28 DAYS OF MELANIN: THE BLACK HISTORY MONTH APPRECIATION

[richaveli83]

Ernest Everett Just

Ernest Everett Just pioneered research into cell fertilization, division, hydration and the effects of carcinogenic radiation

In 1916, Ernest Everett Just became the first black man to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in experimental embryology, but perhaps his greatest legacy is the sheer amount of scientific papers he authored during his career.

Just was born in 1883 and raised in Charleston, S.C., where he knew from an early age he was headed for college. He studied zoology and cell development at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and worked as a biochemist studying cells at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts. He became a biology instructor at Howard University before finishing his Ph.D., and would spend 20 summers also working at Woods Hole. From 1920 to 1931 he was awarded a biology fellowship by the National Research Council. Just pioneered research into cell fertilization, division, hydration and the effects of carcinogenic radiation on cells.

Frustrated that no major American university would hire him because of racism, Just relocated to Europe in 1930. Once there, he wrote the bulk of his 70 professional papers, as well as two books. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1941 [sources: Biography, Genetics, Gwinnet County Public Schools].

 

[Self_Born7]

My son is named after him

Sundiata Keita was the founder of the Mali Empire. Prior to this, Sundiata was the king / chief of a small, obscure Mandinka tribe within the Ghana Empire. With the decline of the Ghana Empire during the 13th century AD, Sundiata seized the opportunity to increase his power, and eventually subdued the Ghana Empire, turning it into one of his vassals. Much of what we know about Sundiata’s life is derived from oral tradition, in particular one that is known as the Epic of Sundiata . Additionally, written evidence about this ruler can be found in the writings of several Muslim travelers who visited Mali.

 

[Aphrodite]

The First Black Trans Model Had Her Face on a Box of Clairol

Tracey “Africa” Norman always knew that the question wasn’t if she’d be found out, but how long she could go undetected.

To be black and from Newark in the mid-1970s and get plucked from a model casting call for Italian Vogue by Irving Penn — it was the kind of success story that was unheard of, especially for someone like her. She was signed by a top agency, photographed multiple times for the pages of Essence magazine. She landed an exclusive contract for Avon skin care, and another for Clairol’s Born Beautiful hair color boxes: No. 512, Dark Auburn, please. She went to Paris and became a house model in the Balenciaga showroom, wearing couture and walking the runway twice a day. Norman was never as big as Iman, Beverly Johnson, Pat Cleveland, or the other models of color breaking barriers on international runways or on the cover of Vogue. But she was riding that wave. It was more than she could have ever hoped for when she was a kid in New Jersey. Back when she was a boy who knew that, inside, he was a girl.

Norman still turns heads — passersby, shop clerks, waiters at the diner where we have lunch. At 63, she is strikingly beautiful, with buttery deep-brown skin that reads decades younger, and straight black hair that hangs to her ribs. That regal posture, those strong cheekbones demand attention, even as she hides her slender frame under a long black skirt and a navy shearling-lined peacoat that I later learn is from H&M. She’s open and warm but seems nervous. “It’s not easy for me to talk,” she says. She’s practiced so long the art of being both beautiful and invisible, of letting people look at her but not really see her. It’s how she managed to build a career in an industry where her job was to be gazed upon, in an era when the truth would mean certain, and possibly violent, persecution.

We’re living in a time when trans models like Lea T and Andreja Pejic have been the faces of Redken and Make Up For Ever, and Caitlyn Jenner has been celebrated on the cover ofVanity Fair. This kind of cultural acceptance makes it easy to lose sight of how dangerous it was 40 years ago — and still can be today — for women like Norman to just walk down a street. Fear of harassment from both police and civilians was constant. To live one’s life openly as a transgender woman, let alone one as a black trans woman, simply wasn’t done. The only option, really, was to “pass” in straight society.

But Norman wanted to do more than pass — she wanted to excel in the most scrutinized realm of femininity. Friends from back home in Newark who worked in fashion had been telling her for a long time that she was beautiful enough to model. It would be a better alternative than what she thought might be her only option to make a living: “I was trying to not become a sex worker,” she says. She’d just started to see her body change and her breasts grow from hormone injections. “I was thick,” says Norman. “Well, I was fat, but I say thick.” Her friends taught her how to do her makeup, how to dress for her new figure, how to present.

A makeup artist friend, Al Grundy, worked in the office of a company that dressed models backstage and always knew where fashion shows were being held in the city, which in those days were at the labels’ showrooms: Halston, Bill Blass. He taught Norman what to say at the door, how to become invisible. “I would just tell them that I was a student at FIT and they would let you in, but you couldn’t sit. You had to stand in the back row and it was really tight,” says Norman. “I would go to see how models walk, because I was still in training.”

One morning in, she believes, 1975, Norman was on her way to see a fashion show that Grundy had told her about at the Pierre Hotel. When she stepped out of the subway, she noticed a group of black models she recognized from magazines standing on the corner outside the hotel. She waited for them to go inside, and then slipped in behind them. Through the door, into an elevator. “My mind just kept saying, ‘Follow them,’” she says. Off the elevator, into the next room. Norman made sure she was the last person in line.

More here

 

[Aphrodite]

Cathay Williams is commonly known as "The First African-American female soldier to enlist and the only documented to serve in the United States Army 'posing' as a man named William Cathay", however Cathay was actually apart of Black Trans History.

Cathay was born into slavery in Independence, MO and worked for a wealthy planter until their death, which occurred about the time the Civil War broke out. After Union soldiers freed Cathay, they began working as a paid servant. They traveled with Union Army until the war was over. He liked military life and wanting to be financially independent, in November 1866 enlisted as William Cathay. Because a medical exam wasn't required at the time, they were able to join Company A of the 38th United States Infantry. The 38th Infantry later became known as the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-Black cavalry and infantry units that saw action in the Indian wars, the Spanish-American War, and World War I.

Only Cathay's cousin and a friend knew Cathay's true gender. On October 1, 1867 Cathay arrived at Fort Cummings, NM with Company A and spent the next few months protecting miners and wagon trains from Apache attacks. Eventually Cathay became ill, and once the post doctor discovered that they were female bodied, they were discharged on October 14, 1868.

 

[richaveli83]

Daniel Hale Williams was one of the first physicians to perform open-heart surgery in the United States and founded a hospital with an interracial staff.

Daniel Hale Williams was born in Hollidaysburg, Pa., in 1856. He came from a large family, and as the fifth of seven children, Williams had to start earning his keep at a young age. His mother sent him to Baltimore to apprentice for a shoemaker, but that path was not for him. Williams ran away from Baltimore and rejoined his family at their new home in Rockford, Ill.

As a teenager Williams moved to Janesville, Wis. There he worked as a barber and attended the Classical Academy studying bass violin. But Williams decided to trade in his scissors and strings for a scalpel when he met Dr. Henry Palmer. Palmer was not only a surgeon, but also a Civil War hero. He was nicknamed “the Fighting Surgeon” because, while stationed as the head of the military hospital in York, Pa., he armed civilians and wounded men, and repelled a Confederate force that was attacking the city.

Daniel Hale Williams became Dr. Palmer’s apprentice in 1877 and in 1880 Palmer helped Williams enter Chicago Medical School. Williams graduated in 1883 and began his medical practice in Chicago, where he was one of only four African-American doctors.

Williams’ skill and reputation grew and in 1889 he was appointed to the Illinois Board of Health. At this time, Williams began to address the problems facing Chicago’s African-American community. African-American students were rarely allowed into medical and nursing schools and African-American patients often received inferior medical care so Williams founded Provident Hospital — the city’s first multi-racial hospital— and a nursing school for African-Americans. The hospital employed white and African-American doctors and was dedicated to the belief that everyone deserved the best medical care possible.

It was at Provident Hospital in 1893 that Williams performed his famous heart surgery. His patient was James Cornish, a young man who had been stabbed in the chest. Cornish’s wound had been treated, but he was bleeding internally and would have soon died if not for Williams’ decision to perform surgery. He opened Cornish’s chest cavity and sutured a damaged blood vessel, and a tear in the tissue surrounding the heart.

This surgery also was remarkable because, at a time when many patients died of infections, Williams was pioneering antiseptic techniques. He had opened up the man’s chest, repaired his heart and had done it without causing an infection. James Cornish made a full recovery and lived a long life because of Dr. Williams.

Daniel Hale Williams had a long and successful career as a surgeon and a medical professor. He was active in the NAACP and the National Medical Association, and continued to work for equal rights for minority patients and medical providers all of his life.

 

[Aphrodite]

Fastest Woman of All Time

“A decade after her shattering achievements in track and field, Griffith Joyner's sprint records still stand, and many feel they will carry into the next century.

Known by the abbreviation ''FloJo'' -- even her name was fast -- she set the world record for 100 meters at 10.49 seconds at the 1988 Olympic trials in Indianapolis, then established the mark of 21.34 seconds in winning the 200 meters at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, where Griffith Joyner also won gold in the 100 meters and the 4x100-meter relay. She also took a silver medal in the 4x400-meter relay.

Not only did Griffith Joyner run considerably faster than any woman before her or since, she displayed a spectacular flashiness in the way she ran, dressing in one-legged spandex bodysuits and wearing six-inch-long, elaborately decorated fingernails...” (NY TIMES, 1998)

 

[Aphrodite]

Josephine Baker was the first African American female to star in a motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. Not only was Josephine beautiful, but she brought incredible amounts of change to the US for African Americans. After growing up being abused by her white female employer, Josephine went to to live as a child of the streets, using street performances to support herself. She soon became the “highest paid chorus girl in vaudeville”. Josephine Baker is as timeless as her Civil Rights efforts and for that we find her as sexy as her performances are famous. She is also one of the first openly bisexual Black celebrities.

 

[Aphrodite]

1st Black Male Supermodel

Known to many as the most beautiful male model of all time. Not much is known about Sterling Saint Jacques except that he was a fixture at Studio 54. The actor Raymond St Jacques was his adopted "father". On any given night at studio 54, Sterling could be seen twirling Bianca Jagger, Pat Cleveland and Grace Jones around the floor. Caroline Kennedy would go to Studio 54 just to dance with Sterling. Sterling, Raymond, Howard Rollins and Paul Winfield were also fixtures in the Castro. Pat and Sterling danced on Soul Train for a minute.

Sterling never reached the levels of success as his female counterpart Grace Jones although he did make an attempt in the early eighties at a music career. People talk about Tyson Beckford, but Sterling was the first to walk the runways for Givenchy, Halston and Yves Saint Laurent. He came, he danced and died with no fanfare. So every time you see a black man walking a runway or modeling in print just think about Sterling for a minute because he was the first.

 

[Yehuda]

[...] Dr. Cuero was born in Buenaventura, Colombia, where during the 1950s, more than 30 percent of the children in his hometown died from diseases such as parasites, malaria, tuberculosis and viral diseases before reaching the age of 10. This served as the inspiration for his career. He has a Bachelor degree from the University of Heidelberg (Ohio, USA), a Master of Science degree in Plant Pathology from Ohio State University, where he studied under academic scholarship and a Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom. He also received a scholarship award for his inventions when he was a student there. During the pursuit of his Ph.D., he developed an invention related to containment for solid state fermentation.

During his professional career, Dr. Cuero was one of the first scientists to go to China and South Africa to lecture on biotechnology in 1986. He has been published in more than 110 scientific journals in the fields of biology, microbiology, molecular biology and synthetic biology. He has received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Antioquia, Colombia, for his scientific contributions and an Honorary Doctorate in Humanities from the University of Caldas, Colombia, for his scientific contributions that benefit society. He has received the title of Commander granted by the Mayor of Manizales, thanks to his contributions to the city of Manizales and for the development of young scientists and inventors. He also received the 2012 Colombian Leadership Award for outstanding performance in science and technology. Dr. Cuero was the 2011 Keynote speaker at the World DNA and Genome Congress, as well as the keynote speaker on biochips and biosensors at the world congress on molecular medicine in China in 2012.

Dr. Cuero is also the founder, president, and research director of the International Park of Creativity (IPOC). IPOC’s objectives are to create young inventors under the mentorship of inventors, to create and/or invent new technologies and products for global markets, implement scientific research and developments for diverse industries and/or other institutions seeking new technologies and products for a competitive global market, and to be a “Think Tank” center for economic, social, scientific and technological development.

Renowned Inventor Chosen as MOSI’s 2013 National Hispanic Scientist of the Year

 

[@OffHalsted]

Back in the late 1960’s and into the early 70’s the prospects of an actual race war were not too outlandish. Many normal white people actually believed that blacks were inferior to them, and many black people had only interacted with white people in a negative context. Let’s take a look back to see how things used to be and how different they are now. Or are they?

Between October of 1973 and April 1974, San Francisco was hit with a wave of murders eventually dubbed the “Zebra Murders”, there were 14 murders over 2 years.

Around the same time as the Zebra Murders in the Bay Area, there was a similar case in Chicago with the same general contours.

The “Mau-Mau’s”, named after the the Kenyan Freedom fighters against British Colonialists, and suffered the same fate of quick arrest and life prison terms as the “Death Angels” in San Francisco.

In Chicago Black street gangs orchestrated precisely planned ambushes and here is a clip of Gang Lord Jeff Fort actually threatening to kill police at a live press conference, which is pretty shocking.

With more and more black police officers being hired in the big cities, many of the Police being shot were black, so the “race war” was as much black and blue as black and white.

In Detroit, site of the worst riot of the entire era was a hotbed of racial animosity and home to several of the most powerful black militant and separatist groups.

An FBI report I read rated Detroit as the city with the strongest and most violent Black militant movement. In 1969, a group of men from the Republic of New Afrika opened fire on Detroit police outside of a Church.

Detroit circa 1972 was home to the deadliest police unit in the entire country, known as STRESS (Stop Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets) killed 30 people in 20 months, 29 of them were black.

The violence level in parts of Detroit was so serious that the police had created the Big 4, a tactical unit that rode 4 officers to a car with an extra shotgun in the front and sub-machine gun in the trunk.


In the winter of 1972 three self styled black vigilantes were out robbing drug dens and drug dealers on Detroit’s west side to fund the “movement”. In the course of these robberies 6 Detroit Police were shot, 1 fatally, who had supposedly begged for his life before being hit with a shotgun blast at close range.

 

[Aphrodite]

In 2003, Jamaican model Georgianna Robertson was the first woman of color to become the face of Lancome Paris. She fronted Purple Rain and Colour ID campaigns.

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

The First African American Ambassador.

Edward Richard Dudley (March 11, 1911 – February 10, 2005) was the first African-American to hold the rank of Ambassador of the United States, serving as Ambassador to Liberia from 1949 to 1953.

In New York, Dudley worked odd jobs, among them as stage manager for Orson Welles at a public works theater project. In 1938, he enrolled at St. John's University School of Law, graduating with an LL.B. in 1941. For a brief period he practiced law, entered Democratic politics in Harlem, and was an Assistant New York State Attorney General in 1942. In 1942, he married Rae Oley, and they had a son, Edward R. Dudley, Jr.

In 1943, he joined the N.A.A.C.P. legal team. As an assistant special counsel, he wrote briefs and prepared cases seeking the admission of black students to Southern colleges, equal pay for black teachers, and an end to discrimination in public transportation.

 

[Aphrodite]

Wanakee Pugh’s 1995 Ad for Wanakee’s Verifen Complex Shampoo & Conditioning System (The top selling black hair product which became the hair gospel for black women in the mid 1990s)

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

Ron Brown (August 1 1941 - Apr 3 1996) was the First African American to be commerce secretary, and the First African American to lead a political party ( Democratic party)

Ronald Harmon "Ron" Brown (August 1, 1941 – April 3, 1996) was the United States Secretary of Commerce, serving during the first term of President Bill Clinton. He was the first African American to hold this position.

Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee on February 10, 1989, and played an integral role in running a successful 1992 Democratic National Convention and in Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential run.

Brown joined the National Urban League, a leading economic equality group in the United States. Meanwhile, Brown enrolled in law school at St. John's University and obtained a degree in 1970.

 

[Inferno]

Happy black history month brehs. Not black myself but I want to take the time to appreciate all the great African Americans in our country's history, from Frederick Douglass to Malcolm X (if you haven't read Dr. X's autobiography already, you MUST ). The black community in the U.S. has the richest and most satisfying history in our country, from slaves forced here to getting a black president elected. But the fight isn't nearly over, and as a fellow minority I'll be hand in hand with my AA brothers in the fight to end institutional racism and uplift poor black communities across the nation. America won't be great till all of its black people are.

The older I've gotten, the more I've become disillusioned with white people and begun to identity with other minorities more. We can't place our hopes on the white establishment to fix the racial divide (look what happened to the DemoCACic establishment this election season ), it has to be on the people of color, and especially black people (your fight for equality is the most important) to stand up and make their voices heard. I'll be supporting y'all at every step