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vintageblackglamour: Actor Graham Brown, pictured on one of his actor composite photos from the 1960s. Born Robert Elwood Brown in Harlem on October 24, 1924, Mr. Brown was an actor whose career spanned more than five decades. A World War II veteran, he began acting in Army shows before enrolling in college at Howard University, where he was a member of the Howard University Players theater group and graduated in 1949. Over the last few months, I have had the honor of analyzing and organizing Mr. Brown’s personal collection of photographs, papers and other historically and culturally relevant ephemera, for donation to a major institution on behalf of his family. I could hardly believe my eyes at some of the things I held in my hands in the Harlem office where I spent hours examining Mr. Brown’s collection: a personal letter to Mr. Brown from Harold Jackman, a prominent Harlem Renaissance figure. Mr. Brown’s Howard Players member card, programs from their plays, and a photo of them in Norway at the home of the Norwegian ambassador, surrounding him at his piano in 1949. There are pages and pages of Mr. Brown’s writing: attempts at poems, short stories, English homework and drafts of articles he wrote for Howard’s school newspaper, “The Hilltop” and copies of the actual newspapers. There are Columbia University bursar’s receipts from 1952 (he briefly attended graduate school there) and show programs, posters, tickets, letters and photos from much of his life and career. Mr. Brown was a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, where he worked with actors such as Roxie Roker (his Howard classmate) in “The River Niger,” Laurence Fishburne and Esther Rolle. He was also in several productions of the Greenwich Mews Theater, a theater famous for it’s integrated productions in the 1950s and a member of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. In the 1960s and 1970s, made several appearances on Broadway (Gore Vidal’s “Weekend”) and with Joseph’s Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival, including “The Black Picture Show” in 1975. His film credits included “Malcolm X,” “Clockers,” “Sanford & Son,” and “Law & Order.” Mr. Brown died on December 13, 2011 at the age of 87.
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vintageblackglamour:

Actor Graham Brown, pictured on one of his actor composite photos from the 1960s. Born Robert Elwood Brown in Harlem on October 24, 1924, Mr. Brown was an actor whose career spanned more than five decades. A World War II veteran, he began acting in Army shows before enrolling in college at Howard University, where he was a member of the Howard University Players theater group and graduated in 1949. Over the last few months, I have had the honor of analyzing and organizing Mr. Brown’s personal collection of photographs, papers and other historically and culturally relevant ephemera, for donation to a major institution on behalf of his family. I could hardly believe my eyes at some of the things I held in my hands in the Harlem office where I spent hours examining Mr. Brown’s collection: a personal letter to Mr. Brown from Harold Jackman, a prominent Harlem Renaissance figure. Mr. Brown’s Howard Players member card, programs from their plays, and a photo of them in Norway at the home of the Norwegian ambassador, surrounding him at his piano in 1949. There are pages and pages of Mr. Brown’s writing: attempts at poems, short stories, English homework and drafts of articles he wrote for Howard’s school newspaper, “The Hilltop” and copies of the actual newspapers. There are Columbia University bursar’s receipts from 1952 (he briefly attended graduate school there) and show programs, posters, tickets, letters and photos from much of his life and career. Mr. Brown was a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, where he worked with actors such as Roxie Roker (his Howard classmate) in “The River Niger,” Laurence Fishburne and Esther Rolle. He was also in several productions of the Greenwich Mews Theater, a theater famous for it’s integrated productions in the 1950s and a member of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. In the 1960s and 1970s, made several appearances on Broadway (Gore Vidal’s “Weekend”) and with Joseph’s Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival, including “The Black Picture Show” in 1975. His film credits included “Malcolm X,” “Clockers,” “Sanford & Son,” and “Law & Order.” Mr. Brown died on December 13, 2011 at the age of 87.

I don’t care what Black women’s bodies represent to America. I only care what they represent to Black women. America has not included Black women in its ideal of what is beautiful. And when they do, it’s a select few of us. There’s Halle, Queen Latifah, perhaps Janet Jackson and Vivica. But you don’t have Molly Jefferson down in Mississippi or Shaquana Gilbert in the projects. And today, with the collagen in the lips and the booty, that’s not about Black women’s bodies. It’s all been decolorized, and we’re meant to think that there is something even more beautiful in a White woman with large breasts, huge hips and big lips.


So it’s of absolutely no significance what America thinks of our bodies. The problem is getting Black women to recognize that fact.

Iyanla Vanzant  - Bump, Grind, Twist & Celebrate, Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts (via preciousdivineenergy)

Things I Never Learned In High School

forever-and-alwayss:

w0lf-eyes:

  • How to do taxes
  • What taxes are
  • How to vote
  • What political parties are
  • How to write a resume/cover letter/anything related to getting a job
  • How to write a check/balance a check book
  • Anything to do with banking
  • How to do loans for college
  • How to jump start a car or other basic emergency things
  • How to buy a car or house

but I’m so glad I know the fucking pythagorean theorem

(Source: boguskudos)

vintageblackglamour: Happy 80th Birthday Nichelle Nichols! Ms. Nichols was born on December 28, 1932 in Robbins, IL and in this 1961 photo, Ms. Nichols rehearses a dance number with some of the cast from “Kicks and Co.,” a 1961 musical satire about segregation that was directed at one point by Lorraine Hansberry and produced by her husband). Although the show had major financial backing, an “all-star interracial cast” (Burgess Meredith, Lonnie Sattin, Vi Velasco) and success in Chicago, it never made it to Broadway as planned. Photo via The New York Public Library. 
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vintageblackglamour:

Happy 80th Birthday Nichelle Nichols! Ms. Nichols was born on December 28, 1932 in Robbins, IL and in this 1961 photo, Ms. Nichols rehearses a dance number with some of the cast from “Kicks and Co.,” a 1961 musical satire about segregation that was directed at one point by Lorraine Hansberry and produced by her husband). Although the show had major financial backing, an “all-star interracial cast” (Burgess Meredith, Lonnie Sattin, Vi Velasco) and success in Chicago, it never made it to Broadway as planned. Photo via The New York Public Library. 

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