Dave Brubeck and the Moscow Summit
We were sad to learn of the passing of Dave Brubeck, who died yesterday. He would have celebrated his 92nd birthday today.
In honor of the jazz maverick, and his efforts as an ambassador of music for the U.S. State Department, here’s a photo of Brubeck performing for Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev during the Moscow Summit of 1988.
As The Washington Post described:
“During ‘Take Five,’ observers noticed that Gorbachev was tapping his fingers along with the music.
“’I can’t understand Russian,’” Mr. Brubeck said at the time, “’but I can understand body language.’”
The Moscow Summit marked a thaw in the Cold War, and the day after Brubeck’s performance, President Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev would sign the INF treaty ratification at the Grand Kremlin.
Photo: Dave Brubeck performing for President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbachev at Spaso House, Moscow. 5/31/88.
Photographer layered WWII negatives over modern shots of the same places, making them seem ghost like.
Black Sharpshooters Need Not Apply
G. P. Miller, a black physician from Michigan, wrote this letter to U.S. Secretary of War Simon Cameron in October 1861. He proposed to raise a regiment of “sharp shooters” to fight against the Confederacy. The War Department praised Miller’s “patriotic spirit and intelligence” but declined his offer because of orders that “authorize the arming of colored persons only in cases of great emergency.”Letter from a Battle Creek, Michigan African American Physician to the Union Secretary of War, 10/30/1861
via DocsTeach
