A00083 - Archie Alleyne, African Canadian Jazz Musician

Archie Alleyne (January 7, 1933 – June 8, 2015) was a Canadian jazz drummer. Best known as a drummer for influential jazz musicians such as Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, he was also prominent as a recording artist on his own and with Canadian jazz musicians such as Oliver Jones, Cy McLean and Brian Browne. 

Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Alleyne became the house drummer at the Town Tavern jazz club in his 20s.

Involved in a serious car accident in 1967, he stepped away from music for a number of years, becoming a partner in a soul food restaurant in Toronto. He returned to music in the early 1980s with Jones' band.

In later life,, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, established the Archie Alleyne Scholarship Fund to provide bursaries to music students, and wrote Colour Me Jazz: The Archie Alleyne Story, an autobiography.

A00082 - Louis Stokes, Ohio's First African American Congressperson

Louis Stokes (February 23, 1925 – August 18, 2015) was an attorney and politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He served 15 terms in the United States House of Representatives  – representing the east side of Cleveland – and was the first African American congressman elected in the state of Ohio.

Born in Cleveland, Stokes and his brother Carl B. Stokes lived in one of the first federally funded housing projects, the Outhwaite Homes. Louis attended Central High School. Stokes served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. After attending Western Reserve University and Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Stokes began practicing law in Cleveland in 1953.

Stokes argued the seminal "stop and frisk" case of Terry v. Ohio before the United States Supreme Court in 1968. Later, in 1968, he was elected to the House, representing the 21st District of Ohio on Cleveland's East Side. He shifted to the newly created 11th District, covering much of the same area following a 1992 redistricting. Stokes served 30 years in total, retiring in 1999.

Stokes' tenure in the House of Representatives included service on the House Appropriations Committee, where he was influential in bringing revenue to Cleveland. He was particularly interested in veterans' issues and secured funds for health-care facilities for veterans in Cleveland. In the 1970s, Stokes served as Chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, charged with investigating the murders of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Stokes also served on the House committee that investigated the Iran-Contra Affair. 

Stokes' brother, Carl B. Stokes, was the first African American mayor of a large American city. His daughter, Angela Stokes, became a Cleveland Municipal Court judge while another, Lori Stokes, became a journalist with WABC-TV New York. His son, Chuck Stokes, also became a journalist with WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Funk and soul musician Rick James was a cousin.

Stokes and his wife, Jay, have seven grandchildren. He is also a Prince Hall Freemason, and a member of the Cleveland Alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

Stokes retired in 2012 as Senior Counsel in the law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, with offices in Cleveland and Washington. 

Stokes died on August 18, 2015 at his home in Cleveland from lung and brain cancer at the age of 90.

The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority,  located in Cleveland, Ohio, opened the Louis Stokes Museum on September 13, 2007. This Museum houses Stokes memorabilia, video interviews, misc. video footage, awards and a written history about Stokes and his rise to prominence. The museum is located at Outhwaite Homes, 4302 Quincy Avenue. 

From 2006 to 2008, the Western Reserve Historical Society opened an exhibition on the lives of Congressman Stokes and his brother titled "Carl and Louis Stokes: From the Projects to Politics". The exhibit uses photographs, manuscript collections, and personal items to showcase Louis Stokes' rise from the Outhwaite homes, his legal career, and his Congressional service.

The former Congressman was inducted into the Karamu House Hall of Fame in 2007 for his contributions to the continued legacy of Cleveland's African American settlement house and theatre.

Many buildings throughout the country have been named in Stokes honor including: Howard University's medical library, the Cleveland Public Library's main building expansion, GCRTA's Windermere station Louis Stokes Station at Windemere, and the greater Cleveland area Veteran's hospital was renamed the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center.

A00081 - Tony Gleaton, Photographer of African Mexican Legacy

Tony Gleaton (b. August 4, 1948, Detroit, Michigan - d. August 14, 2015, Palo Alto, California) was an African American photographer, scholar, and artist who is best known for his photographic images capturing and documenting the African influence in the American West and Central and South America. Gleaton, the youngest son of an elementary school teacher and police officer, was born into a black middle-class family on August 4, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan.  His father, Leo, was a police officer; his mother, the former Geraldine Woodson, taught school. In 1959, his mother left his father and moved the family to California. Gleaton played football in high school and briefly at East Los Angeles Junior College before joining the United States Marine Corps in 1967. While on his first tour of duty in Vietnam, he became fascinated with the camera. 

After serving in the Marine Corps until 1970, Gleaton returned to California and enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While there, he took a photography class that revealed his talent for shooting photos. He left UCLA without getting a degree and studied for a semester at the Arts Center School of Design in Los Angeles before venturing to New York to pursue his aspirations of becoming a fashion photographer. Gleaton worked as a photographic assistant and performed other various jobs through the 1970s.

Dissatisfied with the fashion world, Gleaton left New York in 1980 and hitchhiked throughout the American West, photographing cowboys first in northeastern Nevada and then in Texas. He captured the lives of Native American ranch hands and black rodeo riders. His photographic ventures in Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Kansas formed the essence of his project titled Cowboys: Reconstructing an American Myth. This collection featured a series of portraits of African, Native, Mexican and European American cowboys.

Gleaton’s interest in the multicultural Southwest influenced his travels to Mexico. By 1981 he had begun traveling to and from Mexico, shooting photographs. In 1982 he moved to Mexico City, and from 1986 to 1992, he resided with the Tarahumara Indians in northern Mexico and then moved to Guerrero and Oaxaca. Here, Gleaton began what is now his most famous project, Tengo Casi 500 Años: Africa’s Legacy in Mexico, Central & South America. Gleaton photographed the present-day descendants of African slaves brought to the region by Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.  

Africa’s Legacy gained international recognition. In 1993 the collection was placed on exhibit by the Smithsonian Museum and toured throughout Mexico and Cuba with the sponsorship of the Mexican National Council of Art. By 1996 Gleaton had expanded his project to include Central and South America, eventually traveling over fifty thousand miles with stops in sixteen countries between 1993 and 2002.

In 2002 Gleaton became a visiting professor of photography at Texas Tech University.  That same year, he finished a Master’s in Art at Bard College. In 2004 Gleaton became a scholar in residence for the Texas Tech Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library in Lubbock, Texas. The collection houses the Tony Gleaton Archive.  

A big man — he was well over 6 feet tall and weighed more than 300 pounds — Gleaton was known as a charmer, especially with his subjects and with students of photography. He was divorced three times before he married Lisa Ellerbee, a teacher, in 2005. She was his only immediate survivor. They lived in San Mateo, Calif.

Gleaton, who was light-skinned with green eyes, said he often had to explain to people that both his parents were black and that he was not biracial, and that the preconceptions people had of him found their way into his work.

Tony Gleaton died on August 14, 2015, in Palo Alto, California.  His only immediate survivor was his wife, Lisa Gleaton.

A00080 - Jean Alfred, Haitian Canadian Politician

Jean Alfred (March 10, 1940–July 20, 2015) was a politician in Quebec, Canada. He was a member of the National Assembly of Quebec  as a member of the Parti Quebecois from 1976 to 1981.

Alfred was born in Ouanaminthe, Haiti,to Oracius Alfred and Prunelie Occean. He completed his college studies and some university courses at Port-au-Prince before moving to Ottawa where he obtained a degree in philosophy from the University of Ottawa. He also received a master's degree in psycho-pedagogy as well as a doctorate in education.

Prior to his entry into politics, he taught for several years in Haiti and in the Outaouais region. He taught again after his political career and was a school board commissioner for the Commission Scolaire des Draveurs. 

In 1975, he was elected as a councillor for the city of Gatineau and later entered provincial politics where he was elected in Papineau as a Parti Québécois candidate, becoming the first Black person to be elected to the National Assembly o Quebec. He served a full term as a PQ and Independent member but was defeated in the newly formed riding of Chapleau which portions were split from Gatineau and Papineau. He was a candidate again in 1989, but lost to the Liberal, John Kehoe. He made a brief attempt at federal politics but failed to become a Bloc Quebecois prior to the 1997 elections. 

A00079 - Julian Bond, Charismatic Civil Rights Leader

Julian Bond, in full Horace Julian Bond   (b. January 14, 1940, Nashville, Tennessee - August 15, 2015, Fort Walton Beach, Florida), legislator and civil rights leader, best known for his fight to take his duly elected seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. 

The son of prominent educators, Bond attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he helped found a civil rights group and led a sit-in movement intended to desegregate Atlanta lunch counters. In 1960 he joined in creating the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and he later served as communications director for the group. In 1965 he won a seat in the Georgia state legislature, but his endorsement of a SNCC statement accusing the United States of violating international law in Vietnam prompted the legislature to refuse to admit him. The voters in his district twice re-elected him, but the legislature barred him each time. Finally, in December 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled the exclusion unconstitutional, and Bond was sworn in on January 9, 1967.

At the Democratic National Convention in 1968, Bond led an insurgent group of delegates that won half of Georgia’s seats. He seconded the nomination of Eugene McCarthy and became the first African American man to have his name placed in nomination for the vice presidential candidacy of a major party. Younger than the minimum age required for the position under the Constitution, however, Bond withdrew his name.

Bond served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1967 to 1975 and in the Georgia Senate from 1975 to 1987. In 1986 he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives against his fellow civil rights activist, John Lewis. 

In addition to his legislative activities, Bond served as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and as executive chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  Bond became the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971. He served until 1979, remaining a board member and president emeritus for the rest of his life.

In 1998, Bond was selected as chairman of the NAACP. In November 2008, he announced that he would not seek another term as chairman. Bond agreed to stay on in the position through 2009, as the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary. Roslyn M. Brock was chosen as Bond's successor on February 20, 2010.

A00078 - Lincoln Alexander, First African Canadian Member of Parliament

Lincoln MacCauley Alexander (January 21, 1922, Toronto, Ontario, Canada – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian politician and statesman who served as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, the federal Minister of Labour, and later as the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, from 1985 to 1991. Alexander was also a governor of the Canadian Unity Council.

Alexander was born in a row house on Draper Street in Toronto, Ontario, to Mae Rose, who migrated from Jamaica, and Lincoln Alexander, Sr., a porter on the Canadian Pacific Railway who came to Canada from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Alexander went to Earl Grey Public and Riverdale Collegiate.  As a teen Alexander moved to Harlem with his older half-brother Ridley and his mother after she was the victim of a violent altercation with his father. In New York he went to DeWitt Clinton High School, but returned to Canada in 1939. He first distinguished himself in service to Canada in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. After the war, Alexander completed his studies at Hamilton Central Collegiate and then to McMaster University in 1946 to study economics and history. Alexander graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 1953. He then practiced law in Hamilton with the firms Okuloski & Okuloski; Duncan & Alexander; and Millar, Alexander, Tokiwa & Issacs.

In 1968, Alexander ran in the Canadian federal election as the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada candidate in the Hamilton West electoral district.  He won, becoming Canada's first Member of Parliament of African descent.He held the seat through four successive elections until stepping down in 1980.

While in office, he spoke to the press about then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's alleged profanity in the fuddle duddle incident and was an observer to the United Nations in 1976 and 1978. In the brief government headed by Joe Clark from 1979 to 1980, Alexander served as Minister of Labour. He resigned his seat in 1980 to serve as chairman of the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board. 

In 1985, on the advice of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Governor Jeanne Sauve appointed Alexander as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. He became the first person of African descent to serve in a viceregal position in Canada. (James Douglas, who was of mixed descent, was Governor of Vancouver Island and of British Columbia prior to Canadian Confederation when these were British colonies with no connection to the Canadas.) During his appointment, he focused attention on education, racism and youth issues.

In 1992, Alexander was appointed to the Order of Ontario. He also became a Companion of the Order of Canada.  From 1991 to 2007, he served as Chancellor of the University of Guelph.  His term exceeded that of any of his predecessors, and he assumed the office of Chancellor Emeritus.

In 2000, Alexander was named Chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, where he remained an active spokesman on race relations and veterans' issues. Until the time of his death, he was the Honorary Patron of the Hamilton, Ontario branch of St. John Ambulance, as well as Honorary Chief of the Hamilton Police Service. 

In November 2006, his autobiography Go to School, You're a Little Black Boy: The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander: A Memoir was published.

Alexander died in his sleep on the morning of October 19, 2012, at the age of 90. The national and provincial flags outside the Ontario Legislative Building were flown at half-mast and tributes were given by various viceroys and politicians. His body lay in state, first inside the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park, followed by Hamilton City Hall. He was survived by his second-wife Marni Beal and by his son Keith Lincoln Alexander (from his marriage to his first wife Yvonne Harrison (predeceased in 1999)) and by his daughter-in-law Joyce Alexander and grandchildren Erika and Marissa Alexander.

Alexander was accorded a state funeral with the co-operation of thousands of officials, both Provincial and Federal, and Police Services across Canada. The Province of Ontario proclaimed January 21. as Lincoln Alexander Day in Ontario. It became law in December 2013. As of December 3, 2014, Lincoln Alexander Day January 21, Lincoln's birthday, is now recognized officially as Lincoln Alexander Day across Canada, with Royal Assent by the Governor General December 9, 2014.

A00077 - Johnny Laboriel, Afro-Mexican Rock and Roll Singer

Johnny Laboriel (born Juan José Laboriel López, July 9, 1942 – September 18, 2013) was a Mexican rock and roll singer. His career started in 1958, when at 16 years old he joined the rock and roll group "Los Rebeldes del Rock". 

Laboriel died on September 18, 2013 from prostate cancer. 

Laboriel was the son of actor and composer Juan Jose Laboriel and actress Francisca Lopez de Laboriel. His parents were Honduran immigrants to Mexico from the Garifuna coast. He was the brother of bassist Abraham Laboriel and singer Ela Laboriel. 

In 2004, Laboriel was invited by Alex Lora to participate in the 36th anniversary of his band El Tri. The concert was presented at the Auditorio Nacional and was made into a CD and a DVD entitled 35 Años y lo que falta todavía

In 2006, Johnny Laboriel was invited by Luis Álvarez "El Haragán" to participate in the 16th anniversary of his band, El Haragán y Compañía. The concert was presented on November 3, 2006, also at Mexico City's Teatro Metropolitan. 

Johnny Laboriel died on 18 September 2013, in Mexico City, from prostate cancer. He was survived by his wife Viviane Thirion, and sons Juan Francisco and Emmanuel.

A00076 - Chenjerai Hove, Chronicler of Zimbabwe's Struggles

Chenjerai Hove (b. February 9, 1956 – d. July 12, 2015), was a Zimbabwean poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both English and Shona. 

Chenjerai Hove was born on February 9, 1956, in Mazvihwa, Rhodesia. His father was a local chief with many wives and dozens of children. The younger Mr. Hove attended Roman Catholic schools run by the Marist brothers and, after graduating from a teacher training college, taught literature in rural high schools. He studied for degrees in language and literature at the University of Zimbabwe and then, in the 1980s, was a literary editor at Mambo Press and Zimbabwe Publishing House.

“Up in Arms” (1982), his first book of poetry, depicted in taut, lyrical verse the emotional devastation wrought by the independence struggle. “These poems ring with the self-evident truth of one who had suffered and survived, one who has been there,” the Zimbabwean novelist Charles Mungoshi wrote in his introduction to the book.

“Red Hills of Home,” published in 1985, reflected Mr. Hove’s inner conflict over the brutality he witnessed while teaching in the countryside. In his 1998 collection, “Rainbows in the Dust,” he lamented the broken promises of the independence movement.

He turned to prose fiction in the mid-1980s, writing, in Shona, about the plight of Zimbabwean women in the novel “Masimba Avanhu?” (“Is This the People’s Power?”), published in 1986. He followed up on the success of “Bones” with “Shadows” (1991), a harrowing tale of two lovers coping with poverty and the violence of the bush war. In the fable-like “Ancestors,” he told the story of a young boy, growing up on the eve of independence, who is haunted in his dreams by ancestral female voices.

Mr. Hove also published two collections of political essays, “Shebeen Tales: Messages From Harare” (1994) and “Palaver Finish” (2002). Speaking last year on the BBC radio program “Focus on Africa,” he said that it was his responsibility “as a citizen, as an African, as a Zimbabwean” to take a critical look at his own country — “to look at our lives and at whether our leaders are enhancing our dignity or taking it away.”

Mr. Hove was a founder and board member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, and in 1984 he became the first president of the Zimbabwe Writers Union, a post he held until 1992. In addition to his wife, he is survived by six children and many siblings.

A00075 - Shirley Verrett, Opera Singer

Shirley Verrett, (b. May 31, 1931, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. November 5, 2010, Ann Arbor, Michigan), an opera singer who was a mezzo-soprano who had a regal onstage presence and a colorful vocal range, she was best known in the United States and Europe for her roles as Georges Bizet's fiery Carmen, as both Dido and Cassandra in Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens, and as Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore.  

Verrett studied  (1955) singing in Los Angeles before continuing her education at the Juilliard School, New York City.  She made her operatic debut in Ohio in 1957 in Benjamin Brittens The Rape of Lucretia.  Two years later she made her European debut in Cologne, Germany, where she portrayed the gypsy in Nicolas Nabokov's Rasputin's End.  Her first appearance at La Scala, in Milan, came in 1966, and she continued to perform there until 1984.  Italians dubbed her "La Nera Callas" ("The Black Callas").  By the late 1980s, however, her vocal quality was becoming inconsistent.  From 1996 to 2010, Verrett taught at the University of Michigan School of Music.  Her autobiography, I Never Walked Alone (written with Christopher Brooks), was published in 2003.