Born: 1926 in North Carolina

Died: 1967

Occupation: saxophonist

Nickname: Trane

Philadelphia years: Moved here in 1943, stayed through the late ’50s, returned often through the ’60s and always considered it home.

Greatest recordings: “Giant Steps,” “A Love Supreme,” “Blue Train,” “My Favorite Things.”

Career: Coltrane’s big break came in 1949 when he joined Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band in 1949. He stayed through the band’s breakup in 1950 and worked with Gillespie’s small group until 1951. He bounced a bit after that, joining Johnny Hodges‘ group in 1952. His most dynamic career spans the twelve years between 1955 and 1967, during which he is credited with transforming the jazz idiom. In 1955, he joined Miles Davis quintet and stayed until 1957, when the quintet disbanded despite having recorded iconic sessions for Prestige.

In 1957, Coltrane worked with Thelonious Monk at New York’s Five Spot, a legendary jazz venue, before joining with Miles Davis again in 1958, where he played a major role in Davis’ legendary “Milestones” and “Kind Of Blue” sessions. In 1960, Coltrane formed his own quartet which included pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones and bassist Jimmy Garrison—later adding Eric Dolphy, and Pharoah Sanders. The John Coltrane Quartet created some of the most innovative and expressive music in jazz history including: “My Favorite Things,” “Africa Brass,” “Impressions” and “Giant Steps.” It was also during this time he created “A Love Supreme,” his poem to the power and love of God.

Quote: “I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I’d like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he’d be broke, I’d bring out a different song and immediately he’d receive all the money he needed.”

The John Coltrane House: Though designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999, the Coltrane House—located at 1511 N. 33rd St. in Strawberry Mansion—has fallen in great disrepair. Last June, Temple’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab wrote this in-depth report on the sad state of affairs.

Black History Month Series

Born: 1936 in Philadelphia

Died: 1999 in Los Angeles

High School: Overbrook High School

College: Kansas

Height: 7’1″

Nicknames: Dip, Dipper, Big Dipper, Goliath, Chairman of the Boards, Wilt the Stilt

Little known fact: Mild mannered by nature, he would snap the rubber bands he wore around his wrists (see photo above) to get him angry during games.

Other sports: track, volleyball, tennis, polo, racquetball, dating.

High school career: Led Overbrook to 9-2, 19-0 and 18-1 seasons. Scored 74, 78 and 90 points in consecutive games.

Kansas career: Guided Jayhawks to the 1957 NCAA title game against North Carolina. Though North Carolina beat Kansas by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named Most Outstanding Player.

Pro teams: Harlem Globetrotters, Philadelphia Warriors, San Francisco Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Los Angeles Lakers.

On playing for the Globetrotters: “As a kid of color in those days, playing for the Harlem Globetrotters was like being a movie star.”

What you should know: Considered by many the greatest basketball player who ever lived.

Career: Named Rookie of the Year and MVP his first season. Only NBA player to score 4,000 points in a season. Once scored 100 points in a single game. Averaged 50 points a game one season. Career points: 31,419. Top rebounder eleven out of fourteen seasons. Highest number of assists in ’67-68. Still dominates most all scoring records. Responsible for major rule changes, including widening the lane, as well as changes to rules regarding inbounding the ball.

One weakness: Foul shooting.

Post-career: Became an advocate for women sports, ran a Harlem nightclub called Big Wilt’s Small’s Paradise, starred in “Conan the Destroyer.”

Startling statistic: Never fouled out in his 14-year career.

Memorable quote: “Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.”

A Black History Month Series

Born: 1897 in Philadelphia

Died: 1993

Career: Beginning at age six, Anderson sang in the church choir, where she could already hit the high soprano and low baritone notes. Because her father died when she was a child and her mother worked as a cleaning woman to support the family, church members threw a benefit concert to raise money for her singing lessons. The advertisements read: “Come and hear the baby contralto, ten years old.”

In 1925, she entered a contest with 300 singers for the chance to perform with the New York Philharmonic. She won and received a fellowship that allowed her to go to England and Germany. She studied German songs, which became part of her repertoire. Anderson gave over 100 concerts concerts throughout Europe and received rave reviews for all her performances.

In 1939, she planned to give a concert in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). When the DAR refused to let her perform, President Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, were so outraged that Mrs. Roosevelt resigned her DAR membership and helped arrange for Anderson to give a concert outdoors at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. Anderson performed  for 75,000 people. After that, Anderson refused to sing to segregated audiences. In 1943, a mural was unveiled on the wall of the Department of the Interior building depicting the concert.

In 1941, Anderson received the Bok Award from the city of Philadelphia, given to the citizen of which it is the most proud—the first African American to receive it. The $10,000 award was used to establish the Marian Anderson Scholarship Fund for music students of all races. In 1955, she performed with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York in Verdi’s opera “The Masked Ball,” becoming the first African-American to sing an important role at the Metropolitan Opera as a company member.

In 1956, Anderson made a farewell tour throughout America and Europe, and a year later toured twelve Asian nations on behalf of the State Department. In 1958, she was named to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. In 1991, she appeared at the dedication of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children’s pediatric sickle-cell anemia clinic and research center, which is named in her honor. Marian Anderson died in 1993 at the age of ninety-six.

Why she’s historic: Besides breaking many racial barriers, Marian Anderson is still considered by many the greatest contralto who ever lived.

The Marian Anderson Historical Society: Assists and mentors vocal classical artists in their professional careers and provides financial sources for auditions, performances, wardrobe and competitions. Also maintains the house in South Philadelphia where Marian Anderson was born as a tourist site and residence museum.

A Black History Month Series

Born: July 12, 1937 in Philadelphia

High School: Central

College: Temple

Masters degree: University of Massachusetts, 1972

Doctorate degree, Education: University of Massachusetts, 1976

Passions: jazz, basketball, track, cigars

Career: Left Temple to do stand-up in bars and clubs. Early albums—”I Started Out As A Child,” Why Is there Air?,” “Wonderfulness” and others—were huge and instant hits. Became regular guest host of “Tonight Show.” Starred in “The Bill Cosby Show” for two seasons. Starred in immensely popular “I Spy” series with actor Robert Culp. Big run with “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” based on his childhood in Phlly,” ’72 to ’84. Became spokesperson for Jello. Made a series of movies; best known: “Uptown Saturday Night.” Launched “The Cosby Show” in 1984—it became the best rated TV show in history. Authored six books, most successful: “Fatherhood” in 1986. Still appears in venues around the country.

Quote: “Old is always fifteen years from now.”

His iTune list:
“Where’s the Parade,” Bill Cosby
“Dear Lord,” John Coltrane Quartet
“Mack the Knife,” Ella Fitzgerald
“Here’s to Life,” Joe Williams & The Robert Farnon Orchestra
“Monk’s Dream,” The Thelonious Monk Quartet
“Misty,” Richard Groove Holmes
“The Sermon,” Jimmy Smith
“Body and Soul ,” Coleman Hawkins
“Flying Home,” Illinois Jacquet, Lionel Hampton & Quincy Jones and His Orchestra

Why he’s historic: Besides being one of the best-known entertainers in history, he’s never forgotten Philadelphia, returning often for Temple basketball games, the Penn Relays, to visit friends John Chaney, Bootsie Barnes and others, and to promote Central High and Temple University.

A Black History Month Series

Born: 1927

Died: 2005

Handle: “The Guy with the Goods”

Career: Spent the bulk of his career at WDAS, where he first played music, then in late-career became a talk show host. Woods was as much an activist as deejay: he helped organize the “March on Washington” and went on the air to urge calm during the city’s ’64 riots. He was known to scrap the music format when the spirit moved him and talk directly to the community; at other times, he would break into song, favoring spiritual and gospel classics. His soul revue shows at the Uptown Theater at Broad & Dauphin became the stuff of legend—revues that included James Brown, Steve Wonder, the Temptations, the Supremes and many others. He was a sometime consultant to Dick Clark, advising him which records were popular in the African-American community. Woods also hosted a series of “Freedom Shows” at the Uptown and Nixon Theaters to raise money for civil rights activities.

Woods hosted a local TV show in the ’70s.

Highlights: Marched in Selma, Alabama, with Martin Luther King. First to break Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me.” Bestowed the “Ice Man” moniker on Jerry Butler. Credited with inventing the term “blue-eyed soul” in the ’60s as a way of letting the listening audience know when a record he was playing was by a white artist.

Quote: “You don’t need a contract with a radio station. You need a contract with your community.”

In his honor: Mural at 5531 Germantown Avenue.

Excerpt from a documentary-in-progress.

A Black History Month Series

Born: June 22, 1941

Where: Philadelphia

Died: November 9, 2006

College: Cheney State, 1964

First job: WDAS radio. (Bradley covered the ’64 riots.)

Career: Covered the Vietnam War for CBS News, where he was wounded in 1973. First black White House correspondent for CBS News. In 1981, became “60 Minutes” correspondent, where he stayed for 26 years, covering over 500 stories.

Memorable “60 Minutes” stories: Interview with Timothy McVeigh, sex abuse in the Catholic Church, the Columbine High School shootings, the Mississippi murder case of 14-year-old Emmett Till.

Awards: Emmy Award (19 times), Peabody for African AIDS report “Death By Denial,” Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, Paul White Award, George Polk Award for Foreign Television and Lifetime Achievement Award from National Association of Black Journalists.

CBS colleague Bob Schieffer on Ed Bradley: “Ed Bradley was the coolest guy I have ever known… People just loved him. Ed always had a kid with him, a godson or someone’s child. God knows how much money he gave away to charity. He was the softest touch in town.”

Passion: Jazz. In Philadelphia, on WDAS, Bradley occasionally did stints as a jazz disc jockey, making $1.50 an hour spinning records by Coltrane, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday. Later in his career, he hosted “Jazz at Lincoln Center” on NPR.

Quote: “For me to be able to stand up in the Khyber Pass and say, ‘Boy, here’s little Butch Bradley from West Philly. Alexander the Great passed through here 2,500 years ago’—God, I mean, that’s a kick!”

A Black History Month Series

Born: 1915, in West Virginia

Died: 1979

Law degree: Temple University, 1953

Career: The city’s most effective and well-known civil rights leader, Moore built a rep as a tough, take-no-prisoners legal pit-bull on behalf of his poor neighborhood clients in North Philadelphia. He dramatically raised the number of rank and file members, as well as the profile, of the city’s NAACP during his tenure as president (’63 to ’67), and he even spent time as a member of City Council. Moore’s aggressive in-your-face style (which he used to say came from his Marine Corps background), irritated many of the city’s white leaders, but often got him the result he wanted: exposure of his issues in the media.

Memorable quote: “I was determined when I got back [from World War II] that what rights I didn’t have I was going to take, using every weapon in the arsenal of democracy. After nine years in the Marine Corps, I don’t intend to take another order from any son of a bitch that walks.”

What makes him historic: Cecil Moore will be remembered for two pivotal moments in the city’s history: the desegregation of Girard College (he led rallies and pickets) and his role in quelling the ’64 riots in North Philadelphia.

In his honor: Columbia Avenue, an historic thoroughfare in North Philadelphia, was renamed Cecil B. Moore Avenue in 1987.