Black History Month "The Official Drifters Legends Clubhouse"

Jean for The Drifters Legends Clubhouse "Black History Month"

Black History Month "Lewis Latimer"

Lewis Howard Latimer was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts on September 4, 1848, and was the youngest of five children of Rebecca Latimer (1826–1910) and George Latimer (July 4, 1818 - May 29, 1896). George Latimer had been the slave of James B. Gray of Virginia. George Latimer ran away to freedom in Trenton, New Jersey in October,1842, along with his wife Rebecca, who had been the slave of another man. In 1874, he co patented (with Charles W. Brown) an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars (U.S. Patent 147,363). In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell employed Latimer, then a draftsman at Bell's patent law firm, to draft the necessary drawings required to receive a patent for Bell's telephone. After moving to Bridgeport Connecticut Lewis was hired as assistant manager and draftsman for the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, a company owned by Hiram Maxim, a rival of Thomas A. Edison. Latimer received a patent in January 1881 for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons", an improved method for the production of carbon filaments used in lightbulbs. This extended the life of the light bulb considerably. The Edison Electric Light Company in New York City hired Latimer in 1884, as a draftsman and an expert witness in patent litigation on electric lights. Latimer is credited with an improved process for creating a carbon filament at this time, which was an improvement on Thomas Edison's original paper filament, which would burn out quickly. When that company was combined in 1892 with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, he continued to work in the legal department. When General Electric and Westinghouse Electric Company formed the "Board of Patent Control" in 1896, to coordinate patent licensing and litigation, Latimer was employed as chief draftsman. In 1911 he became a patent consultant to law firms.

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"Marcus Garvey" Black History Month

Before The Nation Of Islam here in the United States under The Honorable Elijah Muhammad there was Marcus Garvey. Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940), was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). He founded the Black Star Line, part of the Back-to-Africa movement, which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. Garveyism intended persons of African ancestry in the diaspora to "redeem" the nations of Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave the continent. His essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in the Negro World entitled "African Fundamentalism", where he wrote: "Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality… to let us hold together under all climes and in every country…Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was born as the youngest of eleven children in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, to Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Sr., a mason, and Sarah Jane Richards, a domestic worker. Only Marcus and his sister Indiana survived to adulthood. His family was financially stable given the circumstances of this time period. Garvey's father had a large library, and it was from his father that Marcus gained his early love for reading. He also attended elementary schools in St. Ann's Bay during his youth. While attending these schools, Garvey first began to experience racism. When Marcus was younger, he used to be friends with his white neighbors and play with them all the time. However, when they reached their teenage years, they began to shun him. Sometime in 1900, Garvey entered into an apprenticeship with his uncle, Alfred Burrowes, who also had an extensive library, of which Marcus made good use. In 1910 Marcus left Jamaica and began traveling throughout the Central American region. His first stop was Costa Rica, where he had a maternal uncle. He lived in Costa Rica for several months where he worked as a time-keeper on a banana plantation. He began work as editor for a daily newspaper called La Nacionale in 1911. Later that year, he moved to Colón, Panama, where he edited a biweekly newspaper, before returning to Jamaica in 1912. After years of working in the Caribbean, Garvey left Jamaica to live in London from 1912 to 1914, where he attended Birkbeck College, taking classes in law and philosophy. He also worked for the African Times and Orient Review, published by Dusé Mohamed Ali, who was a considerable influence on the young man. Garvey sometimes spoke at Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner. Garvey's philosophy was also influenced by African-American leaders such as Booker T. Washington, Martin Delany, and Henry McNeal Turner. Garvey is said to have been influenced by the ideas of Dusé Mohamed Ali in his speeches, and his later organizing of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica in 1914.n 1914 Garvey returned to Jamaica, where he organized the UNIA. Historian Rashid suggests that the UNIA motto, "One God, One Aim, One Destiny", was derived from Dusé Ali's Islamic influence (Rashid, 2002). Garvey named the organization the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities (Imperial) League. The UNIA held an international convention in 1921 at New York's Madison Square Garden. Also represented at the convention were organizations such as the Universal Black Cross Nurses, the Black Eagle Flying Corps, and the Universal African Legion. Garvey attracted more than 50,000 people to the event and in his cause. The UNIA had 65,000 to 75,000 members paying dues to his support and funding. The national level of support in Jamaica helped Garvey to become one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century on the island. After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and a national African-American leader in the United States, Garvey traveled by ship to the U.S., arriving on 23 March 1916 aboard the S.S. Tallac. He intended to make a lecture tour and to raise funds to establish a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington's Institute. Garvey visited Tuskegee, and afterward, visited with a number of black leaders. May 1917, Garvey and thirteen others formed the first UNIA division outside Jamaica. They began advancing ideas to promote social, political, and economic freedom for black people. On 2 July, the East St. Louis riots broke out. On 8 July, Garvey delivered an address, entitled "The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots", at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind", condemning America's claims to represent democracy when black people were victimized "for no other reason than they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make great". It is "a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy. By October, rancor within the UNIA had begun to set in. A split occurred in the Harlem division, with Garvey enlisted to become its leader; although he technically held the same position in Jamaica. Garvey is known as a leading political figure because of his determination to fight for the unity of African Americans by creating the Universal Negro Improvement Association and rallying to gather supporters to fight.  He though found himself in conflict with other black leaders during the times such as  W. E. B. Du Bois. Dubois  felt that the Black Star Line was "original and promising  he added reportedly  that "Marcus Garvey is, without doubt, the most dangerous enemy of the Negro race in America and in the world. He is either a lunatic or a traitor. Du Bois feared that Garvey's activities would undermine his efforts toward black rights it is said.

Books By Marcus Garvey:

The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey. Edited by Amy Jacques Garvey. 412 pages. Majority Press; Centennial edition, 1 November 1986. ISBN 0-912469-24-2. Avery edition. ISBN 0-405-01873-8.

Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy by Marcus Garvey. Edited by Tony Martin. Foreword by Hon. Charles L. James, president- general, Universal Negro Improvement Association. 212 pages. Majority Press, 1 March 1986. ISBN 0-912469-19-6.

The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey. Compiled and edited by Tony Martin. 123 pages. Majority Press, 1 June 1983. ISBN 0-912469-02-1.

Hill, Robert A., editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Vols. I-VII, IX. University of California Press, c. 1983- (ongoing). 1146 pages. University of California Press, 1 May 1991. ISBN 0-520-07208-1.

Hill, Robert A., editor. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: Africa for the Africans 1921–1922. 740 pages. University of California Press, 1 February 1996. ISBN 0-520-20211-2.

"Corner Talk Report" Celebrating Black History Month...

Anksunamen for Corner Talk Report!

This month Corner Talk Report will be celebrating Black History Month with a spotlight on great men and women who contributed to the Nubian Historical experience in Music, Film, Stage, Television, Politics, Religion and the universal Struggle.......Butch Leake

(CORNER TALK REPORT)..Butch Leake

Black History Month "Pearl Bailey"

Pearl Mae Bailey was an  American black actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. Born in Southampton County in southeastern Virginia  to Ella Mae Ricks and Joseph Bailey, and reared in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia. Pearl  made her stage-singing debut at age 15. She began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs in the 1930s. This was on the suggestion of her brother Bill Bailey that  she enter an amateur contest at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia. She won the amateur song-and-dance contest and was later offered a job there for 35 dollars a week but the show closed in the middle of the engagement and she never go paid, She later entered another contest at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem New York City. From there she decide to pursue a career in entertainment. During world war two Pearl  toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her formal Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman. and continued to tour and record albums in between her stage and screen performances. Early in the television medium, Bailey guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. In 1954 her film credits were quite impressive she took the role of Frankie in the film version of Carmen Jones, and her rendition of "Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum" is one of the highlights of the film. Other credits include  the role of Maria in the film version of Porgy and Bess, starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. the role of "Aunt Hagar" in the movie St. Louis Blues, alongside Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and Nat King Cole. She starred in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. During the 1970s she had her own television show, and she also provided voices for animations such as Tubby the Tuba (1976) and Disney's The Fox and the Hound (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of Hello, Dolly!. She earned a B.A. in theology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1985, at age 67. She married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London on November 19, 1952. A republican, she was awarded the Bronze Medallion (New York City award. In her later years Bailey wrote several books: The Raw Pearl (1968), Talking to Myself (1971), Pearl's Kitchen (1973), and Hurry Up America and Spit (1976). In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford. Her last book, Between You and Me (1989), details her experiences with higher education.rd) in 1968 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Pearl passed away at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia on August 17, 1990. 

(CORNER TALK REPORT) Butch Leake
For more historical data log into http://www.ctrblogjournal.com/#!blogpoint/clj8

Black History Month 'Cheikh Anta Diop'

There have been many great thinkers in the African universe of scholastic thought in both past and present periods, to name a few like Stokley Carmichael and Malcolm X.  Yet as I look back to my earlier studies one man who stands out in profound radical thinking during his day was Cheikh Anta Diop. Born in Thieytou,l,  Diourbel Region, French Senegal. Diop was born to an aristocratic Muslim Wolof family in Senegal where he was educated in a traditional Islamic school. Diop's family was part of the Mouride brotherhood, the only independent Muslim group in Africa according to Diop. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Senegal before moving to Paris for graduate studies, where he ended his scholastic education. In 1946, at the age of 23, Diop went to Paris to study and initially enrolled to study higher mathematics. but in the end enrolled to study philosophy in the Faculty of Arts of the Sorbonne. Which after he gained his first degree (licence) in philosophy in 1948. He then enrolled in the Faculty of Sciences, receiving two diplomas in chemistry in 1950. It was in 1949 that Diop registered a proposed title for a Doctor of Letters thesis, "The Cultural Future of African thought" under the direction of Professor Gaston Bachelard.  In 1951 he registered a second thesis title "Who were the pre-dynastic Egyptians" under Professor Marcel Griaule. He completed his thesis on pre-dynastic Egypt in 1954 but could not find a jury of examiners for it: he later published many of his ideas as the book "Nations nègres et culture". In 1956 he re-registered a new proposed thesis for Doctor of Letters with the title "The areas of matriarchy and patriarchy in ancient times." From 1956, he taught physics and chemistry in two Paris lycees as an assistant master, before moving to the College de France. In 1957 he registered his new thesis title "Comparative study of political and social systems of Europe and Africa, from Antiquity to the formation of modern states." The new topics did not relate to ancient Egypt, but were concerned with the forms of organisation of African and European societies and how they evolved. He obtained his doctorate in 1960. A most controversial historian Diop rattled academia during his day particularly in the area of Egyptian studies on the indigenious population of Egypt as he put it in his thesis was populated by black people. A political activist! Diop from his early days in Paris was active in the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), an African nationalist organisation led byFelix Houphouet-Boigny. He was general secretary of the RDA students in Paris from 1950 to 1953.

African Origins Of Civilization.....

Cheikh Anta Diop University.......

(CORNER TALK REPORT) Butch Leake

Celebrating Black History Month

This month Corner Talk Report will be celebrating Black History Month with a spotlight on
great men and woman who contributed to the Nubian Historical Experience in Music,
Politics, Religion and Struggle...... Butch Leake

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