SPRING 2011 a Choice to Change the World
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THE ALUMNAE MAGAZINE OF SPELMAN COLLEGE VOLUME 121 NUMBER 2 SPRING 2011 A Choice to Change the World SPELMAN Messenger EDITOR WRITERS Jo Moore Stewart Marian Wright Edelman Lorraine Robertson COPY EDITOR TaRessa Stovall Janet M. Barstow Angela Brown Terrell GRAPHIC DESIGN Garon Hart WORD PORTRAITS Jo Moore Stewart EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Beverly Guy-Sheftall, C’66 Eloise A. Alexis, C’86 Bill & Camille Cosby Joyce Davis Tomika DePriest, C’89 Tomika DePriest, C’89 TaRessa Stovall Calida Garcia Rawles, C’98 Kassandra Kimbriel Jolley M. Akua McDaniels, C’69 Sharon E. Owens, C’76 Carnelle Holloway, C’79 Kenique Penn, C’2000 Lev T. Mills Eloise Alexis, C’86 PHOTOGRAPHERS LaKeeta Howard, C’79 Bobby Holland A. Michelle Smith, C’69 Bud Smith Tanya Coleman, C’72 Spelman College Archives Tina McElroy Ansa, C’71 Jo Moore Stewart Donald & Isabel Stewart Julie Yarbrough, C’91 Johnnetta Cole Beverly Daniel Tatum The Spelman Messenger is published twice a year (Fall and Spring) by Spelman College, 350 Spelman Lane, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30314-4399, free of charge for alumnae, donors, trustees and friends of the College. Recipients wish- ing to change the address to which the Spelman Messen- ger is sent should notify the editor, giving both old and new addresses. Third-class postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia. Publication No. 510240 CREDO The Spelman Messenger, founded in 1885, is dedicated to participating in the ongoing education of our readers through enlightening articles designed to promote lifelong learning. The Spelman Messenger is the alumnae magazine of Spelman College and is Cert no. SCS-COC-001058 committed to educating, serving and empowering Black women. SPELMAN VOLUME 121, NUMBER 2 Messenger SPRING 2011 ON THE COVER 1984 “Spelman the Spirit of Success” by Varnette P. Honeywood: 6 Varnette P. Honeywood: An Original WORD PORTRAITS Contents 18 Alumnae Keeping It Real BY TARESSA STOVALL 2 Voices 4 Books & Papers 23 Alumnae Notes 30 In Memoriam Remembering Varnette Honeywood Artist captured positive view of Black life BY MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, C’60 CHILD WATCH® COLUMN rtist Varnette Honeywood had a clear Varnette grew up in Los Angeles, where her vision of how she perceived Black peo- parents, who had migrated from Mississippi ple and families and a gift for sharing and Louisiana, were both elementary school her joyful, colorful perspective with teachers. She remembered that she and her the rest of the world. Her paintings beloved sister Stephanie would often help them becameA familiar to fans everywhere after several test art projects they had designed for their stu- of them, including “Birthday,” were featured in dents. Her parents nurtured her childhood the Huxtables’ home on The Cosby Show. She talent, and Varnette started taking art classes at was a dear friend to the Children’s Defense age 12. As an undergraduate at Spelman Col- Fund and the illustrator and creator of our lege, my alma mater, she originally planned to beautiful logo for the Black Community Cru- study history and become a teacher like her par- sade for Children’s Leave No Child Behind® ents, but her drawing teacher and fellow movement. Her death in September at age 59 students who saw her early work strongly was a sad loss for all of us. encouraged her to change her major. She gradu- ated with a degree in art in 1972. After Spelman, Varnette returned to Los Angeles, where she got a master’s degree in edu- cation from the University of Southern California and began working as an art teacher and devel- oped what became her signature artistic style of Voices simple silhouettes and bold colors. Just as important as her innovative style was her choice of subjects. At a time when many other Black artists were depicting poverty or struggle in their work, Varnette often chose family themes or portrayed church or community gatherings. She was deeply influenced by her own close family and childhood summers she spent with her extended family in Mississippi and her art showed loving, vibrant, joyful and positive scenes from Black life. In the mid 1970s she and her sister Stephanie founded their own distribution company, PHOTO: JULIE YARBROUGH, C91 Varnette P. Honeywood Founders Day 2005 2 SPELMAN MESSENGER “Leave No Child Behind” by Varnette P. Honeywood Black Lifestyles, which featured Varnette’s work Varnette also created posters for CDF’s teen on posters, prints and note cards. Honorary pregnancy prevention campaign and Beat the Spelman alumna Camille Cosby and husband Odds® awards program and charged not one Bill began collecting her work after seeing one penny. Although she was one of the nation’s of her sets of cards. When Bill Cosby had the most prominent Black artists, she was always a opportunity to help choose artwork for the set of caring mentor and generous friend who never The Cosby Show, he knew the look and feel of lost her original calling to teach and reach back Varnette’s paintings would be a perfect fit. They to help others. She used her gift to uplift and partnered again when she created the artwork inspire other people. I am so grateful for Var- for his children’s book series Little Bill, which nette Honeywood’s life and all of the beauty and became an award-winning animated television joy she leaves behind in her work. show. The Little Bill series again showcased Var- nette’s signature talent for depicting a positive, loving Black family. Creating these kinds of images for Black children was always a deliberate goal in her work. As an art teacher in Los Angeles, Varnette worked in a juvenile detention program and designed a multicultural arts curriculum for use in the public schools. She understood the power positive images could have on children’s self- esteem and development. When the Children’s Defense Fund’s Black Community Crusade for Children was launched, we wanted to convey the ideas of love, warmth, family, unity and PHOTO: BUD SMITH community caring for children that represented MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, C’60, is President of our mission. She was the first and obvious the Children’s Defense Fund and its Action Coun- choice to create the logo. The gorgeous result, cil whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to Leave No Child Behind, shows four sets of strong ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Black adults of all shades, each standing behind Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and firmly and protectively embracing a beauti- and successful passage to adulthood with the help of ful Black child’s shoulders – a gesture of loving caring families and communities. protection and guidance. SPRING 2011 3 tell this compelling tale of mas- BOOK REVIEWS sive relocation. In 1937, Ida Mae Gladney left sharecropping ANGELA BROWN TERRELL in Mississippi for a blue-collar life in Chicago; she wound up voting for then State Senator The Warmth of Other Suns Barack Obama. George Swan- by Isabel Wilkerson. son Starling’s hot temper caused (Random House) him to flee from Florida in 1945 Just Wanna Testify by Pearl It took 10 years of intensive for Harlem. But he continued Cleage. (One World) research and interviewing over fighting for civil rights on his job Author Pearl Cleage, C’71, is a thousand people, for Pulitzer in the North. Robert Foster left not shy when it comes to writ- Prize Winning journalist Isabel Louisiana in 1953 to study ing stories with new challenges. Wilkerson to pull together this medicine in Atlanta, where he In Just Wanna Testify, she tack- epic document that chronicles met and married Alice Clement, les another worldly theme in the Great Migration from C’41, the daughter of Atlanta the familiar West End neigh- 1915 to the 1970s of some six University’s president, Dr. Rufus borhood in Atlanta, the setting million African Americans Clement. The family finally set- of several of her novels. from the South to northern tled in Los Angeles where, after This time, the mystical Blue and western states. many struggles, Dr. Foster’s Hamilton, former R&B singer career led him to become per- with many past lives who has sonal physician to Ray Charles cleared the community of and other notables. crime, tackles the unknown How these people traded when five gorgeous vampires, cruelty, pain and personal called “The Too Fine Five,” deprivation for the hope of a come to town to model for a better life for themselves and cover photo spread for Essence others, is a tribute to the perse- magazine. Suspecting ulterior verance and spiritual strength motives, Blue, a kind of anti- of the African American. Their crime godfather, is bent on Fed up with the South’s abu- experiences are a microcosm finding out what the undead sive Jim Crow laws, subsistent of what so many others have beauties are really up to, espe- wages and poor educational endured. cially since their presence facilities, Black families looked Wilkerson’s compelling involves his wife Regina and to improve their lives with the prose was honed during her photographer friend Althea, promises of better jobs and extensive journalism career. hired to shoot the scenes. housing to be found in cities She won the Pulitzer in 1994 The models, who are like Chicago, New York and for feature writing as the extremely tall, thin and pale, Los Angeles. Chicago bureau chief of The glide about in their five-inch Many of the migrant fami- New York Times, and she has super spiked heels to their lies found disillusionment in taught narrative nonfiction at assignments, never smiling, their move, however, since dis- Harvard’s Nieman Founda- and causing a stir of wonder crimination and poverty were tion, Princeton, Emory and and excitement wherever they often present in their new Boston Universities.