Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Black Lightning]

Austin Steward, author, businessman, abolitionist, and temperance leader, was born a slave in Prince William County, Virginia to Robert and Susan Steward sometime around 1793. By the age of seven he was working as a house slave on the plantation of Capt. William Helm. The Helm family left Virginia, after being involved in several embarrassing scandals, settled in upstate New York. Austin Steward went with them along with many other slaves.

While living in upstate New York, Steward taught himself to read in secrecy, for which he was severely beaten and his books burned. This beating, along with many others he received, gave him severe reoccurring head pains from which he suffered for the rest of his life. In 1814 Steward sought the help of the New York Manumission Society to secure his freedom. An agent of the society informed Steward that he was legally free on the grounds that he had been rented out by Capt. Helm to other farmers, which violated New York State’s slave laws. The agent told Steward to continue his services to Capt. Helm until the agent could fully provide Steward with everything he would need to make his freedom official.
After being told that freedom was an option, Steward ran away to Rochester, New York before his status was legally determined. After running away, Steward worked odd jobs for various people until he saved up enough money to open his own meat market. The meat market became profitable allowing Steward to acquire considerable property in Rochester, and the surrounding area. By this time Capt. Helm had lost all of his property and become so poor that he was living off of the charity of the town. He tried to sue Steward to take both his money and his freedom but died before the case could go to trial.

In 1830, Steward joined the temperance movement and stopped selling all hard-liquors at his Rochester general store. Throughout his life he would lecture and write extensively for the temperance movement.

In 1831, Steward was invited to come help a colony in Canada founded by African-Americans fleeing the Ohio Black Codes. Upon arrival Steward was elected President of the Board of Managers for the colony, which he named Wilberforce, after the English abolitionist William Wilberforce.

The colony failed due mostly to massive embezzlement by its fundraisers. Steward tried to end to the embezzlement which generated several assassination attempts against him. Eventually he gave up on Wilberforce Colony and returned to Rochester in 1837, a far poorer man.

Back in Rochester he once again devoted himself to business as well as his many temperance and abolitionist causes. He also wrote the memoir; Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman which detailed both his early life as a slave as well as his struggles at Wilberforce Colony.

Austin Steward died of typhoid fever on February 15, 1869 and was buried in Canandaigua, New York.

 

[Black Lightning]

New Philadelphia, Illinois was one of the most famous of the antebellum all-black towns. Founded by Free Frank McWorter (1777-1854), a former Kentucky slave who purchased his freedom with his own earnings, New Philadelphia, Illinois was the first U. S. town to be registered by an African American prior to the Civil War. Now covered by prairie farm fields, New Philadelphia was located across the Mississippi River from Hannibal, Missouri amid a cluster of other black settlements and pro-abolitionist Illinois towns.

Frank McWorter was born a slave in South Carolina and at the age of 18 moved with his owner to Kentucky. With labor in short supply in their new location, McWorter was hired out to a neighboring farm, allowing him to prove his potential as a conscientious worker. When his master announced the plantation was again relocating, McWorter negotiated a deal to remain in Kentucky, running the farming operations, saving wages, and eventually opening a saltpeter mine as a side business. He earned enough money to purchase his freedom along with that of another slave, his wife Lucy (1771-1870), for a total of $1,600. McWorter later purchased the freedom of their first-born son as well as 15 other family members. In 1830, he sold all of his Kentucky holdings and moved his family to northwest Illinois.

Under the 1832 Land Act, McWorter purchased 42 acres of land in Hadley Township within Pike County, Illinois. He platted and legally registered the town which he called New Philadelphia. Like other land promoters of that era, McWorter sold parcels to black and white pioneers. With his right to own property as a free black in Illinois limited by state statutes, McWorter petitioned the Illinois General Assembly using a legislative loophole, and by 1836 he and his sons owned 600 acres in Hadley Township without restriction.

Located near several active waterways, New Philadelphia grew prosperous in the late antebellum period. A proposed railroad to be built sometime in the 1860s boosted land speculation and by 1870, the population peaked at 200. The railroad, however, was rerouted to a neighboring community, and the town soon suffered economic decline and was eventually abandoned.

The New Philadelphia town site is now farmland, but there is renewed interest in the town’s history as reflected in archaeological projects led by the University of Illinois, the Center for Heritage Resource Studies, and by Free Frank McWorter’s great-great-granddaughter, Juliet E. K. Walker. In 2005, the town site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Four years later, in 2009, it gained National Historic Landmark status.

 

[Black Lightning]

The hallmarks of the “Roaring ‘20s” are legendary in American history: dashing and daring men and women, illegal alcohol, flamboyant entertainers, and the music inspired by the post-war, prohibition era frenzy: jazz. While the hot spots in New York and Los Angeles, California generally garner the most attention, in 1924, San Diego’s Hotel Douglas opened its doors along with its own nightclub the Creole Palace, which became a venue that was destined to leave an indelible mark on the history of jazz and the local African American community.

For over 30 years, the Creole Palace was a popular, high energy cabaret that catered primarily to the African American population of San Diego. The club, also known as the “Cotton Club of the West,” attracted prominent entertainers of the day such as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie. It also provided a home and launching pad for their slightly less famous but no less important colleagues. One of the most compelling artists to come from the west coast, Harold Land, began working at the Creole Palace just after he left high school. Land was part of the band organized by Froebel Brigham, a gifted musician who worked at the Creole off and on for over 20 years. Other important jazz artists who put in time at the Creole include Sonny Criss, Hampton Hawes, and Erroll Garner.

When black entrepreneurs Robert Lowe and George Ramsey built the Creole Palace, they didn’t intend for it to be simply a jazz club, and it wasn’t. It was a cabaret with a light flavoring of burlesque. In fact, by the 1930s, it was the most famous western cabaret outside of Los Angeles; it featured light- and dark-skinned beauties in variety shows which offered singing, dancing, and comedy. It was also famous for its flashily-costumed show girls. While the national burlesque industry was strictly segregated, the Creole Palace managed to offer much of the same entertainment to its customers of all races. The Creole Palace, however, remained the center of African American entertainment in San Diego from 1924 until the post-World War II era.

 

[Black Lightning]

Denver, Colorado’s Five Points community originated in the 1880s as an upper middle-class neighborhood for professional and business men. The city built one of its first cable streetcar lines into the area and numerous neighborhood businesses emerged along its tracks. White residents initially occupied the area, but a few prosperous African American families began moving in around the turn of the century.

A major influx of black residents came between 1911 and 1929 when housing developments sprang up elsewhere in the city. These new homes with their modern conveniences such as electrical wiring, plumbing, and garages, attracted many away from older neighborhoods. About the same time, the city extended Broadway, a major north-south artery, through older black neighborhoods. These two factors provided both the impetus and the opportunity for a population shift. Five Points soon became the focal point of activities in a community of nearly 6,000 African American residents.

Black doctors, lawyers, dentists, clergy, railroad porters, as well as cooks, janitors, domestic servants, and other service workers all made their homes in Five Points, attending its many churches, patronizing black businesses, supporting three newspapers, a YMCA and YWCA, baseball clubs, and social activities of all kinds. Five Points residents wanted for little other than the opportunity to move into other neighborhoods or into higher economic brackets through education and jobs.

Although Five Points was one of the most prosperous black communities in the West, the city’s de facto segregation and obvious racial discrimination were on the minds of many. The post-World War II years saw increasing activism as returning servicemen expressed the belief that their service to the nation had earned them the same rights as other citizens. Further, the influx of black families to the city from other states challenged beliefs of long-time black residents, who thought that because they did not suffer the same indignities as African Americans in the southern states, they had little to complain about. In 1961 citizens who disagreed founded a Denver chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). They agitated for equal opportunities in jobs, housing, and education. They protested unjust treatment by law enforcement officers and the legal system. Their efforts opened new doors and many black residents left Five Points, causing the area to deteriorate. Older homes began to fall apart, businesses closed, crime and violence rose. By the late 1970s its reputation as a dangerous neighborhood was well established.

Today, many recognize the neighborhood’s important history, and efforts to renew and revitalize the neighborhood have begun to pay off. Five Points received an historic district designation and important buildings along Welton Street have received state preservation money for restoration. Two of these buildings, the Rossonian Hotel and Benny Hooper’s Casino, played vital roles as gathering places for jazz aficionados. Famous black jazz musicians visiting Denver may have played white venues, but the musicians had nowhere to stay other than Five Points, which became well-known for its after-hours jazz scene. The Black American West Museum, founded by Paul Stewart in 1966, occupies the former home of the community’s beloved black doctor, Justina Ford. The Blair-Caldwell Library, named in honor of Tuskegee airman Omar Blair and Denver politician Elvin Caldwell, houses a growing collection of research materials related to African Americans in the west. City leaders and planners along with preservationists are all working to restore the neighborhood’s former dignity and recognize its significant role in the life of the city.

 

[Black Lightning]

Langston, Oklahoma is one of the few remaining all-black towns located in the former Oklahoma Territory. The town, which opened for settlement on October 22, 1890, was named for John Mercer Langston, who took office as the first black Virginian to serve in the United States House of Representatives only one month earlier.
Langston's principal founders were William L. Eagleson, a prominent newspaper editor, Edward P. McCabe, a former Kansas state auditor, and Charles W. Robbins, a white land speculator. Eagleson and McCabe had both been ardent supporters of black migration to Oklahoma Territory and through their efforts the town's population was settled by blacks from Kansas and several Southern states.

Taking on the role of chief promoter of Langston, McCabe encouraged only those blacks with sufficient resources to support themselves to move to the town. Through his efforts the town attracted an estimated 600 settlers by January 1891 with more blacks settling in the surrounding rural areas.

Many small businesses opened to support this burgeoning population. Among those first established were several grocery stores, saloons, blacksmith shops, barbershops, a feed store, and a newspaper, the Langston City Herald, edited by McCabe. Within two years, at least twenty-five businesses, from banks to ice cream parlors, were operating in town.

There were also several churches, Masonic orders, public and private elementary and secondary schools, a volunteer fire company, and a seventy-five member militia. Although Langston's citizens made a tremendous effort to attract a railroad company to build through their town, they were ultimately unsuccessful in this endeavor. The absence of convenient access to the rails dealt the town an economic blow and stunted its population growth potential.

In spite of the railroad setback, however, townspeople successfully lobbied to have the Colored Agricultural and Normal University of Oklahoma (today Langston University) established in Langston in 1897. The presence of this institution, the only publicly operated institution dedicated to the higher education of African Americans in Oklahoma, has contributed to Langston's survival even as other small towns in Oklahoma, both black and white, have collapsed as a result of economic depressions, urbanization trends, and war time migrations. In 2008, Langston's population, including university students, was 1,712, currently marking it as the largest of Oklahoma's historically black towns.

 

[Black Lightning]

By all rights Thomas Molyneux should have become recognized as the first world boxing champion from the United States. Born in 1784 to parents enslaved by a wealthy Virginian plantation owner named Molyneux, Tom—because of his size and strength—was selected to engage in prizefighting matches with enslaved men from neighboring estates, a practice common during that era. Often planters bet substantial sums of money on the outcome. Tom ultimately participated in a match involving a wager of $100,000. When he won, his grateful owner granted him his freedom and a present of $500.

Molyneux moved to New York where he engaged in a number of successful prizefights. His victories allowed him to proclaim himself the Champion of America in 1809. That same year he sailed to England to challenge Tom Cribb, generally recognized as the Champion of the World.

On a bitterly cold and windy day on December 18, 1810, Molyneux met Cribb for the championship. In the 28th round Tom appeared to knock out Cribb, but when Cribb was unable to respond, his seconds rushed across the ring and complained that Molyneux had been hiding lead bullets in his fists. While Molyneux and his supporters spent time disproving the accusation, Cribb recovered and was allowed to continue. In the 31st round, Molyneux’s head struck a stake in the ground, when he tripped over Cribb after throwing him to the ground. Semi-conscious and unable to defend himself in the 33rd round, Molyneux fell to the ground and announced he could fight no more in a bout that would go down as one of the most unfairly contested championship bouts in England’s history.

A return bout between the two men took place on September 28, 1811, but Cribb knocked out a poorly conditioned Molyneux in the 9th round to retain his title. Tom Molyneux’s boxing career came to an end in 1815 when he lost to George Cooper. He died penniless in Galway, Ireland on August 4, 1818.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won many awards for her work and influence, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen[1] making her the first African American to receive that award.

Throughout her career Brooks received many more honors. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, a position held until her death,[2] and what is now the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for the 1985–86 term .[3]


Honors and legacy


Sara S. Miller's 1994 Bronze Portrait Bust Of Gwendolyn Brooks

• 1946, Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry
• 1946, American Academy of Arts & Letters Award
• 1950, Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
• 1968, appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois, a position she held until her death in 2000
• 1976, the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America
• 1985, selected as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, an honorary one-year position whose title was renamed the next year to Poet Laureate
• 1988, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
• 1989, recipient, Life Time Achievement Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
• 1989, awarded the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement by the Poetry Society of America
• 1992, awarded the Aiken Taylor Award by the Sewanee Review
• 1994, chosen as the National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecturer, one of the highest honors in American literature and the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government.
• 1994, Recipient of the National Book Foundations's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
• 1995, presented with the National Medal of Arts
• 1995, honored as the first Woman of the Year chosen by the Harvard Black Men's Forum
• 1995, received the Chicago History Museum "Making History Award" for Distinction in Literature
• 1997, awarded the Order of Lincoln award from The Lincoln Academy of Illinois, the highest honor granted by the State of Illinois[18]

Brooks also received more than 75 honorary degrees from colleges and universities worldwide

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, on June 7, 1917, and raised in Chicago. She was the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Children Coming Home (The David Co., 1991); Blacks (The David Co., 1987); To Disembark (Third World Press, 1981); The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (The David Co., 1986); Riot (Broadside Press, 1969); In the Mecca (Harper & Row, 1968); The Bean Eaters (Harper, 1960); Annie Allen (Harper, 1949), for which she received the Pulitzer Prize; and A Street in Bronzeville (Harper & Brothers, 1945).

She also wrote numerous other books including a novel, Maud Martha (Harper, 1953), and Report from Part One: An Autobiography (Broadside Press, 1972), and edited Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology (Broadside Press, 1971).

In 1968 she was named poet laureate for the state of Illinois. In 1985, she was the first black woman appointed as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a post now known as Poet Laureate. She also received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Frost Medal, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation. She lived in Chicago until her death on December 3, 2000.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Jones, Frederick McKinley (1893-1961)

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Courtesy of: Minnesota Historical Society
Frederick McKinley Jones was a prolific early 20th century black inventor who helped to revolutionize both the cinema and refrigeration industries. Over his lifetime, he patented more than sixty inventions in divergent fields with forty of those patents in refrigeration. He is best known for inventing the first automatic refrigeration system for trucks.

Jones was born on May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother died when he was nine, and he was forced to drop out of school. A priest in Covington, Kentucky, raised him until he was sixteen.

Upon leaving the rectory, Jones began working as a mechanic’s helper at the R.C. Crothers Garage in Cincinnati. Jones would spend much of his time observing the mechanics as they worked on cars, taking in as much information as possible. These observations, along with an insatiable appetite for learning through reading helped Jones develop an incredible base of knowledge about automobiles and their inner workings. Within three years his skills and love for cars had netted him a promotion to shop foreman. By nineteen, he had built and driven several cars in racing exhibitions and soon became one of the most well know racers in the Great Lakes region.

During World War I, Jones was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and served in France as an electrician. While serving, he rewired his camp for electricity, telephone, and telegraph service. In 1919, after being discharged by the Army, he moved to Hallock, Minnesota where he began his study of electronics, eventually building a transmitter for a local radio station. To make ends meet, Jones often aided local doctors by driving them around for house calls during the winter season. When navigation through the snow proved difficult, Jones attached skis to the undercarriage of an old airplane body and attached an airplane propeller to a motor. He was soon whisking doctors around town at high speeds in his new “snow machine.”

Over the next few years he would invent more and more innovative machines. When one of the doctors he worked for complained that he had to wait for patients to come into his office for x-ray exams, Jones created a portable x-ray machine that could be taken to the patient. Unfortunately, like many of his early inventions, Jones never thought to apply for a patent. He watched helplessly as other men made fortunes off of their versions of the same device. Impervious, Jones began new projects including a radio transmitter, personal radio sets, and eventually motion picture devices.

In 1927, Joseph Numero, the head of Ultraphone Sound Systems, hired Jones as an electrical engineer. Numero’s company made sound equipment that was used in movie houses throughout the Midwest. Always the innovator, Jones converted silent-movie projectors into talking projectors by using scrap metal for parts. In addition, he devised ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality.

In 1939, Jones invented and received a patent for an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters. He later sold the patent rights to RCA.

Eventually, Numero and Jones formed a partnership called the U.S. Thermo Control Company, with Jones as vice president. He was given the task of developing a device that would allow large trucks to transport perishable products without spoiling. Jones set to work and his automatic refrigeration system, the Thermo King, was born. Eventually, he modified the original design so it could be outfitted for trains, boats, and ships.

The Thermo King transformed the shipping and grocery businesses. Grocery chains were now able to import and export products that previously could only have been shipped as canned goods. As a result, the frozen food industry was born and for the first time consumers could enjoy fresh foods from around the globe and U.S. Thermo became a multimillion-dollar company.

During World War II, a need for a unit for storing blood serum for transfusions and medicines led Jones into further refrigeration research. For this, he created an air-conditioning unit for military field hospitals and a refrigerator for military field kitchens. As a result, may lives were saved. A modified form of his device is still in use today.

In 1944, Jones became the first African American to be elected into the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. During the 1950s, he was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

When he died on February 21, 1961, Jones had more than sixty patents. In honor of his tremendous achievements as an inventor, he was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology. Jones was the first black inventor to ever receive such an honor.
Sources:
James Michael Brodie, Created Equal: The Lives and Ideas of Black American Innovators (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993); Otha Richard Sullivan and James Haskins, African American Inventors (New York: Wiley, 1998); Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York: Norton, 1982).

Contributor:

• Blue, Christopher T.

University of Washington
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- See more at: Jones, Frederick McKinley (1893-1961) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Clarence Sumner Greene

Clarence Sumner Greene was born on December 26, 1901 in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Dunbar High School in 1920, he moved to live with his aunt. He was strongly influenced towards medicine during that time by his uncle and great uncle whom were both physicians and leading medical figures. Deciding first to go to dental school, he did two years at the University of Pennsylvania and then continued onto their dental school, graduations with a D.D.S. degree in 1926. But he quickly realized that he wasn’t satisfied with dentistry and went to Harvard University for a 2 year premedical training program (from 1927-29). In 1930, Greene interned in Cleveland City Hospital. Then he returned to University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (1932). Then in 1936, he got his M.D. at the College of Medicine at Howard University. From 1937 to 1939 Dr. Greene did a residency in Douglass Hospital in Philadelphia under Dr. John P. Turner. Then he moved to Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington D.C. for two years and worked as an assistant resident under Dr. Edward L. Howes, during which time he was also on Howard’s medical faculty as an instructor of physiology, anatomy and surgery.

He was a diplomat of the American Board of Surgery in 1943. That same year he was appointed assistant professor of surgery at Howard. He is also the first Howard graduate and Howard trained surgeon to pass the latter board.

When it became apparent that Howard needed a division of neurosurgery, Greene decided to travel to Europe to receive even more schooling at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University. He was giving excellent reviews after his two-year residency in Montreal and returned to Howard as the chief of its newly established Division of Neurosurgery with the rank of assistant professor. His major contribution was pioneering many of Freedmen’s Hospital’s surgical procedures: intracranial aneurysms, brain tumors, herniated intervertebral discs and sympathectomies for hypertension as well as other routine diagnostic procedures.

In 1953, he became the first African American to be appointed diplomat of the American Board of Neurosurgery. In 1955, he was named head of the Department of Surgery. In 1958, through Dr. Greene’s efforts, a post-operative recovery and intensive care unit was established and named after him.


Notable Facts

• The first chief of Howard's newly established Division of Neurosurgery with the rank of assistant professor
• The first African American to be appointed diplomat of the American Board of Neurosurgery.
• He helped establish a post-operative recovery and intensive care unit which was named after him.

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[Black Lightning]

Don Barksdale was the first African American to play on the U.S. Olympic basketball team. Unfortunately, the pro's did not allow black players at that time so he had to wait a while until he was allowed in the NBA. Throughout his career Don Barksdale broke the racial barrier time after time in both professional basketball and as a radio announcer. As one of the first Black players in the NBA he became the first Black player chosen to play in the NBA All-Star game. In 1948, Don Barksdale became the first black radio disc jockey in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Born in Oakland, California, Don Barksdale attended nearby Berkeley High School, where the basketball coach cut him from the team for three-straight years because he wanted no more than one black player. Barksdale honed his playing skills in park basketball and then played for two years for Marin Junior College, across San Francisco Bay, before earning a scholarship to UCLA.

The first Africa American to make the Olympic team, Barksdale and his 1948 teammates won the gold medal in London. It was basketball's second appearance as a medal sport, appearing as an indoor competition for the first time after poor weather disrupted the matches at the 1936 Berlin Games. The event, for men only, was contested by 23 nations split into four pools for the preliminary round; the top two in each pool advanced to the quarterfinals with the other teams entering playoffs for the minor placings. The United States and France reached the final which was won by the Americans 65-21 to claim the gold medal. This was the second of the United States seven consecutive gold medals in Olympic men's basketball.

The 1948 Olympic team had five Kentucky Wildcats basketball players who had just won the very first Wildcat national championship in the 1948 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The rest of the Olympic team, consisting of the AAU Champions Phillips 66ers, and the Kentucky team later scrimmaged on Stoll Field in front of 14,000 spectators, the largest crowd to watch basketball in Kentucky at that time. Barksdale became the first African-American to play against Kentucky in Lexington. He could not stay at the hotel with the rest of the team, but instead stayed with a black host family.

When Walter Brown of Boston formed the Basketball Association of America in 1946, the league's rules banned African-American players. So when professional basketball slammed its door in Don Barksdale's face after his All American UCLA career, he switched gears toward his other passion and became the San Francisco Bay Area's first African American disc jockey, while playing AAU basketball.


The lanky 6'-6" Don Barksdale played four years of AAU ball with the Oakland Bittners before the ban on blacks in the NBA was lifted. In 1949 the Bittners won the AAU national championship, breaking the 66ers streak of six consecutive titles. In 1950 the team had a new sponsor, but the Oakland Blue 'n Gold Atlas still had Don Barksdale, though they ended up losing the national championship game to the Phillips 66ers. He was named AAU All American in 1948, 1949 and 1950.

In 1951, the twenty eight year old Barksdale joined the Baltimore Bullets, becoming the third black player to sign an N.B.A. contract. A year earlier, Chuck Cooper joined Boston and Earl Lloyd signed with Washington. One of the top players on that team, Barksdale averaged 12.6 points per game his rookie year and 13.8 points his second year with the team. In 1953, while with the Bullets, he became the first African American to appear in an NBA All-Star Game.

In 1953, Don Barksdale was traded to the Boston Celtics where he played another two years, until his career was cut short by ankle injuries. Through Barksdale's basketball-playing years, he was also starting a career in radio broadcasting. In 1948, he became the first black radio disc jockey in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also worked in television and owned a beer distributorship. He became the first African-American beer distributor in the Bay Area. He became the first African American television host in the Bay Area with a show called Sepia Review on KRON-TV.

In 1983, Don Barksdale launched Save High School Sports Foundation, which is credited with helping to save Oakland school athletic programs from collapse. Don Barksdale succumbed to throat cancer when he was 69. In 2007, FSN Bay Area broadcast Bounce: The Don Barksdale Story, a documentary produced by Doug Harris for Athletes United for Peace, a Berkeley-based youth sports and and media organization.

Through out his lifetime Don Barksdale received many awards and honors. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter organization established for African Americans. Barksdale was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame, the Pac-10 Basketball Hall of Honor, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, and the Berkeley High Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

[Black Lightning]

An African American boxer, Henry Armstrong was the only professional boxer to hold world championship titles in three weight divisions simultaneously. In his boxing career from 1931 to 1945, Armstrong fought 181 bouts, won 151 matches, lost 21 fights, and scored 101 knockouts. After his retirement, he became an ordained minister and devoted himself to underprivileged youth.

Henry Armstrong was born on December 12, 1912, in Columbus, Mississippi, with the birth name of Henry Jackson Jr. Named after his father, Henry was the eleventh child of fifteen, Henry Armstrong's father was a mixed race sharecropper, his mother was America Jackson. She was a full-blooded Iroquois Indian. Mrs. Jackson believed that one day, Henry would do great things and become a Minister.

At an early age, Henry's family moved to St. Louis in search for a better life for his family. Still young when his mother died, Henry was raised by his grandmother Henrietta Chatman along with his father. Henry learned to defend himself on the rough streets of St. Louis from gangs, displaying a natural gift of wrestling and boxing.

Henry Armstrong did well in school and graduated with honors from Vashon High School in 1929. He was a member of the school paper and worked after school as a pin boy at the local bowling alley. It was there that he had his first boxing experience, winning a boxing match between the pin boys. At his graduation, he recited a valedictory poem he had written. Henry had always planned on going to college, but the Great Depression and his father's ill health made it more important for him to make money for his family. Seeing an ad for boxers with their salary listed gave Henry Armstrong his push toward a career as a professional boxer.

Working at the "colored" Young Men's Christian Association, Armstrong met Harry Armstrong, a former boxer, who became his friend, mentor, and trainer. Taking the name Melody Jackson, Armstrong won his first amateur fight at the St. Louis Coliseum in 1929, by a knockout in the second round. After several more amateur fights, Armstrong moved to Pittsburgh to pursue a professional career. Ill prepared and undernourished, Armstrong lost his first professional fight by a knockout. He did manage to win his second fight on points; however, he decided to return to St. Louis.

In 1931 Armstrong, accompanied by Harry Armstrong, hopped trains to Los Angeles to restart his amateur career. Upon meeting fight manager Tom Cox at a local gym, Armstrong introduced himself as Harry Armstrong's brother, after which he became known by the name Henry Armstrong. Securing a contract with Cox for three dollars, he had almost 100 amateur fights, in which he won more than half by knockout and lost none. When Cox sold his contract on Armstrong to Wirt Ross in 1932 for $250, Armstrong entered the professional ranks to stay.


Armstrong started out 1937 by winning 22 bouts in a row, 21 by knockout. He beat Casanova in three, Belloise in four, Joe Rivers in three, former world champion Frankie Klick in four and former world champion Benny Bass in four. After those 22 wins in a row, the inevitable happened: Armstrong was given his first world title try, for the 126 pounds title, Featherweight world champion Petey Sarron defending it against him at the Madison Square Garden. Armstrong became the world's Featherweight champion knocking out Sarron in six, and closed the year with four more knockout wins.

In 1938, Armstrong started with seven more knockouts in a row, including one over future world champion Chalky Wright. The streak finally ended when Arizmendi lasted ten rounds before losing a decision to Armstrong in their fourth fight. His streak of 27 knockout wins in a row qualifies as one of the longest knockout win streaks in the history of boxing.

After the fourth bout with Arizmendi was a bout with Fritzie Zivic's brother, Eddie Zivic, resulting in another Armstrong knockout win, and after one more bout, Armstrong, the 126 pound division world champion, challenged a fellow member of the three division champions' club, Barney Ross, then world Welterweight champion, for the title. Armstrong, 126, beat Ross, 147, by unanimous decision, adding the world Welterweight championship to his Featherweight belt. Then, he went down in weight, and challenged world Lightweight champion Lou Ambers. In a history making night, Armstrong became the first boxer ever to have world championships in three different divisions at the same time, by beating Ambers on points. A few days later, he decided he couldn't make the 126 pounds weight anymore, and left the Featherweight crown vacant.

In 1940, Armstrong challenged Ceferino Garcia for the World Middleweight Title. Garcia retained the title with a draw, but most at ringside felt that Armstrong had won. A victory would have given Armstrong a fourth divisional title at a time when there were only eight weight divisions. In total Armstrong defeated sixteen world champions during his boxing career.

The next five years, Henry Armstrong continued to win and defend his titles, mostly in the welterweight division. After winning one fight, losing one and drawing one in 1945, Armstrong decided to retire from boxing. Apart from the ceremonies and galas that he attended afterwards, he led a relatively quiet life for the rest of his life. He became a Christian and an ordained pastor, and he taught youngsters how to box.

 

[Black Lightning]

Ray Kemp was a charter member of the Pittsburgh Steelers (then Pirates) when they entered the NFL in 1933. He was the only black Pirate and only one of two black players in the entire NFL. Kemp’s battle to maintain a foothold for black players in the NFL was a lonely struggle with few rewards in sight. Before playing for Pittsburg, Ray Kemp was an Honorable Mention All American in 1931.

Ray Kemp was born on Sunday, April 07, 1907 in Cecil , Pennsylvania. Although not as bad as the Jim Crow South, racism was still an everyday occurrence for African Americans in the North. Ray Kemp would be a pioneer in the NFL and faced racism throughout his life, never responding with violence, but instead holding his head high.


Kemp graduated from Cecil High School in 1926. After graduation, he worked in the coal mines around Cecil, Pennsylvania for one year before enrolling at Duquesne University. Ray Kemp started his sophomore year. The 1928 team won eight of nine games and Duquesne's 1929 team finished the season undefeated. By 1931, Kemp’s senior season, the Dukes had progressed to the point that they played national power Carnegie Tech in a post-season charity game. Playing tackle, Ray Kemp was an Honorable Mention All American his senior year in 1931. When Kemp began his college football career, he remembered seeing one or two other African Americans on the team, but by his senior year Ray Kemp was the lone black player on Elmer Layden's squad.


Because of Ray Kemp's success playing for Elmer Layden's Duquesne squad, he attracted the attention of Art Rooney. Rooney wanted Ray to play for his J.P. Rooney semi-pro team. The following year Kemp enrolled in graduate school at Duquesne and served as the line coach for Layden. In his spare time he did play for both the J.P. Rooneys and the semi-pro Erie Pros, again as the only black player.

In 1933, the Rooney's started a new NFL team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Kemp and some of his Rooney teammates were joined by a collection of NFL cast-offs to form the team. In 1933, the last year of integration, the NFL had two black players, Joe Lillard and Ray Kemp. Both were gone by the end of the season While most NFL players were paid $100 a game, Ray Kemp got $40.

Kemp, a 6 foot one inch, 215 pound tackle, played in the Pirates' first three games against, the New York Giants, Chicago Cardinals and Boston Redskins. The opening against against the New York Giants saw the Rookie team as a big underdog. In front of a crowd of 25,000 fans in Forbes Field, the Giants rolled over the expansion team 23-2. This was Ray Kemp's first experience of playing in front of a big crowd, and he came close to getting an interception during the game.

The teams second game was against the Chicago Cardinals, where the only other African American Joe Lillard played. Lillard, a triple-threat back, completed a touchdown pass and kicked an extra point. Kemp recalled the halftime talk by Pirate coach Jap Douds. “We were in the locker room and Jap said, ‘We have to stop that ******.’ However, he apologized to me for that remark on the way back out to the field.” In the second half Lillard was ejected from the game for fighting and the Pirates came back to win 14-3. It was the team's first NFL victory.

The Pittsburg Pirates struggled again the following week, losing to the Boston Redskins 31-6. After the Redskins game, Kemp was cut by the team. He appealed the cut to Art Rooney, but Rooney refused to go over the head of the coach, Jap Douds, who as a player-coach, also played Kemp's position. Art Rooney stated that he was limited to having only 22 players on the roster and preferred to keep the more experienced players.

Even though Kemp had done everything he could to stay on the team, a Pittsburgh Courier story on November 14, 1933 claimed that Kemp was placed on the reserve list and quit.

With Kemp no longer on the team, the Pirates went 2-5 over the next seven games. Then on December 1st Ray Kemp received a phone call from the Pirates asking him to return to the team. Kemp had been humiliated by being cut from the team earlier, but knowing that the NFL was down to one African American player without him, decided to play. With only two days of practice, Ray Kemp was named to the starting line up, and played tackle for the entire game against the Giants. The Giants crushed the Pirates 27-3, but it wasn't the only crushing blow for Ray Kemp. While his white teammates stayed at a Manhattan hotel, Ray Kemp was relegated to the Harlem branch of the YMCA.

The next football season Ray Kemp returned to the grid iron, but in a different capacity. He was hired as the head football coach at Bluefield State College. In Kemp’s first season at Bluefield State he led the Blues to an 8-0-1 record. That year was the first of a thirty-nine-year career as a successful coach and athletic director at Bluefield, Lincoln University and Tennessee A&I College.

Joe Lillard also lost his position in the NFL, with his coach complaining of the constant fighting and game ejections as the cause. With the exits of Kemp and Lillard, the NFL would play without any black players until 1946.

 

[Black Lightning]

The first female African American selected for the U.S. Olympic team, Alice Coachman became the first black woman of any nationality to win a gold medal at the Olympics with her victory was in the high jump at the 1948 Summer Games in London. Alice Coachman paved the way for hundreds of black female Olympic champions.

Alice Coachman was born in rural Georgia on November 9,1923, near the town of Albany. Born in the fifth of ten children, Alice's family was poor, and even as a youngster, Coachman had to work at picking cotton and other crops to help her family meet financially. Running and jumping was deemed unladylike and to avoid a whipping, Alice tried to make sure her father didn't see her doing either. Not having shoes, Alice Coachman ran barefoot on the dirt roads near her house, practicing jumps over a crossbar made of rags tied together. Coachman received encouragement from her fifth-grade teacher, Cora Bailey, at Monroe Street Elementary School and from her aunt, Carrie Spry, who defended her niece's interest in sports in the face of parental reservations. In 1938, when Coachman enrolled in Madison High School, she immediately joined the track team. The Madison boys' track coach, Harry E. Lash, recognized and nurtured her talent.


Reluctantly at first, her parents relented and allowed her to compete in the Tuskegee Institute relay in the 1930s, where she broke first high school, and then collegiate records by the time she was 16 years old. In the rural south during the time when Jim Crow laws still reigned, Alice Coachman was not guaranteed an opportunity for an education, but fortunately she received a scholarship to the prestigious Tuskegee Preparatory School. During her college career at Tuskegee, she won national championships in the 50-meter dash, the 100-meter dash, the 400-meter relay, and the high jump. She also played on the Tuskegee women's basketball team, which won three championships. She was the only African American on each of the five All-American teams to which she was named.

In 1943, Coachman won the AAU nationals in the running high jump and the 50-yard dash. Sadly both the 1940 and 1944 Olympic Games were cancelled due to World War II, denying Alice Coachman a chance to attain her biggest dream.

Alice Coachman received a trade degree in dressmaking in 1946 from the Tuskegee Preparatory School and went on to enroll at Albany State University. Still wanting to go to the Olympics, Alice worked tirelessly and finally qualified for the 1948 Olympics at the age of twenty-four, with a 5 feet 4 inch jump, breaking the previous record of 5 feet 3-1/4 inches set in 1932.

During the 1948 Olympics in London Alice Coachman broke the record and jumped 5 feet, 6-1/4 inches on her first try, earning the gold medal for the United States. Alice Coachman became the first woman of color in the world, and the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in track and field in the history of the modern Olympics. In addition, she was the only American woman to win a gold medal at the 1948 games. Her combination Olympic gold medal and 10 consecutive US championships have never been duplicated.

After her historic win, Alice Coachman retired from competition. She became the first African American woman to benefit from endorsements. When Coachman returned to the U.S., she was treated like royalty. In addition to meeting many famous people who also gave parties for her, she was given a parade in her honor, given a victory ride from Atlanta to Macon, and given a banquet by her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta. After her retirement, Alice Coachman taught physical education, coached, and became involved in the Job Corps in Albany Georgia. She also taught at South Carolina State College, Albany State College, and Tuskegee High School.

Alice Coachman married N. F. Davis, whom she later divorced. Later Coachman married Frank Davis. They had two children, Richmond and Evelyn, who both followed their mother's footsteps into athletics.



Alice Coachman has been honored with prestigious memberships in eight halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Albany Sports Hall of Fame.

In 1994, she founded the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation, and organization supported by Olympic athletes, both aspiring and retired. The Alice Coachman Track & Field Foundation ( ACTFF ), a tax deductible, non-profit organization, was established in honor of America’s history-making world class athlete, Alice Coachman , who rose from obscurity to become an Olympic champion. The ACTFF wants to continue to help athletes become winners. In light of recent reductions in government resources, educational cutbacks and limited sports scholarship opportunities, this assistance may be crucial to aspiring amateur athletes.

 

[Black Lightning]

On September 7, 1960, Wilma Rudolph made Olympic history by becoming the first woman, not to mention the first African-American woman, to win three gold medals. Taking first place in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dash and in the 4x100 relay, Wilma Rudolph opened the door for women to compete in previously all-male track and field events. Graceful, fast and slender, the Italian press called Wilma Rudolph La Gazzella, the gazelle.

Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born into a poor southern family on June 23, 1940 in Clarksville, Tennessee. Weighing just 4 1/2 pounds, she was the twentieth of twenty-two of her father's children. A sickly child, Wilma's mother Blanche spent countless hours nursing her, but when she developed infantile paralysis, caused by the polio virus the doctors held out little hope she would ever walk without braces, let alone compete in the Olympics. After losing the use of her left leg, she was fitted with metal leg braces when she was six. "I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to get them off," she said. "But when you come from a large, wonderful family, there's always a way to achieve your goals."

Wilma’s family worked diligently on the physical therapy, taught to them by the Fisk University hospital. Their hard work paid off and by the age of eight Wilma was not only walking without braces, she was running and playing like an average child. Wilma Rudolph was anything but average though.

While she was attending Burt High School, Wilma Rudolph became a basketball star, setting state records for scoring and leading her team to the state championship. She also began to run track. Tennessee State University put six young women on the 1956 Olympic team going to Australia. Of these six, Wilma Rudolph was one of the high school individuals in Tennessee State University Summer programs. By the time she was 16, the 5-foot-11 and 130 pound sprinter earned a berth on the U.S. Olympic track and field team and came home from the 1956 Melbourne Games with an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 x 100 meter relay.

After high school, Wilma Rudolph went on to attend Tennessee State fulltime, where she graduated with a B.A. in education in 1963. The playing field for women's sports was still struggling and lagged behind the opportunities given to male athletes. At the time Tennessee State did not give track scholarships to women, so Wilma, like many others were given work aid. Work aid allowed them to work a couple of hours a day in some kind of clerical job. With renowned coach Ed Temple and some of the fastest runners in the country as her teammates, Wilma Rudolph's talents were fostered and her sprinting skills grew. In 1959 the team participated in the Pan American Games in Chicago, Illinois. Tennessee State athlete Lucendia Williams won both the 100 and 200 meter races, while Wilma Rudolph got third in both sprints and ran on the 4 x 100 relay team.

Ed Temple, Wilma Rudolph's Tennessee State coach was chosen as the 1960 United States Olympic coach and had a total of eight women from his University on the Olympic team, including Wilma. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Wilma Rudolph became "the fastest woman in the world" and the first American woman to win three gold medals in one Olympics. Easily winning the 100 meter race by three yards in just 11 seconds., strong tail winds that day were above Olympic standards so Rudolph didn't receive credit for breaking the World record time. But Wilma Rudolph wasn't done shining. Setting an Olympic record in the opening heat, she went on the take the gold in the 200 meter race. The 4x100 relay race would end with the same results. The all Tennessee State women's team beat out Germany, taking the gold in front of Germany, in just 44.5 seconds.

Wilma Rudolph had faced numerous racial roadblocks growing up in the segregated South. Traveling to tracks meets throughout the Jim Crow South was always difficult and her team was forced to stay in different housing than the white teams. Not only competing for her race, Wilma Rudolph had to break barriers set up by male dominated athletes. When her hometown of Clarksville wanted to have a parade in her honor, Rudolph insisted that the celebration be open to whites and blacks, not just one or the other as was customary; the parade and dinner following were the first integrated events in Clarksville.

Wilma Rudolph retired from competition in 1963 at the age of twenty two. After her athletic career, Rudolph worked as a teacher at Cobb Elementary School, coaching track at Burt High School, and became a sports commentator on national television. She married her high school sweetheart Robert Eldridge in 1963. Although the marriage didn't last, the couplehad three beautiful children before divorcing.

Both women and African Americans felt the glass ceiling crack when Wilma Rudolph competed and won in the 1960 Olympics. A testament to her hard work and dedication, along with her family's love and faith, Wilma Rudolph could not be stopped by polio, racism or sexism and is a role model for generations to come.

 

[Black Lightning]

Arthur Ashe was a top ranked tennis player in the 1960s and 70s. Raised in the segregated South, he was the first African-American male tennis player to win a Grand Slam tournament. During his career, he won three Grand Slam titles, putting him among the best ever from United States. Arthur Ashe more than just an athlete, his commitment to further social causes made Arthur Ashe an important part of American growth.

Arthur Robert Ashe Jr. was born on July 10, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia. His mother, Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe, died of heart disease when Arthur Ashe was only six. Ashe's father, Arthur Ashe Sr., worked as a caretaker for a park named Brook Field in suburban North Richmond. Arthur Ashe lived on the grounds, where with four tennis courts, a pool, and three baseball diamonds, he quickly picked up a talent for sports.

Ashe began playing tennis at age six. He received instruction from R. Walter "Whirlwind" Johnson, an African American doctor from Lynchburg, Virginia, who opened his home in the summers to tennis prospects, including the great Althea Gibson. Johnson used military-style methods to teach tennis skills and to stress his honor code of sportsmanship, which included respect, sharp appearance, and fair play at all times.

After high school, Arthur Ashe received a tennis scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1966 Arthur graduated with a degree in business administration. In addition to finishing his studies, in 1965 he won the individual NCAA championship and had significantly contributed to UCLA's winning the team NCAA tennis championship. Arthur Ashe Arthur had also been featured in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd as an up and coming star athlete.



Following college Arthur Ashe served in the army for two years, during which he was assigned time for tennis competitions. In 1968 Ashe created a tennis program for U.S. inner cities. The program was designed to expose children to tennis who might not otherwise have opportunities to play while fostering a sense of discipline and attention to academics.

In 1968, Arthur Ashe won the United States Amateur Championships and the inaugural US Open and aided the U.S Davis Cup team to victory. He is the only player to have won both of these amateur and open national championships in the same year. Concerned that tennis professionals were not receiving winnings commensurate with the sport's growing popularity, Ashe supported formation of the Association of Tennis Professionals. That year would prove even more momentous for Ashe when he was denied a visa by the South African government, thereby keeping him out of the South African Open. Ashe used this denial to publicize South Africa's apartheid policies. In the media, Ashe called for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit.

Turning professional in 1969, Arthur Ashe won the Australian open, the second of his three career grand Slam singles titles in 1970. By the early 70s he had become one of the most famous tennis players. Along with Arthur's growing celebrity status, the sport of tennis was becoming more and more popular. South Africa eventually granted Arthur a visa in 1973. He was the first black pro to play in the national championships there where he reached the singles finals and won the doubles title with Tom Okker.

In 1975, at age 31, Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon and was ranked #1 in the world. On July 5, 1975 he defeated the heavily favored Jimmy Connors in four sets to win the Wimbledon singles title. He was the first and only black man to win the most prestigious grass-court tournament.

In 1979 Arthur Ashe suffered a heart attack while holding a tennis clinic in New York. He was hospitalized for ten days afterwards and later that year underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. He continued to suffer chest pains though and in 1980 decided to retire from tennis with a career record of 818 wins, 260 losses and 51 titles. Arthur Ashe was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.

In 1983 Arthur went through a second bypass surgery. After the operation, in order to accelerate his recovery, he received a blood transfusion which resulted in him contracting human immunodeficiency virus or HIV.

A civil rights advocate, Arthur Ashe dedicated his retirement years in humanitarian efforts. In 1983, along with Harry Belafonte, he founded Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid, which worked toward raising awareness of Apartheid policies and lobbying for sanctions and embargoes against the South African government. He was arrested on January 11, 1985, for protesting outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. during an anti-apartheid rally. He was also arrested again on September 9, 1992, outside the White House for protesting on the recent crackdown on Haitian refugees.

Arthur Ashe founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS., and two months before his death Arthur Ashe founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, to help address issues of inadequate health care delivery to urban minority populations. Arthur Ashe also dedicated time in his last few months to writing "Days of Grace," his memoir that he finished only days before his death on February 6,1993. In 1993, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.