Remembering Medgar Evers - d. June 12, 1963

On this date 49 years ago, Medgar Evers was murdered in Mississippi. He was very active in the Civil Rights movement and was the NAACP Field Officer in Mississippi.

I am an active Life Member of the NAACP and despite rumors to the contrary this group is still very active in the United States. Please take a few minutes to read about Medgar Evers and understand why he was so important to this country and why it is still important that we still be vigilant about matters of injustice that happen every day.

MEDGAR EVERS

Medgar Evers was a native of Decatur, Mississippi, attending school there until being inducted into the U.S. Army in 1943. Despite fighting for his country at the Battle of Normandy, he soon found that his skin color gave him no freedom when he and five friends were forced away at gunpoint from voting in a local election. Despite his resentment over such treatment, Medgar enrolled at Alcorn State University, majoring in business administration. While at the school, he stayed busy by competing on the school's football and track teams, also competing on the debate team, performing in the school choir and serving as president of the junior class.

Involvement in the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a civil rights and pro self-help organization, gave him crucial training in activism. He helped to organize the boycott of service stations that denied blacks use of their restrooms. The boycotters distributed bumper stickers with the slogan "Don't Buy Gas Where You Can't Use the Restroom."

Medgar applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954. When his application was rejected, he became the focus of an NAACP campaign to desegregate the school; in December of that year he became the NAACP's first field officer in Mississippi.
After moving to Jackson, he was involved in a boycott campaign against white merchants and was instrumental in eventually desegregating the University of Mississippi when that institution was finally forced to enroll James Meredith in 1962.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Medgar found himself the target of a number of threats. He held public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till, and a local television station granted him time for a short speech, his first in Mississippi, where he outlined the goals of the Jackson movement. Following the speech, threats on his life increased.

On June 12, 1963, he pulled into his driveway after returning from an integration meeting where he had conferred with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP

T-shirts that stated, "Jim Crow Must Go", Megar was struck in the back with a bullet that ricocheted into his home. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing, dying at the local hospital 50 minutes later. He was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights.

Mourned nationally, Medgar was buried on June 19 in Arlington National Cemetery and received full military honors in front of a crowd of more than 3,000 people, the largest funeral at Arlington since John Foster Dulles. The past chairman of the American Veterans Committee, Mickey Levine, said at the services, "No soldier in this field has fought more courageously, more heroically than Medgar Evers."

On June 23 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a fertilizer salesman and member of the White Citizens' Council and Ku Klux Klan, was arrested for Medgar’s murder.

All-white juries twice that year deadlocked on De La Beckwith's guilt, allowing him to escape justice. Matthew Jones and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Freedom Singers paid tribute to Evers in the haunting "Ballad of Medgar Evers."

Evers' legacy has been kept alive in a variety of ways. In 1970, Medgar Evers College was established in Brooklyn, NY as part of the City University of New York. In 1983, a made-for-television movie, For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story starring Howard Rollins, Jr. was aired, celebrating the life and career of Medgar Evers, and on June 28, 1992, he was immortalized in Jackson with a statue.

In 1994, thirty years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict, Beckwith was again brought to trial based on new evidence concerning statements he made to others. During the trial, the body of Evers was exhumed from his grave for autopsy, and found to be in a surprisingly excellent state of preservation as a result of embalming. Beckwith was convicted on February 5, 1994, after living as a free man for three decades after the murder. Beckwith appealed unsuccessfully, and died in prison in January of 2001.

Before his body was reburied, owing to his excellent state of preservation, a new funeral was staged for Evers. This permitted his children, who were toddlers when he was assassinated and had very little memory of him, to have a chance to see him. The 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi tells the story of the 1994 trial, in which a District Attorney's office prosecutor, Robert Delaughter, successfully retried the case, and won.

Happy Mother's Day to You

Wishing all mothers a very happy Mother's Day!

Mothers

'In this world there are few people

who are really special.

They go around caring for others

before themselves.

They have a smile on their face

and love in their hearts for everyone.

They ask nothing in return.

I see all of this and more in you.'

Author Unknown

Thinking of you on this special day and I pray that you

will be honored by those who love you.

Poet - Maya Angelou - 'Still I Rise'

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Maya Angelou

*****

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She grew up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas. She is an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist.

She is best known for her autobiographical books: All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986), The Heart of a Woman (1981), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), Gather Together in My Name (1974), and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), which was nominated for the National Book Award.

In 1959, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1961 to 1962 she was associate editor of The Arab Observer in Cairo, Egypt, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East, and from 1964 to 1966 she was feature editor of the African Review in Accra, Ghana.

She returned to the U.S. in 1974 and was appointed by Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Commission and later by Jimmy Carter to the Commission for International Woman of the Year. She accepted a lifetime appointment in 1981 as Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

In 1993, Angelou wrote and delivered a poem, "On The Pulse of the Morning," at the inauguration for President Bill Clinton at his request.

The first black woman director in Hollywood, Angelou has written, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries "Three Way Choice." She has also written and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Maya Angelou was twice nominated for a Tony award for acting: once for her Broadway debut in Look Away (1973), and again for her performance in Roots (1977).

Poet - John Lennon - 'Imagine"

IMAGINE

by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven


It's easy if you try


No hell below us


Above us only sky


Imagine all the people


Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries




It isn't hard to do


Nothing to kill or die for


And no religion too


Imagine all the people


Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer


But I'm not the only one


I hope someday you'll join us


And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions


I wonder if you can


No need for greed or hunger


A brotherhood of man


Imagine all the people


Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer


But I'm not the only one


I hope someday you'll join us




And the world will live as one.

*****

Born John Winston Lennon born 9 October 1940 in Liverpool, England. He was an English rock musician, singer, and songwriter, artist and peace activist, who gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles. John Lennon along with Paul McCartney formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history. He played guitar, piano, bass and the harmonica. John was controversial through his work as a peace activist and artist.

After The Beatles, Lennon enjoyed a successful solo career with such acclaimed albums as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". After a self-imposed "retirement" from 1976 to 1980, John reemerged with a comeback album, Double Fantasy, which would win the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Less than one month after the release of the album, John Lennon was murdered in New York City on 8 December 1980. He was 40 years old.

He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994

*****

Whenever I read the words to 'Imagine' or hear it on the radio I find

myself singing at the top of my lungs - how about you? :-)

Martin Luther King Jr. - Assassinated April 4, 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929 – April 4, l968

Place of birth: Atlanta, Georgia. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father also served, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor.

While in college in Boston he met and married Coretta Scott. Two sons and two daughters were born.

Movement: African-American Civil Rights Movement and Peace movement.

Major organizations: President of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 1957

Notable prizes: Nobel Peace Prize (1964)

Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977, posthumous)

Congressional Gold Medal (2004, posthumous)

Alma mater: Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary,Boston University

Religion: Baptist

Influences: Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Benjamin Mays, Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Bayard Rustin, Henry David Thoreau, Howard Thurman, Leo Tolstoy.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. 


At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.


Dr. King's April 4, 1967 speech "A Time to Break Silence: Declaration of Independence from the Vietnam War" was profound and a stark warning against endless war.
He said “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. .... 
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." (MLK, April 4, 1967)

The speech was delivered in the Riverside Church in New York City, to the clergy and laymen concerned about Viet Nam.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room
in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. He was killed exactly one year to the day after his greatest speech – against the War on Viet Nam. (in case one misses the symbolism)

The King family publicly stated that the federal government killed Dr. King and that James Earl Ray was just a patsy who was framed (Dexter King even met with Ray in his prison and they sought, without success, to get Ray the trial he never had).
In December 1999, after Ray's death in prison, the King family won a federal lawsuit against some of the perpetrators of the assassination. The jury found that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the victim of a murder conspiracy - not a lone gunman. This astounding jury verdict is rarely mentioned by the media. The facts are fairly straightforward, confirmed by a federal jury verdict and endorsed by the King family.

The best way to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy is to work for a world beyond militarism, for non-violence and economic justice.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 Speech Against War and Injustice - Timely Today. You can find complete copies of the speech on line, also on youtube. Please take the time to view them. You will see that if you change the words Viet Nam to Iraq and Afghanistan, the speech could be relevant today.

Today marks the 44th anniversary of his assassination.

They slew the dreamer - long live the dream.

Women's History Month - Peace Pilgrim

Peace Pilgrim

(July 18, 1908 – July 7, 1981)

Mildred Lisette Norman, was a U.S. pacifist, vegetarian, and peace activist. In 1952, she became the first woman to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one season. Starting on January 1, 1953. In Pasadena, California, she adopted the name "Peace Pilgrim" and walked across the United States for 28 years.

A transcript of a 1964 conversation with Peace Pilgrim from a broadcast on KPFK radio in Los Angeles, California, was published as "Steps Toward Inner Peace". She stopped counting miles in that year, having walked more than 40,000 km (25,000 miles) for peace.

Mildred Norman was born on a poultry farm in Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, in 1908, the oldest of three children. Her mother, Josephine Marie Ranch, was a tailor, and her father, Ernest Norman, a carpenter. Although poor, the family were well-thought-of in a community of German immigrants, whose relatives originally settled the area after escaping Germany in 1855.

In 1933 she eloped with Stanley Ryder and moved to Philadelphia in 1939. They divorced in 1946.

Her pilgrimage spanned almost three decades beginning January 1, 1953, in Pasadena, California. The Korean War was in progress. She continued walking for 28 years, spanning the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and beyond. Peace Pilgrim was a frequent speaker at churches, universities, and local and national radio and television.

Expressing her ideas about peace, she referred to herself only as "Peace Pilgrim." Peace Pilgrim's only possessions were the clothes on her back and the few items she carried in the pockets of her blue tunic which read "Peace Pilgrim" on the front and "25,000 Miles on foot for peace" on the back.

She had no organizational backing, carried no money, and would not even ask for food or shelter. When she began her pilgrimage she had taken a vow to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food."

Peace Pilgrim was a strict vegetarian and did not use fur, feathers, leather or bone. Peace Pilgrim was an early advocate for tolerance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. She did not believe in discrimination against any human being.

She was awarded the ‘Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award’ -1992

“In order for the world to become peaceful, people must become more peaceful. Among mature people war would not be a problem - it would be impossible. In their immaturity people want, at the same time, peace and the things which make war. However, people can mature just as children grow up. Yes, our institutions and our leaders reflect our immaturity, but as we mature we will elect better leaders and set up better institutions. It always comes back to the thing so many of us wish to avoid: working to improve ourselves.”-Peace Pilgrim

On July 7, 1981, while being driven to a speaking engagement near Knox, Indiana, Peace Pilgrim was killed in an automobile accident. At the time of her death, she was crossing the United States for the seventh time.

After her death, she was cremated, and her ashes were interred in a family plot near Egg Harbor City, New Jersey.

*****

Friends of Peace Pilgrim

Friends of Peace Pilgrim is an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to making information about the life and message of Peace Pilgrim available freely to all who ask. Since 1983 they have published and distributed over 400,000 copies of the book, Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words, and over one and a half million copies of the booklet, Steps Toward Inner Peace. Books and booklets have been sent to over 100 countries. The book has been translated into twelve languages and the booklet into over 20 languages.

*****

I have been an admirer of this woman for many years. I keep a copy of her life and quotations on my coffee table for quick reference. Her only possessions were a comb, a toothbrush, a small notebook and a pencil, all of which she kept in the pockets of the tunic which she wore at all times. I often look around my home and imagine how liberating that would be to reduce my possessions to just basic needs. I have tried to down-size and I do lead a relatively simple lifestyle but I admire Peace Pilgrim for being so dedicated to the peace effort as to spend her every waking moment as an advocate for peace. I never met her but I have read accounts of people who were inspired just by being in her presence.

She led a quiet, gentle lifestyle, while having the courage to stand up for her convictions. My kind of person!

peacesojourner

Women's History Month - Eleanor Roosevelt

Women's History Month

Eleanor Roosevelt

ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
- 1884 - 1963

A shy, awkward child, starved for recognition and love, Eleanor Roosevelt grew into a woman with great sensitivity to the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nations. Her constant work to improve their lot made her one of the most loved women of her generation.

She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of lovely Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore. Eleanor was eight when her mother died in 1892, the children went to live with Grandmother Hall; her adored father died only two years later. Attending a distinguished school in England gave her, at 15, her first chance to develop self-confidence among other girls.

Six feet tall, slender, graceful of figure but apprehensive at the thought of being a wallflower, she returned for a debut that she dreaded. In her circle of friends was a distant cousin, handsome young Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She was 19 when they became engaged in 1903 and they were married in 1905. Within eleven years Eleanor bore six children; one son died in infancy.

Franklin served in the NY state Senate from 1910 to 1913 and Eleanor started her long career as political helpmate. When he was stricken with poliomyelitis in 1921, she tended him devotedly. From his successful campaign for governor in 1928 to the day of his death, she dedicated her life to his purposes. She became eyes and ears for him, a trusted and tireless reporter.

FDR and Mrs. Roosevelt came to the White House in 1933, and she understood social conditions better than any of her predecessors. She transformed the role of First Lady accordingly. She broke precedent to hold press conferences, travel to all parts of the country, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and express her opinions candidly in a daily syndicated newspaper column, "My Day."

In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused permission for African American contralto, Marian Anderson to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall. With the aid of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Ms. Anderson performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday, 1939 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. ER as usual stood up for civil rights and in protest wrote a letter of resignation. (see above)

Another example of her willingness to make change was during WWII, when due to racial discrimination, African American servicemen were not allowed to learn to fly until 1941, when African American college graduates were selected for what the Army called "an experiment" they were assigned to an airfield adjacent to Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. The experiment involved training black pilots and ground support members. The squadron, quickly dubbed the Tuskegee Airmen, was activated on March 22, 1941.
However, no-one would fly with an African American pilot. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited Tuskegee Army Air Field in 1941, she insisted on taking a ride in an airplane with a black pilot at the controls. ER's pilot was Charles Anderson. She then insisted that her flight with Anderson be photographed. Eleanor used this photograph as part of her campaign to convince FDR to activate the participation of the Tuskegee Airmen in North Africa and in the European Theater.
In June 1943, the Tuskegee Airmen entered into combat over North Africa. When the war ended, the Tuskegee Airmen returned home with one hundred and fifty Distinguished Flying Crosses, its success would contribute to the eventual integration of the United States military.

Eleanor was First Lady for 12 years. An outspoken advocate of social justice, she became a moral force during the Roosevelt administration, using her position as First Lady to promote social causes. As a nationally syndicated columnist, popular lecturer, author, party leader, and social activist, ER assured her friends that "my voice will not be silent. ER dedicated her unstinting energy to "winning the peace."

FDR died in 1945 and within a year she began her service as American spokesperson in the United Nations. She became the champion of human rights — dignity, security, respect for all people; and diplomatic justice between nations. Eleanor Roosevelt’s life was dedicated to the eradication of poverty, racism, war and despair.

*****

I have always admired Eleanor Roosevelt, especially her willingness to stand up for others. I am also encouraged to know that a letter written in protest could still be talked about 73 years later. It takes courage to make change in the world and Eleanor Roosevelt is an excellent example of that.

peacesojourner

Women's History Month - March 2012

Women's History Month -March 2012

The public celebration of women's history in this country began in 1978 as "Women's History Week" in Sonoma County, California. The week including March 8, International Women's Day, was selected.

In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women's History Month.

Test Your Knowledge of Women's History

1. Who founded Bethune-Cookman College, established the National Council of Negro Women, and served as an advisor on minority affairs to President Franklin D. Roosevelt?

2. What woman was the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

3. What Black woman refused to give up her seat to a White man, in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, thus sparking the civil rights movement of the following decade?

4. Who was the first woman to run for President of the United States (1872)?

5. Who opened up social work as a profession for women, and also won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize for her anti-war organizing work?

6. Which Mexican-American woman has repeatedly been the leading money winner in the Ladies Professional Golf Association?

7. Who was the first woman Poet Laureate of the United States?

8. Who was the first “First Lady” to have developed her own political and media identity?

9. Who wrote the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1923?

10. Who was the first Black woman elected to Congress?

11. What leading suffragist was arrested and convicted of attempting to vote in the 1872 election?

12. Who was the first Chinese-American woman ever elected to hold a statewide office in the United States?

13. What journalist traveled around the world in 72 days in 1890?

14. What woman was turned down by 29 medical schools before being accepted as a student, graduated at the head of her class, and became the first licensed woman doctor in the U.S.?

15. What former slave was a powerful speaker for the rights of women and Black people?

16. When was the Equal Rights Amendment first introduced into Congress?

17. Who was the last queen of the Hawaiian Islands, deposed because American business interests wanted to annex Hawaii to the U.S.?

18. Which woman was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding religious discussion meetings in her home?

19. Who spoke out for the advancement of American Indians’ rights from speaker’s platforms nationwide and before Congressional committees in the 1880s?

20. Who drove a stagecoach across the roughest part of the West without anyone knowing until she died that she was a woman?

21. Who was the first Hispanic woman to serve as U.S. Treasurer?

22. Who was the Shoshone Indian woman who served as guide and interpreter on the Lewis and Clark expedition?

23. Who was Chair of the Board and publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine, and also oversaw six broadcasting stations?

24. About 20,000 women shirtwaist workers staged a strike for better working conditions. Their action was called the “Uprising of the 20,000.” When and where did this strike occur?

25. When did officials of Little League Baseball announce that they would “defer to the changing social climate” and let girls play on their teams?

26. As vice president of the United Farm Workers, what woman has been vital in speaking for civil and economic rights for farm workers throughout the U.S.?

27. When did Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 go into effect, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded school programs and activities?

28. What woman was invited to teach nuclear physics at Princeton University, even though no female students were allowed to study there?

29. What woman served as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, freeing hundreds of southern slaves and leading them to safety in the North? A $40,000 reward was offered for her capture.

30. What woman is credited with helping free more than 2,000 Chinese women and children smuggled into San Francisco to be sold as slaves?

31. Who was the first African-American woman poet to have her works published?

*****

1. Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955)
2. Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
3. Rosa Parks (b. 1920)

4. Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927)

5. Jane Addams (1860-1935)
6. Nancy Lopez (b. 1957)
7. Rita Dove (b. 1952)
8. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
9. Alice Paul (1885-1977)
10. Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
11. Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)
12. March Fong Eu (b. 1929)
13. Nellie Bly (1867-1922), real name Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman
14. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
15. Sojourner Truth (C. 1797-1883)
16. 1923
17. Queen Liliuokalani (1838-1917)
18. Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643)
19. Sarah Winnemucca (1844-1891)
20. Charlie Parkhurst
21. Romana Bañuelos (b. 1925)
22. Sacajawea (c. 1786-1812)
23. Katherine Graham (b. 1917-2001)
24.1909, New York City
25. 1974
26. Dolores Huerta (b. 1930)
27. 1976
28. Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997)
29. Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913)
30. Donaldina Cameron (1869-1968)
31. Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)

(Questions provided by National Women's History Project)

African American History - Remembering Gordon Parks

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchannan Parks: Born November 30, 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas.

He was stillborn -- no heartbeat, declared dead by the family doctor, and put aside for later burial. Another doctor in the delivery room had an idea, and immersed the newborn in ice-cold water. The shock caused his heart to start beating, and the baby was soon crying and healthy, and named for Dr. Gordon, who had saved his life. In the more than ninety years of his life, Gordon Parks became internationally renowned as a Photographer, Writer, Musician, Poet, Journalist, Motion Picture Director and Composer.

Parks grew up poor in Fort Scott, Kansas, and the youngest of 15 children. One of his early memories was hearing his all-black class told by their white schoolteacher, "You'll all wind up porters and maids." Following the death of his mother when he was 15, he left Kansas for Minnesota. Between bouts of homelessness, he earned rent as a piano player in a bordello. He also worked as a busboy, a Civilian Conservation Corpsman, and as his teacher had predicted, as a porter and later waiter on the transcontinental North Coast Limited.

In 1941, Parks met Ella Watson, a government cleaning woman, who became one of his most important subjects. His best-known photograph of Watson is American Gothic, 1942, today an icon of American culture. It shows a dignified woman posed like the farmer in Grant Wood’s 1930 composition, holding a broom and mop in place of the farmer’s pitchfork. Behind her hangs the American flag.

At 25, he bought a used camera for $7.50 and began working as a self-taught freelance photographer, focusing on everything from fashion to the effects the depression in Chicago's slums.

Parks chose to fight the poverty and racism of his past, selecting a camera as his principal “weapon.”

Parks was a close friend of Muhammad Ali, and godfather for Malcolm X's daughter Quibilah Shabazz. He was a co-founder of Essence magazine, and wrote a ballet called Martin, in honor of King.

By 1944, he was the only black photographer working for Vogue, and in 1948 he became the first black photographer at Life, the most prestigious magazine of its day for photography. Eventually Life sent him to France, Italy, and Spain, and stateside he became known for his photos documenting the civil rights movement.

He reported on segregation in Alabama in 1956, the growing Nation of Islam movement in the 1960s, and the assassination of Martin Luther King. In his spare time, he also directed a few low-budget films.

His art was about social issues such as poverty, race, segregation and crime. It also enhanced our understanding of beauty, nature, childhood, music, fashion and memory.

His autobiographical first novel, The Learning Tree (1963), and his subsequent autobiographies demonstrate that he had learned to value his parents' hard work, compassion, integrity, and capacity for hope as well as to fear the brutality and perversity of personal and institutionalized racism.

He attended and took photos at the Civil Rights March on Washington, 1963.

He died on March 7, 2006 (aged 93) in New York City.

*****

I have always admired the works of Gordon Parks who recorded an accurate documentation in his writings, and black and white photography, which allows future generations to understand the truth about life and the history of the United States during his personal lifetime.

peacesojourner

all photos by Gordon Parks