January 25 – Instant Funk

GM – FBF – If you want to talk about dance bands – Trenton, NJ’s INSTANT FUNK is at the top of the list.

Remember – “Trenton Makes The World Takes”

Today in our History – Trenton, NJ own INSTANT FUNK to be honored this weekend January 27, 2017 “Father’s and Son’s United for a better Trenton – Unsung Heros.

Instant Funk burst on the ’70s disco scene with the million-selling single “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)” and the gold album Instant Funk. The Trenton, NJ, band started out with the core lineup of bassist Raymond Earl, drummer Scotty Miller, and guitarist Kim Miller. It later expanded to include keyboardist Dennis Richardson; lead singer James Carmichael; horn players Larry Davis, Eric Huff, and Johnny Onderlinde; and percussionist Charles Williams. The band can be heard on sides by Evelyn “Champagne” King (her gold single “Shame”), Archie Bell & the Drells (“Let’s Groove,” “The Soul City Walk,” and “Strategy”), South Shore Commission (“Free Man,” “A Train Called Freedom”), the O’Jays (” Let Me Make Love to You,” “I Swear I Love No One but You”), Lou Rawls (“From Now On,” “When You Get Home”), Gabor Szabo (“Keep Smilin'”), and Jean Carn, as well as for their mentor, Bunny Sigler, and his cover of “Love Train,” “Keep Smilin’,” “Let Me Party With You,” “Sweeter Than the Berry,” and “Only You,” a duet with Loleatta Holloway.

In the mid-’60s, bassist Raymond Earl met drummer Scotty Miller in grade school and formed the duo the Music Machine. In 1973, Scotty’s younger brother, guitarist Kim Miller, joined the duo. After hours and hours of playing together, the trio found that they clicked; they became so intuitively “tuned” into each other that they could anticipate and accent each other’s playing. In 1968, they began backing local vocal group the TNJs, appearing at local dances and venues building up a good reputation. Around 1971, the group’s manager Jackie Ellis christened the backup band Instant Funk because they could come up with funky grooves instantaneously.

Philly soul artist/producer/songwriter Bunny Sigler was invited by Ellis to see Instant Funk and the TNJs perform. Sometime during the show, Sigler was called on stage to perform. He was impressed that the band knew “Sunshine,” a song he co-wrote with Phil Hurtt that was made popular by the O’Jays. They began backing Sigler, the Manhattans, and various other R&B acts. As a staff songwriter/producer at Gamble & Huff’s Philadelphia International Records, Sigler began using Instant Funk on his sessions along with the TNJs. At those sessions and later, Sigler would record the basic track with Earl and the Miller brothers. Sigler, a brimming fount of ideas, would often stop the band midsong to implement one of his flashes of brillance. They backed Sigler on three of his PIR albums: That’s How Long I’ll Be Loving You, Keep Smilin’, and My Music. Some tracks from those LPs are on Sony/Legacy’s The Best of Bunny Sigler: Sweeter Than the Berry and the 1998 Sony CD Bunny Sigler. Instant Funk released a single on PIR’s TSOP imprint, “Float Like a Butterfly,” and an album, Get Down With the Philly Jump, issued in November 1976, whose title track and “It Aint Reggae (But It Sho Is Funky)” were popular in disco clubs.

Jean CarnInstant Funk can also be heard on sides by the O’Jays (“Let Me Make Love to You,” “You’ve Got Your Hooks in Me,” “Once Is Not Enough,” and “I Swear I Love No One but You” from Message in Our Music; “Strokety Stroke” from So Full of Love), Archie Bell & the Drells (“Let’s Groove,” “Strategy,” “The Soul City Walk,” and “I Could Dance All Night” on Tightening It Up:The Best of Archie Bell & the Drells), the Three Degrees (“Take Good Care of Yourself”), Jean Carn (“I’m in Love Once Again” and “You Are All I Need” from Jean Carn), Dexter Wansel (“Life on Mars,” the best recording that gives an idea of how the band sounded live, and “You Can Be What You Wanna Be” from The Very Best of Dexter Wansel), and M.F.S.B. (“Let’s Go Disco” from Universal Love). The band can be heard on studio bandmate T. Life’s That’s Life album and LPs by his protégée, Evelyn “Champagne” King (Smooth Talk and Music Box).
In 1977, M.F.S.B. guitarist Norman Harris started his own label, Gold Mind Records, distributed by New York-based Salsoul Records. Sigler signed on as a recording artist. He and the band were constantly in the studio recording ideas and songs. One track, “Let Me Party With You,” Sigler would listen to while driving around and excited passengers suggested that he release it. The single, co-written by the Miller brothers, Earl, and Sigler, went to number eight R&B in January 1978. The track was reminiscent of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” The album, Let Me Party With You, was a huge disco hit, and included the follow-up single, the funky Sam Peake’s sax-drenched ballad “I Got What You Need,” “Don’t Even Try,” and the club hit “Your Love Is So Good.”

While brainstorming in the studio, Sigler and Instant Funk came up with “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl).” Sigler did overdubs on the track at Philadelphia-area studios, Alpha International and Sigma Sound Studios, before taking it to Bob Blank’s Blank Tapes in New York. When the track was done, Sigler shopped it around to the record labels, who rebuffed him with comments like “the hook’s not strong enough” and it sounds incomplete.” Instant Funk signed with Gold Mind, but by the time their single “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)” was released, Gold Mind had folded and all of its acts were transferred to Salsoul.

Witch Doctor The million-selling “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)” (remixed by Larry Levan) parked at number one R&B for three weeks, peaking at number 20 pop on Billboard’s charts in March 1979. Their second album, Instant Funk, issued January 1979, went gold hitting number one R&B in spring 1979. Other Instant Funk albums on Salsoul were: Witch Doctor (November 1979), The Funk Is On (October 1980), Looks So Fine (March 1982), Instant Funk, Vol. 5 (January 1983), and Kinky (September 1983). The band backed Sigler on his Salsoul LPs: I’ve Always Wanted to Sing…Not Just Write Songs (March 1979) and Let It Snow (June 1980). Other Salsoul LPs that feature Instant Funk are Loleatta Holloway’s Queen of the Night, Loleatta, and Greatest Hits; Double Exposure’s Locker Room; and the Salsoul Orchestra’s How High. For Neil Bogart’s Casablanca Records, the band can be heard on two albums Sigler produced for the label: Party Girl by Patti Brooks and Callin’ by the Pips. On Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records, Sigler and the band are on Barbara Mason & Bunny Sigler’s Locked in This Position, the self-titled debut of Mystique featuring Ralph Johnson, and Mayfield’s own Heartbeat. With the John Brothers, who were featured on Witch Doctor, they recorded a Sigler-produced RCA single, “Try to Walk a Mile” b/w “I Just Want to Be Free,” both songs written by Bunny’s brother Jimmy Sigler. They are also on Gabor Szabo’s Mercury LP Nightflight and Carl Carlton’s I Wanna Be With You.
When the Cayre brothers, owners of Salsoul Records, decided to fold the label in 1984, in an effort to concentrate on the then-emerging home video market, Instant Funk was without a record deal. The band toured for a few years then disbanded. Some of the members were still in the music business in one form or another as the 21st century began. Raymond Earl was operating his own studio and production company, Ray Ray Productions. Kim Miller, Dennis Richardson, and James Carmichael went into gospel music. Bunny Sigler was touring the world as a member of the Trammps.

Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl)” can be found on the CD reissue of their 1979 gold album Instant Funk, Greatest Hits from EMI/Capitol/The Right Stuff, in the movie and on the soundtrack for the Disney/Miramax movie 54, Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage, and various Salsoul and Salsoul-licensed compilations. For more Invermation and to get tickets for the event contact – Friends Who Like Instant Funk’s facebook page. Congradulations to one of Trenton’s finest. Make it a champion day!

24Jan

January 24 1938- The Jack And Jill of America Foundation

GM – FBF – Nobody said Jack and Jill doesn’t do good things. But don’t try to lie like Jack and Jill has nothing to do with elitism.

Remember – Our chrildren need a safe posative invirement to learn, grow, play and network with others who have the same intrests. – Marion Stubbs Thomas

Today in out History – The late Marion Stubbs Thomas founded Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated, on January 24, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She organized a group of twenty-one mothers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the idea of establishing a social and cultural union for their children. From the beginning, this new club, Jack and Jill, focused on instilling values and leadership skills in their children and providing “all the opportunities possible for a normal and graceful approach to a beautiful adulthood.” This group in Philadelphia quickly inspired others to found similar organizations. The second “chapter” of Jack and Jill was established in New York City in 1939, and a third in Washington, D.C. in 1940. The local group became an inter-city association, expanding to Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Maryland, Boston, Buffalo, New York, Columbus, Ohio, Durham, North Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee between 1944 and June 1, 1946 — the birth date of the national organization. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Jack and Jill of America, Inc. is divided into seven geographic regions for administrative purposes. Each region has a Director, Treasurer, Secretary and Foundation Member-at-Large, and is represented on a National Executive Board. At present, there are more than 230 Jack and Jill chapters in 35 states across the United States, with more than 10,000 mother members and 40,000 parents and children.

In 1968, the organization created its philanthropic arm, the Jack and Jill of America Foundation, incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois. The Foundation has been responsible for the origin and funding of a large number of educational and charitable projects benefiting children and families in communities across the United States. Through the years, Jack and Jill of America has made contributions to other organizations and projects, including: Africare, The United Negro College Fund, Rainbow/PUSH, King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (also called March of Dimes), the Children’s Defense Fund, and to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Mothers of children between the ages of 2 and 19 hold the membership and are required to plan and host monthly activities for the children, who are the focus of the program. Children are divided into age groups (2-5, 6-9, 9-12, 12-14, and 9th through 12th grade) and take part in cultural activities, fundraising, leadership training, legislative events and social events such as ski trips, pizza parties, cotillions, as well as college planning, theater trips and conferences, to name a few. Mothers attend required monthly meetings and act on committees focused on the work of the organization, as well as larger efforts aimed to better the conditions of all children, not just their own. Annual dues, mandatory philanthropic assessments and extensive children’s activities usually result in annual costs of several hundred dollars to each member.

Mothers have to be invited into the group. Members are professional women who are doctors, lawyers, business executives, professors, teachers or are housewives married to men who are doctors, lawyers or business executives. Each chapter may decide on its own selection process; some include a prospective member and her family to participate as guests prior to being voted upon by the membership. Chapters may also, at their own discretion and often when the chapter has become too large, close their membership intake during a given year; and do not entertain prospective members.

Graduating teenagers are celebrated and honored at the annual Regional Teen Conferences during an event where they are introduced to the other families in the membership and their guests, announce their college choice and are welcomed into the adult “village”. Children who graduate out of the program are granted legacy status and may automatically join when they have children of their own.

Jack and Jill of America celebrated its 75th anniversary in Philadelphia, PA in 2012 during the 40th National Convention, and again in April 2013.

There are currently 7 regions, including the Eastern region, Mid-Western region, Central region, Far West region, Mid-Atlantic region, South Central region, and South Eastern region. Each region has a certain number of states within it. Research more about this American Institution and you may want to get your babies in it. Make it a champion day!

23Jan

January 23 1977- Alex Roots

GM – FBF – Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

Remember – “Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.” – Alex Haley

Today in our History – January 23, 1977 – Roots is an American television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The series first aired on ABC-TV in January 1977. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third highest rated episode for any type of television series, and the second most watched overall series finale in U.S. television history. It was produced on a budget of $6.6 million. The series introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte.

A sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, first aired in 1979, and a second sequel, Roots: The Gift, a Christmas TV movie, starring Burton and Louis Gossett Jr., first aired in 1988. A related film, Alex Haley’s Queen, is based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, who was Alex Haley’s paternal grandmother.

In 2016, a remake of the original miniseries, with the same name, was commissioned by the History Channel and screened by the channel on Memorial Day 2015. Reserach more about YOUR FAMILY because your babies need to know from where they come from. Make it a champion day!

22Jan

January 22 1993- Hazel Rollins Reid

GM – FBF – When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

Remember – “The use of energy for all Americans in our future is combunding upon, the use of energy Americans are usuig today” – Hazel Rollins Reid O’Leary

Today in our History – January 22, 1993 – The first and only woman to hold the position of U.S. Secretary of Energy, Hazel Rollins Reid was born May 17, 1937 in Newport News, Virginia. During this time of public school segregation, Reid’s parents, hoping for better schooling opportunities, sent their daughter to live with an aunt in New Jersey. There Reid attended a school for artistically gifted students.

Reid entered Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1955 and graduated with honors four years later. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society at Fisk. Seven years later she received a law degree from Rutgers University and soon became an attorney in the New Jersey State Attorney General’s Office.

By the early 1970s Reid moved to Washington, D.C., where she became a partner at Coopers and Lybrand, an accounting firm. Soon she joined the Gerald Ford Administration as general counsel to the Community Services Administration which administered most of the federal government’s anti-poverty programs. President Ford later appointed Reid director of the Federal Energy Administration’s Office of Consumer Affairs. In this position she became well known as a representative of the concerns of consumers who challenged the power and influence of the major energy producers.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Reid to head the Department of Energy’s Economic Regulatory Administration. Her agency included more than 2,000 employees who enforced price controls on numerous forms of energy. At this time she successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Fuel Use Act, which decreased the demand for natural gas and developed conservation programs that assisted low-income residents.

While working for the Carter Administration, Reid met her future husband, John F. O’Leary, who was at the time the nation’s deputy energy secretary. The two married in 1980 and together left the department to establish and manage their own energy-consulting firm, O’Leary Associates.

In 1989, following the death of her husband, Hazel O’Leary went to work for Northern State Power Company, a Minnesota utility, as executive vice president for environmental and public affairs and then president of its natural gas division. In 1992 President-elect Bill Clinton announced that he would nominate O’Leary to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. She would become the second woman and third African American nominated to the Clinton Cabinet.

On January 22, 1993, Hazel Rollins Reid O’Leary became the seventh U.S. Secretary of Energy. She would direct the 20,000 employees of the agency and be the principal architect of the Clinton energy policy which emphasized both conservation and innovation.

While in office O’Leary led the effort to find safer ways to dispose of atomic waste. She gained Congressional approval to convert one of three national nuclear weapons design laboratories into a research facility to study technologically advanced environmental cleanup practices. O’Leary also opposed increases in energy taxes.

Since 2002, Hazel O’Leary has served as President of Fisk University, her alma mater. She remains an avid supporter of environmentalism. She works with a variety of non-profit organizations including the World Wildlife Fund, Morehouse College and The Andrew Young Center of International Development. Recesrch more about this great American and tell your babies. Make It A Champion day!

21Jan

January 21 1773- Phillis Wheatly

GM – FBF – Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.

Remember – ” Since my return to America my Master, has at the desire of my friends in England given me my freedom.” – Phillis Wheatley

Today in our History – Juanuary 21, 1773 – Phillis Wheatley Emancipated. Phillis Wheatley, also spelled Phyllis and Wheatly (c.1753 West Africa – December 5, 1784) was the first published African-American female poet. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America. She was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston, who taught her to read and write and encouraged her poetry when they saw her talent.

The publication of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) brought her fame both in England and the American colonies. Figures such as George Washington praised her work. During Wheatley’s visit to England with her master’s son, African-American poet Jupiter Hammon praised her work in his own poem. Wheatley was emancipated (set free) shortly after the publication of her book. She married in about 1778. Two of her children died as infants. After her husband was imprisoned for debt in 1784, Wheatley fell into poverty and died of illness, quickly followed by the death of her surviving infant son. Research more of this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

20Jan

January 20 2009- Barack Hussien

GM- FBF – You can only loose what you cling to.

Remember – “The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.” President Barack H. Obama

Today in our History – January 20, 2009 – Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th President of the United States of America and the first African American to have held the post. He was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham. His parents separated when he was an infant and divorced when he was 2 years old, after which Obama Sr. returned to Kenya. Obama admitted to a feeling of loss and confusion at the absence of his father as well as an identity crisis about being a black child in predominantly white surroundings. Obama Sr. was killed in a tragic car accident in Nairobi in 1982 when Obama was 21 years old. Ann moved to Indonesia and remarried, and Obama has a half sister named Maya Soetoro Ng fom his mother’s second marriage. He was sent back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents while his mother and sister lived in Jakarta. He enrolled at Punahou Academy and graduated with academic honors.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to Columbia University in New York. He graduated from Columbia in 1983 with a degree in political science. After a brief stint in the business sector, he moved to Chicago in 1985 to work as a community organizer for low-income residents. During this time, he visited his father and grandfather’s graves in Kenya and upon his return, entered Harvard Law School in 1988. he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson, while working as an associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin when she was assigned to be his adviser during her summer internship at the firm. At Harvard, Obama was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1991. He then returned to Chicago to practice civil law at the firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, while also teaching part time at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992-2004. He married Michelle in 1992 and have two daughters named Malia and Sasha.

Obama published his autobiography in 1995, titled “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”. It received great reviews and an audio-book version of the same, narrated by Obama himself, received a Grammy Award for best spoken word album. In 1996, Obama won a seat in the Illinois State Senate and in 2000 he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives seat. As a state senator, he openly expressed his views against George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq. He then started rallying support for his decision to run for the U.S. Senate, a nomination that he won with a 52% vote. In August 2004 he went head to head with former presidential candidate Alan Keyes in three televised debates, discussing diverse issues such as gun control, stem cell research, abortion and taxation. Obama won a seat in the U.S. Senate with 70% votes, becoming the third African American to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Obama published his second book, titled “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” in 2006 which became a New York Times as well as Amazon.com best seller. He announced his candidacy for president against Hillary Clinton in 2007, and defeated her in a close contest. In November 2008, Obama won the election against the Republican candidate John McCain and was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009. He faced various challenges in his term including a global economic crisis and two wars being fought abroad. Obama introduced several reforms such as the Affordable Care Act (or Obama Care, as it is more popularly known) which has received equal measure of support and criticism, and the Budget Control Act of 2011 to contain excessive government spending. Some of his other major decisions included legalizing gay rights, advocating gun control after the school shooting in Connecticut and resuming foreign relations with Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
Obama was re-elected in January 2013 for a second term in office. He has taken several initiatives but his popularity ratings have gone down compared to his last term. With a number of international crisis to handle such as the situation in Syria, Palestine and Ukraine, Obama continues to show his leadership abilities and pave the way for economic and social reform. He is also the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and climate change, and his support for multilateral agencies such as the United Nations in order to promote international cooperation. Research more about this great American and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Jan

January 19 1856- Bridget Mason

GM – FBF- For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Remember – It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it is good too check up once and a while that you haven’t loss things that money can’t buy”

Today in our History – January 19, 1856 – Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California.

Although born in Mississippi, Mason was owned by slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina before she was returned to Mississippi. Her last owner, Robert Marion Smith, a Mississippi Mormon convert, followed the call of church leaders to settle in the West. Mason and her children joined other slaves on Smith’s religious pilgrimage to establish a new Mormon community in what would become Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time Utah was still part of Mexico.

In 1848 30-year-old Mason walked 1,700 miles behind a 300-wagon caravan that eventually arrived in the Holladay-Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley. Along the route west Mason’s responsibilities included setting up and breaking camp, cooking the meals, herding the cattle, and serving as a midwife as well as taking care of her three young daughters aged ten, four, and an infant.

In 1851 Smith and his family and slaves set out in a 150-wagon caravan for San Bernardino, California to establish yet another Mormon community. Ignoring Brigham Young’s warning that slavery was illegal in California, Smith brought Mason and other enslaved people to the new community. Along the trek Mason met Charles H. and Elizabeth Flake Rowan, free blacks, who urged her to legally contest her slave status once she reached California, a free state. Mason received additional encouragement by free black friends whom she met in California, Robert and Minnie Owens.

In December 1855 Robert Smith, fearing losing his slaves, decided to move with them to Texas, a slave state. The Owens family had a vested interest in the Mason family as one of their sons was romantically involved with Mason’s 17-year-old daughter. When Robert Owens told the Los Angeles County Sheriff that slaves were being illegally held, he gathered a posse which including Owens and his sons, other cowboys and vaqueros from the Owens ranch. The posse apprehended Smith’s wagon train in Cajon Pass, California en route to Texas and prevented him from leaving the state.

After spending five years enslaved in a “free” state Bridget Mason challenged Robert Smith for her freedom. On January 19, 1856 she petitioned the court for freedom for herself and her extended family of 13 women and children. Los Angeles District Judge Benjamin Hayes took three days before handing down his ruling in favor Mason and her extended family, citing California’s 1850 constitution which prohibited slavery.

Mason and her family moved to Los Angeles where her daughter married the son of Robert and Minnie Owens. Mason worked as midwife and nurse, saved her money and purchased land in the heart of what is now downtown Los Angeles. Mason also organized First A.M.E. Church, the oldest African American church in the city. She educated her children and with her wealth became a philanthropist to the entire Los Angeles community. Bridget “Biddy” Mason died in Los Angeles in 1891. Research more about this great America and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!

18Jan

January 18 1887- Richard Harvey

GM – FBF – I believe every child has the right to a mother and a father. Men and women are not the same. That’s not to say they’re not entitled to equal rights, but they are not the same.

Remember – “All We Ask Is Equal Laws, Equal Legislation And Equal Rights”

Today in our History -January 18, 1887 – Richard Harvey Cain was born a free black in Greenbrier County, Virginia on April 12, 1825. In 1831 his parents moved to Gallipolis, Ohio where he attended school. Seventeen years later, in 1848, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and became a minister in Muscatine, Iowa. Cain moved to South Carolina in 1865 to lead a Charleston AME church and soon became involved in local politics. In 1868, he was elected a member of the South Carolina State Constitutional Convention. Later in the year he was elected to the South Carolina State Senate, a post he held until 1870. Cain was editor and publisher of the South Carolina Leader which eventually became the Missionary Record.

In 1872, Richard Harvey Cain was elected to South Carolina’s at large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cain served on the Agriculture Committee in the 43rd Congress. He is most remembered, however, for his support of a civil rights bill introduced into the House in 1870. Although the bill failed to be enacted, during the debate he spoke eloquently and passionately about his own experiences during a trip to the nation’s capital where he was denied first class accommodations on a train. By 1874, Cain’s at large seat was eliminated and he chose not so seek another office that year. He continued, however, to be actively involved in the South Carolina Republican Party and in 1876 he returned to Congress representing the 2nd district of South Carolina. Cain served one term and then returned to his ministerial duties in Charleston. In 1880 Cain was elected a Bishop in the A.M.E. Church. Soon afterwards he moved to Texas and became one of the founders of Paul Quinn College in Austin. Bishop Cain served as the college’s first president between 1880 and 1884. Three years later on January 18, 1887, Richard Harvey Cain died in Washington, D.C. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

17Jan

January 17 1984- Bobby Goodman

GM -FBF – To be in one’s shoes when they are away from this country and with help can bring them back safely.

Remember – I am so thankful to my God through Jesus Christ and your prayers allowed Reverend Jackson to get me out of here. – Bobby Goodman

Today in our History – January 17, 1984 – Retired U.S. Navy pilot Bobby Goodman was part of a historic moment on this day in 1984. After his plane was shot down over Lebanon and a subsequent capture by Syrian forces, Rev. Jesse Jackson and others helped negotiate Goodman’s release.

Tensions in the region were high as a result of the Lebanese Civil War. Two fighter jets were fired upon from Beirut, prompting U.S. forces to respond with a bombing mission. Goodman and fellow Lt. Mark Lange piloted a bomber plane that was struck down by missiles. In the ejection descent, both men were injured but only Goodman survived. Syrian troops and Lebanese civilians held Goodman captive before he was shipped to Damascus.

Goodman’s capture made international news and his mother made public pleas for his freedom. Rev. Jackson, who was in the midst of attempting to secure the Democratic Party nomination for president, rallied other faith leaders to join a delegation that traveled to Syria to meet with President Hafez al-Assad.

Jackson gathered the likes of Min. Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker and many others for the peace mission. After the group met on January 2, Goodman was freed the next day.

Rev. Jackson and Goodman traveled home immediately and met with President Ronald Reagan, who first criticized Jackson’s involvement in the negotiations. Some experts say that Jackson, being somewhat neutral as a man of the cloth, may have been the right person for the job considering Reagan was an unpopular figure in Syria.

Goodman continued to serve, flying in bombing missions during the Gulf War before retiring at the rank of commander in 1995. He and Jackson reunited in 2014 for the first time since their stirring first encounter. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

16Jan

January 16 1865- William T. Sherman

GM – FBF – So you think that you know where the term 40 acres and a mule comes from. Read the history of it below.

Remember – “The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River, Florida.” – General William T. Sherman – (General – U.S. Army)

Today in our History – On January 16, 1865, during the Civil War (1861-65), Union general William T. Sherman
issued Field Order No. 15 in January 1865, calling for the redistribution of confiscated Southern land to freedmen in forty-acre plots. The order was rescinded later that same year, and much of the land was returned to the original white owners.

William T. Sherman issued his Special Field Order No. 15, which confiscated as Union property a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres of land to newly freed black families in forty-acre segments.
Sherman’s order came on the heels of his successful March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah and just prior to his march northward into South Carolina. Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress, like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, for some time had pushed for land redistribution in order to break the back of Southern slaveholders’ power. Feeling pressure from within his own party, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln sent his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, to Savannah in order to facilitate a conversation with Sherman over what to do with Southern planters’ lands.
On January 12 Sherman and Stanton met with twenty black leaders of the Savannah community, mostly Baptist and Methodist ministers, to discuss the question of emancipation. Lincoln approved Field Order No. 15 before Sherman issued it just four days after meeting with the black leaders. From Sherman’s perspective the most important priority in issuing the directive was military expediency. It served as a means of providing for the thousands of black refugees who had been following his army since its invasion of Georgia. He could not afford to support or protect these refugees while on campaign.
The order explicitly called for the settlement of black families on confiscated land, encouraged freedmen to join the Union army to help sustain their newly won liberty, and designated a general officer to act as inspector of settlements. Inspector General Rufus Saxton would police the land and work to ensure legal title of the property for the black settlers. In a later order, Sherman also authorized the army to loan mules to the newly settled farmers.
Sherman’s
An 1868 sketch by A. R. Waud illustrates the difficulties faced by the Freedmen’s Bureau, caught between white planters on one side (left) and emancipated slaves on the other (right). The bureau was established in 1865 after Union general William T. Sherman issued his Field Order No. 15, which called for the resettlement of freedpeople on confiscated lands.
Freedmen’s Bureau
radical plan for land redistribution in the South was actually a practical response to several issues. Although Sherman had never been a racial egalitarian, his land-redistribution order served the military purpose of punishing Confederate planters along the rice coast of the South for their role in starting the Civil War, while simultaneously solving what he and Radical Republicans viewed as a major new American problem: what to do with a new class of free Southern laborers. Congressional leaders convinced President Lincoln to establish the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands on March 3, 1865, shortly after Sherman issued his order. The Freedmen’s Bureau, as it came to be called, was authorized to give legal title for forty-acre plots of land to freedmen and white Southern Unionists.
The immediate effect of Sherman’s order provided for the settlement of roughly 40,000 blacks (both refugees and local slaves who had been under Union army administration in the Sea Islands since 1861). This lifted the burden of supporting the freedpeople from Sherman’s army as it turned north into South Carolina. But the order was a short-lived promise for blacks. Despite the objections of General Oliver O. Howard, the Freedmen’s Bureau chief, U.S. president Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman’s directive in the fall of 1865, after the war had ended, and returned most of the land along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it.
Although Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 had no tangible benefit for blacks after President Johnson’s revocation, the present-day movement supporting slave reparations has pointed to it as the U.S. government’s promise to make restitution to African Americans for enslavement. The order is also the likely origin of the phrase “forty acres and a mule,” which spread throughout the South in the weeks and months following Sherman’s march. Research more about this event in history and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!