Category: Males

29Apr

April 29, 1922- Elijah McCoy

GM – FBF – Although the name Elijah McCoy may be unknown to most people, the enormity of his ingenuity and the quality of his inventions have created a level of distinction which bears his name. One of the most beloved Inventors in history, enjoy!

Remember – “So much time is wasted by trying to be better than others. Dream the impossible because dreams do come true. I am not a star, a star is nothing but a ball of gas. Going against the grain of society is the greatest thing in the world.” – Elijah McCoy

Today in our History – April 29, 1922 – Elijah and Mary McCoy Involved in an automobile accident and both suffered severe injuries.

Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester, Ontario, Canada on May 2, 1844. His parents were George and Emillia McCoy, former slaves from Kentucky who escaped through the Underground Railroad. George joined the Canadian Army, fighting in the Rebel War and then raised his family as free Canadian citizens on a 160 acre homestead.

At an early age, Elijah showed a mechanical interest, often taking items apart and putting them back together again. Recognizing his keen abilities, George and Emillia saved enough money to send Elijah to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he could study mechanical engineering. After finishing his studies as a “master mechanic and engineer” he returned to the United States which had just seen the end of the Civil War – and the emergence of the “Emancipation Proclamation.”

Elijah moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan but was unable to find work as an engineer. He was thus forced to take on a position as a fireman\oilman on the Michigan Central Railroad. As a fireman, McCoy was responsible for shoveling coal onto fires which would help to produce steam that powered the locomotive. As an oilman, Elijah was responsible for ensuring that the train was well lubricated. After a few miles, the train would be forced to stop and he would have to walk alongside the train applying oil to the axles and bearings.

In an effort to improve efficiency and eliminate the frequent stopping necessary for lubrication of the train, McCoy set out to create a method of automating the task. In 1872 he developed a “lubricating cup” that could automatically drip oil when and where needed. He received a patent for the device later that year. The “lubricating cup” met with enormous success and orders for it came in from railroad companies all over the country. Other inventors attempted to sell their own versions of the device but most companies wanted the authentic device, requesting “the Real McCoy.”

In 1868, Elijah married Ann Elizabeth Stewart. Sadly, Elizabeth passed away just four years later. In 1873, McCoy married again, this time his bride was Mary Eleanor Delaney and the couple would eventually settle into Detroit, Michigan together for the next 50 years.

McCoy remained interested in continuing to perfect his invention and to create more. He thus sold some percentages of rights to his patent to finance building a workshop. He made continued improvements to the “lubricating cup.” The patent application described the it as a device which “provides for the continuous flow of oil on the gears and other moving parts of a machine in order to keep it lubricated properly and continuous and thereby do away with the necessity of shutting down the machine periodically.” The device would be adjusted and modified in order to apply it to different types of machinery. Versions of the cup would soon be used in steam engines, naval vessels, oil-drilling rigs, mining equipment, in factories and construction sites.

In 1916 McCoy created the graphite lubricator which allowed new superheater trains and devices to be oiled. In 1920, Elijah established the “Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company.” With his new company, he improved and sold the graphite lubricator as well as other inventions which came to him out of necessity. He developed and patented a portable ironing board after his wife expressed a need for an easier way of ironing clothes. When he desired an easier and faster way of watering his lawn, he created and patented the lawn sprinkler.

On April 29, 1922, Elijah and Mary were involved in an automobile accident and both suffered severe injuries. Mary would die from the injuries and Elijah’s health suffered for several years until he died in 1929. McCoy left behind a legacy of successful inventions which would benefit mankind for another century and his name would come to symbolize quality workmanship – the Real McCoy! Research more about black Inventors and share with your babies and make it a champion day!

29Apr

April 28, 1941-Arthur Wergs Mitchell

GM – FBF – Between Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court heard and delivered an unanimous opinion on a case most don’t know about. Enjoy!

Remember – “Equal Justice Under The Law. That is a great goal. But that goal has not been realized.” – Arthur Mitchell

Today in our History – April 28, 1941 – Arthur Wergs Mitchell (U.S. Congress – D IL)

Mitchell v. United States et al., 313 U.S. 80 (1941), came on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging discriminatory treatment of railroad accommodations for African-American passengers on interstate train coaches passing through Arkansas, where a state law demanded segregation of races but equivalent facilities. The Supreme Court had held in earlier cases that it was adequate under the Fourteenth Amendment for separate privileges to be supplied to differing groups of people as long as they were treated similarly well. Originating in Arkansas in April 1937, the suit worked its way through the regulatory and legal system, finally ending up on the calendar of the Supreme Court in 1941.

The circumstances surrounding the matter began after the only African American in the U.S. Congress, Representative Arthur Wergs Mitchell, a Democrat of Illinois, opted to spend a two-week vacation in Hot Springs (Garland County). He purchased a first-class railroad ticket, costing three cents per mile, from the Illinois Central Railroad Company in Chicago. Beginning on April 20, 1937, the trip involved the Illinois Central and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Traveling through Memphis, Tennessee, Mitchell transferred to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific line on the morning of April 21, requesting a Pullman sleeper coach, which cost an additional ninety cents, headed for Hot Springs. As the train crossed the Mississippi River into Arkansas, Conductor Albert W. Jones proceeded to collect fares. While in St. Francis County, Jones was startled to find an African American seated in the “white” section and immediately directed Congressman Mitchell to move to the African-American car.

Conductor Jones’s actions were based on his obligation to enforce the Arkansas Separate Coach Law of 1891 along any of Arkansas’s 2,063 miles of track. The rule, branded a “Jim Crow” law, required railroads operating in Arkansas to establish “equal but separate and sufficient” coaches for segregating white and black passengers, as well as commanding railroad employees to enforce the law or be fined $25 to $50; passengers who refused their instructions could be fined from $10 to $200.

Mitchell, due to his congressional status and purchase of the first-class ticket, refused to comply. Conductor Jones said to him, “It don’t make a damn bit of difference who you are—as long as you a nigger you can’t ride in this car.” Under threat of stopping the train and being arrested by the nearest sheriff if he did not proceed to the “colored passenger” coach, Mitchell moved to the designated area, although his luggage remained in the Pullman coach. The conductor later advised Mitchell that he could ask for a refund for the Memphis to Hot Springs portion of the fare as coach was only two cents per mile.

Mitchell never mentioned the incident during his two weeks in Hot Springs at his lodgings in the Pythian Hotel & Baths. The governor, Little Rock (Pulaski County) mayor, and the president of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce all sent letters welcoming Mitchell. In a scheduled Little Rock speech before a mixed audience, the congressman was introduced by U.S. District Attorney Fred A. Isgrig, but again at no time did he mention the confrontation on the train. Upon his return trip to Chicago, Mitchell rode in the “Jim Crow” car without being directed to do so.

Back in Chicago, Congressman Mitchell, himself a lawyer, consulted with attorney Ralph E. Westbrook, and together they filed a personal damages lawsuit for $50,000 against the railroads in state court, along with a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). Mitchell claimed that the African-American accommodations were not equal, nor should they be enforced by the ICC. He described the Jim Crow facilities thusly: “[T]he car was divided by partitions and partly used for carrying baggage,…poorly ventilated, filthy, filled with stench and odors emitting from the toilet and other filth, which is indescribable.” As for the language of Conductor Jones toward a member of the U.S. Congress, Mitchell described it as “too opprobrious and profane, vulgar and filthy to be spread upon the records of this court.” The “colored” cars were further described as not air-conditioned and divided by partitions for “colored smokers, white smokers, and colored men and women. A toilet was in each of the three sections, but only the one in the women’s section flushed and was for the exclusive use of colored women. The car was without wash basins, soap, towels, or running water, except in the women’s section.”Correspondingly, the “white” cars were described as in excellent condition, modern, air-conditioned, and equipped with hot and cold running water, soap, and towels, along with flushable toilets for both men and women; too, first-class passengers had sole use of the only dining-car and observation-parlor car.

The ICC dismissed the complaint, with the twelve-member board voting seven to five, noting “the discrimination and prejudice was plainly not unjust or undue.” Mitchell appealed the ICC ruing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, but it also dismissed the complaint, noting that “the small number of colored passengers asking for first-class accommodations justified an occasional discrimination against them because of their race.” Mitchell appealed that ruling directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he presented oral arguments himself.

On April 28, 1941, four years and seven days from the original incident, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court: “This was manifestly a discrimination against him [Mitchell] in the course of his interstate journey and admittedly that discrimination was based solely upon the fact that he was a Negro. The question whether this was a discrimination forbidden by the Interstate Commerce Act is not a question of segregation but equality of treatment. The denial to appellant equality of accommodations because of his race would be an invasion of a fundamental right which is guaranteed against state actions by the 14th Amendment.” The Supreme Court reversed the U.S. District Court decree and remanded the case, also directing that the ICC order be set aside and sent back for further proceedings in conformity with the Supreme Court opinion.

Not until January 1956 was segregation on interstate transportation ended on railroads, and not until 1973 did the Arkansas General Assembly finally repeal the Separate Coach Law of 1891, originally authored by state Senator John N. Tillman—afterward president of the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) from 1905 to 1912. Eventually, in the civil lawsuit, Mitchell reached an out-of-court settlement, and additionally he received $3,750 and court costs. However, his political career in Chicago was over because of his having angered the white political establishment. Mitchell did not seek reelection but instead retired and moved to Petersburg, Virginia, becoming a gentleman farmer on his estate, named Rose-Anna Gardens, where he was laid to rest in 1968. I bet that you did not get this in your secondary high school days. Read more about this great American hero and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

April 26, 1984- Count Basie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24Apr

April 24, 1919- David Harold Blackwell

GM – FBF- Day tow of executive meetings, I am too busy to respond to any posts today. I thank you for your stopping by and I hope that you like toda’sy story about a mathematician. Make it a champion day!

Remember – “Mathematicians didn’t invent infinity until 1877. So they thought it was impossible that Africans could be using fractal geometry.” – David Harold Blackwell

Today in our History – April 24, 1919 – David Harold Blackwell is Born.

David Harold Blackwell, mathematician and statistician, was the first African American to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1965) and is especially known for his contributions to the theory of duels. Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, to a working-class family in Centralia, Illinois. Growing up in an integrated community, Blackwell attended “mixed” schools, where he distinguished himself in mathematics. During elementary school, his teachers promoted him beyond his grade level on two occasions. He discovered his passion for math in a high school geometry course.

At the age of sixteen, Blackwell began his college career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Although he planned on becoming an educator, Blackwell chose math classes instead. Having won a four-year scholarship from the state of Illinois, Blackwell completed his undergraduate degree in 1938 and earned his master’s degree the following year.

Encouraged to continue his studies, Blackwell applied for a fellowship and a teaching assistantship. He was awarded the fellowship which allowed him to complete the Ph.D. program in 1941. After Blackwell completed his dissertation on Markov chains his adviser, Joseph Doob, helped him secure the Rosenwald Fellowship at Princeton University in New Jersey. While Rosenwald Fellows typically received honorary faculty appointments at Princeton, the school objected to Blackwell’s appointment on the grounds of race and refused to back down until the institute director intervened.

From 1942 to 1944 Blackwell taught at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia; and temporarily at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1944, he married Ann Madison and took a permanent faculty position at Howard, later becoming a department head.

From 1948 to 1950, Blackwell spent his summers at RAND Corporation with Meyer A. Girshick and other mathematicians exploring the theory of duels, which involves questions about the shooter’s timing in a man to man altercation. In 1954 Girshick and Blackwell published Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions.

That same year Blackwell was offered a teaching position in the statistics department at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). Blackwell accepted the offer and the following year was elected president of the Institute of Mathematics and granted a full professorship at UCB. After serving as assistant dean of the college of arts and science, Blackwell served as chair of the statistics department from 1957 to 1961.

In the mid-1970s, Blackwell served abroad as director of the University of California Study Center for the United Kingdom and Ireland. With this international appointment came the presidency of the International Association for Statistics in the physical sciences. Before retiring in 1988, he was appointed the W.W. Rouse Ball Lecturer at Cambridge University, England.

David Harold Blackwell died in Berkeley, California on July 8, 2010 at the age of 91.

23Apr

April 23, 1871- James Monroe Whitfield

GM – FBF – In exeutive meetings every day this week and will not be able to respond to any posts. Thanks for stopping and make it a champion day!

Remember – ” Painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting that speaks.” – James Monroe Whitfield

Today in our History – April 23, 1871 – Black Poiet Dies –
James Monroe Whitfield, a black abolitionist and colonizationist, was born on April 10, 1822 in New Hampshire. Little is known about his early life except that he was a descendant of Ann Paul, the sister of prominent black clergyman Thomas Paul. Whitfield had little formal education. Nonetheless by the age of 16, he was publishing papers for Negro rights conventions.
Although his main occupation was as a barber, Whitfield eventually became well known as a poet whose work was published in North Star as well as Frederick Douglass’ Paper and The Liberator during the period he lived in Buffalo, New York. While living in Buffalo between 1839 and 1859, Whitfield worked with other abolitionists and emigrationists such as James T. Holly and Martin Delany. Whitfield promoted the National Emigration Convention in 1854 and 1856 and the African-American Repository one of the earliest black-oriented national publications.

Frederick Douglass initially recognized Whitfield’s leadership and activism and gave the young poet national exposure in his publications. Eventually Whitfield would disagree with Douglass whom he saw as too accommodating to the mostly white abolitionist movement. The men also disagreed on the wisdom of large scale emigration of African Americans from the United States. Despite their differences, Douglass allowed Whitfield to publish his views in a series of letters to Douglass’s newspaper the North Star in 1853.

In 1858 Whitfield publicly supported the proposal by Missouri Congressman Frank P. Blair to acquire land in Central America, to be used for black colonization. The following year, Whitfield was given the position of fact-finding commissioner by the proponents of this scheme and was sent to Central America where he lived for two years.

Upon his return to the United States in 1860, he found the nation on the verge of civil war. Like Martin R. Delany and other emigrationists, Whitfield now turned his efforts toward supporting the war effort which he believed would emancipate the slaves and potentially allow blacks to live as full citizens in the United States.

Settling in San Francisco, California Whitfield worked as a barber but continued to write poetry. Abdicating his role in political activism, Whitfield moved to the Pacific Northwest, working first in Portland, Oregon and later in Placerville, Idaho. Whitfield returned to California and became Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons for the state, a post he held between 1864 and 1869. In May of 1869, he moved to Elko, Nevada, where he and three other black men sat on a jury, a first for the state of Nevada. He continued to write and publish poetry.

James Monroe Whitfield died in San Francisco on April 23, 1871 of heart disease and was buried in a Masonic cemetery in that city. Research more about blacks and the spoken word. Share with your babies and make it a champion day!

22Apr

April 22, 1983- Earl Hines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20Apr

April 20, 2014-Rubin Carter

GM – FBF – Today is Earth Day and I will be speaking at Georgia Tech University in downtown Atlanta and won’t be able to respond to any posts. Make it a champion day!

Remember – “You can gain reconciliation from your enemies, but you can only gain peace from yourself.” – Rubin Carter

Today in our History – April 20, 2014 – “The Hurricane” Dies

Rubin Carter was an American middleweight boxer, who is best known not because of his sports career but because of his murder conviction in 1967 and exoneration in 1985. Carter, born in Clifton, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, the fourth of seven children. Shortly after his fourteenth birthday, he was sentenced to a juvenile reformatory for assault and robbery. Carter was a 5-foot 8-inch, 160-pound boxer who got his start fighting after he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After leaving the army, he fought in the amateur circuit, knocking out thirty-six opponents and eventually working his way into the professional ranks in 1961. Because of his rapid boxing style, he was given the nickname “the Hurricane.”

Carter’s middleweight title shot came in 1964 when he faced defending champion Joey Giardello in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The fight went fifteen rounds, and Carter lost on a split decision. Carter continued boxing and was training for his second title bout with the new champ, Dick Tiger, when he and his friend, John Artis, were arrested in 1966 and charged with murdering three white people during a robbery in Paterson, New Jersey. Although the two key prosecution witnesses were felons who had been recently released from prison, an all-white jury convicted Carter and Artis on May 27, 1967.

Nearly eight years later, in 1975, after the two key witnesses recanted their testimony, blaming the police for pressuring them into testifying, and new information surfaced about the robbery. Carter and Artis appealed their convictions. A new trial was granted, but on December 22, 1976, both Carter and Artis were once again convicted of murder.

Despite being twice convicted, Carter continued to claim his innocence and work for his release. With the help of new attorneys, in 1985, he petitioned to have his conviction overturned. U.S. District Court Judge Haddon Lee Sarokin granted his petition, stating that the two previous convictions, “were based upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure.”

After his release, Carter became an activist for the writ of habeas corpus—the process that allows incarcerated individuals a chance to argue the legitimacy of their conviction in front of a judge. Carter became a motivational speaker who often described to his audiences the various events and the legal process that led to his freedom. He also worked with a number of groups that support wrongly imprisoned individuals. In 1999, the movie The Hurricane was released about Carter’s life, with Denzel Washington playing the embattled boxer. Although some critics challenged portions of the film’s historical accuracy, it nevertheless brought attention to Carter and his long fight for freedom and to others who have been wrongly convicted.

In 1993, Carter moved to Toronto, Ontario and became a Canadian citizen. While there, he was executive director of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted (ADWC). In 1996, he received the Abolition Award from the organization Death Penalty Focus, and in 2005, he received honorary Doctor of Law degrees from York University in Toronto and Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. In March 2012, Carter revealed that he had terminal prostate cancer. He died in Toronto on April 20, 2014, at age seventy-six. Research more about this great American or watch his movie and share with your babies. Today is earth day and I will be speaking at Georgia Tech University in downtown Atlanta and won’t be able to respond to any posts. Make it a champion day!

18Apr

April 18, 1966- Bill Russell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17Apr

April 17, 1823- Miffin Wibstar Gibbs

GM – FBF- ” Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Mifflin Wister Gibbs

Remember – “Thank God for Canada! In the context of this narrative [in Underground] and beyond, Canada was certainly an additional option for the many traveling the treacherous terrain of the Underground Railroad in pursuit of what was perceived as “freedom.” – Mifflin Wister Gibbs

Today in our History –

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 17, 1823, Mifflin Wistar Gibbs apprenticed as a carpenter. By his early 20s he was an activist in the abolition movement, sharing platforms with Frederick Douglass and helping in the Underground Railroad. Black intellectual ferment of the era gave him a superb education outside the classroom, and he became a powerful writer. In 1850 he migrated to San Francisco, California; starting as a bootblack, he was soon a successful merchant, the founder of a black newspaper, Mirror of the Times, and a leading member of the city’s black community.

In 1858 Gibbs moved to Victoria in what is now British Columbia, part of a mass migration of black men and women seeking equality under the British flag. Again he prospered, first as a merchant, then as a property developer, contractor, and elected politician. In 1866 Gibbs was elected to the Victoria (BC) City Council becoming the second black elected official in Canada and only the third elected anywhere on the North American continent.

Gibbs briefly returned to the US in 1859 to court and marry Maria Alexander, who had studied at Oberlin College. In developing a coal mine in the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1869-70, he built British Columbia’s first railroad. A tireless advocate for the black community, he helped to organize the colony’s first militia, an all-black unit known as the African Rifles. As an elected delegate to the Yale Convention, he also helped to frame the terms by which British Columbia entered the Canadian confederation.

Mifflin and Maria Gibbs separated in the late 1860s. Returning to the United States in 1870, Gibbs studied law in Oberlin, Ohio (where his wife Maria had settled, and where four of their five children graduated from Oberlin College). He toured the Reconstruction South and settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, soon becoming the first black elected municipal judge in the United States. His long and sometimes dangerous efforts on behalf of the Republican Party earned him an ambiguous reward: at the age of 74, Republican President William McKinley in 1897 named Gibbs U.S. consul in Tamatave, Madagascar. After four years Gibbs resigned in 1901 at 78 for health reasons. He returned to publish an autobiography, Shadow and Light, in 1902, with an introduction by Booker T. Washington.

Back in Little Rock, Gibbs launched Capital Citiy Savings Bank, became a partner in the Little Rock Electric Light Company, gained control of several pieces of local real estate, and supported various philanthropic causes. He died in Little Rock on July 11, 1915 at the age of 92. Research more about blacks moving to Canada and share with your babies. Make it a champion day! I won’t be able to respond to any posts today – Speaking at Apalachee High School – Winder, GA. – Thanks for all of your support with the daily History Lessons, I thank You and make it a champion day!

16Apr

April 16, 1908- Allen Allensworth

GM – FBF – “Create sentiment favorable to intellectual and industrial liberty” – Allen Allensworth

Remember – “Can I be of any service to your committee as a speaker driving the campaign?” – Allen Allensworth

Today in our History – April 16, 1908 – All Black Town Is Created!

Allen Allensworth (7 April 1842 – 14 September 1914), born into slavery in Kentucky, escaped during the American Civil War and became a Union soldier; later he became a Baptist minister and educator, and was appointed as a chaplain in the United States Army. He was the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel. He planted numerous churches, and in 1908 founded Allensworth, California, the only town in the state to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans.

After the army, Allensworth and his family settled in Los Angeles. He was inspired by the idea of establishing a self-sufficient, all-black California community where African Americans could live free of the racial discrimination that pervaded post-Reconstruction America. His dream was to build a community where black people might live and create “sentiment favorable to intellectual and industrial liberty.”

In 1908, he founded Allensworth in Tulare county, about thirty miles north of Bakersfield, in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. The black settlers of Allensworth built homes, laid out streets, and put up public buildings. They established a church, and organized an orchestra, a glee club, and a brass band.

The Allensworth colony became a member of the county school district and the regional library system and a voting precinct. Residents elected the first African-American Justice of the Peace in post-Mexican California. In 1914, the California Eagle reported that the Allensworth community consisted of 900 acres (360 ha) of deeded land worth more than US$112,500.

Allensworth soon developed as a town, not just a colony. Among the social and educational organizations that flourished during its golden age were the Campfire Girls, the Owl Club, the Girls’ Glee Club, and the Children’s Savings Association, for the town’s younger residents, while adults participated in the Sewing Circle, the Whist Club, the Debating Society, and the Theater Club. Col. Allensworth was an admirer of the African-American educator Booker T. Washington, who was the founding president and longtime leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Allensworth dreamed that his new community could be self-sufficient and become known as the “Tuskegee of the West”.

The Girls’ Glee Club was modeled after the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, who had toured internationally. They were the community’s pride and joy. All the streets in the town were named after notable African Americans and/or white abolitionists, such as Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The dry and dusty soil made farming difficult. The drinking water became contaminated by arsenic as the water level fell.

The year 1914 also brought a number of setbacks to the town. First, much of the town’s economic base was lost when the Santa Fe Railroad moved its rail stop from Allensworth to Alpaugh. In September, during a trip to Monrovia, California, Colonel Allensworth was crossing the street when he was struck and killed by a motorcycle. The town refuses to die. The downtown area is now preserved as Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park where thousands of visitors come from all over California to take part in the special events held at the park during the year. The area outside the state park is also still inhabited.

Allensworth is the only California community to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. The founders were dedicated to improving the economic and social status of African Americans. Uncontrollable circumstances, including a drop in the area’s water table, resulted in the town’s decline. Research more about Black towns in America and Share with your babies. Make it a champion day!