All posts by The Griot

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 5 — Marsha P. Johnson

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Marsha.jpg

(Ed. Note: Since this post was published, accounts of Marsha’s participation in the riot have shifted to reveal that she arrived after the violence had already begun. This revelation does not diminish Marsha’s contributions to the culture.)

In solidarity with #Stonewall this weekend, I want to introduce y’all to Miss Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson.

Marsha was a transgender activist who founded Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help prevent homelessness and violence against gay & trans people in New York, but is best known as the Queen Who Threw The Shot Glass Heard Around the World.

When the bar at the Stonewall Inn was raided on June 28, 1969, Marsha was the first of the patrons to defend other clubgoers against the police – some of whom were sexually assaulting patrons, all of whom were misusing a law about selling liquor in dance halls to publicly humiliate, harass and institutionalize LGBTQ people. When the police’s lineups began, Marsha interrupted by throwing a shot glass into a mirror and launching the Stonewall Riot. Even though her crew of street queens were some of the most outcast in the community, they stood up for everyone present at Stonewall that night.

Marsha wasn’t done though. She became an active and visible member of the Gay Liberation Front that allied & “welcome[d] any gay person, regardless of sex, race, age or social behavior” to enable the culture together to resist & rise together. What happened at Stonewall with just a moment of resistance from Marsha P. Johnson, gained momentum and became the spark for the modern-day fight for LGBTQIA rights as we know them today.

Marsha was also one of Andy Warhol’s muses – appearing many times in his 1975 series “Ladies and Gentlemen” both in paintings and in Polaroids, but in 1992, her body was suspiciously found in New York’s Hudson River, and no criminal investigation was conducted. Although Marsha’s life was snuffed out unceremoniously, it left incredible impact on the LGBTQIA community, many of whom still lovingly refer to her (much as her charges at STAR did) as the True Drag Mother.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

While not totally historically accurate in its depiction, Drunk History featured a wildly hilarious take on the night Marsha launched the Shot Glass Heard Around the World.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 4 — Drs. Vince & Vance Moss

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Vance & Vincent Moss are twins. And surgeons. And heroes.

Back in 2006, when they were treating injured veterans at Ft. Bliss and Ft. Jackson as part of their duties in the U.S. Army Reserves Medical Corps, the vets told them stories of how the people who really needed help were the innocent Afghani civilians who’d been injured too, but had no sufficient medical services or facilities. The women & children were in especially dire need.

The brothers went to Army leadership to make a special request to provide their services in treating those civilians, but while the Army supported them, it couldn’t send them in an official capacity. So the brothers hired their own intelligence and security, bought their own medical supplies, chartered their own plane and went.

In between their duties in the Reserves and their joint practice at home as a urology specialist & kidney transplant surgeon (Vince) and a cardiothoracic surgeon (Vance), they’ve treated well over 6,000 Afghanis and performed surgery on 2,000 of them. Their service has been emotional and dangerous, putting them and their patients in dangerous situations – they’ve been robbed, they’ve negotiated with drug lords, and operated in caves, but they’re currently planning another trip to provide free care to anyone who needs them and anyone they can reach. Their rapport with the locals in the regions they serve has allowed them access to places that Army forces couldn’t go themselves.

In recognition of their service that’s included several active duty tours in Operation Enduring Freedom, the brothers have been promoted to Major and received the Army Commendation Medal for distinguishing themselves through heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service.

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THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 3 — Jackie Ormes

Jackie Ormes - Cartoonist

Zelda “Jackie” Ormes was the first black woman to become a professional cartoonist.

In 1937’s America, her cartoons boldly challenged stereotypes of women & black people. Her initial comic, “Torchy Brown,” was the first depiction of an independent, single black woman in a syndicated comic strip AND the first syndicated comic strip drawn by a black woman. Her next comic, “Patty-Jo ‘n Ginger” fearlessly tackled racism, sexism, class, the environment, politics and other intersectional issues with humorous truth.

Torchy was later developed into a fashionable comic paper doll, and in 1947, Ormes created a Patty-Jo doll so that black girls could play with dolls that actually looked like them, instead of choosing between racist pickaninny dolls or white-skinned dolls.

The audacity of a liberal, black, educated, middle-class woman carrying herself with confidence in a white American society & depicting her characters in her own image, landed her squarely into the McCarthy Investigations and the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, both of which were disavowed but not without having caused irreparable damage to black America (see the FBI & CIA assassination attempts against MLK, see also Black Panthers).

In 1956, she retired from cartooning to become an advocate and volunteer in Chicago. After her death in 1985, the Ormes Society was created to promote the inclusion of black women in comics and animation, as well as that of black female characters in sequential art and cartoons. Jackie Ormes’ comics forever impacted the way black women appeared in pop culture & the way black girls learned to see themselves, and in 2014 she was posthumously inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Hall of Fame for her pioneering work.

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THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 2 — Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley - Artist, painter, scupltor
Kehinde’s stained glass rendering of “Mary, Comforter of the Afflicted I” (2016).

Kehinde Wiley creates vibrant images of black & brown bodies in classical & religious scenes reminiscent of historical masterpieces. His work has been featured in exhibitions domestically and abroad, including his most recent at the Paris Museum of Fine Arts.

And in Lucious’ office in Fox’s Empire. 😂

“Bound” – 6 ft. bronze sculpture (2014)

He writes, “I loved when I walked into Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a kid and seeing Kerry James Marshall’s grand barbershop painting. But it was thrown into very sharp relief when thinking about the absence of other black images in that museum. There was something absolutely heroic and fascinating about being able to feel a certain relationship to the institution and the fact that these people happen to look like me on some level.”

He continues, “At its best, what art does is, it points to WHO we as human beings and WHAT we as human beings value. And if Black Lives Matter, they deserve to be in paintings.”

Kehinde’s “Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha” (2012) vs. the painting of the same name by Edwin Landseer (1839)

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Follow along with what’s keeping Kehinde busy these days on his Instagram.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2017

DAY 1 — Diane Nash

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Diane Nash was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and leader of the original “Rock Hill Nine” – nine students arrested for staging a sit-in at a lunch counter that refused service to black people. (She also led their continued civil disobedience in refusing to pay any fine or bail to an oppressive system.)

She said that she never saw Dr. King as her leader, but her equal, and was such a driving force in the Alabama Freedom Marches & Rides that when Assistant to the Attorney General John Seigenthaler called her personally to dissuade their participation, he described the conversation as such:

“I’m saying, ‘You’re going to get somebody killed.’ She said, ‘You don’t understand’ — and she’s right, I didn’t understand — ‘You don’t understand, we signed our wills last night.’ ”

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Enjoy a brief Diane Nash bio, narrated by the illustrious Angela Bassett.