Dr. Vada Somerville, Dr. Du Bois, Miss Anita Thompson, Ernest Morrison, Beatrice Thompson and Pearl W. Hinds Roberts at the Hal Roach Studios, Los Angeles, 1918
W. E. B. Du Bois visiting child actor Ernest Morrison "Sunshine Sammy" at Hal Roach Studios with prominent women of black Los Angeles. Morrison pretends to play a bass that has been cut in half. W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. (Wikipedia) Pearl W. Hinds Roberts was the daughter of Lucy and Wiley Hinds, owner of one of the largest cattle ranches in California. She graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She was a member of the Electoral College in 1952. She was married to Frederick M. Roberts, the first black Assemblyman elected to state office west of the Mississippi. Beatrice S. Thompson was the executive secretary for the Los Angeles Branch of the NAACP. Ernest Morrison (Sunshine Sammy) was the first African American actor to be signed to a long-term contract, signing with comedy producer Hal Roach in 1919. He was the first child recruited for the Our Gang series (1921) and left the series to work in vaudeville (1924), where his talents were featured on the same bills with such up-and-coming acts as Abbott and Costello and Jack Benny. Anita Thompson Dickinson Reynolds was an African American model, dancer, and actress.[1]She was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 28, 1901,[2] and died in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands in 1980. She grew up in Los Angeles, California where her mother Beatrice Thompson was active in the NAACP. She trained as a dancer and performed with Rudolph Valentino. She was an actress in African American cinema. She worked as a nurse in France between the wars and left after the Nazi occupation. Upon her return to the United States, she studied to be a psychologist. Reynolds was also a teacher and art instructor. [Wikipedia] Dr. Vada Somerville (born Vada Jetmore Watson) of Pomona graduated from USC, married dentist John Alexander Somerville (1912), was the first African American woman and the second African American person to graduate from USC School of Dentistry (1918), and was the first African American woman certified to practice dentistry in the state of California. She was a civil rights activist, highly involved in several civic and community organizations.
Type
image
Identifier
uclalsc_1889_b22_f11_004a.tif ark:/21198/z1qn7qzv
Subject
African American actors African American women civic leaders Hal Roach Studios Roberts, Pearl W. Hinds, 1892-1984 Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963 Thompson, Beatrice S., 1875-1938 Morrison, Sammy, 1912-1989 Somerville, Vada, 1885-1972 Reynolds, Anita Thompson Dickinson, 1901-1980
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