A FEW REMEMBERINGS

2017: A FEW REMEMBERINGS

1817       Mississippi entered our nation as a slave state.

1917       Marcus Garvey founded Negro World

                July 2 ---non-Black people created a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois

                August 23---the 24th Infantry USCT fought with non-Black residents in Houston, Texas

                Storyville was closed in New Orleans either before or after musicians exported the Jazz

                Age to New York City

                We can celebrate centennials for

                Ella Fitzgerald

                Ossie Davis

                John Lee Hooker

                Gwendolyn Brooks

                John Berks "Dizzy" Gillespie

                Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson

                Lena Horne

                Thelonious Monk

                Isabel Sanford

                Jacob Lawrence

                Syvilla Fort

                Rufus Thomas

                Claudia McNeil

                Relatives whose names will never flash in neon

                Indigenous peoples in the Americas who are rarely honored with centennials

2017       January 20---the end of the Age of Obama

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                            January 3, 2017