February is Black History Month:

[Good Doctor HST]

Just a reminder that the month of February is devoted to the prominent African-Americans who have shaped our lives, by both artistic achievements and creating social change for all races.

Today let's take a look at Ralph Ellison (courtesy of Biography.com):

"Teacher, editor, and writer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied at Harvard (1907 BA) and was the first African-American to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (1910 B Litt). He studied philosophy at the University of Berlin (1910-11) and attended lectures by Henri Bergson in Paris. Returning to the USA, he taught philosophy at Howard University (1912-17), gained his Ph D at Harvard (1918), and resumed his teaching career at Howard as professor of philosophy (1918-53). He first became known as the editor of The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925), an anthology of African-American writers associated with the Harlem Renaissance. He published other anthologies featuring the literary work of African-Americans, as well as books, essays, and reviews that were influential in defining African-Americans' distinctive traditions and culture and the role they might play in bringing blacks into mainstream American society. In The Negro and His Music (1936) he placed African-Americans' music into the spectrum of African and world folk music, while his Negro in Art (1941) was one of the first works to stress the influence of African art on modern Western painting and sculpture."

If you get a chance everyone, read (or reread) the novel "Invisible Man", another notable work from Mr. Ellison. A great story of a young black man's struggles against society and his corresponding self-discovery.

[princesskittypoo]

february is also the month of LOVE :-)

[Gold9472]

John Lee Hooker - Musician

The Best of Friends celebrates the collaborations and friendships between John Lee Hooker and the musicians he has worked with over the past decade. Together they created the landmark and award-winning albums The Healer (1989), Mr. Lucky (1991), Boom Boom (1993), Chill Out (1995) and Don't Look Back (1997). In addition to highlighted tracks from these five albums, The Best Of Friends features three new tracks recorded especially for this release with Ry Cooder, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite and some other very special friends. Not only is every collaboration the result of friendship and mutual admiration, but every song has a story, as does the album itself and the period it celebrates.

Fifteen years ago, Van Morrison, already a long-time friend, suggested producing a record for Hooker. Several years later, George Thorogood and Carlos Santana asked to be part of whatever project John Lee might next embark upon. The fruits of these seeds of inspiration resulted in 1989's The Healer. John Lee was captured performing duets with his friends and performing in solo and small ensemble formats. The concept, and the great response it received, appealed to even more friends and in the ensuing years a variety of artists who shared a deep mutual admiration for John Lee lined up to join the fun.

Carlos Santana is featured on two songs co-written with Hooker, "The Healer" and "Chill Out (Things Gonna Change)," each title tracks of Grammy winning albums. Carlos' association started with his showing up at Hooker's Bay Area shows, first as a fan and then regularly as an onstage guest. Carlos was eager to bring Hooker's music to a wider audience and he saw that dream realized in songs that surprised many with the combination of the two artists' dissimilar styles. Hooker sees nothing unusual about the pairing, though, as he loves Carlos' playing, loves the passion he brings to the music and is always proud to call Carlos one of his best friends.

"I'm In The Mood," Hooker's duet with long-time friend Bonnie Raitt, earned first-time Grammy Awards for both friends in 1989 in the Best Traditional Blues Recording category. Hooker's only other vocal duet partner in his past decade of hits was Van Morrison. Their duet on the title track to Don't Look Back, most of which was produced by Morrison, brought them a shared Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. That track also features the legendary Charles Brown on keyboards. The album itself won Hooker his fourth Grammy, for Best Traditional Blues Recording. Morrison is also captured here on Hooker's classic "I Cover The Waterfront," backed on Hammond B3 by the master of the instrument, Booker T. Jones.

In the early 1980's Hooker fell in love with a tape of Robert Cray's Bad Influence while touring Europe. Months later, Cray was added as the unknown opening act on a US tour headlined by Hooker. They have since become warm friends and Bay Area neighbors and Cray and/or members of his band appear on four of the five albums released since The Healer. Their first recorded collaboration, "Baby Lee," is an upbeat, almost calypso style number that led to one of Hooker's most entertaining videos ever.

Jimmie Vaughan joins Hooker on "Boom Boom," one of Hooker's biggest hits when it was first released on Vee Jay in 1961, and subsequently covered by The Yardbirds and The Animals. Hooker loved jamming onstage in Austin or anywhere else on the road with Jimmie or little brother Stevie Ray. Jimmie and John Lee nailed this track, which became the theme for a major ad campaign across Europe and helped the album of the same name to debut at #16 on the UK pop charts.

Los Lobos were well versed in Hooker's style and, in fact, backed him on "The Boogie" when he joined them for their Greek Theatre 20th anniversary celebration in 1993. They showed that drive again with "Dimples," one of Hooker's all time biggest hits when it was originally released in 1956. Hooker re-recorded the song in 1996 with Los Lobos producing and playing, and the result was the driving lead track on Don't Look Back.

Ry Cooder, who had performed a number of live duets with Hooker earlier this decade, as well as excelling as producer/guitarist on "This Is Hip" from Mr. Lucky, reprises those roles on a new version of the Hooker gem, "Big Legs, Tight Skirt," a track that also features keyboard work from the legendary Ike Turner.

A relatively recent friendship with rising star Ben Harper began with a shared show at Marin County's legendary Sweetwater, just around the release of Ben's Virgin debut, Welcome To The Cruel World. Now friends, Ben brings an element to "Burnin' Hell" reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix, who credited Hooker as an influence, in turn had a significant influence on Harper. Also featured on the session is legendary harp player Charlie Musselwhite, one of Hooker's oldest and dearest friends (in fact, John Lee was best man at Charlie's wedding), matching Harper's licks as all three make the track truly burn.

Capping the new tracks in grand style is a driving version of Hooker's first hit, "Boogie Chillen," featuring an all star lineup of players. "Boogie Chillen" was Hooker's first recording and it took off like a rocket exactly 50 years ago. This golden anniversary version features stellar sidepersons Jim Keltner on drums, Reggie McBride on bass, Little Feat's Bill Payne on keyboards and Johnny Lee Schell and John Lee's long-time sideman and best friend, Rich Kirch, on guitars. This great new version of "Boogie Chillen" caps a decade of collaborations and marks a half-century since Hooker's first big break.

The one exception to the "Best Friends" theme is a solo track too good to leave behind. "Tupelo" captures Hooker at his finest, telling the story of a disastrous flood in Tupelo, Mississippi in the haunting, stark way that is Hooker's trademark and also showcases his delta roots. The actual recording of this track was captured for the prestigious South Bank Show's documentary on Hooker's life, just one of the many tributes paid to Hooker in the past decade.

John Lee Hooker was 72 years old when The Healer was released in 1989. At an age when most artists are well past their retirement, Hooker's accomplishments in the past decade have numbered more on an annual basis than many achieve in a lifetime.

[Good Doctor HST]

Today, let's examine the life of Sojourner Truth, the brave suffragist/abolitionist (courtesy of Galegroup):

"Born Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York, around 1797, she was freed by the New York State Emancipation Act of 1827 and lived in New York City for a time. After taking the name Sojourner Truth, which she felt God had given her, she assumed the "mission" of spreading "the Truth" across the country. She became famous as an itinerant preacher, drawing huge crowds with her oratory (and some said "mystical gifts") wherever she appeared. She became one of an active group of black women abolitionists, lectured before numerous abolitionist audiences, and was friends with such leading white abolitionists as James and Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe. With the outbreak of the Civil War she raised money to purchase gifts for the soldiers, distributing them herself in the camps. She also helped African Americans who had escaped to the North to find habitation and shelter. Age and ill health caused her to retire from the lecture circuit, and she spent her last days in a sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan."

Her most famous words were uttered at a suffrage convention, directed at a male heckler....

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! Ain't I a woman?.... I have borne 13 children, and seen almost all of them sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, no one but Jesus heard me. And ain't I a woman?”

[Good Doctor HST]

Today, let's look at Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam leader during the 1960's:

(1897-1975)
Black Nationalist, Nation of Islam Spiritual Leader



Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, on October 10, 1897. His father, a Baptist preacher, had been a slave.

As a boy, Elijah worked at various jobs involving manual labor. At the age of 26, he moved with his wife and two children (he was to have eight children in all) to Detroit. There in 1930, Poole met Fard Muhammad, also known as W.D. Fard, who had founded the Lost-Found Nation of Islam. Poole soon became Fard's chief assistant and in 1932 went to Chicago where he established the Nation of Islam's Temple, Number Two, which soon became the largest. In 1934, he returned to Detroit. When Fard disappeared that year, political and theological rivals accused Poole of foul play. He returned to Chicago where he organized his own movement, in which Fard was deified as Allah and Elijah (Poole) Muhammad became known as Allah's Messenger. This movement soon became known as the Black Muslims.

During World War II, Elijah Muhammad expressed support for Japan, on the basis of its being a nonwhite country, and was jailed for sedition. The time Muhammad served in prison was probably significant in his later, successful attempts to convert large numbers of black prison inmates, including Malcolm X (http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/malcolmx.htm), to the Nation of Islam. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Nation grew under Muhammad's leadership. Internal differences between Muhammad and Malcolm X, followed by the break between the two men and Malcolm's assassination, for which three Black Muslim gunmen were convicted, provided a great deal of unfavorable media coverage, but this did not slow the growth of the movement. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Elijah Muhammad moderated the Nation's criticism of whites without compromising its message of black integrity. When Muhammad died on February 25, 1975, the Nation was an important religious, political, and economic force among America's blacks, especially in this country's major cities. Elijah Muhammad was not original in his rejection of Christianity as the religion of the oppressor. Noble Drew Ali and the Black Jews had arrived at this conclusion well before him. But Muhammad was the most successful salesman for this brand of African American religion. Thus he was able to build the first strong, black religious group in the United States that appealed primarily to the unemployed and underemployed city dweller, and ultimately to some in the black middle class. In addition, his message on the virtues of being black was explicit and uncompromising, and he sought with at least a little success to bolster the economic independence of African Americans by establishing schools and businesses under the auspices of the Nation of Islam.

[Good Doctor HST]

Today, let's look at a man who was born only about 20-25 miles from my hometown:



Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a pioneer in open heart surgery was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Attended formal schooling in Hare's Classical Academy in 1877 and received his M.D. from Chicago Medical College, Northwestern Medical School, in 1883. He helped to found the Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses.

In 1893 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first open heart surgery by removing a knife from the heart of a stabbing victim. He sutured a wound to the pericardium (the fluid sac surrounding the myocardium), from which the patient recovered and lived for several years afterward. He established a training school for nurses. He was the first Surgeon in Chief to divide the Freemen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. into separate departments to treat specific conditions: Medical, Surgical, Gynecological , Obstetrical, Dermatological, Genito-Urinary, and Throat and Chest. In 1891 he founded the Provident Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, the oldest free-standing black owned hospital in the United States. Dr. Williams was the only African-American in a group of 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in 1913. He founded and became the first vice-president of the national Medical Association. Dr. Williams was awarded by a bill in the United States Congress in 1970 that issued a commemorative stamp in his honor.

[Good Doctor HST]

Ossie Davis (1917-2005)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ossie Davis, the actor distinguished for roles dealing with racial injustice on stage, screen and in real life, has died, an aide said Friday. He was 87.

Davis, the longtime husband and partner of actress Ruby Dee, was found dead Friday in his hotel room in Miami Beach, Florida, according to officials there. He was making a film called "Retirement," said Arminda Thomas, who works in his office in suburban New Rochelle and confirmed the death.

Davis, who wrote, acted, directed and produced for the theater and Hollywood, was a central figure among black performers of the last five decades. He and Dee celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1998 with the publication of a dual autobiography, "In This Life Together."

Both had key roles in the television series "Roots: The Next Generation" (1978), "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum" (1986) and "The Stand" (1994). Davis appeared in several Spike Lee films, including "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever," some with Dee.

In 2004, Davis and Dee were among the artists selected to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

When not on stage or on camera, Davis and Dee were deeply involved in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry. They nearly ran afoul of the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the early 1950s, but were never openly accused of any wrongdoing.

As black performers, they found themselves caught up in the social unrest fomented by the then-new Cold War and the growing debate over social and racial justice in the United States.

"We young ones in the theater, trying to fathom even as we followed, were pulled this way and that by the swirling currents of these new dimensions of the Struggle," Davis wrote in the joint autobiography.

He lined up with black socialist reformer DuBois and singer Paul Robeson, remaining fiercely loyal to the singer even after Robeson was denounced by other black political, sports and show business figures for his openly communist and pro-Soviet sympathies.

While Hollywood and, to a lesser extent, the New York theater world became engulfed in McCarthyism and red-baiting controversies, Davis and Dee emerged from the anti-communist fervor unscathed and, in Davis' view, justifiably so.

"We've never been, to our knowledge, guilty of anything -- other than being black -- that might upset anybody," he wrote.

[Good Doctor HST]

Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993)

United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall built a distinguished career fighting for the cause of civil rights and equal opportunity. Ebony dubbed Marshall "the most important Black man of this century — a man who rose higher than any Black person before him and who has had more effect on Black lives than any other person, Black or White." The first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court, Marshall stood alone as the Supreme Court's liberal conscience toward the end of his career, the last impassioned spokesman for a left-wing view on such causes as affirmative action, abolishment of the death penalty, and due process. His retirement in 1991 left the Court in the hands of more conservative justices.
Duke University professor John Hope Franklin told Ebony: "If you study the history of Marshall's career, the history of his rulings on the Supreme Court, even his dissents, you will understand that when he speaks, he is not speaking just for Black Americans but for Americans of all times. He reminds us constantly of the great promise this country has made of equality, and he reminds us that it has not been fulfilled. Through his life he has been a great watchdog, insisting that this nation live up to the Constitution."

Joined NAACP Staff

Representing the local NAACP, he negotiated with White store owners who sold to Blacks but would not hire them." Marshall also took the case of a would-be law student who wanted to attend the all-white University of Maryland law school. The case against the university was Marshall's first big one. His former professor came to town to help him argue it, and the judge gave them a favorable ruling. Soon thereafter, Marshall was invited to join the NAACP's national office in New York City as an assistant special counsel. Two years later, in 1938, he became the head special counsel for the powerful organization.

"For the next 20 years," Williams wrote, "[Marshall] traveled the country using the Constitution to force state and federal courts to protect the rights of Black Americans. The work was dangerous, and Marshall frequently wondered if he might not end up dead or in the same jail holding those he was trying to defend." Marshall prepared cases against the University of Missouri and the University of Texas on behalf of black students. He petitioned the governor of Texas when a black was excluded from jury duty. During and after World War II, he was an outspoken opponent of the government detention of Japanese Americans, and in 1951 he investigated unfair court-martial practices aimed at blacks in the military in Korea and Japan. William H. Hastie, of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, told the New York Times: "Certainly no lawyer, and practically no member of the bench has Thurgood Marshall's grasp of the doctrine of law as it affects civil rights."

Helped End School Segregation

The limelight found Marshall in 1954, when he led the legal team that challenged public school segregation in the courts. The case advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark ruling that ended a half-century of segregated schooling. Remembering those days when he worked on Brown vs. Board of Education, Marshall told Ebony that the Court's decision "probably did more than anything else to awaken the Negro from his apathy to demanding his right to equality." At the time, however, Marshall was an opponent of civil disobedience for blacks in the South, feeling that organized opposition might lead to white violence — as indeed it did.

Eventually, after much opposition from Southern senators and even from Robert Kennedy, Marshall was named to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1961. As the civil rights movement gained ground in the 1960s, so did Marshall. In 1965 he was given the post of United States solicitor general, a position in which he represented the government before the Supreme Court. His most important case during these years was the one leading to the adoption of the Miranda rule, which requires policemen to inform suspects of their rights.

Named to Supreme Court

Against stiff opposition even in his own (Democratic) party, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967. Marshall's nomination was opposed most violently by four Southern senators on the Judiciary Committee, but nevertheless he was confirmed by a vote of 69 to 11. He was sworn in and took his seat on October 2, 1967, and he stayed until his failing health forced him to retire in 1991. Williams wrote: "Throughout his time on the court, Marshall has remained a strong advocate of individual rights.... He has remained a conscience on the bench, never wavering in his devotion to ending discrimination."

Marshall was known as the most tart-tongued member of the court. He was never reticent with his opinions, especially on matters affecting the civil rights agenda. Former justice William Brennan, long Marshall's liberal ally on the court, told Ebony: "The only time Thurgood may make people uncomfortable, and perhaps it's when they should be made uncomfortable, is when he'll take off in a given case that he thinks ... is another expression of racism."

It came as no surprise therefore that judge Marshall was a vocal critic of both Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Few justices have been known to speak out on political matters, and for years Marshall himself refused to grant interviews. Near the end of his service to the Court, however, Marshall did speak out when he was stung by court reversals on minority set-aside programs and affirmative action. In 1987 Marshall dismissed Reagan as "the bottom" in terms of his commitment to black Americans. He later told Ebony: "I wouldn't do the job of dogcatcher for Ronald Reagan." Marshall later heaped equal vitriol on the Bush administration after the president vetoed an important civil rights bill. The justice told Newsweek that the actions of Bush and Reagan reflect a return to the days "when we really didn't have a chance."

[b]Liberal Voice in Changing Court

During the more than a decade that Republicans controlled the White House, one by one, retiring judges were replaced with more conservative successors. For many years Marshall and Brennan teamed as the high court's true liberals, and Marshall was gravely disappointed when his colleague was forced to retire. Marshall remained the lone outspoken liberal on the nine-member court, suffering through heart attacks, pneumonia, blood clots, and glaucoma. Marshall steadfastly refused to consider stepping down before absolutely necessary because, as he told Ebony, "I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband." One of Marshall's law clerks told People magazine that Marshall felt compelled to remain on the court, perhaps at the expense of his health, because he saw himself as the champion of the underdog. "He's the conscience of the Court," the clerk said. Despite his predictions, Marshall's failing health finally impeded his ability to perform his duties. He retired in 1991 and died of heart failure on January 24, 1993.

Marshall will be well remembered. Marshall served as a strong leader during the civil rights movement, as an architect of the legal strategy that ended racial segregation, and as the first African-American Justice of the Supreme Court. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist referred to the words inscribed above the front entrance to the Supreme Court — "Equal Justice for All" — stating in his eulogy that, "Surely no one individual did more to make these words a reality than Thurgood Marshall."

[Good Doctor HST]

Maya Angelou (1928-)

Novelist, Poet



Born Marguerite Johnson, Maya Angelou spent her formative years shuttling between St. Louis, Missouri, a tiny, totally segregated town in Arkansas, and San Francisco where she realized her ambition of becoming that city's first black streetcar conductor.

During the 1950s, she studied dancing with Pearl Primus in New York, later appearing as a nightclub singer in New York and San Francisco. She worked as an editor for The Arab Observer, an English-language weekly published in Cairo; lived in Accra, Ghanna, where under the black nationalist regime of Kwame Nkrumah she taught music and drama; and studied cinematography in Sweden. She became a national celebrity in 1970 with the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the first volume of her autobiography, which detailed her encounters with southern racism and a rape by her mother's lover.

In 1971, she produced Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie: The Poetry of Maya Angelou; in 1975, Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well; in 1979, And Still I Rise; and in 1983, Shaker Why Don't You Sing? In 1977, she was nominated for an Emmy award for her portrayal of Nyo Boto in the television adaptation of the best-selling novel "Roots."

Three more volumes of her autobiography have been published: Gather Together in My Name (1974); Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976); and The Heart of a Woman (1981). In 1986, All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes was published. Angelou's other works include Mrs. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship, and Now Sheba Sings the Song.
On January 20, 1993, Angelou read her poem, "On the Pulse of Morning," during the inauguration of President Bill Clinton.



"Wouldn't they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blond, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn't let me straighten? My light-blue eyes were going to hypnotize them, after all the things they said about "my daddy must of been a Chinaman" (I thought they meant made out of china, like a cup) because my eyes were so small and squinty. Then they would understand why I had never picked up a Southern accent, or spoke the common slang, and why I had to be forced to eat pigs' tails and snouts. Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil."

"If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult."

-Excerpts from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

[Good Doctor HST]

Jackie Joyner-Kersee 1962-

Jackie Joyner-Kersee is often regarded as the best all-around female athlete in the world and the all-time greatest heptathlete.

She has won three gold, one silver and one bronze Olympic medals. At 23 feet nine inches, she holds the American record for the long jump. With her score of 7,161, she was the first woman to earn more than 7,000 points in the heptathlon, and has held the heptathlon world record since 1986.

Jacqueline Joyner was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, on March 3, 1962. She was inspired to compete in multiple events after seeing a 1975 television movie about "Babe" Didrikson (http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/people_of_century/sports/didrikson.html).

She won four consecutive National Junior Pentathlon Championships, the first at the age of 14, and also played volleyball in high school, but she excelled at basketball and accepted a basketball scholarship to UCLA. There she earned All-America honors as a four-year Bruins starter at forward.

Her UCLA coach, Bob Kersee, saw her talent and encouraged her to train for multiple-event contests.

Jackie represented the United States at the 1983 world championships in Helsinki, Finland, and later competed at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where she won the silver medal in the heptathlon -- a two-day contest comprising the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200-meter race on the first day, and the long jump, javelin, and 800-meter race on the second day.

Jackie married her coach, Bob Kersee, in 1986, the same year she gave up basketball for the heptathlon, setting two world records within one month. At the inaugural Goodwill Games In Moscow, she became the first woman ever to break the 7,000-point barrier.

In 1987, Joyner-Kersee competed at the indoor and outdoor track and field championships in the United States, the Pan-American Games in Indianapolis and the world championships in Rome, where she won gold medals in the long jump and heptathlon.

In 1988, she surpassed her own record, scoring 7,291 points in the Olympic heptathlon in Seoul, South Korea, winning the gold medal and setting the world, Olympic, and American records for the event. Joyner-Kersee also won the gold medal and set the Olympic record in the long jump at Seoul, with a leap of 24 feet three inches.

In the '92 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, she won the heptathlon again and took third in the long jump. She later captured the heptathlon gold medal at the 1993 world championships in Stuttgart, Germany. A strong-willed competitor, Jackie Joyner-Kersee comes from a family of talented athletes. Her father, Alfred, was a hurdler and football player in high school, and her brother Al was also an Olympic athlete. Al's wife was Olympic sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner (http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/people_of_century/sports/griffith.html). Joyner-Kersee has received many awards, including the 1985 Broderick Cup as outstanding collegiate woman athlete, the James E. Sullivan Award in 1986 and the Jesse Owens Award in 1986 and '87. She was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 1987, and became the first woman to win The Sporting News Man of the Year Award in 1988.

[Good Doctor HST]

Medgar Evers (1925-1963)

Civil Rights Activist:



Medgar Evers was one of the first martyrs of the civil-rights movement. He was born in 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi to James and Jessie Evers. After a short stint in the army, he enrolled in Alcorn A&M College, graduating in 1952. His first job out of college was traveling around rural Mississippi selling insurance. He soon grew enraged at the despicable conditions of poor black families in his state, and joined the NAACP. In 1954, he was appointed Mississippi's first field secretary.

Evers was outspoken, and his demands were radical for his rigidly segregated state. He fought for the enforcement of the 1954 court decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka which outlawed school segregation; he fought for the right to vote, and he advocated boycotting merchants who discriminated. He worked unceasingly despite the threats of violence that his speeches engendered. He gave much of himself to this struggle, and in 1963, he gave his life. On June 13, 1963, he drove home from a meeting, stepped out of his car, and was shot in the back.

Immediately after Evers's death, the shotgun that was used to kill him was found in bushes nearby, with the owner's fingerprints still fresh. Byron de la Beckwith, a vocal member of a local white-supremacist group, was arrested. Despite the evidence against him, which included an earlier statement that he wanted to kill Evers, two trials with all-white juries ended in deadlock decisions, and Beckwith walked free. Twenty years later, in 1989, information surfaced that suggested the jury in both trials had been tampered with. The assistant District Attorney, with the help of Evers's widow, began putting together a new case. On February 5, 1994, a multiracial jury re-tried Beckwith and found him guilty of the crime. The loss of Evers changed the tenor of the civil-rights struggle. Anger replaced fear in the south, as hundreds of demonstrators marched in protect. His death prompted President John Kennedy to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil-rights bill, which President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the following year. Evers's death, as his life had, contributed much to the struggle for equality.

[Good Doctor HST]

Since I missed yesterday, I figured I'd profile two of the greatest influences in music.



Ray Charles
(Born 23rd September 1930
in Albany, Georgia)
http://www.zoo.co.uk/~primer/images/raypic.gif


A man who manages to straddle whatever musical labels you may wish to apply, Ray Charles has succeeded in whatever musical genre he chose to use. One of the few who genuinely deserve the 'genius' tag, he has provided a wealth of great material over a period of 30 - 35 years.
Blinded by glaucoma, he nevertheless learned to read and write music and was proficient on several musical instruments by the time he left school.

He first recorded in 1949, joined the Atlantic label in 1952, hitting early with 'It Should Have Been Me'(which, incidentally, he didn't want to record), 'Mess Around' and 'Losing Hand'. 'I Got A Woman' was however the embodiment of Charles' development whilst at Atlantic and, of course, 'What'd I Say', proved to be a staple of the encore circuit for R&B and rock'n'roll bands almost from the time it was released. Other hits for Atlantic included 'Halleluja I Love You So' and the superb ballads 'Drown In My Own Tears' and 'I Believe To My Soul'. Most of these can be found on "The Best Of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years " on Rhino 8122-71722-2, and although there are one or two surprising omissions it is still a fine introduction. For those who want more, there is also a Box Set which covers the whole of Charles' Atlantic career.

In 1959, he left to join ABC (but not before he reemphasised his jazz roots with a session including Ellington and Basie sidemen called "Genius Of Ray Charles" which included standards and lesser known blues and jazz gems); he continued in fine form with hits such as 'Georgia On My Mind' and 'Hit The Road Jack'. In 1962 he changed direction again recording "Modern Sounds In Country And Western", which included the million selling 'I Can't Stop Loving You'. Many commentators have said Charles lost his fire at this point - but what does that mean exactly? In my view, this is just the usual carping crticism from people who like to pigeon hole performers and lack the vision exhibited by the artist himself. All of the best RCA sides can be heard on the mid price CD "Ray Charles - The Collection".
He did eventually have musical lows (it's a long career to sustain for God's sake) but even then there were occasional gems such as "Crying Time". He did at times veer towards middle of the road but this should not in itself detract from the initial brave move to country music and the success he made of the venture.

His influence is probably inestimable, he was one of the first to marry gospel and R&B, performed blues, jazz, soul, country, and R&B and stamped his own authority on everything he played - he can rightfully be called the 'Father Of Soul'.





RUN DMC - "KINGS OF ROCK"

Run (Joseph Simmons) b. 11/15/64
DMC (Darryl McDaniels) b. 5/31/64
Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell) b. 1/21/65 d. 10/30/02



"You're a five dollar boy and I'm a million dollar man
You're a sucker emcee and you're my fan
You try to bite rhymes, all lines are mine, you're a sucker emcee in a pair of Calvin Kleins
Coming from the wackest part of town, trying to rap but you can't get down
You don't even know your English, your verbs or noun
You're just a sucker emcee, you sad faced clown..."

And with that verse and that 12" single- "It's Like That b/w Sucker M.C.'s"- the era of the old school rapper came to a close.

Of course Run DMC are usually considered old school by today's terms, but in 1983 when that single was released it was as far from the sound of rap at that time. Run DMC had sparse beats and sharp lyrics. They didn't need a band backing them in the studio or on stage. They had the one man band- Jam Master Jay backing them all the way.

In 1978, Kurtis Blow was one of rap's first superstars and he needed a DJ. Russell Simmons was managing Kurtis at the time and he knew his teenage brother, Joseph, would be a perfect fit for the job. "Kurtis Blow's Disco Son- DJ Run" as he was known was born. He got his name because he could cut between two turntables so quickly.

After touring with Kurtis for a while, Run began to make a name for himself as an emcee. He traded rhymes with Kurt and taped his performances. After getting a good night's sleep he would call up his buddy Darryl McDaniels and play the tape.

D was not into the night life like Run. He played a lot of basketball and football growing up. Along with his brother he collected loads of comic books. D liked to draw all the time as well. One day, D heard a tape of Grandmaster Flash and decided he wanted to be like him. He bought 2 turntables, a mixer, and break beat records of the time. D taught Run to spin records and Run told D to start rapping.

D's mom wouldn't let him near any real rap shows, so when Run got some better deejay equipment it was Run's house for next few years. D began calling himself Easy D and busted out crazy rhymes that would never see the light of day- he would never rap in public.

Around 1980, they began going to the parties at Two-Fifth Park in Hollis to hear the deejays do their thing. It was there that they met up with a deejay named Jazzy Jase.

Jason Mizell had developed a reputation in the area. He wore the flyest b-boy clothes and did what he could to stand out. He hung out with the tough crowd, but was smart enough to also be down with the nerds. Everybody liked Jazzy Jase, as he was known.

After getting into some trouble with the law, Jay began to focus on music. He played drums and bass but gave them up for the new instrument of the time- the wheels of steel. Eventually he developed quite a following in the park, including Run and DMC. Emcees would do whatever they could to get up and rap in front of Jazzy Jase.

Flash ahead now. Run is 17 and has been working with Kurtis Blow and, through Russell, he finally got a chance to record a song. It was called "Street Kid" but the attitude was not right and it went no where. Run was determined to make a song with his main man D. D and Russell didn't see eye to eye. D didn't like Kurtis Blow. But both Kurtis and Russell knew that D knew the music and knew what was going to hit big. Russell didn't like D's rhymes though. He thought they were too hard at the time.

Finally it did come time to record. Run knew what he wanted. Straight b-boy type beats with nothing but a drum track and a scratch. That's what he got. 1983's "It's Like That b/w Sucker MC's" broke every rule in the book and, although it would continue a few more years, put a symbolic end to old school rap.

I could go on with their career, but I suspect you know the rest by heart. They released "RUN DMC" in 1984 (a near perfect hip hop album, by the way) and followed that up with "King of Rock" in 1985. They starred in Krush Groove in 1985. But it was their collaboration with Aerosmith on "Walk This Way" from 1986's "Raising Hell" that made their legacy complete.

They appeared in the documentary film The Show, performing "My Adidas" and "Together Forever."

At the beginning of the 1990's Jam Master Jay set up JMJ Records with Davy DMX. They released a few albums most notably, Smooth Ice and The Afro's. Jay also worked with Onyx.

They recorded several more albums, but none achieved the same success. Regardless, Run DMC will forever be the ones who broke down the doors to main stream popularity of the music.

Their label, Profile, is now part of Arista Records and thus much of their material may be difficult to get. I'm sure Arista will be reissuing the old stuff soon. The guys are currently working on a new album that promises to be a return to the style that made them superstars. It will include guest spots from several of today's top stars. The album is set for release in 1999.

They are featured in ads for The Gap and D.O.C. Eyecare.

They are working with Will "Fresh Prince" Smith's production company to shoot a film based on their lives.

Their latest effort titled Crown Royal was finally released in April of 2001 where it entered the BillBoard chart at #37. Jam Master Jay was killed during an altercation in October 2002.

[Gold9472]

Thanks for that cool image of Ray... I'm going to post it in his thread.

[Good Doctor HST]

Today's dedication is for the founder of "Black History Month":



Carter G. Woodson
(1875 - 1950)
http://members.aol.com/klove01/images/woodson.gif

Carter Godwin Woodson was born on December 19, 1875 at New Canton, Va. He was an American historian who first opened the long-neglected field of black studies to scholars and also popularized the field in the schools and colleges of blacks. To focus attention on black contributions to civilization, he founded Negro History Week in 1926. This celebration and remembrance would later evolve into Black History Month. Carter was born of a poor family. He supported himself by working in the coal mines of Kentucky and was thus unable to enroll in high school until he was 20. After graduating in less than two years, he taught high school, wrote articles, studied at home and abroad, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University (1912). In 1915 he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to encourage scholars to engage in the intensive study of the past as it related to Africans and their descendants through the world. Prior to this work, the field had been largely neglected or distorted in the hands of historians who accepted the traditionally biased picture of blacks in American and world affairs. In 1916 Woodson edited the first issue of the association's principal scholarly publication, The Journal of Negro History, which, under his direction, remained an important historical periodical for more than 30 years.

Woodson was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and head of the graduate faculty at Howard University, Washington, D.C. (1919-20), and dean at West Virginia State College, Institute, W.Va. (1920-22). While there, he founded and became president of Associated Publishers to bring out books on black life and culture, since experience had shown him that the usual publishing outlets were rarely interested in scholarly works on blacks.

Important works by Woodson include the widely consulted college text The Negro in Our History (1922; 10th ed., 1962); The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915); and A Century of Negro Migration (1918). He was at work on a projected six-volume Encyclopedia Africana at the time of his death. Woodson died on April 3, 1950, in Washington, D.C.

Many people ask why Black History Month is in February. It is not some conspiracy to designate the shortest month to our remembrance as some would think. It is also not in honor of Fredrick Douglas (http://members.aol.com/klove01/fdouglas.htm) who was born in February. Woodson chose February because even though the 13th Amendment to the constitution was signed in January which abolished slavery, slaves did not start to hear of the news until February. So that is why Woodson chose February. (He could have chosen June when slaves in the Mid Western states got the word but that is a debate for another time.

[Good Doctor HST]

Ever heard of this person? Just watched "Pearl Harbor" yesterday; it got me into pilots.

Bessie Coleman (1892-1926)

Aviatrix



Known to an admiring public as "Queen Bess," Bessie Coleman was the first black woman ever to fly an airplane and the first African American to earn an international pilot's license. During her brief yet distinguished career as a performance flier, she appeared at air shows and exhibitions across the United States, earning wide recognition for her aerial skill, her dramatic flair, and her tenacity. But the thrill of stunt flying and the admiration of cheering crowds were only part of Coleman's dream. Forced for a time to work as a laundress and manicurist to make ends meet, Coleman never lost sight of her childhood vow to one day "amount to something."

As a professional aviatrix, Coleman would often be criticized by the press for her opportunistic nature and the flamboyant style she brought to her exhibition flying. However, she also quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. Unfortunately, Coleman would not live long enough to fulfill her greatest dream—establishing a school for young, black aviators—but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African American men and women. "Because of Bessie Coleman," wrote Lieutenant William J. Powell in Black Wings, "we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream."

Earned International Pilot's License


After receiving a string of rejections from American aviation schools, Coleman applied to accredited flying schools in France, where racism would be less of a barrier. Before long she had completed a course in basic French at a downtown language school and secured a better job as manager of a chili parlor. The money she saved from her work—together with gifts from a number of wealthy sponsors, including Robert Abbott, an editor of a Chicago newspaper—was enough to pay for her passage to Europe, as well as her flying lessons. She sailed for France in November of 1920, and upon her arrival enrolled in a seven-month training course at the Ecole d'Aviation des Freres Caudron at Le Crotoy.

Coleman's triumphant return to America was front-page news for most of the country's black newspapers and even a number of industry journals, which, according to Rich, hailed her as "a full-fledged aviatrix, the first of her race."

Appeared in First American Air Show


Coleman made her first appearance in an American air show on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th American Expeditionary Force of World War I. Held at Curtiss Field near New York City and sponsored by her friend Abbott and the Chicago Defender newspaper, the show billed Coleman as "the world's greatest woman flyer" and featured aerial displays by eight other American ace pilots. Six weeks later she returned to Chicago to deliver a stunning demonstration of daredevil maneuvers—including figure eights, loops, and near-ground dips—to a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Checkerboard Airdrome (now Midway Airport). Following the show, she and David L. Behncke, founder and president of the International Airline Pilots Association and cosponsor of the event, took eager spectators for joy rides in a pair of two-seater planes.

Worked to Inspire Black Aviators

Although Coleman continued to perform in aerial exhibitions in Texas and throughout the United States, she became increasingly aware of the potential power lecture platforms held as a means of inspiring other young, black Americans to pursue careers in aviation. She spent the last year of her life speaking at schools, theaters, and churches around the country, accompanying each lecture with evocative film clips of her aerial displays.

The day before the Jacksonville event, Coleman, who was billed as the show's star attraction, and her mechanic, William D. Wills, took the old airplane out for a practice run. Wills was in the front cockpit, piloting the plane, while Coleman sat in the rear, her seatbelt unfastened so she could peer over the cockpit to study the contours of the field below. The highlight of her performance the next day was to be a spectacular parachute jump from a speeding plane at 2,500 feet.

The plane had only been in the air for about ten minutes and was cruising smoothly at 80 miles per hour when it suddenly accelerated, went into a tail-spin, and flipped upside down. Coleman was hurled out of the plane and plunged more than 500 feet to her death. Wills tried but failed to regain control of the aircraft, and died instantly when it hit the ground. Although the wreckage of the plane was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used to service the engine had slid into the gearbox and jammed it, causing the plane to spin out of control. Experts noted at the time that gears in more modern planes had a protective coating—an accident like this need not have happened.

Honored by Chicago Pilots

Several years after her death, black aviators inspired by her pioneering achievements formed a network of Bessie Coleman Aero Clubs. A new organization known as the Bessie Coleman Aviators Club, open to women pilots of all races, was founded in 1977—some 50 years after her death—by a group of black women pilots from the Chicago area. Every April, on the anniversary of Coleman's death, the Bessie Coleman Aviators, together with pilots from the Chicago American Pilots Association and the Negro Airmen International, fly low over Lincoln Cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Blue Island to drop flowers on her grave. As an additional tribute to the life and courage of the world's first black woman pilot, in 1990, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley renamed Old Mannheim Road at O'Hare Airport "Bessie Coleman Drive." In 1992 he proclaimed May 2nd "Bessie Coleman Day in Chicago." Shortly thereafter, Coleman received national recognition when the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating her extraordinary life and accomplishments.

[Good Doctor HST]

Today, let us remember and pay homage to a great baseball player and great person, who hit 755 home runs in an illustrious career without the aid of steroids, a mistress, or hitter-friendly parks and juiced baseballs.



"Alphabetically and arithmetically, what could be finer than having "Aaron, Hank" as the first name listed in The Baseball Encyclopedia? The book's leadoff man is better recognized as the cleanup hitter who holds the Cadillac of baseball records: His 755 home runs are the most by a major leaguer.


http://espn-att.starwave.com/i/sportscentury/inline/aaron.jpg

-Hank Aaron saw his name bypass Babe Ruth's on this April 8, 1974 swing of the bat.

Aaron also hammered his way into the record book for knocking in the most runs (2,297), total bases (6,856) and extra-base hits (1,477). He ranks second in at-bats (12,364), tied for second with Babe Ruth in runs (2,174), and third in hits (3,771) and games played (3,298). He is the only player to hit at least 30 homers in 15 seasons and at least 20 homers in 20 seasons. He hit at least 40 homers eight times, with a career-best of 47. He is the first player to reach 3,000 hits and 500 homers. He led the National League in homers and RBI four times each and played in 24 All-Star Games.

A lifetime .305 hitter, Aaron did most his damage for the Braves, first in Milwaukee (1954-65), then in Atlanta (1966-74), before finishing his 23-year career with the Milwaukee Brewers (1975-76).

"The thing I like about baseball is that it's one-on-one," Aaron said. "You stand up there alone, and if you make a mistake, it's your mistake. If you hit a home run, it's your home run."

Aaron's crowning moment was, of course, a home run. It came when he surpassed what had seemed like an unbreakable record only a decade earlier. That was the night in 1974 he walloped No. 715 and trotted around the bases past the Babe and into history.

While Aaron had the numbers, he didn't have much fan appeal. He was considered hard working, humble and shy, just as Joe DiMaggio was. But while those qualities made DiMaggio a hero, they made Aaron an enigma. Aaron was often overlooked as one of the game's greats until he took off on his chase of the Bambino. Racism had something to do with it, as well as his playing in the Atlanta and Milwaukee markets.

He hit his first home run on April 23, 1954 off of the Cardinals' Vic Raschi. In 122 games, he batted .280 (he wouldn't hit that low again until 1966) with 13 homers (he wouldn't go below 20 for the next 20 years) before suffering a broken ankle on Sept. 5.

In 1955, Aaron moved to right field, where he remained for most of his career (and won three Gold Gloves). He batted .314 with 27 homers and 106 RBI. This was just the start. The next season, he won his first of two National League batting titles with a .328 average. (In 1959, he won the crown with a career-best .355.)

Two changes were made in 1957. Aaron went from second in the batting order to fourth, behind Eddie Mathews instead of in front of him, and he switched from a 36-ounce bat to a 34-ounce model. Aaron responded by leading the league with 44 homers (one of four times he would hit his uniform number) and a career-high 132 RBI while batting .322.

While the 6 foot Aaron would fill out -- he would reach 190 pounds -- he never was a heavy man. The key to his hitting seemed to be his supple, powerful wrists that allowed him to crack his bat like a buggy whip.

The chase to beat the Babe heated up in the summer of 1973. So did the mail. Aaron needed a secretary to sort it as he received more than an estimated 3,000 letters a day, more than any American outside of politics. Unfortunately, racists did much of the writing. A sampling:

"Dear Nigger Henry,
You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. ... Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. . My gun is watching your every black move."

"Dear Henry Aaron,
How about some sickle cell anemia, Hank?"

The letters came from every state, but most were postmarked in northern cities. They were filled with hate. More hate than Aaron had ever imagined. "This," Aaron said later about the letters, "changed me."

The summer of '73 ended with Hammering Hank at 713 homers after hitting a remarkable 40 in just 392 at-bats. He was 39.

In his first at-bat in 1974, Aaron homered off Cincinnati's Jack Billingham, tying Ruth. His eyes got teary as he rounded third base. That night he called his mother. "I'm going to save the next one for you, Mom," he said.

On April 8, 1974, the largest crowd in Braves history (53,775) came out to witness history. Aaron didn't disappoint. In the fourth inning, he ripped an Al Downing pitch into the Braves bullpen, where it was caught by reliever Tom House. As Aaron rounded second base, two college students appeared and ran alongside him before security stepped in. The new home run king was mobbed at home by his teammates.

A quarter of a century later, Aaron still has the record -- and the hate mail. "I read the letters," he said, "because they remind me not to be surprised or hurt. They remind me what people are really like." After retiring as a player, Aaron became one of the first blacks in Major League Baseball upper-level management as Atlanta's vice president of player development. Since Dec. 1989, he has served as senior vice president and assistant to the president, but he is more active for Turner Broadcasting as a corporate vice president of community relations and a member of TBS' board of directors. He also is vice president of business development for The Airport Network."

[Good Doctor HST]

Benjamin Banneker

Mathematician, Astronomer, Surveyor
Born: 11/9/1731
Birthplace: Ellicott's Mills, Md.


Benjamin Banneker has been called the first African American intellectual. Self-taught, after studying the inner workings of a friend's watch, he made one of wood that accurately kept time for more than 40 years. Banneker taught himself astronomy well enough to correctly predict a solar eclipse in 1789. From 1791 to 1802 he published the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac and Ephemeris, which contained tide tables, future eclipses, and medicinal formulas. It is believed to be the first scientific book published by an African American. Also a surveyor and mathematician, Banneker was appointed by President George Washington (http://www.infoplease.com/cgi-bin/id/A0760587) to the District of Columbia Commission, which was responsible for the survey work that established the city's original boundaries. When the chairman of the committee, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, suddenly resigned and left, taking the plans with him, Banneker reproduced the plans from memory, saving valuable time. A staunch opponent of slavery, Banneker sent a copy of his first almanac to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (http://www.infoplease.com/cgi-bin/id/A0760627) to counter Jefferson's belief in the intellectual inferiority of blacks.

[Good Doctor HST]

Douglass, Frederick, http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/art/odougl0001p1.jpg

Frederick Douglass By courtesy of the Holt-Messer Collection, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass. original name FREDERICK AUGUSTUS WASHINGTON BAILEY (b. Feb. 7, 1817, Tuckahoe, Md., U.S.--d. Feb. 20, 1895, Washington, D.C.), black American who was one of the most eminent human-rights leaders of the 19th century. His oratorical and literary brilliance thrust him into the forefront of the U.S. Abolition movement (see abolitionism (http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/micro/1/84.html)), and he became the first black citizen to hold high rank in the U.S. government.



Separated as an infant from his slave mother (he never knew his white father), Frederick lived with his grandmother on a Maryland plantation until, at the age of eight, his owner sent him to Baltimore to live as a house servant with the family of Hugh Auld, whose wife defied state law by teaching the boy to read. But Auld declared that learning would make him unfit for slavery, and Frederick was forced to continue his education surreptitiously with the aid of schoolboys in the street. Upon the death of his master, he was returned to the plantation as a field hand at 16. Later, he was hired out in Baltimore as a ship caulker. He tried to escape with three others in 1833, but the plot was discovered before they could get away. Five years later, however, he fled to New York City and then to New Bedford, Mass., where he worked as a labourer for three years, eluding slave hunters by changing his name to Douglass.

At a Nantucket, Mass., antislavery convention in 1841, Douglass was invited to describe his feelings and experiences under slavery. These extemporaneous remarks were so poignant and naturally eloquent that he was unexpectedly catapulted into a new career as agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. From then on, despite heckling and mockery, insult, and violent personal attack, Douglass never flagged in his devotion to the Abolitionist cause.

To counter skeptics who doubted that such an articulate spokesman could ever have been a slave, Douglass felt impelled to write his autobiography in 1845, revised and completed in 1882 as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Douglass' account became a classic in American literature as well as a primary source about slavery from the bondsman's viewpoint. To avoid recapture by his former owner, whose name and location he had given in the narrative, Douglass left on a two-year speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland. Abroad, Douglass helped to win many new friends for the Abolition Movement and to cement the bonds of humanitarian reform between the continents.

Douglass returned with funds to purchase his freedom and also to start his own antislavery newspaper, the North Star (later Frederick Douglass's Paper), which he published from 1847 to 1860 at Rochester, N.Y. The Abolition leader William Lloyd Garrison disagreed with the need for a separate, black-oriented press, and the two men broke over this issue as well as over Douglass' support of political action to supplement moral suasion. Thus, after 1851 Douglass allied himself with the faction of the movement led by James G. Birney. He did not countenance violence, however, and specifically counselled against the raid on Harpers Ferry, Va. (October 1859).

During the Civil War (1861-65) he became a consultant to Pres. Abraham Lincoln, advocating that former slaves be armed for the North and that the war be made a direct confrontation against slavery. Throughout Reconstruction (1865-77), he fought for full civil rights for freedmen and vigorously supported the women's rights movement.

After Reconstruction, Douglass served as assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission (1871), and in the District of Columbia he was marshal (1877-81) and recorder of deeds (1881-86); finally, he was appointed U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti (1889-91).

[danceyogamom]

I am loving this thread. You are posting some great information!

[Good Doctor HST]

Thanks DYM. I thought this thread would be a good addition to the YBBS. Odds are most of us didn't learn a whole lot about African-American history, so everyone can spend some time if they desire and learn some stuff. I know I have been by keeping the thread going.

Today's focus is going to be Mae Jamison, the first African-American woman in space:

"Medical doctor, engineer, astronaut - Mae Jemison's skills and expertise reflect a determined individual whose contributions to the nation and the world make a difference.

Jemison, determined from childhood to explore space, became the first African-American woman in space when she traveled on the Endeavor on September 12, 1992. Earlier, Jemison spent several years as a Peace Corps physician in West Africa and opened a private practice in Los Angeles. After her space flight, Jemison took leave from NASA to lecture and teach at Dartmouth College, focusing on space-age technology and developing nations. She says that space "is the birthright of everyone who is on this planet. We need to get every group of people in the world involved because it is something that eventually we in the world community are going to have to share."

Jemison heads her own firm in Houston, and travels throughout the world. Jemison encourages women and minorities to enter scientific fields: "I want to make sure we use all our talent, not just 25 percent." In 1999 Jemison accepted appointment as the President's Council of Cornell Women Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University."

[Gold9472]

I can't wait for Caucasean Month. :)

[Good Doctor HST]

William Edward Burghardt DuBois

(1868-1963)

Civil Rights Activist, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Founding Member



An outstanding critic, editor, scholar, author, and civil rights leader, W. E. B. Du Bois is certainly among the most influential blacks of the twentieth century. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts on February 23, 1868, Du Bois received a bachelor's degree from Fisk University and went on to earn second bachelors, as well as a Ph.D., from Harvard. He was for a time professor of Latin and Greek at Wilberforce and the University of Pennsylvania, and also served as a professor of economics and history at Atlanta University.

One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, Du Bois served as that organization's director of publications and editor of Crisis magazine until 1934. In 1944, he returned from Atlanta University to become head of the NAACP's special research department, a post he held until 1948. Dr. Du Bois emigrated to Africa in 1961, and became editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Africana, an enormous publishing venture which had been planned by Kwame Nkrumah, since then deposed as president of Ghana. Du Bois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963, at the age of 95.

Du Bois's numerous books include The Suppression of the Slave Trade (1896), The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), John Brown (1909), Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911), The Negro (1915), Darkwater (1920), The Gift of Black Folk (1924), Dark Princess (1928), Black Folk: Then and Now (1939), Dusk of Dawn (1940), Color and Democracy (1945), The World and Africa (1947), In Battle for Peace (1952), and a trilogy, Black Flame (1957-1961). It is this enormous literary output on such a wide variety of themes which offers the most convincing testimony to Du Bois's lifetime position that it was vital for blacks to cultivate their own aesthetic and cultural values even as they made valuable strides toward social emancipation. In this he was opposed by Booker T. Washington (http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/washington_b.htm), who felt that the black should concentrate on developing technical and mechanical skills before all else. Du Bois was one of the first male civil rights leaders to recognize the problems of gender discrimination. He was among the first men to understand the unique problems of black women, and to value their contributions. He supported the women's suffrage movement and strove to integrate this mostly white struggle. He encouraged many black female writers, artists, poets, and novelists, featuring their works in Crisis and sometimes providing personal financial assistance to them. Several of his novels feature women as prominently as men, an unusual approach for any author of his day. Du Bois spent his life working not just for the equality of all men, but for the equality of all people.

[Good Doctor HST]

McKINNEY, Cynthia Ann, (1955 - )


http://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/M/M000523.jpg

McKINNEY, Cynthia Ann, a Representative from Georgia; born in Atlanta, Fulton County, Ga., March 17, 1955; graduated St. Joseph High School; B.A., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., 1978; attended Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Medford, Mass.; diplomatic fellow, Spellman College, Atlanta, Ga., 1984; faculty member, Clark Atlanta University and Agnes Scott College; member of the Georgia state house of representatives, 1988-1992; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Third and to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1993-January 3, 2003); unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the One Hundred Eighth Congress in 2002; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Ninth Congress (January 3, 2005-present).


In addition to these credentials, she's also a member of the 9/11 commission, and those two words uttered by her: "Bush Knew"; sent shock waves through the political community. Here's an article I found on her courtesy of NY911Truth.org:

GOP politicizes 9/11 for its gain,
McKinney says


By DAVID HO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/09/04

NEW YORK — Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney accused Republicans on Thursday of exploiting the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, for political gain and repeated her implication that truths about the attacks remain untold.

The DeKalb County Democrat, who is running to reclaim the 4th District congressional seat, was voted out two years ago after making controversial comments about the Sept. 11 attacks during a radio interview. She implied that the Bush administration had known the attacks were coming but did nothing to prevent them.

On Thursday, she chaired a hearing staged by activist groups and researchers who say the government has covered up information related to the hijackings.

"No organization, no administration, no forces, no powers that be are going to crush the truth of what happened on Sept. 11 to the ground," she vowed.

She said the New York event, dubbed the "Omissions Hearings," had "no political agenda other than the truth." By contrast, she said, the Republicans who came to Manhattan to hold their national convention last week "stormed into New York City, their words dripping with the politicization of an American tragedy."

McKinney's Republican opponent, Catherine Davis, said in a telephone interview that it is "really unfortunate that the former congresswoman from Georgia has not been able to bring herself to stand with our government, with our troops when we have an open declaration of war against the terrorists."

McKinney said she would not back off the issue just because she's trying to reclaim her former office.

"I'm not going to become a different person," she said. "It would be a betrayal to my constituents and to all of the supporters."

The hearing was sponsored by 9/11 CitizensWatch and 911truth.org, groups that say the official Sept. 11 commission report contains "egregious omissions, discrepancies and distortions." They told an audience of about 100 that the investigations must continue.

"The 9/11 commission report failed to answer the majority of questions posed by victims' family members," said Kyle Hence, communications director of 9/11 CitizensWatch. He said unanswered questions concerning the attacks include those about "multiple specific warnings from overseas, the spiking of FBI investigations, terrorist financing, the lack of defensive air response and the inadequately explained breakdown of the national chain of command that morning."

The hearing's speakers included a broad group of critics who blame the Bush administration for the attacks and the handling of the aftermath. Their positions ranged from accusations of neglect to outright involvement in the hijackings.

Hence cited a Zogby International poll that 9/11truth.org sponsored and released on the eve of the Republican convention that found 49 percent of New York City residents said some U.S. leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."

McKinney praised New Yorkers for "not being bamboozled into submission by questionable, insider, back-room characters who want to take away our freedoms."

She said more public hearings are needed to explore issues the Sept. 11 commission and the Bush administration have failed to address.

[Gold9472]

McKINNEY, Cynthia Ann, (1955 - )


http://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/M/M000523.jpg

McKINNEY, Cynthia Ann, a Representative from Georgia; born in Atlanta, Fulton County, Ga., March 17, 1955; graduated St. Joseph High School; B.A., University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., 1978; attended Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Medford, Mass.; diplomatic fellow, Spellman College, Atlanta, Ga., 1984; faculty member, Clark Atlanta University and Agnes Scott College; member of the Georgia state house of representatives, 1988-1992; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Third and to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1993-January 3, 2003); unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the One Hundred Eighth Congress in 2002; elected as a Democrat to the One Hundred Ninth Congress (January 3, 2005-present).


In addition to these credentials, she's also a member of the 9/11 commission, and those two words uttered by her: "Bush Knew"; sent shock waves through the political community. Here's an article I found on her courtesy of NY911Truth.org:

GOP politicizes 9/11 for its gain,
McKinney says


By DAVID HO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/09/04

NEW YORK — Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney accused Republicans on Thursday of exploiting the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, for political gain and repeated her implication that truths about the attacks remain untold.

The DeKalb County Democrat, who is running to reclaim the 4th District congressional seat, was voted out two years ago after making controversial comments about the Sept. 11 attacks during a radio interview. She implied that the Bush administration had known the attacks were coming but did nothing to prevent them.

On Thursday, she chaired a hearing staged by activist groups and researchers who say the government has covered up information related to the hijackings.

"No organization, no administration, no forces, no powers that be are going to crush the truth of what happened on Sept. 11 to the ground," she vowed.

She said the New York event, dubbed the "Omissions Hearings," had "no political agenda other than the truth." By contrast, she said, the Republicans who came to Manhattan to hold their national convention last week "stormed into New York City, their words dripping with the politicization of an American tragedy."

McKinney's Republican opponent, Catherine Davis, said in a telephone interview that it is "really unfortunate that the former congresswoman from Georgia has not been able to bring herself to stand with our government, with our troops when we have an open declaration of war against the terrorists."

McKinney said she would not back off the issue just because she's trying to reclaim her former office.

"I'm not going to become a different person," she said. "It would be a betrayal to my constituents and to all of the supporters."

The hearing was sponsored by 9/11 CitizensWatch and 911truth.org, groups that say the official Sept. 11 commission report contains "egregious omissions, discrepancies and distortions." They told an audience of about 100 that the investigations must continue.

"The 9/11 commission report failed to answer the majority of questions posed by victims' family members," said Kyle Hence, communications director of 9/11 CitizensWatch. He said unanswered questions concerning the attacks include those about "multiple specific warnings from overseas, the spiking of FBI investigations, terrorist financing, the lack of defensive air response and the inadequately explained breakdown of the national chain of command that morning."

The hearing's speakers included a broad group of critics who blame the Bush administration for the attacks and the handling of the aftermath. Their positions ranged from accusations of neglect to outright involvement in the hijackings.

Hence cited a Zogby International poll that 9/11truth.org sponsored and released on the eve of the Republican convention that found 49 percent of New York City residents said some U.S. leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."

McKinney praised New Yorkers for "not being bamboozled into submission by questionable, insider, back-room characters who want to take away our freedoms."

She said more public hearings are needed to explore issues the Sept. 11 commission and the Bush administration have failed to address.

Ass kisser. :D