Some more BLACK for your HISTORY!
“Henry Mack Heard was born on Nov. 10, 1924, in Memphis to Lucile (Pollard) and Robert Heard, a cement finisher. Henry always loved music and was inspired by the dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, as he told Ebony magazine when it profiled him in 1951. He learned to dance at age 6 and was performing in clubs by the time he was 14. On Jan. 7, 1939, the car he was riding in with his group, the Three Dots, was struck by a train at an unguarded crossing in Memphis. Everyone in the car was killed except Henry, who suffered devastating injuries that necessitated the amputation of his right arm and right leg. After multiple surgeries, he thought his life as a dancer was over and was tempted to give up. But he resolved not to. “I’d seen the blind and the crippled standing on street corners with their tin cups and pencils,” he told The Columbus Star in 1958, “and decided that I wanted to do more with my life than be the object of public curiosity and pity.”
“His dancing upended audiences’ assumptions that people with disabilities were incapable of leading fulfilling lives, and he boldly turned a derogatory term, “crip,” into a stage name, declaring pride in his body’s unique power of expression. (The term “crip” has more recently been reclaimed by some in the disability movement to express pride in their identities.”
“Heard’s advocacy for people with disabilities didn’t stop there; for years he volunteered with agencies that supported them. He was known to say, “One of my main missions in life is to convince people not to give up.”
“Heard was one of a number of African American tap dancers, like Peg-Leg Bates, Big Time Crip and Jesse James, whose artistry made percussive use of a mobility aid.”
When you can’t fully acknowledge Black Americans/Foundational Black Americans as the sole progenitors of particular creations, YOU are practicing cultural & epistemic violence. Not only can you not acknowledge us, you also remove us from the origins. This type of jealousy and violence is deep.
Crip walking is another dance style created by Black Americans. By us.
We have dated footage and proof literally just about everytime, meanwhile, people will just say stuff with no backing whatsoever. We are a very well recorded and documented people!
Happy Black History Month!
*disclaimer: I don’t use the term African American to refer to (Foundational) Black American but for facts purposes, I simply copy/pasted from an article
