07Mar

March 7, 1961- The Selma To Montgomery March

GM – FBF – “How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.: –
Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

Remember – ” Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom.” – Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

Today in our History – March 7, 1961 – The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil-rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups. As the world watched, the protesters—under the protection of federalized National Guard troops—finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery. The historic march, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s participation in it, raised awareness of the difficulties faced by black voters, and the need for a national Voting Rights Act.

VOTER REGISTRATION EFFORTS IN ALABAMA

Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in voting on the basis of race, efforts by civil rights organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register black voters met with fierce resistance in southern states such as Alabama.

In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC decided to make Selma, located in Dallas County, Alabama, the focus of a black voter registration campaign. King had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his profile would help draw international attention to the events that followed.

Alabama Governor George Wallace was a notorious opponent of desegregation, and the local county sheriff in Dallas County had led a steadfast opposition to black voter registration drives.

As a result, only 2 percent of Selma’s eligible black voters (about 300 out of 15,000) had managed to register to vote.
EDMUND PETTIS BRIDGE. On February 18, white segregationists attacked a group of peaceful demonstrators in the town of Marion, Alabama. In the ensuing chaos, an Alabama state trooper fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young African-American demonstrator.

In response to Jackson’s death, King and the SCLC planned a massive protest march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery, 54 miles away. A group of 600 people, including activists John Lewis and Hosea Williams, set out from Selma on Sunday, March 7.

The marchers didn’t get far before Alabama state troopers wielding whips, nightsticks and tear gas rushed the group at the Edmund Pettis Bridge and beat them back to Selma. The brutal scene was captured on television, enraging many Americans and drawing civil rights and religious leaders of all faiths to Selma in protest.

Hundreds of ministers, priests, rabbis and social activists soon headed to Selma to join the voting rights march.

A HISTORIC MARCH CONTINUES

On March 9, King led more than 2,000 marchers, black and white, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge but found Highway 80 blocked again by state troopers. King paused the marchers and led them in prayer, whereupon the troopers stepped aside.

King then turned the protesters around, believing that the troopers were trying to create an opportunity that would allow them to enforce a federal injunction prohibiting the march. This decision led to criticism from some marchers, who called King cowardly.

That night, a group of segregationists attacked another protester, the young white minister James Reeb, beating him to death. Alabama state officials (led by Wallace) tried to prevent the march from going forward, but a U.S. district court judge ordered them to permit it.

LBJ ADDRESSES NATION

Six days later, on March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson went on national television to pledge his support to the Selma protesters and to call for the passage of a new voting rights bill that he was introducing in Congress.

“There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem,” Johnson said, “…Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negros, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”

Some 2,000 people set out from Selma on March 21, protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces that Johnson had ordered under federal control. After walking some 12 hours a day and sleeping in fields along the way, they reached Montgomery on March 25.

Nearly 50,000 supporters—black and white—met the marchers in Montgomery, where they gathered in front of the state capitol to hear King and other speakers including Ralph Bunche (winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize) address the crowd.

“No tide of racism can stop us,” King proclaimed from the building’s steps, as viewers from around the world watched the historic moment on television.

LASTING IMPACT OF THE MARCH

On March 17, 1965, even as the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers fought for the right to carry out their protest, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for federal voting rights legislation to protect African Americans from barriers that prevented them from voting.

That August, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right to vote (first awarded by the 15th Amendment) to all African Americans. Specifically, the act banned literacy tests as a requirement for voting, mandated federal oversight of voter registration in areas where tests had previously been used, and gave the U.S. attorney general the duty of challenging the use of poll taxes for state and local elections.

Along with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act was one of the most expansive pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. It greatly reduced the disparity between black and white voters in the U.S. and allowed greater numbers of African Americans to participate in politics and government at the local, state and national level. Events like this reminds us of how Important It is to have strong women. Bless of our Mothers, Sisters, Aunts and Daughters who took a moment and converted it to MOVEMENT, make ita champion day!

06Mar

March 6, 1972-Zoe Dusanne

GM- FBF – Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Zoë Dusanne

Remember – “The NAACP in Seatle needs a new vision and I want to help them travel down that road with all of the recources that I can gather” – Zoe Dusanne

Today in our History – March 6, 1972 – the Seattle Art Museum honored Zoë Dusanne with an exhibition of contemporary art.

Described by those who knew her as exotic, flamboyant, and colorful, Zoë Dusanne, was an art dealer and collector who opened Seattle’s first professional modern-art gallery, the Zoë Dusanne Gallery, in 1950 and who worked tirelessly to both introduce modern art to a northwest audience and to promote northwest art and artists to a larger international art community.

Dusanne was born Zola Graves on March 24, 1884 in Kansas to Letitia Denny and John Henry Graves, a stonemason. Although she was self-taught with respect to modern art, her artistic bent was nourished early in life by her parents. When the Graves family lived in Iowa at the turn of the 20th century, for example, Letitia took the young Zoë on summer trips to Chicago to attend the theater and to visit the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1903 Zoë spent one year at Oberlin College followed by a semester at the University of Illinois, Urbana. It was during this time that Zoë met her first husband, George Young, whom she married in 1904. The union produced Zoë’s only child, Theodosia, in 1909. By 1912 Zoë was separated and decided to follow her parents to Seattle. A divorce from George followed after her arrival in Seattle. Zoë’s second marriage, in 1919 to Dr. Frederick Boston, lasted only a few years.

In 1928 Zoë and then teenaged Theodosia left Seattle for New York. Sometime during her residence in New York, Zoë began using the last name Dusanne. While living in Greenwich Village, Zoë’s passion for collecting modern art began in earnest. At the height of the Great Depression Zoë found that artists were the first to feel the impact of hard times, and often sold their works at a fraction of their earlier value. Little by little during these years Zoë amassed a collection of modern art which she brought back to Seattle in 1942.

In 1947 at age 63, Zoë built a home overlooking Seattle’s Lake Union that was specifically designed to double as an art gallery, and on November 12, 1950, Dusanne opened her collection to the public. From the mid-1940s until the late-1950s, Zoë was a force to be reckoned with as she worked to introduce modern art to a Pacific Northwest audience and to promote northwest art internationally. She sold and donated her own works to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), and facilitated the donation of many others. She lent works to the Henry Art Gallery and to SAM for exhibition. At Zoë’s urging, Life magazine featured the four artists who would later became known as the “mystical” painters of the “Northwest School”—Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, Guy Anderson, and Morris Graves—in its September 28, 1953 issue. The Life magazine article propelled the “Northwest School” to national prominence. Zoë also traveled to Europe persuading Peggy Guggenheim to donate a Jackson Pollock to SAM.

Despite her influence within the greater Seattle community, Dusanne could not stop the 1958 demolition of her home and gallery necessitated by the building of the Seattle Freeway. In 1959 she reopened in a new location but was unable to recapture the luster and glory of her original gallery. In 1964 she closed the gallery permanently spending the remaining few years of her life with her daughter. In 1977, five years after her death on March 6, 1972, the Seattle Art Museum honored Zoë Dusanne with an exhibition of contemporary art that included works by many of the artists whom Zoë had promoted. It was a fitting way to honor a woman whose influence on culture in Seattle was considerable. Research more About this great woman and share with your bibies. Make it a champion day!

05Mar

March 5, 1985- Mary McLeod Bethune

GM – FBF – “The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

Remember – “Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

Today in our History – March 5, 1985 – Mary McLeod Bethune is Honored With Her Image on a U.S. Postage Stamp.

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (born Mary Jane McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, stateswoman, philanthropist, humanitarian and civil rights activist best known for starting a private school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida. She attracted donations of time and money, and developed the academic school as a college. It later continued to develop as Bethune-Cookman University. She also was appointed as a national adviser to president Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of what was known as his Black Cabinet. She was known as “The First Lady of The Struggle” because of her commitment to gain better lives for African Americans.

Born in Mayesville, South Carolina, to parents who had been slaves, she started working in fields with her family at age five. She took an early interest in becoming educated; with the help of benefactors, Bethune attended college hoping to become a missionary in Africa. She started a school for African-American girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. It later merged with a private institute for African-American boys, and was known as the Bethune-Cookman School. Bethune maintained high standards and promoted the school with tourists and donors, to demonstrate what educated African Americans could do. She was president of the college from 1923 to 1942, and 1946 to 1947. She was one of the few women in the world to serve as a college president at that time.

Bethune was also active in women’s clubs, which were strong civic organizations supporting welfare and other needs, and became a national leader. After working on the presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was invited as a member of his Black Cabinet. She advised him on concerns of black people and helped share Roosevelt’s message and achievements with blacks, who had historically been Republican voters since the Civil War. At the time, blacks had been largely disenfranchised in the South since the turn of the century, so she was speaking to black voters across the North. Upon her death, columnist Louis E. Martin said, “She gave out faith and hope as if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.”

Honors include designation of her home in Daytona Beach as a National Historic Landmark,[3] her house in Washington, D.C. as a National Historic Site,[4] and the installation of a memorial sculpture of her in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C. The Legislature of Florida is expected to designate her in 2018 as the subject of one of Florida’s two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Research motr about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

04Mar

March 4, 1961- The Original 13 Freedom Fighters

GM – FBF – I had a client in Anniston, Alabama for four (4) years. Every visit I always asked where is the monument for the freedom riders who’s bus was set ablaze? I asked hotel workers, local business owners, schools principls, etc. that was 2011 through 2015. I am happy to announce that on January 12, 2017, The Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston, Alabama opened. Enjoy!

Remember – “Traveling in the segregated South for black people was humiliating. The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to black people and white people that blacks were so subhuman and so inferior that we could not even use public facilities that white people used.” ~ Diane Nash, Freedom Rides Organizer

Today in our History – May 4, 1961 – The original group of 13 Freedom Riders—seven African Americans and six whites—left Washington, D.C., on a Greyhound bus on May 4, 1961.

Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause.
The 1961 Freedom Rides, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were modeled after the organization’s 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. During the 1947 action, African-American and white bus riders tested the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morgan v. Virginia that found segregated bus seating was unconstitutional.

The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. A big difference between the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation and the 1961 Freedom Rides was the inclusion of women in the later initiative.

In both actions, black riders traveled to the American South—where segregation continued to occur—and attempted to use whites-only restrooms, lunch counters and waiting rooms.

The original group of 13 Freedom Riders—seven African Americans and six whites—left Washington, D.C., on a Greyhound bus on May 4, 1961. Their plan was to reach New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 17 to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled that segregation of the nation’s public schools was unconstitutional.

The group traveled through Virginia and North Carolina, drawing little public notice. The first violent incident occurred on May 12 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. John Lewis, an African-American seminary student and member of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), white Freedom Rider and World War II veteran Albert Bigelow, and another African-American rider were viciously attacked as they attempted to enter a whites-only waiting area.

The next day, the group reached Atlanta, Georgia, where some of the riders split off onto a Trailways bus.

John Lewis, one of the original group of 13 Freedom Riders, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1986. Lewis, a Democrat, has continued to represent Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Atlanta, into the early part of the 21st century.

On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama. There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station.

The mob followed the bus in automobiles, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone threw a bomb into the bus. The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.

The second bus, a Trailways vehicle, traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, and those riders were also beaten by an angry white mob, many of whom brandished metal pipes. Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor stated that, although he knew the Freedom Riders were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at the station because it was Mother’s Day.

Photographs of the burning Greyhound bus and the bloodied riders appeared on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country and around the world the next day, drawing international attention to the Freedom Riders’ cause and the state of race relations in the United States.

Following the widespread violence, CORE officials could not find a bus driver who would agree to transport the integrated group, and they decided to abandon the Freedom Rides. However, Diane Nash, an activist from the SNCC, organized a group of 10 students from Nashville, Tennessee, to continue the rides.

U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, began negotiating with Governor John Patterson of Alabama and the bus companies to secure a driver and state protection for the new group of Freedom Riders. The rides finally resumed, on a Greyhound bus departing Birmingham under police escort, on May 20.

The violence toward the Freedom Riders was not quelled—rather, the police abandoned the Greyhound bus just before it arrived at the Montgomery, Alabama, terminal, where a white mob attacked the riders with baseball bats and clubs as they disembarked. Attorney General Kennedy sent 600 federal marshals to the city to stop the violence.

The following night, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. led a service at the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, which was attended by more than one thousand supporters of the Freedom Riders. A riot ensued outside the church, and King called Robert Kennedy to ask for protection.

Kennedy summoned the federal marshals, who used teargas to disperse the white mob. Patterson declared martial law in the city and dispatched the National Guard to restore order.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders departed Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi. There, several hundred supporters greeted the riders. However, those who attempted to use the whites-only facilities were arrested for trespassing and taken to the maximum-security penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi.

During their hearings, the judge turned and looked at the wall rather than listen to the Freedom Riders’ defense—as had been the case when sit-in participants were arrested for protesting segregated lunch counters in Tennessee. He sentenced the riders to 30 days in jail.

Attorneys from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization, appealed the convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed them.

The violence and arrests continued to garner national and international attention, and drew hundreds of new Freedom Riders to the cause.

The rides continued over the next several months, and in the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals. Research more about the summer of ’61 in the south and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

03Mar

March 3, 1886- Robert Francis Flemming Jr.

GM – FBF – ” Who would have thought that sailors could be in a boat under the water, what will they think of next” – Robert Francis Flemming

Remember – “I know that they had forms of guitars in the old days, like in Africa but my guitar has what they call a aacoustic guitar. I just know that the sound can be controled” – Robert Francis Flemming

Today in our History – March 3, 1886 – A Black Man Invents The First Aacoustic guitar. Robert Francis Flemming Jr. (July 4, 1839 – February 23, 1919) was an African-American inventor and Union sailor in the American Civil War. He was the first crew member aboard the USS Housatonic to spot the H.L. Hunley before it sank the USS Housatonic. The sinking of USS Housatonic is renowned as the first sinking of an enemy ship in combat by a submarine.

Robert Flemming was working in New York City as a marble cutter when he enlisted in the United States Navy on May 14, 1863. He was rated as Landsman (rank), the equivalent of the current naval rating of seaman recruit. His first posting was to the USS Wyoming (1859) the following June; he was present when the sloop engaged the naval forces of the Japanese Empire at the Naval battle of Shimonoseki on July 16 of that year.

The following October, Flemming transferred to the sloop of war USS Housatonic (1861), which was sent to join the blockade of Southern seaports as part of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. On the evening of February 17, 1864, Flemming was on watch when he noticed a strange object in the water about 400 feet off the starboard bow. He alerted the officer of the guard, who dismissed the object as a log. “Queer-looking log,” Flemming replied. Taking a closer look, he soon realized that the “log” wasn’t floating with the tide, but was actually coming at a high rate of speed toward the Housatonic. Shouting that there was a torpedo approaching the ship, Flemming alerted the rest of the crew, who started to get the Housatonic under way. However, it was too late; there was an explosion and, within five minutes, the Housatonic sank in 25 feet of water with a loss of five crewmen. The crew immediately began climbing the rigging or entering life boats as the sloop began to sink; once it hit bottom, however, the masts and rigging were still above the water, and Flemming and others hung on for forty-five minutes until help arrived.

Flemming finished his naval service on the gunboat USS E. B. Hale after June 1865 and subsequently returned to Massachusetts, living and working in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Boston, Massachusetts where he went into business as a guitar manufacturer and music teacher.

Flemming invented a guitar he called the “Euphonica” that he believed would produce a louder and more resonant sound than a traditional guitar. The U.S. Patent Office granted Flemming a patent (no. 338,727) on March 3,1886. He also received a Canadian patent (no. 26,398) on April 5,1887. Flemming then went into business for himself, building and demonstrating his musical instruments from a storefront on Washington Street in Boston.

After 1900, Robert Flemming retired to his home in Melrose, Massachusetts where he continued to give lessons and perform at various functions. In 1907, he composed a “National Funeral Hymn” dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic. A member of the Grand Army of the Republic Post no. 30 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Robert Flemming died in February 1919. He is buried in Wyoming Cemetery in Melrose, MA. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

02Mar

March 2, 1971 – The Riot at Zion Baptist Church

GM – FBF – “The markers are going to bring to bear some of the feelings that need to be brought to bear, and it really puts our city back on the map on really being a forward and progressive city.”

Remember – “I think the magnitude of what happened here is just beginning to be realized.” – Edward Donaldson

Today in our History – March 2, 1961 – 187 petitioners consisted of African-American high school and college students who peacefully assembled at the Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina. The students marched in separate groups of roughly 15 to South Carolina State House grounds to peacefully express their grievances regarding civil rights of African-Americans. The crowd of petitioners did not engage in any violent conduct and did not threaten violence in any manner, nor did crowds gathering to witness the demonstration engage in any such behavior. Petitioners were told by police officials that they must disperse within 15 minutes or face arrest. The petitioners failed to disperse, opting to sing religious and patriotic songs instead. Petitioners were convicted of the common law crime of breach of the peace.

The Supreme Court held that in arresting, convicting and punishing the petitioners, South Carolina infringed on the petitioners’ rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom to petition for a redress of grievances. The Court stated that these rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by the States.

The Supreme Court argued the arrests and convictions of 187 marchers were an attempt by South Carolina to “make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views” where the marchers’ actions were an exercise of First Amendment rights “in their most pristine and classic form.” The Court described the common law crime of breach of the peace as “not susceptible of exact definition.”

While the majority in Edwards distinguished Feiner v. New York (1951), based on the absence of violence or threats from the petitioners’ march to the state capital, Justice Clark stated that the breach of the peace convictions upheld in Feiner presented “a situation no more dangerous than that found here.” Justice Clark noted that Edwards was more dangerous because Feiner involved one person and was limited to a crowd of about 80, whereas the Edwards demonstration involved around 200 demonstrators and 300 onlookers. He argued that the City Manager’s action may have averted a catastrophe because of the “almost spontaneous combustion in some Southern communities in such a situation. Research more about Black protests in America and make it a champion day!

28Feb

February 28 1964- Thelonious Monk

GM – FBF – I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public want ? you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing ? even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years. – Thelonious Monk

Remember – I don’t conside myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further. -,Thelonious Monk

Today in our History – February 28, 1964 -Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk was a giant of American music. On Feb. 28, 1964, he was featured on the cover of Time magazine, which also included a feature article titled “The Loneliest Monk.”

Born on Oct. 17, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Monk at age four moved with his parents to New York City and began studying classical piano at age 11. He won so many amateur competitions at the famed Apollo Theater, biography.com reports, that he was ultimately banned from participating in the weekly contest. At 16, he left high school to pursue his passion.

Though critically acclaimed and respected among his peers, Monk, who’s sound was “innovative, technically demanding, and extremely complex,” did not achieve real success until he began recording and performing with the esteemed John Coltrane. In 1962, he got his first major label contract with Columbia Records and two years later was on the cover of Time.

“Monk’s lifework of 57 compositions is a diabolical and witty self-portrait, a string of stark snapshots of his life in New York,” wrote the magazine’s music critic Barry Ferrell. “Changing meters, unique harmonics and oddly voiced chords create the effect of a desperate conversation in some other language, a fit of drunken laughter, a shout from a park at night.”

Monk is believed to have struggled with mental illness. After several years in seclusion, he died from a stroke on Feb. 7, 1982. He was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and has been featured on a postage stamp.

Four years after his death, the Monk family and the late musical philanthropist Maria Fisher created the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which focuses on “identifying the music’s new voices, honoring its present and past masters, and making the jazz aesthetic available and comprehensible in concert halls and classrooms around the world.” In addition, the foundation hosts a prestigious international jazz competition each year. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. I will be speaking at Marietta High School in Marietta, GA. and will not be able to respond to any posts. Make it a champion day!

27Feb

February 27 1988- Debi Thomas

GM – FBF – But I like it when my patients are impressed not knowing that I was an Olympian. – Debi Thomas

Remember – “I got a bronze medal and I can’t complain about that, the only African-American to get a medal in the Winter Olympics.” – Debi Thomas

Today in our History – February 27,1988 – Olympic ice skater who became the first black athlete to win a medal at the Winter games reveals she lost her medal to bankruptcy after being diagnosed as bipolar and struggling to pay medical bills.
Debi Thomas began the first African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics when she took home the bronze in 1988. Thomas, 50, now lives in a trailer in Virginia with her fiance and says she struggles to pay her bills. She also lost her bronze medal when she had to file for bankruptcy after she was diagnosed as bipolar and couldn’t afford to pay her medical bills.

During the Winter Olympic games 30 years ago a then 20-year-old Debi Thomas had won a bronze medal in figure skating, making her the first African American athlete to win a medal in the Winter games.

Now, Thomas is living in a trailer in Richlands, Virginia with her fiance, struggles to pay her bills and lost her bronze medal to the bank after being forced to file bankruptcy following a bipolar diagnosis.

‘It may look (to) people on the outside like it’s insane, but I don’t care,’ Thomas told the New York Post. ‘I don’t care about living in a trailer. People are so obsessed with material things, but I only care about knowledge.’

Thomas, 50, said she has left her skating days behind her – and she hopes others have too. The former orthopedic surgeon now spends her time practicing hypnosis and selling tiny pieces of gold for a company called Karatbars. She also earned a certificate in Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique, which the Post reports she uses to hypnotize people to cure them of ailments.

Thomas is also working on an autobiography called ‘In Right Light it Looks Gold’.

The former Olympic athlete told the outlet that her choice of work doesn’t provide her a steady income, and she still struggles to make ends meet but she’s okay with that.

‘I always know that sometimes if you want to be a visionary, you’re going to have to commit to that and you may go through some financial struggles,’ she explained.

It seems Thomas’ struggles began in April 2012 when, according to the Washington Post, she got into a domestic dispute with her fiance Jamie Loone outside her home.

Thomas pulled out a shotgun and fired it, trying to scare Loone. The police were called and Thomas reportedly threatened to harm herself. She was taken the hospital for a psychological evaluation and diagnosed as bipolar.

Thomas, who claims she no longer suffers from the disorder and refuses to take medication because she doesn’t believe in it, told the Post she couldn’t afford her medical bills following her diagnose and filed for bankruptcy.

She was $600,000 in debt when she filed.

The one-time household name had to close her private orthopedic practice and had to hand over her bronze medal, worth a reported $2,200, to the bank. She had won the medal in 1988 during the ‘Battle of the Carmens’ at the Winter games against Germany’s Katrina Witt, who took gold.

‘I lost (the medal) to bankruptcy,’ Thomas said.’They can take away the medal, but they can’t take away the fact that I won it.’

Thomas said she wasn’t upset about losing the bronze medal, and no longer focuses on her past competing in the Olympics.

‘I got really detached from skating,’ she said. ‘People who are still so focused on my skating career, I’m just like, ‘Come on, that was thirty years ago. Why does it matter?”

She added: ‘I’m not proud of how I performed in the Olympics at all. The biggest disappointment isn’t that I didn’t win the gold, it’s that I didn’t skate my best.’

Besides winning her bronze medal, Thomas was the 1986 world champion and two-time US national champion. Research more about this great American hero and share with your babies. I will be speaking at North Atlanta High School as part of their Black History Month Program, so I will be gone most of the morning but back this afternoon. Make it a champion day!

26Feb

February 26 1921- Camp Atwater

GM – FBF- This camp is not designed for the average black families and that is a crime. – A. Philip Randolph.

Remember – “Our chrildren need activities in a structured formate that they will not get at home, so the middle class and upper class African American youth can enjoy their summers.” – W.E.B. Du Bois

Today in our History – February 26, 1921 – Camp Atwater is a cultural, educational, and recreational camp designed for the children of African American professionals. The camp, founded February 26, 1921 by Dr. William De Berry, was located in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Initially named St. John’s Camp, in 1926 the name was officially changed to Camp Atwater when Ms. Mary Atwater donated $25,000 with the stipulation that the camp’s name honor her late father, Dr. David Fisher, a well-known and distinguished physician in the town. The camp is the oldest American Camp Association (ACA) accredited African American owned and operated camp in the nation.
The primary mission of the 75 acre, 30 building camp situated along Lake Lashway in Brookfield, Massachusetts is to focus on developing the emotional and academic maturity of its members. The camp was initially created to provide recreational opportunities for African American children of families who had moved to Springfield, Massachusetts from the south. Many of these families were part of the great migration that took place during the early years of the 20th century. Dr. De Berry also envisioned the camp as providing opportunities for his children to meet other black children of comparable social backgrounds.
Since African Americans throughout the North — regardless of their economic, educational, or social status — were excluded from the vast majority of the region’s white camps, many of them began to enroll at Camp Atwater.
Camp leaders provided boys and girls, who typically ranged from eight to 15 years, numerous activities such as basketball, soccer, boating, swimming, arts and crafts, tennis, archery, ballet, and drama classes. The Camp also sponsored activities which promoted African American history and culture. Over time those who had attended the camp developed lifelong national networks of important professional and social contacts. Children who met at Camp Atwater often married years later and then sent their children to the camp for similar exposure.
By the 1950s and 1960s Camp Atwater began to decline in popularity as middle class African American parents enrolled their children in desegregated summer camps closer to home. Camp Atwater, however, continues to operate today. It is owned and managed by the Urban League of Springfield and its enrollees are from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Nonetheless the camp, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, continues to focus on its original mission, fostering the emotional and intellectual development of African American youth. Research more about this American Instuition and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

25Feb

February 25 1911- Sarah Rector

GM – FBF – ” I was told that the papers will leave us alone if I signed the papers to let Mr. T.J. Porter be Sarah’s parent.” – Joseph Rector

Remember – ” I don’t know the difference between one dollar nor a million dollars but they say I am rich” – Sarah Rector

Today in our History – February 25,1911 – Some say that Sarah Rector NOT Madam C.J. Walker is the first Black Female Self Made Millionaire. Sarah Rector received international attention at the age of eleven when The Kansas City Star in 1913 publicized the headline, “Millions to a Negro Girl.” From that moment Rector’s life became a cauldron of misinformation, legal and financial maneuvering, and public speculation.

Rector was born to Joseph and Rose Rector on March 3, 1902, in a two-room cabin near Twine, Oklahoma on Muscogee Creek Indian allotment land. Both Joseph and Rose had enslaved Creek ancestry, and both of their fathers fought with the Union Army during the Civil War. When Oklahoma statehood became imminent in 1907, the Dawes Allotment Act divided Creek lands among the Creeks and their former slaves with a termination date of 1906. Rector’s parents, Sarah Rector herself, her brother, Joe, Jr., and sister Rebecca all received land. Lands granted to former slaves were usually the rocky lands of poorer agricultural quality. Rector’s allotment of 160 acres was valued at $556.50.

Primarily to generate enough revenue to pay the $30 annual tax bill, on February 25,1911 Rector’s father leased her allotment to the Devonian Oil Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1913, however, her fortunes changed when wildcat oil driller B.B. Jones produced a “gusher” that brought in 2500 barrels a day. Rector now received an income of $300.00 per day. Once this wealth was made known, Rector’s guardianship was switched from her parents to a white man named T.J. Porter, an individual personally known to the Rectors. Multiple new wells were also productive, and Rector’s allotment subsequently became part of the famed Cushing-Drumright Field in Oklahoma. In the month of October 1913 Rector received $11,567.

Once her identity became public, Rector received numerous requests for loans, money gifts, and even marriage proposals from four Germans even though she was 12. In 1914 The Chicago Defender published an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by grafters and her “ignorant” parents, and that she was uneducated, dressed in rags, and lived in an unsanitary shanty. National African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois became concerned about her welfare. None of the allegations were true. Rector and her siblings went to school in Taft, an all-black town closer than Twine, they lived in a modern five-room cottage, and they owned an automobile. That same year, Rector enrolled in the Children’s House, a boarding school for teenagers at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

When Rector turned eighteen on March 3, 1920, she left Tuskegee and her entire family moved with her to Kansas City, Missouri. By this point Rector, who now owned stocks and bonds, a boarding house and bakery and the Busy Bee Café in Muskogee, Oklahoma, as well as 2,000 acres of prime river bottomland, was a millionaire.

The family moved into what would be known as the Rector Mansion. Legal wrangling over Rector’s estate and some mismanagement continued until she was twenty. That year Rector married Kenneth Campbell, and the couple had three sons, Kenneth, Jr., Leonard, and Clarence. Much was publicized about her “extravagant” spending on luxuries. Her marriage to Campbell ended in 1930, and in 1934 she married William Crawford.

When Rector died at age 65 on July 22, 1967, her wealth was diminished, but she still had some working oil wells and real estate holdings. Sarah Rector was buried in Taft Cemetery, Oklahoma. One of the saddest stories in our history, share with your babies and make it a champion day!