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Archive through February 18, 2007

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: Apr. 2007 ~ Jun. 2007: Black History (ARCHIVES January 2006 ~ June 2007): Archive through February 18, 2007 users admin

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Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 6:47 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Oh how kool.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 3:31 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
This Day in African American History

February 8

1865: The first African American major in the United States Army is a physician, Dr. Martin Robinson Delany.

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

1924: Negro League player Joe Black was born.

1925: Marcus Garvey is sent to federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia for mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in his Black Star Line. His prosecution was vigorously advocated by several prominent African American leaders, including Robert Sengstacke Abbott and others. Many believe Garvey was railroaded because of the power he had amassed over the African American population of America.

1944: Harry S. McAlpin of the "Daily World" in Atlanta, Georgia, is the first African American journalist accredited to attend White House press conferences.

1968: Gary Coleman was born in Zion, Ohio. He became well known for portraying "Arnold" in the television series, "Different Strokes," which aired from 1978 to 1986.

1968: The Orangeburg Massacre occurred on the campus of South Carolina State University. Highway Patrol Officers killed three South Carolina State University students and injured 27 others during a demonstration in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Students were protesting against a whites-only Orangeburg bowling alley. The nine patrolmen responsible were charged, and all were acquitted.

1984: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers scored 27 points while leading his team to a 111-109 victory over the Boston Celtics. Abdul-Jabbar passed Wilt Chamberlain's NBA career record of 12,682 field goals.

1985: Brenda Renee Pearson, an official court reporter for the House of Representatives, was the first African American female to record the State of the Union message delivered by the president in the House chambers.

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

1986: 5' 7" Spud Webb, of the Atlanta Hawks, wins the NBA Slam Dunk Competition.

1986: Figure skater Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the Women's Singles of the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship competition. She was a pre-med student at Stanford University.

2000: Edna Griffin, an Iowa civil-rights pioneer best known for integrating lunch counters, died at the age of 90. In 1948, Griffin led the fight against Katz Drug Store in downtown Des Moines, which refused to serve blacks at its lunch counter. Griffin staged sit-ins, picketed in front of the store and filed charges against the store's owner, Maurice Katz, who was fined. The Iowa Supreme Court then enforced the law which made it illegal to deny service based on race. She organized Iowans to attend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 march on Washington, D.C., and helped start the former radio station KUCB. On May 15, 1999, Des Moines' mayor proclaimed "Edna Griffin Day." On February 5, 2000, Griffin was inducted into the Iowa African American Hall of Fame.

http://www.informationman.com/today.htm
http://afroamhistory.about.com/cs/civilrights/a/orangeburg.htm
http://www.blackfacts.com/results.asp

Wargod
Moderator

07-16-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 3:45 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Wargod a private message Print Post    
There is a teacher at the kids school that is totally awesome (ok, there's several) that all the kids just love. She teaches second grade and while she was neither of my kids teacher she taught each of them in different groups during second grade.

On Monday, she started teaching a black history course for any of the children at school, all grades, who wanted to attend (totally voluntary on their parts.) Dakota was sick earlier this week so yesterday was her first day back and she went over to join this class. When she got home yesterday she excitedly told me what she'd learned and that they'd had so many children attend the first three days they they were going to move from the teachers classroom to the cafeteria to hold them all. The really amazing thing to me, not only is this a voluntary class (they even have to do some reading at home on their own so it's not just go sit and listen) but that this class is held during the last recess of the day and so many kids are giving up their playtime for it. I think it'd be kinda neat if because of the response to the course they made it a permanent part of the school day.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 3:51 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Oh how kool.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 4:01 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
That is very cool. Kudos to the teacher and to the school.

Wargod
Moderator

07-16-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 4:21 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Wargod a private message Print Post    
I have to admit I'm pretty excited about it. It was really nice to hear they'd found a way to incorporate a course into the day and that the kids are responsive to it.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, February 08, 2007 - 4:55 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
That is awesome. Wish it happened in more places.

Goddessatlaw
Member

07-19-2002

Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 6:52 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Goddessatlaw a private message Print Post    
It's an important day in Springfield, Illinois with Barak Obama announcing his candidacy at the spot where Lincoln gave his "House Divided" speech. A column in today's State Journal-Register remembers a day we are not so proud of less than 100 years ago near that same spot. I had a great-great aunt who was witness to this event described, she told me about it when I was little, it was a real moment of horror she was never able to forget - she showed me the newspaper she saved from the next day, which was in a trunk that had her copy of the paper from the sinking of the Titanic.

Springfield's Shame

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 8:39 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Oh wow thanks for sharing Gal.

Pamy
Member

01-02-2002

Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 9:42 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Pamy a private message Print Post    
Thanks to all for sharing stories here. I learn something daily and I appreciate it

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 6:01 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Juju2bigdog a private message Print Post    
My niece and her family braved the cold in early morning Springfield today to see Obama announce his candidacy.

I am not sure if I agree with the writer's premise that "Abraham Lincoln is the reason Obama is here today." Obama is not descended from African slaves, but directly from an African father.

I wonder if Obama did mention Lincoln in his speech? I suppose speaking in the capitol of Illinois, LincolnLand, he did.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, February 10, 2007 - 7:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Juju2bigdog a private message Print Post    
Okay, I am reading the speech now. Now I get it. Many Lincoln references, the "house divided cannot stand" thing. I think that might have been the speech of our next President.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, February 11, 2007 - 4:59 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
This Day in African American History

February 11

1644: First Black legal protest in America pressed by eleven Blacks who petitioned for freedom in New Netherlands (New York). Council of New Netherlands freed the eleven petitioners because they had "served the Company seventeen or eighteen years" and had been "long since promised their freedom on the same footing as other free people in New Netherlands."

1783: The daughter of former slaves, Jarena Lee, the first woman to preach in an AME church, at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, was born in Cape May, New Jersey. She chronicled her life's work in her book, "Religious Experiences and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee : A Preachin' Woman" (1849). Jarena Lee was one of first African American women to speak out publicly against slavery.

1790: The Society of Friends (Quakers) presents a petition to Congress calling for the abolition of slavery.

1933: Lois Gardella becomes the original "Aunt Jemima."

1958: Mohawk Airlines scheduled Ruth Carol Taylor on her initial flight from Ithaca, New York to New York City. She became the first African American flight attendant for a United States- based air carrier.

1961: Robert Weaver becomes the highest-ranking African American in the federal government as he is sworn in as administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

1966: Willie Mays signs with the San Francisco Giants for $ 130,000 a year. At the time, this is one of the highest salaries in professional baseball.

1977: Clifford Alexander, Jr. is confirmed as the first African American Secretary of the Army. He will hold the position until the end of President Jimmy Carter's term.

1989: Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris becomes the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, in a ceremony held in Boston.

1990: Nelson Mandela was released from prison after being held for nearly 27 years without trial by the South African government. The founder and unofficial leader of the African National Congress, Mandela became, during his imprisonment, a symbol for the struggle of black South Africans to overcome apartheid.

http://www.informationman.com/today.htm
http://www.blackfacts.com/results.asp

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 5:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Daisy Bates

Age: 84

civil rights leader whose tireless efforts led to the desegregation of Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School. She guided nine students in their 1957 crusade to enroll in the white school. The students' initial effort was rebuffed, and the governor, Orval Faubus called in the National Guard to stop the students at the door. President Eisenhower intervened, and the students were admitted. She reported when schools violated the Supreme Court's 1954 decision, Brown v. the Board of Education, that outlawed segregation, in Arkansas State Press, the newspaper she and her husband published. Her memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, won a 1988 National Book Award.

Died: Little Rock, Ark., November 4, 1999

link

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - 9:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
This Day in African American History

February 13

1818: The first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the United States, Absalom Jones, dies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was an instrumental force in the development of the early African American church and benevolent society movements.

1892: The first African American performers, the World's Fair Colored Opera Company, appear at New York City's Carnegie Hall less than one year after the hall's opening. In the company is concert singer Matilda Sissieretta Jones, who will have her solo debut at Carnegie Hall two years later.

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."

1919: Eddie Robinson was born. He accepted the head coaching position in 1941, at the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute in Grambling, Louisiana (later named Grambling State University. Over the next 54 years, he became the winningest college football coach. On October 7, 1995, he won his 400th game, establishing a record and securing his status as a legend. Sports Illustrated placed Robinson on the cover of its October 14, 1995 issue, making him the first and only coach of an historically Black university to appear on the cover of any major sports publication in the United States. To his credit, he produced 113 NFL players, including four Pro Football Hall of Famers.

1920: The National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs was founded by Andrew "Rube" Foster at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. They were called the Negro National League. It became the first successful African American professional baseball league. Two other leagues had previously been started, but failed to last more than one season.

1923: The first African American professional basketball team "The Renaissance" was organized by Robert J. Douglas. It was named after its home court, the Renaissance Casino. They played from 1923 to 1939 and had a record of 1,588 wins against 239 losses. They became the first African American team in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1957: The Southern Leadership Conference was founded at a meeting of ministers in New Orleans, Louisiana. Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected its first president. Later in the year its name will be changed to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1960: In Nashville, Tennessee about five hundred students participated in sit-ins at Woolworth's, Kresge's, McCellan's, and other stores downtown.

http://www.informationman.com/today.htm
http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/calendar/bl0213.htm

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, February 14, 2007 - 5:48 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
This Day in African American History

February 14

1760: Richard Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He purchased his freedom in 1786 and became a preacher the same year. He became the first African American ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816, and first bishop of the AME Church. He died on March 26, 1831.

1818: The birth of Frederick Douglass in Tuckahoe (Talbot County), Maryland, is attributed to this date. He stated, "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it... and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant." He was a great African American leader and "one of the giants of nineteenth century America". He was born Frederick Bailey and changed his name to Douglass after he escapes slavery in 1838. He died on February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC.

1867: Morehouse College is organized in Augusta, Georgia. The school later was moved to Atlanta.

1867: New registration law in Tennessee abolished racial distinctions in voting.

1936: The National Negro Congress was organized at a Chicago meeting attended by eight hundred seventeen delegates representing more than five hundred organizations. Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was elected president of the new organization.

1946: Gregory Hines was born in New York City. A child tap-dancing star in the group Hines, Hines, and Dad, Hines led a new generation of tap dancers that benefited from the advice and teaching of such tap legends as Henry Le Tang, "Honi" Coles, Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Sammy Davis, Jr. He also became a successful actor in movies including "White Knights," "Tap," and "A Rage in Harlem." He died on August 9, 2003.

1951: Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta and wins the middleweight boxing title.

1957: Lionel Hampton's only major musical work, "King David", made its debut at New York's Town Hall. The four-part symphony jazz suite was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

1966: Wilt Chamberlain breaks the NBA career scoring record at 20,884 points after only seven seasons as a pro basketball player.

1978: Maxima Corporation, a computer systems and management company, was incorporated. Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, it became one of the largest African American-owned companies and earned its founder, chairman and CEO, Joshua I. Smith, chairmanship of the U.S. Commission on Minority Business Development.

http://www.informationman.com/today.htm

Karen
Member

09-07-2004

Friday, February 16, 2007 - 2:34 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Karen a private message Print Post    
Why I Loathe Black History Month

I dread February.

I didn’t always. Though I make my living writing about race, Black History Month made about as much an impression on me as Arbor Day or a one-month anniversary with a new boyfriend who didn’t know that his days were already numbered. It’s all much ado about nothing, a purely symbolic exercise. I maintained a respectful silence about Black History Month since so many others were pretending it mattered...

...Black History Month should be significant. It just isn’t, and for that, blacks have only themselves to blame. The month should be more or less a combined State of the Union address and battle plan when, at best, it’s dressing up in the clothes of those who accomplished so much more for us against much worse odds. At worst, it’s the ritual excoriation of white people and history itself. Stentorian, facile condemnations of the past, and crowing over marginal, atypical victories like blacks in high office, take the place of forcefully enunciating racism’s modern contours, and most significantly, formulating specific agendas by which those contours will be redrawn.

Black History Month is far too much about the perfidy of whites and far too little about how blacks have faced up to the challenges, however monstrously unfair and difficult to surmount. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, W.E.B. DuBois (the inventor of urban sociology) and Carter G. Woodson (the father of both black history and Black History Month) did their part at great personal sacrifice. What about us? Black History Month is just too easy. It’s like bragging about how often you visit your elders in the nursing home rather than taking care of them yourselves.




Curious how people think about this article.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, February 16, 2007 - 6:04 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Black Ancestry Records Yield Surprises
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Feb. 15, 2007 — To commemorate Black History Month, genealogists have just released the world’s largest collection of African-American family history records. The online, searchable collection, which consists of more than 55 million documents, have helped some trace their ancestors and, in at least one case, their ancestors' owners.

The records include U.S. Colored Troops service records, marriage records, World War I draft cards, slave narratives from 3,500 former slaves, photographs, Freedman’s Bank records documenting accounts held by slaves freed after the Civil War, Southern Claims Commission records and Freedmen’s Bureau records chronicling relief administered by the U.S. Department of War during the reconstruction period in 1865.

Megan Smolenyak, co-author of the book "Trace Your Roots with DNA: Using Genetic Tests to Explore Your Family Tree" and Chief Family Historian at Ancestry.com, added that the collection also includes 53 million African-American records in the U.S. Federal Census Collection spanning the years 1790-1930.

"Since African-American individuals were often described differently in each census, we’ve created a special filter that simultaneously looks for related terms, such as ‘black,’ ‘Negro,’ ‘mulatto,’ ‘half mulatto’ and so on," said Smolenyak, who found African-American relatives in her own family's tree.

She explained that black families in the past have faced multiple research obstacles related to a lack of detailed shipping records, families being split up during slavery and surname changes. Freed slaves would sometimes take on the last name of the plantation owner, but some elected to name themselves after a person they admired or a popular figure, such as "Washington."

The census, which is the building block for most family trees, created further difficulties, as slaves were only mentioned, often just by first name, from 1850-1860.

"A wall can exist before 1870, the first census in which former slaves are mentioned by their full names," said Smolenyak.

Filmmaker David Wilson used the online resources, along with other materials, to chart his own family’s history, which is chronicled in the feature film "Meeting David Wilson," scheduled for major release later this year.

One discovery, in particular, shocked him.

"I received a call from a county clerk whom I contacted and he said he found someone linked to me whose name is David Wilson," he told Discovery News. "I told him it had to be a mistake, because I’m David Wilson, but that also turned out to be the name of the ancestor of the family that kept my relatives as slaves."

The New Jersey-raised filmmaker traveled to North Carolina to visit the other David Wilson.

"It was very awkward," he explained. "I introduced myself by saying, ‘I’m David Wilson and I believe your family once owned mine.’ I wasn’t just representing myself, but my entire family down through history."

He added, "It was a very cleansing experience, however. A tremendous weight lifted from me. We’ve developed a good relationship, and I now feel more connected to this country and to my personal history."

He advises everyone, especially black Americans, to research their family’s history.

"You will find stories of incredible strength and courage in your family, since we are all living proof that our ancestors were survivors," Wilson said.

The African American ancestry records may be accessed for free over any three days in February at Ancestry.com.

link

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 3:17 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Remember Me

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 5:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Wow...

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 5:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Karen, not ignoring you. I read the ariticle when you posted it. It's an interesting article. I can see why she thought people were talkin bout white hate. But I disagree with her.


quote:

Our forebears couldn't take the easy way out… too bad we can
That’s when I learned that I’d been robbed of my true intellectual and moral heritage, but not by whites. It was my own people who lied to me about who I was because, post-civil rights movement, we’re too comfortable in our protected protests to put ourselves on the physical and philosophical line the way our brave forebears did. They couldn’t afford to take the easy way out; too bad we can.

Those books have stood the test of time not because they are about the evil of whites (they’re not, to my surprise) but because they’re about what is required of blacks to live in a world which despises us. They are internal critiques. These works celebrate an oppressed people’s manful responses to their oppression but, most often, catalogue the ways in which we have failed to rise to the challenges that face us; they are notable for the minimal amount of time they spend discussing the perfidy of whites. Their focus is on a love for, and belief in, their people that sets high standards for our behavior in the face of adversity. DuBois and Truth and Woodson—reaching out from across the centuries—were such a rebuke to me as I remembered sitting silently while racism was preached that I actually stopped reading repeatedly to hang my head.

Knowledge truly is power and, knowing what I now do, I can’t bear Black History Month. For my children’s sake, however, I’ll have to try. Somebody’s going to teach them who they are and I’ll be damned if they’ll quietly listen to 35 years of lies and racism the way I did. They’re only 5 and 3, so they’ve got a few more years before they inherit Mom’s books and have to offer dinner table critiques of all the pointless nonsense they hear every February.

Debra J. Dickerson is the author of The End of Blackness and An American Story.




If she truly believes knowledge is power then she should be teaching her kids about half of their heritage 365 days a year. Because it's not 35yrs of lies and racism.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, February 17, 2007 - 7:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Juju2bigdog a private message Print Post    
Very well done slide presentation.

Mjsmooth
Member

01-15-2007

Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 3:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mjsmooth a private message Print Post    
I know Carter G. Woodson selected the second month of the year for Black History Week, which ultimately became Black History Month, in large part because Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois and Abraham Lincoln share their birthdays in February, but can't we get a warm month? How about one that isn't suspiciously shorter than the rest? I find it surprising that February is one of the few months the black American community can't celebrate (to the fullest extent) our total repertoire of soul food cuisine. I long for a black history barbecue or fish fry. How about some holiday pecan or sweet potato pie? It just doesn’t have that same Thanksgiving/Christmas sweetness in the middle of February. Can anyone imagine the turn out for the Million Man march if it happened in a month set aside for black history? In a push for the newly fashioned “Black History Month in June Movement,” I submit to the pool of public opinion, Juneteenth and the birthday of Charles R. Drew (pioneer of the blood transfusion and blood banks) as significant events in June. Think about it, President's day already celebrates Lincoln's birth and Fredrick Douglass and W.E.B. both would agree, a month that could boast countless community meetings in parks, instead of cooped up in centers, and marches on capital buildings around the country, instead of breakfast's in church basements would stoke the fires of heritage and legacy in a way that can't quite be appreciated during our frigid 28.25 days.

-Just an idea


P.S. - The days are shorter in the winter too. A conspiracy to get the pride filled masses in bed before 9? I think so.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 5:34 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
LOL, never thought about it that way ...

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Sunday, February 18, 2007 - 5:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Lol black history bbq.