- Kimberley Guillemet
Charlotta Amanda Spears Bass was born on February 14, 1874, to Hiram and Kate Spears in either Sumter, South Carolina or Little Compton, Rhode Island. Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled in Pembroke College, a women's college which is now part of Brown University. When she was twenty years old she began working for the Providence Watchman, a local Black newspaper, and remained there for about ten years.
Bass later moved to Los Angeles, California and began working for $5 a week as an “office girl” at a newspaper that was then called The Eagle. The paper’s office was nestled on Central Avenue, the “Black belt of the city” as The Eagle described it — a neighborhood full of churches, clubs and Black-owned businesses, and home to the West Coast jazz scene.
When the editor John J. Neimore became ill, he asked Bass to take over the operations of the newspaper. Shortly after Neimore's death, Bass learned that "this Black-founded newspaper was owned by a white man, who offered his support only if [she] would become his 'sweetheart.'” Rather than take him up on his offer, Bass borrowed $50 from a local store owner to purchase the deed, becoming the first African-American woman to own and operate a newspaper in the United States. She renamed the newspaper The California Eagle due to increasing social and political issues in the region.
Early on, Bass hired an experienced editor from The Topeka Plaindealer, J.B. Bass, who served as the managing editor of the paper. He would soon become her husband. As joint publishers, they grew The California Eagle into the most widely circulated Black newspaper on the West Coast with a circulation of 60,000.
The newspaper served as a source of both information and inspiration for the Black community, which was often ignored or negatively portrayed by the predominantly white press. It illuminated Black life in a way that was not illuminated in other papers, covering issues such as housing rights, labor rights, voting rights, and police brutality. It is also credited as pioneering multiethnic politics through its advocacy of Asian-American and Mexican-American civil rights in the 1940s.
Bass entered politics in the 1940s, running for the Los Angeles City Council under the slogan “Don’t Fence Me In” — the title of a popular song of that era that she repurposed to condemn housing discrimination. She had been a longtime Republican, but voted for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, in 1936. She later denounced both parties for neglecting Black and women’s rights. She helped found the Independent Progressive Party of California in 1947, and pitched an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1950.
Bass sold the newspaper in 1951 and co-founded Sojourners for Truth and Justice, a Black women’s group. In 1952, Bass became the first African-American woman nominated for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party. She was the running mate of lawyer Vincent Hallinan and their bid was launched on a platform of “peace and prosperity.” Though Bass did not win, she made history.
Bass retired to what was then a Black resort town southeast of Los Angeles, Lake Elsinore. During her retirement years, she maintained a community library in her garage for the young people in her neighborhood. It was a continuation of her long fight to give all people opportunities and education.
Considering the sum of her career as she was completing her autobiography, Forty Years (1960), Bass wrote: “It has been a good life that I have had, though a very hard one, but I know the future will be even better. And as I think back I know that is the only kind of life: In serving one's fellow man one serves himself best …”
To learn more about Mrs. Bass’ tremendous life and legacy, please visit: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/obituaries/charlotta-bass-vice-president-overlooked.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotta_Bass, and https://laist.com/news/la-history/charlotta-bass-first-woman-of-color-to-run-for-us-vice-president. To view footage of Mrs. Bass, please visit: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/charlotta-spears-bass-first-black-woman-vp-nominee-epkd15/15441/.
- Kimberley Guillemet
Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. She was the daughter of William Fitzgerald and Temperance "Tempie" Henry. Her parents never married and her father left her mother shortly after she was born. She began her formal education at the age of six and was an outstanding student. Starting in third grade, she danced and performed for her peers on the way to school and at lunchtime.
In 1932, when Fitzgerald was fifteen, her mother died from injuries sustained in a car accident. Her stepfather took care of her until April 1933, at which point she moved to Harlem to live with her aunt. Fitzgerald soon began skipping school and her grades suffered. She worked as a lookout at a bordello and with a numbers runner. When the authorities caught up with her, she was placed in foster care and then a reformatory in New York.
During 1933 and 1934 she sang on the streets of Harlem, until she had her big break on November 21,1934, when she made her debut in one of the earliest Amateur Nights at the Apollo Theater and won first prize. She later said, "Once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from my audience. I knew I wanted to sing before people the rest of my life."
In January 1935, Fitzgerald won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. Although the program director, Chick Webb, was reluctant to sign her because she was a 'diamond in the rough’, he offered her the opportunity to test with the band when they played a dance at Yale University. Met with approval by both audiences and her fellow musicians, Fitzgerald was asked to join Webb's orchestra and gained acclaim as part of the group's performances at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom.
Throughout the ‘30s and ‘40s, Fitzgerald continued to win singing contests, work with bands, and record hit records. Her first million-seller, a novelty tune called "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," became a major hit on the radio and was also one of the biggest-selling records of the decade.
Despite her success, Fitzgerald faced discrimination as during that era, band singers were mostly blond, sophisticated and had mainstream physical features. Fitzgerald was often called “awkward and gawky” and in the words of one newspaper writer, "a big, light-colored gal." This superficial criticism notwithstanding, no one could dispute that Fitzgerald had impeccable timing and perfect pitch. In fact, band musicians would tune their instruments to her voice. Endlessly inventive, only on one record did she sing the same way twice. There was no sad edge to her voice — Ella Fitzgerald had listeners smiling by the second note.
Influenced by her work with Dizzy Gillespie'’s big band, she pioneered “scat” singing and incorporated it as a major part of her performance repertoire. While singing with Gillespie, Fitzgerald recalled, "I just tried to do [with my voice] what I heard the horns in the band doing."
She also began appearing on television variety shows. She quickly became a favorite and frequent guest on numerous programs, including "The Bing Crosby Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Frank Sinatra Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Tonight Show," "The Nat King Cole Show," "The Andy Willams Show" and "The Dean Martin Show."
Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman and many more. She performed at top venues all over the world and packed them to the hilt. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, made up of all ethnicities, all religions and all nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common - they all loved Ella Fitzgerald.
To learn more about Ms. Fitzgerald’s tremendous life and legacy, please visit:
http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/about/biography, https://www.npr.org/2010/03/29/125170386/ella-fitzgerald-americas-first-lady-of-song and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald. To view footage of Ms. Fitzgerald, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myRc-3oF1d0.
- Kimberley Guillemet
- Kimberley Baker Guillemet
Since my book, Black Prep, was published, I’ve received wonderful feedback and expressions of gratitude from readers who say that the book helped them or a loved one on their journey as they navigated elite spaces. In addition to the positive feedback, I’ve also gotten the question, “Why?” “Why would you write a book where you would expose yourself?” “Why were you so honest?” “Why would you disclose your vulnerabilities to the world?”
My answer is this: I believe with all my heart that when we are able to navigate difficult terrain successfully, we owe it to others to share with them the wisdom that we learned along the way. We must pay it forward. When we are blessed, we should be willing to be a blessing to others.
Despite the truth that no one walking this planet is perfect, we often see that people who are in positions of authority and power in our society are lauded as if they are. Their flaws are ignored. Their missteps are glossed over. Their mistakes are recast as victories. The world seeks to somehow justify the harm they cause and turn a blind eye to the pain that others have suffered at their hands.
As a person who has been able to achieve some measure of success in this world, I have to be honest that I did not get here by being perfect. In fact, I am nowhere near it. And I would be remiss if I pretended that I was because I would be perpetuating a lie that would only go to discourage other people who may see themselves in me and who may want to set out to achieve or surpass goals similar to mine. Who am I to masquerade as though I’ve made no missteps? What good would that do? If anything, it would promulgate the lie that people who have made mistakes are excluded from opportunity because of their imperfection.
Another reason why I choose to be so authentic is because I know that if I am not honest and forthcoming about the challenges I have had to face along my journey, I would place people under the false impression that I had not encountered any; that I had an unobstructed path to achievement. Who am I not to tell them the truth? And the truth is that everything won’t be easy. There will be hard days. Sometimes the hurdles will be enough to make you want to quit. All of those feelings are real and valid and should be acknowledged, but any person who experiences them should not take those feelings as a sign that they are incapable of achieving the goals they have set out to achieve. Being fully human does not mean one is not fully capable.
Image is based on perception; it is not reality.
The reality of my life is that I have chinks in my armor, scars from deep wounds, insecurities and flaws, but that all of that notwithstanding, I have been able to have a fruitful life. If by not concealing my flaws and mistakes, I can inspire some other imperfectly unique and textured human being to reach for their destiny, then I have accomplished something far greater than my own finite achievements ever could. I have planted a seed that will grow and live on after me.
