Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Vernice Armour: First African-American Female Combat Pilot

Military.com
Answering the Call by Vernice Armour
From U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings

It's only been a year since Captain Vernice Armour left the Corps to start her own business, but she's already using what she learned as a Marine -- and a helicopter pilot -- and she's sure it'll stay with her for the rest of her career. "Everything I do stems from my time in the Corps," she says. Once a Marine...

My childhood dream was to be a mounted police officer and ride a horse downtown. By the time I was 21, I had made it -- after a fashion. During my last year of college, I became a motorcycle cop, riding a steel horse. Then I took a step that changed my life. I joined the Marines.

My stepdad had been a Marine, with three tours in Vietnam; my father had retired from the Army Reserve as a major; and in World War II my grandfather was a Montford Point Marine -- a segregated unit that contained the first black men in the Corps.

I had no interest in the military. What changed my mind was a flyer offering a free trip to the Mardi Gras for anyone who joined the Army ROTC women's rifle team. During ROTC leadership training in New Orleans, I saw a black woman pilot wearing an Army flight suit. "Why didn't I think of that?" I asked myself.

I never forgot that image. A few months later, I decided that I could always be a cop, but I wouldn't always have the chance to fly. And I wanted to join the toughest outfit. I called the Marine recruiter and told him I wanted to become a combat pilot. I earned my wings in 2001 -- the first black woman aviator in the Corps.

I served two combat tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom -- eight months the first time and seven months the second -- and was recognized by the Department of Defense for a second achievement: becoming the nation's first African- American female combat pilot.

It's only been a year since Captain Vernice Armour left the Corps to start her own business, but she's already using what she learned as a Marine -- and a helicopter pilot -- and she's sure it'll stay with her for the rest of her career.

We flew close air-support and convoy escorts in AH-1W SuperCobras, spending the night at forward operating bases in hostile territory. Often we returned to our base in Kuwait with bullet holes in our helicopters. It was an exhilarating -- and rewarding -- experience.

Back in the States at Marine Corps headquarters, I entered a new world as a diversity officer and a liaison to the Pentagon. Speaking at conferences made me realize that people really wanted to hear about my Marine Corps experiences, and I loved sharing them.

I also realized that I couldn't give this my all and still provide what the Marines demanded, and deserved. So in August 2007, I left the Corps to start my own firm, helping companies and organizations improve their leadership practices and bottom-line results.

My company, VAI Consulting and Training, LLC, in Stafford, Virginia, has a list of clients that includes banks, defense contractors, nonprofit organizations, and even the Department of Defense. I view myself as a professional speaker and consultant.

In my work with these clients, I pass along the values and techniques that I learned and honed in the Corps. We all have obstacles in life, I tell them. Acknowledge the obstacles and "make it happen." I start my lectures wearing a flight suit and end it in a business suit. It helps make the point.

My friends joke that I personify the old adage "Once a Marine, Always a Marine." I'm always urging my listeners to ask themselves "What is your plan of attack?" I talk about making "flight plans" instead of "road maps." I urge them to do more than just promise to try. "Do it!" I say.

I'm sure that what I learned in the military will always stay with me. The dedication, the commitment, the loyalty, that bond that comes with being a Marine -- you don't find it anywhere else. Everything I do stems from my time in the Corps. I'm standing on a strong legacy.

I'm immensely proud of having been able to serve my country, and thankful for having joined the Corps. I've more than fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a mounted policeman. I'm certain that very few of the cops who rode horseback in my childhood days ever flew choppers in combat.

Answering the Call is a monthly series of short articles by prominent men and women discussing the impact of their time in the military on their later lives.

Vernice Armour: First African-American Female Combat Pilot

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone (August 9, 1877 – May 10, 1957)

was an African-American businesswoman, inventor and philanthropist. She was one of the first African American woman to become a millionaire. In the first three decades of the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial and educational enterprise centered on cosmetics for African-American women.



Due to the high demand for her product in St. Louis, Turnbo opened her first shop on 2223 Market Street in 1902.[8] She also launched a wide advertising campaign in the black press, held news conferences, toured many southern states, and recruited many women whom she trained to sell her products.[2]

One of her selling agents, Sarah Breedlove Davis[3] (who became known as Madam C. J. Walker when she set up her own business), operated in Denver, Colorado until a disagreement led Walker to leave the company. Ms. Walker took the original Poro formula and created her own brand of it. This development was one of the reasons which led then Mrs. Pope to copyright her products under the name "Poro" because of what she called fraudulent imitations and to discourage counterfeit versions.[2] Poro was a combination of the married names of Annie Pope and her sister Laura Roberts.[3] Due to the growth in her business, in 1910 Turnbo moved to a larger facility on 3100 Pine Street.[8]

In addition to a manufacturing plant, it contained facilities for a beauty college, which she named Poro College.[8] The building included a manufacturing plant, a retail store where Poro products were sold, business offices, a 500-seat auditorium, dining and meeting rooms, a roof garden, dormitory, gymnasium, bakery, and chapel. It served the African-American community as a center for religious and social functions.[7]

The College's curriculum addressed the whole student; students were coached on personal style for work: on walking, talking, and a style of dress designed to maintain a solid persona.[10] Poro College employed nearly 200 people in St. Louis. Through its school and franchise businesses, the college created jobs for almost 75,000 women in North and South America, Africa and the Philippines.[2]

By the 1920s, Annie Turnbo Malone had become a multi-millionaire.[6] In 1924 she paid income tax of nearly $40,000, reportedly the highest in Missouri. While extremely wealthy, Malone lived modestly, giving thousands of dollars to the local black YMCA and the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC.[2] She also donated money to the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, where she served as president on the board of directors from 1919 to 1943.[8] With her help, in 1922 the Home bought a facility at 2612 Goode Avenue (which was renamed Annie Malone Drive in her honor).

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

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Amelia Boynton Biography
Civil Rights Activist (1911–2015)
Amelia Boynton Robinson was a civil rights pioneer who championed voting rights for African Americans. She was brutally beaten for helping to lead a 1965 civil rights march, which became known as Bloody Sunday and drew national attention to the Civil Rights Movement. She was also the first black woman to run for Congress in Alabama.
Who Was Amelia Boynton?

Amelia Boynton was born on August 18, 1911, in Savannah, Georgia. Her early activism included holding black voter registration drives in Selma, Alabama, from the 1930s through the '50s. In 1964, she became both the first African-American woman and the first female Democratic candidate to run for a seat in Congress from Alabama. The following year, she helped lead a civil rights march during which she and her fellow activists were brutally beaten by state troopers. The event, which became known as Bloody Sunday, drew nationwide attention to the Civil Rights movement. In 1990, Boynton won the Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom. She died on August 26, 2015 at the age of 104.

https://www.biography.com/activist/amelia-boynton

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Arthur George Gaston (Demopolis, Alabama, July 4, 1892 – Birmingham, Alabama,January 19, 1996)

Arthur George Gaston (Demopolis, Alabama, July 4, 1892 – Birmingham, Alabama,January 19, 1996) was an American businessman who established a number of businesses in Birmingham, Alabama, and who played a significant role in the struggle to integrate Birmingham in 1963. In his lifetime, Gaston's companies were some of the most prominent African-American businesses in the American South.

Gaston published a memoir in 1968, coinciding with the founding of the A. G. Gaston Boys club.[12]

Gaston famously said, "I never went into anything with the idea of making money…I thought of doing something, and it would come up and make money. I never thought of trying to get rich”.[11]

Gaston died January 20, 1996, at the age of 103.[18]

He left behind an insurance company, the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company; a construction firm, the A.G. Gaston Construction Company, Smith and Gaston Funeral Home, and a financial institution, CFS Bancshares. The City of Birmingham owns the motel, which it plans to make into an annex to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, built on the former site of the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company. His net worth was estimated to be more than $130,000,000 at the time of his death.[28]

In 2017 President Barack Obama designated the A.G. Gaston Motel the center of the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Fatima Robinson (1971–)

• 
  
  Fatima Robinson was born on August 29, 1971, in Little Rock (Pulaski County). At four years of age, she left Arkansas with her mother, Kadijah Furqan, and two younger sisters, moving to Los Angeles, California. She graduated from high school at age sixteen and started to work in her mother’s hair salon after becoming a certified cosmetologist. However, she dreamed of a life in professional dance, having taught herself various moves by watching Flashdanceand other movies. Robinson soon won a competition to be a dancer in a music video and followed this up with other contest wins and performances.
  
  Robinson quickly made the transition to choreography, becoming known for her ability to blend modern hip-hop styles with more classical dance moves. In 1992, director John Singleton, who had just released the hit movie Boyz N the Hood the previous year, recruited Robinson to do the choreography for a Michael Jackson music video he was filming, “Remember the Time.” The video, which is nine minutes long, featured not only Jackson but also actor Eddie Murphy, model Iman, and basketball legend Magic Johnson, among other noteworthy personalities.
  
  Working on such a high-level project launched Robinson into the upper echelons of choreography, and she began to land music and television work. She worked with renowned director Michael Mann on three of his movies: Ali (2001), Collateral (2004), and Miami Vice (2006); on the 2005 television movie Their Eyes Were Watching God, produced by Oprah Winfrey; television specials such as the NAACP Image Awards and the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors; and the Oscar-nominated 2006 movie Dreamgirls. She has also continued to choreograph music videos, being nominated several times for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography in a Music Video and winning in 2004 for the Black Eyed Peas video “Hey Mama.”
  
  Robinson has also choreographed network television commercials for Pepsi, Gap, and Verizon. As of 2016, she was one of only two women of color to have choreographed the Academy Awards. She also choreographed The Wiz Live!, which aired on NBC on December 3, 2015. This was a live television presentation of The Wiz, a modern reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz(and featured Arkansan Ne-Yo as the Tin Man). Critical reception was immensely positive, and the production was nominated for several awards.
  
  Robinson lives in Beverly Hills, California. She has one son, Xuly.
  
  For additional information:
  Fatima Robinson. Fatima Robinson(accessed November 6, 2016).
  
  “Fatima Robinson.” Internet Movie Database. Fatima Robinson - IMDb(accessed November 6, 2016).

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Junius George Groves (April 12, 1859 – August 17, 1925)

was an American farmer and entrepreneur remembered as one of the wealthiest black Americans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known as the "Potato King of the World" by 1902, Groves optimized potato growth methods, out-producing anyone else in the world to that point. His vast financial success—‌analyzed further in Booker T. Washington's The Negro in Business (1907)—‌was utilized to help combat racism by providing economic opportunities for other black Americans.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

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Vanessa Williams Biography
Singer (1963–)

Synopsis

In 1983, Vanessa Williams made history when she was crowned the first African-American Miss America. But soon thereafter, nude photos of Williams were plastered on the pages of Penthouse magazine. Horrified, the Miss America pageant board asked Williams to resign her post. Williams soon started a singing career, finding great success and then branching out into acting, again with success.


Early Life
Entertainer Vanessa Lynn Williams was born on March 18, 1963, in Bronx, New York. Williams's parents, Milton and Helen, both worked as music educators. They moved Vanessa and her brother, Chris, to the upscale suburbs of Millwood, New York, when Vanessa was 12 months old, so they could take jobs as music teachers in Millwood's public school system.

Music was an integral part of Vanessa's early life, and by the time she was 10, she had devoted herself almost completely to music and dance. With plans to become the first African-American Rockette, she studied classical and jazz dance as well as theatre arts. She also excelled at French horn, piano, and violin. A natural performer and outgoing student, Williams was a high achiever who landed the Presidential Scholarship for Drama at graduation and gained entry into the Carnegie Mellon University theater arts program in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Although she was only one of 12 students accepted into Carnegie Mellon's program that year, Williams decided to attend Syracuse University in upstate New York instead.


During the summer of her freshman year at Syracuse, 19-year-old Williams took a job as a receptionist and makeup artist for local photographer Tom Chiapel. Chiapel frequently arranged photo-shoots involving female nudes, and when the photographer expressed interest in using Williams as a model, she took the chance. Williams sat for two sessions with Chiapel, followed by a third session with another photographer in New York City. Dissatisfied with the provocative nature of the third photos, she asked for the negatives and thought they had been destroyed.

Miss America Scandal
Williams returned to Syracuse in the fall, and continued to study theater and music. Around this time, she was asked her to participate in the Miss Greater Syracuse pageant. Initially hesitant to enter the competition, Williams decided to compete, winning easily. She went on to be crowned Miss New York in 1983.

On September 17, 1983, six months after entering her first beauty pageant, Williams made history when she was crowned the first African-American Miss America. Her prize included a $25,000 scholarship, as well as instant fame and a variety of product endorsements. As she came to the end of her year-long reign in July of 1984, Williams found herself in the midst of a scandal. The photos Chiapel took during Williams's freshman year, which the beauty queen had not authorized for publication, were plastered on the pages of Penthouse magazine. Horrified, the Miss America pageant board asked Williams to resign her post.



Williams stepped down from her position, relinquishing several million dollars worth of endorsement deals in the process. She was allowed to keep her crown, her scholarship money and the official title of Miss America 1984. But Williams was asked not to attend the coronation of the 1984 Miss America, in which the previous Miss America traditionally passes her crown on to the new queen. Devastated, Williams decided not to return to school, and instead focused on putting the embarrassing incident in her past.

Successful Comeback
In the wake of the incident, it seemed that Williams would never have a legitimate career in Hollywood. The fallen beauty queen was largely ignored by the film industry, with the exception of a few TV sitcom appearances-and more than a few offers to star in adult films. A music career was also beginning to seem out of the question, as mainstream record companies were timid to embrace the entertainer's less-than-wholesome image. A lawsuit against Penthouse seemed fruitless after several months of litigation that seemed to go nowhere. Williams eventually dropped the $500 million suit against the company in order to move on with her life.

Believing the "best revenge is success," Williams persisted in cleaning up her tarnished image. With the help of public relations expert Ramon Hervey II, Williams managed to land a legitimate film role in the 1987 movie The Pick Up Artist, starring Molly Ringwald, Robert Downey, Jr. and Dennis Hopper. That same year, Williams and Hervey were married.

Music Career
Hervey put Williams's career back on track, helping her to sign a recording contract with PolyGram, and supporting her through the release of her 1988 album, The Right Stuff. The album went gold, and three singles—"The Right Stuff," "He's Got the Look" and "Dreamin'" all made it into the top 10. Her debut album won her the title of Best New Female Artist award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that year, as well as three Grammy award nominations.

In 1991, Williams released her second album, The Comfort Zone. The album sold 2.2 million copies in the U.S., eventually going triple platinum. The single "Save the Best for Last," on the album jumped to No. 1 on the pop charts, staying there for five weeks. Critics also recognized the album, and Williams was tapped for five Grammy nominations. In 1993, her duet with R&B star Brian McKnight, "Love Is", also met with popularity. The song spent three weeks at No. 1 on the adult contemporary charts.

The Sweetest Days (1994), Williams's third album, experienced success as well, going platinum in the U.S., and garnering two Grammy Award nominations. Other popular singles included Williams's rendition of "Colors of the Wind," for Disney's Pocohontas animated film. The song became a hit in 1995, and earned Williams another Grammy nomination. All in all, Williams has received 16 Grammy nominations for her music career.


Recent Work
Williams has experienced equal success television and film. On the small screen, career highlights include her performance as Motown execute Suzanne de Passe in the TV movie The Jacksons - An American Dream (1992); a starring role as demanding boss Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty (2006-10); and a recurring role as Renee Filmore-Jones in the drama Desperate Housewives (2010).

In film, Williams has demonstrated a wide range of ability with movies such as Eraser (1996), the action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the romantic comedy Soul Food(1997), for which she earned an Image Award. She also appeared as the publicist for Miley Cyrus' character Hannah Montana in the wildly popular teen film Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009). She continued her success on the silver screen with a role in the Tyler Perry film Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013).

Stage work also continues to be one of Williams's passions. She showed audiences her dark side as the seductress Aurora in the 1994 performance of the musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. She then wowed audiences with her performance as the witch in Stephen Sonheim's fairytale musical, Into the Woods in 2002. And in 2013 she joined the cast of the Tony-nominated play The Trip to Bountiful in 2013, playing the role of Jessie Mae Watts alongside Cube Gooding, Jr. and Cicely Tyson.

Williams and Hervey ended their marriage in 1997. They have three children together: Melanie, Jillian and Devin. In 1999, Williams married basketball star Rick Fox. The couple divorced in 2004, after Fox was caught with another woman by tabloid magazines. They have one child, Sasha Gabriella.

In September 2014, Williams confirmed that she was engaged to Jim Skrip, her boyfriend of three years, during an appearance on The Queen Latifah Show. The couple met while vacationing in Egypt in 2012. They married on July 4th, 2015.

In September 2015, Williams returned to the Miss America pageant as a celebrity judge. She performed her song "Oh How the Years Go By," and then received a public apology from Sam Haskell, executive chairman of the Miss America pageant, for being forced to resign her title in 1984. “I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be,” Haskell told Williams onstage during the televised show. She responded by saying the apology was “so unexpected but so beautiful.”

Williams currently resides in Chappaqua, New York.

https://www.biography.com/personality/vanessa-williams

 

[HarlemHottie]

Audley “Queen Mother” Moore

Audley “Queen Mother” Moore, prominent Harlem civil rights activist, was born in 1898, in New Iberia, Louisiana to Ella and St. Cry Moore. Moore’s parents passed away before she completed primary school. Following their deaths, she dropped out of school to earn a living as a hairdresser to support her two younger sisters. She educated herself by reading the writings of Frederick Douglass and listening to the speeches of Marcus Garvey.

Moved by the Black Nationalist message in a speech Marcus Garvey gave in New Orleans, Moore migrated to Harlem, New York in 1922 during the early years of the Harlem Renaissance. While in Harlem, she became a member and then leader within Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). A proud shareholder in the Black Star Line, she helped organize UNIA conventions in New York. Moore married Frank Warner in 1922. They had one son, Thomas.

After the demise of the UNIA, Moore founded several organizations. With her base in Harlem, Moore founded and served as president of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women in 1950. In 1963 she founded the Committee for Reparations for Descendants of U. S. Slaves, and The Republic of New Africa, which demanded self-determination, land, and reparations for African Americans. During the height of the Cold War, Moore presented a petition to the United Nations in 1957 which demanded land and billions in reparations for people of African descent and it requested direct support for African Americans who sought to immigrate to Africa.

Moore also focused on local issues. In 1966 she participated a sit-in at a Board of Education meeting in Brooklyn in 1966. Moore and the other protesters said board members failed to adequately fund schools in African-American communities. She also served as the bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church of Judea and she co-founded the Commission to Eliminate Racism, Council of Churches of Greater New York.

While attending the funeral of former Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah in 1972, the Ashanti ethnic group bestowed upon her honorary title “Queen Mother.” In 1989, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. honored Moore and 40 other famous black women in Brian Lanker’s photo exhibit, “I Dream a World.”

Moore’s activism continued through the mid-1990s, where she made her final public appearance at the Million Man March in 1995. On May 2, 1997 Queen Mother Moore passed away at the age of 98 from natural causes in a Brooklyn nursing home. At the time of her death she was survived by a son, five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

The current Queen Mother is a close family friend.

Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Queen Mother Blakely at United Nations
Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely, born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is an American nun, writer and activist. She is the successor of Queen Mother Audley Moore. She was recognized as the Queen Mother of the naming ceremony of the African Burial Ground National Monument by the U.S. National Park Service and Department of the Interior in 2003.[citation needed] She attended the unveiling ceremony of the United Nations' permanent memorial “The Ark of Return” on March 25, 2015.[1][2] As a goodwill ambassador to Africa at the United Nations, she claims to represent the 55 million displaced Africans of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade,[citation needed] and calls for reparations for slavery. She has published books and articles on self-reliance, education, recreation and culture.

Contents

• 1 Biography
• 2 Work
• 3 Lawsuit
• 4 References

Biography
In 1958, Blakely entered the Franciscan Handmaids of the Most Pure Heart of Mary convent for ten years, as a teen under the name Sister Noelita Marie. She graduated in 1965 with a BS degree in Religious Education from the Franciscan Handmaids of The Most Pure Heart of Mary College affiliated with The Catholic University of America (CUA).

In 1969, Blakely founded the New Future Foundation Inc.[3][4]

She was enstooled in Kpando, Volta Region in Ghana and subsequently received by the king of the Ashanti Kingdom. After this, she was given over to the king's mother for her blessing. Finally, she was blessed by Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Ampem II, the Asantehemaa of the Ashantis, as the Nana (Queen Mother) of North America.[citation needed] She was subsequently initiated in another ceremony by the Maasai People. Later, in the Arusha Region of Tanzania, Saint Serigne Saliou Mbacké, former President of Tanzania Julius Nyerere, and Dr. Angie Elizabeth Brooks of Liberia, the first woman President of the United Nations General Assembly, conducted a third initiation.[citation needed] She criticizes mankind[according to whom?] for what she believes to be economic injustice against billions of lives worldwide, and campaigns for improvements to education, basic business training, science and technology, entrepreneurship, and compassion as potential solutions for economic, social and sustainable development. She has served on the local and state level committees[which?] for children and youth. She served on the United States National Commission on the International Year of the Child under President Jimmy Carter.[citation needed] She also served as a co-chair for UNICEF International Day of the African Child from 1991-1993.[citation needed]

Work
Blakely has published two books, "The Harlem Street Nun: Autobiography of Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely (Volume 1)" in 1987 (ISBN 978-1492289678) and "Pilgrimage to Goree Island (The Harlem Street Nun) (Volume 2)" in 2016 (ISBN 978-1502370167). In 1995, she was appointed “The Community Mayor of Harlem” and “Ambassador of Goodwill to Africa” since the late 70's.[5][6]

Lawsuit
In November 2011, Blakely filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company and Sony Pictures claiming that her life was the basis for the 1992 film Sister Act.[7] She sued for "breach of contract, misappropriation of likeness and unjust enrichment". She later dropped the original lawsuit in January 2012 to serve a more robust lawsuit in late August 2012 with the New York Supreme Court, asking for $1 billion in damages from Disney. In early February, 2013, the New York Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, awarding no damages to Blakely.[8]

Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely - Wikipedia

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Scott Winfield Bond (1852–1933)

Scott Winfield Bond was a successful landowner, farmer, and businessman at a time when the total number of African-American farm owners and their average acreage declined both in the state and in the nation. He was among wealthy Arkansans in the period before the New Deal.

Scott W. Bond was born enslaved in Livingston, Mississippi, near Canton. His mother, Ann Bond, was enslaved as a domestic. His mother married fellow slave William Bond when Scott was eighteen months old. On the eve of the Civil War, the white Maben-Bond family moved their enslaved property from Mississippi to Fayette County, Tennessee, and finally to Cross County, Arkansas. Bond’s mother died during the Civil War, and Bond moved with his stepfather to Madison (St. Francis County) and remained in his household until about 1875. He left his stepfather on good terms and with a quilt his mother gave him before her death.

Bond engaged in business opportunities that facilitated his farming and gained a reputation for prudence. He opened a store in Madison in partnership with his stepfather and Abe Davis, with Bond operating the store. Undercapitalized, he closed the store after several months. Eventually, he bought the Madison Mercantile Company as sole proprietor and maintained the store to supply his farms. He also purchased four additional town lots. By 1915, he owned five cotton gin plants, a sawmill, and a gravel pit that supplied the Rock Island Railroad. The number of his farms had increased to twenty-one, with a total of 5,000 acres. The farm on which the Bond family resided was called “The Cedars.”

Bond was a member of the National Negro Business League (NNBL) established by Booker T. Washington in 1900. Bond addressed the annual meeting of the organization in New York City in 1902 and secured Washington’s pledge to visit St. Francis County. The following year, the NNBL held its annual meeting in Little Rock (Pulaski County). After the conference, Bond was Washington’s host on a visit to Madison. The occasion included a public address by Washington and a barbecue in his honor at Bond’s home farm.

Three of the Bond’s sons—Waverly T., Theophilus, and Ulysses S.—joined their father in managing his ventures. By the time of Bond’s death in March 1933, he owned and farmed 12,000 acres in and near Madison, raised livestock, and operated a large mercantile store, several cotton gins, a gravel pit, lumber yard, and sawmill. It was reported that he was fatally injured by one of his registered bulls. He was eighty-one years old. Bond is buried at Madison.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Hip-Hop Gem: MC Hammer Was The First Hip-Hop Artist To Go Diamond

Hao Nguyen

Hip-hop heads, did you know that MC Hammer was the first hip-hop artist achieve diamond status when his third album, Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em, sold over 10 million copies?

After independently releasing his debut album, Feel My Power, in 1986 and selling over 60,000 units, MC Hammer caught the attention of several major record labels, including Capitol Records who signed the Oakland rapper shortly afterwards.




Hammer’s sophomore album, Let’s Get It Started, released a couple years later did much better commercially, hitting double platinum and topping the R&B charts. But it wasn’t until his third album that Hammer truly transformed into the legendary commercial force that he is known for now.

Promoted by the smash hit single “U Can’t Touch This” – which topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 – Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em was released to massive commercial success, selling over 14 million copies worldwide within a year. It remains one of hip-hop’s best selling album of all time.

The album’s success pushed Hammer and hip-hop overall firmly into the mainstream spotlight and helped launch the genre into a global phenomenon.

 

[Black Lightning]

 

[Black Lightning]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Sara Spencer Washington (June 6, 1889 – March 23, 1953)

was the founder of Apex News and Hair Company and was honored at the 1939 New York World's Fair as one of the "Most Distinguished Businesswomen" for her Apex empire of beauty company, schools, and products. Washington gave back to her community, whether founding a nursing home called Apex Rest in Atlantic City, New Jersey or the Apex Golf Club, one of the first African-American owned golf courses in the nation.

In 1939, Washington was recognized for her company at the 1939 New York World's Fair.[6] Washington's empire had expanded from the Apex Beauty Products Company to the Apex News and Hair Company, the Apex Publishing Company, which published the Apex News for Washington's estheticians and sales agents, Apex Laboratories which created her cosmetics and products, Apex Drug Company, and Apex Beauty Colleges.[7]

Washington's international recognition from her 1939 award enhanced both her business empire and the status of African American women, as her business empire had enabled her to become one of America's first black millionaires. Washington's success enabled her to give back to her community.[8] She contributed twenty acres of farm land as a campsite for African American youth, and gave an endowment of a home for girls, supporting the educational elements of the National Youth Administration program.[7]

Madame Sara Spencer Washington was born in 1889 in Berkley, Virginia. She attended Norfolk Mission College and later attended Colombia and Northwestern College where she studied advanced chemistry. She began her career as a dress maker, but after moving to Atlantic City with her ill mother she opened her first hairdressing business in 1913.

Her business flourished as she worked in the shop during the day and went door-to-door in the evenings selling the beauty products she had developed with her in-depth knowledge of chemistry. She eventually obtained patents for her hair pressing oils and scalp creams that where advancements upon existing methods of hair straightening.

In 1919 Washington founded Apex News and Hair Company. The original business was multi-faceted: It was the factory where the products she had developed where manufactured, it was also a beauty school that provided young black women with a sustainable source of income, and it was an independently run monthly magazine for beauticians that featured her products. Her business quickly expanded and by the 1930s her empire included Apex Beauty Products Company, Apex Publishing Company, Apex Laboritories, Apex Drug Company, and Apex Beauty College. Her laboratory manufactured over 75 products from raw materials and employed over 215 women and men in the Atlantic City area. Her beauty colleges had branches all across the U.S. in: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Richmond, Virgina; Baltimore, and Newark, New Jersey. There was even a branch of her beauty college in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her beauty colleges graduated about 4,000 students each year and according to a 1946 newspaper report, more than 45,000 agents were selling her products around the world. Her businesses provided thousands of black women with a cosmetology education that allowed them to open their own salons, and work independently as sales agents for her products.

photo courtesy of pressofatlanticcity.com

Washington had founded a beauty empire by the mid-1930’s in which beauty technicians around the world learned to administer her system, using her products, while independent sales agents went door-to-door selling her products. The Apex Beauty Products Company was the largest black-owned business in New Jersey and was one of the nation’s largest black-owned manufacturing companies in the 1930’s. She was one of the first female African American millionaires and was honored at the 1939 New York World’s Fair as one of the “Most Distinguished Businesswomen” in the country.

photo courtesy of sswmovie.com

Madame Washington was also very active in her local community. She was an active member on the Atlantic City Board of Trade for many years. She was also elected to the Atlantic County Republican Committee in 1938 and served as a New Jersey delegate at the 1940 Republican National Convention. Her many titles also included being the president of the Northside Business and Professional Women’s Club in Atlantic City, chair of the Industrial Department of the New Jersey State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, and during WWII she filed the position of secretary and treasurer of the New Jersey Welfare Commission on the Conditions of Urban Colored Populations.

Her commitment to her community extended well past political involvement into steadfast philanthropic endeavors. She founded a nursing home for the elderly in Atlantic City called Apex Rest. After enduring discrimination at a local gold course, she founded her own golf course: The Apex Golf and Country Club for patrons of all races. She sponsored the first black float in the Atlantic City Easter Parade in 1947, and was well known in the community for distributing truckloads of coal to poor families in the community during harsh winter months. She also supported many charities including the Betty Bacharach Home for Children in Longport, New Jersey and the Ellen P. Hunter home for Girls in Atlantic City (which was named after her mother). She also donated 20 acres of her own farm in Egg Harbor, New Jersey as a campsite for black youth in allegiance with the National Youth Administration (which was one of the New Deal programs).

By the time of her death in 1953 her business was worth more than a million dollars, it directly employed around 500 people, as well as the 45,000 independent Apex agents. Her adopted daughter took over the business after Madame Washington died, which was later sold to another beauty products company.

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

@2:00 she was like lol

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Diane Nash

Civil rights activist Diane Judith Nash was born on May 15, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois to Leon Nash and Dorothy Bolton Nash. Nash grew up a Roman Catholic and attended parochial and public schools in Chicago. In 1956, she graduated from Hyde Park High School in Chicago, Illinois and began her college career at Howard University in Washington, D.C. before transferring to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

While a student in Nashville Nash witnessed southern racial segregation for the first time in her life. In 1959, she attended nonviolent protest workshops led by Reverend James Lawsonwho was affiliated with the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference. Later that year she protested exclusionary racial policies by participating in impromptu sit-ins at Nashville’s downtown lunch counters. Nash was elected chair of the Student Central Committee because of her nonviolent protest philosophy and her reputation from these sit-ins.

By February 13, 1960, the mass sit-ins that began in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1 had spread to Nashville. Nash organized and led many of the protests which ultimately involved hundreds of black and white area college students. As a result, by early April Nashville Mayor Ben West publicly called for the desegregation of Nashville’s lunch counters and organized negotiations between Nash and other student leaders and downtown business interests. Because of these negotiations, on May 10, 1960 Nashville, Tennessee became the first southern city to desegregate lunch counters.

Meanwhile Nash and other students from across the South assembled in Raleigh, North Carolina at the urging of NAACP activist Ella Baker. There they founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in April 1960.

After the Nashville sit-ins, Nash helped coordinate and participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides across the Deep South. Later that year Nash dropped out of college to become a full-time organizer, strategist, and instructor for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nash married civil rights activist James Bevel in 1961 and moved to Jackson, Mississippiwhere she began organizing voter registration and school desegregation campaigns for SCLC. Arrested dozens of times for their civil rights work in Mississippi and Alabama in the early 1960s, Nash and her husband, James Bevel, received SCLC’s Rosa Parks award from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965. Dr. King cited especially their contributions to the Selma Right-to-vote movement that eventually led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1966, Nash joined the Vietnam Peace Movement. Through the 1960s she stayed involved in political and social transformation. In the 1980s she fought for women’s rights. Nash now works in real estate in her home town Chicago, Illinois, but continues to speak out for social change.