Glory

from wikipedia

Glory is a 1989 Academy Award-winning drama based on the history of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment during the American Civil War. The 54th was one of the first formal units of the U.S. Army to be made up entirely of African American men (apart from the officers). The first was the 1st South Carolina
Robert Shaw is a determined leader who is hard on his troops. Even through his hard training, Robert will go to great lengths for his men. Colonel Shaw storms the office of the division supply officer, demanding 600 pairs of shoes and 1,200 pairs of socks. He sacrifices himself to inspire his men to stand up to storm the ramparts and charge the enemy at the Battle of Fort Wagner.
Though shot, he bravely continues to charge until he is shot 2 more times. His death causes his men to stand and charge, with Major Cabot Forbes and others yelling "Robert!" as they do so.
Major Cabot Forbes
Joined with Thomas and Shaw into the 54th regiment shortly after its creation. Shaw had asked Cabot to be the executive officer (second-in-command) of the regiment after the Governor and Frederick Douglass offered the position of commanding officer to Shaw. Forbes feels Shaw is too hard on his men, protesting Shaw's actions on multiple occasions. Forbes led the attack on Fort Wagner after Shaw was shot down, and his fate (death, capture by the Confederates, or departure from the battlefield) is not revealed in the film, although it is suggested that he is killed by cannon fire.Trip is an escaped slave who enlists in Shaw's regiment.
Private Trip
Trip is depicted as an embittered and angry escaped slave who is in the Army for the opportunity to take revenge on Southern slave owners. Trip is fearless, arrogant, callous, and so anxious for combat that he wants to fight anyone. He takes delight in teasing Searles, whom he resents for being a well-educated black man and calls him "Snowflake" because Thomas has not experienced slavery or hard work, and because he is a close friend of the regiment's commander. During basic training Trip sneaks away from camp, desperate for shoes. He is brought back under the premise of a deserter and is whipped. As the movie progresses, Trip is unrelenting in his harassment of Thomas, in an effort to provoke Thomas into a fight. He almost succeeds, but the altercation is stopped by Rawlins. Trip berates Rawlins for being a high ranking black soilder and ordering everyone around, he insults Rawlins by calling him the "white man's dog". Rawlins then proceeds to slap Trip in the face and lectures him about what it means to be a soldier. Trip gradually changes his attitude as the regiment finally starts seeing combat. He is killed during the charge on Fort Wagner.
John Rawlins is a middle-aged former slave. He is first seen by Colonel Shaw digging graves after the Battle of Antietam. Rawlins is one of the many African Americans who answer the call to arms by enlisting in Shaw's regiment. As the movies progresses, Shaw looks to Rawlins as a leader amongst the black soldiers, as well as a source of information on their feelings and needs. Rawlins is soon promoted to Sergeant Major making him the highest ranking enlisted man in the regiment.
Private Jupiter Sharts
An African American man who is unable to read, but throughout the movie gets help from Thomas. One of the best shooters in the regiment. His fate at the battle of Fort Wagner is unknown like Forbes, Rawlins, and Searles.
Corporal Thomas Searles
A childhood friend of Shaw and Forbes, he is the first to volunteer for the 54th. Because he is educated, can read and speaks "like a white man," Trip makes mean fun of him. Throughout the film Searles has a rocky relationship with Trip but just before the battle of Fort Wagner they become friends. His fate at the battle of Fort Wagner is unknown.
* The film depicts the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry training through the Christmas holidays of presumably 1862 (after the September 1862 Battle of Antietam,) but the real 54th Massachusetts did not organize until March 1863, and they were engaged in their first battle on James Island, SC on 16 July 1863, and then Battery Wagner (the final battle in the film) on 18 July 1863.
* The film suggests that most of the black soldiers were former slaves from Southern secessionist states who wished to fight for the abolitionist North, but in fact the majority were born free in the North, although some did escape from slavery.
* Of the major characters in the movie's version of the regiment, only Robert Gould Shaw was a real person. The rest are composite characters. The name of Shaw's executive officer (Cabot Forbes) is a combination of the first name from one of the real Shaw's friends and the last name of another.
* In the film, Shaw is offered and accepts the job to be the commanding officer of the 54th on the same day. In reality, he rejected the offer once and accepted only after many days. Shaw is also shown as promoted directly to colonel, whereas his record indicates he was a major for several months as the regiment grew in strength and was at last promoted to colonel just prior to the regiment being deployed.
* Flogging was banned in the Union Army in 1861. Pvt. Trip would not have been whipped, at least not by someone as by-the-book as Col. Shaw.
* The incident just before the charge into Fort Wagner in which Colonel Shaw points to the flag bearer and asks "If this man should fall, who will lift the flag and carry on?" is based on a real event. However, the person who asked the question was General George Crockett Strong; Shaw was the person who responded. When the flag bearer fell, another black soldier, Sergeant William Harvey Carney, grabbed the flag and carried it all the way to the bulwarks of Fort Wagner. He remained there under enemy fire until the 54th was forced to retreat. Sergeant Carney struggled back to Union lines with the flag, receiving four wounds from which he recovered. Carney became the first black recipient of the Medal of Honor.
* Colonel Shaw was married, but his wife is not depicted in the film.
* The manner in which Colonel Shaw dies in the movie is based on fact. His final words were "Onward, Fifty-fourth!" before he was shot several times in the chest. However, though the film depicts him falling on the parapet, he in fact made it to the top and his body fell into the fort.
* The final scene of the film shows Shaw's body being thrown into the burial pit alongside his fallen men. This is historically accurate, although his body was in fact first stripped of his uniform,[2] but in the film, only his shoes and socks are missing. When Shaw's parents inquired about his body, the Confederate commander responded, "We buried him with his niggers." It seems to have been meant as an insult, but Shaw's father later said that he was proud that his son was buried next to his men.
* In the movie, it is claimed that "over half" of the regiment was lost during the assault on Fort Wagner. However, official records state that the 54th sustained 272 casualties, which is closer to 40%. Of these casualties, only 116 were fatalities, just under one fifth of the men to storm the fort. If the 156 soldiers that were captured are included, it would bring the total to "over half". In formal military terms, though, "casualties" include captured soldiers.
* The movie's epilogue also claims that "the fort was never taken." While it is true that the fort was never taken by force, it was abandoned by the Confederate Army two months later.
* In the movie, the ocean is on the left side of the regiment when they charge the fort; this was allegedly done in order to get the best quality of light at the time of filming. In reality, however, the regiment charged with the ocean on their right, coming from the south.
* The real second in command was Lt. Colonel Edwin Hallowell. The fictional Major Cabot Forbes, played by Cary Elwes, is based on him. Although he was seriously wounded, Hallowell did survive the attack on the fort and led the regiment until it disbanded in 1865. He retired with the rank of Brigadier General.
* In the movie, Shaw is surprised when the men refuse pay that was reduced because they are a "colored" regiment (though he eventually joins them in their refusal). In reality, the refusal was his idea, and he encouraged them to do it (in other words, "tear it up").
* In the attack on Fort Wagner, the regiment volunteers to be the vanguard of the charge, when in fact they did not volunteer, but were commanded to lead the charge.
* Years after the film was made, it came to light that the word Glory was used by one of the men of the Regiment. First Sergeant Robert John Simmons, of B Company, was a twenty-six year old Bermudian clerk, probably from St. George's, believed to have joined the 54th on 12th March, 1863 (many Black and White Bermudians fought for the Union, mostly in the US Navy. Many more profiteered from the war by smuggling arms to the South). Simmons was introduced to Frances George Shaw, father of Col. Shaw, by William Wells Brown, who described him as "a young man of more than ordinary abilities who had learned the science of war in the British Army". In his book, The Negro in the American Rebellion, Brown said that "Frances George Shaw remarked at the time that Simmons would make a 'valuable soldier'. Col. Shaw also had a high opinion of him". Sgt. Simmons was mentioned in an 1863 article of the Weekly Columbus Enquirer, which described him as "a brave man and of good education. He was wounded and captured. Taken to Charleston, his bearing impressed even his captors. After suffering amputation of the arm, he died there." The newspaper also described him as saying that he fought "for glory". Simmons, who has been specially mentioned among the enlisted men of the 54th, and who had been awarded a private medal, died in August, 1863, following the attack on Fort Wagner.

Black History Coloring Pages: Herbie Hancock And Denzel Washington

The Real Great Debaters

from 1/5/08 from pseudo-intellectualism I was doing research on the history behind the great debaters and found that the Marshall News Messenger, (in Marshall, Texas, the home of Wiley College) supplies an audio transcript of many of their articles.
why can't the nytimes do that? why can't we do that for our school kids? what happened to using to technology to enhance education rather than in just measuring it?
I used the audio as a background for a slide show of images from the movie and their real life counterparts, Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (played by Denzel) and James Farmer and Hetman Sweatt (two of the student debaters)

the transcript By Phil Latham
Sunday, December 16, 2007
I cannot write an objective review of "The Great Debaters."
I had intended to do just that, but it did not take more than a few minutes into the movie Thursday night for me to figure out that simply was not going to happen.
Having been publisher and editor of The Marshall News Messenger for almost 11 years now, I have seen too much, know too much, talked to too many Wiley graduates, heard too many stories.
So it would be meaningless for me to, say, give it "two thumbs up!" or talk about how it moved me and all those around me, or how I got the chill bumps watching and listening to the debaters, though I knew exactly how the story was going to end.
First things first, calling this a movie "inspired" by a true story is the perfect word to use. Inspiring fits in every single sense of that word. The movie and the facts do differ a bit, though perhaps not all that much. Historically, it is significant that the team debated the University of Southern California and not Harvard, for instance. It is also important to note that USC is not the only top college debated — and beaten. Those include Texas Christian University and the University of California.
But in tone and spirit, this movie is 100 percent, dead-on, accurate. What's more, it does so without falling into cliches. People rise and people fall. The debate team may be successful, but that does not come without a real price and real pain.
I don't want to give away too much of the movie, but it is also clearly implied that the success is by no means complete. Well, no surprise there, really. After all, the debate team had to come back to the Jim Crow South.
It struck me somewhere in the movie that this was a perfect allegory for the entire history of Wiley College — though I confess I don't know it as thoroughly as I should.
Wiley College was founded in the beginning as nothing more than a dream. As a reality the dream faced real struggles for survival, it faced loss, disappointment, victory, then more struggle.
The cycle goes on today. In just the time I have been here I have seen all of that and sometimes it happens in rapid succession. Resources are tight for tax-supported institutions and the scramble for student tuitions is a battle even among colleges that are far more well-heeled.
I believe it is assumed that there is some sort of safety net for Wiley College, some magic that is going to keep the college afloat no matter what. Maybe some think just because Wiley has endured for 134 years it always will.
This kind of mindset might keep you from slipping $10 — or $10,000 if you have it — into an envelope and sending it to help Wiley meet the challenges of the next generation of "great debaters."
Indeed, maybe Wiley will always survive, but the question for Marshall — and I'm talking about all of Marshall here — is will it thrive? Merely having a set of buildings on University Avenue doesn't mean much.
We need to ensure that the educational spirit that flowered in the time of Melvin B. Tolson is continued or rekindled if need be.
"The Great Debaters" can and will be a huge boon for the city of Marshall. The movie could have made Marshall look terrible — it does show racism, but what you see is typical of what happened in Jim Crow days — but it passes on that and accentuates the positive in the story.
As a community, we owe Wiley College for the past, for the present and, perhaps most of all, for the future that is to come.
We've waited long enough to pay up. I suggest we get to it.

The Great Debaters Premiere

from 1/5/08 from pseudo-intellectualism About Melvin Tolson from wikipedia

Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (February 6, 1898–August 29, 1966) was an American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and politician. His work concentrated on the experience of African Americans and includes several poetic histories. He was a contemporary of the Harlem Renaissance and, although he was not a participant in it, his work reflects its influences. Liberia declared Tolson as its poet laureate in 1947.
Born in Moberly, Missouri, Tolson was the son of a Methodist minister and an Afro-Creek mother. His family moved between various churches in the Missouri and Iowa area until finally settling in the Kansas City area. He graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1919 and enrolled in Fisk University. He transferred toLincoln University that year for financial reasons. Tolson graduated with honors in 1924, then moved to Marshall, Texas, to teach speech and English at Wiley College. While at Wiley, Tolson built up an award-winning debate team; during their tour in 1935, they competed against the Harvard College. Denzel Washington directed the film The Great Debaters, based on this event, released on 25 December 2007.
Tolson mentored students such as James L. Farmer, Jr. and Herman Sweatt at Wiley. He encouraged his students not only to be well-rounded people but also to stand up for their rights, a controversial position in the U.S. South of the early and mid-20th century.
He took a leave of absence to earn a Master's degree from Columbia University in 1930-31, but didn't complete it until 1940. Tolson began teaching at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma, in 1947; that year, Liberia declared him its poet laureate. He also entered local politics and served four terms as mayor of Langston from 1954 to 1960. One of his students at Langston was Nathan Hare, the black studies pioneer, who later became the founding publisher of The Black Scholar.
Tolson was a man of impressive intellect who created poetry that was “funny, witty, humoristic, slapstick, rude, cruel, bitter, and hilarious,” as Karl Shapiro had said of the Harlem Gallery. He was a dramatist and director of the Dust Bowl Theater at Langston University. Langston Hughes described him as “no highbrow. Students revere him and love him. Kids from the cotton fields like him. Cow punchers understand him ... He’s a great talker.”
In 1965, Tolson was appointed to a two-year term at Tuskegee Institute, where he was Avalon Poet. He died in the middle of his appointment after cancer surgery in Dallas, Texas, on August 29, 1966. He is buried in Langston.
From 1930 on, Tolson began writing poetry, and in 1941, Dark Symphony, often considered his greatest work, was published in Atlantic Monthly. Dark Symphony compares and contrasts African-American and European-American history. In 1944 Tolson published his first poetry collection, Rendezvous with America, which includes Dark Symphony. The Washington Tribune hired Tolson to write a weekly column, Cabbage and Caviar, after he left his teaching position at Wiley in the late 1940s.
His Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953), another major work, is in the form of an epic poem.
In 1965, Tolson's final work to appear in his lifetime, the long poem Harlem Gallery, was published. The poem consists of several sections, each beginning with a letter of the Greek alphabet. The poem concentrates on African American life and is a drastic departure from his first works. The poems he wrote in New York were published posthumously in 1979 as A Gallery of Harlem Portraits. It is a mixture of various styles as well as free verse. The racially diverse and culturally rich community presented in A Gallery of Harlem Portraits may be based on or intended to be
Marshall, Texas.

Quotes of Tolson

"England and France and Italy now exploit 500,000,000 colored peoples. For what? For dollars. For profits in gold and oil and rubber and agricultural products. But at home the masses of the population in these countries tear out their lives against economic injustices. That's the cancer that will eat away these dishonorable governments."
May 28, 1938
In fact, the first slaves sold at Jamestown were not black men – but white women. They were sold for tobacco.
The Indians did not have jails. Justice among the Indians was impartial. Just the opposite was true among white men. The Indian was not treacherous and cruel in the beginning. He learned that from the white men. At Plymouth, in 1620, the Rev. Mr. Cushman pleaded with the white "Christians" to be as kind and sincere as the red men. Nov. 25, 1939
Life consists of caviar and cabbage. Plenty of cabbage. Somebody called Washington the City Beautiful. In spite of the Negro tenements where the rats jitterbug all day and all night, and the lice do the lindy hop!
Sept. 28, 1940
There can be no democracy without economic equality. Thomas Jefferson said that when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. There can be no brotherhood of man without a brotherhood of dollars. I have another theory. It is based on economic and racial brotherhood. I presume to call this the Merry-Go-Round of History. On the merry-go-round all the seats are on the same level. Nobody goes up; therefore, nobody has to come down. That is democracy, as I see it. In a brotherhood, all the members are equal.
Oct. 19, 1940
I once heard Dr. Aggrey, the black South African, call Africa the question mark of the centuries. This bloody question mark has faced every civilized nation. No white nation has been moral enough to answer the Africans with justice and democracy.
Nov. 21, 1942

This is a short excerpt from Melvin B. Tolson's epic poem, "Dark Symphony," published in Atlantic Monthly in 1940.

"Black slaves singing One More River to Cross
In the torture tombs of slave-ships,
Black slaves singing Steal Away to Jesus
In jungle swamps
Black slaves singing The Crucifixion
In slave-pens at midnight,
Black slaves singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
In cabins of death,
Black slaves singing Go Down, Moses
In the canebrakes of the Southern Pharaohs."

Bumpy Johnson: The Real American Gangster

from 11/07/07 from pseudo-intellectualism Audio: from the American Gangster trailer. Pics: first section includes Bumpy Johnson and his wife (now 93 years old), Mayme Johnson. The next section are still s from the 1997 film "Hoodlum," which was loosely based on his life. It starred Lawrence Fishbourne.
The real rap on 'Bumpy'
'Harlem Godfather' widow, living here, spills it By JENICE M. ARMSTRONG
Philadelphia Daily News MAYME JOHNSON, the widow of the infamous Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, has no plans to see "American Gangster," a film about one of her husband's former associates. "I don't want to see it because it's not true," she said last week, from a senior facility in Philadelphia. Spry until a recent leg injury left her using a wheelchair, Johnson, 93, can still recall the lavish existence she shared with one of America's most legendary crime bosses, a man whose criminal enterprises ranged from prostitution to numbers running to drugs, beginning in the '20s and '30s. It was a life of spacious New York City apartments, European travel, fur coats, hobnobbing with black celebrities and literary types from the Harlem Renaissance - and it almost never included Frank Lucas.
"American Gangster" is based on Lucas' claims of having been a personal assistant and enforcer for Johnson, as well as his heir-apparent. Lucas, who is portrayed by Denzel Washington in the film, claims to have been Johnson's driver for 15 years - which Johnson's widow angrily disputes.
"I don't agree with anything Frank Lucas has said. To me, he's a sick man. I think he's a total liar," she told me. "I've thought about reaching out to him and punching him in his face, knocking out his teeth. He's a sick man."
Lucas, she said, has inflated his role in Johnson's crime syndicate. To her husband, Lucas was a mere flunky - someone Johnson might have allowed to carry his coat. According to Johnson's widow, Lucas didn't meet Johnson until 1963, after Johnson's parole from prison on a 10-year drug conspiracy charge. Johnson died five years later.
"Bumpy never had nobody to drive him for 15 years," Johnson said.
She insisted that Lucas may have driven Johnson a few times, at most. Karen E. Quinones Miller, a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who's written a book about Johnson called "Harlem Godfather: The Rap on my Husband, Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson" pointed out, "Bumpy died in 1968. He got out of prison in '63. Did Frank drive him when he was in Alcatraz? He's never been out on the street for 15 years."
Miller, who met Johnson as a child, pointed out that in the movie, Lucas is shown entering an appliance store with Johnson, who then collapses with a heart attack. In reality, Johnson's heart attack happened while he was dining at Wells Restauraunt, which is known worldwide for its fried chicken and waffles. He died in the arms of his childhood friend, Junie Byrd - not Lucas. "We were watching the Lawrence Welk show that night," his widow remembers. They'd just eaten the dinner he'd requested - lima beans and chicken wings. "And he says, 'Well, I'm going to bed.' He went on in the room and I stayed out in the kitchen. [Later] I went in to bed and he said, 'I think I'll go out.' I said, 'If you feel well enough to go out.'
"He got up and put $500 in his pocket," she added. Since Johnson's driver's license was suspended, Byrd drove him to a card game. After losing all but $30, he walked over to Wells, a popular after-hours watering hole. Johnson ordered a fried chicken leg and hominy grits. Then, he was seen slumping at the table. A nurse who happened to be dining nearby attempted to revive him. Someone ran to get Byrd, who made it back in time to pick Johnson up into his arms and say, "I've got you n-----." Johnson smiled and died. "Frank Lucas was nowhere around. Bumpy did not die with Frank Lucas. All of his talk is lies," Mayme Johnson said vehemently.
A BET episode about "American Gangster" that aired Wednesday night left her especially infuriated. "Did anyone notice that he said we lived on the corner of 121st Street, and then he pointed to a brownstone and said, 'Right there. My boss lived right there?' Well, Bumpy and I lived on 120th Street. Two West 120th Street to be exact. And we lived in an apartment building [apartment 3I], not a brownstone."
Johnson was a largely self-educated man who wrote poetry and studied philosophy when he was incarcerated. Hugely popular, he was known for throwing big Christmas parties for underprivileged youngsters and paying residents' rent when they were on the verge of eviction. "He loved Harlem and Harlem loved him. When he came out of prison, they gave him a parade," Miller said. Johnson pointed out, "Bumpy did good for a lot of people." As for his criminal activities, she said she didn't let that bother her. "I loved him. It didn't make any difference what he was doing. He was good to me. I had everything in life I wanted," she said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd still marry him." *

American Gangster

from 9/14/06 from pseudo-intellectualism

Some of the teachers were planning a Friday neighborhood walk with their kids to view the set for a new movie, "American Gangster," starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. It was being filmed between 122-123rd Streets and Malcom X Blvd. (Lenox). I checked it out at lunchtime and caught a lucky shot of Denzel, before being shooed away by the usual set "thugs." To the left of Denzel is director Ridley (Gladiator) Scott. Denzel appeared very pensive, looking like he was getting into his role, I did some research on the movie and found that it was based on the life of the infamous Harlem "druglord" Frank (Superfly) Lucas, with an extended NYMag piece by Mark Jacobson providing the inspiration. Here's the link to it. It's an incredible view of the drug trade in Harlem in the late 60's, early 70's. Here's a slide show I put together of pictures I took, along with some background info and shots of the stars.