The purpose of this blog is to highlight the presence of the people of the African Diaspora in period costume dramas. It is also to provide a historical context to the films featured.
Today, we have unfortunately learned that celebrity hairstylist Charles Gregory Ross has passed away of Coronavirus. Hollywood heavy hitters like Tyler Perry, Viola Davis, Ava DuVernay and Lee Daniels wrote heartfelt messages to their friend and colleague.
Charles Gregory Ross showed his amazing artistry on numerous films. So often the people behind the screen don't get the praise they deserve. They work that Ross did was crucial to the viewing experience. This is especially true for period films which Ross worked on often. I included trailers for the films and series that I could find so that you could see his art in motion.
A Timeline of Ross' Period Film Work
Miss Evers' Boys (1997)
Laurence Fishburne as Caleb Humphries and Alfre Woodard as Eunice Evers, R.N.
Mama Flora's Family (1998)
Passing Glory (1999)
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999)
Mykelti Williamson and Lonette McKee as Papa Delany and Mama Delany
Remember the Titans (2000)
Denzel Washington and Nicole Ari Parker as Coach Herman Boone and Carol Boone
Boycott (2001)
Jeffrey Wright and Carmen Ejogo as Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King
Lackawanna Blues (2005)
S. Epatha Merkerson as Rachel 'Nanny' Crosby and Marcus Carl Franklin as Ruben Santiago Jr.
Idlewild (2006)
Paula Patton as Angel Davenport
Pride (2007)
Black Dynamite (2009)
Michael Jai White and Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Black Dynamite and Gloria
The Trip to Bountiful (2014)
Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Charles Gregory Ross.
Cora Unashamed is a 2000 movie based on the short story by Langston Hughes. Spoilers Following!! The film begins in 1916 Melton, Iowa. Cora is in labor. After she delivers the baby her mother tells her, “Ain’t no good come out of white and colored love, Cora” Cora has just given birth to a bi-racial baby. Instead of letting her mother's words upset her she says, “We don’t care what anyone says, we don’t care at all.” She names the baby Josephine “After her daddy Joe” Cora is a loving and engaging mother who works as a maid and nanny taking care of a white child named Jessie Studevant. Jessie Studevant Cora is a black woman named in a small town. She has put off many of her dreams. She wanted to be a writer but had to leave to work. Her daughter Josephine also has a love for words. She constantly asks Cora what certain words mean. Cora tells Josephine that she'll be able to go to school in the fall with Jessie. Grandmother
Based on the 2013 James McBride novel, The Good Lord Bird follows a young enslaved boy as he joins John Brown in Brown's abolitionist mission during Bleeding Kansas. Newcomer Joshua Caleb Johnson plays Onion (who is a fictional character) and can be heard narrating the trailer. Just like in the award winning novel, the series will be told from the point of view of Onion (Joshua Caleb Johnson). You will also spot Daveed Diggs (of Hamilton fame) as abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass. The seven part miniseries will premier August 9th on Showtime.
The upcoming Netflix series titled, Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker is based on the book, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles. On Her Own Ground is the first full-scale, definitive biography of Madam C. J. Walker—the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist—by her great-great-granddaughter, A'Lelia Bundles. The daughter of slaves, Madam C. J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen and widowed at twenty. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then—with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for black women—everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed frien
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