ARCDC Celebrates Black History Month 2012
February 1
Americans have recognized black history annually since 1926, first as Negro History Week and later as Black History Month. We owe the celebration of Black History Month, and more importantly, the study of black history to Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Dr. Woodson was disturbed to find that history books largely ignored the black American population, and when blacks were mentioned in history books, these books did not mention their contributions. Woodson began to write black Americans into the nation's history. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. In 1926, he launched Negro History Week to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history. Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because it marks the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced the black American population, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. However, February has much more that Douglass and Lincoln to show for its significance in black American history. On February 1st, 1960, a group of black Greensboro, North Carolina, college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter… kicking off a range of sit-ins that would define the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's.
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February 2
Today we celebrate Mrs. Fanny Jackson Coppin, the first African American female principal and superintendent of a school. Born into slavery in 1837, she was freed at age 12, and earned her bachelor's degree in 1865. She served at the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia for the next 37 years first as a teacher, then principal, and eventually superintendent. She went to South Africa as a missionary with her husband in 1902 and started educational programs in that country as well. Today we honor this educational trailblazer for her pursuit of education for all… Mrs. Fanny Jackson Coppin.
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February 3
Eugene Jacques Bullard was born in Georgia in 1894. After witnessing lynchings and other harassment, he stowed away on a ship to Scotland to escape racial discrimination. He became the first African American combat pilot when he moved to France and joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 to fight in World War I. He flew missions for the French Flying Corps and also fought in the infantry. He became one of France's most decorated war heroes, also serving as a spy on Germans in Paris in World War II. He was made a knight in the French Legion of Honor in 1959, but returned to the United States in his later years where he was severely beaten during and anti-civil rights riot. He died of stomach cancer in 1961. Today we honor a brave man who stood for justice all of his life… Eugene Jacques Bullard.
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February 6
Bass Reeves was born into slavery in 1838 in Arkansas, and moved from Texas into the Indian Territory of Oklahoma when he escaped during the Civil War. Following the war, he moved back to Arkansas with his wife and family. There he became an expert marksman with both rifle and pistol in addition to running his family farm. He was appointed as the first black Deputy US Marshall west of the MIssissippi in 1875 because of his knowledge of Indian languages and his skill with a gun. Legend says he had his hat and belt shot off in gunfights, but was never hit with a bullet. Over his thirty-two years in law enforcement, Reeves became an expert detective. He arrested over 3,000 felons and killed 14 outlaws. Today we celebrate the life of a decorated law officer, Bass Reeves.
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February 7
Langston Hughes was an African American novelist and playwright. He began writing in school and was named the class poet of his eighth grade class. His first published poems appeared in a magazine while he was in high school. He wrote one of his most famous poems "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" while traveling to spend the summer with his father following his high school graduation. His poetry used free verse and rhythms of jazz and blues which was considered to be very experimental. Hughes was proud of his race and celebrated it in poems such as "My People."
The night is beautiful,
so the faces of my people.
The stars are beautiful,
so the eyes of my people.
Beautiful also is the sun,
beautiful also are the souls of my people.
Today we honor an expressive voice of African American culture… Langston Hughes.
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February 8
William Edward Burghardt DuBois was an intellectual pioneer of the civil rights movement in America. He was the first African American to earn a PhD from Harvard, served as a professor of history and economics at a number of universities, and was a vocal founder and leader of the NAACP. He wrote many books and researched a variety of solutions to the problem of racism in the United States urging active involvement in society and government. Today we honor a great thinker and builder of the civil rights we enjoy today… WEB DuBois. |
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February 9
Sarah Breedlove was born in 1867 in Delta, Louisiana. Her parents died while she was a child, and at age 16 her first husband was murdered. Stresses such as these caused her to lose her hair so she invented a hair growth remedy and other hair care and beauty products. In 1906 she founded the Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company. In 1908 she founded Lelia College to train women to sell her products, and by 1914 her company was worth more than one million dollars, making her the first African American millionaire. Today we celebrate inspirational female role model and entrepreneur, Madem CJ Walker.
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February 10
Today we celebrate Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, the director of neurosurgery at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1987 he became the first surgeon in the world to successfully separate twins that had been joined at the back of the head. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2008, and continues to operate on over 300 children per year. Today we honor the contributions to humanity by the hands of this skillful African American surgeon, Dr. Benjamin S. Carson.
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February 13
Garrett Augustus Morgan was an African American inventor who was born in Kentucky in 1877 and moved to Cleveland in 1891. His first job was as a sewing machine and shoe repair man, but he soon started inventing things to make people's lives easier. His first invention was a liquid that polished sewing needles, but he found that it also straightened fabric and hair. After hearing about a factory fire he invented a basic gas mask to be used to breathe safely in emergencies. He received awards from many fire departments, and he was awarded a Medal of Bravery by the citizens of Cleveland for using the invention to rescue two men in a tunnel explosion under Lake Erie. He also invented the Morgan traffic signal, a mechanical device that functioned to signal pedestrians as well as street traffic from a safe distance away from the road. Today we honor a great African-American thinker… Garrett Morgan.
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February 14
Mary McLeod Bethune was the daughter of former slaves and began working in cotton fields at age 5, but soon realized that she wanted to get her education and get out of the cotton fields. She attended college with hopes of becoming a missionary to Africa, but eventually founded a school for girls that would soon become Bethune-Cookman College. She was an advocate of the women's rights movement in her early years, and later helped to advance ideas of the civil rights movement, serving on a special cabinet to make President Franklin Roosevelt aware of issues faced by black Americans. Today we celebrate this political and educational trailblazer, Mary McLeod Bethune.
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February 15
Today we celebrate Major General Charles Bolden, the current director of NASA. Bolden was a naval pilot, flying combat missions during the Vietnam war, and logged nearly 700 hours in space during four shuttle missions as a pilot and commander. He was appointed by President Barak Obama to the position of administrator of NASA in 2009, and under his leadership NASA continues to follow his motto of turning science fiction into science fact. Today we honor African American astronaut Charles Bolden for his impacts on technology and history.
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February 16
Shirley Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York to immigrant parents in 1924. She earned her degree in elementary education in 1952. In 1964 she was elected to the New York State Legislature, and in 1968 she became the first black woman to be elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1972 Chisholm made a bid for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. She won the primary elections in three states, including New Jersey, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Although she didn't win, she showed that a candidate who was not white and not a male could still make a difference. Today we celebrate this political pioneer, Shirley Chisholm.
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February 17
Booker Taliaferro Washington was the most well known African-American leader in the United States between the Civil War and World War I. Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, he worked as a janitor while getting his degree as a teacher. In 1881 he was selected to direct the Tuskegee Institute, a school for blacks that focused on morals, religion, and academics. He focused on helping people gain economic security first, which he felt would lead to civil rights and political power later. He also wrote twelve books and gave a number of famous speeches. Today we honor a man who has affected the lives of millions who have followed him… Booker T. Washington.
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February 21
Barack Hussein Obama was born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was a university student from Kenya, while his mother was from Wichita, Kansas. Obama attended elementary school in his step-father's native country of Indonesia and, while living with his grandparents he attended middle and high school in Hawaii. His father died in a car accident in 1982, and his mother died of cancer in 1994. After graduating from high school, he attended college in Los Angeles and then New York. He moved to Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project to help kids in job-training and college prep classes. He then attended and graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a civil rights attorney and law professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1997, and to one of Illinois' U.S. Senate seats in 2004. In 2008, 150 years after Illinois Senator Abraham Lincoln was elected as president and helped to end slavery, Illinois Senator Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President of the United States. During his presidency, he has faced challenges such as a struggling economy and the Gulf oil spill, has enacted new legislation in health care reform and budget reform, and has overseen reductions in the nation's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the crowning achievements of his presidency was the death of Osama bin Laden, carried out by Navy SEALs upon Obama's orders in May 2011. Obama is a sports fan and loyal supporter of Chicago sports teams including the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox. He is married to Michelle Obama, and has two daughters: 13-year old Malia and 10-year old Sasha. He has written a number of books and is currently running for his second term as president. Today we celebrate a modern African American pioneer, President Barack Obama.
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February 22
Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia in 1897 and grew up singing in school choirs and church musicals. However, she could not attend the prestigious music schools of the time because of her skin color. Instead she practiced with many famous singers and eventually she performed in places such as the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, and even in an outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC arranged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor in 1939. She sang at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and throughout the 1960s Anderson promoted the civil rights movement by holding benefit concerts and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963. She retired in 1965, but continued to sing publicly until her death in 1993 at the age of 96. Today we recognize on of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century, Ms. Marian Anderson.
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February 23
Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery in 1797 near New York City. She had four different owners, including being sold with a flock of sheep for $100 at age 9. She escaped to freedom with her infant daughter Sophia in 1826. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth on June 1, 1843 and began traveling throughout the country to preach about the abolition of slavery. In 1851 she gave her most famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman" in Akron, Ohio, arguing that white women during that time did not have to work, while black women did. During the Civil War she helped to recruit black troops for the Union Army and continued to fight for better working and living conditions freed slaves and other blacks in Northern cities. She continued to speak on the rights of former slaves as well as women's suffrage until her death in 1883. We are proud to honor a brave and eloquent woman, Sojourner Truth
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February 24
Bill Cosby is a famous comedian and television personality. In 1965, Cosby became the first African American to have a starring role in a television drama series, playing a secret agent in the show "I Spy." He also created the comedy cartoon series "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" and starred in "The Cosby Show" which is said to be one of the defining television series of the 1980s. He holds a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Massachusetts. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 for his work in television and education. Cosby continues to be a vocal spokesman against such problems as illegal drug use, teenage pregnancy, and high school drop outs. Today we celebrate a great entertainer and person, Mr. Bill Cosby.
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February 27
Wendell Oliver Scott broke the color barrier in NASCAR in 1952 in his hometown of Danville, Virginia. He had a love for speed from a young age, racing through the town on roller skates or winning bicycle races as the only black child in the town with a bike. After fighting in World War 2 he returned home to run an auto-repair shop. Not all tracks would allow a black driver to race, but slowly his growing reputation as a racer opened doors. In 1961 he started racing in the Grand National division that is now known as the Sprint Cup, even racing at the Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama during the height of the civil rights movement. In 1963 he won the race in Jacksonville, Florida, although race officials initially gave the win to a white driver because of a scoring error. Throughout the 60's he consistently finished in the top ten in any race he entered and was forced to retire in 1973 from injuries sustained in a racing accident. Today we celebrate a brave pioneer in auto racing, Wendell Scott.
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February 28
Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1954. Her father was a high school counselor and her mother taught music and science. One of her friends was killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. She graduated from high school at age 16. While in college she took a course that sparked her interest in the Soviet Union and international relations, and graduated with a degree in political science at age 19. She began working for the U.S. State Department in 1977 at the age of 22. She became well-known as an expert on the Soviet Union and served in a number of roles normally filled by white men regarding National Security, first under President George Bush, then as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush. In 2004 she was nominated to serve as Secretary of State, a member of the president's cabinet who oversees our nation's policies with other nations. During this time she oversaw a change in U.S. diplomacy where we help to build and sustain democratic governments in a hope to avoid oppressive governments that generally lead to the rise of terrorism. Today we celebrate a black political pioneer known around the world, Condoleezza Rice.
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February 29
William Christopher Smith Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1968. He was a good student with a charming personality and a quick wit that helped him begin rapping at age 12 and earned him the nickname "Prince." By keeping a clean, curse-free style, Smith and DJ Jeff Townes rolled out safe and entertaining singles for ten years. In 1990 Smith expanded his career into acting with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and his first movie appearance in Where the Day Takes You in 1992. By 1995 Smith was a Hollywood leading man, starring in such films as Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men in Black, Hitch, where he began producing as well as acting, and The Pursuit of Happyness, where he co-starred with his son Jaden. In 2010 he produced The Karate Kid and has a number of projects in production for 2011 and 2012. Today we celebrate entertainer and role model Will Smith.
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