Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 5

Saartjie Baartman

The birth of Saartjie Baartman in 1789 is celebrated on this date. She was a South African entertainer and objectified Black woman.

Saartjie Sarah Baartman was born in the Gamtoos Valley of South Africa. She was orphaned in a commando raid. Baartman may have been a slave of a Dutch farmer named Peter Cezar near Cape Town, which had recently come under British control. Cezar’s brother, Hendrik took an interest in Baartman while visiting his farm and, together with Alexander Dunlop, a military surgeon with a sideline in supplying showmen in Britain with animal specimens, suggested she travel to England for exhibition. Lord Caledon, governor of the Cape, gave permission for the trip, but later regretted it after he fully learned the purpose of the trip.

She left for London in 1810 in her 20s, an enterprising Dunlop, accompanied by Hendrik Cesars and who sold her in London. She spent four years in Britain being exhibited for her large buttocks under the name Hottentot Venus. At that time, “Hottentot” was the name for the Khoi people, now considered an offensive term and “Venus” in reference to the Roman goddess of love. According to popular history. However, Dunlop discontinued his involvement while Cezar placed her on exhibition in the Egyptian Hall of Piccadilly Circus. She had large buttocks and was rumored to have the elongated labia of some Khoisan women, which were written about by earlier travelers such as François Levaillant.

Her exhibition in London though three years after the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807, created a scandal. An abolitionist benevolent society called the African Association conducted a newspaper campaign for her release. The showman associated with her exhibition. The African Association took the matter to court and on November 24, 1810 at the Court of King’s Bench the Attorney General began the attempt ‘to give her liberty to say whether she was exhibited by her own consent’. In support he produced two affidavits in court. The first was intended to show persons who referred to her as if she were property had brought Baartman to Britain. The second, by the Secretary of the African Association, described the degrading conditions under which she was exhibited and also gave evidence of coercion. Baartman was then questioned before an attorney in Dutch, in which she was fluent, via interpreters. She stated that she in fact was not under restraint, did not get sexually abused, and that she came to London on her own free will. The case was therefore dismissed.

The publicity given by the court case increased her popularity as an exhibit. She later toured other parts of Britain and visited Ireland and on December 1, 1811 Baartman was christened at Manchester Cathedral. She was sold to a Frenchman, who took her to France where animal trainer, S. Réaux, exhibited her under more pressured conditions for fifteen months. French naturalists, among them Georges Cuvier, head keeper of the menagerie at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, visited her. She was the subject of several scientific paintings at the Jardin du Roi, where she was examined in March 1815: as Saint-Hilaire and Frédéric Cuvier, a younger brother of Georges, reported, she was obliging enough to undress and to allow herself to be painted in the nude. In post-Napoleonic France, sideshows like the Hottentot Venus lost their appeal. Baartman lived on in poverty.

She died on December 29, 1815 of an undetermined inflammatory ailment. Her skeleton, preserved genitals and brain were placed on display in Paris’ Musée de l’Homme until 1974, when they were removed from public view and stored; a cast was still shown until 1976. There were sporadic calls for the return of her remains, beginning in the 1940s. A poem written in 1978 by Diana Ferrus, herself of Khoisan descent, entitled “I’ve come to take you home”, played a pivotal role in spurring the movement to bring Baartman’s remains back to her birth soil.

The case gained worldwide prominence only after Stephen Jay Gould wrote The Hottentot Venus in the 1980s. After the victory of the African National Congress in the South African general election, 1994, President Nelson Mandela formally requested that France return the remains. After much legal wrangling and debates in the French National Assembly, France agreed to the request on 6 March 2002.

Her remains were repatriated to the Gamtoos Valley, on May 6, 2002 and they were buried on August 9, 2002 on Vergaderingskop, a hill in the town of Hankey over 200 years after her birth. Baartman, She was one of the most famous Khoikhoi women who, due to their large buttocks. She is icon in South Africa as representative of many aspects of the nation’s history. The Saartjie Baartman Centre for Women and Children, a refuge for survivors of domestic violence, opened in Cape Town in 1999. South Africa’s first offshore environmental protection vessel, the Sarah Baartman, is also named after her.

Written by Dianne Washington

Jenifer Lewis

Jenifer Jeanette Lewis (born January 25, 1957) is an American actress. She began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches (1988) and Sister Act (1992). Lewis is known for playing roles of mothers in the films What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), The Preacher’s Wife (1996), The Brothers (2001), The Cookout (2004), Think Like a Man (2012) and in the sequel Think Like a Man Too (2014), Baggage Claim (2013) and The Wedding Ringer (2015), as well as in The Temptations miniseries (1998).

Lewis is known unofficially as “The Mother of Black Hollywood” (also the name of her memoir) given her frequent matriarchal film and television roles. She also provided the voice for Mama Odie in Disney’s animated feature The Princess and the Frog (2009), and Flo in Pixar’s Cars series. Additional film roles include Dead Presidents (1995), Cast Away (2000) and Hereafter (2010).

On television, Lewis starred as Lana Hawkins in the Lifetime medical drama Strong Medicine from 2000 to 2006. She also had recurring roles on sitcoms A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Girlfriends. In 2014, Lewis began starring as Ruby Johnson in the ABC comedy series Black-ish, for which she received two Critics’ Choice Television Award nominations.

Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, to a nurse’s aide mother, Dorothy, and a factory worker father. Lewis is the youngest of seven children. She sang in her church choir at the age of five. She attended Kinloch High School and then college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. She received an honorary degree from Webster in 2015. After college, Lewis moved to New York.

Soon after she arrived in New York City, Lewis debuted on Broadway in a small role in Eubie (1979), the musical based on the work of Eubie Blake. She next landed the role of Effie White in the workshop of the Michael Bennett–directed musical Dreamgirls, but when the show moved to Broadway, Bennett chose Jennifer Holliday for the role.

Lewis accepted a position as a Harlette, a back-up singer for Bette Midler which led to Lewis’ first TV appearances on Midler’s HBO specials. She acquired her first screen role as a result, appearing as a singer in the Otto Titsling production number in the Bette Midler vehicle Beaches (1988). At the same time, Lewis was developing her nightclub act, The Diva Is Dismissed, an autobiographical comedy and music show in New York City cabarets. She performed the show off-Broadway at the Public Theater.

After Lewis relocated to Los Angeles, she began appearing in television sitcoms, including Murphy Brown, Dream On, In Living Color, Roc, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper and Friends. From 1992 to 1993, she played Dean Davenport in the sixth and final season of the NBC sitcom A Different World. She also had a recurring role as Will Smith’s Aunt Helen in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air from 1991 to 1996. As a series regular, Lewis starred alongside Patricia Wettig in her short-lived legal drama Courthouse in 1995, playing Judge Rosetta Reide, the first main African American lesbian character on television.

In 1992, Lewis was cast as one of the back-up singers to Whoopi Goldberg in the comedy film Sister Act. The following year, Lewis played the mother of Tupac Shakur’s character in the film Poetic Justice, and as Zelma Bullock, Tina Turner’s mother, in the biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It starring Angela Bassett. Lewis has stated that she never auditioned to play Turner, but would have been thrilled to play the iconic singer. Lewis is only one year older than Bassett. For her performance, she received her first NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture nomination. In 1994, she followed with other comedic supporting roles, including Mrs. Coleman, the Unemployment Office lady, in Renaissance Man and as Whoopi Goldberg’s sister in Corrina, Corrina. In 1995, she was cast in maternal roles to Kadeem Hardison in Panther and to Larenz Tate in Dead Presidents.

In 1990, Lewis was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She originally hid her diagnosis, as she felt ashamed, but eventually came to embrace it after 17 years of therapy and 10 years of medication. In a 2014 interview, she said: “You have to look in the mirror… and say—before you can go or grow into anything—you have to say you love yourself.”

Lewis has been married to Arnold Byrd since 2012. She has an adopted daughter named Charmaine Lewis.

In 2015, Lewis was defrauded by a romantic con man which was detailed in a 2022 episode of “American Greed.”

Written by Dianne Washington

Perry Mason

Born Raymond William Stacy Burr, Canadian actor known for his lengthy Hollywood film career and his title roles in television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

Burr’s early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television, and film, usually as the villain. His portrayal of the suspected murderer in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rear Window (1954) is his best-known film role, although he is also remembered for his role in the 1956 film Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, which he reprised in the 1985 film Godzilla 1985. He won Emmy Awards for acting in 1959 and 1961 for the role of Perry Mason, which he played for nine seasons (1957–1966) and reprised in a series of 26 Perry Mason TV movies (1985–1993). His second TV series, Ironside, earned him six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.

Burr died of cancer in 1993, and his personal life came into question, as many details of his biography appeared to be unverifiable. He was ranked number 44 of the 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time by TV Guide magazine in 1996.

Burr was born in New Westminster, British Columbia. His father William Johnston Burr (1889–1985) was a hardware salesman; his mother Minerva Annette (née Smith, 1892–1974) was a pianist and music teacher.

When Burr was six, his parents divorced. His mother moved to Vallejo, California, with him and his younger siblings Geraldine and James, while his father remained in New Westminster. Burr briefly attended San Rafael Military Academy in San Rafael, California, and graduated from Berkeley High School.

In 1986, he told journalist Jane Ardmore that, when he was 12 years old, his mother sent him to New Mexico for a year to work as a ranch hand. He was already his full adult height and rather large and “had fallen in with a group of college-aged kids who didn’t realize how young Raymond was, and they let him tag along with them in activities and situations far too sophisticated for him to handle”. He developed a passion for growing things and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps for a year in his teens. He did acting work in his teen years, making his stage debut at age 12 with a Vancouver stock company.

Burr married actress Isabella Ward (1919–2004) on January 10, 1948. They met in 1943 while she was a student at the Pasadena Playhouse where Burr was teaching. They met again in 1947 when she was in California with a theater company. They were married shortly before Burr began work on the 1948 film noir Pitfall. In May 1948, they appeared on stage together in a Pasadena Playhouse production based on the life of Paul Gauguin. They lived in the basement apartment of a large house in Hollywood that Burr shared with his mother and grandparents. The marriage ended within months, and Ward returned to her native Delaware. They divorced in 1952, and neither remarried.

In 1960, Burr met Robert Benevides, an actor and Korean War veteran, on the set of Perry Mason. Benevides gave up acting in 1963, and he became a production consultant for 21 of the Perry Mason TV movies. They owned and operated an orchid business and then a vineyard in California’s Dry Creek Valley. They were domestic partners until Burr’s death in 1993. Burr bequeathed his entire estate to Benevides, and Benevides renamed the Dry Creek property Raymond Burr Vineyards (reportedly against Burr’s wishes) and managed it as a commercial enterprise. In 2017, the property was sold.

Although Burr had not revealed his homosexuality during his lifetime, it was reported in the press upon his death.

Burr had many hobbies over the course of his life: cultivating orchids and collecting wine, art, stamps, and seashells. He was very fond of cooking. He was interested in flying, sailing, and fishing. According to A&E Biography, Burr was an avid reader with a retentive memory. He was also among the earliest importers and breeders of Portuguese water dogs in the United States.

Burr developed his interest in cultivating and hybridizing orchids into a business with Benevides. Over 20 years, their company, Sea God Nurseries, had nurseries in Fiji, Hawaii, the Azores, and California, and was responsible for adding more than 1,500 new orchids to the worldwide catalog. Burr named one of them the “Barbara Hale Orchid” after his Perry Mason costar. Burr and Benevides cultivated Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and grapes for Port wine, as well as orchids, at Burr’s farmland holdings in Sonoma County, California.

In 1965, Burr purchased Naitauba, a 4,000-acre (16 km2) island in Fiji, rich in seashells. There, he and Benevides oversaw the raising of copra (coconut meat) and cattle, as well as orchids. Burr planned to retire there permanently. However, medical problems made that impossible and he sold the property in 1983.

Burr was a well-known philanthropist. He gave enormous sums of money, including his salaries from the Perry Mason movies to charity. He was also known for sharing his wealth with friends. He sponsored 26 foster children through the Foster Parents’ Plan or Save The Children, many with the greatest medical needs. He gave money and some of his Perry Mason scripts to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California.

Burr was an early supporter of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum in Sanibel, Florida, raising funds and chairing its first capital campaign. He also donated to the museum a large collection of Fijian cowries and cones from his island in Fiji.

In 1993, Sonoma State University awarded Burr an honorary doctorate. He supported medical and educational institutions in Denver, and in 1993, the University of Colorado awarded him an honorary doctorate for his acting work. Burr also founded and financed the American Fijian Foundation that funded academic research, including efforts to develop a dictionary of the language.

Burr made repeated trips on behalf of the United Service Organizations (USO). He toured both Korea and Vietnam during wartime and once spent six months touring Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. He sometimes organized his own troupe and toured bases both in the U.S. and overseas, often small installations that the USO did not serve, like one tour of Greenland, Baffin Island, Newfoundland and Labrador. Returning from Vietnam in 1965, he made a speaking tour of the U.S. to advocate an intensified war effort. As the war became more controversial, he modified his tone, called for more attention to the sacrifice of the troops, and said, “My only position on the war is that I wish it were over.” In October 1967, NBC aired Raymond Burr Visits Vietnam, a documentary of one of his visits. The reception was mixed. “The impressions he came up with are neither weighty nor particularly revealing”, wrote the Chicago Tribune; the Los Angeles Times said Burr’s questions were “intelligent and elicited some interesting replies”.

Burr had a reputation in Hollywood as a thoughtful, generous man years before much of his more-visible philanthropic work. In 1960, Ray Collins, who portrayed Lt. Arthur Tragg on the original Perry Mason series, and who was by that time often ill and unable to remember all the lines he was supposed to speak, stated, “There is nothing but kindness from our star, Ray Burr. Part of his life is dedicated to us, and that’s no bull. If there’s anything the matter with any of us, he comes around before anyone else and does what he can to help. He’s a great star—in the old tradition.”

During the filming of his last Perry Mason movie in the spring of 1993, Burr fell ill. A Viacom spokesperson told the media that the illness might be related to the renal cell carcinoma (malignant kidney tumor) that had been removed from Burr that February. It was determined that the cancer had spread to his liver and was at that point inoperable. Burr threw several “goodbye parties” before his death on September 12, 1993, at his Sonoma County ranch near Healdsburg. He was 76 years old.

The day after Burr’s death, American Bar Association President R. William Ide III released a statement: “Raymond Burr’s portrayals of Perry Mason represented lawyers in a professional and dignified manner. … Mr. Burr strove for such authenticity in his courtroom characterizations that we regard his passing as though we lost one of our own.” The New York Times reported that Perry Mason had been named second—after F. Lee Bailey, and before Abraham Lincoln, Thurgood Marshall, Janet Reno, Ben Matlock and Hillary Clinton—in a recent National Law Journal poll that asked Americans to name the attorney, fictional or not, they most admired.

Burr was interred with his parents at Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia. On October 1, 1993, about 600 family members and friends paid tribute to Burr at a private memorial service at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Burr bequeathed his estate to Robert Benevides, and excluded all relatives, including a sister, nieces, and nephews. His will was challenged, without success, by the two children of his late brother, James E. Burr. Benevides’s attorney said that tabloid reports of an estate worth $32 million were an overestimate.

Written by Dianne Washington

Angela Davis

On this date in 1944, Angela Davis was born. She is a Black lesbian and bisexual (LGBT) woman educator and political activist.

From Birmingham, Ala., Angela Yvonne Davis lived in a section of town called “Dynamite Hill” because of the violence used by whites on blacks to maintain residential segregation. Both of her parents were educators, working with the local NAACP and instilling in their children not to accept the social oppression that American society gave black people.

When she was 15, Davis left Birmingham to attend the Elizabeth Irwin School in New York City. Davis also attended Brandies University, where Marxist philosophy influenced her. After graduating in 1961, she was further impacted as a social activist by the bomb killing of four Black Sunday school girls in Birmingham in 1963. Davis began her doctoral studies in philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Still, he returned to the United States in 1967, when she decided she could no longer stay away from the growing American racial conflict.

Davis relocated to southern California to work on her master’s degree at the University of San Diego; during this time, she became involved with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panthers, and the Communist Party. Though hired in 1969 to teach philosophy at UCLA, Davis was fired soon afterward by their board of regents and then-governor Ronald Reagan for her affiliation with the Communist Party.

Though her case was appealed and overturned by the Supreme Court, she was in hiding because of an incident at Soledad Prison. In August 1970, George Jackson and his brother Jonathan, prisoners at Soledad, attempted to escape and were killed; the weapons were traced to Davis. She was on the FBI’s ten most wanted list for two months while underground. After an apprehension, she was jailed for almost a year and a half before being tried for murder and conspiracy. In June 1972, Davis was acquitted of both charges in a highly publicized trial.

She remained politically active while resuming her academic career at San Francisco State University. Davis also ran for Vice President in 1980 and 1984 on the Communist Party ticket. As a professor and author, she has written several books. They include, If They Come in the Morning 1971, Women, Race, and Class 1983, and Women, Culture, and Politics 1989. Her autobiography, Angela Davis: An Autobiography, was published in 1974 and reissued in 1988.

Davis left the Communist Party in 1991 because the latter supported the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 following the fall of the Soviet Union and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Davis has written several books. A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons in the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist; Davis advocates focusing social efforts on education and building “engaged communities” to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment. Davis was one of the founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system. She argues that the disproportionate share of the incarcerated African American population demonstrated racism in American society during this time. Davis has continued to oppose the death penalty.

As a lecturer, most of her teaching is at the graduate level; she says that she concentrates more on posing questions that encourage the development of critical thinking than on imparting knowledge. In 1997, she identified as a lesbian in Out magazine. We are facing a common enemy: Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles would say that to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy; she declared.

In 2001 she publicly spoke against the war on terror following the 9/11 attacks, continued to criticize the prison–industrial complex, and discussed the broken immigration system. She said people must “hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them to solve social justice issues.” Later, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, she declared that the “horrendous situation in New Orleans” was due to the country’s structural racism, capitalism, and imperialism. Davis opposed the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that excluding women from this event promoted male chauvinism. She said that Louis Farrakhan and other organizers appeared to prefer that women take subordinate roles in society. Together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance of Black feminists.

At the University of California, Santa Cruz, Davis participated in a 2004 panel concerning Kevin Cooper. She also defended Stanley “Tookie” Williams on panels in 2005 and 2009. In 2008, Davis was a keynote speaker at Vanderbilt University’s conference, “Who Speaks for the Negro?”. She has visited Vanderbilt twice since then, most recently to give the Commemorative Murray Lecture on February 25, 2015, on college activism. In 2009, she was the keynote speaker at the University of Virginia Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies symposium on The Problem of Punishment: Race, Inequity, and Justice. In 2011, Davis spoke at the Philadelphia and Washington Square Occupy Wall Street assemblies.

In 2012 Davis was awarded the 2011 Blue Planet Award, an award given for contributions to humanity and the planet. At the 27th Empowering Women of Color Conference in 2012, She has called for the release of Rasmea Odeh, associate director at the Arab American Action Network, who was convicted of immigration fraud after hiding her being convicted of murder. In 2012, Davis was the Rhode Island School of Design’s MLK Celebration Series keynote speaker and 2012 Honoree. She supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Davis was an honorary co-chair of the January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, which occurred the day after the Presidential inauguration.

In 2019, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) rescinded Davis’s Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, saying she “does not meet all of the criteria.” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and others cited criticism of Davis’s vocal support for Palestinian rights and the movement to boycott Israel. Davis said her award loss was “not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice.” On January 25, the BCRI reversed its decision and issued a public apology, stating that there should have been more public consultation.

Written by Dianne Washington

Sounds of Blackness

Sounds of Blackness is a unique vocal and instrumental ensemble that performs music from several genres, including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group was founded in 1969 by Russell Knighton at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was called the Macalester College Black Voices.

It was in 1971 when current director Gary Hines took over leadership, and the group name was officially changed to Sounds of Blackness. They have a global following, performing the music, culture, and history of African America to audiences on five continents. Led by Hines, they intersect Jazz and Blues with Rock & Roll, R&B, Gospel, Spirituals, Hip-Hop, Reggae, and Soul. The result is uplifting messages of hope, unity, love, and peace for all humankind and the passion for achieving it. The group has scored several hits on the Billboard R&B and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts.

For the past fifty-plus years, the Sounds of Blackness’s tireless endeavors have included performing globally for everyone from homeless persons and prison inmates to World Music Awards and the White House. Their benefit concerts and recordings have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for such causes as The United Nations 50th Anniversary, The United Negro College Fund, Scholarship America, The NAACP, Americorps, Hurricane Katrina, and countless others. Their theatrical Productions, Seminars, Master Classes, Workshops, and Lectures/demonstrations on African American Music, culture, and history reach every level from pre-school to post-graduate students.

Sounds of Blackness has appeared or recorded with Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Sting, Santana, Eric Clapton, Usher, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Elton John, Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber, Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, John Cougar, Patti LaBelle, Earth Wind & Fire, Shirley Ceaser, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, Kenny ‘G’, President Bill Clinton, Lena Home, Little Richard, BB King, Johnny Mathis, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Jim Carey, Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Duvall, Maya Angelou, and many others. The group has received three Grammy Awards, four Stellar Awards, one Emmy nomination, the International Time for Peace Award, the International Dance Music Award, and five NAACP Image Award nominations. Their music fueled both Presidential Campaigns of President Barack Obama. “The Sound of Blackness” CD won a 2012 NAACP Image Award for Best World Music Recording

Written by Dianne Washington

Debbie Allen

Deborah Kaye Allen (born January 16, 1950) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director, producer, and a former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She has been nominated 20 times for an Emmy Award (winning five), two Tony Awards, and has also won a Golden Globe Award and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991.

Allen is best known for her work in the musical-drama television series Fame (1982–⁠1987), where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series’ principal choreographer. For this role in 1983 she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography and was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Allen later began working as director and producer, most notably producing and directing 83 of 144 episodes of NBC comedy series A Different World (1988–⁠1993). She returned to acting playing the leading role in the NBC sitcom In the House from 1995 to 1996, and in 2011 began playing Dr. Catherine Avery in the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy also serving as an executive producer/director. She has directed more than 50 television and film productions.

In 2001, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, where she currently teaches young dancers. She also taught choreography to former Los Angeles Lakers dancer-turned-singer, Paula Abdul. She is the younger sister of actress/director/singer Phylicia Rashad.

Born in Houston, TX, her father was a full-blooded Native American (Cherokee). She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors from Howard University. Allen began her career on Broadway in the 1970s in the chorus of “Purlie,” “A Raisin In the Sun,” “West Side Story,” and “Anita,” which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. She is probably best known for her role as Lydia Grant in the 1982 TV show Fame.

She was also a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

In 1988, she choreographed “Carrie” with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Allen has worked on TV’s “Good Times,” “The Love Boat,” “The Cosby Show,” “Touched By An Angel,” and “The Division.” “Fame” gave Allen international prominence.

Its popularity in the United Kingdom prompted a special cast tour in England. While still a cast member of “Fame,” she became the first African American woman hired by a television network as a director in prime time. In 1989, after directing episodes of “Fame,” she co-wrote, produced, directed, choreographed, and starred in “The Debbie Allen Special” for ABC. She received two Emmy nominations for the direction and choreography of this variety show. She also produced and directed “A Different World.”

In 1989, Allen directed a remake of the 1960 film “Pollyanna.” She also directed the sequel “Polly: Comin’ Home” in 1990, “Stompin At The Savoy,” “The Old Settler,” and was the producer of the 1997 film “Amistad.” Allen, the sister of actress Phylicia Rashad, has been married twice: to Win Wilford from 1975 to 1983 and former NBA star Norman Nixon in 1984. They have two children Written

by Dianne Washington

Joyce Randolph Dead at 99

Joyce Randolph (née Sirola; October 21, 1924 – January 13, 2024) was an American actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on the television sitcom The Honeymooners.

Randolph was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 21, 1924, and she is of Finnish descent. As a teenager, she acted with the Wayne University Workshop. After she finished high school, she began working in retail sales for a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Detroit. When a touring company of Stage Door played in Detroit, she auditioned, got a part, and performed for the rest of the tour. She moved to New York City in 1943 to pursue an acting career. She took roles on Broadway and landed various television roles.

In 1951, she was seen in a Clorets commercial by Jackie Gleason and was asked to appear in a skit on Cavalcade of Stars, Gleason’s variety show on the DuMont Television Network. Soon after, she was cast as Trixie in The Honeymooners. Several New York columnists referred to her as the “Garbo of Detroit”. “That’s still a mystery … I was a nobody in Detroit. Why Garbo? Well, she was Scandinavian — and so was I”, responded Randolph.

Joyce Randolph died in her sleep on January 13, 2024, at the age of 99. She had been a long time resident of New York City and was in hospice care suffering the effects of old age.

Written by Dianne Washington

Simone Biles

Simone Arianne Biles Owens (born Simone Arianne Biles; March 14, 1997) is an American artistic gymnast. The most decorated American gymnast in history, she is widely considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time. Her seven Olympic gymnastics medals are ninth-most of all time and tied with Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. gymnast.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Biles won individual gold medals in the all-around, vault, and floor; bronze on balance beam; and gold as part of the United States team, dubbed the “Final Five”. At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where she was favored to win at least four of the six available gold medals, she withdrew from most of the competition due to “the twisties”, a temporary loss of air awareness while performing twisting elements. She won a silver medal with her team and a bronze medal on the balance beam.

Biles is a six-time World all-around champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019, 2023), six-time World floor exercise champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019, 2023), four-time World balance beam champion (2014–2015, 2019, 2023), two-time World vault champion (2018–2019), an eight-time United States national all-around champion (2013–2016, 2018–2019, 2021, 2023), and a member of the gold medal-winning American teams at the 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She is also a four-time World silver medalist (2013–2014 and 2023 on vault, 2018 on uneven bars) and a four-time World bronze medalist (2015 on vault, 2013 and 2018 on balance beam).

In 2019, Biles broke the record for most World Championship medals in gymnastics; she won her 24th and 25th medals at the event, surpassing Vitaly Scherbo’s 23 World medals. Biles has since secured an additional five World medals, for a total of 30. She holds the record for World all-around titles (6) and is the sixth woman to win an individual all-around title at both the World Championships and the Olympics, the first since Lilia Podkopayeva in 1996 to hold both titles simultaneously. Biles is the tenth female gymnast and first American female gymnast to win a World medal on every event, and the first female gymnast since Daniela Silivaș in 1988 to win a medal on every event at a single Olympic Games or World Championships.

In 2022, Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2023, she won her eighth U.S. Gymnastics title, breaking the 90-year-old U.S. Gymnastics title record previously held by Alfred Jochim.

Written by Dianne Washington

Teena Marie

Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), known professionally as Teena Marie, was an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and producer. She was known by her childhood nickname Tina before taking the stage name Teena Marie and later acquired the nickname Lady T, given to her by her collaborator and friend Rick James.

She was known for her distinctive soprano vocals, which caused many listeners to believe she was black. Her success in R&B and soul music, and loyalty to these genres earned her the title Ivory Queen of Soul. She played rhythm guitar, keyboards, and congas. Teena Marie was a four-time Grammy Award nominee.

In 2004, while Teena Marie was sleeping in a hotel room, a large picture frame fell and struck her on the head. The blow caused a serious concussion that resulted in momentary seizures for the rest of her life.

On the afternoon of December 26, 2010, Teena Marie was found dead by her daughter, Alia Rose, in her Pasadena home. On December 30, 2010, an autopsy was performed by the coroner of Los Angeles County, who found no signs of apparent trauma or a discernible cause of death and concluded she had died from natural causes. She had suffered a generalized tonic–clonic seizure a month before.

A memorial service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery on January 10, 2011. Among those in attendance were Stevie Wonder, Deniece Williams, Smokey Robinson, Queen Latifah, LisaRaye, Sinbad, Tichina Arnold, Shanice Wilson, and Berry Gordy, Jr.

Written by Dianne Washington

Tim Reid

Tim Reid (born December 19, 1944) is an American actor, comedian and film director best known for his roles in prime-time American television programs, such as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–82), Marcel “Downtown” Brown on Simon & Simon (1983–87), Ray Campbell on Sister, Sister (1994–99) and William Barnett on That ’70s Show (2004–06). Reid starred in a CBS series, Frank’s Place, as a professor who inherits a Louisiana restaurant. Reid is the founder and president of Legacy Media Institute, a non-profit organization “dedicated to bringing together leading professionals in the film and television industry, outstanding actors, and young men and women who wish to pursue a career in the entertainment media”

Timothy Lee Reid was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in the Crestwood area of Chesapeake, Virginia, formerly Norfolk County, Virginia. He is the son of William Lee and Augustine (née Wilkins) Reid. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration at Norfolk State College in 1968. Reid also became a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

After graduation, he was hired by Dupont Corporation, where he worked for three years. Reid’s entertainment career also began in 1968. He and insurance salesman Tom Dreesen met at a Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting near Chicago. They were “put together to promote an anti-drug program in the local schools” and, prompted by a comment from a child, decided to form a comedy team. The team, later named “Tim and Tom,” was the first interracial comedy duo.

Reid started on the short-lived The Richard Pryor Show. Reid starred as DJ “Venus Flytrap” on the hit sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, in what is perhaps his best-known TV role. Reid starred as Lieutenant Marcel Proust “Downtown” Brown (episodes 43-127) on the detective series Simon & Simon. In 1988, Reid won an award from Viewers for Quality Television Awards as “Best Actor in a Quality Comedy Series” in Frank’s Place. In 1988, the same role earned him an Image Award for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.”

In 1966, Reid married Rita Ann Sykes; they divorced on May 9, 1980. They have two children: Timothy II (born 1968) and Tori Reid (born 1971). On December 4, 1982, he married actress Daphne Maxwell Reid. Reid appeared in the initial movie version of Stephen King’s epic horror novel It. He made an appearance in three first-season episodes of Highlander: The Series. He had a starring role in the series Sister, Sister as Ray Campbell for the entire six-season run. On April 13, 2009, Reid appeared on the short-lived series Roommates as Mr. Daniels. Reid had a recurring role on That ’70s Show as William Barnett.

Reid has directed various television programs and the film Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored is based on a novel by Clifton L. Taulbert. He directed and adapted a children’s TV show called Bobobobs, which aired in the late 1980s. Reid is the creator of Stop the Madness, an after-school special video in the fight against drugs recorded on December 11, 1985.

Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid built New Millennium Studios in 1997. Located in Petersburg, Virginia, the 57.4-acre site with its 14,850-square-foot sound studio was the only Black-owned film studio in the United States since the 1930s and also one of the largest independent film studios outside of Hollywood. New Millennium Studios was used in dozens of movie and television productions, including scenes from the 2001 film “Hearts in Atlantis,” of the Stephen King novel; parts of 2000’s “The Contender,” and elements of Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film, “Lincoln,” were all shot there. The Reid’s also produced feature films of their own. In 2008, he and Tom Dreesen wrote a book about those years called Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White.

Reid was named to the board of directors of the American Civil War Center in July 2011 at Tredegar Iron Works. On May 10, 2014, Reid received a VCU honorary doctorate for his outstanding and distinguished contributions. He delivered a commencement speech during the ceremony. During the 1980s and 1990s, Reid served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute. Due to “a lack of incentives in the state” to bring film production to Virginia, the Reid’s sold the property in March 2015 for $1.475 million to Four Square Property Management LLC, a company formed by Four Square Industrial Constructors based in Chester, Virginia.

Written by Dianne Washington