Author: Champion One

26Jun

June 26 1956- Bernard Anthony Harris Jr.

GM – FBF – As a baby boomer, I remember President John F. Kennedy telling the world that American will be on the moon by the end of the decade and we were on July 20, 1969. This morning let me tell you the story of the first Black man to take a walk in space. Enjoy!

Remember – “To be considered a part of the NASA team was one of the most thrilling events of my life” – Bernard A. Harris Jr.

Today in our History – June 26, 1956 – Bernard Anthony Harris Jr. is born and will grow up loving space exploration.

Bernard Anthony Harris Jr.in Temple, Texas is a former NASA astronaut.

On February 9, 1995, Harris became the first African American to perform an extra-vehicular activity (spacewalk), during the second of his two Space Shuttle flights.
Harris first became interested in being an astronaut watching the Apollo 11 mission on TV in 1969. Selected by NASA in January 1990, Harris became an astronaut in July 1991, and qualified for assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews.

He served as the crew representative for Shuttle Software in the Astronaut Office Operations Development Branch. Harris was assigned as a mission specialist on STS-55, Spacelab D-2, in August 1991. He flew on board Columbia for ten days, (26 April 1993 – 6 May 1993); on the mission the Shuttle reached one year of accumulated flight time. Harris was part of the payload crew of Spacelab D-2, conducting a variety of research in physical and life sciences. During this flight, Harris logged over 239 hours and 4,164,183 miles in space.

His second mission was as the Payload Commander on STS-63 ( February 2, 1995 – February 11, 1995), the first flight of the new joint Russian-American Space Program. Mission highlights included the first rendezvous (but not docking) with the Russian space station Mir and retrieval of Spartan 204 satellite. During the flight, Harris became the first African-American to walk in space, while fellow astronaut Michael Foale became the first British-born spacewalker. (It was also on this flight that Eileen Collins became the first female Shuttle pilot.) On this mission, Harris logged 198 hours, 29 minutes in space, completed 129 orbits, and traveled over 2.9 million miles.

Harris left NASA in April 1996, but has continued research.[citation needed] He served as Vice President of SPACEHAB, Inc., and innovative space commercialization company, where he directed the company’s space science business. He also served as Vice President of Business Development for Space Media, Inc., an Informatics company, establishing an e-commerce initiative that is now part of the United Nations’ education program.

In the late 1990s , Harris served as a member of the Board of Regents of the Texas Tech University System.
In 1998, he founded The Harris Foundation, a Houston, Texas-based non-profit organization, whose stated mission is “to invest in community-based initiatives to support education, health and wealth. THF supports programs that empower individuals, in particular minorities and other economically and/or socially disadvantaged, to recognize their potential and pursue their dreams.”

In 2008, he appeared in Microsoft’s “I’m a P.C.” ad campaign. Harris also gave a keynote speech at the Exxon Mobil Texas State Science and Engineering Fair.

In 2009, he was elected Vice President of the American Telemedicine Association. He was elected President of the American Telemedicine Association in 2011, serving for a one-year term that ended in 2012.

In 2010, he was part of the Dream Tour where he travelled to over 30 schools around the country.

Currently, Dr. Harris is President and Chief Executive Officer of Vesalius Ventures, Inc., a venture capital accelerator, that invests in early-stage companies in Medical Informatics and Technology. Reserch more about Blacks in the space program with NASA and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

25Jun

June 25 1876- Isaiah Dorman

GM – FBF – Today I will tell you the story of the only Black man who was with General Armstrong Custer during that final engagement at the Rosebud, Montana Territory. Some people didn’t know this story. Enjoy!

Remember – “Goodbye, Rutten.” – Last words spoken by – Isaiah Dorman

Today in our History – June 25, 1876 – Battle of the Rosebud River – Some people will call it a massace.

On June 25, 1876, Dorman accompanied the detachment of Major Marcus Reno into the battle and was leftbehind when Reno retired across the river to the high bluffs. According to most accounts as in Connell (1985), he gave a good account of himself- shooting several braves with a non-regulation sporting rifle.

According to the account of one Indian survivor of the battle:
“We passed a black man in a soldier’s uniform and we had him. He turned on his horse and shot an Indian right through the heart. Then the Indians fired at this one man and riddled his horse with bullets. His horse fell over on his back and the black man could not get up. I saw him as I rode by.”
According to Connell 1985, white survivors tell a similar story. Dorman had been unhorsed but continued to fire at the Indians:
“Pvt. Roman Rutten, unlike Vestal, did fight at the Little Big Horn and his report of Isaiah’s last stand rings through. Rutten was on a horse that hated the odor of Indians so his immediate problem was how to stay in the saddle. During a wild ride he passed Isiaih, whose horse had been shot. The black man was on one knee, firing carefully with a non-regulation sporting rifle. He looked up and shouted, “Goodbye, Rutten.”

Other eyewitness accounts from survivors indicate that Dorman was tortured by a group of women who pounded him with stone hammers, slashed him repeatedly with knives, and shot his legs full of buckshot. One odd detail reported is that his coffee pot and cup were filled with blood.

A report that he had been ‘sliced open’ may be a translator’s error; near his body was that of one of the Ree (Arikara) scouts, which had been slashed open and a willow branch stuck in the opening. To the Indians, mutilations were characteristic of different tribes and particular marks meant certain things. As for the torture, the Indians considered him a traitor who had fought with the bluecoats against them.

Dorman’s body was found just out of the timber, near Charley Reynolds’s and he was buried on the Reno Battlefield. It was reinterred in 1877 in the Little Bighorn National Cemetery. In Quartermaster Nowlan’s official report on the 7th’s 1876 Campaign, an item of $62.50 is listed as being owed to Dorman for services rendered in June 1876.

A man named Isaac McNutt, who was a handyman at Ft Rice, attempted to claim the wages; but his claim was dismissed for lack of proof of connection.

Dorman’s Indian widow could not be found and the account may be still drawing interest somewhere in the Army bureaucracy. Research more about the 7th Calvary and the battle at the Rosebud in Montana Territory and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

24Jun

June 24 1970- Philadelphia International Records Was Created

GM – FBF – In my continuing celabration to Black Music Month. I have shown you the best recording companies that Memphis (STAX) and Chicago (CHESS) had to bring to our black music culture, now it is time for me to come home to the Deleware Valley where I was born and raised with the music that I grew up with THE SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA. Enjoy!

Remember – Dick Clark (American Bandstand), Jerry Blavat (The Geator with the Heater) and The Discophonic Scene along with WDAS – FM’s Jimmy Bishop, Butterball and still today Patty Jackson. Don’t forget that Trenton’s own Instant Funk was dicoverd by Philly’s own Walter “Bunny” Sigler.

Today in our History – June 24, 1970 – Philadelphia International Records was created – A term with varied meanings in popular music, “soul” broadly describes African American music characterized by emotional urgency and racial consciousness. More specifically, a soul style of black music emerged from rhythm and blues and gospel in the late 1950s and became popular with both black and white audiences through the 1970s. Different cities had distinct styles of soul, often associated with local record companies—Stax in Memphis, Motown in Detroit. In Philadelphia, soul was defined by Philadelphia International Records, a very successful label whose unique style of 1970s soul became known worldwide as the “Sound of Philadelphia.”
Philadelphia had especially vibrant scenes in rhythm and blues and gospel music in the mid-twentieth century. Taking elements from each, local artists began shaping the city’s version of the emerging soul style in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Gospel was a particularly strong influence; essentially, soul was the adaptation of the gospel style to songs with secular rather than sacred lyrics. Solomon Burke, who began preaching and singing gospel in Philadelphia in his pre-adolescent years, made a series of recordings for Atlantic Records in New York in the early 1960s that were fundamental in defining the new style. These records were among the first to be categorized as “soul” music, and Burke was later dubbed the “King of Rock and Soul.” Other Philadelphia-area singers with strong gospel roots who had soul hits in the early to mid-1960s included Garnet Mimms, Howard Tate, and Lorraine Ellison.

While these early artists came from Philadelphia, they recorded in New York City. The larger Philadelphia record companies were more focused on rock and roll and white pop music at this time. Some of the city’s smaller labels recorded local artists in the soul style, however, including two black-owned companies that were especially important in the evolution of Philadelphia soul: Harthon and Arctic. Singer Weldon McDougal, organist Luther Randolph, and guitarist Johnny Stiles created Harthon Records in the early 1960s. Prominent Philadelphia DJ Jimmy Bishop joined Harthon briefly but broke away in 1964 to form his own label, Arctic Records, taking many Harthon artists with him.

Harthon and Arctic each had a series of minor and regional hits in the 1960s, and Arctic had a huge hit with “Yes, I’m Ready,” a ballad by local singer Barbara Mason that reached the Top Ten in the national pop charts in 1965. Most Arctic artists were black, but the label also recorded the Temptones, a white group featuring singer Daryl Hohl. Hohl later changed his last name to Hall and with fellow Temple University student John Oates formed Hall and Oates, one of the most successful of the “blue-eyed soul” groups, as white soul music came to be known.

Philadelphia’s biggest record company at this time was Cameo Parkway Records, a hit-making juggernaut whose artists were in the pop charts throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although Cameo Parkway had had hits with African American artists such as Chubby Checker, the Orlons, and Dee Dee Sharp, almost of all of its production staff and studio musicians were white and it had mostly ignored soul. That changed in 1964 when president Bernie Lowe, seeing the rise of Motown, asked a young black musician on his staff, Thom Bell, to form a rhythm section and begin producing soul music for the label. One of the groups Bell worked with at Cameo Parkway, and later at another local label, Philly Groove Records, was the Delfonics, one of the first groups identified specifically with the Philadelphia soul sound. Bell later shaped the sound of two other quintessential Philadelphia soul groups, the Stylistics and the Spinners. (The Spinners were from Detroit, but their biggest hits were recorded in Philadelphia.)

Small labels such as Harthon and Arctic were incubators for the burgeoning Philly soul style of the 1960s, serving as training grounds for the young songwriters, arrangers, singers, and studio musicians who later created the Sound of Philadelphia. Among this group were two individuals who, along with Thom Bell, emerged as the chief architects of that sound: singer Kenny Gamble and pianist Leon Huff.
Gamble and Huff had been hustling around the Philadelphia music scene since the late 1950s. In the mid-1960s they began writing songs together and then moved into producing records, using Philadelphia musicians and arrangers with whom they had worked over the years. After achieving success in the late 1960s with artists such as the Intruders, Soul Survivors, and Jerry Butler, Gamble and Huff secured a distribution deal with CBS Records and formed Philadelphia International Records in 1971.

Th e company located its headquarters in the former Cameo Parkway building on South Broad Street, which Cameo Parkway abandoned when it ceased operations in the late 1960s. While Philadelphia International made some recordings there, they recorded primarily at Sigma Sound Studios on north Twelfth Street, established in 1968 by former Cameo Parkway recording engineer Joe Tarsia. As Philadelphia International’s chief studio, Sigma Sound became a hit factory, with Tarsia serving as an important sonic architect of the Sound of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia International became one of the nation’s most successful record companies in the 1970s, producing a long string of hits with local artists such as Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, Billy Paul, and Patti LaBelle, as well as out-of-towners such as the O’Jays, Jackson Five, and Lou Rawls who came to Philadelphia to capture the label’s magic. With songwriter/producers Gamble and Huff at the helm, Thom Bell playing a key songwriting and producing role, and a core group of some thirty regular studio musicians and arrangers, Philadelphia International Records was the undisputed leader in soul music in the 1970s.

The studio musicians had a few hit records themselves, under the band name “MFSB” (short for Mother-Father-Sister-Brother). The biggest was “TSOP” (The Sound of Philadelphia), released in 1974. “TSOP” was the theme song for the popular black TV dance show “Soul Train” and became an anthem of Philadelphia soul. With its pulsing rhythm over lush strings and slick brass, it was a typical sophisticated Philadelphia International production. The label was also known for songs featuring socially conscious lyrics with messages of unity and love.
By the early 1980s, soul had run its course as a popular style. Radio, long the lifeblood of soul, had become very restricted in its programming and no longer served as an effective outlet for the music, while other black styles had gained in popularity, including funk, disco, and a new form of urban music that was coming into prominence, rap. Philadelphia International Records, the last of the great soul labels, went into decline in the early 1980s, signaling the end of the soul music era. Research more about black artist and music and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

23Jun

June 23 1997- Betty Shabazz

GM – FBF – Today I will take you to a women who suffered a lot when her husband was killed which was a tragedy. The hard thing is that she will pass in a most horrific fashion. PEACE!

Remember – “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,'” – Betty Shabazz

Today in our History – June 23,1997

Betty Shabazz, the widow of civil rights leader Malcolm X, died Monday, three weeks after being severely burned in a fire allegedly set by her 12-year-old grandson.

Shabazz, 61, had suffered third-degree burns over 80 percent of her body in the June 1 incident at her home in Yonkers, just north of New York City. She had remained in extremely critical condition, undergoing several operations as doctors struggled to replace damaged skin and save her life.

“Millions of people look to her for some kind of understanding of the history of the struggle,” said black activist and poet Amiri Baraka. “She’s the wife of one of the greatest African-American leaders of history.”

Within hours of the fire, Shabazz’s grandson was arrested and accused of setting the blaze, reportedly because he was unhappy he had been sent to live with his grandmother. He is being held in juvenile custody.

Doctors had said Shabazz might linger for weeks in critical condition but that patients with her severity of injuries usually have less than a 10 percent chance of survival.

Future Betty Shabazz went to Tuskegee, New York
As a young woman, Shabazz left the comfortable home of her adoptive parents in Detroit to study at the Tuskegee Institute, a well-known historically black college in Alabama. She later went to New York, where she became a registered nurse.

In New York, friends invited her to lectures by Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. He gave all of his followers the last name “X,” representing the African family name they would never know.

It was in 1956 that Betty X met Malcolm X, then a rising star in the Nation of Islam. Two years later they married, and within five years they had four daughters.

After splitting from Muhammad in 1964, Malcolm and Betty X adopted the Muslim surname Shabazz. In early 1965, Malcolm was gunned down while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Betty Shabazz, pregnant with twins, was in the audience and covered her girls on the floor as the bullets flew.

“Sister Betty came through the people, herself a nurse, and people recognizing her moved back; she fell on her knees, looking down on his bare, bullet-pocked chest, sobbing, ‘They killed him!'” wrote Alex Haley in the book “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

Betty Shabazz was left to bring up six daughters alone.

“Betty was fortunate enough to have the wisdom to raise several individuals in her family, to give them their own personality, their own motivation, their own skills,” said Wilbert Tatum, publisher of The Amsterdam News, an African-American newspaper in New York. “She did a superb job in raising those children.”

After assassination, Shabazz earned doctorate
After her husband’s death, Shabazz returned to school, eventually earning a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts in 1975. She went to work as an administrator at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and traveled widely, speaking on topics such as civil rights and racial tolerance.

“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,'” Shabazz said in a May 1995 speech.

In 1994, Shabazz spoke publicly about the long-held suspicion that Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the Nation of Islam, had been behind the assassination of her husband.

A year later, her daughter Qubilah Shabazz was charged in Minneapolis with trying to hire a hit man to kill Farrakhan. Betty Shabazz stood behind her daughter, insisting that an FBI informant entrapped her.

Qubilah Shabazz made a deal with prosecutors in which they agreed to drop charges if she completed treatment for alcohol and psychiatric problems. She signed an affidavit accepting responsibility for her conduct but maintained her innocence.

It is Qubilah Shabazz’s son who now stands accused of starting the fire that killed Betty Shabazz.

Betty Shabazz eventually reconciled with Farrakhan, shaking his hand on the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater as 1,400 people cheered at a fund-raiser for her daughter’s defense. She also spoke at Farrakhan’s Million Man March in October 1995. Research more about this American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

22Jun

June 22 1893- Thomas W. Stewart

GM – FBF- Today I want to tell you about a man who invented many things to help Americans and the people of the world but this Invention is still needed today in homes, businesses and any building that has a hard service. Enjoy!

Remember – ” I like things to be clean and sanitized as much as possable and I think you do too.” – Thomas W. Stewart

Today in our History – June 22, 1893

Thomas W. Stewart, an African-American inventor from Kalamazoo, Michigan, patented a new type of mop (U.S. patent #499,402) on June 22, 1893. Thanks to his invention of a clamping device that could wring water out of the mop by using a lever, floor cleaning was not nearly the chore it once was.

Throughout much of history, floors were made out of packed dirt or plaster. These were kept clean with simple brooms, made from straw, twigs, corn husks, or horse hair. But some kind of wet cleaning method was needed to care for the slate, stone, or marble floors that were a feature of the homes of the aristocracy and, later, the middle classes. The word mop goes back probably as far as the late 15th century, when it was spelled mappe in Old English. These devices were likely nothing more than bundles of rags or coarse yarns attached to a long wooden pole.

Thomas W. Stewart, one of the first African-American inventors to be awarded a patent, lived his whole life trying to make people’s everyday lives easier. In order to save time and ensure a more healthy environment in the home, he came up with two improvements to the mop. He first designed a mop head that could be removed by unscrewing it from the base of the mop handle, allowing users to clean the head or discard it when it wore out. Next, he designed a lever attached to the mop head, which, when pulled, would wring water from the head without users getting their hands wet.

Stewart described the mechanics in his abstract:

1. A mop-stick, comprising a stick proper, provided with the T-head having the grooved ends, forming one portion of the clamp, the rod having a straight portion forming the other part of the clamp and from thence converging rearwardly to the sides of the stick, a lever to which the free ends of said rod are pivoted, a ring loose on the stick, to which the forked ends of the lever are pivoted, and a spring between said ring and the T-head; substantially as set forth.

2. The combination of a mopstick provided with a T-head, forming one part of the clamp, a moveable rod forming the other part of the clamp, a lever to which the free ends of said rod are pivoted, said lever being fulcrum-ed to a moveable support on the stick, and a spring exerting a resistance against the lever when the latter is thrown back; substantially as set forth. Research more about black inventions and inventors and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

21Jun

June 21 1823- Marcus Garvey

GM – FBF – Today I will show you and tell a story of a man who preceeded, The Nation of Islam or any other back nationalist organization. Enjoy!

Remember – ” Up you mighty race” – Marcus Garvey

Today in our History – June 21, 1823 – Marcus Garvey enters the Court house to be tried for many counts but taken money thru the U.S. Postal System is what they will fine him on.

Born in Jamaica, Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) became a leader in the black nationalist movement by applying the economic ideas of Pan-Africanists to the immense resources available in urban centers. After arriving in New York in 1916, he founded the Negro World newspaper, an international shipping company called Black Star Line and the Negro Factories Corporation. During the 1920s, his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was the largest secular organization in African-American history. Indicted for mail fraud by the U.S. Justice Department in 1923, he spent two years in prison before being deported to Jamaica, and later died in London.

Born in Jamaica, Garvey aimed to organize blacks everywhere but achieved his greatest impact in the United States, where he tapped into and enhanced the growing black aspirations for justice, wealth, and a sense of community. During World War I and the 1920s, his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was the largest black secular organization in African-American history. Possibly a million men and women from the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa belonged to it.

Garvey came to New York in 1916 and concluded that the growing black communities in northern cities could provide the wealth and unity to end both imperialism in Africa and discrimination in the United States. He combined the economic nationalist ideas of Booker T. Washington and Pan-Africanists with the political possibilities and urban style of men and women living outside of plantation and colonial societies. Garvey’s ideas gestated amid the social upheavals, anticolonial movements, and revolutions of World War I, which demonstrated the power of popular mobilization to change entrenched structures of power.

Garvey’s goals were modern and urban. He sought to end imperialist rule and create modern societies in Africa, not, as his critics charged, to transport blacks ‘back to Africa.’ He knitted black communities on three continents with his newspaper the Negro World and in 1919 formed the Black Star Line, an international shipping company to provide transportation and encourage trade among the black businesses of Africa and the Americas. In the same year, he founded the Negro Factories Corporation to establish such businesses. In 1920 he presided over the first of several international conventions of the UNIA. Garvey sought to channel the new black militancy into one organization that could overcome class and national divisions.

Although local UNIA chapters provided many social and economic benefits for their members, Garvey’s main efforts failed: the Black Star Line suspended operations in 1922 and the other enterprises fared no better. Garvey’s ambition and determination to lead inevitably collided with associates and black leaders in other organizations. His verbal talent and flair for the dramatic attracted thousands, but his faltering projects only augmented ideological and personality conflicts. In the end, he could neither unite blacks nor accumulate enough power to significantly alter the societies the unia functioned in.

Finally, the Justice Department, animated by J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and sensing his growing weakness, indicted Garvey for mail fraud. He was convicted in 1923, imprisoned in 1925, and deported to Jamaica in 1927. Unable to resurrect the unia, he moved to London, where he died in 1940.

Garvey’s movement was the first black attempt to join modern urban goals and mass organization. Although most subsequent leaders did not try to create black economic institutions as he had, Garvey had demonstrated to them that the urban masses were a potentially powerful force in the struggle for black freedom.Research more about this event in History and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

20Jun

June 20 1967- Cassins Clay

GM – FBF – Fifty One Years Ago, I could have told you about many different events but to me this was the biggest event on that date. I still say he is the GOAT (Greatest of all time) not for what he did in his profession but how he took on the government and lived by his tearms. Enjoy!

Remember – I’m not gonna help nobody get something my negroes don’t have. If I’m gonna die, I’ll die now right here fighting you, if I’m gonna die. You my enemy. My enemies are white people, not Viet Congs or Chinese or Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. You won’t even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs, and you want me to go somewhere and fight, but you won’t even stand up for me here at home. – (Cassius Clay) – Muhammad Ali

Today in our History – June 20, 1967 – Cassius Clay Guilty in Draft Case; Gets Five Years in Prison – U.S. Judge Also Fines the Boxer $10,000 for Refusing Induction

Houston, June 20, 1967–Cassius Clay, the deposed heavyweight champion, was convicted by a jury tonight of violating the United States Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted.

Federal District Judge Joe E. Ingraham sentenced Clay to five years in prison and fined him $10,000. This was the maximum penalty for the offense, which is a felony.
The judge’s sentence was pronounced immediately at Clay’s request.

“I’d appreciate it,” the 25-year-old boxer said, “if the court will do it now, give me my sentence now, instead of waiting and stalling for time.”
His lawyers said he “wants to be able to sleep tonight” without worrying what the sentence would be.

Clay, who had contended that his status as a Black Muslim minister made him exempt from the draft, stood passively in front of the judge’s bench as the judge pronounced sentence.
Every eye in the crowded courtroom was on him as he stared straight ahead, saying, “No, sir,” firmly when the judge asked him if he wanted to say anything that might go toward mitigating his sentence.

Before the sentencing, Morton Susman, United States Attorney, indicated that he would file no objection to the judge’s giving Clay a lighter sentence than the maximum.
“The only record he has is a minor traffic offense,” said Mr. Susman.

He said that Clay, as an athlete, had brought honor to the United States by winning in the Olympics in Rome in 1960, and had brought credit to himself by becoming heavyweight champion of the world.
“He became a Muslim in 1964 after defeating Sonny Liston for the title,” said Mr. Susman. “In my opinion, his trouble started with that–this tragedy and the loss of his title can be traced to that.”

After Clay had refused in April to take the Army induction oath, the World Boxing Association and the New York Athletic Commission stripped him of his title.
Mr. Susman, who was aided in the prosecution by a Negro assistant, Carl Walker, said that he had studied the Muslim order “and it is as much political as it is religious.”
Clay, who had stood stiffly in his gray silk suit and black alligator shoes without speaking, could keep quiet no longer.
“If I can say so, sir,” he said, “my religion is not political in no way.”

There were a number of Muslim members in the courtroom for the verdict and the subsequent sentencing, but there was no outcry and no disturbance. A number of special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were watching the audience along with Federal marshals.

The jury, six men and six women, all white, stayed in the jury box during the sentencing.
Clay’s attorneys, Hayden C. Covington of New York City and Quinnan A. Hodges of Houston, took exception to Mr. Susman’s remarks about the Muslims.

Mr. Covington, who has won civil rights suits for Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious sect, in a number of constitutional cases, said: “I take exception to remarks that this man is under the influence of the Muslims in any way.”
Clay, he said, is one of the finest men he has ever met and acted from “sincerity and honesty” when he refused last April 28 to step forward and be inducted into the armed services at Houston.

Both Mr. Covington and Mr. Hodges asked Judge Ingraham to put Clay on probation. Failing that, said Mr. Covington, the former champion should not be given a sentence more severe than those given in a similar cases. “That’s 18 months,” he said.
Judge Ingraham, after being told that Clay’s attorneys would appeal, said that now was not the time to ask for clemency. If the conviction should be thrown out on appeal, “the sentence would be nil,” he said, but if it should be upheld, that would be the time to seek a reduction in sentence or to seek probation.
Clay, who had known both applause and boos in his seven years as a boxer, did not seem downcast at today’s turn of events.

His step was as jaunty as ever as he walked from the courtroom after being released on $5,000 bond. He held hands with two young women who had been with him during intermissions in the trial and he smiled at the crowd that gathered around. He allowed the television cameramen to surround him and shuffle him off down the street.

The jury was out considering the verdict for only about 20 minutes. Everyone knew before it retired that Clay would be convicted. He and his lawyers had not attempted to deny that he had refused induction. Their main contention was that the draft boards in Louisville, Ky., and in Houston had acted improperly in not granting him a deferment as a minister.
After Judge Ingraham had ruled that a study of the huge draft board file of the Clay case had convinced him that the draft boards had not acted “arbitrarily or capriciously” in refusing the deferment. Clay’s conviction became a foregone conclusion.

Clay paid no attention to the legal maneuvering during the day. He sat at the defense table, drawing and chewing gum.
During recesses, while Clay stood out in the corridors in the Federal Courthouse and signed autographs for children, one of his attorneys showed reporters some of the drawings that Clay had made. One showed an airplane flying over a heavily wooded mountain range toward the rising sun. Another portrayed a ship sailing head-on into a fjord between two mountain ranges.

Clay himself exhibited other drawings–mystic symbols, clouds and so forth. One was an elaborate sketch of the words “Muhammad Ali,” which is his Muslim name.
In all, the jury heard only an hour or so of testimony, most of it from Government witnesses.Research more about the great American and share with your babies Make it a champion day!

19Jun

June 10 1957- Stax Records

GM – FBF – During Black Music Month, there is a lot of good posts by people that look at artists on a daily and weekly basis. So let us look at the more famous record companies that put their sounds on wax. Over the rest of the weekends in June I will remind you of many that started in the late 50’s through the 70’s, starting with the sound of the South. Enjoy!

Remember – Barry Gordy and Motown want to create “The Sound for Young America”, I will stick with the rest of America. – Estelle Axton

Today in our History – June 10, 1957

Stax Records is an American record label, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the label changed its name to Stax Records in 1961. It was a major factor in the creation of Southern soul and Memphis soul music. Stax also released gospel, funk, jazz, and blues recordings. Renowned for its output of blues music, the label was founded by two siblings and business partners, Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton (STewart/AXton = Stax). It featured several popular ethnically integrated bands (including the label’s house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s) and a racially integrated team of staff and artists unprecedented in that time of racial strife and tension in Memphis and the South.

Following the death of Stax’s biggest star, Otis Redding, in 1967, and the severance of the label’s distribution deal with Atlantic Records in 1968, Stax continued primarily under the supervision of a new co-owner, Al Bell.Over the next five years, Bell expanded the label’s operations significantly, in order to compete with Stax’s main rival, Motown Records in Detroit. During the mid-1970s, a number of factors, including a problematic distribution deal with CBS Records, caused the label to slide into insolvency, resulting in its forced closure in late 1975.

In 1977, Fantasy Records acquired the post-1968 Stax catalogue and selected pre-1968 recordings. Beginning in 1978, Stax (now owned by Fantasy) began signing new acts and issuing new material, as well as reissuing previously recorded Stax material. However, by the early 1980s, no new material was being issued on the label, and for the next two decades, Stax was strictly a reissue label.

After Concord Records acquired Fantasy in 2004, the Stax label was reactivated, and is today used to issue both the 1968–1975 catalog material and new recordings by current R&B and soul performers. Atlantic Records continues to hold the rights to the vast majority of the 1959–1968 Stax material.
Research more about African – American music companies and share to your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Jun

June 19 1865- Juneteenth Day

GM – FBF – Today is the black holiday known as Juneteenth Day. Some of the people up North may or may not had heard about this day. So let’s take a deeper look at this. Enjoy!

Remember – The emancipation of Black people in Texas is finially here. So rejoyce! – Fredrick Douglass

Today in our History – June 19, 1865 – Juneteenth Day –

The Day Slaves Learned They Were Free

The 19th of June is known as Juneteenth, an African-American holiday begun at the end of slavery days. Its origins are Texan, not Louisianan, but Juneteenth has long had strong roots in the South and has since spread all over the country as a time for African-Americans to commemorate their freedom and accomplishments.

President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which granted freedom to slaves in Confederate states, on New Year’s Day in 1863. Word didn’t reach the African-American slaves of Galveston, Texas, until June 19, 1865, when a force of two-thousand Union soldiers arrived and informed them of their freedom. Although news indeed did travel slowly in those days, two and a half years is a long time; historians suspect Texas slaveholders knew of the proclamation and chose not to free their slaves until they were forced to.

The African-Americans of Galveston began an annual observance of Juneteenth which over the years spread to other areas and grew in popularity. Early Juneteenth celebrations were picnics at churches and in rural areas with barbecues, horseback riding, fishing, and more. The early 20th century saw a weakening of the holiday’s observance due to African-American migration to urban centers,

The national celebration of Independence Day just a few weeks later, and the preference of white historians to emphasize the Emancipation Proclamation over Juneteenth as a date to mark the end of slavery. Although some activists objected that holiday’s associations with slavery were too backward-looking, Juneteenth’s visibility rose again during the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s and 60s, and its resurgence continues all over the country.

Like elsewhere, in New Orleans African-Americans celebrate Juneteenth with barbecues and picnics, with family and church gatherings that strengthen community bonds. Other events include jazz concerts and speaking engagements emphasizing African-American empowerment, education, and achievement. To participate in Juneteenth festivities, check listings in local newspapers or online as the next June 19th approaches. Research more about this great American Holiday and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

18Jun

June 18 1889- The Baby Carriage Is Patient

GM – GFB – Today I will Introduce you to a Black Inventor, whose Invention which will still see millions of every day. Enjoy!

Remember – “When I patened my Invention, I knew it would offer hundreads of Americans a way to get exercise and a way for parents to get looks any where they went.” – William H Richardson

Today in our History June 18, 1889 – The Baby Carriage is patent.

African American inventor William H. Richardson was born on January 5, 1850 in Baltimore, Maryland. patented an improvement to the baby carriage in the United States on June 18, 1889. It is U.S. patent number 405,600. His design ditched the shell shape for a basket-shaped carriage that was more symmetrical. The bassinet could be positioned to face either out or in and rotated on a central joint.

A limiting device kept it from being rotated more than 90 degrees. The wheels also moved independently, which made it more maneuverable. Now a parent or nanny could have the child face them or face away from them, whichever they preferred, and change it at will.

The use of prams or baby carriages became widespread among all economic classes by the 1900s. They were even given to poor mothers by charitable institutions. Improvements were made in their construction and safety. Going for a stroll with a child was believed to have benefits by providing light and fresh air. He died December 12, 1925. Research more about this great American and work with your babies. Make it a champion day!