Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
why the hell am I the only person who named nat turner? WTF?!
Nat is a good favorite. The whole failed slave revolution my have diminished his appeal. If he were a general, he would have been a poor one. IMO - he failed to put enough thought into his excape plan. Going from house to house and killing the inhabitants was bound to eventually run into superior resistance. I'll admit that the goal of freedom is to be admired, his method just seemed to fall short.
Dr. Percy Lavon Julian (1899-1975) Scientist, Medical Researcher
Born in 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Percy Julian was one of the most famous Black scientists. Just as George Washington Carver demonstrated what could be done with the ordinary peanut, Dr. Julian took the soybean, which was until this time just another bean, and extracted from it an ingredient to relieve inflammatory arthritis. Until the late thirties Europe had a monopoly on the production of sterol, the basis of Dr. Julian's research. These sterol were extracted from the bile of animals at a cost of several hundreds of dollars a gram. Substituting sterol from the oil of soybean, Dr. Julian reduced the cost of sterol to less than twenty cents a gram, thus making cortisone, a sterol derivative, available to the needy at a reasonable cost. In 1954 he founded Julian Laboratory, Inc. With research centers in Chicago, Mexico City, and Guatemala, where he successfully developed synthetic cortisone. Before his death of liver cancer, Dr. Julian found a way to mass produce the drug physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma, and perfected the mass production of sex hormones which led the way to birth control pills. Dr. Julian died in 1975.
and.....this man's story is amazing...
Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1856 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. He was the fifth of seven children born to Daniel and Sarah Williams. Daniel's father was a barber and moved the family to Annapolis, Maryland but died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis. Daniel's mother realized she could not manage the entire family and sent some of the children to live with relatives. Daniel was apprenticed to a shoemaker in Baltimore but ran away to join his mother who had moved to Rockford, Illinois. He later moved to Edgerton, Wisconsin where he joined his sister and opened his own barber shop. After moving to nearby Janesville, Daniel became fascinated with a local physician and decided to follow his path. He began working as an apprentice to the physician (Dr. Henry Palmer) for two years and in 1880 entered what is now known as Northwestern University Medical School. After graduation from Northwestern in 1883, he opened his own medical office in Chicago, Illinois.
Because of primitive social and medical circumstances existing in that era, much of Williams early medical practice called for him to treat patients in their homes, including conducting occasional surgeries on kitchen tables. In doing so, Williams utilized many of the emerging antiseptic, sterilization procedures of the day and thereby gained a reputation for professionalism.
He was soon appointed as a surgeon on the staff of the South Side Dispensary and then a clinical instructor in anatomy at Northwestern. In 1889 he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health and one year later set out to create an interracial hospital.
On January 23, 1891 Daniel Hale Williams established the Provident Hospital and Training School Association, a three story building which held 12 beds and served members of the community as a whole. The school also served to train Black nurses and utilized doctors of all races. Within its first year, 189 patients were treated at Provident Hospital and of those 141 saw a complete recovery, 23 had recovered significantly, three had seen change in their condition and 22 had died.
For a brand new hospital, at that time, to see an 87% success rate was phenomenal considering the financial and health conditions of the patient, and primitive conditions of most hospitals. Much can be attributed to Williams insistence on the highest standards concerning procedures and sanitary conditions.
Two and a half years later, on July 9, 1893, a young Black man named James Cornish was injured in a bar fight, stabbed in the chest with a knife. By the time he was transported to Provident Hospital he was seeping closer and closer to death, having lost a great deal of blood and having gone into shock. Williams was faced with the choice of opening the man's chest and possibly operating internally when that was almost unheard of in that day in age. Internal operations were unheard of because any entrance into the chest or abdomen of a patient would almost surely bring with it resulting infection and therefore death.
Williams made the decision to operate and opened the man's chest. He saw the damage to the man's pericardium (sac surrounding the heart) and sutured it, then applied antiseptic procedures before closing his chest. Fifty one days later, James Cornish walked out of Provident Hospital completely recovered and would go on to live for another fifty years. Unfortunately, Williams was so busy with other matters, he did not bother to document the event and others made claims to have first achieved the feat of performing open heart surgery. Fortunately, local newspapers of the day did spread the news and Williams received the acclaim he deserved. It should be noted however that while he is known as the first person to perform an open heart surgery, it is actually more noteworthy that he was the first surgeon to open the chest cavity successfully without the patient dying of infection. His procedures would therefore be used as standards for future internal surgeries.
In February 1894, Daniel Hale Williams was appointed as Chief Surgeon at the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. and reorganized the hospital, creating seven medical and surgical departments, setting up pathological and bacteriological units, establishing a biracial staff of highly qualified doctors and nurses and established an internship program. Recognition of his efforts and their success came when doctors from all over the country traveled to Washington to view the hospital and to sit in on surgery performed there. Almost immediately there was an astounding increase in efficiency as well as a decrease in patient deaths
When the American Medical Association refused to accept Black members, Williams helped to set up and served as Vice-President of the National Medical Association. In 1912, Williams was appointed associate attending surgeon at St. Luke's and worked there until his retirement from the practice of medicine.
Last edited by cremebrulee; 07-23-2008 at 09:57 PM..
Black men: I'd have to say Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Frederick Douglass and Louis Armstrong.
I've actually had someone try to accuse me of being racist because I said I hated Obama and can't imagine him as president. I'd vote for Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice or Colin Powell any day!
Black women: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Condoleeza Rice
Black men: I'd have to say Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Frederick Douglass and Louis Armstrong.
I've actually had someone try to accuse me of being racist because I said I hated Obama and can't imagine him as president. I'd vote for Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice or Colin Powell any day!
Black women: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Condoleeza Rice
oh yes, Colin Powell and most certainly Martin Luther...
I not only loved Martin Luther, but highly respected him...mainly because he was a man of equal opportunity...he told people to be accountable for their choices...he also said, to be an example to your race, and live your life to compliment others, work for what you want, and don't expect others to carry your weight, carry your own weight...he was surely an asset to society...
and then you have Jessie Jackson....Al Sharpton, who are an embarrassment and display the opposite.
I don't like Obama either...
but I also do not like McCain...
I hate what they give us for future candidates of the United States...
I would vote for Powell in a heartbeat, but his wife, doesn't want him to run and I don't blame her...Powell would be the man who would change things...for the better...and there are people who wouldn't take kindly to that...they want puppets in there, not change for the people.
It is such a shame...
Josephine Baker - I loved that movie and I think her story is awesome
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
