Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Rhapscallion Démone]

The Nat King Cole Show: First Black-Hosted TV Variety Show
Updated on June 24, 2018

Ronald E Franklin
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Ron is a student of African American history. His writing highlights the stories of people who overcame prejudice to achieve great things.

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Nat King Cole | Source

Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he. But in December of 1957 his namesake, Nat King Cole, was anything but merry.

Nat was a superstar singer whose records were selling in the millions all around the world. That stardom had landed him his own television variety program, which had been broadcast nationwide for the past thirteen months on the NBC network. Now the show had been canceled, leaving Nat disappointed, sad, and somewhat angry.

A Top Quality TV Show That Could Never Find a sponsor
The program had seemed to have all the ingredients necessary for success. It had top notch production values, booked the very best musical and variety talent in the land as guests, and in Nat had a host who was one of the most popular and personable singers in the world. But the one thing it did not have, and was never able to get, was a national sponsor.

A few local advertisers signed on to sponsor the program in their cities. These included Rheingold beer in Hartford, CT and New York City; Coca-Cola in Houston; Regal beer in New Orleans; and Gallo wine and Colgate toothpaste in Los Angeles. But no sponsors were ever found who where willing to associate their brand with the show on a national basis.

Nat Cole felt he knew precisely why that was. He was an African American man starring in his own show, not in a subservient or obsequious role à la “Amos and Andy,” but as the host, the equal of all the great talents, black and white, who appeared on the program. And to most potential advertisers, fearful about how their sales in the South might be impacted, that was reason enough to avoid the show.

Nat King Cole the jazz pianist | Source
Not unnaturally, Nat had believed that his stature as an international celebrity, and the acceptability he had demonstrated in his numerous appearances on other shows, would be enough to overcome the “whites only” traditions of network TV. By the time the Nat King Cole Show went on the air in November of 1956, Nat was a household name around the world, and wildly popular as a singer throughout the nation.

The King Cole Trio in 1944 | Source
By the mid 1950s Nat King Cole was a worldwide superstar due to a string of hits, such as "Mona Lisa," "Nature Boy," "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66," and "Unforgettable." He was a frequent guest star on a number of TV variety programs of the time, including "The Ed Sullivan Show," “The Jackie Gleason Show,” “The Red Skelton Hour,” “Cavalcade of Stars,” and “The Milton Berle Show.”

With his very positive reception on these shows, by 1954 it seemed natural to give Nat King Cole a show of his own. CBS signed him that year to ten guest appearances on other programs, giving rise to rumors that the network was preparing the ground for Nat to have his own program. But somehow that CBS show never materialized. It was NBC that finally decided to take the plunge in 1956.

The Nat King Cole Show Goes on the Air
“The Nat King Cole Show” premiered on NBC on November 5, 1956. Initially it was a 15-minute program broadcast on Mondays from 7:30 to 7:45 pm. That was a prime timeslot, indicating that NBC had high hopes for the show. But there was a major problem from the very beginning. When that first broadcast of Nat’s show hit the airwaves, it did so without any sponsor. It is a measure of NBC’s commitment to making the show succeed that they were willing to eat the costs of those initial broadcasts in the expectation that once potential sponsors saw the quality of the shows, they would eventually get on board.

And the shows were of high quality. First of all, there was Nat himself. Suave and sophisticated, he carried out his hosting duties with aplomb. And as a singer he was at the very top of his career.

The guests who lined up to appear with him on the show were the cream of the entertainment crop: Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Harry Belafonte, Johnny Mercer, Mel Torme, Mahalia Jackson, Robert Mitchum, Pearl Bailey, and Julius LaRosa, among others. As the sponsorship drought continued, many of these great stars appeared for the union minimum because of their dedication to seeing the show succeed.




A High Quality Show Gets Even Better
NBC was just as dedicated. In the absence of a national sponsor, they were able to cobble together a group of around 30 local advertisers who provided some revenue. When the initial ratings for the show were mediocre, instead of backing away, NBC actually increased it from a 15-minute to a half hour broadcast, and gave it a bigger production budget to bring it to an even higher level of excellence.

And these improvements bore fruit. Ratings improved to the point where they were often on par with, and sometimes ahead of, the competition. During the summer of 1957, the show was the top rated program in New York City.


The Impact of Racial Prejudice
Nat and his production team were committed to removing every obstacle they could to the show’s acceptance. Well aware of the prevailing racial prejudices of the time, Nat was very careful about how he interacted with his guest stars – particularly white females.

As is common in show business, Nat was used to exchanging hugs and kisses with other performers. But on the Nat King Cole television show, you never saw the star even touch a white woman. When he would sing a duet with a Peggy Lee, for example, there would usually be a stool or chair or some other physical object between them, a barrier not to be crossed.

As ludicrous as such precautions may seem today, they were deemed absolutely necessary at the time. In 1955, only a year before Nat’s program went on the air, 14-year old Emmet Till, a youngster from Chicago who didn’t comprehend the utter viciousness of racial hatred, was murdered in Mississippi for simply speaking to a white woman. And in April of the very year his TV program began its run, Nat himself, performing in an integrated show, was injured when he was attacked on stage in Birmingham, Alabama by members of the White Citizens Council. He never again played a venue in the South.

So, Nat King Cole was well aware of the tightrope he had to walk on his show. In a February 1958 article in Ebony magazine, Nat shared how he approached these realities:

"We proved that a Negro star could play host to whites, including women, and we proved it in such good taste that no one was offended… I didn't bend over backwards, but I didn't go out of my way to offend anyone."

Advertisers Remain Unimpressed
None of this made any difference to advertising agencies terrified of Southern reaction to a black man hosting his own television show, and being shown as equal to whites in the process. Even though none of the 30 local sponsors ever reported any problems, trepidation among the advertising executives of Madison Avenue kept them from even attempting to persuade their clients to sponsor the show. A representative of Max Factor cosmetics reportedly said that a Negro couldn't sell lipstick for them. The show business newspaper, Variety, reported that "At one major agency the word has gone out: 'No Negro performers allowed.'"

These were the people Nat King Cole blamed for the inability of his show to ever find a sponsor. He would later famously, and somewhat bitterly, say of them, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."

The Jackie Robinson of Television
Part of Nat’s bitterness at the ad men’s timidity arose because he was well aware of the importance of his history-making effort. In his Ebony magazine article, which was entitled "Why I Quit My TV Show," he spoke of how he viewed the significance of his pioneering program.

"For 13 months I was the Jackie Robinson of television. I was the pioneer, the test case, the Negro first. I didn't plan it that way, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes to see that I was the only Negro on network television with his own show. On my show rode the hopes and tears and dreams of millions of people... Once a week for 64 consecutive weeks I went to bat for these people. I sacrificed and drove myself. I plowed part of my salary back into the show. I turned down $500,000 in dates in order to be on the scene. I did everything I could to make the show a success. And what happened? After a trailblazing year that shattered all the old bugaboos about Negroes on TV, I found myself standing there with the bat on my shoulder. The men who dictate what Americans see and hear didn't want to play ball."

He went on to note that:

"When we went on the air last summer, two big companies were on the verge of buying. But, at the last moment, somebody said, 'No, we won't take a chance.' Two other sponsors turned us down cold. I won't call their names, but they were big, very big. They turned us down and then lost money on inferior shows."

Decades later, Nat’s widow spoke of his disappointment at his show’s inability to find a sponsor. "He really thought he could change things," Maria Cole said. "He just really thought the show was going to change things."

The Nat King Cole Show Is Canceled – by Nat King Cole
Nat never blamed NBC for the demise of his show. For that network he had only words of praise. "The network supported this show from the beginning," he said. "From Mr. Sarnoff on down, they tried to sell it to agencies. They could have dropped it after the first thirteen weeks."

Neither did Nat ever blame viewers, not even those in the South. His ire was reserved for what he considered to be gutless advertising executives. "After all,” he said, “Madison Avenue is in the North."

Ironically, it was Nat himself who pulled the plug on his show. With the continuing lack of national sponsorship, NBC reached a point where it could no longer keep the show in its prime time slot. They were willing to continue with the program, but when the Singer Sewing Machine Company wanted that time for an adult western called "The Californians" (you remember that program, don’t you?), the network felt they had to move Nat’s show to a less prominent spot on their schedule. They offered to put it on at 7:00 pm on Saturdays, a much less desirable time. Nat said, no.

"It was hard for him, very hard," Maria Cole recalls. "He said 'No, I can't do it anymore. I won't do it.'"

The last episode of The Nat King Cole Show was broadcast on December 17, 1957.



Was It Worth It?
A lot of people sacrificed a lot in the attempt to make The Nat King Cole Show a success. Did its cancellation signal that their efforts had been in vain? Not at all. Today, the show is celebrated as a pioneer that opened the door for later African American entertainers on network television. Nat King Cole in 1956-57 paved the way for Flip Wilson in 1970, who became the first African American to host a network TV show that was an unqualified hit.

And the Cole show itself has never been forgotten. Maria Cole, recognizing not only the show’s place in history, but also the quality of the programs themselves, preserved kinescope recordings of the broadcasts. (Kinescope technology, in the days before video tape, recorded television programs by filming them off a TV monitor). These have now been digitally remastered, and made available on Apple’s iTunes.

Nat King Cole died of throat cancer in 1965 at the age of 45. But his legacy, not only as a singer, but as a pioneer for racial justice and reconciliation, lives on.

 

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Andrew Jackson Beard (1849–1921)

was an African American inventor. He invented the first automatic railroad car coupler in 1897, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio in 2006 for this achievement.[1]

Born in 1849, Andrew Beard spent the first fifteen years of his life as a slave on a small farm in Eastlake, Alabama.[2] A year after he was emancipated, he got married and became a farmer in Pinson, a city just outside Birmingham..

Despite his lack of formal education, was successful in several ventures. In 1872, after working in a flour mill in Hardwicks, Alabama, Beard built his own flour mill, which he operated successfully for many years.[2] In 1881, he patented a new plow design, which he later sold in 1884 for $4000. After the sale of his first patent, Beard returned to farming. In 1887, he patented a second design plow design, which he sold for $5,200, and invested his earnings into real estate.[2]

Following his stint in real-estate, Andrew Beard began to work with and study engines. In 1882, Beard also patented a design for a new rotary steam engine.[2] In 1890 and 1892, while living in Woodlawn, Beard patented two improvements to the knuckle coupler, (invented by Eli H. Janney in 1873 - U.S. Patent 138,405). Beard's patents were U.S. Patent 594,059, granted on 23 November 1897 and U.S. Patent 624,901 granted 16 May 1899. The former was sold for $50,000 in 1897,[2] the equivalent of almost $1.5 million in current funds.[3]

Beard's railroad car coupler included two horizontal jaws, which automatically locked together upon joining. Prior to Beard's coupler, railroad cars in the US were joined together by a large metal pin, which railway workers had to drop into place as the cars came together; miscalculations by workers coupling train cars together often led to serious injuries, including crushed fingers, hands, and arms. Beard's coupler was the first automatic coupler widely used in the US.[2] In 1887, the same year Beard's first automatic coupler was patented, the US Congress passed the Federal Safety Appliance Act, which made it illegal to operate any railroad car without automatic couplers.[1]

Little is known about the period of time from Beard's last patent application in 1897 up until his death.[2]

 

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Otis Blackwell

Otis Blackwell was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist whose work significantly influenced rock ‘n’ roll. His compositions include Elvis Presley’s "Don’t Be Cruel," "All Shook Up" and "Return to Sender,” Little Willie John’s "Fever,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless" (with Winfield Scott), and Jimmy Jones’s "Handy Man."

Otis Blackwell was born in Brooklyn, New York. He won a local talent contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York in 1952, at 21. He could not, however, transform his initial accomplishment into a successful career as a performer. His own recordings never cracked the Top 40 on the hit parade charts. “When you hit them with your best stuff and they just look at you, well, it’s time to go home,” he said.

Blackwell then turned to song writing and soon became one of the leading figures of early rock ‘n’ roll, despite being virtually unknown to the public. Blackwell wrote million-selling songs for Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dee Clark and other leading artists throughout the 1950s. He also recruited other songwriters to write for Presley such as Winfield Scott. When a contract dispute with his publishing company forced him to stop writing songs under his own name, he adopted the white-sounding pen-name, "John Davenport." Throughout his lifetime, Blackwell (aka Davenport) composed more than a thousand songs which had worldwide sales of close to 200 million records.

Otis Blackwell distilled emotions into lyrics that everyone understood. One of his many hit songs, “Don’t Be Cruel,” performed by then relatively unknown Elvis Presley, went to number one on the pop charts. Even Presley was unaware of the song’s potential, recording it on the B side opposite the lead song “Hound Dog.” Although “Hound Dog” stayed number one on the pop charts for four weeks, “Don’t Be Cruel” remained in that position for eight weeks and stayed on the charts for an unprecedented 18 months. Two other early Presley hits, “All Shook Up” and “Return to Sender,” were composed by Blackwell.

For years Blackwell’s talent was largely ignored by the American public. Even Elvis Presley, who owed much of his success to Blackwell’s songs, failed to list him as the head writer on the songs he recorded. Though he was able to live comfortably for the majority of his life, Blackwell saw little of the fortune that other artists made on his music in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He accepted his fate as a learning experience. “Back then, a lot of people got the breaks but they didn’t get the money,” he said. “Until I started writing for Presley, I didn’t know the rules.” As for Presley scoring big on his songs, Blackwell said, “He got famous and I got rewards. That’s fair.”

Otis Blackwell’s career began to slide once the Beatles hit the scene in 1964. There was a brief renaissance in 1976 when Stevie Wonder acknowledged him at a music ceremony. After he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1991, a number of artists recorded a tribute to his songs in an album entitled “Brace Yourself” which was released three years later in 1994. Throughout the 1990s Blackwell’s health declined and he died on May 6, 2002 in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

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Robert Reed Church Sr. (June 18, 1839 – August 29, 1912) was an African-American entrepreneur, businessman and landowner in Memphis, Tennessee, who began his rise during the American Civil War. He was the first African-American "millionaire" in the South. [1] Church built a reputation for great wealth and influence in the business community. He founded Solvent Savings Bank, the first black-owned bank in the city, which extended credit to blacks so they could buy homes and develop businesses. As a philanthropist, Church used his wealth to develop a park, playground, auditorium and other facilities for the black community, who were excluded by state-enacted racial segregation from most such amenities in the city.

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his famous daughter

Mary Church Terrell (September 23, 1863 – July 24, 1954) was one of the first African-American women to earn a college degree, and became known as a national activist for civil rights and suffrage.[1] She taught in the Latin Department at the M Street school (now known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School)—the first African American public high school in the nation—in Washington, DC. In 1896, she was the first African-American woman in the United States to be appointed to the school board of a major city, serving in the District of Columbia until 1906. Terrell was a charter member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909) and the Colored Women's League of Washington (1894). She helped found the National Association of Colored Women (1896) and served as its first national president, and she was a founding member of the National Association of College Women (1910).

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her husband

Robert Heberton Terrell (November 27, 1857 – December 20, 1925) was an attorney and the second African American to serve as a justice of the peace in Washington, DC. In 1911 he was appointed as a judge to the District of Columbia Municipal Court by President William Howard Taft; he was one of four African-American men appointed to high office and considered his "Black Cabinet". He was reappointed as judge under succeeding administrations, including that of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

After graduation from Harvard, from 1884 to 1889, Terrell taught at the M Street High School.[2] He was a participant in the March 5, 1897 meeting to celebrate the memory of leader Frederick Douglass. The group founded the American Negro Academy, led by Alexander Crummell.[4] From the founding of the organization until his death in 1925, Terrell remained active among the scholars, editors, and activists of this first major African-American learned society. He worked with them to refute racist scholarship, promote black claims to individual, social, and political equality, and publish books and articles on the history and sociology of African-American life.[5]

In 1889, Terrell left the M Street School when he was appointed the chief of division, Office of the Fourth Auditor of the U.S. Treasury Department.[2] In 1896, Terrell began a partnership with John R. Lynch to create the law firm of Lynch and Terrell in Washington D.C. Their firm existed for about two years. They closed it in 1898, when President William McKinley appointed Lynch as "a Major and Paymaster of volunteers to serve as such in the Spanish–American War."[2]

In 1899, Terrell returned to the M Street High School as principal. He left in 1901 for another federal political appointment.[2]

 

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Albert Jose Jones: African American Scuba Diving Pioneer

Albert Jose “Doc” Jones is an amazing person. His personal accomplishments and the accomplishments of the organizations he founded are uplifting and inspiring. It feels as if he should be a household name. We want to recognize his achievements and celebrate his life and legacy. Doc Jones is this week’s Humpday Hero.


Background

Albert Jose Jones is a Washington, DC native. He is an alum of Dunbar High School (Washington, DC) and Howard University. It was the love and wisdom shared by the community that allowed him to excel despite being an orphan. These experiences fostered a commitment to volunteerism and a strong sense of community. Jones believes that there is a world of people who just need someone to have faith in them and show them the way. He lives by the mantra that anyone who has something to give should give to others whether it be knowledge, skills or support.

Dr. Jones earned a PhD in Marine Biology from Georgetown University. At Georgetown, he became a Fulbright Scholar and National Science Foundation Fellow. In addition, he served his country as a member of the United States Army. Jones originally learned to scuba dive, in 1957, while a member of the US Armed Forces.

Accomplishments

A scuba diving legend, enthusiast and pioneer is a great way to describe Albert Jones’ legacy. His diving career started in the Atlantic Skin Diving Council. When he originally joined, Dr. Jones was one of the organization’s only African-American members. Their lack of minority outreach led to him founding the Underwater Adventure Seekers Club (UAS) in the District of Columbia in 1959. UAS was the first diving club for African-Americans. This dive club encouraged minorities to learn how to scuba dive and swim. UAS was also one of the first clubs in the United States to certify all of its divers under the PADI system.

Dr. Jones’ success with UAS led to him co-founding the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS). NABS serves as an umbrella organization for similar African-American diving clubs throughout the country. It provides the framework and direction for their member chapters. Its hard work under Dr. Jones leadership resulted in more than fifty diving clubs in the United States and many throughout the world being affiliated with the National Association of Black Scuba Divers. The association has certified over 2,000 divers free of charge. One of it’s most famous students and members is Shirley Lee. She was the first certified African-American female scuba diver in the United States. NABS has also taught over 5,000 people, mostly children, to swim free of charge.

As an individual, “Doc” Jones is a spear fishing champion, scuba rodeo champion, underwater photographer and a seventh degree Black Belt (Tae Kwon Do). His many personal achievements include being selected as the DAN/Rolex International Diver of the Year, the Beneath the Sea Diver of the Year and the Sport Diver Magazine Diver of the Year. In addition, he is an inductee of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame and the Washington, D.C. Hall of Fame. Some other awards he has received include the Scuba Schools International Platinum 5,000 Award for logging over 5,000 dives and contributing to the development of recreational scuba diving in America. At last count, Dr. Jones has logged more than 6,000 dives in more than 50 countries.

International Scuba Diver: Dr. Albert Jones’ Jacket Displays the Flags of Some of the Countries he Traveled to.


Diving with a Purpose (DWP) is another organization Dr. Jones co-founded. DWP organized after a team including Jones helped place a 2,700 pound memorial at the wreck site of a slave ship called the Henrietta Marie. DWP consists of a group of mostly African-American divers who partner with George Washington University and the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture to find and document slave ship wrecks worldwide. Many of their findings will be on display in the Smithsonian Museum.

In conclusion, Dr. Albert Jose Jones aka “Doc” continues to serve as an extreme example of leadership, humility and commitment. Learn, Live and Celebrate his Legacy.

 

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Forest Anderson

Forest Anderson was born in 1874 in Shelby, North Carolina. He became self-sufficient at an early age and made his way to Oklahoma in 1907. He settled near Earlsboro and began sharecropping, and later ended up purchasing the land where he sharecropped. Later, oil was discovered on the land. During school segregation, he built a school for the black children in rural Seminole County. After the bank in the All-Black town of Boley was shut down due to a failed robbery attempt in 1932 by Pretty Boy Floyd's gang, he bought the bank and paid off all of the depositors. In 1949 Ebony magazine listed him as one of the "Ten Richest Negros in America" with a worth of about $2 million. He owned more than 6,600 acres of land when he died in 1952.

He was born in 1874 in Shelby, North Carolina as the son of a former slave. He become self-sufficient at the early age of 7 by working as a water boy for the railroad. He made his way to the State of Oklahoma in the early 1900’s, where he settled in as a share cropper outside the town of Earlsboro.

He was a very successful farmer, and after many years of saving his earnings from farming, he had the opportunity to purchase the land on which he was leasing. A few years later, oil was discovered on the land.

Oil Well, Earlsboro, Oklahoma
He was an astute businessman and owned the mineral rights to his new land purchase. He used the money that he earned from his oil and gas royalties to purchase additional mineral rights and eventually owned more than 6600 acres of land by the time of his death.

He built a school for the black and native children because they could not go to school with the white children. He owned a Ford dealership, a cotton gin, a grist mill, and several buildings. It was rumored that he was also financing a moonshine operation.

Farmers State Bank, Boley, Oklahoma
After the bank in the all-black town of Boley, Oklahoma was shut down due to a failed robbery attempt in 1932 by Pretty Boy Floyd’s gang, he bought the bank and paid off all of the depositors. Ebony Magazine listed him as one of top 10 black millionaires in the United States in April 1949.

Ebony Magazine, April 1949

 

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Sarah Rector (March 3, 1902 – July 22, 1967)

was an African American member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, best known for being the "Richest Colored Girl in the world" or the "Millionaire girl a member of the race".[1][2]


Sarah Rector was born in 1902 near the all-black town of Taft, located in the eastern portion of Oklahoma,[2] in what was then Indian Territory. She had five siblings. Her parents, Joseph Rector and his wife, Rose McQueen (both born 1881)[3] were African descendants of the Creek Nation Creek Indians before the Civil war and which became part of the Creek Nation after the Treaty of 1866. As such, they and their descendants were listed as freedmen on the Dawes Rolls, by which they were entitled to land allotments under the Treaty of 1866 made by the United States with the Five Civilized Tribes.[4] Consequently, nearly 600 black children, or Creek Freedmen minors as they were called, were granted 160 acres of land each.[dubious – discuss][5] This was a mandatory step in the process of integration of the Indian Territory with Oklahoma Territory to form what is now the State of Oklahoma.[6][7]


Sarah's father Joseph was the son of John Rector, a Creek Freedman. John Rector's father Benjamin McQueen, was a slave of Reilly Grayson who was a Creek Indian. John Rector's mother Mollie McQueen was a slave of Creek leader, Opothole Yahola who fought in the Seminole wars and split with the tribe, moving his followers to Kansas.

The parcel allotted to Sarah Rector was located in Glenpool, 60 miles from where she and her family lived. It was considered inferior infertile soil, not suitable for farming, with better land being reserved for white settlers and members of the tribe. The family lived simply but not in poverty; however, the $30 annual property tax on Sarah's parcel was such a burden that her father petitioned the Muskogee County Court to sell the land. His petition was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, so he was required to continue paying the taxes.[5]

To help cover this expense, in February 1911, Joseph Rector leased Sarah's parcel to the Standard Oil Company. In 1913, the independent oil driller B.B. Jones drilled a well on the property which produced a "gusher" that began to bring in 2,500 barrels of oil a day. Rector began to receive a daily income of $300 from this strike. The law at the time required full-blooded Indians, black adults and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with significant property and money, to be assigned "well-respected" white guardians.[8] Thus, as soon as Rector began to receive this windfall, there was pressure to change Rector's guardianship from her parents to a local white resident named T.J. (or J.T.) Porter, an individual known to the family. Rector's allotment subsequently became part of the Cushing-Drumright Oil Field. In October 1913, Rector received royalties of $11,567.[5]

As news of Rector's wealth spread worldwide, she began to receive requests for loans, money gifts, and marriage proposals, despite the fact that she was only 12 years old.[5] Given her wealth, the Oklahoma Legislature declared her to be a white person, so that she would be allowed to travel in first-class accommodations on the railroad, as befitted her position.[3]

In 1914, an African American journal, The Chicago Defender, began to take an interest in Rector, just as rumors began to fly that she was a white immigrant who was being kept in poverty. The newspaper published an article claiming that her estate was being mismanaged by her family and that she was uneducated, and had a poor quality of life. This caused National African American leaders Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois to become concerned about her welfare.[3] In June of that year, a special agent for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), James C. Waters Jr, sent a memo to Dubois regarding her situation. Waters had been corresponding with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the United States Children's Bureau over concerns regarding the mismanagement of Rector's estate. He wrote of her white financial guardian:

Is it not possible to have her cared for in a decent manner and by people of her own race, instead of by a member of a race which would deny her and her kind the treatment accorded a good yard dog?

This prompted Dubois to establish the Children's Department of the NAACP, which would investigate claims of white guardians who were suspected of depriving black children of their land and wealth. Washington also intervened to help the Rector family.[9] In October of that year, she was enrolled in the Children's School, a boarding school at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, headed by Washington. Upon graduation, she attended the Institute.[3]

Rector was already a millionaire by the time she had turned 18. She owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, businesses, and a 2,000 acre prime river bottomland. At that point, she left Tuskegee and, with her entire family, moved to Kansas City, Missouri. She purchased a house on 12th Street, that is still there and known as the Rector House. She soon married a local man, Kenneth Campbell. The wedding was a very private affair, with only her mother and the bridegroom's paternal grandmother present. The couple had three sons before divorcing in 1930.[3]

 

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The Goat

 

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We're a special people.

 

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The Goat

aframs put in major work at the world championships

The U.S. took home 29 total medals at the world championships in Doha, Qatar—14 gold, 11 silver, and four bronze—in a team performance that bodes well for the summer Olympics next year in Tokyo.

The Americans far outpaced Jamaica with 12 and Kenya with 11.

U.S. Wins Medal Count at 2019 World Championships - Runner's World

 

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Update:

 

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Timmie Rogers (1914-2006)

Timmie Rogers was a popular black comedian and entertainer from the 1940s through the 1990s. He was one of the first African American entertainers who refused to wear blackface or to dress in dirty tattered clothing while performing. Rogers also was one of the first entertainers to speak directly to the audience in his own voice. Previous black performers beginning in the Jim Crow era had always affected some variation of the Sambo and c00n type characters up to the mid-20th Century routine of Amos and Andy.

Rogers was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1914. His grandfather was a slave and his father ran away from home at the age of 12, finding a job as dishwasher in a kitchen on an Ohio River steamboat. Rogers’ mother ran a boarding house in Detroit where she sold liquor during Prohibition.

As a child, Rogers began dancing and performing on the street corners in Detroit for change and later took a job cleaning ashtrays at a ballroom where he was allowed to perform his acts before the main entertainment. By the 1940s Rogers was performing one of his first, which incorporated an anti- segregation theme titled, I’ve Got a Passport from Georgia. He also wrote a song for Nat King Cole called If You Can’t Smile and Say Yes.

In 1948, Rogers was one of the featured performers on the first all-black TV variety show that began as Uptown Jubilee and became Sugar Hill Times. The show aired three times on CBS before it was canceled. Later in the 1960s and 1970s, Rogers made appearances on a number of variety shows, including The Jackie Gleason Show and The Melba Moore-Clifton Davis Show. Rogers was often called the Jackie Robinson of Comedy because he was a pioneer television performer.

In the October 1960 issue of Ebony, Rogers was quoted as saying, “White comics can insult their audiences freely, but Negroes can’t insult white people. Negro comic works with wraps on, always behind the cultural ghetto.” Throughout his career, Rogers worked relentlessly to challenge the racial status quo and he succeeded in breaking through racist barriers, paving the way for the next generation of black comedians, such as Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby.

Rogers performed at the Apollo, often using his catch phrase, “Oh yeah!” During his long career, Rogers won several awards, including the first gold album for a black comedian. He was inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame in 1993.

Rogers continued performing into the 1990s, usually in nightclubs near his home in Los Angeles. Timmie Rogers died in Los Angeles in 2006, at the age of 92.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Freddie Figgers

Freddie Figgers is a computer programmer, inventor, and an African American Entrepreneur.[1][2] He is the founder of Figgers Communication and has four patents in his name.

Figgers lives in Coral Gates but was born in Quincy, Florida on September 26, 1989.[7] Freddie as a newborn was left at the dumpster by his mother. Nathan and Betty Figgers then adopted him.[7] To help his father with the Alziemers disease, Freddie built a shoe with a GPS tracker with two-way communication.[7][5][8] When he was 15 years old, Freddie started a cloud computing services company. [9] At the age of 16 years, Freddie started Figgers Communication.[3][8] By the time Freddie was 24, he had 80 custom software programs built, designed and executed.[9]

Freddie has four patents, including the Figgers F1 Phone.[3][4] Figgers also has a license spectrum band from FCC.[10][8] Figgers is involved in his Florida community by sponsoring youth programs, paying senior citizens bills and helping to bail for homes in foreclosure, as well as offering college scholarships to area high school seniors.[2][10][11]