Essential The Official African American Thread#2

[Black Lightning]

A Distant Shore: African Americans Of D-Day

 

[Black Lightning]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

 

[BlackMajik]

Greatness

 

[BlackMajik]

They was getting down

 

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[BlackMajik]

They was getting down

Like a spiritual successor. Idlewild was crazy underrated

 

[Rhapscallion Démone]

Black Cinderella: the uphill battle for Disney's first black princess and the films soundtrack



Talks about the casting problems and poor budget because of a prejudice executive producer at Disney.



Brandy showing that her voice don't crack and neither does her black

Now on Disney +

 

[Black Lightning]

Samuel B. Fuller Borrowed $25 To Start His Company And Later Became the Wealthiest Black Man in The U.S. in the 1950’s

Samuel B. Fuller was born on June 4, 1905, in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. Fuller was forced to drop out of school in the 6th grade to start working to help support the family. Young Fuller began selling products door to door at nine, which would later contribute to him becoming an entrepreneur. Fuller’s mother passed away when he was young and was forced to fend for himself.


In 1929 Fuller borrowed $25 and used his car as collateral to buy soap products that he started selling door to door in Chicago, and later formed the Fuller Products Company. In 1939, the business became so successful that he opened a factory and started to manufacture soap products and 30 other items. By the 1950s, Fuller was generating $18 million in annual sales and had a sales force of five thousand. Fuller was the wealthiest African-American during that time.


The Great Migration was beneficial to Fuller’s company because many Black Americans moved north to cities like Chicago for better opportunities. Those people would become the core customer base for his products. Fuller’s success allowed him to buy several Black newspapers including the New York Age and the Pittsburgh Courier. Fuller also owned the South Center Department Store, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and bought out the Boyer International Laboratories.


Fuller ran into some trouble when a group of racist whites organized a boycott of his products when they discovered a Black man owned the company. He also was accused of violating the Federal Securities Law.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

A forgotten great...

Fredrick L. McGhee (October 28, 1861 – September 9, 1912)

was a black civil rights activist and one of America’s first African American lawyers. McGhee, born as a slave but who later was able to achieve a substantial career as an attorney and become one of the civil rights pioneers, was a contemporary of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois.

McGhee was born in Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Abraham McGhee and Sarah Walker, who were slaves. His father, from Blount County, Tennessee, was a literate black slave who learned how to read and write without being formally educated, and later became a Baptist preacher. Abraham McGhee taught his three children, Mathew, Barclay and Fredrick, how to read and write. Abraham McGhee died in 1873 and soon Fredrick’s mother died leaving her three sons orphans.

McGhee was able to attend Knoxville College in Tennessee, and graduated with a degree in law in 1885. Although he began his legal career in Chicago, McGhee settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he became the first black lawyer admitted to the bar in that state. With a much smaller black population from which to attract clients, McGhee primarily represented whites, gaining a reputation for competence and oratory. He also became the first African American lawyer admitted to the bar in Tennessee and Illinois. He was one of the most highly skilled criminal lawyers of the Old Northwest.

In his law practice, McGhee once won a clemency from President Benjamin Harrison for a client who was a black soldier falsely accused of a crime.

In 1886, he married Mattie B. Crane. The couple had one daughter.

Despite his success as a criminal lawyer, he was primarily a race relations advocate. By the early 1900s, McGhee became interested in the national discussion concerning racial discrimination and social equality. In 1905, McGhee with Du Bois and others formed one of the first national civil rights organizations, the Niagara Movement, which was an attempt by more radical blacks to directly and honestly oppose the conservative actions and views of Booker T. Washington. The Niagara Movement was the forerunner of the NAACP. In September 1905, Du Bois went so far as to give McGhee full credit for creating the more radical entity, stating, "The honor of founding the organization belongs to F. L. McGhee, who first suggested it."

McGhee was very active politically. He was chosen to be a presidential elector by the Minnesota Republican party in the spring of 1892, but after protests by white Republicans, he was replaced before the start of the 1892 Republican National Convention, which was held in Minneapolis in June. McGhee remained a party member until the spring of 1893, when party bosses reneged on another political promise. Frustrated, McGhee changed his allegiance to the Democratic Party, becoming one of the first nationally prominent black Democrats at a time when nearly all blacks were Republicans.

McGhee converted from the Baptist denomination to Catholicism at a time when the vast majority of African Americans were Baptists. He was very active in Saint Peter Claver Church, a Roman Catholic church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

McGhee died in 1912, at age 50, of pleurisy, three years after the founding of the NAACP.

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[IllmaticDelta]

Gaius Charles Bolin Sr. (1864-1946)

 

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Edward Lee Smith

 

[IllmaticDelta]

John McKee (1821 – 6 April 1902)

was an African American who became an extremely wealthy property owner in Philadelphia. McKee City, New Jersey is named after him. His legacy continues to fund scholarships for orphan boys.

John Mckee was born in Alexandria, Virginia around 1821.[a] An 1838 registration in Alexandria describes him as "a bright mulatto boy, about 19 years old, 5 feet 4½ inches tall, who is straight built with light colored eyes. He was born free, as appears by oaths of Betsey Beckley and Fanny Beckley." He was indentured to a bricklayer while a teenager, ran away but was brought back to complete his indenture. He moved to Philadelphia, first finding work in a livery stable.[1]

McKee became a waiter, working for James Prosser, who owned a successful restaurant on Market Street in Philadelphia.[1] He married Emeline, Prosser's daughter, and ran the restaurant until 1866, when he moved into property speculation.[3] McKee is said to have fought during the American Civil War (1861–1865).[4] On 17 June 1870 McKee enlisted in the 12th Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard. In 1872 he was made lieutenant colonel of the 13th Regiment.[5] He served under white General Louis Wagner.[6]


"McKee City", a 4,000-acre tract in New Jersey, was a planned community where African Americans from the south could settle after the Civil War, and included a schoolhouse and church as well as a number of dormitory-type houses.[3] The houses in McKee City were well-built but simple, without frills like inside plumbing or heating. Leases were carefully designed to ensure that the tenants improved the land. The Colonel had great plans for this settlement, but died before they could all be realized.[11]

McKee had two daughters. Jennie married the lawyer Sawyer Theophilus Minton and had one son, Henry McKee Minton, later to become a prominent physician.[12] Jennie died before her father. Abbie married Douglas Syphax of Arlington County, Virginia.[13] Douglas and Abbie had five children.[14] McKee's wife died in the 1880s.[9] Colonel John McKee died at his home in Philadelphia on 6 April 1902, and was buried at Olivet Cemetery. He was survived by his daughter, Mrs. Abbie P. Syphax, and six grandsons.[1] He was reported to be the richest of African Americans when he died.[3] Newspapers speculated that his fortune was anything from $1,500,000 to $4,000,000, a huge amount at the time.[14]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Caleb Anderson is not your average 12-year-old.

Despite his young age, Anderson is already a sophomore studying aerospace engineering at Chattahoochee Technical College in Georgia.

According to 11Alive, he began to show his brilliance from the time he was in diapers, learning sign language to effectively communicate before he could even speak. He leveled up even further by learning to read the United States Constitution at the age of two.

“By nine months old, he was able to sign over 250 words, and by 11 months old, he was speaking and reading,” shared Anderson’s family.

At the age of three, Anderson could already speak Spanish, Mandarin, and French on top of his native language English. He also qualified for MENSA — the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. According to Face to Face Africa, this society is only open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a supervised, standardized, or other approved intelligence test.

“As we started to interact with other parents, and had other children, then we started to realize how exceptional this experience was because we had no other frame of reference,” said Anderson’s father, Kobi.

The news outlet shares that just two years after qualifying for MENSA, Anderson’s admittance at the age of five, made him the youngest African American boy to become a member of the society during that period.

Anderson’s mother says their decision to enroll him in college stemmed from not only his outstanding performances from lower school through high school, but his desire to push himself to learn more.

“He said, ‘mom I’m bored. This is not challenging,’” Anderson’s mother, Claire, said. “It’s really not helping me grow in my learning and I think I’m ready for college.”

Although he’s young, Anderson never allows his age to get in the way, noting that his college experience was exactly how he envisioned it would be if he were older.

“It was exactly how I expected it to be like if I were 18 or something,” he tells 11Alive.

While their son may be a boy-genius, Anderson’s parents believe that there are many others out there equally as gifted as he is, but says that people have to move beyond stereotypes and give them the support that they need.

“I think people have a negative perspective when it comes to African-American boys,” Claire said. “There are many other Calebs out there African-American boys like him. From being a teacher – I really believe that. But they don’t have the opportunities or the resources.”

While Anderson has already had major accomplishments, he also has his sights set on furthering his education at Georgia Tech and possibly MIT.