Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Andre Watts is the subject of one of the more memorable stories in American music. In 1963, the 16 year old high school student won a piano competition to play in the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concert at Lincoln Center, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.  Within weeks of the contest the renowned conductor tapped Watts to substitute for the eminent but ailing pianist Glenn Gould, for a regular performance with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance was televised nationally, with Watts playing Liszt’s E-flat Concerto, and his career was launched. From this storied beginning, Watts went on to become the first internationally famous black concert pianist. Watts was born in Nuremburg, Germany on June 20, 1946 to an African American soldier, Herman Watts, who was stationed in Germany, and a piano-playing Hungarian refugee mother, Maria Alexandra Gusmits. His early childhood was spent on military bases, until at the age of eight his family moved to Philadelphia....

Harriet  Ann Jacobs, daughter of Delilah, a slave, and Daniel Jacobs, a slave who was born in Edenton, North Carolina, on February 11, 1813.  Until she was six years old Harriet was unaware that she was the property of Margaret Horniblow. Before her death in 1825, Harriet's relatively kind mistress taught her slave to read and sew. In her will, Margaret Horniblow bequeathed eleven-year-old Harriet to a niece, Mary Matilda Norcom. Since Mary Norcom was only three years old when Harriet Jacobs became her slave, Mary's father, Dr. James Norcom, an Edenton physician, became Jacobs's de facto master. Under the regime of James and Maria Norcom, Jacobs was introduced to the harsh realities of slavery. Though barely a teenager, Jacobs soon realized that her master was a sexual threat. Around the time Harriet turned 15, Norcom began his relentless efforts to bend the slave girl's will. To get Harriet away from his wife, who was suspicious of her husband's intentions, he...

Teacher, writer, and women’s activist Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of former slaves who in 1864 migrated to Canada. she grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.  The Brown family returned to the United States in 1870, settling in Wilberforce, Ohio.  Brown attended Wilberforce College and received a degree in 1873.  She then taught in freedman’s schools in Mississippi before moving to Columbia, South Carolina in 1875 where she served briefly as an instructor in the city’s public schools.  By September 1875 she joined the faculty at Allen University.  Brown taught at Allen between 1875 and 1885 and then for the next two years (1885-1887) served as Dean of the University.  Brown also served as Dean of Women at Tuskegee Institute during the 1892-1893 school year before returning to Ohio where she taught in the Dayton public schools.     Brown had since childhood held an interest in ...

Painter and educator Laura Wheeler Waring was born on May 16, 1887, in Hartford, Connecticut.  The fourth child of six born to Reverend Robert Foster and Mary Wheeler, Laura was unusual in some respects because she had the advantage of a superior education and middle and upper class associations. Her father studied Theology at Howard University and received his diploma ten years before Laura’s birth. Laura’s education was exemplary.  She graduated from Hartford High School in 1906 with honors and went on to study for another six years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, one of the leading art institutes in the United States. In 1914, she received the A. William Emlen Cresson Memorial Travel Scholarship that allowed her to continue her studies of arts in major cities of Europe for a period of time. On that first trip she spent much time in the Louvre where she studied the works of several master painters.   While in Europe she produced her first paintings, ...

Ada Overton Walker, buck-and-wing, cakewalk virtuoso and choreographer regarded as one of the first African American choreographers on the American stage was born Ada Wilmon Overton on February 14, 1880 in Greenwich Village, New York City, the second child of Pauline Whitfield, a seamstress, and Moses Overton, a waiter. She was a child who seemed to have danced before she walked, fond of dancing in the streets with a hurdy-gurdy, until her parents decided she would receive formal dance training. Around 1897, after graduating from Thorp's Dance School, she toured briefly then an opportunity came when a girlfriend invited her to model for vaudeville advertisement at New York's Music Hall. She eventually the cast of  Williams and Walker's Octoroons, in which once critic declared of her performance, "I have just observed the greatest girl dancer." In 1899 Overton married George Walker and they became the leading cake-walking couple of the new century; in the cake...