Month: September 2012

  • “We tough girls tough it out,” she [Anne Wiggins Brown] said with a wry grin. “I’ve lived a strange kind of life—half black, half white, half isolated, half in the spotlight. Many things that I wanted as a young person for my career were denied to me because of my color.” “On the other hand, many…

  • Theater; On Hearing Her Sing, Gershwin Made ‘Porgy’ ‘Porgy and Bess’ The New York Times 1998-03-29 Barry Singer In his tragically short life, George Gershwin knew only one Bess, and this bittersweet fact has framed Anne Wiggins Brown’s life. She was that Bess in the original production of Gershwin’s operatic masterwork based on Dorothy and…

  • Jemmy Jock Bird: Marginal Man on the Blackfoot Frontier University of Calgary Press 2004 205 pages 16 b/w illustrations, 1 b/w photo, index Paperback ISBN: 978-1-55238-111-3 John C. Jackson Jemmy Jock Bird, the son of a Cree woman and a mixed-blood trader employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, has become part of the mythology of…

  • Indian Lords, Hispanic Gentlemen: The Salazars of Colonial Tlaxcala The Americas Volume 69, Number 1, July 2012 pages 1-36 DOI: 10.1353/tam.2012.0060 Peter B. Villella, Assistant Professor of History University of North Carolina, Greensboro In 1773, a Mexico City expert in gold embroidery named don José Mariano Sánchez de Salazar Zitlalpopoca petitioned for a license to…

  • “I’m a product of two biracial parents—so actually, I’m not biracial, but I’m a product of it,” he [Brendon Ayanbadejo] said, laughing. “My dad is Nigerian. My mom is Irish-American. So I kind of never really fit in. From the black community, I was considered white. From the white community, I was considered black. And then…

  • Anne Brown, Soprano Who Was Gershwin’s Bess, Is Dead at 96 The New York Times 2009-03-16 Douglas Martin Anne Brown, a penetratingly pure soprano who literally put the Bess in “Porgy and Bess” by inspiring George Gershwin to expand the character’s part in a folk opera that was originally to be called “Porgy,” died Friday…

  • Anne Wiggins Brown (1912-2009) Afrocentric Voices in Classical Music 2012-01-29 Randye Jones Soprano Anne Wiggins Brown was born on August 9, 1912, in Baltimore, Maryland. (This year, rather than 1915, was confirmed by the singer herself.) Her father, Dr. Harry F. Brown, was a prominent physician and grandson of a slave. Her mother, Mary Wiggins…

  • ‘I don’t believe in Negro symphony conductors’ On An Overgrown Path 2011-07-25 John McLaughlin Williams ‘Oh, come in, young man. I’m reading these reviews. They are out of this world. You really have something. But I might as well tell you, right now, I don’t believe in Negro symphony conductors. No, you may play solo…

  • Why Affirmative Action Remains Essential in the Age of Obama Campbell Law Review Volume 31, Issue 3 (2009) pages 503-533 Reginald T. Shuford, Senior Staff Attorney, Racial Justice Program American Civil Liberties Union Foundation With the election of Barack Obama to the most powerful position in the world, the presidency of the United States of…

  • Brendon Ayanbadejo, Baltimore Ravens Linebacker, Talks Gay Marriage And LGBT Rights The Huffington Post 2012-09-12 Michelangelo Signorile Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is going “full steam ahead” after his battle with Maryland legislator C. Emmett Burns Jr., who last week wrote a letter calling on the team’s owner to silence Ayanbadejo regarding his public advocacy…