Black History Month

Just wanted to mention that it's Black History Month and salute the Black people's contributions to our society. I bring this up because yesterday was the anniversary of Jackie Robinson's birth. Yes, Robinson was born on January 31, 1919. 58 years ago he broke baseball's color barrier and changed not only sports, but society. He was a leader in the civil rights movement and was often seen discussing things with Dr. Martin Luther King. As a baseball fan, and a fan of human rights, I am glad that Mr. Robinson took on the often difficult challenge of breaking the color barrier which was a black eye for the sport. He helped to integrate all other sports, as well as America, in part because of his patience and grace. Most men would have lashed out at the treatment he often recieved, but Robinson, to his credit, just played ball. In his later years, he often did speak out though.
On a personal note, when I was growing up, we had a field where we played ball, often from sunup to sundown. We, like most other young boys, had players that we wanted to emulate. Mine was Ernie Banks and another guy's was Willie Mays, both black men and great ballplayers. So without Jackie Robinson, it is doubtful that a couple of white kids from a small town in Iowa could have done that. Thank you Jackie Robinson.

tomorrow night by pushing to destroy FDR's SSI.

of the founding of the Niagara Movement (I learned this because I'm on my agency's African-American Heritage Month committee and one ofthe things we're doing is having the Regional Director of the NAACP come speak to us on the Niagara Movement).

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The Niagara Movement founded

This date marks the founding of the Niagara Movement. This episode of America was the first significant black organized protest movement of the twentieth century.

It also represented the attempt of a small yet articulate group of radicals to challenge the then dominant ideals of Booker T. Washington. At the turn of the century there were divisions in African-American political life: those who believed in accommodation, led by Booker T. Washington, and the more militant group, led by W.E.B. Du Bois and William M. Trotter.

In 1904, a closed-door meeting at Carnegie hall developed the Committee of Twelve for the Advancement of the Interest of the Negro Race, but it fell apart due to infighting. In February 1905, Du Bois and Trotter put together an all black group that included Frederick L. McGhee and C.E. Bentley. They invited 59 well know anti-Washington businessmen to a meeting that summer in western New York. On July 11 thru 14, 1905 on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, twenty-nine men met and formed a group they called the Niagara Movement. The name came because of the location and the “mighty current” of protest they wished to unleash.

Du Bois was named general secretary and the group split into various committees. The founders agreed to divide the work at hand among state chapters. At the end of the first year, the organizations had only 170 members and were poorly funded. Nevertheless they pursued their activities, distributing pamphlets, lobbying against Jim Crow, and sending circulars and protest letters to President Theodore Roosevelt after the Brownsville Incident in 1906. That summer the Niagara Movement held their second conference at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

Despite its impressive beginning, the Niagara Movement did not enjoy a long life. Washington’s determined opposition from the beginning kept any white empathy from assisting them in anyway. Even in its decline, the movement left a lasting legacy. In 1908, Du Bois had invited Mary White Ovington, a settlement worker, and socialist to be the movement’s first white member. By 1910, he had turned his allegiance to the newly formed NAACP, which inherited many of its goals from the Niagara Movement.

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1005/The_Niagara_Movement_founded

for an (extremely) amateur history buff like me. Thank you for that.

"INVENTORS

The Origins of Black History Month

What we now call Black History Month was originated in 1926 by Carter Godwin Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was selected in deference to Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln who were both born in that month.

The son of a slave, Carter G. Woodson was born in New Canton, Virginia on December 19, 1875. He began high school at the age of 20 and then proceeded to study at Berea College, the University of Chicago, the Sorbonne, and Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1912."

(Snip) (Short, interesting read.)

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blblackhistorymonth.htm

Let's keep this thread going with interesting salutes to Black History Month! :toast: