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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 7:29 am
Zules, you've never heard that song? It is beautiful. When I was in school, we'd sing it every year at our Black History Program. I'll try to find a link to a midi file for it. edited to add this: midi
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 7:47 am
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley St. Hill Chisholm was born on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York to Charles and Ruby St. Hill. Her father was from British Guiana and her mother was from Barbados. In 1927, Shirley was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother. She received a good education from the British school system, which she later credited with providing her with a strong academic background. In 1934, she rejoined her parents in New York. Shirley excelled in academics at Girls High School in Brooklyn from which she graduated in 1942. After graduation she enrolled in Brooklyn College where she majored in sociology. Shirley encountered racism at Brooklyn College and fought against it. When the black students at Brooklyn College were denied admittance to a social club, Shirley formed an alternative one. She graduated in 1946 with honors. During this time, it was difficult for black college graduates to obtain employment comparable to their education. After being rejected by many companies, she obtained at job at the Mt. Calvary Childcare Center in Harlem. In 1949, she married Conrad Chisholm, a Jamaican who worked as a private investigator. Shirley and her husband participated in local politics, helping form the Bedford-Stuyvesant political League. In addition to participating in politics, Chisholm worked in the field of day care until 1959. In 1960, she started the Unity Democratic Club. The Unity Club was instrumental in mobilizing black and Hispanic voters. In 1964 Chisholm ran for a state assembly seat. She won and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. During her tenure in the legislature, she proposed a bill to provide state aid to day-care centers and voted to increase funding for schools on a per-pupil basis. In 1968, After finishing her term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned to represent New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Her campaign slogan was "Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed." She won the election and became the first African American woman elected to Congress. During her first term in Congress, Chisholm hired an all-female staff and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was elected to a second term. She was a sought-after public speaker and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She remarked that, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes." On January 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for president. She stood before the cameras and in the beginning of her speech she said, "I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people." The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami was the first major convention in which any woman was considered for the presidential nomination. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 of the delegates' votes. She continued to serve in the House of Representatives until 1982. She retired from politics after her last term in office. She has received many honorary degrees, and her awards include Alumna of the Year, Brooklyn College; Key Woman of the Year; Outstanding Work in the Field of Child Welfare; and Woman of Achievement. She continues her work as a lecturer, teacher and political mentor. Afgen bio One of my favorite Shirley Chisolm quotations: "My God, what do we want? What does any human being want? Take away an accident of pigmentation of a thin layer of our outer skin and there is no difference between me and anyone else. All we want is for that trivial difference to make no difference."
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 8:40 am
February 10: 1941 The first all African American officered regular army infantry regiment the 366th is activated. 1957 Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded 1964 After 12 days of debate and voting on 125 amendments, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a vote of 290-130. 1966 Economist Andrew Brimer is appointed to the Federal Reserve Board. 1989 Ron Brown is elected Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the first African American to hold this position.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 8:44 am
Soprano Leontyne Price was born Mary Violet Leontine Price in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 10, 1927, the daughter of James and Katherine Price. Leontine was a very musical child and became a local success at an early age, singing at local weddings and funerals. After receiving local training, she sang in her first recital on December 17, 1943. After studying at Wilberforce College (now Central State University) in Ohio, Leontine enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York. She began studying with Florence Page Kimball and, shortly after changing the spelling of her name to "Leontyne", she was accepted into the Juilliard Opera Workshop. Much of Leontyne's musical education was supported by a wealthy family from Laurel, Alexander and Elizabeth Chisolm. At Juilliard, she appeared in 1952 as Nella in Gianni Schicchi and and, later that year, as Mistress Ford in Falstaff. Also in 1952, she was invited by composer Virgil Thompson to appear as Saint Cecilia in a revival of his Four Saints in Three Acts in New York and Paris. Leontyne Price scored a major success when, in 1952, she appeared as Bess in Porgy and Bess in Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. In the production, Porgy was sung by William Warfield. After the final performance in Washington, Leontyne and William were married on August 31, 1952 (they separated in 1959). The following year, Porgy and Bess appeared in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and then at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York. In January 1955, Price appeared in a telecast in Tosca with the NBC Opera Theatre. The performance was such a success that she was invited back for subsequent telecasts of The Magic Flute, Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Don Giovanni. Leontyne Price made her debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1957 as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues of the Carmelites. During one performance, she was informed that Antonietta Stella had pulled out of performances of Aïda due to an emergency appendectomy. Price was invited to take her place, so she made her first performance on September 29, 1957. She was invited back to San Francisco for subsequent seasons as Leonora in Il Trovatore (1958) and as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (1959). On September 11, 1959, she opened the new season as Aïda (with Jon Vickers and Irene Dalis). Less than a month later, she appeared in San Francisco as the title character in the world premiere of Carl Orff's The Wise Maiden. In 1958, Price made her debut as Aïda at the Vienna Staatsoper and, on July 2 of the same year, she made her debut at London's Royal Opera House as Aïda (with Regina Resnik as Amneris). In 1959, she made her debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Liù in Turandot and returned later that season as the title character in Massenet's Thaïs. When the San Francisco Opera went on tour in Los Angeles in 1961, she appeared in Madama Butterfly (she sang her first Cio-Cio-San in Vienna in 1960). After making her La Scala debut as Aïda on 21 May 1960, Price made her debut at the old Metropolitan Opera House as Leonora in Il Trovatore on January 27, 1961. Her debut was a phenominal success and, within the first nine weeks of her debut season, she had also appeared as Aïda, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Cio-Cio-San, and Liù. In October 1961, she opened the new Met season as Minnie in La Fanciulla del West. She returned to the Met during the 1963-64 season as Tatyana in Eugene Onegin and as Pamina in The Magic Flute. Her final new role at the "old Met" was that of Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, which she performed for the first time on January 29, 1965 (the cast included Richard Tucker and Roberta Peters). When the Metropolitan Opera moved to Lincoln Center in 1966, Price christened the new house as Cleopatra in the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra. The following year, she celebrated 10 years with the San Francisco Opera with a performance of Un Ballo in Maschera. On February 2, 1968, Price made her debut at the Paris Opera as Aïda. Maria Callas, who attended one of the performances, was so impressed that she invited Leontyne for dinner. She returned to San Francisco to open the new opera season on September 13, 1968, as Elvira in Ernani. Price opened the 1969-70 season at the Metropolitan Opera as Aïda and, in 1974, she opened the San Francisco opera season in her role debut as Manon in Manon Lescaut. She repeated the role of Manon at the Met the following year. During the 1970's, Leontyne Price appeared in several memorable productions, including performances of La Forza del Destino at the Met with Carlo Bergonzi in 1972, and Il Trovatore in Vienna with Luciano Pavarotti in 1977. On January 3, 1985, Leontyne Price made her farewell to opera with a performance of Aïda at the Metropolitan Opera. Price continued to appear in recitals and concerts until early-2000, when she gave notice to her management that she now considered herself completely retired. During her illustrious career she was awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has also taken part in many recordings, which ensure her continued popularity among opera-lovers for years to come.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 12:07 pm
Shirley Chisholm! I love her--and I'd completely forgotten about her! And Barbara Jordan too. Another great woman.
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Lkunkel
Member
10-29-2003
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 3:30 pm
Great article by Joyce King. I always tried to supplement my foster daughter's knowledge of all contributions of people--not just the "dead white men" who are in the history texts. I have to say that I thought I was inured to the Clark County School District and the attempt they make to babysit students (my foster daughter (as a junior) had one semester of English classes where they watched 40 minutes of movies--as opposed to reading the books the movies were based on). I was wrong. Taunts, tears follow race lesson and the follow-up Third-grade curriculum on segregation sparks uproar tells me that we still have a long way to go in this country.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 4:42 pm
What the hell was that teacher thinking? But I've had teachers do the seperation by eye color, which was just a waste, imo.
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Lkunkel
Member
10-29-2003
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 4:47 pm
Mocha, I never understood that one either.
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Reiki
Member
08-12-2000
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 5:31 pm
This is for SBG:
Sidney Poitier (actor; born February 20, 1927, Miami, Florida) In an age of Spike Lee retrospectives, Denzel Washington blockbusters, and Magic Johnson multiplexes, it is perhaps easy to forget the pioneering impact Sidney Poitier's career has had on American culture. For 20 years, beginning in the early '50s, he was the top and virtually sole African-American film star--the first black actor to become a hero to both black and white audiences. Poitier was also the first black actor to win a prestigious international film award (Venice Film Festival, Something of Value, 1957), the first to be nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award (The Defiant Ones, 1958), the first to star as a romantic lead (Paris Blues, 1961), the first to win the Oscar (Lilies of the Fields, 1963), the first to become the number one box office star in the country (1968), and the first to insist on a film crew that was at least 50 percent African-American (The Lost Man, 1969). Poitier also starred in the first mainstream movies to condone interracial marriages and permit a mixed couple to hug and kiss (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967) and to attack apartheid (The Wilby Conspiracy, 1975). The New York Times' Vincent Canby once pointed out: "Poitier does not make movies, he makes milestones." His parents were poor tomato farmers in the Bahamas. He was their seventh and last child. The family's struggles hammered home a lesson he would always live by: Survival requires everybody to carry a load. In fact, by the age of 13, he was working full-time to support the family. At 16, he arrived in New York City, totally alone, with three dollars in his pocket. In order to escape the cold, he lied about his age and joined the army. It was a short stint that lasted less than a year. Back in New York he got a job as a dishwasher and stumbled into acting. While looking for a second job to make ends meet, he came across an ad calling for actors. Without any experience or training, and barely able to read, he auditioned for the American Negro Theatre. He was humiliated off the stage, but six months later, better prepared, he auditioned again. His first production, Days of Our Youth, led to nearly 10 more with the company, a national tour of Anna Lucasta in 1944 and, two years later at 22, his first film--No Way Out. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, it launched the career that, in the words of his good friend Harry Belafonte, "put the cinema and millions of people in the world in touch with a truth about who we are. A truth that could have for a longer time eluded us had it not been for him and the choices he made." In such landmark films as Cry the Beloved Country (1952); Blackboard Jungle (1955); A Raisin in the Sun (1961); which he was instrumental in bringing to the stage and film; The Bedford Incident (1965); A Patch of Blue (1965); The Slender Thread (1965); To Sir, With Love (1967); and In the Heat of the Night (1967), in which he confronts a condescending Southern sheriff with the line heard round the world, "They call me MISTER Tibbs," Sidney Poitier's characters are men of control, men who tame volcanic rage with reason and intellect. Men who know that there are bridges to build, doors to open. At the peak of his career in front of the camera, Poitier decided to direct as well. His first film, Buck and Preacher (1972), starred two good friends from his American Negro Theatre days--Belafonte and Ruby Dee. With Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, and Steve McQueen, he formed the independent First Artist Production Company. Its first release was A Warm December, directed by Poitier. Uptown Saturday Night (1974) was the first of several box office comedy hits helmed by Poitier and featuring largely black casts. Let's Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action, which garnered Poitier an NAACP Image Award, followed. In 1980, he directed the year's biggest financial success--Stir Crazy--with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. In 1991, shortly after ending a decade-long hiatus from acting, Poitier returned to television for the first time in 35 years to portray Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries directed by George Stevens, Jr., Separate but Equal. With his unique career, a career he forged without any precedent or model, Sidney Poitier helped change many stubborn racial attitudes that had persisted in this country for centuries. He has built the bridges and opened the doors for countless artists in succeeding generations. He is an actor who stood for hope, for excellence, and who has given happiness to millions of people around the world. Paying tribute to Sidney Poitier in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "He is a man of great depth, a man of great social concern, a man who is dedicated to human rights and freedom. Here is a man who, in the words we so often hear now, is a soul brother." From the Kennedy Center Honors website.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 11:12 pm
Madame C.J. Walker Born: December 23, 1867 Died: May 25, 1919 Birthplace: Delta, Louisiana on the Burney family plantation. Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove McWilliams Walker): Inventor, Businesswoman In 1905 Sarah Breedlove developed a conditioning treatment for straightening hair. Starting with door-to-door sales of her cosmetics, Madame C.J. Walker amassed a fortune. In 1910 she built a factory in Indianapolis to manufacture her line of cosmetics. Before her death in 1919 she was a millionaire, one of the most successful business executives in the early half of the twentieth century. One of the first American women of any race or rank to become a millionaire through her own efforts was Sarah Breedlove Walker. Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867 to Minerva and Owen Breedlove on the shores of the Mississippi River in northeast Louisiana. Sarah's parents, both ex-slaves, were sharecroppers who lived on the Burney plantation in Delta, Louisiana. "Madam Walker always said in her public speeches that she was 'orphaned at seven.' Her mother died first. Her father remarried and apparently died before she turn eight in December, 1875. Source: Bundles" Because of her impoverished background she had only a limited formal education. She was married to a Mr. McWilliams at fourteen, "to get a home" (as described by Walker herself), and had a daughter, A'Lelia, in 1885. Widowed at twenty in 1887, Sarah and her daughter moved from Vicksburg to St. Louis, Missouri. For eighteen years, from 1887-1905, she supported herself and her daughter by work as a washerwoman. While in St. Louis in 1905, Walker said she had an idea to begin a cosmetics business. "Madam Walker's treatment did not straighten hair. Her treatment was designed to heal scalp disease through more frequent shampooing. massage and the application of an ointment consisting of petrolatum and a medicinal sulfur. Madam Walker did use a hot comb--which she did NOT invent--in her system, but she was by no means the first person to employ such methods. In fact, Marcel Grateau, a Parisian, was using heated metal hair care implements as early as 1872, and hot combs were available in Sears and Bloomingdale's catalogues in the 1890s, presumably designed for white women." Before this time, African American women who wanted to de-kink their hair had to place it on a flat surface and press it with a flat iron. She invented her hair softener for use with a straightening comb. Mixing her soaps and ointments in washtubs and kitchen utensils, while adapting the existing hairdressing techniques and modifying curling tools. She added the prefix Madame to her name and took to the road, soon demonstrated her excellent marketing skills to sell her hair products door-to-door. About The Walker System The elements of the System were a shampoo, a pomade "hair-grower", vigorous brushing, and the application of heated iron combs to the hair. The "method" transformed stubborn, lusterless hair into shining smoothness. The Madame C. J. Walker manufacturing Company employed principally women who, before the years that preceded the national growth of beauty shops in the United States, carried their treatments to the home. Known as "Walker Agents," they became familiar figures throughout the United States and Caribbean where they made their "house calls", always dressed in the characteristic white shirtwaists tucked into long black skirts and carrying the black satchels, containing preparations and combing apparatus necessary for dressing hair. The most important of the preparations demonstrated was Madame C.J. Walker's Hair Grower. Sales of the Pomade and a collection of sixteen other beauty products, many packaged decoratively in tin containers who carried the portrait of Madame Walker, accompanied by heavy advertising in mainly Negro newspapers and magazines and her own frequent instructional tours, made Madame Walker one of the best known African American women in the country by the 1920's. Her fame spread to Europe, where the Walker System coiffure of dancer Josephine Baker so fascinated Parisians in the 1920's that a French company produced a comparable pomade, calling it Baker-Fix. In the United States, the business activity of Madame Walker was emulated by other Negro women, with successful women including Mrs. Annie M. Turnbo Malone (with her "Poro System" and the "Poro Colleges" in St. Louis and Chicago) and Madame Sarah Spencer Washington (with her Apex System headquartered in Atlantic City.) One editorialist commented in 1919 that it was a "noteworthy fact that the largest and most lucrative business enterprises conducted by colored people in America have been launched by women -- namely Madame Walker and Mrs. Malone." Annie Malone preceded Madam Walker in business. In fact, Madam Walker worked for a short time in 1905 as a Malone sales agent before she started her own business. Encouraged by success in St. Louis selling her cosmetic products and method, she moved to Denver, Colorado in July, 1905. Her brother had been dead for some time. She joined her widowed sister-in-law and nieces, who had been in Denver prior to 1900. Bundles Six months later she married a newspaperman, Charles J. Walker. She kept the name even after business differences ended the marriage. Proceeding door-to-door, she demonstrated her method to the women of Denver. Sarah developed what was to become known as The Walker Method or The Walker System She attracted not only clients for her products but agent-operators; she called then "hair culturists," "scalp specialists," and "beauty culturists" rather than "hair straighteners" (a term used by others). With the agent-operators conducting sales, Sarah concentrated her efforts on the instruction of her methods and on the manufacture of the products. "Madam Walker established her business in Denver in July, 1905. By September 1906 she had left Denver in care of her daughter, Lelia, and begun to travel throughout the South promoting her products", giving lectures and demonstrations of her products to homes, clubs, and churches. Her success in the increasing business saw her organize a second office in Pittsburgh in 1908, which her daughter A'Lelia managed. In 1910 transferred operations from the Denver and Pittsburgh offices to a new headquarters in Indianapolis, where a plant was constructed to serve as center of the Walker enterprises. The company was the Walker College of Hair Culture and Walker Manufacturing Company (note: "The original Mme. C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company was sold by the trustees of the Walker estate in 1985 and is no longer in business. The purchasers of the company name were based at one time in Tuskegee, Alabama. They have since moved their company back to Indianapolis and apparently are a small concern with limited distribution of hair care products."). In 1906 Walker turned the mail order business to her daughter who used Pittsburgh as headquarters for Walker College, for training "hair culturists". The Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, of which Madame Walker was president and sole owner, provided employment for some three thousand persons. ["The estimates of the number of people employed by Madam Walker varies widely. In her factory and office there were usually somewhere between fifteen and thirty employees. Her sales force, a multi-level sales operation, had, by her claim, in 1919, more than 20,000 agents."] Overnight she found herself in business, with assistants, agents, schools, and a manufacturing company. Madame Walker's daughter purchased a townhouse in Harlem in 1913 and Madame Waker moved to New York in 1916. A generous donor to black charities, Walker encouraged her agents to support black philanthropic work. She made the single largest donation to the successful 1918 effort by the National Association of Colored Women to purchase the home of Frederick Douglass so it could be preserved as a museum. She contributed generously to the National Association of Colored People (NAACP), to homes for the aged in St. Louis and Indianapolis, to needy in Indianapolis (especially during Christmas time), and the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) of Indianapolis. She funded scholarships for young women and men at Tuskegee Institute and contributed to Palmer Memorial Institute, a private secondary school for blacks in Sedalia, North Caroline, founded by her close friend Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Walker organized her agents into "Walker Clubs" in 1916, in preparation for her 1917 convention, and gave cash prizes to the clubs that did the largest amount of community philanthropic work. At the annual convention of Walker agents she always gave prizes most to the most generous local affiliate. Walker required her agents to sign contracts specifying not only the exclusive use of her company's products and methods, but binding them also to a hygienic regimen which anticipated the practices into state cosmetology laws. In frequent visits and communications to her agents she preached "cleanliness and loveliness" as assets and aids to self-respect and racial advance. An editorial of 1919 in Crisis (the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) judged that Madame Walker had influenced in her lifetime a revolution of "personal habits and appearance of millions of human beings." Madame Walker constantly made headlines, both with her business and her social activities. Her personal possessions amounted to a value of a million dollars and included extensive real estate holdings. In 1914 she moved to New York and built a $90,000 Indiana limestone townhouse at 108-110 West 136th Street . In its sitting rooms and dining halls, in the years following Sarah Walker's death, her daughter, now Mrs. A'Lelia Walker Robinson Wilson Kennedy, presided over a salon known as "The Dark Tower", where talented Negro authors, musicians, and artists met influential white intellectuals. [The "Dark Tower" was located on one floor of the 136th Street townhouse for about one year from October, 1927 to October, 1928....] A "Who's Who" of African American history entered her doors. In attendance were publishers, critics, and potential patrons, who helped to stimulate the "Harlem Renaissance" in the arts during the 1920's. A'Lelia's crowning social event was the glamorous "Million Dollar Wedding" (actually $40,000) of adopted daughter Mae Walker Perry at St. Phillips in New York City. In 1917 Madame Walker built an Italianate neo-Palladian-style country home designed by the first registered black architect in New York Vertner Woodson Tandy at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. The villa, a $250,000 mansion, was named by noted tenor Enrico Caruso, who combined the initial syllables of A'Lelia Walker Robinson's name. The twenty room mansion was furnished at a price of nearly $100,000 . Walker furnished it with a 24-carat gold-plated piano and phonograph, a $15,000 pipe organ that gently awoke house guests, Hepplewhite furniture, Persian rugs, many huge oil paintings, and two Japanese prayer trees imported at a cost of over $10,000. Warned by physicians at the Kellogg Clinic at Battle Creek, Michigan, that her hypertension required a reduction of her activities, Madame Walker nevertheless continued her busy schedule. She became ill while in St. Louis and was moved back to New York, where she died on May 25, 1919 of chronic interstitial nephritis, kidney failure and hypertension at the Villa Lewaro estate. Despite her impoverished beginnings, Madame Walker achieved notable business success. Funeral services were conducted at the villa by the pastor of her church, the Mother Zion African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of New York, and she was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The estate went to A'Lelia Walker Robinson Wilson. A'Lelia Walker closed "Dark Tower", a cafe/salon at her 136th Street townhouse, in 1928. In 1930 she was forced to auction off some of the contents of Villa Lewaro because of the Depression's impact on company sales, the cost of taxes and upkeep, and because she rarely spent time there. Shortly before she died in 1919, Madam Walker pledged $5,000 to the NAACP's anti-lynching campaign. At the time, it was the largest gift the ten year old organization had ever received. Madam Walker's will stipulated that Villa Lewaro should be donated to the NAACP after her daughter's death. But when A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 in the midst of the Depression, the NAACP declined the house because of the upkeep and taxes. Instead, the small proceeds from the sale to Annie Poth were donated to the NAACP. Several generations of the Walker family continue the business she established. To raise money for the organization during the Depression period in the 1930's, the NAACP sold the Villa Lewaro in 1932 to a fraternal organization, the Companions of the Forest in America. In 1950 the building housed the Annie Poth Home for the Aged. In 1976, Villa Lewaro was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Among the other properties left by the manufacturess is a five-story million dollar plant in Indianapolis, The Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company Building. The block-square building also houses a Greek-style theater, lunchroom, drugstore, beauty parlor, and private offices. The Madam Walker Building, which was completed in 1927 and is a National Historic Landmark, is now called the Madam Walker Theatre Center. The 944-seat theatre features an Egyptian and Moroccan motif. At one time it housed a restaurant, drugstore, the Walker factory, a barber shop and organizational and professional offices. Today it is a cultural arts center and houses a beauty salon and organizational and professional offices.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 6:46 am
February 11: 1961 Robert Weaver sworn in as administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, highest federal post to date by a Black American. 1976 Clifford Alexander Jr. confirmed as the first black secretary of the United States Army. 1990 Nelson Mandela is released from a South African prison after being detained for 27 years as a political prisoner.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 6:50 am
Carter G Woodson
"Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history." These are the words of Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, distinguished Black author, editor, publisher, and historian (December 1875 - April 1950). Carter G. Woodson believed that Blacks should know their past in order to participate intelligently in the affairs in our country. He strongly believed that Black history - which others have tried so diligently to erase - is a firm foundation for young Black Americans to build on in order to become productive citizens of our society. Known as the "Father of Black History," Carter G. Woodson holds an outstanding position in early 20th century American history. Woodson authored numerous scholarly books on the positive contributions of Blacks to the development of America. He also published many magazine articles analyzing the contributions and role of Black Americans. He reached out to schools and the general public through the establishment of several key organizations and founded Negro History Week (precursor to Black History Month). His message was that Blacks should be proud of their heritage and that other Americans should also understand it. Carter G. Woodson was born in New Canton, Buckingham County, Virginia, to former slaves Anne Eliza (Riddle) and James Henry Woodson. Although his parents could neither read nor write, Carter G. Woodson credits his father for influencing the course of his life. His father, he later wrote, insisted that "learning to accept insult, to compromise on principle, to mislead your fellow man, or to betray your people, is to lose your soul." His father supported the family on his earnings as a carpenter. As one of a large and poor family, young Carter G. Woodson was brought up without the "ordinary comforts of life." He was not able to attend school during much of its five-month term because helping on the farm took priority over a formal education. Determined not to be defeated by this setback, Carter was able "largely by self-instruction to master the fundamentals of common school subjects by the time he was seventeen." Ambitious for more education, Carter and his brother Robert Henry moved to Huntington, West Virginia, where they hoped to attend the Douglass High School. However, Carter was forced to earn his living as a miner in Fayette County coal fields and was able to devote only a few months each year to his schooling. In 1895, a twenty-year-old Carter entered Douglass High School, where he received his diploma in less than two years. From 1897 to 1900, Carter G. Woodson began teaching in Winona, Fayette County. In 1900, he returned to Huntington to become the principal of Douglass H.S.; he finally received his Bachelor of Literature degree from Berea College, Kentucky. From 1903 to 1907, he was a school supervisor in the Philippines. Later he traveled throughout Europe and Asia and studied at the Sorbonne University in Paris. In 1908, he received his M.A. from the University of Chicago, and in 1912, he received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. During his lifetime, Dr. Woodson developed an important philosophy of history. History, he insisted, was not the mere gathering of facts. The object of historical study is to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of the facts. History is more than political and military records of peoples and nations. It must include some description of the social conditions of the period being studied. Woodson's work endures in the institutions and activities he founded and promoted. In 1915, he and several friends in Chicago established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The following year, the Journal of Negro History appeared, one of the oldest learned journals in the United States. In 1926, he developed Negro History Week and in 1937 published the first issue of the Negro History Bulletin. Dr. Woodson often said that he hoped the time would come when Negro History Week would be unnecessary; when all Americans would willingly recognize the contributions of Black Americans as a legitimate and integral part of the history of this country. Dr. Woodson's outstanding historical research influenced others to carry on his work. Among these have been such noted historians as John Hope Franklin, Charles Wesley, and Benjamin Quarles. Whether it's called Black history, Negro history, Afro-American history, or African American history, his philosophy has made the study of Black history a legitimate and acceptable area of intellectual inquiry. Dr. Woodson's concept has given a profound sense of dignity to all Black Americans.
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Mocha
Member
08-12-2001
| Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 11:05 am
BLACK WALLSTREET It's an important part of history that every Black person should know, if they don't know already. Ron Wallace: co-author of Black Wallstreet: A Lost Dream Chronicles a little-known chapter of African-American History in Oklahoma as told to Ronald E. Childs. If anyone truly believes that the last April attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was the most tragic bombing ever to take place on United States soil, as the media has been widely reporting, they're wrong-plain and simple. That's because an even deadlier bomb occurred in that same state nearly 75 years ago. Many people in high places would like to forget that it ever happened. Searching under the heading of "riots," "Oklahoma" and "Tulsa" in current editions of the World Book Encyclopedia, there is conspicuously no mention whatsoever of the Tulsa race riot of 1921, and this omission is by no means a surprise, or a rare case. The fact is, one would also be hard-pressed to find documentation of the incident, let alone an accurate accounting of it, in any other "scholarly" reference or American history book. That's precisely the point that noted author, publisher and orator Ron Wallace, a Tulsa native, sought to make nearly five years ago when he began researching this riot, one of the worst incidents of violence ever visited upon people of African descent. Ultimately joined on the project by colleague Jay Jay Wilson of Los Angeles, the duo found and compiled indisputable evidence of what they now describe as "A Black Holocaust in America." The date was June 1, 1921, when "Black Wallstreet," the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving 36-black business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering-A model community destroyed, and a major Africa-American economic movement resoundingly defused. The night's carnage left some 3,000 African Americans dead, and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half-dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As could be expected, the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials, and many other sympathizers. In their self-published book, Black Wallstreet: A lost Dream, and its companion video documentary, Black Wallstreet: A Black Holocaust in America!, the authors have chronicled for the very first time in the words of area historians and elderly survivors what really happened there on that fateful summer day in 1921 and why it happened. Wallace similarly explained to Black Elegance why this bloody event from the turn of the century seems to have had a recurring effect that is being felt in predominately Black neighborhoods even to this day. The best description of Black Wallstreet, or Little Africa as it was also known, would be to liken it to a mini-Beverly Hills. It was the golden door of the Black community during the early 1900s, and it proved that African Americans had successful infrastructure. That's what Black Wallstreet was about. The dollar circulated 36 to 1000 times, sometimes taking a year for currency to leave the community. Now in 1995, a dollar leaves the Black community in 15 minutes. As far as resources, there were Ph.D's residing in Little Africa, Black attorneys and doctors. One doctor was Dr. Berry who also owned the bus system. His average income was $500 a day, a hefty pocket of change in 1910. During that era, physicians owned medical schools. There were also pawn shops everywhere, brothels, jewelry stores, 21 churches, 21 restaurants and two movie theaters. It was a time when the entire state of Oklahoma had only two airports, yet six blacks owned their own planes. It was a very fascinating community. The area encompassed over 600 businesses and 36 square blocks with a population of 15,000 African Americans. And when the lower-economic Europeans looked over and saw what the Black community created, many of them were jealous. When the average student went to school on Black Wallstreet, he wore a suit and tie because of the morals and respect they were taught at a young age. The mainstay of the community was to educate every child. Nepotism was the one word they believed in. And that's what we need to get back to in 1995. The main thoroughfare was Greenwood Avenue, and it was intersected by Archer and Pine Streets. From the first letters in each of those names, you get G.A.P., and that's where the renowned R&B music group The GAP Band got its name. They're from Tulsa. Black Wallstreet was a prime example of the typical Black community in America that did business, but it was in an unusual location. You see, at the time, Oklahoma was set aside to be a Black and Indian state. There were over 28 Black townships there. One third of the people who traveled in the terrifying "Trail of Tears" along side the Indians between 1830 to 1842 were Black people. The citizens of this proposed Indian and Black state chose a Black governor, a treasurer from Kansas named McDade. But the Ku Klux Klan said that if he assumed office that they would kill him within 48 hours. A lot of Blacks owned farmland, and many of them had gone into the oil business. The community was so tight and wealthy because they traded dollars hand-to-hand, and because they were dependent upon one another as a result of the Jim Crow laws. It was not unusual that if a resident's home accidentally burned down, it could be rebuilt within a few weeks by neighbors. This was the type of scenario that was going on day-to-day on Black Wallstreet. When Blacks intermarried into the Indian culture, some of them received their promised '40 acres and a Mule,' and with that came whatever oil was later found on the properties. Just to show you how wealthy a lot of Black people were, there was a banker in a neighboring town who had a wife named California Taylor. Her father owned the largest cotton gin west of the Mississippi [River]. When California shopped, she would take a cruise to Paris every three months to have her clothes made. There was also a man named Mason in nearby Wagner County who had the largest potato farm west of the Mississippi. When he harvested, he would fill 100 boxcars a day. Another brother not far away had the same thing with a spinach farm. The typical family then was five children or more, though the typical farm family would have 10 kids or more who made up the nucleus of the labor. On Black Wallstreet, a lot of global business was conducted. The community flourished from the early 1900s until June 1, 1921. That's when the largest massacre of non-military Americans in the history of this country took place, and it was lead by the Ku Klux Klan. Imagine walking out of your front door and seeing 1,500 homes being burned. It must have been amazing. Survivors we interviewed think that the whole thing was planned because during the time that all of this was going on, white families with their children stood around on the borders of the community and watched the massacre, the looting and everything---much in the same manner they would watch a lynching. In my lectures I ask people if they understand where the word "picnic" comes from. It was typical to have a picnic on a Friday evening in Oklahoma. The word was short for "pick a nigger" to lynch. They would lynch a Black male and cut off body parts as souvenirs. This went on every weekend in this country. That's where the term really came from. The riots weren't caused by anything Black or white. It was caused by jealousy. A lot of white folks had come back from World War I and they were poor. When they looked over into the Black communities and realized that Black men who fought in the war had come home heroes that helped trigger the destruction. It cost the Black community everything, and not a single dime of restitution---no insurance claims-has been awarded to the victims to this day. Nonetheless, they rebuilt. We estimate that 1,500 to 3,000 people were killed, and we know that a lot of them were buried in mass graves all around the city. Some were thrown in the river. As a matter of fact, at 21st Street and Yale Avenue, where there now stands a Sears parking lot, that corner used to be a coal mine. They threw a lot of the bodies into the shafts. Black Americans don't know about this story because we don't apply the word holocaust to our struggle. Jewish people use the word holocaust all the time. White people use the word holocaust. It's politically correct to use it. But when we Black folks use the word, people think we're being cry babies or that we're trying to bring up old issues. No one comes to our support. In 1910, our forefathers and mothers owned 13 million acres of land at the height of racism in this country, so the Black Wallstreet book and videotape prove to the naysayers and revisionists that we had our act together. Our mandate now is to begin to teach our children about our own, ongoing Black holocaust. They have to know when they look at our communities today that we don't come from this. link
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 7:40 am
February 12: 1793 First fugitive slave law enacted by Congress. The measure made it a criminal offense to harbor a fugitive slave or prevent his arrest. 1865 Henry Highland Garnet, first black to speak in the Capitol, delivered memorial sermon on the abolition of slavery at services in the House of Representatives. 1900 For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson writes the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing". With music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung by 500 children in Jacksonville, Fla. It will become known as the "Negro National Anthem". 1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. The call for the organizational meeting was issued on 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth by 47 whites and six blacks. 1948 First Lt. Nancy C. Leftneant became the first black accepted in the regular Army Nursing Corps.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Thursday, February 12, 2004 - 7:45 am
Crispus Attucks (1723?-1770)
Introduction Historian George W. Williams in History of the Negro Race in America described the Boston Massacre as "the bloody drama that opened the most eventful and thrilling chapter in American history." Neither a soldier nor a leading town citizen proved the hero of that pre-Revolutionary War struggle. Instead, the first of five men to die in the massacre was a runaway slave turned sailor, Crispus Attucks. His death has forever linked his name with the cause of freedom. Narrative Essay Historians know little about Attucks, and they have constructed accounts of his life more from speculation than facts. Most documents described his ancestry as African and American Indian. His father, Prince Yonger, is thought to have been a slave brought to America from Africa and that his mother, Nancy Attucks, was a Natick Indian. Researcher Bill Belton identified Attucks as a direct descendent of John Attucks, an Indian executed for treason in 1676 during the King Philip War. The family, which may have included an older sister named Phebe, lived in Framingham, Massachusetts. Apparently, young Attucks developed a longing for freedom at an early age. According to The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, historians believe that an advertisement placed in the Boston Gazette on October 2, 1750, referred to him: "Ran away from his Master William Brown from Framingham, on the 30th of Sept. last, a Molatto Fellow, about 27 Years of age, named Crispas, 6 Feet two Inches high, short curl'd Hair, his Knees nearer together than common: had on a light colour'd Bearskin Coat." The owner offered a reward of ten pounds for the return of the slave and warned ship captains against giving him refuge. George Washington Williams noted that the advertisement appeared again on November 13 and November 20. Biographers surveyed that Attucks escaped to Nantucket, Massachusetts, and sailed as a harpoonist on a whaling ship. Historians definitely place Attucks in Boston in March of 1770. While in Boston, probably awaiting passage on a ship to the Carolinas, he found a job as a dockworker. Some writers proposed that he was using the name Michael Johnson. Assuming that the Boston Gazette advertisement did refer to him, he would have been about 47-years old. Boston Massacre By 1770 Boston had become "a storm center of brewing revolt," according to Benjamin Quarles in The Negro in the American Revolution. The British had stationed two regiments in the city following protests by the colonists against unfair taxes. Citizens welcomed neither the troops walking the streets nor the two canons aiming directly at the town hall. Describing the setting, historian John Fiske explained in Unpublished Orations that "the soldiers did many things that greatly annoyed the people. They led brawling, riotous lives, and made the quiet streets hideous by night with their drunken shouts. ... On Sundays the soldiers would race horses on the Common, or would play `Yankee Doodle' just outside the church-doors during the services." As tensions mounted, the atmosphere grew ripe for confrontation. Fiske pointed out that during February of 1870, "an unusual number of personal encounters" had occurred, including the killing of a young boy. Regarding the evening of March 5, 1770, he explained, "Accounts of what happened are as disorderly and conflicting as the incidents which they try to relate." A barber's apprentice chided a British soldier for walking away without paying for his haircut. The soldier struck the boy, and news of the offense spread quickly. Groups of angry citizens gathered in various places around town. Someone rang the church bell and such a summons usually meant that a fire had broken out. This night, however, it presaged an explosive situation between the soldiers and the townspeople. Captain Thomas Preston called his Twenty-ninth Regiment to duty. Townspeople began pelting the troops with snowballs. From the dock area, a group of men, led by the towering figure of Attucks, entered King Street, armed with clubs. Some accounts maintained that Attucks struck soldier Hugh Montgomery. Others, for example, John Fiske, stated that he was "leaning upon a stick" when the soldiers opened fire. However the incident occurred, Attucks lay dead, his body pierced by two bullets. Ropemaker Samuel Gray and sailor James Caldwell also died in the incident. Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old joiner's apprentice, died the next day. Irish leather worker Patrick Carr died nine days later, and six others were wounded. Citizens immediately demanded the withdrawal of British troops. Fiske noted in Unpublished Orations that the deaths of these men "effected in a moment what 17 months of petition and discussion had failed to accomplish." John Adams reluctantly agreed to defend the British soldiers, two of whom were charged with manslaughter and branded. At the trial, Adams focused on Attucks, portraying him as a rabble-rouser. Because of accounts given at the trial, some historians have questioned the motives of the massacred men. Fiske evaluated that although we cannot know their motives, "we may fairly suppose them to have been actuated by the same feelings toward the soldiery that animated Adams and Warren and the patriots of Boston in general." Boston Honors The town's response to the murders expressed the significance of the sacrifices these men made. The bodies of Attucks and Caldwell lay in state at Faneuil Hall; those of Gray and Maverick lay in their homes. For the funeral service, shops closed, bells rang, and thousands of citizens from all walks of life formed a long procession, six people deep, to the Old Granary Burial Ground where the bodies were committed to a common grave. Until the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Boston commemorated their deaths on March 5, "Crispus Attucks Day." According to Ted Stewart in Sepia, Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips stated on the first such occasion, "I place...this Crispus Attucks in the foremost rank of the men that dared." Through the years, people have remembered Attucks in a variety of ways. Paul Revere created a woodcut of the incident, and the National Archives housed a painting by noted New England artist Benjamin Champney depicting the event. Negro military companies took the name Attucks Guards. Poets dedicated works to his memory, and communities named schools after him. In 1888 Boston erected a monument to the heroes of the massacre which James Neyland in Crispus Attucks called "the first ever to be paid for by public funds" in Massachusetts. City officials had rejected earlier petitions for such a monument. Even in 1888, various Boston factions heatedly debated the appropriateness of this gesture. At the unveiling, speaker John Fiske called the Boston Massacre "one of the most significant and impressive events in the noble struggle in which our forefathers succeeded in vindicating, for themselves and their posterity, the sacred right of self-government." In his 1995 biography, James Neyland wrote about Attucks: "He is one of the most important figures in African-American history, not for what he did for his own race but for what he did for all oppressed people everywhere. He is a reminder that the African-American heritage is not only African but American and it is a heritage that begins with the beginning of America." Although obscure in life, Attucks played an important role in U.S. history through his death. Bill Belton in the Negro History Bulletin contended that the name of Crispus Attucks will stand "forever linked to the birth of this nation and its dream of freedom, justice, and equality." Africawithin Biography
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 7:17 am
February 13: 1892 The first African American performers, the World's Fair Colored Opera Company, appear at Carnegie Hall. 1907 Wendell P. Dabney establishes The Union. The Cincinnati, Ohio paper's motto is "For no people can become great without being united, for in union there is strength." 1923 The first Black professional basketball team "The Renaissance" organized. 1957 Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized at New Orleans meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. as president. 1970 The New York Stock Exchange admits its first Black member, Joseph Searles.
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 7:50 am
This is a nice slide show presentation: Black History Presentation
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 8:03 am
John Mercer Langston
The only African American of the 19th century that was more prominent and influential than John Mercer Langston was Frederick Douglass. John Mercer Langston was the first Black American elected to public office in the United States and was twice suggested as a candidate for vice-president of the United States on the republican ticket. During his lifetime, Langston's career would involve education, law and politics. John Mercer Langston was born free in 1829 and was an orphan by his fifth birthday. As an orphan, Langston was raised in both black and white households. By the age of fourteen, Langston began study at Oberlin College where he obtained both a Bachelors and Master of Arts degree. He began to involve himself in the black rights movement when, in 1848, at the invitation of Frederick Douglas, he spoke at the National Black Convention in Cleveland, condemning those who refused to help fugitive slaves. Denied entry into Law School, he read law under Philemon Bliss of Elyria, Ohio and passed the Bar in 1854, becoming the first black Lawyer in Ohio. Langston's interest and commitment to black freedom continued to flourish. With the aid of his brothers Gideon and Charles, Langston organized antislavery societies at both the state and local level. He also helped runaway slaves to escape along the Ohio section of the Underground Railroad. Langston's public addresses about social reform were broad and included appeals for women's rights and temperance. Langston married Caroline Wall, a senior in the literary department at Oberlin, settled in Brownhelm, OH and established a law practice. He quickly involved himself in town matters and won election to the post of Town Clerk and allied himself with the Republican Party as was common among Blacks in the 19th century. He was once quoted as saying, "if the republican party is not anti-slavery enough, take hold of it and make it so." He is credited with helping to steer the Ohio Republican party towards its strong antislavery position. Langston moved to Oberlin in 1856 where he again involved himself in town government. In 1864 he was selected by the Black National Convention to lead the National Equal Rights League. Langston carried out extensive suffrage campaigns in Ohio, Kansas and Missouri. From 1865 - 1867 he served as a city councilman and from 1867-1868 he served on the Board of Education. Langston is given credit for shaping the character of the Republican party in the 19th century in terms of its then progressive relationship to African Americans. He was responsible for organizing black political clubs across the country. As a result of his political contacts Langston was chosen to lead the western recruitment of black soldiers to fight in the Civil War. He also actively worked for the fair and equal treatment of black soldiers in the Union Army. After the Civil War, Langston worked both independently and with the Republican Party for the redistribution of wealth and power in the country. Both before and after the Civil War along with many others, he struggled for black voting rights. Langston spent six and a half years at Howard University where he served as a Law professor, Dean of the Law Department, vice-president and acting president. The white conservative trustee board of Howard University had problems with his progressive views and were troubled with Langston's desire to expand the Law Department. Langston knew that the life of the Blacks in this country could be changed if laws were changed. The trustees forced him out of Howard, but the entire Law Department resigned in protest of the actions of the board of trustees. Langston was appointed to the diplomatic corps and served in Haiti for eight years. He left in protest when the new democratic administration reduced his salary by 30%. Langston ran for Congress in the state of Virginia and won. He fought an eighteen month battle to be seated in congress because of attempts to rig the polls on election day. After serving in Congress for only a few months (because of the attempt to steal his seat), he was unseated in the next election. He died in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 15, 1897. The town of Langston, Okla., home of Langston University, is named after him. Bright Moments Biography Afro-American Almanac Biography
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 8:08 am
Essence, that is an AWESOME slide show presentation! Thanks for finding and posting that link.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 11:03 pm
Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional career. Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation's strongest voice for children and families. The mission of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind® and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life with the support of caring families and communities. Mrs. Edelman, a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People's March that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., began organizing before his death. She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children's Defense Fund. For two years she served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in 1973 began CDF. Mrs. Edelman served on the Board of Trustees of Spelman College, which she chaired from 1976 to 1987, and was the first woman elected by alumni as a member of the Yale University Corporation on which she served from 1971 to 1977. She has received many honorary degrees and awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, and a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship. In 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, which include seven books: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours; Guide My Feet: Meditations and Prayers on Loving and Working for Children; a children's book titled Stand for Children; Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, Hold My Hand: Prayers for Building a Movement to Leave No Child Behind; and recently published in 2002, I'm Your Child, God: Prayers for Children. She is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, the Association to Benefit Children, City Lights School, and Outward Bound, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Marian Wright Edelman is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown Law School. They have three sons, Joshua, Jonah, and Ezra, and one granddaughter, Ellika. Children Defense Biography History Makers Biography
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 11:20 pm
Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, 1859-1930 LINK was a multifaceted figure, who, at one time or another during her wide-ranging career, was a playwright, journalist, novelist, short story writer, biographer, and editor. She is, perhaps, best remembered as a pioneer in the use of the traditional literary form of the romantic novel as a means to explore and challenge prevailing racial and gender representations that were foremost in the minds of middle-class African Americans in the early part of the twentieth century. In addition, during her tenure at the Colored American Magazine -- one of the first major literary magazines targeted at a largely African American audience -- she is credited with laying the groundwork for the evolving African American literary style that would later become associated with the literati of the Harlem Renaissance. She has been characterized as "the most prolific African American woman writer and the most influential literary editor of the first decade of the twentieth century" (Gruesser 1996). Hopkins was born in 1859 in Portland, Maine, but was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, by her parents Northrup Hopkins and Sarah Allen. Her skill as a writer gained recognition in 1874, when, at the age of fifteen, she received first prize in a contest for her essay titled "Evils of Intemperance and Their Remedy." At the age of twenty, she completed her first play, Slaves' Escape; or, the Underground Railroad, which was later performed in a stage production and renamed Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad. From 1900 until 1904, she served as writer and editor-in-chief for Colored American Magazine (CAM). Understanding the power of the written word, Hopkins used the magazine as a forum to correct those aspects of American history which excluded or misrepresented the contributions of African Americans. Two series were published that presented biographical sketches of African American women and men of note: "Famous Women of the Negro Race" and "Famous Men of the Negro Race." During this period, Hopkins also wrote a number of short stories and essays that appeared in CAM. Her first novel, Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South was published in 1900. [It's a really great book!] Hopkins's association with CAM ended in 1904 when an ally of Booker T. Washington's, who disliked her editorial perspectives and "unconciliatory politics," "bought the magazine and fired her" (p.ix). Although Hopkins did continue to write, and served as editor of the New Era Magazine in 1916, her literary productivity declined sharply after 1905. From all accounts, she was employed as a stenographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time of her death in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1930. It was not until the mid-1980s, when scholars began to rediscover Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, that her literary achievements received serious attention. In 1988, Oxford University Press reprinted all of her novels and most of her short stories in its Schomberg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers series, which was edited by Henry Louis Gates.
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Tishala
Member
08-01-2000
| Friday, February 13, 2004 - 11:24 pm
Audre Lorde Audre Geraldine Lorde was a critically acclaimed novelist, poet and essayist. She was born on February 18, 1924 in Harlem and died on November 17, 1992. Her parents were immigrants from Granada who seemed to continually plan to return to the Caribbean throughout most of Lorde's childhood. Lorde recalled that as a child, she spoke in poetry. When she couldn't find existing poems that expressed her feelings, she began to write poems at age twelve or thirteen. She attended Hunter College High School and then supported herself with low paying jobs. Her first lesbian affair was with a coworker at a factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She attended the National University of Mexico for a year, starting in 1954. Upon her return, she entered the "gay girl" scene in Greenwich Village but was often the only Black woman in the bars. She recalled that she did not try to build ties to the other three or four Black women in the scene as it seemed to threaten their status as exotic outsiders. She began to study at Hunter College, worked as a librarian, and, of course, wrote poetry. She attempted to join the Harlem Writers Guild but the overt homophobia of the group led her to leave. She received a BA in literature and philosophy from Hunter in 1959 and an MLS from Columbia University in 1960. For several years, she worked as a librarian in Mount Vernon and then New York City. In 1962, she married Edward Rollins, an attorney. They had two children but divorced in 1970. Lorde's first book of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. She spent six weeks as a writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. This was of great important to Lorde's life as she met Frances Clayton. From that point on, she and Frances shared their lives together. In New York, Lorde taught writing courses at City College and courses on racism at both Lehman College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Her second book of poetry, Cable to Rage, appeared in 1970. Neither it, nor The First Cities, contained any lesbian content. In 1971, Lorde publicly read a lesbian love poem for the first time. It was later published in Ms. Magazine but was rejected by her editor for inclusion in her third volume of poetry, From a Land Where Other People Live. This book was nominated for a National Book Award in 1974. The prize was awarded to her colleague, Adrienne Rich, but Rich indicated she accepted the award "not as an individual but in the name of all women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world" as part of a joint statement with Lorde and fellow nominee Alice Walker. Lorde's next volume of poetry, Coal, was published by W. W. Norton. Coal and its successor, The Black Unicorn, in 1978 was widely reviewed and reached a commercial audience. In 1980, Lorde published the autobiographical Cancer Journals, in which she courageously wrote about her mastectomy and her decision to pursue alternate treatment when the cancer recurred. Other works include Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) and Sister Outsider (1984). The latter is a collection of essays often included in the curriculum in women studies programs. Lorde was a cofounder of The Kitchen Table-Women of Color Press and an editor of the lesbian journal Chrysalis.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 4:21 pm
Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth)
BIRTHDATE: 1797 BIRTHPLACE: Ulster County, New York FAMILY BACKGROUND: Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. Her given name was Isabella Baumfree. She was one of 13 children born to slave parents. She spoke only Dutch until she was sold from her family around the age of eleven. Because of the cruel treatment she suffered at the hands of her new master she learned to speak English quickly, but would continue to speak with a Dutch accent for the rest of her life. DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS: She was sold several times and suffered many hardships under slavery, but her mother endowed her with a deep, unwavering Christian faith that carried her through these trials for her entire life. Forced to submit to the will of her third master, John Dumont, Isabella married an older slave named Thomas. Thomas and Isabella had five children. She stayed on the Dumont farm until a few months before the state of New York ended slavery in 1828. Dumont had promised Isabella freedom a year before the state emancipation. When Dumont reneged on his promise, Isabella ran away with her infant son. Isabella eventually settled in New York City, working as a domestic for several religious communes. One, known as the "Kingdom of Matthias", became involved in a scandal of adultery and murder. In 1843, Isabella was inspired by a spiritual revelation that would forever change her life. Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and walked through Long Island and Connecticut, preaching "God's truth and plan for salvation." After months of travel, she arrived in Northampton, MA, and joined the utopian community "The Northampton Association for Education and Industry, "where she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and Olive Gilbert. Her dictated memoirs were published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. She eventually added abolitionism and women's suffrage to her oratory, often giving personal testimony about her experiences as a slave. In 1851, she spoke at a women's covention in Akron, Ohio. The legendary phrase, "Ain't I a Woman?" was associated with Truth after this speech. After the Civil War ended, she worked tirelessly to aid the newly-freed southern slaves. She even attempted to petition Congress to give the ex-slaves land in the "new West." Truth continued preaching and lecturing until ill health forced her to retire. DATE OF DEATH: November 1883 PLACE OF DEATH: Battle Creek, Michigan Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman? Delivered 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say. Biography Narrative of Sojourner Truth Modern History Sourcebook
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Essence
Member
01-12-2002
| Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 8:33 pm
February 14: 1867 Morehouse College organized in Augusta, Georgia. The institution was later moved to Atlanta. 1951 Sugar Ray Robinson won the World Middleweight Championship, by scoring a thirteenth round technical knock out over Jake Lamotta. 1993 Alex Haley's "Queen", the final saga of his ancestry debuts on CBS. Unfortunately Mr. Haley died before this project was completed. He died almost a year prior to the airing of the show February 15: 1804 The New Jersey Legislature approved a law calling for "gradual" emancipation of African Americans. In so doing, New Jersey became the last Northern state to outlaw slavery. 1848 Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school integration suit on her behalf. 1851 Black abolitionists invaded Boston courtroom and rescued a fugitive slave. 1964 Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly", became number one on Bill Board, replacing the number one record by the Beatles "I want to Hold Your Hand". 1968 On this day Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a symphony orchestra in the United States.
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Ladytex
Member
09-27-2001
| Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 8:50 pm
Denmark Vesey (1767-1822), an African American who fought to liberate his people from slavery, planned an abortive slave insurrection. Denmark Vesey, whose original name was Telemanque, was born in West Africa. As a youth, he was captured, sold as a slave, and brought to America. In 1781 he came to the attention of a slaver, Capt. Vesey, who was "struck with the beauty, alertness, and intelligence" of the boy. Vesey, a resident of Charleston, S.C., acquired the boy. The captain had "no occasion to repent" his purchase of Denmark, who "proved for 20 years a most faithful slave." In 1800 Vesey won a $1,500 lottery prize, with which he purchased his freedom and opened a carpentry shop. Soon this highly skilled artisan became "distinguished for [his] great strength and activity. Among his color he was always looked up to with awe and respect" by both black and white Americans. He acquired property and became prosperous. Nevertheless, Vesey was not content with his relatively successful life. He hated slavery and slaveholders. This brilliant man versed himself in all the available antislavery arguments and spoke out against the abuse and exploitation of his own people. Believing in equality for everyone and vowing never to rest until his people were free, he became the political provocateur, agitating and moving his brethren to resist their enslavement. Selecting a cadre of exceptional lieutenants, Vesey began organizing the black community in and around Charleston to revolt. He developed a very sophisticated scheme to carry out his plan. The conspiracy included over 9,000 slaves and "free" blacks in Charleston and on the neighboring plantations. The revolt, which was scheduled to occur on July 14, 1822, was betrayed before it could be put into effect. As rumors of the plot spread, Charleston was thrown into a panic. Leaders of the plot were rounded up. Vesey and 46 other were condemned, and even four whites were implicated in the revolt. On June 23 Vesey was hanged on the gallows for plotting to overthrow slavery. After careful examination of the historical record, the judgment of Sterling Stuckey remains valid: "Vesey's example must be regarded as one of the most courageous ever to threaten the racist foundations of America.... He stands today, as he stood yesterday ... as an awesome projection of the possibilities for militant action on the part of a people who have for centuries been made to bow down in fear." Gale Group bio Africa Within bio
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