A00035 - Vincent Harding, Civil Rights Author and Speechwriter for Dr. King

Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American historian and a scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society.  A social activist as well, he was perhaps best known for his work with and writings about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom Harding knew personally. Besides having authored numerous books such as There Is A River and Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals, he served as co-chairperson of the social unity group Veterans of Hope Project and as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at Illiff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. 

Harding was born in Harlem, New York, and attended New York public schools, graduating from Morris High School in the Bronx in 1948. After finishing high school, he enrolled in the City College of New York, where he received a B.A. in History in 1952. The following year he graduated from Columbia University, where he earned an M.S. in Journalism. Harding served in the United States Army from 1953-1955. In 1956 he received an M.A. in History at the University of Chicago. In 1965 he received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, where he was advised by Martin E. Marty. 

In 1960, Harding and his wife, Rosemarie Freeney Harding, moved to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the Southern Freedom Movement (also known as the American civil rights movement) as representatives of the Mennonite Church. The Hardings co-founded Mennonite House, an interracial voluntary service center and Movement gathering place in Atlanta. The couple traveled throughout the South in the early 1960s working as reconcilers, counselors and participants in the Movement, assisting the anti-segregation campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Vincent Harding occasionally drafted speeches for Martin Luther King, including King's famous anti-Vietnam speech, "A Time to Break Silence" which King delivered on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City, exactly a year before he was assassinated.

Harding taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Temple University, Swarthmore College, and Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation. He was the first director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and of the Institute of the Black World, both located at Atlanta. He also became senior academic consultant for the PBS television series Eyes on the Prize.

Harding served as Chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project: A Center for the Study of Religion and Democratic Renewal, located at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.  Harding taught at Iliff as Professor of Religion and Social Transformation from 1981 to 2004.

A00034 - Herb Jeffries, "Bronze Buckaroo" of Song and Screen

Herbert "Herb" Jeffries, born Umberto Alexander Valentino (September 24, 1913 – May 25, 2014), was an American jazz and popular singer and actor. Herb Jeffries sang with Duke Ellington and starred in early black westerns as a singing cowboy known as “the Bronze Buckaroo” — a nickname that evoked his malleable racial identity. 

In the 1940s and 1950s Jeffries recorded for a number of labels, including RCA Victor, Exclusive, Coral, Decca, Bethlehem, Columbia, Mercury and Trend.  His album Jamaica, recorded by RKO, is a concept album of self-composed calypso songs.

Jeffries was born Umberto Alexander Valentino in Detroit to an Irish mother who ran a rooming house, and a father, whom he never knew, of mixed Sicilian, Ethiopian, French, Italian and Moorish roots, on September 24, 1913.  He once characterized himself in an interview as "three-eighths Negro", claiming pride in his racial heritage during a period when many other light-skinned black performers were attempting "to pass" as all-white in an effort to broaden their commercial appeal. In marked contrast, Jeffries used make-up to darken his skin—in order to pursue a career in jazz and to be seen as employable by the leading all-black musical ensembles of the day. Yet, much later in his career, Jeffries would assume the identify of a white citizen for economic or highly personal reasons.

A 2007 documentary short describes Jeffries as "assuming the identity of a man of color" early in his career.  He is shown in Black/White & All That Jazz explaining that he was inspired by New Orleans-born musician Louis Armstrong to say falsely, at a job interview in Chicago, that he was "a creole from Louisiana" when he was of Irish and Sicilian heritage, among other ethnic backgrounds.

In 2007, while assembling material for the producers of a documentary film about him (A Colored Life), Jeffries found his birth certificate; this reminded him that he actually was born in 1913 and that he had misrepresented his age after he left home to look for a job. His four marriages (including one to exotic dancer Tempest Storm) produced five children. He appeared at jazz festivals and events benefiting autism and other developmental problems and lectured at colleges and universities. He supported music education in schools. In June 2010, aged 96, Jeffries performed to raise funds for the Oceanside (California) Unified School District's music program, accompanied by the Big Band Jazz Hall of Fame Orchestra under the direction of clarinetist Tad Calcara. 

A jazz and popular singer, he starred as a singing cowboy in several all-black Western films, in which he sang his own western compositions. Jeffries obtained financing for the first black western film and hired Spencer Williams to appear with him. In addition to starring in the film, he sang and performed his own stunts as cowboy "Bob Blake". He began his career working with Erskine Tate and his Vendome Orchestra when he moved to Chicago from Detroit at the urging of Louis Armstrong. His break came during the 1933 Chicago World's Fair—Century of Progress Exposition singing with the Earl Hines Orchestra on Hines’ national broadcasts live from the Grand Terrace Cafe.  His first recordings were with Hines in 1934, including "Just to be in Carolina". He then recorded with Duke Ellington from 1940 to 1942. His recording of "Flamingo" (1940) with Ellington was a best seller in its day. He was replaced in the Ellington band by Al Hibbler in 1943. 

Playing a singing cowboy in low-budget films, Jeffries became known as the "Bronze Buckaroo" by his fans. In a time of American racial segregation, such "race movies" played mostly in theaters catering to African-American audiences. The films, now available on video, include Harlem on the Prairie, The Bronze Buckaroo, Harlem Rides the Range and Two-Gun Man from Harlem.  Jeffries went on to make other films, starring with Angie Dickinson in Calypso Joe (1957). He later directed and produced Mundo depravados, a cult film starring his wife, Tempest Storm. In 1968, Jeffries appeared in the long-running western TV series The Virginian playing a gunslinger who intimidated the town. At the age of 81, he recorded a Nashville album of songs on the Warner Western label in 1995 entitled The Bronze Buckaroo (Rides Again).

Jeffiries lived in Wichita, Kansas, and tur
ned 100 on September 24, 2013. He died of heart failure at a California hospital on May 25, 2014.

For his contributions to the motion-picture industry, Jeffries has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2004 he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  A restaurant in Idyllwild, Cafe Aroma, has a room named for him. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.

The filmography of Herb Jeffries includes the following:

• Harlem on the Prairie (1937)
• Two-Gun Man from Harlem (1938)
• Harlem Rides the Range (1939)
• The Bronze Buckaroo (1939)
• Calypso Joe (1957)
• Chrome and Hot Leather (1971)
• Portrait of a Hitman (1977)

The discography of Herb Jeffries includes the following:

• Sidney Bechet: "1940-1941" (Classics)
• Earl Hines: "1932-1934" (Classics)
• Duke Ellington: "The Blanton-Webster Band" (RCA, 1940–42)
• Michael Martin Murphrey: "Sagebrush Symphony"
• "Jamaica" (RKO Records ULP - 128) all songs composed by Jeffries
• "Passion" (Brunswick, BL 54028) Coral singles compiled on 12" LP
• "Say it Isn't So" (Bethlehem BCP 72) with the Russ Garcia Orchestra
• "Herb Jeffries" (Harmony HL 7048) Columbia singles LP
• "Magenta Moods" (Mercury 2589 10") LP transfer of Exclusive label album
• "Herb Jeffries Sings" (Mercury 2590 10") more Exclusive singles with the Buddy Baker Orchestra
• "Herb Jeffries and his Orchestra" (Mercury 2591 10") Exclusive label singles
• "Songs by Herb Jeffries" (Mercury 2592 10") Exclusive label singles
• "I Remember the Bing" (Dobre Records 1047)
• "Play and Sing the Duke" (Dobre Records 1053)
• "The King and Me" (Dobre Records 1059)

A00033 - Judith Cummings, First Black Woman to Head a National News Bureau for NYT

Judith Cummings (December 27, 1945, Detroit, Michigan - May 6, 2014, Detroit, Michigan) was the first black woman to head a national news bureau for The New York Times, serving as chief correspondent in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1988.

Cummings was born on December 27, 1945, in Detroit and attended Howard University, where she received her bachelor's degree in 1967.

In 1971, her career in journalism began after she was recruited by the Times in their minority training program. Prior to this, she was a speech writer for Clifford L. Alexander Jr., the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C.

From 1972 to 1979, Cummings was a general assignment reporter for the Times, where she covered crime and major events in New York City. Unsatisfied with the fact that Blacks and other minorities were pigeonholed into covering local beats, she joined others in filing a federal lawsuit against the paper for neglecting to promote journalists of color to cover national stories.

The Times agreed in a settlement to expand their minority hiring, training and promotional practices. Cummings became a correspondent for the Los Angeles area in September 1981 and became the bureau chief four years later.

In 1988, Cummings retired to care for her parents. 

000032 - Malik Bendjelloul, Oscar Winner for "Searching for Sugar Man"

Malik Bendjelloul (September 14, 1977 – May 13, 2014) was a Swedish Academy-Award-winning  documentary filmmaker, journalist and former child actor. He is best known for his 2012 documentary, Searching for Sugar Man, which won an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award.

000031 - Jimmy Ellis, Champion Boxer and Ali Contemporary

James Albert "Jimmy" Ellis (February 24, 1940 – May 6, 2014) was an American boxer from Louisville, Kentucky in what many call boxing's golden era. Fellow top heavyweights included Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Oscar Bonavena, George Chuvalo, Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, Buster Mathis, Cleveland Williams, and Earnie Shavers, among others.

Ellis held the WBA World Heavyweight Championship from 1968 to 1970. He was a skilled boxer with a good chin and much better punching power than many expected.

000030 - Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Boxer Wrongly Convicted of Murder

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American middleweight boxer who was wrongly convicted of murder and later freed via a petition of habeas corpus after spending almost 20 years in prison.

In 1966, police arrested both Carter and friend John Artis for a triple-homicide committed in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey.  Police stopped Carter's car and brought him and Artis, also in the car, to the scene of the crime. On searching the car, the police found ammunition that fit the weapons used in the murder.  Police took no fingerprints at the crime scene and lacked the facilities to conduct a paraffin test for gunshot residue. Carter and Artis were tried and convicted twice (1967 and 1976) for the murders, but after the second conviction was overturned in 1985, prosecutors chose not to try the case for a third time.

Carter's autobiography, titled The Sixteenth Round, was published in 1975 by Warner Books. The story inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" and the 1999 film The Hurricane (with Denzel Washington playing Carter). From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.