NEW CHRISTIAN LIFE MINISTRIES

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Comment by Richard A. Young on February 24, 2010 at 10:14am

Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth-century African-American civil rights leader and the founder of both the March on Washington Movement and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a landmark for labor and particularly for African-American labor organizing. Randolph was born April 15, 1889, in Crescent City, Florida, the second son of the Rev. James William Randolph, a tailor and ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Elizabeth Robinson Randolph, a skilled seamstress. In 1891 the family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, which had a thriving, well-established African American community.[1] From his father, Randolph learned that color was less important than a person's character and conduct. From his mother, he learned the importance of education and of defending oneself physically, if necessary. Randolph remembered vividly the night his mother sat in the front room of their house with a loaded shotgun across her lap, while his father tucked a pistol under his coat and went off to prevent a mob from lynching a man in the local county jail.
Asa and his brother, James, were superior students. They attended the Cookman Institute in East Jacksonville, for years the only academic high school for African Americans in Florida. Asa excelled in literature, drama and public speaking; he also starred on the school's baseball team, sang solos with its choir and was valedictorian of the 1907 graduating class.
After graduation, Randolph worked odd jobs and devoted his time to singing, acting and reading. W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk convinced him that the fight for social equality was more important than almost anything else. He moved to New York City in 1911 to become an actor but gave up after failing to win his parents' approval. Columbia University student Chandler Owen shared Randolph's intellectual interests and became his close collaborator.
In 1914 Randolph courted and married Mrs. Lucille E. Green, a widow, Howard University graduate and entrepreneur who shared his socialist politics and earned enough money to support them both. The couple had no children.[1]
Shortly after Randolph's marriage, he helped organize the Shakespearean Society in Harlem and played the roles of Hamlet, Othello, and Romeo, among others. At the age of 21, Randolph joined the Socialist party of Eugene V. Debs. In response to increasing segregation and discrimination against blacks, Randolph shunned moderate reform and racial integration, as advocated by W. E. B. Du Bois, and emphasized instead socialism and trade unionism.
In 1917 Randolph founded and co-edited the Messenger, a radical monthly magazine, which campaigned against lynching, opposed U.S. participation in World War I, urged African Americans to resist being drafted to fight for a segregated society, and recommended that they join radical unions.
He ran on the Socialist ticket for New York State Comptroller in 1920, and for Secretary of State of New York in 1922.
Randolph had some experience in labor organization, having organized a union of elevator operators in New York City in 1917. In 1925 Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor institution for the employees of the Pullman Company, which was a major employer of African-Americans. With amendments to the Railway Labor Act in 1934, porters were granted rights under federal law, and membership in the Brotherhood jumped to more than 7,000. After years of bitter struggle, the Pullman Company finally began to negotiate with the Brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937, winning $2,000,000 in pay increases for employees, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay.[2] Randolph maintained the Brotherhood's affiliation with the American Federation of Labor through the 1955 AFL-CIO mergerRandolph emerged as one of the most visible spokesmen for African-American civil rights. In 1941, he, Bayard Rustin, and A. J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries and to propose the desegregation of the American Armed forces. The march was cancelled after President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, or the Fair Employment Act. Some militants felt betrayed by the cancellation because Roosevelt's pronouncement only pertained to banning discrimination within industries and not the armed forces, however the Fair Employment Act is generally perceived as a success for African American rights. In 1942, an estimated 18,000 blacks gathered at Madison Square Garden to hear Randolph kick off a campaign against discrimination in the military, in war industries, in government agencies, and in labor union. An example of the success this act induced is in the Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944 where the government backed African American workers against White labour. In 1947, Randolph,along with colleague Grant Reynolds, formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. President Harry S. Truman abolished [[racial segregation]] in the armed forces through Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948.[4]
Randolph was also notable in his support for restrictions on immigration.[5] In 1950, along with Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, and, Arnold Aronson[6] a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, Randolph founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR has since become the nation's premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.
Randolph was also responsible for the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963 with the help of Rustin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is often attributed in part to the success of the March on Washington, where Black and White Americans stood united and witnessed King's "I Have a Dream" speech. As the U.S. civil rights movement gained momentum in the early 1960s and came to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, his rich baritone voice was often heard on television news programs addressing the nation on behalf of African-Americans engaged in the struggle for voting rights and an end to discrimination in public accommodations. He was also an active participant in many other organizations and causes, including the Workmen's Circle and others.
Randolph was a member of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.
His religious views varied over his lifetime;[7] however, he did sign the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II.[8]
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Comment by Richard A. Young on February 22, 2010 at 12:11pm

Charles Richard Drew (3 June 1904 – 1 April 1950) was an African American physician and medical researcher. He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge in developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II, saving thousands of lives of the Allied forces.[1] However, the research and development aspect of his accomplishments is disputed. Charles E. Wynes, author of a biography about Drew, states "The fact is, Drew did not develop blood plasma in any of its forms, nor did he perfect blood transfusion with blood plasma, as is sometimes claimed in the greater media." Wynes goes on to say that Drew's role was purely an organizational one, "which in no way detracts from Drew's actual accomplishments."[2] He protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood as it lacked scientific foundation, which got him fired. In 1943, Drew's distinction in his profession was recognized when he became the first black surgeon to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. Drew was born to Richard Y. Drew and Nora Burrell in Washington, DC. He attended Meads Mill Elementary School, and began working as a paperboy selling copies of the Washington Times-Herald while attending school. In 1918, he enrolled at Dunbar High School, a racially segregated high school with a reputation for being one of the strongest Black public schools in the country. He also was an athlete, which won him a partial scholarship to Amherst College, Massachusetts. Drew’s sister, Elsie, who was ailing with tuberculosis, died of pandemic influenza in 1920, and is said to have influenced him to study medicine. Drew was also a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated. In late 1940, just after earning his doctoral thesis, Drew was called upon by John Scudder to help set up and administer an early prototype program for collecting, testing, and distributing blood plasma in Britain.[3] Drew went to New York to direct the US' Blood for Britain project. The Blood for Britain project was a project to aid British soldiers and civilians by giving blood to Britain. He provided a central location for the blood collection process where donors could go to give blood. He also made sure all blood plasma was tested before it was shipped out. He also oversaw that only skilled personnel would be able to handle blood plasma to avoid the possibility of contamination. The Blood for Britain program operated successfully for five months, with total collections of almost 15,000 people donating blood, and with over 5,500 vials of blood plasma.[3] As a result, the Blood Transfusion Betterment Association applauded Drew for his fine work. Drew, being the chief surgeon, represented Freedmen[clarification needed] at a number of medical conferences. Drew attended the annual free clinic at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, since 1939. A change of plans occurred before the 1950 Tuskegee clinic. To save money, Drew decided to drive with three other physicians rather than fly. The four men took turns driving in shifts, with Drew taking second shift around 8 a.m. on April 1. Still fatigued from spending the night before in the operating theater, Drew lost control of the vehicle and after careening into a field, the car somersaulted three times. The three other physicians suffered minor injuries. However, Drew was trapped — his foot had become wedged beneath the brake pedal. When reached by emergency technicians, Drew was in shock and barely alive due to severe leg injuries. Drew was taken to Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, NC. He was pronounced dead a half hour after he first received medical attention. Contrary to legend, Drew was well treated by the hospital. Claims that he was not treated because of his skin color are unfounded.[4] His funeral was held on April 5, 1950, at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC. A persistent urban legend holds that Drew was denied care by a nearby hospital because of his race, and bled to death. This is denied by one of the other black doctors with whom he was travelling, who stated: "We all received the very best of care. The doctors started treating us immediately. [...] He had a superior vena caval syndrome—blood was blocked getting back to his heart from his brain and upper extremities. To give him a transfusion would have killed him sooner. Even the most heroic efforts couldn't have saved him. I can truthfully say that no efforts were spared in the treatment of Drew, and, contrary to popular myth, the fact that he was a Negro did not in any way limit the care that was given to him."[5] The apocryphal story of his death was repeated in an episode of the television series M*A*S*H episode, "Dear Dad... Three", and in the Philip Roth novel, The Human Stain.
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Comment by Richard A. Young on February 21, 2010 at 8:22am

Bishop Charles Harrison Mason was born September 8, 1866 to Jerry and Eliza Mason, near The Prior Farm, outside of Memphis, Shelby County. Tenn. Mason is Founding Bishop of The Church of God In Christ, which was organized in 1897 and is a major Pentecostal assembly with a worldwide membership in excess of four million. The Church of God in Christ, the first major denomination to spring from the fires of the Azusa Street revival, profoundly affected the history of the black church. Its tremendous influence can be traced to the dynamic spiritual life of its founder, Charles Harrison Mason. Bishop Mason led a fledgling movement from its infancy to a powerful, prophetic community over the next fifty years. The Church of God in Christ holds in tension the dynamics of holiness, spiritual encounter, and a prophetic Christian social consciousness. Bishop Mason went into eternal rest on November 17, 1961 at the age of 95.
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Comment by Richard A. Young on February 20, 2010 at 10:20am

The Reverend and Hon. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American politician and pastor who represented the Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City in the United States House of Representatives between 1945 and 1971. He was the first African-American elected to Congress from New York. He became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. As committee chairman he supported the passage of important social legislation, but was eventually removed from his seat by the Democratic members-elect of the 90th Congress following allegations of corruption. Powell was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was a Baptist minister and headed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
Powell attended public school at Townsend Harris High School. He studied at the City College of New York and Colgate University as an undergraduate. In 1931 he received an MA degree in religious education from Columbia University. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established by African Americans.
During the Depression years, Powell, a handsome and charismatic figure, became a prominent civil rights leader in Harlem, New York, where he succeeded his father in 1937 as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church. He developed a formidable public following in the Harlem community through his crusades for jobs and housing. As chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Employment, he organized mass meetings, rent strikes and public campaigns, forcing companies and utilities, and Harlem Hospital to hire black workers. Powell organized a picket line during the 1939 New York World's Fair at the Fair's executive offices in the Empire State Building; as a result, the number of black employees was increased from about 200 to 732.[1] A bus boycott in 1941 led to the hiring of 200 black workers by the transit authority. Powell also led a fight in 1941 to have drugstores in Harlem hire Negro pharmacists.[2]
In 1937 he succeeded his father as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church. In 1941 he was elected to the New York City Council as the city's first Black council representative with the aid of New York City's use of the Single Transferable Vote.[1] He received 65,736 votes, the third best total among the six successful council candidates [3]
"Mass action is the most powerful force on earth," Powell once said, adding, "As long as it is within the law, it's not wrong; if the law is wrong, change the law." He was elected to Congress in 1944.
In 1944 Powell was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing the 22nd congressional district, which included Harlem. He was the first black Congressman from New York, and the first from any Northern state other than Illinois in the Post-Reconstruction Era. As one of only two black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for white members only. He took black constituents to dine with him in the "whites only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party.
In 1956 Powell broke party ranks and supported Dwight D. Eisenhower for reelection, saying that the Democratic platform's civil rights plank was too weak.
In 1958 he survived a determined effort by the Tammany Hall machine to oust him in the Democratic primary election.
In 1960, Powell forced Bayard Rustin to resign from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) by threatening to discuss Rustin's "immoral" homosexuality in Congress. He was concerned that questions about Rustin adversely affected the reputation and effectiveness of the SCLC.[citation needed]
In 1961, after 15 years in Congress, Powell became chairman of the powerful Education and Labor Committee. In this position he presided over federal programs for minimum wage increases, Medicaid, expanding the minimum wage to include retail workers, equal pay for women, education and training for the deaf, nursing education, vocational training and standards for wages and work hours, as well as aid to elementary and secondary education. He orchestrated passage of the backbone of President John Kennedy's "New Frontier" legislation. He also was instrumental in the passage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" social programs and the War on Poverty.
Powell's committee passed a record number of bills for a single session, a record which still stands as of 2008.[citation needed] Powell steered some 50 bills through Congress.
He was instrumental in passing legislation that made lynching a federal crime, as well as bills that desegregated public schools. He challenged the Southern practice of charging Blacks a poll tax to vote, and stopped racist congressmen from saying the word "nigger" in sessions of Congress.
By the mid-1960s Powell was being increasingly criticized for mismanagement of the committee budget, taking trips abroad at public expense (including travel to his retreat on the Bahamian isle of Bimini), and missing sittings of his committee. He was also under attack in his district, where his refusal to pay a slander judgment made him subject to arrest. He spent increasing amounts of time in Florida.
Following allegations that Powell had misappropriated Committee funds for his personal use and other charges including evading a subpoena in New York and failing to appear on a post judgment hearing involving the slander case he lost, in January 1967 the House Democratic Caucus stripped Powell of his committee chairmanship. The full House refused to seat him until completion of an investigation by the Judiciary Committee. Powell urged his supporters to "keep the faith, baby" while the investigation went on. On March 1 the House voted 307 to 116 to exclude him. Powell said "On this day, the day of March in my opinion, the end of the United States of America as the land of the free and the home of the brave."[4]
Powell won the special election in April to fill the vacancy caused by his exclusion, but did not take his seat. He sued in Powell v. McCormack to retain his seat. Powell was again elected in November 1968, and on January 3, 1969, was seated as a member of the 91st Congress, but was fined $25,000 and denied seniority.[5] In June 1969 the Supreme Court ruled that the House had acted unconstitutionally when it excluded Powell, a duly elected member.[6]
Powell's absenteeism was increasingly noted. In June 1970 he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Charles B. Rangel. In fall 1970, he failed to get on the ballot for the November election as an Independent. He resigned as minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church and moved to Bimini. Rangel has continued to represent the district, as of 2009.
In April 1972, Powell became gravely ill and was flown to a Miami hospital from his home in Bimini. He died there on April 4, 1972, at the age of 63, from acute prostatitis, according to contemporary newspaper accounts. After his funeral at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City, his son Adam III poured his ashes while aloft in a plane and scattered his remains over the waters of his beloved Bimini. His first wife was nightclub entertainer Isabel Washington (sister of actress Fredi Washington). Her son Preston, from a previous marriage, was adopted by Powell.
Powell and his second wife, the singer Hazel Scott, had a son, Adam Clayton Powell III. Adam Clayton Powell III is Vice Provost for Globalization at the University of Southern California and one of the world's leading authorities on the use of the Internet for journalists. He named his son Adam Clayton Powell IV.
Powell and his third wife, Puerto Rican Yvette Diago Powell, had a son Adam Clayton Powell Diago, so named in the matrilineal tradition of some Latino cultures. This son changed his name to Adam Clayton Powell IV when he moved to the United States from Puerto Rico to attend Howard University to honor his family legacy. (This caused confusion because his nephew, only 8 years younger than he, already was named Adam Clayton Powell IV.)
A. C. Powell IV, the politician, named his son Adam Clayton Powell V. He is a champion swimmer at Columbia University in New York.
In 1967 Yvette Diago, the mother of Adam Clayton Powell IV and third wife of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. made national headlines when she was subpoenaed by a U.S. Congressional committee with respect to her theft of state funds.[7][8] Yvette Diago admitted to the committee that she had been on the congressional payroll of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. from 1961 until 1967, even though she had left the U.S. and moved back to Puerto Rico in 1961.[9][10]
As reported by Time Magazine, Yvette Diago continued living in Puerto Rico and "performed no work at all" yet remained on the payroll, where her salary climbed to $20,578 until she was exposed, and fired, in January 1967.[11][12][13][14]
The section of Seventh Avenue north of Central Park has been renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. One of the landmarks along this street is the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building.
Powell was the subject of the 2002 cable television film Keep the Faith, Baby, starring Harry Lennix as Powell and Vanessa L. Williams as his second wife, jazz pianist Hazel Scott. The film debuted on February 17, 2002 on premium cable network Showtime and was a production of Viacom companies Showtime Premium Networks, Paramount Network Television and Blockbuster on a budget of $6 million. It garnered three NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie, Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie (Lennix) and Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie (Williams). It won two National Association of Minorities in Cable (NAMIC) Vision Awards for Best Drama and Best Actor in a Television Film (Lennix), the International Press Association's Best Actress in a Television Film Award (Williams) and Reel.com's Best Actor in a Television Film (Lennix). The film was Produced by Geoffrey L. Garfield (Powell, IV's longtime campaign manager), Monty Ross (confidant of Spike Lee) and Hollywood veteran Harry J. Ufland. The film was directed by Doug McHenry and written by Art Washington.
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Comment by Richard A. Young on February 19, 2010 at 7:29am

Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African American boy from Chicago, Illinois, who was murdered[1] at the age of 14 in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the state's Delta region, after reportedly whistling at a white woman. The murder of Emmett Till was noted as one of the leading events that motivated the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] The main suspects were acquitted, but later admitted to the murder.
Till's mother insisted on a public funeral service, with an open casket so as to show the world the brutality of the killing:[2] Till had been beaten and an eye gouged out, before he was shot through the head and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied to his body with barbed wire. His body was in the river for three days before it was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen.
Till was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. The murder case was officially reopened in May 2004;[1] as part of the investigation, the body was exhumed in order to perform an autopsy.[3] The body was reburied in a new casket, which is standard practice in cases of body exhumation, by the family in the same location later that week.[4] In July 2009, while his gravesite appeared undisturbed, his original casket, in which his battered body was famously displayed years earlier, was found rusting in a run-down shack on the cemetery grounds. Till's family has since donated the original casket to the Smithsonian Institution.[5]
Emmett Till was the son of Mamie Carthan Till and Louis Till. Emmett's mother was born to John and Alma Carthan in the small Delta town of Webb, Mississippi ("the Delta" being the traditional name for the area of northwestern Mississippi at the confluence of the Yazoo and Mississippi Rivers). When he was two years old, his family moved to Illinois. Emmett's mother largely raised him on her own; she and Louis Till had separated in 1942. By the time of Emmett's death, she had married Lemorris Bradley. [6] Emmett suffered from polio as a child, which left him with a persistent stutter. Emmett's father, Louis Till, was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. While serving in Italy, he raped two women and killed a third.[7] After his court martial, he was executed by the Army by hanging near Pisa in July 1945.[8][9] Before Emmett Till's killing, the Till family knew none of this, having been told only that Louis had been killed due to "willful misconduct." The facts of Louis Till's execution were made widely known after Emmett Till's death by segregationist senator James Eastland. Stanley Nelson Jr. has stated that this was attempt to turn public support away from Mamie Till Bradley just weeks before the trials of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam through the implication that criminal behavior ran in the Till family.[10][11]
In 1955, Till and his cousin were sent to stay for a time at the home of Till's uncle, Moses Wright,[12] who lived in Money, Mississippi, another small town in the Delta, eight miles north of Greenwood.
Before his departure for the Delta, Till's mother had cautioned him to "mind his manners" with white people, as she understood that race relations in Mississippi were very different from those in Chicago. Mississippi had seen many lynchings during the South's lynching era (ca. 1876–1930); though far less common by the mid-1950s, these racially motivated murders still occurred on occasion. Racial tensions were also on the rise after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end segregation in public education.
Till arrived on August 21, 1955. On August 24, he joined other young teenagers as they went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to get some candy and soda. The teenagers were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day. The market was owned by a white couple, Roy and Carolyn Bryant, and mostly catered to the local sharecropper population.
Till's cousin and several black youths, all under 19, were with Till in the store. The facts of what transpired in the store are still disputed, but according to several versions, Till was dared by one of the other boys to flirt with the 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant.[13][14] Some accounts say Till wolf whistled at Bryant; others say he grabbed her hand and asked her for a date; still others say that he said "Bye, baby" as he left the store.[14][15] One of the other boys ran outside to tell Till's cousin (who was outside playing checkers with Moses Wright across the street) what happened. When the old man heard what happened, he urged the boys to leave quickly, fearing violence.
Carolyn Bryant told others of the events at the store, and the story spread quickly. When Bryant's husband returned from a road trip a few days later and was told about the incident, he was greatly angered. Till's cousin, Wheeler Parker, Jr., who was with him at the store, claims Till did nothing but whistle at the woman. "He loved pranks, he loved fun, he loved jokes... in Mississippi, people didn't think the same jokes were funny." Carolyn Bryant later asserted that Till had grabbed her at the waist and asked her for a date. She said the young man also used "unprintable" words. Roy Bryant decided that he and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, 36, would "teach the boy a lesson."
At about 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 28 1955, Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, got into a car with his wife Carolyn and another whose identity has still not been confirmed. They drove to Reverend Wright's house, where Emmett stayed. Bryant pounded on the door until Wright opened it, and asked Wright if he had two black boys in the house. Till was sleeping with his cousin; Milam asked him whether he was "the one who'd done the talking." Till said "Yeah."[15] Bryant brought Till to be identified by his wife. When it was confirmed that Till was in fact "the talker," the men put him in the back of a pickup truck and drove off. According to witnesses, they drove him to a weathered shed on a plantation in neighboring Sunflower County, where they beat him up, then shot him. A 70-pound cotton gin fan was tied to his neck with barbed wire to weigh down the body, which they dropped into the Tallahatchie River near Glendora, Mississippi, another small cotton town north of Money.[15]
Afterwards, with Till missing, Bryant and Milam admitted they had taken the boy from his great-uncle's yard but claimed they turned him loose the same night. Some supposed that relatives of Till were hiding him out of fear for the youth’s safety or that he had been sent back to Chicago where he would be safe. Word got out that Till was missing, and soon NAACP civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the state field secretary, and Amzie Moore, head of the Bolivar County chapter, became involved, disguising themselves as cotton pickers and going into the cotton fields in search of any information that might help find the young Till.[citation needed]
Till's swollen and disfigured body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days after his abduction.[16] After the body was recovered, the brothers and the police tried to convince people that it was not Till, that Till was in Chicago and that the beaten boy was someone else. Till's features were too distorted by the beatings to easily identify him, but he was positively identified thanks to a ring he wore that had been his father's. His mother had given it to him the day before he left for Money. The brothers were soon under official suspicion for the boy's disappearance and were arrested in early September.[17]
Moses Wright, Till's great-uncle, told the sheriff that a person who sounded like a woman had identified Till as "the one," after which Bryant and Milam had driven away with him. Bryant and Milam claimed they later found out Till was not "the one" who had allegedly "insulted" Mrs. Bryant, and swore to Sheriff George Smith they had released him. They would later recant and confess after their acquittal in a January 1956 interview with William Bradford Huie for Look magazine.[15]
In an editorial on Friday, September 2, Greenville journalist Hodding Carter, Jr. asserted that "people who are guilty of this savage crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."[citation needed]
After Till's disfigured and partly decomposed body was found, he was put into a pine coffin and nearly buried, but his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, wanted the body returned to Chicago, so she refused to allow burial. A Tutwiler mortuary assistant worked all night to prepare the body as best he could so that Bradley could bring Till's body back to Chicago.[citation needed]
The Chicago funeral home had agreed to not open the casket, but Bradley fought their decision. The state of Mississippi insisted it would not allow the funeral home to open it, so Bradley threatened to open it herself, insisting she had a right to see her son. After viewing the body, she also insisted on leaving the casket open for the funeral and allowing people to take photographs because she wanted people to see how badly Till's body had been disfigured—she has famously been quoted as saying, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."[18]
Mrs. Bradley traveled to Mississippi to testify at the trial, staying in the home of Dr. T.R.M. Howard in the all-black town of Mound Bayou. Others staying in Howard's home were black reporters, such as Cloyte Murdock of Ebony magazine, key witnesses, and Congressman Charles Diggs of Michigan, later the first chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Howard was a major civil rights leader and fraternal organization official in Mississippi, the head of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), and one of the wealthiest blacks in the state. [19]
The day before the trial, Frank Young, a black farm worker, came to Howard's home, stating that he had information indicating that Milam and Bryant had help in their crime. Young's allegations sparked an investigation that led to unprecedented cooperation between local law enforcement, the NAACP, the RCNL, black journalists, and local reporters. The trial began on September 19, 1955, 22 days after the murder. Moses "Mose" Wright, Emmett's great-uncle, was one of the main witnesses called up to testify by lead prosecutor Gerald Chatham. Pointing to one of the suspected killers, he identified the man who had killed his nephew.[19]
Another key witness for the prosecution was Willie Reed, an 18-year-old high school student who lived on a plantation near Drew, Mississippi in Sunflower County. The prosecution had located him, thanks to the investigation sparked by Young's information. Reed testified that he had seen a pickup truck outside an equipment shed, on a plantation near Drew managed by Leslie Milam, a brother of J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant. He said that four whites, including J.W. Milam, were in the cab and three blacks were in the back, one of them Till. When the truck pulled into the shed, he heard human cries that sounded like a beating was under way. He did not identify the other blacks on the truck.[19]
On September 23 the all-male, all-white jury acquitted both defendants. Deliberations took merely 67 minutes; one juror said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken us too long."[20] The hasty acquittal outraged people throughout the United States and Europe and energized the nascent Civil Rights Movement.
Even by the time of the trial, Howard and black journalists such as James Hicks of the Baltimore Afro-American named several blacks who had allegedly been on the truck near Drew, including three employees of J.W. Milam: Henry Lee Loggins, Levi "Too-Tight" Collins, and Joe Willie Hubbard. None of the men were called to testify. In the months after the trial, both Hicks and Howard called for a federal investigation into charges that Sheriff H.C. Strider had locked Collins and Loggins in jail to keep them from testifying.[19]
Following the trial, Look magazine paid J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant $4,000 to tell their story. Safe from any further charges for their crime due to double jeopardy protection, Bryant admitted to Huie that he and his brother had killed Till. Milam claimed that initially their intention was to scare Till into line by pistol-whipping him and threatening to throw him off a cliff. Milam explained that, contrary to expectations, regardless of what they did to Till, he never showed any fear, never seemed to believe they would really kill him, and maintained a defiant attitude towards them concerning his actions. Thus the brothers said they felt they were left with no choice but to fully make an example of Till, and they killed him. The story focused exclusively on the role of Milam and Bryant in the crime and did not mention any possible part played by others. The article[15] was published in Look in January 1956. While some found it repugnant that Look had paid these men $4,000, the editorial position was that the good of getting the public to know the truth outweighed the bad of these men being paid a considerable sum.
In February 1956, Howard's version of the events of the kidnapping and murder, which stressed the possible involvement of Hubbard and Loggins, appeared in the booklet Time Bomb: Mississippi Exposed and the Full Story of Emmett Till by Olive Arnold Adams. At the same time a still unidentified white reporter using the pseudonym Amos Dixon wrote a series of articles in the California Eagle. The series put forward essentially the same thesis as Time Bomb but offered a more detailed description of the possible role of Loggins, Hubbard, Collins, and Leslie Milam. Time Bomb and Dixon's articles had no lasting impact in the shaping of public opinion. Huie's article in the far more widely circulated Look became the most commonly accepted version of events.[19]
In 1957, Huie returned to the Delta for a follow-up piece in Look; the article indicated that local residents, white and black alike, were shunning Milam and Bryant and that their stores were closed due to a lack of business.
Milam died of cancer in 1980 and Bryant in 1994 of the same cause. The men never expressed any remorse for Till's death and seemed to feel that they had done no wrong. In fact, a few months before he died, Bryant complained bitterly in an interview that he had never made as much money off Till's death as he deserved and that it had ruined his life[21]. Emmett's mother Mamie (as Mamie Till Mobley) outlived both men, dying at the age of 81 on January 6, 2003. That same year her autobiography Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (One World Books, co-written with Christopher Benson) was published.
In 1991, a seven-mile stretch of 71st street in Chicago was renamed "Emmett Till Memorial Highway." In 2006 and 2008 a Mississippi historical marker marking the place of Till's death was defaced, and in August 2007 it went missing.[22] Less than a week later a replica was put up in its place.[23]
In 2005, the "James McCosh Math and Science Academy," where Till had been a student, was renamed the "Emmett Louis Till Math And Science Academy."[24] It is the first Chicago school to be named after a child.[25] At the renaming ceremony, plans for an Emmett Till Museum on the school's grounds were discussed.
On June 20, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 923, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.[26]
In 2001, David T. Beito, associate professor at the University of Alabama and Linda Royster Beito, chair of the department of social sciences at Stillman College, were the first investigators in many decades to track down and interview on tape two key principals in the case: Henry Lee Loggins and Willie Reed. They were doing research for their biography of T.R.M. Howard. In his interview with the Beitos, Loggins denied that he had any knowledge of the crime or that he was one of the black men on the truck outside of the equipment shed near Drew. Reed repeated the testimony that he had given at the trial, that he had seen three black men and four white men (including J.W. Milam) on the truck. When asked to identify the black men, however, he did not name Loggins as one of them. The Beitos also confirmed that Levi "Too-Tight" Collins, another black man allegedly on this car, had died in 1993.[19]
In 1996, Keith Beauchamp started background research for a feature film he planned to make about Till's murder, and asserted that as many as 14 individuals may have been involved. While conducting interviews he also encountered eyewitnesses who had never spoken out publicly before. As a result he decided to produce a documentary instead, and spent the next nine years creating The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. The film led to calls by the NAACP and others for the case to be reopened. The documentary included lengthy interviews with Loggins and Reed, both of whom the Beitos had first tracked down and interviewed in 2001. Loggins repeated his denial of any knowledge of the crime. Beauchamp has consistently refused to name the fourteen individuals whom he asserts took part in the crime, including the five he claims are still alive.
On May 10, 2004, the United States Department of Justice announced that it was reopening the case to determine whether anyone other than Milam and Bryant was involved. Although the statute of limitations prevented charges being pursued under federal law, they could be pursued before the state court, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officials in Mississippi worked jointly on the investigation. As no autopsy had been performed on Till's body, it was exhumed on May 31, 2005 from the suburban Chicago cemetery where it was buried, which was conducted by the Cook County coroner. The body was reburied by relatives on June 4. It has been positively identified as that of Emmett Till.
In February 2007, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported that both the FBI and a Leflore County Grand Jury, which was empaneled by Joyce Chiles, a black prosecutor, had found no credible basis for Keith Beauchamp's claim that fourteen individuals took part in Till's abduction and murder or that any remained alive. The Grand Jury also decided not to prefer charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham, Roy Bryant's ex-wife. Neither the FBI nor the Grand Jury found any credible evidence that Henry Lee Loggins, now living in an Ohio nursing home, and identified by Beauchamp as a suspect who could be charged, had any role in the crime. Other than Loggins, Beauchamp still refuses to name any of the people he alleges were involved, although the FBI and District Attorney have completed their investigations of his charges and he is free to go on the record. A story by Jerry Mitchell in the Clarion-Ledger on February 18 described Beauchamp's allegation that fourteen or more were involved as a legend.
The same article also labels as legend a rumor that Till had endured castration at the hands of his victimizers. The castration theory was first put forward uncritically in Beauchamp's Untold Story, although Mamie Till-Mobley (Emmett's mother) had said in an earlier documentary directed by Stanley Nelson, The Murder of Emmett Till, (2003) that her son's genitals were intact when she examined the corpse. The recent autopsy, as reported by Mitchell, confirmed Mobley-Till's original account and showed no evidence of castration.
In March 2007, Till's family was briefed by the FBI on the contents of its investigation. The FBI report released on March 29, 2007 found that Till had died of a gunshot wound to the head and that he had skull, leg, and wrist bone fractures.[27]
The July 31, 2005 issue of The New York Times Magazine featured an article, "The Ghosts of Emmett Till," by Richard Rubin. Rubin had previously interviewed the two surviving defense attorneys and the two surviving jurors from the murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, most of whom had never been interviewed before.
On July 9, 2009, a manager and three gravediggers at Burr Oak Cemetery were charged with digging up bodies, dumping them in a remote area, and reselling the plots. Till's grave was not disturbed, but investigators found his original glass-topped casket rusting in a dilapidated storage shed.[28] When Till was reburied in a new casket in 2005, his original casket was to be installed in an Emmett Till memorial museum. Authorities said the cemetery manager, who administered the memorial fund, had pocketed donations intended for the memorial. It was unclear how much money may have been collected.[29][30] In 2007, several photographs of the original casket in the storage shed were taken by Devery S. Anderson and are posted on his website The Emmett Till Murder. Cemetery officials clearly neglected the casket, as shown by photos taken in July 2009, although its glass top was still intact. The casket has since been taken to the Rayner and Sons mortuary, where it will be restored for display in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.[5] Rayner and Sons also prepared Emmett Till's body for burial in 1955.
Wikipedia Online Article

Comment by Richard A. Young on February 18, 2010 at 10:11am

Medgar Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi who was assasinated by Byron De La Beckwith.[2] Medgar Evers was born July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi, the son of James Evers (also known as "Crazy Jim") who was the owner of a small farm and a sawmill worker, and a devout Christian woman named Jessie. James, as well as Medgar's maternal great-grandfather Joseph Evers were two men that also fought for their freedom. Evers was the third of four children, after Charles, and Elizabeth. Mary Ruth was the youngest.[3] The family was rounded out by Eva Lee and Gene (who were Jessie’s children from a prior marriage). Determined to get the education he deserved after the lynching of a family friend, Evers walked twelve miles to and from school to earn his high school diploma.[4] In 1943 he was inducted into the army along with his older brother Charlie.[5] Evers fought in France, the European Theatre of WWII and was honorably discharged in 1945 as a Sergeant. In 1946, Evers, along with his brother and four friends, returned to his hometown.
In 1948, Evers enrolled at Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University), majoring in business administration. In college, he was on the debate team, played football and ran track, sang in the school choir and served as president of his junior class. It was here that he was listed in Who’s Who in American Colleges for his many accomplishments.[6]
He married classmate Myrlie Beasley on December 24, 1951, and received his BA degree the following year. Myrlie Beasley and Medgar Evers had three children, two boys and a girl.
The couple moved to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, where T. R. M. Howard had hired him to sell insurance for his Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance Company. Howard was also the president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights and pro self-help organization. Involvement in the RCNL gave Evers crucial training in activism. He helped to organize the RCNL's boycott of service stations that denied blacks use of their restrooms. The boycotters distributed bumper stickers with the slogan "Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom." Along with his brother, Charles Evers, Medgar also attended the RCNL's annual conferences in Mound Bayou between 1952 and 1954 which drew crowds of ten thousand or more.[7]
Evers applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954. When his application was rejected, Evers filed a lawsuit against the university, and became the focus of a NAACP campaign to desegregate the school, a case aided by the United States Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 that segregation was unconstitutional. That same year, due to his involvement, the NAACP's National Office suggested he become Mississippi’s first field secretary for the NAACP.
[edit] NAACP Field Secretary
On November 24, 1954, Evers was appointed Mississippi’s first field secretary. President of the NAACP Mississippi State Conference and civil rights activist, E.J. Stringer, helped him gain this position.[3]
Evers was involved in a boycott campaign against white merchants and was instrumental in eventually desegregating the University of Mississippi when that institution was finally forced to enroll James Meredith in 1962.
The admission of Meredith led to a riot on campus that left two people dead. Evers’ involvement and investigative work brought about hatred in many white supremacists. In the weeks leading up to his death, Evers found himself even more of a target. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard made him a prominent black leader and therefore vulnerable to attack. On May 28, 1963, a molotov cocktail was thrown into the carport of his home. Five days before his death, Evers was nearly run down by a car after he emerged from the Jackson NAACP office.
On June 12, 1963, Evers pulled into his driveway after just returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that read "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 .303 rifle that ricocheted into his Jackson, Mississippi home. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing. He died at a local hospital 50 minutes later, just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights.[8] Mourned nationally, Evers was buried on June 19 in Arlington National Cemetery, where he received full military honors in front of a crowd of more than three thousand people. On June 23, 1964, Byron De La Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman and member of the White Citizens' Council and Ku Klux Klan, was arrested for Evers' murder. During the course of his first trial in 1964, De La Beckwith was visited by former Mississippi governor Ross Barnett and one time Army Major General Edwin A. Walker.
All-white juries twice that year deadlocked on De La Beckwith's guilt.
The murder and subsequent trials caused an uproar. Musician Bob Dylan wrote his 1963 song "Only a Pawn in Their Game" about Evers and his assassin. The song's lyrics included: "Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught/They lowered him down as a king." Nina Simone took up the topic in her song "Mississippi Goddam". Phil Ochs wrote the songs "Too Many Martyrs" and "Another Country" in response to the killing. Matthew Jones and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers paid tribute to Evers in the haunting "Ballad of Medgar Evers." Eudora Welty's short story "Where is the Voice Coming From," in which the speaker is the imagined assassin of Medgar Evers, was published in The New Yorker. Even Rex Stout used the event as a plot device in his civil rights themed mystery A Right to Die.
Malvina Reynolds mentioned "the shot in Evers' back" in her 1964 song "It Isn't Nice", and in 1965, Jackson C. Frank included the lyrics "But there aren't words to bring back Evers" in his tribute to the civil rights movement, "Don't Look Back," on his only, self-titled, album.
In 1994, 30 years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict, De La Beckwith was again brought to trial based on new evidence, and Bobby DeLaughter took on the job as the prosecutor. During the trial, the body of Evers was exhumed from his grave for autopsy, and found to be in a surprisingly good state of preservation as a result of embalming.[2] De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994, after having lived as a free man for the three decades following the killing. De La Beckwith appealed unsuccessfully, and died in prison in January 2001.
Evers' legacy has been kept alive in a variety of ways. Minrose Gwin notes that after his death, Medgar Evers was memorialized by the authors Eudora Welty, James Baldwin, Margaret Walker and Anne Moody. In 1969, Medgar Evers College was established in Brooklyn, New York as part of the City University of New York. In 1983, a made-for-television movie, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story starring Howard Rollins, Jr. and Irene Cara as Medgar and Myrlie Evers aired on PBS, celebrating the life and career of Medgar Evers. On June 28, 1992, the city of Jackson, MS erected a statue in honor of Evers. All of Delta Drive (part of U.S. Highway 49) in Jackson was renamed in Evers' honor. In December 2004, the Jackson City Council changed the name of the city's airport to Jackson-Evers International Airport in honor of Evers.
40 years after his death, hundreds gathered around the grave site of Medgar Evers at Arlington National Cemetery to celebrate his life and legacy. Three students - Sharmistha Dev, Jajah Wu and Debra Siegel, and their teacher, Barry Bradford of Adlai E. Stevenson High School, which is located just outside of Chicago, held the commemoration in his honor. Evers was the subject of the students' research project.[9]
The 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi directed by Rob Reiner tells the story of the 1994 retrial of Beckwith, in which prosecutor Robert DeLaughter of the District Attorney's office secured a conviction. Beckwith and DeLaughter were played by James Woods and Alec Baldwin, respectively; Whoopi Goldberg played Myrlie Evers. Phil Ochs tells his story in the song "Too Many Martyrs." Robert DeLaughter wrote a first person narrative article titled "Mississippi Justice" published in Reader's Digest and a book "Never Too Late".
Evers's widow, Myrlie, became a noted activist in her own right later in life, eventually serving as chair of the NAACP. Medgar's brother Charles returned to Jackson in July 1963 and served briefly in his slain brother's place. Charles Evers remained involved in Mississippi Civil Rights for years to come. He resides in Jackson.
Early in 2007, comedian Chris Rock appeared as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. Regarding a recent incident in which comedian Michael Richards had repeatedly called an African-American man in the audience "nigger" during a performance, Bill Maher asked Chris Rock if Rock considered Richards racist. Rock responded "He stood up for two minutes and shouted 'nigger'! What do you have to do? Shoot Medgar Evers?"
More recently, rapper Immortal Technique asks if a diamond is "worth the blood of Malcolm and Medgar Evers?" in the song "Crossing the Boundary". On "I Can't Go to Sleep" by Wu-Tang Clan, RZA raps "Medgar took one to the skull for integrating college." The 2009 album Gutter Tactics by experimental hip-hop group Dälek contains a song titled "Who Medgar Evers Was...".
In October 2009, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former Mississippi governor, announced that USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE-13), a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship, will be named after him.[10]
Wikipedia Online Article

Comment by Rev Isaac Puplampu on February 18, 2010 at 8:48am

This is the prayer from the man of God.Revernd Pastor Isaac Puplampu.This prayer is bringing a total transformation into your life.Now Receive the blessings from the man of God.In the name of Jesus.May you excel in life.I Command your life to grow in the name of Jesus.I Command your business to grow from grace to grace in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.May your financial speed in crease in the name of Jesus.I Command the hand of God and the holy spirit to bless your outgoing and in coming.No dankness can shadow you and no destruction can stand before you and yor family.May the great God sappy all your needs according to his Riches in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 4:19)says And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
I Command heaven's to open in the name of Jesus and pour out any Blessings that you need in your life on you.Now Heave's has release every blessing into your life.Your are growing from grace to grace and you will not grow from grace to grass.As it's written in the scripture (Psalm 91:1) says He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
None of your children and great grand children will be in need.(Psalm 34:10)says The lions may grow weak and hungry,but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
This is my prayers for you.I bring the peace of God into your life and may this peace of God be wit you and your family..you shall never want in life in of Jesus.(Shalom)
This is your Good friend in the Lord our God Revernd Pastor Isaac Puplampu from West Africa Ghana.I love you as Jesus Christ love the church.so also I love you.You can share with me all your problems at any time and i will support you with prayers Everyday.
The Lord be with you Amen.

Comment by Richard A. Young on February 17, 2010 at 5:43am

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm (November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician, educator, and author.[1] She was a Congresswoman, representing New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to Congress.[2] On January 25, 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination (Margaret Chase Smith had previously run for the Republican presidential nomination).[2] She received 152 first-ballot votes at the 1972 Democratic National Convention.[2][3]
Shirley Anita St. Hill was born in Brooklyn, New York, of immigrant parents. Her father, Charles Christopher St. Hill, was born in British Guiana[4] and arrived in the United States via Antilla, Cuba, on April 10, 1923 aboard the S.S. Munamar in New York City.[4] Her mother, Ruby Seale, was born in Christ Church, Barbados, and arrived in New York City aboard the S.S. Pocone on March 8, 1921.[5] At age three, Chisholm was sent to Barbados to live with her maternal grandmother, Emaline Seale, in Christ Church. She did not return until roughly seven years later when she arrived in New York City on May 19, 1934 aboard the S.S. Narissa.[6] In her 1970 autobiography Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason."
Chisholm earned her BA from Brooklyn College in 1946 and later earned her MA from Columbia University in elementary education in 1952. She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
From 1953 to 1959, she was director of the Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center. From 1959 to 1964, she was an educational consultant for the Division of Day Care.
In 1964, Chisholm ran for and was elected to the New York State Legislature. In 1968, she ran as the Democratic candidate for New York's 12th District congressional seat and was elected to the House of Representatives. Defeating Republican candidate James Farmer, Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. Chisholm joined the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 as one of its founding members.
As a freshman, Chisholm was assigned to the House Agricultural Committee. Given her urban district, she felt the placement was irrelevant to her constituents[2] and shocked many by asking for reassignment. She was then placed on the Veterans' Affairs Committee.[2] Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as House Majority Leader over John Conyers. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee,[7] which was her preferred committee.[2] She was the third highest-ranking member of this committee when she retired from Congress.
All those Chisholm hired for her office were women, half of them black.[2] Chisholm said that during her New York legislative career, she had faced much more discrimination because she was a woman than because she was black.[2]
In the 1972 U.S. presidential election, she made a bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. George McGovern won the nomination in a hotly contested set of primary elections, with Chisholm campaigning in 12 states and winning 28 delegates during the primary process.[8] At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, as a symbolic gesture, McGovern opponent Hubert H. Humphrey released his black delegates to Chisholm,[9] giving her a total of 152 first-ballot votes for the nomination.[2] Chisholm's base of support was ethnically diverse and included the National Organization for Women. Chisholm said she ran for the office "in spite of hopeless odds... to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo." Among the volunteers who were inspired by her campaign was Barbara Lee, who continued to be politically active and was elected as a congresswoman 25 years later. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem attempted to run as Chisholm delegates in New York.[2]
Chisholm created controversy when she visited rival and ideological opposite George Wallace in the hospital soon after his shooting in May 1972, during the 1972 presidential primary campaign. Several years later, when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a minimum wage, Wallace helped gain votes of enough Southern congressmen to push the legislation through the House.[10]
From 1977 to 1981, during the 95th Congress and 96th Congress, Chisholm was elected to a position in the House Democratic leadership, as Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus.[11]
Throughout her tenure in Congress, Chisholm worked to improve opportunities for inner-city residents. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported spending increases for education, health care and other social services, and reductions in military spending.
She announced her retirement from Congress in 1982. Her seat was won by a fellow Democrat, Major Owens, in 1983. After leaving Congress, Chisholm was named to the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She taught there for four years. She also lectured frequently as a public speaker.
In 1975, Chisholm was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Smith College.
In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Shirley Chisholm on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
Chisholm retired to Florida and died on January 1, 2005 near Daytona Beach. She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York.
Wikipedia Online Article

Comment by Richard A. Young on February 16, 2010 at 10:16am

Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 – January 30, 2006) was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
Mrs. King's most prominent role may have been in the years after her husband's 1968 assassination when she took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself and became active in the Women's Movement.
Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King, Jr., were married on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her mother's house; the ceremony was performed by Martin Jr.'s father, Martin Luther King, Sr.. After completing her degree in voice and violin at the New England Conservatory, she moved with her husband to Montgomery, Alabama in September 1954.
The Kings had four children:
• Yolanda Denise King (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007)
• Martin Luther King III ( October 23, 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama)
• Dexter Scott King ( January 30, 1961 in Atlanta Georgia)
• Bernice Albertine King ( March 28, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia)
All four children later followed in their parents' footsteps as civil rights activists.
Coretta Scott King played an extremely important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Martin wrote of her that, "I am indebted to my wife Coretta, without whose love, sacrifices, and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment. She has given me words of consolation when I needed them and a well-ordered home where Christian love is a reality." However, Martin and Coretta did conflict over her public role in the movement. Martin wanted Coretta to focus on raising their four children, while Coretta wanted to take a more public leadership role.
Coretta Scott King took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and took an active role in advocating for civil rights legislation. Most prominently, perhaps, she worked hard to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Not long after her husband's assassination in 1968, Coretta approached the African American entertainer and activist Josephine Baker to take her husband's place as leader of The Civil Rights Movement. After many days of thinking it over Baker declined, stating that her twelve adopted children (known as the "rainbow tribe") were " ... too young to lose their mother."[5] Shortly after that Coretta decided to take the helm of the movement herself.
Scott King broadened her focus to include women's rights, LGBT rights, economic issues, world peace, and various other causes. As early as December 1968, she called for women to "unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war," during a Solidarity Day speech.[6]
As leader of the movement, Scott King founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. She served as the center's president and CEO from its inception until she passed the reins of leadership to son Dexter Scott King.
She published her memoirs, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1969.
Coretta Scott King was also under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1968 until 1972. Her husband's activities had been monitored during his lifetime. Documents obtained by a Houston, Texas television station show that the FBI worried that Scott King would "tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement."[7] A spokesman for the King family said that they were aware of the surveillance, but had not realized how extensive it was.
Every year after the assassination of her husband in 1968, Coretta attended a commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark his birthday on January 15. She fought for years to make it a national holiday. Murray M. Silver, an Atlanta attorney, made the appeal at the services on January 14, 1979. Coretta Scott King later confirmed that it was the "...best, most productive appeal ever..." Scott King was finally successful in this in 1986, when Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was made a federal holiday.
Coretta Scott King attended the state funeral of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973, as a very close friend of the former president, himself a contributor to civil rights.
When President Ronald Reagan signed legislation establishing Martin Luther King Day, she was at the event.
By the end of her 78th year, Coretta began experiencing health problems. Her husband's former secretary, Dora McDonald, assisted her part time in this period.[10] Hospitalized in April 2005, a month after speaking in Selma at the 40th anniversary of the Selma Voting Rights Movement,she was diagnosed with a heart condition and was discharged on her 78th and final birthday. Later, she suffered several small strokes. On August 16 2005, she was hospitalized after suffering a stroke and a mild heart attack. Initially, she was unable to speak or move her right side. She was released from Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta on September 22, 2005, after regaining some of her speech and continued physiotherapy at home. Due to continuing health problems, Scott King cancelled a number of speaking and traveling engagements throughout the remainder of 2005. On January 14, 2006, Coretta made her last public appearance in Atlanta at a dinner honoring her husband's memory.
Wikipedia Online Article

Comment by Richard A. Young on February 15, 2010 at 3:00am

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist whom the U.S. Congress later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement."
On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind: Irene Morgan, in 1946, and Sarah Louise Keys, in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Interstate Commerce Commission respectively in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. But unlike these previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks' action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Parks' act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.
Wikipedia Online Article

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