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Learn About 28 Black History Makers in 28 Days (PBS)

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Learn About 28 Black History Makers in 28 Days (PBS)

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February 1, 2021

By Beatrice Alvarez

This year we are making sure to celebrate Black History Month every single day in February. We want to spotlight a history maker per day with an opportunity to honor these great individuals by learning more about their lives and their contributions. Without further ado, get to know these incredible 28 Black history makers.

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Learn About 28 Black History Makers in 28 Days

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February 1, 2021 By Beatrice Alvarez This year we are making sure to celebrate Black History Month every single day in February. We want to spotlight a history maker per day with an opportunity to honor these great individuals by learning more about their lives and their contributions.

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Profiles in Perseverance- Each Day a New Person is Profiled!

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Profiles in Perseverance- Each Day a New Person is Profiled!

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Every Black History Month, we tend to celebrate the same cast of historic figures. They are the civil rights leaders and abolitionists whose faces we see plastered on calendars and postage stamps. They resurface each February when the nation commemorates African Americans who have transformed America.

They deserve all their accolades. But this month we are focusing instead on 28 seminal Black figures - one for each day of February - who don't often make the history books.

Each transformed America in a profound way. Many don't fit the conventional definition of a hero. Some were foul-tempered, weighed down by personal demons, and misunderstood by their contemporaries.

One was a mystic, another was a spy who posed as a slave, and another was a brilliant but troubled poet dubbed the "Godfather of Rap." Few were household names. All of them were pioneers.

It's time for these American heroes to get their due.

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Black people in history: Little-known figures to know

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Every Black History Month, we tend to celebrate the same cast of historic figures. They are the civil rights leaders and abolitionists whose faces we see plastered on calendars and postage stamps. They resurface each February when the nation commemorates African Americans who have transformed America. They deserve all their accolades.

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Maya Angelou- Google Doodle with information and audio of "Still I Rise"

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Maya Angelou- Google Doodle with information and audio of "Still I Rise"

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"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel."
In a life rich with experiences and stories, author, poet, memoirist, and activist Dr. Maya Angelou touched the lives of millions around the globe through her teachings, her writings, her voice, and her actions.

Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928, her incredible story began with tragedy when a sexual assault at the age of seven rendered her mute for five years. During those years, however, books and poetry became her solace and constant companions, eventually helping her find her voice again to embark upon an intellectual and creative journey that defies description.

In her her teens and early adult life Dr. Angelou saw more experiences than many do in a lifetime: from motherhood, to becoming San Francisco's first female and black streetcar conductor, to touring the world as a cast member of the opera Porgy and Bess - all while mastering several languages. She sang and danced in professional cabarets, worked as a journalist in Africa, and became one of the most prominent civil rights activists of her generation.

The success of her first book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," in 1969 brought her mainstream attention as an author. Six other autobiographical works followed, in addition to poetry, children's literature, and non-fiction (even cookbooks!).

Through her works, Dr. Angelou gave a voice to millions. She championed women's rights and gender equality. She redefined black beauty and celebrated African-American oral traditions. She advocated against war and campaigned for universal peace.

She was also the recipient of numerous honors during her lifetime. She became the first poet to make an inaugural recitation in three decades when Bill Clinton became President in 1992. Her vast impact on popular culture was also felt through a host of award nominations, public accolades, and more than 50 honorary degrees.

Today's video Doodle celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou on what would have been her 90th birthday. Set to her poem "Still I Rise," the Doodle includes her own voice along with the voices of other individuals whose lives she has inspired, and who aspire to live by her legacy today.
Special thanks to these project partners who include (in order of appearance):
​" Maya Angelou, I love her so much. Everything she represented as a woman, her creativity, her story, who she is. She was a renaissance woman of all types, she recreated though levels, all angles, all places in her mind. She is brilliant...I am honored to be able to say her words."

"Being around Maya was so powerful and inspiring. I count myself very blessed to be one of the ones chosen to be a part of this. For some reason she took a liking to me and went out of her way to extend herself to me and I am forever grateful for that."

"Dr. Angelou's work is filled with such incredible wisdom and spiritual teachings. It feels like the ultimate privilege to have the opportunity to speak her words. She is a national treasure we should always celebrate."
"Maya Angelou is not what she has done or written or spoken, it's how she did it all. She moved through the world with unshakeable calm, confidence, and a fiery, fierce grace and abounding love."
Here's to Dr. Maya Angelou for her courage, compassion, and words, which continue to inspire hope around the world.
Special thanks to Dr. Angelou's son Guy Johnson and his wife Stephanie Floyd-Johnson for their close partnership on this project. Below, Guy shares his personal thoughts on his mother and her legacy:
As we spend what would have been my mother's ninetieth birthday, I think of her melodious tones speaking about the need for tolerance, understanding, forgiveness and love. My mother's perspective was that human beings being social animals are strongest when they are unified. She saw hatred and greed, not only as divisive, but as the forces of evil. She recognized that unlike positive virtues, neither greed nor hatred has to be taught; they come naturally and have to be untaught in order to free their possessor of their burdensome weight and baggage. She saw one of our greatest challenges was learning to love ourselves, then having the courage and the wisdom to love others. She often said, "We don't know how or why love occurs. Truthfully, we don't know that even gravity isn't a kind of love." She felt that love was one of the most important emotions and was an instrumental key to unlocking the inner doors of our ignorance and fear.

My mother's principal message was one of inclusiveness; that despite our ethnic, religious and cultural differences, we are more alike than unalike. She saw all our differences in language, orientation and perspective as an indication of the richness of our imagination and creativity, and as elements of our nature that we should celebrate. She believed that we are all images of God, no matter how we look or what name we use to call upon the Divine and Sacred Being.

She saw that the world was in need of our attention and effort; from the hunger and poverty that are present in so many countries, to our wars, internecine conflicts and indiscriminate terroristic acts, to the destructive pollution, deforestation and the reduction of the biodiversity of the life forms around us. Our planet is crying out for help. My mother would say, 'Don't just complain about the problems you see and do nothing; roll up your sleeves and get to work finding solutions and remedies. We do a disservice to our children and to the future by not addressing the problems that confront us. Nor should our efforts for change be thwarted or stifled by the obstacles arrayed against us. We must steel ourselves with courage and perseverance and battle on for what is right." For my mother the most important virtue was courage, because without courage none of the other virtues can be practiced consistently.

My mother did not herself go to college to pursue a degree. Although, as she rose in stature, as a public figure she was awarded Honorary Doctorates by more than fifty major universities and colleges. She understood education was extremely important; to that end she was a voracious reader, consuming two to three books a week from the time she was a teenager until her vision failed in her eighties. She used to ask me, "Can you imagine what the world would be like if all children on earth had access to a good education and were allowed to let their inner lights glow? Oh, we would have the cure to cancer and remedies to most of the major problems that confront us. The knowledge that would be generated by that level of brain power would give us access to the stars, to the universe as well as to our dreams."

My mother's assessment of human beings was that we were neither gods nor demons, but that we carried elements of both within ourselves; that the onus was upon each of us to control the demons of anger, jealousy and hate and find the spirit of a caring and forgiving God within our souls.

Credits

"Still I Rise" from AND STILL I RISE: A SELECTION OF POEMS READ BY THE AUTHOR by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

"Phenomenal Woman" from AND STILL I RISE: A BOOK OF POEMS by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Little, Brown Book Group. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

"Phenomenal Woman" from AND STILL I RISE: A SELECTION OF POEMS READ BY THE AUTHOR by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

"Caged Bird" from SHAKER, WHY DON'T YOU SING? by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Little, Brown Book Group.

"A Brave and Startling Truth" from A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1995 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

Excerpt(s) from I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1969 and renewed 1997 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Little, Brown Book Group. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

"On the Pulse of Morning" from ON THE PULSE OF MORNING by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1993 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

"Alone" from OH PRAY MY WINGS ARE GONNA FIT ME WELL by Maya Angelou, copyright ©1975 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Little, Brown Book Group. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

"Human Family" from I SHALL NOT BE MOVED by Maya Angelou, copyright © 1990 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Little, Brown Book Group. Used with permission of Caged Bird Legacy, LLC

Excerpts from RAINBOW IN THE CLOUD by Maya Angelou, copyright © 2014 by The Estate of Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." In a life rich with experiences and stories, author, poet, memoirist, and activist Dr. Maya Angelou touched the lives of millions around the globe through her teachings, her writings, her voice, and her actions.

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Racism in America was rampant during Baldwin's lifetime and the injustices he witnessed were fuel for his detailed analysis of the arresting portrait of racial strife in which he held white America accountable, but he also went further, arguing that racism hurt white people too.

If you read the various novels written by Baldwin or watch his debates and speeches, you will discover a man who has thought deeply about his placement in the country of his birth, but also as a Black American man living abroad and analyzing his country from afar.

If James Baldwin were alive today, what do you think his primary agenda would be? Do you think he would choose to leave the country permanently during this political climate? Overt racism is not the same today as it was during Baldwin's lifetime. However, what other systems, institutions, and practices are currently being used to maintain the racial oppressions Baldwin famously wrote about?

Many people do not see racism as an ill that effects individuals and groups, both in the United States and abroad. Because inequality has taken many different forms since the time period in which Baldwin wrote, some people do not see racism, homophobia, and inequality as major concerns of today.

Indeed, race relations in America have gotten better (or at least evolved). Although the types of racism are not as prevalent as they once were, there are still much more work to be done to provide racial and economic equality. Why do you think so many refuse to recognize racial inequality as a major problem in American society? Baldwin witnessed his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, ad Dr Martin Luther King be assassinated for speaking out against racism and inequality. Why do you think Baldwin had the courage to write and speak about these issues during a time when it was dangerous to do so? Do you think you would have had the courage of James Baldwin if you lived during his time?

Have a conversation with someone of a different race, gender, sexuality, or age. What has been their experience living in the U.S.? What were the experiences of their parents or grandparents? Do you know other people who have read the writing of James Baldwin? Do they know about the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States?

Imagine you were James Baldwin. What would you change about racial and sexual orientation discrimination? How would you ensure that all Americans are given equal treatment for generations to come?

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Notes of a native son: The world according to James Baldwin - Christina Greer

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In the 1960s, the FBI amassed almost 2,000 documents in an investigation into one of America's most celebrated minds. The subject of this inquiry was a writer named James Baldwin, one of the best-selling Black authors in the world at the time. What made him loom so large in the imaginations of both the public and the authorities?

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1) The horrors of lynching particularly in the U.S. south was a weapon used by whites to evoke fear in Black residents and business owners. In many ways, lynchings were so widespread and so well known, that police and those sworn to protect communities were complicit in letting white mods terrorize Black citizens.

If you research the writings of Ida B Wells, she passionately wrote about injustices surrounding Blacks in America. She wrote, "Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning." Wells writings were so important because they exposed an epidemic in America and changed the way individuals understood the root causes of lynching in Black communities.
If a modern day Ida B Wells existed, what do you think her primary agenda would be? Lynching is no longer a tool used by white mobs to maintain racial and economic superiority. However, what other systems, institutions, and practices are currently being used to maintain racial and economic order?

2) Many people do not pay attention to history, politics, or what is going on with people outside of their own communities, because they don't necessarily believe what has happened or what is happening to someone from a different group has much to do with their own lives.

Over the past few decades, race relations in America have gotten better. Although lynching is not as prevalent as it once was, there are still much more work to be done to provide racial and economic equality. Why do you think so many mobs wanted to keep Blacks from incorporating into society? Why was it that voting suppression, destroying businesses, and even murder were a tactic for white mobs against Black communities? What else could Ida B Wells and her colleagues have done to curtail the terrors of lynching during her lifetime?

Was Wells expected to do too much as a woman and a Black person during the time period in which she lived? Have a conversation with someone of a different race, gender, or age. What has been their experience living in the U.S.? What were the experiences of their parents or grandparents? Have your relatives ever heard of Ida B Wells? Do they know about the history of lynching in America?

Imagine you were Ida B Wells. What would you change about racial and gender discrimination? How would you ensure that Black Americans and women were given equal treatment for generations to come?

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How one journalist risked her life to hold murderers accountable - Christina Greer

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In the late 1800's, lynchings were happening all over the American South, often without any investigation or consequences for the murderers. A young journalist set out to expose the truth about these killings. Her reports shocked the nation, launched her journalism career and a lifelong pursuit of civil rights.

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Afrofuturism: From Books to Blockbusters | It's Lit | PBS LearningMedia

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Learn how Afrofuturism is more than just "science fiction plus Africa" and the roots of this important genre in this video from the digital series It's Lit. Afrofuturism addresses the cultural issues and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and science fiction (a la Black Panther).

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Kehinde Wiley creates paradigm shift in the art world

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Jean-Michel Basquiat was invested in many creative arenas outside of painting. He collaborated with a high school friend, Al Diaz, under the pseudonym SAMO; you can see documentary images of these early SAMO writings here. Basquiat also formed a noise band with the artist Michael Holman in the late 1970s named (likely after the Gray's Anatomy book that his mother gave him as a child). Holman wrote a history of the band and recently produced an album with former band member Shannon Dawson called Shades of Gray
(2011).

If you would like to know more about Basquiat's painting in the larger context of American art, see the online essay on the 1985 painting Horn Players by art historian Jordana Moore Saggese and his entry on The Art Story. More advanced readers might consider Dr. Saggese's 2014 book Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art.
The New York Times published an article about the record-breaking auction of Basquiat's painting, which sold to the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa for $110.5 million in 2017. This was the highest price ever paid for a work by any American artist, for a work by an African-American artist. This painting was also the first work created since 1980 to make over $100 million at auction.

A richly-illustrated book (for grades K-5) on the life Jean-Michel Basquiat, Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, was awarded the Randolph Caldecott Medal in 2017 middle and high school students would enjoy the biographies by Leonard Emmerling and Eric Fretz. Older readers may like the recently updated biography by Phoebe Hoban, which details the artist's life as well as provides a vivid picture of the downtown scene of 1980s New York.

Films that take Jean-Michel Basquiat as their subject, include the scripted drama Basquiat (1996) and the documentaries Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010) and Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017). Basquiat also plays the main character in the film Downtown 81 -made by Glenn O'Brien in 1980-81 and released in 2000.

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The chaotic brilliance of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat - Jordana Moore Saggese

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Like Beat writers who composed their work by shredding and reassembling scraps of writing, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat used similar techniques to remix his materials. Pulling in splintered anatomy, reimagined historical scenes and skulls, he repurposed present day experiences and art history into an inventive visual language.

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"My work is of the soul, rather than the figure, and sometimes the figure must be very crude in order to carry the full strength of the spiritual meaning." - Meta Warrick Fuller

Meta Warrick Fuller's Story

Meta Warrick Fuller was born to a middle-class African American family in Philadelphia on June 9, 1877. Warrick Fuller received a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts, now the University of the Arts, where she was one of just a few Black students. Encouraged by her sculpture teacher, in 1899, Warrick Fuller moved to Paris, where African Americans faced fewer restrictions to attend art academies than in the U.S.

Although she still faced racism abroad, her years in Paris were formative for her as a sculptor. There, she created art for the 1900 Paris World's Fair, and met French sculptor Auguste Rodin, who was impressed by her powerful work. She became known as the "sculptor of horrors" for her dark, expressive artistic renderings, which were often inspired by folklore and mythology.

When she returned to the U.S., Warrick Fuller was commissioned by noted scholar W.E.B. DuBois to create sculptures to represent African American history and contributions to the country. Her work was exhibited in the designated "Negro areas" of several world's fairs. In 1907, Warrick Fuller became the first African American woman to receive a federal art commission, when she was asked to create a piece for the 300th anniversary of the Jamestown Virginia Settlement.

Warrick Fuller created revolutionary sculptures throughout the 1910s and 1920s that elevated the African American experience as a subject worthy of depiction in art, at a time when African Americans were typically depicted in stereotypical and demeaning ways in art and media. Her work also captured the African American experience of the time, for instance, her sculpture Mary Turner: A Silent Protest Against Mob Violence was a tribute to the 1917 Silent Parade in protest of lynching, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Despite losing 16 years of artwork in a fire, and facing opposition from her husband, Warrick Fuller continued to create influential sculptures throughout her life. Her work anticipated themes of the Harlem Renaissance, celebrating African heritage and African American cultural identity. Late in her career, in the 1960s, she wrote poetry and created sculptural tributes to the Civil Rights Movement.

Warrick Fuller died on March 18, 1968, at age 91. In 1998, her sculpture Emancipation was cast in bronze and installed as a public monument in Boston's Harriet Tubman Square. Her sculpture Ethiopia is now displayed at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Featured in the Film

Renée Ater

Renée Ater is Associate Professor Emerita of American Art at the University of Maryland, and author of Remaking Race and History: The Sculpture of Meta Warrick Fuller. She holds a B.A. in art history from Oberlin College (1987); a M.A. in art history from the University of Maryland (1993); and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Maryland (2000). Her research and writing have largely focused on the intersection of race, monument building, and national identity. Renée is currently researching, designing, and writing a digital project entitled Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past: Race, Memorialization, Public Space, and Civic Engagement.

Alison Saar

Alison Saar is a Los Angeles-based sculptor, mixed-media, and installation artist. Her artwork focuses on the African diaspora and black female identity and is influenced by African, Caribbean, and Latin American folk art and spirituality. She has had solo exhibitions at Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C., the Brooklyn Museum, High Museum in Atlanta, OMI International Arts Center in Ghent, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Springfield Art Museum, UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and Santa Monica Museum of Art. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the New Museum in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Studio Museum in Harlem, among many other institutions. Saar has been awarded many distinguished grants, honors, and residencies including awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

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"My work is of the soul, rather than the figure, and sometimes the figure must be very crude in order to carry the full strength of the spiritual meaning." - Meta Warrick Fuller Meta Warrick Fuller was born to a middle-class African American family in Philadelphia on June 9, 1877.

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Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series (long version)

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Is Blues the Mother of All Modern Music?

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Is Blues the Mother of All Modern Music?

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Is Blues the Mother of All Modern Music?

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Haben Girma- Advocate for People with Disabilities

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Haben Girma- Advocate for People with Disabilities

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How Haben Girma Became Harvard Law School’s First Deafblind Grad

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Pauli Murray- Civil Rights and Women's Rights Activist

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Pauli Murray- Civil Rights and Women's Rights Activist

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Examine the life and legacy of one of America's most influential equal rights leaders, Pauli Murray, in this video from First Person: Classroom. Using the video, discussion questions, teaching tips, and oral history activity, students learn about Pauli Murray and how her life intertwined with the Civil Rights and Women's Movement in the United States.

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Little Miss Flint - 6th Grade Clean Water Activist

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Little Miss Flint - 6th Grade Clean Water Activist

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How Little Miss Flint is still helping her community, 5 years into water crisis

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The 11-year-old proves that anyone can fight for positive change.

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Matthew Henson- First to Reach North Pole

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Matthew Henson- First to Reach North Pole

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At 6' 6" and 280 pounds, Jerry Lawson -- a Black man -- was extremely far from the stereotypical image of an engineer and inventor in 1970s America, or even today. But then, nothing about Jerry's life was stereotypical.
Black inventor and self-taught engineer Gerald "Jerry" Lawson was one of the few Black engineers of his time; yet, he was almost left out of the tome of gaming history. With his work on the Fairchild Channel F Console, Jerry was the first to innovate the use of interchangeable cartridges in consumer gaming consoles, changing the landscape of the gaming industry as we know it. In 2018, the gaming industry's estimated worth was $138 billion and is built on the backbone of consumer flexibility: being able to play multiple games comfortably in your home or on the go. None of this modern-day success would have been possible if it wasn't for Jerry Lawson; but, let's start at the beginning.

Born December 1, 1940 in Brooklyn New York, Gerald "Jerry" Lawson was raised by his father and mother Blanton Lawson, and Manning Lawson in Queens. Jerry fondly gave his father the nickname of "science bug" (per an interview with Vintage Computing and Gaming, that I'll be citing heavily in this piece)-- no matter how long Blanton Lawson's shift was at the docks that day, he would come home to devour science magazines. Jerry's mother, Manning, worked for the city of New York but she spent a lot of her time encouraging a young Jerry to focus on his education. She made sure he went to the best schools, often interviewing the staff and teachers to make sure they fit the bill. She even became the PTA president in Jerry's grade school, which was composed of 99% white students. It was here that his first-grade teacher, Ms.Guble, helped Jerry see a future of success. In that 2009 interview with Vintage Computing and Gaming, Lawson said he told Ms. Guble, "I have a picture of George Washington Carver on the wall next to my desk;" and she said, "This could be you." Lawson continued, "Now, the point I'm getting at is, this kind of influence is what led me to feel, 'I want to be a scientist. I want to be something.'"

10 Best NES Games of All Time

Ms. Guble's words stuck in his mind, and Jerry proceeded to deeply involve himself in his interests in electronics and engineering. At thirteen, this precocious and smart kid built radios alongside researching how to start his own licensed radio station. He found out that if you lived in federally funded housing, you could easily obtain a radio license. So, in Jamaica Queens, Jerry did just that, often building and maintaining his own radio equipment from scratch.

Jerry would often tell people that, "Military [engineering] was good training for consumer, because consumer products actually have to be stronger than military."

He even built an effective small enterprise fixing neighbors' electronics. Jerry's love of taking things apart, learning how the thing works, and then putting them back together again eventually translated to studying engineering in college. Lawson attended Queens College and CCNY, but he never received a formal degree from either institution. In the 70s, after school, he worked for Federal Electric-ITT where he encountered his first computer. He also worked for Grumman Aircraft and PRD Electrics, jumping back and forth between different disciplines and departments between the varying companies. In the aforementioned Vintage Computing and Gaming interview, Lawson told the reporter that his work in the private sector is what prepared him for the wild landscape of consumer electronics. Jerry would often tell people that, "Military [engineering] was good training for consumer, because consumer products actually have to be stronger than military."

A History of Nintendo Hardware - 1977 to Now

At the time, Jerry was one of the very few Black engineers in the field. When asked by Vintage Computing and Gaming how being a Black engineer affected his job prospects, Mr. Lawson responded, "[It] could be both a plus and a minus. Where it could be a plus is that, in some regard, you got a lot of, shall we say, eyes watching you. And as a result, if you did good, you did twice as good, 'cause you got instant notoriety about it."
By the mid-70s, Jerry Lawson made the big move to Silicon Valley to work on military devices for Kaiser Electronics, focusing mostly on aircraft displays. Jerry joined Fairchild Semiconductor, Inc. when he received a better opportunity to work outside the linear structure of the typical office environment at Fairchild. It was here that he was able to go out in the field to market new ideas and concepts. Fairchild was an innovative company in its own right, manufacturing transistors and integrated circuits for electronics. Fairchild allowed him to become something no one had ever heard of: a recruiter for freelance engineers. In the 70s, this was a bold move and a radical idea.

If Fairchild had a Yelp page in the 1970s, they would've had two stars, all citing poor customer service. Jerry recalled his first couple of months with Fairchild in his VC&G interview: "When I was there for the first six months, I said, 'You know, there's a problem here. The problem is that Fairchild is not known for being helpful for customers. And I've got an image to overcome: how the heck to break down that image they have.'" So, Jerry worked to connect Fairchild more directly to its audience to provide a one-on-one personal experience. With the help of Fairchild's marketing department, Jerry was able to convert an RV into an interactive space, with rear-facing screens, literature about the company, and a lab on wheels. The experiment paid off. "It looked like something from James Bond," Jerry said. "It even had a rear-projection screen that came out of the ceiling. It turned out to be an overwhelming success; so, they came back to me and said, 'We want you to do it again.'"
Jerry's foray into games started as a hobby when his old buddy, Pong creator Allan Alcorn, put the first Pong machine into one of their local pubs. Alcorn had issues with the coin mechanism of his machine after the local kids continually jerry-rigged it to get free games. They'd stick hangers in the slot to fool the mechanism into thinking there was an actual coin inside, allowing them to play again... for free. Inspired, Jerry decided to make his own cabinet featuring a game called Demolition Derby. Jerry built his cabinet with a coin jiggle function that made playing for free impossible for the neighborhood kids.

Jerry's foray into games started as a hobby when his old buddy, Pong creator Allan Alcorn, put the first Pong machine into one of their local pubs.

Fairchild soon heard about Jerry's extracurricular activities, which put him in some hot water with the company, believing that he was going to try and branch out on his own. Instead of firing the budding gaming engineer, though, Fairchild asked Jerry if he wanted to develop games for them. The project was top-secret -- Jerry would only report to the vice-president. Lawson built the gaming division at Fairchild from the ground up. "I was the number one employee," he told Vintage Computing and Gaming. "My set task was to work on the prototype and hire a bunch of people to work with me, most of which came from Fairchild."

The Fairchild Channel F System, as it was officially called, was always meant to be an at-home gaming machine. It was its cartridge technology set, however, that set it above the competition. Lawson and his team had to figure out how to plug and unplug the cartridges without the customer being slightly maimed by an explosion in the process. "We were afraid - we didn't have statistics on multiple-insertion and what it would do and how we would do it because it wasn't done," Jerry told Vintage Computing and Gaming. "I mean, think about it: nobody had the capability of plugging in memory devices in mass quantity like in a consumer product. Nobody."

Jerry and his team of engineers were embarking into unknown territory. At the time, it was unheard of to bring a multi-game, cartridge-based system to the consumer. Gaming consoles like the Atari Pong, Sears Tele-Games, and Magnavox Odyssey 100 & 200 all had a finite amount of games programmed within the memory of the console. The Fairchild Channel F would be the first at-home gaming system to use cartridge technology. At Alpex Computer Corporation, Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskel conceived the idea of removable cartridges, but it was Jerry Lawson, Ron Smith, and Nick Talesfore who cultivated the technology and transposed it for consumer use.

Jerry Lawson and his work on the Fairchild Channel F changed the face of the gaming industry. After the Channel F console, many companies followed Lawson's ingenuity to create systems with cartridge-based games. Many gaming companies like Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation, and Xbox have benefited from a format that extended the life of their gaming consoles. And thanks to the variety of games that could be played on cartridges -- and, later, discs -- a multi-million dollar game development industry was born. If not for Jerry and his team's innovation on the Fairchild Channel F, this current iteration of gaming would not exist.By 2011, Lawson's long and varied career included his own company, Videosoft, and some consulting work. As time progressed, it seems his historic work on the Fairchild Channel F console grew into a distant memory. It was not until March of 2011, as reported by the Mercury News, that John Templeton -- a publisher who was friends with an International Game Developers Association (IGDA) member, Joseph Saulter -- asked if the IGDA ever planned to recognize Jerry Lawson's contributions. The association had reportedly never heard of Jerry Lawson. As Joseph Saulter, a Black man and founder of Atlanta based Entertainment Arts Research recounts in an interview with Mercury News, "I was really very emotional about it, as a matter of fact, I started crying - just for somebody like him to be left out."

So Saulter led the charge into giving Lawson the recognition he deserved. It was an unconventional, informal ceremony about which Saulter explained to the Mercury News, "Lawson had waited long enough, and delaying his recognition for a more formal ceremony simply wouldn't be right. Lawson's story is too important." A month later, on April 9th, 2011, Jerry Lawson lost his battle to diabetes. Jerry leaves behind an incredible history of self-made innovation, invention, and inspiration for young Black kids who want to embark on a career in science.

His advice, as cited in via VC&G: "[Black Kids] need to understand that they're in a land by themselves. Don't look for your buddies to be helpful, because they won't be. You've gotta step away from the crowd and go do your own thing. You find a ground, cover it, it's brand new, you're on your own - you're an explorer. That's about what it's going to be like. Explore new vistas, new avenues, new ways - not relying on everyone else's way to tell you which way to go, and how to go, and what you should be doing." Jazmine Joyner is a freelance writer with bylines at SlashFilm, WWAC, and Wear Your Voice. You can follow her on Twitter @Jazmine_Joyner
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Jerry Lawson: The Black Man Who Revolutionized Gaming As We Know It - IGN

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At 6' 6" and 280 pounds, Jerry Lawson -- a Black man -- was extremely far from the stereotypical image of an engineer and inventor in 1970s America, or even today. But then, nothing about Jerry's life was stereotypical.Black inventor and self-taught engineer Gerald "Jerry" Lawson was one of the few Black engineers of his time; yet, he was almost left out of the tome of gaming history.

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Adania Flemming, "Fish Whisperer," on Becoming Visible

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Adania Flemming, "Fish Whisperer," on Becoming Visible

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Graduate student, museum collections technician, and science educator Adania Flemming studies life in water-based ecosystems. As the only woman in her lab at the Florida Museum, she's making herself as visible as she can through social media and museum events so that other aspiring scientists of color can "see that scientists come in all genders and skin tones."

She also wants to bring hands-on training in marine biology, ichthyology, and island ecology to schools in Trinidad and Tobago from where she hales.

Learn more about Adania Flemming and her work in The Fish Whisperer from this Becoming Visible video series and site from The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History. The 2017 video series celebrated "100 years of inspiring people to care about life on Earth."

To mark the closing of an era and the beginning of a new century, UF News profiled three Florida Museum women who are shaping the research institution's future and breaking the cycle of stereotypes and misconceptions in the world of science. With modern tools like social media and podcasts, they continue the work of past and current museum women, who have fought for equality in their fields and for the visibility of women in science.

Follow Flemming on Twitter.

Also in this series: Becoming Visible: Fossil Hunter Michelle Barboza. Plus, find more Black and STEM videos on TKSST.

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Adania Flemming, Fish Whisperer, on Becoming Visible | The Kid Should See This

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Graduate student, museum collections technician, and science educator Adania Flemming studies life in water-based ecosystems. As the only woman in her lab at the Florida Museum, she's making herself as visible as she can through social media and museum events so that other aspiring scientists of color can "see that scientists come in all genders and skin tones."

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John Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama, the son of sharecroppers.

He attended segregated public schools and said it was the activism and the radio broadcasts of Martin Luther King Jr., that inspired him to dedicate his life to civil rights.

Lewis left Alabama for college in Tennessee where he helped organize sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville.

In 1961, he was one of the original freedom riders who challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the south.

Lewis helped found the student nonviolent coordinating committee and became a key ally of Martin Luther King Jr.

At age 23, Lewis was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march on Washington where King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech.

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Remembering the life and legacy of John Lewis

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Rep. John Lewis, a Civil Rights hero, died of pancreatic cancer Friday night. A supporter of civic engagement, including the ongoing global Black Lives Matter protests, Lewis had been beaten and arrested several times during the Civil Rights Movement. Known for powerful speeches, he advocated for getting into "good trouble" all his life.

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NASA Mathematician, Recipient of Nations Highest Civilian Honor

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John Urschel-NFL Math Whiz: Real Sports Full Segment (HBO)

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The Exceptional Life of Benjamin Banneker

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The Exceptional Life of Benjamin Banneker

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Shirley Chisholm- First Black Congresswoman

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Shirley Chisholm- First Black Congresswoman

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She was the first African-American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall, but she didn't care for her stage name, "the Black Patti," which compared her to a white diva.

Sissieretta Jones in a photograph by Addison N. Scurlock, about 1911. She was perhaps the most famous of an early generation of African-American singers. Credit... H. Lawrence Freeman Collection, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University

Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we're adding the stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in The Times.

Sissieretta Jones forged an unconventional path to singing opera, becoming the first African-American woman to headline a concert on the main stage of Carnegie Hall,in 1893.

She sang at the White House, toured the nation and the world, and, in a performance at Madison Square Garden, was conducted by the composer Antonin Dvorak.

But there were color lines she never managed to break, like the one that kept the nation's major opera companies segregated, denying her the chance to perform in fully staged operas.

"They tell me my color is against me," she once lamented to a reporter from The Detroit Tribune.

When another interviewer suggested that she transform herself with makeup and wigs, she dismissed the idea.

"Try to hide my race and deny my own people?" she responded in the interview, which was published by The San Francisco Call in 1896. "Oh, I would never do that." She added: "I am proud of belonging to them and would not hide what I am even for an evening."

Jones was perhaps the most famous of an early generation of African-American singers who shattered racial barriers in classical music, more than a half-century before Marian Anderson became the first black artist to sing a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

"Thirty years out of slavery for African-Americans in this country, here she was on the stage of Carnegie Hall,"Jessye Norman, who became a great African-American diva in the late 20th century, said in an interview.

Nicknamed "the Black Patti" for publicity purposes - a comparison to the white diva Adelina Patti- she became the star of a touring company called the Black Patti Troubadours. All the performers were black, but the managers were white.

Performances would open with skits that had roots in minstrel shows, including songs in dialect called "coon songs." But they would close in another key entirely: with Jones as the star of an "Operatic Kaleidoscope." An early show that began with a skit called "At Jolly Coon-ey Island" ended with Jones singing arias by Verdi and Offenbach - in costume, backed by a chorus.

"She took no other part in the show, but was the great drawing card," James Weldon Johnson, the author, civil rights activist and songwriter wrote in his 1930 book, "Black Manhattan." He added that she "had most of the qualities essential in a great singer: the natural voice, the physical figure, the grand air, and the engaging personality."

The Troubadours began touring in 1896, and she held the stage with them and a successor company for nearly two decades.

Matilda Sissieretta Joyner was born in Portsmouth, Va., in either 1868 or 1869 (records disagree); her father was a carpenter and pastor who was born into slavery, and her mother sang in the choir at the nearby Ebenezer Baptist Church. The family moved to Providence, R.I., where a young Sissieretta sang in church and began her vocal training. Her marriageto David Jones ended in divorce; their daughter, Mabel, died at the age of 2.

After studying singing in Providence and Boston, she began appearing in concerts in New York, New England and Philadelphia, and in 1888 went on her first tour, of the Caribbean and South America. On a tour of England, she performed for the Prince of Wales. She sang at the White House in 1892 for President Benjamin Harrison, her first of several appearances there.

But Jonesattributed her success to an engagement months later at Madison Square Garden billed as a "Grand Negro Jubilee."After several instrumentals played by the band, some songs by the Jubilee Chorus and a fight scene, Jones took to the stage of the Garden.

"Wearing long white gloves, a pearl gray gown, and a chestful of medals, Sissieretta smiled broadly as she walked confidently up the steps to the platform in the center of the huge amphitheater," her biographer, Maureen D. Lee, wrote in"Sissieretta Jones: 'The Greatest Singer of Her Race,' 1868-1933" (2012). "If she was nervous, she did not let her audience see any evidence of it."

Jones was a hit. In its review of her performances there, The New York Dramatic Mirror wrote that she had "one of the most pleasing soprano voices ever heard in this city," and added that she had a "purity of tone, an accuracy of phrasing, and a richness and a power."

Jones later said: "I woke up famous after singing at the Garden and didn't know it."

She followed in the footsteps of earlier African-American concert singers who upended racial stereotypes, including Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who began her singing career before the Civil War, Flora Batson and Marie Selika Williams, the first black singer to perform at the White House, in 1878.

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Jones performed in gowns that were adorned with a large collection of medals given to her by admirers around the world. Credit... Library of Congress

Jones became one of the most successful, though, amassing a large collection of medals from international admirers that she often wore at concerts, and becoming one of the best-paid African-American performers of her day, according to modern scholars.

But she frequently had to endure racism, and all manner of indignities.

Segregated hotels turned her away, and not only in the South. The same year the Troubadours were founded, 1896, the United States Supreme Court allowed racial segregation in its Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which held that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. That fall, when Jones's young company tried to tour Hartford, every hotel refused them, according to The New York Times.

She eventually got a private rail car to live in while on the road.

When a contract dispute with her powerful white manager, Maj. James B. Pond, landed in court, the judge chided her for ingratitude. And singing for black and white audiences was not always easy in a segregated era.

After an 1893 concert in Louisville, where black patrons were restricted to the packed upper gallery while some of the best seats, reserved for whites, sat empty, Jones spoke out.

"I think people of my race ought not to be shut out in this way," she told The Louisville Commercial.

She retired from the stage in 1915 to look after her mother in Providence, slipped from view and ran through her savings. When she died on June 24, 1933, relatively few took notice.

But since then, people have worked to keep her memory alive. In 1944, W.C. Handy, sometimes called the father of the blues, edited a songbook, "Unsung Americans Sung," thatincluded a song about her. Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer wrote of her as a "stunning woman with a beautiful voice" in their 1967 book "Black Magic."

In recent years her story has become more widely known. She appears in Tyehimba Jess's "Olio," an exploration of the lives of African-American performersthat won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. In June her unmarked grave in Providence finally received a headstone to mark the 150th anniversary of her birth, with money provided by a GoFundMe campaign spearheaded by Lee, her biographer, and Stages of Freedom, a Providence nonprofit that held three days of events about her life. (Lee cites Jones's birth year as 1868.)

And Norman, the soprano, is developing a project exploring Jones's life that will be presented at National Sawdust, the performance space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She hopes that projects like hers will spread Jones's fame wider.

But she has one overarching wish: finding a recording of her voice.

There are no known recordings of Jones. The Library of Congress notes that black artists rarely performed on early recordings. Gino Francesconi, the director of Carnegie Hall's archives and Rose Museum, said he was still searching for such a track.

"I just wish we had recordings," Norman said," so we could actually listen to the sounds she made."

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Overlooked No More: Sissieretta Jones, a Soprano Who Shattered Racial Barriers (Published 2018)

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She was the first African-American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall, but she didn't care for her stage name, "the Black Patti," which compared her to a white diva. Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men.

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Sissieretta Jones: The Black Patti—From the Carnegie Hall Archives

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She Inspires
Edmonia Lewis was the first professional sculptor of African American and Native American descent to achieve international recognition. Born in Rensselaer County in 1844, Lewis attended school in Albany before learning to sculpt in Boston. Learn more about Edmonia Lewis and other inspirational women at wmht.org/sheinspires. Share the inspirational women in your life with #SheInspiresMeWMHT

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She Inspires | Edmonia Lewis | Season 2018

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She Inspires Edmonia Lewis was the first professional sculptor of African American and Native American descent to achieve international recognition. Born in Rensselaer County in 1844, Lewis attended school in Albany before learning to sculpt in Boston. Learn more about Edmonia Lewis and other inspirational women at wmht.org/sheinspires.

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Toni Morrison - Writer & Playwright | Mini Bio | BIO

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The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, we work to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society.

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Art gives our kids (and us!) an opportunity to look at the world from a different point of view. It can help us to see a new perspective, and begin to understand things on a different level.

Faith Ringgold is an artist and activist who is known around the world for her innovative and insightful story quilts. She combines writing, painting, and quilting to create completely unique and spectacular works of art.

She also writes and illustrates children's books that explore a range of topics - from the Underground Railroad, to the Harlem Renaissance, to the Civil Rights movement. These books are a wonderful way to start meaningful conversations with kids about a variety of important topics.

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Faith Ringgold books for kids - connecting art to African American history - Art History Kids

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Art gives our kids (and us!) an opportunity to look at the world from a different point of view. It can help us to see a new perspective, and begin to understand things on a different level.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: we turn now to the award-winning musical polymath Rhiannon Giddens, a folk singer and multi-instrumentalist. Giddens grew up in North Carolina. And she's also a classically trained opera singer. She's on a mission to reframe the history of African- Americans and their contributions to the musical landscape. A quest that is already won her a Macarthur Genius Grant. Rhiannon sat down with our Walter Isaacson to discuss her latest album "There Is No Other" and to play some banjo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER ISAACSON, CONTRIBUTOR: You have this amazing new album called "There Is No Other" and it's about diversity and different strains coming together. First, let me ask you about your own personal ancestry.

RHIANNON GIDDENS, MUSICIAN: You know my parents got married in North Carolina. Interracial couple, got married, not - but three - maybe three years after the loving decision -

ISAACSON: In other words, that t allowed interracial marriage in North Carolina.

GIDDENS: Yes. I grew up kind of going back and forth between my white side and my black side. And then kind of as the years have pass, you hear these hints of stories about Indian blood and this and that and kind of going all right. And then I started kind of getting interested in that side of things.

ISAACSON: So Native American background you had, too.

GIDDENS: Native American, yes. And so I got myself got interested in that side of things at the high school that I went to. There's a Native American drumming group there and a powwow that happens every year. And so I learned how to sing powwow songs and, you know, really just kind of explored that for my own self.

ISAACSON: Where is this?

GIDDENS: This is in - this was in Durham, North Carolina.

ISAACSON: Durham, North Carolina.

GIDDENS: North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

ISAACSON: Because you have Greensboro, William, and Durham, quite a few of North Carolina roots in you. How does it all come together and what are you trying to do by bringing them together with this album?

GIDDENS: I kind of feel like I represent, you know, a lot of the south, which is a mixture of black, white, and native elements. We're not quite sure exactly what comes from what. Sometimes we are and sometimes we're not, and that's kind of how my, you know, my roots are. And I don't like to - that's why I kind of - I'm not looking for any kind of validation or claim a particular kind of this or that. It's kind of like well, I'm a mix. And I think the best of American music comes from that aspect of the mixture. And so that's kind of what I've been doing with my music in America, like, looking particularly at the African-American heart of things. Because in the music that I've been interested in, it's been sort of suppressed. The true role of black Americans and the creation of some of these things like, you know, country music, all time music, bluegrass, you know, things at the heart of lot of what is really American. And so I've been doing that for some years and this record, you know, "There Is No Other,"it was an opportunity to place that in a global context.

ISAACSON: And it talks about the ties that bind us, as well.

GIDDENS: Exactly. So, you know, when I met Francesco, who was my musical partner, who I did the record with, he's from Italy, very similar story to mine. I went to classical school and learned how to sing opera and then kind of came back to my roots in North Carolina. And, you know, he went to conservatory and kind of went back to the folk music of his folks, which should be the Mediterranean. And his family is from Sicily. And, you know, his journey has been trying to, you know, talk about how mixed that area is and how you wouldn't say have the renaissance without the years of Arabic domination of Spain, of Sicily, of all these areas. You have this incredible influx of cultural elements from somewhere else that then transform to what was already there. And so that's what I've been talking about on my side of things. So we basically kind of just met across the Atlantic Ocean and found out that there's actually a lot of similarities and parallels in what we're both doing. And so that's kind of what we've done is put our musics together.

ISAACSON: So I saw you in the Ken Burns documentary on country music. And we think of country music as sort of a white genre. And you've helped resurrect the roots of country music for many diverse backgrounds including the African-American one.

GIDDENS: Well, I mean I'm, you know, and a handful of people who've really been trying to change the narrative or restore the narrative. Because really, it has been a crafted thing and as I've been researching what I find is that it didn't happen by accident. This idea that the banjo is a white instrument, that country is this, you know, base of pure white culture. Because that's what it's sold as. And so when I first got into folk music and found the origins of the banjo being African-American, I was like what, then I kind of started going whatelse don't I know? And that's really kind of what started me down the path, you know, which is why I'm sitting in front of you today. It's kind of led me to everything that I feel like is meaningful in what I do with my music because it's not just a music issue. It's a real cultural issue. And what we're finding today is that people feel really divided and they feel like, you know, I'm not like them and they're not like us. But when you look at the music of America, you find that this is a place where we all came together and created this beautiful thing. But if you rewrite history and take out one of the pillars of this, it's not like African-Americans influenced people. They did but they're also one of the main pillars of this. That can't be stated strongly enough. That without African-Americans, without black string band music, without the banjo, country music, as we know it, would not exist.

ISAACSON: And this goes back to the 1850s where African-Americans were leading in the banjo movement.

GIDDENS: Well, it goes back way before that. I mean, the banjo comes from the 1700s. You've got the banjo coming up from the Caribbean. You know, up until the 1840s, '30s only black people played the banjo. So it's only in 1830s that white entertainers start to take it and perform with it and it becomes kind of an inextricable part of the show. And that's one of the reasons why we don't engage with this because, you know, despite the fact that it was the most popular form of entertainment in America for over 50 or 60 years, people want to forget it. You know, except for when it pops up with people who are in black face. Even today. It's a really - it's woven into our cultural in so many different ways and we just have to kind of come to grips with that in a way that is informed. You know, there's a lot of knee jerk reactions from somebody. But at the heart of it is American music. It's the music that kind of goes in. It's a combination of African, European, all of these kind of things go into what became instrumental music. So what happens in Ken's documentary, Ken Burns' country music documentary is a piece of it and it's a really important piece but there's like a mountain under that, that we're trying to grapple with.

ISAACSON: When you first got interested in square dancing, did you know that it had been sort of created as a white genre by people like Henry Ford and were you trying to rescue the roots of square dancing?

GIDDENS: I mean I had no idea. I mean, square dancing, you know, it was - - I learned it in middle school. This is part of this whole thing to, you know, as this is America's dance or whatever. By America, we mean white America. And so I never thought it had anything to do with me, you know. And so when I started calling contra dances a square, I kind of felt like, you know, we like to say I was the raisin in the oatmeal. I was used to being the only one and felt like I was sort of inserting myself in somebody else's tradition.

ISAACSON: But you felt you were black. You say you were on both sides.

GIDDENS: This is the reality of being, you know, biracial in America or whatever, you know, southern is that it's the shifting thing. It's a target that you can't ever really catch down because some people treat me this way, some people treat me this way. When I'm here, I feel this way. When I'm here, I feel this way. And so I fluidly have followed that, you know. Now, I feel like I'm North Carolinian, I'm southern. But back then, I mean it's really hard. You kind of have to try to. So even though it's a legacy that is mine just by right of being southern, I still of kind felt - and then also I don't look like anybody else. There, you know. So there's just realities to that. But I got it too because I loved it. And I love the banjo and I love the sound. And then as I started to find the history, I went wow, you know. And then I found out that, oh, black people probably invented calling. Wow, that we played for these dances. Wow. Like we had a huge piece of creating what has been set aside as this ethnically pure white thing. And I'm like this is is a problem because the actual truth is actually way more interesting and it's actually more indicative of who we are as a people. Like, people up here whose best interest it is to keep us divided, they don't want us to know this stuff. You know, because then it just makes us kind of oh, then actually we outnumbered them, wait a minute, you know. And this has been the conflict of the south since the very beginning, is keeping all the poor people, all the working class people at each other's throats through the invention of race. And that has been expressed through music. So I'm a musician, so it's the only way I can fight that is through knowing the history and doing it through music.

ISAACSON: You have an 1850s replica banjo there. Show it to us and show us some of the roots of the music that you can do with that banjo.

GIDDENS: So for me, this is a lot closer to - you know, I studied some pre-banjo instruments in West Africa and, to me, this is a lot closer to that than, you know, say the modern bluegrass banjo. So when I picked it up, I kind of - I felt an affinity for it. And for the majority of the banjos' life, this is what the banjo sounded like. It's deep and resonate, which is very different to what people think of as the banjo.

ISAACSON: So show me some Hillbilly roots that you would do on the banjo.

GIDDENS: Well, it's interesting because there are things that, you know, instrumental style, playing was called stroke style. It's called claw hammer today.

ISAACSON: Very percussive.

GIDDENS: Oh, yes, banjo is very percussive. Take off the stick, you have a drum, right. And they think - there's an idea that the way that they did this came from a frame drum or the tambourine, but that's - it's unsubstantiated.

ISAACSON: So what other influences go in? We have the Hillbilly. Tell us about some of the influences that go into banjo playing.

GIDDENS: Well, I mean Hillbilly is a term that, you know, became used as a way to try to - you know, if you talk about Hillbilly, it's like - it's people who lived in the mountains and they were from all over. There's a lot of (inaudible), there's a lot of this but there was up to 20 percentAfrican-American. And the idea of the music being, you know, untouched for hundreds of years in the mountains, it's kind of not a thing really. I mean nobody is isolated. You know, people are more isolated than others and there is music that definitely survived in the mountains longer than in other places, but it's kind of been taken as a thing, you know. And sort of this mythology has been - has grown around it. So what goes into this early music is European dance forms, African, you know, tunes and rhythms. Not just rhythms, there's lots of tunes.

ISAACSON: Show me a little African influence there.

GIDDENS: I mean, it's hard - it's really hard to say. There's just things that I do feel and I play. There's a lot of techniques that are still on this old banjo tunes that have been kind of whittled out when you start getting into later what we think of as Appalachian music on different kind of banjos. So I am finding these kind of oh, wow that feels like, you know, it's all feelings.

ISAACSON: It feels like African, it feels like -

GIDDENS: It feels like - you know, especially when I approach things, you know, in that way, I'm like oh, I can really hear this upstroke and this offbeat and all of this kind of stuff really starts to come out of this really early instrumental music. And I just think there's so many connections there that are still to be found, you know, still need to be studied. And, I mean, I'm not a scholar, I'm an amateur historian but through just playing these things and coming from learning old time music from an older black string band musician, you know, I learned from Joe Thompson who was 87, who was the last living link to that old southern black tradition and we know that he is an indirect line from a famous black string band musician in Craig Johnson from the 1800s. You know, it's a direct lineage from Frank Johnson to me. And so having that kind of vibe and then approaching these tunes, I feel like, has brought a different way of looking at them than say just sort of an academic way.

ISAACSON: And you create the Carolina Chocolate Drops as a banjo band, in a way, to help resurrect and play with the music.

GIDDENS: Yes. I'm a cofounder of that band along with Don Phlegmens and Justin Robinson. It all came out of us going and playing with Joe Thompson. Playing with him on Thursday nights and sort of absorbing his family's music. And, you know, I played the banjo because Joe would never play without a banjo player. So I said well, I'll play banjo and Justin played fiddle and Don played guitar. And we just kind of absorbed as much as we could. You know, it's a different kind of conservatory.

ISAACSON: Show me something you did with the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

GIDDENS: I wouldn't have played this banjo back then.

(MUSIC)

ISAACSON: Some of the things you resurrected were painful, especially the Wilmington massacre, which has sort of also been forgotten in history a little bit. Tell me -

GIDDENS: A little bit? A lot of it. I mean I'm from North Carolina and we didn't learn this in school. It's astonishing that we did not learn this. It should be taught nationally. It's the only coup on American soil and this is huge.

ISAACSON: Tell me about it.

GIDDENS: So what happened was in Wilmington, you had - in 1898, you had a fairly progressive idea of you had black middle class wealth, you had blacks and whites working together, and most importantly, you had a political party where you had whites and blacks working together and that's what people didn't like. So the ruling sort of, I guess, you know, the white supremacists, basically, you know, did not like this. And so they did a campaign. They used the KKK, you know, campaign of intimidation, kind of the usual thing, the year leading up to the elections. People got a bunch of guns and they just shot, they shot people. They ran prominent black and white citizens out of town, never to be allowed to return. They shot a lot of black people just in the streets or some ran off into the swamps and petrified and died of exposure. I mean it was an awful chapter in our history and then it was completely covered up, like, it never happened.

ISAACSON: So what are you going to do with that music?

GIDDENS: I mean I would like to make a piece of art out of the - it's not even just so much, I mean, the massacre is a horrible thing, the act of violence. But what I want to focus on is, you know, the idea of what we had, you know. It was possible. You know, the idea that we could live in harmony at that time, that if that had been not stopped in its tracks, you know, what could have led to, you know. And the fact that the federal government didn't do a darn thing, I mean - so I think the idea of highlighting the beauty and feeling the heartbreak that that was destroyed, rather than focusing on the act of the destruction.

ISAACSON: So what will it be?

GIDDENS: I'm not sure yet. I mean I think a stage production would be amazing. You know, I'm still kind of figuring it out because John Jeremiah Sullivan has been working on this research for years and I know he's working on a piece.

ISAACSON: He wrote The New Yorker piece.

GIDDENS: He write The New Yorker Piece. Yes. And that's how I learned about the massacre because he lives in Wilmington. And so I know, you know, we'll be working on whatever it is together because he - I mean he's just - his research has just been unbelievable. And he's finding out a lot of really important things about it. So I think it's going to be an important thing to discuss, especially now we've got the 1619 project. A lot of people have been really grappling with where we are, where we've come from. And I think these things from the past that aren't that long ago, when you look at it, can really be - you know, when you grapple with them in an artistic way and get people emotionally invested, you can really make a difference talking about what is happening now. You know, because then you can see more clearly, you know, the traces.

ISAACSON: Thank you so much.

GIDDENS: Thank you.

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Rhiannon Giddens on African American Contributions to Music

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Rhiannon Giddens is a folk singer and multi-instrumentalist who also happens to be a classically trained opera singer. Having grown up in North Carolina, she's now on a mission to re-frame the history of African Americans and their contributions to the musical landscape.

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On Broadway- Black Artists Push For Equity

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On Broadway- Black Artists Push For Equity

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It's focused on the larger society. The coalition is partnering with groups like Fair Count and Fair Fight to promote greater voter participation and protect voting rights.

The theater itself is the other focus. Among other projects, the group wants to create mentorship programs for aspiring young Black artists and bring attention to inequities within the theater world.

African Americans make up just 7.5 percent of membership in Actor's Equity, the labor union for live theatrical performance. A recent study showed that members of color have fewer work opportunities, just 7.5 percent of principal roles, and earn 10 percent less when they do find work.

And according to TheaterMania, an industry site, in the current season, out of the 37 shows that were on stage before COVID, eight cast no artists of color. Black Theater United is just one among several new efforts.

Another, called Dear White American Theater, a multiracial group, called on arts institutions to - quote - "examine, change and dismantle their harmful and racist practices."

Actor Drew Shade founded Broadway Black in 2012 to celebrate Black theater achievements. His group produced the Antonyos.

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On Broadway, Black artists push for racial equity

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As the Black Lives Matter movement strengthens nationwide, calls are increasing for equity in all sectors of American life -- including on Broadway. An all-star cast of Black theater artists has launched a new effort, Black Theatre United, that aims to elevate Black voices within the arts and beyond.

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Black musicians who were pioneers in the classical world. Picture: Getty

We celebrate some of the most influential black voices the classical music world has known.

In a world that didn't always welcome them with open arms, many of these wonderful singers, instrumentalists and conductors shattered racial barriers on the concert stage, and helped shape landmark moments in classical music.

From Nina Simone fusing the worlds of gospel and classical music, to tenor Roland Hayes becoming the first African American concert artist to win international fame, here are some of the most influential black voices in classical music history - from the 18th century to today.

1. George Bridgetower (1778 - 1860)

George Bridgetower, a once celebrated English violin virtuoso of Afro-European descent, was Beethoven 's protégé - for a short while. Impressed by his playing, Beethoven decided to formally dedicate his 'Kreutzer' Violin Sonata No. 9 to Bridgetower. But the pair had a spat, and Beethoven retracted his dedication - instead naming his sonata after French violinist, Rodolphe Kreutzer.

George Bridgetower's name soon got lost in history, and he died in poverty in Peckham, his name forgotten. Next time you hear a performance of the 'Kreutzer' Sonata, spare a thought for the man after whom it should really be named.

2. Thomas 'Blind Tom' Wiggins (1849 - 1908)

'Blind Tom' was born the son of slaves. By the age of 10, he was the highest paid pianist of the 19th century. Wiggins was a musical prodigy, and travelled throughout North America performing music by Bach, Beethoven and his own works. He also wrote more than 100 piano compositions in a 19th-century parlour style.

Crucially, 'Blind Tom' was one of the most celebrated black concert performers of the 19th century, but in comparison to contemporary virtuosos like Liszt and Rubinstein, he is virtually unknown today.
Read more: 9 black composers who changed classical music history >

3. Roland Hayes (1887 - 1977)

Born in a plantation cabin in Georgia in 1887, lyric tenor and composer, Roland Hayes, was the first African American man to win international fame as a concert artist. Hayes' voice caused a sensation throughout Europe and the US, and he became the first African American to perform with the great Boston Symphony Orchestra.

In 1939 Hayes broke another extraordinary barrier, by recording with Columbia Records. It was the first time a black concert artist had been recorded classically - previously, record labels had only been after "vaudeville"-style singers.

4. Marian Anderson (1897 - 1993)

Opera singer Marian Anderson's extraordinary musical range spread from lieder, to opera, to spirituals. When she was 58 she broke the colour barrier by making her debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera, playing Ulrica in Verdi's A Masked Ball.

5. Dean Dixon (1915 - 1976)

In 1941 Dean Dixon, aged just 26, conducted the New York Philharmonic at a summer parks concert, making him the first African American to lead the orchestra. Over the next three years, both the Philadelphia and Boston Symphonies invited Dixon to their podiums.

6. Camilla Williams (1919 - 2012)

In 1946, soprano Camilla Williams became the first black woman to secure a contract with a major US opera company, making her debut as Cio-Cio-San in New York City Opera's Madam Butterfly. In 1954 she became the first African American to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera.
Read more: The life of Florence Price, the first African-American woman to have her music performed by a major symphony orchestra >

7. Hazel Scott (1920 - 1981)

Hazel Scott was a phenomenal jazz and classical pianist - and she used her influence to help make the arts a richer, more inclusive place for black Americans.

As well as being the first person of African descent to host their own network TV show in America - The Hazel Scott Show - Scott was heavily involved in civil rights and she refused to take on film roles that cast her as a black stereotype.

The Trinidadian-born star with West African heritage also became known for playing on two pianos simultaneously. Scott would sit on a single stool with a piano either side - for anyone who watched the 2019 Grammys, you might remember the moment Alicia Keys paid tribute to Scott with a beguiling self-duet on piano(s).

8. Robert McFerrin (1921 - 2006)

In January 1955, Robert McFerrin became the first black man to sing a leading role at the Met Opera, appearing as Amonasro in Verdi's Aida. The great American baritone went on to perform in 10 operas over three seasons.

9. Donald White (1925 - 2005)

When he was hired as a cellist in the Cleveland Orchestra by George Szell in 1957, Donald White became the first black musician in a 'Big Five' US orchestra.

But throughout his career, White faced racism and intolerance. During a southern tour in 1961, the manager at a concert hall in Birmingham, Alabama tried to bar him from going on stage. The orchestra declined to appear without White and Szell threatened to cancel the show, at which point the city's mayor allowed White to play alongside his fellow musicians.

10. Leontyne Price (1927-)

American lyric soprano Leontyne Price, 93, is widely considered the first African American opera star to achieve international success. In May 1960, Price made her first appearance at Milan's La Scala as Aida. She was the first African American to sing solo in the hallowed walls of Italy's most prestigious opera house.

11. Henry Lewis (1932 - 1996)

The year was 1948 when Henry Lewis, a young double bass prodigy, joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic aged 16 and became the first African American instrumentalist in a major symphony orchestra.

Lewis made another first, 20 years on, when he became the first black person to become music director of a major American orchestra after being hired to lead the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

12. Nina Simone (1933 - 2003)

A pianist with a remarkable contralto voice, Nina Simone was an artist like no other. She fused gospel and pop with classical music, and had a great passion for Bach.

Simone is now recognised as one of America's most iconic jazz artists - but she initially wanted a career as a classical pianist. As a young woman she enrolled in New York's Juilliard School, then applied for a scholarship to study at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute, where she was denied admission despite a great audition.

The young pianist called out the Institute for racial discrimination. In 2003, just days before her death, they awarded her an honorary degree.

Nina Simone fused pop, gospel and classical. Picture: Getty

13. James DePriest (1936 - 2013)

When DePriest died seven years ago, the classical world lost one of the first African-American maestros to have taken to its main stage. DePriest was a pioneering conductor, National Medal of Arts winner and poet, who was at the helm of the Oregon Symphony for 25 years.

The nephew of the pioneering contralto Marian Anderson (see above), DePreist told NPR that his aunt had provided great inspiration. "She knew that she was Marian Anderson," DePreist said, "But my aunt was simultaneously the most humble person I ever met in my life and the most powerful. And it was a combination of her not needing to strut her strength, because it was just a natural part of her. To the extent that anything has rubbed off, then I'm grateful."

James DePriest conducting the Juilliard Orchestra in 2006. Picture: Getty

14. Martina Arroyo (1936-)

Soprano Martina Arroyo, 84, whose major international opera career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s, is considered a pioneer and instrumental voice of change in breaking down racial barriers for black opera singers.

She was one of the first black opera stars of Puerto Rican descent to launch an international career, and the first black woman to play Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin.

15. Sanford Allen (1939-)

From when he joined in 1962, to when he left in 1977, violinist Sanford Allen was the only African American member of the New York Phil, in its (then) 133-year history.

When he quit after 15 years, Allen said he was "simply tired of being a symbol". Instead, he pursued a new career as a freelance violinist, and has since worked extensively in recording film music.

16. Jessye Norman (1945 - 2019)

When news of Jessye Norman 's death was announced last year, the Met described her as "one of the great sopranos of the past half-century".

One of the rare black opera singers to achieve worldwide stardom, Norman performed in the best opera houses and with the best orchestras and conductors throughout the world, including at La Scala, with the Berlin Philharmonic and under the baton of Sir Colin Davis.

An African American born in Georgia, Norman credited other great black singers including Leontyne Price and Marian Anderson (see above) with paving the way for her. "They have made it possible for me to say, 'I will sing French opera,'" she told The New York Times in 1983, "Or, 'I will sing German opera,' instead of being told, 'You will sing Porgy and Bess'."

She added: "It's unrealistic to pretend that racial prejudice doesn't exist. It does! It's one thing to have a set of laws, and quite another to change the hearts and minds of men. That takes longer. I do not consider my blackness a problem. I think it looks rather nice."

American opera singer Jessye Norman in 2006. Picture: Getty

17. Yvette Devereaux (1940-)

Yvette Devereaux goes down in history not only as the first black woman to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic - as a guest conductor in 1996, see below - but also among the first women to ever conduct major orchestras really.

Devereaux, a violinist and conductor of African descent, was also the first African-American woman to attain a conductor's degree from the world-renowned Peabody Conservatory of Music.

Yvette Devereaux, the first African American woman to conduct the LA Phil. Picture: Courtesy of Yvette Devereaux

18. Wynton Marsalis (1961-)

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is one of the biggest stars in jazz, but his inventive and infectious jazz, gospel and spiritual-infused compositions have become some of the most important new works to hit classical concert halls.

In 1997, Marsalis became the first jazz musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music with his oratorio Blood on the Fields. And it's his violin concerto, a work composed for violinist Nicola Benedetti, that's making waves today.

19. Sheku Kanneh-Mason (1999-)

Sheku's glittering career has been one 'first' after another. The young cellist first found fame after becoming the first black artist to win BBC Young Musician of the Year. Soon after, he went on the play at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, playing Fauré and Schubert to an audience of two billion.

At the beginning of 2020, Sheku became the first cellist in chart history to reach the UK Official Album Chart Top 10, in a groundbreaking moment for classical and pop music. The 21-year-old cellist is a remarkable story - and it gets all the more special when you look at his family. Incredibly, Sheku's six siblings, the Kanneh-Masons, all share exceptional musical talents.

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19 black musicians who have shaped the classical world

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We celebrate some of the most influential black voices the classical music world has known. In a world that didn't always welcome them with open arms, many of these wonderful singers, instrumentalists and conductors shattered racial barriers on the concert stage, and helped shape landmark moments in classical music.

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Mae Jemison- Live Talk and YA Book Coming Soon

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Mae Jemison- Live Talk and YA Book Coming Soon

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PBS Books Presents: A Celebration of African American Life and History: Trailblazer Dr. Mae Jemison

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10 Black Scientists Teachers Should Know

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10 Black Scientists Teachers Should Know

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Ten Black Scientists that Science Teachers Should Know About | PBS Education

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