Commentary: African American Scientists and Inventors
by Black Kos Editor, Sephius1
One of the areas of employment that seem to favor african-american after emancipation was working for the railroad. Whether is was working as Pullman Porter, or improving on railroad design. African americans have made huge contributions to that industry. One such person is Andrew Beard.
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Andrew Jackson Beard hailed from Eastlake, Alabama, a small town outside of Birmingham. With the emergence of the railroad industry and its rapid expansion throughout the country, an alarming number of railmen suffered serious injuries to their arms and legs when they were crushed during manual style coupling of railroad cars. During manual coupling, a worker would have to attempt to precisely time the moment when two railroad cars being pushed together would be close enough for that worker to drop a metal pin between their connectors, thus engaging the cars. If the worker was off by one second he might severe damage his arm or leg - many in fact had to undergo amputation.
On November 27, 1897 Beard received a patent for a device he called the Jenny Coupler. The Jenny Coupler automatically joined cars by simply allowing them to bump into each other, or as Beard described it the "horizontal jaws engage each other to connect the cars." Beard sold the rights to his invention for $50,000.00 and the railroad industry was revolutionized....Read More
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The National Urban League released its yearly analysis of the socio-economic status of African Americans, The State of Black America report. And although the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the White House, have emphasized the widening wealth gap and shrinking middle class as being the make-or-break issues for the nation this year, the civil rights organization has a different assessment. The Root: Urban League Wants to Occupy the Vote
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“More than the economy, more than jobs, more than an excellent education for all children, the single issue that arguably stands to have the greatest impact on the future of Black America in 2012 is the vote,” writes National Urban League president and CEO Mark Morial in the report, entitled Occupy the Vote to Education, Employ and Empower. He zeroes in on the several dozen state laws introduced in last year requiring government-issued photo ID in order to vote, shortening early voting periods and voting hours, and severely restricting voter registration drives, among other measures – all of which have disparate impacts on African Americans' access to the ballot.
The report – which includes chapters penned by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, advertising executive Steve Stoute and recording artist John Legend – also discusses challenges and solutions around education and employment. As its writers put forward, blacks at the voting booth have a direct impact on those issues.
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Columnist Mary Mitchell praises first lady Michelle Obama for helping to change the lens through which black women are viewed and judged. She says that Obama examplifies a multifaceted black woman who has too often been ignored. Chicago Sun-Times: Michelle Obama Makes Black Women Proud
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It is a good time to be a black woman in America.
Whether or not this assessment stems from the surprising popularity of the nation’s first black first lady, Michelle Obama, isn’t clear.
But according to a recent nationwide survey by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 73 percent of black women and 71 percent of white women polled responded that they think it is a good time to be a black woman in America.
In a series published last month, the Washington Post and Kaiser Foundation sought to peel back the many dubious labels often ascribed to black women.
We’ve all heard them: “angry,” “strong,” “nagging” and “loose.”
Interviewers talked to about 800 black women about their worries, hopes and fears to determine how black women see themselves in the Age of Obama.
The study itself represents change. After all, it isn’t very often researchers attempt to define black women from a perspective other than that of single mother or poor black women.
But the advent of Michelle Obama seems to have changed that.
Although you can’t really say Obama gave white Americans its first close-up of the accomplished black woman outside of Hollywood (that distinction goes to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice).
But Obama showcased a multi-faceted black woman too often ignored. The Harvard-educated wife and mother is both glamorous and practical.
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Black high-school athletes from the Jim Crow era have been denied their place in history. It’s time to change that. Slate: Integrate the Record Books
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For a state of 3 million people, Arkansas has produced more than its share of basketball heroes. Sidney Moncrief, Scottie Pippen, Derek Fisher, and Joe Johnson have accrued 18 All-Star appearances and 11 NBA titles. As high-schoolers, however, none of them stacked up to Eddie Miles and Jackie Ridgle.
In the 1950s, Miles led North Little Rock’s all-black Scipio Jones High School to four straight state titles. "We called him 'rocking chair' because he would absolutely rock you,” one of his opponents told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2002. “He could drop 50 on you whenever he wanted.” Ridgle, who was reputed to have a 40-inch vertical leap, regularly scored in the 30-point range in leading Altheimer’s Martin High School to its first all-black-schools state championship in 1966. But when you look at Arkansas’ official list of all-time leading high-school scorers, you won’t see Miles and Ridgle.
It’s not just Arkansas that omits the feats of black high-schoolers who played in segregated schools. In 1956, forward Hubert “Geese” Ausbie of Crescent, Okla., scored 186 points over three consecutive tournament games for all-black Douglas High School. Ausbie, who went on to play the role of the “Clown Prince of Basketball” for the Harlem Globetrotters, recalls averaging from 30 to 40 points a game as a high-schooler. Ausbie’s name, though, isn’t on Oklahoma’s all-time scoring list. (He tells me he should be near the top, in the neighborhood of supposed all-time leader Rotnei Clarke.) And Ausbie isn’t the only former Globetrotter who might be unfairly excluded from the record book. Other possibilities from Oklahoma alone include Marquis Haynes, who helped the Globetrotters defeat the NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers, and twins Lawrence and Lance Cudjoe.
These legends’ absence from the historical record—and their resulting exclusion from news stories about modern-day prep basketball stars—is a direct consequence of the Deep South’s segregationist past. Before the late 1960s, whites played against whites and blacks played against blacks. Arkansas, like many other states, separated its athletics associations by race.
Courtesy Cal Athletics.
Arkansas high school legend Jackie Ridgle went on to play at UC-Berkeley.
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The new Jim Crow. NewsOne: Michelle Alexander Challenges Drug Policy’s Racial Undertones
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In her book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” Professor Alexander examines a series of cases and other data that allege a possible link between the tough drug laws enacted during the Nixon era and the Ronald Reagan-led ’80s, which, according to Alexander, have done a great disservice to Black American citizens. In her book, Alexander asserts that almost one-third of Black men land in prison only to be released and relegated to second-class citizenship. The New York Times bestselling book also furthers the argument that the system is not favorable to African Americans.
Some critics say Alexander’s book takes too broad a stroke at the idea that the drug war is an affront to civil rights gains for Blacks. In fact, the New York Times reports that Yale Professor of Law James Forman Jr. intends to write a countering article for New York University Law Review set for release next month. Forman’s thought is that drug offenders only make up 25 percent of the entire prison population and feels that there is little mention in Alexander’s book about what violent offender numbers look like.
Whatever the case, Alexander’s book has created a necessary debate on how drug law enforcement has allegedly targeted Blacks and Hispanics, forcing the greater public to consider why these groups continue to swell in prisons across the nation.
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On Thursday, thousands of organizations around the world will celebrate International Women’s Day, acknowledging women’s achievements and drawing attention to their continuing struggles. New York Times: Africa’s Girl Power
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Thinking about the day, I was reminded of a woman named Fiona Mavhinga, whom I met at a conference a few years ago and who works for a remarkable organization called Camfed, which supports girls’ education in Africa.
Mavhinga grew up in a rural district of Zimbabwe called Wedza, about 80 miles south of Harare, the capital. She spent most of her childhood living with her grandmother because the closest primary school was only three miles away, a walkable distance for a young girl. (The closest school was twice that distance from her parents’ home.) When she was 13, her father lost his job and had to cut back his support for her education. To remain in school, Mavhinga had to earn money to pay for fees, clothes, books, pens and paraffin. She sold vegetables with her grandmother before and after school, beginning at 4 a.m. and ending around dinner. “I didn’t have any time to do homework during the day,” she recalled. “I had to be at the market, then cook dinner, and wash up and do all the other house chores which girls are expected to help with.”
At night, she studied by candlelight. She did well and completed high school, but her education would have ended there if not for support from Camfed, which allowed her to attend the University of Zimbabwe, where she graduated in law. When I met her, she told me she was supporting the education of 22 children in Zimbabwe — 14 girls and 8 boys.
I was amazed and humbled. But I later discovered that this devotion to education was not unusual for Camfed alumni — or for the tens of thousands of villagers that Camfed has touched.
Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education) was founded in 1993 by a Welsh social entrepreneur named Ann Cotton, who began by raising money at her kitchen table to send 32 girls from poor families in Zimbabwe to school. Today, the organization works with 3,667 schools in rural parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and Malawi, and has provided direct support for more than half a million children to attend primary school. Camfed has also provided grants to enable 60,000 girls to complete secondary school, supported 15,000 more who attend university or receive business training, and provided financing for 8,000 of their enterprises.
In recent years, leaders in the field of international development have come to agree that the most powerful way to bring lasting social benefits to a country is to expand educational and economic opportunities for girls.
Mark Read
Fiona Mavhinga, who received help from Camfed as a girl, now supports the education of children in Zimbabwe.
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