{"id":10168,"date":"2024-03-01T10:10:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T15:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/?p=10168"},"modified":"2024-03-01T10:56:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T15:56:37","slug":"black-history-month-african-americans-and-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cortlandywca.org\/index.php\/black-history-month-african-americans-and-the-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"Black History Month: African Americans and the Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the founders of Black History Month, have decided to spotlight African Americans and the Arts in 2024.<\/div>\n
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Throughout February, we worked on\u00a0highlighting just a few of the many trailblazing black women who have made #HERstory<\/a> by influencing and shaping culture worldwide.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Phillis Wheatley-Peters<\/strong> made history by becoming the first African American woman to publish a book of poems inspiring generations of future writers.<\/p>\n

While enslaved by the Wheatley family, she quickly learned to read and write and studied Greek and Latin classics, British literature, astronomy, and geography. As a teenager, Phillis began writing poetry and eventually went on to publish “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.” The book included a forward, signed by John Hancock, and a portrait of Phillis, shown here, to show that the work was indeed written by a black woman.<\/p>\n

Shortly after this publication, Phillis was emancipated; she married John Peters, a free black man, and continued writing. Religion and pride in her African heritage were key parts of her writing. Although she’d supported the American Revolution, she believed slavery had prevented the colonists from achieving true heroism.<\/p>\n

Read more about Phillis’ legacy >><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Josephine Baker<\/strong> is known as an influential force in the Harlem Renaissance, a world-renowned performer, a World War II spy, and a civil rights activist.<\/p>\n

Baker became a sought-after vaudeville performer because of her unique style of dance and costumes. While in Paris, she used her talent to gain insight into Nazi secrets and passed them along to the French military using invisible ink on sheet music.<\/p>\n

When she returned to the US years later, she was confronted with discrimination she hadn’t experienced while being abroad. Baker openly opposed segregation and refused to perform for white-only audiences, becoming one of the few women who were allowed to speak at the March on Washington in 1963.<\/p>\n

“You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about Josephine Baker >><\/a><\/div>\n
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\"\"<\/a>Nina Simone<\/strong>, AKA “The High Priestess of Soul,” was a jazz singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist.<\/div>\n
Simone learned to play the piano before her feet could reach the pedals, becoming a prodigy in classical works, which eventually led to her attending an integrated school and graduating as the valedictorian in 1950.<\/div>\n
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After attending Julliard to prepare for her entrance exam for the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Nina was denied entry, and she always felt it was because of her race. This injustice always stuck with her.<\/div>\n
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“She released the protest song “Mississippi Goddam,” in reaction to the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, both in 1963. The song expressed her frustration with the slow pace of change in response to the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement. She famously performed “Mississippi Goddam\u201d at a concert on April 7, 1968, three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.”<\/div>\n
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Read more about Nina Simone >><\/a><\/div>\n