All this adventure and Louis and I hadn’t even eaten lunch yet. I didn’t anticipate any of his invitations, but there’s one in particular I truly couldn’t have prepared for.
“I’m going home at 1. Do you want to come?”
15 minutes later, we were back on the train, picking up soul food in Harlem before heading to his place.
“Take pictures, video, ask me about anything,” Louis graciously offered as we walked through the door. And it was a good thing, because I think I blacked out.
No matter where I lay my eyes, they found a photograph, photography equipment, or a book on photography, history or the Black experience.
Museum, temple, sanctuary.
Despite the ordered clutter, spirits lived here, and I was pushing past the veil.
We ate in near silence while I absorbed my surroundings. A sticky trap on the tile floor had caught a single roach that flipped in every direction before it just laid down. Live footage of the universe watching me in Louis’ apartment.
He answered every question I asked, and a lot that I didn’t. “That girl was a virgin. This man didn’t want his photograph taken. That was the time I put myself in front of the camera at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.” For every picture, there were two or three stories to tell.
As soon as I sat for a moment, he stood and unlatched an aluminum case in a nearby chair.
“Put this around your shoulder.” His worn hands extended a thin leather strap attached to yet another vintage camera.
“Now hold the lens to your eye. You see two of me? Turn that knob until you see one. Then take your left thumb—press that button. That’s it. You’re ready.”
I somehow managed the presence of mind to realize that no matter how many New Yorkers knew Louis Mendes, only a few had ever sat in my place.
I asked for another picture.
He gleefully switched on a lamp that he told me he built himself from spare parts, lightly posed me—something Louis never does with his public subjects—and clicked.
“That’s a good one. That’ll be important,” he pointed and admired his still-developing instant photo.
I can’t remember whether I said out loud that it already is. 🖤
[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]
Most people who interact with Louis Mendes fall into two categories: the perfect strangers who become totally enamored with him and the long-time locals thrilled to finally spot him. Every now and then, they fall into both and realize who he is mid-conversation.
But one particular exchange at Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace caught me WILDLY off-guard, right in front of my grits and bacon.
While Louis and I chatted over the merits of chocolate cake for breakfast—he’d flatly refused toast or a biscuit in favor of cake at 9am—another older gentleman quietly entered.
A black cane supported his long arms and broad shoulders that hinted at a once imposing physique. He’d been staring at us since he walked in, and sank himself into a chair at the opposite table.
“Legendary cameraman.”
He spoke so softly and deliberately that Louis thought he said “legendary camera, man.”
“How old are you?” Louis asked.
“73.”
“Oh, it’s younger than you.”
“I know. I remember that camera.”
“You know who I am?”
“Yeah, I know who you are. You used to shoot me & my boys ballin’ down at Rucker Park.”
A man (unintentionally?) eavesdropping from the diner countertop spun on his stool quick and exclaimed, “Man, I KNEW you were Joe Hammond!”
Joe “The Destroyer” Hammond, who once put up 50 points in a half against Dr. J, is widely considered one of the greatest street basketball players of all time. This year, he’ll be inducted into the New York Basketball Hall of Fame alongside Carmelo Anthony. That morning, he watched me shove eggs in my mouth. 🥴
In his soft-spoken but thick and charismatic New York accent, Joe regaled me with a few Harlem streetball stories, some tinged with regret, but all so proudly recounted. And I listened so intently, I barely remember him walking out the door.
I turned in my chair, hoping to catch one last glimpse of a New York great and spotted him just under the restaurant’s awning, waiting out the rain. Joe lingered there just long enough for me to snap a single photograph—something Louis constantly pesters me to do—before Harlem took him back.
It might be one of my favorite portraits I’ve ever taken. 🖤
[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]
Days 2 & 3 were a working whirlwind, but I had a gust of energy behind me after a night with Valerie June.
Killed the pitch, met agency leadership, treated another team to lunch, mentored a junior, and still had time to text my old friend @reallouismendes.
Back in 2022, we met in Bryant Park when I tried to take a picture of him and move on, but got acquainted with the legend instead.
Louis Mendes in Bryant Park, 2022
He’d texted me months later to ask for the picture he’d taken of me. But there wasn’t one. We’d gotten too caught up in conversation.
So a year and a half later, I decided to shoot my shot, short notice and all.
And wouldn’t you know it, not only was Louis free, he lived mere blocks from my hotel.
He shuffled up 44th Street on a cold, wet, and gray Friday morning, with his trusty 1940s Speed Graphic camera shining like a lantern.
If I thought I was the only person who broke into a silly smile at the sight of him, the next few hours proved me sorely mistaken. Between his vintage cameras and impeccable style, strangers absolutely gravitate to Louis.
We rode the 2 Train from Times Square to Harlem for breakfast at Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace. From the station to the breakfast table and everywhere in between, I sat front row to the Louis Mendes Show.
“Hey, man, that’s a dope camera!” a young Latino man shouted from a car at a corner we crossed.
“WHAAAAAAT?! NO WAY!” A Lululemon soccer mom exclaimed from a train platform as she snapped as many pictures of him as she could before the doors shut.
Louis in younger days
And everywhere we went, he lifted my soul with New York’s stories, too. How the mosaic tile leading down to Times Square station was original, the irony of the Harlem Hospital once being segregated, how he’d met James Van Der Zee and even attended Gordon Parks’ funeral.
Like…
I asked his favorite places to take pictures. “Anywhere I can make money,” he retorted. (Louis has a witty response for just about everything, I quickly learned.)
Storytime in Brooklyn with Louis Mendes
But after breakfast, he said he’d take me to his favorite rainy day spot: Grand Central Station, one of my favorites too.
That’s where I finally got my picture.
And a couple of invitations to way, way more…
[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]
Already doing the most before I’ve landed in the City.
A work leadership program kicked off in NYC on the same day I was scheduled to pitch a new client.
I could have thought, “That’s plenty. I’m good.”
But a week before, @thevaleriejune stole my heart live in Austin before mentioning she’d be in New York the following week. WELL, OK GIRL, ME TOO!
When she revealed her venue as the Cafe Carlyle, a tiny hotel cabaret that had once hosted David Bowie, Eartha Kitt, Judy Collins and so many more, I couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t trying to go.
OF COURSE the only tickets available were on the night of my arrival, the night before the pitch and the leadership launch.
And OF COURSE I BOUGHT ONE ANYWAY.
So we came into NYC HOT, changed in the JFK bathroom, and headed straight to the Cafe Carlyle, luggage and all.
And man, did the city rise to meet me.
I’d stressed over how late I was arriving. I was the first person at the bar with my pick of stage view seating in a room capacity of 90.
I’d worried I’d sit there falling asleep after a long travel day, or worse, small-talking with a stranger. Instead, two separate and vibrant Black women sat down next to me, and became my new friends.
And when the show started, Valerie June appeared in a doorway all of 5 feet away from us, singing a capella, playing a tambourine, and channeling every bit of her southern Black roots.
Time stood still until without any warning, she whisked all her sequins out the venue’s main door, leaving her audience pinned to their seats and still pending checks.
Valerie June reads her poem “A Fairy Tale” live at the Café Carlyle
Both times I’ve seen Valerie June now, it’s felt like those dreams you wake up from and try desperately to fall back asleep into. It’s so good, then it’s just… over.
My new friends and I tried to hold onto the night as long as we could, chatting with GRAMMY-nominated Little Richard documentarian and VJ’s friend @misscortes and slow-sipping our (outstanding) cocktails before retreating to our respective beds.
Luckily for me, NYC is full of dreams and mine with Valerie June wasn’t done quite yet…
[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]
So, it’s February 5 and y’all got crickets from me?
It’s because I’ve been full of butterflies.
2024’s Black History Month theme is “African-Americans and the Arts.” And most years, I write the history, but this time, despite my best-laid plans, the ancestors decided that this Black creative would be living it instead.
Chills fr.
I traveled to New York for work last week, and went fully intending to launch on 2/1. Abandoning that plan to accept my ancestors’ gift was the greatest decision I could have made.
Here’s a little teaser of my unforeseen adventure in NYC, starring singer Valerie June, photographer Louis Mendes, luxury house Tiffany & Co., and multi-hyphenate Spike Lee.
Even I can’t believe this was only the beginning of February and there’s still so much more to come.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
I. FEEL. INFINITE. ✨
See ya back here real soon living Black art out loud. 😘
[Ed. Note: This post is part of a one-time February 2024 mini-series that took me to NYC where I was treated to an abundance of Blackstories first-hand. In place of my usual February content, I chose to share my own real-time (-ish) lived experience to honor the vibrant people New York put in my path.]
I survived Austin’s Winter Oakpocalypse unscathed by fallen branches, only for the pollen that came down with them to get me in the end.
Two ear infections and a sinus infection later, and it’s no surprise that I’m just recently catching my breath.
Wasn’t all rough times though!
I made a friend of the author of Dear Yesteryear and contributor to The 1619 Project Book, Miss Kimberly Annece Henderson. 💖 Met HGTV’s Carmeon Hamilton too!
I collaborated with a Black creative that I mentor to tell the stories of 5 Black co-workers on MullenLowe’s PROUD Stories. I co-led all of the agency’s Black History Month programming.
Last weekend, I’d planned to pick up where I left off to bring you Blackstories 10-28 as promised. But one thing I’ve taken away from this project is that I am living and breathing Black history right now.
The last thing that the people in my stories—who lived and died breaking literal and figurative chains—would want is for me to miss out on my own story for the sake of telling theirs.
All month, my grandmother’s voice repeated in my mind, reminding me of one of her favorite sayings: “The only thing I HAVE TO DO is stay Black and die.”
I’m embracing her energy. 👑
So instead of going back in history, I hope you can grant me a little grace for not giving you 28 stories last month while you catch me and my camera outside later this week, telling Black stories in real time, sequins, and feathers. 💚💛💜
“Skip Intro” is a modern luxury, and according to Netflix, it’s here to stay since we smash it about 136 million times daily.
But it wasn’t always so. Just FIVE years ago, we proved our dedication to a series through the slow agony of watching the same intro over and over again, week after week, episode after episode.
The horror.
But every now and then, an intro kept us riveted, counting down the scenes until our favorite character was introduced for the thousandth time, or calling us from literally anywhere into the living room.
In 1992, one show gave us Xennials all of that and then some.
And that show—X-Men: The Animated Series—would have been nothing without the masterful touch of Larry Houston.
Thug tears, 31 years later.
Larry’s original comic book series, The Enforcers
Though Larry grew up reading Jack Kirby and Stan Lee comics, and even concepted, wrote, drew and ultimately published his own comic in high school, life led him to a more practical career as a computer systems analyst.
And then it led him right back.
He was twenty-something in 1980 when childhood wonder came calling, and Filmation—the production house that brought you tons of Saturday Morning Cartoon favorites like Fat Albert, The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, Ghostbusters, He-Man and She-Ra—hired Larry as their first Black storyboard artist.
His first production credit was on Thundarr The Barbarian, and the next, on The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour, both iconic in their own right.
But it was the next entry on his resume that truly brought everything full circle and launched Larry’s career into orbit. In 1982, he earned great responsibility as a storyboard artist on Marvel Productions’ Spider-Man.
Larry (obvious) with the Marvel crew, including Stan Lee immediately above him. Courtesy of Larry Houston.
From there, his writing, storyboarding, and directing credits read like the Saturday Morning TV Guide.
Larry with Keith David, his “first and only choice” for the voice of T’Challa in “The Fantastic Four.”
The Incredible Hulk. G.I. Joe. The New Adventures of Jonny Quest. Jem and the Holograms. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Captain Planet. Double Dragon.
And of course, his 1992 pièce de résistance… X-Men: The Animated Series.
Of X-Men’s 76 episodes, Larry storyboarded 44, including the entire opening sequence. From 1992 to 1995, he also produced and directed the series, turning his childhood passion into the canonically-accurate, allegorically-rich, Easter-egg-riddled, gold standard of cartoons that we know and love today.
After all, who better than a BLERD (that’s BLack nERD for the uninitiated) to serve as steward of what Sean Howe, author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, called “the most explicitly political of the 1960s Marvel comics.” It was one of the first times in cartoon history that Black children saw themselves represented as powerful leaders rather than at best, sidekicks and comic relief, and at worst, mammies and savages, or dancing fools. Storm and Bishop manipulated weather and time to make weapons of the universe itself. Before a Black woman ever led the country, one led the X-Men. Though we didn’t know it then, a Black man entrusted with bringing all of this to life became a gift to an entire generation.
Storm & Bishop dominating, in action.
But he didn’t stop there. The list above is only a snippet of the incredible artistry Larry Houston brought to nearly every American under 50 years old. NBC’s “Community” even paid homage to his stellar career in 2014, tapping him as a lead storyboard artist in the episode titled “G.I. Jeff.”
— Starburns Industries (@StarburnsInd) July 26, 2014
These days, Larry’s empire has grown into his own entertainment company, he’s writing a superhero screenplay, re-visiting his past comics, and still reminding kids big and small that sometimes a dream is the only superpower you need.
KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:
Learn more about Larry Houston’s tremendous contributions to comics and cartoons at his website and IMDB.
Keep up with Larry’s work, news and appearances on his Instagram.
Larry talks to SYFY Wire about how his comic expertise kept “X-Men: The Animated Series” true to Stan Lee’s original vision.
Read Rolling Stone’s lost interview with Stan Lee on how the X-Men came to be.
Check out how one of those kids inspired by Stan Lee’s Storm and her cartoon representation by Larry Houston ended up bringing the character to life.
Dr. Feranmi Okanlami experiences discrimination every single day.
It’s not necessarily because he’s a Black man, but because he’s a Black man in a wheelchair.
“Until I started to live life on the other side of the stethoscope… I did not realize how ableist our world was, how inaccessible the world was and how I was unintentionally complicit to this world,” he told Good Morning America.
A different lifetime: Feranmi Okanlami in March 2007, courtesy of the Stanford Invitational.
Dr. O, as he’s nicknamed, didn’t always use a chair. Born in Nigeria and raised in Indiana, he’d graduated Stanford as an All-American track star and captain of his team, then medical school at Michigan, and worked as a third-year resident in orthopedic surgery at Connecticut’s Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. O was on a brilliant path until a 2013 Fourth of July accident changed his mode of transportation, and then some.
“I jumped into the pool,” he said. “I didn’t do a backflip or anything like that. There was no diving board, but I hit either the ground or the side of the pool or someone’s leg. I can’t be completely sure, but immediately I was unable to move anything from my chest down.”
Most people with his cervical injury “are not expected to ever be able to walk or stand,” his mother Bunmi said.
Dr. O is a man with higher expectations.
“I have an interesting intersection of science and faith, such that even if doctors had said I would never walk again, I wasn’t going to let that limit what I hoped for my recovery,” he said. “I know there is so much we don’t know about spinal cord injury, and I know the Lord can work miracles.”
Dr. O in the operating room where miracles happen.
Two months and countless hours of physical therapy later, Dr. O gained the mobility to extend his leg. With time, he gained something else too: a Master’s degree in Engineering, Science and Technology Entrepreneurship from the University of Notre Dame. “[I was] looking for something I could do to stimulate myself intellectually while I was working myself physically,” he said. Dr. O even finished his medical residency.
After his injury, he accomplished everything he’d set out to do as an able-bodied person, and then some. But Dr. O also found that the outside world put up unnecessary physical barriers every step of the way.
He learned that medical school admissions require physical qualifications that prevent those with certain disabilities from even applying. That’s just one reason why only 2.7% of doctors identify as disabled compared to more than 20% nationwide.
He realized that there have been more advancements in high-end self-driving cars than in making standard vehicles more accessible.
And as an athlete in a wheelchair, finding a good pick-up basketball game was near impossible.
Dr. O suddenly had invaluable insight into the lives of so many of his patients. “I have one foot in one world and one wheelchair wheel in another,” he said. Disabled patients can better relate to disabled doctors, of course. But think of how other patients like the pregnant woman on bedrest, the aging person beginning to lose mobility, even the child with a broken limb might benefit from a doctor who’s compassionately vulnerable.
“How are we supposed to be able to talk to patients and tell them it’s okay, that life can still go on, while creating a culture where the providers themselves must come across as immune to the same ailments we treat our patients for?” he wondered. “My goal is trying to demonstrate to them, through one lens of disability, that we are all going to have our difficulties and our struggles and that’s what makes you human, and believe it or not, sometimes your patients will value seeing the human in you.”
Dr. O knew that the human experiences he’d faced as a newly disabled person weren’t unique to him. So he set about changing those experiences for the better.
Where other doctors rightfully fear being judged for their disabilities, Dr. O used his experience as a spinal trauma patient to help develop a device that makes spinal screw placements more accurate and efficient.
He uses his platform and privilege to be vocal about how airlines treat wheelchairs, reminding PBS that “People don’t think that this is a serious concern and it’s just a matter of finding space to put your wheelchair, like not having enough space for your luggage in the airplane. They miss the fact that this is individuals’ lives that are at stake.
And as Director of Adaptive Sports and Fitness at the University of Michigan, he’s doing his part to ensure that people with disabilities have the same access to physical and outdoor activities that others do.
“Too often, we are judged by what we cannot do, rather than what we can,” he said, speaking to his goal of “Disabusing Disability” and creating a world where equal access and diversity truly extend to everyone.
Dr. O’s dream is for Michigan to combine its talents in medicine, athletics and science to become the premier home for accessible sporting facilities, drawing Paralympic and other elite level athletes from all over the world.
He’s gained so much traction that others are stepping up to help make his dream a reality for countless more. Just last year, the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, whose mission of “changing the world for those living with spinal cord injuries and the definition of what is possible” aligns perfectly with Dr. O’s, donated $1 million dollars to Michigan Adaptive Sports.
“Disability is not inability."
"Dr. O" has made it his mission to build the adaptive sports and fitness program at the University of Michigan.
But he also recognizes that it doesn’t take millions to make a difference in medicine, just a change of attitude.
“It is not that every Black patient needs a Black doctor, nor that every patient with a disability needs a physician with a disability. Every patient deserves an empathetic doctor,” he said.
And he means EVERY patient. His work at Michigan has earned Dr. O a place on national boards like the Association of American Medical Colleges Steering Committee for Diversity and Inclusion, the National Medical Association’s Council on Medical Legislation, and even the White House Office for Health Equity and Inclusion.
They said he’d never walk again. Today, with assistive devices like his standing frame wheelchair, Dr. O can perform surgeries, stand before an audience, and yes, even walk. He’s working on running, but until then, catch him chasing disability discrimination out of medicine, and with a little luck, the world.
He’s faced worse odds.
Dr. O, just doing his job with a little assist.
KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:
Get more of Dr. O in GMA host Robin Roberts’s Facebook Watch series, “Thriver Thursday.”
Hear Dr. O and Dr. Lisa Iezzoni from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital discuss how “Medicine Is Failing Disabled Patients” at Science Friday.
66-year-old Lusia Mae Harris wears the most animated expression, bubbly personality, and mischievous voice as she retells the story of her Mississippi high school classmates mocking her colossal six foot stature.
“They would tease me. ‘Long and tall and that’s all.’ That I was tall and I couldn’t do anything else.”
Suddenly, her doe eyes that were locked on the camera lens look away bashfully, and her voice drops nearly to a whisper.
“That wasn’t true.”
Lucy (her chosen nickname) was a humble and shy woman, so even when filmmaker Ben Proudfoot reached out to her directly to document her monumental career, she downplayed her own achievements.
“I said, ‘Lucy, you’re one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century.”
The few who know Lucy Harris call her the “The Queen of Basketball.” The rest have never even heard her name.
Lucy at the rim for Delta State in a file photo from Sports Illustrated, courtesy of the New York Times.
As the eleventh child of sharecroppers, little Lusia was already a pro at teamwork and routine. She’d go to school, come home to help pick the family’s quota of cotton, and wait for the other kids to flock to her front yard. The Harrises owned the neighborhood’s only basketball goal, and though it was a rickety thing, it’s where Lucy built her dreams. She’d even fall asleep at night with a blanket covering her head and a television tuned to Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain dominating the court.
When her high school classmates started teasing her, a basketball coach took notice and taught her the fundamentals. By the time she graduated, she’d led her school in Minter City—an unincorporated blip on the map—to the Mississippi state championship.
In 1973, five years after tiny Delta State University in rural Mississippi finally integrated, and just one year after President Nixon signed Title IX into law ensuring equal treatment of the sexes in programs receiving federal funds, Lucy became the only Black member of the Lady Statesmen basketball team.
It was the Lady Statesmens’ first year together too. In 1931, Delta State disbanded their team as basketball was “too rough for women.” Title IX brought the program back. In their second year, Lucy and the Lady Statesmen advanced all the way to the AIAW National Championship, equivalent to the NCAA which had not yet included women’s sports.
There was no way a tiny university in its second year of play with a rag-tag team of girls who barely knew each other could hold a candle to the three-time consecutive national champions they faced in the finals. But after a nail-biter of a game ending the first women’s tournament ever broadcast nationally by a major network, Lucy and the Lady Statesmen prevailed over the Immaculata Mighty Macs. Queen Lucy held court before millions, the same way she’d once watched the NBA greats.
Lucy is celebrated as the MVP of the Lady Statesmen’s 1975 national championship upset.
Just like their former rivals, Delta State became the team to beat, taking home the national title every year from 1975-1977. But Lucy Harris was absolutely incomparable. Each year, she was awarded the title of MVP and by the time she graduated, Lucy held a laundry list of jaw-dropping stats. 2,981 points and 1,662 rebounds, with an average of 25.9 points and 14.5 rebounds per game.
The 1975 United States Pan-American Games Women’s Basketball Team. Lucy stands at the back middle. Her teammate and future legendary coach Pat Summitt kneels immediately below her.
For all you folks who don’t follow, Lebron James just set the record as the NBA’s all time highest scorer. His average is 27.2 points per game. Kobe Bryant’s was 25. Lucy was putting up superstar numbers. And scouts took notice.
The United States national team hadn’t won a Pan American Games since 1963. After recruiting Lucy as their go-to scorer, the US team went undefeated to win the 1975 gold medal, besting every opponent by an average of over 30 points per game.
The very next year, Lucy took yet another shot seen around the world, becoming the very first woman to score in a women’s Olympic basketball game. The team left Montreal in 1976 draped in silver medals. Lucy left with more than she could have imagined.
Lucy scoring at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Summer Games. Courtesy of the New York Times/ABC Photo Archives/Disney, via Getty Images.
In 1977, with their 7th Draft pick, the New Orleans Jazz chose Olympic center #7, Lusia Mae Harris.
She was the first woman officially drafted to the NBA.
And she turned them down.
There were two reasons. Growing up in a big family, Lucy always wanted one of her own. A professional career came in direct conflict with settling down, and the secret she was carrying: Lucy couldn’t attend training camp pregnant with her first child, nor would she after Jazz officials had the nerve to suggest that they would own future draft rights to her unborn child.
But if she was being honest, “I didn’t think I was good enough,” Lucy told Ben Proudfoot.
In 4 years, Lucy Harris brought basketball’s highest honors to a college, a national team, and a country, ultimately becoming one of the first women inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame… but didn’t think she was good enough.
Even Shaquille O’Neal disagrees. “Her numbers were way better than my numbers,” he laughed. “She was so good that the people used to watch her games and not the men’s game.” It’s a stark contrast to today’s attitudes towards women’s basketball, and he wanted the world to know exactly who they’d been missing.
“Listen, I’ve seen a lot of great women basketball players, but the fact that I’ve never heard of this woman, I think it was a shame,” he said. That’s why he and Steph Curry signed on as executive producers of Ben Proudfoot’s documentary on “The Queen of Basketball.”
Between Lucy’s remarkable story, Ben Proudfoot’s mastery in capturing it, and the publicity that two NBA legends brought to the table, “The Queen of Basketball” won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject. Unfortunately, two months before she saw that added to her win column, Lucy Harris passed away.
“Better late than never,” her son Chris Stewart told the NBA. “Her story is like so many extraordinary Black women especially in America who end up trail blazing and doing amazing things. They effectively get written out of history unfortunately.”
Ben Proudfoot cosigned that wholeheartedly in an op-ed to the the New York Times.
Lucy was so beloved by Delta State’s student body that she was elected their first Black Homecoming Queen. Courtesy of Ben Proudfoot.
“If you traveled to Cleveland to visit the coliseum, you might think Lucy Harris never existed,” he wrote. “You’d pass a towering bronze statue of her coach, Margaret Wade, who was white and never won a national championship without Ms. Harris. You’d pass a plaque in the lobby dedicating the building to Walter Sillers, who, as the longtime speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, fought tooth and nail to keep Black students out of Delta State. And finally, you’d arrive at the hardwood itself, which the university dedicated in 2015 to Lloyd Clark, the white high school coach it hired as head coach instead of Ms. Harris.”
That’s how Delta State has honored Lucy’s legacy, and Proudfoot hopes his documentary’s success is just one step toward one big change on campus. He “offered to loan the Oscar indefinitely for exhibition in the lobby of the coliseum — if the university would rename” it after Lusia Mae Harris.
A year later, Ben Proudfoot, Lucy’s family, and others like her former teammate and women’s basketball legend Pat Summitt who called barrier-breaking Lucy Harris “the first truly dominant player of modern women’s basketball,” are still waiting for Delta State to take Ben up on it.
KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:
You’ll be absolutely delighted by Lucy’s presence & story in the Academy Award winning “The Queen of Basketball”
Read the Friends of Lucy Harris‘ impassioned plea for Delta State to rename the Walter Sillers Coliseum, and sign your name to their petition.
Lucy’s entry at the Basketball Hall of Fame details her amazing career, stats, and multiple claims to fame.
Many of the same circumstances that led to Lucy being forgotten are being echoed in today’s treatment of WNBA and NCAA players. Connect the dots at the New York Times.
Even though Ella Grigsby was born free, she still carried a slavemaster’s surname. Just 10 months earlier in January 1865, the 13th Amendment ensured that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
As human property in South Carolina, her parents had no choice in being labeled with their owner’s name.
As a free woman, Ella chose a new one, vowing that she’d never be owned by anyone again.
With nothing particularly extraordinary about her, Ella Williams would have disappeared into history…
…if a bout of malaria when she was 14 hadn’t yielded an extreme side effect: Ella kept getting taller.
And taller. And TALLER.
And by the time she stopped growing, Ella Williams stood at least seven feet tall.
Today, that would be exceptional.
But height & weight trends published by the USDA note that in 1866, US senators standing 5’8″ “exceed (in height) the average of mankind in all parts of the world as well as the average of our own country.”
By those standards, Ella wasn’t just exceptionally tall—she was a giant. And that got BIG attention. Circus owners and show business agents flocked to her door, promising unimaginable riches. Just sign on the dotted line…
…a premise she absolutely refused.
As human property stolen from Africa, Saartje Baartman had no choice over her nude body being displayed to paying Europeans, then her dead body too.
Light or dark, Saartje Baartman is frequently depicted as a sexual caricature being poked, prodded and ogled by white Europeans.
As a free woman, Ella had pride and agency. She paid her bills through honest work, tending to the home of a South Carolina couple.
Until the bills started coming faster than the paychecks.
Selling out still wasn’t an option. But neither was starving. So Ella chose Door #3: stardom.
At 31 years old, Ella Williams was once again reborn as Madame Abomah.
“Madame Abomah” was a name chosen for both form and function. A different tall woman named Ella was already touring nationally, so audiences needed a way to distinguish the two.
But furthermore, “Madame Abomah” gave Ella a backstory and a brand. She was no one’s sideshow act. Madame Abomah was royalty. The name was a direct reference to Abomey, capital of the affluent Kingdom of Dahomey, known for its fiercely fighting female warriors. If that sounds familiar, you might recall the Dahomey Warriors as the inspiration for the Dora Milaje of Marvel’s “Black Panther.”
Read more about the Dora Milaje’s real-life predecessors at Teen Vogue.
Mind you, Madame Abomah wasn’t an exotic spectacle decked with hoops, shells and a spear either. Instead, she towered over women and men, dripping in lace. Seamstresses stood on tiptoes to lay jewels on her chest. Madame Abomah was the picture of style and grace supersized.
Though it was now a “free country,” most performing venues were still segregated, so white audiences’ exposure to Black performers was largely limited to blackfaced minstrels and Black people with disabilities styled as “human oddities.” The ringmaster of “Greatest Show on Earth” even built his career on the back one of those Black people.
Joice Heth was an elderly enslaved woman so whittled and worn by time and hard labor that she was blind and paralyzed. P.T. Barnum rented Joice Heth from her enslaver, and reinvented her as his very first sideshow act: the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington. Not one bit of that was true, but it didn’t stop audiences from paying good money to see her, or popular newspapers from “covering Heth’s shows breathlessly,” according to the Smithsonian. On the other hand, The New England Courier roasted Barnum while painting a vividly gruesome picture of Joice’s treatment, writing, “Those who imagine they can contemplate with delight a breathing skeleton, subjected to the same sort of discipline that is sometimes exercised in a menagerie to induce the inferior animals to play unnatural pranks for the amusement of barren spectators, will find food to their taste by visiting Joice Heth.” Barnum even profited from her death, charging spectators for her public autopsy.
Madame Abomah was no “animal” imprisoned to a circus tent, and she refused to be another Black woman treated like one. Fleeing American stereotypes and exploitation, Madame Abomah traveled the world. In the UK, she was a nanny by day who performed at the famed London Music Hall by night. In New Zealand, her name graced headlines written in Māori. In Germany, she snuggled babies and laughed with children, instead of terrifying them from behind a velvet rope.
For 30 years, Madame Abomah’s story is almost exclusively told through newspapers and photographs captured around the world. But in 1914, Britain declared war on Germany, and the United States was soon to follow them into World War I, making it dangerous to be an American citizen abroad. It was here that Madame Abomah disappeared back into obscurity.
With the war in full swing, the demand for entertainment slowed to a halt, and after a lifetime of performing, there were few options available to an aging, Black tall woman. In her last known photos, Madame Abomah appears among the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Congress of Freaks and at Coney Island. And though the once-tall feather in her fascinator reflects the unfortunate downturn in her career, there Madame Abomah stands with her head held high as a Black woman who repeatedly defied her labels as property to chase her destiny as a big star.
KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:
Learn about “A Brief History of the Business of Exhibiting Black Bodies for Profit” at Grid Philly.
![[page heading] The Life and History of MME, ABOMAH, The Giantess [end page heading] ...any of the men folks in the neighborhood, and she was so frail looking and thin that it looked impossible for her to live. When she first rallied for the better, she had to be supported about the house just like a child learning to walk alone. It was said by all who saw her after she first recovered from the six weeks' illness that it was impossible for her ever to get strong again. In about three months, when the cold frost came on and the cold snow began to fall, she got stronger and healthier, but still remained thin for about three years, when all of the malaria vanished and new life began. From year to year she gained weight. While touring Australia and New Zealand her weight was more than four hundred pounds and today she weighs more than three hundred and fifty pounds. Her height is seven feet eight inches, she is forty-six years of age and single, but looking for a husband. Abomah has toured as follows: In 1900, in England, with Reynolds Exhibition, six months; in 1901, at the Alhambra, Blackpool, England, three months; in 1902, the same; in 1903, three months with Reynolds Exhibition, Liverpool and six months in Australia, for J. J. Miller and Son; in 1904-05-06-07-08, touring New Zealand, with John and Ben Fuller; in 1909, in South America, under Manager S. Maranda; in 1910-11, touring France, Italy, Switzerland, Bellgium and Germany, with Manager or Emposier E. Waldmier; in 1912-13, Reynolds Exposition; 1914, touring the variety; 1917, Dreamland, Coney Island, and Cuba for S. W. Lumpertz; 1918, touring America with Barnum and Bailey Circus.[next page heading] THE LIFE AND HISTORY OF MME. ABOMAH THE GIANTESS [end next page heading]](https://theamericanblackstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/837-mme-abomah-giantism.jpg?w=753)
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