Overcoming occasional outrage, it is a delight to set aside time to explore all that’s left to learn about Black history.
Initially, as inaugurated a century ago by historian Carter G. Woodson, our official time to shine only amounted to Negro History Week. An acknowledgment of excellence and a remedy to ignorance, it included both Abraham Lincoln’s and Frederick Douglass’ birthdays. Now, even though it is greatly extended, it’s still ironic that Black History Month is the shortest month of all. Even an entire year would be insufficient to enumerate the magnitude and miraculous magnificence with which African Americans have so lovingly endowed our nation.
Because recognition accorded to Black Americans is inevitably long overdue, tonight I enjoyed a distinct pleasure. My friend Ms. Lana Turner, feted by some of her innumerable friends, literally received her flowers and a cake. If even most who are Black (like whites) are woefully ignorant of either the width and breadth of what our rich heritage entails, it now includes lovely Lana, Harlem’s wonderful force of nature.
It was not just this diva’s birthday that was commemorated. Her entire life and work were highlighted at the Maysles Documentary Center, where Lana was interviewed by award-winning writer Randy Cohen, for the “Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen” podcast.
What’s that, you ask? “Person Place Thing” is an NPR radio program and podcast that seeks out vital guests with compelling interests. Its raison d’être is that interviewees are especially likely to be engaging when reflecting on something they care deeply about. People asked to expound on one person, one place, and one thing, which to them holds particular value or meaning.
Still fly and spry at 76, very much with it and with us, Lana’s passion is emphasizing the significance of both Black history and its attendant aesthetic sensibility. She believes most in teaching by doing. So her always impactful history lessons are all about living that best-lived life.
Michael Henry Adams photos
As a result, Lana is as likely to be spotted participating in a symposium about Black literature as on a polished floor, swing-dancing the day or night away. Around the globe, what’s her favorite spot? It is that place, wherever it is, that people still dance. Perennially, Lana will be there too, encouraging others to join her.
The consummate collector, a style maven only slightly less notorious than the legendary Iris Apfel, Lana confessed to owning, amongst other things, 6000 books and some 600 hats. “Where do you keep your hats?” an audience member asked. Like a latter day Blanche Dunn, (“Where else?” was definitely inferred) Lana answered succinctly: “In hat boxes.”
No surprise, as a flourishing crescendo, Lana’s “thing” was a jaunty black plumed cocktail hat, of the variety the English call “a fascinator.” But rather than “hat” singular, it’s more accurate to say “hats” plural. Last night alone, Lana donned at least three. Being black, easily transportable and distinctive was all they shared in common.
Lana was at her lyrical best reminiscing. She said Bill Cunningham, customarily addressing her as “child,” rejoiced whenever they met. “He’d always begin by describing me, delineating my ensemble, naming who it was, who had designed or made each and every element! ‘Jacques Marie Anatole Fath, Paris, 1950…’ he might exclaim, about a cinched-waisted silk skirt I wore! His knowledge of fashion history was encyclopedic!” So, one might add, is hers.
Asked about the origins of her inimitable style, Lana started a sort of stream of consciousness reverie, saying “l feel like we’re at church …” Beyond rhapsodizing about her designated “person,” Wynton Marsalis, Lana credited many others for both her style sense, as well for her life’s success. She spoke about standing on her father’s well-polished shoes to learn to swing dance. Her reminiscence was given so touchingly that we transported there with her, to that moment in the past. Some she shouted out were long gone. Lost icons essential to her formation, included Countee Cullen’s widow, Ida Mae Roberson Cullen and Amsterdam News’ star reporter, Marvel Cooke. She acknowledged as well living legends who subsequent to being an inspiration, have become her friends. One among this group who was there, is historian David Levering Lewis (who has just announced a $1 million gift for a $2 million prize awarding a grant in his name for the best book about the African diaspora each year).
Her parents and their attitudes also helped to define all she is, Lana said. “They exhibited such poise. Their jobs were as servants, a chamber maid and chauffeur. But that did not diminish or define them. When appropriate, they wore ball gowns and tiaras and white tie or black tie. They lived a life of beauty and so I have figured that I can too.
“My mother dragged us, I shouldn’t say dragged, to an Apostolic church at 127th Street and Fifth Avenue. It’s a condominium now. The worship there was so free and theatrical, uninhibited and improvisational. There’s that word again!
“I really am a student of culture, I wander Harlem’s streets all the time. And, is there degradation? Yes. But there is also beauty. I choose to see, to enjoy, to live, the beauty.”
I wish that my musical interludes had been as charming as the original selections played by brilliant young Harlem pianist Warner Meadows. Interviewed for “Person Place Thing” two years ago, like Lana, my “place” was Harlem, too. The conversation had seemed to reach an impasse when the interviewer objected to my conclusion. Racism, I suggested, while sometimes subtler, was just as prevalent today as always. So I momentarily worried as Mr. Cohen attempted to compare the plight and resilience of his ancestors, “shtetl Jews” fleeing the Russian tsar’s pesky habit of liking to kill them, their surmounting all that, to the suffering Blacks still must fight and overcome.
Happily, more patiently than I might have, Lana explained his error. Indeed, her correction was triumphant!:
“As much as some people were fleeing terror to come to Harlem, many were drawn here by opportunity. Though every newcomer sees New York as a place where it’s possible to reinvent themselves, one can’t remove our Blackness. There’s a glass ceiling in America for Blacks. When people arrived here during the Great Migration, despite all the optimism and hope they had, they still might encounter sorrow and disappointments. So they had to find out ways to get up and keep going. To figure a way to make it to work and to even be happy, no matter what! And, they did and we still do too.”
Hear, hear, dear friend.