Hillarysworld

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

Hillarysworld Celebrates Black History Month

Sanders · Diamond

HMG, Thanks for starting the thread. I would love to read about Sojourner Truth, MLK and Rev.Jesse Jackson - I admire them greatly.

All positive stories would be great to hear. Sadness hopefully we can leave behind a bit. Thanks.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 13th of February 2010 08:01:17 PM

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

Sadness is part of our history its a large part but so is joy. Often with sadness comes intense joy.
Our sad history gave birth to "the blues" and gospel which gave birth to most of the Worlds music and especially American music.
Sadness will have to be included but I want this thread to celebrate the African American people from the middle passage to Barack Obama

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

http://hillarysworld-hillarysmygirl16.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-middle-passage-to-president-obama.html

For the month of Feb my blog will feature a new article written for Black History month. This week I featured how slavery formed the African American culture from cooking to music.

Eminence · Platinum

Before there was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., there was Jamaican national Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., whose beliefs inspired many to push forward the rights of blacks across the U.S. and the world. Founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, Marcus Garvey promoted business development and black pride in the era before the civil rights movement.

-- Edited by Eminence on Saturday 13th of February 2010 11:24:42 PM

Eminence · Platinum

Born in Trinidad, Pearl Primus was a dancer and choreographer who played an important role in the presentation of African dance to American audiences. She saw the need to promote African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance. Primus began perfoming in the early 40's. Her work was a reaction to myths of savagery and the lack of knowledge about African people. It was an effort to guide the Western world to view African dance as an important and dignified statement about another way of life.

-- Edited by Eminence on Saturday 13th of February 2010 11:25:25 PM

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

Harriet Tubman

Image donated by Corbis - Bettmann.

BIRTH DATE: c.1820. Because she was a slave, and owners did not record their slaves' birthdates, the exact date of Harriet's birth is unknown -- different accounts list 1820 or 1821.

BIRTH PLACE: Edward Brodas plantation near Bucktown, Dorchester County, Maryland.

EDUCATION: Because of her indentured status, Harriet was denied the opportunity for education -- leaving her illiterate her entire life. Slaveowners did not want their slaves to know how to read or write.

FAMILY BACKGROUND: Born into slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Harriet's ancestors had been brought to America in shackles from Africa during the first half of the 18th Century. Harriet was the 11th child born to Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene (slaves of Edward Brodas), her given name was Araminta and she was often called "Minty" as a child. But by the time she was an adult, she was calling herself Harriet.

As was the custom for many slaves, Harriet began working at an early age. When five years old, she was first sent away from home, "loaned out" to another plantation, checking muskrat traps in icy cold rivers. She quickly became too sick to work and was returned, malnourished and suffering from the cold exposure. Once she recovered, she was loaned out to another plantation, working as a nurse to the planter's infant child. By the age of 12, she was working as a field hand, plowing and hauling wood. At 13, while defending a fellow slave who tried to run away, her overseer struck her in the head with a two-pound weight. This resulted in recurring narcoleptic seizures, or sleeping spells, that plagued her the rest of her life.

In 1844, at about the age of 25, Harriet married John Tubman, a freeman. She gained permission to marry him from her owners and lived with him in his cabin, but she was required to continue working for her master. When Harriet told John of her dreams of one day gaining her freedom, he told her that she would never be free and, if she tried running away, he would turn her in. On one of her first return visits to Maryland, Harriet went to John's cabin in hopes of getting him to go north with her. She found that he had taken another wife. Later in 1869, she married Nelson Davis. She never had any children.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: The Biblical story of Exodus in which Moses freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Israel, saw repetition in the years before the Civil War when Harriet Tubman freed over 300 blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. For her commendable work she herself was nicknamed "Moses."

Despite the hardships inflicted upon her and the unfairness of them, Harriet used her labors for self discipline and set for herself the goal of escaping to the North. She accomplished this goal in 1849, when alone and on foot she ran away from the plantation in the middle of the night and followed the north star to free land in Pennsylvania. It came about after her master died and she heard rumors that she and two of her brothers were to be sold to a chain gang. Her brothers left with her, but became scared, deciding not to take the risk, and so returned to the plantation. She traveled only at night, until she knew she had crossed the border between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states. She later said:

"I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such a glory over everything ... and I felt like I was in heaven."

Harriet had bravely won her freedom, but realizing how alone she was, she made a vow that she would help her family and friends win their freedom as well. She went to Philadelphia, found work cooking, laundering and scrubbing, and saved money to finance rescue trips. She became involved with the city's large and active abolitionist (anti-slavery) organizations and with organizers of the Underground Railroad, a secret network through which slaves were helped in escaping from bondage in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.

Using the Wilmington, Delaware, home of Quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett (1789-1871) as a checkpoint, Harriet Tubman undertook some 20 hazardous missions in which she covertly journeyed down south, pinpointed slaves, and led them to freedom up north, at times going as far as Canada. In leading these flights, with a long rifle in hand, she warned her escapees that, if any of them even considered surrendering or returning, the penalty would be death. Her persuasiveness was evident in that never on any of her missions did she lose a "passenger" on the Underground Railroad. In addition to her nickname "Moses," for her bravery Harriet was dubbed "General" Tubman by the militant abolitionist John Brown, with whom she worked in Canada. William Still (who recorded activities of the Underground Railroad) described her as:

"a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South. Yet, in point of courage, shrewdness and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow-men ... she was without her equal."

Her name quickly spread throughout the slave quarters and abolitionist societies. All this angered the Southern slaveholders, who offered $40,000 for her capture. But Harriet always evaded slavecatchers and would not quit, even when her illiteracy nearly got her caught when she fell asleep under her own wanted poster. As for her family, Harriet successfully rescued her sister in 1850, her brother in 1851, her other three brothers in 1854, and her parents in 1857. For her parents, she purchased a home in Auburn, New York, from Senator William H. Seward of New York, an advocate of hers. In the 12 years from her escape in 1849 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad became the most dominant force of abolitionism.

Around 1858, Harriet teamed up with John Brown as he plotted a raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to raid the armory there, distribute weapons among slaves and instigate a rebellion. She helped him with fund-raising, and most likely would have participated in the raid had she not been ill. Even in one of her last interviews, in 1912, she referred to him as "my dearest friend."

During the Civil War (1861-1865), Harriet Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook, laundress, nurse, scout, and spy behind Confederate lines. In 1862, she moved to Beaufort, South Carolina (when it was occupied by the Union Army), and with several missionary teachers, helped hundreds of Sea Islander slaves transition from bondage to freedom. She also undertook scouting and spying missions, identifying potential targets for the Army, such as cotton stores and ammunition storage areas. The Boston Commonweath described her efforts in July 1863:

"Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 800 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed in to the enemies' country ... destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror to the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property."

In 1865, Harriet began caring for wounded black soldiers as the matron of the Colored Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. She continued helping others after the war. She raised money for freedmen's schools, helped destitute children and continued caring for her parents. In 1868, she transformed her family's home into the Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. She also lobbied for educational opportunities for freedmen. She believed she had been called by God to help her people, and once told an interviewer:

"Now do you suppose he wanted me to do this just for a day, or a week? No! the Lord who told me to take care of my people meant me to do it just so long as I live, and so I do what he told me to do."

Also in 1868, Harriet began working on her autobiography with Sarah Hopkins Bradford, a white schoolteacher in Auburn, New York. It was published in 1868, then later under a revised title in 1886 (see below). In 1869, Harriet married Nelson Davis, a Union veteran half her age who had been a boarder at her house. He died of tuberculosis in 1888.

© Jupiterimages Corporation
H. Tubman Still not finished, Harriet took up the suffragist cause. In 1896, she was a delegate to the National Association of Colored Women's first annual convention. She believed the right to vote was vital to preserving their freedom. Around the turn of the century, she bought 25 acres of land near her home with money raised through benefactors and speaking engagements, and made arrangements for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to take over the Home. She had worked closely with this church since the 1850s. Through it, she had come to befriend Frederick Douglass, who had briefly published his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, there.

In 1911, Harriet herself was welcomed into the Home. Upon hearing of her destitute condition, many women with whom she had worked in the NACW voted to provide her a lifelong monthly pension of $25. Living past ninety, Harriet Tubman died in Auburn on March 10, 1913. She was given a full military funeral and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery. The women of the NACW also paid the funeral costs and purchased a marble headstone. One year later, the city of Auburn commemorated her life with a memorial tablet at the front of the Cayuga County Courthouse. In 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt christened the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman, and in 1995 the U.S. Postal Service honored her life with a postage stamp.

DATE OF DEATH: March 10, 1913.

PLACE OF DEATH: Auburn, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

-----------------. The Underground Railroad: First Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North. NY: Prentice Hall, 1987.
Bradford, Sarah. Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. NY: Corinth Books, 1961. (Reprint of second edition originally published in 1886. First edition published in 1868 was titled "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.")
Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Little, Brown, 2004.
Commire, Anne, editor. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Conn.: Yorkin Publications, 1999-2000.
Humez, Jean. Harriet Tubman: The Life and Life Stories. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2003.
Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Schroeder, Alan. Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman. Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996.
Siebert, Wilbur H. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. NY: Macmillan, 1898.
Still, William. Still's Underground Rail Road Records, Revised Edition, With a Life of the Author. Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in their Effort for Freedom. Philadelphia, PA: William Still, Publisher, 1883.

WEB SITES:

The Harriet Tubman Home - Through New York History Net
Harriet Tubman Historical Society - Wilmington, Delaware
Harriet Ross Tubman Timeline - The African American History of Western New York
Harriet Tubman - Wikipedia
Harriet Tubman - Spartacus SchoolNet, including excerpts from her autobiography
Harriet Tubman : Moses of Her People - Women's History, About.Com
Harriet Tubman - Civil War Home
Harriet Tubman - Africans in America, PBS Series
The Underground Railroad - National Geographic Online
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad - Links found by a second grade class

QUOTE:

"There's two things I got a right to and these are Death and Liberty. If I could not have one, I would have the other."
-- Harriet Tubman

This page may be cited as:
Women in History. Harriet Tubman biography. Last Updated: 10/20/2010. Lakewood Public Library. Date accessed 2/13/2010 . http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/tubm-har.htm.

WOMEN IN HISTORY
P.O. Box 770682
Lakewood, OH 44107
216.228.4779 Phone or Fax
E-mail: women@womeninhistoryohio.com

Presented by Lakewood Public Library

Eminence · Platinum

In 1942, against overwhelming odds, Captain Hugh Mulzac became the first black merchant marine naval officer to command an integrated crew during World War II. Captain Mulzac was born in Union Island, St. Vincent. He earned his captain's rating in the merchant marine in 1918, but racial prejudice denied him the right to command a ship. He was offered the command of a ship with an all-black crew. He refused, declaring that "under no circumstances will I command a Jim Crow vessel." Twenty-two years passed before Mulzac would again receive an offer to command a naval ship. During World War II, his demand for an integrated crew was finally met, and he was put in command of the SS Booker T. Washington.

-- Edited by Eminence on Saturday 13th of February 2010 11:26:12 PM

Eminence · Platinum

Olaudah Equiano [2](c. 1745 – 31 March 1797),[1] also known as Gustavus Vassa, was one of the most prominent Africans involved in the British movement of the abolition for the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Despite his enslavement as a young man, he purchased his freedom and worked as a seaman, merchant and explorer in South America, the Caribbean, the Arctic, the American colonies and the United Kingdom.

Sanders · Diamond

HMG, great article. Thank you. Also liked reading more about Harriett Tubman. Thanks.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 13th of February 2010 11:22:01 PM

Eminence, Thank you!! Glad to learn.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 14th of February 2010 02:42:41 PM

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

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Sojourner Truth

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Sojourner Truth
An albumen silver print from approximately 1870 by Randall Studios
Born	Isabella Baumfree c. 1797 Swartekill, New York
Died	November 26, 1883 (aged 86) Battle Creek, Michigan
Occupation	Domestic servant, Abolitionist, Author
Parents	James and Elizabeth Baumfree

Sojourner Truth (1797 – November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

Early years

She was one of thirteen children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree, who were slaves of Colonel Hardenbergh. The Hardenbergh estate was in a hilly area called by the Dutch name Swartekill (just north of present-day Rifton), in the town of Esopus, New York, 95 miles north of New York City.^[1] After the colonel's death, ownership of the family slaves passed to his son, Charles Hardenbergh.^[2]

After the death of Charles Hardenbergh in 1806, Truth, known as Belle, was sold at an auction. She was about 9 years old and was included with a flock of sheep for $100 to John Neely, near Kingston, New York. Until she was sold, Truth spoke only Dutch.^[3] She suffered many hardships at the hands of Neely, whom she later described as cruel and harsh and who once beat her with a bundle of rods. Truth previously said Neely raped and beat her daily. Neely sold her in 1808, for $105, to Martinus Schryver of Port Ewen, a tavern keeper, who owned her for 18 months. Schryver sold her in 1810, for $175, to John Dumont of West Park, New York.^[4] Although this fourth owner was kindly disposed toward her, his wife found numerous ways to harass Truth and make her life more difficult.^[2]

Around 1815, Truth met and fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm. Robert's owner (Catlin) forbade the relationship; he did not want his slave to have children with a slave he did not own, because he would not own the children. Robert was savagely beaten and Truth never saw him again. Later, he died from the previous injuries.^[5] In 1817, Truth was forced by Dumont to marry an older slave named Thomas. She had five children: Diana (1815), fathered by Robert; and Thomas who died shortly after birth, Peter (1821), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (ca. 1826), fathered by Thomas.^[6]

Freedom

The state of New York began, in 1799, to legislate the abolition of slavery, although the process of emancipating New York slaves was not complete until July 4, 1827. Dumont had promised Truth freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if she would do well and be faithful." However, he changed his mind, claiming a hand injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated. She continued working until she felt she had done enough to satisfy her sense of obligation to him by spinning 100 pounds of wool.

Late in 1826, Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. She had to leave her other children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order until they had served as bound servants into their twenties.^[3] She later said:

“

I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.^[3]

”

She found her way to the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagener, who took her and her baby in. Isaac offered to buy her services for the remainder of the year (until the state's emancipation took effect), which Dumont accepted for $20.^[3] She lived there until the New York State Emancipation Act was approved a year later.

Truth learned that her son Peter, then 5 years old, had been sold illegally by Dumont to an owner in Alabama. With the help of the Van Wageners, she took the issue to court and, after months of legal proceedings, got back her son, who had been abused by his new owner.^[2] Truth became the first black woman to go to court against a white man and win the case.^{[citation needed]} See also Mum Bett

Truth had a life-changing religious experience during her stay with the Van Wageners, and became a devout Christian. In 1829 she moved with her son Peter to New York City, where she worked as a housekeeper for Elijah Pierson, a Christian Evangelist. In 1832, she met Robert Matthews, also known as Matthias Kingdom or Prophet Matthias, and went to work for him as a housekeeper.^[2] In a bizarre twist of fate, Elijah Pierson died, and Robert Matthews and Truth were accused of stealing from and poisoning him. Both were acquitted and Robert Matthews moved west.^[3]

In 1839, Truth's son Peter took a job on a whaling ship called the Zone of Nantucket. From 1840 to 1841, she received three letters from him, though in his third letter he told her he had sent five. When the ship returned to port in 1842, Peter was not on board and Truth never heard from him again.^[2]

"The Truth Calls Me"

On June 1, 1843, Truth changed her name to Sojourner Truth and told her friends, "The Spirit calls me, and I must go." She became a Methodist, and left to make her way traveling and preaching about abolition. In 1844, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. Founded by abolitionists, the organization supported women's rights and religious tolerance as well as pacifism. There were 210 members and they lived on 500 acres (2 km²), raising livestock, running a sawmill, a gristmill, and a silk factory. While there, Truth met William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. In 1846, the group disbanded, unable to support itself.^[3] In 1847, she went to work as a housekeeper for George Benson, the brother-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1849, she visited John Dumont before he moved west.^[2]

Truth started dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert, and in 1850 William Lloyd Garrison privately published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.^[3] That same year, she purchased a home in Northampton for $300, and spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts.

"Ain't I a Woman?"

Main article: Ain't I a Woman?

In 1851, Truth left Northampton to join George Thompson, an abolitionist and speaker. In May, she attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio where she delivered her famous speech later known as "Ain't I a Woman." The convention was organized by Hannah Tracy and Frances Dana Barker Gage, who both were present when Truth spoke. Different versions of Truth's words have been recorded, with the first one published a month later by Marius Robinson, a newspaper owner and editor who was in the audience. Robinson's recounting of the speech included no instance of the question "Ain't I a Woman?" Twelve years later in May 1863, Gage published another, very different, version. In it, Truth's speech pattern had characteristics of Southern slaves, and the speech included sentences and phrases that Robinson didn't report. Gage's version of the speech became the historic standard, and is known as "Ain't I a Woman?" because that question was repeated four times.^[7] Truth's own speech pattern was not Southern in nature, as she was born and raised in New York, and spoke only Dutch until she was nine years old.^[8]

In contrast to Robinson's report, Gage's 1863 version included Truth saying her 13 children were sold away from her into slavery. Truth is widely believed to have had five children, with one sold away, and was never known to boast more children.^[8] Gage's 1863 recollection of the convention conflicts with her own report directly after the convention: Gage wrote in 1851 that Akron in general and the press in particular were largely friendly to the woman's rights convention, but in 1863 she wrote that the convention leaders were fearful of the "mobbish" opponents.^[8] Other eyewitness reports of Truth's speech told a calm story, one where all faces were "beaming with joyous gladness" at the session where Truth spoke; that not "one discordant note" interrupted the harmony of the proceedings.^[8] In contemporary reports, Truth was warmly received by the convention-goers, the majority of whom were long-standing abolitionists, friendly to progressive ideas of race and civil rights.^[8] In Gage's 1863 version, Truth was met with hisses, with voices calling to prevent her from speaking.^[9]

Over the next decade, Truth spoke before dozens, perhaps hundreds, of audiences. From 1851 to 1853, Truth worked with Marius Robinson, the editor of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle, and traveled around that state speaking. In 1853, she spoke at a suffragist "mob convention" at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City; that year she also met Harriet Beecher Stowe.^[2] In 1856, she traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan, to speak to a group called the Friends of Human Progress. In 1858, someone interrupted a speech and accused her of being a man; Truth opened her blouse and revealed her breasts.^[2]^[3]

On a mission

Truth sold her home in Northampton in 1857 and bought a house in Harmonia, Michigan, just west of Battle Creek.^[3] According to the 1860 census, her household in Harmonia included her daughter, Elizabeth Banks (age 35), and her grandsons James Caldwell (misspelled as "Colvin"; age 16) and Sammy Banks (age 8).^[2]

Truth's carte de visite, which she sold to raise money (see inscription).

During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army. Her grandson, James Caldwell, enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. In 1864, Truth was employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C., where she worked diligently to improve conditions for African-Americans. In October of that year, she met President Abraham Lincoln.^[2] In 1865, while working at the Freedman's Hospital in Washington, Truth rode in the streetcars to help force their desegregation.^[2]

Truth is credited with writing a song, "The Valiant Soldiers", for the 1st Michigan Colored Regiment; it was said to be composed during the war and sung by her in Detroit and Washington, D.C. It is sung to the tune of "John Brown's Body" or "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".^[10] Although Truth claimed to have written the words, it has been disputed (see Marching Song of the First Arkansas).

In 1867, Truth moved from Harmonia to Battle Creek. In 1868, she traveled to western New York and visited with Amy Post, and continued traveling all over the East Coast. At a speaking engagement in Florence, Massachusetts, after she had just returned from a very tiring trip, when Truth was called upon to speak she stood up and said,

“

Children, I have come here like the rest of you, to hear what I have to say.^[11]

”

In 1870, Truth tried to secure land grants from the federal government to former slaves, a project she pursued for seven years without success. While in Washington, D.C., she had a meeting with President Ulysses S. Grant in the White House. In 1872, she returned to Battle Creek and tried to vote in the presidential election, but was turned away at the polling place.

Truth spoke about abolition, women's rights, prison reform, and preached to the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. Not everyone welcomed her preaching and lectures, but she had many friends and staunch support among many influential people at the time, including Amy Post, Parker Pillsbury, Frances Gage, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Laura Smith Haviland, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony."^[11]

Several days before Truth died, a reporter came from the Grand Rapids Eagle to interview her. "Her face was drawn and emaciated and she was apparently suffering great pain. Her eyes were very bright and mind alert although it was difficult for her to talk." ^[2] Truth died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, beside other family members.

Cultural references

1862 -- William Wetmore Story's statue, "The Libyan Sibyl", inspired by Sojourner Truth, won an award at the London World Exhibition.^[3]
1892—Albion artist Frank Courter is commissioned to paint the meeting between Truth and President Abraham Lincoln.^[2]
1981—Truth is inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.^[2]
1981—Feminist theorist and author bell hooks titles her first major work after Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech.

Sojourner Truth sculpture, detail Battle Creek, Michigan

1983—Truth is in the first group of women inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in Lansing.^[2]
1986 -- U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Sojourner Truth.^[2]^[12]
1997—The NASA Mars Pathfinder mission's robotic rover was named "Sojourner" after her.^[13]
1998 -- S.T. Writes Home appears on the web offering "Letters to Mom from Sojourner Truth," in which the Mars Pathfinder Rover at times echoes its namesake.
1999—The Broadway musical The Civil War includes Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman. On the 1999 cast recording, it was performed by Maya Angelou.
The leftist group the Sojourner Truth Organization is named after her.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America commemorates her as a renewer of society on March 10, with Harriet Tubman.
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Sojourner Truth on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[14]
2004 -- The King's College, located inside the Empire State Building in New York City, has a house system (modeled after Oxford University's), and each house is named after an influential leader. In 2004, they voted to name one of the houses 'The House of Sojourner Truth'.
She is commemorated in a monument of "Michigan Legal Milestones" erected by the State Bar of Michigan.^[15]
She is also commemorated together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer and Harriet Ross Tubman in the calendar of saints of the Episcopal Church on July 20.



People

Places

Events

Topics

Building 4112 · Moderator

Having been a part of the 60's and 70's feminist revolution, the three black women that had an influence in life was Flo Kennedy and Shirley Chisholm, and Merlie Evers. The only one I had never met face to face was Merlie Evers.

Flo Kennedy stole the show, was the first black woman to graduate from Columbia Law School, and she monitored society like no other before her. As a matter of fact she was decribed as the "Muhammad Ali" of the Women's Movement. There wasn't a time when she said something that I didn't smile, she absolutely was the real deal.

She was cofounder of the National Women's Political Caucus, early member of NOW, founded the national Femenist Party (which in 1971 nominated Rep. Shirley Chisholm, she being the first African American woman elected in congress). She stood for all women, not just
black women!

Here's a quote from Flo:
The first step for a malaria patient is not to get up and win, but to get up. Next time we will
WIN.

These three women were part of a new ERA for women, and their years of history & their
viewpoints should never be forgotten during Black History Month.

Sanders · Diamond

Bldg4112, Thanks for the leads.

===========================

Florynce Kennedy

Picture source: http://www.bombsite.com/issues/7/articles/333

Florynce Kennedy (11 February 1916 – 22 December 2000), was a U.S. lawyer, activist, civil rights advocate, and feminist.

Early life

Florynce Rae Kennedy was born in Kansas City to an African American family. Her father was a Pullman porter, and later had a taxi business. She had a happy childhood, full of support from her parents, though she was exposed to racism in her mostly white neighborhood, and experienced poverty in the depression. She graduated top of her high school class. After high school, she worked many jobs including owning a hat shop and operating elevators. After the death of her mother, Flo (as she was called) left Kansas for New York, moving to an apartment in Harlem with her sister Grace.

Of the move to New York she commented 'I really didn’t come here to go to school, but the schools were here, so I went.’ In 1942 she began classes at Columbia University. She majored in pre-law. However, when she applied to law school in 1948, she was refused admission. In her autobiography Flo says 'The Associate Dean Willis Reese, told me I had been rejected not because I was a Black but because I was a woman. So I wrote him a letter saying that whatever the reason was, it felt the same to me, and some of my more cynical friends thought I had been discriminated against because I was Black'.^[1] Flo met with the Dean and threatened to sue the school. They admitted her.

Activism

She graduated from law school in 1951. By 1954 she had opened her own office, doing matrimonial work, and some assigned criminal cases. She was a member of The Young Democrats. In 1956, she formed a legal partnership, which proved disastrous, and she was left with huge debts. Her partner had represented Billie Holiday, helping her avoid drug charges during her final days. Florynce then came to represent Holiday's estate, and also that of Charlie Parker. She made waves in her attempts to recover owed monies for these estates.

She worked as an activist for feminism and civil rights, and the law cases she took on increasingly tended to be related to these causes.

She often traveled with writer Gloria Steinem, talking to women in a speaking tour. If a man asked the pair if they were lesbians—a stereotype of feminists at the time—Flo would famously answer, "Are you my alternative?" She was an early member of the National Organisation for Women, but left then in 1970, dissatisfied with their approach to change. In 1971 she founded the Feminist Party, which nominated Shirley Chisholm for president. She also helped found the Women's Political Caucus.

She is known for her pro-choice activism on abortion, writing a book called Abortion Rap, and stating that "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." In 1972, Flo filed tax evasion charges with the IRS against the Catholic Church, saying that their pro-life campaign violated the separation of church and state.

On the side of civil rights, Flo established the Media Workshop in 1966 to picket and lobby the media over their representation of Black people. She stated that she would lead boycotts of major advertisers if they didn't feature black people in their ads. She attended all three Black Power conferences and represented H. Rap Brown and the Black Panthers.

Flo was known for her flamboyant dress (often in cowboy hats and pink sunglasses) and attitude. Once, to protest the lack of female bathrooms at Harvard, she led a mass urination on the grounds. When asked about this, she said "I'm just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me." In 1974, People magazine wrote that she was "The biggest, loudest and, indisputably, the rudest mouth on the battleground."

Acting

Besides her legal and activist work, she also acted in two films. In The Landlord (1970), she played Enid the Maid. In the independent political drama Born In Flames (1983), she played Zella (credited as "Flo Kennedy").

Later life and death

In 1976, she wrote an autobiography called Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times, which talked about her life and extensive career. At the end of her life, she was confined to a wheelchair. She died 21 December 2000, at the age of 84.

References

^ Kennedy, Florynce R. (1976) Color me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times, Prentice Hall, Englewood cliffs, New Jersey.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Florynce Kennedy

==================================================

	*Florynce Kennedy (1916-- )*
	*Civil and Women’s Rights Activist, Lawyer* “I’m just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I’m crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I’m not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren’t like me.” Florynce Kennedy

Page by Jennifer Otto, Fall 1999

Biography

February 11, 1916:	Born Florynce Rae Kennedy in Kansas City, Missouri, to Wiley and Zella Kennedy; 2nd daughter of 5
1934:	Graduates at the top of her class from Lincoln High School in Kansas City; works a variety of jobs including owning a hat shop, singing on a radio show, and operating an elevator.
1942:	Her mother dies; she moves to New York City to live with her sister Grayce
1944:	enrolls at Columbia University
1948:	graduates from Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in pre-law with an “A” average
1948:	applies for admission to Columbia Law School; institution initially rejects her; she argues that her denial was because of her race and threatened to fight it; the university changes its decision and admits her.
1951:	obtains law degree and works as a clerk in a law firm
1954:	establishes her own office
1957:	though not a strong supporter of marriage, marries Charles Dudley Dye; marriage quickly dissolves due to his alcoholism; no children were born to this marriage and Kennedy never remarries
1959-60:	begins to doubt law profession; felt the courts were racist and bigoted and that justice could never be found; “Not only was I not earning a decent living, there began to be a serious question in my mind whether practicing law could ever be an effective means of changing society or even of simple resistance to oppression. " —Florynce Kennedy, 1976 on her law profession
1960s:	begins political involvement
1966	founded the National Organization for Women (NOW)
1966:	creates the Media Workshop, the purpose of which was to fight discrimination in and through the media
1967:	Attends an anti-war convention in Montreal, became angry because they wouldn’t let Bobby Seale speak (radical who wanted to talk about racism, instead of limiting the discussion to the war), decides to take the platform and started protesting; as a result, she was invited to speak out in Washington (*marks the beginning of her speaking career)
1968:	protests with Radical Women (organized in 1967) at the Atlantic City Miss America pageant during which feminists were labeled “bra burners”
1971:	forms the Feminist Party whose first order of business was to support Shirley Chisholm as a presidential candidate
1972:	moves to San Francisco, CA
1972:	files complaint against the Catholic Church; she believed that the catholic church violated the tax-exempt requirements in that it spent money to influence political decisions, particularly those that dealt with the abortion issue; her complaint was that the church’s activities were unconstitutional in that they violated the basic principles of the first amendment regarding the separation of church and state and they denied the same type of equal protection under the law by denying tax-exempt status to groups who did less lobbying; nothing more is known about the outcome of this lawsuit
1975:	founded the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO); delivers speech at their first conference
1976:	co-authored one of the first books on abortion, Abortion Rap
1976:	autobiography is published, Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times 1976-today: still on the speaking scene

Key Points

Flo Kennedy had an extremely stable family life. Her parents were extremely proud and protective of their children. Kennedy and her sisters grew up feeling that they were precious and important and that authority and respect were earned, not granted. These morals helped her to demand respect and gain authority through her civil rights, feminist, and gay rights activism.

Flo had the knack of knowing what would get people’s attention, and was not afraid to do it, whatever it was. Eventually, developed reputation for being rude, outrageous, foul- mouthed, and effective.

Sources:

Carney Smith, Jesse. Notable Black American Women. Gale Research, Inc., Detroit, 1992.
Hire, Darlene. Black Women in America. Carlson Publishing, Inc., New York, 1993.

Sanders · Diamond

Shirley Chisholm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shirley Chisholm

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 12th district
In office January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1983
Preceded by	Edna F. Kelly
Succeeded by	Major R. Owens

Born	November 30, 1924(1924-11-30) Brooklyn, New York
Died	January 1, 2005 (aged 80) Daytona Beach, Florida
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	1) Conrad Chisholm (divorced) 2) Arthur Hardwick Jr. (widowed)

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author.^[1] She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress.^[2] On January 25, 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination (Margaret Chase Smith had previously run for the Republican presidential nomination).^[2] She received 152 first-ballot votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.^[2]^[3]

More . . . at Wikipedia

Sanders · Diamond

Myrlie Evers-Williams (1933 - ) (Age: 76)

Remember the past, work for the future, says Myrlie Evers-Williams

Perseverance, keeping your “eyes on the prize” and remaining true to the memory and ideals of those who worked so hard to ensure equal rights and justice for all were recurring themes of Myrlie Evers-Williams Jan. 23. As the keynote speaker for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Celebration and in a press conference beforehand, Evers-Williams discussed her life before and after the 1963 assassination of her husband, civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

After his death, she took up the mantle of leadership and worked tirelessly to bring justice to his killer, serve as the first woman head of the NAACP, raise a family and serve her community. She even ran for Congress, in 1969-70, at a time when only three or four other women were running nationally. That brought more criticism, for not staying in what society perceived as a woman’s place, to which she replied, “I have to work and I, too, want to build a better place for my children.”

She was naturally a shy person, she said, “but Medgar pushed me a lot to develop what he saw as my strengths.” That stood her in good stead when she had to go on alone, she said, despite her grief and sometimes near-despair. “My love for him kept me going,” she said. “Also, I felt that as long as I kept his name in front of the public he wouldn’t be forgotten—and maybe I was just ornery enough never to give up.”

Referring to the BGSU Gospel Choir’s rendition of the spiritual “I Can Make It,” Evers-Williams said it is important to keep believing that and to look for inspiration. She would like to see the remembrance of leaders like King and her husband be built into school curricula and community events year-round, both as encouragement and in their honor.

Remembering her reaction the day she saw a department store advertisement in a newspaper for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day sale—after the long struggle to get the states to adopt the holiday—she said wryly, “Well, now we’ve finally made it.”

Through a more intentional focus, “we need to continually link the past to young people so they can see the importance of what went before and where they need to go.

“I truly don’t believe the younger generation understands the sacrifices my generation made, and part of that is my generation’s decision not to put those sacrifices in front of them. We didn’t want them to see what might happen to them. And part of it was probably battle fatigue,” she added, recalling the harrowing events of life in the era of the civil rights struggle. “Now we need to give them a better sense of the history of what took place before Dr. King came into prominence.”

Finding sources of motivation to persevere and using innovation to surmount problems are required if one is to keep up a fight over the long term. There were times following the deaths of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, King and Malcolm X when she felt her hatred for her oppressors was what kept her going, she said, until a word from her young daughter reminded her of her husband’s admonition never to hate.

Then she remembered his words: “‘Myrlie,’ he said, ‘those you hate don’t know it, and those who do don’t care. You become the victim. Just live the best life you can for all humanity.’”

Shared leadership
Evers-Williams cautioned that it is unwise to look to one leader for inspiration or guidance. It is important to find the potential in many leaders, and to support one another in shared quests, she said. While the media seems to always want to identify a leader upon whom to focus, she encouraged her audience to work together for social justice.

Even King said “I can’t do this myself; I am not a movement unto myself,” she reminded the audience.

Sometimes it is difficult to see what has been achieved, she said. “You don’t always win what you think you have to win, but you always have to fight for what you believe in.”

Today’s problems call for different approaches than the marches and protests of the ’60s, she said. “Putting one’s body in front of hoses and police trucks—no. I don’t see the need for that anymore and I hope never to see that again. Today we’re much more sophisticated,” she said, mentioning technology and other communication tools as new ways to promote causes.

Today’s issues
Evers-Williams said she will not endorse a candidate in the presidential race, but is thrilled to see both a woman and a black man in the running, something that would have been unimaginable even five years ago. “It’s so exciting to have a choice. We haven’t always had that.”

However, she has been “deeply concerned about their safety from day one,” she said. “I keep them safely close to my heart and in my prayers.”

Another concern she expressed was “how in debt we are and how China owns so much of this nation. And we still say how rich we are and how smart we are. I think Dr. King would say ‘Wake up and be aware! Look into the past and learn from those lessons.’”

On an individual level, she said, “I want to see a sense of dignity and respect for oneself. How can you respect yourself when you are allowing yourself to be addressed disrespectfully?” Never would she allow herself to be called “Ho” or “whore,” she said, noting a current trend. “If someone called me that, I would have a hard time stopping my hand from striking them.”

Nor does she accept the use of “the N-word,” she said, “as affectionate or loving. People who use that don’t realize all the people who were beaten and who died because of the disrespect that word embodied.” Hearing that word, she said, she had to ask herself, “What was I born? I realized I was born as the N-word.” Then came the term Negro, then black (which had once been considered offensive itself), and now African-American. “I can live with any of those so long as it’s respectful because I know who I am.”

January 28, 2008

Source link to Bowling Green State University (BGSU.edu)
===============================================

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Myrlie Evers-Williams
Born	Myrlie Beasley March 17, 1933 (1933-03-17) (age 76) Vicksburg, Mississippi USA
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Black
Citizenship	American
Education	Alcorn A&M College Pomona College
Occupation	activist
Spouse(s)	Medgar Evers 1951–1963 (his death) Walter Williams 1975–1995 (his death)

Myrlie Evers-Williams (born March 17, 1933 in Vicksburg, Mississippi) née Myrlie Beasley is an American activist. She was the first full-time chairman of the NAACP and is the former widow of murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers. She met him when they were students at Alcorn A&M College in 1950. They married on December 24, 1951 and she left school before finishing her degree.

They moved to Mound Bayou where her husband sold insurance for Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights activist. She worked for Howard as a typist until the couple moved to Jackson in 1954.^[1]

She and Evers had three children before his murder. In 2001, their oldest son, Darrell Kenyatta Evers, died of colon cancer.[1] Their two surviving children are Reena Denise and James Van.

Evers-Williams went back to school after Evers' death and graduated from Pomona College, in 1968, with a degree in sociology. She served as director of consumer affairs for Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), where she developed the concept for the first corporate booklet on women in non-traditional jobs. This booklet, Women at ARCO, was in great demand throughout many printings and revisions.

She twice ran for congress from California's 24th congressional district. Both times (in a June 1970 special election and the general election later that November) she lost to Republican John Rousselot. In 1971 she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus.

In 1975, Evers-Williams married her second husband, Walter Williams. He died in 1995 of prostate cancer.

In 1987, Evers-Williams was the first African-American woman appointed to serve as commissioner on the Los Angeles Board of Public Works. Evers-Williams was chairman of the NAACP from 1995 to 1998. She is credited with spearheading the operations that restored the association to its original status as the premier civil rights organization in America. She is the author of For Us, the Living (1967) and Watch Me Fly: What I Learned On the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be (1999). In the best seller, I Dream A World: Black Women Who Changed America, Evers-Williams states that she "greets today and the future with open arms." Whoppie Goldberg played her in Ghosts of Mississippi.

More . . . from Wikipedia

=======================================

Captivating and tremendously positively energizing personality! Great judgment and guidance from her.

I am really impressed with this person. Got to read more on her.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 14th of February 2010 03:04:02 PM

Sanders · Diamond

Awesome article on Flo Kennedy

Source: Shakesville - shakespearessister.blogspot.com

"

Teaspoons

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, June 05, 2008

Shaker Betsy was recently looking through her copy of Sisterhood is Powerful, a collection originally published in 1970, and re-read Florynce Kennedy's essay, "Institutionalized Oppression vs. the Female," in which, as Betsy says, "She's trying to make the point that institutionalized oppression doesn't require active oppression by individual men (or whites); the system ensures that women and other groups stay subjugated," where she found this passage:

Just by nobody doing nothing the old bull**** mountain just grows and grows. Chocolate-covered, of course. We must take our little teaspoons and get to work. We can't wait for shovels."

That was written before I was even born. I've never read Kennedy's essay—but you can bet I'm going to now.

Here's a little bit about Kennedy from her obituary, with just an awesome picture of her (which I found separately).

Florynce Kennedy, a lawyer and political activist whose flamboyant attire and sometimes outrageous comments drew attention to her fierce struggle for civil rights and feminism, died on Thursday in her Manhattan apartment. She was 84.

…People magazine in 1974 called her "the biggest, loudest and, indisputably, the rudest mouth on the battleground where feminist activists and radical politics join in mostly common cause."

…In her autobiography [Color Me Flo: My Hard Life and Good Times (1976)], she wrote: "I'm just a loud-mouthed, middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing, and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stopped to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me."

Right on.

"

A confident woman comfortable with her cause. I love this part of her quote from her obituary:
I never stopped to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 14th of February 2010 03:31:10 PM

===================

Look what I found!

Source: Ain't I A Woman

She's got spunk!

-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 14th of February 2010 03:33:00 PM

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

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Betty Shabazz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

Betty Shabazz
Born	Betty Dean Sanders May 28, 1934(1934-05-28) Pinehurst, Ga. or Detroit, Mich., U.S.
Died	June 23, 1997 (aged 63) The Bronx, N.Y., U.S.
Other names	Betty X
Religion	Sunni Islam
Spouse(s)	Malcolm X

Betty Shabazz (born Betty Dean Sanders, May 28, 1934^[1] – June 23, 1997), also known as Betty X, was the wife of Malcolm X.

[edit] Early years

Betty Dean Sanders was born on May 28, 1934, to Ollie May Sanders and Shelman Sandlin. Sandlin was 21 years old and Ollie May Sanders was a teenager; the couple was unmarried. Throughout her life, Betty Sanders maintained that she had been born in Detroit, Michigan, but early records—such as her high-school and college transcripts—show Pinehurst, Georgia, as her place of birth. Neither Georgia nor Michigan can locate her birth certificate.^[2]

By most accounts, Ollie May Sanders neglected or abused Betty Sanders, whom she was raising in Detroit. When Betty was about 11 years old, she was taken in by Lorenzo and Helen Malloy, a prominent businessman and his wife. Helen Malloy was a founding member of the Housewives League of Detroit, a group of African-American women who organized campaigns to support black-owned businesses and boycott stores that refused to hire black employees.^[3]

[edit] Young adult years

After high school, Sanders left her foster parents' comfortable home in Detroit to study at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) , an historically black college in Alabama. It was in Alabama that she first encountered racism. Sanders did not understand the causes for the racial issues, and her parents refused to acknowledge these issues. In an autobiographical essay she wrote in 1992, Betty Shabazz said her parents thought the problems were her fault.

To escape Southern racism, Sanders moved to New York City, where she enrolled as a nursing student at the Brooklyn State Hospital School of Nursing. While she was in nursing school, a friend of hers invited Sanders to hear Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X from the Nation of Islam speak at a Muslim temple in Harlem. According to the 1992 essay, Sanders' initial reaction to the Muslim meeting was that it was "no big deal".

But then, I looked over and saw this man on the extreme right aisle sort of galloping to the podium. He was tall, he was thin, and the way he was galloping it looked as though he was going someplace much more important than the podium.... Well, he got to the podium and I sat up straight. I was impressed with him.

After the meeting, Sanders and Malcolm X discussed the racism she encountered in Alabama, and she began to understand its causes, pervasiveness, and effects. Soon, Betty was attending all of Malcolm X's lectures. By the time she graduated from nursing school in 1958, Sanders had become a member of the Nation of Islam. Like many members of the Nation of Islam, she changed her surname to "X", which represented the African family name she could never know.

[edit] Marriage and family

On January 14, 1958, Betty X married Malcolm X in Lansing, Michigan.^[4] Although they had never discussed the subject, Betty suspected that Malcolm was interested in marriage. One day, he called and asked her to marry him.^[5]

The couple had six daughters. Their names were Attallah, born in 1958 and named after Attila the Hun;^[6] Qubilah, born in 1960 and named after Kublai Khan;^[7] Ilyasah, born in 1962 and named after Elijah Muhammad;^[8] Gamilah Lumumba, born in 1964 and named after Patrice Lumumba;^[9] and twins, Malaak and Malikah, born in 1965 after their father's assassination and named for him.^[10]

[edit] Leaving the Nation of Islam

In March 1964, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam. Betty also left the Nation and along with Malcolm became a Sunni Muslim.

[edit] Assassination of Malcolm X

On February 21, 1965, in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X began to speak to a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400.^[11] As Malcolm X and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun.^[12] Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns, hitting him 16 times.^[13]

Shabazz was in the audience near the stage with her daughters. When she heard the gunfire, she grabbed the children and pushed them to the floor beneath the bench, where she shielded them with her body. When the shooting stopped, Shabazz ran toward her husband and tried to perform CPR. Police officers and Malcolm X's associates carried him to a stretcher and brought him to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.^[14]

Angry onlookers caught and beat one of the assassins, who was arrested on the scene.^[15]^[16] Eyewitnesses identified two more suspects. All three men, who were members of the Nation of Islam, were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.^[17]

After the assassination of Malcolm X, actor and activist Ruby Dee and Juanita Poitier (wife of Sidney Poitier) established the Committee of Concerned Mothers to raise funds to buy a house and pay educational expenses for the Shabazz family.^[18] They bought a large home in Mount Vernon, New York. In her book, Growing Up X, Ilyasah Shabazz wrote that Betty Shabazz worked very hard to ensure that her daughters were well provided for. They led sheltered, comfortable, upper class lives, complete with the luxury of housekeepers, chauffeured cars, exclusive social clubs, and expensive, predominantly white private schools, private tutors and summer camps.

[edit] Pilgrimage to Mecca

After her husband's assassination, Shabazz decided to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. In a 1992 autobiographical essay, Shabazz wrote:

I really don't know where I'd be today if I had not gone to Mecca to make Hajj shortly after Malcolm was assassinated. And that is what helped put me back on track. I remembered one of the things Malcolm always said to me is, "Don't be bitter. Remember Lot's wife when they kill me, and they surely will. You have to use all of your energy to do what it is you have to do."

[edit] Advanced education

After she completed her pilgrimage, Shabazz—who was already trained as a nurse—enrolled in Jersey City State College, where she earned a M.A. in public health education in 1970. In 1975, she received a Ph.D. in education administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Shabazz was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

[edit] Social work

In 1976, Shabazz worked at New York's Medgar Evers College as an assistant professor. She taught health sciences and then became head of public relations at Medgar Evers College. She traveled widely, speaking on topics such as civil rights and racial tolerance. She became a great advocate for the goal of self-determination for African Americans. She also served on many boards, including the African-American Foundation, the Women's Service League and the Day Care Council of Westchester County, New York.

[edit] Public reconciliation with Farrakhan

In 1994, Shabazz spoke out for the first time against the Nation of Islam and linked its current leader, Louis Farrakhan, to Malcolm X's assassination. Farrakhan denied the allegations. He blamed the turbulent and racially hostile atmosphere of the 1960s as the root causes for Malcolm's death.

In January 1995, Betty and Malcolm X's daughter Qubilah Shabazz were charged in Minneapolis with trying to hire an assassin to murder Farrakhan in retaliation for the murder of her father. The assassin turned out to be a government informant. Farrakhan surprised everyone by defending Qubilah. He claimed that she had been manipulated by government agents who wanted to breed ill feelings within the Nation of Islam and throughout the African American community. In May 1995, Shabazz eventually reconciled with Farrakhan, shaking his hand on the stage of Harlem's Apollo Theater at a fundraiser for her daughter's defense. The fundraiser had been arranged by Farrakhan to help pay for Qubilah's legal fees. Betty Shabazz spoke at Farrakhan's Million Man March in October 1995.

Qubilah was not imprisoned for her plot to assassinate Farrakhan. However, she was required to undergo psychological counseling and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse for a two-year period. During this period, Qubilah's 12-year-old son, Malcolm, was sent to live with Shabazz at her apartment in Yonkers, New York.

[edit] Death

On June 1, 1997, Shabazz's grandson, Malcolm, set fire to her apartment. Shabazz suffered burns over 80 percent of her body and remained in intensive care for three weeks at the Jacobi Medical Center in The Bronx, New York.^[19]^[20] She underwent five skin-replacement operations as doctors struggled to replace damaged skin and save her life.^[21]^[22]^[23] Shabazz died of her injuries on June 23, 1997.^[24]

Police arrested Malcolm Shabazz within hours of the fire being started and accused him of setting the blaze.^[25] He was sentenced to eighteen months in juvenile detention for manslaughter.

At the time of her death, Shabazz headed the Office of Institutional Advancement and Public Relations at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn (part of the City University of New York).

More than 2,000 mourners attended a memorial service for Shabazz at New York's Riverside Church. Many prominent leaders were present, including civil rights activists Coretta Scott King and Myrlie Evers-Williams, poet Maya Angelou, actor-activists Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, New York Governor George Pataki, and four New York City mayors—Abraham Beame, Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani. U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman delivered a tribute from President Bill Clinton. In a statement released after Shabazz's death, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said, "She never stopped giving and she never became cynical. She leaves today the legacy of one who epitomized hope and healing."

Shabazz's funeral service was held at the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City. Her public viewing was at the Unity Funeral Home in Harlem, the same place where Malcolm X's viewing took place 32 years earlier. Shabazz was buried next to her husband, Malcolm X, at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.^[26]

There is a large mosque in Harlem named after Shabazz.

I chose Dr. Shabazz because she endured a lot. She went on to keep the memory of Malcom X alive to the people who needed to hear his message
Sadly she was murdered by her own troubled grandson. Malcom's murder having affected his mother and then him.
She encouraged our young people to get an education.

Building 4112 · Moderator

Thank you Sanders, and everyone else contributiing...........I actually shed tears today, thinking of Flo and thinking about the n word........how well I remember, and those tears, I just feel like so many of us are to blame for what happened only 40 years ago..........I can see Shirley in a meetiing, and I can hear her organizing for the black students killed at Ms. State. And I remember I was dressed in an Irish Linen Dress, black in mourning those students.
I remember the horror Merlie lived through..............horrific to say the least.

Then I walk outside that meeting in DC, and there is my friend Dennis Banks and the entire Indian Nation on the March. The years have gone by, and but our friends continue to speak from their grave yards now, and I still hear them.

-- Edited by Building 4112 on Monday 15th of February 2010 01:50:38 AM

Building 4112 · Moderator

One more story about Flo........Back in early '70's Margo St. James organized a group
called COYOTE...........the cause was to decriminalize prostitution. I was a member,
and I was known then as the Fiesty Doberman. I'm telling you that the Holloween Party
that was put on in Bay Area was something to be a part of, people came from all over,
we had a damn good time.

Flo couldn't help it, anytime she made an entry or an exit everybody was in tune to her, she
always but always stole the show.

Alex · Diamond

Wow, I hadn't seen this thread! I'm sorry to say I rarely look at the stickies.

This woman is amazing:

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

No Black History thread is complete without Dr. Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Hillarysmygirl16 · Administrator

Here is my blog's part 2 of my Black History month celebration.
http://hillarysworld-hillarysmygirl16.blogspot.com/2010/02/black-history-month-part-ii.html

This article covers one of the most violent eras as far as race relations go. The black folks were no longer slaves and valuable so their lives became less important. This is the time that the KKK and other groups began terrorizing the black people in the South.
This article also covers the Great Migration. Between 1914 and 1950 Millions of African Americans left the South to escape Jim Crow. They moved to the North and began working. They also helped their families to escape the south.
My Ansestors immagrated from Maryland/Baltimore/DC on one side and the other side of my family immigrated from North Carolina.

Hillarysworld

Sojourner Truth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Early years

Freedom

"The Truth Calls Me"

"Ain't I a Woman?"

On a mission

Cultural references

Bldg4112, Thanks for the leads.

Florynce Kennedy

Early life

Activism

Acting

Later life and death

References

External links

Shirley Chisholm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Myrlie Evers-Williams (1933 - ) (Age: 76)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"

Teaspoons

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Betty Shabazz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Early years

[edit] Young adult years

[edit] Marriage and family

[edit] Leaving the Nation of Islam

[edit] Assassination of Malcolm X

[edit] Pilgrimage to Mecca

[edit] Advanced education

[edit] Social work

[edit] Public reconciliation with Farrakhan

[edit] Death