BLAX Museum (www.writermichellersmith.com/...) is a talent showcase created by Cleveland writer and cultural facilitator Michelle R. Smith that is open to all forms and dedicated to honoring notable Black figures in American history and culture. It is an annual event featuring Black artists from Northeast Ohio that pay homage through original art and honorary performances and presentations.
For BLAX Museum 2022, poet, rapper, and community organizer Josiah Quarles is paying tribute to Black Wall Street developer John the Baptist "J.B." Stradford.
John the Baptist "J.B." Stradford (born: 1861-died:1935) was born a slave in Versailles, KY. Stradford was a graduate of Oberlin College and Indiana Law School and lived in several cities before moving with his wife, Augusta, to Tulsa, OK in 1899. Stradford became the richest Black citizen in Tulsa via his property earnings, which included a rooming house, several rental properties, and the largest Black-owned hotel in the United States at that time. He initiated the development of Greenwood, the prosperous Black neighborhood of Tulsa that would come to be known as the "Black Wall Street." On May 30, 1921, a story circulated that threw the bright future of Greenwood into lethal peril. A young Black man was accused of assaulting a white woman in downtown Tulsa, and there were rumors of a lynch mob forming. The next day, white and Black residents of Tulsa had an armed confrontation outside of the Tulsa County Courthouse where the man was being detained. All 35 blocks of Greenwood were burnt to the ground by the race riot that followed that fateful clash at the courthouse. It remains one of the worst riots in US history, for which 20 Black men, J.B. Stradford included, were indicted. Somehow, Stradford managed to jump bail on the case and flee Tulsa. He later became a successful lawyer in Chicago. In 1996, the state of Oklahoma officially dropped the charges against him, half a century after his death in 1935.
Josiah Quarles is a poet, rapper, and activist raised in Shaker Heights, OH. He is a member of hip hop group Muamin Collective along with fellow rapper James "Jungle" Quarles and DJ/Producer Aaron "A-Live" Snorton and a founding member of Black Spring CLE, a Black-led abolitionist organization seeking to re-imagine the definition of public health and safety in Cleveland. He is a program assistant for America SCORES Cleveland, a tri-curricular nonprofit empowering youth through daily team-based soccer, writing workshops, and annual community service projects and a housing justice community organizer for Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. Josiah has been featured several times in The Plain Dealer and Cleveland Scene over the past two decades for his music and activist work.
Негізгі бет BLAX Museum - "JB Stradford" by Josiah Quarles
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