Dead, Not Forgotten

Marie Hicks made things happen for her community and her family.

Her fame for this trait had its genesis in an incident that occurred when she first visited the campus of Girard College. Her eldest son Junius Jr., was to receive a badge in a Boy Scout ceremony in front of Founders Hall.

The private boarding school was established in 1848 for white males who were orphaned or had lost their father. The school took in boys grades 1-12 at no cost to their family.

Though for years from the outside she had always thought that the place must be a prison, Marie Hicks looked at this 40 acre paradise in the middle of Philadelphia and she got mad. Her sons Charles and Theodore had lost their father, Junius Hicks Sr, to cancer in 1964. A decade before, the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision held that separate cannot be equal, and ordered schools to integrate to help achieve equality of the races. But still, black children could not get the educations they had been promised because states and their schools were not quick to comply with the decision. There were no black students at Girard College.

So in 1965 Marie Hicks became one of the leaders of a year-long protest outside the walls of Girard College. She led thousands of protesters, including Martin Luther King, until the gates opened and her son and others were admitted to the school. In September 1968, Theodore, then 9, and three other black students began classes at Girard. By this time Charles, then 12, was over the maximum age accepted. The school made an exception and Charles enrolled four months later.

Her efforts proved worthwhile for both the community and her family. Charles became the first black graduate of the school. In 1977 Theodore graduated as the school’s first African American valedictorian. The College now has 85% black students, and, 55% of the student body are female.

After securing her children’s primary education Marie eventually got a job as a maid at La Salle University. She attended night classes there and in 1980 earned a bachelors degree in sociology. She counseled homeless women at Mercy Hospice in Center City and worked for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. She retired 10 years ago.

Sometimes called the “Rosa Parks of Girard College,” Marie Hicks died in Germantown, PA on April 19, 2007 at age 83. She last visited the Girard campus when her funeral procession drove through the school and stopped in front of Founders Hall on the way to her final resting place.

For more information:
U.S. Government Archives

Popularity: 47%

Lilly Baker contributed greatly to preserving the art of Maidu basket weaving, and in doing so she has preserved so much more.

I first heard of the ConCow Maidu people from a TV documentary which in part described a shocking and shameful event when these original inhabitants of Northern California were deprived of their lands by the U.S. government and sequestered in a corral where many died from deprivation and disease. Now through the art of Lilly Baker I am pleased and saddened to learn more of the Maidu people. The abuse that they suffered at the hands of government and settlers alike is very hard to read about but I am happy to say that they survived and continue to contribute to our world.

A wonderful way that they have done so recently, and Lilly Baker was part of it, is through a pilot land management program in cooperation with the National Forest Service. Forest Service land in the area of the tribe’s original range are now being cared for by tribe members using traditional Maidu husbandry techniques that selectively trim or remove vegetation to encourage the health of the natural environment.

So what do you do with the trimmings? That’s right, you make baskets! Lilly taught her students that one must weave the energy of the plant materials into the baskets they made and collecting your materials yourself while you improve environmental health can only help to understand this.

Her family’s story of basket making was documented in a video produced by the Plumas County Museum called “Dancing with the Bears.”

Born July 6, 1911, Lilly Baker died at the Indian Valley Long-Term Care Facility in Greenville, CA on Monday, Nov. 2, 2006 at age 95.

Read the Plumas County News obituary

Learn more about the Maidu people

See Maidu baskets

Popularity: 32%

To U.S. school children of the 1950s and 60s, Sid Davis was the maestro of mirth control with his 180 films designed to influence students on issues of safety and social guidance.

Davis started his Hollywood career as a child extra, including stints on the “Our Gang” series. Soon he grew too tall, apparently by a long shot, as he eventually became John Wayne’s movie stand-in from 1941 to 1952. In fact, it was John Wayne who lent him the money to bankroll his production company, Sid Davis Productions. When Davis later wrote Wayne a $5,000 check in repayment, Wayne tore the check up telling him to put it back in the company.

With titles such as “The Dangerous Stranger” (1950), “Live and Learn” (1951), “What Made Sammy Speed?” (1957), and “The Dropout” (1962) it sounds to me that a Sid Davis Film Festival is in order.

Imagine seeing his hilarious 1961 release “Boys Beware” about the dangers of homosexuality. It includes the line “What Jimmy didn’t know was that Ralph was sick–a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious–a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.” The film ends with the line, “One never knows when a homosexual is about. He may appear normal and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill.”

Given their ability to rival “Reefer Madness” with inaccurate representations of perceived social ills, these are some films that the baby boomers just might want to see again!

Sid Davis died of lung cancer on October 16 2006 at age 90 in Palm Desert, California.

Popularity: 23%

Lawrence W. Levine saw cultural history in broader terms than those who saw culture from an intellectual, dominant culture point of view. Many, like Lynne Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Reagan (and our Vice President’s wife), still see culture in this way and feel that Levine bowed to political correctness. She told the New York Times in 1996 that Levine’s work was an example of “the left deliberately misconstruing the arguments of its opponents while offering no substantive evidence of its own.”

Instead of seeing cultural history as the culmination of a society’s intellectual achievements, Levine felt that when non-intellectual cultural elements were included in the mix that a greater sense of cultural history was achieved. Multiculturalism is the result.

Importantly, his work centered at times on the culture of black America, showing it to be a rich, diverse oral tradition including humor, music and folklore. His book, “Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought From Slavery to Freedom,” was published in 1977.

According to his wife, Levine’s scholarly interest in the history of disenfranchised, culturally marginalized groups came as a result of his participation in civil rights protests.

Lawrence W. Levine died of cancer 10/23/2006 at his Berkeley home. He was 73.

For more information:
http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-01/levine.html
http://tinyurl.com/2ajtbt

Popularity: 12%

On Monday October 23rd, 2006, the music world lost a great man who touched so many lives in so many surprising ways. Lee Hambro, a world class pianist, died from complications of a fall suffered six weeks ago.

The scope of music that his talent embraced is truly inspiring. I first encountered his name as a teenager exploring the music being made by synthesizers when he played piano on “Gershwin Alive & Well & Underground” with keyboard synthesizer artist Gershon Kingsley. Recorded in 1970, the album was not ground breaking but it did feed my appetite for all things synthesizer and my growing love of the music of Ira Gershwin.

Though unknown to me, music fans around the world did know Hambro well as the pianist for the New York Philharmonic orchestra starting in the late 1940s, and for performing as a soloist for the orchestras of Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, London and others. He also distinguished himself has a pianist for radio station WQXR in New York and through his performance duo with pianist Jascha Zayde. Hambro released nearly 100 records throughout his brilliant career. Music from the classics to the modern all received the respect and musicality that Lee possessed such a wealth of.

He also possessed a wonderful ability to take himself with a sense of humor; this was well illustrated in 1967 when he began a ten-year-long collaboration with Victor Borge, the Denmark-born musical comedian that entertained audiences by poking good fun at the “serious” music world. Borge was reported to say of Hambro, “I think as much of Leonid Hambro as I do of myself, but not quite so often.”

I met Leonid Hambro in August of 1973 when I began attending the California Institute of The Arts in Valencia, California as a music composition major. He was the head of the Piano Department and the Assistant Dean of the School of Music. Having arrived early to get established I was recommended to him to perform the flute part in a concert he was to give because none of the school’s flute students had yet arrived for the start of the school year. My first musical performance in California, this effort was the beginning of a friendship and mentorship which rewarded me deeply during my time at CalArts. Though I did not study in his department I always benefited from his support and encouragement as was well illustrated when I received an accelerated graduation from the composition program due in large part to his help and belief in my abilities.

Goodbye Lee, and thank you for everything.

See the New York Times obituary
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume7/v7i1/hambro-borge-7-1.html

Popularity: 23%