A Journey into 365 Days of Black History: Working for Change 2010 Wall Calendar
Product Description
Pairing essays with historical images, this calendar tells twelve stories of black people working for change—most in the United States, but also in South Africa and Jamaica. Featured subjects are Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine; black American nurses of World War II; civil rights activist James L. Farmer Sr.; folklorist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston; boxers Jack Johnson and Tut Jackson; Nelson Mandela, first president of South Africa elected after apartheid; writer and poet Claude McKay; cowboy and rodeo performer Bill Pickett; civil rights and labor leader A. Philip Randolph; singer and actor Paul Robeson; the Tuskegee Airmen; and pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams. Anniversaries of important events in black history are noted throughout.
With images from the Library of Congress.
Sample Biography for A Journey into 365 Days of Black History:Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981) Pianist and composer
A great jazz teacher, Mary Lou Williams also excelled as composer, arranger, and performer.
Born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, she was a child prodigy. Her precocious musical talents were recognized by her mother, Virginia Riser, a classically trained pianist who earned a living taking in laundry and cleaning homes in Atlanta, Georgia. One day, after playing the organ while holding young Mary in her arms, Riser was startled when her child reached out and played the same melody, note for note. “It must have really shaken my mother,” Williams recalled. “She actually dropped me and ran out to get the neighbors to listen to me.”
In 1915 the family moved to Pittsburgh, where Williams began her musical career. Her stepfather, Fletcher Burley, would sneak her into clubs and have her play. Williams said, “He’d take off his hat, put it on the table, put a dollar into it, and say: ‘Stop! Everybody: my little girl is gonna play for you.’ He’d pass the hat around. Often, when I’d leave, I’d have twenty-five or thirty dollars. When we got back outside, he’d say: ‘Give me back my dollar,’ and then we’d go home. My mother would ask, ‘Where were you?’ and he would reply, ‘Oh, we went over to Rochelle’s.’ Years later, when she found out where Fletcher had been taking me, she almost went into shock.” All around town she was known as “the little piano girl.”
Riser decided not to send her daughter to a conservatory, determined not to stifle her creativity and improvisational talents. She played with many different groups, eventually taking on the duties of arranger for Andy Kirk’s band. During this period, Williams got to know musical giants like Earl “Fatha” Hines, Count Basie, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington, and she adopted an approach to playing that incorporated both notated music and jazz improvisation.
Fascinated by the brash new movement called bebop, she became friend, collaborator, and mentor to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. Williams taught in Pittsburgh’s public schools, at the University of Massachusetts, and, until her death, at Duke University, where the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture was established.
Size: 13 x 12 in.; opens to 13 x 24 in
With images from the Library of Congress.
Sample Biography for A Journey into 365 Days of Black History:Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981) Pianist and composer
A great jazz teacher, Mary Lou Williams also excelled as composer, arranger, and performer.
Born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs, she was a child prodigy. Her precocious musical talents were recognized by her mother, Virginia Riser, a classically trained pianist who earned a living taking in laundry and cleaning homes in Atlanta, Georgia. One day, after playing the organ while holding young Mary in her arms, Riser was startled when her child reached out and played the same melody, note for note. “It must have really shaken my mother,” Williams recalled. “She actually dropped me and ran out to get the neighbors to listen to me.”
In 1915 the family moved to Pittsburgh, where Williams began her musical career. Her stepfather, Fletcher Burley, would sneak her into clubs and have her play. Williams said, “He’d take off his hat, put it on the table, put a dollar into it, and say: ‘Stop! Everybody: my little girl is gonna play for you.’ He’d pass the hat around. Often, when I’d leave, I’d have twenty-five or thirty dollars. When we got back outside, he’d say: ‘Give me back my dollar,’ and then we’d go home. My mother would ask, ‘Where were you?’ and he would reply, ‘Oh, we went over to Rochelle’s.’ Years later, when she found out where Fletcher had been taking me, she almost went into shock.” All around town she was known as “the little piano girl.”
Riser decided not to send her daughter to a conservatory, determined not to stifle her creativity and improvisational talents. She played with many different groups, eventually taking on the duties of arranger for Andy Kirk’s band. During this period, Williams got to know musical giants like Earl “Fatha” Hines, Count Basie, Art Tatum, and Duke Ellington, and she adopted an approach to playing that incorporated both notated music and jazz improvisation.
Fascinated by the brash new movement called bebop, she became friend, collaborator, and mentor to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. Williams taught in Pittsburgh’s public schools, at the University of Massachusetts, and, until her death, at Duke University, where the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture was established.
Size: 13 x 12 in.; opens to 13 x 24 in
