How This Black Socialite Ruled Paris | Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith
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- čas přidán 24. 02. 2024
- Welcome to Forgotten Lives! In today's episode we are looking into we are looking into the life of Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith, an American dancer, jazz singer, vaudevillian, club owner and socialite!
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#Bricktop #forgottenlives #blackhistory
Thank you for bringing such a fascinating woman to life. There are so many unsung heroes of that time era. She sounds like a woman you could sit and listen to for hours.
As always, fascinating & beautifully presented, I grew up hearing about her from my parents both of whom were acquaintances,through my mother's friendship with the stellar Josephine Baker - to whom I was introduced before her appearance at The Royal Variety Performance at The London Palladium,my mother& I spent time with her in Paris,where my young ears were flapping as they gossiped, Ms Baker was discussing her memories of Paris & I remember asking her what she ment by "Bricktop",
My mother,was very Irish & had travelled the World extensively,she was a horse whisperer & taught children & some adults to ride,as well as " breaking" polo ponies,a job that took her all over the place & introduced me to what i came to realise was a very different world,than most of my school mates.
My father was a Arabic scholar,one of his best friends was the extremely charming Sultan Qaboos of Oman,where my parents had a house for over 40 years.
The other friend of my mother was the joyfully wonderful Eartha Kitt,whom I was completely in awe of,knowing her as 'Catwoman' from the original TV show. She would stay with us,wherever we were,in London she & I would go for long walks,she loved to sit watching the world go by,from behind her huge sunglasses,just listening to her was an education. She had been called "yellow gal" when she was younger and brought up "Bricktop" as an example of what her natural hair colour might have looked like if she'd ever allowed to grow out,not dyed it or relied on wigs & then gave me a lesson about a woman,she deeply respected.
I feel so blessed to have had the upbringing, life & parents I did/do have; as things moved inevitably forward they just don't produce people, in this specific case women like those legends & the star of your excellent video today. Those women fought to establish a place for themselves, they physically travelled to enchant new audiences, in todays world where people consider themselves "influencers/singers" because they now copy dances/styles & songs , in many cases not even knowing the history or origin/s of what they are parroting; in the pre Internet days 99.9% of them would never have gotten further than singing into their hairbrush in front of the mirror.
Thank you for your time & effort; wishing you&yours very best wishes, have a great week.
Thank you! One of the reason why I enjoy your videos is that, while you do present the sadder details of peoples lives, you do not focus on the negative. Many other channels do nothing but drool over the tragedies of people's live. You give thoughtful, balanced presentations.😊
First of all, "thank you," for this excellent show about Ms. Ada "Bricktop" Smith. I'm familiar with her but I never knew as much about her background as you portrayed in your show. Great investigating and presenting, as always. Take care 🦋
A richly lived life. Thank you for sharing her story.
Interesting! There used to be a fabulous gay club in W. Hollywood called The Parlour, and they had a “Bricktops” night. The host dressed up as Bricktop, but I never knew her story. Thanks! ❤
Despite the misbelief held by many people,The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the United States.
In August 1862, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation, which was to take effect Jan. 1, 1863, with his signature. It was a political ploy to encourage Black slavess in the Confederate states to rebel against their masters and support the Union cause.
The order freed only the enslaved people in states “in rebellion against the United States.” Lincoln famously wrote in a letter to abolitionist and newspaper publisher Horace Greeley: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”
That last clause outlines exactly what the Emancipation Proclamation did: Free some slaves, but not others. It did not apply to enslaved people in five other non-Confederate states The order did affect Texas, but not other states not in rebellion.
As a legal matter, slavery officially ended in the United States on Dec. 6, 1865, when the 13th Amendment was ratified by three-quarters of the then-states - 27 out of 36 - and became a part of the Constitution. The text of the Amendment reads, in part, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”
. So offically, slavery in the US ended on December 6,1865 , not on January 1,1863.
Good afternoon from Maryland 😊 and thank-you for the history lesson.
Thank you for the great video. Always awesome history to listen to, with your amazing narration. Truly appreciated F.Lives
Great job covering my beautiful people! I never heard of this fascinating lady before.
You always do a fantastic job with your bios but this February-Black History Month, you have excelled. Thank you
You come up with the most interesting people to tell us about! Thank you.
Thanks that was a great biography. ☘️👍
Such an interesting life! Just finished a book about Gene Bullard (fascinating), she was featured a lot in bio. Thank you for sharing her story.
That was very interesting! No, I had not heard of her before, so I'm glad to have learned about her now.
Thanks for a new video!!! Amazing way of finish the weekend
❤ As a long time follower of your channel, I have enjoyed learning about the lives of many people from all over the world. With that being said, thank you for spotlighting and recognizing this lady. Her story matches that of many of those in my own family.
Unfortunately, so many of our stores are forgotten. It's refreshing to see this channel paying respects to her.
Thank you 🫂❤️🫂
Stories of people who re-invent themselves are fascinating. You could do a whole series on the Moulin Rouge in the 1930's. Great story!
I Remember suggesting that you do "Bricktop" not too long ago and you said you would😂 . This bio is wonderful brought the book to life for me. So from paris wirh respect THANK YOUUUUU❤
Thank you for your research on this well travelled, interesting, entrepreneur. She apparently worked hard to achieve the means to be so mobile with her business endeavors. Must have been an interesting life, hobknobbing with the rich and famous. The pictures you provided brought us a nice glimpse into her life.
Thank you SO MUCH! This was wonderful!
Thank you for sharing this story! ❤🫶🏾
Thank you for this slice of history😊
Another lovely, lovely telling! Thank you.
Love this! Thank you for sharing her story!
I love seeing one of your reviews come up. Thank u so much.☮️
You are so phenomenal with your in depth research! Truly a gem! Thankyou for sharing your knowledge and skills to help more people learn about these forgotten lives we otherwise would never know of. Much appreciation to you !!🤗Thankyou🤗
Thank you for this video. I had heard of The Bricktop, but I didn't know about her.
I had not heard of “Brick”before but documentary about her life was very interesting!
Amazing video ❤.
Brilliant job, as always. Thank You
Thank you Forgotten Lives for this lovely video. I have never heard of Ada "Bricktop" Smith before. It was fantastic being introduced to her, and her life.
Awesome, thanks for sharing
👏👏👏
Paris and Berlin in the 20s are my kind of cities. I love the club and scene and night entertainment. I dont see anything wrong there. Itd be awesome to be a club owner with live music. I do not like recorded music in clubs. I didn't know Bricktop's story. It's wonderful. Good for her. She was a real business woman and dreamer.
Thank you 🙏
Such a phenomenal story. Always a treat watching this channel. :3
That was fascinating! Thank you
Hello. One of your subscribers commented on another video and recommended everyone check your channel. She wrote about how fascinating your channel is. She initially said you have a great video on Betty Boop and encouraged all to subscribe to your channel. We were all viewing a video about Betty Boop. One video down, a lot more to finish. It looks like this girl 🙋🏾 will be binge-watching this weekend if I can wait that long, lol.
This was great, thanks
Fascinating story, TFS!
Thanks👏🏼 👏🏼👏🏼
If anyone ever needed an elvis look alike, you would be it !
Thank you.
I loved it, thank you.
Thanks for posting
No problem!
This was extremely interesting ❤
Stories like hers, Josephine Baker, and Richard Wright, and James Baldwin are why I want to move permanently to Paris
I remember reading about her. I believe had a popular nightclub in Paris.
Very cool
Very interesting! 😮❤
I remember learning about "Bricktop"
I forgot about her
I love your videos
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🇬🇧🙋🏾♀️💃🏾💃🏾💃🏾
Make sure you take that fiberglass guy out on one of those adventures. He certainly earned it.
Do one on Major Taylor.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
France fell in love with jazz and African American culture during WW1. The US Army leaders believed black US soldiers were unfit for combat and white US soldiers did not want to fight alongside black US soldiers so the US army solved its issue of what to do with its trained black soldiers by allowing several units to serve under French command. The French were desperate for manpower, and having fielded black soldiers from their colonies for centuries (including Europe's first all black manned and staffed regiment as well as several black Generals commanding white troops more than a century before the first black US General) had no issues using them in combat and alongside white troops. The black US troops went on to earn high praise (and loads of medals) from the French military for their bravery, efficiency at combat and discipline and from French civilians for their politeness, kindness and good behavior. The African American military bands were also hugely popular and introduced the French to jazz and other African American music genres and the troops introduced African American dance styles also.
Side note: Colonel JA Linnard commander of the US Army Expeditionary Forces at the time sent a covert memo entitled "Secret lnformation Concerning Black American Troops" to French military command that peddled negative stereotypes about blacks in general and derogatory comments about black US troops and requested that the French treat them just as they would be treated in the US with Jim Crow style segregation, non fraternisation and non miscegenation and harsh punishment for infractions, and suggested that it would be bad for the morale and offend the the white US troops to see black US troops being treated as equals by white French people.
In other words, the US Army requested that the French be racist ah to black US Army troops while they were in France 😮
I'd tune in just to hear you recite the alphabet.
🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲
If it weren’t for your channel I wouldn’t us black people did much more than mainstream media reports on. Again thank you.
Criollo
Ezra Pound is not pronounced "ersa poond".
OMG! Those lips!!
The sexuality part shouldn't be there. We don't care. This is not what people remember of her.
She was a loose or "liberated" woman, as they said back them. Trouble with that is, if you have too open a mind, you will fall for everyone and everything, which is NOT salubrious for your health!!!
Her Irish ancestors were probably slaves as well, but that doesn't fit the acceptable narrative.
Probably because indentured workers that was slavery as the British did to Indians from India with same from that place because they couldn’t read thus thought were jobs but instead were slaves to other countries never to return home again because they never received payment for their labour.
As someone of Irish heritage probably not many Irish came of their own volition. Do not use the Irish tragic past as an excuse to detract from American slavery. 🎉
Bricktop's Father was the town Barber, Robert Thomas Smith; Her mother Hattie Thompson was emancipated at 2 years old she came from slaves who were termed "houseslaves"; her grandfather was Irish
Sounds like she was forgotten because she left no legacy. She ran debauched establishments and (somehow) had no kids.
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Or she was someones straw man personified.
There were so many of these weird women during this period. They thought they had it all during their youth, but they later paid the price for their bad habits in old age. And so it goes (unless they learn their lesson and seldom do they!)