In the South, King spearheaded efforts to integrate public spaces and he fought for voting rights. King, however, didn’t just fight racism in the South. He highlighted racism in the North as well. To read a traditional King bio, click here. To learn more about King’s efforts in the North read below.

Watch video of Mahalia Jackson singing at King’s funeral.

In one famous incident, King lead a fight to end housing segregation in Chicago — a mecca for blacks escaping the South. The march didn’t go well. In August 1966, King and his supporters marched in front of more than 4,000 angry white immigrants in southwest Chicago. The white mob called the 800 black marchers “cannibals,” and “savages” and stoned King.

He would later say, “I have seen demonstrations in the South, but have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I’ve seen here today.”

The incident showed that the South wasn’t the only bastion of racism that needed to change.

Below are King’s quotes about the fight to end racism everywhere:

“Let’s Not Fool Ourselves, we are far from the Promised Land, both north and south.”

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Watch this video of King’s “Letter From the Birmingham Jail.”

Elijah McCoy Biography

(1843–1929)

Inventor and manufacturer, born in Canada. His African-American parents had fled from Kentucky to escape slavery. He showed an early talent for mechanical innovations, and in Ypsilanti, MI he devloped lubricators for steam engines (1870). In 1882 he moved to Detroit, where he perfected his lubricating cup, still widely used to provide a steady supply of oil to machinery. He opened the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Co (1920) and patented an improved airbrake lubricator, one of the some 50 patents he obtained during his lifetime.

The NAACP elected a health care executive as its youngest board chairman Saturday, continuing a youth movement for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.  Roslyn M. Brock, 44, was chosen to succeed Julian Bond. She had been vice chairman since 2001 and a member of the NAACP for 25 years.

Brock works for Bon Secours Health Systems in Maryland as vice president for advocacy and government relations, and spent 10 years working on health issues for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She joins Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 37-year-old CEO of the NAACP, as leader of the 500,000-member organization.

Brock said she plans to focus on pushing for policy changes to eliminate inequality, strengthening the relationship between the national and local NAACP branches and holding people accountable.

“It’s not always what someone is doing to us, but what we are doing for ourselves,” Brock said in an interview.

The departure of Bond, 70, after 10 years as board chairman marks a turning point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Pepole.

Bond came of age in the segregated South, helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was on the front lines of the protests that led to the nation’s landmark civil rights laws. He is a symbol and icon of “the movement,” which was a defining experience for older generations.

Click here to read more…

VIA:  ShaniDavis.Com

Shani Davis was born on Friday, August 13, 1982, in Chicago, Illinois. Raised by his mother on the city’s south side, he started roller-skating at local rinks at age two. By age three Shani was darting around the roller rink so fast that skate guards would chase him just to ask him to slow down. Seeming to become bored with roller-skating, at age six a coach suggested that Shani switch to ice skating. Shortly thereafter, his mother started working for an attorney, Fred Benjamin, whose son happened to be involved in speed skating at an elite level. It was at that time that Benjamin suggested that Shani give speed skating a try.

Shani joined the Evanston Speedskating Club at age six and within two months started competing locally. Though immediately taking to ice, at competitions Shani was generally more interested in running around with his competitors and playing video games than he was with competing. Nevertheless, by age 8 he was winning regional age-group competitions and began to hear about the Olympic ideal from his Northbrook competitors and friends. Shani’s mother encouraged him to participate and, in an effort to build his endurance, woke him most mornings to run a mile on a track close to their home. As there were — and still are — no speed skating clubs in inner city Chicago, at age 10 Shani and his mother moved to the far north side of the city to be closer to the Evanston rink.

Click here to read more on Shani Davis…

Watch Shani’s video blog dated 2/13/10:

2006 World Cup Interview:

VIA: TYLERPERRY.COM

Tyler Perry is by all means, a Renaissance man.  He’s an actor, director, screenwriter, producer and author.  He is a true American success story.

Tyler Perry’s inspirational journey from the hard streets of New Orleans to the heights of Hollywood’s A-list is the stuff of American legend.  Born into poverty and raised in a household scarred by abuse, Tyler fought from a young age to find the strength, faith and perseverance that would later form the foundations of his much-acclaimed plays, films, books and shows.It was a simple piece of advice from Oprah Winfrey that set Tyler’s career in motion.

Encouraged to keep a diary of his daily thoughts and experiences, Tyler began writing a series of soul-searching letters to himself-letters full of pain, forgiveness, and, in time, a healing catharsis.  The letters inspired a musical, I KNOW I’VE BEEN CHANGED, and in 1992 Tyler gathered his life’s savings and set off for Atlanta in hopes of staging it for sold out crowds.  He spent all the money but the people never came, and Tyler once again came face to face with the poverty that had plagued his youth.  He spent months sleeping in seedy motels and his car but his faith-in God and, in turn, himself-only got stronger.  He forged a powerful relationship with the church, and he kept writing.

In 1998 his perseverance paid off and a promoter booked I KNOW I’VE BEEN CHANGED for a limited run at a local church-turned-theatre.  This time the community came out in droves, and soon the musical moved to Atlanta’s prestigious Fox Theatre.  Tyler Perry never looked back.I KNOW I’VE BEEN CHANGED was a poignant story of failure and redemption, and it resounded with urban audiences who identified with its themes and exalted in its spirit.  In Tyler they’d found a voice for their longings, and an outlet for their entertainment, and so began an incredible run of eight plays in as many years, including WOMAN THOU ART LOOSED!, a celebrated collaboration with the prominent Dallas pastor T.D. Jakes.

But if audiences were buoyed by Tyler’s faith, they were bowled over by his humor.  No way around it: the man was plain funny.  Nowhere was this more in evidence than in 2000′s I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF, which marked the first appearance of the now-legendary Madea.  A God-fearing, gun-toting, pot-smoking, loud-mouthed grandmother, Madea was played by Perry himself.  Madea was such a resounding success, she soon spawned a series of plays-MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION (2002), MADEA’S CLASS REUNION (2003) and MADEA GOES TO JAIL (2005)- and set the stage for Tyler’s jump to the big screen.

In early 2005, Tyler’s first feature film, DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN, debuted at #1 nationwide.  By the end of its first weekend in theatres, two things had happened: the film had earned $22 million, and Tyler Perry-writer, actor, and producer-had become a superstar.  Tyler’s ensuing films, MADEA’S FAMILY REUNION, DADDY LITTLE GIRLS, WHY DID I GET MARRIED?, MEET THE BROWNS, and THE FAMILY THAT PREYS have all met with massive critical and commercial success, delighting audiences across America and around the world.  His most recent film, MADEA GOES TO JAIL, spent two weeks at the top of the box office and ultimately went on to gross more than $90 million.2006 saw the publication of Tyler’s first book, DON’T MAKE A BLACK WOMAN TAKE OFF HER EARRINGS: MADEA’S UNINHIBITED COMMENTARIES ON LIFE AND LOVE, which shot to the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and remained there for eight weeks.  It went on to claim Quill Book Awards for both “Humor” and “Book of the Year” (an unheard-of feat for a first-time author), and spread Tyler Perry’s unique brand of inspirational entertainment to a devoted new audience.   It is a brand that is quickly becoming an empire.

Read Tyler’s entire bio and more at TylerPerry.com.

Enjoy this interview with Tyler as he speaks with CBN about his rise to fame, relationships and marriage.

VIA:  TheGrio.Com

The Hysterectomy is one of the most invasive procedures in the medical practice, and Tony Hansberry  has invented  a device that will do the post surgery stitching with minimal chances of complications or harm.  Sounds like something a seasoned physician developed, but it’s actually something a 15-year-old high school student named Tony Hansberry invented. People in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida are calling him the “next Charles Drew.”

Hansberry is a student at Darnell Cookman School of Medical Arts, referred to as the first medical magnet school in the country with an integrated medical curriculum. He came under the tutelage of Bruce Nappi, the director of the University of Florida’s Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research (CSESaR) in the summer of 2008. From his experience there, he developed a project that showed how to reduce surgical time for hysterectomies. It only won him second prize in his school’s science fair, but it caught the attention of University of Florida physicians who invited him to present his project alongside theirs during a medical education event.

Click here to read more on this extraordinary student…

HOUSTON, Feb 09, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) –Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr., the first African American to walk in space, and ExxonMobil announced today that more than 1,500 middle school students will participate in free science camps this summer.

The ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camps will be hosted in 30 universities across the country. The announcement came on the 15th anniversary of Dr. Harris’ historic space walk on Feb. 9, 1995 while aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.

“Much in my life has changed since that historic day, but one constant is my passion to make a difference with today’s students, especially kids who have similar backgrounds to mine,” Harris said. “This year’s summer science camps will give students a chance to learn about mathematics and science, more about themselves and about life on a college campus. Most importantly, campers learn that they have the power to achieve their dreams whatever they may be.”

Click here to read more…

Click here for more information on the Science Summer Camps…

Check out this video of the shuttle launch that Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. was on:

The Spisak Precedent

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case Stuck in Limbo

By DAVE LINDORFF

The recent decision by the US Supreme Court to send convicted police killer Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case back down to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, with instructions for a three-judge panel there to reconsider its decision to uphold the lifting of the prominent African-American journalist’s death penalty, is only the latest in a long string of examples of how courts at all levels have made special exceptions to precedent in order to try and kill this particular prisoner.

The high court found on January 19, that Frank Spisak, a self-described Nazi and killer of three in Ohio, had been properly sentenced, because at the time the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed his death penalty on appeal, “settled law” was that the jury instructions given to his jury had been proper. And under the terms of the 1995 Effective Death Penalty Act, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have to defer to the judgements of state courts unless those courts’ decisions are deemed “unreasonable.”

Story compliments of: Counterpunch.org

read more here

VIA:  TheHuffingtonPost.Com

26 year old Joshua Dubois has definitely made a name for himself.  Dubois has recently been appointed to the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by President Obama.  See this video from the Prayer Breakfast where President Obama made is announcement:

Dozens of the top leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) and liberation struggle stalwarts marched out of the gates of Victor Verster prison, since renamed the Drakenstein Correctional Centre, this morning in an emotional re-enactment of Mr Mandela’s now-iconic march, widely seen as signalling the end of apartheid.

Now a frail 91-year-old, Mr Mandela himself did not attend the celebrations, although a huge bronze statue of him marching from jail, fist pumping the air, formed a fitting backdrop for the ANC figures to address the faithful.

Mr Mandela will however participate at the official opening later today.

Many among the crowd of several thousand ANC supporters were disappointed, however, at the non-appearance of the two most senior figures expected – President Jacob Zuma and Winnie Madikizela Mandela, who had not still arrived by midday.

The ANC, which has stage-managed nationwide events of commemoration, said Mr Zuma – who is at the centre of a political firestorm sparked by his polygamy and fathering of children out of wedlock – will address a rally on a nearby rugby field later in the day.

story compliments of  Times Online UK / Commondreams.org

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