Friday, February 27, 2009

This Black History honor goes to...

Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges, as depicted by Norman Rockwell. Entitled "The Problem We All Live With"




Ruby Bridges was one of six African American children chosen to attend integrated schools. She was assigned to William Fantz Elementary. She was met with adversity and difficulty, but even as a little girl, showed courage beyond her years! This is her story:


Take another look at the cover of this magazine [above]. The little girl on the left is me in November 1960, walking up the steps of William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, the first black student at the formerly all-white elementary school. That's me now, on the right, married, a mother of four. Forty years separate those pictures.

Forty years that brought incredible change in our country, forged in the crucible of the civil rights movement and the battle to end segregation. Forty years that changed me as well.

I was born in Mississippi in 1954, the oldest child of Abon and Lucille Bridges. That year the United States handed down its landmark decision ordering the integration of public schools. Not that I knew anything about school at the time. What I knew and loved was growing up on the farm my paternal grandparents sharecropped.

It was a very hard life, though. My parents heard there were better opportunities in the city. We moved to New Orleans, where my father found work as a service station attendant, and my mother took night jobs to help support our growing family.

As I got a bit older, my job was to keep an eye on my younger brothers and sister, which wasn't too difficult. Except for church and the long walk to the all-black school where I went to kindergarten, our world didn't extend beyond our block. But that was all about to change.


Under federal court order, New Orleans public schools were finally forced to desegregate. In the spring of 1960 I took a test, along with other black kindergarteners in the city, to see who would go to an integrated school come September. That summer my parents learned I'd passed the test and had been selected to start first grade at William Frantz Public School.

My mother was all for it. My father wasn't. "We're just asking for trouble," he said. He thought things weren't going to change, and blacks and whites would never be treated as equals. Mama thought I would have an opportunity to get a better education if I went to the new school - and a chance for a good job later in life. My parents argued about it and prayed about it. Eventually my mother convinced my father that despite the risks, they had to take this step forward, not just for their own children, but for all black children.

A federal judge decreed that Monday, November 14, 1960 would be the day black children in New Orleans would go to school with white children. There were six of us chosen to integrate the city's public school system. Two decided to stay in their old schools. The other three were assigned to McDonough. I would be going to William Frantz alone.

The morning of November 14 federal marshals drove my mother and me the five blocks to William Frantz. In the car one of the men explained that when we arrived at the school two marshals would walk in front of us an two behind, so we'd be protected on both sides.

That reminded me of what Mama had taught us about God, that he is always there to protect us. "Ruby Nell," she said as we pulled up to my new school, "don't be afraid. There might be some people upset outside, but I'll be with you."

Sure enough, people shouted and shook their fist when we got out of the car, but to me it wasn't any noisier than Mardi Gras, I held my mother's hand and followed the marshals through the crowd, up the steps into the school.

We spent that whole day sitting in the principal's office. Through the window, I saw white parents pointing at us and yelling, then rushing their children out of the school. In the uproar I never got to my classroom.

The marshals drove my mother and me to school again the next day. I tried not to pay attention to the mob. Someone had a black doll in a coffin, and that scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.

A young white woman met us inside the building. She smiled at me. "Good morning, Ruby Nell," she said, just like Mama except with what I later learned was a Boston accent. "Welcome, I'm your new teacher, Mrs. Henry." She seemed nice, but I wasn't sure how to feel about her. I'd never been taught by a white teacher before.

Mrs. Henry took my mother and me to her second-floor classroom. All the desk were empty and she asked me to choose a seat. I picked one up front, and Mrs. Henry started teaching me the letters of the alphabet.

The next morning my mother told me she couldn't go to school with me. She had to work and look after my brothers and sister. "The marshals will take good car of you, Ruby Nell," Mama assured me. "Remember, if you get afraid, say your prayers. You can pray to God anytime, anywhere. He will always hear you."

That was how I started praying on the way to school. The things people yelled at me didn't seem to touch me. Prayer was my protection. After walking up the steps past the angry crowd, though, I was glad to see Mrs. Henry. She gave me a hug, and she sat right by my side instead of at the big teacher's desk in the front of the room. Day after day, it was just Mrs. Henry and me, working on my lessons.

Militant segregationists, as the news called them, took to the streets in protest, and riots erupted all over the city. My parents shielded me as best they could, but I knew problems had come to our family because I was going to the white school. My father was fired from his job. The white owners of a grocery store told us not to shop there anymore. Even my grandparents in Mississippi suffered. The owner of the land they'd sharecropped for 25 years said everyone knew it was their granddaughter causing trouble in New Orleans, and asked them to move.

At the same time, there were a few white families who braved the protests and kept their children in school. But they weren't in my class, so I didn't see them. People from around the country who'd heard about me on the news sent letters and donations. A neighbor gave my dad a job painting houses. Other folks baby-sat for us, watched our house to keep away troublemakers, even walked behind the marshal's car on my way to school. My family couldn't have made it without our friends' and neighbors' help.

And me, I couldn't have gotten through that year without Mrs. Henry. Sitting next to her in our classroom, just the two of us, I was able to forget the world outside. She made school fun. We did everything together. I couldn't go out in the schoolyard for recess, so right in that room we played games and for exercise we did jumping jacks to music.

I remember her explaining integration to me and why some people were against it. "It's not easy for people to change once they have gotten used to living a certain way," Mrs. Henry said. "Some of them don't know any better and they're afraid. But not everyone is like that."

Even though I was only six, I knew what she meant. The people I passed every morning as I walked up the schools steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known. The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry's class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tried to teach us all. Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper. From her window, Mrs. Henry always watched me walk into school. One morning when I got to our classroom, she said she'd been surprised to see me talk to the mob. "I saw your lips moving," she said, "but I couldn't make out what you were saying to those people."

I wasn't talking to them," I told her. "I was praying for them." Usually I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I'd forgotten until I was in the crowd. Please be with me, I'd asked God, and be with those people too. Forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.

"Ruby Nell, you are truly someone special," Mrs. Henry whispered, giving me an even bigger hug than usual. She had this look on her face like my mother would get when I'd done something to make her proud.

Another person who helped me was Dr. Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist who happened to see me being escorted through the crowd outside my school. Dr. Coles volunteered to work with me through this ordeal. Soon he was coming to our house every week to talk with me about how I was doing in school.

Really, I was doing fine. I was always with people who wanted the best for me: my family, friends, and in school, my teacher. The more time I spent with Mrs. Henry, the more I grew to love her. I wanted to be like her. Soon, without realizing it, I had picked up her Boston accent.

Neither of us missed a single day of school that year. The crowd outside dwindled to just a few protestors, and before I knew it, it was June. For me, first grade ended much more quietly than it began. I said good-bye to Mrs. Henry, fully expecting her to be my teacher again in the fall.
But when I went back to school in September, everything was different. There were no marshals, no protestors. There were other kids - even some other black students - in my second-grade class. And Mrs. Henry was gone. I was devastated. Years later I found out she hadn't been invited to return to William Frantz, and she and her husband had moved back to Boston. It was almost as if that first year of school integration had never happened. No one talked about it. Everyone seemed to have put that difficult time behind them.

After a while, I did the same. I finished grade school at William Frantz and graduated from an integrated high school, went to business school and studied travel and tourism. For 15 years I worked as a travel agent. Eventually I married and threw myself into raising four sons in the city I grew up in.

I didn't give much thought to the events of my childhood until my youngest brother died in 1993. For a time, I looked after his daughters. They happened to be students at William Frantz, and when I took them there every morning, I was literally walking into my past, into the same school that I'd help integrate years earlier.

I began volunteering three days a week at William Frantz, working as a liaison between parents and the school. Still, I had the feeling God had brought me back in touch with my past for something beyond that. I struggled with it for a while. Finally I got on my knees and prayed, Lord, whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing, you'll have to show me.

Not long after that, a reporter called the school. The psychiatrist Robert Coles had written a children's book, The Story of Ruby Bridges; now everyone wanted to know what had happened to the little girl in the Norman Rockwell painting (See Picture Gallery) that had appeared in Look magazine. No one expected to find me back at William Frantz. Dr. Coles had often written about me, but this was the first book intended for children. To me it was God's way of keeping my story alive until I was able to tell it myself.

One of the best parts of the story is that I was finally reunited with my favorite teacher, Barbara Henry. She reached me through the publisher of Dr. Coles's book, and in 1995 we saw each other in person for the first time in more than three decades. The second she laid eyes on me, she cried, "Ruby Nell!" No one had called me that since I was a little girl. Then we were hugging each other, just like we used to every morning in first grade.

I didn't realize how much I had picked up from Mrs. Henry (I still have a hard time calling her anything else) - not only her Boston accent, but her mannerism too, such as how she tilts her head and gestures her hands when she talks. She showed me a tiny, dog-eared photo of me with my front teeth missing that she'd kept all these years. "I used to look at that picture and wonder how you were," she said. "I told my kids about you so often you were like part of my family."

We have stayed a part of each other's lives ever since. It turns out that because of what I went through on the front lines of the battle for school integration, people recognize my name and are eager to hear what I have to say about racism and education today. I speak to groups around the country, and when I visit schools, Mrs. Henry often comes with me. We tell kids our story and talk about the lessons of the past and how we can still learn from them today - especially that every child is a unique human being fashioned by God.

I tell them that another important thing I learned in first grade is that schools can be a place to bring people together - kids of all races and backgrounds. That's the work I focus on now, connecting our children through their schools. It's my way of continuing what God set in motion 40 years ago when he led me up the steps of William Frantz Public School and into a new world with my teacher, Mrs. Henry - a world that under his protection has reached for beyond just the two of us in that classroom.



This article was written by Ruby Bridges for/and published in Guideposts March 2000

For more information, visit RubyBridges.com. You can also read this article published at NOLA.com

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Real fish with transparent head!

you guys gotta take a look at this fish. OMG! It's amazing!! here's a vid that explains it all. I know the fish looks fake but it's real. take a look.

Episode 4:24 Free Casting Call

Remember we had said that the boys on Prison Break might be going back to prison? Well check out these casting roles... Not too happy about that. But it definitely looks like the cherry hill spinoff is on it's way.




[CRAIG SNEE] Mid 30s. This thrill-seeking charter pilot, "a swamp rat with a swaggery attitude" and a drug-running past, is an acquaintance of Mahone's who agrees to do a drop...GUEST STAR. PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES (13)

[PATROL GUARD] Male, 30s to 40s. At the women's prison, this gruff, imposing patrol guard catches Gretchen in the chapel and demands to know if she's alone.sptv050769..LARGE CO-STAR. PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES (36)

[SHU C.O.] A tough, female corrections officer in her 30s to 40s, at the women's prison, she tells Daddy that one of her family members has been killed...LARGE CO-STAR. PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES (11)

[YARD C.O.] Male, in his 30s to 40s, in the prison yard, this C.O. wonders where some prisoners have gone...CO-STAR. PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES (31)


credit:Spoilertv

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!!!!! OUR BLOG FAMILY KEEPS GROWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd like to welcome our newest follower YINGEE to the blog! WELCOME YINGEE!!!!!
Well now that you've joined us here, I hope you will enjoy your time here.
wow i am excited!! should you have any comments, you know where to post or if it's a little more private feel free to contact Laila or me! Thanx for joining us. cool screen name btw. LOL!!!

Hugs and kisses!!!

SoHo

Which should I get?

Hi everybody!!! I hope you've all been well. I am thinking about picking up a new hobby. Which hobby? well I've been wanting to play the violin for so long. I have an acoustic guitar but never played it. I do play the piano and the trumpet but the violin makes me cry that's why i love it so much. Anyway I am about to purchase a violin but not sure which one to get. I like the sleek classiness of the black one but I like the Ebony fittings on the other one. Oh and the last one has a nice German antique finish to it. Three violins and only one of me... which should I get? PLEASE HELP ME DECIDE! here are the pictures Thanx guys!!












Tuesday, February 24, 2009

E*Trade Baby Commercials

Last year, I posted a few of the E*Trade baby commercials. I actually love those. Well, Super Bowl 2009 has come & gone & of course there are a few new commercials. I find them hilariously cute so watch 'em & enjoy =)









The funniest frickin' I've ever frickin' seen in my frickin' life!

SoHo can attest to me not being a "Family Guy" fan for very long but thanks to her & Wentworth, I am somewhat of a fan now! The show is so dang stupid that it's funny. There are moments when I just stare at the TV from sheer amazement at the ignorance then there are other times where I do laugh because it's a tad funny. Then there were these few moments where it was gut-busting funny, which is what brings me to this video that I NEED to share with you! I won't even try to explain first... I'll just let you watch LOL!



#1: Peter is such a dumbass that he doesn't even realize that he didn't have to fly to Kentucky just for the chicken.

#2: He's too stupid to realize that the colonel's been dead for years.

#3: He doesn't understand the southern drawl; I used to talk to

#4: I can attest to, as I'm sure a few of our members can as well, the southern drawl not being that damn bad, but it's funny! I had tons of clients from Kentucky and none of them sounding like that.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Blues night out post



Lately I've been kind of blue...personal reason (yes Laila, you guessed it) Anyway at times like this I never hesitate to hit up my favorite Mexican food restaurant ACAPULCO! It's a chain restaurant but it cures my blues. Why? Well for one, they have the absolute BEST veggie fajitas I've ever tasted. For two, They have the best margaritas on the planet. As you can see from the picture above, they offer a huge selection of liquors and mixed drinks. Lastly, the service here is AWESOME!!!! I always go to the Westwood location near UCLA. My favorite waiter Miguel is a funny Puerto Rican guy that always wears a huge smile. His jolly full figure is so comforting to me... why? I am not sure... it just is. Though lately he's been loosing weight but that hasnt taken away from his excellent service. I am there every year for my birthday and every year it's Miguel who serves me and sings happy birthday to me and my sis... This year though, I enjoyed my bday at home with my sister and my niece. I did go back to Acapulco though...At times when Miguel is not there, I am greeted by my other favorite waiter, Roberto; A cheery tall Mexican guy that will listen to my rants about my blues. Oh, he always has a good recommendation for margaritas. Believe me this guy knows his drinks and I am not only saying that because he's Mexican LOL!!


Anyway, I like making my own drinks at home, but, when I am simply not in the mood, my sis and I hit up ACAPULCO and it's a freakin blast every time!!
My favorite Margarita is the the "Patron Perfect Margarita" OMG this is the absolute BEST!!SOOO delicious and looks like this... I already had drank half of it LOL!!


It has such a refreshing citrus flavor and a hint of sweetness from the syrup. The salt crystals lining the rim of the glass makes for an amazing combination of flavors!! Do give this one a try if you get a chance.

Next is the "Blue Margarita" can you guess why it's called the "blue margarita" ha ha ha ha not too original but still tastey.


This one here is a cadilac margarita made with casadores... very good.



For my fourth round of drinks, I ordered my birthday favorite... an orange and peach margarita... so tropical tasting... LOL does that even make sense? LOL



This drink usually accompanies my veggie fajitas which is soooooooooooooooooooo delicious!!!! basically what it consists of is a roasted pepper stuffed with cheese on a bed of sauteed veggies tossed with mint and parsley. YUMMY!!!


The fajitas are served on a cast iron platter brought to your table while it's still sizzling from the flame. MMMMMM MMMM MMMM!!! All the fajita dishes are served this way and placed on a holder with a candle at the bottom to keep your food warm as you eat. So should you order the veggie fajitas it would look like this...


If you order the chicken fajitas or the steak fajitas.. it will look pretty much the same except you get the chicken or steak in place of the pepper.

I am telling you, this food cures the blues right out of me. LOL!!!
YAY I am off tomorrow!!! I think I am going to have me some of this. I just made myself hungry LOL!!Oh, and if you plan on visiting the Westwood location but you feel like you dont want to change out of your pj's, that's ok it's absolutely normal to show up in your pj's at night for some tasty food and heaven sent drinks. I went in my fussy blue pj's with red hearts and peace signs all over them and nobody seemed to care ha ha ha ha You know out here it's all about the looks... for me , it's all about the food!! I was just way to comfortable. Thanx for reading! I'll be back shortly with more!!!


Saturday, February 21, 2009

Is Sucre back?

Look who was recently on the set of Prison Break! It's our guy Sucre (Amaury Nolasco)! Glad to see his lovely, smiling face! Dominic Purcell AKA Lincoln is looking good, too! Looks like Sara(h) noticed that they were being photosnapped lol! Enjoy!

This Black History honor goes to...

Peggy Brooks-Bertram


African Sisterhood © 1990
by Peggy Brooks-Bertram
April 22, 1990
Melanin Conference, Houston Texas
African sisters, we shook the universe last night.
Our souls intermingled when we held on tight,
to those who voices cracked in pain
and those who thought they could abstain,
with ancestors swirling all about,
urging us to sing and shout.
Demanding that we find the strength to break the chains that cause us
African women pain.
Like men, and hair and shades of skin and other demons locked within.
And, there were those who thought they could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about
directing us to sing and shout.
"Raise your hands in her direction, give that sister your protection."
Release her from her terrible pain, make this sister whole again.
Demons begone! Demons begone! Demons begone!
These African sisters claim their power and demand you leave within the hour!
And still there were those who thought they could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about,
urging us to sing and shout:
"This little light of mine, "I'm gonna let it shine," "This little light of mine,
"I'm gonna let it shine," "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine,"
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."
Someone hold that sister, soothe her fears, kiss her face, wipe her tears.
One by one, each in turn would find the strength to stand and say,
I need you, I love you and I'm so glad I'm here today.
Till there were none who could abstain
with ancestors swirling all about,
directing us to sing and shout,
commanding demons to get out!
We shook the universe last night.
Our souls inter-mingled as we held on tight, promising each other to stay in touch
With the African sisterhood we need so much.
Yes, we shook the universe last night.

Peggy Brooks-Bertram is the youngest child and seventh daughter of Margaret Gilliam Brooks and Vernon Brooks of Richmond, Virginia. She moved to Buffalo, New York in 1986 with her husband, Dennis A. Bertram, and two children Dennison Ivor-Jean and Lillian-Yvonne Margaret Bertram. Lillian is a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon University majoring in Creative Writing, Spanish and a student at University of Pittsburgh in Latin American Studies. Dennison is a senior at University of Pittsburgh and a major in Eastern European Studies. He is currently in Prague.


She completed a B.A. in Political Science from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and received a Masters and Doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. In June 2002, she completed a second doctorate in American Studies from the University at Buffalo. Currently she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University at Buffalo.

Dr. Bertram is a multi-talented individual with interests across a broad spectrum including public education, special topics in public health, journalism, creative writing, and independent scholarship on various topics in African American history. She is the founder and CEO of Jehudi Educational Services, an independent consultant firm specializing in K-12 curriculum development, staff development and training, conference and seminar planning, and specialized grant and proposal development.

Dr. Bertram is devoted to public education and has a distinguished record of advocacy for parents of children in public schools. Her previous activities included Chair, Parent Advisory Committee, Buffalo Board of Education; Chair, Early Childhood Centers; Member, African History Infusion Committee; Chair, Prevention Committee, Blue Ribbon Task Force on AIDS; and others. She remains a vocal advocate for parent involvement in public schools. Her advocacy resulted in the co-founding of Concerned Parents and Citizens for Quality Education, Inc., a group credited with increasing public awareness of educational issues, organizing parents as effective advocates, securing public funding to educate parents, and shaping public policy on review of Board of Education members.

Her interests and activities in public health include African American women and depression and developmental disabilities and African Americans. Her book chapters on depression include "Social and Psychological Aspects of Women's Health: A Diversified Perspective" in Psychiatric Issues in Women, Bailliere's International Practice and Research in Psychiatry (1997) and "African American Women: Disfigured Images in the Epidemiology of Depression", in African American Women and Health edited by Catherine Collins (1997). She also is interested in African American women and work-related depression.

She maintains a special interest in families of children with neurological impairments. She was instrumental in the creation of a parent-based organization called the Alliance of Neurological Impairments to provide services for families with children with "low incidence" conditions such as Prader Willi Syndrome, Neurofibromatosis, Narcolepsy, Spina Bifida, and other impairments. She is nationally known for her work with Prader Willi Syndrome and has successfully written grants for Buffalo agencies to provide services to these families.

Dr. Bertram is no stranger to broadcast media. For several years she maintained a bi-line, MAAT, with the Challenger newspaper. She produced her own radio program, Peggy's Place, which focused on issues pertinent to the African American community. She also was co-producer and host of an educational television program, Education in Review, which informed the community of major educational issues in Buffalo and beyond.

She is a playwright, poet, and dramatist. Her creative writing includes five children's books entitled, African On My Stairs. Illustrations from this series hang in the Rev. Bennett W. Smith Family Life Center at St. John Baptist Church. In 1988, her play, Dynasties of Kush, was selected to be included in the University at Buffalo, First International Women's Playwright Conference. It was enacted at the Langston Hughes Institute.

Dr. Bertram also is an independent scholar, researching and writing on the Dungy family of Virginia. Her particular interest is the life and writings of Drusilla Dunjee Houston, author of the obscure and forgotten text, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empires. She is author of a book chapter on Houston to be featured in the Oklahoma Encyclopedia Project, part of the 2007 celebration of the founding of the State of Oklahoma. She is also author of a book (in press) on Houston entitled, Drusilla Dunjee Houston: Uncrowned Queen in the African American Women's Literary Tradition. She has lectured on her scholarship at numerous Universities and colleges throughout the United States, Africa, Europe, and Canada.

In 2001, Morgan State University awarded her the university's first Distinguished Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to African American History and Culture. Other scholarly interests include the Old Testament dynasties of the ancient Kings of Kush. Her book chapter on the Kings of Kush appears in the Journal of African Civilizations, edited by Ivan Van Sertima (1997).

Dr. Bertram has been instrumental in building organizations to benefit community development. These include co-founding of the WASET Cultural Heritage Society, Saturday School for African American Children; Concerned Parents and Citizens for Public Education; and more recently, the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women, Inc. The Uncrowned Queens Institute is derived from the Uncrowned Queens Project a web-based application of history and cultural enrichment for the African American community, http://wings.buffalo.edu/uncrownedqueens.

Community service awards include M.O.C.H.A. (Men of Color Helping All) of the Year Award, African-American Fire Fighters; Clifford G. Bell Community Service Award; and the National Association of Counties, Individual Achievement Award for Family Support Programs for Families of Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome.

More recently, Peggy received the University at Buffalo, UB Service Excellence Award for the Library Internship/Residency Program, 2001. In addition, she is the recipient of the UB Star Award 2001 for outstanding work on the Pan-American Exposition centennial celebration with the Uncrowned Queens Project. Awards from women's organizations include the Xi Epsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Excellence in Education Aware; the Mary B. Talbert Civic and Cultural Club's Award for Community Service and the prestigious Buffalo Urban League's 2002 Community Life Award. She also is the recipient of the William Wells Brown award from the Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier.

She is the co-author, along with Barbara Seals Nevergold, of a recently published book, Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of Western New York. She is co-authoring a second book on the African/African American experience at the Pan American Exposition. It is entitled African, Darkies and Negroes: Black Faces at the Pan American Exposition of 1901.

Other community activities include membership on the Board of Directors of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and the Kaleida Health Trustee Council

Dr. Bertram is a member of the St. John Baptist Church where she is Chair of the St. John Hospice Development Committee. In this position, she has a leadership role in developing the first Faith-based Hospice and Palliative Care center for an African American community in the nation.

Thank you, again, Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram for visiting our blog. We are honored to have you stop by & educate us. I had the opportunity to visit your website as well and to say I am enlightened would be an understatement! If there is anyone out there who does not believe or know about the accomplishments of African American women, they work they've done & continue to do & the support they provide for their communities, check out UncrownedQueens.com!

Info credit: UncrownedQueens.com

This Black History honor goes to...

Drusilla Dunjee Houston


*Thank you to Dr. Peggy Bertram-Brooks for visiting our blog & taking the time to educate us about the wonderful accomplishments of Drusilla Dunjee Houston. For without you, I would never have had the opportunity to "know" her!


America's Uncrowned Queens:
Dedicated to the Heroic, Toiling Black Woman
by Drusilla Dunjee Houston

October 26, 1917 - Black Dispatch
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society

'Neath a weary load upon dusky head,
Upon American streets is the tread
Of an uncrowned type of heroine,
Their labors untrumpeted and unseen.
It to her helpmate, life chance is denied
With undaunted courage, she stems the tide,
Meets some of homes needs, help make it fair;
That he may find a kingship there.

When manhood is shackled, into its place
Nature oft forces a courageous race
Of women, who with heroic spirit,
Stamp within unborn children the merit
Denied their fathers. For what man's disdain
Keeps from one generation, the next will gain.

We see them in rain, in cold and the heat,
As they pass us with patient, toil worn feet.
Behind some great universities wall
It is the boy or girl for whom she gives all
Sometimes the more sacrificial her fire
The less we praise it, the more we require.

Whipped with the lash, until the reddened stain,
Of her life blood ran from opening vein,
In slavery's hour, this type was true
To virtue. Today life's way they pursue
As heroically. No scorn or slight
Can change her ideals, she sees aright;
That duty done, in higher worlds will mean
That she will be more than an uncrowned queen.

Drusilla Dunjee was born on January 20, 1876 in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Her parents were Rev. John William Dunjee and Lydia Taylor Dunjee. Her father was influential in the American Baptist Home Missionary Society and traveled throughout the country establishing Baptist congregations in areas inhabited by poor Black rural dwellers. During these times Houston lived in numerous states on the Eastern Seaboard, in the South, the Northeast and finally the Midwest in Oklahoma. Houston and was one of ten siblings, only five of whom lived to adulthood. The other survivors included Roscoe, Irving, Blanche and Ella. The most famous of her siblings was Roscoe Conkling Dunjee, Editor of the Oklahoma Black Dispatch, an influential mid-western newspaper with national prominence. Houston was Contributing Editor but assumed major responsibility in keeping the paper financially solvent, while at the same time conducting her own research and writing on various historical and social matters.


Like many African American women writers swallowed up and languishing in the historical gap, Houston is one of the most prolific and all but forgotten African American women writers of the 20th century. Considered a “historian without portfolio” and dismissed as a serious historian and writer by leading Black male historians of Post Emancipation and the Harlem Renaissance, e.g., W.E.B. DuBois, Alaine Locke, Carter G. Woodson and others, Houston burst on the historical literary scene in 1926 with Volume I of her magnum opus Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire Book 1: Nations of the Cushite Empire, Marvelous Facts from Authentic Records thought to represent the crowning achievement of Drusilla Dunjee Houston’s literary life. With this work, Houston is remembered as the earliest known and possibly the only African American woman to write a multi-volume study of ancient Africa where she boldly proclaimed in 1926, an African origin of civilization and culture during one of the most turbulent periods for black Americans in American history.

Through this work, Houston left her own mark as a pioneering advocate of the study of Africa, especially ancient African history and is credited with creating a Pan African framework proclaiming the African origin of civilization. Obadeli Williams in a review of Houston’s second book noted that: “the Cushitic background and origin of the ancient Egyptians recorded by Dunjee-Houston has been confirmed by Cheikh Anta Diop’s 12 categories of evidence of their African origins. Fifty years before Martin Bernal’s Black Athena (1984) and a generation before George G.M. James Stolen Legacy (1954) while predating Diop’s African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? (1974) by 40 years; Dunjee-Houston pioneered African-centered historiography. Dunjee-Houston is indeed the foremother of Africana historical writing and research. She sought to burst asunder vestiges of notions of the “Dark Continent” in both academia and among the lay populace. Her second book Wonderful Ethiopians Book II: Origin of Civilization from the Cushites created a wedding between the adherents of the Garvey movement and the Harlem Literary Renaissance.

Books I was only the beginning. Houston often reported that she had written at least six volumes in what she referred to as the Wonderful Ethiopians Series, including Origin of the Aryans, Astounding Lost African Empires, Cushites in Western Europe, Cushites in the Americas and others. Regrettably, all appear lost with the exception of Book II, Origin of Civilization from the Cushites which was recently discovered and published by a long time Houston researcher and scholar, Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram. The late Asa G. Hilliard, III in a commentary on Houston’s second, long lost manuscript describes Houston thusly:”When the roll is called of the great Africans who corrected the errors and defamation in the ancient story of African people, the list will include, …Arthur A. Schomburg, John G. Jackson, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan, Theophile Obenga, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Jacob Carruthers, and many others. However, with this and other masterworks, that roll of masters must never be called without the name of one, whose love for her people, and whose model of excellence we now know even better than before, Drusilla Dunjee Houston.”

Aside from her writings on ancient African history and later American history, Dunjee Houston was a multi-faceted figure, who, at one time or another during her wide-ranging career was an educator, elegist, racial uplift theorist, institution builder and journalist. Her writings cross multiple literary periods including the race writers, the Black Women’s Era (1890-1900), and the Harlem Renaissance or the New Negro era. Still, despite voluminous writings for more than four decades --including editorials, pamphlets, poetry, elegy, screenplays and historical texts—Houston remains one of the most overlooked African American women writers in African American women’s history and is also one of the most important African American women in the American West. Houston was a lover of children and from her early days teaching in the segregated schools of pre-Territorial Oklahoma—barely fifteen years of age--devoted her life to providing the correct historical information on Africa to the black children she regarded as “acres of diamonds.” It was for these children that she began building academic institutions, some privately financed, e.g., the McAlester Seminary, the Sapulpa Training School with the Baptist Convention and others.

A search for Houston over decades reveals an extraordinarily private woman who felt compelled to thrust herself into the major social and political dialogues of her era, especially the racial uplift work of the federated women’s clubs. When she began writing, it was clear that Houston was eager to first take her readers “Mountain Stepping,” and then “moleing and mining” in the old dusty books that presented what she believed to be the true history of ancient Africa. She educated hundreds of students throughout her life but was one of her own best students as she was the consummate self-taught student fluent in French, German, Greek and Latin. These skills are especially evident in other writings, particularly her screen play, “The Maddened Mob,” written in elegiac verse in 1915 as a refutation of Birth of a Nation. Arguably, Houston was the very first African American to write a blow by blow refutation of Birth of a Nation, which she hoped to become a “flashing photo play.”

Houston was always fearful that her works would be lost and forgotten and that they would never reach the audience she desired, namely the children. To some extent she was correct. On February 11, 1941, Houston died in Arizona after many years of illness from Tuberculosis. True to her deep faith, her grave marker reads: “To Die is to Gain.”

Info credit: Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram via Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH.com) & UncrownedQueens.com

This Black History honor goes to...

W.E.B. Du Bois


William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, in western Massachusetts, to Alfred Du Bois and Mary Silvina Burghardt Du Bois. He grew up in Great Barrington, an overwhelmingly white town. Mary Silvina Burghardt's family was part of the very small free black population of Great Barrington, having long owned land in the state. Their family descended from Dutch and African ancestors.

Alfred Du Bois, from Haiti, was of French Huguenot and African descent. His grandfather was Dr. James Du Bois of Poughkeepsie, New York. Dr. Du Bois's family was rewarded extensive lands in the Bahamas for its support of King George III during the American Revolution.

It is unknown how Alfred Du Bois and Mary Silvina Burghardt met, but they married on February 5, 1867, in Housatonic, Massachusetts. Alfred deserted Mary by the time their son William was two. The boy was very close to his mother. When he was young, Mary suffered a stroke which left her unable to work. The two of them moved frequently, surviving on money from family members and Du Bois's after-school jobs. Du Bois wanted to help his mother and believed he could improve their lives through education. Some of the neighborhood whites noticed him, and one rented Du Bois and his mother a house in Great Barrington.



Du Bois faced some challenges growing up, as the precocious, intellectual, mixed-race son of an impoverished single mother. Nevertheless, he was very comfortable academically, as many of his teachers recognized his academic gifts and encouraged him to further his education with classical courses while in high school. His scholastic success led him to believe that he could use his knowledge to empower African Americans.

In 1888 Du Bois earned a degree from Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee. He entered Harvard College in the fall of 1888, having received a $250 scholarship. He earned a bachelor's degree cum laude from Harvard in 1890. In 1892, he received a stipend to attend the University of Berlin for graduate work.

In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After teaching at Wilberforce University in Ohio, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught while undertaking field research for his study The Philadelphia Negro. Next he moved to Georgia, where he established the Department of Sociology at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University).

Du Bois wrote many books, including three major autobiographies. Among his most significant works are The Philadelphia Negro (1899), The Souls of Black Folk (1903), John Brown (1909), Black Reconstruction (1935), and Black Folk, Then and Now (1939). His book The Negro (1915) influenced the work of several pioneer Africanist scholars, such as Drusilla Dunjee Houston[9] and William Leo Hansberry.

In 1940, at Atlanta University, Du Bois founded Phylon magazine. In 1946, he wrote The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part That Africa Has Played in World History. In 1945, he helped organize the historic Fifth Pan-African Conference in Manchester, Great Britain.[14]

In total, Du Bois wrote 22 books, including five novels. He helped establish four academic journals.

Du Bois began writing about the sociology of crime in 1897, shortly after receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard (Zuckerman, 2004, p. 2). His first work involving crime, A Program of Social Reform, was shortly followed by a second, The Study of the Negro Problems (Du Bois, 1897; Du Bois, 1898). The first work that involved in-depth criminological study and theorizing was The Philadelphia Negro, in which a large section of the sociological study was devoted to analysis of the black criminal population in Philadelphia (Du Bois, 1899).

He was perhaps the first criminologist to combine historical fact with social change and used the combination to postulate his theories. He attributed the crime increase after the Civil War to the "increased complexity of life," competition for jobs in industry (especially with the recent Irish immigrants), and the mass exodus of blacks from the farmland and immigration to cities (Du Bois, 1899). Du Bois (1899, p. 64) states in The Philadelphia Negro:

Naturally then, if men are suddenly transported from one environment to another, the result is lack of harmony with the new conditions; lack of harmony with the new physical surroundings leading to disease and death or modification of physique; lack of harmony with social surroundings leading to crime.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded on February 12, 1909 ~ my birthday haha - SOME years early but still =). After a race riot in Springfield, Illinois in 1908, "The Call" went out to Northerners to find a way to create social equality. In 1909, a group of multi-racial activists held a conference in New York City in response to "The Call" and decided to form the NAACP (originally called the National Negro Committee). Among the founders were W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Henry Moscowitz, Oswald Garrison Villiard, Mary White Ovington, and William English Walling.

In 1909, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the American Historical Association (AHA) at its annual conference, the first African American to do so. According to David Levering Lewis, "His would be the first and last appearance of an African American on the program until 1940

W.E.B Du Bois died on August 27, 1963, he died in Accra, Ghana at the age of ninety-five, one day before Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Info credit: Wikipedia.com

Friday, February 20, 2009

SoHo Meets SoLo New Message Board

So we finally have a message board! While it's not perfect, it'll get us started! Feel free to go check it out! I've already started a few threads that you can reply to: Introductions & Went Chat! There's also an area where you can ask questions about how to maneuver through the board & how to make your posts "pretty"! Have fun!

What's your porn name?

Yeah I know it sounded funny typing it, too! So I was watching Desperate Housewives from this past Sunday. Bree gave Andrew a sizable raise & Orson was trying his darnedest to figure out how much he actually makes. So, he calls the accountant to find out but was his efforts were halted because he didn't know the password that Bree assigned to the account. The accountant, did however, tell him that the password was her childhood pet. So Orson gets this bright idea to pretend he got an email from a buddy of his. The email's title: What's your porn name? In order to come up with your porn name, you take the name of your childhood pet & the street you grew up on & there you have it! Mine would be "Pepper Maryland" LOL! So what would your name be?

Lost in Prison



Looks like a cast member from Lost will be joining the final two episodes of Prison Break. William Mapother, Ethan from ABC's LOST will play determined FBI agent Todd Wheatley. Not looking forward to the "final" episodes because they are the final episodes =( Hope they make the last epis more awesome than ever. I can see myself crying as I watch the very last one!

Divorced but still together?

Ok the economy has gotten so bad that divorced couples are divorced but still living together. Does this affect the kids? check out the video of this strange situation below.






yahoo news

Thursday, February 19, 2009

She said "I DO" 23 TIMES!!!


Because of her multiple marriages, the fictional character Erica Kane on ABC's soap opera "All My Children" has the longest name for a television character: Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Roy Roy Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery. But one real-life Indiana woman would have her beat by a long shot.


She was born Linda Lou Taylor, but the 68-year-old Anderson, Ind., woman has had many names over the past 50+ years. That's because she's been hitched 23 times, making her the most married woman in history.

Linda can't remember her husbands in order, but she remembers the first one vividly. She and George Scott married in 1957, when she was just 16 and he was 31. They stayed together for seven years, making the marriage her longest.

Her shortest marriage? Thirty-six hours to Fred Chadwick.

Linda now goes by the surname Wolfe. She and husband Glynn "Scotty" Wolfe did not marry for love, however. The two wed in Arizona in 1996 as part of a publicity stunt. Scotty was the most married man in the world, and Linda was his 29th bride. Scotty died just a few days before their one-year anniversary.

If you think your ex-spouse story is bad, imagine having 23 of them.

Linda has been married to a convict, a preacher, a musician, bartenders, homeless men, electricians, and even two gay men. One husband beat her. More than one deserted her.

But this hasn't discouraged her from walking down the aisle again.
Related Stories

* She Became a New Mom and a Widow on Same Day
* Marriage Abstinence -- Just Not Ready Yet
* $displayTypeName Judge Clears Same-Sex Marriages in Connecticut

"I would get married again," Linda told The Indianapolis Star, "because, you know, it gets lonely."

Matt Bartosik, former blogger of The Chicago Traveler and editor of Off the Rocks' next issue, thinks his name is quite long enough.

Copyright NBC Local Media / NBC Chicago

SOOOO upset

Remember a few posts back I said I was working on a Went vid, bad news. for some stupid reason my file is lost... AGAIN. It wont open and it's the third time i've attempted to make it. I am soooooo mad. I want to just not do it anymore because it literally takes me days to do the video. I was missing one interview and now the whole thing has gone down the drain... I'll give it one last shot but i wont have my vid anytime soon and that means that you guys cant see it. I was so proud of it. Oh well. I'll give it one last shot. should this not work, I am done. Thanx everbody for coming.

More Me & City Photos

Not sure how I missed all these, but here are a few more of the photos we showed you guys last month & earlier this month! Better late than never, right? Enjoy!




Thanks to w-miller.net for the pics!

More on Carter Woodson & ASALH

Last night I posted a little history about Carter G. Woodson, the founder of the Black History Month idea. I mentioned a little on the organization that sets the theme for Black History Month each year, ASALH. I forgot to tell you guys about the 2009 theme! So here you go!

The theme for 2009, “The Quest for Black Citizenship in the Americas,” honors the centennial of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and highlights “the problem of race and citizenship in American history, from the experiences of free blacks in a land of slavery to the political aspirations of African Americans today,” according to the ASALH Web site. “The centennial also provides an opportunity to explore the history of other nations in the Americas, where former slaves also sought the fruits of citizenship.”


John Fleming, ASALH president and director emeritus of the Cincinnati Museum Center, said he believes Black History Month should focus on positive as well as negative aspects of the black experience. “Certainly, struggle has been an ongoing theme in our history from the very beginning. However, we were not slaves prior to being captured in Africa — and while slavery was part of our experience for 250 years, we have a hundred-and-some years in freedom that we also need to deal with.”

“I’m glad to see the National African American Museum being developed on the Mall, which will tell a much broader story,” said Fleming. In 2003, President Bush signed legislation to establish the new museum, which will be located on the National Mall near the Washington Monument. Although the new museum has not yet been built, it launched a photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery late in 2007 that is traveling to museums around the country through 2011.

“I think that African-American history gets more attention during February than during any other time of year, “ Fleming said, “and I think it’s an opportunity for us in the field to emphasize that it is something that should be studied throughout the year.”

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Last one for the night...

I'm frickin' sleepy & in pain but I'm loving this site! Here is a set I saved... notice I said "saved" & not "made" LOL! I'm so NOT this good... YET! Give me time! Anyway, enjoy Lilli's work; she's really good!


Buon Compleanno Cara Kaliam♥

Encourage the fashionista in you!

Ok anybody who knows me well, knows I'm a t shirt & jeans kinda girl but on occasion, I like to "play dress up"! So today, while perusing the net like I do, I found this site. I don't even remember how or why I ended up there, but it's pretty doggone cool! You just kinda rummage the site looking for pieces to add to your collection so you can make "sets".

Some of those people there could dress the actresses at the Oscars better than those high end designers! I loved everything I saw so I started creating my own "sets"! I only made two & they suck! The pieces probably don't even go together ha! BUT I tried! There's way more to add to your set than what I used but you get the idea! This is like playing with dolls for big girls! So I guess SoHo & SoLo will be back to adding fashion every now & again! Anyway, check out my "sets" & visit the site so you can create your own! When you do, be sure to share ;-)


My first set

Pink again

This Black History honor goes to...

Carter G. Woodson


Black History Month was the inspiration of Carter G. Woodson, a noted scholar and historian, who instituted Negro History Week in 1926. He chose the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Woodson, the son of former slaves in Virginia, realized that the struggles and achievements of Americans of African descent were being ignored or misrepresented. He founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), which supports historical research, publishes a scholarly journal and sets the theme for Black History Month each year. ASALH has its headquarters in Washington, where Woodson lived from 1915 until his death in 1950. His home is designated a national historic site. More information is available at the ASALH Web site.

This Black History honor is given to Carter Woodson because without him, many African Americans throughout history would be unknown. His idea has given children of many generations past & present (and those to come) the opportunity to know that their ancestors were more than just slaves. They had dreams & many of them saw those dreams to fruition. Mr. Woodson's hunger for ensuring African Americans were recognized for their accomplishments has grown to be so much more & for that, we honor him!




Info credit: America.gov