Did you know?

Jesse Eugene Russell, aka the Father of the Cellphone, is a Black inventor trained in electrical engineering. A graduate of Tennessee State University, Russell became the first graduate of an HBCU to be hired by AT&T Bell Labs. He went on to receive his MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and became an expert in digital signal processing. During his time at AT&T he suggested taking the car phone more on the go and putting one in every hand. This technology took over four years to perfect. But finally in 1988, Russell released the first digital cellular system to the world. Currently, Russell holds over 75 patents in digital cellular technologies, including but not limited to: the mobile data telephone, the base station for mobile radio telecommunications systems, & the broadband cable telephony network architecture IP ITN network architecture reference model, etc. In 2000, Russell left Bell Labs to become the CEO of incNETWORKS, which is one of the leaders in MicroLTE product platforms for 4G devices.

What was the first state-supported school for the training of African-American Teachers?

The institution that is now Alabama State University in Montgomery began in 1867 as Lincoln Normal School, a private school for African-American students in Marion, Alabama. In 1899 a new building was constructed. Its cost was covered by a group of black citizens, by the Freedmen's Bureau (an agency formed by Congress in 1865 to provide aid to African-Americans and impoverished whites), and by the American Missionary Association, whose teachers ran the school. In 1874 Lincoln Normal School was recognized as a state-supported institution for the education of African-American teachers.
The school was moved to Montgomery in 1887, its name was changed to Alabama Colored People's University, and the campus was expanded as a new buildings were constructed over the years. As the school grew to a four-year college and then added a graduate school, its name was changed several times. In 1969 it received university status, and Alabama State University grew to include colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, education, music, and aerospace studies.

Did you know?

February was chosen as Black History Month because two important birthdays occur in February—that of Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, and that of Frederick Douglass, an early African American abolitionist

Did you know?

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander was the first Black woman in the US to be awarded a PhD, and the first woman to be awarded her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She also served as the first President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

Andrew "Rube" Foster

Born in Texas in 1879, Rube Foster began playing baseball at an early age. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade to play for a local team called the Waco Yellow Jackets. In 1902, he went to play for the Chicago Union Giants. Over the next few years, Foster played for several teams and established himself as a top pitcher, also becoming a team manager in 1907 for the Leland Giants. Around 1910, Foster started his own team. In 1920, he became famous when he helped establish the Negro National League, the first successful professional baseball league for African-American players. Foster died in Illinois in 1930.

Joseph Hayne Rainey

     In 1870 Republican Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives and take his seat.  Others were elected earlier but were not seated.  Rainey was born in Georgetown, South Carolina, on June 21, 1832. His parents had been slaves but his father purchased his family’s freedom and taught him to be a barber. The family moved to Charleston in 1846.  Rainey, however, traveled frequently outside the South and married in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1859. In 1861 Joseph Rainey was drafted to work on a Confederate blockade runner during the Civil War. In 1862 he escaped to Bermuda with his wife and worked there as a barber before returning to South Carolina in 1866.
    Once back in the state, he joined the executive committee of the newly formed South Carolina Republican party.  In 1868 he was elected a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention. Two years later in 1870 Rainey was elected to a four-year term in the state senate where he soon became the Chairman of the Finance Committee.  His tenure in the South Carolina State Senate was brief.  When South Carolina Congressman Benjamin F. Whittemore resigned Rainey won the seat in a special election.  He served in the 41st Congress and was appointed to the Committee on Freedmen’s Affairs and the Committee on Indian Affairs.  Rainey ran for reelection in 1872 without opposition.  In May 1874 he became the first African American representative to preside over a House session.
     In 1876, with the Democrats reemerging as the dominant force in South Carolina at the end of Reconstruction, Rainey barely defeated Democrat John S. Richardson for Congress.  Richardson, who never conceded the election, contested Rainey’s seat for the next two years.  In 1878 Richardson won the seat, ending Rainey’s Congressional career. Rainey returned to South Carolina and in 1879 was appointed an Internal Revenue Agent in the state by President Rutherford B. Hayes.  He held the post until 1881 when he returned to Washington, D.C. where he hoped to serve as Clerk of the House of Representatives.  Unable to obtain the appointment, Rainey instead started a brokerage and banking firm. After this failed he managed a coal and wood yard before returning to South Carolina impoverished and ill.  Joseph Hayne Rainey died in Georgetown on August 2, 1887, leaving a widow and five children. 
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/rainey-joseph-hayne-1832-1887#sthash.XGXOLMkl.dpuf

Little Know Black History Fact

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was born in Pennsylvania and attended medical school in Chicago, where he received his M.D. in 1883. He founded the Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1891, the oldest free-standing Black-owned hospital in the United States. Dr. Williams was also the only African-American in a group of 100 charter members of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.

Black History

On Feb 15 1848 Sarah Roberts a five-year-old Negro girl, knocked timidly at the door of a Boston public school and asked admission as a student. Her request was denied; the school was for whites, and her skin was black. This incident precipitated what was probably the first segregation case ever to reach a United States court. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school integration suit on her behalf. 

Little Know Black History Fact

    Betty Boop is one of the most iconic cartoon characters of all time, a virtual sex symbol created during a time where bold women were often frowned upon. The character’s signature vocals stood out, but she wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a Black woman in Harlem who inspired the style. Esther Jones was a singer in Harlem who performed regularly in the Cotton Club jazz establishment. Jones, also known as “Baby Esther,” coined a vocal style using “boops” and other childlike scat sounds during her act. Actress Helen Kane caught a Baby Esther performance in the late 1920s, and began using the “boops” in her songs as well. Kane found fame early on with songs such as “I Wanna Be Loved By You” and incorporated the “Boop A Doop” scat, often called the “baby style,” into her music. In 1930, cartoonist Max Fleischer introduced the Betty Boop character via Paramount Studios’ Talkatoon series. Some historians point to Kane as the inspiration, a fact backed up during an episode of television history talk series, Stu’s Show.Animation historian Ray Pointer and Fleischer’s nephew, Bernie Fleischer, spoke at length about Betty Boop and her background. Another white starlet at the time, Clara Bow, may also have been an early inspiration for the cartoon.

     Kane sued Fleischer and Paramount in 1932, stating they were using her image and style. The courts ruled against Kane after Fleischer produced video evidence of Baby Esther performing in a nightclub. The courts decided that Kane did not have exclusive rights to the “booping” style nor her image, all based on Fleischer’s testimony. Columbia University scholar has referred to Baby Esther as “Betty Boop’s Black Grandmother” in recent discussions of the character. There have been recent photos surfacing of a darker-skinned woman styled as Betty Boop that has been erroneously credited as Baby Esther. Those photos were actually taken in 2008 by Russian photographer, Retro Atelier, according to Sinous Magazine. Baby Esther’s “baby” style of singing didn’t bring her much in the way of mainstream fame. She died in relative obscurity, presumably in 1934.

Tina Hicks

A staple in local media and a fixture in your 5:00 and 6:00 daily schedule. Tina Hicks began working for 13 WMAZ in 1972 and produced a 27 year career during which time she became the first African American (man or woman) in WMAZ-TV to take on the role of news anchor. Tina Hicks left WMAZ in 1999 due to Heath reasons and returned to Middle Ga news in 2001 as News Anchor for WGXA, a role she performed until 2002. Tina Hicks' accomplishments in News and Media played a heavy role in the success of 13WMAZ, helping to make it the #1 local news outlet in Middle Ga for over 40 yrs and paving the way for other African Americans to successfully pursue careers in News and Media. Tina Hicks is Black History Too!