Coming out of the vestiges of Jim Crow Segregation, Larry Steele’s Smart Affairs produced shows, featuring long stemmed beige dancing beauties, comedians, musicians, and famous stars “that brought laughter to thousands in theatres and nightclubs” nationwide and abroad. Larry Steele’s touring production review, Smart Affairs, was the largest black entertainment touring group in the United States during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Steele’s revue which featured up to 35 entertainment acts, performed in major venues throughout the nation and around the world.
Read moreEstablished by Marcus Garvey with the assistance of Amy Ashwood in Jamaica in 1914, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL, hereafter UNIA) emerged as the largest and most influential Black Nationalist organization of the twentieth century. During a period of global instability and political reorganization, the UNIA’s injunction to challenge European colonial rule, racial discrimination, and global white supremacy resonated with millions of black men and women around the world. Promoting racial unity, cultural pride, and economic cooperation and development, the organization eventually spread to approximately one thousand chapters in more than forty countries. Its influence was also manifest in political organizations, trade unions, welfare associations, immigration societies, churches, and millennial religious movements that did not maintain a formal association with the UNIA.
Read moreRobert Franklin Williams (February 26, 1925 – October 15, 1996) was an American civil rights leader and author, best known for serving as president of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP in the 1950s and early 1960s. At a time when racial tension was high and official abuses were rampant, Williams was a key figure in promoting armed black self-defense in the United States.
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