The Black Filmmakers Hall Of Fame
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The Black Filmmakers Hall Of Fame
The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. (BFHFI), was founded in 1974, in Oakland, California. It supported and promoted black filmmaking, and preserved the contributions by African-American artists both before and behind the camera. It also sponsored advance screenings of films by and about people of African descent and hosted the Oscar Micheaux Awards Ceremony, held each February, from 1974 to 1993, in Oakland. The Hall started as the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1974, as an all-volunteer project of Oakland Museum of California's Cultural and Ethnics Affairs Guild. It grew quickly, incorporating as BFHFI in 1977. In 2014, all its archives were given to the Black Film Center/Archive, within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington. This is a partial list of inductees: Inductees 1974 *Alvin Childress (1907–1986) * Lillian Cumber (1920–2002) *Ossie Davis (1917–2005) *Sammy Davis Jr. (1925–1990) *Katherine Dunham (1909–2006) *Theresa Harri ...
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Oakland, California
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the most populous city in the East Bay, the third most populous city in the Bay Area, and the eighth most populous city in California. It serves as the Bay Area's trade center: the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California, and the fifth- or sixth-busiest in the United States. A charter city, Oakland was municipal corporation, incorporated on May 4, 1852, in the wake of the state's increasing population due to the California gold rush. Oakland's territory covers what was once a mosaic of California coastal prairie, California coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, and north coastal scrub. In the late 18th century, it became part of a large ''rancho'' grant in the c ...
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Stepin Fetchit
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985), better known by his stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American vaudevillian, comedian, and film actor of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, considered to be the first black actor to have a successful film career. His highest profile was during the 1930s in films and on stage, when his persona of Stepin Fetchit was billed as the "Laziest Man in the World". Perry parlayed the Fetchit persona into a successful film career, becoming the first black actor to earn $1 million. He was also the first black actor to receive featured screen credit in a film. Perry's film career slowed after 1939 and nearly stopped altogether after 1953. Around that time, Black Americans began to see his Stepin Fetchit persona as an embarrassing and harmful anachronism, echoing negative stereotypes. However, writer Mel Watkins has since argued the Stepin Fetchit character is better described as a prankster rather than simply lazy. Ear ...
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Fredi Washington
Fredericka Carolyn "Fredi" Washington (December 23, 1903 – June 28, 1994) was an American stage and film actress, civil rights activist, performer, and writer. Washington was of African American descent. She was one of the first Black Americans to gain recognition for film and stage work in the 1920s in film, 1920s and 1930s in film, 1930s. Washington was active in the Harlem Renaissance (1920s–1930s). Her best-known film role was as Peola in ''Imitation of Life (1934 film), Imitation of Life'' (1934). She plays a young light-skinned Black woman who decides to pass as white. Her last film role was in ''One Mile from Heaven'' (1937). After that she left Hollywood and returned to New York to work in theatre and civil rights activism. Early life Fredi Washington was born in 1903 in Savannah, Georgia, to Robert T. Washington, a postal worker, and Harriet "Hattie" Walker Ward, a dancer. Both were of African American and European ancestry. Washington was the second of their five ch ...
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Louis S
Louis may refer to: People * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer Other uses * Louis (coin), a French coin * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also * Derived terms * King Louis (other) * Saint Louis (other) * Louis Cruise Lines * Louis dressing, for salad * Louis Quinze, design style Associated terms * Lewis (other) * Louie (other) * Luis (other) * Louise (other) * Louisville (other) Associated names * * Chlodwig, the origin of the name Ludwig, which is translated to English as "Louis" * Ladislav and László - names sometimes erroneously associated with "Louis" * Ludovic, Ludwig, Ludwick, Ludwik Ludwik () is a Polish given name. Notable people with the name include: * Ludwik Czyżewski, Polish WWII general * Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961), Polish medical doctor and biologist * Ludwik Gintel (1899–1973), Polish-Israeli ...
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Butterfly McQueen
Butterfly McQueen (born Thelma McQueen; January 8, 1911December 22, 1995) was an American actress. Originally a dancer, McQueen first appeared in films as Prissy in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). She also appeared in the films '' Cabin in the Sky'' (1943), '' Mildred Pierce'' (1944), and '' Duel in the Sun'' (1946). Often typecast as a maid, she said: "I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over, I resented it. I didn't mind being funny, but I didn't like being stupid." She continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, and then moved to television acting in the 1950s. She won a 1980 Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in the ''ABC Afterschool Special'' episode "Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid". Early life and education Born January 8, 1911, in Tampa, Florida, Thelma McQueen was the daughter of Wallace McQueen, a stevedore/dockworker, and Mary McQueen, who worked as a maid. After ...
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Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1893 – October 26, 1952) was an African-American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. For her role as Mammy in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar. She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975, and in 2006 became the first black Oscar winner honored with a U.S. postage stamp. In 2010, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. In addition to acting, McDaniel recorded 16 blues sides between 1926 and 1929 and was a radio performer and television personality; she was the first black woman to sing on radio in the United States. Although she appeared in more than 300 films, she received on-screen credits for only 83. Her best known other major films are '' Alice Adams'', '' In This Our Life'', '' Since You Went Away'', and ''Song of the South''. McDaniel experienced racis ...
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Abbey Lincoln
Anna Marie Wooldridge (August 6, 1930 – August 14, 2010), known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist and songwriter. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards, as well as writing and singing her own material. Early life Lincoln was born on August 6, 1930, in Chicago, but raised in Calvin Center, Cass County, Michigan. She was one of 12 children. Career Music Lincoln was one of many singers influenced by Billie Holiday. Lincoln's 1956 debut album, '' Abbey Lincoln's Affair... A Story of a Girl in Love'', was followed by a series of albums for Riverside Records. In 1960, she sang on Max Roach's landmark civil rights-themed recording '' We Insist!'' (subtitled ''Freedom Now Suite''), "regarded as the earliest full-scale protest record in jazz", as historian Nat Hentoff observed. Lincoln's lyrics were often connected to the civil rights movement in America. ...
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Hall Johnson
Francis Hall Johnson (March 12, 1888 – April 30, 1970) was an American composer and arranger of African-American spiritual music. He is one of a group—including Harry T. Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Eva Jessye—who had great success performing African-American spirituals. Early years Francis Hall Johnson was born on March 12, 1888, the fourth of six children of Alice Virginia Sansom and William Decker Johnson, who was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, AME Church. Johnson received an extensive education. He attended the private, all-black Knox Institute and earned a degree from Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina. He also attended Atlanta University, the Juilliard School, Hahn School of Music, and the University of Pennsylvania. As a boy, Johnson was tutored on piano by his older sister, and he taught himself to play the violin after hearing a violin recital given by Joseph Douglass, Joseph Henry Douglass, grandson of Frederick Douglass. Ca ...
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Allen Hoskins
Allen Clayton Hoskins (August 9, 1920 – July 26, 1980) was an American child actor, who portrayed the character of Farina in 105 ''Our Gang'' short films from 1922 to 1931. Acting career 1920–1936 ''Our Gang'' Stardom Born in Boston in 1920, Allen Clayton Hoskins was just one year old when his tenure with ''Our Gang'' began. His character stayed in the series through the silent years and the transition to talking pictures, and he left the series in 1931 at the age of eleven. With his pigtailed hair and patchy outfits, Farina resembled a pickaninny in the tradition of the character Topsy from ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'', but as the character became more popular, and as Allen Hoskins got older, Farina developed his own personality separate from that of Topsy. The name " Farina", derived from a type of cereal, was chosen because its gender was ambiguous: As a toddler, Farina was portrayed as both a boy and a girl, sometimes both genders in the same film. He was born in Bost ...
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Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee (born Ruby Ann Wallace; October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress. She was married to Ossie Davis, with whom she frequently performed until his death in 2005. She received numerous accolades, including an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk Award, as well as a nomination for an Academy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1995, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2000, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. Dee started her career with the American Negro Theatre. She made her Broadway debut in '' South Pacific'' (1943). She met her future husband working together on the play '' Jeb'' (1946). She originated the Broadway roles of Ruth Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's '' A Raisin in the Sun'' (1959) and reprised the role in the 1961 film and Lutiebell Gussie Mae Jenkins in the Ossie Davis play '' Purlie Victorious'' (1961) and reprised the role in the 1963 film. She made her film debut in '' T ...
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Leigh Whipper
Leigh Rollin Whipper (October 29, 1876 – July 26, 1975) was an American actor on the stage and in motion pictures. He was the first African American to join the Actors' Equity Association, and one of the founders of the Negro Actors Guild of America. He created the role of Crooks in the original Broadway production of ''Of Mice and Men'', which he reprised in the 1939 film version. Biography Whipper was the son of African-American educator, author and activist Frances Rollin Whipper and a nephew of abolitionist William Whipper, attorney William J. Whipper. Educated at Howard University Law School, he left in 1895 and never practiced as a lawyer. Without any dramatic training, Whipper made his acting debut in a Philadelphia stock theater production of ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' in 1899. He made his first Broadway appearance in Georgia Minstrels. His first film role was in the 1920 silent film '' The Symbol of the Unconquered''. A portrait of Whipper entitled "Dans un Café ...
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Lorenzo Tucker
Lorenzo Tucker (June 27, 1907 – August 19, 1986), known as the "Black Valentino," was an American stage and screen actor who played the romantic lead in the early black films of Oscar Micheaux. Acting career Born in Philadelphia, Tucker started acting at Temple University, where he was a student. Tucker also appeared early in his career with Bessie Smith on cross-country tours. From 1926 to 1946, Tucker appeared in 18 of Micheaux's films, including ''When Men Betray'' (1928), ''Wages of Sin'' (1929), ''Easy Street'' (1930), ''Harlem Big Show'', '' Veiled Aristocrats'' (1932), ''Ten Minutes to Live'' (1932), ''Harlem After Midnight'' (1934), ''Temptation'' (1935), and ''Underworld'' (1937). He became known as the "Black Valentino" because of his good looks and role as the romantic lead in the early black cinema. Tucker noted the irony of the appellation because he believed Rudolph Valentino had a darker complexion than Tucker. He became a movie star to black America and of ...
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