Re: Regina's Wedding Location

While recently reading a fashion magazine I came across an image that looked strangely familiar. It was a picture of the front door of the building where Regina got married in 1926. Her maid of honor Jessie Fauset lived in an apartment in the building and hosted Regina's wedding. The newlyweds ended up living in this building on Seventh Avenue for the first few years of their union. I took a picture of the front door a few years ago in preparation for my documentary about Regina. The paint trim is now a different color but the columns and stone carvings are the same. (Photo: Essence magazine September 2011 issue).

Re: Regina had an admirer

This summer a student of Russian literature who is studying in Venice, Italy contacted me. She wanted information about Regina. The subject of her research, author Boris Pil'njak, apparently was infatuated with Regina. Pil'njak wrote a letter on October 3, 1931 to his American interpreter, Joseph Freeman, which contained the following quote: "Phone Ella Winter and get her to track down the black Regina. And when will Regina come to the USSR? Bring her with you! tell her if she comes, I'll marry her, seriously, I mean it, I love Regina very much...Come! Bring Regina!" Tragically, Pil'njak was executed in Russia in 1938 after being accused of being a counter-revolutionary.

Re: "Checking Out Regina"

I just completed a second digital story related to this project. "Checking Out Regina" briefly describes the journey to create a biography about Regina Andrews. I intend to create a full-length documentary about Andrew's life with the skills acquired from the various filmmaking classes that I've attended. This story was created at the Digital Storylab, http://blog.digitalstorylab.com/, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fv3oO5QBgc

Old and New Harlem

I am in Harlem to do additional research on my biography about Regina Andrews at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Stephen Schwartzman Building (formerly known as the 42nd Street & Fifth Avenue Branch currently celebrating their 100th anniversary). I am staying at Harlem's first new hotel in nearly 45 years, Aloft. When various African American intellectuals and artists came to Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance they often found housing in Harlem's YMCA/YWCA for "colored" people which until Aloft, was one of few hotel options still in existence in Harlem. Regina actually resided at the mid-town YWCA when she applied for a job at the 42nd Street Branch Library. Did she know about racial customs? Maybe the proprietors of the mid-town YWCA didn't know she was "colored." However, her New York Public Library interviewer declared that she was colored and sent her to Harlem to work at the 135th Street Branch. Regina hadn't been to Harlem at that point and decided to room with a friend who was moving to New York City.

Presentation in Paris

I just returned from a presentation about Regina Andrews at the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) Conference on "Black States of Desire: Dispossession, Circulation, Transformation." I was part of a panel, Dust Tracks on the Transatlantic Road: Self Portraits of African American Women Abroad, with Dr. Claire Garcia and my friend Dr. Cherene Sherrard-Johnson who organized the panel. Sherrard-Johnson (pictured with me in Paris) spoke about Dorothy West's travels in Russia and Garcia described Anita Thompson's adventures in Paris and Tangiers. Andrews traveled to Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and briefly to South America in the 1950s and 60s.

University of California - San Diego presentation

Based upon the suggestion of a follower of this blog, Mary Wickline, I was invited to speak about Regina Andrews at the University of California - San Diego Libraries for Black History Month. Despite the snowstorm covering most of the nation, I arrived without incident on Tuesday, February 1st and unfortunately my departure was not delayed at all and I had to return to Wisconsin on Wednesday, February 2nd, despite my objections. The event was wonderful, we had a good turnout and lots of questions. People came from different departments at the university. I'm pictured with the coordinator of the program, Marlayna Christensen (we worked together at Yale University Libraries more than a decade ago). My talk was: "I am American": Regina Andrews and the Harlem Renaissance.

Re: A Royal Harlem Renaissance Wedding

This week there was a review in the New York Times about a play, Knock Me a Kiss, portraying the unsuccessful marriage between W. E. B. Du Bois' daughter, Yolande, and the poet Countee Cullen. The wedding was the major event in Harlem in 1928. Over 3,000 people attended the wedding with another 3,000 people lined up outside the church. The marriage was short-lived. Gossip suggested that the bridegroom was gay. Cullen spent most of his post-wedding time in Paris with the best man, actor Harold Jackman, who co-founded the Harlem Experimental Theatre with Regina and Dorothy Peterson.

Regina most likely attended this wedding. Cullen was the most frequent visitor to the literary salon that Regina hosted and she was a friend of W. E. B. Du Bois. Regina's husband was an assistant usher at the wedding and Regina's former roommate, Ethel Ray Nance, was invited to the wedding. Nance had a copy of the wedding invitation and the exclusive invite to the reception in her collection at the University of California - Berkeley's Bancroft Library.