sexta-feira, 21 de janeiro de 2011

American History: Blacks Set Out in Search of a Better Life in 1920s Society

Source: www.voanews.com the best way to improve American English.


Louis Armstrong
Photo: loc.gov
Louis Armstrong




BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.
The early years of the twentieth century were a time of movement for many black Americans. Traditionally, most blacks lived in the Southeastern states. But in the nineteen twenties, many blacks moved to cities in the North.
Black Americans moved because living conditions were so poor in the rural areas of the Southeast. But many of them discovered that life was also hard in the colder Northern cities. Jobs often were hard to find. Housing was poor. And whites sometimes acted violently against them.
This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell about the life of black Americans in the nineteen twenties and how they helped form traditions.
(MUSIC)
KAY GALLANT: The years just before and after nineteen twenty were difficult for blacks. It was a time of racial hatred. Many whites joined the Ku Klux Klan organization. The Klan often terrorized blacks. Klan members sometimes burned fiery crosses in front of the houses of black families. And they sometimes beat and murdered blacks.
The Ku Klux Klan also acted against Roman Catholics, Jews, and foreigners. But it hated blacks most of all.
Ku Klux Klan members, around 1922
loc.gov

Ku Klux Klan members, around 1922
HARRY MONROE: The United States also suffered a series of race riots in a number of cities during this period. White and black Americans fought each other in Omaha, Philadelphia, and other cities.
The worst riot was in Chicago. A swimming incident started the violence. A black boy sailing a small boat entered a part of the beach used by white swimmers. Some white persons threw stones at the boy. He fell into the water and drowned.
Black citizens heard about the incident and became extremely angry. Soon, black and white mobs were fighting each other in the streets.
The violence lasted for two weeks. Thirty-eight persons died. More than five-hundred were wounded. The homes of hundreds of families were burned.
The violence in Chicago and other cities did not stop black Americans from moving north or west. They felt that life had to be better than in the South.
KAY GALLANT: Black Americans left the South because life was hard, economic chances few, and white hatred common. But many blacks arrived in other parts of the country only to learn that life was no easier. Some blacks wrote later that they had only traded the open racism of the rural Southeast for the more secret racism of Northern cities.
Blacks responded to these conditions in different ways. Some blacks followed the ideas of Booker T. Washington, the popular black leader of the early nineteen hundreds.
Washington believed that blacks had to educate and prepare themselves to survive in American society. He helped form a number of training schools where blacks could learn skills for better jobs. And he urged blacks to establish businesses and improve themselves without causing trouble with whites.
Other blacks liked the stronger ideas of William Du Bois.
Du Bois felt that blacks had to take firm actions to protest murders and other illegal actions. He published a magazine and spoke actively for new laws and policies to protect black rights. Du Bois also helped form a group that later became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP became one of the nation's leading black rights organizations in the twentieth century.
Booker T. Washington
loc.gov

Booker T. Washington
HARRY MONROE: Probably the most important leader for black Americans in the nineteen twenties did not come from the United States. He was Marcus Garvey from the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Garvey moved to New York City in nineteen sixteen. He quickly began organizing groups in black areas.
His message was simple. He said blacks should not trust whites. Instead, they should be proud of being black and should help each other. Garvey urged blacks to leave the United States, move to Africa, and start their own nation.
Marcus Garvey organized several plans to help blacks become economically independent of whites. His biggest effort was a shipping company to trade goods among black people all over the world.
Many American blacks gave small amounts of money each week to help Garvey start the shipping company. However, the idea failed. Government officials arrested Garvey for collecting the money unlawfully. They sent him to prison in nineteen twenty-five. And two years later, President Coolidge ordered Garvey out of the country.
Marcus Garvey's group was the first major black organization in the United States to gain active support from a large number of people. The organization failed. But it did show the anger and lack of hope that many blacks felt about their place in American society.
(MUSIC)
KAY GALLANT: Blacks also showed their feelings through writing, art and music. The nineteen twenties were one of the most imaginative periods in the history of American black art.
Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen were three of the leading black poets during this time. McKay was best known for his poems of social protest. Hughes produced poems about black life that experts now say are among the greatest American poems ever written.
Black writers also produced longer works. Among the leading black novelists were Jessie Faucet, Jean Toomer, and Rudolph Fisher.
(MUSIC)
HARRY MONROE: The nineteen twenties also were an exciting time for black music. Black musicians playing the piano developed the ragtime style of music. Singers and musicians produced a sad, emotional style of playing that became known as the blues. And most important, music lovers began to play and enjoy a new style that was becoming known as jazz.
Jazz advanced greatly as a true American kind of music in the nineteen twenties. Musicians Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Eubie Blake played in gathering places and small theaters. White musicians and music experts from universities came to listen. Soon the music became popular among Americans of all kinds and around the world.
KAY GALLANT: Blacks began to recognize in the nineteen twenties their own deep roots in the United States. They began to see just how much black men and women already had done to help form American history and traditions.
The person who did the most to help blacks understand this was black historian Carter G. Woodson. Woodson received his training at two leading universities: Harvard in Massachusetts and the Sorbonne in France. He launched a new publication, the Journal of Negro History, in which he and other experts wrote about black life and history. Historians today call Woodson the father of the scientific study of black history.
HARRY MONROE: The nineteen twenties also were a period in which a number of blacks experimented with new political ideas and parties. The difficult social conditions of the period led many blacks to search for new political solutions.
Two leftist parties -- the Socialists and the Communists -- urged blacks to leave the traditional political system and work for more extreme change. Two leading black Socialists, Chandler Owen and A. Philip Randolph, urged blacks to support Socialist candidates. However, they gained little popular support from blacks.
Communists also tried to organize black workers. But generally, black voters showed little interest in communist ideas.
The most important change in black political thinking during the nineteen twenties came within the traditional two-party system itself. Blacks usually had voted for Republicans since the days of Abraham Lincoln. But the conservative Republican policies of the nineteen twenties caused many blacks to become Democrats.
By nineteen thirty-two, blacks would vote by a large majority for the Democratic presidential candidate, Franklin Roosevelt. And blacks continue to be a major force in the Democratic Party.
(MUSIC)
BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe.
You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.
___
This is program #17

Beyoncé, Dreamgirl





Source: Speak Up
Language level: Advanced
Standard: American accent 
Dreamgirl Beyoncé



The film career of Destiny’s Child Star Beyoncé Knowles has taken a new turn with the release of Dreamgirls. Directed by Bill Condon, who wrote the screenplay to Chicago and directed Kinsey, it has a star-studded cast that includes Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover. The movie, which is based on a hit Broadway musical of the same name, is said to have been inspired by the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes. Beyoncé Knowles even plays a character called “Deena Jones,” but the Dreamgirls star was keen to put the record straight.

Beyoncé Knowles
(Standard American/African-American accent):

This movie, and the character I play, Deena, is really different form Diana Ross, it’s not her story at all, actually, I think. I know that she was my inspiration, as far as the looks, the wigs, the make-up, the clothes, some of her posture on stage, but it kind of stops right there. Deena is…is her own character, and is her own life, but it was important that I knew that Diana was not upset! And I saw her, when I did…well, I was just at a Clive Davis (a legendary music industry executive –ed) party and she was there and she came to me, she was so sweet, very kind. And I so appreciated it because I admire her so much.

AN EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE

Beyoncé admits that playing the part of Deena was an emotionally draining experience:

Beyoncé Knowles:

I wasn’t myself for six months, I wasn’t, and even when I went in the studio, I still wasn’t myself, on my album, which is why I wanted to go in the studio, so I could find myself again, ‘cause I was going to basketball games with three pairs of lashes and I’m like “Who am I? Where…where am I?” ‘Cause I just see Deena, I’m like sitting like this the whole time with my shoulders shrugged and I’m like “That’s not me, that’s not how I perform.” So, it was really fascinating because I think it’s taken a couple of months, even after the movie, to get back into my own body!

THE PRICE OF FAME

One of the themes of Dreamgirls is the price of fame. Beyoncé believes, however, that her own career has been different. She was raised in an affluent suburb of Houston Texas, and is managed by her father, whereas Deena, like Diana Ross, grew up in one of the rougher sections of Detroit, Michigan, also known as “Motown”:

Beyoncé Knowles:

Well, Deena, her need, her personal need, is different because she came out of the Detroit projects, without a father. I went to private school, in middle, upper-class neighborhood and my father and my mother, I had both of them, I was very close to my family. So her mother couldn’t really tell her the truth because obviously she was paying for everything, and my family, my parents were successful, so they can tell me the truth, and we just have different lives and I don’t think I need it for the same reason she did. She went through a lot of things that I haven’t had to go through, but I made the choice to keep those people around me. Most celebrities don’t have honest people around them, and that is your choice, and I’ve been protected from a lot of things that you have to go through, a lot of the prices of fame. And it is difficult and you’re exposed to a lot of things that you shouldn’t be exposed to, and have access to any and everything, people will tell you that everything you do is wonderful, so it can be really hard to know what’s real and what’s not, but I think it’s important to know who you are and to keep the people around you that make who you are.

A Star is Born…

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born in Houston, Texas on September 4th, 1981. Her father, Mathew Knowles, is her manager, while her mother, Tina Beyince, is of Louisiana Creole descent. Beyoncé’s youngster sister, Solange, is also a professional singer. Beyonce’s career took off with group Destiny’s Child, who were allegedly discovered by Whitney Houston. Destiny’s Child has sold a combined total (albums and singles) of over 60 million records, and are said to be the biggest-selling girl group of all time. In addition to her singing and acting career, Beyoncé is a fashion designer. Her boyfriend is the rapper Jay-Z.

quinta-feira, 20 de janeiro de 2011

Landscapes and Educational projects


Project travel around the past provides high school students to visit the ancestors of the Indigenous people, me,  (Carlos tour guide) and Teacher Zé Adenilson we set off towards the Casa Santa biking around 11 kilometres away the downtown, check out the next pictures.

Here Teacher Adenilson was explaining about the aspect of the climate, rock forming million years ago. After that I explained about the origin of the human being, talking about the rock art paintings and the Indigenous Peoples group over 9 thousand year B.P. (Before Present).
                                          Red rock art paintings, Casa Santa
One of the most relevant shelter with Rock Art Paintings located 11 kilometres away the down town, the project basically aiming at to be aware about the Heritage and the importance for local people preserving in particular the memory of those Indigenous and also forming local guides in the future. Actually up to now over 80 archaeological sites have been discovered, attracting tourists from different parts of Brazil and worldwide, and of course Students come from neighbour towns and come from the other Brazilian states. Most pictures you have seen belongs to Carnauba dos Dantas. 

LEARNING CHOCOLATE, ACCESS

Today tonight I received an e-mail suggesting me I link an interesting ESL site, in fact I recommend it for children and English learners (Elementary level) but it can use from different level, in particular I'm kidding with those games and browser, visit LEARNING CHOCOLATE it is added on my favorite useful links, thank you so much. Friends I just added the ad senses sponsors on my blog, please do not click there on propose my account have been deleted a lot of time clicking by local people from my town, unfortunately, actually I don't have sponsor, that's why I decided to create an account to support this blog. Due some Technics problems on the net, I couldn't visitors my friends's bloggers, tomorrow I'll visit them. You can help this blog promoting twitting or using the Social Networking, thank you for your help advanced. Visit http://www.learningchocolate.com very useful your children will adore it, enjoy it and make fun.

TH Sound

Today I decided to post the Video about TH sound. It seems to me it's a bit difficult for those started to practise English, however it depends, of course how much time you do that, you are going to adapt it quickly, check out the video posted by Jennifer and ESL teacher. 


Credit ESL Teacher Jennifer.

Family Album, USA 33



Source: Family Album

quarta-feira, 19 de janeiro de 2011

Tourists and Landscapes

             Me and Franches, hiking towards the Archaeological site Xique-Xique I, of course now it's closed for visitors because both Archaeological sites Xique-Xique I and II is receiving an infrastructure of walkways, the project has been developed by the Brazilian National Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) the purpose is after the conclusion of the Walkways the tourism in the region finally boosts as soon as possible. 

             This is Aide from Terra del Fuego, Argentine on top of Talhado do Gaviao, locate in the Rural Zone of Carnaúba dos Dantas, beautiful observation desk, beautiful over view. Talhado is another rock art painting located on top of the mountain in Sítio Lagedo far from 9 kilometres away the downtown.
            
              Monte do Galo, it's a Religious tourism, this place attracts over 100 thousand of pilgrims a year, coming from different parts of Northeast, the pilgrimage is in honor to Our Lady of Victory our patron, the image of the Saint came in the middle of XX century from France in a cargo came from Portugal originally come from French. 
             
              Rock art paintings belongs to Northeast Tradition, Serido, Sub-tradition, actually this is a hunting scene, according to recent studying they have for about 9.000 years B.P. Located in Xique-Xique I far from 5, 5 killometres away from the downtown, easy access to climb up and reaching until the Archaeological site. 
             This Rock Art paintings belongs to Agreste Tradition, the main characteristic you cannot identify the paintings, mostly are unrecognizable, in other words abstracts scenes. Located far from 12 kilometres away, the shelter is back to Riacho da Cobra mouth in this municipality.
              Here I was guiding tourist from Holland in the Archaeological site Xique-Xique I. For more info, visit my second blog http://www.aventureirosdacaatinga.blogspot.com Did you like this post? Promote this blog for your friends.