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Brooklyn was where she would spend most of her early life, graduating from Brooklyn Girls High School and Brooklyn College in the 1940’s (‘42 and ‘46, respectively), but she briefly stayed with extended family in Barbados during her early life. This was so her parents, both immigrants, could stay in America and work during the Great Depression in order to save enough money for proper living. Despite her unusual childhood, Shirley was stellar in the classroom. She received high praise at Brooklyn High and attained her B.A. in Sociology from Brooklyn College with cum laude honors. She was also a star on their debate team. After her undergraduate studies, Ms. St. Hill began working as a nursery school teacher. It was during this time she married her first husband, Conrad Chisholm, in 1949. Three years later, in 1952, she attained her Masters degree from Columbia University in Early Childhood Education. Gaining her masters was followed by her becoming the director of two daycare centers in Brooklyn, before becoming an educational consultant for New York City’s division of day care in 1959. Chisholm served as an educational consultant until 1964. What cut her consultant days short? Chisholm decided to run for a spot on the New York state Legislature in 1964. She won, and became the second African-American to do so. Shortly after earning her seat in the state Legislature, heavy congressional redistricting within the state of New York, especially in Shirley Chisholm’s own neighborhood, caught many people’s eye, including Ms. Chisholm’s. New York’s 12th Congressional District was now primarily Democrat, and when news came out that the incumbent was running for re-election in a new district, Chisholm seized the opportunity next election cycle to gain her own seat. Ms. Chisholm ran for and won her Congressional seat in 1968, after two terms in the state Legislature, and was officially sworn in January 3rd, 1969. She was the first African American woman to be elected into congress, and the only woman in her Congressional ‘freshman’ class. Nonetheless, Ms. Chisholm was very active in Congress throughout her tenure. She served on multiple committees, and was very active in all of them. A notable act was her role in the establishment of The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) while she served on the House Agriculture Committee. In 1972, Shirley Chisholm raised the bar for herself again by running for President of the United States. In announcing her campaign, Chisholm made note that she is not the ‘Black’ candidate, or the ‘Women’s’ candidate (though she was ‘proud to be both’), but a candidate for all American People. Still, Shirley faced a great deal of discrimination during her campaign (and while in Congress), but it never keep her from being vocal on issues that she saw as important. Shirley is on record saying she felt more discrimination as a Woman than as an African American, and the lack of support from the males of the Congressional Black Caucus solidified that statement during her presidential run. Ms. Chisholm was only allowed one TV appearance (they excluded her from the first three televised debates, but they let her after she sought legal action, and she became the first woman ever to appear in a presidential debate), also showing the discrimination to which she was subject. Ms. Chisholm fought hard against it, but between having an underfunded and under organized campaign, alongside the fact that the American public was not ready for a Black Woman as their president, she ended up with only 152 delegate votes from just 12 primaries. Although she did not win, Shirley Chisholm brought national attention to issues we still protest about today, and brought everlasting change to American politics while in Congress. From 1964 to 1983, outside of disrupting the status quo socially, Ms. Chisholm had worked on… A bill to give domestic workers a minimum wage Expanding the Federal Food Stamp program (hence her work on the WIC bill) Co-founding the Congressional Black Caucus (only woman to start) Co-founding the National Women’s Political Caucus Withdrawing from the Vietnam War & reducing Military expenses Increasing Spending on Education, Healthcare, & other Social Services. & more after Congress, as well Shirley Chisholm ‘walked’ so a lot of our politicians could ‘run’ today. Shirley Chisholm ‘ran’ so our politicians could ‘walk’, honestly. She was a Black Woman progressive, who was slighted at almost every turn of her political career, from being neglected by the CBC to only being allowed one televised appearance during her presidential campaign. Yet, she never lost sight of her goals, nor her morals, even after her political career. Chisholm left Congress in 1983, deciding not to run for reelection of New York’s Congressional District 12, after the political scene became too “factional” under Reagan. Let it be known that this was well after she claimed her seat at the table. She made sure her voice was heard all throughout her career, because she knew the irreplaceable perspective she held as a Black Woman, despite everyone, including the Black men in Congress, trying to belittle her. She knew that her seat at the table was our seat at the table, and for that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Ms. Shirley Chisholm. Read my sources on Shirley Chisholm here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/in-art-journalism daily 0.75 2021-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1609444071314-C3NLAG87XKKMWCIDYE1P/poitier.jpg in Art / Journalism - Sidney Poitier (1920- ) Sidney Poitier was born on February 27, 1920, to fairly unusual circumstances. His family lived in the central region of the Bahamas, named Cat Island, but made voyages to Florida to sell the produce they grew on their tomato farm back home. During one of his parents’ voyages, Poitier was born on the boat two months premature, and was not expected to make it off the boat alive. The boat still made its way to Florida, where Poitier would be nursed back to life and actually have his birth recorded, granting him American citizenship. After returning to The Bahamas, the Poitiers would stay there until Sidney was about ten years old. His father’s farm had failed due to a US Embargo put on tomatoes, so in search of new means of living they went to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. Here, Sidney was introduced to a new, more modern lifestyle. He saw lots of Black men in positions of power in Nassau, which he says showed him the possibilities in life. Still, his father thought he was getting into too much ‘trouble’. When Sidney was just 15, his father sent him to live with his brother in Florida, where he could start anew. Poitier left Florida within a year, due to the severity of southern segregation. He left for New York, where he held a series of low-grade jobs to sustain himself while sleeping in a bus terminal. He saved enough money to rent a room for himself, but after almost getting arrested for not being able to pay rent a few months in, Poitier had sought out the Army. He worked in a Veteran’s Hospital as a physiotherapist for less than two years during World War II. After the army, Poitier came back to New York (either Harlem or Manhattan), where he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for American Negro Theatre auditions. He noted in a 2002 Spotlight Interview with CNN that he originally auditioned because he needed the money. Despite this, his first audition went terribly. He had a very thick Bahamian accent which turned the directors away, and his blatant lack of reading education caused the directors to send him home before he even finished his script. This struck a match inside Poitier; with the help of a coworker and local radio stations, he dedicated the next six months to learning how to read and speak Americanized English, practically erasing his Bahamian accent when he spoke. His strategy of cultural assimilation, on top of developing his skills as an actor, still failed him the second time. But, Poitier noticed the Theatre needed a janitor after his audition. He offered to take the job in exchange for acting lessons at the ANT, and they accepted. This was just the beginning of Sidney Poitier’s career. Poitier took the ANT stage numerous times throughout the 1940’s, but it was his first Broadway appearance that took his career to the next level. In 1949, Sidney Poitier played the role of Polydorus in the all African-American production Lysistrata. Producers within Hollywood were catching wind of Mr. Poitier’s skill, and within a year he would have the opportunity to star in a major film production instead of performing on a stage. Poitier saw the opportunity and ran with it, making his first major film appearance in the 1950 film ‘No Way Out.’ He had numerous side roles in the early 1950’s, and his skill shined through every role, but it was not common to give lead roles to African Americans. Typically, Black actors would only be cast in all African-American films, or mixed films with roles that portray the stereotypical Black man in the eyes of a racist White person, a media tactic used for decades to vilify the Black image. Nonetheless, Poitiers' ability was undeniable, and soon the lead roles came in. One of his greatest lead roles was in Defiant Ones (1958), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, making him the first African-American male to receive this nomination (Hattie May was the first African-American to win an Academy Award in 1939). Five years later, he would become the first African-American male to officially win the Oscar for Best Lead Actor in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field. A Black man would not accomplish this again until Denzel Washington in 2002. It should be noted that Mr. Poitier proudly denied a handful of roles during this time as well. He refused to take any role that portrayed the African American in a negative or stereotypical light, setting the precedent for Black actors and actresses to come in Hollywood. Poitier ended his career as a highly acclaimed actor, director, humanitarian, writer, and more, but his life represents more than his accomplishments. Pay less attention to the success and more to the journey. From being born two months premature and growing up in extreme poverty in the Bahamas, to being homeless in New York and becoming a janitor in exchange for acting lessons, to breaking a major color barrier in the world by becoming a world renowned actor in America. Poitier rose to fame without compromising his morals, putting his people before a dollar bill. We can all learn from his story, and for that, we should all be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Sidney Poitier! Read my sources on Mr. Poitier here, here, here, and here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1616509510428-APNPVTOHCVX9JKIX68UF/8C1A1A03-6F4E-4B6D-9486-9CDBD6C88A7C.png in Art / Journalism - Nikki Giovanni (1943-) Nikki Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her sister, Gary Giovanni, nicknamed her “Nikki” shortly after her birth, and the nickname stuck. Giovanni’s family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, a few months after she was born, where she would spend most of her childhood. She would visit her grandparents annually back in Knoxville, and eventually moved back at the age of fourteen. Giovanni read a lot as a child, stating that her mother kept a library full of wonderful books at home. Nikki Giovanni graduated from Austin High School in Knoxville before attending the historically black Fisk University as an “early entrant” in 1960 (Giovanni’s grandfather attended Fisk University years before, but Giovanni notes in her biography that this had no weight on her final decision to attend the university). Not too long after enrolling, Giovanni was dismissed from Fisk University. She had some verbal disagreements with the Dean of Women, and ultimately had difficulty adjusting to the ‘conservatism’ of the campus in regards to gender and race. After her expulsion, she returned to Cincinnati, where she worked at a local Walgreens to support herself while helping take care of her young nephew. She also volunteered and took courses at the University of Cincinnati during the three years she stayed in the city. In 1964, Giovanni traveled to Fisk University to seek re-admittance. Upon arrival, Giovanni realized the Dean of Women she had issues with had been replaced. The new Dean and Nikki got along very well, and Nikki was encouraged to rejoin the University in the Fall semester of the same year. With the support of her new dean, Dean Cowen, Giovanni began to flourish in and out of the classroom. Over the next couple of years Giovanni began to edit literary journals, she reestablished Fisk University’s Chapter of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), and wrote pieces on gender for local Black owned journals. Graduating with honors and a Bachelor's degree in History, Ms. Giovanni’s success was only getting started. Two months after graduating in January 1967, her grandmother unexpectedly passed away. Her untimely death took an emotional toll on Ms. Giovanni, and she turned to writing as an emotional outlet. It was during this time that she produced most of her first anthology, Black Feeling, Black Talk, although it was not published until 1968. Publishers had negative attitudes towards a Black woman writing militant poetry, so in response Giovanni formed her own company and published her collection by herself (Black Judgement was written and published at a later date, thanks to a grant from the Harlem Council of Arts). She then sold her books to bookstores for a discount to get sales. Ms. Giovanni’s political fervor captivated her audience, and as time went on more people began to catch wind of her publications. By 1969, her name and face were both on papers such as The New York Times. This was only the start for Ms. Giovanni’s career. Over the last fifty years she has published over 50 books/anthologies, over a dozen of which are for children (inspired by her journey as a single mother of 1, her son Thomas Giovanni), hosted a television show (Soul!), taught in numerous institutions & countries (Queens College in 1969, Rutgers University , The Ohio State University in 1984-85, Mount St. Joseph’s College in 1985-87, France, Germany Poland and Italy for a lecture tour in 1985, Virginia Tech (1983-) as a University Distinguished Professor (1999-), Switzerland in 2014), released six spoken word albums (one of which won National Association of Radio and Television Announcers Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1972) and so much more. She is a seven time NAACP Image Award recipient, three time Woman of the Year recipient (1970-72), two time Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award recipient (2001-02), and one time recipient of 60 more awards, the latest being the Maya Angelou Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Throughout her life, Nikki Giovanni has shown tremendous courage. From raising a beautiful son as a single mother in the 70’s, beating lung cancer in the 90’s, to writing and orating a beautiful speech just a day after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, she has put on numerous displays of true bravery outside of fighting for Black Liberation and Black Power for decades through her artistic expression. She is truly for the People, and we are all affected by her existence. Thank you, Ms. Nikki Giovanni. Read my sources on Ms. Giovanni here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/in-activism-civ daily 0.75 2021-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1609444167593-YO8NV334A7DWRC86OCTY/Maria-Stewart.gif in Civil Rights Activism - Maria W. Stewart (1803 - 1879) Maria Stewart, born Maria Miller, was the first woman in America to speak publicly amongst a multi-race crowd, and the first African-American female public speaker ever documented in America. Ms. Miller was born in 1803 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was enslaved, but her mother was not, hence she was born free. There is not much documentation of Miller’s life, especially in her early years, so most of what we know about her came from her own writing. Stewart lost both of her parents by the age of five, and was forced into refuge as a servant to white clergymen. Leaving her oppressors at fifteen, Miller was “thirsty for knowledge”, but had no opportunity to learn for the previous ten years besides the clergymen’s library. Her lack of education inspired her to attend Sabbath school until the age of 20, so until 1823. Three years later, she married a man named James W. Stewart (whom she called James W. Steward), a well off veteran in Boston. Her husband died three years later, which qualified her for a hefty inheritance on her husband’s behalf. But, the white men who executed Mr. Stewart’s will defrauded her of the funds, forcing Mrs. Stewart to support herself, once again, through domestic servitude. It was around this time that she began faithfully relying on Religion for guidance in her life. Bob Kellerman of RPM ministries made a great point in reference to Mrs. Stewart at that point in time of her life. She is 1. incredibly young, 2. African-American, 3. a woman and 4. a widow. She was subject to four of the greatest historical social burdens of her time, and that should not go unrecognized. Despite her apparent obstacles, Mrs. Stewart remained dedicated to educating her fellow Black & Brown skinned individuals on their supposedly promised freedoms. In 1831, she made her first publication through William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Her piece was titled Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundations on Which We Must Build, and it referenced the Bible, the US Constitution and more. In it, she called upon Black men and women to reject the White man’s claim to superiority, to invest in their own skills because they were worthy of greatness, too. “It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principles formed within the soul,” she mentioned. Her words were undoubtedly powerful. Her ‘radical’ stance on feminism and slavery (I put quotes because, how radical is demanding equal rights as a human being?) and shortly after her first publication, she began to deliver public speeches. The first of which was on April 28, 1832, before the African American Female Intelligence Society of Boston, Massachusetts. This was history in itself, as African-American women did not speak publicly much at the time. She made history again on September 21st, 1832, in giving a speech to a mixed-gender audience at Franklin Hall in Boston. She would give a few more speeches before retiring her oratory prowess late in 1833. After giving up delivering speeches, Mrs. Stewart began teaching and delivering lectures in Manhattan, New York. She published a collection of her works titled Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart in 1835. William Lloyd Garrison published this as well, along with previous works of hers not aforementioned. It is critical to note that, although her works were published, they were always sectioned in the “Ladies Department” of the editorial. In a society that was swamped with sexism and relied heavily on gender roles, Mrs. Stewart was not getting as much publicity or respect as she should have been, and it was micro-aggressions like these that reinforced those societal attitudes and practices. Maria Stewart died in Washington D.C. in 1879, after moving there almost twenty years prior. In D.C. she opened a school for the children of runaway slaves, published more writings, and became Head Matron of the Freedman’s Hospital, now the Howard University Hospital. Her fearlessness to speak for what was morally correct, to use what privilege she had as a Free, light-skinned Black woman to advocate for those struggling just like or worse than her, is something that we can all learn, and be inspired from. Thank you, Mrs. Maria Miller-Stewart. Read my sources on Maria Miller-Stewart here, here, and here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1617249143623-DXPRMA1NFJ2IOTGA033U/hamer.jpeg in Civil Rights Activism - Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer (1917-1977) Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer was born October 6, 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi to Lou Ella and James Townsend. She was the last of 20 children born to the couple. At the age of two, Hamer’s parents moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on the land of a wealthy White man. Sharecropping was one of the only fields of employment for contemporary Southern Black folks, and typically resulted in a crippling cycle of hard labor and inescapable debt for working families. No different was the case for the Townsend family. By the age of six, Fannie Lou was working the land, chopping and picking cotton just as her older siblings and parents were. She loved to read as a child, but education took the backseat to physical labor for impoverished youth of all ethnicities in the South. Hamer’s periods of schooling in Mississippi were specifically scheduled as to not interfere with harvest time, and Black individuals were almost never encouraged to pursue scholarship; especially not young, Black women. By the age of 12, Hamer was out of formal education for good and working in the field, where she was put to work as an adult. Unfortunately, this was more schooling than most Black youth received at the time - Hamer at least had enough time to gain and maintain her literacy. Ms. Fannie Lou stayed in Sunflower County, where she continued to support herself through field work. She eventually married a local man by the name of Perry Hamer in 1944. Together, they were sharecroppers on the plantation of B.D. Marlow; Perry as a laborer and Fannie Lou as a laborer and timekeeper, due to her literacy. This came to a halt in the early 1960s, when Fannie Lou Hamer came in contact with members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced Snick) for short. Members from SNCC, a grassroots political organization, went into Ruleville, Mississippi (small city in Sunflower County where the Hamer’s resided) with means to convince local Black residents to register to vote. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the residents SNCC reached, and although she claimed to have never heard of voting & what it entailed before that day, she instantly became intrigued and followed their lead. Here is a quote from Fannie Lou Hamer, describing her efforts with SNCC to register herself and 17 other Black people to vote on August 31, 1961: “Well, when I first tried to register it was in Indianola. I went to Indianola on the thirty-first of August in 1962; that was to try to register. When we got there--there was eighteen of us went that day--so when we got there, there were people there with guns and just a lot of strange-looking people to us. We went on in the circuit clerk's office, and he asked us what did we want; and we told him what we wanted. We wanted to try to register. He told us that all of us would have to get out of there except two. So I was one of the two persons that remained inside, to try to register, [with] another young man named Mr. Ernest Davis. We stayed in to take the literacy test. So the registrar gave me the sixteenth section of the Constitution of Mississippi. He pointed it out in the book and told me to look at it and then copy it down just like I saw it in the book: Put a period where a period was supposed to be, a comma and all of that. After I copied it down he told me right below that to give a real reasonable interpretation then, interpret what I had read. That was impossible. I had tried to give it, but I didn't even know what it meant, much less to interpret it.” This was not the whole incident. After leaving empty-handed, the run-down school-bus-turned-church-bus that carried the eighteen spirits was pulled over. One person was arrested, and the bus driver was fined $100 for driving a bus that was deemed “too yellow.” Hamer apparently broke into song, and her powerful voice brought much needed calm to the situation. After negotiating the fine down to $30, the bus passengers lobbied money together to pay the made-up fine and began their way back to Ruleville. Hamer arrived home to a furious plantation owner, who demanded Hamer to withdraw her name from the registrar (despite her failed attempt) or to be kicked off the plantation. “I didn’t go down there to register for you. I went down there to register for myself,” said Hamer. She was kicked off of the plantation after 18 years of living there. Her husband, Perry, was too blackmailed; Marlow threatened to withhold all of their belongings if Perry left the plantation to be with his wife. Now homeless, Hamer went to live with acquaintances in Tallahatchie County, MS and was hired to do voter registration work for SNCC. There were meager wages, sometimes none, but it was the work that she cared about. The education, encouragement, and examples located within SNCC motivated her to work towards teaching every Black Mississippian about their rights as U.S. citizens. She helped lead mass events & civic-education series, led numerous adults in Mississippi to register to vote, and eventually helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to disrupt the discrimination found within Democratic Party representation. This work was extremely important, as more than 98% of eligible Mississippi adults were not registered to vote in 1960 (Anderson, White Rage p. 46). Her commitment to the work reached national spotlight during the Democratic National Convention of 1964. The previous summer, SNCC workers like Fannie Lou were building the MFDP locally, to challenge the violence and exclusion experienced by Black Mississippians at the hands of Congress. By the time the convention came about, MFDP had 68 delegates, with Ms. Hamer as their Vice Chair. Though the party had verbal support from a few voices of the Democratic Party, and popular leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., President Lyndon Johnson was not a fan. This is why when Fannie Lou Hamer was given the stage to verbally challenge the all-white Mississippi Democratic delegates representing their state, Lyndon Johnson scheduled an impromptu press conference during Hamer’s allotted time. This explicit censorship of Hamer, an attempt to protect the feelings of Johnson’s conservative supporters, was quite emblematic of the conditions the MDFP was there to protest. Hamer once quoted Johnson saying, “Get the g*ddamn television off of those n****** from Mississippi.” Johnson’s tactic ultimately failed, because the speech that Fannie Lou Hamer delivered that night rang across the country for days following. In her short but powerful speech, Ms. Hamer speaks on her disastrous attempt to register to vote. She mentioned the horrible aftermath of getting kicked off of her plantation, when White supremacists fired 16 shots into a Mississippi home attempting to kill Hamer, who had officially left the plantation the previous week. She then spoke of an incident in 1963, in which her and colleagues were arrested for sitting at a Whites-only lunch counter in Winona, Mississippi. Their White bus driver called the police, which led to the arrests of Hamer and five accompanying activists. Policemen then gathered already-convicted inmates, and told them to beat Hamer and her colleagues continuously. Hamer got it the worst as she suffered lifelong injuries from these beatings, which included hindered eyesight and permanent kidney damage (her kidney damage would later play a role in her untimely death). Her powerful testimony did what Martin Luther King Jr. 's could not, and that was to give an unfiltered testimony to the true horrors of Southern White supremacy. She ended her speech with a question we still have yet to answer: “I question America, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?” After being offered a mere 2 congressional seats for their 68 members, Hamer declined on behalf of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party. She felt that they did not work as hard as they did for two performative seats in the convention. That same year year, Ms. Hamer ran for congress as a MDFP candidate against the Democratic incumbent, Jamie L. Whitten. She faced heavy ridicule from Black and White individuals, either because of her skin color or because she lacked formal education (society in the 1960’s had a hard enough time accepting extremely qualified women as it was.) Her, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine ran for spots in Mississippi’s House of Representatives, but were easily defeated due to disfranchisement & and societal attitudes at the time. These three Black women challenged the election at the end of 1964 under that exact rationale, and even though their attempt to gain representation was shot down, the noise they made brought the political injustices to the forefront of politics, a feat much easier said than done. Despite the failed resolution, Hamer did not stop her work. She traveled around the country delivering speeches and holding educational workshops. She founded and led an agricultural cooperative, Freedom Farms, in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. With the help of donations from around the country, Hamer supplied at least 680 acres of land, farming supplies, and more to Black farmers in the area. This cooperative gave shelter to Black farmers stuck in the cyclic poverty of sharecropping, or who had been kicked off their plantations for trying to vote (amongst other reasons). Much of the housing she was responsible for building through this cooperative still stands today. By meshing economics, education, and politics, Hamer gave back to her community in a way she could have benefited from in her past. Hamer, like so many other Black Americans in the early-to-mid 20th century, had all odds stacked against her from birth. As a Black Woman, she was the recipient of unique, unwarranted, and yet entirely precedented violence throughout her entire life, from sharecropping at age six to being brutalized by police at age 45. It is easy to see how she was the one who coined the phrase, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Despite her circumstances, she rose to be one of the country's most important grassroots organizers in our history, and helped push the needle during a time where mainstream Black leaders were heavily focused on incremental gains. Beneath the surface of her work, Ms. Hamer fearlessly brought the humanity of Blackness to the forefront of politics, and for that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Ms. Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer. You can find my sources on Fannie Lou Hamer here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. https://jbolden.com/elsewhere daily 0.75 2021-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1609444287794-OIP3A7P9VX3KROG59ZRS/perry.jpg Elsewhere - Perry Young Jr. (1919-1998) Perry Young Jr. was born March 12, 1919 in Orangeburg, South Carolina, but his family moved to Oberlin, Ohio when he was only 10 years old. Young graduated from Oberlin High School in the spring of 1937, and spent the following summer learning about aviation. He quickly decided that his career goal was to be a pilot, and soon he began taking aviation lessons, for which he paid for by washing cars and other odd jobs. Young was so passionate about becoming a pilot that the year after graduating high school, he turned down a full four year scholarship to the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in order to complete his pilot training. Sure enough, Perry earned his flight license a year later in 1939, and was officially ready to become a commercial pilot. So he thought, at least. From 1939 to 1942, Perry Young Jr. could not find a job as a pilot in America due to racial discrimination. He was eventually granted employment during WWII, but not as a pilot. Instead, Young was hired by the military to train pilots. Pearl Harbor made the US realize they had a real shortage of pilots who were skilled enough to teach, so instructors like Perry were forbidden from going into battle. Even though it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he was called upon by the Armed Forces, so Young left his teaching gig in Chicago and began to train airmen from the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Young trained about 150 of the 900+ African American Airmen in the 99th Pursuit Squadron. These airmen would go on to be more famously known as The Tuskegee Airmen. Young was praised for his training of such a well disciplined group of pilots, many of whom had great success overseas, despite knowing little to nothing about aviation prior to their training. Despite serving the military and proving his competence, Perry could still not find employment as a pilot in America. Commercial airlines still refused to hire any candidate of color, regardless of experience and qualifications. This forced Young to seek employment outside of the US. His first stop was in Haiti, where he would eventually meet his wife and start a family. He flew for Haiti’s national airline, and tried to start his own airline company in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, but failed after about two years. He continued to travel the world as a pilot, finding his way all across North America, from Puerto Rico to The US Virgin Islands. It was not until 1956 that Young would finally be hired by an American Airline Company, New York Airways, which only flew helicopters. He would originally be denied a job because he only had 200 logged helicopter hours out of his 7,000 flight hours, much lower than the company minimum of 500 helicopter hours. But, when New York Airlines shifted from single piloted to co-piloted flights due to a more advanced type of helicopter being available, more pilots were needed, and Young was hired as a co-pilot. On February 5th, 1957, Perry Young Jr. became the first African-American to to fly regularly scheduled flights for a commercial airline. Other pilots refused to co-pilot with him because of his race, but NYA was so short on pilots, the racists were forced to get over it, or quit. We should note how difficult it must have been to sit in a cockpit for hours a day with someone who would rather not work with you because they view your entire race as inferior. Despite this unfortunate reality, Young earned his spot as a flight captain nearly a month into the job, after logging the additional helicopter hours required. Young remained with New York Airlines until it’s bankruptcy in 1979. Flying for over 20 years, Young faced racism well throughout his career, both within NYA and outside of it, recalls a friend and co-pilot of Mr. Young. He spent over fifteen years searching for employment in America, just to be denied time after time again. Even after he was granted a piloting job in the states, he faced discrimination from numerous angles that could have derailed any emotionally aware human being from their goals in life. Still, his deep passion for aviation drove him to accomplish his goals. Young did not singlehandedly take down discrimination within commercial aviation, but he was an early catalyst to the process. His face was tied to African-American Aviation in the late 50’s and 60’s, and he stood up to that burden. He understood that an opportunity for him meant more opportunities for young Black pilots to come. For that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Young! Read my sources on Perry Young Jr. here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/personal-testimonies daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/black-owned daily 0.75 2021-02-02 https://jbolden.com/toledo-oh daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/charlottesville-va daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/beauty-hygiene daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/bookstores daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/clothing daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/jewelry-accessories daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/food-drink daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/fitness daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/household-items-decor daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/other daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/parenting daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/art daily 0.75 2021-05-01 https://jbolden.com/sydney-poitier daily 0.75 2021-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534072129-RMXJUFOPI1WQ2502OBD2/poitier.jpg Sydney Poitier - Sydney Poitier (1920-) Sidney Poitier was born on February 27, 1920, to fairly unusual circumstances. His family lived in the central region of the Bahamas, named Cat Island, but made voyages to Florida to sell the produce they grew on their tomato farm back home. During one of his parents’ voyages, Poitier was born on the boat two months premature, and was not expected to make it off the boat alive. The boat still made its way to Florida, where Poitier would be nursed back to life and actually have his birth recorded, granting him American citizenship. After returning to The Bahamas, the Poitiers would stay there until Sidney was about ten years old. His father’s farm had failed due to a US Embargo put on tomatoes, so in search of new means of living they went to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. Here, Sidney was introduced to a new, more modern lifestyle. He saw lots of Black men in positions of power in Nassau, which he says showed him the possibilities in life. Still, his father thought he was getting into too much ‘trouble’. When Sidney was just 15, his father sent him to live with his brother in Florida, where he could start anew. Poitier left Florida within a year, due to the severity of southern segregation. He left for New York, where he held a series of low-grade jobs to sustain himself while sleeping in a bus terminal. He saved enough money to rent a room for himself, but after almost getting arrested for not being able to pay rent a few months in, Poitier had sought out the Army. He worked in a Veteran’s Hospital as a physiotherapist for less than two years during World War II. After the army, Poitier came back to New York (either Harlem or Manhattan), where he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for American Negro Theatre auditions. He noted in a 2002 Spotlight Interview with CNN that he originally auditioned because he needed the money. Despite this, his first audition went terribly. He had a very thick Bahamian accent which turned the directors away, and his blatant lack of reading education caused the directors to send him home before he even finished his script. This struck a match inside Poitier; with the help of a coworker and local radio stations, he dedicated the next six months to learning how to read and speak Americanized English, practically erasing his Bahamian accent when he spoke. His strategy of cultural assimilation, on top of developing his skills as an actor, still failed him the second time. But, Poitier noticed the Theatre needed a janitor after his audition. He offered to take the job in exchange for acting lessons at the ANT, and they accepted. This was just the beginning of Sidney Poitier’s career. Poitier took the ANT stage numerous times throughout the 1940’s, but it was his first Broadway appearance that took his career to the next level. In 1949, Sidney Poitier played the role of Polydorus in the all African-American production Lysistrata. Producers within Hollywood were catching wind of Mr. Poitier’s skill, and within a year he would have the opportunity to star in a major film production instead of performing on a stage. Poitier saw the opportunity and ran with it, making his first major film appearance in the 1950 film ‘No Way Out.’ He had numerous side roles in the early 1950’s, and his skill shined through every role, but it was not common to give lead roles to African Americans. Typically, Black actors would only be cast in all African-American films, or mixed films with roles that portray the stereotypical Black man in the eyes of a racist White person, a media tactic used for decades to vilify the Black image. Nonetheless, Poitiers' ability was undeniable, and soon the lead roles came in. One of his greatest lead roles was in Defiant Ones (1958), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, making him the first African-American male to receive this nomination (Hattie May was the first African-American to win an Academy Award in 1939). Five years later, he would become the first African-American male to officially win the Oscar for Best Lead Actor in the 1963 film Lilies of the Field. A Black man would not accomplish this again until Denzel Washington in 2002. It should be noted that Mr. Poitier proudly denied a handful of roles during this time as well. He refused to take any role that portrayed the African American in a negative or stereotypical light, setting the precedent for Black actors and actresses to come in Hollywood. Poitier ended his career as a highly acclaimed actor, director, humanitarian, writer, and more, but his life represents more than his accomplishments. Pay less attention to the success and more to the journey. From being born two months premature and growing up in extreme poverty in the Bahamas, to being homeless in New York and becoming a janitor in exchange for acting lessons, to breaking a major color barrier in the world by becoming a world renowned actor in America. Poitier rose to fame without compromising his morals, putting his people before a dollar bill. We can all learn from his story, and for that, we should all be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Sidney Poitier! Read my sources on Mr. Poitier here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/maria-w-stewart daily 0.75 2021-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534279740-ZLXJKZH9JQ32XEESBAUS/Maria-Stewart.gif Maria W. Stewart - Maria W. Stewart (1803 - 1879) Maria Stewart, born Maria Miller, was the first woman in America to speak publicly amongst a multi-race crowd, and the first African-American female public speaker ever documented in America. Ms. Miller was born in 1803 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was enslaved, but her mother was not, hence she was born free. There is not much documentation of Miller’s life, especially in her early years, so most of what we know about her came from her own writing. Stewart lost both of her parents by the age of five, and was forced into refuge as a servant to white clergymen. Leaving her oppressors at fifteen, Miller was “thirsty for knowledge”, but had no opportunity to learn for the previous ten years besides the clergymen’s library. Her lack of education inspired her to attend Sabbath school until the age of 20, so until 1823. Three years later, she married a man named James W. Stewart (whom she called James W. Steward), a well off veteran in Boston. Her husband died three years later, which qualified her for a hefty inheritance on her husband’s behalf. But, the white men who executed Mr. Stewart’s will defrauded her of the funds, forcing Mrs. Stewart to support herself, once again, through domestic servitude. It was around this time that she began faithfully relying on Religion for guidance in her life. Bob Kellerman of RPM ministries made a great point in reference to Mrs. Stewart at that point in time of her life. She is 1. incredibly young, 2. African-American, 3. a woman and 4. a widow. She was subject to four of the greatest historical social burdens of her time, and that should not go unrecognized. Despite her apparent obstacles, Mrs. Stewart remained dedicated to educating her fellow Black & Brown skinned individuals on their supposedly promised freedoms. In 1831, she made her first publication through William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Her piece was titled Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality: The Sure Foundations on Which We Must Build, and it referenced the Bible, the US Constitution and more. In it, she called upon Black men and women to reject the White man’s claim to superiority, to invest in their own skills because they were worthy of greatness, too. “It is not the color of the skin that makes the man, but it is the principles formed within the soul,” she mentioned. Her words were undoubtedly powerful. Her ‘radical’ stance on feminism and slavery (I put quotes because, how radical is demanding equal rights as a human being?) and shortly after her first publication, she began to deliver public speeches. The first of which was on April 28, 1832, before the African American Female Intelligence Society of Boston, Massachusetts. This was history in itself, as African-American women did not speak publicly much at the time. She made history again on September 21st, 1832, in giving a speech to a mixed-gender audience at Franklin Hall in Boston. She would give a few more speeches before retiring her oratory prowess late in 1833. After giving up delivering speeches, Mrs. Stewart began teaching and delivering lectures in Manhattan, New York. She published a collection of her works titled Productions of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart in 1835. William Lloyd Garrison published this as well, along with previous works of hers not aforementioned. It is critical to note that, although her works were published, they were always sectioned in the “Ladies Department” of the editorial. In a society that was swamped with sexism and relied heavily on gender roles, Mrs. Stewart was not getting as much publicity or respect as she should have been, and it was micro-aggressions like these that reinforced those societal attitudes and practices. Maria Stewart died in Washington D.C. in 1879, after moving there almost twenty years prior. In D.C. she opened a school for the children of runaway slaves, published more writings, and became Head Matron of the Freedman’s Hospital, now the Howard University Hospital. Her fearlessness to speak for what was morally correct, to use what privilege she had as a Free, light-skinned Black woman to advocate for those struggling just like or worse than her, is something that we can all learn, and be inspired from. Thank you, Mrs. Maria Miller-Stewart. Read my sources on Maria Miller-Stewart here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/lewis-howard-latimer daily 0.75 2021-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534368695-J9PSXHP4V4MRWNLXF31Z/latimer.jpg Lewis Howard Latimer - Lewis Howard Latimer (1848-1928) Lewis Howard Latimer was born on September 4, 1848 in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where his family fled years earlier to escape slavery (see his father, George Latimer’s court case). At age 16, Lewis chose to enlist into the Union Navy during the Civil War, and was honorably discharged after about a year of service. In search of employment upon arriving home, Latimer finally landed a job at Crosby and Gould patent law firm in 1868, almost three full years after returning home. This law firm defended inventors trying to protect their parents, and it was here that Mr. Latimer taught himself the skill of mechanical drawing, by observing draftsmen who would seek out the firm’s help. Latimer studied and read books on the topic for months with the hopes of becoming a draftsman himself. The opportunity came, and Latimer went from making $3 a week as an office boy, to $20 a week as a draftsman. Eight years later while at the same firm, Latimer is notified of a request for a draft of a soon-to-be-patented invention. The request was from a teacher by the name of Alexander G. Bell, who was in dire need of a draftsman to submit his patent request before someone else did. Working late into the night, Lewis Latimer finished the draft and Alexander Graham Bell submitted what would be the first telephone patent just a few hours before the next person, Elisha Gray, would submit a similar patent request. In 1880, 14 years after he helped patent the telephone, Latimer was hired as a mechanical draftsman in the U.S. Electric Lighting Company under Hiram Maxim. Under Maxim is where Latimer would develop his knowledge of incandescent lighting, and eventually draft a patent for the process of manufacturing carbon filaments for the incandescent lightbulb itself. This was not the first carbon filament invented, but a much more efficient and cheap filament indeed. His knowledge on incandescent lighting, as well as his patent expertise, earned him a job in New York with Edison Electric Light Company under, you guessed it, Thomas Edison. Latimer was Edison’s chief drafstman and patent supervisor. His knowledge of carbon filament processing was of great aid to Edison’s lightbulb, and his patent expertise saved Edison’s patent of the lamp from being stolen or misused by others. Edison and Latimer worked so tightly together that Latimer wrote a book on the incandescent light bulb called Incandescent Electric Lighting: A Practical Description of the Edison System. Lewis Latimer’s impact is insurmountable within engineering and inventorship, but he was no less active in the contemporaneous Civil Rights activities. Though he could not attend, he wrote a speech for the National Colored Mens Convention of 1895 in Detroit, Michigan. It said, “If our cause be made the common cause, and all our claims and demands be founded on justice and humanity, recognizing that we must wrong no man in winning our rights, I have faith to believe that the Nation will respond to our plea for equality before the law, security under the law, and an opportunity, by and through maintenance of the law, to enjoy with our fellow citizens of all races and complexions the blessings guaranteed us under the Constitution.” Putting accurate historical context around Lewis Latimer’s life is the only way to do his lifetime achievements justice. Creating an efficient carbon filament is difficult on its own; fighting to prove your worth to bigoted racists who hated to see you succeed on top of that is a whole ‘nother story. Outside of his work on incandescent lighting & the telephone, Latimer held a number of patents and a great deal of influence because of them. His mind was tailored to invent, and through being abandoned by his father, surviving the Civil War and fighting the daily fight as a Black Man in America in Antebellum America, he made a name for himself. Most importantly, he furthered the state of our country, being the only minority ‘Edison Pioneer’, the group credited for commercial electricity. After his retirement in 1922, his health began to decline steadily until his death on December 11, 1928. It is safe to say his Legacy will remain with us for decades to come. Thank you, Mr. Latimer. Read my sources on Lewis H. Latimer here, here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/shirley-chisholm daily 0.75 2021-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534479561-BAA1B121UZAVW6WDGJYP/Shirley_Chisholm.jpg Shirley Chisholm - Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) Shirley Chisholm was born Shirley Anita St. Hill on November 30, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn was where she would spend most of her early life, graduating from Brooklyn Girls High School and Brooklyn College in the 1940’s (‘42 and ‘46, respectively), but she briefly stayed with extended family in Barbados during her early life. This was so her parents, both immigrants, could stay in America and work during the Great Depression in order to save enough money for proper living. Despite her unusual childhood, Shirley was stellar in the classroom. She received high praise at Brooklyn High and attained her B.A. in Sociology from Brooklyn College with cum laude honors. She was also a star on their debate team. After her undergraduate studies, Ms. St. Hill began working as a nursery school teacher. It was during this time she married her first husband, Conrad Chisholm, in 1949. Three years later, in 1952, she attained her Masters degree from Columbia University in Early Childhood Education. Gaining her masters was followed by her becoming the director of two daycare centers in Brooklyn, before becoming an educational consultant for New York City’s division of day care in 1959. Chisholm served as an educational consultant until 1964. What cut her consultant days short? Chisholm decided to run for a spot on the New York state Legislature in 1964. She won, and became the second African-American to do so. Shortly after earning her seat in the state Legislature, heavy congressional redistricting within the state of New York, especially in Shirley Chisholm’s own neighborhood, caught many people’s eye, including Ms. Chisholm’s. New York’s 12th Congressional District was now primarily Democrat, and when news came out that the incumbent was running for re-election in a new district, Chisholm seized the opportunity next election cycle to gain her own seat. Ms. Chisholm ran for and won her Congressional seat in 1968, after two terms in the state Legislature, and was officially sworn in January 3rd, 1969. She was the first African American woman to be elected into congress, and the only woman in her Congressional ‘freshman’ class. Nonetheless, Ms. Chisholm was very active in Congress throughout her tenure. She served on multiple committees, and was very active in all of them. A notable act was her role in the establishment of The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) while she served on the House Agriculture Committee. In 1972, Shirley Chisholm raised the bar for herself again by running for President of the United States. In announcing her campaign, Chisholm made note that she is not the ‘Black’ candidate, or the ‘Women’s’ candidate (though she was ‘proud to be both’), but a candidate for all American People. Still, Shirley faced a great deal of discrimination during her campaign (and while in Congress), but it never keep her from being vocal on issues that she saw as important. Shirley is on record saying she felt more discrimination as a Woman than as an African American, and the lack of support from the males of the Congressional Black Caucus solidified that statement during her presidential run. Ms. Chisholm was only allowed one TV appearance (they excluded her from the first three televised debates, but they let her after she sought legal action, and she became the first woman ever to appear in a presidential debate), also showing the discrimination to which she was subject. Ms. Chisholm fought hard against it, but between having an underfunded and under organized campaign, alongside the fact that the American public was not ready for a Black Woman as their president, she ended up with only 152 delegate votes from just 12 primaries. Although she did not win, Shirley Chisholm brought national attention to issues we still protest about today, and brought everlasting change to American politics while in Congress. From 1964 to 1983, outside of disrupting the status quo socially, Ms. Chisholm had worked on… A bill to give domestic workers a minimum wage Expanding the Federal Food Stamp program (hence her work on the WIC bill) Co-founding the Congressional Black Caucus (only woman to start) Co-founding the National Women’s Political Caucus Withdrawing from the Vietnam War & reducing Military expenses Increasing Spending on Education, Healthcare, & other Social Services. & more after Congress, as well Shirley Chisholm ‘walked’ so a lot of our politicians could ‘run’ today. Shirley Chisholm ‘ran’ so our politicians could ‘walk’, honestly. She was a Black Woman progressive, who was slighted at almost every turn of her political career, from being neglected by the CBC to only being allowed one televised appearance during her presidential campaign. Yet, she never lost sight of her goals, nor her morals, even after her political career. Chisholm left Congress in 1983, deciding not to run for reelection of New York’s Congressional District 12, after the political scene became too “factional” under Reagan. Let it be known that this was well after she claimed her seat at the table. She made sure her voice was heard all throughout her career, because she knew the irreplaceable perspective she held as a Black Woman, despite everyone, including the Black men in Congress, trying to belittle her. She knew that her seat at the table was our seat at the table, and for that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Ms. Shirley Chisholm. Read my sources on Shirley Chisholm here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/vivian-pinn daily 0.75 2021-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534616873-71C8T3CNJ2MKEQBFGA9C/viv.jpg Vivian Pinn - Vivian Pinn, M.D. (1941- ) Vivian W. Pinn was born on a farm in Halifax, Virginia in 1941, but moved to Lynchburg in her early life. When asked about her inspiration for becoming a doctor, Pinn responded “I think I got the interest in being a doctor because there was illness in my family—I had a grandmother who was diabetic, and I had a grandfather who was suffering from cancer—and I noticed two things. One: when the doctor came to see them, they always seemed to be better. That was in the days when house calls were made, so the doctor came to your home. And it just seemed that whenever the doctor came, they were always better afterwards, and I liked that.” She’s told that one of the first words she learned to spell was ‘pediatrician.’ After graduating as the valedictorian of her segregated high school in Lynchburg, Vivian Pinn went on to Wellesley College for undergraduate studies in 1958. It was here that Ms. Pinn’s focus shifted from pediatric care to pathology. Nine years later, she graduated from the University of Virginia’s Medical School in 1967 as the only Woman and only African American in her class. After completing her residency in pathology in 1970, Pinn took the role of professor and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1982, she moved to Washington D.C., to serve as a professor and chair of the pathology department at Howard University College of Medicine, making her the first African-American woman to run a pathology department in the U.S. Most recently, Dr. Pinn served as the first full-time director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institute of Health, an office dedicated to increasing women leadership in research and academic settings in general, until 2011. Jordan Hall at the University of Virginia’s Medical School was renamed to ‘Pinn Hall’ in her honor as late as 2016. Dr. Pinn has had an incredibly impactful career. She has been active in her field for over 50 years straight, and is the recipient of numerous awards since the 1990’s. Some include… induction as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994 the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from the American Medical Women's Association in 1995 election to the National Academy of Medicine in 1995 The Foremother award from the National Center of Health Research in 2013 the Alma Dea Morani Award from The Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation in 2020, and so many more. Dr. Pinn has fought and continues to fight against the grain of society through her success as a Black Woman growing up during segregation, and through centering the experience of those who have been historically neglected or overshadowed. For that, her story deserves admiration and will most definitely inspire others to do the same. Thank you, Dr. Vivian Pinn. Read my sources on Vivian Pinn here, here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/perry-h-young daily 0.75 2021-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1613534675907-SAE9PMV99C3DRCYI81U1/perry.jpg Perry H. Young - Perry Young Jr. (1919-1998) Perry Young Jr. was born March 12, 1919 in Orangeburg, South Carolina, but his family moved to Oberlin, Ohio when he was only 10 years old. Young graduated from Oberlin High School in the spring of 1937, and spent the following summer learning about aviation. He quickly decided that his career goal was to be a pilot, and soon he began taking aviation lessons, for which he paid for by washing cars and other odd jobs. Young was so passionate about becoming a pilot that the year after graduating high school, he turned down a full four year scholarship to the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in order to complete his pilot training. Sure enough, Perry earned his flight license a year later in 1939, and was officially ready to become a commercial pilot. So he thought, at least. From 1939 to 1942, Perry Young Jr. could not find a job as a pilot in America due to racial discrimination. He was eventually granted employment during WWII, but not as a pilot. Instead, Young was hired by the military to train pilots. Pearl Harbor made the US realize they had a real shortage of pilots who were skilled enough to teach, so instructors like Perry were forbidden from going into battle. Even though it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he was called upon by the Armed Forces, so Young left his teaching gig in Chicago and began to train airmen from the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Young trained about 150 of the 900+ African American Airmen in the 99th Pursuit Squadron. These airmen would go on to be more famously known as The Tuskegee Airmen. Young was praised for his training of such a well disciplined group of pilots, many of whom had great success overseas, despite knowing little to nothing about aviation prior to their training. Despite serving the military and proving his competence, Perry could still not find employment as a pilot in America. Commercial airlines still refused to hire any candidate of color, regardless of experience and qualifications. This forced Young to seek employment outside of the US. His first stop was in Haiti, where he would eventually meet his wife and start a family. He flew for Haiti’s national airline, and tried to start his own airline company in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, but failed after about two years. He continued to travel the world as a pilot, finding his way all across North America, from Puerto Rico to The US Virgin Islands. It was not until 1956 that Young would finally be hired by an American Airline Company, New York Airways, which only flew helicopters. He would originally be denied a job because he only had 200 logged helicopter hours out of his 7,000 flight hours, much lower than the company minimum of 500 helicopter hours. But, when New York Airlines shifted from single piloted to co-piloted flights due to a more advanced type of helicopter being available, more pilots were needed, and Young was hired as a co-pilot. On February 5th, 1957, Perry Young Jr. became the first African-American to to fly regularly scheduled flights for a commercial airline. Other pilots refused to co-pilot with him because of his race, but NYA was so short on pilots, the racists were forced to get over it, or quit. We should note how difficult it must have been to sit in a cockpit for hours a day with someone who would rather not work with you because they view your entire race as inferior. Despite this unfortunate reality, Young earned his spot as a flight captain nearly a month into the job, after logging the additional helicopter hours required. Young remained with New York Airlines until it’s bankruptcy in 1979. Flying for over 20 years, Young faced racism well throughout his career, both within NYA and outside of it, recalls a friend and co-pilot of Mr. Young. He spent over fifteen years searching for employment in America, just to be denied time after time again. Even after he was granted a piloting job in the states, he faced discrimination from numerous angles that could have derailed any emotionally aware human being from their goals in life. Still, his deep passion for aviation drove him to accomplish his goals. Young did not singlehandedly take down discrimination within commercial aviation, but he was an early catalyst to the process. His face was tied to African-American Aviation in the late 50’s and 60’s, and he stood up to that burden. He understood that an opportunity for him meant more opportunities for young Black pilots to come. For that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Mr. Young! Read my sources on Perry Young Jr. here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/nikki-giovanni daily 0.75 2021-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1616509774525-28DZM5CQA0TAIBKRGPKC/8C1A1A03-6F4E-4B6D-9486-9CDBD6C88A7C.png Nikki Giovanni - Nikki Giovanni (1943-) Nikki Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her sister, Gary Giovanni, nicknamed her “Nikki” shortly after her birth, and the nickname stuck. Giovanni’s family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, a few months after she was born, where she would spend most of her childhood. She would visit her grandparents annually back in Knoxville, and eventually moved back at the age of fourteen. Giovanni read a lot as a child, stating that her mother kept a library full of wonderful books at home. Nikki Giovanni graduated from Austin High School in Knoxville before attending the historically black Fisk University as an “early entrant” in 1960 (Giovanni’s grandfather attended Fisk University years before, but Giovanni notes in her biography that this had no weight on her final decision to attend the university). Not too long after enrolling, Giovanni was dismissed from Fisk University. She had some verbal disagreements with the Dean of Women, and ultimately had difficulty adjusting to the ‘conservatism’ of the campus in regards to gender and race. After her expulsion, she returned to Cincinnati, where she worked at a local Walgreens to support herself while helping take care of her young nephew. She also volunteered and took courses at the University of Cincinnati during the three years she stayed in the city. In 1964, Giovanni traveled to Fisk University to seek re-admittance. Upon arrival, Giovanni realized the Dean of Women she had issues with had been replaced. The new Dean and Nikki got along very well, and Nikki was encouraged to rejoin the University in the Fall semester of the same year. With the support of her new dean, Dean Cowen, Giovanni began to flourish in and out of the classroom. Over the next couple of years Giovanni began to edit literary journals, she reestablished Fisk University’s Chapter of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), and wrote pieces on gender for local Black owned journals. Graduating with honors and a Bachelor's degree in History, Ms. Giovanni’s success was only getting started. Two months after graduating in January 1967, her grandmother unexpectedly passed away. Her untimely death took an emotional toll on Ms. Giovanni, and she turned to writing as an emotional outlet. It was during this time that she produced most of her first anthology, Black Feeling, Black Talk, although it was not published until 1968. Publishers had negative attitudes towards a Black woman writing militant poetry, so in response Giovanni formed her own company and published her collection by herself (Black Judgement was written and published at a later date, thanks to a grant from the Harlem Council of Arts). She then sold her books to bookstores for a discount to get sales. Ms. Giovanni’s political fervor captivated her audience, and as time went on more people began to catch wind of her publications. By 1969, her name and face were both on papers such as The New York Times. This was only the start for Ms. Giovanni’s career. Over the last fifty years she has published over 50 books/anthologies, over a dozen of which are for children (inspired by her journey as a single mother of 1, her son Thomas Giovanni), hosted a television show (Soul!), taught in numerous institutions & countries (Queens College in 1969, Rutgers University , The Ohio State University in 1984-85, Mount St. Joseph’s College in 1985-87, France, Germany Poland and Italy for a lecture tour in 1985, Virginia Tech (1983-) as a University Distinguished Professor (1999-), Switzerland in 2014), released six spoken word albums (one of which won National Association of Radio and Television Announcers Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1972) and so much more. She is a seven time NAACP Image Award recipient, three time Woman of the Year recipient (1970-72), two time Rosa L. Parks Woman of Courage Award recipient (2001-02), and one time recipient of 60 more awards, the latest being the Maya Angelou Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Throughout her life, Nikki Giovanni has shown tremendous courage. From raising a beautiful son as a single mother in the 70’s, beating lung cancer in the 90’s, to writing and orating a beautiful speech just a day after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, she has put on numerous displays of true bravery outside of fighting for Black Liberation and Black Power for decades through her artistic expression. She is truly for the People, and we are all affected by her existence. Thank you, Ms. Nikki Giovanni. Read my sources on Ms. Giovanni here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/alexa-canady daily 0.75 2021-03-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1616651650377-3M7OIFMC8RX9XFEBPT8B/Screen+Shot+2021-03-25+at+1.50.31+AM.png Alexa Canady - Alexa Canady, MD (1950 - ) Alexa Canady was born November 7, 1950 in Lansing, Michigan, but her and her brother were raised right outside of the city by their parents, Elizabeth and Clinton Canady, Jr. Her mother was an educator and periodically the president of Delta Sigma Theta, and her father was a dentist, so Canady was no stranger to hard work growing up. As a child, she can remember her and her younger sibling being the only Black children in their elementary school. Canady says her mother would give them the ‘tokens are for spending’ talk. “So what if you're the token black girl,” her mother said. “Take that token and spend it." The issue was that, that token’s worth was decided by white supremacists, not Canady or her mother. In elementary school, Alexa Canady’s parents found out that one of her educators had been switching her intelligence test scores with those of a White student in order to cover up young Alexa’s intelligence. Luckily for her, Canady’s parents instilled into her mind a belief in hard work before these events rose to her knowledge. She remained a stellar student in the classroom, and eventually earned the title of National Achievement Scholar in 1967, as a senior in high school. When Ms. Canady decided to attend the University of Michigan, she decided to major in mathematics upon arrival, but switched into zoology by her junior year. Canady said her choice of switching stemmed from a “confidence crisis”, during which she almost discontinued her undergraduate studies. With the help of a health careers summer program targeting minority students, Canady fostered a love for medicine and decided to pursue a medical degree. After being accepted into the University of Michigan’s Medical School in 1971, Canady gained tremendous interest in the brain and all of its functions. From neurology to neurosurgery, she soon realized she had developed an affinity for one of, if not the most male-dominated fields of medicine in her time (keep in mind that Title IX, which barred sex discrimination in educational entities receiving federal funding, was passed just one year after her medical school journey began.) Despite the inevitable intersectional struggle ahead, Canady was determined to earn her way into a neurosurgical program post-doctorate. She began attending every neurology seminar on campus and reading every neurology article published, essentially becoming a walking neurology encyclopedia. This heavy immersion within her studies led Canady to attain her M.D. cum laude from U of M in 1975, and (despite months of unsuccessful interviews, even with her outstanding track record) to earn acceptance into a surgical internship at Yale that same year. This two year journey ahead of Dr. Canady marked the beginning of a historically significant career in neurosurgery, as she was now the first Black woman to ever complete a neurosurgical internship at Yale. Upon completion of her internship, Dr. Canady took her talents to the University of Minnesota to complete a neurosurgical residency. During her five years there, she developed a newfound passion in the pediatric ward. “Unlike adults, kids don’t know the role of the neurosurgeon,” Canady once noted. “They treat you like any other person.” After completing her residency at the University of Minnesota in 1981, Dr. Canady became the first Black female neurosurgeon in the United States. Upon completing her fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 1982, Dr. Canady joined the Neurosurgery Department at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital for a few years. It was during Canady’s time here that she became the first African-American woman to be certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Two years later in 1986, Dr. Canady became Chief of Neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. After leading research and teaching courses at Wayne State University, obtaining a patent for original neurosurgical equipment, and saving lives one surgery at a time for 30 years, Dr. Alexa Canady retired from medicine in 2012. Canady was inducted into Michigan’s Women Hall of Fame in 1989. She was awarded two honorary degrees: a doctorate of humane letters from the University of Detroit-Mercy in 1997, and a doctor of science degree from the University of Southern Connecticut in 1999. In 1993, she received the American Medical Women’s Association President’s Award, and the Distinguished Service Award from Wayne State University Medical School the following year. She was even one of the 13 individuals named ‘Michiganian of the Year’ in 2001. Dr. Canady’s determination to defy stereotypes, accompanied by extensive neurological knowledge and compassion for her patients, makes her one of the greatest neurosurgeons the world has ever seen, regardless of sex, race, or any other social factor. Thank you, Dr. Alexa Canady. You can find my resources on Dr. Canady here, here, here, here, and here. https://jbolden.com/madam-cj-walker daily 0.75 2021-03-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1616991160766-31CCW6RQLBEKLXV1OQOU/Madam_CJ_Walker_face_circa_1914.jpeg Madam C.J. Walker - Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919) Madam C.J. Walker, originally named Sarah Breedlove, was born December 23, 1867 on a plantation near Delta, Louisiana. Born to parents Owen and Minerva, who were formerly enslaved laborers, Breedlove was the first of her five siblings to be born ‘free.’ Breedlove still grew up in unfavorable conditions. Her parents worked as sharecroppers, an occupation which was almost always a guaranteed cycle of crippling poverty. When both of her parents died around age seven, apparently to unknown causes, Breedlove went to live with her sister, Louvinia, and her husband. The environment with her sister was not suitable for any young individual. To escape abuse from her brother in law and unfavorable working conditions that mimicked slavery, Ms. Breedlove married Moses McWilliams at the age of 14. Less than four years later, she gave birth to her only daughter, A’Lelia. Upon her husband’s death in 1887, around two years after the birth of their child, Breedlove decided to move to St. Louis, where her four brothers were barbers. She found work there as a laundry woman, which she did for some years, barely earning enough money to send her daughter to school. The odd conditions of her workplace (abundant steam, exposure to harsh laundry chemicals, etc.) along with other possible factors caused Breedlove’s hair to diminish in health and volume. By the mid 1890’s, she had lost the majority of what used to be a thick head of hair. Her brothers, although barbers, had little knowledge in women's haircare, so Breedlove began looking for solutions elsewhere. After trying out her own natural concoctions at home, she eventually found Annie Turnbo Malone’s Poro, a Black woman owned hair care line in the early 1900s. Breedlove eventually joined Turnbo’s sales team, after Turnbo’s products nearly brought her hair back to life. After a lackluster turnout for Poro at the 1904 World’s Fair (white customers would not buy or sell to them,) Breedlove moved to Denver, Colorado to sell Poro products door to door. Selling Poro was just the beginning for Breedlove in Denver. After realizing the financial opportunity that selling hair care presented, she underwent a substantial life transformation. First, she got married to a man named Charles Joseph Walker in 1906, giving her the name Sarah Walker. Second, she began manufacturing and selling her own hair care products instead of selling Poro products. This split marked the beginning of Breedlove’s entrepreneurial career, in which her husband convinced her to adopt the name “Madam CJ Walker” as an appeal tactic. Madam Walker had multiple products, including her vegetable shampoo, healthy hair grower, hot comb (which she did not invent, but popularized) and more. Her products were sold under the self named “Walker System,” used to promote hair health and hygiene in the Black female community. Controversy came about when Annie Turnbo Malone accused Walker of stealing her product’s recipe. While both concoctions have sulfur bases, Walker’s great-great granddaughter pointed out that using sulfur to help cure scalp diseases & dirtiness had been widely documented for hundreds of years before the rise of both entrepreneurs. Despite the accusations, Madam C.J. Walker’s business began to boom immediately. Even after the divorce between the Walkers in 1910, the company stood strong due to Madam Walker’s ability to network and build bonds with female leaders across the country, many of which were made through her church, the St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal. Walker moved from Denver to Pittsburgh to Indianapolis, strategically building (and greatly expanding) her brand along the way. As Madam Walker’s socioeconomic status began to elevate, so did her philanthropy and political activism. In 1917, she held the first National Madam C.J. Walker convention, in which she gave lectures on entrepreneurship, political activism and civic responsibility all in one. Women who had put a lot of work in for her company also received cash rewards, which were given out at these conventions. Breedlove became so active in the global anti-lynching/pro-Black soldier conversation that the Wilson administration deemed Walker, amongst W.E.B. DuBois and other powerful Black Americans “politically subversive” and spied heavily on them as a consequence. They were even denied them passports to go speak at global conferences on the matter (specifically in Germany, where anti-lynching propaganda was making a surge.) This did not stop her one bit, though. With plans of opening beauty schools and expanding her business, she eventually hired a Black architect by the name of to build her a mansion on one of the busiest roads in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in New York. Walker was purposefully headed even further into the limelight, scaling her public visibility with her national success. Unfortunately, Madam C.J. Walker would die an unexpected death in May of 1919, just one year to the month after purchasing her famous New York mansion, Villa Lewaro. Though she was only 51, Madam C.J. Walker left an empire -- ⅔ of which was to be donated to charitable causes, as stated in her will (the other ⅓ went to her daughter.) She is said to have had over 20,000 national sales agents, most of whom were women of color. She is on record for paying numerous Black children’s tuition, donated thousands of dollars to Black YMCA branches, and provided opportunities for thousands of women across the country, during a time where domestic work represented the majority of work available. Laid to rest as America’s first Black, and first female millionaire ever, her money was actually one of the least valuable things she left behind, for her legacy of being a dynamic human being who served her community impacted the world just as much as her liquid resources. Thank you, Ms. Sarah Breedlove. You can read my resources on Ms. Breedlove here, here, here, here, here, aaaand here. https://jbolden.com/fannie-lou-hamer daily 0.75 2021-04-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5face6bcd1200b5ef885bf60/1617248741890-C7CXIRX5CAKALNMULIJY/hamer.jpeg Fannie Lou Hamer - Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer (1917-1977) Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer was born October 6, 1917 in Montgomery County, Mississippi to Lou Ella and James Townsend. She was the last of 20 children born to the couple. At the age of two, Hamer’s parents moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, to work as sharecroppers on the land of a wealthy White man. Sharecropping was one of the only fields of employment for contemporary Southern Black folks, and typically resulted in a crippling cycle of hard labor and inescapable debt for working families. No different was the case for the Townsend family. By the age of six, Fannie Lou was working the land, chopping and picking cotton just as her older siblings and parents were. She loved to read as a child, but education took the backseat to physical labor for impoverished youth of all ethnicities in the South. Hamer’s periods of schooling in Mississippi were specifically scheduled as to not interfere with harvest time, and Black individuals were almost never encouraged to pursue scholarship; especially not young, Black women. By the age of 12, Hamer was out of formal education for good and working in the field, where she was put to work as an adult. Unfortunately, this was more schooling than most Black youth received at the time - Hamer at least had enough time to gain and maintain her literacy. Ms. Fannie Lou stayed in Sunflower County, where she continued to support herself through field work. She eventually married a local man by the name of Perry Hamer in 1944. Together, they were sharecroppers on the plantation of B.D. Marlow; Perry as a laborer and Fannie Lou as a laborer and timekeeper, due to her literacy. This came to a halt in the early 1960s, when Fannie Lou Hamer came in contact with members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced Snick) for short. Members from SNCC, a grassroots political organization, went into Ruleville, Mississippi (small city in Sunflower County where the Hamer’s resided) with means to convince local Black residents to register to vote. Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the residents SNCC reached, and although she claimed to have never heard of voting & what it entailed before that day, she instantly became intrigued and followed their lead. Here is a quote from Fannie Lou Hamer, describing her efforts with SNCC to register herself and 17 other Black people to vote on August 31, 1961: “Well, when I first tried to register it was in Indianola. I went to Indianola on the thirty-first of August in 1962; that was to try to register. When we got there--there was eighteen of us went that day--so when we got there, there were people there with guns and just a lot of strange-looking people to us. We went on in the circuit clerk's office, and he asked us what did we want; and we told him what we wanted. We wanted to try to register. He told us that all of us would have to get out of there except two. So I was one of the two persons that remained inside, to try to register, [with] another young man named Mr. Ernest Davis. We stayed in to take the literacy test. So the registrar gave me the sixteenth section of the Constitution of Mississippi. He pointed it out in the book and told me to look at it and then copy it down just like I saw it in the book: Put a period where a period was supposed to be, a comma and all of that. After I copied it down he told me right below that to give a real reasonable interpretation then, interpret what I had read. That was impossible. I had tried to give it, but I didn't even know what it meant, much less to interpret it.” This was not the whole incident. After leaving empty-handed, the run-down school-bus-turned-church-bus that carried the eighteen spirits was pulled over. One person was arrested, and the bus driver was fined $100 for driving a bus that was deemed “too yellow.” Hamer apparently broke into song, and her powerful voice brought much needed calm to the situation. After negotiating the fine down to $30, the bus passengers lobbied money together to pay the made-up fine and began their way back to Ruleville. Hamer arrived home to a furious plantation owner, who demanded Hamer to withdraw her name from the registrar (despite her failed attempt) or to be kicked off the plantation. “I didn’t go down there to register for you. I went down there to register for myself,” said Hamer. She was kicked off of the plantation after 18 years of living there. Her husband, Perry, was too blackmailed; Marlow threatened to withhold all of their belongings if Perry left the plantation to be with his wife. Now homeless, Hamer went to live with acquaintances in Tallahatchie County, MS and was hired to do voter registration work for SNCC. There were meager wages, sometimes none, but it was the work that she cared about. The education, encouragement, and examples located within SNCC motivated her to work towards teaching every Black Mississippian about their rights as U.S. citizens. She helped lead mass events & civic-education series, led numerous adults in Mississippi to register to vote, and eventually helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to disrupt the discrimination found within Democratic Party representation. This work was extremely important, as more than 98% of eligible Mississippi adults were not registered to vote in 1960 (Anderson, White Rage p. 46). Her commitment to the work reached national spotlight during the Democratic National Convention of 1964. The previous summer, SNCC workers like Fannie Lou were building the MFDP locally, to challenge the violence and exclusion experienced by Black Mississippians at the hands of Congress. By the time the convention came about, MFDP had 68 delegates, with Ms. Hamer as their Vice Chair. Though the party had verbal support from a few voices of the Democratic Party, and popular leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., President Lyndon Johnson was not a fan. This is why when Fannie Lou Hamer was given the stage to verbally challenge the all-white Mississippi Democratic delegates representing their state, Lyndon Johnson scheduled an impromptu press conference during Hamer’s allotted time. This explicit censorship of Hamer, an attempt to protect the feelings of Johnson’s conservative supporters, was quite emblematic of the conditions the MDFP was there to protest. Hamer once quoted Johnson saying, “Get the g*ddamn television off of those n****** from Mississippi.” Johnson’s tactic ultimately failed, because the speech that Fannie Lou Hamer delivered that night rang across the country for days following. In her short but powerful speech, Ms. Hamer speaks on her disastrous attempt to register to vote. She mentioned the horrible aftermath of getting kicked off of her plantation, when White supremacists fired 16 shots into a Mississippi home attempting to kill Hamer, who had officially left the plantation the previous week. She then spoke of an incident in 1963, in which her and colleagues were arrested for sitting at a Whites-only lunch counter in Winona, Mississippi. Their White bus driver called the police, which led to the arrests of Hamer and five accompanying activists. Policemen then gathered already-convicted inmates, and told them to beat Hamer and her colleagues continuously. Hamer got it the worst as she suffered lifelong injuries from these beatings, which included hindered eyesight and permanent kidney damage. Her powerful testimony did what Martin Luther King Jr. 's could not, and that was to give an unfiltered testimony to the true horrors of Southern White supremacy. She ended her speech with a question we still have yet to answer: “I question America, is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?” After being offered a mere 2 congressional seats for their 68 members, Hamer declined on behalf of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party. She felt that they did not work as hard as they did for two performative seats in the convention. That same year year, Ms. Hamer ran for congress as a MDFP candidate against the Democratic incumbent, Jamie L. Whitten. She faced heavy ridicule from Black and White individuals, either because of her skin color or because she lacked formal education (society in the 1960’s had a hard enough time accepting extremely qualified women as it was.) Her, Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine ran for spots in Mississippi’s House of Representatives, but were easily defeated due to disfranchisement & and societal attitudes at the time. These three Black women challenged the election at the end of 1964 under that exact rationale, and even though their attempt to gain representation was shot down, the noise they made brought the political injustices to the forefront of politics, a feat much easier said than done. Despite the failed resolution, Hamer did not stop her work. She traveled around the country delivering speeches and holding educational workshops. She founded and led an agricultural cooperative, Freedom Farms, in her hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi. With the help of donations from around the country, Hamer supplied at least 680 acres of land, farming supplies, and more to Black farmers in the area. This cooperative gave shelter to Black farmers stuck in the cyclic poverty of sharecropping, or who had been kicked off their plantations by overtly racist plantation owners for trying to vote (amongst other reasons). Much of the housing she was responsible for building through this cooperative still stands today. By meshing economics, education, and politics, Hamer gave back to her community in a way she could have benefited from in her past. She passed away due to cancer on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59, but the damage done to her kidney when she was brutally beaten by police in 1963 were stated to play a part in her untimely death. Her tombstone, which lay in Ruleville, Mississippi, is inscribed with her famous quote, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Hamer, like so many other Black Americans in the early-to-mid 20th century, had all odds stacked against her from birth. As a Black Woman, she was the recipient of unique, unwarranted, and yet entirely precedented violence throughout her entire life, from sharecropping at age six to being brutalized by police at age 45. Despite her circumstances, she rose to be one of the country's most important grassroots organizers in our history, and helped push the needle during a time where mainstream Black leaders were heavily focused on incremental gains. Beneath the surface of her work, Ms. Hamer fearlessly brought the humanity of Blackness to the forefront of politics, and for that, we must all be grateful. Thank you, Ms. Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer. 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