Charles Lampkin (1913â€"1989) was an American actor, musician and
lecturer.Charles Lampkin was born on March 17, 1913 in Ward 4 of
Montgomery, Alabama. He was the third son of Edgar Lampkin and Sarah
Bidell. His paternal lineage is traced to British slave-owners and his
maternal ancestors were Africans enslaved in the British colonies of
Virginia and Georgia before the American Revolution of 1776. His
great-grandmother Ann Lampkin, an emancipated slave, was one of the
first people to befriend a twenty-five-year-old Booker T. Washington
when he arrived in Alabama in 1881. She secured land and along with
her church sisters raised funds for the Tuskegee Institute. Edgar
Lampkin moved his family from Montgomery to Cleveland in the 1920s,
part of the Great Migration.Lampkin was a pioneer of Spoken Word in
the 1930s and winner of Ohio debating cups in 1939, 1940 and 1941. In
Arch Oboler's Five, the first science fiction film about a nuclear
holocaust. Lampkin introduced Oboler to The Creation by James Weldon
Johnson and convinced him to include excerpts of it in the script of
Five. It would become Lampkin's soliloquy and may be the first time
that wide audiences in the United States, Latin America and Europe
were exposed to African-American poetry, albeit not identified as
such.Charles Lampkin served as Music Director of the American Peoples'
Chorus from 1943 to 1945. On June 26, 1944, he conducted Paul Robeson
and the APC at the historic Negro Freedom Rally at Madison Square
Garden. Uta Hagen and Cardinal Spellman were in attendance.
lecturer.Charles Lampkin was born on March 17, 1913 in Ward 4 of
Montgomery, Alabama. He was the third son of Edgar Lampkin and Sarah
Bidell. His paternal lineage is traced to British slave-owners and his
maternal ancestors were Africans enslaved in the British colonies of
Virginia and Georgia before the American Revolution of 1776. His
great-grandmother Ann Lampkin, an emancipated slave, was one of the
first people to befriend a twenty-five-year-old Booker T. Washington
when he arrived in Alabama in 1881. She secured land and along with
her church sisters raised funds for the Tuskegee Institute. Edgar
Lampkin moved his family from Montgomery to Cleveland in the 1920s,
part of the Great Migration.Lampkin was a pioneer of Spoken Word in
the 1930s and winner of Ohio debating cups in 1939, 1940 and 1941. In
Arch Oboler's Five, the first science fiction film about a nuclear
holocaust. Lampkin introduced Oboler to The Creation by James Weldon
Johnson and convinced him to include excerpts of it in the script of
Five. It would become Lampkin's soliloquy and may be the first time
that wide audiences in the United States, Latin America and Europe
were exposed to African-American poetry, albeit not identified as
such.Charles Lampkin served as Music Director of the American Peoples'
Chorus from 1943 to 1945. On June 26, 1944, he conducted Paul Robeson
and the APC at the historic Negro Freedom Rally at Madison Square
Garden. Uta Hagen and Cardinal Spellman were in attendance.
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