Tag Archives: history

In Memory … of MLK


 MLK Murder Still Haunting

AP Was There: The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

From April 4, 2018

 

Martin Luther King Jr., second right, and SCLC aides Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson Jr., from left, and Ralph Abernathy return to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to strategize for the second Sanitation Worker’s march led by King in this April 3, 1968, file photo.

King was shot dead on the balcony April 4, 1968. AP Photo/File

‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’

Martin Luther King Jr.

for the complete article, go to: apnews.com

Dorthy Height – In Memory


Dorothy Height: born 3/24/1012, was a civil rights heroine, educator, and social activist; She was a woman who had her fingerprint on all things American, and as President Obama said,”  Dorothy deserves a place in our history”    3/24/1912 – 4/20/2010

first posted 4/22/2011

Nia Simone – In Memory


Nina Simone (born February 21, 1933, Tryon, North Carolina, U.S.—died April 21, 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, France) American singer who created urgent emotional intensity by singing songs of love, protest, and Black empowerment in a dramatic style, with a rough-edged voice.

Simone at the 1986 Playboy Jazz Festival

precocious child, Simone played piano and organ in girlhood. She became sensitive to racism when at age 12 she gave a piano recital in a library where her parents had to stand in back because they were Black. A student of classical music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, she began performing as a pianist. Her vocal career began in 1954 in an Atlantic CityNew Jersey, nightclub when the club owner threatened to fire her unless she sang too. Her first album featured her distinctive versions of jazz and cabaret standards, including “I Loves You, Porgy,” which became a 1959 hit.

Source: britannica.com

“remember the ladies” a letter from Abigail Adams


womens_day_2013GOOGLEfeatured photo is from google

In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain.

The future First Lady wrote in part, “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Nearly 150 years before the House of Representatives voted to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, Adams letter was a private first step in the fight for equal rights for women. Recognized and admired as a formidable woman in her own right, the union of Abigail and John Adams persists as a model of mutual respect and affection; they have since been referred to as “America’s first power couple.” Their correspondence of over 1,000 letters written between 1762 and 1801 remains in the Massachusetts Historical Society and continues to give historians a unique perspective on domestic and political life during the revolutionary era.

Abigail bore six children, of whom five survived. Abigail and John’s eldest son, John Quincy Adams, served as the sixth president of the United States. Only two women, Abigail Adams and Barbara Bush, have been both wives and mothers of American presidents.

http://www.history.com

On this Day … Nina Simone


On This Day: February 21
Nina Simone                           Born: February 21, 1933                           Died: April 21, 2003                           Age: 70 years old                           Birthplace: Tryon, NC, United States                           Occupation: Civil Rights Activist, Pianist, Singer, Journalist Read Nina Simone’s biography >>
Watch what else happened on this day >>