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African_American History on My Birthday!
| Black surgical breakthrough in Chicago |
Our 2004 Calendar!
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| Jester Hairston, more than an actor! |
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July 9
Jester
Hairston | Jester Hairston was born on this date in 1901. He was an African-American choral composer and actor.
The grandson of slaves from the Hairston plantation at Belew's Creek, North Carolina, Jester Hairston often had to suffer the indignities of Hollywood racism. A Cum Laude graduate from Tufts University, with a major in music, he also studied music at the famed Julliard School. He spent thirteen years as assistant conductor of the Hall Johnson Negro Choir where he often arranged and conducted choirs for Broadway.
He first came to Hollywood in 1936 to conduct the choir work and spent fifteen years on radio and TV’s Amos 'n' Andy despite the fact that the other black characters were played by white actors. Hairston’s early acting roles included playing a “Witch Doctor” in the 1955 film, Tarzan's Hidden Jungle. TV fans perhaps best recognize Hairston as “Rolly Forbes” on the 1986 series Amen; his presence in Hollywood was often hidden on the other side of the camera.
As one of the greatest choral music directors, Hairston composed or arranged more than 300 gospel spirituals in films such as Green Pastures and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. One of the first black actors in the Screen Actors Guild, among his notable works was the song “Amen” from the Sidney Poitier film, Lilies of the Field. Hairston died January 18, 2000, at the age of 98. |
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White House appoints first Black cabinet member |
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July 9
On this date in 1955, E. Frederic Morrow became the first African-American to serve in an executive position on a United States president’s cabinet in the White House.
Morrow was an adviser on business affairs in the Commerce Department before joining Eisenhower’s staff as Administrative Officer for Special Projects from 1955 to 1961. As the sole African-American on a staff dealing with racial tensions related to integration, Morrow faced difficult personal and professional struggles in the White House. The Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. the Board of Education ruling, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the Little Rock crisis were the backdrop for Morrow’s White House years.
In an administration with a civil-rights policy that was at best cautious, Morrow was often frustrated and angered. Morrow as a black "first" found relations within the president’s "official family" to be "correct in conduct, but cold.” He published his autobiography, Black Man in the White House, in 1963 leaving a valuable account of his experience as an African-American working in the Eisenhower inner circle, including his disappointment with the indecision of president’s civil rights policy. |
| One of New York's finest, June Jordan! |
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July 9
June Jordan | June Jordan was born on this date in 1936. She was an African-American writer and educator.
From Harlem, New York, Jordan was the daughter of Granville and Mildred Jordan, Jamaican natives. Her father was a night shift postal worker and her mother was a nurse. When she was five, the family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. During her high school years, she was "completely immersed in a white universe" while a student at Milwood High School and Northfield School for girls in Massachusetts. It was at Northfield, Jordan "discovered her poetic voice." her home circumstances were a source of conflict and anguish because of her father's physical abuse and her mother's denial.
During these times as a young girl, Jordan's father taught her how to box; she has been fighting ever since. This environment resulted in Jordan's writing extensively about her parents and their positive and negative influences. In 1953, Jordan enrolled at Barnard College. Two years later, she married Michael Meyer, a student. While her husband completed graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Jordan continued her studies there until 1956 when she went to Barnard College, where she remained for a year. In 1958, she gave birth to her only child, Christopher David Meyer.
Being in an interracial marriage in the 1950's was especially difficult due to societal attitudes and laws. In 1965, Jordan's marriage ended in divorce and Jordan faced the trials of being a single, working mother and forming her identity. Much of this challenge came forth in her writings. Her books of poetry include Things That I Do in the Dark (1977), Passion (1980), Living Room (1985), and Naming Our Destiny: New and Selected Poems (1989). Other poems published are Kissing God Goodbye: Poems, 1991-1997 Anchor Books, (1997) and Haruko/Love Poems (1994). She is also the author of children's books, plays, a novel and Technical Difficulties (1994), Poetry for the People: A Blueprint for the Revolution (1995), a guide to writing, teaching and publishing poetry.
Her collections of political essays include Affirmative Acts: Political Essays (1998). Basic Books published her memoir, Soldier: A Poet's Childhood, in 2000. Jordan has received a Rockefeller Foundation grant, the National Association of Black Journalists Award, and fellowships from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded Poetry for the People. June Jordan died of breast cancer on June 14, 2002, in Berkeley, California. | |
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July 9
Provident Hospital | On this date in 1893, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery without anesthesia at Provident hospital in Chicago.
This facility was the first black-owned and operated hospital in America. |
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