The Arts
(b. March 1, 1914, Oklahoma City, Okla., U.S.–d. April 16, 1994, New York, N.Y.), American teacher and writer who won eminence with his first and only novel, Invisible Man (1952).
Ellison left Tuskegee Institute (Alabama) in 1936 after three years’ study of music and joined the Federal Writers’ Project in New York City. In 1939 he began contributing short stories, reviews, and essays to various periodicals. Following service in World War II, he produced Invisible Man, which won the 1953 National Book Award for fiction. The story tells of a naive and idealistic Southern black youth who goes to Harlem, joins the fight against white oppression, and ends up ignored by his fellow blacks as well as by whites. After his novel appeared, Ellison published only two collections of essays, Shadow and Act (1964) and Going to the Territory (1986).
He lectured widely on black culture, folklore, and creative writing and taught at various American colleges and universities. He left a second novel unfinished at his death. Flying Home and Other Stories was published posthumously in 1996.
The Arts
Born in 1930, Ornette Coleman started playing the alto sax at the age of 14. His first gigs were backing up musicians like Big Joe Turner and Pee Wee Crayton. His first LP was with Don Cherry in 1958 and he later signed with Atlantic Records. By 1959 and for the next five years, he toured clubs around the country. Unhappy with the money, he returned to New York and in 1971 he opened his own club, Artist House. He was the master of free jazz, which was more abstract and had fewer musical boundaries than any other form of avant garde jazz. It was not thought of in the beginning as a true art form and Ornette was one of the main shapers in its acceptance. It slowly made its way into the hearts of jazz fans and by 1959 it was an accepted art form.
Science
Walter S. McAfee participated in an U.S. Army Program in the 1940’s created to determine whether a high frequency radio signal could penetrate the earth’s outer atmosphere. McAfee made the necessary calculations and on January 10, 1946 the team sent a radar pulse through a special 40-feet square antenna towards the moon. Two seconds later, they received a faint signal. While official news of this scientific breakthrough did not include McAfee’s name, Americans could not have walked on the moon had it not been for Walter McAfee and his calculations.
Business
1911 – 1999
In 1940, became the first African-American to own a new motor vehicle franchise, a Studebaker dealership
Established a Chrysler dealership in 1963, becoming the first African-American owner of a ?Big Three? dealership
Chronicled his own struggle against racism in the book ?One Man?s Way?
Edward Davis was a trailblazer who paved the way for minority business owners in the automotive industry.
Leaving his Louisiana birthplace, Davis took a risk in the hope of a better future in Detroit, where he moved in with his uncle. After graduating from Cass Technical High School, Davis worked as a mechanic and eventually became employed at a Dodge Motor Company plant. Impressed with Davis? hard work, the plant supervisor?s son offered Davis a job selling cars in a Detroit dealership. Davis succeeded as an auto salesman in spite of racial harassment, and he decided to establish a dealership of his own.
Davis opened a Studebaker dealership in 1940 and operated it until 1956, when Studebaker entered bankruptcy. Davis then operated a service and used car business until 1963, when he was awarded a Chrysler-Plymouth franchise.
Successful with customers of all races, Davis promoted civic awareness through his dealership, whose slogan was: ?Good citizenship is our business, too.?
The Arts
In the early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary began to flourish in Harlem, a section of New York City. This African-American cultural movement became known as “The New Negro Movement” and later as the Harlem Renaissance. More than a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. African-Americans were encouraged to celebrate their heritage.
The main factors contributing to the development of the Harlem Renaissance were African-American urban migration, trends toward experimentation throughout the country, and the rise of radical African-American intellectuals.
The Harlem Renaissance transformed African-American identity and history, but it also transformed American culture in general. Never before had so many Americans read the thoughts of African-Americans and embraced the African-American community’s productions, expressions, and style.
Slavery
(July 2, 1839), slave rebellion that took place on the slave ship Amistad near the coast of Cuba and had important political and legal repercussions in the American Abolitionist movement (see abolitionism). The mutineers were captured and tried in the United States, and a surprising victory for the country’s antislavery forces resulted in 1841 when the U.S. Supreme Court freed the rebels. A committee formed to defend the slaves later developed into the American Missionary Association (incorporated 1846).
On July 2, 1839, the Spanish schooner Amistad was sailing from Havana to Puerto Pr
