Professor and Activist Dies at 77

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Basil Davidson obituary—By Victoria Brittain—9 July 2010—Davidson [(9 November 1914 – 9 July 2010) a British historian, writer and Africanist] was enthused early on by the end of British colonialism and the prospects of pan-Africanism in the 1960s, and he wrote copiously and with warmth about newly independent Ghana and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He went to work for a year at the University of Accra in 1964. Later he threw himself into the reporting of the African liberation wars in the Portuguese colonies, particularly in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. . . . In the 1980s, with most of the African liberation wars now won—except for South Africa's— Davidson turned much of his attention to more theoretical questions about the future of the nation state in Africa. He remained a passionate advocate of pan-Africanism. In 1988 he made a long and dangerous journey into Eritrea, writing a persuasive defence of the nationalists' right to independence from Ethiopia, and an equally eloquent attack on the revolutionary leader Colonel Mengistu and the regime that had overthrown Haile Selassie. Guardian

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Basil Davidson's  "Africa Series"

 Different But Equal  /  Mastering A Continent  /  Caravans of Gold  / The King and the City / The Bible and The Gun

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McLellan, Los Angeles Times July 15, 2010—Vonetta McGee, an actress whose big-screen heyday during the blaxploitation era of the 1970s included leading roles in "Blacula" and "Shaft in Africa," has died. She was 65. McGee died Friday at a hospital in Berkeley after experiencing cardiac arrest and being on life support for two days, said family spokeswoman Kelley Nayo. Although McGee had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 17, Nayo said, her death was not related to the disease. . . . Among McGee's other film credits are The Lost Man, Detroit 9000, Brothers (in which she played an activist based on Angela Davis), Repo Man and "To Sleep with Anger." In the '80s, her career turned primarily to television. That included playing Sister Indigo on Robert Blake's short-lived 1985 dramatic series Hell Town and playing a social worker who takes a con man played by Jimmie Walker into her home in the syndicated 1987-88 sitcom "Bustin' Loose."

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Howard Zinn—historian, radical activist, and teacher—died at the age of 87 on January 27. He was an important thinker who spoke unsettling truths about America—and who joined ideas to action. He will be sadly missed. Howard Zinn wrote more than 20 books and plays. His most famous and influential work, A People’s History of the United States, has opened the eyes of countless readers to the  realities of America’s founding in genocide and slavery and America’s arc of brutal expansion. It has opened the eyes of countless readers to the resistance of the exploited and dominated.   This is history that gives voice to Native Americans, Blacks, women, immigrants, poor laborers, and others whose lives and spirit counted for little in mainstream histories. This is history that tells the story of the Spanish-American War from the side of the Filipinos who fought U.S. colonial conquest. Carl Dix, Revolution #190

Howard Zinn historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87—Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as "A People's History of the United States," inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87. His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington , said he suffered a heart attack. "He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect." Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn's writings "simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation. He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant. Both by his actions, and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement."  Boston.com 

Howard Zinn, author of 'People's History' and left-wing historian, dies at 87 in California—Born in New York in 1922, Zinn was the son of Jewish immigrants who as a child lived in a rundown area in Brooklyn and responded strongly to the novels of Charles Dickens. At age 17, urged on by some young Communists in his neighborhood, he attended a political rally in Times Square. "Suddenly, I heard the sirens sound, and I looked around and saw the policemen on horses galloping into the crowd and beating people. I couldn't believe that," he told the AP. "And then I was hit. I turned around and I was knocked unconscious. I woke up sometime later in a doorway, with Times Square quiet again, eerie, dreamlike, as if nothing had transpired. I was ferociously indignant. . . . It was a very shocking lesson for me." War continued his education.

Eager to help wipe out the Nazis, Zinn joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and even persuaded the local draft board to let him mail his own induction notice. He flew missions throughout Europe, receiving an Air Medal, but he found himself questioning what it all meant. Back home, he gathered his medals and papers, put them in a folder and wrote on top: "Never again." LATimes
 

Howard Zinn dies at 87; author of best-selling A People’s History of the United States Activist collapsed in Santa Monica, where he was scheduled to deliver a lecture.—In his 1994 memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, Zinn recalled that his parents used discount coupons to buy the complete works of Charles Dickens. The novelist "aroused in me tumultuous emotions" about wealth, class and poverty, Zinn wrote. Zinn received his doctorate from Columbia University.

He was a professor emeritus at Boston University, where he was a familiar speaker at Vietnam War protests. He also taught at a number of institutions, including Brooklyn College, the University of Paris and Spelman College in Atlanta in the late 1950s and early '60s as the civil rights movement was taking hold in the South. Former California state Sen. Tom Hayden recalled meeting Zinn while he was at Spelman, then an all-black women's school. "He was basically integrating himself into the world of black students," Hayden said Wednesday.

Hayden said Zinn became actively involved in the movement as an advisor and leader. The two later protested the war in Vietnam and worked on other social justice issues, Hayden said. LATimes

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David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability, Dies at 91—David Blackwell, a statistician and mathematician who wrote groundbreaking papers on probability and game theory and was the first black scholar to be admitted to the National Academy of Sciences, died July 8 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 91. . . . Mr. Blackwell, the son of a railroad worker with a fourth-grade education, taught for nearly 35 years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became the first black tenured professor. He made his mark as a free-ranging problem solver in numerous subdisciplines. His fascination with game theory, for example, prompted him to investigate the mathematics of bluffing and to develop a theory on the optimal moment for an advancing duelist to open fire. . . . His “Basic Statistics” (1969) was one of the first textbooks on Bayesian statistics, which assess the uncertainty of future outcomes by incorporating new evidence as it arises, rather than relying on historical data. He also wrote numerous papers on multistage decision-making. NYTimes / Mathematica Association of America

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Grammy Award Winning Gospel Singer Walter Hawkins (1949 – 2010) Dies Gospel singer/songwriter Walter Hawkins lost his battle with pancreatic cancer Sunday at the age of 61 in his home in Ripon, California. His older brother released the following statement shortly after Hawkins’ death: “Today, I lost my brother, my pastor, and my best friend,” said Edwin Hawkins. “Bishop Hawkins suffered bravely but now he will suffer no more and he will be greatly missed.” Hawkins, an Oakland native, started his career off by collaborating with his brother Edwin on the hit Gospel track “Oh Happy Day,” which became one of the first gospel songs to cross over to mainstream charts.. . . He studied for his divinity degree at the University of California in Berkeley after parting ways musically with his brother, and in between his studies he recorded his debut album Do Your Best in 1972. Gossip on This  /.KTVUl

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Imagine A Black Nation  In Memory of Imari Obadele  By Marvin X

 

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The Passing of Poet Carolyn Marie Rodgers  (December 14, 1940—April 2, 2010)

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Mamadou Lumumba Passes Over Mamadou Lumumba [(Kenneth Freeman), b.October 11, 1938 – d. October 20, 2009] was editor of Oakland-based Soulbook, a journal "mainly political but included poetry in a section ironically titled 'Reject Notes'." (“Historical Overviews of The Black Arts Movement,” Kalamu ya Salaam).  . . . Memorial services:, December 12, 2pm, at the Noodle Factory, 1255 26th Street at Union, Oakland. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. / ChickenBones Black Arts and Black Power Figures

Mamadou Lumumba (Kenneth Freeman; October 11, 1938 – October 20, 2009) was one of the premier neo-black intellectuals of the 1960s. He was the first black student to attend Bishop O Dowd high school. He graduated from University of San Francisco in 1960, with graduate studies at the University of Mexico. In Mexico he learned of the Cuban revolution and this expanded his radical conscious and social activism. When he returned to Oakland, he joined the group of young radicals at Merritt College, including Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Ernie Allen, Isaac Moore, Ann Williams, Marvin X and Carol Freeman, his wife. Mamadou became a member of Donald Warden's Afro American Association, a Black Nationalist organization. The AAA and the young radicals studied world revolution, including events in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and the Congo where the first elected prime minister was assassinated. Apparently his similarity to Congolese Patrice Lumumba, made him adopt the name.

Mamadou became editor of Soulbook, The Quarterly Journal of Revolutionary Afro-America, one of the most radical publications of the 60s, a leading theoretical journal in African revolutionary circles, a publication of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).

He also organized the first Black Panther Party in the Bay.

Mamadou Lumumba-Umoja was one of the leading African activists and theoreticians of the period from 1956-1985. Though never having achieved the “celebrity” status of some of his contemporaries, the strength of his influence was  unmistakable and extended to key revolutionary nationalist organizations locally and nationally.

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Hale Smith, Who Broke Borders of Classical and Jazz, Is Dead at 84 Hale Smith, a classical composer who also worked as a performer and arranger with jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie and Chico Hamilton, died Tuesday at his home in Freeport, L.I. He was 84 [born on June 29, 1925, in Cleveland]. . . . He composed serial-influenced works like “Contours for Orchestra” (1961) and “Ritual and Incantations” (1974), lyrical works like the song cycle “The Valley Wind” (1952) and jingles and incidental music for radio, television and theater. With the drummer Chico Hamilton, he composed the film score for “Mr. Ricco” (1975), and his skill as an orchestrator led to a series of collaborations with the pianist Ahmad Jamal. . . . Eclectic in his tastes and interests, Mr. Smith composed works that ranged from the richly dissonant orchestral composition “Innerflexions” (1977) to “Dialogues and Commentary” (1990-91), a witty set of variations for septet on a single motif. His arrangements of spirituals were performed often by the sopranos Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman. In 2000, Composers Recordings released a survey of his work, “Music of Hale Smith.” NYTimes

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Since returning to New Orleans from a brief wartime stint working the shipyards of Richmond and Oakland between 1943 and 1947, Montana has been sewing a new Mardi Gras suit each year and is the undisputed master of the craft.

Because of his unique three-dimensional innovations and his elaborate beadwork he stood out among other Mardi Gras Indians, and was known as "The Prettiest." So pretty that one of his suits was purchased by the Smithsonian.

The Mardi Gras Indian culture from its very beginnings more than 130 years ago was an expression of Black resistance to a white supremacist environment in New Orleans. Big Chief Allison "Tootie" Montana

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Coretta was still a young woman when her husband died. There were moments when I wondered whether it might not have been better for her personally if she had remarried. One friend sent me a note in which she wrote, “I once read a statement by Alice Walker in which she mentioned how some women live with the legends of their men (instead of choosing a life of their own.) I'm glad that Coretta held Martin in her heart all these years.” Another friend wrote, “what a shame that she lived 40 years of her life without a man's arms around her, unloved and passionless.  To me, that's a great loss.” Coretta Scott King

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The Passing of South African Folksinger Miriam Makeba

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Last Man Standing The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt By Jack Olsen One part Kafka and one part Orwell, the story of Geronimo Pratt's conviction and imprisonment, for a murder committed while he was 350 miles away from the crime scene and under FBI surveillance, is a textbook case of abuse of the American criminal justice system for political ends. Raised in small-town Louisiana, Pratt served two distinguished stints in Vietnam (earning a Purple Heart) before becoming a leader of the Black Panthers in Los Angeles. Visible and articulate, he was targeted by the FBI's counterintelligence program and soon was set up and convicted for a highly publicized 1968 Santa Monica murder. At trial, where he was represented by the now-famous Johnnie Cochran, evidence was suppressed (and later destroyed), witnesses were intimidated and perjury was suborned. His case became an international cause célèbre.—Publishers Weekly / Geronimo Pratt Is Free

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Black theater cofounder Stanley Williams dies—Stanley E. Williams, the founding artistic director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, one of the most influential African American arts companies in California, died Friday. He was 60. Mr. Williams, who was receiving treatment for cancer, died just nine weeks after his longtime partner, Quentin Easter, with whom he had run the company they founded in 1981. Marc Paquette, a spokesman for the theater, said Mr. Williams died at his home in San Francisco. "Stanley Williams was a big personality with a big heart," said Kary Schulman, director of the city's Grants for the Arts. "He devoted his life, both personal and professional, to the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, accomplishing things few thought possible when he and Quentin started the organization. For our community to lose Quentin and now Stanley in such a short time is a terrible blow." SFGate

We mourn the passing of our comrade in the arts, Stanley Williams. Stanley directed a production of my play One Day in the Life. We enjoyed working with him and his partner/co-founder of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Quentin Easter, who made his transition a few weeks ago. Stanley and Quentin took Bay Area Black Drama to a higher level, especially after they established their home in San Francisco's downtown theatre district.—Marvin X

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Laurelle "Yaya" Richards was herself a “community center”  By Lasana M. Sekou Yaya in younger days. (LR photo)

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Related files

   The African World

    The Ancestors Are Not Really Dead

    Death and Dying in the African Context   

    A Funeral Sermon Virginia-Style 

    Playing Policy, One Sumptuous Meal

    Passed On   Press Release    Other Reviews    Memorial to Family Business   Response to Questions 

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Remembering Eartha Kitt—17 January, 1927  – 25 December, 2008)—When I think of Eartha Kitt, I think of the complete artist. She was supremely accomplished, audacious, vocal, and creative. She remained beautiful and physically fit. When I was coming into manhood, how I fantasized about Ms. Kitt, whom I thought was just the most sensuous woman on the planet! Yet, as a Black American female, she spoke out of an experience of racist-induced pain, anguish, and despair that gnawed at her existence, which could produce a good amount of anger and clear thinking about the meaning of America.—Floyd Hayes                                   She was indeed some kinda woman: sexy, exuberant, independent, and opinionated. I saw her on the stage in Boston when I was in college, and she blew me away—Miriam  Eartha Kitt—Santa Baby! 1953 Eartha Kitt was a magical woman who always demanded respect. There was always a youthful daring restraint, and an exotic exuberance ever ready to explode in indignation—Rudy  I Want to Be Evil  / Just An Old Fashioned Girl  / Santa Baby

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Funeral Service for Dorothy Height (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010) Eulogy by Barack Obama President of the United States

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The Life and Legacy of Beautine Hubert DeCosta-Lee Obituary by Miriam DeCosta-Willis

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The Ground Beneath Her Feet Remembering Beautine Hubert DeCosta-Lee By Miriam DeCosta-Willis

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Jazz Drummer Max Roach Dies -- Maxwell Roach, a  founder of Modern Jazz—born on 10 January 1924, in the small town of New Land, N.C., grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn—died 16 August 2007 in Manhattan. . . . "It all comes down to originality," Roach told jazz critic Leonard Feather some years ago. . . . “There was one unforgettable night when I worked with Pres [Lester Young] at Birdland. Because I was with Pres, and because he and Papa Jo Jones were so close in the Basie band, I played all of Papa Jo's old licks. At the end of the evening, after I said good night to Pres, he gave me one of those succinct lessons in that personal language of his. He said, 'You can't join the throng until you write your own song. . . .That's a great lesson, something that stays with you the rest of your life; this music allows you, prefers you to be an individual, to do your own thing." Revolutionary Black Music: Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln / We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite Funeral -- Friday, August 24th at Riverside Church in Manhattan.  Viewing will be at 9 AM.  Services at 11 AM

 

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Of the Passing of Mama Ezinne Bessie Chiege Iwuji Okeke (1915-2008) By Rose Ure Mezu