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Martin Luther King Jr., A Difference Maker

THE MARCH: Personal Remembrances of 1963

THE MARCH, a new documentary commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, premieres tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS. Go here to check your local listing.

 

March on Washington@50: Then and Now

March on Washington@50

I’m on my way to DC to participate in events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

One of the highlights will be the unveiling of a limited-edition 1963 March on Washington stamp. The Forever stamp will be the third in a trilogy of civil rights stamps.

For the first time, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil a stamp simultaneously online via Facebook and onsite at the Newseum. You can help digitally unveil the stamp artwork by adding your Facebook or Twitter profile to the March on Washington Stamp Mosaic. Each individual photo will unveil a small piece of the artwork, becoming a pixel in the virtual stamp mosaic. As more people contribute to the mosaic, more pieces of the stamp will be revealed. At the same time you will be taking a stand for equality.

At the first-day-of-issue ceremony, actress Gabrielle Union will submit her Facebook profile which will trigger the unveiling of the full stamp artwork.

The new Forever stamps are part of the Postal Service’s celebration of the civil rights movement:

The U.S. Postal Service is celebrating the best of America with several limited-edition stamps in 2013. This includes the Civil Rights set, which praises the honorable qualities of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement. This set recognizes the courage of Rosa Parks; freedom embodied in the Emancipation Proclamation; and equality marked by the March on Washington.

The complete Civil Rights Stamp Series can be pre-ordered at www.usps.com/stamps.

UPDATE: Check out the Forever 1963 March on Washington stamp.

1963 March on Washington by the Numbers

All That Philly Jazz on the Go

Jazz history was made in Philadelphia. It’s the city where such legendary musicians as John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Philly Joe Jones, Shirley Scott, Billie Holiday, Jimmy McGriff, Bill Doggett, Stan Getz, Benny Golson, Lee Morgan, Grover Washington Jr., Trudy Pitts and Jimmy Smith made major contributions to jazz.

Lenora Early, founder of the John Coltrane House, observed:

Philadelphia is the most important focus of John Coltrane’s development as a virtuoso musician. Philadelphia’s rich black jazz milieu in the 1940s nurtured the novice teen reed player just up from the South. The house on North 33rd Street was special to Coltrane. In this house, he wrote “Giant Steps,” a title that foreshadowed his future musical stature. In this space, in 1957, Coltrane experienced a life-altering epiphany when he freed himself from heroin addiction cold turkey.

All That Philly Jazz, a digital history project, is mapping Philadelphia’s jazz heritage, including historic landmarks and events, legacy clubs and other points of interest. Sadly, much of Philly’s jazz legacy has disappeared. As a result, the history largely resides in the memories of those who were there.

So we have launched a mobile platform to crowdsource collection of stories, photos and videos. All That Philly Jazz’s free app is available on Google Play and iTunes (search term “icihere”).

Homer Jackson, project director of the Philadelphia Jazz Project, said:

Philadelphia’s jazz legacy is like that family secret that everyone knows about you and your family, yet you have no idea about it. Our city’s musical status in the world is rich and valued. Our story is well known in places like London, Paris, Osaka, Berlin and Rio de Janeiro while at home we have yet to explore, appreciate and celebrate the greatness that emerged from these very streets. It’s time for us to look into the Philadelphia family album of jazz and understand just how wealthy we truly are and can continue to be.

Jazz enthusiasts anywhere in the world can go to http://ph.ly/MyPhillyJazz and share their memories of Philly’s jazz scene back in the day. If you were there, that would be awesome. If someone shared a story, photo, etc., with you, please share it with us. After all, if we don’t tell our story, who will?

With our app, residents and visitors can, say, stand on the corner of Broad and Lombard Streets, and reimagine Billie Holiday leaving the Showboat, which was in the basement of the Douglass Hotel.

If Billie walked south on Broad, she would have arrived at Pep’s in less than five minutes. Along the way, she would have passed the Dunbar (Lincoln) Theatre.

Although we’ve barely scratched the surface, the first iteration of the map is telling the story. Broad and South Streets, and Columbia Avenue (now Cecil B. Moore Avenue) were chock-a-block with jazz spots.

But All That Philly Jazz is not just about the past. It’s about building new audiences for jazz musicians by exposing Millennials and others to a unique American art form.

For more info, send us an email or tweet to @PhillyJazzApp.

Lest We Forget

 

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