A00008 - Freeman Hrabowski III, Educator and Mathematician

Freeman A. Hrabowski III is a prominent American educator, advocate, and mathematician. In May 1992 he began his term as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), one of the twelve public universities comprising the Maryland university system. Hrabowski has transformed a no-name, commuter university into a research institution recognized as one of the most innovative in the country. His administration continues to build a campus that’s first-rate in research and instruction, and that prepares students of all backgrounds for career success. Under his adept leadership, UMBC has been ranked the #1 Up and Coming University in the USA for three consecutive years (2009, 2010, and 2011) by U.S. News and World Report magazine.

Hrabowski is the co-author of the books, Beating the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Males (1998), and Overcoming the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Young Women (2001). His research and many publications focus on science and math education, with a special emphasis on minority participation and performance. His leadership, expertise and vision are integral to programs world-wide in science/technology/engineering/mathematics (STEM), and are used by universities, school systems, and community groups around the country. Hrabowski chaired the prestigious National Academies’ committee that produced the report Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. In 2012, President Barack Obama appointed Hrabowski to Chair of the newly created President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.; and he was also a candidate for Secretary of Education in his administration. He has been called one of America’s Best Leaders, one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and one of America’s 10 Best College Presidents.

In 2011, Hrabowski received the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Academic Leadership Award, one of the highest honors given to an educator. The award included a $500,000 grant, which he has directed to support and promote a culture of innovation, entrepreneurship, and student success at UMBC.

Hrabowski was born in 1950 in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, the only child of busy, hard-working parents, both of whom were educators. His mother was an English teacher who decided to become a math teacher, and she used the young Hrabowski as a guinea pig at home. His father had been a math teacher and then went to work at a steel mill because, as Hrabowski is quoted as saying, "frankly, he could make more money doing that." Frequently asked about the origin of his unusual surname, Hrabowski explains that he is the great-great-grandson of Eaton Hrabowski, a Polish-American "slave master who lived in rural Alabama”, and his wife Rebecca McCord. In a CBS television interview, Hrabowski recounted that he is the third Freeman Hrabowski; his grandfather was the first Freeman Hrabowski born a free man, as opposed to having to be freed.

When he was 12 years old, in 1963, Hrabowski saw his friends readying for the Children's Crusade march for civil rights. He convinced his parents to let him join in as a youth advocate, but soon into the march he was swept up in a mass arrest. Birmingham's notorious Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor spat in his face, and he was incarcerated for 5 days. The jail guards locked even the youngest freedom marchers in with hardened criminals. Hrabowski spent five terrified days and nights shielding other youngsters and comforting them by reading his Bible aloud or singing songs. After being reunited with the adults, Hrabowski remembers the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King telling them, “What you do this day will have an impact on generations as yet unborn." King's words resonated with Hrabowski, and ultimately rang true as the national outrage at the brutality against Birmingham children helped build the pressure for laws banning racial discrimination. That outcome gave Hrabowski a life mission, and he has since been a staunch and tireless campaigner for equality, education, and excellence.

When he was 19 years old, Hrabowski graduated from Hampton Institute with high honors in mathematics. During his matriculation there he spent a year abroad at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he received his M.A. in mathematics and four years later his Ph.D. in higher education administration and statistics. Hrabowski focused his education on math and science in part because he was worried that the American economy would suffer if other countries continued to graduate more technology experts than the United States. He wants to ensure smart, dynamic students of all backgrounds continue to be amongst the graduates from STEM programs.

UMBC was a relatively young school in a Baltimore suburb when Hrabowski arrived in 1987 as Vice Provost, then Executive Vice President, and finally President in 1992. From the very beginning he had big plans to turn the mid-sized, unremarkable campus into a place where "it is cool to be smart." It seems Hrabowski's civil rights and administration experiences, his doctoral studies, and his enthusiastic advocacy for education led him seamlessly to UMBC’s presidency.

Within his first two years at UMBC, he had raised enough money to set up the comprehensive tutoring and financial aid programs of the Meyerhoff Scholars. Initially designed to help smart black males become scientists and engineers, the program he co-founded with Robert Meyerhoff quickly expanded to include students of all races and both genders, "who are interested in the advancement of minorities in the sciences and related fields." The Meyerhoff program has since become a national model for colleges and universities everywhere.

It was Hrabowski’s background that empowered him to take several bold administrative actions, such as disbanding an Africana graduate studies program and refusing to field a college football team in favor of funding math undergraduates and a championship chess team. The result was a dramatic increase in the number of technologically advanced graduates of all races and genders.


Freeman Hrabowski received numerous awards recognizing his prowess in leadership, education, innovation, science, and engineering, some of which are listed below:

• TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence
• Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Academic Leadership Award
• Top American Leaders by The Washington Post and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership.
• McGraw Prize in Education
• U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring
• Columbia University Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service
• GE African American Forum ICON Lifetime Achievement Award
• Marylander of the Year
• Heinz Award in the Human Condition category
• Fast Company magazine’s first Fast 50 Champions of Innovation in Business and Technology
• Technology Council of Maryland’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
• Inaugural inductee into the STEM Solutions Leadership Hall of Fame.
• William D. Carey Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science’s named a
• Black Engineer of the Year (BEYA) by the BEYA STEM Global Competitiveness Conference
• Educator of the Year by the World Affairs Council of Washington, DC

As president of UMBC, Hrabowski has been a frequent feature in various media venues such as:

• President Hrabowski Discusses Workforce Competitiveness on NBC News’ Education Nation (10/8/13)
• “UMBC Carving a Singular Niche in Cyber, STEM Education” – Q&A in the Baltimore Business Journal (9/27/13)
• “Ideas for Improving Science Education” in the NY Times (9/2/13)
• “Oral Histories: Freeman Hrabowski,” C-Span’s American History TV
• President Hrabowski Discusses the Importance of a Liberal Arts Education on NPR’s Tell Me More (6/6/12)
• Five universities that really are up-and-comers in the Washington Post (3/21/12)
• Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC (1/27/12)
• “Freeman Hrabowski on Job Creation” on WBAL (12/9/11)
• News Coverage from White House Meeting on Higher Education (12/5/11)
• Talk of the Nation (12/5/11)
• 60 Minutes (11/13/11)
• WBAL Editorial on President Hrabowski and Academic Leadership
• President Hrabowski in Diverse Issues in Higher Education (pdf) (11/13/11)
• President Hrabowski in the Chronicle of Higher Education (7/11)
• President Hrabowski, and Anthony Johnson and Elaine Lalanne of CASPR, in Physics Today(3/11)
• President Hrabowski on Midday with Dan Rodericks, WYPR (12/9/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski and Richard Forno, Cybersecurity programs, in the Gazette of Politics and Business (11/5/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski on C-SPAN: The College Board Forum on College Completion (10/28/10)
• President Hrabowski in the Chronicle of Higher Education (10/10/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski in Diverse Issues in Higher Ed (10/1/1)
• President Freeman Hrabowski on C-SPAN: The College Board Forum on College Completion (10/28/10) (Archive not available)
• President Freeman Hrabowski on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports (10/1/10)
• President Hrabowski on WYPR’s Maryland Morning (9/28/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski on NPR’s Tell Me More (9/15/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski in Black Enterprise (8/24/10)
• President Freeman Hrabowski in U.S. News and World Report (pdf) (8/10)*
• President Hrabowski in U.S. Black Engineer & Information Technology Magazine(Fall/Winter 2009)
• President Hrabowski on the Today Show (9/09)
• President Hrabowski on PBS “Charlie Rose” Show (6/7/06)
• President Hrabowski Interviewed by “Kids of America” (3/14/05)
• President Hrabowski on “The Today Show” (8/02)
• Hrabowski discusses changes to the SAT on PBS’ “Newshour with Jim Lehrer (video) (7/02)

A00007 - William Clarke, Jamaican Reggae Singer

William "Bunny Rugs" Clarke (February 6, 1948, Mandeville, Jamaica – February 2, 2014, Orlando, Florida, United States), also known as Bunny Scott, was the lead singer of Jamaican reggae band Third World as well as recording as a solo artist. He began his career in the mid-1960s and was also at one time a member of Inner Circle and half of the duo Bunny & Ricky.

The discography of William "Bunny Rugs" Clarke include the following:

Albums

• To Love Somebody (1975), Klik - as Bunny Scott
• Talking to You (1995), Greensleeves/Shanachie
• Bunny Rugs On Soul (2000), DFP Music
• What a World (2006), Elite Music Group
• I'm Sure (2007), CED
• Time (2012), VPAL

Compilations

• Timeless Classics (2011)

Singles

• "Let Love Touch Us Now"/"I Am I Said" (1982), Black Ark International - 12-inch, credited as 'Bunny Rags'
• "Be Thank Full" (19??), Belleville International
• "War, War, War" (198?), Black Scorpio
• "Bridges Instead" (1990), Two Friends - 12-inch, Shabba Ranks featuring Bunny Rugs
• "Here Comes Rudie" (1991), Exterminator - Gregory Isaacs & Bunny Rugs
• "Rude Boy" (1991), Xterminator - Tony Rebel, Gregory Isaacs, and Bunny Rugs
• "If I Follow My Heart" (1993), Tuff Gong
• "I'm The Ghetto" (1993), Leggo
• "Stand By Me" (1994), Shanachie - Bunny Rugs & Papa San
• "Stand By Me" (1994), Black Scorpio - Papa San & Bunny Rugs, B-side of Papa San's "Girls Every Day"
• "Now That We've Found Love" (1995), Greensleeves - 12-inch
• "Now That We Found Love" (1995), Black Scorpio - featuring Sean Paul
• "Now That We Found Love" (1995), Shanachie
• "Apartheid No!"
• "I'll Be There" (2002), Joe Frasier
• "What a World" (2004), Raw Edge
• "Marcus Garvey" (2004), Mister Tipsy
• "Writings on the Wall" (2005), Elogic Music Group - Wayne Marshall & Bunny Rugs
• "Now That We've Found Love" (2006), CED - CD maxi single
• "World Today" (2007), Hyper-Active Entertainment
• "Down in the Ghetto" (2007), Taxi - Bounty Killer & Bunny Rugs
• "Satamassagana" (20??), Coptic Lion - featuring Tappa Zukie
• Excerpts from the album Time EP (2011)
• "Big May" (2012), Black Swan/Trojan
• "Land We Love" (2012)

With Bunny & Ricky

• "Freedom Fighter" (1974), Black Art
• "Bushweed Corntrash" (1975), Black Art

A00006 - Albon Holsey, Business Leader

Albon Holsey (May 31, 1883, Athens, Georgia - January 16, 1950, Tuskegee, Alabama) was an African American business leader.

According to Albon L. Holsey, slavery deprived blacks of the opportunity to learn the art of business. Through his efforts with the National Negro Business League, the Colored Merchant’s Association, and writings about black business topics, Holsey attempted to assist African Americans in competing and succeeding in the world of commerce.

Holsey was the son of Albon Chase Holsey and Sallie Thomas Holsey. As a boy, he attended Knox Institute in Athens, Georgia, and later he matriculated at Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Holsey joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute in 1914, during the time that the famous educator, Booker T Washington, headed the institution. He was hired as an assistant to Washington’s secretary, Emmett J. Scott. During his tenure, Holsey worked as secretary to president Robert R. Morton and assistant to president Frederick D. Patterson, served as associate editor of the Tuskegee Student and possibly acted as director of public relations. Between 1938 and 1944, Holsey was also on loan to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. While working for the government, he was involved in projects related to black farmers. Holsey worked at Tuskegee for thirty-six years.

A brief chronology of the Holsey's life reads as follows:

1883

Born in Athens, Georgia on May 31

1906

Marries Basiline Boyd on October 3

1914

Joins staff of Tuskegee Institute

1929

Expands Colored Merchants’ Association nationally

1930

Receives Harmon Foundation Award for achievements in business

1950

Dies in Tuskegee, Alabama on January 16

Holsey wrote numerous articles, most related to business topics, including the article “Learning How to be Black,” in which Holsey described the experiences of African American children that triggered their consciousness of color and the “deadly toll” on the manhood of the race. In “Public Relations Intuitions of Booker T. Washington,” Holsey described Washington’s common sense approach to keeping good relationships with various constituencies involved with Tuskegee Institute. The Public Opinion Quarterly published Holsey’s lengthy review of a book on the subject of black newspapers in 1948. Holsey, in a chapter in The Progress of a Race , recapitulated the first twenty-five years of the NNBL. He was business manager ofCrisis , the official publication of the NAACP, during the time that W. E. B. Du Bois edited the periodical.

Holsey was a member of the Masons and Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. The 1928–29 edition of Who’s Who in Colored America lists his political and religious affiliations as Republican and as African Methodist Episcopal.

After a brief illness, Holsey died on January 16, 1950, in John Andrews Memorial Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, at 67 years of age. Funeral services were held on January 26 in the Tuskegee Institute chapel. His wife, Basiline Boyd Holsey, whom he married on October 3, 1906, survived him. A sister, Annie Holsey of Baltimore, and brothers, Augustus J. Holsey and Crosby Holsey of Baltimore and Cleveland, respectively, also survived him. He was buried in Tuskegee.

A00005 - Roy Campbell, Jr., Avant Garde Jazz Trumpeter

Roy Sinclair Campbell, Jr. (September 29, 1952 – January 9, 2014) was an American trumpeter frequently linked to free jazz, although he also performed rhythm and blues, bebop and funk at times during his career.

Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1952,  Campbell was raised in New York.  At the age of fifteen he began learning to play trumpet and soon studied at the Jazz Mobile program along with Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, and Joe Newman. Throughout the 1960s, still unacquainted with the avant-garde movement, Campbell performed in the big bands of the Manhattan Community College.  From the 1970s onwards, he performed primarily within the context of free jazz, spending some of this period studying with Yusef Lateef. 

In the early 1990s, Campbell moved to the Netherlands and performed regularly with Klaas Hekman and Don Cherry.  In addition to leading his own groups, he performed with Yo La Tengo, William Parker, Peter Brotzmann, Matthew Shipp, and other improvisors.  Upon returning to the United States, he began leading his group Other Dimensions In Music and also formed the Pyramid Trio, a pianoless trio formed with William Parker. He performed regularly as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which is held annually in New York City.

Roy Campbell, Jr., died in January 2014 of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease at the age of 61.

The discography of Roy Campbell, Jr. reads as follows:

As leader

• New Kingdom (1992, Delmark)
• La Tierra del Fuego (1994, Delmark)
• Communion (1995, Silkheart)
• Ancestral Homeland (1998, No More)
• Ethnic Stew and Brew (2001, Delmark)
• It's Krunch Time (2001, Thirsty Ear)
• Akhenaten Suite (2008, Aum Fidelity)

with Other Dimensions in Music 

• Other Dimensions in Music (Silkheart, 1990)
• Now! (Aum Fidelity, 1988)
• Time is of the Essence is Beyond Time (Aum Fidelity, 2002)
• Live at the Sunset, Paris (Marge, 2007)
• Kaiso Stories (Silkheart, 2011)

with The Nu Band (Roy Campbell Jr., Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi)

• Live at the Bop Shop (Clean Feed, 2001)
• Live (Konnex, 2005)
• The Dope and the Ghost (Not Two, 2007)
• Lower East Side Blues (Porter Records, 2009)
• Live in Paris (No Business, 2010)
• Relentlessness Live at the Sunset (Marge, 2011)

with Tribute to Albert Ayler (Joe McPhee, Roy Campbell, William Parker, Warren Smith)

• Live at The Dynamo (Marge, 2009)

As sideman

with Jemeel Moondoc

• The Evening of the Blue Men (Muntu, 1979)
• New York Live! (Cadence, 1981)
• The Intrepid Live in Poland (Poljazz, 1981)
• The Athens Concert (Praxis, 1982)
• Konstanze's Delight - Live 1981 (Soul Note, 1983)
• Spirit House (Eremite, 2000)
• Live in Paris (Cadence, 2003)
• Just Grew Orchestra Live at the Vision Festival (Ayler, 2003)

with Saheb Sarbib

• Live at the Public Theatre (Cadence, 1981)
• Aisha (Cadence, 1981)

with Billy Bang

• Live at Carlos 1 (Soul Note, 1986)

with William Parker

• Flowers Grow in my Room (Centering, 1994)
• Sunrise in the Tone World (Aum Fidelity, 1997)
• Mayor of Punkville (Aum Fidelity, 2000)
• Raincoat in the River (Eremite, 2001)
• Mass for the Healing of the World (Black Saint, 2003)
• Spontaneous (Splasc(h), 2003)
• Fractured Dimensions (FMP, 2003)
• For Percy Heath (Victo, 2006)
• Essence of Ellington (Centering, 2012)

with Ehran Elisha 

• Sweet Empathy (Cadence, 1995)
• The Kicker (CIMP, 1998)
• Lowe Down Suite (CIMP, 1999)

with Peter Brotzmann's Die Like a Dog Quartet

• From Valley to Valley (Eremite, 1998)

with Matthew Shipp

• Strata (hatOLOGY, 1998)
• Pastoral Composure (Thirsty Ear, 2000)

with Rob Brown

• Jumping off the Page (No More, 2000)
• The Big Picture (Marge, 2004)

with Alan Silva

• & The Sounds Visions Orchestra (Eremite, 2001)

with Yuko Fujiyama

• Re-entry (CIMP, 2001)

with Steve Lehman 

• Structural Fire (CIMP, 2001)
• Camouflage (CIMP, 2002)

with Peter Brotzmann Tentet + 2

• Short Visit to Nowhere (Okkadisk, 2002)
• Broken English (Okkadisk, 2002)

with Maneri Ensemble

• Going to Church (Aum Fidelity, 2002)

with Khan Jamal 

• Balafon Dance (CIMP, 2002)

with Kevin Norton

• The Dream Catcher (CIMP, 2003)

with Yo La Tengo

• Summer Sun (Matador, 2003)

with Exuberance

• The Other Shore (Boxholder, 2003)
• Live at Vision Festival (Ayler, 2004)

with Steve Sewell

• Suite for Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers (CIMP, 2003)
• Rivers of Sound Ensemble - News from the Mystic Auricle (Not Two, 2008)

with Burton Greene

• Isms Out (CIMP, 2004)

with Dennis Gonzalez 

• Nile River Suite (Daagnim, 2004)

with El-P

• High Water (Thirsty Ear, 2004)

with Whit Dickey 

• Coalescence (Clean Feed, 2004)
• In a Heartbeat (Clean Feed, 2005)
• Sacred Ground (Clean Feed, 2006)

with Marc Ribot 

• Spiritual Unity (Pi recordings, 2005)

with Charles Tyler

• Live at Sweet Basil vol. 1 & 2 (1984) (Bleu Regard, 2007)

with Garrison Fewell 

• Variable Density Sound Orchestra (Creative Nation Music, 2009)

with Stone Quartet

• Live at Vision Festival (Ayler, 2011)

with William Hooker Trio with Dave Soldier 

• Heart of the Sun (Engine Records, 2013)

with New Atlantis Octet

• Unto the Sun (Not Two. 2013)

with Adam Lane 

• Blue Spirit Band (CIMP, 2013)
• Oh Freedom (CIMP, 2013)

A00004 - Brenda Fassie, Queen of Afro-Pop

Brenda Fassie (3 November 1964 – 9 May 2004) was an anti-apartheid South African Afropop singer. Her bold stage antics earned a reputation for "outrageousness". Affectionately called Mabrr by her fans, she was sometimes described as the "Queen of African Pop".

Fassie was born in Langa, Cape Town, as the youngest of nine children. She was named after the American singer Brenda Lee. Her father died when she was two, and with the help of her mother, a pianist, she started earning money by singing for tourists.

In 1981, at the age of 16, she left Cape Town for Soweto, Johannesburg, to seek her fortune as a singer. Fassie first joined the group Joy and later became the lead singer for a township music group called Brenda and the Big Dudes. She had a son, Bongani, in 1985 by a fellow Big Dudes musician. She married Nhlanhla Mbambo in 1989 but divorced in 1991. Around this time she became addicted to cocaine and her career suffered.

With very outspoken views and frequent visits to the poorer townships of Johannesburg, as well as songs about life in the townships, she enjoyed tremendous popularity. Known best for her songs "Weekend Special" and "Too Late for Mama", she was dubbed "The Madonna of the Townships" by Time in 2001.

In 1995, she was discovered in a hotel with the body of her lesbian lover, Poppie Sihlahla, who had died of an apparent overdose. Fassie underwent rehabilitation and got her career back on track. However, she still had drug problems and returned to drug rehabilitation clinics about 30 times in her life.

From 1996 she released several solo albums, including Now Is the Time, Memeza (1997), and Nomakanjani?. Most of her albums became multi-platinum sellers in South Africa; Memeza was the best-selling album in South Africa in 1998.

On the morning of April 26, 2004, Fassie collapsed at her home in Buccleuch, Gauteng, and was admitted into a hospital in Sunninghill. The press were told that she had suffered cardiac arrest, but later reported that she had slipped into a coma brought on by an asthma attack. The post-mortem report revealed that she had taken an overdose of cocaine on the night of her collapse, and this was the cause of her coma. She stopped breathing and suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen. Fassie was visited in the hospital by Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, and Thabo Mbeki, and her condition was front-page news in South African papers. She died aged 39 on 9 May 9, 2004 in the hospital without returning to consciousness after her life support machines were turned off. According to the South African Sunday Times and the managers of her music company, the post-mortem report also showed that she was HIV-positive. Her manager, Peter Snyman, denied this aspect of the report.
Her family, including her long term partner, were at her side when she died in 2004.

Brenda Fassie was voted 17th in the Top 100 Great South Africans.
Her son Bongani 'Bongz' Fassie performed on the soundtrack to the 2005 Academy Award-winning movie Tsotsi. He dedicated his song "I'm So Sorry" to his mother.
In March 2006 a life-size bronze sculpture of Fassie by artist Angus Taylor was installed outside Bassline, a music venue in Johannesburg.

Most of Fassie's records were issued by the EMI-owned CCP Records.

• 1989: Brenda
• 1990: Black President
• 1994: Brenda Fassie
• 1995: Mama
• 1996: Now Is the Time
• 1997: Memeza
• 1997: Paparazzi
• 2000: Thola Amadlozi
• 2001: Brenda: The Greatest Hits
• 2003: Mali
• 2003: The Remix Collection
• 2004: Gimme Some Volume

Fassie also contributed to Mandoza's album Tornado (2002), Miriam Makeba's album Sangoma (1988), and Harry Belafonte's anti-apartheid album Paradise in Gazankulu (1988). She sang for the soundtrack for Yizo, Yizo (2004).

A00003 - Walter White, NAACP President

Walter Francis White (July 1, 1893 – March 21, 1955) was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for almost a quarter of a century and directed a broad program of legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist. He graduated in 1916 from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University), a historically black college.

In 1918, he joined the small national staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in New York at the invitation of James Weldon Johnson. He acted as Johnson's assistant national secretary and traveled to the South to investigate. White later succeeded Johnson as the head of the NAACP, leading the organization from 1931 to 1955.

White oversaw the plans and organizational structure of the fight against public segregation. He worked with President Truman on desegregating the armed forces after the Second World War and gave him a draft for the Executive Order to implement this. Under White's leadership, the NAACP set up the Legal Defense Fund, which raised numerous legal challenges to segregation and disfranchisement, and achieved many successes. Among these was the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which determined that segregated education was inherently unequal. White also quintupled NAACP membership to nearly 500,000.

Through his cultural interests and his close friendships with white literary power brokers Carl Van Vechten and Alfred A. Knopf, White was one of the founders of the "New Negro" cultural flowering. Popularly known as the "Harlem Renaissance", the period was one of intense literary and artistic production. Harlem became the center of black American intellectual and artistic life. It attracted creative people from across the nation, as did New York City in general.

White was the author of critically acclaimed novels: Fire in the Flint (1924) and Flight (1926). His non-fiction book Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (1929) was a study of lynching. Additional books were A Rising Wind (1945), his autobiography A Man Called White (1948), and How Far the Promised Land (1955). Unfinished at his death was Blackjack, a novel on Harlem life and the career of an African-American boxer.

A00002 - T. J. Jemison, Baton Rouge Bus Boycott Leader

Theodore Judson Jemison (August 1, 1918 – November 15, 2013), better known as T. J. Jemison, was the president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African-American religious organization. He oversaw the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the headquarters of his convention.

In 1953, while minister of a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jemison helped lead the first civil rights boycott of segregated seating in public bus service. The organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a model used later in 1955-1956 by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama.  Jemison was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. 

In 2003, the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott was honored with three days of events in the city. These were organized by a young resident born two decades after the action

T. J. Jemison was born in 1918 in Selma, Alabama where his father, the Reverend David V. Jemison, was the pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church. He came from a family of prominent ministers and strong churchgoing women. He attended local segregated public schools.

Jemison earned a bachelor's degree from Alabama State University, a historically black college in the state capital of Montgomery, where he joined Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He earned a divinity degree at Virginia Union University in the capital city of Richmond, Virginia, to prepare for the ministry. He later did graduate study at New York University in New York City.

In 1949, Jemison was first called as a minister by Mt. Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge. There he worked chiefly on internal church matters, overseeing construction and continued fundraising of a new church building. At the time, his father was serving as President of the National Baptist Convention, the association of African-American Baptist churches established in 1895.

Within a few years, Jemison became involved in an early civil rights action. In 1950, the city had ended black-owned buses, requiring all residents to use its monopoly system, which enforced segregated seating. It was racially segregated by law; in practice, black citizens had to sit at the back half of the bus or stand, even if seats in the front "white" section were empty. Jemison said later he was struck by "watching buses pass by his church and seeing black people standing in the aisles, not allowed by law to sit down in seats reserved for whites. 'I thought that was just out of order, that was just cruel'." 

Making up 80 percent of the passengers on the system, African Americans were fed up with standing on buses while "white" seats remained empty, particularly after the company had raised fares from ten to fifteen cents in January 1953. Rev. Jemison took up the issue with the Baton Rouge City Council.  He testified on February 11, 1953 against the fare increase and asked for an end of the practice of reserving so many seats for whites. The city council met that demand, without abolishing segregation per se. They passed Ordinance 222, which established a first come-first served system: it allowed black passengers to board the bus from the back and take any empty seats available, while white passengers boarded from the front. In actuality though, the white drivers largely ignored the ordinance and continued to pressure blacks to sit in the rear of the buses.

When bus drivers harassed those black passengers who sought to sit in empty seats reserved for whites, Jemison tested the law on June 13, 1953, when he sat in a front seat of a bus. The next day the bus company suspended two bus drivers for not complying with the city ordinance. The drivers' union responded by striking for four days. That strike ended on June 18, 1953 when state Attorney General Fred S. LeBlanc declared the city ordinance unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the state's compulsory segregation laws.

Reverend Jemison set up a free-ride network, coordinated by the churches, to compensate for the lack of public transit. This was its signature action for the boycott, which was also adopted for later use. "While the Baton Rouge boycott lasted only two weeks, it set protest standards, and is growing in recognition as a precedent-setting event in the history of the modern American civil rights movement."

With most of the black bus riders refusing to ride, by the third day the buses were almost entirely empty. The boycott lasted eight days, as Reverend Jemison called it off after successful negotiations between black leaders and the city council. The following day, the city council passed an ordinance under which the first-come, first-served, seating system of back-to-front and front-to-back was reinstated. In addition, they set aside the first two seats on any bus for white passengers and the back bench for black passengers, while allowing anyone to sit on any of the rows in the middle. To comply with state segregation laws, blacks and whites were prohibited from sitting next to each other within this arrangement. Jemision's model of boycotting in Baton Rouge was adopted in 1955 by organizers of the year-long Montgomery bus boycott. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, Jemison's "painstaking description of the Baton Rouge experience proved invaluable."

While a number of boycotters wanted to continue the action to attack segregation directly, the majority approved the compromise.

Jemison was elected as president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.,  the largest black religious organization, in 1982 and served until 1994. His best-known achievement of his tenure as president of the National Baptist Convention was the construction of the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee. It is a headquarters for the Convention. He publicly opposed the nomination of Clarence Thomas, a conservative African American as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He also objected to American intervention in the Gulf War.

Toward the end of his term as convention president, Jemison faced criticism because of his support for the boxer Mike Tyson, who was convicted in a rape case against a black woman. He was strongly criticized both by church members and observers.

Approaching the end of his tenure (a result of term limits), Jemison selected Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson as his successor, but Richardson was defeated by Dr. Henry Lyons at the 1994 convention.

Jemison filed a lawsuit to try to overturn the result. Eventually, through the appeals process, the election of Dr. Lyons was upheld. Jemison individually, as well as a co-plaintiff and their counsel, was ordered to pay $150,000 in punitive damages. By a later court order, Jemison and his co-plaintiff were required to pay the other side's attorney fees. The court found that Jemison had concocted evidence to justify the suit.

Jemison died in Baton Rouge at the age of ninety-five. His body lay in repose at the Louisiana State Capitol on November 22, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Services were conducted on November 23 by the Reverend Dr. Rene F. Brown, formerly of Topeka, Kansas, and Jemison's successor pastor at Mt. Zion First Baptist Church in Baton Rouge.

Two Jewish Republican officeholders spoke at the funeral.  Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne said that despite national prominence, Jemison's most important role ... was as shepherd of this flock and this church." Attorney General Buddy Caldwell at the ceremony quoted Psalms 37:27: "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." He likened Jemison's life to the Statue of Liberty: He "gave us a torch to light the way."

United States Representative Cedric Richmond, a Democrat from Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, based in New Orleans, described himself and other African-American legislators as "direct beneficiaries of the hard work, commitment, and courage of Dr. Jemison." Reading a statement of United States President Barack H. Obama, Richmond described Jemison as "part of the generation that challenged the conscience of our nation and moved us toward justice and equality for all."

Interment followed in Green Oaks Memorial Park in Baton Rouge.

From June 19 to  June 21, 2003, the 50th anniversary of the bus boycott and its participants were honored with a community forum and three days of events.  Organizers were Marc Sternberg, a 30-year-old resident, Southern University, Louisiana State University, and major organizations. Sternberg said, "Before Dr. King had a dream, before Rosa kept her seat, and before Montgomery took a stand, Baton Rouge played its part."

In 2007, Mt. Zion First Baptist Church established the annual T. J. Jemison Race Relations Award in his honor. It was first awarded that year to Jesse Bankston, a long-term Democratic politician in Baton Rouge.