Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 4)
Monday, August 10th, 2009Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 3)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
This year was obviously lacking ‘fros on their cover, but I won’t hold that against Jet, as they had pretty decent topics to make up for it all. Jean Knight was the first person to wear an afro on the cover for this year. As you see, both Jessie Jackson and Angela Davis has yet another cover and this isn’t the last time that you will see them on covers for this decade.
To remind everyone of the caption on Angela Davis’ cover is referring to, it was about getting Davis out of prison. At one point, she was associated with The Black Panther party and was on the FBI’s most wanted list for a crime that she didn’t commit. She was eventually caught and arrested. Here is a snippet of why she was sought after (from Wikipedia.com):
During the summer of 1970, Davis had become involved in Black Panther efforts to garner support for the imprisoned George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo, and John Clutchette, known as the “Soledad brothers” (after Soledad Prison, where they were incarcerated). On August 7, George’s brother, 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson, along with two others, disrupted trial proceedings in an attempt to assist the escape of friend James McClain from the Marin County Hall of Justice. McClain was on trial for an alleged attempt to stab an officer. In the courthouse, Jonathan Jackson and his accomplices rose from their seats, drew guns, and ordered everyone to freeze. They then led the judge, the prosecuting attorney, and several jurors into a van parked outside. As the hostages entered the van, Jackson and the others were reported to have shouted, “We want the Soledad Brothers freed by 12:30 today!” During the escape attempt, Jackson and accomplice William Christmas were killed in a shootout with police. Judge Harold Haley was killed by his captors with a shotgun taped to his throat inside the van. Prosecutor Gary Thomas was paralyzed by a police bullet during the incident.
The shotgun used by the escapees to kill Judge Haley was registered in Davis’s name, implicating her in the escape attempt. The California warrant issued for Davis charged her as an accomplice to conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide.
Here’s a snippet of an article published by the NY Times on October 14, 1970, announcing her arrest (I highlighted the part that made me give the side-eye in bold):
Angela Davis, the young black militant who has been hunted for nearly two months on murder and kidnapping charges, was arrested yesterday at a motel in midtown Manhattan by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The charges against the 26-year-old Miss Davis, a former acting assistant professor of philosophy at he University of California at Los Angeles grew out of a kidnap-escape drama in a San Rafael courtroom in early August. During the abduction and escape attempt a Superior court judge and three other persons were killed.
Miss Davis was arrested at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge, 861 Eighth Avenue, at 51st Street about 6 P.M., according to the manager. Arrested with her was David Rudolph Poindexter Jr., a 36-year-old Negro, who was charged with harboring a fugitive.
Davis was eventually acquitted of all charges in 1972.
Jet Mag and Natural Hair (Part 2)
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
In this post, we’re going to focus on the Jet Magazine covers from the year 1970. This is the year that Jet Magazine began going full throttle with the afros. The first afro of 1970, on the cover Jet magazine, was none other than Angela Davis, with the last issue of the year (in December) showing Jackson 5 on the cover.
Blaxploitation 
This is also the decade that Blaxploitation films were created. The Blaxplotation genre was created to target black people. Not only did the movies star blacks, but the casts were mostly black as well. In these films, you may often find various characters who proudly rocked their afros.
Blaxploitation films that were released in the year of 1970 include They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (starring Sidney Poitier) and Cotton Comes to Harlem (starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx). Blaxploitation films often were filled with characters who were pimps, hookers, or drug dealers. Some felt that Blaxploitation films perpetuated negative stereotypes about blacks. To stop this, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League formed the Coalition Against Blaxploitation, eventually killing off the genre.
There’s so many in this decade that I have plenty to show you in future posts. (I think that I’m going to break them up into four or more posts.) Here’s something that’s really neat about one of the covers. If you look at the March 1970 cover, you will see that the headline says “What Naturals Are Doing to Beauty and Barber Shops.” Interesting! Enjoy.
Vintage: New Guinea (Part 2)
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
In part 2 of the Vintage: New Guinea series, I gathered some pictures of New Guinean men. The ones in this post were used on postcards in the early 1900’s. Here is some neat tidbits about men in New Guinea around this time:
Typically, adult men of the Iatmul tribe, lived in men’s houses, while the women and children lived in a separate home. Men’s houses were created as a means to protect their communities from other groups. The house is similar to both a church and a club. In this house, men did things like perform rituals, socialize, and debate over political matters. Although women aren’t allowed in this house, they are meant to listen outside whenever the men prepare for rituals. If women are to ever step foot in this house, it’s taken as a sign that their community is disintegrating. (Keep in mind that some or all of the men in these pictures may not be of the Iatmul tribe, or even of a tribe that have men’s houses. The postcards were not specific in what tribe these men were from, and being that there are many tribes who have similar styles, it’s hard to tell. I just thought this was a neat tidbit on some of the men of New Guinea.) If you want to read more about men’s houses in different places of the world, a good book to check out is Women and Space: Ground Rules by Shirley Ardener.
Vintage: New Guinea (Part 1)
Friday, June 19th, 2009
This is part 1 of Afro Glitz’s New Guinea series. (I have so many pictures to show, that I had to break them up.)
New Guinea is the world’s second largest island, located north of Australia. (It’s actually a piece of land that was broken off from Australia.) The pictures in this post are specifically of those from Papua New Guinea in the early 1900’s. The country of Papua New Guinea takes up the eastern half of New Guinea. It has over 1,000 ethnic groups.
Here’s some neat information about the tattoos according to this website (you can also find more of these pictures on there as well):
As far back as the old men and women can remember, tattooing has been a tribal custom of the coastal peoples of Papua New Guinea. Among the Motu, Waima, Aroma, Hula, Mekeo, Mailu and other related southwestern groups, women were heavily tattooed from head to toe, while men displayed chest markings related to their exploits in the headhunt. By World War II, however, tattooing traditions largely disappeared in these areas and today only the Maisin and a few neighboring peoples of Collingwood Bay in southeastern Papua remain as the last coastal people to continue tattooing itself.
Tattoos were generally inked upon women in a fixed order among all coastal Papuans. First, girls between five and seven years of age were tattooed on the backs of hands to the elbows and from the elbows to the shoulders. Girls between seven and eight were tattooed on the face and lower abdomen, the vulva and up to the navel, then the waist down to the knees and the outside of the thighs. At ten, the armpits and areas extending to the nipples were tattooed with the throat done shortly thereafter. When puberty approached, the back from the shoulders down, then the buttocks, back of the thighs and legs were marked. When ready for marriage, V-shaped designs from the neck down to the navel were tattooed. Sometimes, special tattoos could be added if the father, brother, or close relative of the girl killed another man, or if they showed prowess in fishing or trading expeditions. All of these markings were ritualistic, and in some cases erotic. If a girl did not have them, she was not acceptable for marriage.
Ouch! So if you’re a teen wanting a tattoo and your parents won’t let you get one, just say “Well, the Papuans allowed their children to get tattoos!” (Haha…just kidding.) Here are some more neat photos.
