The Official Black History Month Thread!

[AndThePickles]

Ella Fitzgerald

Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman. (Or rather, some might say all the jazz greats had the pleasure of working with Ella.)

She performed at top venues all over the world, and packed them to the hilt. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, made up of all races, all religions and all nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common - they all loved her.

Overcoming discrimination

On the touring circuit it was well-known that Ella's manager felt very strongly about civil rights and required equal treatment for his musicians, regardless of their color. Norman refused to accept any type of discrimination at hotels, restaurants or concert halls, even when they traveled to the Deep South.

Once, while in Dallas touring for the Philharmonic, a police squad irritated by Norman's principles barged backstage to hassle the performers. They came into Ella's dressing room, where band members Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet were shooting dice, and arrested everyone.

"They took us down," Ella later recalled, "and then when we got there, they had the nerve to ask for an autograph."

Norman wasn't the only one willing to stand up for Ella. She received support from numerous celebrity fans, including a zealous Marilyn Monroe.

"I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt," Ella later said. "It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the '50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him - and it was true, due to Marilyn's superstar status - that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman - a little ahead of her times. And she didn't know it."

Worldwide recognition

Ella continued to work as hard as she had early on in her career, despite the ill effects on her health. She toured all over the world, sometimes performing two shows a day in cities hundreds of miles apart. In 1974, Ella spent a legendary two weeks performing in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Still going strong five years later, she was inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame, and received Kennedy Center Honors for her continuing contributions to the arts.

Outside of the arts, Ella had a deep concern for child welfare. Though this aspect of her life was rarely publicized, she frequently made generous donations to organizations for disadvantaged youths, and the continuation of these contributions was part of the driving force that prevented her from slowing down. Additionally, when Frances died, Ella felt she had the additional responsibilities of taking care of her sister's family.

In 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan awarded Ella the National Medal of Arts. It was one of her most prized moments. France followed suit several years later, presenting her with their Commander of Arts and Letters award, while Yale, Dartmouth and several other universities bestowed Ella with honorary doctorates.

Taken from http://www.ellafitzgerald.com/

 

[terry78]

Good one, ATP.

 

[Steve Rogers]

Willie O'Ree

Willie playing for the Boston Bruins.In 1958 a young man named Willie O'Ree made his debut in the National Hockey League. He was with the Boston Bruins for two games. In 1961, after two more years in the minors, O'Ree had a longer stay with the Bruins--41 games. O'Ree never played another game in the NHL.

This may not seem particularly significant, but O'Ree was different from every other NHL player who had come before him during the league's first 50 years. He was black, and there wouldn't be another black in the NHL for 25 years.

Hockey was about 10 years late when it came to integration. All the other professional sports, including tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, football, and boxing were racially integrated by 1950. Hockey was the holdout. It was the whitest sport. There were no black players, coaches, team owners, or sportswriters.

Boxing was the first to integrate with black champs Jack Johnson and Joe Louis dropping one Caucasian after another during the first half of the century.

Jackie Robinson integrated baseball to great fanfare in 1947, but O'Ree's breakthrough hardly merited a mention. O'Ree did not appear on the nightly news. The New York Times, for example, did not find it newsworthy. Since Canada didn't have the racial strife that plagued the U.S., no one called much attention to O'Ree.

O'Ree played successfully in the minors until the mid-1970s, and he won numerous scoring titles. To this day, he is regarded as a footnote in the world of sport. The hockey encyclopedias give him only passing reference, if any at all.

O'Ree was born in 1935 and grew up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, a small city in coal mining region just north and east of Maine.

"In the city where my family lived, there were probably only two or three black families," says Willie. "Most of the black families lived on the outskirts of town. In retrospect, I think my living around whites made me feel I could play in the pros. I always knew I was as good or better than they were."

He started skating when he was three years old and began playing in a league at age five. "That was the thing to do in the winter," he says. "Everything freezes over, the ponds, rivers, creeks. Every chance I had, I was on the ice. I even skated to school. My Dad squirted the garden hose on the back yard, and we had an instant rink."

Willie played in local hockey leagues before joining a junior team while in high school. The juniors in Canada roughly equate to college hockey teams in the U.S.

Willie was also a heck of a baseball player. "I was a pretty good shortstop and second baseman. In 1956, I was invited to the Milwaukee Braves minor league facility in Waycross, Georgia. I told them that I planned to make hockey my career and that I had no interest in becoming a professional baseball player. I played baseball in the summer just to keep my legs in shape and to keep my reflexes sharp. They talked me into going anyway. I was in Georgia for about three weeks. I had a good camp, but I was afraid I would catch on and it would interfere with my hockey, so I left.

"That was my first time in the south. Its customs, you know--like white-only or colored-only restaurants. I never experienced anything like that in Canada. When I left, I had to sit in the back of the bus. I couldn't move to the front until I got up north."

During the 1955/1956 hockey season, Willie played for the Kitchener-Waterloo Canucks, a junior league team. During a game he was struck with a puck in the right eye. The injury was so serious that he permanently lost 95% of the vision in that eye. A doctor advised him to stop playing, but that was inconceivable to Willie. In eight weeks he was back on the ice.

He had only one problem. "Being a left wing, my right eye was closest to the puck. When I came back, I would loose sight of the puck, and I was getting body checked much more. So I switched to the right side. I had to take most of the passes on my backhand, but it didn't bother me. At least I had vision of the rink."

Willie turned pro the next season when he signed with the Quebec Aces, a minor league team affiliated with the Boston Bruins. He signed for $3,500 with a $500 signing bonus. That year the Quebec Aces won their league championship.

Willie spent a few weeks at the Bruins training camp before starting the next season in the minors. One of his coaches told him, "Willie, you could be the first of your race to make it to the NHL. You got everything it takes. You can skate, shoot, you're strong, you're diligent."

That winter the Bruins roster was depleted by injury, and the team found itself especially short at winger. Willie got the call. On January 18, 1958, in Montreal, Willie took the ice with the Boston Bruins, becoming the first black player to make it to the NHL. The reaction to Willie's achievement was decidedly underwhelming.

"I was expecting a little more publicity. The press handled it like it was just another piece of everyday news. I didn't care that much about publicity for myself, but it could have been important for other blacks with ambitions in hockey. It would have shown that a black could make it."

He played another game in Boston before returning to the Quebec team. Willie toiled in the minors the next two years and continued to improve, despite being legally blind in one eye. From what he knew, the Bruins weren't aware of the his disability.

He was called up again by the Bruins in 1961, and he finished the year with the team, playing in 43 games and scoring a modest 4 goals and 10 assists.

Life in the NHL wasn't easy for a black player. "Guys would take cheap shots at me, just to see if I would retaliate," he says. "They thought I didn't belong there. When I got the chance, I'd run right back at them. I was prepared for it because I knew it would happen. I wasn't a great slugger, but I did my share of fighting. I was determined that I wasn't going to be run out of the rink."

The intimidation erupted into full-scale donnybrook one night in Chicago. "I was behind the Chicago net, and I passed the puck out front. Eric Nesterenko came around on my blind side and butt-ended me in the face with his stick. He knocked out two of my teeth and broke my nose. Blood was squirting out all over. I knew he did it on purpose, so I hit him over the head with my stick. Nailed him above the right eye. Back then the players didn't wear helmets. Both benches cleared. They had to put 15 stitches in his head."

It wasn't just opposing players he had to contend with. "Racist remarks from fans were much worse in the U.S. cities than in Toronto and Montreal. I particularly remember a few incidents in Chicago. The fans would yell, 'Go back to the south' and 'How come you're not picking cotton.' Things like that. It didn't bother me. Hell, I'd been called names most of my life. I just wanted to be a hockey player, and if they couldn't accept that fact, that was their problem, not mine."

Willie was known mostly for his speed. His coach in Boston, Milt Schmidt, said that Willie "was one of the fastest skaters in the NHL."

"My speed was an asset. I could be standing still and then take four or five strides and be at top speed." Willie's specialty was charging up the ice, shooting into a seam in the defense, taking a pass, and shooting. If the timing was right, it was a deadly offensive play.

Willie's happiest moment in the NHL came in 1961 in a game at the Boston Garden on New Year's night. "We were playing the Montreal Canadians. It was late in the third period. I received a pass and was sweeping around the Montreal defense. I took a low shot, keeping the puck along the ice, and it slid into the corner. It turned out to be the winning goal. The fans gave me a two-minute standing ovation. It was a nice feeling."

During the season, Milt Schmidt, the Bruins coach, told reporters, "Willie's got all the equipment a good professional needs and some splendid natural advantages... I hope he'll be with us a long time."

At the end of the season, Schmidt and Lynn Patrick, the general manager had a talk with Willie. "They said, 'Go home and have a good summer. We're impressed with your play. You'll be back with the Bruins."

Willie went home to Fredericton. His future looked bright. His friends and relatives were excited for him. But six weeks later he got a call from a sportswriter asking him what he thought of the trade. Willie's contract had been sold to the Montreal Canadians, and the Bruins hadn't bothered to inform him. Willie was stunned.

"Considering the talent Montreal had, I knew I had no chance of making their squad. So I wasn't surprised when I was assigned to their Hull-Ottawa minor league affiliate. I never did get any information from the Bruins on why the move was made."

To this day, the episode is Willie's bitterest memory.

Within two months, Willie was again traded to the Los Angeles Blades of the Western Hockey League.

"At that point, I was 26 or 27 and figured my hopes of ever making it to the NHL were small, but I still loved to play."

Willie played the next six seasons for Los Angeles and won the league goal scoring title in 1964 with 38 goals.

When the NHL expanded to twelve teams in 1968, Los Angeles got one of the franchises and the Los Angeles Blades folded. Willie's contract was purchased by the San Diego Gulls. The Gulls management told Willie they were glad to have him on the team instead of scoring goals against them, as he had with the LA team.

Willie enjoyed the dedicated San Diego fans. "They were averaging 9,000 to 10,000 fans per game. The place was just rockin'."

Willie won the WHL goal scoring title again in 1969 at the age of 34 with 39 goals.

The Western Hockey League folded in 1974, and Willie retired. He had fallen in love with San Diego and its warm weather, so he settled there. He managed fast food restaurants and sold cars.

In 1978 another team was put together in San Diego as part of the new Pacific Hockey League. The San Diego Hawks invited Willie to join the team. Willie had been keeping himself in good shape, so at age 43 he laced up the skates one more time. Incredibly, Willie missed only a half-dozen games of the 70-game season and scored 50 points. It was his last hurrah.

Willie's highest yearly hockey salary was $17,500. That was late in his career at San Diego. Even that didn't seem fair. Many of the players on the San Diego team were paid almost double that amount because they were owned by NHL teams.

Willie now lives and works in San Diego. He no longer plays hockey or even skates. One of his knees was so worn down that two years ago he had a total knee replacement.

Willie isn't sure why he didn't have a longer career in the NHL. "If I hadn't gotten that eye injury," he says. "To this day a lot of people don't realize that I played my entire 20-year pro career with one eye."

He's not sure if the NHL was discriminatory, but he has cause for suspicion. "There were blacks in the minor leagues and good ones too. The Quebec Aces had a history of having black players. Before my time, they had an all-black line with the Carnegie bothers, Herbie and Ossie, and Manny McIntyre. You talk about three players who were good, stick handling, passing, shooting--you name it, they could do it. But they never got a chance. Not one of them was ever called up."

Incredibly, it took 25 years for another black to make it to the NHL, and the situation today remains much the same today. Thirty-eight years after Willie O'Ree broke the racial barrier in pro hockey, minority players are still rare in the NHL. Part of the reason is that blacks and other minorities don't make up a significant portion of the Canadian population, and few African Americans take up the sport in the U.S.

Overall, Willie looks back fondly on his hockey career. He is proud "not just to be the first black in the NHL, just to play in the NHL. They called me the Jackie Robinson of hockey, but I didn't have the problems he had. I was never refused service at a hotel or restaurant, and I was accepted by my teammates."

If he had played in today's NHL with its 26 teams, instead of when the league had only six teams, Willie might've become a rich and famous star. If ever a player deserved that kind of success, it was Willie O'Ree. He was the polar opposite of today's sports stars--polite, reserved, dignified, and well-spoken. He didn't yell at referees, dance for the fans, or taunt opponents. He was given a taste of the pro sports life, but he never got a real chance. And, sadly, he wasn't the only one.

The most fitting tribute to Willie's career came recently when the NHL created an all-star game for young minority hockey players and named it in Willie's honor. The Willie O'Ree All-Star Game is held every year at the World Junior Championships.

UPDATE: On January 17, 1998, during ceremonies before the NHL All-Star game, the NHL honored Willie O'Ree for his pioneering efforts and named him the director of youth hockey development for the NHL/USA Hockey diversity task force. He will travel all over North America helping to establish programs.

"We're going to reach out and get into the neighborhoods where these ethnic kids and families live," Willie said. "Our job is to help these kids along, help them with their skills, hockey skills and other life skills, to make sure they're heading in the right direction. Hopefully I can make a difference, and we'll see more minority players get into the NHL.''

 

[Memphis Slim]

Very nice posting!! I didn't know this brotha.

 

[Memphis Slim]

The first Black firefighter hired in Los Angeles!

George W. Bright*On this date in 1897 the first African-American firefighter of the Los Angeles Fire Department was hired.

George Washington Bright was appointed by the Fire Commission as a call man and assigned to Engine Co. No. 6. On November 1st of that same year, he was promoted to a full-time hose man and assigned to Engine Co. No. 3. On January 31, 1900 Bright was promoted to Driver Third Class and assigned to Chemical Engine Co. No. 1.

Bright was born in 1862. He was a teamster prior to being hired by the LAFD. The City Fire Department Report of 1905 shows Lt. Bright assigned to Chemical Company No. 1 and living next door at 125 Belmont Ave. On August 1, 1902, Bright was promoted to Lieutenant. In those days chief officers made the promotions.

Before the commission would certify his promotion, Bright, being the first African-American to apply for such advancement was required to go to the Second Baptist Church and obtain an endorsement from his Minister and congregation.


​

 

[Memphis Slim]

Rebecca Lee Crumpler challenged the prejudice that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine to became the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, a distinction formerly credited to Rebecca Cole. Although little has survived to tell the story of Crumpler's life, she has secured her place in the historical record with her book of medical advice for women and children, published in 1883.
Crumpler was born in 1831 in Delaware, to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. An aunt in Pennsylvania, who spent much of her time caring for sick neighbors and may have influenced her career choice, raised her. By 1852 she had moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she worked as a nurse for the next eight years (because the first formal school for nursing only opened in 1873, she was able to perform such work without any formal training). In 1860, she was admitted to the New England Female Medical College. When she graduated in 1864, Crumpler was the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which closed in 1873.

In her Book of Medical Discourses, published in 1883, she gives a brief summary of her career path: "It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine."

Dr. Crumpler practiced in Boston for a short while before moving to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War ended in 1865. Richmond, she felt, would be "a proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled . . . to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored." She joined other black physicians caring for freed slaves who would otherwise have had no access to medical care, working with the Freedmen's Bureau, and missionary and community groups, even though black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South.

"At the close of my services in that city," she explained, "I returned to my former home, Boston, where I entered into the work with renewed vigor, practicing outside, and receiving children in the house for treatment; regardless, in a measure, of remuneration." She lived on Joy Street on Beacon Hill, then a mostly black neighborhood. By 1880 she had moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and was no longer in active practice. Her 1883 book is based on journal notes she kept during her years of medical practice.

No photos or other images survive of Dr. Crumpler. The little we know about her comes from the introduction to her book, a remarkable mark of her achievements as a physician and medical writer in a time when very few African Americans were able to gain admittance to medical college, let alone publish. Her book is one of the very first medical publications by an African American.

 

[Memphis Slim]

Tuskegee University is a private university located in Tuskegee, Alabama and is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund. The campus forms the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site and is a National Historic Landmark.


The school was the dream of Lewis Adams, a former slave and George W. Campbell, a former slave owner. Adams could read, write and speak several languages despite having no formal education. He also was an experienced tinsmith, harness-maker and shoemaker and Prince Hall Freemason an acknowledged leader of the African-American community in Macon County, Alabama.

During Reconstruction, the period following the American Civil War, the South was impoverished. Many blacks were illiterate and had few employable job skills. Adams was especially concerned that, without an education, the recently freed former slaves would not be able to support themselves. Campbell, of like-thinking, had become a merchant and a banker. He had little experience with educational institutions, but was always willing to contribute all of his resources and efforts to make the school a success.

W.F. Foster, a white candidate for the Alabama Senate, came to Adams with a question. What would Adams want in return for securing the votes of African Americans in Macon County for Foster and another white candidate? In response, Adams asked for a normal school for the free men, freed slaves and their children (a normal school, at that time, was the name for a teacher's college) to be established in the area.

Foster and the other candidate were elected. He worked with the other fellow legislator Arthur L. Brooks to draft and pass legislation authorizing $2,000 to create the school. Adams, Thomas Dyer, and M.B. Swanson formed Tuskegee's first board of commissioners. They wrote to Hampton Institute in Virginia, asking the school to recommend someone to head their new school. Former Union Army General and Hampton Principal Samuel C. Armstrong felt that he knew just the man for the job: 25 year-old Booker T. Washington.

Booker T. Washington's leadership
Washington was a former slave who, after working menial labor jobs as a freedman, had sought a formal education and worked his way through Hampton Institute and had graduated from Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C.. He had returned to Hampton, where he was working as a teacher. Sam Armstrong, who knew him well, strongly recommended him to Tuskegee's founders in Alabama.

Lewis Adams and Tuskegee's governing body agreed, and hired Washington, although such positions had always been held by whites up until that time. Under his leadership, the new normal school (for the training of teachers) opened on July 4, 1881 in space borrowed from a church.

The following year, Washington bought the grounds of a former plantation which the campus is still centered on. The buildings were constructed by students, many of whom earned all or part of their expenses. The school was a living example of Washington's dedication to the pursuit of self-reliance. In addition to training teachers, one of his great concerns was to teach the practical skills needed to succeed at farming or other trades.
Washington had his students do not only agricultural and domestic work, but also erect buildings. This was done in order to teach his students to see labor not only as practical, but also as beautiful and dignified. One of its most noteworthy professors was George Washington Carver, who was recruited to teach there by Washington.

In addition to building Tuskegee, Washington became a famous orator and leading spokesperson for African Americans in the United States for the final 20 years of his life. He was also awarded honorary degrees, including a doctorate.

Dr. Washington used Tuskegee and a network of wealthy American philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie, Collis P. Huntington, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Huttleston Rogers. According to Dr. Washington's papers, Rogers, who had a poor public image as a robber baron and a leader of Standard Oil, was actually warm and generous with his friends, family and what he felt were worthy causes. An early champion of the concept of matching funds, Henry Rogers was a major anonymous contributor to Tuskegee and dozens of other black schools for more than 15 years. In June 1909, Dr. Washington made a famous speaking tour along the newly completed Virginian Railway in Rogers' personal railcar Dixie, stopping at rural points in southern Virginia and southern West Virginia where the railroad was providing a new transportation link for commerce. His traveling companion on the tour recorded that Dr. Washington was warmly received by blacks and whites alike.
Another major relationship Washington developed was with Julius Rosenwald, son of an immigrant Jewish clothier and self-made man who had risen to the top of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago, Illinois. He and other Jewish friends had been long-concerned about the lack of educational resources for blacks, especially in the South. After meeting with Dr. Washington, Rosenwald agreed to serve on Tuskegee's Board of Directors. He also worked with Dr. Washington to stimulate funding to train teachers schools such as Tuskegee and Hampton Institute. Beginning with a pilot program in 1912 using technical help from Tuskegee to develop plans and build schools and matching funds to encourage local community contributions, they eventually established and operated over 5,000 small community schools and supporting resources for the betterment of blacks throughout the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The local schools were a source of much community pride and were of priceless value to African-American families during those troubled times in public education. This work was a major part of Dr. Washington's legacy and was continued (and expanded through the Rosenwald Fund and others) for many years after his death.

Despite his travels and widespread work, Dr. Washington remained as principal of Tuskegee. Concerned about the educator's health, Rosenwald took steps to ease his tireless pace. However, in 1915, he died at the age of 59, as a result of congestive heart failure, reportedly aggravated by overwork. At his death Tuskegee's endowment exceeded US $1.5 million. He was buried on the campus near the chapel.

World War II​

In 1941, in an effort to train black aviators, a training squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps was established at Tuskegee Institute, using Moton Field, about 4 miles away from the campus center. These aviators became known as the Tuskegee Airmen and both the Army and Air Force R.O.T.C. programs still exist there today. The Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Field was established in 1998.

 

[Memphis Slim]

THE LITTLE ROCK NINE​

Although most school districts at least attempted to integrate following the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, some school districts, particularly those in the Deep South, actively avoided desegregation. One of the most famous cases involved Little Rock's Central High School, where Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus joined local whites in resisting integration by dispatching the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine black students from entering the school. President Dwight Eisenhower responded by sending federal troops to protect the students. The crisis in Little Rock showed America that the president could and would enforce court orders with federal troops. When eight of the nine black students successfully completed the school year, they showed America that black students could and would endure the intense hatred that racist white students could dump on them. It was a big step towards integration and an important one, even though it caused nine brave teenagers unspeakable pain.

On September 2, 1957, the day before the nine black students were to enter Central High, National Guardsmen surrounded the school. In a televised speech that night, Governor Orval Faubus explained that he had called the National Guardmen because he had heard that white supremacists from all over the state were descending on Little Rock. He declared Central off-limits to blacks and Horace Mann, the black high school, off-limits to whites. He also proclaimed that if the black students attempted to enter Central, "blood would run in the streets."

The black students did not attend the first day of school. Early on Wednesday, September 4, Daisy Bates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who was helping out the nine, called to tell them that they were to meet a few blocks away from the school and walk in together. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Eckford, one of the nine, did not have a phone. She never received the message and attempted to enter the school alone through the front entrance. An angry mob met her, threatening to lynch her, as the Arkansas National Guard looked on. Fortunately, two whites stepped forward to aid her, and she escaped without injury. The other eight were also denied admittance by the National Guard, under orders from Governor Faubus.

To ensure that the Little Rock Nine could complete a full day of classes, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock. The 101st patrolled outside the school and escorted the black students into the school. In addition, the black students were assigned a personal guard from the 101st who followed them around the school. Still, they were subjects of unspeakable hatred. White students yelled insults in the halls and during class. They beat up the black students, particularly the boys.

They walked on the heels of the blacks until they bled. They destroyed the black students' lockers and threw flaming paper wads at them in the bathrooms. They threw lighted sticks of dynamite at Melba Pattillo, stabbed her, and sprayed acid in her eyes. The acid was so strong that had her 101st guard not splashed water on her face immediately, she would have been blind for the rest of her life.

Gradually, the 101st Airborne left Central High and the black students were left to fend for themselves. By the time Christmas rolled around, they were certainly ready for a vacation. Unfortunately, vacation did not come soon enough for Minnijean Brown, who dumped her lunch tray over the heads of two boys who had been taunting her on December 17th.

Even though the boys said that they "didn't blame her for getting mad" after all the insults she had endured over the course of the year, Minnijean was suspended for six days. She was "re-instated on probation [on] January 13, 1958, with the agreement that she would not retaliate, verbally or physically, to any harassment but would leave the matter to the school authorities to handle." But she was expelled in February after she called a girl who was provoking her "white trash." The whites in the school were jubilant, making up cards that said, "One down...eight to go!"
It was not to be. The other eight all finished the school year. In May, despite numerous protests and under the watchful eye of 125 federalized Arkansas National Guardsmen, Ernest Green became the first black graduate of Central High, the sole minority student in his 602-member class.

 

[Steve Rogers]

Very nice posting!! I didn't know this brotha.

Glad to help. One thing I know is my Bruins.

BTW do you know Jerome Iginla?

 

[Steve Rogers]

I just saw something about the Little Rock Nine on TV not long ago. I guess Bush gave them some medals. Better late than never I guess.

 

[Memphis Slim]

Glad to help. One thing I know is my Bruins.

BTW do you know Jerome Iginla?[/quote]

Can't say I do. Share some info....

 

[Memphis Slim]

I just saw something about the Little Rock Nine on TV not long ago. I guess Bush gave them some medals. Better late than never I guess.

True.

 

[Steve Rogers]

Glad to help. One thing I know is my Bruins.

BTW do you know Jerome Iginla?[/quote]

Can't say I do. Share some info....

He's half white and Canadian, so I don't know how relevant he is, but here you go.

Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla [1] (born July 1, 1977 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) is a professional ice hockey player in the National Hockey League (NHL) and currently captain of the Calgary Flames.

//
Playing career

His surname Iginla means "Big Tree" in Yorùbá, his father's native language. His parents separated when he was a baby, and he was raised by his mother and grandparents in the Edmonton suburb of St. Albert. Jarome has a half-sister, Theresa who is a standout forward for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. The youngster's first love was baseball (he was the catcher on the Canadian National Junior team), but also starred in the St. Albert Minor Hockey Association before graduating to juniors. He played goaltender in his first two years of organized hockey, then switched to the right wing, and developed a knack for scoring. Iginla played his entire minor hockey career in St. Albert, which included stints with the Bantam AAA Sabres and the Midget AAA Raiders. It was during the 1992-93 season with the Raiders that Iginla, then an under-age midget player, scored 87 points to lead the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey league (AMHL) in scoring. Following this season Iginla joined the Kamloops Blazers as a 16 year old.

Iginla warming up before a game in March 2006.


Iginla played 3 seasons in the Western Hockey League and won two Memorial Cups with the Kamloops Blazers. He was picked in the first round (11th overall) by the Dallas Stars in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft, then traded with Corey Millen to the Flames for Joe Nieuwendyk. Iginla's best season was 2001-02 when he had 96 points and 52 goals, becoming the first player of African descent in history to win the regular season goal and point scoring titles. He also won the Lester B. Pearson Award as the league's best player as voted by his peers, and was a nominee for both the Hart Trophy (narrowly beaten by then-Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jose Theodore) and the King Clancy Memorial Trophy. Iginla was also a key member of Canada's Olympic gold medal-winning hockey team in 2002. This season elevated him to superstar status and he became a fan favourite. Jarome is widely regarded as one of the best players in the league today.
Iginla was named captain of the Calgary Flames in October 2003, making him the second player of African descent to be named captain of an NHL team (Dirk Graham of the Chicago Blackhawks was the first). In the 2003-04 NHL season, he scored 41 goals, sharing the goal-scoring title with Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash. On May 19, 2004, Iginla scored his 10th playoff goal to help the Flames advance to their first Stanley Cup Finals in 15 years. He recorded a Gordie Howe hat trick (a goal, an assist, and a fight) in Game 3 of the Finals when he fought and took down Vincent Lecavalier. However, the Flames eventually lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games.
Since becoming an NHL all-star, Iginla has entered into several endorsement contracts with various companies [1]. One of his most prominent corporate relationships is with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Iginla also supports many charities, including Cure for Cancer and KidSport. In 2004 he was awarded the NHL Foundation Award for Community Service as well as the King Clancy Memorial Trophy in recognition of his humanitarian contributions. Iginla played in the 2006 Winter Olympics, where he was one of Team Canada's alternate captains. On December 7, 2006 Iginla made a milestone mark in his career where he scored his 300th career goal and 600th Career point. He would have been named to the 2007 NHL All Star team in Dallas along with teammates Dion Phaneuf and Miikka Kiprusoff, however his knee injury kept him out of the game. In 2008 he was voted to the starting line-up of the 2008 NHL All Star game, along with Dion Phaneuf.He was named the captain of Western All Star Team.
Iginla is known as an elite power forward, an uncommon trait in today's NHL stars. He possesses a fine set of hands with an impressive skill set, and has also proven skillful in setting up his linemates for chances. He has garnered in the past a reputation of someone who may require a playmaking center to truly dominate, but he has established himself as the Flames' undeniable leader. He can use power or finesse to work his way around defenders and has one of the league's most powerful wrist shots. He is not afraid to compete in high-traffic areas. He also plays often with a mean streak, and is a proven leader, having helped lead Calgary within one win of a Stanley Cup victory in 2004.

 

[Steve Rogers]

Christopher Priest (comic book writer)


Christopher James Priest, born James Christopher Owsley in 1961, is a writer of comic books. During his career, he has written nearly every major character published by Marvel Comics and DC Comics. He was the first black man to be the editor of any comic book in North America.

For several years he was the editor of the Spider-Man comic books, during which time he first hired Peter David. He edited the Impact imprint for DC Comics. He had ongoing runs writing titles such as Power Man and Iron Fist, Conan the Barbarian, The Ray, Quantum & Woody, Steel, Xero, Deadpool, The Crew and Black Panther, some of which he either co-created or substantially influenced.

In 1993, he became part of the group of writers and artists that would go on to found Milestone Media, a comic book publisher affiliated with DC Comics. He contributed substantially to the development of the original Milestone story bible and designed the company logo. He was intended to become the company's editor-in-chief, but personal problems forced him to scale down his involvement, settling for the role of a liaison between DC Comics and Milestone Media.

Shortly afterwards, he changed his name from "Jim Owsley" to "Christopher Priest". He has refused to discuss his reasons for doing so, beyond a seemingly-glib story about carrying out a threat/promise to "become a priest". In an interview a few years ago, when asked about the origin of the "Priest" change - he mentioned that when he first got married, he'd joke about becoming a priest if it didn't work out. Years passed, and the marraige ended up in divorce - and soon after he changed his last name to Priest, though it's unsure whether or not he was kidding at the time of this story. He has claimed that he was completely unaware at the time of the established British science fiction author of the same name; as an accommodation, he refers to himself professionally as just "Priest" (or sometimes "Christopher J. Priest"). Coincidentally, he is also an ordained Baptist minister, and can thus be referred to as "the Reverend Priest."

He is also a professional music producer.

 

[SLVRSR4]

Why do blacks get the shortest month? What I don't get is the need to tell people who the first black firefighter in L.A. was. I don't even care who the first white, female, asian, any firefighter was.

I know about important black people like Shaka Zulu, Nelson Mandela, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr. and there are more, but I just want to show that there are plenty we already learn about.

As a Hispanic I don't want a month dedicated to Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez and the conquistadors.

 

[SapphirePrima]

Why do blacks get the shortest month? What I don't get is the need to tell people who the first black firefighter in L.A. was. I don't even care who the first white, female, asian, any firefighter was.

I know about important black people like Shaka Zulu, Nelson Mandela, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr. and there are more, but I just want to show that there are plenty we already learn about.

As a Hispanic I don't want a month dedicated to Christopher Columbus and Hernando Cortez and the conquistadors.

It's history.

We celebrate people like Frida, in Hispanic history month?

 

[Darthphere]

Why do blacks get the shortest month? What I don't get is the need to tell people who the first black firefighter in L.A. was. I don't even care who the first white, female, asian, any firefighter was.

I can actually concur with this statement, even though I wouldn't have put it as bluntly as this.

I mean, it's getting to the point where the first black man to take a dump in a whites only toilet is a historical figure.

 

[terry78]

I can actually concur with this statement, even though I wouldn't have put it as bluntly as this.

I mean, it's getting to the point where the first black man to take a dump in a whites only toilet is a historical figure.

I'd prefer the first black man to take a dump on a white to be more apropos.

 

[SLVRSR4]

It's history.

We celebrate people like Frida, in Hispanic history month?

I'm confused by this entire post

 

[terry78]

You're latino and don't know Frida? Give up your chulo card now.

 

[Memphis Slim]

Morehouse College is a private, all-male, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. It is one of four remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States. Morehouse is also part of the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders program.

Morehouse was ranked #1 three times in a row (2002-2004) as the best school for African Americans for undergraduate study by Black Enterprise Magazine. The college was rated by The Wall Street Journal as #29 out of the top 50 "feeder schools" for elite graduate study in a 2004 study. According to a 2007 joint publication by Newsweek and Kaplan, Inc., Morehouse College is one of the "25 Hottest Schools in America" and the "hottest men's college".


Morehouse is part of the Atlanta University Center along with Clark Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College. Morehose College has an enrollment of 3,000 students.

The student-faculty ratio of the campus is 16:1 and 100% of the school's tenure-track faculty hold terminal degrees.
In 2006, Morehouse graduated 605 men , one of the largest classes in its history.

In 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War, the Augusta Institute was founded by William Jefferson White, an Augusta Baptist minister and cabinetmaker, with the support of the Rev. Richard C. Coulter, a former slave from Augusta, Georgia, and the Rev. Edmund Turney, organizer of the National Theological Institute for educating freedmen in Washington, D.C.. The institution was founded for the education of black men in the fields of ministry and education and was located in Springfield Baptist Church, the oldest independent black church in the nation. The school's first president was Rev. Dr. Joseph T. Robert (father of Brigadier General Henry Martyn Robert, author of Robert's Rules of Order).


In 1879, the institute moved to the basement of the Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta and changed its name to Atlanta Baptist Seminary. The seminary later gained a four-acre campus in downtown Atlanta. In 1885, Dr. Samuel T. Graves became the school's second president. The same year, the seminary moved to its present location, which was a gift from John D. Rockefeller. In 1890 Dr. George Sale became the seminary's third president and in 1897 the school was renamed Atlanta Baptist College.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jhopemax.jpg
Dr. John Hope, the school's first African-American president



Dr. John Hope became the school's first African-American president in 1906 and led the institution's growth in size and academic stature. He envisioned an academically rigorous college that would be the antithesis to Booker T. Washington's view of agricultural and trade-focused education for African-Americans. In 1913 the school was again renamed Morehouse College in honor of Henry L. Morehouse, the corresponding secretary of the Northern Baptist Home Missions Society. Morehouse entered into a cooperative agreement with Clark College and Spelman College in 1929 and later expanded the association to create the Atlanta University Center.

Dr. Samuel H. Archer was named as the fifth president of the college in 1931 and selected the school colors, maroon and white, to reflect his own alma mater, Colgate University. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays became president in 1940. Mays, who would become a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., presided over the school's growth in international enrollment and reputation. During the 1960s, Morehouse students were actively involved in the civil rights movement in Atlanta. Mays' profound speeches were instrumental in shaping the personal development of Morehouse students during his tenure. In 1967, Dr. Hugh M. Gloster became the seventh president. In 1968, the school's Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society was founded. Gloster established the Morehouse School of Medicine in 1975, which became independent from Morehouse College in 1981.

 

[Memphis Slim]

CHARLIE PARKER

Charlie Parker was one of the most influential improvising soloists in jazz, and a central figure in the development of bop in the 1940s. A legendary figure in his own lifetime, he was idolized by those who worked with him, and he inspired a generation of jazz performers and composers.

Parker was the only child of Charles and Addle Parker. In 1927, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, an important center of African-American music in the 1920s and 1930s. Parker had his first music lessons in the local public schools; he began playing alto saxophone in 1933 and worked occasionally in semi-professional groups before leaving school in 1935 to become a full-time musician. From 1935 to 1939, he worked mainly in Kansas City with a wide variety of local blues and jazz groups. Like most jazz musicians of his time, he developed his craft largely through practical experience: listening to older local jazz masters, acquiring a traditional repertory, and learning through the process of trial and error in the competitive Kansas City bands and jam sessions.

Photograph by Herman Leonard
In 1939 Parker first visited New York (then the principal center of jazz musical and business activity), staying for nearly a year. Although he worked only sporadically as a professional musician, he often participated in jam sessions. By his own later account, he was bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used then. He said, "I kept thinking there's bound to be something else…. I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it." While working over at the Cherokee in a jam session with the guitarist Biddy Fleet, Parker suddenly found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes he could play what he had been "hearing." Yet, it was not until 1944-5 that his conceptions of rhythm and phrasing had evolved sufficiently to form his mature style.
Parker's name first appeared in the music press in 1940, and from this date his career is more fully documented. From 1940 to 1942 he played in Jay McShann's band, with which he toured the Southwest, Chicago, and New York, and took part in his first recording sessions in Dallas (1941). These recordings, and several made for broadcasting from the same period, document his early, swing-based style, and at the same time reveal his extraordinary gift for improvisation. In December 1942, he joined Earl Hines' big band, which then included several other young modernists such as Dizzy Gillespie. By May 1944 they, with Parker, formed the nucleus of Billy Eckstine's band.
During these years, Parker regularly participated in after-hours jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House in New York, where the informal atmosphere and small groups favored the development of his personal style and of the new bop music generally. Unfortunately, a strike by the American Federation of Musicians silenced most of the recording industry from August 1942, causing this crucial stage in Parker's musical evolution to remain virtually undocumented. Though there are some obscure acetate recordings of him playing tenor saxophone dating from early 1943. When the recording ban ended, Parker recorded as a sideman (from September 15, 1944) and as a leader (from November 26, 1945), which introduced his music to a wider public and to other musicians.

 

[SurfDUI]

Stupid question...um...is it cool if white people participate? Don't want to overstep any bounds, but as far as I am concerned this should be just history--regardless of color.

ANYTHING regarded as African-American this or Black Exposition that, and I mean nearly EVERYTHING-is NOT EXCLUSIONAL, meaining that there is no reason as to why you can't participate in any discussions, change your avatar, watch a John Amos marathon, whatever.

Counter to that, in terms of other gatherings or recognizion, it is purley EXCLUSIONAL, meaning that you need not apply if your a women, or hispanic, or from Oa.

This SMALL recognition is purley from the standpoint that Black people were not even considered people for the majority of American History. Forced to into slave labor, killed, maimed, and EXCLUDED from the majority. So in celebration of the many achievements in the face of stauch and most times legal oppresion, that is why we have such.

So feel free to change ur picture.

 

[SLVRSR4]

You're latino and don't know Frida? Give up your chulo card now.

the hispanic history month part I guess being a history major just makes me perturbed by the useless stuff that we have to learn sometimes.

 

[Memphis Slim]

Just enjoy the ride people.