Category: Education

02Nov

November 2 1894- Benedict College Opens

GM – FBF – Today’s story is about a school of higher education, some people believe today there is no reason to go to college and spend all of that money to have a degree in a field that you can’t get a job or further that profession. I agree why take something just to be taking it, it must serve a purpose besides a place to party and extend your high school foolishness. This school was one of the top HBCU’s in the country until Blacks were allowed to attend the bigger Intuitions around it. I have had the honor of speaking to the students on campus back in the day. Enjoy!

Remember – “Education is your ticket to the next phase in your life, don’t sleep on it” – Fredrick Douglass

Today in our History – November 2, 1894 – Benedict College opens.

Located within walking distance of downtown Columbia, South Carolina, Benedict College is a private four-year, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the American Baptist Churches, USA. Benedict College was founded in 1870 by Rhode Island native Mrs. Bathsheba Benedict and the Baptist Home Mission. Its long-term goal was to educate emancipated African Americans and produce citizens with “powers for good in society.” Originally called Benedict Institute, on November 2, 1894, through a charter granted by the South Carolina legislature, the institution became a liberal arts college and changed its name to Benedict College. From 1870 until 1930 Benedict was led by northern white Baptist ministers, but in April 1930 Reverend John J. Starks became the first African American president of the college. Starks was a Benedict alumnus, class of 1891.

Benedict College is currently one of the fastest growing of the 39 United Negro College Fund schools. Amongst the twenty independent colleges in the state of South Carolina, Benedict with 2,770 students, has the largest undergraduate enrollment, and the second largest enrollment overall. On two occasions Money magazine has named Benedict among the top seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) nationally that offer the best value in American education. Benedict College has also been recognized by the Knight Foundation for its “commitment to high standards of quality in education” and for its “distinguished record of providing educational opportunities to African-American students.”

Today, Benedict College offers courses in business, government, social and health services, public and private school instruction, and in the civic, cultural, religious, and scientific fields. According to a recent survey conducted by the American Institute of Physics, Benedict ranks second in the nation in producing African American physics majors. Of the 2,700 students attending Benedict during the 2008-2009 academic year, 97% attended full time, 55% were from South Carolina, 69% lived in on-campus housing, and 3% were from outside the United States. A recent count showed that the balance between genders on campus was almost precisely equal. During that same academic year, Benedict had a total faculty of 158, 121 of whom taught full time. Research more about other HBCU’s and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Oct

October 19 1936- Johnnetta Betsch

GM – FBF – Today’s History lesson is about an American Black educator, museum director, and college president.

Remember – “The trouble with a woman standing behind her man is that she can’t see where she is going!” – — Johnnetta B. Cole

Today in our History – October 19, 1936 – Johnnetta Betsch Cole was born.

Johnnetta Betsch Cole (born 1936) is an American anthropologist, educator, museum director, and college president. Cole was the first female African-American president of Spelman College, a historically black college, serving from 1987 to 1997. She was president of Bennett College from 2002 to 2007. During 2009–2017 she was Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art.

Cole served as a professor at Washington State University from 1962 to 1970, where she cofounded one of the US’s first black studies programs. In 1970 Cole began working in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she served until 1982. While at the University of Massachusetts, she played a pivotal role in the development of the university’s W.E.B. Du Bois Department of African-American Studies. Cole then moved to Hunter College in 1982, and became director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. From 1998 to 2001 Cole was a professor of Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies at Emory
University in Atlanta.

n 1987, Cole was selected as the first black female president of Spelman College, a prestigious historically black college for women. She served until 1997, building up their endowment through a $113 million capital campaign, attracting significantly higher enrollment as students increased, and, overall, the ranking of the school among the best liberal arts schools went up.[11] Bill and Camille Cosby contributed $20 million to the capital campaign.

After teaching at Emory University, she was recruited as president of Bennett College for Women, also a historically black college for women. There she led another successful capital campaign. In addition, she founded an art gallery to contribute to the college’s culture. Cole is currently the Chair of the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute founded at Bennett College for Women. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

She was Director of the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, during 2009–2017. During her directorship the controversial exhibit, “Conversations: African and African-American Artworks in Dialogue,” featuring dozens of pieces from Bill and Camille Cosby’s private art collection was held in 2015, coinciding with accusations of sexual assault against the comedian.

Cole has also served in major corporations and foundations. Cole served for many years as board member at the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation. She has been a director of Merck & Co. since 1994. She is the first woman elected to the board of Coca-Cola. From 2004 to 2006, Cole was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of United Way of America and is on the Board of Directors of the UnitePresident-elect Bill Clinton appointed Cole to his transition team for education, labor, the arts, and humanities in 1992. He also considered her for the cabinet post of Secretary of Education.

But when The Jewish Daily Forward reported that she had been a member of the national committee of the Venceremos Brigades, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation had tied to Cuban intelligence forces, Clinton did not advance her nomination. Research more about American Black Woman Educators and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

24Sep

September 24 1957- The Little Rock Nine

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to share with you a story that is always close to my heart because I was part of the Supreme Court decision of “Brown v Board”. In 1957 I was ready to go to an elementary school that had black teachers for black students (segregation) but with this new law we can now go to a new elementary school in East Trenton called Woodrow Wilson. I hated the school and the teachers who seemed not to want to be there and during lunch many frequented the bar at the end of the corner and took it out on us during the classes in the afternoon. I was told repeatedly that I would not amount to nothing Not knowing that it was part of a national crises at the time and in Arkansas it was no different. Remember and never forget!

Remember – “We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” – Chief Justice Earl Warren – U.S. Supreme Court

Today in Our History – September 24, 1957 – The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483, on May 17, 1954. Tied to the 14th Amendment, the decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the desegregation of all schools throughout the nation. After the decision, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in cities throughout the South. In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the school boardagreed to comply with the high court’s ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957.

By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance. Called the “Little Rock Nine”, they were Ernest Green (b. 1941), Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1941), Jefferson Thomas (1942–2010), Terrence Roberts (b. 1941), Carlotta Walls LaNier (b. 1942), Minnijean Brown (b. 1941), Gloria Ray Karlmark (b. 1942), Thelma Mothershed (b. 1940), and Melba Pattillo Beals (b. 1941). Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate from Central High School.

By the end of September 1957, the nine were admitted to Little Rock Central High under the protection of the 101st Airborne Division (and later the Arkansas National Guard), but they were still subjected to a year of physical and verbal abuse (being spat on and called names) by many of the white students. Melba Pattillo had acid thrown into her eyes and also recalled in her book, Warriors Don’t Cry, an incident in which a group of white girls trapped her in a stall in the girls’ washroom and attempted to burn her by dropping pieces of flaming paper on her from above. Another one of the students, Minnijean Brown, was verbally confronted and abused. She said.

I was one of the kids ‘approved’ by the school officials. We were told we would have to take a lot and were warned not to fight back if anything happened. One girl ran up to me and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. Won’t you go to lunch with me today?’ I never saw her again.

Minnijean Brown was also taunted by members of a group of white male students in December 1957 in the school cafeteria during lunch. She dropped her lunch, a bowl of chili, onto the boys and was suspended for six days. Two months later, after more confrontation, Brown was suspended for the rest of the school year. She transferred to New Lincoln High School in New York City. As depicted in the 1981 made-for-TV docudrama Crisis at Central High, and as mentioned by Melba Pattillo Beals in Warriors Don’t Cry, white students were punished only when their offense was “both egregious and witnessed by an adult”. The drama was based on a book by Elizabeth Huckaby, a vice-principal during the crisis. Research more about this and other Civil Rights issues and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Sep

September 19 2002- Etta Zuber Falconer

GM – FBF – Today I would like to share with you a story that most people have forgotten or have never been told. It is about a woman who was born in the South but gained fame in a lot of places outside the South as a mathematician. Enjoy!

Remember – “Mathematics is the heart of everything that we do in life, not to understand it is like saying I don’t care to know myself” – Etta Zuber Falconer

Today in our History – September 19, 2002 Etta Zuber Falconer died.

Mathematician Etta Zuber Falconer was born on November 21, 1933, in Tupelo, Mississippi. Her mother, Zadie L. Montgomery, was a musician, and her father, Dr. Walter A. Zuber, was a physician. She graduated from George Washington Carver High School in 1949. Zuber was only fifteen years old when she enrolled into Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. One of her early instructors was Evelyn Boyd Granville, an associate professor of mathematics.

Zuber graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree, with a major in mathematics and minor in chemistry. While at Fisk, Zuber was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honors society. At the age of nineteen, Zuber enrolled into the University of Wisconsin at Madison, supporting herself with various jobs. She graduated with her Master’s Degree in Mathematics in 1954.

Zuber returned to Mississippi in 1955 to teach math at Okolona Junior College. It was there that she met Dolan Falconer, and the two married the same year. They had three children: Dolan Falconer Jr., Dr. Alice Falconer Wilson, and Dr. Walter Falconer, and were separated only by the Dolan’s death in 1990.

During the summer of 1962, Falconer began attending the National Science Foundation (NSF) Teacher Training Institute summer program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while beginning her PhD studies at the University of Illinois. In 1963 she left Okolona College to accept a teaching position at Howard High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Falconer was named institute director of NSF in 1964, but her time was cut short when her husband was offered a teaching position at Morris Brown College, and the family relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. Falconer began teaching at Spelman College in 1965 and was awarded an NSF Faculty Fellowship (1967–1969) that enabled her to teach part time, while continuing to work on her PhD at Emory University.

In 1969 Falconer became the eleventh African American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics. She specialized in Abstract Algebra. In 1971 when her husband accepted a teaching position in Virginia, Falconer obtained a position as an associate professor of mathematics at Norfolk State College. After a year, they returned to Georgia, and Falconer returned to Spelman College in 1972 where she was named associate professor of mathematics and chairperson of the Mathematics Department. She held those positions until 1985.

Additionally, Falconer chaired the Natural Sciences Division from 1975 to 1990. She also became one of the first African American women in the nation to earn a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, which she received from Atlanta University in 1982. While teaching at Spelman College, Falconer was responsible for instituting a summer science program for pre-freshmen, an annual Spring Science Day, the NASA Women in Science Program, the NASA Undergraduate Science Research Program, and the College Honors Program. She was also founder of the local chapter of the National Association of Mathematicians.

Falconer was awarded the UNCF Distinguished Faculty Award (1986–1987), the Spelman Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (1988), the Spelman Presidential Faculty Award for Distinguished Service (1994), NAM’s Distinguished Service Award (1994), the AWM Louise Hay Award, for outstanding achievements in mathematics education (1995), QEM’s Giants in Science Award (1995), and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1996). She has also been a member of countless panels, societies, organizations, and committees.

Dr. Etta Zuber Falconer died of pancreatic cancer on September 19, 2002, in Atlanta, Georgia, at the age of sixty-eight. She is survived by her three children. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

07Sep

September 7 1962- Rosalind G. Brewer

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to share with you a story that is still unfolding every day. A story of a black woman who is still setting the bar for every young lady coming behind her, she came from the “Motor City” with a vision of taking her education to the fullest. She found a home at a fortune 500 company and never looked back, who knows what the future holds for her. Enjoy!

Remember – “Everywhere I travel and am blessed to tell my story in hopes that a brave young lady is listening and will rise to the top and grasp this American dream” – Rosalind G. Brewer

Today in our History – September 7, 1962 – Rosalind G. Brewer was born.

Rosalind G. Brewer is an American businesswoman and the first African American woman to become chief operations officer (COO) of Starbucks. Brewer was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1962. She was the youngest of five children and they were the first generation in her family to go to college.

In 1980, Brewer graduated from Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Right after graduation she enrolled in Spelman College where she earned bachelor degree in chemistry in 1984. Later she graduated from the University Of Chicago Booth School Of Business in Illinois and Stanford Law School in California and completed the advanced management program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2006.

Brewer worked for Kimberly-Clark, the paper manufacturer, for 22 years, right out of college. With her degree in chemistry, she started her career as a research technician. Frustrated by the lack of control in research and development she moved over to administration. By 2006 she worked her way up to be president for manufacturing and global operations in Kimberly-Clark.

Brewer left Kimberly-Clark in 2006 and joined Walmart as regional vice president over operations in Georgia. From there, she became the division president of Walmart’s Southeast market and finally a president of Walmart East.
In 2012, Brewer was named President and CEO of Sam’s Club, becoming the first African American to lead a Walmart division. She has focused on health and wellness by doubling the number of organic products offered at Sam’s Clubs and led the development of the company’s curbside pickup service and e-commerce efforts, including introducing a process that allows customers to scan items with their phones in order to speed up checkout.

During her time at Sam’s Club, Brewer connected with Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who invited her to work for Starbucks but initially she declined his offer. After retiring from Walmart on February 1, 2017 she accepted the COO role at Starbucks.

In 2016, Brewer was listed as the 57th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. She was also named as one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes earlier in 2013. The magazine named her among the Most Powerful Black Women of 2013. She has been honored by Fortune magazine as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. The Fortune 500’s Most Powerful Women List of September 15, 2015 issue ranked Brewer 15th. In 2016 she ranked 19th on Fortune’s annual ranking of all leaders in business. Research more about African American woman who are leading companies and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

05Sep

September 5 1916- Frank Garvin Yerby

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to share with you a story of a man who lust for education and was close to receiving his doctorate degree but dropped out to teach school, work in an automotive plant and the aviation Industry. Then turned to the pen and wrote books during his college days. One of his books was required reading for me while I was in High School. He sold more than 55 million books and won numerous rewards. Let’s find out more about this commercially successful writer of the 20th Century. Enjoy!

Remember – “When it was over, it was not really over, and that was the trouble” -. Frank Yerby

Today in our History – September 5, 1916 – Frank Garvin Yerby was born in Augusta, Georgia.

His parents were Wilhelmina and Rufus Yerby. Frank Yerby was the product of an interracial marriage. His father was African American and his mother was of European origin. Yerby grew up in Augusta and attended two local institutions. He graduated from Haines Institute in 1933. Four years later he earned a second degree from Paine College. The following year Yerby entered Fisk University in Nashville where he earned a master’s degree. Yerby began studies toward a doctorate in education from the University of Chicago but dropped out before obtaining a degree.

Frank Yerby taught briefly at Florida A&M College and later at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He later migrated north, to Dearborn, Michigan where he worked as a technician at the Ford Motor Company and then to Jamaica, New York, where he worked in the aviation industry
Eventually Yerby gained success as an author. His story “Health Card” won the 1944 O. Henry Memorial Award for best first published short story of the year. Two years later his first novel, The Foxes of Harrow, received critical acclaim. Yerby would write more than thirty novels over his career. His best known novel, The Dahomean, appeared in 1971. His publications sold more than fifty-five million hardback and paperback books worldwide, making him one of the most commercially successful writers of the 20th Century.

Yerby’s novels often focused on strong male heroes but, unusual for the period, often included characters of various ethnic backgrounds. His complex story lines, known for their acute sense of history, were also usually enmeshed in romantic intrigue and violence which seemed to enhance their popularity.

Despite his commercial success Yerby, by the late 1960s, was the target of criticism by black literary critics and activists who charged that his work did not adequately address African America. Some of them contended that he deliberately denied the brutal realities of American racism that blacks faced in the historical periods his novels portrayed. Others charged that his treatment of many of the African American characters in his novels reflected the dominant anti-black stereotypes of the era. Thus, although Yerby was the first best-selling black novelist, he also became the most maligned because many critics felt his work lacked the appropriate racial consciousness.

Stung by the criticism, Yerby renounced his American citizenship and lived abroad for the rest of his life. Frank Yerby died on November 21, 1991 in Madrid, Spain. Research more about great black writers and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

11Aug

August 11 1872- Soloman Carter Fuller

GM – FBF – Today I want to share with you the story of the first Black psychiatrist. He also was at the forefront of understanding the effects of Alzheimer’s, a disease which I have lost some family members and parents of some of my friends. When people tell you that our race is just about entertainment and sports let them know that we have a rich background in all fields of the human race. Enjoy!

Remember – “When you know that you don’t know, you’ve got to read.” Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller

Today in our History – August 11, 1872 – Solomon Carter Fuller was born.

Solomon Carter Fuller, an early 20th century psychiatrist, researcher, and medical educator, was born on August 11, 1872 in Monrovia, Liberia. His parents, Solomon C. and Anna Ursilla (James) Fuller, were Americo-Liberians. Solomon Carter Fuller was the first African American psychiatrist. He also performed considerable research concerning degenerative diseases of the brain. Solomon’s grandfather was a Virginia slave who bought his and his wife’s freedom and moved to Norfolk, Virginia. The grandfather then emigrated to Liberia in 1852 to help establish a settlement of African Americans.

Fuller always showed an interest in medicine, especially since his grandparents were medical missionaries in Liberia. In 1889, Solomon migrated to the United States to attend Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. He then attended Long Island College Medical School and completed his medical degree at the Boston University School of Medicine in 1897. Fuller completed an internship at Westborough State Hospital in Boston and stayed on as a pathologist. He eventually became a faculty member of the Boston University School of Medicine. In 1909 Fuller married Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, an internationally known sculptor. The couple had three children, Solomon C., William T., and Perry J. Fuller.

Fuller faced discrimination in the medical field in the form of unequal salaries and underemployment. His duties often involved performing autopsies, an unusual procedure for that era. While performing these autopsies Fuller made discoveries which allowed him to advance in his career as well contribute to the scientific and medical communities.

Solomon Fuller’s major contribution was to the growing clinical knowledge of Alzheimer’s disease. As part of his post-graduate studies at the University of Munich (Germany), Fuller researched pathology and specifically neuropathology. In 1903 Solomon Carter Fuller was one of the five foreign students chosen by Alois Alzheimer to do research at the Royal Psychiatric Hospital at the University of Munich. He also helped correctly diagnose and train others to correctly diagnose the side effects of syphilis to prevent black war veterans from getting misdiagnosed, discharged, and ineligible for military benefits. He trained these young doctors at the Veteran’s Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama before the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments (1932-1972).

Through much of his early professional career (1899-1933) Fuller was employed with Boston University’s School of Medicine where the highest position he attained was associate professor. Solomon Carter Fuller died of diabetes in 1953 in Framingham, Massachusetts. In 1974, the Black Psychiatrists of America created the Solomon Carter Fuller Program for young black aspiring psychiatrists to complete their residency. The Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center in Boston is also named after Dr. Fuller. Research more about blacks in the medical profession and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

01Aug

August 1 1894-Benjamin Elijah Mays

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to share with you, a man who was considered to be one of America’s best educatuers. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays was a giant in the Christian ministry and American education. He is remembered for his outstanding leadership and service as a teacher, preacher, mentor, scholar, author and activist in the civil rights movement.

Remember – “It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.” – Benjamin E. Mays

Today in our History – August 1, 1894 – Benjamin Elijah Mays was born.

Born August 1, 1894 near Epworth, South Carolina, he was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College in Maine. He served as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church from 1921-1923 in Atlanta, Georgia. Recruited by Morehouse President John Hope, Mays would join the faculty as a mathematics teacher and debate coach. He obtained a master’s degree in 1925 and in 1935 a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago. In 1934, he was appointed dean of the School of Religion at Howard University and served until 1940.

He became president of Morehouse College in 1940 and launched a 27-year tenure that shepherded the institution into international prominence. He upgraded the faculty, secured a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and sustained enrollment during wartime America. His most noted forum was Tuesday morning Chapel in historic Sale Hall, where he challenged and inspired the students to excellence in scholarship and in life itself. One of Morehouse’s most distinguished graduates, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ’48, remembers Dr. Mays as his “spiritual mentor” and “intellectual father.”

Upon his retirement, he served as president of the Atlanta Board of Education from 1970 to 1981.Throughout his educational career, he would receive 56 honorary degrees, including a posthumously awarded degree from Columbia University. He published nearly 2000 articles and nine books.

In 1926, he married Sadie Gray, a teacher and social worker, who died in 1969. Dr. Mays died in 1984. Research more about this great Amerivan and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

21Jul

July 21 1818-Charles Lewis Reason

GM – FBF – Today, I want to share a story of the first black to teach at a predominantly white college in the United States. Imagine the everyday pressures he endured with courage and confidence. We have shown you that W.E.B. Dubois and William Monroe Trotter were against Booker T. Washington’s way of educating black youth. However, Charles L. Reason saw the importance of both industrial and classical education and even started a normal school (teachers’ training college) in New York City.

Remember – “O Freedom! Freedom! O! how oft
Thy loving children call on Thee!
In wailings loud, and breathings soft,
Beseeching God, Thy face to see. – from the poem FREEDOM – Charles Lewis Reason

Today in our History – July 21, 1818 – The first Black educator to teach at a predominantly white college is born.

Charles Lewis Reason was an Black American mathematician, linguist, and educator.

Reason was born on July 21, 1818, in New York City. His parents were Michael and Elizabeth Reason, who were immigrants from Guadeloupe and Saint-Dominque Haiti. Both of Reasons came as refugees in 1793 shortly after the early years of the Haitian Revolution of 1793.

The Reason’s were big on education for their children, and early on young Reason showed a aptitude for mathematics. Reason began his American education at the New York African Free School, and at the age fourteen Reason began teaching mathematics at the same school. His salary was $25 per year. Reason went on to study at New-York Central College, McGrawville, an predominantly white college in the United States.

In 1850, Reason began teaching at the same college and began professor of belles lettres, Greek, Latin, and French, while serving as an adjust professor of mathematics to majority white students. He was actually the first African-American to serve as a serve at a majority-white college.
Two years before becoming an professor in 1847, Reason along with other prominent African-Americans, such as Charles Bennett Ray (December 25, 1807 – August 15, 1886), founded the New York – Based Society, for the promotion of Education among colored children.

After three years at New-York Central College, Reason gave up his positions and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and assume an position as principal at the Institute for Colored Youth first black principal. The institution was founded in 1837, and was one of the best schools for African- Americans in the United States. (later the school was renamed to Cheyney University).

During his time at ICY, Reason increased enrollment from six students to 118 students. He also expanded the library holdings and exposed the students to outstanding African-American intellectuals and leaders of that time. He held this position until 1856. reason returned to New York City, where he became an administrator, and reformer of New York public schools. A position he held for decades.

Reason was active and very instrumental in efforts to abolish slavery and segregation and 1873, he successfully lobbied for passage to integrate New York’s public schools. After the public schools were desegregated in New York, he became the principal of Grammar School No. 80 at 252 West 42nd street.

Reason was also a poet. He contributed to the Colored American in the 1830s and was a leader of New York City’s Phoenix Society in the 1840s. He wrote the poem “Freedom”, which celebrated the British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson; it was published in Alexander Crummell’s 1849 biography of Clarkson.

Not much documentation has been found on Reason’s personal life, but he was said to have been married and widowed three times. His third and final wife was Clorice (Duplessis) Esteve (1819–1884), whom he married in New York City on July 17, 1855. They had no children, although she had a daughter from her previous marriage to John Lucien Esteve (1809–1852), a French West Indian confectioner, restaurateur and caterer in New York City.

Reason suffered two strokes one in 1885, and another in 1890. The effects of the strokes left him physically incapacitated.

Three years after his last stroke and at the age 75, Charles Lewis Reason passed away in New York City on August 16, 1893, and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Research more about great Black mathmaticians and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

16Jul

July 16 1934- Donald Payne

GM – FBF – Today, I would like to tell you about my late friend, who was truly a person who loved to help school children out as he supported my students out on many occasions. Enjoy!

Remember – ” Education is the new currency in America and those who don’t Invest in it will never reach the American Dream. – Donald Payne – (D) N.J. 10th District

Today in our History – July 16, 1934 – The first Black U.S. Congressman from The State of New Jersey was born on this day.

Donald Payne, a Democrat, was the first African American elected to Congress from the State of New Jersey. Payne was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 16, 1934. He earned a B.A. degree in social studies from Seton Hall University in 1957 and also has honorary doctorates from Chicago State University, Drew University, Essex County College, and William Patterson University.

After graduating in 1957 Payne began working for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), traveling around the world as its representative. In 1970 Payne became its first African American president. From 1973 to 1981 he chaired the YMCA Refugee and Rehabilitation Committee that was based in Geneva. In 1972 he was elected to the Essex County (New Jersey) Board of Chosen Freeholders, and became its director in 1977.

Donald Payne challenged longtime Congressional incumbent Peter W. Rodino Jr. in the Democratic primary in both 1980 and 1986 but failed both times. In 1988 however, when Rodino said he would not seek a 21st term, Payne won nomination and was elected to Congress.

Payne was a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, a member of the Democratic Whip Organization, and had been on the House Democratic Leadership Advisory Group and the Democratic Steering Committee. Payne received a presidential appointment in 2003 and again in 2005 from President George W. Bush to be one of two Congressional delegates to the United Nations.

A dedicated advocate of education, Payne was a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor through which he worked with the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections and the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. He was also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, and belonged to the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight.

Payne headed a presidential humanitarian mission to Rwanda, had been heavily supportive of the Northern Ireland peace process, and worked with the International Relations Committee to improve the Microenterprise Act, which provides loans to small business owners in developing countries. He also won the passage of a resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Payne gained national recognition when he was selected to manage the House debate over using force in Iraq in 2003. Congressman Donald Payne died in Livingston, New Jersey on March 6, 2012 from colon cancer. He was 77. He left behind three children and four grandchildren. Don Payne supported my efforts with the “Spectrum” project that I did as a High School teacher at Red Bank Regional in New Jersey. I will never see another person who helped and supported Public Education like he did and I thank you. Reserach more about this great American and share wit your babies. Make it a champion day!