The One Where Vic Blogs About Marian Wright Edelman

"You really can change the world if you care enough." – Marian Wright Edelman

I can't say that I agree with everything Mrs Edelman has ever said or stands for, which is true for everyone I've honored or will honor, but as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi bar and the creator of the Children's Defense Fund, she deserves to be honored.

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Marian Wright Edelman was born in 1939 in Bennetsville, South Carolina. She briefly attended Spelman College, then studied abroad on a Merrill scholarship, and eventually traveled to the Soviet Union on a Lisle fellowship. In 1959 she returned to the U.S., took an active role in the civil-rights movement, and graduated from Yale Law School in 1963, becoming the first African-American woman ever admitted to the Mississippi bar. Edelman launched her post-academic career by working on a voter-registration project targeting Mississippi blacks, and later found employment with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1968 she married civil-rights attorney Peter Edelman.

Also in l968, Marian Wright Edelman moved to Washington, DC to serve as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Martin Luther King, Jr. had recently established. She subsequently founded the Washington Research Project, a public-interest law firm, and then spent two years as director of Harvard University's Center for Law and Education.

In 1972 Edelman, who served a stint on the trustees' board of the Industrial Areas Foundation, delivered a eulogy at the funeral of its founder, the famed community organizer Saul Alinsky. Edelman viewed Alinsky as a “brilliant” man who “was working for underdogs” and “trying to empower communities.”

In 1973 Edelman established the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), in an effort to inject new energy into the civil-rights movement by emphasizing child welfare rather than racial justice. “When you talked about poor people or black people you faced a shrinking audience,” Edelman explains. “I got the idea that children might be a very effective way to broaden the base for change.”Hillary Rodham [Clinton] interned with the nascent CDF after graduating from law school in 1973, and Edelman became her trusted friend and mentor.

Lamenting that child poverty, teen pregnancy, academic failure, and criminal involvement afflict African-Americans at disproportionately high rates, Edelman, in her writings and speeches, rarely alludes to the fact that these problems are correlated much more highly with fatherlessness than with race. By Edelman's calculus, they are largely the result of America's intransigent racism. As she wrote in her 1987 book Families in Peril: “Children are poor because we have lost our moral bearings.”

A key barometer of those “moral bearings,” as Edelman defines them, is federal welfare spending. During the months prior to the August 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)—a measure designed to move large numbers of people off the welfare rolls and into jobs—Edelman persistently warned that the bill, if enacted, would “codify a policy of national child abandonment” by “push[ing] millions of already poor children and families deeper into poverty.” She declared, further, that PRWORA represented the “biggest betrayal of children” she had ever witnessed. In an effort to spark public opposition to the bill, Edelman organized a June 1, 1996 "Stand for Children" March on Washington, which drew 300,000 people. Also in 1996, Edelman proposed, as an alternative to welfare reform, a government guarantee of full employment, socialized medicine, and federally funded babysitters: “Let's guarantee a job. Let's guarantee health care and children care [sic]. Let's turn this welfare repeal into real welfare reform.”

When President Bill Clinton ultimately signed PRWORA into law, Edelman called it a "moment of shame." But none of Edelman's alarmist predictions about the consequences of welfare reform came to pass.

"Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right," Edelman said. "Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right."

A strong critic of what she considers America's inherent and pervasive bigotry, Edelman blames white racism and white neglect for the decline of the nation's inner-city schools during the decades since the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. “The strong black traditions of family and hunger for education,” she said in 2004, “have been undermined by white resistance to Brown, and [by] our nation's choices not to invest adequately in quality public schools for all children.”

In June 2004 Edelman was a guest speaker at an International Socialist Organization event, along with such notables as Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden, and Alice Walker.

In her 2005 book Social Injustice and Public Health, Edelman emphasizes her desire to "address the root causes of social injustice," which she identifies as: "widening gaps between rich and poor, the unequal distribution of resources within our society, discrimination, and the disenfranchisement of individuals and groups from the political process."

Edelman today is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation and the Association to Benefit Children; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; and a founding sponsor of The American Prospect. She has received more than 100 honorary degrees, along with a host of awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award (administered by the Heinz Family Foundation), the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award.

“If you don’t like the way the world is, you have an obligation to change it. Just do it one step at a time.”

The One Where Vic Blogs About Thurgood Marshall

 "In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute." - Thurgood Marshall

When I was younger and wanted to be a lawyer, it was Thurgood Marshall who inspired me, especially when I found out that the reason I could go to an integrated school was because he had chosen to fight the case of segregation. I wasn't restricted to a third-rate education because someone was tossing down the old, broken, tattered, remains of textbooks to the "Negro schools" as they once had. I went to school with children of all races, used the same textbooks they did, and received the same education as them. I learned more and more about him as I got older but even as a child he inspired me to take on causes greater than myself, to fight against injustice using the law, and that sometimes the law is just wrong and so it's up to us to see it changed.

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Born in Baltimore, Maryland on July 2, 1908, Thurgood Marshall was the grandson of a slave. His father, William Marshall, instilled in him from youth an appreciation for the United States Constitution and the rule of law. After completing high school in 1925, Thurgood followed his brother, William Aubrey Marshall, at the historically black Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His classmates at Lincoln included a distinguished group of future Black leaders such as the poet and author Langston Hughes, the future President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, and musician Cab Calloway. Just before graduation, he married his first wife, Vivian "Buster" Burey. Their twenty-five year marriage ended with her death from cancer in 1955. A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi... has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for. Thurgood Marshall

In 1930, he applied to the University of Maryland Law School, but was denied admission because he was Black. This was an event that was to haunt him and direct his future professional life. Thurgood sought admission and was accepted at the Howard University Law School that same year and came under the immediate influence of the dynamic new dean, Charles Hamilton Houston, who instilled in all of his students the desire to apply the tenets of the Constitution to all Americans. Paramount in Houston's outlook was the need to overturn the 1898 Supreme Court ruling, Plessy v. Ferguson which established the legal doctrine called, "separate but equal." Marshall's first major court case came in 1933 when he successfully sued the University of Maryland to admit a young African American Amherst University graduate named Donald Gaines Murray. Applauding Marshall's victory, author H.L. Mencken wrote that the decision of denial by the University of Maryland Law School was "brutal and absurd," and they should not object to the "presence among them of a self-respecting and ambitious young Afro-American well prepared for his studies by four years of hard work in a class A college." Thurgood Marshall followed his Howard University mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston to New York and later became Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During this period, Mr. Marshall was asked by the United Nations and the United Kingdom to help draft the constitutions of the emerging African nations of Ghana and what is now Tanzania. It was felt that the person who so successfully fought for the rights of America's oppressed minority would be the perfect person to ensure the rights of the White citizens in these two former European colonies. After amassing an impressive record of Supreme Court challenges to state-sponsored discrimination, including the landmark Brown v. Board decision in 1954, President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In this capacity, he wrote over 150 decisions including support for the rights of immigrants, limiting government intrusion in cases involving illegal search and seizure, double jeopardy, and right to privacy issues. Biographers Michael Davis and Hunter Clark note that, "none of his (Marshall's) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the Supreme Court." In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson appointed Judge Marshall to the office of U.S. Solicitor General. Before his subsequent nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1967, Thurgood Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the government. Indeed, Thurgood Marshall represented and won more cases before the United States Supreme Court than any other American. Until his retirement from the highest court in the land, Justice Marshall established a record for supporting the voiceless American. Having honed his skills since the case against the University of Maryland, he developed a profound sensitivity to injustice by way of the crucible of racial discrimination in this country. As an Associate Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall leaves a legacy that expands that early sensitivity to include all of America's voiceless. Justice Marshall died on January 24, 1993. A Thurgood Marshall timeline: provided by A Deeper Shade of Black . 1930 Mr. Marshall graduates with honors from Lincoln U. (cum laude) 1933 Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private practice in Baltimore Receives law degree from Howard U. (magna cum laude); begins private practice in Baltimore 1934 Begins to work for Baltimore branch of NAACP 1935 With Charles Houston, wins first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson 1936 Becomes assistant special counsel for NAACP in New York 1940 Wins first of 29 Supreme Court victories (Chambers v. Florida) 1944 Successfully argues Smith v. Allwright, overthrowing the South's "white primary" 1948 Wins Shelley v. Kraemer, in which Supreme Court strikes down legality of racially restrictive covenants 1950 Wins Supreme Court victories in two graduate-school integration cases, Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents 1951 Visits South Korea and Japan to investigate charges of racism in U.S. armed forces. He reported that the general practice was one of "rigid segregation". 1954 Wins Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, landmark case that demolishes legal basis for segregation in America 1961 Defends civil rights demonstrators, winning Supreme Circuit Court victory in Garner v. Louisiana; nominated to Second Court of Appeals by President J.F. Kennedy 1961 Appointed circuit judge, makes 112 rulings, all of them later upheld by Supreme Court (1961-1965) 965 Appointed U.S. solicitor general by President Lyndon Johnson; wins 14 of the 19 cases he argues for the government (1965-1967) 1967 Becomes first African American elevated to U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991) 1991 Retires from the Supreme Court 1993 Dies at 84

Source: This biography is provided by Thurgood Marshall College.

(*http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm*)

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Thurgood Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, William Marshall, the grandson of a slave, worked as a steward at an exclusive club. His mother, Norma, was a kindergarten teacher. One of William Marshall's favorite pastimes was to listen to cases at the local courthouse before returning home to rehash the lawyers' arguments with his sons. Thurgood Marshall later recalled, "Now you want to know how I got involved in law? I don't know. The nearest I can get is that my dad, my brother, and I had the most violent arguments you ever heard about anything. I guess we argued five out of seven nights at the dinner table."

Marshall attended Baltimore's Colored High and Training School (later renamed Frederick Douglass High School), where he was an above-average student and put his finely honed skills of argument to use as a star member of the debate team. The teenaged Marshall was also something of a mischievous troublemaker. His greatest high school accomplishment, memorizing the entire United States Constitution, was actually a teacher's punishment for misbehaving in class.

After graduating from high school in 1926, Marshall attended Lincoln University, a historically black college in Pennsylvania. There, he joined a remarkably distinguished student body that included Kwame Nkrumah, the future president of Ghana; Langston Hughes, the great poet; and Cab Calloway, the famous jazz singer.

“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.” 

― Thurgood Marshall

After graduating from Lincoln with honors in 1930, Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School. Despite being overqualified academically, Marshall was rejected because of his race. This firsthand experience with discrimination in education made a lasting impression on Marshall and helped determine the future course of his career. Instead of Maryland, Marshall attended law school in Washington, D.C. at Howard University, another historically black school. The dean of Howard Law School at the time was the pioneering civil rights lawyer Charles Houston. Marshall quickly fell under the tutelage of Houston, a notorious disciplinarian and extraordinarily demanding professor. Marshall recalled of Houston, "He would not be satisfied until he went to a dance on the campus and found all of his students sitting around the wall reading law books instead of partying." Marshall graduated magna cum laude from Howard in 1933.

Murray v. Pearson

After graduating from law school, Marshall briefly attempted to establish his own practice in Baltimore, but without experience he failed to land any significant cases.

In 1934, he began working for the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In one of Marshall's first cases—which he argued alongside his mentor, Charles Houston—he defended another well-qualified undergraduate, Donald Murray, who like himself had been denied entrance to the University of Maryland Law School. Marshall and Houston won Murray v. Pearson in January 1936, the first in a long string of cases designed to undermine the legal basis for de jure racial segregation in the United States.

“What is the quality of your intent? Certain people have a way of saying things that shake us at the core. Even when the words do not seem harsh or offensive, the impact is shattering. What we could be experiencing is the intent behind the words. When we intend to do good, we do. When we intend to do harm, it happens. What each of us must come to realize is that our intent always comes through. We cannot sugarcoat the feelings in our heart of hearts. The emotion is the energy that motivates. We cannot ignore what we really want to create. We should be honest and do it the way we feel it. What we owe to ourselves and everyone around is to examine the reasons of our true intent. My intent will be evident in the results."

-Thurgood Marshall

Later in 1936, Marshall moved to New York City to work full time as legal counsel for the NAACP. Over the following decades, Marshall argued and won a variety of cases to strike down many forms of legalized racism, helping to inspire the American Civil Rights Movement. Marshall's first victory before the Supreme Court came in Chambers v. Florida (1940), in which he successfully defended four black men who had been convicted of murder on the basis of confessions coerced from them by police. Another crucial Supreme Court victory came in the 1944 case of Smith v. Allwright, in which the Court struck down the Democratic Party's use of whites-only primary elections in various Southern states.

Brown v. Board of Education

However, the great achievement of Marshall's career as a civil-rights lawyer was his victory in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of black parents in Topeka, Kansas on behalf of their children forced to attend all-black segregated schools. Through Brown v. Board, one of the most important cases of the 20th century, Marshall challenged head-on the legal underpinning of racial segregation, the doctrine of "separate but equal" established by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and therefore racial segregation of public schools violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. While enforcement of the Court's ruling proved to be uneven and painfully slow, Brown v. Board provided the legal foundation, and much of the inspiration, for the American Civil Rights Movement that unfolded over the next decade. At the same time, the case established Marshall as one of the most successful and prominent lawyers in America.

Circuit Court Judge & Solicitor General

In 1961, then-newly elected President John F. Kennedy appointed Thurgood Marshall as a judge for the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Serving as a circuit court judge over the next four years, Marshall issued more than 100 decisions, none of which was overturned by the Supreme Court. Then, in 1965, Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, appointed Marshall to serve as the first black U.S. solicitor general, the attorney designated to argue on behalf of the federal government before the Supreme Court.

During his two years as solicitor general, Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases that he argued before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice

Finally, in 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to serve on the bench before which he had successfully argued so many times before—the United States Supreme Court. On October 2, 1967, Marshall was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, becoming the first African American to serve on the nation's highest court.

Marshall joined a liberal Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which aligned with Marshall's views on politics and the Constitution. As a Supreme Court justice, Marshall consistently supported rulings upholding a strong protection of individual rights and liberal interpretations of controversial social issues. He was part of the majority that ruled in favor of the right to abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, among several other cases. In the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, Marshall articulated his opinion that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances.

"change the way I see the world."

-Thurgood Marshall

Throughout Marshall's 24-year tenure on the Court, Republican presidents appointed eight consecutive justices, and Marshall gradually became an isolated liberal member of an increasingly conservative Court. For the latter part of his time on the bench, Marshall was largely relegated to issuing strongly worded dissents, as the Court reinstated the death penalty and limited affirmative action measures and abortion rights. Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991; Justice Clarence Thomas replaced him.

Death and Legacy

Thurgood Marshall died on January 24, 1993, at the age of 84.

Thurgood Marshall stands alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as one of the greatest and most important figures of the American Civil Rights Movement. And although he may be the least popularly celebrated of the three, Marshall was arguably the most instrumental in the movement's achievements toward racial equality. Marshall's strategy of attacking racial inequality through the courts represented a third way of pursuing racial equality, more pragmatic than King's soaring rhetoric and less polemical than Malcolm X's strident separatism. In the aftermath of Marshall's death, an obituary read: "We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, but every day we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall."

Personal Life

Marshall married Vivian "Buster" Burey in 1929, and the couple remained married until her death in 1955. Shortly thereafter, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat, his secretary at the NAACP; they had two sons, Thurgood Jr. and John Marshall.

(*Thurgood Marshall. [Internet]. 2014. The Biography Channel website. Available from:http://www.biography.com/people/thurgood-marshall-9400241 [Accessed 04 Feb 2014].*)

Be aware of that myth, that everything is going to be all right. Don't give in. I add that, because it seems to me, that what we need to do today is to refocus. Back in the 30's and 40's, we could go no place but to court. We knew then, the court was not the final solution. Many of us knew the final solution would have to be politics, if for no other reason, politics is cheaper than lawsuits. So now we have both. We have our legal arm, and we have our political arm. Let's use them both. And don't listen to this myth that it can be solved by either or that it has already been solved. Take it from me, it has not been solved.

-Thurgood Marshall

(*http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/equality_speech.htm*)

The One Where Vic Blogs About Mary McLeod Bethune

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.
-Mary McLeod Bethune


A lot of people don't know but I attended Bethune Cookman College for a while. It was there I realized that I really DID want to serve in the United States Army and it was there I saw the evidence and result of Maya Angelou's "I Rise" poem. It was at BCC I began to feel pride in a people that went beyond those whom I knew personally and I began to cast away my own prejudices and discrimination against my own people (yes, I had them). It would take me a long time to deal with the self-hatred that I held within me because of the color of my skin that came about because of the racism that surrounded (and still surrounds) me on a daily basis in both blatant and subtle manners but it was at BCC that self-hatred began to crack and fall away. I want to honor the woman for whom the school was named on this third day of Black History Month.

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Born near Mayesville, S.C. on July 10, 1875, on a rice and cotton farm, Mary Jane McLeod was the fifteenth of seventeen children, some of whom had been sold into enslavement. In order to do their best by their children, her parents sacrificed so they could buy land to farm. Mary had the same determination. From childhood on, she took advantage of opportunities that were presented to her. Her parents, who had been born into enslavement, wanted their children to have an education. When Mary was about eleven, the Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church opened a school for African-American children. It was about four miles from her home, and the children had to walk back and forth to school, but Mary wanted to go. Her mother commented that some of the children had to be forced to attend, but not Mary, who was well aware of her family's relative poverty. Mary saw education as the key to improving the lives of African-Americans. An incident that occurred when she was quite young may explain this. Mary picked up a book while she was playing with a white child whose parents employed Mary's mother. The white child grabbed the book and told Mary she couldn't have it because African-Americans couldn't read. For Mary, education became the answer to the question, how can African-Americans move up the ladder in American society?

Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.

Mary McLeod Bethune 

A few years later, Mary had the chance to further her education when a woman in Detroit offered to pay for the expenses of one child at Scotia Seminary in North Carolina. Mary was selected by her teacher because she was an excellent student. After attending Scotia Seminary, she received a scholarship to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, where she continued to be a high achiever. Mary was the only African-American student there, and one of only a few non-whites.

As a child of twelve, Mary had been inspired by the words of a preacher who spoke of the need for missionaries in Africa. Mary completed the two year program, planning to go to Africa as a missionary, but was told that there were no open positions available at that time for African-Americans. Although disappointed, she returned to Mayesville and taught there for a year at the mission school she had once attended before requesting a new position from the Presbyterian Board of Education. She accepted a position as a teacher in Augusta, Georgia at Haines Institute, where she worked under the educator Lucy Laney. She gained a reputation as an "enthusiastic" teacher who held "Mission School" classes for children gathered off the streets on Sunday afternoons. She taught there for a year.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

Mary McLeod Bethune 

Mary was sent next to Sumter, S.C. where she taught for two years at Kendall Institute before marrying Albertus Bethune in 1898. The couple moved to Savannah, Georgia, where Albertus had a new job. Mary did a little social work, but mainly she concentrated on raising her son, Albert, who was born in 1899. The marriage was not a success, although the couple remained together until 1907 and on good terms thereafter. Mary was restless, and she felt called to public service. A visiting minister from Palatka, Florida urged her to move there and manage the new mission school he was starting. So in 1899 she moved to Florida with her son, followed by her husband. In Palatka she taught at the Mission School and visited prisoners in the county jail, reading and singing to them. She tried to help the prisoners in any way she could, and worked to free those who were not guilty. Because money was tight, Mary supplemented the family income by selling life insurance.

The school grew, but Mary was not content. She wanted to provide opportunities for African-American girls, and to do this she would found a school. She hoped to build the school in a new area, and a minister suggested Daytona. Five years after arriving in Palatka, she moved to Daytona, Florida. Almost penniless, she was sheltered by a local woman recommended by the minister, who helped her find the house that she would use to open a school for African-American girls. This was her dream, and she worked to make it come true. The house was bare, and Bethune was forced to repair furniture and use discarded carpets. She went to local stores to beg for boxes, which she used for chairs, and packing crates, which became her desks. In October of 1904, she opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School with a student body of five. Each child paid fifty cents a week in tuition. In line with beliefs of the day, Bethune's primary focus was on training girls to take care of the home, so cooking and sewing were offered as well as the three "r"s. Before long, she also had several boarders. Bethune worked hard to keep her little school going, baking sweet potato pies to sell, and soon involving the community in her efforts. The school was a success, despite its difficult beginning. Within three years Bethune was able to relocate it to a permanent facility. Over the years, the one small house was replaced by a thirty-two acre campus with fourteen buildings and 400 students. A farm was purchased with the goal of making the school more self-sufficient. In 1923 the school became coeducational when it merged with Cookman Institute of Jacksonville, Florida, and became Bethune-Cookman College. Her house on the campus is maintained as a National Historic Landmark.

I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity.

-Mary McLeod Bethune

Bethune understood the importance of political participation. In the early 1900s, the battle for women's suffrage was underway, but there was little role for African-American women, especially in the South. In 1912 Bethune joined the Equal Suffrage League, an offshoot of the National Association of Colored Women. In an era when even African-American men couldn't vote, a frustrated Mary had to sit back and watch as white-dominated organizations marched and protested nationwide. But in 1920, after passage of the 19th amendment, the time for action had come. Bethune believed that if African-American women were to vote, they could bring about change. Riding a bicycle she had used when she was raising money for her school, she went door to door raising money to pay the poll tax. Her night classes provided a means for African-Americans to learn to read well enough to pass the literacy test. Soon one hundred potential voters had qualified. The night before the election, eighty members of the KKK confronted Bethune, warning her against preparing African-Americans to vote. Bethune did not back down, and the men left without causing any harm. The following day, Bethune led a procession of one hundred African-Americans to the polls, all voting for the first time.

For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

-Mary McLeod Bethune

The story of her defiance of the Klan spread, and soon she was in demand as a speaker for the rights of African-Americans. Meeting many prominent people was in some ways an eye-opener for her. She met the African-American leader and scholar W.E.B. Dubois, and after hearing him comment that because of his race he couldn't even check out one of his own books from a southern library, she made her own school library available to the general public. This was the only free source of reading material for African-Americans in Florida at that time.

Bethune continued her career in public service as the years went by. She was elected to the National Urban League's Executive Board in 1920, the only Southern woman of any race. She helped to establish a home for delinquent African-American girls, she was president of the Southeastern Federation of Women's Clubs, and she was elected as president of the 200,000 member National Association of Colored Women twice in the 1920s. She used her position in the latter organization to speak out in favor of education for African-Americans, making speeches. She also served as president of the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools and on the Interracial Council of America. She was a founder and the first president of the National Council of Negro Women in the 1930s. In 1932 Bethune was featured in a newspaper story by a well-known journalist, Ida Tarbell, as one of the fifty greatest American women. She was number ten on the list.

If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.

-Mary McLeod Bethune

The quality of Bethune's work was recognized by national politicians as well. Presidents from Coolidge to Roosevelt appointed her to government positions. President Coolidge invited her to attend his Child Welfare Conference in 1928. President Hoover appointed her to the White House Conference on Child Health in 1930. Her experience in the education field and her knowledge of the state of African-American education made her a valuable asset to both Presidents. She was also President Roosevelt's Special Advisor on Minority Affairs from 1935 to 1944. Her home in Washington, D.C., the Council House, where she did much of her work, is maintained by the National Park Service.

From 1936 to 1944 she held the position of Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, making her the first African-American woman to become a federal agency head. Black advisors had been appointed for each federal agency, and their power was minimal. Bethune, however, had an agenda. She wanted to see African-Americans fully integrated into American life. She gathered a group of prominent men at her apartment in Washington for the first of many informal discussions. Because she had access to the president, she was able to take the suggestions made by this group to him, and see more blacks appointed to advisory positions. Her group became the Federal Council on Negro Affairs, and became known as the "Black Cabinet". As a member and a leader of this group, Bethune served as an unofficial advisor to President Roosevelt.

After World War II, she was one of three African-American consultants to the U.S. delegation involved in developing the United Nations charter. Bethune served as the personal representative of President Truman at the inauguration ceremonies in Liberia in 1952.

Cease to be a drudge, seek to be an artist.

-Mary McLeod Bethune

Always opposed to segregation, Bethune networked with influential whites to gain more opportunities for blacks. She was first introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt at a luncheon held by Roosevelt's mother-in-law in the 1920s. The only African-American present, she had to face the horrified stares of several Southern white ladies who were present. Mrs. Roosevelt, senior, Bethune's hostess, led her into the dining room, seated her in the place of the guest of honor, and introduced her to her daughter-in-law, Eleanor.

As the years went by, the two younger women learned to know each other better. Bethune developed very close ties with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s. Bethune understood how to use the power structure. She spoke out vehemently when African-American women were not permitted to participate in the national advisory council of the War Department's Women's Interest Section in 1941, going public as well as complaining to the Secretary of War. She also worked behind the scenes with Mrs. Roosevelt, and eventually won that battle. Participation in the advisory council put her in a position to see that African-American women became officers in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps established a year later.

Bethune was recognized for her hard work during her lifetime and received many honors. She was a recipient of the Spingarn Medal in 1935, the Frances Drexel Award for Distinguished Service in 1937, and the Thomas Jefferson Award for leadership in 1942. She received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Rollins College in 1949, the first African-American to receive an honorary degree from a white southern college. She received the Medal of Honor and Merit from the Republic of Haiti in 1949 and the Star of Africa from the Republic of Liberia in 1952.After a lifetime of achievements, Mary Bethune died on May 18, 1955. On July 10, 1974, ninety-nine years to the day after Bethune's birth, she became the first woman and the first African-American to be honored with a statue in a public park in Washington, D.C. The statue, in Lincoln Park, is a reminder of her achievements. South Carolina has honored its native daughter as well, hanging her portrait in the state capitol in Columbia.

(*http://www.usca.edu/aasc/bethune.htm*)

From the first, I made my learning, what little it was, useful every way I could.

-Mary McLeod Bethune

The One Where Vic Blogs About Booker T. Washington

 "Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." - Booker T. Washington

For Day two of Black History Month, I want to honor Booker T. Washington, a teacher and one of the founders of the Tuskegee Institute.

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Born April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia, Booker Taliaferro was the son of an unknown White man and Jane, an enslaved cook of James Burroughs, a small planter.

Jane named her son Booker Taliaferro but later dropped the second name. Booker gave himself the surname "Washington" when he first enrolled in school. Sometime after Booker's birth, his mother was married to Washington Ferguson, a slave. A daughter, Amanda, was born to this marriage. James, Booker's younger half-brother, was adopted. Booker's elder brother, John, was also the son of a White man.

Booker spent his first nine years as a slave on the Burroughs farm. In 1865, his mother took her children to Malden, West Virginia, to join her husband, who had gone there earlier and found work in the salt mines. At age nine, Booker was put to work packing salt. Between the ages of ten and twelve, he worked in a coal mine. He attended school while continuing to work in the mines. In 1871, he went to work as a houseboy for the wife of Gen. Lewis Ruffner, owner of the mines.

In 1872, at age sixteen, Booker T. Washington entered Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. The dominant personality at the school, which had opened in 1868 under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, was the principal, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, the son of American missionaries in Hawaii.

Armstrong, who had commanded Black troops in the Civil War, believed that the progress of freedmen and their descendants depended on education of a special sort, which would be practical and utilitarian and would at the same time inculcate character and morality.

Washington traveled most of the distance from Malden to Hampton on foot, arriving penniless. His entrance examination to Hampton was to clean a room. The teacher inspected his work with a spotless, white handkerchief. Booker was admitted. He was given work as a janitor to pay the cost of his room and board, and Armstrong arranged for a White benefactor to pay his tuition.

At Hampton, Washington studied academic subjects and agriculture, which included work in the fields and pigsties. He also learned lessons in personal cleanliness and good manners. His special interest was public speaking and debate. He was jubilant when he was chosen to speak at his commencement.

The most important part of his experience at Hampton was his association with Armstrong, who he described in his autobiography as "a great man - the noblest, rarest human being it has ever been my privilege to meet." From Armstrong, Washington derived much of his educational philosophy.

After graduating from Hampton with honors in 1875, Washington returned to Malden to teach. For eight months he was a student at Wayland Seminary, an institution with a curriculum that was entirely academic. This experience reinforced his belief in an educational system that emphasized practical skills and self-help. In 1879, Washington returned to Hampton to teach in a program for American Indians.

In 1880, a bill that included a yearly appropriation of $2,000 was passed by the Alabama State Legislature to establish a school for Blacks in Macon County. This action was generated by two men - Lewis Adams, a former slave, and George W. Campbell, a former slave owner. On February 12, 1881, Governor Rufus Willis Cobb signed the bill into law, establishing the Tuskegee Normal School for the training of Black teachers.

Armstrong was invited to recommend a White teacher as principal of the school. Instead, he suggested Washington, who was accepted. When Washington arrived at Tuskegee, he found that no land or buildings had been acquired for the projected school, nor was there any money for these purposes since the appropriation was for salaries only. Undaunted, Washington began selling the idea of the school, recruiting students and seeking support of local Whites.

The school opened July 4, 1881, in a shanty loaned by a Black church, Butler A.M.E. Zion. With money borrowed from Hampton Institute's treasurer, Washington purchased an abandoned 100-acre plantation on the outskirts of Tuskegee. Students built a kiln, made bricks for buildings and sold bricks to raise money. Within a few years, they built a classroom building, a dining hall, a girl’s dormitory and a chapel.

By 1888, the 540-acre school had an enrollment of more than 400 and offered training in such skilled trades as carpentry, cabinetmaking, printing, shoemaking and tinsmithing. Boys also studied farming and dairying, while girls learned such domestic skills as cooking and sewing.

Through their own labor, students supplied a large part of the needs of the school. In the academic departments, Washington insisted that efforts be made to relate the subject matter to the actual experiences of the students. Strong emphasis was placed on personal hygiene, manners and character building.

Students followed a rigid schedule of study and work, arising at five in the morning and retiring at nine-thirty at night. Although Tuskegee was non-denominational, all students were required to attend chapel daily and a series of religious services on Sunday. Washington himself usually spoke to the students on Sunday evening.

Olivia Davidson, a graduate of Hampton and Framingham State Normal School in Massachusetts, became teacher and assistant principal at Tuskegee in 1881. In 1885, Washington's older brother John, also a Hampton graduate, came to Tuskegee to direct the vocational training program.

Other notable additions to the staff were acclaimed scientist Dr. George Washington Carver, who became director of the agriculture program in 1896; Emmett J. Scott, who became Washington 's private secretary in 1897; and Monroe Nathan Work, who became head of the Records and Research Department in 1908.

(*http://www.tuskegee.edu/about_us/legacy_of_leadership/booker_t_washington.aspx*)

Washington was of the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants, who were newly oppressed by disfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1895 his Atlanta compromise called for avoiding confrontation over segregation and instead putting more reliance on long-term educational and economic advancement in the black community.

His base was the Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Alabama. As lynchings in the South reached a peak in 1895, Washington gave a speech in Atlanta that made him nationally famous. The speech called for black progress through education and entrepreneurship. His message was that it was not the time to challenge Jim Crow segregation and the disfranchisement of black voters in the South. Washington mobilized a nationwide coalition of middle-class blacks, church leaders, and white philanthropists and politicians, with a long-term goal of building the community's economic strength and pride by a focus on self-help and schooling. Secretly, he supported court challenges to segregation. Black militants in the North, led by W.E.B. DuBois, at first supported the Atlanta Compromise but after 1909 set up the NAACP and tried to challenge Washington's political machine for leadership in the black community. Decades after Washington's death in 1915, the Civil Rights movement generally moved away from his policies to take the more militant NAACP approach.

Booker T. Washington mastered the nuances of the political arena in the late 19th century which enabled him to manipulate the media, raise money, strategize, network, pressure, reward friends and distribute funds while punishing those who opposed his plans for uplifting blacks. His long-term goal was to end the disfranchisement of the vast majority of African Americans living in southern states, where most of the millions of black Americans still lived.

(*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington*)

The One Where Vic Blogs About Ella Fitzgerald

In honor of Black History Month, something that is very important to me, for my first post this month to celebrate notable African-Americans I am paying tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.

I grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald and LOVE her. She was and still is an amazing singer, even posthumously. Her music has made an impact on my life and I hope it does the same for you as you take a moment to honor African-Americans as well this month.

Biography

Dubbed "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.

Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra. She worked with all the jazz greats, from Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nat King Cole, to Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Benny Goodman. (Or rather, some might say all the jazz greats had the pleasure of working with Ella.)

She performed at top venues all over the world, and packed them to the hilt. Her audiences were as diverse as her vocal range. They were rich and poor, made up of all races, all religions and all nationalities. In fact, many of them had just one binding factor in common - they all loved her.

Humble but happy beginnings

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Va. on April 25, 1917. Her father, William, and mother, Temperance (Tempie), parted ways shortly after her birth. Together, Tempie and Ella went to Yonkers, N.Y, where they eventually moved in with Tempie's longtime boyfriend Joseph Da Silva. Ella's half-sister, Frances, was born in 1923 and soon she began referring to Joe as her stepfather.

To support the family, Joe dug ditches and was a part-time chauffeur, while Tempie worked at a laundromat and did some catering. Occasionally, Ella took on small jobs to contribute money as well. Perhaps naïve to the circumstances, Ella worked as a runner for local gamblers, picking up their bets and dropping off money.

Their apartment was in a mixed neighborhood, where Ella made friends easily. She considered herself more of a tomboy, and often joined in the neighborhood games of baseball. Sports aside, she enjoyed dancing and singing with her friends, and some evenings they would take the train into Harlem and watch various acts at the Apollo Theater.

A rough patch

In 1932, Tempie died from serious injuries that she received in a car accident. Ella took the loss very hard. After staying with Joe for a short time, Tempie's sister Virginia took Ella home. Shortly afterward Joe suffered a heart attack and died, and her little sister Frances joined them.

Unable to adjust to the new circumstances, Ella became increasingly unhappy and entered into a difficult period of her life. Her grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. After getting into trouble with the police, she was taken into custody and sent to a reform school. Living there was even more unbearable, as she suffered beatings at the hands of her caretakers.

Eventually Ella escaped from the reformatory. The 15-year-old found herself broke and alone during the Great Depression, and strove to endure.

Never one to complain, Ella later reflected on her most difficult years with an appreciation for how they helped her to mature. She used the memories from these times to help gather emotions for performances, and felt she was more grateful for her success because she knew what it was like to struggle in life.

"What's she going to do?"

In 1934 Ella's name was pulled in a weekly drawing at the Apollo and she won the opportunity to compete in Amateur Night. Ella went to the theater that night planning to dance, but when the frenzied Edwards Sisters closed the main show, Ella changed her mind. "They were the dancingest sisters around," Ella said, and she felt her act would not compare.

Once on stage, faced with boos and murmurs of "What's she going to do?" from the rowdy crowd, a scared and disheveled Ella made the last minute decision to sing. She asked the band to play Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy," a song she knew well because Connee Boswell's rendition of it was among Tempie's favorites. Ella quickly quieted the audience, and by the song's end they were demanding an encore. She obliged and sang the flip side of the Boswell Sister's record, "The Object of My Affections."

Off stage, and away from people she knew well, Ella was shy and reserved. She was self-conscious about her appearance, and for a while even doubted the extent of her abilities. On stage, however, Ella was surprised to find she had no fear. She felt at home in the spotlight.

"Once up there, I felt the acceptance and love from my audience," Ella said. "I knew I wanted to sing before people the rest of my life."

In the band that night was saxophonist and arranger Benny Carter. Impressed with her natural talent, he began introducing Ella to people who could help launch her career. In the process he and Ella became lifelong friends, often working together.

Fueled by enthusiastic supporters, Ella began entering - and winning - every talent show she could find. In January 1935 she won the chance to perform for a week with the Tiny Bradshaw band at the Harlem Opera House. It was there that Ella first met drummer and bandleader Chick Webb. Although her voice impressed him, Chick had already hired male singer Charlie Linton for the band. He offered Ella the opportunity to test with his band when they played a dance at Yale University.

"If the kids like her," Chick said, "she stays."

Despite the tough crowd, Ella was a major success, and Chick hired her to travel with the band for $12.50 a week.

Jazzing things up

In mid 1936, Ella made her first recording. "Love and Kisses" was released under the Decca label, with moderate success. By this time she was performing with Chick's band at the prestigious Harlem's Savoy Ballroom, often referred to as "The World's Most Famous Ballroom."

Shortly afterward, Ella began singing a rendition of the song, "(If You Can't Sing It) You Have to Swing It." During this time, the era of big swing bands was shifting, and the focus was turning more toward bebop. Ella played with the new style, often using her voice to take on the role of another horn in the band. "You Have to Swing It" was one of the first times she began experimenting with scat singing, and her improvisation and vocalization thrilled fans. Throughout her career, Ella would master scat singing, turning it into a form of art.

In 1938, at the age of 21, Ella recorded a playful version of the nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." The album sold 1 million copies, hit number one, and stayed on the pop charts for 17 weeks. Suddenly, Ella Fitzgerald was famous.

Coming into her own

On June 16, 1939, Ella mourned the loss of her mentor Chick Webb. In his absence the band was renamed "Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Band," and she took on the overwhelming task of bandleader.

Perhaps in search of stability and protection, Ella married Benny Kornegay, a local dockworker who had been pursuing her. Upon learning that Kornegay had a criminal history, Ella realized that the relationship was a mistake and had the marriage annulled.

While on tour with Dizzy Gillespie's band in 1946, Ella fell in love with bassist Ray Brown. The two were married and eventually adopted a son, whom they named Ray, Jr.

At the time, Ray was working for producer and manager Norman Granz on the "Jazz at the Philharmonic" tour. Norman saw that Ella had what it took to be an international star, and he convinced Ella to sign with him. It was the beginning of a lifelong business relationship and friendship.

Under Norman's management, Ella joined the Philharmonic tour, worked with Louis Armstrong on several albums and began producing her infamous songbook series. From 1956-1964, she recorded covers of other musicians' albums, including those by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart. The series was wildly popular, both with Ella's fans and the artists she covered.

"I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them," Ira Gershwin once remarked.

Ella also began appearing on television variety shows. She quickly became a favorite and frequent guest on numerous programs, including "The Bing Crosby Show," "The Dinah Shore Show," "The Frank Sinatra Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Tonight Show," "The Nat King Cole Show," "The Andy Willams Show" and "The Dean Martin Show."

Due to a busy touring schedule, Ella and Ray were often away from home, straining the bond with their son. Ultimately, Ray Jr. and Ella reconnected and mended their relationship.

"All I can say is that she gave to me as much as she could," Ray, Jr. later said, "and she loved me as much as she could."

Unfortunately, busy work schedules also hurt Ray and Ella's marriage. The two divorced in 1952, but remained good friends for the rest of their lives.

Overcoming discrimination

On the touring circuit it was well-known that Ella's manager felt very strongly about civil rights and required equal treatment for his musicians, regardless of their color. Norman refused to accept any type of discrimination at hotels, restaurants or concert halls, even when they traveled to the Deep South.

Once, while in Dallas touring for the Philharmonic, a police squad irritated by Norman's principles barged backstage to hassle the performers. They came into Ella's dressing room, where band members Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet were shooting dice, and arrested everyone.

"They took us down," Ella later recalled, "and then when we got there, they had the nerve to ask for an autograph."

Norman wasn't the only one willing to stand up for Ella. She received support from numerous celebrity fans, including a zealous Marilyn Monroe.

"I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt," Ella later said. "It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the '50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him - and it was true, due to Marilyn's superstar status - that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman - a little ahead of her times. And she didn't know it."

Worldwide recognition

Ella continued to work as hard as she had early on in her career, despite the ill effects on her health. She toured all over the world, sometimes performing two shows a day in cities hundreds of miles apart. In 1974, Ella spent a legendary two weeks performing in New York with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Still going strong five years later, she was inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame, and received Kennedy Center Honors for her continuing contributions to the arts.

Outside of the arts, Ella had a deep concern for child welfare. Though this aspect of her life was rarely publicized, she frequently made generous donations to organizations for disadvantaged youths, and the continuation of these contributions was part of the driving force that prevented her from slowing down. Additionally, when Frances died, Ella felt she had the additional responsibilities of taking care of her sister's family.

In 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan awarded Ella the National Medal of Arts. It was one of her most prized moments. France followed suit several years later, presenting her with their Commander of Arts and Letters award, while Yale, Dartmouth and several other universities bestowed Ella with honorary doctorates.

End of an era

In September of 1986, Ella underwent quintuple coronary bypass surgery. Doctors also replaced a valve in her heart and diagnosed her with diabetes, which they blamed for her failing eyesight. The press carried rumors that she would never be able to sing again, but Ella proved them wrong. Despite protests by family and friends, including Norman, Ella returned to the stage and pushed on with an exhaustive schedule.

By the 1990s, Ella had recorded over 200 albums. In 1991, she gave her final concert at New York's renowned Carnegie Hall. It was the 26th time she performed there.

As the effects from her diabetes worsened, 76-year-old Ella experienced severe circulatory problems and was forced to have both of her legs amputated below the knees. She never fully recovered from the surgery, and afterward, was rarely able to perform. During this time, Ella enjoyed sitting outside in her backyard, and spending time with Ray, Jr. and her granddaughter Alice.

"I just want to smell the air, listen to the birds and hear Alice laugh," she said.

On June 15, 1996, Ella Fitzgerald died in her Beverly Hills home. Hours later, signs of remembrance began to appear all over the world. A wreath of white flowers stood next to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a marquee outside the Hollywood Bowl theater read, "Ella, we will miss you."

After a private memorial service, traffic on the freeway was stopped to let her funeral procession pass through. She was laid to rest in the "Sanctuary of the Bells" section of the Sunset Mission Mausoleum at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, Calif.