ABC #035: Ira de Augustine Reid, Dennie Hoggard, Jr., Marion Stokes, Josph Beam - Four Black Trailblazers

• Ira de Augustine Reid was one of the top sociologists in the country in the late 1940s, but because of his scholarship, he got swept up in the “Red Scare” of the mid-20th century. 
• Dennie Hoggard, Jr., of West Philadelphia was a tight end at Penn State who helped to integrate the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on New Year’s Day of 1948. 
• Marion Stokes had an obsession – to videotape every cable news program on television, and she did so for almost 35 years, amassing a treasure-trove of history. 
• Joseph Beam could not find any literature by Black gay men like himself, so he put together a best-selling anthology.  

These four found their final resting place at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd.  I will tell their stories in this month’s edition of “All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories – Four Black Trailblazers.”