Category: 1950 – 1999

21May

May 21 1969- Willie Ernest Grimes

GM – FBF – Law and Order was at low on this HBSU Campus!

Remember – The streets looked like a war zone – Willie Ernest Grimes

Today in our History – May 21, 1969 – Police and National Guardsmen fired on North Carolina A&T Campus.

Willie Ernest Grimes was born in Winterville, North Carolina, a rural eastern town in Pitt County just outside Greenville. He grew up in a close knit family with his four siblings. Willie and his brother, George, who was four years younger, were the two youngest children and were especially close. His parents, Joe and Ella, were farmers.

Half the teachers at the high school Willie attended were A&T grads; therefore, it seemed like a natural decision for him to attend college there. Willie was known as a friendly and “good guy” among his classmates on campus. He worked part time and joined the Pershing Rifles, an Army ROTC fraternity.

In April 1969, the death of their grandfather brought the five Grimes’ siblings together. Although this was a sad occasion, Willie enjoyed being with his family and loved the home cooked meals that were prepared while he was there. He wondered when would he get home cooking like this again. When it was time for him to leave to go back to school, Willie told his family, “I’ll see you later” because his father always told him not to say goodbye.

On Wednesday night, May 21, 1969 Willie called home to tell his folks he had cashed his income tax refund check; his dad said that he would pick him up that week-end to take him home because the spring semester was nearly over. Later that night, he talked with his friends about the chaos taking place on A&T’s campus.

Three weeks earlier, at nearby Dudley High School, protests had erupted because of the results of a student council election. Claude Barnes, a junior at Dudley, had spoken out against the differences in the segregated schools and other issues of inequality and was considered a militant by Dudley High School administrators. By this time, student council elections had rolled around and because of his outspokenness, the administrators refused to let his name appear on the student council ballot but students wrote it in anyway which resulted in the win by Barnes. This victory was declared illegal by administrators causing Barnes and four of his friends to walk out of school and picket in protest. The next day nine students walked out.

Barnes has said he thinks the protest would have run its course but school authorities called the police which encouraged others to join the protest and on May 16, nearly four hundred students boycotted classes. Leaders in the African American community had asked school authorities to recognize Barnes’ election win; however, they would not.

On May 19, protests had exploded into violence and after two days, the violence got worse as police fired tear gas to disperse students as they threw rocks at the building where a representative from the schools’ central administration had set up an office. The hostilities spread to A&T’s campus where hundreds of N.C. A&T and Dudley High School students, including Barnes, were tear-gassed and beaten and/or arrested. Gunfire erupted between police and North Carolina National Guard troops on one side and people on the A&T campus on the other.

Willie and his friends decided to walk to Summit Avenue, less than a mile away, to buy food at a local fast food restaurant. They left Scott Hall to walk across campus. As they neared the edge of campus, gunshots were fired and Willie was hit near Carver Hall on A&T’s campus. Witnesses said someone fired on him from a car. Others said the shots came from an unmarked police car which was emphatically denied by the police. In the early hours on May 22, a speeding car carried Willie to Moses Cone Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival at 1:30 a.m. It was concluded that he died within fifteen to twenty minutes from a bullet that was lodged in the base of his brain.

Joe Grimes went to Greensboro the next morning and took Willie’s body back to Winterville.

The funeral of Willie Ernest Grimes, a twenty-year-old North Carolina A&T State University sophomore was attended by two thousand people, including many A&T students who came to pay their respects. The funeral was held at his high school to acommodate all who came. Grimes’ killing and the shootings of five police officers and two other students have never been solved.

Willie Grimes was described as “a studious young man… neither a militant nor an activist”. A memorial in his honor is located at the Memorial Student Union on the campus of A&T. Ella Grimes, Willie’s mother, and his sister, Gloria, still live in Winterville. Willie’s brother, George, is an A&T graduate. Like his brother, George joined the Army ROTC and pledged the Pershing Rifles fraternity. Make it a champion day!

19May

May 19 1968- The Original Last Poets

GM – FBF – I was in Junior High School (Junior High School #1) Trenton, NJ. In that school year all 5 Junior High Schools came together and went undefeated in Mercer County, NJ Footbal, Jr. # 3 defeated Jr. # 1 as we lost the city Basketball Championship for the first time in 10 years. We also lost the Baseball Championship to Jr.# 3 but ran away with the City Track Championship for 15 years going undefeated.With three weeks left until the end of the school year, as President of the 9th grade class, I still had one last party to host in our brand new common area named after Thurgood Marshall. I travled to Harlem, N.Y. and purchased some music (Bootleg out of a car trunk) of The Last Poets. I got permission of the building Principal and I played three songs of The Last Poets at the start, middle and end of the dance. Peace to the words of the Last Poets.

Remember -“There wouldn’t be an America if it wasn’t for black people. So you have some dedicated black Americans who will die a million deaths to save America. And this is home for us.” – Abiodun Oyowele

Today in our History – May 19, 1968 – The Original Last Poets were formed on Malcolm X’s birthday, at Marcus Garvey Park in East Harlem. On October 24th 1968, the group performed on pioneering New York television program Soul!.

Luciano, Kain, and Nelson recorded separately as The Original Last Poets, gaining some renown as the soundtrack artists of the 1971 film Right On!

In 1972, they appeared on Black Forum Records album Black Spirits – Festival Of New Black Poets In America with “And See Her Image In The River” and “Song of Ditla, part II”, recorded live at the Apollo Theatre, Harlem, New York. A book of the same name was published by Random House (1972 – ISBN 9780394476209).

The original group actually consisted of Gylan Kain, David Nelson and Abiodun Oyowele. Nelson left in the fall of 1968 and was replaced by Felipe Luciano, then Luciano left to start the Young Lords and was replaced by Alafia Pudim (later known as Jalaluddin Mansur). Following the success of the reformed Last Poets first album, Luciano, Kain, and Nelson reunited to record their only album Right On in 1967, the soundtrack to a documentary movie of the same name that finally saw release in 1971. (See also Performance (1970 film featuring Mick Jagger) soundtrack song “Wake Up, Niggers”.) The Right On album was released under the group name The Original Last Poets to simultaneously establish their primacy and distance themselves from the other group of the same name.

The Jalal-led group coalesced via a 1969 Harlem writers’ workshop known as East Wind. Jalal Mansur Nuriddin a.k.a. Alafia Pudim, Umar Bin Hassan, and Abiodun Oyewole, along with poet Sulaiman El-Hadi and percussionist Nilaja Obabi, are generally considered the best-known members of the various lineups. Jalal, Umar, and Nilaja appeared on the group’s 1970 self-titled debut LP and follow-up This Is Madness. Nilija then left, and a third poet, Sulaiman El-Hadi, was added. This Jalal-Sulaiman version of the group made six albums together but recorded only sporadically without much promotion after 1977.

Having reached US Top 10 chart success with its debut album, the Last Poets went on to release the follow-up, This Is Madness, without then-incarcerated Abiodun Oyewole. The album featured more politically charged poetry that resulted in the group being listed under the counter-intelligence program COINTELPRO during the Richard Nixon administration. Hassan left the group following This Is Madness to be replaced by Sulaiman El-Hadi (now deceased) in time for Chastisment (1972). The album introduced a sound the group called “jazzoetry”, leaving behind the spare percussion of the previous albums in favor of a blending of jazz and funk instrumentation with poetry. The music further developed into free-jazz–poetry with Hassan’s brief return on 1974’s At Last, as yet the only Last Poets release still unavailable on CD.

The remainder of the 1970s saw a decline in the group’s popularity. In the 1980s and beyond, however, the group gained renown with the rise of hip-hop music, often being name-checked as grandfathers and founders of the new movement, often citing the Jalaluddin solo project Hustler’s Convention (1973) as their inspiration. Because of this the band was also interviewed in the 1986 cult documentary Big Fun In The Big Town. Nuriddin and El-Hadi worked on several projects under the Last Poets name, working with bassist and producer Bill Laswell, including 1984’s Oh My People and 1988’s Freedom Express, and recording the final El Hadi–Nuriddin collaboration, Scatterrap/Home, in 1994.

Sulaiman El-Hadi died in October 1995. Oyewole and Hassan began recording separately under the same name, releasing Holy Terror in 1995 (re-released on Innerhythmic in 2004) and Time Has Come in 1997.

Their lyrics often dealt with social issues facing African-American people. In the song “Rain of Terror”, the group criticized the American government and voiced support for the Black Panthers.

More recently, the Last Poets found fame again refreshed through a collaboration where the trio (Umar Bin Hassan) was featured with hip-hop artist Common on the Kanye West-produced song “The Corner,” as well as (Abiodun Oyewole) with the Wu-Tang Clan-affiliated political hip-hop group Black Market Militia on the song “The Final Call,” stretching overseas to the UK on songs “Organic Liquorice (Natural Woman)”, “Voodoocore”, and “A Name” with Shaka Amazulu the 7th. The group is also featured on the Nas album Untitled, on the songs “You Can’t Stop Us Now” and “Project Roach.” Individual members of the group also collaborated with DST on a remake of “Mean Machine”, Public Enemy on a remake of “White Man’s God A God Complex” and with Bristol-based British post-punk band the Pop Group.

In 2010, Abiodun Oyowele was among the artists featured on the Welfare Poets’ produced Cruel And Unusual Punishment, a CD compilation that was made in protest of the death penalty, which also featured some several current positive hip hop artists.

In 2004 Jalal Mansur Nuriddin, a.k.a. Alafia Pudim, a.k.a. Lightning Rod (The Hustlers Convention 1973), collaborated with the UK-based poet Mark T. Watson (a.k.a. Malik Al Nasir) writing the foreword to Watson’s debut poetry collection, Ordinary Guy, published in December 2004 by the Liverpool-based publisher Fore-Word Press. Jalal’s foreword was written in rhyme, and was recorded for a collaborative album “Rhythms of the Diaspora (Vol. 1 & 2 – Unreleased) by Malik Al Nasir’s band, Malik & the O.G’s featuring Gil Scott-Heron, percussionist Larry McDonald, drummers Rod Youngs and Swiss Chris, New York dub poet Ras Tesfa, and a host of young rappers from New York and Washington, D.C. Produced by Malik Al Nasir, and Swiss Chris, the albums Rhythms of the Diaspora; Vol. 1 & 2 are the first of their kind to unite these pioneers of poetry and hip hop with each other.[8]

In 2011, The Last Poets Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan performed at The Jazz Cafe in London, in a tribute concert to the late Gil Scott-Heron and all the former Last Poets.

In 2014, Last Poet Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin came to London and also performed at The Jazz Cafe with Jazz Warriors the first ever live performance in 40 years of the now iconic “Hustlers Convention”. The event was produced by Fore-Word Press and featured Liverpool poet Malik Al Nasir with his band Malik & the O.G’s featuring Cleveland Watkiss, Orphy Robinson and Tony Remy. The event was filmed as part of a documentary on the “Hustlers Convention” by Manchester film maker Mike Todd and Riverhorse Communications. The executive producer was Public Enemy’s Chuck D. As part of the event Charly Records re-issued a special limited edition of the vinyl version of Hustlers Convention to celebrate their 40th anniversary. The event was MC’d by poet Lemn Sissay and the DJ was Shiftless Shuffle’s Perry Louis.

In 2016, The Last Poets (World Editions, UK), was published. The novel, written by Christine Otten, was originally published in Dutch in 2011, and has now been translated by Jonathan Reeder for English readers. Research more about Black poets and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

14May

May 14 1985- Osage Ave

GM – FBF – With Mother’s Day over I can now run what happened yesterday in the city of brotherly love back in 1985.

Remember – The Philadelphia police have declared war on it’s own people – Osage Ave. Resident

Today in our History – May14, 1985 –

The Day after a City Bombed Its Own People – It was 33 years ago yesterday that Philadelphia earned the sorry distinction of being the first U.S. city government to bomb its own people. More than three decades ago, Philadelphia police, after surrounding and engaging in a shootout with a group of mostly black members of the communalist group MOVE who were holed up in their row house on Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia, dropped two “satchel bombs” containing powerful C-4 explosive (provided by the FBI) onto the building’s roof. As firefighters, ordered not to take any action to put out the spreading flames from the explosions, stood by and watched, the MOVE house burned to the ground, killing 11 of the 13 people in the building, including five children and MOVE’s founder, John Africa. The inferno also destroyed 65 adjacent buildings, decimating two blocks of the mostly black lower-middle-class neighborhood.

At a federal trial a year later, a jury found that the city of Philadelphia had used “excessive force” and had violated the constitutional rights of lone adult survivor Ramona Africa and the dead victims. It awarded $1.5 million to her and the families of two of the victims.

In 1986, the city’s then mayor, W. Wilson Goode, impanelled a body, known as the MOVE Commission, to investigate the atrocity. Its conclusion, announced in 1986: “Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable.” It also found that “Police gunfire prevented some occupants of 6221 Osage Ave. from escaping from the burning house to the rear alley.” It is worth remembering this slaughter of innocents by uniformed personnel whose official duty was supposedly to “protect and serve” their community, at a time when the European Union is seeking the UN Security Council’s approval to begin bombing Libyan ports and ships to prevent African and Middle Eastern refugees from fleeing to Italy and Europe. It is worth remembering this slaughter when the U.S. is using remotely piloted missile-equipped drones to blow up homes and vehicle convoys in the hope of killing alleged terrorists, killing numerous innocent civilians in the process. And it is worth remembering this slaughter when a growing movement is developing to protest the murders of unarmed Americans, mostly people of color, by the nation’s increasingly militarized police.

Nobody in the city leadership of Philadelphia was ever prosecuted for the killing of the people in the MOVE house on Osage Avenue, though the incident was wholly instigated and orchestrated by city police. (The city paid to have the destroyed homes rebuilt, but they then had to be rebuilt again because of substandard construction.) This lack of accountability for a city’s murder, by bombing, of 11 of its residents, including children, is truly shocking. But it is perhaps less surprising when one sees that nobody has been called to account either for the officially sanctioned murder of hundreds of innocents by the U.S. targeted-killing drone campaigns in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria, and other countries, and when one recalls that only a few indictments have been handed down against any of the police officers who have been killing hundreds of unarmed people across the country every year. It’s ironic that the national media remain obsessed with the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man whose fate is being determined by a jury after his recent conviction for the Boston Marathon bombing, an act of terrorism that killed three people, while the 33th anniversary of the MOVE bombing—an event that was orchestrated by the police, and where the deaths were deliberate and intentional since the victims were not permitted to flee the burning building—goes largely unmarked. Meanwhile, one journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has not remained silent, and who has regularly memorialized that terrible event, writing from a prison cell or recording reports by phone for Prison Radio, is currently in grave danger.

Prison medical staff failed to notice that Abu-Jamal, currently serving a life sentence without chance of parole after a 1982 conviction for the killing of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, had lost some 60 pounds between January and March of this year. They took no action at all until he collapsed on the floor from sugar shock in late March. Rushed to a hospital with his blood-glucose level at a point where he was at risk of going into a diabetic coma and suffering renal failure, he was finally given insulin. But he was then returned to the prison—where he was immediately offered a meal of prison pasta. Prison officials have rebuffed efforts by Abu-Jamal’s family and supporters to have him treated by expert physicians knowledgeable about diabetes as well as about the serious skin eruptions that have been plaguing him. Yet Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections in the past allowed millionaire convicted murderer John Eleuthere du Pont to be treated by his own private physician in the prison.

Abu-Jamal’s supporters fear the state’s law-enforcement and prison system may be trying to accomplish what the federal courts, by overturning his death sentence as unconstitutional, prevented them from doing: silencing this voice of truth, but by medical neglect and malpractice instead of with a lethal injection. Meanwhile, here’s what Abu-Jamal had to say five years ago, on the 25th anniversary of the MOVE bombing: “May 13th, 1985 is more than a day of infamy, when a city waged war on its own alleged citizens, but also when the city committed massacre and did so with perfect impunity, when babies were shot and burned alive with their mothers and fathers, and the killers rewarded with honors and pensions, while politicians talked and the media mediated mass murder.” Research more about MOVE and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

12May

May 12 1968- Poor People’s Campaign

GM – FBF – “The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People’s Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy/Militarism and Our National Morality.” – I ask has there been any change for the poor in America?

Remember – “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing‐oriented” society to a “person‐oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today in oue History – May 12, 1968 – Poor People’s Campaign: A Dream Unfulfilled (50 Years Later) – In early 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders planned a Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., for the spring. The group planned to demand that President Lyndon Johnson and Congress help the poor get jobs, health care and decent homes.

Campaign organizers intended the campaign to be a peaceful gathering of poor people from communities across the nation. They would march through the capital and visit various federal agencies in hopes of getting Congress to pass substantial anti-poverty legislation. They planned to stay until some action was taken.

But weeks before the march was to take place, King was assassinated. His widow, Coretta, and a cadre of black ministers, including the Revs. Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson, decided they would pick up where King had left off and that the Poor People’s March on Washington would go forward.

Thousands of people participated in the march on May 12, 1968.

A week later, protestors erected a settlement of tents and shacks on the National Mall where they camped out for six weeks. Jackson became mayor of the encampment, which was called Resurrection City. Conditions were miserable.

Although as many as 50,000 people ended up marching, the Poor People’s Campaign was considered a failure by people who had grown weary of protesting and did not see immediate changes.

The closing was sort of unceremonious. When the demonstrators’ permit expired on June 23, some [members of the House of] Representatives, mostly white Southerners, called for immediate removal. So the next day, about 1,000 police officers arrived to clear the camp up of its last few residents. Ultimately, they arrested 288 people, including [civil rights leader and minister Ralph] Abernathy.

Although not much has changed for many poor Americans, the role of religion in the black community has changed greatly since the days when King and others wielded such power.

Over the years, megachurches have become more popular in black communities, just as they have in white communities. These megachurches have amassed influence and wealth partly because of their sheer number of parishioners. Some have created satellite churches and broadcast their gospel on television.

Research more about The Poor People’s Struggle in America by watching a video or reading books to your babies and make it a champion day!

09May

May 9 1967- Phillipa Duke

GM – FBF – To be young, gifited and black, here is one of the best. Enjoy!

Remember – “Everyone loves a prodigy […]. Prodigies get us off the hook for living ordinary lives. We can tell ourselves we’re not special because we weren’t born with it, which is a great excuse.” – Phillippa Duke Schuyler

Today in our History – May 9, 1967 – Black Child Prodigy star dies.

Phillippa Duke Schuyler was a child pianist, composer, and later journalist. Schuyler, born August 2, 1931, grew up in Harlem, and was the only child of George S. Schuyler, a prominent black journalist, and Josephine Cogdell, a white Texan from a wealthy and socially prominent family. Her parents were not Harlem civil rights crusaders, but rather conservatives and members of the John Birch society, who believed that interracial marriage and the resulting children could solve America’s race issue. They also fed Phillippa a strict raw food diet, believing that cooking removed all of the vital nutrients from food. By playing Mozart at the age of four and scoring 185 on an IQ test at the age of five, Phillippa quickly proved to her parents and the world that she was a child prodigy.

Phillippa began giving piano recitals and radio broadcasts as child, and with the help of her journalist father she quickly attracted an enormous amount of press coverage. In 1940 when she was nine, Phillippa became the subject of “Evening with a Gifted Child,” a profile written by Joseph Mitchell of The New Yorker, who heard several of her early compositions. Phillippa’s mother kept her isolated from other children by exclusively relying on tutors for her education. At the age of 13, Phillippa’s delusions and memories of her happy childhood were permanently tarnished when she stumbled across her mother’s scrapbook which described in detail how her parents thought of her as a genetic experiment. These feelings plagued Phillippa for the remainder of her life, and motivated her desire to travel, write, and play, so that she could find her place in the world.

She plunged herself into her music, and once she outgrew the child prodigy years she struggled to find a place in the American music community. On tour, especially in the South, she began to experience racial prejudice, something of which she had been mostly unaware during her sheltered upbringing. In order to continue to perform and make money, she became a world traveler, eventually visiting over 80 countries. Her world travels did not abate her sense of alienation from her native country and her parents and as a young woman Schuyler changed her name to Felipa Monterro and began to pass as white.

By her thirties, those world travels spawned her interest in journalism and afforded her fluency in numerous languages. Those travels placed her in dramatic locales at important moments of history. In 1960, for example, she was one of the few American journalists in Leopoldville (later Kinshasa), The Congo, to cover its independence. Through the 1960s she would author several books based on her experiences in world travel. Phillippa Schuyler died in a helicopter crash on May 9, 1967, when she, while working as a Vietnam War correspondent, attempted to evacuate a number of Vietnamese orphans threatened by an impending Viet Cong guerilla attack. Schuyler was 36. Research more about black child Prodigey stars and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

04May

May 4 1961- 13 Original Freedom Fighters

GM – FBF – I had a client in Anniston, Alabama for four (4) years. Every visit I always asked where is the monument for the freedom riders who’s bus was set ablaze? I asked hotel workers, local business owners, schools principls, etc. that was 2011 through 2015. I am happy to announce that on January 12, 2017, The Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston, Alabama opened. Enjoy!

Remember – “Traveling in the segregated South for black people was humiliating. The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to black people and white people that blacks were so subhuman and so inferior that we could not even use public facilities that white people used.” ~ Diane Nash, Freedom Rides Organizer

Today in our History – May 4, 1961 – The original group of 13 Freedom Riders—seven African Americans and six whites—left Washington, D.C., on a Greyhound bus on May 4, 1961.

Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause.
The 1961 Freedom Rides, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were modeled after the organization’s 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. During the 1947 action, African-American and white bus riders tested the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morgan v. Virginia that found segregated bus seating was unconstitutional.

The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. A big difference between the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation and the 1961 Freedom Rides was the inclusion of women in the later initiative.

In both actions, black riders traveled to the American South—where segregation continued to occur—and attempted to use whites-only restrooms, lunch counters and waiting rooms.

The original group of 13 Freedom Riders—seven African Americans and six whites—left Washington, D.C., on a Greyhound bus on May 4, 1961. Their plan was to reach New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 17 to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled that segregation of the nation’s public schools was unconstitutional.

The group traveled through Virginia and North Carolina, drawing little public notice. The first violent incident occurred on May 12 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. John Lewis, an African-American seminary student and member of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), white Freedom Rider and World War II veteran Albert Bigelow, and another African-American rider were viciously attacked as they attempted to enter a whites-only waiting area.

The next day, the group reached Atlanta, Georgia, where some of the riders split off onto a Trailways bus.

John Lewis, one of the original group of 13 Freedom Riders, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1986. Lewis, a Democrat, has continued to represent Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Atlanta, into the early part of the 21st century.

On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama. There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station.

The mob followed the bus in automobiles, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone threw a bomb into the bus. The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.

The second bus, a Trailways vehicle, traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, and those riders were also beaten by an angry white mob, many of whom brandished metal pipes. Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor stated that, although he knew the Freedom Riders were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at the station because it was Mother’s Day.

Photographs of the burning Greyhound bus and the bloodied riders appeared on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country and around the world the next day, drawing international attention to the Freedom Riders’ cause and the state of race relations in the United States.

Following the widespread violence, CORE officials could not find a bus driver who would agree to transport the integrated group, and they decided to abandon the Freedom Rides. However, Diane Nash, an activist from the SNCC, organized a group of 10 students from Nashville, Tennessee, to continue the rides.

U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, began negotiating with Governor John Patterson of Alabama and the bus companies to secure a driver and state protection for the new group of Freedom Riders. The rides finally resumed, on a Greyhound bus departing Birmingham under police escort, on May 20.

The violence toward the Freedom Riders was not quelled—rather, the police abandoned the Greyhound bus just before it arrived at the Montgomery, Alabama, terminal, where a white mob attacked the riders with baseball bats and clubs as they disembarked. Attorney General Kennedy sent 600 federal marshals to the city to stop the violence.

The following night, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led a service at the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, which was attended by more than one thousand supporters of the Freedom Riders. A riot ensued outside the church, and King called Robert Kennedy to ask for protection.

Kennedy summoned the federal marshals, who used teargas to disperse the white mob. Patterson declared martial law in the city and dispatched the National Guard to restore order.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders departed Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi. There, several hundred supporters greeted the riders. However, those who attempted to use the whites-only facilities were arrested for trespassing and taken to the maximum-security penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi.

During their hearings, the judge turned and looked at the wall rather than listen to the Freedom Riders’ defense—as had been the case when sit-in participants were arrested for protesting segregated lunch counters in Tennessee. He sentenced the riders to 30 days in jail.

Attorneys from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization, appealed the convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed them.

The violence and arrests continued to garner national and international attention, and drew hundreds of new Freedom Riders to the cause.

The rides continued over the next several months, and in the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals. Research more about the summer of ’61 in the south and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

April 26, 1984- Count Basie

GM – FBF – Now it’s time over the next two day to set objectives for the next quarter and the balance of 2018. Exeutive meeting still going on so I won’t be able to answer ant of your threads but I am glad that you stopped by. Today is N.J.’s own Count Basie!

Remember – “I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, ‘Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.” – Count Basie

Today on our History – April 26, 1984 – The Count Passes –

One of jazz music’s all-time greats, bandleader/pianist Count Basie was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music.

Count Basie was born on August 21, 1904, in Red Bank, New Jersey. A pianist, he played vaudeville before eventually forming his own big band and helping to define the era of swing with hits like “One O’Clock Jump” and “Blue Skies.” In 1958, Basie became the first African-American male recipient of a Grammy Award. One of jazz music’s all-time greats, he won many other Grammys throughout his career and worked with a plethora of artists, including Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald. Basie died in Florida on April 26, 1984.

His father Harvey was a mellophonist and his mother Lillian was a pianist who gave her son his first lessons. After moving to New York, he was further influenced by James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, with Waller teaching Basie organ-playing techniques.

Basie played the vaudevillian circuit for a time until he got stuck in Kansas in the mid-1920s after his performance group disbanded. He went on to join Walter Page’s Blue Devils in 1928, which he would see as a pivotal moment in his career, being introduced to the big-band sound for the first time.
He later worked for a few years with a band led by Bennie Moten, who died in 1935. Basie then formed the Barons of Rhythm with some of his bandmates from Motten’s group, including saxophonist Lester Young. With vocals by Jimmy Rushing, the band set up shop to perform at Kansas City’s Reno Club.

During a radio broadcast of the band’s performance, the announcer wanted to give Basie’s name some pizazz, keeping in mind the existence of other bandleaders like Duke Ellington and Earl Hines. So he called the pianist “Count,” with Basie not realizing just how much the name would catch on as a form of recognition and respect in the music world.

Producer John Hammond heard the band’s sound and helped secure further bookings. After some challenges, the Count Basie Orchestra had a slew of hits that helped to define the big-band sound of the 1930s and ’40s. Some of their notable songs included “One O’Clock Jump”—the orchestra’s signature tune which Basie composed himself—and “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.”

With the group becoming highly distinguished for its soloists, rhythm section and style of swing, Basie himself was noted for his understated yet captivating style of piano playing and precise, impeccable musical leadership. He was also helming one of the biggest, most renowned African-American jazz groups of the day.

Due to changing fortunes and an altered musical landscape, Basie was forced to scale down the size of his orchestra at the start of the 1950s, but he soon made a comeback and returned to his big-band structure in 1952, recording new hits with vocalist Joe Williams and becoming an international figure. Another milestone came with the 1956 album April in Paris, whose title track contained psyche-you-out endings that became a new band signature.

During the 1960s and ’70s, Basie recorded with luminaries like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson. Basie ultimately earned nine Grammy Awards over the course of his career, but he made history when he won his first, in 1958, as the first African-American man to receive a Grammy. A few of his songs were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as well, including “April in Paris” and “Everyday I Have the Blues.”

Basie suffered from health issues in his later years, and died from cancer in Hollywood, Florida, on April 26, 1984. He left the world an almost unparalleled legacy of musical greatness, having recorded or been affiliated with dozens upon dozens of albums during his lifetime.

My wife and I would travel from Edgewater Park, NJ to attend a lot of great performances at Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, NJ taht was before we moved to Georgia in 2006. Research more about this great American Hero and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

22Apr

April 22, 1983- Earl Hines

GM – FBF – “I don’t think I think when I play. I have a photographic memory for chords, and when I’m playing, the right chords appear in my mind like photographs long before I get to them.” — Earl Hines

Remember – “I always challenge myself. I get out in deep water and I always try to get back. But I get hung up. The audience never knows, but that’s when I smile the most, when I show the most ivory.” — Earl Hines

Today in ouir History – April 22, 1983 – Known as the “Father of Modern Jazz Piano,” Earl Hines played with such luminaries as Louis Armstrong and was an accomplished bandleader.

Born on December 28, 1903, in Duquesne, Pennsylvania, jazz pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines became known for his innovative style. He produced some of his most notable music alongside Louis Armstrong in the late 1920s, and later became a prominent bandleader. Following a late-career resurgence in popularity, Hines played regularly until his death from a heart attack on April 22, 1983, in Oakland, California.

Earl Kenneth Hines was born on December 28, 1903, in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. His father played cornet in a local brass band, and young Hines briefly tried the instrument before learning to play piano at age 9. He turned his interest to jazz piano after three years of classical lessons, and by 15 he was leading his own trio.

Hines was discovered by singer Lois Deppe, who helped the talented young pianist earn a job with Authur Rideout’s orchestra. Hines later joined Deppe’s Pittsburgh Serenaders, and made his recording debut with Deppe in 1922.

Hines became known for a “tricky” left hand that could play against time and deftly sway tempo before falling into line. With his right, he delivered horn-like solo lines in octaves, a technique he termed “trumpet style.”
After moving to Chicago in 1923, Hines toured with Carroll Dickerson’s orchestra and met an important friend and collaborator in Louis Armstrong. Hines became music director of the Louis Armstrong Stompers in 1927, and the two briefly owned a nightclub together. Although their business didn’t work out, they were magic when paired on piano and trumpet, producing such notable songs as “Weather Bird,” “Muggles” and “West End Blues.”

Hines’s works with Armstrong were part of a prolific 1928 for the pianist. He also recorded 12 unaccompanied piano solos, including “A Monday Date” and “57 Varieties,” and worked regularly with Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club. He celebrated his 25th birthday at the end of the year by debuting his new big band at the Grand Terrace Café.

With the Grand Terrace Café serving as his home base, Hines and his ensemble were one of the first black big bands to tour the South. He became known nationwide thanks to the growth of radio, earning the nickname “Fatha” from a disc jockey. In 1940, he scored a hit with one of his most popular songs, “Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues.”

Hines led a series of smaller groups after leaving Armstrong, primarily serving as leader of a Dixieland band in the 1950s. He went on tour in Europe with a group that included trombonist Jack Teagarden in 1957, but faded into obscurity as the new decade rolled in.

After critic Stanley Dance talked Hines into performing a couple of concerts at the Little Theatre in New York in 1964, the veteran jazz great enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. He was elected a member of Downbeat magazine’s jazz hall of fame in 1965, and the following year was part of a Unites States-sponsored tour in the Soviet Union.

Hines led his own small band into the 1980s and continued to perform regularly throughout the country. He delivered his final concert just weeks before his death from a heart attack in Oakland, California, on April 22, 1983. Research more of that musical style or listen to some of the music by Earl Hines and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Apr

April 19, 1968- Operation Equity

GM – FBF – I don’t think we can fix poverty without fixing housing, and I don’t think we can address housing without understanding landlords. – Fredrick Duglass

Remember – Good education, housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives, but I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they cannot solve the main Negro problem. – Malcolm X

Today in our History – April 19, 1968 Operation Equity

Although racially restricted housing covenants had been banned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, various forms of de facto housing segregation kept African Americans relatively isolated spatially in urban areas, including the city of Seattle. Many white homeowners in the years following the Court’s decision were apprehensive about letting black families into their communities for fear that it would lead to the deterioration of the neighborhood. In 1960, King County Superior Judge James W. Hodson ruled that private property owners had the right to choose who to sell to, effectively granting permission to realtors and homeowners to discriminate based on race.

Local civil rights leaders created the open housing movement in Seattle to challenge the type of thinking that was behind the 1960 county court decision. They advocated open housing which argued that people with resources should be able to purchase a home in any section of the city. They called for legislation which would make it illegal for individuals to discriminate against someone when selling property. Proponents of open housing were opposed to the isolation of black families in the Central District (the city’s African American area) where higher poverty rates and poor schools plagued the community. Local civil rights groups used various tactics to promote open housing, including a fair housing program known as Operation Equity, a program that would encourage black home purchases throughout the city and in its suburbs.

In 1967, the Seattle Urban League received a $138,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to expand Operation Equity. The program helped arrange the sale of property in white neighborhoods to black families. With help from the grant, Operation Equity was able to place an average of ten families per month in formerly all-white neighborhoods.

Despite some opposition from the black power movement and from conservative white home owners, open housing was eventually welcomed by blacks and whites in Seattle. On April 19, 1968, after two decades of civil rights activists fighting de facto residential segregation, the city council finally passed an open housing ordinance. Operation Equity was an important program in facilitating that transformation in Seattle. Research more about fair housing in your community and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

I will not be able to respond to any posts past 7:00 AM, I will be the MC at a automotive group walk around finals in Atlanta, GA. The Jim Ellis Automotive Group competition starts at 9:00 AM

18Apr

April 18, 1966- Bill Russell

GM – FBF – “Success is a result of consistent practice of winning skills and actions. There is nothing miraculous about the process. There is no luck involved.” – Bill Russell

Remember – “I hope I epitomize the American dream. For I came against long odds, from the ghetto to the very top of my profession. I was not immediately good at basketball. It did not come easy. It came as the result of a lot of hard work and self-sacrifice. The rewards, where they worth it? One thousand times over.” – Bill Russell

Today in our History – April 18,1966 – Bill Russell is announced to the press as coach of the Boston Celtics basketball team and became the first Black to coach an established team in professional athletics.

William Felton Russell (born February 12, 1934) is an American retired professional basketball player. Russell played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. A five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a twelve-time All-Star, he was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty, winning eleven NBA championships during his thirteen-year career. Russell ties the record for the most championships won by an athlete in a North American sports league (with Henri Richard of the National Hockey League). Before his professional career, Russell led the University of San Francisco to two consecutive NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956, and he captained the gold-medal winning U.S. national basketball team at the 1956 Summer Olympics.

Russell is widely considered as one of the greatest basketball players in NBA history. He was 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) tall, with a 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) wingspan. His shot-blocking and man-to-man defense were major reasons for the Celtics’ domination of the NBA during his career. He also inspired his teammates to elevate their own defensive play. Russell was equally notable for his rebounding abilities. He led the NBA in rebounds four times, had a dozen consecutive seasons of 1,000 or more rebounds, and remains second all-time in both total rebounds and rebounds per game. He is one of just two NBA players (the other being prominent rival Wilt Chamberlain) to have grabbed more than 50 rebounds in a game. Russell was never the focal point of the Celtics’ offense, but he did score 14,522 career points and provided effective passing.

Russell played in the wake of pioneers like Earl Lloyd, Chuck Cooper, and Sweetwater Clifton, and he was the first African American player to achieve superstar status in the NBA. He also served a three-season (1966–69) stint as player-coach for the Celtics, becoming the first African-American coach in North American pro sports and the first to win a world championship. In 2011, Barack Obama awarded Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his accomplishments on the court and in the Civil Rights Movement.

Russell is one of seven players in history to win an NCAA Championship, an NBA Championship, and an Olympic gold medal. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was selected into the NBA 25th Anniversary Team in 1971 and the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, and named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, one of only four players to receive all three honors. In 2007, he was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame. In Russell’s honor the NBA renamed the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player trophy in 2009: it is now the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. Many talk about who is the GOAT in Professional Basketball but to be a player – coach and win an NBA Championship, no one after Bill has done that. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!