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William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois (pronounced /duːˈbɔɪz/ doo-boyz; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in western Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a tolerant community and experienced little racism as a child. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
[On March 2,] 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black man, became the first casualty of the American Revolution when he was shot and killed in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Although Attucks was credited as the leader and instigator of the event, debate raged for over as century as to whether he was a hero and a patriot, or a rabble-rousing villain...
That evening a group of about thirty, described by John Adams as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs," began taunting the guard at the custom house with snowballs, sticks and insults. Seven other redcoats came to the lone soldier's rescue, and Attucks was one of five men killed when they opened fire. Patriots, pamphleteers and propagandists immediately dubbed the event the "Boston Massacre," and its victims became instant martyrs and symbols of liberty. Despite laws and customs regulating the burial of blacks, Attucks was buried in the Park Street cemetery along with the other honored dead....
A "Crispus Attucks Day" was inaugurated by black abolitionists in 1858, and in 1888, the Crispus Attucks Monument was erected on the Boston Common, despite the opposition of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which regarded Attucks as a villain. The debate notwithstanding, Attucks, immortalized as "the first to defy, the first to die," has been lauded as a true martyr, "the first to pour out his blood as a precious libation on the altar of a people's rights."
Isaac Burns Murphy (April 16, 1861 - February 12, 1896) was an African-American Hall of Fame jockey, who is considered one of the greatest riders in American Thoroughbred horse racing history. Murphy won three Kentucky Derbies.
Isaac Burns was born in Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky. His father served in the Union army in the Civil War, until his death at Camp Nelson as a prisoner of war. After his father's death Burns' family moved to Lexington, where they lived with Burns' grandfather Green Murphy. When he became a jockey at age 14, he changed his last name to Murphy in honor of his grandfather.
Isaac Murphy rode in eleven Kentucky Derbies, winning three times: on Buchanan in 1884, Riley in 1890, and Kingman in 1891. Kingman was owned and trained by Dudley Allen, and is the only horse owned by an African-American to win the Derby. Murphy is the only jockey to have won the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, and the Clark Handicap in the same year (1884). He was called the "Colored Archer," a reference to Fred Archer, a prominent English jockey at the time.
According to his own calculations Murphy won 628 of his 1,412 starts—a 44% victory rate which has never been equaled, and a record about which Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro said: "There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed. [1] By a later calculation of incomplete records his record stands at 530 wins in 1,538 rides, which still makes his win rate 34%.[2] At its creation in 1955, Isaac Burns Murphy was the first jockey to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.[3]
Murphy died of pneumonia in 1896 in Lexington, Kentucky, and over time his unmarked grave in African Cemetery No. 2 was forgotten. During the 1960s Frank B. Borries Jr., a University of Kentucky press specialist, spent three years searching for the grave site. In 1967, Murphy was reinterred at the old Man o' War burial site.[1] With the building of the Kentucky Horse Park, his remains were moved to be buried again next to Man o' War at the entrance to the park.
Since 1995, the National Turf Writers Association has given the Isaac Murphy Award to the jockey with the highest winning percentage for the year in North American racing (from a minimum of 500 mounts).
Elizabeth Keckley bought her freedom and rose to become Mary Todd Lincoln's dress designer and personal confidant. Born a slave and fathered by a white plantation owner in Virginia. Ms. Keckley worked as a dressmaker in St. Louis, using her skills to buy freedom for herself and her son.
Elizabeth Keckley met Mary Todd Lincoln on March 4, 1861, the day of Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration. As she was preparing for the day's events, Mrs. Lincoln asked Keckley to return the next day for an interview. When she arrived, Keckley found other women there to be interviewed as well, but Mrs. Lincoln chose her as her personal modiste.
In addition to dressmaking, Keckley assisted Mrs. Lincoln each day as her personal dresser. She also helped Mrs. Lincoln prepare for official receptions and other social events. For the next six years, Keckley became an intimate witness to the private life of the First Family. Known for her love of fashion, the First Lady kept Keckley busy maintaining and creating new pieces for her extensive wardrobe. Within four months, Keckley made approximately sixteen dresses. Mrs. Lincoln was known to be difficult. Rosetta Wells said that Keckley was "the only person in Washington who could get along with Mrs. Lincoln, when she became mad with anybody for talking about her and criticizing her husband." Their friendship fostered Keckley's lifelong loyalty to the First Lady.
During the Lincoln administration (and many years afterward), Keckley was the sole designer and creator of Mary Todd Lincoln's event wardrobe. In January 1862, Mrs. Lincoln went for photos to Brady's Washington Photography Studio, where she had images taken while wearing two of Keckley's gowns. For several years to come, she wore Keckley's dresses to many official events and had more portraits taken while wearing her work.
In 1895, Dr. Nathan Mossell est. the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital, the first black hospital in Philadelphia. The second private black hospital in the city Est. in 1907, Mercy Hospital would "meet the objectives for which it [Douglass] was organized -- that is giving opportunities to Negro doctors to get incalculable benefits from hospital practice." The two hospitals operated independently for the next 40-odd years.
Eugene Jacques Bullard Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1894, stowed away to Europe as a teenager, earning money as a prizefighter and interpreter. When World War I erupted he joined the French army and ultimately became the world’s first black fighter pilot. He later married the daughter of a French countess, opened a nightclub in Paris and hobnobbed with the likes of Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong and Ernest Hemingway.
I still think whites are due a 'White Appreciation Month' for all their wonderful achievements towards mankind. They've earned it.
You pick the month and I'll join you.
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Crispus Attucks
