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Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits, 2007
Let Your Motto Be Resistance
Additional Biographies
For more information on how the African American figures from Let Your Motto Be Resistance exhibited personal forms of resistance, scroll down to read individual biographies.
Be sure to see the exhibition's full catalogue which includes essays on African American photography, original poetry as well as reproductions of stunning images from the show.
The musical prodigy known as "Blind Tom" was one of the most celebrated African American concert artists of the nineteenth century. Blind from birth and possibly autistic, Tom was only four when he began performing tunes he had heard played on the piano of his owner, James Bethune. Tom made his professional debut as a pianist in 1857 at the age of eight and was soon earning a fortune for Bethune with engagements throughout the country. When the Civil War began, Tom was returned to Georgia and compelled to play benefit concerts for the Confederate cause. To protect his financial interest in Tom, Bethune obtained legal guardianship of the teenager-a move that effectively prevented Tom from ever securing his freedom. After the war, Tom continued his career, performing a demanding repertoire with skill "so startling as to amaze every listener."
In the 1920s and 1930s the flame-haired entertainer known as "Bricktop" reigned as the cabaret queen of Paris, where her chic nightclub attracted the cream of the café society set. Raised in Chicago, Ada Smith got her start in vaudeville and then worked as a saloon singer in the Windy City until 1922, when she moved on to Harlem. Dubbed "Bricktop" by the owner of one of that district's popular nightspots, she performed in Harlem clubs until 1924, when she seized the opportunity to take her career to Paris. Embraced by that city's cadre of American expatriates, she opened her first Chez Bricktop nightclub in 1926. There, she not only charmed a clientele that included Cole Porter, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, but helped to nurture the careers of such performers as Mabel Mercer and Josephine Baker.
A charismatic preacher with superb organizational skills and a strong commitment to social welfare, Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. not only built flourishing congregations but also ministered to the needs of the greater community. In 1908, following a fruitful fifteen-year pastorship at Immanuel Baptist Church in New Haven, Connecticut, Powell assumed charge of New York City's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Under his dynamic leadership, that church's membership swelled from 1,600 to 14,000, making it the largest Protestant congregation in the United States. In 1923 Powell facilitated the church's relocation from midtown to West 138th Street in Harlem, where it immediately became a vital community center, providing a host of services to those in need. Committed to improving race relations, Powell further expanded his ministry by helping to found the National Urban League and serving as an early leader in the NAACP.
In the African American cultural movement of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance, no one played a larger role than Alain Locke. A leading member of the Howard University faculty throughout most of his career, Locke believed that black artists and writers must look to their own heritage for their inspiration and material. In The New Negro, his anthology of essays, fiction, poetry, and art published in 1925, he conveyed that message with a persuasiveness that made the book a shaping influence of the renaissance and, at the same time, convinced many white critics that African American culture was worthy of more serious consideration. In the mid-1930s Locke became involved in producing the "Bronze Booklets," a series that for many years was a basic tool in the teaching of African American history.
Stephen Shames's portrait shows civil rights activist Angela Davis (born 1944) in 1969, when she became well-known for her impassioned activism on behalf of civil rights and freedom of speech. Davis first gained widespread attention that year for winning a lawsuit against the University of California at Los Angeles for its decision to fire her on account of her membership in the Communist Party. Her connection to a gunfight outside a California courthouse a year later made her internationally famous. Although she had not been present at the time, she was alleged to have purchased the guns that killed a judge and three others. Her two-year incarceration and eventual trial became a cause clbre and prompted outcries from both the political left and right. Davis was ultimately acquitted. Since then, she has continued to champion various social causes, including, most prominently, prison reform.
Tap-dancing virtuoso Bill "Bojangles" Robinson began earning nickels and dimes for his street-corner routines and beer-garden performances when he was a child, and he was barely in his teens when he joined the chorus of the touring minstrel extravaganza The South Before the War. But it was on the vaudeville circuit and as a popular nightclub entertainer that he earned his reputation as the "World's Greatest Tap Dancer." Combining superb showmanship with a winning personality, Robinson was a hit with audiences for more than half a century. In addition to appearances on Broadway in the all-black revue Blackbirds of 1928 and The Hot Mikado (1939), Robinson earned lasting fame from his performances in movies such as the Little Colonel (1935), in which his signature "stair dance" tap routine with Shirley Temple provided the film's most memorable moment.
Renowned for making songs her own, Billie Holiday (1915-1959) once explained, "I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know." This attitude characterized not only her singing style but her life as well. Having endured a difficult childhood, Holiday moved to New York City in 1927. Although intent on fashioning a musical career, she began performing to supplement her meager income as a housemaid. Success onstage led to recording opportunities and, beginning in 1937, a close working relationship with Count Basie's band. Holiday later joined the Artie Shaw Orchestra, becoming one of the first African American singers to headline an all-white band. Despite the stardom she achieved, Holiday suffered various personal crises during the last two decades of her life, several of which were the result of drug and alcohol abuse.
Composer/pianist Billy Strayhorn never achieved the celebrity that some other jazz musicians enjoyed in their lifetimes. Nevertheless, his composing and arranging collaboration with Duke Ellington over three decades yielded many of the most memorable compositions in the history of jazz. In fact, Ellington and Strayhorn worked so closely that it was often difficult to determine where one began and the other left off. As Ellington once put it, "Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head." Strayhorn enjoyed the benefit of a solid musical education that included thorough grounding in classical music. Doubtless that training contributed to the remarkably sophisticated character of many of his compositions and the echoes in his own music of such composers as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
In the face of racial hatred, segregation, and disenfranchisement, it was unrealistic, Booker T. Washington contended, to expect African Americans to gain entry into America's white-collar professions. Instead, he suggested they establish themselves as a skilled and indispensable laboring class. With that accomplished, he believed, racial discrimination would gradually disappear. In 1881 Washington put this theory to the test, becoming the director of the newly created Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. As the school grew, he became viewed as the nation's leading spokesman for African Americans. A magnetic speaker and the author of ten books, including a moving autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), Washington worked closely with such national leaders as Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie. Although well respected, he attracted many critics, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who contended that his "get along" philosophy undermined the quest for racial equality.
Two-time Grammy Award winner Branford Marsalis (born 1960) is a leading figure in contemporary jazz. Initially overshadowed by his younger brother, Wynton, he has emerged as one of the great saxophonists of his day. Marsalis studied at the Berklee College of Music and began his professional career playing in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In addition to performing with his own group, he has enjoyed successful collaborations with a number of celebrated individuals and groups, including Miles Davis, Sting, and the Grateful Dead. His musical renown has also led him to host a weekly program for National Public Radio, to produce various film scores, and for three years in the early 1990s to conduct The Tonight Show band. More recently, he has established a record company, Marsalis Music, for "artists who want to be musicians, not marketing creations."
Performing one night at Harlem's fabled Cotton Club in the early 1930s, singer, composer, and bandleader Cab Calloway was suddenly unable to remember the lyrics to his own song "Minnie the Moocher." To fill the void, he launched into improvisational scat, singing "hi-de-hi, hi-de-ho." His performance soon had the audience joining in, and his raucous finale, Calloway later recalled, "nearly brought the roof down." Forever after, "hi-de-ho" was an integral part of his identity as one of the Big Band era's most popular and respected figures. As in this instance, much of Calloway's success can be attributed to his own rakishly vibrant style, which injected his band's performances with a festive exuberance. He also had a remarkable gift for recruiting and holding on to good musicians, and among his band members were such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Hinton, and Cozy Cole.
Melding lyric poetic forms with the bitter realities of American racism seemed an unlikely combination. But poet/novelist Claude McKay made it work, and Harlem Shadows, his collection of poems published in 1922, is regarded as a major catalyst in unleashing the cultural ferment of the Harlem Renaissance. Of the poems in Shadows, the best remembered was "If We Must Die." Inspired by the rash of American race riots in 1919, it ended with the lines "Like men we'll face the murderous cowardly pack,/ pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!" The universality of appeal in those eloquently defiant words made this poem a call to action, not only for the emerging American civil rights movement but also for such figures as Winston Churchill, who used the lines to rally the Allies during World War II.
Coleman Hawkins transformed the tenor saxophone into one of the signature instruments in jazz. Once regarded as a comic instrument, the saxophone became, in Hawkins's hands, the centerpiece for explorations in this musical tradition. Hawkins first began playing the saxophone at age nine. He moved to New York City in 1923, where he found work with the Fletcher Henderson group. Influenced by trumpeter Louis Armstrong, he pioneered a form of improvisation based on chords rather than melody. By the time he recorded his famous "Body and Soul" in 1939, Hawkins was recognized as the premier saxophonist in jazz and a hero to a new generation of musicians. An international celebrity, he traveled widely in North America and Europe and continued to experiment with his instrument's creative possibilities until his death.
This group portrait by Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili pictures Count Basie (lower right, in front of the piano) and other members of his band, including celebrated saxophonist Lester Young (center, with black hat). Influenced by the piano styles of Willie "the Lion" Smith and Fats Waller, Basie formed his first group in 1935. For the next forty years, Basie and his musicians performed and recorded with a frequency unmatched by any other big band. In addition to routinely crisscrossing the United States, he led thirty European tours and traveled eight times across the Pacific Ocean to entertain audiences. In 1961 he gave a memorable performance at President John F. Kennedy's inauguration, solidifying his national reputation. Basie's ability to adapt to changing musical tastes, while maintaining the group's artistic integrity, was a hallmark of his extraordinary jazz orchestra.
A talented singer and actress with beauty to match, Dorothy Dandridge (19221965) possessed all the attributes of a star. Teamed with her sister, she made her stage debut as a child and later performed with the popular singing trio known as the Dandridge Sisters. In the 1940s she launched her solo career as a nightclub entertainer and began pursuing work in motion pictures. After appearances in several minor films, Dandridge scored a triumph when she was cast as the title character in Carmen Jones (1954). Critically acclaimed for her performance, Dandridge became the first black performer in history to be nominated for an Academy Award in a leading role. Despite this stellar beginning, Dandridge spent the remainder of her career trying to overcome the entrenched racial bias that doomed her to secondary roles rather than showcasing her ability as a dramatic actress.
When Duke Ellington was reaching for the ultimate compliment, his phrase of choice was often "beyond category." No one more deserved that description than Ellington himself, whose preeminence in the world of jazz is unassailable. As a bandleader, he produced sounds that all admired but none could replicate, and as a composer, he authored what has justly been described as "the single most impressive body of composition in American jazz." Among his more than two thousand original pieces are such classics as "Sophisticated Lady," "Satin Doll," and "Mood Indigo," along with more extended and serious works such as Liberian Suite and Harlem. The holder of many honors, Ellington received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969; by the time of his death in 1974, many regarded him as America's most important composer.
Earl Hines was given the nickname "Fatha" by a Chicago disc jockey in part because of his genial, fatherly personality, but also in tribute to Hines as the progenitor of modern jazz piano. Playing hornlike lines with one hand and chords with the other, Hines elevated the role of the piano as a solo instrument and, in the process, became the most influential jazz pianist of his generation. A church organist as a child, he resettled in 1924 in Chicago, where his playing partners included trumpeter Louis Armstrong. Shortly thereafter, he formed his own big band, which performed regularly at the Grand Terrace Ballroom and toured throughout North America and later Europe and the Soviet Union. During the 1940s, when bebop was transforming jazz with its fast tempos and improvisation, Hines's band continued to grow, nurturing new talent that included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and saxophonist Charlie Parker.
With a voice like a sultry purr, entertainer Eartha Kitt (born 1927) has claimed countless fans, including Orson Welles, who called her "the most exciting woman in the world." Kitt debuted as a featured dancer and vocalist with Katherine Dunham's dance troupe in 1945, before embarking on an international career as a cabaret singer and actress. Her singing style and provocative stage personal made her a top nightclub attracter, and her early 1950s recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and "Santa Baby" remain popular standards. Kitt's career has included performances on Broadway, in films, and on television, where she scored a hit as the villainous Catwoman on Batman (1967). She is also remembered for voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War during a 1968 White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson-a move that caused Kitt to be blacklisted professionally for some time.
Edward Mitchell Bannister became one of the first African American painters to gain national recognition when his landscape Under the Oaks won a first prize at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (1876). Almost entirely self-taught, Bannister began his career in the 1850s in Boston, where he enjoyed the patronage of that city's substantial black community. He was also a committed abolitionist who continued to advocate for African American rights after the Civil War. When Bannister settled in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1869, his reputation grew as his landscapes and coastal views were exhibited more widely. His name proved unfamiliar, however, to the Centennial Exposition judges, who tried to withhold his prize upon discovering that he was African American. When the other artists threatened to withdraw from the competition if Bannister was denied his medal, the original award was upheld.
Arguably the most brilliant African American scientist of his generation, Ernest Everett Just graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1907 and earned his doctorate in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1916. After joining the faculty at Howard University, Just played a substantial role in upgrading the quality of training offered at its medical school. His greatest distinction, however, was attained as a marine researcher; his studies in cellular physiology and experimental embryology-conducted principally at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts-yielded a host of groundbreaking discoveries and theories. Because of entrenched racial prejudice, Just was never able to fully join the American scientific community, despite the obvious significance of his research. But European scientists welcomed him; supported by funding from various foundations, he spent much of his later career conducting research abroad.
"A model for those who would shiver the shackles of prejudice, poverty, and despair," Ethel Waters overcame bleak beginnings to emerge as a versatile singer and actress whose talent propelled her from honky-tonk to Hollywood. Beginning as a blues singer on the black vaudeville circuit while still in her teens, Waters later made her way to Harlem, where she entertained at the Cotton Club and other nightspots. From the mid-1920s to early 1930s she appeared in all-black revues before moving to mainstream musicals with her performance in Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer (1933). Waters became the first African American actress to play a dramatic lead on Broadway with her role in Mamba's Daughters (1939). She ultimately appeared in more than a dozen Broadway productions and nine films, including Cabin in the Sky (1943) and The Member of the Wedding (1952).
James VanDerZee's portrait of Father Divine illustrates the charismatic religious leader amid a background of heavenly clouds. The founder of a communal organization later known as the Peace Mission Movement, Father Divine-born George Baker-regarded himself as the incarnation of God. Although some dismissed this sharecropper's son as a charlatan, he amassed a following that looked to him not only for spiritual guidance but for help in finding employment and housing. His free weekly banquets-open to all-drew large crowds and much publicity. Centered in New York City, where he had settled around 1915, his work was especially appreciated during the Great Depression. Father Divine was also committed to social and racial equality and urged his believers to lead positive lives, free of prejudice and selfishness. In 1942 he relocated to a large estate outside Philadelphia, from which he continued to lead his followers.
A painter whose artistic journey took him from youthful experimentations with cubism and abstract expressionism to the cerebral, geometric compositions of his mature period, Felrath Hines strove to create works that offered "visual as well as spiritual pleasure." Trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hines moved to New York in 1946, where he joined an activist circle of African American writers, artists, and performers that included James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, and Billy Strayhorn. Achieving moderate success in one-person exhibitions and group shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Hines embarked on a second career in fine art conservation in 1962, and later served as chief conservator at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the Hirshhorn museum. Hines never abandoned painting, however, and experienced his most productive period of art-making during the final decade of his life.
Scientist and educator George Washington Carver dedicated his career to improving the lives of impoverished Southern farmers by encouraging the practice of scientific agriculture. Overcoming numerous barriers to secure a master's degree in 1896, Carver accepted Booker T. Washington's invitation to lead the agricultural department at the Tuskegee Institute in rural Alabama. For the next forty-seven years, Carver poured his energy into research and educational efforts designed to improve farm productivity and foster self-sufficiency among African American farmers who were trapped in sharecropping dependency. Advocating crop diversification to restore soil exhausted by cotton, Carver encouraged the cultivation of soil-enriching peanuts and sweet potatoes. To demonstrate their commercial viability, he developed hundreds of new products solely from those crops. Carver's efforts transformed Southern agriculture and earned him international recognition as the "Genius of Tuskegee."
To Gordon Parks, the camera was "a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs." The youngest of fifteen children and a high school dropout, Parks was a pioneer in the world of photography and filmmaking. In 1948, he became the first African American photographer to be hired at Life, the largest circulation magazine of its day. For more than two decades he created compelling images that addressed the important issues of the moment, including the civil rights movement. During this period, he also photographed celebrities and fashion models for Vogue and Glamour. Beginning in the late 1960s, Parks added filmmaking to his list of creative pursuits, and his 1971 hit movie Shaft is regarded as an important prototype in the "blaxploitation" genre. Arnold Eagle pictures Parks at work on a documentary project for Standard Oil.
A legendary hitter who set records that remain unequalled to this day, Hank Aaron (born 1934) was one of baseball's greatest offensive stars. Other players may have been more flamboyant, but none cold match Aaron's power and consistency during his twenty-three years in the majors. After launching his career with the Negro League's Indianapolis Clowns in 1952, Aaron signed with the Milwaukee Braves and joined their roster in 1954. He soon emerged as a tremendous asset to that ball club, and in 1957 his bat drove the Braves to a World Series victory over the Yankees. In the years that followed, Aaron's impressive hitting fueled his assault on the record books, and in 1974 he became the first player to break Babe Ruth's career record of 714 home runs. When Aaron retired from play in 1976, his home run mark stood at 755.
Horace Pippin took up painting in part to overcome the trauma he endured while serving in France during World War I. As a member of the all-black 369th Infantry, Pippin fought with valor, but sustained a gunshot wound that rendered useless his right shoulder and arm. Upon returning to the United States, he was unable to perform the manual labor that had supported him before the war. It was then that he turned to painting. Although his first works concerned the experience of trench warfare, he soon embraced other subjects, including his imaginings of African American life in the South and portraits of historic figures such as Abraham Lincoln and John Brown. By 1937 Pippin had begun to sell his paintings locally. Having caught the attention of several prominent collectors and curators, his work was later featured in various exhibitions and publications.
Playing his signature twelve-string guitar, Huddie Ledbetter was instrumental in introducing African American traditional music to national audiences. Known popularly as Lead Belly, a nickname given to him by a prison chaplain, he amassed a vast song repertory that ranged from the blues to early jazz and ragtime. Ironically, although a series of arrests in Louisiana and Texas almost cut short his career, prison gave Ledbetter the break that transformed his life while. In 1933, Ledbetter met folklorist John Lomax, who was traveling through the South recording folk songs from inmates-among others-for a music archive at the Library of Congress. Lomax helped to secure his parole and then accompanied him to New York. There, Ledbetter became a star, performing and recording for large audiences, many of whom had never encountered such music before.
Jack Johnson became the first African American to earn boxing's heavyweight title when he defeated reigning champion Tommy Burns of Canada in 1908. Johnson's victory made him a hero to the black community but sparked outrage among many whites, who found it impossible to accept a black man as the heavyweight champ. Boxing promoters scrambled to find a "white hope" capable of wresting the crown from Johnson, but he continued his dominance by besting all of his challengers. Outside of the ring, however, Johnson's personal conduct and run-ins with the law severely damaged his reputation, and in 1913 he left the country following his conviction for violation of the Mann Act. After twice defending his title in Europe, Johnson surrendered his crown in Havana in 1915 when white boxer Jess Willard won by a knockout in the twenty-sixth round of their title bout.
In 1947 Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) transformed professional sports by breaking baseball's color barrier to become the first African American player in the major leagues. A trailblazer for equal opportunity, Robinson endured torrents of abuse in his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Some of his own teammates mounted an abortive effort to have him dropped from the roster, while bigoted opponents and spectators alike taunted, heckled, and harassed him. Robinson steeled himself and responded with electrifying play that carried the Dodgers to a National League championship and earned him honors as Rookie of the Year. One of the top draws in baseball during ten memorable seasons with the Dodgers, Robinson paved the way for black major leaguers such as Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. After retiring from the game, he remained a staunch advocate for civil rights while building a successful business career.
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) achieved recognition during his lifetime previously unparalleled by an African American artist. This critical attention began early in his career. In 1941, at age twenty-four, he exhibited a series of sixty paintings, The Migration of the Negro, at the prestigious Downtown Gallery in New York. Visually chronicling the historic movement of African Americans from the South to the North between the two world wars, these paintings attracted wide notice and helped solidify Lawrence's reputation for creating multi-picture narratives about individuals and episodes in African American history. Other noteworthy series from this period highlighted such figures as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and John Brown. To the end of his career, Lawrence remained committed to an aesthetic of bold colors and flat forms and to a subject matter that was sensitive to the varied experiences of African Americans.
James Weldon Johnson's influence extended into many spheres of early-twentieth-century African American life. He first achieved acclaim as a lyricist, composing with his brother "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a work that later became known as the Negro National Anthem. As a poet, journalist, and editor, Johnson contributed to and encouraged the growth of the "New Negro" movement, a renaissance in African American cultural expression. His novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man explored the phenomenon of "passing" with a remarkable degree of insight and poignancy. Johnson's contributions were not limited to the literary arena, however. He served as a United States diplomat, first in Venezuela and later in Nicaragua, and in 1917 joined the staff of the NAACP. By 1920 he served as that organization's chief executive and helped make the NAACP a national leader in civil rights activism.
Writer and philosopher Jean Toomer was an influential voice in the African American cultural resurgence known as the Harlem Renaissance. Best known for Cane (1923), a collection of modernist poems and vignettes that juxtaposed scenes in the urban North with observations about the rural South, Toomer was sensitive to the role that race played in American society. Yet he tried to look beyond race as a category that defined individuals. The grandson of the first U.S. governor of African American descent, he bristled at being described as a "Negro writer." Having "seen the divisions, the separatisms and the antagonisms," he believed optimistically that "a new man was arising in this countrynot European, not African, not Asiaticbut American." Toomer's portrait was taken by his wife, Marjorie Content, a well-respected fine art photographer, at about the time of their marriage in 1934.
In his quest to capture boxing's heavyweight crown, Jersey Joe Walcott (1914-1994) endured setbacks that might have discouraged a less determined fighter. Turning pro at the age of sixteen, Walcott boxed intermittently for seventeen years before getting his first shot at the heavyweight title when he took on defending champion Joe Louis in December 1947. Seemingly headed for victory, Walcott suffered a heartbreaking defeat on a split decision after fifteen rounds, and lost again to Louis in the first round of a rematch the following year. After Louis's retirement, Jersey Joe lost two title bouts to Ezzard Charles, but in their third matchup (1951), the thirty-seven-year-old Walcott finally prevailed to win the heavyweight championship. He retained his hard-earned crown until September 23, 1952, when he was felled by a knockout from Rocky Marciano in one of boxing's greatest contests.
With his spectacular performance at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, track-and-field star Jesse Owens extinguished Adolph Hitler's hopes of turning the games of the XI Olympiad into a showcase for supposed Aryan supremacy. An outstanding athlete in high school and later at Ohio State, Owens easily secured a berth on the U.S. Olympic squad by recording first-place finishes in the 100- and 200-meter sprints and the long jump during team-qualifying trials. When Olympic competition got under way in Berlin in August 1936, Owens quickly established his dominance on the track. His assault on the record books began with a victory in the 100-meter sprint and continued with record-breaking performances in the long jump, 200-meter sprint, and 4-by-100-meter relay. Capturing four gold medals in all, Owens was acknowledged as the undisputed hero of the Berlin games.
In the course of her career, singer Jessye Norman (born 1945) carefully husbanded her talents and turned down many a choice opera role in the interest of preserving her voice. But choosiness did not hamper the growth of her reputation. From the moment of her debut in 1969 at Deutsche Oper Berlin in Tannhuser, the virtues of her sumptuous voice were never in doubt, and her early years spent performing mostly in Europe were marked by a succession of triumphs. In 1974, one critic proclaimed one of her performances to be "as nearly flawless... as one could rightly expect." Norman's first appearance at the Metropolitan opera in 1983 fulfilled the high expectations. Despite her many years of performing experience, at her opening-night entrance, Norman later confessed, she momentarily "turned to jelly."
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) transformed the creative possibilities of the electric guitar during a short-lived yet influential music career. His use of sound distortion and ear-splitting amplification-together with outrageous showmanship-set him apart from most guitarists of the 1960s. Having taught himself to play by listening to the records of blues guitarists he admired, he formed his first band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, in London in 1966. Returning to the States a year later, he became an overnight sensation with his debut album, Are You Experienced. On stage, Hendrix displayed extraordinary energy and a frank sexuality that both attracted and unsettled audiences. Yet it was his unconventional rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the close of the now-legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969 for which he his best remembered today. Hendrix died of a drug overdoes a year later, at age twenty-seven.
Boxer Jimmy Carter (1923-1994), in the light-colored trunks, was the first three-time winner of the world lightweight title. After turning professional in 1946, Carter gradually worked his way up to boxing's ranks until he earned the chance to challenge then champion like Williams on May 25, 1951. Although Williams was heavily favored, Carter scored a stunning upset to take his first lightweight boxing championship. Retaining the title would prove more difficult, however. Over the next four years Carter would twice lose and then regain his boxing crown before surrendering it for the final time in 1955. One of Carter's successful lightweight title defenses took place in a nationally televised bout with twenty-two-year-old George Araujo on June 12, 1953. Although the boxers were evenly rated, the hard-hitting Carter prevailed over his fleet-footed challenger to win by a technical knockout in the thirteenth round.
After launching his professional boxing career in 1934, Joe Louis made short work of a string of opponents who fell victim to his punishing knockout punch. On his way to winning the heavyweight title in 1937, the heavily favored Louis was staggered by his 1936 defeat at the hands of German boxer Max Schmeling. When the two fighters met in a historic rematch in 1938, the outcome was dramatically different. Buoyed by a tremendous outpouring of support from blacks and whites alike, the "Brown Bomber" KO'd the myth of Aryan supremacy by taking just 124 seconds to pummel Adolph Hitler's champion and retain the world heavyweight crown. A hero to millions for the rest of his life, Louis successfully defended his title for twelve years to become one of the longest-reigning champions in the history of heavyweight boxing.
One of the leading African American statesmen during Reconstruction, John Roy Lynch was born in slavery and later sold with his mother and siblings to a planter in Natchez, Mississippi. Liberated when Union forces reached Natchez in 1863, Lynch strove to educate himself, and soon developed a passion for politics and parliamentary law. Advocating Republican Party initiatives for the advancement of Southern blacks, Lynch spoke eloquently in support of the new Mississippi constitution, which extended voting rights to black men. Elected to the state legislature in 1869, he served as speaker of the house during his second term. In 1873, at the age of twenty-six, Lynch became the first African American to represent Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives. A champion for human rights legislation, Lynch helped win passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which he termed "an act of simple justice."
From her beginnings in vaudeville, Josephine Baker exhibited a verve and sensuality that stood out even in a chorus line. Having grown up in poverty in St. Louis, she seized the opportunity in 1925 to travel to Paris in the Harlem music and dance ensemble La Revue Ngre. With a reputation for daring outfits and a performance style that was at once erotic and comic, Baker became a star. Ernest Hemingway, who regularly frequented the Club Josphine, where Baker served as "hostess," called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw...or ever will." After the outbreak of World War II, Baker threw herself behind the Allied cause, working with refugees and performing for the troops. In later years she became a vocal civil rights proponent, insisting on integrated audiences wherever she performed.
Poet, novelist, playwright, and songwriter Langston Hughes was one of the most prolific and versatile writers in the history of African American letters. With the publication in 1926 of his first volume of verse, The Weary Blues and Other Poems, he emerged as a figure of national prominence. Although at times faulted for his use of dialect and for dwelling on the negative aspects of his race's experience in America-a Chicago critic once labeled him the "poet 'low-rate' of Harlem"-Hughes created moving works that transcended the unpleasant realities he portrayed. Born into humble circumstances, he identified with "low-down folks" and praised them for maintaining "their individuality in the face of American standardizations." Yet his work also showed the influence of literary modernism, a tradition to which he contributed. This portrait was created in California on the occasion of a reading at the artists' colony in Carmel.
Combining talent, beauty, and steely determination, singer and actress Lena Horne (born 1917) challenged racial barriers to emerge as one of the most popular entertainers of her generation. Following her debut as a dancer at Harlem's Cotton Club, Horne found work as a big-band vocalist. Her subsequent success as a nightclub singer led to a Hollywood audition, and she became the first African American to secure a long-term contract when she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1942. After starring in the all-black musicals Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather, Horne found her screen opportunities limited when she refused to accept stereotypical roles. Blacklisted during the McCarthy era, she succeeded in rebuilding her career and went on to take an active part in the civil rights movement. Horne's crowning achievement came in 1981, when her critically acclaimed one-woman show earned a special Tony Award.
Lionel Hampton began his musical career in Les Hite's band as a drummer, but that changed in the early 1930s, when he tried playing a vibraphone during an idle moment at a recording session. The vibraphone was soon his instrument of choice, and over the next several years, his skill on it earned it a significant place in the jazz idiom. In 1940, after playing for four years with the Benny Goodman Quartet, Hampton formed his own band. Claiming a roster of musicians that included such jazz notables as Quincy Jones and Charlie Mingus, the group became one of America's most highly regarded big bands. Hampton's most endearing trait was his high-energy spontaneity that sometimes raised audience enthusiasm to fever pitch. "We got no routine," he once said, "we just act the way the spirit moves us."
Singer Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) created a worldwide audience for gospel music with her soul-stirring performances and immensely popular recordings. Although influenced in her youth by blues legend Bessie Smith, Jackson was unwavering in her commitment to gospel, and excluded blues and jazz from her repertoire. Church choirs served as the first showcase for her talent, but her majestic voice soon marked her for a solo career. Touring widely throughout the 1930s, Jackson thrilled audiences as she performed gospel favorites in storefront churches, tent shows, and revival meetings. Her breakthrough came in 1947, when her recording of "Move On Up a Little Higher" sold more than one million copies, confirming her as the "Gospel Queen." A fervent voice for civil rights, Jackson performed numerous benefit concerts in support of the movement and was a favorite of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Arturo Toscanini once said that Marian Anderson had a voice that came along "once in a hundred years." But because Anderson was black, her initial prospects as a concert singer in the United States were sharply limited, and her early triumphs took place mostly in European concert halls. Her successes abroad, however, made it difficult for the American musical establishment to ignore her, and when she began touring the United States in 1935, audiences quickly embraced her as the greatest contralto alive. By the time Anderson retired in the mid-1960s, she was regarded as one of the nation's great cultural treasures. Anderson is seen here performing with conductor Leonard Bernstein at a concert in New York in 1947. In response to the thunderous ovation for her performance, she ended up singing five more pieces as an encore.
At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Marion Jones (born 1975) became the first female track-and-field athlete to win five medals at a single Olympics. Capturing gold in the 100 and 200 meters, she fulfilled her goal of becoming the world's fastest woman. Jones grew up in Southern California, where she was attracted to other sports and activities besides track, most especially basketball. While in high school, she declined an invitation to join the U.S. 1992 Olympic relay team and opted in 1994 to enroll at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she helped the women's basketball team win a national championship in her freshman year. Although Jones failed to medal at the 2004 Olympics and has been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, she has vowed to make a comeback at the 2008 games.
On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was killed by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to organize a march in support that city's striking sanitation workers. The murder that deprived the nation and the world of an unparalleled champion for civil rights also deprived King's four children of a beloved father. When King lay in state in Atlanta at Sisters Chapel, Spelman College, thousands of mourners paid their respects as they passed his open casket. Photographer Benedict Fernandez was there to record the moment when five-year-old Bernice King, flanked by her older sister Yolanda and brother Martin Luther King III, first caught sight of her father's body. Bernice's shocked expression serves as a reminder that while King's death was a loss for the world, it was a deeply personal tragedy for his young family.
Mary Lou Williams began playing the piano at an early age, and by the time she reached her teens, she was performing on the road. Although many jazz musicians disliked working with female musicians, Williams persevered. As part of the Clouds of Joy Orchestra in the 1930s, she was billed as "The Lady Who Swings the Band," and she supplied arrangements to such top musicians as Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. An early convert to the bebop revolution of the 1940s, Williams also composed symphonic jazz. She retired briefly from her music career in the 1950s, converting to Catholicism and using profits from her record company to support her work helping troubled musicians. Religious themes inspired much of her later work, including the "Music for Peace" mass, which Alvin Ailey choreographed as "Mary Lou's mass" in 1971.
Norman Lewis began his artistic career in the 1930s as a social realist, creating paintings that made visible the plight of the poor and the disenfranchised. But like other abstract expressionists who got their start working for the New Deal's Federal Art Program, Lewis later moved away from so-called "social painting" to explore the creative possibilities of abstraction. During this period, he sought to make art that was "above criticism," in the hope that it would not "be discussed in terms of the fact that I'm black." As he explained in 1946-the same year in which his friend Alex John created this portrait-"the excellence of [the African American artist's] work will be the most effective blow against stereotype and the most irrefutable proof of the artificiality of stereotype in general." Lewis was also a well-regarded teacher at various schools, including New York's Art Students League.
Ntozake Shange's (born 1948) poetry, plays, and prose reflect her fierce commitment to empowering women of color by telling their stories, honoring their struggles, and celebrating their strength. Reared in a culturally rich but sheltered environment, Shange was shaken by the racism she encountered in society. The anger and alienation that prompted her to attempt suicide at age nineteen would later be channeled into her most compelling work. In the early 1970s, after renouncing her birth, or "slave" name (Paulette Williams) in favor of an African one meaning "she who comes with her won things/she who walks like a lion," Shange began developing a performance piece rooted in the experiences of contemporary black women. When her groundbreaking "choreopoem," For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, reached Broadway in 1976, it was hailed for its powerful and passionate storytelling.
Since the early 1950s, Odetta (born 1930) has been recognized as one of folk music's most compelling interpreters. Introduced to this musical genre just as the folk revival was gaining momentum, she wholeheartedly embraced the ballads, work songs, blues, and spirituals that so vividly evoked the experiences of generations of African Americans. Her powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing soon earned her an enthusiastic following that included performers Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who helped to champion her career. The growth of the civil rights movement coincided with Odetta's rising popularity, and as her political engagement grew, her songs became weapons in the struggle for justice. "As I was singing, I was one of those things that was smoldering," Odetta later recalled. In 1963 she joined the March on Washington and rallied the crowd with her moving rendition of the spiritual "Oh Freedom."
From childhood on, Richard B. Harrison wanted to be an actor. But after completing several years of study at a drama school, he found that opportunities for black actors in American theater were almost nonexistent, and for most of his career he alternated between giving lectures and readings and teaching elocution and drama. Harrison finally got his theatrical break in 1929, when he was offered the role of God in Green Pastures, a production with an all-black cast that was based on Old Testament stories. Opening on Broadway in 1930, the play proved an enormous hit, and one of its greatest strengths was Harrison's elegantly tempered interpretation of God. His performance, declared one critic, deserved a "place among the classics." In the wake of this stage triumph came many honors, including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for distinguished achievement.
Convinced that political action was the key to black empowerment, civil rights activist Bob Moses (born 1935) played a critical role in the effort to register African American voters in the Deep South in the early 1960s. As field secretary for the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Moses initiated SNCC's first black voter drive in Mississippi in 1961 and pioneered programs in which adults received tutoring in registration techniques and voting mechanics. Moses's most ambitious undertaking was the Freedom Summer campaign of 1964-a massive voter registration and education initiative that brought to Mississippi hundreds of volunteers, including white college students, who worked to expand black voter rolls; organize a Freedom Democratic Party to counter the state's whites-only Democratic Party; establish Freedom Schools to teach literacy skills, civics, and black history; and open community centers to provide medical services and legal aid.
Tenor Roland Hayes was the first African American singer to earn an international reputation on the concert stage. Hayes studied at Fisk University and later trained in Boston, where he marked his professional debut in 1917 with a recital of operatic arias, continental art songs, and African American spirituals. After touring with some success at home, Hayes traveled to Europe in 1921 for a series of concert engagements that earned him glowing notices and marked a turning point in his career. Back in the United States, he was greeted with great enthusiasm by American concert audiences, who responded to the poignancy and emotional power of his singing. Mindful of his role in breaking barriers that had prevented black Americans from pursuing concert careers, Hayes observed, "I live to encourage my race and see them rise from the bondage of centuries."
With a courageous act of civil disobedience, Rosa Parks (1913-2005) sparked a challenge to segregation that culminated in one of the seminal victories of the modern civil rights movement. On December 1, 1955, while traveling home from work on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the soft-spoken seamstress was arrested and jailed for refusing the driver's demand that she surrender her seat in the "colored" section to a white male passenger. Four days later, when Parks was tried and convicted of violating local segregation laws, Montgomery's African American community launched a massive boycott of the city's bus system. Planned as a one-day protest, the boycott expanded with the support of the Montgomery Improvement Association, led by twenty-six-year-old clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr. Continuing for an unprecedented 381 days, the boycott ended only after the United States Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925-1990) was a consummate showman whose formidable talent propelled him from the vaudeville circuit to the entertainment industry's most glittering venues. Scarcely ore than a toddler when he began his career, Davis emerged as a featured singer and dancer with the Will Mastin Trio in the 1930s. Drafted during World War II, he experienced vicious racial attacks while in the army, and returned to civilian life determined to prove his worth by becoming a top-tier entertainer. Progressing rapidly from warm-up act to headliner, Davis attained bona fide stardom in the 1950s with his high-energy nightclub act, popular recordings, and acclaimed performances on stage and screen. In the 1960s he gained notoriety as a member of Hollywood's fast-living "Rat Pack" and subsequently achieved mega-hit status with his memorable renditions of songs such as "Candy Man" and "Mr. Bojangles."
Known popularly as "the Divine One" and "Sassy," Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) was regarded as one of the premier female vocalists of her day. She was drawn to music from an early age, and as a youth she studied piano and sang in her church choir. When Vaughan was eighteen, she entered an amateur contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater on a dare and won first prize. This success led to frequent invitations to perform alongside the leading figures in contemporary jazz, including Earl "Fatha" Hines, Dizzy Gillespie, and Billy Eckstein. Adept at bebop improvisation, Vaughan possessed a wonderfully versatile voice that complemented a larger jazz ensemble. By 1950-the year in which Josef Breitenbach created this portrait-she was selling upwards of three million records annually. During this period, a poll in Down Beat magazine named her the top female singer for six consecutive years.
Arthur Leipzig's portrait shows Sidney Bechet at the legendary New York nightclub Jimmy Ryan's, playing the soprano saxophone, the instrument for which Bechet was most celebrated. Together with Louis Armstrong, he helped to bring New Orleans jazz to the world. Although no less talented, Bechet never attained the popularity that Armstrong achieved in America, in part because of his often bristly personality. Yet critics and fellow musicians recognized his musical genius and respected his commitment to "doing it your own way." As one reviewer wrote in 1919, when Bechet was only twenty-two, his "'own way' is perhaps the highway [on which] the whole world will swing along tomorrow." To Armstrong, his playing was like a "jug full of golden honey." After a lifetime of touring, Bechet moved in 1951 to Paris, where he enjoyed a wide following.
Stokely Carmichael's (1941-1998) first experience as a civil rights activist began in 1961, when he joined the Freedom Ride campaign to protest discrimination in public transportation facilities. His subsequent work in the South-to organize voter registration drives and to march against racist intimidation-resulted in Carmichael's frequent arrest. It also led him to question the philosophy of nonviolence. In 1966, Carmichael abandoned his association with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and helped to organize the Black Panthers, a group that promoted black separatism. His embrace of "Black Power," a term that he coined, sparked outrage among many whites and alarmed an older generation of civil rights leaders. Gordon Parks's photograph shows Carmichael speaking in New York at a demonstration against the Vietnam War. As he exclaimed on this occasion, "Bigotry and death over here is no different from bigotry and death over there."
Growing up in Harlem, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson (1921-1989) gained a reputation for a style that was as "sweet as sugar." Along with his brilliant footwork, unrivalled hand speed, and superb defensive skills, he had a genius for grasping his opponent's style and adjusting to it. Robinson turned professional shortly before America's entry into World War II. During that conflict, he and Joe Louis traveled together presenting boxing exhibitions for the troops. Over a twenty-five-year career, Robinson amassed one of the most impressive records in boxing history. Having won the world welterweight championship in 1946, he soon moved up to the middleweight division, and between 1951 and 1958 he captured that title five times. At the height of his career, Robinson won ninety-one consecutive matches, and in more than two hundred fights he was never physically knocked out. Muhammad Ali later called him "the king, the master, my idol."
On being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, Toni Morrison (born 1931) was honored as an author who "in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality." Drawing upon both her own life and historical accounts, Morrison has crafted stories and essays that speak broadly about such issues as marginality, exclusion, and belonging. A graduate of Howard University, she taught English before becoming an editor at Random House in 1965. There, Morrison helped to develop the careers of several African American authors while simultaneously beginning to publish her own writings. Helen Marcus created this portrait to help publicize Song of Solomon, which was named as Book-of-the-Month selection, the first such distinction by an African American author since Richard Wright's Native Son in 1940. Morrison retired in 2006 after seventeen years on the faculty of Princeton University.
With their African American origins reaching back to the days of slavery, the blues had been around for a long time when W. C. Handy began using them as the basis for his own musical compositions in the early 1900s. But Handy gave the blues a twist that substantially broadened their appeal, and the publication in 1914 of his "St. Louis Blues" marked a watershed in the transformation of blues into one of American music's most important strands. A musician and music publisher as well as a composer, Handy continued to broaden popular appreciation for African American music traditions, and by the 1920s he was widely known as the Father of the Blues. Among the many testimonials paid to him on his sixty-fifth birthday in 1938 was a Hollywood concert featuring fifteen renditions of "St. Louis Blues" by fifteen different bands.
Around 1930 William Edmondson experienced a life-changing vision. Declaring that "Jesus has planted the seed of carving in me," the former janitor began transforming discarded blocks of limestone into highly original tombstones, human figures, and "critters" that he believed were divinely inspired. With no formal training, Edmondson achieved remarkable effects, using a railroad spike and a worn hammer to chisel each stone. Religious belief often influenced Edmondson's choice of subjects, but memory, nature, popular culture, and African American traditions also informed his art. Unknown outside of his Nashville neighborhood, Edmondson's sculptures came to the attention of the art world when photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe recorded images of the artist and his work. Impressed by these photographs, Museum of Modern Art director Alfred Barr arranged a solo exhibition of Edmondson's work in 1937-the first time MoMA had so honored an African American artist.
Seen here smoking his omnipresent cigar and wearing his trademark derby hat and red vest, Willie "the Lion" Smith (1897-1973) was fond of describing himself as the greatest pianist in the world. If limited to twentieth-century American jazz, the claim may have had some legitimacy. Along with Fats Waller and James Johnson, Smith pioneered the "stride" style of piano playing that ultimately influenced so many jazz musicians, including Count Basie, Art Tatum, and Thelonius Monk. Moreover, his first solo recordings from the late 1930s are widely regarded as some of the finest examples of stride piano. Among Smith's greatest admirers was Duke Ellington, who in 1939 expressed his high regard for Smith with his piece titled "Portrait of the Lion." In 1957 Smith returned the compliment with "Portrait of the Duke."
Sportswriters routinely reached for superlatives to describe the play of Willie Mays (born 1931). An All-Star for twenty consecutive seasons, Mays was a marvel of power, speed, and agility, whether he was patrolling the outfield, swinging a bat, or looking for a chance to steal a base. He signed with the New York Giants in 1950, when he was nineteen, and during more than two decades in the major leagues, he accrued records in hitting and fielding that place him among the best all-around players in baseball history. Twice named as the National League's Most Valuable Player, Mays hit 660 home runs and recorded a career batting average of .302. A natural leader, he provided the spark that carried the Giants to many of their most memorable victories, and in 1961 he became the first African American to captain a major league team.
The exhibition, national tour, and catalogue were made possible by a generous grant from the lead sponsor, MetLife Foundation. Additional Support was provided by the Council of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.