GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is an American singer and songwriter whose smooth style influenced rhythm and blues. Today in our History – February 9, Barbara Ann Lewis was born.Lewis was born in Salem, Michigan, United States. She was writing and recording by her teens with record producer Ollie McLaughlin, a black DJ at Ann Arbor radio station WHRV, now WAAM.Lewis’ first single release in 1962, the uptempo “My Heart Went Do Dat Da,” did not chart nationally, but was a local hit in the Detroit, Michigan area. She wrote all of the songs on her debut LP, including the hit “Hello Stranger” which reached No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and featured extensive use of the Hammond organ.Lewis had moderate follow-up hits with “Straighten Up Your Heart” (#43) and her original “Puppy Love” (#38) before Bert Berns produced her million-seller “Baby I’m Yours” (U.S. #11), written by Van McCoy. Berns also produced the followup “Make Me Your Baby” (U.S. #11) which had originally been recorded by the Pixies Three, and Lewis’ final Top 40 hit “Make Me Belong to You” (#28 in 1966), written by Chip Taylor and Billy Vera. On August 8, 1969, together with actress Joanna Pettet, Lewis had lunch at the house of Sharon Tate in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, a few hours before Tate’s murder there during the night that followed.At the end of the decade, she released a grittier-sounding album on Stax Records.Over the next decade, a number of other artists had success with Lewis’ songs. Her own composition “Hello Stranger” — which had been remade in 1966 by the Capitols — was a regional hit in 1973 as remade by Fire & Rain and in 1977 Yvonne Elliman’s version reached the US Top 20 and the UK Singles Chart Top 30: Elliman’s version also topped the US Easy Listening chart for four weeks. In 1985 Carrie Lucas’ remake of “Hello Stranger” was a Top 20 R&B hit and in 2004 Queen Latifah remade “Hello Stranger” for her The Dana Owens Album.Lewis had dropped out of public view for years after her career slowed in the 1960s.It was only after Elliman’s hit in 1977 that she was tracked down by Casey Kasem for his AT40 show on 6-4-77. According to Casey nobody knew where she ended up, including her agent who did not even know how to send her checks for the Elliman recording of her song. According to Kasem she was hoping to be rediscovered in Michigan when he found her.”Baby I’m Yours” charted in versions by country singer Jody Miller and Debby Boone (the B-side of her single “God Knows”). In Canada, Suzanne Stevens had a hit in 1975 with a disco version of “Make Me Your Baby”. Cover versions of her songs continue into the new millennium with the Arctic Monkeys including a version of “Baby I’m Yours” as a B-side to their 2006 single “Leave Before the Lights Come On”.In 1995, Lewis’ “Baby I’m Yours” was featured on the soundtrack for the film The Bridges of Madison County, and in 2016 “Hello Stranger” was featured on the soundtrack for the film Moonlight. She received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999.In 2016, Barbara Lewis was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame. Health issues forced Lewis to retire from singing in 2017. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is an American chemical engineer who served as the administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2009 to 2013. She is the first African-American to have held that position.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is a graduate of Tulane University and Princeton University. Soon after entering the EPA as a staff-level engineer in 1987, she moved to the EPA’s regional office in New York City, where she spent the majority of her 16-year EPA career.In 2002, she joined the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as the Assistant Commissioner of Compliance and Enforcement and Assistant Commissioner for Land Use Management. New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine appointed her on the state’s Commissioner of Environmental Protection in 2006. She also briefly served as Corzine’s Chief of Staff in late 2008.On December 15, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated her to serve as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 23, 2009, and took office that same day. During her tenure as EPA Administrator, she oversaw the development of stricter fuel efficiency standards and the EPA’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; authorized the recognition of carbon dioxide as a public health threat, granting the EPA authority to set new regulations regarding CO2 emissions; and proposed amending the National Ambient Air Quality Standards to set stricter smog pollution limits. In December 2012, she announced she would step down as EPA Administrator effective February 15, 2013; she was succeeded by Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, who served as Acting Administrator until the Senate confirmed Gina McCarthy as a permanent successor on July 18, 2013.Today in our History – February 8, 1962 – Lisa Perez Jackson was born.Lisa Perez Jackson, the first African American Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), brings a wealth of experience to that agency. A scientist by profession, she has spent more than 20 years working as an advocate for the better use and awareness of the environment.Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 8, 1962, and was adopted two weeks after her birth. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana‘s Lower Ninth Ward, which became infamous during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Her adoptive mother continued to live in New Orleans until the hurricane flooded the city. Jackson, who had planned to become a doctor, instead switched her studies to engineering and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in chemical engineering from Tulane University’s School of Chemical Engineering in 1983. She received a masters degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University in 1986. Jackson was one of only two women in her engineering class at Princeton.After graduating from Princeton, Jackson was hired by the EPA where she initially worked as a staff level engineer. During her years with the EPA, Jackson was involved with the federal Superfund site remediation program. She developed numerous hazardous waste cleanup regulations and supervised multi-million dollar waste cleanup projects in central New Jersey. She later served as deputy director and acting director of the Northeast Region’s enforcement division.In 2006, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine appointed Jackson to be Commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection where she led a staff of nearly 3,000 state employees who managed state parks and beaches, fish and wildlife programs, and historic preservation as well as programs addressing water and air pollution. Jackson was known in New Jersey for her work in reducing greenhouse gases, fighting pollution, and encouraging environmentally-conscious residential and industrial growth.On December 1, 2008, Governor Corzine appointed Jackson as his Chief of Staff, a post recognized as the second most powerful position in state government. Jackson was the third woman and the first African American to hold the post. She served only 15 days, however, before being nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to become the new EPA Administrator. Jackson was confirmed to that post by the U.S. Senate on January 23, 2009. Jackson held the post for four years until her resignation on February 15, 2013. 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 pianist, lyricist, and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans.Blake’s compositions included such hits as “Bandana Days”, “Charleston Rag”, “Love Will Find a Way”, “Memories of You” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry”. The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works.Today in our History – February 7, 1887 – James Hubert “Eubie” Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) – was born.Eubie Blake was born February 7, 1887, at 319 Forrest Street, in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the eight children born to former slaves Emily “Emma” Johnstone and John Sumner Blake, he was the only one to survive infancy.John Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks. Blake claimed in later life to have been born in 1883, but records published beginning in 2003—U.S. Census, military, and Social Security records and Blake’s passport application and passport—uniformly give his birth year as 1887. Blake’s musical training began when he was four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started “foolin’ around”. When his mother found him, the store manager said to her, “The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent.”The Blakes purchased a pump organ for US$75.00, making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from a neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist for the Methodist church. At age 15, without his parents’ knowledge, he began playing piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello. Blake got his first big break in the music business in 1907, when the world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans’s Goldfield Hotel, the first “black and tan club” in Baltimore.Blake played at the Goldfield during the winters from 1907-1914, spending his summers playing clubs in Atlantic City. During this period, he also studied composition in Baltimore with Llewellyn Wilson. According to Blake, he also worked the medicine show circuit and was employed by a Quaker doctor. He played a Melodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon. Blake stayed with the show only two weeks, however, because the doctor’s religion didn’t allow the serving of Sunday dinner. Blake said he composed the melody of the “Charleston Rag” in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old. It was not committed to paper, however, until 1915, when he learned to write musical notation. In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra, which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle’s ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music, which was still quite popular. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with the performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville musical act, the Dixie Duo. After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated songs they had written, and had a book written by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musical also introduced hit songs such as “I’m Just Wild About Harry” and “Love Will Find a Way.” Rudolf Fisher insisted that Shuffle Along “had ruined his favorite places of African-American sociability in Harlem” due to the influx of white patrons. The reliance on “stereotypical black stage humor” and “the primitivist conventions of cabaret,” in the words of Thomas Brothers, made the show a hit, running for 504 performances with 3 years of national tours. Blake made his first recordings in 1917, for the Pathé record label and for Ampico piano rolls. In the 1920s he recorded for the Victor and Emerson labels among others. In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee de Forest in de Forest’s Phonofilm sound-on-film process: Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, featuring their song “Affectionate Dan”; Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs, featuring “Sons of Old Black Joe” and “My Swanee Home”; and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River, featuring Blake performing his “Fantasy on Swanee River”. These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection in the Library of Congress collection. He also appeared in Warner Brothers’ 1932 short film Pie, Pie Blackbird with the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, and Noble Sissle.[16] That same year he and his orchestra provided as well most of the music for the film Harlem Is Heaven. In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee, proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895, when both attended Primary School No. 2, at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910, Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.In 1938, Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She died later that year, at the age of 58. Of his loss, Blake said, “In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time.” While serving as bandleader with the USO during World War II, he met Marion Grant Tyler, the widow of the violinist Willy Tyler. Blake and Tyler married in 1945. She was a performer and a businesswoman and became his valued business manager until her death in 1982.In 1946, Blake retired from performing and enrolled in New York University, where he studied the Schillinger System of music composition, graduating in two and a half years. He spent the next two decades using the Schillinger System to transcribe songs that he had memorized but had never written down. In the 1970s and 1980s, public interest in Blake’s music rekindled following the release of his 1969 retrospective album, The 86 Years of Eubie Blake. Blake was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. He was featured by leading conductors, such as Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler. In 1977 he played Will Williams in the Jeremy Kagan biographical film Scott Joplin. By 1975, he had been awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, the University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth. On October 9, 1981, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.Eubie!, a revue featuring the music of Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, Andy Razaf, Johnny Brandon, F. E. Miller, and Jim Europe, opened on Broadway in 1978. The show was a hit at the Ambassador Theatre, where it ran for 439 performances. The production received three nominations for Tony Awards, including one for Blake’s score. The show was filmed in 1981 with the original cast members, including Lesley Dockery, Gregory Hines and Maurice Hines. Blake performed with Gregory Hines on the television program Saturday Night Live on March 10, 1979.Blake continued to play and record until his death, on February 12, 1983, in Brooklyn, five days after events celebrating his purported 100th birthday (which was actually his 96th birthday).He was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His headstone, engraved with the musical notation of “I’m Just Wild About Harry”, was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society. The bronze sculpture of Blake’s bespectacled face was created by David Byer-Tyre, curator and director of the African American Museum and Center for Education and Applied Arts, in Hempstead, New York. The original inscription indicated his correct year of birth, but individuals close to him insisted that Blake be indulged and paid to have the inscription changed.Blake was reported to have said, on his birthday in 1979, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself”, but it has been attributed to others including Adolph Zukor, Mae West and Mickey Mantle, and appeared in print at least as early as 1966. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is an American public health nutritionist, vegan activist, author, and speaker..Today’s American Champion – February 6, 2020 – Tracye McQuirter, launches “The 10,000 Black Woman Program.Award-winning author and public health nutritionist Tracye McQuirter, MPH, has been changing the landscape of health and wellness over the course of the last 30 years. Now, McQuirter is bringing her expertise to the world with her new program “10,000 Black Vegan Women.”Through a series of online 21-Day Vegan Fresh Starts throughout the year that include cooking videos, meal plans, vegan recipes, grocery shopping lists, meal prep guides, and nutrition tips, vegan expert Tracye McQuirter, MPH, will give black women the support they need to go vegan, get healthy, and feel great for life.“The 10,000 Black Vegan Women program will help 10,000 African American women go vegan in 2020 to live longer, healthier lives,” says Tracye McQuirter. “Although we have a long history of being plant-based pioneers and activists, including Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Angela Davis, and others, we also have the most to gain from the health benefits of eating plant-based foods because we experience the highest rates of preventable, diet-related diseases in the country.”With animal agriculture being the leading cause of global warming, the 10,000 Black Vegan Women program gives women of color an opportunity to do something good for their mind, body and the environment, too.“I want to truly change the health paradigm of black women. We are leaders in so many progressive ways, but we are in a crisis when it comes to our health.And while there are many reasons for this, we have the power to take back control of our health. It’s about our greens, not our genes! Eating affordable, nutritious, and delicious plant-based foods is one of the best ways for us to get healthy now and for the rest of our lives.” For more information, please visit 10000blackveganwomen.com.Make It A Champion Day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was the founder of the New York Renaissance basketball team, the first fully all-black professional black-owned basketball team. Nicknamed the “Father of Black Professional Basketball”, Douglas owned and coached the Rens from 1923 to 1949, guiding them to a 2,318-381 record (.859). He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor in 1972, the first African American enshrined. The Rens barnstormed throughout the United States, mostly in the Midwest, and played any team that would schedule them, black or white. Traveling as far as 200 miles for a game, they often slept on the bus and ate cold meals; they were barred from many hotels and restaurants by Jim Crow laws and norms of racial discrimination which prevailed in the northern United States at the time. The Rens soon became a dominant team, winning as many as 88 consecutive games during the 1932–33 season. In the twenties and early thirties, their matches with the Original Celtics were basketball’s greatest gate attraction.At the World Professional Basketball Tournament they won in 1939, lost to the eventual champion Harlem Globetrotters in 1940, and finished second to the National Basketball League champion Minneapolis Lakers in 1948.Today in our History – February 5, 1972 – Robert L. Douglas (b. (St. Kitts) November 4, 1882 – Bob Douglas was the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.Known as “The Father of Black Professional Basketball,” Bob Douglas owned and coached the New York Renaissance from 1922 until 1949. Though racial discrimination was severe and unrelenting, Douglas kept his team focused. The Rens barnstormed from Boston to Kansas City and played any team – black or white – that would schedule them, including the Original Celtics and the Harlem Globetrotters. They often traveled as far as 200 miles for a game, were barred from many hotels and restaurants, often slept on the bus, ate cold meals, and frequently played twice on Sundays before returning to their home base. Despite these obstacles, the Rens became a dominant team, winning over 2,500games. Douglas’s astute eye for basketball talent led him to such greats as Charles “Tarzan” Cooper and “Wee” Willie Smith. Through Douglas’s leadership, the Rens were virtually unbeatable, winning 88 straight games in 1932-33. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s most prolific scorer, embraces history as if it were a long-lost friend. He knows February is Black History Month. He’s also aware that Feb. 5 will mark the 45th anniversary of the late Robert L. “Bob” Douglas being enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.Douglas, the first African-American to enter the hall, went in as a contributor.Abdul-Jabbar believes Douglas, regarded by many as the father of black professional basketball, deserved the honor despite being born in St. Kitts, British West Indies.“The West Indies are part and parcel of North America,” said Abdul-Jabbar. “Bob Douglas is certainly a major part of the evolution of the only sport that was invented in America.”He was a Black athlete, coach and administrator.Born in Saint Kitts, British West Indies, in 1923 Robert L. “Bob” Douglas founded the Harlem Renaissance (Rens) basketball team.Douglas owned and coached the Rens from 1923 to 1949, guiding them to a 2,318-381 record (.859). The Renaissance barnstormed throughout the United States, mostly in the Midwest, and played any team that would schedule them, Black or white.Traveling as far as 200 miles for a game, they often slept on the bus and ate cold meals; they were barred from many hotels and restaurants by Jim Crow laws and norms of racial discrimination which prevailed in the United States at the time.Though racial discrimination was severe, Douglas kept his team focused. Despite these obstacles, the Rens became a dominant team, winning over 86% of their games. Douglas’ astute eye for basketball talent led him to such greats as Charles “Tarzan” Cooper and Wee Willie Smith. Through Douglas’s leadership, the Rens were virtually unbeatable, winning 88 straight games in 1932-33.In the twenties and early thirties, their matches with the Original Boston Celtics were basketball’s greatest gate attraction. At the World Professional Basketball Tournament they won in 1939, lost to the eventual champion Harlem Globetrotters in 1940, and finished second to the National Basketball League champion Minneapolis Lakers in 1948.He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a contributor in 1972, the first Black enshrined. Nicknamed the “Father of Black Professional Basketball”, Bob Douglas died on July 16, 1979. 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 a politician from Alabama during the Reconstruction Era. He served as a United States Representative from Alabama, for one term from 1873 until 1875. Born free in Alabama, he received his higher education and law degree in Scotland and Canada before being admitted to the bar in Tennessee. Rapier was a nationally prominent figure in the Republican Party as one of seven blacks serving in the 43rd Congress. He worked in 1874 for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal access to public accommodations.Today in our History – February 4, 1875 – James Thomas Rapier (November 13, 1837 – May 31, 1883). On February 4, 1875, Congressman James T. Rapier of Alabama, rose on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to support the Civil Right bill then before Congress which when enacted later that year became the Civil Rights Act of 1875. James T. Rapier was born free in 1837 in Florence, Alabama to John H. Rapier, a prosperous local barber, and his wife, who were established free people of color. He had three older brothers. His father had been emancipated in 1829; his mother was born into a free black family of Baltimore, Maryland. She died in 1841 when Rapier was four years old. In 1842 James and his brother John Jr. went to Nashville, Tennessee to live with their paternal grandmother Sally Thomas.[2][3] There they attended a school for African-American children, and learned to read and write.In 1856 Rapier traveled to Canada with his uncle Henry Thomas, his father’s half-brother, who settled in Buxton, Ontario, an all-black community made up chiefly of African Americans. It was developed with the aid of Rev. William King, a Scots-American Presbyterian missionary. King had bought land (with Canadian government approval) for resettlement of black American refugees who had escaped to Canada during the slavery years via the Underground Railroad. The African Americans were building a thriving community, and Rapier’s uncle had property there. Rapier attended the Buxton Mission School, which was highly respected and had a classical education. He pursued higher education in three stages, first earning a teaching degree in 1856 at a normal school in Toronto. He traveled to Scotland to study at the University of Glasgow. Returning to Canada, he completed his law degree at Montreal College and was admitted to the bar. After teaching for a time at the Buxton Mission School, Rapier moved in 1864 to Nashville, Tennessee. He attended Franklin College, a historically black college, to gain a teaching certificate.Working as a reporter for a northern newspaper, Rapier bought 200 acres in Maury County, Tennessee, and became a cotton planter. He made a keynote speech at the Tennessee Negro Suffrage Convention. He continued as an advocate for black voting rights but was disappointed in the return of Confederates to state office. With his father needing help, Rapier returned to his home in Alabama in 1866. There he bought 550 acres and again cultivated cotton. He became active in the Republican Party, serving as a delegate to the 1867 state constitutional convention.In 1870, Rapier ran for Alabama Secretary of State and lost. In 1872, he was elected to the Forty-third United States Congress from Alabama’s 2nd congressional district, one of three African-American congressmen elected from the state during Reconstruction. While in Congress, he had national scope. Rapier proposed authorizing a land bureau to allocate Western lands to freedmen. He also proposed that Congress appropriate $5 million to devote to public education in Southern schools.He was one of seven black Congressmen at the time; in 1874, they each testified for the Civil Rights Act, which was signed in 1875. Rapier recalled being denied service at every inn at stopping points between Montgomery, Alabama, and Washington, DC, despite being a US Congressman. He noted how the race issue in the United States society related to what were often class and religious inequalities in other lands, and said that he was “half slave and half free”, having political rights but no civil rights. He said that in Europe, “they have princes, dukes, and lords; in India, “brahmans or priests, who rank above the sudras or laborers;” in America, “our distinction is color.” After losing his re-election campaign in 1874, Rapier was appointed by the Republican presidential administration as a collector for the Internal Revenue Service in Alabama, serving in this role until his death. He campaigned against the conservative Democratic Party’s Redeemer government in Alabama, but Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1874. After passing other restrictive laws that created Jim Crow rules, in 1901 white Democrats passed a new state constitution that required poll taxes and literacy tests for persons trying to register to vote. Under subjective white administration, these barriers essentially disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites in Alabama, excluding them from the political system for decades into the late 20th century.Rapier died in Montgomery, Alabama on May 31, 1883 of pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. The Rapier Family Papers are held by Howard University.In 1979, historian John Hope Franklin gave a presidential address to the American Historical Association. He discussed how Walter L. Fleming of Vanderbilt University, one of the most prominent of the influential historians of the 20th-century Dunning School, had written about Rapier. Franklin observed that Fleming’s viewpoint, which had been hostile to civil and voting rights for African Americans, may have led him to make errors.Franklin said:Writing in 1905 Walter L. Fleming referred to James T. Rapier, a Negro member of the Alabama constitutional convention of 1867, as “Rapier of Canada.” He then quoted Rapier as saying that the manner in which “colored gentlemen and ladies were treated in America was beyond his comprehension.” [Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama] In a footnote to his address, Franklin added: “Fleming knew better, for in another place—deep in a footnote (p. 519)—he asserted that Rapier was from Lauderdale, “educated in Canada”.”Franklin explained:Born in Alabama in 1837, Rapier, like many of his white contemporaries, went North for an education. The difference was that instead of stopping in the northern part of the United States, as, for example, (the pro-slavery advocate) William L. Yancey did, Rapier went on to Canada. Rapier’s contemporaries did not regard him as a Canadian; and, if some were not precisely clear about where he was born (as was the Alabama State Journal, which referred to his birthplace as Montgomery rather than Florence), they did not misplace him altogether. [Loren Schweninger, James T. Rapier and Reconstruction (Chicago, 1978), xvii, 15.]Franklin said: “In 1905 Fleming made Rapier a Canadian because it suited his purposes to have a bold, aggressive, ‘impertinent’ Negro in Alabama Reconstruction come from some non-Southern, contaminating environment like Canada. But it did not suit his purposes to call Yancey, who was a graduate of Williams College, a ‘Massachusetts Man.’ Fleming described Yancey (a white Confederate) as, simply, the ‘leader of the States Rights men.'” [Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, p. 12.] For a detailed account and comparison of Yancey and other white Southerners who went North to secure an education, see Franklin’s book, A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976), pp. 45–80.Franklin is critical of Fleming for falsely stating that Rapier, and others, were “carpetbaggers.” Franklin said, “…some of the people that Fleming called carpetbaggers had lived in Alabama for years and were, therefore, entitled to at least as much presumption of assimilation in moving from some other state to Alabama decades before the war as the Irish were in moving from their native land to some community in the United States. …Whether they had lived in Alabama for decades before the Civil War or had settled there after the war, these “carpetbaggers” were apparently not to be regarded as models for Northern investors or settlers in the early years of the twentieth century. Twentieth-century investors from the North were welcome provided they accepted the established arrangements in race relations and the like. Fleming served his Alabama friends well by ridiculing carpetbaggers, even if in the process he had to distort and misrepresent.” 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 sharecropper and widowed mother of 12 children, who was at the center of one of the most explosive capital punishment cases in U.S. history. In the 1940s, she became an icon for the civil rights and social justice movementToday in our History – February 3, 1948 – Rosa Ingram and her fourteen and sixteen-year-old sons condemned to death for the alleged murder of a white Georgian. Mrs. Ingram said she acted in self-defense.Rosa Lee Ingram was an African American woman whose 1948 murder conviction, along with the conviction of two of her adolescent sons, raised considerable doubt about the integrity of Georgia’s judicial system. Civil rights organizations launched an ambitious campaign to free the Ingrams in the years that followed. As a result of these efforts, Ingram and her sons were paroled in 1959.Rosa Lee Ingram was a widowed sharecropper and mother of twelve who lived near Ellaville, Georgia. On November 4, 1947, a confrontation broke out between Ingram and her neighbor, John Ethron Stratford, after he discovered some of her livestock in his field. According to Ingram’s initial account of the incident, Stratford threatened her with a rifle.Several of her sons intervened, a fight ensued, and when the dust settled, Stratford was dead.Ingram was arrested along with three of her teenage sons: seventeen-year-old Charles, sixteen-year-old Wallace, and fourteen-year-old Sammie Lee. The four were placed in separate jails and were not provided legal counsel. Local authorities would later claim that Rosa Lee, Wallace, and Sammie Lee revised their initial account of the altercation while in custody. According to these new statements, two struggles occurred, and Stratford was killed during the second one, when the Ingrams seized his rifle and pursued him as he ran to his house. Charles, however, refused to change his statement, insisting that only one confrontation had occurred.Rosa Lee, Wallace, and Sammie Lee were tried on January 26, 1948, in Ellaville by Judge W. M. Harper. Charles was tried the following afternoon. Both trials lasted only a single day. Not until the day before the first of the two trials, when S. Hawkins Dykes was appointed as the Ingrams’ attorney, would any of the four defendants have access to legal counsel. Based on his account of their later statements, Sherriff J. E. De Vane informed the jury that the Ingrams followed the fleeing Stratford and beat him to death with several farming tools.When she took the stand, Mrs. Ingram denied making any such statement. She said that Stratford threatened her with a knife and struck her with a rifle. She then managed to take possession of the gun and struck Stratford about the head in self-defense. She testified that Wallace also struck Stratford once with the rifle, but that none of her other sons had done the same. Wallace and Sammie Lee gave similar accounts on the stand. There were no other eyewitnesses.Judge Harper told the all-white, all-male jury that the defendants could be found guilty or innocent of either manslaughter or murder. The jury found all three guilty of murder, and Harper sentenced them to death. The next day Charles was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.The conviction was immediately protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), and Georgia-based groups such as the Georgia Defense Committee. The Pittsburgh Courier, an influential black newspaper, brought national attention to the case by running several front-page pieces about the Ingrams. The case also received significant attention from communist publications such as the Daily Worker. A majority of these stories portrayed Mrs. Ingram as a mother protecting her family from a white attacker, making her the face of the family’s campaign for exoneration. The case marked the first occasion that the CRC, a relatively new organization, launched a national campaign to free a black defendant. The group never represented the Ingrams in court and at times disagreed with the NAACP’s strategy, but it played a significant role in bringing public opinion to the Ingram family’s side.The NAACP joined with Dykes, the Ingrams’ defense attorney, to appeal the conviction. A hearing to decide if they should receive a new trial was held on March 25, 1948. Dykes emphasized the fact that the Ingrams had not received legal counsel until the day before their trial, had been jailed separately, and had possibly been coerced into giving statements to the police. He argued that the most they should have been convicted of was manslaughter. Judge Harper commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment but denied the Ingrams a new trial.The NAACP and the CRC continued their efforts to free Mrs. Ingram and her sons and sponsored a fund-raising campaign and clothing collection for the rest of the Ingram family. Enough money was eventually raised to build the family a new house. Charles Ingram toured several cities to raise money for the defense of his mother and brothers. The NAACP brought the case before the Georgia Supreme Court, but the court upheld the convictions in July 1948. In March 1949 the all-woman National Committee to Free the Ingram Family (later the Women’s Committee for Equal Justice) was founded by CRC members to promote public interest in the case. Efforts included presenting petitions to President Harry Truman, organizing Mother’s Day rallies, and circulating postcards, clearly putting Rosa Lee front and center in their appeals.At the same time, the NAACP had been working behind the scenes in Atlanta to increase the chances of the Ingrams gaining early parole. Several parole requests during the 1950s were denied. In 1957 Georgia officials expressed their willingness to parole the Ingrams, but it took another two years for the board to vote in favor of release. Rosa Lee, Wallace, and Sammie Lee Ingram were released from prison on August 26, 1959. Mrs. Ingram lived in Atlanta until her death in 1980. 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 actor and theatre director, best known for his leading role as Ben in the 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead.He was later director of the Maguire Theater at the State University of New York at Old Westbury, and the artistic director of the Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art in Manhattan.Today in our History. – February 2, 1968 – Made the cast of “THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Jones was born in New York City to Mildred Jones (née Gordon). He had a sister, Marva (later Marva Brooks), and a brother, Henry. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.A. and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, before training as an actor in New York City. He later completed an M.A. in Communications at New York University in between shooting Night of the Living Dead.Prior to becoming an actor, Jones was a Phelps-Stokes exchange scholar in Niger and taught literature at Long Island University. He created English-language training programs for the Peace Corps and helped design Harlem Preparatory School, where he headed the English department. His role in the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead marked the first time an African-American actor was cast as the star of a horror film, and one of the first times in American cinema where an important role was given to a person of color when the script did not explicitly call for one. At the time, casting a black man as the hero of a film where all the other characters were white was potentially controversial. While some saw the casting as significant, director George A. Romero states “Duane simply gave the best audition.”He continued working in film after Night of the Living Dead in Ganja & Hess (1973) and Beat Street (1984), among others. Despite his other film roles, Jones worried that people only recognized him as Ben. From 1972 to 1976, Jones oversaw the literature department at Antioch College. He was subsequently executive director of the Black Theater Alliance, a federation of theater companies, from 1976 through 1981 and continued working as a theater actor and director, until his death in 1988.As executive director of the Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art (RACCA), he promoted African-American theater. He also taught acting styles at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. After leaving the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he taught a select group of students privately in Manhattan, by invitation only. His hand-selected students were of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The students were picked from his Acting Styles classes at American Academy of Dramatic Arts.Jones died of cardiopulmonary arrest at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, Long Island, New York, on July 22, 1988, aged 51. He was cremated and his ashes given to his family. • The Duane L. Jones Recital Hall at the State University of New York at Old Westbury is named after him. • In the zombie comic book series The Walking Dead, the African-American character Duane Jones is named in his honorMake It A Champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Campion was an American politician who was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. As an African-American lawmaker, he was instrumental in the passage of anti-lynching legislation and also sponsored bills providing pensions to civil servants. He was the first African American to practice law in Youngstown, Ohio. Today in our History – February 1, 1897 William Stewart was unanimously nominated for re-election at his party’s convention.During his two terms as a lawmaker and almost seven decades as a private attorney, Stewart participated in projects and policies designed to improve the condition of African Americans. Toward the end of his life, he was publicly honored for his role in promoting interracial cooperation. Stewart retained his law practice until failing health and advanced age intervened. At the time of his death, he was one of the most prominent figures in Youngstown’s legal community.Stewart was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania, the son of Lemuel A. Stewart, a bricklayer. The family moved to Youngstown when Stewart was still a young child. Despite the elder Stewart’s expressed desire that his son follow in his trade, William Stewart pursued his studies at Youngstown’s Rayen School, where he earned a diploma in 1883. After graduating from high school, Stewart became a baggage master with the old P.C. & P. Railroad. He went on to read law in the Cincinnati office of Laurin D. Woodworth, a two-term congressman, and Benjamin Franklin Wirt, a former state senator. During this time, Stewart developed a brisk sideline helping Civil War veterans cut through government red tape to secure their pensions. Upon the sale of his practice, Stewart acquired enough money to enter Cincinnati Law School, where he graduated in 1886. He returned to Youngstown and established law offices in a downtown landmark known as “the old Diamond block”. In 1895, he was nominated for state representative at the Mahoning County Republican convention. On October 14, 1895, an editorial in The Youngstown Telegram accused Stewart’s Democratic opponent, James B. Chambers, of employing racist rhetoric in his campaign. “This argument is not in good taste for the reason that we are not living in the far South where the colored man is not allowed by Democrats to exercise the rights of a free American citizen”, the editorial stated.”We are in the North, where all men are equal”. The editorial outlined Stewart’s qualifications for public office and indicated he had “won the esteem and good wishes of everyone who knows him”. At the close of the election, Stewart defeated Chambers by a margin of more than 900 votes. In 1897, Stewart was unanimously nominated for re-election at his party’s convention. At a time when U.S. senators were elected by state lawmakers, Stewart publicly vowed to support the senatorial bid of Cleveland political boss Mark Hanna, who managed the successful presidential campaign of William McKinley in 1896. His Democratic opponent, Mark R. Morris, promised to vote against Hanna. Ultimately, Stewart prevailed over Morris by a vote of 6,075 to 5,749. During his two terms as a state lawmaker, Stewart sponsored legislation that provided pensions to police and firemen, ensured tax support for the establishment of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, and initiated legislation for the construction of Youngstown’s Market Street Bridge, which opened up a vibrant business district to the south of the city.In addition, he supported the Smith Anti-Mob Violence bill, which featured stronger measures to prevent vigilante justice. In 1897, during his campaign for a second term in the state legislature, Stewart hosted the convention of the National League of Colored Voters of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and West Virginia, which was held in Youngstown that year. Stewart chose not to seek a third term in the Ohio Senate, stating that his responsibilities as a lawmaker interfered with his law practice. After an unsuccessful bid for probate judge, he abandoned politics altogether. From 1907 to 1914, Stewart served as the local attorney for the Austria-Hungarian monarchy, representing the Washington embassy through the Cleveland consulate. In the 1880s, Stewart married the former Consuelo Clarke, a medical student who was the daughter of a Cincinnati school superintendent. When the couple settled in Youngstown, Consuelo Stewart became the community’s first African-American doctor. In addition, she helped organize a local chapter of the YWCA and sponsored Youngstown’s first free kindergarten. Consuelo Stewart died in 1911; William Stewart never remarried. In 1924, after almost 40 years in the same location, Stewart moved his offices to another downtown building to make way for the razing of the “old Diamond block”.He maintained a downtown law practice until well into his eighties, when a broken hip severely limited his mobility. Stewart, in retirement, remained a visible figure within his community. In 1947, he was publicly honored as the first person to organize a local committee dedicated to interracial work. Stewart died at his North Side home of arteriosclerosis at the age of 93. His obituary in The Youngstown Vindicator described him as “the dean of Youngstown’s attorneys”. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – It is always good for me to return home to my native New Jersey but since the world was hit with this deadly virus I have not been back to see family or friends but I want to go back as soon as I can. I was born in Camden and from a child I had an opportunity to be proud of the man who’s story will be told. Today’s American Champion was an American professional boxer who competed from 1930 to 1953. He held the world heavyweight title from 1951 to 1952, and broke the record for the oldest man to win the title, at the age of 37. That record would eventually be broken in 1994 by 45-year-old George Foreman. Despite holding the world heavyweight title for a relatively short period of time, Walcott was regarded among the best heavyweights in the world during the 1940s and 1950s. BoxRec ranked him among top 10 heavyweights from 1944 to 1953 and gave nine of his victorious fights a 5-Star rating, a record in the heavyweight division matched only by Wladimir Klitschko.After retiring from boxing, Walcott did some acting, playing small parts in a few movies and television shows. He also refereed several boxing matches, but after the controversial ending to the second fight between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, Walcott was not asked to referee again. From 1971 to 1974, Walcott held the elected position of Sheriff of Camden County, New Jersey, the first African-American to do so. From 1975 to 1984, he was the chairman of the New Jersey State Athletic Commission.Today in our History – Arnold Raymond Cream (January 31, 1914 – February 25, 1994), best known as Jersey Joe Walcott was born.Walcott was born in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. His father was an immigrant from St. Thomas, Danish West Indies. His mother was from Jordantown (Pennsauken Township), New Jersey. Walcott was only 15 years old when his father died. He quit school and worked in a soup factory to support his mother and 11 younger brothers and sisters. He also began training as a boxer. He took the name of his boxing idol, Joe Walcott, a welterweight champion from Barbados. He added “Jersey” to distinguish himself and show where he was from.He debuted as a professional boxer on September 9, 1930, fighting Cowboy Wallace and winning by a knockout in round one. After five straight knockout wins, in 1933, he lost for the first time, beaten on points by Henry Wilson in Philadelphia.He built a record of 45 wins, 11 losses and 1 draw before challenging for the world title for the first time. Walcott lost early bouts against world-class competition. He lost a pair of fights to Tiger Jack Fox and was knocked out by contender Abe Simon. But that would change in 1945 when Walcott beat top heavyweights such as Joe Baksi, Lee Q. Murray, Curtis Sheppard and Jimmy Bivins. He closed out 1946 with a pair of losses to former light heavyweight champ Joey Maxim and heavyweight contender Elmer Ray, but promptly avenged those defeats in 1947.On December 5, 1947, he fought Joe Louis, at thirty three years of age breaking the record as the oldest man to fight for the world heavyweight title. Despite dropping Louis in round one, and again in round four, he lost a 15-round split decision. Most ringside observers and boxing writers felt Walcott deserved the win; a debate ensued, and sportswriters carried the topic throughout America. The lone official to vote for Walcott, referee Ruby Goldstein, was cast as a hero. Letters and telegrams poured in to the Goldstein household, praising his judgment. There was talk of an investigation being assembled for rule revisions in judging. Louis went into seclusion for a couple of days, then quieted dissent with the following: “I know Ruby. He calls them as he sees them and that should be good enough for anybody.” What controversy remained was the kind that builds the gate, and Jersey Joe was rightfully granted a rematch on June 25, 1948. Though dropped again, this time in the third, Louis prevailed by a knockout in round 11. The bout was the first closed-circuit telecast (CCTV) sports broadcast, distributed via theatre television. On June 22 of 1949, Walcott got another chance to become world heavyweight champion when he and Ezzard Charles met for the title left vacant by Louis. However, Charles prevailed, winning by decision in 15 rounds. Walcott, disappointed but eager to see his dream of being a champion come true, went on, and in 1950 he won four of his five bouts, including a third-round knockout of future world light heavyweight champion Harold Johnson.On March 7, 1951, he and Charles fought for a second time and again Charles won a 15-round decision to retain his world title. But on July 18, he joined a handful of boxers who claimed the world title in their fifth try, when he knocked out Charles in seven rounds in Pittsburgh to finally become world heavyweight champion at the age of 37. This made him the oldest man ever to win the world heavyweight crown (a distinction he would hold until George Foreman won the title at age 45 in 1994).Walcott retained the title with a 15-round decision victory against arch-enemy Charles. On September 23, 1952, he put his title on the line for the second time. His opponent was the undefeated Rocky Marciano. In the first round, Walcott floored Marciano with a left hook; the first time in his career that Rocky had ever been down. After twelve intense rounds, Walcott stood well ahead on two of the three official scorecards, leaving Marciano needing a knockout to win. In the thirteenth round, with Marciano pressuring Walcott against the ropes, simultaneously each threw a right hand. Marciano landed first and flush on Walcott´s jaw with what many consider the hardest punch thrown in boxing history. The title changed hands in an instant. Walcott collapsed with his left arm hanging over the ropes, slowly sinking to the canvas, where he was counted out. An immediate rematch was set for May 15, 1953 in Chicago. The second time around Walcott was again defeated by Marciano by a knockout, this time in the first round. It would be Walcott’s last bout.Walcott did not go away from the celebrity scene after boxing. In 1956, he co-starred with Humphrey Bogart and Max Baer in the boxing drama The Harder They Fall. In 1963, he tried professional wrestling, losing to Lou Thesz. Thesz pinned Walcott in the fifth round, but has stated that Walcott knocked him (Thesz) down and most likely out in that fifth round. As he fell to the floor, he relied on instinct, grabbing Walcott’s knees, taking him down with him and stretching him out for the pin.In 1965, Walcott refereed the controversial world heavyweight championship rematch between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston. Walcott lost the count as Ali circled around a floored Liston and Walcott tried to get him back to a neutral corner. Walcott then looked outside of the ring (presumably to the ringside count keeper) as Ali and Liston went at each other, before Walcott instructed them to keep on fighting. Walcott then approached the fighters and abruptly stopped the fight. Walcott was never again appointed as a referee after this bout.After retiring, Walcott worked for the Camden County corrections department. In 1968, he ran for Sheriff of Camden County, New Jersey, but lost in the Democratic primary to Spencer H. Smith Jr. That same year he was named director of community relations for Camden. In 1971, he ran again for Camden County Sheriff. He defeated Republican William Strang in the general election. He was the first African-American to serve as Sheriff in Camden County. He served as chairman of the New Jersey State Athletic Commission from 1975 until 1984, when he stepped down at the mandatory retirement age of 70. Walcott was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York. Research more about this great American champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!