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Nina
Simone CDs
Forever
Young, Gifted & Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit (2006)
/
Anthology (2003)
Nina: The Essential Nina Simone
(2000, 2003)
The Very Best Of Nina Simone, 1967-1972 : Sugar
In My Bowl (1998) /
The Blues (1968, 1991) /
Compact Jazz: Nina Simone
(1989-1991)
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Remembering Nina
By Amin Sharif
Back when I was in high school, I was given
an album of Nina Simone’s songs. And, I immediately fell in
love with Nina. You see, at the time, young blacks who were
really hip had stopped listening to R&B. The Temptations,
James Brown, the Supremes were considered too commercial to have
anything “real” to say to a generation of
blacks who were growing more and more militant. New icons
were rising on a cultural landscape that was changing. The
Blues, Cool Jazz, and Be Bop were in if you were “really”
black. Miles Davis, the Jazz Messengers, Monk, Dizzy, Max Roach,
Abby Lincoln and Coltrane and hundreds of others were making
music that was centered in a new Black Consciousness.
All this Black Consciousness was fed by the
Civil Rights and the Black Power Movement. Entertainers like
Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poiter, Eartha Kitt and others who had
for years suffered under an artistic version of Jim Crow rushed
to put their prestige and their careers behind political
movements for justice and equality. And right in the middle of
it all was Nina Simone.
Nina, from the very beginning, presented
something different visually and vocally for black audiences.
First, she displayed the beauty of a real Black Woman. What I
mean by that is that Nina wore her hair natural. She looked
partly like an African Queen and partly like one of those fine
Sisters a Brother might run into at a Cabaret. Was Nina sexy?
Damn skippy. Her voice was sensual, raw, and illuminating. Her
stage presence was awesome. When she performed a song she not
only made it her own, but she also wrote the words of that song
upon the very soul of the listener.
Nina wasn’t afraid of controversy. When she
recorded her classic Four Women, a song which bespoke
of the way skin color within the black community determined
social status, many black radio stations refused to play it. But
these same radio stations filled the air waves with her
generational black anthem Young,
Gifted, and Black.
Nina was called the High
Priestess of Soul and there is more than just mere
admiration in the title. Unlike the title Queen
of Soul, the term Priestess
has a connotation of holiness attached to it. The term Priestess
of Soul is inscribed on a background of ancientness. And,
for black people, the term Priestess
is culturally charged. As a people of African descent, we
probably had Priestess long before we had Queens. Nina, in posture and attitude,
captured in the mind’s eye all that a Priestess
should be. Her words and songs held a magic reborn, passed down
from generation to generation, from slavery to freedom. She
literally “cast a spell” on every person who heard her sing
or gazed upon her womanhood. The spell remains. And it will
remain as long as she will be remembered. And that will be a
very long time indeed.
Ain't Got No...I've Got Life
(video) /
Four Women (video) / / Feelings (video)
Harlem Festival, Part 2 (video) /
Harlem Festival, Part 3 (video) /
Harlem festival, Part 4 (video)
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Ain't Got No...I've Got Life
(video) /
Four Women (video) / / Feelings (video)
Harlem Festival, Part 2 (video) /
Harlem Festival, Part 3 (video) /
Harlem festival, Part 4 (video)
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
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____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 6 July 2008
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