A00026 - Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia

Haile Selassie I, original name Tafari Makonnen (b. July 23, 1892, near Harer, Abyssinia (Ethiopia).— d. August 27, 1975, Addis Adaba, Ethiopia), emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 who sought to modernize his country and who steered it into the mainstream of post-World War II African politics. He brought Ethiopia into the League of Nations and the United Nations and made Addis Ababa the major center for the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union). 

Tafari was a great-grandson of Sahle Selassie of Shewa (Shoa) and a son of Ras (Prince) Makonnen, a chief adviser to Emperor Menelik II.  Educated at home by French missionaries, Tafari at an early age favorably impressed the emperor with his intellectual abilities and was promoted accordingly. As governor of Sidamo and then of Harer province, he followed progressive policies, seeking to break the feudal power of the local nobility by increasing the authority of the central government — for example, by developing a salaried civil service. He thereby came to represent politically progressive elements of the population. In 1911 he married Wayzaro Menen, a great-granddaughter of Menelik II.

When Menelik II died in 1913, his grandson Lij Yasu succeeded to the throne, but the latter’s unreliability and his close association with Islam made him unpopular with the majority Christian population of Ethiopia. Tafari became the rallying point of the Christian resistance, and he deposed Lij Yasu in 1916. Zewditu (Zauditu), Menelik II’s daughter, thereupon became empress in 1917, and Ras Tafari was named regent and heir apparent to the throne.

While Zewditu was conservative in outlook, Ras Tafari was progressive and became the focus of the aspirations of the modernist younger generation. In 1923, he had a conspicuous success in the admission of Ethiopia to the League of Nations.  In the following year, he visited Rome, Paris, and London, becoming the first Ethiopian ruler ever to go abroad. In 1928 he assumed the title of negus (“king”), and two years later, when Zewditu died, he was crowned emperor (November 2, 1930) and took the name of Haile Selassie (“Might of the Trinity”). In 1931 he promulgated a new constitution, which defined the limits of the Parliament. From the late 1920s on, Haile Selassie in effect was the Ethiopian government, and, by establishing provincial schools, strengthening the police forces, and progressively outlawing feudal taxation, he sought to both help his people and increase the authority of the central government.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Haile Selassie led the resistance, but in May 1936 he was forced into exile. He appealed for help from the League of Nations in a memorable speech that he delivered to that body in Geneva on June 30, 1936. With the advent of World War II, he secured British assistance in forming an army of Ethiopian exiles in the Sudan. British and Ethiopian forces invaded Ethiopia in January 1941 and recaptured Addis Ababa several months later. Although he was reinstated as emperor, Haile Selassie had to recreate the authority he had previously exercised. He again implemented social, economic, and educational reforms in an attempt to modernize Ethiopian government and society on a slow and gradual basis.

The Ethiopian government continued to be largely the expression of Haile Selassie’s personal authority. In 1955 he granted a new constitution giving him as much power as the previous one. Overt opposition to his rule surfaced in December 1960, when a dissident wing of the army secured control of Addis Ababa and was dislodged only after a sharp engagement with loyalist element.

Haile Selassie played a very important role in the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. His rule in Ethiopia continued until 1974, at which time famine, worsening unemployment, and the political stagnation of his government prompted segments of the army to mutiny. They deposed Haile Selassie and established a provisional military government that espoused Marxist ideologies. Haile Selassie was kept under house arrest in his own palace, where he spent the remainder of his life. Official sources at the time attributed his death to natural causes, but evidence later emerged suggesting that he had been strangled on the orders of the military government.

Haile Selassie was regarded as the messiah of the African race by  the Rastafarian movement.

A00025 - Aime Cesaire, Negritude Founder

Aimé Césaire, in full Aimé-Fernand-David Césaire   (b. June 26, 1913, Basse-Pointe, Martinique — d. April 17, 2008, Fort-de-France, Martinique), was a Martinican poet, playwright, and politician, who was co-founder with Leopold Sedar Senghor of Negritude, an influential movement to restore the cultural identity of black Africans.

Together with Senghor and others involved in the Negritude movement, Césaire was educated in Paris. In the early 1940s he returned to Martinique and engaged in political action supporting the decolonization of the French colonies of Africa. In 1945 he became mayor of Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique, and he retained that position until 2001 (he was briefly out of office in 1983–84). In 1946 Césaire became a deputy for Martinique in the French National Assembly. Viewing the plight of the blacks as only one facet of the proletarian struggle, he joined the Communist Party (1946–56). He found that Surrealism, which freed him from the traditional forms of language, was the best expression for his convictions. He voiced his ardent rebellion in a French that was heavy with African imagery. In the fiery poems of Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (1939; Return to My Native Land) and Soleil cou-coupé (1948; “Cutthroat Sun”), he lashed out against the oppressors.

Césaire turned to the theatre, discarding Negritude for black militancy. His tragedies are vehemently political: La Tragédie du Roi Christophe (1963; The Tragedy of King Christophe), a drama of decolonization in 19th-century Haiti, and Une Saison au Congo (1966; A Season in the Congo), the epic of the 1960 Congo rebellion and of the assassination of the Congolese political leader Patrice Lumumba. Both depict the fate of black power as forever doomed to failure.

A00024 - Ada "Bricktop" Smith, Paris Noir Cabaret Queen

Ada "Bricktop" Smith (b. August 14,1894, Alderson, West Virginia - d. January 31, 1984 New York City, New York) was a vaudevillian, saloon entertainer, and nightclub owner whose clientele and friends included royalty, the wealthy, and the artistic elite.

Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, an African American barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.

At age sixteen, Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones' saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years, she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.

In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.

In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Cafe Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.

In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Duconge. They were married on December 19. 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger cafe, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafes, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another cafe during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934, the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her cafe to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.

From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafes and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Cafe on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.

In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

On March 6, 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few appearances after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

A00023 - Josephine Baker, Paris Noir Diva

Josephine Baker, original name Freda Josephine McDonald   (b. June 3, 1906, St. Louis, Missouri — d. April 12, 1975, Paris, France) was an American-born French dancer and singer who symbolized the beauty and vitality of black American culture, which took Paris by storm in the 1920s.

Baker grew up fatherless and in poverty. Between the ages of 8 and 10 she was out of school, helping to support her family. As a child, Baker developed a taste for the flamboyant that was later to make her famous. As an adolescent, she became a dancer, touring at 16 with a dance troupe from Philadelphia. In 1923 she joined the chorus in a road company performing the musical comedy Shuffle Along and then moved to New York City, where she advanced steadily through the show Chocolate Dandies on Broadway and the floor show of the Plantation Club.

In 1925 she went to Paris to dance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre and introduced her danse sauvage to France. She went on to become one of the most popular music-hall entertainers in France and achieved star billing at the Folies-Bergere, where she created a sensation by dancing semi-nude in a G-string ornamented with bananas. She became a French citizen in 1937. She sang professionally for the first time in 1930, made her screen debut as a singer four years later, and made several more films before World War II curtailed her career.

During the German occupation of France, Baker worked with the Red Cross and the Resistance, and as a member of the Free French forces she entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East. She was later awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. with the rosette of the Résistance. After the war much of her energy was devoted to Les Milandes, her estate in southwestern France, from which she began in 1950 to adopt babies of all nationalities in the cause of what she defined as “an experiment in brotherhood” and her “rainbow tribe.” She retired from the stage in 1956, but to maintain Les Milandes she was later obliged to return, starring in Paris in 1959. She traveled several times to the United States to participate in civil rights demonstrations. In 1968 her estate was sold to satisfy accumulated debt. She continued to perform occasionally until her death in 1975, during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut.

A00022 - Nina Simone, Civil Rights Diva

Nina Simone (b. Eunice Waymon, February 21, 1933, Tryon, North Carolina.— d. April 21, 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, France), was an American singer who created urgent emotional intensity by singing songs of love, protest, and black empowerment in a dramatic style, with a rough-edged voice. Originally noted as a jazz singer, she became a prominent voice of the 1960s civil rights movement with recordings such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Old Jim Crow”; her best-known composition was “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” She also recorded songs by rock and pop songwriters. A precocious child, she played piano and organ in girlhood. She became sensitive to racism when at age 12 she gave a piano recital in a library where her parents had to stand in back because they were black. A student of classical music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, she began performing as a pianist. Her vocal career began in 1954 in an Atlantic City, N.J., nightclub when the club owner threatened to fire her unless she sang too. Her first album featured her distinctive versions of jazz and cabaret standards, including “I Loves You, Porgy,” which became a 1959 hit. In the 1960s she added protest songs, became a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and performed at civil rights demonstrations. Her popularity grew as she added folk and gospel selections as well as songs by the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan, and Screaming Jay Hawkins (“I Put a Spell on You”), to her repertoire. Angered by American racism, she left the United States in 1973 and lived in Barbados, Africa, and Europe for the rest of her life. Like her private life, her career was turbulent, and she gained a reputation for throwing onstage tantrums, insulting inattentive audiences, and abruptly canceling concerts. A 1980s Chanel television commercial that included her vocal “My Baby Just Cares for Me” helped introduce her to many new, younger listeners. Despite ill health, she continued to tour and perform, and she maintained a devoted international following to the end.