Monday, September 23, 2024

The end of September News in 2024.

 


On September 22, 2024, I found out that Justin E. Franklin is my 5th cousin as we are descendants of Zilphy Claud. Her mother is my 4th cousin Julie M. Franklin, and she was born in June 1, 1970 at Amityville, Suffolk, New York. That location is in Long Island. She has other children who are Julian L. Franklin (b. 1997) and Karyn Franklin (b. 2002). Julie M. Franklin's parents were Dr. Alfred Lloyd Franklin Sr. (1927-2005) and Shirley Ann Lowe Franklin (1936-2017). Dr. Alfred Franklin Sr. was a World War II veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He was a family man and a lover of his wife, Shirley Ann Lowe Franklin. Shirley Ann Lowe Franklin was a matriach of many children. She had children with Maurice Craddock Mabina (1930-1999) whose names are Robin Adair Green Mabina (b. 1957) and Mark Wayne Mabina (b. 1960). Her children with Dr. Alfred Lloyd Franklin Sr. are Alfred L. Franklin (b. 1965) and Julie M. Franklin (b. 1970). The parents of Shirley Ann Lowe Franklin were Joseph Isaac Lowe (1919-1974) and Anna Louise Miles (1920-1999). The parents of Joseph Isaac Lowe were Bishop Charlie Wesley Lowe (1875-1954) and my 1st cousin Louisa A. Sykes (1876-1955). The parents of Louisa A. Sykes were Willis Sykes (b. 1832) and my 4th great grandaunt Lydia Claud (b. 1842). Lydia Claud's mother was Zilphy Claud (1820-1893). 

 


Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1877. Her parents were Emma (nee Jones) Warrick, an accomplished wig maker and beautician for upper class white women. William H. Warrick was a successful barber and caterer. Her father owned many barber shops, and her mother owned her own beauty salon. Warrick was, in fact, named after Meta Vaux, the daughter of Senator Richard Vaux, one of her mother's customers. Her maternal grandfather, Henry Jones, was a successful caterer in the city. Both of her parents were considered to have influential positions in African-American society. Her family's class status was a special privilege. It gave them many benefits, but even upper middle class black people suffered racism and discrimination back then and today. After an influx of free black people began making a home in Philadelphia, the available jobs were generally physically hard and low-paying. Only a few people could find desirable jobs as ministers, physicians, barbers, teachers, and caterers. During the Reconstruction, due to racism, legalized racial segregation laws, including Jim Crow laws limited the social progress of African Americans into the 20th century. Despite this, Warrick's parents were able to find creative success amongst the "vibrant political, cultural, and economic center" the African-American community of Philadelphia had established. Her parents' success inspired Meta Fuller to have access to many cultural and educational opportunities.


Warrick was trained in art, music, dance, and horseback riding. Warrick's art education and art influences started at home. It was nurtured from her childhood by her older sister Blanche, who studied art and visited the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with her father, who was also interested in sculpture and painting. Her older sister became a beautician like their mother, but she kept clay that Meta was able to use to create art. She was enrolled in 1893 at the Girls' High School in Philadelphia, where she studied art as well as academic courses. Warrick was among the few gifted artists selected from the Philadelphia public schools to study art and design at J. Liberty Tadd's art program at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art in the early 1890s. Her brother and grandfather entertained and fascinated her with endless horror stories. These influences partly shaped her sculpture, as she eventually developed as an internationally trained artist known as "the sculptor of horrors." Warrick's art career started after one of her high school projects was chosen to be included in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Based upon this work, she won a four-year scholarship to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now The University of the Arts College of Art and Design) in 1894. Her gift for sculpture developed. 



In an act of independence and nonconformity as an up-and-coming woman artist, Warrick defied traditionally "feminine" themes by sculpting pieces influenced by the gruesome imagery found in the fin de siècle movement of the Symbolist era. At various times, she was a literary sculptor, at others a creator of portrait art - which she studied under Charles Grafly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Although she said that she could not specialize in African-American types, Fuller became one of the most effective chroniclers of the black experience within the United States. In 1898, she received her Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art diploma and teacher's certificate as well as a scholarship for an additional year of study.


After she graduated in 1899, Warrick traveled to Paris, France, where she studied with Raphael Collin, working on sculpture and anatomy at the Academie Colarossi and drawing at Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Warrick had to deal with racial discrimination at the American Women's Club in Paris, where she was refused lodging although she had made reservations before arriving in the city. African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner, a family friend, founding lodging for her and gave her a community amongst his groups of friends. Warrick's work grew stronger in Paris, where she studied until 1902. Influenced by the conceptual realism of Auguste Rodin, she became so adept at depicting the spirituality of human suffering that the French press named her "the delicate sculptor of horrors." In 1902, she became the protege of Rodin. Of her plaster sketch entitled Man Eating His Heart, Rodin remarked, "My child, you are a sculptor; you have the sense of form in your fingers." Warrick created many works of art that described the African American experience that were revolutionary. They touched on the complexities of nature, religion, identity, and nation. She is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing in New York of African Americans making art of various genres, literature, plays and poetry. The Danforth Museum, which received a $40,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to safeguard Warrick Fuller's work, states that Fuller is "generally considered one of the first African-American female sculptors of importance."


 

By the 1980s, country music started to have a shift. More pop influences came into country music. Pop music is a different style that has been beloved and hated by many people in the world. Willie Nelson and Juice Newton each had two songs in the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the early eighties: Nelson charted "Always on My Mind" (#5, 1982) and "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" (#5, 1984, a duet with Julio Iglesias), and Newton achieved success with "Queen of Hearts" (#2, 1981) and "Angel of the Morning" (#4, 1981). Four country songs topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the 1980s: "Lady" by Kenny Rogers, from the late fall of 1980; "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "I Love a Rainy Night" by Eddie Rabbitt (these two back-to-back at the top in early 1981); and "Islands in the Stream", a duet by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers in 1983, a pop-country crossover hit written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. Newton's "Queen of Hearts" almost reached No. 1, but was kept out of the spot by the pop ballad juggernaut "Endless Love" by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. The move of country music toward neotraditional styles led to a marked decline in country/pop crossovers in the late 1980s, and only one song in that period—Roy Orbison's "You Got It", from 1989—made the top 10 of both the Billboard Hot Country Singles" and Hot 100 charts, due largely to a revival of interest in Orbison after his sudden death. 



By the 1980s, the world has changed. Fashion and culture became more eclectic. There was a massive conservative movement in the West from Regan in America to Thacher in the UK. The only song with substantial country airplay to reach number one on the pop charts in the late 1980s was "At This Moment" by Billy Vera and the Beaters, an R&B song with slide guitar embellishment that appeared at number 42 on the country charts from minor crossover airplay. The record-setting, multi-platinum group Alabama was named Artist of the Decade for the 1980s by the Academy of Country Music. Country rock grew, and it mixed rock music and country. It has been around since the 1960s. Bob Dylan and John Welsey Harding had this style along with Gene Clark and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Gram Parsons' work in the early 1970s was acclaimed as one of the pioneers of country rock. This genre would be expressed by Hank Williams Jr., Hank Williams III, Gary Allan, Shania Twain, Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Dolly Parton, Rosanne Cash and Linda Ronstadt moved country further towards rock influence. The 1980 film Urban Cowboy popularized neocountry disco music. This has been shown by many pop starts like Bill Medley (of the Righteous Brothers), "England Dan" Seals (of England Dan and John Ford Coley), Tom Jones, and Merrill Osmond (both alone and with some of his brothers; his younger sister Marie Osmond was already an established country star) all recorded significant country hits in the early 1980s. Sales in record stores rocketed to $250 million in 1981; by 1984, 900 radio stations began programming country or neocountry pop full-time. As with most sudden trends, however, by 1984 sales had dropped below 1979 figures.




There is the truck driving country music. It is a fusion of honky-tonk, country rock, and the Bakersfield sound. Its lyrics discuss about the truck driver's lifestyle as many truck driver drives for days listening to the radio constantly. It has the tempo of country and the emotion of honky-tonk. Many artists in the genre were Dave Dudley, Red Sovine, Dick Curless, Red Simpson, Del Reeves, the Willis Brothers, and Jerry Reed, with C. W. McCall and Cledus Maggard (pseudonyms of Bill Fries and Jay Huguely, respectively) being more humorous entries in the subgenre. Dudley is known as the father of truck driving country. By the mid 1980's, a new generation of country music artists didn't want the more polished country pop sound. They wanted a back-to-basics neotraditionalist country music style.  Many of the artists during the latter half of the 1980s drew on traditional honky-tonk, bluegrass, folk, and western swing. Artists who typified this sound included Travis Tritt, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Keith Whitley, Alan Jackson, John Anderson, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, Clint Black, Ricky Skaggs, and the Judds. Many of these artists carried over into the 1990's. George Strait is a pioneer of the neotraditionalist movement and has been called the "King of Country." He is one of the bestselling musicians of all time. 





 By 200 A.D., there was the rival bishop of Rome named Natalius. He later submitted to Bishop Zephyrinus. Later, the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire accelerated. In 202 A.D., Roman Emperor Severus issued an edict forbidding conversion to Christianity. Abgar, King of Edessa, embraced the Christian fiath in 206 A.D. By 208 A.D., Tertullian wrote that Christ has followers on the far side of the Roman wall in Britain, where Roman legions haven ot yet penetrated. From 218 to 258, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, cited "Western" NT text-type, claimed Christians were freely forging his letters to discredit him (Ante-Nicene Fathers). In ca. 220, Clement of Alexandria, cited "Alexandrian" NT text-type & Secret Gospel of Mark & Gospel of the Egyptians; wrote "Exhortations to the Greeks"; "Rich Man's Salutation"; "To the Newly Baptized"; (Ante-Nicene Fathers). The controversial and non-canonical Gospel of Judas was found in the Codex Tchacos by 220-340 A.D. Tertullian wrote about the Trinity and wrote it as Trinitas. By 225 A.D., there was the Papyrus 45: 1st Chester Beatty Papyri, Gospels (Caesarean text-type, mixed), Acts (Alexandrian text-type). From 235 to 238, Maximinus Thrax: emperor of Rome, ended Christian schism in Rome by deporting Roman bishop Pontian and Hippolytus to Sardinia, where they soon die. The heretic Mani preaches in Seleucia-Ctseiphon in Iraq. Denis forms a church in Paris by 250. Dionysius is the Patriarch of Alexandria from 248 to 264. By 250, there were the Apostolic Constitutions, Liturgy of St James, Old Roman Symbol, Clementine literature. At the same time, there was Papyrus 72: Bodmer 5-11+, pub. 1959, "Alexandrian" text-type: Nativity of Mary; 3Cor; Odes of Solomon 11; Jude 1-25; Melito's Homily on Passover; Hymn fragment; Apology of Phileas; Ps33,34; 1Pt1:1-5:14; 2Pt1:1-3:18.




Origen believed that Jesus and God is of one substance. There were the Synods of Carthage back then. The person Novatian decreed no forgiveness for sins after baptism. Bishop Stephen I saw a major schism over rebaptizing heretics and apostates. There was the Valerian Massacre in 258 A.D. This was when the Roman emperor issued an edict to execute immediately all Christian Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, including Bishop Sixtus II, Antipope Novatian, Cyprian of Carthage (CE: Valerian, Schaff's History Vol 2 Chap 2 § 22). THe time of 264–269 saw the Synods of Antioch: condemned Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, founder of Adoptionism (Jesus was human until Holy Spirit descended at his baptism), also condemned term homoousios adopted at Nicaea. The death of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Christian leader in Pontus, took place in 270 A.D. It was said that when Gregory became "bishop" there were only 17 Christians in Pontus while at his death thirty years later there were only 17 non-Christians. Anthony started the monastic movement in 270 A.D. Mani (prophet), crucified, founder of the dualistic Manichaean sect in Persia in 276. Rural churches grow in northern ITaly. Christianity is no longer exclusively in urban areas. Theonas, bishop of Alexandria lived by the end of the 200's A.D. Maurice from Egypt is killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan divinities.  This was in 287 A.D. Christian monasticism was created by Pachomius in the 300's A.D. Bishop Mercellinus of Rome offered pagan sacrifices for Diolcetian. He later repented. 

 

 Robert de Clari was a French Knight who was part of the Fourth Crusade. He wrote about his account of that Crusade in a work called Conquest of Constantinople, which he is wrote in about 1216. He wrote that in 1203, he saw an unnamed Nubian King. By 1402, many Ethiopian embassies arrived all over Europe in Spain, France, and Italy. We know of the Afro-Spanish Painter Juan de Pareja in the 17th century of Spain. Beatriz de Palacios was a soldier, nurse, and explorer of African and Spanish descent. Marie-Cessette Dumas was a female slave in the French colony of Saint Domingue. She was the mother of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the grandmother of novelist Alexandre Dumas, and the great-grandmother of playwright Alexandre Dumas, fils, and has been called a "great matriarch to a saga of distinguished men." Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George(s) (25 December 1745 – 9 June 1799) was a French violinist, conductor, composer and soldier. Moreover, he demonstrated excellence as a fencer, an athlete and an accomplished dancer. His historical significance lies partly in his distinctive background as a biracial free man of color. Bologne was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in European music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, two symphonies and an assortment of stage works, notably opéra comique.


 


By Timothy

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