Lt. Col. Charity Adams Early
The legacy of heroes remains permanent in our consciousness. A lot of people, even in 2023, didn't know that black women were in the military during World War II courageously fighting against fascism. Decades ago, World War II existed, but its impact on our society is paramount from new technology to the end of overt colonialism in many parts of the world (from Africa to Asia). The late Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Early lived from December 5, 1918, to January 13, 2002. She was an American United States Army officer. She made history in enumerable ways. She was the first African-American woman to be an officer in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later WACs) and the commanding officer of the first battalion of African-American women to serve overseas during World War II. Adams was the highest-ranking African-American woman in the army by the completion of the war. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion helped to deliver mail throughout the U.S. Armed Forces in the midst of enemy lines. Their motto was "No Mail, Low Morale." There is a monument honoring the military group of women at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on November 30, 2018. She served from 1942 to 1946 during her life. She fought Jim Crow apartheid and gave opportunities for future women military leaders. Heroes like Isabella Peterson Evans, Millie Dunn Veasey, Mildred Gates Hooper, Romay Johnson Davi, and other human beings have shown courage and heroism. Therefore, we honor Lt. Colonel Charity Adams Early as a champion for our freedom and a beacon of light for freedom in general.
The Beginning of Her Life
Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Early was born in the South at Kittrell, North Carolina on December 5, 1918. Later, she grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. She was inspired by her parents to earn a great education. She was a high achiever. Her father, a college graduate, was an African Methodist Episcopal minister. Her mother was a schoolteacher. Adams was the oldest of four children. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School as valedictorian and from Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1938, majoring in math and physics. After graduation, she returned to Columbia where she taught mathematics at the local high school while studying part-time for a M.A. degree in psychology at the Ohio State University, receiving her master's degree in 1946. Adams enlisted in the United States Army's Women's Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in July 1942. She was the first African-American woman to be an officer in the WAAC. During that time, the U.S. Army was very much segregated. That means that she was placed in a company with fellow African American women officers and stationed at Fort Des Moines. In 1943, she was assigned to be the training supervisor at base headquarters. By early 1944, Adams was reassigned to the Training Center control officer in charge of improving job training and efficiency. She had other jobs like surveying officer (finding lost property) and summary court officer (handling women's minor offenses). In December 1944, Adams led the only company of black WACs ever to serve overseas. They were stationed in Birmingham, England. The women began to socialize with the citizens and broke through prejudices. Adams was put in charge of a postal directory service unit. Another part of her job included raising the morale of women. Adams achieved this by creating beauty parlors for women to relax and socialize in.
More Of Her Service During World War II
In March 1945, she was appointed the commanding officer of the first battalion of African American women, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. They were stationed first in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Three months later, they were moved to Rouen, France, then to Paris. They were responsible for the delivery of mail to over seven million soldiers during World War II. By the end of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Adams was the highest-ranking African-American woman in the military. When she was asked about her groundbreaking achievement, Adams responded by saying, "I just wanted to do my job." She decided to leave the service in 1946 when she was called to serve at the Pentagon. Growing up in the South, Adams experienced the hardships of segregation. When she entered the Army, she still faced discrimination but was not afraid to speak up and fight for desegregation in the Army. One of the first battles Adams fought for equality was when the Army proposed segregating the training regimen. When she was told she would head one of the segregated regiments, she refused. The Army subsequently decided against creating separate regiments. On another occasion, when a general stated, "I'm going to send a white first lieutenant down here to show you how to run this unit", then-Major Adams responded, "Over my dead body, sir." The general threatened to court-martial her for disobeying orders. She then began to file charges against him for using "language stressing racial segregation" and ignoring a directive from Allied headquarters. They both dropped the matter, and the general later came to respect Adams. When the Red Cross tried to donate equipment for a new segregated recreation center, Adams refused it because her unit had been sharing the recreation center with white units. She wanted her battalion to socialize with people of all colors to establish a comradeship between enlisted personnel and officers to ease the tensions of racism. In 1945, in a written report compiled at the end of the war, Kathryn Blood, a researcher or the Department of Labor studying the wartime contributions of Black women, wrote the following about the Black Rosies:
“The contribution [of Black women] is one which this nation would be unwise to forget or evaluate falsely.”
Her Service After the War
Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Early devoted her post war life to community service. She served on the Board of Directors of Dayton Power and Light, the Dayton Metro Housing Authority, the Dayton Opera Company, the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross, and the Board of Trustees of Sinclair Community College. Adams volunteered for United Way, the United Negro College Fund, the Urban League, and the YWCA. She also co-directed the Black Leadership Development Program. Adams earned many honors and awards. Adams earned the Woman of the Year award from the National Council of Negro Women in 1946, the Top Ten Women of the Miami Valley Dayton Daily News award in 1965, and the Service to the Community Award from the Ohio State Senate in 1989. In 1987, she received the Senior Citizens Gold Watch Award. Adams was listed on the Smithsonian Institution's 110 Most Important Historical Black Women, Black Women Against the Odds award, in 1982. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1979 and the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame in 1993. She was also inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame and named Citizen of the Year by The Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 1991. In 1997, Adams was included in the BellSouth African-American History Calendar. She also received honorary doctorates from Wilberforce University and the University of Dayton in 1991. Dayton Public Schools named one of their all-girls elementary schools in her honor (the "Charity Adams Earley Girls Academy"). In 1949, Adams married Stanley A. Earley, Jr. They moved to Switzerland for a time while Stanley completed medical school. They returned to the U.S. in 1952 and settled in Dayton, Ohio where they had two children, Stanley III and Judith Earley. Adams passed at age 83 on January 13, 2002, in Dayton, Ohio.
On August 8, 2022, The Naming Commission of the US Department of Defense made recommendations for US Army post name changes for facilities named after Confederate soldiers. Among them was that Fort Lee, Virginia be redesignated Fort Gregg-Adams, after Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams Earley. On October 6, 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accepted the recommendation and directed that the name change occur no later than January 1, 2024. The name changes officially occurred on April 27, 2023.
After her service in the Army. Adams earned a master's degree in psychology from Ohio State University. She then worked at the Veterans Administration in Cleveland, Ohio, but soon left to teach at the Miller Academy of Fine Arts. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and was the director of student personnel at Tennessee A&I College. She then moved to Georgia and became the director of student personnel and assistant professor of education at Georgia State College. She later served on the Board of Trustees at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton Public Schools also named one of their schools the "Charity Adams Earley Girls Academy" in her honor.
Disney: 100 Years Later
This year saw Disney see 100 years of its existence. A lot has changed in the span of 100 years. Disney is an institution that has been through ups and downs. It has the paradox of having a large involvement in outlining some of the greatest amination television shows, shorts, and movies in all of human history along with many controversies (during the past and present). Disney has been an entertainment hub for men, women, and children who seek joy along with an entity being criticized by Ron DeSantis for bigoted, reactionary reasons (hiding behind religion when most religious people don't believe that certain people should have 2nd class citizenship in contradiction of treating your neighbor as yourself. We have to fight to maintain and strengthen our democracy as democracy is readily fragile). I imagined writing on Disney for a long time. Now, it's time to show a fair portrait of the history, legacy, and culture of Disney. It is true that tons of workers in Disney locations are filled with grace and character, and Walt Disney is a controversial person (with debates on his ideologies and his legacy as a man. Disney has been accused of being a racist, and FBI informant, and an anti-Semite. His supporters deny these allegations). Likewise, it is truly right to show it all about Disney and I do mean all. The only way to evaluate history is to see it with a clear picture filled with context, sources, and information that drive curiosity and understanding in a cogent fashion. Minnie Mouse, The Lion King, Mickey Mouse, and other characters are part of the world lexicon, and Disney will continue to exist in a changing 21st-century era indeed.
The Beginning
To start, in the time of October of 1923, Walt and Roy Disney worked together to open their studio together. This was in the early stage of Hollywood and the modern-day entertainment industry. Years ago, from 1921 to 2922, Walt and Ub Iwerks worked at Gray Advertising Company. Both had a studio called Laugh-o-gram Films Inc. from 1921 to 1922. Roy introduced Walt to the Gray Advertising Company. The studio became bankrupt. Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles in August 1923 to promote his new series of The Alice Comedies. Winkler Pictures gave him a contract for 12 Alice cartoons, and it was time for Walt and Roy to make a name for themselves. Walt handled the creative side. Walt Disney came to LA in Hollywood with 40 dollars in his pocket according to him. During the 1920s, the animation studio had more content like Alice, Oswald, Mickey Mouse, and the Silly Symphonies. The Alice Comedies was inspired by a little girl named Virginia Davis being contacted to play Alice. Alice's Wonderland was part of the films as well. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was born being a cross between Felix the Cat and Disney's Julius the Cat. Winkler Pictures gave him a contract for 12 Alice cartoons, and it was time for Walt and Roy to make a name for themselves. Walt handled the creative side. The first Silly Symphony was called The Skeleton Dance in August 1929. The Silly Symphonies cartoons lasted from 1929 to 1939. By the 1930's, Disney shifted to using more experimentation, showing new characters, and having feature-length movies with animation. Flowers and Trees was part of the Silly Symphony series and was number 29, to be released on July 23, 1932. Technicolor technology was used for future films by 1935. Flowers and Trees won the first ever Best Cartoon Short Subject at the 5th Academy Awards in 1932. It was also the first of the series to be distributed by United Artists when Disney made the switch from Columbia Pictures.
Disney came about to promote new characters in the 1930's like Pluto, Goofy, and Donald Duck. Pluto was Minnie's dog originally. Clarence Nash was the voice behind Donald Duck. Donald Duck made his first appearance in The Wise Little Hen on June 9th, 1934. Donald appeared in 10 more shorts from 1934 to 1936 before his appearance changed to the anthropomorphic duck in the short Moving Day. 1937 is notoriously linked with the release of the world’s very first animated feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It premiered on December 21, 1937, at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California. It was a film that won 8 honorary Academy Awards in 1938. The Animator's strike came about in 1940's. People wanted to have better working conditions and just payments. The strike kicked off after Art Babbitt and Walt Disney’s relationship was strained due to Babbitt’s agreement to have a union set in place for the employees falling through. A Federal mediator was brought in after 5 weeks and agreed that a union would solve many of its problems. Ever since this 1941 strike, Disney has been part of a union. Labor strikes existed nationwide in America during the 1930's and the 1940's. Walt Disney worked in WWI as an ambulance driver. He was part of wartime propaganda films during WWII. They produced propaganda films featuring popular Disney characters, educational videos, training videos, and more. These ranged from Why We Fight, which catered to soldiers, Victory Through Air Power, an educational film for a broader audience, and Der Fuehrer’s Face, a way to expose the Axis Powers. Films like Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, and Dumbo. Shorter films existed like Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy-Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad (1949). One of the most controversial films of Disney was Song of the South in 1946. The movie shows a child listening to the story of Uncle Remus (during the time of Reconstruction) about B'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'eear. Many people criticized the film as promoting racist stereotypes about African Americans and glorifying plantation life as not a joyful occasion. As a result of the film's controversial legacy, Disney has not released Song of the South in any home video format in the United States, and the film has never been available on its streaming platform Disney+.
Racist imagery in Disney's early cartoons and films (and in movies plus cartoons in general not just in Disney back in the day) aren't new. Other characters that have been called racist are Sunflower, a black centaurette who serves a white centaurette in Fantasia; the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, who are considered to be over-exaggerated as Asians, stereotypes of Native Americans in Peter Pan, and crows in Dumbo, who are depicted as African Americans who use stereotypical "slang" talk. Their leader being named Jim Crow, which is considered to be a reference to racial segregation laws in the U.S. When watching a film on Disney+ considered to have wrongful racist stereotypes, Disney added a disclaimer before the film starts to help avoid controversies.
The Mid-Century Developments
The 1950's saw the Silver Age or a return to the fairytale princess image with Cinderella and Alice and Wonderland. Ilene Woods played these roles. Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, and The Jungle Book used diverse amination. Disneyland was opened on July 17, 1955, in Anaheim, California. It was a theme, entertainment park. The plans for the locations were formed by Harriet Burns, Fred Joerger, and Wathel Rogers. Walter Elias Disney Enterprises or WED Enterprises was founded by Walt Disney in December 1952. WED Enterprises owned property in Glendale. It still exists today. It is now Walt Disney Imagineering in 1986 being used to improve Disney parks. This was the original park, so it acted as the trailblazer for the other Disneyland parks that were to come later on, including Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Shanghai, and Disneyland Hong Kong. During the 1960's, there was the experimentation of with audio-animatronics. There were more films like The Enchanted Tiki Room (1963), Greatest Moments with Mr. Lincoln (1964), It's a Small World (1964), and Pirates of the Caribbean (1967). Mary Poppins was one of Disney's most successful projects. At its release in 1964, it was a huge success. At the 1965 Oscars, the film cleaned up, with Julie Andrews winning Best Actress in a Leading Role, Cotton Warburton winning Best Film Editing, Peter Ellenshaw, Hamilton Luske, and Eustace Lycett taking home Best Special Visual Effects, and the Sherman Brothers winning Best Music Original Song for “Chim Chim Cheree.” The film has won 13 other awards since then, many recognizing Julie Andrews as a top-up-and-coming lead film star. The controversial Jungle Book film was released on October 18th, 1967. Walt Disney passed away from lung cancer on December 15, 1966.
The 1970's saw the 50th year anniversary of Walt Disney. Disney started to collect historical artifacts, original amination cells, photos, and more. These Walt Disney Achieves were created by Dave Smith. Walt Disney, before his passing wanted Walt Disney World to exist in Florida. His older brother, Roy, knew of his plans. Roy would use this information moving forward and the plans already set in motion for the newest park to lead the team to the opening of Walt Disney World on October 1, 1971. 10,000 people gathered to experience the Magic Kingdom and its 19 opening-day attractions, some of which were the Skyway, the Country Bear Jamboree, and the Grand Prix Raceway. 3 more parks would be added over the next 2 decades, including EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Roy O. Disney would pass away in December of 1971 after leading the charge of this massive project. More parks existed like Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain to celebrate nature. There was the Walt Disney Home Video collection. First, there was the Laserdisc system and then VHS tapes existed by 1980. Some of the first films to be released in Walt Disney Home Video were Pete’s Dragon, The Black Hole, The Love Bug, and Escape to Witch Mountain. They expanded the program by adding rentals and releasing Black Diamond editions of their films. As an expansion of Walt Disney World, EPCOT Center opened on October 1, 1982. This was one of Walt’s biggest personal dreams, something he wanted to invest in with the profits made from his theme parks. EPCOT celebrates the different world cultures. Disney’s Hollywood Studios, originally called Disney-MGM studios due to a marketing contract Disney had with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, would open on May 1, 1989. By the 1980s, there was the Disneyland Fantasyland with a Renaissance Fair theme. There were many rides started in the 1980's.
By the 1990's, new styles of animation existed at Disney. Pixar worked with Disney to make many advanced animated films. High-resolution 3D images were part of this movement in Pixar. In 1982, The Adventures of Andre & Wally B. was shown at a conference, and it was the first short film to be created by the Pixar department. Following shortly after, they produced Luxo Jr. and Knick Knack. In 1989, they signed on for a 3-movie deal with Disney, which commenced in 1990. On June 15, 1994, The Lion King was released and was a massive success, becoming the second highest-grossing film of all time behind Jurassic Park and the highest-grossing animated film of all time, with a gross total of $968.5 million. It was critically praised and garnered two Academy Awards—Best Score and Best Song for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight." Soon after its release, Katzenberg left the company after Eisner refused to promote him to president. After leaving, he co-founded the film studio DreamWorks SKG.
In 1995, Toy Story was released and was the first-ever computer-animated feature-length film. Disney then signed off on a 10-year, 5-movie deal, which included A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Monsters Inc. (2001). Disney's Animal Kingdom was opened on Earth Day 1998. Many animal species were there and it was inspired by the jungles of Africa and Asia. Disney began releasing DVDs of some of their live-action movies in 1998 and created a plan for some of their animated features for the year after. They chose a selection of just a few of their classic animated films for their first release, including Pinocchio, Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid, and more. During the late 1990's, popular Disney films would be Mulan, A Bug's Life, Hercules, and Tarzan.
21st Century Developments
By the 2000's, Disney expanded into Japan with Toyko DisneySea and Anaheim with California Adventure. By 2004, near the end of Michael Eisner’s reign as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, the momentum of acquiring other entertainment companies was picking up. The franchise The Muppets, originally founded by Jim Henson in 1955, was officially trademarked and owned by Disney in 2004. In 2006 with the transition from Eisner to Iger, Iger was able to repair relationships that had been broken during the Eisner era, specifically with Steve Jobs at Pixar. Iger made a point to meet with Jobs to discuss the potential of Disney purchasing Pixar, and after Jobs convinced Pixar’s board of directors, Disney acquired Pixar in January 2006 for $7.4 billion. Disney's 2006 live-action film of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was a popular film making over $1 billion at the box office. The Disney Channel released High School Musical 2 in 2007.
After just a few short years as CEO, Bob Iger then made the remarkable decision to purchase Marvel Entertainment with cash and stocks. In August 2009, Disney purchased Marvel for $4 billion. Marvel had films like Blade in 1998, and Iron Man in 2008 to start the MCU movement that continues to this day. The MCU movie culture expressed movies from The Avengers: Endgame to the historic film Black Panther. Hong Kong Disneyland opened on September 12, 2005. It is the second most recent Disney theme park to ever open. It is one of the smaller parks in comparison to those in North America but has seen many expansions over the years with plans to expand even further.
By the 2010's, Bob Iger and Tom Staggs approached James Cameron, the world-famous filmmaker and mind behind The Terminator, Titanic, and Avatar. After the major success of Titanic, Cameron began work on Avatar, a sci-fi film based in the fictional land of Pandora. It would be another decade until the film could be released as they adapted the film to new technologies. Avatar took $237 million to make, which was nothing in comparison to what it made at the box office, $2.923 billion. It reached the $1 billion mark after just 19 days of being released worldwide. Instead of simply building an attraction based on Avatar, Disney created the world of Pandora, set in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Pandora - The World of Avatar, officially opened on May 27, 2017. Disney programs continue to exist. Disney once again started to relapse in the early 2000s with some of their films such as Fantasia 2000, Dinosaur, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Home on the Range. In 2010, the Revival Era began for the studio, seeing more wins than ever. The Revival Era began with Princess and the Frog, followed by Tangled, Wreck-It-Ralph, and Frozen. Frozen was a very popular film. It has since received two Academy Awards, a Bafta, and a Golden Globe, and has been turned into a Broadway musical. Its sequel, Frozen II, has surpassed its successes and is the #1 highest-grossing animated film of all time until 2019 (when the remake of The Lion King took place in 2019).
On March 20, 2019, Disney acquired 21st Century Fox's assets for $71.3 billion from Rupert Murdoch, making it the biggest acquisition in Disney's history. After the purchase, The New York Times described Disney as "an entertainment colossus the size of which the world has never seen." Through the acquisition, Disney gained 20th Century Fox; 20th Century Fox Television; Fox Searchlight Pictures; National Geographic Partners; Fox Networks Group; Indian television broadcaster Star India; streaming service Hotstar; and a 30% stake in Hulu, bringing its ownership to Hulu to 60%. Fox Corporation and its assets were excluded from the deal because of antitrust laws. Disney also became the first film studio to have seven films gross $1 billion: Marvel's Captain Marvel, the live-action Aladdin, Pixar's Toy Story 4, the CGI remake of The Lion King, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and the highest-grossing film of all time up to that point at $2.797 billion Avengers: Endgame. On November 12, Disney's subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service Disney+, which had 500 movies and 7,500 episodes of television shows from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and other brands, was launched in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands. Within the first day, the streaming platform had over 10 million subscriptions; and by 2022 it had over 135 million subscribers and was available in over 190 countries. At the beginning of 2020, Disney removed the Fox name from its assets, rebranding them as 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. For over 20 years, Disney has promoted pro-LBGTQIA+ themes in parks, movies, TV shows, etc. which has been opposed by many conservatives.
The new attraction of the Avengers Campus began on June 4th, 2021. In the last week of April 2023, Disney will implement the second and largest wave of job cuts, affecting Disney Parks, Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and the Experiences and Product division. This move is part of the company's plan to cut costs by $5.5 billion. In 2023, Disney began its "100 Years of Wonder" campaign in celebration of the centennial anniversary of the company's founding. This included a new animated centennial logo intro for the Walt Disney Pictures division, a touring exhibition, special events at the parks, and a well-received commemorative commercial that aired during Super Bowl LVII. In 2023, there was The Little Mermaid 2023 film which was history casting a young black woman Halle Berry as the Little Mermaid character. The film was an American musical romantic fantasy movie directed by Rob Marshall from a screenplay written by David Magee. It was co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Lucamar Productions, and Marc Platt Productions. It came after the 1989 animated film of the same name. The 2023's The Little Mermaid was about mermaid princess Airel (played by Halle Berry) who trades her voice for human legs to impress Prince Eric after making a deal with sea witch Ursula. The film also starred Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Art Malik, Awkwafina, Melissa McCarthy, etc. The film grossed over $556 million worldwide. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. The same racist ones who object to the casting of Ariel as a black woman need to realize that this is a fictional story. A black woman has the right to achieve her own sense of creativity or destiny just like anyone else. Brand Norwood was the first black human being to play Cinderella in the 1997 Disney television film of the same name and Anika Noni Rose was Disney's first African-American Princess as Tiana. Both Brandy Norwood and Anika Noni Rose praise the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel.
By Timothy
No comments:
Post a Comment