Category: Males

April 14, 1912- Joseph Phillipe Lenmercier Laroche

GM – FBF – “There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.”-Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President

Remember – “We the members of the NAACP would like to note that Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, the only negro (Haitian) who died on the sinking of the great ship R.M.S. Titanic for he will be forgotten or just a footnote in history” – W.E.B. Du Bois

Today in our History – April 14, 1912 – Titanic’s Black Passenger: Creating Historical Fiction From Historical Fact –

Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, the only passenger of known African ancestry who died on the Titanic, was born on May 26, 1889 in Cap Haiten, Haiti. He was the son of a white French army captain and a Haitian woman who was a descendant of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti. Laroche’s uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus, was president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912.
Joseph Laroche grew up among the privileged upper class in Haiti and received his early education from private tutors. Fluent in French and English, he decided on a career in engineering and at the age of 15 traveled to Beauvais, France with his teacher Monsignor Kersuzan, the Lord Bishop of Haiti, for his training. He attended classes in Beauvais and Lille, France, and received his certificate in engineering in 1907.

Laroche married Juliette Marie Louise Lafargue, the daughter of a widowed Paris wine merchant in 1908. They had two daughters, Simonne, born on February 19, 1909, and Marie Louise, on July 2, 1910. Although Laroche worked briefly on the Paris Metro line, he had great difficulty finding and keeping a job in France due to racial discrimination. As a consequence the new family was forced to reside with Juliette’s father. Their youngest child, Marie Louise, had medical problems which also strained the family’s finances and by 1912 they were expecting a third child. This situation led Laroche to decide to return to Haiti where he believed his family’s political connections would guarantee a handsome income for his work.

Laroche’s mother sent the family tickets to return to Haiti aboard the La France. However, the ocean liner’s policy banning children dining with their parents in the dining room led Laroche to exchange their first class tickets for the La France for second class tickets on the R.M.S. Titanic.

On April 10, 1912, Laroche and his family boarded the Titanic from the harbor of Grande Rade near Fort de l’Quest. The Laroches enjoyed the opulent amenities of the ship, dining in the same dining room as its first-class passengers. However, they were subjected to stares and some insults from fellow passengers and crew who frowned upon their interracial marriage. After the sinking of the Titanic, the White Star Line extended a public apology for the racism exhibited by its crew members toward its non-white passengers including Laroche.

As the ship sank in the early morning of April 14, Laroche stuffed the pockets of his coat with money and jewels and took his wife and children up to the boat deck. He wrapped the coat around his wife, and his last words to her were: “Here, take this, you are going to need it. I’ll get another boat. God be with you. I’ll see you in New York.”

Joseph Laroche died in the sinking of the Titanic. His body was never recovered. His wife Juliette returned to Paris with her daughters and gave birth to their son, Joseph Lemercier Laroche on December 17, 1912.

Now you know the rest of the story and not the movie, share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!


April 13, 1997- Eldrick Tiger Woods

GM – FBF – My dad was my best friend and greatest role model. He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend. – Eldrick Tiger Woods

Remember – “You can win all the tournaments you want, but the majors are what you’re remembered for. It’s how you’re measured as a champion in our sport. The majors are where it’s at.” – Tiger Woods

Today in our History – April 13, 1997 – Eldrick Tiger Woods wins the 61st Masters Tournament in Augustus,Georgia.

Eldrick Tont Woods (born December 30, 1975) better known as Tiger Woods, is an American professional golfer who is among the most successful golfers of all time. He has been one of the highest-paid athletes in the world for several years.

Following an outstanding junior, college, and amateur career, Woods was 20 years old when he turned professional at the end of summer in 1996. By the end of April 1997, he had won three PGA Tour events in addition to his first major, the 1997 Masters. Woods won this tournament by 12 strokes in a record-breaking performance and earned $486,000. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997, less than a year after turning pro. Throughout the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf—he won the 2000 U.S. Open by a record 15-shot margin. He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 weeks).

Woods took a hiatus from professional golf from December 2009 to early April 2010 in order to focus on difficult issues in his marriage. He and his estranged wife Elin eventually divorced. His many alleged extramarital indiscretions were revealed by several women, through many worldwide media sources. This was followed by a loss of golf form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011. He ended a career-high winless streak of 107 weeks when he triumphed in the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. After winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 25, 2013, he ascended to the No.1 ranking once again, holding the top spot until May 2014.

Woods had back surgery in April 2014 and September 2015] and has struggled since to regain his dominant form. By March 29, 2015, Woods had fallen to #104, outside of the top 100 for the first time since 1996.[12] In May 2016, Woods dropped out of the world top 500 for the first time in his professional career. In July 2017, the Official World Golf Ranking placed Woods at number 1,005, the worst of his career and only time he has ever been out of the top 1,000. He had ranked number one for a total of 683 weeks, more than any other player in history.

Woods has broken numerous golf records. He has been World Number One for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any golfer. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record eleven times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in ten different seasons. He has won 14 professional major golf championships, where he trails only Jack Nicklaus who leads with 18, and 79 PGA Tour events, second all-time behind Sam Snead (82). Woods leads all active golfers in career major wins and career PGA Tour wins. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer (after Nicklaus) to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships, and won at least one of those events in each of the first 11 years after they began in 1999. Woods and Rory McIlroy are the only golfers to win both The Silver Medal and The Gold Medal at The Open Championship. Tiger Woods is still competing today as a come back this year he has finished stong enough to play on Sunday’s in his last three events. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

April 12, 1882- Jimmy Winkfield

GM – FBF – The race of kings was controled by Black Men for 4 decades in our history and here is one of the best.

Remember – That went super today. I was a little nervous coming out of the gate – they all came together at one point –but he came out of there in good shape, sat second, and pulled the trigger when Irad asked him. The [1:09.75] was quick today. He did everything right. I think we’re going to stay with the one turn for a while, but that’s up to Rick and the owners. He’s running great sprinting.” – Jimmy Winkfield

Today in our History – Jimmy Winkfield, born on April 12,1882, became famous as an early 20th Century horse jockey. Winkfield, the youngest of 17 children, was born in Chilesburg, Kentucky, a town just outside of Lexington. As a child, he had a routine that included performing chores on the farm where his father was a sharecropper and overseeing the thoroughbred parades down the country roads. He and his family moved to Cincinnati in 1894.

On August 10, 1898, Winkfield rode his first race. Aboard Jockey Joe at Chicago’s Hawthorne Racetrack, he raced his horse out of the gate and rode across the path of the three inside horses, in an effort to get to the rail. This aggressive behavior did not go over well with racetrack officials and he earned a one year suspension. Winkfield learned from his mistake and on September 18, 1899, won his first race. Six months later he rode for the first time in the Kentucky Derby.

In 1901, at 19, Winkfield captured his first Kentucky Derby title astride a horse named Eminence. He went on to win 161 races that year, including key victories in the Latonia Derby on Hernando and Tennessee Derby where he rode Royal Victor. While these were spectacular accomplishments, he returned to the Kentucky Derby in 1902 and won again in the most important race of his career.

In 1903, Winkfield narrowly missed winning a third consecutive Derby. Had he accomplished this feat, he would be the first (and only person) to have ever done so. Riding a thoroughbred named Early, the odds-on favorite, Winkfield, took a 1 1/2-length lead but his mount slowed in the stretch and lost by three-quarters of a length. Winkfield called the loss the worst of his career.

Blacklisted after he dishonored a contract with one horse owner by riding for another, Winkfield accepted an offer to race in Russia, where he rose to fame once again. In Russia he won the Emperor’s Purse, the Moscow Derby twice and the Russian Derby three times. In Germany, Winkfield won the Grand Prix de Baden. In Poland, he won the Poland Derby twice and in France he won the Prix du President de la Republique.

Winkfield continued to race throughout Europe while living in Moscow. When the Communist Party came to power in Russia in 1919, horse racing was outlawed. Winkfield, now a trainer, led 260 horses, fellow trainers and owners overland to Poland during the winter of 1920. During this arduous journey the group survived by eating some of their horses on the way.

Winkfield married twice. His first wife, Alexandra, was a Russian baroness who died in 1921.They bore a son, George who died in 1934. His second marriage was to a French woman named Lydia who died in 1958. This marriage also produced a son, Robert, who died in 1977 and a daughter, Liliane Casey, who currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jimmy Winkfield died on March 23, 1974 in Maisons-Laffitte, France. His family and supporters lobbied for his admission to the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame, so he could join two other African-American jockeys who had already been honored there. On August 9, 2004, Winkfield was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. The award was presented to his daughter Liliane Winkfield Casey by Edward Hotaling, President of the Museum. Research more about the Black Horse Jockeys and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

April 6, 1957- Dred Scott

GM – FBF – Two hundread sixty one years ago, The Dred Scott Case is remembered as dividing the nation, precipitating the Civil War and ultimately being overturned by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Remember – “A man is a man, until that man finds a plan, a plan that makes that man, a new man”. – Dred Scott

Today in our History – April 6,1857 – Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision.

The Dred Scott decision was the culmination of the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, one of the most controversial events preceding the Civil War. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in that case, which had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri. Scott argued that time spent in a free state entitled him to emancipation. But the court decided that no black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were unable to petition the court for their freedom. The Dred Scott decision outraged abolitionists and heightened North-South tensions.

This convoluted case (1857), both a cause and an effect of sectional conflict, contributed to antebellum political and constitutional controversy. It also made Chief Justice Roger B. Taney seem a satanic figure to contemporary antislavery activists and many later historians.

Dred Scott, a black slave, and his wife had once belonged to army surgeon John Emerson, who had bought him from the Peter Blow family of St. Louis. After Emerson died, the Blows apparently helped Scott sue Emerson’s widow for his freedom, but lost the case in state court.

Because Mrs. Emerson left him with her brother John Sanford (misspelled Sandford in court papers), a New York citizen, Scott sued again in federal court, claiming Missouri citizenship. Scott’s lawyers eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Originally, Justice Samuel Nelson was to write a narrow opinion, arguing that the case belonged in the state, not a federal court. But northern antislavery justices John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin R. Curtis of Massachusetts planned to dissent, arguing that Scott should be freed under the Missouri Compromise because he had traveled north of the 36°30′ line, whereas the Court’s southerners wanted to rule the compromise unconstitutional.

President James Buchanan‘s supporters considered it a final answer to the sectional controversy, although they were unaware at the time that Buchanan had influenced Justice Robert Grier of Pennsylvania to join the southern majority so that it would look less like a sectional decision.

The Dred Scott case remained the subject of noisy constitutional and historical debate and contributed to the divisions that helped lead to Abraham Lincoln‘s election and the Civil War. Research more about this case and the impact that it will have on enslaved people in the United States until President Abraham Lincoln”s Emancipation Proclamation. Make It A Champion Day!

April 5, 1938- Walter Eugene Massey

GM – FBF – I will be facilitating. a sales training class and will not be be able to respond to any posts today. Make it a champion day!

Remember – ” Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” – Walter Eugene Massey

Today in our History –

Prominent educator Walter Eugene Massey was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on April 5, 1938. His father, Almar, was a steelworker and his mother, Essie, a teacher. Massey had an exceptional mind, even at an early age. By the time he finished 10th grade, his skills in mathematics were strong enough to earn him a college scholarship. Massey enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated with a BS in math and physics in 1958.

While working on his master’s and doctorate degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, Massey conducted research on the quantum of liquids and solids. He received a PhD in 1966. Massey began his teaching career as an associate professor at the University of Illinois then moved to Brown University in 1970, becoming a full professor five years later.

While teaching at both Illinois and Brown, Massey began to focus on the gap in the achievement levels between his black, Latino and white students. He commended the dramatic increase in college enrollment of minority students in higher education in the 1970s, but recognized the small numbers of these students in math and the sciences. To address this issue, Massey became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 1848), where he pushed for greater science literacy especially in schools with large numbers of black and Latino students. Eventually Massey became the first African American president of the organization. He also served as director of the National Science Foundation (founded 1950) from 1991 to 1993 where he promoted more opportunities for minority students in math, science and engineering programs at predominately white institutions. He also called for increased funding for programs in these areas for students in African American institutions.

Between 1993 and 1995, Massey served as the University of California, Berkeley provost and senior vice president of academic affairs before being named president of his alma mater, Morehouse College, until his retirement in 2007. He has been a director of Bank of America since 1993 and currently serves as its chairman of the board.

Massey was also was appointed chair of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in 1997 and was a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during the terms of Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush. Over his career Walter Massey has received 30 honorary degrees. He and his wife Shirley Anne have two sons. Recearch more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

April 3, 1964- Malcom X

GM – FBF – “It’s time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we’re supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don’t cast a ballot, it’s going to end up in a situation where we’re going to have to cast a bullet. It’s either a ballot or a bullet.” – El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)

Remember – “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today in our History – April 3,1964 / April 3, 1968 – “The Ballot or the Bullet” is the title of a public speech by human rights activist Malcolm X. In the speech, which was delivered on April 3, 1964, at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, Malcolm X advised African Americans to judiciously exercise their right to vote, but he cautioned that if the government continued to prevent African Americans from attaining full equality, it might be necessary for them to take up arms. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated on February 21, 1965 while speaking at his Organization of (Afro-American Unity) at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. (NYC) His speach was ranked 7th in the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century by 137 leading scholars of American public address.

The 6th ranked American top 100 speeches of the 20th Century is Martin Luther King Jr’s – “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”.

King spoke on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee. On the following day, King was assassinated.

Please take the time to read the transcripts of both speeches or view the speeches on video. It is uncanny that both speeches were delivered on the same day 4 years apart from each other and both leaders spoke of not fearing death. Please share with our babies about these great American Icons. Make it a champion day!

April 1, 1984 -Marvin Gaye

GM – FBF – “Most fear stems from sin; to limit one’s sins, one must assuredly limit one’s fear, thereby bringing more peace to one’s spirit.” – Marvin Gaye

Remember – “If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” – Marvin Gaye

Today in our History – April 1, 1984 – Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his own father.

At the peak of his career, Marvin Gaye was the Prince of Motown—the soulful voice behind hits as wide-ranging as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” Like his label-mate Stevie Wonder, Gaye both epitomized and outgrew the crowd-pleasing sound that made Motown famous. Over the course of his roughly 25-year recording career, he moved successfully from upbeat pop to “message” music to satin-sheet soul, combining elements of Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan and Barry White into one complicated and sometimes contradictory package. But as the critic Michael Eric Dyson put it, the man who “chased away the demons of millions…with his heavenly sound and divine art” was chased by demons of his own throughout his life. That life came to a tragic end on this day 1984, when Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father one day short of his 45th birthday.

If the physical cause of Marvin Gaye’s death was straightforward—”Gunshot wound to chest perforating heart, lung and liver,” according to the Los Angeles County Coroner—the events that led to it were much more tangled. On the one hand, there was the longstanding conflict with his father dating back to childhood. Marvin Gay, Sr., (the “e” was added by his son for his stage name) was a preacher in the Hebrew Pentecostal Church and a proponent of a strict moral code he enforced brutally with his four children. He was also, by all accounts, a hard-drinking cross-dresser who personally embodied a rather complicated model of morality. By some reports, Marvin Sr. harbored significant envy over his son’s tremendous success, and Marvin Jr. clearly harbored unresolved feelings toward his abusive father.

Those feelings spilled out for the final time in the Los Angeles home of Marvin Gay, Sr., and his wife Alberta. Their son the international recording star had moved into his parents’ home in late 1983 at a low point in his struggle with depression, debt and cocaine abuse. Only one year removed from his first Grammy win and from a triumphant return to the pop charts with “Sexual Healing,” Marvin Gaye was in horrible physical, psychological and financial shape, and now he found himself living in the same house as the man who must have been at the root of many of his struggles.

After an argument between father and son escalated into a physical fight on the morning of April 1, 1984, Alberta Gay was trying to calm her son in his bedroom when Marvin Sr. took a revolver given to him by Marvin Jr. and shot him three times in his chest. Marvin Gaye’s brother, Frankie, who lived next door, and who held the legendary singer during his final minutes, later wrote in his memoir that Marvin Gaye’s final, disturbing statement was, “I got what I wanted….I couldn’t do it myself, so I made him do it.” There is so much more to this great American, please research and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

March 1, 1927- Harry Belafonte

GM – FBF- “In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children,” – Harry Belafonte

Remember – “When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we’re on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.” – Harry Belafonte

Today in our History – March 1, 1927 – Harry Belafonte, byname of Harold George Belafonte, Jr.,born in New York City, New York, American singer, actor, producer, and activist who was a key figure in the folk music scene of the 1950s, especially known for popularizing the Caribbean folk songs known as calypsos. He was also involved in various social causes, notably the civil rights movement.

Belafonte was born in Harlem to emigrants from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Jamaica. When his mother returned to Jamaica in 1935, he joined her, living there until 1940. He left high school to serve in the U.S. Navy in the mid-1940s. After returning to New York City, Belafonte studied drama at Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop, where a singing role led to nightclub engagements and a recording contract as a pop singer.

In 1950 Belafonte became a folk singer, learning songs at the Library of Congress’s American folk song archives. He sang Caribbean folk songs as well, in nightclubs and theatres; his handsome appearance added to his appeal as a frequent performer on television variety programs. With hit recordings such as “Day-O (Banana Boat Song)” and “Jamaica Farewell,” he initiated a fad for calypso music and became known as the King of Calypso. In the mid-1950s his Harry Belafonte and Mark Twain and Other Folk Favorites were the first of his series of hit folk song albums. During this time he made his Broadway debut, appearing in the musical John Murray Anderson’s Almanac (1953–54); for his performance, he won a Tony Award for supporting actor. Later in the decade he starred on the stage in 3 for Tonight and Belafonte at the Palace.

In 1953 Belafonte made his film debut in Bright Road, playing a school principal. The following year he was the male lead (but did not sing) in the musical Carmen Jones; his costar was Dorothy Dandridge. The film was a huge success, and it led to a starring role in the film Island in the Sun (1957), which also featured Dandridge. He produced the film Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), in which he starred. He also starred in the TV special Tonight with Belafonte (1959), a revue of African American music; Belafonte won an Emmy Award for his work on the show.

Belafonte then took a break from acting to focus on other interests. In the 1960s he became the first African American television producer, and over the course of his career he served in that capacity on several productions. During this time Belafonte continued to record, and his notable albums include Swing Dat Hammer (1960), for which he received a Grammy Award for best folk performance. His collaborations with South African singer Miriam Makeba and Greek singer Nana Mouskouri helped introduce them to American audiences, and An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1965) garnered a Grammy for best folk recording. In 1970 he returned to the big screen with the drama The Angel Levine. Later film credits include Buck and the Preacher (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), The Player (1992), Kansas City (1996), and Bobby (2006).

Throughout his career, Belafonte was involved in various causes. He was a supporter of the civil rights movement and a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Belafonte was active in African humanitarian efforts, notably appearing on the charity song “We Are the World” (1985). In 1987 he became a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2014. I will not be able to respond to all posts today as I will be speaking at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawerenceville, GA. as I finish my Black History Month Speaking tour. Make it a champion day!


March 20, 1887- Anne Julia Cooper and George C. Cooper

GM – FBF – It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. – Anna Julia Cooper

Remember – The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart. – Anna Julia Cooper

Today in our History – March 20, 1887 – Anna Julia Cooper and George C. Cooper who was also a former slave in, 1877

Anna Julia Cooper was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on August 10, 1858. Cooper was the eldest of two daughters born to an enslaved black woman, Hannah Stanley and her white master George Washington Haywood (Rashidi, 2002). According to Rashidi (2002) “Cooper possessed an unrelenting passion for learning and a sincere conviction that black women were equipped to follow intellectual pursuits (on-line).” This was a claim that seemed reasonable, because at the age of seven, Cooper was accepted into a teacher’s training program at St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute, a placement that required prior academic training (Biography Resource Center, 2001 (BRC), 2001).
Cooper eventually graduated to the teachers level and married George C. Cooper who was also a former slave in, 1877. She was forced to leave her teaching position because of her marriage, which was quite an unfortunate situation because her husband died two years later (BRC, 2001). Cooper never remarried.

Although she was born into slavery she had no recollection of the events of her slavery as a child, but she does recall events from the civil war as well as the earlier stages or the feminist movement. Cooper declared herself “the voice of the South (BRC, 2001, on-line, extracted 10/30/2002),”because during the “fledging” of the feminist movement, it all but ignored minority women. According to the BRC (2001) when Cooper’s first book “A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South” was released to the public, it was declared the first work of an African-American feminist.

Cooper died of an heart attack on February 27, 1964 at the age of 105 in Washington, D.C. (BRC, 2001). She lived an eventful life that lead her from the belly of slavery to the dawn of the civil rights movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent black leaders of the time. Cooper wrote two additional book from the one mentioned earlier, “L’Attitude de la France a l’Egard de l’Esclavage pendant la Revolution” and “Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne: Voyage a Jerusalem et a Constantinople.”

Cooper’s life is one that exemplifies an individual committed to social change and anyone’s ability to overcome the obstacles of sexism and or racism and this is why her work as a “scholar, educator, and activist is evidence of the tremendous energy demanded of those who wanted to create change in the black community during the tumultuous period in which she lived” – Research more about this proud America hero and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

March 19, 1969- James Sims Elected President

GM – FBF – “If you were Jewish, African American, Japanese, or Chinese, you lived in that neighborhood,” – Lydia Sims

Remember – “They dreamed of a place where you’d be able to send a kid to whatever school you wanted, you’d be able to buy a house wherever you could afford,” – Lydia Sims

Today in our History – March 19, 1969 – The Spokane, WA Community Action Council elected James Sims president.

During World War II, Lydia Sims moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Spokane with her husband, James Sims, an Army Air Force soldier stationed at Geiger Airfield. At the end of the war, the Sims family decided to remain in Spokane. For 10 years they lived in the Garden Springs housing project, a complex in west Spokane inhabited primarily by former military families. There they raised their sons, James McCormick and twins Ron and Donald. Lydia Sims’s political views were strongly influenced by racial discrimination, which she vehemently opposed. In the 1960s, as a student at Eastern Washington University, she participated in a movement to desegregate schools in Cheney, Washington. Later, she served on the state’s Human Rights Coalition, the League of Women Voters, the Human Rights Council, and the Washington State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

In the late 1960s, she became personnel director of the Spokane Community Action Council, an agency that managed Head Start and various community centers. In 1975 she became the city’s affirmative action specialist, and in 1976 joined the newly established Spokane City Affirmative Action Department. She was eventually appointed human resources director for the city of Spokane, the first African American department manager in that city’s history. In this position Sims helped African Americans, women, and other minority groups find opportunities in Spokane’s job market. In the 1980s, Sims became the first African American female branch president of the Spokane National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

After serving in the military, James Sims, who had a bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University and a master’s in history from Gonzaga University, applied for a position with the Washington state Office of Community Development. Although he excelled in the civil service exam for the position, the state denied Sims the job. Sims enlisted the help of renowned Spokane civil rights attorney Carl Maxey and sued the state. He won the case and was employed as a state social worker. He later worked with state employees as a union organizer.

In the 1950s, James Sims served as a minister at the Calvary Baptist Church, and in the mid-1960s, he became pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church. In 1956 Sims was elected president of the Spokane NAACP, replacing James Chase. As president, he often publicly criticized the city for its reluctance to hire African Americans. Sims also exposed restaurants, hotels, automobile repair shops, and banks for not hiring blacks. On March 19, 1969, the Spokane Community Action Council elected Sims president partly because of his year long campaign to get city agencies to hire African Americans.

After James Sims’s death in the 1990s, Lydia Sims retired to Edmonds, Washington, and continued her advocacy. In 2000, with her son, King County Executive Ron Sims, she co-launched the Healthy Aging Partnership, an information and assistance line for the elderly at the Central Area Senior Center in King County. Lydia Sims died on June 23, 2012. Research more thid great american and share with your babise. Make it a champion day!