Wednesday, December 26, 2012
We Can’t Fix Our Economy Without Confronting White Supremacy(Check Out Link In Red)
We Can’t Fix Our Economy Without Confronting White Supremacy - COLORLINES
Thousands of people wait in line beginning at 3 am for a November 2012 jobs fair which did not open the doors until 9AM. When the doors opened the line was approximately a half-mile long. Scott Olsen/Getty Images
James Mercer Langston Hughes - Genius Child
Genius Child
Langston Hughes
This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can -
Lest the song get out of hand.
Nobody loves a genius child.
Can you love an eagle,
Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle,
Wild or tame?
Can you love a monster
Of frightening name?
Nobody loves a genius child.
Kill him - and let his soul run wild
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers
1. What is an outlier?
"Outlier" is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
IN TAHRIR SQUARE (Egypt's Unfinished Revolution On HBO)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Friday, January 20, 2012
Life In Slavery
In April, Haitian police found a naked child in a hole, near the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He was badly beaten, hadn’t eaten in days and was unable to even speak. So they simply called him “Miguel.”
He is the face of human trafficking in a country whose porous borders provide many opportunities to those who buy, sell or abduct children. Authorities say these kids are often trafficked for sex, for their organs or as to be used as child laborers.
This is Miguel’s story.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Napoleon Hill 16 Laws of Success
Lesson 1 - The Master Mind (129 pages)
The ten weaknesses that block your success.
The ONE thing without which you will never enjoy outstanding success.
The two classes of thought ... and why listening to one of them will guarantee your success.
The principle of Organized Knowledge - and how you can use its power to your advantage.
The truth about your education ... and why it makes no difference to your success.
What you need to influence other people to co-operate with you.
The six qualities that are essential for you to become a leader.
The secret of turning your knowledge into power.Lesson 2 - A Definite Chief Aim (68 pages)
The simple nightly routine that will change your life ... without any effort on your part.
The three steps that are essential to insuring your success.
What you are constantly making use of ... to your disadvantage.
The reasons why you literally attract what you wish for.
The four-step formula that will focus you on what's really important in your life.
The one statement that another person MUST tell YOU every day.
Why you need to change your friends regularly.
The one word that you should remind yourself every single day without fail.
The desire that you definitely have ... yet is completely the opposite of what you should have.
Lesson 3 - Self Confidence (77 pages)
The deadly enemy of your progress ... which I guarantee that you are feeling right now.
Your six basic fears ... and how you can extinguish them from your life for good.
The two Laws of your heredity ... and how they affect your confidence.
Why you have no grounds whatsoever for fearing poverty.
How your life will be plagued by uncertainty if you let these two things 'die'.
Why the worst thing you can do for your children is give them an 'easy' life.
The amazing five-point confidence formula that will guarantee you unbreakable self-confidence.
The hidden force inside you that, once unleashed, will give you unlimited belief in your abilities.
The law of mental telepathy ... and how you can use it to your advantage.
Lesson 4 - The Habit of Saving (68 pages)
The Law of Habit ... and how you automatically apply it.
The simple two-step process to increase your earning power.
How to think and talk your way to success.
The two classes of debt ... and which one you should avoid like the plague.
Why a poverty consciousness will affect your health.
The two-step process that will get rid of poverty for good.
Why you think the wrong way around when you have some money.
How saving can lead to success in other areas of your life.
The shocking truth about the savings of 98% of people.
How to assure your financial independence.
Lesson 5 - Initiative and Leadership (76 pages)
The three assets that all great leaders possess.
A surprising way that you can get ideas off of the ground when you don't have any money.
The three keys to banishing procrastination from your life for good.
The secret of why you remain underpaid ... no matter what you do.
The two brands of leadership ... and which one leads to absolute failure.
The most important word in the English language.
How a great soldier's amazing 17-page analysis will change your views on how to become a leader.
The only way for you to achieve lasting happiness.
The chief reason why you don't reach decisions.
The four Laws that will allow you to build plans for anything that will guarantee their success.
Lesson 6 - Imagination (82 pages)
The greatest and most profitable thing that you can do with your imagination.
Why you need imagination to guarantee your success.
The two natures of imagination and how you can use them to create your future.
Why your thoughts 'give you away' ... and what you can do about it.
The two main causes of failure.
"Mob psychology" ... and why you should be aware of it.
Why being an employee can be more profitable than being a leader.
Why you will never sell yourself to others unless you do this one thing.
How to use the power of "planting the seed" to your advantage.
How you can turn your great ideas into reality.
The secret of getting what you want from other people.
Why the battle for your success is only half-won unless you do this.
Lesson 7 - Enthusiasm (74 pages)
The simple procedure that will guarantee you unlimited enthusiasm.
How you can harness your enthusiasm ... and use it for profit.
The principle of Suggestion ... and how you can use it to your advantage.
Why how you say something is more important than what you say.
The three things that you need to harmonize in order to influence somebody.
How the dangerous law of association can make matters worse for you than they really are.
The one thing in the world that gives you real and enduring power.
A simple three-step process to develop your enthusiasm.
Why knowledge alone is not enough for you to be a success.
How the secret of what you wear has a dramatic impact on your success.
Why your day-to-day routine can doom you to failure.
The seven deadly enemies inside your head ... and why your success is measured by how well you do battle with them.
Lesson 8 - Self-Control (76 pages)
The reason why opportunities pass 9 out of 10 people by.
The signs of a lack of self-control ... and how you can defeat them.
Why self-sacrifice is the worse thing you can do for yourself.
The spending habit prophecy from 1928 - and why it has come true.
The most essential factor in the development of your personal power.
The simple response you can use against criticism.
The secret of your dominating thoughts.
The ability that is the outstanding quality of all successful people.
An amazingly simple method of controlling your anger.
The Law of Retaliation ... and the correct way to apply it.
Why you are really a salesman ... and how to use it to propel your success.
The secret of converting your enemies into friends.
Lesson 9 - Habit of Doing More Than You Are Paid For (73 pages)
The two astonishing reasons why you should do more than you are paid for.
The secret of being able to work better and longer.
How the power of the Law of Increasing Returns can literally explode your success.
Why the element of love is crucial to your success.
The two rewards that come directly from doing unselfish work.
The secret of establishing an outstanding reputation.
The surprising truth about being indispensable.
The amazing Law of Compensation ... and how you can use it to your advantage.
The secret of the 'Pyramiding of Gains'.
Lesson 10 - Pleasing Personality (60 pages)
The secret to using your personality to attract the right people into your life.
The two most important aspects of your personality.
Why human nature always wants what is always difficult to get.
Why you should always make sure that your words fit the frame of mind of the listener.
The amazing value of 'you' ... and the fatality of 'I'.
The seven major factors to developing an attractive personality.
Your most important step in building your character.
The two staggering benefits to self-suggestion.
The single thing that you need to express your true personality.
Why you can never hope to become a prominent leader ... unless you have this one thing.
Lesson 11 - Accurate Thought (80 pages)
The Law of Evidence ... and how you can use it to propel yourself forward.
Why going against your own interest can work to your advantage.
Why a temporary penalty will turn into a greater reward.
Why it is crucial to know which facts are important and relevant to your success.
The secret of the power of creative thought.
The two outstanding characteristics of your subconscious mind.
How you can tap into 'infinite intelligence' ... and use it to change your life.
The four major factors that will shape how successful you are.
The secret of six key steps you can use to focus your thinking.
The secret passageway to true knowledge ... and how you can reach into it.
How your thoughts magnetize your entire personality.
Lesson 12 - Concentration (78 pages)
The two important Laws that will enable you to fully concentrate your mind.
The stunning effect that a change in environment can have on your success.
The 'radio principle' ... and how you can use it to tap into abundance.
The door to your success ... and how to find "The Magic Key" to unlock it.
The staggeringly simple pledge that will enable you to spend only ten minutes a day focusing on your future.
Why thought is organized energy ... and how you use its amazing potential.
The secret of concentrated attention ... and how to use it to manage your time more effectively.
The simple visualization technique that trains your mind to concentrate.
The startling hypnotic truth behind the psychology of crowds.
Lesson 13 - Co-operation (68 pages)
How you can use the two forms of co-operation to propel yourself to unbelievable new heights.
Why you should aim for success through co-operation rather than competition.
Why the curse of procrastination drives you towards failure ... and how you can get out of it.
Why the 'psychology of inaction' is the chief reason of failure.
Your six states of mind that are fatal to continuing action.
The two forms of action ... and why you are only doing one of them.
Why you should put as much effort into preparation as execution.
The three most important factors that give you personal power.
The four-step process to extinguish your procrastination for good.
The three major motivating forces that compel you to act.
Lesson 14 - Failure (52 pages)
Why failure is only really temporary defeat ... and is usually a blessing in disguise.
The seven shocking turning points in Napoleon Hill's life ... and the surprising lessons that you can learn from them.
The entire amazing six page introduction to "Hill's Golden Rule" magazine.
Why your failures are just stepping stones on the road to finding what you truly love.
Why defeat is a destructive force only when you accept it as failure.
Why you should love your enemies instead of hating them ... by seeing the value of what they are doing for you.
Lesson 15 - Tolerance (42 pages)
Why you should be aware of the two significant features of intolerance.
Why your life is built upon bias and prejudice ... and how you need to re-learn what you previously thought was the truth.
Why children are more important to business than you think.
The two things that are the foundation of enduring success.
Why you don't have the time to allow intolerance into your life.
The lessons from a war built upon a lack of tolerance ... and how you can profit from them.
Lesson 16 - The Golden Rule (67 pages)
The secret of the Golden Rule ... and why it is widely misunderstood.
The amazing power of your thoughts ... and how they affect your life.
Why you are undoubtedly using your thoughts in a way that is completely the opposite way you need for success.
Why you are wrong to believe that the success of a person should be measured by money alone.
The amazing 12-step 'Code of Ethics', which if you live by ... will guarantee your success.
Why you can never achieve success without happiness.
The reason why it is essential that you 'guard your thoughts'.
Why it is critical for you not to hate or be jealous of someone else.
Why it is impossible for you to be negative without having a corresponding effect on your success.
How you can directly benefit from the Law of Retaliation.
The outstanding weakness of the vast majority of people ... and how you can overcome it.
Why the Law of Compensation will change your luck overnight.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Hosea Williams
Hosea Lorenzo Williams (January 5, 1926 – November 16, 2000) was a United States civil rights leader, ordained minister, businessman, philanthropist, scientist and politician. Though deeply involved and committed to the struggle for racial equality before they met, Williams may be best known as the firebranded but trusted member of fellow famed civil rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr.'s inner-circle. Under the banner of their flagship organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King depended on Williams' keen ability to organize and stir masses of people into nonviolent direct action in the myriad of protest campaigns they waged against racial, political, economic, and social injustice. While serving as his Chief Field Lieutenant, King alternately referred to Williams as his "bull in a china closet" and his "Castro". Inspired by personal experience with and his vow to continue King's work for the poor, Williams may be equally well known as the founding president of one of the largest social services organizations for the poor and hungry on holidays in North America, Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless. His famous motto was "Unbought and Unbossed" (which was also the motto of former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm).
Ivie Anderson
Considered one of the finest singers of the golden age of jazz, Ivie Anderson was a fluent vocalist who impressed many with her blues and scat phrasings. Most impressed was Duke Ellington, who kept her on as vocalist for eleven years and would have kept on for more had she not retired due to health problems.Born in California, young Ivie received vocal training at her local St. Mary's Convent and later spent two years studying with Sara Ritt in Washington, DC. Returning home she found work with Curtis Mosby, Paul Howard, Sonny Clay, and briefly with Anson Weeks at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in Los Angeles. She also found work in vaudeville, touring the country as a dancer and vocalist in the Fanchon and Marco revue, starring Mamie Smith, and with the Shuffle Along revue. She was featured vocalist at the Culver City Cotton Club before leaving to tour Australia in 1928 with Sonny Clay. Returning after five months down under she organized her own show and toured the U.S. In 1930 she found work with Earl Hines. It was while appearing with Hines that Ellington first heard her sing. He hired her in February 1931, and she quickly became a fixture of the orchestra's sound. She gave voice to some of the band's most memorable tunes of the era, ''I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good,'' ''It Don't Mean a Thing,'' ''Stormy Weather,'' and ''Rose of the Rio Grande.'' She was also featured in the 1939 Marx Brothers' film A Day at the Races, singing ''All God's Chillun' Got Rhythm.'' Retiring in August 1942 due to chronic asthma she opened her own Chicken Shack restaurant in Los Angeles. Though continuing to sing regularly in West Coast nightclubs her medical condition kept her from recording or touring extensively and ultimately led to her early death. Ivie Anderson passed away in December of 1949.
Sam E. Langford
Sam Langford (March 4, 1883 - January 12, 1956) was a Black Canadian boxing standout of the early part of the 20th century. Called the "Greatest Fighter Nobody Knows," by ESPN.[1] He was rated #2 by The Ring on their list of "100 greatest punchers of all time." Langford was originally from Weymouth Falls, a small community in Nova Scotia, Canada. He was known as the "Boston Bonecrusher," "Boston Terror." Langford stood only 5 ft 6 1⁄2 and weighed 185 lbs in his prime. Langford was a boxer who fought greats from the lightweight division right up to the heavyweights, beating many champions in the process. However, he was never able to secure a world title for himself. Langford was simply to good and, as a result, was ducked by many champions. Despite the fact Langford never received his rightful chance at the heavyweight title because of Jack Johnson's refusal to risk his crown against Langford, Ring magazine founder Nat Fleischer rated Langford as one of the ten best heavyweights of all time. Langford's most memorable fights were his numerous encounters against fellow black boxers Sam McVey, Battling Jim Johnson, Joe Jeanette and Harry Wills, who all experienced similar barriers in their fighting careers. Langford defeated Lightweight Champion Joe Gans on December 8, 1903 via 15 round decision. Gans' title was not on the line, however. The two would later become good friends. Langford considered Gans the pound for pound greatest fighter of all time. He fought Jack Blackburn, trainer of the legendary Joe Louis, six times. The first three fights were draws, the fourth a decision win for Langford, the fifth another draw and the sixth a no contest. Even though Langford is often called the greatest fighter to never challenge for a world title, he had fought Welterweight Champion Barbados Joe Walcott on September 5, 1904 for his championship. The fight resulted in a draw by decision, thus Walcott retained his title. However, reports of the fight say Langford clearly outpointed the champion. Langford kept Walcott at a distance with his longer reach and used his footwork to evade all of Walcott's attacks. Langford landed lefts and rights to the jaw so effectively, Walcott was bleeding by round two and continued bleeding more after every round. Walcott was brought on one knee in the third round and the fight ended with hardly a scratch on Langford. Langford fought various contenders throughout his career. He fought welterweight Young Peter Jackson six times, winning the first two by decision, third was a draw via points, losing the fourth by technical knockout and winning the fifth and sixth bouts again by decision. Langford fought heavyweight Joe Jeannette fourteen times, losing the first by eighth round retirement, winning second by decision, third and fourth were a draw via points, winning the fifth through eighth by decision, ninth was a draw via points, winning the tenth on decision, eleventh was a draw via points, lost the twelth by decision and winning the thirteenth by seventh round knock out and fourteenth by decision (Total: 8 wins (1 KO), 2 losses (1 RT and 1 PTS) and 4 draws). He lost to future world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson on April 26, 1906 by fifthteen round decision. Johnson was 29 pound heavier than Langford. Langford had been knocked down in the sixth round. Many spectators felt Langford had won the bout. After winning their first match, Johnson repeatedly refused rematches against Langford, who was considered by some to be the most dangerous challenger for Johnson's crown, although Johnson cited Langford's inability to meet his $30,000 appearance fee.Langford eventually went completely blind and ended up penniless, living in Harlem, New York City. In 1944, a famous article was published about his plight and money was donated by fans to help Langford. Eventually funding was obtained to pay for successful eye surgery. Langford was enshrined in the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1955. He died a year later in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had been living in a private nursing home.
Thomas Elkins
Thomas Elkins designed a device that helped with the task of preserving perishable foods by way of refrigeration. At the time, the common way of accomplishing this was by placing items in a large container and surrounding them with large blocks of ice. Unfortunately, the ice generally melted very quickly and the food soon perished. Elkins' device utilized metal cooling coils which became very cold and would cool down items which they surrounded. The coils were enclosed within a container and perishable items were placed inside. The coils cooled the container to a temperature significantly lower than that inside of a room thereby keeping the perishable items cool and fresh for longer periods of time. Elkins patented this refrigerated apparatus on November 4, 1879 and had previously patented a chamber commode in 1872 and a dining, ironing table and quilting frame combined in 1870.
Otis Boykin
Born August 29, 1920, in Dallas, Texas. After graduating high school, he attended Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in 1941. That same year, he took a job as a lab assistant with the Majestic Radio and TV Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. He rose in the ranks, ultimately serving as a supervisor. He eventually took a position with the P.J. Nilsen Research Laboratories while trying to start his own business, Boykin-Fruth Incorporated. At the same time, he decided to continue his education, pursuing graduate studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois. He was forced to drop out in 1947, after only two years of education, because he was unable to afford tuition. Boykin, who took a special interest in working with resistors, began researching and inventing on his own. He sought and received a patent for a wire precision resistor on June 16, 1959. This resistor would later be used in radios and televisions. Two years later, he created a breakthrough device that could withstand extreme changes in temperature and pressure. The device, which was cheaper and more reliable than others on the market, came in great demand by the United States military and IBM. In 1964, Boykin moved to Paris, creating electronic innovations for a new market of customers. His most famous invention was a control unit for the pacemaker. Ironically, Boykin died in Chicago in 1982 as a result of heart failure. Upon his death, he had 26 patents to his name.
Robert S. Abott
Robert S. Abbott founded the Chicago Defender as a two-cent weekly published from his landlady's kitchen and expanded it into the nation's foremost African-American publication. Born on Nov. 24, 1868 on St. Simon's Island, Ga., Abbott learned about the newspaper trade from his stepfather, who published a local paper. He attended Hampton Institute in Virginia and then enrolled in Chicago's Kent College of Law, from which he graduated in 1899. Finding it difficult to practice law due to racial discrimination, Abbott chose instead to publish a newspaper. The Chicago Defender was first published on May 5, 1905. For five years, Abbott was the Defender's sole editor, ad salesman and circulation director. He hired his first employee in 1910. By 1920, the paper's circulation exceeded 200,000 and was widely read in the North and in the South. During the 1920s and 1930s, Abbott sent reporters to cover lynchings and Jim Crow laws designed to segregate African Americans. As a result, the Defender became viewed as a radical newspaper and was banned in some parts of the South. Despite that, Abbott sent his papers south via railroad porters and waged one of his most aggressive campaigns to convince Southern Blacks to move north during World War I. His paper ran articles, editorials, cartoons even train schedules and job listings to convince the Defender's Southern readers to come north. The Great Northern Migration, as it was called in the Defender, resulted in more than one million Blacks migrating north, about 100,000 of them coming to Chicago. As the paper grew, regular contributors to the Defender included famed intellectual W.E.B. Dubois, writer Langston Hughes and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. The success of the paper made Abbott one of the first Black self-made millionaires in the country. He died on Feb. 29, 1940. Editorship of the paper was assumed by his nephew, John H. H. Sengstacke, who was handpicked by Abbott for the job.
Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, women's rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. She stands as one of our nation's most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862 and died in Chicago, Illinois 1931 at the age of sixty-nine.Although enslaved prior to the Civil War, her parents were able to support their seven children because her mother was a "famous" cook and her father was a skilled carpenter. When Ida was only fourteen, a tragic epidemic of Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest sibling. Emblematic of the righteousness, responsibility, and fortitude that characterized her life, she kept the family together by securing a job teaching. She managed to continue her education by attending near-by Rust College. She eventually moved to Memphis to live with her aunt and help raise her youngest sisters. It was in Memphis where she first began to fight (literally) for racial and gender justice. In 1884 she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat on the train to a white man and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car, which was already crowded with other passengers. Despite the 1875 Civil Rights Act banning discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color, in theaters, hotels, transports, and other public accommodations, several railroad companies defied this congressional mandate and racially segregated its passengers. It is important to realize that her defiant act was before Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the fallacious doctrine of "separate but equal," which constitutionalized racial segregation. Wells wrote in her autobiography: I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies' car, I proposed to stay. . . [The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn't try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggageman and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out. Wells was forcefully removed from the train and the other passengers--all whites--applauded. When Wells returned to Memphis, she immediately hired an attorney to sue the railroad. She won her case in the local circuit courts, but the railroad company appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and it reversed the lower court's ruling. This was the first of many struggles Wells engaged, and from that moment forward, she worked tirelessly and fearlessly to overturn injustices against women and people of color. Her suit against the railroad company also sparked her career as a journalist. Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against white supremacy. Her writing career blossomed in papers geared to African American and Christian audiences. In 1889 Wells became a partner in the Free Speech and Headlight. The paper was also owned by Rev. R. Nightingale-- the pastor of Beale Street Baptist Church. He "counseled" his large congregation to subscribe to the paper and it flourished, allowing her to leave her position as an educator. In 1892 three of her friends were lynched. Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart. These three men were owners of People's Grocery Company, and their small grocery had taken away customers from competing white businesses. A group of angry white men thought they would "eliminate" the competition so they attacked People's grocery, but the owners fought back, shooting one of the attackers. The owners of People's Grocery were arrested, but a lynch-mob broke into the jail, dragged them away from town, and brutally murdered all three. Again, this atrocity galvanized her mettle. She wrote in The Free Speech "The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival. There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms. The white mob could help itself to ammunition without pay, but the order is rigidly enforced against the selling of guns to Negroes. There is therefore only one thing left to do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons." Many people took the advice Wells penned in her paper and left town; other members of the Black community organized a boycott of white owned business to try to stem the terror of lynchings. Her newspaper office was destroyed as a result of the muckraking and investigative journalism she pursued after the killing of her three friends. She could not return to Memphis, so she moved to Chicago. She however continued her blistering journalistic attacks on Southern injustices, being especially active in investigating and exposing the fraudulent "reasons" given to lynch Black men, which by now had become a common occurrence. In Chicago, she helped develop numerous African American women and reform organizations, but she remained diligent in her anti-lynching crusade, writing Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She also became a tireless worker for women's suffrage, and happened to march in the famous 1913 march for universal suffrage in Washington, D.C. Not able to tolerate injustice of any kind, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, along with Jane Addams, successfully blocked the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.
Chandler Owen
Chandler Owen was born in Warrenton, North Carolina in 1889. He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1913. Three years later he moved to New York City and attended Columbia University, where he met Philip Randolph. Both men joined the Socialist Party and along with Claude McKay, he became a follower of radical activist Hubert Harrison. Owen and Philip Randolph established the journal The Messenger. The first edition published in August, 1917, was a mixture of political comment, trade union news, literary criticism and biographies of leading radicals of the time. The first edition included the following: "Our aim is to appeal to reason, to lift our pens above the cringing demagogy of the times, and above the cheap peanut politics of the old reactionary Negro leaders. Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has. Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to. Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for." During the First World War he was arrested for breaking the Espionage Act. It was claimed that Owen and his co-editor, Philip Randolph was guilty of treason after opposing African Americans joining the army. Over the next few years the journal published the work of E. Franklin Frazier, Joel Rogers, Hubert Harrison, George Schuyler, Roy Wilkins, Claude McKay, Scott Nearing, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and Eugene O'Neill. The journal closed in 1928. Owen now moved to Chicago, where he became managing editor of the Chicago Bee. Owen became more conservative with age but he continued to support Philip Randolph in his effortsto organizing black workers in laundries, clothes factories and cinemas and in 1929 became president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP). Over the next few years he built it into the first successful black trade union. Owen established his own public relations company. He remained interested in politics and wrote speeches for Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Baines Johnson. In later life Owen suffered from a kidney complaint. In a letter that he wrote to Philip Randolph in October, 1967, "Our long friendship, never soiled, is nearing its close. I've been in pain. If you were not living. I would commit suicide today." Chandler Owen died in November, 1967.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
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