Day 70: A celebrity I don't necessarily enjoy and why

[maeve66]

... a celebrity I don't enjoy? That would be most of them. Another teenage topic, I swan.

Let's see. I wanted to succeed in going to my grave without knowing what Justin Bieber looked like, but I think I failed to reach that goal, if only because of the semi-Bieber themed Glee episode. I don't enjoy the Hilton-Kardashian-Windsor famous because they're rich or royal celebrities. I don't enjoy most political celebrities. I don't really enjoy celebrity is the truth, I think. I like people who are famous for doing something well, who nonetheless seem like they MIGHT be kind of regular if given a chance. Or people I can IMAGINE are like that, like, e.g. John Cusack, Stephen Rea, that guy who always stars in John Sayles movies, and played an excellent Wobbly. I like scientist celebrities, like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Lewis Thomas, Marie Curie. And I like left wing political or historical celebrities, like most revolutionaries.

Which reminds me, I need to have a list of African-Americans that I come up with myself to talk about each day of February in my social studies class, though we are studying medieval Japan right now. But that was the mandate from the office, today. I guess I like being given free rein to bring in whomever *I* want to talk about. Okay, the first few are done; I will work on the rest this weekend.

Feb. 1 -- Olaudah Equiano -- Enslaved Nigerian, worked in American colonies, wrote first recognized slave autobiography which became crucial propaganda in the abolitionist movement in Britain, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African [1745-1797]
Feb. 2 -- Crispus Attucks [1723-1770]
Feb. 3 -- Phyllis Wheatley [1753-1784]

Feb. 6 -- Nat Turner [1800-1831]
Feb. 7 -- Mary Jane Seacole [1805-1881] (thanks, springheel_jack!
Feb. 8 -- Joseph Cinque [1814-1879]
Feb. 9 -- Frederick Douglass [1818-1895]
Feb. 10 -- Madam C. J. Walker [1867-1919]

Feb. 14 -- W. E. B. DuBois [1868-1963]
Feb. 15 -- Zora Neale Hurston [1891-1960]
Feb. 16 -- Bessie Coleman [1892-1926]
Feb. 17 -- Langston Hughes [1902-1967]

Feb. 21 -- Josephine Baker [1906-1975]
Feb. 22 -- Fannie Lou Hamer [1917-1977]
Feb. 23 -- Lorraine Hansberry [1930-1965]
Feb. 24 -- Hank Aaron [1934- ]
Feb. 25 -- Angela Davis [1944- ]

Feb. 28 -- Octavia Butler [1947-2006]
Feb. 29 -- Little Bobby Hutton [1950-1968]

Now I have to go grab a bunch of Hiroshige images and put them in iPhoto and then on a flash drive, to show as a slideshow tomorrow in class.

Comments

[springheel_jack]

You know who I think is a little underrated is Madam C J Walker, the first african-american woman millionaire by her own effort.

[springheel_jack]

mrs seacole

[maeve66]

Oh, yeah, I've got her (Madam C. J. Walker) on the list. She was always a big deal in West Oakland iterations of Black History Month (and day, and week, and year, sort of) because of the semi Garveyite entrepreneurial success. That is still a big trope in Black Oakland, where until a few years ago there was a sprawling Black Muslim chain of businesses (bakeries with bean pies, but not only bakeries), apart from many cultural boutiques.

I'll have to look up Mrs. Seacole!

[springheel_jack]

I just know Mme Walker because she was in production in my hometown. There's a theater named after her.