Anksunamen for Corner Talk Report! This month Corner Talk Report will be celebrating Black History Month with a spotlight on great men and women who contributed to the Nubian Historical experience in Music, Film, Stage, Television, Politics, Religion and the universal Struggle.......Butch Leake
Pearl Mae Bailey was an American black actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. Born in Southampton County in southeastern Virginia to Ella Mae Ricks and Joseph Bailey, and reared in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia. Pearl made her stage-singing debut at age 15. She began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs in the 1930s. This was on the suggestion of her brother Bill Bailey that she enter an amateur contest at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia. She won the amateur song-and-dance contest and was later offered a job there for 35 dollars a week but the show closed in the middle of the engagement and she never go paid, She later entered another contest at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem New York City. From there she decide to pursue a career in entertainment. During world war two Pearl toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her formal Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman. and continued to tour and record albums in between her stage and screen performances. Early in the television medium, Bailey guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. In 1954 her film credits were quite impressive she took the role of Frankie in the film version of Carmen Jones, and her rendition of "Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum" is one of the highlights of the film. Other credits include the role of Maria in the film version of Porgy and Bess, starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. the role of "Aunt Hagar" in the movie St. Louis Blues, alongside Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and Nat King Cole. She starred in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. During the 1970s she had her own television show, and she also provided voices for animations such as Tubby the Tuba (1976) and Disney's The Fox and the Hound (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of Hello, Dolly!. She earned a B.A. in theology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1985, at age 67. She married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London on November 19, 1952. A republican, she was awarded the Bronze Medallion (New York City award. In her later years Bailey wrote several books: The Raw Pearl (1968), Talking to Myself (1971), Pearl's Kitchen (1973), and Hurry Up America and Spit (1976). In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford. Her last book, Between You and Me (1989), details her experiences with higher education.rd) in 1968 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Pearl passed away at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia on August 17, 1990.
There have been many great thinkers in the African universe of scholastic thought in both past and present periods, to name a few like Stokley Carmichael and Malcolm X. Yet as I look back to my earlier studies one man who stands out in profound radical thinking during his day was Cheikh Anta Diop. Born in Thieytou,l, Diourbel Region, French Senegal. Diop was born to an aristocratic Muslim Wolof family in Senegal where he was educated in a traditional Islamic school. Diop's family was part of the Mouride brotherhood, the only independent Muslim group in Africa according to Diop. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Senegal before moving to Paris for graduate studies, where he ended his scholastic education. In 1946, at the age of 23, Diop went to Paris to study and initially enrolled to study higher mathematics. but in the end enrolled to study philosophy in the Faculty of Arts of the Sorbonne. Which after he gained his first degree (licence) in philosophy in 1948. He then enrolled in the Faculty of Sciences, receiving two diplomas in chemistry in 1950. It was in 1949 that Diop registered a proposed title for a Doctor of Letters thesis, "The Cultural Future of African thought" under the direction of Professor Gaston Bachelard. In 1951 he registered a second thesis title "Who were the pre-dynastic Egyptians" under Professor Marcel Griaule. He completed his thesis on pre-dynastic Egypt in 1954 but could not find a jury of examiners for it: he later published many of his ideas as the book "Nations nègres et culture". In 1956 he re-registered a new proposed thesis for Doctor of Letters with the title "The areas of matriarchy and patriarchy in ancient times." From 1956, he taught physics and chemistry in two Paris lycees as an assistant master, before moving to the College de France. In 1957 he registered his new thesis title "Comparative study of political and social systems of Europe and Africa, from Antiquity to the formation of modern states." The new topics did not relate to ancient Egypt, but were concerned with the forms of organisation of African and European societies and how they evolved. He obtained his doctorate in 1960. A most controversial historian Diop rattled academia during his day particularly in the area of Egyptian studies on the indigenious population of Egypt as he put it in his thesis was populated by black people. A political activist! Diop from his early days in Paris was active in the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), an African nationalist organisation led byFelix Houphouet-Boigny. He was general secretary of the RDA students in Paris from 1950 to 1953.
This month Corner Talk Report will be celebrating Black History Month with a spotlight on
great men and woman who contributed to the Nubian Historical Experience in Music,
Politics, Religion and Struggle...... Butch Leake
