John Glenn famously said of Katherine Johnson that if her numbers were good, he was ready to go.
Local heroes: here in St. Louis, north of the downtown, there is a place called Meachem’s Crossing. Mary Meachem and her husband used their home as a safe house for escaped slaves and then helped them get across the river to Illinois. She eventually was caught and arrested, which is why we know where they were crossing the river. She also would visit black Union soldiers at the army hospital during the Civil War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Meachum
St. Louis was, unfortunately, where the Dred Scott case was tried on the courthouse steps. The Supreme Court ruled that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, were not citizens and therefore could not petition the federal courts.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case
Oh, here is a story about a guy I’ve never heard about. Abraham Galloway was a real life James Bond kind of figure who escaped from slavery, became a spy for the North, recruited black soldiers to fight for the Union army, and became one of the first African Americans to be voted into the North Carolina Senate. But it gets even more exciting than that.
https://www.wpr.org/abraham-galloway-black-figure-civil-war-you-should-know-about
@Babichev: He what. He what? Heck, he really was the type of suave, dangerous, subtle spy and fighter that I thought only existed in fiction. And the sailing!
I want a movie.
@DaringSprinter - I know!
Okay, here’s another cool story: Bass Reeves, the original Lone Ranger.
There are a bunch of videos and articles about him and other black cowboys. Forgive me for putting up this one by Drunk History. I’m getting bogged down by gravity, need a little levity. I can’t help myself.
Here’s a more sober account with a British accent:
And a brief history of black cowboys.
Oh my, here’s an interesting woman. “Stagecoach Mary” Fields was the first black female mail carrier, a career she took on at the age of 65. Before that she had been working at a convent doing whatever needed to be done in spite of her habit of drinking, smoking cigars, cussing, and being fast with a gun.
Came across this interview with James Baldwin tonight. He is so powerful when he speaks because he absolutely lays it out the way he thinks it and he thinks it without any restraint. More than anything, James Baldwin is, for me, a model of telling the truth. James Baldwin practices radical honesty.
My first pick would be the late Dr. Walter E. Williams (Distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University).
My 2nd pick would be my former “boss” (she did not like that word) who was a woman of color and the CAO for a Fortune 500 medical device company. I was just a manager at the time while all of her other direct reports were either VPs or Executive Directors. However, she liked liked me and my skill set and so she “stole me” from the Director I was reporting to and I started reporting directly to her.
I see some great people here. People that have made a real difference. And I'm glad to be of the same race, the human race. These people didn't buy into victim mentality. They didn't trade slaveowners for political tyranny or Marxist ideologies. They thought for themselves and have inspired others to be pioneers, to look out for our fellow man regardless of how much melanin their skin contains. Their actions should be celebrated because if their actions teach us anything it's that to chain ourselves to the failures of our ancestors is perpetual slavery.
Comment redacted. Can we please cool it with the proselytizing? Thank you. - Babichev
...Perhaps this month we should also remember the people like Tamir Rice (who apparently "bought into victim mentality" by playing with a toy gun in public), Jonathan Ferrell ("bought into victim mentality" by asking for help after a car crash), John Crawford (tried to buy a BB gun at Walmart), Akai Gurley (visited his girlfriend), Jordan Edwards (rode in a car with his brother), Daunte Wright (put an air freshener on his rearview mirror)....
It sure is a shame when people buy into victim mentality, thinking blatantly unrealistic things like I'm more likely to get killed for something a white person would walk away from and it wasn't so long ago I wouldn't have been allowed to drink from the same water fountain as white people.
Boy, it sure is wonderful how Martin Luther King Jr, for instance, never said anything like
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Why, that sounds almost like some kind of Marxist ideology or something! It sure is delightful to know that none of the dark-skinned people who've been mentioned here ever bought into the idea that there might be systems in place making things harder for them than for people with lighter skin.
After all, it's not as though race makes any difference to anyone, is it? We're all the same race: the human race! And that fixes everything.
...Pardon my sarcasm.
@cuddlebear4U48
Woah, look at that! Racism and proselytizing!
Neato.
@cuddlebear4U48 there are a number of things about your post which bother me. This bit for example, "to look out for our fellow man regardless of how much melanin their skin contains". It seems to suggest that some people of colour are kind even though they have dark skin, which implies that you believe that people of colour do not routinely look after their fellow humans. I'm not sure if that's what you meant to say, or believe, but it's how it came across to me.
We all have unconscious racist attitudes and beliefs. It's nearly impossible to get rid of them all, even with extensive thinking and talking about racism. I am certainly nowhere near the end of that process, or even the middle. They come out in all kinds of ways, but commonly in the unspoken assumptions that underlie an apparently innocuous remark.
I suppose all those who were lynched were buying into victimhood. I suppose those whose homes and businesses were destroyed in Tulsa, East St. Louis, and other places where white riots destroyed thriving black communities and massacred hundreds of black citizens were buying into a victim mentality. I suppose the kids I tutored who lived in the housing projects or the elderly residents of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe were buying into a victim mentality. I suppose those who were enslaved during a 400 year period, were beaten and raped and sold and had their families broken and their children taken away were buying into a victim mentality.
Give me a break.
Here’s the story of just one thriving black neighborhood that was destroyed by white rioters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
I think it's interesting how, when some dude showed up and started spouting racist garbage, the only people in our welcoming community who spoke up were a moderator, the forum's equivalent of James Bond (as portrayed by Sean Connery), and the two reprehensible trolls.
Anyways! Sorry for the interruption. Good work on being allies, everyone!
@HogboblinZwei You make a good point. I will work on being more vocal when I see things like this, both online and offline.
Bayard Rustin (1912 - 1987) Dr. King is the one we all naturally think about when we hear about the March on Washington in August 1963. But it was Bayard Rustin who organized, strategized and was able to make the March a reality. As a gay man he was considered too much of a liability to be on the front lines of the movement. So he did his work out of the spotlight. Still he was considered to be one of the most brilliant minds, and served his community tirelessly while pushing for more jobs and better wages.
Happy Black History Month!!!👍🏿