America's Most Powerful Black Families

[get these nets]

Chicago's Quintin E. Primo III

May 2021
In This Episode:

From Failure to $14B, with Quintin E. Primo III
IN THIS EPISODE: Tune in to hear the intimate thoughts of an inspiring and articulate entrepreneur, as he examines a life spent building a multi-billion dollar real estate enterprise and creating social change. In this episode, our host, Denise Silber, takes a deep dive into Quintin E. Primo III’s life in business, from his success as a young HBS grad at Citibank to the collapse of his first entrepreneurial venture and finally to executing $14 billion in real estate transactions. Quintin Primo provides an honest account of what went wrong in his first venture, shares his secret to staying on the right path as a decision-maker, and discusses how his faith led him to build the business of his dreams. After three decades as CEO of Capri Capital, Quintin Primo credits creativity, service, and a sense of community as playing a large role in his greatest successes. But how exactly did he combine these different facets of his life in such a productive way? Listen and find out.

GUEST BIO: Quintin E Primo III serves as Chairman and Chief Executive of Capri Investment Group, a real estate investment and development firm that he co-founded in 1992. Over his many years in the industry, Quintin has challenged conventional wisdom in developing new markets for investment. He was an early investor in underserved urban property markets among other groundbreaking strategies. He serves as co-chairman of the Primo Center for Women and Children and was a founding chairman of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness.

 

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It's a balanced and fair critique by the author who belongs to those circles from Chicago. She discusses the good and the bad.

Negroland by Margo Jefferson review – life in the black upper class

It was nice to hear the voice of Margo Jefferson, whom I personally know, and grew up with. Her family moved in Harry Pace’s circles, her father being the head of Provident Hospital at the time.

Margo’s sister Denise Jefferson was part of the original triumvirate or Alvin Ailey, along with Ailey and Judith Jameson. Now Denise’s daughter, Margo’s niece, takes over as a director.

Ailey II Names a New Artistic Director
For the dancer, choreographer and director Francesca Harper, an “Ailey baby,” this new role is also a homecoming.

Francesca Harper has relationships in all facets of the dance world.
By Gia Kourlas

Sept. 1, 2021
Ailey II, the second company of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, has a new artistic director, Francesca Harper, the company announced on Wednesday.

Harper, a dancer, choreographer and director, whose career has spanned the worlds of ballet and Broadway, may not have danced with either Ailey company, but she is no stranger to the organization. Her mother, Denise Jefferson, directed the Ailey School from 1984 until her death in 2010. Harper didn’t just attend dance classes at the school; she practically grew up there.

“I’ve always admired how she navigated her career, sort of coming up as an Ailey baby but then charting her own course,” said Robert Battle, the artistic director of the Ailey company, who with Bennett Rink, the executive director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, chose Harper for the role. “She’s an inspiration for being bold and trying different things. The other part of it is just her as a teacher: She has that nurturing quality that is so important. I think she has the right amount of empathy, but discipline, to impart.”

As a young dancer, Harper, who begins her new job on Sept. 7, was drawn to ballet. Alvin Ailey, who knew her since she was a toddler, encouraged her. “He used to walk around in socks, which was really fun,” she said. “He would come into the student lounge and he would ask us how we were, how our grades were all the time. I remember complaining about my feet being too big. And he says, ‘Francesca, the better to balance on. Don’t ever be self-conscious of your feet.’”

Harper went on to become a member of Dance Theater of Harlem and William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt. She said Ailey told her: “‘You always have a home waiting for you.’

Harper, whose Broadway credits include “Fosse,” “All Shook Up” and “The Color Purple,” has taught at the Ailey school for more than two decades; she has choreographed two works for Ailey II and one for the main company. Since 2005, she has directed the Francesca Harper Project, but will be giving that up.

During the pandemic, she has kept busy, but working behind the camera: She produced 16 virtual films.

Harper first became interested in film in Frankfurt when Forsythe incorporated it into his work. “That’s also been one of my passions,” she said. “I could sit and edit at the computer for hours. It’s similar to choreography for me.”

Battle said he was attracted to that breadth of artistry. “As we start to expand on this digital footprint into collaborations with different kinds of artists and companies and platforms,” he said, “she has already been leaning into that.”

Harper succeeds Troy Powell, who was forced out of his job last summer amid allegations of “inappropriate communications” with adult students in the company’s training program.

Ailey II will return to the stage in December with the Ailey company’s annual season at New York City Center, in which it will perform in Ailey’s “Memoria” and will present its own 2022 New York season March 23-April 3 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, as well as a U.S. tour.

While some members of Ailey II go on to join the main company, there aren’t spots for all. Harper, who called herself a “contact queen,” has relationships in all facets of the dance world. Connecting dancers with directors and companies is part of the job that she relishes.

“That’s what I also saw my mom do, and she just got such pleasure,” Harper said. “I think that’s really just making these dreams happen. You fall in love. I know I’m going to fall in love with these company members and I want to make sure I take care of them.”

Ailey II Names a New Artistic Director

 

[get these nets]

The Afro-American in Baltimore, is a newspaper with a rich history. The longest continuously published Black newspaper run by a single family in the United States, it was created by John Henry Murphy Sr. in 1892 as a place for the Black community in Baltimore and beyond to tell their stories.

The Afro-American has crusaded for racial equality and economic advancement for Black Americans for more than a century. In existence since August 13, 1892, John Henry Murphy Sr., a former slave who gained freedom following the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, started the paper when he merged his church publication, The Sunday School Helper with two other church publications, The Ledger (owned by George F. Bragg of Baltimore's St. James Episcopal Church) and The Afro-American (published by Reverend William M. Alexander, pastor of Baltimore's Sharon Baptist Church). By 1922, Murphy had evolved the newspaper from a one-page weekly church publication into the most widely circulated black paper along the coastal Atlantic, and used it to challenge Jim Crow practices in Maryland. Following Murphy's death on April 5, 1922, his five sons, each of whom had been trained in different areas of the newspaper business, continued to manage The Afro-American. Two of his sons, Carl and Arnett Murphy, served respectively as editor-publisher and advertising director.

CARL MURPHY​

The Afro-American rose to national prominence while under the editorial control of Carl Murphy. He served as its editor-publisher for 45 years. The newspaper was circulated in Baltimore, with regional editions circulated in Washington, D.C. twice weekly and in Philadelphia, Richmond, and Newark, once a week. At one time there were as many as 13 editions circulated across the country. The Afro-American's status as a black paper circulating in several predominantly black communities endowed it with the ability to profoundly affect social change on a national scale.
"During World War II, The Afro-American stationed several of its reporters in Europe, the Aleutians, Africa, Japan, and other parts of the South Pacific, and provided its readers with first hand coverage of the war. "

Carl Murphy used the editorial pages of The Afro-American to push for the hiring of African Americans by Baltimore's police and fire departments; to press for black representation in the legislature; and for the establishment of a state supported university to educate African Americans.

In the 1930's The Afro-Amerian launched a successful campaign known as "The Clean Block" campaign which is still in existence today. The campaign developed into an annual event and was aimed at improving the appearance of, and reducing crime in, inner-city neighborhoods. The Afro-American also campaigned against the Southern Railroad's use of Jim Crow cars, and fought to obtain equal pay for Maryland's black school teachers.

During World War II, The Afro-American stationed several of its reporters in Europe, the Aleutians, Africa, Japan, and other parts of the South Pacific, and provided its readers with first hand coverage of the war. One of its reporters (and Carl Murphy's daughter), Elizabeth Murphy Phillips Moss, was the first black female correspondent.

The Afro-American collaborated with The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on numerous civil rights cases. In the 1950s the newspaper joined forces with the NAACP in the latter's suit against the University of Maryland Law School for its segregationist admission policies. Their combined efforts eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregated public schools. The Afro-American also supported actor/singer Paul Robeson and sociologist W.E.B. DuBois during the anti-Communist campaigns of the Joseph McCarthy era.

" The Afro-American has employed many notable black journalists and intellectuals including Langston Hughes, William Worthy and J. Saunders Redding." The Afro-American has employed many notable black journalists and intellectuals including Langston Hughes, William Worthy and J. Saunders Redding. In the mid 1930s it became the first black newspaper to employ a female sportswriter when it hired Lillian Johnson and Nell Dodson to serve on its staff. Renowned artist Romare Bearden began his career as a cartoonist at The Afro-American in 1936.
Sam Lacy, who was hired as the paper's sports editor in 1943 and who, at the age of 94, still writes a weekly column for the paper, used his weekly " A to Z" column to campaign for integration in professional sports.

Using their writing to protest racial inequities in professional sports, Lacy and sports writers such as Wendell Smith of The Pittsburgh Courier helped to open doors for black athletes. Following the death of Carl Murphy in 1967, his daughter Frances L. Murphy II served as chairman and publisher. In 1974, John Murphy III, Carl's nephew, was appointed chairman and eventually became the publisher. Fourth generation members of the Murphy family, John J. Oliver, Jr. and Frances M. Draper, continue to manage the paper in recent years.

DR. FRANCES M. DRAPER​

 

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The Afro-American in Baltimore, is a newspaper with a rich history. The longest continuously published Black newspaper run by a single family in the United States, it was created by John Henry Murphy Sr. in 1892 as a place for the Black community in Baltimore and beyond to tell their stories.

John Henry Murphy’s great granddaughter - Madeline Murphy Rabb:

Wait a whole damn minute.......

Skrrrrrrrrrrrrt

I'm calling the research that this white man did into question.

His research is also not telling the whole story.

The man in the middle is Phillip Livingston.

Ancestry did an ad where they put the descendants of the signers in their place. Here is the ad.

The woman standing in the middle is a BLACK woman.

I KNOW her. She is a good friend of my grandparents. And her son was a mentor of mine for some years.

Her name is Madeline Murphy Rabb.

She is a vaunted black art dealer here in Chicago.

Madeline Murphy Rabb's Biography



This is a Chicago Tribune story detailing how she is descended from Phillip Livingston.



A FAMILY AFFAIR IN BLACK AND WHITE

Phillip Livingston, signer of the Declaration, father owned slaves.



And so did his children and grand children (which is how Madeline is tied to him.) So I find it hard to believe that owning slaves miraculously skipped his generation from that of his father to his children. And even if he didn't, his family makes him a slaver by default.

Block out that their faces.


I'm sure the rest of them unblocked signers have immediate ties to slavery as well.

Edit: He did own slaves.

“When Robert died, Philip Livingston inherited six of the twelve slaves listed in his father's will (9).”
SOURCE: Accesed on 10/16/14
First Endowed Professorship

Madeline’s son Chris Rabb is a former mentor of mine:

Representative Chris Rabb is a father, educator, author, and social justice activist.

While a visiting researcher at Princeton University, Rep. Rabb wrote the ground-breaking book, "Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity" (2010).

Shortly after an appearance on WHYY’s Radio Times in 2011, he was recruited to teach at Temple University's Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management where he was the Social Impact Fellow at the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute and taught social entrepreneurship and organizational innovation.

In his fourth year of teaching at Temple, Rep. Rabb helped to successfully unionize 1,500 fellow adjunct professors in a landslide victory for worker rights.

He is currently a board member of Friends of the Wissahickon and Race Forward and has been on the faculty of the Institute for Strategic Leadership at Drexel University's Bennett S. LeBow College of Business.

He has been a fellow at Demos, the Poynter Institute and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Rep. Rabb previously served on the boards of the Bread and Roses Community Fund, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, which was founded by his great-great grandfather in 1892.

A former U.S. Senate legislative aide and writer, researcher and trainer at the White House Conference on Small Business in the Clinton administration, Rep. Rabb is a thought leader at the intersection of politics, media entrepreneurship and social identity.

He has appeared as a guest on several local and national media outlets, including: The New York Times, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, NPR, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press.

A graduate of Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania, Rep. Rabb is an avid family historian and genealogist. He lives in East Mt. Airy with his two sons.

Chris Rabb was the author of one of my favorite blogs when it was active called Afro Netizen.

Afro-Netizen

He also authored:

Madeline’s sister is Laura Murphy, a DC Lobbyist:

As director of the Washington, D.C., office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Laura W. Murphy is responsible for implementing the goals of that organization in the American legislative arena. She works to mobilize the ACLU’s national membership on civil liberties matters, supervises a 35-person staff, and generally serves as the organization’s public face, appearing on television and radio discussion programs and writing opinion pieces for numerous publications. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Murphy became a tireless defender of established civil liberties laws and practices, as they came under pressure from a presidential administration that was intent on expanding the powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Murphy was born on October 3, 1955, in Baltimore, Maryland. Her family background made her a natural for political activism. Her great-grandfather John Henry Murphy was an ex-slave who founded the Afro-American newspaper, on whose board of directors Murphy still sits. Her uncle George Murphy was a union organizer and an associate of the famed actor and activist Paul Robeson. Both of Murphy’s parents ran for political office several times, and in 1970 her father, William H. Murphy, Sr., became the second African American in Baltimore to gain election to a judgeship, winning over a white incumbent. “I’ve been handing out literature since the age of 7,” Murphy told Ebony. “My brother and I would take a block. He would be on one side of the street, and I would be on the other. I learned how to get over my shyness and just speak to adults in a way that would engage them at a very early age.”

Dissatisfied with the educational conditions prevailing at local schools in Murphy’s segregated South Baltimore neighborhood of Cherry Hill, her mother enrolled her in Pimlico Junior High School, on the city’s northwest side, when she was 12 years old. At the time, Murphy was one of only a few African-American students in a heavily Jewish student body. The negative attitudes of her middle-class schoolmates toward the neighborhood where she grew up made a strong impression on Murphy. “I really got an education about class and how cruel Americans can be to their own countrymen, black and white,”she told the Baltimore Sun. However, the change in environment didn’t slow Murphy down scholastically. She graduated from Northwestern High School in 1972 at age 16 and entered Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Elite Wellesley presented Murphy with yet another set of new circumstances, but she continued to flourish, majoring in history and winning a summer internship in a Capitol Hill legislative office in Washington, D.C.

During that summer Murphy found her calling, when she discovered that she enjoyed the rough-and-tumble world of politics. “I loved the action,”she told Ebony. “I loved the law-making process. I got to work on things that really affected people’s lives.”Murphy served as president of the Black Student Union at Wellesley and headed into the political world after her graduation in....

Can read more here:
Murphy, Laura W. 1955– | Encyclopedia.com

Laura Murphy was married to Bertram Lee, Sr.

Bertram M. Lee, Sr. made history in 1989 when he became the first African American to hold a majority stake in a major-league U.S. sports franchise. Lee and his partners, who included the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, acquired the National Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets team for $65 million. At the time, Lee stressed that affirmative action had played no part in the historic ownership deal. “As African Americans, in these kind of transactions, one of the things we fight is the tendency for people to think we need all sorts of subsidies or crutches,” Black Enterprisewriter Patricia Raybon quoted him as saying. “There are no subsidies here. But then I’ve always said that if we’re given a level playing field, and access to capital, we can do as much as anyone.”

Career: City of Chicago, IL, city bureaucrat, 1961-67; Opportunities Industrialization Centers of Greater Boston, MA, executive director, 1967-68; EG & G of Roxbury, Inc., MA, general manager and vice president, 1968-69; Geneva Printing and Publishing, MA, owner, c. 1969-75; Dudley Station Corporation, Boston, president, 1969-81; BML Associates, Inc., Boston, chair, after 1969; New England TV Corporation, Boston, senior vice president, then president, 1978-86; Albimar Management, Inc., chair after 1983; Mountaintop Ventures Inc., treasurer, 1984-2003; Kellee Communications Group Inc., president after 1986; Denver Nuggets Corporation, Denver, CO, chair, 1989-92. Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, finance co-chair, 1984, 1988. Served on the boards of the of Pacifica Radio Network, Boston Bank of Commerce, Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, Congressional Black CaucusFoundation, Reebok International Ltd., and Howard University. Director of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Can read more about Bertram Lee, Sr. here:
Lee, Bertram M. Sr. 1939–2003 | Encyclopedia.com

Laura and Bertram’s son is Bertram Lee. Jr.

Bertram Lee is Counsel for Media and Tech. In this role, he will work to advance the interests of marginalized communities in technology and media policy. Previously, Lee worked as Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge, where he held a portfolio consisting of issues such as algorithmic decision-making, artificial intelligence, broadband spectrum, online content moderation, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, copyright policy, and platform accountability. He met regularly with congressional staff, advocacy organizations, and industry to advocate on behalf of consumers, especially those belonging to marginalized communities, as well as helped craft policy for Public Knowledge through timely and effective blog posts and media communication. Prior to joining Public Knowledge, Lee served as Policy Counsel at the U.S House Committee for Education and Labor under Chairman Robert C. Scott, covering technology, labor, and health care issues for the Committee. Bertram received his J.D. from Howard University School of Law and his B.A. from Haverford College.

Bertram Lee, Jr. and his mother Laura were prominently spotlighted on CNN’s Black in America segment on the Black Elite and the Tuxedo Ball.

It was Laura’s sister, Madeline, that sponsored my cousin to attend the Tuxedo Ball, whom I escorted back in 2005.

The Murphy’s are what we call one of the “grand families”. Every generation has been part of the Boule, Girlfriends, Jack and Jill, everything.

 

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..

 

[trap101]

John Henry Murphy’s great granddaughter - Madeline Murphy Rabb:



Madeline’s son Chris Rabb is a former mentor of mine:

Chris Rabb was the author of one of my favorite blogs when it was active called Afro Netizen.

Afro-Netizen

He also authored:

Madeline’s sister is Laura Murphy, a DC Lobbyist:

Laura Murphy was married to Bertram Lee, Sr.

Laura and Bertram’s son is Bertram Lee. Jr.

Bertram Lee, Jr. and his mother Laura were prominently spotlighted on CNN’s Black in America segment on the Black Elite and the Tuxedo Ball.

It was Laura’s sister, Madeline, that sponsored my cousin to attend the Tuxedo Ball, whom I escorted back in 2005.

The Murphy’s are what we call one of the “grand families”. Every generation has been part of the Boule, Girlfriends, Jack and Jill, everything.

I don't even know what 9/10 of these events are but this is some maaaddd interesting information you're providing I'm going to have to read up on.

 

[get these nets]

John Henry Murphy’s great granddaughter - Madeline Murphy Rabb:

The Murphy’s are what we call one of the “grand families”. Every generation has been part of the Boule, Girlfriends, Jack and Jill, everything.

Wow. Thanks for the great read.
And to think, I just posted the info about The Afro American newspaper because Dr. Draper was part of the group of ten Black publishers who just banded together. Was going to post it in that thread to show the activist history of the family and the newspaper.
But dudes' minds are made up, and once goal posts start moving, they never stop.

One of my favorite things about this thread is reading about how the histories of these families tell the history of this country. And how their stories relate to different threads and modern stories.
This family in particular touches on multiple recent subjects.
Black Press, Black in the Arts, Members of Elite circles questioning/challenging tradition, Diasporan connections

Mrs. Murphy Rabb is a particular interesting woman. I remember watching her interview a while back. One line stood out to me. I thought of it during the James Hemings /catering episode of the High On The Hog doc.

Spoiler

And my grandmother, Grace was a daughter of Hughes Catering Company, which was a very successful catering company in Baltimore that served the so-called landed gentry of Maryland and she managed the business. And one of her jobs was to teach white people how to use knives, forks and spoons. These were many upwardly mobile whites in Maryland and she--

The nouveau riche.

The nouveau riche. And my father talks about her having a room where she would bring these people in and teach them how to use utensils and how to recognize courses and so she was quite a character.

Another part was memorable.

Spoiler

And--but I'll go back in terms of living this sort of schizophrenic life. My father was very, very hostile towards the traditional black bourgeoisie because he didn't think they gave anything back. He didn't think they were political. He was very hostile and as a result we never belonged to any Jack and Jill or any social groups. They didn't have a coterie of friends that they played cards with or played--it was very little play about either my mother or father. They were always about cause. They were very cause driven. And so our life was very prescribed. It was very, very much about the five of us at, in that family, you know. So we did--we had relatives that we visited but we didn't have a lot of kids of you know, of the same sort of economic background that we came from so we were very isolated. And then when we left the community to go to integrated schools, we had to spend so much time because we lived way south and the better schools were way northeast. And when I went to high school I'd have to get up at six and be on the bus by seven, travel for two hours and then get back home you know. So we had a very sort of interesting, different kind of life experience. No debutant balls, none of that.

None of that kind of stuff?

None of it. None of it. When someone requested to you know, invited us for me to be presented, my mother looked at me and said, well is that something you want to do? I said why would I want to do something like that? And of course I had been conditioned against that kind of thing. And so she said you know the money that we would spend on a dress in a cotillion, I'm going to take you on a cruise. So my mother and I went on a Caribbean cruise. So we always sort of want--went against the stream, always.

That's interesting cause I think most people would assume that you would have been a part of all of that, you know--

None, not in the least.

--coming from a family that's associated with Afro American and, you know--

Um-um.

--a successful business.

We were the rebels. We were the rebels. No, we didn't part--I didn't know how to dance. I mean I didn't, I mean I was like a misfit. I was really a misfit in high school.

When I read/watch a story about members of these families, I go back and read what Graham wrote about them in OKOP. It's really an excellent history book. First thing I saw was that he mentioned that one of John Murphy's daughters in law, Vashti Turley Murphy, was an original co-founder of DST sorority.

 

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Mrs. Murphy Rabb is a particular interesting woman. I remember watching her interview a while back. One line stood out to me. I thought of it during the James Hemings /catering episode of the High On The Hog doc.

Wait....this interview is from Madeline saying they weren’t a part of black social clubs or was that an interview from the Philly catering family?

 

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When I read/watch a story about members of these families, I go back and read what Graham wrote about them in OKOP. It's really an excellent history book. First thing I saw was that he mentioned that one of John Murphy's daughters in law, Vashti Turley Murphy, was an original co-founder of DST sorority.

They must also be related to Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, current head of the AME Church who is a granddaughter of DST founder Vashti Turley Murphy. She’s also a Delta.

edit 1: she’s retired.

edit 2: yep.....

Vashti was born on May 28, 1947, in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Samuel Edward Smith and Ida Murphy Smith Peters.[6]She was named after her maternal grandmother, Vashti Turley Murphy,[7] who was one of 22 women who founded the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in 1913, while a student at Howard University.[8]

McKenzie's maternal grandfather, Carl J. Murphy, was the publisher and chief editor of the Baltimore Afro-American, a black newspaper started by his father, John H. Murphy, Sr.[9] The newspaper was a family enterprise, and Murphy's five daughters were involved as publishers, editors, journalists, and board members. McKenzie began writing for publication at an early age; she recalls that her first journalism opportunity was writing obituaries at age 16.[10]

 

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@Get These Nets If you read the Chicago Tribune article that I linked, Madeline reveals that they have West Indian heritage. It’s through her connection to the founder Phillip Livingston.

 

[get these nets]

Wait....this interview is from Madeline saying they weren’t a part of black social clubs or was that an interview from the Philly catering family?

Said growing up, her parents distanced the family from those organizations.
Her relatives were well represented in those groups,as you pointed out. but there are rogues and rebels in every large family.
Once she became an adult, she might have joined those formal networks, but she was already connected to them by blood and probably by marriage.

@Get These Nets If you read the Chicago Tribune article that I linked, Madeline reveals that they have West Indian heritage. It’s through her connection to the founder Phillip Livingston.

I read that link. Every article in this thread is fascinating.

This family in particular touches on multiple recent subjects.
Black Press, Black in the Arts, Members of Elite circles questioning/challenging tradition, Diasporan connections

And all the stories connect. You posted the "Still A Brother" doc. recently. Mrs Rabb's childhood and teen years would have been mid 50s to mid 60s when a lot of social revolutions were brewing. Her father questioning or rejecting some of the traditions and ways at the time adds up.

 

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Said growing up, her parents distanced the family from those organizations.
Her relatives were well represented in those groups,as you pointed out. but there are rogues and rebels in every large family.
Once she became an adult, she might have joined those formal networks, but she was already connected to them by blood and probably by marriage.

This is so interesting.

She’s a member of the Chicago Northeasterners.

You’re not getting into the Northeasterners unless you’re legacy. So her mother or grandmother had to be a member. So this is confusing to me. (Btw, I can tell you the family histories of most of these women, which would make your head spin.)

Her husband, Maurice Rabb was a member of the Chicago Boule.

Ophthalmologist Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, Jr., is internationally known for his pioneering work in cornea and retinal vascular diseases. He achieved many firsts as an African American physician. Rabb was born in 1932 in Kentucky, the son of Dr. Maurice Rabb, Sr., a physician and civil rights activist, and Jewel Rabb, a teacher. Because African Americans were banned from attending the University of Louisville, Rabb spent his first two years of undergraduate study at Indiana University. In 1951, when segregation ended in Kentucky, he transferred to the University of Louisville, becoming one of the first African American students admitted there. He graduated from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in 1958.

Rabb did postgraduate training at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and studied ophthalmology at New York University. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at the University of Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he was the first African American chief resident. After his residency, Rabb established a private practice specializing in retinal diseases in downtown Chicago, something that African Americans were not doing at the time. In his notable career, he served as director of the Illinois Eye Bank and Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois Medical School, director of the Fluorescein Angiography Laboratory at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, and as co-director of the Sickle Cell Center at the University of Illinois Medical Center.

Most recently, he served as a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Mercy Hospital, president of the Mercy Hospital Medical Staff, and medical director of Prevent Blindness America. Rabb was the author of numerous articles and a collaborator on several medical films. He was married to Madeline Murphy Rabb, an artist and art consultant. They have two sons, Maurice and Christopher.

And Maurice and Chris were in J&J.

If they eschewed these clubs when they were younger, certainly did a heel turn and found a need when they got older.

We used to play tennis together at a private black Chicago tennis club when I was younger. Madeline was good. Chris used to coach me.

 

[get these nets]

This is so interesting.

She’s a member of the Chicago Northeasterners.

You’re not getting into the Northeasterners unless you’re legacy. So her mother or grandmother had to be a member. So this is confusing to me. (Btw, I can tell you the family histories of most of these women, which would make your head spin.)

Her husband, Maurice Rabb was a member of the Chicago Boule.

And Maurice and Chris were in J&J.

If they eschewed these clubs when they were younger, certainly did a heel turn and found a need when they got older.

We used to play tennis together at a private black Chicago tennis club when I was younger. Madeline was good. Chris used to coach me.

In questioning the purpose of some of the organizations, it seems that Mrs. Rabb's father took an either/or approach. Either you're down for the cause , or you're a part of those networks.

When she became an adult, Madeline said...

Spoiler

I believe that she brought a level of activism into those clubs when she joined. Murphy's line/name would give her cache and leverage in those circles equal to most of the members, I'd assume. Seems that she could relate to the arrivistes into those circles, and work with them to expand the functions, and outreach of those organizations.



Her son's bio and resume reads like a person raised in a progressive, proactive household. All the people in these circles are super accomplished, but his work impacts and improves communities. His grandfather's genes....."down for the cause" put into action.
Great family story.

I think the new blood, and the children of old guard families who challenged the status quo, helped these organizations to evolve.

 

[get these nets]

****Black Elite AfroCentric Edition****

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Mary Ann Shadd Cary of Wilmington and Chatham was a teacher, journalist, and leader of the black Canadian emigration movement of the 1850s. Mary was the daughter of Abraham and Harriett Parnell Shadd, who were prosperous abolitionist from Wilmington, Deleware. After moving their family to Chatham, Ontario, they took up many anti-slavery causes. Mary graduated from Howard Law School, returning to Chatham to teach the children of escaped slaves. Following the steps of her activist family, she began to write of the hypocrisy of the United States, which had identified as a democracy, yet supported slavery. She eventually abandoned teaching and turned to journalism, taking over the Provincial Freeman in Windsor, Ontario in 1853. As the primary editor of the Freeman, Shadd traveled throughout Ontario and parts of the United States writing essays about her travels, revealing her support for sex and race equality.

Downtown Wilmington post office renamed for highly accomplished local freedom activist

• Aug 30, 2021

On Monday, thanks to efforts by U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester at the federal level, Downtown Wilmington's post office will now officially be named after an accomplished local who shattered several ceilings in her lifetime.

The post office will now be named after Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a Wilmingtonian with a storied history working to improve her state and the nation at large.

"I think, a lot of times, people think, 'Oh, we're naming a post office. We're just naming a post office,'" said U.S. Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, who crafted the legislation leading to the official name change. "It was important for me that we have her photo here, Mary Ann Shadd Cary's photo, because there is a line that, 'You have to see it, to be it.' And for many of us, we don't get to see the heroes and heroines in our lives that really paved the way for us to be here."


Cary, born in Wilmington, Delaware, to parents who were entrepreneurial abolitionists, was herself an abolitionist, a suffragist, a lawyer after being Howard Law School's first female student, a writer, a publisher, a newspaper editor, a teacher, an activist, and a dual citizen of both the United States and Canada.

"Her formative years started here, but there was nothing in Delaware to mark this incredible woman," Blunt Rochester said. "They have stuff in Canada, they have stuff in Washington, DC, but today, we will unveil a marker here in Delaware. So I am excited that Mary Ann Shadd Cary will be celebrated here in her home state."

U.S. Sen. Chris c00ns echoed the sentiment that it has been a longtime coming for Cary, a monumental trailblazer, to be recognized in the First State.

"It is a remarkable thing that there are many Delawareans who don't realize that born here in Wilmington, Delaware, was this woman who accomplished so many important firsts," c00ns said.

In attendance for the unveiling of a plaque dedicating the post office to Cary was a number of individuals among her lineage, including the youngest, two-year-old Carol, and her great-great-great-nephew Col. Janmichael Shadd Graine.

Graine, himself a Bronze Star recipient for his service in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, and commander of the the 485th Chemical Battalion in Wilmington, who also served 17 years as a U.S. Army civilian with the Army's environmental command before becoming chief of the Environmental Compliance Branch at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, spoke about the occasional difficulties of being the descendant of someone so great.

"Frederick Douglass said, Mary Ann, she 'is a person of unconquerable zeal and commendable ability. We do not know her equal among the colored ladies of the United States,'" he said. "The Shadd family members were taught at an early age about Mary Ann Shadd Cary and how we related to this extraordinary woman, and we try our best to try to live up to that legacy."

Spoiler: Clip of his comments

 

[get these nets]

This is so interesting.

She’s a member of the Chicago Northeasterners.

You’re not getting into the Northeasterners unless you’re legacy. So her mother or grandmother had to be a member. So this is confusing to me. (Btw, I can tell you the family histories of most of these women, which would make your head spin.)
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Piqued my interest. Would like to hear the family stories. Positive stories only.

OKOP series debuts in a few days, so it's open season on Boul-ettes on the internet after that.

What is the origin of the group's name? Was it originally a club for transplants from the Northeast Corridor? Or created by Bostonians who had attended Northeastern?