Harry Belafonte by Carl Van Vechten on February 18, 1954. Photo: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Brilliant scholar, activist and author Angela Davis, photographed in 1973 by the legendary photographer Philippe Halsman. Filmmaker Shola Lynch Free Angela has just released an AMAZING documentary about the iconic Ms. Davis. Photo: Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos.
Sarah Vaughan, born on this day in 1924 in Newark, NJ, in her dressing room in Chicago, 1948. I wonder which fragrance she was using? Photo: Ted Williams.
A Twitter fan tweeted this awesome shot I shared last year of the one and only Malcolm X in Chicago in 1961. The picture was taken by the legendary photographer Eve Arnold who died on January 4, 2012 at the age of 99, just three months short of her 100th birthday. I’m pretty sure this is my favorite picture of Malcolm X.
Tina Turner in motion, captured by the legendary photographer Jack Robinson on November 25, 1969 in New York City. Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Coretta Scott King and her daughter, Yolanda, photographed by Moneta Sleet for EBONY in 1958. Moneta Sleet was the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who took the famous shot of Mrs. King with her daughter Bernice at Dr. King’s funeral in 1968.
I thought this would be a good time to share more about Charles “Teenie” Harris (1908-1998). He was a photographer who captured the full-spectrum of African American life for over forty years, primarily as one of the principal photographers for the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper. Few photographers anywhere captured us so well: from family life to beauty contests to sporting events, social life, civil rights demonstrations and visiting celebrities, Mr. Harris was there with the Speed Graphic camera that he would use well into the 1970s.
Allyce Brookes was captured by photography legend Charles “Teenie” Harris playing a mirrored piano at Crawford Grill No. 2 room in Pittsburgh, sometime in the 1940s. I really wish I knew more about this woman. If you do, let me know in the comment section. Photo: Carnegie Museum of Art - Historic Pittsburgh Image Collection.
Sarah Vaughan in New York City, 1948. Photo: Herman Leonard via the Morrison Hotel Gallery.
Mildred Parson Mason Larkins, photographed by Richard Aloysius Twine (1896-1974) of Saint Augustine, Florida between 1922 and 1927. Photo: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.
Nora Holt, photographed with a marionette by Carl Van Vechten on August 29, 1937, was first African American to earn a master’s degree in music (Chicago Musical College, 1918) She was a music critic for two preeminent black newspapers, the Chicago Defender and the New York Amsterdam News. Married five (or more) times, she was also a regular in the gossip columns thanks to her scandalous love life. Ms. Holt was also said to be the inspiration for the “Lasca Sartoris” character in Van Vechten’s infamous, controversial novel, “N****r Heaven.” She died in Los Angeles in 1974. Photo: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Billy Eckstine adjusting his tie while his wife June applies lipstick at a dressing table in their Manhattan apartment on April 11, 1950. The photo was taken by Martha Holmes, one of the first female staff photographers at LIFE magazine.
