Following traditional cosmologies of African peoples. Examining the image and lack of presence of black people in imagined future worlds. Examining it's impact on the first two black astronauts in the US Space Program at the height of the Cold War and the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. We look at the dream of flight from 200BCE to present.
This object (shown in sketch) was found in 1898 in a tomb at Saqqara, Egypt and was later dated as having been created near 200 BCE. As airplanes were unknown in the days when it was found, it was thrown into a box marked "wooden bird model" and then stored in the basement of the Cairo museum. It was rediscovered by Dr. Khalil Messiha, who studied models made by ancients. The "discovery" was considered so important by the Egyptian government that a special committee of leading scientists was established to study the object.
Emory Conrad Malick Emory C. Malick, Curtiss Aviation School, 1912 Emory Conrad Malick (1881-1958) was the first licensed African American aviator, earning his International Pilot’s License (Federation Aeronautique Internationale, or F.A.I., license), #105, on March 20, 1912, while attending the Curtiss Aviation School on North Island, San Diego, California. Mr. Malick was also the first African American pilot to earn his Federal Airline Transport License, #1716, which was issued on April 30, 1927. But his name is as yet unknown.
Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, legal name Le Sony'r Ra;[1] May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He is a 1979 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. "Of all the jazz musicians, Sun Ra was probably the most controversial," critic Scott Yanow said,[2] because of Sun Ra's eclectic music and unorthodox lifestyle. Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complex persona using "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of afrofuturism.
Eugene Jacques Bullard (9 October 1895 – 12 October 1961), the first African-American military pilot, was born Eugene James Bullard.[1] His life has been surrounded by many legends.[2] Bullard was one of only two black combat pilots in World War I (the other being Ahmet Ali Çelikten).
In the 1920s, professional women blues singers Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, Gertrude Saunders, Beulah 'Sippie' Wallace and others made an impact with the blues while on tour and in concerts in Europe where the all black shows were warmly accepted. When John Hammond contracted Bessie Smith to do what became her last recording session in 1933, it was for the Parlophone Label in England. The main song that come out of that session was "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out."
Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent[1] and the first person of African-American descent to hold an international pilot license
AfroFuturism from the Surrealist Movement. French filmmaker Jean Renoir would later remark that he directed the sensual dance fantasy Charleston because he'd "just discovered American jazz." He also had some stock footage left over from his previous silent success Nana, and decided it would be provident to fashion a new film from these leavings. Even without the benefit of sound, one can hear the jazzy rhythms of Charleston through the exuberant gyrations of an African-American dancer whom Renoir and his star, actress Catherine Hessling, had discovered for this picture. Originally titled Sur un air de Charleston, the film was also released as Charleston Parade in English-speaking countries. In some areas of the US and Europe, the film was greeted with protests from censorship boards who simply couldn't appreciate the aesthetic value in Catherine Hessling's near-nude dance numbers. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968.
Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, AD 1933-1940 is a 1931 Harlem Renaissance era satire on American race relations by George S. Schuyler (pronounced Sky-ler).
Black Empire was a tongue-in-cheek speculative fiction novel by conservative African American writer George S. Schuyler originally published under his pseudonym of Samuel I. Brooks. The two halves of the book originally ran as weekly serials in the Pittsburgh Courier. "Black Internationale" ran in the Courier from November 1936 to July 1937, "Black Empire" ran from October 1937 to April 1938. Combined and edited in 1993 by Robert A. Hill and R. Kent Rasmussen, editors at UCLA's Marcus Garvey Papers, the collected novel detailed the attempts of a radical African-American group called the Black Internationale, equipped with superscience and led by the charismatic Doctor Belsidus, who succeed in creating their own independent nation on the African continent. The novel is believed to be a lampoon of Marcus Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement and the Black Star Line.
