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In Memoriam: Former Supreme Mary Wilson Leaves Legacy of Black Pride and Resilience

Gordy expressed his sadness over Wilson’s death. “The Supremes were always known as the ‘sweethearts of Motown,’” Gordy said. “Wilson, along with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, came to Motown in the early 1960s. After an unprecedented string of No. 1 hits, television and nightclub bookings, they opened doors for themselves, the other Motown acts, and many, many others.”

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Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson, a co-founder of the best-selling girl group the Supremes, died in her sleep early Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas, Nev. She was 76.

A singer, best-selling author, motivational speaker, businesswoman, former U.S. Cultural Ambassador, mother, and grandmother, the legendary Wilson made great strides on her inevitable journey to greatness.

As an original/founding member of The Supremes, she changed the face of popular music to become a trendsetter who broke down social, racial, and gender barriers, which all started with the wild success of their first No. 1 song in 1963.

With her childhood friend Florence Ballard and lead singer Diana Ross, the Supremes achieved an unprecedented 12 No.1 hits in the mid-1960s and became international superstars by 1964 on the Motown record label, started just a few years before by Berry Gordy.

Gordy expressed his sadness over Wilson’s death. “The Supremes were always known as the ‘sweethearts of Motown,’” Gordy said. “Wilson, along with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, came to Motown in the early 1960s. After an unprecedented string of No. 1 hits, television and nightclub bookings, they opened doors for themselves, the other Motown acts, and many, many others.”

Born in Greenville, Miss., on March 6, 1944, Wilson moved North with her family ending up in Detroit, Wis., where Berry Gordy’s Motown record label was just warming up.

She was a school friend of Ballard, who invited her to audition for the Primettes, a sister group to a boys’ trio called the Primes.

Wilson was accepted and she and Ballard would be joined by Diana Ross and Betty McGlown. By 1962, they were a trio and their first hit – “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” — came the following year.

“Where Did Our Love Go?” became their first song to reach No. 1 on the pop charts and a string of hits followed making them international superstars by 1964.

With the Supremes, Wilson achieved an unprecedented 12 No.1 hits, with five of them consecutive from 1964-65. Those songs are “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love”, “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again,” according to Billboard Magazine.

But all was not well. In 1967, Gordy decided to change their name to Diana Ross and the Supremes and Ballard decided to leave the group. Many years later, Wilson would express her disappointment and stick up for her friend, lobbying for a U.S. postage stamp with Ballard’s image.

“People forget that Florence Ballard not only gave us our name, but she formed the group,” Wilson revealed on “Fiyah!” a program sponsored by the Black Press of America.

“It was really Flo who formed us, and I want people to know that. I am putting together a program to get Florence Ballard a U.S. stamp, hopefully, so I want people to send their request and say something about Florence” Wilson said of her friend who died of a heart attack in 1976.     “All those hits were Florence, so when you are  listening to [The Supremes], it’s about Flo, so I want people who listen to those songs that bring back memories, think about Flo.”

Ballard was replaced by Cindy Birdsong and the group continued to perform until 1970 when Ross would leave the group for a solo career in 1970. The group continued to have hits like “Stoned Love” in 1970.

By the mid-1970s, Wilson was doing half of the Supremes’ lead vocals but she left the group in 1977.

Nearly a decade later, Wilson found success in writing her memoirs: “Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme,” in 1986 and “Supreme Faith: Someday We’ll Be Together” in 1990.

She became a frequent guest on TV talk shows and performed regularly in Las Vegas casinos and resorts.

Colin Powell named her a cross-cultural ambassador in 2002 and she appeared at events sponsored by the State Dept.

Wilson released CDs in 2006 and 2010, while also becoming a musical activist, going to court to prevent impostors from performing under the names of groups from the 1950s and ‘60s, including the Motown group the Marvelettes as well as the Supremes. The law was passed in 27 states.

She lectured all over the world giving advice on reaching goals and triumphing over adversity and became known for her charity work with the American Cancers Society, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and the NAACP among others, including the Figure Skaters of Harlem, which encourages youth gain entry to the Olympics.

In 2019, Wilson appeared in a “Dancing With the Stars” segment and published “Supreme Glamour,” an appreciation of the fashion the Supremes wore on stage. A collection of the gowns has been on exhibit at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, since 2008.

With the Supremes, Wilson was inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in 2013 and received a lifetime Achievement Award from the National Newspaper Publishers Association in 2020.

Wilson married Pedro Ferrer in 1974 and the couple had three children: Turkessa, Pedro Antonio and Rafael. She and Ferrer divorced in 1981. In 1994, Rafael was killed in a car accident.

“Ms. Wilson used her fame and flair to promote a diversity of humanitarian efforts, including ending hunger, raising HIV/AIDS awareness, and encouraging world peace. Mary was working on getting a U.S. postage stamp of her fellow bandmate and original Supreme Florence Ballard who passed away in 1976,” longtime publicist and friend Jay Schwartz said.

She was working on new projects for 2021, including an album she recently teased on her YouTube channel. Her primary love was preserving the legacy of the Supremes and introducing her music to new generations.

“I think that The Supremes had a lot to do with the awakening of the world in terms of what blackness was,” Wilson said in her 2020 NNPA interview. “The whole world was watching Black people in a way they’d never seen.”

Wikipedia, Stacy Brown/NNPA contributed to this report.

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Activism

New Oakland Moving Forward

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

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iStock.
iStock.

By Post Staff

Since the African American Sports and Entertainment Group purchased the City of Oakland’s share of the Alameda County Coliseum Complex, we have been documenting the positive outcomes that are starting to occur here in Oakland.

Some of the articles in the past have touched on actor Blair Underwood’s mission to breathe new energy into the social fabric of Oakland. He has joined the past efforts of Steph and Ayesha Curry, Mistah Fab, Green Day, Too Short, and the Oakland Ballers.

This week, several socially enterprising members of this group visited Oakland to explore ways to collaborate with local stakeholders at Youth Empowerment Partnership, the Port of Oakland, Private Industry Council, Oakland, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee, the Oakland Ballers ownership group, and the oversight thought leaders in the Alameda County Probation Department.

These visits represent a healthy exchange of ideas and plans to resuscitate Oakland’s image. All parties felt that the potential to impact Oakland is right in front of us. Most recently, on the back side of these visits, the Oakland Ballers and Blair Underwood committed to a 10-year lease agreement to support community programs and a community build-out.

So, upward and onward with the movement of New Oakland.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

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Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.
Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear  the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

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Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.
Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear  the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing,  just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

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