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Archive through February 03, 2004

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2004 Nov. - 2005 Jan.: Black History (ARCHIVES): Archive through February 03, 2004 users admin

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Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 9:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Cathay Williams or William Cathay (Cathey)
Private, Thirty-eighth U.S. Infantry 1866-1868
An Exceptional Woman
.

A Female Buffalo Soldier


Cathay Williams

In a tiny shotgun cabin
Martha's baby girl was born.
A baby born to slavery
That no one could forewarn.

Cathay Williams was determined
And never was deterred
As she began her life as a house girl
Being seen but never heard.

Then the Civil War broke out
And the Union soldiers came
And taking Cathay with them
Her life would never be the same.

Cathay learned the ways of military life
And became an accomplished cook.
She was sent to General Sheridan
A job she proudly undertook.

Then the Civil War was ended
And Cathay was finally free
And in seeking out her freedom,
She found her place in history.

Her own way she needed to make
And a burden to no one be
So as a Buffalo Soldier she joined up
In the 38th U. S. Infantry.

Cathay Williams became William Cathay
And no one was to know
The secret of her identity
As a soldier she did grow.

The troops moved west to Ft. Cummings
To keep the Apache at bay.
There were one hundred and one enlisted men
And among them was William Cathay.

After two years as a soldier
In the 38th Company A
William went to see the doctor
And her secret came out that day

Discharged as a Buffalo Soldier
Cathay did her very best
As she continued to make her way
In this land they called the West.

Because of her illegal enlistment
Her pension passed her by
But she picked herself up and moved on
And never questioned why.

Life ended for Cathay Williams
At the age of eighty-two
She lived a long independent life
A life that was tried but true.

A salute to Cathay Williams
The hero of this rhyme
A special woman of the west
A legend in her time.


© July 1999, Linda Kirkpatrick


Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 9:47 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for starting this thread, Ladyt....it's a great idea.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 9:49 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Wow I never knew there was a female Buffalo Soldier. Thank you for creating this thread for this year. If you need me to add anything just holla but I know you will do a beautiful job.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 10:23 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Please, feel free to add other biographies or articles of interest.

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 12:11 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Here is a really good link where you can hear the oral histories of former slaves telling their stories. They were recorded in the 30s under an initiative from FDR. Library of Congress Voices of Slavery Project

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 1:31 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Black fact of the day...

For February 1:
1810 - First insurance company managed by Blacks, the American Insurance Company of Philadelphia, was established.
1865 - John Rock became the first Black lawyer to be allowed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Though he was allowed, he died of tuberculosis before he could actually argue a case before the Court.
1865 - The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery was signed by President Andrew Johnson.
1870 - Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first Black to hold a major judicial position, was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court.
1926 - What is now known as Black History Month was first celebrated on this date as Negro History Week by Carter G. Woodson. It became a monthlong celebration in 1976.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 1:37 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 2:
1831 - William Lloyd Garrison began publishing "The Liberator" Abolitionist newspaper, in Boston Mass.
1839 - Inventor Edmond Berger patented the spark plug.
1862 - District of Columbia abolishes slavery.
1902 - Blanche Calloway-Jones was born on this day in Baltimore, Maryland. The sister of Cab Calloway, she became one of the most successful band leaders of the 1930's. She was the only woman to lead an all-male band, and the first woman disk jockey on American radio.
1956 - Autherine Lucy became the first African American student to attend the University of Alabama.

Calamity
Member

10-18-2001

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 3:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
There's a very interesting book just out called A Wealth of Wisdom: Legendary African-American Elders Speak.

I read an excerpt from it and something Maya Angelou said really struck me - that most people don't grow up, they merely age. Really made me think.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 02, 2004 - 11:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Biography of James Baldwin
http://www.biography.com/search/article.jsp?aid=9196635&search=

» Writer. Born August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York, the oldest of nine children. His father was a lay preacher in the Holiness-Pentecostal sect, and at the age of 14 Baldwin was also ordained a preacher. At 18 he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, and in 1944 he met Richard Wright, who helped secure a fellowship that allowed Baldwin the financial freedom to devote himself solely to literature. By 1948 Baldwin had concluded that the social tenor of the United States was stifling his creativity, and he went to Europe with the financial assistance of a Rosenwald fellowship. In Europe, Baldwin completed Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Notes of a Native Son (1955), and Giovanni's Room (1956).
Spokesperson for Civil Rights Movement

Returning to the United States after nine years abroad, Baldwin became known as the most eloquent literary spokesperson for the civil rights of African Americans. A popular speaker on the lecture circuit, Baldwin quickly discovered that social conditions for African Americans had become even more bleak while he was abroad. As the 1960s began—and violence in the South escalated—he became increasingly outraged. Baldwin responded with three powerful books of essays: Nobody Knows My Name (1961), The Fire Next Time (1963), in which he all but predicts the outbursts of black anger to come, and More Notes of a Native Son. These highly inflammatory works were accompanied by Another Country (1962), his third novel. Going to Meet the Man (1965) is a group of cogent short stories of the same period.

» During this time Baldwin's commentary to Richard Avedon's photography was published under the title Nothing Personal (1964), and four years later came another novel, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone.
In addition, the mid-1960s saw Baldwin's two published plays produced on Broadway. The Amen Corner, first staged in Washington, D.C., in 1955, was mounted at New York City's Ethel Barrymore Theatre in April 1965. Similar in tone to Go Tell It on the Mountain, it communicates the religious emotion of the Holiness-Pentecostal sect. Blues for Mr. Charlie, which premiered at Broadway's ANTA Theatre in April 1964, is based on the Emmett Till murder case.

The assassinations of three of Baldwin's friends--civil rights marcher Medgar Evers, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and the black Muslim leader Malcolm X-- shattered any hopes Baldwin maintained for racial reconciliation in the United States, and he returned to France in the early 1970s. His subsequent works of fiction include If Beale Street Could Talk (1974) and Just Above My Head (1979). Nonfiction writings of this period include No Name in the Street (1972), The Devil Finds Work (1976), an examination of African Americans in the motion picture industry, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985), a consideration of racial issues surrounding the Atlanta child murders of 1979 and 1980. A volume of poetry, Jimmy's Blues was issued in 1985.

Literary Achievement

Baldwin's greatest achievement as a writer was his ability to address American race relations from a psychological perspective.

» In his essays and fiction he explored the implications of racism for both the oppressed and the oppressor, suggesting repeatedly that all people suffer in a racist climate. Baldwin's fiction and plays also explore the burdens a callous society can impose on a sensitive individual. Two of his best-known works, the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain and the play The Amen Corner were inspired by his years with the Pentecostal church in Harlem. In Go Tell It on the Mountain, for instance, a teenaged boy struggles with a repressive stepfather and experiences a charismatic spiritual awakening. Later Baldwin novels deal frankly with homosexuality and interracial love affairs—love in both its sexual and spiritual forms became an essential component of the quest for self-realization for both Baldwin and his characters.
Themes and Techniques

Baldwin's prose is characterized by a style of beauty and telling power. His language seems deliberately chosen to shock and disturb, arouse, repel, and finally shake the reader out of complacency into a concerned state of action. His major themes are repeated: the terrible pull of love and hate between black and white Americans; the constant war in one possessed by inverted sexuality between guilt or shame and ecstatic abandon; and such moral, spiritual, and ethical values as purity of motive and inner wholeness, the gift of sharing and extending love, the charm of goodness versus evil. He tunes an inner ear to the disturbing social upheaval of contemporary life and to the rewarding ecstasy of artistic achievement.

All such positive values are set in continual warfare against racism, industrialism, materialism, and a global power struggle. Everything demeaning to the human spirit is attacked with vigor and righteous indignation.
Final Works

Baldwin remained abroad much of the last 15 years of his life, but he never gave up his American citizenship. The citizens of France nevertheless embraced Baldwin as one of their own, and in 1986 he was accorded one of the country's highest accolades when he was named Commander of the Legion of Honor. He died of stomach cancer, November 30, 1987, in Saint-Paul-de-Vance, France, and was buried in Harlem. One of his last works to see publication during his lifetime was a well-regarded anthology of essays The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985.


© 2000 Gale Group



Zules
Member

08-21-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 8:15 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I found something very cool this morning I thought you guys might be interested in.

I went into 7-11 to pick up my bucket of coffee and at the checkout counter they had a pamphlet featuring the "I Have A Dream" speech. It has an introduction written by Coretta Scott King followed by the full text of the speech.

There is also information on the Education Is Freedom charity and The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. (The King Center).

The pamphlet is available free of charge.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 10:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Wow, that is too cool, Zules. I wish I could find one of those

Zules
Member

08-21-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 10:50 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Ladytex, do you have a 7-11 near you? Maybe they would be giving them out by you too.



Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 1:43 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 3:

1874 - Blanche Kelso Bruce elected to a full six-year term in the U.S. Senate by the Mississippi legislature.

1903 - Jack Johnson became the first Negro Heavyweight Champion.

1920 - The Negro Baseball League founded.

1989 - Bill White former St. Louis Cardinal, is named President of the National League, the first Black to hold this position or to head any major sports league.

Yankee_in_ca
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'm watching this tonight ... anyone else? It's Prof Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s mini-series, and sounds really interesting.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/159025_tv03.html

(By the way, I hate that these documentaries are so often "reserved" for Black History Month. But that's another whole can of worms...)

Here are a few more links to other television stories about the series:

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/living/7842939.htm

http://www.suntimes.com/output/rosenthal/cst-ftr-phil02.html

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/02/Floridian/Black_America__a_comm.shtml

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875- 1955)
mmbethune
Founder of Bethune-Cookman College
Born on July 10, 1875 in Mayesville, South Carolina, Mary McLeod Bethune ranks high among great women in America. The last of seventeen children of sharecroppers, Mary Bethune lifted herself from the cotton field to the White House as an advisor to the President of the United States. Her greatest accomplishment, however, was almost single-handedly building Bethune-Cookman College in 1923. With only one dollar and fifty cents, nerve and determination, she set out to build a school for the Blacks who were working in the railroad labor camps in Florida. Slowly the school emerged from old crate boxes and odd rooms of old houses near the Daytona Beach City Dump. Bethune served as the school's president until 1942. Today Bethune-Cookman graduates thousands. In 1935, she received the NAACP Springarn Medal as a symbol of distinguished achievement. Also in 1935, President Roosevelt appointed her national director of the National Youth Administration's Division of Negro Affairs. She died on May 18, 1955 in Daytona Beach, Florida.



Yankee_in_ca
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:27 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I went to Bethune Elementary School. :-)

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:32 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks, Yankee, for posting that. I will have to look for it.

The following is the schedule of Black History Month programming on the history channel:
History Channel Programming

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I was just coming to post that Ladyt...

Here are all the programs being shown:

February 3:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: Deep Sea Detectives - Slave Ship Uncovered!

In July 1700, The Henrietta Marie, a slave ship heading home after selling its cargo of "black gold", met disaster off Florida's coast. Historians believe a hurricane drove her into a reef. Accidentally in 1972, remains of the ship were found and over three decades divers recovered a portion of the hull and artifacts. In the summer of 2003, we go onboard and underwater as researchers scour the waters off Key West, determined to find the rest of her. With dramatic animations of the ship's last moments. [TV PG]

Back to Top
February 4:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: The Underground Railroad, Pt. 1

"So many slaves escaped into freedom along a route that could not be ascertained that the slave owners said there must be an underground railroad under the Ohio River and on to the North." Abolitionist William Cockrum, 1854. Join descendants and scholars as we tell the story of America's first civil rights movement. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 pm ET/PT
The Alcan Highway

Today, vacationers travel from British Columbia north through the Yukon Pass on their way to Fairbanks, Alaska, thanks to one two-lane roadway, the 1,522-mile long Alaska Highway. A bit treacherous in spots and best driven in the few summer months the region provides, it's an unrivaled engineering feat that took 11,000 soldiers, nearly 4,000 of them black, only 8 months to build! Travel back to 1942 as they bulldoze their way into history while connecting the Lower 48 to the Alaskan Territory. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 5:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: The Underground Railroad, Pt. 2

The Underground Railroad was neither, in fact. Nor was it a centralized national organization. Instead, it was the symbolic name for the century-long struggle of slaves making the dangerous journey out of bondage, and a secret network of free blacks and whites of conscience that offered solace against the slave-holding South. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 6:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: The Alcan Highway

Today, vacationers travel from British Columbia north through the Yukon Pass on their way to Fairbanks, Alaska, thanks to one two-lane roadway, the 1,522-mile long Alaska Highway. A bit treacherous in spots and best driven in the few summer months the region provides, it's an unrivaled engineering feat that took 11,000 soldiers, nearly 4,000 of them black, only 8 months to build! Travel back to 1942 as they bulldoze their way into history while connecting the Lower 48 to the Alaskan Territory. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 7:
7 pm ET/PT
Civil Rights Heroes

A profile of some of the civil rights movement's greatest leaders. Included are: actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, whose 50-year marriage has spanned the history of the movement; Beverly Carter and Gloria Carter Dickerson, who suffered abuse when they broke the color line at Mississippi schools in the 1960s; and Bill Russell, the star basketball player who became the first black head coach in the National Basketball Association. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 pm ET/PT
Tuskegee Airmen

Movie. Laurence Fishburne stars in a drama based on true WWII events of the first African-American combat fighter pilots of the U.S. Army Corps. Bigoted officers and the military establishment refused to accept them as equal to white counterparts, until Eleanor Roosevelt intervened and the men of the "Fighting 99th" were able to prove themselves. This is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen and their struggle to defeat the enemy--both at home and aboard. With Andre Braugher and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1995) [TV PG-L]

Back to Top
February 8:
8 am ET/PT
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: The Making of a Dream

In January, millions of people of all races celebrate the birthday of the Nobel Prize-winning civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. His is the story of an American who changed history, especially for young people living out his dream. This dramatic look at his controversial and tumultuous life melds historical footage, recreations from events in his youth, and the views of Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., and TV star Dule Hill. Narrated by Dennis Haysbert, LeVar Burton performs the words of Dr. King. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 am ET/PT
The Wendell Scott Story

The extraordinary life of African-American stock car racer Wendell Oliver Scott, who broke through racing's color barrier in 1961 to become the only man of his race to compete full-time in NASCAR's elite Winston-Cup Series. In interviews with Scott peers such as Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, and Junior Johnson, his family, and motorsport historians, our narrative focuses on the astronomical odds Scott faced as a poor black man in the South trying to support his family and dream. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 pm ET/PT
Tuskegee Airmen

Movie. Laurence Fishburne stars in a drama based on true WWII events of the first African-American combat fighter pilots of the U.S. Army Corps. Bigoted officers and the military establishment refused to accept them as equal to white counterparts, until Eleanor Roosevelt intervened and the men of the "Fighting 99th" were able to prove themselves. This is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen and their struggle to defeat the enemy--both at home and aboard. With Andre Braugher and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1995) [TV PG-L]

Back to Top
February 10:
7 am ET/PT
Civil War Journal: The 54th Massachusetts

You've seen the movie, now discover the full truth about the U.S. Army's first black regiment. Covers the periods before and after the famous battle at Fort Wagner during the Civil War. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 13:
8 am / 2 pm ET/PT
History Undercover: Mississippi State Secrets

You've seen the movie, now discover the full truth about the U.S. Army's first black regiment. Covers the periods before and after the famous battle at Fort Wagner during the Civil War. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 am / 3 pm ET/PT
History Undercover: Port Chicago Mutiny

In 1944, two ships blew up at the Port Chicago ammunition depot near San Francisco, killing 300 men, 202 of whom were black. When 50 black ammunition loaders refused to return to work considered too dangerous for white sailors, they were convicted of mutiny. In this investigation, we see how their actions changed the face of the U.S. Navy. [TV PG]

Back to Top
February 17:
7 am ET/PT
Save Our History: Civil War Journal: John Brown's War

In-depth account of the famed abolitionist's 1859 attack on the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry that ended the nation's last hopes of unity. [TV G]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 pm / 12 am ET/PT
Deep Sea Detectives: Slave Ship Uncovered

Slave Ship Uncovered! In July 1700, The Henrietta Marie, a slave ship heading home after selling its cargo of "black gold", met disaster off Florida's coast. Historians believe a hurricane drove her into a reef. Accidentally in 1972, remains of the ship were found and over three decades divers recovered a portion of the hull and artifacts. In the summer of 2003, we go onboard and underwater as researchers scour the waters off Key West, determined to find the rest of her. With dramatic animations of the ship's last moments. [TV PG]

Back to Top
February 23:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

In January, people of all races celebrate the birthday of the Nobel Prize-winning civil rights leader--an American who changed history. This look at his controversial and tumultuous life melds historical footage, recreations from events in his youth, and the views of Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., and TV star Dule Hill. Narrated by Dennis Haysbert, LeVar Burton performs the words of Dr. King. Then, we probe the enduring mystery of his murder, pitting the lone gunman theory against conspiracy theories. CC [TV G]

Back to Top
February 24:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: Frederick Douglas

The life of the great abolitionist who escaped slavery in 1838, then used his talents as a writer and orator to fight for emancipation. Douglass edited an abolitionist newspaper, recruited black regiments during the Civil War, and advised President Lincoln. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 25:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: Ships Of Slaves - The Middle Passage

Relives the 400-year era of transatlantic slave trade when millions of Africans were kidnapped and shipped to the New World. Interviews with scholars, oral histories, and dramatic recreation of the middle passage filmed on an authentic slave ship, convey the personal horror of the Black Holocaust. Executive Produced by Debbie Allen. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 26:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: America's Black Warriors - Two Wars To Win

Reviews the emerging truth about African-Americans in U.S. armed forces, which up until the 20th century, were integrated except for the officer corps. We'll focus on WWII using Department of Defense archives and interviews with soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought against racism and foreign enemies. Colin Powell contributes. [TV G]

Back to Top
February 27:
6 am ET/PT
Classroom: A Fragile Freedom - African-American Historic Sites

Explores eight unique African-American historic sites in Boston, New York, Jacksonville, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Host Dr. James O. Horton, the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., guides us through the sites and reveals their surprising and little-known history. The sites show the strength of African-American communities during the 1800s. [TV G]}

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 3:39 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 4:55 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I've seen the The Middle Passage and Slave Ship Uncovered. 400 years, kinda says alot.

Reiki
Member

08-12-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 5:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for this thread. I wish more of this information was incorporated into America History curriculums year round.

Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928)


Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1848, six years after his parents, George and Rebecca Latimer, had run away from slavery in Virginia. They were determined to be free and that their children be born on free soil. Because of his light complexion, George was able to pose as a plantation owner with the darker-skinned Rebecca as his slave. Shortly after arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, he was recognized as a fugitive and jailed while his wife was taken to a safe hiding place. The arrest was protested vigorously by the community. Frederick Douglass, a former slave who had escaped to Massachusetts several years earlier, and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison spoke forcefully against the arrest. There was a trial, and the attempts to recapture George and return him to Virginia caused considerable agitation in Boston. When the trial judge ruled that Latimer still belonged to his Virginia owner, an African-American minister paid $400 for his release. Although free, George was still extremely poor, working as a barber, paper-hanger and in other odd jobs to support his wife, three sons, and one daughter.

Lewis Latimer, the youngest child, attended grammar school and was an excellent student who loved to read and draw. Most of his time, though, was spent working with his father, which was typical of children in the 19th century. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that a slave named Dred Scott could not be considered a free man although he had lived in a free state. George Latimer disappeared shortly after the decision became known. Because he had no official papers to prove he was a free man, he possibly feared for his safety and that of his family.

With his father gone and his mother struggling to keep the family together, Lewis falsified his age and joined the U.S. Navy in 1864 when he was sixteen years old. When the Civil War ended he was honorably discharged and returned to Boston to seek employment. In 1868 he secured a job as an office boy in the Crosby and Gould patent law firm, a company that specialized in helping inventors protect their patents. By closely observing draftsmen at work and reading books on the subject, Latimer taught himself mechanical drawing. He learned to skillfully use the vital tools of the trade, such as T squares, triangles, compasses, and rulers, and mastered the art of drawing to scale. Since all of the drawings were done by hand and in ink, it was very important that a draftsman not make mistakes. Latimer's drawings in this medium are as beautiful as works of art. After several months of studying on his own, he requested and was given an opportunity by the firm to show what he could do. Upon discovering that Latimer was indeed a skilled draftsman, he was promoted from office boy, earning a salary of $3.00 per week, to draftsman at $20.00.

In the period immediately following the Civil War, important scientific advances occurred in America. There was an explosion of inventions and new uses of technology, and inventors were securing thousands of patents in growing industries. While working at the Boston firm, Latimer met Alexander Graham Bell who hired him to draw the plans for a new invention, the telephone. Bell was in a race to have his invention patented before anyone else registered a similar device. By working with him late at night, Latimer was able to provide Bell with the blueprints and expertise in submitting applications that allowed him to file his telephone patent on February 14, 1876, just a few hours earlier than that of a rival inventor. They had won the race!

In 1880 Latimer began work as a mechanical draftsman for Hiram Maxim, an inventor and founder of the U.S. Electric Lighting Company in Brooklyn, N.Y. In his new job, Latimer was given the opportunity to become familiar with the field of electric incandescent lighting, an area in which there was fierce competition to secure patents. In addition to his work with light bulbs and lamps, he went to U.S. cities and abroad supervising installation and production of Maxim equipment.

In 1884 he was invited to work for Maxim's arch rival, Thomas Alva Edison, in New York. An expert electrical engineer, Latimer's work for Edison was critical for the following reasons: his thorough knowledge of electric lighting and power guided Edison through the process of filing patent forms properly at the U.S. Patent Office, protecting the company from infringements of his inventions; Latimer was also in charge of the company library, collecting information from around the world, translating data in French and German to protect the company from European challenges. He became Edison's patent investigator and expert witness in cases against persons trying to benefit from Edison's inventions without legal permission.

Edison encouraged Latimer to write the book, Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System. Published in 1890, it was extremely popular as it explained how an incandescent lamp produces light in an easy-to-understand manner. On February 11, 1918, Latimer became one of the 28 charter members of the Edison Pioneers, the only African-American in this prestigious, highly selective group.

After leaving Edison's employ, Latimer worked for a patent consultant firm until 1922 when failing eyesight caused an end to his career. His health began to fail following the death of his beloved wife Mary Wilson Latimer in 1924. To cheer and encourage him to carry on, his children, two daughters, had a book of his poems printed in 1925 in honor of his 77th birthday. The poems are beautifully sensitive, and complement Latimer's designation as a "Renaissance Man" who painted, played the flute, wrote poetry and plays.

Active in the Unitarian Church, Latimer found time to teach mechanical engineering, drawing and English to new immigrants at the Henry Street Settlement House. He had remained extremely patriotic, participating as an officer of the famed Civil War Veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). In addition, he supported the civil rights activities of his era. On December 11, 1928, Lewis Howard Latimer died, leaving a remarkable legacy. His name will be forever associated with two of the most revolutionary inventions of all time: the incandescent electric light bulb and the telephone.

Two Poems by Lewis H. Latimer

Friends

Friend of my childhood,
Of life's early days
When together we wandered
Through bright sunny ways
Each true to the other,
Till full manhood came,
And found the old friendship
As ever the same.


Came summer and winter,
Years waxed and waned.
Youth it had left us
But friendship remained
And now as with white locks
I bend o'er life's page,
The friend of my childhood
Is the friend of my age.



Ebon Venus

Let others boast of maidens fair,
Of eyes of blue and golden hair;
My heart like needles ever true
Turns to the maid of ebon hue.


I love her form of matchless grace,
The dark brown beauty of her face,
Her lips that speak of love's delight,
Her eyes that gleam as stars at night.


O'er marble Venus let them rage,
Who sets the fashions of the age;
Each to his taste, but as for me,
My Venus shall be ebony.





Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 6:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh I love the last poem. Thanks for posting that Reiki.

Reiki
Member

08-12-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 6:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Mocha, I thought of all my beautiful ebony women friends when I read that poem. I think Mary Latimer was probably a very lucky woman.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 6:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I think so too. Especially since in mainstream entertainment, brown skin isn't looked upon as being attractive. At least natural brown skin as opposed to tanning, lol.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 9:34 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Ebon Venus... that is a great poem. Thanks Reiki.