Join Philip Merrill, founder of Nanny Jack Co. as we honor pilot Tammie Jo Shults, Cornelius Coffey and Bessie Coleman!

Tammie Jo Shults is the pilot who bravely flew Southwest Flight 1380 to safety after part of its left engine ripped off, damaging a window and nearly sucking a woman out of the plane. The flight was en route to Dallas Love airport from New York City, and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia. Shults, 56, kept her cool during an incredibly intense situation, audio from her conversation with air traffic controllers reveals, while many passengers posted on social media that they were scared these were their last moments. She, with the help of the co-pilot and the rest of the crew, landed the plane safely.

 

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Cornelius Coffey (September 6, 1903 - March 2, 1994)

In 1938, Coffey established one of the first African American-owned and certified flight schools in America. The Coffey School of Aeronautics was located at Harlem Airport in Oaklawn, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. He also invented a carburetor heater to prevent icing, and a variation of it is still being used.

Coffey recruited Clyde Hampton, Willa Brown -- a former student who later became his wife -- and other pioneer black pilots as instructors. As a consequence, Chicago was considered the leading city for black pilot training prior to World War II. Many of the original Tuskegee Airmen got their initial training at the Coffey school.

In 1939, Coffey, along with Willa Brown, a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and Enoch P. Waters formed the National Airmen’s Association of America. The main goal of this club was to expose African Americans to the field of aviation.

Wyatt Day Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson and The Parkland Survivors!

Take A Pilgrimage To Ethiopia with Zodi: Zeweoita Feseha EsacNYC.Com [email protected]

Of all the African powers, only the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia remained completely free from European domination by the end of the 19th century. This was no accident of history; Ethiopia secured its sovereignty by inflicting a decisive and humiliating defeat upon the Italian invaders at Adowa (or Adwa) on March 1, 1896. Christianity came to the Ethiopians in the 4th century AD and was adopted with a fanatical passion. A rich, sophisticated and thriving culture developed among the Ethiopians, producing among its many treasures beautiful illuminated Bibles in the ancient language of Geez, the only written language native to Africa.

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Ethiopia has existed as a political entity since biblical times. The ancient Greeks gave the name 'burnt face' to the peoples who inhabited the little known regions south of Egypt, and it is from the Greek that the name Ethiopia is derived. Bisected by the great Rift Valley that runs the length of the African continent, Ethiopia encompasses fertile mountainous highlands of moderate climate and unbearably hot lowlands that fall below sea level in some places.

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A Church built into a cave in Egypt, is home to 70,000 Weekly worshipers. Saint Simon,is one of the world's oldest Christian Communities. One of the more populous groups are Egyptians who have retained their Coptic beliefs and established the largest Christian church in the Middle East.

Other nearby caves have also been built into separate church spaces, and all of them have been linked to create a massive Christian complex.

Since tourism through the scavenger’s village is not a thriving industry, reaching the Monastery of St. Simon is no small feat, yet as the largest Christian church, hundreds of thousands of people make the pilgrimage each year.

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Watch the NEW trailer for Family Pictures USA! Support and share our video as we enter the last week of our campaign!http://bit.ly/fpusatv!

Join Arthur McFarlane II the great grandson of  W.E.B. Du Bois on The Gist of Freedom, Thursday at 8:00 EDT!

Arthur will be discussing the toppling of Confederate Monuments and the tragic death of the Humanitarian Heather Heyer at the anti-white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville Virginia.

Call in 347.324.5552

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Workers in Charlottesville, Virginia, placed large black tarps Wednesday over two monuments to Confederate military generals, according to video from CNN affiliate WVIR.

The statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park and the statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson in Justice Park were each covered with a tarp on Wednesday. The two monuments were the focus of violent protests earlier this month.

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An excerpt from an excerpt penned by W.E.B DuBois

Today we can best perpetuate (Robert Lee's) memory ….by explaining it to the young white south. What Lee did in 1861, other Lees are doing in 1928. They lack the moral courage to stand up for justice to the Negro because of the overwhelming public opinion of their social environment.

The 50th Anniversary Of Detroit 'Riots' - With Survivor Kimberly Simmons!

The Gist of Freedom as host, Mariam Guilliams welcomes Kimberly Simmons descendant of The Militant Abolitionist Lewis Leary, (John Brown Raider and The "John Price Rescue"). Kimberly will share stories of her family legacy in social activism, from Lewis Leary and The Underground Railroad Movement - Langston Hughes and The Harlem Renaissance.

The exhibition is organized by the DIA and is in collaboration with the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, which organized the complementary exhibition, “Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion.” Both are part of a community-wide reflection on the Detroit rebellion of 1967 that involves about 100 local institutions led by the Detroit Historical Museum. “Art of Rebellion” has been generously supported by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the Whitney Fund.

Tonight Join The Gist of Freedom as Cultural Preservationists, John White and Juaquim Showe share the amazing legacy of the all black town and school, Whitesboro, NJ ad Bordentown with our host,  Mariam Gulliam!

George White a distinguished Congressman, practiced law in Washington, D.C., and created the George White Land Development Company. In 1901, through shareholders Mr. White established the all-black town of Whitesboro, in NJ. He also Co-founded Bordentown, New Jersey’s black boarding school. By 1909 Whitesboro boasted two churches, an industrial school for children, a railroad station, a post office and a hotel, all built by residents. The town was also on three railroad lines including one that went east to the Atlantic Coast. 

In 1906,  he also established Philadelphia's  black-owned bank, the People’s Savings Bank. 

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thirty-two years ago, since {Slavery} that time we have reduced the illiteracy of the race at least 45 percent. We have written and published nearly 500 books. We have nearly 800 newspapers, over 2,000 lawyers, and a corresponding number of doctors. We have accumulated over $12,000,000 worth of school property and about $40,000,000 worth of church property. We have about 140,000 farms and homes, valued in the neighborhood of $750,000,000, and personal property valued about $170,000,000.  The property per-capita for every colored man, woman and child in the United States is estimated at $75. We are operating successfully several banks, commercial enterprises among our people in the South land, including one silk mill and one cotton factory. We have 32,000 teachers in the schools of the country; we have built, with the aid of our friends, about 20,000 churches, and support 7 colleges, 17 academies, 50 high schools, 5 law schools, 5 medical schools and 25 theological seminaries. 600,000 acres of land in the South alone.

Harriet Tubman Memorial with World Renowned Actress Karen Jones Meadows

Genealogist, Ms. Bertha,  Seed For Deed, Land Grabbing During Post- Reconstruction.

In 1875, developers began selling The Serenola land to the slavery survivors who were once in bondage on the plantation. Miraculously,  250 acres that were sold from 1875 through 1885 were purchased by five black families. The freedmen and their families included: Harrison Lynch (1835-1916), with his wife Hannah and their four children; Mack Williams (1825-1898), with his wife Sally and their four children; minister Washington West (1853-1942), with his wife Nelly and their two children; Jerry Gregg (1845-1920), with his wife Jane and their five children; and Bina Gregg, a widow (1805-1896). During the early 1900s, West family members established Minnie Hill Baptist Church, located on the old road. After Washington West retired as pastor of Serenola Baptist Church, which he helped found in 1885, he attended the Minnie Hill Church until his death. That church was renamed Trinity Missionary Baptist Church in 1992. 

 The last of the Slavery Survivors and landowners from the Serenola plantation  died in 1942. The main house and the slavery quarters no longer exist, but the surroundings remain much as they appeared in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A dirt road once known as Rocky Point Road, with its canopy of oak trees, still runs through what was the plantation. It became a public highway in 1889, and is now S.W. 17th Terrace.

Join Mariam Guliams on The Gist of Freedom as she welcomes Marian Douglas-Ungaro! Mariam is a writer and journalist, an international consultant in elections and human rights, and founder of the international AFROAMERICAS network - for the Afrodescendants (the Slavery Descendants) of the Americas. 

She prefers to be identified as "Black American" (not African American) and comes from DAEUS families. DAEUS = "Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States. (Term coined by retired Ohio human rights law professor Vernellia Randall.) 

She is a native of Washington, DC, and she and her family live in Washington, DC and Rome, Italy. 

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