Viewing page 70 of 107

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[images - three photographs]]
Black Academy fellows (l-r) Arna Bontemps presents awards to Miss Brooks, Hooks to Major Ira Aldridge, Clarke to Mari Evans.

what happened."

Mrs. Jackson's statements, heard by about 2,000 people at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, followed the induction of Frederick Douglass into the Black Academy's Hall of Fame. Lerone Bennett Jr., senior editor of EBONY Magazine, who presented the enrollment to Frederick S. Weaver, the great-grandson of Douglass, said that Douglass, a statesman and writer, merited the recognition of all humanity because he was the forerunner of a long line of Black men and women who transcended the false and artificial dichotomy of arts versus the struggle, by making his life 

[[left margin]] Reprint from October 7, 1971 issue of JET Magazine [[/left margin]]

[[images - three photographs]]
Curator Huston accepts award from librarian Porter, Ossie Davis congratulates banquet co-chairmen Ruby Dee and Julie Belafonte.

a work of art. Bennett reminded his audience of the statement of the Black people of Americus, Ga., who, when erecting a memorial to Douglass, noted, "no people who can produce a Frederick Douglass need despair."

George Washington Williams, the Black historian who lived from 1849 to 1891, also was enrolled in the Academy's Hall of Fame with Jean Huston, curator of New York's Schomberg Library, accepting the Hall of Fame citation from Dorothy Porter, librarian at Howard University. Katherine Dunham was cited for outstanding achievement in the arts and was presented with an award by Elma Lewis of the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass.

Novelist William Melvin Kelley won the fiction award for his book, Dunsford Travels Everywhere. Poetess Mari Evans won the poetry award, presented to her by historian and author John Henrik Clarke, for her I Am A Black Woman.

Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks, poet laureate of the state of Illinois and author of seven volumes of poetry, was honored for her outstanding achievement in letters with an award presented by author Arna Bontemps, former librarian at Fisk University.

The Academy honored Edward (Duke) Ellington with the Medal of Merit, for a lifetime of contribution to the arts. The award was presented to Ellington's grandson, Edward Ellington III, by Henry Lewis, director of the Newark Symphony Orchestra. The Duke currently is on a tour of Europe. Ira Aldridge was also enrolled in the Academy's Hall of Fame and his great-grandson, Major Ira Aldridge (U. S. Army Ret.) accepted.

Entertainment for the evening was provided by Bill Cosby, Ella Mitchell, Letta Mbulu and the Howard Roberts Chorale.

The award for scholarly works went to Franklin W. Knight for Slave Society in Cuba During the 19th Century, and was presented to him by Adelaide Crownwell Hill of the African Studies Dept. of Boston (Mass.) University.