Analogy to “10 Black Aviators That Paved The Way For Barrington Irving”

[George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (1780-1860); Copyright The British Museum]

Latimer Williams blogs at LatimerWilliams.com, where he posted “10 Black Aviators That Paved The Way For Barrington Irving”, Sept. 21, 2007. Here is the introductory paragraph:

Well we have all heard of Barrington Irving by now and what he has accomplished by being the first black man to fly around the world. The fact that he did it in a plane that he built makes an even more amazing accomplishment. I hope that he will be the inspiration for children for years to come. The questions that comes to my mind is who was Barringtion Irving’s predecessors? I have seen black commercial airline pilots and I know of a few military pilots but that is the present, where are the ones from that past eras? So I went on the hunt as usual and had to find these elusive black aviators of the past. Keep in mind that the Tuskegee Airmen are not on the list. For one it’s a group and secondly that’s far too easy.

The analogy to Black Heritage in Music proved irresistible, and led us to make this
comment on the Latimer Williams post on Oct. 27:

Without too much of a stretch, my website AfriClassical.com and the companion AfriClassical Blog, can be seen as analogous to your efforts to find the historical precedents to the success of the Black Aviator Barrington Williams.

Pianist Roy F. Eaton is a 2007 Grammy Award nominee in the category of Music for children, for his CD ”Keyboard Classics for Children”; Conductor James DePreist has 50 recordings to his credit and won the 2005 National Medal of the Arts; Michael Abels has won worldwide acclaim for his composition ”Global Warming”, and the Harlem Quartet gave the debut performance of his ”Delights and Dances” at Carnegie Hall Sept. 25. Long before those Black classical artists were born, and still unknown to most people, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) conducted Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, the finest orchestra in Paris; Beethoven wrote the ”Bridgetower Sonata” for a Black Violinist, George Bridgetower (1780-1860), but renamed it the ”Kreutzer Sonata” after an argument with him; Composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) wrote the most famous musical of his time, ”Hiawatha\’s Wedding Feast”, in 1898.

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Black+Conductor" rel="tag">Black Conductor
Black+Musician" rel="tag">Black Musician