Notes on My Beautiful Journey

BLACK FILMMAKING IN THE 1930s: 5 MUST-SEE MUSIC VIDEOS

Throughout the Covid19 pandemic, I’ve soothed my soul and re-energized my spirit with various forms of art—particularly music and dance. It has felt natural and right to do so, which is why I can safely assume that descendants of the same enslaved folks who turned misery into magnificence through musical expression sought comfort in the art form during the dark decade that was the 1930s.   To be…

BLACK FILMMAKING IN THE 1930s: “The Emperor Jones” starring Paul Robeson

America in the 1930s  was a time that predated my parents’  birth.  My maternal grandmother—my last surviving grandparent—lost her memories in her battle with Alzheimer’s long before I was able to ask her about life in those times. I don’t know if she would have wanted to speak of that history anyhow. She never explained to my mother exactly why she or my granddaddy left Alabama to move to New…

BLACK FILMMAKING IN THE 1930s: “Harlem is Heaven” starring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson

I have a confession. I rushed through a viewing of Harlem is Heaven (1932) last week, trying desperately to tick off another task on my to-do list, going through the motions without fully engaging. I tend to do that often—getting lost in work for the sake of work, giving into a state of mindlessness. I find that I have a toxic relationship with doing, going, moving. I use activity as a hole in…

Black Filmmaking in the 1920s: “The Melancholy Dame”

It took me a minute to choose which movie I’d watch and review today because there was simply so much going on in the 1920s. Besides the Ku Klux Klan marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. in 1925, I learned that Oscar DePriest, a Black Republican from Chicago became the first of his race to be elected to Congress from a district north of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1928. During this…

By the year 1920, approximately 300,000 Black folks migrated to the North (Isabel Wilkerson talks about their experiences at length in her book The Warmth of Other Suns).  Many sought to escape racial terrorism, and the negative impact of natural disasters on farming in the South while others like the veterans of World War I simply continued to expand their horizons after having been exposed to…

BLACK FILM-MAKING IN THE 1920s:   Oscar Micheaux’s “The Symbol of the Unconquered”

Watching silent films over the past couple of days has reminded me of the movies I used to watch as a child with my mother. We tuned in on quiet Saturday afternoons after house cleaning was done and Mom turned off her Peabo Bryson, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye or Al Green records. All cozy on the couch, we viewed what seemed to be countless stories starring Shirley Temple or some white woman…

BLACK FILM-MAKING IN THE 1910s:   “A Black Sherlock Holmes,” “A Reckless Rover,” and “Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled”

I can’t imagine a world without movies. I have never lived in a world without Black heroes starring in films. For this, I consider myself fortunate. In the decades following June 19th, 1865, the kinds of motion pictures I appreciate today simply did not exist for my ancestors.   The development of the movie camera began in the late 1880s with early films being “peep shows”  or sequences of…

BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2022: BLACK FILM-MAKING THROUGH THE DECADES

Several Black History Months ago, I made an attempt to write posts around the theme of Black film production and producers. I failed. I had not known where to look for the information I needed to tell a proper story and therefore couldn’t really tell much of African-American film-making’s rich history at all.  But the Universe is an abundant giver. Over time, more of Black history has been made…

California's recorded Black history exists in great part because of the painstaking research and work of Delilah L. Beasley.

I did not know that I’d be blogging during Women’s History Month this year because I wasn’t sure I had the bandwidth to do so. I barely made it through Black History Month while juggling freelance assignments, homeschooling a kindergartener and preschooler, and independently managing a home. But I could not simply stop learning about the Black history of California as a native Black Californian…

California Love: William Alexander Leidesdorff, Jr.

Californian history is so interwoven with Spanish and Mexican history that I feel I’m doing it an injustice even as I am reviving parts of it that have lain dormant for far too long. Every time I think about posting about someone like Mary Ellen Pleasant or Archy Lee , I discover something that floors me. I firmly believe that if my history teachers cared about telling the whole truth of…

California Love: The Buffalo Soldiers, Yosemite National Park, and the Western Frontier

My father used to drive one of those 70s style vans. It was tan with no interior except for the driver and front passenger seat. In flashes, I can recall clinging to one of the two sand-filled cushions that doubled as backseats. In that van, I slept the most of the way to Yosemite National Park, the ride seemed to stretch on for weeks instead of the three hours it actually took. Besides riding…

California Love: Bridget “Biddy” Mason and the Rowans

I had time this past weekend to care for my hair slowly and methodically at the pace of nature. I conditioned, moisturized and then groomed my roots into the locs I’ve worn for the past five years while enjoying a glass of wine…or two. As I twisted my hair between my palms, I thought of Tessica Brown—wondering what her usual hair care rituals were, understanding our shared concern in looking…

California Love: Pioneer Alvin Aaron Coffey

After witnessing the second impeachment acquittal of Donald Trump, then following that up with a viewing of Judas and the Black Messiah, I can’t say that I’m in the best Black History Month mood right now. I keep telling myself in this moment, however, that it is important for me to keep this personal record of what I’ve learned and what I’ve studied for my sons. I want to be able to explain to…

California Love: Jacob Dodson, John Grider and Other Black Members of the Bear Flag Party

A very long time ago, people from all over the world including Africa, Asia and Europe left their homes to sail across the Earth’s oceans and see what all existed beyond. They reached lands of which they’d had no prior knowledge and met people who were strangers. The explorers discovered that the strangers possessed (or had access to) really good, pretty and precious things that the explorers…

California Love: The Town of Allensworth

My mom always described California as God’s country and as a little girl, I saw exactly why. It was just so beautiful. I spent much time riding my bike around North Vallejo taking in all of the gorgeous natural scenery. Thinking back, I can still smell the scent of eucalyptus wafting in the air and envision the cows dotted across American Canyon’s emerald hills all faced in the same direction,…

California Love: Without Mustafa Azemmouri (Estavanico), the Golden State might never have been settled and populated by the Spaniards.

When I was little girl, I somehow believed that most Black people came to California when my parents did—somewhere between the 50s and the 70s, during, the Chicano Movement, the Watts Riots,  Helter Skelter and the Pasadena Plan. Of course, over time I came to understand that our recorded history in America reached back a lot farther. I just didn’t realize how far back until this past…

THIS BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2021, I'm blogging all about the history of Brothers and Sisters from my home state. West Side!!

This past December, as I brainstormed about 2021’s Black History Month, I was all set to research and write about badasses throughout Black History. Bessie Stringfield was on my list. So was Bass Reeves. Then the E40 / Too Short Verzuz battle happened. This is a Black gold miner. Surprise, surprise. There were many Black gold miners. WTF, Mr. Anker. You couldn’t give one single lesson on them…