Give him an Oscar!

Oscar Peterson

Peterson was born to West Indian Immigrants in Montreal, Quebec on August 15, 1925. At the age of five, he was beginning to learn the trumpet and piano, but after a bout with tuberculosis he could no longer play the trumpet and focused upon the piano. His earlier studies focused upon classical piano, but he was interested in jazz music. For many years he would practice the piano about four to six hours a day. In 1940, he won a nationwide music competition organized by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at the age of fourteen. After which he dropped out of school and played in music halls, concerts and weekly radio shows.
Peterson’s career took off when Norman Granz took him under his label. Apparently Granz was in a cab and listening to a radio show, and they were playing a recording of Peterson’s concert. Granz would remain Peterson’s manager for most of his career, and they formed a close friendship. Granz, one of the first music organizers to attempt to desegregate jazz concerts. Peterson also credits Granz with standing up for him and other black musicians against the segregation south.
Peterson soon started the Oscar Peterson trio, which included Ray Brown, Charlie Smith, Herb Ellis, Irving Ashby, Barney Kessel.  But the definitive trio was Ray Brown and Herb Ellis. Herb Ellis, a white musician,  was controversial in the segregationist times. From the late 1950s, he was recognized as one of the most influential jazz pianists of the time.
Over the years, Oscar garnered eight Grammys, many lifetime achievements, Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Juno Music Hall of Fame, an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Peterson died of kidney at his home in Mississauga, Ontario at the age of 82.

Tickle Me Elmo!

The voice and muppeteer of Elmo, Kevin Clash

Kevin Clash was born and raised in Turner Station, Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a welder for metals company and his mother ran a daycare. He began making his own puppets when he was 10 years old and his parents encouraged his interests. As a teenager, he would perform on Baltimore Harbour Front.
His first job was as a pelican character for a local Baltimore show called Zep. He soon moved on to Wake up with the Captainas the puppeteer for Artie.  From 1981-1986, he appeared on the Great Space Coaster, this was where he attracted the attention of Kermit Love, one of the Muppets puppeteers. He officially became a puppeteer on Sesame Street in 1984 (after a few brief stints on the show).  His earliest puppets were Dr. Nobel Price and Hoots the Owl. Soon to include Baby Natasha, and  Kingston Livingston III. Elmo became his main character after taking over from Brian Muehl and Richard Hunt. He changed some things about Elmo and made it his own. Some other notable characters were Baby Sinclar from Dinosaurs (NOT THE MAMA!) and Ambrosios and Fiery from Labyrinth.
Clash won Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series for his work as Elmo and Hoots the Owl on Sesame Street in 1990, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009.
According to IMDB, Due to the merchandising deal he struck with toy manufacturers, he is the highest-paid Muppeteer ever. The "Tickle Me Elmo" doll, for instance, was one of the largest-selling dolls in history.

Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia

The Black Loyalists

Black Loyalist Plaque in Birchtown, Nova Scotia.


            Who were the Loyalists? In broad definitions, they were people from the United States of America, who were supporters of the royalty of Britain and British rule. In more specific terms, there were the Black Loyalists and the White Loyalists, both coming from different areas, different circumstances, and different experiences. They were all united, however,  in that the rest of their lives would be filled with constant fear. For the whites, it was the fear of being sacrificed, yet again, by the British.^[1] For the blacks, it would be losing their freedom, for they were worried that they would be forced back into slavery, kidnapped, or that their former masters would come back to retrieve them.^[2]

               When the United States led some uprisings, the British felt the need to increase their military potential. The British soon looked to the half of a million slaves that were present in America. ^[4] Britain sought to gather supporters from the slaves, and even committed themselves to freeing any slave that was owned by a rebel, and to slaves they would offer them their freedom ^[5]

Many of the Blacks came from Virginia and South Carolina, and not all were slaves. Some were blacksmiths, cooks, waiters, etc. Most of them came from the poor end of the spectrum, as there were few wealthy Blacks. The use of slaves took place on the other side as well, with George Washington allowing owners to make their slaves into soldiers.

             The Blacks left the United States, in order to preserve the freedom and security, that they were promised upon joining the Loyalists. Also, they sought the possibility of equal citizenship, the ability to own land, and possibly equal rights. ^[9]

            Some Loyalists left and went back to England, others, most numbers say about 35 000, ^[12] sought refuge in Canada, particularly Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

            The impact of the Black Loyalists in Canada should not be minimized, or forgotten. Though the Whites outnumbered the Blacks, the Blacks made several contributions, particularly in labour, the construction of towns, and within their own communities.

            Upon arrival in their respective lands, very few Black Loyalists received any land grants, because there were far too many people wanting land, and not enough land to give out. As well, the Blacks were given low priority^[13].  So in order to find work, many would settle in Nova Scotian towns, particularly in Shelburne, where there was about 1 500 out of appr

oximately 3 000 free Blacks that came (and about 1 300 black slaves, that came with their Loyalist masters).^[14] It is claimed, that the Blacks cleared and built most of the town, as they built barracks, jails and jetties. In addition, they settled in their own communities, such as Birchtown and Brindley Town (of which all residents were black, until 1802, when a white schoolmaster and his family moved there). ^[15]The Blacks, also, solved the labour shortage.  The labour shortage occurred after the arrival of the Loyalists because while most were “pioneering their own farms, larger landowners and urban employers were pressed for workers to make their assets productive”. ^[16] Seeing as blacks were unable to obtain land, they had to sell their labour. They would do this by doing construction, sharecropping, sailors, farming, or servitude. However, blacks were not given the same high wages were  whites, and whites would come to depend on the labour of the blacks, much to the dislike of the whites. There were riots in Shelburne against the Blacks, trying to drive them out of town, and tearing down their homes. The Blacks living outside of communities of fellow Blacks, were often forced back into indentured servitude, which again provided labour for the wealthier white people. This was not limited to blacks, however,  and it has to be said, that there were plenty of white indentured servants as well. After years of feeling unequal and not getting what they were promised, many Blacks left to go back to the United States, but more left to go to Sierra Leone.  

            The Blacks did create impact on the province as a whole, but they created a greater impact within their own isolated communities. The most impact occurred was when a great number of them left, and migration caused economic and social problems. Once, they left, the labour excess, again become a shortage, and wages rose, much to the chagrin of landowners and the suppliers.   However, in the research done, there is very little mention of the black Loyalists in many sources, with few exceptions. It is relatively hard to determine, whether this  due to the fact that they had little impact, whether there is little evidence to prove otherwise, or whether their contributions were simply swept under a rug or ignored.  However, the existence of few articles and books suggests, that their contributions were likely minimized by the contemporaries. 

            

^[1]           Neil McKinnon, "The Nova Scotia Loyalists: A Traumatic Community,"  Loyalists and Community in North America, ed. Robert M. Calhoon, Timothy M. Barnes and George A. Rawlyk(London: Greenwood Press, 1994) 202. 

^[1]             James W. St. G. Walker,  The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia

and Sierra Leone 1783-1870 (New York: Dalhousie University Press, 1976) 40.  

^[1]           Wallace Brown and Hereward Senior, Victorious in Defeat: The Loyalists inCanada (New York

: Methuen, 1984) 4. 

^[1]           Walker, 1 

^[1]           Walker, 4

^[1]           Walker , 5 

^[1]             A. G Bradley,  The United Empire Loyalists: Founders of British Canada (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1971) 16.  

^[1]             Bradley, 2 

^[1]           Bradley, 18  

  

We are not Lack(s)ing in vaccine because of Henrietta.

The second post for Black History Month is Henrietta Lacks.

Henrietta Lacks (sometimes erroneously called Helen Lane, Henrietta Leakes, or Helen Larson or a hodgepodge of these names) was unwittingly the donator of HeLa cells, an immortal line of cells that responsible for many advancements in medications.

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920. Her mother died when she was four while giving birth to her tenth child. Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather on a tobacco plantation in Clover, Virginia. Henrietta (nicknamed Hennie) ended up marrying her cousin Daniel "Day" Lacks. Their cousin soon convinced them to leave the tobacco farm and go work at the steel mills in Turner Station, Baltimore. Turner Station was growing to be one of the largest and young African American communities in the USA.

She gave birth to five children, Lawrence (b. 1935), Elsie (1939–1955), David "Sonny" Jr. (b. 1947), Deborah (1949–2009), and Joseph (b. 1950, later changed name to Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman).

During her pregnancy with Joseph, Henrietta felt knots in her stomach and felt sick, her family thought it was simply pregnancy, which it was but after the birth, Henrietta was bleeding profusely, she was tested for STDs, and when it came back negative, she was referred to John Hopkins.
John Hopkins was the only hospital in Baltimore that treated black patients, and was treated with suspicion by many in the black communities (Though quite rightly as you will see).

Howard Jones was her treating doctor and inspected her cervix and found some abnormal growths, but the growths themselves were not something he'd seen before. Her cut off a piece of her cervix and sent it to testing. It was found that she had Stage 1 Cervical cancer. She was treated with radium tubes, which were sewn into place, after several days they were removed and she was told to return for frequent X-Rays. During her treatments, doctors removed sections of her cancerous cervix and healthy cervix without her permission* These cells became the abnormal immortal line of HeLa cells, one of the most commonly used cell lines in medical research.

Lacks returned for X-Ray treatments and her condition worsened. The doctors believed that she also suffered from venereal diseases and treated those as well with antibiotics. Her pain increased and she asked to be admitted to the hospital on August 8, 1951, she died on October 4 of that year. Henrietta was buried without a tombstone on the Lacks family land in Clover, Virginia.

Her family had no knowledge of this cell line and the research done on it, until an article Michael Rogers wrote for Rolling Stone in 1975 and even then they did not know the extent to which it was used.

George Gey was given a strain of these cells and he discovered their immortality. He then reproduced lots more and starting shipping them to other researchers.

Some advancements made with Henrietta's cells such as: Jonas Salk's polio vaccine, cancer research, AIDS research, radiation poisoning, and gene mapping. Researchers asked the Lacks family for their cells, but none carry the characteristics that make Henrietta's cells unique. Unfortunately, the researchers made no attempt to adequately explain their reasoning for asking their cell material, and Deborah Lacks (the surviving daughter) was let to believe that her mother's cancer could be passed to her. Also, her family never received any compensation for the cells taken from Henrietta.
For more information, I highly recommend Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks".

*This was frequently done. Medical ethics had yet to really develop past the Nuremberg trials. A lot of white doctors at John Hopkins believed that since the black patients were receiving free or low cost treatment, it was their "duty" to help further research.