A00029 - Hemsley Winfield, Founder of the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group

Hemsley Winfield (April 20, 1907 – January 15, 1934) was an African-American dancer who created the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group.

He was born Osborne Hemsley Winfield to a middle-class, African-American family in Yonkers, New York. Winfield struggled in Yonkers as jobs available to African-Americans remained menial. Contrary to the natural inclination of the residents of Yonkers at that time, Winfield pursued a career in the Arts, developing a strong background as an actor, director, stage technician, dancer and eventually a choreographer. With combination of Winfield's middle-class ambition as well as the growing cultural movement of the African-Americans at that time, Winfield was able to achieve acclaim by the Art world. Winfield first won his fame in the leading role of Oscar Wilde's Salome,  which he won acclaim to in 1929. Winfield came upon the role as Salome when the female lead of the company fell ill, causing Winfield to dress in drag as the show was staged at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village, New York. Winfield, during this time, continued to attend concerts by the great trailblazers of modern dance, who later served as an influence and sponsor for his choreographic work.

As part of the “Little Theater movement” Winfield started and directed the Sekondi Players of Yonkers in 1925.  Taking words from the Negro’s African heritage Sekondi is the name of a city that is located on the south west coast of Ghana. In November of 1927 Winfield and the Sekondi Players were performing a children’s play, The Princess and the Cat, written by his mother, Jeroline Hemsley Winfield. This inaugural opening of children’s plays was under his direction of The New Negro Art Theater. This is the first reference to the New Negro Art Theater group that Winfield directed during the rest of his acting and dance career. On March 6, 1931, at the Saunders Trade School the dance company gave its first performance. Winfield served as the head organizer and director of the company. The first name of the dance company was The Bronze Ballet Plastique, which lasted only one performance. Edna Guy was trained by Ruth St. Denis of the Denis-Shawn School of Dance, and performed as a guest in at least two of Winfield's concerts which soon grew to draw massive crowds. Edna Guy was never a member of the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group, the leading female dancers of the company were Ollie Burgoyne, Drusela Drew, and Midgie Lane. Winfield's choreographic work during this time fused uniquely German Expressionism with African-American themes and spirituals. 

In 1933, the company appeared in the premier of Louis Gruenberg's opera The Emperor Jones at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Winfield took on the role of the Congo witch doctor in the piece. His first performance as the Witch Doctor was listed as January 7, 1933 and his last performance was March 18, 1933 Winfield also danced the role of the Witch Doctor in the performances in Philadelphia and Baltimore that year. Controversy around the work resulted from the Met's original request to blacken White dancers' faces rather than use Black dancers, but Tibbett threatened to quit, and the Met relented. His final performance of the 1933 season was reviewed as “a thrilling exhibition of savage dancing” and “his sinister and frantic caperings as the Witch Doctor made even the most sluggish, opera-infected blood run cold.”

On January 15, 1934, Hemsley Winfield died of pneumonia shortly before his 27th birthday, leaving with the final words, "We're building a foundation that will make people take black dance seriously". Hemsley Winfield was considered “the pioneer in Negro concert dancing."

Winfield choreographed and performed with his own company in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Louis Gruenberg's The Emperor Jones. This was a one-time exception to the rules - management did not list the dancers in the program.  The next African American dancer would not appear with the company until 1951. Winfield's mother was a playwright, and he made his debut in one of her plays, Wade in the Water (1926).  He became a dancer and a pioneer in African American concert dance, organizing the Negro Art Theater Dance Group. This group gave its first concert on April 29, 1931, and appeared in Hall Johnson's Run Little Chillun in 1933. 

A00028 - Everett Parker, Won Landmark Case Over Media Racial Bias

Everett Carlton Parker (b. January 17, 1913, Chicago, Illinois – September 17, 2015, White Plains, New York) was a media activist and reverend.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Parker attended the University of Chicago. Upon graduation in 1935, he spent a year with the Works Progress Administration, then another with the radio station WJBW. After returning to his hometown for a job as an advertiser, Parker enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary, earning a doctorate in 1943. He re-entered the media world with a stint at NBC in New York, then taught a Yale Divinity School from 1945 to 1957. He was the Director of the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ from 1954 to 1983.

He filed a successful petition to deny licensing renewal of television station WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. The station had a poor record with regards to civil rights for African Americans. 

A00027 - Bill Pickett, Rodeo and Wild West Performer

Bill Pickett,  (b. December 5, 1870?, Williamson County, Texas — d. April 2, 1932, Tulsa, Oklahoma), American rodeo cowboy who introduced bulldogging, a modern rodeo event that involves wrestling a running steer to the ground.

Pickett was descended from American Indians (Cherokees) and African American slaves in the Southwest. He grew up in West Texas, learning to ride and rope as a boy, and became a ranch hand; he performed simple trick rides in town on the weekends. In 1900, he became a showman, sponsored by Lee Moore, a Texas rodeo entrepreneur. In 1907, Pickett signed with the 101 Ranch Wild West Show, becoming one of its star performers and assuming the status of a legendary figure for his masterful handling of both wild and domestic animals. For bulldogging, or steer wrestling, he perfected a technique of jumping from his horse, grabbing the steer around the neck or horns, sinking his teeth into the animal’s lip, and pulling it to the ground. Pickett’s most-grueling performance came in 1908 in a bullring in Mexico City. He there wrestled and rode a Mexican fighting bull for seven minutes before a riotous audience enraged at this original interpretation of the Mexican national pastime of bullfighting.

Pickett performed until about 1916, working as a cowhand and rancher thereafter. He later appeared in the silent films The Bull-Dogger (1921) and The Crimson Skull (1922). He died after being kicked by a horse in April 1932.