Black History Fact of the Week

Sep 13 2011

Writer, philosopher

On Sept. 13, 1886, world renowned writer and philosopher, Alain LeRoy Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pa., to math teacher and activist, Pliny Ishmael Locke and educator Mary Hawkins Locke.

He was a sickly child with rheumatic fever, but coped by reading a great deal and learning to play the piano and violin. The sickness damaged his heart for life.

Sep 7 2011

Tortured and killed

On Aug. 27, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was beaten and shot to death by two White men who threw his mutilated body into the Tallahatchie River attached to a 70-pound weight.

Earlier that summer, Till’s mother Mamie Till had sent the young Chicagoan to the South to visit relatives. Before he left her sight, she gave her son a stern warning, saying, “Be careful. If you have to get down on your knees and bow when a White person goes past, do it willingly.”

Aug 11 2011

Established the Universal Negro Improvement Association

On Aug. 17, 1887, Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, to Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr., a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker. The youngest of 11 children, Garvey, along with his sister Indiana, were the only two to survive to maturity.

Naturally apt to revolutionary thought and action, in his young adult years he became a trade unionist, and in 1907 was elected vice president of the compositors’ branch of the printers’ union.

Aug 4 2011

Physicist

On Aug. 5, 1946, in Washington, D.C., physicist Shirley Jackson was born to Beatrice and George Jackson. Adamant about education, the Jacksons instilled a strong sense of appreciation for learning and inspired their daughter to pursue science.

Jul 28 2011

French playwright and historian

On July 24, 1802, the French playwright and historian Alexandre Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterets in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France.

He was of mixed heritage. His grandfather was Marquis Alexandre-Antonie Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and general in the artillery in what is now known as Haiti. His grandmother, Marie-Cesette Dumas, was a formerly enslaved Black woman. She died shortly after the birth of their son, the father of Alexandre, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.