A Livication Celebration for 2 Great Baltimoreans will be held at the Eubie Blake Center in Baltimore Maryland, Sunday August 8, 2010 from 2pm to 4pm.
Joe Gans was the first African American boxing champion. He won the World Lightweight Boxing Championship in 1902 a full six years ahead of Jack Johnson’s Heavyweight Boxing victory. He is buried in the neglected but historically significant Mount Auburn Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.
Lady Henrietta Vinton Davis was an elocutionist, dramatic reader, Shakespearean actress and leader of the African Redemption movement headed by Universal Negro Improvement Association founder Marcus Garvey. She is buried in an unmarked grave in National Harmony Cemetery, Largo, Maryland.
Both were born in Baltimore, Maryland the same as Eubie Blake. Blake may possibly have performed with Lady Davis in Jamaica during the early 1900s.
Proceeds of this event will go to the production of a statue of Gans in the Blacks in Wax Museum.
Tickets are $25. The event will be held at:
Eubie Blake Cultural Center
847 N. Howard St
Baltimore, MD
Guest speakers include:
Clayton LeBouef (NBC’s “Homicide:Life On the Streets and HBO’s “The Wire”, Baltimore’s Center Stage, author of The Life & Breath of Henrietta Vinton Davis)
Colleen Aycock (Author of Joe Gans: A Biography of the 1st African-American World Boxing Champion)
Music by internationally renowned blues musican Chaz DePaolo
For more info go to:
Henrietta Vinton Davis's Weblog 