In 1979, June was designated as Black Music Month. In recognition, this week for Writers Quote Wednesday 2015, I chose to share a quote and the music from one of America’s jazz legends, Miss Billy Holiday.
Tag: Writers Quote 2015
Writer’s Quote Wednesday 2015
Writers Quote Wednesday 2015
This week, I selected a quote from a newly found author, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins:
Hopkins was born on August 13, 1859 in Portland, Maine. Introduced to the performing arts at an early age, she wrote and performed skits with her family’s group, The Hopkins Colored Troubadours.
She, also, was a playwright, journalist, short story writer, biographer and editor.
Written in 1900, her first novel Contending Forces:  A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South, dealt with miscegenation and Post-Civil War race relations; and between 1901 and 1903, she published three serial novels in the Colored American Magazine:
- Hagar’s Daughter: Â A Story of Southern Caste Prejudice;
- Winona: Â A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest; and
- Of One Blood or The Hidden Self.
Hopkins writings, fiction and nonfiction, covered:
- African-American History;
- Racial Discrimination;
- Economic Justice; and
- Women’s Role in Society.
Little is known about the last twenty-five years of Hopkins life which ended in 1930 during a house fire.
Hopkins first novel as well as her three serial novels are in The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women released by The Oxford Press in 1988.
Thank you Colleen for  Writers Quote Wednesday, 2015.  I enjoy sharing my favorite author quotes as well as the quotes from previously unknown authors.  Participating in this weekly challenge has opened my space to reconnect with known authors and has led me down the path of  discovering new authors.
Writer’s Quote Wednesday 2015
This week for Writer’s Quote, I selected the first stanza from the song, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which was originally written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson.  His brother, John, set the poem to music; and, it later became the anthem for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The video below features Aretha Franklin, one of my favorite R&B and Gospel artists, performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
ABOUT: Â JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
Johnson is known as one of the creators and leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. Â In addition to writing the poem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” he and his brother collaborated and wrote songs for over 200 broadway musicals.
During his lifetime, he published many stories and poems and was the author of two book:
- God’s Trombones (1927),
- The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912)
In addition to his artistic talents, Johnson also gained recognition as an educator, lawyer, and civil rights activist. Â President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1906, appointed Johnson to diplomatic positions in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Upon his return to the United Stated, in 1914, he started working for the NAACP. Â After retiring from there, he became the first African-American professor at New york University.
On June 26, 1938, Johnson died in a car accident. Â More than two thousand people attended his funeral in Harlem.
SeasonedSistah 