Benny Andrews: Hale Woodruff And William H. Johnson

Thesis: Goodman Brown’s state of mind between good and evil could have been caused by a combination of Puritanism obsession with the devil, its resemblance, and other prejudices such as ergot poisoning.

William H. Johnson was a successful painter who was born on March 18, 1901 in Florence, South Carolina. Johnson began exploring his level of creativity as a child, and it only amplified from there because he discovered that he wanted to be an artist. After making this discovery he attended the National Academy of Design in New York which is where he met his mentor Charles Webster Hawthorne who had a strong influential impact on Johnson. Once Johnson graduated he moved to Paris where he was exposed to different artists, various artistic abilities, and evolutionary creations. Throughout Johnson’s time in Paris he grew as an artist, and adapted a “folk” style where he used lively colors and flat figures. Johnson used the “folk” style to express the experience of most African-Americans during the years of the 1930s and 1940s.

In the 1920’s many African American were searching for a refuge to escape from racism,discrimination, and violence. Many went to place called Harlem, a neighborhood in New York, where they commenced a new style of art, writing, and music. This was known as the Harlem Renaissance, where African Americans had their chance to be known for their skill. Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, were some of the important people who help express the African culture through writing and and music. They became an important figure in the birth of the Harlem renaissance. Even today they are remembered for their African American cultural success.

One the most distinguished artists of the twentieth century, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City and spnt part of his child hood in Pennsylvania. After his parents split up in 1924, he went with his mother and siblings to New York, settling in Harlem. "He trained as a painter at the Harlem Art Workshop, inside the New York Public Library's 113 5th Street branch. Younger than the artists and writers who took part in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Lawrence was also at an angle to them: he was not interested in the kind of idealized, fake-primitive images of blacks - the Noble Negroes in Art Deco guise - that tended to be produced as an antidote to the toxic racist stereotypes with which white popular culture had flooded

In the fall of 1977 Elizabeth Bryding Adams published an article on Henry Young in the Pennsylvania German Society journal, Der Reggeboge. The article included 152 of his recorded works and was used as the catalogue for an exhibition on Young at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg, Va. which was on view that same year. While this article and exhibit was not the first to draw attention

Hudson River School – The first great school of American painters, based in New York. The painters portrayed that America’s “wild nature” made them superior to Europe.

Anson Jones was an important part of the annexation of Texas. Without the help of Anson, it wouldn’t have been possible for Texas to be annexed to the U.S.

During the early 1920’s, African American artists, writers, musicians, and performers took part in a cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This migration took place after World War 1 and brought African Americans of all ages to the city of Harlem located in New York (Holt). There were many inspiring young artists; one of them in particular was Augusta Savage.

J.J. Johnson transformed the way his instrument, the trombone, was played. He was born on January 22, 1924, in Indianapolis, IN and died in February 4, 2001, Indianapolis, IN. J.J. Johnson, with his new execution and imagination, was the musician who brought bebop into the trombone. However, after battling cancer and a muscular-skeletal disorder, J.J. Johnson passed away, leaving behind a legacy of groundbreaking work that he had done accomplished with the trombone.

William Johnson was a slave before being freed at age 11, along with his mother, Amy, and sister, Adelia. He got his barber shop in 1830 from his half brother, James Miller. After starting his barber shop, he keeps a diary and he used it until he died. He also owned a bathhouse and bookstore.He married named Ann Battles, who was also a free african american. They had about 11 children before Johnson died. He lived in the free town of Natchez, and he almost had about three thousand dollars in 1835. Johnson was friends with other freed african americans like Robert McCary and hunted and fished with them. Johnson and Baylor Winn got into a dispute and it ended in Johnson`s favor in court. Winn was upset and shot Johnson when he was returning to

Would you have ever thought that a blind African American kid could ever become a professional pianist, well this was the case with John William Boone. John was a blind African American boy who lived with his mother in Warrensburg. John help change the way people listen and make music with his way to hear sounds or news that makes him make music that sounds or resembles that sound.

At 11, Wiley’s mother enrolled him and his twin in a small art conservatory program at Cal State, and in the summer of 1989, he was sent to Russia for training in classical painting. After excelling in this program, he went on to earn his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA for the Yale University School of Art. Although Wiley achieved things beyond his neighborhood, he did not forget the black struggle he was familiar with growing up.

Horace Lee and Rosie Lee Jones and family moved their membership from New Hope Baptists Church in 1958 by way of letter from Pastor H. Y. Bolden and joined Greater Tabernacle Baptist Church under the leadership of Pastor Perry. Brother Horace was a trailblazer and became one of the legends of Greater Tabernacle. He severed as head deacon for several years, leader of the men Layman, custodian and grounds man, traveled with the pastor to just about every church visitation and lead the process from the church, helped with hiding the Easter eggs for the youths, barbequed chicken and sometimes ribs for the church dinners, organized the Christmas gifts give a ways (bags of fruits and nuts), and ranged the church bell for members who was called

In the story "A Lesson Before Dying" Grant gives Jefferson a radio. For Jefferson, a man who doesn't have anything, this is big. Despite his happiness due to the gift, the radio caused some problems for Jefferson. Evidence of this is when the author writes, "'That mean he ain't coming?' 'That's what he said,' the deputy told her," (Gaines 179). This dialogue shows that Jefferson is backtracking in his progress of being social and now he doesn't want to visit his nannan in the dayroom because he has his radio in his cell. This shows how important the radio is to Jefferson. I think that the radio is sort of a symbol for his last, small and sad, bit of freedom. Jefferson isn't the only one experiencing some negative effects because of the radio,

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in 1859 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is best known for being a successful African American painter during a time in which that was rare. He changed how African Americans were seen in art and he branched out and changed what people would consider to be paintings done by African Americans. He enrolled at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1879, he was the first African American there and attended fulltime. There was a lot of prejudice and racism happening while Tanner was at school. In one incident, some students tied his hands and feet to his easel and put him in the street as a public crucifixion. After this, Tanner continued to go to the school on and off for a couple years but in 1891 Tanner set out