Black History Month: February 2022
To recall and celebrate the positive contributions to our nation made by people of African descent, American historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Week beginning on Feb. 12, 1926. In 1976, as part of the nation's bicentennial, the week was expanded into Black History Month.
TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT ON
JACKIE ROBINSON
Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball. He helped to end racial segregation in baseball when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. He won the National League MVP in 1949 — and is the first black commentator for a national sports broadcast and the first black vice president of a major American firm. After his death in 1972, Jackie was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his achievements on and off the field. Robinson's number, 42, was retired throughout Major League baseball in 1997.
TRIVIA
- Jack “Jackie” Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia. Shortly after his birth, his family moved and settled in Pasadena, California.
- President Theodore Roosevelt, who died 25 days before Robinson was born, was the inspiration for Jackie's middle name.
- Jackie was also a successful tennis player, winning the junior boys singles championship in the Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament.
- In 1942, Jackie was drafted into the Army. He was assigned to a segregated Army Cavalry unit in Fort Riley, Kansas.
- After an incident where he refused to sit in the back of an unsegregated bus, military police arrested Jackie at the request of a duty officer, who later requested Robinson be court-martialed. At the time of the proceedings, Robinson was prohibited from being deployed overseas to the World War II battlefronts. He never saw combat during the war.
- In the 1960s, Jackie helped establish the Freedom National Bank, an African-American-owned financial institution based in Harlem, New York.
QUOTES
- On respect: “I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
- On life: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
- On baseball: “Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.”
- On losing: “It kills me to lose. If I'm a troublemaker, and I don't think that my temper makes me one, then it's because I can't stand losing. That's the way I am about winning, all I ever wanted to do was finish first.”
ON THIS DAY IN BLACK HISTORY:
- In 1834, Henry McNeal Turner was born on what is now Hannah Circuit, near Newberry, which was then in Abbeville County, South Carolina. Young Turner was “bound out” to the hardest king of labor in the cotton fields and the blacksmith's trade in Abbeville until his “manhood” at age 12. He received the degree of L.L. D from the University of Pennsylvania in 1872. He served as Vice-president of the African Colonization Society in 1877. He founded the Southern Christian Recorder and the Women's Home and Foreign Missionary Society. He is credited with bringing the South African Conference into the Connection. In addition to being an author and orator, Henry McNeal Turner also served as a member of the Georgia Legislature.
- In 1865, John Sweat Rock (1825-1866), a noted Boston lawyer, became in 1865 the first African-American to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.
- In 1865, The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, was adopted by the 38th Congress. Ratification was completed December 6, 1865.
- In 1870, Jonathan Jasper Wright is elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court. He is the first African American to hold a major judicial position.
- In 1871, Jefferson Long of Georgia became the first Black to make an official speech in the House of Representatives. He opposed leniency to former Confederates.
- In 1902, One of the most famous poets, Langston Hughes was born. He died on May 22nd, 1967.
- In 1926, What is now known as Black History Month, was first celebrated on this date as Negro History Week by Carter G. Woodson. It became a month long celebration in 1976.
- In 1960, Four students form North Carolina A&T College started Sit-in movement at Greensboro, N.C., five-and-dime store. By February 10 movement had spread to fifteen Southern cities in five states.
- In 1965, More than seven hundred demonstrators, including Martin Luther King Jr., arrested in Selma.
- In 1965, Ruby Dee was the first African American actress to play a major role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford Conn.
- In 1974, Good Times premieres on CBS.
- In 1978, The first stamp of the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.
- In 1990, Ida Wells, a black reformer who compiled records on lynching, is the subject of a United States Postal Service stamp.
- In 1997, BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. launch BET Movie/Starz the first 24 hour Black Movie channel.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH FACT OF THE DAY:
Juneteenth: On June 19, 1865, the Union General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas to inform the city's residents of the Civil War's end — resulting in freedom for some 800,000 slaves. The announcement was made two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, giving the slaves the right to freedom. The name was later changed to “Juneteenth” to mark the day, and is considered the African-American version of Independence Day. Although celebrations initially were concentrated in Texas and other Southern states, Milwaukee and Minneapolis now host two of the largest Juneteenth celebrations in the nation.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH SPOTLIGHT: TYLER PERRY
Actor, Director, screenwriter, producer and author Tyler Perry has overcome obstacles like childhood abuse, homelessness To become one of the top players in Hollywood. In 2008, Tyler became the first African American to own an movie and TV studio. In 2009, Forbes named Tyler the sixth highest paid man in Hollywood. As of 2019, Tyler's films has grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Tyler Perry controls the rights to all of his film and TV work and he is the first African American to become the outright owner of one of the largest studio lots in the nation, Tyler Perry Studios.
AUDIO
Chadwick Boseman on the many talents of Jackie Robinson:
- “There's a lot of things that he has that you know maybe an athlete is good at one of these things but not everything, he played football he played basketball he's probably a better football and basketball player than he was a baseball player, he played tennis he played ping pong like he won championships in tennis and I think ping pong too. He was just pretty much an all around athlete.” IOUNDCUE
Tyler Perry says he never planned for success:
- “If I had tried to do this I couldn't have. If I had tried to make these things happen, if I had tried to sell out shows, I couldn't have. And, to have all of these things happen has been absolutely amazing so the roll that I'm was a path that I didn't choose, it chose me. So I'm just trying to walk it and do the best I can within it and honor and respect it.”
Tyler Perry accepts for Jean Hershold Humanitarian Award at the 2021 Academy Awards:
- “My mother taught me to refuse hate, she taught me to refuse blanket judgment. In this time, with all of the internet and social media and algorithms that want us to think a certain way. The 24-hour news cycle. It's my hope that we teach our kids, just refuse hate. Don't hate anybody. I refuse to hate someone because they're Mexican or because they are black or white. Or LBGTQ. I refuse to hate someone because they're a police officer, I refuse to hate someone because they're Asian. I would hope we would refuse hate. And I want to take this humanitarian award and dedicate it to anyone who wants to stand in the middle, no matter what's around the walls, stand in the middle. Because that's where healing happens, that's where conversations happen, that's where change happens. It happens in the middle. Anyone who wants to meet me in the middle to refuse hate, to refuse blanket judgment, and to help lift someones feet off the ground, this one is for you, too. God bless you, and thank you Academy. I appreciate it. Thank you.” (1:10 OC: . . .appreciate it. Thank you.)
(Source: Mental Floss, Wikipedia, Blackfacts.com, Infoplease.com, )
