Leaders and Legacy..... Charting the Way to Excellence
Eva Anderson (Columbia, Maryland) - Dancer, Choreographer [inducted 2003]
Our 2001 honoree has dedicated her life's work to "the beauty of the survival of the human spirit of those Africans who shaped the American character in the beginning of this country's experiment in democracy and the continuing contribution to what the world knows as American." She stated in 1999 that "...these 25 years have been interesting, challenging, and rewarding. I look forward to another 50."
Eva Anderson, daughter of a Presbyterian minister, grew up during the 1930's in Chester South Carolina. After seeing a 1943 touring company production of Porgy and Bess, Eva knew what she wanted to be. However, she recognized that there was no place for a black girl to take dance lessons. So, formal training was deferred until she received a dance scholarship to Bard College in New York, at age 16. Her first studies followed the style of Martha Graham, but she did not want to be restricted. She studied classical ballet with teachers from the American Ballet Theater and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, as well as African dance with Olatunji, a noted Nigerian.
In 1975, when her husband was promoted, they moved to Baltimore, where she immediately became involved in local dance activities. She joined the Baltimore Dance Theater as a teacher and soon became its assistant director, and later director. Also, she taught dance at Adelphi University, Goucher College and Howard Community College.
Eva Anderson always speaks at her concerts, because for her, dance is about communication. Ms. Anderson says, "everything I create comes from a black experience because I am a black woman with a black mind. But there are no limitations." She has certain criteria for the dances she choreographs. "...Each dance must have some spirituality, it must have some humor, it must come from everybody's life experience, it must have elements of blues, it must have audience participation and it must have call-and-response."
While she still teaches, she doesn't perform with the troupe anymore, except for speaking. "I am a choreographer" she says. "That is who I am." She currently lives in Columbia, Maryland and works throughout the Maryland area.
Dr. Leslie King-Hammond (Baltimore, Maryland) - Art Historian, Educator, Artist [inducted 2003]
Leslie King-Hammond was born and grew up in New York. In 1962, she began her collegiate studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. A few years later, after working for General Electric Company and teaching art on the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant, she received a scholarship at the City University of New York, where she majored in Fine Arts. She studied with notables and concurrent with her studies, became chair of the Art Department for the Performing Arts Workshops of Queens College. Upon graduation, she was accepted to The Johns Hopkins University Horizon Scholarship to work on her doctoral studies in art history.
While at Johns Hopkins, Ms. King-Hammond taught art history at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. In the summer of 1973. she traveled to Scandinavia to work on her dissertation: The Life and Works of William Henry Johnson. After graduation, she was appointed Dean of Graduate Studies at the Maryland Institute. There, she administers six majors and three degree programs. Concurrent with her administrative responsibilities, she teaches in the Art History Department. In 1985, she won the Trustee Award for Excellence in Teaching. Also during the 1980's she received Mellon Grants for Faculty Research. In 1985, in response to a decline in students of color at The Institute, the Ford Foundation Fellowships for Minorities in the Visual Arts were initiated and Ms. King-Hammond became its director.
Dr. King-Hammond is an art historian, educator, fiber installation artist. As a artist who works with fibers, her involvement in the arts has been continuous and expansive. Some of her exhibitions and publications include The Intuitive Eye; Art as a Verb; Masters, Mentors and Makers, Masks and Mirrors: African American Art. One of her works, Barbadian Spirits, pays homage to her grandmother. King-Hammond maintains an active profile in the civic and professional arts community. she sits on juries, boards, and art commissions including a position as President of College Art Association; Board of Overseers, Baltimore School for the Arts; Vice President, Jacob Lawrence Catalog Riasonne Project; Trustee, Baltimore Museum of Art and the Advisory Board, Edna Manley School for the Visual Arts, Kingston, Jamaica. She has chaired major conferences.
It is clear that this dynamic artist does not intend to lose momentum. She says "Scientists tell us we only use at best, 10 percent of our brain capacity. I want to exercise a little bit more of that mental muscle and step beyond the typical ten percent."
Dr. Vernell A. Lillie (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) - Artistic Director/Theater Producer, Lecturer, Writer [inducted 2003]
Vernell A. Lillie is an artistic director, producer of theater drama, lecturer and writer. She serves aw Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her vita is long and features experiences in the area of psychodrama, theater teaching, ancient Egyptian history, and a myriad of artistic endeavors.
Dr. Lillie holds a doctoral and masters degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Her undergraduate studies in drama and speech took place at Dillard University in New Orleans. She has further graduate study in Egyptology with Asa Hilliard of Georgia State; and English Texas State Certification for Teaching at Texas Southern University. Additionally, she has a long, diversified list of training experiences.
In 1974, she founded the Kuntu Repertory Theatre for the purpose of presenting the works of Rob Penny (Playwright-in-Residence) and other African American writers. Its initial intent was the examination of Black life from a sociopolitical-historical perspective, and to use the theater to educate, entertain and move both performers and audiences to social action. Later, Kuntu broadened its scope to provide an arena for the black writer to develop a supportive, intellectually stimulating environment for cultural reflections, and to enable its members to work as a group for cultural and social development of the community. Since 1974, the Kuntu Repertory Theatre has sponsored many outstanding activities to give visibility to the African American presence at the University of Pittsburgh and to involve diverse groups in examining the black experience in America and throughout the world.
Among Dr. Lillie's artistic achievements include over 80 productions such as: The Evolution of Jazz, in Edinburgh, Scotland; direction of Little Willie Jones and Profiles in Black. She has produced three National Black Films and Filmmakers Festivals with Sears, Roebuck and Company, and the Afro-American Museum of Philadelphia. Her work as a workshop leader covers an impressive range of subjects: psychodrama approaches to training, Afro-American literature, and arts education, visual and performing arts for the deaf, and cross cultural relationships.
Her awards and professional affiliations substantiate Dr. Vernell Lillie's numerous and varied activities.
Dr. Vivian Davidson Hewitt (Charlotte, North Carolina) - Collector, Benefactor, Advocate of the Arts [inducted 1999]
Dr. Vivian Davidson Hewitt, and her husband John, began a collection of art fifty years ago as newlyweds. Their first original work was acquired from Dr. Hewitt's cousin, J. Eugene Grigsby. From this purchase sprang the plethora of the Hewitt Collection of Art. Dr. Hewitt has spent half a century as art collector, art aficionado, and patron of great American artists.
The Hewitt Collection is regarded as one of the most important and comprehensive collections of art produced by artists of color during this century. Among the artists represented in the collection are: Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jonathan Green, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Hale Woodruff. The fifty-eight works in the collection range in style from straightforward representation to total abstraction.
The Hewitt Collection was recently purchased by The Bank of America as a promised gift for the African-American Cultural Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. After a three-year national tour, the Collection will find its permanent home at the center.
Dr. Hewitt is an inspiration, teacher, benefactor, and advocate of the Arts who embodies the Essence of The Pierians, Incorporated.
Etta Moten Barnett (Chicago, Illinois) - Concert artist, Lecturer, Recitalist, Collector of Artifacts, Student of Third World Culture [inducted 1991]
Etta Moten was one of the singers to achieve an international reputation and to concertize in the thirties. She played Bess with Todd Duncan on the Broadway stage in George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess. The opera played in Europe and was made into a movie with various casts. Porgy and Bess is a nationally known American Opera. It is one opera that has achieved world wide fame. Many of the songs from the opera, Summertime, I Got Plenty O'Nottin', and It Ain't Necessarily So, have become very popular.
Etta Moten was the first black woman to sing at the White House. The occasion was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's birthday. Highlights of her stage career include Broadway performances in Fast and Furious, Sugar Hill Zombie, and Lysistrata. Film performances include Flying Down to Rio and The Gold Diggers of 1933. She hosted radio programs in San Francisco and at NBC in Chicago. As a concert artist, she toured Canada, Argentina, Brazil, England, and West Africa.
Mrs. Barnett and her late husband, Claude Barnett, Founder-Director of the Associated Negro Press, represented Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson on official visits to Liberia, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Cameroons. As a private citizen, Etta Moten Barnett has been to the continent over twenty times.
She has been a marvelous mother to three daughters. Her public service includes: the Du Sable Museum of Afro-American History, Chicago Urban League, The Women's Board of the University of Chicago, Chicago Lyric Opera, and Artist in Residence in the Departments of Music and Drama at the University of Iowa and at Florida A&M University.
A quote from Etta Moten Barnett at the 1991 Pierian Assembly:
"In the final decade of the 20th century, I am delighted to join you in your efforts to discover and encourage the young people. I want you to continue to dream big dreams, for what would we do in this world of ours were it not for the dreams ahead, for thorns that reach through the blooming flowers, no matter what path we tread. Each of us has his golden goal stretching far into the years."
Dr. Selma H. Burke (New Hope, Pennsylvania) - Famous sculptress, Painter, creator of the FDR profile that appears on the dime [inducted 1991]
You are probably carrying sculptress Selma Burke's work in your pocket; it's a replica of her most famous creation -- a dime bearing the profile of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She taught art in Pittsburgh and ran the Selma Burke Art Center from 1972 to 1981. She was chosen in the 1943 competition to design President Roosevelt's profile. Before the profile was unveiled, it had to be approved by the Roosevelt family. Mrs. Roosevelt said, "Oh, it's well done, but you've made him too young." Mrs. Burke replied "I've not done it for today, but for tomorrow and tomorrow."
Selma Burke was born in Mooresville, North Carolina and studied in Paris under French sculptor Aristide Maillol. She was a member of the Harlem Renaissance, a noted artistic movement in New York City in the 1920's and 1930's. Her first husband, Claude McKay, was a well-known black poet who died in 1947.
Dr. Burke did busts and bas relief sculptures of other famous people -- Booker T. Washington, Duke Ellington, President Calvin Coolidge, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mary McLeod Bethune.
At age 83, she took a tour of classical Greece. On climbing to the Parthenon, she said, "I have taught this building so many times. I never thought I would live to see it." (Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Comments from Dr. Selma Hortense Burke at the 1991 Pierian Assembly during her Honorary Membership Induction:
"I am forever grateful to The Pierians and the Pittsburgh chapter...you have tied your arms around me and it makes my heart cry inside. Thank you for sharing the last days of my life. It gives me great joy and satisfaction to know you are with me. Thank you."
Selma H. Burke, 94, died on Tuesday August 29, 1995 in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
