People, Locations, Episodes

Fayad Nicholas, Dancer, and Choreographer born

*Fayard Nicholas was born on this date in 1914. He was an African American dancer and choreographer.

Gertrude Hadley Jeannette, Actress, and Playwright born

*Gertrude Hadley Jeannette was born on this date in 1914.  She was a Black playwright and film and stage actress.   Born Salley Gertrude Crawford Hadley in Urbana, Arkansas, her mother was a homemaker. Willis Lawrence Hadley, her father, taught at a Native American reservation near Spiro, Oklahoma.  Jeannette had five brothers and one sister and grew up on a farm. The family moved to Little Rock, […]

Karamu House (Theater Company) Opens

The founding of the Karamu House in 1915 is celebrated on this date. Located in Cleveland, OH, the Karamu house is the oldest Black Theater Company in America.

Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor born

On this date in 1915, Elizabeth Catlett was born. She was an African American sculptor, currently a leader of the genre in Mexico.

Orson Welles, Stage and Film Director born

*Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. He was a white-American director, actor, screenwriter, and producer. George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was the son of Richard Head Welles and Beatrice Ives Welles. His parents separated and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as an […]

Henry LeTang, Choreographer born

*Henry LeTang was born on this date in 1915. He was an African American choreographer.

Hughie Lee-Smith, Florida Artist born

*Hughie Lee Smith was born on this date in 1915,. He was an African American artist.

From Eustis Florida, his parents were Luther and Alice Williams Smith. Later he changed his last name to Lee-Smith after he and his art school classmates decided Smith was too ordinary a name for a distinguished painter. Lee-Smith began drawing at a very early age. Shaped by the Great Depression and the WPA artists of the late 1930s, Lee-Smith’s earliest work was fired by social concerns and longing for a better, more democratic ideal for the future of America.

Lawrence Winters, Opera Vocalist born

*Lawrence Winters was born on this date in 1915.  He was a Black opera singer with an active international career from the mid-1940s through the mid-1960s.   Lawrence Lafayette Whisonant was from King’s Creek, South Carolina.  He began to study singing privately before entering Howard University in 1941, where he studied singing with Todd Duncan. After […]

Claude Clark, Artist born

*Claude Clark was born on this date in 1915. He was a Black painter, printmaker, and art educator. Claude Clark was born on a tenant farm in Rockingham, Georgia. In early August 1923, Clark’s parents left the South for a better life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Great Migration. Clark attended Roxborough High School, where […]

The Lafayette Players Debut

*On this date in 1915, the Lafayette Players debuted their first stage production.  Anita Bush founded the Lafayette Players, a dramatic stock company composed entirely of African American actors.  Originally from Harlem, this first-of-its-kind group introduced audiences to the idea that Black actors could take on various roles and display a much greater range than previously considered […]

Eldzier Cortor, Artist born

*Eldzier Cortor was born on this date in 1916. He was an African American artist.

He was born in Richmond, VA, to John and Ophelia Cortor, who were economically secure. His family moved to Chicago when he was about a year old. After a few years they moved to the West Side where Archibald Motley’s family lived. Cortor’s earliest influence in art was in comic strips. His favorite was “Bungleton Green,” created by Leslie Rogers. He would copy them and dream of creating his own.

Edward Loper Sr., Artist born

*Edward L. Loper, Sr. was born on this date in 1916.  He was a Black artist and teacher.  Edward Lionel Loper Sr. was born to a poor family on the east side of Wilmington, Delaware, in a racially mixed section called Frogtown. His mother was 16 at the time of his birth. Loper was raised primarily […]

Bel Abbey, Koasati Storyteller born

*Bel Abbey was born on this date on this date in 1916. He was a Black Native American Coushatta Indian Blowgun Maker, Wood Carver, herbalist, and Koasati Storyteller. Abbey was from a Koasati settlement five miles north of Elton, Louisiana. Abbey was the last generation raised in the traditional Koasati social and economic system. He […]

Ernest ‘Brownie’ Brown, Dancer born

*’Brownie’ Brown was born on this date in 1916. He was a Black tap dancer and the last surviving Original Copasetics member. Ernest “Brownie” Brown grew up in Chicago, and he and his longtime partner, Charles “Cookie” Cook, started dancing as pickaninnies in a vaudeville act called “Mammy and Her Picks.” During the 1930s and […]

Willie Best, Actor born

*Willie Best, sometimes known as Sleep n’ Eat, was born on this date in 1916. He was a Black television and film actor. A native of Sunflower, Mississippi, William “Willie” Best came to Hollywood, California, as a chauffeur for a vacationing white couple. He decided to stay in the region and began his performing career with a traveling show in southern California. He […]