I didn’t know Mantan Moreland made so many movies, my old auction buddy Janet exclaimed. Neither did I. We had individually gone through items in an upcoming online auction and were marveling at how many…
Category: Performers
There was nothing extraordinary about the black and white photos on the auction table. They were snapshots of a circus before the arrival of crowds ready for an afternoon of entertainment. They were most effective…
Playbill for Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s 1939 ‘Hot Mikado’ show
Posted in Broadway plays, Performers, Photos, and theater
The cover of the theater program was a little off-putting, but the photo tucked inside was adorable. The cover showed a caricature of a male dancer with red lips and black face mimicking the look…
Pulling the strings on Disney’s Mickey & Minnie
Posted in Children, collectibles, Performers, and Toys
Mickey and Minnie had lost their luster. They lay inert in a case at the auction house like discarded playthings. Their clothes were tattered, their bodies were marred (Minnie had a chip on her nose),…
Black history through the comedic eyes of Amanda Seales
Posted in Black history, Music, and Performers
I’d never heard of Amanda Seales, but I was open to seeing her live game show called “Smart Funny & Black” at a theater in Philadelphia when a friend suggested it. The friend later sent me…
Picture Stories: Chubby Checkers at Krass Bros. men’s store, Philadelphia
Posted in Music, Performers, and Photos
The wonderful photos kept coming. For several weeks, black and white photos with a mix of people, events and celebrations turned up on the auction table. An auction-house staffer told me that a dealer brought them…
The face that stared out at me from the broadside put the man’s time as way before the 1960s. He had black wavy hair and a light skin tone that gave him an entry and cache that those…
The first time I saw Dick Gregory was during a speech he gave at Ohio State University where I was a graduate student in the 1970s. By then, he had given up his lean years as…
Jazz singer Ann Robinson’s photos at Village Vanguard
Posted in Music, and Performers
I didn’t recognize the singer in the stack of photos among many others in a half-cut cardboard box on the auction table. She seemed to be bellowing out some song with all her heart, and…
Betty Boop & a Harlem singer named Baby Esther
Posted in African American women, Black history, Figurines, Music, and Performers
I was surprised to see so many Betty Boop figurines at auction again. The week before, tons of them were spread out on more than a half-dozen tables at the same auction house but in another room.…