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As a result, families were torn apart by addiction, homicide rates flew through the roof, and Black America has been at the receiving end of a mass incarceration epidemic of holocaust proportions.

Given that it has been proven that government officials played a direct role in the creation of this madness, I say that there is a logical argument for reparations.

I spoke with Ohio State University Law Professor Michelle Alexander (pictured), author of the book, “The New Jim Crow,” and she agrees with this assessment.  Alexander’s book is a telling and riveting reminder of the horrific impact that mass incarceration has had on Black America.

“I think it’s a powerful point you’re making,” she said.  “Also, I think it’s worth noting that the United States has spent more than one trillion dollars waging the drug war since it began — funds that could have been used for education, job creation, etc.  It is reasonable that at least a trillion dollars be paid to repair the damage that has been done, reparations that could take the form of massive investments in the schools and community hardest hit by the drug war, as well as payments to individuals and families that have been destroyed.”

Are reparations practical?  I am not sure, given that we live in a nation that has refused to even apologize for slavery.

But the fact that an entity refuses to take responsibility for its actions does not mean that you should not accurately highlight such accountability.   Those who expect America to calm itself into a sweet, kind “post-racial society” must be made aware that an unforgivable amount of damage has been done as a result of the war on drugs, and any post-racial society must be built on accepting responsibility for wrongs that have been committed in the past.

The war on drugs is not like slavery, which affected our great, great, great grandparents. Many children today have parents who’ve received 60-year prison sentences for drug possession.   Families are mourning the loss of loved ones who’ve been murdered by weapons allowed to enter Black communities as a result of the drug trade.   I run into countless young people who are traumatized after growing up with parents who were addicted to drugs.  The pain and misery is all around us, so it’s very simple to prove that the damage has been nothing short of crippling.

It’s time to address this matter in a series of public forums, legislation, petitions, and even protests.  It’s also time for all of us to promote awareness in our own communities about the dangers of drugs and mentor our young people to create better lives for themselves.  Like a town that’s been ravaged by a violent tornado, it’s going to take a consistent effort by all of us to clean up the mess in our community.  It’s time to start making things right.

Tell us what you think.

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Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and author of the forthcoming book, “The RAPP Sheet: Rising Above Psychological Poison.” To have Dr. Boyce commenttary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Queen Mother Moore (pictured) was a die-hard civil right activist and Black nationalist  who stood side-by-side with Jamaican-born scholar and Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, supporting his “Back to Africa Movement.” Moore was also a hero to countless folks in her beloved Harlem community, where she fought for tenant rights and more solid education for its residents.  Although her birth name was Audley Moore, she was renamed Queen Mother Moore by the Ashanti tribe in Ghana who gave her the honorary title on one of her many trips to the Motherland.

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She had a powerful voice that she used for speaking against the injustices that Black people suffered at the hands of this country that had literally turned its back on them.  Moore was once quoted as saying, ”They not only called us Negroes, they made us Negroes, things that don’t know where they came from and don’t even care that they don’t know. Negro is a state of mind, and they massacred our minds.”
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Moore was born on July 27, 1898, in New Iberia, Louisiana,  a town west of New Orleans.  Moore’s grandmother was a slave, whose Mother was raped by her enslaver who happened to be a physician.  Moore’s grandfather was lynched as his wife watched, and she was left to raise five children alone. To top that off, Moore lost both her parents before she reached fourth grade.

Moore was forced to enter the workforce after her parents died.  At the time, New Orleans was a rough place for an orphaned young girl. Moore often talked about how the police in and around New Orleans used to routinely round up Black men for vagrancy if they were just standing on a corner talking. She also told how the police would raid restaurants and arrest all the Black men only to return later and rape the Black women.

It was around age 15 that Moore made the decision to jump into the struggle that she saw going on around her. Her decision turned into a lifelong search for answers about how to change things.

Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, moved to Harlem, New York, in 1916, where UNIA thrived. By now a formidable public speaker, Garvey spoke across America. He urged African Americans to be proud of their race and return to Africa, their ancestral homeland, and attracted thousands of supporters.  He also campaigned against lynching, Jim Crow laws, denial of Black voting rights, and racial discrimination.

His dynamism caught the eyes and ears of Moore.

Moore left Louisiana in the 1920s, and as soon as she arrived in Harlem, she immediately threw herself into the struggle there.  She joined Garvey’s UNIA movement and became a leader until the movement collapsed in 1927.

Moore organized rent strikes against abusive landlords, came to the aid of domestic workers in New York City, and agitated for Black political representation, prisoner rights, and the integration of the armed forces.  She joined the Communist Party in 1933, because it rallied around the idea of self-determination for Blacks.

Watch Queen Mother Moore talk about reparations here:

Moore ran as a Communist for New York’s state assembly in 1938, but left the party in 1950.  In 1955, Moore helped to organize a campaign demanding that Blacks receive reparations for the travesties that they suffered in this country all the way back to the days of slavery.  Moore also teamed up with controversial Black nationalist Malcolm X, joining his Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Moore was Bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church of Judea. She is a founding member of the Commission to Eliminate Racism, Council of Churches of Greater New York.

In organizing this commission, she staged a 24-hour sit-in for three weeks.

She is also a founder of the African American Cultural Foundation, Inc., which led the fight against usage of the slave term “Negro.”

Moore led protests against the Apollo Theatre for showing racist shows.  She helped organize CIO unions and the Work Progress Administration (WPA). She forced the WPA to employ Black women on sewing projects who were previously relegated to domestic work. Moore also led the fight to break Jim Crow policy in the Coast Guard and became the first Black stewardess to be hired.

She was arrested three times and even organized her fellow inmates: Moore was first cuffed during her struggle for defending the rights of Black children to use a public park pool without bringing along their birth certificates. The second time she was arrested for defending a peddler from arrest for selling tomatoes to support his seven little children. The final time, she was arrested for trying to register people to vote in Green County, New York.

Queen Mother Moore was present when former South African president Nelson Mandela came to New York in the summer of 1990, and she was one of only five invited female speakers to address the historical Million Man March in October 1995.  By the time Moore was 97, she had outlasted a stroke, two mastectomies, and a broken hip.

The formidable warrior passed away of natural causes at age 99 on May 2, 1997, leaving one son, five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

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World’s Oldest Blood

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Although Whites in South Africa were the ruling class, they were also the minority in the country. Black organizations and groups, such as African National Congress (ANC), fought for years to end the centuries-old ruling of Whites. With the help of more than 22.7 million eligible voters — some waiting as long as 12 hours to cast their ballots — the election was more than just a symbolic gesture.

Watch South Africa’s 1994 election season here:

The next month, Nelson Mandela would become President of the ANC, standing in tandem with Bishop Desmond Tutu as he addressed the throng of supporters at his May inauguration of that year.

Watch the inauguration here:

To this day, the ANC remains in power, even as the now-dissolved National Party (NP), which enforced apartheid throughout the country, tried desperately to undermine the will of the people by reorganizing their political structure. The NP, dealing with conflict among its members and unpopularity with voters, would end in 2005.

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Founded by husband and wife Carroll and Sandra Lamb (both pictured), the Institute is essentially a travelling museum, taking their show on the road and visiting a variety of college campuses and school districts across the country. While the Institute is settled in Kansas City for a few weeks, NewsOne spoke with Mr. Carroll Lamb about the impetus of the Institute and its future goals.

NewsOne: How did the Institute begin and what does it do?

Carroll Lamb: The Institute was founded by my wife and I approximately 12 years ago. We are a traveling museum. We have a main exhibit known as the Black Inventors Showcase, which includes a little of 100 Black inventors, their inventions, portraits, biographies and patent drawings. We also have a school-age program that’s called the “Traveling Trunk of Black and Hispanic Inventors.” This is an exhibit we take into public schools, which is why we’re in Kansas City, and we talk to them about 15 to 18 inventors.

We engage the kids in dialog so that they understand what an invention is, what innovation is and what a patent is. We’re also encouraging them to take advantage of STEM, which are science, technology, engineering and math courses at their schools. This is where the jobs are now, and this is where the jobs will be in the future. We want to think about the job market beyond becoming an entertainer or an athlete.

NO: What inspired you to begin the Institute?

CL: My wife and I were down in Philadelphia at a Black cultural expo, and one of the things at the event was a traveling museum out of Los Angeles, which had a focus on Black inventors. We knew a lot about Black history but very little about Black inventors, which is very true of most people today. My wife is in the field of early childhood education and thought that this would be a great thing for the kids. I thought that we should try to inform everyone, and so we began building our own travelling museum.

NewsOne: Given the number of Black and Hispanic inventors who are nearly nonexistent in the annals of history, does it motivate you to teach at every stop?

CL: We want to not only talk to children but adults about our history. We go to colleges and universities. There are so many people who don’t know the breadth of what our contributions [are] in the technological development of this country. The focus on Black history in this country has been on our social history but not their technological history. We’ve invented so much, like the lemon-scented Cascade dish detergent formula. The godfather of cellular communication is Jesse Russell, who invented a way to make bandwidth more efficient so that more people can use it. It goes on and on. The man who invented an innovative sugar refining process was a man named Norbert Rillieux, back in 1843, which we still use today. It truly does go on and on.

At the close of Carroll’s interview, he cited the achievements of modern Black inventors, including Institute participant Tahira Reid of Purdue University, 11-year-old inventor Joel Williams of Texas, and Chrysler executive and car designer Ralph Gilles. Carroll hopes that his traveling museum will inspire the next generation of great minds to continue running the institute. As a curator of such an important piece of Black history, the Lambs have provided a great service to not only African Americans, but the world.

To learn more about the Institute of Black Invention and Technology, click here.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s

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Dr. King shined as well in written form, most notably in his famous open letter penned to fellow clergymen during his incarceration inside an Alabama jail cell 49 years ago today. Generally known as the “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King’s vibrant words to other men of the cloth came as a result of criticism he faced as a vocal leader of racial injustice.

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King’s letter was actually a response to an open letter titled “A Call For Unity” released on April 12 from eight local clergymen that suggested the protests and other organizing events were not helpful. They further asserted that King and others should take their fight for injustice to the court of law and thought of the protests largely as an annoyance. King’s reply was replete with his typical eloquence, resonating far beyond the time it was written, remaining as a testament to his will and faith. Although the letter’s most quoted line is “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” there are other memorable moments as well.

”Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

For the full text, please click here.

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The service academy, which is honoring Smith with a pioneer award Sunday, has been getting pressure from Congress to boost enrollment of minorities, particularly African-Americans, who account for roughly 5 percent of incoming cadets.

Smith, 67, said in an interview that he has been impressed by the academy’s recruitment efforts.

“We’re not there, but we’ve got to keep pushing for it,” he said.

The push to achieve diversity at the academy in New London dates back more than 50 years to the inaugural parade of President John F. Kennedy, who noted there wasn’t a single black cadet in the Coast Guard Academy marching unit that passed him on Pennsylvania Avenue. Kennedy told an aide something ought to be done about it.

Smith arrived on campus a year later and, as the son of an Army colonel, he adapted well to the military environment and generally did not feel like an outsider.

“Every now and then you would get something that would happen. Someone would make some remark somewhere,” he said. “In the main, it was not a situation that I felt uncomfortable with.”

After graduating, his Coast Guard career took him to Vietnam in 1969, where he commanded a patrol boat for a year. He became the first sea-service African-American to be awarded a Bronze Star. He received a law degree from George Washington University and returned to the New London area to work as an attorney for Electric Boat, the Groton-based submarine builder. He also taught law at the Coast Guard Academy.

Smith is among five people being honored as part of an annual event, known as Eclipse Week. The event began decades ago to support African-Americans in the Coast Guard community and now promotes discussion of diversity across the academy.

The other honorees include Frances Neal, an African-American food service worker for 25 years and surrogate mother to many cadets, and Vice Admiral Manson K. Brown, an African-American who is commander of the Pacific area for the Coast Guard and a former student of Smith’s. A former equal employment opportunity officer at the academy and a rear admiral credited with diversity leadership also will be honored.

The academy has about 1,030 cadets in its four-year program. Students graduate with a bachelor of science degree and an obligation to serve five years in the Coast Guard.

Minorities accounted for 34 percent of the class of 2015 although blacks represent only 4 or 5 percent, according to Antonio Farias, the academy’s chief diversity officer.

Academy officials have been called to report on diversity numbers to Congress, which has considered various proposals to boost black enrollment.

“We’ve taken that to heart,” Farias said. “It’s also been a clarifying experience. We know what we’re trying to do.”

Last year the academy launched a leadership program that invites science and technology students from historically black colleges and universities to help train cadets. The goal is to have them return to their communities and share project-based educational methods in a way that trickles down to high school and even elementary school students. The academy also has started inviting teachers from diverse communities for training in the summers, Farias said.

One obstacle is limited knowledge about the Coast Guard in the black community.

“There aren’t that many people in the African-American community that really encounter the Coast Guard because it’s not a great boating community,” Smith said.

Congressman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who has pushed for a more diverse corps of cadets, urged the academy to continue to prioritize outreach efforts despite budget pressures.

“The exceptional strides the Coast Guard Academy has made in expanding diversity are a testament to the service’s commitment to ensuring its officer corps reflects the nation it serves,” Cummings said.

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The four-block area was dubbed “Black Wall Street” because more than 200 black-owned and operated businesses thrived on Parrish Street. Jaisun McMillian, one of the executive producers, spoke on the importance of the documentary via a press release.

There are valuable lessons to be learned from their experiences that could benefit generations to come. Our children need and deserve to have a better understanding of who they are, where they came from, and why they are the way they are, said McMillian. Our heritage is our identity. It is important that it be appreciated, respected and preserved.

Filmmakers Kelvin D. Allen, Jaisun McMillian, and Victor Stone of the Cultural Heritage Group have banded together to craft the documentary film and have started a Kickstarter fund-raising campaign to get the project rolling.

Learn more about “Hayti: The Legacy Of Black America,” Cultural Heritage Group, and partner group Triangle Virtual Media Productions by clicking here.

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Born Loretta Aiken in 1894, just 29 years after the abolishment of slavery, the comedienne was born to a large family in Brevard, North Carolina. Sadly, tragedy struck when at age 11, Mabley’s father died as a result of a car accident. A couple of years later, her mother would also die in similar fashion. Raised by her grandmother from that point on, Mabley suffered physical abuse and a forced marriage at 15 before leaving Brevard to go to Cleveland along with a traveling minstrel show.

Mabley’s introduction to vaudeville came by way of playing shows at segregated stage theaters across the southern United States and Midwest. The so-called “Chitlin’ Circuit” was where Mabley and her fellow players honed their stage acts and comic timing, and she continued to vie for straight theater work as well. At the urging of a popular duo of the time, Mabley would move to New York, where she would find much of her fame.

Changing her name to Jackie Mabley, after an estranged ex-boyfriend, she took the bold stance of announcing herself as an “out” lesbian and identifying with feminist and liberal principles. However, her bawdy comedy act would shadow much of her politics in humor, although she remained staunchly committed to injecting critiques on racism and other societal ills by way of her act.

After doing small stage events and appearing in early “race films, “Moms” Mabley would reportedly command as much as $10,000 dollars per week at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem. Her following at the Apollo eventually led to a recording contract and her first live comedy vinyl album in 1961 titled On Stage (Funniest Woman In The World). Recording more than 22 records while she was alive, compilations of older recordings have been released since the time of her passing in the mid-’70s.

Mabley’s sharp wit and propensity to address larger issues couched within her brash style of humor made her one of the most popular and well-paid entertainers of her day. Storming the stage with her matronly look, gruff voice, rubber-faced antics and unflinching edge, Mabley catapulted herself onto the world stage and into the hearts of America as a fixture on the popular 1960s CBS show “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

Dubbed the “Funniest Woman In The World,” Moms Mabley remains an iconic figure  not only for her ability to tickle funny bones, but also her outspoken views regarding war, racism and Civil Rights. Her tenacious spirit coupled with her sometimes acerbic but expertly done comedy act has earned her many well-deserved accolades.

Happy Birthday to Moms Mabley! She would have been 118 today!

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Documents proving this fact were found in a most unlikely place: an abandoned house. Elev8 has more:

Historians thought the documents were lost in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake because Greener had passed through at the time. Rufus McDonald got a call one day to see about an old abandoned house. The front door of the abandoned home near 75th and Sangamon was unlocked and swinging in the wind.

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Drug addicts, squatters and stray animals carried away whatever they wanted. Everything that wasn’t termite-infested seemed to have been stolen. Even the copper pipes were gone. But the scavengers missed something incredible. Hidden in the attic that McDonald was contracted to clear before the home’s 2009 demolition was a trunk. Inside were the papers of Richard T. Greener, the first African American to graduate from Harvard.

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“I didn’t know who he was,” said McDonald, 51. “But as soon as I found out, I knew this was a story that had to be told.”

Go to Elev8 for more on this story.

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A report from the Washington Post over the weekend focused on the life of Wilson in depth, revealing that in 1975 the retired Navy chief petty officer picked up a camera, forever altering the landscape of his life.

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“I wanted to be involved in the history,” said Wilson to the Post. “It wasn’t about the dollars and cents. I was just so enthusiastic about the things that were happening. Being able to document our people and this history was a gift and a joy. I didn’t know where it was leading when I started; I just enjoyed doing it.”

Snapping photos of Rosa Parks, Sidney Poitier, James Brown, Marion Barry, and Dorothy Height, Wilson’s work was mostly found in Black-owned newspapers and organizations. However, he has been nationally recognized, recently donating photos to the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta.

Although no longer able to see, Wilson is seemingly satisfied with what he was able to accomplish over the years by way of his camera. “My sight is totally gone,” said Wilson. “But I’m not disgruntled. I fulfilled my objective. And it hasn’t taken any of my joy away. I have a machine in the consciousness of my head that just flows.”

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Moore joined the army in 1959 amid racial tensions sparked largely by the Civil Rights Movement. He was a reluctant soldier, using family advice to make his transition to serve as smooth as possible.

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“I had three older brothers who had been in the service, and the advice they gave me before I left was to keep my mouth shut and don’t volunteer for anything,” said Moore in an interview. However, his defiance against his siblings paid off in the long run. Moore volunteered for entry into the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment aka the Old Guard. From there, Moore would become part of the annals of Black history.

After a visit from then-President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah to the Arlington National Cemetery alongside President John F. Kennedy, Nkrumah inquired about the lack of Black soldiers working on the grounds. “I was obvious wherever I went,” Moore shared. “I was the only Black on a military firing party. The officers would come up and they would tell me, ‘We see you and you’re doing a good job.’”

His good work landed him the post of Tomb Guard, and his training started immediately.  Moore said he was never treated poorly. In fact, he only has positive memories of his experience, “They all treated me very, very fairly,” said Moore.

In 1961, he humbly took his post, with fellow soldiers hiding the fact that he was breaking a color barrier. “It was a job that I was given, and I just considered it a great honor,” said Moore, who is still taken aback by the fuss people make about his place in the history books.

“I think it’s a little much,” said Moore. “When young guys talk to me about being the first, I tell them I just took the opportunity that was afforded to me, but you guys are taking it to another level so I am more proud of you all then I am of myself.”

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In the tiny village of Sackets Harbor, a free Black man and farmer named Julius Terry (also shown as Torry) was said to have joined the war efforts as a volunteer, according to curator Matthew Mac Vittie of the Onondaga Historical Association. Vittie says his research shows that 375 Black men served at the Sackets Harbor battlefield, which served as a base for American forces during the war. It appears that Terry was the only free man among the throng.

“The only record known to exist of a free Black man serving at Sackets Harbor is that of Julius Terry,” offered Vittie.

Records showed that Terry owned an impressive 100 acres of land, which also housed a few animals. A historical society, Daughters of 1812, is also looking to place a marker upon Terry’s grave by way of the Veterans Administration.

To learn more about African Americans during the American Revolution, check out this video:

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Rashad Robinson

Age: 33

Place of Residence: New York, N.Y.

Why he is a local hero: As the new head of Color of Change, Robinson is responsible for helping to challenge the messages coming out of the media during this crucial 2012 presidential election.

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Whether fighting to save the life of Troy Davis or helping to force clemency for Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio woman jailed for sending her child to a school outside of her district, Robinson has had his hands full since taking the reigns from Color of Change founder James Rucker in May.

Robinson, who previously served as senior director of media programs for GLAAD, planned to “dive in feet first.”

“We are dealing with a cultural landscape that is showing Black people as criminals on a regular basis,” says Robinson. “It’s not that every image has to be ‘The Cosbys,’ but right now we are dealing more with ‘Atlanta Housewives.’”

The images depicted from the media impact how people view the world. When Donald Trump was garnering news coverage for saying some very over-the-top things about President Barack Obama last year, Robinson and Color of Change struck back. Robinson called on “Celebrity Apprentice” contestants Star Jones and Lil Jon to speak out against Trump, organizing a Twitter push to pressure the pair to speak out.

“We’ve gotten a lot of people tweeting. (They) can’t have a relationship with the Black community and have a relationship with Trump and not call him out for his actions….They’ve remained in silence and now it is time for them to speak up,” said Robinson.

Now Color of Change is on a mission to stop attempts to change voter identification laws by the conservative group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Color of Change is targeting the companies that support ALEC.

The fact is that voter fraud rarely occurs, and when it does occur it does not happen at a scale that would change the outcome of an election. The kind of voter fraud addressed by the ALEC voter id bill happens as infrequently as death by lightning……The truth is that voter ID laws are discriminatory — Black people, Latinos, the elderly, students, people with disabilities, and the poor are all less likely to have the photo IDs necessary to vote under these laws.⁶

For example, if you’ve recently moved because of foreclosure or some other economic circumstance, you’re more likely to have recently ended up in a new state which won’t accept your out of state driver’s license. If you don’t have a car, you’re less likely to have a driver’s license in the first place, Robinson wrote on Color of Change’s website.

Using digital media, the group wants to pressure ALEC’s corporate supporters.

Some of the companies supporting ALEC may simply be unaware that the group is involved in voter suppression. Others might think that voter suppression will benefit their political interests, and hope that they can get away with supporting it because so few people have even heard of ALEC.

We’ve started reaching out to these companies to make sure they know what they’re supporting, and to demand that they stop. Adding your voice to this campaign will help us convince these companies that continuing to support ALEC will hurt their reputation with consumers. We hope that many of them will simply do the right thing and stop supporting ALEC. If they don’t, we’ll be prepared to shine a spotlight on them and make sure the world understands what they’re involved in.

This is a game changing effort that could have a significant impact on this year’s presidential election.

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————————

Ibtihaj Muhammad

Age: 25

Place of Residence: Maplewood, N.J.

Why she is a local hero: Muhammad, a fencer and a Muslim, could become the first American woman to compete in the Olympics with a hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women.

Muhammad is the first to admit how badly she wants to make it to the Olympics in London later this year, and as one of the top-ranked female sabre fencers in the world, she has an excellent chance of making the team. Though no official records have been kept, U.S. officials believe Muhammad would be the first American woman to compete in the hijab.

“It can be hard to imagine yourself as an Olympic athlete because of the way you dress,” Muhammad told the Huffington Post. “But I’m hoping this opens the door for Muslim girls to imagine themselves in this space. If this message reaches anyone, even one person, it will be worth it.”

Muhammad grew up in an athletic household but finding a sport she could play was a challenge. Playing volleyball, she couldn’t wear the short shorts or tight tops that other girls wore because of her religious beliefs, and she felt uncomfortable when her teammates would make comments about her dress.

One day, her mother saw fencers practicing in the high school cafeteria covered from head to toe as she was driving past.

“I don’t know what that is,” Denise Muhammad said to her daughter, “but when you get to high school, you’re doing it.”

And did she ever do it.

She captained two state championship teams at Columbia High School in Maplewood. In fencing, everyone had to dress the same. It was the first time that Muhammad truly felt as if she was part of a team.

She used the sport to take her to Duke University, where she excelled athletically and academically. Muhammad became a three-time All-American and earned a dual degree in International Relations and African-American Studies with a minor in Arabic.

Muhammad didn’t lose her love of fencing after college. She began working with 2000 U.S. Olympian Akhi Spencer-El in New York and won a U.S. national title in 2009. Now she’s competing for one of two spots on the Olympic team.

And it hasn’t been easy. While training during Ramadan, when eating and drinking are prohibited from sun up to sundown, Muhammad would wake during the night to eat every 90 minutes to keep her strength during the day. If she makes the Olympics, she’ll likely have to maintain a similar regimen as the event will occur during Ramadan.

“I didn’t have female Muslim role models to look up to in the athletic world,” Muhammad told The Star-Ledger. “It’s really important for people to know my story. I think it’s something I have to do, because I want Muslim female youth to believe they can do something like this.”

Denise often watches her daughter compete and sees the cameras focus on her daughter’s name.

“I realized, my God, she’s representing all of us,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “You feel the pride. Muslim women are struggling around the world. She’s not on the front lines but when she stands up there, she’s making her mark for them, for freedom, to have their voices heard.”

It’s a challenge Muhammad has accepted. She won’t know whether she’s made the Olympic team until the end of March. Whatever happens, Muhammad knows she has made a difference.

“I think my motto in this whole experience is that sports is something you can do in hijab, and you shouldn’t let your faith compromise how athletically gifted you’ve become. Just like race or gender, religion should not hinder you from achieving your goals,” said Muhammad.

Game Changers 2012

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With each amazing story, we aim to shine the spotlight on extraordinary citizens that deserve more than just a mention within their own communities — people like La’Shanda Holmes, Maria Davis, and Maya Rupert. (Pictures of them can be found in the gallery below.)

In the spirit of these Game Changers, we want you to submit stories about people you know who are making a difference in your community.

These local heroes can be family, friends, a member of your church, a mentor, or just anyone that embodies what we celebrate during Black History Month. Submit your story with a photo or video in the gallery below and vote on stories that inspire you. The story with the most votes will become the subject of a full-length feature story to be highlighted prominently on NewsOne.

And see our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

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The first Black POTUS has always been considered the holy grail of African American achievements.  Most of us didn’t think we’d have a Black president for another 100 years.  We also didn’t consider the fact that the first Black president could have easily been a Republican (Former Secretary of State Colin Powell). Yet here we are, with some of us having more access to power than we’ve ever had before, and it’s turning into a mess.

One of the great challenges of being Black in America is that we sometimes become heavily dependent on our historical oppressors to validate our success.  We forget that the most successful African American on the plantation was not the one who made it into the big house; it was actually the one who escaped.

African Americans contributed heavily to the success of the Obama presidential campaign, but millions of white Americans had to give their stamp of approval before he was allowed into office.  So, to consider the first Black president to be the most accomplished African American in history moves us dangerously close to saying that getting approval from white America somehow makes you into a better human being.

Another thing we must be careful about is comparing Barack Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr. Not that one (a Civil Rights Activist) is better than the other (President of the United States), but in many cases, they are diametrically opposed.  No one can say what the relationship between Dr. King and President Obama would be if King were alive, but given that one of them (Dr. King) spoke endlessly about the ills of poverty, militarism and racial inequality, it’s not hard to imagine that the two might be at odds with one another.

A final area in which the Obama presidency has made its impact on Black history is through the tremendous divide that has been created in Black leadership.  The battle between Cornel West and Al Sharpton is both sad and counter-productive, as one man (West) has been marginalized by the administration and the other (Sharpton) has publicly stated that he refuses to say anything critical about the president (a promise that has never been made by any civil rights activist with access to the White House).

Both of these men have been politically neutered, as we live in a nation that refuses to listen to West and has simultaneously sought to control the voice of Sharpton.   If a man leaves his wife to date her sister, the sisters should not be fighting one another.  More plainly, Sharpton and West should be standing together, not battling one another as the White House sits without accountability for its actions.  Both men should be presenting a Black agenda to the president that is offered in exchange for their endorsements.  If the first job is to get Obama into office, then the second job should be pushing the administration to act on behalf of our community.

Obama is certainly an important part of Black history; we all know that.  But his presidency tells us more about our future than anything.  Similar to the Malcolm/Martin divide during integration, we are being invited to sit at important tables, as long as we are willing to eat the scraps.  We must be smarter now than we were 50 years ago, when we formed deep partnerships with our oppressors without stating our conditions in advance.

Black history is made, at least in part, by advances in the fight against racial inequality; so, racial inequality must be a consistent part of the national conversation to allow President Obama an opportunity to make more than a symbolic contribution to African American history.   Being a Black man in the big house is a wonderful thing, but it matters more that we get off the plantation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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See more Black History from 1968 below!

And see our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See more Black History from 1967 below!

And see our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See more Black History from 1966 below!

And see our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

See our Black History GAME CHANGERS for 2012 HERE!

In the letter Jourdan Anderson offers a smart retort to P.H. Anderson’s request that he come back and work for his former slave master in Tennessee.

Here are some excerpts from the letter:

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

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Every February, people throughout America take 28 days to learn about, remember, and celebrate the contributions of Black people to American society. During the more than four centuries that have passed since this nation took its first steps toward existence, people of African descent have been an integral part of the American story, playing key roles in the political, cultural, and scientific progress we’ve enjoyed thus far.

The Origins Of Black History Month

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week,” which historian Carter G. Woodson conceived in the second week of February because of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s birthdays (Feb. 12 and Feb. 14, respectively). It was expanded into a full month in 1976.

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At NewsOne this month, we’ll celebrate Black achievement with profiles of historical figures, photo galleries exploring pivotal years in modern Black history, trivia quizzes, original pieces on the many facets of our history, and more. But we’ll also be doing something different: Celebrating the achievements of little-known, everyday folks who are making contributions to their community on the local and national level. They’re called GAME CHANGERS, and you can take a look at them here as we roll out all 28 over the course of February. Be sure to check back often!

A final note: Over the years, there has been much debate over whether Black History Month is necessary, and whether its existence is counterproductive to recognizing “Black” history as simply American. This month at NewsOne, even as we celebrate, we plan to explore and engage with those criticisms as well. We hope you’ll join the conversation and share your own opinions with us in the comments.

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH FROM NEWSONE.COM!!

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In the back, there’s a collection devoted to Jefferson Davis, one-time president of the Confederacy formed by the southern states which seceded from the United States in 1861, complete with his top hat and fancy shoes at the spot where his body once lay in state.

It’s all housed in a little red stone building next door to the bigger and much more heavily visited Ogden Museum of Southern Art and near the National World War II Museum. Yet 150 years after the Civil War, the little museum finds itself struggling — like others both in the North and South — to make changes and stay relevant with new generations.

For some museums, that means more displays on African-Americans or exhibits on the roles women played as combatants and spies. For others, it means adding digital maps and electronic displays to attract tech-savvy youth. Or it may simply mean adopting a wider, more holistic approach to the war — without taking sides.

But it’s not always easy for museums to update their exhibits because of the high costs, curators say. And some would-be visitors’ dollars are kept away by the perception that southern Civil War museums are one-sided — or even racist — because of the legacy of slavery in the South.

“It’s a challenge on several fronts, one is getting enough money for it,” said John Coski, historian and library director at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia. “Most have recognized the need to make the transition to a more modern perspective, but for some that’s a struggle. Especially in the South, there are still strong feelings about some of these museums.”

Louisiana’s museum opened in 1891, then called “Confederate Memorial Hall: The Battle Abbey of the South.” The combative name was dropped in the 1960s and today it’s seeking a “more inclusive, broader” perspective, museum curator Patricia Ricci said. It has been invited to become affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, which will further spur the effort to showcase a more modern interpretation of the war.

“I think we will add some information on the Union effort here,” Ricci said. “And we will probably make some other additions with it. It always comes down to money, and we never have enough.”

Today, the museum has the second largest collection of Confederate artifacts in the U.S. Visitors can view the uniforms of eight Confederate generals from Louisiana, rare swords and rifles, more than 125 original battle flags and rare photographs.

Ricci, the museum’s curator of 31 years, notes that fewer people have visited the museum with each decade since the 1950s. But the 150th anniversary offers hope that a tide of new visitors will arrive. Attendance in December was up by 800 people over 2010, Ricci said.

The 150th anniversary observances began in April with the commemoration of the first shots fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. It will end in four years with remembrances of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox in Virginia.

For now, the Confederate Museum draws just a fraction of the visitors who flock to bigger museums nearby, averaging about 16,000 people a year. That’s down from some 20,000 visitors before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

The museum’s main revenue source is the $7 fee collected from each visitor, leaving it forever scrambling to make ends meet. Many of the artifacts are in need of restoration; the building needs a new slate roof and still hasn’t added the handicapped facilities it wants.

“We have to be very frugal,” Ricci said. “I look at the World War II museum which gets millions of visitors and wish we could get just part of that.”

Some visitors do stumble upon the museum after visiting the others nearby — and are surprised by its scope.

“I think it’s a very important part of our history,” said Rose Adams, 47, visiting from Dallas. “This is a wonderful display, full of such interesting things. I just happened on it after going to the World War II museum.”

Interest in the Civil War got a huge boost in 1990 with the airing of Ken Burns’ Public Broadcasting Service documentary on the war, still the most-watched public television series ever.

“One of the interesting things is that the series did in the North was it really provided a sense of ownership of the Civil War, which had been since 1865 the province of the South,” Burns said. “We ceded the interest generally to the South, which is unusual, because it’s usually the winners who write the history, not the losers.”

But he notes museums that may have once been shrines to one side or another are adapting new kinds of displays exploring the war from new angles.

“I think a lot of that is changing and getting more centered on the war and not a distorted idea of it,” Burns said. “Basically museums have started to interpret a more holistic look of the war.”

In Charleston, the National Park Service has worked to make anniversary events more hospitable to blacks, offering events featuring Gullah story tellers and basket weavers, discussions of slavery and programs with re-enactors portraying black units that fought for the North. Gullah is the culture of the descendants of slaves who live on the region’s sea islands.

Later this year the Charleston Museum will mount an exhibition about Robert Smalls, the slave who commandeered a Confederate transport vessel and piloted it past Southern batteries to the blockading Union fleet. He later served five terms in Congress from South Carolina.

Still, the feeling that southern museums dedicated to the war are racist is a lingering problem, said President and CEO of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, Waite Rawls.

“It’s still one of the greatest challenges Confederate museums face, and we are all working on it,” he said. “Unfortunately the Confederate flag was used as a symbol of white supremacy in the civil rights era. We got hit with a double whammy of the 1860s and the 1960s.”

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Monique Rivers Williams says her father died Monday night from pneumonia.

The Oklahoma native was a saxophonist, flutist and composer.

He started his career in Boston, where he performed with Herb Pomeroy’s big band in an ensemble that included future music producer Quincy Jones. In 1964, he moved to New York and was hired by Davis. He played with a diverse group of musicians there that included Gillespie, T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker.

He moved to Orlando in the early 1990s and regularly played with a group of jazz musicians whose day jobs were at Walt Disney World.

Plans are being made for a public memorial concert.

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1) Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel is best-known for winning the 1940 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as “Mammy” in “Gone with the Wind.” While her role is widely considered demeaning to blacks, viewing McDaniel’s performance through such a narrow lens overlooks the dignity with which she handled her limited-acting opportunities.  McDaniel’s Oscar acceptance speech showed a grace and class that should have put the racist directors, executives, producers and actors of Hollywood to shame.

Hattie McDaniel’s Oscar Acceptance Speech

2) Fannie Lou Hamer (pictured)

Fannie Lou Hamer was easily one of the hardest-working women during the Civil Rights Movement. She was a plain-spoken and devout woman known for her fiery speeches at the various civil rights conferences she attended. Hamer was critical in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Summer, a 1964 effort to register as many black voters as possible. At the time, voter registration was a dangerous task that could easily get one killed by white segregationists determined to keep blacks powerless. Later, she reflected on her fearless work:

I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been a little scared – but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it seemed they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.

Now that is what we call “hard core”!

3) Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells was a journalist and civil rights activist back in the late 1800s, when blacks could still remember being slaves. Wells, who was born just before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, is credited for documenting lynchings in the South and researching how white segregationists used violent methods to keep African Americans “in their place.”

Wells was also known for being outspoken and unafraid to challenge whites, an attitude that could have easily gotten her lynched. During an 1884 train ride, Wells was asked to give up her seat to a white passenger and refused, which occurred more than 70 years before Rosa Parks. After the conductors dragged her out of the train car, she sued the train company — and won!

Though the ruling was overturned, Wells proved that she could unabashedly stare racism dead in the eye.

4) Sojourner Truth

An abolitionist and women’s rights activist, Sojourner Truth escaped from slavery in her late 20s with her infant son. At the time, Truth was forced to leave her other children behind, and one of them was sold to another slave master in Alabama. Never backing down, Truth took the master to court, won the case and got her son back. She is one of the first black women to take a white man to court and win. Known for her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman,” Truth spent the rest of her free life speaking at anti-slavery and women’s suffrage conferences and was one of black America’s first-leading women who spoke against slavery long before the system ended.

5) Vivian Malone

One of the first two African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama, Vivian Malone faced down a menacing George Wallace who vowed to never allow blacks to enroll in the all-white institution. Not only enrolling and graduating, Malone went on to retire as director of civil rights and urban affairs and director of environmental justice for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2000, the University of Alabama awarded her a doctorate of humane letters.

Any woman who could stand up to a segregationist governor should be on anyone’s list. See a short clip of Gov. Wallace’s infamous speech on segregation below.

6) Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman led about 70 slaves to northern freedom through the Underground Railroad. At age 29, Tubman escaped slavery but eventually returned for the rest of her family after several trips. When the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was enacted, Tubman lead slaves to Canada, where slavery was prohibited. Years later, when discussing her dangerous missions, Tubman said:

I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.

7) Elizabeth Eckford

A member of the Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth Eckford was one of nine high school students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. On the tumultuous day, racist white crowds accosted Eckford and the rest of the teens, making their first day of school one of the worst educational experiences any child could ever have.

But what puts Eckford on this list is her steely resolve in this iconic photo. She was as solid as a rock.

8) Mary McLeod Bethune

How many women, of any race, will be able to say that they founded a nationally recognized university that flourished well after their death? Mary McLeod Bethune is one of them. Like many universities founded not too long after slavery, Bethune Cookman-University began as a school that taught basic math and reading and eventually grew into a college over the years.

Now the university has a sizable sports program, a graduate school and thousands of alumni who have Mrs. Bethune to thank for their upwardly mobile careers and lifestyles.

9) Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey will always be remembered for having the strongest grip on white female television viewers ever. A dark-skinned black woman who struggled with fluctuating weight issues defied the stereotypical notions of what it takes to dominate prime-time television. There are very few people, of any color, who can make an up-and-coming author or business person an instant millionaire just by saying of their product, “I like it.”  Now that’s power.

10) Women of the Civil Rights Movement

Social activist Julian Bond says of women during the Civil Rights Movement:

There’s a Chinese saying, ‘Women hold up half the world.’ In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, it’s probably three-quarters of the world.

And he’s right. In an Msnbc.com article, civil rights leaders from that era admit that women were marginalized within the movement. For example, when major speeches took place, you seldom heard a female voice. The names of women who should be memorialized will likely never be known.

So to those women who went unrecognized for their laborious efforts to perfect America, we say thank you.

Did we miss anyone? Feel free to recommend some women who made the race proud and America better.

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One of the robes donated Monday comes from the family of the late writer Stetson Kennedy, who died in August some six decades after he infiltrated the KKK and exposed its secrets.

The second robe belonged to Phineas Miller Nathaniel Wilds, a chaplain in the Klan. It was donated by his great-great-grandson Richard Rousseau.

The $500 million museum is scheduled to open in 2015. Curators are planning exhibits spanning the journey of slaves from Africa, the Civil War, the civil rights movement and accomplishments in music, sports and culture.

Congress has pledged to provide about half of the cost.

Construction for the museum is scheduled to begin next year and a planned grand opening is set for 2015.

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Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest Washington an Urban Oasis

“We are grateful to Wal-Mart for its commitment to help educate people — all people — to the unique role African-Americans played in our nation’s growth and history,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

Read more at BET.com

Here’s a list of five individuals we feel deserve this honor.

5. 4 Little Girls — Birmingham, Alabama.

Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair were 14-year-old girls who were spending a Sunday morning in church in 1963 when a bomb killed them. The bomb was planted by white supremacists from the Ku Klux Klan meant to frighten Black people from being involved with the civil rights movement.

A monuments for these girls would be a reminder of the cruelty and evil of racism as well as the good, young and innocent who fought and continue to fight it.

Read more on the 4 Little Girls

4. Fannie Lou Hamer

There is a drive to have a statue of Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville, Mississippi. Hamer was one of the most prominent organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Hamer famously led the delegation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the Democratic National Convention in 1964, which led to the Democratic Party’s support for Civil Rights and several southern racist Democrats leaving the party.

Read more on Fannie Lou Hamer

3. James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was a great author, leader and activist. He wrote the Negro National Anthem, “Left Every Voice,” wrote “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man,” and worked with W.E.B. DuBois to fight lynching with the NAACP.

A true renaissance man, Weldon should be honored with his own statue.

Too often he is forgotten among the list of Black leaders who fought against racism. A monument should help solve that problem.

Read more on James Weldon Johnson

2. Stokely Carmichael

Stokley Carmichael was a former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was a very powerful civil rights organizer.

He would later help with the Black Power movement, becoming “Honorary Prime Minister” and later would become an icon to the Pan Africanist movement, moving to Ghana and changing his name to Kwame Ture.

As an icon to generations of Black activism, Carmichael needs a statue of his own.

Read more on Stokley Carmichael

1. Nat Turner

Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Virginia that killed more than 100 people in 1831.

As slavery is part of America, it must be remembered and those who died fighting against it must be honored, whether they fought for their freedom or died facing it.

In order for America to really distance itself from slavery, it must honor the heroes who fought against it; and one of those heroes is Nat Turner.

Read more on Nat Turner

Virginia Starts Slave Database So Descendants Can Trace Ancestory

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Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday toured the renovated African Meeting House, a three-story brick building constructed in 1806 in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood and standing just blocks from the Massachusetts Statehouse.

The meeting house, a national historic landmark, is “an extraordinary piece of our Commonwealth’s history, the history of African-American people and the history of freedom in the western world,” said Patrick, the state’s first black governor.

During his tour, the governor was shown examples of the painstaking detail that went into the project, including the restoration or replication of all original pews, wall finishes and cast-iron posts in the 1,500-square-foot building.

John Waite, whose Albany, N.Y.-based architectural firm specializes in historical preservation, said paint chips were examined through a high-powered microscope and chemically analyzed in an effort to determine the color of the original paint on the walls so it could be duplicated in the restoration.

The site is scheduled to reopen to the public on Dec. 6, the 205th anniversary of the founding of the meeting house, said Beverly Morgan-Welch, executive director of the Museum of African American History.

“The meeting house was used, of course, as a place of worship, but also as a place of school, for lectures, for music, opera even,” Welch said. “But, most importantly, to gather around the discussions to bring slavery to an end in this nation.”

“When you walk inside and walk into that sanctuary, you’re going to walk directly up the aisle where Frederick Douglass walked and talked about what needed to be done to end slavery,” she said.

“On the very same floor boards,” Patrick added.

Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were among the leading abolitionists who spoke at the meeting house and helped form the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Leaders later met there to help create the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which fought in the Civil War and was chronicled in the 1989 film “Glory.”

About half of the $9.5 million cost of the restoration came from private donations, Welch said. The remainder was provided by the National Park Service, including the $4 million in stimulus funds.

Among the surprises discovered during the project was a chimney dating back to the time when the building was heated by cast-iron stoves; the chimney had stayed hidden behind a wall for decades.

Sold late in the 19th century, the building housed a Jewish synagogue until 1972, when it was purchased by the Museum of African American History.