Respect where it's due: BM/WW IR in History

Who would've guessed that a woman who married one of the Vanderbilts at a very young age, had a line of perfume and designer jeans, would be in an interracial relationship? There should be a movie about this and other longtime relationships; especially for this century. It would be helpful to those of us in our lifestyle.

 

I hope that would happen but,they are more likely to have gay people relationships than a Black male/White female relationship.

 

Check out the documentary called Jazz Baroness. Baroness Nica Konigsworter supported many jazz musicians including Charlie Parker(Parker died in her apartment) She was the constant companion to jazz great Thelonius Monk. Check it out.

 

gloria lost an apartment to the relationship,,,,the blk association voted here out ,,,,but her fam was fine i belive,,,i was freinds with one of her sons,,,,:smt049

 

Baroness Nica lost her flat because of Charlie Parker,however she took care of Thalonius Monk til he died. At her funeral Monk's son said Parker would had died in the street if it were not for her.

 

The Baroness also gave money and even bought groceries for some of the musicians she knew due to lack of work. What was surprising was the fact th Monk was married and even his wife wanted the Baroness to stay around him to inspire him. She was a great friend to have. Even if there was nothing sexual going.

 

That's cool.

 

Have you seen Clint Eastwood's film Bird with Forest Whitaker as Charlie Parker and Diane Venora as Chan, his common-law wife? The movie was excellent although it focused more on Charlie's excesses than his successes. It won an Oscar for best sound. The music was great. I had the soundtrack on cd.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonica_de_Koenigswarter

 

I do not have a pic of this couple, but I do say that they made history. Barney and Betty Hill, the interracial married couple who were(allegedly) abducted by aliens. There was a tv movie about their experience(James Earl Jones played Barney Hill). Barney Hill died in 1969 and Betty died in 2004. Their story had been studied, scrutinized and attacked.

 

Canada Lee & Frances Pollock


Canada Lee's New Wife Frances Pollock - Jet Magazine, March 20, 1952

The name Canada Lee doesn't ring a lot of bells for most New Yorkers. Ask what they know about him and you will probably get blank stares and apologies. Mona Z. Koppelman Smith, a 1994 graduate of Columbia's playwriting program in the School of the Arts, hopes to change that.

Smith first came across Lee's name shortly after graduating from Columbia while she was working as a booking manager for the jazz singer, Carla White. Smith -- twice the winner of Columbia's John Golden Award for her plays, "Borderlands," about two women struggling to survive in Bosnia, and, "Fire in a Dark House" about German-Americans during World War I -- wanted to write a new play about the era of bebop music after World War II. She had studied with former playwriting professor Romulus Linney, and interned under Andrei Serban, internationally acclaimed director and playwriting professor in the School of Arts. Her time with these mentors "opened up another world to me," and now she wanted to write a play that explored the intersection of art and politics.

She began digging through White's musical archives and found the bebop era was primarily a response by the African American jazz community to black soldiers who had fought in a segregated army against Hitler only to come home to Jim Crow, the Klan and lynchings. Smith went to the New York Public Library to begin reading more about the post World War II world, which led her to Senator Joseph McCarthy's fight against "Communists" in the United States and a book that had a footnote about Canada Lee. Lee's name, and story, jumped out at her.


A newspaper drawing from the 1940s announces Lee's role as Bigger Thomas in "Native Son."

Having worked for four years as a crime reporter for the Miami Herald, Smith (who currently is the manager of adult programs at the Brooklyn Museum of Art) used her journalistic instincts and went to work. She began searching everywhere to answer specific questions about Lee's life and career, the Broadway productions he performed in, the films he starred in, and mostly, the events he participated in that landed his name on the famous "blacklist" created by the House of Un-American Committee, the media and the FBI in 1949.

"As a former newspaper journalist, I responded to the historical, social and political context of Canada's story," Smith says. "As a theatre professional, I was perplexed by my complete lack of knowledge about someone who had done significant work on the stage, screen and radio."

What she found in her search was a troubling lack of information. At the New York Public Library she came across only a few playbills and newspaper clippings from the 1930's and '40's about Lee's performances. From these, she pieced together general information about him: he grew up in Harlem, worked as a jockey, a boxer and then an actor who was discovered by a young director named Orson Welles as he was casting a 'Negro' production of "MacBeth" for the Work Program Administration Federal Theatre. Lee was championed by the newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan (before his famous television show) and later Hollywood called Lee for leading roles in movies such as "Cry the Beloved Country," "Lost Boundaries" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat."

Smith also learned that Lee was as popular an actor in his day as Sidney Poitier was in the 1960s and Denzel Washington is today. Yet after his death at age 45 of a stress-related heart attack in 1952, his name was lost in obscurity.

Smith could not find enough information that would link Lee to the Communist hunt of the 1950's. She knew more research would strengthen the play, but she felt she had exhausted her leads.

Then she learned of a donation of Lee's materials to the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. When she tried to access them, however, she was told the contents were too fragile for the public to handle. But Smith was determined and archivists eventually referred her to the attorney who oversaw the donation. He told her to write a letter to the donor outlining her request to review the materials for her play. Smith did, and within a few months, she received a phone call from the donor: Mrs. Frances Pollack Lee, Canada's widow.


Actor/activist Canada Lee in one of his early performances.

In November of 1998, Mrs. Lee, 79, invited Smith and one of Smith's research colleagues to visit her at her home in Atlanta and there filled in the missing pieces of Canada's life for the playwright. They learned of Lee's numerous civil rights efforts, the speeches he made at various rallies and the platform he had as an actor to address the injustices facing African Americans.

Smith recorded 19 hours of tape with Mrs. Lee, and filled three notebooks over that weekend visit, providing her with more than enough material to complete her play. And from his civil rights activism, she finally learned what had made McCarthy label Lee "dangerous."

"Frances showed me special equipment (rigged for her by family and friends) that she was using to help her computerize hundreds of Canada's documents, including all of his letters, diaries and speeches," Smith says. "She opened her home, her files and her memories to me with profound generosity; she continues to be an inspiration."

 

I remember Canada Lee from the film Lifeboat(there had been two similar remakes in the late 1950's and in the 1970's). Alfred Hitchcock cast him because he liked his face. Actress Tallulah Bankhead was difficult(she was a snob and she didn't wear any panties. All the cast and crew saw it, too), she often tried to get a rise out of actor Walter Slezak(Slezak was from Austria and WW2 broke out) calling him a Nazi and other things(Slezak's character was that of a U-Boat commander who ends up with the survivors on the lifeboat but his motives are shady. I did not know that Canada Lee was married to a white woman. At least he married in Europe.

 

More on Canada Lee:


Actor Canada Lee was an outstanding actor, in the category of Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington. He was one of the most respected black actors of the 1940's and a passionate civil rights activist.

Lee was born in Harlem in 1907. He was a renaissance man like his idol Paul Robeson. He was a musical prodigy on violin and piano, he made his concert debut at New York's prestigious Aeolian Hall at 11. By 13, he had become a successful jockey; in his teens, a pro boxer, and in his 20's, a leading contender for the national welterweight title, until an unlucky blow to the the head cost him his sight in one eye and ended his fighting career.

He turned to acting. He was a natural and his most famous film was Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," in 1944. Lee also gave a memorable performance in "Body & Soul."

In 1946, Lee produced "On Whitman Ave," becoming the first African-American to produce a play on Broadway.

Lee experienced a meteoric fall from grace when Joseph McCarthy labeled him a communist. His longtime friend Ed Sullivan also denounced him in his nationally syndicated column.


A few of Lee's black friends also turned on him because he fought passionately for civil rights but was carrying on an public relationship with a White/Jewish woman named Frances Pollack. He was labeled a hypocrite. Racism from both sides ended this interracial romance.

In 1949, the FBI offered to clear Lee’s name if he would publicly call Paul Robeson a Communist. Lee refused and responded by saying, “All you’re trying to do is split my race.”

In 1952, Canada Lee, 45, died penniless.

Lee’s chronic high blood pressure led to kidney failure, and he died of an excruciating blood poisoning known as uremia.


Source: "Becoming Something: The Story Of Canada Lee," by Mona Z. Smith

 

Geez. Why did it have to come to that? Being called a communist because you spoke against the mistreatment of black people in America; because you did not conform to the American ideal(whatever that was). To this day, white America just wants to forget slavery and all the nastiness that came with it to vanish and for us to move on. They don't want to see the white race cast as the villain and they don't want to suffer white guilt. The film 12 Years A Slave is driving it all home and is probably going to be up for an Oscar nod.

 

True...along with The Butler too I believe.

 

This Oscar season will be one to watch out for.

 

Nature vs Do as I say

That is the loud voice of fear, and most especially when those that experience that fear of a change back to what is most natural to the rest of us, are losing control. :freehug:

Haven't seen The Butler yet, but looking forward to it!

 

Very true. Fear is a very strong emotion. At times I think it is even stronger than the worst anger I have ever seen. Most times, neither individual involved understands quite where the emotion is coming from and confuse it with anger or hate. When you can't even tell why a person feels (negatively) the way they do, you never know what to expect out of the situation.

 

10 Fascinating Interracial Marriages in History

Attitudes towards Interracial marriage have changed dramatically, in just the last generation. In the United States it was just 43 years ago when interracial marriage was made fully legal in all 50 states. Today, in many countries, interracial marriage is commonplace and most don’t even give it a second thought. However, as we all know, it wasn’t always this way in the past. This list includes individuals who didn’t let the prejudice of society make their decisions in life, and also paved the way for interracial couples in the future. Note: Interracial marriage can convey a relationship between a Black and an Asian, a White and an Asian, a Hispanic and an Asian, a White and a Hispanic, etc. In this particular list I have included only black and white relationships.


Pearl Bailey and Louie Bellson
Married in 1952



Pearl Mae Bailey was a famous actress and singer and Louie Bellson was a famous jazz drummer, composer and bandleader. Bellson was Duke Ellington’s first white musician and met Bailey after being introduced by a trombone player. After a courtship lasting just four days they were married, in London. It was Bailey’s third marriage and Bellson’s first. Interracial couples were a rarity at the time, and even Bellson’s presence in the Ellington band raised some eyebrows. During some dates in some Southern cities in the United States, Ellington would claim that Bellson was of Haitian background. After their wedding, Louie Bellson spent much of his time as Pearl Bailey’s musical director, writing her arrangements and leading her accompanying bands. The Couple were married for 38 years, until Bailey’s death in 1990, at age 72. Bellson died at age 84, in 2009. The couple adopted a boy, Tony, in the mid-1950s, and girl Dee Dee, in 1960.Interesting Fact: Bailey served as a United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador under several Republican Presidential Administrations. Even after the majority of African-Americans moved from The Republican Party to The Democratic Party in 1964, Pearl Bailey remained with The Republican Party because The Republican Party was where she and Louis Bellson found the greatest acceptance for their interracial marriage.

Betty & Barney Hill
Married in 1960



Betty and Barney Hill were from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Barney worked for the post office and Betty was a social worker. The Hills were also members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and community leaders. On the night of September19th, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were heading back from a vacation in Southern Canada to their home in New England. They claimed to have observed a bright light in the sky that appeared to be following them. They arrived home at about 3 am and realized (later, when it was pointed out to them) that they had lost about 2 hours of time. Two weeks later Betty began having nightmares. In her nightmares, she described being taken aboard an alien spacecraft and then having medical experiments performed on her. Betty and Barney then decided to undergo hypnosis. In separate sessions, they described some similar experiences of being taken on board an alien spacecraft. Betty said she was shown a star map which she was able to memorize and reproduce later, which some believe is showing Zeta Reticuli as the aliens’ home. Under Barneys hypnotic session he said a cup-like device was placed over his genitals and thought that a sperm sample was taken. He also said he heard them speaking in a mumbling language that he did not understand. The UFO incident was distracting and embarrassing for Barney Hill. He feared that the tabloid publicity would tarnish his battle for equality and dignity. The Hills eventually went back to their regular lives but were always willing to discuss the UFO encounter with friends and UFO researchers. The release of the book “Interrupted Journey” in the mid-1960s, and a movie called The UFO Incident, starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons turned Betty and Barney Hill into the world’s most famous UFO “abductees.” Interesting Fact: Some psychiatrists suggested later that the supposed abduction was a hallucination brought on by the stress of being an interracial couple in early 60s. Betty discounted this suggestion, saying that her relationship with Barney was happy, and their interracial marriage caused no notable problems with their friends or family. Barney died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1969, and Betty died of cancer in 2004. Many of Betty Hill’s notes, tapes and other items have been placed in a permanent collection at the library of the University of New Hampshire, her alma mater.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jessie Walmisley
Married in 1899



At the turn of the twentieth century, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was one of Britain’s most outstanding and celebrated composers. He was born to a white mother and black father and was raised in the London suburb of Croydon. At the age of just 23 he produced his most famous work; a musical called Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Some describe it as one of the most remarkable events in English musical history. Coleridge-Taylor married Jessie Walmisley, in 1899. She was a pianist and a classmate of Samuel’s in high school. Jessie’s family had been vehemently opposed to the marriage and had done all in its power to prevent it. On the day before the wedding, Mrs. Walmisley invited Samuel to the family home where she and her husband shook his hand in a formal gesture of acceptance. Coleridge-Taylor and his family were targets of abuse from groups of local youths who would repeatedly shower him with insulting comments about the color of his skin. His daughter later recalled “when he saw them approaching along the street he held my hand more tightly, gripping it until it almost hurt.”On September 1, 1912, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died of pneumonia complicated by exhaustion from overwork. He was just 37 years old. Hundreds turned out for his funeral and a memorial concert which was held to raise money for his widow and his two children, Hiawatha and Gwendoline, who would both go on to have musical careers.Interesting Fact: It emerged that the publishers of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast had paid Coleridge-Taylor just 15 guineas (£15.75) for the composition, which earned the company a fortune. Their refusal to grant the widow a fair royalty resulted in the formation of the Performing Rights Society, which has exacted fair dues for composers in Britain ever since.

Sammy Davis Jr. and May Britt
Married in 1960



When Sammy Davis Jr. married Swedish-born actress May Britt in 1960, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in 31 US states. Earlier that year the Democratic Convention took place in Los Angeles where John F. Kennedy would be elected as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. When the introductions of Hollywood celebrities were being announced, Davis was booed by many of the white Southern delegates because he was engaged to a white woman. A headline over a New York Times story the next day read, “Delegates Boo Negro.” JFK’s father, Joseph Kennedy, was worried that Davis’ marriage to a white woman on the eve of the November election might cost his son votes, so Davis reluctantly postponed the wedding until after the election. At the wedding Frank Sinatra was the best man along with many other stars, including Peter Lawford, Dean Martin, Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Milton Berle and Edward G. Robinson. During their marriage the couple received hate mail and were targets of nasty jokes and vicious slurs. Because Davis performed almost continuously he spent very little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with singer Lola Falana. Davis and Britt had a daughter and also adopted two sons. Interesting Fact: Before Davis met Britt, he had a relationship with actress Kim Novak. A contract by the mob was allegedly put out on Davis’s life. Frank Sinatra intervened but Davis still feared for his life and married a black showgirl. The marriage only lasted a few months and was later annulled. Some consider Novak the love of Davis’ life. Before he died of throat cancer, Davis’s third wife, Altovise, allowed Novak to visit. She and Sammy spent hours talking and reminiscing just weeks before he died, in 1990.

 

George Schuyler & Josephine Cogdell
Married in 1928



George S. Schuyler was a journalist, satirist, author and editor. During the mid 1920s, Schuyler was published in The Nation, and other left wing publications. Josephine Cogdell was an actress, model and dancer and came from a wealthy, former slave-owning family. She was intrigued by new ideas and radical politics and began corresponding with Schuyler, who was a brilliant and controversial journalist at the time. When she traveled to New York to meet him they would both write later that it was love at first sight. When they were married she proclaimed herself “colored.” on the marriage certificate because of the dangers of crossing racial lines. The couple believed that intermarriage could “invigorate” both and help solve many of the United States’ social problems. George and Josephine had one child named Philippa. Their daughter became a noted child prodigy. By the time she was four she was composing classical music for piano. When she reached adolescence, she was performing in the US and overseas. During the late 1940s, and the McCarthy Era, George Schuyler moved sharply to the political right. He believed that the American black could only succeed by working in cooperation with whites, within the democratic system, toward mutual economic gain. He started contributing to the American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society and, in 1947, he published The Communist Conspiracy against the Negroes. Schuyler continued his career as a journalist until 1966, when he published his autobiography, Black and Conservative. The couple remained married until George’s death in 1977.Interesting Fact: In 1967, their daughter, Philippa, had begun a career as a news journalist and traveled to Vietnam as a war correspondent. While attempting to rescue schoolchildren from a war zone, the helicopter crashed into the sea. She initially survived the crash but her inability to swim caused her to drown. She died at the age of 35. Film rights to her biography have been sold and it has been reported that she is to become the subject of a movie starring Alicia Keys. The above photo shows Phillipa, Josephine, and George Schuyler playing dominoes, around 1945.

Jack Johnson and Wives
Married in 1911,1912 & 1925



Jack Johnson was an American boxer and the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion, a title he held from 1908 to 1915. In addition to being a rich and famous athlete, Jack Johnson also performed for theatre companies between fights, singing, dancing and acting. He also led a very fascinating life, to say the least. Jack Johnson was married three times. All of his wives were white, which caused considerable controversy at the time. In January 1911, Johnson married Brooklyn socialite and divorcee Etta Terry Duryea, after meeting her at a car race. Their romantic relationship was often very turbulent. Sources also indicate that Johnson was physically abusive towards her and was often unfaithful. Etta suffered from severe depression, evidenced by her reportedly wild mood swings. In 1912, after just 8 months of marriage, Etta committed suicide by shooting herself in the head. Shortly afterwards he met his second wife, Lucille Cameron, who was an 18 year old prostitute. Less than three months after Duryea’s suicide Johnson and Cameron were married, an act that outraged the public. In 1913, Johnson was convicted for transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes, which was part of the Mann Act. For the next seven years, the couple lived in exile in Europe, South America and Mexico. Johnson finally surrendered to the US authorities in 1920, and ended up serving eight months in federal prison. Four years later, Lucille filed for divorce on the uncontested charge of infidelity. In1925, Johnson married Irene Pineau after meeting her at a race track. Johnson would later call her his true love. She remained married to Johnson for the rest of his life. In 1946, Johnson was driving on Highway 1 near Raleigh, North Carolina, when he lost control of his car, which hit a light pole and overturned. He died three hours later.Interesting Fact: At Johnson’s funeral, Johnson’s third wife Irene Pineau was asked by a reporter what she had loved about her husband. “I loved him because of his courage, he faced the world unafraid. There wasn’t anybody or anything he feared.” The photo above shows Johnson with his first wife, Etta Terry Duryea. Jack Johnson had no children.

Frederick Douglass and Helen Pitts
Married in 1884



Frederick Douglass was an American writer, social reformer and statesman. He was born a slave in the early 1800s, the son of a female slave and her white owner. After he escaped from slavery in 1838, he married a free African American woman Anna Murray, and had 5 children. After Anna died in 1882, he met Helen Pitts, a white abolitionist and suffragist. Against the wishes of Douglas’s children and her family, they married. The marriage was the subject of scorn by both white and black Americans, but the couple was firm in their convictions. Douglass’s marriage was an affirmation of his personal belief in American unity, and his desire for a true melting pot of cultures within the United States. Douglas laughingly commented, “This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father.” Helen Pitts said “Love came to me, and I was not afraid to marry the man I loved because of his color,” The couple were married for eleven years, until his sudden death from a heart attack, in 1895. Douglass was also an advocate of equal rights for women. On the day he died he gave a speech on the topic of female equality and was a believer in granting women the right to vote. Helen is the one seated in the photo above. The woman standing is her sister Eva Pitts.Interesting Fact: During Fredrick Douglass’s first marriage he had a 26 year affair with German feminist Ottilie Assing. In 1884, when she read in the newspapers that Douglass was to marry Helen Pitts, who was 20 years-younger, she committed suicide in a public park in Paris. The letters Douglass wrote to her were burned, and she left all her money to Douglass.

oseph Philippe Laroche and Juliette Lafargue
Married in 1908



Joseph Philippe Lemercier Laroche was born in Cap Haitien, Haiti, in 1886. At the age of 15, he left Haiti and travelled to Beauvais, France, to study engineering in high school. While visiting nearby Villejuif, Joseph met his future wife, Juliette. After Joseph received his degree, they were married. Their daughter Simonne was born in1909, and a second daughter, Louise was born prematurely in 1910, and suffered medical problems. Because of racial discrimination it prevented Joseph from obtaining a high-paying job in France. The family needed more money to pay for their youngest daughters medical bills so Joseph planned to return to Haiti in 1913, to find a better-paying engineering job. However, in March of 1912 Juliette discovered that she was pregnant, so the family decided to leave for Haiti before her pregnancy became too far advanced. For a welcome present Joseph’s mother in Haiti bought them steamship tickets on the La France, but the line’s strict policy regarding children caused them to transfer their booking to the Titanic’s second class. Racism towards the couple because of their interracial marriage was rampant aboard the ship, especially among the crew members. After the Titanic struck an iceberg historians agree that Laroche was calm and heroic. As the ship sank, Joseph stuffed his coat packets with money and jewelry and took his pregnant wife and children up to the boat deck and managed to get them into the lifeboat. He wrapped the coat around his wife, and his last words were: “Here, take this, you are going to need it. I’ll get another boat. God be with you. I’ll see you in New York.” Joseph Laroche died in the sinking and was the only passenger of black descent (besides his daughters) on the Titanic. His body was never found. Interesting fact: When Juliette returned to Paris with her daughters she gave birth to a son, Joseph Lemercier Laroche. The White Star Line, the company that owned the Titanic, was later forced to issue a public apology for the derogatory statements made by the crew. When Louise Laroche died on January 28, 1998, at the age of 87 it left only seven remaining survivors of the Titanic.