This Week in History, Dec. 29th – Jan. 5th

“Art didn’t start black or white, it just started … There have been too many labels in this world: Negro, Colored, Black, African-American … Why do we label people with everything except Children of God?”¹   — Selma H. Burke

This week celebrates the Birthday of Selma Burke; sculptor, educator, member of the Harlem Renaissance and winner of the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.² 

Besides being an accomplished artist she was entrepreneurial in that she created art schools, such as the Selma Burke Art Center, as well.

Check out, Notable Black American women and learn more about Selma Burke and her life.  It can be found in the Clark Library at E185.96 .N68 1992.

“I chucked the law for astronomy, and I knew that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered”

— Edwin Hubble (attributed)⁴

Before this week in 1924, astronomers believed that the Andromeda nebula was just that, a nebula that was part of our own galaxy.  Hubble changed that when he announced his discovery that the nebula was actually a galaxy on it’s own, changing the commonly held belief that our own galaxy was the only one in existence in our Universe.

Learn more about Edwin Hubble by checking out, Edwin Hubble : mariner of the nebulae, which can be found at  QB36.H83 C48 1995

¹ http://robertwilliamsofbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2014/03/selma-burke-got-dime.html
² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Caucus_for_Art_Lifetime_Achievement_Award
³ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Selma-Burke-WPA-1935.jpg
⁴ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy#/media/File:NGC_4414_(NASA-med).jpg