writing & poet
an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western society, most notably in regard to the mid-twentieth-century United States.
QUOTE - There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
James Baldwin
is an American sitcom television series produced by Carson Productions that aired on NBC from September 27, 1986 to May 11, 1991. Set in Sherman Hemsley's real-life hometown of Philadelphia, Amen stars Hemsley as the deacon of a church and was part of a wave of successful sitcoms on NBC in the 1980s and early 1990s which featured predominantly black casts
Amen
an American singer-songwriter best known for her 1975 single "Lovin' You" and her five-octave coloratura soprano range. She is also widely known for her use of the whistle register and has been referred to by the media as the "queen of the whistle register."
QUOTE - Your wealth can be stolen, but the precious riches buried deep in your soul cannot.
Minnie Riperton
was a United States Army officer. In 1940, he became the first African-American to rise to the rank of brigadier general. In 1940, Roosevelt appointed him as the first black general. During World War II Davis held troubleshooting staff assignments designed to assist the expanded role of blacks, albeit in segregated units. He did not have command of troops.
Benjamin O. Davis Sr.
was an American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans—and in glamour photography. Parks was the first African American to produce and direct major motion pictures—developing films relating the experience of slaves and struggling black Americans, and creating the "blaxploitation" genre. He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans during the 1940s
QUOTE - There's another horizon out there, one more horizon that you have to make for yourself and let other people discover it, and someone else will take it further on.
Gordon Parks
was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize
QUOTE - Don't let anyone call you a minority if you're black or Hispanic or belong to some other ethnic group. You're not less than anybody else.
Gwendolyn Brooks
is an American television sitcom co-created by and starring Bill Cosby, which aired in Thursday nights for eight seasons on NBC between September 20, 1984, until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.
The Cosby Show
an African-American dancer, director, choreographer, and activist who founded the American Dance Theater. He created AAADT and its affiliated School as havens for nurturing black artists and expressing the universality of the African-American experience through dance. His work fused theatre, modern dance, ballet, and jazz with black vernacular, creating hope-fueled choreography that continues to spread global awareness of black life in America.
QUOTE - I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.
Alvin Ailey
was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist. He founded the National Council for Negro Women in 1935, established the organization's flagship journal Aframerican Women's Journal, and resided as president or leader for myriad African American women's organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration's Negro Division. She also was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
QUOTE - The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.
Mary McLeod Bethune
an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, a graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the early 1980s, his neo-expressionist paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in documenta in Kassel. At 22, he was the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992.
QUOTE - I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.
an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, a graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the early 1980s, his neo-expressionist paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in documenta in Kassel. At 22, he was the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992.
QUOTE - I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
QUOTE - Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning
Ida B Wells
is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978, to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985, to March 7, 1986. The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, respectively, two African-American boys from Harlem taken in by a rich white Park Avenue businessman and widower, Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain), and his daughter, Kimberly (Dana Plato), for whom their deceased mother previously worked.[2][3]
Diff'rent Strokes
he Blind since shortly after his birth, he is an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. A prominent figure in popular music during the second half of the 20th century, Wonder is one of the most successful songwriters and musicians.
Stevie Wonder
was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, He grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. He was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
QUOTE - To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.
WE.D DuBois
He was Photographer, filmmaker, musician and novelist he was born in Fort Scott Kansas in 1912, an era where racial violence was commonplace. After his mother died when he was 14, he moved in with relatives in Minnesota, but soon after became homeless.
Gordon Parks
was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America".[1] He is best known for a series of ten plays collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle, which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century.
QUOTE - Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
August Wilson
is an American sitcom television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, to July 2, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes.[1] The Jeffersons is one of the longest-running sitcoms,[2] the second-longest-running American series with a primarily African American cast (surpassed in 2012 by Tyler Perry's House of Payne by one episode, though The Jeffersons ran for more seasons),[1][3] and the first to prominently feature a married interracial couple.
The Jeffersons
was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death over a career spanning more than six decades. Born in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s onward and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. In the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Although widely considered a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase "beyond category" as a liberating principle and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music
QUOTE - A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
Edward “Duke” Ellington
is an American attorney and author who was the First Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She is married to the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, and was the first African-American First Lady.
QUOTE - You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that's the one thing people can't take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.
Michelle Obama
he was a man whose photography skills evolved along with the technology of the times. An astute businessman who founded a thriving community of artists, Ball started his business offering his clientele expensive Daguerrotypes.
James Presley Ball
was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
QUOTE - I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Dr. Maya Angelou
is an American sitcom television series that originally aired on NBC from September 14, 1985, to May 6, 1990. The series stars Marla Gibbs as Mary Jenkins, a sharp-tongued, inner-city resident gossip and housewife. Other main characters include her husband Lester Jenkins (Hal Williams), their daughter Brenda Jenkins (Regina King) and lower-floor neighbors Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry) and Pearl Shay (Helen Martin).
227
was an American singer, songwriter, actress, pianist, and civil rights activist. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she embarked on a secular-music career as a recording artist for Columbia Records.
QUOTE - Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you're doing. If you're not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.
Aretha Franklin
an American politician who is the vice president-elect of the United States and the junior United States senator from California. Prior to her election to the Senate, she served as the attorney general of California. A member of the Democratic Party, she will become vice president upon inauguration on January 20, 2021, alongside President-elect Joe Biden, having defeated the incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 election. She will be the United States' first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, and the first African American and first Asian American vice president.
QUOTE - The American dream belongs to all of us.
Kamala Harris
He was born in Lennox, Massachusetts and received his first camera in 1900, at the age of 14. As the owner of one of the few cameras in his hometown, Van Der Zee was often called on to document events in his community.
James Van Der Zee