Ex-Schoolteacher Set To Play in Sugar Hill

Zara Cully Brown was a school teacher in Jacksonville, Florida.  She was an Elocutionist.  Her training began in Worcester, MA and once she married James M. Brown, she took her skills with her to Florida where her sister Hannah Cully who married Elvin Brown "Unkie", the brother of James Brown.

I remember my mother mentioning Aunt Zara getting a part in Sugar Hill.  I was five years old at the time.  I posted the letter on a previous post that Zara sent to my mother regarding the movie that she was contemplating about accepting. You can go to the link here>>>> A letter from Zara Cully Brown to My Mother Regarding: Sugar Hill

New York Amsterdam News
October 20, 1973
Pg D6

[transcribed]

Ex-Schoolteacher Set To Play in Sugar Hill

"Sugar Hill," a drama filled with voodoo and crime, is being filmed in Houston, Texas with Zara Cully playing the role of an aged voodoo priestess, Mama Maitress.

A former school teacher in Jacksonville, Fla., now a busy actress, Zara Cully, has played in "The Liberation of L.B. Jones," "A Hall of Mirror," "The Great White Hope," and "Brother John."

The Drama which is being directed by Paul Maslansky and produced by Elliot Schick is expected to be released by the American International in February, 1974.

The cast includes Marki Bey, Robert Quarry, Don Pedro Colley, Richard Lawson And Betty Anne Rees. 

Welcome to "A Taste of Sugar Hill"

I have always been intrigued by the life of my late mother Betty Mae Peters.  She divided her life in three distinct phases by the places she lived.  The first phase of her life began in New York. She and her mother Agnes Cully Peters migrated to Los Angeles, and eventually settled in San Diego, California.


My mother was a double major at New York University (NYU), earning a degree in English and Journalism.  She had hopes and dreams to be a journalist and possibly an author.  My mother's dream had been deferred as she felt that the racism of the day would hold her back from her interests.  My mother settled, and became an elementary school teacher for over 35 years.


I sometimes wonder, what would have been my mother's outcome if she would have been willing to take the risk and step out of her comfort zone, would she have succeeded?  


As I was growing up, I remember my mother always talking about the memoir she was going to write when she had time.  That time ran out!  So I have chosen to write her stories and her life and that of the people she knew.  When my mother was in her late 70's, I started to help her with her genealogical research because she wanted to include some of it in her book.  I promised her I would get it done.


I like to keep my promises...So here I am beginning this process and not waiting as I have learned, "Time waits for no one."


The purpose of this blog is to present what I have uncovered through my research in archives, and databases regarding  my family in Harlem during the 1920's and 1950's.  Some of the information will be about people during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, as this will be the beginning backdrop of Harlem and then moving into the Roaring Twenty's, The Great Depression, World War II and around the time of the "New Deal." 


I intend on publishing my mother's personal journals and recollections of her life in Harlem, with my commentary of that time period.


I will not be revealing the very personal stories until the time of publication, but I hope that the information I do disclose will be interesting enough to hold your interest.


My mother's memoirs along with mine will be published and debut on January 1, 2013.