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Books by Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Daughters of the Diaspora: Afra-Hispanic Writers
(2003 /
Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon
(1999)
The
Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells (1995) /
Erotique Noire/Black Erotica
(1992) /
Homespun
Images
( 1989) /
Notable Black Memphians
(2008)
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The Life and Legacy of
Beautine Hubert DeCosta-Lee
Obituary
by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Beautine was born into a
family—the Huberts of
Georgia—who placed a
premium on education. Her
mother, Lillie Ophelia, a Spelman College graduate,
was an elementary school
teacher and principal; and
her father, John Wesley, a
graduate of Morehouse
College and the University
of Chicago, was a college
professor and principal of
Cuyler Junior High School.
Although they were
unlettered former slaves,
her paternal grandparents,
Camilla and Zacharias
Hubert, sent their twelve
children to college, and two
of them became college
presidents; and her maternal
grandfather, Reverend Willis
L. Jones, published a book,
Travel in Egypt and
Scenes of Jerusalem,
about his trip to the Holy
Land.
With such a family
legacy, Beautine became a
highly educated social
worker, college professor,
and school administrator,
who, over a forty-year
career, taught at Alabama
and South Carolina State
Colleges, was a case worker
with the Baltimore City
Schools, and retired, in
1978, as Regional Specialist
of Pupil Personnel Services.
Born in Hancock
County, Georgia, on January
30, 1913, she grew up in
Savannah and, in 1930,
graduated as salutatorian
from Spelman High School in
Atlanta. Three years later,
she received a bachelor’s
degree at the top of her
class from Savannah State
College, where her uncle,
Benjamin Hubert, was
president, and, the next
fall, she began graduate
study at Atlanta University.
It was there that she met
another graduate student,
Frank A. DeCosta, who was
valedictorian of his class
at Lincoln University and
who would later receive an
M. A. degree from Columbia
University and a Ph.D. from
the University of
Pennsylvania.
After their
1934 marriage and the births
of their two children, Beautine completed a
master’s degree in social
work and did post-graduate
work at the Wharton School
of Finance and at Columbia,
Stanford, Tulane, and
Chicago Universities. The
DeCostas instilled in their
children the same love of
learning: their son earned a
law degree from Howard
University and eventually
joined the staff of the vice
president of the United
States, and their daughter
was the first African
American to complete a
doctorate at The Johns
Hopkins University.
Beautine was a
woman who held up the sky .
. . for her family and
hundreds of friends. She
looked up neglected kinfolk,
wrote long letters to her
grandchildren, took
half-dead plants to
neighbors, sent off-color
jokes to loved ones, drew
her own Christmas cards,
kept every letter that Frank
wrote her from 1934 to 1967,
was a walking-talking
historian who never threw
anything away, and regaled
her tribe with hilarious
tales of life with the
Huberts. She was a gifted
writer, one of whose stories
begins: “My mother and
grandmother were great
liars. Whether it was
telling us that drinking cod
liver oil would make us swim
like fishes or swearing that
if we were bad, we would be
sold to the gypsies, both of
them knew the power of
prevarication.”
She was
also a classy, adventurous,
and free-spirited lady, who
traveled all over the world,
from Haiti to Brazil, and
Egypt to Portugal. When
Frank was on assignment with
the U. S. Department of
State in Kaduna, Nigeria in
1962-63, she taught English
to Hausa women, volunteered
with the Nigerian Red Cross,
and organized the
International Women’s Club.
An outgoing people-lover,
she specialized in bringing
people together, like the
Muslims, Christians,
British, Indians, and Fulani
in Kaduna—all of whom raved
about her winning ways and,
especially, her okra/tomato
gumbo. She was also a
political and civil rights
activist, who belonged to
the League of Women Voters,
addressed the state
legislature, campaigned for
political candidates, and
supported the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, getting up early
every morning to take
workers to their jobs.
Four years after
the 1972 death of her
husband, Beautine DeCosta
married Major Richard “Dick”
Lee, a Baltimore school
administrator, who died in
1998. In the 1990s, she also
lost her son, Atty. Frank A.
DeCosta; her granddaughter,
Senora DeCosta; her sister,
Ophelia Taylor; and, more
recently, her brother,
Lieutenant Colonel Willis J.
Hubert. Survivors include a
daughter, Dr. Miriam
DeCosta-Willis; sister,
Mamie E. Russell; six
grandchildren, Judge Tarik
Sugarmon, Elena Williams,
Atty./Dr. Frank A. DeCosta,
III, Erika McClure, Monique
Sugarmon, and John DeCosta;
nine great-grandchildren;
and several nieces and
nephews.
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Miriam DeCosta-Willis, author
and college professor, was born 1 November 1934, in
Florence, Alabama. She received her B.A. at Wellesley
College in 1956; her M.A. Johns Hopkins in 1960; her
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins in 1967 in Romance Languages. In
1967 she joined the faculty of Memphis State University
as the first African American member, and while there
agitated for more black staff members. When King was
assassinated in 1968 she was in the march that erupted
into violence and the police used mace on her. |
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Notable Black Memphians by Miriam DeCosta-Willis—This
biographical and historical study by Miriam DeCosta-Willis (PhD,
Johns Hopkins University and the first African American faculty
member of Memphis State University) traces the evolution of a major
Southern city through the lives of men and women who overcame social
and economic barriers to create artistic works, found institutions,
and obtain leadership positions that enabled them to shape their
community. Documenting the accomplishments of Memphians who were
born between 1795 and 1972, it contains photographs and biographical
sketches of 223 individuals (as well as brief notes on 122 others),
such as musicians Isaac Hayes and Aretha Franklin, activists Ida B.
Wells and Benjamin L. Hooks, politicians Harold Ford Sr. and Jr.,
writers Sutton Griggs and Jerome Eric Dickey, and Bishop Charles
Mason and Archbishop James Lyke—all of whom were born in Memphis or
lived in the city for over a decade. . . . |
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DeCosta-Willis
makes it possible to look back in a new way into the
character of wells, and, more than that, into the daily
life of African-Americans a century ago.
— Chicago Tribune
Wells and
DeCosta-Willis join together across time in a scholarly
collaborative dance of sisterhood to produce a work that
not only holds an insightful mirror to the past, but
could be used as a guidepost for African-American and
other women today in living totally self-defined lives.
—Tri-State Defender
A unique look
at the life o an independent, unmarried African-American
woman coping with financial hardships, romantic
entanglements, sexism, and racism . . . A substantial
contribution to African-American Studies
—Publisher Weekly
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posted 19
December 2008
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