FLORYNCE “FLO” KENNEDY – Flo Kennedy was born in Kansas City in 1916, and moved to New York City after she graduated high school. After graduating Columbia University in 1948, she applied the Columbia Law School, but was rejected because she was a woman. After threatening a lawsuit on the grounds of racial discrimination, she was accepted to Columbia, where she became the first African-American woman to graduate from the prestigious law school. In 1954 she opened her own law office, but by the end of the decade she had grown cynical and doubted the law profession. By the 1960s, she had became increasingly active politically, championing Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and the rights of all those oppressed. She was a co-founder of the National Organization of Women and the Women’s Political Caucus, and the founder of the Feminist Party, which nominated Shirley Chisholm for President of the United States. Her career and life were both defined by her audacious spirit, her commitment to justice and her flamboyant style. She was once quoted as saying, “I’m just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I’m crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I’m not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren’t like me.”

HERBERT “HERB” JEFFRIES – Herb Jeffries (a.k.a. Herb Jeffrey) started his career as a jazz singer, before venturing into film in the late 1930s. Jeffries starred in a series of westerns, and became known as the “black singing cowboy” thanks to The Bronze Buckaroo, Harlem Rides the Range, Two Gun Man from Harlem, and Harlem on the Prairie. He also went on to enjoy a career that included singing with Duke Ellington. Jefferies is often credited as being both one of the first African-American action heroes and matinee idols. Neither of these accomplishments is nearly as impressive as the fact that Jeffries is not black. As detailed in the documentary A Colored Life, and by his own admission, both of Jeffries parents were white. His mother married an Ethiopian man, and Jeffries began telling people that he was half Ethiopian. He often used make-up to appear darker, but unlike white minstrel performers in blackface, Jeffries lived his life as a black man.

CENTRAL PARK FIVE – In April of 1989, five teenagers from Harlem were accused of raping a jogger in New York City’s Central Park. The city and the nation were shocked by what became known as The Central Park Jogger Rape Case. At the time it was not certain if the jogger would live. Her name was withheld from the public, and instead Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise (all aged 14 to 16), became the boogeymen of NYC, their names and images plastered everywhere. Four of the five confessed to the crime, but later it was discovered the confessions had been coerced by the police, and none of the stories given by the teens actually matched up with each other or with what had happened. Thirteen years later, serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to the crime, which DNA evidence confirmed. The jogger, eventually went public, wrote a book and became a motivational speaker. Meanwhile, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Kharey Wise all spent a significant time of their lives in prison for a crime none of them committed. This case recalls countless other cases of wrongfully accused African-Americans, especially that of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teenagers accused of gang raping two white women in 1931, resulting in an epic miscarriage of justice that spanned four decades.

GEORGE WALKER and BERT WILLIAMS – Two popular vaudeville performers during the era of the minstrel show (when performers, usually white, would paint their faces black), George Walker and Bert Williams first met in 1893. Williams was a popular comedian, musician and stage performer that is generally considered to be the most popular black performers of his era. Much of Williams’s popularity sprang from his incredible career with fellow performer George Walker. As the comedic duo of Walker and Williams, they played throughout the United States and Europe to sold-out audiences, performing such hit plays as The Sons of Ham and In Dahomy. Although it may seem strange, both men performed in blackface, even though they were both black, and billed themselves as “Two Real Coons.” This was simply how things were done in those days, and many have speculated the stress of performing under the racist constraints of the era helped to significantly shorten the lives of both men. Walker and Williams helped pave the way for other black entertainers, and along with a group of other stage performers, founded The Frogs, a fraternal organization for black entertainers and professionals. The duo broke up in 1907, after Walker became ill, passing away four years later at the age of 38. Williams’s career flourished after the duo broke up, but sadly, he also died young, passing away in 1922 at the age of 46.

OTIS BLACKWELL – It’s easy to not fully comprehend the importance of black musicians in the history of rock-n-roll, because so many contributions by black musicians have never been properly acknowledged. For every blues musician like Robert Johnson or early rockers like Little Richard of Chuck Berry that are remembered, there are dozens of names that have gone forgotten. Songwriter and singer Otis Blackwell helped define rock-n-roll, writing some of the best known rock songs of the 1950s. Blackwell also wrote under the name John Davenport, and his impressive lists of hits includes “All Shook Up,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Fever,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Return to Sender,” “Handy Man,” and “Daddy Rolling Stone.” Aside from his songwriting abilities, Blackwell had a great voice, but his career as a singer never took off. Click HERE to listen to Blackwell’s “Kiss Away,” and click HERE to buy songs by Otis Blackwell.

BESSIE COLEMAN and WILLA BROWN – Two pioneering aviators, the life stories of both Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman and Willa Brown define courage and tenacity. Coleman was born to sharecropper parents—the tenth of thirteen children—and dreamed of a better life. She moved to Chicago in 1915, and worked as a manicurist in a barbershop, where tales of fighter pilots in World War I inspired her to learn to fly a plane. With no one in the United States willing to teach her, she learned French, and journeyed to Paris in 1920, where she studied aviation at the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Eventually, she became the first African-American woman to earn both an aviation pilot’s license and an international aviation pilot’s license. Willa Brown had been greatly influenced by Bessie Coleman, and began flying in 1934. She became the first African-American woman to get a commercial pilot’s license. Brown co-founded the National Airmen’s Association of America and the Coffey School of Aeronautics, both of which helped to train African-American pilots, many of whom would go on to become the 99th Pursuit Squadron of World War II, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

For many years I wanted to do a documentary that traced the history of rock-n-roll from a completely black perspective. While I love rock as much as the next person—and perhaps even more than the next person—there is a special place in my heart for black rockers, and I’ve often felt most of them have never gotten there just due. Sure, guys like Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix are often cited when listing the contributions of African-Americans to rock music, but there are many other names that have been forgotten or seldom known. And that’s why I planned for many years to do a black rock documentary. Fortunately, filmmaker Raymond Gayle had the same idea as me, and thanks to his film Electric Purgatory: The Fate of the Black Rocker, I can now scratch off one project on my “Things To Do” list. Read more »

FRANK WILLS – On June 17, 1972, security guard Frank Wills was making his rounds at the Watergate Hotel, when he noticed that a lock on one of the doors was being held open by a piece of duct tape. Wills called the police to report a break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which was the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The break-in that Wills discovered led to a massive investigation and what history now simply refers to as Watergate. The Watergate investigation uncovered corruption at the highest levels of government, and eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Newspaper reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are the men credited with blowing the lid off Watergate and bringing down Nixon, but it all started with Frank Wills. Catapulted into the national spotlight, Wills unfortunately was not prepared for the fame that attached itself to him. His life pretty much spun out of control after Watergate, and in 1983 he was busted for shoplifting. He spent most of his life living in poverty, until he died in 2000 of a brain tumor at the age of 52. Although it can’t be confirmed, Frank Wills was rumored to have said, “Man, I was just doing my job.”

JAMES BENJAMIN “BIG BEN” PARKER – On September 6, 1901, President William McKinnley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. At shortly after 4pm, Leon Czgolosz, a self-proclaimed anarchist from Michigan, fired two shots at President McKinley. Standing in line behind Czgolosz was James Benjamin “Big Ben” Parker, a black man who stood six feet six inches tall and tipped the scales at 250 pounds. Acting quickly, Big Ben Parker tackled Czgolosz, broke the assassin’s nose, and managed to capture the man who murdered President McKinley, who died on September 14 of gangrene resulting from the gunshot wounds. For a brief time—after being accused of being involved with Czgolosz—Big Ben Parker became a national hero. He was quoted as having said, “I am a Negro, and am glad that the Ethiopian race has what ever credit comes with what I did. If I did anything, the colored people should get the credit.” Although it can’t be confirmed, it is rumored Big Ben Parker confided in others, “When the man standing next to you shoots the President of the United States, you better do something to catch his ass, otherwise, if you a Negro, they gonna try and blame that shit on you.”

For years I used to make fun of people that were stupid enough to take nude pictures of themselves, only to have said pictures turn up on the Internet. I was especially critical of celebrities that took pictures of themselves, foolishly thinking that the photos would remain private.  I would say to myself, “Dumb shit like that would never happen to me.” Well, sad to say, it has happened. A picture of me nekkid has gone public. There’s no point in denying it …this is a picture of me with no clothes on. I am ashamed and embarrassed (not to mention bare-assed), but I won’t hide from the truth. Instead, I will share with you a shameful moment of naive sexual bravado where I thought I could get away with snapping a photo of myself that was meant to be a private thing between me and the chick I was throwing a hump into.  And now, that private moment is available for all to see. I hope you all can learn from my mistake. Continue at your own discretion/risk. Read more »