RePOST: Dear black history month. . .

Dear Black History month,

Despite my feelings about you (dont even ask) I have decided to honor my ancestors by embracing the
-->charade concept of using a month to celebrate our heritage. I am adamantly opposed to restricting my history to just one month because it implies that we ignore our history for the other 11 months(oops guess I just told you my views), but I do recognize the importance of celebrating those that forged a path so that I can be who I am.

You present an opportunity to celebrate the history of our great nation regardless of whether its people identify as American, African American, African or WASP. The history of our nation is not pretty and it is by no means glamorous but it is OUR history and we must embrace it. -->Especially because we accomplished so much in the face of unbelievable racism. Americans began to recognize black history annually in 1926 with Dr. Carter G. Woodson's "negro history week," which began as an initiative to teach Americans about the impact blacks have had on American history. Dr. Woodson published his research about our impact on American history in his Journal of Negro History. It turned out to be a stepping stone for your birth. Following Woodson's lead, Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive whites stepped up and endorsed the efforts. As early as the 1940s, blacks in West Virginia replaced annual celebrations of "negro history week" by celebrating February as "negro history month." Yes you read that right, West Virginia.


February is the birth month of two people who have greatly influenced the black population, Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. I guess this is another explanation for why you were assigned the shortest month of the year. You are lucky to share your anniversary with several important events in our history including:

•February 1, 1960:
In what would become a civil-rights movement milestone, a group of black Greensboro, N.C., college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter.

•February 3, 1870:
The 15th Amendment was passed, granting blacks the right to vote.

•February 12, 1909:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a group of concerned black and white citizens in New York City.

•February 21, 1965:
Malcolm X was shot to death by three Black Muslims.

•February 23, 1868:
W. E. B. DuBois, co-founder of the NAACP, was born.

•February 25, 1870:
The first black U.S. senator, Hiram R. Revels (1822-1901), took his oath of office.

As a young American I have not experienced what Jim Crow laws were like, nor can I testify about how it feels to be attacked with vicious dogs and water hoses. I was not the first black kid in my school and I have never taken a drink from a fountain or used public facilities marked "coloreds only." I also missed out on what it feels like to be forced give up my seat on a bus for a white person. I wasn't at the March on Washington and I didn't get to hear King tell the world about his dream. I haven't been alive long enough to know what "the struggle" was like and I was not one of the people who fought to have you nationally recognized. Dont mistake my youth and lack of experience with violent racism for a lack of knowledge. I know the images of our history are far from pretty. I know the journey to where we are today has not been easy. Unfortunately, many of those who fought for the equal treatment of blacks during the Civil Rights Movement have died or ceased to live in the public eye.  Fortunately, their legacies live on through stories and photos.

While the fundamentals of black history should be the topic of discussion, I fear that younger generations do not appreciate the significance of it because we did not live trudge through the trenches. I'd like to apologize for that. It is not our intention to disrespect or disregard you. We do not mean to disrespect those who have died so that we can attend the same schools and drink from the same fountains as whites, and have the choice to sit in the front of a bus. Just thinking of the things my people endured makes me grateful. I question whether I would have been strong enough to endure such treatment. I love sitting right behind the bus drivers. I cannot imagine what it was like to know its not even an option to stop at the first available seat if it wasn't far enough in the back. I cannot fathom what it would be like to be treated like a second class citizen. With the way you have been celebrated as of late, I shutter to think of what the great leaders of the civil rights movement would think if they were alive today. If nothing more, I thank you for forcing me to stop and remember "the struggle" more often.

As young professionals, we understand that it is our responsibility to continue the legacy of those who have lifted us up onto their shoulders and made history while doing so. We will honor those who died while fighting for equality. We will keep them in our minds each day when we go to school and when our teachers interrupt their lesson plans long enough to acknowledge prototypical "black firsts." Black history is a rich history and it has been deeply rooted in world history.

From Rosa Parks to the Buffalo Soldiers to Langston Hughes our history is colorful and interesting. I will encourage all of my readers to dig deeper than the story of how the Montgomery bus boycott began. While I despise lazy black history programs, I must admit there is still a need to teach our children to embrace their history. I'm afraid if we got rid of "our" month, our history may fall by the wayside and cease to be discussed (a little extreme I know; sue me). I remember what the 'old folks' say about what happens when you don't know your history.

I'm sure you have heard the critics speak of getting rid of you while others promote black history everyday. What happened to McDonald's 365 Black? I'm sure there is a reason you haven't stood up to defend YOURSELF, but I'm not sure I want to hear it. I promise you this is one blog that will recognize the accomplishments of African Americans through our "out the door" quote of the day and by pointing out African American accomplishments each day of the month. We will also recognize a lot of "Black Firsts" (stay tuned!) and my hope is that I can enlighten my readers while inspiring them to make our world a better place.

To my young profesisonals, remember the old saying "those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it?"

-->I could fire other quotes at you like "knowledge is power" and all that jazz but I'd rather just stick with KNOW your history. There is no excuse for not knowing your history, especially when it is just a Google search away! 

Peace & Love,

Raine L. Gabrielle 

If you have any recommendations for unique ways to celebrate our history or if you just need to gripe about the whole concept, consider the comment section your platform.

RIP Aaliyah

9 years ago today, the Princess of R&B was removed from the physical world. I know I said I was going to take a mental day, but as a fan of hers I could not allow the day to pass without doing something in her honor. 9 years later, her death is still difficult to fathom. Without further delay I present my top 5 Aaliyah pics (in no particular order):











...and a bonus


RIP Aaliyah 1979-2001. We miss you!

Whats your favorite Aaliyah song?

HUSL Today Salutes

James A. Emanuel

James A. Emanuel was born on June 15, 1921 in Alliance, Nebraska.  Emanuel is a published poet, scholar, and critic. As a poet, Emanuel has published more than 300 poems and 13 individual books. Emanuel has been called one of the best, and most overlooked, poets of his time. Critics have put forward several reasons for Emanuel's poetry being neglected by the larger literary world, including the fact that Emanuel writes more traditional poetic forms, that he no longer lives in the United States, and the fact that he refuses to take part in the politically correct world of Black academia. 

Emanuel is also credited with creating a new literary genre, jazz-and-blues haiku, which he has read to musical accompaniment throughout Europe and Africa. For this creation he was awarded the Sidney Bechet Creative Award in 1996. He was also awarded the Dean's Award for Distinguished Achievement in 2007 from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and has also been honored with a John Hay Whitney Award, a Saxton Memorial Fellowship, and a Special Distinction Award from the Black American Literature Forum.


His books include Jazz from the Haiku King (1999), Whole Grain: Collected Poems, 1958–1989 (1990), The Broken Bowl: New and Uncollected Poems (1983), Black Man Abroad: The Toulouse Poems (1978), and At Bay (1969). He is also the author of Langston Hughes (1967) and the editor, with Theodore L. Gross, of Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America (1968).

You can check out a few of Emanuel's works by clicking here. An expatriate African-American, Emanuel lives in Paris.

HUSL Today Salutes James Emanuel!!!

Music Break

Day 17 of African American Music Appreciation Month and its all about Motown!



If you are looking for the start of the boy band craze,do not start with Nsync or Backstreet Boys. It began before they were referred to as "Boy Bands." It began with the amazing harmony that was Motown's artists. This post is dedicated to all of Motown's artists that contributed to changing the face of the music industry. We start with The Temptations!

Fast Facts:

My Girl" is a 1964 song recorded by The Temptations for the Gordy (Motown) label which became a number one hit in 1965.
The song became the Temptations' first U.S. number-one single, and is today their signature song.
The single was also the first number-one hit on the reinstated Billboard R&B Singles chart, which had gone on a fifteen-month hiatus from 1963 to 1965.
The success of this single launched a series of David Ruffin-led hits, including "It's Growing" (1965), "Since I Lost My Baby" (1965), "My Baby" (1965), "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" (1966), "Beauty Is Only Skin Deep" (1966), "(I Know) I'm Losing You" (1966), "All I Need" (1967), "(Loneliness Made Me Realize) It's You That I Need" (1967), "I Wish It Would Rain" (1967), and "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)" (1968).

Speaking of David Ruffin, click here to check out one of my favorite scenes from "The Temptations" movie.

"There's only one David Ruffin! Without him, the Temps aint nothing but a group in search of a David Ruffin!"

Enjoy!

HUSL Today Salutes

Chuck "Father of Rock & Roll" Berry

Born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926 Charles Edward Anderson was destined for greatness. Berry gave his first performance while in high school and has been entertaining crowds ever since.

Berry played a major role in broadening the appeal of rhythm-and-blues music during the 1950s and he helped create rock and roll. Berry was signed to Chess Records and in the summer of 1955, and his first recording session yielded "Maybellene" which reached #5 on the Pop Charts and #1 on the R&B Charts. He drew upon a broad range of musical genres in his compositions. Berry continued his success with such hits as "Brown-Eyed Man," "Too Much Monkey Business," "Memphis," "Roll Over, Beethoven!" "Johnny B. Goode" and "Reeling and Rolling." Click here to find out how Berry's tunes fared on the charts.

"Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none is more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He is its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, possessing the clearest diction, and one of its greatest performers."

-Cub Koda

Maybelline.


Johnny B. Goode (widely considered Berry's masterpiece)

In the 1960s and 1970s, Berry's music was the inspiration for such groups as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Berry had a number of comeback recordings and in 1972 had the first and only #1 Pop Chart hit of his career with "My Ding-A-Ling. . In 1984 he was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement. 1986 fittingly saw him inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the very first inductee in history. As a tribute to his pervasiveness in the realm of rock, a clip of "Johnny B. Goode" was played in the Voyager I spacecraft on a copper phonograph record attached to the side of the satellite. 1987 saw  the publication of Berry's book Chuck Berry: The Autobiography.


Chuck Berry is in his 80s today and continues to rock out crowds with his signature "duck walk."



In December 2008, Cadillac Records, a film chronicling the rise and fall of Chess records and its artists was released. Mos Def portrayed Chuck Berry. Check out one of the scenes below:

HUSL Today Salutes Chuck Berry!!!

HUSL Today Salutes

Jackie Robinson

 Image source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/Jackie%20Robinson%20sliding.jpg

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919. By 1935, Robinson had graduated middle school and enrolled in high school at Muir Tech High School. At Muir Tech, Robinson played several sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track, and baseball. He played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team. With the track and field squad, he won awards in the broad jump. He was also a member of the tennis team.  Robinson graduated high school and enrolled at Pasadena Junior College.

Robinson continued his sports career at Pasadena Junior College, Robinson graduated in 1939 and transferred to UCLA. While enrolled, Jackie became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track. In 1941, he was named to the All-American football team. Due to financial difficulties, he was forced to leave college, and eventually decided to enlist in the U.S. Army. After two years in the army, he had progressed to second lieutenant. Jackie's army career was cut short when he was court-martialed in relation to his objections with incidents of racial discrimination. In the end, Jackie left the Army with an honorable discharge.

Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Jackie_robinson_ucla_track.jpg

In 1945, Jackie played one season in the Negro Baseball League. In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey approached Jackie about joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Major Leagues had not had an African-American player since 1889, when baseball became segregated. Because of this feat, Robinson is sometimes referred to as baseball's barrier breaker.

At the end of Robinson's rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he had become National League Rookie of the Year with 12 homers, a league-leading 29 steals, and a .297 average.


  
Watch Robinson in action as he steals home!

Over ten seasons, he played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Championship. He was selected for six consecutive All-Star Games from 1949 to 1954. In 1949, he was selected as the NL's Most Valuable player of the Year, the first black player so honored,  and also won the batting title with a .342 average that same year.

Robinson also found success outside of the diamond. He was the first African-American television analyst in Major League Baseball, and the first African-American vice-president of a major American corporation. In the 1960s, he helped establish the Freedom National Bank, an African-American-owned/controlled financial institution based in Harlem, New York. In recognition of his achievements on and off the field, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

More footage of the Hall of Famer

Check out Robinson reciting the alphabet with the muppets.



The southern belle side of me loves that he says "dubya" *smiles*

Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, Major League Baseball retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams. Robinson joined the ancestors on October 24, 1972. His legacy lives on in the baseball players we know and love today sans the steroids.

HUSL Today Salutes Jackie Robinson!

HUSL Today Salutes

Shirley Franklin

Image source: http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeschooling/files/2009/12/who.jpg

Shirley Clarke Franklin was born on May 10, 1945. Franklin received her B.A. in sociology from Howard University and her M.A., also in sociology, from the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin served as the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs under Mayor Maynard Jackson. Subsequently, she was named Chief Administrative Officer and City Manager under Mayor Andrew Young.

"My dream as a child was to be a dancer. I wasn't the class president or the student government president or anything like that. The first time I ever ran for a major office was to be mayor."

The 58th mayor of Atlanta, she was the first female to hold the post and became the first black woman to be elected mayor of any major Southern city. Franklin was Atlanta's fourth black mayor. In 2005, TIME Magazine named Franklin of the five best big-city American mayors. In October of that same year, she was included in the U.S. News & World Report "Best Leaders of 2005" issue.

In July of 2009, Mayor Franklin (along with Frances Townsend and Judge William H. Webster) was appointed to an ad hoc Department of Homeland Security special task force for 60-day review of the Homeland Security Advisory System. Frances served as mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from 2002 to 2010. She is succeeded by Kasim Reed.

Mayor Franklin was the recipient of Profile in Courage Award in 2005, issued by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. The foundation praised her management of the city of Atlanta during the critical period of enormous deficit and loss of public confidence in government following the corrupt administration of Mayor Bill Campbell. She is an Honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

HUSL Today Salutes Shirley Franklin!!!

HUSL Today Salutes

Constance Baker Motley

 Image source: http://jameslogancourier.org/media/quotes/20080914-200px-Baker_motley_1998.jpg

Constance Baker Motley was born on September 14, 1921in New Haven, Connecticut. She initially attended Fisk University, a historically black college in Tennessee, before deciding to move to an integrated university. Motley graduated from New York University in 1943, then received her law degree from Columbia Law School in 1946. Her legal career began as a law clerk in the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), where she worked with Thurgood Marshall, Jack Greenberg, and others. The LDF's first female attorney, she became Associate Counsel to the LDF, making her the NAACP's lead trial attorney.

In 1950 she wrote the original complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The first African-American woman ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meredith v. Fair she successfully won James Meredith's effort to be the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. Motley was successful in nine of the ten cases she argued before the Supreme Court. The tenth decision, regarding jury composition, was eventually overturned in her favor. She played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement, helping to desegregate Southern schools, buses, and lunch counters.

Image source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3NHGO6tuELU/SrF_39ZcHz/AAAAAAAACo8/Vbx-PjOpwC /s320/motley_constance_baker.jpg

Read the rest to find out more.

R.I.P Civil Rights Legend Dr. Dorothy Irene Height

While I was away on hiatus, the civil rights world (and America) was rocked by the passing of civil rights icon Dorothy Height around 3:41 a.m.on Tuesday, April 20 at the age of 98. . Height is considered a founding member of the Civil Rights Movement.  Dr. Height passed at Howard University Hospital after being there for over a month with health issues. Check out HUSL Today's  recentsalute to Dr. Height. Although Dr. Height is gone from the physical world her indelible legacy and unforgettable accomplishments will live on. I hope her family, friends and supporters are able to find comfortas they mourn her passing. She is an inspiration, a legend and a leader. May she rest in Peace.

HUSL Today Salutes

Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

Image source: http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/2b9095cf783e2a5f_large

Mordecai Wyatt Johnson was born on January 4, 1890 in Paris, Tennessee.Johnson's formal education began in a small elementary school in his native town. From there he went to Roger Williams University in Nashville, then to Howe Institute in Memphis, and later transferred to the Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse College) where he completed his secondary and undergraduate education.   

During his college career, he was a member of the debating team and the Glee Club, a star athlete in three sports, and quarterback of the football team. Johnson received his B.A. from Morehouse College in 1911, and second bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago two years later. Offered a faculty position at the college upon graduation, he taught English and economics and served a year as acting dean.

He studied at several other institutions of higher education, including the Rochester Theological Seminary, Harvard University, Howard University, and the Gammon Theological Seminary. 

He traveled 25,000 miles a year speaking principally on racism, segregation, and discrimination. Early in his career, he was frequently in demand to lead religious-weeks in colleges. He was the annual speaker on Education Night at the National Baptist Convention, USA, and a regular on the program at the Ford Hall Forum in Boston.  Johnson served as Professor of Economics and History at Morehouse and as Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Charleston, West Virginia.

On June 26, 1926 Johnson was unanimously elected President of Howard University, becoming the first African American to head that institution. Johnson's election was a significant achievement because ever since the establishment of schools for freedmen by white missionaries from the North following the Civil War, most of these institutions had been headed by Caucasians, as had Howard from its inception in 1867.

Image source: http://www.howard.edu/newsroom/images/HowardUniversityLogo2_002.jpg

In 1951 he was a member of the American delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that met in London. On that occasion he was selected to speak on behalf of his sub-committee at the plenary session of the gathering. He pleaded for the favored nations to consider the plight of the underprivileged and dispossessed people of the world and stressed the need for a sense of justice that the nations should display with those under their domination.

He served at President of Howard University until 1960. Among his accomplishments, he had greatly expanded the campus and built a library and new structures for several schools within the university. Finances were sound can his ghost come back and do this again?. Enrollment increased from 2,000 in 1926 to more than 10,000 in 1960.

 Image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZVNzpBbd7yuHRUD9JuCo4sd2nT923GVbjsd_leUOcItDlB11OMuKtap3JjKmHhydL1d0OYS-EhPleZR5ZSmNlg4BbIP1ejKLqzTT2uU4iwxkSMmJEi8SH4drNfQtfiFhkRLrIA-uqaM/s320/dubois_web_0.jpg

He died on September 10, 1976, at the age of 86, in Washington, D.C.

 HUSL Today Salutes Mordecai Wyatt Johnson!! 

HUSL Today Salutes

Lena Frances Edwards

Image Source: http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Images/E_Images/Edwards_Lena_c1980_JJ.jpg

Lena Frances Edwards was born on September 17, 1900 in Washington, D.C.  She graduated Howard University Medical School in 1924, and started her medical practice in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1925 within the immigrant community of Hudson County, New Jersey.

She advocated natural childbirth. Because of racism and sexism, it took years before she was admitted to the residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City. She also taught obstetrics at Howard University Medical School but told them she could not accept a department chair because of her religious objections to abortion. She was a devoted Catholic and a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis. Her religious beliefs underlay a life of service. Among other things, she was the medical adviser to the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and volunteered at a mission for Mexican migrant workers in Texas. Her service was recognized by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1966 she was awarded an honorary degree from Saint Peter's College, New Jersey. She was awarded the Poverello Medal in 1967. She passed away in 1986 in Lakewood, New Jersey.

HUSL Today Salutes Lena Frances Edwards!

Sidenote (shameless plug) Support Howard and buy some HU gear!
 

HUSL Today Salutes

Benjamin Banneker 

Image source: http://www.african-americaninventors.org/images/db_images/Banneker.png

On November 9 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland. He was the descendent of slaves, however, Banneker was born a freeman.

Benjamin Banneker was educated by Quakers, however, most of his education was self-taught. Banneker was a self-educated scientist, astronomer, inventor, writer, and antislavery publicist. He built one of the first watches made in America, a wooden pocket watch in 1753. 

Twenty years after he made the first watch, Banneker began making astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a 1789 solar eclipse. His estimate made well in advance of the celestial event, contradicted predictions of better-known mathematicians and astronomers.

Banneker is best known for his six annual Farmers' Almanacs published between 1792 and 1797. In his free time, Banneker began compiling the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris. The almanacs included information on medicines and medical treatment, and listed tides, astronomical information, and eclipses, all calculated by Banneker himself.

On August 19 1791, Banneker sent a copy of his first almanac to secretary of state Thomas Jefferson. In an enclosed letter, he questioned the slaveholder's sincerity as a "friend to liberty." He urged Jefferson to help get rid of "absurd and false ideas" that one race is superior to another.

Click here to read the text of his letter to Thomas Jefferson. 

He passed away on October 25, 1806. He was one of the first African Americans to gain distinction in science.

HUSL Today Salutes Benjamin Banneker!!! 

Sidenote: He gets an extra special hip hip hooray because he shares a birthday with my mother. Hi Mommy! *waves* Speaking of birthdays, today is a celebration of life for one of my favorite girls T-Flu. Happy Birthday!!

Have a great weekend folks!

HUSL Today Salutes

Billie Holiday

Image source: http://g.virbcdn.com/i/resize_500x500/Image-115898-564464-BillieHoliday.jpg 

Billie Holiday was born Elinore Fagan (her birth certificate says Elinore Harris yea I'm confused too) on April 7, 1915. She spent most of her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland.  At the age of 18, Holiday was discovered by producer John Hammond while she was performing in a Harlem jazz club. Hammond was instrumental in getting Holiday recording work with an up-and-coming clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman. With Goodman, she sang vocals for several tracks, including her first commercial release Your Mother's Son-In-Law and the 1934 top ten hit Riffin' the Scotch.

Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and musical partner Lester

Young, Holiday was a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. Above all, she was admired all over the world for her deeply personal and intimate approach to singing. Critic John Bush wrote that she "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably God Bless the Child, Don't Explain, Fine and Mellow, and Lady Sings the Blues.

 Image source: http://www.mp3lyrics.org/b/billie-holiday/billie-holiday_3.Jpg

Holiday toured with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1937. The following year, she worked with Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Holiday broke new ground with Shaw, becoming one of the first female African American vocalists to work with a white orchestra. Promoters objected to Holiday—for her race and for her unique vocal style—and she ended up leaving the orchestra out of frustration.

She became famous for singing jazz standards including Easy Living and Strange Fruit. Strange fruit, a story about African American lynching, debuted in 1939  and was banned by some radio stations-a practice which helped make it famous.

Although she had her share of struggles in her final years, Holiday remains one of the most greatest  jazz vocalists of all time. Her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues (1956), was written in collaboration by William Dufty. Her raw emotion is easily felt in her songs Holiday passed away on July 17, 1959.

Her autobiography was made into the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues with famed singer Diana Ross playing the part of Holiday. In 2000, Billie Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Diana Ross handling the honors.

Check out footage of her singing my favorite tunes below:





Source: Biography.com

HUSL Today Salutes Billie Holiday!  
Happy belated Birthday Billie!!! 

HUSL Today Salutes

Tyler Perry

 Tyler Perry was born Emmitt Perry, Jr. on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Although Perry had it rough his first few years, even being homeless at one point, he proclaims that writing about his pain proved to be the avenue to his success.

 Image source: http://chubbyafro.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/tyler-perry-madea.jpg

His first movie, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which went on and grossed $50.6 million domestically, while scoring a 16 percent approval rating at the film review web site, Rotten Tomatoes. On its opening weekend, February 24, 2006, Perry's film version of Madea's Family Reunion opened at number one at the box office with $30.3 million. The film eventually grossed $65 million; as with Diary, almost all of the Madea's earnings originated in the United States. Perry and the co-stars promoted the film on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Perry's next LionsGate project, Daddy's Little Girls, starred Gabrielle Union and Idris Elba and was released in the U.S. on February 14, 2007. It grossed over $31 million. Perry wrote, directed, produced and starred in his next movie, Why Did I Get Married?, released on October 12, 2007. It opened number one, grossing $21.4 million at the box office that weekend.  Janet Jackson, Sharon Leal, Jill Scott and Tasha Smith appeared in the film. Perry's 2008 film, Meet the Browns, released on March 21, opened at #2 with a $20,082,809 weekend gross. The Family That Preys opened on September 12, 2008, and grossed over $37.1 million.

Madea Goes to Jail opened #1 on February 20, 2009, grossing $41 million and becoming his largest opening to date. This was Perry's seventh film with Lionsgate Entertainment. At the request of director J. J. Abrams, Perry had a cameo appearance in the movie Star Trek, which opened on May 8, 2009. This was his first movie appearance outside of his own projects.

Perry next wrote, directed, and starred in I Can Do Bad All By Myself, a film structured around his Madea character. Perry also teamed with Oprah Winfrey to present Precious, a movie based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

Perry movies are co-produced and distributed by Lionsgate Entertainment while he retains full copyright ownership under his corporate name, Very Perry Films, and places his name in front of all titles.

In 2005 Forbes reported that he had sold "more than $100 million in tickets, $30 million in videos of his shows and an estimated $20 million in merchandise" and that "the 300 live shows he produces each year are attended by an average of 35,000 people a week."

Perry produces a television show entitled Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which follows an African-American household of three generations. After a successful pilot run, Perry signed a $200 million, 100-episode deal with TBS. Additionally, Perry wrote, directed and produced the sitcom Meet The Browns, which premiered on TBS on January 7, 2009.

Check the footage below for the trailer for Perry's latest flick Why did I get married too? Which raked in over $30 million at the weekend box office. 

His efforts to bring more minorities to the big screen and urban theatre are admirable to say the least. 

HUSL Today Salutes Tyler Perry!!!

HUSL Today Salutes

Maya Angelou 

Image source: http://www.wicknet.org/english/Poetry-1/Angleou/Maya%20angelou.jpg

Dr. Maya Angelou was born on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. As a teenager, Dr. Angelou’s love for the arts won her a scholarship to study dance and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School. At 14, she dropped out to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car conductor.

In 1954 and 1955, Dr. Angelou toured Europe with a production of the opera Porgy and Bess. She studied modern dance with Martha Graham, danced with Alvin Ailey on television variety shows and, in 1957, recorded her first album, Calypso Lady. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, acted in the historic Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks and wrote and performed Cabaret for Freedom. 

In 1960, Dr. Angelou moved to Cairo, Egypt where she served as editor of the English language weekly The Arab Observer. The next year, she moved to Ghana where she taught at the University of Ghana's School of Music and Drama, worked as feature editor for The African Review and wrote for The Ghanaian Times.

While in Ghana, she met with Malcolm X and, in 1964, returned to America to help him build his new Organization of African American Unity. Shortly after her arrival in the United States, Malcolm X was assassinated, and the organization dissolved. Soon after X's assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Dr. Angelou to serve as Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 

With the guidance of her friend, the novelist James Baldwin, she began work on the book that would become I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Published in 1970, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was published to international acclaim and enormous popular success. The list of her published verse, non-fiction, and fiction now includes more than 30 bestselling titles.
 Image source: http://www.whitbyforum.com/uploaded_images/maya_angelou-753123.jpg



Dr. Angelou wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film Georgia, Georgia. Her script, the first by an African American woman ever to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Image source: http://www.achievement.org/achievers/ang0/large/ang0-003.jpg

She appeared in the landmark television adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots (1977) and John Singleton's Poetic Justice (1993). In 1996, she directed her first feature film, Down in the Delta. In 2008, she composed poetry for and narrated the award-winning documentary The Black Candle, directed by M.K. Asante, Jr.

She captured the essence of every woman with  one of my favorite poems "Phenomenal Woman." Check it below:



Dr. Angelou has served on two presidential committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and has received 3 Grammy Awards. President Clinton requested that she compose a poem to read at his inauguration in 1993. Dr. Angelou's reading of her poem "On the Pulse of the Morning" was broadcast live around the world.




Dr. Angelou has received over 30 honorary degrees and is Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. Dr. Angelou is a celebrated poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist.

HUSL Today Salutes Dr. Maya Angelou!

Source: http://mayaangelou.com/bio/

EVENTS: Enjoy an evening with living American History!

Come and enjoy an evening with Tuskegee Airmen Alexander Jefferson and Bill Holloman.

Bill Holloman flew during WWII as a Tuskegee Airman; flew for the Air Force during the Korean War; and was the nation's first black helicopter pilot for the Air Force during the Vietnam War.


Alexander Jefferson was attending Howard University working on his Master's Degree in Chemistry but was ordered to Tuskegee Army Air Field in April 1943. He flew 18 complete missions and was shot down on the 19th. He was captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in Stalag Luft 3.

Date: April 5, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Howard University Crampton Auditorium
2455 Sixth Street, NW
Washington, DC 22059
Cost: $5 per student, $10 for adults


Tickets available at all Ticketmaster locations and Cramton Hall Box Office (202) 806-7194

HUSL Today Salutes

Dorothy Height

Image Source: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/steinhardt/profiles_images/dorothy_height.jpg

Dorothy Height was born on March 24, 1912 in Richmond, Virginia.  In 1929, Height moved to New York to enroll at Barnard. When she arrived at the college, the dean told her that even though she had been accepted, she would have to wait a year because the college only allotted two slots for Negro women both of which had already been filled.  According to the dean, she was “young enough to wait another year." Undaunted, Height, who had been awarded a four-year scholarship for both her grades and her oratorical skills, headed downtown to the NYU Washington Square campus to talk to Dean Ruth Shaffer. Even though Height had not formally applied to NYU, Shaffer invited her to enroll based on a copy of her high school transcript and her acceptance letter from Barnard.

At NYU, Height helped to organize discussion groups for African-American students, and after graduation she took a job with the New York Home Relief Bureau (later the Department of Welfare). She soon moved on to the Harlem branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association, and eventually joined the YWCA’s national staff, where she spearheaded a movement to integrate the organization. In 1957, she took her place in the forefront of the civil rights movement by becoming president of the NCNW. Often, her memoir reveals, she was the only woman privy to high-level discussions with all the great civil rights leaders. When Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, Height was on stage.
Image Source: http://blacksuperwomen.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/g25145_u23939_a_c_motley.jpg

Image source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3209/2827300140_7e452f8384.jpg
“Every struggle has the same concerns at the bottom of them,” Height says. “Race, color, creed, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, it all matters. We need to go back to the time of the March on Washington. That time in 1963. That coming together of all backgrounds with a fiery sense of righteous indignation.”







In 2004, then President Bush commended Height on her achievements with a Congressional Gold Medal. Check the footage below:



Height has also been commended on countless other occasions. The footage from a few can be found below:






As chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), Height has been at the epicenter of the civil rights movement for more than seven decades. And the poet Maya Angelou, in the memoir’s foreword, gives Height her due—ranking the activist with Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman—as those who "somehow have been elevated beyond this mortal coil." Angelou goes on to write, “It is difficult to believe they ever really inhabited human form, they were so noble, so fierce."

Her impact on the African American diaspora remains a token of her life's work.  Please keep her uplifted in fellowship and prayer while she remains in Howard University Hospital in stable but critical condition.

HUSL Today Salutes Dorothy Height!!

A Special Talented Generation *Salute*

A.P. Tureaud

Alexander Pierre Tureaud was born on February 26, 1899  in the 7th Ward of New Orleans.  A 1925 graduate of the Howard University Law School (HUSL), Tureaud was admitted to the Louisiana Bar in 1927 and admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court in 1935.

In 1940, the NAACP in New Orleans summoned the legendary litigator Thurgood Marshall to represent it in the case of Joseph P. McKelpin v. Orleans Parish School Board. The case was initiated by black teachers from the segregated public school system, who had sued the school board for salaries equal to their white counterparts. Marshall retained Tureaud as local counsel on the case. The case was settled out of court on September 1, 1942, and black teachers were offered a graduated pay increase over the next two years.

That year, Tureaud resigned his post at the Customs Office and entered private practice. For the next thirty years, he represented plaintiffs on dozens of significant cases, which gradually chipped away at the institution of segregation in New Orleans and Louisiana.

In 1950 and 1951, Tureaud represented plaintiffs in Daryle Foster v. Board of Supervisors of LSU, Roy Wilson v. Board of Supervisors of LSU, and Payne v. LSU in federal court. He won all three cases and forced LSU to admit blacks.

Tureaud represented the NAACP in Edward Hall v. T. J. Nagel, Registrar of Voters in 1952, which eliminated voting procedures designed to exclude blacks from voting.

Tureaud represented parents in Earl Benjamin Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board in February 1956, which echoed the earlier Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, of 1954 May 17. The decision from that case, rendered by Federal District Judge J. Skelly Wright, suppressed the Louisiana state legislature's attempt to preserve segregated public schools through legislation. Tureaud's many petitions following this decision led directly to the desegregation of New Orleans Public Schools over the next decade.

His impact on the Civil Rights Movement is inspiring. As the civil rights movement intensified throughout the South, Tureaud took the case of three students in Baton Rouge, who had been arrested for disturbing the peace during a sit-in protest. With the support of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, Tureaud took Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157, to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on 1961 Dec. 11. The decision legalized sit-in protests at segregated private businesses and restaurants. 

Tureaud represented a white woman attempting to enter the historically black Grambling State University in 1965.  He represented teachers from Madison Parish in Linda Williams v. George Kimbrough in 1969, who had been fired and replaced by white teachers. That same year, he won Dana Hubbard v. Fred Tannehill, which banned text books from Louisiana public schools which supported white racial superiority. The defendant Tannehill of Pineville was the president of the Louisiana State Board of Education.

Tureaud filed formal complaints and multiple lawsuits against City Hall in New Orleans to desegregate City Park, Audubon Park, public buses, the New Orleans Airport restaurant, and other public facilities.

Tureaud passed away on January 22, 1972.  His papers are archived at the Amistad Research Center, at Tilton Hall on the campus of Tulane University. London Ave., a thoroughfare in New Orleans, was renamed A.P. Tureaud Ave. in his honor. Marie C. Couvent School at 2021 Pauger Street was renamed after him in 1999.

Tureaud Hall on the campus of LSU was named for A.P. Tureaud, Sr. His son, A.P. Tureaud, Jr., was LSU's first African American undergraduate student.

In his honor take a moment and enjoy the sounds of a traditional N'awlins brass band.

 Join Talented Generation as we *Salute* A.P. Tureaud!!!

Have a great evening.