Category: 1850 – 1899

October 11 1887- Alexander Miles

GM – FBF – Today I would like to share with you a story about an Inventor who came up with an Invention that is still being used today. We don’t think about it that much but without his Invention many of the tallest buildings in the word could not have been built. Enjoy!

Remember -“I think it is time that the nation should awaken to the fact that the negro is a citizen and not a pest,” Alexander Miles.

Today in our History – October 11, 1887 Alexander Miles was awarded the patent, U.S. Patent 371,207 for his automatic opening and closing elevator door design.

Alexander Miles was an African-American inventor who was best known for being awarded a patent for an automatically opening and closing elevator door design in 1887. Contrary to many sources, Miles was not the original inventor of this device. In 1874, 13 years before Miles’ patent was awarded, John W. Meaker was awarded U.S. Patent 147,853 for the invention of the first automatic elevator door system.

Alexander Miles was born in 1838 in Duluth, Minnesota. He moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin where he earned a living as a barber in the 1860s. After a move to Winona, Minnesota in 1870, he met his wife, Candace J. Dunlap, a white woman born in New York City in 1834. Together they had a daughter named Grace who was born in April 1879. Shortly after her birth, the family relocated to Duluth, Minnesota.

While in Duluth, Alexander operated a barbershop in the four-story St. Louis Hotel and purchased a real estate office. His wife found work as a dress maker. Miles became the first black member of the Duluth Chamber of Commerce. In 1884, Miles built a three-story brownstone building at 19 West Superior Street in Duluth. This area became known as the Miles Block. It was at this time that Miles was inspired to work on elevator door mechanisms.

While riding in an elevator in with his young daughter, Alexander Miles saw the risk associated with an elevator shaft door carelessly left ajar. This led him to draft his design for automatically opening and closing elevator doors and apply for a patent. When the elevator would arrive or depart from a given floor, the doors would move automatically. Previously, the opening and closing of the doors of both the shaft and the elevator had to be completed manually by either the elevator operator or by passengers, contributing greatly to the hazards of operating an elevator.

Miles attached a flexible belt to the elevator cage, and when the belt came into contact with drums positioned along the elevator shaft just above and below the floors, it allowed the elevator shaft doors to operate at the appropriate times. The elevator doors themselves were automated through a series of levers and rollers.

Before working on elevator engineering, Miles experimented with the creation of hair products. The influence of his elevator patent is still seen in modern designs, since the automatic opening and closing of elevator and elevator shaft doors is a standard feature.

By 1900, Alexander, Candace, and Grace had moved to Chicago. In Chicago, Alexander created an insurance agency with the goal of eliminating discriminatory treatment of blacks. In his own words, Miles stated that insurance companies “persist in holding out discriminative rates to these colored people…” In 1900, it was believed that Alexander Miles was the “wealthiest colored man in the Northwest.”

Alexander Miles died sometime after 1905 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007. Research more about American Black Inventors and share with your babies. Make it a champion Day!

October 3 1881- Dudley Weldon Woodard

GM – FBF – As the last quarter of the year 2018 is upon us, I would like to thank all of the readers who have come to this history page on a daily basis. Many of the stories you have never known about and some were just a reminder of something you knew but just forgotten and some to reinforce what you already know and maybe shared with your friends and families. Today’s story is no different a look at, a math wizard who earned a PHD in mathematics and ta. ught at some of the best colleges in America. He walked in circles that other blacks would not go and he demanded respect everywhere he went and would always say “ Black is beautiful” long before it became a standard in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. Enjoy!

Remember – “One of the noblest men I’ve ever known.”- Leo Zippin- former president of the American Mathematical Society
Today in our History – October 3, 1881 – Dudley Weldon Woodard was born

Dudley Woodard was a gifted teacher in mathematics. Always the scholar, Weldon earned numerous degrees and was the second African American to receive a PHD in mathematics. Woodard taught as such prestigious schools as the Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, and the University of Chicago. He attained he PHD from Penn in 1928. Dudley Woodard devoted his entire professional life to the promotion of excellence in mathematics through the advancement of his students, teaching and research.

Dudley Weldon Woodard was born October 3, 1881, in Galveston, Texas, where his father worked for the U. S. Postal Service. Woodard was a smart child whose curiosity was supported by his family. After finishing his primary education in his home state, Woodard attended Wilberforce College in Ohio, receiving a bachelor degree in mathematics in 1903, and an M. S. degree in mathematics at the University of Chicago in 1907. From 1907 to 1914, Woodard taught mathematics at Tuskegee Institute and then moved to join the Wilberforce faculty from 1914-1920.

When Dudley Woodard enrolled in the Graduate School at Penn in 1927, he had already accumulated a remarkable set of achievements. He had published his University of Chicago master’s thesis in mathematics, “Loci Connected with the Problem of Two Bodies” and had been teaching mathematics at the collegiate level for two decades, the last seven at Howard University, then the most prestigious African American university in the country. At Howard, he also held the post of Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

In the early 1920s Dudley Woodard began taking advanced mathematics courses in the summer sessions at Columbia University. It then became clear that he was among the gifted mathematicians in the nation. Columbia’s loss was Penn’s gain when in 1927 Woodard took scholarly leave from Howard and spent a year at Penn, working under the direction of John R. Kline, one of the best and brightest of Penn’s mathematics faculty. On Wednesday, June 28, 1928, Woodard became the 38th person to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Penn. More significantly, Woodard was only the second African American in the nation to receive that degree.

Deane Montgomery, former president of the American Mathematical Society and the International Mathematical Union, described Woodard as, “an extremely nice man, well-balanced personally.” Leo Zippin, who was an internationally known specialist in Woodard’s field, said that he was “one of the noblest men I’ve ever known.

Dr. Woodard was not only a brilliant mathematician, but a man of dignity; he enjoyed life in spite of his racial environment. He used the phrase “Black is beautiful” in the 1930s; he often ignored the “colored” signs and visited any men’s restroom of his choice. He also ate at many “nice” restaurants and enjoyed the theaters of his choice in New York. He and his family once moved into what had been an all-white neighborhood because it was aesthetically nice and it was near Howard.

When he retired in 1947 as chairman of the department, he had led Howard’s mathematics faculty through a quarter century of steady advancement. In an age of discrimination, Dudley Weldon Woodard had competed and triumphed in the face of overwhelming odds. Penn is proud to claim him among its most distinguished alumni. Dudley Weldon Woodard died July 1, 1965 in his home in Cleveland Ohio. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

October 1 1897- Virginia Proctor Florence

GM – FBF – Today I want to share with you a story of a Black woman who was the first woman to be accepted into the Carnegie Library School, being the first black person admitted into the program. She went to college and afterwards since she loved children she was exposed to Library science. Enjoy!

Remember – “Visiting Florence was like attending a surprise party every day.” – Jennifer Coburn, author

Today in our History – October 1, 1897 – Virginia Proctor Florence was born on this date. . She was an African American educator and the first Black woman to receive professional training in library science in the United States.

Born in Wilkinsburg, PA, Florence Virginia Proctor Florence Powell received her early education in local public schools. After both her parents died, Powell moved to Pittsburgh to live with her aunt. In 1915, she graduated from Fifth Avenue High School. She also received her Bachelor’s degree in English from Oberlin College in 1919. Her first job was in St. Paul, MN, with the YWCA’s Colored girls’ section as a secretary. After a year, she returned to Pittsburgh to work in her aunt’s beauty parlor. Her aspirations for employment in the Pittsburgh school system were discouraged because of racism but her fiancé, Charles, aware of her love of children and literature, introduced Powell to the idea of a career in library science.

After applying to the Carnegie Library School, she was admitted in 1922, and completed the course of study within one year. Unfortunately, because school official were uncertain about placing the first Black graduate, Powell did not receive her diploma until several years later. Powell began her new career in 1923 at the New York Public Library, continuing there for four years.

Upon taking and passing the New York high school librarian exam, she was appointed librarian at the Seward High School in Brooklyn, remaining there until 1931. That same year she married her fiancé and moved to Jefferson City, MO, where her husband was president and she was called the “First Lady” of Lincoln University. The couple moved back east in 1938. Florence resumed her career, and Charles became chairman of the English department at Virginia Union University in Richmond.

She was also librarian at Cardoza High School in Washington, D.C., until 1945. After an illness, she continued at Maggie L. Walker Senior High School. Florence Powell was widowed in 1974, and in 1991 she died in Richmond, VA Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

January 7 1890- William B. Purvis

GM – FBF – The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.

Remember – There’s something special about writing by hand, writing with a fountain pen. – W.B. Purvis

Today in our History – January 7,1890 – William B. Purvis (August 12,1838 – August 10,1914) he was an inventor in the late 1800’s. He was a African American inventor who decided to make a better mouse trap. Mr. Purvis turned reality upside down when he invented what is known as the “Fountain Pen”.

On January 7, 1890, W.B. Purvis, one of our great African-American inventors, received a patent for the fountain pen. Purvis saw the need for a more convenient way to sign letters and documents and decided to take action. The fountain pen made the use of an ink bottle obsolete by storing ink within a reservoir within the pen which is then fed to the tip of the pen.
Of his accomplishment, Purvis said, “the object of my invention is to provide a simple, durable, and inexpensive construction of a fountain pen adapted to general use and which may be carried in the pocket.” The invention of the fountain pen is something that individuals and businesses all over the world are thankful for. They are cleaner and more efficient to use than a bottle of ink.

Between 1884 and 1897 Purvis, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania native,also invented several other inventions including two machines for making paper bags (which Purvis sold to the Union Paper Bag Company of New York), a bag fastener, a self-inking hand stamp, and several devices for electric railroads. His first paper bag machine (patent #293,353) created satchel bottom type bags in an improved volume and greater automation than previous machines.

W.B. Purvis has played a major role in our lives. He’s just one of the many African-Americans whose inventions impact our lives on a daily basis. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

January 2 1898- Sadie Tanner Mossell

GM – FBF – A winner is a person that gets up one more time than she is knocked down

Remember – I knew well that the only way I could get that door open was to knock it down; because I knocked all of them down. – Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

Today in our History – Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (January 2, 1898 – November 1, 1989), was the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics in the United States (1921), and the first woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was the first African-American woman to practice law in Pennsylvania. She was the first national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, serving from 1919 to 1923.
In 1946 she was appointed to the President’s Committee on Civil Rights established by Harry Truman. She was the first African-American woman appointed as Assistant City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia. She and her husband were both active in civil rights. In 1952 she was appointed to the city’s Commission on Human Relations, serving through 1968. She was President of John F. Kennedy Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (1963). Research more about this great American and teach your babies. Make it a champion day!

January 1 1863- Abraham Lincoln

GM – FBF – Happy New Year – Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

Remember – Still, to use a coarse, but an expressive figure, broken eggs can not be mended. I have issued the emancipation proclamation, and I can not retract it.
— President Abraham Lincoln (R)

President Abraham Lincoln Signs The Emancipation Proclamation – January 1, 1863
Attempting to stitch together a nation mired in a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln made a last-ditch, but carefully calculated, decision regarding the institution of slavery in America.

By the end of 1862, things were not looking good for the Union. The Confederate Army had overcome Union troops in significant battles and Britain and France were set to officially recognize the Confederacy as a separate nation. In an August 1862 letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln confessed “my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery.” Lincoln hoped that declaring a national policy of emancipation would stimulate a rush of the South’s slaves into the ranks of the Union army, thus depleting the Confederacy’s labor force, on which the southern states depended to wage war against the North.

Lincoln waited to unveil the proclamation until he could do so on the heels of a Union military success. On September 22, 1862, after the battle at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation declaring all slaves free in the rebellious states as of January 1, 1863. Lincoln and his advisors limited the proclamation’s language to slavery in states outside of federal control as of 1862, failing to address the contentious issue of slavery within the nation’s border states. In his attempt to appease all parties, Lincoln left many loopholes open that civil rights advocates would be forced to tackle in the future.

Republican abolitionists in the North rejoiced that Lincoln had finally thrown his full weight behind the cause for which they had elected him. Though slaves in the south failed to rebel en masse with the signing of the proclamation, they slowly began to liberate themselves as Union armies marched into Confederate territory. Toward the end of the war, slaves left their former masters in droves. They fought and grew crops for the Union Army, performed other military jobs and worked in the North’s mills. Though the proclamation was not greeted with joy by all northerners, particularly northern white workers and troops fearful of job competition from an influx of freed slaves, it had the distinct benefit of convincing Britain and France to steer clear of official diplomatic relations with the Confederacy.

Though the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation signified Lincoln’s growing resolve to preserve the Union at all costs, he still rejoiced in the ethical correctness of his decision. Lincoln admitted on that New Year’s Day in 1863 that he never “felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper.” Although he waffled on the subject of slavery in the early years of his presidency, he would thereafter be remembered as “The Great Emancipator.” To Confederate sympathizers, however, Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced their image of him as a hated despot and ultimately inspired his assassination by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. Research more about what this means for all Americans and share it with your babies. Make It A Champion day!

23Feb

February 23 1868 – William Edward Burghardt

GM – FBF – “Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody’s slavery.” W. E. B. Du Bois

Remember – “Education is the development of power and ideal.” W. E. B. Du Bois

Today in our History – February 23, 1868 – Throughout his career as a sociologist, historian, educator, and sociopolitical activist, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois argued for immediate racial equality for African-Americans. His emergence as an African-American leader paralleled the rise of Jim Crow laws of the South and the Progressive Era.

One of Du Bois’ most famous quotes encapsulates his philosophy, “Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season.

It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”

Major Nonfiction Works:
The Study of the Negro Problems (1898)
The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
The Talented Tenth, second chapter of The Negro Problem, a collection of articles by African Americans (September 1903).
Voice of the Negro II (September 1905)
Atlanta University’s Studies of the Negro Problem (1897-1910)
The Negro (1915)
The Gift of Black Folk (1924)
Africa, Its Geography, People and Products (1930)
Africa: Its Place in Modern History (1930)
Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
Black Folk, Then and Now (1939)
The Encyclopedia of the Negro (1946)
Africa in Battle Against Colonialism, Racialism, Imperialism (1960)

Early Life and Education:

Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Mass on February 23, 1868. Throughout his childhood, he excelled in school and upon his graduation from high school, members of the community awarded Du Bois with a scholarship to attend Fisk University. While at Fisk, Du Bois experienced racism and poverty that was very different to his experiences in Great Barrington.

As a result, Du Bois decided that he would dedicate his life to ending racism and uplifting African-Americans.

In 1888, Du Bois graduated from Fisk and was accepted to Harvard University where he earned a master’s degree, a doctorate and a fellowship to study for two years at the University of Berlin in Germany. Following his studies in Berlin, Du Bois argued that through racial inequality and injustice could be exposed through scientific research. However, after observing the remaining body parts of a man who was lynched, Du Bois was convinced that scientific research was not enough.

“Souls of Black Folk”: Opposition to Booker T. Washington:
Initially, Du Bois agreed with the philosophy of Booker T. Washington , the preeminent leader of African-Americans during the Progressive Era. Washington argued that African-Americans should become skilled in industrial and vocational trades so that they could open businesses and become self-reliant.

Du Bois, however, greatly disagreed and outlined his arguments in his collection of essays, Souls of Black Folk published in 1903. In this text, Du Bois argued that white Americans needed to take responsibility for their contributions to the problem of racial inequality, proved the flaws in Washington’s argument, argued that African-Americans must also take better advantage of educational opportunities to uplift their race.

Organizing for Racial Equality:

In July of 1905, Du Bois organized the Niagara Movement with William Monroe Trotter. The purpose of the Niagara Movement was to have a more militant approach to fighting racial inequality. Its chapters throughout the United States fought local acts of discrimination and the national organization published a newspaper, Voice of the Negro.

The Niagara Movement dismantled in 1909 but Du Bois, along with several other members joined with white Americans to establish the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Du Bois was appointed director of research and also served as the editor of the NAACP’s magazine Crisis from 1910 to 1934. In addition to urging African-American readers to become socially and politically active, the publication also showcased literature and visual artistry of the Harlem Renaissance.

Racial Upliftment:

Throughout Du Bois’ career, he worked tirelessly to end racial inequality. Through his membership and later leadership of the American Negro Academy, Du Bois developed the idea of the “Talented Tenth,” arguing that educated African-Americans could lead the fight for racial equality in the United States.

Du Bois’ ideas about the importance of education would be present again during the Harlem Renaissance. During the Harlem Renaissance, Du Bois argued that racial equality could be gained through the arts. Using his influence as editor of the Crisis, Du Bois promoted the work of many African-American visual artists and writers.

Pan Africanism:

Du Bois also concerned with people of African descent throughout the world. Leading the Pan-African movement, Du Bois organized conferences for the Pan-African Congress for many years. Leaders from Africa and the Americas assembled to discuss racism and oppression–issues that people of African descent faced all over the world. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Du Bois died on August 27, 1963 at the age of 95. Make it a champion Day!

14Dec

December 14 1859- John Brown

GM – FBF – Today, I want to take you back to a time where our ancestors were still in bondage. It looked like all of the work that Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Processor and Nat Brown wasn’t working to assist our people from obtaining freedom. This man would go down in American History as the one who will start the civil war and using the slave as the centerpiece. Enjoy!

Remember – “I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed [to deny other the rights or liberty] by the slave system, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone” John Brown

Today in our History – December 14, 1859 – The U.S. Senate appointed a bipartisan committee to investigate the Harpers Ferry raid and to determine whether any citizens contributed arms, ammunition or money to John Brown’s men. The Democrats attempted to implicate the Republicans in the raid; the Republicans tried to disassociate themselves from Brown and his acts.

John Brown was born in Torrington, Connecticut, on May 9, 1800. His father, Owen Brown, was an early abolitionist who was accused in 1798 of forcibly freeing slaves belonging to a clergyman from Virginia. He spent most of his youth in Hudson, Ohio, where he worked mainly for his father and developed skills as a farmer and tanner.

He married the widow Dianthe Lusk in 1820, and had seven children by her. Within a year of her death in 1832, he married again and had 13 more children. He experienced inconsistent results in business, trying his hand at sheep raising, farming, tanning, and the wool trade. From 1849 to 1854, he lived in a black community near North Elba, New York. With tensions rising in Kansas following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Brown sent his five sons – all thoroughly indoctrinated as abolitionists – westward while he attempted to settle his debts.

Brown, driving a wagonload of guns, later joined his sons in Kansas. Proclaiming himself the servant of the Lord, Brown led an attack in the spring of 1856, that resulted in the murders of five proslavery settlers. The incident became known as the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre. This event was part of widespread violence then occurring in Bleeding Kansas.

Brown’s uncompromising stand against slavery won him numerous supporters in the North, where many abolitionists were frustrated by their lack of progress. In particular, encouragement and financial support were extended by the “Secret Six,” a group of influential New England aristocrats. With their help, Brown was able to establish a base in western Virginia where he hoped to spark a general slave rebellion in the South.

His raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry on October 16, 1859, was part of that plan. With a band of 18 men, 13 white and 5 black, Brown seized the town. A number of persons died during the raid. He expected that slaves would join his “army of emancipation” as it continued further into slave-holding territory, but the support did not materialize.

By the following night, federal troops commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee reached the town and surrounded the raiders. Brown would not surrender, so they were attacked. Two of Brown’s sons died in the fighting and Brown himself was seriously wounded. He was taken to Charles Town, then in Virginia and now in West Virginia, where he was tried on charges of inciting a slave insurrection, murder and treason.

After conducting his own defense, he was convicted, and hanged on December 2, 1859. Research more about this American hero and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

09Dec

December 9 1892- Clevland Leigh

GM – FBF – I always enjoy telling any story about my beloved New Jersey, born in Camden, raised in Trenton and owned property in Trenton, Willingboro and Edgewater Park. My family members still reside in Mercer, Burlington, Camden and Atlantic Counties. Today’s story has a link in Willingboro to the famed track family of the Lewis’s. We know of Carl and Sister Carol who passed on Trenton Central High School for the ‘boro. Did you know that their mother Evelyn Lawler Lewis, attended Tuskegee on a track-and-field scholarship, and competed for the U.S. at the 1951 Pan American Games? Injuries prevented her participation in the 1952 Olympics; at that time she was one of the top three hurdlers in the world. She taught school, coached sports, developed physical education programs, and co-founded the Willingboro Track Club (Burlington, NJ) in 1969. Today’s story is about her Track Coach at Tuskegee. Enjoy!

Remember – “Over my career I taught toughness and determination, if I had the resources that the other schools we competed against had, we would have been hard to beat for decades” – Coach Cleveland Leigh Abbott

Today in our History – December 9, 1892 – Cleveland Leigh Abbott was born in Yankton, South Dakota. He is most remembered for his coaching career at Tuskegee Institute (now University) in Alabama.

Abbott was the son of Elbert and Mollie Brown Abbott who moved to South Dakota from Alabama in 1890. He graduated from Watertown High School, Watertown, South Dakota, in 1912 and then from the South Dakota State University at Brookings in 1916. Abbott earned 16 varsity athletic awards during his collegiate career.

Students residing in Abbott Hall, one of the new residential halls dotting the SDSU campus, should be schooled on the significance of the building’s namesake.

The class of 1916 featured Cleveland Leigh Abbott. Better known as “Cleve,” his impact at South Dakota State was felt long after he left the College on the Hill.

He was a four-sport star, lettering in track, football, basketball, and baseball. He went on to become a legendary coach and was inducted to several halls of fame, including SDSU. However, his most notable achievement was his advancement of women’s sports, particularly African-Americans.

Abbott’s destiny was put in motion a few months later when SDSU President Ellwood Perisho attended a meeting in New York City on the advancement of African-Americans. After the conference, he met Tuskegee Institute President Booker T. Washington on the train.

Washington informed Perisho that he wanted to start a sports program if he was to hold the interest of young folks attending Tuskegee and attract greater numbers to the school.

When quizzed if he had any young men who might qualify as a sports director, Perisho told him about Abbott, but cautioned that he was only a freshman. Washington replied that if Abbott worked and studied hard, he could come to Tuskegee as its sports director when he graduated from SDSU.

When Perisho returned to Brookings, he contacted Abbott about Washington’s proposal, and in response, “Cleve” committed himself to excellence on the field and in the classroom.

The 172-pound Abbott earned all-state football honors four straight years, including one year being named all-northwestern center. He was the starting center on the basketball team and was team captain as a senior. In track, he ran the anchor leg on the relay team.

Abbott’s future was in doubt as a junior when he learned that Washington had died. However, during his senior year, Washington’s secretary discovered a memo of agreement for Abbott’s employment and enclosed a contract for him to come to Tuskegee.
In 1916 Cleveland Abbott married Jessie Harriet Scott (1897–1982). They had one daughter, Jessie Ellen, who in 1943 became the first coach of the women’s track team at Tennessee State University in Nashville.
Arriving at the famous Alabama school, Abbott was assigned to teach various phases of the dairy business to agricultural students and serve as an assistant coach.

His college duties were postponed, though, when the United States entered World War I. As a lieutenant, he was the regimental intelligence officer attached to the 336th Infantry Company of the 92nd Division. He saw action at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918. When the armistice was declared, it was Abbott who carried the message of cease-fire from his colonel to the troops. Abbott was later a commissioned officer in the Army Reserve. (The US Army Reserve Center at Tuskegee is now named the Cleveland Leigh Abbott Center.)
After the war, Abbott joined the faculty of Kansas Vocational School in Topeka, where he coached and was commandant of cadets.

In 1923 Cleveland Abbott was hired as an agricultural chemist and athletic director at Tuskegee Institute, a job that had been personally offered to him by Booker T. Washington in 1913 on the condition that he successfully earn his B.A. degree. As athletic director Abbott was expected to coach the Institute’s football team. During Abbott’s 32-year career, the Tuskegee team had a 202–95–27 record including six undefeated seasons; positions he held until his death in 1955.
In 32 seasons, Abbott’s gridiron record was 203-95-15. His teams claimed 12 conference titles and six mythical National Black College championships. In 1954, he was the first African-American college football coach to rack up 200 victories.

Abbott also started the women’s track and field program at Tuskegee in 1937. The team was undefeated from 1937 to 1942. Six of his athletes competed on U.S. Olympic track teams, among the notable female athletes he coached were Alice Coachman, Mildred McDaniel, and Nell Jackson. Coachman was the first African-American woman to win a gold medal, taking the high jump title at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. McDaniel repeated the feat in 1956 with a world-record jump of five feet, nine inches at the Helsinki Olympics.

From 1935 to 1955, Abbott’s outdoor track and field teams won 14 national titles, including eight consecutive. His squads captured 21 international AAU track and field crowns. Individually, Tuskegee athletes brought home 49 indoor and outdoor titles with six making Olympic track and field teams.

Abbott served on the women’s committee of the old National AAU (USA Track and Field predecessor) and twice was on the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Committee. He is also a member of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and is one of the founders of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Basketball Tournament.

Abbott is credited with being one of the pioneer coaches of women’s track and field for more than four decades. He is said to have developed the program that opened track and field to women in the United States.

Abbott was inducted into the South Dakota State University Hall of Fame in 1968, the Tuskegee University Hall of Fame in 1975, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame in 1992, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1995, and the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1996. Also in 1996, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to athletics, the Tuskegee University Football Stadium were renamed the Cleveland Leigh Abbott Memorial Alumni Stadium.

Another female track and field standout was Evelyn Lawler Lewis, mother of Olympic track great Carl Lewis. A 1949 Tuskegee graduate, Lewis named her second son, Cleveland Abbott, after him. After college, she went on to compete in the 1951 Pan American Games in Argentina, and like “Cleve,” she also turned to coaching.

Lewis says Abbott was well ahead of his time, from coaching to teaching and training techniques. What’s more, she says, Abbott inspired his athletes.

“He made us believe we could be something,” she explains. “His main theme—what he always talked about—was ‘you can do it.’ You can do what you want. You can be as good as you want. He wasn’t a driving-type of coach—he was a motivator.”
Cleveland Leigh Abbott died at the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee on April 14, 1955 and was buried in the Tuskegee University Campus Cemetery at Tuskegee, Alabama. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

december 6 1879

GM – FBF – Our story today is about the life of a radio air personality, The very first one to own a radio station. Some of you may remember that I also was on the air waves in Milwaukee, WI, Chicago, IL., Cleveland and Philadelphia. Enjoy!

Remember – ” Music was in my blood and I have always dreamed of owning a station one day” – Jesse B, Blayton SR.

Today in our History – Jesse B. Blayton Sr. was born.

Jesse B. Blayton, Sr., was a pioneer African American radio station entrepreneur. Blayton founded WERD-AM in Atlanta, Georgia on October 3, 1949 making him the first African American to own and operate a radio station in the United States.

Jesse Blayton was born in Fallis, Oklahoma, on December 6, 1879. He graduated from the University of Chicago (Illinois) in 1922 and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia to establish a private practice as an accountant. Blayton passed the Georgia accounting examination in 1928, becoming the state’s first black Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and only the fourth African American nationwide to hold the certification.

Blayton also taught accounting at Atlanta University where he encouraged younger blacks to enter the profession. He had little success. Blayton later recalled that much of his recruiting difficulty came from the students’ knowledge that no white-owned accounting firms would hire them and his, the only black-owned firm in the South, was small and had few openings. A decade after Blayton became a CPA there were still only seven other blacks in the U.S. who had achieved that status.
In 1949 Blayton made history when he bought the 1,000 watt Atlanta radio station WERD for $50,000. Blayton changed the program format and directed toward the local African American audience. WERD was a pioneer in programming what he called “Negro appeal” music, playing early versions of rhythm and blues music that could not be found elsewhere on the air. Although WDIA, established in Memphis, Tennessee in 1948, played music oriented for a black audience, WERD was the only black-owned station to do so at that time. By 1954 there were approximately 200 black-oriented radio stations but fewer than a dozen were African American-owned.

Blayton hired his son, Jesse Blayton, Jr., as the station’s first program director. The younger Blayton hired four black announcers, Joe Howard, Roosevelt Johnson, Jimmy Winnington, and veteran “Jockey” Jack Gibson who by the early 1950s had became one of Atlanta’s most popular radio personalities. Gibson read daily news that was relevant to the black community and often conducted on-air interviews of Atlanta University professors and other prominent black leaders to comment on the leading stories of the day.

WERD also diverged from other local radio stations in the early 1950s by publicizing the emerging civil rights movement. The station’s location in the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge Building, which also housed the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), no doubt gave it a particular advantage. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President of SCLC, often walked upstairs to the WERD studio to make public statements about the organization’s activities. Research more about blacks in the radio world and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!