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Archive through February 01, 2006

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: Apr. 2007 ~ Jun. 2007: Black History (ARCHIVES January 2006 ~ June 2007): Archive through February 01, 2006 users admin

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Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 1:10 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, BlackNews.com Columnist

Only twice can I remember an entertainer agitating audience members to the point that they stormed out of a performance or sat stone silent. Richard Pryor was that entertainer. The first time he did it was at a concert I attended on New Year's Eve at a small club in Hollywood. Pryor cut loose with a bitter, expletive laced, diatribe on black and white relations. He aimed his sharpest barbs at the whites. He needled, hectored, and browbeat them for their racial sins. Midway through his rant, the predictable happened. A trickle of whites made a beeline for the door. Pryor, nonplussed by the sound of their marching feet, didn't relent from his verbal tongue lash. The trickle quickly turned into a stamped. Even then Pryor didn't miss a beat he continued to hurl barbs at their backs.

But Pryor was a take-no-prisoners, equal opportunity baiter. Shortly after he returned from his racial epiphany trip to Africa in 1980, I, and other blacks in the theater audience at another Pryor concert, sat in stunned silence when he stopped the funny stuff, looked dead at the audience, and flagellated himself from the stage, and other blacks that routinely spit out the N-word with every sentence. Pryor could talk. He had practically elevated the word to a high art form. He called the word demeaning, offensive and insulting, and solemnly pledged that he would expunge it forever from his rap. The audience squirmed in puzzled silence. They didn't know whether to cheer or hiss. This was not the Pryor that many of us had come to know and love. The madcap king of irreverent, shock humor. The fall-out from his announcement was swift.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 1:32 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Actress Queen Latifah to be Honored with 1st Hollywood Walk Of Fame
Star of 2006

HOLLYWOOD, CA – (December 27, 2005) Queen Latifah will be honored
with the 2,298th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 4, 2006,
at 11:30 a.m. The star will be unveiled in front of the historic Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre, 6915 Hollywood Boulevard.

Johnny Grant, Chairman of the Walk of Fame Committee, will preside
over the event and Leron Gubler, President/CEO of the Hollywood
Chamber of Commerce will speak on behalf of the organization.

Queen Latifah received rave reviews, an Oscar® nomination for Best
Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe nomination and a SAG Award
nomination for her portrayal as Mama Morton in Miramax’s “Chicago.”
Following that, she starred in Disney’s box office hit “Bringing Down the
House,” on which she also acted as executive producer through her
company, Flavor Unit Entertainment. She most recently starred in and
produced the “Barbershop” spin-off “Beauty Shop.” Along with the 2004
comedy “Taxi,” her other films include “Set It Off,” “Living Out
Loud,” “Brown Sugar,” “Bone Collector” and “Jungle Fever,” her film
debut.

link

Escapee
Member

06-15-2004

Wednesday, January 04, 2006 - 1:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Escapee a private message Print Post    
I have always loved Queen Latifah.
U N I T Y.

Teachmichigan
Member

07-22-2001

Friday, January 06, 2006 - 8:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Teachmichigan a private message Print Post    
A question came up today in my classroom that stumped me, and so far haven't come up with anything in my Internet searching (haven't tried everything though).

Anyway, one of my students did his senior project on racism (the problem and how to try to solve it). He wants to know where the name Ku Klux Klan originated. We have all kinds of information about WHEN in started, etc. but not why that particular name was chosen. Anyone here know?

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, January 06, 2006 - 9:40 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
The name was constructed by combining the Greek "kyklos" (circle) with "clan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan#endnote_etymology

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, January 06, 2006 - 10:20 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
Remembering Lou Rawls

Very nice tribute obit ...

Treasure
Member

06-26-2002

Friday, January 06, 2006 - 10:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Treasure a private message Print Post    
I too called up KKK and found the information on the Klan at Wikipedia. Then I followed an additional link and found a homepage for the Klan. This is their explanation of the name.


The Origin of the name "Ku Klux Klan":

The name Ku Klux Klan comes from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle, wheel or band. This name was chosen because in it contained some of the unique characteristics of the White (or Aryan) race. The wheel is certainly the best symbole of creativity; hence the creativity of the White race, and the circle is the oldest symbol of unity. Kuklos thought about in this context simply means White Racial Brotherhoood. Ku Klox was simply taken from the word kuklos and Klan was added.

http://www.k-k-k.com/

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, January 07, 2006 - 9:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Yes it is Ladyt, thx. I didn't know that about the KKK. Sounds like a good project your student is doing Teach.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 7:26 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute: What If
By Lela McGee

If I could traveled back in time and take a panoramic view of history, like the late Dr. Martin Luther King did; where in history would I began my reflection? Dr. King chose to travel back to Egypt where God's children were making their dark journey from Egypt to the Promise Land. Unquestionably, this was a virtuous and pious choice.

After I personally considered all of history's prodigious occurrences, I chose an event that was as impacting and critical as the Exodus. I traveled back to Montgomery, Alabama - to the day that the Montgomery Improvement Association asked Dr. King to become their spokesperson in leading history's largest boycott. This boycott birthed the Civil Rights Movement and eradicated segregation. As I reflect on such a remarkable incident, I pay tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and our collective efforts in continuing his legacy.

As I glanced back in history, I was reminded that it was just fifty years ago, when little white children and little black children couldn't hold hands and sing. That was a time when segregation was an everyday part of American life. African Americans were treated as second class citizens in a country in which they helped to build. It was daily news for people of color to be threatened, beaten, and killed because America embraced segregation. History teaches eight years before I was born, there were separate neighborhoods, schools, public facilities, and water fountains. We were forced to enter through back entrances of many facilities, even being compelled to ride at the back of the bus, until a courageous and God sent woman refused to move to the back of the bus.

It was then that fifty thousand individuals mobilized and boycotted the bus system. With valor and being led by Dr. King, African Americans sought change. Unified and committed they began to march for equal rights in all aspects of life. This stance proved to be sacrificial and dangerous. Yet, not even unleashed water hoses and attack dogs could turn them back. With fervor they continued this march, not caring who would be wrongly jailed or who might have to sacrifice their life; the bold zealots marched on. On and on they marched, becoming weary and at times many were physically unable to continue on; yet, they chanted from the profundity of their souls, we won't be turned back. Unremittingly, they pressed on and change occurred. The fruits of their labor rendered me and all other African Americans, the right to be treated as first class citizens.

As I sit here, privileged to write, I humbly thank you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, for my opportunity to write, teach, and speak unaffected and without incident. Thank you, for granting all African Americans the choice of being educated equally and fairly. I could never thank you enough, that I can eat at any lunch counter and enter all facilities using the front entrance. But more than that, I thank you Dr. King because my four sons can play with all the girls and boys regardless of race, color or creed.

link

Mak1
Member

08-12-2002

Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 7:56 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mak1 a private message Print Post    
That's a lovely tribute, and hard to believe these things occurred during my lifetime. Thanks for posting, Mocha.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Thursday, January 12, 2006 - 8:02 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Yw. Yeah just 50yrs ago. Not so far in the past which is why there's still a long way to go.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 11:57 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
.....You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"

And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood--that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.

And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say that threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.


link

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 6:13 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
excellent, Mocha, thanks ...

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 6:06 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Tishala a private message Print Post    
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Beyond Vietnam"

[...] Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself unless the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land. [...]

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only non-Communist revolutionary political force -- the unified Buddhist church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men. What liberators?

Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers. [...]

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. [...] link

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 9:51 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Juju2bigdog a private message Print Post    
Made me cry. That man sure could reason and speak.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, January 16, 2006 - 4:15 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
He was very charismatic. Sometimes I sit back and wonder what America would be like today if both him and Malcolm X were allowed to live out their natural lives.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Friday, January 20, 2006 - 12:55 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Author/Columnist Anthony Asadullah Samad's Latest Book, 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America Nominated For NAACP Image Award

Much Touted Book's Reference to "Colorblindness As The New Jim Crow" Puts Race Back In The National Discourse.

Los Angeles, CA (BlackNews.com) - Kabili Press announced that the latest book release of award winning columnist, and best-selling author, Anthony Asadullah Samad, 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America, has been nominated for a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Non Fiction. A timely discussion in how far African Americans have advanced since the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, et al. in 1954, the book analyzes the history of the equality battles before the Brown decision and critiques the fifty year battle to define and engage political, social and economic equality for all Americans.

The book surmises that equality has not yet been attained in America largely because America has avoided the national discussion in post civil right era (1980 to the present). Colorblindness is the new Jim Crow as American equality remains as separate and unequal as ever, concludes author Anthony Asadullah Samad.

The 2005 NAACP Image Award nomination represents the latest accolade for this landmark book that many scholars and historians are calling a very important contribution in the study of race and social construction in America, as well as a springboard into a national discussion on reparations. 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America was the winner of 2005 Los Angeles Black Book Expos Best Non-Fiction Book Award, made several best-seller lists including Essence Magazine (September, 2005) and was selected as one of the top ten black non-fiction titles in 2005 by the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC.com, Kam Williams, reviewer).

Viewed as one of the most read featured columnists in the African American press over the past 15 years, Anthony Asadullah Samads various weekly editorial commentaries contributes to newspapers and cyber websites that appear in U.S. markets nationwide. An Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at East Los Angeles College, Mr. Samad is also currently the managing director of the Urban Issues Forum of Greater Los Angeles, and is the author of two books; his first book also an Essence magazine bestseller, Souls For Sale: The Diary of An Ex-Colored Man (Kabili Press, 2002). To find more about his current release, 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America, visit www.AnthonySamad.com


link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Saturday, January 28, 2006 - 10:16 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Should Black People Leave America?

NNPA, Commentary, James Clingman, Jan 23, 2006

Ever since we arrived in this country there have been conversations about our leaving. Movements, threats, cajoling, incentives, and every manner of effort by Blacks and Whites alike, from Paul Cuffee to Marcus Garvey, and from James Monroe to Abe Lincoln, have been discussed and, in some cases, implemented to get Black people out of this country.

While there have been several prominent Black people who have left, there has been no mass exodus by Black people since Liberia, the 1967 move to Africa by the African Hebrew Israelites notwithstanding.

In light of all that has happened to Black people in this country, in addition to what is occurring now in the new millennium, should Black people seriously consider leaving America? We have been here since the beginning, contributed more than anyone else to the foundational wealth of this country, sacrificed more than anyone else for this country, and yet we are still treated like the “three-fifths” they called us when they wrote their Constitution. Should we now walk away?

There comes a time in the lives of most people when they can no longer take seeing their people being left out, marginalized, mistreated, abused, and murdered. They simply throw their hands up, pack up, and leave.

link

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 12:15 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Coretta Scott King Dies at 78

By ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) - Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband's assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died, former mayor Andrew Young told NBC Tuesday morning. She was 78.

Young, who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, broke the news during a phone call he made to the "Today" show. "I was not expecting it. She has been ill for last few months. My first reaction was she was ready to cross on over."

Asked how he found out about her death, Young said: "I understand she was asleep last night and her daughter tried to wake her up."

Efforts by The Associated Press to reach the family were unsuccessful. They did not immediately return phone calls, but flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.

King suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.

She was a supportive lieutenant to her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., during the most tumultuous days of the American civil rights movement. She had married him in 1953.

After her husband's assassination in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968, she kept his dream alive while also raising their four children.

link

Mameblanche
Member

08-24-2002

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 12:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mameblanche a private message Print Post    
I am so sorry to hear this. First Rosa Parks, and now Mrs. King. How sad! :-(

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 10:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
I want to start Black History Month with a short bio of Carter Woodson, the creator of Negro History Week, the precursor to Black History Month.

Carter Woodson
carter woodson
December 19, 1875 – April 3, 1950

Carter Woodson was raised in New Canton, Virginia. He was the son of a former slave and one of nine children. Woodson’s mother secretly learned to read while she was a slave, and taught her children to read. When Woodson was twenty, he began attending Frederick Douglass High School while working in a coalmine in West Virginia. It was at the mine that he realized the importance of African American history when black miners who were Civil War veterans told him unrecorded oral histories.

Woodson completed high school in two years, and began attending Berea College in Kentucky. In 1903, he earned his bachelor’s degree. He spent time working and traveling in the Philippines, Asia, Europe, and Africa, while at the same time earning his bachelor’s in European history through a correspondence course at the University of Chicago. He received his second B.A. and M.A. in 1908. By 1912, he had received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University.

While living in Washington, D.C, Woodson worked as a teacher at a high school until 1917. In 1916, he co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which was renamed the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1976. The purpose of the organization was to publish and fund research and writing projects about black history.Woodson was so dedicated to the cause that he financed the Association with his personal income from his employment as principal at the Armstrong Manual Training School and later, with his income from Howard University where he was dean of the school of liberal arts and a professor of history. Woodson was able to resign from Howard and work in the Association full-time after the organization was given substantial financial support from the Carnegie Corporation and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial.

With his full attention given to the Association, Woodson was able to create a successful organization that established a home study program, directed the study of African American history in schools, hired researchers to search the international archives, and lastly, he founded the Associated Publishers, which published books and resources about black history. The Association also published the quarterly publication, the Journal of Negro History, which was distributed on all of the continents.

Woodson was not just involved in promoting and publishing black history; he was also an author. His work included, The Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), The Negro Church (1921), Negro Makers of History (1928), The Miseducation of the Negro (1933), and The Negro in Our History (1922), which was considered the best textbook about black history.

Woodson is most known for his creation of Negro History Week (1926). The idea was originally that of the Omega Psi Phi, a black fraternity of which he was an honorary member. The week was a time in which contributions by blacks were emphasized. Woodson popularized the holiday when he put his name behind the idea. It eventually evolved into Black History Month in 1976.

On April 3, 1950, Woodson died in Washington, D.C.

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/cartergwoodson/p/bio_woodson_c.htm

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 10:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
PBS To Offer Special Programming For Black History Month
By PBS
Jan 26, 2006, 07:39

http://www.urbanmecca.com/artman/publish/article_624.shtml


From history to culture to drama to independent film, PBS features year-round programming both created by and about African Americans. In honor of Black History Month, PBS will broadcast a variety of new and encore presentations that celebrate the rich history of African Americans. The centerpiece for this month of special programs is a four-hour series by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which uses genealogy and DNA science to trace the roots of a group of African-American citizens back through American history to Africa.

Other program topics include a look at the little-known founders of the Black Panthers movement, and an examination of a three-night riot that took place in July 1964 in Rochester, New York, which tore the city apart and from which it has never recovered. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, the nine-time Emmy Award-winning television movie starring Cicely Tyson (with a new introduction from Queen Latifah), will also be shown. With a breadth and depth that can't be found anywhere else on television, these compelling programs examine the cultural contributions and distinguished heritage of African Americans.

Broadcast Premieres
AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES (New)
Wednesdays, February 1-8, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET
Renowned scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. DuBois professor of the Humanities and chair of African and African-American Studies at Harvard University, takes Alex Haley's Roots saga to a whole new level. Using genealogy and DNA science, Dr. Gates tells the personal stories of eight accomplished African Americans -- a neurosurgeon, a TV pioneer/philanthropist, an astronaut, a music entrepreneur, a sociologist, a movie star, a minister and a comedian -- tracing their roots through American history and back to Africa.

INDEPENDENT LENS
"Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power" (New)
Tuesday, February 7, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET (check local listings)
Credited with inspiring the Black Power movement, Robert Williams led his North Carolina hometown to defend itself against the Ku Klux Klan and challenge repressive Jim Crow laws. "Negroes With Guns" follows Williams' journey from southern community leader to exile in Cuba and China, a journey that brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

INDEPENDENT LENS
"July '64" (New)
Tuesday, February 14, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET (check local listings)
In the summer of 1964, a three-night riot erupted in two predominantly black neighborhoods in downtown Rochester, New York, the culmination of decades of poverty, joblessness and racial discrimination -- and a significant event in the Civil Rights era. Using archival footage and interviews with those who were present, "July '64" explores the genesis and outcome of these three devastating nights.

FANNIE LOU HAMER: COURAGE AND FAITH (New)
February 2006 (check local listings)
Using archival footage and interviews with those who knew her well and were affected by her actions, this program chronicles the extraordinary life of Fannie Lou Hamer and introduces her to a new, younger generation. Mrs. Hamer attended the 1964 Democratic National Convention as a member of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation. Many credit her presence at the convention as the impetus for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Interviews include Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC); Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women; Rutgers University history professor Clement Price; and numerous members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Bernice Johnson Reagon, founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, narrates.

SHARED HISTORY (New)
February 2006 (check local listings)
SHARED HISTORY is the intimate story of the relationship between two families whose connection was forged in slavery and has endured to the present. The filmmaker, the great-great-granddaughter of a slave owner, and Rhonda Kearse, a descendant of one of the enslaved families, seek to understand and reconcile the reality of slavery with the shared lives and affections between the families.

Encore Presentations
AMERICA BEYOND THE COLOR LINE WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listing)
Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard's chair of African-American Studies, travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. In four programs, Gates travels to four different parts of America -- the East Coast, the deep South, inner- city Chicago and Hollywood. He explores this rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic, and meets the people who are defining black America, from the most famous and influential to those at the grassroots.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
PBS presents a rebroadcast of this groundbreaking nine-time Emmy Award- winning television movie from the 1970s. Based on the best-selling novel by Ernest J. Gaines, the fictionalized historical drama from director John Korty follows 110-year-old Jane Pittman, played by Cicely Tyson, on her incredible life journey from the end of the Civil War in the 1860s through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Through the years, Miss Jane survives the last vestiges of slavery in Louisiana, Jim Crow laws, encounters with the KKK and the slaying of her husband, only to triumph in the end over social injustice. The broadcast includes an introductory segment hosted by Queen Latifah.

THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
This special is the first documentary to provide an in-depth examination of the history and contributions of African-American newspapers. Since the early 1800s, black newspapers have existed in almost every major city in the United States. THE BLACK PRESS: SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS gives life to this fascinating, little-known history by weaving interviews with editors, photographers and journalists of the black press with archival footage, photographs and the music of Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Ron Carter. Stage, screen and television actor Joe Morton narrates the film.

BRIARS IN THE COTTON PATCH: THE STORY OF KOINONIA FARM (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
This program explores the unknown story of Koinonia Farm, which may have been the most daring social experiment in the South during the last century. Blacks and whites lived together on the Georgia farm, broke bread at the same table and were paid the same wages. The commune, started in 1942, became the target of white anger -- with bombs, boycotts and shootings. Out of this violent history grew the worldwide movement of Habitat for Humanity International. Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young hosts.

INDEPENDENT LENS
"A Place of Our Own" (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
Stanley Nelson is a third-generation upper middle-class African American who spent the past 40 summers in Oak Bluffs, an affluent African-American resort community on Martha's Vineyard. Building on personal stories of summers past, "A Place of Our Own" explores the world of black doctors, lawyers and journalists who created social clubs, professional organizations and a refuge for African Americans.

P.O.V. "Chisholm '72 -- Unbought & Unbossed" (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
This documentary recaptures the times and spirit of a watershed event in American politics, when Shirley Chisholm, an African-American woman, dared to take an equal place on the presidential dais. The New York Democratic congresswoman's bid engendered strong and sometimes bigoted opposition, setting off currents that affect American politics and social perceptions to this day.

SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
This groundbreaking series chronicles the institution of American slavery from its origins in 1619 -- when English settlers in Virginia purchased 20 Africans from Dutch traders -- through the arrival of the first 11 slaves in the northern colonies (in Dutch New Amsterdam), the American Revolution, the Civil War, the adoption of the 13th Amendment and Reconstruction. With such unprecedented breadth come entirely new perspectives on and facts about slavery. These new perspectives challenge many long-held notions (such as the idea that slavery was strictly a southern institution; it was, in fact, a national institution) and highlight the contradictions of a country that was founded on the principle of "liberty and justice for all" but embraced slavery. Morgan Freeman narrates.

THIS FAR BY FAITH: AFRICAN-AMERICAN SPIRITUAL JOURNEYS (Encore)
February 2006 (check local listings)
In six hours of powerful storytelling, THIS FAR BY FAITH examines the African-American religious experience through the last three centuries. From the arrival of the early African slaves through the Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow, the great depression, the civil rights era and into the 21st century, the series explores the connections between faith and the development of African-American cultural values. Lorraine Toussaint ("Any Day Now," "Crossing Jordan") narrates.

Via PRNewswire

Tishala
Member

08-01-2000

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 1:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Tishala a private message Print Post    
I'm glad to see PBS rerunning some of my favorites! And I can't wait to see the documentary on Mrs. Hamer, who is one of my favorites of the civil rights struggle. Just thinking about her speech in Atlantic City, 1964, gives me goose bumps. There was so much passion and power in her voice, in her beliefs, in her bearing. And "Negroes With Guns" sounds great, too!

I wish my PBS station would re-air the entire Eyes on the Prize series, too.

Mocha
Member

08-12-2001

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 6:15 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Mocha a private message Print Post    
Black History Month or African American History Month? Hmmmmm...

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Wednesday, February 01, 2006 - 6:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post Send Ladytex a private message Print Post    
I'm really enjoying "African American Lives". Very interesting listening to Oprah's daddy, and about Chris Tucker's Great-Great grandfather