Happy Birthday to singer Bessie Smith (b. April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga, TN), who created blues and jazz magic from her personal experiences as a free-loving Black woman in early twentieth century America. Her exact birth date is unclear, but what is clear is that she was born into the social churn of the turn of the century South. Out of this context she found herself. Scholar Angela Y. Davis shows that through her music, Smith bridged North and South to help craft a new Black identity. Davis writes: “She assisted in the creation of a new consciousness of African-American identity, a consciousness that was critical of the experiences of exploitation, alienation—and for women, male dominance—in the North, which had been the focus of black people’s hopes and dreams since the earliest days of slavery. Her songs, more than any other blues performer of the era, constructed aesthetic bridges linking places and time and permitting a collective prise de conscience [i.e., realization] encompassing both the unity and the heterogeneity of the black experience.”
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Angela Y. Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (New York: Vintage, 1998), 89-90; Chris Albertson, Bessie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003 [1972]), Kindle edition, 28-29; Carl Van Vechten, “[Portrait of Bessie Smith holding flowers],” photograph (location unknown, February 3, 1936), https://lccn.loc.gov/2004663573.
Comments