Arturo Schomburg, son of a Black midwife and a German immigrant to Puerto Rico, was told by a grade school teacher that Black people had no heroes, no history and no accomplishments. This infuriated the young Arturo and he devoted his life to proving his teacher wrong.

At St. Thomas College in the Virgin Islands, he studied Black literature which paved the way for a career as a teacher, writer and historian. Arturo co-founded the  The Negro Society for Historical Research, accumulating a collection of thousands of books, as well as other written material, tracing and celebrating Black literature, ideas, accounts and other works from African, West Indian, and Afro-American scholars. The collection eventually became the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. He was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance and helped spread its message and influence to African-American communities across the country. Arturo was also instrumental in the fight for Puerto Rico’s and Cuba’s independence from Spain.

Following dental surgery in 1938, Arturo fell ill and passed away in June of that year. He was 64.

His grade school teacher was wrong.

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Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in 1862. After the end of the Civil Wars, Ida’s parents, advocates in Reconstructionist politics, expressed the importance of education to their eldest daughter. Ida attended Rust College until she was expelled following a dispute with the university president. She lived with her grandmother until a yellow fever epidemic took her parents and she was left to raise her younger brother and sister.

She took a teaching job in her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi and later in Memphis. In Memphis, Ida filed a lawsuit against  a train company for unfair treatment. She claimed she was thrown off a train despite having a first-class ticket. The suit was found in her favor, but overturned by a federal court.

Ida began to focus on white mob violence after an acquaintance was the victim of a lynching. She circulated self-published pamphlets and wrote newspaper articles that raised awareness of lynchings. Her writing enraged locals who burned he press and ran Ida out of Memphis. She eventually settled in Chicago.

Ida bonded with other African-American leaders in a boycott of the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair. She called out exposition organizers for their negative portrayal of African-American community. She also continued her campaign against lynching, spreading her message on an international level. Her public criticism of suffragette groups and their disregard for the issue of lynching brought her ridicule from women’s organizations. Unfettered, she still remained active in the women’s rights movement, eventually founding the National Association of Colored Women’s Club. During World War I, Ida was labeled a “race agitator” and  placed under government surveillance.

Ida was also a co-founder of the NAACP, although her name is missing as an official founder.

Ida passed away in 1931 at the age of 68. In 2019, a new middle school in Washington, DC was named in her honor. In 2020, she was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. 2025 will see her likeness on a US quarter in the final year of the US Mint’s honoring of significant American women.

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Bass Reeves was born into slavery, but escaped to “Indian Territory” (modern Kansas and Oklahoma) during the Civil War. Bass learned the languages of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes, as well as tracking and survival skills. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Bass returned to Arkansas and began farming near the town of Van Buren.

Because of his knowledge of Native American languages, Bass was appointed a Deputy US Marshal, the first black man to serve in that capacity west of the Mississippi River. Bass worked for 32 years as a deputy, bringing in some of the territory’s most dangerous fugitives. He was involved in quite a few gun battles, but Bass was an excellent marksman and was never wounded. When he retired in 1907, he had an estimated 3000 career arrests. He killed 14 outlaws in the line of duty. He even had to arrest his own son for murder. Nevertheless, Bass felt the law was the law. Bass arrested his son and the younger Reeves served 11 years in the prison at Fort Leavenworth.

When Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907, Bass served as an officer on the Muskogee Police Department. Poor heath forced him to leave the department after just two years. He passed away in January 1910 at the age of 71.

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Young Tula Finklea enrolled in ballet lessons to strengthen her legs after a bout of polio. At 14, she auditioned for and danced with Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo . During a European tour, 22 year-old Tula met a former dancing partner, Nico Charisse, and the couple were married in Paris in 1939.

Now using the name “Cyd,” based on a nickname her brother had given her when he had difficulty pronouncing “Sis,” she made her film debut in an uncredited role in the 1941 film noir Escort Girl. From that point forward, Cyd danced in numerous Hollywood musicals. She performed alongside Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire (offering praise upon both). Cyd danced and danced and danced.

Until she stopped.

In the late 1950s, as movie musicals began to fall out of favor, Cyd hung up her dancing shoes. However, she continued to act in films and, later, television.

Not wishing to rest on her laurels, Cyd made her Broadway debut in 1992 at 70 years old.

In 2008, Cyd suffered a heart attack and passed away at the age of 86. Following a traditional Methodist funeral service, she was interred at a Jewish cemetery in California, at the request of her husband, singer Tony Martin.

My mom loved Cyd Charisse. Whenever she would see a Cyd Charisse movie on TV, my mom would proudly assert that “Cyd Charisse had legs that went all the way up her ass!”

Indeed she did!

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A free spirit from a very young age, Alice Pelkey learned a love of cooking from her mother. After dropping out of college, Alice married Ray Brock, a woodworker and craftsman over ten years her senior. A gift from her mother allowed the couple to purchase an old church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that was used as a residence and gathering spot for friends. Alice and her husband got jobs at the Stockbridge School. It was here that Alice met aspiring singer Arlo Guthrie. They bonded over common interests in counter-culture and the fact that they each had a Jewish parent.

Alice pursued her love of cooking and opened a restaurant in Stockbridge called, fittingly, “Alice’s Restaurant.” Though modestly successful, the establishment stayed open for just a year. Her friend Arlo was inspired to write a song based on Alice and the restaurant. Later, he expanded the song, adding verses alluding to a real-life incident involving dumping trash on Thanksgiving and a subsequent arrest.

In 1969, Arlo was approached to adapt the song into a film. With an expanded story, Arlo was cast as himself, along with a mix of actors and real-life counterparts taking the other roles. Arlo asked Alice to appear in the film and she refused. She earned a minimal amount of compensation for promotional appearances to promote the film. However, Alice was furious with director Arthur Penn’s addition of “fabricated incidents” inserted into the storyline. Alice asserted that she was not promiscuous, as depicted in the film, and that she never slept with Arlo Guthrie. She distanced herself from the film and claimed it afforded her unwelcome fame. She did endorse a cookbook published in conjunction with the film, claiming that the recipes went invented by her with her mother’s assistance.

She made an attempt at franchising “Alice’s Restaurants,” but the venture failed after the first location closed abruptly. A second, stand-alone “Alice’s Restaurant” was successful, despite a constant battle with local zoning ordinances. A third restaurant — Alice’s at Avaloch — was a victim of logistic nightmares, mismanagement and unreliable employees. After filing for bankruptcy, Alice was able to keep one memento from the restaurant — the table on which Arlo Guthrie wrote the song “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Later in life, Alice turned to artwork. She painted and drew. She even illustrated a children’s’ book written by her friend Arlo. Sadly, heath issues prevented her art career to further. A 2020 collection for assistance for medical bills netted Alice $180,000. She also recorded a series of radio promos to be aired before annual broadcasts of the song “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Just prior to Thanksgiving 2024, it was reported that Alice Brock passed away while in hospice. She was 83.

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