GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion signed a bill Abolition in the District of ColumbiaOn April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, an important step in the long road toward full emancipation and enfranchisement for African Americans.Today in our History – April 16, 1862 – President Lincoln ends abolition in the Nation’s capital.“Celebration of the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia by the Colored People, in Washington, April 19, 1866.” Frederick Dielman, artist; Illus. in: Harper’s weekly, v. 10, no. 489 (1866 May 12), p. 300. The Civil War. The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship.This illustration from Harper’s Weekly depicts the fourth anniversary of the District’s Emancipation Act. On April 19, 1866, African American citizens of Washington, D.C., staged a huge celebration.Approximately 5,000 people marched up Pennsylvania Avenue, past 10,000 cheering spectators, to Franklin Square for religious services and speeches by prominent politicians. Two of the black regiments that had gained distinction in the Civil War led the procession.Before 1850, slave pens, slave jails, and auction blocks were a common site in the District of Columbia, a hub of the domestic slave trade. In the words of one slave who worked for a time in the District’s Navy Yard:…I generally went up into the city to see the new and splendid buildings; often walked as far as Georgetown, and made many new acquaintances among the slaves, and frequently saw large numbers of people of my color chained together in long trains, and driven off towards the South.Charles Ball, “Fifty Years in Chains or The Life of an American Slave External,” 18-19, in First-Person Narratives of the American South ExternalAs slavery became less profitable in the border states, many traders purchased slaves and shipped them to the Deep South.In cities such as New Orleans, slaves often were resold at a higher price to cotton, rice, and indigo plantation owners. Abolitionists petitioned Congress in 1828 to abolish the District’s notorious trade. Yet, despite the efforts of John Quincy Adams and others, Congress gagged discussion of the issue for nearly 20 years.In 1849, Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln attempted to introduce a bill for gradual emancipation of all slaves in the District. Although the District’s slave trade ended the following year, his emancipation attempt was aborted by Senator John C. Calhoun and others.As president, Lincoln was better able to effect the issue. He saw slavery as morally wrong yet held it to be an institution dying under its own weight, to be abolished by voter consent. But, as commander in chief, Lincoln also realized the military expediency of emancipation. He abolished slavery in the Capital five months prior to issuing his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The law he signed eventually provided District slave holders compensation for 2,989 slaves.Twenty-one years later, on April 16, 1883, Frederick Douglass spoke at a commemoration of abolition in the District. He called attention to African Americans’ continued struggle for civil rights:It is easy to break forth in joy and thanksgiving for Emancipation in the District of Columbia, to call up the noble sentiments and the starting events which made that measure possible. It is easy to trace the footsteps of the [N]egro in the past, marked as they are all the way along with blood. But the present occasion calls for something more. How stands the [N]egro to-day?Research more about this great American Champion and shear it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – Today’s American Champion is an American former professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two more as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving have called him the greatest basketball player of all time.After winning 71 consecutive basketball games on his high school team in New York City, Alcindor was recruited by Jerry Norman, the assistant coach of UCLA, where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship teams and was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After leading the Bucks to its first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark “skyhook” shot, he established himself as one of the league’s top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career and won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar’s contributions were a key component in the “Showtime” era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and got past the first round 14 times; his teams reached the NBA Finals on 10 occasions.At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA’s all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), career wins (1,074), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leader in points scored, field goals made, and career wins. He is ranked third all-time in both rebounds and blocked shots. In 2007, ESPN voted him the greatest center of all time,[8] in 2008, they named him the “greatest player in college basketball history”,[9] and in 2016, they named him the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan). Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Today in our History – April 16, 1947 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.American collegiate and professional basketball player who, as a 7-foot 2-inch- (2.18-metre-) tall centre, dominated the game throughout the 1970s and early ’80s.Alcindor played for Power Memorial Academy on the varsity for four years, and his total of 2,067 points set a New York City high-school record (that has since been broken). His offensive skill was so developed coming out of high school that the collegiate basketball rules committee, fearing he would be able to score at will, made dunking illegal prior to his enrollment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 1965. Despite the new rule, he set a UCLA scoring record with 56 points in his first game. Playing for renowned coach John Wooden, Alcindor helped lead UCLA to three National Collegiate Athletic Association championships (1967–69), and during his stay at UCLA the team lost only two games. The no-dunking rule was rescinded in the years after Alcindor graduated.Alcindor joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) Milwaukee Bucks for the 1969–70 season and was named Rookie of the Year. In 1970–71 the Bucks won the NBA championship, and Alcindor led the league in scoring (2,596 points) and points-per-game average (31.7), as he did in 1971–72 (2,822 points; 34.8). Having converted to Islam while at UCLA, Alcindor took the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971. In 1975 he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, who won the NBA championship in 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988. In 1984 he surpassed Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring total of 31,419 points.Although Abdul-Jabbar lacked the physical strength of NBA centres Chamberlain and Willis Reed, he brought an excellent shooting touch to the position and a wide range of graceful post moves, including his sweeping, nearly indefensible sky hook. He also was an outstanding passer. Abdul-Jabbar retired at the end of the 1988–89 season, having been voted NBA Most Valuable Player a record six times. By the end of his extraordinarily long career, he had set NBA records for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar had also amassed the most blocked shots in league history (3,189; since broken by Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo) and the third most career rebounds (17,440). He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995 and was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1996.Away from the basketball court, Abdul-Jabbar pursued interests in acting and writing. He appeared on television and in a handful of films, including a memorable turn as a copilot in the comedy Airplane! (1980). His autobiography, Giant Steps, was published in 1983. His writings on the African American experience also included Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement (1996; with Alan Steinberg), Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes (2004; with Anthony Walton), On the Shoulders of Giants: My Personal Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance (2007; with Raymond Obstfeld), and the children’s book What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors (2012; with Obstfeld). In addition, he wrote Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship on and off the Court (2017) as well as a mystery series (with Anna Waterhouse) about Sherlock Holmes’s older brother, Mycroft: Mycroft Holmes (2015), Mycroft and Sherlock (2018), and Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (2019). Abdul-Jabbar also did some basketball coaching and consulting, including a stint on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona. In 2016 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 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GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was the first Black professional American football player. He played for the Shelby Blues of the “Ohio League” from 1902 to 1906. On September 16, 1904, he signed a contract with Shelby making him the first Black man contracted to play professional football on an integrated team. He was also the first Black catcher to move from college baseball into the Negro leagues. Today in our History – April 15, 1910 – Charles W. Follis, a.k.a. “The Black Cyclone,” (February 3, 1879 – April 15, 1910) died.The first African American professional football player, Charles W. Follis, was born February 3, 1879, in Cloverdale, Virginia. The Follis family moved to Wooster, Ohio, where he attended Wooster High School and participated in organizing and establishing the first varsity football team. He played right halfback and served as team captain on a squad that had no losses that year.In1901, Follis entered the College of Wooster. Rather than playing football for the college, he played for the town’s amateur football team – the Wooster Athletic Association, where he earned the nickname of the “Black Cyclone from Wooster.”In 1902, Frank C. Schieffer, manager of the Shelby Athletic Club secured employment for Follis at Howard Seltzer and Sons Hardware Store in rural Shelby, Ohio. The six-foot, 200-pound Follis played for Shelby in 1902 and 1903.In 1904, Follis signed a contract with the Shelby Athletic Club, later the Shelby Blues. With that contract, he became the first professional African American football player. Follis played on the team with Branch Rickey, the Ohio Wesleyan University student and future Brooklyn Dodger owner who would sign Jackie Robinson to integrate major league baseball in 1947.Like other players who integrated sports teams, Follis faced discrimination. Players on opposing teams targeted Follis with a rough play that resulted in injuries. At a game in Toledo in 1905, fans taunted him with racial slurs until the Toledo team captain addressed the crowd and asked them to stop. In Shelby, Follis joined his teammates at a local tavern after a game; the owner denied him entry. At the Thanksgiving Day game of the 1906 season, Follis suffered a career-ending injury.Follis turned to baseball, a sport he played for many years in the spring and summer. Having played for the Wooster College and in the Ohio Trolley League, Follis was an experienced baseball player, but could only play in segregated baseball leagues. He played for the Cuban Giants, a black baseball team, as a catcher.On April 15, 1910, at the age of 31, Follis died of pneumonia in Cleveland, after playing in a Cuban Giants game. He was buried in Wooster Cemetery in Wooster, Ohio. 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 professional baseball player.Howard on the field was a catcher, left fielder and coach. During a 14-year baseball career, he played in the Negro leagues and Major League Baseball from 1948 through 1968, primarily for the New York Yankees. He also played for the Kansas City Monarchs and the Boston Red Sox.In 1955, he was the first African American player on the Yankees roster; this was eight years after Jackie Robinson had broken the MLB color barrier in 1947. Howard was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player for the 1963 pennant winners after finishing third in the league in slugging average and fifth in home runs, becoming the first black player in AL history to win the honor. He won Gold Glove Awards in 1963 and 1964, in the latter season setting AL records for putouts and total chances in a season. His lifetime fielding percentage of .993 as a catcher was a major league record from 1967 to 1973, and he retired among the AL career leaders in putouts (7th, 6,447) and total chances (9th, 6,977).Today in our History – April 14, 1955 – Elston Gene Howard (February 23, 1929 – December 14, 1980) made the Yankees’ major league roster at the start of the 1955 season. On April 14, 1955 (the second game of the season), Howard made his major league debut when he entered the game in the sixth inning as a left fielder. Howard was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Travis Howard and Emaline Hill, a nurse at a local hospital. When he was six years old, his parents divorced and his mother remarried. Howard was a standout athlete at Vashon High School.In 1948, nineteen-year-old Howard turned down college football scholarship offers from Illinois, Michigan, and Michigan State and instead signed to play professional baseball for $500 a month with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League under manager Buck O’Neil. He was an outfielder for three seasons and in 1950 roomed with Ernie Banks. The Yankees signed Howard on July 19, 1950, after he was purchased along with Frank Barnes. They were assigned to the Muskegon Clippers, the Yankees’ farm team in the Central League. Howard missed the 1951 and 1952 seasons due to his military service in the U.S. Army.In 1953, Howard played for the Kansas City Blues of the Class AAA American Association. The next year, the Yankees invited Howard to spring training and converted him into a catcher, despite the presence of Yogi Berra as the Yankees’ starting catcher. He played with the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Class AAA International League in 1954, where he led the league in triples, with 16, to go along with 22 home runs, 109 runs batted in and a .330 average, winning the league’s MVP award.The Yankees assigned Bill Dickey to work with Howard in order to develop his catching skills. Howard made the Yankees’ major league roster at the start of the 1955 season. On April 14, 1955 (the second game of the season), Howard made his major league debut when he entered the game in the sixth inning as a left fielder. Howard hit a single in his only plate appearance of the day. He became the first African American to play for the Yankees.[3] Howard was known to be very slow afoot. When Howard first came to the Yankees, Stengel referred to him as “Eightball”. Howard made his first start on April 28, because it was difficult to find room for Howard in the lineup. Berra won his third MVP award in 1955, and Mickey Mantle and Hank Bauer were solid outfield regulars. Stengel used Howard as a backup catcher and occasional outfielder; he competed for playing time with Norm Siebern and Enos Slaughter. He hit .290 with 10 home runs and 43 runs batted in (RBIs) in 97 games played for the season. In the 1955 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, Howard hit a home run off of Don Newcombe in his first at bat in the second inning of Game 1. The round tripper tied the game at 2-2, and the Yankees went on to win the game, 6-5. Howard’s ground ball out to Pee Wee Reese in Game 7 ended the Series; it was the first time in six meetings that the Yankees had lost to Brooklyn. In the 1956 World Series against Brooklyn he played only in Game 7, but his solo home run off Newcombe in the fourth inning was one of four Yankee HRs in Johnny Kucks’ 9-0 victory. Against the Milwaukee Braves in the 1957 World Series, his three-run homer off Warren Spahn with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 4 tied the score 4-4, though Milwaukee won 7-5 in the 10th inning. As the Yankees again met the Braves in the 1958 World Series, his impact did not become notable until Game 5, when he caught Red Schoendienst’s sinking fly ball in the sixth inning and made a throw to catch Bill Bruton off first base for a double play, preserving a 1-0 lead. In Game 6, he threw Andy Pafko out at the plate in the second inning, and singled and scored with two out in the tenth inning for a 4-2 Yankee lead; the run proved decisive, as the Braves came back to score once in the bottom of the frame.In Game 7, his two-out RBI single scored Berra for a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning, with New York going on to a 6-2 win, completing only the second comeback by a team from a 3-1 deficit in a Series. Howard was later given the Babe Ruth Award, presented by the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, as the top player in the Series, although the World Series MVP Award was won by teammate Bob Turley.By 1959, Howard was often playing at first base in order to remain in the lineup. Despite not finding a regular position yet, he was first selected to the All-Star team in 1957, the first of nine consecutive years through 1965 in which he made the squad; he would appear in six of the games (1960–1964), including both 1961 contests.In 1960, Howard finally took over the majority of Berra’s catching duties, although his .245 batting average was his lowest to date. The Yankees met the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series, and Howard’s two-run pinch-hit homer off Roy Face in the ninth inning of Game 1 brought the Yankees within two runs, though they lost 6-4. Howard hit .462 in the Series, but did not play in Game 7 after being hit on the hand by a pitch in the second inning of Game 6, and could only watch as the Pirates won the Series, 10-9, on Bill Mazeroski’s home run leading off the bottom of the ninth. In 1961 he raised his average 103 points to a career-best .348 mark on a team that featured Roger Maris’ record 61-home run season; Howard also enjoyed his first 20-homer campaign, along with 77 RBI, as the Yankees set a major league record with 240 HRs. He finished tenth in the MVP voting that year, won by Maris. Meeting the Cincinnati Reds in the 1961 Series, he and Bill Skowron had solo home runs in the 2-0 Game 1 victory, and he scored three runs in the final 13-5 win in Game 5. He followed up with a 1962 season in which he batted .279 with a career-best 91 RBI, again hitting over 20 homers, and collecting eight RBI in an August 19 game in Kansas City which the Yankees won, 21-7. Although Howard batted only .143 in the 1962 World Series against the San Francisco Giants, the Yankees won in seven games.In his 1963 MVP season, he batted .287 with 28 home runs, 85 RBI and a .528 slugging average, also winning his first Gold Glove. The Yankees were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1963 Series, though Howard hit .333 and drove in the only Yankee run of Game 2.He batted .313 (just ten points behind batting champion Tony Oliva) with 84 RBI in 1964, again winning the Gold Glove and placing third in the MVP vote as Berra took over Ralph Houk’s post as manager. His totals of 939 putouts and 1,008 total chances broke the AL records of 872 and 963 set by Earl Battey with the 1962 Minnesota Twins; Bill Freehan would top Howard’s marks with the 1967 Detroit Tigers. Howard also led the AL in fielding average in 1964 with a .998 mark. Playing in his ninth World Series in ten years against the St. Louis Cardinals, he batted .292 though the Yankees were overcome in seven games; he tied a Series record with three passed balls, including two in the 9-5 Game 1 loss. In 1965, Howard injured his elbow during spring training. He played in four games through April, and then had surgery, missing five more weeks. Howard struggled in 1967. He backed up Jake Gibbs and batted only .198 through the start of August. On August 3, 1967, Howard was traded to the Boston Red Sox for Pete Magrini and a player to be named later (Ron Klimkowski). Though he batted only .147 for Boston, he was effective in handling the pitchers; teammate Tony Conigliaro noted, “I don’t think I ever saw a pitcher shake off one of his signs. They had too much respect for him.” In 1967, Howard also took over Sherm Lollar’s major-league record for career fielding average; Freehan moved ahead of him in 1973.One of Howard’s highlights during his time with the Red Sox occurred on August 27, 1967 when the Chicago White Sox were battling the Red Sox for the pennant. With Ken Berry on third base with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Red Sox leading 4-3, Duane Josephson lined out to Jose Tartabull in right field. Not known for having a strong arm, Tartabull’s throw sailed high and was caught by a leaping Howard who blocked the plate with his left foot as he came down, and swipe tagged Berry ending the game. For Red Sox fans, the play was considered a key event during their “Impossible Dream” season. Howard had his last postseason highlight in the 1967 World Series against the Cardinals when his bases-loaded single in the ninth inning of Game 5 drove in two runs for a 3-0 lead. The hit was crucial, as former teammate Maris homered in the bottom of the inning for the Cardinals before the Red Sox closed out the 3-1 win. St. Louis, however, won the Series in seven games. It was the sixth losing World Series team Howard played on; he and Pee Wee Reese have the dubious distinction for playing on the most losing World Series teams.On October 29, 1968, Howard was released by the Red Sox. Over his 14-year career, he batted .274 with 167 home runs, 1,471 hits, 762 RBI, 619 runs, 218 doubles, 50 triples and nine stolen bases in 1,605 games. His .427 slugging average trailed those of only Dickey (.486), Berra (.482) and Mickey Cochrane (.478) among AL catchers. Defensively, he recorded a .993 fielding percentage as a catcher and a overall .992 fielding percentage. Howard also played at left and right field and first base. His 54 total World Series games placed him behind only teammates Berra and Mantle. Howard is also credited with being the first to use the extended index and pinky finger (corna) to indicate that there were two out in the inning, this being more visible to teammates in the outfield than the usual “two” gesture of the index and middle fingers.Howard returned to the Yankees the following year, where he served as first-base coach from 1969 to 1979. He was the first black coach in the American League. The team won the AL pennant in 1976 and the World Series in 1977 and 1978. During a game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in June 1977, Howard and Yogi Berra were peacemakers during a dugout incident between Yankees player Reggie Jackson and Yankees manager Billy Martin.After Howard’s coaching career ended, he became an administrative assistant with the Yankees; however, that position did not last long due to declining health. Howard was diagnosed with myocarditis, a rare heart disease that causes rapid heart failure. He was considering a heart transplant, but his condition quickly deteriorated.After staying a week at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, Howard died of the heart ailment at age 51 in 1980. He was interred at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, New Jersey.Red Smith, a columnist for The New York Times, reacted by writing, “The Yankees’ organization lost more class on the weekend than George Steinbrenner could buy in 10 years.” In Howard’s memory, the Yankees wore black armbands on their sleeve during the 1981 season. On July 21, 1984, the Yankees retired Howard’s uniform number 32 and dedicated a plaque in his honor for Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. On that day the Yankees also bestowed the same honors to Roger Maris who, unlike Howard, was still living. Howard’s plaque describes him as “A man of great gentleness and dignity” and “one of the truly great Yankees.”Howard is credited with inventing the batting “doughnut”, a circular lead weight with a rubber shell used by batters in the on-deck circle by placing it around a bat to make it feel heavier, so that it will feel lighter at the plate and easier to swing.Its widespread use caused the discontinuation of the practice of hitters swinging multiple bats at the same time while waiting to hit. Howard helped two New Jersey entrepreneurs, Frank Hamilton and Vince Salvucci, to market the bat weight and lent his name to the product.Howard is portrayed in the Broadway play Bronx Bombers. He was also portrayed in the film 61*. Resrarch more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is a pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he led for 36 years, during which its membership grew to over 8,000 parishioners. Following retirement, his beliefs and preaching were scrutinized when segments of his sermons about terrorist attacks on the United States and government dishonesty were publicized in connection with the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.Today in our History – April 13, 2003 – “Speech on confusing God and Government.” By Doctor Jeremiah Wright Jr. Wright, who was Barack Obama’s former pastor, gained national attention in March 2008 when ABC News, after reviewing dozens of Wright’s sermons, excerpted parts which were subject to intense media scrutiny. Obama denounced the statements in question, but after critics continued to press the issue of his relationship with Wright he gave a speech titled “A More Perfect Union”, in which he denounced Wright’s remarks, but did not disown him as a person. The controversy began to fade, but was renewed in late April when Wright made a series of media appearances, including an interview on Bill Moyers Journal, a speech at the NAACP and a speech at the National Press Club. After the last of these, Obama spoke more forcefully against his former pastor, saying that he was “outraged” and “saddened” by his behavior, and in May he resigned his membership in the church. On June 9, 2009, in an interview with the Daily Press of Newport News, Wright indicated that he hadn’t had contact with Obama up to that point because “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office.” Wright also suggested that Obama did not send a delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva on racism because of Zionist pressure saying: “[T]he Jewish vote, the A-I-P-A-C vote, that’s controlling him, that would not let him send representation to the Durban Review Conference, that’s talking this craziness on this trip, cause they’re Zionists, they would not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is.” Writing for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates characterized Wright’s remarks as “crude conspiratorial antisemitism.” On June 11, 2009, Wright amended his remarks during an interview with Mark Thompson on his radio program, Make it Plain. “Let me say like Hillary, I misspoke. Let me just say: Zionists… I’m not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I’m talking about Zionists.” Wright wrote on his Facebook page apologizing for his remarks on June 12, 2009. He wrote, “I mis-spoke and I sincerely meant no harm or ill-will to the American Jewish community or the Obama administration… I have great respect for the Jewish faith and the foundational (and central) part of our Judeo-Christian tradition.” “In other words”, another Atlantic writer, Jeffrey Goldberg, alleged, “[H]e regrets speaking plainly instead of deploying a euphemism.” The Anti Defamation League released a statement condemning Wright’s remarks as “inflammatory and false. The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Reverend Wright’s statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form.” In June 2011, in a speech at Empowerment Temple in Baltimore City, Wright called the State of Israel “illegal” and “genocidal” and insisted, “To equate Judaism with the state of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor FlavWright was born on September 22, 1941. He was born and raised in the racially mixed area of Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Jeremiah Wright Sr. (1909–2001), a Baptist minister who pastored Grace Baptist Church in Germantown from 1938 to 1980, and Mary Elizabeth Henderson Wright, a school teacher who was the first black person to teach an academic subject at Roosevelt Junior High. She went on to be the first black person to teach at Germantown High and Girls High, where she became the school’s first black vice principal.Wright graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1959, among the best schools in the area at the time. At the time, the school was around 90 percent white. The 211th class yearbook described Wright as a respected member of the class. “Always ready with a kind word, Jerry is one of the most congenial members of the 211,” the yearbook said. “His record in Central is a model for lower class [younger] members to emulate.” From 1959 to 1961, Wright attended Virginia Union University, in Richmond and is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Zeta chapter. In 1961 Wright left college and joined the United States Marine Corps and became part of the 2nd Marine Division attaining the rank of private first class. In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wright was assigned as part of the medical team charged with care of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Before leaving the position in 1967, the White House Physician, Vice Admiral Burkley, personally wrote Wright a letter of thanks on behalf of the United States President. In 1967 Wright enrolled at Howard University in Washington, DC, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1968 and a master’s degree in English in 1969. He also earned a master’s degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Wright holds a Doctor of Ministry degree (1990) from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, where he studied under Samuel DeWitt Proctor, a mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. His wife is Ramah Reed Wright, and he has four daughters, Janet Marie Moore, Jeri Lynne Wright, Nikol D. Reed, and Jamila Nandi Wright, and one son, Nathan D. Reed. Wright became pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago on March 1, 1971; it had some 250 members on its rolls, but only about 90 or so were actually attending worship by that time. By March 2008 Trinity United Church of Christ had become the largest church in the mostly white United Church of Christ denomination. The President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ, John H. Thomas, has stated: “It is critical that all of us express our gratitude and support to this remarkable congregation, to Jeremiah A. Wright for his leadership over 36 years.” Thomas, who is a member of the Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ in Cleveland, has also preached and worshipped at Trinity United Church of Christ (most recently on March 2, 2008). Trinity and Wright were profiled by correspondent Roger Wilkins in Sherry Jones’s documentary Keeping the Faith broadcast as the June 16, 1987, episode of the PBS series Frontline with Judy Woodruff. In 1995, Wright was asked to deliver a prayer during an afternoon session of speeches at the Million Man March in Washington, DC. Wright, who began the “Ministers in Training” program at Trinity United Church of Christ, has been a national leader in promoting theological education and the preparation of seminarians for the African-American church. The church’s mission statement is based upon systematized black theology that started with the works of James Hal Cone. Wright has been a professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary, and other educational institutions. Wright has served on the Board of Trustees of Virginia Union University, Chicago Theological Seminary and City Colleges of Chicago. He has also served on the Board Directors of Evangelical Health Systems, the Black Theology Project, the Center for New Horizons and the Malcolm X School of Nursing, and on boards and committees of other religious and civic organizations. Wright attended a lecture by Frederick G. Sampson in Richmond, Virginia, in the late 1980s, on the G. F. Watts painting Hope, which inspired him to give a sermon in 1990 based on the subject of the painting – “with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God…. To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope… that’s the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt’s painting.” Having attended Wright’s sermon, Barack Obama later adapted Wright’s phrase “audacity to hope” to “audacity of hope” which became the title for his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and the title of his second book.Wright retired as pastor from Trinity United Church of Christ in early 2008. Over the course of his tenure, he brought the Church’s membership from 87 in 1972 to over 8,000 parishioners. Trinity United purchased a lot in Tinley Park, a predominantly white Chicago suburb, and built Wright a 10,340-square-foot (961 m2) home valued at $1.6 million. In September 2016, Wright suffered a stroke which paralyzed the left side of his body and left him confined to a wheelchair; despite the effect on his voice, Wright continues to give sermons on certain occasion. 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GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer, and actor. He started his career with Donald Byrd. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, He experimented with jazz fusion, funk, and electro styles.His best-known compositions include the jazz standards “Cantaloupe Island”, “Watermelon Man”, “Maiden Voyage”, and “Chameleon”, as well as the hit singles “I Thought It Was You” and “Rockit”. His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album to win the award, after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.Since 2012, He has served as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is also the chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz until 2019.Today in our History – April 12, 1940 – Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is born.At age 11 Hancock played the first movement of a Mozart concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He formed his first band while a high school student. After graduating from Grinnell College in Iowa in 1960, he joined trumpeter Donald Byrd’s group and moved (1961) to New York City. There his clever accompaniments and straightforward soloing with bebop groups led to tours with Miles Davis (1963–68). The Davis quintet’s mid-1960s investigations of rhythmic and harmonic freedom stimulated some of Hancock’s most daring, arrhythmic, harmonically colourful concepts. Meanwhile, he recorded extensively in bebop and modal jazz settings, ranging from funky rhythms to ethereal modal harmonies; as a sideman on Blue Note albums and a leader of combos, he played original themes including “Maiden Voyage,” “Cantaloupe Island,” and “Watermelon Man,” which became a popular hit in Mongo Santamaria’s recording.In the 1970s, after playing in Davis’s first jazz-rock experiments, Hancock began leading fusion bands and playing electronic keyboards, from electric pianos to synthesizers. Compelling sound colours and rhythms, in layers of synthesizer lines, characterized jazz-funk hits such as “Chameleon,” from his best-selling Headhunters album (1973). Later dance hits by Hancock included “You Bet Your Love” (1979) and “Rockit” (1983).Meanwhile, he also composed music, both jazz-rock and straight-ahead jazz, for broadcast commercials, television, and films such as Blow-Up (1966), Death Wish (1974), and Round Midnight (1986); for the last one he won an Academy Award. Since the mid-1970s he has played acoustic piano in jazz projects, played duets with Chick Corea, and performed in combos with former Davis associates and trumpeters such as Freddie Hubbard and Wynton Marsalis.Interest in Hancock’s Blue Note catalog was renewed in 1993 when a sample of “Cantaloupe Island” appeared in Us3’s international hit “Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia).” In 1998 he reunited his Headhunters group, and the turn of the millennium saw the launch of a number of collaborative projects. On Future 2 Future (2001), Hancock teamed with jazz legend Wayne Shorter and some of the biggest names in techno music to produce a beat-filled fusion of jazz and electronic music. His next project, Possibilities (2005), was a venture into pop music with such guest performers as Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Santana.Hancock added to his already extensive Grammy collection with a pair of awards—including album of the year—for his Joni Mitchell tribute River: The Joni Letters (2007). In 2011 he won yet another Grammy with The Imagine Project (2010), a covers album that featured guest performances by Pink, Jeff Beck, and John Legend, among others. In 2013 Hancock was named a Kennedy Center honoree. 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 African-American activist notable for being a Baptist missionary for the YMCA, then a Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist who complimented the government of apartheid-era South Africa for that part of their program.He was a mentor of Govan Mbeki, who later achieved distinction in the African National Congress. He served as the second president of the National Negro Congress, a coalition of hundreds of African-American organizations created in 1935 by religious, labor, civic and fraternal leaders to fight racial discrimination, establish relations with black organizations throughout the world, and oppose the deportation of black immigrants. Along with Paul Robeson, he co-founded the International Committee on African Affairs in 1937, later the Council on African Affairs.Today in our History – April 11, 1975 – Max Yergan dies.Max Yergan was born on July 19, 1892, in Raleigh, North Carolina in his grandfather’s house to mother Lizzie Yeargan, daughter of Frederick Yeargan. Fred was the source of inspiration for much of Max Yergan’s life, as a board member at Shaw Institute and a member of the Baptist church in Raleigh, as well as a man deeply interested in his African heritage. Yergan attended St. Ambrose Episcopal Parish School as a child, and then moved on to attend Shaw University in both the preparatory and college branches. It was there at Shaw that Yergan discovered the YMCA, and in 1916, he joined a missionary trip to India, a trip that would greatly affect the rest of his adult life. Yergan came to South Africa in 1920 as a missionary for the YMCA. He was the first African-American to do YMCA work in South Africa. As a YMCA activist he was interested in improving social work in the nation and this influenced the founding of the Jan H. Hofmeyr School of Social Work. As a whole his experiences in South Africa radicalised him to the point he came to desire a more radical direction for the YMCA than it was willing to accept. He failed to radicalise the YMCA and resigned from the organisation in 1936. Two years earlier, in 1934, he had “allegedly [become] a Marxist after making a trip to the Soviet Union.” On his return to the United States, Yergan became the first African-American faculty member ever hired at one of New York City’s public colleges, City College of New York, teaching the course “Negro History and Culture” in the fall of 1937.It was the first time this course was offered within the City Colleges of New York. During the Rapp-Coudert hearings, informers reported that his class was “liberal and progressive.” Yergan was denied re-appointment and dismissed for his politics. The Cold War led him to become disillusioned with Communism and ultimately to become strongly hostile to Communism. In 1948, Yergan was ousted as the director of Council on African Affairs following disputes with other members, causing his turn to the right.In 1952, he spoke against Communism on a visit to South Africa at the Bantu Men’s Social Center in Johannesburg, claiming the main anti-apartheid group, the African National Congress was controlled by the South African Communist Party. In 1955, Yergan again visited South Africa where he praised apartheid and denied that South African blacks were suffering from apartheid. The same year, he also visited the Portuguese colony of Angola, where he praised Portuguese rule as “just and efficient”.In 1961, Yergan become president of the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters (ACAKFF), a conservative group that lobbied the United States to recognise Katanga. Yergan was recruited by a conservative activist Marvin Liebman who founded the ACAKFF and wanted a black man as its president to offset charges of racism as Katanga was known to be a sham.Yergan claimed that the Congolese government had been taken over by Communists and praised the Katangan men for wanting to “defend themselves, their wives, their children and places of work”.Despite his claims, most of the soldiers fighting for Katanga were not Katangans, but rather white mercenaries from Europe, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and the United States. The mercenaries who known to the Congolese as “les affreux” (“the frightful ones”) on account of their brutality to blacks. In 1962, Yergan wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, expressing his fury that the United States had denied Moïse Tshombe a visa to visit the United States while the Kennedy administration had “ceremoniously welcomed…Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, the late Patrice Lumumba, and Holden Roberto”. In 1964, Yergan praised aspects of the South African governments “separate development” plan. In 1966, he became co-chairman together with William Rusher of the conservative American-African Affairs Association, which lobbied the United States to recognize the white supremacist government of Rhodesia.The driving force and dominant personality behind the American Committee for Aid to Katanga Freedom Fighters and the American-African Affairs Association was Liebman, and notably both groups had virtually identical letter-heads, the same mailing lists, the same boards, and the same address in New York, 79 Madison Avenue, which was also the headquarters of Marvin Liebman Associates.The public relations firm of Liebman Associates had been hired by the Rhodesian government to improve its image in the United States. In 1966, Yergan together with George Schuyler went on a trek across Rhodesia organized by Liebman and reported he had seen no evidence of any racism by the Rhodesian government towards the black majority. Yergan died on April 11, 1975, in Mount Kisco, New York, a little over three months before his eighty-third birthday. Due to his changing ideals throughout his life, he lacked all but a few close friends at the time of his death. 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 was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was also a freed slave who often spoke at meetings.By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.Noted members included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Theodore Dwight Weld, Lewis Tappan, James G. Birney, Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman, Augustine Clarke, Samuel Cornish, George T. Downing James Forten, Abby Kelley Foster, Stephen Symonds Foster, Henry Highland Garnet, Beriah Green, who presided over its organizational meeting, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips, Robert Purvis, Charles Lenox Remond, Sarah Parker Remond, Lucy Stone, and John Greenleaf Whittier, among others. Headquartered in New York City, from 1840 to 1870 the society published a weekly newspaper, the National Anti-Slavery Standard.Today in our History – April 10, 1870 – The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS; 1833–1870) was formally dissolved in 1870, after the Civil War and Emancipation.American Anti-Slavery Society, (1833–70), promoter, with its state and local auxiliaries, of the cause of immediate abolition of slavery in the United States.As the main activist arm of the Abolition Movement (see abolitionism), the society was founded in 1833 under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison. By 1840 its auxiliary societies numbered 2,000, with a total membership ranging from 150,000 to 200,000. The societies sponsored meetings, adopted resolutions, signed antislavery petitions to be sent to Congress, published journals and enlisted subscriptions, printed and distributed propaganda in vast quantities, and sent out agents and lecturers (70 in 1836 alone) to carry the antislavery message to Northern audiences.Participants in the societies were drawn mainly from religious circles (e.g., Theodore Dwight Weld) and philanthropic backgrounds (e.g., businessmen Arthur and Lewis Tappan and lawyer Wendell Phillips), as well as from the free black community, with six blacks serving on the first Board of Managers. The society’s public meetings were most effective when featuring the eloquent testimony of former slaves like Frederick Douglass or William Wells Brown. The society’s antislavery activities frequently met with violent public opposition, with mobs invading meetings, attacking speakers, and burning presses.In 1839 the national organization split over basic differences of approach: Garrison and his followers were more radical than other members; they denounced the U.S. Constitution as supportive of slavery and insisted on sharing organizational responsibility with women. The less radical wing, led by the Tappan brothers, formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which advocated moral suasion and political action and led directly to the birth of the Liberty Party in 1840. Because of this cleavage in national leadership, the bulk of the activity in the 1840s and ’50s was carried on by state and local societies. The antislavery issue entered the mainstream of American politics through the Free-Soil Party (1848–54) and subsequently the Republican Party (founded in 1854). The American Anti-Slavery Society was formally dissolved in 1870, after the Civil War and Emancipation.By 1840 there were 2,000 chapters of the American Anti-Slavery Society throughout the North. However, abolitionists who disagreed with the Garrisonians soon regrouped as a new organization, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Other members tried to reform the churches, while others shifted their energies to political antislavery reform. When the government failed to respond to petitioning and lobbying, the Liberty Party was created in 1840 to offer voters a choice in partisan politics. However, the single issue of slavery was not yet strong enough to sway many voters. The new territories gained following the Mexican War led to the organization of the Free Soil Party to block extension of slavery into the new territories. Its strength grew with the passage of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise’s bar on slavery in western territories north of 36º 30’ latitude.As violence increased in Kansas and at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the majority of abolitionists worked with moderate antislavery Northerners to create the Republican Party (a coalition of Free Soilers, Whigs and Northern Democrats). By 1860 most abolitionists endorsed the election of Abraham Lincoln as a means of battling slavery. Research more about this great American tragedy and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion unit is the brainchild of Navy Secretary Frank Knox established a committee to investigate the integration of African Americans into the service.Today in our History – April 8, 1942, Navy Secretary Knox announced the Navy would enlist African Americans for the general service, with open enlistment for messmen and the new Seabees.For the Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDocks), recruitment and organization for African American construction battalions began in April 1942. In September, 880 African American men from 37 states reported to Camp Allen near Norfolk, Va., to become Seabees. To command the new units, BuDocks decided to use southern white men, chosen for “their ability and knowledge in handling” African Americans, but who also received orders to treat all personnel without difference in regard to promotions and assignments. With almost 80 percent of the enlisted men hailing from the South, Rear Adm. Ben Moreell and other senior BuDocks leaders felt this arrangement would help produce a “crack battalion, one which will be proud of themselves and of the Seabees.” On Oct. 24, 1942, the Navy commissioned the African American 34th NCB which shipped out of Port Hueneme, Calif., for the Pacific. The men served 20 months overseas, constructing naval facilities at Espiritu Santo and in the Solomon Islands before returning to Camp Rousseau, Port Hueneme, in October 1944.Around the time the 34th shipped out in January 1943, the second African American construction battalion, the 80th NCB, formed at Camp Allen and commissioned on Feb. 2. After advanced training, the unit moved to Gulfport, Miss., before embarking for assignment to Trinidad in July. As with the 34th, the 80th’s officers and chiefs were also white southerners, although the battalion’s African American personnel mostly came from northern states. Also in July 1943, the first of 15 predominantly African American stevedore construction battalions, termed “specials,” commissioned. All but one of these specials served in the Pacific. These battalions varied considerably in composition from the 34th and 80th NCBs. While still commanded by white officers, the 15th, 17th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd Specials had at least one African American chief petty officer, and the white leadership consisted predominately of non-southerners, less inclined to impose the edifice of segregation in the workplace or at the base camps. While deployed, the men of the two construction battalions performed their assignments admirably and efficiently, but the corrosive effects of commander-imposed racism and discrimination would result in two imbroglios for the Navy. Initially, nothing appeared out of order with either battalion. In the Pacific, the 34th endured Japanese bombing raids and lost five men killed and 35 wounded in their first deployment. Their work in the Solomons garnered numerous commendations and citations for exceptional service. In Trinidad, the 80th constructed a massive airship hangar and other airfield facilities in defense of the Caribbean from German U-boat operations. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Moreell, and other dignitaries visited the unit to inspect their progress.Upon returning to the United States in late 1944, racial tensions in the 34th boiled over at Camp Rousseau, Port Hueneme. While rebuilding for its next deployment, the commanding officer refused to rate any African American as a chief petty officer, and instituted segregated barracks, mess lines and mess huts. African American petty officers were used for unskilled manual labor and never placed in charge of working parties. With morale low, the African American personnel of the battalion staged a hunger strike from March 2-3, 1945, refusing to eat but continuing to perform all scheduled duties. In response, following a Board of Investigation, BuDocks relieved the commanding officer, his executive officer, and 20 percent of the original officers and petty officers. Their replacements were all screened for racial prejudices and southern men were predominately avoided. The new commanding officer, a New Yorker, organized a training program for enlisted personnel to be rerated and ensured that qualified men received the promotions unfairly denied them under the previous commander.For the men of the 80th, discrimination in Gulfport prior to embarkation continued on their transport at sea and at Trinidad, where segregated facilities manifested themselves. After the officer in charge heard complaints from a group of Seabees about racial discrimination in the battalion in September 1943, the commander initiated the discharge of 19 members for what he deemed seditious behavior bordering on mutiny. The commanding officer of the Naval Operating Base, Trinidad and commandant of the Tenth Naval District approved the discharges. The discharged men thereafter contacted the NAACP and the African American media, who demanded answers from the Secretary of the Navy. Under the legal guidance of the NAACP and their special counsel, Thurgood Marshall, a review board upgraded the discharges of 14 of the men in April 1945. Meanwhile, after the battalion returned to Port Hueneme in July 1944, BuDocks ordered the removal of the officer in charge and all original white officers and chiefs, aside from the medical and supply officers, and replaced them with non-southerners. BuDocks could have easily disbanded both battalions and declared African Americans incompatible with the Seabees, but instead chose to recognize the error of its way and change its policies. A Civil Engineer Corps officer noted during the war how when choosing officers for a Seabee unit, “A man may be from the north, south, east or west. If his attitude is to do the best possible job he knows how, regardless of what the color of his personnel is, that is the man we want as an officer for our colored Seabees.” The work of African American units proved equal to that of white units. Leadership – as with any military unit – made the difference in morale and efficiency. This is particularly noted in the African American special battalions, which often reported high morale and performance. After replacing the leadership of the two construction battalions, BuDocks redeployed both units to the Pacific in 1945, where they worked without incident and with high morale.The accomplishments of African American Seabees in World War II demonstrated then and now that the spirit of “Can Do” does not differentiate between age, race or gender. By late 1945 as American forces closed in on Japan, several African American Seabee specials integrated, and white and black Seabees found themselves unloading ships or constructing advance bases, united together for victory. These constituted, arguably, the Navy’s first fully integrated units in the 20th century. Perhaps more importantly for these Seabees, they recognized how their work in the Pacific factored into the fight against discrimination at home. Writing in April 1945, 80th NCB member CM1c Arthur H. Turner of Detroit, Mich., declared: Wherever we go, whatever our assignment may be, we still employ all our talents and efforts to do a good job, one that will be a lasting monument to the Navy and to the Negro race.” Research more about these great American Champions and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American Christian pastor and Civil Rights leader. He was the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Seattle for four decades. He attended the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965, and he served on the Seattle Human Rights Commission.Samuel B. McKinney was born on December 28, 1926 in Flint, Michigan. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father, Wade Hampton McKinney, was a pastor.McKinney graduated from Morehouse College in 1949. He earned a divinity degree from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in 1952.The Rev. Dr. Samuel Berry McKinney, 91, a civil-rights leader; pastor emeritus at Mount Zion Baptist Church, Seattle; and supporter of American Baptist Home Mission Societies’ publishing ministry, Judson Press, died April 7 at an assisted-living center in Seattle. He was married to the late Louise (Jones) McKinney for 59 years.He was pastor at Mount Zion Baptist Church for more than 40 years before retiring in 1998. Under his leadership, the congregation grew from 800 to more than 2,500, making Mount Zion the largest black church in Washington state. In 2014, several blocks near the church were renamed “Rev. Dr. S. McKinney Avenue.” He was the first black president of the Church Council of Greater Seattle and a founding member of the National Black Caucus of American Baptist Churches USA. He was known for mentoring aspiring young pastors throughout the United States.At the forefront of advocacy, McKinney was co-founder and first president of the Seattle Opportunities Industrialization Center for vocational training and adult skills development. He was a founding member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, which won passage of the city’s first fair-housing act. He led construction of the Samuel Berry McKinney Manor for the elderly and working poor. In addition to other civic projects, McKinney helped to launch the city’s first black-owned bank; founded a daycare center and kindergarten; and initiated a scholarship fund.A charter member of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference—a nonprofit organization that engages African-American faith leaders in social justice issues—the group honored him with its “Beautiful Are Their Feet” award in 2006 for his significant contributions to social justice.In the 1960s, McKinney participated in civil-rights demonstrations in Seattle and across the United States, including the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965. In 1961, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Seattle at the request of McKinney, his college classmate. McKinney was arrested for protesting apartheid outside the South African consulate in Seattle in 1985. At age 86, McKinney continued to address injustice, speaking at a prayer vigil for Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teen who was fatally shot in Florida in 2012.“We have not reached heaven yet,” McKinney said. “We do not live in a nonracist society. …We have to tell the truth, whether we like it or not.”Born Dec. 28, 1926, he was a son of the late Rev. Wade Hampton McKinney and Ruth (Berry) McKinney.McKinney served in the Air Force during World War II. He earned a doctorate of ministry degree and master of divinity degree at what is now known as Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, N.Y., and a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, Atlanta.A faithful supporter of Judson Press, McKinney received the Judson Press Ministry Award in 2009. He co-authored “Church Administration in the Black Perspective,” a classic reference manual that remains popular. It was one of two books published in 1976 that launched Judson Press’ acclaimed genre of books for the African-American church.Judson Press will contribute 2018 proceeds from the sales of the revised edition of the book to the “Friends of Judson,” a fund that provides practical resources to graduating seminarians.“In addition to his writing for Judson Press, Dr. McKinney maintained a long and continuous relationship with members of the board of directors, executive directors and staff of ABHMS,” says ABHMS and Judson Press Executive Director Dr. Jeffrey Haggray. “Sitting beside Dr. McKinney during the National Black Caucus dinner during the recent Mission Summit in Portland was my last occasion for conversation and fellowship with Dr. McKinney. His mind was sharp, and his dedication to American Baptist mission and ministry remained strong. We will miss him dearly.” McKinney began his ministry in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was the pastor of Olney Street Baptist Church from 1955 to 1958. He moved to Seattle, Washington, where he served as the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church from 1958 to 1998, and from 2005 to 2008.McKinney invited Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to Seattle in 1961, and he attended the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. He served on the Seattle Human Rights Commission. He was also a co-founder of Liberty Bank, “the first black-owned bank in Seattle.”With Floyd Massey Jr., McKinney co-authored Church Administration in the Black Perspective. According to The Los Angeles Times, ” The book outlined the need for strong, charismatic ministers in urban black churches and remains an important reference work in church organization.”McKinney married Louise Jones; they had two daughters.McKinney died on April 7, 2018. Research more about this great American and share it with your babies. 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