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Zora Neale Hurston
Jan. 7, 1891–Jan. 28, 1960
By combining anthropology and Black-American folklore, Zora Neale Hurston became an authority on the oral culture of Black America and a prominent author during the Harlem Renaissance, publishing dozens of short stories, plays, essays and novels. Her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God - published in 1937 - is a classic of American literature. Time magazine named it one of the “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923-2005,” and in 2005 the novel was made into a successful TV film. The development of African-American and Women’s Studies in the 1970s led to a resurgence of interest in Hurston’s work, and many recognize her influence in the writing of contemporary African-American writers like Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker.
Harold Cruse
March 8, 1916–March 25, 2005
Author, journalist, playwright, social critic, activist, and professor, Harold Cruse was a prominent and powerful thinker who helped provide an important theoretical foundation for the emerging field of African-American studies. Cruse’s 1967 book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual is a potent and controversial critique of the integrationist ethic, Black intellectuals, and the Black Power Movement. His analysis in this work and in others highlights the critical relationship between mature capitalism, cultural production and racial oppression. Despite not having a college degree, Cruse became a full professor at the University of Michigan and helped to found its Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. His other works include Rebellion or Revolution? Marxism and the Negro Struggle, and Plural but Equal.
E. Franklin Frazier
Sept. 24, 1894 – May 17, 1962
E. Franklin Frazier was a pioneering scholar in the sociology of the Black experience. One of his best-known works, published in 1939, is The Negro Family in the United States. In this work, Frazier does not accept the widely held view that African Americans would simply assimilate into a world defined by white America. For Frazier, this assertion was an empirical question that could best be answered through an analysis of family life. Frazier published numerous sociological and historical articles and books, including Black Bourgeoisie, a controversial critique of middle-class African Americans. Other works examined Black youth, the Black church, African American history, and the global dimensions of European expansion and racial oppression. He was the first African-American to be elected as president of the American Sociological Society (later changed to Association). His theoretical approach, which stressed a focus on the relationship between social organization and culture, would later influence the intellectual work of Harold Cruse.
Ida B. Wells
July 16, 1862–March 25, 1931
Over 70 years before Rosa Parks refused to abide by segregationist laws in Montgomery, Ala., Ida B. Wells made a similar stand in a Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern railroad car. Wells refused to move to the “colored” section of the train when a white conductor ordered her to do so under the segregationist laws. Wells was ejected from the train and fought a losing battle in the courts to seek damages for this assault on her rights under the US Constitution. This historic protest was just one in a lifetime spent fighting for civil and human rights. While a teacher in Memphis, Wells co-founded a Black newspaper called Free Speech and Headlight, which she later used as a vehicle to combat lynching and to condemn the continual oppression of African Americans. In 1893, Wells took her anti-lynching campaign to England and established the London Anti-Lynching Committee. She continued that fight with A Red Record, her 1895 study on the lynching of Blacks in America. Despite serious threats of death and incarceration, Wells remained a fearless leader in the struggle against racism and sexism.
Kansas City’s Historic 18th and Vine District
Through the first half of the 20th century, the 18th and Vine District was the heart of business, entertainment, cultural, and civic life for Black Kansas Citians. A distinct form of jazz came of age here, helping to attract and spawn numerous jazz greats. For Kansas City, the District has become a symbol of African-American achievement, entrepreneurship and creativity. Today, in addition to the Blue Room jazz club and the Gem Theater, the 18th and Vine District is home to the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum—vital sources of African-American history and culture.