Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Born Leroy Nicholas Barnes on October 15, 1933, in Harlem, New York was one of the most powerful New York drug dealers of the 1970s.  His career as a drug lord began in 1965 when he was imprisoned for heroin consumption. While in New York Green Haven Penitentiary he met the Italian mafia leader “Crazy” Joe Gallo.  After both were released, Gallo helped Barnes form a mass drug-dealing organization. Despite “Crazy” Joe Gallo’s murder on April 7, 1972, Leroy “Nicky” Barnes continued to expand his business. During this period Barnes acquired the nicknamed “Mr. Untouchable” as New York City police attempts to charge him for his crimes always failed because of absence of evidence or unreliable witnesses.  By 1973, Barnes gather together the main drug kingpins in New York City to form for the first time a city-wide organization called “the Council.” Modeled on the similar Italian mafia organizations, the aim of this council was to bring order to the drug dealing market by r...

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....

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...

Samuel George Davis Jr. was born on December 8, 1925 in Harlem, New York. His parents, Sammy Davis Sr., an African American, and Elvera Sanchez, a Cuban American, were both vaudeville dancers.  They separated when young Davis was three years old and his father took him on tour with a dance troupe led by Will Mastin. Davis joined the act at a young age and they became known as the Will Mastin Trio. It was with this trio that Davis began a lucrative career as a dancer, singer, comedian, actor, and a multi-instrumentalist. During World War II Davis joined the army, he joined an integrated entertainment Special Services unit, and found that while performing the crowd often forgot the color of the man on stage. After his discharge from the army Davis rejoined the Will Mastin Trio and soon became known in Las Vegas as the kid in the middle.  On November 19, 1954, with the act in Las Vegas finally getting off the ground, he was involved in a serious car accident on a trip from L...

African American sculptor, teacher, and advocate for black artists Augusta Savage was born Augusta Christine Fell in Green Cove Springs, Florida on February 29, 1892, the child of Edward Fells, a laborer and Methodist minister, and Cornelia Murphy. She retained the last name of her second husband, a carpenter named James Savage; they were divorced in the early 1920s.  After moving to Harlem in New York in 1921, Savage studied art at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where she finished the four-year program in three years . She was recommended by Harlem librarian Sadie Peterson, for a commission of a bust of W.E.B. DuBois.  The sculpture was well received and she began sculpting busts of other African American leaders. Savage’s bust of a Harlem child, Gamin (1929), brought her ...

Henry Johnson was a World War I hero because of his remarkable performance in France. Johnson, born in 1897 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, moved to Albany, New York with his family when he was still a child.  At the age of 20, he worked as a “Red-cap” porter at the Albany train station.  On  June 5th  of that year, however, he joined the U.S. Army and was eventually assigned to the all-black New York 369th Infantry Regiment, better known as the “Harlem Hellfighters.”  Nearly four months into his Army enlistment, Johnson married Georgia Edna Jackson of Great Barrington, Massachusetts on September 17, 1917.   Johnson and the other troops were trained in segregated Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina.  On January 1, 1918, the unit arrived in Brest, France and at first were used as laborers and stevedores.  By mid-March the 369th was sent to the front and attached to the 16th Division of the French Army.  On May 1, 1918, Johnson was promoted to ...

First organized in 1916 as the 15th New York National Guard Infantry Regiment and manned by black enlisted soldiers with both black and white officers, the U.S. Army’s 369th Infantry Regiment, popularly known as the “Harlem Hellfighters,” was the best known African American unit of World War I. The regiment was nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, the Black Rattlers, which was given to the regiment by the French. The nickname "Hell Fighters" was given to them by the Germans due to their toughness and that they never lost a man through capture, lost a trench or a foot of ground to the enemy. The "Harlem Hellfighters" were the first all black regiment that helped change the American public's opinion on African American soldiers and helped pave the way for future African American soldiers.  Federalized in 1917, the 369th prepared for service in Europe and arrived in Brest, France in December.  The next month, the regiment became part of the 93rd Division (Provisio...

Hutchen R. Hutchins, born on June 30, 1903, was part of a small but active cadre of African American Communists operating in the Pacific Northwest during the 1930's. Originally from the East Coast, Hutchins attended the Lenin School in Moscow in the late 1920's. In 1932 he was sent to Seattle by the Communist Party USA's Central Committee in New York to serve on a three-member District Executive Committee. That same year he helped organize one of the largest demonstrations of unemployed workers in the state's history. Hutchins reportedly clashed with Party members in the Northwest who, considered him overbearing and doctrinaire. In 1933 he was replaced, along with the other two members of the Executive Committee, by a new Executive Secretary. Hutchins stayed in Seattle and retained a Marxist political orientation, although it is unclear whether he remained an official member of the Communist Party. Throughout the latter half of the 1930s he served as president of ...

  Lawrence Parker, better known by his  stage names   KRS-One , and  Teacha , is an American  rapper  and occasional  producer  from  the Bronx ,  New York City ,  New York . KRS-One rose to prominence as part of the group  Boogie Down Productions , which he formed with DJ  Scott La Rock  in the late 1980's. Following the release of the group's debut album,  Criminal Minded , La Rock was shot dead, but KRS-One continued the group, effectively as a solo project. He began releasing records under his own name in 1993. KRS-One is noted to be a politically active musician having started the  Stop the Violence Movement , after the death of Scott La Rock, and the Temple of Hip Hop, as well as addressing political issues in his music. Lawrence Parker was born in  Brooklyn ,  New York  in 1965.  Parker left home at 16 to become an MC, coming to live at a  homeless shelter  in th...

I ask myself why is it that rappers oftentimes name themselves after criminals. Is because the names of criminals already carries a certain notoriety or street fame in most cases?  50 Cent borrowed the his name from Kevin Darnell Martin  (July 24, 1964 – October 24, 1987.)  He was also known as 50 Cent. He was an American who grew up in the Bronx, New York but, later moved to Brooklyn, New York. He is primarily known as the inspiration for the rapper, 50 Cent.  Kelvin Martin was possibly known as '50 Cent' due to his reputation of being prepared to rob anyone, regardless of how much money they were carrying at the time. Another story is that it came from an incident when he entered a game of dice with a 50 cent stake and ended up walking away with $500. The n ickname  may also be an allusion to his physically tiny stature - he weighed only 120 pounds (54 kg) and his height was 5'2" (157 cm) He was shot on October 20, 1987 on the sta...

YouTube personalities  Etayyim (ET)  and  Mohammed (MOE)  of  OckTV  are playing with fire and have been asked to stop. At this point it doesn't look like they will. The two have been pulling pranks like  "Do You Have A Problem"  "Fight Me Now in the Hood" and  "Selling Guns in the Hood"  in the predominantly African American sections of Brooklyn, New York. During the gun prank one guy pulls out his own pistol and points it in the face of one of the jokesters while telling him, "I already got a f*cking gun." The  New York Daily News  talked to a couple of community activists who say the brothers are risking their lives for laughs and YouTube views. “How stupid are they?” asked community advocate Tony Herbert. “They are particularly targeting minority neighborhoods. Somebody is going to get hurt. They are putting their lives in jeopardy.” “The ignorance is ridiculous,” added Edward Lovell of the Natio...