AFRICAN AMERICAN

Tennis champion Althea Gibson (1927-2003) was the unlikely queen of the segregated tennis world in the 1950s. She was the first African American to play and win at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals (precursor of the U.S. Open) — a decade before Arthur Ashe.

Horn player Gerald Wilson, jazz writer Gary Giddens, and jazz critic/cultural historian Stanley Crouch discuss how Cab's straight hair, unusual in people of African American descent, and his ability to toss it while performing, played into his persona and popularity as an entertainer. Cab Calloway: ...

Calloway was also an ambassador for his race, leading one of the most popular African American big bands during the Harlem Renaissance and jazz and swing eras of the 1930s-40s. American Masters celebrates "The Hi De Ho Man's" legacy during Black History Month with the ...

Read an essay on the life and achievements of renown dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones written by John Rockwell, originally presented in 2010 when Jones was bestowed with the Kennedy Center Honors.

Narrated by Danny Glover, the film features archival footage and interviews with Cooke’s family and intimates including Muhammad Ali, Herb Albert, James Brown, Dick Clark, Smokey Robinson, Jerry Wexler, and more. Sam Cooke put the spirit of the Black church into popular music, creating a ...

Zora Neale Hurston wrote the following letter to Countee Cullen, her friend and fellow writer, in 1943. In it, she discusses lynching, segregation, and her feelings about white "liberals." March 5, 1943 Dear Countee: Thanks a million for your kind letter. I am always proud ...

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In writing "Invisible Man" the late 1940s, Ralph Ellison brought onto the scene a new kind of black protagonist, one at odds with the characters of the leading black novelist at the time, Richard Wright. If Wright’s characters were angry, uneducated, and volatile — the ...

This essay originally appeared as the introduction to a Sweet Honey in the Rock songbook. INTRODUCTION On February 28, 1927 in Memphis, Tennessee, the blind sanctified singer Mamie Forehand recorded a refrain based on Psalm 81:16. In this passage of scripture the poet and musician ...

Prior to the 1960s, there were virtually no outlets for the wealth of black theatrical talent in America. Playwrights writing realistically about the black experience could not get their work produced, and even the most successful performers, such as Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen, were ...