AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY, WE CAN CHOSE!

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Those moments in history that come to us as catastrophic shocks often shape the decisions we make into the future – as we did yesterday in response to the devastation and pain that took place in Boston. We move through a range of feelings: empathy for the victims and their families, gratitude about our own lives, a decision to be better, a vow that it will never happen again, and a desire to change the world. We feel it all. We seek to find the perpetrator and bring them to justice. And yet it happens again somewhere by someone else. 

What is our lesson here? What can we really learn from such sadness and suffering? What was the moment that turned a compassionate human being into a bomber who wants to cause hurt and death? We cannot retrace the steps, but what we can do is examine our own lives and future choices. We can learn to apply human dignity and respect to every person we meet and every person we work with. At every opportunity, we can chose kindness over intolerance. 

If we want a better world, we need to have better people in it. The only ones we can really affect are ourselves. It is such hard work, but we can look deep into our souls and find the strength that the Creator imbued in us and in every person. Let’s take this moment to face our own demons and put them in their rightful place-in the back seat of the car. Lets empower our Godlike spirit to drive our decisions and actions. 

Our prayers are with all of those souls who are suffering today in Boston and around the world.

Karen Berg~Kabbalah Centre International

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Submitted by: Dwayne Neal – for Team N.A.M.E.S.

 

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Barack Obama

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History

Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of ChicagoLaw School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000. 

Barack Obama was born to a white American mother, Ann Dunham, and a black Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr., who were both young college students at the University of Hawaii. When his father left for Harvard, she and Barack stayed behind, and his father ultimately returned alone to Kenya, where he worked as a government economist. Barack’s mother remarried an Indonesian oil manager and moved to Jakarta when Barack was six. He later recounted Indonesia as simultaneously lush and a harrowing exposure to tropical poverty. He returned to Hawaii, where he was brought up largely by his grandparents. The family lived in a small apartment – his grandfather was a furniture salesman and an unsuccessful insurance agent and his grandmother worked in a bank – but Barack managed to get into Punahou School, Hawaii’s top prep academy. His father wrote to him regularly but, though he traveled around the world on official business for Kenya, he visited only once, when Barack was ten.

Obama attended Columbia University, but found New York’s racial tension inescapable. He became a community organizer for a small Chicago church-based group for three years, helping poor South Side residents cope with a wave of plant closings. He then attended Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. He turned down a prestigious judicial clerkship, choosing instead to practice civil-rights law back in Chicago, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination and working on voting-rights legislation. He also began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, and married Michelle Robinson, a fellow attorney. Eventually he was elected to the Illinois state senate, where his district included both Hyde Park and some of the poorest ghettos on the South Side.

In 2004 Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, representing Illinois, and he gained national attention by giving a rousing and well-received keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In 2008 he ran for President, and despite having only four years of national political experience, he won. In January 2009, he was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and the first African-American ever elected to that position. Obama was reelected to a second term in November 2012.

“I believe in an America where no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter who you love, you can pursue your own version of happiness, and you can make it here if you try” ~Barack Obama 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BARACK OBAMA

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 28): 

Michael Jackson wins 8 grammys THE KING OF POP TAKES 8 (1984) – On this day and date, Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy Awards for his critical and commercially successful album, “Thriller” which still remains one of the top-grossing albums of all time.

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter, entertainer, dancer, arranger, music producer, choreographer, actor, businessman, musician, and philanthropist. Often referred to as the “King of Pop“, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MICHAEL JACKSON

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Oprah Winfrey

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History

Oprah WinfreyAmerican television host, actress, producer and philanthropist Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. After a troubled adolescence in a small farming community, where she was sexually abused by a number of male relatives and friends of her mother, Vernita, she moved to Nashville to live with her father, Vernon, a barber and businessman. She entered Tennessee State University in 1971 and began working in radio and television broadcasting in Nashville.

In 1976, Oprah Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she hosted the TV chat show People Are Talking. The show became a hit and Winfrey stayed with it for eight years, after which she was recruited by a Chicago TV station to host her own morning show, A.M. Chicago. Her major competitor in the time slot was Phil Donahue. Within several months, Winfrey’s open, warm-hearted personal style had won her 100,000 more viewers than Donahue and had taken her show from last place to first in the ratings. Her success led to nationwide fame and a role in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Winfrey launched the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 as a nationally syndicated program. With its placement on 120 channels and an audience of 10 million people, the show grossed $125 million by the end of its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. She soon gained ownership of the program from ABC, drawing it under the control of her new production company, Harpo Productions (‘Oprah’ spelled backwards) and making more and more money from syndication. 

” Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.” ~Oprah Winfrey

 

Oprah made her debut as a film actress in the 1985 period drama film, The Color Purple. Oprah played a troubled housewife named, Sofia. Oprah was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. This movie went on to become a Broadway musical adaptation. In 1998 Oprah starred in the movie, Beloved which she also produced. Winfrey played the character Sethe who was a former slave. Winfrey has also acted in several movies such as Charlotte’s Web, Bee Movie, and The Princess And The Frog.

Oprah Winfrey in 1998 received an Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In 2011 Oprah Winfrey received a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts And Sciences. 

In the early years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the program was classified as a tabloid talk show. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-oriented format, hosting shows on broader topics such as heart disease, geopolitics, spirituality and meditation, interviewing celebrities on social issues they were directly involved with, such as cancer, charity work, or substance abuse, and hosting televised giveaways including shows where every audience member received a new car (donated by General Motors) or a trip to Australia (donated by Australian tourism bodies).

In addition to her talk show, Winfrey also produced and co-starred in the 1989 drama miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, as well as a short-lived spin-off, Brewster Place. As well as hosting and appearing on television shows, Winfrey co-founded the women’s cable television network Oxygen. She is also the president of HarpoProductions (Oprah spelled backwards). On January 15, 2008, Winfrey and Discovery Communications announced plans to change Discovery Health Channel into a new channel called OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. It was scheduled to launch in 2009, but was delayed, and actually launched on January 1, 2011. 

Winfrey’s career choice in media would not have surprised her grandmother, who once said that ever since Winfrey could talk, she was on stage. As a child, she played games interviewing her corncob doll and the crows on the fence of her family’s property. Winfrey later acknowledged her grandmother’s influence, saying it was Hattie Mae who had encouraged her to speak in public and “gave me a positive sense of myself”

Oprah Winfrey will forever be remembered as an innovator through the landmarks she made, becoming the first African American to host a television show. Inspiring millions of people across the world, discussing significant issues on her show such as equal rights toward genders, racism, poverty, and many others. Oprah will be seen as an icon someone who paved the way for others to become successful. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON OPRAH WINFREY

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 26): 

1. BIRTH & DEATH OF WALLACE FARAD (1900-1934) – Wallace Fard Muhammad (possibly born in 1893) was a preacher and founder of the Nation of Islam (NOI). He established the Nation of Islam’s first mosque in Detroit, Michigan in 1930 and preached his distinctive religion there for three years before mysteriously disappearing in 1934. He was later proclaimed to have been Allah on earth by Elijah Muhammad.

2. CASSIUS CLAY BECOMES MUHAMMAD ALI (1964) – On this day in 1964; The heavyweight boxer then known as Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam. “I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and in peace…I’m not a Christian anymore.”

3. 1ST FEDERAL RESERVE GOVERNOR (1966) – President Lynodn Johnson appoints Andrew Brimmer as the first African-American governor of the Federal Reserve Board.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Malcolm X

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History

 

Malcolm XMalcolm X (May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz‎), was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. Detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

Malcolm X’s father died—killed by white supremacists, it was rumored—when he was young, and at least one of his uncles was lynched. When he was thirteen, his mother was placed in a mental hospital, and he was placed in a series of foster homes. In 1946, at age 20, he went to prison for breaking and entering.

In prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam; after his parole in 1952, he quickly rose to become one of its leaders. For a dozen years, Malcolm X was the public face of the controversial group, but disillusionment with Nation of Islam head Elijah Muhammad led him to leave the Nation in March 1964. After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East, he returned to the United States, where he founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In February 1965, less than a year after leaving the Nation of Islam, he was assassinated by three members of the group.

Malcolm X’s expressed beliefs changed substantially over time. As a spokesman for the Nation of Islam he taught black supremacy and advocated separation of black and whiteAmericans—in contrast to the civil rights movement‘s emphasis on integration. After breaking with the Nation of Islam in 1964—saying of his association with it, “I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then … pointed in a certain direction and told to march”—and becoming a Sunni Muslim, he disavowed racism and expressed willingness to work with civil rights leaders, though still emphasizing black self-determination and self-defense.

Civil Rights Activist. Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of eight children born to Louise and Earl Little. Louise was a homemaker and Earl was a preacher who was also an active member of the local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and avid supporter of the black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Because of Earl Little’s civil rights activism, the family faced frequent harassment from white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and one of its splinter factions, the Black Legion. In fact, Malcolm X had his first encounter with racism before he was even born. “When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later,” he said, “a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home… Brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out.” The harassment continued; when Malcolm X was four years old, local Klan members smashed all of the family’s windows, causing Earl Little to decide to move the family from Omaha to East Lansing, Michigan.

However, the racism the family encountered in East Lansing proved even greater than in Omaha. Shortly after the Littles moved in, in 1929, a racist mob set their house on fire, and the town’s all-white emergency responders refused to do anything. “The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house burned to the ground,” Malcolm X remembered.

Two years later, in 1931, things got much, much worse. Earl Little’s dead body was discovered laid out on the municipal streetcar tracks. Although Malcolm X’s father was very likely murdered by white supremacists, from whom he had received frequent death threats, the police officially ruled his death a suicide, thereby voiding the large life insurance policy he had purchased in order to provide for his family in the event of his death. Malcolm X’s mother never recovered from the shock and grief of her husband’s death. In 1937, she was committed to a mental institution and Malcolm X left home to live with family friends.

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Malcolm Little excelled in junior high school but dropped out after a white teacher told him that practicing law, his aspiration at the time, was “no realistic goal for a nigger”. It made Malcolm feel that the white world offered no place for a career-oriented black man, regardless of his talent.

After living in a series of foster homes, at age 15 Little went to live with a half-sister, Ella Little Collins, in Roxbury, a largely African-American neighborhood of Boston, where he held a variety of jobs. After a short time in Flint, Michigan, Little moved to Harlem, New York, in 1943, where he engaged in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping; according to recent biographies, he also occasionally had sex with other men, usually for money. He was called “Detroit Red” because of the reddish hair he inherited from his Scottish maternal grandfather. Little was declared “mentally disqualified for military service” after he told draft board officials he was eager to “steal us some guns, and kill us [some] crackers”.

In late 1945, Little returned to Boston, where he embarked on a series of burglaries targeting wealthy white families. In 1946, he was arrested while picking up a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop, and in February began serving an eight-to-ten year sentence at Charlestown State Prison. There he met John Bembry, a self-educated man he would later describe as “the first man I had ever seen command total respect … with words”; under Bembry’s influence, Little developed a voracious appetite for reading.

During Little’s imprisonment several of his siblings wrote to him about the Nation of Islam, a relatively new religious movement preaching black self-reliance and, ultimately, unification of the African diaspora, free from white American and European domination. He showed scant interest at first, but after his brother Reginald wrote in 1948, “Malcolm, don’t eat any more pork and don’t smoke any more cigarettes. I’ll show you how to get out of prison,” he quit smoking and began to refuse pork. After a visit in which Reginald described the group’s teachings, including the belief that white people are devils, Little came to the conclusion that every relationship he’d had with whites had been tainted by dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Little, whose hostility to religion had earned him the prison nickname “Satan”, began to reconsider his dismissal of all religion and he became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.

By the early 1960s, Malcolm X had emerged as a leading voice of a radicalized wing of the civil rights movement, presenting an alternative to Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision of a racially integrated society achieved by peaceful means. Dr. King was highly critical of what he viewed as Malcolm X’s destructive demagoguery. “I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice,” he said.

Philosophical differences with King were one thing; a rupture with Elijah Muhammad proved much more traumatic. In 1963, Malcolm X became deeply disillusioned when he learned that his hero and mentor had violated many of his own teachings, most flagrantly by carrying on many extramarital affairs; Muhammad had, in fact, fathered several children out of wedlock. 

On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He said that he was still a Muslim, but he felt the Nation of Islam had “gone as far as it can” because of its rigid religious teachings. Malcolm X said he was going to organize a black nationalist organization that would try to “heighten the political consciousness” of African Americans. He also expressed his desire to work with other civil rights leaders and said that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so in the past. 

That same year, Malcolm X embarked on an extended trip through North Africa and the Middle East. The journey proved to be both a political and spiritual turning point in his life. After his epiphany at Mecca, Malcolm X returned to the United States less angry and more optimistic about the prospects for peaceful resolution to America’s race problems. “The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision,” he said. “America is the first country… that can actually have a bloodless revolution.” Tragically, just as Malcolm X appeared to be embarking on an ideological transformation with the potential to dramatically alter the course of the American civil rights movement, he was assassinated. 

On the evening of February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where Malcolm X was about to deliver a speech, three gunmen rushed the stage and shot him 15 times at point blank range. Malcolm X was pronounced dead on arrival at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital shortly thereafter. He was 39 years old. The three men convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X were all members of the Nation of Islam: Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson.

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 25): 

1. 1ST BLACK TO SERVE IN US SENATE (1870) – Hirman R. Revels of Mississippi sworn in as first Black U.S. senator and first Black representative in Congress.

2. ELIJAH MUHAMMAD DIES (1975) – Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam from 1934 until his death. Elijah Muhammad died from congestive heart failure at age 77 on February 25, 1975, the day before Saviours’ Day, at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Frederick Douglass

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History

 

Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orator had been a slave.

Douglass wrote several autobiographies, eloquently describing his experiences in slavery in his 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became influential in its support for abolition. He wrote two more autobiographies, with his last, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, published in 1881 and covering events through and after the Civil War. After the Civil War, Douglass remained active in the United States’ struggle to reach its potential as a “land of the free”. Douglass actively supported women’s suffrage. Without his approval, he became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States as therunning mate of Victoria Woodhull on the impracticable and small Equal Rights Party ticket. Douglass held multiple public offices.

Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant, famously quoted as saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

Frederick Douglass tried to escape from slavery twice before he succeeded. He was assisted in his final attempt by Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore with whom Douglass had fallen in love. On September 3, 1838, Douglass boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Anna Murray had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor’s uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours.

Once he had arrived, Douglass sent for Murray to meet him in New York. They married on September 15, 1838, adopting the married name of Johnson to disguise Douglass’ identity. Anna and Frederick settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts,

which had a thriving free black community. There, they adopted Douglass as their married name. Frederick Douglass joined a black church and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He also subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison‘s weekly journal The Liberator.

Eventually Douglass was asked to tell his story at abolitionist meetings, after which he became a regular anti-slavery lecturer. William Lloyd Garrison was impressed with Douglass’ strength and rhetorical skill, and wrote of him in The Liberator. Several days after the story ran, Douglass delivered his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society’s annual convention in Nantucket. Crowds were not always hospitable to Douglass. While participating in an 1843 lecture tour through the Midwest, Douglass was chased and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued by a local Quaker family.

At the urging of William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass wrote and published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in 1845. The book was a bestseller in the United States and was translated into several European languages. Although the book garnered Douglass many fans, some critics expressed doubt that a former slave with no formal education could have produced such elegant prose. Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, revising and expanding on his work each time. My Bondage and My Freedom appeared in 1855. In 1881, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

 Frederick Douglass sought to embody three keys for success in life:

  • Believe in yourself.
  • Take advantage of every opportunity.
  • Use the power of spoken and written language to effect positive change for yourself and society.

Douglass said, “What is possible for me is possible for you.” By taking these keys and making them his own, Frederick Douglass created a life of honor, respect and success that he could never have dreamed of when still a boy on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Three Speeches by Frederick Douglass 

At the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington’s Lincoln Park, Douglass was the keynote speaker for the dedication service on April 14, 1876. In his speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both the positive and negative attributes of the late President. He called Lincoln “the white man’s president” and cited his tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation. He noted that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination. But Douglass also asked, “Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?” At this speech he also said: “Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery….”

The crowd, roused by his speech, gave him a standing ovation. A long-told anecdote claims that the widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln’s favorite walkingstick to Douglass in appreciation. Lincoln’s walking stick still rests in Douglass’ house known as Cedar Hill.

In his last autobiography, The Life & Times of Frederick Douglass, Douglass referred to Lincoln as America’s “greatest President.” 

On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in Washington, D.C. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church where thousands passed by his coffin paying tribute. He was buried in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NewYork where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON FREDERICK DOUGLASS

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 24): 

1. 1ST BLACK WOMEN TO RECEIVE AN M.D. (1864) – Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College.

2. PRESIDENT OUSTED (1966) – On this day in 1966; Elected leader and first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, ousted in military coup while he is away on a peace mission to Vietnam.

3. BOXING GREAT FLOYD MAYWEATHER IS BORN (1977) – Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr rated as the number-one pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Booker T. Washington

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History 

 

Booker T. WashingtonBooker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to Republican presidents. He was the dominant leader in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915.

Representative of the last generation of black American leaders born in slavery, he spoke on behalf of the large majority of blacks who lived in the South but had lost their ability to vote through disfranchisement by southern legislatures. Historians note that Washington, “advised, networked, cut deals, made threats, pressured, punished enemies, rewarded friends, greased palms, manipulated the media, signed autographs, read minds with the skill of a master psychologist, strategized, raised money, always knew where the camera was pointing, traveled with an entourage, waved the flag with patriotic speeches, and claimed to have no interest in partisan politics. In other words, he was an artful politician.”

While his opponents called his powerful network of supporters the “Tuskegee Machine,” Washington maintained control because of his ability to gain support of numerous groups including influential whites and the black business, educational and religious communities nationwide. He advised on financial donations from philanthropists, and avoided antagonizing white Southerners with his accommodation to the political realities of the age of Jim Crow segregation.

Mini Bio of Booker T. Washington

Born to a slave on April 5, 1856, Booker Taliaferro (later Booker T. Washington) had little promise for his life. In Franklin County, Virginia, as in most states prior to the Civil War, the child of a slave became a slave. Booker’s mother, Jane, worked as a cook for plantation owner James Burroughs. His father was an unknown white man, most likely from a nearby plantation. Booker and his mother lived in a one-room log cabin with a large fireplace, which also served as the plantation’s kitchen. 

At an early age, Booker went to work carrying sacks of grain to the plantation’s mill. Toting 100-pound sacks was hard work for a small boy, and he was beaten on occasion for not performing his duties satisfactorily. Booker’s first exposure to education was from the outside of school house near the plantation; looking inside, he saw children his age sitting at desks and reading books. He wanted to do what those children were doing, but he was a slave, and it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write. 

After the Civil War, Booker and his mother moved to Malden, West Virginia, where she married freedman Washington Ferguson. The family was very poor, and 9-year-old Booker went to work in a salt mine with his stepfather instead of going to school. Booker’s mother noticed his interest in learning and got him a book from which he learned the alphabet and how to read and write basic words. Because he was still working, he got up nearly every morning at 4 a.m. to practice and study. At about this time, Booker took the first name of his stepfather as his last name, Washington.

In 1866, Booker T. Washington got a job as a houseboy for Viola Ruffner, the wife of coal mine owner Lewis Ruffner. Mrs. Ruffner was known for being very strict with her servants, especially boys. But she saw something in Booker—his maturity, intelligence and integrity—and soon warmed up to him. Over the two years he worked for her, she understood his desire for an education and allowed him to go to school for an hour a day during the winter months. 

In 1872, Booker T. Washington left home and walked 500 miles to Hampton Normal Agricultural Institute in Virginia. Along the way he took odd jobs to support himself. He convinced administrators to let him attend the school and took a job as a janitor to help pay his tuition. The school’s founder and headmaster, General Samuel C. Armstrong, soon discovered the hardworking boy and offered him a scholarship, sponsored by a white man. Armstrong had been a commander of a Union African-American regiment during the Civil War and was a strong supporter of providing newly freed slaves with a practical education. 

Booker T. Washington graduated from Hampton in 1875 with high marks. For a time, he taught at his old grade school in Malden, Virginia, and attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. In 1879, he was chosen to speak at Hampton’s graduation ceremonies, where afterward General Armstrong offered Washington a job teaching at Hampton. In 1881, the Alabama legislature approved $2,000 for a “colored” school, the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now known as Tuskegee University). General Armstrong was asked to recommend a white man to run the school, but instead recommended Booker T. Washington. Classes were first held in an old church, while Washington traveled all over the countryside promoting the school and raising money. He reassured whites that nothing in the Tuskegee program would threaten white supremacy or pose any economic competition to whites. 

Booker T Washington

Under Booker T. Washington’s leadership, Tuskegee became a leading school in the country. At his death, it had more than 100 well-equipped buildings, 1,500 students, a 200-member faculty teaching 38 trades and professions, and a nearly $2 million endowment. Washington put much of himself into the school’s curriculum, stressing the virtues of patience, enterprise, and thrift. He taught that economic success for African Americans would take time, and that subordination to whites was a necessary evil until African Americans could prove they were worthy of full economic and political rights. He believed that if African Americans worked hard and obtained financial independence and cultural advancement, they would eventually win acceptance and respect from the white community. 

In 1895, Booker T. Washington publicly put forth his philosophy on race relations in a speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, known as the “Atlanta Compromise.” In his speech, Washington stated that African Americans should accept disenfranchisement and social segregation as long as whites allow them economic progress, educational opportunity and justice in the courts. This started a firestorm in parts of the African-American community, especially in the North. Activists like W.E.B. Du Bois (who was working as a professor at Atlanta University at the time) deplored Washington’s conciliatory philosophy and his belief that African Americans were only suited to vocational training. Du Bois criticized Washington for not demanding equality for African Americans, as granted by the 14th Amendment, and subsequently became an advocate for full and equal rights in every realm of a person’s life.

Though Washington had done much to help advance many African Americans, there was some truth in the criticism. During Washington’s rise as a national spokesperson for African Americans, they were systematically excluded from the vote and political participation through black codes and Jim Crow laws as rigid patterns of segregation and discrimination became institutionalized throughout the South and much of the country.

Despite his travels and widespread work, Washington remained as principal of Tuskegee. Washington’s health was deteriorating rapidly; he collapsed in New York City and was brought home to Tuskegee, where he died on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59. He was buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near the University Chapel.

His death was believed at the time to have been a result of congestive heart failure, aggravated by overwork. In March 2006, with the permission of his descendants, examination of medical records indicated that he died of hypertension, with a blood pressure more than twice normal, confirming what had long been suspected.

At his death Tuskegee’s endowment exceeded $1.5 million. Washington’s greatest life’s work, the education of blacks in the South, was well underway and expanding. 

Booker T. Washington remained the head of Tuskegee Institute until his death on November 14, 1915, at the age of 59, of congestive heart failure.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 23): 

1. LOUIS STOKES BORN (1950) – Politician Louis Stokes born in Cleveland, Ohio. He served in the United States House of Representatives.

He was elected to the House in 1968, representing the 21st District on Cleveland’s East Side. He shifted to the newly created 11th District, covering much of the same area following a 1992 redistricting. Stokes served 15 terms in total, retiring in 1999.

He is ironically a cousin of Rick James.

2. 1ST BLACK TO PLAY FOR THE N.Y. YANKEES IS BORN (1929-1980) – Baseball catcher Elston Gene Howard born in St. Louis, Missouri. On April 14, 1955 Howard became the first African American to play for the Yankees. One of the most regular World Series participants in history, he appeared in 10 fall classics and ranks among the Series career leaders in several categories.

3. 1ST BLACK GENERAL IN THE MARINE CORPS (1979) – Frank E. Peterson Jr. named the first Black general in the Marine Corps.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History 

 

Martin Luther KingMartin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.

A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia in 1962, and organized nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. He also established his reputation as a radical, and became an object of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s COINTELPRO for the rest of his life. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and on one occasion, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter that he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.

On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he and the SCLC helped to organize the Selma toMontgomery marches and the following year, he took the movement north to Chicago. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled “Beyond Vietnam”. King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., called the Poor People’s Campaign. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting, and the jury of a 1999 civil trial found Loyd Jowers to be complicit in a conspiracy against King.

King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. A memorial statue on the National Mall was opened to the public in 2011.

MLK FAMOUS I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH:

I Have A Dream_MLK_Jr.

 

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 22): 

1. ABA/NBA LEGEND BORN (1950) – Former basketball legend Julius “Dr. J” Erving born in Roosevelt, New York. He is revered for his legacy of amazing acrobatic and powerful offensive moves.

Erving won three championships, four Most Valuable Player Awards, and three scoring titles while playing with the ABA’s Virginia Squires and New York Nets and the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. He is the fifth-highest scorer in professional basketball history, with 30,026 points (NBA and ABA combined).

2. ST. LUCIA GAINS INDEPENDENCE (1979) – The Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia gains Independence from the United Kingdom.

3. RAPS 1ST GRAMMY (1989) – DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince win the first Grammy Award in the category “Best Rap Song” for the hit single “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Nelson Mandela

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History 

Nelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a South African anti-apartheid activist, revolutionary and politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first to be elected in a fully representative, multiracial election. His administration focused on dismantling apartheid’s legacy, and cutting racism, poverty and inequality. Politically a democratic socialist, he served as president of the African National Congress (ANC) political party from 1990 to 1999.

A Xhosa born to the Thembu royal family, Mandela attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand, studying law. Living in Johannesburg townships and becoming involved in anti-colonial politics, he joined the ANC, becoming a founding member of its Youth League. When the National Party government implemented apartheid in 1948, he rose to prominence in the ANC’s 1952 Defiance Campaign, being elected president of the Transvaal ANC branch and overseeing the 1955 Congress of the People. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and with the ANC leadership stood on the Treason Trial from 1956 to 1961. Although initially committed to non-violent protest, in association with the South AfricanCommunist Party he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961, leading a bombing campaign against government targets. In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, being sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mandela served in Robben Island and then Pollsmoor Prison, while an international campaign lobbied for his release, which was granted after 27 years in 1990. Becoming ANC president, Mandela wrote his autobiography, and led negotiations with President F.W. de Klerk to abolish apartheid and establish multi-racial elections in 1994, in which he led the ANC to a landslide victory. As president, he created a new constitution and initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses, while introducing policies aimed at land reform, combating poverty and expanding healthcare. Internationally, he acted as mediator between Libya and the United Kingdom in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, and oversaw a military intervention in Lesotho. Refusing to run for a second term and succeeded by his deputy Thabo Mbeki, Mandela became an elder statesman focusing on charitable work in combating poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Mandela has received international acclaim for his anti-colonial and anti-apartheid stance, having received over 250 awards, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Soviet Order of Lenin. He is held in deep respect within South Africa as the “Father of the Nation”, where he is often known under his Xhosa clan name of Madiba. Controversial for much of his life, critics denounced him as a terrorist and communist sympathiser.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON NELSON MANDELA

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 21): 

1. 1ST BLACK WOMAN ELECTED TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES BORN (1936-1996) – Barbara Jordan born on this day in Houston, Texas.

2. GREAT PATENT! (1961) – Otis Boykin, Inventor, patented the Electrical Resistor the device used in all guided missiles and IBM computers, plus several other electronic devices.

3. MALCOLM X ASSASSINATED (1965) – El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz better known as Malcom X assinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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Jesse Owens

Posted on by #IAM Dwayne Neal

Celebrate Black History

 

 

Jesse OwensJames Cleveland “Jesse” Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4×100 meter relay team. He was the most successful athlete at the 1936 Summer Olympics.

The Jesse Owens Award, USA Track and Field’s highest accolade for the year’s best track and field athlete, is named after him, in honor of his significant career.

The son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves, James Cleveland Owens was born on September 12, 1913 in Danville, Alabama. A frail child, Owens was often sick from his battles with chronic bronchial congestion and pneumonia. Still, he was expected to work, and at the young age of seven he was picking up to 100 pounds of cotton a day to help his family put food on the table.

At age nine Owens moved with his family to Cleveland, where the young “J.C.” discovered a world far different than the slower, southern life he’d known. School proved to be one of the bigger changes. Gone was the one-room schoolhouse he’d attended in Alabama, replaced by a bigger setting with stricter teachers. Here, Owens earned the nickname that would stick with him the rest of his life, when one of his instructors, unable to decipher his thick southern accent, believed he said his name was Jesse instead of J.C. 

Owens attended Ohio State University after employment was found for his father, ensuring the family could be supported. Affectionately known as the “Buckeye Bullet,” Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936. (The record of four gold medals at the NCAA was equaled only by Xavier Carter in 2006, although his many titles also included relay medals.) Though Owens enjoyed athletic success, he had to live off campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens was restricted to ordering carry-out or eating at “black-only” restaurants. Similarly, he had to stay at “blacks-only” hotels. Owens did not receive a scholarship for his efforts, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.

Owens’s greatest achievement came in a span of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935, during the Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied a fourth. He equaled the world record for the 100 yard dash (9.4 seconds); and set world records in the long jump (26 ft 8 1⁄4 in/8.13 m, a world record that would last 25 years); 220-yard (201.2 m) sprint (20.3 seconds); and 220-yard (201.2m) lowhurdles (22.6 seconds, becoming the first to break 23 seconds). In 2005, University of Central Florida professor of sports history Richard C. Crepeau chose these wins on one day as the most impressive athletic achievement since 1850. 

For Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games was expected to be a German showcase and a statement for Aryan supremacy. Most notably, Hitler lambasted America for including black athletes on its Olympic roster.

But it was African Americans who helped cement America’s success at the Olympic Games. In all the U.S. won 11 gold medals, six of them by black athletes. Owens was easily the most dominant athlete to compete. He captured four gold medals (the 100-meter, the long jump, the 200-meter, and the 400-meter relay race) and broke two Olympic records along the way. After Owens won the 100-meter event, a furious Hitler stormed out of the stadium, though some reports later indicated that Hitler congratulated the athlete on his success.

While Owens helped the U.S. triumph at the games, his return home was not met with the kind of fanfare one might expect. 

Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels in Germany as whites, while at the time blacks in many parts of the United States had to stay in segregated hotels while traveling. After a New York City ticker-tape parade of Fifth Avenue in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria to reach the reception honoring him.

Owens said, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself. Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D.Eisenhower (himself an athlete of note) honored Owens by naming him an “Ambassador of Sports.”

Owens, a pack-a-day cigarette smoker for 35 years, had been hospitalized with an extremely aggressive and drug-resistant type of lung cancer on and off beginning in December 1979. He died in Tucson, Arizona, on March 31, 1980, with his wife and other family members at his bedside. He is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.

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This Day In Black History (Feb. 20): 

1. FREDERICK DOUGLASS DIES (1895) – Frederick Douglass died on this date.

2. “THE BLIMP” GETS A PATENT! (1900) – On February 20, 1900 J.F. Bickering received a patent for the “AirShip”. The invention was the first blimp (airship) to be powered by an electric motor and have directional controls.

3. RETIRED NBA MVP IS BORN (1963) – Retired NBA player Charles Wade Barkley born in Leeds, Alabama. In 1993, he was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player and during the NBA’s 50th anniversary, named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History.

Since retiring from the NBA, Barkley has become a successful color commentator for TNT on basketball.

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Submitted by:

Dwayne B. Neal – Team N.A.M.E.S.
“Knowledge is power, but ACTION is King!”

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