Ira Gershwin Drama for "Of Thee I Sing". In 1988 UCLA established The George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Musical Achievement Award in recognition of the brothers' contribution to music, and for their gift to UCLA of the fight song "Strike Up the Band for UCLA". Recipients include Angela Lansbury (1988), Ray Charles (1991), Mel Tormé (1994), Bernadette Peters (1995), Frank Sinatra (2000), Stevie Wonder (2002), k.d. lang (2003), James Taylor (2004), Babyface (2005), Burt Bacharach (2006), Quincy Jones (2007), Lionel Richie (2008) and Julie Andrews (2009). Ira Gershwin was a joyous listener to the sounds of the modern world. "He had a
Isabella Jones and Ira Junius Johnson Black, but of mixed White and Cherokee descent. Three Klansmen were brought to court. At first, only one was found guilty and fined $50; when he appealed, the court gave him a three-month sentence. Johnson and Jones married a month after the incident. Ira Junius Johnson's paternal grandfather George Branson Johnson was a free Black man from Maryland who migrated with his family of eleven children (including Ira Junius's father) to the Province of Canada in the 1860s, where they settled in Oakville. They may have used the Underground Railroad to get there. Johnson's maternal grandfather Junius B. Roberts was