots.
Bryant also recorded with Mahalia Jackson under the name Tom Bryant.

*****

*Cloves Campbell, the first African American elected to the Arizona State Senate, was born in Elizabeth, Louisiana.

Cloves Campbell, Sr. (b. 1930, Elizabeth, Louisiana - d. 2004, Arizona) moved to Arizona in 1945 and earned a bachelor's degree in Education from Arizona State University. Campbell was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1962, and after two terms he became the first African American to be elected to the Arizona State Senate. During his last year in the Senate, Campbell became the first legislator in the United States to introduce a bill calling for a state holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The bill did not pass, but after two decades of struggle, Arizona approved a King holiday through a ballot measure in 1992. Campbell’s community presence included service as a school board chairman, member of the boards of the Better Business Bureau, the Consumers Council, the YMCA Youth Center, president of the Maricopa County, Arizona NAACP branch, and chairman of NAACP West Coast Region I. During the late 1960s, Cloves Campbell, and his brother Charles Campbell, purchased the Arizona Informant newspaper. Their newspaper was the only organ in Arizona that reported exclusively on issues of interest to the African American community. 

*****

*Dominic Carmon, a African American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who once served as a missionary to Papua New Guinea, was born in Opelousas, Louisiana (December 13).

Dominic Carmon (b. December 13, 1930, Opelousas, Louisiana) served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans from 1993 to 2006.

The eldest of seven sons, Carmon was born in Opelousas, Louisiana. He studied at the seminary of the Society of the Divine Word in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and at Divine Word College in Epworth, Iowa. He joined the Society of the Divine Word in 1946, and was ordained to the priesthood on February 2, 1960. He served as a missionary to Papua New Guinea from 1961 to 1968. He was pastor of St. Elizabeth's Church (1968-1985) and of Our Lady of the Gardens Church (1985-1988), both in Chicago, Illinois, before serving as pastor of Holy Ghost Church in his native Opelousas.

On December 16, 1992, Carmon was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans and Titular Bishop of Rusicade by Pope John Paul II.  He received his episcopal consecration on February 11, 1993, from Archbishop Francis Schulte, with Bishops Wilton Gregory and Harry Flynn serving as co-conspirators.

After reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, Carmon resigned as Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans on December 13, 2006.

*****

*Walter Carrington, a diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Senegal and Nigeria, was born.

Walter C. Carrington (b. July 24, 1930) served as the United States Ambassador to Senegal from 1980 to 1981. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 as the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, where he remained until 1997. His ties to Nigeria were deep. He had married into a Nigerian family and had lived in three Nigerian cities since the late 1960s.

Carrington graduated from Harvard University (AB 1952) and Harvard Law School (JD 1955).  Upon graduation from Harvard, he enlisted in the US Army, where one of his assignments was as an enlisted man with the  Judge Advocate General Corps (Germany, 1955–57). Upon separation from the military, he entered a private law practice in Boston, Massachusetts.  During that time, Carrington also served as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the youngest person to serve until that date. He held various positions in the Peace Corps from 1961 to 1971. While in the Peace Corps, he served as Regional Director for Africa (1969–71). From 1971 to 1980, he was Executive Vice President of the African-American Institute.

Carrington served as the United States Ambassador to the Republic of Senegal from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, he was named Director of the Department of International Affairs of Howard University.  He published several articles on Africa. He also served as the United States Ambassador to Nigeria from 1993 to 1997. On September 1, 2004, Carrington was named the Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College in Boston. 

Carrington was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. In 1997, he received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Humane Letters) from Livingstone College, North Carolina. 

In 1991, Carrington published Africa in the Minds and Deeds of Black American Leaders (with Edwin Dorn). In 2010, he published A Duty to Speak: Refusing to Remain Silent in a Time of Tyranny, a compilation of his speeches supporting democracy and human rights in Nigeria during the Abacha military dictatorship. Carrington wrote many Africa related articles for national magazines.

 Carrington married Arese Ukpoma of Benin City, Nigeria, a medical doctor. They had two children, Thomas and Temisan.

*****

Jacob Hudson Carruthers (b. February 15, 1930, Dallas, Texas – d. January 4, 2004, Chicago, Illinois) was an academic, noted as an African-centered scholar.  In 1985, Carruthers was elected first president of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations at the second annual Ancient Egyptian Studies Conference in Chicago Illinois.

*****

*Jazz singer Betty Carter, popularly known as "Betty Bebop" was born in Flint, Michigan (May 16).

Betty Carter (also known as Lillie Mae Jones, Lorraine Carter, Lorene Carter or Betty Bebop) (b. May 16, 1930, Flint, Michigan - d. September 26, 1998, Brooklyn, New York) was an American jazz singer who is best remembered for the scat and other complex musical interpretations that showcased her remarkable vocal flexibility and musical imagination.

Carter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music in her native Michigan.  At age 16, she began singing in Detroit jazz clubs, and after 1946, she worked in African American bars and theaters in the Midwest, at first under the name Lorene Carter.  

Influenced by the improvisational nature of bebop and inspired by vocalists Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.  Carter strove to create a style of her own.  Lionel Hampton asked Carter to join his band in 1948.  However, her insistence on improvising annoyed Hampton and prompted him to fire her seven times in two and a half years.  Carter left Hampton's band for good in 1951 and performed around the country in such jazz clubs as Harlem's Apollo Theater and the Vanguard in New York, the Showboat in Philadelphia, and Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., with such jazz artists as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and Thelonious Monk.

After touring with Ray Charles from 1960 to 1963 and making a recording of duets with him in 1961, Carter put her career on hold to get married.  Her marriage did not last, however, and she returned to the stage in 1969 backed by a small acoustic ensemble consisting of piano, drums, and bass.  In 1971, she released her first album on her own label, Bet-Car Productions.

Beginning in the 1970s, Carter performed on the college circuit and conducted several jazz workshops.  After appearing at Carnegie Hall as part of the Newport Jazz Festival in 1977 and 1978, she went on concert tours throughout the United States and Europe.  Her solo albums include Betty Carter (1953), Out There (1958), The Modern Sound of Betty Carter (1960), The Audience with Betty Carter (1979), and Look What I Got! (1988), which won a Grammy Award.  Determined to encourage an interest in jazz among younger people, in April 1993 Carter initiated a program she called Jazz Ahead, an annual event at which twenty young jazz musicians spend a week training and composing with her.  In 1997, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts by United States President Bill Clinton.

*****

*Goree Carter, a singer whose 1949 recording of "Rock Awhile" is considered to be the first rock and roll record, was born in Houston, Texas (December 31). 

Goree Chester Carter or Christer Carter (b. December 31, 1930, Houston, Texas – d. December 29, 1990, Houston, Texas), known as Goree Carter, was a singer, guitarist, drummer, songwriter and soldier.  He was also credited with the stage names Little T-Bone, Rocky Thompson and Gory Carter, and recorded music in blues genres such as electric blues, jump blues and Texas blues, as well as rock and roll.

He is best known for his 1949 single, "Rock Awhile," which has been cited by several sources as the first rock and roll record, featuring an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry years later.  Carter recorded "Rock Awhile" at the age of 18, and its rediscovery has posthumously brought him recognition as a forefather of rock and roll.  

Goree Carter was born in Houston, Texas, in the Fifth Ward, and lived at 1310 Bayou Street. He began playing blues music at the age of 12, and learned to play on a cousin's guitar. Because there were very few guitarists in his area back then, he had no one to teach him how to play the guitar, so he taught himself how to play it by listening to some of his favorite records on a Victrola machine and picking string-by-string on the guitar. He learned a few chords from listening and then learned more about them from a chord book. When he became a teenager, he began earning a living by hoisting sacks at the local Comet Rice Mill. He had a Gibson guitar and began fronting bands in his early teenage years.

In 1949, he and his jump blues band, The Hepcats, also known as Goree Carter and His Hepcats or Goree Carter & His Hepcats, signed for Freedom Records, a local record label set up by Sol Kahal, and recorded the label's first release, "Sweet Ole Woman Blues." Kahal discovered him in either late 1948 or early 1949. As well as Carter's guitar, the band featured two saxophones, a trumpet, piano, bass, and drums.  Carter's electric guitar style was influenced by Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, but was over-driven and had a rougher edge which presaged the sound of rock and roll a few years later. His single-string runs and two-string "blue note" chords anticipated, and may have influenced, Chuck Berry.

At the age of 18, Carter recorded his best known single "Rock Awhile" in April 1949. It has been cited as a strong contender for the title of first rock and roll record and a much more appropriate candidate than the more frequently cited "Rocket 88" (1951) by Ike Turner.  The intro to "Rock Awhile" resembles those in several later Chuck Berry records from 1955 onwards. "Rock Awhile" is considered to be a more appropriate candidate for the "first rock and roll record" title, because it was recorded two years earlier, and because of Carter's guitar work bearing a striking resemblance to Chuck Berry's later guitar work, while making use of an over-driven amplifier, along with the backing of boogie-based rhythms, and the appropriate title and lyrical subject matter. The song was recorded at Bill Holford's Audiophile Custom Associates Studio. However, "Rock Awhile" was not as commercially successful as later rock & roll records. Nevertheless, Carter had some moderate success, touring and recording for a while.

In 1950, at the age of 19, Carter was drafted into military service. He served as a private first class infantry soldier in the Korean War for over a year. He was in Korea when many of the war's most vicious battles took place. After returning from Korea to Houston around 1951, his musical career began declining. Carter recorded for several labels in the early 1950s, including Imperial, Coral, and Modern, but last recorded in 1954.

After leaving the music industry, he continued working at the local Comet Rice Mill until its closure decades later. Carter continued to play occasional local gigs in Houston, and sat-in with visiting artist B. B. King. His last live performance was in 1970. He developed arthritis later in his life, and was not heard from again until 1982, when he was visited at his Fifth Ward home by members of the band Juke Jumpers. He died in Houston, at the age of 59, in 1990. He died at the same house where he was born. Both his old house at 1310 Bayou and the Audiophile Custom Associates Studio at 612 Westheimer no longer exist.

*****

*Ray Charles, a jazz, soul, and pop singer, was born in Albany, Georgia (September 23).  Blind by the age of six, he would become one of  America's most-beloved performing artists.

Ray Charles (also known as Ray Charles Robinson) (b. September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia - d. June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, California) was an pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader, a leading African American entertainer billed as "the Genius."  Charles was credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz music. 

When Charles was an infant his family moved to Greenville, Florida, and he began his musical career at age five on a piano in a neighborhood cafe.  He began to go blind at six, possibly from glaucoma, and had completely lost his sight by age seven.  He attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he concentrated on musical studies, but left school at age 15 to play the piano professionally after his mother died from cancer (his father had died when the boy was 10).  Charles built a remarkable career based on the immediacy of emotion in his performances.  After emerging as a blues and jazz pianist indebted to Nat King Cole's style in the late 1940s.  Charles recorded the boogie-woogie classic "Mess Around" and the novelty song "It Should've Been Me" in 1952-53. His arrangement for Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used To Do" became a blues million-seller in 1953.  By 1954, Charles had created a successful combination of blues and gospel influences and signed on with Atlantic Records.  Propelled by Charles' distinctive raspy voice,"I've Got a Woman" and "Hallelujah I Love You So" became hit records.  "What'd I Say" led the rhythm and blues sales charts in 1959 and was Charles' own first million-seller. 

Charles' rhythmic piano playing and band arranging revived the "funky" quality of jazz, but he also recorded in many other musical genres.  He entered the pop market with the best-sellers "Georgia on My Mind" (1960) and "Hit the Road Jack" (1961).  His album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962) sold more than a million copies, as did its single "I Can't Stop Loving You."  Thereafter, his music emphasized jazz standards and renditions of pop and show tunes.  From 1955, Charles toured extensively in the United States and elsewhere with his own big band nd in gospel-style female backup quartet called the Raeletts.  He also appeared on television and worked in films such as Ballad in Blue (1964) and The Blues Brothers (1980) as a featured act and sound track composer.  He formed his own custom recording labels, Tangerine in 1962 and Crossover Records in 1973.  The recipient of many national and international awards, he received 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1987.  In 1986, Charles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Kennedy Center Honor.  He published an autobiography, Brother Ray, Ray Charles' Own Story (1978), written with David Ritz. 

In 2003, Charles had successful hip replacement surgery and was planning to go back on tour, until he began suffering from other ailments. On June 10, 2004, as a result of acute liver disease, Charles died at his home in Los Angeles, California, surrounded by family and friends. He was 73 years old. His funeral took place on June 18, 2004, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles, with musical peers such as Little Richard in attendance.  B. B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis each played a tribute at Charles' funeral. Charles was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery. 

Ray Charles Robinson was sometimes referred to as "The Genius".  He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records.  He also contributed to the racial integration of country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records,  most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Charles was blind from the age of seven. Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and country artists of the day, including Art Tatum, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Louis Armstrong. Charles' playing reflected influences from country blues, barrelhouse and stride piano styles.  His best friend in music was South Carolina-born James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul".

Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and number two on their November 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". 

*****

*Wilson Chavis, an African American accordion player who was one of the pioneers of zydeco, the fusion of Cajun and blues music developed in southwest Louisiana, was born near Church Point, Louisiana (October 23). 

Wilson Anthony "Boozoo" Chavis (b. October 23, 1930, Church Point, Louisiana – d. May 5, 2001, Austin, Texas) was born near Church Point, Louisiana,  the son of tenant farmers. Chavis acquired the nickname "Boozoo" in his childhood. He bought a button accordion, taught himself to play, and began performing at a dance club that his mother opened, often sitting in on performances with Clifton Chenier, his father Morris Chenier and brother Cleveland Chenier. As well as developing the playing style that came to be known as zydeco, Chavis worked as a farmer and horse trainer. 

He made his first recording, of his own song "Paper in My Shoe," in 1954, and it was released on the Folk-Star label, a subsidiary of Goldband, before being reissued by Imperial Records. The record was a regional hit, subsequently acknowledged as a zydeco standard, but Chavis was convinced that it was more successful than the record companies claimed.

Chavis lost trust in the music business, and over the next thirty years only released three more singles: "Forty-One Days" (Folk-Star, 1955), "Hamburgers & Popcorn" (Goldband, 1965), and "Mama! Can I Come Home" (credited to the Dog Hill Playhouse Band, Crazy Cajun, 1974). He also rarely performed during the 1960s and 1970s, devoting most of his time to raising racehorses in Louisiana and Texas.

Chavis returned to performing music regularly in 1984 after hearing that another performer was impersonating him.  He signed with the Maison de Soul label, and released a locally successful single, "Dog Hill", and four albums: Louisiana Zydeco Music (1986), Boozoo Zydeco! (1987), Zydeco Homebrew (1989), and Zydeco Trail Ride (1990). In addition, Rounder Records released his live album Zydeco Live! in 1988, and a compilation of his 1950s recordings, The Lake Charles Atom Bomb, in 1990. He also recorded two albums for Sonet Records in the early 1990s.

Chavis was a prolific writer of zydeco songs, some including references to his friends and acquaintances and others too raunchy to be sold openly. Many of his songs have become standards of the zydeco repertoire, in spite of, or perhaps because of, their generally idiosyncratic and quirky construction and subject matter.

During the 1990s, Chavis performed widely with his band, the Majic Sounds, and was crowned "The King of Zydeco" in New Orleans in 1993, after Clifton Chenier's death. His style, using a button rather than piano accordion, was more traditional than that of Chenier.  He appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and in a 1994 documentary, The Kingdom of Zydeco. He was inducted into the Zydeco Hall of Fame in 1998.

Chavis died in 2001, from complications resulting from a heart attack during a performance in Austin, Texas. He was buried in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

His wife's name was Leona and they had six children, Wilson Jr., Margret, Louanna, Charles, Licia, and Rellis Chavis and had over 20 grandchildren. His son Charles was a member of his band at the time of his death.

*****

*J. L. Chestnut, the first African American attorney in Selma, Alabama, was born in Selma, Alabama (December 16). 

J. L. Chestnut (b. December 16, 1930, Selma, Alabama – d. September 30, 2008, Alabama) was an author, attorney, and a figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the author of the autobiographical book, Black in Selma, which chronicles the history of the Selma Voting Rights Movement, including the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches and Bloody Sunday. 

Chestnut was born in Selma and attended Howard University Law School.  He returned home as Selma's only black attorney, and represented civil rights demonstrators at trial there when the Selma Movement began in the 1960s.

In 1986, Chestnut was one of the founders of the New South Coalition, along with Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Richard Arrington, when the Alabama Democratic Party refused to endorse Jesse Jackson for president.

He died, aged 77, of kidney failure, after an illness lasting several months in a hospital in Alabama.

*****
*Gloria Chisum, an experimental psychologist who became an expert in visual problems associated with the operation of high performance aircraft, was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Gloria Twine Chisum (b. 1930, Muskogee, Oklahoma) was an experimental psychologist who eventually became a board member of the American Psychological Association, among many other organizations. An expert in visual problems associated with the operation of high-performance aircraft, she developed eyewear to protect pilots' eyes in extreme conditions like sharp turns, lightning, or nuclear explosion.
Chisum earned her BS (1951) and MS (1953), in psychology from Howard University. During her undergraduate years, she pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha and was a part of the Howard University Players, a dramatic group run by students. In 1960, she earned her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation was titled "Transposition as a Function of the Number of Test Trials".

From 1958 to 1968, Chisum taught psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1960 to 1965, she researched psychology at the Naval Air Development Center.  She served as the head of the Vision Laboratory from 1965 to 1980, and afterwards became the head of the Environmental Physiology Research Team. She was also a board member of several organizations, including (but not limited to) the Arthritis Foundation of Eastern Pennsylvania the Aerospace Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Optical Society of America.

Chisum's research led to optical advancements for pilots such as protective eyewear.  Specifically, her work was focused on the creation of protective goggles that would help pilots withstand the extreme conditions sustained during flight including loss of vision during sharp turns and sudden flashes of bright light (such as those that could occur during lightning flashes or nuclear explosions), including work presented at a NATO conference. Her publications include a 1975 book on laboratory assessment of the AN/PVS-5 night vision goggle and a 1978 book on laser eye protection for flight personnel.

Chisum is the first African-American woman to join the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.

Chisum married Melvin J. "Jack" Chisum, medical doctor.  Both served as chairs of the University of Pennyslvania's Harrison Society. The town of Twine, Oklahoma is named after Chisum's grandfather.

*****

*Xernona Clayton Brady, a civil rights leader and broadcasting executive with Turner Broadcasting who was the originator of the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame, was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma (August 30).

During the Civil Rights Movement, Xernona Clayton Brady (b. August 30, 1930, Muskogee, Oklahoma) worked for the National Urban League and Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where she became involved in the work of Martin Luther King, Jr  Clayton then went into television, where she became the first African American from the southern United States to host a daily prime talk show.  She became corporate vice president for urban affairs for Turner Broadcasting.

Clayton created the Trumpet Awards Foundation and was the originator of the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame which honors the achievements of African Americans and civil rights advocates. Clayton was honored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the city of Atlanta for her work.

Xernona and her twin sister Xenobia were the daughters of Reverend James and Elliott (Lillie) Brewster. Her parents were administrators of Indian affairs in Muskogee, Oklahoma. In 1952, Clayton earned her undergraduate degree with honors from Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial College in Nashville, Tennessee.  She majored in music and minored in education. At TSU, Clayton became a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was a Baptist and she  pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago.

Clayton began her career in the Civil Rights Movement with the National Urban League in Chicago, working undercover to investigate racial discrimination committed by employers against African Americans. Clayton moved to Atlanta in 1965, where she organized events for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), under the direction of Martin Luther King.  She developed a deep friendship with King's wife, Coretta Scott King.  Clayton and Scott King traveled together on concert tours. Though Clayton did not march with King, citing a fear of being arrested, Clayton helped plan King's marches.

In 1966, Clayton coordinated the Doctors' Committee for Implementation, a group of African American doctors who worked for and achieved the desegregation of all Atlanta hospitals. The Doctors' Committee served as a model for nationwide hospital desegregation, and was honored by the National Medical Association.

Clayton then headed the Atlanta Model Cities program, a federally funded group dedicated to improving the quality of desegregated neighborhoods. Clayton met Calvin Craig, the Grand Dragon of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan, through the Model Cities program, as Craig served in a policy position with the organization. Craig cited Clayton's influence when he decided to denounce the Klan in April 1968.

In 1967, Clayton became the first Southern African American to host a daily prime time talk show. The show was broadcast on WAGA-TV in Atlanta and was renamed The Xernona Clayton Show. Clayton joined Turner Broadcasting in 1979 as a documentary specials producer. In the 1980s, she served as director of public relations for Turner Broadcasting. In 1988, Turner Broadcasting promoted Clayton to corporate vice president for urban affairs, assigning her to direct Turner projects and serve as a liaison between Turner Broadcasting and civic groups in Atlanta and throughout the country. Clayton retired from Turner Broadcasting in 1997, choosing to term it a "professional transition".

Clayton serves on the board of directors of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change.  She served on the Board of Review for the state of Georgia's Department of Labor. In 1991, she published an autobiography, I've Been Marching All The Time, a title inspired by King. The book focused on her life and her views of the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1993, Clayton, with Turner Broadcasting, created the Trumpet Awards to honor achievements of African Americans. She serves as the Chair, President and CEO of the Trumpet Awards Foundation which was formed in late 2004. In early 2004, Clayton created the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.

She was a member of the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King, Jr. was the pastor. 

Clayton was married to Ed Clayton (who also worked with Dr. King) from 1957 until his death in 1966.

Following her first husband's death, she remarried to Paul L. Brady, the first African American to be appointed as a Federal Administrative Law Judge, in 1974.  Brady and Clayton had two children from Brady's previous marriage: Laura and Paul Jr.

Clayton also co-authored a revised edition of her late husband's biography of Martin Luther King Jr. called The Peaceful Warrior'.'

TSU honored Clayton at their Blue and White All-Star Academy Awards in 2005. Clayton's footprints were added to the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame in 2006. On May 1, 2011, Clayton received the James Weldon Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancemennt of Colored People (NAACP). She received the Local Community Service Award from Spelman College in 2004.

In September 2011, the Atlanta City Council renamed a street and park plaza at the intersection of Peachtree Street and Baker Street in downtown Atlanta in Clayton's honor. The AFC Enterprises Foundation, in conjunction with the National Newspaper Association, award an annual Xernona Clayton Black Press Scholarship to a student pursuing a doctoral degree in journalism in the amount of $10,000. The Mattel Toy Company created a "Xernona Clayton Barbie" doll in her honor in 2004.

*****

*Al Cleveland, a songwriter for Motown label known for his co-compositions of "I Second That Emotion", "Baby, Baby Don't Cry" and "What's Goin' On?", was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (March 11).

Al Cleveland (b. Alfred W. Cleveland, March 11, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. August 14, 1996, Las Vegas, Nevada) was a songwriter for the Motown label. Among his most popular co-compositions are 1967's "I Second That Emotion"; 1969's "Baby, Baby Don't Cry" performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles; 1971's "What's Goin' On?" performed by Marvin Gaye. 

Cleveland was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, to Alfred W. and Dorothy Cleveland. Al had two sisters, Edna Grate and Mamie Jett, as well as one brother, Robert Cleveland. His sons Alfred D. Cleveland and Theodore Mills survive him. He had a long and distinguished writing career, initially for New York artists on the Scepter/Wand labels such as Dionne Warwick and Tommy Hunt, as well as Gene Pitney before moving to Motown, where he provided songs for Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, the Marvelettes, David Ruffin, the Four Tops and Chuck Jackson before hitting the big time with a co-authorship of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On?" and "Save the Children."

In later years, he produced Native American music. He died of heart disease in Las Vegas at the age of 66.

*****

*Ornette Coleman, the principal initiator and leading exponent of free jazz, was born in Fort Worth, Texas (March 9).

Ornette Coleman (Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman) (b. March 9, 1930, Fort Worth, Texas), was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader who was the principal initiatior and leading exponent of free jazz in the late 1950s.

Coleman began playing alto, then tenor saxophone as a teenager and soon became a working musician in dance bands and rhythm-and-blues groups.  Early in his career, his approach to harmony was already unorthodox and led to his rejection by established musicians in Los Angeles, where he lived for most of the 1950s.  While working as an elevator operator, he studied harmony and played an inexpensive plastic alto saxophone at obscure nightclubs.  Until the, all jazz improvisation had been based on fixed harmonic patterns.  In the "harmolodic theory" that Coleman developed in the 1950s, however, improvisers abandoned harmonic patterns ("chord changes") in order to improvise more extensively and directly upon melodic and expressive elements.  Because the tonal centers of such music changed at the improvisers' will, it became known as "free jazz."

In the late 1950s Coleman formed a group with trumpeter Don Cherry, drummery Billy Higgins, and bassist Charlie Haden, with whom he recorded his first album, Something Else (1958).  His classic recordings, The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century in 1959 preceded his move that year to New York City, where his radical conception of structure and the urgent emotionality of his improvisations aroused widespread controversy.  His recordings Free Jazz (1960), which used two simultaneously improvising jazz quartets, and Beauty Is a Rare Thing (1961), in which he successfully experimented with free meters and tempos, also proved influential.

In the 1960s, Coleman taught himself to play the violin and trumpet, using unorthodox techniques.  By the 1970s, he was performing only irregularly, preferring instead to compse.  His most notable extended composition is the suite Skies of America, which was recorded in 1972 by the London Symphony Orchestra joined by Coleman on alto saxophone.  Influenced by his experience of improvising with Rif musicians of Morocco in 1973, Coleman formed an electric band called Prime Time, whose music was a fusion of rock rhythms with harmonically free collective improvisations, this band remained his primary performance vehicle until the 1990s.

Coleman's early style influenced not only fellow saxophonists but also players of all other instruments in jazz.  In recognition of such accomplishment, Coleman received the Japan Art Association's Praemium Imperiale prize for music in 2001.  In 2005, with a quartet made up of two acoustic double bass players (one bowing his instrumennt, the other plucking), a drummer, and Coleman himself (playing alto saxophone, trumpet, and violin), he recorded Sound Grammar during a live performance in Italy; the work, which was said to hearken back to his music of the 1960s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2007. 

Coleman was largely a self-taught musician, although in 1959 he attended the School of Jazz at Lenox, Massachusetts.  Coleman first played with Peewee Cranton's Rhythm and Blues Band in New Orleans.  From 1952 to 1954, he had his own band in Fort Worth, Texas.  He then moved to Los Angeles and made his first recording in Hollywood on also saxophone.  In 1959, he formed his own quartet.  Coleman, a composer as well as a saxophonist, violinist and trumpeter, toured Europe and influenced European jazz.  Though infrequently heard, and with only a few LP's, Coleman is, nevertheless, one of the giants of modern music, and was hailed as the first true innovator since bop. 

*****

*Clarence Coleridge, the first African American bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut who served from 1993 to 1999, was born (November 27),  The Diocese of Connecticut is the first and the oldest Diocese in the United States. 

Prior to becoming the Right Reverend Clarence Nicholas Coleridge, Coleridge (b. November 27, 1930) was the Suffragan Bishop of Connecticut from 1981 to 1993. He was ordained to the diaconate on January 27, 1961, and to the priesthood on January 1, 1962. He was consecrated on October 23, 1981. He had many accolades including three honorary degrees including one from Yale Divinity School. Habitat for Humanity Built 5 houses in his name, named the Coleridge Commons in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He also started the Bishops Fund for Children, a fund to enhance awareness of the plight of children at risk throughout Connecticut and to raise funds to underwrite social service programs that aid these children in our urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods. Bishop Coleridge married Euna J. Coleridge, Ph. D., a high school science teacher who was awarded the Olmstead award for Teacher of the Year from Williams College. They had two children, Cheryl Coleridge and Carolyn Coleridge.

*****

*Aaron Collins, a rhythm and blues singer and songwriter best known for being a member of the doo-wop groups the Cadets, which had the hit "Stranded in the Jungle", and the Flares, which had the hit "Foot Stomping", was born (September 3). 

Aaron Collins (b. September 3, 1930 – d. March 27, 1997) grew up in Arkansas and sang in church. After three years in a gospel group in Michigan, he moved to California. There he joined a spiritual group called the Santa Monica Soul Seekers (whose members later became the Cadets/the Jacks).  Collins is best known as being a singer with the doo-wop groups the Cadets, the Jacks, and the Flares. The Cadets are best known for their hit "Stranded in the Jungle" in 1956. The Jacks' biggest hit was "Why Don't You Write Me?" in 1955. "Foot Stomping" was the Flares' big hit in 1961. The lead vocals in these groups were usually done by Aaron Collins, Willie Davis, or Will "Dub" Jones.  While Collins was still a member of the Cadets and the Jacks, a solo album was released in 1957 called Calypso USA. Two recordings from this album, "Pretty Evey" and "Rum Jamaica Rum", were released as a single by Aaron Collins and the Cadets in 1957. These recordings were actually by Collins and a white studio group and not the Cadets.

Collins released a couple of solo records in the 1960s. Other records were released in the early 1960s as by the Peppers and the Thor-Ables. These two groups were actually members of the Cadets and the Flares including Willie Davis and Aaron Collins.  Collins was also part owner of MJC Records in the early 1960s with Cadets members Lloyd McCraw and Will "Dub" Jones. 

Collins' sisters, Betty and Rose Collins, had a hit for RPM Records for in 1956 called "Eddie My Love" as the Teen Queens. 

Later in life, Collins had a ladies' shoe store in  Los Angeles, California, located on the corner of Manchester and Vermont, and named Collins Shoe Closet.  Collins Shoe Closet was burned down in the Rodney King riots on April 29, 1992.

*****

*Cardiss Robertson Collins was born in St. Louis, Missouri (September 24).  In 1973, she would be elected to the United States House of Representatives.

Cardiss Hortense Collins, (née Robertson) (b. September 24, 1931, St. Louis, Missouri – d. February 3, 2013, Alexandria, Virginia), was a Democratic politician from Illinois who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. She was the first African American woman to represent the Midwest in Congress. Collins was elected to Congress in the June 5, 1973 special election to replace her husband, George, who had died in the December 8, 1972 United Airlines Flight 553 plane crash. The seat had been renumbered from the 6th district to the 7th when she took the seat. She had previously worked as an accountant in various state government positions.

Throughout her political career, she was a champion for women’s health and welfare issues. In 1975, she was instrumental in prompting the Social Security Administration to revise Medicare regulations to cover the cost of post-mastectomy breast prosthesis, which before then had been considered cosmetic.  In 1979, she was elected as president of the Congressional Black Caucus, a position she used to become an occasional critic of President Jimmy Carter. She later became the caucus vice chairman. In the 1980s, Collins warded off two primary challenges from Alderman Danny K. Davis, who would finally be elected to replace her in 1996. In 1990, Collins, along with 15 other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. In 1991, Collins was named chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Her legislative interests were focused on establishing universal health insurance, providing for gender equity in college sports, reforming federal child care facilities. Collins gained a brief national prominence in 1993 as the chairwoman of a congressional committee investigating college sports and as a critic of the NCAA. During her last term (1995–1997), she served as ranking member of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. She also engaged in an intense debate with Representative Henry Hyde over Medicaid funding of abortion that year. 

Collins did not seek re-election in 1996, citing her age and the Republican majority in the House. In 2004, she was selected by Nielsen Media Research to head a task force examining the representation of African Americans in TV rating samples. Collins lived in Alexandria, Virginia until her death on February 3, 2013, at the age of 81. 

*****

*Eugene Conners, a trombonist and singer known as the "Mighty Flea", was born in Birmingham, Alabama (December 28).

Eugene Conners (b. December 28, 1930, Birmingham, Alabama – d. June 10, 2010), known as Gene Conners, was an American trombonist and singer. He was known as the "Mighty Flea".

Conners was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in New Orleans, and may have played with Papa Celestin when he was eleven years old. As a teenager he played at jazz funerals and with territory hands, and served in the Navy during the Korean War.  Following this he played with Johnny Otis.  His  nickname, "Mighty Flea",  was given to him by Bardu Ali  while he was in Otis' band.

Conners played with his own ensemble in Long Beach, California, in the 1950s, and subsequently played with Ray Charles and Dinah Washington. In 1969, he returned to work with Otis, playing with him at the Monterey Jazz Festival  and appearing in the film Play Misty for Me in 1971. He continued touring the world with Otis through 1974.  Concomitantly, he played in Europe in 1973 with Illinois Jacquet and Jo Jones.  In 1975, he appeared at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

Conners moved to Europe, living in France, Denmark, and Germany, playing in swing jazz, Dixieland, and blues groups.  He collaborated with Catalan ensemble La Locomotora Negra in 1983. In this period, too, he recorded in Germany two R&B albums with the English guitarist and songwriter John C. Marshall.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Conners once again played with his own ensemble based in Germany, which toured northern, western, and southern Europe. In 2008, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. 

Eugene Conners died on June 10, 2010.

*****

*Lawrence Cook, an actor who starred in The Spook Who Sat By The Door, was born in New York City, New York (May 7).

Lawrence Cook (b. May 7, 1930, New York City, New York - d. December 27, 2003, Marina del Rey, California) starred in The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973). In that film, which was based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee, Cook portrayed Dan Freeman, a secret black nationalist who is trained by the CIA and later trains and leads black freedom fighters in an uprising against the United States government.

Before The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Cook appeared in films such as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and Trouble Man (1972).  After "Spook," Cook appeared in Colors (1988) and Posse (1993), as well as in television series including Family Matters, The Mod Squad and McMillan & Wife. He also appeared as Paul Grant on the daytime soap opera "Days Of Our Lives" in the mid 1970s. Cook died in 2003 in Marina del Rey, California. He was buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. 

*****

*Dorothy Cotton, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina (January 5).

Dorothy Cotton (b. January 5, 1930, Goldsboro, North Carolina) was a member of the inner-circle of one of its main organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As the SCLC's Educational Director, she was arguably the highest ranked female member of the organization.

Dorothy Foreman Cotton was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1930 as Dorothy Lee Foreman at the beginning of the Great Depression.  Her mother died when she was three years old, leaving her and her three sisters to be raised by their father, Claude Foreman, a tobacco factory worker with only a third grade education. Life was a daily struggle in their southern segregated rural town.

When Foreman was in high school, she met Rosa Gray, an English teacher that positively changed her life and encouraged her to be successful and strong. Gray, being the director of the annual school play, often gave Foreman the lead in the school play.  Gray also helped secure a place for Foreman at Shaw University where she studied English as well as secured her two part-time jobs for her on campus, one in the school cafeteria and the other cleaning the teacher's dormitory. When Dr. Daniel, a teacher at Shaw was offered the Presidency job at Virginia  State University, Foreman went along and worked as his housekeeper.  

While she was at Virginia State, Foreman met a man by the name of Horace Sims, a student that was in a Shakespearean class with her, who introduced her to George Cotton. Cotton was not a student at Virginia State. She began dating Cotton and he later proposed to Cotton after asking Daniel for his blessing. She married George Cotton in the President’s home just after graduating. She then pursued and earned a master's degree in Speech Therapy from Boston University in 1960. It was in Petersburg that Foreman (now Cotton), got involved in a local church led by Wyatt T. Walker. It was here that Foreman's civil rights activism would begin.

In an interview done by the Library of Congress, Cotton recounts an instance when she was outside and a white boy rode his bike by and sang, "deep down in the heart of niggertown." She recounts the experience and says that this made her angry and she never forgot it. This is one instance where Cotton stated that the instance gave her "a consciousness about the wrongness of the system" This would set up her mentality as she began her journey working with the Civil Rights Movement.

Whilst she was attending Virginia State University, Cotton got involved with a local church led by Wyatt T. Walker, the regional head for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  Cotton felt drawn to the church because of its involvement in the movement. Walker asked Cotton if she would be willing to help the organizing and training of children for picketing campaigns. Her job was to teach the kids how to correctly picket and march for the movement.  She helped Walker protest segregation at the library and at the lunch counter and she taught direct-action tactics to students.  Not long after Cotton got involved, Martin Luther King, Jr. was invited to the church to speak. The whole program for the evening included both King and Cotton. Cotton read a piece of poetry and King took an interest and later had a conversation with Cotton. While in Petersburg, King asked Walker if he would move to Atlanta to help King form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.   Walker said that he would only go if he could bring two of his closest associates. Those two associates were Jim Wood and Dorothy Cotton. Cotton made the decision to go down for 3 months. She ended up staying for 23 years. In those years she made immense contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. 

When Cotton first got down to Atlanta, she was Walker's Administrative Assistant. Not long after she arrived in Atlanta,  King recruited her to go help out over at Highlander, a school that was receiving lots of bad publicity. At Highlander, Cotton met Septima Clark.  It was with Septima Clark that Cotton would work on the Citizenship Education Program.

Cotton's involvement with the movement took up a majority of her life.  Perhaps Cotton's biggest achievement in the movement was the Citizenship Education Program: a program meant to help blacks register to vote.

Cotton’s close work with Septima Clark and Esau Jenkins, via both the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, created a grassroots movement in rural southern areas during the violent and tense Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. Esau Jenkins was an early participant in the formation of the Program. As an independent businessman with "a third grade education but a PhD mind", Jenkins drove a private bus to the mainland from the coastal Islands of South Carolina, taking island locals to and from their day jobs.

During these rides, Esau would start conversations with his passengers about the power and importance of their individual right to vote. Esau recognized a dire need for educational programs aimed at bringing awareness to political and civil rights in an effort to spark African American communities into action for change. These informal conversations were imperative to forming the base of initial participants in the Citizenship Education Program.

The Citizenship Education Program predominately focused on teaching voter registration requirements as well as community and individual empowerment. Most Southern states had created voting registration laws designed around literacy exercises specifically to disqualify potential African American voters. Such requirements to register to vote included having the ability to recite random parts of the constitution as well as signing ones name in cursive writing. While these requirements were made for blacks to register, many people that worked in these registration offices were illiterate themselves. This lack of ability to understand what was written made the decision all up to the preference of the worker. Oftentimes, this meant that blacks would be turned away. However, many blacks first needed to be taught that they had certain rights and that voting was among the most important. The program targeted these fundamental points and taught other more basic everyday needs as well. Another hope for the program was to create a wave of education that would spread throughout the local communities, with the community members themselves as the teachers.

The hope for the education program was that it would spread to other communities and that these programs and schools would be set up in other communities throughout the south and the entire United States. The program also provided the cost of tuition, training, and even the cost of travelling to the training center itself. With its commitment, the Citizenship Education Program would help many blacks register over the next few years. Indeed, the Citizenship Education Program had a profound impact on the movement with well over 6,000 men and women participating in workshops and classes.

Cotton helped James Bevel organize the students during the Birminghm campaign and its Children's Crusade,  and conducted citizenship classes throughout the South during the era. She also accompanied Martin Luther King, Jr.,  the co-founder and first president of the SCLC, on his trip to Oslo, Norway, to receive the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.

An in-depth interview with Cotton was done by the Oral Histories of the Civil Rights History Project, conducted through the University of North Carolina.

Cotton's impact on the movement is still honored today. She and many others worked very hard to achieve the rights that blacks have. 

*****

*Theophilus Danzy, a football coach best known as the long-time football coach at Stillman College, was born (May 20).

Theophilus "Theo" Danzy (b. May 20, 1930 – d. November 27, 2012, Tuscaloosa, Alabama) served as the head football coach at Prairie View A&M University (1972), Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (1977–1978), Miles College (1980–1982), Alcorn State University (1986–1990), and Stillman College (1999–2005), compiling a career college football record of 84–87–3. He was an alumnus of  Tennessee State University, Danzy died on November 27, 2012.

*****

*Richard Davis, a jazz bassist whose most famous contributions to the albums of others was Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, was born in Chicago, Illinois (April 15).

Among the most famous contribution of Richard Davis (b. April 15, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) to the albums of others are Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch!, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, and Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

Originally from Chicago, Davis began his musical career as a singer with his brothers, singing bass in his family vocal trio. He began studying double bass in high school with his music theory and band director, Walter Dyett.  He was a member of Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (then known as the Youth Orchestra of Greater Chicago) and played in the orchestra's first performance at Chicago's Orchestra Hall on November 14, 1947. After high school, he studied double bass with Rudolf Fahsbender of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra while attending Vandercook College.

After college, Davis performed in dance bands. The connections he made led him to pianist Don Shirley.  In 1954, Davis and Shirley moved to New York City and performed together until 1956, when Davis began playing with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra.  In 1957, he became part of Sarah Vaughan's rhythm section, touring and recording with her until 1960.

During the 1960s, Davis was in demand in a variety of musical circles. He worked with many of the cutting edge small jazz groups of the time, including those led by Eric Dolphy, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, Andrew Hill, Elvin Jones and Cal Tjader. From 1966–1972, he was a member of The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra (now known as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra). He also played with Don Sebesky, Oliver Nelson, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, and Ahmad Jamal. 

Davis recorded with pop and rock musicians in the 1970s, appearing on Laura Nyro's Smile, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, and Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run.  During his career, Davis performed classical music with conductors Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Leopold Stokowski, and Gunther Schuller. 

After living in New York City for 23 years, Davis moved to Wisconsin in 1977, where he became a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaching bass, jazz history, and improvisation.

*****

*Damita Jo DeBlanc, a singer best known for her answer songs "I'll Save the Last Dance for You" and "I'll Be There", was born in Austin, Texas (August 5).

Damita Jo DeBlanc (b. August 5, 1930, Austin, Texas – d. December 25, 1998, Baltimore, Maryland), known professionally as Damita Jo, was an American actress, comedian, and lounge music performer.

DeBlanc was born in Austin, Texas. She was the featured vocalist on albums by Steve Gibson and the Red Caps during the 1950s. She later went on to marry Gibson, but they parted ways professionally and personally in 1959.

Credited as Damita Jo, DeBlanc had some chart success in the early 1960s with two answer songs: 1960's "I'll Save the Last Dance for You" (an answer to "Save the Last Dance for Me") and 1961's "I'll Be There" (an answer to "Stand by Me"). Both initiator songs were originally sung by Ben E. King (the former with the Drifters) and made the R&B top 20. DeBlanc's answer song, "I'll Be There", also reached number 12 on the pop chart. In 1962 she recorded "Dance with a Dolly (With a Hole in her Stocking)", previously made famous by the Andrews Sisters and Bill Haley, for Mercury Records. In 1966, DeBlanc had a minor hit with a cover of the Jacques Brel song "If You Go Away". She was successful in Sweden, where "I'll Save the Last Dance for You" peaked at number 2 (March 1961), "Do What You Want" at number 5 (July 1961) and "Dance with a Dolly (With a Hole in her Stocking" at number 3 (January 1962).

DeBlanc worked with Ray Charles, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton. In 1963, she released a recording for Mercury with Billy Eckstine and the Bobby Tucker Orchestra. She was also involved in comedy and toured with Redd Foxx.

In 1998, DeBlanc suffered a respiratory illness and died on Christmas Day, 1998, in Baltimore, Maryland.

*****

*Kenny Dennis, a jazz drummer who played on albums for such artists as Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin, Oscar Brown, Jr., Charles Mingus, Billy Taylor, and Maldron, and who was the first husband to jazz songstress Nancy Wilson, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 27).

Kenny Dennis (b. May 27, 1930, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) began his musical career in the United States Army Band, playing drums in three bands from 1948-1952. After being discharged, he connected with junior high school mate, pianist Ray Bryant and became part of The Ray Bryant Trio along with Jimmy Rowser on bass. They became the house trio at the North Philadelphia Jazz Club, Blue Note where they played for such jazz artists as Kai Winding, Chris Connor and Sonny Stitt.  His career next took him to New York, where he worked with artists including Miles Davis, Phineas Newborn, Jr., Billy Taylor, Erroll Garner, Charles Mingus and Sonny Rollins. 

In 1957, Dennis performed in Sonny Rollins's Trio with bassist Wendell Marshall at Carnegie Hall — a historic performance that was commemorated in 2007 with a 50th anniversary concert. Dennis moved to California, when Miles Davis recommended him to Lena Horne.  Recording credits include recordings with such artists as Michel Legrand, Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Nancy Wilson, Gerald Wilson and poet Langston Hughes.

In 1997, Dennis became an assistant director of the Lab Band at the award winning Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He and his wife Nancy Wilson were married from 1960 to 1970. Their son, Kacy (né Kenneth Dennis, Jr.) was born in 1963.

*****

*Eric Dixon, a jazz tenor saxophonist, flautist, composer and arranger, was born (March 28).

Eric Dixon (b. March 28, 1930 – d. October 19, 1989) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, flautist, composer and arranger. Dixon's professional career extended from 1950 until his death in 1989, during which time he was credited on perhaps as many as 200 recordings. He worked with Paul Gonsalves, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, Mal Waldron, Oliver Nelson, Quincy Jones, Jack McDuff, Joe Williams, Bennie Green, Frank Foster, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis,  but is probably best known for his tenure in Count Basie's band, which lasted almost two decades. Dixon continued to play in the "ghost band" after Basie's death.

*****

*Charles Dorsey, an attorney known for his legal aid work in Baltimore, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (May 18). 

Charles Henry Dorsey, Jr. (b. May 18, 1930, Baltimore,  Maryland - d. April 21, 1995) attended St. Catherine Academy in Baltimore and Epiphany College, a Josephite seminary, in New York from 1947-48. He transferred from Epiphany College to Loyola College in September 1949. He was the first black undergraduate student to enroll in Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland).
The topic of integrating Loyola College came up in 1946 under the College’s President Bunn. However, Bunn was fearful that the faculty and alumni would violently oppose black students who attended regular undergraduate classes. Even though black students were able to attend night classes during World War II, Dorsey was the first black student trying to enroll as a full time undergraduate. The next president of the College, President Talbot, was open to the idea of allowing black students to attend Loyola College. At first, Dorsey was rejected admission because his courses were from a school that was not accredited by the Middle States Association, a regional collegiate agency. However, Josephites from the seminary Dorsey was enrolled in, visited Loyola numerous times to convince the Jesuits. After renewing his application, Dorsey was accepted into the Loyola College undergraduate program. The historic news was announced by President Talbot in April 1950.
The admittance of Charles Dorsey led Loyola College to receive the Hollander Foundation Award.  In 1947, the Sidney Hollander Foundation started giving out awards for “outstanding contributions toward the achievement of equal rights and opportunities for Negroes in Maryland.” Loyola College received the award in 1951 for not only admitting black students, but “for fully integrating minority students into both its curricular and its extracurricular activities.”
Even though he was admitted to Loyola College, Dorsey withdrew to enlist in the Air Force during the Korean War in May 1950. He served in the Air Force until 1956 and was discharged as a 1st Lieutenant. After the Air Force, Dorsey went back to continue his education at Loyola in the fall of 1956. He acquired enough credits to transfer to the University of Maryland Law School in 1957 and finished law school in 1961.
His legal career started as an associate with Hyman Pressman, Esq., then later an associate with other black attorneys, George Russell, Emerson Brown, Milton Allen, Robert Watts, William Murphy and Charles Josey. He joined the Legal Aid Bureau in 1969, and became its director in 1974. As the director of the Legal Aid Bureau, it expanded from three Baltimore offices to 13 offices throughout the state. He fought for the rural and urban poor in Maryland and for the equal access to justice for all people. As the Bureau’s director, Dorsey was also a driving force behind Legal Aid’s downtown Baltimore headquarters, the first in the United States specifically designed and built to house a legal services operation.
Charles Dorsey was an active member in his community in terms of legal committees and church activities. He was a member of numerous boards of directors in his parish including the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Men, Archdiocesan Board of Education, and Associated Catholic Charities. Dorsey was also president of the Bar Association of Baltimore City and the first black lawyer on the Maryland State Board of Law Examiners. Dorsey received many awards for his legal work, community work and even had awards named after him for his legacy in public defending. A few of his awards include the Papal Order of Knights of St. Gregory, Reginald Heber Smith Award, and the John Minor Wisdom Public Service Award. The award named after him, The Charles Dorsey Award “is given to an individual who has provided extraordinary and dedicated service to the equal justice community and to organizations that promote expanding and improving access to justice for low-income people.”

*****

*Joseph Douse, a pitcher for the Kansas City Monarchs, was born in Atlanta, Georgia (April 30).

Joseph S. Douse (b. April 30, 1930, Atlanta, Georgia – d. August 10, 2012, Southfield, Michigan) was a pitcher for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1952 and 1953.  Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Douse attended Booker T. Washington High School.

*****

*Solomon Drake, an outfielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (October 23).

Solomon Louis Drake (b. October 23, 1930, Little Rock, Arkansas) was an outfielder in Major League Baseball.  He played in 141 games for the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies during the 1956 and 1959 baseball seasons. Solly and his brother, Sammy Drake, were the first African-American brothers to play in the majors.

He is the oldest of three children. In 1948, he graduated from Dunbar High School. After high school, Drake began his baseball career when he joined the Elmwood Giants of the Mandak League as a 17-year-old outfielder that same year and returned for two more seasons in Manitoba. A .300 hitter with Elmwood in 1950, Drake began his pro career in 1951 as an all-star with Topeka. After he served two years in the military, Drake put in two more seasons in the minors before his debut, at age 25 with the Cubs in April, 1956.

He officially retired from baseball in 1960. Solomon Drake then went on to graduate from Philander Smith College with a double major in Psychology and Physical Education. He married Isabelle Dunlap and became the father of three children. Drake served as Senior Pastor of the Greater Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California, retiring in 2016.

*****

*Walter Dukes, a center for the New York Knicks, Minneapolis Lakers and Detroit Pistons, was born in Rochester, New York (June 23).

Walter F. Dukes (b. June 23, 1930, Rochester, New York – February, 2001, Detroit, Michigan) was a center for the New York Knicks (1955–1956), Minneapolis Lakers (1956–1957) and Detroit Pistons (1957–1963).

Born in Rochester, New York, Dukes played high school basketball at Seton Hall Preparatory School, and attended Seton Hall University. He graduated from New York Law School in 1960.

Dukes helped the Lakers win the 1956–57 NBA Western Division in his second season. While with the Pistons, he was named to the 1960 and 1961 National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star West Teams. Dukes averaged double figures in rebounds in six of his eight seasons in the NBA, and had career averages of 11.3 rebounds per game and 10.4 points per game.

Dukes led the NBA in personal fouls in 1958 (311) and 1959 (332) and led the NBA in disqualifications four consecutive seasons between 1958–59 and 1961–62.  His 121 career disqualifications (in only eight seasons) rank second in the NBA to Vern Mikkelsen, and he holds the record for the highest career percentage of games fouled out (21.9%) for any player with over 400 games played.

On March 14, 2001, Dukes was found dead in his apartment in Detroit, Michigan.  According to a police spokesman, he had been dead for about a month when his body was found. He died of natural causes, aged 70.

*****
*Roy Eaton, a pianist and advertising creative who is cited as being the first African American to be prominent in the field of advertising, was born (May 14).

Roy Eaton (b. May 14, 1930), the son of Jamaican immigrants, grew up in Harlem. His father was a mechanic and his mother a domestic servant. He took up classical piano when he was six and shortly after, in 1937, played at Carnegie Hall, winning gold medal in a Music Education League competition. In June 1950, he won the first Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Award. He made his concert debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Chopin’s F Minor Concerto under George Schick in 1951. He was re-engaged to perform Beethoven's 4th the following season, and also made his New York Town Hall debut in 1952.

Eaton's education included the City College of New York, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Zurich, and Yale.  He subsequently became a music instructor at the Manhattan School of Music.

He was drafted for two years into the United States Army at the time of the Korean War, serving all of that time in a hospital radio station, WFDH in Fort Dix, New Jersey where he wrote and produced radio and television programs..

In 1955, on leaving the Army, Eaton was taken on as a copywriter and composer at Young & Rubicam,  and in his first two years created seventy-five percent (75%) of all the music produced there. In 1957, physicians gave him a 10 percent chance of surviving an automobile accident in Utah that left him comatose and killed his wife of under one year.  But he would go on to work almost three decades in advertising, with Young & Rubicam, Benton & Bowles and later his own company, Roy Eaton Music Inc.

In 1986, he returned to regular concert performance at Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center with a unique program format, "The Meditative Chopin", a subsequent "The Meditative Chopin II" in 1987 and a third recital in the same hall in 1992. Eaton was a long-time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation.  

Eaton was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2010.

*****

*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans (January 9).

Lolis Elie (b. January 9, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. April 4, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana) attended Howard University and Dillard University, and later graduated from Loyola Law School.  After graduation, Elie started a legal practice with Loyola classmate Nils Douglas and Louisiana State University Law School graduate Robert Collins.  In 1960, the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Elie and his firm to represent CORE after a sit-in campaign.  Elie and his firm defended CORE chapter President Rudy Lombard and three others who were arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the lunch counter of the McCrory Five and Ten Cent Store in New Orleans.  They appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in its decision, declared the city's ban on sit-ins unconstitutional.  Elie's firm also provided free legal counsel to the Consumers' League, a group of black civil rights activists who protested discriminatory employment practices.  Elie was one of seven supporters of the Freedom Riders who met with then Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1961, when Kennedy encouraged them to shift their efforts to registering black Southerners to vote.  Elie later organized a law firm with white attorney Al Bronstein.  The pair argued civil rights cases and also established a training program for new black lawyers.

*****

*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans.

Lolis Edward Elie (b. January 9, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. April 4, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana) was a civil rights attorney.  A native of New Orleans, Elie attended Howard University and Dillard University.  He later graduated in 1959 from Loyola Law School.  After graduation, Elie started a legal practice with Loyola classmate Nils Douglas and Louisiana State University Law School graduate Robert Collins.  

In 1960, the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Elie and his firm to represent CORE after a sit-in campaign.  Elie and his firm defended CORE Chapter President Rudy Lombard and three others (the "CORE Four") who were arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the lunch counter of the McCrory Five and Ten Store in New Orleans.  Elie and his firm appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in its decision in the case of Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (1963), declared the city's ban on sit-ins unconstitutional and nullified the arrests. 

Elie's firm also provided free legal counsel to the Consumers' League, a group of black civil rights activists who protested discriminatory practices.  Elie was one of seven supporters of the Freedom Riders who met with then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1961, when Kennedy encouraged them to shift their efforts to registering black Southerners to vote.  Elie later organized a law firm with a European American attorney, Al Bronstein.  The pair argued civil rights cases and also established a training program for new black lawyers. 

*****

*Booker Ervin, an American tenor saxophone player best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus, was born in Denison, Texas (October 31).

Booker Telleferro Ervin II (b. October 31, 1930, Denison, Texas – d. August 31, 1970, New York City, New York) first learned to play trombone at a young age from his father, who played the instrument with Buddy Tate. After leaving school, Ervin joined the United States Air Force,  stationed in Okinawa, during which time he taught himself tenor saxophone.  After completing his service in 1953, he studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston.  Moving to Tulsa in 1954, he played with the band of Ernie Fields.

Ervin moved to New York City to join Horace Parlan's quartet, with whom he recorded Up & Down and Happy Frame of Mind (both for Blue Note Records). Ervin worked with Charles Mingus from 1956 to 1963. During the 1960s, Ervin also led his own quartet, recording for Prestige Records with ex-Mingus associate pianist Jaki Byard, along with bassist Richard Davis and Alan Dawson on drums.

Ervin later recorded for Blue Note Records and played with pianist Randy Weston, with whom he recorded between 1963 and 1966. 

Ervin died of kidney disease in New York City on August 31, 1970.

*****

*Joseph Farris, a United States federal judge, was born in Birmingham, Alabama (March 4).

Joseph Jerome Farris (born March 4, 1930, Birmingham, Alabama) received a bachelor of science degree from Morehouse College in 1951 and was in the United States Army Signal Corps from 1952 to 1953. He received a M.S.W. from Atlanta University in 1955 and a juris doctor degree from the University of Washington in 1958. He was in private practice in Seattle, Washington, from 1958 to 1969. He was a judge on the Washington Court of Appeals in Seattle from 1969 to 1979.

On July 12, 1979, Farris was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 26, 1979, and received his commission on September 27, 1979. In Hirabayashi v. United States (1987), Farris sat on the circuit panel that by coram nobis unanimously vacated an exclusion order conviction that had been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States during the wartime internment of Japanese Americans. Farris assumed senior status on March 4, 1995.

*****

*Ray Felix, an American professional basketball player and the second African American to be named an All-Star, was born in New York City, New York (December 10).

Raymond Darlington Felix (b. December 10, 1930, New York City, New York – d. July 28, 1991, Queens, New York) was an American professional basketball player. He was born in New York City. He played high school basketball at Metropolitan High School in New York and college basketball at Long Island University.

A 6' 11" center from Long Island University, Felix was selected by the Baltimore Bullets with the first pick in the 1953 National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft.  He won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award in 1954 after averaging 17.6 points and 13.3 rebounds. Felix was also the second African-American, following Don Barksdale, to be named an All-Star. Felix spent nine seasons in the league, and played for the Bullets, New York Knicks, Minneapolis Lakers, and Los Angeles Lakers.  Felix had an incident with future hall of famer Bill Russell in Russell's rookie season, when after Russell felt Felix had been trying to intimidate him, he knocked Felix unconscious with a punch to the head. Toward the end of his career, after having several of his shots blocked by Russell, Felix took the ball the flung it off the side of the backboard, saying to Russell, smiling, "You didn't get that one!" Felix averaged 10.9 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, with career totals of 6,974 points and 5,652 rebounds. He retired in 1962.

Following his retirement he worked for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation where he sponsored a basketball tournament in Elmhurst, Queens and later worked as a supervisor at Harlem men's shelter. He died of a heart attack on July 28, 1991. He had a son, Ray Jr., with his wife Gloria.

*****

*Thomas Flanagan, an American jazz pianist and composer who improvised fluent melodies with swing, harmonic ingenuity, and a light touch, was born in Detroit, Michigan (March 16).

Thomas Lee Flanagan (b. March 16, 1930. Detroit, Michigan – d. November 16, 2001, New York City, New York) grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by the newer bebop musicians. Within months of moving to New York in 1956, he had recorded with Miles Davis and on Sonny Rollins' landmark Saxophone Colossus.  Recordings under various leaders, including the historically important Giant Steps of John Coltrane, and The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, continued well into 1962, when he became vocalist Ella Fitzgerald's full-time accompanist. He worked with Fitzgerald for three years until 1965, and then in 1968 returned to be her pianist and musical director, this time for a decade.

After leaving Fitzgerald in 1978, Flanagan then attracted praise for the elegance of his playing, which was principally in trio settings when under his own leadership. In his 45-year recording career, he recorded more than three dozen albums under his own name and more than 200 as a sideman. By the time of his death, he was one of the most widely admired jazz pianists and had influenced both his contemporaries and later generations of players.

Flanagan was born in Conant Gardens, Detroit, Michigan, on March 16, 1930. He was the youngest of six children – five boys and a girl. His parents were both originally from Georgia. His father, Johnson Sr., was a postman, and his mother, Ida Mae, worked in the garment industry.

At the age of six, Flanagan's parents gave him a clarinet for Christmas. He learned to read music from playing the clarinet, but within a few years he preferred the piano. The family had a piano in the house, and Flanagan received lessons from one of his brothers, Johnson Jr., and Gladys Wade Dillard.  Flanagan graduated from Northern High School, which he attended with other future musicians, including Sonny Red. 

Flanagan's early influences included Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson, both of whom he heard on the radio and playing in the Detroit area, as well as Nat King Cole and local pianists Earl Van Riper and Willie Anderson. These, however, played in an earlier style, and the young Flanagan and his friends were more interested in the newer bebop, including that played by pianist Bud Powell, who had a strong effect on Flanagan's musical thinking and improvising.

Flanagan's first concert was around 1945, with trombonist Frank Rosolino. Given Flanagan was only around 15 years old at the time, he could not stay in the bar area of the club; between sets, therefore, he went to another room and did some homework. As a teenager, he played in a band led by Lucky Thompson that also contained Pepper Adams and Kenny Burrell. Still in his teens, Flanagan also sat in on piano for some appearances by Charlie Parker in Detroit. During 1949, Flanagan had his first residence, at the Blue Bird Inn in Detroit. In 1950, he played with Rudy Rutherford, until the clarinetist returned to the Count Basie band. Flanagan then played jazz and rhythm and blues with saxophonist George Benson in Toledo, before being drafted into the army in 1951.

After basic training in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Flanagan auditioned as a pianist for an army show. He got the role, which prevented him from being sent to the Korean War at that time. Approximately a year later, however, he was sent to Kunsan, with the war ongoing. There, he worked as a motion-picture-projector operator.  After two years' service he was discharged and returned to Detroit, where he soon became pianist at the Blue Bird again. He again worked with Burrell, as well as Donald Byrd and Yusef Lateef, among others.

In his hometown, Flanagan was surrounded by a loose circle of musicians from the same generation who like him would deeply affect the jazz tradition: the brothers Elvin, Hank and Thad Jones, playing drums, piano and trumpet; the vibraphonist Milt Jackson; the pianist Barry Harris; the bassist Paul Chambers; the guitarist Kenny Burrell; and the singer Betty Carter.

Flanagan moved to New York in 1956, at the tail end of Charlie Parker's reign, and learned bebop through the filter of his own strengths as a distinctly witty, fluid language. He handled bebop's labyrinthine progressions of chords like a painter with a fine brush. He had the speed but not the rattling intensity of Bud Powell, another close colleague after Flanagan's move to New York. 

In 1956, during the Newport summer jazz festival Flanagan first accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, a job that would keep him occupied for a good deal of the next 20 years. He also acted as her musical director.

Flanagan worked with Fitzgerald from 1962 to 1965, then again from 1968 until 1978; he also worked for Tony Bennett, and as a sideman on many important jazz records, including John Coltrane's ''Giant Steps'' and Sonny Rollins's ''Saxophone Colossus,'' and others by Freddie Hubbard, Dexter Gordon, Wes Montgomery, Gene Ammons and Coleman Hawkins.

In 1978, Flanagan had a heart attack and stopped working for Fitzgerald. But then he slowly began to establish himself as an individual artist of the first order, and in the early 1990's, with trio albums like ''Jazz Poet'' (1989) and ''Let's'' (1993), he was suddenly one of the most celebrated figures in jazz. 

Flanagan created a fluid, democratic trio, rather than one featuring a pianist with accompanists. This trio -- including the bassists George Mraz and Peter Washington, and the drummers Kenny Washington, Lewis Nash and most recently Albert Heath -- forged a deep repertory out of bebop miniatures, the work of jazz composers like Billy Strayhorn and Thad Jones, and little-known pieces from the American songbook.

Flanagan won the distinguished Danish Jazzpar Prize in 1993.

Flanagan was married to Diana Kershner Flanagan and they had three children, Tommy Flanagan, Jr., Rachel Flanagan Jackson, and Jennifer Flanagan.

*****

*Fred Ford, a blues and jazz artist, composer, arranger and educator, was born in Memphis, Tennessee to Boss Fred Ford and Nancy Taylor Ford (February 14). 

Fred "Sweet Daddy Goodlow" Ford (b. February 14, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee – d. November 26, 1999) began his musical career in 1943 on clarinet at Frederick Douglass High School, as a part of the Douglass Swingsters Orchestra and the Andrew Chaplin Band, with influence by the Memphis born bandleader, Jimmie Lunceford. 

Ford’s first professional gig was at 'The Barn' in the Hyde Park section of Memphis. He continued honing his musical skills around Memphis at the 'Hotel Men's Improvement Club' (later called the Flamingo Room at Gayoso and Beale), The Elks Club, Mitchell's Domino Lounge (later known as Club Handy) and Club Paradise. Ford began traveling on the road and playing saxophone gigs with Johnny Hodges, Earl Bostic, Paul Desmond, Pete Brown, and Benny Carter.

As a leader in the Johnny Otis Band, Ford performed at such venues as the Apollo Theater in Harlem, The Earl Theater in Philadelphia, the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., the 5-4 Ballroom in Los Angeles and Club Rivera in St. Louis. From the 1950s to 1976, he worked through the booking agency of Don D. Robey of Peacock Records, based in Houston, Texas.  It was there that Ford recorded with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown,  Marie Anderson, and Big Mama Thornton where on her original recording of "Hound Dog" - later famous by Elvis Presley - Ford was heard as the barking/howling dog. Ford continued to tour and record with B. B. King, Esther Phillips, Lightnin' Hopkins and Junior Parker. He also recorded with Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Rich and Sam Phillips' Sun Studio and at the Stax Music Studios with Rufus Thomas on "Do the Funky Chicken."

As a record producer, Ford was behind the jazz pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr.'s 1974 album, Solo Piano, which won a Grammy a nomination. In 1979, they went to the Montreaux Jazz Festival the and other European venues, accompanied by the writer Stanley Booth. In 1978 at Sam Phillips' studio, Ford produced Vanilla, the homecoming album of actress Cybill Shepherd, featuring the Beale Street USA Orchestra and Newborn.

In the 1980s, Ford’s stature as a jazz musician became more recognized as he formed a jazz trio with the organist/vocalist Robert "Honeymoon" Garner and drummer Bill Tyus. As the Fred Ford-Honeymoon Garner Trio, they became a favorite of the annual Memphis Music and Heritage Festival, sponsored by the Center for Southern Folklore. As a jazz musician, Ford worked with Charlie Rich on Rich's last single, "Pictures and Paintings." Ford was also featured in a 1984 Charlie Rich YouTube video for "Lonely Weekends".

Ford and his friend and musician/educator, Emerson Able, formed POBAM, (Preservation of Black American Music) with the aim of keeping jazz and the legacy of black jazz musicians alive. In 1982, POBAM became a charter member of the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Inc., which was organized to nurture artistic excellence and celebrate black heritage.

After diagnosed with lung cancer, Ford became a staunch no smoking advocate encouraging smokers to quit and youngsters not to start.

Ford was the father to twins Jamal and Jamil Ford, who carry on his musical legacy as record producers through their labels and websites, POBAM and WOOKIN.  Jacob Ford,  the youngest child of Fred Ford, was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2007.

Fred Ford died of lung cancer on November 26, 1999.

*****

*Jesse Fortune, a Chicago blues singer and barber known as the "Fortune Tellin' Man", was born in Macon, Mississippi (February 28).

Jesse Fortune (b.February 28, 1930, Macon, Mississippi – d. August 31, 2009, Chicago, Illinois) was trained as a barber before moving to Chicago, Illinois, in 1952. In Chicago, he worked as a barber during the day and a blues singer at night. Fortune became one of the most popular performers for "heavy duty vocal work" in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1952, he was hired by Otis Rush as a vocalist for the Otis Rush Band show. He also performed as a vocalist with Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon. Fortune became better known as the "Fortune Tellin' Man." Fortune's best known recording was "Too Many Cooks," released in 1963. The Robert Cray Band later covered Fortune's "Too Many Cooks." Fortune released a number of records for the USA label, but became disillusioned with the music business. He later said that he "never made a dime from his recordings."

In 1992, Fortune made a come back with the release of a new album titled Fortune Tellin' Man.  Fortune operated a barber shop on Chicago's west side in his later years and continued to perform occasionally in Chicago's blues clubs.

In August 2009, Fortune died at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago after collapsing on stage while performing at Gene's Playmate Lounge, a Chicago blues club. An autopsy showed he died of coronary atherosclerosis.