When a Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens or Herschel Walker is in the news, Zora Neale Hurston’s quote, “All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” comes to mind. Zora was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. Author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, she interviewed Cudjoe Lewis, the last known survivor of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Cudjoe was on the slave ship Clotilda which arrived in Mobile, Alabama in 1860. Zora’s book, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” was published in 2018, 68 years after her death.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE executive producer Cameo George said:
Zora Neale Hurston has long been considered a literary giant of the Harlem Renaissance, but her anthropological and ethnographic endeavors were equally important and impactful. Her research and writings helped establish the dialects and folklore of African American, Caribbean and African people throughout the American diaspora as components of a rich, distinct culture, anchoring the Black experience in the Americas.
Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space premieres nationwide on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. The documentary will be available on PBS, PBS.org and PBS Video App. Check your local listing here.
The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission approved the nomination of jazz trumpeter, composer and activist Lee Morgan for a historical marker.
Lee will join John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and his union, Union Local 274 of the American Federation of Musicians, with a historical marker in Philadelphia.
The blue-and-gold marker will be installed in front of the former location of Music City where as a high school student Lee participated in instructional clinics and Tuesday night jam sessions with jazz luminaries, including Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Buddy Rich, Art Blakey and Miles Davis.
On June 26, 1956, trumpeter Clifford Brown left from Music City for a gig in Chicago. Brownie, along with pianist Richie Powell and Powell’s wife, Nancy, were killed in a car crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
There has been an outpouring of interest in attending the unveiling (Date TBD). The date and time of the dedication ceremony will be announced at least 60 days in advance. We will send a monthly update to registered guests.
The dedication ceremony will be followed by a reception at which a special announcement will be made. Please make a donation of $50.00 to help defray expenses.
Donations of $500.00 will be listed as Community Sponsors on social media and All That Philly Jazz.
If you are unable to attend the reception but would like to support efforts to preserve Lee Morgan’s legacy in public memory, please make a donation.
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Located in North Philly, the Starlite Supper Club was owned by jazz impresario Benjamin “Ben” Bynum Sr. Musicians who performed here included Kenny Gamble and the Romeos, Nina Simone, Jimmy Smith, Kim Weston, bagpiper Rufus Harley, and percussionists Babatunde Olatunji and Willie Bobo.
Philadelphia native Cullen Knight recorded a live album, A Knight at the Starlite, in 1965.
For roughly 10 years, the property was home to Club Upscale. The nightspot closed circa 2019.
Opened in 1948, the 820 Club was located on the first floor of North Philly’s Hotel La Reve. The Black-owned hotel was listed in the Green Book travel guide.
Musicians who performed here included the Art Ray Trio, Sally and Stella, aka the Rhythm Girls, blues singer Tiny Williams, pianist Tom “Mr. 88” Kennedy, and saxophonist Jimmy Hinsley and his Quartet.
Gray Manor Apartments, named in honor of Rev. William H. Gray Jr., former senior pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church, is located in the footprint of the 820 Club.
From Auburn, New York to Ypsilanti, Michigan, the commissioning of a Harriet Tubman statue has been a source of civic pride. In Philadelphia, the city where Harriet first experienced freedom, the public art acquisition process is tainted by white privilege, lies, and fuzzy math. The Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) manipulated survey data to minimize public support for a permanent Harriet Tubman statue. OACCE claimed that only 25% of respondents want a statue of the American icon.
When OACCE was called out by a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer, the “full report and report summary were revised on November 22, 2022, clarifying the result for question one.”
Mama Maisha recounted that OACCE Director Kelly Lee told her that the City planned to award a no-bid commission to Wesley Wofford “because he’s in the system already. We can expedite it faster because he’s already in our system.” Her response: “Of course he is. White men are always in the system.” In a majority-minority city, two African American women are gatekeepers for white privilege.
These unaccountable bureaucrats want to sign the contract for the Harriet Tubman statue – or random African American figure – while their boss, Mayor Jim Kenney, is still in office. To do so, they have set an arbitrary timeline that would require artists competing for the commission to work like slaves through Christmas, Kwanzaa, Watch Night, New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend. By contrast, Lee and Anglin spoon-fed Wofford inside information for months as he prepared his proposal.
Mama Maisha notes the disparate treatment of Black and other underrepresented artists:
Now they got a speedy timeline. They want everything in by January, over the holidays. People busy, people committed to their families. They got stuff to do at the end of the year. So now you got a rushed timeline. You didn’t have a rushed timeline for Wesley Wofford. But now that you’re dealing with people of color and women, you got a rushed timeline.
The Celebrating the Legacy of Nana Harriet Tubman Committee said in a statement:
Enough! OACCE’s misinterpretation of the data and the lack of transparency in their decisions and actions minimize the importance of community engagement in public art acquisition. We demand a moratorium on the current statue commission Open Call until new, competent, transparent, and accountable oversight is created.
Mama Maisha told Attorney Michael Coard:
We want a moratorium on this Open Call, and we want Kelly Lee and Marguerite Anglin removed from any oversight. We’re going to the Mayor. We’re going to City Council. And if necessary, we will put boots on the ground in front of the Mayor’s Office. We’re ready to hit the streets.
If you have had enough of the coonery at OACCE, contact Mama Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza at (215) 385-0214 or Dr. Michelle Strongfields at (267) 231-0092; email: nanaharrietlegacydefense@gmail.com.
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on February 3, 1870.
Section 1 of the Reconstruction Amendment reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
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