Anderson@Large

John Coltrane House Family Feud Update

In the Before Times, I celebrated John Coltrane’s birthday (September 23, 1926) by leading a walking tour. We would meet at Coltrane’s Walk of Fame plaque where I would give an overview of the legendary saxophonist’s time in Philadelphia and talk about the John Coltrane House.

In light of the drama unfolding in the Court of Common Pleas, I am not in a celebratory mood. Coltrane’s sons, Ravi and Oran, are suing Norman Gadson’s daughters, Aminta and Hathor, for possession of the Philadelphia rowhouse that their father purchased in 1952 and where he composed Giant Steps.

They claim Mary Lyerly Alexander, better known as Cousin Mary, “duped” Gadson into buying property that she had no right to sell. Gadson paid $100,000 for the National Historic Landmark in 2004. That same year, John and Alice Coltrane’s house in Dix Hills, NY was at imminent risk of demolition.

On August 31, 2022, the third anniversary of Alexander’s death, Defendants allege in court filings that Cousin Mary “extinguished” Ravi and Oran’s remainder interest in the property with their knowledge and acquiescence. Defendants further claim that if they lose possession of the property, they should be reimbursed more than $220,000 for costs incurred in maintaining, renovating and insuring the Coltrane House. They claim “Plaintiffs would have no remainder interest were it not for the activities of Gadson and his successors.”

While the claims and counterclaims fly back and forth, I think about that hot and humid Saturday morning when something – or someone – told me to go check on the Coltrane House. Later that day, I learned Cousin Mary had died.

I vowed at Cousin Mary’s homecoming celebration that I would do everything I could to save the National Historic Landmark.

Little did I know my successful nomination of the John Coltrane House for listing on 2020 Pennsylvania At Risk would set in motion this family feud.

Ravi and Oran have cast aspersions on Cousin Mary. The court will decide who owns the Strawberry Mansion rowhouse. But for nearly 40 years, Cousin Mary devoted her life to preserving John Coltrane’s legacy in public memory. On July 6, 2004, she agreed to sell the property to Norman Gadson, a friend and jazz enthusiast who shared her vision for a Coltrane Museum and Cultural Center. Three months earlier, random Coltrane aficionados, preservationists and local officials saved from demolition Ravi and Oran’s childhood home in Dix Hills, NY. The place where their father composed A Love Supreme.

What About Urban America?

It’s Day Two of President Obama’s economic bus tour.

President Obama and members of the White House Rural Council will attend a rural economic forum at Northeast Iowa Community College in Peosta, Iowa, where Obama will deliver remarks.

The president will unveil a new jobs initiative for rural America. In a statement, Obama said:

These are tough times for a lot of Americans – including those who live in our rural communities. That’s why my administration has put a special focus on helping rural families find jobs, grow their businesses, and regain a sense of economic security.

But what about those who live in urban communities? Where is the special focus on helping urban families?

The lack of administration attention to the jobless crisis in black urban America is fueling a black family feud.

Longtime journalist William Reed writes:

“Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are doing a so-called poverty bus tour under the guise of highlighting that issue … check their records [and] you will see that they have done a lot of poverty-pimping through book sales, TV appearances, speaking fees and promoting the ‘woe is me mindset’… this has been their hustle for a long time.’’ That’s Steve Harvey’s rant in the most recent round of Black American disc jockeys and broadcasters’ battle to brook no criticism of Barack Hussein Obama.

Conscientious Black Americans would do well to compare Harvey’s rhetoric to Obama’s results as president before arbitrarily choosing sides in this public spat. Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are being pilloried and made out to be “pariahs” by Black jocks because they’ve made negative comments about Obama’s presidential performance. But Black American DJs seem to be dodging the fact that America’s economy is in free-fall; the country’s deficits, debt and government spending are at a record high, and our credit rating has been downgraded for the first time in history. In spite of these obvious presidential shortcomings, Urban Contemporary broadcasters continue “praising Caesar” and pummeling his critics. As other American groups lament America’s economic plight, Black Americans, whose lifestyles and conditions are the worst of all, still defend Obama’s lackluster job performance.

Similarly, Newsweek reports:

Never mind the slings and arrows of Tea Partiers. The most politically problematic criticism of Obama these days is coming from his base. And there’s no question that there is a deep reservoir of frustration, confusion, and even rage among many in the African-American community for [Cornel] West to tap into. With unemployment hovering near 17 percent for African-Americans (the national average rate is 9 percent) and 11 percent of black homeowners facing imminent foreclosure, African-Americans have ample reason for anxiety about the coming budget cuts that Obama reluctantly signed into law this month. The Congressional Black Caucus chairman called the recent debt deal “a sugar-coated satan sandwich” that will do little to help communities already struggling.

West and his longtime friend, radio host Tavis Smiley, have taken their criticism of Obama to the streets, launching a two-week, 15-city “poverty tour,” aimed at forcing the powers that be to once again focus on the “least among us” and getting the president to “wake up.” Their efforts are increasingly stoking fears among some African-American leaders that West and Smiley could discourage black voters from turning out when the nation’s first African-American president stands for reelection in 2012.

Read more: The Black War Over Obama

UPDATE: At a breakfast with small business owners, President Obama announced his new jobs initiatives for rural America.

Black Family Feud

The dismal June unemployment report is a reminder that when white America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia. Truth be told, race is the subtext to the jobless recovery.

The Associated Press reports that black economic gains have been wiped out by the recession:

Millions of Americans endured similar financial calamities in the recession. But for Goldring and many others in the black community, where unemployment is still rising, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. Some even see a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took black people decades to achieve.

[…]

Since the end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

But the disappearing black middle class is not on policymakers’ agenda. Instead, the White House is convening a Hispanic Policy Conference:

On Monday July 11th and Tuesday July 12th, the White House will host a Hispanic Policy Conference, bringing community leaders from across the country together with a broad range of White House and Cabinet officials for an in-depth series of interactive workshops and substantive conversations on the Administration’s efforts as they relate to the Hispanic community.

Participants, including community leaders and local elected officials, will have the opportunity to interact with federal policy makers on the issues that matter most to Hispanics and all Americans, including creating jobs and strengthening the economy, expanding access to affordable and quality health care, reforming our nation’s education system, protecting civil rights, and fixing the broken immigration system so that it meets our nation’s 21st century economic and security needs.

Meanwhile, black leaders are engaged in a “family feud.” Philadelphia Tribune columnist Linn Washington Jr. recently wrote:

So, some black folks are bashing Princeton Professor Cornel West for his sharply phrased critiques of President Barack Obama’s failure to specifically address crisis-proportion problems in a long-suffering segment of American society: the black community.

Black supporters of the first African-American president echo the rationale advanced by Obama himself that he is the president of all Americans so addressing issues specific to African-American would be inappropriate.

The Hispanic Policy Conference is merely the latest outreach event to address issues important to a specific group.

Obama has twice hosted the White House Tribal Nations Conference.

In January, more than 800 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders attended the kickoff event of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the White House Initiative Summit on Entrepreneurship and Small Business Growth in Silicon Valley.

The goal of the Initiative is “to highlight both the tremendous unmet needs in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities as well as the dynamic community assets that can be leveraged to meet many of those needs.”

Will the White House’s cold shoulder to the unmet needs of African Americans erode black support for President Obama?

The Gallup survey says Obama’s job approval among African Americans is 85 percent.

State of Black America

On Sunday, MSNBC aired a live panel discussion, “A Stronger America: The Black Agenda,” co-hosted by Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton.

The, um, highlight of the two-hour talkfest was a heated exchange between Sharpton and Princeton Prof. Cornel West.

This photo was taken a few minutes after their shouting match (h/t Rachel Noerdlinger).

Oh, if walls could talk.