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**At the close of Black History Month let’s take a look at ourselves and our country. DSM/Calamity**
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Black and Blessed
By Wes & Anna Hessel
A Black Mark Not On Our History
As Black History Month comes to a close, we must actively insure that the true history of Black Americans is told. All of it. The dark and the glorious. How this story ends will be a predictor of how our nation embraces our black brothers and moves forward. We all recall as children eating peanut butter spread on crackers as we learned about George Washington Carver, but no other significant Black history was ever taught, at least any school I ever attended. African-American history remains mostly hidden and not taught in schools.
Inventors and Heroes
It is not a significant part of any school curriculums and it should be. An accurate depiction of the history and culture of African-Americans must become part of American history classes. Teaching a truthful history lends respect to those activities could over a generation change core attitudes. The history of blacks in America is our history, some dark and tragic, some brilliant and glorious. It is time we as a country accept that not all history worth being written down and taught was that of white men. The poem that became the lyrics of our National Anthem was written by an attorney who had little or no respect for Black people. We now must educate about the atrocities of slavery and the important roles Blacks have played and continue to play in our history and our future.
Nothing New
Various peoples of Africa were brought to the “New World” as slaves, bought, sold, and treated like the property they were considered to be, not the persons of rich culture and tradition they had been. The “first” African slaves brought to what is now the United States is typically thought to be a load of captives from what is now Angola, sold to Jamestown Governor George Yeardley and Abraham Piersey, the colony’s trade head, for food, near the end of August 1619.
Back Before You Knew It
But slavery in North America had started much earlier, with the Spanish bringing slaves to St. Augustine (now Florida), as early as the town’s founding in 1565. The city is considered the oldest European-founded continuously-inhabited settlement in what is now the mainland 48 states. And the first documented person of African descent to come to the territory that became our country was a member of Ponce de León’s infamous expedition in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth. Named Juan Garrido, he arrived with the exploring group in 1513.
Color Inside The Lines
So the mistreatment of people of color in our nation is certainly nothing new – it is a long history of subjugation and then after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, suppression and subversion of human rights. Yet African-Americans time and again have been and continue to be instrumental in our history and innovation.
Black Power At The Beginning
The earliest Black people of note were primarily former slaves who stood up and spoke out about slavery or racism or did something about them. Dred Scott, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Booker T. Washington each set an exemplary example of leadership in human rights. They were followed by pioneers in agriculture (George Washington Carver), learned study (W.E.B. Du Bois), music (Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Nat King Cole), poetry (Langston Hughes), law (Thurgood Marshall), activism (Rosa Parks), and sports (Jackie Robinson). These were just some of the great contributors to America born before 1920.
“Carvered” Out A Niche
For each of the well-known, there are many more unknown contributors to our nation’s progress. In addition to the prolific work of “Doctor” Carver, Garrett Morgan invented an improvement for sewing machines, an early chemical hair straightener, the forerunner of the modern gas mask, and the first automatic, three-aspect traffic signal. Before him, the first African-American to receive a patent, Thomas L. Jennings, had created an improved method of dry-cleaning delicate garments. Elijah McCoy was granted a mere 57 patents, one of which was for that beloved grass watering device, the lawn sprinkle. Another was the basic idea of the portable ironing board. Sarah Boone added the familiar shape of what we use today for our pressing engagements.
Hot And Cold
Alexander Miles designed the earliest mechanism for automatic doors in elevators. Lewis Latimer drafted a better railroad car bathroom, then improved on Edison’s vacuum interior light bulbs, deriving the carbon filament of the standard incandescent fixture. The idea of the self-propelled street sweeper was patented by Charles B. Brooks, as well as an early ticket puncher which collected the little pieces from the holes it made. Alice H. Parker created the first natural gas central furnace. Frederick McKinley Jones came up with the refrigeration units found on the tops of trucks transporting perishable items. James E. West worked with his Bell Labs partner to invent the foil electret version of the microphone, a significantly cheaper one to produce the condenser models before it.
Tech In Black & Black
Mary Van Brittan Brown co-created with her husband a video surveillance through a door’s peephole setup with features that are now found today in many current security systems. You can thank Mark Dean for leading his team at IBM to develop the original PC, color computer monitors, and the first gigahertz speed processor chip. Dr. Patricia Bath became the first female African-American doctor to receive a patent in 1986 for a laser device used to treat cataracts.
To The Top Of The World
There were many other pioneers of color. Matthew Henson was an early modern Black explorer. In 1891, he became part of a group headed by then-Lieutenant Robert E. Peary. They made multiple trips through Greenland. After several failed attempts together, he was with Peary in 1908 on the first successful trip to the North Pole, actually arriving at the top of the world before the famed explorer himself.
On A Wing And A Prayer…
Those of us in the Chicago area who have been to O’Hare Airport have encountered Bessie Coleman Drive. It is named for one of the first female aviators, an African-American woman who received her international pilot’s license in 1921. Jesse LeRoy Brown was inspired by Ms. Coleman and other early Black pilots, becoming one of the first African-American Navy pilots. He was a squadron leader in the Korean War until he lost his life in the line of duty. One of his white team members even crash-landed his own plane to try to help Brown, who had gone down and became trapped in the wreckage.
High Fliers
During World War II, many African-American men were part of the famed “Tuskegee Airmen”. This group of segregated fliers in the Army Air Corps distinguished themselves significantly. For example, Lt. Col. Lee Archer, together with his cohort Wendell Pruitt, were known as, “The Gruesome Twosome”, for their deadly efficiency against Nazi pilots. On one day in October 1944, Archer shot down three enemy planes in about 10 minutes while simultaneously bombing supply trains running between Slovakia and Hungary. In 1945, the airman received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts.
Right To Be There
Civil rights, of course, has always been an area where people of color have stepped up, and walked through. Most of us know of Malcolm X, as well as the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Many have heard of the persevering work of the late John Lewis, one of the leaders of the infamous “Selma” march, and his decades of faithful service as a U.S. Congressman, as well as Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH founder Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton. Some may not be as familiar with Medgar Evers, for example, whose dedicated work for equal rights regardless of race led to the ultimate sacrifice, as he was assassinated in 1963.
Bureaucratic Barriers Broken
African-Americans have made steady strides in government, also. There is former four-star general Colin Powell, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in his last military posting, then the first U.S. Secretary of State of color. Condoleezza Rice was the first Black woman as National Security Adviser, then the first female African-American Secretary of State. Former U.S. Senator Barack Obama broke the highest barrier as our first President of color, followed by Senator Kamala Harris, who is now the first female, South Asian, and Black Vice President of the United States. Shirley Chisholm was actually the first African-American woman to run for President for a major party in 1972, after being the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1968.
Music To Our Ears
Many Blacks in the arts areas have made great achievements. There are, of course, the long list of legendary musicians: Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, James Brown, Quincy Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, and Michael Jackson, just to name a few. Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison are three of the great authors of our time.
Stars of Stage And Screen
Sidney Poitier was the first man of color to be nominated for an Academy Award. He then became the first Black actor to win an Oscar. Halle Berry was the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award. Movie and television screens have been dominated by Richard Roundtree, Morgan Freeman, Clarence Williams III, Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, James Earl Jones, and Laurence Fishburne, amongst many other excellent black actors. Actresses of color such as Josephine Baker, Dorothy Dandridge, Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Cicely Tyson, Alfre Woodard, Viola Davis, and Queen Latifah have earned their names in lights. And Oprah Winfrey is the multi-talented actress, author, lifestyle and entertainment czarina, in a class of her own.
Sporting Excellence
Then there are the sports legends: Henry “Hank” Aaron, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Arthur Ashe, Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, Walter Payton, and Michael Jordan. The list goes on and on. One of the early greats was the famed track and field superstar Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, despite the Nazi “white supremacy” shadow being cast. Before Owens, Eddie Tolan was the man to beat in the 100m and 200m sprints. In 1929, while attending the University of Michigan, Tolan had set the world record for the 100-yard dash at 9.5 seconds. He then went on to the national college championship for the 220-yard dash in 1931. In the Olympic trials for 1932, he placed second in the 100m and 200m races to fellow athletic giant Ralph Metcalfe, but won gold in both contests at the 1932 Olympics. Metcalfe was the runner-up to Jesse Owens in the 100m at the 1936 Olympics.
Black “His”-tory And “Her”-story
There are so many more who could and should be named, but space is finite. No matter their area of expertise, Black people, both women and men, have been many of the innovators, motivators, and mover/shakers of this or another time, and will continue to be so until the end of time.
https://www.calamitypolitics.com/2018/11/03/trump-racism-bad-america-part-ii/
