Excerpted from The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard
By Peter Benjaminson
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“And they kept calling me fat
so much until I went on stage and I poked my stomach out as far as I
could.” Alcohol had undoubtedly clouded Flo’s judgment, and this time, it
would seem, she’d had gone too far, giving Gordy the excuse he’d been looking
for to cut her out of the group.
Gordy “called me up the next morning and he said, ‘You’re fired.’ And I
said, ‘I’m what?’ And he said, ‘You’re fired.’ I said, ‘I’m not.’ And
he said, ‘Well, you’re not going onstage tonight.’ I said, ‘Yes, I am;
who’s going to stop me?’ He said, ‘I will. I’ll have you thrown off if
you go on.’ So it went on and on and on. I told him, ‘I’m going
onstage, and that’s the end of that,’ and hung up. And then his sister, Gwen Gordy, called and said, ‘I
guess you know that my brother can’t make you leave the group, because
you have a contract.’ So it went on and on and on until finally I said
to myself, ‘Oh, well, what the hell, I’ll be miserable as hell out here
anyways as long as he’s around, so I just might as well leave.’ So I
left. They had Cindy already there. I don’t know how long she had been
there, but they had had her there, and I flew on back to Detroit.” . . .
Flo’s expulsion from the Supremes in the summer of 1967 was immediately
followed by the renaming of the group “Diana Ross and the Supremes.”
The meaning and the symbolism were obvious. With her major rival for
lead singer finally out of the way, Diana
Ross could take over the Supremes in name and in actuality. But
the renaming meant more than that. Putting Diana’s name out front was
an invitation to the public to view her as separate from the other
Supremes. It was the first step toward Gordy’s ultimate goal of moving
Ross out of the group and into solo stardom. . . .
And, as Flo noted, Motown had her replacement waiting in the wings.
Born Cynthia Ann Birdsong in
1939, Cindy Birdsong was, like Flo, a founding member of her group.
Together with her friend Patricia Louise Holt, Birdsong created a
four-member girl group called the Ordettes in 1958. When two of the
original Ordettes left the group in 1959, Holt and Birdsong brought in
singers Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash. The young women sang
locally for two years until they auditioned for Blue Note Records.
After they signed with Blue Note, they changed their name and spent
another two years singing before they started producing hits. Does any
of this sound familiar?
Alfred Lion, president of Blue Note, had been about to reject the group
because he didn’t think Holt, the lead singer, was pretty enough to
carry the group to stardom. He changed his mind, though, when Holt
opened her mouth and the voice of a torch diva came out, a voice very
much like Flo’s. Disliking the name “Ordettes,” he signed them to his
label on the condition that the name of the group be changed to the
“Bluebelles.” He also decided to conquer what he perceived as Holt’s
appearance problem by changing her name too. She became Patti LaBelle—Patti the Beautiful.
Lion had to alter his course slightly when he started hearing
unpleasant words from the manager of a group that was already named
“Bluebelles,” so he changed the name of the group to “Patti LaBelle
& the Bluebelles.”
We will randomly select the winners from the entries with the correct
answer. If no entrant gives a correct answer, we will chose among
the entrants with an incorrect or no answer, and announce the winners
in
the next issue of Snippets.
A
Message from The Gambia by Amidou Baba Galleh
Jallow POHGEP
- Gambia Coordinator
I met Mr. Wayne
Young in the year 2000 at the Atlantic Hotel in Banjul, the capital
city of The Gambia. I know him through a friend of mine, Mr.
Suwareh Jabai, whom Mr. Young met in the US.
Since the year 2000, Wayne has become a regular visitor to the
Gambia. In 2003, motivated by been a Black, of African origin,
and most importantly driven by his sense of humanity, he initiated a
program of sponsorship in the education sector.
Now with good friends (Port of Harlem
readers) in the US, 34 students in the Nyato Nursery
School and 7 in various primary schools benefit from this
program. He is also sponsoring a football team, the Port of Harlem Soccer team in Nema
Kunku, a suburb of Banjul. (Gambians call soccer, football)
Today, many children who may have never had the opportunity to become
educated are now going to school. Thanks to the
program. Young and the Port of Harlem readers are contributing in a
very positive way in the education of Gambia’s less fortunate
children and thus contributing to the future development of the
Gambia. I think Mr Young is worth emulating not only by
more African Americans but also by all Gambians in the US who love
their country. There is a
saying in Mandinka: “When one is helping to wash your back, you should
also be doing so in the front.”
The Embassy of
Ethiopia hosted its first African American history month event and used
the occasion to officially announce its campaign to reunite the sons
and daughters of the Diaspora with Ethiopia, an ancient land of Black
culture and civilization. Ethiopian ambassador Samuel Assefa hosted the
celebration, which featured an African-American soul food buffet as
well as a traditional Ethiopian spread that included injera
(flatbread/sourdough pancake), dorowot (chicken stew with pepper sauce)
and yebeg wot (lamb stew with red pepper).
The
event was also used to honor the 200th anniversary of the
nationally-renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church, located in New York
City, which was founded by Ethiopians and African-Americans. The
Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, who serves both as pastor of the
church was the keynote speaker of the event.
He congratulated Ethiopia for recently entering its third millennium,
and said, "It is important that Blacks see Ethiopia as the spiritual
center of Africa. It has never been colonized. Through unity, we can
bridge the rift that has been engendered among us." One
of the highlights of the event was the unveiling of a colorful and
moving painting, by artist Fasil Dawit, called “Rejuvenation of
Ethiopian and African American Relations.” Among the historic events
portrayed in the painting are the historic Battle of Adwa, during which
Ethiopian soldiers defeated Italian invaders in 1896, and the exploits
of African American pilot Colonel John Robinson, who led the Ethiopian
air force against the Italians in 1935.
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Second Muslim in
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Second Black Governor
Indianapolis, Indiana Democrat Andre Carson
won last Tuesday's special
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Julia Carson,
and fill out the final 10 months of her term. His win makes
him only
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With New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's resignation after a
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Sweet
Honey Member Releases
New Children’s Book
Song of tolerance and
hope comes to life in a new children’s picture book by Ysaye M.
Barnwell, one of the members of the a cappella group Sweet Honey In the
Rock. Brian Pinkney provides the full color illustrations in her
book, We Are One (Harcourt
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CD).
Pennsylvania Voter Registration Deadline - Monday,
March 24
Anyone who wants to
vote in this year's Pennsylvania primary must be registered by Monday,
March
24th. POHencourages you to call
your friends and family in Pennsylvania to make sure they are
registered to vote.
I met Mr. Wayne
Young in the year 2000 at the Atlantic Hotel in Banjul, the capital
city of The Gambia. I know him through a friend of mine, Mr.
Suwareh Jabai, whom Mr. Young met in the US. 
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