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Thursday, February 07, 2013

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams - The Heart of Medicine


All right...here we go with Day #7 of Black History Month, and I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to make the Thursday Diaries reflect that.  As many of you might have guessed by the picture that I use for my profile, I’m not black.  Therefore, I couldn’t very well tie my own experiences to Black History Month.

So, I decided to try looking at it from another angle.

And thanks to a tip from one of my friends (thanks Bailey!), I believe I have a solution for how to approach it for the first week, and I hope that by reading this, you might gain a new appreciation for not only Black History Month, but also another theme month that is also happening during February.

Confused yet?  Don’t be.  Everything will be explained below.

February 7, 2013

Can you believe that we’re into the month of February?  I know it seems like a week ago that I was complaining about January being incredibly slow, and yet February just seems to be speeding right along.  Though, I shouldn’t be too shocked by that.  Even on a leap year, it’s still the shortest month.

February is also a very special month for a couple of reasons.  I’m sure that if you’ve been keeping up with this blog the past week, you know what the first reason is.  I’ve always toyed with the idea of featuring a “Black History Month” in this space for a while now, and in 2013, I decided that I wanted to attempt it just to see if I could keep up with it for an entire month.  Not only am I surprising myself by coming up with twenty-eight distinct topics for discussion this month, but I am also learning a lot about the contributions and the ideas that have been shared by African-Americans, African-Canadians, etc.  Some of the facts that were discovered, I already knew, but in my research I’ve come across a lot of different discoveries that surprised me!  I’ve always had much respect for “Black History Month”, and to learn just how much of an impact the discoveries and inventions that black people have created for our modern world is admirable, and that’s why I decided to make a month long feature on some of these people.

Granted, most of them are figures within the world of pop culture.  But on this and the next three Thursdays, I thought that I would use this space to talk about key figures who have made a difference in the lives of how people live, and more importantly, how people treat each other.

And, it is because of this that I’ve decided to provide a link between “Black History Month” and another month-long event that also takes place in the month of February.


I’m not entirely sure what the event is called in other areas of the world, but in Canada, February is recognized as “National Heart and Stroke Month”.  Did you know that cardiovascular disease is responsible for almost thirty per cent of all deaths recorded in any given year?  And that heart disease is the number one killer of women?  Those are some sobering statistics right there.

I’m sure that we all have known someone who has had to battle heart disease, had a heart attack, or a stroke.  I know that my family has been touched by all of the above.  My grandmother passed away in 1991 from a heart attack at the age of 65, and my grandfather suffered a series of strokes before he died at the age of 78 in 2001.



In Canada, there are a number of charities and organizations that are dedicated to supporting people who have lost loved ones to heart disease and stroke, and there are annual events that are taking place this month to raise awareness.  One such event began in 2003 by the American Heart Association.  The organization (in partnership with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute) created the “National Wear Red Day” to get women to become aware of the fact that heart disease was the number one cause of death for women.  Although it’s a bit late to mention this by now, the first Friday in February is a day in which women and men are to show support for fighting against heart disease by wearing the colour red.


The following year, the “Go Red for Women” program was launched, which is designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health, as well as banding together to combat heart disease.

Can you believe that the “Go Red for Women” movement is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year?  In those ten years, the movement has spread cross-country, and even Canada is taking part in this event to celebrate heart health.

You know, I have to give a lot of credit to the cardiologists out there, who work miracles every day.  They work tirelessly to make sure that people’s hearts are functioning properly.  Whether it be checking up on patients to make sure that they’re taking care of themselves, or performing open heart surgeries in hopes of unclogging arteries within the heart, I certainly have a lot of respect for them.

Of course, none of that would have been possible had it not been for those who pioneered the practice known as open-heart surgery.  And, this is where “National Heart and Stroke Month” collides with “Black History Month”.


Did you know that one of the very first cardiac surgeries was performed by African-American surgeon Dr. Daniel Hale Williams?  And, that’s not the only claim to fame he has to his credit either.  We’ll get to that a little bit later.

Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1858 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the son of a black barber and a Scots-Irish woman, and was the last of five children.  His father passed away when Williams was just nine years of age, and the family moved to the state of Maryland when Williams was a young boy.

At some point during his childhood, Williams had decided that he had wanted to go into the field of medicine, and he graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1883, at the age of twenty-five.

Unfortunately for Williams, despite the fact that he had his certification to practice medicine, no hospital in the Chicago area would touch him.  It wasn’t because he had not done well in his studies, or that he was incapable of handling the pressure of the job. 

It was because of the colour of his skin.

Yes, racism was still alive and well in the late 1800s in America, as all of the Chicago area hospitals barred black doctors from practicing medicine.  And, this frustrated Dr. Daniel Hale Williams to no end.  He knew that he could save lives, but was working in a district that would not give him a chance to prove himself.

So eight years after graduating medical school, he took it upon himself to open the doors to all African-American doctors and patients in the area.


In 1891, the doors to Provident Hospital opened up its doors making it the first Black owned and operated hospital in the United States.  The hospital was designed with the purpose of treating patients who were black, as well as being the first hospital of its kind to train doctors and nurses of African-American background.

Two years later, Williams would become one of the first people to perform cardiac surgery on a patient when he was forced to operate on a person who sustained a critical knife wound. 

The year was 1893, and the patient was one James Cornish.  Cornish had been stabbed in the chest with a knife, and the resulting injury left him with a torn pericardium.  Although Dr. Williams was not the first person who had ever done surgery on the heart, he did perform the surgery without the use of penicillin or a blood transfusion.  The surgery was performed on July 10, 1893, and ended up being a success (though it took Cornish approximately two months to fully recover from the trauma).



Later on in the year, then American President Grover Cleveland appointed Dr. Williams as surgeon-in-chief of Freedman’s Hospital in Washington D.C.  He was in charge of organizing the hospital, but he also helped create a training school for African-American nurses within the facility.  He also worked as an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, co-founded the National Medical Association for African-American Doctors in 1895, and was only African-American doctor to become a chartered member of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.

He really helped open the doors for African-American people, didn’t he?  Just think about it for a second.  How many lives do you think have been saved because of the fact that Dr. Daniel Hale Williams made it possible for doctors and nurses of colour to practice medicine?  I would estimate thousands at least, if not millions.  That’s why his contributions to the world of medicine should be celebrated.  Not just because he was one of the first people to perform a successful heart surgery, but because he was the first person who helped demolish the colour lines to ensure that everybody had the right to good, quality health care.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams died in Michigan on August 4, 1931, aged 73.  But his name still echoes through the chambers of hospitals everywhere.  Stevie Wonder immortalized him in song on his single “Black Man”.  Have a listen below.


And perhaps one of his greatest accomplishments, the foundation of Provident Hospital, still exists, though not in the same form.  Due to financial difficulties, the main hospital site was shut down in 1987.  However, in 1993, the facility reopened within Cook County Hospital to provide services to people in Chicago’s South Side.  It is now referred to as Provident Hospital of Cook County.


So, there you have it.  We looked at “Heart and Stroke Month”, tied it to Black History Month, and paid tribute to a man who helped bust down barriers within the medical community.


And it was an honour to type every word.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Building a Better Water Pistol


So, we’re on day number six of Black History Month, and I thought that for this and the next four Wednesdays, I would change things up a smidgen.  Oh, don’t worry...I’ll still be talking about toys and games over the next four weeks.  But the four subjects that I will be talking about are all toys, and innovations that were invented and perfected by African-American people. 

When I was doing the research in trying to find suitable topics for Black History Month, I was truly blown away over just how many everyday items were invented by people of African ancestry, and I was also equally impressed to see that so many ideas forever changed the way that we looked at pre-existing inventions.

Today’s subject deals with the latter subject.  You’ve all heard of the phrase “building a better mousetrap” right?  In this case, a man by the name of Lonnie Johnson did exactly that...only he didn’t use mousetraps.  He used a toy that children of all ages have played with for generations.

He invented a better water pistol.

True, this is the month of February, and unless you happen to live close to the equator or in the Southern Hemisphere, a water pistol is useless in the cold winter air.  After all, a water pistol with frozen ammunition is no fun to anybody...well, unless you wanted to throw it at them in hopes of knocking them out cold.

Not that I am openly RECOMMENDING YOU DO THIS!!!


But, after reading the story of Lonnie Johnson and how a simple addition to the water gun helped catapult it to become one of the 1990s most popular toys, how could I not talk about it?

Lonnie Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama on October 6, 1949, and grew up always wanting to find out how everyday household appliances worked.  During his early childhood, he was often taking apart old, broken-down appliances to learn about how they worked, and by the time he graduated high school, he had already won the “Linex” competition by inventing a robot that he had built using scraps of metal and other assorted materials from the local junkyard.

After earning a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1972 and an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering in 1974 (both degrees being earned at Tuskegee University), Johnson joined the United States Air Force, and became an Advanced Space Systems Requirements Officer at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command based out of Omaha, Nebraska.  He moved from there to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where he helped develop thermodynamic and control systems for space projects.  He was responsible for some noteworthy projects such as working on the Galileo Jupiter probe and the Mars Observer project, but his finest work came in 1988, with the invention of the Johnson tube – a CFC-refeigeration system with a hydraulic heat pump...or as Johnson called it, Patent #4,724,683 – his seventh in an ongoing series.

Now, for non-science readers (and I readily admit to being one), this might seem like a whole bunch of gibberish or gobbledegook.  Yet, it’s important enough to mention because science was a key factor in how Johnson would reinvent the water pistol as we knew it.

It all began in the 1980s, when Johnson founded his own company (Johnson Research and Development).  In 1982, three years prior to the creation of his company, Johnson was inside his bathroom when a homemade sink nozzle began to shoot a steady stream of water clear across the room...and it got Johnson’s wheels turning inside his brain.  What if he took that technology and implemented it into a water gun, effectively doubling the power and the soaking ability of it?  Could it be done?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Johnson quickly figured out that by using pressurized air to force the water out of the water pistol’s nozzle, it would cause the water to shoot out the water with greater power, expanded range, and improved accuracy.  He immediately went to work on creating a prototype for his new and improved water gun.  With his partner, Bruce D’Andrade, Johnson worked on his creation for several years.


It wasn’t until November 1989 that Johnson had finished his prototype.  The name of the invention was something called a “Power Drencher”, and the water pistol did exactly what Johnson had expected it would do.  It used pressurized air to shoot water at a rapid pace, up to fifty feet away.  The patent for the Power Drencher garnered interest from the toy company “Larami” - a company that dedicated itself to manufacturing action figures, soap bubble toys, and water toys – and they started manufacturing the toys in 1990.

Sales during the first year that the Power Drencher was available for purchase were slow however, and it wasn’t until the following year that Larami decided that a rebranding of the product might help boost sales.

And so, in early 1991, the Power Drencher name was retired, and instead was rechristened as the Super Soaker...a name which has remained ever since.

And with the name change, came an aggressive marketing campaign.  Have a look at one of the original Super Soaker advertisements which dominated television during the early 1990s.


Over the next few years, Super Soakers began to fly off of toy shelves all over the world, and with the demand came several designs of the Super Soaker.  Below are a couple of the tweaks that were made to the original 1989 design (which was later renamed the Super Soaker 50).


Most models use either one of two possible propulsion systems.  The pressurized reservoir system has one reservoir for both air and water.  The water goes in first, and then air is forced in under pressure.  When the Super Soaker trigger is pulled, the air forces the water out of the reservoir. 

There are also Super Soakers that have separate compartments...one for air, the other for water.  Water is pumped from the reservoir into the firing chambers, which compresses the air inside.  It exerts a force on the water, which provides the power to push the water through the nozzle when the trigger is pulled.

Now, as to which one is better, I’ll leave that to you.  I owned the model that had the pressurized reservoir system, and it worked beautifully, but I have also heard that Super Soakers that utilize the separate compartments are more powerful.  I haven’t had the opportunity to test that theory out, but I’m curious to know if that is the truth.

The Super Soaker was manufactured by Larami until 1995, when Hasbro bought out the company.  After 1995, all Super Soakers were made under the Hasbro name. 

The Super Soaker has since become an icon in the history of toys that have been made within the last twenty-five years, and in 2011, it won the award for “Outdoor Toy of the Year” at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.  And, I’m sure that the Super Soaker helped bring Lonnie Johnson a lot of fame and fortune.  Since the introduction of the Super Soaker in 1990, it is estimated that over fifty million Super Soakers have been sold, generating sales of well over $200 million!


So, what has Mr. Johnson done since reimagining the way that modern water pistols are made?

Well, remember how I said that in 1988, he had registered his seventh American patent?  That number has grown to over eighty patents, with a reported twenty more pending.  He has also written several research articles and publications on the subject of spacecraft power stations.  Johnson has won several awards and honours for his work in both entrepreneurship and inventing, and in 1994, February 25 was officially recognized as “Lonnie G. Johnson Day” in Marietta, Georgia.


So, the next time that you pick up a Super Soaker and use it to spray your bratty little brothers, the annoying kids who live next door, or that nasty woman across the street that shouts nothing but insults at you...be sure to give your thanks to Lonnie Johnson...the man who built a better water pistol.

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

February 5, 1986


When I came to the decision to make the month of February Black History Month in this blog, I went into it knowing that I would have to make the Tuesday Timeline entries reflect that.  I would have to make sure that the date that I chose had to have something to do with Black History (or at the very least featured someone of African ancestry).

There are four Tuesdays in February, and for three of the four weeks, finding topics of discussion were very easy. 

This week was the only one that gave me a bit of a struggle.

After doing hours of research, and visiting what seemed like hundreds of “This Day in History” websites, I couldn’t come up with a topic.

That is until I stumbled upon a website on music history, and came up with a passable topic.  Believe me, February 5 was not a date in which there was much going on in the subject of Black History.

However, there was quite a lot that did happen on this date...

62 A.D. – Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy

1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being a societal threat

1631 – Roger Williams emigrates to Boston

1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation

1782 – Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca

1818 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway

1848 – American outlaw Belle Starr is born in Carthage, Missouri

1852 – One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, opens to the public

1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history is unearthed in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia

1900 – The United Kingdom and the United States sign a treaty for the Panama Canal

1909 – Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist, announces his new invention, Bakelite (the world’s first synthetic plastic)

1917 – On the same day that Mexico adopts its current constitution, the United States Congress passes the Immigration Act of 1917, which forbade immigration from nearly all of South and Southeast Asia

1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane, but on the same day, SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland, which killed 210, including several Americans

1919 – Film company United Artists is launched by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith

1924 – The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting hourly time signals known as the “Greenwich Time Signal”

1937 – Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States

1941 – During World War II, Allied forces begin Battle of Keren

1958 – A hydrogen bomb is lost by the United States Air Force (the Tybee bomb) off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and has never been found

1971 – Astronauts aboard Apollo 14 land on the surface of the moon

1972 – Bob Douglas is elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the first African-American to achieve the honour

1976 – The Swine Flu Outbreak of 1976 originates in Fort Dix, New Jersey

1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges

1994 – Sixty people are killed and another 200 are injured after a mortal shell slams into a Sarajevo marketplace during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1997 – A $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families is established by three of Switzerland’s largest financial institutions

2008 – A major tornado outbreak occurs in the Southern United States, killing fifty-seven people

So, aside from the one event that happened in 1972, there wasn’t a lot to choose from.  Sure, I could have done a feature on the Baskeball Hall of Fame, but because I know very little about basketball, I didn’t think I could do it justice.

There’s also a lot of celebrity birthdays for February 5, and the following people are turning one year older today...Al Worthington, Hank Aaron, Don Cherry, Stuart Damon, Larry Hillman, Jane Bryant Quinn, Dick Warlock, David Selby, Roger Staubach, Cory Wells (Three Dog Night), Nolan Bushnell, Michael Mann, Craig Morton, Al Kooper, Charlotte Rampling, Darrell Waltrip, Christopher Guest, Barbara Hershey, Errol Morris, Tom Wilkinson, Jonathan Freeman, Cliff Martinez (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Mike Heath, David Wiesner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Laura Linney, Duff McKagan (Guns N Roses), Chris Parnell, Roberto Alomar, Bobby Brown, Sara Evans, Adam Carson (AFI), Brian Moorman, Adam Everett, Ahmad Merritt, Shawn Reaves, Brian Russell, Diedra Dionne, Brian Everett, Nate Salley, Lindsey Cardinale, Crystal Hunt, Paul Vandervort, Ashley Simmons, Jeremy Sumpter, and Davis Cleveland.

So, what date have I decided to finally settle on?


Well, it’s this one.  February 5, 1986.

Twenty-seven years ago on this date, a particular song made its way onto store shelves, radio stations, and MTV.  The song was recorded by an already established African-American star who had released eight albums of varying success.  Although his first few albums didn’t exactly make a dent on the charts, as time went on, he quickly rose up in the ranks of pop music, and soon found himself competing against other artists of colour including Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Tina Turner.

And, on February 5, 1986, he released his thirty-first single, which would eventually become his third #1 Billboard hit.  Ironically enough, the song appeared on the film soundtrack that our featured singer also starred on...which didn’t exactly get a lot of positive attention.  Though, I suppose when you consider that the song was the best part of the whole movie, I guess it can’t be all bad news.

So, here’s the deal.  I did find a copy of the music video that I will post here for now, but don’t be surprised if you see this video disappear soon after, as this man is pretty much against all video sharing sites.  So, I just want to tell you all to enjoy the video while it lasts because it might not be staying put.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xq2qiVeYYw

ARTIST:  Prince and the Revolution
SONG:  Kiss
ALBUM:  Parade:  Music from the Motion Picture “Under the Cherry Moon”
DATE RELEASED:  February 5, 1986
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 2 weeks
(NOTE:  I cannot post the video in the actual blog...sorry.)

Now, I have a confession to make.  “Kiss” is not my favourite Prince song.  I’m more of a “Raspberry Beret” kind of guy.  But since the song was released exactly twenty-seven years ago, and I was trying to come up with a suitable topic for the Tuesday Timeline, I figure that I’d go with it.

But before I go ahead with the song discussion, how about a brief biography of the singer who took this song to the top of the charts?


It seems hard to believe but Prince Rogers Nelson is going to be turning fifty-five years old this year!  According to his bio, he was born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  That’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that Prince is turning 55.  Where did time go?

Prince was one of those people that seemed destined for a career in music, writing his very first song at the age of seven.  Ten years later, he was a part-time member of his cousin’s band, 94 East, recording a few songs with them before deciding to try his hand at a solo career.  He had a few unsuccessful attempts with demo tapes, but in 1978, he released his first album, “For You”.  His next three albums, 1979’s “Prince”, 1980’s “Dirty Mind”, and 1981’s “Controversy” all had varying levels of success, and in 1982, Prince released “1999”, which many people might consider his true breakout hit album, with the title track and “Little Red Corvette” doing extremely well on the charts, and on MTV.

In 1984, Prince began to refer to his band as “The Revolution”, and its members were comprised of Lisa Coleman, Doctor Fink, Bobby Z, Brown Mark, Dez Dickerson, and Jill Jones.  When Dickerson left the group, Wendy Melvoin was brought in as a replacement.

TRIVIA:  Wendy Melvoin is the woman that plays the guitar next to a dancing Prince in the “Kiss” video.


I would say that 1984 was the year that Prince catapulted himself into a household name.  Not only did he star in the cult classic “Purple Rain” (which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score), but the soundtrack album of the same name sold thirteen million copies, had four Top 10 singles (including the #1 songs “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy”), and is ranked at #76 of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.  I know that I own a copy of “Purple Rain”, and I’m sure that many of you reading this can claim the same.

With the success that Prince had with “Purple Rain”, many wondered if he would be able to have repeat success when he starred in the 1986 film “Under the Cherry Moon” in the role of a gigolo going by the name of Christopher Tracy.  After all, he was also doing the music for the film, which would be compiled in an album with the title of “Parade”.


Well, unfortunately for Prince, “Under the Cherry Moon” proved to be a dud at the box office.  Made on a budget of $12 million, the film only managed to rake in just a little over $10 million, resulting in a loss of nearly two million.  And, instead of winning Academy Awards, it won five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Actor, Worst Director (both of whom went to Prince himself), and Worst Picture.  Though, to be fair, the “honour” for Worst Picture was shared with the asinine “Howard the Duck”.


All right...so the movie was a disaster.  The film’s soundtrack album on the other hand...well, it did a lot better.  It didn’t quite match the success of “Purple Rain”, but it managed to sell enough copies for it to land at the #3 position on the Billboard 200 Album Charts.

I think “Kiss” was the main reason why the album did quite well.  As I said before, “Kiss” may not be my personal favourite of Prince’s songs, but I can admire the fact that it sounded a lot different compared to his earlier releases.  Whereas most of his songs were dominated by heavy guitar riffs and dance beats, “Kiss” was almost simplistic by comparison.  In fact, “Kiss” was actually a last minute addition to the soundtrack album. 


“Kiss” began as a minute long acoustic demo in late 1985, with just a verse and chorus fully completed.  He actually intended for the song to be recorded by someone else other than him, so he gave the demo to funk band Mazerati to be used for their debut album.

The group reworked the song, and recorded it in such a way that when Prince heard the demo, he was blown away by what they had done to the song, and decided to take the song back for himself!

(I would hope that he at least gave them credit for the song in the liner notes of the album.  I don’t have a copy of it handy on me, so I have no idea.  If anyone does know if they were credited, let me know in the comments section below!  J )

EDITED TO ADD:  Okay, after doing some research, I did discover that he in fact did credit the band for their backing vocals. 

Anyway, Prince re-recorded the song using his own vocals, added a guitar riff in between the second chorus and third verse, and added the song to the soundtrack at zero hour. 

Would you believe that Warner Brothers (the record company that Prince was signed to at the time) were not willing to release the single at all?  They believed that he should release “Mountains” instead (which eventually became the second single release from “Parade” in May 1986).  But, Prince refused to back down, and he ended up getting his way.  “Kiss” was released in February, and by the spring, became his third #1 hit.

The song also helped Prince add a Grammy Award to his growing collection (minus the Razzies, of course).  He won the award for “Best R & B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group”, and was nominated for “Best R & B Song”.

The song itself is a frequent staple at many of Prince’s concerts, and it was recently placed on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, charting at position number 461.

Well...it’s still within the Top 500.

And, the song has since been covered by several artists...the most famous example being Tom Jones’ collaboration with Art of Noise in 1988, which can be seen below.


And, that’s what happened on February 5, 1986. 

Monday, February 04, 2013

The Color Purple


This week’s edition of the Monday Matinee was a fairly easy one to write.  It’s a film that made a huge killing at the box office, was the film debut of two women who would grow to become huge stars in both the acting and talk show hosting world, and also happens to fit in nicely with the theme of the month (which of course is Black History Month).

So, why you ask, is this entire blog entry typed in purple?  Well, hold on to your hats.  I’m getting there (and no, it's not because the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl last night...but congratulations to them on their victory).

But first, I want to ask you a question.

Have any of you ever heard of an author named Alice Walker? 

I see some of you nodding your heads yes, while others of you are staring blankly at me in the face wondering what I had just said.  Well, okay, not really.  I cannot see you through my laptop.  But, a guy can pretend, can’t he?

The truth is, Alice Walker wrote a book over thirty years ago that got a lot of people talking (and reading).  That book has sold millions of copies since it was first published in 1982, and in 1983, Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the National Book Award for Fiction.  The book depicted the struggles of young black women growing up during 1930s America, and the fight to have their voices heard in a society that deems them next to worthless.  It was definitely a book that was not for the faint of heart, as some of the situations that the main characters had to endure were incredibly horrific and disgusting.  So much so that the book is ranked at #17 on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009.

But I think it’s good that an author would stick to their guns and write a powerful story, even if the imagery inside of the book is something that paints a rather disturbing picture.  Besides, if anyone has ever read the book in question, they would quickly find out that despite the despair and pain that the protagonists have gone through, there’s plenty of hope that could be found as well.


That book was “The Color Purple”, and as it so happens, today’s movie will look at the 1985 film adaptation of “The Color Purple”.

(Does this now explain the purple text?  J )

Now, the reason why the book (and movie) was called The Color Purple is all about symbolism.  I always get a kick out of watching a movie and pointing out the little bits of hidden messages and symbolic uses of props, patterns, and colours.  I even did a school project in my English Media class in high school on symbolism found in horror films.  And, purple plays a very important role in both the book and the movie.

On one hand, you could say that purple could be used in a negative sense.  The main character of the book is a young woman named Celie who goes through a whirlwind of emotional distress in her early years, which causes her to look at the world in a negative sense, and leaving her without the ability to appreciate the simple beauty in everyday life.  As a young girl, Celie was sexually abused, which left telltale purple marks on the most sensitive parts of her body, and she also remarked that the bruises and scrapes found on her friend Sofia’s face was like the color of an eggplant. 

And, as we all know, an eggplant is purple.

But purple also represented a colour of high prestige as well.  At some point during the story, Celie wanted to wear something that made her feel like a queen, but couldn’t because the stores didn’t have anything that was purple in colour (keeping in mind that purple was considered a colour associated with royalty).  And, purple represented the dreams that Celie had...dreams that she never believed that she would attain. 


It’s certainly a colour that is a common theme within the film adaptation, as well as the book.  Why else do you think that the movie poster is designed with a purplish tint?

The film adaptation for “The Color Purple” did extremely well at the box office, and was praised highly by critics.  The film was the eighth motion picture directed by famed director Steven Spielberg, and starred Danny Glover, Rae Dawn Chong, Margaret Avery, Desreta Jackson, Adolph Caesar, and in their motion picture debuts, Whoopi Goldberg and future talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.  The film was released on December 18, 1985, and made almost one hundred million dollars at the box office on a budget of fifteen million dollars.

The film also has a record associated with it, albeit not a record that one hopes to get.  The good news was that it received eleven nominations for Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and acting nominations for Goldberg, Winfrey, and Avery.  The bad news was that the film was completely shut out, not even winning one of the eleven awards that it was nominated for, tying the record set by the 1977 film “The Turning Point” (though Whoopi Goldberg did win a Golden Globe for her performance in 1986).

Despite this oversight, critics praised the film, as Siskel & Ebert gave the film two thumbs up, while New York Times critic Janet Maslen noted that while the film didn’t exactly line up with the book, it still worked splendidly.


“The Color Purple” begins in the early 1900s in the area known as the Southern United States.  We are introduced to Celie Harris (played by Goldberg as an adult), who has had an incredibly rough childhood.  By the age of fourteen, she has already given birth to a couple of children.  The father of her children?  Her own “father”!

(There’s a reason why the word “father” is in quotation marks.  You’ll have to watch the movie to discover why that is.)

Anyway, Celie’s “father” immediately takes away her children after they are born and sends them off to live somewhere else, for Celie’s future plans do not involve her becoming a mother.  No, she’s arranged to be married off to a wealthy man whom Celie only knows as “Mister”.  In truth, his real name is Albert Johnson (played by Glover), and “Mister” is no sweet, loving husband, who treats Celie as his own personal slave.


You’d have thought that he would know better, given that just a few decades earlier, his ancestors were likely enslaved at the hands of wealthy Americans...but sadly, this is not the case, as Albert beats Celie up and keeps her so frightened of him that she is forced into doing everything he wants.  Although things perk up for Celie a bit when her sister Nettie (Akosua Busia) comes to stay with them (she teaches Celie how to read), the happiness is short lived when Albert tries to come on to Nettie and she rebuffs him enough times for him to throw her out of the house.  But Nettie promises Celie that she’ll find a way to stay in touch with her by writing her letters whenever she can.

Remember that promise for later, folks.

One day, an ex-lover of Albert’s, Shug Avery (Avery) decides to come and live with him and Celie.  And right off the bat, the first impression that Celie gives to Shug is not a good one, as Shug remarks that Celie is “ugly”.  But it really wasn’t Celie’s fault.  She had been feeling ill and was forced to wear a face mask to keep anybody else from catching her nasty virus. 


After a little bit of time passed, Celie and Shug soon became close friends, and Shug becomes Celie’s own personal self-confidence booster.

NOTE:  It is also mildly dropped in the film that an affair takes place between Shug and Celie...but if you read the book, it describes this relationship in greater detail.


Celie also finds a firm friend in a woman named Sofia (Winfrey), who happens to be married to Albert’s son, Harpo (Willard E. Pugh).  Sofia has also sustained abuse and torture from the menfolk in her life, but there is one thing that Sofia had that Celie did not. 

A backbone.

It wasn’t uncommon at all for Sofia to stand up for herself and give it as good as she took it.  She wasn’t about to let anybody take advantage of her, and her attitude certainly impresses Celie.  But unfortunately, Sofia took it a bit too far when she gets into a scuffle with the town mayor and his wife...and, well...see for yourselves.


One thing you can say...she was definitely a woman ahead of her time.

But shortly after this little incident, Celie comes across a rather shocking truth.  Apparently, her sister Nettie has settled in Africa, working with missionaries there, and she has been sending Celie dozens of letters.  Unfortunately for Celie, Albert has been getting to the mailbox first and has confiscated every single one so that Celie would never have access to them.

What a prince, huh?

Fortunately, with a little sleuth work courtesy of Shug and her new husband, Celie discovers a couple of years worth of letters that Nettie had sent...letters that Albert withheld from her all that time.  At first, Celie is absolutely angered that Albert would do this to her...but then she thinks about it some more and realizes that this information has given her renewed hope and courage...courage that Sofia showed her that fateful day.  Although Celie’s first instinct is to kill the very man that caused her so much pain, and almost succeeds when she considers stabbing him with the very knife she used to shave his face.  Luckily, Shug manages to prevent her from going through with it.

Later, at a family dinner, Celie is shocked to see Sofia in a near catatonic state due to the frequent beatings that she has suffered while in prison for punching the mayor.  It was like the trip to prison had taken all of the light inside of her.  But seeing Sofia in that state triggered something inside of Celie, and what ends up taking place is one memorable confrontation that puts everything out on the table.


And, I think on that note, we’ll end the plot summary for this film.  I’ve already said too much.  I will just provide you a clue with the ending.  It has a lot of slacks.  That’s all that I can say.

“The Color Purple” was a film that was necessary to make.  It portrayed a dark part of American history in which black women were made to feel inferior just because of the colour of their skin...but it also showed them taking back control and leading the fight to become recognized in a society that fought them every step of the way.  That’s to be admired.


I mean, would Whoopi Goldberg have become a famous actress, appearing in dozens of Hollywood features, and a panelist on “The View” had things stayed the same?


Would Margaret Avery have appeared in several acting projects of her own, and volunteered her time to helping battered women and at-risk teenagers had things stayed the same?


Would Oprah Winfrey have become a multi-millionaire, hosting a successful talk show for a quarter-century, and being the head of her own book club, magazine, and television network had things stayed the same?

Just some food for thought today.