Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

                                                                                                                                                    "Understand while you dance"                           ...

                                                As countless tributes pour in celebrating the life and career of  Chadwick Boseman, his Black Panther cast mates eulogize their film anchor with the ultimate tribute: How do you honor a king? I'll humbly offer mine. Simply put, Boseman represents the totality of Black history's Holy Trinity ---past, present and future.   He also evokes another regal film super hero: Sidney Poitier. While faces of Gable and Grant, Bogart and Wayne were being etched on the granite of Hollywood's Mt Rushmore, Poitier changed the depiction of Black actors onscreen, slowly moving a film industry that was in lockstep with American conservative views on race. Subservient roles as inept servants and buffoonish comic relief cloaked the true talents of Black performers of the 1930s and 1940s they way vaudeville comedian Be...