'Ebony babies': 45 years young; born, like 'Ebony,' in 1945, they realized the impossible dream - 1945-1990: The Ebony Years - 45th Anniversary Edition

Ebony, Nov, 1990

`EBONY BABIES' 45 YEARS YOUNG

Born, like EBONY, in 1945, they realized the impossible dream

THE year 1945 was a year of new beginnings and new hope.

On April 25, the United Nations was founded.

On September 2, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

And on November 1, as thousands of Black GIs returned to America to make Mississippi and Georgia and Harlem safe for democracy, a new magazine called EBONY was born.

Also born in that historic year were 324,264 Blacks. Some of these "Ebony Babies" would be pushed off the main road by segregation and discrimination, but many, including the ten featured on these pages, would not be denied. They, like EBONY, would grow and realize dreams that most people living in 1945 believed impossible.

PHOTO : Clifton Davis October 4, 1945

PHOTO : Clifton Davis, who was born on the South Side of Chicago one month before EBONY was born

PHOTO : on the same South Side, still remembers the first time he saw a JPC magazine. He was only

PHOTO : 5 years old, he says, when he saw something he had never seen before--a beautiful Black

PHOTO : woman on the cover of a magazine. "She had," Davis recalls, "golden skin black hair and

PHOTO : had on a beautiful gown. She was a real Black beauty." Mesmerized by the photo, he put it

PHOTO : in his pocket and went home. Since he neglected to pay for the magazine, his father

PHOTO : spanked him and made him return it. Today Davis, a major television star and an ordained

PHOTO : minister, pays for all his copies of EBONY.

PHOTO : Judge C. Ellen Connally January 26, 1945

PHOTO : There were no Black or female judges in Cleveland, Ohio, when Ellen Connally was born.

PHOTO : But the racially restrictive climate did not deter young Ellen, who would grow up and play

PHOTO : an important role in a political revolution that peaked with the election of Carl Stokes,

PHOTO : Cleveland's first Black mayor and the first Black mayor of a big city. In 1979, Connally

PHOTO : herself was elected to Cleveland's Municipal Court. "People like Martin Luther King Jr.

PHOTO : and many other Black leaders," Judge Connally says, "fought to give us equal access to the

PHOTO : American Dream and today we have to take the ball and continue to run with it."

PHOTO : Yvonne Kennedy January 8, 1945

PHOTO : The University of Alabama was closed to Blacks in 1945. But in the 45 years between 1945

PHOTO : and 1990, the walls came tumblin' down in the educational world, and Dr. Yvonne Kennedy,

PHOTO : one of the beneficiaries of the great change, would become the president of Bishop State

PHOTO : Community College in Mobile, Ala. The daughter of Leroy and Thelma Kennedy, she attended

PHOTO : the University of Alabama along with several other major colleges. "Many new doors have

PHOTO : been opened for us, doors that were once locked shut," says Kennedy who is also an Alabama

PHOTO : state representative and the president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. "Because of these

PHOTO : new opportunities, Black have been able to effect positive changes in their lives and

PHOTO : society."

PHOTO : Isaiah Jackson January 22, 1945

PHOTO : Raised in Richmond, Va., at a time when Black were barred from entering or leading

PHOTO : symphony orchestras, Jackson, who was 9 months old when EBONY was founded, was determined

PHOTO : to break the color barrier. Unshaken by Jim Crow barriers that limited the careers of

PHOTO : symphony conductor. Jackson, who was cited in an EBONY feature article on his work as the

PHOTO : Marian Anderson and other Black artists, Jackson refused to give up his dream of becoming

PHOTO : a symphony conductor. Jackson, who was cited in an Ebony feature article on his work as

PHOTO : the music director of Britain's Royal Ballet, says Blacks are making progressin the once

PHOTO : all-White field. "People like Marian Anderson, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price and Andre

PHOTO : Watts have helped open the doors that enable Blacks to pursue all kinds of music

PHOTO : throughout the world. Because of them, classical music has opened up to Blacks."

PHOTO : Madeline Murphy Rabb January 27, 1945

PHOTO : When Madeline Murphy Rabb was a child growing up in Baltimore, Md., she decided she wanted

PHOTO : to be an artist. But her father, William H. Murphy Sr., told her it was a difficult field

PHOTO : to break into, especially for Blacks. Madeline Murphy persevered and later became a

PHOTO : nationally known artist and executive director of the Chicago Office of Fine Arts. The art

PHOTO : consultant, who is married to Dr. Maurice F. Rabb, an ophthalmologist, was featured in an

PHOTO : 1988 EBONY article about Black art administrators. Rabb, who has read Ebony since her

PHOTO : youth, says there has been a civil rights revolution in the arts. "In recent years, the

PHOTO : proliferation of Black arts administrators and other Blacks in leadership positions, has

PHOTO : slowly begun to penetrate the art world."

PHOTO : Dr. Louis-Charles Harvey May 5, 1945

PHOTO : Louis-Charles Harvey was born in a small house only a few miles from Memphis' Lorraine

PHOTO : Motel, the site of the 1968 martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But in 1945, there