Braidslocstwists

12/14/2021

𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗗 𝗟𝗢𝗨𝗜𝗦𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗠𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥 (1921-2011)

Mildred Louise Hemmons Carter became one of the first women to earn a pilot’s license through the Civilian Pilot Training Program. She was also the first black female pilot in Alabama. Despite her initially being denied admission into the Tuskegee Airmen program, Hemmons would later be declared an official member of the group in 2011.

Mildred Hemmons was born on September 14, 1921 to Mamie and Luther Hemmons in Benson, Alabama. She lived in Tuskegee, Alabama for a brief time before her family moved to Enfield, North Carolina where her father worked as a business manager for the all-black Bricks Junior College. After the college closed during the Great Depression, the Hemmons family moved to Holly Springs, Mississippi where she completed her high school studies.

Hemmons then attended Tuskegee Institute (Now Tuskegee University) in Alabama where she majored in business. She also worked in the office that processed applications for Tuskegee’s branch of the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). Hemmons attempted to apply for the program herself but was rejected because she hadn’t turned 18 yet. She would apply again a year later and was accepted. Hemmons graduated with Tuskegee’s first class of CPTP trainees and on February 1, 1941, she received her private pilot’s certificate which made her the first female pilot in Alabama. Hemmons flew a Piper J-3 Cub that she rented from Tuskegee. She also met first lady Eleanor Roosevelt who was visiting Tuskegee University at the time.

Mildred Hemmons married Herbert Carter, who was a pilot in training, on August 21, 1942 at the Tuskegee Army Airfield Chapel. The couple had three children. During that same year, she started to fly with Tuskegee’s chief flight instructor, Charles Alfred Anderson. Both Carter and Anderson traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to sign up for the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). This made Carter the first black woman in the Montgomery Civil Air Patrol Squadron. Because of her race, she wasn’t called to patrol for the state. Carter attempted to pursue more advanced training from Tuskegee’s Civilian Pilot Training Program but couldn’t because she was a woman. She instead applied for the Women Airforce Service Pilots but in this instance was rejected because of her race.

During World War II, Carter worked at Moton Field then the only flight training facility for African American pilot candidates in the United States Army Air Corps. She became Chief Clerk of the Quartermaster Corps. She also rigged parachutes and operated a bulldozer to clear airstrips. After World War II ended, Carter traveled across the United States and Europe to mentor and encourage young black women to become pilots. Many of these women became flight nurses and aerospace engineers.

Carter finally gave up flying in 1985 at the age of 64 after she suffered a broken hip. In February 2011, Carter was declared one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. Mildred Hemmons Carter died on October 21, 2011 after a long illness. She was 90.

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾

12/13/2021

Many Blessings, Asbury Park Family! Please share!

12/10/2021

12/10/2021

Yet another tree lighting is in store for Asbury Park residents this Saturday, this time at Springwood Park.

12/07/2021

Definitely Good To Know🙃🙃🙃🙃

12/07/2021

Gladys West (right) with her husband Ira West/Photo credit: Mike Morones/Free Lance-Star When 87-year-old dedicated member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Gladys West, put together a short biography for herself to be recognized as one of her chapter’s beloved senior members, she had n...

12/07/2021

A member of the Harlem Hellfighters, which were an all-Black infantry unit in WWI (1914-1918) who spent more time in combat than any other American unit. Despite their courage, sacrifice and dedication to their country, they returned home to face racism and segregation from their fellow countrymen.

12/07/2021

Jade Yasmeen, a Los Angeles based artist, recently debuted a her hyper realistic portrait of Harriet Tubman in color. The image, which stands at 74x60 inches tall was a part of the Aku World exhibit during Art Basel in Miami, Florida. View this post on Instagram A post shared by In an Inst...

12/07/2021

12/07/2021

Today is the anniversary of the date slavery was legally abolished in the United States: December 6, 1865.

Although emancipation has historically been celebrated on several different days (with June 19 being the current favorite), slavery did not legally end in the United States until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.

Congress passed the proposed amendment on January 31, 1865. It read simply, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Once passed by Congress, the amendment was submitted to the states for ratification. The Constitution requires that before an amendment can become law, it must be ratified by ¾ of the states. There were 36 states in 1865. So, for the amendment abolishing slavery to become effective, it was necessary that 27 states ratify it.

Within the first month after its passage by Congress, 18 states quickly ratified the amendment. Even though the Civil War was still ongoing, and most of Virginia, including Richmond, was still under Confederate authority, Congress recognized a rival Unionist Virginia legislature as legitimate and Virginia became one of the first 18 states to ratify the amendment. Also in the first month, while 18 states were ratifying the amendment, Delaware and Kentucky rejected it.

In March and April, separate Unionist legislatures in the Confederate states of Tennessee and Arkansas ratified the amendment and were credited as legitimate by Congress.

Meanwhile, in March, New Jersey rejected the amendment.

Connecticut ratified the amendment in May and New Hampshire followed in July. At that point 23 states had ratified the amendment, leaving four more necessary to make it law. Months passed, but no more states got on board.

To incentivize ratification, President Andrew Johnson, who had taken office following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, made ratification of the amendment a condition for readmission to the union.

South Carolina ratified the amendment on November 13. Alabama followed on December 2. On December 4, North Carolina ratified it—leaving the amendment only one state short of the necessary 27 states.

Mississippi had the opportunity to be the state that took the amendment over the top, but on December 5 the Mississippi legislature rejected it.

So the honor fell to Georgia. On December 6, 1865, one hundred fifty-six years ago today, Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment, making it the law of the land and thus legally abolishing slavery in the United States.

12/04/2021

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗕. 𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗢𝗞𝗦 (1865-?)

Charles B. Brooks was an American inventor, who is best known for his patented improvements to the street sweeper in 1896. Very little is known about his early life beyond the fact that he was born in Virginia in 1865.

By the 1890s Brooks was living in Newark, New Jersey and working as a porter. His famous invention was actually an improved version of the existing street sweeper. The first street sweeper had been patented in 1849, and the more recognizable model with brushes at the front was patented 1868. Brooks’ patent was filed on April 29, 1895 and approved on March 17, 1896 as U.S. Patent 558,719. His version of the street sweeper improved the self-propelled front-brush sweeper. The most notable of these improvements was the introduction of a “receiving-pan,” which collected the swept dirt, carried it along a belt, and dumped it into a receptacle. The patent also detailed adjustments to the front brushes which made them of different lengths, and had a scraper for use with snow and ice.

Brooks’ invention was met with initial success. In 1895, Brooks received financial backing from two investors, George M. Hallstead and Plummer S. Page, who provided funding for its production in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The sweeper was estimated to have a production price of about $2,000 each. In February of 1896, the Pennsylvania state government gave the new manufacturing company a $100,000 charter, and in December of that year, it received a glowing review from the city maintenance superintendent of Buffalo, New York, who intimated he would adopt the model for his own city.

The new sweeper was not Brooks’ only invention. In 1893, Brooks had invented a modified ticket punch (U.S. Patent 507,672), built with a compartment to collect scraps left over from the puncture of the ticket. In addition, Brooks patented a new type of holding bag (U.S. Patent 560,154) shortly after his sweeper has been approved. The new bag was designed for use with the sweeper as storage for collected dirt and included an elastic strap that enabled easy opening and closing of the bag without its contents being spilled.

Little is known of Brooks’ personal life. He was born in Virginia in 1865, but as a young adult moved to Newark, New Jersey where he worked as a porter for the Pullman Palace Car Company. He was said to have invented a car fender but did not see the project through following the death of a collaborator.

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾

12/04/2021

𝗛𝗘𝗡𝗥𝗬 𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗚𝗔𝗥𝗡𝗘𝗧 (1815-1882)

Born into slavery near New Markey, Maryland on December 23, 1815, Henry Highland Garnet escaped from bo***ge via the Underground Railroad with his parents, George and Henrietta Trusty in 1824. After residing briefly in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the family settled in New York City, New York where George Trusty changed the family name to Garnet. George Garnet found work as a shoemaker and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Garnets lived among other working class families in what would later be called the Lower East Side.

Henry’s childhood was a mix of opportunities and difficulties. He attended the African Free School, which was one of several schools established in northeastern cities by white philanthropists. His classmates included several future black abolitionist leaders such as Alexander Crummell, Samuel Ringgold Ward, and James McCune Smith. Like all free blacks during the antebellum era, the Garnets were always in danger of capture by slave catchers. While Henry Garnet was at sea working as a cabin boy and cook, his parents narrowly escaped slave catchers, who destroyed or stole the furniture from their home. After he returned home, Garnet then suffered a debilitating leg injury that plagued him for the rest of his life. He found solace and inspiration in the church and joined the First Colored Presbyterian Church in New York where he also found a community of abolitionists.

Henry Highland Garnet married Julia Ward Williams, a teacher, in 1841. The family moved frequently as Garnet pursued the ministry and teaching as well as abolitionist activities. In 1843 Garnet became nationally prominent when he delivered an address at the National Negro Convention meeting in Buffalo. He urged the slaves to rebel and claim their own freedom.

In 1864 Garnett became pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. On Sunday, February 12, 1865 Garnet preached a sermon in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although he did not address Congress, his presentation was the first by an African American in the Capitol Building.

In 1868 Garnet moved to Pittsburgh where he briefly served as President of Avery College, a school of religious education for African Americans. Originally an opponent of the colonization movement, by the mid-nineteenth century Garnet shifted his support to the migration of black Americans to Liberia. In December 1881 President James A. Garfield appointed Garnet minister (ambassador) to Liberia. Garnet moved to the West African nation but died on February 13, 1882, barely two months after his arrival.

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾

12/04/2021

AIDA WALKER (1880 - 1914)
𝗔𝗶𝗱𝗮 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗿, 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻 1880. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿, 𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿, 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿.
Born on Valentine’s Day in New York City, Aida Overton began her career as a teenage chorus member of "Black Patti's Troubadours." While performing in The Senegambian Carnival (1899) she met George Walker, and the two were married on June 22, 1899. After the marriage, Aida Walker worked as a choreographer for Williams and Walker, her husband's vaudevillian comedy duo. By presenting ragtime musicals with all Black casts, Williams and Walker helped bring authentic Black songs and dances to a form of entertainment that had been dominated by demeaning minstrel shows.

Walker played the female lead in The Policy Players (1899), Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), In Abyssinia (1906), and Bandanna Land (1908). A command performance at Buckingham Palace in 1903 transformed Walker into an international star. In 1908, George Walker became ill and could not continue in the run of Bandanna Land. Wearing her husband's male costumes, Aida Walker performed both his role and her own. After her husband's death in 1911, Walker's own career went into decline, although she was celebrated for her part in the spectacular Salome at Oscar Hammerstein's Victoria Theater in New York City. This was the last major performance of her career before her own death in 1914.

As one of the first international Black stars, Aida Walker brought versatility to her performances and authenticity to ragtime songs and cakewalk dances. Her dancing and singing ability has been compared to and sometimes applauded over that of her successors Florence Mills and Josephine Baker. Aida Walker regarded as the leading Black female performing artist at the turn of the century died October 1st 1914.

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾

12/03/2021

Love!

Pop Pop understood the assignment! A grandfather showed the ultimate support for his granddaughter’s budding hair business. Recently, 21-year-old A’lea Lynn, who goes by username on social media, took to her pages to share the progress she’s been making with her budding hair business...

12/03/2021

https://fb.watch/9FLOTW6pK2/

12/02/2021

https://peacegraceisme.blogspot.com/2021/10/united-states-vs-billie-holiday.html

Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit ...

12/01/2021

Urylee Leonardos played the female lead in the 1953 Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess.

Support Old Black Hollywood YouTube channel by clicking the link to subscribe https://youtu.be/5WMFqqYl6K4 and donate $1 to help maintain the FB page and Website. You may send money to PayPal.Me/oldblackhollywood

11/26/2021

Big Mama Thornton and Muddy Waters Blues Band
“She had this tough exterior, and she had this very powerful voice which made her also seem very tough,” says Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University.
“She could convey many emotions and different kinds of feelings through her vocals. That’s a really important part of blues singing,” Mahon says.
Watching Thornton sing inspired Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to write “Hound Dog” for her in 1952. Thornton recorded it with a growl emphasizing the frustration that the song lyrics suggest — coping with a boyfriend who is also dating someone else.
Thornton had moderate success with the song in 1953. It reached Number 1 on the Billboard rhythm-and-blues chart. Several musicians recorded their own versions, but none had much success until Elvis.
Mahon says Elvis’s cool stage presence, which captivated audiences, can be traced to Thornton’s influence.
“I think he was getting that attitude from a singer like Big Mama Thornton, who was projecting that in her song,” she says.
-By Haben Kelati

Photo 1965 by Jim Marshall

11/26/2021

Lyda D. Newman born in 1865 (no exact date known) was a patented inventor and involved activist for women's suffrage. She is known for the invention of the first synthetic hairbrush. Lyda spent the majority of her life living and working in New York City.

Newman's primary occupation was hair care as she listed “hair specialist” or “hairdresser” in various New York City Directories and US Government Federal and New York City censuses.
In the late 1800s, Newman invented a hairbrush that could be taken apart easily for cleaning because it contained a compartment at the bottom that could be removed from the back and be cleaned. The U.S. Patent 614,335 was filed on July 11, 1898 and granted on November 15, 1898.

Even more important than creating her patented invention, Newman was an active community member and organizer for women's suffrage in the early 20th century. The suffrage movement was a push for women's right to vote in elections. As a suffragist, she spent her time canvasing neighborhoods in New York City, hosted street meetings to educate passing people and to support the Woman Suffrage Party, Newman started the Negro Suffrage Headquarters in Manhattan.

On August 29, 1915, the New York Times noted under "Suffrage Centre for Negroes", "The Woman Suffrage Party is to open a suffrage headquarters for colored people at 207 West Sixty-third Street on Wednesday. This will be in charge of Miss Lyda Newman, who is doing excellent work for suffrage among her own people. The headquarters will be gayly decorated with suffrage posters, flags and streamers.”

Unfortunately, just as in her birth there is no record of what year in which died, however what is undeniable is that she used her money and resources to advance the cause for all women's rights.

11/26/2021

She’s one of the dopest engineers NASA’s seen thus far! Dajae Williams is an accidental engineer. Her freshman year at Kirkwood High School in Missouri a teacher enrolled her in honors geometry by mistake, and that changed her life. Now, the 26-year-old is working at NASA as a rocket scientist a...

11/26/2021

From The Afro-American (Baltimore, Maryland newspaper)
May 25, 1923

11/23/2021

𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗗 𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦 (1878-1965)

Richard Bowie Spikes was a prolific inventor with eight patents to his name, awarded between 1907 and 1946. Primarily interested in automobile mechanics, Spikes also sought to improve the operation of items as varied as barber chairs and trolley cars. Professionally, he worked as a mechanic, a saloon keeper, and a barber, occupations that likely influenced his many later inventions.

Born to Monroe and Medora Spikes on October 2, 1878, Spikes came from a large family of at least six siblings. His younger brother, Benjamin Franklin Spikes, known as “Reb,” would go on to become a well-known jazz musician. The 1880 census lists his birthplace as Texas, though in later years Spikes would report the location as actually being in Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma).

In 1900, Spikes married Lula B. Charlton. The couple had one son, born in 1902. During the early 1900s, the family moved often, living in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, before settling in California.

On April 9, 1907, while living in Bisbee, Arizona, Spikes patented a beer-tapper (U.S. Patent number 850,070). Connected to a keg, the tap used tubing to ease the release of beer from the barrel, while also improving freshness over time. This technology is still in use today.

Spikes’ next invention was for a self-locking rack for billiard cues. He received the patent on October 11, 1910 (U.S. Patent # 972,277), while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A decade later, on December 14, 1920, Spikes, now residing in Fort Bragg, California, successfully patented a “trolley pole arrester” (U.S. Patent 1,362,197). According to the patent application, Spikes’ device would automatically pull down the pole when the circuit is broken to prevent the breaking of the trolley wire and injury to the pole.”

Over the next forty years, Spikes would patent at least seven more items, including a break testing machine in 1921 (U.S. Patent number 1,441,383); a pantograph for conveying electrical current to trolleys’ wires in 1923 (U.S. Patent number 1,461,988); a combination milk bottle opener and cover in 1926 (U.S. Patent number 1,590,557); a device to obtain average samples and temperatures of tank liquids, for automobiles and industry in 1931 (U.S. Patent number 1,828,753); an improved gear shift transmission system in 1932 (U.S. Patent number 1,889,814); a horizontally swinging barber’s chair in 1950 (U.S. Patent number 2,517,936); and, finally, an automatic brake safety system in 1962 (U.S. Patent 3,015,522) at the age of 84.

Of all these innovations, the best-known are those related to automotive technology. Spikes’ gear shifting device aimed to keep the gears for various speeds in constant mesh, enhancing the turn-of-the-century invention of the automatic transmission. His automatic brake safety system was also significant; according to the patent application, it provided provide a reserve braking action in case of damage to the normal braking means and is still used in some buses as a fail-safe means of stopping the vehicle.

Spikes is also widely credited with patenting an automobile signaling system (turn signal) in the early 1910s, though a patent record has yet to be located at this time. The system was installed on a Pierce-Arrow motorcar.

Richard B. Spikes died on January 22, 1963 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 84.

#𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 #𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆𝗢𝘂𝗿𝗛𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 🤎 ✊🏾

11/23/2021

Three young kids have been described by Tuko.co.ke, a Kenyan website, as being among the highest IQs ever recorded, according to an article shared by MSN.com

11/04/2021

09/07/2021

99 signatures are needed! Trump for Prison 2024