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Black audiences in the 1930 s and 1940 s shf -
porary refuge from their troubles in segregated the
aters showing films with escapist themes.
audience of African Americans
and I was right. The picture
enjoyed sensational box office.
The bhilling, read ‘Ralph Coo
per in The Duke is Tops, with
Lena Horne.”
In his autobiography, Coo
per also recalled:
Then a funny thing hap
pened. After we wrapped,
Lena had been engnfid to
perform a vocal inan MGM
musical that became an
African Americans in Augusta history
1892, Mauge Street Grammar
School founded
1892 - Mauge Street Grammar School
founded on April 1. Prior to its opening,
there were few public schools in Augusta
for blacks. Among its early faculty staff
were Prof. A.R. Johnson, principal, and
the Rev. Silas X. Floyd, assistant princi
pal. Ursula E. Collins was one of the first
teachers. All three eventually had Augus
ta schools named after them in the mod
ern era.
In 1899, the Mauge Street school burned
down. The students’ education was not
interrupted, however, because Lucy C.
Laney, whogo campus was just across the
enormous hit. Therewerea
total of 900 black theatres
in the U.S. then, and our
film played in about 600 of
them (at least 300 were
owned by competitors).
There were, at the same
time, some 35,000 movie
houses catering to white
audiences in the U.S. Once
that huge audience saw
Lena in the MGM musical,
she became a very hot Hol
lywood property. The Duke
- 1898, Dr. James E. Carter Sr ol e 0 en
- first licensed dentist
1898 - James E. Carter Sr. becomes the first
licensed dentist practicing in Augusta. He prac
ticed from an office on Broad Street on a lot now
occupied by the Ramada Plaza Hotel. The office
burned in a 1906 fire and Dr. Carter opened a new
officeat the intersection of Fifth and Broad streets.
1898, Pilgrim Life formed '
1898 - Pilgrim Benevolent Aid Association is
conceived at the Spring Hill Baptist Church in
Blythe, Ga. Solomon W. Walker, the Rev. Thomas
J. Hornsby, ThomasJ. Walker, Walter S. Hornsby,
and Dr. J.C. Collier collaborated on the project. It
A e # o ‘;{i::l'{*:g:\ a mfl:‘j
is Tops was reissued with a
change of title and new bill
ing: “Lena Horne in The
Bronze Venus with Ralph
Cooper.” There were no
credits on the saying
that Ralph m wrote
and directed the picture.
Other black filmmakers of the
time included Eddie Green and
William Alexander, who pro
duced Souls of Sin (1949) and
The Fight Never Ends(l947)with
Joe Louis, Ruby Dee and Will
iam Greaves. Years later
Alexander produced the Holly
wood film The Klansman, with
Richard Burton, Lee Marvin and
LolaFalana. Actor Greaveswent
on to an impressive career as the
director of such documentaries
as Still a Brother: Inside the
Negro Middle Class (1968) and
From These Roots (1974), a tour
de force look at figures of the
Harlem Renaissance.
Perhaps the most important
shift in the late 19305/1940s was
the goal of later race-movie pro
ducers, most of whom werewhite,
to make slick and glossy prod
ucts that resembled typical Hol
lywood fare: black Westerns,
musicals, mysteries,gangstersa
gas, melodramas, and crime sto
ries. Concentrating more on en
tertainment unencumbered by
weightymessagesaboutrace, the
new features nonetheless—sim
plybecauseoftheirblack casts—
did not entirely leave the race
issuebehind. Thusthenewstars,
whether it was Herbert Jeffrey
(also known as singer Herb
Jeffries) as a spiffy cowboy im
clothes and fancy silver spurs
and guns in The Bronze Bucka
roo (1938) or later such well
scrubbed figures as William
AUGUSTA FOCUS
Greaves and Shelia Guyse in
Miracle in Harlem (1948) or Se
pia Cinderella (1947), remained
indelible black middle-class he
roes and heroines, still promoted
as an ideal for the black masses.
But race movies were not free
of stereotypes. While lighter
blackscontinuedtoplaytheleads,
darker performers were some
times relegated to supporting
roles as comic figures, not too
different from thosein Hollywood
films.
Pepped up and faster-moving,
escapist and high-spirited, the
19305/1940s films also often fea
tured musical starsorintroduced
new personalities. Besides Lena
Horne, Dorothy Dandridge was
another performer who, before
becoming a Hollywood star in
such filmsas Bright Road (1953),
Carmen Jones (1954), and Porgy
and Bess (1959), proved a lovely
and fresh presence in such race
movies as Four Shall Die (1940)
and Ebony Parade (1947). The
Mills Brothers, Nat “King” Cole,
Juano Hernandez, Robert Earl
Jones (the father of James Earl
Jones), and jazz vocalist Helen
Humesall performedforthelater
race-movie cameras.
A number of other black Holly
wood performers, in need of a
break and a breath of fresh air
away from the major studios,
worked in race movies in which
they sometimes had a chance for
adifferent type of role. Clarence
Muse, Nina Mae McKinney,
Mantan Moreland, Bill
Beavers were launched as genu
ine stars in race movies with
roles tailor-made for them.
Moreland, best known for his
befuddled, scared-of-ghosts
chauffeur character Birming
ham Brownin the Charlie Chan
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FEBRUARY 18, 1999
series, starred in all-colored fea
tures that openly celebrated his
wide-eyed manic energy: he
had top billing in such movies
as Come On, Cowboy! (1948)
and She’s Too Mean For Me
(1948). Mantan Messes Up and
Mantan Runs for Mayor (both
1946) were star vehicles devel
oped around him. His success
in the race-movie market indi
cates that African-American
audiences were willing to ac
cept Moreland in an all-black
cultural context in which his
daffy coon antics were viewed,
not as some definitive state
ment on the black experience;
instead, he was simply an
oddball funnyman in a world
full of other black images. The
same held true for Stepin
Fetchit, who, after his Holly
wood heyday, appeared in such
race movies as Miracle in
Harlem (1948) and Big Timers
91945), playing the same type
of dimwitted character. But no
one seemed to mind.
The later race movies also
made a place for a figure Holly
wood seemed to have no use for
at all: the unabashed, un
changeable, raunchy or rowdy
“chitlin circuit” ethnicstar who
wasn’t about to clean up his or
her act (to tone down cultural
differences or smooth out rough
ethnic edges) to please a large
white audience. Thus Jackie
“Mom’s Mabley, Dusty “Open
the Door, Richard” Fletcher,
Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham,
and the great rhythm-and
bluesstar Louis Jordan did star
spins in such films as Killer
Diller (1948), Boarding House
Blues (1948), Fight That Ghost
(1946), and Look Out Sister
(1946).
Dent's Undertaking
Establishment founded
1888 - Dent’s Undertak
ing [Establishment is
founded.
It is the first black-owned
funeral businessin Augusta,
Dent’s Undertaking Estab
lishment was founded by
John and Julia Dent in a
wooden building on the cor
ner of Ninth and Barnes
streets. In 1900, the couple
moved their business to its
present location at 930
D’Antignac St.
7D