Month: October 2018

31Oct

October 31 1950- Earl ” Big Cat” Lloyd

GM – FBF – Today’s story is a man who was a trailblazer because he did what no other had done before him. He was the first Black man to play in the NBA and the sad thing about it a lot of basketball players who are playing or watching the professionals, college or High Schools never heard of him.

The excuse is that basketball wasn’t as popular back then as it is now but that is no excuse for not knowing who paved the way for the rest. Learn and enjoy and pass the story on.

Remember – “Here I am, a young black kid — from kindergarten right through graduating from college, I never had a white classmate. And you’re born and raised in the den of segregation; you’ve been treated third-class all your life. So you tend to believe that you’re inferior. And when you walk into a pro training camp … the first thing you ask yourself, very quietly, [is] ‘Do I belong here?’ And at training camp, where it’s on, and you start scrimmaging these guys and playing against them, you know — then the bulb lights up, and tells you that you belong.”- Earl “Big Cat” Lloyd

Today in our History – October 31, 1950 – Earl ‘Big Cat’ Lloyd became the 1st African American to play in an NBA game.

Earl “Big Cat” Lloyd, who broke color barriers on the basketball court, is being remembered for more than the game following his death this week at the age of 86.
“The one thing that I think we all really realize when we had the opportunity to meet Earl Lloyd is that, more than a basketball player, he was a great human being. He was a true gentleman,” said Brian Hemphill, president of West Virginia State University.

Lloyd played for West Virginia State in Kanawha County beginning in 1947 when it was called West Virginia State College. During his sophomore year, the Yellow Jackets went 33-0. He lead State to two CIAA Conference and Tournament Championships.

“The best teachers I ever had were those guys,” Lloyd said of his State teams during a guest appearance last year on MetroNews “Hotline.” “They took care of me and I said, ‘Look, this is a once in a lifetime shot, so you better do the best you can.’”

His best got him to the NBA. Lloyd said he found out the Washington Capitols had drafted him from a classmate who stopped him on the Institute campus to tell him that she’d heard it on the radio.

“The NBA family has lost one of its patriarchs,” Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, said in a statement. “Earl Lloyd, the first African-American to play in an NBA game, was as inspirational as he was understated. He was known as a modest gentleman who played the game with skill, class and pride.”

Lloyd’s first 1950 game for the Washington Capitals was scheduled ahead of those for Sweetwater Clifton and Chuck Cooper, two other black men who were drafted the same year as Lloyd.

Lloyd later played for the Syracuse Nationals and Detroit Pistons.
In addition to being the first black man to ever play in an NBA game, he was the first black man to win an NBA championship and the first black man to be named an NBA assistant coach and bench coach.

He returned to West Virginia State, his Alma Mater, last year when the Earl Francis Lloyd Lobby and a statue of him were unveiled at the new West Virginia State University Convocation Center.

“We had an opportunity to have him back on campus last year and really acknowledge him and thank him for all that he gave West Virginia State, but also all that he gave for anyone that he ever encountered,” Hemphill said.

Several NBA stars were part of the event. “They all acknowledged and paid tribute to the person who started it all, who opened the door for each of them,” said Hemphill on Friday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”

Research more about Black Basketball Athletes and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

October 29- 1862- William Dominick Mattews

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about a Black business man, part of the Underground Railroad and Civil War Officer. He had a lot of obstacles in his way in trying to help our people but he never gave up. Enjoy!

Remember – Our people need help In all parts of the United Sates, it is my mission to do them as much as I can. – William Dominick Marlon Matthews
Today in our History – October 29, 1862 – Black troops under Matthews’s command fought and defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Island Mound in Bates County, Missouri. This battle is generally recognized as the first known engagement that black troops participated in during the Civil War.

William Dominick Matthews was a Civil War officer in the Union Army and is best known for leading the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry. Matthews was born a free man in October 25th, 1827, on the eastern shore of Maryland to parents who were interracially married. His father Joseph was a native of Delaware and of African ancestry. Matthews’s mother was the bi-racial slave daughter of a Frenchman, but she eventually gained her freedom when her father passed away.

In 1840 thirteen-year-old Matthews moved to Baltimore and labored as a sailor until he acquired a commercial ship of his own in 1854, which he sailed on both Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River. He left Maryland for Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1856 because the discriminatory laws in his home state made it difficult for him to earn a living.

In Leavenworth, Matthews soon became a successful businessman. He was also involved in helping escaped slaves via the Underground Railroad in that region of the nation. In 1860 Matthews converted his home into a station for the railroad to help fugitive slaves escaping from neighboring Missouri, Arkansas, and Indian Territory. Because he had to worry about retaliation by pro-slavery forces across the river in Missouri, Matthews organized one hundred mostly African American men to protect the home when fugitive slaves were hiding there.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Matthew attempted to offer his men to the national government to fight in the Union Army, but they were turned away because they were African American. In 1862 U. S. Senator James H. Lane of Kansas ignored federal regulations in regard to African-Americans in the federal army and allowed black men to enlist in the war effort in Kansas.

Matthews took this opportunity to establish his own company of soldiers and convinced a number of ex-slaves to enlist. He was soon made captain of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, a regiment that soon totaled six hundred men. Matthews was, at that point, the highest-ranking black officer in the Union Army. On October 29, 1862, troops under Matthews’s command fought and defeated Confederate forces at the Battle of Island Mound in Bates County, Missouri. This battle is generally recognized as the first known engagement that black troops participated in during the Civil War.
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 signaled the formal acceptance of black soldiers into the United States Army. Unfortunately, Matthews was stripped of his captain’s rank and replaced by a white officer who was made captain of the First Kansas Colored Infantry. Matthews served as a non-commissioned officer with the First Kansas Colored almost until the end of the war but was finally promoted in 1865 to the rank of first lieutenant in the Independent Colored Kansas Battery, also known as the Independent Battery, U.S. Colored Light Artillery. That unit was commanded by another black Kansan, H. Ford Douglas.

Matthews returned home to Leavenworth in October 1865 after the Civil War. He and his wife Fanny raised four children. He became involved in local politics and became an important figure on the Kansas State Republican Central Committee. Very little is known about Matthews after 1870. In 1906 William Matthews passed away quietly in Leavenworth, Kansas. Research more about Blacks in the civil war and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

28Oct

October 28 2009- “This Is It” The Movie By Micheal Jackson

GM – FBF – Today’s story can only be told by people who lived through it. Coming out of Gary, Indiana in 1968, The Jackson’s were STARS with number one hits, T.V. specials and even a Saturday morning cartoon show. I personally saw him perform over his career six times between his brothers and by himself. His personal life and professional life is an open book and I feel sorry for how his life ended but so did Dorothy’s, “Bird” and Billie to name a few. I just know that he was better than what you saw in the move but at that part of his life I guess that was all that he had left. Enjoy!

Remember – “There were times when I had great times with my brothers, pillow fights and things, but I was, used to always cry from loneliness.” – Michael Jackson

Today in our History – October 28, 2009 – “THIS IS IT” the movie by Michael Jackson opens in Theaters.
The announcement earlier this year that Michael Jackson would be doing 50 concerts in London was greeted with equal parts euphoria and cynicism. Was he doing it for us? Was he doing it for money? Then in June, less than a month before the start of the sold-out run, Jackson died of cardiac arrest, and the news that a film of the show’s rehearsal footage was on the way added another layer of ambivalence. Awesome. Creepy. But, for now, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It’’ is the fierce last word on the matter. Jackson had no apparent plans to phone, fax, text, or IM it in.

The movie still arrives, screened for critics only hours before opening, with an eerie taint. It comes days before Halloween; its star, while far from death at the time, a diminished version of his electrifying self, his face a wan mask. Next weekend, that popular chiller about the couple in the haunted house won’t be the only paranormal activity at the box office. Yet watching Jackson pop, lock, rock, writhe, thrust, and clutch his crotch, even at 50 percent, leaves a feeling of woe: This show really would have been major.

Over the summer news outlets ran some of the footage – or footage very much like it. For a movie audience, the question is whether an hour and a half of the same will be any fun, especially when so much of it is barely camera-phone quality. The opening minutes seem doubtful. Jackson chops, poses, and slides through “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.’’ He doesn’t commit to any sort of vocal styling. And you can see him thinking about how to work the song out.

Watching a great artist decide how to move doesn’t seem much more exciting than watching a waiter set a table: When’s dinner? That, of course, is the terrible punch line of this entire experience: This is it. So, instead, we devour even Jackson’s lassitude. It’s our last supper. (Besides, what waiter is going to serve you wearing a tuxedo jacket with one sequined lapel and shoulders that look like something from a Tim Burton movie?)

Lest anyone get the morbid sense that the film is a necrophiliac’s delight, Jackson often feels vibrantly, reassuringly human. He sashays with one of his female dancers at one point. He puts the spotlight on his band and dancers, and his perfectionism never approaches divadom. When Jackson stands over the keyboard of the show’s musical director, trying to coax a note out of him, and says “I just want to hear it the way I wrote it,’’ what’s so funny is how little it is for him to ask. But also it’s a side of Jackson we never got to see. His Peter Pan syndrome and his professionalism truly coexist. He wants the show to be flawless. He also wants every element of the experience to appear to emanate from his every gesticulation. He’s a life force. He’s the Wiz.

He’s also a man with too much integrity to let anyone else call the shots. Indeed, the director of the concert and this movie, Kenny Ortega, seems more like a jolly personal assistant, repeatedly telling Jackson how much he loves him. It’s the sort of thing you expect to hear a fan blurt out as a movie star accepts an award. Jackson responds in kind: “I love you, too.’’
Ortega is a Hollywood veteran (he choreographed “Dirty Dancing’’ and directed the “High School Musical’’ franchise), and the movie is a dutiful tribute to its star. The crosscutting of footage isn’t seamless, but we get a decent sense of how most of the numbers would go. The crew filmed an inspired sequence in which Jackson inserts himself into classic Hollywood movies such as “Gilda’’ and “The Big Sleep,’’ alongside Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart. The sequence is for “Smooth Criminal,’’ and it now has posthumous logic. Of course a legend plays with legends.

Clearly, Jackson expected just enough of himself to aim for some high points, even in these run-throughs. He tells the dancers and crew begging him to let go and really sing that he’s saving his voice for the actual performances. But you get the sense that he had to test how hard he could push that complex instrument. So even as he demurs when the band breaks out the gospel tambourine at the end of a Jackson Five medley, he still puts his foot into some of the songs. His singing voice is rarely more beautifully acrobatic than on the movie’s version of “Human Nature.’’

This all calls to mind the comeback concerts of Jackson’s friend Liza Minnelli, who hit Broadway last year at less than her best but was determined to bring the house down every night. There was no reason to think that Jackson wouldn’t have accomplished the same thing. Even if he didn’t manage to blow the crowds away 50 times, he would have risked it all trying. Research more about this American Black Entertainer and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

27Oct

October 27 1933- Elijah Jerry Green

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about the legacy of Black Baseball players who came from the Negro leagues and make it to the Major Leagues starting with Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers story. You may feel like I do that many a Negro baseball player had a lot more talent than Jackie but could they handle the day to day abuse that was given to Jackie everywhere he played. My question this morning for you is simple, the Dodgers and Red Sox are currently playing in the 2018 World Series, the first time that these two teams have meet in a World Series with the name “Dodgers” Brooklyn had a team back in 1916 but they were called the Robins and the Red Sox played their home games at the Boston Braves park instead of Fenway Park to draw more seating capacity. Did you know that the Red Sox were the last major league baseball team to intergrade? Yes they did their best to try and win without a Black player but they realized in order to be competitive they had to and this is the story of the person they selected to wear the Boston Uniform. Enjoy!

Remember – Someday I’ll write a book and call it ‘How I Got the Nickname Pumpsie’ and sell it for one dollar, and if everybody who ever asked me that question buys the book, I’ll be a millionaire. – Pumpsie Green

Today in our History – October 27, 1933 – Elijah Jerry Green
Jr. was born.

He’s been termed a “reluctant pioneer.” All Pumpsie Green wanted to do was play professional baseball. He didn’t even aspire to the major leagues at first, and would have been content playing for his hometown Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League. That said, Pumpsie Green took pride in the fact that he helped accomplish the integration of the Boston Red Sox, the last team in the majors to field an African American ballplayer.

He was born on October 27, 1933, as Elijah Jerry Green Jr. All the standard reference books list his place of birth as Oakland, but he himself said, “I wasn’t born in Oakland. I was born in Boley, Oklahoma. We was all born in Oklahoma.”
The elder Elijah Green was reportedly a pretty good athlete, but had a family to care for during the Depression and work took precedence. “He was a farmer,” Green said in a 2009 interview, “We came out here to California when I was eight or nine years old. He worked at the Oakland Army Base.” After the war, Mr. Green worked for the city of Richmond, in the public works department. “He was a garbage man,” Pumpsie explained. His wife, Gladys, worked mostly as a homemaker before World War II, and during the war as a welder on the docks in Oakland. As the children grew older, she became a nurse in a convalescent home.

Pumpsie played baseball from grade school on up and became a switch-hitter at an early age. He was 13 when Jackie Robinson broke into the major leagues in 1947, but Brooklyn was a long way from California. The Pacific Coast League integrated in 1948, and, to top it off, the barnstorming Jackie Robinson All-Stars came to Oakland after the ’48 season was over. Pumpsie said, “I scraped up every nickel and dime together I could find. And I was there. I had to see that game…I still remember how exciting it was.” Green was a big Oaks fan, getting to the Emeryville ballpark as often as he could, and listening on the radio when he couldn’t: “I followed a whole bunch of people on that team. It was almost a daily ritual. ….When I got old enough to wish, I wished I could play for the Oakland Oaks.” Pumpsie began to model his play after Artie Wilson, the left-handed-hitting shortstop who in 1949 became the first black player on the Oaks, and led the league both in hitting and stolen bases.

Pumpsie Green signed his 1959 contract in Scottsdale on February 25, suited up in a Red Sox uniform, and immediately took part in his first workout. Roger Birtwell’s Boston Globe story began, “The Boston Red Sox – in spring training, at least – today broke the color line.”

Green lived an isolated existence, separated from his teammates. It was a pathetic situation. Boston Globe writer Milton Gross depicted the imposed isolation: “From night to morning, the first Negro player to be brought to spring training by the Boston Red Sox ceases to be a member of the team he hopes to make as a shortstop.” Segregation, wrote Gross, “comes in a man’s heart, residing there like a burrowing worm. It comes when a man wakes alone, eats alone, goes to the movies every night alone because there’s nothing more for him to do and then, in Pumpsie Green’s own words, ‘I get a sandwich and a glass of milk and a book and I read myself to sleep.’”

It could not have been easy being Pumpsie Green in 1959. Lee D. Jenkins, writing in the Chicago Defender after Green’s call-up, lamented the inevitable pressure: “It’s one thing to make a major-league team by sheer talent but to find yourself in a position where you are almost thrust down an unwilling throat makes for a most uncomfortable state. Green was a sensation with the Red Sox during their early spring training but as the season neared the pressure began to tell in his fielding and hitting.”

Boston Celtics basketball star Bill Russell was there to greet Pumpsie when he arrived. They’d known each other since high school. Green also took a call in the Red Sox clubhouse from Jackie Robinson.

After the season Pumpsie was named second baseman on the 1959 Major League Rookie All-Star team, chosen in balloting by 1.7 million Topps gum customers nationally. “Green’s play fell off during the last two or three weeks of the season because he was a tired player,” Jurges said. “I figured he played 260 games last year, counting the winter league, the American Association, and the big leagues. That’s too much ball for a kid.”

After baseball, Green earned a physical-education degree from San Francisco State University and then accepted a position with the Berkeley Unified School District, where he ran the baseball program, coached baseball for 25 years, served as dean of boys for a while, taught mathematics, and did some security work at the school. He finally retired in 1997. Looking back, Pumpsie was frank about Boston and his time in the major leagues. It was a bit of a mixed blessing of sorts, he told Jon Goode: “Sometimes it would get on my nerves. Sometimes I wonder if I would have even made it to the major leagues if it had not been for this Boston thing.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been better off it was not for the Boston thing. Things like that you can never answer.”
Green told Danny Peary, “When I was playing, being the first black on the Red Sox wasn’t nearly as big a source of pride as it would be once I was out of the game. At the time I never put much stock in it, or thought about it. Later I understood my place in history. I don’t know if I would have been better in another organization with more black players. But as it turned out, I became increasingly proud to have been with the Red Sox as their first black.”

Research more about black baseball players who entered the Major Leagues and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

26Oct

October 26 1997- The Million Woman March

GM – FBF – Today’s story was a test of how our black females can get together like their male counterparts. It was a challenge but they pulled it off. Enjoy!
Remember – “We are mothers. We are caregivers. We are artists. We are activists. We are entrepreneurs, doctors, leaders of industry and technology. Our potential is unlimited. We rise.” -Alicia Keys

Today in our History – October 25, 1997 – The Million Woman March in Philadelphia, PA.

The march was founded and formulated by Phile Chionesu, a grassroots activist, human rights advocate, Black Nationalist/Freedom Fighter, and owner of an African crafts shop; she was not associated with any national black organizations. After several months of underground organizing, Chionesu asked Asia Coney to join her, making her the third National Co-Chair.

The march was envisioned and intended to help bring social, cal, and economic development and power throughout the black communities of the United States, as well as to bring hope, empowerment, unity and sisterhood to women, men and children of African descent globally regardless of nationality, religion, or economic status. One main focus of the march for the women involved was family unity and what it means to be an African American woman in America. The women of the march called for three things: repentance for the pain of black women caused by one another, and the restoration and resurrection of African American family and community bonds. The march included scheduled hours of prayer and speeches.

The day was filled with prayer, music, and inspirational speeches. These events were meant to promote positive change. The march started from the Liberty Bell and ended at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.[5] Speakers at the event included Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela; Congresswoman Maxine Waters; Sista Souljah; Jada Pinkett Smith; Attallah and Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughters of Malcolm X; and Dr. Dorothy Height. A message was read from Assata Shakur from her exile home of Cuba.
The march has been considered a social phenomenon due to its unconventional and unique way of organizing. It has influenced several mass gatherings by demonstrating a grassroots approach that had not been employed before.

These women were able to use different methods of spreading information via media coordinators like BWN NJ Delegate Stacey Chambers, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and, by word of mouth, fliers, black-run media, the Internet, and a network of women’s organizations. The Million Woman March was the launching pad for the development of the first global movement for women and girls of African descent throughout the Diaspora.[according to whom?]

Estimates of attendance for the march vary widely. The Philadelphia police gave no official estimates, but were preparing for up to 600,000 people. However, a study provided by the University of Pennsylvania in addition to aerial footage, photos, and other research data and information obtained from news and other sources, indicates that the gathering drew at least 500,000 people. Police sources gave numbers varying from 300,000 to 1 million. The attendees came even despite cold temperatures and light rain. Organizers estimated an attendance of 2.1 million. Phile Chionesu suggested there were more than 2.5 million people. “The rally brought together women from across the country – some wearing jeans and sweat shirts, others in festive African garb.”There were signs throughout the march saying, “I am one in a million” and “Black Women: No more AIDS, abuse, addiction”.[4] Supporters also bought buttons and apparel such as T-shirts, hats and flags with march logos.

The mission of the Million Woman March was for African American women to be self-determined. The march was also intended to draw attention to statistics that marginalize African American women. Research has shown that 94 of 1,000 African American teenage girls are victims of violent crime.

African American women are eighteen times more likely to get AIDS than white women. In 1996, African American men earned thirty dollars more than African American women per week, while, African American women were paid forty dollars less than white women per week. From these statistics, African American women and supporters wanted to take a stand, and part of the protest was because of inequalities like these.

The Million Woman March has continued its mission under the direction of the founder and national offices. Since the march, over 50 conferences, over 100 forums, online radio broadcasts for 12 years, and many social justice protests for women and African American females have taken place.Research more about black woman’s movements and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

25Oct

October 25 1892- Irene McCoy

GM – FBF – Today our story centers around a civil rights activist, who like some others who left the streets and moved into the political field. While in politics she had an opportunity to really make a change for her and her people. Enjoy!

Remember – ” Helping others in time of need is the best that anyone of us can do” – Irene McCoy Gains.

Today in our History – Irene McCoy Gaines was born October 25, 1892.

Irene McCoy Gaines was a civil rights activist and a community leader. Born October 25, 1892, in Ocala, Florida, to Charles and Mamie McCoy, she had one older sister who died while Gaines was a child. Her family moved to Chicago, Illinois when she was an infant. In 1903, Gaines’s mother became a single parent after a divorce. After she graduated from Wendell Phillips High in Chicago in 1908, Gaines attended Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee) from 1908 to 1910, and then the University of Chicago from 1910 to 1912. She studied civics and social work at both campuses.

When she returned to Chicago in 1910, Gaines began working at the Cook County Juvenile Court as a stenographer, which helped her become aware of the problems affecting the youth in her community. After World War I started, she found a new job with the US Department of Labor’s War Camp Community Service Program as an organizer for the girls division.

On October 7, 1914, McCoy married Harris Barrett Gaines, a law student at the time. They had two sons, Harris Barrett, Jr., in 1922, and Charles Ellis in 1924. Her children’s public school education offered a window into the desperate inequality between segregated schools.

In 1920, Gaines became the industrial secretary for the first African American branch of the YWCA in Chicago, and during the 1920s, she became involved with and took leadership positions in many different activist groups. Because of her association with groups such as the Chicago Urban League, Woman’s City Club, Woman’s Trade Union League, Illinois Women’s Voters’ League, the District Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, University Society, and Household of Ruth, she quickly gained a great reputation in Chicago’s African American community for her extensive social work. Beginning in 1930, Gaines began working for the welfare department of Cook County, where she would remain until 1945.

In 1939, Gaines founded the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations and remained its first president until 1953, and used her position to protest the inequality caused by segregated schooling. She was able to secure improved facilities and establish one of the first integrated nursery schools.

In 1940 Gaines became the first African American woman to run for the Illinois State Legislature. Although she lost that election, she became one of the organizers of the first march on Washington in 1941, and led 50 Chicago-area protesters to Washington, D.C., to meet with other demonstrators from across the nation. They formed committees that visited heads of government agencies to protest discrimination against blacks in employment. The national March on Washington Movement eventually resulted in President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 which banned discrimination in companies which received federal funds.

She also championed the condition of women, and in 1947 she testified before the United Nations about discrimination and oppression of women of color in the US, becoming one of the first individuals in the world to address that issue before this international body.

In 1958, at the age of 66, Gaines received the George Washington Medal of Honor for her lifelong efforts in improving her community. In the following year, she received the Fisk University Distinguished Alumni Service Award, and in 1962 Wilberforce University awarded her an honorary degree.
Irene McCoy Gaines died of cancer on April 7, 1964, in Chicago at the age of 72. Research more about civil rights workers and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

24Oct

October 24 2002- John Allen Muhammad

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about a spree of murders and attempted murders that happened a year after the 9/11 attacks in NYC and Washington, D.C. Which many people were still afraid and in a state of fear. These acts of endangering human life happened around the greater Washington, D.C. area over a three week time period in October 2002. These acts would be called “The Beltway sniper attacks”.

Remember – “ I am a monster who “stole people’s lives.” – Lee Boyd Malvo

Today in our History – October 24, 2002 – John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are arrested.

Here’s a look at the shooting spree that occurred in the Mid-Atlantic/Washington area in October 2002. Ten people were killed and three injured in sniper-style shootings.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested, tried and convicted for the shootings. Muhammad received a death sentence and was executed on November 10, 2009. Malvo was convicted and is waiting for resentencing after a federal judge overturned his two life sentences.
Timeline – DC Area Shooting Spree:
October 2, 2002 – A shot is fired through a window at a Michael’s crafts store in Aspen Hill, Maryland, but no one is hit.

– Not linked by ballistic evidence.
October 2, 2002 – The first killing takes place when 55-year-old James D. Martin, a program analyst for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is shot in the parking lot of Shoppers Food Warehouse in Wheaton, Maryland.

– Not linked by ballistic evidence.
What is behind the rise in depression in America?
As the national nonprofit Mental Health America has identified, depression in America is on the rise. And many are left untreated.

October 3, 2002 – Police are called to a crime scene and find James L. Buchanan, a 39-year-old landscaper who has been fatally shot while mowing a lawn at a commercial establishment near Rockville, Maryland.

October 3, 2002 – Premkumar Walekar, 54, a part-time cab driver, is killed while pumping gas into his taxi at a station in the Aspen Hill area of Montgomery County, Maryland.

October 3, 2002 – Sarah Ramos, 34, of Silver Spring, Maryland, is killed at a post office near Leisure World Shopping center. A witness reports seeing a white van or truck speed from the post office parking lot immediately after the shooting.

October 3, 2002 – Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, of Silver Spring is shot dead at a Shell gas station in Kensington where she was vacuuming her van.

October 3, 2002 – In the only killing in Washington and the first one to occur at night, Pascal Charlot, 72, is shot in the chest as he walks along Georgia Avenue. He is taken to a hospital, where he dies less than an hour later.

October 4, 2002 – In a Michael’s parking lot in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Caroline Seawell, 43, is shot as she puts her bags inside her Toyota minivan. She is released from a Fairfax hospital on Monday, October 14.

October 7, 2002 – Iran Brown, 13, is shot and critically wounded outside Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Maryland’s Prince George’s County.

October 9, 2002 – A tarot card is found near the scene of the shooting at the school. CNN sources say it is the “Death Card” with the message “Call me God” for police.

October 9, 2002 – Dean Harold Meyers, 53, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, is killed while pumping gas at a station in Manassas, Virginia. A white minivan seen in the area is first thought to have some connection with the shooting but is later cleared by police.

October 11, 2002 – Kenneth Bridges, 53, a Philadelphia businessman, is killed at an Exxon station just off I-95 near Fredericksburg, Virginia. Police enforce a huge roadblock, trying to find a white van-like vehicle (similar to a Chevy Astro) with a ladder rack on top.

October 14, 2002 – Linda Franklin, 47, of Arlington, Virginia, is killed by a single gunshot in a Home Depot parking lot in Falls Church, Virginia.

October 19, 2002 – Jeffrey Hopper, 37, is shot in a parking lot at a Ponderosa Steakhouse near I-95 in Ashland, Virginia, 83 miles south of Washington. Doctors remove the bullet from the victim during surgery on October 21 and connect him to the others by ballistics.

October 21, 2002 – Police surround a white van at a pay phone at an Exxon gas station in Richmond, Virginia. They arrest one man in the vehicle and a second man “in the vicinity” but later say that they cannot be connected to the sniper shootings.

October 22, 2002 – Bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, of Oxon Hill, Maryland, is shot as he stands on the top step inside his commuter bus in Aspen Hill, Maryland. He later dies at a hospital in Bethesda. Investigators confirm on October 23 that his death is connected to the sniper.

October 24, 2002 – John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are arrested. They are found sleeping in a 1990 Chevy Caprice at a rest stop in Frederick County, Maryland.
November 10, 2009 – After receiving the death penalty in 2004, Muhammad is executed.

May 26, 2017 – A federal judge overturns two of Malvo’s life sentences in Chesapeake and Spotsylvania County in Virginia. Malvo remains in prison as his Virginia convictions still stand, as well as his previous sentences from Maryland.

June 21, 2018 – A federal appeals court agrees Malvo’s four life sentences from Virginia must be vacated based on a 2012 Supreme Court decision that it is unconstitutional for juveniles to receive mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Timeline – Other incidents where Muhammad/Malvo were charged or considered suspects:

February 16, 2002 – Keenya Cook, 21, is murdered. Her aunt was a former friend of Muhammad’s ex-wife. There is circumstantial but not ballistic evidence.

March 19, 2002 – Sixty-year-old Jerry Taylor is shot and killed on a Tucson, Arizona, golf course.

May 2002 – A synagogue in Tacoma, Washington, is vandalized. Police consider Muhammad as a suspect. Guns used in both incidents belong to a man with whom Malvo and Muhammad had stayed for a time.

September 5, 2002 – Shooting at a Clinton, Maryland, pizzeria. Paul LaRuffia is injured.

September 14, 2002 – Benny Oberoi, 22, is shot and wounded outside the Hillandale Beer & Wine Store in Silver Spring, Maryland. The shooting is linked by circumstances, witnesses and location of the alleged snipers, but not by ballistics.

September 15, 2002 – Shooting at a Brandywine, Maryland, liquor store. Muhammad Rashid is injured.

September 21, 2002 – Million Waldemariam, 41, is shot three times and killed at a liquor store in Atlanta. Ballistics on a .22 caliber handgun links both the Atlanta and the Montgomery shootings.

September 21, 2002 – Shooting at a Montgomery, Alabama, liquor store. Owner Claudine Parker is killed and clerk Kellie Adams is seriously injured. Ballistics are a match to Bushmaster .223 rifle and eyewitness accounts link to the DC snipers. Capital murder charges are filed against Muhammad and Malvo.

September 23, 2002 – Shooting outside a beauty shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, kills 45-year-old Hong Im Ballenger, the shop manager. Malvo and Muhammad are charged with capital murder and armed robbery on October 31 when ballistics match the Bushmaster .223 rifle.

September 26, 2002 – Wright Williams is injured at his grocery store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Research more about The BeltWay Shootings and sahre with your babies. Make it a champion day!

23Oct

October 23 1903- Samuel Harold Lacy

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about a black man who was meeting all of the right sports figures and entertainers of his day. During those times newspaper was king as many big cities had a morning and evening newspaper so as a sports reporter whatever you wrote in the morning could be expanded on or replaced by a bigger story that happened that day. H e was often in harm’s way because some parts of America didn’t care what your profession was to them you were still considered lower than dirt and treated that way if the circumstances were right. This outstanding writer won many awards for his work but the thing he valued the most was being the person who would get the exclusive from the athlete or entertainer. In those days they called it “GETTING THE SCOOP”. Enjoy!

Remember – “Some people didn’t understand the importance of meeting a deadline or someone reading something that no other reporter knows, I always enjoyed telling the story first.” – Sam Lacy

Today in our History – October 23, 1903 – Samuel Harold Lacy was born.

Lacy grew up in Washington, D.C., played semi-pro baseball, coached municipal basketball, attended Howard University, and performed assorted odd jobs before becoming a professional sportswriter. The sportswriter inherited his pioneering spirit from his grandfather, Henry Erskine Lacy, who was the first black detective on the Washington, D.C., police force. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Lacy’s story is not that he covered all the giants of the twentieth-century sporting world—Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Muhammed Ali, to name a few—but that he continued to cover sports well into his nineties. Lacy’s career in print journalism began in the 1920s, working as a sports writer at the Washington Tribune under the guidance of Editor Lewis Lautier. He was managing editor and sports editor there from 1934-39, before moving to Chicago as assistant national editor for the Chicago Defender from 1940-43.

He returned to Baltimore to become a columnist and sports editor for the weekly Baltimore Afro-American Newspapers. He wrote the widely popular column “A to Z” for many years. Through 17 presidential elections this crusader in the 1930s and ’40s, devoted his columns to desegregating baseball in the major leagues. He became a renowned journalist as well as a civil rights leader. Lacy’s career in journalism began in the 1920s, working as a sports writer at the Washington Tribune under the tutelage of Editor Lewis Lautier. He was both managing editor and sports editor of the paper from 1934-1939, before moving to Chicago to become a national editor with the Chicago Defender.

He later moved to Baltimore as sports editor and columnist for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. Lacy, 95, has been “fighting for fairness” for Afro-American athletes for almost 65 years, railing against racism and segregation that prevailed for decades in U.S. sports, courts and legislatures. Lacy is recognized, as a pioneer in baseball journalism. He was one of the first African-American members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, and a 1997 recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award. During his career, Lacy covered the careers of many Black athletes and numerous sporting events, including six Olympic Games.

As a result of his efforts, he has received many awards given by sports, journalism and academic establishments. In 1998, he was inducted into the “writers’ wing” of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sam Lacy died on May 8, 2003. Research more about black journalist and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

22Oct

October 22 2007- Lowell Dennis Smith

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about a man who wanted to move like no other. His style was one of a kind and no one could do the moves like he did. Enjoy!

Remember – “Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.” – Lowell Dennis Smith

Today in our History – Lowell Dennis Smith – October 22, 2007 let this earth.

Lowell Dennis Smith, a ballet dancer and teacher who for some years was a principal dancer with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and later was director of the company’s school, died Oct. 22 at UCLA Medical Center. He was 56.

The cause of death was lung cancer, said his longtime friend Rick Frey. Smith had been dividing his time between Los Angeles and New York City.

Born in 1951 in Memphis, Tenn., he studied dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and then performed as a dancer and actor in Memphis and later with the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island, New York.

He joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem in the late 1970s and danced with the company for 17 years. One of his best known roles was as Stanley Kowalski in a dance adaptation by Valerie Bettis of the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

“Stanley screams all the time so his movement has to scream,” Smith said in a 1996 interview with the Commercial Appeal of Memphis. “Movement is as much a vocabulary as words.”

He performed the role of Stanley onstage and for a television broadcast of “Great Performances: Dance in America” in 1986.

“Lowell Smith, a superlative dramatic dancer, explodes with a typically sure and nuanced passion Floyd, all of Memphis. that makes Stanley’s anger and desire vividly immediate,” dance critic Jennifer Dunning wrote in a review of the televised performance for the New York Times.
Smith also had prominent roles in “Equus,” choreographed by Domy Reiter-Soffer, about a boy who blinded horses and the psychiatrist who treated him, as well as in “Fall River Legend,” by choreographer Agnes de Mille, about a famed murder case and the accused, Lizzie Borden.

Beyond dance drama, he performed in a number of traditional ballets and modern classics such as “The Four Temperaments” by George Balanchine.

Later in his career, Smith choreographed “Pas de Deux for Phrygia and Spartacus,” a duet that the Dance Theatre of Harlem premiered in New York City in 2001. He also created works for the company’s educational program and helped lead master classes for young students in cities around the United States.

Smith is survived by his mother, Dorothy S. Smith, and two sisters, Pamela D. Smith and June Smith. Research more about African – American dance and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Oct

October 19 1936- Johnnetta Betsch

GM – FBF – Today’s History lesson is about an American Black educator, museum director, and college president.

Remember – “The trouble with a woman standing behind her man is that she can’t see where she is going!” – — Johnnetta B. Cole

Today in our History – October 19, 1936 – Johnnetta Betsch Cole was born.

Johnnetta Betsch Cole (born 1936) is an American anthropologist, educator, museum director, and college president. Cole was the first female African-American president of Spelman College, a historically black college, serving from 1987 to 1997. She was president of Bennett College from 2002 to 2007. During 2009–2017 she was Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art.

Cole served as a professor at Washington State University from 1962 to 1970, where she cofounded one of the US’s first black studies programs. In 1970 Cole began working in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she served until 1982. While at the University of Massachusetts, she played a pivotal role in the development of the university’s W.E.B. Du Bois Department of African-American Studies. Cole then moved to Hunter College in 1982, and became director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. From 1998 to 2001 Cole was a professor of Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies at Emory
University in Atlanta.

n 1987, Cole was selected as the first black female president of Spelman College, a prestigious historically black college for women. She served until 1997, building up their endowment through a $113 million capital campaign, attracting significantly higher enrollment as students increased, and, overall, the ranking of the school among the best liberal arts schools went up.[11] Bill and Camille Cosby contributed $20 million to the capital campaign.

After teaching at Emory University, she was recruited as president of Bennett College for Women, also a historically black college for women. There she led another successful capital campaign. In addition, she founded an art gallery to contribute to the college’s culture. Cole is currently the Chair of the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute founded at Bennett College for Women. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

She was Director of the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, during 2009–2017. During her directorship the controversial exhibit, “Conversations: African and African-American Artworks in Dialogue,” featuring dozens of pieces from Bill and Camille Cosby’s private art collection was held in 2015, coinciding with accusations of sexual assault against the comedian.

Cole has also served in major corporations and foundations. Cole served for many years as board member at the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation. She has been a director of Merck & Co. since 1994. She is the first woman elected to the board of Coca-Cola. From 2004 to 2006, Cole was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way of America and is on the Board of Directors of the UnitePresident-elect Bill Clinton appointed Cole to his transition team for education, labor, the arts, and humanities in 1992. He also considered her for the cabinet post of Secretary of Education.

But when The Jewish Daily Forward reported that she had been a member of the national committee of the Venceremos Brigades, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation had tied to Cuban intelligence forces, Clinton did not advance her nomination. Research more about American Black Woman Educators and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!