HOME



picture info

Shauneille Perry
Shauneille Gantt Perry Ryder (July 26, 1929 – June 9, 2022) was an American stage director and playwright. She was one of the first African-American women to direct off-Broadway. Biography Shauneille Perry was born on July 26, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, to a prominent African-American family. She is the only child of Graham T. Perry (1894–1960), one of the first African-American assistant attorneys-general for the State of Illinois and his wife, the former (Laura) Pearl Gantt (1903–1957), one of the first African-American court reporters in Chicago, who studied business at Morris Brown College. She is the niece by marriage of real-estate broker and political activist Carl Augustus Hansberry, who married her father's sister, Nannie Louise Perry, and the first cousin of playwright Lorraine Hansberry, their daughter. She is also the niece by marriage of Carl Hansberry's brother, Africanist scholar William Leo Hansberry. She later said, "Lorraine and I sat at the table a l ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Chicago, Illinois
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the county seat, seat of Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a Chicago Portage, portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Marshall Metropolitan High School
John Marshall Metropolitan High School (commonly known as simply Marshall) is a public four-year high school located in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1895, Marshall is operated by the Chicago Public Schools district. Marshall is named in honor of John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall serves the students of the East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Humboldt Park neighborhoods. Background The student body is approximately 89% African American. Marshall High school is a Title I high school as determined by U.S. Department of Education standards, meaning that 40% or more of the students come from families that qualify as low income under United States Census definitions. The school is perhaps best known for its association with the sport of basketball. Both its boys' and girls' teams have shown success at the state level. John Marshall ha ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered theatrical realism, but also wrote lyrical epic works. His major works include ''Brand'', ''Peer Gynt'', '' Emperor and Galilean'', '' A Doll's House'', '' Ghosts'', '' An Enemy of the People'', '' The Wild Duck'', '' Rosmersholm'', '' Hedda Gabler'', '' The Master Builder'', and '' When We Dead Awaken''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen was born into the merchant elite of the port town of Skien, and had strong family ties to the families who had held power and wealth in Telemark since the mid-1500s. Both his parents belonged socially or biologically to the Paus family of Rising and Altenburggården—the extende ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


DuBose Heyward
Edwin DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1925 novel '' Porgy''. He and his wife Dorothy, a playwright, adapted it as a 1927 play of the same name. The couple worked with composer George Gershwin to adapt the work as the 1935 opera ''Porgy and Bess''. It was later adapted as a 1959 film of the same name. Heyward also wrote poetry and other novels and plays, as well as the children's book '' The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes'' (1939). Childhood, education, and early career Heyward was born in 1885 in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Jane Screven (DuBose) and Edwin Watkins Heyward. He was a descendant of Judge Thomas Heyward, Jr., a South Carolinian signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and his wife, who were of the planter elite. As a child and young man, Heyward was frequently ill. He contracted polio when he was 18. Two years later he contracted typhoid fever, and the followin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dorothy Heyward
Dorothy Heyward (née Kuhns; June 6, 1890 – November 19, 1961) was an American playwright. In addition to several works of her own, she co-authored the play '' Porgy'' (1927) with her husband DuBose Heyward, adapting it from his novel of the same name. Their work is now known best in its adaptation as the opera ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935), with music by George Gershwin. Early life and education She was born in Wooster, Ohio, as Dorothy Kuhns, and lived in New York, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, throughout her childhood years. She was interested in literature from an early age and started writing plays. After graduating from high school, she attended Harvard University, where she studied to become a playwright. In 1922, Kuhns attended MacDowell Colony, where she met DuBose Heyward. They married in September 1923 and she changed her name. Career as a playwright In 1924, Heyward wrote her first play, ''The Dud'', for which she won a Harvard Prize and participated in Dr. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Mamba's Daughters
''Mamba's Daughters'' () is a 1929 novel written by DuBose Heyward and published by the University of South Carolina Press. It was later adapted by Heward and his wife Dorothy Heyward for the stage; the play premiered on Broadway in 1939. Novel The book is set in the early 20th century, following three different families in scenes of deception and social transformation. The book also explores racial boundaries during that period of the 20th century. It received positive reviews, with the ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' commenting that it provided "a unique perspective not only of Charleston's racial tensions, but also of the unique subculture shared by Charleston's elite whites and poorer blacks". ''Mamba's Daughters'' was translated into French (1932) and Dutch (1939). Stage adaptation The novel was adapted for the stage by Heyward and his wife Dorothy Heyward, with songs by Jerome Kern; it premiered on Broadway at the Empire Theatre on January 3, 1939, starring Ethel Wa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

HBCU
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern United States and were founded during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) following the American Civil War.Anderson, J.D. (1988). ''The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935''. University of North Carolina Press. Their original purpose was to provide education for African-Americans in an era when most colleges and universities in the United States did not allow Black students to enroll. During the Reconstruction era, most historically Black colleges were founded by Protestant religious organizations. This changed in 1890 with the U.S. Congress' passage of the Second Morrill Act, which required segregated Southern states to provide African Americans with public higher-education schools in order to receive the Act's benefits. Duri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Lincoln University (Missouri)
Lincoln University (Lincoln U) is a public, historically black, land-grant university in Jefferson City, Missouri. Founded in 1866 by African-American veterans of the American Civil War, it is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. This was the first black university in the state. In the fall 2023, the university enrolled 1,799 students. History During the Civil War, the 62nd Colored Infantry regiment of the U.S. Army, largely recruited in Missouri, set up educational programs for its soldiers. At the end of the war it raised $6,300 to set up a black school, headed by a white abolitionist officer, Richard Foster, and founded by James Milton Turner, a student and protege of John Berry Meachum. Foster opened the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City in 1866. Lincoln had a black student body, both black and white teachers, and outside support from religious groups. The state government provided $5,000 a year to train teachers for the state's new public school ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Clark Atlanta University
Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded on September19, 1865, as Atlanta University, it was the first HBCU in the Southern United States. In 1988 Atlanta consolidated with Clark College (established 1869) to form CAU. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". History Atlanta University was founded on September 19, 1865, the first HBCU in the Southern United States. Atlanta University was the nation's first graduate institution to award degrees to African Americans and the first to award bachelor's degrees to African Americans in the South; Clark College (1869) was the nation's first four-year liberal arts college to serve African-American students. The two consolidated in 1988 to form Clark Atlanta University. Atlanta University In the city of Atlanta, while the Civil War was well underway, two literate Africa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed ''Song of Solomon (novel), Song of Solomon'' (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Pulitzer Prize for ''Beloved (novel), Beloved'' (1987); she was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. Morrison earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first Black female editor for fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She d ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Roxie Roker
Roxie Albertha Roker (August 28, 1929 – December 2, 1995) was an American actress. She was best known for her portrayal of Helen Willis on the CBS sitcom ''The Jeffersons''. In 1973, she performed as Mattie Williams in the Broadway play '' The River Niger'', and was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play at the 28th Tony Awards''.'' Roker is the mother of rock musician Lenny Kravitz and grandmother of actress Zoë Kravitz. Early life and education Roker was born in Miami, Florida. Her mother, Bessie Roker (née Mitchell), was from Georgia and worked as a domestic. Her father, Albert Roker, was a porter and a native of Andros, the Bahamas. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Roker studied drama at Howard University, where she was a pupil of celebrated drama teachers Anne Cooke Reid and Owen Dodson. Some of her fellow drama students at Howard included novelist Toni Morrison, actress Zaida Coles, stage director and playwright Shauneille Perry, and actor Graham Brow ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Owen Dodson
Owen Vincent Dodson (November 28, 1914 – June 21, 1983) was an American poet, novelist, and playwright. He was one of the leading African-American poets of his time, associated with the generation of black poets following the Harlem Renaissance. He received a fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation for a series of one-act plays. Biography Born in Brooklyn, New York, US, Dodson attended Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) June 1932. Studied at Bates College (B.A. 1936) and at the Yale School of Drama (M.F.A. 1939). He taught at Howard University, where he was chair of the Drama Department, from 1940 to 1970, and briefly at Spelman College and Atlanta University.Hatch, James V. ''Sorrow is the Only Faithful One: The Life of Owen Dodson.'' (Illinois, 1993). James V. Hatch has explained that Dodson "is the product of two parallel forces—the Black experience in America with its folk and urban routes, and a classical humanistic education." Dodson's poetry varied wide ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]