Pioneers of...
Marian Anderson
George W
Carver
WEB DuBois
Langston
Hughes
Sojouner Truth
Maya Angelou
Harriet Tubman
Rosa Parks
Shirley Chilshom
William Christopher Handy
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Introduction
Mariam
Anderson
"She has a voice that is heard only once
in a hundred years." Arturo Toscanini, famous Italian symphony
conductor, said of Marian Anderson. At the peak of her career, she
was regarded as the world's greatest contralto. She was the first
Black American woman to sing in the Metropolitan Opera Company, as
she performed in the "Masked Ball." She won the Springarn Medal in
1939 for music achievement.
Miss Anderson and her two younger sisters
loved to sing, and all three sang in the children's choir at church.
At the age of thirteen, Marian sang in the adult choir. She gave her
first large concert in Berlin, Germany.
Although she was denied the right to sing
in Constitution Hall, she sang instead before a large audience at the
Lincoln Memorial. A soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, she won
a scholarship to Europe to study music.
Later, the State Department sent her on a
round the world tour. In 1958 President Eisenhower named her a
representative to the United States Delegation for Peace.
Miss Anderson retired in 1965 from
professional life.
For more information on Marian Anderson, browse the internet using
the following addresses:
1.
http://www.weta.org/eod/ma_+guide.html
Marian Anderson Educational Resources. For research purposes,
students can download this internet address on the computer and
various information about M. Anderson will be displayed. This
includes: a background essay, student page, Glossary and Resources.
2.
http://www.weta.org/eod/ma_chronology.html
This website offers an in-depth look at Marian Anderson's life in
chronological order from February 27, 1902 to April 8, 1993.
3.
http://www.library.upenn.edu/friends/anderson2.html
This website will allow students to tap into more information on
the late Marian Anderson. As well, it offers a selection of buttons
which students can click in able to hear the piece which she sang at
Lincoln Memorial; view photographs; plus additional information
regarding her biography.
George Washington
Carver
George Washington Carver (1864-1943) gave
up the opportunity to make a fortune in industry to help the people
of the South. Born a slave in 1864, he was a frail boy with two great
interests - learning and plant life. From grade school through
college, he had to work hard to earn money to continue in
school.
When he had completed his college work, he
was asked to teach at Tuskegee Institute. The greatest single benefit
to southern agriculture in the period after the Civil War came from
the mind and heart, as well as hands of George Washington Carver. He
proved to Back and Whites alike that his understanding of agriculture
made possible better crops and better living.
Known as the "Wizard of Tuskegee", Carver
developed over three hundred uses for the peanut, including peanut
butter. He was a friend of Henry Fors and an advisor to scientists
throughout the world. As a result of his discoveries, new industries
were started and new jobs were made available for many
workers.
Additional Internet addresses:
1.http://www.wsnet.com/~rjones/carver.html.
- This site gives a brief outline of George Washington Carver's
life mainly focusing on his relation to Tuskegee Institute. Further,
it can link the searcher to a quicktime movie about Carver.
2.
http://www.wsnet.com/~rjones/carver.html..
- In point form, this address gives the reader basic information
on Carver. Further, goffers are located within this site regarding
other Carver Internet Resources.
WEB
DuBois
William DuBois was a brilliant student at
school and had hoped to study at Harvard College. However, his
parents died before his high school graduation; and so, he had to go
to work. A local minister arranged for a scholarship to Fisk
University, in Tennessee.
Soon after his graduation from Fisk,
DuBois won a scholarship to Harvard. He became the first Black to win
a PhD from Harvard. From there he went to the University of Berlin,
where he studied sociology and economics. His writings on Black
history are model studies even today.
DuBois did not believe that economic
opportunity alone would solve the problems of Black Americans.
Therefore, he was one of the founders of the N.A.A.C.P (National
Association for the Advancement of Colour People).
Best known of his writings are "The soul
of Black Folk", "Black Folk Then and Now", and "Encyclopaedia of the
Negro". In 1920 he received the Spingarn Medal for founding the Pan
African Congress.
Additional Internet Resources:
1.
http://www.virginia.edu/~history/courses/hius323/dubois.html
- this site gives a brief outline of WEB DuBois's life along with
a picture.
2.
http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/dubois.html
- This site is an index page to link the searcher to works by web
DuBois. Some of the works are: "Of the Training of Blackmen" and "The
Freedmen's Bureau".
3.
http://tqd.advanced.org/2667/DUBois.htm
- This page gives a brief history on DuBois's including aspects of
his family life. Along with its information is a picture of the US
stamp commemorating WEB DuBois.
4.
http://members.tripod.com/~DuBois/biog.html
- This site presents speeches from different influential
people including WEB DuBois.
Langston
Hughes
One of the three most foremost Black poets
to emerge in the twenties was Langston Hughes. In his writing, he
expressed the idiom from the streets of Harlem, the sights and sounds
of the ghetto. He was a leader of the Harlem renaissance in art and
culture of the twenties.
While experimenting with free verse, his
short, informal poems drew a ready audience. In 1926, he published a
collection of poems "The Weary Blues".
Hughes was an especially talented writer
not only of poetry but novels, plays, biographies, children's books
and lyrics for musicals. He is known as the poet laureate of the man
in the ghetto street.
With Duke Ellington, in 1957, he helped
found the "American Society of African Culture", a movement to show
the high culture of Africa and to promote the understanding of the
culture of Africa in the United States, Latin America, and in
Africa.
A writer of protest, Hughes cried out
about conditions in the United States, problems of the poor and race
relations, but he never became embittered. In 1960, Langston Hughes
received the Spingarn Medal for excellence in creative literature. At
the age of 65 (May 22, 1967), Hughes dies of prostate
complications.
SOME IMPORTANT DATES AND EVENTS IN
HUGHE'S LIFE:
1902- born James Langston Hughes on February 1 in
Joplin, Missouri. Father: James Nathaniel Hughes; mother: Carries
Mercer Langston Hughes. Following Langston's father's departure to
Cuba, Carrie takes young Langston to live in a state of poverty in
Kansas. Hughes lives with mother and grandmother, Mary
Langston.
1907- Carrie moves to Topeka and leaves Langston
with grandmother.
1915- Mary Langston dies. Langston moves to live
with mother in Illinois and starts eighth grade.
1918- Langston begins illustrious publishing
career with verse and short stories in "The Central High Monthly
Magazine".
1921- In June, Langston gains his first
publishing piece "The Negro Speaks Rivers" in "The Crisis". Enrols in
Columbia University.
1922- Continues to publish in "The Crisis", but
withdraws from Columbia.
1925- "Weary Blues" wins him first prize in a
magazine contest. Meets many Harlem Renaissance writer and soon
becomes a part of the movement.
1926- Returns to school but at Lincoln
University.
1929- Finishes his degree at Lincoln. Completes
his first novel.
1930-1967- Already established as a profound poet
and writer, Hughes achieves many great awards and found many
organisations like Harlem Suitcase Treater. Continues with his work
and becomes one of the prominent poets and thinkers of the 20th
century.
Additional Internet references on Langston Hughes:
1.http://www.more.net/~kathy/author/hughes.html.
- this website is an index page directing searchers to different
aspects of Langston Hughes's life. It has a biography and poems
connections that will further lead the searcher to more information.
2.
http://www.calpoly.edu/~mperotti/.
- this website allows the searcher to develop a deeper
understanding of Langston Hughes's life with a timetable of important
events and samples of his poetry. Some poems are : I, too; Negro; and
Mother to Son.
3.
http://server.music.vt.edu/hughes/WORKS.html.
- this website is a link to some of the works of Langston Hughes.
Sojourner
Truth
Sojourner Truth was born a New York slave
in 1797 on the plantation of Colonel Hardenbergh. Her real name was
Isabelle VanWagener. She was freed by a New York law which proclaimed
that all slaves twenty-eight years of age and over were to be freed.
Isabelle, in her later life, thought she received messages from God.
That was how she got her new name, Sojourner Truth. She joined the
Anti-Slavery Society and became an abolitionist lecturer and a
speaker for women's rights both black and white. One speech for which
she became well known for, was called "Ain't I a Woman?" After the
Civil War, she gave speeches for equal rights. On November 26, 1883
Sojourner Truth passed away.
For more information on Sojourner Truth, feel free to browse the
following addresses on the internet:
1.
http://users.moscow.com/sojourn1/soj6.htm
Who was Sojourner Truth? This URL address mentions details
surrounding S. Truth's lifestyle as a feminist in the abolitionist
movement during the 19th century.
2.
http://www.womenconnect.com/wh32561.htm
This address entails the works of Ms. Truth in the Underground
Railroad, as well as her suffrage movement during the Civil War.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is best known as a poet and
the author of a series of autobiographical novels. She has been
praised for confronting racist pressures on black women. Her work
combines her perspective as an individual with her involvement in
larger social and political movement, including civil rights.
In January,1993, Angelou became the first
woman and the first African-American to read her work at a
presidential inauguration; her inaugural poem "On the Pulse of
Morning" celebrates the diversity of the American and world
communities and calls on them to work together to create a better
future.
For additional information on Maya Angelou's autobiography, poems
and pictures, please browse the following internet addresses:
1.
http://www.en.utexax.edu/~mmaynard/Maya/maya5.html
-Brief information on Maya's life.
-M. Angelou Poems (includes 12 poems)
-Allows you to browse in Maya's homepage. This includes "Cool Quotes"
and an interview with the author.
2.
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/cit/citicangelou.htm
This website offers book citations of Maya Angelou's works located
in the Library of Congress Citations.
3.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~sww/mayapic.html
This internet address allows you to view pictures of Maya Angelou.
Plus, it gives you further addresses which you may click on for any
additional information.
Shirley Chilshom
In the election on 1968, Congresswoman
Chisholm is the first Black woman chosen to serve in the US Congress.
She represents the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
Shirley Chisholm's father worked in a
burlap bag factory. Her mother was a seamstress. Her early heroines
included women such as Mary McLeod Bethune, Harriet Tubman and Susan
B. Anthony. She earned scholarships at Brooklyn College and Columbia
University, where she earned an M.A. degree in elementary
education.
She worked as a nursery school teacher at
the Mount Calvary Child Care Center in New York from 1946 until 1952,
when she became nursery school director at the Friend in Need Nursery
in Brooklyn. Later she served as an educational consultant for the
New York Sate Department of Social Services.
In 1968, she defeated civil rights leader
James Farmer, who ran on the Republican and Liberal Party, and
Conservative Party candidate Ralph J. Carrano to win election to the
House. Chisholm's influence in political affairs was enormous. She
called for an end of British arms sales in South Africa, proposed
funding increases to extend the hour of child care facilities and
services to accommodate working mothers and low-income families, and
so-sponsored the Adequate Income Act of 1971, guaranteeing an annual
income to families.
Shirley Chisholm became known as the
"people's politician" to residents of her home district. In 1982, she
declined to run for reelection, citing the difficulties of effecting
change in an increasingly conservative political atmosphere and her
desire to return to a private life. She now resides in Williamsville,
N.Y.
Additional Interest Resourcse:
1.
http://www.ctjournal.com/Schisholmbio.html.
- this website gives a more in depth bibliography into
Chisholm's life and her political career.
William Christopher Handy
William Christopher Handy was born on
November 16, 1873 and died on March 28, 1958. Although he rose to
fame as "The Father of the Blues", his work as a composer is the
accomplish- ment for which he is best known. During the 1890's, WC
Handy began as a band leader and cornetist. He toured with many
musical groups.
WC Handy was born in Florence, Alabama,
but spent most of his life in Memphis, Tennessee. In a Memphis
political campaign in 1909, he wrote "Mr. Crump" a song telling the
story of "Boss Crump". Three years later, the song came out as the
"Memphis Blues". His most famous song was "St.Louis Woman".
In 1920, he became a music publisher in
New York, where, despite his failing eyesight, he remained active in
social and economic affairs until his death.
Additional Internet Sites:
1.
http://www.alamhof.org/handywc.htm
- this page is a presentation from the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
It gives a brief summary of Handy's life and a glimpse into the
beginning of his musical career.
2.
http://www.wsnet.com/~rjones/handy.html.
-This web address will assist to lead the viewer to a quicktime
movie which includes sounds of Handy. It is a 8mg movie from a 1976
Multi-Image Presentation.
3.
http://www.surfin.com/TheBlueFlameCafe/WC_Handy,html.
- This page gives the reader a historic summary of WC Handy
directly regarding his connection to the Blues. It will also link the
viewer to other websites referenced with other musical artists.
Rosa Parks
In Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1,
1955, Rosa Parks sat in a row of seats just beyond the section of a
bus that was designated for whites only. When a white man boarded the
bus and was unable to locate an empty seat, the bus driver told Parks
and the others seated by her to give up their seats for him. Rosa
Parks refused. She was arrested, jailed and fined fourteen dollars.
On the night of her arrest, the Women's Political Council rallied
around Parks and launched the Montgomery bus boycott. They
distributed thousands of leaflets and encouraged churches, the NAACP
and other civil rights organisations to lend their support to and
participate the boycott. As a result of Parks' courageous stand,
Montgomery yielded to the boycott that would inspire civil rights
activists nationwide.
For additional information on Rosa Parks, view the following
internet addresses:
1.
http://myhero.com/freedom/rosa.html
This website on Rosa Parks was a story written by Francisca
Stewart, a fourth grade student at Santa Monica Alternative School.
The story consists of who is Rosa Parks (an autobiography) and why
she is important in African American history. This website also
offers pictures and description of other important leaders, such as
Martin Luther King Junior and Eleanor Roosevelt.
2.
http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/ums+state/UMDprojects/MTCP/Technology/School_WWW_Pages/RosaParks.html
This website address outlines the life of Rosa Parks based on a
book report written by a grade five student named Eloise. A stamp
artwork is also displayed by Eloise's fellow classmate Rebecca.
3.
http://www.moore.net/~hrmoore/rosa.htm
This internet address allows us to read a brief outline of Rosa
Parks' history during the mid 1940's. It also includes the struggle
which she had to face during an incident in 1955 when she was
arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus. This was a
remarkable event for the African Americans since it began the Civil
Rights Movement in the United States.
Harriet
Tubman
Harriet Tubman was a Black American who
rescued and helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom. She lived
during the time of around 1820 to 1913. Harriet became the famous
leader of the underground railroad, which helped slaves flee to free
states or to Canada. The blacks called her Moses, after the Biblical
figure who led the Jew from Egypt.
Tubman who became active in the women's
rights movement in New England and in New York, also worked during
the Civil War. She served as a nurse, scout, and a spy for the Union
Army in South Carolina. During one military campaign, Harriet helped
free more than 750 slaves. After the war she raised money for black
schools in Auburn. in 1908, she started a home for the elderly and
needy blacks called the Harriet Tubman home in Auburn.
Freedom Park, a tribute to the memory of
Harriet Tubman who gave herself to secure freedom for all of us,
opened in the summer of 1994 at 17 North Street in Auburn, New
York.
To find out more about Harriet Tubman and her life history, please
browse the following URL addresses:
1.
http://www.acusd.edu/~jdesmet/steph2/conclusion.html
Briefly talks about the importance of Harriet Tubman's
contribution in Black History.
2.
http://home.eznet.net/~khoffman/tubman.html
A brief autobiography of Harriet Tubman.
3.
http://www.auburn.cnyric.org/WEST/HarrietTubman.html
Various pictures of Ms. Tubman is located in this internet
address.