Today marks the end of Andrea Doria- the person, and not the ship. If you haven't guessed, the person came first, by almost 300 years. He was a prominent naval person, but seemed to be caught in a lot of disasters, not always of his own making. So I guess it's appropriate that a ship named after him sank.
Mr. Bojangles himself died on this date. While he's held up to scorn by some people because he would dance for White people on command, he was the first Black person to dance with a White onscreen-Shirley Temple, to be precise. He was quite well known, and seemed to be a pretty good guy. Those idiots who sometimes call Black entertainers "Bojanglers" do him a disservice, though I guess they couldn't care less what I think. I myself think Mr. Bill Robinson was a good man, and deserves to be remembered and respected.
Speaking of prominent Black entertainers who committed the heinous crime of amusing White audiences, Flip Wilson died on this date in 1998. Since he was much younger than Mr. Robinson, he could dress up as a fat Black woman and talk "jive" and not be accused of "bojangling". Of course, had Robinson not done his shtick 30 years earlier, then Wilson might not have ever achieved the level of success that he did. And we might have idiots today referring to Black athletes and entertainers as "Wilsoning" for White audiences. Just goes to show how ignorant some people can be about history- which is part of the reason that I do this blog.
And on that note, I'll step off my soapbox and go see if I can find any Flip Wilson videos to watch-Geraldine Jones and Reverend Leroy being among the best.
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