Showing posts with label DuSable Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DuSable Museum. Show all posts
The Soul of Bronzeville: The Regal, Club DeLisa and The Blues Exhibit
Etta Moten Barnett: African American Singer and Actress
Photo: Etta Moten Barnett (b. Nov. 5, 1901 – d. Jan. 2, 2004)
in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
Etta Moten Barnett has been a tireless pioneer in her career as a musical performer, actress, and community activist.
THE EARLY LIFE OF ETTA MOTEN BARNETT
Etta Moten Barnett was born in Weimer, Texas on November 5, 1901. The only child of Rev. Freeman F. Moten, an African Methodist Episcopal minister, and school teacher Ida Moten, she remembers her childhood fondly as a time of singing with the choir in her father's church. It was at Paul Quinn College in Texas that the quality of her singing voice was first rewarded with an educational scholarship.
Moten went on to attend Western University, an Historically Black University (HBU) in Kansas. Her professional singing career took off once she joined the Jackson Jubilee Singers and went on to sing with the renowned Eva Jessye Choir.
EARLY BLACK ACTRESSES
Moten was discovered as an actress by a talent scout for the 1931 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers classic movie Flying Down to Rio. She is best remembered, however, for her role as the incarnate heroine Bess in the original George Gershwin production of the popular musical Porgy and Bess. Gershwin chose Eva Jessye as the choral director for the 1935 opera production of Porgy and Bess.
Photo: 1935 Cast of Porgy and Bess
(photographer Richard Tucker. Oct. 10, 1935.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
A pioneering Black musical performer, Etta Moten Barnett broke the film industry's color barrier as the first Black performer to play in a film role that was not a domestic role, when she performed in The Gold Diggers in 1933.
As a Chicago resident, Moten was active in promoting the arts through the South Side Community Art Center and DuSable Museum of African American History. Moten was appointed by the U.S. federal government as a cultural ambassador to ten African countries. In shaped this role as an opportunity to led cultural exchange missions between African Americans and Africans. Moten was an active member of the National Council of Negro Women in Chicago.
Photo: The late Etta Moten Barnett's home in Chicago
3619 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive
Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs: Chicago's Cultural Maverick and The DuSable Museum of African American History
Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs (b. Nov. 1, 1917 - d. Nov. 21, 2010)
In 1961, the Ebony Museum of Negro History was founded by Dr. Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs and other civic leaders in three rooms of her South Side home in Chicago, Illinois. The museum collection would eventually move into larger quarters in a fine stone structure on the grounds of Washington Park in Chicago. It would also be renamed as its current name: The DuSable Museum of African American History.
Dusable Museum of African American History
(Washington Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA)
THE EBONY MUSEUM OF NEGRO HISTORY IN CHICAGO
The Original Home of the Ebony Museum of Negro History
(3806 S. Michigan, Chicago)
Originally built in 1903, this Chateau-style mansion was the original home of the Chicago's South Side museum collection of Black art and memorabilia. The historic home located at 3806 S. Michigan avenue in Chicago went through a number of incarnations within the community. It was the Quincy Club in the late 1930s, operated by an association of Black railroad workers who ran a boarding house, a pub and a private social club on the site.
The Quincy Club accommodated Black railroad workers operating on the City of New Orleans railroad route along the Mississippi River. Their exclusion from "white only" Chicago hotels encouraged their creating their own community facilities. The historic home is located at 3806 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.
MARGARET BURROUGHS AS ARTIST, WRITER, AND LECTURER
For several decades Dr. Burroughs taught art to Chicago students from elementary to university level. In addition to founding the DuSable Museum of African American History, Burroughs is also among the founders of the Chicago South Side Community Art Center. She has been an Active Chicago Park District board member.
Black Venus, Margaret Burroughs (Woodcut, 1957)
Dr. Margaret Burroughs
Dr. Burroughs was a cultural warrior in Chicago. Long before U.S. President Barack Obama popularized the community activist role, Dr. Burroughs was known in Chicago as a community organizer, educator, artist, writer, social activist, and world traveler. She has been seen to take to the street with picket in hand on the side of justice. Burroughs has been a frequent Black History lecturer. As a world traveler she has visited many countries in Africa, the Caribbean and South America. Burroughs is a Black History Hero.
Blog Update 11/23/10: Dr. Margaret Burroughs died November 21, 2010. RIP
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