NBAF Vendor Market At Atlantic Station

The vendor market at Atlantic Station was wonderful. We experienced a variety of artwork from paintings, sculptors and jewelry. I collected an arrary of cards for future purchases. As you can see, my kids had a blast!

Hammonds House

Sam Cooke

Samuel Cook, better known as Sam Cooke, was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He grew up in Chicago, where is father, Reverend Charles Cook, was minister of Christ Holiness Church. By age nine Sam, with his two sisters, formed a gospel trio the Singing Children. As a teenager, he was a member of the nationally famous Highway Q.C.'s (so named because their home base was the Highway Baptist Church) with his younger brother, L.C. Cook. at the age of nineteen, he became lead vocalist of the Soul Stirrers, with whom he toured and recorded for six years.

Cooke soon became a gospel superstar. However, the monetary and worldly rewards for singing gospel could never equal those for singing to the masses. Cooke gave in and recorded "Lovable" under the name Dale Cook. Cooke's voice was to unique not to be recognized. Lovable sold 25,000 copies. Cooke was a ground breaking black music capitalist. He owned his own record label (SAR/Derby), music publishing company (Kags Music), and management firm with offices in the Warner Brothers Building in Hollywood.

With a live LP in the Top 30, Cooke was in L.A. partying when he met 22 year old Elisa Boyer at a club on December 11, 1964. They drove to South Central where they registered at the Hacienda Motel as Mr. and Mrs. Sam Cooke. Later Boyer left the room with most of Cooke's clothing. Cooke wearing one shoe and a jacket broke into the motel's office where he thought she was hiding. There he found Bertha Franklin the motel's manager who shoot him three times with a .22. Cooke was shoot and killed on December 11, 1964 at the Hacienda motel in Los Angeles. The manager of the motel, Bertha Franklin claimed Cooke had tried to rape a twenty one year old woman Elisa Boyer and then turned on her. The coroner's office ruled the death as justifiable homicide. Over thirty five years later there remain questions about the circumstances of Cooke's death and there has been talk about reopening the investigation. "A Change Is Gonna Come" was released in 1965 after his death and charted at #31. It represented a return to Cooke's roots, placing him back in the spiritual setting from which he had first emerged just nine years before.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American poet to garner national critical acclaim. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872, Dunbar penned a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels and short stories before he died at the age of 33. His work often addressed the difficulties encountered by members of his race and the efforts of African-Americans to achieve equality in America. He was praised both by the prominent literary critics of his time and his literary contemporaries. Matilda taught her children a love of songs and storytelling. Having heard poems read by the family she worked for when she was a slave, Matilda loved poetry and encouraged her children to read. Dunbar was inspired by his mother, and he began reciting and writing poetry as early as age 6.

Dunbar was the only African-American in his class at Dayton Central High, and while he often had difficulty finding employment because of his race, he rose to great heights in school. He was a member of the debating society, editor of the school paper and president of the school's literary society. He also wrote for Dayton community newspapers. He worked as an elevator operator in Dayton's Callahan Building until he established himself locally and nationally as a writer. He published an African-American newsletter in Dayton, the Dayton Tattler, with help from the Wright brothers.

He sold his book for a dollar to people who rode the elevator. As more people came in contact with his work, however, his reputation spread. In 1893, he was invited to recite at the World's Fair, where he met Frederick Douglass, the renowned abolitionist who rose from slavery to political and literary prominence in America. Douglass called Dunbar "the most promising young colored man in America."

Dunbar married Alice Ruth Moore, a young writer, teacher and proponent of racial and gender equality who had a master's degree from Cornell University. Dunbar took a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He found the work tiresome, however, and it is believed the library's dust contributed to his worsening case of tuberculosis. He worked there for only a year before quitting to write and recite full time.

In 1902, Dunbar and his wife separated. Depression stemming from the end of his marriage and declining health drove him to a dependence on alcohol, which further damaged his health.

Tupac Shakur

Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names: 2Pac, Makaveli, or simply Pac, was an African American folk artist renowned for his rap music, movie roles, poetry, and his social activism. Tupac Shakur was born in Brookly, NY in 1971. Early in his life, he moved to Baltimore , MD, where he attended The Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. Most of Shakur's songs are about growing up around violence and hardship in ghettos, racism, problems in society, and sometimes qualms with other fellow rappers. Shakur's work is known for advocating political, economic, social, and racial equality as well as his raw descriptions of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and conflicts with the law. His style on this album was heavily influenced by the social consciousness and Afrocentrism pervading hip-hop in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On this initial release, Shakur helped extend the legacy of such rap groups as Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, X-Clan, and even Grandmaster Flash, as he became one of the first major socially conscious rappers from the West Coast.

Aaron Douglas

Aaron Douglas (1898 - 1979) painter and muralist was born in Kansas. Aaron Douglas received a B.A. in art from the University of Nebraska. Douglas' use of African design and subject matter in his work brought him attention Aaron Douglas became a leading visual artist during this time. In fact, he was called the "Dean of African-American painters" during the Harlem Renaissance time. Aaron Douglas' style, flat with hard edges and repetitive designs, was heavily influenced by African sculptures, jazz music, dance and geometric forms. Douglas joined the faculty of Fisk University in 1937 and stayed there until his retirement in 1966.

Charles White

Charles Wilbert White, African-American Social Realist Painter (April 2, 1918 - October 3, 1979) was an African American artist born in Chicago. He was known for his WPA era murals. White was married for a time to sculptor Elizabeth Catlett.
White's best known work is The Contribution of the Negro to American Democracy, a mural at Hampton University depicting a number of notable blacks including Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Peter Salem, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman,Frederick Douglass, and Marian Anderson.