Black History Month: Celebrating Artists
During the third week of Black History Month, we are focusing on Black artists. From singers/songwriters and playwrights to photographers and fashion designers, Black artists have captured Black culture in their songs, plays, photographs, and clothing designs. And along the way, they have broken down barriers, whether based on race, gender, or sexuality. Please join us in celebrating these icons.
Devin Allen
Devin Allen is a photographer and an activist. He was born in West Baltimore, MD in 1988. Through his camera lens, he walks us through the streets of Baltimore and illuminates the beauty of the people who live there. Each photograph tells a story that tears down the false and racist narrative that dehumanizes and demonizes Black communities, which the news media has spent years constructing. He shows the world the truth, capturing the magnificence of Black moms, dads, children, and grandparents, while simultaneously revealing the harsh injustices these communities face. The illegal arrest and subsequent murder of Freddie Gray by Baltimore city police officers led to the “Baltimore Uprising” in April 2015. The narrative was to be the same: blame the victim for the violence placed upon him, blame the community from which he comes, and blame the protesters for the uprising, delegitimize the cause, and focusing on property damage rather than human rights. Allen’s photograph of the event changed that narrative. In it, we see a single unarmed Black man running away from an army of heavily armored, militarized police. The photograph was on the cover of Time Magazine, with the title America, 1968 2016 What has Changed. What Hasn’t. D. Watkins describes why Allen’s visual gifts hold so much power for us in his introduction to Allen’s book, The Beautiful Ghetto. Watkins writes that we see “beautiful images that conquered the false narratives produced by multiple media outlets, humanized the broke and misrepresented residents of Baltimore, and truly honored the life and legacy of Freddie Gray.” Recently, Allen’s artistic activism and photography of Baltimore’s youth athletes helped launch a new and exciting collaboration with Under Armour. A portion of the profits from his new limited-edition shoe collection will go to the company’s expanded partnership with Wide Angle Youth Media, which is a Baltimore-based nonprofit that works with youth interested in media arts.
Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke was a singer, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur. He was born in Clarksdale, MS in 1931. His contributions as a musician paved the way for later artists, including Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston. Cooke began his career as the lead singer of The Soul Stirrers at the age of 15. He remained with the gospel group for more than a decade, producing the classics “Nearer to Three,” “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” and “Jesus Gave Me Water.” In an attempt to reach a wider audience, Cooke began his transition from gospel to the more secularized soul and pop genre as a solo artist in 1957. He quickly became world-renowned, reaching the top 40 hits chart for pop and R&B on numerous occasions. Cooke also made important contributions to the Civil Rights Movement by refusing to perform for segregated audiences, one of the first real efforts in civil disobedience that helped kick off the Civil Rights Movement. Cooke produced “A Change is Gonna Come,” which became the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement. Readers are encouraged to read the biography Dream Boogie: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick. You can find an insightful excerpt of Dream Boogie here.
Dapper Dan
Daniel Day, known as Dapper Dan, is an African American fashion designer and haberdasher from Harlem, New York. He was born in Harlem in 1944. By age 13, he financed his first store by gambling. From 1968–1974, he toured Africa as part of a program at Columbia University and the Urban League. Back in New York in 1974, he first sold shoplifted items out of his car. In 1982, he opened Dapper Dan’s Boutique on 125th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He soon faced racism and prejudice, and struggled to buy textiles and furs. As a result, he taught himself how to create his own designs, inventing a new process for printing onto leather, and designed jewelry and luxury car interiors. Using logos from luxury brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Fendi, the opening of his store in the early 1980s coincided with the rise of hip-hop music. Day ventured into hip hop fashion in 1985, when he first styled LL Cool J and Eric B. & Rakim. He also created looks for The Fat Boys, Salt-N-Pepa, KRS-One, Bobby Brown, Jam Master Jay, Big Daddy Kane, and Jay-Z, and for athletes including Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, and Diane Dixon. Day’s illegal use of logos in his custom-made designs led to the demise of his first store in 1992. He was shunned by the mainstream fashion world for decades, though he continued to work as a designer for several clients, including Floyd Mayweather. In 2017, Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele designed a jacket based on a well-known Dapper Dan design for Diane Dixon in 1989. Social media reacted when Dixon shared a photo of the Gucci jacket next to a photo of her in the original one. Dixon requested that Dapper Dan receive credit, especially due to Gucci not stating the jacket to be a homage to Dan’s work until after they drew criticism. In 2017, Day and Gucci collaborated for a line of men’s wear. In 2018, Day opened “Dapper Dan of Harlem,” the first luxury house fashion store in Harlem on Lenox Avenue, in partnership with Gucci. Dan is included in Time magazine ‘s 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Stormé DeLarverie
Stormé DeLarverie was a performer and bodyguard, recognized as the ‘guardian of lesbians in the Village,’ and is widely believed to be responsible for sparking the Stonewall Riots. DeLarverie was born in New Orleans, LA in 1920. After a difficult upbringing as the daughter of a white man and Black woman, she moved to Chicago and lived as a straight man in her 20s. It was in Chicago that DeLarverie began to perform in The Jewel Revue, which was the first racially integrated drag revue in North America. Billed as the show with 25 men and 1 woman, the audience was expected to determine which performer was the woman. DeLarverie performed as the debonaire MC and became the revue’s musical director from 1955-1969. DeLarverie’s prominence and her striking androgynous look inspired other lesbians to begin wearing clothing that had previously been considered only for men. Her three-piece suits are now recognized for influencing gender-nonconforming women’s fashion. On June 28, 1969, DeLarverie was at the Stonewall Inn during the police raid, and is often credited with throwing the first punch to protect her friends. After Stonewall, DeLarverie left the Jewel Box Revue and lost her partner of 25 years. At this point, DeLarverie became an advocate for LGBTQ rights and worked as a bodyguard at lesbian bars in the Village in New York City. She worked as a bouncer at lesbian bars for 30 years until she was 85 years old. She passed away in 2014. More about DeLarverie and her life is detailed in an episode of The Nod called The Cowboy of the West Village.
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was born in Chicago, IL in 1930. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, founded Lake Street Bank, one of the first banks for Black people in Chicago, and ran a successful real estate business. Her uncle was William Leo Hansberry, a scholar of African Studies at Howard University. Through these two, many prominent African American social and political leaders visited the household during Hansberry’s childhood, including sociology professor W.E.B. DuBois, poet Langston Hughes, actor and political activist Paul Robeson, musician Duke Ellington, and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens. At age 8, Hansberry’s family deliberately attempted to move into a restricted neighborhood. The family was threatened by a white mob, which threw a brick through a window, narrowly missing Hansberry. The Supreme Court of Illinois upheld the legality of the restrictive covenant and forced the family to leave the house. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision on a legal technicality. The result was the opening of 30 blocks of South Side Chicago to African Americans. Hansberry moved to New York City in 1950 to begin her career as a writer. She was the first African American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, making her the first African American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where much of her work concerned the African struggle for liberation and its impact on the world. Hansberry’s writings also discussed her lesbianism and the oppression of homosexuality. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Hansberry inspired the song by Nina Simone, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, which was also the title of Hansberry’s autobiographical play.
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, stage name Nina Simone and often referred to as the High Priestess of Soul, was a uniquely versatile and tremendously talented singer, songwriter, musical arranger, pianist, and civil rights activist. She was born in Tryon, NC in 1933, and began playing the piano by ear at the age of 3, ultimately becoming the pianist in her minister mother’s Methodist church. She was trained as a classical musician, attending the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She was denied admission to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and had to abandon her dreams of becoming a professional classical musician. Instead, she performed in clubs, and quickly became in high demand due to her unique piano style combining jazz, blues, and classical music, as well as her compelling vocal stylings. At that point she changed her name so that her mother would not find out she was working in bars. Simone eventually signed with recording companies, and her covers of songs by Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and Billie Holliday became smash hits. Part of her repertoire included protest songs about the civil rights movement, and some were banned in the South. Her courage in taking risks to her career came in part from her despair about the church bombing in Birmingham, AL, and the murder of Medgar Evers. She was part of a group of artist-intellectuals in Harlem that included Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin. She wrote Young, Gifted and Black in honor of Hansberry. Simone spent time traveling for several years, but recording companies begged her to make another album. One she made for CTI and another under the Elektra label were wildly successful, cementing her legacy. Nina died in her sleep at her home in France in 2003.
Raven Wilkinson
Raven Wilkinson was the first Africa-American woman to perform with a major ballet company. She was born in New York City, NY in 1935 and began taking dance lessons at age 5. At age 9, she began training with what became the Ballet Russe School with teachers from the Bolshoi Theatre. Wilkinson auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo three times before being accepted on a six-week trial contract at age 20. By her second season, Wilkinson became a soloist with the company, performing across the U.S. As a light-skinned Black woman, Wilkinson faced many challenges when the company toured the segregated South. White-only hotels would not allow her to stay with the dance troupe and Ku Klux Klan members would disrupt their performances. As her notoriety spread, the company prevented her from performing in Southern states and she was informed she would not be able to advance in the company. After leaving Ballet Russe in 1961, Wilkinson struggled to find a company willing to hire her. Following a brief retirement, Wilkinson joined the Dutch National Ballet as a second soloist in 1967, where she performed until 1974. After moving back to the U.S., Wilkinson performed with the New York City Opera from 1974 to 1985, and remained as a character dancer until 2011, when the company disbanded. While Wilkinson is recognized as breaking the color barrier in American ballet, it is essential to note that she was required to wear pale makeup while performing. Wilkinson became a mentor to Misty Copeland, the first Black principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre. Wilkinson passed away in 2018. Her biography is included in the documentary Black Ballerina, which contrasts the experience of three former Black ballerinas with three younger Black dancers currently pursuing careers in ballet.