BLACK HISTORY MONTH

“The Negroes are so wilful and loth to leave their own country that they have often leap’d overboard and kept under water till they were drowned to avoid being taken up and saved by our boats…. I put them all in leg-irons; and if these be [not] enough, I put a collar around their neck, with a chain lock to a ring-on the deck; if one chain won’t do, I put two and if two won’t do, I put three.”

THE STORY BEHIND THE FACE

Although the Emancipation Proclamation was a monumental document in our nation’s history, reaffirming the Constitutional doctrine stating that “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,” the struggle for equality was by no means an easy one for early African-Americans. Their challenge was to fill the void left by countless unfulfilled promises.

As time elapsed in our nation’s history, promises to African-Americans quickly turned into restrictions against them, and violations of these restrictions yielded dangerous liabilities. Thus, the ushering in the infamous “Jim Crow” era is but one example of the mistreatment that ultimately catapulted millions of African-Americans into writing their own documents of history.

The photographic collage, entitled “Emancipation,” attempts to convey the poignant message of African-Americans struggles, by capturing the images of courageous men and women who walked on the well traveled path towards freedom, whether it be freedom by expression of mind or freedom by way of symbolism.

These men and women, encompassing artists, patriots, martyrs, athletes, educators, social activists, religious and civil rights leaders, they are only a small army of the many freedom fighters who served as a reminder, and as an educational tool for the next generation of leaders, who also wish to emancipate themselves.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

IMAM WARITH DEEN MOHAMMED Religious leader (1933-) Warith Deen Mohammed was born in Chicago, Illinois the seventh of eight children, to Clara Muhammed and Elijah Muhammed (historic leader of the Nation of Islam) “We can’t think [of separation] …and live in America and claim a share in the benefits of this country you know. If we are going to live in this country and claim a share in the fruits of this country, then we have to identify in the national aspirations of the people.” Mentor to El-Hajj-Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X), he assumed the leadership of the Nation of Islam in 1975, after the passing of his father, he immediately began transforming the community from a nationalistic philosophy to the universally accepted principles of the Islamic faith. His insights and emphasis on the balanced practice of the religion (as the Holy Qur’an dictates and as Prophet Mohammed, (peace be upon him), of 1400’ years ago. Has currently placed him as the leader of the largest communities of Muslims in North America. He is a respected religious authority for Muslims, throughout the world. Imam Mohammed has been a major catalyst for bridging the gap between Islam, Christianity and Judaism. He says that all three religions are descended from Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) and are the fulfillment of the promise that All-Mighty God made to Abraham that his seed would be plentiful and multiply the earth. He feels that working together to heal the ills of the society should not be a problem. Islam is a religion that encompasses the total life of the human being; there is no separation of religion, education, politics, business, etc. Imam Mohammed’s leadership has been reflective of this. His emphasis on developing and perfecting educational institutions, participation in politics, business and industry has encouraged an amazing community growth in these areas. In his travels, he has visited kings and presidents all over the world, accepted an invitation from the Pope of Rome on two occasions to discuss interfaith and world issues, and in 1999, met with Former President Of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. He is also the International President of the World Conference on Religion and Peace and sat on former President Clinton’s Religious Advisory Council.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

MILES DAVIS Jazz great (1926-1991) The Prince of Darkness was born in Alton, Illinois May 25,1926. He grew up in East St. Louis and began playing the trumpet at the age of 13. Two years later he was already playing professionally. In September of 1944, Miles Davis moved to New York, supposedly to study at the Institute of Musical Art, but the real reason was to be near his idol, Charlie Parker. Between 1945-1948, he made live appearances with Parker, as well as played on recordings. At the same time, Davis played in other bands, including tours with Benny Carter and Billy Eckstine. In 1948, he began to lead his own bop groups and began his lengthy collaboration with arranger Gil Evans. Together they made a lot of recordings for Capitol Records which were later re-released as “Birth of the Cool.” Although he continued to record with famous bop musicians, including Parker, Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins, he didn’t work much in Clubs or with high profile accompanists until 1954. In 1955, Miles Davis had a jazz breakthrough. He performed informally at the Newport Jazz Festival and his sensational improvisations brought him widespread publicity for the first time. He also established a quintet (which lasted from 1955-57) made up of Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones and John Coltrane, who was replaced by Sonny Rollins in 1956. He was so in demand at this point that in 1957, Miles wrote and recorded music in Paris for Louis Malle’s film “Ascenseur pour l’echafaud.” For the next 5 years, Davis drew the rhythm sections of his various quintets and sextets from a small talent pool: pianists Red Garland, Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly; drummers Philly Joe Jones and Jimmy Cobb; and bassist Paul Chambers. In 1963, Miles Davis drew from a different talent pool for his new rhythm section, this time using Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. To replace Coltrane on the sax, Davis tried out Sonny Stitt, Jimmy Heath, Hank Mobley, George Coleman and Sam Rivers. He eventually settled on Wayne Shorter in 1964. Milesiones Davis, who had trained as a boxer , had always been physically very capable of playing his horn, but in the mid “70s serious ailments and the effects of an automobile accident forced him to retire. He suffered for 5 years from pneumonia and other nasty afflictions. The world did not have to live without this great musician To long, because he began making new recordings in 1980. In the summer of s1981, he toured all over the place with his new quintets and sextets. Although he suffered a stroke in February 1982, he was still able to resume an active career that same spring! New members of his groups at this time included Bill Evans, Branford Marsalis, Bob Berg, John Scoefield and synthesizer player Bobby Irving III. Miles Davis had been described as a “living legend” before his death on September 29, 1991, a title which he hated. It went against his continuing desire to be associated with new popular music and energetic, youthful activities, although he certainly must be termed a jazz legend.

Presidential Address - Pitch

The preliminaries over the President got right down to business the recession

“You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis because you live it everyday it’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights.”

So right off the top he sounded a new confidence theme.

“We will rebuild we will recover and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

He spoke of waste from CEO’s to Banks to Wall Street to even the Government. He spoke of the anger and frustration many feel on how America was run in the past and how America should be run now in the present. Obama also tells nation:

“We are not quitters.”

U.S. will survive day of reckoning.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

ROSA PARKS Civil Rights Activist (1913-) There is about her name no discernible ring nor aura of distinction. There is about her dress and manner no singular, commanding, or memorable uniqueness. Her story, however, is one of the most inspirational to come out of the civil rights movement, a simple message to all that human dignity cannot interminably be undermined by brute force. On the evening of December I, 1955, Rosa Parks boarded pa public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, took a seat with the other passengers, and prepared to relax for 15 minutes or so before arriving home. As the bus began to fill up, however, the number of seats dwindled until, within a few minutes, there were none left. As soon as the white bus driver noticed that a black woman was occupying a seat in the “white” section of the bus while a white passenger was standing, he ordered the “offender” to the rear. The “offender” did not make scene when the refused. She did not scream; she did not whine; she did not threaten; she did not exhort. She simply did not move, thus forcing those who would force her to move to make the next move. Rosa Parks was arrested, jailed, and brought to trial while the rest of the once quiescent black community refused to ride public buses. Mrs. Parks was the catalyst in the Montgomery boycott, the first public confrontation which brought the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., into the ears of America. Ms Parks paid dearly for her courage. Her husband, a barber, became ill from the pressure; the family ultimately moved to Detroit, where Parks resumed his profession. Mrs. Parks did sewing and alterations at home until she found a job as a dressmaker. In Detroit, she became active in youth work, job guidance, cultural and recreational planning. Dr. King, once called her “the great fuse that led to the modern stride toward freedom.” She made the stride while sitting still. Mrs. Parks was a receptionist-secretary to Representative John Conyers. A religious person, she serves as deaconess of St. Matthews A.M.E. church in Detroit. She has accepted many speaking engagements because she wants to help “young people grow, develop, and reach their potential.”

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

SHIRLEY CHISHOLM Politician and author (1924-) The first black woman ever elected to the United States Congress, Shirley Chisholm served her native district of Brooklyn, N.Y., in the House of Representatives from 1969 until 1982. She ran unsuccessfully in 1972 for the Democratic nomination for president “The law cannot do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. Women in this country must become revolutionaries.” Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn on Nov. 30, 1924, but spent much of her childhood on her grandmother’s farm in Barbados. She returned to Brooklyn when she was 11. After graduating from a girls’ high school there, she majored in sociology at Brooklyn College and earned a master’s degree in elementary education at Columbia University. She was married to Conrad Chisholm from 1949 to 1977 and then to Arthur Hardwick, Jr. Director of Brooklyn’s Friends Day Nursery from 1953 1959, Chisholm became a recognized authority on early education and child welfare. From 1959 to 1964 she was an educational consultant in the day-care division of New York City’s bureau of child welfare. Also involved in community and civic activities, she was urged in 1964 to run for the New York State Assembly. The first black woman from Brooklyn to serve in the assembly, she won reelection in 1965 and 1966, then ran for Congress in 1968. The Chisholm campaign slogan was “Unbought and Unbossed,” which became the title of a book she published in 1970. she soon became recognized as an outspoken champion of liberal causes associated with her black and Hispanic constituency. She published a second book in 1973, “The Good Fight’. After serving seven terms, Chisholm retired from Congress in 1982, becoming a professor at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

CARTER G. WOODSON Historian (1875-1950) Carter H. Woodson dedicated his life to researching and preserving the saga of the African-American experience. He became known as “the father of black history.” Woodson born Dec. 19,1875, in Buckingham County is best known for establishing Negro History Week in 1926. The celebration of the achievements of African-Americans later became Black History Month. Woodson was the son of former slaves. His parents, James Henry Woodson and Eliza Riddle Woodson bad nine children. Woodson, the youngest, had to work on the family farm and couldn’t attend school regularly. Determined to secure and education, he learned on his own. At 17, Woodson moved to Huntington, W.Va., where he hoped to continue his education. He worked in the coal mines to support himself. In 1895, when he was 19, Woodson was able to enroll in Douglass High school, and for a short time served as principal. He also enrolled at Berea College, which he attended off and on, graduating in 1903. Woodson’s thirst for knowledge was boundless. While he taught in the Philippines from 1903, to 1907, he took correspondence courses from the University of Chicago. After leaving the Philippines he traveled to Europe and Asia and briefly studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. When he returned to the United Stated, Woodson enrolled at the University of Chicago and received both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in History and Romance Languages in 1908.his studies there piqued his interest in History, and Woodson was accepted to the doctoral program at Harvard University. He received his doctorate in 1912. He was the second black person to receive a doctorate from the university. He worked as a teacher at Dunbar High School in Washington from 1909 to 1919. Convinced that the history of African-Americans was being ignored and misrepresented, he took steps to put things right. In 1915, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History Inc. The association was created to promote and preserve African-American history and culture. He founded the Journal of Negro History in 1916. In 1917, he wrote his first book, “The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861,” considered one of his most important works. In 1921, five years before he would establish Negro History Week, Woodson founded Associated Publishers to publish books and information about black life and history. He wrote or co-wrote 22 books, among them “The Negro In Our History” and “The Miseducation of the Negro.” Woodson also taught at Howard University and Virginia State College. He founded the Negro History Bulletin in 1937. He spent his life investigating, documenting and publishing African-American history. Woodson was obsessed with his work and was described as a workaholic who was arrogant, cantankerous and domineering. He died of a heart attack in 1950, before realizing his ambition.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

CHARLIE “BIRD” PARKER Jazz Great (1920-1955) The only child of Charles and Addie Parker, Charlie Parker was one of the most important and influential saxophonists and jazz players of the 1940’s. When Parker was still a child, his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where jazz, blues and gospel music ware flourishing. His first contact with music, came from school where he played baritone horn with the school’s band. When he was 15, he showed a great interest in music and a love for the alto saxophone. Soon, Parker was playing with local bands until 1935, when he left school to pursue a music career. From 1935-39, Parker worked in Kansas City with several local jazz and blues bands from which he developed his art. In 1939, Parker visited New York for the first time, and he stayed for nearly a year working as a professional musician and often participating in jam sessions. The New York atmosphere greatly influenced Parker’s musical style. In 1938, Parker joined the band of pianist Jay McShann, with whom he toured around Southwest Chicago and New York. A year later, Parker traveled to Chicago and was a regular performer at Club on 55th street. Parker soon moved to New York. He washed dishes at a local food place where he met guitarist Biddy Fleet who taught him about instrumental harmony. Shortly afterwards, Parker returned to Kansas City to attend his father’s funeral. Once there, he joined Harlan Leonard’s Rockets, and he stayed for five months. In 1939, Yardbird rejoined McShann and was placed in charge of the reed section. During the four years that Parker stayed with McShann, he got the opportunity to perform solo in several of their recordings, such as “Hootie Blues,” “Sepian Bounce’” and the 1941 hit “Confessing the Blues.” In 1942, while on tour with McShann, Parker performed at jam sessions at Monroe’s and Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem Where he caught the attention of artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. Later that year, Parker broke with McShann and joined Earl Hines for eight months. The year 1945 was extremely important for Parker. During that time he led his own group un New York and also worked with Gillespie in several ensembles. In December that same year, Parker and Gillespie took their music to Hollywood on a six-week nightclub tour. Parker continued to perform in Los Angeles until June 1946, when he suffered a nervous breakdown and he was confined at a state hospital. After his release in January 1947, Parker returned to New York and formed a quintet which performed some of his most famous tunes. From 1947 to 1951, Parker worked in a number of nightclubs, radio studios, and other places performing solo or with the accompaniment of other musicians. During this time, he visited Europe where he was cheered by devoted fans and did numerous recordings. March 5, 1955, was Parker’s last public engagement at Birdland, a nightclub in New York. He died a week later in a friend’s apartment. Charles “Yardbird” Parker was an amazing saxophonist who gained wide recognition for his brilliant solos and innovative improvisations. He was, without a doubt, one of the most influential and talented musicians in jazz history.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

ARTHUR ASHE American tennis player (1943-1993) As a child growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, Arthur’s physical stature did little to indicate his future career as a professional athlete “BEING BLACK IS THE GREASTEST BURDEN I’VE HAD TO BEAR.” “Skinny as a straw.” Arthur derived countless hours of pleasure reading and listening to music with his mother, Mattie. He also showed a surprising flair for tennis from the first time he picked up a racquet. At the age of six, Mattie passed away suddenly. Though heartbroken, Arthur’s memory of his beloved mother was a source of inspiration throughout his life. Upon graduation from high school, Arthur was good enough to earn a tennis scholarship to UCLA. It was at UCLA that Arthur became recognized for his tennis ability on a national level, culminating with an individual and team NCAA championship in 1965. He was growing as a person as well, graduating in 1966 with a BA in Business Administration Success is a journey, not a destination. “The doing is often more important than the outcome.” Ashe was selected in 1963 to represent the United States in Davis Cup play, an honor in which he took great pride. In doing so, he also became the first African-American to be selected to play for the American team. The relevancy of these accomplishments was not lost on Ashe. His determination to succeed “despite” being an outcast in a historically white sport opened the door for many African-Americans who have followed him in professional tennis. By the mid-1970’s, people began to whisper that perhaps Arthur was spending too much time on his causes and not enough time on his game. It was from these doubts that Arthur began to refocus on his game, determined to reach the level of play he once enjoyed. In 1975, at the age of 31, Arthur Ashe enjoyed one of his finest seasons ever and one of the shining moments of his career by winning Wimbledon. He also attained the ultimate ranking of #1 in the world. In 1988, while in the hospital for brain surgery, Arthur received the overwhelming news that he was HIV-Positive. He had contracted the virus through a tainted transfusion during his two heart surgeries, almost certainly the second in 1983. Arthur Ashe passed away on February 6,1993, having raised awareness of Aids to a level where paranoia was no longer the overriding emotion. More than merely a great tennis player, Arthur Ashe left a mark on this world in a number of social causes that ensure that his legacy will endure.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

LANGSTON HUGHES Poet, Playright, Novelist, Social activist (1902-1967) Born is Joplin, Missouri, James Langston Hughes was born into an abolitionist family “The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people, The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people, Beautiful also is the sun, Beautiful also are the souls of my people.” He was the grandson of Charles Henry Langston, the brother of John Mercer Langston, who was the first Black American to be elected to public office in 1855. Hughes attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, but began writing poetry in the eighth grade, and was selected as Class Poet. His father didn’t think he would be able to make a living at writing, and encouraged him to pursue a more practical career. His Father paid his tuition to Columbia University on the grounds he study engineering. After a short time, Langston dropped out of the program with a B+ average, all the while he continued writing poetry. His first published poem was also one of his most famous, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, and it appeared in Brownie’s Book. Later, his poems, short plays, essays, and short stories appeared in the NAACP publication Crisis Magazine and in Opportunity Magazine and other publications. One of Hughes’ finest essays appeared in the Nation in 1926, entitled “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” It spoke of Black writers and poets, “who would surrender racial pride in the name of a false integration”, where a talented Black writer would prefer to be considered a poet, not a Black poet, which to Hughes meant he subconsciously wanted to write like a white poet. Hughes argued, “no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. He wrote in this essay. “We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or sham. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren’t, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too… If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and we stand on the top of the mountain, free within ourselves.” In 1923, Hughes traveled abroad on a freighter to Senegal, Nigeria, the Cameroons, Belgium Congo, Angola, and Guinea in Africa, and later to Italy and France, Russia and Spain. One of his favorite pastimes whether abroad or in Washington, D.C. or Harlem, New York was sitting in the clubs listening to blues, jazz and writing poetry. Through these experiences a new rhythm emerged in his writing, and a series of poems such as “The Weary Blues” were penned. He returned to Harlem, in 1924, the period known as the Harlem Renaissance. During this period, his work was frequently published and his writing flourished. In 1925, he moved to Washington, D.C., still spending more time in blues and jazz clubs. He said, “I tried to write poems like the songs they sang on Seventh street…(these songs) had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.” At this same time, Hughes accepted a job with Dr. Carter G. Woodson, editor of the Journal of Negro Life and History and founder of Black History Week in 1926. He returned to his beloved Harlem later that year. Langston Hughes received a scholarship to Lincoln University, in Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. degree in 1929. In 1943, he was awarded an honorary Litt. Dr. By his alma mater; a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935 and a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1940. Based on a conversation with a man he knew in a Harlem bar, he created a character know as, My Simple Minded Friend in a series of essays in the form of a dialogue. In 1950, he named this lovable character Jess B. Simple, and authored a series of books on him. Langston Hughes was a prolific writer. In the forty-odd years between his first book in 1926 and his death in 1967, he devoted his life to writing and lecturing. He wrote sixteen books of poems, two novels, three collections of short stories, four volumes of “editorial” and “documentary” fiction, twenty plays, children’s poetry, musicals and operas, three autobiographies, a dozen radio and television scripts and dozens of magazine articles. In addition, he edited seven anthologies. The long and distinguished list of Hughes’ works includes: Not Without Laughter (1930); The Big Sea (1940); I Wonder As I Wander (1956), his autobiographies. His collections of poetry include: The Weary Blues (1926); The Negro Mother and other Dramatic Recitations (1931); The Dream Keeper (1932); Shakespeare In Harlem (1942); Fields of Wonder (1947); One Way Ticket (1947); The First Book of Jazz (1955); Tambourines To Glory (1958); and Selected Poems (1959); The Best of Simple (1961). He edited several anthologies in an attempt to popularize black authors and their works. Some of these are: An African Treasury (1960); Poems from Black Africa (1963); New Negro Poets: USA (1964) and The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers (1967). Published posthumously were: Five Plays By Langston Hughes (1968); The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1969) and Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Writings of Social Protest (1973); The Sweet Flypaper of Life with Roy DeCarava (1984). Langston Hughes died of cancer on May 22, 1967. His residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission. His block of East 127th Street was renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

MARCUS GARVEY Nationalist (1887-1940) To some people he was a charlatan, a naïve dreamer; to others a messiah “You cannot scare the Negro anymore. The Negro is a man. We represent the new Negro. His back is not yet to the wall.” To himself, Marcus A. Garvey was the Negro’s best hope of finding dignity and honor, not in America, but in his original home of Africa. Coming to America from Jamaica in 1916, Garvey found dissatisfaction, discontent, and frustration among millions of Negroes pushed northward by oppressive conditions in the South during World War I. Within two months, Garvey had recruited 1500 followers for his Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A). Five years later he claimed upwards of one million members. A short, stocky, dark man possessing a shrewd sense of crowd psychology, Garvey preached economic independence and the return of Negroes to Africa as the solution to being a “Negro” in the western world. In 1921, he called an international convention which attracted thousands of Negroes to New York City from twenty-five countries, and laid the foundation for a steamship company, The Black Star Line, and the Negro Factory Corporation as devices for business and industry among Negroes. For five years, Garvey led many of the discontented masses in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities. He praised everything black and was suspicious of everything white. He formed the Universal Black Cross Nurses, the Universal African Motor Corps, and the Black Flying Eagles. His newspaper, “The Negro World,” carried his views and information about the U.N.I.A to all corners of the country. While millions in the masses fallowed him without hesitation, Negro intellectuals were skeptical of him and his promises. In 1925, Garvey was imprisoned for using the United States mails to defraud in connection with the sale of stock in his Black Star Line, and his dream began to fade. After serving two years in prison, he was deported from America and died in London in 1940, a lonely and penniless man. Marcus A. Garvey captured the interest of the ordinary Negro as no other leader before or since, but his dream was based on a fatal flaw. His failure to understand that the overwhelming masses of Negroes considered America their rightful home and had no real desire to leave it. His weakness lay in thinking that the Negro, after helping to build America, would abandon it. His greatness lies in this daring to dream of a better future for Negroes somewhere on earth.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

BERT WILLIAMS & GEORGE WALDER Vaudeville actors George Walker was born around 1873 in Lawrence, Kansas. He began his show business career as a member of a troupe of black minstrels which traveled throughout his home state. He then decided to try his luck as a solo act and worked his way to California in medicine shows. Egbert Williams was born in Antigua, the West Indies, on March 11, 1875. In 1885, his family moved to California, near Los Angeles. He attended Stanford University for a few semesters, then moved to San Francisco. There he gained experience performing in saloons, restaurants, and road shows. Williams met Walker in San Francisco in 1893, and the pair spent two years playing different venues and putting together their act. During this time, they were employed by the Mid-Winter Exposition in Golden Gate Park to work at an exhibit of a Dahomeyan village intended to portray life in darkest Africa. Because the real Africans were late in arriving, Williams and Walker played Dahomeyans, wearing animal skins in a setting of potted palms. Once the Africans did arrive, the duo took time to study the natives’ singing and dancing, an experience which was to become an important influence on their work. The two men made their way to Chicago in 1895, and tried out for Isham’s Octoroons, one of the first African-American companies to break from a strict minstrel format. A week later, Williams and Walker were dropped from the show. Realizing that their act needed improvement, they decided to embrace the coon stereotype, billing themselves as The Two Real Coons “I ain’t never done nothing to nobody I ain’t never got nothing from nobody, no time and until I get something from somebody, sometime I don’t intend to do nothing for nobody, no time” (Bert Williams). They based their act on standard minstrel routines reduced to a two-man performance. Walker played the part of a dandy and told the jokes, and Williams, dressed in mismatched, oversized clothes, and played the straight man. After the audience reacted favorably to performance in which he blackened his face, Williams donned the burnt-cork mask for the rest of his professional life. “Real Coons” In 1896, a musical farce called The Gold Bug made Williams and Walker famous, The play was weak, but the duo’s performance of the cakewalk captured the audience’s attention, and they soon became so closely associated with this dance that many people thought of them as its originators. After a 36-week tour with a stock company, they were booked into Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York. Playing this well-known venue was a step up for them, and many doors opened as a result. For the next two years, Williams and Walker toured the country on the vaudeville circuit as the stars of the show. In 1897, they performed in London, but apparently the British audiences did not understand their comedic approach, and they were not well received. Williams wrote, long before our run terminated, we discovered an important fact: that the hope of the colored performer must be in making a radical departure from the old time “darky” style of singing and dancing. So we set ourselves the task of thinking along new lines. The first move was to hire a flat on 53rd St., furnish it, and throw our doors….The Williams and Walker flat soon became the headquarters of all the artistic young men of our race who were stage struck….By having these men about us we had the opportunity to study the musical and theatrical ability of the most talented members of our race. On October 11, 1901, when Williams and Walker made their first recordings for the Victor Company, they became the first African-American recording artists. Walker’s voice sounded thin on the playback, and he was not pleased. William’s voice, on the other hand, was strong, and the recordings he made over the next 20 years created a legacy of his comedic genius. During the next few years, Williams and Walker put together a number of small productions including A lucky Coon, Sons of Ham, and The Policy Players, but their ultimate goal was to produce and star in their own Broadway musical. A lack of original material combined with their desire to shift focus away from the coon sterotype gave impetus to their next big step. Remembering their job as “Dahomeyans” in San Francisco, the decided to sat the scene of their next production in Africa, and in 1902, the duo teamed with Will Marion Cook, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Jesse Shipp to produce “In Dahomey,” a highly successful musical which allowed them to achieve their dream of performing on Broadway. Williams, George Walker was quoted as saying: My partner, Mr. Williams, is the first man I know of in out race to attempt to delineate a darky in a perfectly natural way, and I think much of his success is due to this fact.” In the spring of 1903, the team achieved its greatest accomplishment when they took “In Dahomey” to England. Initially the show played to s sympathetic but not very spirited audience. However, on June 23, the tide turned after a lavish command performance at Buckingham Palace for Edward VII on the birthday of the Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor).

The Prosperity Prayer

I am the source of all wealth. I am rich with creative ideas. My mind abounds with new, original, inspired thoughts. What I have to offer is unique, and the world desires it. My value is beyond reckoning. What the world needs and desires, I am ready to produce and give. What the world needs and desires, I recognize and fulfill. The bounty of my mind is without hindrance or limit. Nothing can stand in the way of my inspired creativeness. The overflowing power of God life energy overcomes every obstacle, & pours out into the world, blessing & prospering everyone, & everything through me. I radiate blessings, I radiate creativity, I radiate prosperity, I radiate loving service. I radiate Joy, Beauty, Peace, Wisdom & Power. Humanity seeks me and rewards me. I am beloved of the world. I am wanted wherever I go. I am appreciated. What I have to offer is greatly desired. What I have to offer brings a rich reward. Through my vision the world is blessed. Through my clear thinking & steadfast purpose, wonderful new values come into expression. My vision is as the vision of the mighty ones. My faith is as the faith of the undefeatable. My power to accomplish is unlimited. I, in my uttermost God Source, am all wealth, all power, all productivity. I hereby declare my financial freedom, NOW and henceforth forever!

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

P.B.S. PINCHBACK Lieutenant Governor Louisiana (1837-1921) Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, the son of a Mississippi white planter and freed slave, became active in Republican Party politics in Louisiana as a delegate in the Republican State Convention of 1867, and to the Constitutional Convention of 1868. Pinchback became Lieutenant Governor under Henry Clay Warmoth When Oscar Dunn Died. After Warmoth was impeached, Pinchback became Governor. He held office for only 35 days, but ten acts of the Legislature became law during that time. After William Pitt Kellogg took office as result of the controversial election of 1872, Pinchback continued his career, holding various offices including a seat on the State Board of Education, Internal Revenue agent and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Southern University. Pinchback helped established Southern University when, in the Constitutional Convention of 1879, he pushed for the creation of a college for blacks in Louisiana. Pinchback and his family moved to Washington and then New York where he was a federal marshal. He later moved back to Washington to practice law and died there in 1921. Pinchback is buried in Metairie, Louisiana.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

JOHN JOHNSON Publisher/CEO, (1918-) Born in Arkansas City, Arkansas. His mother was the second generation from slaver. She only completed the third grade. She worked hard in the fields and kitchens of Arkansas. Mrs. Johnson was a strong woman who had many dreams for her son. Both John’s family and community included many caring adults, who closely monitored the actions of the young. There was much discipline and hove all around John. John attended Arkansas City Colored School through the eighth grade. Then, there was no more schooling available in Arkansas City. John’s mother heard that Chicago offered education, good jobs and freedom. She, therefore, worked extra jobs to get enough money together to go to Chicago. Since John’s stepfather refused to move to Chicago, his mother had to make a decision. Although she loved her husband very much, she decided that freedom and education for her son was more important she and her son moved to Chicago alone. “JPC. The world’s largest Black-owned publishing company.” “First office of Johnson Publishing Co. on the second floor of Chicago’s Supreme Life Insurance Co. building in a room in the private law office of Earl B. Dickerson.” John H. Johnson launched his publishing business in 1942,while he was still in college in Chicago. The idea for a black-oriented magazine came to him while he was working part-time for Supreme Life Insurance Co. of America, where one of his jobs was to clip magazine and newspaper articles about the black community. With $500 raised by pawning family furniture, Johnson mailed a $2 charter subscription offer to potential subscribers. He got 3,000 replies and with that $6,000 printed the first issue of “Negro Digest,” patterned after “Reader’s Digest.” Within a year circulation was 50,000. In 1945 Johnson started “Ebony” magazine, which was immediately popular and is still the company’s premier publication. “Ebony” (similar to “Life,” But focusing on black culture and achievements) and “Jet” (a celebrity-oriented magazine started in 1951) were the only publications for blacks in the US for 20 years. In the early days Johnson was unable to obtain advertising, so he formed his own mail-order business, called Beauty Star, and adversities products (dresses, wigs, hair care products, and vitamins) through his magazines. He won his first major account, Zenith Radio, in 1947; Johnson landed Chrysler in 1954, only after sending a salesman to Detroit every week for 10 years. By the 1960s Johnson had become one of the most prominent black men in the US. In 1963 he posed with John F. Kennedy to publicize a special issue of “Ebony” celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1972, US magazine publishers named Johnson Publisher of the Year. Since 1978 Johnson Publishing has sponsored the “American Black Achievement Awards,” a nationally syndicated TV special, and each year it hosts the Ebony Fashion Fair, a traveling fashion show that visits more than 175 North American cities. Johnson Publishing is owned and controlled by founder John Johnson and his family. Johnson’s daughter and heir apparent, Linda.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

HUEY P. NEWTON Cofounder of the Black Panther Party (1942-1989) An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland, California and the San Francisco School of Law, Where he met Bobby Seale. “YOU CAN JAIL A REVOLUTIONARY, BUT YOU CAN’T JAIL THE REVOLUTION.” In Oakland in 1966 Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on Oct. 22, 1966. “Peaceful demonstrators all over America are being brutalized,” Seale recently explained.. “We decided to take the stand Malcolm X told us to and defend ourselves.” Six months late, Newton was one of about 40 Panthers who startled the country when they entered the California state capitol carrying loaded weapons. That incident is still highlighted as evidence of the Panther’s “gangsterism.” Actually, the Panther’ campaign against police brutality and repression was a far cry from “gangsterism,” and rapidly gained support in the Black community. The Panthers began to build and organization of a new type; it was one that held great promise. Other militant Black organizations that had come out of the civil rights struggle, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), saw themselves as small bands of “specialists.” The Panthers, on the other hand, set out to build a large membership organization in which masses of people could get involved in the struggle. During the next two years, hundreds of Black youth around the country including college and high school students flocked into Panther chapters in their areas. The Panthers published a Ten Point Program that incorporated demands coming out of the struggle of the Black Community. But unfortunately they never seriously attempted to build a movement around those demands. They generally refused to make a common cause with other groups in united-front-type action coalitions. Readers of the Panther’s newspaper were exhorted to build a “Marxist-Leninist Vanguard.” At the same time though the Panthers gave support to Black politicians who were up and coming in the ruling-class Democratic Party. This contradiction, and empty jargon like “off the Pigs!” did nothing to educate the Panther cadre and only cut them off from movement in the Black community and the campuses. The pronouncements, fists, and decrees made by Newton and the other top leaders came forth with little discussion by the membership. Those who disagreed were denounced as “pigs” and Counter revolutionaries” and purged from the party. Such undemocratic functioning only helped pave the way for disruption by the FBI and the police. In the early 1970s, soon after Newton was released from jail on his manslaughter conviction (he was later cleared of all charges), the Black Panther Party split in two. One faction of the party, led by Newton, opted for a “Black capitalist” strategy. Another faction, led by Eldredge Cleaver, kept up the old “pick up the gun” rhetoric. From time to time during the next few years, Black and white supporters of the Panthers continued to haunt the fringes of protest demonstrations, hawking the “Panther Paper and admonishing the crowd with their slogans. The Panthers though were about to go the way of the saber-toothed tiger in to extinction. But the Panthers have not been forgotten. A new generation is awakening in the Black communities. These young people will fulfill the promise shown by Huey Newton and his comrades when, for a brief instant, they electrified the nation.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

BOBBY SEALE Cofounder of the Black Panther Party (1937-) Born in Dallas, Texas His family moved to Oakland, California when he was seven-years-old. He met Huey Newton while both were enrolled in Merritt College. Bobby Seale was the chairman and co-founder, along with Huey Newton, of the Black Panther Party, an organization formed in 1966 to guard against police brutality in black neighbor-hoods and provide social services. Eventually the party developed into a militant, Marxist evolutionary group with thousands of members in several major cities. In 1969, Seale, as one of the “Chicago Eight,” was charged with conspiracy to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention “FREE BOBBY Seize the time.” Charges against him were eventually dropped, but not before he had been bound and gagged to silence his courtroom outbursts. In 1970-71, he was tried for the torture-murder of former Panther Alex Rackley, Who was suspected of being a police informant. That trial ended in a hung jury, and afterward, Seale moderated his more militant views, leaving the Panthers altogether in 1974.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

ANGELA DAVIS Social activist, Educator, Author (1944-) Angela Y. Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad “When white people are indiscriminately viewed as the enemy, it is virtually impossible to develop a political solution.” Over the years she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar, and activist/organizer. She is a living witness to the historical struggles of the contemporary era. Prof. Davis’ political activism began when she was a youngster in Birmingham, Alabama, and continued through her high school years in New York. But it was not until 1969, that she came to national attention after being removed from her teaching position in the Philosophy Department at UCLA as a result of her social activism and her membership in the Communist Party, USA. In 1970, she was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List on false charges, and was the subject of intense police search that drover her underground and culminated in one of the most famous trials in recent U.S. history. During her sixteen-month incarceration, a massive international “Free Angela Davis” campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972. Prof. Davis’ long-standing commitment to prisoners’ rights dates back to her involvement in the campaign to free the Soledad Brothers which led to her own arrest and imprisonment. Today, she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center, and currently is working on a comparative study of women’s imprisonment in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Cuba. During the last twenty-five years, Prof. Davis has lectured in all of the fifty States, as well as in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and she is the author of five books, including Angela Davis: An Autobiography; “Women, Race & Class;” Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday; and The Angela Y. Davis Reader. Today, she is a tenured professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

IN HIS WORDS

President Barack Obama said yesterday:

"I'm not gonna make any excuses if stuff hasn't worked and people don't feel like I've lead the country in the right direction then you'll have a new President."

With the scale of the problem(s) that he is facing I must say that I admire President Barack Obama for not only taking on such a tremendous task but, for also being his own man. Knowing what he wants to say, how he wants to say it by seeing that the old White House ways of running this country are like old and out dated technologies. Being straight forward up front and personal with the people that he represents of the United States, by the people who helped to put him into office. Congratulations to you Mr. President.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

JESSE JACKSON Religious leader, Social activist (1941-) Jesse Jackson is officially Washington’s special envoy to Africa but his skills as a negotiator have become useful in political hotspots across the world. REVEREND JESSE JACKSON MAN OF MANY MISSIONS “when the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.” The Baptist minister, who ran for the US presidency in 1984 and 1988, has previously secured the freedom of captives held in Syria, Cuba, Kuwait and Iraq. In 1999, he added the release of three US soldiers held as prisoners of war in Yugoslavia to his mission with a delegation of religious leaders. Was strictly unofficial and the Clinton administration made clear he was not acting on its behalf. Surprisingly for a man so long at the forefront of American public life, Reverend Jackson, has never held an elected position. In 1984, he ran for the Democrats presidential nomination. Four years later he tried and failed again but the campaigns established him as the country’s best-known African American political leader. Both campaigns made party colleagues pay more attention to civil rights and he was credited with increasing black voter turnout. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, he became active in the civil rights movement while at college and went on to join Martin Luther King Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was put in charge of SCLC’S Operation Breadbasket aimed at securing jobs for African Americans. Throughout the 1970s he became a powerful vice for civil rights, speaking out against drugs and for education. By the late 1970s he was taking on international roles campaigning in South Africa against apartheid and arguing the case for a Palestinian state in Israel. Back in the US, he launched The National Rainbow/Push Coalition, which presses for equal rights and seeks to generate private sector investment to help start businesses in poverty-stricken areas. His biographer, Marshall Frady, described him as a “fretful, extravagantly troublesome, exhorting, chiding, restless, gospelteering outsider.” At the same time, Mr. Frady said: “One can come across any number of chaps holding forth on street corners who imagine themselves prophets to their time, but what makes Jackson fascination is that he has actually held the wherewithal for it. “In 1984, Mr. Jackson secured the release of a captured US Navy officer, Lieutenant Robert Goodman, from Syria. Three years later, he traveled to Cuba and won freedom for 48 Cuban and Cuban-American prisoners. In 1990, he was the first American to bring hostages out of Kuwait and Iraq. Mr. Jackson was named in October 1997 as a special US envoy to Africa, leading to further successes there and elsewhere, including the release of the three US soldiers in Yugoslavia. In 2000, Mr. Jackson took the lead in demanding a revote in Florida’s Palm Beach county, saying the ballot paper in the presidential election was confusing and potentially unfair. Although his demands were not met, his anger over the election remains. When Republican George W. Bush was inaugurated as president, the Rainbow/Push Coalition joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and labor groups on a march in the Florida state capital. The Rainbow/Push protest was part of the group’s Week of Moral Outrage that began that Monday with the holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. Jackson is the author of two books and TV host. His son, Jesse Jr, is a Democratic Congressman for Illinois.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

WILLIE MAYS Baseball player (1931-) When Willie Mays was a little boy in Westfield, Alabama, few might have imagined that the young boy playing sandlot ball would become a world-famous star athlete. One who did imagine it was the boy’s father, both Mr. and Mrs. Mays were athletic. Mr. Mays played baseball on the all-black teams of the segregated south, as had his father before him. Mrs. Mays had been a champion sprinter in her school. When Willie was growing up, his father worked in a steel mill, and played on a semiprofessional team sponsored by the mill. He began teaching Willie to catch a ball even before he could walk. By 14, Willie joined his father on the mill team. His high school had no baseball team, so he played basketball and football, but before he finished high school, it became clear that baseball would be his career “Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.” Willie Mays began his professional career at age 16, playing with the Birmingham Black Barons in the segregated Negro Southern League. While his father avidly supported Willie’s ambition to be a professional ball player, he also insisted his son finish high school. In his first year with the Barons, Willie was restricted to playing home games so he wouldn’t miss school. The day he graduated from high school, he was signed by the New York Giants. First, the Giants sent Mays to their Class B farm team in Trenton, New Jersey, but he quickly advanced to their AAA farm club, the Minneapolis Millers. He was only 20 in 1951, when he received the phone call to join the Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Mays got off to a rocky start in the majors, going hitless in his first 12 times at bat. Other managers might have panicked and sent the rookie back to the minors, but the Giants’ Leo Durocher had faith in his young centerfielder, and Mays broke his hitless streak with a home run blasted over the left field roof. It took another 13 at-bats for Mays to get his second major league hit, but he soon got the knack of hitting major league pitching and hit another 19 home runs before the season was out. His spectacular fielding was already making headlines. In this first season, he made one of his most spectacular catches. Playing against Pittsburgh, he raced across the field to stop a 475-foot drive with his bare hand. His performance drove the team for the rest of the season. The Giants won the National League pennant that year. This promising career was briefly interrupted when Willie Mays was drafted into the Army. His team failed to win the pennant during the two seasons he was absent, but he returned to the Giants in 1954, to lead them into the World Series against the Cleveland Indians. The Giants won the Series in four straight games, the first of which turned on an extraordinary over-the-shoulder catch by Mays. Although this is still one of the most talked-about plays in baseball history, the personal favorite of Mays himself is an incredible flying catch he made in the 1955, All-Star game. Joe DiMaggio said Mays had the greatest throwing arm in baseball. Mays 7,095 putouts are the all-time record for an outfielder, but Mays excelled as a hitter as well. His career batting average was .302. For eight years running, he drove in more than 100 runs a year, and his 660 home runs put him in third place for the all-time home run record. He won the Gold Glove Award 12 times. He was voted Most Valuable Player in the National League in both 1954, and 1965. Small wonder one sportswriter remarked that “Willie Mays should play in handcuffs to even things up.” When the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958, Mays had to struggle to win over a new hometown crowd. In 1962, he led the Giants to another pennant victory and in 1964, became team captain. In 1966, the Giants signed him to a new contract, making him, for a time, the highest-paid player in the history of the game. While in San Francisco, he also made a reputation as a peacemaker, breaking up a bat-swinging fight between two players, and calming a potentially explosive situation that arose when the team manager made racially insensitive remarks to a sportswriter. In 1972, Willie Mays returned to New York to play for the Mets. During the baseball strike of that year, many players feared that veterans like Mays would not have the patience to see long strike through. Even though he risked missing his last season, Mays was stalwart, and his solidarity with the younger players won him their renewed admiration. After hanging up his glove in 1973, Willie Mays remained for a time with the Mets organization, before becoming a public relation executive with Bally’s Resorts a Colgate-Palmolive. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979. In 1986, Willie Mays returned to the San Francisco Giants organization, where he serves as special assistant to the president of the club. In 1993, the Giants mad this a lifetime appointment. His position in the history of his sport will last even longer. In baseball, Willie Mays is one of the immortals.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

SGT. WILLIAM H. CARNEY Civil War hero (1840-1908) William Harvey Carney, famed for the words “The Old Flag never touched the ground!” and hero of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and attended a private school that was conducted secretly by minister. His home, which is now officially called the “Sergeant Carney Memorial House,” has become a shrine. Carney himself is depicted in the Saint-Gaudens monument which immortalizes Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his intrepid colored troops. Carney’s features are represented on the face of one of the soldiers following his commander. The flag rescued by Carney is enshrined in Memorial Hall. Early in 1863, William Carney, then 23 years old, enlisted in the Morgan Guards, which became part of the 54th Massachusetts regiment. In July 1863, the regiment was engaged in the disastrous battle at Fort Wagner. When Carney saw that the color sergeant, the soldier who carried the flag, had been wounded, he rescued the flag, going through a volley of enemy bullets. Delivering it to a squad of his own regiment, he shouted, “The Old Flag never touched the ground!” Then Carney fell to the ground in a dead faint, weak from the wounds that he had received. Mustered out of the army in 1864, he went to New Bedford, Massachusetts before going to California. In 1870, he returned to New Bedford and became one of the four men employed as letter carriers. After 31 years in the postal service, he retired in 1901, then spent his last years as an employee at the state capitol in Boston. Carney was in great demand as a leader of Memorial Day parades and as a speaker at patriotic events. In 1904, he was the Memorial Day orator at the Shaw Monument on Boston Common.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

HENRY O. FLIPPER Army Officer (1856-1940) Henry Ossian Flipper was born in Thomasville, Georgia, on March 21,1856, into slavery and spent his formative years in Georgia. Following the Civil War, he attended the American Missionary Association Schools in his home state. In 1873, Flipper was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy, and in 1877 he became the first African-American to graduate from the institution. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the 10th Cavalry. From 1878 until 1880, Lieutenant Flipper served on frontier duty in various installations in the southwest, including Fort Sill, Oklahoma. His duties included scouting, as well as serving as post engineer surveyor and construction supervisor, post adjutant, action assistant and post quartermaster, and commissary officer. In 1881, Lieutenant Flipper’s commanding officer accused him of “embezzling funds and of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.” As a result of these charges, he was court-martialed. He was acquitted of the embezzlement charge but was found guilty, by general court martial, of conduct unbecoming an officer. On June 30, 1882, he was dismissed from the Army as required by this conviction. As a civilian, Henry Flipper went on to distinguish himself in a variety of governmental and private engineering positions. These included serving as surveyor, civil and military engineer, author, translator, and special agent of the Justice Department, special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior with the Alaskan Engineering Commission, aide to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, as well as an authority on Mexican land and mining law. He wrote and published several works. His first publication was an autobiography, The Colored Cadet at West Point (New York; Lee, 1878; reprint, New York: Arno, 1898). His memoirs, Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper, first Black Graduate of West Point (Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 1997) were compiled and edited with introduction and notes by Theodore D. Harris. His other works included: Spanish and Mexican Land Laws: New Spain and Mexico for the Department of Justice in 1895. Throughout the balance of his life, Henry Flipper maintained that he was innocent of the charges that resulted in his court-martial and dismissal from the Army and made numerous attempts to have his conviction reversed. He died in Georgia in 1940. In 1976 descendants and supporters applied to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records on behalf of Lieutenant Flipper. The Board, after stating that it did not have the authority to overturn his court-martial convictions, concluded the conviction and punishment were “unduly harsh and unjust” and recommended that Lieutenant Flipper’s dismissal commuted to a good conduct discharge. The Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) and The Adjutant General approved the Board’s findings, conclusions and recommendations and directed that the Department of the Army issue Lieutenant Flipper a Certificate of Honorable Discharge, dated 30 June, 1882, in lieu of his dismissal on the same date. On October 21, 1997, a private law firm filed an application of pardon with the Secretary of the Army on Lieutenant Flipper’s behalf. Seven months later, the application was forwarded by the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs) to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Department of Justice, with a recommendation that the pardon be approved. President William Jefferson Clinton pardoned Lieutenant Henry O. Flipper on February 19, 1999. In pardoning this officer, the President recognized an error and acknowledged the lifetime accomplishments of this American Soldier.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

TOUSSAINT L’OVERTURE Haitian patriot and martyr (1744-1803) There had been slave revolts before: in the Caribbean, in South America, and in North America. But none would be as fantastic as the Great Haitian Slave Revolt “I will be No Man’s Slave.” In 1791, the small French island colony’s a half-million African slaves set fire to plantations and began the largest slave revolt in history. Of all the rebels, none would be so remembered as a short, grey-haired man who in a few years turned a rebellion into revolution: Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Overture. Though not a participant in the beginning fires which marked the start of the revolt, he quickly became its greatest soldier. Joining the tattered rebel army, Toussaint trained the disorganized Black slaves into hardened troops. Holding up his musket in defiance, he told Haitian slaves, “Here is your liberty” He then took to the field as an ally of Spain against Franc then as an ally of France against England and Spain, thus playing the competing European powers against each other. A superb military general, Toussaint managed to defeat the English army causing over 40,000 casualties. He was even responsible for defeating the armies of that period’s greatest conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte. Tricked into accepting an invitation from a French General to discuss matters of state, Toussaint was captured by French forces. Napoleon, taking no chances, locked him in medieval fortress high in the Jura Alps of the French Swiss borders. Upon hearing of his capture Haiti, once again erupted into revolt. In the name of Toussaint the cry was “War for war, crime for crime, atrocity for atrocity!” Led by Toussaint’s successor, the military genius Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian soldiers defeated the French and gained independence for their island nation in November, 1803. Toussaint, however, would not live to see the day. Eight months earlier, the short Black general who electrified the world, whose name was on the lips of everyone from the enslaved Blacks of America to the royalty of Europe, passed away in captivity. His contributions to the cause of Black liberty would inspire many for generations to come.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

SATCHEL LEROY PAIGE Baseball player (1906-1982) It is estimated that Leroy “satchel” Paige was born on July 7, 1906. The mere idea that his birthday is an estimate provides perfect evidence to the mystery that was Satchel Paige. In 1965, 59 years after Paige’s supposed birthday, he took the mound for the last time, throwing three shut-out innings for the Kansas City Athletics. Joe DiMaggio called Satchel Paige “the best and fastest pitcher I’ve ever faced.” His pitching was amazing and his showboating was legendary. His career highlights span five decades. Pronounced the greatest pitcher in the history of the Negro Leagues, Paige compiled such feats as 64 consecutive scoreless innings, a stretch of 21 straight wins, and a 31-4 record in 1933. For twenty-two years, Paige mauled the competition in front of sell-out crowds. Sure, he liked the attention, but to him, there was only one goal. That goal would be to pitch in the Major Leagues. In 1948, Paige’s dream came true. The Cleveland Indians were in need of extra pitching for the pennant race. Legendary Bill Veeck tested Paige’s accuracy before offering him a big league contract. As the story is told, Veeck placed a cigarette on the ground to be used as a home plate. Paige took aim at his virtually non-existent target. He fired five fastballs, all but on sailing directly over the cigarette. Veeck was indeed pleased, and Paige helped the Indians win the pennant. In addition to Cleveland, Paige played for St. Louis and Kansas City. When his Major League career was completed, he compiled a modest 28-31 record with a 3.29 ERA. What made Paige so memorable was his longevity in the. The main reason his age was so difficult to track was his seemingly endless success. He rarely answered questions about his age, and when he did, he replied with something like: “Age is question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” In 1971, Leroy “Satchel” Paige was give the ultimate honor, he was elected to join the very hest in baseball history in the Hall of Fame.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

LOUIS “SATCHMO” ARMSTRONG Musician (1900-1971) One of the foremost musicians of the 20th century, jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong, was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901 and grew up poor, often singing on the street for money “They know I’m there in the cause of happiness.” In 1912, he was arrested for firing off pistol on New Year’s Eve and was reprimanded to a youth home. It was there Armstrong first learned to play the coronet, trumpet-like brass instrument and when he was released in 1914, he began playing in local jazz bands. He soon caught the attention of jazz godfather King Oliver, who found Armstrong jobs in more prominent groups. In the early ‘20s Armstrong joined Oliver’s group, with whom he made his earliest recordings, then moved to New York to work with Fletcher Henderson’s jazz orchestra. Throughout the 1920s Armstrong recorded a series of classic singles, both with Henderson’s group and with noted blues and jazz singers. He late formed his own bands, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, and earned the nickname “Satchmo” short for “Satchel Mouth” thanks to his huge trumpet –inflated cheeks. In 1927, Armstrong switched from coronet to trumpet: that same year he popularized nonsense-syllable “scat” singing with the single “Heebies Jeebies.” As the years wore on, Armstrong’s popularity only grew, as his swinging style and unique, gravelly voice dominated the radio airwaves, making him the most famous jazz musician. In the mid-‘30s he toured Europe, the first of many foreign tours that introduced the entire world to America’s most vital new musical style. Armstrong’s trumpet style and vocal phrasing became enormously influential for both jazz musicians and pop singers; in addition, his prominent solos transformed jazz from an ensemble form of music to one based heavily on solos and the interplay of individual musicians. Unfortunately by the med-1940s jazz had begun to shift towards “bop,” and Armstrong’s style was no longer considered current. Breaking up his big band, Armstrong founded a sextet called the All-Stars, a Dixieland/swing group with a humorous stage-presence. He continued touring until his death in New York on July 6, 1971. As popular as ever, Satchmo has been honored on a postage stamp, and his music remains widely available, with nearly every cut he ever recorded on countless loving reissues.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

To my readers and followers I do apologize because I am late by four days so, please forgive me as I start off with: PHILLIS WHEATLEY Poet (1753-1784) was one of the most well known poets in America during her day “Let us not sell our birthright for a thousand worlds, which indeed would be as dust upon the balance.” Wheatley was born on the western coast of Africa and kidnapped from the Senegal-Gambia region when she was about seven years old. Not being of suitable age to be sold as slave in the West Indies or the southern colonies, she was transported to Boston, where she was puchased in 1761, by John Wheatley, a prominent tailor, as an attendant to his wife. Phillis learned English quickly and was taught to read and write, and within sixteen months of arrival in America she was reading passages from the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, astronomy, geography, history, and British literature. Phillis published her first poem in Newport, Rhode Island, "Mercury" on December 21, 1767. Unable to get her poems published in Boston, Phillis and the Wheatleys turned to London for a publisher, with the result that in 1773, thirty-nine of Phillis' poems were published as Poems on Various Subjects, religious and moral. This collection, of which a first edition is shown, is Phillis Wheatley's only book, and the first volume of poetry to be published by an Afro-American. The poems reflect the religious and classical backgroud of her New England education. Over one-third consists of elegies, the remainder being on religious, and abstract themes.