Primary Sources, Black History

Brain Awareness Day! SYNAPTIK FOUNDATION. Come out to The Learning Tree at 801 Bartholdi Street in the Bronx this Saturday from 1-5pm for Pi and Brain Awareness Day.

Listen and learn more about Brain Awareness Day on The Gist of Freedom

  Www.blogTalkRadio.com/blackhistory

Saturday March 14th

SYNAPTIK FOUNDATION. Come out to The Learning Tree at 801 Bartholdi Street in the Bronx this Saturday from 1-5pm for Pi and Brain Awareness Day.

 

The most complex object in the known universe, the brain, only uses 20 watts of power.

It would require a nuclear power plant to energize a computer the size of a cit block to mimic

your brain.  Brain Awareness Day! [email protected]

Lavonne Hunter earned a dual BA in Psychology and Special Honors Curriculum, and MS in Secondary Adolescent Education in Biological Sciences from Hunter College. Trained as a research scholar in neurobiology, Ms. Hunter served as the Science Learning Coordinator of the Minority Access to Career (MARC) program coaching MARC scholars, and taught the fundamentals of biomedical research to undergraduates for two years before teaching adolescents. Celebrating her 11th year in New York City classrooms, Ms. Hunter currently teaches 8th Grade Science in the Bronx

O Ms. Hunter actively shares her work presenting workshops on student-led and place-based learning for the World Maker Faire, Alternative Education Resource Organization, and Math for America. Ms. Hunter garners inspiration from two quotes:

1. “Start where you are, with what you have, make something of it, and never be satisfied” – George Washington Carver

2. “The problem with the US educational system is that it rewards students for answering questions they never asked”.

Listen to The Gist of Freedom tonight as we talk with Jennifer Nelson a descendant of the historical black town, Boley OK.

One of the first nationally chartered black-owned banks, Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley, Oklahoma, an all-black town successfully fended off “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s Bank Robber's Gang!

 ON NOVEMBER 23, 1932, three members of Charles A. “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s gang made the worst mistake of their lives. They tried to rob the state’s first nationally chartered black-owned bank Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley, Ok, an all-black town of proud-walking pioneers.

Up to that point, the Floyd gang had been robbing an average of a bank a week, usually without any resistance.

Gangster Floyd  had warned his gang members against robbing the Boley bank because, the people of Boley all had guns, knew how to shoot them and weren't afraid to use them.  Photos: Boley Council Members, Boley Bank,  SEMINOLE NEGRO INDIAN SCOUTS _

They didn't heed Floyd's warning and Birdwell and Patterson, armed burst into the bank early that morning.  announced they were robbing the bank and warned "don't pull no alarm."

The bank's  Bookkeeper McCormick, saw the robbers enter.  He slipped into the bank's vault, retrieved the rifle and aimed it at Birdwell who was scooping up cash.

At the same time, the Bank's president D.J. Turner,  was on duty. He loved Boley and was determined to defend it.

When the alarm began wailing Birdwell hollered, "Did you pull that alarm?" "Sure I did," Turner answered.

Gangster Birdwell shot and Turner fell mortally wounded. McCormick, in turn, shot the second gang member, Birdwell to death.

Excerpts taken from Mrs. Betty DeRamus Facebook post

100 Black Men In Law Enforcement

100 Black Men In Law Enforcement discuss the Brooklyn Nwe York police officers killed.

Suspected shooter reportedly kills himself after shooting two officers inside their patrol car.

100 BLACKS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT WHO CARE

591 Vanderbilt Avenue, Suite 133, Brooklyn, NY 11238

(718) 455-9059

EMAIL: [email protected]

Photo:

1929 Harlem Police officers

listen ~ 1892, NYPD's First Black Patrolman, Moses P. Cobb with Senator Eric Adams, Co-Founder 100 Black Men in Law Enforcement!

Black Historical Unsung heroes

Get Out The Vote with Activist Stella Antley!

 

This show is dedicated to the memory of

Octavius Catto ~In 1871, during the the first election in which blacks could vote,  Octavius Catto was murdered by a Democratic party operative while canvassing for Republican candidates.

On his way back from the polls, Catto, who had spearheaded a get-out-the-vote drive for black voters, was shot in the back by a political opponent.

Catto’s funeral was the city’s largest to date. His assassination rallied his supporters in the Republican Party, which would dominate Philadelphia politics for the next 80 years, thanks in part to black support. Succeeding generations of African Americans named buildings and professional organizations after him. But by the middle of the 20th century, as the civil rights movement turned its attention to desegregating the South and ensuring housing equality in the North, Catto had become, as his graveside monument proclaims, a “Forgotten Hero.” As perhaps the only historical figure who has been compared to both George Steinbrenner and Rosa Parks, he’s worth remembering.

The first full-length biography of Catto, Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America, was published in 2010. It is available for purchase at the National Constitutional Center’s gift shop.

 His death was a harbinger of a new era in race relations in which the achievement of full civil rights for African Americans would be a dream long deferred.

The Ebola outbreak, please Join The Gist of Freedom, The Black History Internet Radio show in welcoming Sierra Leonean Hindowa Saidu!

"On Thursday the World Health Organization said that more than 1,900 people have died in West Africa Ebola out break. There have been 3,500 confirmed probable cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. More than 40 percent of death have occurred in the last three weeks, the W.H.O. said, suggesting that the epidemic is fast out pacing effort to control it,

In spite of all of these development Sierra Leoneans in the state of Massachusetts in America in few hours time will be taking on the principal streets of Boston in a walk against the Ebola out break in their country and region. This is to draw the attention of the American public and the rest of the world to the suffering of our people as international press houses have been invited to fully cover the event.

May God cause his face to shine on the land that we love Sierra Leone."

~ Hindowa Saidu

Playwright Rickerby Hinds and NAACP Criminal Justice Chair Terry Taalib Major - Standing Up For Justice!

Wednesday October 15, 6-9pm PCT

Special performance of DREAMSCAPE

Cesar Chavez Community Center Auditorium

2o60 University Ave. Riverside, CA

Dreamscape depicts the true story of the death and inner life of a young woman, "Myeisha Mills," who dreams through the impact of the twelve bullets that killed her. Through beat-boxing, spoken word and dance, the performance is structured around an autopsy report recited by a dispassionate coroner following the trajectory and impact of the bullets – each one triggering its own unique memory.

Join The Gist of Freedom tonight as we welcome filmmaker, Thomas Allen Harris.  Inspired by Deborah Willis’ book, Reflections in Black, THROUGH A LENS DARKLY (Willis is also a co-producer) casts a broad net that begins with filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris’s family album. It considers the difference between black photographers who use the camera to define themselves, their people, and their culture and some white photographers who, historically, have demeaned African-Americans through racist imagery. The film embraces both historical material (African-Americans who were slaves, who fought in the Civil War, were victims of lynchings, or were pivotal in the Civil Rights Movement) and contemporary images made by such luminaries as Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks, and Carrie Mae Weems. The film is a cornucopia of Americana that reveals deeply disturbing truths about the history of race relations while expressing joyous, life-affirming sentiments about the ability of artists and amateurs alike to assert their identity through the photographic lens.

Note: The Digital Diaspora Family Reunion Roadshow is an interactive project that ties-in with the film. For more details, go to www.1World1Family.me.

Ron Westray -Live at Jazz at The Lincoln Center!  Ron talks about his latest CD Jimi Jazz, a tribute to Jimi Hendrix http://www.bluecanoerecords.com/jimi-jazz.html

One of the most highly regarded trombonist of his generation, Ron Westray continues to expand upon the legacy set before him with his CD releases, "Jimi Jazz",  "Live From Austin" and "Medical Cures For The Chromatic Commands Of The Inner City".

Professor Ron Westray’s professional contributions encompass a stunning list of achievements in the areas of performance, composition, recording, and publishing. Since the early nineties he has performed as trombonist or lead trombonist with the most prestigious jazz ensembles in the world, including the Mingus Big Band, New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, The Wynton Marsalis Septet, Irving Mayfield, The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and the Marcus Roberts Ensemble, in hundreds of performances around the globe.

Jennie Dean (1852-1913)

Undaunted Faith~ Manassas Industrial School & Jennie Dean Memorial

The most significant person in the founding of the school was Jane Serepta Dean. Dean was born into slavery in western Prince William County, Virginia around 1852. . Dean was a deeply religious woman

Manassas Industrial School & Jennie Dean Memorial

Tonight learn more about the school as  Dr. Phillip Merrill lectures on the Manassas School!

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Tonight learn more about the school as  Dr. Phillip Merrill lectures on the Manassas School!

Join Dr. Merrill September 19, 2014. 6:00 pm

@ An Artifactual Journey of Nanny Jack & Co.in NYC 

http://www.jackshainman.com/exhibitions/20th-street

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On the site of the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth, this five-acre park is now a park of remembrance for the school’s founder, former slave Jennie Dean. The outlines of the foundations of the original building are marked, and there is a model of the school and a kiosk with an audio program that provides information about Dean and the school’s founding. Dean raised money for the school for almost 10 years before Manassas Industrial was chartered in 1893. The dedication ceremonies were led by orator Frederick Douglass.

The History

This five-acre archaeological site, dedicated in 1995, is located on the original site of the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth. The school was founded largely through the efforts of a former enslaved woman,  Jennie Dean who, after almost a decade of charismatic fundraising, chartered the school on October 7, 1893. The school was designed as a private residential institution providing both academic and vocational training within a Christian setting.