Former Black Pizza Chain CEO Herman Cain Wants to Be President?

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By Paul Shepard



Herman Cain (pictured), former part-owner of the Godfather’s Pizza chain, wants to be president; yet, the 65-year-old Atlanta man is a stranger to most Americans.

That will likely prove to be a blessing and a curse as the field of Republican challengers to President Barack Obama sorts itself out over the next year.

The fact that Republicans are giving some attention to the businessman who has done little more politically than lose while running for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia shows how desperate the GOP is in finding a torchbearer for the 2012 presidential election.

But maybe the lack of a political track record means the one-time pizza kingdoesn’t have the baggage many other possible candidates have, getting a fair hearing from Americans if he decides to go full force for the GOP nomination.

Like the search for the the Holy Grail, Republicans are continuing the search for a black face to help define the party.

So far, the quest has resembled a Keystone comedy sketch, with party leaders stumbling all over themselves chasing down a field of ill-equipped candidates, like the rigid Alan Keyes or the confusedMichael Steele.

About all we know about Cain thus far – beyond his part ownership of the pizza stores – is that Cain is opposed to abortion, wants a strong national defense and a return to the gold standard.

With a platform like that (the gold standard, really?), it’s no surprise that Cain is finding friends with some Tea Party folks. With the number of Tea Party activists who won election to Congress in November, Cain could gain an audience as the primaries draw near.

One thing in Cain’s favor is that the Republican field is doing little to distinguish itself so far:

Mike Huckabee keeps putting his foot in his mouth: First he made a mistake talking about where President Barack Obama was born and how it affects his policy making. Now Huckabee is starting fights with actress Natalie Portman over the issue of out-of-wedlock births.

Sarah Palin is clumsily trying to force a feud with First Lady Michelle Obama over her campaign to improve the health of Americans. Palin is proving she hasn’t advanced much from her days of writing notes on her hand during public speaking events.

I’m not holding my breath for Cain’s success, but Cain would have to do little more than pick useless fights and make just a little sense on the campaign trail to zoom to the top of the GOP field.


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President Clinton Honors Little Rock Nine

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By: Manning Marable

President Clinton joined members of Congress in presenting Congressional Gold Medals to the members of the “Little Rock Nine” (left) in recognition of the selfless heroism they exhibited and the pain they suffered in the cause of civil rights when they integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.

“We honor them today, but let us not forget to heed their lessons,” Clinton said during the presentation in the East Room of the White House November 9. “They taught us that you can turn your cheek from violence without averting your eyes to injustice. And they taught us that they could pay their price and go on. Let us learn from them and honor their example.”

Clinton said that in some instinctive way, the “Little Rock Nine” knew that “honest and real differences can only be explored, confronted and worked through, and diversity can only be celebrated when we recognize that the most important fact of life is our common humanity.”

“The truth is, almost all children know that. They have to be taught differently,” the President said. “Because so many were taught differently, it fell to these nine Americans when they were young, as children, to become our teachers. And because they taught us well, we are a better country.”

The “Little Rock Nine” consists of Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Dr. Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls Lanier, Minnijean Brown Trickey, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed-Wair and Melba Pattillo Beals.


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The Murder Of Emmett Louis Till The Spark that Started the Civil Rights Movement

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By: Keith A. Beauch

Unless you know the story of Emmett Louis Till, you do not know the racial dynamics that led to the Civil Rights Movement. The murder of Emmett Till was the first media event of the Civil Rights Movement. It demonstrated the horrors of racism in an event circulated throughout America and around the world. African Americans clearly understood that all African Americans were under attack, that no African-American male in the South was safe. The murder of Emmett Louis Till was to African Americans what the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was to Americans in December 1941, or the attack of 9/11 to Americans of our own day. We therefore take refuge in telling you what happened only because why it happened is too difficult to handle, so irrational as to be incomprehensible.

Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American born July 25, 1941 on the south side of Chicago, Ill. He was murdered by Roy Bryant and his half brother, John W. Milam, in Money, Mississippi. on August 28, 1955 for “Wolf Whistling” at Carolyn Bryant, wife of Roy Bryant.

When Emmett was two years old, his father, a soldier, was hanged in the Italian campaign of WWII directed by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. At five, he contracted the polio that made him stutter. At fourteen, he had just finished the eighth grade. At McCosh Elementary, in Chicago, Emmett, “Bobo” as he was called, was known as a 160 pound, energetic, practical jokester who was a fair student always at the center of attention. One of his teachers described Emmett as a natural leader. Saturday, August 20, 1955, Emmett and his cousin, Wheeler Parker, boarded the Illinois Central train to visit Emmett’s great-uncle, Mose Wright, his second cousin, Simeon Wright, his cousins Maurice and Robert Wright, and friends, all of whom he had visited before in the Mississippi Delta, near Money, Mississippi. They arrived in Mississippi on Sunday, August 21st. With their stories of life in Chicago, the two cousins were the center of attention. Monday morning, Emmett and his cousins began picking cotton for his great-uncle, Mose Wright, a sharecropper whose farm was near Money, Mississippi.

On Wednesday, August 24th, Emmett (14), along with Simeon (12), Maurice (16) Wright, Wheeler Parker (16), Roosevelt Crawford (15) and Ruthie Mae Crawford (18), went into town, Money, Mississippi, after a day of picking cotton. Each had a few pennies for candy, bubble gum, and soft drinks. Downtown Money, Mississippi. consisted of four buildings, one of which was Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, owned and operated by Roy Bryant. The Bryant’s store catered to African-American field hands, so African Americans often hung around the store playing checkers and otherwise having fun after a day in the fields picking cotton. Carolyn Bryant, wife of Roy Bryant, and Juanita Milam, wife of J.W. Milam, ran the store that afternoon. Roy Bryant was away.

Wheeler Parker went into Bryant’s Grocery first, made his purchase, and returned outside, rejoining his friends. Emmett then went into the store for his purchase. Simeon Wright, Emmett’s cousin, went into the store to get Emmett who was then on his way out. Ruthie Mae, the only female among the Black teenagers, watched Emmett through the store window the whole time that he was in the store. She saw Emmett Till place the money into Carolyn Bryant’s hand, rather than on the counter as he was supposed to do. An eyewitness to Emmett’s actions inside Bryant’s store, she would have seen any unusual gesture towards Carolyn Bryant had Emmett made any. The testimony of Ruthie Mae, and that of Wheeler Parker, is still available. In court, Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett Till grabbed her around the waist and made lewd acts toward her.

Carolyn Bryant followed Emmett and Simeon outside the door of the store. As soon as she came outside of the store, Emmett turned around and “wolf-whistled” at her. Someone yelled that Carolyn was going to get a gun, so the boys jumped into Mose Wright’s car and headed home, Mose’s cabin. While the car was racing down the highway they looked back to find a car overtaking them. Thinking that the car contained Carolyn Bryant with her pistol, they quickly pulled to the side of the road, ditched their vehicle and ran into one of the cotton fields. They had not been followed. Carolyn Bryant never told her husband about the incident with Emmett Till, whom she did not know. But because of the number of African-American men outside of Bryant’s Grocery at the time, the news of Emmett Till’s “wolf-whistle” began to circulate around the African-American community. Emmett, his cousins, and his friends agreed not to tell Mose Wright, fearing that the boys would be sent home, back to Chicago, before their vacation was up.

Informed of the incident two days later, Roy Bryant and his half brother, J.W. Milam, began looking for Emmett Till. They found him at 2 a.m. the morning of August 28, 1955 at his uncle’s cabin. Entering the cabin with flashlights and Colt 45 pistols, they carried Emmett away, “To teach him a lesson,” they later reported to William Bradford Huie, a journalist for Look magazine. Three days later, on August 31, 1955, Emmett Till’s corpse was pulled from the depths of the Tallahatchie River, with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered to his neck with barbed wire, his right eye hanging midway to his cheek, his nose flattened, and a bullet hole through his head.

After days of lobbying state officials, Emmett’s mother obtained a writ of court ordering the Mississippi sheriff to release Emmett Till’s body for return to Chicago. The court order was received three hours before Emmett was to be buried in Mississippi without notice to his relatives, without ceremony, and without witnesses. Upon releasing Emmett’s body, the sheriff ordered the casket pad-locked and sealed with the Mississippi State seal. He prohibited anyone from opening it. In Chicago, Funeral Home Director, A.A. Rayner, obeying sheriff’s order, refused to open the box containing Emmett’s body. When he told Emmett’s mother his decision, she demanded a hammer, because she said, “I need to see my son.” The late, Mamie Till-Mobley, describes the corpse of her son she saw on September 2, 1955, in Chicago as follows:

I decided that I would start with his feet, gathering strength as I went up. I paused at his mid-section, because I knew that he would not want me looking at him. But I saw enough to know that he was in tact. I kept on up until I got to his chin. Then I was forced to deal with his face. I saw that his tongue was choked out. The right eye was lying midway of his chest. His nose had been broken like someone took a meat chopper and broke his nose in several places. I kept looking and I saw a hole, which I presumed was a bullet hole, and I could look through that hole and see daylight on the other side. I wondered, “Was it necessary to shoot him”?

Mr. Rayner, she says, asked me, “Do you want me to touch the body up?” I said, “No. Let the people see what I have seen. I think everybody needs to know what had happened to Emmett Till.”

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African-American Shakespeare Company Closes Season with TWELFTH NIGHT

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Closing African-American Shakespeare Company’s 16th season is a spellbinding take on Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT. Acclaimed actor and African-American Shakespeare Company Artistic Director L. Peter Callender directs TWELFTH NIGHT, featuring an original jazz score by renowned Bay Area jazz musician and composer Marcus Shelby. TWELFTH NIGHT plays April 1 through May 1 (press opening: April 1) at the African American Art & Culture Complex in San Francisco. For tickets ($15-35) and more information, the public may call 1-800-838-3006 or visit African-AmericanShakes.org.

This riveting, film noir-inspired production of TWELFTH NIGHT, The Bard’s most popular comedy, gets a provocative re-setting in the mid-1940s. African-American Shakespeare Company’s stylish re-imagining combines Shakespeare’s poetry with an original jazz score, transporting this tale of loss, new-found love, and mistaken identities to the fog-drenched streets and smoke-filled clubs of San Francisco.

” ‘Twelfth Night’ has always been my favorite of Shakespeare’s comedies,” said African-American Shakespeare Company Artistic Director L. Peter Callender. “Film noir is one of my favorite genres of movie-making as well; it recalls the hey-day of San Francisco and the hot and sultry sounds of the jazz music of the 1940s.” Continued Callender, “African-American Shakespeare Company’s re-imagining of this Shakespeare classic resets the story in my favorite

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‘The Rebirth of Black’ showcases local African-American artists

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Betty Turney-Turner’s fascination with stained glass dates back to when she was a little girl attending church. She admits that plenty of times she paid more attention to the stained glass windows than to the message being delivered.

“I loved the way the sun would make the colors land on the pews,” she says. “It was alive. There was movement in it.”

Today Turney-Turner is one of a small handful of artists in the United States who depict African-American experiences in stained glass. Her images range from soulful jazz bassists to African women balancing baskets of fruit on their heads.

Her work, along with 11 other local artists, will be on display Saturday at the Ha Factory Gallery & Lounge downtown as part of the inaugural Rebirth of Black artist showcase. The event, which will coincide with the First Saturday Art Crawl, is being organized by the Nashville Black Artists Renaissance 12, a cooperative that aims to showcase the talents of area African-American artists.

jeff obafemi carr, a commissioner with the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission, says it’s difficult to find large collections of African-American art in Nashville, and he says he hopes this show will help fill that void.

“To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a coming-together of this level in a couple of decades,” says carr, who isn’t involved with the show. “There is a whole lot of talent here. It’s operated off of the radar of the mainstream. I’ve seen some of the artists’ work, and it will make you angry if you don’t have money to buy it.”

The artist showcase will feature 36 pieces, in mediums ranging from watercolor, oil, acrylic and airbrush painting to stained glass and photography.

Museums-East Bay Through March 13

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AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY AT OAKLAND ongoing. The Oakland Public Library’s museum is designed to discover, preserve, interpret and share the cultural and historical experiences of African Americans in California and the West. In addition, a three-panel mural is on permanent display.
Free. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5:30 p.m. 659 14th St., Oakland. (510) 637-0200, www.oaklandlibrary.org.www.alamedamuseum.org.

Students channel African-American writers

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By Sarah Campbell

scampbell@salisburypost.com

SPENCER — Students at North Rowan Middle School channeled African-American writers ranging from Langston Hughes to Maya Angelou to Tupac Shakur on Wednesday during an African-American Read-In held in the school’s media center.

Language arts teachers Angie Fleming and Robin Hendrick hosted the second annual event, inviting students to read their favorite poems and passages from African-American literature.

“I checked out a bunch of books from the public library and we reviewed some of the authors we had already read,” Fleming said. “I encouraged the students to choose a poem that meant something to them.”

Eighth-grader Megan Braun read Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” and “Woman Work.”

She said “Phenomenal Woman” reminds her that one’s values mean more than the opinions of others.

Samantha Souble said reading “Doubtless” by Nikki Grimes motivated her.

“With all the high school and college dropouts people must have lost their dreams along the way,” she said. “This poem reminds them they should still hold on to their dreams no matter what they are going through.”

Angela Elliot said “A Song of Hope” by Thomas Hardy filled her with emotion.

“When I was reading it I felt a lot of different things,” she said.

Fleming and Hendrick enlisted the help of a few other classes to complete the event.

The chorus sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and art classes crafted colorful decorations to adorn the media center’s walls.

About 225 students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades participated in the event.

Eighth-grader Mark Moore, who read “Dream Variation” by Langston Hughes, said he would like to see the read-in continue for years to come.

“I thought it was a very good way for students to express their inner thoughts and emotions,” he said.

Eighth-grader Courtney Wright, who read “Just for a Time” by Maya Angelou, echoed Moore’s sentiments.

“I think the African-American Read-In is a good event to express yourself and learn about different cultures,” she said. “And, the more diversified you are the smarter you are.”

Elliot said the read-in was uplifting.

“It was very inspiring because when you read a poem you can put your own life into it.”

The event was hosted in conjuction with the 22nd annual African-American Read-In, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English.

The goal of the read-in is to make the celebration of African-American literacy a traditional part of Black History Month activities.

Contact reporter Sarah Campbell at 704-797-7683.

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For Youthbuild students, arts honors are just the beginning

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CHARLIE LARDNER – The York Dispatch

Being honored Wednesday by York Mayor Kim Bracey for their charcoal portraits of African-American icons was just the start of a year-long endeavor by Crispus Attucks Youthbuild Charter School students to dovetail art lessons with the history of black and Hispanic Americans.

An initiative by the York Art Association to spread appreciation of art and tap into new talent brought 13 Youthbuild students – mostly 17- and 18-year-olds – into formal art instruction by selecting an important black American figure and reproducing the person’s likeness under the tutelage of Association artist Evelyn Eighmey.

Voters in an online poll contest selected the winners. First place with 23.23 percent of the votes went to Talitha Rideout for her drawing of Duke Ellington, and second place with 19 percent of the tally went to Isiah Jones for his portrait of Mayor Bracey.

“There is a lot of talent here,” Bracey said. “I saw me, and I saw Barack Obama, but my favorite was Duke Ellington.”

Bracey also complimented D’Ante Hedgepeth for capturing the “sternness” of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s sideways gaze.

Jones said he has long enjoyed drawing but that learning the textbook basics was far different than he anticipated.

“It was really complicated, and very different from the freestyle drawing I do,” he said. “They had us stand back from the easel as you draw and you have to get the depth of the cheekbones and the facial features. I think I killed it though.”

Youthbuild Principal Eugene Washington said the students will now proceed to the second phase of the Association’s Black History Art Project, “Symbolically Speaking,” where art instructor Ophelia Chambliss will challenge the students to create art inspired by looking to culture and heritage of the past in order to move forward.

The York Art Association and Youthbuild are also planning a project for National Hispanic Heritage Month in September and October, and possibly a wall mural at the Crispus Attucks Center tying together everything the students have learned.

Other Youthbuild students and their art displayed at City Hall are:

**Luz Rodriquez’s portrait of Barack Obama **Jessica Morales’ portrait of Martin Luther King **Mathew Arango’s portrait of Frederick Douglass **Noel Guerrero’s portrait of Booker T. Washington **Alex Mantalvo’s portrait of Dr. Ben Carson **Davina Roscoe’s portrait of Maya Angelou **Francheska Serrano’s portrait of W. E. B. DuBois **Ya’Riah Crawford’ portrait of Jesse Owens **Brianna Jackson’s portrait of Harriet Tubman **Brittany McClain’s portrait of Rosa Parks – Reach Charlie Lardner at 505-5439 or clardner@yorkdispatch.com.

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art quilts, combining text and image, & the Kitchen Tarot Continue reading on Examiner.com: Susan Shie — art quilts, combining text and image, & the

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Susan Shie is an Ohio-based fiber artist and educator who has done a lot of amazing work with quilting. Her projects include Green Quilts, the Turtle Art Camp, and the book The Kitchen Tarot. Recently I spoke with Susan about her influences and ongoing projects.

Dan: How did you first get interested in the arts?

Susan: I drew a lot, painted, wrote, sewed, knitted, and worked in modeling clay as a small girl.

Dan: Did you get encouragement from your your family when you were young?

Susan: Yes, my parents and other adults really encouraged me. My eyesight has been very limited from birth, so I think that creating art was what I loved doing, because it didn’t involve trying to see well enough to catch balls at play, etc. At church, my folks let me sit on the floor and use the pew as a table for my drawing, so they could keep me contented during the church service, when I was tiny.

Dan: What is an early memory you have of doing something in the arts?

Susan: When I was little, I drew a lot of pictures in pencil, and was thrilled at age 4, when my mom found an Our Miss Frances Ding Dong School coloring book that was full of blank pages. Now we’d call it a sketchbook, but then it was a coloring book. And when I filled it up and we tried to buy another, they were gone. It was my favorite coloring book, by far!

Dan: What other kinds of artistic things did you do as a child?

Susan: I made story books for my friends, sometimes sending elaborate, one-of-a-kind drawing and writing combinations. Even in grade school, I was always the student who got asked to make murals for decorating our home room’s walls. Later I did our prom murals and watched them burn up in a bonfire after the prom. Ugh.

Dan: Oh no, that’s too bad. A lot of schools must do that — have students create these artworks that are temporary things that get tossed soon after they’re made. Who would you say are some of your influences?

Susan: Primitive art like that by Reverend Howard Finster. Henri Matisse, Chinese art, Egyptian art, Japanese art, Marc Chagall.

Dan: Who would you say is a contemporary artist who has influenced you a lot?

Susan: The American feminist artist Miriam Schapiro, who became one of my penpals after she did an artist’s residency at The College of Wooster in 1979, when I was a painting student there.

Dan: What were some things that Shapiro taught you?

Susan: I didn’t pick things up from her visual style, but she gave us the message that we might want to fuse our “women’s work” art from home with our studio art work. For me it was merging my sewing and my painting, as my feminist statement. And this was back before they had the term “art quilts.”

Dan: What are some interesting things that you like about working in fiber art?

Susan: My art quilts are easier to pack and ship than my stretched canvas paintings would be, but they’re pretty much the same imagery. Also most fibers photograph much easier than hard surfaced artworks do, because the light bounces off of cloth in many directions at once, allowing for almost no glare.

Dan: What are some things that you find fascinating about working with fabric, as opposed to creating artworks on paper?

Susan: Fabric is tougher against fading and water damage than anything done on paper. And its surface is more interesting, due to its varied surface undulations – how light and shadow play across it. You don’t have to frame most fiber art, which is great, as I hate frames!

Dan: What don’t you like about frames?

Susan: To me, frames strangle the artwork’s imagery…just my own opinion.

Dan: Hmm…that’s interesting. I’ve never heard it put that way… What do you like about painting on fabric?

Susan: Painting on fabric with an airbrush is a LOT easier than painting on a hard surface, because the paint immediately soaks into the bare fiber.

Dan: Do you have a particular way of working, or does each different project suggest different methods of working? How do you decide on color schemes and fabrics?

Susan: My way of working just slowly evolves. Right now I tend to make a lot of sketches with pens, til I hit one that feels good. It has the right characters and right actions going on in it. I’ve come down a path to this composition. Then I don’t look at it when I actually paint freehand with my airbrush or marker on the cloth.

Dan: Do you rely on sketches as you develop your compositions?

Susan: I can only peek at any or all of my sketches, especially the last one, but maybe others — to remember how the idea goes. I don’t want to copy the sketch; I want the drawing to again flow out fresh. The sketches are just records of my ideas.

After sketching, I draw with paint on fabric — usually with an airbrush. I color in the images in the painting with my airbrush, too. This is all done vertically, on the wall. Then I use my airpen to do the writing for a couple of months, after just days of making my painting. When the whole piece is written on, I quilt it very intuitively, and then I write a little more on the quilt’s borders.

Dan: I like how a lot of your quilts combine text with image. What are some things that you find so interesting about combining words with the images you create?

Susan: I love how I don’t have to embroider over all my words anymore. I used to hand sew for months and couldn’t write much. Now I use the airpen, which I had to figure out for this type of work, and write tons of stories on my work; because it goes fast, I can work very large now.

Dan: How do you decide on the content of the text in your art quilts?

Susan: Sometimes I include lots of current events and political news commentary, along with my personal diary stories. Each piece becomes a time capsule of that particular few months. I like that I can be showing a piece soon enough now, that the current events are still current. This is thanks to the airpen and to having switched to machine sewing, from all that hand sewing and beading.

Come in. Have a seat – the couch is comfortable, the side chairs, too.

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Playing on the TV is a video you’ll enjoy. “Hello,” begins the charming gray-haired woman on the screen. “My name is Vivian Davidson Hewitt. Welcome to our home.”

Welcome to the Gantt Center in uptown Charlotte and a full and proper introduction to the John and Vivian Hewitt Collection of African-American Art. All 58 works by 20 artists that form the center’s core collection – a gift from Bank of America – are on view for the first time.

Paintings, prints and drawings by famous artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Charlotte native Romare Bearden and Elizabeth Catlett grace the west gallery. And then there’s Vivian Hewitt telling the story of the art, the artists and what she and her late husband created over almost a half century of collecting.

The video provides a fresh window into a remarkable collection. Together with the works, it tells a story not just of African-American art in the 20th century but how such art is appreciated and shared.

“The show is very personal,” said Michael Harris, consulting curator. “It’s not a museum collection; it’s a personal collection, and in a way the gallery felt like a big room in a home – and that’s why we have the couch and the video.

“It came together in a wonderful way.”

With a bang

About half of the collection went on view when the Gantt Center opened in 2009 on South Tryon Street. An opening in the schedule – and Vivian Hewitt’s birthday Feb. 17 – sparked the exhibit.

“It’s an extraordinary time to fully introduce the collection,” said David Taylor, center president.

Thinking about installing it, Harris wanted to open with a bang. He used “Gate in Tangiers,” an Impressionist-influenced work by Henry Ossawa Tanner, a famous artist of the 19th and early 20th century.

But now it is joined by two Tanner figure drawings, giving a fuller sense of the artist’s graphic skills.

To end the show, also with a bang, Harris used work by Bearden. Here is a not-seen-before print, “Harlem Street Scene,” with people gathered before a barber shop and a holiness church.

Also on view: “Waiting,” by Ernest Crichlow from about 1965 showing a pretty and pensive young girl behind a screen of barbed wire and evocative of the struggle for civil rights. “Two Generations,” a portrait of two women by James Denmark in pastel tones that shows the influence of African sculpture. And “Harlem Games,” Virginia Evans Smit’s exuberant street scene.

These works were gathered by Vivian and the late John Hewitt, a New York couple who had limited means (she was a librarian, he a medical writer) but a passion for art. They bought works to celebrate birthdays and holidays – and always a special piece at Christmas.

NationsBank, a predecessor of Bank of America, bought the collection in 1998 for what was then called the African-American Cultural Center. While the city conceived and executed plans for a new facility renamed in honor of former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, a portion of the Hewitt Collection toured the country.

The video showing Vivian Hewitt in her New York home was made by the bank to accompany the tour.

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Black arts on stage in McKees Rocks

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It looked like a dreary winter day outside, but inside the Father Ryan Arts Center in McKees Rocks, it sounded like a West African celebration.

The sensation of four hands and two drum sticks hitting five drums pulsed through the theater, as three drummers, dressed in purple African garb, played traditional West African songs.

The audience members sat back in their chairs, listening quietly until, at the urging of one of the drummers, they accompanied the ensemble’s rhythm with whooping and clapping and arm waving.

February is Black History Month, and Sunday evening’s “Celebration of African American Arts” was the first held at the McKees Rocks arts center. The theme was “past, present, future,” and the focus was paying tribute to the African-American arts and artists in the Pittsburgh area.

“We wanted to do something special during Black History Month to commemorate and to bring the community together for art and music,” said Barbara Owens, the co-chair of the event.

Ms. Owens and her co-chair, Isaiah Dent, gathered a long program of performers eager to show off their musical talents to the audience. Wanda Jones Dixon, a McKees Rocks councilwoman, and Debbie Norrell, lifestyle editor for the New Pittsburgh Courier, emceed the event.

Members of the Langston Hughes Poetry Society recited published and original poetry, sang spirituals and performed musical numbers on topics that ranged from slavery to the Harlem renaissance to the 2008 election of Barack Obama.

Sto-Rox High School senior and aspiring architect Terrance Moses, also known as Sergeant Streetz, performed a rap song he wrote called “One Way Road,” about the path he’s taking in life, as pictures and drawings to illustrate his words flashed on the screen behind him.

Four women in the musical group “Chosen” performed an original song and choreography called “Step Up Ya Game,” a message directed at absent black fathers. There were other singers, dancers and performers, and in the small room next to the theater, an art exhibit displayed work by African-American and African artists.

Breaking down barriers through art

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Gene Austin and Todd Douglas Bailey are two artists living in Corning who won’t be pigeonholed.
Austin makes Afrocentric fine art and photographs. He’s also an accomplished graphic designer and website builder.
Bailey writes, produces and directs independent films and is a guitar player in a rock band.
Though they have divergent artistic directions, both use visual media for artistic expression, an area where African-Americans have seen gains in recent decades.

The first museums dedicated to African-American art began to open in the 1960s. Other museums that don’t have a black focus have been increasingly collecting and showing the work of black artists.
“There are a lot of indications that the visual arts, in terms of the African-American community, are expanding, growing, being called to not just the attention of African-American collectors; it’s available to a very large community,” said Collette Hopkins, the director of education and public programs at the National Black Arts festival in Atlanta.
Hopkins said one of the people she credits for bringing attention to African-American visual art is comedian Bill Cosby, who is scheduled to appear Friday at the Clemens Center.
Works by black artists found their way into many living rooms through “The Cosby Show,” she said, because it was in the home of the fictional Huxtable family.
“All over the walls were all of this artwork by African-American artists,” Hopkins said, noting that the artist Varnette Honeywood, who died in September, and others received exposure through the show. (The show is mentioned in the first paragraph of Honeywood’s obituary in The New York Times.)
“That was a major impetus for people to look at African-American visual artists who perhaps never might have seen it before,” Hopkins said.
Gene Austin
Gene Austin, who has lived in the Corning area for about nine years, thinks of himself primarily as a graphic designer and website developer for companies. But his artistic expressions extend beyond his professional life.
“Completely, as a person, I love doing photography and I love creating artwork,” he said.
Austin learned he loved art when he was young. His mother and aunt were both artists, he said.
He sold his first pastel painting, of sunlight hitting sand dunes, when he was around 14.
Austin has exhibited his work at Corning Community College, Corning Inc., Lockheed-Martin and other places. He’s sold about a couple of dozen works locally.
Austin decided to focus on Afrocentric art after observing that most of the locally made fine art he’s seen depicts the scenic aspects of the region.

Does America Need a Black History Month?

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by Lyssette Trujillo

Billie Holiday, Palmer Hayden, Richard Wright, Garrett Morgan, George Washington Carver do any of these names ring a bell yet? These are all African American individuals who have contributed to American society in the way of music, art, literature and science.

Black History Month was first celebrated in 1976 and since then it has been honored every year on the month of February. It is to educate individuals about the contributions and achievements of African Americans to our society.

It is now 2011, 35 years later, and an inevitable question arises, do we still need a Black History Month? This question brings up several emotions from individuals across the country and the answer is a simple, yes.

This year, in proclaiming February the black history month, President Barack Obama said, “Though we inherit the extraordinary progress won by the tears and toil of our predecessors, we know barriers still remain on the road to equal opportunity.

Knowledge is our strongest tool against injustice, and it is our responsibility to empower every child in America with a world-class education from cradle to career.

We must continue to build on our Nation’s foundation of freedom and ensure equal opportunity, economic security, and civil rights for all Americans.”

Children around the country are not aware or educated about African American history and very little know of individuals, besides Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that helped shape this country.

The study of African American culture will be necessary until US history education stops watering down the facts that makes slavery seem as less severe as it once was.

Social inequality is still very prominent in our country. It is our job to educate others about racism and the effects of it in our society. Black History Month sheds light on the social inequality that still exists and it educates individuals about how African Americans have contributed.