So What?

We have reached the end of the series on African Americans who have made a difference. I have tried to focus on lesser known individuals (which may simply demonstrate my ignorance). I started out just wanting to share the beautiful and inspiring poetry of Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. But it seemed to me that I could use a history lesson myself. The people that I featured used the talents that they had to make a better America, not just for people of color but for all Americans. Racial equality is human equality. The civil rights movement of African Americans spread to women’s rights, inspired the Japanese American community to seek redress for internment camps, and continues today as people of the gay/lesbian/transgender community seek to live with full rights. Even the people who didn’t start out to be role models of civil rights ended up as such solely by struggling against a system that didn’t value their contributions based on their race.

It’s interesting to look at the various choices people made to work within the system and to work outside of the system to effect change. Norman Mineta, former Heart Mountain internee, Congressman, and Secretary of Transportation, tells a story about being a teenager after the war in his hometown of San Jose. There was a Japanese American businessman who would take promising young men with him to community meetings. This man impressed on Mineta the importance of getting into the system because that is where real change could be wrought. Mineta took this to heart and made a career of making a difference from within the system. John Lewis has done this. Shirley Chisholm did this. Others have worked hard to effect change pushing from the outside. In my opinion, both approaches have merit and in fact are needed. And when we look at an issue such as desegregating the military, it’s obvious that it happened because enough people were in enough places at the right time. Mary McCloud Bethune promoted CPTP at Tuskeegee so that trained pilots existed when the NAACP, A. Philip Randolph, and others convinced Congress to create a segregated aviation unit. And how many people that I’ve featured had a hand in the 1963 March in Washington?

As we leave February behind, we know that I have only scratched the surface. There are more noteworthy and fascinating people that I could profile in a year or ten. But since I’ve spent a lot of time on the people who brought us the 1963 march, I would be remiss if I didn’t close with what we remember the most from that day, the immortal words of Dr. King. I hope you will join with me in continuing his work toward the dream. Its fulfillment requires the work of all of us, in our everyday lives.

Let us ask ourselves what Dr. King’s dream means in our lives and the lives of our children.

What can we do today?

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

Hair

As promised, as we are getting near the end of the WideBlueWorld ode to the African part of our American-ness, I can’t resist a post on hair. I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated by hair except that I think I have the world’s most boring hair. Yes, I know, I’m lucky I have some. Anyway, I think this is another one of those things that I don’t know enough about, only enough to know that I don’t know. So let’s talk about black hair.

At some point I formed the opinion that black women struggled with the onus of difficult hair. I was properly put in my place by my colleague Tivona who went on a bit of a (beautiful) rant in our training program about the great diversity of options to people with said hair. Tivona is highly qualified to speak on this subject as she has some of the most beautiful dreadlocks I’ve ever seen and she does all kinds of fun things with them. She rattled off a long list of all the different styles and treatment methods available to her as a woman of African descent. I was duly impressed. Further conversations with fellow volunteer Shaneka have instructed me further on the difference between natural hair and hair that is chemically straightened. I’ve also learned a little bit about ‘fro maintenance and braiding.

But I’m not here to give you a lesson because there are a million websites that could do a better job. Instead, today, on our penultimate day of African American History Month, let’s simply enjoy a short sampling of Tivona’s list of hair styles. Yes, it’s heavy on the dreadlocks. Can’t help myself—they look so smart.

Lauren Hill and her pile of Grammy awards

Lenny Kravitz

My favorite hair, Malcolm Gladwell

The Pinkett-Smiths

Remember Don King and his hair?

Oooh, and Patty Labelle, 80s style

Actor Vondie Curtis-Hall

Whoopi Goldberg

Alice Walker

Two great women who need no introduction and no advice on how to do their hair: beautiful, talented, smart, honorable women...exceptional role models.

And finally because this is so fun, Bobby McFerrin is looking great in his locks.
Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music | Video on TED.com

A. Philip Randolph

A. Philip Randolph was a prominent civil rights and labor leader, best known for founding the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a groundbreaking union for African Americans. The Pullman Company, to its credit, hired blacks at a time when many others wouldn’t. The treatment, however, was far from fair. With the union, the porters gained a pay raise, a shorter work-week, and overtime pay.

Randolph was born in 1889 in Florida. Coming from a family that valued education highly, he attended the Cookman Institute (which later merged with Bethune’s school) and graduated valedictorian. He had an interest in acting but gave that up and became a union organizer. His approach to civil rights was to demand fairness in employment. In addition to the porters, he helped organize elevator operators and shipyard and dock workers.

During World War II, Randolph campaigned to get the military desegregated. Finally, in 1947, he and his colleagues succeeded. Then in the 50s, he helped found the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition that coordinated campaigns for civil rights legislation (and still does today). And Randolph was a contributor to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (I have to say, if I could pick one day and place to go back and visit, this would be a good one.)

A. Philip Randolph always saw jobs and money as being the passports to human rights. He knew that a good weekly paycheck had to be won first. Then, after the children were fed, a better fight could be waged for dignity and self-pride. On September 14, 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson presented Randolph with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Randolph with Eleanor Roosevelt, just another example of this amazing woman being on the right side of history.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

Morrison was born in Georgia in 1931 and grew up listening to African American folktales, while also reading classic literature. Later, with a Masters in English, she taught, became an editor, and started writing. While teaching at Howard University, Morrison developed a story about a little black girl who longed to have blue eyes. This became her first novel The Blues Eye.

The stories of Toni Morrison's novels are the stories of what it means to a person of African descent in America. She weaves together history, family, a deep well of imagination, and the infinite shades of gray between black and white. It is worth listing all of here work: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love, and A Mercy. I have not read them all, but I haven't read one that hasn't moved me. Part of her citation for the Nobel read, (Morrison) "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."

Morrison retired from teaching a few years ago, but continues to write and be involved in art and literature projects. And I should have posted this a week ago, as she turned 80 last Friday. Happy Birthday to a national treasure.

The Black Panthers

I don't really know a lot about the Black Panther Party. But I think I know enough to know that I don't know much. And I'll tell you why. The Black Panthers was a group that came out of civil rights movement. It was made up by people who believed the tactics of nonviolence had been exhausted and were not working. Stokely Carmichael, then with SNCC, was one of the critics of Dr. King and his movement of nonviolence and used liberally the term "Black Power." Many agree that the Panthers started in Oakland with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, but others claim it started in the south. It does seem that the Panther movement was more urban whereas the nonviolent movement of Dr. King is thought of as being southern.

The Black Panthers were militant in their manner, but also sought civic equality. They created a ten point program that called for freedom for blacks, employment, decent housing and education, free healthcare, an end to police brutality and imprisonment, an end to wars of aggression (specifically the war on the oppressed people of Vietnam), and an end to the robbery of black people by the government and capitalists. They were influenced by communism and socialism. They were reacting to the very real oppression that African Americans faced in the 1960s, and some would argue still face today. In many ways, I admire the sentiment of the Black Panthers, while deploring the violence that they sometimes espoused and while facing the reality that when Barack Obama was sworn in as President, it was John Lewis, the Tuskeegee Airmen, and other leaders of peace who sat with the President that day. I would suggest that it's not about being right, it's about being effective.

But the reason that I say I don't know much, really, about the Black Panthers is that they were the target of J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO, a program of counterintelligence using covert and often illegal tactics against the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, and other groups. Under the guise of national security, the FBI tactics included discrediting Panther members through planting false reports in the media, smearing through forged letters, harassment, wrongful imprisonment, extralegal violence and assassination. Yes, assassinations.

Fred Hampton was the chair of the Chicaco Panther Party. He had studied law and he recruited young people for the NAACP. He also brokered a landmark non-aggression pact among street gangs in Chicago. As the local leader of the Panthers, he organized rallies, worked with the party's People's Clinic, taught classes, and was instrumental in the party's Free Breakfast Program. As his leadership role increased, he was increasingly targeted by COINTELPRO. His family's phones were tapped. He was harassed with arrests for petty crimes he did not commit. The FBI planted a man with a long criminal record in the Panther Party. False reports from this man led to an FBI raid of Hampton's apartment. The informant drugged the dinner he made that night, and as Hampton, family, and friends were passed out, the FBI raided the apartment and shot Hampton.

It was 1969. Urban America was burning. How much were the Panthers to blame, how much was the FBI to blame? I can't say because I have been much more exposed to the FBI propaganda campaign than to reliable information about the Black Panthers. I've actually done a lot more research about COINTELPRO and the American Indian Movement. I did just watch a very thoughtful movie on the subject, Night Catches Us. At one point in the movie, a character is looking at a comic book about the Black Panthers. Another character says, "You know that's FBI propaganda. No Panther made that book." I've also read of cartoons in newspapers that the FBI created to bias whites against Panthers.

So what I know is that it is a very complicated issue and I did not live in a world where I was constantly subjected to police brutality, vicious discrimination, and an utter lack of opportunity. It is easy to sit here, 40 years later, and see the more effective course of action. It's a little harder to cast judgment on people who stood up to injustice and fought back the best way they knew how.

And it's impossible to deny that this is part of our history, black and white.

Julie Dash and the Gullah

Julie Dash is a filmmaker and story teller. She started out her film career in the 1970s making documentaries. But she says she stopped making documentaries after discovering the literature of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and others. She realized she wanted to see powerful stories of African American women on the screen, so she turned to dramatic work.

In 1991, Dash released her film Daughters of the Dust. In itself this was a small miracle, with all the rejection she received in Hollywood. The film received rave reviews, and was in fact the first nationally distributed film by an African American woman. The movie is about a family of Gullah on the day they move from their island home off the coast of Georgia to the mainland. One viewer said, "It's hard to explain. It makes you feel connected to all those before you that you never knew, to parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I'm a different person now from seeing this movie. It's a rejuvenation, a catharsis. Whatever color you are, people want to feel that sense of belonging." I remember hearing an interview with Dash at the time and she laughed and said the movie was about hair*. And that's partly true, because hair like so much is about tradition and family.

Dash's story is a lyrical and hypnotic look at one family's experience. But more, it opens the door to further exploration about Gullah culture. The Gullah people live in the lowland coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, and the nearby islands. As Americans of European descent settled these areas, they found the best, sometimes only, crop that would grow was rice. But they didn't have expertise in growing rice. Enslaved people from Sierra Leone in Africa did have this experience. A market for such people developed and the lowlands became populated nearly exclusively with people from this region of Africa. Because malarial mosquitoes kept most whites out of the lowlands, this concentration of people was able to maintain many of the religious and cultural traditions of its homeland. It is evident in arts and crafts, food, music, clothing, and most certainly in the language.

Although Dash's story takes place a century ago, Gullah tradition lives on and can be found on proud display in the Charleston, South Carolina, area. As the movie shows, at times these seem to be people at odds with America, walking a line between two cultures, never quite belonging in either. But this is also the story of every group in America, walking the line between assimilation in order to be accepted and retaining a unique culture. In the end, there are no easy answers. A talented artist like Dash doesn't pretend to offer answers. Instead she shines light on the issues. One journalist wrote of her work, "In all of Dash's films, black women belie the Hollywood stereotypes. Dash's black woman is a complex bundle of hope and regret, joy and pain, tenderness and fury, vulnerability and strength." In other words, Dash's characters are us. And we are rich with history.

*Don't worry--I won't end this series without a discussion about hair.

Granville Woods

Granville Woods was a successful inventor known for his work with trains and streetcars. He was born in 1856 in Ohio. After attending school to the age of ten, he found apprentice work learning machining and blacksmithing. He got a job on a railroad in Nebraska at the age of 16, first as a fireman (the person who fed coal to the fire and water to the boiler), then as an engineer (the driver of a steam engine—managed the boiler and controlled the speed). Later he worked in a rolling mill and on a steamship. All the while, he studied electronics and other subjects in his free time. He finally settled in Cincinnati took up his work of improving the railroads.

Woods invented a telegraph device that sent messages between moving trains and train stations. He created an apparatus which allowed a telegraph station to send voice and telegraph messages over a single wire. He patented an improvement to the steam-boiler furnace. He made important progress on overhead electrical conducting lines for railroads. And he created an automatic air brake for trains. For a list of his patents, click here.

Woods was often called the Black Thomas Edison. But perhaps we could say that Edison was the white Granville Woods. Twice Edison made a claim to one of Woods’s devices. And twice Woods successfully defended his inventions as his own. After the second defeat, Edison invited Woods to work for him at the Edison Company. Woods said no. He had plenty of business, selling is inventions to General Electric, Westinghouse, and Bell Telephone. Sadly, despite his success, false claims by Edison and others nearly bankrupted Woods. He died broke in 1910, but with a legacy of greatly helping to move this country into the 20th century.

Mary and Marian

The Educators

Mary McCloud Bethune was born in 1875, the fifteenth of seventeen children in a family former slaves in South Carolina. From an early age, working in the fields, she knew that education was her ticket up. She had a good teacher early on who helped her find scholarships and gain entry to a seminary. She wanted to be a missionary in Africa. She was denied this dream, and instead entered into education work here in the states.

She started a school for girls in Dayton, Florida, scrapping together money in all sorts of creative ways. She was influenced by Booker T. Washington to expand her appeal to wealthy white benefactors. She created a curriculum and disciplined schedule that fostered self-sufficiency as well as meeting state standards. She built her school into one of the best schools in Florida, rivaling segregated white schools.

Bethune’s passion, talent, and connections led her to create the National Council of Negro Women in 1935. She said, “It is our pledge to make a lasting contribution to all that is finest and best in America, to cherish and enrich her heritage of freedom and progress by working for the integration of all her people regardless of race, creed, or national origin, into her spiritual, social, cultural, civic, and economic life, and thus aid her to achieve the glorious destiny of a true and unfettered democracy.” Because of her activism on behalf of African Americans, the Roosevelt Administration appointed her Director of the Division of Negro Affairs. One early victory was making sure black colleges received and used funds for the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Hence those pilots from Tuskeegee were ready to go when they got the call.

Bethune became indispensable in the Roosevelt household, both as an advisor and a close personal friend of Eleanor’s. Bethune put together an informal group of African American advisors for the president, made up of the most influential leaders of the day. She continued her connection with education, overseeing the merger of her school with a local men’s school. And she instituted integrated open houses at her school to promote the accomplishments of her students and integration itself. When Thurgood Marshall and his associates successfully argued the overturn of Plessy v. Furgeson (separate but equal), Bethune wrote, “There can be no divided democracy, no class government, no half-free county, under the constitution. Therefore, there can be no discrimination, no segregation, no separation of some citizens from the rights which belong to all... We are on our way. But these are frontiers which we must conquer... We must gain full equality in education ...in the franchise... in economic opportunity, and full equality in the abundance of life.” She died the following year. One newspaper wrote of Bethune, “"In any race or nation she would have been an outstanding personality and made a noteworthy contribution because her chief attribute was her indomitable soul."

Marian Wright Edelman is a teacher, lawyer, and children’s rights advocate. Born also in South Carolina (but with fewer siblings), Edelman’s father instilled in her the value of getting an education. She attended Spelman College, received a scholarship to travel abroad, and got a law degree from Yale. She then went to Mississippi in the mid 1960s with the NAACP legal fund to register voters and work on civil rights issues. She was the first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar.

It was in Mississippi that she met her husband who was an assistant to Robert Kennedy, then touring poverty-stricken regions of the delta. Edelman moved to Washington, DC, and continued her work, especially with children’s issues. In 1973, she founded the Children’s Defense Fund which advocates for poor, minority, and disabled children. It also serves as a research center.

Edelman has also published many books on the topic of children, family, education, and human rights. She received many honorary degrees, and was the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant. She continues today to advocate for the neediest children, in that place of darkness. In a commencement address, Edelman offered six lessons for life. The final one: “Never think life is not worth living or that you can't make a difference. Never give up. I don't care how hard it gets, and it will get very hard sometimes. An old proverb says, ‘When you get to your wit's end, that's where God lives.’”

Ralph Bunche

Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1950. Although in his later years, Bunche was involved in the civil rights movement in America, believing that segregation and democracy are incompatible, his recognition came from his work with the United Nations.

Bunche was born in Detroit in 1904, but moved to Albuquerque with his family when he was ten so that his parents' ill health could benefit from the climate. Alas, they died when Bunche was still young and he moved with his grandmother to Los Angeles. There, he excelled in school and sports. He was valedictorian of his high school and his class at UCLA. He went on to earn a Masters and PhD in political science at Harvard. While studying, he also taught classes and wrote about race and class.

During WWII, Bunche worked with the Office of Strategic Services and then the State Department. He was part of a group that did preliminary planning for the United Nations. He played a large role in drafting the United Nations charter. He firmly believed in the essential goodness of all people, and that no problem in human relations was insoluble. He was uniquely qualified to fight for the principle of equal rights for everyone, regardless of race or religion.

From 1947 to 1949, Bunche was appointed to the UN Special Committee on Palestine. The fighting between Arabs and Israelis became severe and the first UN appointed mediator was assassinated. Bunche took over and led eleven months of negotiations which led to a groundbreaking armistice agreement. Bunche returned home to a heroes welcome. He received many awards and honorary degrees, including the Nobel--becoming the first person of color to receive a Nobel.

Bunche continued to work for the United Nations until 1970 and died the following year. He worked tirelessly for peace at home and abroad, but a peace that gave its full expression to all people. "May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us."

Billie Holiday

Billie Holliday was a jazz singer. I don't know if she was the first or the best in any category, but I'm a fan. Without much in the way of formal training, Holiday developed a distinctive vocal style, unique to this day (if you except the transcendent David Sedaris impression).

But what I and many others find distinctive in that voice was the unmasked pain. It came from a difficult beginning. Holiday was born in 1915 to unwed teen parents. She was raised mostly by relatives. She was in trouble early on. She was raped at age 11 and put in reform school. A few years later she entered prostitution with her mother. Fortunately, too, Holiday started singing. She was offered her first recording contract at the age of 18.

It wasn't long before Holiday was recording with Benny Goodman and touring with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. Her recordings became standards that other singers wanted to imitate. Throughout the 30s and 40s, Holiday hit big with songs like What a Little Moonlight Can Do, My Man, God Bless the Child, and Lover Man. But despite career success, Holiday's personal life was plagued with substance abuse and depression. She used different drugs and became addicted to heroin. She went to prison at one point. But following her release, she played a legendary show at Carnegie Hall. Her career was marked by the roller coaster ride of someone so talented and so self-destructive. An official fan site says that Billie Holiday died an untimely death at age 44. She died of cirrhosis of the liver.

In addition to the jazz and pop standards on which Holiday put her unique stamp, one song stands alone in the Holiday songbook as a reason to remember her life and work today. She didn't write Strange Fruit, but she made it her own. This is a song about lynching, that dirty little secret of American life in the early part of the 20th century. Lynching is a public killing. It often involved hanging, but not necessarily. It usually involved the killing of African Americans, but not necessarily. It was usually outside the law, but sometimes it was the law. Strange Fruit was Holiday's response to many forms of racism that she found in her everyday life. She took a risk early in her career to make this her signature song. For that alone, she is worth remembering.

The Tuskeegee Airmen

This is a World War II story too good to pass up. Before and during WWII, the armed forces of the United States were segregated. But even more, before 1939 there were no African Americans allowed to be military pilots. This changed when a group of civil rights leaders convinced Congress in 1939 to create a segregated unit of African American aviators. The group became known as the Tuskeegee Airmen, training and flying out of Tuskeegee Army Air Field and originally associated with the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama.

Because of a Civilian Pilot Training Program at the Tuskeegee Institute, many qualified pilots existed for the new program. It was controversial all the same, and the unit was overseen by white officers. The unit got a real boost in early 1941 when Eleanor Roosevelt (bless this lady again and again) visited for an inspection. She got a ride in a Waco biplane by the chief flight instructor, an African American called Chief Anderson. She was so impressed she arranged for a loan to purchase land for expanded training operations. And all of America got to see for themselves the talent of these pilots. (as a side note: soon after, women were successfully ferrying military aircraft of all kinds in the WAFS and WASPS)

The intricacies and strategies of war are beyond the scope of this posting, and the story of the Tuskeegee Airmen is thoroughly woven throughout the campaigns of North Africa and the Mediterranean. They were bomber escorts, flying fighters such as the P-40 and P-47. A bomber group trained in the United States but the war ended before they saw combat. Hundreds of men participated, many as pilots and others as supporting ground crews.

Throughout all of the discriminatory policies, including black officers barred from officers clubs, the Airmen endured. Their record spoke for itself. They had performed with great valor and heroism. The unit was highly decorated and had an esteemed reputation. And like the men at Port Chicago and the segregated Japanese Americans of the 442nd, the Tuskeegee Airmen provided a compelling argument for desegregating the military, which happened soon after WWII.

But the story of the Tuskeegee Airmen doesn’t end with the war. Many Airmen went on to become civilian flight instructors. Others founded professional associations. And many spoke publicly about their experiences, influencing young generations of African Americans and would-be pilots. I know this because I happen to know a drill sergeant (ret.) with a heart of gold who attended such an event as a young man and got to meet some of the Tuskeegee Airmen. He spent 21 years in the Air Force as a result.

My friend Larry Crenshaw. In real life, he's a total sweetie. Honest!

A few years ago, 300 Airmen or their widows received the Congressional Gold Medal for their service. And in 2009, 180 surviving Airmen attended the inauguration of President Obama. One of the Airmen in attendance said, “The culmination of our efforts and others' was this great prize we were given on Nov. 4 (2008). Now we feel like we've completed our mission.”

I'm sure I speak for many when I say thank you to the Tuskeegee Airmen, the women pilots, the segregated Asian American units and others who fought here at home for the right to serve.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Fannie Lou Hamer grew up poor in Mississippi, the youngest of 20 children in a sharecropper’s family. Take a moment to contemplate those two facts: 20 children, and the inherent, backbreaking inequities of sharecropping. Hamer attended six years of school before needing to drop out in order to work. She married a sharecropper as well, and spent her youthful years scratching out a living with hard, menial work.

In 1962, at the age of 44, Hamer attended a meeting put on by John Lewis’s organization, the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Hamer was born during the era of lynchings, and in 1962, the KKK still held great power in Mississippi. But curiosity led her to that meeting, and what she learned astonished her: she had the right to vote. Not long after, Hamer and a busload of neighbors tried unsuccessfully to register. She and her husband were immediately kicked off the plantation where she had lived and worked for 18 years.

Hamer was not discouraged. She became a field organizer for SNCC. She suffered arrests and horrible beatings. But she kept telling her story and raising money for the movement. In 1964, Hamer ran for Congress. She wanted to show people that a person of color could run for office. She was issuing a plea, one reporter noted, for a change in the system that exploits African Americans in the Delta. “All my life I’ve been sick and tired, “ Hamer said. “Now I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Hamer’s group, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenged the legitimacy of Mississippi’s all-white Democratic Party at the 1964 convention. Hamer told her story about trying to register in Mississippi. Her story was broadcast on television all across the nation. Her attempt to have MFDP delegates seated failed, but in 1968, the MFDP succeeded and she became the first African American since Reconstruction* to serve as an official delegate at a national-party convention.

Hamer campaigned against the war in Vietnam. She worked to promote Head Start and Dr. King’s Poor People Campaign. Hamer died in 1977 at the age of 59.

I am including the full text of Hamer’s speech to the Credentials Committee at the 1964 convention. Although we have all heard these stories before, it is worth revisiting this not-so-distant past, when our fellow citizens were treated so abhorrently. And it is worth noting how one person used the only resource she had, her own voice, to make a difference.

"Mr. Chairman, and to the Credentials Committee, my name is Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer, and I live at 626 East Lafayette Street, Ruleville, Mississippi, Sunflower County, the home of Senator James O. Eastland, and Senator Stennis.

"It was the 31st of August in 1962 that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the county courthouse in Indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens.

"We was met in Indianola by policemen, Highway Patrolmen, and they only allowed two of us in to take the literacy test at the time. After we had taken this test and started back to Ruleville, we was held up by the City Police and the State Highway Patrolmen and carried back to Indianola where the bus driver was charged that day with driving a bus the wrong color.

"After we paid the fine among us, we continued on to Ruleville, and Reverend Jeff Sunny carried me four miles in the rural area where I had worked as a timekeeper and sharecropper for eighteen years. I was met there by my children, who told me that the plantation owner was angry because I had gone down to try to register.

"After they told me, my husband came, and said the plantation owner was raising Cain because I had tried to register. Before he quit talking the plantation owner came and said, 'Fannie Lou, do you know - did Pap tell you what I said?'

"And I said, 'Yes, sir.'

"He said, 'Well I mean that.' He said, 'If you don't go down and withdraw your registration, you will have to leave.' Said, 'Then if you go down and withdraw,' said, 'you still might have to go because we are not ready for that in Mississippi.'

"And I addressed him and told him and said, 'I didn't try to register for you. I tried to register for myself.'

"I had to leave that same night.

"On the 10th of September 1962, sixteen bullets was fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Tucker for me. That same night two girls were shot in Ruleville, Mississippi. Also Mr. Joe McDonald's house was shot in.

"And June the 9th, 1963, I had attended a voter registration workshop; was returning back to Mississippi. Ten of us was traveling by the Continental Trailway bus. When we got to Winona, Mississippi, which is Montgomery County, four of the people got off to use the washroom, and two of the people - to use the restaurant - two of the people wanted to use the washroom.The four people that had gone in to use the restaurant was ordered out. During this time I was on the bus. But when I looked through the window and saw they had rushed out I got off of the bus to see what had happened. And one of the ladies said, 'It was a State Highway Patrolman and a Chief of Police ordered us out.'

"I got back on the bus and one of the persons had used the washroom got back on the bus, too. As soon as I was seated on the bus, I saw when they began to get the five people in a highway patrolman's car. I stepped off of the bus to see what was happening and somebody screamed from the car that the five workers was in and said, 'Get that one there.' When I went to get in the car, when the man told me I was under arrest, he kicked me. I was carried to the county jail and put in the booking room. They left some of the people in the booking room and began to place us in cells. I was placed in a cell with a young woman called Miss Ivesta Simpson. After I was placed in the cell I began to hear sounds of licks and screams, I could hear the sounds of licks and horrible screams. And I could hear somebody say, 'Can you say, 'yes, sir,' nigger? Can you say 'yes, sir'?'

"And they would say other horrible names.

"She would say, 'Yes, I can say 'yes, sir.''

"'So, well, say it.'

"She said, 'I don't know you well enough.'

"They beat her, I don't know how long. And after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people. And it wasn't too long before three white men came to my cell. One of these men was a State Highway Patrolman and he asked me where I was from. I told him Ruleville and he said, 'We are going to check this.'

"They left my cell and it wasn't too long before they came back. He said, 'You are from Ruleville all right,' and he used a curse word. And he said, 'We are going to make you wish you was dead.' I was carried out of that cell into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The State Highway Patrolmen ordered the first Negro to take the blackjack. The first Negro prisoner ordered me, by orders from the State Highway Patrolman, for me to lay down on a bunk bed on my face. I laid on my face and the first Negro began to beat. I was beat by the first Negro until he was exhausted. I was holding my hands behind me at that time on my left side, because I suffered from polio when I was six years old. After the first Negro had beat until he was exhausted, the State Highway Patrolman ordered the second Negro to take the blackjack. The second Negro began to beat and I began to work my feet, and the State Highway Patrolman ordered the first Negro who had beat me to sit on my feet - to keep me from working my feet. I began to scream and one white man got up and began to beat me in my head and tell me to hush. One white man - my dress had worked up high - he walked over and pulled my dress - I pulled my dress down and he pulled my dress back up.

"I was in jail when Medgar Evers was murdered.

"All of this is on account of we want to register, to become first-class citizens. And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?

"Thank you"

*"After the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood."

Thurgood Marshall

I have long known Thurgood Marshall as the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court. He was nominated for the Court by President Johnson in 1967 and served until his retirement at age 83 in 1991. But of course, Marshall was more than can be summarized by the job at the top of his resume. He came to the Supreme Court well versed in equal rights.

Marshall was born and raised in Baltimore. But when he applied to the University of Maryland for law school, he was rejected for not being white. Instead Marshall attended Howard University and graduated first in his class. In his early years of private practice, Marshall successfully sued the University of Maryland for denying an African American applicant admission to its law school simply on the basis of race. As a young lawyer, Marshall became involved with the NAACP, first as a staff lawyer and later as head of their legal office.

Throughout the 40s and 50s, Marshall distinguished himself in case after case that he successfully argued in front of the Supreme Court. He won victories for African Americans in voting, housing, and education. And his biggest victory came in 1954 when he successfully argued Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which overturned “separate but equal” under the law. Marshall argued that segregation in public education produced unequal schools for African Americans and whites. He was able to demonstrate to the court the harmful effects of segregation on the self-image, social worth, and social progress of black children. This case changed the nation and established Marshall as a powerful advocate of social change.

During Marshall’s tenure on the court, he continued to advocate for civil rights. He was a staunch opponent of the death penalty, arguing the death penalty was unconstitutional in all cases. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Constitution in 1987, Marshall said, “Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.” Marshall took seriously the role that he played in interpreting the Constitution, always with an eye on fairness for all Americans. Because in the end, separate is not equal.

Matthew Henson

Matthew Henson may have been the first American to reach the north pole. Robert Peary, the white expedition leader, originally got credit. "The Commander gave the word, 'We will plant the stars and stripes-- at the North Pole!' and it was done.... Another world's accomplishment was done and finished, and as in the past, from the beginning of history, wherever the world's work was done by a white man, he had been accompanied by a colored man," wrote Matthew Henson in his autobiography, A Black Explorer at the North Pole, originally published in 1912. And we should add, the work was also done by the four Inuit men who accompanied the Americans across the ice.

Henson was born in 1866 and orphaned young. He went to work and before long took work as a sailor. During his teenage years, Henson traveled the world. In addition to learning the ropes, as it were, he received an education from the Captain in mathematics, reading, and other subjects. When Henson returned to Washington, DC, he found work in a store.

One of the store's clients was Robert Peary who happened to be looking for a valet for an upcoming expedition to Nicaragua. Henson hired on and quickly became indispensable. Seven trips to the arctic followed for Peary and Henson. Henson stood out among members of the expeditions for his integration into Inuit society. He learned the language and how to hunt and work with dogs. He wrote later that he had become "to all intents an Esquimo, with Esquimos for companions, speaking their language, dressing in the same kind of clothes, living in the same kind of dens, eating the same food, enjoying their pleasures, and frequently sharing their griefs. I have come to love these people." In fact, he took a mistress and fathered a child (as did Perry).

Peary, Henson, and four Inuit men reached the north pole on April 6, 1909. There was controversy that day regarding where, exactly, the pole was and who reached it first. And that controversy continues today with historians and others. But regardless, Peary came home to lucrative awards and offers, and Henson came home to a struggle just to find work and survive. Toward the end of his life, Henson did receive recognition. In 1937 we was admitted as the first African American into the Explorers' Club. The Club lobbied to get Henson the recognition he deserved. Before he died, Henson was given a Presidential Citation by President Eisenhower. In 2000, The National Geographic Society posthumously awarded Henson its highest honor, the Hubbard Medal.

Alas, I find very little else to report on African American explorers. I find mention of an enslaved man who accompanied Lewis and Clark across the Louisiana Purchase. Probably other similar expeditions were similarly staffed. But I did find a story about a more current adventurer. Meet Sophia Danenberg. In 2006, she became the first African American and the first black woman to summit Mount Everest. In between climbs, she's getting a Masters in Economics, volunteering with Special Olympics, and being a delegate to the most recent Democratic National Convention.

We've come a long way, baby!

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was alive during much of the 19th century. Born a slave in New York and freed under changing state law in 1827, she dedicated her life to the abolition of slavery and the promotion of gender equality. She endured the heartbreak of parenthood under a slave system when her young son was sold illegally to someone in Alabama. Against all odds, she went to court, won her case, and got her son back. She later became a devout Christian and changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. She joined a group in Massachusetts that supported abolition, religious tolerance, and pacifism.

In 1851, Truth attended a Women's Rights Convention in Ohio. She rose and spoke to the crowd herself, in what became her most famous speech. There is controversy as to what she actually said, as no one reported on the speech immediately. The commonly accepted version was published twelve years later and claims that Truth's rallying cry was, "Ain't I a woman?" It's a great sounding speech and you can read that version here in its entirety. However, many scholars today agree that southern-flavored diction in this version could never have come out of the mouth of a woman who spent her entire life in the north, and in fact spoke Dutch the first nine years of her life. More likely, the version that follows is more accurate, and it was published just a month after she spoke.

Regardless of the words that Truth spoke that day, her passion was infectious. She traveled and spoke tirelessly throughout her life for the cause of freedom. She had many friends among the influential people of her time, and she was in fact an extremely influential person herself.

Here is the likely text from the Ohio speech that electrified the convention and established Sojourner Truth as a leader in the movement toward freedom and equality.

"May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am strong as any man that is now.

"As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and man a quart, why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we won’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

"The poor men seem to be all in confusion and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble.

"I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept—and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?

"But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard."

Shelton Johnson and the Buffalo Soldiers

Shelton Johnson is a storyteller. As a park ranger at Yosemite National Park, he is also my professional colleague so I confess up front my bias in favor of his work. He is well known in NPS ranks for his work with the story of Buffalo Soldiers, particularly the group that served as the first park rangers at Yosemite. I read that he even may be something like famous due to his role in the Ken Burns/Dayton Duncan series on our national parks.

Johnson first developed a love of nature in the Bavarian Alps and Black Forest of southern Germany when his father was stationed there in the Army. Later, growing up in Detriot, Johnson dreamed of visiting the mountains again. After getting a degree in English Literature, Johnson served with the Peace Corps in Liberia as an English teacher (by the way, I know a number of former Peace Corps Volunteers in the NPS—it’s a good fit). He returned to the states to graduate studies in poetry and his first job with the NPS.

Johnson’s first park job was as a seasonal worker at Yellowstone. He thought the quiet of the wilds would be good for writing. He was awestruck by the solitude, the majesty, and the wildlife, especially the bison. It was during his early years as a ranger, including a tour at Fort Dupont Park in Washington, DC, that Johnson became passionate about connecting people with nature, particularly inner-city kids like he had been who may not be exposed otherwise.

When Johnson arrived for duty at Yosemite, he found the connector, the story that could lead young people of color to the landscape he loved—Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were an army unit put together following the Civil War, made up of men of African descent, most of them former slaves. They served primarily in the southwest and plains area, fighting wars and building roads. Curiously they also served as some of the first park rangers, working in Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Johnson discovered that in 1903 Buffalo Soldiers built the first trail to the top of Mount Whitney.

Among his other duties and programs at Yosemite, Johnson developed a living history program where he dons a uniform and impersonates a character he created based on information available about the Buffalo Soldiers at Yosemite. I’ve seen him perform this award-winning program. It is compelling and relevant. The program made Johnson something of a star in the NPS world. It’s fantastic that the Burns/Duncan documentary has gotten Johnson more recognition—not for himself, but for the Buffalo Soldiers, the powerful achievements of African Americans, and too, for the power of stories. “The act of remembering assigns importance to a story, and the act of forgetting diminishes its importance,” Johnson says.

Above, Johnson in his Buffalo Soldier uniform. Below, a picture of Buffalo Soldiers at Yosemite that Johnson found in the park archive.

Johnson also represents a new and important direction for the National Park Service. Our visitors do not represent accurately the American public. Visitors are largely white, older, and of middle income or higher. If the agency is going to survive, we need to do a much better job reaching out to the rest of America. Johnson has known this from the beginning. And he sets an example for the rest of us to follow, to always keep in mind the need to create that spark. Johnson explains: "I can't forget that little black kid in Detroit," he says. "And I can't not think of the other kids, just like me – in Detroit, Oakland, Watts, Anacostia – today. How do I get them here? How do I let them know about the buffalo soldier history, to let them know that we, too, have a place here? How do I make that bridge, and make it shorter and stronger? Every time I go to work and put the uniform on, I think about them."

For two minutes of perfect Shelton Johnson-ness, click here then go to the video on the right that reads Shelton Johnson on a Transcendent Moment in Yellowstone.

John Lewis

John Lewis is a United States Congressman who has been called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced.” During college in the very early 60s, Lewis started organizing sit-in demonstrations. In 1961, he participated in the Freedom Rides and endured physical beatings. From 1963 to 1966, Lewis was Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which he helped form, an organization synonymous with student activism, sit-ins, and other activities designed to break down racial boundaries. He was an architect of and a speaker at the March on Washington in 1963 (at which Ruby and Ossie emceed and Marian sang, if we recall). And he coordinated voter registration drives and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.

In 1965, Lewis led the Selma-to-Montgomery march to petition for voting rights. This turned into one of the most decisive moments of the Civil Rights Movement. The march began at the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma on March 7. As the nonviolent marchers crossed the Edmond Pettus Bridge, they were tear-gassed and beaten, and the march was stopped by police. Media images of the display of violence against nonviolent demonstrators were broadcast worldwide. Eight days later President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, condemning the violence in Selma. Two weeks after the first attempt, Lewis and other march organizers regrouped and began the march again, this time with law enforcement protection. Twenty-five thousand marchers ended in Montgomery on March 25. Dr. King delivered a powerful speech at the concluding rally. This historic event and the widespread media coverage helped ensure the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Lewis remained active in civil rights work after leaving the SNCC. He worked with a voter education project, adding millions of minorities to voter rolls. During the Carter administration, Lewis ran the federal volunteer agency in charge of VISTA and other programs. He also served on the Atlanta City Council.

Lewis was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1986, a seat he continues to hold. Nancy Pelosi has called Lewis "the conscience of the U.S. Congress." Certainly Lewis has been a force for change from within the government, fighting tirelessly for progressive causes of education and nuclear nonproliferation and against the Iraq war. In 2009, Lewis was arrested during a protest against the genocide in Darfur.

Although Lewis is highly decorated with honorary degrees, impressive national and international awards, a scholarship fund, and even the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan in recognition of his courageous life-long commitment to the defense of civil and human rights, the greatest testament to his life’s work, I believe, is our current President. After Obama won the Democratic nomination, Lewis said, “If someone had told me this would be happening now, I would have told them they were crazy, out of their mind, they didn’t know what they were talking about ... I just wish the others were around to see this day. ... To the people who were beaten, put in jail, were asked questions they could never answer to register to vote, it’s amazing.” This day did not arrive out of the blue; it arrived because people like John Lewis made it happen.

Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was a world-renowned opera singer, although she didn’t perform in operas because she never saw herself as an actress. But, oh, could she sing. Like so many of us (at every end of the singing spectrum) she got her start singing in church. As young as 6, she was singing with the choir. After that, a combination of her own personal courage and strategic assistance from her community led her to teachers and opportunities. In 1928, then in her late 20s, she had advanced her career sufficiently to sing a solo recital at Carnegie Hall to good reviews. But Anderson was disappointed because she was still performing to mainly black audiences.

She took a scholarship and studied in Britain, along the way improving her Italian and German language skills. She subsequently had greater success performing in Europe. Finnish composer Jean Sibelius told her, “The roof of my house is too low for your voice.” And conductor Arturo Toscanini told her ,“Yours is a voice such as one hears once in a hundred years.” Anderson returned to America in the mid-30s, now a great success. She toured the States and continued to perform in Europe.

Anderson was enjoying a blossoming career, but racism was never far away. In 1939 her manager tried to rent Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, but was told no dates were available. Actually, the Hall had a new policy of only booking whites as performers. Public outrage ensued, following denial of her performance. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution who owned the hall (and frankly, the DAR has a lot more to atone for). And so Roosevelt and others encouraged government officials to arrange a free concert at the Lincoln Memorial. On Easter Sunday, Anderson sang to an audience of 75,000 people and millions more listening on the radio. And with this performance, Anderson cemented her place in American history.

Later, Anderson insisted that blacks in her audience had access to orchestra seats. By 1950, she refused to sing to segregated audiences. She performed benefits throughout her career. And she entertained troops with her beautiful voice in World War II and the Korean War. She achieved many firsts and was highly decorated as a performer and a goodwill ambassador. She sang at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. And in 1963, she sang at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Anderson’s memory lives on in any number of honors, awards, programs, and places bearing her name. Take a look at this video of the 1939 concert, and you too will be captivated by the great Marian Anderson.

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman is a singer/songwriter best known for her songs from her self-titled debut album in 1988. These songs include Fast Car and Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution. Although Chapman may not end up on the lists of top 100 African Americans in American History, she makes my list for what she meant to me during that time.

I was 20 in 1988, in the middle of college, in the middle of figuring out who I wanted to be in this world. Chapman attended Tufts University and played on the street in Harvard Square and the coffeehouses of Cambridge. I never saw her perform, but I must have retraced her steps many times. She was, in a way, our local girl made good. Even in a big city, we felt that way. But it was more than proximity. And more than her very cool hair, an ideal I carried around from the time I saw her picture until I made my own dreadlocks. No, it was the hope, longing, and ultimate desperation of Fast Car that really got me. The story in that song was so familiar and felt so painfully real.

Every generation has its poet. I like Dylan, lots, but much of his music feels like someone else’s. And even many of the poets of the 80s didn’t connect the same. Bruce Cockburn put it exquisitely on the line, but that line was Nicaragua. Aimee Mann broke my heart. But Tracy Chapman showed me the world outside my door. She dangled us on a pendulum between hope and hard times, and eloquent response to the Reagan 80s. She gave voice to people in the shadows, but also the times in all our lives when we are in the shadows, when we are the shadows.

Chapman continues to make records and tour, though none have matched that first success. She performs for charity events for AIDS, poverty and other issues she cares about. In 2004, Tufts awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Arts for her artistic accomplishments and social conscience.

Sports Heroes

The list is long of African Americans who have excelled in sports in America. I’ve hesitated to wade into these waters, though, for two reasons. The first is that I’m not really such a sports fan. The second is that I want to get beyond traditional stereotypes of blacks in sports and paint a more diverse picture. Having said that, who can deny the powerful legacy of Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and my friend Tivona’s dad, Tom Revell, who pioneered integration in baseball? Or the greats of boxing—Joe Louis, Sonny Liston, and truly legendary Muhammed Ali? Or the stunning Joyner women of track and field? Or, of course, the leading sports luminaries of our day—Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and the powerful Williams sisters?

But today I want to speak of two men who not only excelled in their given sport, but were forced into a greater role due to the circumstances of the day. And in the end, they became more than sport heroes, they became portraits of grace.

Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens broke world records in track and field in the 1930s and won an unprecedented four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. But as you remember, this was not just any Olympics and Jesse Owens was not just any competitor. He was a black man in Aryan territory on the eve of World War II. The games were presided over by Adolf Hitler. Experience, poise, and some helpful advice from a friendly German competitor gave Owens the edge needed to succeed. And in the end he turned Hitler’s thinking around from “they are inferior” to “they have an unfair advantage and should be excluded”—neither opinion accurate or enlightened, but Owens had an effect.

The true test of progress, alas, came at home in the United States. Owens was given a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan, but had to take the freight elevator to his reception at the Waldorf Astoria. He is reported to have said, "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Later, President Eisenhower recognized Owens as an Ambassador of Sports.

Owens struggled for years to earn a living, saying that he couldn’t eat gold medals. Along with numerous business ventures, he became a public speaker, talking about how athletics could improve racial problems and bring people together. He also served for a time as national director of physical education for African-Americans with the Office of Civilian Defense which he called "the most gratifying work I've ever done."

Although the track and field records of Jesse Owens have fallen and other have gone on to win more medals, he has a place in our hearts because in a world about to turn mad, in 1936, he calmly and masterfully proved the devil wrong.

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe picked up a tennis racket at the age of seven, a year after his mother died. Driven to excel and with good coaching, Ashe started winning youth titles around the country. He attended UCLA on a tennis scholarship, and in 1968 the still-amateur Ashe defied expectation and won the US Open. Over the next ten years, Ashe was a major figure in men’s tennis. He also reached out to a broader community and used his power to start inner city tennis programs for youth, to help found a professional association for men’s tennis, and to speak out against apartheid in South Africa.

But then in 1979, Ashe, still in his 30s, suffered a heart attack. He underwent two bypass surgeries and later brain surgery. From one of his surgeries, he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Although he tried to keep this condition a secret, he eventually admitted publicly in 1992 that he had AIDS. And then he really got to work. He spoke publicly about the disease. He gave a speech at the UN. And he created foundations, one dedicated to the defeat of AIDS and another to improve urban health.

Arthur Ashe helped put a face on AIDS in a time when AIDS was still a mystery for much of America. A man of grace and largesse already (read the testimonials on his webpage), he used his platform of fame to humanize this disease. And in typical Ashe fashion, when asked, “Why did God have to select you for such a bad disease?” Ashe replied, "Listen. 50 million children around the world start playing tennis. 5 million learn to play tennis. 500,000 learn professional tennis. 50,000 come to the circuit. 5000 reach The Grand Slam. 50 reach Wimbledon. 8 reach the Quarterfinals. 4 to the Semifinals. 2 to the Finals. When I was holding the Cup I never asked God, 'Why me?' So why now in pain should I be asking Him 'Why Me?'"

Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm represented the 12th district of New York (my old district in Brooklyn) between 1969 and 1982, the first African American woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives. In 1972, she became the first major-party black candidate for President when she sought the nomination of the Democratic Party. She used the slogan “unbought and unbossed” to describe her independence as a candidate.

In the House, Chisholm supported traditional Democratic causes of education, labor, and civil rights. She helped found the Congressional Black Caucus and she opposed the draft. And in her office, she employed only women—half of them black. She commented that she had faced more discrimination because she was a woman than because she was black. She was also a co-founder of the National Organization of Women and said "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

After retiring from the Congress, she taught politics and women’s studies at the university level as well as collecting many honors and awards. She also supported other Democratic leaders, including campaigning for Jesse Jackson. In the end, Chisholm reflected: "When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the twentieth century and who dared to be a catalyst for change. I don't want be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress, and I don't even want to be remembered as the first woman who happen to be black to make a bid for the presidency. I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the twentieth century."

This last image is from an extremetly cool series of paintings by Robert Shetterly called Americans Who Tell the Truth.

Gordon Parks

Like so many people featured in my month of African American history, Gordon Parks came from humble beginnings, in his case from Fort Smith, Arkansas. Inspired by Depression era photographs of migrants that he saw in a magazine, Parks bought his first camera. His talent was recognized quickly and Parks proceeded to build a body of work that featured both life on the street and the world of society and fashion. He became the first black photographer for Life magazine, where his photos appeared for decades. In the forties, he published a book outlining techniques and principles of documentary portraiture.

In the 50s Parks began making film documentaries. In the 60s he wrote memoirs and poems. He also broke more boundaries when he became the first African American to direct a major Hollywood movie when he made a film adaptation of one of his books. Two years later, he directed the movie Shaft. He directed many more movies in his career, including a well-received bio-pic of Lead Belly. He also composed music and played the piano.

I was lucky enough to catch an exhibit of Parks’s photography at the Musuem of the African Diaspora in San Francisco a few years ago. Like other photographers of the Depression (think Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans) Parks embodied the values of documentary portraiture. He captured a simple dignity of people in their everyday lives.

Endlessly curious, prodigiously talented in many ways, and determined to not let race stand in his way of following his artistic path, Parks left a great legacy of 20th century life in America. He died in 2006 at the age of 93 having done so much to show us who we are.