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This Facebook Post is typical of the narrative surrounding the talented Ms. Lula Mae Hardaway, the mother of iconic singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder.
Stevie Wonder and his mother Lula Mae Hardaway
Ms. Hardaway’s back story has been written about over the past decades, yet the one facet of her life coming of age in the public schools of East Chicago, Indiana always seems missing. As a native of East Chicago, I’ve always felt compelled to address the lack of reference to East Chicago in her story.
As a girl, Ms. Hardaway moved from Alabama to East Chicago, where she attended Columbus Elementary School in her New Addition neighborhood and went on to complete her studies at Washington Junior and Senior High Schools. The biographies cited in this post and other published works are remiss and in error to negate those critical years Stevie’s mom spent near her large extended family.
Ms. Hardaway moved to Saginaw, Michigan, where Stevie and his younger siblings grew up. Stevie’s oldest brother Milton Hardaway remained in East Chicago, also a graduate of Washington High School, and later worked as his talented brother’s Personal Manager.
Stevie and his siblings were close. He would return to East Chicago to spend time with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins during school vacations. The family later settled in Detroit. Throughout the ensuing years, Stevie remained close to his proud East Chicago roots and regularly visited his large extended family in East Chicago’s New Addition and Calumet neighborhoods.
So, for publishers and authors to ignore Ms. Hardaway’s and Stevie’s historic connections ingrained in her development years coming of age in East Chicago is not totally historically accurate. The quality of education both Ms. Hardaway and Milton received in East Chicago public schools back then was broad and among our nation’s finest.
The quality of the compositions Ms. Hardaway co-wrote with Stevie, some of which became Stevie’s global hits, are a product of her natural God-given talent. No doubt East Chicagoans who are both proud of her growing up and coming of age in that city would also like to believe that her talents as a writer in part were solidified by a first-rate education in East Chicago schools. I’ve no doubt that Stevie’s brother Milton would confirm the same, and Stevie’s many visits to his East Chicago family attest to his love for that part of his roots.
East Chicago loves Ms. Lula Mae Hardaway and the Hardaway and Morris families are aware of the pride we share. It’s time for serious book publishers and movie and media producers to get the story right. Ms. Hardaway’s back-story does not start in Michigan. The beauty, joy, and pain in the in-between years are often the unseen glue that give a life’s narrative coherence. It’s a shame that the story of such an important cultural icon as Stevie Wonder omits this rich, edifying nuance of East Chicago’s influence. It’s high time to get the story right. I’ve had the privilege of speaking with Stevie and I’ve no doubt he embraces his family’s deep roots in East Chicago.
This Easter season, in today’s national conversation around religion, Christian nationalism, Critical Race Theory, and the intersection of race and politics, here is an article that I contributed to The Times of Northwest Indiana in the late 1980s. Churches in American life then, as today, have been central to the political dynamics that affect our national electoral process. East Chicago and Northwest Indiana reflect the historical underpinnings of the role of the Black Church in national political discourse.
The early Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, 1925, East Chicago, Indiana
The late Rev. Dr. Vincent McCutcheon, former pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
Tonight’s “Great Night in Harlem” fundraiser remains one of the City’s premier music galas of Spring. The event, sponsored by the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA), is the organization’s largest annual fundraiser.
Held at the Apollo Theater in the heart of Harlem, this year’s program and star-studded post-concert celebration should once again live up to its billing as it features a stellar lineup of musicians, singers, and rappers sharing the storied Harlem stage to raise money for JFA. JFA is an organization dear to my heart and no doubt is part of the souls of many. I regret I will not in attendance tonight, but I join my friends and other supporters in spirit by donating. I hope you’ll join me.
Just a brief overview of JFA’s work includes a musician’s emergency fund, facilitating employment opportunities, and engaging in partnership projects. For example, JFA deploys social workers in times of catastrophe to go home to home offering emotional support and providing basic necessities like food, emergency supplies, and clothes for children. They replace musicians’ instruments and equipment and may even assist with car repairs.
After Katrina in 2005, JFA quietly brought over 1,000 musicians back to New Orleans by rehousing families, creating paying gigs and donating top-shelf instruments. In the aftermath of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, JFA was active in the rebuilding of hundreds of musicians’ lives, and in the restoring of a vibrant Blues music community in Baton Rouge after it suffered devastating floods in 2016.
JFA reports averaging 30 individual musician emergency cases per day and approximately 9,000 assists every year. The organization helps prevent homelessness with housing assistance and helps keep musicians healthy with pro bono medical care and financial support that keeps the lights on and food on the table.
JFA also works to create paid work opportunities for artists to perform with free concerts at schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. Each year JFA produces almost 1,000 concerts in 17 states and reaches more than 80,000 listeners, from children in public schools to seniors in elder care facilities.
These are just a few of JFA’s services and support networks available solely through charitable contributions.
I personally wish to join in honoring and thanking Richard “Dick” Parsons for his critically important leadership role as one of the founders and visionaries in his role as JFA Board Chairman since 2007. He is also Chair of the Apollo Theater Foundation and Co-chair of the advisory board of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Mr. Parsons is the former Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, former Chairman of Citigroup, former Senior Advisor of Providence Equity, and former interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.
Tonight, JFA honors Richard Parsons for his tireless early and continued efforts on behalf of the Jazz community and musicians. His vision and leadership helped propel JFA forward as a leading support entity meeting the critical needs of an often-underserved population. We truly value the needed safety net and support system of JFA programs and projects nationwide. We appreciate benefitting from his considerable business and organizational acumen. I also salute his lovely wife as well.
On a personal note: Years ago, I reached out to Richard Parsons after having been rebuffed by two young staffers at Harlem’s Apollo Theater where I had met with the Theater’s young manager and assistant staff to propose that the Apollo Theater consider displaying a tribute on its 125th-Street marquis to James “Pookie” Hudson, lead singer of the original Doo-Wop group, The Spaniels. I had known Pookie Hudson and had written an article in The Amsterdam News about The Spaniels 1992 return to the Apollo. The singer and group’s Apollo appearances for over two decades from the 1950s into the 1970s were legendary in R&B folklore.
The young stage manager had insisted to me that no one had ever heard of Pookie Hudson or The Spaniels and firmly rebuffed my suggestion. Based on my former involvement as a member of an advisory committee for JFA, I reached out to Richard Parson’s office at Time Warner. Within several hours, one of New York City’s most recognizable theater marquis was lit up in neon lights displaying APOLLO SALUTES JAMES “POOKIE” HUDSON.
Chairman Parson’s reach across New York City, the nation, and indeed the world continues to have an impact and indeed Dick has the Midas Touch it takes to get big things done. For this, we salute Richard “Dick” Parsons.
Today I join in celebrating my friend Dr. Paul Kwami, who made his transition two years ago. Paul Kwami was former Director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers for 27 years. Although I’m not present in Nashville to honor him today, I reflect on our shared triumphs by introducing new audiences to experience concerts held by the historic Fisk Jubilee Singers.
Some years ago, in Harlem’s Apollo Theater, I watched 1,400 middle-school students remain enraptured by the beauty of the songs flowing from the Fisk Jubilee Singers – young Black people, clothed in understated elegance, displaying the power and alure of Negro Spirituals and early work and slave songs. Their haunting melodies, birthed by enslaved Africans, were planted as fertile seeds for music that would become known as the Blues, Gospel, and Jazz and universally acknowledged as original American music. This was a sonic experience oddly familiar to the tender young ears perched listening, bemused, there in New York’s citadel of Hip Hop, R&B and the music of the day.
Dr. Paul Kwami always helped to smoothly orchestrate a powerful musical and historical experience from behind the curtain, whether within schools, universities, or renowned concert halls, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the most elite venues around the world.
We were fortunate to bring the Jubilee Singers to central Harlem’s Langston Hughes Theater at the Schomberg Center for the Study and Research of Black History and Culture in Harlem, as well as to historic churches such as the Abyssinian Baptist Church and the Riverside Church in Manhattan. And we extended their performances into Brooklyn at the iconic Plymouth Baptist Church, once pastored by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s revered abolitionist uncle, where the modern iteration of the Jubilee Singers returned in 2012 after more than 130 years had passed since first being welcomed before an all-white congregation during the early days of the nation’s Reconstruction era.
Many plaudits and awards would ensue and be bestowed in coming years upon the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and as I reflect on my tenure as President of the New York, New Jersey Fisk Alumni Club, I am grateful for the aid and assistance from Pfizer Cooperation to bring the Singers to New York City and its metropolitan area. Many who may never have heard nor likely to have encountered an opportunity to see or hear the Singers were able to glean insight into the very foundations of American modern music as largely influenced by contributions of groups like theirs.
So today I reflect on a bond of friendship with Dr. Kwami, and have gratitude that the State of New York and the great City of New York rightly responded to his work with the Fisk Jubilee Singers by issuing Proclamations declaring Fisk Jubilee Day in March 2005.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) football culture and marching bandsremain legendary within the nation’s African American community. Not only are historic conference and regional rivalries prime arenas for showcasing some of our nation’s finest grid ironers, grooming athletes as potential Heisman trophy prospects and future NFL Hall-of-Famers, HBCU football games are also unique for their hallowed tradition of growing great marching bands that entertain and cultivate future top-tier musicians on the national and international stage.
The collegial competition between rival institutions is replete with color, flair, and choreography. Movements are steeped within African dance traditions, cultural forms emerging from African American Pop music, R&B, and Jazz. These are dance movements and acrobatics transmitted from the work fields and urban streets that for decades have dazzled audiences throughout the South, parts of the Eastern seaboard, and extending to the great Midwest in universities like Lincoln in Pennsylvania and Wilberforce in Northern Ohio. Transmission of cultural codes and iconic representations of social hegemony offer a common identity and proud uniqueness, now often imitated among many more college and university bands.
HBCUs constitute more than 120 higher education institutions in the United States. Here is a list of internationally acclaimed musicians who once proudly belonged to an HBCU marching band:
Cannonball Adderley – perennially one of the top Jazz Billboard artists, this saxophonist and his brother Nat Adderley, trumpeter, marched in Florida A&M University’s band.
John Coltrane – this legendary Jazz saxophonist attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he played in the school’s marching band before pursuing a career in Jazz.
Branford Marsalis – the saxophonist attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was a member of the Southern University marching band, known as the “Human Jukebox.”
Ellis Marsalis Jr. – Branford’s father was a notable jazz pianist and educator who also attended Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he played in the school’s marching band.
Lionel Hampton – Jazz vibraphonist and bandleader attended the historically Black University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (formerly known as Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College), where he played drums in the school’s marching band.
Lionel Hampton, seated, joined by singer Dennis Llewellyn Day, left. Also pictured: Fred Brown, E. Leroy Owens, and Joseph Holland
These musicians not only honed their musical talents in HBCU marching bands but also went on to make significant contributions to the worlds of Jazz and the broader music scene as a whole.
Like millions of others, I’ve watched Francis N’gannou’s incredible story unfold. The soft-spoken strong man from Cameroon, now risen from among the poorest of villages to the heights of sports celebrity is a compelling example of success.
Burdened yet emboldened by back-breaking hard labor and low wages eked from Africa’s dehumanizing mine fields, N’gannou’s fierce determination to succeed and to escape poverty mirrors the raw passion of the fictious Hollywood movie boxing character from Philadelphia known worldwide as Rocky. In fact, N’gannou’s story as a refugee having been captured six times in failed consecutive efforts to escape on foot to Europe via the Sahara desert is a survival story fit for the big silver screen.
Eventually making safe harbor to France in a cramped rickety sea vessel with fellow refugees, N’gannou was seized, imprisoned in Paris, and deported home to Africa. Not long afterwards, walking and hitchhiking across the desert again, he managed another safe passage to France, where he slept in parks, on the Metro, and in the “City of Light’s” most obscure and unseemly quarters until eventually he was directed to a local gym where, upon discovering mixed Marshall Arts, he saw a path to success.
Francis N’gannou’s incredible work ethic and extraordinary physical strength and agility enabled his accelerated rise as a powerful contender among heavyweights within MMA. After amassing a string of victories, his name was seen on marquis where crazed fans, eager to see who would be crowned king of the MMA world, thirsted to see the next King of the Octogon.
N’gannou today remains among the top tier heavyweight contenders in MMA. Last year he boldly decided to switch to boxing, a physical contact sport that requires a different kind of skill-set, ring smarts, and strategy. He enlisted none other than Mike Tyson, arguably among the top10 greatest heavyweight champions of all time, as his personal trainer.
Last month N’gannou lost in a split-decision to Heavyweight Champion Tyson Fury. Many fight observers and fans believe N’gannou won the fight hands-down. He knocked the bigger brawler down in the third round, but Fury managed to hold on to the end. For N’gannou and team it was nonetheless a moral victory and popular public opinion has by de facto consensus crowned him the winner and Champion, even though the mild-mannered Cameroonian makes no argument about the judges’ decision.
What remains next is the question: Will the African farmer, miner, refugee, warrior become the “baddest man on the planet” by winning two titles someday – in Mixed Marshall Arts and the crazy world of Heavyweight boxing? Dare not count Francis N’gannou out. He’s all Championship material, every pound for pound.
I’ve long hoped that some form of scholarly and cultural collaboration would evolve between Fisk University, my alma mater, and Harlem’s historic Schomburg Center for the Study of Black History and Culture. The prospect of an ongoing scholastic and cultural bond between these two storied institutions has intrigued me, and now it has come to pass.
My interest began after first reading about Arturo Schomburg, the Black, Afro-Centric Puerto Rican of German descent, and his seminal work as curator of Black and African history as when he was the librarian at Fisk during the early 20th century.
In March 2005, it gave me great pleasure while serving as President of the New York Fisk Club to have partnered with Pfizer Corporation to present the Fisk Jubilee Singers in their first concert appearance at the Schomburg Center. Those in attendance were fortunate to have encountered a most memorable music and educational experience. An iconic mural by Aaron Douglas, Fisk’s beloved art professor, still adorns the Schomburg’s ceiling in its main reference room. Douglas was among the central figures helping shape the artistic and intellectual foundations of the Black Arts movement and the storied Harlem Renaissance.
Aaron Douglas, ‘Aspects of Negro Life: The Negro in an African Setting, ‘ 1934
As a former longtime resident of Harlem and a “Son of Fisk,” I view this burgeoning institutional relationship between Fisk and the Schomburg Center as one more essential link to the fullness of African History in the Diaspora. Congratulations, Fisk University and the Schomburg Center for the Study of Black History and Culture.
Childhood images and memories of my father cascade like a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, and designs. Years serve as a prism and now at my age, like a child peering into the kaleidoscope, a momentary fusion of abstractions, streams of brilliance, opaqueness, symmetry, and distortion are glimpsed through the lens of time. Images changing within a flash with each movement.
My Dad’s birth name was John Wesley Day. I knew him as Daddy. He was of medium stature, athletic build, perhaps 5’9 or 5’10, and about 170 lbs. I noticed over the years while growing up, that his weight appeared to remain stable – I think because he was so active.
John Wesley Day
My Dad was what some Black people call “light-skinned” and White folks in the old days called “colored.” He was a clean-cut gent, even when many of his jobs and activities did not demand dressing in any refined manner. My Dad never drew attention to matters of color or the fact that he had black wavy hair.
I remember the security I felt when my Dad was at home during my early years as a tot and young boy. His work and schedule were at the center of my Dad’s life. My earliest recollections are of him coming home to the first house we owned – a small, two-bedroom bungalow with a front and back yard, nicely landscaped with lawns and a cherry tree in the back yard. I was in awe of his hard hat, goggles, and metatarsal shoes – all standard gear for his daily job as a class-A welder at American Steel Company in my hometown, East Chicago, Indiana. Like most rust-belt towns in the Midwest, East Chicago was known as a “melting pot,” with many races, ethnicities, and nationalities. The steel industry was by far the largest employer. Other industries were supported by Big Steel – like rail transportation and the cement and construction industries.
My Dad’s goggles and hard hat were the tools and gear needed to protect him as a welder. His job involved seaming together rail parts, connecting the moving mechanical components of a box car’s flatbed, from engines to cabooses. The goggles shielded his eyes from the high-velocity pressure of the welding torch, with surging sparks flying from steel being bonded with steel.
My younger brother, Larry, and I thought the goggles and hardhat were cool, but we learned quickly their importance as tools and not toys. We’d laugh at how Dad looked like a cartoon to us when he removed his welding goggles and the soot and debris from the steel mill encircling his eyes. But after a hot bath, he was always as good as new!
I thought my Dad could do almost anything. When class demonstration (“show ‘n tell”) time came around in school, I was always excited to see what project Dad would help me develop. As a third grader, I recall going to the lumber yard with him, where he picked up an empty nail keg. It was a wooden barrel, shaped like a conga drum, but had no top or lid to its rough exterior. He purchased paint and a bunch of #2 and #3 sandpaper blots to add to his large tool kit at home. We spent an entire weekend sanding and smoothing the outside of the keg. Later we stretched a canvas, which was a patch of painter’s drop cloth, wet it, waxed it down, and tightly secured it with special tacks to serve as the drumhead’s surface. Finally, he helped me paint the drum a decorative red, yellow, and green design. That drum was half my size! But I managed to carry it to class, since we lived directly across the street from Columbus Elementary School. When I entered, my third-grade teacher Ms. Comer’s classroom, my classmates were in awe. I was proud that day.
Whether it was high-flying box kites made from old newspapers to sail in the windy March East Chicago skies, or tall stilts made of 2×4’s that elevated a third grader from four feet to six-and-a-half feet tall, or whether playing catch or – one of my favorites – shooting marbles in the sandbox he’d created in our back yard, my Dad could come up with interesting projects!
Like most Dads, he wore many hats. If any project required him to master or improve upon skill sets needed for the task, he managed to find the sources or experts from whom he could learn. Education was important to him. Although I later learned he had only finished half of 11th grade, it seems he had gotten a good foundation attending a segregated elementary Catholic school in Phoenix City, Alabama, where the students were disciplined to require the fundamentals of reading, writing, and mathematics. I never questioned or understood why he didn’t complete high school, being so close. In later years, he’d opine how his father, Henry Day, at the last moment disrupted his opportunity to attend college.
The most memorable moments for me as a young boy with my Dad were our times together fishing at the Lake Michigan Pier in the Indiana Harbor near sunset. We’d prepare the night before by digging up nightcrawlers for bait to use the next evening. Our walk to the Lake shore was about one and a half to two miles. We would stroll with our rods and reels, tackle box and bait, to the Pier, which extended far out from the shore, just the two of us and a few single fishermen casing for lake perch off the Pier. From that perspective, Lake Michigan appears more of a blue-green ocean in the middle of the land, more so than a large connected system of five fresh-water lakes centered in the nation’s Midwest.
I vividly recall the magnificent sunsets and unending sky and water converging, conjuring images of a sense of endless peace and stillness, only punctuated by occasional seagulls screeching and scouring the shallows for minnows and small fish. We always caught some fish – a boyish thrill that never grows old. We’d release a few and string the larger lake perch for the night’s meal. The walk home was gratifying.
My Mom always struck me as being mildly ambiguous about our success, especially when she was expected to gut and clean and fry the fish! Oh yes, fried fish back in the day was not a breach of healthy eating habits – it was commonplace and quite tasty.
As family, both Mom and Dad enjoyed taking us kids on long Sunday evening drives. These excursions provided opportunities for seeing sights in other towns as we’d drive through different neighborhoods, engaging in lots of family inter-play with communications like, “Are we there yet?” and “who ate my last White Castle hamburger?” (That was then the go-to fast food, pre-dating McDonalds.)
Early years with my Dad meant family time. As our family began to grow up, the demands of work and ensuring there was the means to raise three young boys and a little girl perhaps demanded a change. Dad was an active, energetic fellow – he didn’t have a lazy bone in his body. My brother, Kirk, the youngest of his sons, recently informed me that he (Kirk) had recently had to demolish the garage my Dad had built on the lot of the house he had purchased, in which we had lived a few years. We lamented the loss of this symbol of our Dad’s steadfastness. He had built that garage over 70 years ago nearly single-handedly, from the foundation to the roofing, and even the electrical wiring. Leonard Watkins, a student and aspiring engineer, was allowed to use part of that garage to repair television sets and radios in the neighborhood. In classic fashion, my Dad had taken out his books at night to learn how to help him.
Later, at my Dad’s funeral service in September 1992, Leonard, who became an electrical engineer, paid homage to my father, mentioning how he had helped him set up the shop in his garage to gain valuable skills that he would build upon to become an aerospace engineer working for a company that supported the NASA Space Program. (He is now retired.)
Next to the garage was a smaller construction – a wood and coal shed, essential to storing the energy sources for our first small home. An essential daily after-school chore that fell upon me from third to fifth grade during the Chicagoland’s blistering winters and had to be completed before my Dad returned home, was to empty the ash pan from the coal-burning stove, go into the shed, and fill each of two pails, one with wood, one with coal, and drag them back to the house 20 yards away and place them in the pantry. When Dad got home, he would stoke the stove, place wood kindling and pieces of coal, and fan the flames to make sure that the coals were hot enough to keep the house warm.
My Mom had a four-year-old girl – my sister Janice – and a toddler, Kirk, that made such a task too dangerous and unthinkable for a young mother. My job was to help ensure that we stayed warm! The stove was soon replaced with a more modern gas appliance. If my Dad could have been two places at one time, I have no doubt that he would have fetched the coal, chopped and toted the wood, and cleaned and emptied the ash, but during this period, as the oldest child, I was needed to help both my Mom and Dad.
There were challenging times for sure. The work of providing for a growing family increasingly seemed to limit our recreational and family time together. Dad had learned to be a master barber by working with his uncle at an early age and had earned his barber’s license. Uncle Lee owned one of the few Black barber shops in town. As a licensed barber, Dad worked in the shop on weekends and any other days when there was time. In fact, when I was born, my Uncle Mike, Mom’s brother, ran to the Smith Barbershop to let Dad know that Mom had been taken to St. Catherine’s hospital to give birth to me.
There was a time when the steel industry was the lifeblood of our nation’s economy. However, there was one over-looming reality. The wage-based economy of Big Steel precipitated a number of strikes within the steel industry. Long layoffs became almost endemic, with struggles between Union and Management for better wages and working conditions. When American Steel Mill went out on strike for the third time in nearly as many years, the last strike proved a lengthy, costly, and devastating period for many families. That was in 1959.
Up until that time, the political parties had been evenly distributed between Republicans and Democrats. My Dad had run for GOP Precinct Committee-man but was defeated. He had been involved with coaching teen basketball leagues and was personable and had made some friends and allies. When the opportunity to work as a maintenance employee in the East Chicago Schools City, he saw it as a route to year-round job security, a pension, and good benefits that he thought he needed to secure a steady income for his family of five. And he was assured that he’d be a part of the mechanical and operations team – but that was a promise that was never fulfilled. So in the ensuing next 30 years, my Dad worked two jobs; School Custodian and Head of Night Security at St. Catherine’s Hospital.
He also started his own business – a catering and butler service for private affairs. He worked for many CEOs and steel executives at their business functions. He hired me to help. I could see that Dad was well-liked and personable and I was impressed that he was one of ABC news anchor Frank Reynolds’ favorite caterers. I worked with Dad in his business until I accidentally popped a champagne cork that landed in a lady’s bosom! I knew better because he had taught me properly to open a champagne bottle, so he bid me farewell. I gave him my white jacket and my bow tie…he did take me home, though!
My Dad for me, and those who really knew him, recognized that he was far more than the sum total of the jobs that he was compelled to take. His jovial disposition and love of family and people was genuine. He was intelligent, a quick study, and possessed a wide berth of skills. Had he lived in another era, no doubt he would have been easily drafted as a skilled maintenance supervisor with upper mobility opportunities. But he was never bitter, nor did he make excuses. His inspiration seemed derived from seeing his children and grandchildren grow strong, healthy, and successful.
Folks who knew my Dad in Alabama told legendary stories of his exploits on the baseball field as a catcher for the Columbus Knights, a feeder team to the old Negro Leagues Birmingham Black Barons. He had even gotten to barnstorm with the Barons one Spring. My fondest memory as a kid was watching him hit a ball so far that I thought it had gone to Heaven!
During his eulogy in September 1992, I was flushed with pride and sadness over what my Dad had accomplished and all that he could have achieved, simply by remaining himself, which was striving always to be excellent at whatever task he performed or challenge he faced. He was by no means perfect. We had our clashes and ups and downs, but he was there for me and all of his children, and he touched many lives and left an example of hard work, good character, and loyalty to his family and friends.
Below is PAT HARVEY’S Father’s Day Tribute to my Dad from 5 /17 /13:
GOOD JOB.AND WELL DESERVED!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! You need to know this too about your dad! When MY son (who is now 36!!) was only 3 years old…Mr. Day became his “riding buddy” up and down the street (HIS house on Melville) was Baron’s LIMIT!!! “Not passed Mr. Day’s house” was my daily mantra!! WELL Mr. Day became his “best friend” as they sat and “talked” and carried on their “breaks”. Him on his bike and Baron on his BIGWHEEL!!! (I’ll never know how Mr. Day had the PATIENCE to ride slowly and “hang” with my little boy:) Well one day he came in the store looking SO EXCITED and happy while “his buddy” sat outside on his big bike waiting for him to come back out after telling ME THAT THEY WENT ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BLOCK TOGETHER!!! I looked outside at Mr. Day and they BOTH LOOKED THE SAME AGE…like “sheepish little boys”!!! WHAT COULD I SAY? Only that he could ONLY DO THAT WITH MR. DAY!!!:) THAT was the beginning of my little boy’s road to becoming a man!! Years later he would tell me about ALL THE ADVICE he received FROM YOUR DAD REGARDING EDUCATION and becoming a MAN!!!! I can close my eyes and “see” Mr. Day sitting outside in front of the store on his bike patiently ….waiting for Baron to come join him on their excursions “all the way around the block” When Baron went to Head Start out at the center Mr. Day would ask him about his homework and what he had learned that day etc….by NOW they had advanced to riding out in the park etc.!!! I will never EVER forget Mr. John Day…he was a REAL MAN to his own AND to MY (AND I’m sure…other) young MEN!!! You all were SOOOOO VERY FORTUNATE to have grown up and be nurtured by REAL MEN IN NEWADDITION. INDIANA!!!! RIP Mr. Day and THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!! WEEEE will NEVER FORGET YOU!!!
My Father, my Uncle, and my Great-Uncle
John Wesley Day and his sister Julia Kimber
John Wesley Day with the Head Administrator of St. Catherines Hospital
Many people reacted and responded to this urgent prayer request.
Below is Donald Harrison’s personal thank-you post to the hundreds who answered his plea for prayers. This is the type of human engagement that is possible when social media operates as an agent of community building and an instrument of human compassion.
Donald Harrison wrote:
“From the bottom of my heart I thank everyone. I know I was kept here by the wellspring of positivity, chants, and prayers. I love all of you more than you will ever know. I believe this is a moment of confirmation that all of us were heard.
“It shows together, our voices are listened to by a higher power. I must also take a moment to say I am blessed to have my wife Mary, she stopped everything to make sure I am ok.
“When I overheard the doctors saying I had 99 percent blockage of a main artery in my heart it made realize I was right to feel I was in a moment of life and death. They told me I had a massive heart attack the day after surgery.
“The day I went into the hospital I was in unimaginable pain. The ambulance drivers and the hospital staff made a series of great moves which saved me. Even though I knew my life was in the balance the love I was covered in, and the outpouring of immediate hope to keep me on this side gave me a sense of peace.
“In the ambulance they started me on intravenous medicine, and continued at the hospital. They took me from critical to stable condition overnight. The next day the operation was done through my arteries to my heart. When it was over I had blood flowing through my heart again. They let me see the video of the before and after.
“My eyes are opened to a new day of less is more. I hope I can keep going and continue to give back what was given to me.
“Like most jazz artists I have had the hardest of time trying to keep a band going. We have to fight every inch of the way for minuscule positive movement. Our love of the music keeps us strong at the helm. I dedicated my life to making it better for the whole of music, and worked to teach young people what the masters of every generation of jazz artists taught me. I fought to show young artist how I use foundational elements to move music from that perspective. I am elated to say most of them liked my idea and keep it going their way.
“Nouveau Swing is truly an underground revolution that most don’t know is happening. My goal of keeping knowledge of the foundation alive shall continue. I fought to prepare young people to get scholarships to colleges they could not afford, and to get them ready for any musical opportunity they wanted to pursue was successful beyond anything I imagined. I think it is because I knew intrinsically I needed to have the skills to do everything I loved. Please know I will continue on the same quest, but take it a little at a time now. If we all help each other think of the enormous strides we will make toward a better day. Peace, and Love, Donald”
When I read this powerful post, I replied with this affirmation to Donald:
Your powerful testimony and gifts of communication musically and verbally affirm a deep love of life and of people and of all that is truly creative and human. I join others in being personally deeply moved and pleased that you’ve made it through. Small wonder that you are proclaimed the Chief of Congo Square in Afro-New Orleans Culture. It seems your call for prayers are indeed being heard. We will continue to pray for your complete recovery.
A new epoch in American Art and Culture emerges with Terrance Blanchard being named the new Artistic Director of SFJAZZ! New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC), under direction of Wynton Marsalis, and the Bay area’s San Francisco Jazz Collective (SFJAZZ) are the epicenter of Jazz music globally.
Blanchard, a native New Orleanean, has been nominated for two Academy Awards for composing the scores for Spike Lee’s films BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He has won five Grammy Awards from fourteen nominations.
With this rapid ascension of Jazz well into the 21st century, America’s cultural production of new and reimagined Jazz compositions continues affirmation of Antonin Dvorak’s 20th-century observation. Dvorak firmly believed that America’s original cultural contribution to Western civilization lay fundamentally in the original music of Black and Indigenous Americans.
“Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) observed that Black music would be the foundation of a ‘great and noble’ school of American classical music. Dvorak lived in the United States from 1892 to 1895, recruited to help create a national music conservatory in New York. As he had done at home in Bohemia, he went in search of homegrown music. He quickly concluded that in America, homegrown meant music created by Black and Indigenous people.” (Source Washington Post 12/08/2,)
It remains to be seen what creative outgrowth is derived from possible future collaborations between East and West strains of the nation’s two most formidable institutions. JALC and SFJAZZ are charged with advancing the highest standards of American cultural production and will no doubt continue their traditions of excellence with verve and great expectation. As for Antonin Dvorak, his prophetic voice today still “rings from sea to shining sea.”
Dennis Llewellyn Day 