classicladiesofcolor:

Anita Bush—stage/film actress and playwright.

Anita Bush also founded the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company (later renamed The Lafayette Players) in 1915. 

(via mariavontraphouse)

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auntada:

Black theater pioneers Bob Cole (l) and J. Rosamond Johnson (r), ca. 1890(?). The two men were part of a trio that included Rosamond’s brother James Weldon Johnson. Together they wrote over 200 songs and performed for audiences in the United States and Europe. The trio steered audiences away from the degrading “coon songs” that were popular during the mid 1880s to early 1900s by offering music that was sophisticated, refined and free of stereotypes. In 1900, Rosamond composed music for one of James Weldon’s poems. The piece was entitled Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Photographer, date unknown.

(via mariavontraphouse)

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auntada:

“A woman with Iron Horns and Bells on, to keep her from running away”

Source: Moses Roper, A narrative of the adventures and escape of Moses Roper from American slavery (London, 1837)

As shown on http://www.slaveryimages.org, compiled by Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite, and sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.

(via freshmouthgoddess)

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burnedshoes:

© Thomas D. McAvoy / Getty Images, Apr 9, 1939, Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson performs (with Kosti Vehanen on piano) at the Lincoln Memorial in April 1939. Here’s a video from that performance:

 
» more photos of famous people «

(Source: burnedshoes)

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afrodiaspores:

Bamboula, Fort de France, Martinique, 1902. Yolande Behazin-Joseph-Noël writes,

The bamboula, a very lively dance that is danced in couples, is also of Bantu origin. As Father Labat pointed out, the word bamboula doubtless derives from the African bamboo drum which originally accompanied the dance…

Some of these bamboulas were semiprivate rituals conducted by associations called sociétés in Guadeloupe and convois in Martinique. These closed societies combined ethnic, religious, and economic functions. In their role as mutual aid cooperatives, they generated common funds for funerals, purchasing freedom of members, or for sponsoring community performance rituals (such as processions and dances on festival days). These organizations appear to have grown out of groups of African nations in the Lesser Antilles. In Martinique closed societies had a hierarchical organization led by a queen or king and court…

While there is little written documentation to illuminate the participants’ understanding of the bamboulas of closed societies, it is likely that many of the dances had specific religious implications, particularly when connected to particular nations. In Martinique the covert rituals of some closed societies may have been the context most associated with the pugilistic arts, which…was ‘the most secret dance’; only those initiated into the closed societies knew the martial art form and noninitiates knew it only by its distinctive rhythms. Some of these societies, like the Old Time Religion societies of North America, provided resources for counterhegemonic activity, such as the society that a bondswoman led in Guadeloupe in 1845 and that was dedicated to helping bondsmen escape slavery.

Hurricane Katrina | Open-Content Project @ History Commons →

(Source: nolacoursearchive, via educationforliberation)

ukpuru:

BASDEN COLLECTION 3: ‘AFRICA DANCES’ PT 3: DANCING COMPETITIONS AND MASKS

Dancing competitions and various masks. Umu-Chuku, Mbaku & Amanuke. Grandfather Maw, Enu-Ugwu-Abaw; Spirit maidens (Aghogho Mmonwui); District Officer mask (Onyeocha)?; Native Police masks. Nibo. Umu-Chuku Maws. Mgbedike masks.

Production / Donor Details: George Thomas Basden was a missionary in Nigeria 1900-1935, and Archdeacon on the Niger 1925-1935. He wrote two books (‘Niger Ibos’ and ‘Among the Ibo’) about the Ibo of Nigeria, who are the focus of these films.

http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk/node/4200

(via blackfilm)

kalamu:

HISTORY + VIDEO: A Legacy Project    

http://t.co/n3QHyVls

“This clip is a brief excerpt of 15 hours of recordings that document the lives of 4 generations of American women. They are my paternal mothers — The Sanders Women. Their story begins near 1845 in Shreveport, Louisiana. This historically significant narrative moves off the slave plantation, up the Great migration, through Chicago’s Jazz band scene, the roaring twenties, into the Great Depression in Harlem and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s.The sisters, passing for white at will, glided between the chorus lines of the Cotton club uptown to the Zeigfield Follies on Broadway. Included on the recordings are stories of ommunist recruitment meetings, J. Edgar Hoover’s ‘other’ life and the American Negro Theater in Harlem.”

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holdthisphoto:

Dance for African American enlisted personnel at Camp Rousseau Seabee Camp at Port Hueneme, 1943

(via notime4yourshit)

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silezukuk:

Carl Van Vechten - Alvin Ailey, 1955 [***]

(via searchingforknowledge)