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FEBRUARY 24, 2002
1811 Bishop of AME Church Daniel Payne born 1864 Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in 1833. She worked from 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts. 1868 House of Representatives voted, 126 to 47, to impeach President Andrew Johnson. 1940 Former world heavyweight boxing champion Jimmy Ellis was born James Albert Ellis in Louisville, Kentucky. Ellis won the World Boxing Association title after beating Jerry Quarry in April 1968. 1966 Elected leader and first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, ousted in military coup while he is away on a peace mission to Vietnam. |
Let Celebrate our Historic Winter Olympians!
Vonetta Flowers :D
Congratualtions to Vonetta Flowers, the first African American woman to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. (She is also the first African American to win a GOLD MEDAL at the Winter Olympics) (Apologies to Debbie Thomas) http://www.usatoday.com/olympics/sal...2-19-women.htm Garrett Hines and Randy Jones:D Add Randy Jones and Garrett Hines to our list of historic Olympians, they are the first African-American men to win medals at the Winter Olympics. It looks like Vonetta Flowers finally has come company!:-) http://www.msnbc.com/news/714083.asp?pne=11947#BODY |
February 25, 2002
1839 Seminoles and their Black allies shipped from Tampa Bay, Florida, to the West. 1870 Hirman R. Revels of Mississippi sworn in as first Black U.S. senator and first Black representative in Congress. 1928 "One-Man Show of Art by Negro, First of Kind Here, Opens Today," read the headline of a front-page article in 'The New York Times' on this day. The article announced the opening of Archibald J. Motley, Jr's show at the New Gallery on Madison Avenue. This was the first time in History that an artist had made the front page of 'The New York Times' and it was the second one-person show by an African-American artist (the first being Henry O. Tanner). African scenes, voodoo dances, and African-Americans at leisure were themes presented by the artist. 1948 Martin Luther King ordained as a Baptist minister. 1964 Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston for world heavyweight boxing championship. 1964 Nat King Cole, the singer with the "Golden Voice", dies. 1971 President Nixon met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and appointed a White House panel to study a list of recommendations made by the group. 1975 Death of Elijah Muhammad (77), leader of the Nation of Islam, in Chicago. He was succeeded by his son, Wallace D. Muhammad. 1978 Death of Daniel ("Chappie") James Jr. (58), retired Air Force general and the first Black promoted to four-star rank, at the Air Force Academy, Colorado. 1987 Edward Daniel Nixon, former president of the Georgia NAACP, died at age 87. 1989 Boxer Mike Tyson becomes the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World by defeating challenger Frank Bruno of England. 1999 White supremacist John King, one of three white men accused of chaining James Byrd to a pickup and dragging him along a Texas road until he was decapitated,:mad:was sentenced to death by lethal injection. If his death penalty is carried out, he will be the first white Texan executed for killing a black person since slavery ended. :eek: |
THOMAS JENNINGS
Thomas Jennings (1791-1859) "Receives first Patent by African American"
Thomas Jennings was the first African American to receive a Patent. As the owner of a New York dry cleaning store, Jennings patented a process for cleaning clothing. He later used the money he earned with his invention to buy his family out of slavery. Active as an abolitionist, Jennings published petitions that advocated the end of slavery in New York. |
Online Black History Quiz
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February 26, 2002
1869 Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote sent to the states for ratification. 1870 Wyatt Outlaw, Black leader of the Union League in Alamance County, N.C., Lynched. 1877 At a conference in the Wormley Hotel in Washington, representatives of Rutherford B. Hayes and representatives of the South negotiated agreement which paved the way for the election of Hayes as president and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. 1884 Birthday of Congressman James E. O'Hara of North Carolina. First elected March 4, 1833, O'Hara served two terms, the second ending March 3, 1887. 1926 Carter G. Woddson started Negro History Week. This week would later become Black History Month. 1926 Theodore "Georgia Deacon" Flowers wins middleweight boxing title. 1928 Singer "Fats" Domino born. 1930 The Green Pastures opened at mansfield Theater. 1933 Godfrey Cambridge, actor and comedian born in New York. 1946 Race riot, Columbia, Tennessee. Two killed and ten wounded. 1964 On this day, the Kentucky boxer known to all as Cassius Clay, changed his name to Muhammad Ali as he accepted Islam and rejected Christianity. "I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and in peace...I'm not a Christian anymore." 1965 Jimmie Lee Jackson, civil rights activist, died of injuries reportedly inflicted by officers in Marion, Alabama. 1985 On this day at the Grammy Awards ceremony, African-American musicians won awards in several categories. Lionel Richie's 'Can't Slow Down' won best album of 1984. Tina Turner's 'What's Love Got to Do With It' took the best record slot and earned her the title Best Female Pop Vocalist. The Pointer Sisters won best Pop Group for 'Jump.' |
February 27, 2002
Independence Day for Dominican Republic 1788 Prince Hall, Revolutionary War Veteran and founder of African Masonic Lodges, *may* have been born on this date. Though his accomplishments are well celebrated, little is known of Prince Hall's early life. 1833 On this day in 1833, Maria W. Steward delivered one of the four speeches which confirmed her place in history as the first American-born woman to give public lecturers. Stewards lecturers focused on encouraging African-Americans to attain education, political rights, and public recognition for their achievements. Her speech on thi day delivered at the African Masonic Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, was titled "On African Rights and Liberty." Sixty-seven years later in Boston on this same day, African-American teacher and poet Angelina Weld Grimke was born. Grimke was a descendant of the famous white abolitionist and feminist sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke. 1869 John W. Menard spoke in Congress in defense of his claim to a contested seat in Louisiana's Second Congressional District. Congress decided against both claimants. Congressman James A. Garfield of the examining committee said "it was too early to admit a Negro to the U.S. Congress." Menard was the first Black to make a speech in Congress. 1869 Congress adopted the 15th constitutional amendment, making it illegal for the US or any single government to deny or abridge the right to vote "on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude." 1883 Walter B. Purvis patented hand stamp. 1902 On this day Marian Anderson, who will become a world-renowned opera singer and the first African American soloist to perform at the White House, is born in Philadelphia, PA. 1942 Journalist Charlayne Hunter Gault was born this day in Due West, South Carolina. 1964 Anna Julia Cooper, champion for the rights of black women, dies at the age of 105. 1988 Figure skater Debi Thomas becomes the first African American to win a medal (bronze) at the winter Olympic Games. |
2.26.02
this is a day late, but significant nevertheless. yesterday, venus williams became the first african-american woman to achieve the #1 rank in tennis. i don't know how to put in links, so maybe soror ct4 could help me out. |
will I do soror stillwater? ;)
the easiest way to put a link in a post is to copy it from your browser & paste it into your post. the software will/should automatically make it clickable. Here's the link to the article about Venus: http://espn.go.com/tennis/news/2002/0225/1340188.html |
FEBRUARY 28, 2002
1704 Elias Neau, a Frenchman, opened school for Blacks in New York City. 1708 Slave revolt, Newton, Long Island (N.Y.). Seven whites killed. Two Black male slaves and an Indian slave were hanged, and a Black woman was burned alive. 1778 Rhode Island General Assembly in precedent-breaking act authorized the enlistment of slaves. 1859 Arkansas legislature required free Blacks to choose between exile and enslavement. 1871 Second Enforcement Act gave federal officers and courts control of registration and voting in congressional elections. 1879 Southern Blacks fled political and economic exploitation in "Exodus of 1879." Exodus continued for several years. One of the major leaders of the Exodus movement was a former slave, Benjamin ("Pap") Singleton. 1932 Richard Spikes invented the automatic gear shift 1940 United States population: 131,669,275. Black population: 12,865,518 (9.8 per cent). Richard Wright's Native Son published. 1942 Race riot, Sojourner Truth Homes, Detroit. 1943 Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan in starring roles. 1948 Sgt. Cornelius F. Adjetey becomes the first martyr for national independence of Ghana. 1977 Death of comedian Eddie ("Rochester") Anderson (71). 1984 Musician and entertainer Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy Awards. His album, "Thriller", broke all sales records to-date, and remains one of the top-grossing albums of all time. 1990 Philip Emeagwali awarded the Gordon Bell Prize (computing's Nobel Prize) for solving one of the twenty most difficult problems in the computing field. 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Cornelius Gunter, lead singer of the Coasters, was shot to death in Las Vegas, Nevada. Gunter joined the group in 1957 and was around for such hits as "Poison Ivy" and "Charlie Brown." |
BLACK HISTORY is NOT OVER
Today begins National Women's History Month but you know how BLACK FOLKS do,:p we put a special little spin on it.
MARCH 1, 2002 1892 The pastry fork was invented by a black woman, Ms. Anna M. Mangin. 1933 On this day Merlie Evers-Williams, who will become a civil rights activist and the first woman to head the NAACP, is born. |
March 2nd 1867
Howard University established. Also founded or chartered in 1867 were Talladege College, Morgan State University, Johnson C. Smith College, and St. Augustine's College. March 2nd 1961 Through 25th Some 180 Black students and a white minister arrested in Columbia, S.C., after anti-segregation march. 1990 - Carole Gist, of Detroit, Michigan, is crowned Miss USA. She becomes the first African American to win the title. |
IDEAL08 & my alma mater
IDEAL and I both had Mr. Johnson (a man of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.) and I also was taught by Ms. Campbell.
A longer lesson in black history 03/02/02 Lila J. Mills Plain Dealer Reporter Warrensville Heights - Lessons in black history last longer than 28 days in February at Warrensville Heights High School. In an attempt to boost students' self-esteem, school administrators this year made a course in black history and one on black literature requirements for graduation. "Young African-Americans know so little about their history," Board of Education member Martha Bonner said. And learning about important, but little-known, black accomplishments should give students more academic confidence, she added. The district, which is more than 99 percent black, serves about 3,000 students from Warrensville Heights, North Randall and Highland Hills. It is believed to be the only district in Northeast Ohio with mandatory black history and literature classes, although other schools offer the courses. The history class begins with the slave trade and the American Revolution and ends at the civil rights movement. In literature class, students read material that varies from slave narratives to the poetry of Rita Dove. A number of research papers are required in both of the semester-long classes. Students also complete daily assignments including a project that outlines the meaning of African names. In a recent class, history teacher Hal Johnson strolled the aisles dressed in a flowing African tunic. He outlined the role of runaway slave Crispus Attucks in the Boston Massacre, the notorious clash that led to the American Revolution. Attucks was the first person to die fighting British soldiers that day. Police blamed Rodney King for his beating in Los Angeles, Johnson said, "and the same thing happened with this man, Crispus Attucks in Boston. The lawyer [John Adams, who would later become the second U.S. president] blamed Crispus Attucks." Murmurs rippled through the classroom. Mikila Jones, 17, creased her brow and ran her fingers along her perfectly locked cornrows. "So if [Adams] was so bad," she said, "why did they name a school after him?" "You have schools named after these men all across the country," Johnson said, "because these men were leaders. The Boston Tea Party, the Declaration of Independence - they were involved in all of that. But remember, you have to read more to find out the true character of these men." Although some students challenged Johnson's interpretation of Adams and Attucks, they said they enjoy his class. "In this class, everything is about our ancestors," said Taisha Cromity, 15, as Johnson moved on to the next lesson and played music by Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson 5. "It makes me feel good. Now I know there are more [black] leaders than they show on TV." Literature teacher Debra Campbell, who has been teaching for 19 years, hopes the required classes will catch on in other districts that aren't predominantly black. "I would like to see other schools start teaching it," she said. "It is American history, after all. Don't just limit [black history] to February and then try to cram everything in." |
1932
African actress and singer Miriam Makeba born in Johannesburg, South Africa. 1962 Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee TRACK & FIELD Birthplace: East St. Louis, Illinois March 3, 1962 - Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee is part of the Joyner family of American track-and-field stars. Jackie first gained national attention by winning 4 consecutive National Junior Pentathlon Championships. She set the heptathlon world record (7,291 points) at the 1988 Olympics. In 1988, she was the first woman selected Athlete of the Year by the Sporting News. This impressive female athlete earned the U.S. record and won the World Championship for the long jump twice (1987 and 1991). In 1992, she became the first winner of back-to-back gold medals in the heptathlon event. Jackie retired from track and field, and joined one of the new women's professional basketball leagues. 1988 Juanita Kidd Stout becomes the first African American woman to serve on a state supreme court when she is sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Her husband (upon her bequest) established the Juanita Kidd Stout Scholarship in her memory for study in the area of Criminal Justice for graduate and undergraduate study. It is given to Deltas only. |
Today's BLACK FACT will not be televised
Why We Need Black History Month - All Year Around
From "Ghana Review" Vol 1. No. 6 Friday 27 January 1995 Supplement Black History Month N.B. Posted with permission of GHANA REVIEW. Having lived in Canada for many years now, I have come to know the month of February as Black History Month. In fact, since 1926, February has been designated as Black History month in North America. During one of the Black History Month celebrations here in Edmonton, I engaged in a chat with a gentleman who had come to find out what it was all about. During our conversation he kept asking me why do Black people need a month to celebrate their history? He wanted to know what is Black history? And if there is any history of African people at all to talk or read about. I must say I was not surprised at his queries. I cannot remember the number of times I have heard or read somewhere that, as Africans we have not contributed anything substantial to history. In fact, to many Westerners we have no history at all. This statement by a Columbia University professor is very typical: "Over the past 5,000 years," he noted, "the history of black Africa is blank. The black African had no written language; no numerals; no calendar, or system of measurement. He did not devise a plough or wheel, nor did he domesticate an animal; he built nothing more complex than a mud hut or thatched stockade. The African had no external trade except in slaves of his own race, in ivory, and (on the West Coast) in palm oil and mahogany." And of course, there is the much quoted pronouncement by the eminent Oxford University historian, Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper who said that: "Perhaps in the future there will be some African history to teach. But at the present there is none; there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness ... and darkness is not the subject of history". Or what about the view expressed by the British scholar of Africa, Margery Perham, who wrote that: "Until the very recent penetration of Europe the greater part of the [African] continent was without the wheel, the plough or the transport animal; without stone houses or clothes except skins; without writing and so without history." In his book, Progress and Evolution of Man in Africa, Dr. L. S. B. Leakey wrote that: "In every country that one visits and where one is drawn into a conversation about Africa, the question is regularly asked by people who should know better: "But what has Africa contributed to world progress?" What I have found troubling though is how many of us in the Black or African communities still believe some of these statements. I have encountered Blacks who are completely ignorant or have less knowledge about African history - despite the many fine books on African history and the rise of the Afrocentric movement in North America. African-American historian John Hope Franklin was right when he told an interviewer that: "[Blacks] can never expect the public schools to teach us as much about our history as we want to know. We can urge them, we can press them to teach more, but I think that much of this lies with us." As someone interested in Black education, I find it a tragedy that many Black and African children grow up today convinced of their own inferiority. The educational process largely ignores the contributions of Blacks to world civilization and is full of negative perceptions of Blacks and their culture. The school system in North America has continually perpetuated the historical myths and stereotypes about the African past. I was almost moved to tears to read in a recent Canadian newspaper report about a Black student who until enrolling in a Black-oriented remedial school never knew or read a book by a Black author. There have been reports about how studies in Black history have been an "eye-opener for [Black] students" in Canadian high schools. One account noted that students are not taught any African or Black history in regular classes. As one student put it: "They have always taken Canadian history, prime ministers, kings, queens. Maybe some US history. But they've never taken anything African". Or as another student said at a high school in Toronto: "History, Canadian history, English or anything else, was always about white people." In a Windsor high school where a history course in African history has just began, teachers observed how Black students are "amazed and are absolutely intrigued about what they learn about the African past." Similarly, the introduction of Black history in a Toronto high school in 1993 +is part of an initiative to engage more black students in academics, to hook in kids who come from educational jurisdictions outside Canada. Their vital interest in the course would be the means to develop their learning skills+researching, communicating, reading. " Already, teachers in Canadian schools have noticed what one called +signs of a newly informed dissent." One teacher observed that: "A few weeks ago, one of my students, stood up in his Grade 11 English class and asked why there weren+t any black writers on the reading list." And "through the influence of the black history course, a number of "high-risk" students are taking on more academically demanding courses and faring well." I have always believed what African American historian John Henrik Clarke said a long time ago that, to control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you. The chains on your mind are more than enough. Over time, many of us Africans have been injected with inferiority complexes, humiliation and cultural degradation as a result of the lack of knowledge of ourselves and our past. We have become caricatures and an inferior subset of the human race in the body of Western thought. Teacher, historian and educational psychologist, Asa Hilliard has said many times that no groups other than Native Americans and African Americans, in the history of the United States have undergone more defamation of character through distortion, omission, suppression of information, and genocide. African American historian Carter Woodson has written about how "the thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies .... To handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst form of lynching. It kills one's aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime". This degradation of African peoples goes on till this day. Just witness the recent publication of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American life", a book that assigns genetically inferior intelligence to African peoples everywhere. It is enough of a tragedy for colonialists and white racists to degrade Africans in this manner, but this tragedy is compounded when as Africans we join in the mockery. Therefore, to me, there can be no freedom until there is freedom of the mind. I always remember the lyric by the late Bob Marley which says: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds." This brings me back to why there is a Black History Month in North America. Why is it important to know our history? Carter Woodson, who is credited with founding Black History Month was the premier Black historian to put forward the idea of African history as a form of Black cultural empowerment and emancipation. In his view, the knowledge and dissemination of African history would, "besides building self-esteem among blacks, help eliminate prejudice among whites." He aimed both "to inculcate in the mind of the youth of African blood an appreciation of what their race has thought and felt and done" and to publicize the facts of the Black among whites, so that "the Negro may enjoy a larger share of the privileges of democracy as a result of the recognition of his worth." In a speech at Hampton Institute in 1921 Woodson addressed the issue head on: "We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'. They will say to you, +Who are you, anyway? Your ancestors have never controlled empires or kingdoms and most of your race have contributed little or nothing to science and philosophy and mathematics." So far as you know, they have not; but if you will read the history of Africa, the history of your ancestors' people of whom you should feel proud+you will realize that they have a history that is worth while. They have traditions...of which you can boast and upon which you can base a claim for a right to a share in the blessings of democracy. Let us, then, study...this history...with the understanding that we are not, after all, an inferior people. ... We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements. It is not going to be long before we can sing the story to the outside world as to convince it of the value of our history...and we are going to be recognized as men. In his 1933 classic work, The Miseducation of the Negro, Woodson showed the fundamental problems concerning the education of the African person. He noted how Blacks have been educated away from their own culture and traditions and how as African peoples we have attached ourselves to European culture often to the detriment of our own heritage. Who would believe for example that, the music department of Fisk University, a traditionally Black university, concentrated on classical European music to the exclusion of the music that expressed the Black experience in America, and Black history and sociology courses were rare and exceptional until after World War 1? Or that French textbooks on African history taught to African children on the African continent, even to this day, would treat French colonialism in Africa as an unqualified blessing and joy for the African? If education is ever to be substantive and meaningful within the context of North American and world history, Woodson argued, it must first address the African+s historical experiences, both in Africa and the Diaspora. "No nation, no race," observed Dr. Charles Finch of the Morehouse School of Medicine "can face the future unless it knows what it is capable of. This is the function of history." Thus, as James Walker notes in his book, A History of Blacks in Canada: "...the study of black history can give blacks a sense of the positive achievements of their people, and provide self-confidence and self-pride which are essential to any program of assertiveness." Cornell University Professor Martin Bernal, author of Black Athena, has acknowledged that: "Eurocentric history as taught in schools and universities has had a very large ego-boosting, if not therapeutic, purpose for whites. ... It's in a way normal for the idea that Blacks should have some confidence building in their pedagogy." There is a Swahili adage which says: "You are what you make of yourself, and not what others make you." In fact, a positive identity or enhanced self-concept is critical for the academic, social, and personal success of Black students everywhere. And this is where Black history becomes important. Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah has written about the need for "a re-awakening [of] consciousness among Africans and peoples of African descent of the bonds that unite us - our historical past, our culture, our common experience and our aspirations." And the late Afro-Guyanese historian, Walter Rodney made the same point when he wrote that: "What we need is confidence in ourselves, so that as Africans we can be conscious, united, independent and creative. A knowledge of African achievements in art, education, religion, politics, agriculture, medicine, science and the mining of metals can help us gain the necessary confidence which has been removed by slavery and colonialism." So if they say as Africans we don't have a history, we should be able to point out the fallacy in such ignorant statements by referring to works by distinguished African historians such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Chancellor Williams, Walter Rodney, Adu Boahen, John Jackson, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, John Hope Franklin, Leronne Bennett Jr., John Henrik Clarke, J. F. Ade Ajayi and many more. Thanks to their works, we've come to know that when we talk about African history, we are also talking about African astronomy, African mathematics, African metallurgy, African medicine, African engineering and so on. And thanks to the great contribution by the late African historian, Cheikh Anta Diop, we now know that the history that we need to recover includes that Egyptian science and technology which laid the foundation for the development of Europe. The use of historical knowledge must be a weapon in our struggle for complete liberation. An overall view of ancient African civilizations and ancient African cultures is required to get rid of all myths about the African past, which continues to linger in the minds of Black and African peoples everywhere. And that is what Black History Month is all about. Remember the African saying: "Know your history and you will always be wise." Henry Martey Codjoe A Policy Consultant with the Alberta Department of Education, Canada. January 1995 *Forthcoming in African Link, Volume 5, No. 1 (February 1995) under the title, "A Commentary on Black History Month in North America." This is also a modified version of an article, "On the Importance of History in Black and African Development," in Caribbean Source, Volume 2, No. 7 (February 1993). |
Back to the WOMEN
1920
Leontine T.C. Kelly, the first African-American woman to become a bishop within the Methodist denomination, was born. |
Today's Black Woman Spotlight
PAULA GIDDINGS
Nationality: American Occupation: Educator, Editor, Journalist, Social historian PERSONAL Born Paula Jane Giddings, November 16, 1947, in Yonkers, NY; daughter of Curtis G. (a guidance counselor and school teacher) and Virginia (Stokes; a guidance counselor) Giddings. Education: Howard University, BA, 1969. Memberships: Delta Sigma Theta, 1967--; National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1985; American Historical Association, 1990--; International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN; board member), 1990--; Author's Guild of America (treasurer), 1991; Century Club; Association of Black Women Historians; National Women's Studies Association; Author's League Foundation (board member); Organization of American Historians; Women's WORLD (World Organization for Rights, Literature, and Development; cofounder and board member). Addresses: Home--New York, NY. CAREER Random House, editorial assistant, 1969-70, copy editor, 1970-72; Howard University Press, associate book editor, 1972-75; Encore America/Worldwide News, Paris bureau chief, Paris, France, 1975-77, associate editor, New York, NY, 1977-79; Essence, contributing and book review editor, 1985-90; Spelman College, distinguished United Negro College Fund (UNCF) scholar, 1986-87, visiting scholar, 1991-92; Rutgers University/Douglass College, Laurie New Jersey chair in women's studies, 1989-91; Princeton University, visiting professor, 1992-93; Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar, 1995-96. Fellow, Barnard Center for Research on Women, 1990-93, New York University Institute for the Humanities, 1991--, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, 1993-94, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC, 1993-95. AWARDS Ford Foundation Grant, 1982; Candace Award, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, 1985; Alumni Award, Howard University, 1985; Westchester Black Women's Political Caucus Award, 1986; Building Brick Award, New York Urban League, 1986; Anna Julia Cooper Award, Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, 1990, Bennett College, Greensboro, NC, honorary doctorate in humane letters 1990. WRITINGS: Books When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America, William Morrow, 1984, Bantam, 1985. In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority, William Morrow, 1988, Quill, 1995. (With Cornel West) Regarding Malcolm X, Amistad Press, 1994. Plays The Reunion, reading at Judith Anderson Theater, New York City, 1991. NARRATIVE ESSAY: Paula Giddings has made her name and reputation carrying out a simple but formidable project, recovering the lost voices of silent generations of American black women. Giddings has put her strongest efforts into restoring and understanding the perspective of others in her two well-received, major books of social history, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America and In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. Giddings credits her interest in language to her mother who taught her the importance of having a voice. Giddings has been recognized for her hard work by many group, including the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the New York Urban League, and Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina--awarded her an honorary doctorate in human letters in 1990. In Essence Giddings recalled one particularly formative experience from her childhood in the 1950s. She was the first black child to go to her privately run elementary school; the other children made fun of her African looks and taunted her with racial epithets, but Giddings did not respond. Her diffidence bothers her to this day. She wrote in Essence, "It was my first experience with the politics of difference, and my reaction, I am ashamed to say, was one of stunned silence." In a process similar to ones she would document in her later work, she found her voice suddenly muted. The white administrators were sympathetic enough to Giddings plight but were ineffectual in dealing with the childrens' cruelty. Not knowing what to do, they approached Giddings's mother, perhaps silently hoping she would remove her daughter from the school. Instead Mrs. Giddings asked to address the class. For the future writer, it was an important lesson. The author recollected in Essence, "She exuded such authority ... that the kids fell in line right away." Her mother a children's book about dealing with differences to the class. After finishing the book, Mrs. Giddings encouraged the children to speak up about their feelings of race. The youngsters, un-used to receiving such respect from an adult on such an important issue, were allowed to express openly the fears and prejudices that they were usually forced to suppress. The mother who had come in to help her daughter "find her voice" also performed the same service for her child's tormentors. When the dark feelings of the other children were brought out into the open and dealt with, they lost most of their virulence. Giddings compared what her mother did to an exorcism of "the monstrous images" that had come to dominate the children's understanding of black people. It was an extraordinary experience, bringing the children to feel true remorse for the inhuman way they had been treating another human being; and for the little girl, Paula, the encounter between her mother and her classmates became an emblem for the dignity of the human voice and the power of the story teller's art. Giddings mother was no stranger to the educational system. The Giddings family had been active in education and civil rights for generations. Paula's great-great-grandmother, a slave and daughter of her Virginia slave master, was taught "the rudiments of education, fine embroidery, and music, as well as the harsher lessons of being black and a woman in America," according to the preface to Giddings' Where and When I Enter. Both Paula's parents were college educated, and both taught in the public school system. Her father also founded the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Yonkers, New York. From a young age, Paula knew she wanted to write. She went to Howard University in Washington, DC, and became editor of the literary magazine Afro-American Review, but about this time she also began to move away from her own creative writing towards journalism and social history. Giddings graduated with an undergraduate degree in English in 1969. The 1970s were a period of search for Giddings. After graduating, she worked as a Random House copy editor during an exciting time there, when its authors included the black political activists, Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael. Toni Morrison, the eventual author of such acclaimed novels as Beloved, was also an editor there at the same time. After a couple of years Giddings and her mentor at Random House, Charles Harris, went to Howard University Press where she helped develop book ideas and took part in deciding what should be published as well as performing the usual grunge work associated with preparing a manuscript for publication. The job was satisfying to her in many way, but Giddings remained restless. A desire to work overseas led her to open the Paris bureau of Encore American & World Wide News for famed publisher Ida Lewis in 1975. From Paris, Giddings not only covered Europe, she also traveled through Africa, reporting on news and interviewing such personages as Uganda's notorious dictator, Idi Amin, and South African activist under apartheid, Winnie Mandela. Encore brought her back to New York in 1977 to work as an associate editor. In 1979 Giddings reached an important turning point. While working on a program initiated by the U.S. government to produce a series of books on the historical experience of black women in America, Giddings came to realize how dramatically small was the documentation of the black female voice in our history. She became determined to do what she could to rectify the situation, and so began the research into the book that five years later would come out under the title, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America. To write the book, Giddings searched out the hidden primary sources of the past, from diaries to letters and even to obscure novels. Along the way she received a Ford Foundation Grant to help her complete the project. In the preface to When and Where I Enter Giddings noted that "despite the range and significance of our [black women's] history, we have been perceived as token women in black texts and as token blacks in feminist ones." Emergent themes in Giddings work include the relationship between sexism and racism, the effect of "double discrimination" on the basis of gender and race on black women, and the relevance of historical issues to contemporary life. Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Gloria Naylor described When and Where I Enter as the "narrative history of black women from the seventeenth century to the present" as "a labor of commitment and love--and it shows." Naylor went on in her glowing review to call the work "jarringly fresh and challenging...." In fitting tribute to the woman who had protected her voice, Paula Giddings dedicated the book to her mother. The response to the book was strong and very favorable. Her former colleague, Toni Morrison called When and Where I Enter, "History at its best." Publishers Weekly predicted correctly that it would become a standard in its field and The Women's Review of Books went so far as to call it the "best interpretation of black women and race and sex that we have." The Book of the Month Club made it an alternate selection, and When and Where I Enter was translated into several foreign languages. The success of the book not only made her a speaker much in demand on the lecture circuit, it also launched an academic career for her. Giddings first academic post came in the mid-1980s at Atlanta's Spelman College, where she was a United Negro College Fund Distinguished Scholar. Giddings also deeply immersed herself in traditional journalistic work. She went to work at Essence, a magazine aimed at black women, as both a contributing editor and editor of the publication's book section. In 1987, the prestigious journal Harper's, edited by Lewis Lapham, invited Giddings to take part in a forum on whether or not conditions for African Americans in the United States were improving. Giddings comments in Harper's tended to focus on the wedge that was perceived to be growing between middle class blacks and their underclass brothers and sisters. Troubled by this development, she pointed out that the differences between the classes were to some degree illusory since the "fate of all blacks is inseparable by class.... The black middle class will remain fragile as long as there's a large and growing underclass." In 1988, Giddings followed up When and Where I Enter with In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority. The sorority differed from the "Greek" organization stereotype of initiation rituals, or hazing and raucous toga parties. Instead, Delta Sigma Theta, founded at Howard University in 1913, took the education of its members concerning political change and civil rights legislation as its mission from the very beginning In the first year of its existence, the "Deltas" joined 5,000 female protesters marching up Washington, DC's Pennsylvania Avenue to bring to the government their demand that women receive the right to vote. A member herself, other famous members of Delta Sigma Theta include Barbara Jordan, a professor and former congresswoman from Texas, singer Lena Horne, and the opera diva Leontyne Price. A more obscure but no less impressive alumna of the sorority is Sadie T. M. Alexander, the first woman of color to earn a doctorate in the United States. Critics were quick to praise In Search of Sisterhood. Writing in The Washington Post, Dorothy Gilliam gave Giddings "a hearty cheer for bringing to the fore yet another piece of overlooked black women's history." The Los Angeles Times said, the book "succeeds as a detailed study of an organization that has touched the lives of some of the most prominent black women in America." In the early 1990s, Giddings continued to juggle writing and teaching, beginning with a three-year fellowship at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In 1991, the Women's Project Productions of New York City commissioned her to write a one-act play, The Reunion, which was given a staged reading at one of New York City's most famous theaters, the Judith Anderson. The same year, Giddings was invited back to Spelman as a visiting scholar, Rutgers University's Douglass College asked her to chair their women's studies program, and she was honored with a fellowship at the New York University Institute for Humanities. Giddings spent 1992 as a visiting professor at Princeton University, a distinct honor in light of the fact she'd never earned an advanced degree and most Ivy League institutions usually hire graduate-degree wielding scholars. Other fellowships were bestowed upon her during the next few years, including one-year associations with the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. The culmination of these experiences was an academic year spent as a visiting scholar with Phi Beta Kappa in 1995 to 1996. An energetic woman, Giddings still found the time throughout her career participate as a high ranking member of such esteemed organizations as the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN); the Author's League Foundation; the Author's Guild of America; and Women's WORLD (World Organization for Rights, Literature and Development), the latter being an anti-censorship group that she cofounded. After helping the National Book Award committee judge the nonfiction output of 1989, she also sat on the judging committee's for PEN's Gerard Fund Award in 1992 and the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) ACT-SO award as well as serving on various advisory committees for a number of academic institutions. Despite all her other obligations, expressing herself with words remained Giddings number one priority and love. "For a black woman to write about black women is at once personal and an objective undertaking. It is personal," she explained in the preface to When and Where I Enter, "because the women whose blood runs through my veins breathe admist the statistics. [It] is also an objective enterprise because one must put such experiences into historical context, find in them a rational meaning so that the forces that shape our own lives may be understood." With that ethic in mind, Giddings was planning a biography of the former slave, outspoken journalist, and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who died in 1931. Always in the midst of a project, she also co-edited, with social critic Cornel West, an anthology of essays about Malcolm X entitled Regarding Malcolm X. As Giddings noted in an interview with Notable Black American Women, "I will write 'till I say goodbye to this world." SOURCES: BOOKS Giddings, Paula, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America, William Morrow, 1984, pp. 1, 5-8. Notable Black American Women, edited by Jessie Carney Smith, Gale, 1992, pp. 402-03. PERIODICALS Booklist, August 1988, p. 1872. Essence, May 1995, pp. 196-98. Harper's, February 1987, p. 35ff. Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 31, 1988, p. 1. New Directions for Women, March 1989, p. 18. New York Times Book Review, July 8, 1984, p. 10. Publishers Weekly, July 8, 1988, p. 44. Washington Post, August 12, 1988. Additional information for this profile was obtained via information provided to CBB by Paula Giddings on January 4, 1996. |
Salute to the Founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Osceola McCarthy Adams
Soror Adams was a native of Albany, Georgia. Soror Adams was an actress and member of the Repertory Playhouse Associates of New York. She also was the directress of the American Negro Theater and directed "Days of Our Youth" the play in which Harry Belefonte and Sidney Poitier premiered their dramatic careers. She also served as Teacher of dramatics at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina and directress of the Harlem School of the Arts. Soror Adams along with Soror Marguerite Y. Alexander founded the Lambda Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta in 1919. |
Those ALEXANDER Founders
MARGUERITE YOUNG ALEXANDER & WINONA CARGILE ALEXANDER
Soror Marguerite Young Alexander, a native of the state of Illinois, founded with the help of Soror Adams the Lambda Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc in 1919. Lambda Chapter serves the Chicago area colleges. Soror Winona Cargile Alexander, a native, of Columbus, Georgia, served as the 1st Custodian of Alpha Chapter. She also holds the distinction of being the 1st black social worker with the New York City and County Charities. |
Founder Spotlight Day 3
ETHEL CUFF BLACK
BERTHA PITTS CAMPBELL ZEPHYR CHISOM CARTER Soror Ethel Cuff Black, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, was the first BLACK teacher in Richmond County, New York. She also was the Charter Member of the Queens Alumnae Chapter. Soror Bertha Pitts Campbell, a native of Winfield, KS, was involved in improving race relations in Seattle, Washington. She was one of the primary forces behind organizing the Christian Friends for Racial Equality in Seattle. Zephyr Chisom Carter, a native of El Paso, Texas, did back up singing for television shows and movies. Upon the founding of Delta, Soror Carter held the position of reporter. |
EDNA BROWN COLEMAN
JESSIE McGUIRE DENT FREDERICA CHASE DODD MYRA DAVIS HEMMINGS Edna Brown Coleman, native of Washington, DC, was a member of the graduatiing class of 1913. Soror Coleman married Omega Psi Phi founder Frank Coleman. Jessie McGuire Dent, a native of Galveston, Texas, served as Alpha Chapter's first recording secretary. Her portrait is in the Texas Cultural Archives. She successfully sued the Galveston Independent School District and won equal pay for BLACK teachers in the city of Galveston. Frederica Chase Dodd, a native of Dallas, Texas, helped form a Dallas YMCA for Black Women. She also chartered an alumnae chapter of DST in Dallas, Texas. Myra Davis Hemmings, a native of Gonzalez, Texas, served as Alpha Chapter's first president. Soror Hemmings was an active member of both the NAACP and the National Council of Negro Women. Soror Hemmings chartered the San Antonio Alumnae chapter. |
Founders' Salute Day 5
OLIVE JONES
JIMMIE BUGG MIDDLETON PAULINE OBERDORFER MINOR VASHTI TURLEY MURPHY NAOMI SEWELL RICHARDSON Soror Olive Jones, a native of Washington, D.C., became a music teacher for the Washington DC public schools. She was one of two of our founders to never marry. Soror Jimmie Bugg Middleton, a native of Lynchburg, Virginia, earned a master's degree at Howard University. She became a charter member of the Raleigh, North Carolina Alumnae Chapter. She also served as the National Treasurer and President of the National Association of College Women. Soror Pauline Oberdorfer Minor, a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, served as the first treasurer of Alpha Chapter. Soror Minor graduated VALEDICTORIAN of the Teachers College in 1914 and went on to become a mezz-soprano soloist and published hymn writer. She also taught school im Alabama, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. She served as a missionary and published a book Soul Echoes which features forty of her musical compositions. Vashti Turley Murphy, a native of Washington, D.C., married Carl Murphy, founder and editor of the Afro-American. Soror Murphy was active with the Baltimore Alumnae Chapter and a member of the Baltimore branch of the National Association of College Women. Soror had the distinction of having five daughters, four of whom became Deltas and that Delta lineage continues today. Naomi Sewell Richardson, a native of Washingtonville, New York, taught in East Saint Louis, Illinois and Princeton, New Jersey. Soror Richardson retired to Poughkeepsie, NY where she was honored in 1982 by the Mid-Hudson Chapter on her 90th birthday. |
Founders Salute Day 6
MAMIE REDDY ROSE
ELIZA PEARL SHIPPEN FLORENCE LETCHER TOMS ETHEL CARR WATSON WERTIE BLACKWELL WEAVER MADREE PENN WHITE Soror Mamie Reddy Rose, a native of Beta, South Carolina, was the first of the founders to die in 1919. While at Howard University she won many awards for dramatic reader. Soror Eliza Pearl Shippen, a native of Washington, D.C., graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University. She received her Master's from Columbia University's Teacher College. She received her PhD in English and Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1944. She was the second of our two founders to never marry. Soror Florence Letcher Toms, a native of Washington, D.C., served as assistant principal at the Garnett-Patterson Junior High School in Washington, D.C. Her hobbies included collecting elephants and her collection contained several hundred.:cool: She served on the Board of Directors (Family Welfare Association and the PTA). Soror Ethel Carr Watson, a native of Parkersburg, West Virginia, was a teacher until she retired then began a second career as a dramatic performer. Soror Wertie Blackwell Weaver, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, wrote a novel entitled The Valley of the Poor. The book was concerning poor blacks in the South. Soror Madree Penn White, a native of Atschison, Missouri, served as the 2nd President of Alpha Chapter. While at Howard, she became the 1st woman editor of the campus paper. Finally, Soror White set in motion the mechanism for the creation of other chapters. |
Founders' Salute Day 7
EDITH MOTTE YOUNG
Soror Edith Motte Young, a native of North Carolina, taught at Claflin College in South Carolina. Today marks the 89th commemmoration of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated's participation in the Women's Suffrage March in Washington, D.C. Their participation in this march followed the inception of their organization on January 13, 1913. Their participation would set the tone for one of the sorority's programmatic thrusts: Political Awareness and Involvement. |
MARCH 7 - 14, 2002 Women in History
March 7, 1917
Janet Collins, ballerina, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. March 10, 1913 Death of Harriet Tubman, Auburn, New York. March 10, 1965 Daisy Lampkin, founder of the National Council of Negro Women, died from the effects of a December 1964 heart attack. March 11, 1959 Lorraine Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun' opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York Citywith Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil in the lead roles. The play ran for 530 performances, becoming the longest running Broadway play written by an African-American. This was also the first Broadway drama written and directed by an African-American woman. In 1961 'A Raisin in the Sun' was made into a movie, again starring Sidney Poitier as the chauffeur Walter Younger. Hansberry's landmark career was cut short when she died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 34. |
Doll Museum in Harlem
Amazing Africana
Black History Facts Who Founded a Doll Museum in Harlem? Lenon Holder Hoyte (1905-1999) spent a professional career as an art teacher at Clarke Junior High School in the Bronx. She exhibited her remarkable collection of over 5000 dolls for the benefit of Harlem Hospital and her church, St. Phillip’s Episcopal. Perhaps the success of these exhibits inspired Hoyte, popularly known as Aunt Len, to turn her Harlem brownstone in 1974 into a doll museum. Hoyte’s dolls are of all shapes and sizes, made of all kinds of material, and ranging from centuries old dolls to modern Barbie dolls. Two of the most interesting dolls are a black brother and sister pair made of papier-mâché by an African American handyman in Atlanta in the nineteenth century. Their names are Lillian and Leo, and each has a tear running down its cheek. It is thought they represent children who have been separated from their mother through a slave sale. Mrs. Hoyt was forced to sell her collection through Sotheby’s auction house. Prices ran as high as $8,000. Her museum closed when she could no longer care for it. While it existed, it entertained and educated thousands of Harlem children. |
March 15 - 22, 2002
March 18, 1933
Unita Blackwell was born this day in Lula, Mississippi. She became the first black woman mayor elected in Mississippi. March 20th 1915 Rosetta Tharpe, Gospel Great born Born Rosetta Nubin on this day in Cotton Plant, AR. Featured in LIFE magazine, Ms. Tharpe received a contract with Decca Records and was propelled into national promenince when she performed "Rock Me" with Cab Callawoy and the Cotton Club Revue. |
MARCH 24, 2002
HAPPY 90th Birthday to Soror Dorothy Irene Height
http://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/birthday.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gifhttp://www.plaudersmilies.de/party/balloons.gif "For nearly half a century, Dorothy Irene Height has given leadership to the struggle for equality and human rights for all people. Her life exemplifies her passionate commitment for a just society and her vision of a better world." - National Council of Negro Women Education: 1929 - Graduated Rankin High School, Rank PA (Valedictorian) 1932 - BA New York University, New York City 1933 - Master in Educational Psychology - New York University New York School of Social Work - Columbia University (Advance studies) Honorary Degrees: 1967- Doctor of Humane Letters, Tuskegee Institute 1970- Doctor of Humane Letters, Coppin State College 1970- Doctor of Humane Letters, Harvard University 1970- Doctor of Civil Law, Pace University 1974- Board of Humane Letters, University of Massachusetts 1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, Howard University 1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, Smith University 1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, New York University 1977- Doctor of Humane Letters, Bethune Cookman College 1980- Distinguished Service Medal, Barnard College 1981- Doctor of Humane Letters, Spelman College 1982- Doctor of Humane Letters, Emmanuel College 1982 Doctor of Humane Letters, Berea College 1983-Doctor of Humane Letters, Bowie State College 1985- Doctor of Humane Letters, Smith College 1989- Doctor of Humane Letters, College of the City of New York 1989- Doctor of Humane Letters, Lincoln University 1990- Doctor of Laws, Princeton University 1992- Doctor of Humane Letters, Central State University 1993- Doctor of Humane Letters, Tougaloo College 1994- Doctor of Humane Letters, Bennett College 1996- Doctor of Humane Letters, University of the District of Columbia Degree information provided by the National Council of Negro Women Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women for more than three decades, organized a successful drive to place a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune in a District of Columbia park. Once erected, the statue became the first of an African American in a public park in Washington, D.C. |
Museum Restores Rosa Parks Bus
Museum Restores Rosa Parks Bus
Fri Jan 31, 9:27 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! By SARAH FREEMAN, Associated Press Writer DEARBORN, Mich. - When the Montgomery bus boycott ended, then 20-year-old Jesse Daniels put on his best dress shirt, suit and tie, sat in the front of a city bus and rode to restaurant where he had previously not been allowed to eat. Friday night, Daniels joined about 300 members and employees of the Henry Ford Museum to get a look at where historians say it all began — the Montgomery city bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man. "Now it's really something to see this bus here after everybody's efforts," said Daniels, whose memories of the boycott helped restorers perfect the bus. "It's a powerful time." After nearly five months of work, the once-decrepit bus was unveiled, looking as it did on the day of Parks' defiant act. The white, green and mustard-colored bus was rolled onto the museum floor to the tune of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." It will be on permanent display at the museum. "When you realize that a simple, mundane city bus could be a place of such importance, there's an immense wave of emotion," said museum curator Bill Pretzer, who was responsible for verifying that the bus was the one Parks rode on Dec. 1, 1955. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, sparking the boycott. The protest led to the desegregation of public transportation nationwide and turned its leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., into a national figure. The museum bought the bus for $492,000 in 2001 at a national auction after it was discovered in a field in Alabama. The bus, a rusted shell, was gouged by bullets where it had been used for target practice. It sat untouched until September, when a team that builds concept cars and automotive prototypes began work on it. http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...us_mijm104.jpg Henry Ford Museum member Mark Schneider looks at the bus in which civil-rights icon Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955, Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, in Dearborn, Mich. The museum unveiled the bus Friday for 300 of its members and will open the display to all museum goers on Saturday, the first day of Black History Month. The museum purchased the bus in October 2001 for $492,000 after it was found in a field in Alabama. (AP Photo/John F. Martin) http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...us_mijm102.jpg Keith Davis, right, and his son, Keith Jr., examine the bus Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, at the museum in Dearborn, Mich., in which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955. The bus was unveiled for 300 museum members Friday and will be shown to the public starting Saturday, Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month. The museum purchased the bus in October 2001 for $492,000 after it was found in a field in Alabama. (AP Photo/John F. Martin) http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...us_mijm101.jpg Henry Ford Museum members watch as the bus in which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955 is unveiled Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, in Dearborn, Mich. The museum purchased the bus in October 2001 for $492,000 after it was found in a field in Alabama. It took nearly five months to restore the bus to its original condition. (AP Photo/John F. Martin) http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com..._bus_dt104.jpg Frances McCans, a conservator technician at the Henry Ford Museum applies recreated Alabama red dirt on the Rosa Parks bus at the museum in Dearborn, Mich., Thursday, Jan. 30, 2003. After nearly five months of restoration the bus will be unveiled to the public on Friday during the museum's Black History Month program 'Celebrate Black History.' (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com...arks_ny121.jpg Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks holds the hand of a well-wisher at a ceremony honoring the 46th anniversary of her arrest for civil disobedience in this, Dec. 1, 2001 file photo, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. Parks will be honored at a 90th birthday celebration next month, according to the foundation named for Parks and her husband. The event will take place Feb. 14, 2003 at the Detroit Opera House and feature a musical performance by the Three Mo Tenors. Proceeds will benefitsix programs that provide services to adolescents ages 11 through 17 through the Rosa and Raymond Parks Foundation. (AP Photo/Paul Warner, File) |
January Black Facts
Because Black History happens EVERY DAY. . . we will explore other months this month since we did February last year. :cool:
JANUARY 1 1804 Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaimed independence of Haiti, the second republic in the Western Hemisphere. 1808 On this date, the international slave trade was abolished. 1831 William Lloyd Garrison published first issue of abolitionist journal, The Liberator. 1854 Lincoln University, one of the first Black colleges, chartered as Ashmun Institute in Oxford, Pennsylvania. 1860 A law went into effect in Arkansas which prohibited the emplotyment of free blacks on boats and ships navigating the rivers of that state. 1863 President Lincoln signed Emancipation Proclamation which freed slaves in rebel states with exception of thirteen parishes (including New Orleans) in Louisiana, forty-eight countries in West Virginia, seven countries (including Norfolk) in Eastern Virginia. Proclamation did not apply to slaves in Border States. 1912 Second annual report of the NAACP listed total receipts from May through December, 1911, of $10,317.43. Organization had local chapters in Chicago, Boston and New York. 1916 First issue of Journal of Negro History published. 1956 Sudan proclaimed independent. 1960 Cameroon gains independence 1996 Picture of Rosa Parks taken by Bob Bozarth at Langston University 1997 The former prison for Nelson Mandela and many other South Africans is turned in to a museum at Robben Island. 1997 Kofi Annan of Ghana becomes first black secretary of United Nations. |
1835
5th National Negro Convention takes on word Negro The 5th National Negro Convention met in Philadelphia and urged blacks to abandon the use of terms "African" and "colored" when referring to "Negro" institutions, organizations and to themselves. I found this one to be especially interesting, because we are still battling other caustic words for Blacks. 1843 Sojourner Truth left New York and began her career as an antislavery activist. 1864 Solomon George Washington Dill, poor white ally of Black Republicans, assassinated in his home by white terrorists. Dill had allegedly made "incendiary speeches" to South Carolina Blacks. 1864 Florida General Assembly (nineteen Blacks, fifty-seven whites) met in Tallahassee. 1868 Texas constitutional convention (nine Blacks, eighty-one whites) met in Austin. 1921 Race riot, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Twenty-one whites and sixty Blacks were killed. 1966 Approximately 2,400 persons attended White House Conference on Civil Rights. 1973 WGPR BECOMES THE 1ST TELEVISION station owned by African Americans- given a permit to operate. 1994 South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth after an absence of 33 years. |
June 2 -- my bad y'all I was caught up and forgot
Black Facts for June 2
1834 Fifth national Black convention met in New York with fifty delegates from eight states. 1854 Fugitive slave Anthony Burns was returned to the South from Boston. It cost the federal government $100,000 to return Burns, who was later sold to a group of Bostonians who freed him. 1868 John Hope was born on this day. 1875 James Augustine Healy, the first African American Roman Catholic Bishop, born in Macon, Georgia. 1899 Black Americans observed day of fasting called by National Afro-American Council to protest lynching and racial massacres. 1943 Ninety-ninth Pursuit Squadron flew first combat mission, strafing enemy positions on the heavily fortified Italian Island of Pantelleria. 1967 Race riot, Roxbury section of Boston. 1975 James A Healy, first Black Roman Catholic bishop, consecrated in cathedral at Portland, Maine. |
June 3
1833
Fourth national Black convention met in Philadelphia with sixty-two delegates from eight states. Abraham D. Shadd of Pennsylvania was elected president. 1854 Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, was arrested in Boston. His master refused an offer of $1200 made by Boston citizens for his freedom. 1871 , Miles Vandehurst Lynk, founder of the first African American medical journal and organizer of the National Medical Association, born. 1877 Roland Hayes, first African American to give a recital in Boston's Symphony Hall, born 1904 Charles R. Drew was born on this day. 1906 Josephine Baker ENTERTAINER Birthplace: St. Louis, Missouri June 3, 1906-April 12, 1975 At the age of sixteen, she starred in the musical Shuffle Along. Her vibrant and humorous act attracted attention and established her has a sparkling entertainer. She starred in the Broadway show The Chocolate Dandies in 1924. In 1925, clad only in a string of bananas, she became a sensation in Paris for her act in La Revue Negre. Josephine was a great humanitarian also. The French honored Josephine for her efforts during World War II. After the war, she became the mother of the "rainbow tribe." which consisted of children from various ethnic backgrounds that she adopted. 1919 Liberty Life Insurance Company (Chicago), the first old-line legal reserve company organized by Blacks in the North, incorporated. U.S. Supreme Court (Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia) banned segregation in interstate bus travel. 1942 Curtis Mayfield was born on the 3'rd of june 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, where he quickly absorbed the music of that area, which consisted of the local blues, gospel and soul musicians. He was leading his first group, The Alfatones , before he was a teenager. When the Mayfield family moved to Chicago's north side in 1956, Curtis found himself a new friend in Jerry Butler. Butler wanted Curtis to join him in a group called The Roosters , which consisted of Arthur and Richard Brooks, and Sam Gooden. The quintet later changed their name to The Impressions , and they had their first hit in 1958, "For your precious love" . In 1961, Mayfield had moved to New York, the group cutted "Gypsy woman" which re-established the group, after some years of hard feelings between the members and the record company. Mayfield was now the groups lead singer, utilising his unique vocal style on several Impressions singles. A steady string of soul anthems followed, "I'm so proud", "Keep on Pushing", "People get ready", "We're a winner", "Mighty, mighty". The group had a strong gospel flavour in their sound, although it was'nt purely gospel. As Mayfield puts it, "They were church songs, the difference was I left the word God out." In 1970 Mayfield left The Impressions for his solo career. His first album, "Curtis" contained the classic "Move on up" which was his only UK hit. "Curtis Live!" followed, which contained some material from The Impressions period. It was recorded at New York's Bitter End, and later the same year "Roots" followed. His early records are my favourite ones, especially "Curtis Live!" which is a wonderful record with lots of warm soul songs, and funky percussion by 'master' Henry Gibson. In 1972, Curtis released the soundtrack album "Superfly" which went to sell over a million copies, and it was a really good album in its own right. It recieved four Grammy awards. By now Mayfield continued to record new albums, at the same time as he was producing with Gladys Knight & The Pips, Aretha Franklin and The Staple Singers . Curtis also appeared on the big screen when he had a role in the movie "Short eyes" , in which he also wrote the soundtrack for. In the 80'ies Curtis toured the whole world, and he was'nt releasing much new material. In 1989 he contributed to the soundtrack of the movie "I'm gonna git you Sucka", and the following year he made some tunes for the movie "The Return of Superfly" . 1990 was a truly bad year for Mayfield. While he performed at an outdoor concert in Brooklyn, a lighting rig fell down on him, which caused such severe damage to his spine, leaving him a Quadriplegic. Since then he has kept a low profile. However, in 1996 he released a new album, on which he is only singin, since he cannot play guitar anymore. Today, Curtis lives in Atlanta with his wife and family. 1949 Wesley A. Brown became the first Black graduate of Annapolis Naval Academy. |
June 4
1832
Third national Black convention met in Philadelphia with twenty-nine delegates from eight states. Henry Sipkins of New York was elected president. 1922 Samuel Gravely, first African American admiral in the U.S. Navy, and first African American to command a U.S. warship, born 1946 Mississippi Valley State University is founded in Itta Bena, Miss. 1972 Angela Davis acquitted by white jury in San Jose, Calif., of charges stemming from a 1970 courtroom shoot-out. 1973 Death of Arna Bontemps (72), writer and educator, in Nashville, Tennessee. 1989 Four African Americans win Tony Awards for Black and Blue. 1991 Baltimore Orioles manager Frank Robinson is named assistant general manager of the club, the third African American to become assistant GM. |
Did You Know
Did You Know That California Was Named After A Black Queen?
http://www.blacknews.com/images/califia.gif Disney Painting of Queen Califia Los Angeles, CA - (BlackNews.com/BlackPR.com) - It is well documented that of the 44 people who founded the City of Los Angeles, 26 were of Afrikan descent. What is amazing, and not taught in California schools, the majority of the founders of San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego were of Afrikan descent, or that Orange County, Beverly Hills and Malibu were once owned by people of Afrikan descent. The Picos, Black Spanish speaking brothers, Pio and Andres, the former twice California governor, owned San Fernando Valley, Whittier and the Camp Pendleton area. California is in the media everyday. It is incredible most California residents know nothing about the state being named after a Black Woman Queen. The genesis of the name begins with a story read by Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez, who conquered Mexico, killed Montezuma, ended the Aztec empire before entering Baja California, continuing his search for gold. The 17th century best-selling adventure story was written by a Spaniard named Garci Ordonez de Montalvo and published in Seville in 1510. The name of the book was "The Exploits of Esplandian," and it was written as a sequel to the popular Portuguese poem, "Amadis de Guala." (Wanda Sabir, San Francisco Bay View) The following is an excerpt from the epic that inspired Cortez, featuring a nation composed entirely of fierce, powerful, wealthy black women. "Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island named California, very close to that part of the terrestrial Paradise, which was inhabited by black women, without a single man among them, and that they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body, with strong and passionate hearts and great virtues. The island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the bold and craggy rocks. Their weapons were all made of gold. The island everywhere abounds with gold and precious stones, and upon it no other metal was found." The commanding Queen Califia ruled this mythical island. http://www.blacknews.com/images/califia2.gif California State Flag Conducting an interview with John William Templeton, California historian and author of the four volume set, "Our Roots Run Deep: The Black Experience In California," started on the journey of digging up the history of Blacks in California through a conversation with a San Francisco radio host. "I was doing a story on Rodney King for the Mercury News, and while I was down there someone said that a black man used to own the San Fernando Valley. That was Pio de Jesus Pico (1801-1894). And then I found out that he was also the last Mexican governor of California. I didn't know of any black governors or anything, so I called into the Ray Taliaferro show (on KGO news radio, San Francisico) and said to him, 'Did you know that there were four black governors of the state of California?' He said, 'That ain't nothing, the whole damn state is named after a black woman.'" According to the story, California was an island where only Black women lived, gold was the only metal and pearls were as common as rocks. The women were the most powerful and could be ferocious women in the world. They had beasts that were half men half birds. After mating with men, the women would feed the men to these beasts called griffins. When Cortez arrived in California, searching for this mythical queen, her influence on him was so severe, he paid tribute to this powerful Black Woman Queen Califia by naming the state after her. California literally means, "the land where black women live." Her painting can be found in the state capitol California Senate building in Sacramento; a mural painted in 1926 by Maynard Dixon and Frank von Sloun in the Hall of the Dons at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco; and in all places, a large painting of her resides on the wall of the Golden Dreams building at the Disney California Adventure in Orange County. Unfortunately, on the Great Seal of the State of California, we have Miniver instead of Queen Califia, because Miniver was the Greek goddess who was born full grown, and more acceptable to the Europeans who settled in the state. None of this matters though. At the end of the day, when all the historians and anthropologists attempt to spin this story in another direction, the conclusion will still come down to one dynamic detail: California was named for a Black Woman Queen. Kwaku Person-Lynn is the author of On My Journey Now - The Narrative And Works Of Dr. John Henrik Clarke, The Knowledge Revolutionary. E-mail address: DrKwaku@hotmail.com |
I don't know if this is a dumb question, but why is African spelt with a 'k'?? Were they of African descent?
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Thank you
I'm a native Californian, educated in California public schools (including being bused from 7th through 12th grades) . But of course, I don't remember my teachers passing on this interesting history bit.
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I got this off of another listserve today. . .
http://www.aaregistry.com/detail.php3?id=2623
January 31 Carol Channing *Carol Channing was born on this date in 1921. She is an African American actress. She was born in Seattle, Washington. When she left home to attend Bennington College, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist whom she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was actually a light-complected African-American born in Augusta, Georgia who had passed for white, saying that the only reason she was telling her was so she wouldn't be surprised "if she had a black baby". She kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, which was published in 2002, when she was more than 80 years old. As an actress, Channing’s career was built largely on two roles, Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello Dolly!. She is easily recognized by her distinctive voice and wide eyes. Her first Broadway play was Let's Face It, where she was an understudy for Eve Arden. She had a featured role in a review, Lend an Ear, where she was spotted by Anita Loos and cast in the role of Lorelei Lee, which was to bring her to prominence. (Her signature song from the production was "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.") Carol's persona and that of the character were strikingly alike: simultaneously smart yet scattered, naïve but worldly. She truly came to national prominence as the star of Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! She never missed a performance during her run, attributing her good health to her Christian Science faith. Her performance won her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, in a year. She reprised the role of Lorelei Lee in the musical Lorelei, and appeared in two New York revivals of Hello, Dolly!, in addition to touring with it extensively throughout the United States. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Thoroughly Modern Millie, opposite Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore. Channing married four times. Her first husband, Theodore Naidish, was a writer; her second, Alexander Carson, was center for the Ottawa Rough Riders Canadian football team (they had one son, Channing Lowe, an editorial cartoonist for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. In 1956 she married her manager and publicist Charles Lowe. They remained married for 42 years, but she filed for divorce in 1998, alleging they had had marital relations only twice in that timespan. He died before the divorce was finalized. On May 10, 2003, she married Harry Kullijian, her high school sweetheart, who reunited with her after she mentioned him fondly in her memoir. Reference: Just Lucky I Guess by Carol Channing Simon & Schuster, Oct 2002 ISBN: 0743216067 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I've never seen her perform but I think I will have to rent these 2 movies and read her autobiography. |
Yep. It was in either Jet or Ebony.
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Re: I got this off of another listserve today. . .
Quote:
"lem me see, that's ...carry the one....once every 21 years." GTHOOHWTBS....:rolleyes: |
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