New York City’s Harlem Mourns, Cherishes Maya Angelou

by Adam Phillips

Poet, author and human rights activist Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86, was considered by many a literary giant.  But to residents of Harlem, a largely African American New York neighborhood where she sometimes lived, the author of “Why The Caged Bird Sings” and other works is especially mourned. 

While Maya Angelou received dozens of awards and honorary degrees, she came from the humblest of beginnings in the racially segregated South - having worked as a streetcar conductor, fry cook and calypso performer among other jobs during her youth.  

On a city bus riding through Harlem, Rayna Clay-Cuffee remembered Angelou from a half century ago, when they were both nightclub singers. 

"And then the years went by, and then I was there when she spoke at the inauguration for [President] Clinton," she said. "So she’s been around a long time.  She’s a wonderful woman, extremely intelligent, and she used her intelligence for the world."

Joanathan, who also was riding the bus, admired Angelou for her wisdom and compassion.  He said that while her writing often expressed the challenges she and other African Americans faced in their struggle for equality, she felt an underlying bond to all peoples.

“And they can coexist in one.  People always make the mistake of saying ‘that race did that’ or ‘that one ain’t no good.’  But we are one human race. And that’s what she understood," said Joanathan.

On 125th Street, Harlem’s busy main thoroughfare, “Lord Harrison,” a hip hop artist, sold his CDs to passersby.  He credited Maya Angelou’s poetry and public acclaim with helping to pioneer his musical genre.

“She paved the way!  Without her doing her thing and opening the way and ‘bustin’ with the moves,’ as we like to say, hip hop wouldn’t be invented.  It wouldn’t have happened.  She did it!  She is a true American icon," he said.

Nearby, the marquee of the famed Apollo Theater, where the Jackson Five, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and other stars played, noted in big black letters Maya Angelou's passing.

In-house historian Billy Mitchell, who has worked there for 49 years, remembers meeting her.    

“What a regal lady she was!  Very graceful.  That beautiful smile.  ‘How are you, young man?’  I could have melted right there," he said. "Because I meet so many people here and there are just a few that really make me feel a little strange and giddy and groupie-like.  And she was one of those people that did that for me, absolutely. "We all adored Maya.  Her words made us feel proud. She understood our struggle. She understood what it was like to be poor and to be hungry and she made something of herself.  Young kids are still reciting her poetry: ‘and still I rise.  I rise.  I rise.'"

Plans for Maya Angelou’s funeral have not been released.

Boxer 'Hurricane' Carter Dead at 76

Well-known former U.S. professional boxer Rubin "Hurricane'' Carter has died in his adopted home of Toronto, Canada, from prostate cancer at age 76.

Carter's wrongful murder conviction became an international symbol of racial injustice. The African-American spent 19 years in prison for the 1966 murders of three white people at a tavern in the eastern U.S. state of New Jersey.

Carter and another man, John Artis, were convicted by an all-white jury, largely on the testimony of two thieves who later recanted their stories.

His ordeal and the alleged racial motivations behind it were publicized in Bob Dylan's 1975 song “Hurricane,'” several books and the 1999 film “Hurricane” starring Denzel Washington, who received an Academy Award nomination for playing the boxer-turned-prisoner.

According to Canadian media, Carter, who was from New Jersey, had lived in Toronto since his 1985 prison release, which was aided by a group of Canadian activists. But many had spoken out on Carter's behalf, including former world boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

The U.S. District Court judge who oversaw his release wrote that Carter's prosecution had been "predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure."

Afghanistan's First Vice President Dies

An Afghan government spokesman says one of the country's two vice presidents, Field Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, has died at the age of 57.

The official said Fahim died of natural causes on Sunday. He added that three days of national mourning would be held.

Fahim was once a powerful warlord and had been a leading commander in the Northern Alliance, which fought the Taliban.

Spanish Flamenco Guitar Legend Dies

Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia, who blended the flamenco sound of his native land with jazz and other genres that attracted a new generation of fans, has died at the age of 66 of an apparent heart attack. 

A government official in de Lucia's hometown of Algeciras, Spain says the musician died Tuesday after he fell ill on a beach while with his family in Cancun, Mexico.  Algeciras will observe several days of official mourning in is memory. 

De Lucia began his career as a teenager in the 1960s when he formed a popular duo with the late flamenco singer Camaron de la Isla, a pairing that launched the New Flamenco movement.  He later joined forces with American jazz guitarists John McLaughlin and Al di Meola, producing the best-selling 1981 album "Friday Night in San Francisco." 

De Lucia was awarded his country's prestigious Asturius Prize for the Arts in 2004.

Pioneering TV Comedian Sid Caesar Dies at 91

Pioneering U.S. television comedian Sid Caesar, who set the standard for TV comedy in the early 1950s, has died at 91.

The New York born-Caesar began his career as a big band saxophonist before moving into nightclubs and the Broadway stage.

He started his television career in 1949 when he partnered with the late comedienne Imogene Coca.

Their legendary series Your Show of Shows was must-see Saturday night viewing and attracted huge audiences. Caesar rejected typical TV slapstick and in favor of sketches that showcased the best and sometimes worst of human behavior -- ill-tempered bosses, angry husbands, life in suburbia, and pretentious professors.

Your Show of Shows also parodied foreign films to highlight Caesar's ability to speak in realistic-sounding Russian, Japanese, and French dialect which was actually gibberish and nonsense.

The writing staff of Your Show of Shows and Caesar's subsequent series reads like a "who's who" of American comedy. They include Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart.

After television, Caesar returned to Broadway and films and wrote candidly about his battles with alcoholism and drug abuse in an 1982 autobiography.

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple died of a heart attack on 10 February 2014, at the age of 85. She was at her home in Woodside, California, surrounded by family and caregivers. She is survived by her three children, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

"Eleanor Roosevelt and Shirley Temple, July 1938."

"Shirley sees her old friend the president. Washington, D.C., June 24. Shirley Temple leaving the White House offices of the president today after a very important conference with the President. Shirley told the President about losing a tooth last night, and he told her about Sistie and Buzzie losing their teeth, Shirley expects to be in Washington a week checking on the affairs of government with different government officials, 6/24/38"

"Shirley Temple and Eddie Cantor cutting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday cake in Los Angeles, California, 1937"

Pete Seeger, US Folk Singer, Songwriter and Political Activist, Dies at 94

Legendary American folk singer and political activist Pete Seeger has died at the age of 94.

His family said Seeger passed away Monday of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Seeger was the son of a musicologist who introduced him to rural American folk music while he was a student at a Connecticut boarding school.  He later met and befriended two other legendary American folk singers:  the black blues musician Lead Belly, and Woody Guthrie, with whom he toured across the country performing at benefits for labor activists in 1940.

After serving in World War II, he founded the Weavers, a quartet that achieved wide popularity in the early 1950s with such songs as Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, If I Had a Hammer, and Goodnight, Irene, sparking a revival in American folk music.

However, the group's success ended after Seeger was cited for his earlier ties to the Communist Party. He was barred from performing on television and eventually called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he refused to answer questions about his political activities. He was tried and convicted for contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail, but the sentenced was eventually overturned.

Seeger continued to draw huge audiences at college campuses and small nightclubs, and he took part in such causes as civil rights and environmentalism.  His arrangement of We Shall Overcome, which had its roots as a gospel song, became the anthem of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Seeger also wrote such popular songs as Turn, Turn, Turn and Where Have All the Flowers Gone? He earned numerous awards and accolades late in his career, including a Grammy Award in 1993 for lifetime achievement. He was also named a Kennedy Center honoree in 1994, and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as an early influence.

In 2009, he performed at a concert staged at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of President Barack Obama's first inauguration.