Glendale Community College
Multicultural & Community Engagement Center Presents
Black History Month Profiles - 2024

Alvin Ailey
Dancer, Choreographer, Civil Rights Activists
1931-1989

Long before it was popular to tweet #BlackLivesMatter, Alvin Ailey was embodying this truth through his transcendent fusion of dance, theatrical narratives, and music. Alvin Ailey, Jr. may have been born in the virulently racist countryside of 1931’s Texas, but he grew up to create an institution where Black lives were treasured and people of all backgrounds were welcome to step into their greatness.

Ailey formed his own group, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, in 1958. The group presented its inaugural concert on March 30, 1958. Notable early work included Blues Suite, a piece deriving from blues songs. Ailey’s choreography was a dynamic and vibrant mix growing out of his previous training in ballet, modern dance, jazz, and African dance techniques. Ailey insisted upon a complete theatrical experience, including costumes, lighting, and make-up. A work of intense emotional appeal expressing the pain and anger of African Americans, Blues Suite was an instant success and defined Ailey’s style.

He received many accolades in his life including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Kennedy Center Honors acknowledgment, NAACP Spingarn Medal, United Nations Peace Medal, and after his death, having Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater designated as the United States’ cultural ambassador to the world.

But beyond the glamor of his charisma and success, few people know who Ailey really was. The tragedy there is that this secrecy likely led to his death at the age of 58. Indeed, when Ailey died from AIDS-related complications on December 1, 1989, he left a request that his doctor announce that terminal blood dyscrasia was the cause in order to spare his mother from the shame of being associated with AIDS.

Sources from:

• constantinenache
• pbs.org
  
   

Glendale Community College
Multicultural & Community Engagement Center Presents
Black History Month Profiles – 2024

Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Godmother of Rock n’ Roll
1915-1973

Tharpe was the daughter of farm labourer Willis Atkins and singer, mandolin player, and evangelist Katie Harper Atkins (later Katie Bell Nubin or “Mother Bell”). She began singing and playing guitar when she was only four years old. At the age of six, she and her mother sang gospel songs with an evangelical troupe that traveled throughout the South. She eventually settled in Chicago and started blending jazz and blues into her gospel performances.

In 1944 she recorded “Strange Things Happening Every Day” with jazz and boogie-woogie pianist Sammy Price. It was the first gospel song to reach the top 10 in Billboard’s “race” (later rhythm and blues) records chart. Some music scholars have argued that Tharpe’s rendition of “Strange Things Happening Every Day” can be viewed as the first rock-and-roll song and have branded her the “Godmother of Rock and Roll.”

Rock 'n' roll was bred between the church and the nightclubs in the soul of a queer black woman. She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars. It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock 'n' roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation.

She continued to perform up to her death in 1973 even though she battled diabetes and did little to treat her illness. In her later years, she returned to her gospel roots and recorded several gospel records but this backfired as her fan base was used to her more as a rock and roll performer.

Her life and success are explored in her biography “Shout, Sister, Shout!” written by Gayle Wald.

Sources:

• britannica.com - Biography of Sister-Rosetta-Tharpe
• npr.org Sister Rosetta Tharpe the godmother of rock n roll

Glendale Community College
Multicultural & Community Engagement Center Presents
Black History Month Profiles – 2024

Dr. Charles Richard Drew
Physician

Anyone who has ever had a blood transfusion owes a debt to Charles Richard Drew, whose immense contributions to the medical field made him one of the most important scientists of the 20th century. Drew helped develop America’s first large-scale blood banking program in the 1940s, earning him accolades as “the father of the blood bank.”

Drew won a sports scholarship for football and track and field at Amherst College, where a biology professor piqued his interest in medicine. At the time, racial segregation limited the options for medical training for African Americans, leading Drew to attend med school at McGill University in Montréal.

He then became the first Black student to earn a medical doctorate from Columbia University, where his interest in the science of blood transfusions led to groundbreaking work separating plasma from blood. This made it possible to store blood for a week – a huge breakthrough for doctors treating wounded soldiers in World War II.

In 1940, Drew led an effort to transport desperately needed blood and plasma to Great Britain, then under attack by Germany. The program saved countless lives and became a model for a Red Cross pilot program to mass-produce dried plasma. Ironically, the Red Cross at first excluded Black people from donating blood, making Drew ineligible to participate. That policy was later changed, but the Red Cross segregated blood donations by race, which Drew criticized as “unscientific and insulting.” Drew also pioneered the bloodmobile — a refrigerated truck that collected, stored and transported blood donations to where they were needed. After the war he taught medicine at Howard University and its hospital, where he fought to break down racial barriers for Black physicians.

Source: From cnn.com Profiles in perseverance

Glendale Community College 
Multicultural & Community Engagement Center Presents
Black History Month Profiles – 2024

Ethel Waters
Singer and Actor
1896-1977

Ethan Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1896. Her early years were marked by (what we now consider) trauma. She was born when her mom was only 13 years old. The pregnancy was the result of a sexual assault. Her grandmother knew that her mom was incapable of caring for Ethel so she decided to raise Ethel herself.

Much of her youth was spent in unstable housing and situations. She had to shoplift to eat sometimes and there was no one to really monitor or nurture her during the formative years.

When she was 20 years old and out with a group of friends at a nightclub, the performer for the evening didn’t show up and her friends suggested her as a replacement and the rest, as they say, is history. She became famous not just for her voice but how she interpreted and added deeper emotions to song lyrics. At a performance at the famed Cotton Club, Irving Berlin heard her and immediately recognized her unique talent.

Despite her extremely challenging life, she broke many barriers and achieved many milestones.

• Waters was the first Black woman to star in her own television show (1939). In 1950, she starred in another television show, Beulah. She continued to be the only Black woman with this credential.
• In 1949, Waters was the second Black woman nominated for an Academy Award.
• She was voted best actress by the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Carson McCullers’s stage play, The Member of the Wedding in 1950.
• In 1962 she was the first Black woman nominated for a primetime Emmy Award for a single performance by an actress in a series (“Goodnight Sweet Blues,” Route 66).
• In 1994, she was featured on a U.S. postage stamp, and in 2004, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Sources: www.americacomesalive.com and https://nmaahc.si.edu/ethel-waters

Glendale Community College 
Multicultural & Community Engagement Center Presents
Black History Month Profiles – 2024

Emmet Chappelle
Exobiologist, Chemist, and Astrochemist
1925-2019

Emmett Chappelle is an African-American scientist and inventor who worked for NASA for several decades. He is the recipient of 14 U.S. patents for inventions related to medicine, food science, and biochemistry. A member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Chappelle is one of the most distinguished African-American scientists and engineers of the 20th century.

Chappelle was drafted into the U.S. Army right after graduating from Phoenix Union Colored High School in 1942. Chappelle was later reassigned to the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division and served in Italy. After returning to the United States, he went on to study electrical engineering and earn his associate's degree from Phoenix College. He then earned a B.S. in biology from the University of California at Berkeley.

After graduating, Chappelle went on to teach at the Meharry Medical College in Nashville from 1950 to 1953, where he also conducted his own research. His work was soon recognized by the scientific community and he accepted an offer to study at the University of Washington, where he received his master's degree in biology in 1954. Chappelle continued his graduate studies at Stanford University, though he did not complete a Ph.D. degree. In 1958, Chappelle joined the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore, Maryland, where his research on photosynthesis contributed to the creation of an oxygen supply system for astronauts.

Chappelle earned an Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA for his work. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society of Photobiology, the American Society of Microbiology, and the American Society of Black Chemists. Throughout his career, he has mentored talented minority high school and college students in his laboratories. In 2007, Chappelle was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on bioluminescence. He is often included on lists of the most important scientists of the 20th century.

Source: Biography of Emmett Chappelle from thoughtco.com