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Archive through February 22, 2006

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: Apr. 2007 ~ Jun. 2007: Black History (ARCHIVES January 2006 ~ June 2007): Archive through February 22, 2006 users admin

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Yankee_in_ca
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 7:03 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Yankee_in_ca a private message Print Post    
I just wanted to say thanks to all that post links and articles here. I don't post, but I do read. Thanks.

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 7:19 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Tishala a private message Print Post    
After I posted about Eyes on the Prize, I checked to see whether it was available on DVD. Guess what? It's not. Worse is that you can only get used VHS tapes (and then, it will cost you about $600) because the licensing of music and news footage has expired and Blackside, the producers, couldn't afford to renew them. The good news is that PBS is working on the licensing of the music, for broadcast purposes only, and that it will likely be broadcast again sometime this year, but it WILL NOT be available for sale.

So when it airs, make sure to record it and save it in the safest place you know. It's the best documentary series-- all 14 installments of it--I have ever seen. And it's where I first "met" Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, James Meredith, and so many of the American heroes of the civil rights struggle.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 7:56 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Lakawanna Blues comes on in 4 minutes on HBO. This is the movie that earned S. Epatha Murkeson her Golden Globe and Emmy awards.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 11:04 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Houston Destroys Largest Black Historic District In United States

Empowerment of Grassroots Blocked while Gentrification Grows

Freedman's Town, TX (BlackNews.com) - The City of Houston has finally achieved its goal of more than a century, destroying historic Freedman's Town, the oldest Black community in this city. Houston's ongoing practices and policies of injustice and violating human, civil and Constitutional rights of thousands of zero income to low income Blacks and a few Latinos goes unchallenged by elected officials at every level.

Freed enslaved Blacks planned and developed a five mile encircled area in 1865 and declared it Freedman's Town, a small community that catered to Black culture and independent existence from a Caucasian society that excluded them.

During the years, Blacks became so progressive and self-sustaining that by 1900 they posed a threat to Caucasian leadership. City government began use of every legal and illegal act to dissolve this quiet, peaceful and proud community. Eminent domain consumed large sections of Freedman's Town. City of Houston erected buildings that claimed many acres of the Black settlement during the 1930s, established the largest public housing project via the Housing Act of 1934, known as San Felipe Courts (later Allen Parkway Village), constructed the Gulf Coast Freeway in 1959 that could have gone over this community but went through it to further displace Black property owners and businesses.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 5:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Terrence Howard’s Oscar Nod Spurs Debate on Inclusion, Pimp Images

Black America Web.com, News Analysis, Monica Lewis, Feb 02, 2006

It’s been a year since Jamie Foxx channeled Ray Charles and took the entertainment world by storm as the odds-on favorite for just about every acting award under the sun, including the highly-coveted Academy Award.

This year, there’s another talented black actor amongst the distinguished group of nominees announced earlier this week, but Terrence Howard, the only black actor to receive a nod in any category, is a long shot to win especially with the likes of “Brokeback Mountain” lead Heath Ledger, “Capote” star Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix’s turn as Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line” also in the Best Actor category.

<snip>

“We continue to react to Hollywood each year, saying that we don’t get enough,” McCluskey told BlackAmericaWeb.com from her Bloomington, Ind. office. “We’re in a cycle of responding to Hollywood, but maybe we should set our sights on either working to confront Hollywood before the nominations are announced or just say to ourselves that (the nominations) don’t matter. What we’re doing now makes us seem like we’re still begging to get into the gates.”

<snip>

“We’re probably asking the wrong questions when we critique Hollywood about these nominations. If we’re going to put any pressure on Hollywood, it should be at the other end, and that’s casting,” McCluskey said, adding that Howard’s performance of a pimp who wants to be a rapper was brilliant, but sends a message about Hollywood’s perception of blacks and minorities in general.

“(Terrence Howard) is a wonderful actor, and I admire his work,” McCluskey said. “But it just seems to me that it’s easier to get nominated for stereotypical roles than it is for a role that is less confining for African-Americans. I equate it with Denzel Washington being nominated and winning for ‘Training Day,’ yet being overlooked for ‘Malcolm X.’

link

Legalboxer
Member

11-17-2003

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 5:20 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Legalboxer a private message Print Post    
thanks mocha

i hate the oscars this year because i would love both terrance and joaquin to win - after i saw terrance on oprah i want him to get everything possible

i do agree that the oscars stereotype - both with minorities and for american films. a critic made a good point that this is the first time in a long time that all the best pictures are american and not british like the academy likes to sway towards.. they also stereotype against conservatives... its a little ironic considering hollywood is so "liberal" but they only accept the people that fit their molds and in whichever way the wind is blowing.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 5:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
I couldn't have said it better legal.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Friday, February 03, 2006 - 10:26 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
booker t

Booker Taliaferro was born a mulatto slave in Franklin Country on 5th April, 1856. His father was an unknown white man and his mother, the slave of James Burroughs, a small farmer in Virginia. Later, his mother married the slave, Washington Ferguson. When Booker entered school he took the name of his stepfather and became known as Booker T. Washington.

After the Civil War the family moved to Malden, West Virginia. Ferguson worked in the salt mines and at the age of nine Booker found employment as a salt-packer. A year later he became a coal miner (1866-68) before going to work as a houseboy for the wife of Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the mines. She encouraged Booker to continue his education and in 1872 he entered the Hampton Agricultural Institute.

The principal of the institute was Samuel Armstrong, an opponent of slavery who had been commander of African American troops during the Civil War. Armstrong believed that it was important that the freed slaves received a practical education. Armstrong was impressed with Washington and arranged for his tuition to be paid for by a wealthy white man.

Armstrong became Washington's mentor. Washington described Armstrong in his autobiography as "a great man - the noblest rarest human being it has ever been my privilege to meet". Armstrong's views of the development of character and morality and the importance of providing African Americans with a practical education had a lasting impact on Washington's own philosophy.

After graduating from the Hampton Agricultural Institute in 1875 Washington returned to Malden and found work with a local school. After a spell as a student at Wayland Seminary in 1878 he was employed by Samuel Armstrong to teach in a program for Native Americans.

In 1880, Lewis Adams, a black political leader in Macon County, agreed to help two white Democratic Party candidates, William Foster and Arthur Brooks, to win a local election in return for the building of a Negro school in the area. Both men were elected and they then used their influence to secure approval for the building of the Tuskegee Institute.

Samuel Armstrong, principal of the successful Hampton Agricultural Institute, was asked to recommend a white teacher to take charge of this school. However, he suggested that it would be a good idea to employ Washington instead.

The Tuskegee Negro Normal Institute was opened on the 4th July, 1888. The school was originally a shanty building owned by the local church. The school only received funding of $2,000 a year and this was only enough to pay the staff. Eventually Washington was able to borrow money from the treasurer of the Hampton Agricultural Institute to purchase an abandoned plantation on the outskirts of Tuskegee and built his own school.

The school taught academic subjects but emphasized a practical education. This included farming, carpentry, brickmaking, shoemaking, printing and cabinetmaking. This enabled students to become involved in the building of a new school. Students worked long-hours, arising at five in the morning and finishing at nine-thirty at night.

By 1888 the school owned 540 acres of land and had over 400 students. Washington was able to attract good teachers to his school such as Olivia Davidson , who was appointed assistant principal, and Adella Logan. Washington's conservative leadership of the school made it acceptable to the white-controlled Macon County. He did not believe that blacks should campaign for the vote, and claimed that blacks needed to prove their loyalty to the United States by working hard without complaint before being granted their political rights.

Southern whites, who had previously been against the education of African Americans, supported Washington's ideas as they saw them as means of encouraging them to accept their inferior economic and social status. This resulted in white businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie and Collis Huntington donating large sums of money to his school.

link

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Friday, February 03, 2006 - 11:23 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Tishala a private message Print Post    
In W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folks (1903), he writes a very passionate critique of Washington's ideas and his famous Atlanta speech's "five fingers on the hand" metaphor. It's in the chapters "Of The Education of Black Men" (it might be "on the education") and "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others." In fact, there's a famous book, Contending Forces, by the largely-forgotten African American author Pauline Hopkins that is really a romance novel, but has several long digressions of imaginary debates between thinly-veiled Washington and DuBois characters.

OK...that's probably only interesting to me! LOL!

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Friday, February 03, 2006 - 11:50 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Yes W.E.B was very opposed to Booker T's ideas as well he should have been. Booker T was basically an Uncle Tom, imo.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, February 06, 2006 - 7:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
R&B singer Gene McFadden dies
The 56-year-old singer was one half of McFadden & Whitehead

By Sarah Han
Billboard
Updated: 8:14 p.m. ET Feb. 5, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11193226/

NEW YORK - Gene McFadden, one-half of McFadden & Whitehead, the legendary R&B duo famed for the 1979 pop anthem “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now,” has died.

The 56-year-old succumbed to complications from liver and lung cancer at his Philadelphia home on Jan. 27.

Songwriter/producer partner John Whitehead predeceased McFadden in May 2004 after being fatally shot outside his Philadelphia home. Whitehead’s murder remains unsolved.
Story continues below &#8595; advertisement

McFadden & Whitehead were teens when they first broke into the industry as founding members of soul band the Epsilons. The group toured with Otis Redding, who was also the act’s manager, until his death in 1967.

The pair then joined Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International label, bent on pursuing a recording career. However, McFadden & Whitehead’s songwriting prowess took center stage when they penned “Back Stabbers” for the O’Jays. The R&B chart-topper became a No. 3 pop crossover hit and opened the door to a host of McFadden & Whitehead-written classics, including Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ “Wake Up Everybody (Part 1)” and the Intruders’ “I’ll Always Love My Mama.” They hit No. 1 hit on the R&B chart with “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.”

“McFadden & Whitehead were instrumental in creating the sound of Philadelphia,” Gamble & Huff said in a statement following McFadden’s death. “Their talent was indispensable, and their music capabilities were uniquely flexible.”

McFadden is survived by his wife, Barbara; two daughters; and two sons.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 07, 2006 - 9:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
This is a link from another board that's showing Mrs King's funeral in a video. Don't know what the clip's link is though and you have to be a member of the site though to view, but anyhoo...

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 2:37 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
MLK's Children Upset But Shocked About Their Mother's Recent Death

By ERRIN HAINES
The Associated Press

ATLANTA -- Coretta Scott King's four children talked about her last days Sunday, saying she had appeared to be making steps toward recovery before she died suddenly the day she was supposed to begin treatment at an alternative medical clinic in Mexico.

"It came as a tremendous shock to us. We had no idea," eldest daughter Yolanda King said at a news conference. "She was walking with a cane, she was speaking more words ... there was clearly progress happening."

Coretta Scott King, 78, died Monday from pneumonia brought on by complications caused by ovarian cancer. Her grieving children said an autopsy showed the cancer, diagnosed in November, had been growing in her body for a year and a half.

Yolanda King said she and her siblings made the decision to send their mother to the alternative clinic, which Mexican authorities shut down days after King's death, saying it had carried out unproven treatments and unauthorized surgeries. The clinic's director has a criminal past and a reputation for offering dubious treatments.
Yolanda King, however, said the family had thoroughly researched the clinic.

"We were stunned when we found out there were problems and challenges there," Yolanda King said. "They came highly recommended. We made the decision to go there and Mother concurred because we believed the place was doing incredible work."

Yolanda King said their mother was in the midst of a strong recovery from a stroke and heart attack she suffered in August when she was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer may have brought on the other health problems, the family said.

"We're missing her like crazy, but we're just so thankful that we had her as long as we did," Yolanda King said. "She's been released and we feel so strongly that she has reconnected with our father."

Yolanda King said the family did not disclose her illness to the public after she was diagnosed because, "We just felt really strongly that it was important to focus on her healing."
Coretta Scott King was taken to the clinic Jan. 26 and was to have begun treatment the day she died.

Bernice King, the only one of King's children who was with her mother in her final days, said her mother spent her last weekend under observation at the clinic.

Son Dexter King choked back sobs as he explained that his mother died on his birthday, but added that he now finds a little comfort in that.

"She chose to go home on the day she gave birth to you," Dexter King said a friend told him. "I'm able to celebrate her life, what she gave to the world."

Bernice King, a minister at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, indicated she will deliver her mother's eulogy there on Tuesday.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 2:37 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Dexter needs me. :-)

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 4:44 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
lol, Mocha

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Sunday, February 12, 2006 - 6:00 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Sunshyne4u a private message Print Post    
Did Anyone watch the PBS show 'African-American Lives'?

it was absolutely fascinating! I would have never guessed that people had a chance of doing their family tree when ancestors could have been slaves. I also had no idea that there were over 250,000 Free blacks living in the south even prior to the Civil war. Only 200,000 were living free in the North. I always thought that almost everyone was enslaved in the south.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/about.html

There is a 'How To' section called "tracing african american roots"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/genealogy.html

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Sunday, February 12, 2006 - 11:13 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
The Geography of Slavery

The history of slavery in North America is a two-fold story. First, it is the story of how half-a-million enslaved African people were transported over sea and land to the present day United States from 1600 to 1860. They were part of a much larger group of possibly 15 million enslaved Africans brought in chains from western Africa to the Americas, with the majority going to South and Central America and the islands of the Caribbean. Second, it is the story of the dramatic impact these enslaved people and the institution of slavery had on the history and landscape of the nation. America's enslaved population grew the lion's share of American crops for export, were concentrated on plantations in a rich agricultural region in the southern states, were subject to a legal system that treated them as property rather than as people, resisted enslavement by running away, and were forcibly bought and sold in a domestic slave trade that shamed the nation in the years before the Civil War. Much of these two related stories are visually depicted in maps and landscapes available on this site.

The fact that white slaveholders in the states of the upper South raised and sold enslaved blacks to white buyers in the newly formed states of the lower South is principally a lesson in geography. The fact that half of the states in North America abolished slavery by 1850 while half held tight to it as the very basis of a southern economy and way of life is also a lesson in geography. And the fact that the slave states and non-slave states of the United States fought a bloody Civil War principally over the issue of slavery's spread to the unorganized territories west of the Mississippi River is most certainly a lesson in geography.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Sunday, February 12, 2006 - 11:15 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
1

The slave population of the United States increased from 698,000 to 3,954,000 between 1790 and 1860, and 75 percent of these enslaved people worked as agricultural laborers growing cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, and hemp. The majority of these, moreover, worked in cotton. About 15 percent of southern slaves were classified as domestic servants, and approximately ten percent worked in commerce, trades, and industry--principally in towns and cities. This map shows the heavy concentration of slaves in plantation districts, in which the majority of the enslaved lived on plantations of between 20 to 150 slaves. This so-called "black belt" (so named because of the rich, dark soil and the domination of enslaved blacks in the population) swept across the southern states from Virginia to Texas. In some of these areas, enslaved blacks outnumbered whites 13 to 1.

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Thursday, February 16, 2006 - 5:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Sunshyne4u a private message Print Post    
How so many Africans were sold into slavery was also interesting. Chris Tucker got a chance to go back to his ancestral home. The area was currently coming out of 27yrs of CIVIL war.

It seems that in the past His tribe had been rounded up and sold to Europeans. This is what they used to do historically after conquering a troublesome peoples. Why worry about having to face another battle in the future? Simply take over their lands and sell them to the Slavers.

I was surprised..especially since the Battling of those same tribes was still occurring hundreds of years later!!

I am sure some people were taken by Slave Hunters but it seems like Huge numbers of people were War Survivors from the losing tribe.

((I truly didnt know that people were being sold into slavery by their own countrymen))

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Friday, February 17, 2006 - 11:11 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
People & Events: Roy Bryant (1931-1994), Carolyn Bryant (1934-) and J. W. Milam (1919-1981)

Roy and Carolyn Bryant and J. W. Milam will always be linked to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. In the minds of many African Americans, they will go down in history as the trio that got away.

Southern Beauty

Carolyn, the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse, hailed from Indianola, Mississippi, the nucleus of the segregationist and supremacist white Citizens' Councils. A high school dropout, she won two beauty contests and married Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier.

Store Serving Blacks

The couple ran a small grocery, Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market, that sold provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. The store was located at one end of the main street in the tiny town of Money, the heart of the cotton-growing Mississippi Delta. They had two sons and lived in two small rooms in the back of the store.

"Handling" Blacks

To earn extra cash, Roy worked as a trucker with his half-brother J. W. Milam, an imposing man of six feet two inches, weighing 235 pounds. Milam prided himself on knowing how to "handle" blacks. He had served in World War II and received combat medals.

Incident at the Store

On the evening of August 24, 1955, Emmett Till went with his cousins and some friends to Bryant's Grocery for refreshments after picking cotton in the hot sun. The boys went into the store one or two at a time to buy soda pop or bubble gum. Emmett walked in and bought two cents' worth of bubble gum. Though exactly what happened next is uncertain, Emmett flirted with, whistled at, or touched the hand or waist of Carolyn. She stormed out of the store. The kids outside said she was going to get a pistol. Frightened, Emmett and his group left.

Men Outraged

Carolyn told her sister-in-law, Juanita, who was in the back of the store with their children, what had happened. They agreed not to tell their husbands, who were out of town on a trucking job. When Roy and J. W. returned, one of the kids at the scene told them what had occurred. In the Deep South, an environment where the divisions between blacks and whites were severely defined, Roy and his half-brother decided Emmett had crossed the line and needed to be taught a lesson.

Crime in the Night

At about 2:30 a.m. on August 28, under the cover of darkness, the two white men showed up at Moses Wright's home, where Emmett was staying, and took him away. Wright said he saw a person in the car, possibly Carolyn, who helped identify Emmett. The boy's corpse would be found several days later, disfigured and decomposing in the Tallahatchie River. Moses Wright could identify the body only by an initialed ring, which had belonged to Emmett's father, Louis Till.

Savage -- But Supported

Bryant and Milam had already been rounded up as murder suspects, and Southern papers were decrying the "savage crime." Yet Northern outrage prompted many Southerners to resent outside agitators and rally in support of the suspects. When Bryant and Milam could not afford a legal defense, five local lawyers stepped up to represent the two suspects pro bono.

The Trial

When the trial opened in September, the national and international press descended on the scene. Roy, Carolyn and J. W. became celebrities. Some reporters talked about Roy and Carolyn's "handsome looks" and J. W.'s tall stature and big cigars. They even alluded to Carolyn as "Roy Bryant's most attractive wife" and a "crossroads Marilyn Monroe."
During the trial, the families arrived with their sons dressed in their Sunday best. Roy and J.W. in starched white shirts while their wives donned cotton dresses. Many whites in the surrounding counties showed up to watch the show. They brought their children, picnic baskets and ice cream cones. Meanwhile, African American spectators were relegated to the back and looked on in fear.
Carolyn testified under oath, but outside the presence of the jury, that Emmett said "ugly remarks" to her before whistling.

Confession

When they were acquitted, the men later sold their story for $4,000 to reporter William Bradford Huie. Two of their defense attorneys helped facilitate the interview that was published in Look magazine in January 1956. After the town's show of support at the trial, the men talked freely about how they killed the young teen from Chicago. But soon after the article came out, both men were ostracized.

Ostracism

Blacks stopped frequenting groceries owned by both the Bryant and Milam families. The stores soon went out of business. Unable to find work, Roy took his family to East Texas and attended welding school. His half-brother J. W. followed him soon after. Years later, both men would return to Mississippi.

A Revealing Interview

John Whitten, one of their defense attorneys, told National Public Radio's Soundprint program in a 1994 interview that he later regretted defending the case. "I'm not proud of it," Whitten said. "I wished I had never been associated with it."

Roy Bryant was also interviewed for the same Soundprint program. Legally blind and plagued with back trouble, he refused to talk about the case. Even though he was protected by double jeopardy, he still feared he would have to pay for his crime before he died.

"Let that goddamn stuff die," Bryant said. "Look what they done with Beckwith. And now they want to get me, well, to hell with them. I'm not gon' talk about it. Can't ever tell what they might do nowadays, they might change the Constitution."

(White supremacist Byron de la Beckwith was convicted of murder in 1994, 31 years after assassinating black NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers.)

Embittered, Roy also claimed that his half-brother J. W. got all the money from the Look deal. "A lot of people made a bunch of money off of this. I ain't never made a damn nickel."

In 1981, Milam died of cancer of the bone. In August 1994, shortly after the Soundprint interview, Roy Bryant died of cancer.

No one ever did time for Emmett Till's murder.

link

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 6:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Legends: Gordon Parks
By Karu F. Daniels

Why His Place in Black History is Secure

AOL Black Voices

Born in 1912, in Fort Scott, Kansas, he grew up with Jim Crow, survived the Depression, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, gained insider access to heroic Black fighter pilots during World War II, and became immersed in covering and championing the Civil Rights Movement. He is the epitome of a Renaissance man -- with remarkable talents as a composer, painter, novelist, filmmaker, poet, and fashion photographer, as well as a legendary photojournalist. His photography hangs in the Smithsonian, among other noted institutions worldwide. In 2002, he received the Jackie Robinson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame, his latest in a long list of honors that began in 1941 when he became the first photographer to receive the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship. His many honors also include an Emmy, a National Medal of the Arts, and fifty-three honorary doctorates.

Imitation is The Best Form of Flattery

Since Parks first broke ground as a black “Glamour Boy” fashion photographer, a few African American notables have followed in his footsteps, including sought after lens men such as Barron Claiborne, Marc Baptiste, Kwaku Alston and newcomer Cheryl Fox Spencer, a former entertainment publicist who has morphed into an in-demand photographer with celebrity pals such as Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Naomi Campbell, Mary J. Blige and Nia Long vying for her larger-than-life Black & White canvassed prints. “Gordon Parks showed Black people how to rise above any struggle through expression,” she told Black Voices. ”His eloquent expression through photography and literature became his outlet to the adversities in his life. He is an inspiration to me because I too have been blessed with the gift of both. I too can see another world through my camera.”

On the film front, Parks, the first Black director to have major studios back his films, (1969’s ‘Learning Tree’ and 1971’s ‘Shaft’), has inspired many. Since him, Spike Lee (‘Do The Right Thing’), John Singleton (‘Boyz N’ Da Hood’), Matty Rich (‘Straight Outta Brooklyn’), Darnell Martin (‘I Like It Like That), Charles Stone, III (‘Drumline’) and Malcolm Lee (‘The Best Man’) have followed.

Pearls of Wisdom:

“Whenever I can, especially young filmmakers, I encourage them.” Parks said in a recent and rare interview with Black Voices. “I try to help them if I can and if they ask me to. So films like ‘Shaft,’ and ‘Leadbelly’ and ‘The Learning Tree,’ if it inspires young filmmakers, whether they be black, white or whatever, and they call me for some advice on them, if I can give good advice I would." When asked about his thoughts on mortality, the wise 92 year old sage commented: “I know its got to come, mortality ya know, and we all experience it and we do the best we can before we get there."

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 2:07 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Malcolm X was murdered on this day in 1965.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 2:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Malcolm X, (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and Omowale, was a longtime spokesman for the Nation of Islam. He was also founder of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

During his life, Malcolm went from being a street-wise Boston hoodlum to one of the most prominent black nationalist leaders in the United States. As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics. He ultimately rose to become a world renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist.

Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City on February 21, 1965 on the first day of National Brotherhood Week.

He explained the name he chose by saying,
"To take one's 'X' is to take on a certain mystery, a certain possibility of power in the eyes of one's peers and one's enemies ... The 'X'; announced what you had been and what you had become: Ex-smoker, Ex-drinker, Ex-Christian, Ex-slave."

The 'X' also stood for the unknown original surname of the slaves from whom Malcolm X descended, in preference to continuing to use a name which would have been given by the slave owner. This rationale made many members of the Nation of Islam choose their own surname. They could only choose X.

<snip>

In 1964, Life magazine published a famous photograph of Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and pulling back the curtains to peer out of a window. The photo was taken in connection with Malcolm's declaration that he would defend himself from the daily death threats which he and his family were receiving. The undercover FBI informants warned officials that Malcolm X had been marked for assassination. One officer undercover with the Nation of Islam is said to have reported that he had been ordered to help plant a bomb in Malcolm's car.

Tensions increased between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam. It was alleged that orders were given by members of the Nation of Islam leadership to kill Malcolm. On February 14, 1965, his home in New York City was firebombed. Malcolm and his family survived. Some say it was done by members of the Nation of Islam. No one was charged in that crime.

A week later on February 21 in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!" As Malcolm's bodyguards rushed forward to attend to the disturbance, a black man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men quickly charged towards the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 15 times. Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom, but the 39-year-old Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

Although a police report once existed stating that two men were detained in connection with the shooting, that report disappeared, and the investigation was inconclusive. Two suspects were named by witnesses — Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson — both were known as Nation of Islam agents and would have had difficulty entering the ballroom on that evening.

Three men were eventually charged in the case. Talmadge Hayer confessed to having fired shots into Malcolm's body, but he testified that Butler and Johnson were not present and were not involved in the shooting. All three were convicted.

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Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 - 2:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
I wonder where we'd be today if Malcolm was still alive.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, February 22, 2006 - 7:37 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
I got this in an email today and I can agree with it...

Being Black in the Work Place

They take my kindness for weakness. They take my silence for speechlessness. They consider my uniqueness strange. They call my language slang. They see my confidence as conceit. They see my mistakes as defeat. They consider my success accidental. They minimize my intelligence to "potential". My questions mean "I'm unaware". My advancement is somehow unfair. Any praise is preferential treatment. To voice concern is discontentment. If I stand up for myself, I'm too defensive. If I don't trust them, I'm too apprehensive. I'm defiant if I separate. I'm fake if I assimilate. Yet I’m constantly faced with workplace hate. My character is constantly under attack. Pride for my race makes me, "TOO BLACK". Yet, I can only be me. And who am I you might ask? I am that Strong Black Person. Who stands on the backs of my ancestor's achievements, with an erect spine pointing to the stars with pride, dignity and respect ... who lets the workplace in America know that I not only possess the ability to play by the rules, but I can make them as well! Black History 365.