This Date in History: NC to Harlem

[lawtig02]

Out the window of our apartment in #WestHarlem I can see The Cotton Club (not the original but the one opened in 1971) and just down 125th is #TheApolloTheater. A long way from #Bonlee am I. Tar Heels have certainly preceded me here though. Today two from similarly small NC places, #Burgaw and #Brevard that literally landed within blocks of our apartment to make their mark come to mind.



The first is ‘Burgawian’ Reverend James A. Forbes, Pastor Emeritus of the interdenominational #RiversideBaptistChurch. Riverside has been an impactful place in many ways large and small but perhaps is most remembered as the pulpit from which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his first anti-Viet Nam War sermon on April 4, 1967. As a seminary student Forbes spent time in #ChapelHill as an intern at #BinkleyBaptistChurch working with Rev. Robert Seymour. He was the young African American man that Preacher Seymour and a young Coach Dean Smith accompanied to the segregated Pines Restaurant in 1961 to challenge Jim Crow.



The other North Carolinian is the ‘Brevardian,’ Jackie ‘Moms’ Mabley (Loretta Mary Aiken 1894-1975) the comedian. Mabley confronted and defied color but also gender and sexuality barriers during her career. She came out as a lesbian in the early 1920s. In 1939 she was the first female comic to perform at the Apollo. While as a young performer she did it all - sang, danced, acted - she eventually settled into the character of Moms - clad in house dress, floppy hat and affected a toothless and disheveled older lady demeanor who spiced her routines with double entendres and risqué tales well-told. Most recently Wanda Sykes beautifully recreated her for an episode of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”



Both Reverend Forbes and Moms Mabley left North Carolina, and The South, so as to pursue their respective callings. Both were faced with terrible resistance - much of it (all of it?) racist. This has to be recognized and related in schools and public venues - their stories and others like them cannot be silenced as is the goal of so many hard at work today to shut down the unsightly and uncomfortable Truths of our Past. Fight friends. Vote please. Teach by all means.



That leads to today’s On This Day: #OTD (June 24) in 1933 #Harlem’s Apollo Theater opened. https://aaregistry.org/story/the-apollo-theater-opens/ ALSO: https://www.apollotheater.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/WalkofFame_Moms_final4.pdf

This is a terrific post, donbosco. I enjoy everything you post here but this one was particularly excellent. Thanks for sharing!

 

[donbosco]

It’s a bummer to think of all the basketball talent in NC back in the day who didn’t get to play college ball at a major program in their home state (i.e., one of the NC ACC schools) due to segregation. In addition to Sam Jones, there was Walt Bellamy, Lou Hudson, Happy Hairston, Willie Porter, among others. And there was probably a lot of talent that really didn’t get the chance they deserved due to segregation, thus we don’t know who they are today.

Fun fact: The first black basketball player from NC to play at a predominantly white university in NC was Asheville’s Henry Logan, who went on to Western Carolina. He made his varsity debut in 1964, three years before Charlie Scott would make his varsity debut at UNC. Logan is widely believed to be the first black player to play at any predominantly white college or university in the South.

I've mentioned this before but I met Henry Logan just a couple of years before he passed away when my wife and I were looking at a house (to buy) that was a couple down from his own. I was standing in the yard and he walked by, said hello and asked if I was thinking of buying. I said yes and we struck up a conversation. Eventually we exchanged names. I think he was very surprised when, hearing his name, I kind of stepped back and said, "THE Henry Logan?" We talked a bit of hoops and of all things I did not get his autograph.

He was amazing.
I know that at one time there was a man in Asheville that was working on a documentary about his life. I don't think it has ever come out though.

Maybe this is a trailer for it?

 

[Icky Mettle]

I've mentioned this before but I met Henry Logan just a couple of years before he passed away when my wife and I were looking at a house (to buy) that was a couple down from his own. I was standing in the yard and he walked by, said hello and asked if I was thinking of buying. I said yes and we struck up a conversation. Eventually we exchanged names. I think he was very surprised when, hearing his name, I kind of stepped back and said, "THE Henry Logan?" We talked a bit of hoops and of all things I did not get his autograph.

He was amazing.
I know that at one time there was a man in Asheville that was working on a documentary about his life. I don't think it has ever come out though.

Maybe this is a trailer for it?

BTW I stand somewhat corrected. While it’s true that Henry Logan was the first black basketball player to play at a predominantly white school in NC and probably the entire South, so was his college teammate and classmate, Herbert Moore, who was also a high school teammate of Logan’s.