Oct. 21, 1917

Legendary trumpeter “Dizzy” Gillespie was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. One of the pioneers of “bebop” jazz, he is considered one of the greatest trumpeters to ever play. 

At 12, he taught himself to play trumpet, dreaming of becoming a jazz musician. He played with Cab Calloway’s orchestra before getting into an altercation with the band leader. He wrote big band music with Woody Herman and Jimmy Dorsey before performing with Ella Fitzgerald. He, Charlie Parker and others initiated bebop at famous jazz clubs in New York City, and Gillespie later introduced Afro-Cuban music into that mix. 

His trademark trumpet, which was bent upward, initially resulted from an accident. Happy with the new tone, he had a new “bent” trumpet made. 

He played hundreds of shows a year and won Grammys in 1975 and 1980. He told his life in music in his memoir, “To Be or Not to Bop. 

Before he died in 1993 of pancreatic cancer, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honors Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Duke Ellington Award for a half-century of achievement as a composer, performer and bandleader. 

“With his endlessly funny asides, his huge variety of facial expressions and his natural comic gifts, he was as much a pure entertainer as an accomplished artist,” The New York Times wrote. “In some ways, he seemed to sum up all the possibilities of American popular art.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today‘s Adam Ganucheau, Geoff Pender, and Taylor Vance discuss three major political news events: the funding of Rep. Trey Lamar’s Jackson street replacement, a poll from Speaker Jason White on tax elimination, and a contentious Mississippi Supreme Court race that could come down to the wire.

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Oct. 20, 1942

Dozens of Black leaders from the South convened in Durham, North Carolina, to address the problem of increasing racial tension. While Black soldiers fought on the battlefields of World War II, the leaders recalled the mistreatment of Black soldiers returning from World War I, “a sweeping surge of bitterness and rebuff that … constitutes one of the ugliest scars on the fair face of our nation.” 

What emerged was the “Durham Manifesto,” calling for the end of segregation, the poll tax, the “white” primary and racial discrimination. 

“We regard the ballot as a safeguard of democracy,” the document read. “Any discrimination against citizens in the exercise of the voting privilege, on account of race or poverty, is detrimental to the freedom of these citizens and to the integrity of the State.” 

The document also decried Jim Crow laws that barred and punished Black Americans as well as mistreatment by police. “These abuses, which include wanton killings, and almost routine beatings of Negroes, whether they be guilty or innocent of an offense, should be stopped now, not only out of regard for the safety of Negroes, but of common respect for the dignity and fundamental purpose of the law,” the manifesto read. 

The document also called for better schools, better health care and living wages for workers. “The correction of these problems is not only a moral matter,” the manifesto concluded, “but a practical necessity in winning the war and in winning the peace.” 

Charles Spurgeon Johnson, one of the leading Black sociologists of the 20^th century, helped oversee the document. The manifesto helped lead to the creation of the Southern Regional Council, which pushed for school desegregation, voter registration, equal citizenship and anti-poverty projects.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.