The Museum of UnCut Funk has acquired the latest stamps from the United States Post Office Black Heritage Series, the Distinguished Soldiers stamp featuring Doris Miller and the Anna Julia Cooper stamp.
Doris Miller, known as “Dorie” to shipmates and friends, was born in Waco, Texas, on October 12, 1919, to Henrietta and Conery Miller. He had three brothers, one of which served in the Army during World War II. While attending Moore High School in Waco, he was a fullback on the football team. He worked on his father’s farm before enlisting in the U.S Navy as Mess Attendant, Third Class, at Dallas, Texas, on September 16, 1939, to travel, and earn money for his family. He later was commended by the Secretary of the Navy, was advanced to Mess Attendant, Second Class and First Class, and subsequently was promoted to Cook, Third Class.
Following training at the Naval Training Station, Norfolk, Virginia, Miller was assigned to the ammunition ship USS Pyro (AE-1) where he served as a Mess Attendant, and on January 2, 1940 was transferred to USS West Virginia (BB-48), where he became the ship’s heavyweight boxing champion. In July of that year he had temporary duty aboard USS Nevada (BB-36) at Secondary Battery Gunnery School. He returned to West Virginia and on 3 August, and was serving in that battleship when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Miller had arisen at 6 a.m., and was collecting laundry when the alarm for general quarters sounded. He headed for his battle station, the antiaircraft battery magazine amidship, only to discover that torpedo damage had wrecked it, so he went on deck. Because of his physical prowess, he was assigned to carry wounded fellow Sailors to places of greater safety. Then an officer ordered him to the bridge to aid the mortally wounded Captain of the ship. He subsequently manned a 50 caliber Browning anti-aircraft machine gun until he ran out of ammunition and was ordered to abandon ship.
Miller described firing the machine gun during the battle, a weapon which he had not been trained to operate: “It wasn’t hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about fifteen minutes. I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.”
During the attack, Japanese aircraft dropped two armored piercing bombs through the deck of the battleship and launched five 18-inch aircraft torpedoes into her port side. Heavily damaged by the ensuing explosions, and suffering from severe flooding below decks, the crew abandoned ship while West Virginia slowly settled to the harbor bottom. Of the 1,541 men on West Virginia during the attack, 130 were killed and 52 wounded. Subsequently refloated, repaired, and modernized, the battleship served in the Pacific theater through to the end of the war in August 1945.
Miller was commended by the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox on April 1, 1942, and on 27 May 1942 he received the Navy Cross, which Fleet Admiral (then Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet personally presented to Miller on board aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) for his extraordinary courage in battle. Speaking of Miller, Nimitz remarked:
This marks the first time in the conflict that such high tribute has been made in the Pacific Fleet to a member of his race and I’m sure that the future will see others similarly honored for brave acts.
On December 13, 1941, Miller reported to USS Indianapolis (CA-35), and subsequently returned to the west coast of the United States in November 1942. Assigned to the newly constructed USS Liscome Bay (CVE-56) in the spring of 1943, Miller was on board that escort carrier during Operation Galvanic, the seizure of Makin and Tarawa Atolls in the Gilbert Islands. Liscome Bay’s aircraft supported operations ashore between November 20-23, 1943. At 5:10 a.m. on November 24, while cruising near Butaritari Island, a single torpedo from Japanese submarine I-175 struck the escort carrier near the stern. The aircraft bomb magazine detonated a few moments later, sinking the warship within minutes. Listed as missing following the loss of that escort carrier, Miller was officially presumed dead November 25, 1944, a year and a day after the loss of Liscome Bay. Only 272 Sailors survived the sinking of Liscome Bay, while 646 died.
In addition to the Navy Cross, Miller was entitled to the Purple Heart Medal; the American Defense Service Medal, Fleet Clasp; the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal.
Commissioned on June 30, 1973, USS Miller (FF-1091), a Knox-class frigate, was named in honor of Doris Miller.
On October 11, 1991, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority dedicated a bronze commemorative plaque of Miller at the Miller Family Park located on the U.S.
Source: The Navy Museum
Anna Julia Cooper, a woman born into slavery in North Carolina nine years prior to the Civil War, reached milestones as the first woman to publish a book on Black feminism, “A Voice from the South by a Black Woman from the South,” and one of the first Black women to earn a doctorate from world renowned University of Paris, Sorbonne.
Her accomplishments have not gone unnoticed. On Thursday, June 11, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled the Anna Julia Cooper Commemorative Stamp at the Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Northwest.
Cooper, who also worked as a teacher and principal at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth (later known as M Street School and today as Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School), was honored by the Postmaster of Washington, D.C., Yverne Pat Moore, Vice President and Consumer Advocate for the United States Postal Service Delores J. Killette, Professor of English at University of Maryland Carla L. Peterson, Dunbar High School Principal R. Gerald Austin, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Cooper is the 32nd honoree to be inducted into the Black Heritage Stamp Series.
“Anna Julia Cooper once said, ‘The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.’ Her actions to support these memorable words during her life are the reason the Postal Service has chosen Ms. Cooper as the subject of the 32nd stamp in the Black Heritage series,” Killette said.
Cooper was freed from slavery after the Civil War and received a scholarship to attend the St. Augustine Normal School and Collegiate Institute, known today as St. Augustine’s College, in 1868. Cooper graduated and married George A.C. Cooper in 1877. Two years later, her husband died and Cooper moved to Ohio and attended Oberlin College, distinguishing her as one of the first Black women to graduate from the school. Cooper earned a degree in math and returned to St. Augustine to teach math, Greek and Latin.
In 1887, Cooper moved to the District where she was invited to teach science and math at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, the most prestigious high school for Black students in the country at that time. Cooper became principal of the school in 1902.
“Although Ms. Cooper was born in Raleigh, N.C., Washington, D.C. claims her as one of its own because she lived her life here and she worked as an educator, feminist, and an activist in our nation’s capital,” Moore said.
“I want to thank the postal service for holding this ceremony. For me, this is very special. This is not the quite the same Dunbar I graduated from, but it is on the same ground,” Norton said.
“This was the first public high school in America for Black children, but it became known nationally and internationally for its faculty. Dunbar would not have become Dunbar without the standards and the aspirations of teachers like Anna Julia Cooper. She set such high standards that in turn they encouraged Black children throughout the District of Columbia to believe that they could go to college and to believe that Dunbar High School would prepare them to go to the best colleges in the United States,” Norton said.
Source: The Washington Informer
Torchy Brown first appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1937-38 comic strip Dixie to Harlem, drawn by the first Black Female Cartoonist, Jackie Ormes. Torchy Brown was later syndicated around the country until it’s end in 1940. The strip was resurrected in the 1950’s as Torchy and the Heartbeats. Since then, Torchy Brown, the feisty and independent singer and dancer has appeared in her own TPB and several hardcover tributes to her creator, Jackie Ormes.
The emergence of Torchy Brown marked the first appearance of an independent Black woman in a nationally syndicated comic strip. 
Torchy’s self-reliance drove her to leave her Mississippi home at an early age and pursue her dreams of performing on stage, ultimately becoming a staple act at Harlem’s Cotton Club. Torchy Brown’s creator, Jackie Ormes is also the creator of ‘Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger’.
Torchy Brown was made into a popular paper doll in 1947. In keeping with Torchy Brown’s forward-thinking themes, the character often tackled hot-button issues like racism, pollution and social injustice in a comedic and approachable way. Because Torchy’s syndication was largely limited to papers with circulation extended only to Black constituents, the character has only recently gained long overdue widespread attention.
About the Cartoonist:
Zelda Jackson “Jackie” Ormes, by most accounts, became the first nationally syndicated Black woman cartoonist in 1937. The “Touchy Brown” series first appeared in the Black-owned Pittsburgh Courier in 1937, and eventually appeared in fourteen syndicated newspapers. Ormes’s strips depicted Blacks in a very different fashion which was not the norm of her day.
Typically Blacks were shown as servants or exaggerated caricatures of the “Buckwheat” or “Steppin Fetchit” variety. In contrast, Ormes’s female characters were independent and strong. Jackie Ormes said “I have never liked dreamy little women who can’t hold their own”.
Jackie Ormes The Book
Jackie Ormes: The First Black Woman Cartoonist chronicles the life of a multiply talented woman who became a successful cartoonist. Ormes’s cartoon characters–Torchy Brown, Candy, Patty-Jo, and Ginger–delighted readers of Black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier between 1937-56. This biography provides an invaluable glimpse into the history and culture of that era. As a member of Chicago’s Black elite, Ormes’s social circle included leading political figures and entertainers of the day. People who knew her say that she modeled some cartoon characters after herself as beautifully dressed and coiffed females, appearing and speaking out in ways that defied stereotyped images of Blacks in the mainstream press. Ormes’s politics, which fell decidedly to the left and were apparent to even a casual reader of her cartoons and comics, eventually led to her investigation by the FBI during the McCarthy era. In the late 1940s, Ormes transformed cartoon character Patty-Jo into a doll that is now a collector’s item.
Source: Comic Vine and JackieOrmes.com
“My friends admit I am black, beautiful and sometimes bitchy, but only when the situation calls for it. If life were a painting I’d be in the middle with a cynical little smile on my face and Hollywood in the background. My name is Dorothy Jean Dickerson. If the name isn’t familiar to you, my face and figure probably are. I’ve appeared in a number of ‘Black’ motion pictures — blaxploitation films some people call them — and my star is definitely on the rise.” So begins Inside Black Hollywood, the first published novel by actress Carol Speed, who starred in THE MACK and a half-dozen other B-movies back in the early ’70s, but is mostly known these days for being mentioned in a Quentin Tarantino script TRUE ROMANCE.
A fictionalized account of the making of THE MACK — it’s called THE CHANCE here, with Ms. Speed telling the whole sordid story through her Dorothy Jean Dickerson persona — Inside Black Hollywood drops its readers headfirst into the mire of the ’70s exploitation movie scene and makes them swim with the sharks for 250 pages. Sure, all the names have been changed to protect the innocent (as well as the guilty, the stoned, and the just-plain-stupid), but you won’t need more than your two eyes and a copy of THE MACK to figure out who’s who.
First and foremost, there’s arrogant leading man Henry Worth (Max Julien), a borderline sociopath scheming to get Dorothy Jean fired from the film so his girlfriend — bitchy actress Lisa McLaine (Vonetta McGee) — can get the role instead.
Next on Speed’s shit list is producer Gerald Goldfarb (Harvey Bernhard), who overestimates Worth’s box-office worth and insists on kissing his ass instead of Dorothy Jean’s (Bernhard also produced Julien and McGee’s THOMASINE AND BUSHROD a year later).
Then there’s the director, Mark Katz (Michael Campus?), who’d rather bone every actress on the set than make a halfway coherent film. Oh, and let’s not forget the pathetic, self-pitying starlet Tanya Stevens (Annazette Chase), who screwed Mark to get a part in the movie — a part that’s getting smaller and smaller with every passing day — and out-of-control comedian Bubba Johnson (Richard Pryor), who’s on the skids because he told one too many “big dick” jokes in front of little old white ladies in Las Vegas and got his ass kicked out of town by the Mob.
And in the middle of it all is Dorothy Jean Dickerson, our lovely heroine and God’s gift to bargain basement cinema, who proves to be almost as obnoxious and egomaniacal as the others. When she isn’t fussing over her wardrobe and fighting with her costars, she’s either shoveling coke up her nose by the kilo or bitching endlessly about her shitty personal life and alienating everybody around her. Somehow, she manages to tear herself away from the mirror long enough to hook up with Fred Sullivan — underworld figure, player extraordinaire, and one of the shady Sullivan brothers, who are putting up the money to make the film. Fred’s character is based on Frank D. Ward, one of the Ward brothers, who financed most or all of THE MACK; he even appears in the film as himself, during the Players’ Ball scene (he’s the first runner-up after Goldie for the “Player of the Year” award). Speed obviously fell head over heels in love with Frank Ward, judging by the way Dorothy Jean literally (and repeatedly) soaks her panties at the mere mention of Fred Sullivan’s name. If you remember the dedication that appears at the beginning of THE MACK (”In memory of a MAN — Frank D. Ward”), you’ll know exactly where their relationship is headed.
“When I came to Hollywood everything began to happen for me almost immediately,” Speed told Black Stars magazine in 1980. “I was doing one film after the other and my career was moving forward at an extremely fast pace. Then all of a sudden this all ended. I must confess that much of it was my fault, because I committed several acts that contributed greatly to it.” Dorothy Jean’s behavior during the shooting of THE CHANCE certainly backs this up, but the loss of Frank D. Ward — more than any bridge burning that may have occurred during the making of THE MACK — was most likely what led Speed to start writing Inside Black Hollywood in 1974, under the title Dorothy Jean Dickerson – I Thought You Knew!
That same year, she had starring roles in ABBY and BLACK SAMSON, and then… nothing. She dropped out of the business and moved in with fading rocker Sly Stone, bringing only the clothes on her back and her unfinished manuscript. “For the most part, we stayed high from one day to the other,” she admitted to Black Stars when asked about this period in her life. “Time was of little importance, because one day was like the next one. I did absolutely nothing.”
She eventually wandered out of Sly’s compound and found her way back to her parents’ home in San Jose, where she sobered up and got her head together before returning to Los Angeles to finish her novel (probably in late 1978, since Dorothy Jean mentions Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” at one point).
Around this time, she also appeared in her last film to date, the Rudy Ray Moore jaw-dropper DISCO GODFATHER (1979).
Speed may have been a star on the rise when she made THE MACK in 1973, but by the time Holloway House published her book seven years later, her acting career was finished and the “Black Hollywood” of the title was just a memory.
A rumor in early 1997 had her joining two of her costars from THE BIG BIRD CAGE — Pam Grier and Sid Haig — in JACKIE BROWN, but the reunion never happened. She did contribute to the Tarantino-backed What It Is! What It Was! blaxploitation book in 1998, but was noticeably absent from the special edition DVD of THE MACK a few years later.
The whacked-out, paranoid bulletins that were emanating daily from her MySpace page seemed to be written by a person who either takes too much of the wrong kind of medication or not enough of the right. That’s a shame, because Speed’s a strong writer, and Inside Black Hollywood — when recognized as a work of nonfiction — is a fascinating and important contribution to B-movie history
Source: Temple Of Schlock
Who is the man
Who would risk his neck for his brother man?
SPADE!
Who’s the cat who won’t cop out
When there’s danger all about?
SPADE!
He’s a complicated man
And no one understands him like his woman
RICHARD SPADE
You say this cat Spade is a mean mother-
Shut ya mout’!
I’m talkin’ ’bout Spade!
Then we can dig it!!!
Although the characters are nearly 40 years old and the vernacular is a little old school, Richard Spade’s mojo over the chicks, hustlers, militants and most of all the man still holds up.
While this obscure collection of six novels never rose to the same level of urban prominence as Donald Goines or Ice Slim’s, one thing for sure is that if you can get your hands on one of these B.B. Johnson works it will transport you to a time and place where cats like Spade were superfly. Spade is not technically a private eye, but this cat could give John Shaft a run for his money. Can you dig it?
Each of these six men’s adventure paperback originals are billed as “a tough novel by B. B. Johnson,” which we’re told is “a pseudonym for one of Hollywood’s most talented and creative Black personalities.” His novels were resonant with black power relevance and full of typical “out there” plots for the time, such as Mother of the Year, which features Spade protecting a Black beauty queen marked for death by a group of militant Black feminists.
Richard Abraham Spade
A.K.A. “Superspade”
Created by B. B. Johnson
Sexy like Shaft. A player like The Mack. A man with a plan like SuperFly. Richard A. Spade is a man of many faces. RICHARD ABRAHAM SPADE, is a strapping 240-pound fellow who went from the ghetto to UCLA. He made All American as an offensive tackle, acquiring the interesting nickname of Superspade in the process.
He was headed for pro-football fame, but was sidetracked by two years in Vietnam. Returning stateside, forty-three pounds lighter, a lieutenant with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart; he wasted no time turning his attention back to pro-ball. His career was ultimately cut short by a serious injury.
At the start of his first case, he was 33 years old and had been working at Greene College in Santa Barbara for three years as a Black studies lecturer and part-time football coach. He was also pursuing his masters in political science. This was the calm before the storm.
SYNOPSIS OF THE NOVELS
Death Of A Blue-Eyed Soul Brother – 1970
UP AGAINST THE WALL!
Richard Abraham Spade was finished with pro football but the action in his life was just beginning. Spade took a job with a small college as a lecturer and part time coach, in search of a quiet life.
But no such luck.
His best friend, a dedicated politician, was assassinated and Spade was in the middle of a deadly blitz of bullets, broads and burning revolution – scrambling to save his beautiful black skin from being sliced up and served cold.
Black Is Beautiful – 1970
BLACK MAY BE BEAUTIFUL, BABY, BUT IT’S ALSO THE COLOR OF DEATH…
Richard Abraham Spade – Superspade - was beginning to have his doubts about militants.
He had seen for himself how the Black Jaguars handled renegade brothers. It was the most brutal ritual he had ever witnessed.
He had seen how the Jaguars had sprung their brilliant leader, Ridge Hatchett, author of Hell on Fire, from Death Row. And he knows about their master plan for revolution.
That’s Where The Cat’s At, Baby – 1970
CANDIDATE FOR DEATH
When Richard Spade’s daddy asks him to help Black Sam Lake get re-elected Mayor of York, it comes as a complete surprise.
For one thing, Spade’s old man is a firm believer in keeping his mouth shut and his Black butt clear of trouble.
And for another, Sam Lake is a young Uncle Tom and worse, a political opportunist using his own people to make Mr. Charlie rich and fat.
York is a corrupt town torn by Black dissidents. Anybody who starts nosing around might be fair game for a bullet from some angry brothers or an air conditioned throat for the crime syndicate.
But when the push comes to shove, Superspade, knows he has to help the folks down home – even if it means finding himself six feet under.
Mother Of The Year – 1970
Beautiful Black movie star Pussy Willow announces her choice of the ten greatest Americans and instantly seals her assassination contract.
Every man on her list is white!
And every Black militant in the country is waiting for the chance to make her an example for the soul sisters who scorn their Black brothers.
But Superspade wants her alive.
Only two things stand in his way: a vendetta of Black militant woman out to kill Pussy and Spade. And Pussy’s own widowed mother, who’s hated every Black man in her life, including Superspade.
Can Superspade keep Pussy from dying at the box office…and everywhere else?
Bad Day For A Black Brother - 1970
At 23, world heavyweight champion Rocky Wilson is in heavy trouble. His big mouth has blasted the liberal White establishment – while he put down his militant Black brothers. Now he’s got to defend his title against as Australian challenger, and the odds are he’ll never get out of the ring alive. The Aussie isn’t so tough. But an assassin’s high powered rifle will be trained on Rocky during the fight. If the champ won’t go down in the eight, he’s out permanently.
Richard Spade signs on to save Rocky and is immediately on the front lines of a deadly political battle. Rocky is draft bait and a Black hero. The poetry spouting champ is strictly antiwar, but just how far he’ll go in this denunciation of the system is a matter of supreme importance to a lot of V.I.P.’s.
As Superspade digs deeper into the radical underground surrounding Rocky, he becomes convinced that if one assassin’s bullet doesn’t cool the champ, another’s will.
Blues For A Black Sister – 1971
“Tell him I could love you less, if he would only love me more,” wailed Billie Monday, beautiful Black lead singer of the The Superiors, and the crowd went crazy. Billie and her group were riding high, enjoying all the rewards the record industry lavishes on its superstars.
But Billie isn’t on top when her old friend Richard Spade comes to see her. She’s in the hospital, dying of a heavy drug habit. Her death plunges Superspade into a frantic world where a million copy seller and a heroin overdose are sides 1 and 2 of the same record.
These novels are a part of The Museum of UnCut Funk Collection.
