17Mar

March 17, 1955- Billy McKinney

GM – FBF- “The United States has far more to offer the world than our bombs and missiles and our military technology.” -Rep. Cynthia McKinney (US Congress – D – GA)

Remember – “Eight generations of African-Americans are still waiting to achieve their rights – compensation and restitution for the hundreds of years during which they were bought and sold on the market. ( US Congress – D – GA) – Rep. Cynthia McKinney

Today in oue History –
Cynthia Ann McKinney was born on March 17, 1955 in Atlanta, Georgia to parents Billy McKinney, who was a police officer and to a mother, Leola Christion McKinney, who was a nurse. Her father was a political activist who challenged his employer, the Atlanta Police Department, for its practice of racial discrimination. This desire to use activism in the cause of racial justice was inherited by Cynthia McKinney who initiated her first petition against racism while still in school. In 1971 she challenged a teacher at the Catholic institution for using racist language. Meanwhile, her father, Billy McKinney was elected to the Georgia State Legislature in 1973 as a Democrat.
After completing St. Joseph’s High School in Atlanta in 1973, McKinney in 1978 received a degree in international relations from the University of Southern California. This degree would serve her well in the future as became increasingly concerned about the role and impact of U.S. foreign around the world. McKinney then entered the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. There she met and Jamaican politician Coy Grandison and returned to Jamaica with him.
McKinney’s political career began in 1986 when her father, Billy McKinney persuaded his 31-year-old daughter become a write-in campaign for another legislative seat. Without any campaigning because she lived in Jamaica at the time, and little help from other Democrats, Cynthia McKinney still managed to get 20% of the total vote. Two years later she decided to mount an all-out campaign for the seat. Elected in 1988 at the age of 33, McKinney was one of the youngest members of the state legislature. She and her father became the first father-daughter pair in the Georgia legislature.
McKinney soon became controversial in the Georgia legislature for opposing the Gulf War and for challenging the chamber’s dress code by wearing slacks instead of dresses. She also joined Georgia civil rights leaders in a lawsuit to increase the number of black judges appointed in the state.
In 1992, McKinney ran for Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District seat. She won and remained in the U.S. House of Representatives for a decade. While in Congress McKinney was appointed to the Armed Services Committee and the International Relations Committee where she served as Ranking Member on its International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus, she also led the Women’s Caucus Task Force on Children, Youth and Families.
While agreeing with most of the Clinton administrations policies, she challenged the Administration on the North American Free Trade Agreement. She also called for the end of U.S. arms sales to nations with a history of human rights violations. She also continued to be a strong voice for racial justice issues. She opposed welfare reform in 1996 because she felt it would intensify the conditions facing impoverished black women and children. She called for election reform after the 2000 presidential election partly because of what she termed the disfranchisement of many Florida African American voters.
In 2002, McKinney was defeated in the Democratic Primary race by DeKalb County Judge Denise Majette. An estimated 40,000 Republicans voted in the Democratic Primary to defeat McKinney, angry over a controversial interview she had given earlier that year at a Berkeley, California radio station where she alleged that the Bush Administration had prior knowledge about the 9-11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
In 2004, McKinney returned to Congress where she became most noted for her criticism of the Bush Administration for its lack of support for Hurricane Katrina victims. In 2006 McKinney lost in the Democratic Primary to DeKalb County attorney Hank Johnson. On December 8, 2006, in her last major act as a member of Congress, McKinney introduced legislation to Impeach President George Bush because of his conduct of the Iraq War. Reserch more about black women in congress and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

16Mar

March 16, 1956- Mahalia Jackson

GM – FBF -“God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands”. Mahalia Jackson

Remember – “Time is important to me because I want to sing long enough to leave a message. I’m used to singing in churches where nobody would dare stop me until the Lord arrives!” Mahalia Jackson

Today in our History – In 1956, Mahalia Jackson made her debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.

20th century recording artist Mahalia Jackson, known as the Queen of Gospel, is revered as one of the greatest musical figures in U.S. history.
Synopsis
Born on October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mahalia Jackson started singing as a child at Mount Moriah Baptist Church and went on to become one of the most revered gospel figures in the U.S. Her recording of “Move On Up a Little Higher” was a major hit and she subsequently became an international figure for music lovers from a variety of backgrounds. She worked with artists like Duke Ellington and Thomas A. Dorsey and also sang at the 1963 March on Washington at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She died on January 27, 1972.

Early Life
Born Mahala Jackson on October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Charity Clark and Johnny Jackson, she became one of gospel music’s all-time greats, known for her rich, powerful voice that cultivated a global following. The young Mahala grew up in a Pitt Street shack and started singing at 4 years old in the Mount Moriah Baptist Church. When she started to sing professionally, she added an “i” to her first name.

Brought up in a devout Christian family, Jackson still found herself influenced by the secular sounds of blues artists like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Jackson’s sanctified style of performance would also rely upon freer movement and rhythm when contrasted to the styles seen in more conservative congregations.

Major Gospel Hit
After moving to Chicago as a teen with the aim of studying nursing, Mahalia Jackson joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church and soon became a member of the Johnson Gospel Singers. She performed with the group for a number of years. Jackson then started working with Thomas A. Dorsey, a gospel composer; the two performed around the U.S., further cultivating an audience for Jackson. She also took on a number of jobs — working as a laundress, beautician and flower shop owner for example — before her musical career went into the stratosphere. She wed Isaac Hockenhull in 1936, with the two later divorcing.

While she made some recordings in the 1930s, Mahalia Jackson tasted major success with “Move On Up a Little Higher” in 1947, which sold millions of copies and became the highest selling gospel single in history. She became more in demand, making radio and television appearances and going on tour, eventually performing in Carnegie Hall on October 4, 1950 to a racially integrated audience. Jackson also had a successful 1952 tour abroad in Europe, and she was especially popular in France and Norway. She had her own gospel program on the CBS television network in 1954 and scored a pop hit with “Rusty Old Halo.”

An International Star
In 1956, Jackson made her debut on The Ed Sullivan Show and in 1958 appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, performing with Duke Ellington and his band. Ellington and Jackson worked together on an album released the same year under Columbia Records titled Black, Brown and Beige. Future Columbia recordings from Jackson included The Power and the Glory (1960), Silent Night: Songs for Christmas (1962) and Mahalia (1965).

In 1959, Jackson appeared in the film Imitation of Life. By the end of the decade, much of Jackson’s work featured crossover production styles; she was an international figure, with a performance itinerary that included singing at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.

Civil Rights Work
Jackson was also an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. She sang at the March on Washington at the request of her friend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963, performing “I Been ‘Buked and I Been Scorned.” In 1966, she published her autobiography Movin’ On Up.After King’s death in 1968, Jackson sang at his funeral and then largely withdrew from public political activities.

In her later years, Mahalia Jackson had several hospitalizations for severe health problems, giving her final concert in 1971 in Munich, Germany. She died of a heart attack on January 27, 1972. Jackson is remembered and loved for her impassioned delivery, her deep commitment to spirituality and her lasting inspiration to listeners of all faiths. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

15Mar

March 15, 2009- Condoleezza Rice

GM – FBF -“The day has to come when it’s not a surprise that a woman has a powerful position” Condoleezza Rice

Remember – “When people don’t have a hopeful vision before them or the possible resolution of their difficulties by peaceful means, then they can be attracted to violence and to separatism.” – Condoleezza Rice

Today in our History – March 15, 2009 – Rice returned to Stanford University as a political science professor and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.The first Black Woman to hold such a position at Stanford University.

Condoleezza Rice became one of the most influential women in the world of global politics when President George W. Bush (1946–) named her as his national security adviser in December of 2000. Her role became extremely important after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon in Washington. Rice has played a crucial part in shaping the most aggressive U.S. foreign policy in modern history, with wars launched against Afghanistan and Iraq during her time in office.

Became kindergarten piano prodigy
Rice grew up during a deeply segregated era of American history. She was born in 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, to parents who were both educators. Her father, John Wesley Rice Jr., was a football coach and high school guidance counselor at one of Birmingham’s black public schools. He was also an ordained Presbyterian minister in Birmingham’s Westminster Presbyterian Church, which had been founded by his own father, also a minister. Rice’s mother, Angelena, was a teacher and church organist. Angelena loved opera, and so named her only child after an Italian-language term, con dolcezza. It is used in musical notation and means “to play with sweetness.”

Birmingham was clearly divided into black and white spheres during Rice’s childhood, and the two worlds rarely met. But her parents were determined that their only child would grow up to be an accomplished and well-rounded young woman. Rice began piano lessons at the age of three, and gave her first recital a year later. She became somewhat of a musical prodigy in the Birmingham area, performing often at school and community events. In addition to long hours spent practicing the piano, she also took French and Spanish lessons after school, and later became a competitive figure skater. “My whole community was determined not to let their children’s horizons be limited by growing up in segregated Birmingham,” Rice recalled in an interview with television personality Oprah Winfrey (1954–) for O, The Oprah Magazine. “Sometimes I think they overcompensated because they wanted their kids to be so much better.”

“I find football so interesting strategically. It’s the closest thing to war. What you’re really doing is taking and yielding territory, and you have certain strategies and tactics.”

Not surprisingly, Rice earned good grades in school, even at an early age. Attending segregated schools in Birmingham, she skipped the first grade entirely and was later promoted from the sixth directly into the eighth grade. Her city became a battleground during the emerging civil rights movement in the late 1950s, and the strife directly touched Rice’s early life. In 1963 the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, situated in the middle of Birmingham’s black community, was the site of a tragic firebombing that killed four little girls who were attending Sunday school. Rice knew two of them.

Finished high school at fifteen
Rice’s family moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, around 1965, when she was eleven years old. Her father had taken a job there as a college administrator. They later settled in Denver, Colorado, where she attended an integrated public school for the first time in her life, beginning with the tenth grade. She finished her last year of high school and her first year at the University of Denver at the same time.

“The Most Powerful Woman in the World”
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has sometimes been described as the most influential woman in global politics. A university professor and expert on Russian history, Rice is known for her cool, calm manner. When Bush appointed her to the job in 2000, some wondered if she was qualified for it. But Janne Nolan, a friend of Rice’s from her early days as a Stanford University professor, told New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann that Rice had a solid track record for proving herself. “I’ve watched it over and over again—the sequential underestimation of Condi,” Nolan told Lemann. “It just gets worse and worse. She’s always thought of as underqualified and in over her head, and she always kicks everyone’s butt.”

A job such as Rice’s requires nerves of steel, and the French- and Russian-fluent academic, whose friends and family call her “Condi,” fits the bill. She explained in an interview with Essence writer Isabel Wilkerson, “My parents went to great lengths to make sure I was confident. My mother was also a great believer in being proper.” As an African American and a professional, Rice has experienced the occasional racial snub. She recalled one occasion when she asked to see some of the nicer jewelry in a store, and the saleswoman mumbled a rude remark under her breath. As Rice recalled to Wilkerson, she told the woman, “‘Let’s get one thing clear. If you could afford anything in here, you wouldn’t be behind this counter. So I strongly suggest you do your job.'”

The confidence that Rice’s parents instilled in her comes out in other ways, too. She favors suits by Italian designer Giorgio Armani, but the trim, fit national security adviser prefers her skirts to hit just above the knee. Her favorite lipstick comes from the Yves Saint Laurent cosmetics counter. When asked about her off-duty hours, Rice told Wilkerson that she watches sports and goes shopping. Wilkerson wondered about the Secret Service security detail that accompanies Rice in public, but Rice responded with a humor rarely on display in public, “They can handle shopping.”

For years Rice dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. At the University of Denver she was originally a music major, but eventually gave up on her dream after spending a summer at music camp. “Technically, I can play most anything,” she explained to Winfrey about her decision to change majors. “But I’ll never play it the way the truly great pianists do.” She fell in love with political science and Russian history after she took a class taught by Josef Korbel (1909–1977), a refugee from Czechoslovakia. In the 1990s Korbel’s daughter, Madeleine Albright (1937–), became the first female U.S. Secretary of State.

Rice began taking Russian-language and history courses, and became fascinated by Cold War politics. The term refers to the hostilities between the United States and the world’s first Communist state, Soviet Russia, in the years following World War II (1939–45). Each “superpower” tried to win allies to its brand of politics, and in the process each side built up a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. After she graduated from the University of Denver in 1974, Rice enrolled at Notre Dame University in Indiana, where she earned a master’s degree in government and international studies.

Drifted for a time
Years later Rice admitted, in the interview with Winfrey, “I am still someone with no long-term plan.” To begin her post-college career, she lined up a job as an executive assistant—in other words, a secretary—to a vice president at Honeywell, a large electronics corporation. But a company reorganization ended that career possibility. For a time she gave piano lessons. Then her former professor, Josef Korbel, suggested that she return to school, and she began work on a Ph.D. degree at the University of Denver.

Rice was a promising new talent in her field even before she earned a doctorate in 1981. Her dissertation investigated the relationship between the Czechoslovak Communist Party and its army. Soon she was offered a fellowship at Stanford University. No other woman had ever been offered a fellowship to its Center for International Security and Arms Control. She eagerly accepted, and the following year she was hired by Stanford to teach political science.

Rice became a tenured professor at Stanford in 1987. She was also a rising star in U.S. foreign policy circles. She served as the informal campaign adviser to a Colorado Democrat, Gary Hart (1936–), during his 1984 bid for the White House. She came to know a foreign policy expert, Brent Scowcroft (1925–), and was offered her first official job in government. Scowcroft had been named national security adviser by George H. W. Bush (1924–), who was elected president in 1988. Scowcroft then hired Rice as a staff member on the National Security Council.

Served in first Bush White House
The National Security Council helps analyze data and plan American foreign policy. It looks at potential global threats from hostile nations, and works to make strategic alliances with friendly ones. Rice eventually became a special assistant to the first President Bush, serving as his expert on Soviet and East European affairs. It was an important time in American foreign policy. The political system of the Soviet Union was crumbling, and by 1991 the Communist governments allied with Soviet Russia had been peacefully ousted throughout the Eastern Bloc (as the communist nations in Eastern Europe were known).

But Rice tired of the toll the White House job took on her personal life, and she resigned in 1991. She went back to teaching at Stanford, and in 1993 became the university’s first-ever female provost, which essentially made her second-in-command at the school. She was also the first African American to be selected for the position. “That was the toughest job I ever had,” she told Nicholas Lemann in a New Yorker profile. She was charged with eliminating a large budget deficit, and the university had also been accused of misusing government grant money intended for military research. There was internal turmoil as well, and some faculty members complained about Rice’s no-nonsense manner. “I told people, ‘I don’t do committees,'” she explained to Lemann.

Rice remained on friendly terms with the Bush family and came to know one of the sons, George W., during visits to the Bush summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine. In 1999 George W. Bush decided to try and win the Republican Party’s nomination as its presidential candidate for 2000. He hired Rice to lead his team of foreign policy advisers, and she quit the Stanford job. She began working closely with Bush, who was governor of Texas at the time and had very little other political experience, especially in foreign relations.

Bush won his party’s nomination and later was declared the winner of a hotly contested November election. The president-elect immediately named Rice as his national security adviser. Though she was not the first African American ever to hold the post—Bush’s new Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell (1937–), had held the job for a year in the late 1980s—she was the first woman ever to serve in the position. The national security adviser helps shape American foreign policy, both on the public front and behind the scenes, in strategy sessions with the president and his team.

Plotted strategy from underground bunker
Rice’s duties also included coming up with ideas to combat threats to American interests at home and overseas. This became an important part of her job on the morning of September 11, 2001. She was in a meeting at the White House when an aide notified her that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. She quickly ended the meeting and notified the President, who was in Florida. After a second plane crashed into the other tower of the New York landmark, she and other key personnel gathered in what is known as the White House “Situation Room.” When a third plane crashed into the Pentagon Building, which is the command center for the U.S. Armed Forces, Rice and the others retreated to an underground bunker. The attack was the deadliest ever to occur on American soil.

Rice worked long days in the months afterward to shape U.S. foreign policy. The first order of business involved Afghanistan, which was suspected of harboring the shadowy Islamic fundamentalist group known as Al Qaeda. It was founded by a Saudi exile, Osama bin Laden (1957–), who quickly took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Less than a month later, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan. Rice also worked to create a new policy for dealing with longtime Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (1937–). The Bush White House believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against the United States. In March of 2003 the United States invaded Iraq.

The fourth year of the Bush Administration was a difficult one for Rice and other top White House and Pentagon personnel. Though Hussein had been captured and the war in Iraq was officially declared over, U.S. troops stationed in Iraq had become the target of repeated attacks by insurgents. And American military operatives had yet to capture bin Laden. In April of 2004 Rice was called to testify before a

Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 Commssion, April 8, 2004.
AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.
special panel that had been set up to investigate the 9/11 attacks, namely whether or not the attacks could have been prevented and how the emergency response to such an attack could be improved. There were charges that U.S. intelligence officials may have come across suspicious information but failed to put the pieces together. Rice sat before the official 9/11 Commission, in front of a barrage of television cameras, and held her ground. “There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States,” she asserted, according to the New York Times. “If there had been something, we would have acted on it.”
Dreams of top NFL job
Rice lives in a luxury apartment complex in Washington known as Watergate. Her mother died in 1985, and her father died the same month that Bush named her to the national security adviser post. She attends church regularly, and is known to be close to the President and his wife, Laura (1946–). At the Maryland presidential retreat known as Camp David, she has been known to watch hours of televised sports with President Bush. Both are dedicated football fans, and Rice has also been known to spend an entire day on her own watching college and pro football games.

Rice’s name has been mentioned as a possible future vice-presidential candidate. Although she has joked that she would love to serve as commissioner of the National Football League, she has also said that she looks forward to returning to teaching once her service to the Bush White House comes to an end. “I miss my kids,” she said in the interview with Winfrey. “In a class of 20, there are always two or three for whom the lights go on. When that happens, I think I’ve done for them what Dr. Korbel did for me.” Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

14Mar

March 14, 1977- Fannie Lou Hamer

GM – FBF – “You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap” – Fannie Lou Hamer

Remember – , “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” – Fannie Lou Hamer

Today in our History – March 14, 1977 –

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) was a civil rights activist whose passionate depiction of her own suffering in a racist society helped focus attention on the plight of African-Americans throughout the South. In 1964, working with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Hamer helped organize the 1964 Freedom Summer African-American voter registration drive in her native Mississippi. At the Democratic National Convention later that year, she was part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated group of activists who openly challenged the legality of Mississippi’s all-white, segregated delegation.
Born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery County, Mississippi. The daughter of sharecroppers, Hamer began working the fields at an early age. Her family struggled financially, and often went hungry.
Married to Perry “Pap” Hamer in 1944, Fannie Lou continued to work hard just to get by. In the summer of 1962, however, she made a life-changing decision to attend a protest meeting. She met civil rights activists there who were there to encourage African Americans to register to vote. Hamer became active in helping with the voter registration efforts.
Hamer dedicated her life to the fight for civil rights, working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This organization was comprised mostly of African American students who engaged in acts of civil disobedience to fight racial segregation and injustice in the South. These acts often were met with violent responses by angry whites. During the course of her activist career, Hamer was threatened, arrested, beaten, and shot at. But none of these things ever deterred her from her work.In 1964, Hamer helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which was established in opposition to her state’s all-white delegation to that year’s Democratic convention.
She brought the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the attention of the entire nation during a televised session at the convention. The next year, Hamer ran for Congress in Mississippi, but she was unsuccessful in her bid.Along with her political activism, Hamer worked to help the poor and families in need in her Mississippi community.
She also set up organizations to increase business opportunities for minorities and to provide childcare and other family services. Hamer died of cancer on March 14, 1977, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

13Mar

March 13, 2009- Anne Wiggins Brown

GM – FBF – “I take the world very personally. I take history personally; I want to place myself in the larger context.” – Marianne Wiggins

Remember – “I write on a visual canvas, ‘seeing’ a scene in my thoughts before translating it into language, so I’m a visual junkie.” – Marianne Wiggins

Today in our History , March 13, 2009 – Brown, Anne Wiggins (1912-2009) – The Fist lady to praform “BESS” in the broadway production of “PORGY AND BESS”.

Broadway performer Anne Wiggins Brown was born August 9, 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland to Dr. Harry F. Brown and Mary Wiggins Brown. Her father, the grandson of a slave, was a respected physician, and her mother was of black, Cherokee, and Scottish-Irish decent. Brown was a talented singer from a young age, but when her parents tried to enroll their daughter in a private Catholic elementary school with a music program, she was denied entrance because she was African American.

Brown began her training at Morgan College (now Morgan State University), after which she applied to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Once again she was denied admittance because of her race. Brown did not give up and in 1928, when she was just 16 years old, Brown auditioned for and was admitted to the Julliard School in New York, becoming the first African American vocalist to attend the school. While at Julliard, Brown was awarded the prestigious Margaret McGill scholarship.

Brown got her big break in 1935 when she sang the part of Bess in the world premiere of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Colonial Theater in Boston. The play, which featured an all-African American cast, focused on the lives African Americans living in Charleston, South Carolina during the 1920s. After a successful opening, Porgy and Bess was moved to the Alvin Theater in New York in October 1935. Although Brown’s performance was highly praised, the opera received mixed reviews. Many African Americans, including Brown’s father, believed that the play was racist and portrayed stereotypes of black people.

Brown continued to appear on Broadway in such shows as Pins and Needles (1937) and Mamba’s Daughters (1939). The successful singer/actress also continued to play Bess in multiple revivals of Porgy and Bess including the Broadway revival in 1942. Although she had gained fame and success, Brown was still forced to deal with the reality of segregation in America. Brown encountered prejudice on many occasions and was even denied use of a performance hall in Baltimore, her hometown.

Brown’s experiences persuaded her to live in Europe. In 1946, she traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to perform in the Royal Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess and afterwards decided to remain there. Brown began touring from Copenhagen and gave recitals throughout Europe. In 1948, while traveling in Norway, she met and married her husband, the philosopher, journalist, and Olympic medal skier Thorleif Schjelderup. The couple settled in Norway and raised two daughters together.

In 1953, Brown began the transition from performer to voice coach and director, and in 1967 she put on a Norwegian production of Porgy and Bess. In 1998 Brown was awarded the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Music in America by the Peabody Institute as a way to apologize for their admission denial. Anne Wiggins Brown passed away in Oslo, Norway on March 13, 2009. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

12Mar

March 12, 2015- Willie T. Barrow

MafGM – FBF – “I am about doing the work of our people in Chicago or the Nation” – Willie T. Barrow

Remember – ” I am proud to with Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH to support the people of our great City” – Willie T. Barrow

Today in our History – March 12, 2015 – Religious leader and civil rights activist Reverend Willie T. Barrow was born on December 7, 1924 to Octavia and Nelson Taplin, a minister. Barrow was raised in Burton, Texas, where as a student she led a demonstration of rural African American schoolchildren against a segregated school system. Barrow later attended Warner-Pacific Theological Seminary in Portland, Oregon, and helped build a church in that city in the 1940s.
Upon graduation, Barrow was ordained as a minister and began her career as both a spiritual and social activist. From 1953 to 1965, she was a field organizer for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where she was responsible for the organization of transportation, shelter, meetings and rallies for demonstrations, including the 1965 March on Selma, Alabama. During the 1960s, Barrow was among the founding members of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, Illinois, a program that provided spiritual guidance and practical assistance to communities in need. Later, in 1968, she led a three-person delegation to North Vietnam and participated in the negotiation of the Vietnam Peace Treaty.
Barrow went on to serve as co-chair of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the organization that grew out of Operation Breadbasket. At the Coalition, she coordinated activities and served as an aide to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. Barrow also served as associate minister of the Vernon Park Church of God in Chicago, and was active in the National Urban League and National Council of Negro Women.
Barrow was honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree from Monrovia, Liberia and a Leadership Certificate from Harvard University. She also received awards from the League of Black Women, the Christian Women’s Conference, and the Indo-American Democratic Organization. In September of 1997, a street on Chicago’s South Side was renamed in her honor; and, that same year, the Reverend Willie Barrow Wellness Center was opened to bring affordable and accessible health care to needed areas in Chicago. She authored the book, How to Get Married and Stay Married, which was published in 2004.
Reverend Barrow passed away on March 12, 2015 at the age of 90. Reserch more about the NAACP, SCLC and Operation PUSH and people who are Civil Rights Activeist and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

11Mar

March 11, 1959- Lorraine Vivian Hansberry

GM – FBF – “Seems like God don’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams – but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Remember – “There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.” – Lorraine Hansberry

Today in our History – March 11, 1959 – A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre – Lorraine Vivian Hansberry – Playwright(1930–1965) was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Nannie Louise Hansberry, a teacher, and Carl Hansberry, a real-estate broker. Her progressive parents examined her birth certificate, and after seeing the word “Negro” printed by the hospital, immediately crossed it out and wrote “Black.” The Hansberry family bought a house at 6140 S. Rhodes Ave. in Washington Park—a white, upper-middle-class neighborhood that the playwright later described as “hellishly hostile.” They were violently attacked by their neighbors, who were constantly trying to get the family to leave the neighborhood. The Hansberrys refused, and agreed to stay in their home at all costs. “I [remember] my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our house all night with a loaded German Luger, doggedly guarding her four children,” Hansberry wrote.
The Hansberrys’ white neighbors were so intent on pushing them out of the neighborhood (and the family was so intent on staying) that the Hansberry v. Lee case made it to the Illinois Supreme Court. When the state ruled against the Hansberry family, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the decision, allowing the family to stay in their home. Thanks to the Hansberrys’ persistence, it was no longer legal for white residents in the United States to push African Americans out of their neighborhoods. While writing for the progressive black newspaper Freedom, Hansberry discovered Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” published in his book Montage of a Dream Deferred. “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”
The young author began working on a play exploring the struggles of a poor, black family living in Chicago, loosely based on her own family’s story. Originally titled The Crystal Stair (a line from the Langston Hughes poem “Mother to Son”), A Raisin in the Sun centers on the Youngers, a lower-class family who is offered a sum of money to stay away from the white neighborhood where they have purchased their dream home.
A Raisin in the Sun made history, becoming the first play written by a black woman (a 29-year-old, no less) to ever be produced on Broadway. But the journey to the Great White Way wasn’t easy—it took over a year for producer Philip Rose to raise enough funds to bring the play to New York. After short pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia, New Haven and Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway on March 11, 1959 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, starring Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger, a struggling son with big dreams, Claudia McNeil as his mother Lena and Ruby Dee as his hardworking wife Ruth. Hansberry wrote two screenplay adaptations of A Raisin in the Sun, but both were rejected by Columbia Pictures for being too controversial. The third time proved to be the charm, and a draft that more closely resembled the stage play was greenlit. Poitier, Dee and McNeil all reprised their roles for the film, which won a special award at the Cannes Film Festival. After a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer, Hansberry died at the age of 34, the same night her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, closed on Broadway. A passage from the play is engraved on her gravestone: “I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care. The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living. Which is why I have lately become an insurgent again.”
Robert Nemiroff, Hansberry’s ex-husband, became a champion of the late playwright’s work after her death. He adapted many of her unpublished poems, stories and letters into the play To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which premiered off-Broadway in 1968. Singer-songwriter Nina Simone, a close friend of Hansberry, wrote a song of the same name in her memory.
After the success of A Raisin in the Sun on the Great White Way, Nemiroff teamed up with Charlotte Zaltzberg to write the book for a musical adaptation of Hansberry’s groundbreaking play. Judd Woldin and Robert Brittan wrote the score, a mix of jazz, blues, gospel and of course, traditional musical theater. “It is a strange [musical] but a good one,” The New York Times reported. “It warms the heart and touches the soul.” Starring Joe Morton as Walter Lee, Ernestine Jackson as Ruth and Virginia Capers as Mama Lena, Raisin won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. On the 30-year anniversary of the beloved drama’s Broadway premiere, PBS aired an uncut, three-hour TV adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun starring Danny Glover and Esther Rolle. Director Bill Duke told The Los Angeles Times, “This play transcends time and race. It applies to all poor people. What Lorraine says is something that should be said often: Folks that don’t have money, folks that society looks down its nose at, are some of the noblest spirits among us.”
Raisin returned to the Great White Way for the second time, starring stage and screen great Phylicia Rashad, Tony winner Audra McDonald and rapper-turned-actor Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in his Broadway debut. “At this point of my life, it’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever done because it’s so intense, it’s so emotional, it’s so hard,” Combs told the Associated Press. The production made history at the Tony Awards when Rashad was honored with the Best Actress in a Play trophy, becoming the first African-American woman to receive the honor. Director Kenny Leon reassembled his leading players for a 2008 adaptation of the production, which was seen by 12.7 million viewers on ABC.
Five decades after Raisin first opened on Broadway, playwrights still continue to be inspired by Hansberry’s gripping drama. Bruce Norris’ homage to the iconic story, Clybourne Park, was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play. As part of its 50th anniversary season, Maryland’s Center Stage produced Clybourne Park in repertory with the world premiere of Beneatha’s Place, focusing on the untold story of Walter Lee’s younger sister. Dubbed The Raisin Cycle, the new plays have introduced the Younger family to a brand new audience.
Now, director Kenny Leon (who also helmed the 2004 revival) brings the Younger family back to their very first Broadway home at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Why did he want to bring the drama back after only ten years? “This is the play that keeps on giving,” he told Broadway.com. “If all the other great American plays—Death of a Salesman, Streetcar, A Moon for the Misbegotten—if they have been done every four or five years, surely [it’s time] to revisit A Raisin in the Sun.” Featuring Denzel Washington as Walter Lee, LaTanya Richardson Jackson as Lena and Sophie Okonedo as Ruth, the new production opened officially on April 3,2014. Research more by watching this great American Play with your babies and make it a champion day!

10Mar

March 10, 1836 – Witherspoon Street Church

GM – FBF – “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” — 2 Corinthians 5:1

Remember – “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” – Philippians 4:4

Today in our History – March 10, 1836 – Organized in 1836, the Witherspoon Street Church is one of the oldest African American Presbyterian congregations in New Jersey. On March 10, 1836, 90 out of 131former African American members of the Nassau Presbyterian Church were released from the congregation to form their own church. Nassau had just suffered a fire that destroyed their church. Although slaves and indentured servants were allowed to attend Nassau Presbyterian, they suffered much racism and were forced to sit in the small balcony. Many of them saw this as the opportunity to establish a church they controlled.

The original church name was The First Presbyterian Church of Colour of Princeton. After the first official communion was held in 1840, the church was referred to as Third Presbyterian Church, and later the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church for Colored People in Princeton. The congregation included enslaved, indentured, and free people of color.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Stockton was born enslaved to the Stockton Family in Princeton; she attended Nassau Presbyterian Church and was instrumental in establishing the new church. Betsy Stockton earned her freedom at the age of twenty and traveled to Hawaii as a missionary. She returned to Princeton in 1835 and helped found the First Presbyterian Church of Colour. In 1837 Stockton began teaching African American children in a public school and later established a Sabbath School at what is now the Witherspoon Street Church. A stained glass window in the church is dedicated to Stockton and her work in the church.

In October of 1879, Rev. William Drew Robeson was installed as pastor. Along with his wife, Maria Louisa Bustill of Philadelphia, the Robesons moved into the church parsonage and began their family. That parsonage was the place of birth of twentieth century singer and activist Paul Robeson and is now called The Robeson House. As a former slave, Rev. Robeson fought for the rights of African Americans. His preaching on racial equality was eventually deemed “too radical” by Presbyterian Synod leaders and he was forced to resign in 1901.

Throughout the decades, the Witherspoon Church has been rooted in supporting the community through Emancipation, Reconstruction, two World Wars and the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1950s, Witherspoon Street Church began to become more inclusive of its changing community, embracing all from every ethnic background. Rev. Benjamin Anderson headed efforts to build Princeton’s first integrated housing project and helped restaurant and hotel workers to unionize. In 2003 the congregation installed its first female pastor, Rev. M. Muriel Burrows.

In 2015 The General Assembly of the Presbytery issued a formal apology to the congregation of Witherspoon Street Church for the unjust removal of Rev. Robeson which had resulted in loss of membership, the sale of the church parsonage, and financial decline. The church repurchased the parsonage in 2005, partly through a grant of $173,000 given by the Synod of the Northeast. Today the church has a racially diverse congregation that has a stong focus and foundation on being stewards of peace and racial reconciliation. When in the Trenton, NJ area, visit historical Princeton and the famous Witherspoon Street Presbytery Church and bring your babies. Make it a champion day!

09Mar

March 9, 1902- Louise Beavers

GM – FBF – “I’m your mammy child, I ain’t no white mother. It’s too much to ask of me. I ain’t got the spiritual strength to beat it. I can’t hang on no cross, I ain’t got the strength.” – Louise Beavers

Remember – “the third Negro woman in this country to [ever] have my face on the big screen,” – Louise Beavers

Today in our History – March 9, 1902 – A great black actress was born who will be the 3rd only black to be on the big screen and on Television.

1930s and 1940s film actress Louise Beavers was merely one of a dominant gallery of plus-sized and plus-talented African-American character actresses forced to endure blatant, discouraging and demeaning stereotypes during Depression-era and WWII Hollywood. It wasn’t until Louise’s triumphant role in Fannie Hurst’s classic soaper Imitation of Life (1934) that a film of major significance offered a black role of meaning, substance and humanity. Despite the fact that Louise was playing yet another of her endless servile roles as housekeeper Delilah who works for single white mother Claudette Colbert, this time around her character was three-dimensional and not merely a source of servitude and/or or comic relief. She had her own dramatic story and brilliantly handled the heartbreaking co-plot of an appeasing single parent whose light-skinned daughter (played by Fredi Washington) went to cruel and desperate lengths to pass for white. While Louise certainly championed in the role and managed to steal the lion’s share of reviews right from under the film’s superstar, the movie triggered major controversy and just as many complaints as compliments from both black and white viewers. This certainly did not help what could have been a major, positive shift in black filmmaking. Instead, for the next two or more decades Louise was again forced to retreat into secondary status with precious few opportunities to shine.

Ms. Beavers was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 9, 1902 and moved with her family to the Los Angeles area at age 11. A student at Pasadena High School and a choir member at her local church, her mother, a voice teacher, trained Louise for the concert stage but instead the young girl joined an all-female minstrel company called “Lady Minstrels” and even hooked up for a time on the vaudeville circuit. A nursing career once entertained was quickly aborted in favor of acting. Her first break of sorts was earning a living as a personal maid and assistant to Paramount star Leatrice Joy (and later actress Lilyan Tashman). By 1924 she was performing as an extra or walk-on in between her chores. A talent agent spotted her and gave her a more noticeable role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin(1927). She went on to gain even more visibility, but was invariably stuck in the background cooking or cleaning after the leads. Despite this her beaming smile and good nature paid off.
Following scene-grabbing maid roles to such stars as Mary Pickford in Coquette (1929) Linda Watkins in Good Sport (1931), Mae West in She Done Him Wrong (1933), Constance Bennett in What Price Hollywood? (1932) and Jean Harlow in Bombshell(1933), Louise received the role of her career. Her poignant storyline and final death scene deserved an Oscar nomination and many insiders took her snub as deliberate and prejudicial. Five years later her compatriot (and close friend) Hattie McDaniel would become the first black actor to not only earn an Oscar nomination but capture the coveted trophy as well for her subordinate role in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Despite their individual triumphs, both ladies continued to trudge through more of the same, albeit steadily. Occasionally Louise was rewarded with such Hollywood “A” treats as Made for Each Other (1939) with Carole Lombard, Holiday Inn (1942) starring Bing Crosby, and especially Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. In The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), she offered lovely moments as the baseball star’s mother.

Although film offers dried up in the 1950s, Louise managed to transfer her talents to the new TV medium, and was one of a number of character actresses hired to play the wise-cracking, problem-solving maid Beulah (1950) during its run. “Beulah” was one of the first sitcoms to star a black actor. She also had a recurring role in Disney’s “The Swamp Fox”. In 1957, she made her professional stage debut in San Francisco with the short-lived play “Praise House” as a caregiver who extols the Bible through song. Her last few films, which included The Goddess (1958), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) and the Bob Hopecomedy The Facts of Life (1960) were typical stereotypes and unmemorable.

A long time bachelor lady who finally married in the 1950s, the short and stout actress was plagued by health issues in later years, her obesity and diabetes in particular. She lost her fight on October 26, 1962, at age 60 following a heart attack. In 1976 she was posthumously inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Research more about this great American actress or watch the orgional “Imatation of Life” (1934). Make it a champion day!

08Mar

March 8, 1954- Mattwilda Dobbs

GM – FBF – “I was so afraid for myself if I would have married” Martin L.King. -Mattiwilda Dobbs

Remember – ” Music that I sing is not for the masses but most for the people who enjoy Opera” – Mattiwilda Dobbs

Today in our History – March 8, – The First black to preform at New York’s Town Hall on March 8, 1954.

Mattiwilda Dobbs (July 11, 1925 – December 8, 2015) was an African-American coloratura soprano and one of the first black singers to enjoy a major international career in opera. She was the first black singer to perform at La Scala in Italy, the first black woman to receive a long-term performance contract at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and the first black singer to play a lead role at the San Francisco Opera.

Dobbs was born in Atlanta, Georgia, one of six daughters of John and Irene Dobbs, who were leaders in the state’s African-American community. She began piano lessons at the age of seven, and sang in community and church choirs.
Dobbs attended Spelman College where she studied home economics and considered becoming a fashion designer. Her teachers encouraged her to study music, however, and she began to study voice, graduating with a degree in Spanish and music in 1946. Following her graduation, she moved to New York City and studied with German soprano Lotte Leonard while completing a Master’s degree in Spanish at Columbia University.

Dobbs won a number of scholarships, including the Marian Anderson Award in 1947, and a John Hay Whitney Fellowship. The funds from these awards enabled her to move to Europe in 1950 and pursue her studies there, notably with Pierre Bernac.

Dobbs initially performed in Europe as a concert recitalist, however after winning the International Music Competition in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1951, she went on to sing at the major festivals and opera houses throughout the continent. She made her professional operatic debut at the Holland Festival, as the Nightingale in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, in 1952. She made her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival, as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, in 1953. Her success at this festival led to a performance contract at London’s Covent Garden from 1953 to 1958.

Her La Scala debut in 1953 was at the invitation of conductor Herbert von Karajan. Dobbs performed the role of Elvira in L’italiana in Algeri, which also marked the first time a black artist sang in that opera house. In a review of her performance, the British magazine Opera called her “the outstanding coloratura of her generation”.

She made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as the Woodbird in Siegfried, in 1953. She also appeared at the Paris Opéra, the Vienna State Opera, and at the opera houses of Hamburg and Stockholm. In 1954, she sang before Queen Elizabeth II and the King and Queen of Sweden at Covent Garden Theatre.

In the 1960s Dobbs continued to perform in Europe, particularly in Sweden, where she lived with her husband. Her successful, high-profile European career is considered significant in setting an example to younger black female singers such as Leontyne Price, Shirley Verrett, Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle.

Her American Dobbs sang the role of Zerbinetta again in her first appearance in the United States at New York’s Town Hall on March 8, 1954 and received great critical acclaim.Next was a recital with the Little Orchestra Society, in New York City, in 1954. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut, as Gilda in Rigoletto, on November 9, 1956. In a review of her performance, Carl Van Vechten wrote that Dobbs’ was “glorious … a warm and brilliant coloratura, and the best Gilda in my experience.” Although African-American singer Marian Anderson had performed at the Met the previous year, Dobbs was the first African-American to be offered a long-term contract by the Met. In eight seasons, she performed 29 times, including Zerbinetta, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, and Oscar in Un ballo in maschera. She also appeared at the San Francisco Opera in 1955, where she was the first African-American to play a lead role.

Following the example set by other African-American performers, Dobbs refused to perform for segregated audiences. She later stated that this hurt her career as she declined offers of work in the southern states. When the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium was de-segregated in 1961, Dobbs was the first person to sing to an integrated audience in the city. After de-segregation, she performed in Atlanta in a series of operas produced by Blanche Thebom.
Dobbs retired from performing in 1974, and began teaching at the University of Texas, where she was the first African-American on the faculty. She continued her teaching career as professor of voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C., before retiring to Arlington County, Virginia.
In 1989 Dobbs was elected to the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera.

Dobbs’s coloratura soprano was praised for its freshness and agility, as well as tonal beauty, and was considered an ideal voice for sound recording. However, she can be heard in relatively few recordings, as she spent her early career in Europe. When she returned to the United States in 1954 Roberta Peters had become a top soprano recording artist.
Dobbs’s notable recordings include Die Entführung aus dem Serail (in English), opposite Nicolai Gedda (who was born the same day as she was, July 11, 1925) and conducted by Yehudi Menuhin, Les pêcheurs de perles conducted by René Leibowitz, and a recital of opera arias and songs, released in 1998 by Testament Records. She sang both Olympia and Antonia in a complete recording of The Tales of Hoffmann featuring Leopold Simoneau and Heinz Rehfuss, and conducted by Pierre-Michel Le Conte, which was issued in 1958 by Epic in stereo in the USA and by Concert Hall in Europe, and reissued on CD in 2008. She also recorded the title role of Zaide under Leibowitz in Paris in 1952, and excerpts from Rigoletto alongside Rolando Panerai.

In 1954, the King and Queen of Sweden awarded Dobbs the Order of the North Star.
In 1979, Dobbs received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Spelman College.
In 1980, the Library of Congress held an exhibition on her life.
In 1983, Dobbs received the James Weldon Johnson Award in Fine Arts from the Atlanta National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Martin Luther King, Sr. wanted his son Martin Luther King, Jr. to marry Dobbs, as her father was an active civil rights activist and a friend of his.
Dobbs was married twice. Her first husband, Spaniard Luis Rodriguez, died of a liver ailment in June 1954, fourteen months after their wedding. In late 1957 she married Bengt Janzon, a Swedish newspaperman and public relations executive. Janzon died in 1997. Dobbs was the aunt of the first black Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson and sang at his inauguration in January 1978.Dobbs died from cancer on December 8, 2015 at her home in Atlanta at the age of 90. Research more about this great American abd share with your babies. Make it a champion day!