“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson — My Background I like to think of myself as a storyteller. As a historian who has spent hours cooped up in research rooms, enveloped in the rich documents and monumental photographs in front of me, I have immersed myself in the art of sharing the stories of pivotal figures in history who…

From the cotton fields to the White House, how Mary McLeod Bethune became one of the most inspirational civil rights leaders of the twentieth century. — “A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny if she prizes her individuality and puts no boundaries on her hopes for tomorrow.” — Mary McLeod Bethune As a child, Mary McLeod would often accompany her mother Patsy, a former enslaved person, to…

In the 1940s, Sinatra’s stardom catapulted and changed American culture forever. — “It was incredible. It was like a mass hypnosis.” ~ Frank Sinatra Recalling His 1944 Performance at New York’s Paramount Theater In 1940, a 24-year-old Frank Sinatra was traveling across the country with the Tommy Dorsey Band, considered the second most popular band in America (behind the Glenn Miller Orchestra)…

Revisiting her monumental drive across the United States — “Good driving has nothing to do with sex. It’s all above the collar.” — Alice Huyler Ramsey A torrential rainfall fell upon New York City on June 9, 1909. In the midst of the downpour, a 22-year-old wife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey named Alice Huyler Ramsey hopped into…

How Dottie West went from the fields of Frog Pond to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and made country music history along the way. “I’ve loved to sing. I’ve loved living itself, but I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get to sing.” ~ Dottie West …

Revisiting the iconic music of four pivotal country music duos — There is something special in having two unique voices and personalities come together in perfect harmony, singing songs that people all across the globe can relate to. Country music has seen its fair share of iconic duos, from Flatt and Scruggs to Brooks & Dunn, but the 1970s was a…

More than six decades after the iconic singer-songwriter’s voice first hit the airwaves, her prolific and truthful songs remain as relevant as ever. — “I put my whole heart and soul and body into my writing. I wrote about how I feel and what I am. I guess when you boil it all down, every song is about me. It’s my eyes that are seein’ what I write about. And my heart that’s feelin’…

How Charley Pride pushed through racial barriers to become one of the most iconic voices in country music — “No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and Blacks another — I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.” ~ Charley Pride Charley Pride was always a dreamer. In his later years, when he was known as one…

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt rallied an anxious nation in the midst of crisis. — On a cold, winter’s Sunday night, Eleanor Roosevelt sat in the NBC studios in Washington, D.C. glancing over the script she had hastily rewritten for her weekly radio show, Over Our Coffee Cups. Although the first lady knew that this would be the most crucial broadcast she had delivered, there…