Oh yeah, we doin' this!
Forget history, learn the wholestory.
The weather has been lovely in NYC. I’m starting to do my touring walks. I went by Zora Neale Hurston’s old stomping ground. She lived at 43 West 66th Street in 1926, just half a block away from Central Park! Nice. Later, Hurston lived on 136th Street in Harlem.
This area, 59th Street to 65th Street, Amsterdam Avenue to West End Avenue, was called San Juan Hill. Lots of African Americans, Puerto Ricans and folks from throughout the Caribbean lived in San Juan Hill from the 1880s to the 1950s. Stephanie St. Clair (the star of Harlem Queen) lived in San Juan Hill when she first arrived in New York City from French Guadeloupe around 1918. San Juan Hill was the precursor to Harlem. Mostly, families of color lived in San Juan Hill; there were churches, clubs, businesses, schools. It was a thriving community!
In The 1960s they tore up San Juan Hill,
and built Lincoln Center.
I also went by Duke Ellington’s home at 106th Street and Riverside Drive. Ellington lived at 333 Riverside Drive from 1961 to his death in 1974.
I’m glad the weather is brightening because I’m coming off a depressing week as an independent artist. Last week, I got rejected for the fifth time in four months. I applied for two grants to help me make a podcast and a live show, I applied to two festivals that would have helped me promote my work and I applied for an award that would have helped me promote my work. Not getting the grants means I will not be able to make more shows. No festivals or promotion opportunities means I have to use what I got (you) to get what I want (world domination! just kidding, more listeners). Listeners = downloads = money = more shows.
Let’s do this! Squabble up!
Squabble up means it is time for me to get my peeps, my crew, my posse together. That’s you! Thank you for being my foundation!
I know that you all think well of me and want me to continue to do well and I appreciate you for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
BUT I have a feeling there is at least one person “out there” who needs to know who Stephanie St. Clair and Mona Mae are and needs to know how Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm supported FBI’s Most Wanted, Angela Davis while Chisholm was running for the presidency of the United States! That was political suicide, but she did it. Jasmine Crocket says what she says, the way she says it because she saw Shirley Chisholm do it and a host of other daring, smart, womenfolk.
All right foot soldiers, (that’s you) let’s keep spreading the good word. Our stories matter. Our stories impact lives. History is only his story. We are all ready for the wholestory.
I was reading about Harry Belafonte last night and today I walked past his home!
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CTA - Call to Action
Five stars on Spotify! Thank you if you rated the show! Five stars is kind of unheard of, especially for a show that centers Black people. Some mean folks get a kick out of rating shows about “Black” history and stories that center Black folks very low. Low ratings mean you don’t appear in those algorithms. This really does hurt the show because less people are able to find it, listen, download and (unfortunately) those downloads are important for creators to earn money to create more shows.
Harlem Queen has a 4.6 on Spotify. Hmm…side eye. That’s good, but I would really like for it to be at least a 4.8 on Spotify. Harlem Queen has a 4.8 on Apple.
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Know the Wholestory
“They” are trying to erase our history…again. The truth is that there is A LOT we didn’t learn growing up (I never heard of Stephanie St. Clair until seven years ago), but we are learning it now, thanks to shows like Harlem Queen, Mona Mae and 1972 and oodles of non-fiction podcasts.
Here are a few incredible people that I think you should know and I’m hoping to share with you in my stories at some point:
Mary Jane Richardson Jones was a wealthy Black woman in Chicago who sponsored Frederick D. and Ida B.
Elizabeth A. Gloucester was a wealthy Black woman in Brooklyn who sponsored Booker T. and J.B. (John Brown).
Notice a pattern here?
Also, we have Oliver O. Howard, a white man who as head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, did his freakin’ job. Yes, many formerly enslaved folks did receive 40 acres and a mule - only for it to be taken back - BUT Howard was all about doing the right thing at a time when it was very hard to do the right thing. So when folks say so and so was acting like that (like a racist/sexist/ignoramus) because those were the times or they were products of their time, I call bullshit. Because I know for a fact that there were white folks who were doing the right thing in spite of the racists/ignoramuses. (I’m not gonna dissect the ill-advised or misunderstood tenets or philosophies that brought them - not all of them - to do what was right. That’s a whole other conversation.)
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Thank you for reading, sharing, talking, asking!
Love,
Yhane
Help me make my work!
Here is the Patreon link:
https://www.patreon.com/c/harlemqueen
Here is the Ko-Fi link:
https://ko-fi.com/yhanewashingtonsmith
Thank you!