Baseball legend Jackie Robinson is helped into his jacket by his wife Rachel, circa 1950s, just before he leaves for the ball park. The Robinsons were married for 26 years before his death in 1972. Photo: Bettman/Corbis.
Baseball legend Jackie Robinson was born on this day in 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. In this 1947 photograph, Mr. Robinson is holding his contract to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was 66 years ago this April that Mr. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Photo: Bettman/Corbis
Actress Theresa Harris as she appeared in the 1948 film, “The Velvet Touch,” which starred Rosalind Russell. Ms. Harris was the inspiration behind Lynn Nottage’s play, “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark” which starred Sanaa Lathan.
From Donald Bogle’s Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood: “Harris - who was both outspoken and highly intelligent - didn’t mince words about the plight of colored actresses. She told Fay M. Jackson, of the California Eagle in August 1937: “I never felt the chance to rise above the role of maid in Hollywood movies. My color was against me. The fact that I was not ‘hot’ stamped me as either an uppity ‘Negress’ or relegated me to the eternal role of stooge or servant. I can sing but so can hundreds of other girls. My ambitions are to be an actress. Hollywood had no parts for me.” Photo via A Certain Cinema.
Actress Jane White in a 1941 photograph by Carl Van Vechten. A 1944 graduate of Smith College, White was the daughter of Civil Rights icon Walter White. Ms. White began her career on Broadway in 1945 when Paul Robeson helped her get her first role as the lead in Lillian Smith’s “Strange Fruit,” a story about a doomed interracial love affair. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt praised Ms. White’s work for its “restraint and beauty.” In 1959, Ms. White originated the role of Queen Aggravain (to a young Carol Burnett’s princess) in “Once Upon a Mattress.” For this role, Ms. White was asked to lighten her complexion, lest she “confuse” the audience with her “Mediterranean” looks. She would go on to establish a solid reputation as an actress in Shakespearean and classical roles from the 1960’s through the 1990’s. In 1979, her autobiographical one-woman show, “Jane White, Who?…”, was well received. Ms. White was also a cabaret singer and did work in film and television, including a small part in the film, “Beloved.” In 1992, Ms. White wrote “Life As An Actress: A Mystery Story,” an autobiographical essay for Revealing Women’s Life Stories: Papers from the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College. Ms. White died of cancer on July 24, 2011 in New York City at the age of 88.
Minnie Riperton and tennis legend Arthur Ashe at the Arthur Ashe Roast at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1976. Photo by EBONY photographer Isaac Sutton.
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (January 24, 1874-June 8, 1938), bibliophile, collector, writer, and a key intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance, spent his life championing black history.
Born in Puerto Rico to María Josefa, a freeborn black midwife from St. Croix, and Carlos Féderico Schomburg, a merchant of German and Taino heritage, Schomburg migrated to New York City in 1891.
Shortly after arriving, he co-founded Las Dos Antillas (The Two Islands), which sent aid for the independence cause in Puerto Rico and Cuba. Moving to Harlem and later Brooklyn, Schomburg is best known for his worldwide collection of literature, documents, manuscripts, and art and artifacts from and about the black world.The New York Public Library purchased his vast collection in 1926. Today, the Schomburg Center is home to 10 million items.
Join us tomorrow as we celebrate the birthday of our founder. For more information, click here.
Flip Wilson and Gail Fisher guest starring on an episode of “Love, American Style” called “Love and the Hustler.” This show aired one month before I was born, on September 29, 1969, but I definitely remember watching “Love, American Style” in repeats. I wonder if it still holds up today? Hmmm….
I’m sure most of you know the iconic comedian Flip Wilson, but Gail Fisher was an actress best known for her Emmy-winning role as Peggy Fair, secretary to a detective, in the groundbreaking television series, “Mannix.” Photo: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images.
Lena Horne and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a party Ms. Horne gave in Dr. King’s honor in New York in 1963. Photo by Steve Schapiro.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harry Belafonte share a good laugh together. This photo was released by Alfred A. Knopf last year when they published Mr. Belafonte’s memoir, My Song.
Dorothy Dandridge, on the set of “Carmen Jones” at the RKO lot in Hollywood in 1954. In the film, the police were military police in tan uniforms, so my guess is that these gentlemen were real policemen (security on the set?) I found the photo (perhaps taken by a studio photographer) via Tumblr on a Dorothy Dandridge tribute blog (dorothydandridge.tumblr.com) where it was submitted by a fan.
It’s true! Aretha Franklin really IS the Queen of Soul! She was “officially” crowned just before a performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago in May 1964. Photo: Isaac Sutton for EBONY.
A model in 1954, showing off the continuing popularity of the bikini. This photo actually appeared in the November 1965 issue of EBONY in a story about fashion tastes over twenty years (as in 1945-1965). Some things never change, right?
