Title: "Cha-Cha"--The cha-cha first appeared in the West Indies where there is a plant that produces seed pods that make a "cha-cha" sound. In Haiti, the voodoo band consisted of three drums, a bell, and a rattle which was made from this "cha-cha" plant. The cha-cha was used by the band leader as a metronome to set the pace for dancing and singing. In 1953, the Cuban orchestra, "America," started playing a mambo with a different beat. It was slower, allowing the dancers to use a slight hip undulation on the slow count. Gradually this was changed into a triple step and the cha-cha was born! Soon, dance studios reported that it was their most requested dance. The cha-cha is characterized by a swinging of the hips, called "Cuban Motion," and by very small steps. (http://www.2leftfeet.com/chacha/)
L3: "castanets"--percussion instruments known to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, possibly of Middle Eastern origin, now used primarily in Spanish dance music or imitations of it. There are many kinds, the most common consisting of two small matching pieces of hard wood or ivory, joined at the inner edge and used with a thin strap in the player's hand; they are snapped together between the palm and fingers. Castanets are also occasionally used in orchestral music. (encyclopedia.com)
L7:"Erzulie"--In the Vodoun (Voodoo) Pantheon, Erzulie is the Loa (goddess) of love, romance, art, and sex. Three in aspect, she can be Erzulie Freda, a virgin goddess likened to the Virgin Mary; Erzulie Dantor, loa of jealousy and passion; La Siren, a personification of the sea and goddess of motherhood. Her color is pink, her animal a white dove. She is associated with the Lukumi Orisha Oshun, and sometimes Chango. (as Erzulie Dantor). (www.about.com)
L14: ""Papiamentu"--Papiamentu is a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and it also has some Arawak Indian and African influences. Papiamentu is one of the few Creole Languages of the Caribbean that has survived to the present day. Papiamentu is predominately a spoken language among the local people of Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba. The official language is Dutch, and the written Papiamentu is limited to some local newspapers and literature. Also the schooling system is Dutch, and people typically don't get any formal training in their language. There have been some discussions about introducing Papiamentu to be taught at schools as well. (http://www.narin.com/papiamentu/)
L15: "Damballa Wedo"--Alternate Spelling of Damballah In Vodoun, Damballah is the eldest and chief of the a primordial serpent deity who created the world and the Gods. He, along with his wife Ayida, is sometimes likened to the Kundalini serpent of Hindu mysticism. Damballah has many aspects, including his Petro manifestation, Damballa la Flambeau (Damballah torch). Damballah is of such great age and antiquity that he does not speak; when possessing a follower during a ritual, he prefers to slither on the ground or sit in the basson. (www.about.com)"Ogoun"--In the pantheons of Vodoun (Voodoo), Lukumi, and Candomble, Ogoun (Ogun) is the chief of the warriors, the Orisha or Loa of War, blood, and iron. He is the guardian of the forge, and the patron of civilization and technology. In Vodou, his aspects are Ogoun feray (Fer, feraille) and Ogoun Badagris. he is associated with the Catholic St. Jaques. Ogoun is similar in many ways to the Greek God Mars. (www.about.com)
L18: "Citadelle of Shadows", La Citadelle La Ferriere is a fortress that was built by King Henry Christophe in a city to the North of Haiti called Cap-Haitian. After Haiti gained its independence from the French, there was a great concern about a return of the French army. As a result, a lot of fortresses were built to protect Haiti from possible future invasions. The "Citadelle La Ferriere" is one of the most famous of such fortresses, because of its eloquence and magnificence. (http://www.uml.edu/Dept/EE/labs/DSP/coin.html)
L20: "Toussaint"--Toussaint Louverture, b. 1743?, d. 1803. Connected with slave revolution in Haiti,1791. Page here: (http://www.travelinghaiti.com/history_of_haiti/toussaint_louverture.asp)
L27: "Ay, Bahia"--Bahia, a Brazillian State, probably most famous for author Jorge Amado, as well as the 60's Rock artists (Jimmy Page, Janis, John Lennon, etc.) who visited it for its natural beauty.
L33: "Papa Legba"--In the Vodoun(Voodoo) Pantheon, Papa Legba is the Loa of doorways and crossroads. Like the god Hermes of the Greek pantheon, Legba is the messenger of the the gods; other Loas can only be contacted through him. His counterpart in Lukumi is Eleggua although in Vodoun he is usually depicted in the aspect of an elderly man carrying a cane."Shango"--The god of thunder and the ancestor of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. He is the son of Yemaja the mother goddess and protector of birth. Shango (Xango) has three wives: Oya, who stole Shango's secrets of magic; Oschun, the river goddess who is Shango's favorite because of her culinary abilities; and Oba, who tried to win his love by offering her ear for him to eat. He sent her away in anger and she became the river Oba, which is very turbulent where it meets the river Oschun. Shango is portrayed with a double axe on his head (the symbol of thunder), with six eyes and sometimes with three heads. His symbolic animal is the ram, and his favorite colors are red and white, which are regarded as being holy. In Brazil, Shango is worshipped as a thunder and weather god by the Umbandists. In Santeria, Shango (Chango) is the equivalent of the Catholic saint St. Barbara.
L34:"Bedward"--Alexander Bedward based the cult, Bedwardism, on himself. In 1920 he preached that he would ascend to heaven and later would return to destroy the earth. His ascencion predicted for Dec 31, 1920 failed but he was able to soothe the masses by claiming that God has granted more grace to earn their salvation. He ended his days in a lunatic asylum, and true to real believers, his followers hung on to their Messiah in true belief that his lunacy pointed to the fact he did not belong to this world. (http://www.fortunecity.com/healthclub/medical/1/oct99.html)"Pocomania"--It happens at once, some day, some time, in remote, muddy poor villages in Jamaica. Men, women, children gather under a tin roof of one of the ordinary decaying huts that even from far doesn’t resemble to a church … as if all intuitively felt the "right moment" to gather together and guided in trance by the Mother travel together into the Spirit World, where the Holy Spirit and other spirits will talk to them and advise them… Thus begins Pukumina, the ritual of Pocomania, of which the meaning is " small madness’ ". Throughout decades African slaves, transported to Caribbean colonies, in Jamaica intimately preserve and practise semi-secretly these ancient spiritual practices in Revival Churches where the Christian Holy Spirit found an important place among other spirits in the World of the Spirits. (http://www.ipak.org/jamajka/first.html)
L35: "Fortaleza"--Fortaleza is the capital of the State of Ceara. Also, the name of a Tower/Fort in San Lazaro in Cuba.
L36: "Nanigo"--an Afro-Cuban sect (Abakwa) associated with a particular drum style. (http://projectdrum.com/news/article_35.html) However, it appears Hughes is refering to a place, though this could be poetics.
L40: "Marie Leveau"--The most prominent figure in the true history of Voodoo in America was Marie Laveau, the legendary "Voodoo Queen" feared and revered throughout 19th century Louisiana. The ancient rites of Voodoo -- along with a heaping helping of down-to-earth shrewdness -- propelled her to a profound level of influence among the common folk and the aristocratic gentry alike, a feat nearly unimaginable for a black woman in the oppressive days of slavery. (http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/voodooQueen.htm)
L42: "John Jasper"--John Jasper, preacher, philosopher, and orator was born in Fluvanna County, Virginia on July 4, 1812. He was the youngest of twenty-four (24) children. He was converted on the fourth of July, 1839 in Capital Square of Richmond, Virginia. He was baptized in 1849 and on the same day he preached a funeral which immediately brought him fame. One of the great slave preachers, Jasper became a noted funeral preacher long before the Civil War. He taught himself to read and write, and although he delivered his sermons in the dialect of the southern slave, more educated ministers said that Jasper's vivid and dramatic sermons transcended "mere grammar." Noted for his fervid zeal, gifted imagery, and colorful oratory. (http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/vbha/6th4.html) Interesting to note that his sermon, title "The Sun Do Move" inspired a play by Hughes by the same title.
Show Fare, Please
When I attempted to research my piece, there was no data or information to speak of (unlike Joshua's piece and others) For example, when I tried to look up "long pocket" there was no information and therefore I assumed it was a term specific to Negro culture. Also there were not many terms to research, so I ended up mostly doing a personal interpretation of my section.
SHOW FARE, PLEASE
5: IN THE QUARTER OF THE NEGROES: Meaning "region, locality" is from c.1300. Meaning "portion of a town" (identified by the class or race of people who live there) is first attested 1526.
6: WHERE THE MASK IS PLACED BY OTHERS: A very strong and powerful image. Perhaps this refers to the idea that the white person does not see the Negro for who he is but sees what he wants to see with all the prejudices.
9: STRIP TICKETS: Tickets used to come in long strips from slots inside the box office.
16: WHERE THE LIGHTER IS THE DARKER: reference to white people?
20- 25 DID YOU EVER SEE TEN NEGROES
WEAVING METAL FROM TWO QUARTERS
INTO CLOTH OF DOLLARS
FOR A SUIT OF GOOD-TIME WEARING?
WEAVING OUT OF LONG-TERM CREDIT
INTEREST BEYOND CARING?
In the Larry Scanlon essay, he states: "The poem's final mood, SHOW FARE, PLEASE, returns to the quarter to assert the inexhaustibibility of African-American inventiveness in the face of economic privation. Economic relations are no less dependent than poetic tradition on structures of formal measurement. These lines equate improvised games of chance with the assumption of LONG TERM CREDIT and see in each a sort of resistance analogous to cultural expression, in that both are based on the manipulation of form. Yet these equivalences are by no means triumphalist."
26: THE HEADS ON THESE TWO QUARTERS: The coin is peculiar to U.S., first recorded 1783.
26: Langston Hughes plays around with the line: THE HEADS ON THESE TWO QUARTERS and references THE HOLY GHOST which is part of the Holy Trinity. I interpret the Holy Ghost as representing the Negro spirit. And when the child says:
31-33: OF THESE THREE.
IS ONE
ME?
It is with an ironic tone.
Note: In this last jazz piece, we are presented with a child pleading “FARE” from his mother who wants to go and see most probably a Charlie Parker show. The mother cannot afford the FARE, which again highlights the economic social deprivation of the Negro.
SHOW FARE, PLEASE
5: IN THE QUARTER OF THE NEGROES: Meaning "region, locality" is from c.1300. Meaning "portion of a town" (identified by the class or race of people who live there) is first attested 1526.
6: WHERE THE MASK IS PLACED BY OTHERS: A very strong and powerful image. Perhaps this refers to the idea that the white person does not see the Negro for who he is but sees what he wants to see with all the prejudices.
9: STRIP TICKETS: Tickets used to come in long strips from slots inside the box office.
16: WHERE THE LIGHTER IS THE DARKER: reference to white people?
20- 25 DID YOU EVER SEE TEN NEGROES
WEAVING METAL FROM TWO QUARTERS
INTO CLOTH OF DOLLARS
FOR A SUIT OF GOOD-TIME WEARING?
WEAVING OUT OF LONG-TERM CREDIT
INTEREST BEYOND CARING?
In the Larry Scanlon essay, he states: "The poem's final mood, SHOW FARE, PLEASE, returns to the quarter to assert the inexhaustibibility of African-American inventiveness in the face of economic privation. Economic relations are no less dependent than poetic tradition on structures of formal measurement. These lines equate improvised games of chance with the assumption of LONG TERM CREDIT and see in each a sort of resistance analogous to cultural expression, in that both are based on the manipulation of form. Yet these equivalences are by no means triumphalist."
26: THE HEADS ON THESE TWO QUARTERS: The coin is peculiar to U.S., first recorded 1783.
26: Langston Hughes plays around with the line: THE HEADS ON THESE TWO QUARTERS and references THE HOLY GHOST which is part of the Holy Trinity. I interpret the Holy Ghost as representing the Negro spirit. And when the child says:
31-33: OF THESE THREE.
IS ONE
ME?
It is with an ironic tone.
Note: In this last jazz piece, we are presented with a child pleading “FARE” from his mother who wants to go and see most probably a Charlie Parker show. The mother cannot afford the FARE, which again highlights the economic social deprivation of the Negro.
Horn of Plenty
The Horn of Plenty
As the page 498 opens I can hear the bluesy voice of Odetta emerging out of Harlem and reaching all the way to the Statue of Liberty. I can see the dancers dancing in the clubs to the music of Dizzy, Bojangles, Duke, Eric Dolphy and Billy Strayhorn. By the end of the page, I know that we are in Harlem during the years between the late thirties and the early fifties. I know also that the pulse of America beats to the rhythm of Jazz and that Jazz is born out of African American culture. It is also obvious with the mention of certain names, that some of the nations top athletes are Black. Yet, because of the appearance of the Global Trotters, I can tell that while Americans are willing and eager to consume the creative fruits of African American toil, they still are not ready to share economic or social equality.
Pg. 498: Odetta is a black female singer of Ballad and Blues; Bedloes Island is where the Statue of Liberty stands; Bojangles is a Jazz entertainer who died in New York 1949; Duke, Dizzy and Eric Dolphy are Jazz entertainers; Billy Strayhorn was a jazz entertainer who moved to Harlem in 1939; the Global trotters are a Harlem basketball team who were denied acknowledgement by the NBL in 1937 because they were black; Sugar Ray was a top-notch prize fighter who won fighter of the year in 1942 and again in 1951.
As I read on to page 499, I am introduced to another side of African American life. I move with the narrator from Harlem into the suburbs to realize the American dream. Here, I feel that I have finally reached the summit and have achieved material success in spite of the odds. Yet, as a black person in a white community, I am not accepted fully. I am asked, yet while standing ´´on my patio, where did I get my money?¨ How is it, they wonder, how a black person could achieve the same success, when all they have done is throw obstacles in my path.
On page 500, a dialogue begins between the narrator and the white suburbanites. They are familiar with the names of other famous African Americans. For example, Charlie Migans, and Richard Wright. Yet, they seem clueless to the racial reasons behind Wrights expatriotism. The dialogue seems to say that the white populous of the suburbs are ignorant to the problems that the black narrator has faced. Is this ignorance genuine or a product of connivance and embarrassment ? As page 500 continues, the narrator speaks of living in the suburbs as ´living in the shadow of the negroes´´. This must be a reference to the conclusion of the complete work, when Hughes speaks about the marginalization that the African Americans feel, and he questions what will happen to an America that lacks such a central understanding of itself. By this, I take him to mean that African Americans form such a large part of American culture and that the power populace of America refuses to acknowledge the significant contribution. In so much, the black culture lives in the ´´shadows´´ around the events that transpire in the United States. So, to speak about living in the suburbs as ¨living in the shadows of the negroes,´ I take him to mean, the Americans who lives in the shadow of its true roots.
Pg. 500: Charlie Migans was a Jazz composer who lived in New York during the 1950s and played with the likes of Charlie Parker; Richard Wright was a black poet and alsow a member of the Communist party. He moved to New York in 1937, but encountered too much racism, so he moved to Paris where he stayed until his death in 1947. His works include The Native Sun and Uncle Tom’s Children.
On page 502, we see a further complication which involves the efforts toward a better life and the inevitable assimilation of blacks into the overwhelmingly white consumer structure. Not everyone can afford the style of life that they are seeking, yet it is the dream of a more peaceful and bountiful life that drives them into debt, that it to say into a new form of slavery. This new world, filled with shiny consumer goods and lots of greenery is also filled with white Christian, conservative doctrine (sermon on the mount and George Sokolsky). Yet, the narrator has not lost the memory of his roots. This is obvious in the last line, when he is asked for a reference for a maid. The last line, ´´Your mamma´´ sends us, the reader tumbling from the borrowed heights of suburban commerce and lands us back in the Jazzy blue haze of Harlem.
Pg. 502: The sermon on the mount is written in the book of Matthew in the bible and is said to be a sermon given by Jesus as a divine presentation of Christian Discipleship; George Sokolsky was a conservative columnist during the McCarthy era.
As the page 498 opens I can hear the bluesy voice of Odetta emerging out of Harlem and reaching all the way to the Statue of Liberty. I can see the dancers dancing in the clubs to the music of Dizzy, Bojangles, Duke, Eric Dolphy and Billy Strayhorn. By the end of the page, I know that we are in Harlem during the years between the late thirties and the early fifties. I know also that the pulse of America beats to the rhythm of Jazz and that Jazz is born out of African American culture. It is also obvious with the mention of certain names, that some of the nations top athletes are Black. Yet, because of the appearance of the Global Trotters, I can tell that while Americans are willing and eager to consume the creative fruits of African American toil, they still are not ready to share economic or social equality.
Pg. 498: Odetta is a black female singer of Ballad and Blues; Bedloes Island is where the Statue of Liberty stands; Bojangles is a Jazz entertainer who died in New York 1949; Duke, Dizzy and Eric Dolphy are Jazz entertainers; Billy Strayhorn was a jazz entertainer who moved to Harlem in 1939; the Global trotters are a Harlem basketball team who were denied acknowledgement by the NBL in 1937 because they were black; Sugar Ray was a top-notch prize fighter who won fighter of the year in 1942 and again in 1951.
As I read on to page 499, I am introduced to another side of African American life. I move with the narrator from Harlem into the suburbs to realize the American dream. Here, I feel that I have finally reached the summit and have achieved material success in spite of the odds. Yet, as a black person in a white community, I am not accepted fully. I am asked, yet while standing ´´on my patio, where did I get my money?¨ How is it, they wonder, how a black person could achieve the same success, when all they have done is throw obstacles in my path.
On page 500, a dialogue begins between the narrator and the white suburbanites. They are familiar with the names of other famous African Americans. For example, Charlie Migans, and Richard Wright. Yet, they seem clueless to the racial reasons behind Wrights expatriotism. The dialogue seems to say that the white populous of the suburbs are ignorant to the problems that the black narrator has faced. Is this ignorance genuine or a product of connivance and embarrassment ? As page 500 continues, the narrator speaks of living in the suburbs as ´living in the shadow of the negroes´´. This must be a reference to the conclusion of the complete work, when Hughes speaks about the marginalization that the African Americans feel, and he questions what will happen to an America that lacks such a central understanding of itself. By this, I take him to mean that African Americans form such a large part of American culture and that the power populace of America refuses to acknowledge the significant contribution. In so much, the black culture lives in the ´´shadows´´ around the events that transpire in the United States. So, to speak about living in the suburbs as ¨living in the shadows of the negroes,´ I take him to mean, the Americans who lives in the shadow of its true roots.
Pg. 500: Charlie Migans was a Jazz composer who lived in New York during the 1950s and played with the likes of Charlie Parker; Richard Wright was a black poet and alsow a member of the Communist party. He moved to New York in 1937, but encountered too much racism, so he moved to Paris where he stayed until his death in 1947. His works include The Native Sun and Uncle Tom’s Children.
On page 502, we see a further complication which involves the efforts toward a better life and the inevitable assimilation of blacks into the overwhelmingly white consumer structure. Not everyone can afford the style of life that they are seeking, yet it is the dream of a more peaceful and bountiful life that drives them into debt, that it to say into a new form of slavery. This new world, filled with shiny consumer goods and lots of greenery is also filled with white Christian, conservative doctrine (sermon on the mount and George Sokolsky). Yet, the narrator has not lost the memory of his roots. This is obvious in the last line, when he is asked for a reference for a maid. The last line, ´´Your mamma´´ sends us, the reader tumbling from the borrowed heights of suburban commerce and lands us back in the Jazzy blue haze of Harlem.
Pg. 502: The sermon on the mount is written in the book of Matthew in the bible and is said to be a sermon given by Jesus as a divine presentation of Christian Discipleship; George Sokolsky was a conservative columnist during the McCarthy era.
Blues in Stereo
The title, “Blues in Stereo” could refer to the overwhelming call for Blues, the plight, the poverty, the darkness. It could also be a play on the last lines, “I thought I heard the horn of plenty blowing. / But I got to get a new antenna.”
L01 - “Your Number’s Coming Out”. A play on “your number’s coming up?” or “numb” as in the numbness where there is no power to feel or move normally. Emancipation. I don’t know about this one. In Larry Scanlon’s article, he notes, “this is a general term signifying number, “especially in senses relating to money and perpty.”
L04 - “Horses shod with gold….” wealth as plentiful as slave traders/owners
“…the houses of some of the Great Folks will be adorned with ivory, and their horses shod with gold.” (Admiral Ellery speaking about the unlawful slave trade from New England. http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg37497.html
L07 - “Triumphal Entry” Possibly in reference to Easter, resurrection, renewal.
“The latter, therefore, was the great formal entry of the Lord, called "the Triumphal Entry", which took place on what is called "Palm Sunday"”. (http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app153.html)
L12 - “barefoot” – escaped slave
L14 – “ancient river” - The River Jordan is mentioned in the poem “Ballad of the Seven Songs” so I took a bit of liberty with this. The first mention of the Jordan is when Abraham and Lot parted company: "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of The Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before The Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah . So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from each other." (Genesis 13:10-11 RSV)
Scanlon also mentions; Euphrates, the Congo, and the Nile. (p47 News From Heaven)
At the end of their Wilderness Journey, after Joshua succeeded Moses as the leader of the people, the Israelites entered the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River that, like the Red Sea and, was miraculously divided for them (Joshua 3:15-17).
Literally probably the Missouri / Mississippi Rivers
L18 - “Mask of Whiteness” – racism possibly and ‘whiteness’ could be reference to European descendants and privilege.
L19 - “Night” = negro quarter / men / women
L22 – “Stanley” = Stanley, NC? I’m not sure of this one.
L27 – “LP” long playing phonograph record, grooved (Is this a reference to slaves since the LP is wondering.) LPs were grooved to play music….
L38 – “Horn of Plenty” = cornucopia , in Greek mythology, magnificent horn that filled itself with whatever meat or drink its owner requested. Some legends designate it as a horn of the river god Achelous, others as a horn of the goat Amalthaea. It is often represented as filled with fruits and flowers and has become the symbol of plenty.
L40 – “My TV Keeps on Snowing” maybe a reference to “whiteness” to racism.
L01 - “Your Number’s Coming Out”. A play on “your number’s coming up?” or “numb” as in the numbness where there is no power to feel or move normally. Emancipation. I don’t know about this one. In Larry Scanlon’s article, he notes, “this is a general term signifying number, “especially in senses relating to money and perpty.”
L04 - “Horses shod with gold….” wealth as plentiful as slave traders/owners
“…the houses of some of the Great Folks will be adorned with ivory, and their horses shod with gold.” (Admiral Ellery speaking about the unlawful slave trade from New England. http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg37497.html
L07 - “Triumphal Entry” Possibly in reference to Easter, resurrection, renewal.
“The latter, therefore, was the great formal entry of the Lord, called "the Triumphal Entry", which took place on what is called "Palm Sunday"”. (http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app153.html)
L12 - “barefoot” – escaped slave
L14 – “ancient river” - The River Jordan is mentioned in the poem “Ballad of the Seven Songs” so I took a bit of liberty with this. The first mention of the Jordan is when Abraham and Lot parted company: "And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of The Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before The Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah . So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from each other." (Genesis 13:10-11 RSV)
Scanlon also mentions; Euphrates, the Congo, and the Nile. (p47 News From Heaven)
At the end of their Wilderness Journey, after Joshua succeeded Moses as the leader of the people, the Israelites entered the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River that, like the Red Sea and, was miraculously divided for them (Joshua 3:15-17).
Literally probably the Missouri / Mississippi Rivers
L18 - “Mask of Whiteness” – racism possibly and ‘whiteness’ could be reference to European descendants and privilege.
L19 - “Night” = negro quarter / men / women
L22 – “Stanley” = Stanley, NC? I’m not sure of this one.
L27 – “LP” long playing phonograph record, grooved (Is this a reference to slaves since the LP is wondering.) LPs were grooved to play music….
L38 – “Horn of Plenty” = cornucopia , in Greek mythology, magnificent horn that filled itself with whatever meat or drink its owner requested. Some legends designate it as a horn of the river god Achelous, others as a horn of the goat Amalthaea. It is often represented as filled with fruits and flowers and has become the symbol of plenty.
L40 – “My TV Keeps on Snowing” maybe a reference to “whiteness” to racism.
Cultural Exchange
pg 477
GUIRA - percussion instrument made of aluminium and embossed with hundreds of tiny bums. Guiras produce a dry husky bark when played with a metal scraper comb.
LEONTYNE- Mary Violet Leontyne Price, opera singer. As Scanlon points out, a black woman who made it big in a white genre.
LIEDER - simple folk melody with uncomplicated harmony and independent accompaniment.
p. 478
LEONTYNE, SAMMY, HARRY, POITIER, LENA, MARIAN, LOUIS, PEARLIE, MAE - Leotyne Price, Sammy Davis Junior, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Pearl Baily, Gracie Mae. Black American singers, actors, musicians. Household names in white America.
GEORGE S. SCHULYER – Black journalist and author of “Black No More”. His attack on the New Negro Movement and his support for inter racial marriage made him a target of Hughes essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926) in which Hughes claims that a black person saying I want to be a poet, not I want to be a black poet, is saying he wants to be a white poet and is therefore a traitor to the movement.
MOLTO BENE – Italian – Very good.
MOUNT VERNON – there are dozens of Mt Vernon’s in the USA. I’m going with the planned community near New York which offered genteel land ownership to urban renters. I take to mean upwardly mobile. Out of the ghetto.
RALPH ELLISON - African-American writer, whose novel INVISIBLE MAN (1952) gained a wide critical success. He used racial issues to express universal dilemmas but avoided taking a straightforward political stand. "Literature is colorblind," he once said. Many artists of the Black Arts movement rejected Ellison for his insistence that America be a land of cultural exchange and synergy.
VESPUCIUS - Florentine navigator who explored the coast of South America; America was named after him (1454-1512). I take this as a rebuke of Ellison, ranking him on the level of the colonizer, Vespucius
ARNA WENDELL BONTEMPS - writer in the Harlem Renaissance.
9.479
SHALOM ALEICHEM - Hebrew greeting. Peace.
JIMMY BALDWIN – James Baldwin, writer noted for his novels on sexual and personal identity, and sharp essays on civil-rights struggle in the United States.
GHANA GUINEA – “Some 10 million Africans were sold into slavery between the 1500s and 1800s, bartered by their own tribal kings and chiefs to European traders for such novelties as gunpowder, alcohol and mirrors. Many were held in castle dungeons along the West African coast before being marched out to slave ships that sailed for the Americas and Europe.”
ORNETTE - Ornette Coleman the revolutionary saxophonist who created "free jazz”
Kwame NKRUMAH, foremost proponent of Pan-Africanism in the latter half of the 20th century.
NASSER- Gamal Abdul-Nasser became president of Egypt in a 1952 military coup referred to as the 1952 Revolution. Nasser was responsible for the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Agrarian reform, and socialist policies that brought the vast majority of Egyptians out of poverty.
ZIK AZIKIWE – president of Nigeria who brought Nigeria out of colonialism.
KENYATTA - On June 1, 1963, Mzee Kenyatta became the first Prime Minister of self-governing Kenya.
TOURE - Toure is known as the Bluesman of Africa because of his highly distinctive blues style that's a cross-mix of the Arabic-influenced Malian sound with American blues reminiscent of bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Big Joe Williams.
p.480
DIXIECRATS - The States' Rights party, also known as the "Dixiecrats," was a rump party that split off from the national Democratic party and ran candidates in the 1948 presidential election.
DR RUFUS CLEMENT - Atlanta University President Dr. Rufus B. Clement elected first black member of the Atlanta Board of Education; in 1954, Clement becomes chair of the SRC Executive Committee.
GEORGE, ZELMA WATSON (1903-1994). black diplomat, social-program administrator, musicologist, opera singer, and college administrator
“After moving to Cleveland to study African American music at the Cleveland Public Library, she wrote Chariot's a Comin!, a musical play based upon her research of this subject. She went on to headline in The Medium, an opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti, at Karamu Theater. People consider her to be one of the first Black women to assume this typically White role.
In the 1950's Zelma George served on national government committees during the Eisenhower administration: she was a good-will ambassador and an alternate U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1960-61. On a return trip home from lecturing at Bethune-Cookman College, she stopped in Orlando to visit relatives. During a delay at their airport, she took a seat in a waiting room and was approached by a police officer to leave the room: "Get out you Yankee trouble-maker or I'll throw you out!" She responded angrily to the room of 75 people:
"I am a United States delegate to the United Nations. Not long ago I returned from a round-the-world lecture tour at the request of the State Department. I was trying to create for people in foreign lands an image of my country as a land where all men are created equal and freedom is everyone's birthright. Is there no one in this room who will stand up for me now?"
There was no one who spoke up for her”.
p.481
FAUBUS – Orville Faubus, segregationist Arkansas governor
EASTLAND – James Eastland, segregationist Mississippi senator
PATTERSON – John Patterson, segregationist Alabama governor.
DEAR OLD DARLING WHITE MAMMIES – “These lines invert one of the stereotypes white racists used to support the ostensible benevolence of segregation. They also remind us that in the segregated south white families depended on black servants to maintain their own internal structure” ( Scanlon)
CULTURE IS A TWO WAY STREET. This harkens back to the title, cultural exchange, a term that is usually meant to imply a two-way exchange of cultural understanding. This section of the poem shows us that although black entertainers and writers have been successful in white America, they do so on white terms. A real two way street in which the segregationists become the servants of black families is unthinkable.
the one thing I could make nothing of was "THE TOLL BRIDGE AT WESTCHESTER" Maybe someone can help me here.
GUIRA - percussion instrument made of aluminium and embossed with hundreds of tiny bums. Guiras produce a dry husky bark when played with a metal scraper comb.
LEONTYNE- Mary Violet Leontyne Price, opera singer. As Scanlon points out, a black woman who made it big in a white genre.
LIEDER - simple folk melody with uncomplicated harmony and independent accompaniment.
p. 478
LEONTYNE, SAMMY, HARRY, POITIER, LENA, MARIAN, LOUIS, PEARLIE, MAE - Leotyne Price, Sammy Davis Junior, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Pearl Baily, Gracie Mae. Black American singers, actors, musicians. Household names in white America.
GEORGE S. SCHULYER – Black journalist and author of “Black No More”. His attack on the New Negro Movement and his support for inter racial marriage made him a target of Hughes essay, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926) in which Hughes claims that a black person saying I want to be a poet, not I want to be a black poet, is saying he wants to be a white poet and is therefore a traitor to the movement.
MOLTO BENE – Italian – Very good.
MOUNT VERNON – there are dozens of Mt Vernon’s in the USA. I’m going with the planned community near New York which offered genteel land ownership to urban renters. I take to mean upwardly mobile. Out of the ghetto.
RALPH ELLISON - African-American writer, whose novel INVISIBLE MAN (1952) gained a wide critical success. He used racial issues to express universal dilemmas but avoided taking a straightforward political stand. "Literature is colorblind," he once said. Many artists of the Black Arts movement rejected Ellison for his insistence that America be a land of cultural exchange and synergy.
VESPUCIUS - Florentine navigator who explored the coast of South America; America was named after him (1454-1512). I take this as a rebuke of Ellison, ranking him on the level of the colonizer, Vespucius
ARNA WENDELL BONTEMPS - writer in the Harlem Renaissance.
9.479
SHALOM ALEICHEM - Hebrew greeting. Peace.
JIMMY BALDWIN – James Baldwin, writer noted for his novels on sexual and personal identity, and sharp essays on civil-rights struggle in the United States.
GHANA GUINEA – “Some 10 million Africans were sold into slavery between the 1500s and 1800s, bartered by their own tribal kings and chiefs to European traders for such novelties as gunpowder, alcohol and mirrors. Many were held in castle dungeons along the West African coast before being marched out to slave ships that sailed for the Americas and Europe.”
ORNETTE - Ornette Coleman the revolutionary saxophonist who created "free jazz”
Kwame NKRUMAH, foremost proponent of Pan-Africanism in the latter half of the 20th century.
NASSER- Gamal Abdul-Nasser became president of Egypt in a 1952 military coup referred to as the 1952 Revolution. Nasser was responsible for the nationalization of the Suez Canal, Agrarian reform, and socialist policies that brought the vast majority of Egyptians out of poverty.
ZIK AZIKIWE – president of Nigeria who brought Nigeria out of colonialism.
KENYATTA - On June 1, 1963, Mzee Kenyatta became the first Prime Minister of self-governing Kenya.
TOURE - Toure is known as the Bluesman of Africa because of his highly distinctive blues style that's a cross-mix of the Arabic-influenced Malian sound with American blues reminiscent of bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Big Joe Williams.
p.480
DIXIECRATS - The States' Rights party, also known as the "Dixiecrats," was a rump party that split off from the national Democratic party and ran candidates in the 1948 presidential election.
DR RUFUS CLEMENT - Atlanta University President Dr. Rufus B. Clement elected first black member of the Atlanta Board of Education; in 1954, Clement becomes chair of the SRC Executive Committee.
GEORGE, ZELMA WATSON (1903-1994). black diplomat, social-program administrator, musicologist, opera singer, and college administrator
“After moving to Cleveland to study African American music at the Cleveland Public Library, she wrote Chariot's a Comin!, a musical play based upon her research of this subject. She went on to headline in The Medium, an opera by Gian-Carlo Menotti, at Karamu Theater. People consider her to be one of the first Black women to assume this typically White role.
In the 1950's Zelma George served on national government committees during the Eisenhower administration: she was a good-will ambassador and an alternate U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1960-61. On a return trip home from lecturing at Bethune-Cookman College, she stopped in Orlando to visit relatives. During a delay at their airport, she took a seat in a waiting room and was approached by a police officer to leave the room: "Get out you Yankee trouble-maker or I'll throw you out!" She responded angrily to the room of 75 people:
"I am a United States delegate to the United Nations. Not long ago I returned from a round-the-world lecture tour at the request of the State Department. I was trying to create for people in foreign lands an image of my country as a land where all men are created equal and freedom is everyone's birthright. Is there no one in this room who will stand up for me now?"
There was no one who spoke up for her”.
p.481
FAUBUS – Orville Faubus, segregationist Arkansas governor
EASTLAND – James Eastland, segregationist Mississippi senator
PATTERSON – John Patterson, segregationist Alabama governor.
DEAR OLD DARLING WHITE MAMMIES – “These lines invert one of the stereotypes white racists used to support the ostensible benevolence of segregation. They also remind us that in the segregated south white families depended on black servants to maintain their own internal structure” ( Scanlon)
CULTURE IS A TWO WAY STREET. This harkens back to the title, cultural exchange, a term that is usually meant to imply a two-way exchange of cultural understanding. This section of the poem shows us that although black entertainers and writers have been successful in white America, they do so on white terms. A real two way street in which the segregationists become the servants of black families is unthinkable.
the one thing I could make nothing of was "THE TOLL BRIDGE AT WESTCHESTER" Maybe someone can help me here.
Ride, Red, Ride
“Ride Red, Ride”
is a reference to Henry ‘Red’ Allen, one of the greatest jazz trumpeters and singers to come out of New Orleans.
http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com
Line 2, “When the role is called up yonder” I leave room for interpretation. Given the references that follow in the poem it’s difficult to deny the spiritual implications… ‘up yonder’ as in heaven, a gathering of histories. There is also a fragment of the dream that closes the Cultural Exchange section that carries through to this.
Line 7, “Ca Ira! Ca Ira!” … “les aristocrats a la lanterne” is the refrain to a song from the French Revolution. “It shall go on, it shall go on, [hang] the aristocrats to the lantern.”
Alone, “IRA!” also implies anger, fury. (Webster’s Dictionary 1913).
Line 8 “IRA! BOY, IRA!” has the intensity of light, enlightenment, anger into energy, TURN ON!
The Spanish in the second stanza translates roughly to “Grandmother (Abuela), where are you? (donde esta).”
Line 12, “lost in Castro’s beard” Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959 after leading a revolution against Batista.
Line 14, “blown sky high by Mont Pelee?”
Mt. Pelee, located on the island of Martinique, is famous for the May 8, 1902 eruption which killed 29,000 people and destroyed the city of St. Pierre. This is the largest number of casualties for a volcanic eruption this century.
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_mt_pelee.html
Line 16, “was she fleeing with Lumumba?” Patrice Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was deposed by Mobutu Sese Seko in 1960 and executed in 1961. New reports have shown the CIA and the Belgian government to share responsibility for his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba
Line 17 throws me off a bit. The history of the events that are behind the specific names Hughes mentions here is staggering. In other words, I don’t know which side is which.
And the next line, “A little rum with sugar” could possibly imply a lament for the Caribbean, a loyalty to… this takes some digging!
No luck yet on Morena (line 18).
Grenadine: A chain of islands off the coast of Venezuela. Also a red syrup made from pomegranates.
Granada: was first settled by native tribes in the prehistoric period, and was known as Ilbyr.
When the Romans colonised southern Spain, they built their own city here and called it Illibris. The Arabs, invading the peninsula in the 8th century, gave it its current name of Granada. It was the last Muslim city to fall to the Christians in 1492, at the hands of Queen Isabel of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon.
http://www.andalucia.com/cities/granada.htm
I’m not quite sure how to translate line 20. I think it has something to do with drops of blood.
Adam Powell, mentioned in the last stanza, was the first person to represent Harlem in Council. His career seems to have ended rather tragically.
Overall, there is an urgency about this poem to acknowledge the past and to be proud instead of silent, to be angry instead of silent, to be curious, to become part of the legacy; “When they ask if you knew me,/ don’t take the Fifth Amendment.”
is a reference to Henry ‘Red’ Allen, one of the greatest jazz trumpeters and singers to come out of New Orleans.
http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com
Line 2, “When the role is called up yonder” I leave room for interpretation. Given the references that follow in the poem it’s difficult to deny the spiritual implications… ‘up yonder’ as in heaven, a gathering of histories. There is also a fragment of the dream that closes the Cultural Exchange section that carries through to this.
Line 7, “Ca Ira! Ca Ira!” … “les aristocrats a la lanterne” is the refrain to a song from the French Revolution. “It shall go on, it shall go on, [hang] the aristocrats to the lantern.”
Alone, “IRA!” also implies anger, fury. (Webster’s Dictionary 1913).
Line 8 “IRA! BOY, IRA!” has the intensity of light, enlightenment, anger into energy, TURN ON!
The Spanish in the second stanza translates roughly to “Grandmother (Abuela), where are you? (donde esta).”
Line 12, “lost in Castro’s beard” Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959 after leading a revolution against Batista.
Line 14, “blown sky high by Mont Pelee?”
Mt. Pelee, located on the island of Martinique, is famous for the May 8, 1902 eruption which killed 29,000 people and destroyed the city of St. Pierre. This is the largest number of casualties for a volcanic eruption this century.
http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/img_mt_pelee.html
Line 16, “was she fleeing with Lumumba?” Patrice Lumumba was the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was deposed by Mobutu Sese Seko in 1960 and executed in 1961. New reports have shown the CIA and the Belgian government to share responsibility for his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba
Line 17 throws me off a bit. The history of the events that are behind the specific names Hughes mentions here is staggering. In other words, I don’t know which side is which.
And the next line, “A little rum with sugar” could possibly imply a lament for the Caribbean, a loyalty to… this takes some digging!
No luck yet on Morena (line 18).
Grenadine: A chain of islands off the coast of Venezuela. Also a red syrup made from pomegranates.
Granada: was first settled by native tribes in the prehistoric period, and was known as Ilbyr.
When the Romans colonised southern Spain, they built their own city here and called it Illibris. The Arabs, invading the peninsula in the 8th century, gave it its current name of Granada. It was the last Muslim city to fall to the Christians in 1492, at the hands of Queen Isabel of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon.
http://www.andalucia.com/cities/granada.htm
I’m not quite sure how to translate line 20. I think it has something to do with drops of blood.
Adam Powell, mentioned in the last stanza, was the first person to represent Harlem in Council. His career seems to have ended rather tragically.
Overall, there is an urgency about this poem to acknowledge the past and to be proud instead of silent, to be angry instead of silent, to be curious, to become part of the legacy; “When they ask if you knew me,/ don’t take the Fifth Amendment.”
Shades of Pigment
“Shades of Pigment”
Is such an incredibly strong title for an epic about racial divide that I hesitate to try and add anything to it by attempting explanations.
However, the first two sections of the poem employ a method of blending the subject matter into continuity. The dream carries into “Ride…” and the ideas generated by the mention of Adam Powell at the end of “Ride…” carry directly into this part of the poem.
“Adam Powell's heritage was white, African and Cherokee. Because of his heritage he was mistaken for a white man many times. One of those events was when he was stopped by a gang of African youth who asked what color he was. Adam had not ever been questioned or had thought about his that much as a child. His response was white.
In 1940 Harlem got a seat in council. Adam Powell was the first person to represent Harlem in council. Along with a chosen few Powell became one of the only blacks in politics. Because of his popularity Powell was elected to congress thirteen times but was ruled out the last time. Among one of his achievements Powell was elected to the House of Representatives. Last but not least Powell was elected the chairman of education and labor.”
http://www.newton.mec.edu/bigelow/classroom/yerardi/blackhistory04/18blackhist04cb1/18blackhist04cb1index.htm
Line 2-4, I’m not having any luck pinpointing Leopold, Premier Downing, or General Bourse
Line 5, “Eastland and Malan deceased” As Patsy mentioned, Eastland was a segregationist governor. Daniel Francois Malan was the first Prime Minister of the apartheid government in South Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Francois_Malan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Lenya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_the_Knife
Porgy and Bess was written by George Gershwin.
The fez, also spelled fes, is a particular style of hat that originated from the city of Fez in Morocco. The fez is also known as the tarboosh (Persian sar-boosh for "head cover") and checheya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian born, Jewish singer who feld to the US in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. She went on to play the role of Jenny in The Threepenny Opera, which also explains the next reference, "Mack the Knife," the name of the main character.Porgy and Bess is an opera with Music by George Gershwin, based on a novel by Dubose Heyward. Hughes, like this opera, deals with boundaries of race.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porgy_and_Bess#PlotLines 17-20 stump me... I'm not sure exactly how to research what he might mean there...Line 24 The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions over Jewish law, custom, etc.Lines 25-27 begin a series of analogies that are all unique in their representation of displacement. That’s what sums this up for me…Displacement, division…
Is such an incredibly strong title for an epic about racial divide that I hesitate to try and add anything to it by attempting explanations.
However, the first two sections of the poem employ a method of blending the subject matter into continuity. The dream carries into “Ride…” and the ideas generated by the mention of Adam Powell at the end of “Ride…” carry directly into this part of the poem.
“Adam Powell's heritage was white, African and Cherokee. Because of his heritage he was mistaken for a white man many times. One of those events was when he was stopped by a gang of African youth who asked what color he was. Adam had not ever been questioned or had thought about his that much as a child. His response was white.
In 1940 Harlem got a seat in council. Adam Powell was the first person to represent Harlem in council. Along with a chosen few Powell became one of the only blacks in politics. Because of his popularity Powell was elected to congress thirteen times but was ruled out the last time. Among one of his achievements Powell was elected to the House of Representatives. Last but not least Powell was elected the chairman of education and labor.”
http://www.newton.mec.edu/bigelow/classroom/yerardi/blackhistory04/18blackhist04cb1/18blackhist04cb1index.htm
Line 2-4, I’m not having any luck pinpointing Leopold, Premier Downing, or General Bourse
Line 5, “Eastland and Malan deceased” As Patsy mentioned, Eastland was a segregationist governor. Daniel Francois Malan was the first Prime Minister of the apartheid government in South Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Francois_Malan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Lenya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_the_Knife
Porgy and Bess was written by George Gershwin.
The fez, also spelled fes, is a particular style of hat that originated from the city of Fez in Morocco. The fez is also known as the tarboosh (Persian sar-boosh for "head cover") and checheya.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez
Lotte Lenya was an Austrian born, Jewish singer who feld to the US in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. She went on to play the role of Jenny in The Threepenny Opera, which also explains the next reference, "Mack the Knife," the name of the main character.Porgy and Bess is an opera with Music by George Gershwin, based on a novel by Dubose Heyward. Hughes, like this opera, deals with boundaries of race.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porgy_and_Bess#PlotLines 17-20 stump me... I'm not sure exactly how to research what he might mean there...Line 24 The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions over Jewish law, custom, etc.Lines 25-27 begin a series of analogies that are all unique in their representation of displacement. That’s what sums this up for me…Displacement, division…
Ask Your Mama
Line 5 - 5th and Mound in Cinci - Cincinnati- corner with several schools and universities
Line 5 - 63rd in Chi - Chi=Chicago - known for holding the World Columbian Expedition.
Line 6 - 23rd and Central - home of Wall Street. In the early 1900's, Wall Street experienced a small financial depression. The German Jews moved in and mortgaged the property, making it into a congregation and college.
Line 6 - 18th Street and Vine K.C. - Home of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum.
Line 18/19 - High balls, low balls, the 8 ball - In the game of pool, the black 8 ball is to go in last in order to win the game.
Line 20 - 7-11 Come 7 - This is the Song of Solomon.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field. Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my loved one, let us go out into the field; let us take rest among the cypress-trees.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields; Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, we go forth to the field
Line 21 - Porgy and Bess - A famous folk opera written by George Gershwin. This uses several spirituals as well as blues, etc.
Line 29 - Fillmore out in Frisco - San Francisco - music theater - area is famous for the Digger Movement and Artist Liberation started in the '60's by the Beats and Hippies.
Line 29 - 7th across the bay - Brooklyn, NY. home of Stonewall Jackson and Tony Mauero. All of the mansions were torn down in the '40's. There is also a Revolutionary War Cemetery in this area.
Line 34 - Leola - ALso known as Leola and the HoneyBears - African-American re-telling of Goldilocks.
Line 37 - Lumimba Louis Armstong - Louis Armstrong was the legendary jazz singer. He went to the Congo during his travels, where he was greeted to his "home in the Congo" by Patricia Lumumba, a political leader in the Congo during the Civil War. She helped to chaperone him out of the airport.
Line 38 - Patricia and Patti Page - Patti Page was a well known singer in the early 1900's.
Line 40 - King Cole - pop/jazz singer in the 50's and 60's. Known for songs such as Mona Lisa, Route 66, Unforgettable, and one of the first black TV shows on NBC.
Line 44 - Fort de France - Northern Coast of the Carribean - This was built by the French Colonials in the 1600's. It was taken over by the Dutch in the 1700's, then by the English in the 1800's. The French reoccupied the territory in the 1850's. It was destroyed by natural disasters in 1902.
Line 45 - Place Picalle - Albania, by the Mediterranean Sea.
Line 47 - Bahia - place in South America
Line 47 - Lagos - place in Nigeria
Line 47 - Dakar - Senegal
Line 47 - Lenex - Massachussetts
LIne 48 - Kingston - New York, Also a 60's trio that took a large stand during the Civil Rights Movement.
Line 49 - Dome Vingt - ?
Line 49 - Rotonde - Fountain in Aix, France. Symbolic of entrance into the modern day.
Line 53 - Sorbonne - School in Paris.
Line 55, 58, 59 - Unicorn - Symbolic of man's hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, inner consciousness. Also stands for purity, hope, love, and majesty. Most are waiting for the unicorn's return. In the Bible, it is said that the Unicorn died when it would not get on Noah's Ark, because it believed it could survive the flood on it's own.
Line 55,58,59 - Mules and Donkeys - The donkey is known for being half wild and half domesticated. It is known as a social misfit, has insatiable lust, and also stands for strong, blue-collar workers.
Mules, however, are easily managed, docile, sure-footed, and strong.
Line 60 - Sekou Toure Cap - Dictator of Guinea. Lived from 1958-1984. Caused a major collapse in the society of Guinea.
Line 64 - Azikiwe's son, Ameka - Nigeria, Biafra. Azikiwe was the President of Nigeria. Ameka took his place after his death. He formed a temporary government and helped Nigeria become a republic. He was also part of the military government with Nigeria's civil war in 1967. He founded the Nigerian People's Party.
Line 65 - Emmett Till - A teenager who was lynched in Mississippi right after Brown vs. Board of Education. He was first kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot in the head, then a metal fan used for ginning cotton was tied to his neck. Hew as thrown in the river and found 3 days later. The two killers were founded not guilty after one year of investigation. The blacks boycotted their business, eventually making them go bankrupt. Emmett Till was buried in Chicago, where thousands of spectators came to view his body. 100 days later, Rosa Parks refused to take her seat on the bus. Emmett Till is known as one event that led to the civil rights movement.
Line 74 - Quarter of the Negroes - In the 1864 Civil War, a massacre occurred, where the shouting began with "No Quarter! No Quarter! Kill the negroes". Also a cross-section of another Langston Hughes poem.
Cultural Exchange
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o'-Lanterns caper
And the wind won't wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off goind
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whisteles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going--
Yet Leontyne's unpacking.
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa--
Not of her own doing--
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.
Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dup to Mount Vernon.
In the pot begind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what's cooking?
What's smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.
You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.
Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over--
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power--
Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies--
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!
Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!
Line 5 - 63rd in Chi - Chi=Chicago - known for holding the World Columbian Expedition.
Line 6 - 23rd and Central - home of Wall Street. In the early 1900's, Wall Street experienced a small financial depression. The German Jews moved in and mortgaged the property, making it into a congregation and college.
Line 6 - 18th Street and Vine K.C. - Home of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum.
Line 18/19 - High balls, low balls, the 8 ball - In the game of pool, the black 8 ball is to go in last in order to win the game.
Line 20 - 7-11 Come 7 - This is the Song of Solomon.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field. Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my loved one, let us go out into the field; let us take rest among the cypress-trees.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields; Let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Come, my beloved, we go forth to the field
Line 21 - Porgy and Bess - A famous folk opera written by George Gershwin. This uses several spirituals as well as blues, etc.
Line 29 - Fillmore out in Frisco - San Francisco - music theater - area is famous for the Digger Movement and Artist Liberation started in the '60's by the Beats and Hippies.
Line 29 - 7th across the bay - Brooklyn, NY. home of Stonewall Jackson and Tony Mauero. All of the mansions were torn down in the '40's. There is also a Revolutionary War Cemetery in this area.
Line 34 - Leola - ALso known as Leola and the HoneyBears - African-American re-telling of Goldilocks.
Line 37 - Lumimba Louis Armstong - Louis Armstrong was the legendary jazz singer. He went to the Congo during his travels, where he was greeted to his "home in the Congo" by Patricia Lumumba, a political leader in the Congo during the Civil War. She helped to chaperone him out of the airport.
Line 38 - Patricia and Patti Page - Patti Page was a well known singer in the early 1900's.
Line 40 - King Cole - pop/jazz singer in the 50's and 60's. Known for songs such as Mona Lisa, Route 66, Unforgettable, and one of the first black TV shows on NBC.
Line 44 - Fort de France - Northern Coast of the Carribean - This was built by the French Colonials in the 1600's. It was taken over by the Dutch in the 1700's, then by the English in the 1800's. The French reoccupied the territory in the 1850's. It was destroyed by natural disasters in 1902.
Line 45 - Place Picalle - Albania, by the Mediterranean Sea.
Line 47 - Bahia - place in South America
Line 47 - Lagos - place in Nigeria
Line 47 - Dakar - Senegal
Line 47 - Lenex - Massachussetts
LIne 48 - Kingston - New York, Also a 60's trio that took a large stand during the Civil Rights Movement.
Line 49 - Dome Vingt - ?
Line 49 - Rotonde - Fountain in Aix, France. Symbolic of entrance into the modern day.
Line 53 - Sorbonne - School in Paris.
Line 55, 58, 59 - Unicorn - Symbolic of man's hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, inner consciousness. Also stands for purity, hope, love, and majesty. Most are waiting for the unicorn's return. In the Bible, it is said that the Unicorn died when it would not get on Noah's Ark, because it believed it could survive the flood on it's own.
Line 55,58,59 - Mules and Donkeys - The donkey is known for being half wild and half domesticated. It is known as a social misfit, has insatiable lust, and also stands for strong, blue-collar workers.
Mules, however, are easily managed, docile, sure-footed, and strong.
Line 60 - Sekou Toure Cap - Dictator of Guinea. Lived from 1958-1984. Caused a major collapse in the society of Guinea.
Line 64 - Azikiwe's son, Ameka - Nigeria, Biafra. Azikiwe was the President of Nigeria. Ameka took his place after his death. He formed a temporary government and helped Nigeria become a republic. He was also part of the military government with Nigeria's civil war in 1967. He founded the Nigerian People's Party.
Line 65 - Emmett Till - A teenager who was lynched in Mississippi right after Brown vs. Board of Education. He was first kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot in the head, then a metal fan used for ginning cotton was tied to his neck. Hew as thrown in the river and found 3 days later. The two killers were founded not guilty after one year of investigation. The blacks boycotted their business, eventually making them go bankrupt. Emmett Till was buried in Chicago, where thousands of spectators came to view his body. 100 days later, Rosa Parks refused to take her seat on the bus. Emmett Till is known as one event that led to the civil rights movement.
Line 74 - Quarter of the Negroes - In the 1864 Civil War, a massacre occurred, where the shouting began with "No Quarter! No Quarter! Kill the negroes". Also a cross-section of another Langston Hughes poem.
Cultural Exchange
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doors are doors of paper
Dust of dingy atoms
Blows a scratchy sound.
Amorphous jack-o'-Lanterns caper
And the wind won't wait for midnight
For fun to blow doors down.
By the river and the railroad
With fluid far-off goind
Boundaries bind unbinding
A whirl of whisteles blowing.
No trains or steamboats going--
Yet Leontyne's unpacking.
In the Quarter of the Negroes
Where the doorknob lets in Lieder
More than German ever bore,
Her yesterday past grandpa--
Not of her own doing--
In a pot of collard greens
Is gently stewing.
Pushcarts fold and unfold
In a supermarket sea.
And we better find out, mama,
Where is the colored laundromat
Since we move dup to Mount Vernon.
In the pot begind the paper doors
on the old iron stove what's cooking?
What's smelling, Leontyne?
Lieder, lovely Lieder
And a leaf of collard green.
Lovely Lieder, Leontyne.
You know, right at Christmas
They asked me if my blackness,
Would it rub off?
I said, Ask your mama.
Dreams and nightmares!
Nightmares, dreams, oh!
Dreaming that the Negroes
Of the South have taken over--
Voted all the Dixiecrats
Right out of power--
Comes the COLORED HOUR:
Martin Luther King is Governor of Georgia,
Dr. Rufus Clement his Chief Adviser,
A. Philip Randolph the High Grand Worthy.
In white pillared mansions
Sitting on their wide verandas,
Wealthy Negroes have white servants,
White sharecroppers work the black plantations,
And colored children have white mammies:
Mammy Faubus
Mammy Eastland
Mammy Wallace
Dear, dear darling old white mammies--
Sometimes even buried with our family.
Dear old
Mammy Faubus!
Culture, they say, is a two-way street:
Hand me my mint julep, mammny.
Hurry up!
Make haste!
Ode to Dinah
Page 488
1. Ode: the suffix -ode, means path or way. Ode the poem is a lyrical, meditative poem. Perhaps Hughes intent is to meditate on the path of Dinah Washington.
2. Dinah Washington is often referred to as being the “Queen of the Blues.” She was raised in Chicago during the Great Depression. Dinah died at the age of 39 accidentally from mixing diet pills with alcohol.
Pp. 489
3. Quarter (Line1) : a specific district where a certain type of people live, in this case African-Americans.
4. Pearl Bailey lived from 1918-1990. She sang and performed in night clubs, on Broadway, and in movies. She acted as the U.S. Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations.
5. Quarter (Line 8): Hughes may be refers to the last part of the 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves to be free men and women.
6. “Mechanics Need Repairing” Hughes implies that African-Americans are still not free even though they are not owned as slaves.
7. Niagara Falls are a set of waterfalls located partially in the United States and partially in Canada. The Canada Chutes fall 170 feet, the American 110.
8. Georgia- A southern state in the U.S. A. The fall of Atlanta, Georgia was a key victory for the North during the Civil War.
9. Maracas are Latin American instruments made from hollow gourds containing pebbles or beans. Hughes may be referring to a Latin American Quarter. He is speaking of freedom of all minorities being inhibited during this time.
10. Mahalia Jackson was a gospel and Jazz singer who was discovered in the 1940's. She refused to sing the Blues saying that the blues are “songs of despair....gospel sings of hope.” Mahalia was an influential player in the Civil Rights movement.
11. Blind Lemon was a blind blues musician. He was considered to be the most popular male, blues recording artist of the 1920's.
Pp. 490
12. . “When Niagara Falls is Fallen”: I am not sure if Niagra falls represents America being frozen in segregation or if it is something else.
13. I am unsure what the woman with two pistols is referring to in this section of the poem.
14. The train “whose route is freedom” is may be a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement that is traveling though slavery and segregation- the jungle.
15. Quakers are members of the Religious Society of Friends. Perhaps Quakers often helped runaway slaves hide.
16. A haymow is hay kept up in a loft. Would slaves have hide here? Hughes then refers to the manger where Christ was said to have been born. With this reference he implies a safe place to be.
17. “Niagara/ drowns the rumble of that train.” Although slaves where free, there is still racism.
Pp. 491
18. Brinks is a bank in Boston. “To be carted off by Brink’s” implies that all quarters earned goes immediately to a corrupt bank.
19. Canaries is a slang term for women singers. “To keep far-off canaries / in silver cages singing” implies that Dinah will help keep other women who are kept in cages singing.
20. “Tribal now no longer” and “gangrenous icing” implies a death of humanity.
Pp. 492
21. “Umbilical in sulphurous chocolate” all are sharing in the negative effects of racism- not just the victims.
1. Ode: the suffix -ode, means path or way. Ode the poem is a lyrical, meditative poem. Perhaps Hughes intent is to meditate on the path of Dinah Washington.
2. Dinah Washington is often referred to as being the “Queen of the Blues.” She was raised in Chicago during the Great Depression. Dinah died at the age of 39 accidentally from mixing diet pills with alcohol.
Pp. 489
3. Quarter (Line1) : a specific district where a certain type of people live, in this case African-Americans.
4. Pearl Bailey lived from 1918-1990. She sang and performed in night clubs, on Broadway, and in movies. She acted as the U.S. Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations.
5. Quarter (Line 8): Hughes may be refers to the last part of the 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves to be free men and women.
6. “Mechanics Need Repairing” Hughes implies that African-Americans are still not free even though they are not owned as slaves.
7. Niagara Falls are a set of waterfalls located partially in the United States and partially in Canada. The Canada Chutes fall 170 feet, the American 110.
8. Georgia- A southern state in the U.S. A. The fall of Atlanta, Georgia was a key victory for the North during the Civil War.
9. Maracas are Latin American instruments made from hollow gourds containing pebbles or beans. Hughes may be referring to a Latin American Quarter. He is speaking of freedom of all minorities being inhibited during this time.
10. Mahalia Jackson was a gospel and Jazz singer who was discovered in the 1940's. She refused to sing the Blues saying that the blues are “songs of despair....gospel sings of hope.” Mahalia was an influential player in the Civil Rights movement.
11. Blind Lemon was a blind blues musician. He was considered to be the most popular male, blues recording artist of the 1920's.
Pp. 490
12. . “When Niagara Falls is Fallen”: I am not sure if Niagra falls represents America being frozen in segregation or if it is something else.
13. I am unsure what the woman with two pistols is referring to in this section of the poem.
14. The train “whose route is freedom” is may be a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement that is traveling though slavery and segregation- the jungle.
15. Quakers are members of the Religious Society of Friends. Perhaps Quakers often helped runaway slaves hide.
16. A haymow is hay kept up in a loft. Would slaves have hide here? Hughes then refers to the manger where Christ was said to have been born. With this reference he implies a safe place to be.
17. “Niagara/ drowns the rumble of that train.” Although slaves where free, there is still racism.
Pp. 491
18. Brinks is a bank in Boston. “To be carted off by Brink’s” implies that all quarters earned goes immediately to a corrupt bank.
19. Canaries is a slang term for women singers. “To keep far-off canaries / in silver cages singing” implies that Dinah will help keep other women who are kept in cages singing.
20. “Tribal now no longer” and “gangrenous icing” implies a death of humanity.
Pp. 492
21. “Umbilical in sulphurous chocolate” all are sharing in the negative effects of racism- not just the victims.
Bird in Orbit
Bird in Orbit from Hughes’ “Ask Your Mamma”
p. 515 – 519
references:
“Eartha”
Eartha Mae Kitt, born January 17, 1927, is an actress and singer.
She was born illegitimate in South Carolina, but jokes about the fact that many audiences assume her to be from somewhere more exotic. Her hits include "Let's Do It," "An Old-Fashioned Millionaire" and "Santa Baby."
Eartha Kitt made her film debut in 1958, and was once described by Orson Welles as "the most exciting girl in the world". In the Batman television series of the 1960s, she played "Catwoman" in succession to Julie Newmar.
Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley (born December 30, 1928), "The Originator", is an influential American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was born Ellas Bates and later took the name Ellas McDaniel, after his adoptive mother, Gussie McDaniel. He adopted the stage name Bo Diddley, which is probably a southern black slang phrase meaning "nothing at all", as in "he ain't bo diddley". Another source says it was his nickname as a Golden Gloves boxer.
He was given a guitar by his sister as a youth, but also took violin lessons. He was inspired to become a blues artist by seeing John Lee Hooker.
He is best known for the "Bo Diddley beat", a rhumba-based beat (see clave) also influenced by what is known as "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. The Bo Diddley beat is often illustrated with the phrase: "shave 'n' a haircut - two bits".
Rhythm is so important in Bo Diddley's music that harmony is often reduced to a bare minimum. His songs (for example "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?") often have no chord changes; that is, they are not written in a musical key, and the musicians play and sing in the same chord throughout the piece.
His own songs have been frequently covered. The Animals recorded "The Story of Bo Diddley", The Yardbirds covered "I'm a Man", and both the Woolies and George Thorogood had hits with "Who Do You Love", also a concert favorite of The Doors. His "Road Runner", one of his two Top 40 hits, was also frequently covered. ("Say Man" was the other Top 40 hit.)
Bo Diddley used a variety of rhythms, however, from straight back beat to pop ballad style, frequently with maracas by Jerome Green. He was also an influential guitar player, with many special effects and other innovations in tone and attack. He also plays the violin and cello; the latter is featured on his mournful instrumental "The Clock Strikes Twelve".
His lyrics are often witty and humorous adaptations of folk music themes. His first hit, "Bo Diddley" was based on the lullaby "Mockingbird". Likewise, "Hey Bo Diddley" is based on the folk song, "Frog went a-courtin'". The rap-style boasting of "Who do you love?", a word play on hoodoo, used many striking lyrics from the African-American tradition of toasts and boasts. His two versions of "Say Man" have been connected with rap, but actually feature the insults known as the Dirty Dozens: "You look like you been in a hatchet fight and everybody had a hatchet except you."
Lil Greenwood:
Lil Greenwood might be most well known as a vocalist with Duke Ellington's band for a few years starting in the late 1950s. She is featured on Ellington's album My People, but her career as a recording artist in her own right was highlighted by more RB-oriented sides she did in the early 1950s for Modern and Federal. Though she didn't have hits, Greenwood was one of many California-based singers in these years recording in a style intersecting jazz with blues and a bit of gospel.
Harry Belafonte:
Belafonte was born in Harlem in New York City. Overwhelmed and intimidated by its ghetto streets and thinking the islands to be a safer place, his immigrant mother sent him back to the island of her birth, Jamaica, the island and all its variety became a cultural reservoir which he drew upon for his artistic expression.
At the outbreak of World War II, his mother retrieved him from the island and brought him back to Harlem. He tried to adapt to his new environment, a process which came with great difficulty and finally, unable to finish high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy. After his tour of duty was over and he was honorably discharged, he returned to New York where he worked both in the garment center and as a janitor’s assistant.
It wasn’t until Belafonte was given two free tickets to a production of “Home is the Hunter” at the American Negro Theatre (A.N.T.) that the world of theater opened up to him. As Belafonte describes it, “It was like walking into a sanctuary, it was a deeply moving spiritual experience.”
Inspired by what he saw on stage and deeply touched by the sense of community displayed by the actors, Belafonte, for the first time, came face to face with what would be his destiny – a life in performing arts.
Although he found the environment most seductive, his appreciation of all facets of the theater did not, at first, help him settle on what he specifically wanted to do.
It wasn’t until he was called upon to play the role of young Johnny Boyle in the A.N.T. production of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock,” that Belafonte found focus. Inspired by the power of O’Casey’s writing,, Belafonte knew unequivocally that acting would be his first choice.
He then joined the Dramatic Workshop of the School of the School of Social Research under the tutelage of the great German director, Erwin Piscator, and with classmates like Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, Rod Steiger and Tony Curtis – just to name a few – Belafonte became thoroughly grounded in the world of performing arts.
In pursuit of study at the school, Belafonte was subsidized by the U.S. government (The G.I. Bill of Rights). As many ex-servicemen were to experience, the subsidy ran out all too soon. In his quest to continue his student work in theater, his new-found friend, Monte Kaye, the revered and highly respected promoter for the Royal Roost, came to his rescue.
Having heard Belafonte sing at the Workshop in the student production, Kaye suggested that if Belafonte could learn three or four songs, he would hire him as the intermission singer at famed jazz club. To help him learn the songs, Kaye made available a young jazz pianist named Al Hage who was joined on Belafonte’s opening night at the Royal Roost by a host of friends who volunteered to be his back-up band. Although the audience may have had some curiosity as to who Belafonte was, they were most familiar with his “back-up band” – Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter.
The warmth and camaraderie emanating from the “back-up band” helped a frightened and unsure Belafonte launch what was to be the first step to a career that has since been globally embraced.
The recognition of his gift was instant, but Belafonte soon found himself overwhelmed by this newfound popularity which was pulling him surely but slowly away from the world of theater he had come to love. Feeling the intervention of this new career most distracting from his acting interests, Belafonte soon retired to devote himself full-time to the theater.
He soon found that America was as yet unwilling to embrace its black citizens fully in his chosen profession, and with not enough parts to go around for the many talented actors, including his close friend, Sidney Poitier, Belafonte, in frustration, opened a small eatery in Greenwich Village as a means of livelihood.
He would have languished there had he not discovered a small night club called The Village Vanguard and the world of folk music. Watching artists like Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Pete Seeger and others, Belafonte found an art form that would become his ultimate expression.
Josephine Baker:
Josephine Baker grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but left home at an early age and began performing on stage. She appeared in the chorus lines of all-black revues on vaudeville, and travelled to Paris in 1925 as part of La Revue Negre. Her lithe body and clowning around on stage caused a sensation, and by the 1930s she was so successful she had her own nightclub. Baker was famous for her exotic outfits and uninhibited sexuality, her trademarks being a leopard on a leash, a skirt made of feathers and a dance in which she wore bananas on her head and not much else. In 1937 she became a citizen of France, and during World War II she worked with the Resistance against the Nazis. After the war she fought for civil rights in the United States, returned to France and retired in 1956 to look after her 12 adopted children. In the late '60s Baker was rescued from destitution by Princess Grace, who helped Baker put on another stage show, Josephine. She died in 1975 and was given a state funeral in Paris.
Negritude: noun: an ideological position that holds Black culture to be independent and valid on its own terms
Aime Cesaire demolishes the old maxim that poets make terrible politicians. Known in the world of letters as the progenitor of Negritude (the first diasporic "black pride" movement), a major voice of Surrealism, and one of the great French poets, Césaire is also revered for his role in modern anticolonial and Pan-African movements. While it might appear that the poet and politician operated in separate spheres, Césaire's life and work demonstrate that poetry can be the motor of political imagination, a potent weapon in any movement that claims freedom as its primary goal.
Born on June 25, 1913, in the small town of Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Césaire and his five siblings were raised by their mother, who was a dressmaker, and their father, who held a post as the local tax inspector. Although their father was well-educated and they shared the cultural sensibilities of the petite bourgeoisie, the Césaires nonetheless lived close to the edge of rural poverty. Aimé turned out to be a brilliant, precocious student and at age 11 was admitted to the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France. Upon graduation in 1931, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand to prepare for the grueling entrance exams to the École Normale Supérieure (a high-level teachers' training college). There he met a number of like-minded intellectuals, most notably the Senegalese intellectual Léopold Sédar Senghor. Among other things, they began to study African history and culture, particularly the writings of German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, whose The Voice of Africa provided a powerful defense of Africa's cultural and intellectual contributions to the world.
The twosome, along with Césaire's childhood friend, poet Léon-Gontran Damas, launched a journal called L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student). In its March 1935 issue, Césaire published a passionate tract against assimilation in which he first coined the term "Negritude." It is more than ironic that at the moment Césaire's piece appeared, he was hard at work absorbing as much knowledge about French and European humanities as possible in preparation for his entrance exams for École Normale Supérieure. The exams took their toll, for sure, though the psychic and emotional costs of having to imbibe the very culture Césaire publicly rejected must have exacerbated an already exhausting regimen.
After completing his exams during the summer of 1935, he took a short vacation to Yugoslavia with a fellow student. While visiting the Adriatic coast, Césaire was overcome with memories of home after seeing a small island from a distance. Moved, he stayed up half the night working on a long poem about the Martinique of his youth—the land, the people, the majesty of the place. The next morning when he inquired about the little island, he was told it was called Martinska. A magical chance encounter, to say the least; the words he penned that moonlit night were the beginnings of what would subsequently become his most famous poem of all: "Cahier d'un Retour au Pays Natal (Notebook of a Return to My Native Land)".
Charlie Parker • Saxophonist / Bandleader / Jazz Musician
Name at birth: Charles Christopher Parker, Jr.
Parker, nicknamed "Yardbird" ("Bird" for short), had an undistinguished early career, but ended up being one of the creators of bebop jazz in the 1940s. He played with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, all the while making his mark as an inventor of melodies and creative improviser. Highly influential and praised by fellow musicians, Parker had a brief career due to his troubled personal life and addictions to alcohol and heroin.
Extra credit: In 1988 jazz fan Clint Eastwood made a biographical movie about Parker, Bird, with Forest Whitaker in the title role.
John Jasper’s “Do-Move Cosmic Consciousness”
"De Sun Do Move"
Sermon by John Jasper (1812-1901)
[The following text is taken from John Jasper: The American Negro Preacher and Philospher by William E. Hatcher, published in 1908. Jasper gained national fame in 1878 when he first preached this sermon, which he later delivered by invitation more than 250 times, including once before the Virginia General Assembly. The text below is from Chapter XIII of Hatcher's book and the introduction is by the author. The image is courtesy of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church.]
In presenting John Jasper's celebrated sermon on "De Sun Do Move", I beg to introduce it with several explanatory words. It includes an extended discussion, after his peculiar fashion, of the text, "The Lord God is a man of war; the Lord is His name." Much that he said in that part of his sermon is omitted, only so much being retained as indicates his view of the rotation of the sun. It was really when he came into this part of his sermon that he showed to such great advantage, even though so manifestly in error as to the position which he tried so manfully to antagonize. It was of that combative type of public speech which always put him before the people at his best. I never heard this sermon but once, but I have been amply aided in reproducing it by an elaborate and altogether friendly report of the sermon published at the time by The Richmond Dispatch. Jasper opened his discourse with a tender reminiscence and quite an ingenious exordium.
"Low me ter say," he spoke with an outward com- posure which revealed an inward but mastered swell of emotion, "dat when I wuz a young man and a slave, I knowed nuthin' wuth talkin' 'bout consarnin' books. Dey wuz sealed mysteries ter me, but I tell yer I longed ter break de seal. I thusted fer de bread uv learnin'. When I seen books I ached ter git in ter um, fur I knowed dat dey had de stuff fer me, an' I wanted ter taste dere contents, but most of de time dey wuz bar'd aginst me.
"By de mursy of de Lord a thing happened. I got er room-feller-he wuz a slave, too, an' he had learn'd ter read. In de dead uv de night he giv me lessons outen de New York Spellin' Book. It wuz hard pullin', I tell yer; harder on him, fur he know'd jes' a leetle, an' it made him sweat ter try ter beat sumthin' inter my hard haid. It wuz wuss wid me. Up de hill ev'ry step, but when I got de light uv de less'n into my noodle I farly shouted, but I kno'd I wuz not a scholur. De consequens wuz I crep 'long mighty tejus, gittin' a crum here an' dar untel I cud read de Bible by skippin' de long words, tolerable well. Dat wuz de start uv my eddicashun-dat is, wat little I got. I mek menshun uv dat young man. De years hev fled erway sense den, but I ain't furgot my teachur, an' nevur shall. I thank mer Lord fur him, an' I carries his mem'ry in my heart.
"'Bout seben months after my gittin' ter readin', Gord converted my soul, an' I reckin 'bout de fust an' main thing dat I begged de Lord ter give me wuz de power ter und'stan' His Word. I ain' braggin', an' I hates self-praise, but I boun' ter speak de thankful word. I b'lieves in mer heart dat mer pra'r ter und'- stand de Scripshur wuz heard. Sence dat time I ain't keer'd 'bout nuthin' 'cept ter study an' preach de Word uv God.
"Not, my bruthrin, dat I'z de fool ter think I knows it all. Oh, mer Father, no! Fur frum it. I don' hardly und'stan myse'f, nor ha'f uv de things roun' me, an' dar is milyuns uv things in de Bible too deep fur Jasper, an'sum uv'em too deep fur ev'rybody. I doan't cerry de keys ter de Lord's closet, an' He ain' tell me ter peep in, an' ef I did I'm so stupid I wouldn't know it when I see it. No, frens, I knows my place at de feet uv my Marster, an' dar I stays.
"But I kin read de Bible and git de things whar lay on de top uv de soil. Out'n de Bible I knows nuthin' extry 'bout de sun. I sees 'is courses as he rides up dar so gran' an' mighty in de sky, but dar is heaps 'bout dat flamin' orb dat is too much fer me. I know dat de sun shines powerfly an' po's down its light in floods, an' yet dat is nuthin' compared wid de light dat flashes in my min' f rum de pages of Gord's book. But you knows all dat. I knows dat de sun burns oh, how it did burn in dem July days. I tell yer he cooked de skin on my back many er day when I wuz hoein' in de corn fiel'. But you knows all dat, an' yet dat is nuthin' der to de divine fire dat burns in der souls uv Gord's chil'n. Can't yer feel it, bruthrin? …
p. 515 – 519
references:
“Eartha”
Eartha Mae Kitt, born January 17, 1927, is an actress and singer.
She was born illegitimate in South Carolina, but jokes about the fact that many audiences assume her to be from somewhere more exotic. Her hits include "Let's Do It," "An Old-Fashioned Millionaire" and "Santa Baby."
Eartha Kitt made her film debut in 1958, and was once described by Orson Welles as "the most exciting girl in the world". In the Batman television series of the 1960s, she played "Catwoman" in succession to Julie Newmar.
Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley (born December 30, 1928), "The Originator", is an influential American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was born Ellas Bates and later took the name Ellas McDaniel, after his adoptive mother, Gussie McDaniel. He adopted the stage name Bo Diddley, which is probably a southern black slang phrase meaning "nothing at all", as in "he ain't bo diddley". Another source says it was his nickname as a Golden Gloves boxer.
He was given a guitar by his sister as a youth, but also took violin lessons. He was inspired to become a blues artist by seeing John Lee Hooker.
He is best known for the "Bo Diddley beat", a rhumba-based beat (see clave) also influenced by what is known as "hambone", a style used by street performers who play out the beat by slapping and patting their arms, legs, chest, and cheeks while chanting rhymes. The Bo Diddley beat is often illustrated with the phrase: "shave 'n' a haircut - two bits".
Rhythm is so important in Bo Diddley's music that harmony is often reduced to a bare minimum. His songs (for example "Hey Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love?") often have no chord changes; that is, they are not written in a musical key, and the musicians play and sing in the same chord throughout the piece.
His own songs have been frequently covered. The Animals recorded "The Story of Bo Diddley", The Yardbirds covered "I'm a Man", and both the Woolies and George Thorogood had hits with "Who Do You Love", also a concert favorite of The Doors. His "Road Runner", one of his two Top 40 hits, was also frequently covered. ("Say Man" was the other Top 40 hit.)
Bo Diddley used a variety of rhythms, however, from straight back beat to pop ballad style, frequently with maracas by Jerome Green. He was also an influential guitar player, with many special effects and other innovations in tone and attack. He also plays the violin and cello; the latter is featured on his mournful instrumental "The Clock Strikes Twelve".
His lyrics are often witty and humorous adaptations of folk music themes. His first hit, "Bo Diddley" was based on the lullaby "Mockingbird". Likewise, "Hey Bo Diddley" is based on the folk song, "Frog went a-courtin'". The rap-style boasting of "Who do you love?", a word play on hoodoo, used many striking lyrics from the African-American tradition of toasts and boasts. His two versions of "Say Man" have been connected with rap, but actually feature the insults known as the Dirty Dozens: "You look like you been in a hatchet fight and everybody had a hatchet except you."
Lil Greenwood:
Lil Greenwood might be most well known as a vocalist with Duke Ellington's band for a few years starting in the late 1950s. She is featured on Ellington's album My People, but her career as a recording artist in her own right was highlighted by more RB-oriented sides she did in the early 1950s for Modern and Federal. Though she didn't have hits, Greenwood was one of many California-based singers in these years recording in a style intersecting jazz with blues and a bit of gospel.
Harry Belafonte:
Belafonte was born in Harlem in New York City. Overwhelmed and intimidated by its ghetto streets and thinking the islands to be a safer place, his immigrant mother sent him back to the island of her birth, Jamaica, the island and all its variety became a cultural reservoir which he drew upon for his artistic expression.
At the outbreak of World War II, his mother retrieved him from the island and brought him back to Harlem. He tried to adapt to his new environment, a process which came with great difficulty and finally, unable to finish high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy. After his tour of duty was over and he was honorably discharged, he returned to New York where he worked both in the garment center and as a janitor’s assistant.
It wasn’t until Belafonte was given two free tickets to a production of “Home is the Hunter” at the American Negro Theatre (A.N.T.) that the world of theater opened up to him. As Belafonte describes it, “It was like walking into a sanctuary, it was a deeply moving spiritual experience.”
Inspired by what he saw on stage and deeply touched by the sense of community displayed by the actors, Belafonte, for the first time, came face to face with what would be his destiny – a life in performing arts.
Although he found the environment most seductive, his appreciation of all facets of the theater did not, at first, help him settle on what he specifically wanted to do.
It wasn’t until he was called upon to play the role of young Johnny Boyle in the A.N.T. production of Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock,” that Belafonte found focus. Inspired by the power of O’Casey’s writing,, Belafonte knew unequivocally that acting would be his first choice.
He then joined the Dramatic Workshop of the School of the School of Social Research under the tutelage of the great German director, Erwin Piscator, and with classmates like Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, Bea Arthur, Rod Steiger and Tony Curtis – just to name a few – Belafonte became thoroughly grounded in the world of performing arts.
In pursuit of study at the school, Belafonte was subsidized by the U.S. government (The G.I. Bill of Rights). As many ex-servicemen were to experience, the subsidy ran out all too soon. In his quest to continue his student work in theater, his new-found friend, Monte Kaye, the revered and highly respected promoter for the Royal Roost, came to his rescue.
Having heard Belafonte sing at the Workshop in the student production, Kaye suggested that if Belafonte could learn three or four songs, he would hire him as the intermission singer at famed jazz club. To help him learn the songs, Kaye made available a young jazz pianist named Al Hage who was joined on Belafonte’s opening night at the Royal Roost by a host of friends who volunteered to be his back-up band. Although the audience may have had some curiosity as to who Belafonte was, they were most familiar with his “back-up band” – Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Tommy Potter.
The warmth and camaraderie emanating from the “back-up band” helped a frightened and unsure Belafonte launch what was to be the first step to a career that has since been globally embraced.
The recognition of his gift was instant, but Belafonte soon found himself overwhelmed by this newfound popularity which was pulling him surely but slowly away from the world of theater he had come to love. Feeling the intervention of this new career most distracting from his acting interests, Belafonte soon retired to devote himself full-time to the theater.
He soon found that America was as yet unwilling to embrace its black citizens fully in his chosen profession, and with not enough parts to go around for the many talented actors, including his close friend, Sidney Poitier, Belafonte, in frustration, opened a small eatery in Greenwich Village as a means of livelihood.
He would have languished there had he not discovered a small night club called The Village Vanguard and the world of folk music. Watching artists like Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Pete Seeger and others, Belafonte found an art form that would become his ultimate expression.
Josephine Baker:
Josephine Baker grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but left home at an early age and began performing on stage. She appeared in the chorus lines of all-black revues on vaudeville, and travelled to Paris in 1925 as part of La Revue Negre. Her lithe body and clowning around on stage caused a sensation, and by the 1930s she was so successful she had her own nightclub. Baker was famous for her exotic outfits and uninhibited sexuality, her trademarks being a leopard on a leash, a skirt made of feathers and a dance in which she wore bananas on her head and not much else. In 1937 she became a citizen of France, and during World War II she worked with the Resistance against the Nazis. After the war she fought for civil rights in the United States, returned to France and retired in 1956 to look after her 12 adopted children. In the late '60s Baker was rescued from destitution by Princess Grace, who helped Baker put on another stage show, Josephine. She died in 1975 and was given a state funeral in Paris.
Negritude: noun: an ideological position that holds Black culture to be independent and valid on its own terms
Aime Cesaire demolishes the old maxim that poets make terrible politicians. Known in the world of letters as the progenitor of Negritude (the first diasporic "black pride" movement), a major voice of Surrealism, and one of the great French poets, Césaire is also revered for his role in modern anticolonial and Pan-African movements. While it might appear that the poet and politician operated in separate spheres, Césaire's life and work demonstrate that poetry can be the motor of political imagination, a potent weapon in any movement that claims freedom as its primary goal.
Born on June 25, 1913, in the small town of Basse-Pointe, Martinique, Césaire and his five siblings were raised by their mother, who was a dressmaker, and their father, who held a post as the local tax inspector. Although their father was well-educated and they shared the cultural sensibilities of the petite bourgeoisie, the Césaires nonetheless lived close to the edge of rural poverty. Aimé turned out to be a brilliant, precocious student and at age 11 was admitted to the Lycée Schoelcher in Fort-de-France. Upon graduation in 1931, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand to prepare for the grueling entrance exams to the École Normale Supérieure (a high-level teachers' training college). There he met a number of like-minded intellectuals, most notably the Senegalese intellectual Léopold Sédar Senghor. Among other things, they began to study African history and culture, particularly the writings of German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, whose The Voice of Africa provided a powerful defense of Africa's cultural and intellectual contributions to the world.
The twosome, along with Césaire's childhood friend, poet Léon-Gontran Damas, launched a journal called L'Étudiant Noir (The Black Student). In its March 1935 issue, Césaire published a passionate tract against assimilation in which he first coined the term "Negritude." It is more than ironic that at the moment Césaire's piece appeared, he was hard at work absorbing as much knowledge about French and European humanities as possible in preparation for his entrance exams for École Normale Supérieure. The exams took their toll, for sure, though the psychic and emotional costs of having to imbibe the very culture Césaire publicly rejected must have exacerbated an already exhausting regimen.
After completing his exams during the summer of 1935, he took a short vacation to Yugoslavia with a fellow student. While visiting the Adriatic coast, Césaire was overcome with memories of home after seeing a small island from a distance. Moved, he stayed up half the night working on a long poem about the Martinique of his youth—the land, the people, the majesty of the place. The next morning when he inquired about the little island, he was told it was called Martinska. A magical chance encounter, to say the least; the words he penned that moonlit night were the beginnings of what would subsequently become his most famous poem of all: "Cahier d'un Retour au Pays Natal (Notebook of a Return to My Native Land)".
Charlie Parker • Saxophonist / Bandleader / Jazz Musician
Name at birth: Charles Christopher Parker, Jr.
Parker, nicknamed "Yardbird" ("Bird" for short), had an undistinguished early career, but ended up being one of the creators of bebop jazz in the 1940s. He played with artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, all the while making his mark as an inventor of melodies and creative improviser. Highly influential and praised by fellow musicians, Parker had a brief career due to his troubled personal life and addictions to alcohol and heroin.
Extra credit: In 1988 jazz fan Clint Eastwood made a biographical movie about Parker, Bird, with Forest Whitaker in the title role.
John Jasper’s “Do-Move Cosmic Consciousness”
"De Sun Do Move"
Sermon by John Jasper (1812-1901)
[The following text is taken from John Jasper: The American Negro Preacher and Philospher by William E. Hatcher, published in 1908. Jasper gained national fame in 1878 when he first preached this sermon, which he later delivered by invitation more than 250 times, including once before the Virginia General Assembly. The text below is from Chapter XIII of Hatcher's book and the introduction is by the author. The image is courtesy of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church.]
In presenting John Jasper's celebrated sermon on "De Sun Do Move", I beg to introduce it with several explanatory words. It includes an extended discussion, after his peculiar fashion, of the text, "The Lord God is a man of war; the Lord is His name." Much that he said in that part of his sermon is omitted, only so much being retained as indicates his view of the rotation of the sun. It was really when he came into this part of his sermon that he showed to such great advantage, even though so manifestly in error as to the position which he tried so manfully to antagonize. It was of that combative type of public speech which always put him before the people at his best. I never heard this sermon but once, but I have been amply aided in reproducing it by an elaborate and altogether friendly report of the sermon published at the time by The Richmond Dispatch. Jasper opened his discourse with a tender reminiscence and quite an ingenious exordium.
"Low me ter say," he spoke with an outward com- posure which revealed an inward but mastered swell of emotion, "dat when I wuz a young man and a slave, I knowed nuthin' wuth talkin' 'bout consarnin' books. Dey wuz sealed mysteries ter me, but I tell yer I longed ter break de seal. I thusted fer de bread uv learnin'. When I seen books I ached ter git in ter um, fur I knowed dat dey had de stuff fer me, an' I wanted ter taste dere contents, but most of de time dey wuz bar'd aginst me.
"By de mursy of de Lord a thing happened. I got er room-feller-he wuz a slave, too, an' he had learn'd ter read. In de dead uv de night he giv me lessons outen de New York Spellin' Book. It wuz hard pullin', I tell yer; harder on him, fur he know'd jes' a leetle, an' it made him sweat ter try ter beat sumthin' inter my hard haid. It wuz wuss wid me. Up de hill ev'ry step, but when I got de light uv de less'n into my noodle I farly shouted, but I kno'd I wuz not a scholur. De consequens wuz I crep 'long mighty tejus, gittin' a crum here an' dar untel I cud read de Bible by skippin' de long words, tolerable well. Dat wuz de start uv my eddicashun-dat is, wat little I got. I mek menshun uv dat young man. De years hev fled erway sense den, but I ain't furgot my teachur, an' nevur shall. I thank mer Lord fur him, an' I carries his mem'ry in my heart.
"'Bout seben months after my gittin' ter readin', Gord converted my soul, an' I reckin 'bout de fust an' main thing dat I begged de Lord ter give me wuz de power ter und'stan' His Word. I ain' braggin', an' I hates self-praise, but I boun' ter speak de thankful word. I b'lieves in mer heart dat mer pra'r ter und'- stand de Scripshur wuz heard. Sence dat time I ain't keer'd 'bout nuthin' 'cept ter study an' preach de Word uv God.
"Not, my bruthrin, dat I'z de fool ter think I knows it all. Oh, mer Father, no! Fur frum it. I don' hardly und'stan myse'f, nor ha'f uv de things roun' me, an' dar is milyuns uv things in de Bible too deep fur Jasper, an'sum uv'em too deep fur ev'rybody. I doan't cerry de keys ter de Lord's closet, an' He ain' tell me ter peep in, an' ef I did I'm so stupid I wouldn't know it when I see it. No, frens, I knows my place at de feet uv my Marster, an' dar I stays.
"But I kin read de Bible and git de things whar lay on de top uv de soil. Out'n de Bible I knows nuthin' extry 'bout de sun. I sees 'is courses as he rides up dar so gran' an' mighty in de sky, but dar is heaps 'bout dat flamin' orb dat is too much fer me. I know dat de sun shines powerfly an' po's down its light in floods, an' yet dat is nuthin' compared wid de light dat flashes in my min' f rum de pages of Gord's book. But you knows all dat. I knows dat de sun burns oh, how it did burn in dem July days. I tell yer he cooked de skin on my back many er day when I wuz hoein' in de corn fiel'. But you knows all dat, an' yet dat is nuthin' der to de divine fire dat burns in der souls uv Gord's chil'n. Can't yer feel it, bruthrin? …
Jazztet Muted
JAZZTET MUTED
The title makes me think of all of the jazz musicians that are under appreciated. I think this section is like a tribute to them.
Pay attention to the contributions these musicians have made in the history of music!!
Ornette Coleman - revolutionary saxophonist who created "free jazz." New York 1950's
From the Jazztet muted (conclusion)
Eric Dolphy - (1920-1964) musician, jazzman who presented why jazz and classical music should not be separated. He said, "from Mozart I learned to say important things in a conversational way."
Charlie Parker - born in Kansas. Greatest alto saxophonist of all time, charlie was nick-named "Bird" or "Yardbird." He was one of the key originators and leaders o the bebop style which emphasized virtuosic technique, speed, complex harmonies and small ensembles.
About this section:
I see this section like a conversation between the poet and these musicians. He directly talks to Charlie Parker " help me 'Yardbird' help me." I think he is says that in the music of these musicians lives the pain, discrimination, not appreciation that black musicians/men and women suffered.
"Black shadows move like shadows cut from shadows cut from shade in the quarter of the negroes" perhaps refers to the motives/ memories/ influence that cause these artists to produce the music they did. I see racial discrimination, injustice, cultural trauma.
The title makes me think of all of the jazz musicians that are under appreciated. I think this section is like a tribute to them.
Pay attention to the contributions these musicians have made in the history of music!!
Ornette Coleman - revolutionary saxophonist who created "free jazz." New York 1950's
From the Jazztet muted (conclusion)
Eric Dolphy - (1920-1964) musician, jazzman who presented why jazz and classical music should not be separated. He said, "from Mozart I learned to say important things in a conversational way."
Charlie Parker - born in Kansas. Greatest alto saxophonist of all time, charlie was nick-named "Bird" or "Yardbird." He was one of the key originators and leaders o the bebop style which emphasized virtuosic technique, speed, complex harmonies and small ensembles.
About this section:
I see this section like a conversation between the poet and these musicians. He directly talks to Charlie Parker " help me 'Yardbird' help me." I think he is says that in the music of these musicians lives the pain, discrimination, not appreciation that black musicians/men and women suffered.
"Black shadows move like shadows cut from shadows cut from shade in the quarter of the negroes" perhaps refers to the motives/ memories/ influence that cause these artists to produce the music they did. I see racial discrimination, injustice, cultural trauma.
Is It True
L9-11: “Folkways”--refers to Smithsonian Folkways, founded by Moe Asch. Alan Lomax came on board in the 1930’s as part of Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folksong . The label went under some heavy scrutiny, despite showcasing the talents of Leadbelly, Woodie Guthrie, Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Boggs, etc., because some people felt they were simply using the artists to get money. I believe “Not Yet On Safari” refers to that. Sites: http://www.alan-lomax.com/home.html and http://www.folkways.si.edu/index.html
L13: “silver unicorn”--fabulous equine beast with a long horn jutting from the middle of its forehead. Once thought to be native to India, the unicorn was reportedly seen throughout the world. It was often considered as a composite creature, having the features of various animals. The unicorn is depicted as a beautiful animal, usually pure white in color. It has been used to represent virginity, but also has religious significance in connection with the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The hunting of the unicorn was a subject in tapestries of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (http://reference.allrefer.com)
Outside of that, I think the poem is pretty much there for the taking. The rest is straight forward. It seems to explore the struggle of African-Americans to be accepted (“Waited twenty more/to catch up with tomorrow”) as citizens, and yet still aren’t. Rumors abound --“Is it true that Negroes---?” and African-Americans are still seen as foreign, mysterious, elusive, etc. Something to conquer, in other words, something to attempt to nail down.
L13: “silver unicorn”--fabulous equine beast with a long horn jutting from the middle of its forehead. Once thought to be native to India, the unicorn was reportedly seen throughout the world. It was often considered as a composite creature, having the features of various animals. The unicorn is depicted as a beautiful animal, usually pure white in color. It has been used to represent virginity, but also has religious significance in connection with the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The hunting of the unicorn was a subject in tapestries of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (http://reference.allrefer.com)
Outside of that, I think the poem is pretty much there for the taking. The rest is straight forward. It seems to explore the struggle of African-Americans to be accepted (“Waited twenty more/to catch up with tomorrow”) as citizens, and yet still aren’t. Rumors abound --“Is it true that Negroes---?” and African-Americans are still seen as foreign, mysterious, elusive, etc. Something to conquer, in other words, something to attempt to nail down.
