Never Forget Albert Einstein Taught at HBCUs

Nothing to see here, just Einstein teaching at a black college.

Turns out one of the smartest dudes in history was woke as fuck. Used to say shit like "The separation of races is not a disease of colored people but a disease of white people. I do not intend to be quiet about it."

He even refused to speak at white universities and pretty much exclusively went to black colleges at the end of his career.

These are the parts of history they don't tell you. They try to erase the fact that we are still fighting the same fight. ✊🏿

Always Feared By Colonizers

He was declined the use of a toilet in South Carolina when he returned from the war defending Jews from Hitler in his uniform! Read that again:  He could not use the toilet! 

February 12, 1946 – Isaac Woodard Jr., African American World War 2 veteran decorated for courage under fire during service in the Pacific, is beaten by South Carolina police until he’s blind – just hours after his honorary discharge from the military. While covered up at first, his case soon became widely known and sparked national outrage, creating an initial spark for the 1950s-60s civil rights and Black freedom movement. While he was still in military uniform on a Greyhound bus from Camp Gordon in Augusta, GA en route to his home, the bus driver cursed Woodard for asking to stop to use the restroom, then pulled the bus over at the next stop and called the police. The Batesburg, SC police beat him, then jailed him and beat him some more to the point of blindness. South Carolina authorities did nothing for 7 months, until Orson Welles, Joe Louis, Count Basie and others started a public outcry.

Woody Guthrie wrote the song, “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard".

Memphis Minnie

During Women's History Month, let us take a page and learn of Memphis Minnie.

Lizzie Douglas, known as Memphis Minnie. Born June 3, 1897 in Mississippi, however she claimed to have been in Algiers (a community in New Orleans), Louisiana but according to Census information she was born in Mississippi.

Regardless of where she was born, Memphis Minnie, the “Queen of the Country Blues” grew up in Walls, Mississippi in DeSoto County. She learned how to play the banjo at ten years old and the guitar a year later.

When she was thirteen years old she ran away from home to Memphis, Tennessee to live on Beale Street where she would sing on street corners for most of her teenage years.

In 1916 she would go on to tour the South with the Ringling Brothers Circus until 1920, when she returned back to Beale Street, Memphis which at the time had a thriving blues scene, where she would sing and play the blues (as well as being a member of the Memphis Jug Band) until she began performing with her second husband, Wilbur “Kansas Joe” McCoy in 1929.

She and him were discovered by Columbia Records while performing in front of a barber shop and she recorded her first song “Bumble Bee” (also known as “Bumble Bee Blues”) under the Columbia label.

The couple moved to Chicago, where Memphis Minnie lived for twenty-five years, often playing lead guitar in bands while standing, which was uncommon for guitarist to do at the time, as many of them performed while sitting.

It is also noted that Memphis Minnie was one of the first artists to use an electric guitar, in 1943, a year before Muddy Waters would do so and popularize it.

Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe would perform together for Columbia, Vocalion Records, and Decca until their divorce in 1935.

In 1940 Memphis Minnie recorded another hit, “Nothing in Rambling” and in 1941 Memphis Minnie recorded arguably her biggest hit “Me and My Chauffeur Blues” both under the Okeh label. Because of how the record labels work especially towards African-American artists, Memphis Minnie was never able to reap the financial benefits of her music and she and her third husband, Ernest Lawlars “Little Joe Son” moved back to Memphis, Tennessee in 1958 where they lived in poverty with the both of them performing at local venues, including the Red Light in Millington, with Little Joe Son playing drums for Memphis Minnie’s final recording session in 1959.

Little Joe Son died in Memphis, Tennessee on November 14, 1961 and Memphis Minnie died August 6, 1973. Both are buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi.

However, Memphis Minnie left a legacy that many people today are aware of, or even if someone is not aware of her name, they have heard her songs. Having written and released nearly 200 songs (the estimate is around 180), her songs influenced later artists such as Big Mama Thornton, Jo Ann Kelly, and Erin Harpe. 

“Can I Do it For You” was recorded by Donovan in 1965, Jefferson Airplane covered “Me and My Chauffeur Blues” in 1966, a 1971 cover version of “When the Levee Breaks” was recorded by Led Zeppelin, and Alabama Shakes covered “Killer Diller Blues” for the 2017 film “The American Epic Sessions.”

Memphis Minnie was among the first class inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, in 2007 she was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Walls, and in 2012 Memphis Minnie was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.

On a side note: as far as music historians know, every recording Memphis Minnie has done is still available.

Memphis, For the Culture

Memphis has always been one of the Blackest cities in America.

If you have ever been to Beale Street in Memphis, I am sure you came across the King’s Palace Absinthe Room, a place I cannot recommend enough. But did you know that the location used to be home of the Hooks Brothers Photography Studio?

Why is this such a big deal, you might ask.

Well from 1907 (founded by brothers Henry Hooks, Sr. and Robert B. Hooks) to 1979, Hooks Brothers Photography was the second oldest continuously operating Black business in Memphis.

Prior to their move to Linden Avenue, and finally McLemore (before a fire ended the business), you could find many Black Memphians getting their photographs taken on 164 Beale Street.

The Hooks Brothers took the only studio portrait, or at least one of the only ones, of blues legend Robert Johnson.

Hooks Brothers also photographed Booker T. Washington, W. C. Handy, and Robert R. Church. They also covered the “beginning days of the Memphis NAACP, the Lincoln League, early high school and college graduating classes from Howe Institute, LeMoyne College and many other activities of black society and ordinary people.” (You can find that information on the reverse side of the historical marker in front of 164 Beale).

This is among one of the many historical markers and places in Memphis, the Mid-South, and the Mississippi Blues Heritage Trail I advise you to check out.

The Black Panther Party Fed the Community

This is not one of those talking points that the news media and racist wypipo (and the bootlicking house negroes) can use to minimize the original movement. 

In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale created the Black Panther Party for Self Defense to address police oppression of blacks in Oakland, California.  Because community members also turned to the Panthers for help with economic and social problems like job discrimination and evictions, the Panthers started community services in 1969 to build community self-determination.  The Panthers’ first and most successful community program was the Free Breakfast for Children Program.

The Panthers started the Free Breakfast Program because hunger and poverty made it difficult for many poor black children to learn in school.  In 1968, most poor children went to school hungry and stayed hungry.  The national School Lunch Program provided reduced-price, but not free lunches for poor children, and the national School Breakfast Program was limited to a few rural schools.  To address this need, the Panthers initiated the Free Breakfast Program at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland in January 1969.  Bobby Seale planned the program with Father Earl Neil and Parishioner Ruth Beckford-Smith, who coordinated the program and recruited neighborhood mothers.  The Breakfast Program quickly spread to chapters in 23 cities by the end of the year.  Local businesses, churches and community-based organizations donated (sometimes with community pressure) space for the program and nutritious food like eggs, grits, toast, and milk.  The Panthers fed more than 20,000 children nationally in 1969.  By 1971, at least 36 cities had a breakfast program.  In a 1969 U.S. Senate hearing, the national School Lunch Program administrator admitted that the Panthers fed more poor school children than did the State of California.