Author: Champion One

17May

May 17 1897- Edward William Anderson

GM – FBF – A story about a black man and his reaction to unfair treatment of blacks in Southern California.

Remember – “We as a people and me as a black man, will not take this discrimination any more.” – Edward William Anderson

Today in our History – May 17, 1897 – Edward William Anderson and his wife Mary, could not get floor seats at the
famous Fisher Opera House in San Diego, CA.

Entrepreneur, political organizer, and civilian pioneer, Edward William Anderson was born the son of former slaves, Wyatt and Fannie Anderson, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, September 26, 1871. He arrived in San Diego, California, in the mid-1890s with just $1.25 in his pocket but was confident in his ability to thrive as a business owner. His first successful venture was as owner, at age twenty-five, of IXL (I Excel) Laundry which grew to become the largest steam laundry in the region with thirty-five employees.

Anderson unwittingly involved himself in the struggle for equal rights for people of color in California when on May 17, 1897, he and his wife, Mary, arrived with tickets in hand to claim their seats for a performance of Around the World in Eighty Days at the city’s premier entertainment venue, the elegant Fisher Opera House. Instead of being ushered to the choice seats near the orchestra, the theater manager, who redirected him to the balcony, said, “I do not allow colored people on that floor.” Anderson refused the balcony seats, accepted a refund of the tickets, and a week later filed a lawsuit for $299 in damages. Due mainly to a recently enacted provision of the state’s civil rights law, Anderson prevailed and was awarded $50. The judgment was reversed on appeal and further legal action by Anderson did not succeed; however, his challenge set legal precedent as the first racial discrimination court case of its kind in Southern California.

Over the next four decades, Anderson became the most prosperous black businessman in San Diego County. In 1910 he acquired one hundred and sixty acres along the California-Mexico border and quickly resold it at a 50 percent mark-up. Next, he bought his uncle’s grocery store and soon after launched Economy Waste Paper Company and the even more prosperous San Diego Rubbish & Garbage Company which held an exclusive seven-year city contract. After winning another garbage disposal contract with the nearby city of Coronado, Anderson used some of the gathered refuse to feed hogs on his adjacent Silver Strand Ranch where he owned a meat-packing operation and Anderson Meat Market which sold its own special sausage brand. His porkers won prizes at fairs throughout the state, earning him the nickname “Hog King of San Diego.” In 1943 Anderson launched Anderson Mortuary (later Anderson-Ragsdale Mortuary) which continues to serve the community.

Anderson’s social activism continued with his growing business success. He remained a central figure in the quest for equal rights, co-founding the San Diego branch of the NAACP in 1919 and serving three terms as its president between 1931 and 1943. He also assisted the branch in various official capacities and as a confidential advisor. A Prince Hall Mason, he also was president of the Negro Business League, the Independent Voters League, and the Douglass League as well as treasurer of the Negro Civic League and a member of the Elks and the San Diego Republican Central Committee.

Edward W. Anderson died August 11, 1953, in San Diego and buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, Mary, and a sister, Rosa Little. I could not find many pictures of him or his wife. Research more about how blacks reacted to discrimination and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

16May

May 16 1917- Eugene Jacques Bullard

GM – FBF – The “Great War” , World War I America had no black flying airmen but in World War II we will hear of the Tuskegee Airmen. Read the story of an American who flew a plane long before America would let blacks fly. Enjoy!

Remember – “Tout le sang qui coule rouge; All blood is red.”

Today in our History – May 16, 1917 – The first black combat pilot twenty-four years before the first Tuskegee Airmen took flight. – Eugene Jacques Bullard

Eugene Jacques Bullard (1895 – 1961) was born October 9, 1895, in Columbus, GA as the seventh out of ten total children born to William Octave Bullard and Josephine “Yokalee” Thomas. Eugene’s father was originally from Martinique but William arrived in the United States of America as a slave when his owners settled here after fleeing Haiti during the French Revolution. His mother, Josephine, was a Creek Native American. Bullard is considered to be the first African-American military pilot to fly in combat, and the only African-American pilot in World War I. Ironically, he never flew for the United States.

In 1906, at the age of 11, Bullard ran away craving adventure. He was also traumatized by his dad’s near lynching experience by a mob of drunken white men who had found out that Mr. Bullard hit a white man in self-defense. Young Eugene took off shortly after this incident and for the next six years, he wandered the South in search of freedom.

In 1912 he stowed away on the Marta Russ, a German freighter bound for Hamburg, and ended up in Aberdeen, Scotland. From there he made his way to London, where he worked as a boxer and slapstick performer in an African American entertainment troupe. In 1913, Bullard went to France for a boxing match. Settling in Paris, he became so comfortable with French customs that he decided to make a home there. He later wrote, “… it seemed to me that French democracy influenced the minds of both black and white Americans there and helped us all act like brothers.” In early October 1914, at the age of 19, Bullard joined the French Foreign Legion, eager to fight in World War I against the Central Powers. About a year later he was transferred to the French army’s 170th Infantry, known as the “Swallows of Death,” after the decimation of his Foreign Legion unit. Bullard saw action on the western front, first as a foot soldier, then as a machine gunner, surviving a number of near death moments. Through the Battle of Champagne, Battle of the Somme, and the Battle of Verdun; Eugene lost almost all his teeth, survived a hole in his thigh from shrapnel and a bloody bombing at the village of Fleury. For his gallantry, the French government awarded Bullard the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) in June 1916 at a ceremony Lyon.

Although fit with new dentures and recovered from his leg wound, Eugene was deemed no longer fit to be a foot soldier. Yet he was determined to get back into the action. After seven months of training, he became an aircraft gunner in the French air force’s Lafayette Flying Corps, an all-American volunteer outfit. Before long, Bullard, now a corporal, set his sights on the cockpit. Having mastered several maneuvers, Eugene earned his wings on May 16 1917, becoming the first black combat pilot twenty-four years before the first Tuskegee Airmen took flight.

By war’s end in November 1918, Bullard had flown on twenty missions and was credited with shooting down at least one enemy plane. Legend has it that he painted a bleeding heart on the fuselage of his airplane and below it wrote, “Tout le Sang qui coule est rouge!” (All blood runs red!). During his lifetime, Eugene Ballard was awarded fifteen French war medals. Including the Knight of the Légion d’honneur, Médaille Militaire, Croix de Guerre, Volunteer’s Cross (Croix du combattant volontaire), Wounded Insignia, World War I Commemorative Medal, World War I Victory Medal, Freedom Medal, and the World War II Commemorative Medal.

After being discharged from the Armed Forces Eugene Bullard became part owner of his own nightclub, Le Grand Duc at 52 rue Pigalle, in France. His club was one of the most popular and famous spots for singers and musicians at the time. Luminaries such as the Prince of Wales, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and England’s Prince of Wales were seen in his establishment. While working the nightclub scene he also became friends with Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, and Langston Hughes.

During the second World War Eugene Bullard agreed to serve France again as a spy. He was very successful at this endeavor because the Germans didn’t think that African Americans were capable of understanding German and Eugene spoke English, German and French. While serving in this capacity he occasionally worked with the famous French spy Cleopatra Terrier.

Despite being named a Knight of the Legion of Honor in New York City during a lavish ceremony, being embraced by President-General Charles de Gaulle of France in 1960 when he visited the USA and labeled a “True French Hero,” helping to relight the Eternal Flame of the Tomb of the Unknown French Soldier at the request of France, and being buried with full honors by the Federation of French War Officers, Eugene Bullard was never recognized in the United States for any of his achievements. It wasn’t until 1994 that the United States Air Force recognized him and posthumously commissioned him a Second Lieutenant.

Eugene Bullard married a French Countess and had one son (died of double pneumonia) and two daughters. He passed on October 12, 1961, from stomach cancer in New York City. He is currently interred in the French War Veterans’ section of Flushing Cemetery in the New York City borough of Queens. Research more about blacks in Aveation and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

May 15 1895- Mary Fields

GM – FBF – Today you will read the story of one of the most self detremind women during her time. Enjoy!

Remember – “I am Mary Fields, People call me Black Mary,
People call me Stagecoach MaryI live in Cascade, Tennessee.
I am six feet tall. I weigh over two hundred pounds.” – Mary Fields

Today in our History – May 15, 1895 – First African American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service.

Born a slave in Hickman County, Tennessee, circa 1832, Fields was freed when slavery was outlawed in the United States, in 1865. She then worked in the home of Judge Edmund Dunne. When Dunne’s wife Josephine died in 1883, in San Antonio, Florida, Fields took the family’s five children to their aunt, Mother Mary Amadeus, the mother superior of an Ursuline convent in Toledo, Ohio.

In 1884, Mother Amadeus was sent to Montana Territory to establish a school for Native American girls at St. Peter’s Mission, west of Cascade. Learning that Amadeus was stricken with pneumonia, Fields hurried to Montana to nurse her back to health. Amadeus recovered, and Fields stayed at St. Peter’s, hauling freight, doing laundry, growing vegetables, tending chickens, and repairing buildings, and eventually became the forewoman.

The Native Americans called Fields “White Crow”, because “she acts like a white woman but has black skin”. Local whites did not know what to make of her. One schoolgirl wrote an essay saying, “She drinks whiskey, and she swears, and she is a republican, which makes her a low, foul creature.”

In 1894, after several complaints and an incident with a disgruntled male subordinate that involved gunplay, the bishop ordered her to leave the convent. Mother Amadeus helped her open a restaurant in nearby Cascade. Fields would serve food to anyone, whether they could pay or not, and the restaurant went broke in about 10 months.

In 1895, although approximately 60 years old, Fields was hired as a mail carrier because she was the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. This made her the second woman and first African American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service.

She drove the route with horses and a mule named Moses. She never missed a day, and her reliability earned her the nickname “Stagecoach”. If the snow was too deep for her horses, Fields delivered the mail on snowshoes, carrying the sacks on her shoulders.

She was a respected public figure in Cascade, and the town closed its schools to celebrate her birthday each year. When Montana passed a law forbidding women to enter saloons, the mayor of Cascade granted her an exemption. In 1903, at age 71, Fields retired from star route mail carrier service. She continued to babysit many Cascade children and owned and operated a laundry service from her home.

Fields died in 1914 at Columbus Hospital in Great Falls, but she was buried outside Cascade. Research more of Blacks in the West and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

14May

May 14 1985- Osage Ave

GM – FBF – With Mother’s Day over I can now run what happened yesterday in the city of brotherly love back in 1985.

Remember – The Philadelphia police have declared war on it’s own people – Osage Ave. Resident

Today in our History – May14, 1985 –

The Day after a City Bombed Its Own People – It was 33 years ago yesterday that Philadelphia earned the sorry distinction of being the first U.S. city government to bomb its own people. More than three decades ago, Philadelphia police, after surrounding and engaging in a shootout with a group of mostly black members of the communalist group MOVE who were holed up in their row house on Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia, dropped two “satchel bombs” containing powerful C-4 explosive (provided by the FBI) onto the building’s roof. As firefighters, ordered not to take any action to put out the spreading flames from the explosions, stood by and watched, the MOVE house burned to the ground, killing 11 of the 13 people in the building, including five children and MOVE’s founder, John Africa. The inferno also destroyed 65 adjacent buildings, decimating two blocks of the mostly black lower-middle-class neighborhood.

At a federal trial a year later, a jury found that the city of Philadelphia had used “excessive force” and had violated the constitutional rights of lone adult survivor Ramona Africa and the dead victims. It awarded $1.5 million to her and the families of two of the victims.

In 1986, the city’s then mayor, W. Wilson Goode, impanelled a body, known as the MOVE Commission, to investigate the atrocity. Its conclusion, announced in 1986: “Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable.” It also found that “Police gunfire prevented some occupants of 6221 Osage Ave. from escaping from the burning house to the rear alley.” It is worth remembering this slaughter of innocents by uniformed personnel whose official duty was supposedly to “protect and serve” their community, at a time when the European Union is seeking the UN Security Council’s approval to begin bombing Libyan ports and ships to prevent African and Middle Eastern refugees from fleeing to Italy and Europe. It is worth remembering this slaughter when the U.S. is using remotely piloted missile-equipped drones to blow up homes and vehicle convoys in the hope of killing alleged terrorists, killing numerous innocent civilians in the process. And it is worth remembering this slaughter when a growing movement is developing to protest the murders of unarmed Americans, mostly people of color, by the nation’s increasingly militarized police.

Nobody in the city leadership of Philadelphia was ever prosecuted for the killing of the people in the MOVE house on Osage Avenue, though the incident was wholly instigated and orchestrated by city police. (The city paid to have the destroyed homes rebuilt, but they then had to be rebuilt again because of substandard construction.) This lack of accountability for a city’s murder, by bombing, of 11 of its residents, including children, is truly shocking. But it is perhaps less surprising when one sees that nobody has been called to account either for the officially sanctioned murder of hundreds of innocents by the U.S. targeted-killing drone campaigns in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria, and other countries, and when one recalls that only a few indictments have been handed down against any of the police officers who have been killing hundreds of unarmed people across the country every year. It’s ironic that the national media remain obsessed with the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man whose fate is being determined by a jury after his recent conviction for the Boston Marathon bombing, an act of terrorism that killed three people, while the 33th anniversary of the MOVE bombing—an event that was orchestrated by the police, and where the deaths were deliberate and intentional since the victims were not permitted to flee the burning building—goes largely unmarked. Meanwhile, one journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has not remained silent, and who has regularly memorialized that terrible event, writing from a prison cell or recording reports by phone for Prison Radio, is currently in grave danger.

Prison medical staff failed to notice that Abu-Jamal, currently serving a life sentence without chance of parole after a 1982 conviction for the killing of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981, had lost some 60 pounds between January and March of this year. They took no action at all until he collapsed on the floor from sugar shock in late March. Rushed to a hospital with his blood-glucose level at a point where he was at risk of going into a diabetic coma and suffering renal failure, he was finally given insulin. But he was then returned to the prison—where he was immediately offered a meal of prison pasta. Prison officials have rebuffed efforts by Abu-Jamal’s family and supporters to have him treated by expert physicians knowledgeable about diabetes as well as about the serious skin eruptions that have been plaguing him. Yet Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections in the past allowed millionaire convicted murderer John Eleuthere du Pont to be treated by his own private physician in the prison.

Abu-Jamal’s supporters fear the state’s law-enforcement and prison system may be trying to accomplish what the federal courts, by overturning his death sentence as unconstitutional, prevented them from doing: silencing this voice of truth, but by medical neglect and malpractice instead of with a lethal injection. Meanwhile, here’s what Abu-Jamal had to say five years ago, on the 25th anniversary of the MOVE bombing: “May 13th, 1985 is more than a day of infamy, when a city waged war on its own alleged citizens, but also when the city committed massacre and did so with perfect impunity, when babies were shot and burned alive with their mothers and fathers, and the killers rewarded with honors and pensions, while politicians talked and the media mediated mass murder.” Research more about MOVE and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

13May

May 13 1925- Carolyn L. Robertson

GM – FBF – The American incarnation of Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Jarvis would later denounce the holiday’s commercialization and spent the latter part of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. So if you just say “Happy Mother’s Day” that would be fine.

Remember – “Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.” – Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton

Today in our History – May 13, 1925 – Carolyn L. Robertson Payton was born.

Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton was the first African American and the first woman to become the director of the U.S. Peace Corps. She was appointed in 1977 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Carolyn L. Robertson Payton was born on May 13, 1925, in Norfolk, Virginia, to Bertha M. Flanagan, a seamstress, and Leroy S. Robertson, a ship steward. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High school in Norfolk in 1941 and received her B.S. degree in Home Economics from Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1945. Payton remained close to Bennett College, establishing a scholarship fund there in the late 1990s.

Payton then attended the University of Wisconsin where her tuition and other expenses were paid by the state of Virginia as part of the state’s policy of sending black graduate students to out-of-state institutions rather than allowing them to received advanced degrees at the state’s universities. Payton received her Master’s in Psychology from Wisconsin in 1948.

After graduation, Payton took positions as a psychologist at Livingston College in Salisbury, North Carolina, and as psychology instructor at Elizabeth City State Teachers College in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where she also served as dean of women. She joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C., after completing coursework for her PhD at Columbia University in 1959. She received her PhD from Columbia in 1962.

Dr. Payton first came to work for the Peace Corps in 1964. In 1966 she was named country director for the Eastern Caribbean, stationed in Barbados, serving in this position until 1970. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed her director for the entire agency. She served only thirteen months, however, and was forced to resign because her views on the importance of the Peace Corps mission, its implementation strategies, and volunteers being nonpolitical were diametrically opposed to the then-director of action, Sam Brown.

Payton is best known, however, for her career contribution as the director of the Howard University Counseling Service (HUCS) from 1970 to 1977, and later as dean of counseling and career development from 1979 until her retirement in 1995. While at Howard, she led the development of clinical material focused on providing counseling and psychotherapy to African American men and women. The Howard program was eventually adopted by the American Psychological Association (APA). Dr. Payton was also a pioneer in the use of group therapy techniques specifically for African American clients.

Dr. Payton was an active member of APA for over forty years and was one of the original members on the Task Force on the Psychology of Black Women in 1976. The APA’s Carolyn Payton Early Career Award is named in her honor. Payton also served on a number of APA boards and committees including the Committee on Women in Psychology (CWP) and the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Concerns Committee. She received several of the APA’s most prestigious awards including the Distinguished Professional Contributions to Public Service Award in 1982 and the APA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology in 1997.

Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton died from a heart attack at her home in Washington, D.C. on April 11, 2001. She was seventy-five. Following the announcement of her death, the Peace Corps flew its flag at half-staff at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. in her honor.

12May

May 12 1968- Poor People’s Campaign

GM – FBF – “The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People’s Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy/Militarism and Our National Morality.” – I ask has there been any change for the poor in America?

Remember – “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing‐oriented” society to a “person‐oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today in oue History – May 12, 1968 – Poor People’s Campaign: A Dream Unfulfilled (50 Years Later) – In early 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders planned a Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., for the spring. The group planned to demand that President Lyndon Johnson and Congress help the poor get jobs, health care and decent homes.

Campaign organizers intended the campaign to be a peaceful gathering of poor people from communities across the nation. They would march through the capital and visit various federal agencies in hopes of getting Congress to pass substantial anti-poverty legislation. They planned to stay until some action was taken.

But weeks before the march was to take place, King was assassinated. His widow, Coretta, and a cadre of black ministers, including the Revs. Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson, decided they would pick up where King had left off and that the Poor People’s March on Washington would go forward.

Thousands of people participated in the march on May 12, 1968.

A week later, protestors erected a settlement of tents and shacks on the National Mall where they camped out for six weeks. Jackson became mayor of the encampment, which was called Resurrection City. Conditions were miserable.

Although as many as 50,000 people ended up marching, the Poor People’s Campaign was considered a failure by people who had grown weary of protesting and did not see immediate changes.

The closing was sort of unceremonious. When the demonstrators’ permit expired on June 23, some [members of the House of] Representatives, mostly white Southerners, called for immediate removal. So the next day, about 1,000 police officers arrived to clear the camp up of its last few residents. Ultimately, they arrested 288 people, including [civil rights leader and minister Ralph] Abernathy.

Although not much has changed for many poor Americans, the role of religion in the black community has changed greatly since the days when King and others wielded such power.

Over the years, megachurches have become more popular in black communities, just as they have in white communities. These megachurches have amassed influence and wealth partly because of their sheer number of parishioners. Some have created satellite churches and broadcast their gospel on television.

Research more about The Poor People’s Struggle in America by watching a video or reading books to your babies and make it a champion day!

11May

May 11 1933- Louis Eugene Wolcott

GM – FBF – I was young boy when I went to Washington, D.C. and heard the words of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and the “I have a Dream” speach with over 250,000 people. I was grown man when I went to Washington, D.C. to hear Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March.

Remember – “A woman will test you to see if you are what you say you are. Any woman that you fall in love with: She loves you too, but she’s going to try you; that’s her nature. She has to know that she can depend on you; she has to know that you will stand up for her. She has to know that you will back up the children that she brings in the world for us.” – Louis Farrakhan

Today in our History – May 11, 1933 – Louis Eugene Wolcott was born.

Louis Farrakhan, born as Louis Eugene Wolcott, is a Muslim American, known most popularly as a leader of the Islamic organization Nation of Islam (NOI). He was born on May 11, 1933 in The Bronx, New York. Farrakhan’s family had a difficult life, as he never knew his biological father and the family moved around a lot while the youngster was growing up. At age 6, he began receiving training for the violin. By age 13, he was so skilled with the instrument that he managed to play with famous orchestras such as the Boston College Orchestra. He continued to win prizes on a regular basis for his talent, and later enrolled in Boston Latin School and Winston-Salem Teachers College.

Farrakhan had some popular hits in his short lived musical career, performing under the name ‘The Charmer’. On tour in Chicago in 1955, he first came in contact with the teachings of NOI through saxophonist Rodney Smith. Having attended an address by then NOI leader Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan instantly became inspired by his teachings and aspired to join the group. After passing the necessary criteria for becoming an NOI member, he was awarded the customary ‘X’ placeholder, which comes in place of most African Americans’ European slave prescribed surnames. Louis X’s name then changed to Louis Farrakhan after Muhammad replaced it sometime in the future.

Now a firm member of the NOI, Louis Farrakhan was keen on rising through the ranks quickly. He worked closely with Malcolm X who was then a minister at the Temple of Islam in Boston. Farrakhan continued to be inspired and mentored by Malcolm X, even serving as his assistant minister. After the assassination of Malcolm X, Farrakhan was appointed as national spokesman or national representative of the NOI, as well as minister of Harlem Mosque. After Elijah Muhammad’s death in 1975, a lot of things changed for NOI, from it’s organizational structure to the very core of it’s message. Taking on a more liberal standpoint and including inter-religious cooperation and dialogue, Warith Muhammad changed the very foundation of the NOI by going as far as changing it’s name to American Society of Muslims. Under Warith Deen Muhammad’s leadership, Farrakhan was a Sunni Imam for almost 4 years until 1978 when he decided to leave and create his own version of what he believed NOI stood for.

One of his most remarkable achievements and perhaps what he often remembered for is the Million Man March Farrakhan organized in 1995 in Washington D.C. Here he hoped to encourage the African Americans to re-imagine and redefine their roles and commitments to their families. The event was organized with the aid of many different civil rights groups and received vast publicity. While the actual numbers of the turnout are disputed, Farrakhan adamantly pointed out that the figure was close to his actual aim. Amongst some of the speakers at the event included Maya Angelou; Rosa Parks; Martin Luther King III, Cornel West, Jesse Jackson. 10 years later in 2005, Farrakhan marked the 10th anniversary of this momentous day by organizing the Million More Movement with the aid of other acknowledged Black movement activists such as Malik Zulu Shabazz, the activist Al Sharpton.

In recent years, Louis Farrakhan has suffered a number of health problems, including peptic ulcers, abdominal surgeries and even a heart attack in December of 2013. Research more about the Nation of Islam and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

10May

May 10 1930- The NPHC

GM – FBF – Today we look bsch on our, Greek lettered fraternities and sororities. Coming together to create a union. Enjoy!

Remember – “It’s all about love. We’re either in love, dreaming about love, recovering from it, wish for it or reflecting on it.” – Unknown

Todat in our History – May 10, 1930 –

The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) is a collaborative organization of nine historically African American, international Greek lettered fraternities and sororities. The nine NPHC organizations are sometimes collectively referred to as the “Divine Nine”. The member/partner organizations have not formally adopted nor recommended the use of this term to describe their collaborative grouping. The NPHC was formed as a permanent organization on May 10, 1930 on the campus of Howard University, in Washington, D.C. with Matthew W. Bullock as the active Chairman and B. Beatrix Scott as Vice-Chairman. NPHC was incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois in 1937.

The council promotes interaction through forums, meetings and other mediums for the exchange of information and engages in cooperative programming and initiatives through various activities and functions.

Each constituent member organization determines its own strategic direction and program agenda. Today, the primary purpose and focus of member organizations remains camaraderie and academic excellence for its members and service to the communities they serve. Each promotes community awareness and action through educational, economic, and cultural service activities.

The National Pan-Hellenic Council was established in an age when racial segregation and disenfranchisement plagued African Americans, the rise of each of the black fraternities and sororities that make up the NPHC bore witness to the fact that despite hardships African Americans refused to accede to a status of inferiority.

The organization’s stated purpose and mission in 1930:

Unanimity of thought and action as far as possible in the conduct of Greek letter collegiate fraternities and sororities, and to consider problems of mutual interest to its member organizations.

The founding members of the NPHC were Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, and Zeta Phi Beta. The council’s membership expanded as Alpha Phi Alpha (1931), Phi Beta Sigma (1931), Sigma Gamma Rho (1937), and Iota Phi Theta (1996) joined this coalition of Black Greek letter organizations (BGLOs). In his book on BGLOs, Lawrence Ross coined the phrase “The Divine Nine” when referring to the coalition.

As required by various campus recognition policies, neither the NPHC, nor its member national or chapter organizations discriminate on the basis of race or religion.

In 1992, the first permanent national office for NPHC was established in Bloomington, Indiana on the campus of Indiana University through the joint cooperation of Indiana University and the National Board of Directors of NPHC. Research more about this time honored Tridition and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

09May

May 9 1967- Phillipa Duke

GM – FBF – To be young, gifited and black, here is one of the best. Enjoy!

Remember – “Everyone loves a prodigy […]. Prodigies get us off the hook for living ordinary lives. We can tell ourselves we’re not special because we weren’t born with it, which is a great excuse.” – Phillippa Duke Schuyler

Today in our History – May 9, 1967 – Black Child Prodigy star dies.

Phillippa Duke Schuyler was a child pianist, composer, and later journalist. Schuyler, born August 2, 1931, grew up in Harlem, and was the only child of George S. Schuyler, a prominent black journalist, and Josephine Cogdell, a white Texan from a wealthy and socially prominent family. Her parents were not Harlem civil rights crusaders, but rather conservatives and members of the John Birch society, who believed that interracial marriage and the resulting children could solve America’s race issue. They also fed Phillippa a strict raw food diet, believing that cooking removed all of the vital nutrients from food. By playing Mozart at the age of four and scoring 185 on an IQ test at the age of five, Phillippa quickly proved to her parents and the world that she was a child prodigy.

Phillippa began giving piano recitals and radio broadcasts as child, and with the help of her journalist father she quickly attracted an enormous amount of press coverage. In 1940 when she was nine, Phillippa became the subject of “Evening with a Gifted Child,” a profile written by Joseph Mitchell of The New Yorker, who heard several of her early compositions. Phillippa’s mother kept her isolated from other children by exclusively relying on tutors for her education. At the age of 13, Phillippa’s delusions and memories of her happy childhood were permanently tarnished when she stumbled across her mother’s scrapbook which described in detail how her parents thought of her as a genetic experiment. These feelings plagued Phillippa for the remainder of her life, and motivated her desire to travel, write, and play, so that she could find her place in the world.

She plunged herself into her music, and once she outgrew the child prodigy years she struggled to find a place in the American music community. On tour, especially in the South, she began to experience racial prejudice, something of which she had been mostly unaware during her sheltered upbringing. In order to continue to perform and make money, she became a world traveler, eventually visiting over 80 countries. Her world travels did not abate her sense of alienation from her native country and her parents and as a young woman Schuyler changed her name to Felipa Monterro and began to pass as white.

By her thirties, those world travels spawned her interest in journalism and afforded her fluency in numerous languages. Those travels placed her in dramatic locales at important moments of history. In 1960, for example, she was one of the few American journalists in Leopoldville (later Kinshasa), The Congo, to cover its independence. Through the 1960s she would author several books based on her experiences in world travel. Phillippa Schuyler died in a helicopter crash on May 9, 1967, when she, while working as a Vietnam War correspondent, attempted to evacuate a number of Vietnamese orphans threatened by an impending Viet Cong guerilla attack. Schuyler was 36. Research more about black child Prodigey stars and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

08May

May 8 1858- John Brown

GM – FBF – Today we Introduce a man who gave his life for the freedom of Blacks and his last words before he was hung is below. For in less than two (2) years the Civil War will begin. Enjoy!

Remember – “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.” ―John Brown

Today in our History – May 8, 1858 – John Brown holds antislavery convention in Canada.

As the October elections saw a free-state victory, Kansas was quiet. Brown made his men return to Iowa, where he fed them tidbits of his Virginia scheme. In January 1858, Brown left his men in Springdale, Iowa, and set off to visit Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York. There he discussed his plans with Douglass, and reconsidered Forbes’ criticisms. Brown wrote a Provisional Constitution that would create a government for a new state in the region of his invasion. Brown then traveled to Peterboro, New York, and Boston to discuss matters with the Secret Six. In letters to them, he indicated that, along with recruits, he would go into the South equipped with weapons to do “Kansas work”.

Brown and twelve of his followers, including his son Owen, traveled to Chatham, Ontario, where he convened on May 8th – 10th a Constitutional Convention. The convention, with several dozen delegates including his friend James Madison Bell, was put together with the help of Dr. Martin Delany. One-third of Chatham’s 6,000 residents were fugitive slaves, and it was here that Brown was introduced to Harriet Tubman. The convention assembled 34 blacks and 12 whites to adopt Brown’s Provisional Constitution. According to Delany, during the convention, Brown illuminated his plans to make Kansas rather than Canada the end of the Underground Railroad. This would be the Subterranean Pass Way.[citation needed] Delany’s reflections are not entirely trustworthy. Brown was no longer looking toward Kansas and was entirely focused on Virginia. Other testimony from the Chatham meeting suggests Brown did speak of going South. Brown had long used the terminology of the Subterranean Pass Way from the late 1840s, so it is possible that Delany conflated Brown’s statements over the years. Regardless, Brown was elected commander-in-chief and he named John Henrie Kagi as his “Secretary of War”. Richard Realf was named “Secretary of State”. Elder Monroe, a black minister, was to act as president until another was chosen. A.M. Chapman was the acting vice president; Delany, the corresponding secretary. In 1859, “A Declaration of Liberty by the Representatives of the Slave Population of the United States of America” was written.

Although nearly all of the delegates signed the constitution, very few delegates volunteered to join Brown’s forces, although it will never be clear how many Canadian expatriates actually intended to join Brown because of a subsequent “security leak” that threw off plans for the raid, creating a hiatus in which Brown lost contact with many of the Canadian leaders. This crisis occurred when Hugh Forbes, Brown’s mercenary, tried to expose the plans to Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson and others. The Secret Six feared their names would be made public. Howe and Higginson wanted no delays in Brown’s progress, while Parker, Stearns, Smith and Sanborn insisted on postponement. Stearns and Smith were the major sources of funds, and their words carried more weight. To throw Forbes off the trail and to invalidate his assertions, Brown returned to Kansas in June, and he remained in that vicinity for six months. There he joined forces with James Montgomery, who was leading raids into Missouri. He will lead a raid on Harpers Ferry Armory,VA. in October 1859 and was captured with others and hung. Research more about John Brown and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!