February 14th, 2012 at 12:47PM
For a stint, that very fact was too much for R&B fans, like the ones who famously booed Clive Davis’s golden girl at the 1989 Soul Train Awards. Less than enamored with her brand of smoky adult contemporary balladry and buoyant synth pop, black popular culture would wait until the Clinton ’90s, would wait through The Bodyguard tsunami to embrace Cissy’s daughter wholeheartedly and with open arms as she eased her way into an R&B universe transformed by hip hop and Terry McMillan novels. The reconstructed Whitney who “exhaled” and told her man that “it’s not right, but it’s okay,” had found a way to wed a little bit of Newark, New Jersey, swagger with diva elegance and gospel conviction. Slipping effortlessly into Chaka’s “everywoman” shoes, she stepped into the decade in which black popular culture most fully became global popular culture and musically asserted her breezy mastery of dance pop, hip hop soul and Wyclef Jean–diaspora carnival. The Whitney of the ’90s was an Afro-pop cosmopolitan whose voice, at turns astonishingly supple and formidable, sinuous and striking, evoked an increasing fullness, warm sophistication and playful maturity—all the more heartbreakingly ironic given the ways that her personal life began to come undone at that time. — I’m Every Woman: Whitney Houston, the Voice of the Post–Civil Rights Era | The Nation
4 notes Source: thenation.com #black history#music
February 12th, 2012 at 8:14PM

Kanye West - Hell of a Life [Official Music] (by SupernaturalMaster82)

“Never in your wildest dreams/ Never in your wildest dreams, in your wildest/ You could hear the loudest screams/ Coming from inside the screen, you a wild bitch/ Tell me what I gotta do to be that guy/ She said her price’ll go down if she ever fuck a black guy/ Or do anal, or a gangbang/ it’s kinda crazy it’s all considered the same thing/ Well I guess a lotta niggas do gangbang/ and if we run trains we’re all in the same gang/ Runaway slaves all on a chain gang/ bang, bang, bang, bang, bang”

3 notes Source: youtube.com #black history#music#kanye west
February 11th, 2012 at 6:34PM
i caught a plane out to cleveland late last evenin, to help my niggas clean up some niggas no longer breathin now

i caught a plane out to cleveland late last evenin, to help my niggas clean up some niggas no longer breathin now

48 notes Source: tumblinerb #black history#music#tupac
February 11th, 2012 at 6:31PM
littleknownblackhistoryfacts: MAMIE MILLWATER:  First person to beat somebody like they stole something.

littleknownblackhistoryfacts:

MAMIE MILLWATER:  First person to beat somebody like they stole something.

119 notes Source: littleknownblackhistoryfacts #jokes#black history
February 11th, 2012 at 6:28PM
PHENOMENAUT AEROSPACE: I lead an improbable life

bernardin:

It’s the sort of thing that I haven’t thought about, really, because I’ve been rather preoccupied with leading it. But while I was in the midst of an exceedingly rough patch not too long ago, I examined, objectively, who I am.

I’m a black man. Who was born in the Bronx. For every 15 black men…
9 notes Source: bernardin #black history
February 6th, 2012 at 3:39PM
Malcolm X came to speak at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on May 11, 1961. Burnley noticed that at the end of the article, there was a brief mention of another article — also from the Brown student newspaper — written by a senior named Katharine Pierce. Her article was the reason Malcolm X wanted to visit Brown. — Lost Malcolm X Speech Heard Again 50 Years Later : NPR
26 notes Source: NPR #black history
February 5th, 2012 at 11:00PM

lucille bogan - shave ‘em dry (1935) (by toesandumbrellas)

this song is wild explicit from word one

5 notes Source: youtube.com #music#jokes#black history
February 2nd, 2012 at 5:06PM
The 60-year-old Compton woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African American drivers who didn’t speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles. —

Smuggling ring accused of using black drivers to avoid detection - latimes.com

Her plan was bulletproof. I’m really surprised that she got caught instantly.
1 note Source: Los Angeles Times #jokes#black history
February 1st, 2012 at 11:14AM
to say with a straight, dignified face that BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL was the RISKIEST radical life-changing move that america has seen. and amazingly enough for one hour for one saturday out the week, if you were watching soul train….it became contagious. next thing you know you are actually believing you have some sort of worth. — Brand New Bag: Questlove on Don Cornelius « Okayplayer
6 notes Source: okayplayer.com #black history#music
January 29th, 2012 at 10:42AM

Black and Latino (by mun2tv)

I hate real life so much. The fact that you gotta even explain these things to people drives me crazy. I loved Judy Reyes explaining high yellow and how varied her family is. My little brother was high yellow for years, but I’ve always been browner. Also son talking about you’re not one or the other, you’re both, and you got nothing to be ashamed of is beautiful.

You know when I was a kid, learning how to count and what my body parts are called, I was taught that I have a brownie finger and brownie toe, not a pinky. It still kicks around the back of my mind sometimes, “That’s a brownie.” Just another subtle way to combat the rot that infests your brain from such an early age at this country.

I can’t imagine being a parent and having to go through this. It must be like an icepick to the heart.

8 notes Source: youtube.com #jokes#black history
January 26th, 2012 at 9:32AM
(via Airport greeting turns testy between President Obama, Jan Brewer - latimes.com) it’s like she’s begging for a dummy smack right here

(via Airport greeting turns testy between President Obama, Jan Brewer - latimes.com)

it’s like she’s begging for a dummy smack right here

4 notes Source: Los Angeles Times #jokes#black history
January 24th, 2012 at 4:03PM
When they were hired, most appeared to have known they were making history. The family of Alvin Taylor of Palmetto, Fla., described him simply as “the first African-American in every appointment he attained.” A woman named Dorothy Allen in Saginaw, Mich., never knew of a black probation officer in her county, but in 1974, she applied anyway because she had a sociology degree, heard of an opening and needed the job. “Everybody knew who had which jobs,” her husband, Dempsey, said. “There could have been some judge’s nephew that wanted that job. We were shut out time and time again. But she went in there and got it.” They celebrated in Detroit that weekend, and decades later, he would put the line in her obituary: “First black probation officer in Saginaw County, Mich. — The Lives They Lived - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
2 notes Source: The New York Times #black history
January 17th, 2012 at 12:57PM
This was a new feeling for George Lucas. He made a movie about a plucky band of freedom fighters who battle an evil empire — a movie loaded with special effects like no one had seen before. Then he showed it to executives from all the Hollywood studios. And every one of them said, “Nope. — George Lucas Is Ready to Roll the Credits - NYTimes.com
7 notes Source: The New York Times #black history#george lucas#movies
January 17th, 2012 at 9:41AM

Unauthorized Biography of MUHAMMAD ALI (3rd of 12) by Shaun Boothe (by BiographySeries)
happy birthday to one of my most favorite dudes ever, muhammad ali.

Source: youtube.com #muhammad ali#black history
January 8th, 2012 at 6:02PM
roostavintage: One of my favorite photos from Deborah Willis’ book “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.” Leonard Freed captured this moment.

roostavintage:

One of my favorite photos from Deborah Willis’ book “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.” Leonard Freed captured this moment.

(via d-pi)

36 notes Source: roostavintage #real#black history#fashion