It’s February, Black History Month, so, like many of you, I’ve been watching the late Henry Hampton’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning, Oscar-nominated documentary series, “Eyes on the Prize”, narrated by the late Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) co-founder, and Georgia Senator, Julian Bond, who died in 2015. I’ve been watching this acclaimed series since shortly after undergraduate school, always waiting to spot the name of a fellow alum listed in the ending credits, who worked on publicity for the film.
Back in the early ’90s, when the series was readily available on VHS for free from most public libraries, I was an adjunct GED instructor at Brooklyn College. I showed an episode of “Eyes on the Prize” to my night class of immigrants from several different countries on the last day of the semester while we sampled favorite “food from home” that the students brought in for our potluck meal. (Sidebar: After a pause in the series’ broadcast for several years due to the expiration of rights and licensing of copyright footage, foundation grants enabled the Blackside Film production company to renew its rights in 2005, leading, ultimately, to the premiere of “Eyes on the Prize III: We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest” this year on HBO on February 25th.) Catch the original series all this month (and, of course, at other times during the year) on your PBS affiliate (including WPPT-Pittsburgh), worldchannel.org, or through the PBS app. Other Black History-themed films shown this month include:
“Ida B. Wells: An American Story”
“The Six Triple Eight” (with Kerry Washington, the true story of the 6888 all-Black female WWII battalion
“Olympic Pride: American Prejudice”
“James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket”
Henry Louis Gates “Great Migration”, about the movement of Blacks from the South to the West and North
“Red Tails” (2012) starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. (“Selma”), David Oyelowo, and Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”), produced by George Lucas, based on the book, “Red Tails, Black Wings: America’s Black Air Force”, about the Tuskegee Air Men
Watching these films you will learn for instance, that in 1932, on the train ride to California, the famed athlete Babe Didrikson, angry that Black women had been accepted to compete in the Olympics, dumped a bucket of ice water on sprinters Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes while they were sleeping. Are those two names unfamiliar to you? Probably because the American Olympic Committee (AOC) pulled both Black women out of competition at the last minute and replaced them with two white runners, depriving them of the opportunity to make history.
Having read Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Nickel Boys” several years ago (and recommending it to the book club for the blind that I led for ten years), I was very happy to read the announcement of the opening of the film last December.
This Oscar-nominated film, now available to stream on MGM+, and Prime Video this spring, reveals the horrors of 1960s institutional racism, abuse, and corruption in a reform school in the Jim Crow South.
And if you’re a Denzel Washington fan (and who isn’t?), you’ll want to catch him on Broadway in “Othello”, opening February 24th.
I tell anyone who’ll listen about the thrill of seeing him (with a ponytail!) in 1990 in “Richard the Third” at the Delacorte Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park in Central Park. I’m certain I will never be able to get such excellent (close up!) seats again!
But while honoring the sacrifices of those who came before us (and current celebrities) we must never forget to celebrate the trailblazers who walk among us every day.
In Season 5, episode 14 of the series, “Blackish”, that originally aired February 27, 2019, guest starring Octavia Butler (“The Help”), Dre (Anthony Anderson, previously from “Law and Order”) is asked to speak at his twins’ school on the last day of Black History Month, after he complains to their teacher that she only recognizes the same three Black historical figures every year: Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver, and Frederick Douglass. Dre tells his wife, Rainbow, that the twins are receiving the same “basic, surface-level” education about Black History Month as he did when he was their age. But after his wife (Tracee Ross) counters with the names of female heroes and their children offer a list of young, current entertainers, he finally admits that he can’t name anyone other than the familiar three historical figures. Embarrassed and about to cancel his presentation, Dre begins to realize that the living,everyday trailblazers all around them must be celebrated too. Like the twins’ own principal who’d become the first Black woman in that position! How’s that for a creative way of driving home a memorable lesson?
This month I honor the late Willis McClain-my Uncle “Mac”-a high school janitor and a genius, living among us during my childhood. (Yes, I’m biased, but it’s absolutely true.) A kind, soft-spoken (in an otherwise opinionated extended family!), generous, brilliant man who collected books, read all the time, and had the rare talent of explaining the nuance of nearly any topic, without intimidating or patronizing his listener, I’m certain that in another era, under other circumstances, my Uncle Mac would have been a renowned inventor, highly esteemed professor, and popular speaker in demand.
Think about it. You know many of the “everyday trailblazers” in Trenton. Have you or your children attended the Foundation Academy Charter School, or benefited from after school tutoring at the Young Scholars Institute on West State Street? Do you remember the friendly, statuesque, older African American crossing guard at the corner of West State Street and Rutgers Place? You can read my profile of him in my 2019 article in Trenton Daily, “Jesse Hoagland: A Living Legend in the West Ward”
(July 31, 2019) (https://www.trentondaily.com/jesse-hoagland-a-living-legend). The 80+ Mr. Jesse Hoagland, who retired from his post a few years ago, was much more than a dedicated crossing guard. Having moved to Trenton as a young man, the Trenton High School alum (active on their basketball team) and a legendary local sports entrepreneur (he invented weightlifting equipment that revolutionized the sport), was a walking, talking “encyclopedia” (Reader, if you’re not familiar with that word, ask an older relative!) of Trenton history and culture. As someone who did not grow up in Trenton, I could listen to him for hours.
I learned that Edward Frederick worked for 36 years in several different positions at Mercer County Community College’s James Kerney Campus, including the positions of Dean for Evening Students, and Assistant Dean, and Director of Counseling.
Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ 12th district since 2015) is the first Black woman from New Jersey to serve in the U.S. Congress from 1998 to 2015 for the 15th legislative district).
Take a few minutes to chat with the retirees at your church, your barbershop or salon, or the bus drivers who take you to work or school. Busy making a living and raising a family, the extended family of my childhood only occasionally reminisced about their past. By the time I was 16 years old and left home for college, I’d missed out on the many opportunities to hear their stories of challenge and triumph. Don’t wait until you happen upon a tiny March on Washington or “I Like Ike” button wedged between the shelves of the linen closet while you’re cleaning out a house after a funeral. That’s what I did when I went back to my hometown for my Dad’s funeral when I was 24 years old. Don’t wait. Ask them now. Today.
