Happy Frederick Douglas day...and oh yeah,Valentines day

'The soul that is within me no man can degrade".
-Frederick Douglass






Frederick Douglass (February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia", Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African American history and a formidable public presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."




oh yeah happy valentines day




Be Golden

Happy Birthday..."Abraham Africanus the First"

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the sixteenth President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1861 until his assassination.

Lincoln, the nation's 16th president, served between 1861 and 1865. Lincoln was said to have been the illegitimate son of an African man, according to Leroy's findings. Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and his mother allegedly came from an Ethiopian tribe. His heritage fueled so much controversy that Lincoln was nicknamed "Abraham Africanus the First" by his opponents



Lincoln did issue the Emancipation Proclamation at the beginning of 1863, which on paper freed slaves in the states of the Confederacy that had seceded from the United States. But it took a fighting force of 2 million soldiers in the Union Army to bring the Confederacy to its knees--and make the defeat of the slave system a fact. African Americans themselves contributed in many crucial ways--from slaves who rebelled in the South, to free Blacks in the North who agitated for abolition, to Black soldiers who served in the Union Army...


" The CIVIL War was the result of an irreconcilable conflict between two social systems--slavery in the South and free wage labor in the North.
Lincoln campaigned for president in 1860 as an opponent of slavery’s expansion into the new territories in the Western U.S. Although morally opposed to slavery, he was not ready to immediately deprive slave owners of their property “rights” where slavery already existed.




Instead, Lincoln proposed colonization as the solution to the “Negro problem.” The government would gradually purchase the freedom of slaves and then send them to Liberia in Africa, removing them from American society. "



Shortly after 10 P.M. on April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. and fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln slumped forward in his seat, Booth leapt onto the stage and escaped out the back door. The paralyzed president was immediately examined by a doctor in the audience and then carried across the street to Petersen's Boarding House where he died early the next morning.









Reflect on that for now...
Be Golden

Brush with Reality Celebrity Part 1 of Many...

So Christina from the show Amazing Race walks in......on Saturday with a two black fellas and what appeared to be another asian woman...Party of 4..
Well, to say the least I was taken back by her familiar face and started to scan my mind for where i thought i "knew" her from...

~Highschool (naw)

~Another Job (uh-uh)

~School thats gotta be it (Nope)

~5 WEEKS ON AMAZING RACE (Absolutely)

Welcome to chicago Christina...I sent the server over to confirm my hunch and i was totally correct....




Ronald & Christina
Father/Daughter
Ronald: Tacoma, WA
58, VP of Sales

Christina, Washington, DC
26, Policy Analyst

Ronald & Christina are a father/daughter Team who are competing in the Race to make up for lost time. Since Ronald was constantly traveling for work throughout much of his daughter's formative years, Christina hopes the Race will allow her father--a self-proclaimed workaholic--to stop and smell the roses and provide them with some meaningful time together.

Ronald, a first-generation immigrant and eldest of five, works as a Vice President of sales for a paper packaging company. His proudest achievements are his thirty-one years of marriage and raising two independent daughters. Christina is Ronald's youngest daughter and holds degrees from both Duke and Princeton. She once served in the State Department and often wishes her Teammate could be as diplomatic as she.

Neither are strangers to the unpredictability of international travel as they have both lived and worked abroad. Ronald describes himself as inquisitive and open-minded, while Christina describes herself as loyal and adventurous. This father/daughter duo is excited to grow closer, make friends across continents and create Race history by being the first father/daughter Team to claim the $1 million prize.


..second place aint so bad....


Golden

My Sis and Rosa Parks, Same birthday?

I realized this year That My Sis and Rosa Parks have the Same birthday!!

How could I possibly missed this all these years...


Rosa Parks b. feb 4th 1913-2005


On that fateful day of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was peacefully riding the Montgomery city bus when a white man came on board. In such a situation, the segregation laws dictate that Rosa Parks should give up her seat for the white. But Rosa Parks refused to do such a thing.
As a result, Rosa Parks was arrested. Rosa Parks was given the verdict of guilty for a disorderly conduct and was fined. News of her defiance stirred sympathy and anger. In response to the unfair laws and to the experience that Rosa Parks had to endure, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led African-Americans to boycott the Montgomery Bus.







..." Montgomery's segregation laws were complex: blacks were required to pay their fare to the driver, then get off and reboard through the back door. Sometimes the bus would drive off before the paid-up customers made it to the back entrance. If the white section was full and another white customer entered, blacks were required to give up their seats and move farther to the back; a black person was not even allowed to sit across the aisle from whites. These humiliations were compounded by the fact that two-thirds of the bus riders in Montgomery were black."

Be Golden

I had to do it! Credit card cut Up!

Nothing worse than being in debt and having credit cards laying around...
so snip snip and I cant use those anymore...

i feel better already =)

Be Golden

The Freakin Snow!!!

Chicago Winters...enough already
i give up
(waving the white flag)








Be Golden

In Honor of Afrikan History Month...plus two of januarys bdays Tubman and Robinson

Langston Hughes born (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. Hughes is known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.





One of my favorite poems by L. Hughes

Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter,
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing,
You do not know
I die?





"The Moses of her people"
born January 29th 1819/1920





..




Harriet Ross was born into slavery in 1819 or 1820, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Given the names of her two parents, both held in slavery, she was of purely African ancestry. She was raised under harsh conditions, and subjected to whippings even as a small child. At the age of 12 she was seriously injured by a blow to the head, inflicted by a white overseer for refusing to assist in tying up a man who had attempted escape.

At the age of 25, she married John Tubman, a free African American. Five years later, fearing she would be sold South, she made her escape.








born January 31st 1919


..



According to a poll conducted by Jimmie Fidler in 1947, Robinson was the second most popular man in the country, behind Bing Crosby. [32]

In 1976, his home in Brooklyn, the Jackie Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark

In March 1984, President Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Dorsey High School, in Los Angeles, also named the football stadium they play in after the late Robinson.

The homes of the Daytona Cubs, Jackie Robinson Ballpark, and the UCLA Bruins Baseball team, Jackie Robinson Stadium, are named after Robinson.

The Chicago Public School system has named an elementary school after Jackie Robinson. It is in the Kenwood neighbourhood in Chicago's south.[33]

In 1987, Major League Baseball renamed the Rookie of the Year Award the Jackie Robinson Award in his honor.

On April 15, 1997, Jackie Robinson's #42 was retired by Major League Baseball, meaning that no future player on any major league team could wear it. Players wearing #42 at the time, some of whom said they did so as a tribute to Robinson, were allowed to continue wearing it, thereby grandfathering the number's retirement. The last player currently wearing the number is New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

In 1999, he was named by Time Magazine on its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.[34]

In 2000, he ranked number 44 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

On October 29, 2003, the United States Congress posthumously awarded Robinson the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award the Congress can bestow. Robinson's widow accepted the award in a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on March 2, 2005.

At the November 2006 groundbreaking for a new New York Mets ballpark, Citi Field, scheduled to open in 2009, it was announced that the main entrance, modeled on the one in Brooklyn's old Ebbets Field, will be called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. Additionally, Mets owner Fred Wilpon said that the Mets and Citigroup would work with the Jackie Robinson Foundation to create a Jackie Robinson Museum and Learning Center in lower Manhattan, as well as fund scholarships for "young people who live by and embody Jackie's ideals."[35]

On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that Jackie Robinson will be inducted into the California Hall of Fame this December 5, 2007 located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento.