In the 1964–65 school year, ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, Gould schools were still totally segregated. The district covered an area of eighty square miles and contained 3,000 residents. Of these, 1,800 were black and 1,200 were white. Since Gould was the only town in the predominantly rural county, many of the district’s students attended school there. Gould maintained two segregated combined elementary and high schools just ten blocks apart from each other. In 1964, 300 white students attended the combined Gould Schools and 580 black students attended the combined Field Schools. In 1965, the Gould School District adopted a “freedom of choice” plan to remain eligible for federal aid after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following the passage of the act, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) threatened to remove federal funding from school districts that did not comply with the Brown decision. Like other such plans being adopted throughout the South at the time, Gould’s “freedom of choice” plan permitted students to choose a school on an annual basis. If students did not choose a school, they were automatically assigned to the school they had previously attended.

As was almost always the case under such plans, in 1965 no white students in Gould chose to attend the black schools with inferior facilities. The Field Schools were made up of repurposed buildings that had housed Japanese Americans in internment camps in the Arkansas Delta during World War II. Twenty-eight black students exercised their freedom of choice to attend the white Gould Schools, but they were refused entry on the grounds that there was not enough room for them. Some of the black students denied entry to the Gould Schools filed suit, claiming that they were being required to attend a segregated school, that the district provided inferior facilities for black students, and that the school board was still, in effect, “operating a racially segregated school system.” While the case was pending in the courts, plans were made to replace the black Field Schools with new facilities in the hope that it would encourage black students to withdraw their lawsuit. The plaintiffs instead sought to prevent the construction of the new school facilities, arguing that any new school building should only be permitted on an integrated basis.

In 1967, the school district made another concession by allowing eighty-five black  students to attend the Gould Schools. Despite this, over eighty-five percent of black students in the district still attended segregated schools. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas ultimately dismissed the Raney suit on the grounds that the Gould School District had adopted a “freedom of choice” plan voluntarily, that HEW had approved the plan, and that some black students had already enrolled at the formerly white Gould Schools. These factors, the court said, “seem to indicate that this plan is more than a pretense or sham to meet the minimum requirements of the law.” The Appeals Court upheld the District Court’s ruling. The petitioners in the case then asked the Appeals Court to require the conversion of Gould Schools to a desegregated high school and the Field Schools to a desegregated primary school. The Appeals Court rejected the request.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Raney case on appeal in 1968, along with the Green v. County School Board of New Kent County (Virginia) and Monroe v. Board of Commissioners of Jackson, Tennessee cases. In the Raney case, the court came to three distinct conclusions. Firstly, the “freedom of choice” plan in operation in Gould was “inadequate to convert it to a unitary, non racial system.” Secondly, the plan for converting existing segregated schools into a desegregated high school and elementary school should be heard in the lower courts. Thirdly, the District Court’s initial dismissal of the case was improper, since the court had a duty “to insure (1) that a constitutionally acceptable plan is adopted, and (2) that it is operated in a constitutionally permissible fashion so that the goal of a desegregated, nonracially operated school system is rapidly and finally achieved.”

Although the U.S. Supreme Court stopped short of declaring “freedom of choice” plans unconstitutional, such plans quickly lost their popularity when faced with a court that was increasingly determined not to allow school desegregation plans that merely seemed to desegregate while in fact maintaining the segregated status quo.

Sidebar:  This is one reason why School Choice laws are viewed skeptically by African-Americans. As more white parents opt out of the minority-majority schools, they also take not only tax dollars out of the communities but also invaluable life experiences for their students that otherwise would never occur. Gould also holds a special place in my heart since it is my mother's hometown, and many of my family members still reside there.

441. Lynette Woodard was the first African American woman to play on a men's team when she joined the Harlem Globetrotters.

442. Major William T. Mattison is one of Arkansas’ original Tuskegee Airmen and a former Red Tail.  He was born in Conway, Arkansas, son of Willie J. and Lavella Mattison.  Major Mattison was schooled at the Pine Street School in Conway. He attended Arkansas AM&N College in Pine Bluff and Howard University in Washington DC. Mattison graduated from Tuskegee’s flight program in 1942 and served as operations officer of the 100th Fighter Squadron, led the 302nd Fighter Squadron, and was a member of the 332nd Fighter Group. He rose to the rank of major and earned the Flying Cross, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, and two Bronze Service Stars. He died in an airplane crash while flying to Ohio on January 28, 1951. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

443. Dr. Samuel Lee Kountz Jr., born October 29, 1930 in Lexa, Arkansas made medical history in 1961 when he became the first surgeon to perform a kidney transplant using a non-twin donor.

The Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College (now UAPB) grad during his lifetime had performed over 500 kidney transplants, by far the most of anyone during that time.

During his storied career he developed the largest kidney transplant research and training program in the country at the University of California, San Francisco as well as performing a live kidney transplant on the Today Show in 1976., which inspired around 20,000 viewers to offer up their kidneys to people that needed them.

Dr. Kountz died in December 23, 1981 in Great Kneck, New York and his pioneering efforts in the field of kidney transplants and research as well as inventions in Renal Science are still studied today, including being part of the team that developed the prototype for the Belzer kidney perfusion machine, which is used in laboratories and hospitals around the world to this day.
444. John Harold Johnson, born January 19, 1918 in Arkansas City, Arkansas.

Johnson is most known for being the founder of the Ebony and Jet magazines, in 1945 and 1951 respectively.

During the Great Depression, facing an immense lack of opportunities in Arkansas due to the economy and segregation (Johnson repeated the eighth grade instead of stopping school because there was no public high school anywhere in Desha County at the time), the Johnson family moved to Chicago in 1933.

Initially enrolled in Wendell Phillips High School, Johnson faced immense bullying and taunting for being poor and from the South, so he transferred to DuSable High School, where he was classmates with Nat King Cole and Redd Foxx.

While at DuSable, Johnson was elected student council president and editor of the school newspaper and yearbook.

In 1942 Johnson founded Negro Digest (later renamed Black World), which focused on African-American history, literature, arts, and cultural issues. Around this time he founded the Johnson Publishing Company, which sadly went defunct in 2019.

John H. Johnson died at the age of 87 in Chicago, Illinois on August 8, 2005.

Johnson’s legacy still lives on in schools and museums around the U.S., as well as the Arkansas Legislature naming November 1st John H. Johnson Day in order to pay tribute and sponsor a museum 1qin his honor to be built in Arkansas City. November 1, 1945 was the date the first issue of Ebony was published.

Johnson is also featured in the 2019 documentary “No Lye: An American Beauty Story,” which follows the rise and decline of the Black-owned beauty industry in the U.S.
445. 

Today in Black History...

Did you know.... The first Memorial Day took place on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC, after a group of African-Americans, mostly former slaves, gave 257 Union soldiers a proper burial. The black community in Charleston then consecrated the new cemetary with “an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people,” led by 3,000 black school children. It was initially called “Decoration Day.” Following the Confederate surrender, which ended the Civil War, blacks went to the place where hundreds of prisoners had been buried, many in mass graves. "Blacks, many of them recently freed slaves, buried the soldiers properly. They put up a fence around the area and painted it. More than 260 were buried there. #BLACKEXCELLENCE

But as usual no credit given, In a formal sense, the modern Memorial Day originated with an order issued in 1868 by Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, for the annual decoration of war graves.

447. East 15th Street in North Little Rock, AR was renamed Curtis Sykes Drive in 2008. Sykes, a historian and educator who died in 2007, led a resurgence in the 1990s of the Dark Hollow community, where he grew up. He and his wife Delois purchased the former Huie Grocery Store at 14th and Pine Street as an archive for the S.A. Jones Alumni Association. Sykes, as a member and officer of the North Little Rock History Commission and the Arkansas Black History Committee, collected historical artifacts, photos and articles related to black history and helped develop study guides and lesson plans for teaching black history. He was the first black graduate of Harding University, earning a Master’s degree in 1965.

448. Horace King was born in 1807 in South Carolina. Unlike most enslaved persons, he was taught to read and write at a young age. By adulthood, he’d become a competent builder. It’s unclear how he learned the lattice truss design he used for building bridges, but it may have occurred when the lattice truss Pee Dee River Bridge was built near his home.

Around 1830, King was purchased by contractor John Godwin. Godwin took King with him to build a bridge over the Chattahoochee River and the pair began working on construction projects throughout the South.

In the mid-1830s, Godwin sent King to Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college to admit African Americans. Following his education, King returned to work with Godwin, building courthouses and bridges throughout Georgia and Alabama. In 1841, they rebuilt their Columbus City Bridge which had been destroyed in a flood.

Godwin experienced financial difficulty in the late 1830s and transferred ownership of King to his wife and her uncle, possibly to protect King from being taken by creditors. King was permitted to marry a free woman, Frances Gould Thomas, which was a rare allowance within states practicing the enslavement of people.

By the 1840s, King and Godwin were considered “co-builders”—another rarity for an African American man. Around this time, King’s skill and reputation surpassed Godwin’s and he began working independently, supervising major bridge construction. King befriended Robert Jemison, Jr., an attorney and entrepreneur in Alabama, who used King to build several of his projects.

Unlike most enslaved persons, King was permitted to keep some earnings from his work, which he eventually used to buy his freedom in 1846. Under Alabama law, he was only allowed to remain in the state for one year after purchasing freedom. His friend Jemison used his seat in the Alabama State Senate to arrange legislation allowing King to remain in Alabama as a free man.

In 1852, King purchased land near John Godwin. When Godwin died in 1859, King had a monument built over his grave.

King later partnered with other men to construct Moore’s Bridge over the Chattahoochee (near Whitesburg, GA) and gained interest in the bridge. He moved his family near the bridge in 1858 and they collected bridge tolls and farmed their land as King continued building bridges throughout the Southeast.

Barely visible in the lower right hand side of this image, Horace King stands in front of Glass Road Bridge, one of King’s many local bridge projects.

When the Civil War began, King was conscripted by the Confederate army to build obstructions and defenses in the Apalachicola River and Alabama River. In 1863, he was moved back to Columbus to build a mill that manufactured cladding for Confederate warships.

Many of his bridges were destroyed during the Civil War, including Moore’s Bridge, which King owned, and the Columbus City Bridge. Postwar rebuilding efforts created plenty of work for King, who rebuilt the Columbus City Bridge for the third time in his life. He built factories, buildings and several bridges over the Chattahoochee.

In 1867, King became a registrar for voters in Russell County, Alabama. In 1868 he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives and was reelected in 1870. He did not seek reelection for a third term.

Instead, King moved his family to LaGrange, Georgia. He trained his children in construction as he continued building. By the mid-1870s, he was passing projects onto his children, who formed King Brothers Bridge Company.

Horace King is buried in Mulberry Street cemetery alongside his son Marshal.

King’s health began to fail in the 1880s and he died on May 28, 1885. His death was reported in all major Georgia newspapers, a rarity for an African American. He was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Engineers Hall of Fame at the University of Alabama.

To see Horace King’s work, you need only to visit LaGrange’s LaFayette downtown square. He built nearly the entire east side of the square and parts of the north side. When King died, his funeral processed around the square and business came to a stop as residents, both black and white, came out to pay their respects. King is buried in Mulberry Street Cemetery in LaGrange.

449. African American Families circa 1897 -
These folks lived around Palarm Creek Road.  They were part of those African Americans who settled in the area after the Civil War.
I have posted pictures on this page before about the Meeks and the Stovall families and what they contributed to the area.
When you look at the attached picture I don’t have any names, any names I gave them would be a guess.
They had some really nice greens growing in their garden.
My assumption is that they are buried in or around the Meeks Cemetery.
450. Constructed in 1961-1962 by the Benton SD at a cost of $106,000, the Ralph Bunche Multi-Purpose building provided a gymnasium, kitchen, classroom, workshop and dressing rooms for the African American youth who attended school at the once thriving Ralph Bunche Elementary and High School. The building only came into existence after African American educators from the school (Charles Cunningham and Norwood Seymour) unwaveringly advocated to then Superintendent Howard Perrin and the Benton School Board for the building. In 1961, the BSD complied, but not willingly, constructing a building that did not meet agreed upon size and design requirements. The high school was torn down in 1968, when the BSD, only because of federal mandates and under threat of funding cuts, fully integrated its all-white schools, forcing African American students to integrate. According to an August 8, 1968 article in the Benton Courier, the destruction of the school building was because of the location: "It would have to be an 'integrated school' in order to meet federal requirements, but white students don't to attend an all Negro neighborhood school and in a remote area from most of the city."
451. The Oddfellows Hall (African-American Chapter) -
This portrait was made in 1912. It took place in the City of Conway, Arkansas.
The members were attending a group meeting.
In the portrait you see the members of the group, but they are not in order. The note on the back of the photo just gives a list of the members.
The following members are named.
Dr. A. C. Mattison, Alex Jones, Columbus Blair, Sam Perry, Ben Stewart, Sherman De Vass, Marshall Burton, Claude Eads, Mr. Crenshaw, Jim Thompson, Jim Jones, Albert Zynamon, Kim Dorman and Willie Spann.
None of the women are listed.
452. 𝗧𝗘𝗫𝗔𝗦 𝗚𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗨𝗣 𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗢 𝗞𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 , 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗡 𝗢𝗞𝗟𝗔𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔'𝗦 𝗨𝗡𝗨𝗦𝗨𝗔𝗟 𝗠𝗔𝗣 𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦.

The version of Texas history taught in school is often anglicized and sanitized. 

This post will show you how textbook falls short and all information is readily available through Google search. 

“When Texas sought to enter the Union in 1845 as a slave state, federal law in the United States, based on the Missouri Compromise, prohibited slavery north of 36°30' parallel north. Under the Compromise of 1850, Texas surrendered its lands north of 36°30' latitude.”

As of 2016 fewer than 1% of Oklahomans live in the 168 x 34 mile-wide strip. It was Spanish territory until 1821, when it became part of independent Mexico. The Republic of Texas claimed it when declaring independence. But then, upon entering the Union as a slave state in 1845, Texas surrendered its claim to the region because slavery was prohibited north of 36°30′ latitude by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. 36°30′ became the Panhandle’s southern boundary. Its northern border at 37° was set in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves if they would be slave or free.

in 1890, this orphan rectangle of land was incorporated into Oklahoma Territory, and in 1907 it became part of the state of Oklahoma, which also included the former Indian Territory. Indian Territory had been the end of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and then the progressively reduced promised homeland for many tribes.

This 34.5-by-167-mile rectangle (36˚30´ N to 37˚ N and between 100˚ W and 103˚ W) was unattached to any state or territorial government from 1850 to 1890. It was identified on most government maps as “Public Land” or “Public Land Strip.” Today, it is the Oklahoma Panhandle, but during the late 1880s it was popularly known as “No Man’s Land.” The Public Land Strip, seasonal home to nomadic American Indians of the High Plains, was controlled by Comanche bands and allied groups from 1850 to 1875. Still, the Strip’s west end experienced much traffic along the Santa Fe Trail’s Cimarron Cutoff and some military excursions. Originally within the Spanish colonial Province of New Mexico, it also saw at its western end some 1860s rancheria settlement by New Mexican sheep herders, and it hosted ciboleros (New Mexican buffalo hunters) into the 1880s. Some Panhandle geographical features still carry their old Spanish colonial names or anglicized variants.

By statehood in 1907, when the old territorial Beaver County was divided into three new counties (Cimarron, Texas, and Beaver), the Oklahoma Panhandle held the highest population ever recorded in any census. Those old settlers who had squatted and stayed on uncertain land some twenty years before finally enjoyed vindication of their faith in themselves and the land. There were dust clouds on the horizon, but the first two decades of the twentieth century were generally good years for the people of No Man’s Land.

For 40 years, it was a landlocked island without a government.
As a result [of Texas abandoning it], the panhandle spent the next four decades as a question mark on the map, not part of any state or territorial jurisdiction as late as 1890. It was officially given the catchy name “Public Land Strip,” and the thousands of settlers who streamed in illegally to squat on the land began to call it the “Cimarron Territory.” But mostly, the panhandle was referred to as “No Man’s Land.”

The panhandle was a sinner’s paradise.
As you might imagine, a narrow “No Man’s Land” of lawlessness between Kansas and Texas didn’t really attract the frontier’s best elements. Outlaws ran rampant, and violence and mob justice were the citizenry’s only recourse. Once Carry Nation’s temperance crusaders began smashing saloons in Kansas, the panhandle became a haven for moonshiners and brothels. One boom town, the straightforwardly named Beer City, was called “the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Plains.”

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾
453. On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was confirmed to the US Supreme Court as its first Black justice in a 69-11 vote. Prior to joining the nation's highest court, he was successfully arguing most of his cases brought to his future colleagues; his biggest victory was Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that invalidated segregation in public schools under the 14th Amendment. 
How did our Arkansas senators vote? Senator Fulbright was a yes, and Senator McClellan declined to vote. 
454. Rev. G.E. West First Black City Director 
in Fort Smith Arkansas

 -Dr. H.P. McDonald A prominent Black Physician in Fort Smith for many years. 
Rev. West served his country by enlisting in the U.S. Navy. He spent most of his tour of duty on a submarine and was honorably dischared. Seeking to complete his education he attended Shorter College and received his Bachelor of Arts Degree. He also attended Perkins School of Theology at SMU in Dallas, Texas.
Rev. West began his call into the ministry at Bethel A.M.E church. His first assignment was at Rock Chapel, Cotton Plant, Ar.
 Rev West was elevated to the status of Presiding Elder. As presiding Elder, he presided in the Fort Smith and the Camden Districts Quinn Chapel and Mt Nebo A.M.E.
Dr. Mc Donald graduated valedictorian of his senior class at Lincoln High School in Sumter. He earned a B.S. degree with honors from Morehouse College. At the age of 22, he earned an M.D. degree from Meharry Medical College. He completed an internship at Harlem Hospital in New York and began a residency at Kansas City General Hospital.

Dr. H.P. McDonald began general practice in Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1949. He interrupted his practice to serve as an Air Force captain in Ashiya, Fukuoka, Japan from 1954 to 1956. 

Dr. H.P. McDonald became a giant in helping his local and state communities. He was active as a lay leader and trustee of Mallalieu United Methodist Church. He served for over a decade as President of the local NAACP leading the civil rights effort to racially integrate the school system. His name was placed on the Wall of Tolerance in Birmingham, Alabama. He was also a member of the Fort Smith Progressive Men's Club; and the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
455. A retired Major with the Fort Smith, Arkansas Police Department, Alvin Bradley Sr. devoted thirty-one years to serving his community with pride and integrity. 
Other community affiliations in which he served included the Lincoln Youth Service Center as Founder and Director, the Martin Luther King Park, and the Progressive Men’s Club. Also, he was a 33 Degree Mason of the Free Mason’s and Scottish Rites.
Bradley was a founder of the Lincoln Youth Center along with fellow officer SGT Lawrence Tidwell Sr. who also served with the Fort Smith Police Department.
456. Greg Davis Sr.’s skills on the basketball court as a teenager playing for Fort Smith’s St. Anne’s Academy caught the eye of then second-year Westark College basketball coach Bill Crowder.
Davis Sr. was recruited and signed by Crowder and played two seasons for the Lions. His impact on the program, however, was much greater than just his accomplishments on the basketball court.

Davis Sr. was the first African-American to play a varsity sport at Westark College, and he and his brother, Fred Davis III, who played basketball for the Lions two seasons later, were instrumental in the integration of the school’s athletics program.

A 5-foot-11 guard, Davis Sr. played two seasons for the Lions (1966-68). He went on to play basketball at Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., and received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology. After serving in the United States Army, he returned to school and earned his master’s degree from Eastern Michigan University.

He then began a twelve-year television career that took him to a number of major cities, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit. From 1982 to 1986, he worked as a national/local sales manager of Multimedia Broadcasting for WLW-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He began his company, Davis Broadcasting Inc., in 1986, when he acquired radio stations in Columbus and Augusta, Ga. He later purchased stations in Macon, Columbus, and Atlanta, Ga., as well as in Charlotte, N.C.

In 2000, he sold the radio stations in Charlotte and Augusta to focus on building his operations in Columbus.

Davis Broadcasting Inc. consists of ten radio stations based in Columbus and Atlanta, Ga. – WFXE-FM, WEAM-FM, WIOL-FM, WIOL-AM, WOKS-AM and WKZJ-FM in Columbus and WCHK-FM (La Mega), WCHK-AM, WLKQ-FM (La Raza) and WNSY-FM in Atlanta.

These ten stations offer a variety of music genres, including urban contemporary, gospel contemporary, Spanish language programming, and sports. Its hip-hop and R&B station, WFXE-FM (Foxie 105), has been rated the No. 1 radio station in the Columbus market since 1993. In 2004, La Raza became Atlanta’s first Spanish language FM radio station.

In addition to operating several radio stations, Davis Broadcasting Inc. has hosted many annual philanthropic events. These include the Women’s Empowerment Luncheon, held each March for National Women’s History Month, Family Day in the Parks and the Needy Children's Christmas party, which provides three to four thousand needy children with gifts every Christmas.

Davis Sr. also serves his community by participating on boards both locally and nationally. These include the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, Columbus Regional Hospital, United Way, Better Business Bureau, First Union Bank, and First Citizen Bank of North Carolina. He has also served on the board for the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, the Georgia Association of Broadcasters, and the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters.

He was recently inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
457. The lady circled in the photo was Lucy Higgs Nichols. She was born into slavery in Tennessee, but during the Civil War she managed to escape and found her way to 23rd Indiana Infantry Regiment which was encamped nearby. She stayed with the regiment and worked as a nurse throughout the war.

After the war, she moved north with the regiment and settled in Indiana, where she found work with some of the veterans of the 23rd.

She applied for a pension after Congress passed the Army Nurses Pension Act of 1892 which allowed Civil War nurses to draw pensions for their service. The War Department had no record of her, so her pension was denied. Fifty-five surviving veterans of the 23rd petitioned Congress for the pension they felt she had rightfully earned, and it was granted.

The photograph shows Nichols and other veterans of the Indiana regiment at a reunion in 1898. Beloved by the troops who referred to her as “Aunt Lucy,” Nichols was the only woman to receive an honorary induction into the Grand Army of the Republic, and she was buried in an unmarked grave in New Albany with full military honors in 1915.
458. On February 28, 1966-The Fort Smith School Board votes unanimously to close Lincoln High School at the end of the school year. Lincoln High served black students before integration. The school provided a fine well rounded education within a close knit community.  
459. Minnie Riperton (1947 - 1979)
Mariah Carey is heralded for her whistle register, which is the highest the human voice is capable of reaching. But Riperton perfected the singing technique years before and was best known for her five-octave vocal range. The whistling can be heard on her biggest hit to date, “Lovin’ You.” The infectious ballad was originally created as an ode to her daughter, Maya Rudolph, of Bridesmaids and Saturday Night Live fame. However, before she could become a household name, she died in 1979 at the age of 31 from breast cancer.
460. 
461. Barrel of Laughs

Why Slaves Were Not Allowed to Laugh on Many Plantations.
    
Slaves with boisterous personalities and wanting to laugh or shout often had to stifle their outbursts by the use of the “laughing barrel.” It was not by choice but this is what they were trained to do on the plantation. The black house of praise during this time also used “shouting barrels” when the slaves would steal away at night for church services. The slaves would stifle the noises they wanted to make by holding their heads over barrels (sometimes filled with water) to keep slave patrols and their white plantation owners from hearing them.

Poet Maya Angelou was quoted saying, “the slaves were not allowed to laugh on many plantations. When the urge to laugh became irrepressible, the slaves had a ‘laughing barrel’ into which they would lean way down, with the pretext of getting something, and laugh. The slaves would then go back to whatever it was they were doing.”

White people viewed slaves laughing as a form of disrespect to them. Some plantations owners had barrels set up on the plantation and when a slave heard something funny they would have to run off to one of these barrels in order to laugh. Some people believe that this is where the phrase a “barrel of laughs” derived.

Laughing Barrel
By Winfred Rembert, born 1945
Price: $8,500

An extraordinarily humiliating true scene from Rembert's hometown of Cuthbert, Georgia in the 1950's. A barrel was left in the center of town and if white people successfully made a black person laugh, the African American person had to stick his or her head in the barrel for all to see.
462. Meet US Army Sergeant William Harvey Carney of Norfolk City, Virginia. 

Born on February 29, 1840, William Carney was the first African-American soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Sergeant Carney was a member of the 54th Massachusetts, assaulted Fort Wagner during the American Civil War. Despite being shot in the chest, arm, and legs, the soldier, who was born as a slave, held the American flag high, refusing to let it touch the ground and fall to the enemy. 
The Oscar-winning film Glory depicts the heroism of Carney. 
We honor his service! ❤🇺🇸🙏🌹
463. Born enslaved in Arkansas, Mary John almost was lost in the history books had it not been for the glowing compliments from Jefferson County Judge J.W. Bocage, one of Pine Bluff's founding fathers following an Independence Day 1840 barbecue which she was the pitmaster. Her prowess and reputation catering large events at plantation homes along the Arkansas River leading to something unthinkable during the era: She purchased her freedom for $800! (That's $25,636.97 in 2022 dollars accounting for inflation.) Afterwards, she remained in Arkansas Post as she also owned a hotel until her death proving that not only Sisters have had a long history in the barbecue game but also are some of the shrewdest businesspeople around. 
464. Meet  Ethel L. Payne. She is known as the “First Lady of the Black Press.” She combined activism with journalism during the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the iconic figures of history Payne interviewed include Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President John F. Kennedy, and Nelson Mandela, among several other noteworthy figures. In 1972, CBS hired Payne as a radio and television commentator and she became the first Black woman to hold such a position. Payne is also the only African-American out of four female journalists honored by the U.S. Postal Service on a “Women in Journalism” stamp.
465. Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) 

She was born into slavery and "given" as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending to the cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan. She "walked" from Mississippi to Utah. That's 1, 618.9 miles!

After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. Biddy Mason soon discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, and that her master's had a plan to move them all to Texas to avoid freeing them. 

With the help of some freed Blacks she had befriended, she and the other Slaves attempted to run away to Los Angeles, but they were intercepted by Smith and brought back. However, when he tried to leave the state with his family and Slaves, a local posse prevented them from leaving.

 Biddy had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus. She, her daughters, and the ten other Slaves were held in jail for their own safety to protect them from an angry and violent pro-slavery mob until the Judge heard the case and granted their freedom.

Now free, Mason and her three daughters moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Biddy was employed as a Nurse, Midwife, and Domestic Servant. She was one of the first Black women to own land in the city of Los Angeles.

 She had the intelligence and boldness to use part of her land as a temporary resting place for horses and carriages, and people visiting town paid money in exchange for the space. That particular area was considered the first "parking lot" in Los Angeles.

Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. 

Her financial fortunes continued to increase until she accumulated a fortune of almost $300,000. In today's money, that would be $6M. Her most noted accomplishment is the founding of the First AME Church in California. In her tireless work she was known for saying "If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand gives in abundance; even as it receives."

Biddy Bridget Mason died on January 15, 1891 at the age of 76. On March 27, 1988, ninety one years after her death, a special occasion event was given in her honor by members of the church she helped founded. Mayor Tom Bradley was among the dignitaries in attendance. Black women are legendary.
Black History is American History.
466. FREDERICK TERRELL JONES born March 11, 1979 in Malvern, Arkansas, is a former professional basketball player. His family moved to Portland, Oregon when Fred was in middle school. At Sam Barlow High School he became Player of the Year in both his junior and senior year. He then went on to play four seasons at the University of Oregon, where during his senior year, he led the Ducks to the Elite Eight; with the help of P/G Luke Ridnour and G/F Luke Jackson. During his senior he was also a candidate for PAC-10 Player of the year and averaged 18.6 points per game.
Jones was the 14th pick in the 2002 NBA draft by the Indiana Pacers. He has been described as one of the most exciting players to ever put on a Pacers uniform. He played sparingly as a rookie while playing behind Reggie Miller. By 2004 he was averaging 10.6 points per game, partly due to teammate and small forward Ron Artest being suspended for the season. Also in 2004, Jones won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, beating out two-time champion Jason Richardson.
On November 23, 2004, he recorded his first double-double with 16 points and a career high 10 rebounds against the Boston Celtics.
From 2007 - 2011, Jones played for a number of teams; including teams in Italy and China.
Jones returned to Oregon to complete his degree and was an undergraduate assistant coach for the Ducks in 2015-2016.
Jones operated a Sneakers store named Luxury Sneaker Exchange. He also inked a deal with Oregon-based Shoot 360 to open up a facility in Indianapolis.
Fred Jones will be 43 years old this year.
467. Norma Merrick Sklarek died on this date, in 2012.
She studied architecture at Columbia University and in became the 3rd African American female to receive her license. After working for several major firms, Sklarek became the 1st Black woman to receive a fellowship from the American Institute of Architects. In 1985, she helped form an all-female architectural firm, becoming the 1st African-American woman to establish and manage an architectural firm.
468. The Black Codes strictly regulated ALL facets of Black life postslavery. For example, in Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the chief of police. If caught, he could be arrested & fined. (They don't want us in their churches but want to patrol our worship.) If he could not pay the excessively high fines he would be forced to work for an individual, or go to jail or prison where he would work until his debt was paid off.
469. Josephine Holloway, one of the 1st African American Girl Scout troop leaders who lobbied for the Girl Scouts to include African Americans. 
470. Allensworth, California was an all-Black township—and the first of its kind.
The township was founded in 1908 by Colonel Allen Allensworth and a group of other African-American men. Allensworth was meant to be a refuge away from the oppression that Black people faced amidst society and aimed to be wholly self-reliant. The town of Allensworth ran largely off of agricultural pursuits, but contained its own small businesses and school district by 1912. At the height of Allensworth’s success in the 1920s, there were around 300 residents. Severe drought and the discovery of arsenic in the water supply led to the loss of residents in the 1960s and 70s. In 1976, now empty, the town became a state historic park.471. Did you know Cornrows were used to help slaves escape slavery?
Slaves used cornrows to transfer information and create maps to the north.

Since slaves were not allowed to read or write they had to pass information through cornrows.

It is believed to have originated in Colombia, South America where Benkos Bioho, in the late 1500’s came up with the idea to have women create maps & deliver messages through their cornrows. They were also called “canerows” to represent the sugarcane fields that slaves worked in.
One style had curved braids, tightly braided on their heads. The curved braids would represent the roads they would use to escape.

Also in their braids they kept gold and hid seeds which helped them survive after they escaped. They would use the seeds to plant crops once they were liberated.
Cornrows was the best way to not give back any suspicion to the owner. He would never figure out such a hairstyle would mean they would escape or the route they would take. 
472. Did you know that one of Smithfield's premier hams was developed by one of our earliest Black leaders? 

The Charles Henry Gray Party Ham is named after Charles Henry Gray, a former Smithfield Foods executive and the town’s second Black councilman. A Smithfield employee for over 47 years, Charles Henry came up with the recipe while experimenting in his kitchen one night. Today, the ham’s specific recipe remains a deeply guarded secret but it gets its rich mellow flavor from a secret brown sugar seasoning mixture he developed.
473. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1898-1989)
She became an inspiration to Black women lawyers. To say that Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander shattered multiple glass ceilings is an understatement.

The Philadelphia native was the first Black person in the nation to earn a Ph.D. in economics in 1921. Three years later, she earned a law degree and went on to become the first Black woman to pass the Pennsylvania bar and practice law in the state.

Alexander accomplished all this while often facing bitter acts of racial prejudice. As a first-year undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, she was told she couldn’t check books out of the school library. A dean at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law lobbied against her being selected to join the university’s law review. She persevered and made law review anyway. By the time of her death at 91, Alexander had been awarded seven honorary degrees and had taken her rightful place as a revered champion of equal rights for all.
474. Meet Carl Braden. In 1954 he and his wife Anne became involved in helping Andrew Wade, an electrician, in buying a house. "Carl and I were both part of a statewide committee to repeal the Kentucky school segregation law. We were also involved in trying to break down discrimination in hospitals. In the spring of 1954, a Black friend, Andrew Wade, asked us if we would buy a house and transfer it to him. He and his wife had one child, two and a half years old, and another on the way. They were crowded into a small apartment and were anxious to move out of the city. Andrew had tried, but as soon as sellers found out he was Black, he wouldn't get the house. He decided the only way left was to have a white person buy it for him. Before he came to us, he had asked several others. For one reason or another, they refused. But we felt he had a right to a new house and never thought twice about doing it."] Braden bought the house for the Wade's, and from thereon terror and chaos began...Continue reading here---> https://spartacus-educational.com/Carl_Braden.htm
Court case information is here: https://law.justia.com/cases/kentucky/court-of-appeals/1956/291-s-w-2d-843-1.html
475. Jones Bar-B-Q Diner is a barbecue joint in Marianna, Arkansas, that has been open since at least the 1910s. According to business guide Black Business, it is believed to be the country's oldest black-owned restaurant. In 2012 it was recognized by the James Beard Foundation as an "American Classic".                           

The diner was almost destroyed in February 2021 when a fire started in the barbecue pit and nearly entered the kitchen. Thanks to donations from the community, Owner James Jones (Mr. Harold to customers) was able to reopen in May. Jones said at the time of the reopening that his family’s business has been in existence for nearly 110 years and he couldn’t believe the amount of support he received shortly after the fire. Nearly $100,000 was raised to rebuild the restaurant.
476. 'Black Eden,' The Town That Segregation Built

Sometimes history is made in the most unlikely of places.

The community of Idlewild, Michigan, once known as America's "Black Eden," is celebrating its place in American history.

Located about 30 miles east of the larger resort city of Ludington, tucked away in the woods of the Huron-Manistee National Forests, the town was once a go-to spot for summer vacations. It was a resort unlike any other in the United States, however, and was, in essence, the town that segregation built.

In the 1950s and '60s, Idlewild was just what working-class blacks were looking for: a resort that was reasonable driving distance from places like Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit — yet invisible enough so black Americans could retreat from the ugliness of discrimination and Jim Crow.

"This is where black people could come and not have to worry about not being served or not being allowed to use the hotel or the motel or the facilities," says Maxine Martin, a longtime Idlewilder.

Martin's great-grandchildren are sixth-generation here, and she remembers coming to Idlewild in the town's heyday. That's when as many as 25,000 people swamped the town in the summer.

The little resort attracted big names like B.B. King, Della Reese, Louis Armstrong and Aretha Franklin. It was, for all intents and purposes, a boomtown.

"There were night clubs, after-hours joints, hotels, motels, beauty shops, barber shops [and] restaurants," Martin says. "That was when people brought their good clothes to Idlewild because ... there was a lot of night life."

White speculators created Idlewild out of thousands of acres of prime forestland purchased before the national forest was established. Their plan was to market it far and wide to black Americans looking for a resort. It worked so well that Idlewild became a resort unmatched in American history.

In the end, it was integration that killed Idlewild. Blacks no longer had to remain invisible, and today, the community has a meager population of only 700. But the town still has a story to tell.

"My opinion is that Idlewild, Mich., is a major American historic resource," says Everett Fly, an architect and historic preservationist who lives in San Antonio.

Fly says Idlewild was the largest historic resort for black Americans in the continental U.S., nearly 3,000 acres. It was 10 times the size of its contemporaries and home to playwrights, musicians and intellectuals.

"I think there's a place for Idlewild as ... a place where ideas do come together," he says.

Now residents of Idlewild are looking for new ways to market their town's history and once again become a vacation destination.
477. “Aunt Caroline” Dye was a famous Black seer in eastern Arkansas around the turn of the 20th century. Dye recognized her seer abilities as a child when she saw things that others could not. She is said to have predicted several major events, like the Newport fire of 1926, but seemed to specialize in smaller predictions like helping people find lost things. Dye gave free readings using a deck of cards, though most people paid her at least a few dollars for helping them. After her death in 1918, her legend continued as it was reported that she had large sums of cash hidden around her house. 
478. Elijah Pitts....born in Mayflower Ar....graduated Pine Street High School....graduated Philander Smith College....played for Green Bay Packers...made the first touchdown in the first Superbowl....assistant coach for Buffalo Bills
479. 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗦. 𝗟𝗘𝗪𝗜𝗦 𝗕𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗥 (1859–1926) 

An American inventor, who patented the friction heater. Baker was born into slavery on August 3, 1859, in Savannah, Missouri. His mother, Betsy Mackay, died when he was three months old, leaving him to be brought up by the wife of his owner, Sallie Mackay, and his father, Abraham Baker. He was the youngest of five children, Susie, Peter, Annie, and Ellen, all of whom were freed after the Civil War. Baker later received an education at Franklin College. His father was employed as an express agent, and once Baker turned fifteen, he became his assistant. Baker worked with wagons and linchpins, which sparked an interest in mechanical sciences. friction heater friction heater
Baker worked over the span of decades on his product, attempting several different forms of friction, including rubbing two bricks together mechanically, as well as using various types of metals. After twenty-three years, the invention was perfected in the form of two metal cylinders, one inside of the other, with a spinning core in the center made of wood, that produced the friction. Baker started a business with several other men to manufacture the heater. The Friction Heat & Boiler Company was established in 1904, in St. Joseph, with Baker on the board of directors. The company worked up to 136,000 dollars in capital, equal to nearly 6 million dollars in 2022.

During his patent application, Baker stated that the friction heat could be produced with any mode of power like wind, water and gasoline.

His device, according to him, was set to be the cheapest source of heat production at the time which made him win accolades such as ‘King of Clean Energy and ‘St. Joseph Negro Inventor.’ friction heater

“Mr. Baker claims that the particular mode of power used in creating the friction is not essential. It may be wind, water, gasoline, or any other source of energy.

“The most difficult part of the inventor’s assertions to prove is that his system will light or heat a house at about half the cost of methods now in use,” The Draftsman 1908.

After years of trials, his device was near-perfect at the time it was invented. Baker’s device was made up of two metal cylinders, with one inserted into the other. A wooden spinning core was put in the center to produce the friction.

Any notable newsreels hailed his invention. “On March 27, 1904, the New York Times’ edition identified Baker’s invention as a “Clever Negro Invention”. Other newspapers such as Daily Gazette and News-Press also published his story in 1904 indicating that his invention would “revolutionize the then heating systems.”

Baker then created a factory called The Friction Heat and Boiler Company in 1904 in St. Joseph with him as the head of board of directors.

His company employed 50 skilled and unskilled labour to produce more radiators and had about $136,000 in capital stocks.

At the time, Baker’s capital stock was a lot of money which made him an affluent and honorable man in his hometown. His loyalty to his employees made his business thrive albeit racial prejudice which sometimes posed as a threat to his finances, his business flourished.

Baker was the youngest of five children and got married in 1880 at age 21 to Carrie Carriger and they had a daughter, Lulu Belle Baker. On May 5, 1926, he died in his daughter’s home in St. Joseph.

Baker died of pneumonia on May 5, 1926, in St. Joseph, Missouri.
 Photograph showing inventor Charles S.L Baker and his assistant demonstrating heating/radiator system.
480. 
481. Did you know that the City of Conway had a thriving African American Physician & Surgeon? Dr. Ralph Percy Cummings was born in Demerara, British Guiana, South America (now known as Guyana) in 1882. 
After graduating from medical school, Dr. Cummings migrated to Conway, Arkansas in 1919 where he opened a practice and lived out the rest of his days as a well-respected physician and surgeon.

Throughout his time in Conway, Dr. Cummings took an active role in community organizations with special interest in improving the health and educational advantages of African American children. Dr. Cummings continued to serve the Conway community until his death in 1945.
482. John Berry Meachum was born into slavery in Virginia in 1789 but by the age of 21 he had earned enough money doing carpentry work to purchase his own freedom and then his father’s.
Meachum was a married man, but before he could save up enough to buy his wife’s freedom she was moved to St. Louis. He followed her here and eventually managed to purchase her freedom as well.

While he was here in St. Louis Meachum met a white Baptist minister named John Mason Peck, who asked for his help in creating a worship space for black people. Together they organized a Sunday school and religious services for slaves and free black people in the area, and in 1825, having been ordained a Baptist Minister himself, Meachum founded and became the pastor of First African Baptist Church, which still exists today albeit in a different location.

Through the Church, Meachum and Peck also offered secular education to black St. Louisans. Up to 300 people received schooling through First African Baptist Church, which charged a monthly tuition fee of one dollar but never turned anyone away for being unable to pay.

Unfortunately this was right around the time that St. Louis enacted an ordinance banning the education of free black people.

Meachum was forced to disband the Candle Tallow School but later, he outfitted a steamboat with a library, desks, and chairs and opened the Floating Freedom School in the middle of the Mississippi, outside the reach of Missouri officials. 
483. 
484. Walter Peyton Manning was a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and the only one known to be lynched as a prisoner of war. Born on May 3, 1920 in Baltimore, Maryland to Winifred Manning, he grew up in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By the age of nine Manning lived with his uncle, Jacob Prescod in Philadelphia. He loved to swim and grew up wanting to fly planes. Manning attended Howard University but did not graduate.

In 1941 at the age of 21, Manning worked as a Locker Boy at the Philmont Country Club in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. One year later, in 1942 he tried to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps but was rejected because of a condition called hammertoe. A hammertoe is a toe that is bent due to a weakened muscle, causing the toe to curl under the foot. At the time Manning was living again with his mother, Winifred Manning in the West Powelton neighborhood of Philadelphia. Desperate to get into the Army Air Corps, Manning elected to spend his savings to get surgery to repair his toe. He entered the Army Air Cadet Training Program at Tuskegee Air Field, Tuskegee, Alabama on March 15, 1943. He graduated from the program as a Second Lieutenant and was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group, 301st Fighter Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps approximately one year after his successful toe surgery. Around that time Manning proposed to his girlfriend, Dicey Thomas but it is unknown if they ever married. In August 1944 Manning and the 301st Fighter Squadron were assigned to Italy.

During his time in Italy Manning flew 50 missions over German-occupied Europe. During his final mission, Manning was in a dogfight with Nazi fighter planes over Austria when his aircraft was shot down. Manning bailed out and when he landed, he was greeted by an angry mob. Manning was captured, beaten and jailed. He was imprisoned at the Nazi Luftwaffe Air Force base near Linz, Austria when angry townspeople, urged on by Luftwaffe officers, dragged Manning outside and beat him while his hands were tied behind his back until he died.

Manning, then 24, was considered lynched by Allied forces on Tuesday, April 3, 1945 about one month before the war in Europe ended. Manning is the only African American prisoner of war to have been lynched in during World War II. His remains were recovered by US troops after the war ended and American forces occupied Austria. No one was ever arrested for this war crime. Second Lieutenant Walter Peyton Manning was reburied at the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial in France. Manning’s family received the standard World War II Compensation of $500.00 in the aftermath of his death.

Walter Peyton Manning was awarded six medals for heroism including a Purple Heart and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007 (posthumously). A research project about this incident lead to the Austrian Army placing a commemoration plaque in Linz at the location where Second Lieutenant Walter Peyton Manning was murdered.
485. Scott Joplin (c. November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist.[1] The Texarkana native is also known as the "King of Ragtime" because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, music that was born out of the African-American community.[2] During his brief career, he wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces,[3] one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.[4] Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music and largely disdained the practice of ragtime such as that in honky tonk.
486. These pictures and article were recorded in The World Picture Magazine, Volume 7, No. 8, dated August, 1955, which was a Black owned publishing serving Southwest Arkansas. While the paper served that part of the state there were articles posted about other communities throughout the state as well. 

This printing highlights Mr Henry Bell, Sr., a native of Beirne, Arkansas. Mr Bell spent many years in the educational field, in which his accomplishments has been outstanding as a builder. The brief write-up goes on to say after several years of hard work in the Gurdon system, the citizens rewarded the noble character by naming the new colored school the “Henry Bell High School.”
Mr Bell accords much credit to his charming wife, and to the cooperation of a splendid faculty.

This 8-page publishing was a 21 x 16 inch paper costing only 15 cents per issue.

The next article which was longer, titled Henry Bell High School Making Great Progress, talks about the construction of the new building completed in 1946. The school has several modern buses for the transportation of rural students.
Skipping down to the last half of this article it stated, much impetus has been added to athletic activities of the school, under the splendid working agreements of school officials in the district. For two years the gymnasium and athletic field of the Gurdon High School has been used jointly with the colored school. This procedure alone has added fifty per cent more attendance to Henry Bell High School games, due to the fact there are usually as many white spectators as there are colored.

Mr Henry Bell, Sr made a considerable impact on the Gurdon school system and the entire Gurdon community during those pre-integration days.
487. 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗗𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗛 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗦 (𝗖𝗔. 1814-1875)

Born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia (the actual year is uncertain), Shadrach Minkins spent the first thirty years of his life in his hometown, but in May of 1850 he decided to run for freedom and escaped to Boston, where he became a waiter.

At that time, about 2,500 blacks lived in Boston. Runaway slaves found refuge there with fellow runaways, and a population of active black and white abolitionists. Most slaves who reached Boston expected the strong anti-slavery community would protect them and that they would be able to hide or blend in without being recaptured. The other option for fugitives was to pass through Boston to another safe location using the Underground Railroad.

The Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise of 1850, however, undermined Boston’s reputation as a save haven. This law allowed slave owners, or their representatives, to reclaim runaway slaves, with proof of ownership, throughout the United States. Slave-catching now carried the force of law which meant all law-enforcement agencies throughout the North were required to assist those seeking fugitives. Law enforcement officers were required to arrest and hold any suspected fugitives and assist their return to slaveholders.

On February 15, 1851, Minkins was captured by two Boston police officers while he worked at Taft’s Cornhill Coffee House. While he was being taken to the courthouse, word spread and hundreds of black and white abolitionists crowded into the courthouse. Renowned abolitionist lawyers Robert Morris, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Ellis Gray Loring, and Samuel E. Sewall came to Minkins’ assistance, but under the Fugitive Slave Act, his seizure was legal.

As the crowd grew bigger, members of the anti-slavery Boston Vigilance Committee, led by black abolitionist Lewis Hayden, rushed through the courtroom, seizing Minkins from marshals holding him in custody. Lewis then hid Minkins in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood.

From there, Lewis guided Minkins to Cambridge where he followed the Underground Railroad to Montreal, Canada. Minkins made a living first as a waiter and restaurant operator and later as a barber. He married about 1853 and had four children, settling in a community with fellow fugitive slaves from the United States.

The escape of Minkins prompted President Millard Fillmore to use federal troops to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. He also called on Boston authorities to prosecute those who had taken Minkins from the Boston courthouse. Hayden and other participants were arrested but soon acquitted by sympathetic Boston juries.

The Minkins episode further exacerbated tensions between Southern slaveholders and Northern abolitionists and thus contributed to the coming Civil War. After the war, many runaway slaves in Canada returned to the U.S. Minkins, however, remained and lived out his life there, dying in Montreal on December 13, 1875.
488. April 3, 2007: Eddie Robinson died at Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, Louisiana, after being admitted earlier in the day.

Robinson developed Alzheimer's Disease after his retirement.

Edward Robinson, Sr. was 
Grambling State University's head football coach for 56 years.

Robinson is arguably the most successful college football coach in FCS history and has the 3rd most victories in college football history.

He held several jobs other than football coach, including teaching at Grambling High School, and coaching the girls basketball team during World War II. His girls team lost the state championship by 1 point. He also coached boys basketball, baseball, directed the band, and was in charge of the cheerleaders—with a budget of $46.

Fellow college coach Joe Paterno is quoted in the Grambling State press guide as saying, "Nobody has ever done or ever will do what Eddie Robinson has done for the game... Our profession will never, ever be able to repay Eddie Robinson for what he has done for the country and the profession of football."

During a period in college football history when Black players were not allowed to play for major college programs, Robinson built Grambling State into a small college football powerhouse. He retired in 1997 with a record of 408 wins, 165 losses and 15 ties. 

Robinson coached every single game from the field and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
489. Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved Black master distiller, taught distilling techniques to Jack Daniel, founder of the Jack Daniel Tennessee whiskey, one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys.
490. Cyrus McCormick, considered the “Father of Agriculture,” took the credit for inventing the Mechanical Reaper, a wheat cutting machine which became the foundation for the industrial revolution.
491. Little is mentioned about Jo Anderson, the Black man who worked closely with slave-holder McCormick on the machine, the real brains behind the invention.
The Patent Act of 1793 and 1836 barred enslaved Africans from obtaining patents because they were not considered citizens.
492. Benjamin Montgomery designed a steamboat propeller for shallow waters at different angles. His invention facilitated the delivery of food and critical items.

His patent application was rejected due to his status as a slave. His owners tried to take credit and patent themselves. 
493. Ned, an enslaved african, invented an effective, innovative cotton scraper. His slave master, Oscar Stewart, attempted to patent the invention. Ned was ineligible for a patent, according to the U.S. Attorney General. 
494. Henry Boyd. He invented what came to be known as the “Boyd Bedstead". 

The racist realities of the time led him to believe that he wouldn’t be able to patent his invention. He ultimately decided to partner with a white craftsman, allowing him to apply for and receive a patent. 
495. 12 year old enslaved boy, Edmond Albius, invented the technique that made the vanilla industry possible. He revolutionized the cultivation of vanilla. 

He made it possible for us to enjoy treats like Vanilla Ice Cream! 
496. Arkansans of both political parties have served the United States as diplomats. Some did a great job, and some folks shouldn't have been let out of the woods. Mifflin W. Gibbs, the first Black municipal judge in America upon his election as Little Rock police judge in 1872, was appointed consul to Tamatave, Madagascar, by President William McKinley (Republican) in 1897. The post was something of a backwater, and Gibbs resigned in 1901, returning to Little Rock, where he established a bank.
497. Did you know that Ranch Dressing, a popular condiment, was invented by a Black Nebraska Cowboy named Steve Henson. He named his company after his ranch Hidden Valley. Mr. Henson sold his company to Clorox in 1972.

In 1949, Thayer, Nebraska, native Steve Henson (1918–2007) moved with his wife to the Anchorage, Alaska, area, where he worked as a plumbing contractor for three years in the remote Alaskan bush. Endeavoring to keep his work crews happy, he invented a new salad dressing. 
Henson's success in the plumbing business enabled him to retire at age 35, and he moved with his wife to Santa Barbara County, California. After a year and half, the restless Henson, searching for some livelihood to occupy his time, purchased the Sweetwater Ranch in San Marcos Pass in 1956 and renamed it Hidden Valley Ranch. In creating the menu for the ranch kitchen, Henson served the salad dressing he had created in Alaska, which the guests enjoyed.

 Its popularity led Henson to mix a batch for his friend Audrey Ovington, owner of Cold Spring Tavern, which became the first commercial customer for the dressing. By 1957, a packaged mix to make the dressing at home was being offered in stores.

Henson began selling the packages by mail for 75 cents apiece and eventually devoted every room in his home to the operation. By the mid-1960s, the guest ranch itself had closed, but Henson's "ranch dressing" mail order business was thriving. By the early 1970s, Henson realized that the operation was too big to keep running it at the ranch, which remained its corporate headquarters.

The Hensons incorporated Hidden Valley Ranch Food Products, Inc., and opened a factory to manufacture ranch dressing in larger volumes, which they first distributed to supermarkets in the Southwest, and eventually, nationwide.

The manufacturing of the mix was moved to Griffith Laboratories in San Jose, and the packaging was done in Los Angeles.

The operation later moved to Colorado,[3] and then, in 1972, moved again to Sparks, Nevada. In October 1972, the Hidden Valley Ranch brand was bought by Clorox for $8 million and Henson went into retirement again.

During the 1980s, ranch became a common snack food flavor, starting with Cool Ranch Doritos in 1987, and Hidden Valley Ranch Wavy Lay's in 1994.

During the 1990s, Hidden Valley had three kid-oriented variations of ranch dressing: pizza, nacho cheese, and taco flavors.
498.Concentration Camps: the Devil's Punchbowl, Americas Dirty Little Secret:
A quick google search of concentration camps will direct you to atrocities of Nazi Germany; however, America has its own dirty history concerning the use of concentration camps. The most notorious of these camps was located in Natchez, Mississippi.
The Encampment:
Following the conclusion of the Civil War, Natchez Mississippi experienced an enormous influx of former slaves as new inhabitants. In response, the locals constructed an “encampment.” All the former slaves were gathered and forced to enter, the area walled off and they were refused the option to leave. This encampment after the atrocities were revealed would become known as the “Devils Punchbowl." 
Re-enslavement:
The migration of former slaves was a deeply sensitive issue with former Union soldiers unhappy with a swell in the population of Natchez from 10,000 to 120,000 by freed Blacks recaptured free males and forced them into the labor camps while the women and children were locked behind the concrete walls of the encampment and starved. Within a year, 20,000 freed slaves were killed in the concentration camp. The removal of the bodies was not allowed by the Union Army; they simply gave them shovels and instructed them to “bury their dead where they fell." Fresh food and water was nonexistent, disease and starvt the bottom of a vast crater with trees located on the bluffs above it, helping to contribute to its devilish name.
Peach Groves:
The area today is known for its wild peach groves, of course, the locals refuse the citrus nectar from.these groves because they are aware of the source of its fertilization. Skeletal remains are sometimes revealed due to the occasional flooding by the Mississippi River. We must acknowledge what happened here and honor the souls of our slain ancestors. We must never forget or allow America to forget its concentration camps at the Devils Punchbowl.
Ironically, there are very few scholarly articles on this subject. The majority of the accounts are derived from oral sources; however, this is not uncommon as it pertains to atrocities committed againstslaves. Detractors would argue, “If the incident was as drastic as the articles suggest, surely there would be more references to it. Either in schools or textbooks, Wikipedia or something”. Professional historians employ this argument all too often. As is the African way, ourhistories are often passed along orally, told many thousands of times over to ensure the accuracy of minute details. If not for this method, many of our stories would be lost to history (his-story)
499.Ottowa W Gurly~ The Creator of Black Wall Street
In 1906 O.W. Gurley a Wealthy Black Man from Arkansas Moved to Tulsa & Purchased over 40 acres of Land & Sold Exclusively to Other Black Americans Creating an Economically Independent Black Town Ship.
500. No force in the world can stop a focused mind: Peep the story of Black capitalism over 200 years ago….

Have you ever heard of STEPHEN SMITH??

When Smith turned 21, he borrowed $50 to purchase his freedom, and married Harriet Lee, who worked as a servant in someone’s home. He then went into business for himself in Columbia, putting into practice what he learned about the lumber business from his owner. Over the next several years, Smith expanded his business holdings to include real estate and stock in the Columbia Bank & Bridge Co., which was responsible for constructing a major bridge across the Susquehanna River. As the largest stockholder, he was entitled to be the president of the company but was prevented from assuming this position because he was Black.
During his lifetime, Smith was recognized as the richest Black man in America. Some people didn’t like that.

“During his lifetime, Smith was recognized as the richest Black man in America.”
-Michael Clemmons

In 1834, he was the target of a white mob that vandalized his office, demanded that he sell his business assets, and attacked Black people living in Columbia. After initially putting his business holdings up for sale, Smith retracted his offer when no one came forward to purchase them.

By 1840, Smith acquired a business partner, William Whipper, who was also Black. He started to sell coal and moved to Philadelphia, where he established the eastern location of their joint business. They owned 22 railcars that carried lumber throughout Pennsylvania, which had secret compartments that were also used to move fugitive enslaved people, at great risk to everyone involved.
501. “OPPRESSION WHERE”

We should never be scared of success because being successful is Black history. Winning in business, being a capitalist is Black history. Owning land, being well educated and thriving is Black history. Successful Black men and women in America weren’t outliers, they were actually very normal.

-No force in the world can stop a focused mind!

Alonzo Herndon 1858-1927
Herndon’s barbering business expanded, and by 1904 he owned three shops in Atlanta. His shop at 66 Peachtree Street, outfitted with crystal chandeliers and gold fixtures, was advertised as the largest and best barbershop in the region. According to the Atlanta Journal, Herndon and his all-Black barbering staff were “known from Richmond all the way to Mobile as the best barbers in the South.” Following the racial practices of the era, the Black barbers served an exclusively white clientele composed of the city’s leading lawyers, judges, politicians, and businessmen. As proprietor, Herndon personally saw to the barbering services provided to some of the most important figures in the state, earning their acquaintance and good will. His success in barbering was spectacular, and as his earnings grew, he invested in real estate in Atlanta and in Florida. Eventually he acquired more than 100 houses, a large block of commercial property on Auburn Avenue, and a large estate in Tavares, Florida. At his death in 1927, his real estate was assessed at nearly $325,000.

As his personal fortune grew, Herndon entered the field of insurance. In 1905 he purchased a failing mutual aid association, which he incorporated as the Atlanta Mutual Insurance Association. With Herndon playing a pivotal role as president and chief stockholder, the small association expanded its assets from $5,000 in 1905 to more than $400,000 by 1922. In 1922 the company was reorganized as the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and achieved legal reserve status, a position enjoyed by only four other Black insurance companies at that time. The firm grew rapidly in the 1920s, expanding its operations into a half dozen new states, including Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. Herndon also sought to save other failing Black enterprises. Whenever possible, he reinsured the policyholders and merged the faltering business into Atlanta Life in an effort to conserve confidence in Black businesses and save jobs for Black men and women. Despite several crises in the industry and lean times generally, Atlanta Life under Herndon’s leadership survived and progressed into the next decades as a secure and prosperous business.
502. Guyanese historian, academic, Pan-Africanist and political activist Walter Rodney was assassinated today in 1980, at the young age of 38. A strong critic of capitalism, Rodney is most remembered for his iconic text ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ published in 1972. Rodney was a key figure in the Black Power movement that swept the Caribbean in the 1970s and was a fierce critic of the role the middle class played in post-colonial Caribbean societies. His influence led to the spread of political awareness across the Caribbean and he has left an indelible mark on the region that echoes to this day. 
503. Lenora Marshall was born in Snow Lake,AR along with 13 siblings. She earned a Bachelors of Arts in Home Economics Education(UAPB) and a Masters in Special Education ( Arkansas State).

 In 1975, Lenora, a pioneer in education, was the first to establish the Special Education Program in the Elaine School District where she taught 34 years ( Teaching 1 Year in Eudora,AR totaling 35+ years of educational services)
Lenora is not only the first woman, but the first African American to serve as District 11 Justice of the Peace of Phillips County, AR 2008-current. 

Other Honorable Mentions: 
-Civil Rights Activist 
-Literacy Coach for Arkansas State Dept 
-Established the St. Luke C.O.G.I.C Food Pantry where she feed hundreds of people each month in Phillips county and surrounding area’s
-Numerous Teacher of the year awards 
-Special Olympics Basketball/Track Coach 
-Speak French and Sign Language
-Conduct Foreign missions in Haiti
-Elaine Legacy Center Vice President
-Created job position with the organizational name ECOS (Elaine Community Opportunity Seekers)
 -Created jobs for the youth in Elaine/ Phillips county summer programs.
Provide 1000’s of pounds of food and provide educational resources for Haiti annually. 
504. In 1912, Black Californians Charles and Willa Bruce bought a small slice of Manhattan Beach real estate for around $1,200. They built a resort for fellow Black families in the area who found themselves unwelcome at Whites-only beaches, even renting out bathing suits and selling snacks — and they were almost immediately subjected to racist attacks. Everyone from neighbors, the police, the city council, and even the Ku Klux Klan tried to close the beach down. The city imposed 10-minute parking limits near the beach to try and discourage visitors, and finally in 1924, the Manhattan Beach city council just seized the property entirely, offering the Bruces a fraction of their asking price. Today, the stretch of beach is worth around $20 million — and Los Angeles County just voted to finally return it to the Bruces' descendants.
505. Did you know the real Medusa is Black? The Greeks had never seen dreadlocks before so they came up with a myth: 
506. Here is a little history for individuals that are fans of the movies Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick. The first Top Gun competition was held in 1949. The white pilots competed with the latest state of art aircraft while the African-American pilots were forced to compete with older obsolete planes. After 3 days of competition The Tuskegee Airmen team of : Captain Alva Temple, 1st Lieutenant Harry Stewart, 1st Lieutenant James Harvey, and 1st Lieutenant Halbert Alexander (alternate) were announced the winners. There was dead silence in the room. Not one of their colleagues applauded this accomplishment. The victory was swept under the rug and the trophy was not seen by the public for 55 years. Introducing the real Top Guns.
507. It wasn’t that long ago that a thriving community of working class African Americans had their own Tybee space. But it has been swallowed up by the greed of developers. For the most part, there are no markers nor an acknowledgement of a Black community ever having existed on Tybee Island ground. A part of the island’s history has been systematically erased, its truth scattered in the Tybee wind.

A barrier island 18 miles from Savannah Georgia, Tybee Island is just 3.2 square miles long. Its Southern history is revered. The old-timers still say Savannah Beach when they mean Tybee. The real old-timers talk about the bomb that was dropped on accident but didn’t go off. Since the Civil War, the saltwater breezes that ruffle the hair into leaning every which way is rumored to be healing. Medicinal. A tonic. The 3,000 or so Tybee faithful are Savannah privileged, monied, mostly white but not all, Southern, and often unwilling to admit how their privilege was earned.
Kidnapped and frightened Africans were examined by physicians on Tybee Island who prodded and poked and participated in the rental contract of black bodies without voicing a word against it. Then the Africans were sent to Savannah to be sold as slaves. In the early 1800’s when smallpox broke out on Savannah plantations, infected slaves where sent to Tybee under guard.
Tybee’s tourism started after the Civil War when a rail line dropped summer tourists on the beach’s doorstep, this beautiful place of purity and sand, a black and white lighthouse, a salt marsh, even a creek, but no African American vacationers because they were banned from Tybee because of Jim Crow laws throughout the South. Jim Crow was every which way, in every store, on every road, in every schoolhouse library.
On Tybee Island, the racial hypocrisy was pungent. Black laborers could in fact build and work and sweat and die for the rail line that carried the vacation crowd to Tybee but they themselves could not go to the beach, could not put a toe in the water, could not walk the coastline.

In 1938, an editorial in the African American paper The Savannah Tribune left no doubt about how Tybee officials felt about blacks. Sol C. Johnson, the paper’s founder and editor and a Savannah philanthropist, wrote that Tybee “did not want the Negro to encumber the earth on that island. No Negro is permitted to secure an inch of any part of the island except the few owners of long years ago. On the waterfront, our people are not allowed, except as a servant.”
Fourteen years later in 1952, African Americans petitioned the city to use the beach. They were denied. Five years after the first request, beach rights were demanded again. Why should South Carolina be a destination when a beautiful beach was in Savannah’s backyard?
The wade-in’s began as a resistance movement. In August of 1960, 27 black students entered the water. They were arrested for “disrobing in public”. Not surprisingly, Tybee court convicted several, parceling out fines or jail time. But it didn’t stop the wade-in movement. The Honorable Edna Jackson who would later become the first African American female mayor of Savannah was arrested during the wade-ins as a 15 year old.
After Jim Crow was dismantled, seeds of distrust lingered. The MLK holiday presented city workers- the ones who couldn’t stand King- a choice. They had the option of taking a personal day instead of honoring Dr. King. But when Diane Schleicher became City Manager in 2006 she refused to cater to racist impulses. She revised the city’s position and recognized the King federal holiday some 23 years after President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983.

During the 1980’s, black college students began coming to Tybee Island for a spring break party called Orange Crush. The students didn’t know about Tybee’s history of wade-ins and Jim Crow, and for that matter, they didn’t care. Equality’s sweet fruit is a defiance about the past. It is the luxury to pretend that how things are is how they always were, ignoring because of convenience the history of African American trauma.
For black college students, Tybee is refuge, a personal haven. On the island they are carefree, self-absorbed, happy. Their casualness speaks to their generation’s privilege. They are allowed to be aimless. Venturing to this part of Georgia because it is popular to do so, and because, well they can, isn’t much of a mystery. For a brief minute they can escape the stress, discipline and routine of student life, immersed in beach vacation culture.

All these years of fragile racial progress and what has actually been accomplished? America still has not washed away its original documented sin. Black mobility in white spaces meet at the arc of white discomfort. White happiness comes at the price of black agony.

The Jim Crow Ordinance represented one more Southern thing that reiterated black oppression and white privilege. But it was retired, no longer a Tybee Island punishment. A victory to be sure, and a lesson. Small progress is progress just the same.
508. VINTAGE HSU FOOTBALL #2
Known as "IRON MAN" during his football days at Henderson State University, this HSU alum played ten seasons in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins.
Earnest Calvin Rhone was born August 20, 1953 to Tony Rhone, Sr. and Vinnie Rhone in Ashdown, Arkansas. He attended Morris Elementary School in East Ogden where they lived. The "freedom of Choice" law gave him the opportunity to enroll in the Ashdown schools.  
Rhone played high school football for the Ashdown Panthers, and was the first African American to be named team captain by his teammates. Still living in East Ogden, Earnest would hitchhike or walk the eight miles from Ashdown to East Ogden. Walking near the Ashdown paper mill, he was determined to get a ride. That determination would take him from East Ogden all the way to the NFL. 
Everyday he would stop at Shurway grocery store to buy a pop, and walk home. When his coaches found out that he was walking eight miles home if he didn't get a ride, they took care of the situation and provided transportation.
Rhone 'walked' on as an HSU Reddie, and after his first football season, head coach Ralph 'Sporty' Carpenter awarded him a full scholarship. While playing football at Henderson, he was named captain of the Reddie football team, All-AIC 1971 - 1974, NAIA All-American Linebacker 1974, All-District 1974, and HSU Reddie All-American.
After college, Rhone 'walked on' to the Miami Dolphins. He signed as a free agent in 1974, and played 10 years for the team. He proved his ability with a hit that knocked a running back's helmet off his head 15 feet into the air and 20 yards across the field.
While playing for the Dolphins, he was selected as defensive captain in 1982 and earned the inaugural Rusty Chambers 110% Award. As a starter in 1981, he led Miami with 171 tackles, six QB sacks and was voted the teams' outstanding linebacker by the South Florida media. He set a Dolphin record for mst quarterback sacks by a linebacker in a single game against Richard Todd and the New York Jets.  
He was fortunate to have been coached by some of the best in the business - Coach Hays & Toombs at Ashdown High School, Sporty Carpenter at Henderson, and Don Shula with the Dolphins. Earnest Rhone played in Super Bowls XVII and XIX and was an integral part of two AFC Championships.
Since his retirement from the NFL, he received the "Unsung Hero Award" from the Miami Dolphins Alumni organization, and was inducted into the 2017 Fox Sports Hall of Fame.
Also after retirement, Rhone began working in real estate and eventually founded Rhone Realty and Associates.  
As he had earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Education from Henderson State University, he also worked 25 years as a coach and educator with the Texarkana Independent School District. During his career as an educator, he was honored as Teacher of the Year for Lincoln Street Alternative School; won numerous district championships and one state title in 2002 as a coach for the Texas High School football team; and one state championship in 2014 as a coach for the track team.
He was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1988; the HSU Hall of Honor in 1997; and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
Earnest and his wife Cassandra have three children, and are members of the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Ogden, where he serves as a deacon and Sunday School superintendent.  
Even though Earnest Rhone did not receive a college football scholarship, nor was he drafted into the NFL; the Super Bowl rings and the souvenir football he intercepted from Joe Namath during his rookie year are symbols of what hard work, determination, and a good attitude can accomplish.
 "Winners never quit and quitters never win" said Rhone.
509. The Johnny Bright Incident occurred when African American football player Johnny Bright was violently assaulted by white football player Wilbanks Smith during a college football game between Drake University and Oklahoma State University. 

In 1951, Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate who had led the nation in total offense in 1949 and 1950. The game marked the first time that an African American athlete with a national profile had played against Oklahoma State. During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright was knocked unconscious three times by blows from Smith. The final blow broke Bright’s jaw and he was eventually forced to leave the game. 

A six sequence photograph of the incident was captured by the Des Moines Register newspaper and it showed that the final blow was delivered well after Bright had handed the football off. That photographic sequence won the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and later made the cover of Life Magazine. After the game, Oklahoma State and the conference officials refused to take any disciplinary action against Smith. Bright went on to earn his Bachelor of Science degree in education from Drake in 1952 and enjoy a 13-season professional career in the Canadian Football League, retiring in 1964 as the CFL’s all-time leading rusher. 

After football, Bright worked as a teacher, coach, and school administrator until his death on December 14, 1983. Bright was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1970 and posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1984. In 2005, Oklahoma State University formally apologized to Drake University for the incident. Johnny Bright School, named in his honor, opened in Edmonton, Canada in 2010.
510. Bette Davis with Hattie McDaniel. Davis was the only white member of McDaniel’s troupe of performers to perform for black servicemen during WWII. McDaniel was the Chairman of the Negro Division of the Hollywood Victory Committee. She formed the troupe.
511. Everyone knows Lewis & Clark, but did you know that there was a black man who was also part of the expedition?

As he was enslaved by William Clark, he participated as a full member of the expedition & was present when the expedition reached the Pacific Ocean.
What’s the Lewis and Clark Expedition?

It was an expedition, led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, to explore the American Northwest, newly purchased from France. (Louisiana Purchase).
His name was York and thus he became the first black man to cross the North American continent.
York was known for his skill in scouting, hunting, field medicine and manual labor in extreme weather conditions. Lewis had noted in his journal how York had saved him from certain death from a grizzly bear during the expedition.
You can read his journal entries on: lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/item/lc.jrn.18…

In 1804, Clark took York when he joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition. York was a large, strong man who shared the duties & risks of the expedition, and was the only black member of the Expedition.

The Native Nations treated York with respect, and he played a key role in diplomatic relations, mainly due to his dark skin.
After the expedition returned, every member received money and land for their services, every member except York. York asked Clark for his freedom based upon his good service during the expedition, and Clark refused.

York pleaded to be reunited with his wife, who was enslaved in Louisville; he even offered to work in Louisville and send Clark all his earnings. Clark still refused, and sold York to a brutal master in 1811, where he remained enslaved at least until 1816.
A statue of York, by sculptor Ed Hamilton, with plaques commemorating the Lewis and Clark Expedition and his participation in it, stands at Louisville's Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere, next to the wharf on the Ohio River.
512. Did you know the original playboy club costume was designed by Zelda Wynn Valdes, a black designer. She also opened the first ever black-owned boutique in Manhattan in 1948.
513. History of the New Year’s Watch Night Service. 

The Watch Night Services in Black communities can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as “Freedom’s Eve.”
On that night, black people came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law.
Just a few months earlier, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the start of the new year. Then, at the stroke of midnight, it was January 1, 1863, and all slaves in the Confederate States were declared legally free. When the news was received, there were prayers, shouts and songs of joy as people fell to their knees and thanked God.

Black folks have gathered in churches annually on New Year’s Eve ever since, praising God for bringing us safely through another year.
White enslavers feared that religion, which was often used to quell slave resistance, could incite the exact opposite if practiced without observance. They wrote laws that restricted worship and large gatherings, such as that in the 1848 Georgia Slave Code:  ‘No person of color . . . shall be allowed to preach, to exhort, or join in any religious exercise with any persons of color, either free or slave, there being more than seven persons of color present.' —1848 Georgia Slave Code

Despite these laws, enslaved people sought to exercise their own religious customs, including Christianity, Islam, and indigenous faith practices reflective of the homes from which they were stolen.
It’s been 160 years since that first Freedom’s Eve and many of us were never taught the African American history of Watch Night, but tradition still brings us together at this time every year to celebrate “how we got over.”
514. In January, we are celebrating School Board Recognition Month. Dr. Kenneth G. Harris Jr. has been a member of the Arkadelphia School Board for approximately 40 years. One of the reasons Dr. Harris was inspired to seek this position is the fact that the only minority board member at the time had decided not to seek reelection. It was important to Dr. Harris to maintain some semblance of diversity on the school board.

He shared there are several things to mention in terms of his pride in our schools including new buildings, outstanding band, winning teams in sports, and his list could go on. However, he says to have two schools named as a National School of Excellence in Perritt Primary School (under Principal Wanda O’Quinn) and Arkadelphia High School (under Principal Herman L. Thomas) were especially memorable moments. 

Dr. Harris, who has retired as an HSU Educator in the field of education, is married to Pam, who spent 50 years in education. Their daughter is in her 26th year as an educator. His granddaughter is a junior at UCA. 

We are grateful for the leadership of Dr. Kenneth G. Harris on the Arkadelphia Public School Board. We recognize the impact his legacy is making on education in our community. Thank you Dr. Harris! 

515. Kentaji Brown Jackson became the first Black woman to be confirmed to the US Supreme Court April 7, 2022 with 53 senators voting yes and 47 voting no mostly along partisan lines.

How did our two Arkansas senators vote? About as expected: Both senators Boozman and Cotton voted no with the latter being overly performative in his questioning and reasoning. 
516. Celebrating Black History in Conway: Did you know? Robert "Son" Thomas, born in 1902, was a barber, store owner, and businessman in Conway. He operated The Sunset Cafe, a beloved institution on Markham Street (which included a Barber Shop), located directly across from Faber Bland's Central Valet Cleaners.

Pictured in photo: “Son” Thomas, barber and owner, with Murmon Thomas (standing) & Milton Woods 
517. Faber Bland was a WWII Army veteran, business owner, and active member in the Conway community. He was born December 1st,1917, and had four children. He attended Pine Street School and Arkansas AM&N College in Pine Bluff, but graduated from Conway County HS and Dunbar Jr. College. He owned Central Valet Cleaners (1163 Markham) for 45 years and served on the Board of Directors for the Faulkner County Senior Citizens Program. In 1970 he became the first Black man on the Conway School District Board, where he served for 16 years. Faber passed away February 19, 1994.
518. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established Valentine's Day 1957. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was its first president.
519. FACTS ABOUT TIMBUKTU (MALI) IN HISTORY

Did you know that Timbuktu was 5 times bigger than London in the 14th century?
And that it was the wealthiest city in the world at the time?

Malian sailors arrive in America almost 200 years before Columbus.

In the 14th century, there were 115,000 people living in Timbuktu, a city in Mali. This was five times as many people as lived in London at the time.

The intellectual culture of Timbuktu led National Geographic to call it the "Paris" of the Middle Ages. Professor Henry Louis Gates says that 25,000 scholars went there to study.

"In West Africa, many old families have private libraries with books that are hundreds of years old. The towns of Chinguetti and Oudane in Mauritanian have 3,450 hand-written books from the Middle Ages.

It is thought that there are another 6,000 books in the city of Oualata. Some are from the eighth century AD There are just over 11,000 books in private collections in Niger.

Last but not least, there are still about 700,000 books in Timbuktu, Mali. The writing is in Mande, Suqi, Peul, and Sudani. The things that are written in the manuscripts are about math, medicine, poetry, the law, and astronomy.

This book was the first encyclopedia. It was written in the 14th century, long before Europeans thought of the idea in the 18th century...

In the 1600s, a collection of 1,600 books was considered a small library for a West African scholar. Professor Ahmed Baba from Timbuktu said that out of all his friends, he had the smallest library because he only had 1,600 books.

In his TV show "Around the Sahara," Michael Palin talked about these old manuscripts and said that the imam of Timbuktu "has a collection of scientific texts that show the planets clearly moving around the sun."

They are a few hundred years old. There was clear evidence that Timbuktu scholars knew much more than their European counterparts.
520. The Legend of John Henry, Summers County, West Virginia 
Not all American folk lore are tall tales. John Henry was born in 1840’s as an enslaved person and was liberated after the civil war. He relocated to Virginia to find work in the reconstruction effort. In Virginia he was arrested for burglary and sentence to the state penitentiary. The warden of the penitentiary was a Quaker from Pennsylvania. He had been appointed to his position as part of the reconstruction effort and he was shocked by the horrible conditions there. To save the inmates from having to live in the penitentiary he began leasing them as labor to private contractors. Later he became as opponent of inmate labor.
John Henry was leased to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C and O). He was a giant of a man, standing over 6 foot and weighing in at over 200 pounds. His strength was legendary. The workers would often sing to help keep cadence as they swung their hammers. They would often make up their own songs about each other and these songs began the legend of John Henry. The songs spoke of his superhuman strength like how he could swing a 20-pound hammer in each hand. Other songs described his softer side, like being kindhearted and having good morals.   
By the time the railroad reached the Great Bend Mountain, John Henry was the leader of his work crew. Leveling grade and laying track turned into driving holes into the rock, which would then be stuffed full of dynamite, and the rocks blown up and hauled away. The Great Bend tunnel is 6,450 feet long and was completed in 1872.
The famous story about John Henry happened here in 1870. The C and O railroad had used a steam drill at the nearby Lewis Tunnel. John Henry was impressed when he saw the machine and challenged it to a race. When the dust cleared after the hour long contest, the drill had only gone 9 feet while John Henry had gone 14 feet. It was reported that the steam drill had hit a seam of harder rock which had cost it time.  
In 1929 John Henry researcher Guy B. Johnson interviewed witnesses to the race. Most of the men agreed that John Henry didn’t die after the race, but later in a rock side or of disease. The last time that John Henry was noted in documents from the Virginia State Penitentiary was in 1873. This was before his sentence discharge date and there is no record of a pardon.
521. Eliza Fowler was born in 1850 in Fayette County, Tennessee, and later moved to Conway, Arkansas, in 1883. She sheltered and cared for several orphaned children throughout her lifetime and was a member of St. John's Baptist Church. Also of note, Eliza provided the highest grade of laundry services, having trained technically in Memphis, Tennessee. Her obituary noted that Eliza, also known as Bettie or 'Aunt Liza' was "loved and respected." 
522. Charles Richard Patterson and Sons were the first and only Black Automobile Company in history. Born enslaved in Virginia in 1833, C.R. Patterson escaped, traveling over the Allegheny Mountains, through West Virginia and across the Ohio River. He settled in Greenfield, Ohio, a station on the Underground Railroad.

Patterson learned blacksmithing skills and went to work for a carriage-making business. In 1873, he formed a business partnership with another local carriage manufacturer, J.P. Lowe. For the next 20 years, the duo ran a successful business making expertly crafted horse-drawn carriages.

In 1893, Patterson bought out Lowe and became the sole proprietor and renamed the company C.R. Patterson & Sons. When he died in 1910, his son Frederick took over the business. Frederick was already a pioneer, becoming the first black man to play football for Ohio State University.

Frederick knew that automobiles were the future. C.R. Patterson & Sons produced its first car in 1915. Known as the Patterson-Greenfield automobile, it sold for $850. The Patterson-Greenfield model was comparable to the Ford Model T, even though the Ohio company couldn’t match Ford’s manufacturing capabilities. In the 1920s, after producing approximately 150 cars, Patterson & Sons switched to the production of trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles.

Hit hard by Jim Crow and then the Great Depression in 1932, the company began to spiral downward. It closed in 1939. There are no known Patterson-Greenfield automobiles in existence today, but several C.R. Patterson & Sons Company carriages have survived. The National Museum of African American History & Culture states that Patterson & Sons remains the only black-owned automobile company in United States history.
523. Quad Sanders became the first Black head football coach at Bryant High School. The five-time state champion served as defensive coordinator during the Hornets' title dynasty from 2018-present. 
524. On this day in 1894, inventor G.W. Murray received his patent for the 'Planter', which helped make farm work more efficient.

The planter was designed to drop crop seeds at predetermined distances apart and covering the seeds after dropping. George Washington Murray of Sumter, South Carolina received patent numbers 520,887, 520,888, and 520,889 for a planter, cotton-chopper, and fertilizer distributer, respectively. The planter was designed to drop crop seeds at predetermined distances apart and covering the seeds after dropping. The cotton-chopper was a cheap and simple machine designed to chop rows of cotton. And the fertilizer distributer was a strong and durable machine able to evenly drill any fertilizing agent into the ground and then cover them. Murray later received patent numbers 644,032 February 20, 1900 for a grain drill and 887,495 May 12, 1908 for a portable hoisting device. Murray was born enslaved September 22, 1853 in Sumter County. After being freed, he attended the University of South Carolina for two years and taught school for 15 years. He served as chairman of the Sumter County Republican Party and was known as the “Republican Black Eagle.” From 1890 to 1892, Murray served as inspector of customs at the Port of Charleston. In 1893, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives where he served until 1897. During his time in Congress, Murray fought for Black rights, spoke in favor of retaining Reconstruction Period laws, and highlighted Black achievement by reading into the congressional record a list of 92 patents granted to African Americans. He was the last Black Republican to serve in Congress from South Carolina until 2010. In 1905, Murray moved to Chicago, Illinois where he sold life insurance and real estate until his death April 21, 1926. His biography, “A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow: South Carolina’s George Washington Murray,” was published in 2006.
525. In 1928, Eli Reid purchased 400 acres of picturesque property on the banks of the Chowan River in Hertford County, North Carolina. Soon after he acquired the land, Reid began turning the area into a Segregation-era resort for African Americans, and Chowan Beach was born. 
As the resort began to take shape in the late 1920s, it was clear that something special had been started. Wide sandy beaches were built, and construction was immediately started on guest cottages, bathhouses, a dance hall, photo studio, restaurant, picnic area and magnificent German-made carousel. Chowan Beach was an immediate success, and throngs of African Americans began to stream in from across North Carolina and the East Coast to relax and enjoy the atmosphere and spectacular views--an oasis of fun in a social desert of limited opportunities and unfair treatment. The water was cool and refreshing, the crowds were friendly, and the music was hot, as the beach was a popular stop for musicians touring on the "Chitlin Circuit," including B.B. King, James Brown, Sam Cooke and The Drifters. 
In this nostalgic new book, author Frank Stephenson brings back the glory days of Chowan Beach with an array of vintage photographs and a brief history of the area. Come along as Stephenson revisits the past of this beloved beach and offers a reminder of what it meant to generations of African American visitors.
525. When Laurence Jones learned about the 80% illiteracy rate of Rankin County, he started Piney Woods School with just $2 and 3 students at an abandoned sheep shed.

In 1918, he not only survived a near-lynching, he also persuaded the mob into collecting money to support his school.

—Laurence C. Jones was born into a Missouri family of educators in 1884. He completed his studies at the University of Iowa in 1908. Laurence received many job offers after graduating but would ultimately find himself in Rankin County, Mississippi, in 1909.  
 
During slavery, it was illegal to teach enslaved Africans to read and write. Therefore, Rankin County had an illiteracy rate approaching 80%.  
 
Mr. Jones settled in the county and began teaching three students. The number of students increased, and with land donated by a former “freed”slave and support from several white-owned Iowa businesses, Piney Wood School would receive its charter in 1913.  
 
Mr. Jones had also established a friendship with prominent Iowan, Captain ASA Turner. Captain Turner, abolitionist, and civil war veteran, would donate a significant amount of his time and wealth to support the school, ultimately serving on the school’s board of trustees. 
 
In 1918, for whatever reason, the residents had had enough of Mr. Jones and sought to hang him. Laurence was also an oratory master. He not only convinced the mob not to lynch him but solicited funds from the rabble for his school. Later, Mr. Jones is quoted: “No man can cause me to stoop low enough that him.”   

Today, Piney Woods School is the largest of four historically Black American boarding schools, educating youth from grades 9-12.
526. In September 1891, African-American sharecroppers in Lee County, Arkansas initiated the historic cotton pickers' strike. This labor action sparked intense conflict between the striking workers and plantation owners, resulting in racially motivated violence, the formation of a sheriff's posse, and tragically, a lynching party.
527. Sigma Pi Phi, also known as The Boulé, founded in 1904, is the oldest fraternity for African Americans among those named with Greek letters. The fraternity does not have collegiate chapters and is designed for professionals at mid-career or older. Sigma Pi Phi was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Founded on May 15, 1904, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, also known as the Boulé, which in Ancient Greece was a “Council of Chiefs,” is the oldest continuously existing Greek-letter post-graduate fraternity originally founded by, and primarily for, eminent black professional men and later similar professional men of African descent throughout the world. Its founders were six exceptional men, four medical doctors, one dentist and one pharmacist, who at that time was a second-year medical school student.

These men recognized the advantages of belonging to a special fraternity that would enhance and support professional careers and social relationships while simultaneously providing leadership and assistance to facilitate the enhancement and elevation of such underserved black communities as those from which they mostly came and in which they professionally existed.

They were: Henry McKee Minton, a registered pharmacist and second year student at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Jefferson Medical School, Algernon B. Jackson, M.D., the first African American graduate of the Jefferson Medical School, Edwin Clarence Joseph Turpin Howard, M.D., who in 1869 was one of the first two black graduates of the Harvard Medical School, Richard John Warrick, D.D.S., a graduate of the Philadelphia School of Dental Surgery, Eugene Theodore Hinson, M.D., a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Robert Jones Abele, M.D., the first black graduate of Philadelphia’s then Hahnemann Medical College, which is now Drexel University College of Medicine. The basic idea of the Fraternity was conceived by Henry M. Minton and was refined and enthusiastically supported by the other founders.

Throughout its existence its membership has included some of the most distinguished men in the world. They have included such scholars and academic, cultural, and civil rights leaders as W.E.B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Charles R. Drew, physician who developed blood plasma, James Weldon Johnson, author of Lift Every Voice and Sing (the Black National Anthem), L. Douglas Wilder, the first elected black governor of a U.S. state (Virginia), and Martin L. King, Jr., founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and one of the most important 20th Century Civil Rights leaders.

A number of black U.S. Congressmen have been members of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity including Charles B. Rangel (New York), Andrew J. Young, Jr. (Georgia), and later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, and James E. Clyburn (South Carolina), as well as two recently deceased members of Congress, Representatives John R. Lewis (Georgia) and Elijah E. Cummings (Maryland). Other members of the fraternity have included John Hope Franklin, the most prominent black historian of the 20th Century, Daniel H. Williams, who in 1893 performed the first open heart surgery, Roy O. Wilkins, longtime Executive Director of the NAACP, Robert C. Weaver, who in 1966 became the first black American to serve in a U.S. Presidential Cabinet, Thomas J. (Tom) Bradley, the first black American mayor of the City of Los Angeles in the modern era, Paul R. Williams, a leading 20th Century architect who designed the iconic floating restaurant at the Los Angeles (now Tom Bradley) International Airport, Andrew F. Brimmer, Economist, who was the first black American to serve as a governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, and Samuel P. Massie, scientist, and J. Ernest Wilkins Jr., mathematician, who both worked on the World War II Manhattan Project that created the first atomic bomb. Both Wilkins and Massie later served as Grand Sire Archon (International President) of the Fraternity. Other members who were prominent scientists include Ernest E. Just, biologist and the first recipient of the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, Percy L. Julian, a renowned chemist, and the noted theoretical statistician David H. Blackwell.

Members of the fraternity whose contributions are noteworthy in the arts and humanities include Hale A. Woodruff (artist), Arna W. Bontemps (poet), Ulysses S. Kay and Olly W. Wilson, Jr. (music composers), jazz greats William E. (Billy) Taylor Jr., and Wynton L. Marsalis, and Francis E. (Hill) Harper (actor). In addition, many present and past college and university presidents including Benjamin E. Mays (Morehouse), Charles S. Johnson (Fisk), Samuel Dubois Cook (Dillard), Norman C. Francis (Xavier), and William R. Harvey (Hampton University) are distinguished members of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. In 1969 fraternity member Clifton R. Wharton, Jr., became the first black American president of a major university when he was selected to lead Michigan State University. Nine years later in 1978 he was selected as Chancellor (President) of the 64-campus State University of New York (SUNY) system. In 2020, fraternity member Michael V. Drake was named president of the 10-campus University of California system having previously served as president of the Ohio State University and Chancellor of the University of California, Irvine.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sigma-pi-phi-fraternity-the-boule-a-brief-overview-1904/
528. Private George Watson was from Birmingham, Alabama. Attended basic training at Camp Lee, Virginia. Then to Charleston, South Carolina and departed overseas from Newport News, Virginia on December 27, 1942 aboard the USS Hermitage to Australia via the Panama Canal with 10,000 troops aboard that disembarked at Brisbane on January 31, 1943. Moving to Brisbane, he was assigned to the Dutch freighter, commandeered into American service, the s'Jacob. A member of the 29th Quartermaster Regiment. Watson drowned rescuing others when his ship, the Dutch Steamer s'Jacob near Porlock Harbor off Papua New Guinea, on March 8, 1943, when the ship came under sudden attack by Japanese bombers that sunk it.

Watson's ship was badly damaged by Japanese bombs and the crew were ordered overboard. Watson remained in the water and helped other soldiers who could not swim reach the life rafts. It is thought that Watson was unable to get clear of the turbulence when the ship went down, and he disappeared beneath the waves.

Watson is remembered on a memorial at the Manila American Cemetery, a Memorial in the Philippines and by George Watson Memorial Field at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Private Watson was the first black solider to receive the Distinguished Service Cross during World War II. He was 28 years old, had been drafted into the Army and was assigned to the 29th Quartermaster Regiment. George Watson is survived by his daughter Kay Adams and many grandchildren. Ms. Adams lives in the Cleveland, Ohio area. The Alabama Veterans Memorial Foundation honored Pvt. Watson with a special ceremony and commemorative plaque which was placed in the Grand Memorial courtyard on Memorial Day, in 2003.

At a crowded White House ceremony on 13 January 1997, President William J. Clinton bestowed the Medal of Honor on seven African American veterans of World War II. Only one of the recipients was still alive to receive his award in person. The others had died during the war or in the decades since, and were represented by next of kin.

Private Watson's Medal of Honor resides in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia.
529. In 1922, Ralph Alexander Gardner, a scientist who specialized in the development of hard plastics, was born in Cleveland, Ohio.
Gardner earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois School of Chemistry in 1943 and took a research job with the Argonne National Laboratory where he worked on the Manhattan Project which resulted in the development of the atomic bomb.

Despite his work on the atomic bomb, Gardner could not find an academic position in his field when he left Argonne in 1947, therefore he worked as a waiter until 1949. In 1949, he became a research chemist and project leader at Standard Oil Company. In 1952, he earned his master’s degree and in 1959 his Ph.D., both in chemistry from Case Western University. He currently holds emeritus status at Cleveland State University. (Today in African American History, 2023)
530. Sophia Danenberg is the first African American and black woman to climb to the summit of the World’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest in Nepal. She has also successfully climbed other mountains including Mount Tasman in New Zealand, Mount Rainier in Washington state, and Mount Kenya in Kenya.
531. Normally when all that white people have to say about a black man, especially a black leader, is that he is ‘smart’, ‘clever’ or ‘a good speaker’, it is usually not meant as a compliment. In most cases it means that you are going beyond the boundaries they have set for you. You are becoming stubborn, self-important and arrogant ( In Jim Crow United States, being considered an ‘uppity negro,’ the pejorative term that was used by whites to refer to blacks who couldn’t ‘stay in their place’ could trouble, not just from the Ku Klux Klan but from the government itself. Whereas young radicals of those days such as Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and Black Panther firebrands Huey P. Newton and Fred Hampton considered such a label a badge of honour and proudly wore it up their sleeves, many of them paid a terrible price for their uppitiness).

And yet all the obituaries in the Western Press almost in unison talk about the brilliance of this African giant so much so that they have to mean it. Which makes Mugabe the first African to make the western press, albeit painstakingly, tell the truth about positive attributes of an African anti-colonial revolutionary.

Robert Mugabe’s cardinal sin in the eyes of the Western World was not that he killed thousands of supporters of his Nationalist rival Joshua Nkomo in Matebeleland in the early 1980s (More of this later) or his poor record of democracy and governance in the later years. After all, Britain and other Western Powers did absolutely nothing to stop the so-called ‘Gukurahundi’ Massacres. Mugabe then had not yet become uppity. He was still the obedient leader that left alone western interests in commercial farming, mining, and other political and economic interests.

The Real trouble for Mugabe started when he began, rightly so, to question the colossal injustice of the country’s tiny white minority, 5 percent of the population, owning 70% of the best arable land. The morally justified but haphazardly executed ‘land reform program’ led to landless Zimbabweans invading white owned farms in the year 2000. The so-called ‘targeted’ sanctions, began in 2002, in a remarkably coordinated ‘Alliance’ effort by the United States, Britain, EU, and other countries.

These Sanctions brought the country, but not its leader, to its knees. He continued his land reform program. He insulted western leaders in eloquent, defiant speech at the United Nations (He once called Tony Blair a troublesome little boy and accused U.S. President George W. Bush of “rank hypocrisy” )

Mugabe’s cardinal sin

Robert Mugabe’s relentless pursuit of his country’s self-determination, his unwillingness to compromise, his indefatigable spirit and energy in exposing Western Hypocrisy made him an implacable foe to the west, an antagonist that couldn’t be had for any price. The Western media portrayed him as evil incarnate.

Even in Death, Robert Mugabe continues to rattle the editors of Western globalist papers, from the front pages of the New York Times and The Washington Post, to Op Ed pages of nearly all newspapers across the pond in Britain. Most of the Obituaries I have read of him in these papers only mention in passing his role in liberating Zimbabwe from British colonialism, and his efforts to desegregate the country’s education and healthcare systems. They don’t say anything about the role of Western sanctions in crippling Zimbabwe’s economy, or the necessity, albeit haphazardly executed, of his land reforms.
532. Meet Emeline King. Hired as Ford's first Black automotive designer in 1983, she designed the 1994 Ford Mustang interior. 
533. December 28th, 1918, George Henry White was the last African American who would serve in Congress for decades after the implementation of Disenfranchisement laws at the end of the nineteenth century following the Reconstruction Era. White died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at age 66.

He was born on December 18, 1852, in Rosindale, North Carolina. George Henry White was the only African American elected to the 55th congress from 1897 - 1899. He was a representative of North Carolina's 2nd Congressional District. As Democrats regained control of state legislatures in the South and disenfranchised African Americans with laws that prevented them from voting, White knew that his second term in Congress would be his last one. He made this powerful statement: "This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress, but let me say, Phoenix–like he will rise up someday and come again."1 White left Congress in March of 1901 and was correct in that it was a temporary farewell, although a very long one. It was 28 years before another African American ( Oscar Stanton De Priest, Republican from Illinois) would be elected and another African American congressperson from North Carolina would not be elected until Democrat Eva Clayton in 1992. White was a graduate of Howard University. After and started another law practice and People's Savings Bank.
534. Scholars have left him out of the history books, and Hollywood couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge his existence either. He was Howard Hughes’ top engineer and lifelong best friend. Who is he? This is about Frank Mann, the hidden genius behind much of Howard Hughes’ success in the world of aviation and mechanics. Frank Calvin Mann (November 22, 1908 – November 30, 1992) was an African American engineer who was known for his participation in many Howard Hughes's projects, including the Spruce Goose. He also starred in the Amos 'n' Andy radio show. Apparently, his lifelong friendship with Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

A native of Houston, Texas, Frank Calvin Mann's parents wanted him to become a schoolteacher, but from childhood, he had a natural ability to fix things. At age 11, he had his own mechanic shop. As a teenager, he worked alongside airplane mechanics, repairing engines. By the age of 20, he had designed and built several of his own Model-T cars. It was unheard of in the 1920s for a Black man to have anything to do with cars, trains, or airplanes. His life-long friend Howard Hughes was instrumental in opening doors for Mann's exceptional talents.

Mann attended the University of Minnesota and UCLA, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree. World War II equipment that revolutionized military weaponry would not exist if not for his involvement. Incredibly, few Americans are aware of Frank Mann. He was the first Black commercial pilot for American Airways. He was also a distinguished military officer. In 1935, following Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Frank Mann flew reconnaissance missions for the Ethiopian army.

He served in the World War II Army Air Corps and was the primary civilian instructor of the famous Tuskegee Airmen in 1941. He left Tuskegee after a rift with the U.S. government, which didn't want the Squadron, an all-Black unit, flying the same high caliber of airplanes as their White counterparts. An angry Mann had refused to have his men fly old "World War I biplane crates" because his airmen had proven themselves as equals.

Though they were being given inferior equipment and materials, their squadron never lost a plane, bomber, or pilot, and they were nicknamed the "Red Tails.” After the war, Mann was instrumental in designing the first Buick LeSabre automobile and the first communications satellite launched for commercial use.

His pride and joy was a miniature locomotive enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute, Mann also played a principal role in the Amos ‘N’ Andy radio show. He moved back to his hometown in the 1970s.

Frank Mann died on November 30, 1992, in Houston.
535. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, originally born as Chris Wayne Jackson on March 9, 1969, is a former professional basketball player who made a significant impact both on and off the court. Born in Gulfport, Mississippi, Abdul-Rauf overcame a challenging childhood marked by poverty and Tourette's syndrome. He showcased his exceptional basketball talent at Louisiana State University (LSU), where he earned the U.S. college player of the year award in 1990.

Abdul-Rauf's professional career began when he was selected as the third overall pick in the 1990 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets. Renowned for his quick, accurate shooting, particularly from three-point range, he played for the Nuggets, the Sacramento Kings, and briefly for the Vancouver Grizzlies. His NBA tenure was notable for his scoring prowess and agility on the court.

A pivotal moment in his life came in 1991 when he converted to Islam and changed his name from Chris Jackson to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. This change prefaced a significant controversy in 1996 when Abdul-Rauf made headlines for refusing to stand for the national anthem before games. He cited his religious beliefs and opposition to what he perceived as the symbol of oppression in the U.S. flag. This act of protest led to a suspension by the NBA, which was eventually lifted after he agreed to stand and pray during the anthem.

Following his NBA career, Abdul-Rauf continued to play basketball in various international leagues, including stints in Turkey, Russia, Italy, Greece, and Japan. He also participated in the BIG3 league, featuring retired NBA players. Beyond his athletic achievements, Abdul-Rauf is known for his philanthropic efforts and as a motivational speaker.

Abdul-Rauf's legacy extends beyond his basketball skills. He is often cited in discussions about athlete activism, especially in light of similar protests by later athletes like Colin Kaepernick. His actions and beliefs have placed him as a notable figure in the conversation about sports, politics, and religion, underlining the complex role of athletes in social and political spheres.
536. Muddy Waters — 
born 1, was an iconic American blues musician who played a significant role in shaping the genre. He was born on April 4, 1913, in Issaquena County, Mississippi. Waters' distinctive voice and electrifying guitar playing style made him one of the most influential figures in the development of modern blues music.

One of Muddy Waters' most famous songs is "Mannish Boy," which was released in 1955. This blues classic has since become a staple in the genre and has been covered by countless artists over the years. The song's lyrics tell the story of a confident and assertive man who exudes masculinity and charm. It is a celebration of the powerful and irresistible nature of manhood.

"Mannish Boy" is known for its infectious rhythm and catchy guitar riffs. The song's driving beat and Waters' raw, emotive vocals create an electrifying atmosphere that captures the essence of the blues. It showcases Waters' ability to captivate audiences with his soulful delivery and masterful guitar skills.

The song's popularity can be attributed to its timeless appeal and its ability to resonate with listeners from different generations and cultures. It has been featured in numerous films, TV shows, and commercials, further solidifying its place in popular culture. 👇🏾
537. Dangerfield Newby is the actual man on which the movie D’Jango Unchained is loosely based.

He was a member of the John Brown raiders. He joined the gang to save his wife, Harriet and children from slavery. 

Dangerfield Newby (1815 – October 17, 1859) was the oldest of John Brown's raiders, one of five black raiders, and the first of his men to die at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Born into slavery in Fauquier County, Virginia, Newby married a woman also enslaved. Newby's father was Henry Newby, a landowner in Fauquier County. His mother was Elsey Newby, who was a slave, owned not by Henry, but by a neighbor, John Fox. Elsey and Henry lived together for many years and had several children, although interracial marriage was illegal in Virginia. Dangerfield was their first child. Dangerfield Newby, his mother and his siblings were later freed by his father when he moved them across the Ohio River into Bridgeport, Ohio. John Fox, who died in 1859, apparently did not attempt to retrieve Elsey, Dangerfield, or any of his siblings. Dangerfield's wife and their seven children remained in bondage. A letter found on his body revealed some of his motivation for joining John Brown and the raid on Harpers Ferry.

Dangerfield Newby's wife, Harriet Newby, was the slave of Jesse Jennings, of Arlington or Warrenton, Virginia. Newby had been unable to purchase the freedom of his wife and seven children. Their master raised the price after Newby had saved the $1,500 that had previously been agreed on. Because all of Newby's other efforts had failed he hoped to free them by force. Harriet's poignant letters, found on his body, proved instrumental in advancing the abolitionist cause. Newby was six foot two.

On October 17, 1859, the citizens of Harpers Ferry set to put down the raid. Harpers Ferry manufactured guns but the citizens had little ammunition, so during the assault on the raiders they fired anything they could fit into a gun barrel. One man was shooting six inch spikes from his rifle, one of which struck Newby in the throat, killing him instantly. After the raid, the people of Harpers Ferry took his body, stabbed it repeatedly, and amputated his limbs. His body was left in an alley to be eaten by hogs. In 1899 the remains of Newby-plus remains of nine other raiders-were reburied in a common grave near the body of John Brown in North Elba, New York.

Dangerfield Newby's wife, Harriet and her children were sold to a Louisiana slave owner after the raid.
538. On January 26, 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision upholding the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision to close, rather than integrate, a local public park in Macon, Georgia.

In 1911, U.S. Senator Augustus O. Bacon executed his will, devising to the City of Macon, Georgia, “a park and pleasure ground” for white residents only. He explained that “in limiting the use and enjoyment of this property perpetually to white people, I am not influenced by any unkindness of feeling . . . I am, however, without hesitation in the opinion that in their social relations the two races . . . should be forever separate.”
A large and lush recreation space, Baconsfield Park opened in 1920. As trustee of the park, the City of Macon honored Senator Bacon’s wishes and for decades operated it as a “white only” facility. That changed in 1963 when the city determined that, as a public entity, it could no longer constitutionally enforce segregation. Disgruntled, Baconsfield’s Board of Managers sued to remove the City of Macon as trustee and preserve the park as one for white residents only.
In May 1963, Black citizens intervened, filing a lawsuit challenging Baconsfield’s racial restriction as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, in February 1964, the City of Macon resigned as trustee; several months later the court appointed three private individuals as new trustees, and the racial segregation policy continued.
Black residents appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In January 1966, the Court held in Evans v. Newton that Baconsfield could no longer be operated on a racially discriminatory basis: “the public character of this park requires that it be treated as a public institution subject to the command of the Fourteenth Amendment, regardless of who now has title under state law.” Rather than integrate, however, the Georgia Supreme Court responded by terminating the Baconsfield trust and closing the park to the public altogether.
539. #DidYouKnow In February 1912, Captain Charles Young was featured on the front cover of The Crisis magazine?

The February 1912 issue of The Crisis was a public announcement that Captain Young accepted duties to serve as the Military Attaché in Liberia. Young took over the duties of Captain Benjamin O. Davis Sr., who had gotten ill while serving in Liberia. Young had mentored Davis while serving in the Ninth Cavalry. From 1912-1915, Young served as the Military Attaché in Liberia. Young was responsible for reconstructing the Liberian Frontier Force. He also created maps and helped build roads in Liberia that are still being used today.

The Crisis Magazine was a popular magazine in the early 1900s and was created by W.E.B. Du Bois in 1910. His goal was to "set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as manifested today toward colored people.”

In 1894, Captain Young became friends with Du Bois while they both taught at Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. Young served a detached service assignment there as the professor of Military Science and Tactics until 1898.

Photo: Captain Charles Young featured on the front cover of The Crisis. The Crisis. Vol. 3, No. 4, 1 Feb. 1912.
540. 🍖 Christopher B. "Stubb" Stubblefield, Sr. 

A true Barbecue Hall of Famer who opened his first barbecue restaurant here in Lubbock in 1968. 

C.B. Stubblefield learned the ART of smoking meats and adding barbecue sauce to COMPLIMENT the meats from Amos Gamel. 

Stubb was a lover of music and Stubb's Bar-B-Q hosted "jam sessions" on Sunday nights that brought in music legends such as B.B. King, Willie Nelson, and Stevie Ray Vaughan to name a few. 

The song "The Great East Broadway Onion Championship of 1978" by country singer Tom T. Hall was written after a pool match at Stubb's Bar-B-Q. 

Another club by the name of Fat Dawg's was (at the time) located across from Texas Tech began to also hold a jam session on Sunday nights which tremendously impacted Stubb's business and eventual closure of his East Broadway location. 

In 1984 (a legendary year in my opinion 😄), Stubb relocated to Austin and was selling his barbecue and bottling his sauce at a blues place called "Antone's." 

The "tornado in my chest" got the best of Stubb and he passed away in 1995, five years after setting up "Stubb's Legendary Kitchen." 

Stubb's was inducted into the Austin Music Memorial in 2009. 

Stubb was also an 🪖 Army Veteran 🪖 and served in the Korean War. 

The Stubb's memorial titled, "Barbecue Beyond the Grave," is located where Stubb's Bar-B-Q was located at 108 East Broadway. 

Stubb's BBQ Sauce is sold WORLD wide. Stubb's Legendary Kitchen (now known as Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q) continues to sell the Original and Spicy barbecue sauce, as well as marinades, rubs, and other barbecue sauce flavors. The company, was purchased by McCormick & Co. Inc.
541. Marcus Eubanks (b: 1975), was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (Pulaski County). He attended Little Rock Central High School, the University of Central Arkansas, and the University of Arkansas Little Rock. Eubanks worked in the local broadcast industry in Arkansas and Tennessee for nearly two decades. Eubanks founded Resurgent TV, Incorporated, a streaming channel on the Roku platform dedicated to telling stories about the African American experience and for creatives to share their work with the world. Eubanks utilizes the platform to tell little-known African American stories in Arkansas. Eubanks was the first African-American videographer in Arkansas' local news industry to win an Emmy Award and the second African American man in Arkansas to win the prestigious award. His Emmy-winning story retold the tragedy of the Elaine Massacre.
542. THE WORLD'S FIRST ELECTRIC ROLLER COASTER
Granville T. Woods (April 23, 1856 – January 30, 1910) introduced the “Figure Eight,” the world's first electric roller coaster, in 1892 at Coney Island Amusement Park in New York. Woods patented the invention in 1893, and in 1901, he sold it to General Electric.

Woods was an American inventor who held more than 50 patents in the United States. He was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he concentrated most of his work on trains and streetcars.

In 1884, Woods received his first patent, for a steam boiler furnace, and in 1885, Woods patented an apparatus that was a combination of a telephone and a telegraph. The device, which he called "telegraphony", would allow a telegraph station to send voice and telegraph messages through Morse code over a single wire. He sold the rights to this device to the American Bell Telephone Company. 

In 1887, he patented the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, which allowed communications between train stations from moving trains by creating a magnetic field around a coiled wire under the train. Woods caught smallpox prior to patenting the technology, and Lucius Phelps patented it in 1884. In 1887, Woods used notes, sketches, and a working model of the invention to secure the patent. The invention was so successful that Woods began the Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to market and sell his patents. However, the company quickly became devoted to invention creation until it was dissolved in 1893.

Woods often had difficulties in enjoying his success as other inventors made claims to his devices. Thomas Edison later filed a claim to the ownership of this patent, stating that he had first created a similar telegraph and that he was entitled to the patent for the device. Woods was twice successful in defending himself, proving that there were no other devices upon which he could have depended or relied upon to make his device. After Thomas Edison's second defeat, he decided to offer Granville Woods a position with the Edison Company, but Woods declined.

In 1888, Woods manufactured a system of overhead electric conducting lines for railroads modeled after the system pioneered by Charles van Depoele, a famed inventor who had by then installed his electric railway system in thirteen United States cities.

Following the Great Blizzard of 1888, New York City Mayor Hugh J. Grant declared that all wires, many of which powered the above-ground rail system, had to be removed and buried, emphasizing the need for an underground system. Woods's patent built upon previous third rail systems, which were used for light rails, and increased the power for use on underground trains. His system relied on wire brushes to make connections with metallic terminal heads without exposing wires by installing electrical contactor rails. Once the train car had passed over, the wires were no longer live, reducing the risk of injury. It was successfully tested in February 1892 in Coney Island on the Figure Eight Roller Coaster.

In 1896, Woods created a system for controlling electrical lights in theaters, known as the "safety dimmer", which was economical, safe, and efficient, saving 40% of electricity use.

Woods is also sometimes credited with the invention of the air brake for trains in 1904; however, George Westinghouse patented the air brake almost 40 years prior, making Woods's contribution an improvement to the invention.

Woods died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Harlem Hospital in New York City on January 30, 1910, having sold a number of his devices to such companies as Westinghouse, General Electric, and American Engineering. Until 1975, his resting place was an unmarked grave, but historian M.A. Harris helped raise funds, persuading several of the corporations that used Woods's inventions to donate money to purchase a headstone. It was erected at St. Michael's Cemetery in Elmhurst, Queens.

LEGACY

▪Baltimore City Community College established the Granville T. Woods scholarship in memory of the inventor.

▪In 2004, the New York City Transit Authority organized an exhibition on Woods that utilized bus and train depots and an issue of four million MetroCards commemorating the inventor's achievements in pioneering the third rail.

▪In 2006, Woods was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

▪In April 2008, the corner of Stillwell and Mermaid Avenues in Coney Island was named Granville T. Woods Way.
543. Margaret Walker was born on July 7, 1915, in Birmingham, Alabama was a college student at the age of 15 when she begin writing poetry. She received a BA from Northwestern University in 1935 and an MA from the University of Iowa in 1940. In 1936 she joined the Federal Writers’ Project in Chicago, where she became friends with Richard Wright and joined his South Side Writers Group.
In 1941 Walker became the first African American poet to receive the Yale Younger Poets Prize, for her debut collection For My People (Yale University Press, 1942). She was also the author of the poetry collections This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems (University of Georgia Press, 1989), October Journey (Broadside Press, 1973), and Prophets for a New Day (Broadside Press, 1970).
Walker married Firnist Alexander in 1943, and together they had four children. In 1949 they moved to Mississippi, where she joined the faculty at Jackson State College. She returned to the University of Iowa for her doctoral studies and received a PhD in 1965. The following year, she published her dissertation as a novel, Jubilee (Houghton Mifflin, 1966).
In 1968 Walker founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People at Jackson State College. As director of the institute, which was later renamed the Margaret Walker Center, she organized the 1971 National Evaluative Conference on Black Studies and the 1973 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival.
After Walker retired from teaching in 1979, she published On Being Female, Black, and Free (University of Tennessee Press, 1997), a collection of personal essays, and Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius (Warner Books, 1988), a work of nonfiction informed by her friendship with Wright. Margaret Walker died of cancer on November 30, 1998, in Jackson, Mississippi.
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543. Celebrating Black History Month with pride! 🖤

👏 Gladys Bentley, a trailblazing gender-bending performer of the Harlem Renaissance, broke barriers in the 1930s.

Wearing a top hat and tuxedo, Bentley mesmerized Harlem at iconic spots like the Clam House and the Ubangi Club, leaving an indelible mark. In 2019, The New York Times recognized Bentley as "Harlem's most famous lesbian" of the era and one of the "best-known Black entertainers in the United States." 

🌟 Let's honor Bentley's legacy and continue to celebrate diversity and inclusion! #BlackHistoryMonth #Pride 🌈✊🏾
545. "Gloria Naylor (1950-2016) is best known for her beloved novels—The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, Bailey’s Café, The Men of Brewster Place, and 1996—but her aesthetic and intellectual projects encompassed a range of forms. She was also an essayist, a teacher, a film producer, a screenwriter and playwright, an active correspondent, and a teacher, scholar, and archivist of twentieth-century Black life." #BlackHistoryMonth2024
546. Shreveport native Charles Harrison invented the trash can & he also invented one of the best selling toys in the 90’s, the “View Master."
547. Best known as the father of modern free agency in baseball, Cardinals Hall of Famer Curt Flood cut his prolific playing career short to challenge the reserve clause and improve conditions for future generations of players.
548. Edwina Justus became the first Black female engineer on Union Pacific in 1976. Justus spent 22 years transporting materials to Colorado and Wyoming. In 2017, we were lucky to have Edwina speak here at the museum alongside Bonnie Leake, another groundbreaking woman in railroading, at our ‘Move Over, Sir: Woman Working on the Railroad’ exhibit.
549. The History Behind Black Folks' Love Of Cadillacs

One thing about Black folks – we love us a good Cadillac. Whether it’s your old-school uncle or your favorite play cousin, you can bet at least one member of your family adores this car. Here’s the history of our Cadillac love affair.Black people and Cadillacs may seem like a match made in heaven, but the company once gave us hell. Cadillacs hit the market in 1902 but wasn’t recognized as a luxury brand until 1909. It began targeting “prestige crowds,” meaning there was an unwritten rule that no dealership would sell Black people a Cadillac.Yet the cars were popular because they were excellent rides. Any Black person who wanted one had to buy one from a white person or pay a white person to purchase one on their behalf. So what changed?Cadillac took a hit during the Great Depression. The brand suffered so much that it was on the verge of closing down. But then came a crucial decision.In the 1930s, the company realized prestige wasn’t based on whiteness. It was based on green, and anyone who had the money for a Cadillac was sold one. And buy Cadillacs we did. Black celebrities, teachers, social workers, and others purchased so many Cadillacs, there’s an industry myth that Black folks kept the brand from closing and market research shows our dollars are still keeping the brand rolling as we prefer Cadillacs to other luxury cars.​​​​Cadillacs might be a luxury, but the real wealth in this story is what happens when we move collectively. Our unity is powerful. Anything we decide to make happen will happen.
550. Black History Contribution: 

The first African American to form and own the first and largest national women's basketball development league in US history.
 
The Women's Blue Chip Basketball League (WBCBL) was originally founded in November 2004 by Willie McCray Jr, with the assistance of co-founders Cortez Bond and Prentiss Broadway. The WBCBL provided former college players with top rate competition and exposure to professional scouts from around the world. The WBCBL also featured FIBA, former NWBL & WNBA players. The WBCBL was the first national women's development basketball league and the largest nationwide women's basketball league in North America, with a peak of 50 teams.

From 2004 to 2018, the WBCBL created hundreds of jobs across the North America and assisted in filling over 400 professional basketball jobs around the world.

In September 2018, WBCBL founder and president Willie McCray retired and handed off the day-to-day operations to William Kelly. The league was rebranded as the Women's Basketball Development Association (WBDA) and continues as a successful platform in professional development.

Currently, Mr. McCray manages McHaul it Transport, a commercial trucking company based in Conway, Arkansas and travels internationally as a sports league and team development consultant.
551. 💙🚾Who was Dandra Thomas?💙🚾

Born in Conway, Arkansas on April 24, 1976, Dandra Thomas, daughter of Danny and Sandra Thomas and mother of Breylin Smith, was in one word, unique.

As a Conway High School '94 graduate, Lady Cat basketball, volleyball, and track star, Dandra Thomas was one of the most multi-talented female athletes to ever compete in the state of Arkansas. 

Dandra's ninth grade basketball team at Conway began a 140-game winning streak, something that has not been equaled before or since. As a sophomore, she led her team to its first state final appearance. She became Conway High School's all-time leading female scorer with 1,279 points. She set the single season scoring record her junior year with 470 points. Dandra was a two-time All-State basketball player. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette named her the Female Athlete of the Year in 1993.  

Dandra paved the way for other girls who were undecided about playing two sports. When Conway began a junior high volleyball program, Dandra was in the eighth grade. She went on to be a great volleyball player at Conway High, earning All-State honors in volleyball. She proved that one could play and excel in both sports and continue to be a good student. 

After high school Dandra went on to play basketball for Oral Roberts University. She spent a short time there before transferring back home to the University of Central Arkansas where she would be a dual sport athlete, playing both basketball and volleyball for the university in her hometown. She earned a bachelors degree in communications from UCA and went on to work with her father in the State Farm Insurance business.  

Though Dandra Thomas is the most decorated Lady Cat in the school's history, perhaps she is remembered most for her gifts outside of athletics. Her larger-than-life personality and beautiful voice that would captivate any audience are the things that instantly captured the hearts of those who knew and loved her. It was not unusual for her to sing the National Anthem at a game before she would play. She was Conway High's Beauty Review Queen in 1993 and participated in other pageants where she showcased her many talents.

Dandra Thomas set the standard in many ways. Everything she did, she did well, almost effortlessly. Janet Taylor, Dandra's ninth grade basketball coach remarked "As a coach you aren't supposed to play favorites, but you couldn't help it with Dandra, who had so many talents and was such a unique and special person. She was one of those once-in-a-lifetime players who comes around in a coaching career."

Dandra Thomas truly was a "one-of-a kind" person. She achieved more in her short 27 years than many do in an average lifetime. Clearly, Dandra Thomas could never be considered average. She was unique.
552. #BlackHistoryHeroes We are continuing to celebrate #BlackHistoryMonth by honoring William Edward Burgardt Du Bois. Born in 1868, W.E.B. Du Bois was an American sociologist who founded the second department of sociology in the United States at Atlanta University. He made history in 1895 as the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University, going on to establish professional conferences and academic journals for research.
553. Wow Who Knew!

“Ella Fitzgerald made history as the first jazz artist and the first Black-American woman to perform at the halftime show. The performance, billed as a "Salute to Louis Armstrong," featured Fitzgerald and trumpeter Al Hirt delivering a rendition of Satchmo's classic "Mack the Knife."
554. “To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own.” — William Pickens (Yale Class of 1904)

William Pickens (1881 - 1954) was born in South Carolina. 
His parents were enslaved, and after being liberated, migrated to Arkansas while he was a young boy. Young Pickens worked in cotton fields and in sawmills while attending the local segregated public school. He entered Talladega College in 1898 and left 4 years later as most illustrious graduate in the school’s history.

In 1902, Pickens entered Yale University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa Society and won Yale's Henry James TenEyck Prize for public speaking. Pickens became an expert linguist and graduated from Yale in 1904 with a second BA in Classics. In 1905, Pickens married Minnie Cooper McAlpine and the couple had 3 children.

William Pickens returned to Talladega and taught foreign languages for the next decade. Beginning in 1914, he spent 2 years at Wiley College in Texas and then in 1916, became Dean of Academics at Morgan State University, an #HBCU in Baltimore.

While at Morgan State, Pickens helped Joel Spingarn organize the Louisville branch of the NAACP and prepare the case Buchannan v. Warley, concerning residential segregation.

Pickens left academia in 1920 to succeed James Weldon Johnson as NAACP field secretary, where he recruited new members and established new branches. As a contributing editor of the Associated Negro Press, the largest black news syndicate, Pickens helped publicize NAACP activities in his weekly articles that appeared in more than 100 newspapers. During his tenure (1920–1942) the number of NAACP branches grew to more than 350.

By 1941, Pickens left the NAACP and became an employee of the U.S. Treasury Department. He traveled across the country urging the sale of U.S. Savings Bonds.

William Pickens died in 1954 aboard the RMS Mauretania, taking a pleasure cruise with his wife off the coast of South America.
555. The Indiana Klan didn’t allow Black drivers at the Indy500, but Hoosier Charlie Wiggins had an unquenchable need for speed.

On August 7, 1926, he cruised to victory in the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes championship, a segregated auto race for African American drivers. 

Revving his engine in front of a thrilled crowd of 12,000 gathered at the Indiana State Fair Grounds, Wiggins took the lead in the 72nd lap. 

The crowd was amazed but few knew the full scope of Wiggins’ wild style genius. The ‘Negro Speed King’ was a master mechanic and self-taught fuel scientist. He could diagnose ailing engines just by listening to them, and his touch was magic.

His "Wiggins Special” was powered by his own premium blend of oil and airplane fuel. 

The Gold & Glory race itself was established by the Colored Speedway Association, a racially integrated automotive brain trust of five:

African-American business leaders: Harry Dunnigton, William Rucker, George Lemon, Earnest Jay Buffet, Alvin D. Smith; and two white businessmen, Harry A. Earl and Oscar E. Schilling.
The seven had come together in 1924 to sanction a national racing series for black drivers.

Wiggins was to go on to claim a trilogy of Gold & Glory wins, in 1931, 1932, and 1933.

Recounts race historian Tod Gould, Indycar driver Harry MacQuinn had asked Wiggins to loan him a car for a race in Louisville, Kentucky in 1928. 

"Charlie agreed, on the condition he drive the tuning runs at the speedway himself," Gould says. "When the white spectators in Louisville saw a black man driving, they mobbed the pits. Arrested for his own protection, Wiggins was charged with speeding.”
Indycar pilot Bill Cummings knew what Wiggins could do. In 1934, he hired him to tune his racing car for the 500.

By day, Wiggins swept floors and posed as a humble janitor.
At night, he overhauled Cummings’ car and made it purr like a kitten. He won and set a track record.

“During the 1936 Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, Wiggins was involved in a 13-car crash that nearly took his life. He lost his right leg and vision in one eye, ending his racing career. 

After designing and building his own wooden leg, Wiggins remained a mechanic and advocate for African American racing. He would also train other black mechanics for the rest of his life. Charlie Wiggins died in March 1979, at 82.”
556. Black History: Paul Revere did not Ride Alone.
Teach the truth!

Wentworth Cheswell (1746-1817): Few people have ever heard of Wentworth Cheswell, yet in 1775 he rode alongside Paul Revere to alert everyone that the British were coming. 

As the story goes, the two men eventually split off -- Cheswell rode north and Revere rode west. In addition to being a patriot, Cheswell was a respected schoolteacher, church leader, and historian. He also became America’s first black judge in 1768. That’s seven years before America won her independence!
557. Once the year was under way, Easter was the next day to look forward to, when slaves could dress in their finest to attend religious services and often had the following day off. Some slaves were given an hour or two every Sunday for religious observance; for the many who were not, Easter was an important ritual and celebration. Easter observance among slaves also fulfilled slaveholders' demands that slaves practice Christianity.”
 
Source: Holiday Celebration an Overview
558. Benjamin F. Hardy was an African-American custom motorcycle builder who made the Captain America and Billy choppers for the 1969 Peter Fonda road movie Easy Rider.

The Captain America bike, made from a then 20-year-old, heavily customized Harley-Davidson panhead is considered one of the most iconic motorcycles ever built.

Working with another Black motorcycle builder, coordinator Cliff Vaughs, Hardy built two 'Billy' bikes and three 'Captain Americas', one of which was destroyed in the making of the movie, the rest of which were stolen. Each bike had a backup to make sure that shooting could continue in case one of the old machines failed or got wrecked accidentally. The 'Billy' bike was typical of the custom motorcycles Black bikers were riding at the time.

Hardy and Vaughs remained largely unknown and uncredited for 25 years as they were not accepted due to being African-Americans, and were not welcomed into the mainstream motorcycle world in the USA.

Known locally as "Benny" and "King of Bikes" Ben Hardy's Motorcycle Service was located at 1168 E. Florence in Los Angeles. He was a mentor to many of the local motorcyclists in South Central, Los Angeles.

His work was featured in the “Black Chrome” exhibition at the California African American Museum.
559. The Oldest Black Church In North America
First African Baptist Church

First African Baptist Church (FABC) was organized in 1773 under the leadership of Reverend George Leile. The 1773 organization date for the church makes it clear that FABC is older than the United States (1776). In May of 1775 Rev. Leile was ordained as the pastor and December of 1777 the church was officially constituted as a body of organized believers. Four converts Rev. Andrew Bryan, his wife, Hannah Bryan, Kate Hogg, and Hagar Simpson would form a part of the nucleus of First African Baptist Church's early membership.
560. President Wilson Authorizes Segregation Within Federal Government
 
On April 11, 1913, recently inaugurated President Woodrow Wilson received Postmaster General Albert Burleson's plan to segregate the Railway Mail Service. Burleson reported that he found it “intolerable” that white and Black employees had to work together and share drinking glasses and washrooms. This sentiment was shared by others in Wilson's administration; William McAdoo, secretary of the treasury, argued that segregation was necessary “to remove the causes of complaint and irritation where white women have been forced unnecessarily to sit at desks with colored men.”

By the end of 1913, Black employees in several federal departments had been relegated to separate or screened-off work areas and segregated lavatories and lunchrooms. In addition to physical separation from white workers, Black employees were appointed to menial positions or reassigned to divisions slated for elimination. The government also began requiring photographs on civil service applications to better enable racial screening.

Although the plan was implemented by his subordinates, President Wilson defended racial segregation in his administration as in the best interest of Black workers. He maintained that harm was interjected into the issue only when Black people were told that segregation was humiliation. Meanwhile, segregation in federal employment was seen as a significant blow to Black Americans' rights and seemed to signify official presidential approval of Jim Crow policies in the South.

Segregated lavatory signs were eventually removed after backlash that included organized protests by the NAACP—but discriminatory customs persisted, and there was little concrete evidence of actual policy reversal. The federal government continued to require photographs on civil service applications until 1940.
561. Dr. William Conan Davis was the first Black man to recieve a PhD from the University of Idaho in 1965. He also co-created the formula for Dasani brand water for Coca-Cola.562. Did you know that Ethiopia is the only African nation that has never been colonized? 
Italy didn't want the smoke.
563. Several nations - including this one - had human zoos. 
564. The Crips are the only Blue Lives that matter to Black people. Before you dig up your blue flags, read their significance to the community:
565. Richard T. Greener was the first African-American professor at the University of South Carolina, serving during the Reconstruction Era, from 1873 through 1877. The University of South Carolina has placed a statue in his honor next to the Thomas Cooper Library.
 
Greener was the first African-American graduate of Harvard University. In addition to teaching philosophy, Latin, and Greek at USC, Greener served as librarian and helped to reorganize and catalog the library's holdings, which were in disarray after the Civil War. Greener was the only black professor at a southern university during Reconstruction and it would be decades before another black professor would be appointed at USC. 
While a faculty member at South Carolina, he also attended the School of Law. After leaving South Carolina, Greener served as dean of the Howard University School of Law, as a diplomat for the United States in Vladivostok, Russia, as secretary of the Grant Memorial, and he worked in private law practice. Greener was born Jan. 30, 1844 and died in 1922.
566. Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer. A multiple-recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, which is nicknamed the “Genius Grant”.
Even though Butler’s mother wanted her to become a secretary with a steady income, she continued to work at a series of temporary jobs, preferring the kind of mindless work that would allow her to get up at two or three in the morning to write. Success continued to elude her, as an absence of useful criticism led her to style her stories after the white-and-male-dominated science fiction she had grown up reading. She enrolled at California State University, Los Angeles, but then switched to taking writing courses through UCLA Extension.
Butler finally caught her break during the Open Door Workshop of the Screenwriters’ Guild of America, West, a program designed to mentor minority writers. Her writing impressed one of the Writers Guild teachers, noted science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who encouraged her to attend the six-week Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in Clarion, Pennsylvania. There she met the writer and later longtime friend Samuel R. Delany. She also sold her two first stories: “Child Finder” to Ellison, for his anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, and “Crossover” to Robin Scott Wilson, the director of Clarion, who published it as part of the 1971 Clarion anthology.
For the next five years, Butler worked on the series of novels that would later become known as the Patternist series: Patternmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind (1977), and Survivor (1978). In 1978, she was finally able to stop working at temporary jobs and live on her writing. She took a break from the Patternist series to research and write Kindred (1979), but went back to finish it by writing Wild Seed (1980) and Clay’s Ark (1984).
Butler’s rise to prominence began in 1984 when “Speech Sounds” won the Hugo Award for Short Story and, a year later, “Bloodchild” won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the meantime, Butler traveled to the Amazon rainforest and the Andes to do research for what would become the Xenogenesis trilogy: Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), and Imago (1989).
During the 1990s, Butler worked on the novels that solidified her fame as a writer: Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998). In 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, an award that came with a prize of $295,000.
In 1999, after the death of her mother, Butler moved to Lake Forest Park, Washington. The Parable of the Talents had won the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Science Novel and she had plans for four more Parable novels: Parable of the Trickster, Parable of the Teacher, Parable of Chaos, and Parable of Clay. However, after several failed attempts to begin The Parable of the Trickster, she decided to stop work in the series. In later interviews, Butler explained that the research and writing of the Parable novels had overwhelmed and depressed her, so she had shifted to composing something “lightweight” and “fun” instead. This became her last book, the science-fiction vampire novel Fledgling (2005).
567. Dizzy Gillespie, Trumpet Player, Singer, Songwriter (1917–1993)

Born on October 21, 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina, Dizzy Gillespie, known for his "swollen" cheeks and signature (uniquely angled) trumpet's bell, got his start in the mid-1930s by working in prominent swing bands, including those of Benny Carter and Charlie Barnet. He later created his own band and developed his own signature style, known as "bebop," and worked with musical greats like Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Earl Hines, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. Gillespie's best-known compositions include "Oop Bob Sh' Bam," "Groovin' High," "Salt Peanuts," "A Night in Tunisia" and "Johnny Come Lately." Gillespie died in New Jersey in 1993. Today, he is considered one of the most influential figures of jazz and bebop.
568. Blind Tom' Wiggins was an African American musical prodigy. Born blind, as an infant he Tom Wiggins was sold into slavery, along with the rest of his family. He also survived attempted murder as he had no economic value to his owners. 
However, Tom had access to a piano, and his talent for perceiving, remembering, and reproducing sounds was immediately apparent. Many historians also believe that Tom was on the autism spectrum, which could explain his extraordinary memory. He would go on to perform at concerts throughout the Americas and Europe.

—Thomas Greene Wiggins was born May 25, 1849 to Mungo and Charity Wiggins, enslaved on a Georgia plantation. He was blind and autistic but a musical genius with a phenomenal memory. In 1850 Tom, his parents, and two brothers were sold to James Neil Bethune, a lawyer and newspaper editor in Columbus, Georgia. Young Tom was fascinated by music and other sounds, and could pick out tunes on the piano by the age of four. He made his concert debut at eight, performing in Atlanta.

In 1858 Tom was hired out as a slave-musician, at a price of $15,000. In 1859, at the age of 10, he became the first African American performer to play at the White House when he gave a concert before President James Buchanan. His piano pieces “Oliver Galop” and “Virginia Polka” were published in 1860. During the Civil War he was back with his owner, raising funds for Confederate relief. By 1863 he played his own composition, “Battle of Manassas.” By 1865, 16-year-old Tom Wiggins, now “indentured” to James Bethune, could play difficult works of Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, and Thalberg. He also played pieces after one hearing, and memorized poems and text in foreign languages. Advertising claimed Tom was untaught, but in fact he was tutored by a Professor of Music who traveled with him.

James Neil Bethune took Tom Wiggins to Europe where he collected testimonials from music critics Ignaz Moscheles and Charles Halle, which were printed in a booklet “The Marvelous Musical Prodigy Blind Tom.” With these and other endorsements, Blind Tom Wiggins became an internationally recognized performer. By 1868 Tom and the Bethune family lived on a Virginia farm in the summer, while touring the United States and Canada the rest of the year, averaging $50,000 annually in concert revenue. James Bethune eventually lost custody of Tom to his late son’s ex-wife, Eliza Bethune. Charity Wiggins, Tom’s mother, was a party to the suit, but she did not win control of her son or his income.

Blind Tom Wiggins gave his last performance in 1905. He died three years later on June 13, 1908 at the age of 59 at his manager’s home in Hoboken, New Jersey.

569. Megan Piphus Peace became the first Black woman puppeteer on Sesame Street in 2020, and has played the role of Gabrielle, a 6-year-old Black girl Muppet, since 2021.

 Piphus has been a puppeteer since she was young, and was inspired by female performers at a puppetry conference.

 She has performed in Cincinnati and around the country, and has also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and America's Got Talent.
570. On this day in 1835, a mob of white citizens and a hundred yoke of oxen pulled a Black school to a swamp outside the town of Canaan, New Hampshire and fired cannons to the boarding homes of the black students.

—On August 10, 1835, nearly 500 white men destroyed the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, using 100 oxen to pull the schoolhouse off its foundation and drag it a mile down the road.

Noyes Academy was a new integrated school (the second in the country) founded by abolitionists with 28 white and 14 Black students.

The African American students, who came from all over the Northeast, traveled long distances in the face of adversity to get to the school. Students included future leaders of note such as Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummell.

Noyes Academy was a new integrated school (the second in the country) founded by abolitionists.

The African American students, who came from all over the Northeast, traveled long distances in the face of adversity to get to the school. Students included future leaders of note such as Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummell.

After destroying the school, the mob fired cannons into the homes where the African American students were boarding and threatened the students. Shots were exchanged which created a distraction for the Black students to escape out of town.

Despite attempts to repair and reopen the school, the structure was burnt to the ground three years later.
This serves as a lesson that American racism was not solely a Southern activity. Although Northerners were less overt, Black people were also subjected to the locals' bigotry. 
571. Ever wanted to know the difference between the house Negro and the field Negro? Malcolm X makes the clarification below: 
Malcolm describes the difference between the "house Negro" and the "field Negro."
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.

Transcribed text from audio excerpt. [read entire speech]

So you have two types of Negro. The old type and the new type. Most of you know the old type. When you read about him in history during slavery he was called "Uncle Tom." He was the house Negro. And during slavery you had two Negroes. You had the house Negro and the field Negro.

The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master. He wore his master's second-hand clothes. He ate food that his master left on the table. And he lived in his master's house--probably in the basement or the attic--but he still lived in the master's house.

So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his master said, "We have good food," the house Negro would say, "Yes, we have plenty of good food." "We" have plenty of good food. When the master said that "we have a fine home here," the house Negro said, "Yes, we have a fine home here." When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he'd say, "What's the matter boss, we sick?" His master's pain was his pain. And it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the master's house out than the master himself would.

But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The masses--the field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that he'd die. [Laughter] If his house caught on fire, they'd pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze.

If someone came to the house Negro and said, "Let's go, let's separate," naturally that Uncle Tom would say, "Go where? What could I do without boss? Where would I live? How would I dress? Who would look out for me?" That's the house Negro. But if you went to the field Negro and said, "Let's go, let's separate," he wouldn't even ask you where or how. He'd say, "Yes, let's go." And that one ended right there.

So now you have a twentieth-century-type of house Negro. A twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He's just as much an Uncle Tom today as Uncle Tom was 100 and 200 years ago. Only he's a modern Uncle Tom. That Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around. This Uncle Tom wears a top hat. He's sharp. He dresses just like you do. He speaks the same phraseology, the same language. He tries to speak it better than you do. He speaks with the same accents, same diction. And when you say, "your army," he says, "our army." He hasn't got anybody to defend him, but anytime you say "we" he says "we." "Our president," "our government," "our Senate," "our congressmen," "our this and our that." And he hasn't even got a seat in that "our" even at the end of the line. So this is the twentieth-century Negro. Whenever you say "you," the personal pronoun in the singular or in the plural, he uses it right along with you. When you say you're in trouble, he says, "Yes, we're in trouble."

But there's another kind of Black man on the scene. If you say you're in trouble, he says, "Yes, you're in trouble." [Laughter] He doesn't identify himself with your plight whatsoever. 
572. In 1958, inspired by the success in Wichita, Kansas, the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to challenge the all-white lunch counters.

Luper had spent a lifetime fighting segregation. When she attended the University of Oklahoma, she encountered separate restrooms, separation in the classrooms, separate sections in the cafeteria.
“In one class a professor told me he had never taught a n—– and had never wanted to,” she recalled. “I moved that wall by staying in his class and working so hard that at the end of the school term, he confessed his sins.”

On that day in 1958, she led the students into the Katz drugstore, where they sat down and ordered Cokes. They were refused service, and white customers jeered at them and called them names. Some coughed in their faces, and one child was knocked to the ground.

Despite the abuse, they remained nonviolent, and days later, Katz desegregated lunch counters. The protests spread to other restaurants, theaters, hotels and churches. She went on to lead campaigns for Black Americans to have equal banking rights, voting rights, job opportunities and housing.

In 1965, she joined the march in Selma, where Alabama troopers attacked the protesters with tear gas and billy clubs. She received a deep cut in her leg from the attack. A year later, she led a march to Lawton, Oklahoma, that ended with the city vowing to eliminate racial discrimination in all public places. In 1969, she worked with the striking sanitation workers, leading to better pay. In all, she was arrested 26 times for her civil rights protests.

In 1972, she unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate. Asked by reporters if she could represent white people, she replied, “I can represent White People, Black People, Red People, Yellow People, Brown People, and Polka Dot People. You see, I have lived long enough to know that people are people.”

Oklahoma City University gives scholarships each year in her name, aiding financially needy students. She wrote a memoir on the civil rights campaigns titled, “Behold the Walls,” and when she died in 2011, flags flew at half-staff in her honor. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and a street in Oklahoma City now bears her name.
573. Everyone knows about the Little Rock Nine, but what do you know about the North Little Rock Six? Keep reading to find out more of what happened on the Nawf.

The North Little Rock Six were six African American students who attempted to desegregate North Little Rock High School on September 9, 1957. Two years earlier, the North Little Rock School Board voted to begin integrating classes at the twelfth-grade level; however, after Arkansas governor Orval E. Faubus publicly stated opposition to the integration of Little Rock Central High School and summoned the Arkansas National Guard to the school on September 2, 1957, the directors of the North Little Rock School Board put a halt to their integration plan.

Seven seniors from the all-Black Scipio Jones High School initially registered to attend North Little Rock High for the 1957–58 school year, but only six students attempted to enroll. They were Richard Lindsey, Gerald Persons, Harold Smith, Eugene Hall, Frank Henderson, and William Henderson. The students were accompanied by four Black ministers: Fred D. Gipson, Daniel J. Webster, John H. Gipson, and Walter B. Banks. Although the North Little Rock School Board announced the decision to postpone “indefinitely” the integration of North Little Rock High on September 4, 1957, the students and the four ministers arrived on September 9 for the first day of school.

The six students were approached by ten white students at the front steps of the school. The white students pushed and shoved them away from the steps as forty to fifty white adults watched from across the street. (Among the white students was sophomore Jerry Wayne Jones, future owner of the Dallas Cowboys.) Principal George Miller and Superintendent F. Bruce Wright came out of the school and asked the six Black students to come inside to talk. The North Little Rock Six climbed the stairs again and reached the front door, but they were met by twenty to thirty white students blocking the entrance. The white students refused to move even after Superintendent Wright threatened them with no admittance to the school for the year. The six Black students were instructed by Wright to meet him at the school administration building at 28th and Popular streets for their conference.

North Little Rock (Pulaski County) police had been posted at the school since 6:00 a.m., many equipped with nightsticks to avert violence, but they were not instructed to prevent any Black students from entering the school. On the morning of September 9, 1957, there was no National Guard presence, although Mayor Almon C. Perry later suggested having the National Guard brought in due to the growing numbers of protesters. By noon on September 9, 1957, the crowd of segregationists had grown to around 200. Superintendent Wright told the Associated Press that he advised the six students to enroll in Scipio Jones High School, stating, “I don’t think integration will work at this time, judging from the temperament of the crowd.” The six students did not attempt again to desegregate the school.

Unlike the Little Rock Board of Education, which was under a federal court order to begin desegregating Little Rock Central High School as a result of a lawsuit brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), neither the North Little Rock School Board nor the six students and four ministers had communication with the NAACP. When contacted, Daisy Bates, the president of the Little Rock (Pulaski County) chapter of the NAACP, said she had not spoken with the students and had no prior knowledge of their intentions. A week later, Rev. Banks announced that the ministers and the parents of the students would be filing a lawsuit in the Federal District Court to force integration, but a suit was never filed, and by September 23, 1957, the students had enrolled at Scipio Jones High School.

The North Little Rock School District did not desegregate until September 3, 1964, when eight Black students were admitted at the all-white Clendenin and Riverside elementary schools. The North Little Rock Six did not receive recognition until September 9, 2007, when they were honored at a ceremony hosted by the City of North Little Rock and the North Little Rock–based nonprofit STAND Foundation. At a banquet on July 16, 2022, the Scipio A. Jones High School’s National Alumni Association honored the North Little Rock Six. In 2024, it was announced that North Little Rock’s 7th Street Elementary School would be changing its name to the North Little Rock 6 Academy of Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences to honor the North Little Rock Six.
574. For the alma mater - and one of the greatest Reddies to ever do it.

St. Louis Cardinals receiver Roy Green in action against the Philadelphia Eagles during the 1983 season. He starred as a rookie returning kicks, including a 106-yard return for a touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys, tying an NFL record. Green also played well at cornerback. In 1981, he stepped in as wide receiver part-time and managed to gain 708 yards on merely 33 catches, which equated to nearly 21.5 yards per catch. On September 20 against the Washington Redskins, he caught a touchdown pass and recorded an interception. This made him the first player since Eddie Sutton in 1957 to do both in the same game. Green did this twice more that year against the Dallas Cowboys and Washington.

* 2× First-team All-Pro (1983, 1984)
* 2× Pro Bowl (1983, 1984)
* NFL receiving yards leader (1984)
* NFL receiving touchdowns leader (1983)
* Arizona Cardinals Ring of Honor
575. The First Woman to Wear the Cowboys Cheerleaders Uniform
Vonciel Baker Still Holds the Record for Most Years on the Squad.
The Dallas Cowboys had had cheerleaders before 1972, including a group of high schoolers in bobby socks and pleated skirts who yelled “Charge!” However, they didn’t dance. In 1972, the high school girls were replaced with more athletic young women who could perform the new routines in the Texas heat. These talented and innovative performers could not wear traditional cheerleading uniforms, so a new look was needed.
Vonciel grew up in South Dallas, one of five children born to a single mother. Her mom Bertha has a fascinating tale: she lost her own mother to the Spanish flu in 1918, and later worked as a maid in the Texas town of Kilgore before moving to Dallas, where she helped build planes during World War II. After having children, Bertha opened the city’s first licensed Black day care in their home.
As a girl, Vonciel loved to watch those dancing shows on television like Shindig! and Hullabaloo. She would dance in the living room and dance in the bedroom she shared with her sister, and when her bedroom was occupied, she rode her bike to the park and danced there.
Dallas was slow to integrate, and Vonciel went to all-Black high school, where she tried out for cheerleader three times and didn’t make it. She joined ROTC instead. She loved the marching, the discipline, and the uniform. She went to Texas Lutheran University, where she tried out for cheerleader again, and became the first Black cheerleader in the college’s history.
Then in 1972, at the age of twenty, she heard a radio spot on the popular local station KVIL that said the Dallas Cowboys were holding auditions for a new kind of cheerleader. These cheerleaders would be more like dancers. A hundred young women showed up, but only seven burst onto the field that first day in August 1972. Vonciel was one of them.
After nearly half a century, Vonciel still holds the record for longest tenure in the squad’s history. She was on the squad for eight seasons, from 1972 to 1981, with a one-season break to have a son named Kinny. She was one of 7 other cheerleaders also known as "The Originals" during the Inaugural season that defined the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders as we know them today.
From interviews, she didn’t like to talk about her age. Some wondered if it had anything to do with a 1980 Dallas Morning News profile of her with the headline “The Oldest Living Cheerleader” (she was 28). Perhaps that wasn’t the title she wanted to hold.
She has another claim to fame. She was the first cheerleader ever to try on a uniform that would wind up in the Smithsonian.
Her sister Vanessa danced for 7 consecutive seasons and got the honor of receiving her Masters of Science degree on the Cowboys football field during a Cowboys/Broncos game in 1977. Both sisters were show group members where they got to travel the world performing on USO tours. They also made appearances at Super Bowls, graced the covers of magazines and appeared in movies and TV shows representing the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
These two sisters paved the way for future Black Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, proving that African American women can also serve as role models and ambassadors representing America's Sweethearts.
576. Black people couldn’t market their music because it wouldn’t sell due to r@c’sm. They had to use wh*te people on the cover of their albums as stand-ins. Eventually, because they had to collaborate with wh*tes, their music got rebranded as wh*te music, and the wh*te musicians get more play than the people they stole the music genre from. In reality, just like most popular music genres, country music in the U.S. began with Black People. More specifically, the story of country begins with the banjo. The modern-day banjo is a descendant of a West African instrument, made from gourds, called the Akonting. When enslaved persons were taken from Africa to America, their instruments came with them. For four hundred years, enslaved people created their own music, hymns, spirituals, and field songs—all with roots in African music. Accordingly, in the 1840s, the banjo was seen as an exclusively Black instrument; it was unheard of for a wh*te person to play the banjo.
Jimmie Rodgers, the fake father of country music worked with Black musicians, combined the blues, gospel, jazz, cowboy, and folk styles in his songs.