Black History Month - Arthur Ashe and Alice Walker

FEBRUARY 9
To obtain equality is not a month's job. (Kenya (Gikuyu)



1944: Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of the Color Purple born

Alice Walker is probably best known for her novel, The Color Purple. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was made into a film that many of us have seen more times than we remember. The Color Purple was also adapted into a Broadway musical play, starring Fantasia Barrino who was American Idol in 2004.

Her activism places her close to my heart. She knew Jim Crow laws because she was born in Georgia to a father who was a sharecropper and a mother who worked as a housemaid. Influenced by Martin Luther King Jr, she registered voters in Mississippi and in Georgia during the 1960s. In March 2003, she was arrested in an anti-war protest outside the White House. Further, her writings focus on the struggles of women against racism and sexism.

But Walker's most greatest gift to us all, in my view, is restoring Zora Neale Hurston to her rightful place in literature. Hurston was forgotten and her work was out of print when Walker discovered her unmarked grave and read her stories. Thanks to Walker, we have access to Hurston’s inspired writings, and we have come to know her memorable characters from Their Eyes Were Watching God – Janie and Teacake. Thanks to her, also, Hurston’s gravesite now has a headstone.


1964 - Arthur Ashe, Jr. became first Black to play on U.S. Davis Cup team.

Arthur Ashe was the first Black picked to play for the US Davis Cup team. He was also the first (and only) African-American to be ranked #1 in the world. Before him, the most prominent Black tennis player was Althea Gibson. She was the first Black American woman to compete in a world tennis tour, and to win a Grand Slam title in 1956.

Ashe remains the only Black American player to win the men’s single at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open.

Apart from being an outstanding tennis player, Ashe played a critical role as a human rights advocate. When apartheid South African authorities denied him a visa to play in the South Africa Open, he used this denial to call for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit. He was arrested in 1985 for protesting during an anti-apartheid rally, and again in 1992 for protesting a crackdown on Haitian refugees.

Venus and Serena Williams owe much to trail blazers like Arthur Ashe.

Also on this date in:

1780 - Paul Cuffe & six other U.S. Blacks petitioned state legislature for right to vote claiming “no taxation without representation.

Cuffe, Walker, and Ashe have indeed shown by exanple that equality is not a month's job. The struggle continues...

FEBRUARY 8
Talkin' `bout fire doesn't boil the pot. (US Black Communities)

1986 - Oprah Winfrey became first Black woman to host nationally syndicated television talk show.

Oprah's talk has certainly kept a lot of fires burning and pots boiling!

On this date, 24 years ago, that she syndicated her programme. She started out at age 19 as a news anchor and moved on to a talk show. When she proved what she could do and moved that talk show to the top of the ratings, she left it behind. She plunged right, set up her own company, and went not just national but international as well. She used talk to create a talk show format that was tabloid, and then to recreate the format into something upscale, spiritual, uplifting.

She introduced media persons to the possibility of showing emotion and being the news as distinct from reporting the news. She makes news because she is an example of a success story. Here is someone who was born to a teenage mother in a country area of Mississippi, one of the poorest states. Father is absent, and for a while mother is absent too, and grandmother raises Oprah. So far the story is typical for a lot of people. Perhaps too many people I can think of in Jamaica where I live. She is sexually abused as a child, and too many women can identify with that as well. Just when it seems the story can’t get sadder or more typical, she gets pregnant when she is 14 years old. For some, all these circumstances indicate a sure downward slide. But not for Oprah.

Her seeming imperfections add to her popularity. She shared her struggles (and occasional victories) with her weight. She admitted that an author, whose book she promoted, misled her when his memoir turned out to be fiction. When the school she set up in South Africa had a scandal, she used that as an opportunity to address broader issues of abuse of women.

Talk helped Oprah to become America’s richest Black woman of the twentieth century. She used her wealth and her influence to support social causes such as education in South Africa and relief for survivors in New Orleans after the drowning of their city. The high point for most authors is Oprah's choosing their book for her Book Club. She has launched the media careers of persons such as Dr Phil and Dr Oz.

Next year, on the 25th anniversary of her show, she plans to leave it behind and invent herself again. To me, she is a prime example of having the courage and the vision to take charge of God-given talents. And having the wisdom to move on when the time is right.


She certainly proves that talkn' and actin' keep the fires burnin' and the pots boilin'.


Also on this date in:

1899 - Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson, jazz singer/guitarist who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos, was born.

1944: Harry S. McAlpin was the first African-American journalist admitted to a White House press conference.

1995 - Bernard Harris became the first African-American to walk in space

Black History Month - Grenada and Haiti

Is heart, not horn, dat make ramgoat brave. (Guyana)

1974 - Grenada proclaimed independence from Great Britain.

Grenada is known as the Spice Isle, and is the world’s second largest producer of several different spices.

This country became independent in 1974 with Eric Gairy as the first Prime Minister. In 1979, the New Jewel Movement overthrew the Gairy government and Maurice Bishop headed the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG).

Unrest occurred in October 1983, and Maurice Bishop was killed. United States marines and rangers, accompanied by a small contingent of Caribbean soldiers, then invaded Grenada. The governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Nations General Assembly criticized this invasion. Seventeen members of the PRG and the army were arrested and charged with the murder of Bishop and seven others. Accused persons, some of whom were initially sentenced to death, have been set free, the last in 2009.


1991 - Haiti's first democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was sworn in.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was born in 1953. He studied in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Italy, and Israel before being ordained as a priest in 1983.

He worked with the poor in Port-au-Prince slums, and his views on the class struggle were considered radical. Ultimately, his religious order expelled him because of his political activities, and left the priesthood in 1994.

Aristide was elected President of Haiti and took up office on February 7, 1991. The Haitian army deposed him in September of the same year, and it was widely believed that the United States was associated with this coup. General Raoul Cedras became Haiti’s ruler.

During his exile, Aristide went to Venezuela and then to the US to seek international support for his return. He eventually went back to Haiti in October 1994 to complete his term in office. When his term ended, he was not allowed to seek re-election or to serve the years he spent in exile. Rene Preval was elected in his place.

Aristide again became president in 2000 with results that opposition political parties contested. He was forced out of Haiti in 2004, and it is believed that France and the US had a role in his “kidnapping”.

He now lives in South Africa. As recently as after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, Aristide expressed his desire to return to help rebuild Haiti.

Also on this day in -

1967: Christoper Julius Rock III, better known as Chris Rock was born.

1986 - President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled Haiti after 21 years of a father-son Duvalier regime

Writers of Color Blog Tour: Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs

Writers of Color Blog Tour: Lifelines: The Black Book of Proverbs

Black History Month - Una Marson and Bob Marley

If you are a big tree, we are a small axe. (Jamaica)

1905 - Una Marson, first major Caribbean Jamaican poet & playwright, was born.

Una Marson was born on February 6, 1905, in Santa Cruz, and attended Hampton High School. She went into journalism when she left school, and published a magazine encouraging women to join the workforce and become politically active.

Marson was an advocate on race as well as gender, encouraging Black women to be confident about their beauty. She stopped straightening her hair and went natural.

She lived between Jamaica and England, seeing to promote national literature in Jamaica, and working with the BBC during World War II. She also wrote a play jointly with Louise Bennett. Her special contribution is linking Caribbean literature and nationalism.


1945 - Bob Marley was born.

Bob Marley’s singing career started with the Wailers in the 1960s. Legendary producer Lee “Scratch” Perry took the group to success with songs like “Simmer Down” and ”Small Axe”. Bob's association with Chris Blackwell's Island Records resulted in international success with albums such as “Catch a Fire”, “Burnin’”, “Natty Dread”, and “Rastaman Vibration.” To no one’s surprise, “Exodus” was declared the album of the twentieth century.

Rastafari strongly influenced Bob, and in 1978 he visited Kenya and then went on to Ethiopia. In 1980, he had the honour of performing at Zimbabwe’s independence.

One of his special contributions to Jamaican political life was his 1978 Peace Concert where he brought Michael Manley and Edward Seaga together on stage during a time when PNP and JLP factions behaved as if they were at war.

A month before he died in 1981, Bob received Jamaica's Order of Merit in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to Jamaican culture.

On this day in:

1820: The initial group of 86 freed slaves from the United States, established a settlement in Christopolis (now Monrovia).

1939 – Jamaican musician Derrick Harriott was born.

1950 - Grammy Award singer Natalie Cole was born.

1993 - Arthur Ashe died

Black History Month - Medgar Evers

1994 – The verdict was given in the case of the 1963 assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers: Klansman convicted.

Medgar Evers, Black American civil rights activist, was murdered by a Klansman in 1963. On Februarr 5, thirty-one years later, the Klansman was convicted of Evers’ murder.

Evers was born in Mississippi, and was determined to get an education. After a family friend was lynched, he walked 12 miles to and from school till he graduated from high school. He fought in Europe during World War II, and received his first degree after the war ended. When the University of Mississippi rejected his application to study law, he filed a lawsuit against the university. He ultimately succeeded in desegregating the university.

In the weeks before his murder, his activism made him prominent and therefore vulnerable. He was entering his driveway when he was shot in 1963. A Klansman was at the time arrested for the murder, but all-white juries failed to reach a verdict. Thirty years later, the Klansman was brought to trial again, and he was convicted of murder.

Today, the life and legacy of Medgar Evers continue to be celebrated.

Black history Month - Rosa Parks and Nkosi Johnson

FEBRUARY 4
Knowledge isn't the main thing, but deeds. (Sierra Leone)

1913 - Rosa Parks was born

Rosa Parks was a seamstress. With her husband, she was a member of the local chapter of the NAACP in Montgomery Alabama. She worked hard on a number of cases, but had not had many successes in challenging the authorities over segregation.

Then along came a case that needed the right person to be the standard-bearer. In 1955, A fifteen-year-old named Claudette Colvin had defied the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus. The local NAACP leader had been looking for a test case and promised to help Colvin. However, as months passed, his group had second thoughts. Colvin was too poor, too Black, too working class (father a gardener and mother a maid), too sassy, and by then too pregnant to be the standard-bearer. So Rosa Parks accepted the responsibility of being the test case.

Parks boarded the same bus Colvin had take nine months earlier, and had an incident on the bus that led to a bus boycott that lasted 382 days. As a result of her action, Montgomery outlawed racial segregation on public transportation. Parks has remained one of the important faces of the Black struggle for civil rights in America.

She died at age 92, and was the only woman and the second Black American to lie in state at the Capitol. That privilege is usually reserved for Presidents of the US.


1989 – Nkosi Johnson was born.

By the time Nkosi Johnson died at age 12, he had helped change public perceptions of HIV/AIDS.

Nkosi was HIV positive from birth, He never knew his father, and his mother was so debilitated by the disease that she was unable to care for him. She died when Nkosi was eight years old, and he was adopted. He first came to public attention when a primary school in Johannesburg refused to accept him as a student. The school later found it had broken a South African law forbidding discrimination on grounds of medical status, and the decision was reversed.

Medication and treatment helped Nkosi to be fairly active. He was the keynote speaker at the 13th International AIDS conference where he encouraged people with HIV/AIDS to be open about the disease and seek equal treatment.

With his adopted mother, he founded a refuge for HIV positive mothers and children.


Also on this day in:

1794 – France abolished slavery in France and in all its colonies

1961- Jail Movement began in Rock Hill, S.C. when students refused to pay fines & requested jail sentences.

1976: Rapper Cam'ron born Cameron Giles in Harlem, New York.