by Cieslafdn | Feb 5, 2015 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
On February 1, 2015, Google celebrates the birth of a highly praised and culturally influential author during the Harlem Renaissance, a prosperous time for black art, music, dance, and theatre. Langston Hughes was a writer and a poet and recipient of a Rosenwald grant who found inspiration through the struggle of his people as well as his own life experiences. The animated features one of his works entitled “I Dream A World”.
“I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!”
This tribute is very timely to not only kick off Black History and to celebrate his birthday, but also to show the newer “technology generation” that dreams evolve but they will never die through great literary works. To watch the video click on this link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-OU-mY11nE
Thank you Langston!
Erica Marshall, Winter Intern
by Cieslafdn | Feb 5, 2015 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Pretty popular this week, we know!
Prolific author and poet Langston Hughes, recipient of the Rosenwald Grant, still continues to inspire through his literary works five decades after his death. This book comprised of his letters written during the Harlem Renaissance such as and the Civil Rights movement will be released next week, February 10th for the public to see the political, cultural, and personal thoughts of the great black thinker of the 20thCentury. He wrote authors Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and his own father who is most known for opposing his career choices, just to name a few. Although it gives insight, it will also leave the reader with more questions about the mysterious writer. Here is a quote from the book of Langston Hughes talking about Julius Rosenwald:
There is little need to say how deeply we all feel the loss of Julius Rosenwald,
friend of America and of my people. Little children all over the South looked
at his picture that week and were sad to know that he had gone. May my present
tour, which his generosity helped to bring about, produce something worthy of
his name, for I must always remember him with personal as well as racial
gratitude.
To pre-order the book, go to www.amazon.com.
Photograph of Langston Hughes
Photo Source: www.google.com
To read an article by The New York Times with more details about the book click this link below!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/books/selected-letters-of-langston-hughes.html?_r=0
Erica Marshall, Winter Intern
by Cieslafdn | Jan 7, 2015 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
Sixty years ago, on January 7th 1955, famed contralto Marian Anderson made history as the first African American to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Anderson’s career was launched in the early 1930s when she travelled to Europe on two Rosenwald grants (you can read about her trip to Europe on a previous blog). Her success in Europe followed her back to America, where Anderson became a national icon. She is perhaps best remembered for her historic 1939 concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
You can read more about Marian Anderson’s 1955 Met Performance
here.
Marian Anderson, photographed by Gordon Parks in 1943
Photo source: Farm Security Administration via Library of Congress
by Cieslafdn | Jan 2, 2015 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
In 1950, while working for Life magazine, Gordon Parks returned to his hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas to photograph his classmates from the segregated Plaza School. Parks previously received a Rosenwald fellowship in 1942 to work at the Farm Security Administration. Known for his striking images that highlighted racial issues in America, Parks’ portrait of his former classmates offers a glimpse into the lives of African Americans on the cusp of the civil rights movement. Although the series was originally intended to be a Life cover story, the magazine never published the photographs, which were soon forgotten (you can read about another discovery of lost Parks’ photographs in a previous blog post).
An article in The New York Times details how the photographs were uncovered in the archives of the Gordon Parks Foundation by a curious curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The museum will be opening an exhibition of the lost photos on January 17. The photographs themselves depict intimate moments from the lives of Parks’ now-adult classmates, most who were struggling to survive under the burdens of racism and segregation. Accompanying the photographs are Parks’ own words, his notes possibly intended as an introduction in Life magazine. Although there is no official explanation for why the story never ran, the exhibit’s curator speculates the spread was too political and newsworthy for the magazine.
by Cieslafdn | Dec 23, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
The “Talladega Murals,” completed by future Rosenwald fellow Hale Woodruff in 1938, have been on tour since 2012 in galleries all over the country. This traveling exhibit is an amazing chance to see these great works, and we’ve reported on their progress here on this blog over the past couple years.
One of Woodruff’s mural on display in Washington D.C.
Photo credit: The Washington Post
Michael E. Ruane, writing for the Washington Post, recently reviewed the exhibit in its current location, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The article, which includes quotes from National Museum of African American History and Culture experts like Jacquelyn D. Serwer and Kinshasha Holman Conwill (both of whom were interviewed for our upcoming documentary, The Rosenwald Schools), is well worth a read. Ruane tells the story of the Amistad slave ship revolt and explains how Woodruff’s paintings of it revived interest and became an important historical touchstone for representation of the unique and powerful event. As Conwill puts it in the article, the murals depict “the rarest of moments in 19th-century history […] the triumph of Africans over their enslavement that is a success.”
You can read more about the exhibit, Woodruff and the Amistad at the Washington Post.
by Cieslafdn | Dec 15, 2014 | Rosenwald Grant Recipients
In November, The Rosenwald Schools work in progress screened in Sarasota, Florida. We blogged about the event, which was attended by Kate Harris, the daughter of two famous Rosenwald Fund grant recipients. Kate’s parents, Kenneth and Mamie Clark, were psychologists who worked together to provide evidence for the crucial case of Brown v. Board of Education.
Kate recently reached out to us through email. She understands the importance of the Rosenwald Fund grants, affirming that they “had a major impact on the education of generations of children… just as the Rosenwald Schools did.” Kate also sent these great photos of her parents over the years:
Photos courtesy of Kate Harris
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