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Before Oprah was even on TV, Diana Ross was in the pages of EBONY.  In 1965, she and the Supremes were the cover story of EBONY.  As Diana Ross the entertainer, and Diana the woman evolved EBONY followed her career and her life. Here are just some of the iconic JPC photos of Diana Ross.  As the February 1970 EBONY cover story concluded, “…the dam has broken and Diana is right there, ready to ride the crest of the flood: more poised and more secure, a perfectionist with immense drive and a kind of beauty which seems to have been enhanced, rather than diminished, by the passage of years.” So true, even today.

5 Things We Can Learn From Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo– survivor, lover, revolutionary. When broken she reinvented herself. Her body was her canvas that became a site of empowerment for all women. Born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón, Frida was a bonafide Cancer who loved to love and be loved. Tomorrow will mark the 57th anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s death. The defiantly beautiful Mexicana who created some 200 paintings and drawings during her lifetime would’ve turned 104 last Wednesday– her birthday and looking at her life I see there is so much we can all learn from the woman who famously proclaimed “I was born a bitch. I was born a painter.”

1.) Flaunt your unibrow! You don’t need Tyra Banks to declare that you are America’s Next Top Model in order to think of yourself as beautiful, fly and fierce! Frida created her own style that made her always look like a work of art. From her dresses to the flowers she wore in her hair to the beautiful Tehuana jewelry she rocked, Frida saw the supermodel in herself and took great care to extract and play-up every bit of her beauty—unibrow and all. So get your head out of Vogue, Cosmo and Essence and be your own fashion statement. Take your curves, your big eyes, your husky eyebrows, your short fro, your muffin-top and your dark mahogany skin and create your own positive image of beauty. To be sure, there is no greater runway than the runway of life.

2.) When life knocks you flat on your back, look up and paint the sky. In 1925, Frida was involved in a near-fatal bus accident. After the accident she was forced to stay at home, and at times she was bound to her bed and lay flat on her back, her body in a plaster cast, for weeks sometimes months at a time. Yet nothing, not even pain and immobility, kept Frida from working and seeking out her passions. Even towards the end of her life when she was extremely sick and had to have her leg amputated she bravely stated, “Feet, what do I need them for, if I have wings to fly?” Whether you are dealing with a health crisis, the end of a relationship or marriage, or you’re out of work and struggling to make ends meet, there is always a way to happiness. In her darkest moments Frida somehow knew how to conjure light. Let’s follow her lead and try to look-up.

3.) Live your truth! As popular as reality television has become, the more fake people seem to be. The irony, of course, is that reality shows are scripted and seem to thrive on conflict, superficiality and stereotypes. Frida’s paintings are often violent-looking, bloody, and severe. But they simply represented the truth of what was happening to her and how she felt. She wasn’t going around popping bottles of tequila and bragging about how fabulous she felt when in fact she was enduring a great deal of pain. Even about her marriage to a philandering Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo kept it real and shared this: “I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down. The other Diego.” How can we really be happy if we don’t confront our pain? How can we be totally confident if we don’t recognize our shortcomings? Stop fronting and try a little authenticity for a change. It goes a long way.

4.) Infertility does not make you less of a woman (or man). A very young Frida suffered serious injuries as a result of her accident, including a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, and eleven fractures in her right leg. Also, an iron handrail pierced her abdomen and her uterus, which seriously damaged her reproductive ability and caused her to have three miscarriages. Not being able to have a child was the cause of so much anguish for Frida yet she focused on life and creativity. She would probe the insides of flowers and fruit to examine the organs beneath the wounded flesh. “I paint flowers so they will not die,” she once said. By finding life in other facets of nature she was able to attune herself to her own natural life-force. Her womb may have been punctured, but she worked to keep her spirit whole. I understand from talking to women who have had problems conceiving that there looms this feeling of failure as a woman. This devastation will not only undermine one’s self-esteem, but it can ruin a relationship. I understand there are currently a number of options including IVF and surrogacy available to women and men, which is great. However, I also know so many women cannot afford these options. Then what? I don’t have the answer, but because I also don’t have children (by choice) I can understand the devaluation one experiences for not being a mother. Even Oprah got flack from Barbara Walters. The idea of giving life and nurturing has to somehow move beyond traditional notions of pushing out a baby (my grrrl was even telling me about the backlash she got for having had C-sections vs. “natural” child birth… jeesh!) or else we will have entire communities of women feeling less than the beautiful whole that they truly are.

5.) Being alone is not the end of the world. It’s actually a great time to get to know oneself. I’m sure we all know someone who can’t stand to be alone. Someone who has to always be out and about with his or her crew? Well watch out for those folks because if they can’t stand to be by themselves, chances are you will have a hard time dealing with them too. First off “alone” and “lonely” are two different situations. The former is a physical one and the latter is a mental one. As a result of her convalescence Frida Kahlo learned to master her fear of being alone. She did this through studying herself via self-portraiture. In an interview she said, “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.” She then concluded, “I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.” Learning how to spend time with yourself whether in meditation, while sipping on sake at the sushi bar, lying around reading a book or while touring the South of France is crucial if you really want to love yourself fully and if you want to improve yourself.

Frida Kahlo is an inspiration to me for these reasons and many more. Please forward and post this link as a tribute to a woman who was unafraid of being herself.

Eartha Kitt All By Myself film clip (by jamfaws)

A visual look at the internal and external factors in the creative process of artists and other innovators.

(Source: addtoany.com)

Film Brings Barbara Smith Conrad’s Inspiring Story to a New Generation

Campaign News

By Jamey Smith

A young Barbara Smith. She added her father’s first name, Conrad, to hers when she began singing professionally in 1959.

It was a significant chapter in the University’s history — and one that many of today’s students and younger alumni aren’t familiar with. That’s one reason the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History drew on its archives to help produce a new film about it.

Made possible by AT&T and other Briscoe Center donors, When I Rise is a potent documentary about Distinguished Alumna Barbara Smith Conrad, who came to UT as a gifted music student hoping to develop her considerable talents and explore a world beyond her small-town East Texas upbringing. Instead she found herself the subject of national headlines as a target of racial prejudice.

Cast in Dido and Aeneas opposite a white male classmate in 1957, the year after UT’s undergraduate integration began, the young mezzo-soprano was expelled from the production when then-president Logan Wilson caved into pressure from members of the Texas Legislature.

The story has been told before, and in recent years Conrad has returned to campus from her New York City home to perform, teach master classes, and work with the Briscoe Center on its American Spirituals initiative. But even to those already familiar with the events, the full extent of the bigotry she endured at the University is shocking. As the film illustrates, it was decades before she was able to truly make peace with what happened.

A voice that would not be denied: Conrad in a 1976 Cincinnati Opera production of Aida.

There are poignant moments when Conrad, having long since ascended to the heights of her field at the Metropolitan Opera and on other stages around the world, recounts episodes of being threatened and even spit upon by classmates. Friends and contemporaries, including Harley Clark, BA ’57, MA ’60, JD ’62, describe the tumultuous race relations on campus in the late 1950s. Hundreds rallied against discrimination, but the atmosphere was overwhelmingly hostile to students of color.

After the story broke, national figures such as Sidney Poitier and Eleanor Roosevelt voiced their support for Conrad; Harry Belafonte offered to pay for her to attend another university. Even so, she chose to complete her UT education. As the film makes clear, Conrad, BM ’59, is no quitter. “In the world of performing arts,” she tells the camera at one point, “it’s called survival.”

When I Rise was directed by Austin’s Mat Hames, whose previous work includes Last Best Hope, about the Belgian Resistance in World War II, and Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars. Hames also directed and produced the 13-part series State of Tomorrow. That Emmy winner, which focused on cutting-edge research at UT and other top Texas universities, aired on Texas PBS stations and was distributed to K-12 schools throughout the state.

So how can you see When I Rise? A packed Paramount Theatre was the jubilant setting for its world premiere at Austin’s South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2010, and it’s now making the rounds at other festivals. It was an official selection at the Dallas International Film Festival in April and at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival in May.

Coming full circle, Conrad makes an emotional 2009 visit to the Texas Capitol.

Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center — and executive producer of the film — says he and everyone else behind it are making every effort to get it before a wide audience. A broadcast on PBS or another outlet in the near future is likely; meanwhile, campus screenings will share this important piece of UT and civil rights history with today’s students.

“Our involvement with this film is an excellent example of what makes the Briscoe Center unique among history research centers,” Carleton says. “We not only serve as a repository for the evidence of history — we bring that history to life.”

In addition to AT&T’s sponsorship, When I Rise was made possible by generous contributions from Admiral and Mrs. Bob Inman, the Inman Foundation, and the McCombs Foundation.

For more information on the film, visit whenirisefilm.com. Learn more about Briscoe Center giving opportunities at the center’s support page.