GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was the most prominent black scientist of the early 20th century.While a professor at Tuskegee Institute, Carver developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He wanted poor farmers to grow other crops, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes, as a source of their own food and to improve their quality of life. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. Although he spent years developing and promoting numerous products made from peanuts, none became commercially successful.Apart from his work to improve the lives of farmers, Carver was also a leader in promoting environmentalism. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal of the NAACP. In an era of high racial polarization, his fame reached beyond the black community. He was widely recognized and praised in the white community for his many achievements and talents. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a “Black Leonardo”.Color film of Carver shot in 1937 at the Tuskegee Institute by African American surgeon Allen Alexander was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2019.The 12 minutes of footage includes Carver in his apartment, office and laboratory, as well as images of him tending flowers and displaying his paintings. The film was digitized by The National Archives as part of its multi-year effort to preserve and make available the historically significant film collections of the National Park Service. It can be seen on the US National Film Archives YouTube channel.Today in our History – May 7, 1943 – The SS George Washington Carver, launched at the Richmond Shipyard No. 1 in California on May 7, 1943, to honor an “outstanding Negro.”Carver was born into slavery, the son of a slave woman named Mary, owned by Moses Carver. During the American Civil War, the Carver farm was raided, and infant George and his mother were kidnapped and taken to Arkansas to be sold. Moses Carver was eventually able to track down young George but was unable to find Mary. Frail and sick, the motherless child was returned to his master’s home and nursed back to health. With the complete abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, George was no longer a slave. Nevertheless, he remained on the Carver plantation until he was about 10 or 12 years old, when he left to acquire an education. He spent some time wandering about, working with his hands and developing his keen interest in plants and animals. He learned to draw, and later in life he devoted considerable time to painting flowers, plants, and landscapes.By both books and experience, George acquired a fragmentary education while doing whatever work came to hand in order to subsist. He supported himself by varied occupations that included general household worker, hotel cook, laundryman, farm labourer, and homesteader. In his late 20s he managed to obtain a high school education in Minneapolis, Kansas, while working as a farmhand. After a university in Kansas refused to admit him because he was Black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied piano and art, subsequently transferring to Iowa State Agricultural College (later Iowa State University), where he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.Carver left Iowa for Alabama in the fall of 1896 to direct the newly organized department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a school headed by noted African American educator Booker T. Washington.At Tuskegee, Washington was trying to improve the lot of African Americans through education and the acquisition of useful skills rather than through political agitation; he stressed conciliation, compromise, and economic development as the paths for Black advancement in American society. Despite many offers elsewhere, Carver would remain at Tuskegee for the rest of his life.After becoming the institute’s director of agricultural research in 1896, Carver devoted his time to research projects aimed at helping Southern agriculture, demonstrating ways in which farmers could improve their economic situation. He conducted experiments in soil management and crop production and directed an experimental farm. At this time agriculture in the Deep South was in steep decline because the unremitting single-crop cultivation of cotton had left the soil of many fields exhausted and worthless, and erosion had then taken its toll on areas that could no longer sustain any plant cover.As a remedy, Carver urged Southern farmers to plant peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) and soybeans (Glycine max). As members of the legume family (Fabaceae), these plants could restore nitrogen to the soil while also providing the protein so badly needed in the diet of many Southerners. Carver found that Alabama’s soils were particularly well-suited to growing peanuts and sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), but when the state’s farmers began cultivating these crops instead of cotton, they found little demand for them on the market.In response to this problem, Carver set about enlarging the commercial possibilities of the peanut and sweet potato through a long and ingenious program of laboratory research. He ultimately developed 300 derivative products from peanuts—among them milk, flour, ink, dyes, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils, and cosmetics—and 118 from sweet potatoes, including flour, vinegar, molasses, ink, a synthetic rubber, and postage stamp glue.In 1914, at a time when the boll weevil had almost ruined cotton growers, Carver revealed his experiments to the public, and increasing numbers of the South’s farmers began to turn to peanuts, sweet potatoes, and their derivatives for income. Much exhausted land was renewed, and the South became a major new supplier of agricultural products. When Carver arrived at Tuskegee in 1896, the peanut had not even been recognized as a crop, but within the next half century it became one of the six leading crops throughout the United States and, in the South, the second cash crop (after cotton) by 1940. In 1942 the U.S. government allotted 2,023,428 hectares (5,000,000 acres) of peanuts to farmers. Carver’s efforts had finally helped liberate the South from its excessive dependence on cotton.Among Carver’s many honours were his election to Britain’s Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (London) in 1916 and his receipt of the Spingarn Medal in 1923. Late in his career he declined an invitation to work for Thomas A. Edison at a salary of more than $100,000 a year. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt visited him, and his friends included Henry Ford and Mohandas K. Gandhi. Foreign governments requested his counsel on agricultural matters: Joseph Stalin, for example, in 1931 invited him to superintend cotton plantations in southern Russia and to make a tour of the Soviet Union, but Carver refused.In 1940 Carver donated his life savings to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee for continuing research in agriculture. During World War II he worked to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe, and in all he produced dyes of 500 different shades.Many scientists thought of Carver more as a concoctionist than as a contributor to scientific knowledge. Many of his fellow African Americans were critical of what they regarded as his subservience. Certainly, this small, mild, soft-spoken, innately modest man, eccentric in dress and mannerism, seemed unbelievably heedless of the conventional pleasures and rewards of this life.But these qualities endeared Carver to many whites, who were almost invariably charmed by his humble demeanour and his quiet work in self-imposed segregation at Tuskegee. As a result of his accommodation to the mores of the South, whites came to regard him with a sort of patronizing adulation.Carver thus, for much of white America, increasingly came to stand as a kind of saintly and comfortable symbol of the intellectual achievements of African Americans. Carver was evidently uninterested in the role his image played in the racial politics of the time. His great desire in later life was simply to serve humanity, and his work, which began for the sake of the poorest of the Black sharecroppers, paved the way for a better life for the entire South. His efforts brought about a significant advance in agricultural training in an era when agriculture was the largest single occupation of Americans, and he extended Tuskegee’s influence throughout the South by encouraging improved farm methods, crop diversification, and soil conservation. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – The years as a young man growing up in Trenton, N.J. were the capitol city had much going on as the seat of power for the state but we had our share of athletes and entertainers. Dunn Field (The old Brunswick Circle) was the place to be to see this young great baseball star.Today’s American Champion is an American former professional baseball center fielder. He spent almost all of his 22-season Major League Baseball (MLB) career playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants (1951–52, 1954–72) before finishing his career with the New York Mets (1972–73). Regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons in 1948, playing with them until he was signed by the Giants once he graduated high school in 1950. He won the Rookie of the Year Award, spent two years in the United States Army during the Korean War, and won the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award after leading the NL in batting with a .345 batting average in 1954. His over-the-shoulder catch of a Vic Wertz fly ball in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series is one of the most famous baseball plays of all time. The Giants swept the Cleveland Indians, the lone World Series triumph of Mays’s career.Mays led the NL with 51 home runs in 1955. In 1956, he stole 40 bases, leading the NL for the first of four straight years. He won his first of 12 Gold Glove Awards in 1957, a record for outfielders. The Giants moved to San Francisco after the 1957 season, and Mays contended for the batting title until the final day of 1958, hitting a career-high .347. He batted over .300 for the next two seasons, leading the league in hits in 1960. After leading the NL with 129 runs scored in 1961, Mays led the NL in home runs in 1962 as the Giants won the NL pennant and faced the New York Yankees in the World Series, which the Giants lost in seven games.By 1963, Mays was making over $100,000 a year. In 1964, he was named the captain of the Giants by manager Alvin Dark, leading the NL with 47 home runs that year. He hit 52 the next year, leading the NL and winning his second MVP award. 1966 was the last of 10 seasons in which he had over 100 runs batted in. In 1969, he hit the 600th home run of his career, and he got his 3,000th hit in 1970. Traded to the Mets in 1972, Mays spent the rest of that season and 1973 with them before retiring. He served as a coach for the Mets until 1979 and later rejoined the Giants as a Special Assistant to the President and General Manager.Mays finished his career batting .302 with 660 home runs, the sixth-most of all time, and 1,903 RBI. He holds MLB records for most putouts (7,095) and most extra-inning home runs (22). Over his career, he was selected to 24 All-Star Games, tied for the second-most of all time. Mays was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999 and ranked second on The Sporting News’s “List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players”, behind only Babe Ruth. He was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. “If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases and performed a miracle in the field every day, I’d still look you in the eye and say Willie was better,” manager Leo Durocher said.Today I our History – May 6, 1931 – Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed “The Say Hey Kid”Both Mays’s father and his grandfather had been baseball players. Willie Mays, who batted and fielded right-handed, played semiprofessional baseball when he was 16 years old and joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro National League in 1948, playing only on Sunday during the school year.The National League New York Giants paid the Barons for his contract when he graduated from Fairfield Industrial High School in 1950. After two seasons in the minor leagues, Mays went to the Giants in 1951 and was named Rookie of the Year at the end of that season—one legendary in baseball. The Giants were far behind the Brooklyn Dodgers in the pennant race. With the great play of Mays and others, the Giants tied the Dodgers in the standings on the last day of the season, and a three-game play-off for the National League championship was won with a home run, known as “the shot heard ’round the world,” hit by the Giants’ Bobby Thomson.Mays became known first for his spectacular leaping and diving catches before he established himself as a hitter. He served in the army (1952–54), and upon his return to baseball in the 1954 season, when the Giants won the National League pennant and the World Series, Mays led the league in hitting (.345) and had 41 home runs. In 1966 his two-year contract with the Giants (who had moved to San Francisco in 1958) gave him the highest salary of any baseball player of that time. He was traded to the New York Mets midseason in 1972 and retired after the 1973 season. Late in his career he played in the infield, mainly at first base. His career home run total was 660 and his batting average .302. Mays had 3,283 hits during his career, which made him one of the small group of players with more than 3,000 career hits. He led the league in home runs in 1955, 1962, and 1964–65, won 12 consecutive Gold Gloves (1957–68), and was named an All-Star in 20 of his 22 seasons.After retiring as a player, Mays was a part-time coach and did public relations work for the Mets. In 1979 Mays took a public relations job with a company that was involved in gambling concerns, with the result that he was banned from baseball-related activities just three months after being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. In 1985 the ban was lifted, and in 1986 Mays became a full-time special assistant to the Giants. His autobiography, Say Hey (1988), was written with Lou Sahadi. In 2015 Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the “most important” newspaper of its kind. Abbott’s newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow era violence and urged black people in the American South to come north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously (and sometimes against southern state laws and mores) took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the Southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper took on segregation, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy made its way into the hands of four out of five African-Americans. In 1919–1922, the Defender attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes; from the 1940s through 1960s Hughes also wrote an opinion column for the paper. Washington D.C and international correspondent Ethel Payne, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, author Willard Motley, journalists Ida B. Wells and Louis Lomax wrote for the paper at different times. During the height of the civil rights movement era, it was published as The Chicago Daily Defender, a daily newspaper, beginning in 1956. It returned to a weekly paper in 2008. In 2019, its publisher, Real Times Media Inc., announced that the Defender would cease its print edition but continue as an online publication. The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, noting the impact The Defender has had in its 114 years, praised the continuation of the publication in its new formGetting a Vehicle Special Ordered vs. Sticking to Dealer InventoryToday in our History – May 5 – The American Defender is born. The paper was the first African-American publication to have a circulation over 100,000.The Chicago Defender’s editor and founder Robert Sengstacke Abbott played a major role in influencing the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North by means of strong, moralistic rhetoric in his editorials and political cartoons, the promotion of Chicago as a destination, and the advertisement of successful black individuals as inspiration for blacks in the South.The rhetoric and art exhibited in the Defender demanded equality of the races and promoted a northern migration. Abbott published articles that were exposés of southern crimes against blacks.[8] The Defender consistently published articles describing lynchings in the South, with vivid descriptions of gore and the victims’ deaths. Lynchings were at a peak at the turn of the century, in the period when southern state legislatures passed new constitutions and laws to disenfranchise most blacks and exclude them from the political system. Legislatures dominated by conservative white Democrats established racial segregation and Jim Crow.Abbott openly blamed the lynching violence on the white mobs who were typically involved, forcing readers to accept that these crimes were “systematic and unremitting”.The newspaper’s intense focus on these injustices implicitly laid the groundwork upon which Abbott would build his explicit critiques of society. At the same time, the NAACP was publicizing the toll of lynching at its offices in New York City.The art in the Defender, particularly its political cartoons by Jay Jackson and others, explicitly addressed race issues and advocated northern migration of blacks.After the movement of southern blacks northward became a quantifiable phenomenon, the Defender took a particular interest in sensationalizing migratory stories, often on the front page. Abbott positioned his paper as a primary influence of these movements before historians would, for he used the Defender to initiate and advertise a “Great Northern Drive” day, set for May 15, 1917. The movement to northern and midwestern cities, and to the West Coast at the time of World War I, became known as the Great Migration, in which 1.5 million blacks moved out of the rural South in early 20th century years up to 1940, and another 5 million left towns and rural areas from 1940 to 1970.Abbott used the Defender to promote Chicago as an attractive destination for southern blacks. Abbott presented Chicago as a promised-land with abundant jobs, as he included advertisements “clearly aimed at southerners,” that called for massive numbers of workers wanted in factory positions. The Defender was filled with advertisements for desirable commodities, beauty products and technological devices. Abbott’s paper was the first black newspaper to incorporate a full entertainment section. Chicago was portrayed as a lively city where blacks commonly went to the theaters, ate out at fancy restaurants, attended sports events, including “cheering for the American Black Giants, black America’s favorite baseball team”, and could dance all night in the hottest night clubs.The Defender featured letters and poetry submitted by successful recent migrants; these writings “served as representative anecdotes, supplying readers with prototype examples … that characterized the migration campaign”. To supplement these first-person accounts, Abbott often published small features on successful blacks in Chicago. The well-known African American mentalist Princess Mysteria had from 1920 to her death in 1930 a weekly column on the Defender, called “Advise to the Wise and Otherwise.” In 1923, Abbott and editor Lucius Harper created the Bud Billiken Club for black children through the “Junior Defender” page of the paper. The club encouraged the children’s proper development, and reading The Defender. In 1929 the organization began the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, which is still held annually in Chicago in early August. In the 1950s, under Sengstacke’s direction, the Bud Billiken Parade expanded and emerged as the largest single event in Chicago. Today, it attracts more than one million attendance with more than 25 million television viewers, making it one of the largest parades in the country.In 1928, for the first time, The Defender refused to endorse a Republican Party presidential candidate. Throughout the election it ran a series of articles critical of the party, its failures to advance black civil rights, and what it saw as Republican’s embrace or acquiescence in segregationism, party support in a revitalized Ku Klux Klan, and the Republican’s Lily White Movement. The paper’s final pre-election editorial read in part: “We want justice in America and we mean to get it. If 50 years of support to the Republican Party doesn’t get us justice, then we must of necessity shift our allegiance to new quarters.” For a variety of reasons, in the coming years, black support for the Republican Party fell rapidly. Abbott took a special interest in his nephew, John H. Sengstacke (1912–1997), paying for his education and grooming him to take over the Defender, which he did in 1940 after working with his uncle for several years. He urged integration of the armed forces. In 1948, he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the commission to study this and plan the process, which was initiated by the military in 1949.Sengstacke also brought together for the first time major black newspaper publishers and created the National Negro Publishers Association, later renamed the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). In the early 21st century, the NNPA consists of more than 200 member black newspapers. Two days following the publishers’ first meeting in Chicago, Abbott died.One of Sengstacke’s most striking accomplishments occurred on February 6, 1956, when the Defender became a daily newspaper and changed its name to the Chicago Daily Defender, the nation’s second black daily newspaper. It immediately became the largest black-owned daily in the nation. It published as a daily until 2003, when new owners converted the Defender back to a weekly. The Defender was one of only three African-American dailies in the United States; the other two are the Atlanta Daily World, the first black newspaper founded as a daily in 1928, and the New York Daily Challenge, founded in 1971. In 1965 Sengstacke created a chain of newspapers, which also included the Pittsburgh Courier, the Memphis Tri-State Defender, and the Michigan Chronicle. In a 1967 editorial, the Defender decried anti-Semitism in the community, reminding readers of the role of Jews in the civil rights movement. “These powerful voices,” the Defender wrote, “which have been lifted on behalf of the Negro peoples’ cause, should not be forgotten when resolutions are passed by the black power hierarchy. Jews and Negroes have problems in common. They can ill-afford to be at one another’s throats.” Control of the Chicago Defender and her sister publications was transferred to a new ownership group named Real Times Inc. in January 2003. Real Times, Inc. was organized and led by Thom Picou, and Robert (Bobby) Sengstacke, John H. Sengstacke’s surviving child and father of the beneficiaries of the Sengstacke Trust. In effect, Picou, then chairman and CEO of Real Times, Inc., led what was then labeled a “Sengstacke family-led” deal to facilitate trust beneficiaries and other Sengstacke family shareholders to agree to the sale of the company. Picou recruited Sam Logan, former publisher of the Michigan Chronicle, who then recruited O’Neil Swanson, Bill Pickard, Ron Hall and Gordon Follmer, black businessman from Detroit, Michigan (the “Detroit Group”), as investors in Real Times. Chicago investors included Picou, Bobby Sengstacke, David M. Milliner (who served as publisher of the Chicago Defender from 2003 to 2004), Kurt Cherry and James Carr.In July 2019, the Chicago Defender reported that recent print runs had numbered 16,000 but that its digital edition reached almost half a million unique monthly visitors. Research more about this American Champion event and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – – Today’s American Champion Is an American entrepreneur, fashion designer, TV personality, author, philanthropist and model.Today in our History May 4, 1975 – Kimora Lee Leissner (previously Simmons, née Perkins; born May 4, 1975) is born. Kimora Lee Perkins was born in St. Louis, Missouri and spent her early life in the northern St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri. Kimora was born of African American and Japanese heritage. Nearly 6 feet tall by age 10, she was teased because of her height. To boost her confidence because of her height, Kimora’s mother enrolled her in a modeling class when she was eleven years old.At age 13, Perkins signed a modeling contract with Chanel and under the tutelage of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.Simmons helped inspire Lagerfeld’s creative vision and call for racial inclusion, and paved the way for other mixed race models in the fashion world. Lagerfeld deemed her the “Face of the 21st Century”.She gained attention in the fashion world when she closed Lagerfeld’s haute couture show in 1989 as the “bride” – the concluding bridal look signature to every Chanel show under Lagerfeld’s tenure.’Simmons later modeled for Fendi, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Dior, Roberto Cavalli, Kenzo, Anna Sui, Geoffrey Beene, and Yves Saint Laurent.In 1998, Simmons’ then husband, music mogul and entrepreneur, Russell Simmons, was at the helm of “Phat Farm”, an urban menswear brand. Simmons created a parallel women’s brand, “Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons”, under the umbrella of “Phat Fashions”.Simmons stepped in as Baby Phat’s designer,reating a collection based on what she would wear.In 2000, Kimora was appointed president and creative director of the Baby Phat brand. In 2001, Baby Phat reported gross revenue earnings of $30 million. By 2002 Phat Farm and Baby Phat had made a combined profit of $265 million.In 2004, the Kellwood Company purchased Phat Fashions for $140 million. Simmons stayed on as President and Creative Director of Baby Phat, expanding the label into a “lifestyle brand” with denim, accessories, jewelry, swimwear, fragrance and lingerie categories.Later that year, the label expanded to selling a custom Motorola i833 mobile phone sold exclusively at Bloomingdale’s and partnered with Vida Shoes International, Inc. to create a shoe line. In 2006, she was named president of parent company Phat Fashions. In 2007, Phat fashions partnered with Silver Goose/Kidstreet to create an infant and toddler accessory line.In 2008 the Kellwood Company sold a majority stake in Phat Fashions to Sun Capital Partners, after which Simmons left Phat Fashions in 2010.In 2019 Simmons announced she had reacquired the Baby Phat brand and in August 2020 she announced Baby Phat Beauty line curated by her daughters Ming Lee and Aoki Lee.In 2005, Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons collaborated with Coty Inc. to launch its first-ever fragrance, Baby Phat Goddess which was carried by department stores including Sears and Macy’s.Baby Phat Goddess was then joined by Golden Goddess, Seductive Goddess, Baby Phat Fabulosity, Luv Me and Baby Phat Dare Me. After Kimora’s exit as President of Phat Fashions in 2010, she retained ownership of all licensing rights for her fragrance and cosmetics collection.Simmons created the Simmons Jewelry Company to market jewelry items under the Phat Farm and Baby Phat labels, which resulted in Simmons’s “Diamond Diva” line of jewelry. She then partnered with pop culture icon, Hello Kitty owned by Sanrio Ltd., in 2006 to launch “Kimora Lee Simmons for Hello Kitty” in Neiman Marcus. The Hello Kitty collection by Kimora Lee was expanded in 2008 with another collection of jewelry and watches being released in conjunction with the Zales Corporation.In May 2006 Kimora launched KLS Cosmetics with beauty giant Sephora and Macy’s stores. The collection consisted of color cosmetics and fragrances.Renowned for pioneering the introduction of glamour and feminine appeal to the urban brand category, Kimora Lee Simmons created a line for JCPenney in 2008, which combined the two worlds she knows best—high fashion and hip hop. Fabulosity was merchandised at JCPenney as an urban lifestyle offering in Juniors with a complete sportswear line that featured tees, knit tops and sweaters, jeans, skirts and dresses, as well as hoodies, jackets and outerwear.In 2010 Kimora launched her contemporary KLS fashion collection, which retailed to department stores like Macy’s. In tandem, the designer and creative director launched Kouture by Kimora, a brand of under $40 clothes exclusively for Macy’s. “I wanted to do something that spoke to a different market for Macy’s. It sits in a different section.I wanted this to be crossover. I wanted this to be colorless and really about fashion. And it’s what I call recession-proof. It’s really important to say that,” said Simmons. Kimora Lee Simmons launched her own anti-aging skincare line with Swiss skincare company Makari de Suisse in 2011.[16] The anti-aging line was geared toward multi-ethnic women and consisted of plumpers and products to keep moisture in the skin.In 2012 Kimora Lee Simmons announced a new position as President and Creative Director for Just Fab, a personalized shopping website which she ran until 2015. Kimora skyrocketed JustFab into the fashion subscription stratosphere.With Kimora Lee Simmons’s direction, JustFab offered individualized boutiques to monthly subscribers who had completed an online fashion assessment. Just Fab and Kimora Lee Simmons made it easy for anyone to be fashionable by creating entire on-trend looks, which gave women of all fashion tastes the ability to affordably make their home closet their dream closet.Kimora launched her new, evolved KIMORA LEE SIMMONS women’s designer line, featuring Italian fabrics and handmade embellishments. This marked the first time Kimora entered the luxury American designer category. The KIMORA LEE SIMMONS collection was picked up by Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor, Farfetch and a network of boutiques nationwide.Simultaneously, Kimora instituted her venture portfolio of new and innovative businesses in the fields of (i) fashion (KLS and Baby Phat clothing), entertainment (All Def Media and Screenbid), (ii) technology (Sentient Technologies, Contra Software and Friendsurance), (iii) sports (Inter Milan and the Association of Volleyball Professionals) as well as (iv) consumer goods including Codage, an advanced technical skin care line in France, Pureform Global, the first manufacturer of non-cannabis, non-hemp, all natural CBD products, and Celisus, a “clean energy” negative calorie drink acquired in 2015. In Spring 2019 she co-launched Pellequr, a Beverly Hills spa.On International Women’s Day on March 8, 2019, Kimora delivered the keynote address at the launch of the “She Innovates” initiative led by the UN Women and the Gender Innovation Coalition for Change (GICC).There, and to Bloomberg News, she officially leaked the news with a business announcement of her own – the reacquisition and forthcoming return of her ultra-iconic streetwear brand, Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion Lieutenant James A. Roston was a key organizer for the African American labor movement in Seattle in the early part of the 20th century.He was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1864. Roston was commissioned (from the District of Columbia) as a first lieutenant in the 10th U.S. Volunteer Infantry (Tenth “Immunes”), Company K, during the Spanish American War,1898-1899. The regiment never served outside the United States. After the War he enlisted a private in the 24th Infantry and served in the Phillippines (1899-1902) rising to the rank of corporal. While there he distinguished himself in the field when, as Chief of Scouts, he helped capture high-ranking rebel officers.Today in our History – May 3, 1924 – James A. Roston died.After his service ended in 1902, Roston settled in Brooklyn, New York where he sold real estate, lectured about the Philippines and Africa, and served as chairman and president of the 1903 Commercial American Negro Convention, a group whose goal was to tax African Americans and use the revenue to establish black-owned businesses. He also served as Exalted Ruler of Brooklyn Elks Lodge #32.Roston moved to Seattle after a year as a Pullman porter in Spokane, Washington, and soon established himself as a realtor for the many African Americans that were moving to the area during the shipbuilding boom of the early 1900s. During the Longshoreman’s strike of 1916, he helped recruit 400 African American strikebreakers. Roston established and became president of the Colored Marine Employees Benevolent Protective Association of the Pacific,the first African American labor organization in the Pacific Northwest, to “organize (black) workers and erase the false impression that the colored man…didn’t believe in organization.” The strike was marked by racial tensions and conflict with white workers attacking blacks who then retaliated in kind. On February 27, 1917 the Central Labor Council “by a practically unanimous vote” decided to include “negroes and whites in labor.” When the United States entered World War I in April, the strike was ended by government fiat and the waterfront was integrated.Lieutenant Roston was also a member of the local NAACP and the King County Colored Republican Club. He died in Seattle on May 3, 1924.

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champions were the brave soldiers who would go out and show both black and white audiences that were the best par none. The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans.The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed “Negro Major Leagues”.In 1885, the Cuban Giants formed the first black professional baseball team. The first league, the National Colored Base Ball League, was organized strictly as a minor league but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. After integration, the quality of the Negro leagues slowly deteriorated and the Negro American League of 1951 is generally considered the last major league season. The last professional club, the Indianapolis Clowns, operated as a humorous sideshow rather than competitively from the mid-1960s to the 1980s.In December 2020, Major League Baseball announced that it was classifying the seven “Negro Major Leagues” as major leagues, recognizing statistics and approximately 3,400 players who played from 1920 to 1948.Today in our History – May 2 – THE NATIONAL NEGRO LEAGUE was FOUNDED and Played it first game.During the formative years of black baseball, the term “colored” was the accepted usage when referring to African-Americans. References to black baseball prior to the 1930s are usually to “colored” leagues or teams, such as the Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (1886), the National Colored Base Ball League (1887) and the Eastern Colored League (1923), among others. By the 20s or 30s, the term “Negro” came into use which led to references to “Negro” leagues or teams. The black World Series was referred to as the Colored World Series from 1924 to 1927, and the Negro World Series from 1942 to 1948.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People petitioned the public to recognize a capital “N” in negro as a matter of respect for black people. By 1930, essentially every major US outlet had adopted “Negro” as the accepted term for blacks. By about 1970, the term “Negro” had fallen into disfavor, but by then the Negro leagues were mere historic artifacts.On May 2, 1920, the Indianapolis ABCs beat Charles “Joe” Green’s Chicago Giants (4–2) in the first game played in the inaugural season of the Negro National League, played at Washington Park in Indianapolis. But, because of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the National Guard still occupied the Giants’ home field, Schorling’s Park (formerly South Side Park). This forced Foster to cancel all the Giants’ home games for almost a month and threatened to become a huge embarrassment for the league. On March 2, 1920 the Negro Southern League was founded in Atlanta, Georgia.In 1921, the Negro Southern League joined Foster’s National Association of Colored Professional Base Ball Clubs. As a dues-paying member of the association, it received the same protection from raiding parties as any team in the Negro National League.Foster then admitted John Connors’ Atlantic City Bacharach Giants as an associate member to move further into Nat Strong’s territory. Connors, wanting to return the favor of helping him against Strong, raided Ed Bolden’s Hilldale Daisies team. Bolden saw little choice but to team up with Foster’s nemesis, Nat Strong. Within days of calling a truce with Strong, Bolden made an about-face and signed up as an associate member of Foster’s Negro National League.On December 16, 1922, Bolden once again shifted sides and, with Strong, formed the Eastern Colored League as an alternative to Foster’s Negro National League, which started with six teams: Atlantic City Bacharach Giants, Baltimore Black Sox, Brooklyn Royal Giants, New York Cuban Stars, Hilldale, and New York Lincoln Giants. The National League was having trouble maintaining continuity among its franchises: three teams folded and had to be replaced after the 1921 season, two others after the 1922 season, and two more after the 1923 season. Foster replaced the defunct teams, sometimes promoting whole teams from the Negro Southern League into the NNL. Finally Foster and Bolden met and agreed to an annual World Series beginning in 1924.1925 saw the St. Louis Stars come of age in the Negro National League. They finished in second place during the second half of the year due in large part to their pitcher turned center fielder, Cool Papa Bell, and their shortstop, Willie Wells. A gas leak in his home nearly asphyxiated Rube Foster in 1926, and his increasingly erratic behavior led to him being committed to an asylum a year later. While Foster was out of the picture, the owners of the National League elected William C. Hueston as new league president. In 1927, Ed Bolden suffered a similar fate as Foster, by committing himself to a hospital because the pressure was too great. The Eastern League folded shortly after that, marking the end of the World Series between the NNL and the ECL.After the Eastern League folded following the 1927 season, a new eastern league, the American Negro League, was formed to replace it. The makeup of the new ANL was nearly the same as the Eastern League, the exception being that the Homestead Grays joined in place of the now-defunct Brooklyn Royal Giants. The ANL lasted just one season. In the face of harder economic times, the Negro National League folded after the 1931 season. Some of its teams joined the only Negro league then left, the Negro Southern League.On March 26, 1932 the Chicago Defender announced the end of Negro National League.Some proposals were floated to bring the Negro leagues into “organized baseball” as developmental leagues for black players, but that was recognized as contrary to the goal of full integration. So the Negro leagues, once among the largest and most prosperous black-owned business ventures, were allowed to fade into oblivion.First a trickle and then a flood of players signed with Major League Baseball teams. Most signed minor league contracts and many languished, shuttled from one bush league team to another despite their success at that level.The Negro National League folded after the 1948 season when the Grays withdrew to resume barnstorming, the Eagles moved to Houston, Texas, and the New York Black Yankees folded. The Grays folded one year later after losing $30,000 in the barnstorming effort. So the Negro American League was the only “major” Negro league operating in 1949. Within two years it had been reduced to minor league caliber and it played its last game in 1958.The last All-Star game was held in 1962, and by 1966 the Indianapolis Clowns were the last Negro league team still playing. The Clowns continued to play exhibition games into the 1980s, but as a humorous sideshow rather than a competitive sport. Research more about this great American Champion event and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was Max Robinson was born in Richmond, VA on May 1, 1939 to Maxie and Doris Robinson. His siblings are sisters Jewell and Jean, and brother Randall. In 1959, at the age of 20, Max Robinson beat out four white applicants for a position at a local TV station in Portsmouth, VA where he read the news on the air. There was just one catch: his face had to be hidden behind a slide bearing the station’s logo. “One night,” Clarence Page wrote in Chicago, “[Robinson] ordered the slide removed so his relatives could see him. He was fired the next day.Today in our History – May 1, 1939 – Max Robinson was born. When he moved to Washington, he was the first African-American anchor on a local television news program on WTOP-TV Channel 9 in 1969, and the first African-American anchor on a network television news program. During his three and a half years at WRC he won six journalism awards for his coverage of such events as the 1968 riots after civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, the antiwar demonstrations, and the national election. It was during this time that Robinson won two regional Emmys for a documentary he did on black life in Anacostia titled The Other Washington.At WTOP, he was teamed with Gordon Peterson for 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM newscasts and the rest was history. There was such a rapport between Robinson and his viewers that when Hanafi Muslims took hostages at the Washington Mosque, they would only speak with Max Robinson. In 1978, when Roone Arledge was looking to revamp ABC News’ nightly news broadcast into World News Tonight, he remembered Max Robinson from a 60 Minutes interview, and hired him to be a part of his new three-anchor format: Frank Reynolds in Washington, Peter Jennings in London, and Robinson in Chicago. He became the first black man to anchor a nightly network news broadcast. Almost immediately, Robinson took it upon himself to fight racism at every turn and at whatever cost he thought necessary. He was constantly embroiled with his network bosses over the way news stories portrayed black America and how they neglected to reflect the black viewpoint. Robinson’s integrity as a journalist and his role as a leader in the fight against prejudice made him a mentor to many young black television journalists.Unfortunately, he never felt worthy of the admiration or satisfied with his accomplishments. It wasn’t long before friends and co-workers began to notice a significant change in his behavior. He became stubborn and moody, began showing up late for work or not at all, and his fondness for alcohol took on epidemic proportions. He had been married three times and fathered four children. Excerpted from AAP website: Management at ABC was getting frustrated with the image problems that Robinson was causing them. When they switched to a single anchor format, with the death of Frank Reynolds, Robinson was relegated to doing news briefs and anchoring the weekend news program.He left ABC in 1984 to become the first black anchor at WMAQ in Chicago. But it didn’t last, and he left WMAQ in ’85. Unfortunately, just when it appeared that he was about to put his life in order, he was hospitalized in Blue Island, Illinois, with pneumonia. It didn’t take doctors long to figure out the cause of his ailment. He kept his condition secret.It was thought that most news organizations knew already and decided to honor a fellow journalist’s privacy. To have AIDS at that time was to be a pariah. In some ways, it still is. But in 1988, it was much worse. In the fall of 1988, he traveled back to DC to give a speech at Howard University’s School of Journalism. Later that night, he became increasingly ill, and checked into Howard University Hospital.On the morning of December 20, 1988, Max Robinson passed away. The truth of his condition was finally revealed: he died from complications due to AIDS. Journalists from all corners came to his funeral in DC, The Reverend Jesse Jackson delivered the eulogy and his old partner Gordon Peterson said a few words. It was a beautiful service.Max Robinson deserves as much credit for his achievements in journalism as Edward R. Murrow or Frederick Douglass. But he’s fading from the collective memory. There are no books written about him. There are no documentaries or dramas made of his story. Yes, he was moody and temperamental. His drinking and bouts with depression got in the way of his work in later years. Sometimes the people who loved him were hurt by things he said or did. He made mistakes. And he died from AIDS. But that’s not all that he was. He took down the slide in 1959 so Portsmouth residents could see who had been delivering the news in such an eloquent fashion. He showed Washingtonians the other side of Washington with his documentary on Anacostia.He risked his life by agreeing to act as a negotiator during the hostage crisis at the Washington Mosque. He broke through the wall of racism by being the first time and time again. He mentored young black journalists who were coming through the door he had opened. He stood up and pointed out racism even in his own network when it would have been easier to just take the money and read the news. He tried to educate his children about their African heritage. He won numerous awards for his efforts and made things a whole lot easier for the African-American journalists of today. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM –FBF – Today’s American Champion event was Christopher’s murder spree began on September 22, 1980, when he killed three black men and one boy in the space of 36 hours with a .22 caliber sawed-off rifle.These murders led to the media epithet of the .22-Caliber Killer A 14-year- diesold boy, Glenn Dunn was the first victim, shot outside a supermarket in Buffalo on September 22. Harold Green, 32, was shot the next day while dining at a fast food restaurant in Cheektowaga. That same evening, 30 year old Emmanuel Thomas was shot while crossing the street to his home, only 7 blocks away from Glenn Dunn’s murder. On September 24, Joseph McCoy was shot to death in Niagara Falls.Today In OUR HISTORY – April 29, 1981 – Emmanuel Thomas dies.Buffalo, N.Y., grand jury indicted Pvt. Joseph G. Christopher of the U.S. Army on murder charges stemming from the racially motivated slayings of three Blacks in September, 1980He committed two more murders on October 8 and October 9, both times bludgeoning his victims to death and then cutting their hearts out.[4][5] The bloodied, beaten, and mutilated body of 71 year old Parler Edwards was found in the trunk of his taxi cab parked in Amherst on October 8. Forty-year-old Ernest Jones was found in similar condition beside the Niagara River in Tonawanda on October 9. Jones’ blood-spattered taxi was found 3 miles away in Buffalo.Collin Cole, 37, was attacked in a Buffalo hospital on October 10. A white man matching the description of the .22 Caliber Killer tried to strangle him to death. Cole said the man snarled, “I hate n*****s” at him before trying to kill him. He was saved by the arrival of a nurse, and though severe damage had been done to his throat, he did survive the attack.These initial murders went unsolved at first, and Christopher enlisted in the United States Army in November, being stationed at Fort Benning. He soon received Christmas furlough and arrived in Manhattan on December 20, where, on December 22, he committed four more murders and two more attacks; this time stabbing his victims to death, thus earning the moniker of the Midtown Slasher.Twenty-five year old John Adams was stabbed at around 11:30 a.m., but survived. 32 year old Ivan Frazier was attacked next about two hours later. He managed to deflect the blade with his hand, suffering only minor injuries. Luis Rodriguez, 19, was the first murder of the day; at around 3:30 p.m., he was stabbed to death. At 6:50 p.m., 30 year old Antone Davis was stabbed to death. Around 4 hours later, 20 year old Richard Renner was stabbed and killed. Finally, a black John Doe was stabbed to death near Madison Square Garden just before midnight.He then returned to Buffalo and fatally stabbed another black man, 31-year-old Roger Adams, on December 29 and 26-year-old Wendell Barnes in Rochester on December 30. He committed another three attacks on New Years Eve and New Years Day (Albert Menefee, Larry Little, and Calvin Crippen) in Buffalo, but all three victims survived), before returning to Fort Benning in January.When back at Fort Benning, Christopher attacked a black soldier with a paring knife in what was described as an unprovoked attack on January 18. The soldier survived the attack and Christopher was placed in the fort’s stockade, where he attempted suicide by cutting himself with a razor. In a subsequent psychiatric session, he told a psychiatrist that he “had to” kill blacks.[1] This admission caused Christopher’s home to be searched by the police. There the police found evidence linking Christopher to three murders, which led to his indictment in April 1981 and his transfer back to Buffalo for his trial on May 8.Army Pvt. Joseph Christopher, who is accused of killing three men here last fall, pleaded not guilty today and said he wanted to conduct his own defense.Private Christopher, 25 years old, who enlisted in the Army in the autumn, was returned here Friday after being extradited from Georgia to face trial on the three charges of second-degree murder. Private Christopher, who is white, had been in custody at Fort Benning, Ga., since January after being charged with attempted murder in the stabbing of a black soldier.The victims in the Buffalo killings were black, and witnesses told investigators they were shot by a white man. Each of the victims was shot with a .22-caliber weapon, investigators said.A grand jury indicted Private Christopher April 29 on three counts of murder. He is also a suspect in a fourth, similar murder in Niagara Falls. But that killing was in another jurisdiction, and no grand jury has been convened in the case. Private Christopher is also a suspect in the fatal stabbings of three black men and a darkskinned Hispanic man in New York City last winter.When the defendant was brought into the courtroom for his arraignment today, he was in leg irons, with his hands chained to his waist and a ski mask over his head. Need for Mask Argued• Unlock more free articles.Karl Keuker, the assistant District Attorney of Erie County, told Justice Samuel Green of State Supreme Court that the mask was needed because the private had not yet appeared in a lineup before witnesses of the killings. Justice Green was asked to arraign Private Christopher in the mask, but he refused.”I will not arraign a defendant without knowing and seeing who he is,” Justice Green said. ”I don’t know whether that is Joseph Christopher or someone else beneath that mask, and I want it removed. Otherwise, get him out of here.”The mask was removed and Private Christopher’s hands were released from cuffs during the hearing. Sheriff’s deputies and plainclothes police officers formed a human shield around him to prevent spectators and reporters from seeing him.The defendant told Justice Green that he wanted to conduct his own defense. ”I don’t feel they have anything against me,” Private Christopher told the judge, referring to the investigators.When Justice Green asked why the private refused to allow Kevin Dillon and Mark Mahoney, attorneys retained by his family, to represent him, the defendant twice said, ”I’ll represent myself, sir.” Later, he added, ”I don’t want no lawyers.” Mental Tests OrderedAfter a recess in the 40-minute hearing, Justice Green approved Private Christopher’s request to defend himself, but appointed Mr. Dillon and Mr. Mahoney ”to advise him at all stages” of the trial. The judge also ordered Private Christopher held without bail and ordered him to undergo a mental examination by an examiner of his attorneys’ choosing.”I don’t want to see a doctor,” said the soldier, who added he would not cooperate in a mental examination. The beginning of the arraignment was delayed about three hours and the courtroom was changed twice while officials carried out what they called ”security arrangements.”One of the spectators at the arraignment was Therese Christopher, the defendant’s mother. A short, somber figure, she said little to others and spent the time fanning herself. At one point, Private Christopher refused to consult with his mother about defense attorneys. Research more about this great American Tragedy and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was a Jamaican-born American actress best known for her roles in Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975), Convoy (1978), Coming to America (1988), Trapper John, M.D. (1980–1986), and the ABC TV miniseries Roots (1977). She also voiced the character of Sarabi, Mufasa’s wife and Simba’s mother, in the Disney animated feature film The Lion King (1994). A five-time Emmy Award nominee, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series for her role as Empress Josephine in Gabriel’s Fire in 1991.Today in our History – April 28, 1938 – Madge Dorita Sinclair (née Walters; April 28, 1938 – December 20, 1995) was born.Madge Sinclair was born Madge Dorita Walters on April 28, 1938 in Kingston, Jamaica, married young and had two sons. Madge worked as a teacher in Jamaica until she was 30. She left her two boys with their father and moved in 1968 to New York City to be an actress.She began modeling and later acted with the New York Shakespearean Festival and at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre. In 1974, Madge made her film debut, playing Mrs. Scott in Conrack (1974). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance as Bell Reynolds in the miniseries Roots (1977).In 1982, shortly after joining the cast of Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Sinclair was diagnosed with leukemia. She continued to work, outliving the doctors’ predictions by several years. On December 20, 1995, Madge Sinclair died at age 57 in Los Angeles, California, after a 13 year battle with leukemia.She appeared as the unnamed captain of the USS Saratoga in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), marking the first appearance, in any Star Trek series or movie, of a female starship captain. She later guest starred on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) as Captain Silva La Forge, the mother of Geordi La Forge, played by LeVar Burton, one of her co-stars on the miniseries Roots (1977) — in which Burton played the younger version Kunta Kinte and Sinclair played Bell Reynolds, wife of the older version of Kunta Kinte, played by John Amos (who was Sinclair’s junior by 20 months).Co-starred with James Earl Jones five times, twice playing Queen to his King — in Coming to America (1988), then in The Lion King (1994).She was cast as a relative of characters played by Ben Vereen and LeVar Burton in two completely different revolutions. In Roots (1977), she played Bell Reynolds, Kunta Kinte’s wife and Chicken George’s grandmother. Kunta Kinte as a youth was played by LeVar Burton. Kunta Kinte as an adult married to Bell was played by John Amos. Chicken George was played by Ben Vereen. In Star Trek: The Next Generation: Interface (1993), Sinclair played Captain Silvia La Forge, mother of Geordi La Forge, played by Burton, and wife of Commander Edward M. La Forge, M.D., played by Vereen.Sinclair, having died in 1995 at Los Angeles’ Good Samaritan Hospital following a 13 year battle with leukemia, could not reprise her role as Queen Sarabi in The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride (1998). The directors felt that replacing her voice could be seen as disrespectful and inappropriate. Sinclair was survived by her first husband, Dean Compton; her two sons; her mother; and her sister.She played LeVar Burton’s mother in four different productions: Almos’ a Man (1976), One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (1978), Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). She also played his character’s wife in Roots (1977), though by that time the role of Kunta Kinte had been assumed by John Amos.Although she played Leslie Uggams’ mother in Roots (1977), she was only five years her senior in real life.She played Ben Vereen’s grandmother in Roots (1977) and his wife on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).Is one of only 32 actors and actresses to have starred in both the original Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) (up to and including Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)) and then in one of the spin-offs.She had two sons with her first husband Royston Sinclair: Wayne and Garry Sinclair. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is an American politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Maryland’s 4th congressional district from 2008 to 2017. The district includes most of Prince George’s County, as well as part of Anne Arundel County. She is a member of the Democratic Party.A lawyer and longtime community activist, she defeated 15-year incumbent Albert Wynn in the 2008 Democratic primary, and, following his resignation, won a special election on June 17, 2008, to fill the remainder of this term.She was sworn in two days later on June 19, becoming the first African-American woman to represent Maryland in the United States Congress. She ran for a full term in November 2008, defeating Republican candidate Peter James with 85% of the vote.She ran for U.S. Senate in 2016 in the primary to replace retiring Barbara Mikulski instead of running for re-election to her Congressional seat, but was defeated by Chris Van Hollen in the Democratic primary.She sponsored an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would repeal the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.Today in our HISTORY – April 27, 2009 – Rep. Donna Edwards was arrested outside the Sudan embassy during a protest against genocide in Darfur.Edwards was born in Yanceyville, North Carolina. She earned B.A. degrees in English and Spanish from Wake Forest University, where she was one of only six black women in the class of 1980. After working for Lockheed Corporation at the Goddard Space Flight Center with the Spacelab program, she attended and earned a J.D. in 1989 from the Franklin Pierce Law Center (now known as the University of New Hampshire School of Law). Edwards worked for Albert Wynn as a clerk in the 1980s, when he served in the Maryland House of Delegates.Edwards co-founded and served as the first executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, an advocacy and legal support group for battered women. She worked to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.She later worked with Public Citizen, and then as the executive director of the Center for a New Democracy. In 2000, she became the executive director of the Arca Foundation, taking a leave of absence during her political campaign.In the spring of 2015, Edwards, along with several other members of the House of Representatives, introduced the Restoring Education and Learning Act (REAL Act) to bring back Pell Grants to prisoners. Edwards’ press release outlines numerous advantages to prisoner education, including net benefits to taxpayers who bear the costs of recidivism.Edwards is a national co-chair of the progressive group Health Care Voter.· Committee on Science, Space and Technologyo Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics (Ranking Member)o Subcommittee on Environment· Committee on Transportation and Infrastructureo Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Managemento Subcommittee on Highways and Transito Subcommittee on Water Resources and EnvironmentOn April 27, 2009, Rep. Donna Edwards was arrested outside the Sudan embassy during a protest against genocide in Darfur.The Representative and five other U.S. Congressional Representatives were protesting the blocking of aid to victims. They were arrested after ignoring warnings issued by police maintaining a police line to protect the embassy in Washington, D.C.The other U.S. lawmakers arrested during the protest were Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia), and Lynn Woolsey (D-California).· Populist Caucus· Congressional Progressive CaucusEdwards challenged seven-term incumbent Al Wynn in the 2006 Democratic primary – the real contest in this heavily Democratic, black-majority district. Edwards focused primarily on Wynn’s voting record. Wynn, considered a conservative by African-American Democratic standards, was one of four Congressional Black Caucus members that voted for the 2002 Iraq War resolution. Edwards condemned the war before it started. Wynn eventually began to say he was misled by the Bush Administration and his vote was a mistake. Edwards opposed the repeal of the estate tax, which Wynn voted for. Similarly, Edwards criticized Wynn’s vote for the bankruptcy bill of 2005, which eliminated some bankruptcy protections for individuals. Wynn supported the energy bill promoted by Vice President and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. Wynn opposed the net neutrality bill of 2006, which Edwards supports.On August 16, 2006, before a debate at Prince George’s Community College, an altercation occurred between Wynn’s staffers and an Edwards volunteer, leaving the volunteer with a bloody gash to the head. This event brought much media attention to the race.On August 30, 2006, the Washington Post endorsed Edwards in the primary race.The primary was held on September 12, 2006. Wynn defeated Edwards by 49.7 percent to 46.4 percent, with a margin of 2,725 votes out of more than 82,000 cast. George McDermott, a little-known candidate, took 3.9 percent. The final tally of the primary was unclear for nearly two weeks because of widespread voting problems on new electronic voting machines in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.Main articles: 2008 United States House of Representatives elections in Maryland § District 4, and 2008 Maryland’s 4th congressional district special electiom.In 2008, Edwards again challenged Wynn for his seat in the Democratic primary. During the 2008 campaign, Edwards accused Wynn of being out of touch with the community and of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of corporate money.Wynn counter-attacked Edwards as hypocritical, citing the fact that she served as executive director of the Arca Foundation, an organization that has invested millions of dollars in oil and gas companies.In the February 12, 2008, primary, Edwards defeated the eight-term incumbent in a rout, taking 60% of the vote to Wynn’s 35%. The win virtually assured her of victory in the heavily Democratic district in November.After the primary, Wynn announced he would retire effective June 2008. Edwards won the Democratic nomination for the June 17, 2008, special election to serve out the last six months of Wynn’s term.Edwards won the backing of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Democratic Party Central Committee April 22, 2008, by a 22 to 1 margin. Two days later, the Prince George’s County Democratic Party Central Committee also recommended Edwards, this by a 17 to 0 vote on April 24, 2008.As expected, Edwards easily won the special election, taking 81 percent of the vote over Republican Peter James and Libertarian Thibeaux Lincecum. She took office two days later, giving her a leg-up on seniority over any new congresspersons who were elected in 2008.Edwards ran for a full term in November 2008 and was an overwhelming favorite; a Republican has never tallied more than 25 percent of the vote in the 4th district since it assumed its current configuration after the 1990 Census.Indeed, many of the 4th district’s residents already thought of her as the district’s congresswoman even before the special election. As expected, Edwards easily won a full term with 85 percent of the vote, one of the highest percentages in the nation for a Democrat facing major-party opposition.Edwards won against Delegate Herman L. Taylor, Jr. in the September, 2010, primary, and then defeated Republican Robert Broadus with 83 percent of the vote in the general election.Edwards won against George McDermott and Ian Garner in the Democratic primary, and then defeated Republican Faith M. Loudon and Libertarian Scott Soffen with 77 percent of the vote in the general election.Edwards won against Warren Christopher in the Democratic primary, and then defeated Republican Nancy Hoyt and Libertarian Arvin Vohra with 70 percent of the vote in the general election.Edwards and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) faced off in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Barbara Mikulski’s (D) retirement. She lost the primary election on April 26, 2016. Since she had run for the Senate seat, instead of for reelection to her Congressional seat, Edwards left public office when her term expired in January 2017.Edwards ran for Prince George’s County Executive but lost to Angela Alsobrooks in the Democratic primary.Edwards lives in Fort Washington, Maryland.On July 7, 2017 she announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Edwards went on MSNBC programs (including AMJoy on July 15, 2017) to explain how the current health care bill that was up for a vote would affect her as a person with multiple sclerosis, and would affect other people with pre-existing conditions. She penned an op-ed for the Washington Post. Research more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!