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Archive through February 10, 2004

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2004 Nov. - 2005 Jan.: Black History (ARCHIVES): Archive through February 10, 2004 users admin

Author Message
Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 10:22 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I love that poem, Reiki, thanks for finding and posting that.

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Tuesday, February 03, 2004 - 11:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I had the great fortune of having Sonia Sanchez as aprofessor several years ago. She's been an important poet for many years. Here is her biography and one of her poems.

Poetry has offered Sonia Sanchez a place of refuge and expression in an uncertain world. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 9, 1934, Sanchez's mother died a year later, leaving the young girl to be raised by her paternal grandmother.

Sanchez's grandmother unlocked her gift for poetry. At age four, she learned to read, and by the age of six Sanchez began to write. But soon after, her grandmother died and Sanchez drifted between relatives and family friends. She spent three decades in Harlem and studied creative writing at Hunter College, where she graduated in 1955. Sanchez counted the negritude poets among her artistic influences but also found inspiration from her work as an activist with CORE in New York. There, she came into contact with Malcolm X, whose direct truthfulness moved Sanchez to write blunt, passionate and painfully honest poetry about the African American experience.

In 1976, Sanchez settled in Philadelphia and the following year became chairperson of the English Department at Temple University. During her career, Sanchez has written several books and collections of poetry that captured, often with wrenching emotion, the plight of her community. She found herself profoundly affected by the 1985 bombing of a house full of black political radicals affiliated with MOVE and eulogized them in Elegy: For Move and Philadelphia. Her 1984 book homegirls and handgrenades won the American Book Award the following year. Some of her other noteworthy works include Under a Soprano Sky (1987), Wounded in the House of a Friend (1997) and Shake Loose My Skin (2000).

Sanchez has received several awards for her work both as a poet and an activist. She has traveled around the world to read her poetry, and also writes children's fiction and plays. Sonia Sanchez lives in Philadelphia.

under a soprano sky

1.

once i lived on pillars in a green house
boarded by lilacs that rocked voices into weeds.
i bled an owl’s blood
shredding the grass until i
rocked in a choir of worms.
obscene with hands, i wooed the world
with thumbs
while yo-yos hummed.
was it an unborn lacquer i peeled?
the woods, tall as waves, sang in mixed
tongues that loosened the scalp
and my bones wrapped in white dust
returned to echo in my thighs.

i hear a pulse wandering somewhere
on vague embankments.
O are my hands breathing? I cannot smell the nerves.
i saw the sun
ripening green stones for fields.
O have my eyes run down? i cannot taste my birth.

2.

now as i move, mouth quivering with silks
my skin runs soft with eyes.
descending into my legs, i follow obscure birds
purchasing orthopedic wings.
the air is late this summer.

i peel the spine and flood
the earth with adolescence.
O who will pump these breasts? I cannot waltz my tongue.

under a soprano sky, a woman sings,
lovely as chandeliers.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 7:03 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 4:

1913 - Rosa Parks was born on this day in Tuskegee, Alabama. She will become a seamstress, but she will change history when she is arrested for not giving her seat on the bus to a white man, thus triggering the Montgomery Bus Boycott". She is often referred to as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement".

1986 - U.S. Postal Service issues a commemorative stamp in honor of Sojourner Truth. This is the ninth stamp issued in the "Black Heritage" series.

1996 - J. C. Watts becomes the first Black selected to respond to a State of the Union Address.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 8:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Malcolm X

Malcolm X, original name MALCOLM LITTLE, Muslim name EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZ (b. May 19, 1925, Omaha, Neb., U.S.--d. Feb. 21, 1965, New York, N.Y.), black militant leader who articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s. After his assassination, the widespread distribution of his life story--The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)--made him an ideological hero, especially among black youth.

Growing up in Lansing, Mich., Malcolm saw his house burned down at the hands of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan. Two years later his father was murdered, and Malcolm's mother was subsequently placed in a mental institution. Malcolm spent the following years in detention homes, and in his early teens he moved to Boston to live with his sister. In 1946, while in prison for burglary, he was converted to the Black Muslim faith ( Nation of Islam); this sect professed the superiority of black people and the inherent evil of whites. Released from prison in 1952, Malcolm went to Nation of Islam headquarters in Chicago, met the sect's leader, Elijah Muhammad, and embraced its rigorous asceticism. He changed his last name to "X," a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.

Malcolm X was sent on speaking tours around the country and soon became the most effective speaker and organizer for the Nation of Islam. He founded many new mosques and greatly increased the movement's membership. In 1961 he founded Muhammad Speaks, the official publication of the movement. He was eventually assigned to be minister of the important Mosque Number Seven in New York City's Harlem area.

Speaking with bitter eloquence against the white exploitation of black people, Malcolm developed a brilliant platform style, which soon won him a large and dedicated following. He derided the civil-rights movement and rejected both integration and racial equality, calling instead for black separatism, black pride, and black self-dependence. Because he advocated the use of violence (for self-protection) and appeared to many to be a fanatic, his leadership was rejected by most civil-rights leaders, who emphasized nonviolent resistance to racial injustice.

Malcolm X described the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Nov. 22, 1963) as a "case of chickens coming home to roost"--an instance of the kind of violence that whites had long used against blacks. Malcolm's success had by this time aroused jealousy within the Black Muslim hierarchy, and, in response to his comments on the Kennedy assassination, Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm from the movement. In March 1964 Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and announced the formation of his own religious organization. As a result of a pilgrimage he took to Mecca in April 1964, he modified his views of black separatism, declaring that he no longer believed whites to be innately evil and acknowledging his vision of the possibility of world brotherhood. In October 1964 he reaffirmed his conversion to orthodox Islam.

Growing hostility between Malcolm's followers and the rival Black Muslims manifested itself in violence and threats against his life. He was shot to death at a rally of his followers at a Harlem ballroom. Three Black Muslims were convicted of the murder.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written by Alex Haley after he had conducted numerous interviews with Malcolm X shortly before the latter's death. The book was immediately recognized as a classic of black American autobiography.



Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 10:58 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Duke Ellington
the Duke
Biography and other resources

(1899-1974)

Bandleader, composer, pianist

To tell the story of Duke Ellington is to tell the story of jazz; to tell the story of his orchestra is to tell the story of his compositions. The man, the music, the life that he lived, the compositions that he wrote, and the orchestra that he fronted were one and the same. As jazz critic Ralph Gleason wrote in 1966, "the man is the music, the music is the man, and never have the two things been more true than they are for Ellington." Duke Ellington is one of the most important figures in the history and development of American music. Often referred to as the greatest single talent in the history of jazz (for many, the history of music), he was variously referred to as "The Aristocrat of Swing," "The King of Swing," and "The King of Jazz."

Biographical Essay
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C. The youngest of two children, his parents were James Edward "J.E." Ellington and Daisy Kennedy Ellington. His mother, a Washington, D.C., native, was a housewife; his father, a North Carolina native, was a butler, caterer, and finally a blueprint worker in the Navy Yard. His mother was a high school graduate and his father had an eighth grade education. Both were wellspoken however, and sought only the best for Duke and his sister Ruth. As Ellington recalled in his autobiography, Music is My Mistress, he was "pampered and pampered, and spoiled rotten as a child." He was almost an adult when his sister was born.

Both parents played the piano, the mother "by note" and the father "by ear." Duke Ellington began taking piano lessons at the age of seven, studying with a local piano teacher called Miss Clinkscales. Unofficially he was guided by pianists Oliver "Doc" Perry, Louis Brown, and Louis Thomas. Piano was not his recognized talent initially; he leaned to drawing and painting. The other interest was baseballseeing it played. As he wrote in his autobiography:

The only way for me to do that was to get a job at the baseball park... I had to walk around ... yelling, "Peanuts, popcorn, chewing gum, candy, cigars, cigarettes, and score cards!"... By the end of the season, I had been promoted to yelling, "Cold drinks, gents! Get `em ice cold!"
Other early employment included dishwashing at a hotel and soda jerking at the Poodle Dog Cafe. As a result of the latter employment, he wrote his first composition, "Soda Fountain Rag," which met with favorable approval. He was a student at Armstrong High School, but dropped out just three months short of graduation. Having won a poster contest sponsored by the NAACP in 1917, he was offered a scholarship by the Pratt Institute of Applied Art in Brooklyn, but turned it down in order to pursue music full time. Ellington received his diploma in 1971, long after he was the recipient of several honorary doctorates. "I needed this diploma more than anything else," he wrote in his autobiography.

One of his first professional jobs as a musician was playing for a half magic, half fortunetelling act. One individual was featured; Ellington was the backup, with the job of matching the featured artist's moods. Then he became relief pianist for the leading local pianist. According to Ellington in his autobiography:

I was beginning to catch on around Washington, and I finally built up so much of a reputation that I had to study music seriously to protect it. Doc Perry had really taught me to read, and he showed me a lot of things on the piano. Then when I wanted to study some harmony, I went to Henry Grant.
The nickname "Duke" was given to him even before high school. It was a childhood friend who noted Ellington's impeccable taste in dress, food, and lifestyle. He carried himself like one of means. He was a natural aristocrat, tall, debonair, and urbane, with a sophisticated manner at all times.

Forms First Band
Ellington formed his first band, The Duke's Serenaders, in 1917. The band's first job was at the True Reformers Hall in Washington, D.C. For five dollars a night (total), they played at dance halls and lodges. During the day, Ellington operated a sign and poster business. He also played with other bands, led by a contractor. When the contractor sent Ellington's band out on a job, one which paid $100, the contractor instructed Ellington to take $10 and bring him the remaining $90. Discovering this aspect of the business, within a short period, Ellington had assembled several bands and was supplying the city with "a band for any occasion."

Ellington also supplied bands for the wealthy in nearby Virginia. His personal earnings increased to $10,000 a year. He married his childhood sweetheart, Edna Thompson, in 1918. By age 20, Ellington was able to buy a house for his parents and purchase an automobile. Son Mercer, who in later years joined the band as trumpeter and road manager, was born in 1919.

The Duke's Serenadersa trio made up of Ellington on piano, Otto Hardwick on saxophone, and Sonny Greer on drumsmade its first trip to New York City in 1922, working with the clarinetist and leader Wilbur Sweatman. After a short while, they returned to Washington, not quite ready for the requirements of "the Big Apple." One year later, upon the suggestion of pianist Thomas "Fats" Waller, the trio, along with trumpeter Arthur Whetsol and banjoist Elmer Snowden, returned to New York City. This move brought an end to his marriage.

The fivepiece band worked under the name The Washingtonians 3 , originally under the leadership of Snowden. Ellington assumed the group's leadership in 1924 and expanded the number to nine. By the time the band moved to the Cotton Club in 1927, it had grown to 11 musicians. Nightly radio broadcasts enhanced the band's popularity throughout the country. Joel Dreyfuss of the Washington Post for May 25, 1974, wrote:

The Cotton Club was a perfect place for him to develop his skills as a composer. There were new stage shows frequently and Ellington was required to write fresh music to accompany the shows, dance routines and tableaux. His tenure at the Cotton club led to important recording contracts and between 1928 and 1931 he made more than one hundred and sixty recordings.
In 1929, the band played its first Broadway musical, Show Girl, and made the first of many films, Check and Double Check, in 1930. Other film appearances followed: Murder at the Vanities, Belle of the Nineties, A Day at the Races, Cabin in the Sky, and Reveille with Beverly.

Ellington began experimenting with extended compositions in 1931, with the writing of Creole Rhapsody. He inaugurated a series of annual concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City in January 1943. On this occasion, the band performed Ellington's monumental work Black, Brown and Beige. The annual Carnegie Hall concerts continued until 1955, with Ellington writing a new work for each occasion, including Liberian Suite, Harlem, Such Sweet Thunder, New World A Comin', and Deep South Suite. Written in 1963 for the Century of Negro Progress Exposition in Chicago was his "My People". There were five film scores provided by Ellington: Anatomy of a Murder, Paris Blues, Assault On a Queen, The Asphalt Jungle, and Change of Mind. In 1957 he wrote the score for the televisionshow production A Drum is A Woman (CBS). In 1970 he composed the ballet, The River, for Alvin Ailey and the American Ballet Theater.

Goodwill Ambassador
The band's first trip to Europe took place in 1933, followed by another in 1939. Foreign tours became more and more frequent: to the USSR, Japan, and Australia, with return visits to Europe. An entire section of Music is My Mistress is devoted to the 1963 State Department Tour, a trip that he referred to in the book as "one of the most unusual and adventurous" the band had ever taken.

Ellington worked 20 hour days and was referred to as "the busiest man in the business." Ellington wrote in the foreword of the piano version of his Sacred Concerts:

The incomparable Ellington Orchestra ... was the only musical aggregation in the world playing 52 weeks a year and rarely with a day off. ... Little wonder that President Nixon appointed the personable Dr. Duke Ellington official goodwill envoy for American music abroad.
Ellington rarely featured himself as a soloist, though he was an extremely capable pianist. Instead, he fed ideas to the band. Wrote musicologist Eileen Southern, "His music represented the collective achievement of his sidemen, with himself at the forefront rather than the sole originator of the creative impulse." Ellington's bands were unique. As jazz historian Dan Morgenstern indicated:

The development of Ellington's band followed that of jazz bands in general. His originality expressed itself in what he did with this format and instrumentation, which was to imbue it with an unprecedented richness of timbre, texture and expressiveness. ... Each member of the ensemble was an individual voice, each had a special gift, each contributed to the totality of what could be called an organism as well as an organization.
Gleason in Celebrating the Duke reminded us that:

Duke lived well. He came from a family that lived well. ...He traveled in the 30s on his tours of the United States not on a bus, but in two railroad cars. "That was the way the President traveled."
Duke himself reminded us:

It's a matter of whether you want to play music or make money. I guess I like to keep a band so that I can write and hear the music the next day. The way to do that is to pay the band and keep it on tap fiftytwo weeks a year. ... [B]y various little twists and turns, we manage to stay in business and make a musical profit. And a musical profit can put you way ahead of a financial loss.
The collection of instrumentalists playing Ellingtonia for close to half a century included Harold Baker, Sidney Bechet, Louis Bellson (the band's first white member), Barney Bigard, Jimmy Blanton, Lawrence Brown, Harry Carney, Wilbur DeParis, Mercer Ellington (Duke's son), Tyree Glenn, Sonny Greer, Jimmy Hamilton, Johnny Hodges, Ray Nance, Russell Procope, Elmer Snowden, Rex Stewart, Billy Strayhorn (Ellington's collaborator, protégé, and alter ego), Clark Terry, Ben Webster, and Cootie Williams.

Three Periods of Ellingtonia
Dreyfuss in the Washington Post for May 25, 1974, divided Ellingtonia into three periods: (1) the 1920s and 1930s, when he established his trademarkthe large orchestra with virtuoso instrumentalists, (2) the 1940s, when he reached a height of productivity and became a culture hero, and (3) the period following his appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956Ellington's most adventurous. This was the period when he concentrated on extended works, including a satirical suite for the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Connecticut; My People, which traced the history of blacks in America on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation; and his Sacred Concerts. The first of his sacred concerts was performed in 1965, at Grace Cathedral Church in San Francisco, California; the second, in 1968 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; and the third, on United Nations Day in 1973 at Westminster Abbey in London.

Ellington wrote in the introduction to the score Sacred Concerts Complete:

As I travel place to place by car, bus, train, plane ... taking rhythm to the dancers, harmony to the romantic, melody to the nostalgic, gratitude to the listener ... receiving praise, applause and handshakes, and at the same time, doing the thing I like to do, I feel that I am most fortunate because I know that God has blessed my timing. ... When a man feels that that which he enjoys in his life is only because of the grace of God, he rejoices, and sometimes dances.
Dreyfuss contended that Ellington's greatest contribution was perhaps "forcing the critical world to deal seriously with jazz as an art form." Most Ellington historians would concur with this assessment. Jazz journalist Leonard Feather wrote, "It is... Ellington ... of concert halls, cathedrals and festival sites around the world that deserves his longest life of all."

Ellington was deservedly honored during his lifetime. Recognition includes: the Spingarn Medal (NAACP, 1959); a gold medal from President Lyndon B. Johnson (1966); Grammy Awards (National Academy of Recording Arts and Science, 1968, 1969, 1973); National Association of Negro Musicians Award (1964); appointment to the National Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts (1968); Pied Piper Award (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, 1968); Presidential Medal of Freedom, President Richard M. Nixon (1969); Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1971); Down Beat Awards (Duke Ellington Band)First Place (1946, 1948, 1959, 1960, 1962-72); Esquire magazine (Duke Ellington Band), and the Gold Award (1945, 1946, 1947). He received honorary doctoral degrees from 16 institutions. In 1965 the Pulitzer music committee recommended Ellington for a special award, but the full Pulitzer committee turned down the recommendation.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington died at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center on May 24, 1974. He had cancer of both lungs and a week prior to his death developed pneumonia. After his death, Western High School in Washington, D.C., was renamed The Duke Ellington School for the Arts. The Calvert Street Bridge, also in the nation's capitol, was named The Duke Ellington Bridge. Streets, schools, art centers, and scholarships throughout the country have been named in his honor. The first of The International Duke Ellington Conferences was held in 1983, and continue annually. The U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp on April 29, 1986.

In 1988 the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington acquired more than 200,000 pages of documents reflecting his life and career, following more than three years of negotiation with the Ellington estate. The acquisition was made possible by a special $500,000 appropriation from Congress. Included were more than 3,000 original and orchestral compositions, 500 studio tapes, scrapbooks of world tours, more than 2,000 photographs, programs, posters, awards, citations, and medals. The American Masters series, focusing on the cultural contributions of prominent American artists, included a twopart documentary on the music and influence of Ellington. "A Duke Named Ellington" was aired on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) July 18 and 25, 1988. The 1943 Carnegie Hall debut of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra on January 23, 1943, was recreated in July 1989, Maurice Peres conducting, at Carnegie Hall.

Ellington excelled as a composer, pianist, and leader. He stood tall among his contemporaries and remains in that position more than two decades following his death. His instrument was his orchestra; together, they produced the epitome of sophisticated jazz for all others to emulate. The Duke is today a popular subject for conferences, dissertations, and biographies.


Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 6:57 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 5:

1958 Clifton R. Wharton Sr. confirmed as minister to Rumania. Career diplomat was the first Black to head a U.S. embassy in Europe.

1972 Bob Lewis Douglas, former owner and coach of the Harlem Renaissance Five basketball team is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1990 Columbia University graduate and Harvard University law student Barack Obabma became the first African American named president of the Harvard Law Review.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 7:05 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Bessie Coleman
bessiecoleman

byname of ELIZABETH COLEMAN (b. Jan. 26, 1893, Atlanta, Texas, U.S.--d. April 30, 1926, Jacksonville, Fla.), black American aviator, a star of early aviation exhibitions and air shows.
One of 13 children, Coleman grew up in Waxahatchie, Texas, where her mathematical aptitude freed her from working in the cotton fields. She attended college in Langston, Okla., briefly, then moved to Chicago, where she worked as a manicurist and restaurant manager and became interested in the then-new profession of aviation.

Discrimination thwarted Coleman's attempts to enter aviation schools in the United States. Undaunted, she learned French and at age 27 was accepted at the Caudron Brothers School of Aviation in Le Crotoy, France. Black philanthropists Robert Abbott, founder of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, a banker, assisted with her tuition. On June 15, 1921, she became the first American woman to obtain an international pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronitique Internationale. In further training in France, she specialized in stunt flying and parachuting; her exploits were captured on newsreel films. She returned to the United States, where racial and gender biases precluded her becoming a commercial pilot. Stunt flying, or barnstorming, was her only career option.

Coleman staged the first public flight in America by an African-American woman, on Labor Day, Sept. 3, 1922. She became a popular flier at aerial shows, though she refused to perform before segregated audiences in the South. Speaking at schools and churches, she encouraged blacks' interest in aviation; she also raised money to found a school to train black aviators. Before she could found her school, however, during a rehearsal for an aerial show, the plane carrying Coleman spun out of control, catapulting her 2,000 feet to her death.

For more information on Bessie Coleman click here...http://www.bessiecoleman.com/default.html


Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 7:53 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Charles Drew, M.D. (1904 - 1950)
Founder of American Red Cross Blood Program
charles drew

Charles Richard Drew, who was born in Washington, D.C. in 1904, received his medical degree from McGill University School of Medicine and continued his studies at Columbia University, where he wrote a thesis entitled Banked Blood. In 1940, Dr. Drew was asked to help administer the Blood Transformation Betterment Association in New York, which the Red Cross supported financially. The same year, he developed a system to produce plasma, separating it from the blood matter. In 1941, he became the first medical director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in the United States, which produced dried plasma that could be preserved longer than the liquid plasma. The pioneering medical work of Dr. Drew, a distinguished African American, saved the lives of thousands of wounded Allied serviceman during the Second World War. He received the NAACP's Spingarn Medal for his work in the British and American blood plasma projects. In 1950, he died from injuries received in a car accident despite heroic efforts by the staff of a small North Carolina hospital to keep him alive. During his lifetime, Dr. Drew worked diligently under the constraints of a segregated society to help citizens of the world, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

American Red Cross bio
Black Inventor bio


Lumbele
Member

07-12-2002

Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 1:29 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Tonight on the CBC

Freedom's Land: Canada and The Underground Railroad

“I was brought up or more correctly I was flogged up in Shelby County Kentucky” says the young man born into slavery in the American south.

“I received stripes without number the object of which was to degrade me and keep me in subordination.” Henry Bibb is a slave who many times was beaten “near to death” before finally escaping to a land he had only ever heard whispered about – a place where he is told a black man can be free – Canada.

“I heard that Canada was a land of liberty somewhere in the North. I have eagerly gazed upon the blue sky of the free North which at times constrained me to cry out from the depths of my soul - Canada sweet land of rest, when will I get there?”


This is the story of how Canada and the Underground Railroad became the focal point of the anti-slavery movement in the tumultuous decade leading up to the American Civil War.

The Underground Railroad, part metaphor, part fact, enabled thousands of black refugees to flee the oppression of the only nation in the western world that still condoned the practice of slavery. The remarkable exodus of so many African-Americans to Canada is possible because of the determined abolitionists, black and white on both sides of the border supporting a network of safe houses for slaves fleeing north. It is a system that penetrates ever deeper into the slave states because of men like Alexander Ross a young Canadian physician who risks his life to bring the “freedom train” to the very gates of the slave plantations. This documentary portrays Alexander Ross traveling deep into the American South and talking his way onto the plantations by pretending to be a naturalist interested in cataloging rare species of birds. There he contacts the slaves who have been waiting for the “Birdman” and helps them escape by providing money and provisions, sometimes even transporting them in his false bottomed carriage. On one occasion he fights a running gun battle with slaveowners in hot pursuit of their “stolen goods.”


In Canada Henry Bibb joins the fight, establishing Voice of the Fugitive, the first Black-owned newspaper in Canada. He uses his new freedom to beat down racial prejudice in Canada and to strike back at his former oppressors south of the border.

Using manuscripts and letters to create dramatic reconstructions, this documentary tells the stories of these remarkable men and dramatically portrays the unique role Canada plays in helping to end a barbaric system that subjugated more than five million men, women and children.

When it is discovered that John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was planned in Chatham Ontario, Canada is accused by Southern politicians of being the ring leader of “the abolitionist’s predatory war” against the South’s way of life, Canadians applaud. Eighteen months later when John Brown’s raid becomes known as the first shot in the American Civil War Canadians cheer. This documentary tells us why."





Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, February 06, 2004 - 8:47 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Percy Julian
Percy Julian

Percy Julian was born on April 11, 1899 in Birmingham, Alabama, one of six children. He was a bright student, but at that time the city provided no public education for black students after eighth grade. He persisted, however, and entered DePauw University in Indiana as a "sub-freshman." He had to take several classes to get caught up on what his public education had not provided. Yet in 1920, he graduated first in his class with Phi Beta Kappa honors.

He became a chemistry instructor at Fisk University, but in 1923, received an Austin Fellowship in Chemistry and went to Harvard to complete his masters degree. Again he took university teaching positions for a few years before traveling to Austria to obtain his PhD in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1931. He returned to DePauw to continue his research. His original interest was investigating plant products, especially traditional medicinal plants such as the African calabar bean. In 1935, with Josef Pikl, he first synthesized from this plant a chemical called physostigmine, or esserine, which could treat the sometimes blinding disease of glaucoma by reducing pressure inside the eyeball. This brought him international scientific acclaim, but no professorship.

He left academia to became lab director at Glidden Company. One day in 1939, a water leak in a tank of purified soybean oil created a strange byproduct and gave Julian a surprise insight: the soy sterol that had been created could be used to manufacture male and female hormones, progesterone and testosterone. Progesterone would prove useful in treating certain cancers and problem pregnancies. During World War II, Julian developed a foam from soy protein that could put out oil and gas fires; it was quickly adopted by the military.

In 1948, the Mayo Clinic announced the discovery of a compound that relieved rheumatoid arthritis. It was cortisone, very difficult to come by. Julian got right to work, and by October 1949, his team had created a synthetic cortisone substitute, radically less expensive but just as effective. Natural cortisone had to be extracted from the adrenal glands of oxen and cost hundreds of dollars per drop; Julian's synthetic cortisone was only pennies per ounce.

By making important medical products plentiful and less expensive, Julian accelerated the research and growth of knowledge about them. His techniques and products led directly to the development of chemical birth control and medicines to suppress the immune system, crucial in performing organ transplants.

Julian held more than 100 chemical patents, wrote scores of papers on his work, and received dozens of awards and honorary degrees. He founded The Julian Laboratories, Inc., with labs in the U.S. and Mexico (both purchased by Smith Kline French in 1961) and another chemical plant in Guatemala (owned by Upjohn Company since 1961). In 1951, Julian and his family moved to Oak Park, Illinois, becoming the first black family to live there. His house was firebombed twice, but the community largely backed him and today celebrates his birthday as a holiday.

After years of struggling for respect in his field and his community, Julian finally was recognized as a genius and a pioneer. He received countless award and honors including the prestigious Spingarn Medal from the NAACP and was asked to serve on numerous commissions and advisory boards.

Percy Julian died of liver cancer in 1975 and is known worldwide as a trailblazer, both in the world of chemistry and as an advocate for the plight of Black scientists.


PBS Biography
Black Inventor Biography


Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
The Black Panther Party
for Self Defense

bobby and huey


Photo of BPP founders
Bobby Seale (left) and Huey P. Newton

The cry of Black Power uttered by Stokely Carmichael and the new radical Black nationalism of the 1960s put into motion by Malcolm X could not have taken greater form, than in the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. A product of the frustration at the slow movement of the Civil Rights movement and the death of Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was founded in October, 1966, in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The name was shortened to the Black Panther Party (BPP) and it began spreading eastward through the Black urban communities across country. The small group formed by the two disillusioned poverty workers soon grew in prominence and numbers to become the vanguard of Black revolutionary struggle in the 1960s.

Starting with the theory that the police were the main oppressive force in the Black community, they began to monitor them. They took to the streets firstly armed with cameras. Facing negative reactions from the law enforcement agents, they returned with loaded guns. Their bold and defiant stance coupled with their ability to render the police powerless, threw them onto the world stage. Soon Black Panther Party chapters were set up throughout the country in major cities. Everywhere could be seen men and women dressed in Black declaring ideologies of self-defense and self-determination. In their ten point program they called for the following: freedom, full employment, an end to capitalism, decent housing, true education, military exemption, an end to police brutality, release from prison of Blacks, fair trials for Blacks, and land, bread, housing, clothing, justice and peace. Their motto was, "We are advocates of the abolition of war; but war can only be abolished through war; and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to pick up the gun."


But the Black Panther Party was not all guns and rhetoric. They established numerous programs including free breakfasts for children, free day care, free health care, and free political education classes. They also established programs to provide community control of schools, tenant control of slum housing, and campaigns to oust drug dealers. With such revolutionary actions, the Black Panther Party soon became public enemy number one first to the police and most especially the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI counter intelligence program, COINTELPRO, waged a successful war against the Black Panther Party and other revolutionaries. Moving westward, under COINTELPRO police departments in each city made military raids on BPP offices or homes in Philadelphia, Chicago, Newark, Omaha, Denver, New Haven, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities, murdering some Panthers and arresting others.Black Panther Bobby Hutton, only 17, was shot and killed by policemen. Fred Hampton, chairman of the Panthers in Illinois, was shot and killed along with Mark Clark in a police raid. Numerous armed clashes between Panthers and the police, as the infamous New Jersey turnpike incident of Assata Shakur, resulted in even more deaths. Soon Huey P. Newton was in jail, Bobby Seale was on probation, and Eldridge Cleaver was forced into exile. Twenty-one Panthers were charged with a bomb conspiracy, among them Angela Davis, while allies such as Stokely Carmicheal and H. Rap Brown were harassed repeatedly.


Through COINTELPRO, problems with other Black organizations were escalated and soon Panthers were involved even in shootouts with other revolutionaries. Through informants, false documents, false information and playing on human weaknesses, COINTELPRO was able to destroy the Black Panther Party from within and without. Huey P. Newton was shot to death in August of 1989, his long struggles against a seemingly invincible enemy resulting in a later life of cocaine addiction and other troubles. His greater life's work would always be remembered however. The young man who defied police and electrified the Black masses would forever live on in the name of the Black Panther Party.



Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:17 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Here's a pic I got from Bobby Seale's website which is very interesting.

Well it didn't come out right.

Bobby Seale

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:25 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
This is an old article I found dated 03/13/03:

Black Panther Party co-founder speaks to students
Amara Enyia
The Daily Illini


Katy Mull The Daily Illini

Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, speaks Wednesday in the Illinois Street Residence Hall private dining room. Seale used his book to try to dispel some of the myths surrounding the Black Panthers.


Thirteen men and one woman lined up on a sidewalk dressed in creased black slacks, black leather jackets and donning black berets. All were brandishing guns ranging from rifles to smaller handguns. They stood stoically, watching as a policeman made an arrest. Despite the protests of the police officer for them to disband, the men and woman were in full compliance with the law. No shots were fired, nor was there any violence.

Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, recounted this event, which he said captured the imagination of the black community in the 1960s. Seale spoke Wednesday night at Iota Phi Theta fraternity’s sixth annual program called “What If? The Black Question.”

Anton Downing, Iota Phi Theta member and program coordinator, said the goal of the program was to inspire the University community to realize the importance of African American contributions to the United States and the larger global community. Bobby Seale was this year’s keynote speaker.

Seale, wearing a black beret with the words “Seize the time, Reach” emblazoned on the front, spoke to a crowd of students about the history of the Black Panther Party, which he said most people do not understand. Seale and fellow party member, the late Huey P. Newton, founded the Black Panther Party in 1966 in Oakland, Calif. It was a reaction to blatant police brutality against blacks nationwide, the beating of peaceful protesters and the murder of Malcolm X, he said. Seale said the party was a part of the larger civil rights struggle of blacks across the nation.

But Seale also said understanding what the party was about and the idea of black militancy were crucial parts of understanding American history. Seale said one of the major misconceptions about the party is that they were “a bunch of hoodlums and thugs.” He said politicians, such as Ronald Reagan and Richard J. Daley, labeled them as such. The party was a group of coalition builders inspired by civil rights leaders like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Seale said.

Seale said the American government and media distorted the image of the party and gave black militancy a negative connotation. He said most Americans during that time saw the guns they carried for self-defense and immediately labeled the party as a militant radical group of angry blacks.

“They thought all blacks hated white people, which was a distortion,” he said.

In reality, the party worked with people of all nationalities in trying to install progressive social programs such as voter registration drives and free preventative health care clinics, he said.

“We were avid researchers and readers. It was not about macho egoism,” he said.

William Thornton, junior in LAS, attended the program and said he was not aware of many of the things Seale said. Thornton said he did not learn much of the truth about the party in high school.

“It was phenomenal to have him here in person to tell the true story,” Thornton said.

Damian Mitchell, sophomore in LAS, agreed. He said the underlying theme to Seale’s lecture was to never forget where you came from.

“Don’t forget your roots,” Mitchell said.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:33 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Life is Fine
Langston Hughes



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born

Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!

link

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:39 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
FANNIE LOU HAMER
1917-1977

"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Link

hamer

Born October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer was the granddaughter of a slave and the youngest of 20 children. Her parents were sharecroppers. Sharecropping, or "halfing," as it is sometimes called, is a system of farming whereby workers are allowed to live on a plantation in return for working the land. When the crop is harvested, they split the profits in half with the plantation owner. Sometimes the owner pays for the seed and fertilizer, but usually the sharecropper pays those expenses out of his half. It's a hard way way to make a living and sharecroppers generally are born poor, live poor, and die poor.

At age six, Fannie Lou began helping her parents in the cotton fields. By the time she was twelve, she was forced to drop out of school and work full time to help support her family. Once grown, she married another sharecropper named Perry "Pap" Hamer.

On August 31, 1962, Mrs. Hamer decided she had had enough of sharecropping. Leaving her house in Ruleville, MS she and 17 others took a bus to the courthouse in Indianola, the county seat, to register to vote. On their return home, police stopped their bus. They were told that their bus was the wrong color. Fannie Lou and the others were arrested and jailed.

After being released from jail, the plantation owner paid the Hamers a visit and told Fannie Lou that if she insisted on voting, she would have to get off his land - even though she had been there for eighteen years. She left the plantation that same day. Ten days later, night riders fired 16 bullets into the home of the family with whom she had gone to stay.

Mrs. Hamer began working on welfare and voter registration programs for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

On June 3, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other civil rights workers arrived in Winona, MS by bus. They were ordered off the bus and taken to Montgomery County Jail. The story continues "...Then three white men came into my room. One was a state highway policeman (he had the marking on his sleeve)... They said they were going to make me wish I was dead. They made me lay down on my face and they ordered two Negro prisoners to beat me with a blackjack. That was unbearable. The first prisoner beat me until he was exhausted, then the second Negro began to beat me. I had polio when I was about six years old. I was limp. I was holding my hands behind me to protect my weak side. I began to work my feet. My dress pulled up and I tried to smooth it down. One of the policemen walked over and raised my dress as high as he could. They beat me until my body was hard, 'til I couldn't bend my fingers or get up when they told me to. That's how I got this blood clot in my eye - the sight's nearly gone now. My kidney was injured from the blows they gave me on the back."

Mrs Hamer was left in the cell, bleeding and battered, listening to the screams of Ann Powder, a fellow civil rights worker, who was also undergoing a severe beating in another cell. She overheard white policemen talking about throwing their bodies into the Big Black River where they would never be found.

In 1964, presidential elections were being held. In an effort to focus greater national attention on voting discrimination, civil rights groups created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This new party sent a delegation, which included Fannie Lou Hamer, to Atlantic City, where the Democratic Party was holding its presidential convention. Its purpose was to challenge the all-white Mississippi delegation on the grounds that it didn't fairly represent all the people of Mississippi, since most black people hadn't been allowed to vote.

Fannie Lou Hamer spoke to the Credentials Committee of the convention about the injustices that allowed an all-white delegation to be seated from the state of Mississippi. Although her live testimony was pre-empted by a presidential press conference, the national networks aired her testimony, in its entirety, later in the evening. Now all of America heard of the struggle in Mississippi's delta.

A compromise was reached that gave voting and speaking rights to two delegates from the MFDP and seated the others as honored guests. The Democrats agreed that in the future no delegation would be seated from a state where anyone was illegally denied the vote. A year later, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

Prior to her death in 1977, Fannie Lou Hamer was inducted into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, as an honorary member.

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 4:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Olaudah Equiano
1745 - 1797
Link

equiano

Captured far from the African coast when he was a boy of 11, Olaudah Equiano was sold into slavery, later acquired his freedom, and, in 1789, wrote his widely-read autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.
[Tisha says: The e-text version of his Narrative is available HERE. It is, in many ways, the model for Frederick Douglass' more famous Narrative.]

The youngest son of a village leader, Equiano was born among the Ibo people in the kingdom of Benin, along the Niger River. He was "the greatest favourite with [his] mother." His family expected to follow in his father's footsteps and become a chief, an elder, a judge. Slavery was an intregal part of the Ibo culture, as it was with many other African peoples. His family owned slaves, but there was also a continual threat of being abducted, of becoming someone else's slave. This is what happened, one day, while Equiano and his sister were at home alone.

Two men and a woman captured the children. Several days later Equiano and his sister were separated. Equiano continued to travel farther and farther from home, day after day, month after month, exchanging masters along the way. Equiano's early experiences as a slave were not all disagreeable; some families treated Equiano almost as a part of the family. The kind treatment, however, was about to end.

About six or seven months after being abducted, Equiano was brought to the coast, where he first encountered a slave ship and white men.

As it was for all slaves, the Middle Passage for Equiano was a long, arduous nightmare. In his autobiography he describes the inconceivable conditions of the slaves' hold: the "shrieks of the women," the "groans of the dying," the floggings, the wish to commit suicide, how those who somehow managed to drown themselves were envied.

The ship finally arrived at Barbados, where buyers purchased most of the slaves. There was no buyer, however, for the young Equiano. Less than two weeks after his arrival, he was shipped off to the English colony of Virginia, where he was purchased and put to work. Less than a month later, he had a new master -- Michael Henry Pascal, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Under this master, who owned Equiano for the next seven years, Equiano would move to England, educate himself, and travel the world on ships under Pascal's command.

In 1766, Equiano bought his freedom. He found work in the trade business in the West Indies, then in London. In 1773, he took part in an expedition to try to discover the Northwest Passage, a route through the arctic to the Pacific Ocean.

Back in England, Equiano became an active abolitionist. He lectured against the cruelty of British slaveowners. He spoke out against the English slave trade. He worked to resettle freed slaves.

By 1789, the year he published his autobiography, Olaudah Equiano was a well-known abolitionist.

Ten years after his death in 1797, the English slave trade was finally abolished.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Saturday, February 07, 2004 - 6:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
JEAN BAPTISTE POINTE DUSABLE
dusable

DuSable was a famous frontier trader, fur trapper, farmer, businessman and the "authenticated father of the nation’s second largest city - Chicago"

Historical records do not agree as to the origin of this great man. However, tradition insists that DuSable was born a free Black, about 1745, in St. Marc, Saint Dominque (Haiti). He was the son of a French mariner and an African-born slave mother. His father took him to France to be educated, and afterwards, he worked as a seaman on his father’s ships. He was a powerfully built man, well educated and cultured. He had a love for European art and at one time owned twenty-three old world art treasures. He spoke French, English, Spanish, and several Indian dialects. At the age of 20, DuSable was injured on a voyage to New Orleans. Upon reaching the shores of New Orleans, he learned that the Spanish government had taken over. The French Jesuits, a Catholic order, protected DuSable from being enslaved until he was well enough to make his way up the Mississippi River. He later settled in Peoria, Illinois.

In the early 1770s, DuSable built a cabin and eventually owned more than 800 acres of land in Peoria. He enjoyed a special relationship with Illinois territorial Indians. He took a Potawatomi Indian, Catherine, as his common-law wife and fathered a daughter, Susanne, and a son, Jean. Some years later, he left Peoria and made his way north until he reached the Great Lakes area. The promise of greatness of the "Eschikagou" area, on which DuSable decided to settle, had been passed over by others before him. None had the foresight to look beyond its barren, damp, marshy condition, no did they have the fortitude to make "nothing" into one of the greatest locations in the western hemisphere.

In 1779, starting from scratch, DuSable built the first permanent home on the north bank of the Chicago River, where the present-day Tribune Tower stands. It was a well-constructed house consisting of five rooms and equipped with all the modern conveniences of the times. Later, despite the disadvantages, DuSable established a thriving trading post and in short time, became well-known as far away as Wisconsin and Detroit. The trading post consisted of a mill, bakehouse, dairy, smokehouse, workshop, poultry house, horse stable, barn and several other smaller buildings. His post was the main supply station for White trappers, traders, woodsmen, and the Indians. The Chicago portage boomed. It became the key route for merchant trading, and DuSable sent wheat, breads, meats and furs to trading posts in Detroit and Canada. DuSable became a man of considerable wealth and means. He also owned a substantial quantity of field and carpentry tools, which indicated that he must have hired men for field work and building assignments. In addition, he owned an appreciable quantity of livestock, poultry, and hogs.

In 1784, DuSable brought his wife and children to Chicago. And, as DuSable was a devout Catholic, it was here in Chicago that a Catholic priest married them, creating the first recorded marriage. In 1796, their granddaughter became the first child born in the city of Chicago. As the history of DuSable unfolds, it leaves all history scholars puzzled by his sudden departure from such a prosperous environment. On May 7, 1800, the "father" of Chicago sold his entire wealth for a mere $1,200 and left the area. In 1818, he died almost penniless, and was buried in a Catholic cemetery in St. Charles, Missouri.

Afro-American Almanac biography
Friends of DuSable history

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 7:05 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 6:

1820 The first ship to take African-Americans back to Africa; the "Mayflower of Liberia" sets sail. Carrying 86 free African Americans, it sails for the colony of Sierra Leone.

1863 Frederick Douglas requests Pennsylvania's Governor Andrew Curtain to accept African American troops to help fight the Civil War, but his request is denied.

1867 Robert Tanner Jackson becomes first African American to receive a degree in dentistry.

1870 Jonathan Jasper Wright was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court.

1961 Jail-in movement started in Rock Hill, S.C., when students refused to pay fines and requested jail sentences. Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee urged south-wide "Jail, No Bail" campaign.

1972 Robert Lewis Douglas founder and coach of the Rens, is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

February 7:

1945 Irwin Molison appointed judge of the US Customs Court.

February 8:

1894 Congress repeals the Enforcement Act which makes it easier for some states to disenfranchise African American voters.

1925 Marcus Garvey entered federal prison in Atlanta. Students staged strike at Fisk University to protest policies of white administration.

1944 Harry S. McAlpem of the "Daily World" an Atlanta, Georgia newspaper became the first African American to attend a White House press conference.

1986 Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show.




Hippyt
Member

09-10-2001

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 12:27 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
My local tv station has been doing a black history highlight every day,and they talked about the Buffalo soldiers yesterday. Very interesting. It's a big website,so here's the link.
http://www.buffalosoldier.net/

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, February 08, 2004 - 6:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr.
lawrence
1st African-American Astronaut

In June l967, Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. was named the first African-American astronaut, though he never made it into space. Several months later, on December 8, Lawrence died when his F-104 Starfighter jet, in which he was a co-pilot/passenger during a training flight, crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Lawrence was born October 2, 1935, in Chicago. He received an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Bradley University in 1956, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant into the US Air Force upon graduation at age 20. Lawrence later earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1965 from Ohio State University.

Lawrence distinguished himself as an exceptional Air Force test pilot and was among the first to be named to the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, which was a precursor to today's successful NASA space shuttle program.

In 1997, thirty years after his tragic death, the Chicago native son's name was the 17th added to The Astronauts Memorial Foundation Space Mirror. The mirror was dedicated in 1991 to honor all US astronauts who have lost their lives on space missions or in training for missions.

Robert Lawrence Bio



Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 09, 2004 - 7:57 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Richness of black history shouldn't be segregated into one month

By Joyce King

DALLAS – It happens every February. People who are passionate about the black experience are pressed into a whirlwind schedule that ends as quickly as it begins, some 28 days later.

Welcome, we are told, to Black History Month.
While I love the heightened awareness of being African-American that comes for one brief month, how I wish this feeling of inclusiveness extended to March, May, September, through December. Each year I vow to do something to change the thinking about a concept that started with historian Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week. Isn't it time Black History Month (BHM) continued its evolution into a year-round celebration to ensure that any indifferent citizens can begin to understand that what we teach, preach, lecture, and conjecture about is really American history?

Last February, I was speaking to an audience about ownership of pain when I blurted out, "Black and white are in a marriage arranged by God, neither one of us can get a divorce so we ought to stop trying." The room went dead silent in the wait to see what possible logic could be offered for the simple analogy. This year, as I ponder all the BHM events I've been tapped to speak at, I will say it again, believe it again, and offer the same explanation again. Historical accuracy and inclusion translates into greater respect for the contributions of men and women of African descent.

My tiny way of making a difference is to work hard to ensure that the teaching of black history does not wrap on the last day of February. Countless others are committed to the same, but can always use the company of people of all colors who would like to see children educated honestly about painful things that some believe better left in an unacknowledged past. But it was Martin Luther King Jr. who once said, "Truth crushed to earth will rise again."

The marital bond between black and white began with a vow of slavery, a ring of chains fitted for degradation, abuse, and denial of a whole people. One day, according to history, an emancipation proclamation offered hope while the promise of actual freedom took longer to define.

Fortunately, the vow has been renewed with historic legislation and a degree of racial reconciliation, but there is still far to go. And go we shall - together - as the journey has bound black and white for all time, a fact that must extend beyond the borders of February. More than any other people in America, these are the two groups that must deal with embracing and owning the pain of our conjoined history so that we can write a new chapter.

February affords a great starting point for Americans to learn about separate but equal, to learn about the promise of 40 acres and a mule and a million incredible facts. Once a lover of history becomes immersed in the rich resource of truth, understanding can lead to healing and respect.

I used to turn away from history when hard topics like lynching or discrimination came up because it was so heartbreaking to read about, to learn about. But looking history straight in the eye has given me a freedom I had never dreamed of, an unmatched pride in my origins. These days, I urge others to "own" their history, to heal from it and not wait for February to do it.

One day I had intended to spend just a few minutes reading slave narratives commissioned by the US government. A few hours later, I literally felt myself walk in from hell-baked fields where I had picked cotton and witnessed whippings. In the silent reverie, I closed my eyes and had certainly been in the bloody footsteps of ancestors who deserve 12 months a year alongside those who declared all men created equal.

February is a short month and the clock is ticking.

• Joyce King is a freelance writer.

Article


Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Monday, February 09, 2004 - 8:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Great article Ladyt!!

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Monday, February 09, 2004 - 8:44 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
February 9:

1952 Author Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man wins the National Book Award

1964 Arthur Ashe, Jr. becomes the first African American on the U.S. Davis Cup team.

1965 Martin Luther King, Jr. meets with President Lyndon Johnson to discuss voting rights.

1971 Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Leroy "Satchel" Paige.

1995 Bernard Harris, African-American astronaut, takes space walk.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 09, 2004 - 10:58 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
James Weldon Johnson
(1871-1938)
johnson
Born James William Johnson in Jacksonville, Florida, on 17 June 1871 — he changed his middle name to Weldon in 1913 — the future teacher, poet, songwriter, and civil rights activist was the son of a headwaiter and the first female black public school teacher in Florida, both of whom had roots in Nassau, Bahamas. The second of three children, Johnson's interests in reading and music were encouraged by his parents. After graduating from the school where his mother taught, Johnson spent time with relatives in Nassau and in New York before continuing with his education.

While attending Atlanta University, from which he earned his A.B. in 1894, Johnson taught for two summers in rural Hampton, Georgia. There he experienced life among poor African Americans, from which he had been largely sheltered during his middle-class upbringing in Jacksonville. During the summer before his senior year he attended the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where, on "Colored People's Day," he listened to a speech by Frederick Douglass and heard poems read by Paul Laurence Dunbar, with whom he soon became friends.

After graduating from Atlanta University, Johnson became the principal of the Jacksonville school where his mother had taught, improving education there by adding ninth and tenth grades. In 1895 he founded a newspaper, the Daily American, designed to educate Jacksonville's adult black community, but problems with finances forced it to shut down after only eight months. While still serving as a public school principal, Johnson studied law and became the first African American to pass the bar exam in Florida.

When Johnson's younger brother, John Rosamond, graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1897, the two began collaborating on a musical theater. Though there attempts to get their comic opera "Tolosa" produced in New York in 1899 were unsuccessful, Johnson's experiences there excited his creative energies. He soon began writing lyrics, for which his brother composed music, including "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which subsequently came to be known as the "Negro National Anthem." The Johnson brothers soon teamed up with Bob Cole to write songs. In 1902, Johnson resigned his post as principal in Jacksonville, and the two brothers moved to New York, where their partnership with Cole proved very successful.

Johnson, though, became dissatisfied with the racial stereotypes propagated by popular music and, in 1903, began taking graduate courses at Columbia University to expand his literary horizons. In 1906 he secured a consulship at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, the position allowing him time to write poetry and work on a novel. In 1909 he was transferred to Corinto, Nicaragua, where a year later he married Grace Nail, the daughter of prosperous real estate developer from New York. While still in Nicaragua he finished his novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man, which was published anonymously in 1912 in hopes that readers might think it a factual story.

Unable to secure a more desirable diplomatic post, Johnson resigned his consulship in 1913 and returned to the U.S. After a year in Jacksonville, he moved back to New York to become an editorial writer for the New York Age, in which capacity he was an ardent champion for equal rights. In 1917 he published his first collection of poetry, Fifty Years and Other Poems, the title poem having received considerable praise when it had first appeared in the New York Times.

In 1916, Joel E. Spingarn offered Johnson the post of field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. An effective organizer, Johnson became general secretary of the NAACP in 1920. Though his duties prevented him from writing as much as he would have liked, Johnson found time to assemble three ground-breaking anthologies: The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925), and The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926).

Johnson's second collection of poetry, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, appeared in 1927 and marks his last significant creative endeavor. His administrative duties for the NAACP were proving strenuous, and, after taking a leave of absence in 1929, he resigned as general secretary in 1930. During his final years he wrote a history of black life in New York that focuses on Harlem Renaissance entitled Black Manhattan (1930), his truly autobiographical Along This Way (1933), and Negro Americans, What Now? (1934), a book that argues for integration as the only viable solution to America's racial problems.

Johnson died on 26 June 1938 near his summer home in Wiscasset, Maine, when the car in which he was driving was struck by a train. His funeral in Harlem was attended by more than 2000 people.

Biography

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.





Zules
Member

08-21-2000

Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - 7:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh Lady, that poem is so sad and beautiful.

Thanks.