People, Locations, Episodes

Gloria Foster, Actress born

*Gloria Foster was born on this date in 1933.  She was a Black actress. Gloria Foster was born in Chicago, Illinois. As a young child, she was put into the custody of her maternal grandparents.  Eleanor Sudds and her grandfather, Clyde Sudds, raised Gloria on a farm. Foster never knew who her father was, and she moved to Janesville, Wisconsin, […]

Adolph Caesar, Actor born

On this date in 1933, Adolph Caesar, an African American actor, was born.

Born in Harlem, New York, Caesar graduated from George Washington High School in New York City. He enlisted in the Navy where he achieved the rank of chief petty officer.

Al Freeman Jr., Actor, and Teacher born

*Al Freeman Jr. was born on this date in 1934. He was a Black actor, writer and college (drama) professor.

Dick Anthony Williams, Actor born

*Dick Anthony Williams was born on this date in 1934. He was an African American actor.

Williams was born on the South Side of Chicago and spent four years of his childhood in a hospital being treated for polio. In an interview with The Chicago Tribune, he said being hospitalized had its advantages. It kept him safe, he said, and he “ate well.” But, he added, “It’s very gratifying now to see an iron lung and not have to get into it.”

Lorraine O’Grady, Artist born

*Lorraine O’Grady was born on this date in 1934. She is a Black artist, writer, translator, and critic.          Life and work             O’Grady was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Jamaican parents Edwin and Lena O’Grady, who helped establish St. Cyprian’s, the first West Indian Episcopal church in Boston. Attracted to the form and aesthetics of the […]

Johari Amini, Stage Director, and Teacher born

Johari Amini (her name may also appear as JohariCourts-Amini, JCourts-Amini, JohariC) was born on this date in 1948. She is an African American teacher of theater, director of several outstanding plays, an educator, a writer, and an administrator.

Ed Bullins, Playwright, and Author born

Ed Bullins, an African American playwright and author, was born on this date in 1935.

The Rose McClendon Players are formed.

*The Rose McClendon Players are celebrated on this date in 1935. This was a theater group founded in Harlem, New York. The Rose McClendon Players lived up to the outstanding legacy left by their legendary namesake, Rose McClendon. While working with the Federal Theatre Project, she developed her vision of a Black theatre company. Together […]

The Federal Theatre Project Begins

*On this date, 1935, the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) was formed.  This theatre program was established during the Great Depression as part of America’s New Deal.   Referred to as part of the Second New Deal, it funded live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States. It was one of five Federal Project Number One projects the Works Progress Administration sponsored. It was created not […]

The Federal Arts Project Begins

*On this date in 1935, The Federal Art Project (FAP) began.  This was the visual arts arm of the American Great Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Federal One program. Funded under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act 1935, it operated from 1935 until 1943. It was created as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to […]

Richard Hunt, Sculptor born

*Richard Hunt was born on this date in 1935. He is a Black sculptor artist. Richard Howard Hunt was born on Chicago’s South Side. At eleven years old, he and his younger sister Marian moved to Galesburg, Illinois, where he spent most of his time in Chicago. From an early age, he was interested in […]

‘Porgy and Bess’ Opens on Broadway

On this date in 1935,”Porgy and Bess” opened on Broadway. This was the first American folk opera about the lives of Black Americans.

“Porgy and Bess” was first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It tells the story of African American life in the fictitious Catfish Row (based on the real-life Cabbage Row) in Charleston, S.C. in the early 1920s.

‘Mulatto'(The Play) Debuts on Broadway

*On this date in 1935 Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South had its Broadway debut.   This was a play about race issues by Langston Hughes. Martin Jones produced it, running for 11 months and 373 performances.  It was one of the earliest Broadway plays to combine father-son conflict with race issues. Historian Joseph McLaren noted that the play was […]

Raven Wilkinson, Ballet Dancer, and Actress born

*Raven Wilkinson’s birth in 1935 is celebrated on this date. She is an African American ballet dancer (semi-retired) and actress.

From New York City, her mother was influential pursuing ballet training for her. Wilkinson began studying with a well-known Russian dancer when she was nine. After being inspired by seeing Janet Collins on stage in the early 1950s, she left school in her teens to pursue ballet full time. When the director of Ballet de Russe purchased Monte Carlo, her ballet school the students were invited to try out for his company.

Voodoo Macbeth Debuts on Stage

*Voodoo Macbeth opened on this date in 1936. This play was a New York William Shakespeare’s Macbeth production through the Federal Theatre Project.   Orson Welles adapted and directed the show, moved the play’s setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean Island, and recruited an entirely Black cast. It earned the nickname for his production from the […]