How Lena Horne Carried the Load

MARCH 7
Women's History Month

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. (Lena Horne)

Lena Horne







When I was a child, I was in no doubt that Lena Horne was my mom’s favorite singer. We had no victrola or radio at home, so mom introduced me to Lena Horne by singing “Stormy Weather” and showing me photos of Lena in celebrity magazines. As a child I mostly associated Lena with days when hurricanes or heavy rains kept me from playing outdoors with my friends. I learned to love and admire her later.



Mom’s photos of Lena puzzled me. Was she really Black? Hollywood film-makers seemed to have comparable difficulties with her skin color. They darkened her make-up as they feared she might not be easily identified as a “negro”. In colonial or even post-colonial Jamaica, people as light-skinned as Lena were offended to be called Black. Many of these shade-conscious Jamaicans were shocked to find that Jim Crow laws applied to them. On the contrary, Lena consistently identifies herself as Black.

Both sides of Lena’s family were mixed – African, European, and Native American. Her grandfather was an inventor and she grew up in an upper middle class Black community. Her grandparents raised her as her parents divorced when she was a small child, and her mother went away to find work.

In 1933, when Lena was 16 years old, she dropped out of school and joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in Harlem. She later toured with bands, notably led by such persons as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. By 1941 she had made a record with RCA Victor.

She was primarily a nightclub performer until talent scouts persuaded her to start a movie career. Lena became the first Black American performer to sign a long term contract with a major Hollywood studio.

She was never featured in a leading role. In those days, Black roles needed to be incidental to the story so sequences with Black actors could be edited out without loss to the storyline. Besides, there were codes blocking the possibility of inter-racial relationships in films, especially if they were shown in the South.

In the 1950s, Lena left Hollywood and concentrated on performing in nightclubs. She also made several television appearances in the decades that followed.



Lena was known for her civil rights activism. She worked with Paul Robeson, and as a result was blacklisted as a "Communist sympathizer". She performed at a rally with Medgar Evers, attended the March on Washington, and worked with Elinor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws.

She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989 and was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991.

Do you or your elders have any memories of Lena Horne? Please share.

Billie Holiday: Blues Pay Dues

MARCH 6
Women's History Month

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation. (Billie Holiday)

Billie Holiday












Billie Holiday bends every note almost to breaking point. She punctures every phrase with pain and passion. She combines reason and feeling in a mix that (for me) no one else has equaled.

She was born Eleanora Harris or Eleanora Fagan in 1915, and died 44 years later. According to birth records, her father was “Frank DeViese”, now believed to be a made up name. Her father seems to have been Clarence Holiday. Sandra Fagan was thrown out of her home when she was thirteen years old and pregnant with Billie. Fagan and Holiday later married for a short time, and Billie was raised mainly by her mother and other relatives. Eleanora later took the name "Billie" from a screen star called Billie Dove.



Billie had a difficult childhood. Her claim of being raped at ten years old, together with her frequent truancy, resulted in her being sent to reform school. She remained there for two years, and then moved to New York City with her mother. In 1929, Billie’s mother surprised a neighbor raping Billie, and the man was convicted for committing the offence.

For a while, by Billie’s account, she worked as a prostitute, and spent time in prison for solicitation. Her musical “training” was singing along with records by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, and she never learned to read music. She started her career by singing for tips in Harlem, working various clubs till (according to legend) a talent scout discovered her.

Billie was signed with Brunswick Records where she had room to do what she did best - improvise the melody line to fit the emotion. She had a close relationship with Lester “Prez” Young who gave her the nickname, “Lady Day”. She was also one of the first Black women to work with a white orchestra.

"Strange Fruit", Billie's song about lynching, proved too controversial for Colombia, her recording company at the time. She ultimately recorded it for Commodore and later for Verve.



In 1947, Billie was arrested on a drugs charge, and she was sentenced to a prison term. On her release, she performed at a come-back concert at Carnegie Hall. Less than a year later, she was arrested again for drugs believed to belong to her drugs dealer boyfriend. Her problems with the law limited her ability to work in clubs, but these difficulties may well have increased the emotional impact of her recordings.

Her autobiography, "Lady Sings the Blues" was published in 1956.



On May 31, 1959, Billie was admitted to hospital with liver and heart disease. The police raided her hospital room and arrested her as she lay dying.

Today’s jazz and pop singers benefit tremendously from Billie’s legacy. In 1987, she was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the United States Postal Service introduced a Billie Holiday postage stamp in 1994.

Boobies in satin, a gardenia in her hair, Billie never accepted the plantation as her fate. Bless you, Lady Day!

For more information, please see “Billie Holiday, the Official Site of Lady Day” http://www.cmgww.com/music/holiday/about/biography2.htm

I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings about Billie.

Black History Month - Smokey Robinson

FEBRUARY 19
It is the person who knows how to shoot whom we put on the track of an animal. (Ghana)









1940 – William "Smokey" Robinson was born.

For those of us who followed Motown, Smokey Robinson was truly the "King". An original member of the Miracles, he was a singer, song writer, record producer. In all, Robinson had 37 Top Forty hits.

Robinson scrapped his early ideas on songwriting after Berry Gordy told him, “Every song should have an idea, tell a story, mean something.” He went on to write lyrics for about 4,000 songs, among which the best known are “My Girl” and “Tears of a Clown”. As a solo singer, Bobinson released an album, “Just My Soul Responding”, that commented on the USA’s treatment of Blacks and Indians. He also developed a style known as “soft soul”.



He was Motown’s vice president for 27 years, and was second only to Berry Gordy in commercial success. The Supremes, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye owe much to Robinson's skill in developing talent and reputation.

In 1999, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2006 Howard University conferred on him the degree Doctor of Music. He is the only person to be in the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame. He is also the double-honoree of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,as a solo artist & member of The Miracles.


Also on this date in:

1963: British soul singer and songwriter Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel born in London, England.
















1992: John Singleton was the first African American director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Boyz N the Hood










2002 - Vonetta Flowers became first Black to win gold medal at Winter Olympics (bobsledding).