Uncovering Our History Through The Relics Left Behind
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Music
I was perusing the catalog at Swann Auction Galleries recently when I came across a photo of Duke Ellington and his band, all handsome and stylishly dressed in heavy overcoats on what was apparently a cold…
Posted in Black history, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
I was looking through the catalog at the African American manuscript auction when Spike Lee came through the door. There were so many goodies wrapped up in so much history that I had kept my…
“Ain’t I A Woman?” I always think of that Sojourner Truth plea every time I see Royal Doulton female figurines at auction. They are so lovely in their bone-china skin, beautifully painted gowns and their elegant…
Posted in Movies
It’s been 30 years since John Belushi was found dead from a drug overdose at a hotel on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Belushi was one of those crazily natural comedians – whether playing…
I got my first credit card when I was in graduate school in the 1970s. I was a student at Ohio State University on a fellowship and had enough money to warrant a card. It…
Wow, I thought as I saw the dusty stone African figures on the auction website. It was déjà vu, because I had seen an exact piece like it at another auction a week ago. It…
It was a room full of black folks with, I’m sure, one collective thought: These white men looking down on us from their gold-framed pictures must be turning over in their graves. Not turning over just…
Posted in Art
The disappointment in my friend’s Valorie’s voice was palpable. She had missed the amazing oil painting of a guitar player by an African American artist named Samuel Countee. It was hanging on a wall near…
Posted in Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and Health & Medicine
The couple who bought the house some 15 years ago had left the fourth floor intact. Now, they needed the space for their family, and had called in the auction house to dismantle the clinic…
