Historical Glossary

Birth of a Nation is D.W. Griffiths’ 1915 controversial silent film, based on the play The Clansmen, that promotes the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy. Despite outcry against its content, the movie was hailed as a major achievement in film – its use of new cinematic techniques and technical effects greatly influenced movies that followed it, and its three-hour running time made it the longest movie to date.

(Angelo Merena, August 30, 1921) trained many famous boxers, including Muhammad Ali from 1960 to 1981. In the 1950s, he and his brother turned the Fifth Street Gym in Miami into a prime boxing training ground. He is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

(Pacheco, a.k.a. “The Fight Doctor”; b. December 8, 1927) was a fight doctor who served as the cornerman for twelve world champion boxers, including Muhammad Ali for seventeen years. He was also Ali’s physician, plus a successful painter, pharmacist, author, journalist, and Emmy Award-winning fight commentator for Showtime, NBC, and Univision.

(January 1, 1879- May 8, 1952) created the multi-million dollar Fox Film Corporation (later to become 20th Century Fox) in 1915. Fox launched the first successful sound film and changed the design of theaters. The conversion of theaters to support sound combined with the Depression led Fox to declare bankruptcy in 1936.

(March 31, 1878-June 10, 1946) was the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion. His 1910 defeat of white boxer Jim Jeffries won him the title and incited race riots across the U.S. Johnson lived lavishly, and openly courted white women, marrying three in his lifetime. When not boxing, Johnson performed in his own vaudeville act and exhibition bouts. Charged with moving a white woman (his wife) across state lines for “immoral purposes,” he fled the country in 1913, and lost his title in Cuba in 1915. He was arrested upon his return to the States in 1920, and never boxed professionally again.

, (May 8, 1932 (unconfirmed) - December 30, 1970) became the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1962 by defeating Floyd Patterson. From an early age, he was in constant legal trouble, ranging from robbery to assault; even his boxing career was controlled by mobsters. Liston lost his title to Cassius Clay in 1964, and lost to Clay again (by then named Muhammad Ali) in 1965.

(born Malcolm Little; May 25, 1925-Feb 25, 1965) was a prominent African-American leader and figure in the Nation of Islam. He advocated black nationalism and race pride in the early 1960s. In 1964, he left the Nation of Islam and founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., which proposed integration to solve racial division in the United States. He then made a trip to Mecca and converted to Sunni Islam. Malcolm was assassinated while speaking at Harlem’s Audobon Ballroom in 1965; three Nation members were convicted of the murder.

(born Elijah Poole; October 7, 1897-February 25, 1975), also called “The Messenger,” led the Nation of Islam in the mid-twentieth century, during its most rapid growth. He was a follower of Wallace Fard Muhammad and succeeded him as leader in 1934. Elijah Muhammad established the Nation’s headquarters in Chicago, and expanded the organization’s infrastructure. He called for a separate African-American state and the worship of Allah, who had “chosen” the African-American people. In later years, he became less militant against white people.

(April 26, 1929 – August 28, 2008) was an advisor to his father Elijah Muhammad, as well as business manager for the Nation of Islam and overseer of the Nation’s newspaper. He managed Muhammad Ali’s career from 1966 until 1991.

is a religious organization founded in Detroit in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad. Fard proposed that black people could only progress by separating from white people, who were the Devil. When Fard disappeared in 1934, Elijah Muhammad became the Nation’s leader, and developed a number of business interests, including farms, real estate, restaurants, clothing factories, and import and export companies. Malcolm X was the Nation’s national spokesman in the 1950s and early 1960s, but Elijah Muhammad, feeling his power threatened, suspended Malcolm, who left the Nation in 1964. Warith Deen Muhammad became the leader of the Nation upon his father’s death in 1975, and recast it as an orthodox Muslim organization that followed the Quran and the Five Pillars of Islam. Splinter groups formed in response, among them Louis Farakkhan’s, which reclaimed the title “Nation of Islam” in 1981.

, or Theater Owners and Bookers Association, was a vaudeville chain of the 1920s and early 1930s. In this theater circuit, white theater owners booked black musicians, singers, and comedians (including Stepin Fetchit) for black audiences. The Association’s failure to protect its artists’ rights or provide decent conditions earned it the nickname “Tough on Black Artists.” TOBA’s popularity faded during the Great Depression.|

– “Sambo” is a racial slur for a black person in the United States. The dim-witted Sambo figure, derived from the 19th century Jim Crow character, unsuccessfully tries to imitate white people with humorous results. An “Uncle Tom” is an offensive term for a black man perceived as servile to white people, derived from the name of the title character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

(November 12, 1874 - March 4, 1922) was arguably the most successful African-American vaudeville comedian of his time. He began performing in California with George Walker, and joined the Ziegfeld Follies in 1910 as their only black performer. Williams died in 1922, a month after collapsing onstage. He performed in blackface but was known for portraying universal comic situations, not racial stereotypes.