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| Bo Diddley hospitalized after stroke 
Bo Diddley is in intensive care after suffering a stroke in western Iowa, a publicist said Wednesday. The 78-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was listed in guarded condition at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., said Susan Clary, a publicist for the musician's management team. Diddley, who has a history of hypertension and diabetes, was hospitalized Sunday following a concert in Council Bluffs in which he acted disoriented, she said. Tests indicated that the stroke affected the left side of his brain, impairing his speech and speech recognition, Clary said. Clary said she has no other details on Diddley's condition or how long he would be in intensive care. Diddley, with his black glasses and low-slung guitar, has been an icon in the music industry since he topped the R&B charts with "Bo Diddley" in 1955. His other hits include "Who Do You Love," "Before You Accuse Me," "Mona" and "I'm a Man." Diddley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 1998. | | |
| WATCH NIGHT
If you live or grew up in a Black community in the United States, you have probably heard of "Watch Night Services," the gathering of the faithful in church on New Year's Eve. The service usually begins anywhere from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and ends at midnight with the entrance of the New Year. Some folks come to church first, before going to out to celebrate. For others, church is the only New Year's Eve event.
Like many others, I always assumed that Watch Night was a fairly standard Christian religious service -- made a bit more Afrocentric because that's what happens when elements of Christianity become linked with the Black Church. And yes, there is a history of Watch Night in the Methodist tradition. Still, it seemed that most predominately White Christian churches did not include Watch Night services on their calendars, but focused instead on Christmas Eve programs. In fact, there were instances where clergy in Mainline denominations wondered aloud about the propriety of linking religious services with a secular holiday like New Year's Eve.
However, in doing some research, I discovered there are two essential reasons for the importance of New Year's Eve services in African American congregations. Many of the Watch Night Services in Black communities that we celebrate today can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as "Freedom's Eve." On that night, Americans of African descent came together in churches, gathering places and private homes throughout the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had become law. Then, at the stroke of midnight, it was January 1, 1863, and according to Lincoln's promise, all slaves in the Confederate States were legally free. People remained in churches and other gathering places, eagerly awaiting word that Emancipation had been declared. When the actual news of freedom was received later that day, there were prayers, shouts and songs of joy as people fell to their knees and thanked God. But even before 1962 and the possibility of a Presidential Emancipation, African people had gathered on New Year's Eve on plantations across the South. That is because many owners of enslaved Africans tallied up their business accounts on the first day of each new year. Human property was sold along with land and furnishings to satisfy debts. Families and friends were separated. Often they never saw each other again in this earthly world. Thus coming together on December 31 might be the last time for enslaved and free Africans to be together with loved ones. So, Black folks in North America have gathered annually on New Year's Eve since the earliest days, praising God for bringing us safely through another year and praying for the future. Certainly, those traditional gatherings were made even more poignant by the events of 1863 which brought freedom to the slaves and the Year of Jubilee. Many generations have passed since and most of us were never taught the African American history of Watch Night. Yet our traditions and our faith still bring us together at the end of every year to celebrate once again "how we got over." Written by Charyn D. Sutton © 2004
charynsutton@aol.com Happy New Year Everyone!!! BlackHistory365 | | |
| | Buck O'Neil, Negro League baseball great, dies at 94 | |
By DOUG TUCKER, AP Sports Writer
October 6, 2006 KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Buck O'Neil, the goodwill ambassador for the Negro Leagues who fell one vote shy of the Hall of Fame, died Friday night. He was 94. Bob Kendrick, marketing director for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, said O'Neil died at a Kansas City hospital. A star in the Negro Leagues who barnstormed with Satchel Paige, O'Neil later became the first black coach in the majors. Baseball was his life -- in July, he batted in a minor league All-Star game. O'Neil had appeared strong until early August, when he was hospitalized for what was described as "fatigue." He was released a few days later, but readmitted on Sept. 17. Friends said that he had lost his voice along with his strength. No cause of death was immediately given. Always projecting warmth, wit and a sunny optimism that sometimes seemed surprising for a man who lived in a climate of racial injustice for so long, O'Neil remained remarkably vigorous well into his 90s. He became as big a star as the Negro League greats whose stories he traveled the country to tell. He would be in New York taping the "Late Show With David Letterman" one day, then back home on the golf course the next day shooting his age, a feat he first accomplished at 75. "But it's not a good score any more," he quipped on his 90th birthday. O'Neil had long been popular in Kansas City, but he rocketed into national stardom in 1994 when filmmaker Ken Burns featured him in his groundbreaking Public Broadcasting Service documentary "Baseball." The rest of the country then came to appreciate the charming Negro Leagues historian as only baseball insiders had before. He may have been, as he joked, "an overnight sensation at 82," but his popularity continued to grow for the rest of his life. "He brought the attention of a lot of people in this country to the Negro Leagues," former Washington manager Frank Robinson said. "He told us all how good they were and that they deserved to be recognized for what they did and their contributions and the injustice that a lot of them had to endure because of the color of their skin." Few men in any sport have witnessed the grand panoramic sweep of history that O'Neil saw and felt and experienced in baseball. A good-hitting, slick-fielding first baseman, he barnstormed with Paige in his youth, twice won a Negro Leagues batting title, then became a pennant-winning manager of the Kansas City Monarchs. As a scout for the Chicago Cubs, he discovered and signed Hall of Famers Lou Brock and Ernie Banks. In 1962, a tumultuous time of change in America when civil rights workers were risking their lives on the back roads of the Deep South, O'Neil broke a meaningful racial barrier when the Chicago Cubs made him the first black coach in the major leagues. Jackie Robinson was the first black with an opportunity to make plays in the big leagues. But as bench coach, O'Neil was the first to make decisions. He saw Babe Ruth hit home runs and Roger Clemens throw strikes. He talked hitting with Lou Gehrig and Ichiro Suzuki. "I can't remember a time when I did not want to make my living in baseball, or a time when that wasn't what I did get to do," he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2003. "God was very good to old Buck." Born in 1911 in Florida, John "Buck" O'Neil began a lifetime in baseball hanging around the spring training complex of the great New York Yankee teams of the '20s. Some of the players befriended the youngster and allowed him inside. In February 2006, it was widely thought that a special 12-person committee commissioned to render final judgments on Negro Leagues and pre-Negro league figures would make him a shoo-in for the Baseball Hall of Fame. It would be, his many fans all thought, a fitting tribute to the entire body of his life's work. But when word came from Florida that day that 16 men and one woman had been voted in, he was not among them. For reasons never fully explained, he fell one vote short of the required three-fourths. Several hundred of his friends and admirers had gathered at the Negro Leagues Museum for what they thought would be a celebration. Instead, they stood in awkward, restless silence as the old man once again -- (for how many times in his long, eventful life?) brushed bitterness aside. "Shed no tears for Buck," he told them. "I couldn't attend Sarasota High School. That hurt. I couldn't attend the University of Florida. That hurt. "But not going into the Hall of Fame, that ain't going to hurt me that much, no. Before, I wouldn't even have a chance. But this time I had that chance. "Just keep loving old Buck." But among his close friends, few believed that his heart wasn't really broken. "It is clear the Baseball Hall of Fame has made a terrible error in not inducting Buck on this ballot," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said. "It is rare that an entire community rallies around a single person, but our city loves Buck, what he stands for and his indomitable spirit. "Buck O'Neil is a man who has done more than anyone to popularize and keep alive the history of the Negro Leagues." In the months that followed, O'Neil embarked on an exhausting schedule that had him flying to California, Ohio, Arizona and New York among other stops. He spoke at the induction ceremonies in Cooperstown. In July, he batted in the top and bottom of the first inning of the Northern League All-Star game, making him the oldest man ever to play in a professional baseball game. "He was one of the pioneers of Negro League baseball, and he was one of the guys who never let it die," Oakland third-base coach Ron Washington said. "He was one of the guys that made sure that people knew of all the talent that was in that league. I was quite disappointed when he wasn't inducted into the Hall of Fame, but he made it possible for the ones who were inducted into the Hall of Fame." O'Neil was especially loved by the very young. In appearances at children's clubs and elementary schools throughout the country, kids of all color would gather 'round to hear the merry-eyed, grandfatherly figure spin his tales. Among older African-Americans, however, he would sometimes run into resentment. Why relive the Jim Crow past? Why dredge up bitter memories of segregated lunch counters and public facilities with insulting "whites only" signs? But O'Neil would fire right back. "It's very important that we know our history. We have to do that," he said. "I would remind them of a time when baseball was a source of joy for them. Then as we talked about it, they would remember who they were with, even what they wore to the games. "I would tell them this is not a sad story. It's a celebration!" In the forward to O'Neil's autobiography in 1996, Burns wrote of his amazing ability to see the goodness in his fellow man. "His life reflects the past and contains many of the bitter experiences that our country reserved for men of his color, but there is no bitterness in him," he said. "It's not so much that he put that suffering behind him as that he has brought gold and light out of bitterness and despair, loneliness and suffering. He knows he can go farther with generosity and kindness than with anger and hate." O'Neil has no children; his closest living relative is a brother, Warren O'Neil. On the Net: Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: http://www.nlbm.com |
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| ON THIS DATE IN BLACK HISTORY:
In 1820, at 3:00 P.M., nineteen years before the "Amistad" incident, 283 African slaves (two dead and 281 were in chains) were aboard a slave vessel named "The Antelope", when they were recaptured by the United States Treasury cutter "Dallas", under the command of John Jackson. The seizure occurred between Amelia Island and the Florida Coast. After about 2,576 days of captivity and legal battle in the United States, 120 Africans died, 2 were missing, 39 were enslaved in the United States (the 39 included 36 men, one woman, and two boys), and 120 Africans of the Antelope, (there were 22 additional recaptured Africans that were sent with this group, bringing the number to 142), were released from custody by the United States Supreme Court, and sent to Liberia on July 18, 1827.
In 1868, Louisiana legislature met in New Orleans. The temporary chairman of the house was a Black representative, R.H. Isabelle. Oscar J. Dunn presided over the senate. Seven of the thirty-six senators were Black. Thirty-five of the 101 representatives were Black.
In 1972, U.S. Supreme Court ruled the five-four decision that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment which violated the Eighth Amendment. At the time of the ruling, Blacks and members of other minority groups constituted 483 of the 60 persons awaiting execution.
In 1972, NAACP annual report said the unemployment of "urban Blacks in 1971 was worse than at anytime since the great depression of the thirties." The report also said that more school desegregation occurred in 1971 than in any other year since the 1954 school decision.
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| Legendary Filmmaker/Photographer Gordon Parks Dies At 93
NEW YORK (AP)— Gordon Parks, who captured the struggles and triumphs of black America as a photographer for Life magazine and then became Hollywood's first major black director with "The Learning Tree" and the hit "Shaft," died Tuesday, a family member said. He was 93.
Parks, who also wrote fiction and was an accomplished composer, died in New York, his nephew, Charles Parks, said in a telephone interview from Lawrence, Kan.
"Nothing came easy," Parks wrote in his autobiography. "I was just born with a need to explore every tool shop of my mind, and with long searching and hard work. I became devoted to my restlessness."
He covered everything from fashion to politics to sports during his 20 years at Life, from 1948 to 1968.
But as a photographer, he was perhaps best known for his gritty photo essays on the grinding effects of poverty in the United States and abroad and on the spirit of the civil rights movement.
"Those special problems spawned by poverty and crime touched me more, and I dug into them with more enthusiasm," he said. "Working at them again revealed the superiority of the camera to explore the dilemmas they posed."
In 1961, his photographs in Life of a poor, ailing Brazilian boy named Flavio da Silva brought donations that saved the boy and purchased a new home for him and his family.
"The Learning Tree" was Parks' first film, in 1969. It was based on his 1963 autobiographical novel of the same name, in which the young hero grapples with fear and racism as well as first love and schoolboy triumphs. Parks wrote the score as well as directed.
In 1989, "The Learning Tree" was among the first 25 American movies to be placed on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The registry is intended to highlight films of particular cultural, historical or aesthetic importance.
The detective drama "Shaft," which came out in 1971 and starred Richard Roundtree, was a major hit and spawned a series of black-oriented films. Parks himself directed a sequel, "Shaft's Big Score," in 1972, and that same year his son Gordon Jr. directed "Superfly." The younger Parks was killed in a plane crash in 1979.
Parks also published books of poetry and wrote musical compositions including "Martin," a ballet about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Parks was born Nov. 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kan., the youngest of 15 children. In his 1990 autobiography, "Voices in the Mirror," he remembered it as a world of racism and poverty, but also a world where his parents gave their children love, discipline and religious faith.
He went through a series of jobs as a teen and young man, including piano player and railroad dining car waiter. The breakthrough came when he was about 25, when he bought a used camera in a pawn shop for $7.50. He became a freelance fashion photographer, went on to Vogue magazine and then to Life in 1948.
"Reflecting now, I realize that, even within the limits of my childhood vision, I was on a search for pride, meanwhile taking measurable glimpses of how certain blacks, who were fed up with racism, rebelled against it," he wrote.
When he accepted an award from Wichita State University in May 1991, he said it was "another step forward in my making peace with Kansas and Kansas making peace with me."
"I dream terrible dreams, terribly violent dreams," he said. "The doctors say it's because I suppressed so much anger and hatred from my youth. I bottled it up and used it constructively."
In his autobiography, he recalled that being Life's only black photographer put him in a peculiar position when he set out to cover the civil rights movement.
"Life magazine was eager to penetrate their ranks for stories, but the black movement thought of Life as just another white establishment out of tune with their cause," he wrote. He said his aim was to become "an objective reporter, but one with a subjective heart."
The story of young Flavio prompted Life readers to send in $30,000, enabling his family to build a home, and Flavio received treatment for his asthma in an American clinic. By the 1970s, he had a family and a job as a security guard, but more recently the home built in 1961 has become overcrowded and run-down.
Still, Flavio stayed in touch with Parks off and on, and in 1997 Parks said, "If I saw him tomorrow in the same conditions, I would do the whole thing over again."
In addition to novels, poetry and his autobiographical writings, Parks' writing credits included nonfiction such as "Camera Portraits: Techniques and Principles of Documentary Portraiture," 1948, and a 1971 book of essays called "Born Black."
His other film credits included "The Super Cops," 1974; "Leadbelly," 1976; and "Solomon Northup's Odyssey," a TV film from 1984.
Recalling the making of "The Learning Tree," he wrote: "A lot of people of all colors were anxious about the breakthrough, and I was anxious to make the most of it. The wait had been far too long. Just remembering that no black had been given a chance to direct a motion picture in Hollywood since it was established kept me going."
Last month, health concerns had kept Parks from accepting the William Allen White Foundation National Citation in Kansas, but he said in a taped presentation that he still considered the state his home and wanted to be buried in Fort Scott.
Two years ago, Fort Scott Community College established the Gordon Parks Center for Culture and Diversity.
Jill Warford, its executive director, said Tuesday that Parks "had a very rough start in life and he overcame so much, but was such a good person and kind person that he never let the bad things that happened to him make him bitter."
Associated Press writer Garance Burke in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.
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