Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Did You Know...

On This February day, in 1972, Robert Lewis Douglas founder and coach of the Rens, is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Barack Obama First Black Presisent?


Barack Obama is the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois and a Democratic candidate for president in 2008.

Barack Hussein Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born of Luo ethnicity in Nyanza Province, Kenya. He grew up herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic servant to the British. Although reared among Muslims, Obama, Sr., became an atheist at some point.

Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton's army. Dunham's mother went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved to Hawaii.

Meantime, Barack's father had won a scholarship that allowed him to leave Kenya pursue his dreams in Hawaii. At the time of his birth, Obama's parents were students at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. Obama's father went to Harvard to pursue Ph.D. studies and then returned to Kenya.

His mother married Lolo Soetoro, another East-West Center student from Indonesia. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was born. Obama attended schools in Jakarta, where classes were taught in the Indonesian language.

Four years later when Barack (commonly known throughout his early years as "Barry") was ten, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and later his mother (who died of ovarian cancer in 1995).

He was enrolled in the fifth grade at the esteemed Punahou Academy, graduating with honors in 1979. He was only one of three black students at the school. This is where Obama first became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African-American.

In his memoir, Obama described how he struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. He saw his biological father (who died in a 1982 car accident) only once (in 1971) after his parents divorced. And he admitted using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years.

After high school, Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, graduating in 1983 with a degree in political science.

After working at Business International Corporation (a company that provided international business information to corporate clients) and NYPIRG, Obama moved to Chicago in 1985. There, he worked as a community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago's Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city's South Side.

It was during this time that Obama, who said he "was not raised in a religious household," joined the Trinity United Church of Christ. He also visited relatives in Kenya, which included an emotional visit to the graves of his father and paternal grandfather.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in 1988. In February 1990, he was elected the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review. Obama graduated magna cum laude in 1991.

After law school, Obama returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, joining the firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. And he helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.

Obama published an autobiography in 1995 Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. And he won a Grammy for the audio version of the book.

Obama's advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate as a Democrat. He was elected in 1996 from the south side neighborhood of Hyde Park.

During these years, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics, expanded health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor. He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. And after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In 2000, Obama made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Obama was an early opponent of President George W. Bush's push to war with Iraq. Obama was still a state senator when he spoke against a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq during a rally at Chicago's Federal Plaza in October 2002.

"I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars," he said. "What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

"He’s a bad guy," Obama said, referring to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. "The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history."

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences," Obama continued. "I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

The war with Iraq began in 2003 and Obama decided to run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Republican Peter Fitzgerald. In the 2004 Democratic primary, he won 52 percent of the vote, defeating multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes.

That summer, he was invited to deliver the keynote speech in support of John Kerry at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Obama emphasized the importance of unity, and made veiled jabs at the Bush administration and the diversionary use of wedge issues.

"We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states," he said. "We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

After the convention, Obama returned to his U.S. Senate bid in Illinois. His opponent in the general election was suppose to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker. However, Ryan withdrew from the race in June 2004, following public disclosure of unsubstantiated sexual allegations by Ryan's ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan.

In August 2004, diplomat and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, who was also an African-American, accepted the Republican nomination to replace Ryan. In three televised debates, Obama and Keyes expressed opposing views on stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers and tax cuts.

In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest electoral victory in Illinois history. Obama became only the third African-American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

Sworn into office January 4, 2005, Obama partnered with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. Then with Republican Sen. Tom Corburn of Oklahoma, he created a website that tracks all federal spending.

Obama was also the first to raise the threat of avian flu on the Senate floor, spoke out for victims of Hurricane Katrina, pushed for alternative-energy development and championed improved veterans’ benefits. He also worked with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress.

His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006.

In February 2007, Obama made headlines when he announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He is locked in a tight battle with former first lady and current U.S. Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama met his wife, Michelle, in 1988 when he was a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. They were married in October 1992 and live in Kenwood on Chicago's South Side with their daughters, Malia (born 1999) and Sasha (born 2001).

© 2008 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Who Do You Think Shot Martin Luther King?

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968.

Background

The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum
The Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum

In late March 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of the black sanitary public works employees, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. (For example, African American workers, unlike white workers, were not paid when sent home because of inclement weather.)[1][2][3]

On April 3, King returned to Memphis and addressed a rally, delivering his "I've been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ, Inc. - World Headquarters). King's flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.[4] In the close of the last speech of his career, in reference to the bomb threat, King said the following:

“ And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[5]

 ”

King was booked in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, owned by Walter Bailey, in Memphis. Reverend Ralph Abernathy, King's close friend and colleague who was present at the assassination, swore under oath to the HSCA that King and his entourage stayed at room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often it was known as the "King-Abernathy suite."[6]

Assassination

While standing on the motel's 2nd floor balcony, King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968. The bullet entered through his right cheek smashing his jaw and then traveling down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder.[7] According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's last words on the balcony were to musician Ben Branch (no relation to Taylor Branch) who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was attending: "Ben, make sure you play Take My Hand, Precious Lord in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty."[8] Friends inside the motel room heard the shots and ran to the balcony to find King on the ground. Local Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles, whose house King was on his way to, remembers that upon seeing King go down he ran into a hotel room to call an ambulance. However, no one was on the switchboard so he ran back out and yelled to the police to get one on their radios. It was later revealed that the hotel switchboard operator, upon seeing King shot, had a fatal heart attack and could not operate the phones.[9] King was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m.

Immediate effects

The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 60 cities.[10] Five days later, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning for the lost civil rights leader. A crowd of 300,000 attended his funeral that same day. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey attended on behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson, who was at a meeting on the Vietnam War at Camp David. (There were fears that Johnson might be hit with protests and abuses over the war if he attended.) At his widow's request, King eulogized himself: his last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, a recording of his famous 'Drum Major' sermon, given on February 4, 1968, was played at the funeral. In that sermon he makes a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to "feed the hungry", "clothe the naked", "be right on the [Vietnam] war question", and "love and serve humanity". Per King's request, his good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at his funeral.

According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's autopsy revealed that though he was only 39 years old, he had the heart of a 60 year old man, evidencing the stress the 13 years in the civil rights movement had on him.[11]

The city quickly settled the strike, on favorable terms, after the assassination.[12][13]

Capture and trial of Ray

Two months after King's death, escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd. Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder, confessing to the assassination on March 10, 1969 (though he recanted this confession three days later). On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray took a guilty plea to avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the death penalty. Ray was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.

Ray fired Foreman as his attorney (from then on derisively calling him "Percy Fourflusher") claiming that a man he met in Montreal, Canada with the alias "Raoul" was involved, as was his brother Johnny, but not himself, further asserting that although he did not "personally shoot King," he may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting (unsuccessfully) to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.


Escape

Ray and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee on June 10, 1977. They were recaptured on June 13, of the same year, and returned to prison.[14] One more year was added to his previous sentence to total 100 years. Shortly after, Ray testified that he did not shoot King to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Retrial

In 1997 Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial. Loyd Jowers, a restaurant owner in Memphis, was brought to civil court and sued as being part of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King; Jowers was found liable, and the King family was awarded $100 in restitution to show that they were not pursuing the case for financial gain.

Dr. William Pepper remained James Earl Ray's attorney until Ray's death and then carried on, on behalf of the King family. The King family does not believe Ray had anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King.[15]

Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70 from complications related to kidney disease, caused by hepatitis C probably contracted as a result of a blood transfusion given after a stabbing while at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. It was also confirmed in the autopsy that he died of liver failure.

Allegations of conspiracy

Some have speculated that Ray had been used as a "patsy" similar to the way that alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have been. Some of the claims used to support this assertion are:

  • Ray's confession was given under pressure, and he had been threatened with death penalty.[16][17]
  • Ray was a thief and burglar and had no record of committing violent crimes with a weapon.[18]

Many suspecting a conspiracy in the assassination point out the two separate ballistic tests conducted on the Remington Gamemaster had neither conclusively proved Ray had been the killer nor that it had even been the murder weapon.[19][20] Moreover, witnesses surrounding King at the moment of his death say the shot came from another location, from behind thick shrubbery near the rooming house, and not from the rooming house shrubbery (which had been inexplicably cut away in the days following the assassination).[21]

Martin Luther King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Center
Martin Luther King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Center
Martin Luther King's & Coretta Scott King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Center
Martin Luther King's & Coretta Scott King's tomb, located on the grounds of the King Center

Recent developments

In 1997, Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial.[22]

In 1999, Coretta Scott King, King's widow, along with the rest of King's family, won a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King's assassination. The jury of six whites and six blacks found Jowers guilty and that "governmental agencies were parties" to the assassination plot.[23] William F. Pepper represented the King family in the trial.[24][25][26]

King biographer David Garrow disagrees with William F. Pepper's claims that the government killed King. He is supported by King assassination author Gerald Posner.[27]

In 2000, the Department of Justice completed the investigation about Jowers' claims but did not find evidence to support the allegations about conspiracy. The investigation report recommends no further investigation unless some new reliable facts are presented.[28]

On April 6, 2002, the New York Times reported a church minister, Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson—not James Earl Ray—assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. He stated, "It wasn't a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way."[29]

In 2004, Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the time of his death, noted:

“ The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. [And] within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. …I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.[30][31] ”

The Man Who Shot Dr. King?

James Earl Ray (1928-1998)

Assassin, born in Alton, Illinois, USA. He served in the US Army (1946–8) and was imprisoned for armed robbery (1960–7). He escaped (1967) and shot and killed Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, and the next year was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Although few doubted he had fired the fatal shot, many questioned whether he acted alone.

References

  1. ^ 1,300 Members Participate in Memphis Garbage Strike. AFSCME (February , 1968). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  2. ^ Memphis Strikers Stand Firm. AFSCME (March , 1968). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  3. ^ Rugaber, Walter. "A Negro is Killed in Memphis", The New York Times, March 29, 1968. Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  4. ^ http://www.newsweek.com/id/69542/page/2
  5. ^ "I've Been to the Mountaintop"
  6. ^ United States Department of Justice Investigation of Recent Allegations Regarding the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr - VII. KING V. JOWERS CONSPIRACY ALLEGATIONS (HTML). United States Department of Justice (June 2000). Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
  7. ^ Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (HTML). Christian History Institute (March, 2007.). Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
  8. ^ Branch, Taylor (2006). At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (America in the King Years). Simon & Schuster, page 766. ISBN 0684857138.
  9. ^ Lucas, Dean (February 11, 2007). Famous Pictures Magazine - Martin Luther King Jr Killed (HTML). Famous Pictures Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
  10. ^ "1968: Martin Luther King shot dead", On this Day, BBC, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  11. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/filmmore/pt.html
  12. ^ AFSCME Wins in Memphis. AFSCME (April , 1968). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  13. ^ 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike Chronology. AFSCME (1968). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  14. ^ FIELD OFFICE ESTABLISHED Knoxville Field Office, FBI
  15. ^ KING FAMILY STATEMENT ON THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT "LIMITED INVESTIGATION" OF THE MLK ASSASSINATION The King Center
  16. ^ James Earl Ray Profile. africanaonline.com (2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  17. ^ The Martin Luther King Assassination. the Real History Archives (2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  18. ^ "From small-time criminal to notorious assassin", US news, CNN, 1998. Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  19. ^ "James Earl Ray Dead At 70", CBS, April 23, 1998. Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  20. ^ "Questions left hanging by James Earl Ray's death", BBC, April 23, 1998. Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  21. ^ Martin Luther King - Sniper in the Shrubbery?. africanaonline.com (2006). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  22. ^ "James Earl Ray, convicted King assassin, dies", US news, CNN, April 23, 1998. Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  23. ^ Trial Transcript Volume XIV. verdict. The King Center (2006). Retrieved on 2007-03-24.
  24. ^ Text of the King family's suit against Loyd Jowers and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "unknown" conspirators. Court TV (1999). Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  25. ^ Pepper, Bill (April 7, 2002). William F. Pepper on the MLK Conspiracy Trial. Rat Haus Reality Press. Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  26. ^ Trial Information. Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial. The King Center (2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-17.
  27. ^ Ayton, Mel (February 28, 2005). Book review A Racial Crime: The Assassination of MLK. History News Network. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
  28. ^ USDOJ Investigation of Recent Allegations Regarding the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Overview. USDOJ (June 2000). Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
  29. ^ Canedy, Dana. "My father killed King, says pastor, 34 years on", The Sydney Morning Herald, April 6 2002. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
  30. ^ Goodman, Amy; Juan Gonzalez. "Jesse Jackson On "Mad Dean Disease," the 2000 Elections and Martin Luther King", Democracy Now!, January 15, 2004. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
  31. ^ According to biographer Taylor Branch, King's friend and colleague, James Bevel, put it more bluntly: "[T]here is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man." At Canaan's Edge, Simon & Schuster (2006), Hardcover, ISBN 978-0-684-85712-1, p. 770.
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Sunday, February 3, 2008

First African American to graduate from an American university?


Alexander Lucius Twilight (1795-1857)


Educator, politician. Born on September 26, 1795, in Corinth, Vermont. Twilight is believed to be the first African American to graduate from an American university; he received his bachelor's degree from Middlebury College in 1823. He married Mercy Ladd Merrill three years after finishing college.

Twilight went on to become a minister and educator. He tended congregations in Vergennes and Browington, Vermont, and became the principal of the Orleans County Grammar School in Brownington, which later became known as Brownington Academy. He helped the school built a granite building named Athenian Hall, which he designed. The structure housed classrooms and served as a dormitory. The building is now known as the Old Stone House Museum.

Also a pioneer in Vermont politics, Twilight became the first African American to serve in the state's legislature in 1836. He died on June 19, 1857.

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Malcolm X

Biography of Malcolm X

Malcolm X :: March 10, 1964
March 10, 1964
Photo by Truman Moore/Time Warner, Inc.
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Louis Norton Little, was a homemaker occupied with the family's eight children. His father, Earl Little, was an outspoken Baptist minister and avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Earl's civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday. Regardless of the Little's efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929 their Lansing, Michigan home was burned to the ground, and two years later Earl's mutilated body was found lying across the town's trolley tracks. Police ruled both accidents, but the Little's were certain that members of the Black Legion were responsible. Louise had an emotional breakdown several years after the death of her husband and was committed to a mental institution. Her children were split up amongst various foster homes and orphanages.

Malcolm was a smart, focused student and graduated from junior high at the top of his class. However, when a favorite teacher told Malcolm his dream of becoming a lawyer was "no realistic goal for a nigger," Malcolm lost interest in school. He dropped out, spent some time in Boston, Massachusetts working various odd jobs, and then traveled to Harlem, New York where he committed petty crimes. By 1942 Malcolm was coordinating various narcotic, prostitution and gambling rings.

Eventually Malcolm and his buddy, Malcolm "Shorty" Jarvis, moved back to Boston, where they were arrested and convicted on burglary charges in 1946. Malcolm placated himself by using the seven-year prison sentence to further his education. It was during this period of self-enlightenment that Malcolm's brother Reginald visited and discussed his recent conversion to the Muslim religious organization the Nation of Islam. Intrigued, Malcolm studied the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic and social success. Among other goals, the Nation of Islam fought for a state of their own, separate from one inhabited by white people. By the time he was paroled in 1952, Malcolm was a devoted follower with the new surname "X." He considered "Little" a slave name and chose the "X" to signify his lost tribal name.
Malcolm X :: February 18, 1965
Feb. 18, 1965
Photo by Robert L. Haggins
Intelligent and articulate, Malcolm was appointed a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad also charged him with establishing new mosques in cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Malcolm utilized newspaper columns, radio and television to communicate the Nation of Islam's message across the United States. His charisma, drive and conviction attracted an astounding number of new members. Malcolm was largely credited with increasing membership in the Nation of Islam from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963.

The crowds and controversy surrounding Malcolm made him a media magnet. He was featured in a week-long television special with Mike Wallace in 1959, The Hate That Hate Produced, that explored fundamentals of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm's emergence as one of its most important leaders. After the special, Malcolm was faced with the uncomfortable reality that his fame had eclipsed that of his mentor Elijah Muhammad.

Racial tensions ran increasingly high during the early 1960s. In addition to the media, Malcolm's vivid personality had captured the government's attention. As membership in the Nation of Islam continued to grow, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents infiltrated the organization (one even acted at Malcolm's bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps and cameras surveillance equipment to monitor the group's activities.

Malcolm's faith was dealt a crushing blow at the height of the civil rights movement in 1963. He learned that Elijah Muhammad was secretly having relations with as many as six women in the Nation of Islam, some of which had resulted in children. Since his conversion Malcolm had strictly adhered to the teachings of Muhammad, including remaining celibate until his marriage to Betty Shabazz in 1958. Malcolm refused Muhammad's request to keep the matter quiet. He was deeply hurt by the deception of Muhammad, whom he had considered a prophet, and felt guilty about the masses he had lead into what he now felt was a fraudulent organization.
Cairo mosque :: September, 1964
Cairo mosque, Sept. 1964
Photo by John Launois/Black Star
When Malcolm received criticism after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for saying, "[Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon," Muhammad "silenced" him for 90 days. Malcolm suspected he was silenced for another reason. In March 1964 he terminated his relationship with the Nation of Islam and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

That same year, Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The trip proved life altering, as Malcolm met "blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers." He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration. This time, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.

Relations between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam had become volatile after he renounced Elijah Muhammad. Informants working in the Nation of Islam warned that Malcolm had been marked for assassination (one man had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in his car). After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed (the family escaped physical injury).

At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage and shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Fifteen hundred people attended Malcolm's funeral in Harlem at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ on February 27, 1965. After the ceremony, friends took the shovels from the gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves. Later that year, Betty gave birth to their twin daughters.

Malcolm's assassins, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1966. The three men were all members of the Nation of Islam.

The legacy of Malcolm X has moved through generations as the subject of numerous documentaries, books and movies. A tremendous resurgence of interest occurred in 1992 when director Spike Lee released the acclaimed Malcolm X movie. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design.

Malcolm X is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
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Friday, February 1, 2008

Martin Luther King

Biography

Martin Luther KingMartin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Selected Bibliography

Adams, Russell, Great Negroes Past and Present, pp. 106-107. Chicago, Afro-Am Publishing Co., 1963.

Bennett, Lerone, Jr., What Manner of Man: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Chicago, Johnson, 1964.

I Have a Dream: The Story of Martin Luther King in Text and Pictures. New York, Time Life Books, 1968.

King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Measure of a Man. Philadelphia. The Christian Education Press, 1959. Two devotional addresses.

King, Martin Luther, Jr., Strength to Love. New York, Harper & Row, 1963. Sixteen sermons and one essay entitled "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence."

King, Martin Luther, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. New York, Harper, 1958.

King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience. New York, Harper & Row, 1968.

King, Martin Luther, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? New York, Harper & Row, 1967.

King, Martin Luther, Jr., Why We Can't Wait. New York, Harper & Row, 1963.

"Man of the Year", Time, 83 (January 3, 1964) 13-16; 25-27.

"Martin Luther King, Jr.", in Current Biography Yearbook 1965, ed. by Charles Moritz, pp. 220-223. New York, H.W. Wilson.

Reddick, Lawrence D., Crusader without Violence: A Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York, Harper, 1959.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1951-1970, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1964



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Black History Month

Black History Month

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Black History Month is a remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States and Canada in the month of February, while in the UK it is held in the month of October.


History

Statue of Woodson in Huntington, West Virginia
Statue of Woodson in Huntington, West Virginia

Black History Month was established in 1976 by Afro-Americans for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.[1] The month-long celebration was an expansion of Negro History Week, which was established in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, director of what was then known as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson selected the week in February that embraced the birthdays of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The celebration may have had its origins in the separate efforts of Mary Church Terrell, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the African American collegiate fraternity Omega Psi Phi. The former had begun the practice of honoring Frederick Douglass on February 14, the date he used to mark his birth. The Omegas established a "Negro Achievement Week" in 1924. Woodson was friends with Mary Church Terrell and worked with her and the National Council of Colored Women to preserve Douglass' home and personal papers. Woodson was also a member of Omega Psi Phi. While Terrell's celebration of Douglass was a local event and the Omega Achievement Week was part of their community outreach, Woodson broadened the scope of the celebration in three significant ways. First, he conceived of the event as a national celebration, sending out a circular to groups across the United States. Secondly, he sought to appeal to both whites and blacks and to improve race relations. For this reason, he chose President Lincoln's birthday as well as Douglass'. Finally, Woodson viewed Negro History Week as an extension of ASNLH's effort to demonstrate to the world that Africans and peoples of African descent had contributed to the advance of history. Each year, ASNLH would select a national theme and provide scholarly and popular materials to focus the nation's "study" of Negro history. As such, Negro History Week was conceived as a means of undermining the foundation of the idea of black inferiority through popular information grounded in scholarship. The theme, chosen by the founders of Black History Month, for 2007 is "From Slavery to Freedom, Africans in the Americas."

The Negro History Week Movement took hold immediately. At first it was celebrated almost exclusively by African Americans, taking place outside of the view of the wider society. Increasingly, however, mayors and governors, especially in the North, began endorsing Negro History Week and promoting interracial harmony. By the time of Woodson's death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a well-established cultural institution. Indeed, it was so established that Woodson had begun to criticize groups for shallow and often inaccurate presentations that did not advance the public's knowledge of Negro life and history.

With the rise of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s, many in the African American community began to complain about the insufficiency of a week-long celebration. In 1976, the ASNLH, having changed its name to The Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, responded to the popular call, citing the 50th annual celebration and America's bicentennial. For more on the association visit ASALH.org.

Frederick Douglass, ca. 1879.
Frederick Douglass, ca. 1879.

Purpose

History books had barely begun covering black history when the tradition of Black History Month was started. At that point, most representation of blacks in history books was only in reference to the low social position they held, with the exception of George Washington Carver. Black History Month can also be referred to as African-American History Month, or African Heritage Month. One of the few U.S. history works at that time told from an African American perspective was W.E.B. DuBois' 1935 work "Black Reconstruction."

In the United Kingdom (UK), Black History Month is celebrated in the month of October. The official guide to Black History Month in the UK[] is published by Sugar Media, Ltd., which produces 100,000 copies nationwide.[2]

Part of the aim of Black History Month is to underline the harms of racial prejudice and to cultivate black self-esteem following centuries of socio-economic oppression[citation needed]. It is also an opportunity to further recognize significant contributions to society made by people with African heritage.

Controversy


African Americans
Top left: W. E. B. Du Bois; Top center: Martin Luther King, Jr.; Top right: Edward Brooke; Bottom left: Malcolm X; Bottom center: Rosa Parks; Bottom right: Sojourner Truth
W. E. B. Du Bois • Martin Luther King, Jr. • Edward Brooke
Malcolm X • Rosa Parks • Sojourner Truth
Total population

African American
39,151,870[3]
13.1% of the total U.S. population
Non-Hispanic or Latino
38,167,719[4]
12.7% of the U.S. population
Hispanic or Latino
984,151
0.33% of the U.S. population
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States United States
(predominantly Southern)		 38,662,569 [5][6]
Flag of Liberia Liberia
(called Americo-Liberians)		 150,000
Language(s)
American English, African American Vernacular English, minorities of Spanish, French, and indigenous African languages
Religion(s)

Christianity (mostly Protestantism or Roman Catholicism), Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and other religions

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NoI preacher in 1998, in England.
NoI preacher in 1998, in England.

Black History Month sparks an annual debate about the continued usefulness and fairness of a designated month dedicated to the history of one race. Critical op-ed pieces have appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer [1] and USA Today [2].

Some African American radical/nationalist groups, including the Nation of Islam, have criticized Black History Month. Other critics contend that Black History Month is irrelevant because it has degenerated into a shallow ritual.[7]. Some, like Morgan Freeman, say that it serves to undermine the contention that black history is American history.

Woodson, creator of Negro History Month, hoped that the week would eventually be eliminated, when African-American history would be fully integrated with American history.

See also

 African American Portal

External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History
  2. ^ "Black History Month UK". "Black History Month UK".
  3. ^ 2006 American Community Survey
  4. ^ S0201. Selected Population Profile in the United States
  5. ^ 12.1% of US population, 2005
  6. ^ US Census Bureau, racial breakdown of the United States in 2005. Retrieved on 2006-11-20.
  7. ^ "Black History Month Matters". "Salim Muwakkil".
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