Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Black Lightning]

On August 6, 1945, Private First Class Malvin L. Brown was killed after falling one hundred and forty feet during a “let-down” from a tree while fighting a forest fire in the Umpqua National Forest in southern Oregon. Brown was the first smokejumper to die while fighting a wildfire since the program’s inception by the U.S. Forest Service in 1939. He was also the only member of the “Triple Nickles” 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion to die in the line of duty during World War II.

The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was nicknamed “Triple Nickles” because of its numerical designation and because seventeen of its original twenty-member “colored test platoon” were from the 92nd Infantry (“Buffalo Soldiers”) Division of the U.S. Army. Their identifying symbol is three buffalo nickels joined in a triangle and the oddly-spelled “Nickle” is one of their trademarks.

During the winter of 1943-1944, the first black paratroopers in army history began training at Fort Benning, Georgia. After several months, the segregated unit was moved to Camp Mackall, North Carolina, where it was reorganized and redesignated as Company A of the newly activated 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion. Unlike other African American infantry units officered by whites, the 555th was entirely black since six black officers also completed jump training.

By late 1944, the first platoon of Triple Nickles was fully trained, combat-ready, and alerted for European duty. The men were anxious to fight Hitler’s Nazis in Europe or the Japanese in the Pacific. Instead, racial military politics and changing war conditions kept the paratroopers home and away from the war they had been trained to fight.

On May 5, 1945, a Japanese incendiary balloon explosion killed the pregnant wife of a local minister and five young members of their church while on a Sunday picnic near Bly, Oregon. The Army kept the details of the fatalities a secret as they didn’t want members of the public to panic regarding the thousands of such balloon bombs that had been launched by the Japanese toward American shores, intended to start major forest fires and create just such fears.

In early 1945, the Triple Nickles had received secret orders from the War Department called “Operation Firefly.” They were sent to Pendleton, Oregon, assigned to the 9th Services Command, and trained by the Forest Service to become history’s first military smokejumpers. They were specifically designated to respond to Japanese balloon bombs.

During that year’s fire season, the Triple Nickles made more than one thousand two hundred individual jumps and helped control at least twenty-eight major fires although none were believed to have been caused by the Japanese. The paratroopers suffered numerous injuries but only one fatality: the day of Malvin Brown’s death, August 6, 1945, was also the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Both events made the front page of the local newspaper in Roseburg, Oregon but the pioneer paratrooper’s death was barely noticed by comparison and soon forgotten.

In December 1947, the Triple Nickles were deactivated and their personnel were assigned to other Army units. One group, the 2nd Airborne Ranger Company, became the first black unit to make a combat jump during the Korean War. Ultimately, the Triple Nickles served in more airborne units, in peace and in war, than any other parachute group in history.

 

[Black Lightning]

The African American-manned 95th Engineer Battalion (General Service) was formed in April 1941 at Fort Belvoir, Virginia as part of the U.S. Army buildup preceding World War II. Unlike many construction units, the 95th received considerable training, participating in the Carolina Maneuvers and receiving practical experience at Camp AP Hill, Virginia, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Expanded to regimental size following Pearl Harbor, it was sent to Canada in June 1942 to assist in building the Alaska-Canada (Alcan) Highway.

In the 1930s military planners had identified the need for a highway linking Alaska to the continental United States, but it took World War II to jumpstart construction on a scheme “likened to building the Panama Canal.” The 95th Engineers joined four white and two other black regiments already working in the rugged terrain of Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia. Although the enlisted soldiers were almost entirely African American, the officers were mostly white and military mail censors encountered several tales of discrimination. There was also evidence of racism in the way projects were assigned to units, such as when the 95th was ordered to give its heavy equipment to the less experienced but white 341st Engineers and function in a support role for that organization.

Problems were certainly exacerbated under the 95th Engineers’ first commander, Colonel Dave Neuman. After his replacement by Colonel Heath Twichell in July, conditions became considerably better. Responsible for improving the road built by the 341st Engineers from Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson in British Columbia, the regiment established a reputation for excellence, particularly in the field of bridge building. This continued under Colonel Owain Hughes, who replaced Twichell in October. Nevertheless, the black soldiers were discouraged from mixing with local Canadians and their accomplishments were consistently ignored in the press.

Finishing the project more than a year ahead of schedule, the highway was available for military traffic by the spring of 1943. The 95th Engineers returned to the United States in February and began training for Europe. Along with the 93rd and 97th Engineers, the 95th was now deemed fit for overseas deployment. It would be decades, however, before they received recognition for their hard work in Canada.

 

[Black Lightning]

John Chavis, early 19th Century minister and teacher, was the first African American to graduate from a college or university in the United States. Chavis was born on October 18, 1763. His place of birth is debated by historians. Some scholars think that Chavis hailed from the West Indies. Others believe that he was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, or that he was born in North Carolina. Available records document that Chavis was a free African American who probably worked for Halifax, Virginia attorney James Milner beginning in 1773. It is likely that Chavis utilized the books in Milner’s extensive law library to educate himself.

In 1778, while still a teenager, Chavis entered the Virginia Fifth Regiment and fought in the Revolutionary War. He served in the Fifth Regiment for three years. In the 1780s Chavis earned his living as a tutor and while working in this capacity he married Sarah Frances Anderson. Although an excellent teacher, Chavis’ own intellectual capacity was not satisfied. He soon moved his family to New Jersey to enter a tutorial program with John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1792, at the age of 29, Chavis was accepted into the College of New Jerseys’ Theological School, later renamed Princeton University.

In 1794, after Witherspoon’s death, Chavis left New Jersey, transferring to Liberty Hall Academy in Virginia, which was later renamed Washington Academy and which would eventually become Washington and Lee University. Chavis was licensed to preach in the Presbyterian Church of Lexington, Virginia upon his graduation from Liberty Hall Academy in the fall of 1799.

In 1808, John Chavis opened a private school in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he taught black and white children. Chavis specialized in Latin and Greek, and his school soon gained a reputation for excellence. Before long, however, white parents protested the presence of black pupils, and Chavis re-arranged his school, teaching white children during the day and African American children by night. Despite their insistence on segregated classrooms, some of North Carolina’s most powerful whites sent their children to Chavis to be educated. Chavis educated a generation of young North Carolinians including the children of Governor Charles Manly.

In his later years Chavis became vocal in his support of the abolitionist movement. His outspokenness may have cost him the allegiance of some white families. While a few abolitionists in Virginia and North Carolina were allowed to openly express their views, the Nat Turner-led slave rebellion of August 1831 in Southampton County Virginia made such dissent unacceptable. Virginia and North Carolina passed laws restricting free African American freedom of movement and barred their education. Chavis could no longer practice his professions in North Carolina. He became, however, more vocal in his condemnation of slavery and fought for the rights of African American citizens. Foul play may have lead to Chavis’ mysterious death in June of 1838. He was survived by his wife, and son, Anderson Chavis.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Wesley Harris

Aerospace engineer Wesley L. Harris was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 29, 1 941. His parents, William Harris and Rosa Harris, worked in Richmond’s tobacco factories. As a child, Harris was intrigued by airplanes and learned to build different models. In the fourth grade, he won an essay contest about career goals with a paper on how he wanted to become a test pilot. After receiving his B.S. degree with honors in aerospace engineering from the University of Virginia in 1964, Harris enrolled at Princeton University and graduated from there with his M.S. degree in aerospace and mechanical sciences in 1966 and his Ph.D. degree in aerospace and mechanical sciences 1968.

After completing his Ph.D. at Princeton, Harris taught at the University of Virginia and at Southern University before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1972 where he served as a professor of aeronautics and astronautics. He established MIT’s first Office of Minority Education in 1975 in order to help retain minority students and improve their performance. In 1985, Harris was appointed Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut; and from 1990 to 1995, he served as vice president and chief administrative officer at the University of Tennessee Space Institute and then as associate administrator for aeronautics NASA. In 2003, Harris was named head of the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT in 2003.

Harris’ many honors and achievements include serving as chair and member of various boards and committees of the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Science Board, and several state governments. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Helicopter Society. The National Academy of Engineering elected Harris as a Fellow for contributions to understanding of helicopter rotor noise, for encouragement of minorities in engineering, and for service to the aeronautical industry.

Wesley L. Harris is the head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prior to this position, he served as associate administrator for aeronautics at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), vice president and chief administrative officer of the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), and dean of the School of Engineering and professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Harris’s life work paved the way for NASA to acquire more powerful supercomputers and advanced minority student concerns as well as programs. He is an exceptional role model for his students. His many honors and achievements indicate the high quality of his work.

Harris was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 29, 1941 to William and Rosa Harris, who worked in Richmond’s tobacco factories. As a child, Harris was intrigued by airplanes and learned to build different models. Some of his airplanes were made of balsawood or plastic and were powered with rubber bands. In the fourth grade, Harris won an essay contest about career goals with a paper on how he wanted to become a test pilot. Harris’s parents were convinced that education would give their three children entry into a better life, and Harris proved it. Harris received his B.S. with honors in aeronautical engineering in 1964 from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. He received his M.A. in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1968, both in aerospace and mechanical sciences from Princeton University.

Harris initially wanted to study physics in college after he graduated high school; unfortunately, at that time the University of Virginia did not allow African Americans to major in it. He settled for a major in aeronautical engineering. In addition to his studies Harris had married in 1960 and had family responsibilities. He was often lonely on campus because there were only five or six other African Americans at the university. Moreover, most facilities in Charlottesville were segregated, and there were only a few places black students could go.

After completing his Ph.D. at Princeton, Harris was hired by the University of Virginia, as assistant professor of aerospace engineering. Harris believed that black educators should encourage promising African American students. He took a one-year leave of absence to teach physics at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a university that has a predominately black student body. He returned to Virginia as associate professor and met Leon Trilling of MIT who eventually became his mentor. In the mid-1960s, Trilling started a program to take some students from Boston’s inner city areas and place them in suburban schools. In 1972, Trilling persuaded Harris to take another temporary leave from the University of Virginia and work with him. In 1973 MIT offered Harris the position of associate professor of aeronautics, astronautics, and ocean engineering. Harris accepted this position and remained with MIT until 1979.

At MIT Harris developed many programs to assist African American students and other minorities. He established MIT’s first Office of Minority Education in 1975 in order to help retain minority students and improve their performance. Harris created methods for measuring the students’ achievements and developed ways for the school to help them improve. He also started other programs to acquaint faculty members with the special needs of African American students.

In 1979, Harris joined NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., pioneering the use of computers to solve problems concerning high-speed air movement. His success in complex ventures paved the way for NASA to acquire more powerful supercomputers. In 1985, Harris accepted the position of dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. During his five years at the University of Connecticut, Harris developed a partnership between the university and local companies, namely, Pratt & Whitney, an aircraft engine maker, and United Technologies, an aerospace giant. When he first arrived at the University of Connecticut, the School of Engineering recruited only five or six African American or Hispanic students each year. When Harris left in 1990, the number of new minority students accepted each year had risen to about forty. Harris also established the first University of Connecticut research center for grinding metals and an institute for environmental research.

Harris joined the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) in Tullahoma as the vice president and chief administrative officer. In 1992, Harris was encouraged by NASA administrator Dan Goldin to assist in the revival of aviation studies in the United States. Harris accepted Goldin’s invitation to return to NASA as associate administrator for aeronautics. In this capacity Harris directed the NASA research and development efforts to support of the domestic aeronautics industry. He was also in charge of several projects, including research on technology for a new supersonic transport plane. In addition, he directed the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) program, which works to develop aircrafts that can reach orbital altitudes by themselves.

Chronology
1941

Born in Richmond, Virginia on October 29

1964

Receives B.A. from the University of Virginia

1966

Receives M.A. from Princeton University

1968

Receives Ph.D. from Princeton University; accepts teaching position at the University of Virginia

1972

Takes leave from the University of Virginia to work with Leon Trilling of MIT

1973

Accepts associate professor appointment in Aeronautics, Astronautics, and Ocean Engineering position at MIT

1975

Establishes MIT’s first office of Minority Education

1979

Joins the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Washington, D.C.

1985

Accepts the position of the dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut in Storrs

1990

Becomes vice president and chief administrative officer of the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) in Tullahoma

1992

Returns to NASA as associate administrator for aeronautics

1995

Returns to MIT as a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor

1996

Rejoins the faculty at MIT

2001

Receives Leadership Award at MIT’s annual MLK Celebratory Breakfast

2003

Named head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT

Harris’s research interests focused on demonstrating what happens when an object travels at or above the speed of sound. For example, Harris studied how the shape of an object influences its high-speed movement through space. He investigated other effects as well, such as noise generated by high-speed travel. Harris also studied the problems of air flow in supersonic conditions.

Harris returned to MIT as a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in 1995 and rejoined the faculty the next year. He received a Leadership Award at MIT’s annual MLK Celebratory Breakfast in 2001. He was named head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2003.

Harris has published more than one hundred reports on his research and has been recognized by professional organizations and engineering institutions. In research works co-authored with his students, Harris always put the name of his students ahead of his own.

Harris was the first African American to become a member of the Jefferson Society, the University of Virginia’s famous debating group. He was also the first African American to receive a tenured faculty position at the University of Virginia and was the first to teach engineering at that school.

Harris has received numerous awards. For example, the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) named Harris a fellow for his work on helicopter rotor noise, air flows above and below the speed of sound, and the advancement of engineering education. Harris has served as chair and member of various boards and committees: the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Science Board, and several state governments. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Cosmos Club, and the Confrerie Des Chevaliers Du Tastevin.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Wesley Harris

This is my dad's hero right here

 

[IllmaticDelta]

John Chavis, early 19th Century minister and teacher, was the first African American to graduate from a college or university in the United States. Chavis was born on October 18, 1763. His place of birth is debated by historians. Some scholars think that Chavis hailed from the West Indies. Others believe that he was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, or that he was born in North Carolina. Available records document that Chavis was a free African American who probably worked for Halifax, Virginia attorney James Milner beginning in 1773. It is likely that Chavis utilized the books in Milner’s extensive law library to educate himself.

In 1778, while still a teenager, Chavis entered the Virginia Fifth Regiment and fought in the Revolutionary War. He served in the Fifth Regiment for three years. In the 1780s Chavis earned his living as a tutor and while working in this capacity he married Sarah Frances Anderson. Although an excellent teacher, Chavis’ own intellectual capacity was not satisfied. He soon moved his family to New Jersey to enter a tutorial program with John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In 1792, at the age of 29, Chavis was accepted into the College of New Jerseys’ Theological School, later renamed Princeton University.

In 1794, after Witherspoon’s death, Chavis left New Jersey, transferring to Liberty Hall Academy in Virginia, which was later renamed Washington Academy and which would eventually become Washington and Lee University. Chavis was licensed to preach in the Presbyterian Church of Lexington, Virginia upon his graduation from Liberty Hall Academy in the fall of 1799.

In 1808, John Chavis opened a private school in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he taught black and white children. Chavis specialized in Latin and Greek, and his school soon gained a reputation for excellence. Before long, however, white parents protested the presence of black pupils, and Chavis re-arranged his school, teaching white children during the day and African American children by night. Despite their insistence on segregated classrooms, some of North Carolina’s most powerful whites sent their children to Chavis to be educated. Chavis educated a generation of young North Carolinians including the children of Governor Charles Manly.

In his later years Chavis became vocal in his support of the abolitionist movement. His outspokenness may have cost him the allegiance of some white families. While a few abolitionists in Virginia and North Carolina were allowed to openly express their views, the Nat Turner-led slave rebellion of August 1831 in Southampton County Virginia made such dissent unacceptable. Virginia and North Carolina passed laws restricting free African American freedom of movement and barred their education. Chavis could no longer practice his professions in North Carolina. He became, however, more vocal in his condemnation of slavery and fought for the rights of African American citizens. Foul play may have lead to Chavis’ mysterious death in June of 1838. He was survived by his wife, and son, Anderson Chavis.

chavis is a typical afram surname from the carolinas (originally virginia) but it's shared with people who were/are of the same stock as those aframs but many lighter complected ones went on to identify as lumbees-indian and/or "white"

The CHAVIS surname in America | Ethnic Distribution | American Surnames

 

[IllmaticDelta]

William J. White

William J. White (December 25, 1831 – April 17, 1913) was a civil rights leader, minister, educator, and journalist in Augusta, Georgia. He was the founder of Harmony Baptist Church in Augusta in 1869 as well as other churches. He also was a co-founder of the Augusta Institute in 1867, which would become Moorehouse College. He also helped found Atlanta University and was a trustee of both schools. He was a founder in 1880 and the managing editor of the Georgia Baptist, a leading African American newspaper for many years. He was an outspoken civil rights leader.

White, William Jefferson (1832-1913): Born to a white planter and mulatto slave, William Jefferson White was a cabinetmaker by trade and minister by vocation. Born in Elbert County, Georgia, he was taken to South Carolina as a child and returned to Augusta as an adult. He trained in carpentry at the Goodrich Lumber Company and later worked as a cabinet and coffin maker for the Platt Brothers, a furniture and undertaking firm. He also worked construction and helped build several churches and schools in the area. Light skinned and blue eyed, White could have easily "passed" but chose to live as a black man. During the 1850s he he organized clandestine schools for slaves and free blacks, earning him the title of "Father of Negro Education" in the Augusta area. In the days following the Civil War, he became an important figure in the early civil rights movement. He worked hard to forge close associations with the white citizenry, started the Harmony Baptist Church, championed Republican Party causes, and sat on the Board of Trustees for Spelman Seminary. In 1867 he founded the Augusta Institute, which is now Morehouse College

Morehouse College

Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. The college is one of the few remaining traditional men's liberal arts colleges in the United States.[a]

Morehouse is the largest men's college in the United States with an enrollment over 2,000 students.[6] The student-faculty ratio is 13:1. Along with Clark Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse School of Medicine and nearby women's college Spelman College, Morehouse is part of the Atlanta University Center. In 1881, both Morehouse and Spelman students were studying in the basement of Atlanta's Friendship Baptist Church.

Morehouse is one of two historically black colleges in the country to produce Rhodes Scholars, and it is the alma mater of many African American leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Establishment
Just two years after the American Civil War, the Augusta Institute was founded by Rev. William Jefferson White, an Atlanta Baptist minister and cabinetmaker (William Jefferson White's half brother James E. Tate, was one of the founders of Atlanta University, now known as Clark Atlanta University), with the support of the Rev. Richard C. Coulter, a former slave from Atlanta, Georgia, and the Rev. Edmund Turney, organizer of the National Theological Institute for educating freedmen in Washington, D.C.[7] The institution was founded to educate African American men in theology and education and was located in Springfield Baptist Church,(Augusta, Georgia), the oldest independent black church in the United States

P's Great-Great-Great-Grandfather

 

[Black Lightning]

Chowan Beach was an African American playground founded in 1926 when Eli Reid of Winton, in Hertford County, North Carolina, converted an abandoned fishing beach along the Chowan River into a family-oriented resort for African Americans. The area was originally settled in the Colonial era but the ravages of the American Revolution and later the U.S. Civil War eventually broke the linkage to the original settlers. By the mid-1920s when Reid acquired the land from Hertford County, the old fishing village, the last known settlement, had long been abandoned.
Under Reid’s ownership Chowan Beach became a place of quiet dignity where middle class African Americans could vacation for a day or a week. Reid, a World War I veteran and trustee of First Baptist Church of Winton, used his veterans and church connections to attract the first visitors. Many of those visitors would continue to return to Chowan Beach for the next four decades. In the 1920s and 1930s the area’s sandy beaches were the main attraction. By the 1940s, Reid built guest cottages, bathhouses, and a dance hall to accommodate a growing number of regular visitors. By the end of World War II Chowan Beach had taken on the trappings of a small community with a restaurant, public picnic area, and photo studio.

Located on the Chowan River near Albemarle Sound, Chowan Beach was a four hundred-acre gathering place and destination for middle class African Americans during the segregation era when vacation opportunities were limited. Over the years Reid welcomed a long list of vacationers from throughout North Carolina and Virginia including bankers, insurance company executives, dentists, medical doctors, surgeons, optometrists, attorneys, business managers, engineers, secondary school educators, and college professors from many of the historic black colleges in North Carolina and Virginia.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, Chowan Beach became a major stop on the Chitlin Circuit, attracting leading black musicians including headliners such as B.B. King, James Brown, Ruth Brown, The Coasters, Joe Turner, Little Willie John, Louis Jordan, and Sam Cooke. However, like other black resort communities that faded after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, the number of vacationers and entertainers rapidly declined.

In 1967, Reid sold Chowan Beach to Sam Pullman, a respected businessman from Ahoskie, North Carolina, who made a number of improvements to the resort. Pullman managed to keep the resort alive during the 1970s and 1980s although it never saw the number of visitors so common in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the 1990s, however, competition from newly opened amusement parks in nearby Virginia Beach, Virginia severely crippled attendance.

Pullman sold the property in 2004. Now only a handful of permanent residents live in Chowan Beach behind a private gated road.

 

[Black Lightning]

Theodore Sedgwick Wright, prominent clergyman, antislavery leader, and reformer was thought to have been born in New Jersey in 1797. He attended the New York African Free School. With the help of New York Governor Dewitt Clinton, Arthur Tappan and others from Princeton Theological Seminary, he became the first African American graduate from an American Theological seminary. After graduation Wright became pastor of the First Colored Presbyterian Church in New York City where he worked for the rest of his life.

Wright despised slavery and racism and spoke openly about it, even though at this time it was very dangerous. He is best known for his works as an abolitionist and devotee of black civil rights. Throughout the 1830s he was an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society which sponsored his travels and lectures condemning racial prejudice. Wright’s two most influential speeches were “The Progress of the Antislavery Cause” and “Prejudice Against the Colored Man.” He wrote several entries and speeches for William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, the leading anti-slavery newspaper in the United States in the antebellum period.

In 1833 Wright became one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He served as the Society’s executive committee until May 1840 when he joined other abolitionists in forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. This new moderate abolitionist organization opposed Garrison’s radical proposals regarding slavery. Wright was also the chairman of the New York Vigilance Committee which tried to prevent the kidnapping of free blacks who would then be sold into slavery. Wright also assisted fugitive slaves; his New York home was a station on the Underground Railroad.

In 1833 Wright was elected vice-president of the Phoenix Society, an organization which worked toward the improvement of the African American training “in morals, literature, and the mechanical arts.” Throughout the 1830s Wright circulated petitions to the New York legislature for the termination of property requirement mandates exclusively for the state’s black voters. In 1841 Wright was elected treasurer of the Union Missionary Society which sent missionaries to Africa. When the UMS joined the larger, predominantly white American Missionary Association, Wright became an officer in the combined organization. In 1844 Wright joined the Liberty Party and became a member of the committee that chose its presidential and vice-presidential nominees.

On May 29, 1837 he married Adaline T. Turpin from New Rochelle, N.Y. On March 25, 1847, Theodore Sedgwick Wright died in New York City.

 

[Black Lightning]

Walker, David (1785-1830)


The fiery-militant David Walker was born on September 28, 1785, in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father was an enslaved African who died a few months before his son’s birth, and his mother was a free woman of African ancestry. Walker grew up to despise the system of slavery that the U.S. government allowed in America. He knew the cruelties of slavery were not for him and said, “As true as God reigns, I will be avenged for the sorrow which my people have suffered.” He eventually moved to Boston during the 1820s and became very active within the free black community. Walker’s intense hatred for slavery culminated in him publishing his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in September 1829. The Appeal was smuggled into the southern states, and was considered subversive, seditious, and incendiary by most white men in both northern and southern states. It was, without a doubt, one of the most controversial documents published in the antebellum period.

Walker was concerned about many social issues affecting free and enslaved Africans in America during the time. He also expressed many beliefs that would become commonly promoted by later black nationalists such as: unified struggle for resistance of oppression (slavery), land reparations, self-government for people of African descent in America, racial pride, and a critique of American capitalism. His radical views prompted southern planters to offer a $3000 bounty for anyone who killed Walker and $10,000 reward for anyone who returned him alive back to the South. Walker was found dead in the doorway of his Boston home in 1830. Some people believed he was poisoned and others believed that he died of tuberculosis.

 

[Black Lightning]

A politically motivated attack by whites against the city’s leading African American citizens, the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 documents the lengths to which Southern White Democrats went to regain political domination of the South after Reconstruction. The violence began on Thursday, November 10th in the predominantly African American city of Wilmington, North Carolina, at that time the state’s largest metropolis. Statewide election returns had recently signaled a shift in power with Democrats taking over the North Carolina State Legislature. The city of Wilmington, however, remained in Republican hands primarily because of its solid base of African American voters. On November 10th, Alfred Moore Waddell, a former Confederate officer and a white supremacist, led a group of townsmen to force the ouster of Wilmington’s city officials.
Waddell relied on an editorial printed in the African American-owned Wilmington Daily Record as the catalyst for the riot. Alex Manly, the editor of the Daily Record, had published an editorial in early November arguing that “poor white men are careless in the matter of protecting their women.” Paraphrasing articles by Ida B. Wells on the subject of lynching, Manly opined that “our experiences among poor white people in the country teaches us that women of that race are not any more particular in the matter of clandestine meetings with colored men than the white men with the colored women.” Manly’s public discussion of the taboo subject of interracial sex exposed the reality of sexual exploitation of black women by white men and challenged the myth of pure-white womanhood.

Forty-eight hours after Manly’s editorial ran Waddell led 500 white men to the headquarters of the Daily Record on 7th Street. The mob broke out windows and set the building on fire. Manly and other high profile African Americans fled the city; however, at least 14 African Americans were slain that day. An eyewitness later wrote that African Americans fled to the swamps, or hid in the African American cemetery at the edge of town. When their criminal behavior resulted in neither Federal sanctions nor condemnation from the state, Waddell and his men formalized their control of Wilmington. The posse forced the Republican members of the city council and the mayor to resign and Waddell assumed the mayoral seat. Over the next two years North Carolina passed the “grandfather clause,” as one in a series of laws designed to limit the voting rights of African Americans.

 

[Kokoro]

COPY AND PASTED FROM PBS. A PERSONAL HERO OF MINE SINCE IM A BIOCHEM MAJOR

LIBRARY RESOURCE KIT WHO WAS PERCY JULIAN?
EXPANDED VERSION
Dr. Percy Lavon Julian was a trailblazing chemist whose discoveries improved and saved countless lives. The grandson of slaves, Julian grew up at a time when African Americans faced extraordinary obstacles. Yet Julian refused to let racism prevent him from becoming one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, as well as a leader in business and civil rights.

Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 11, 1899. Both of his parents were educated, which was rare for Black families in the South at that time. Although his family greatly valued education, Julian had to attend a segregated elementary school. And, because Montgomery had no public high school for African Americans, he was forced to attend a teacher training school for African Americans instead.

In 1916, having barely a tenth-grade education, Julian entered DePauw University, a largely white liberal arts school in Indiana. "On my first day in college," he recalled, "I remember walking in and a white fellow stuck out his hand and said, 'How are you? Welcome!' I had never shaken hands with a white boy before and did not know whether I should or not." Despite having to take remedial courses to catch up to his white peers and experiencing considerable racial discrimination, Julian not only earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and first in his class.

After teaching chemistry at Fisk University for a couple of years, Julian won a fellowship to continue his graduate work. In 1923, he became the first African American to earn a master's degree in chemistry from Harvard University. However, Harvard still refused him admission to its doctoral program—Julian had been denied the teaching assistantship needed for admission. Julian eventually became the head of the chemistry department at Howard University, an African American institution. Determined to continue his education, he enrolled in the University of Vienna, and in 1931 he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, the fourth African American to achieve this distinction. It was in Vienna that he experienced a new sense of freedom—accessing layers of society unavailable in the United States. It was here that Julian also began his lifelong inquiry into the chemistry of plants.

Returning to DePauw University as a research fellow, Julian eventually became an expert in synthesis, the process of turning one substance into another through a series of planned chemical reactions. Synthesis was the highest calling for a chemist in the 1930s. In 1935, Julian and a colleague synthesized physostigmine, a plant compound from Calabar beans, and won a high-stakes, high-profile scientific victory over the "dean" of chemistry, Sir Robert Robinson. Their achievement led to physostigmine being widely used as a treatment for glaucoma. In fact, in 1999, the American Chemical Society recognized their work as a National Historic Chemical Landmark—one of the top 25 accomplishments in American chemical history. In addition, numerous undergraduates trained by Julian were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society—an unheard of occurrence at the time.

Still, despite his impressive achievements, Julian's opportunities were sharply restricted, and DePauw refused to appoint him to a permanent faculty position. American colleges and universities at the time simply were not prepared to have a Black person teaching white students. Thus, Julian moved from the world of academia to the world of business, where although he faced similar challenges, he landed a job as Director of Research at the Glidden Company in 1936.

Among other important achievements, Julian's highly successful research at Glidden helped trigger an explosive growth industry for soybeans. For 18 years, his work uncovering new uses for the chemicals found in soybeans was not only enormously profitable for Glidden, it helped relieve human suffering across the globe. For example, a protein he extracted from soybeans was used to produce a fire-retardant foam in fire extinguishers. Called Aer-o-foam, it saved thousands of soldiers' lives during World War II.

In addition, Julian discovered a process for making artificial hormones. The discovery was actually serendipitous: after water leaked into a giant tank of soybean oil, Julian recognized crystals of stigmasterol, a steroid, at the bottom of the tank. He eventually developed a process for converting stigmasterol into progesterone and making it available on a commercial scale. Today progesterone is used to decrease the risk for uterine cancer and in hormone replacement therapy. Julian also found a way to create synthetic cortisone, making this once prohibitively expensive "wonder drug" affordable to millions of arthritis sufferers.

In recognition of his contributions to society, Julian was named Chicagoan of the Year in 1950. But when he and his wife Anna and their two children moved to Oak Park, Illinois, a predominantly white, affluent suburb of Chicago, they encountered violent resistance. Despite attempts to intimidate them—their house was set on fire and firebombed—the Julians stood their ground and remained in Oak Park.

In 1953, Julian established Julian Laboratories to produce synthetic steroids, which pharmaceutical companies used to make drugs. He proved to be as talented an entrepreneur as he was a chemist. Julian's company flourished, making him a millionaire when he sold it in 1961. By the 1970s, Julian had more than 100 patents to his name and was widely recognized as an innovator who had helped make a range of medicines more affordable. He also was a prominent civic and civil rights leader, raising funds and speaking publicly for racial justice and full equality for all Americans. Perhaps his greatest contribution was breaking the color barrier in American industrial science: Julian's labs were the training grounds for dozens of promising young African American chemists. For his contributions to humanity, Julian received 18 honorary degrees and more than a dozen civic and scientific awards; he was the second African American elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the first chemist.

Percy Julian died of liver cancer in 1975, at the age of 76. Throughout the world, millions of people continue to benefit from his groundbreaking discoveries.

He was a pioneer in extraction based organic chemistry. He endured racism and became a millionaire from the bottom (being a grandson of slaves)

Lank

NOVA | Forgotten Genius | Library Resource Kit: Who Was Percy Julian? Expanded Version | PBS

 

[Black Lightning]

On January 1, 1923 a massacre was carried out in the small, predominantly black town of Rosewood in Central Florida. The massacre was instigated by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in a nearby community. A group of white men, believing this rapist to be a recently escaped convict named Jesse Hunter who was hiding in Rosewood, assembled to capture this man.

Prior this event a series of incidents had stirred racial tensions within Rosewood. During the previous winter of 1922 a white school teacher from Perry had been murdered and on New Years Eve of 1922 there was a Ku Klux Klan rally held in Gainesville, located not far away from Rosewood.

In response to the allegation by Taylor, white men began to search for Jesse Hunter, Aaron Carrier and Sam Carter who were believed to be accomplices. Carrier was captured and incarcerated while Carter was lynched. The white mob suspected Aaron's cousin, Sylvester Carrier, a Rosewood resident of harboring the fugitive, Jesse Hunter.

On January 4, 1923 a group of 20 to 30 white men approached the Carrier home and shot the family dog. When Sylvester's mother Sarah came to the porch to confront the mob they shot and killed her. Sylvester defended his home, killing two men and wounding four in the ensuing battle before he too was killed. The remaining survivors fled to the swamps for refuge where many of the African American residents of Rosewood had already retreated, hoping to avoid the rising conflict and increasing racial tension.

The next day the white mob burned the Carrier home before joining with a group of 200 men from surrounding towns who had heard erroneously that a black man had killed two white men. As night descended the mob attacked the town, slaughtering animals and burning buildings. An official report claims six blacks killed along with two whites. Other accounts suggest a larger total. At the end of the carnage only two buildings remained standing, a house and the town general store.

Many of the black residents of Rosewood who fled to the swamps were evacuated on January 6 by two local train conductors, John and William Bryce. Many others were hidden by John Wright, the owner of the general store. Other black residents of Rosewood fled to Gainesville and to northern cities. As a consequence of the massacre, Rosewood became deserted.

The initial report of the Rosewood incident presented less than a month after the massacre claimed there was insufficient evidence for prosecution. Thus no one was charged with any of the Rosewood murders. In 1994, however, as the result of new evidence and renewed interest in the event, the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Bill which entitled the nine survivors to $150,000 dollars each in compensation.

 

[Kokoro]

Thats why it infuriates me when I see racist whites like Richard Spencer willingly publish articles like "Is Black Genocide Right?" because "blacks havent contributed anything to society in the past 200 years"

Percy Julian commercially produced cortisone which is used to treat arthritis, the same arthritis that racist whites relatives like Richard Spencer's relatives suffer from, but we havent contributed anything. We need to educate ourselves which is why Im glad I found this thread

We're not just former slaves ball players and musicians

 

[Kokoro]

@Jayne first posted this. First AA woman to serve in the military according to wikipedia

Cathay Williams is the only documented African American woman who served as a soldier in the Regular U.S. Army in the nineteenth century. Cathay was born a slave around 1850 in Jackson County, Missouri. In September 1861 Union troops impressed Cathay into the Army to work as a cook and washerwoman for Union Army officers. She remained with the Army throughout the Civil War serving at various locales including Little Rock, Arkansas; New Orleans and Shreveport in Louisiana; and Savannah and Macon, both in Georgia. In 1864 she briefly served as cook and washerwoman for General Phil Sheridan and his staff in the Shenandoah Valley campaign.

On November 15, 1866 Williams disguised her gender and enlisted as William Cathey, serving in Company A of the 38th Infantry, a newly-formed all-black U.S. Army Regiment, one of its earliest recruits. Cathay said she joined the Army because “I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent on relations or friends.”

Cathay initially served at Jefferson Barracks outside St. Louis and was later posted at Fort Cummings and Fort Bayard in New Mexico Territory. Like other black soldiers stationed at remote western outposts after the Civil War, Cathay endured inadequate supplies and inferior weapons. One of the tallest privates in her company, Cathay concealed her femininity for two years despite numerous Army hospital visits before her true gender was discovered by the Fort Bayard post surgeon. Cathay was discharged at Fort Bayard on October 14, 1868 on a surgeon’s certificate of disability.

Following her discharge from the Army, Cathay resumed her identity as Cathay Williams and lived in Pueblo, Las Animas, and Trinidad, Colorado, where she was known as Kate. Cathay was hospitalized circa 1890 for over a year in Trinidad. In June 1891 Cathay filed an invalid pension application based on medical disability incurred during military service as William Cathey. The Army rejected her pension claim on February 8, 1892, citing no grounds for a pensionable disability, but did not question her gender identity as William Cathay. The date of Cathay Williams’ death is unknown. - See more at: Williams, Cathay (1850- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

Lanks
Williams, Cathay (1850- ) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

Monument to female Buffalo Soldier is dedicated in Leavenworth