Author: Champion One

13Apr

April 13, 1997- Eldrick Tiger Woods

GM – FBF – My dad was my best friend and greatest role model. He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend. – Eldrick Tiger Woods

Remember – “You can win all the tournaments you want, but the majors are what you’re remembered for. It’s how you’re measured as a champion in our sport. The majors are where it’s at.” – Tiger Woods

Today in our History – April 13, 1997 – Eldrick Tiger Woods wins the 61st Masters Tournament in Augustus,Georgia.

Eldrick Tont Woods (born December 30, 1975) better known as Tiger Woods, is an American professional golfer who is among the most successful golfers of all time. He has been one of the highest-paid athletes in the world for several years.

Following an outstanding junior, college, and amateur career, Woods was 20 years old when he turned professional at the end of summer in 1996. By the end of April 1997, he had won three PGA Tour events in addition to his first major, the 1997 Masters. Woods won this tournament by 12 strokes in a record-breaking performance and earned $486,000. He first reached the number one position in the world rankings in June 1997, less than a year after turning pro. Throughout the 2000s, Woods was the dominant force in golf—he won the 2000 U.S. Open by a record 15-shot margin. He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 weeks).

Woods took a hiatus from professional golf from December 2009 to early April 2010 in order to focus on difficult issues in his marriage. He and his estranged wife Elin eventually divorced. His many alleged extramarital indiscretions were revealed by several women, through many worldwide media sources. This was followed by a loss of golf form, and his ranking gradually fell to a low of No. 58 in November 2011. He ended a career-high winless streak of 107 weeks when he triumphed in the Chevron World Challenge in December 2011. After winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 25, 2013, he ascended to the No.1 ranking once again, holding the top spot until May 2014.

Woods had back surgery in April 2014 and September 2015] and has struggled since to regain his dominant form. By March 29, 2015, Woods had fallen to #104, outside of the top 100 for the first time since 1996.[12] In May 2016, Woods dropped out of the world top 500 for the first time in his professional career. In July 2017, the Official World Golf Ranking placed Woods at number 1,005, the worst of his career and only time he has ever been out of the top 1,000. He had ranked number one for a total of 683 weeks, more than any other player in history.

Woods has broken numerous golf records. He has been World Number One for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any golfer. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record eleven times, the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in ten different seasons. He has won 14 professional major golf championships, where he trails only Jack Nicklaus who leads with 18, and 79 PGA Tour events, second all-time behind Sam Snead (82). Woods leads all active golfers in career major wins and career PGA Tour wins. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer (after Nicklaus) to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships, and won at least one of those events in each of the first 11 years after they began in 1999. Woods and Rory McIlroy are the only golfers to win both The Silver Medal and The Gold Medal at The Open Championship. Tiger Woods is still competing today as a come back this year he has finished stong enough to play on Sunday’s in his last three events. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

12Apr

April 12, 1882- Jimmy Winkfield

GM – FBF – The race of kings was controled by Black Men for 4 decades in our history and here is one of the best.

Remember – That went super today. I was a little nervous coming out of the gate – they all came together at one point –but he came out of there in good shape, sat second, and pulled the trigger when Irad asked him. The [1:09.75] was quick today. He did everything right. I think we’re going to stay with the one turn for a while, but that’s up to Rick and the owners. He’s running great sprinting.” – Jimmy Winkfield

Today in our History – Jimmy Winkfield, born on April 12,1882, became famous as an early 20th Century horse jockey. Winkfield, the youngest of 17 children, was born in Chilesburg, Kentucky, a town just outside of Lexington. As a child, he had a routine that included performing chores on the farm where his father was a sharecropper and overseeing the thoroughbred parades down the country roads. He and his family moved to Cincinnati in 1894.

On August 10, 1898, Winkfield rode his first race. Aboard Jockey Joe at Chicago’s Hawthorne Racetrack, he raced his horse out of the gate and rode across the path of the three inside horses, in an effort to get to the rail. This aggressive behavior did not go over well with racetrack officials and he earned a one year suspension. Winkfield learned from his mistake and on September 18, 1899, won his first race. Six months later he rode for the first time in the Kentucky Derby.

In 1901, at 19, Winkfield captured his first Kentucky Derby title astride a horse named Eminence. He went on to win 161 races that year, including key victories in the Latonia Derby on Hernando and Tennessee Derby where he rode Royal Victor. While these were spectacular accomplishments, he returned to the Kentucky Derby in 1902 and won again in the most important race of his career.

In 1903, Winkfield narrowly missed winning a third consecutive Derby. Had he accomplished this feat, he would be the first (and only person) to have ever done so. Riding a thoroughbred named Early, the odds-on favorite, Winkfield, took a 1 1/2-length lead but his mount slowed in the stretch and lost by three-quarters of a length. Winkfield called the loss the worst of his career.

Blacklisted after he dishonored a contract with one horse owner by riding for another, Winkfield accepted an offer to race in Russia, where he rose to fame once again. In Russia he won the Emperor’s Purse, the Moscow Derby twice and the Russian Derby three times. In Germany, Winkfield won the Grand Prix de Baden. In Poland, he won the Poland Derby twice and in France he won the Prix du President de la Republique.

Winkfield continued to race throughout Europe while living in Moscow. When the Communist Party came to power in Russia in 1919, horse racing was outlawed. Winkfield, now a trainer, led 260 horses, fellow trainers and owners overland to Poland during the winter of 1920. During this arduous journey the group survived by eating some of their horses on the way.

Winkfield married twice. His first wife, Alexandra, was a Russian baroness who died in 1921.They bore a son, George who died in 1934. His second marriage was to a French woman named Lydia who died in 1958. This marriage also produced a son, Robert, who died in 1977 and a daughter, Liliane Casey, who currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jimmy Winkfield died on March 23, 1974 in Maisons-Laffitte, France. His family and supporters lobbied for his admission to the Thoroughbred Hall of Fame, so he could join two other African-American jockeys who had already been honored there. On August 9, 2004, Winkfield was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. The award was presented to his daughter Liliane Winkfield Casey by Edward Hotaling, President of the Museum. Research more about the Black Horse Jockeys and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

11Apr

April 11, 1972- Elizabeth Cotton

GM – FBF – “What most of us can only strive for—a rich musical heritage and the ability to express that heritage beautifully through my playing.” – Elizabeth Cotten

Remember – “I was just glad to get the Grammy. I didn’t know what the thing was. It’s the honor what I loved.” – Elizabeth Cotten

Today in our History – April 11, 1972 – Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten wins the National Folk 1972 Burl Ives Award for her contribution to American folk music.

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten (1895-1987), best known for her timeless song “Freight Train,” built her musical legacy on a firm foundation of late 19th- and early 20th-century African-American instrumental traditions. Through her songwriting, her quietly commanding personality, and her unique left-handed guitar and banjo styles, she inspired and influenced generations of younger artists. In 1984 Cotten was declared a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts and was later recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as a “living treasure.” She received a Grammy Award in 1985 when she was ninety, almost eighty years after she first began composing her own works.

Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Libba Cotten taught herself how to play the banjo and guitar at an early age. Although forbidden to do so, she often borrowed her brother’s instruments when he was away, reversing the banjo and guitar to make them easier to play left-handed. Eventually she saved up the $3.75 required to purchase a Stella guitar from a local dry-goods store. Cotten immediately began to develop a unique guitar style characterized by simple figures played on the bass strings in counterpoint to a melody played on the treble strings, a method that later became widely known as “Cotten style.” She fretted the strings with her right hand and picked with her left, the reverse of the usual method. Moreover, she picked the bass strings with her fingers and the treble (melody strings) with her thumb, creating an almost inimitable sound.

Libba married Frank Cotten when she was 15 (not a particularly early age in that era) and had one child, Lily. As Libba became immersed in family life, she spent more time at church, where she was counseled to give up her “worldly” guitar music. It wasn’t until many years later that Cotten, due largely to a fortunate chance encounter, was able to build her immense talent into a professional music career. While working at a department store in Washington, D.C., Libba found and returned a very young and lost Peggy Seeger to her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. A month later, Cotten began work in the household of the famous folk-singing Seeger family.

The Seeger home was an amazing place for Libba to have landed entirely by accident. Ruth Crawford Seeger was a noted composer and music teacher while her husband, Charles, pioneered the field of ethnomusicology. A few years passed before Peggy discovered Cotten playing the family’s gut-stringed guitar. Libba apologized for playing the instrument without asking, but Peggy was astonished by what she heard. Eventually the Seegers came to know Libba’s instrumental virtuosity and the wealth of her repertoire.

Thanks largely to Mike Seeger’s early recordings of her work, Elizabeth Cotten soon found herself giving small concerts in the homes of congressmen and senators, including that of John F. Kennedy. By 1958, at the age of sixty-two, Libba had recorded her first album, Elizabeth Cotten: Negro Folk Songs and Tunes (Folkways 1957, now reissued as Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs, Smithsonian Folkways 1989). Meticulously recorded by Mike Seeger, this was one of the few authentic folk-music albums available by the early 1960s, and certainly one of the most influential. In addition to the now well-recorded tune “Freight Train,” penned by Cotten when she was only eleven or twelve, the album provided accessible examples of some of the “open” tunings used in American folk guitar. She played two distinct styles on the banjo and four on the guitar, including her single-string melody picking “Freight Train” style, an adaptation of Southeastern country ragtime picking.

As her music became a staple of the folk revival of the 1960s, Elizabeth Cotten began to tour throughout North America. Among her performances were the Newport Folk Festival, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the Smithsonian Festival. Her career generated much media attention and many awards, including the National Folk 1972 Burl Ives Award for her contribution to American folk music. The city of Syracuse, New York, where she spent the last years of her life, honored her in 1983 by naming a small park in her honor: the Elizabeth Cotten Grove. An equally important honor was her inclusion in the book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, by Brian Lanker, which put her in the company of Rosa Parks, Marian Anderson, and Oprah Winfrey.

Cotten’s later CDs, Shake Sugaree (Folkways, 1967), When I’m Gone (Folkways, 1979), and Elizabeth Cotten Live (Arhoolie 1089), continued to win critical acclaim. Elizabeth Cotten Live was awarded a Grammy for the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1985.

Elizabeth Cotten continued to tour and perform right up to the end of her life. Her last concert was one that folk legend Odetta put together for her in New York City in the spring of 1987, shortly before her death. Cotten’s legacy lives on not only in her own recordings but also in the many artists who continue to play her work. The Grateful Dead produced several renditions of “Oh, Babe, It Ain’t No Lie,” Bob Dylan covered the ever-popular “Shake Sugaree,” and “Freight Train” continues as a well-loved and recorded tune played by Mike Seeger, Taj Mahal, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, to name a few. Libba’s recordings, concert tours, media acclaim, and major awards are a testament to her genius, but the true measure of her legacy lies with the tens of thousands of guitarists who cherish her songs as a favorite part of their repertoires, preserving and keeping alive her unique musical style. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

10Apr

April 10, 1941- Oprah Winfrey

GM – FBF – Please read this great story that became of move with the help of Oprah Winfrey and HBO. A good read.

Remember – Like most young Lackses, Day didn’t finish school: he stopped in the fourth grade because the family needed him to work the fields. But Henrietta stayed until the sixth grade. During the school year, after taking care of the garden and livestock every morning, she’d walk two miles—past the white school where children threw rocks and taunted her—to the colored school, a three-room wooden farmhouse hidden under tall shade trees –

Today in our History – April 10, 1941 – Henrientta Lacks marries her couson.

Henrietta Lacks is best known as the source of cells that form the HeLa line, used extensively in medical research since the 1950s.

Henrietta Lacks was born in 1920 in Roanoke, Virginia. Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951.

Cells taken from her body without her knowledge were used to form the HeLa cell line, which has been used extensively in medical research since that time.

Lacks’s case has sparked legal and ethical debates over the rights of an individual to his or her genetic material and tissue.

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia. At some point, she changed her name to Henrietta.

After the death of her mother in 1924, Henrietta was sent to live with her grandfather in a log cabin that had been the slave quarters of a white ancestor’s plantation. Henrietta Lacks shared a room with her first cousin, David “Day” Lacks.

In 1935, the cousins had a son they called Lawrence. Henrietta was 14. The couple had a daughter, Elsie, in 1939, and married in 1941.

Henrietta and David moved to Maryland at the urging of another cousin, Fred Garret. There, they had three more children: David Jr., Deborah and Joseph. They placed their daughter Elsie, who was developmentally disabled, in the Hospital for the Negro Insane.

On January 29, 1951, Lacks went to Johns Hopkins Hospital to diagnose abnormal pain and bleeding in her abdomen. Physician Howard Jones quickly diagnosed her with cervical cancer.

During her subsequent radiation treatments, doctors removed two cervical samples from Lacks without her knowledge. She died at Johns Hopkins on October 4, 1951, at the age of 31.

The cells from Lacks’s tumor made their way to the laboratory of researcher Dr. George Otto Gey. Gey noticed an unusual quality in the cells. Unlike most cells, which survived only a few days, Lacks’s cells were far more durable.

Gey isolated and multiplied a specific cell, creating a cell line. He dubbed the resulting sample HeLa, derived from the name Henrietta Lacks.

The HeLa strain revolutionized medical research. Jonas Salk used the HeLa strain to develop the polio vaccine, sparking mass interest in the cells. As demand grew, scientists cloned the cells in 1955.

Since that time, over ten thousand patents involving HeLa cells have been registered. Researchers have used the cells to study disease and to test human sensitivity to new products and substances.

In February 2010, Johns Hopkins released the following statement concerning the cervical samples that were taken from Lacks without her consent:

“Johns Hopkins Medicine sincerely acknowledges the contribution to advances in biomedical research made possible by Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells. It’s important to note that at the time the cells were taken from Mrs. Lacks’ tissue, the practice of obtaining informed consent from cell or tissue donors was essentially unknown among academic medical centers. Sixty years ago, there was no established practice of seeking permission to take tissue for scientific research purposes. The laboratory that received Mrs. Lacks’s cells had arranged many years earlier to obtain such cells from any patient diagnosed with cervical cancer as a way to learn more about a serious disease that took the lives of so many. Johns Hopkins never patented HeLa cells, nor did it sell them commercially or benefit in a direct financial way. Today, Johns Hopkins and other research-based medical centers consistently obtain consent from those asked to donate tissue or cells for scientific research.”

The Lacks family learned about the HeLa cells in the 1970s. In 1973, a scientist contacted family members, seeking blood samples and other genetic materials–but inquiries from the family regarding the use of HeLa cells, and publications that included their own genetic information, were largely ignored.

The case gained new visibility in 1998, when the BBC screened an award-winning documentary on Lacks and HeLa. Rebecca Skloot later wrote a popular book on the subject, called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Oprah Winfrey and HBO announced plans to develop a film based on Skloot’s 2010 book and in 2017, the network aired the biopic. Lacks’ sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman, and granddaughter Jeri Lacks consulted on the film and Skloot was a co-executive producer.

Organizations that have profited from HeLa have since publicly recognized Henrietta Lacks’s contributions to research. The Lacks family has been honored at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Morgan State University granted Lacks a posthumous honorary degree. In 2010, Dr. Roland Pattillo of Morehouse donated a headstone for Lacks’s unmarked grave.

The HeLa case has raised questions about the legality of using genetic materials without permission. Neither Lacks nor her family granted permission to harvest her cells, which were then cloned and sold.

The California Supreme Court upheld the right to commercialize discarded tissue in the 1990 case Moore v. Regents of the University of California. In 2013, German researchers published the genome of a strain of HeLa cells without permission from the Lacks family.

The Lacks family has had limited success in gaining control of the HeLa strain. In August 2013, an agreement between the family and the National Institutes of Health granted the family acknowledgement in scientific papers and some oversight of the Lacks genome.

Research more about this American story that became a movie and watch the video with your babies. Make it a champion day!

09Apr

April 9, 1950- Juanita Hall

GM – FBF – I love it when I come across a New Jersey talent. Keyport, NJ is where Juanita Hall grew up and Matawan, NJ was laid to rest.

Remember – ” South Pacific was the musical that made me a household name and I enjoyed winning the award. – Juanita Hall

Today in our History – April 9, 1950 – Wins Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress ( South Pacific).

Juanita Hall (née Long, November 6, 1901 – February 28, 1968) was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary – a role that garnered her the Tony Award – and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang.

Born in Keyport, New Jersey, Hall received classical training at the Juilliard School. In the early 1930s, she was a special soloist and assistant director for the Hall Johnson Choir. A leading black Broadway performer in her day, she was personally chosen by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to perform the roles she played in the musicals South Pacific and Flower Drum Song, as a Tonkinese woman and a Chinese-American, respectively.

In 1950, she became the first African American to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Bloody Mary in South Pacific. She also starred in the 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers in which she sang and danced Harold Arlen’s Slide Boy Slide. She played the role of Bloody Mary for 1,925 performances on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre beginning on April 7, 1949. Her co-stars were Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin. In addition to her role in South Pacific, she was a regular performer in clubs in Greenwich Village, where she captivated audiences with her renditions of “Am I Blue?”, “Lament Over Love”, and Langston Hughes’ “Cool Saturday Night”.

Prior to her acting roles, she assembled her own chorus group (The Juanita Hall Choir) and kept busy with performances in concert, on records, in films, and on the air. She auditioned for “Talent 48”, a private review created by the Stage Manager’s Club. Later, she performed on radio in the soap opera The Story Of Ruby Valentine on the National Negro Network. The serial was broadcast on 35 stations, and sponsors of the broadcast included Philip Morris and Pet Milk.

In 1958, she recorded Juanita Hall Sings the Blues (at Beltone Studios in New York City), backed by an astonishing group of jazz musicians including Claude Hopkins, Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey, Doc Cheatham, and George Duvivier. In 1958 she reprised Bloody Mary in the film version of South Pacific, for which her singing part was dubbed, at Richard Rodgers’s request, by Muriel Smith, who had played the role in the London production. The same year, Hall starred in another Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway show, Flower Drum Song.

Hall married actor Clement Hall while in her teens. He died in the 1920s; they had no children. Hall, a diabetic, died from complications of her illness. She had been living at the Percy William Actors home in East Islip, New York. Leonard Feather gave a particularly moving tribute to Hall at the time of her death when he proclaimed her “an expert student and practitioner in the art of singing the blues”. Research more about this American Shero and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

08Apr

April 8, 1936- The Negro Motorist Green book

GM – FBF – I enjoyed seeing my Father’s side of the family but travel from Trenton, NJ to Perry, GA. still in the late 50’s was tough driving straight through. My Father before he took sick in Dec. ’61 and died in April ’63 only used the Green Book for emergencies.

Remember – ““There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States. It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication for then we can go wherever we please, and without embarrassment.” – Victor Green

Today in our History – April 8, 1936 – In time for the spring/summer traveling season. The Negro Motorist Green Book, popularly known as the Green Book, was a travel guide intended to help African American motorists avoid social obstacles prevalent during the period of racial segregation, commonly referred to as Jim Crow. The Green Book listed businesses that would accept African American customers.
The book was the vision of Victor Green, an African American US postal employee from Harlem, New York. The first guide focused on Metropolitan New York. The next year, in 1937, Green expanded listings to other locations. His book would eventually include every state and several international destinations before ceasing publication in 1964. Before its demise the book was the most popular of several tourist guides created specifically for an African American audience.

These types of travel guides were necessary during the Jim Crow era because African Americans were subject to acts of discrimination and occasional intimidation as many businesses refused to accept them as customers. African American motorists, for example were warned to avoid sundown towns which required minorities to be outside the city limits before sundown, hence the name. African American travel could be fraught with risk and guides like the Green Book were an important resource.

The Green Book also provided a service that made lodging reservations for clients. The listings were verified annually to ensure accuracy. In addition to business listings, the books included travel articles, driving tips, and essays highlighting locations of interest. An important sponsor for the Green Book was the Esso Standard Oil Company, which distributed the books and solicited African American customers through them.

The guide’s format varied and early versions listed a variety of businesses such as hotels, tourist homes, restaurants, barber shops, beauty parlors, service stations, and taverns. As the geographic scope of the guide expanded, entry types were reduced. For example, between 1949 and 1959, listings expanded to all 48 states, with a 13% increase in the number of cities. However, the 1959 Green Book listed only hotels, motels, and tourist homes.

Calvin Alexander Ramsey, book author and playwrite wrote a book “Ruth and the Green Book” and a play “The Green Book – A Play” and started a documentary film on the Green Book which he wanted to do a major film on but competition from other media sources has scaled that project back. You can find on you tube and other outlets mant stories about that time in American History and what black people went through to travel.

Green wrote that his book would not be necessary “when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges.” He died in 1960 and the last edition of his guide was published in 1964. The 1956 creation of the national highway system diminished the need for these travel guides because highways minimized contact with local communities, decreasing chances for discrimination against African American motorists. Eventually, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act made the Green Book and similar publications obsolete, just as Green predicted. Research more about the Green Book or watch a video on youtube and share with your babies. Make It A Champion Day!

07Apr

April 7, 1712- San Miguel De Guadalupe

GM – FBF – San Miguel de Guadalupe and Gaspar Yanga are the two largest recorded enslaved revolts by Africans in the Northern Hemisphere. (1526 & 1579) Once the Dutch lost (New Amsterdam) presant day [New York] to the English who set up the Royal African Company, a slave market near present-day Wall Street; this event became the largest revolt by African enslaved peoples to date.

Remember – “The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.” – Esteban

Today in our History –

The New York Slave Revolt of 1712 was an uprising in New York City, in the British Province of New York, of 23 enslaved Africans. They killed nine whites and injured another six before they were stopped. More than three times that number of blacks, 70, were arrested and jailed. Of these, 27 were put on trial, and 21 convicted and executed.

In the early 18th century, New York City had one of the largest slave populations of any of England’s colonies. Slavery in the city differed from some of the other colonies because there were no large plantations. Slaves worked as domestic servants, artisans, dock workers and various skilled laborers. Enslaved Africans lived near each other, making communication easy. They also often worked among free blacks, a situation that did not exist on most Southern plantations. Slaves in the city could communicate and plan a conspiracy more easily than among those on plantations.

Events that presumably led to the revolt include a decrease in freedom and status when the English took over the colony in 1664. Under Dutch rule, when the city was part of New Netherland, freed slaves had certain legal rights, such as the rights to own land and to marry. After the English took over New Amsterdam and made it the colony of New York, they enacted laws that restricted the lives of enslaved peoples. A slave market was built near present-day Wall Street to accommodate the increase in slaves being imported by the Royal African Company.

By the early 1700s, about 20 percent of the population were enslaved black people. The colonial government restricted this group through several measures: requiring slaves to carry a pass if traveling more than a mile (1.6km) from home; discouraging marriage among them; prohibiting gatherings in groups of more than three persons; and requiring them to sit in separate galleries at church services.

A group of more than twenty black slaves gathered on the night of April 7, 1712, and set fire to a building on Maiden Lane near Broadway. While the white colonists tried to put out the fire, the enslaved blacks, armed with guns, hatchets, and swords, attacked the whites and then ran off, but were soon recaptured.

Colonial forces arrested seventy blacks and jailed them. Six are reported to have committed suicide. Twenty-seven were put on trial, 21 of whom were convicted and sentenced to death. Twenty were burned to death and one was executed on a breaking wheel. This was a form of punishment no longer used on whites at the time. The severity of punishment was an expression of white slaveowners’ fear of slave insurrections.

After the revolt, the city and colony passed more restrictive laws governing black and Indian slaves. Slaves were not permitted to gather in groups of more than three, they were not permitted to carry firearms, and gambling was outlawed. Crimes of property damage, rape, and conspiracy to kill qualified for the death penalty. Free blacks were still allowed to own land, however. Anthony Portuguese (alternate spelling is Portugies), owned land that makes up a portion of present-day Washington Square Park; this continued to be owned by his daughter and grandchildren.

The colony required slave owners who wanted to free their slaves to pay a tax of (200 – 900) per person, then an amount much higher than the cost of a slave. In 1715 Governor Robert Hunter argued in London before the Lords of Trade that manumission and the chance for a slave to inherit part of a master’s wealth was important to maintain in New York. He said that this was a proper reward for a slave who had helped a master earn a lifetime’s fortune, and that it could keep the slave from descending into despair. Research more about the early enslaved African people in this new world and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

06Apr

April 6, 1957- Dred Scott

GM – FBF – Two hundread sixty one years ago, The Dred Scott Case is remembered as dividing the nation, precipitating the Civil War and ultimately being overturned by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Remember – “A man is a man, until that man finds a plan, a plan that makes that man, a new man”. – Dred Scott

Today in our History – April 6,1857 – Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision.

The Dred Scott decision was the culmination of the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, one of the most controversial events preceding the Civil War. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its decision in that case, which had been brought before the court by Dred Scott, a slave who had lived with his owner in a free state before returning to the slave state of Missouri. Scott argued that time spent in a free state entitled him to emancipation. But the court decided that no black, free or slave, could claim U.S. citizenship, and therefore blacks were unable to petition the court for their freedom. The Dred Scott decision outraged abolitionists and heightened North-South tensions.

This convoluted case (1857), both a cause and an effect of sectional conflict, contributed to antebellum political and constitutional controversy. It also made Chief Justice Roger B. Taney seem a satanic figure to contemporary antislavery activists and many later historians.

Dred Scott, a black slave, and his wife had once belonged to army surgeon John Emerson, who had bought him from the Peter Blow family of St. Louis. After Emerson died, the Blows apparently helped Scott sue Emerson’s widow for his freedom, but lost the case in state court.

Because Mrs. Emerson left him with her brother John Sanford (misspelled Sandford in court papers), a New York citizen, Scott sued again in federal court, claiming Missouri citizenship. Scott’s lawyers eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Originally, Justice Samuel Nelson was to write a narrow opinion, arguing that the case belonged in the state, not a federal court. But northern antislavery justices John McLean of Ohio and Benjamin R. Curtis of Massachusetts planned to dissent, arguing that Scott should be freed under the Missouri Compromise because he had traveled north of the 36°30′ line, whereas the Court’s southerners wanted to rule the compromise unconstitutional.

President James Buchanan‘s supporters considered it a final answer to the sectional controversy, although they were unaware at the time that Buchanan had influenced Justice Robert Grier of Pennsylvania to join the southern majority so that it would look less like a sectional decision.

The Dred Scott case remained the subject of noisy constitutional and historical debate and contributed to the divisions that helped lead to Abraham Lincoln‘s election and the Civil War. Research more about this case and the impact that it will have on enslaved people in the United States until President Abraham Lincoln”s Emancipation Proclamation. Make It A Champion Day!

05Apr

April 5, 1938- Walter Eugene Massey

GM – FBF – I will be facilitating. a sales training class and will not be be able to respond to any posts today. Make it a champion day!

Remember – ” Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” – Walter Eugene Massey

Today in our History –

Prominent educator Walter Eugene Massey was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on April 5, 1938. His father, Almar, was a steelworker and his mother, Essie, a teacher. Massey had an exceptional mind, even at an early age. By the time he finished 10th grade, his skills in mathematics were strong enough to earn him a college scholarship. Massey enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated with a BS in math and physics in 1958.

While working on his master’s and doctorate degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, Massey conducted research on the quantum of liquids and solids. He received a PhD in 1966. Massey began his teaching career as an associate professor at the University of Illinois then moved to Brown University in 1970, becoming a full professor five years later.

While teaching at both Illinois and Brown, Massey began to focus on the gap in the achievement levels between his black, Latino and white students. He commended the dramatic increase in college enrollment of minority students in higher education in the 1970s, but recognized the small numbers of these students in math and the sciences. To address this issue, Massey became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 1848), where he pushed for greater science literacy especially in schools with large numbers of black and Latino students. Eventually Massey became the first African American president of the organization. He also served as director of the National Science Foundation (founded 1950) from 1991 to 1993 where he promoted more opportunities for minority students in math, science and engineering programs at predominately white institutions. He also called for increased funding for programs in these areas for students in African American institutions.

Between 1993 and 1995, Massey served as the University of California, Berkeley provost and senior vice president of academic affairs before being named president of his alma mater, Morehouse College, until his retirement in 2007. He has been a director of Bank of America since 1993 and currently serves as its chairman of the board.

Massey was also was appointed chair of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in 1997 and was a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during the terms of Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush. Over his career Walter Massey has received 30 honorary degrees. He and his wife Shirley Anne have two sons. Recearch more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

04Apr

April 4, 1972- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr

GM – FBF – “The black masses must demand and refuse to accept nothing less than that proportionate percentage of the political spoils such as jobs, elective offices and appointments… They must reject the shameful racial tokenism that characterizes the political life of America today. – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (U.S. Congressman – NY – D)

Remember – :”Where Negroes provide 20 percent of the vote, they should have 20 per cent of the jobs.” – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (U.S. Congressman – NY – D)

Today in our History –
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., (born Nov. 29, 1908, New Haven, Conn., U.S.—died April 4, 1972, Miami, Fla.), black American public official and pastor who became a prominent liberal legislator and civil-rights leader.

Powell was the son of the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City. Brought up in a middle-class home, he received his B.A. from Colgate University (Hamilton, N.Y.) in 1930 and his M.A. from Columbia University in 1932. He succeeded his father as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1937 and eventually built up its membership to 13,000 people. With the church as his power base, Powell was able to build a formidable public following in Harlem through his crusades for jobs and housing for the poor. He won election to the New York City Council in 1941, becoming the first black man to serve on that body. In 1945 he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from Harlem. There he began a long fight against racial segregation. He served 11 successive terms in the House and became chairman of its Education and Labor Committee in 1960. In that capacity he played a leading role in the passage of a minimum wage act, antipoverty acts, and bills supporting manpower training and federal aid to education, about 50 major pieces of social legislation in all.

Powell’s outspoken opposition to racism and his flamboyant lifestyle made him enemies, however, and in the early 1960s he became involved in a lawsuit with a woman who claimed he had wrongly accused her of collecting police graft. He was cited for contempt of court in 1966 for refusing to pay damages, and in 1967 the House voted to deprive him of his seat. He was nevertheless reelected in his district in 1968 but was then deprived by his colleagues in the House of his committee chairmanship and his seniority. In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the action of the House in depriving him of his seat had been unconstitutional, but by that time Powell’s health was failing. After his defeat in the Democratic primary election of 1970, he resigned as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1971 and retired to the island of Bimini in The Bahamas. Research more about this American Hero and share with your babies. Make it a champion day! I am speaking at Kennasaw State Univerity and will not be able to respond to any posts today. Peace!