Black History - First Lady Michelle Obama

Dear Readers,

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is the wife of the forty-fourth President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first First Lady of the United States of African-American heritage.

First Lady Michelle Obama was born and grew up in Chicago (south side). She graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She met her husband, Barack Obama while working at a Chicago Law firm. She helped her husband with the campaign for the presidential bid and delivered a keynote address at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

She has two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Childhood obesity is her first lady's initiative.

Black History - President Barack Obama

Dear Readers,
This month would not be complete without paying tribute to our current president:
Barack Obama, our 44th of the United States. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

President Obama has a Bachelor's Degree from Columbia University (1983)he also attended Occidental College; and has a Law Degree from Harvard Law School (1991)

He served as an Illinois state senator from 1997-2005; U.S. and as a senator from 2005- 2009 when he was elected president.

His professional history includes jobs as a Financial analyst, Business International Corp., 1983-84; organizer, Developing Communities Project, 1985-88; executive director, Illinois Project Vote, 1992; senior lecturer, University of Chicago Law School, 1993-2004; author.

He is married to Michelle (Robinson) and has 2 daughters Malia Ann and Sasha.

These are the issues he ran his campagian: economy, health care, imigration and global warmng
Source: http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-09-11/news/17120052_1_illegal-immigrants-health-care-political-biography

Black History - Africian American firsts

Dear Readers,

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American pilots in the U.S. armed forces. Beginning in 1941, select groups of extensively tested and rigorously trained African-Americans were trained at The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Tuskegee Airmen are depicted in the G.I. Joe action figure series.


Nathaniel Adams Cole “Nat King Cole” (1919 - 1965), a singer, song writer and pianist, was the first African-American to host a national television program, The Nat King Cole Show, in 1956.

Edmonia Lewis (1844? - ?) was the first professional African-American sculptor, often sculpting courageous and inspirational people such as Cleopatra, Phillis Wheatley, President Ulysses S. Grant, etc…

Debi Thomas (1967 - ), the talented figure-skater, is the first African American to win a medal (bronze) at the Winter Olympic games (1988). In 2002 Vonetta Flowers (1973 - ) became the first African-American to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympic games.

Richard Theodore Greener (1844 - 1922), was the first African-American graduate from Harvard in 1870. He started out at Oberlin college, the first American college to admit African-Americans and went on to become a lawyer.

Alain Locke (1886 - 1954), a writer, philosopher and intellectual, was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar. A strong supporter of African-American arts, he wrote about the Harlem Renaissance in The New Negro (1925).

Maya Angelou's (1928 - ) autobiographical, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" is the first non-fiction work by an African-American woman to make the best-seller list.


Deford Bailey (1899 - 1982) was a "wizard" at playing the harmonica and was most notable for mimicking the sound of locomotives. He was the first African-American to perform at the Grand Ole Opry and one of the first African-American stars of country music.

Black History - Inventions

Dear Readers,

These are just a few of the little know facts of Black History.

Frederick Jones (1892 - 1961)held over 60 patents with most of them pertaining to refrigeration. His portable air conditioner was used in World War II to preserve medicine and blood serum.

Thomas J. Martin patented a fire extinguisher in 1872.

Joseph Winters invented a fire escape ladder in 1878.

Lonnie G. Johnson (1949 - ), an engineer who performed spacecraft system design for NASA, invented the Super Soaker water gun - the number one selling toy in America in 1991.

John Love invented the pencil sharpener in 1897.

Henry Brown created what is now known as a "strongbox", a metal container to store money and important papers that could be locked with a key in 1886.

Joseph Lee (1849 - 1905) invented a bread-making machine that mixed the ingredients and kneaded the dough in 1895.

Henry Blair (1807 - 1860), the second African-American to receive a patent, invented a corn seed planter in 1834 and a cotton planter in 1836. Blair could not read or write and signed his patent with an X.

Source: http://www.biography.com/blackhistory/101-facts-inventions.jsp

Black History - Buffalo Soldiers

Dear Readers,

Have you ever heard of the "Buffalo Soldiers"? This is the nickname that was given to the Africian-Americian soldiers of the 10th regiment of the U.S. Army by the Native Americans they fought in 1866. The "Buffalo Soldiers" were created by Congress as the first peacetime all black regiment of the U. S. Army.
The "Buffalo Soldiers were also some of the first national park rangers. Buffalo Soldiers from Company H, 24th Infantry Regiment served as park rangers in Yosemite National Park, Sequioa National Park and General Grant Natinal Park. .

(Sources: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Soldier; Yosemite Association: http://www.yosemite.org/newsroom/clips2003/february/020103.htm)

Black History - Henriett Lacks, Imortal Cells

Dear Readers,

These are the words from my last post:
"The month of February, 2010, B4 Literacy salutes African Americans who have unselfishly helped to make this USA and the world a better place to live."

After reading an article about young black woman named Henrietta Lacks whose cells were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization, I have to add these words after the word unselfishly: and unaware .

The article is about a black 30 year woman who has cervical cancer, she goes to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. On one of her visits in 1951, one of the scientist took a sample of the tumor to another group of scientist who had been attempting to grow tissues. According to the article Henrietta was unaware that the scientist had taken a sample of her tumor to be studied. For 10 years, the scientists had been unsuccessful when they tried to grow tissue in cultures. Henrietta Lacks cells never died…
“Henrietta’s cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture. They were essential to developing the polio vaccine. They went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity. Many scientific landmarks since then have used her cells, including cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.”
Read more about this in the article in the following link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immortal-Cells.html
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by journalist Rebecca Skloot tells down the story of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line's impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family.

Salute to Black History Month!

Dear Readers,

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if a certain person or certain people had not been born? I often ponder this question for African Americans like Carter G. Woodson, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and Barack Obama to name a few. There are of course many, many, many more African American people that you can think of in your mind that have had an impact on society and set the wheels of change in motion for the betterment of society.

The world has not seen or heard of all the people not just African Americans that will have an impact on the American society and the world.

Every nationality has people from the past, present and will have people in the future that can and will be honored for major accomplishments in order to make the world a better place.

The month of February, 2010, B4 Literacy salutes African Americans who have unselfishly helped to make this USA and the world a better place to live.