GM – FBF – Today’s story is for all of the people who enjoy the written word. This son of slaves takes all opportunities to be the best that he could be as a writer. Many black people will learn and go on to move the works of writing with expression further than any would have guessed. Enjoy!

Remember – “If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves” – . Jupiter Hammon

Today in our History – October 17, 1711 – Jupiter Hammon was born.

Jupiter Hammon (October 17, 1711 – before 1806) was a black poet who in 1761 became the first African-American writer to be published in the present-day United States. Additional poems and sermons were also published. Born into slavery, Hammon was never emancipated. He was living in 1790 at the age of 79, and died by 1806. A devout Christian, he is considered one of the founders of African-American literature.

Born in 1711 in a house now known as Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor, NY – per a Town of Huntington, NY historical marker dated 1990 – Hammon was held by four generations of the Lloyd family of Queens on Long Island, New York. His parents were both slaves held by the Lloyds. His mother and father were part of the first shipment of slaves to the Lloyd’s estate in 1687. Unlike most slaves, his father, named Obadiah, had learned to read and write.

The Lloyds encouraged Hammon to attend school, where he also learned to read and write. Jupiter attended school with the Lloyd children. As an adult, he worked for them as a domestic servant, clerk, farmhand, and artisan in the Lloyd family business. He worked alongside Henry Lloyd (the father) in negotiating deals. Henry Lloyd said that Jupiter was so efficient in trade deals because he would quickly get the job done. He became a fervent Christian, as were the Lloyds.
His first published poem, “An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries: Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr. Lloyd of Queen’s Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760,” appeared as a broadside in 1761.

Eighteen years passed before his second work appeared in print, “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley.” Hammon wrote this poem while Lloyd had temporarily moved himself and the slaves he owned to Hartford, Connecticut, during the Revolutionary War. Hammon saw Wheatley as having succumbed to pagan influences in her writing, and so the “Address” consisted of twenty-one rhyming quatrains, each accompanied by a related Bible verse, that he thought would compel Wheatley to return to a Christian path in life. He would later publish two other poems and three sermon essays.

Although not emancipated, Hammon participated in new Revolutionary War groups such as the Spartan Project of the African Society of New York City. At the inaugural meeting of the African Society on September 24, 1786, he delivered his “Address to the Negroes of the State of New-York”, also known as the “Hammon Address.” He was seventy-six years old and had spent his lifetime in slavery. He said, “If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves.” He also said that, while he personally had no wish to be free, he did wish others, especially “the young negroes, were free.”

The speech draws heavily on Christian motifs and theology. For example, Hammon said that Black people should maintain their high moral standards because being slaves on Earth had already secured their place in heaven. He promoted gradual emancipation as a way to end slavery. Scholars think perhaps Hammon supported this plan because he believed that immediate emancipation of all slaves would be difficult to achieve. New York Quakers, who supported abolition of slavery, published his speech. It was reprinted by several abolitionist groups, including the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

In the two decades after the Revolutionary War and creation of the new government, northern states generally abolished slavery. In the Upper South, so many slaveholders manumitted slaves that the proportion of free blacks among African Americans increased from less than one percent in 1790 to more than 10 percent by 1810. In the United States as a whole, by 1810 the number of free blacks was 186,446, or 13.5 percent of all African Americans.

Hammon’s speech and his poetry are often included in anthologies of notable African-American and early American writing. He was the first known African American to publish literature within the present-day United States (in 1773, Phillis Wheatley, also an American slave, had her collection of poems first published in London, England). His death was not recorded. He is thought to have died sometime around 1806 and is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on the Lloyd property.

While researching the writer, UT Arlington doctoral student Julie McCown stumbled upon a previously unknown poem written by Hammon stored in the Manuscripts and Archives library at Yale University. The poem, dated 1786, is described by McCown as a ‘shifting point’ in Jupiter Hammon’s worldview surrounding slavery. Research more about Black writers and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Our story for today is of a Black man who was well known on the west cost for his tenacity at his profession. Some liked him and some hated him but no matter what he worked in a style that was clearly his own. The world got a chance to see him at work and when it was over no one could say that he was not great at what he did. He left us too soon but his name still lives on because of the younger ones in his profession who are carrying on his work in the flamboyant style that was his alone. Enjoy!

Remember “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” – Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran

Today in our History – October 2, 1937 – Johnnie L. Cochran was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Johnnie Cochran eventually established himself as a sought after attorney dealing with high-profile police brutality cases involving the African-American community. He attracted famous clients like Michael Jackson and led O. J. Simpson’s defense team in the 1995 murder trial. Amidst much debate over the case, Cochran entered the national spotlight and became a celebrity himself, making screen appearances and writing his memoirs. He died on March 29, 2005.

The son of Hattie and Johnnie L. Cochran Sr. The family moved to California in 1943, where the younger Cochran eventually excelled as a student in what was becoming a more racially integrated environment. In 1959, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and later attended Loyola Marymount University Law School, graduating in 1962. Upon passing the bar, Cochran worked as a deputy criminal prosecutor in Los Angeles. By mid-decade, he’d entered private practice with Gerald Lenoir and soon launched a firm of his own—Cochran, Atkins & Evans.

Around this time, Cochran began to build a reputation for taking on cases involving questionable police actions against African Americans. In 1966, a black motorist named Leonard Deadwyler, while attempting to get his pregnant wife to a hospital, was killed by police officer Jerold Bova. Cochran filed a civil suit on behalf of Deadwyler’s family; though he lost, the attorney was nonetheless inspired to take on police abuse cases over the ensuing years. During the early 1980s, he oversaw a settlement for the family of African-American football player Ron Settles, who died in a police cell under questionable circumstances. The following decade, Cochran won a huge, unprecedented court payment for a 13-year-old molested by an officer.

In the early 1970s, Cochran also went to court in defense of Geronimo Pratt, a former Black Panther accused of murder. Pratt was convicted and imprisoned, while Cochran maintained that the activist was railroaded by authorities, pushing for a retrial. (The conviction was eventually overturned after more than two decades. Pratt was released, with Cochran also overseeing a wrongful imprisonment suit.) In 1978, Cochran once again became part of the city’s legal force when he joined the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, although he eventually returned to private practice.

Over the years, Cochran’s roster included famous entertainers like actor Todd Bridges, who was charged with attempted murder, and pop icon Michael Jackson, with Cochran arranging an out-of-court settlement for the singer in relation to child molestation charges.

In 1994, Cochran joined Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro, Barry Scheck and Robert Kardashian to form the core of the so-called “dream team” of lawyers hired to defend athlete/actor O.J. Simpson in his trial for the murders of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. The “trial of the century,” as it was dubbed, began in January 1995 and was among the most publicized in history, followed by millions around the world.

Cochran, displaying his trademark style, came to lead the team, with some conflict rising among the attorneys amidst sensational proceedings. Upon Simpson trying on bloodied gloves that prosecutors alleged were used during the murder, Cochran came up with a phrase that would become famous: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Under the auspices of Bailey, who had a private investigator background, the team also discovered that detective Mark Fuhrman had made racist, highly incendiary remarks about African-American citizens. Cochran thus made controversial closing statements in which he compared the detective’s philosophy to that of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Simpson was found not guilty in his murder trial, yet nonetheless faced civil litigation, with millions in damages awarded to the Brown and Goldman families. 
Because of widespread coverage of the Simpson trial, Cochran entered the superstar realm of celebrity, reportedly receiving a $2.5 million advance to write his memoirs.

Yet more controversy followed the lawyer when items from his personal life were publicly revealed. His first wife, Barbara Cochran Berry, wrote her own memoir—Life After Johnnie Cochran: Why I Left the Sweetest Talking, Most Successful Black Lawyer in L.A.—accusing her ex-husband of cruel behaviors that included physical and emotional abuse. Cochran’s longtime mistress, Patricia Sikora, also spoke out against the attorney.

Cochran penned the books Journey to Justice (1996) and A Lawyer’s Life (2002). He appeared on Court TV’s Inside America’s Courts and was also featured on a number of TV programs, including Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Chris Rock Show and The Roseanne Show as well as the Spike Lee film Bamboozled (2000). Cochran continued to take on new cases into the new millennium, ranging from work for clients like Abner Louima, who was tortured while in New York City police custody and rapper/music mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs, to an anti-trust litigation issued against racing giant NASCAR.

In 2004, Cochran’s associates revealed that he was suffering from an undisclosed illness. He died from a brain tumor on March 29, 2005, at the age of 67. Research more about this great American lawyer and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!