First Family Official Portrait

Read it and weep conservahaters! We finally have a First Family in the White House that reflects the heritage of the people who built it.

The official portrait of the First family was released, and you know I had to post it.

Yes, as much as it pains you pointed sheet wearing conservaracists to hear it, the President of the United States of America is Black, proud of it, won in an electoral college landslide with the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate and is doing his best to clean up the mess the previous occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue left him.

Deal with that reality.

And doesn't that pic of the First Family look nice?

Williams Sisters In 2009 US Open Doubles Finals

For the first time in a decade, my favorite tennis playing siblings are in the US Open doubles finals.

Little Sis and Big Sis battled sustained 20 mph winds Thursday and the Russian duo of Alisa Kleybanova and Ekaterina Makarova to prevail in three sets 7-6, 3-6, 6-2.

"Good to make the final again. Encouraging and very cool," Serena said.

It put the Williams sisters in their 10th Grand Slam doubles final. A victory in the final would not only give them three of the four Grand Slam doubles titles, but would put them halfway to matching Pam Shriver's and Martina Navratilova's record of 20 Grand Slam doubles titles.

Whoever their opponent is will have to bear in mind the fact that the Williams sisters record in Grand Slam Doubles finals is a sparkling 9-0.

"Hopefully, that's a record that won't end yet," Serena said. "We really want this. I'm sure whoever we play really wants it, too."

Speaking of finals, assuming the weather is clear, Little Sis will take on Kim Clijsters at 8 PM EDT in a semifinal matchup for a spot in the finals.

Little Sis seeks to continue her march to repeat as the US Open women's singles champ and win her 12th Grand Slam singles title.

Here's hoping that this ends up as a very good weekend at Flushing Meadows for the Williams siblings.

C. Vivian Stringer Enters Basketball Hall Of Fame

Despite all the hype, Michael Jordan isn't the only person getting inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA today.

The Class of 2009 also includes David Robinson, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and one of my fave women's basketball coaches, C. Vivian Stringer of Rutgers.

"To be a part of history and stand there and have your name in the same sentence as all those people who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame is nothing short of earth-shattering to me," Stringer said. "To think about those names and what they've done. They are even greater people than they are athletes if that's possible."

During her 38 year career spanning four decades, Stringer has led three separate teams to the Final Four and is the third winningest coach in women's college basketball.

Her 825-280 career mark puts her behind only Tennessee's Pat Summitt and Jody Conradt of Texas on the career victories list. In addition to being the 11th women's basketball coach inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, she's also a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame;

Her coaching career started in 1973 at Pennsylvania's Cheyney State University. Stringer took over a newly minted program and during her 12 years there guided the school to the Final Four in 1982.

Stringer moved on to Iowa, where she also stayed for 12 seasons. She took the Hawkeyes to the Final Four in 1993 before leaving for her current position at Rutgers.

Sports Illustrated named Stringer in 2003 one of the most 101 Influential Minorities in Sports and she has written an autobiography entitled, "Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph."

Thar tragedy included her daughter Janine contracting spinal meningitis during the year of her 1982 trip to the Final Four with Cheyney State. Her husband Bill died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day 1992 at age 47 during the season her Iowa squad made it to the 1993 Final Four.

She's been an inspirational figure for not only the young women she coached, but off the court as well. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. in recognition of her remarkable life bestowed an honorary membership on her in 2008.

Her off the court leadership came to the forefront in 2007 in the wake of shock jock Don Imus infamous comments aimed at the team she coached.

She turned it into a teachable moment that captured the nation's attention, jump started a dialogue on the ways that women are disrespected in addition to garnering an apology to the team from Imus.

She'll be introduced at the ceremony by her good friend John Chaney. They met when he was coaching the Cheney State men's program in the late 1970's-early 80's.

"Vivian Stringer is a true gem with exceptional courage who believes success is a marathon and as you climb you should lift others up," said Chaney, "She has been my beacon."

Congratulations, Coach Stringer. Here's hoping you finally get that elusive national championship and continue to be an inspiration to young women everywhere.

Williams Sisters Become NFL Owners

Serena and Venus Williams have been rewriting the tennis history books ever since their breakthrough Gland Slam victory ten years ago at the 1999 US Open.

My favorite tennis playing siblings are marching though the 2009 US Open field in the women's singles and women's doubles ranks seeking to add to the combined 18 Grand Slam titles they've already captured during their careers.

Not being content with making tennis history, last week they did so on another front. Principal owner and Managing General Partner Stephen Ross announced that the Palm Beach Gardens, FL residents have joined Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez in becoming limited ownership partners in the NFL's Miami Dolphins.

The purchase of that ownership stake made the Williams sisters the first African-American women to have an ownership stake in an NFL franchise.

"I am so excited to be part of such a renowned organization," says Serena. "Having spent so much of my childhood in the area, being involved with a staple of Miami culture is a huge honor. We look forward to many championships and much success together with the Miami Dolphins."

Agrees Venus, "I am honored to be a partner in the Miami Dolphins franchise and thankful to owner Stephen Ross for allowing Serena and I to be part of Miami Dolphins history."

Looks like the Williams sisters will definitely be ready for some football when the NFL season kicks off next week.

Crossposted from Feministe

Following In Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson's Media Footsteps

If you wonder where I came up with the phrase 'tellin' it like it T-I-S is', I borrowed it from this iconic African-American radio personality and chronicler of Black radio that sadly is no longer with us.

I used to race my Dad to the mailbox to read his Mello Yello when it was delivered by my friendly neighborhood letter carrier. I prided myself back in high school days of being on the cutting edge of Black music, and reading the Rapper's newsletter gave me the edge I needed to stay ahead of my music loving classmates.

Who was Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson? He was the first voice heard on the first Black owned and operated radio station, WERD-AM in Atlanta when they started broadcasting in 1949. Gibson founded the National Association of Radio Announcers for Black DJs or NARA in 1955 to give the original 13 Black DJ's a voice in the industry.

He published for over a decade the Mello Yello tipsheet that was no holds barred in telling the truth about things that went on in the radio world along with tracking R&B music. Starting in 1977 he hosted an annual convention in Orlando, FL that became a must attend event.

The 'Family Affair' was a convention that not only many R&B music stars, radio personalities and music execs attended, but became a forum that set the stage for many of the major changes in the recording and music industry that allowed African-Americans to advance to leadership roles in it.

It was because of Gibson's work in Black radio that the voice of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other SCLC leaders was heard for the first time over the airwaves. He helped Motown get much of the airplay in the 1960's that was the springboard to its success, and was one of the people who gave hip hop and its artists a leg up when they were begging for airplay and attention in the early 80's.

Gibson's work didn't go unnoticed. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C and into the Nevada Broadcasting Hall of Fame when he hosted a Las Vegas radio show until his death from cancer in 2000 at age 79i.

But for me, I'm focused on the truth telling part of Gibson's life. He always told it like it T-I-S is, as he would say in the pages of the Mello Yello, and his love for our people always shone through while doing so.

Those are two lessons of his that I'm proud to carry on in these electronic pages at TransGriot.

Obama Speech To NAACP Centennial Convention

Last year he made history when he spoke to the NAACP convention as the Democratic party nominee for president.

This year he returned to speak in front of the NAACP convention as the president of the United States.

Michael Jackson Memorial

Watched the moving Michael Jackson memorial from Los Angeles. Cried like a baby when I saw his daughter Paris' tearfully speaking about her father.

But I definitely have to give a Hi 5 and say AMEN to Rev. Al Sharpton

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

TransGriot Note: This July 5, 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass still resonates for many African-Americans 157 years after delivered it.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....

...Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national Independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America.is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival....


...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. -- Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. 'Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppress'd shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom's reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant's presence cower;
But to all manhood's stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I'll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive --
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate'er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.

Happy Juneteenth, Peeps!

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.

The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

Union Major General Gordon Granger, Galveston TX, June 19, 1865

With the reading of General Order No. 3 from the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston, TX, a holiday and tradition amongst Black Texans was born that has grown into an international celebration.

Juneteenth became for Black Texans our Fourth of July celebration. In addition to the fireworks and parades, the early Juneteenth celebrations included prayer services, speakers with inspirational messages, readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, stories from former slaves, food, red soda water, games, rodeos and dances.

Black Texans pooled their money to buy emancipation grounds to celebrate Juneteenth.

Led by the Rev. Jack Yates, the first pastor of Houston's historic Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Emancipation Park was purchased in 1872. Other freedmen purchased plots of land to host celebrations in other parts of the state that became Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia, TX and Emancipation Park in Austin.

As Black Texas traveled and moved to other parts of the United States and the world they took Juneteenth and its traditions with them.

Juneteenth was celebrated every year by Black Texans from 1866 until the mid 20th century. Increased focus on expanded civil rights protections and World War II occupied Black Texans thoughts and interest in Juneteenth waned until it was revived at the 1950 State Fair in Dallas.

As we rediscovered pride in our heritage in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, the dormant Juneteenth celebrations and traditions were revived across the state in the 1970's.

Thanks to efforts by Texas state representative Al Edwards, in 1979 House Bill No. 1016 passed in the 66th Legislature, Regular Session. It declared June 19 as "Emancipation Day in Texas" and made Juneteenth an official state holiday effective January 1, 1980.

So on that note, Happy Juneteenth! I have some barbecue and cold strawberry soda waiting for me as I reread the inspiring words of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Homo Harlem Film Retrospective

TransGriot Note: Received this interesting e-mail from the Maysles Institute in NYC about a TBLG film retrospective slated to kick off on Juneteenth (June 19) at the Maysles Cinema.

With arguments often eerily reminiscent of old rationales for black oppression, gays and lesbians remain openly, legally and even, 'righteously', discriminated against.

For LGBT people of all races, knowing ourselves, making our extraordinary history known to others, much as with blacks, becomes a key component to liberation. If LGBT heritage remains often obscured and belittled, achievements of African American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, are less well known still.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the film festival, Homo-Harlem: A Film Retrospective, Friday, June 19th-Saturday, June 27th, cosponsored by the Maysles Cinema at 343 Malcolm X Boulevard with Men of All Colors Together, seeks to help to remedy this lack of recognition.

Through a series of coordinated screenings, critical discussions and walking tours, Homo-Harlem for the first time officially brings Stonewall observations uptown to focus on and honor, figures as diverse as poets Audre Lorde and Langston Hughes, social justice activist Bayard Rustin, composer Billy Strayhorn, photographer Marvin Smith and living legend Storme DeLarverie, whose courageous stand at the Stonewall Bar, 40 years ago, literally helped set in motion the entire Gay Pride Movement.

We LGBT people have always been busy making Harlem better, as one resident reported in 1928, "Never no wells of loneliness in Harlem..." Space is limited for this exhilarating experience, so be sure to make a reservation in advance and get ready to be enlightened, to be amazed and to party hard!

Homo-Harlem Curator and Author Michael Henry Adams

Please direct all press and requests for reservations to cinema@mayslesinstitute.org
Homo Harlem: A Film Retrospective

$10 Suggested Donation For All Screenings

Friday, June 19th
Opening Night at the Museum of the City of New York
(1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St, Enter at 104th St)

6:00pm Cocktail Reception

7:00pm Discussion: Kirk Shannon-Butts, Michael Henry Adams

7:30pm Screening
Blueprint (Short Preview)
Kirk Shannon-Butts, 2008
Harlem shot and set, Blueprint is the story of Keith and Nathan - two New York City college freshmen trying to make a connection.

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life
Robert Levi,1999, 83 min.
Today, historians and scholars agree that Billy Strayhorn remains one of the most under-recognized American composers in history. Born in 1915, Strayhorn chose to live openly as a gay black man. It was perhaps this decision-and his lifelong devotion to Duke Ellington-which contributed to his near anonymity as a major American composer. While Ellington is arguably the most influential and celebrated jazz composer of the 20th century, Strayhorn is unrecognized. Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life poses answers to the question of who was Billy Strayhorn, and why is he still relatively unknown?

(Maysles Cinema, 343 Lenox Ave. between 127th & 128th Street, June 20th-27th)

Saturday, June 20th
2:00pm
The Edge of Each Other's Battles: The Vision of Audre Lorde
Jennifer Abod, 2002, 59 min.
This powerful documentary is a moving tribute to legendary black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992). One of the most celebrated icons of feminism's second wave, Lorde inspired several generations of activists with her riveting poetry, serving as a catalyst for change and uniting the communities of which she was a part: black arts and black liberation, women's liberation and lesbian and gay liberation.

Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde
Ada Griffin and Michelle Parkerson, 1995, 60 min.
From Lorde's childhood roots in Harlem to her battle with breast cancer, this moving film explores a life and a body of work and makes connections between the civil rights movement, the women's movement and the struggle for lesbian and gay rights.

Greetings from Africa
Cheryl Dunye, 1994, 8 min.
In this highly entertaining short, Cheryl Dunye uses her dry wit to ruminate on lesbian dating '90s style. Cheryl (playing herself) is searching for someone to date. Unfortunately, most of her friends are still stuck in those long-term "relationships from the '80s". Just when she thinks all is lost, she meets L, a beautiful, mysterious and captivating woman. Cheryl gets caught up in the chase and L leads her in and out of hot water.

Sunday, June 21
2:00pm
Prepare for Saints: The Making of a Modern Opera
Steven Watson, 1999, 27 mins
A chronicle of the making of the Modernist 1934 Virgil Thomson/Gertrude Stein opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, (which included an all-black cast from Harlem church choirs and nightclubs.)
Q&A with Director Steve Watson

Portrait of Jason
Shirley Clarke, 1967, 105 min.
Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne, house boy, would be cabaret performer, and self proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked pill-popped, view of what it was like to be black and gay in 1960's America.

Monday, June 22
7:00pm
Storme: Lady of the Jewel Box
Dir. Michelle Parkerson, 1987. 21 min.
"It ain't easy...being green" is the favorite expression of Storme DeLarverie, a woman whose life flouted prescriptions of gender and race. During the 1950's and 60's she toured the black theatre circuit as a mistress of ceremonies and the sole male impersonator of the legendary Jewel Box Revue, America's first integrated female impersonation show and forerunner of La Cage aux Folles. Storme herself emerges as a remarkable woman, who came up during hard times but always "kept a touch of class." Storme was also a witness to the Stonewall Rebellion 40 years ago and is a founding member of the Stonewall Veterans Association.

How Do I Look
Wolfgang Busch, 2007, 48 min.
How Do I Look captures the Harlem "Ball" traditions that originated in the 70s, which was historically an off shot from the Harlem "Drag" Balls from the 20s. Because of the loss of hundreds of members and leaders of the "Ball" community due to the HIV epidemic, this film recorded an important aspect of history while it was still available.

Panel TBA

Tuesday, June 23
7:00pm
Brother to Brother
Rodney Evans, 2004, 87 min.
Winner of numerous awards including the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize and the Gordon Parks Screenwriting Award, Brother to Brother follows the emotional and psychological journey of a young black gay artist as he discovers the hidden legacies of the gay and lesbian subcultures within the Harlem Renaissance.
(with a short clip of an interview with Bruce Nugent on Gay life in the 20s.)

Q&A with Tom Wirth, Literary Executor for Bruce Nugent

Wednesday, June 24
7:00pm
Brother Outsider, The Life of Bayard Rustin
Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer, 2002, 83 min.
This meditation on the parallels between racism and homophobia illuminates the life and work of Bayard Rustin, a visionary activist and strategist who has been called the "unknown hero" of the civil rights movement. Daring to live as an openly gay man during the fiercely homophobic 1940s, 50s and 60s, Brother Outsider reveals the price that Rustin paid for his openness, chronicling both the triumphs and setback of his remarkable 60-year career.

Panel:
Dir. Bennett Singer
Walter Naegle, Rustin's partner until his passing in 1987 at 75
Ernest Green, The Little Rock Nine
Adam Green, Historian, Author of "Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955"
Moderator: Michael Henry Adams

Thursday, June 25
5:30pm
Walking Tour*

7:30pm
Paris is Burning
Jennie Livingston, 1990, 78 min.
Many consider Paris Is Burning to be an invaluable document of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, as well as a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and gender in America.

9:30pm
Dinner & Afterparty at Billie's Black*

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and after party) cost is $50.00
Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com
60 person limit on tickets so get them while you can!
Tickets for the screening only can be purchased at the Maysles Cinema the night of.

Friday, June 26
5:30pm
Walking Tour*

7:30pm
Looking for Langston
Isaac Julien, 1988, 45 min.
A black and white, fantasy-like recreation of high-society gay men during the Harlem Renaissance, with archival footage and photographs intercut with a story. The text is rarely explicit, but the freedom of gay Black men in the 1920s in Harlem is suggested and celebrated visually.

James Baldwin: Witness
Angie Corcetti, 2003, 60 min.
A minister's son from Harlem, James Baldwin moved to Greenwich Village and began writing essays for left-wing journals. With the success of his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and dozens of non-fiction works, Baldwin became an international voice on American Black life in the 1950s and 60s. A look at this Black American Gay icon's life.

9:30pm
Dinner at Miss Maude's Spoonbread Too*

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and dinner) cost is $50.00
Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com

Saturday, June 27
11:30am Brunch at Chez Lucien*

1:00pm
Walking Tour*

3:00pm
M&M SMITH: For Posterity's Sake
Heather Lyons, 1996, 57 min
Morgan and Marvin Smith, twin brothers and prolific African American artists, boldly moved from Kentucky to New York in 1933 to pursue artistic careers. By 1937 they had opened a photo studio next door to Harlem's renowned Apollo Theatre. Thus began 50-year-long careers as still and motion picture photographers, painters and sound recordists. This story is richly visualized through the Smiths' photos, films and paintings and poignantly told by Morgan and Marvin Smith and friends such as Eartha Kitt.

Clip of Short Conversation with Marvin Smith
40 min.

*Complete package (walking tour, screening and brunch) cost is $45.00
Contact- homoharlemtour@aol.com

The Story of Carlett Brown

One of the cool benefits of the recent Johnson Publishing Company deal with Google that allows digitizing of the iconic African-American magazines JET and EBONY is that it not only provides a record of Black history as it happened, it also is a cultural time capsule as well.

One of the things I've always pondered is African American transgender people and our history. I know I and other African-American transpeeps didn't just pop up out of thin air. We have a long fascinating history that just begs to be told.

One of those fascinating stories starts unfolding across several JET issues during 1953. Coincidentally it starts around the time Christine Jorgensen had become a household name after the December 1, 1952 news story broke about her surgery and just before her February 13, 1953 return to the United States from Denmark.

It centers on a 26 year old professional female illusionist and shake dancer from Pittsburgh whose birth name was Charles Robert Brown but later changed it to Carlett Angianlee Brown.

Carlett was in a relationship with a 24 year old US Army sergeant stationed in Germany named Eugene Martin. She'd served in the Navy, and during her service time was checked out for an issue with recurring monthly bleeding through her rectal area.

The medical exam revealed that she was intersex and had some feminine plumbing. The surgeons wanted to remove it, but she declined to have that done and opted for SRS instead.

In the process of weighing her SRS options with three surgeons in various countries, she discovered that the laws of those countries at the time didn't allow foreign nationals to obtain SRS.

Dr. Christian Hamburger, the endocrinologist who supervised Christine Jorgensen's transition, advised Carlett that if she gave up her US citizenship she could have it done in Denmark. Germany's then justice minister advised Brown that if became a German resident and took the steps to become a German citizen, she could have it performed there as well.

So Carlett decided to do just that. She applied for her US passport and made arrangements to travel to Bonn, Germany in August 1953 and meet Dr. Hamburger there for her initial checkup before having SRS.

Carlett's game plan once she completed SRS was to get married to Sgt. Eugene Martin

"I just want to become a woman as quickly as possible, that's all. I'll become a citizen of any country that will allow me the treatment that I need and be operated on," she said at the time.

Fast forward to June 25 issue. Carlett has now traveled to Boston and signed papers at the Danish consulate renouncing her US citizenship. She's doing some bookings in the area to help pay for her looming August 2 overseas trip and even hit Filene's to shop for her wedding dress.

She now has her US passport with her new name of Carlett Angianlee on it and all systems are go to become the 'First Negro Sex Change'.

Then fate intervened. Crossdressing back in the 50's could earn you a trip to jail, and the Boston po-po's promptly arrested and jailed her overnight for doing so as the July 9 issue reported. Carlett was still undeterred and was still planning to leave for Denmark and her date with history.

She then postponed her departure in order to get a feminizing face lift in New York with Dr. George J.B. Weiss, as the August 6 issue reported. It even mentioned that Carlett's face lift was going to cost $500 dollars.


Then she was hit with the news that she was ordered not to leave the United States until $1200 in back taxes were paid. The October 15th issue reported that she ended up taking a $60 a week cook's job at Iowa State's Pi Kappa frat house that a friend helped her get in order to earn the money to pay off those back taxes.

At that point the trail through those back issues of JET in terms of Carlett's fascinating story starts turning cold. As of yet I haven't found out if she ever did earn the money to pay off the back taxes, make that trip to Europe, have SRS, get married or even how the rest of her life turned out. If Carlett is still alive she'd be well into her 70's.

But thanks to JET, mine and future generations will get to read it.

Black Music Month 2009

June is designated as Black Music Month in the States, and this year marks the 30th anniversary of the initial event.

Kenny Gamble of the hit making R&B songwriting-production duo of Gamble & Leon Huff encouraged former President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to officially designate June as a time to acknowledge the contributions Blacks musicians have made to the art form.

Ever since then every president has issued a proclamation to commemorate it.

As someone to whom Black music kept a roof over her head, food on the table, put clothes on her back and sent her to college, I have a deep appreciation for my peeps music and the history that is intertwined with it.

My tastes run across the spectrum of R&B from P-funk to jazz, but much of my music collection has a definite 70's-80's-90's slant.

Black music is constantly evolving. It's creative and unafraid to experiment and innovate. We have see it from jazz to gospel to Motown to hip-hop, but at the same time pays tremendous respect to the pioneers on whose giant shoulders it stands.

It is the expressions of a mighty people, and this month we pay homage to it.

Who Was The First African-American Transwoman?

In 1906 Kelly Miller stated, "All great people glorify their history and look back upon their early attainments with a spiritual vision."

Because the half century of transgender history so far has been predominately written by people who don't share my ethnic heritage, it has only covered one facet of the story.

We know for example that Lili Elbe was the first person to undergo gender transition in the 1930's, that Christine Jorgensen in 1953 was the first post-war one that garnered huge media attention, and about the exploits of other transwomen from Coccinelle to Renee Richards to Dana International.

But it's only in the last few years that the stories of pioneering non-white transpeople have been coming to the forefront. Fortunately, some of those stories were recorded in the pages of our iconic magazines JET, EBONY and Sepia. Thanks to the Johnson Publishing Company agreement with Google that resulted in JET and EBONY being digitized and placed online in their book search feature to peruse, some of those stories are now coming to light.

As a transperson of African descent who comes from a family of historians, I want to know and revel in my history. Just as I'm keenly aware of the varied historical accomplishments of my people, I want to know the same things about Black transpeople as well.

I am one of three African-Americans who has won the IFGE Trinity Award. Dr. Marisa Richmond is the first African-American transperson to be elected as a major party convention delegate for her state. I know that Avon Wilson was the first African-American and first person to go through Johns Hopkins gender program in 1966

But what irritates me at times is that I don't definitively know (yet) who was the first African-American person to transition.

I've been encouraged lately to see some tantalizing clues surface pointing to an answer to that question.

About the same time that the media was fixated on Christine Jorgensen, an article appeared in the June 18, 1953 issue of JET magazine.

It began following the story across several JET issues of Pittsburgh's Carlett Brown. Because Denmark's laws restricted the surgery to Danish nationals, Carlett took the drastic step of renouncing her US citizenship in order to be able to have SRS done in Denmark and have her HRT supervised by Dr. Christian Hamburger, Christine Jorgensen's endocrinologist.

I'll have to write up her fascinating story in another post since I'm still reading through more than a few issues of JET to find out how the story ended.

A Sepia magazine article and two 1965 National Insider tabloid articles claim New Orleans born Delisa Newton, who was 31 when she transitioned is that person.

Sepia magazine was a Fort Worth, TX based competitor of EBONY/JET similar in style to Look magazine that published from 1948-1983. The African-American Museum in Dallas, TX has the picture files of Sepia Magazine in its archives.

It seems appropriate that one of the contenders was born in New Orleans. Delisa was billed as ‘The First Negro Sex Change’ in that 1966 article, but they probably weren't aware of Avon Wilson yet. I'd also have to check with what's left of the New Orleans transgender community to see if Delisa is still alive.

These are the articles in question pointing to Delisa Newton. I have yet to find those Sepia magazine articles online or see them.

* Delisa Newton. “My lover beat me”. National Insider, June 20, 1965: 4-5.
* Delisa Newton. “Why I could never marry a white man!”. National Insider July 18, 1965: 17.
* Delisa Newton. “From Man to Woman”. Sepia. 1966.

JET also had a small blurb in its March 16, 1967 issue about 28 year old Philadelphian Carole Small. She was working as a female illusionist-singer in Germany and was reported to be in Denmark getting SRS. Assuming she's still alive, she'd be approaching her 70th birthday.

Carole was quoted as saying in that article, "Black women in America are among the luckiest on the face of the earth and it will be marvelous to be one."

Your late 20th century-early 21st century sisters echo those sentiments as well. It would be nice for us to know exactly who was our first and hear about how their lives progressed post surgery.

In order to continue progressing toward our glorious future, we must know about our past in order to get a better understanding of our present.

As I keep perusing these older issues of EBONY/JET, I'm discovering they did a much better job of covering gender issues back in the day than I'd been aware of.

Charles Bolden, Jr. Nominated To Become First Black NASA Head

Retired Marine Corps General Charles Bolden, Jr. made a lot of history during his 13 year NASA career as an astronaut. He logged 680 hours in space on four shuttle mission, piloted the shuttle and was mission commander on two from 1980 to 1994.

On May 23 the former deputy administrator of NASA was nominated for the job by President Obama. Assuming the Senate confirms his nomination, he is set to become the first African-American to head NASA.

"Charlie Bolden is well known to everybody in the space community from the human spaceflight side of the house, where he's had extensive shuttle experience, to the science people he worked with as he was part of the crew that launched the Hubble telescope," says John Logsdon, professor emeritus at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

As a space junkie, in this 40th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I miss the days of frequent moon launches and bold goals for NASA. Much of the medical, computer and other technological advances we enjoy is because of the space program. In order to colonize the moon and land on Mars, we will once again have to put our best and brightest minds to work in addition to once and for all expunging 'intelligent design' from our classrooms.

This nomination comes at a crossroads time for he United States and NASA. While we retire the shuttle fleet next year and wait for the new Constellation and Orion vehicles to be finished for their 2015 launch, the Russians are looking to get their space swagger back.

Japan and several European nations are wishing to become major players in space as the Chinese aggressively work toward their national goals of putting a Chinese space station in orbit by 2012 and landing a Chinese citizen on the moon by 2020

If humanity is going to continue to survive and thrive, we have to step off this planet, explore the solar system and the stars and eventually colonize them. This nominee will have the responsibility of charting NASA's space course for the next twenty years and beyond.

Change Has Come To Philadelphia, MS

Say the words 'Philadelphia, Mississippi' to many African-Americans and the memories of June 21, 1964 and its notorious racist past instantly come to mind.

Visions of hooded Klansmen in front of burning crosses. The picture of missing CORE civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner whose lifeless bodies were dug out of an earthen dam. Edgar Ray Killen, the Klan mastermind of the heinous murders not being convicted of the crime until June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years later.

Much of the African-American community's bitter dislike for Ronald Reagan stems from the fact he started his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia. MS.

Not only did African-Americans see that as a slap in the face given the town's negative civil rights history, he poured gasoline on the fire. By uttering the 'I believe in states' rights' code words in his speech, he solidified his perception among our community that he was an unrepentant racist.

Just as historic change came on November 4, 2008, change has come to Philadelphia, Mississippi as well. 53 year old Philadelphia native James Young, who was nine years old when the events of 1964 happened and remembers the Klan tormenting his neighborhood, earlier this week was elected the first African-American mayor of the town by 46 votes.

"Obama's election sent a message to our people that it was possible. If we can elect a black man as president we can elect a black man as mayor of Philadelphia. In the last couple of weeks I was hearing that a lot in the community," he said.

When you've been treated the way we've been treated," he told CNN, choking up and then pausing to wipe the tears from his face. He refocused and said, "That's why it's so overwhelming to be a part of this history."

Mayor-elect Young is working out of a makeshift transition office provided by a prominent attorney until his inauguration.

"It's an awesome feeling to have that kind of respect that people support you in this way," Young said near the end of our interview. "I'll never let the people down which called for that."

Don't Want EBONY Or JET To Die

Tami had a post in March that discussed her take on whether we should do more as a community to keep our iconic magazines alive.

While some folks are hollering 'let them die', I have a problem with that knee jerk shortsighted view of the situation, even though I have mixed emotions about it.

As a historian, I don't like the idea of losing EBONY and JET, much less contemplating a world without its needed voice. As many of you did, I perused the older issues of EBONY and JET at my grandparents house growing up and I spent hours perusing those issues and reading the history that unfolded before my eyes. I also chuckled at some of the back in the day ads that served as a time capsule for the period.

It seems that everybody had a subscription to those two magazines when I was growing up, and whether you were at your cousin's house in Mississippi, your uncle's place in Los Angeles, EBONY or JET would be sitting in a prominent place in their living rooms. One of the first things I did after moving out of my parents house was get my own EBONY subscription.

Thanks to the late visionary John H. Johnson, these magazines since 1945 have been covering our stories, our people and our history when white owned magazines would barely touch our communities, much less tell our stories in a balanced way.

Without EBONY and JET, much of the Civil Rights history probably wouldn't have seen the light of day. Many of Dr. King's essays were published in the pages of EBONY. Our iconic stars on stage, screen, television and the sporting worlds wouldn't have gotten the coverage they deserved.

Our history would have less documentation, especially in the 70's when it seemed that every time you turned around there was another African-American breaking new ground or we had another 'First Black' making history.

And tell the truth, many of you already have copies of the issues of EBONY and JET relating to the historic 2008 election of President Obama, the inauguration and the historic Obama administration.

One of the reasons that African descended supermodels grace the catwalks now is because of Eunice Johnson and the Ebony Fashion Fair. Not only did it clue designers in on the fact that Black women had dollars to spend on high fashion clothes, the traveling fashion show has raised tens of thousands of dollars over the years for various charitable organizations in the African-American community.

Fashion Fair Cosmetics and its success clued white owned makeup companies into the fact there was a large customer base they weren't meeting the needs of.

But on the other hand both those magazines have been behind the curve for a while in terms of developments inside the AA GLBT/SGL community, something I've long complained about on TransGriot.

It's sad for example, when Isis got more love in white owned magazines than she did in our iconic Black ones (and ESSENCE falls in that category as well).

I'm for giving Linda Johnson Rice the help she needs because the Johnson family deserves that much from us. I'm seriously thinking about renewing my subscription especially since I'm buying them off the racks so much these days I may as well save myself some cash and get it delivered to the crib.

But my support comes with a condition and an ultimatum. I want EBONY and JET to do a better job of covering the entire African-American community. News of our community just doesn't begin and end in middle class African-American communities. There needs to be a serious effort toward inclusive coverage of the entire spectrum of the AA community.

Because as someone who grew up around Black radio and knows the power of Black owned media, it's easier to tell your story when you own the printing press, the television show and the radio station as opposed to depending upon someone else with built in biases to honestly tell the story of your people for you.