Category: Brandon Hardison

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was a physician and author noted for his efforts to create opportunities for African Americans in science, specifically for medical doctors.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was a physician and author noted for his efforts to create opportunities for African Americans in science, specifically for medical doctors. He was known both as the founder, editor and publisher of Medical and Surgical Observer (the first medical journal issued by an African American), as well as founding the University of West Tennessee College of Medicine and Surgery.Today in our History – December 30, 1892 – Miles Vandahurst Lynk publishes 1st Black medical journal. (June 3, 1871 – December 29, 1956).Lynk was born near Brownsville, Tennessee. He was named after two bishops, William Henry Miles and Richard H. Vandahurst, of the Christian Methodist Episcopal church in Jackson, Tennessee. Lynk attended Meharry Medical College for two years and graduated in 1891. Later that year, aged 19, he opened his own practice becoming Jackson’s first black doctor. On April 12, 1893, Lynk married Beebe Steven Lynk, one of the first African-American women chemists and chemistry teachers. Lynk died December 29, 1956, aged 85.Lynk spent much time developing educational and professional opportunities for African American physicians. In 1890 he and his wife, Beebe Steven Lynk, established the University of West Tennessee graduating at least 155 physicians as well as a number of pharmacists, nurses, dentists, and, through its law school, attorneys during its twenty-three years of existence. They took out a loan with their own home so they could purchase land for the college. Lynk was able to provide for African Americans who could not afford to go to school, and bring up the preparation that went in to going to medical school. During his time as president of the medical department of the University of West Tennessee he contributed to the founding of the National Medical Association. Lynk received the Distinguished Service medal of the National Medical Association at their 57th annual convention. In 1892, Lynk published the first national medical journal published for African-American practitioners. The Medical and Surgical Observer was stamped and labeled by the Library of the Surgeon General’s Office in Washington, D.C., as the “Only Negro M.J. in America.” The journal connected the isolated African-American medical practitioners across the United States. Although the MSO was published for only about a year, it served as a forum for black medical professionals, who were typically not welcomed in white society and medical conversations at the time. Its content informed African-American physicians of news and practical ideas throughout the world of medicine that they had not been informed of in the past. Since the journal existed during a time of racial segregation, its readers found this was another way to find information in order to compete with white medical practitioners. Lynk also published several books on African-American history, including The Black Troopers, or the Daring Heroism of the Negro Soldiers in the Spanish–American War. It discusses the lives of African-American soldiers during the war. The first half of the book strictly explored the lives of black soldiers. Lynk delved into the wealth of inequality they experienced, the impact of being drafted, and what that had on the soldier’s family, and the tribulations of being a soldier. The second half of the book examined the soldiers who volunteered in the Army to serve their country regardless of the racial tension and inequality. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was the first African American to be appointed to a US cabinet-level position. Prior to his appointment as cabinet officer, he had served in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. In addition, he had served in New York State government, and in high-level positions in New York City. During the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, he was one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed to positions and helped make up the Black Cabinet, an informal group of African-American public policy advisers. He directed federal programs during the administration of the New Deal, at the same time completing his doctorate in economics in 1934 at Harvard University.Today in our History – December 29, 1907 – Robert Clifton Weaver (December 29, 1907 – July 17, 1997) was born.Robert Clifton Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. His parents were Mortimer Grover Weaver, a postal worker, and Florence (Freeman) Weaver. They encouraged the boy in his academic studies. His maternal grandfather was Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, the first African American to graduate from Harvard in dentistry. The young Weaver attended the M Street High School, now known as the Dunbar High School. The high school for blacks at a time of racial segregation had a national reputation for academic excellence. Weaver went on to Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degree. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics, completing his doctorate in 1934. In 1934, Weaver was appointed as an aide to United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. In 1938, he became special assistant to the US Housing Authority. In 1942, he became administrative assistant to the National Defense Advisory Commission, the War Manpower Commission (1942), and director of Negro Manpower Service. With a reputation for knowledge about housing issues, in 1934 the young Weaver was invited to join President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet. Roosevelt appointed a total of 45 prominent blacks to positions in executive agencies, and called on them as informal advisers on public policy issues related to African Americans, the Great Depression and the New Deal.Weaver drafted the U.S Housing Program under Roosevelt, which was established in 1937. The program was intended to provide financial support to local housing departments, as a subsidy toward lowering the rent poor African Americans had to pay. The program decreased the average rent from $19.47 per month to $16.80 per month. Weaver claimed the scope of this program was insufficient, as there were still many African Americans who made less than the average income. They could not afford to pay for both food and housing. In addition, generally restricted to segregated housing, African Americans could not necessarily take advantage of other subsidized housing.In 1944, Weaver became director of the Commission on Race Relations in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago. In 1945, he became director of community services for the Chicago-based American Council on Race Relations through 1948. In 1949, Weaver become director of fellowship opportunities for the John Hay Whitney Foundation. In 1955, Weaver the first Black State Cabinet member in New York when he became New York State Rent Commissioner under Governor W. Averell Harriman. In 1960, he became vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board. In 1961, Weaver became administrator of the United States Housing and Home Financing Agency (HHFA). After election, Kennedy tried to establish a new cabinet department to deal with urban issues. It was to be called the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Postwar suburban development, following the construction of highways, and economic restructuring had drawn population and jobs from the cities. The nation was faced with a stock of substandard, aged housing in many cities, and problems of unemployment.In 1961, while trying to create HUD, Kennedy had done everything short of promising the new position to Weaver. He appointed him Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), a group of agencies which Kennedy wanted to raise to cabinet status.When Dr. Weaver joined the Kennedy Administration, whose Harvard connections extended to the occupant of the Oval Office, he held more Harvard degrees – three, including a doctorate in economics – than anyone else in the administration’s upper ranks. Some Republicans and southern Democrats opposed the legislation to create the new department. The following year, Kennedy unsuccessfully tried to use his reorganization authority to create the department. As a result, Congress passed legislation prohibiting presidents from using that authority to create a new cabinet department, although the previous Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower administration had created the cabinet-level U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under that authority.He contributed the compilation housing bill in 1961. He took part in lobbying for the Senior Citizens Housing Act of 1962.In 1965, Congress approved the department. At the time, Weaver was still Administrator of the HHFA. In public, President Lyndon B. Johnson reiterated Weaver’s status as a potential nominee but would not promise him the position. In private, Johnson had strong reservations. He often held pro-and-con discussions with Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the NAACP.]Johnson wanted a strong proponent for the new department. Johnson worried about Weaver’s political sense. Johnson seriously considered other candidates, none of whom was black. He wanted a top administrator, but also someone who was exciting. Johnson was worried about how the new Secretary would interact with congressional representatives from the Solid South; they were overwhelmingly Democrat as most African Americans were still disenfranchised and excluded from the political system. This was expected to change as the federal government enforced civil rights and the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As candidates, Johnson considered the politician Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago; and the philanthropist Laurence Rockefeller. Ultimately, Johnson believed that Weaver was the best-qualified administrator. His assistant Bill Moyers had rated Weaver highly on potential effectiveness as the new secretary. Moyers noted Weaver’s strong accomplishments and ability to create teams. Ten days after receiving the report, the president put forward the nomination, and Weaver was successfully confirmed by the United States Senate.Weaver served as Secretary of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968. Weaver had expressed his concerns about African Americans’ housing issue before 1930 in his article, “Negroes Need Housing”, published by the magazine The Crisis of the NAACP after the Stock Market Crash.He noted there was a great difference between the income of most African Americans and the cost of living; African Americans did not have enough housing supply because of many social factors, including the long economic decline of rural areas in the South. He suggested a government housing program to enable all the African Americans the chance to buy or rent their house.In 1945, Weaver began teaching at Columbia University.In 1969, after serving under President Johnson, Weaver became president of Baruch College. In 1970, Weaver became a distinguished professor of Urban Affairs at Hunter College in New York and taught there until 1978. In 1935, Robert C. Weaver married Ella V. Haith. They adopted a son, who died in 1962.Weavers served on the boards of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (1969–1978) and Bowery Savings Bank (1969–1980). He served in advisory capacities to the United States Controller General (1973–1997), the New City Conciliation and Appeals Board (1973–1984), Harvard University School of Design (1978–1983), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund and NAACP executive board committee (1978–1997). Robert C. Weaver died age 89 on July 17, 1997, in Manhattan, New York. Weaver received more than 30 honorary university degrees,[1] as well as the following:• 1962: NAACP Spingarn Medal• 1963: Russworm Award• 1968:o Albert Einstein Commemorative Awardo Merrick Moore Spaulding Award• 1975: Public Service Award of the US General Accounting Office• 1977: Frederick Douglass Award of the New York City Urban League• 1978: Schomberg Collection Award• 1985: Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences• 1987: Equal Opportunity Day Award of the National Urban League• 2000: Robert C. Weaver Federal Building HUD headquarters (which Weaver had dedicated in 1968)• 2006: “Robert Clifton Weaver Way” NE in Washington, DC• Undated: “Robert Weaver Avenue” “Robert Weaver Circle” inAustin, TexasResearch more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

/ In Brandon Hardison / Tags: / By Herry Chouhan / Comments Off on GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is best known as “Sugar”, he is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is best known as “Sugar”, he is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed from 1977 to 1997, winning world titles in five weight divisions; the lineal championship in three weight divisions; as well as the undisputed welterweight title. He was part of “The Fabulous Four”, a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of himself, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler.”The Fabulous Four” created a wave of popularity in the lower weight classes that kept boxing relevant in the post–Muhammad Ali era, during which he defeated future fellow International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Hearns, Durán, Hagler, and Wilfred Benítez.He was also the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses, and was named “Boxer of the Decade” in the 1980s. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1979 and 1981, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1976, 1979, and 1981. In 2002, he was voted by The Ring as the ninth greatest fighter of the last 80 years; BoxRec ranks him as the 23rd greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound.Today in our History – December 28, 1981 – Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard is named by Sports Illustrated magazine as the Sportsman of the Year, for World Welterweight champion from January 4, 1982. Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956).By his last retirement in 1991, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard had become the first fighter to win titles in five divisions-every weight class from welteweight to light heavyweight. He also had the distinction of being the first boxer ever to earn $100 million in purses. Handsome and glib outside the ring-and unusually crafty within it-Leonard beat a number of formidable opponents on his way to wealth and fame.Sports Illustrated correspondent William Nack called Leonard “the very embodiment of the American dream,” and claimed that the engaging boxer’s career “is the paradigm for the sport.”Melodrama played no small role in Sugar Ray Leonard’s professional life. He “retired” as early as 1976 and claimed to be through with boxing no fewer than four times; even at the age of 41, in 1997, Leonard insisted that he was still a competitive fighter, looking for a match. His numerous comebacks were celebrated with a great deal of hoopla, attesting to Leonard’s healthy ego, but they also proved that the fighter possessed unusual degrees of stamina and determination. Fighting through injuries that might have robbed him of his eyesight, overcoming drug abuse, and beating opponents who were expected to pulverize him became Ray Leonard’s signal achievements. As Nack put it, Leonard’s “was a remarkable performance, an exercise in guile, nerve, endurance and superior athleticism.”Ray Charles Leonard was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on May 17,1956. He is named not after a boxer but after jazz great Ray Charles, because his mother wanted him to be a singer. The fifth of seven children, Leonard grew up in Palmer Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Palmer Park is hardly a ghetto, but it is not a wealthy community by any means.Sports Illustrated correspondent Rick Reilly called the area “a poor, mixed neighborhood with more than enough trouble to go around.”Somehow the shy Ray Leonard was able to avoid the trouble. He sang with his sisters in a church choir and behaved himself in school. In a Washington Post interview, Leonard’s father called the fighter “a funny sort of kid” who “always hung back.” He continued: “ItBorn May 17, 1956, in Wilmington, NC; son ofCiceroand Getha Leonard; married Juanita Wilkinson January 19, 1980 (divorced, 1991); married Bernadette Robi (a model), August 20, 1993; children: (first marriage) Ray Jr., Jarre!. £Education: Graduated from high school in Palmer Park, MD.Amateurboxer, 1969-76; professional boxer, 1976-91. Became World Boxing Council (WBQ welterweight champion, 1979; won juniormiddleweight championship, 1981 ; became undisputed welterweight champion, 1981 ; in retirement, 1982-84; retired again after one fight, 1984-86; became middleweightchampion, 1987; became WBC super middleweight champion and light heavyweight champion, 1988; retired in 1991. Boxingcommentator and analystfortelevision broadcasts; star of exercisevideo Boxout, 1993. professional boxer, onefight with HectorCamacho, March 1, 1997, retired again.In the autumn of 1986, Leonard returned to serious training, challenged Marvin Hagler to a match, and began boasting that he could defeat one of the most savage and resourceful champions in middleweight history. Leonard and Hagler squared off in the spring of 1987. “By all logic,” Nack wrote, “in the face of all history, Leonard should never have been in that ring in the first place. Except for one sad, brief encounter with an unknown fighter in May 1984, he had not fought in five years and 50 days. And yet here he was, facing one of the most remorseless, murderous punchers in the …middleweight division, without a single tune-up to hone his boxing skills. What he was trying to do was unprecedented in the history of this consuming sport.”Amazingly, Leonard won the 12-round fight, deftly avoiding the punches of an aging Hagler. Nack declared that Leonard, the underdog, scored an “upset of upsets,” fought “magnificently, “and displayed “great courage and resolve.” After the Hagler match, Leonard decided to improve his physique even further. He added bulk and muscle, worked on his stamina, and strengthened his hands by punching the big bag. On November 7, 1988 he added two more WBC titles to his list by defeating then-super middleweight and light heavyweight champion Donny Lalonde, for the fourth and fifth championship titles he would earn in his career. Then, to the delight of promoters and boxing fans, he signed for a rematch with Thomas Hearns.The Leonard-Hearns fight in June of 1989 was preceded by all the usual publicity, with each boxer predicting his own victory. At one press conference, Hearns suggested that Leonard had used steroids to enhance his musculature. Leonard took the jibe in stride at the press conference, but afterwards he vehemently denied the suggestion, offering the counter opinion that Hearns had the proverbial “glass jaw.” Leonard told the Washington Post: ”I’m still ascending, still gaining altitude. I still have the desire, the self-discipline, the self-motivation.” Determined though he may have been, Leonard was only able to fight Hearns to a draw-and Hearns knocked him down twice. The match remains one of the most controversial of either fighter’s careers.Leonard took a year off after his meeting with Hearns to contemplate his future. With a 36-1-1 record, including 25 knockouts-and a fortune estimated at nearly $100 million-the specter of retirement began to loom again. Instead Leonard decided to fight the WBC junior middleweight champion Terry Norris, a man 11 years his junior. “I knew I had to fight again, “Leonard told Sports Illustrated.”I have to know that I’ve taken my talent as far as it can go. I want to be the guy who says, ’Leonard, it’s time to quit.’ I don’t want anybody else telling me that. It’s my life, my career, my decision.” Reserach more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event is The Legacy of Historically Black College and Universities on the Gridiron.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event is The Legacy of Historically Black College and Universities on the Gridiron.Today in our History – December 27, 1892 – Biddle College (now Johnson C. Smith University) played Livingstone College.With a few exceptions, Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) were established in southern states after the Civil War. Private schools were most often religious affiliated. The Morrill Act of 1890 required states to establish land grant colleges if African-Americans were excluded from attending existing state schools. With segregation rampant in the 100 years after the Civil War, the only alternative for African-American college bound students were HBCU’s.The FoundationThe first HBCUs were founded in Pennsylvania and Ohio prior to the American Civil War, with the purpose of providing youths, who were largely prevented, due to racial discrimination, from attending established colleges and universities. The first two HBCUs were Cheyney University and Lincoln University both in Pennsylvania.CheyneyThe oldest, chronologically, HBCU was founded on February 25th, 1837. The African Institute moved from its original home in Philadelphia to a farm 25 miles outside the city once it was owned by another Quaker named George Cheyney. Until that point, it had been a secondary school. In 1914, it was renamed the Cheyney Training School for Teachers and became an institution of higher learning and awarded its first degree. In those 77 years between its inception and its formalization as a university, 97 other historically black colleges and universities had been founded. Today the school is known as Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Although Cheyney no longer participates in football, their historical impact on and off the gridiron is undeniable.LincolnThe oldest, degree granting, HBCU was founded on April 29, 1854. Ashmun Institute was chartered by Presbyterian minister the Rev. John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson, who was a Quaker, to provide higher education in the arts and sciences for black men. In 1866, the school was renamed Lincoln University in honor of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. After a 48 year hiatus, Lincoln football returned on August 30, 2008 where they defeated George Mason University 34-7.Livingstone Mzimba (left) and Harry Mantanga (right), students from the eastern Cape, were ends on the Lincoln College football team in 1907 when this photograph was taken. After graduating, both returned to South Africa and became Presbyterian ministers.Before the SEC & ACC there were HBCUsOn December 27, 1892 the first Black intercollegiate football game was played in North Carolina. Biddle College (now Johnson C. Smith University) played Livingstone College on Livingstone’s snowy lawn. Little did those men know, they would change the game of football forever. Research more about this great American Sport and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Toda’s American Champion were often; greatness is determined by the times in which one finds oneself.

GM – FBF – Toda’s American Champion were often; greatness is determined by the times in which one finds oneself. For our champion, growing up in the earliest stages of the space race, he like most other boys was fascinated with space travel. Unlike most of those boys, he would ultimately go on to make some of the greatest contribution to ever benefit the space program.Today in our History – December 26, 2020 – George Carruthers dies.George Carruthers was born on October 1, 1939 in Cincinnati, Ohio.His father was a civil engineer while his mother was a homemaker. The family lived in Milford, Ohio and George was an avid science fiction reader and constructed model rockets with help and encouragement from his father. He also had an interest in astronomy and at age 10, built his first telescope with a cardboard tube and a lens he purchased through mail-order. When his father passed away suddenly, the family moved to his mother’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois. There George spent a lot of time in the Chicago libraries and museums and in the Adler Planetarium He joined various science clubs and was a member of the Chicago Rocket Society. He read with particular interest about the space exploits of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC and upon graduating from Englewood High School in 1957, he enrolled in the University of Illinois.Carruthers stayed at the University of Illinois for seven years, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1961, a Master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronomical Engineering in 1964 (his thesis focused on atomic nitrogen recombination). In his own words, “[W]hen I was in college, I was undecided whether to pursue aerospace engineering or astronomy as my major, so I decided to take courses in both of them.” While doing his graduate work, he also worked as a research and teaching assistant, working with plasma and gases. Upon finishing his Ph.D., he immediately accepted a position with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as a Research Physicist in 1964, having received a fellowship in Rocket Astronomy from the National Science Foundation.Upon joining the NRL, Carruthers focused his attention on far ultraviolet astronomy, observing the Earth’s upper atmosphere and other astronomical phenomena. In 1966, he became a research assistant at the NRL’s E.O. Hulburt Center for Space Research where he began research on ways to create visual images as a means for understanding the physical elements of deep space. He particularly focused on creating a device to analyze and illuminate ultraviolet radiation. His belief was “[T]he far ultraviolet… is of great importance to the astronomer because it allows the detection and measurements of common elements (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and many others) in their cool, unexcited state… This allows more accurate measurements of the compositions of interstellar gas, planetary atmospheres, etc..The ultraviolet also conveys important information on solid particles in interstellar space… and provides for much more accurate measurements of the energy output of very hot stars…”. In 1969, Carruthers received a patent for his invention the “Image Converter for Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation Especially in Short Wave Lengths” which detected electromagnetic radiation in short wave lengths.Further extending his his research, he was the principle inventor of the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph which would ultimately be used on the Apollo 16 mission to the moon. Ultraviolet (UV) light is the range of electromagnetic radiation that lies between visible light and X-Rays. UV light, thus allows us to take readings of and understand objects and elements in space that are unrecognizable to the naked eye. The 50 lbs., gold-plated camera system was able to record radiation existing in the upper half of the ultraviolet system of the atmosphere. The camera allowed views of stars and celestial bodies and looks into the solar system thousands of miles away, as well as of the earth. A second version of the camera was sent on the 1974 SkyLab space flight to study comets (it would be used to observe Halley’s, West’s and Kohoutek’s comets). One of the great uses of the camera was to permit a viewer to visually see the effects of pollution on the atmosphere. The camera also was able, for the first time, to detect hydrogen in space, which gave an indication that plants were not the only source of oxygen for the Earth and led to a renewed debate about the origin of stars.George Carruthers has continued to offer innovation in the areas of astronomy and physics and has been active in outreach programs seeking to bring science to youth around the country. He has been lauded for his efforts and achievements. He was named Black Engineer of the Year in 1987, awarded the Arthur Fleming Award in 1971, the Exceptional Achievement Scientific Award from NASA in 1972, the Warner Prize in 1973 and was inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2003. His success is primed to lead to greater achievements by those who follow in his footsteps in the future. Carruthers passed away on December 26, 2020, at a hospital in Washington Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion organization were perhaps the most influential African-American journals of the late 1850s and the Civil War era.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion organization were perhaps the most influential African-American journals of the late 1850s and the Civil War era. They were unique in that they served as forums for debate rather than simply reflecting the views of the publisher.December 24,1865 – The Weekly Anglo-African newspaper and the Anglo-African magazine folded. The Weekly Anglo-African newspaper and the Anglo-African magazine were perhaps the most influential African-American journals of the late 1850s and the Civil War era. They were unique in that they served as forums for debate rather than simply reflecting the views of the publisher. They were owned by the journalist Thomas Hamilton (1823–1865), the son of New York City community leader William Hamilton. He and his brother Robert were the editors.The Weekly Anglo-African, whose first issue was dated July 23, 1859, was a four-page weekly, with seven columns of large type to a page. It cost four cents per copy, with a yearly subscription price of two dollars. Its motto was “Man must be free; if not through the law, then above the law.” Unlike most black newspapers of the time, which published only a few issues before folding, the paper was an almost immediate success. It came to be respected for its sophisticated analysis of issues such as violent resistance to slavery, the ramifications of the Dred Scott Decision, and John Brown’s Raid.The Anglo-African magazine, a thirty-two-page monthly with a yearly subscription price of one dollar, began on January 1, 1859. It was one of the first illustrated African-American publications. Its prospectus proclaimed that the magazine was devoted to the cause of literature, science, statistics, and the advancement of the cause of freedom. Among its other features were biographies of outstanding figures such as actor Ira Aldridge, evaluations of the abolitionist cause, comic prose, and fiction.Many leading black writers and abolitionists, including Martin R. Delany, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, J. W. C. Pennington, and James Theodore Holly, were frequent contributors to the journals.Other luminaries, such as Frederick Douglass, William Cooper Nell, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Daniel Payne, and John Mercer Langston, wrote occasional pieces. The Anglo-African magazine, and later the Weekly Anglo-African, serialized Delaney’s novel Blake: or, The Huts of America, one of the first African-American novels (it was not printed in book form until 1970). Hamilton also was a book publisher. His list included such books as Robert Campbell’s A Pilgrimage to My Motherland: An Account of a Journey among the Egbas and Yorubas of Central Africa, 1859–1860 (1861) and William Wells Brown’s The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (1863).By early 1860, despite their critical success, the Hamiltons developed severe financial problems. The Anglo-African magazine ceased publication, and they sold the Weekly Anglo-African to James Redpath, a prominent white abolitionist and emigrationist. By fall 1861 they had regained control, with Robert Hamilton handling the business affairs. The radical abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, named “Editor of the Southern Department,” reported on events in Washington. During the Civil War, the paper covered war news and carried messages from black soldiers. Hamilton became a fervent supporter of the Republican Party, although he remained critical of northern discrimination. On March 29, 1862, he warned that northern prejudice was a “strong impediment” to black advancement. Hamilton and Garnet called for citizenship and proper education for freedmen. On September 9, 1865, in one of the paper’s last issues, Hamilton praised and defended northern black teachers who went south, claiming such work was blacks’ chief responsibility and greatest service. The newspaper folded in December 1865. Research more about this great American Champion event and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an African American inventor known for her patent for a gas furnace.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an African American inventor known for her patent for a gas furnace.Today in our History – December 23, 1919 – Alice H. Parker patented a system of central heating using natural gas.Alice H. Parker was an African American inventor famous for her patented system of central heating using natural gas. In the 1920s using natural gas to power a heating furnace was a revolutionary idea that conserved energy and paved the way for the central heating systems we all have in our homes today.Parker’s patent was filed on December 23, 1919 for her heating system invention. Her design allowed cool air to be drawn into the furnace, then conveyed through a heat exchanger that delivered warm air through ducts to individual rooms of a house. The concept of central heating was around before Parker was born, but her design was unique because it used natural gas as its fuel instead of coal or wood that had been previously used.Parker is said to have been inspired for her design because she felt her fireplace was not effective enough in warming her home through the cold New Jersey winters. Her invention was convenient because it meant that people did not have to go outside and chop or buy wood. It also decreased the risk of house or building fires that heating units posed by eliminating the need to leave a burning fireplace on throughout the night. Although her initial designs were never used, her idea that natural gas and ducts could be used to heat different areas of a house was a major step towards the heating systems use today.Very little is known about Alice Parker’s life. She was born in 1895, grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, and attended classes at the Howard University Academy in Washington D.C. The academy was a high school connected to Howard University, and in 1910 Parker earned a certificate with honors from the Academy.Parker’s filing a patent was a remarkable milestone, as she was an African American woman in the early 20th century since her filing for a patent preceded both the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement which subsequently removed many of the barriers that women of her generation faced. At this time, African American women had very limited opportunities and Parker’s receiving of a patent for her invention during that time was a truly unusual and outstanding achievement. Research more about this great American champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was the first African American to obtain a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in the United States.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was the first African American to obtain a Ph.D. degree in chemistry in the United States. He received his doctorate at the University of Illinois in 1916.Today in our History – December 22, 1884 Saint Elmo Brady was born.State Elmo Brady was born on December 22, 1884 in Louisville, Kentucky. Greatly influenced by Thomas W. Talley, a pioneer in the teaching of science, Brady received his bachelor’s degree from Fisk University in 1908 at the age of 24, and immediately began teaching at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Brady also had a close relationship with and was mentored by Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. In 1912, after his time at Tuskegee University, he was offered a scholarship to the University of Illinois to engage in graduate studies. Saint Elmo Brady was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity .Brady published three scholarly abstracts in Science in 1914-15 on his work with Professor Clarence Derick. He also collaborated with Professor George Beal on a paper published in Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry titled, “The Hydrochloride Method for the Determination of Alkaloids.” Professor Brady also authored three monographs on Household Chemistry for Girls.Brady completed a M.S. in Chemistry in 1914 and carried out his Ph.D. thesis work at Noyes Laboratory under the direction of Derick, writing a dissertation in 1916 titled “The Divalent Oxygen Atom.”]Many years later, he told his students that when he went to graduate school, “they began with 20 whites and one other, and ended in 1916 with six whites and one other.”Brady was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States, which he received from the University of Illinois in 1916.During his time at Illinois, Brady became the first African American admitted to the university’s chemical honor society, Phi Lambda Upsilon, (1914), and he was one of the first African Americans to be inducted into Sigma Xi, the science honorary society (1915).In November 1916, The Crisis—monthly magazine of the NAACP—selected Brady for its biographical sketch as “Man of the Month.”After completing his graduate studies, Brady taught at Tuskegee University from 1916 to 1920. Brady accepted a teaching position at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1920 and eventually became the Chair of Howard University’s Chemistry Department. In 1927 he moved to Fisk University to chair the school’s Chemistry department. He remained at Fisk for 25 years until his retirement in 1952. While serving as the chair for the Chemistry department at Fisk University, Brady founded the first ever graduate studies program at a Black College/University. After his retirement from Fisk, he taught at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.Brady’s legacy was his establishment of strong undergraduate curricula, graduate programs, and fundraising development for four historically black colleges and universities. In conjunction with faculty from the University of Illinois, he established a summer program in infrared spectroscopy, which was open to faculty from all colleges and universities.Talley-Brady Hall on the Fisk campus is named for Brady and another Fisk alumnus, Thomas Talley.Brady married Myrtle Travers and they had two sons, Robert and St. Elmo Brady, Jr. who worked as a physician.St. Elmo Brady died on December 25, 1966 in Washington, D.C. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Campion is an American actor and producer.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Campion is an American actor and producer. Widely regarded as one of the most popular actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing actor of all time (when cameo appearances are excluded). He rose to fame with films such as Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), Menace II Society (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), and Fresh (1994). Jackson continued acting gaining prominence for his collaborations with director Spike Lee in the films School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Oldboy (2013) and Chi-Raq (2015) and in the Quentin Tarantino films Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). For his role in Pulp Fiction, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2021 it was announced by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences that Jackson will be the recipient of the Honorary Academy Award. Jackson is a highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 150 films. His other roles include Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), Hard Eight (1996), Eve’s Bayou (1997), The Red Violin (1998), The Negotiator (1998), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its 2019 sequel/reboot, Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), The Other Guys (2010), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019). Jackson also won widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), and later voiced the role in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008). With his permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury; he subsequently played Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008), as well as guest-starring in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He will reprise this role in the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, which is set to premiere in 2022.Jackson has provided his voice for several animated films, documentaries, television series, and video games, including Lucius Best/Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018), Whiplash in Turbo (2013), the title character of the anime television series Afro Samurai (2007), and Frank Tenpenny in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004). In 2016, Jackson served as the narrator of the acclaimed documentary I Am Not Your Negro based on James Baldwin’s writings. Today in our History – December 21, 1948 – Samuel Leroy Jackson is born.Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. on December 21, 1948, the only child of Elizabeth Harriett (née Montgomery) and Roy Henry Jackson. He grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, and later died of alcoholism. Jackson met him only twice during his life. He was raised by his mother, a factory worker and later a supplies buyer for a mental institution; he was also raised by his maternal grandparents, Edgar and Pearl Montgomery, as well as extended family. According to DNA tests, Jackson partially descends from the Benga people of Gabon, and he became a naturalized citizen of Gabon in 2019. He attended several segregated schools and graduated from Riverside High School in Chattanooga. He played the French horn, piccolo, trumpet, and flute in the school orchestra. His stutter started during childhood. He learned to “pretend to be other people who didn’t stutter”. He still uses the word “motherfucker” to get through a speech block. He still has days where he stutters.Initially intent on pursuing a degree in marine biology, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. After joining a local acting group to earn extra points in a class, he found an interest in acting and switched his major. Before graduating in 1972, he co-founded the Just Us Theatre.After Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, Jackson attended King’s funeral in Atlanta as one of the ushers. He then travelled to Memphis, Tennessee, to join an equal rights protest march. In a 2005 Parade interview, he revealed, “I was angry about the assassination, but I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something different – not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence.” In 1969, Jackson and several other students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees (including Martin Luther King Sr.) hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the school’s curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change its policy, but Jackson was charged with and eventually convicted of unlawful confinement, a second-degree felony. He was then suspended for two years for his criminal record and his actions. He would later return to the college to earn a BA in drama in 1972. While he was suspended, he took a job as a social worker in Los Angeles. He decided to return to Atlanta, where he met with Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and others active in the Black Power movement. He began to feel empowered with his involvement in the movement, especially when the group began buying guns. However, before he could become involved with any significant armed confrontations, his mother sent him to Los Angeles after the FBI warned her that he would die within a year if he remained with the group. In a 2018 interview with Vogue, he denied having been a member of the Black Panther Party. In 1980, Jackson married actress and producer LaTanya Richardson, whom he met while attending Morehouse College. The couple have a daughter named Zoe (born 1982).[140] In 2009, they started their own charity to help support education. Jackson has said that he watches his own films in cinemas: “Even during my theater years, I wished I could watch the plays I was in—while I was in them! I dig watching myself work.”] He also enjoys collecting the action figures of the characters he portrays in his films, including Jules Winnfield, Shaft, Mace Windu, and Frozone.Jackson is bald but enjoys wearing wigs in his films. He said about his decision to shave his head, “I keep ending up on those ‘bald is beautiful’ lists. It’s cool. You know, when I started losing my hair, it was during the era when everybody had lots of hair. All of a sudden, I felt this big hole in the middle of my afro. I couldn’t face having a comb over so I had to quickly figure what the haircut for me was.” His first bald role was in The Great White Hype. He usually gets to pick his ow hairstyles for each character he portrays. He poked fun at his baldness the first time hen appeared bald on The Tonight Show, explaining that he had to shave his head for one role, but then kept receiving more and more bald roles and had to keep shaving his head so that wigs could be made for him. He joked that “the only way [he’s] gonna have time to grow [his] hair back is if [he’s] not working”. He is noted for often wearing a Kangol hat in public.Jackson has a clause in his contracts that allows him to play golf during film shoots. He has played in the Gary Player Invitational charity golf tournament to assist Gary Player in raising funds for children in South Africa. Jackson is a keen basketball fan, supporting the Toronto Raptors and the Harlem Globetrotters. He has supported English soccer team Liverpool FC since appearing in The 51st State, which was shot in Liverpool. He also supports Irish soccer team Bohemian FC.Jackson campaigned during the 2008 Democratic Primay forr Barack Obama in Texarkana, Texas. He said, “Barack Obama represents everything I was told I could be growing up. I am a child of segregation. When I grew up and people told me I could be president, I knew it was a lie. But now we have a representative… the American Dream is a reality. Anyone can grow up to be a president.” He also said, “I voted for Barack because he was black. That’s why other folks vote for other people—because they look like them”. He compared his Django Unchained character, a villainous house slave, to black conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, saying that the character has “the same moral compass as Clarence Thomas does”.In June 2013, Jackson launched a joint campaign with Prizeo in an effort to raise money to fight Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the campaign, he recited various fan-written monologues and a popular scene from the AMC series Breaking Bad. In August 2013, he started a vegan diet for health reasons, explaining that he is “just trying to live forever”, and attributed a 40 lb (18 kg) weight loss to his new diet. He had largely abandoned the diet by March 2017, but still praised it. He launched a campaign called “One for the Boys”, which teaches men about testicular cancer and urges them to “get themselves checked out”.In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Samuel L. Jackson encouraged people to wear masks during pandemic as part of the State of California’s Your Actions Save Lives campaign. Jackson along with Dwayne Johnson also encouraged coronavirus patients to donate blood plasma to help others fighting the virus. Jackson also read a satirical book, Stay the F*ck at Home, spreading awareness to social distance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event, shook the world and sent the Union in a tailspin with this treason’s act.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event, shook the world and sent the Union in a tailspin with this treason’s act.Today in our History – December 20, 1860 – South Carolina became the first Southern state to secede from the Union. The convention, which gathered in Charleston, concluded: “The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the ‘United States of America,’ is hereby dissolved.”The force of events moved very quickly upon the election of Lincoln. South Carolina acted first, calling for a convention to SECEDE from the Union. State by state, conventions were held, and the CONFEDERACY was formed.Within three months of Lincoln’s election, seven states had seceded from the Union. Just as Springfield, Illinois celebrated the election of its favorite son to the Presidency on November 7, so did Charleston, South Carolina, which did not cast a single vote for him. It knew that the election meant the formation of a new nation. The Charleston Mercury said, “The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.”We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention, assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the “United States of America,” is hereby dissolved. Within a few days, the two United States Senators from South Carolina submitted their resignations. On December 20, 1860, by a vote of 169-0, the South Carolina legislature enacted an “ordinance” that “the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘The United States of America,’ is hereby dissolved.” As GIST had hoped, South Carolina’s action resulted in conventions in other southern states. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas all left the Union by February 1. On February 4, delegates from all these states except Texas met in Montgomery, Alabama, to create and staff a government called the Confederate States of America. They elected PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS. The gauntlet was thrown. How would the North respond?Senator Crittenden’s two sons went on to serve as generals on opposite sides of the Civil War.A few last-ditch efforts were made to end the crisis through the Constitutional amendment. SENATOR JOHN JORDAN CRITTENDEN proposed to amend the Constitution to extend the old 36°30′ line to the Pacific. A few last ditch efforts were made to end the crisis through Constitutional amendment. SENATOR JOHN JORDAN CRITTENDEN proposed to amend the Constitution to extend the old 36°30′ line to the Pacific. All territory North of the line would be forever free, and all territory south of the line would receive federal protection for slavery. Republicans refused to support this measure.On March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration, the 36th Congress passed the Corwin Amendment and submitted it to the states for ratification as an amendment to the Constitution. Senator William H. Seward of New York introduced the amendment in the Senate and Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio introduced it in the House of Representatives. The text of the proposed amendment is as follows:”No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”Note that, much like the rest of the language in the Constitution prior to the Civil War, the proposed amendment never uses the word “slavery,” instead employing the euphemisms “domestic institutions” and “persons held to labor or service.” The proposed amendment was designed to reassure the seceding slave states that the federal government would not interfere with their “peculiar institution.” If it had passed, it would have rendered unconstitutional any subsequent amendments restricting slavery, such as the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery throughout the nation. The Corwin Amendment passed the state legislatures in Ohio, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Maryland. Even Lincoln’s own state of Illinois passed it, though the lawmakers who voted for it in Illinois were not actually the elected legislators but were delegates to a state constitutional convention.Lincoln supported the Amendment, specifically mentioning it in his first inaugural address:”I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service … holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. “The amendment failed to get the required approval of 3/4 of all state legislatures for a Constitutional Amendment, largely because many of the southern slave states had already seceded and did not vote on it.What was the President doing during all this furor? Abraham Lincoln would not be inaugurated until March 4. JAMES BUCHANAN presided over the exodus from the Union. Although he thought secession to be illegal, he found using the army in this case to be unconstitutional. Both regions awaited the arrival of President Lincoln and wondered anxiously what he would do. Research more about this great Treason’s act against the USA and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!