Just the Black Notes! (Black History)

http://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2007/11/22/amazing-grace-just-the-black-notes/
I jacked this from Nae & feel the need to share with my connects, etc. If this doesn't "move" you in some sort of way, you have no soul....in my humble opinion, of course.

CNN Presents "Black in America" - The Black Woman & Family

Start:	Jul 23, '08 8:00p
End:	Jul 23, '08 10:00p
Location:	CNN

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/black.in.america/

MUST SEE TV! Go to the site to preview the show.

Black Folks & Getting Fired

Have you ever been fired? (Do not include true lay-offs.)

Yes. Once or twice

 

 5

Yes. More times than I care to count.

 

 1

No.

 

 10

I've been doing the HR thing since 1989 (the start of my senior year in high school)....dang, that's almost 20 years!

One thing I've noticed over the years is, as Steve Harvey said, "Black folks & White folks take getting fired differently."

Personally, I have never (thank you Jesus) been fired from a job. I've only worked in 3 places in the last 19 years & I was laid-off once (in 1995) due to corporate buy-out.

Keep in mind, as you read along, Missouri is an "at-will" state. This means that both the employee and employer can end the employment relationship at any time and for any reason, as long as it is not discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.

I've been in my present position almost 10 years (12 years total with the company) & I think I've {almost} seen it all.

What perplexes me most is, that while there are only 12 Black people (myself & 2 directors included); 2 Hispanics & 1 Asian out of 200+ staff members, when "we" get fired it's a conspiracy. When the white folks are fired, they ask why, shed tears & they leave, most times peacefully.

Our company policy dictates that we allow an employee to collect their personal belongings while we wait. In the process, we also retrieve any company property, i.e., keys, electronics, etc.

I must state that I've never had an issue with anyone: black, white, blue or green. We on the other hand, act like we didn't see it coming. I'm talking total shock & awe. Let's be honest here. How many times do you think you have to be warned, put on probation, etc., before you get the axe?

When we tell our sides of the story, {and y'all know there's more than one-side to the story} we have a tendency to appear as total & complete victims of "the man". While I am fully aware that blatant prejudice, racism, classism, etc., exists, this is not always the case.

What about the poor work performance? What about management & clientele who refuse to work with you? What about the negative & sometimes outright rude attitude? What about the attendance & tardiness? What about you thinking they won't fire you because they are afraid of a lawsuit? What about the fully documented files kept?

These days, most employers are smart enough to have their ducks in a row before firing anyone. So before you side with KeeKee or Man-Man about allegedly getting fired over being late once or twice, ask her/him a few of the questions posed above. I can almost guarantee the reply will start something like, "See, what had happened was......"

Bottom line is - have your shit in order before you cry foul. If you really believe your being fired was unjust, there's a whole sea of sue-happy attorneys who are more than willing to listen to you. 9 times out of 10 the alleged victims will not pursue legal action simply because they already know why they are out of a job.

Any questions?

A Raisin in The Sun

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Classics

Simply Fabulous!!! A must have for any black film collectors.

The TV movie adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's classic play 'A Raisin in the Sun,' starring Sean "Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald and Sanaa Lathan, John Stamos, Sean Patrick Thomas, David Oyelowo, Bill Nunn and Ron Cephas Jones was worth the wait.

I hope Bad Boy Films keeps up the GOOD work!

http://abc.go.com/specials/raisininthesun/

Lift Ev'ry Voice & Sing (Black National Anthem) performed by Kim Weston in 1972

I learned this way back in elementary school & can remember singing it before every assembly, performance, etc., until I graduated high school.

Words:James Weldon Johnson, 1899

Born: June 17, 1871, Jacksonville, Florida.

Died: June 26, 1938, Wiscasset, Maine, in a car accident.

Buried: Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

Music:John Rosamond Johnson

Born: August 11, 1873, Jacksonville, Florida.

Died: November 11, 1954, New York, New York.

Brother of composer John Johnson, James studied literature at Atlanta University (graduated 1894, M.A. 1904), and went on to become a song writer, anthologist, teacher, and lawyer; he was the first African American to pass the bar in the state of Florida. In 1906 he became the American consul in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, and in 1909, consul in Corinto, Nicaragua. In 1920, he was appointed Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

John R. Johnson attended Atlanta University and the New England Conservatory of Music. He and his brother James belonged to the song writing team of Cole and Johnson Brothers, writing over 200 songs. He also edited a number of collections of African American music.

Originally written by Johnson for a presentation in celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. This was originally performed in Jacksonville, Florida, by children. The popular title for this work is:

'THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM'

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we meet Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

A Lil St. Louis Black History

Jeannette Forchet (1736-1803), a free black woman who was one of the first landowners in St. Louis. She and her first husband received one of the original plots of land in the village of St. Louis; later, she also received several farm lots on the edge of town.

Step inside the house and look for this inventory hanging on the wall.

The inventory, written in French, lists the possessions Forchet and her second husband acquired during their marriage. The inventory was made at the time of Forchet's husband's death in 1790.

Forchet's possessions are quite numerous; a number of items on the list, such as the featherbeds and the armoire, were considered luxury items in the 1700s. It seems that her life was materially successful. Forchet and her children probably supported the family by growing corn on the farm plot and raising livestock.

At the time of Forchet's death in 1803, she was one of the few free black residents in St. Louis. As a woman, under French and Spanish law, she could own property, have a legal marriage and enter into contracts. But, as a person of African descent, Forchet's other rights were restricted; she needed permission to leave town and, if she was a freed slave, a legal infraction could mean her return to slavery.

This is Louisa. An enslaved woman, Louisa was owned by the Hayward family. In the picture, she holds Mr. and Mrs. Hayward's son on her lap.  In 1860, two years after Louisa's picture was taken, St. Louis had a population of 160,773. Out of this number, 3,297 were African Americans; of those, approximately 1,500 were enslaved.

This portrait depicts Dred Scott (1795-1858). Born into slavery in Virginia, Scott traveled with his owner to St. Louis, where slavery was legal.

Scott's ownership changed hands, and he traveled with his new owner into free territories. When Scott returned to St. Louis, he attempted to buy his freedom, but his owner refused. In 1846, Scott petitioned for his freedom at the St. Louis Circuit Court, located in what we now call the Old Courthouse. He argued that because his master had taken him into free territory, he was legally free.

The judge granted Scott his freedom, but the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the decision. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1857 that African Americans were not citizens and that Scott was still a slave in Missouri, even though he had lived in free territories. One year after the Supreme Court decision, Scott was purchased by St. Louisan Taylor Blow, who granted him his freedom.

Scott was buried in the Wesleyan Cemetery (near Grand Boulevard and Laclede Avenue). The inscription on his headstone read, "In memory of a simple man who wanted to be free."

This painting depicts a slave auction on the steps of the Old Courthouse. Each year on New Year's Day, auctioneers sold probated property - including slaves - on this site.

On January 1, 1861, a crowd gathered, hoping to disrupt the slave sale. Every time the auctioneer asked for a bid, people in the crowd shouted, "Three dollars, three dollars!" Finally, the auctioneer gave up trying to run the sale. Because of the efforts of the people in the crowd, this was the last public slave sale held in St. Louis.

William Wells Brown (1815-1884) and Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818-1907), who both worked as slaves in St. Louis. Before the Civil War, the city's growth and prosperity depended in part on the involuntary labor of enslaved people like Brown and Keckley. Brown escaped from slavery and became a lecturer and author. Keckley, a talented seamstress, purchased freedom for herself and her son. She traveled to Washington, D.C. and became First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker. She wrote of her experiences in her 1868 autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave and Four in the White House. One of the dresses she made for Mrs. Lincoln is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

These objects belonged to Leon Anderson (1904-1998), a center fielder who played for the St. Louis Bees and the St. Louis Sports, segregated semi-professional baseball teams.

During the 1930s and 1940s, thousands of St. Louisans would gather at the ballfield at Grand Avenue and Market Street to watch these African American teams play.

It belonged to jazz innovator Miles Davis (1926-1991). Davis used this trumpet in performance during the last decade of his life, including his famous collaboration with Quincy Jones at the Montreux Jazz Festival six weeks before his death.

Born in Alton, Illinois and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left this area for New York in 1944. In 1956, he returned to St. Louis to perform at Peacock Alley with the Miles Davis Quintet. You are hearing "All of You," which the group played at Peacock Alley and recorded later that year in New York. You also hear the reminiscences of St. Louis-born poet Quincy Troupe, who heard Davis play at Peacock Alley.

Izetta Reddick (1889-1970), a chiropodist (or foot surgeon) who shared a practice with her husband, T.B. Reddick, during the 1930s and 1940s. Their offices were located in the Jefferson and Chase-Park Plaza Hotels. Although the Reddicks operated their practice out of these hotels, they would not have been allowed to stay as guests; both were reserved for whites only.

 

Blog Challenge - Your Own Black History

While it's wonderful to celebrate our history as a people, I think it would be even better to celebrate our own family's black history.

I will always regret letting my grandfather take most of his knowledge and wisdom to the grave, because I was too busy doing me to take time to listen & learn. 

I challenge you all to compose a blog or two about your own bloodline, going back as far you as can.  Not everyone descends from royalty or is related to celebrities, so don't think your composition will be less interesting because you're not.

You might have to call up Big Mama/Big Daddy, Aunt Juicy/Uncle June Bug to get the facts right, so do it!

I'll start by sharing what I know without making that call, which I still plan to do:

Nettie Graham - my maternal great-grandmother (d. 1971).

Her daughters, Goldie (d. 1965), Dorothy (my Muda) (d. 2000) & Marguerite (d. 1997):

I'll be back when I find out more!

St. Louis Black World History Museum Fact Sheet

http://www.explorestlouis.com/media/factsheets/fact_blkHist.asp?PageType=
Lois D Conley founded this fascinating place to experience African American history in 1997; life-size wax figures of Dred and Harriet Scott, George Washington Carver, Josephine Baker, John Barry Meacham, Madame CJ Walker and Miles Davis awaken your sense of remembrance of appreciation for their contributions to Black world history; the museum also videos, games, and history hunt; group tours available; don’t forget to stop in the gift shop.

Black - African American History Facts

http://www.yenoba.com/
On this date in Black History