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Harlem-born public figure has been hailed for contributions to the image of African Americans and women in the arts
In the January and February issue of Essence magazine excerpts from a newly released autobiography by Cicely Tyson, Just As I Am, provide insights into the nearly one century life’s journey of a legend within the entertainment and cultural milieu in the United States.
Essence, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2000, is a publication designed to illustrate the role of African women in history and the modern world. Tyson, 96 years old, passed away on January 29 of natural causes.
She was born to immigrant parents from the Caribbean island of Nevis. Tyson came into existence in 1924 during the period that is popularly known as the Harlem Renaissance. Beginning in the first decade of the 20th century, Harlem was rapidly transforming from a European immigrant community to one which became largely occupied by Black and Latin American peoples.
This excerpt originally appeared in the January/February issue of ESSENCE magazine, available on newsstands now.
The era I grew up in both deepened my racial wound and soothed it with the healing balm of the arts. My childhood spanned the 1920s and 1930s, two of the most economically memorable and culturally rich decades in American history a period when Negro literature, music and culture flourished. The Roaring ’20s rollicked joyously with jazz, decadence and illegal whiskey, while the thunderous market crash of 1929 rattled nerves throughout the ’30s. What these shifts meant to daily life, or whether they had any noticeable consequence at all, depended upon where you lived and how much you were able to earn, both of which were inextricably tied to the color of your skin.
Coleman Hawkins
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Our Language (1924-1928)
Louis Armstrong arrives in New York from Chicago where, during a brief stay with the Fletcher Henderson band, he amazes his fellow musicians and teaches the city to swing. A blues craze, spearheaded by Bessie Smith, takes the nation by storm. Cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz artist, eventually plays for bandleader Paul Whiteman, whose blending of classical and jazz traditions comes to epitomize jazz for many Americans. This episode also traces the childhood of Benny Goodman, whose musicianship catapults him out of the slums of Chicago; and Goodman s eventual rival, clarinetist Artie Shaw, who also escapes ghetto life though jazz. Clarinetist Sidney Bechet takes his fiery music to Europe, and singer Ethel Waters brings a new kind of artistry to American popular song. Jelly Roll Morton advances the art of jazz composition, and Duke Ellington begins his incomparable career as the pre-eminent composer in jazz history. The episode ends with L