AAST398G FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE KEY TERMS FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEMESTER 1 Race Woman Race men and Race women remain consistently confrontational with the ideas people institutions and or nations that threaten the well being of the Black African Race 2 Nannie H Burroughs was an African American educator orator religious leader civil rights activist feminist and businesswoman in the United States She gained national recognition for her 1900 speech How the Sisters Are Hindered from Helping at the National Baptist Convention On October 19 1909 she founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington D C which uniquely provided academic religious and vocational classes for black girls and young women at a time when education was segregated in the South she operated it until her death It has since been renamed the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in her honor and provides coeducational classes for the elementary grades Its Trades Hall built in 1927 28 has been designated as a National Historic Landmark 3 Billie Holiday Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter Nicknamed Lady Day by her friend and musical partner Lester Young Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing She was considered a race woman Her notable song is Strange Fruit which was one of the first anti racism songs during her time period 1939 4 Shirley Graham Du Bois an American award winning author playwright composer and activist for African American and other causes In later life she married the noted thinker writer and activist W E B Du Bois The couple became citizens of Ghana in 1961 after they emigrating to that country She won the Messner and the Anisfield Wolf prizes for her works Shirley Graham Du Bois was also considered a race woman POLITICAL ACTIVISM OF SHIRLEY GRAHAM DU BOIS Shirley Graham was also a political activist In 1942 she became the YWCA USO Director of Fort Huachuca Arizona a military base that had fifteen thousand black men and women soldiers When racial tensions resulted in the death of three black soldiers Graham defended these and other men who had engaged in protests She was promptly dismissed for her actions but also just as promptly hired by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NAACP and for the next year as Field Secretary she organized new branches across the nation In 1944 Graham wrote her first biography Dr George Washington Carver Scientist Two years later she wrote a biography of Paul Robeson followed quickly by a profile of Frederick Douglass Graham also became one of the founders of the Progressive Party Former Vice President Henry Wallace consulted her among others before deciding to run for president under its banner Graham gave the keynote address at the Party s 1948 convention in Philadelphia before an audience of 12 000 She had become according to one historian the living symbol of left wing activism among African American women Shirley Graham and W E B DuBois had known each other since she as a small child met this prominent personality on a visit to her father s home They became close political associates in the late 1940s partly because their beliefs and causes had aligned On February 27 1951 fifty four year old Shirley Graham and eighty four year old W E B DuBois married in New York City For the next decade the famous couple fought a number of legal battles against the United States government due to his alleged connection to the Communist Party In 1961 they both renounced their U S citizenship and became citizens of Ghana DuBois died in Accra two years later Shirley Graham DuBois remained in Accra until the overthrow of her political patron Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 She then moved to Cairo and from there traveled throughout Africa Asia Europe and occasionally the U S for the next decade to promote her messages of anti imperialism and anti colonialism Graham DuBois died in Beijing China in 1977 after losing a long battle with breast cancer 5 Louise Thompson Patterson an American social activist and college professor Thompson organized a number of protests and opened one of the premiere Harlem salons she became best known for her close friendship with the author Langston Hughes Both admired the Soviet system of government and organized a group of twenty two Harlem writers artists and intellectuals to create a film about discrimination in the United States for a Soviet film company After the project fell through due to lack of funding Thompson and Hughes returned to the United States to found the Harlem Suitcase Theater which presented plays written by Hughes and other black writers and featured all black casts She joined her husband in protesting the anti Communist policies of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s In the 1960s she was involved in the Civil Rights Movement though by that time her influence was greatly overshadowed by more notable figures 6 Tom Tom A term coined by American poet social activist novelist playwright and columnist Langston Hughes in his poem The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain The younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark skinned selves without fear or shame If white people are pleased we are glad If they are not it doesn t matter We know we are beautiful And ugly too The tom tom cries and the tom tom laughs If colored people are pleased we are glad If they are not their displeasure doesn t matter either We build our temples for tomorrow strong as we know how and we stand on top of the mountain free within ourselves 7 Claudia Jones Trinidad born journalist and activist Political affairs In 1936 she joined the American Communist Party ACP In 1937 she joined the editorial staff of the Daily Worker rising by 1938 to become editor of the Weekly Review After the Young Communist League became American Youth for Democracy during World War II Jones became editor of its monthly journal Spotlight After the war Jones became executive secretary of the Women s National Commission secretary for the Women s Commission of the Communist Party USA CPUSA and in 1952 took the same position at the National Peace Council In 1953 she took over the editorship of Negro Affairs 8 Strange Fruit The pre civil rights era protest song against racism sung by Billie Holiday First recorded in 1939 it was considered a haunting song about lynching in America Southern trees bear a strange fruit Blood on the leaves and blood at the root