THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 5 — June Bacon-Bercey

June Bacon-Bercey was called by a lot of things, but there was one she simply could not abide: weather girl.

“My mom was always about definitions. When she was called a weather girl, she would smile and say how proud she was to be a meteorologist,” her daughter Dail St. Claire says.

June Bacon-Bercey, proud meteorologist. NOT a weather girl.

After all, June earned it. Because June Bacon-Bercey was the first African-American woman to graduate with a degree in meteorology, and the first female broadcast meteorologist in the United States.

Dianne White, the first African-American “weather girl”

Words matter here because June wasn’t the first African-American woman to present the weather on broadcast TV. That designation belongs to Dianne White Clatto, an Avon saleswoman whose poise and beauty earned her a spot in front of the camera, even though she had no idea what to do. “‘When those two red lights come on, start talking.’ And I said, ‘About what?’,” she recounted. “And they said, ‘Preferably something about the weather.’ ”

But June’s fascination with the weather was spurred by much higher stakes. Just a child when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she wondered what effects nuclear fallout might have on the global atmosphere.

That curiosity propelled her through earning one math degree (with honors) in Kansas before transferring to UCLA for her 4-year degree in atmospheric sciences, where she was highly encouraged to seek another field.

“When I chose my major, [they] advised me to go into home economics… I got a D in home economics and an A in thermodynamics.”

Earning that degree despite her naysayers, June immediately put it to work at the National Meteorological Center (now the National Oceanic Aviation Administration), then at tech/aerospace corporation Sperry Rand (now Unisys), and at the United States Atomic Energy Commission (now the U.S. Department of Energy) while earning a journalism degree at night school, before finally joining a Buffalo NBC affiliate in 1970 as their science broadcast reporter. It didn’t take long for June to gain national exposure thanks to her coverage of the Attica prison uprising in 1971.

June, reporting live with WGR-TV 2 (now WGRZ) in Buffalo, NY

But why not the weather? All of her training was PRECISELY why June was adamantly against broadcasting the weather. Before women broke into the field of atmospheric science, news stations hired “weather girls” like Dianne to broadcast the day’s highs and lows. These women weren’t actually expected to know anything about the weather, and in the worst cases, were trotted out in swimsuits to sensationalize summer segments. June found it wholly demeaning, and she soundly refused. Until the day that her station’s weatherman got caught up in a scandal, and the station manager, knowing June’s wide-ranging talents and skilled background, begged her to step in.

June, stepping in as on-set meteorologist. Clearly the star of the show.

“All hell broke loose at the station when our weather guy robbed the bank, and they needed someone who was there to fill in for the day,” she recounted. “I already knew from my calculations that there was going to be a heat wave. When the heat wave hit the next day, the job was mine.”

The AMS Seal of Approval launched in 1957, recognizing on-air meteorologists for sound delivery of the weather to the public.

Little did her station manager know that June’s forecasted heat wave would usher in a whole new era of equality for women—especially Black women and other women of color on broadcast television. By 1972, June was honored as both the first female and African-American recipient of the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval for Excellence in Television Weathercasting.

4 years after a chance occurrence found her breaking weather barriers on TV, June thirsted for more science, and took her talents back to the NOAA. But her passion for paving the way persisted.

A capture from broadcast footage shows June in action, predicting a wet winter for the greater Buffalo area.

She became a contestant on a game show called “The $128,000 Question,” winning $64,000 after correctly answering a series of questions about John Philip Souza, her favorite composer. June studied ruthlessly with the goal of using her prize money to establish a scholarship fund for women of color studying meteorology. “That was my plan at the beginning, and it’s still my plan,” she told the Washington Post after her win. “I was discouraged (from becoming a meteorologist), and other women were discouraged. If they feel they’ve got some money behind them, it might be better.”

Applications for the June Bacon-Bercey Scholarship in Atmospheric Sciences for Women opens in TWO days, on February 7, 2022!

With that seed money, The June Bacon-Bercey Scholarship In Atmospheric Sciences For Women was established. Working into her 80s, June never ceased earning awards and degrees, serving her country in meteorology, and creating ways for more underrepresented faces to be seen in the atmospheric sciences. “She made personal sacrifices for those who would come after her to give them a fighting chance at success in her field,” Dorothy Tucker, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said. Her trail blazed so brightly in fact, that just last year, the American Meteorological Society officially renamed their most prestigious and coveted Broadcaster of the Year award to the June Bacon-Bercey Award for Broadcast Meteorology in recognition of her impact on the field.

June passed away in 2019, leaving a stunning legacy as proof of her dedication to making science more equitable, but even she acknowledged that one person can only do so much. “Society, too, has a moral obligation to put aside the past myths about black Americans not only in the meteorological field but in all of the technical fields.”

Until that day is fully realized, her daughter Dail continues sharing June’s story saying, “Her legacy serves as inspiration for all and is a powerful example of our limitless capability and strength.”

Of that, there is a 100% chance.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

June’s daughter Dail St. Claire spoke with The Weather Channel about her mother’s legacy in meteorology and broadcast television.

Visit AccuWeather for “the untold story of the 1st American woman to become a TV meteorologist.”

EOS, the American Geophysical Union‘s news site, thoroughly details of June’s life and accomplishments.

Between 1978 and 1990, 13 women received funding for their studies in atmospheric science. It was June’s dying wish that her scholarship be reinstated. Donate now, or apply starting February 7, 2022.
THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 4 — Kimberly & Jehvan Crompton

To an outsider, Kimberly and Jehvan Crompton seem like your run-of-the-mill mother and son. Jehvan is 15, introverted and loves science, English and video games. His mom describes herself as a “mommypreneur steady grinding.” Jehvan lives with his mom, sister and brother, and stays up too late. The Cromptons’ lives look pretty ordinary.

Just a handsome teenager.

And until late 2019, they would have thought so too.

But that was the year that routine blood work Jehvan had done ahead of a foot surgery revealed news no mother with a symptom-free child is prepared for: his results showed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML).

CML is a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells of the bone marrow. It almost always occurs in adults, but Jehvan was that 1 in millions. And even worse, no one in his family was a full match.

As rare as childhood CML is, turns out Jehvan’s story isn’t very out of the ordinary at all.

“Right now, the make-up of the registry, it’s just overwhelmingly white,” according to reps at Be the Match, the national marrow registry. While 77% of all white patients find a match within its records, only 23% of Black patients ever do. (Notice that number adds up to 100%, so donor rates from other racial segments–along with the likelihood of donees finding a match–is infinitesimal.)

Aside from the many structural and social obstacles preventing Black patients from finding a match, there’s a genetic variable too. “Overall, blood cancers tend to be less common among African-American populations, but distinctly, multiple myeloma is the one blood cancer that’s seen at two times as high a rate in African Americans compared to other ethnicities,” Dr. Adrienne Phillips, medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine says. Other blood diseases like sickle-cell also disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic patients, too often resulting in preventable deaths simply because these patients don’t have the same visibility and their cancers don’t have the same awareness or organizational support as the other 77%.

So instead of waiting for the odds to fall in Jehvan’s favor, Kimberly decided to put her own numbers up against CML. “I believe this was God’s plan. But I have to do my work,” she said.

Her goal was 200. If she could get just 200 more Black donors on the Be The Match registry, her son’s chances of matching one would increase dramatically.

As of January 2021, Kimberly’s campaign alone has brought 13,000 fully registered donors to Be The Match. That number has no doubtedly continued to skyrocket.

I know Kimberly’s numbers have kept going up because Jehvan’s targeted ad came up multiple times for me as I researched this post. I’ve linked it with his affiliate code, just as Be the Match did elsewhere.

Thousands, but still no match for the one patient who mattered most.

But Jehvan was already prepared for that outcome: “Even if I don’t get a match out of the 13,000 or more that come up, it’ll just be great to see that everyone else got a match,”

Her son’s optimism and selflessness only made the doctors’ next call that much harder to hear: Jehvan’s leukemia had become resistant to chemotherapy, the cancer cells were multiplying and a blood stem-cell transplant was his only hope.

“It’s like getting hit by a dump truck and then that dump truck hitting you again and going back over you again,” Kimberly said.

The news forced them to resort to a half-match, which was just as likely to lead to Jehvan’s death as it was to his cure. The closest half-match doctors could find turned out to be Jehvan’s adult half brother, with whom he “didn’t have much of a relationship before this happened,” Jehvan said. 

“This” is a successful transplant in March 2021, leaving Jehvan cancer-free.

He says his relationship with his brother is “getting better and better by the day,” especially now that he has so many more ahead.

And 13,000 more people of color on the bone marrow registry are getting that same opportunity now, all thanks to one “ordinary” little boy.

Kimberly, Jehvan and Patrick Crompton continuing to raise awareness about Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

“At first I didn’t think my story was so much different than anyone else’s, but apparently people think otherwise. So, I guess I’m very special,” Jehvan said.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Read more of Kimberly & Jehvan’s story and the science about how race affects blood cancers at SurvivorNet.

Bakersfield news station 23ABC followed Jehvan from half-match to cancer-free, and as its the most visible and vulnerable I’ve seen a Black family fighting cancer represented in the media in some time, I found both articles worthy of sharing.

And once more for good measure… please consider signing up. Click through to see how for patients like Jehvan, a cure can be as simple as a tiny blood draw.
THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 3 — Myron Rolle

Myron Rolle has spent a lifetime suiting up.

The only thing that’s changed along the way is the suit.

If you happen to recognize his face, it MIGHT be from the time when his suit looked something like this:

Myron Rolle signed with Florida State University as ESPN’s number one high school prospect in 2006. And his performance there was impressive in ways FSU’s coaches couldn’t have anticipated. In just two and a half years, Myron had earned his bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science with a 3.75 GPA, fulfilled all pre-med requirements, AND qualified as a first-round NFL Draft pick as a junior.

Before he could enter the draft, another suit came into play. And this one would demand sacrifice.

Myron Rolle at Oxford University

Myron also qualified for the Rhodes Scholarship, the oldest and most prestigious international graduate program in the world and his interview was scheduled at the same time as the Florida State vs. Maryland game. 

Faced with two paths that most people could only dream of, Myron chose the one that gave him options. Though he arrived from his interview just in time to defeat Maryland, Myron made the fateful decision to sit out of the Draft, pursuing his Masters in Medical Anthropology at Oxford.

Myron Rolle with the Tennessee Titans.

A year later, and back at FSU, Myron was drafted after all, going to the Tennessee Titans, then the Pittsburgh Steelers, but never fully realizing his football potential.

Facing a disappointing future on the gridiron, Myron suited up for a whole new team.

Today, DR. Myron Rolle is a neurosurgery resident, specializing in pediatrics.

Dr. Myron operates on a child with hydrocephalus in Ghana.

And his experience as a pro safety, playing defense against anything that comes at him, has proven priceless.

When the Neurosurgery floor at Massachusetts General in Boston shut down, Dr. Myron, like many other medical professionals, was asked to step up in other capacities to manage the pandemic’s load.

His experience has also made him one of the only people in the world qualified to speak on COVID’s impact to and handling by professional sports leagues, so you may also have seen his face on ESPN, NBC, CNN, and other broadcast networks seeking his one-of-a-kind expertise.

But Myron has even bigger dreams than neurosurgery, professional football and broadcast television. He’s putting all of his life’s work to use building better medicine as chairman of the Myron Rolle Foundation. Its initiatives include the Myron Rolle Wellness & Leadership Academy that teaches athletics, health & wellness, teamwork, character building, self-esteem and leadership to Florida foster kids; the Exuma Project, a state-of-the-art medical, wellness and training facility in the Bahamas where his parents are from; and the CARICOM Neurosurgical Initiative, designed to improve neurosurgical care within the Caribbean nations. 

All of this in pursuit of Myron’s “passion to deliver good quality health care to underserved people” and a calling that truly suits him.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Catch up on all the good work Myron is doing for the underserved in the world at the Myron Rolle Foundation‘s website.

Last Black History Month, Myron spoke with NBC Sports Boston about all the different suits he’s had to wear growing up as a Black man in the States with Bahamian parents.

SBNation thoroughly detailed how Myron’s football career could have gone much differently if his time away from football hadn’t dropped his rank in the NFL Draft.

Keep up with all the ways Dr. Myron’s suiting up these days on Instagram.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 2 — Barbara Hillary

Now on the other side of the ceremony from where she’d once stood, Barbara Hillary captivated fresh New School graduates with 88 years worth of experience boiled down into a 10-minute commencement speech.

Among so many gems, one piece of advice stood out: “At every phase in your life, look at your options. Please, do not select boring ones.”

Oh, sure.

No problem, ONLY Black woman in the world known to set foot on both the North AND South Poles.

Before we proceed, a little perspective.

Matthew Henson, Black American explorer is photographed in tight frame, in a hooded fur parka, exposing only his mustached face.
Matthew Henson, photographed in 1910.

One of the first men ever recorded at the North Pole was free Black American Matthew Henson in 1909.

In 1986, the first woman accomplished the feat.

George W. Gibbs became the first African-American in the Antarctic as a member of Admiral James Byrd’s third expedition to the South Pole in 1939.

Nearly a century after Henson’s journey, Dwayne Fields was the first Black Briton to follow suit in 2010.

And that’s it. That’s the summation of Black diversity at the Poles. 

(Ed. Note: Here comes the part where you feel ashamed of yourself and your boring choices, so you’ve been warned.)

For Barbara Hillary to have done so at the age of 79, becoming the first Black woman to visit either pole AND both, as well as the first Black person to visit both, is nothing short of astonishing.

Even before her adventures, Barbara had already lived a life beyond most folks’ expectations.

“We were Depression-poor,” she said in her commencement address, “but there was no such thing as mental poverty in our home.”

That mindset had propelled her through a Master’s degree from the New School, a 55-year long career as a nurse, and not one, but two separate bouts with cancer, the last of which had left her with 25% reduced breathing capacity. 

But the last thing anyone expected was a trip to the North Pole.

And with good reason. One does not simply GO to a Pole. Barbara grew up in Harlem, where cross-country skiing, a necessity to cross the pole’s frozen terrain, was hardly second-nature. Her nurse’s salary, swallowed by medical costs, didn’t leave much for globe-trotting. And the physical toll dealt by polar regions is unlike any other in the world.

Barbara, in a red and black snow jacket and wide goggles, smiles with her hands raised above her head in celebration. She isn't wearing gloves.
That feeling when you forgot you were at the North Pole.

Barbara found out first-hand when she overcame all of those obstacles to arrive at the North Pole on April 23, 2007. She took her gloves off for just a minute to celebrate, left with frostbite as a souvenir, and the frigid travel bug too.

Less than 4 years later, on January 6, 2011, Barbara landed on the South Pole, where she skipped the frostbite, celebrating with chocolate instead. It’s not that chocolate has any secret warming properties, but when you’re a 79 year old Black lady at the South Pole, nothing’s taken for granted. Barbara explains, “If I had frozen to death down there, wouldn’t it be sad if I’d gone to hell without getting what I want?”

A figure clad in a blue snow jacket with yellow layers underneath and a face shield on, stands in front of a sign that reads "Geographic South Pole."
Lessons were learned.

Thankfully, Barbara didn’t freeze to death down there, else this would be a terrible story.

But her journeys to far-flung places soon revealed one. Inspired to continue adventuring beyond the Poles, Barbara discovered climate change closing chapter after chapter on small, indigenous communities as old as the world itself, forcing them into poverty, starvation, relocation, or dissolution altogether.

For the next 11 years, she turned her adventuring spirit into a boon for those communities, using her newfound fame to bring visibility and aid to Mother Earth’s First People in places like Manitoba and Outer Mongolia. As a descendant of the Gullah Geechee, the Atlantic Lowcountry’s coastal people known for their African traditions, it’s no surprise that she’d have a special place in her heart for those preserving ancient culture at the outskirts of the world.

Barbara in a blue beanie and blue jacket, stands next to a Mongolian woman in a fur hat, coat, and falconers glove and a Mongolian man in a brown beanie and black coat. They are laughing together with a desert and mountain ridge behind them.
One of Ms. Barbara’s favorite people was Akelik (center), one of the few indigenous female falconers left in the world. (Their guide and translator Tudevee stands right.)

In 2019, the 88-year-old wanderer left her earthbound body, still dreaming of where to next. “I find that it’s like looking at a great dessert in the window of a store and saying, ‘I’m going to have that.’ And if I don’t? Look at all the people who have unbelievably boring lives…” she mused. “Am I a hopeless dreamer, or was I born at the wrong time?”

Surely both are options.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Listen in on Ms. Barbara’s commencement speech. Her smile alone makes it worth it.
Barbara and a man sit on folding lounge chairs between two yurts in Mongolia.

In case you didn’t notice, Ms. Barbara Hillary was a spitfire of a lady and her personality absolutely shines in this article detailing her accomplishments by the New Yorker.

Do yourself a favor and head on over to Ms. Barbara’s website for a full rundown of all her accomplishments and stunning accolades.

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2022

DAY 1 — Henrietta Wood

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The President may issue each year a proclamation designating February 1 as National Freedom Day to commemorate the signing by Abraham Lincoln on February 1, 1865, of the joint resolution adopted by the Senate and the House of Representatives that proposed the 13th amendment to the Constitution.

U.S. Code § 124 – National Freedom Day

But in 1853, Henrietta Wood couldn’t afford to keep waiting.

Until that year, her life had not been unlike that of most African-Americans. Henrietta was born into slavery around 1818 in northern Kentucky, worked for one master until he died, was sold to another, relocated elsewhere, rinse and repeat.

Until the day in 1844 when one of her masters, a merchant and French immigrant took leave from his New Orleans estate, and its mistress stole Henrietta away to the free state of Ohio, seeking to make her own fortune by hiring Henrietta out to Northerners in need of help. That plan backfired as creditors left high & dry in New Orleans saw Henrietta’s value too. Rather than allow her to be seized as an asset, the mistress begrudgingly granted Henrietta’s freedom. 

And for nine years, Henrietta savored it. But unwilling to let their dowry slip away, the master’s daughter and son-in-law hired Zebulon Ward, a notorious Kentucky deputy sheriff, slave trader, and future Father of Convict Leasing, to kidnap Henrietta back across state lines.

Slavery as the literal currency of the South. A Confederate States of America $100 bill bears enslaved people in cotton fields as its central image.

Despite her status, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 legislated Henrietta’s silence. Under its rule, enslaved people were not entitled to a trial, and were forbidden from speaking in their own defense should they obtain one. Adding insult to injury, Federal commissioners overseeing these sham proceedings were paid $10 for every person they deemed a fugitive, but only $5 for every freedman. Anyone mounting a case against the system was already at a loss.

But against those insurmountable odds came an intervention. John Joliffe—the same lawyer who’d defended Margaret Garner—argued a 2-year long lawsuit on Henrietta’s behalf. And once more, freedom seemed futile. The Cincinnati courthouse where Henrietta’s papers had been filed had burned to the ground, and any hope of defense with it.

She’d spend the next 14 years re-enslaved, sold this time to Gerard Brandon, the son of a Mississippi governor, in 1855. With the Brandons, freedom would only continue to be snatched from Henrietta’s grasp. Afer the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Master Brandon marched all 300 of his slaves over 400 miles to Texas where it’d take Union soldiers another 2 years to arrive on June 19, 1865.

A 1936 photo of Brandon Hall in Natchez, MS, where Henrietta Wood was re-enslaved (via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) vs. today (via Brandon Hall Plantation).

But papers and proclamations hardly made enslaved people free, and Henrietta was living proof. Slavery was still legal in many islands off the coast of the United States, and her own story demonstrated the lengths that slavers would go to profit off “free” human beings. Henrietta reluctantly accepted a formal employment contract from the Brandons promising $10 a month, which she held was never actually paid. Either way, the score was far from settled, her worth was much higher, and Henrietta had every intention of pursuing both.

A diagram of the arduous path Henrietta endured before finally gaining her freedom (via Smithsonian Mag)

In 1878, Federal Judge Philip Swing presided over Wood vs. Ward, where the plaintiff sought $20,000 in restitution for her kidnapping and re-enslavement. Black people weren’t allowed to sit in juries until a 1935 case brought to the Supreme Court by one of the Scottsboro Boys made it illegal to systematically exclude Black people from service (note: systematically). So the notion that an all-white jury would see fit to award a formerly enslaved woman without documentation any dollar amount was likely more about the principle than the actual court judgment.

“Henrietta Wood V. Zeb Ward — Verdict
We the jury on the above titled cause, do find for the plaintiff and assess her damages in the premise of Two thousand and five hundred dollars $2500. (signed), Foreman.”

But in 1879, twenty-six years after Henrietta was sold back into slavery, a jury handed down $2,500—nearly $90,000 today—the highest dollar amount ever awarded by a court in restitution for enslavement.

That award funded her son Arthur’s college education. Born early into Henrietta’s re-enslavement, Arthur Simms had also lived on both sides of freedom, and took full advantage of his newfound rights. In 1889, he graduated as the first Black man to earn a degree from Northwestern University’s Union College of Law, and died as the school’s oldest living alumnus in 1951 at 95 years young, a testament that true freedom keeps paying dividends.

Happy Freedom Day & Happy Black History Month, y’all. Let it ring.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

W. Caleb McDaniel, the same historian who allied against Fort Bend ISD in support of preserving the Sugar Land 95 uncovered Henrietta’s story. Read his take on her story and interact with Henrietta’s route to freedom at the Smithsonian.

Mr. McDaniel continued over at the New York Times, explaining how Henrietta’s case has re-opened a “dark chapter in American history that in many ways remains open.”

McDaniels’ book Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America won a 2020 Pulitzer Prize. Read an excerpt at the National Endowment for Humanities and see more about Harriet’s case at the book’s page.

In 1876, Henrietta told her own story to the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper. It’s collected here in four parts and is the most complete accounting of her story that survives.

Even Henrietta’s descendants didn’t know about her until Mr. McDaniel shared her incredible story. Read how they put together the pieces, and unknowingly, made her fight for freedom “worth it.”

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2020

DAY 29 — Fred Hampton

In the wee hours of December 4, 1969, the residence at 2337 W. Monroe St. on Chicago’s West Side became an all-out war zone. The sounds of wooden doors and their frames erupting into splinters, drywall vaporizing behind shotgun blasts, and indistinguishable shouting over the bedlam tore through the stillness.

By the time the smoke cleared, 100 hot shell casings littered the home, 2 people were dead, and Illinois State Attorney Edward Hanrahan had a perfect explanation at the ready: “The immediate, violent and criminal reaction of the occupants in shooting at announced police officers emphasizes the extreme viciousness of the Black Panther Party. So does their refusal to cease firing at police officers when urged to do so several times.”

In an effort to appear transparent, Hanrahan and the Chicago Police Department staged reenactments of the raid on the Chicago Black Panther headquarters and even invited the press to see the aftermath inside. But when ballistic analysis was done, something didn’t add up.

Of the 100 shots fired, 99 were from Chicago Police. The single round fired by the Black Panthers had come from the gun of Panther security man Mark Clark as he was shot in the heart, involuntarily triggered when he fell dead from his post.

Ballistics also corroborated the story told by five other surviving occupants — one of the deceased hadn’t been killed in the onslaught of gunfire at all. He’d been dragged from bed with serious but non-critical injuries, and then fired upon, killed by two parallel, point-blank gunshots to the head.

A diagram of the scene at 2337 W. Monroe St.

Witnesses overheard the conversation between officers in another room:

“Is he dead?… Bring him out.”
“He’s barely alive.”
“He’ll make it.”

Suddenly and unexpectedly, two more shots rang out.

“Well, he’s good and dead now.”

HE was Fred Hampton, 21-year-old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, and HE had just been assassinated by the Chicago Police Department and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Fred Hampton was a rising star in the Black Panther Party. The warm tone and upbeat tempo of his voice made people lean in to listen more closely, and the anti-establishment message he delivered was only magnified by the charisma and congeniality he demonstrated among people of all races.

He first forced the government’s hand when, concerned that inner-city children couldn’t focus on education with empty stomachs, Fred introduced free lunch programs in several predominantly black schools. Ashamed and hoping to quell growing support for the Panthers, the local and federal government implemented their own free lunch programs for the very first time. When the neighborhood’s black children were dying from a genetic epidemic, Fred opened clinics specializing in tests for sickle cell disease. Soon after, government clinics began providing those same tests in their own clinics as well. Even warring Chicago gangs came to a tense but meaningful cease-fire with the help of Fred’s mediation, but when Fred’s leadership and organization skills began crossing racial lines, the FBI, under the directive of J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO, enacted their plan to “destroy, discredit, disrupt the activities of the Black Panther Party by any means necessary and prevent the rise of a Black Messiah.”

In one of the galvanizing speeches that gave the FBI particular concern about Fred’s ability to “unify and electrify the masses,” he said, “Black people need some peace. White people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight. We’re going to have to struggle. We’re going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace, because the people that we’re asking for peace, they are a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers, and they don’t even understand what peace means.” As the original founder of the “Rainbow Coalition,” Fred recognized the common goals of the Black Panthers, Puerto Rican Young Lords, and Appalachian Young Patriots sought for each of their respective communities, and unified the three groups to champion the disenfranchised of all races, threatening an imbalance in power that had to be stopped.

The FBI planned a raid on Fred’s apartment and the Panther HQ under the guise of seizing illegal weapons, and recruited the Chicago PD who’d recently lost officers in a shootout with a lone Black Panther to do the dirty work. But too many inconsistencies and surviving witnesses, along with the police’s failure to secure the scene that allowed the public to walk right in to evaluate the crime scene for themselves quickly tanked law enforcement’s credibility. There was even evidence that Fred had been drugged, preventing him from resisting the confrontation and explaining why he was still in bed after what police and witnesses actually agreed was at least 5 straight minutes of gunfire. The “weapons stockpile” police claimed in justifying the raid turned out to be 19 guns and a few hundred rounds of ammo, all legal. Despite mounds of evidence contradicting law enforcement, every officer involved was cleared of any wrongdoing. Though the state’s attorney had the nerve to bring charges of attempted murder of police and resisting arrest against the survivors of the “Massacre on Monroe,” they too were found not guilty as the one shot fired by the Black Panthers came from the gun of a dead man.

Insistent upon accountability for Fred’s death, which still hadn’t been adequately explained by any theory presented on behalf of either the FBI or Chicago PD, his family and the survivors opened a federal civil rights case. In 1983, almost 15 years after Fred’s death, despite the drama of continued cover-ups from judges involved in the case, a failed attempt by the FBI to force the plaintiffs into paying thousands of dollars in labor and printing fees for evidence they didn’t want to turn over, an eventual FBI whistleblower confession, and repeated appeals, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decided in the Hamptons & Panthers favor. Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies took equal financial responsibility for Fred Hampton’s death and granted the family a combined $1.85 million settlement.

But the damage was done. Though they hadn’t been successful in keeping it quiet, the goals of COINTELPRO and politicians on the state and local levels had been accomplished. Fred Hampton was dead, the alliances he’d fostered were effectively dissolved, and their smear campaign had played out long enough that in the public eye, the Black Panthers were a violent, racist threat suppressed by peace-keeping law enforcement agencies.

Chi-Town knows the truth, though. In addition to several landmarks around the West Side named after him, December 4th is recognized as Fred Hampton Day according to a resolution that he “made his mark in Chicago history not so much by his death as by the heroic efforts of his life and by his goals of empowering the most oppressed sector of Chicago’s Black community, bringing people into political life through participation in their own freedom fighting organization.”

It’s a fitting tribute for one of the most galvanizing figures of the Civil Rights Movement who once asked, “Why don’t you live for the people? Why don’t you struggle for the people? Why don’t you die for the people?” and then proceeded to inspire generations of people through a brave life and martyr’s death validating each and every word.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Listen to Fred’s charismatic speeches championing power to ALL of the people via Spotify.

The Chicago Tribune documented Fred’s life, death, and the continued COINTELPRO conspiracy throughout the Hampton v. Hanrahan federal civil rights case.

Videos from the US National Archives show police walkthroughs and testimony vs. that of witnesses and lawyers regarding the events leading to Fred Hampton’s death.

Read the 1976 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s detailed investigative report that included a section titled “The FBI’s Covert Action Program To Destroy The Black Panther Party.”

The Committee report also details the FBI’s campaign against other black civil rights leadership, including but not limited to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the SNCC, the SCLC, and more “Black Nationalist Hate Groups.”

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2020

DAY 28 — Margaret Garner

Sensational news of an enslaved mother murdering her own child was just one contributor to growing unrest over the morality of slavery.

Thomas, Samuel, and Priscilla were all the light of their mother’s life. But it was little Mary, Margaret Garner’s first daughter, who was her mother’s precious beloved.

Through the bitter cold and the blinding snowstorms of 1855’s Long Hard Winter, pregnant Margaret and her husband Robert had holed up together with their 4 children, until suddenly, the miserable chill became their method of escape. The Ohio River had completely frozen over, allowing the family safe and efficient passage from Kentucky where they were enslaved, to the free state of Ohio, a hub of the Underground Railroad.

And they would need it. Robert and Margaret both had individual troubles that threatened to destroy their little family. The most recent owner of their plantation was a cruel man who ruled with the whip just as surely as he ruled by his word. He’d long threatened Robert’s sale to another plantation, but repeated and ever-lengthening loans out to other slavemasters convinced the Garners that it was only a matter of time before Robert was gone forever. The babe still growing in 22-year-old Margaret’s belly belonged to her no more than her other children did, and boy or girl, had a lifetime of enslavement waiting to welcome it into the world. Winter’s brutal but short-lived punishment couldn’t begin to compare with a slave’s perpetually hellish existence.

So on the evening of Sunday, January 27th, 1856 the Garners bundled up their children and Robert’s parents hoping to cross the icy river into Cincinnati, where their family could be free. If all went according to plan, Margaret’s family would take them in until Levi Coffin himself, nicknamed the “President of the Underground Railroad,” came to carry them on to the next stop. By Monday morning, they’d survived patrols enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and the driving snow to arrive cold, wet and hungry, but alive. With the worst behind them, it’d be just a few more hours before their allies would handle the rest of the journey.

That subsequent departure never came for the Garners. Unbeknownst to them, their master and the U.S. Marshals, unburdened by small children, elderly family members and all of their provisions and belongings, made fast time behind them and now had their cabin surrounded.

The adults knew the terrible fate ahead. IF they survived this confrontation, they’d all be sent back to their respective plantations where the retribution would be swift and without a doubt, severe. The oldest two children at 6 and 4, already knew the despair of slavery. But 2 year old Mary and 9 month old Priscilla were still their mother’s innocent girls. But not for long. Soon, they’d be expected to work, days would turn into years, and her girls would grow into women.

What came next, was no secret to Margaret, or to most enslaved women working in their master’s homes. After all, both of her girls, most likely her youngest son, and almost certainly the child she was carrying had all been fathered by her master A.K. Gaines, one of the men now pounding furiously at her door. A Southern wife’s last trimester was rather distastefully known as “the gander months,” when it was socially acceptable in some circles for her husband to take on a mistress, or enslaved woman, for his personal satisfaction. Almost like clockwork, with the exception of her oldest, Margaret’s babies were born 5 to 7 months after each of the Gaines children, and even Margaret herself was the daughter of a slavemaster.

In the chaos of her thoughts, the armed men moments from storming in, the family members scrambling to hide, and 4 tiny voices all crying in fear, Margaret made a heartbreaking declaration.

“Mother, I shall kill my children before they will be taken back, every one of them.”

Three of the four children suffered head wounds from shovel blows their mother inflicted. But beloved Mary was the last, her mother’s pride and joy, and whatever fate the rest of the family suffered would not, could not befall Margaret’s precious Mary. Just as the men burst through the front door, Margaret reached for a butcher’s knife on the kitchen table, and without hesitation, took her daughter’s life.

The scene was the real-life inspiration for Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Beloved.

And yet, the story didn’t end there. All except for little Mary, every member of the family was seized under the Fugitive Slave Act. But Margaret’s horrifying act complicated the matter tremendously. The crime had occurred in Ohio, where black people were free. But the Fugitive Slave Act was federal decree, and allowed slave owners to cross into any state their property might be located. Margaret’s two-week-long trial became a national spectacle and the longest fugitive slave trial in history. Ohio wanted a murder prosecution, fully expecting Margaret would be granted clemency due to the poignant circumstances. Their play was also a strategic one — finding Margaret guilty of murder would require the court to acknowledge her and her child as human beings, setting a federal precedent. On the other hand, indictment under the Fugitive Slave Act would charge Margaret with depriving an owner of his property, and ultimately require that she be returned to him too.

Thousands packed the frigid courtroom for each day’s heated arguments between the attorneys and the circus in the gallery, divided by northern and southern spectators. It was just 5 years before the start of the Civil War, and the trial not only humanized enslaved black people – women in particular – for passive northerners, but also absolutely incensed southerners who saw the trial as nothing but unwelcome northern interference and egotism. Lucy Stone, a white abolitionist did her best to plead on Margaret’s behalf and simultaneously shame her owner, pointing out that “the faded faces of the Negro children tell too plainly to what degradation the female slaves submit. Rather than give her daughter to that life, she killed it. If in her deep maternal love she felt the impulse to send her child back to God, to save it from coming woe, who shall say she had no right not to do so?”

But Lucy’s pleas for empathy fell on deaf ears, and the Garners were all deemed property to be sent back to their respective masters. Though the state of Ohio scrambled to bring their own charges against Margaret anyway, Slavemaster Gaines spirited her away, repeatedly relocating her each time relentless abolitionists closed in. Eventually, Gaines put Margaret and baby Priscilla on a ship to Arkansas, which subsequently wrecked. Priscilla was drowned, and though she didn’t succeed, onlookers reported that Margaret attempted to drown herself as well. Reunited once and for all, Robert and Margaret spent the rest of their days together in New Orleans until Margaret died in 1858, begging her husband to “never marry again in slavery, but to live in hope of freedom.”

Toni Morrison herself spoke to the heart of Margaret’s tragedy, saying “The interest is not the fact of slavery, but of what happens internally, emotionally, psychologically, when you are in fact enslaved and what you do to try to transcend that circumstance.” For Margaret, who loved her children so much that she would sacrifice herself and whatever future she had for them, if death was the only freedom to be found from slavery, better that than no freedom at all.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

The events leading up to Margaret’s arrest and return to slavery were detailed in the abolitionist newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle and archived in the Library of Congress.
(zoom on the paper’s entire second column)

The Ohio Memory Project has an excellent archive of historical documents and newspapers related to Margaret’s tragedy.

When the Michigan Opera Theatre’s Detroit Opera House performed Toni Morrison’s libretto based on her book Beloved and Margaret Garner’s life, they shared one scholar’s essay detailing Margaret’s life and circumstances.
THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2020

DAY 27 — Dr. Hadiyah Green

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Dr. Hadiyah Green - From Physics to the Physical

Hadiyah Green watched helplessly as a monster slowly ravaged her precious aunt and uncle. Her aunt’s hands that once dutifully cleaned homes shriveled away at the mercy of the “woman’s cancer” she willingly left untreated, rather than allow chemo and radiation to steal what little life she had left. Just 3 months after her aunt’s death, her uncle’s rich mahogany skin deteriorated to burnt parchment when the poisons treating his esophageal cancer behaved like an atom bomb, causing total fallout.

“I got to see, with both of them, firsthand, the horrors of cancer, and the horrors of cancer care. It was so devastating that it fell on my heart that there has to be a better way,” she recalls.

When Hadiyah didn’t find one, she put her 3 degrees in physics and optics to work at making a better way herself. Though it was a little out of the ordinary for a physicist to operate in biology, Hadiyah is rather accustomed to standing out. She’s one of fewer than 100 African-American women in the United States with a PhD in Physics among over 22,000 white male peers.

Being a young woman, a woman of color, and a physicist in the field of cancer research may position 37-year-old Hadiyah as an anomaly, but she’s capitalized on her fresh perspective and profound personal motivations to do what no one else before her could — laser-target and destroy cancer cells with no side-effects, no outrageous treatment recovery times, all in a couple of weeks.

Hadiyah’s groundbreaking treatment actually works as a four-in-one, cancer-beating Swiss Army knife — early detection, imaging, direct targeting and selective treatment are all possible with her “particle target laser therapy.” It works much more simply than it sounds.

Tumors on/at the skin’s surface are injected with an FDA-approved serum carrying nanoparticles that only attach to cancer cells. When, and only when, those nanoparticles are heated with a laser, cancer cells are burned and destroyed at the microscopic level. After only 10 minutes, tumors are visibly affected, and within 15 days, gone altogether.

The procedure for internal tumors is slightly different, but could be even more significant as it can identify cancers before they turn symptomatic. In this case, fluorescent antibodies carrying the nanoparticles are injected, then attack cancerous cells. The antibodies’ tell-tale glow reveals the cancer on imaging scans, the laser directly targets the nanoparticles, and again the growth is killed while healthy tissue goes unscathed. After just one treatment, 40% of the mass is eliminated.

Hadiyah’s results are so groundbreaking that she’s received approval for HUMAN testing. All she needs is the money. And of course, that number is staggering. Even with all the funding she’s received in awards and research grants, including $1 million from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Research & Development, Hadiyah still needs millions more to make her clinical trials a reality. And she’s adamant about not standing by while the cancer epidemic that stole her grandparents ravages the country too. The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 1.9 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed last year, and over 600,000 people will die in the United States from some form of the disease this year alone. Hadiyah’s therapy is proven on colorectal, ovarian, cervical, breast, brain, pancreatic, bladder, skin and prostate cancers that claimed over 250,000 lives in 2019 that she might have saved. Black women like Hadiyah’s dear aunt Ora Lee are most at risk.

Still, fighting the cancer itself is only part of the goal for Hadiyah. “I want to be a good steward over this technology, and I want it to be available to people that don’t have insurance, to people that are underinsured who may not have other alternatives, who can’t afford the pharmaceuticals, who have been sent home to die,” Hadiyah insists. “If I don’t protect it, nobody else will.” It’s why she’s shunned big pharmaceutical companies that might seek to profit from her work in exchange for funding it, and instead, created her own non-profit research organization, the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation.

Nearly every step that Hadiyah’s taken to revolutionize cancer research has been unorthodox or extraordinary, and yet she’s beyond humble about the game-changing work she’s done. “It looks like I’m special, but I’m not. I’m no different from anybody else. When opportunity found me, I was prepared.” The opportunity to be a miracle-worker for future cancer patients is an absolute dream, but there’s one more way Hadiyah hopes to leave her mark on the world. “When I was growing up I didn’t see an example of a Black female scientist…, and when I thought of a physicist, I thought of Albert Einstein,” she explains. “I did not get here by myself. Because of that clarity, I know my responsibility to encourage and mentor the next generation. I hope in the future people will also think of me, a Black female physicist.”

In a future where her treatment is successful & the world is cancer-free, it’s certain Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green won’t need to worry about that.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

See Dr. Hadiyah’s infectious enthusiasm for her work at the 2018 BET Breast Cancer Awareness Awards.

Donate to Dr. Green’s research and funding her human trials through the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation.

Follow Dr. Green — and her journey to kill cancer once and for all — on Instagram.

 

 

 

THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2020

DAY 24 — Changa Bell

Changa Bell - Namaste with Soul

The day Changa Bell’s heart began to stop is the same day his life began to change forever.

His name means “strong as iron” in Yoruba, but the tangle of IVs and electrodes spider-webbing across his hospital bed, and the inescapable dread of closing his eyes for fear he might not open them again made him feel so weak and small. Every now and then, his heart would inexplicably stop, and no one knew for sure why. So here in a still, sterile room Changa, only in his early 30s, laid vowing that before he’d let doctors give him a pacemaker, he’d find a change of pace himself.

And he knew just where to start. The same person who’d taught him to be a man sat with Changa for the very first time and taught him yoga too. “I was raised in the ’80s, and yoga was totally not the cool thing to do,” so even though Changa’s father was a yogi, he’d never felt particularly compelled to practice yoga himself… until now. When his heart arrhythmia stabilized just a few weeks later, Changa was a believer.

But in his hometown of Baltimore where almost 63% of the population is black, he was an anomaly for a lot of reasons. Of course, black yogis are few and far between. But more importantly, yoga helped Changa escape a harsh statistic too many of his peers never did: black men have the lowest life expectancy in the United States. It was an alarming reality because the causes were nearly too innumerable to address – heart disease and stroke that claim 30 and 60 percent more black men than non-Hispanic white men, respectively; a suicide rate 4 times that of black women, when African-Americans are already 10% more likely to suffer serious psychological distress; and of course, inner city gun violence that claims too many young men’s lives.

The thought of all those ills affecting black men just like him could have been overwhelming. But Changa gave an old cliché new purpose when he discovered he could help address all of those issues with one simple solution: meditate on it.

It was a novel, and admittedly “hippie” approach, but one with science on its side too. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) list “stress management, mental/emotional health, promoting healthy eating/activity habits, sleep, and balance” as possible benefits yoga provides, and Changa himself was a living example. But like all things, getting others on board was easier said than done.

Even as someone intimately familiar with the practice of yoga, he couldn’t shake the discomfort that intruded on his peace of mind during every class. “Black men in particular were isolated from the yoga community. I didn’t fit the preconceived mold. We’re marketed as over-sexualized, hyper-violent, hyper-masculine,” he says. “I was the only male in a class of 17 people when I got certified. It was intimidating to me, and I didn’t want black men to not get the life-saving possibilities of yoga because they didn’t feel comfortable in a space with a bunch of strong, mostly white, mostly young women.” The centuries-long practice of yoga couldn’t erase America’s historic social dynamics between white women and black men, especially in a space with so little representation.

Motivated by his mantra “I am my light, my own responsibility, and that I am alone in accountability for the change that I wish to see in my world, which is really the change I wish to see in my life,” Changa took it upon himself to create the The Black Male Yoga Initiative in 2015.

In their own words, “Black Male Yoga Initiative creates integrated, supportive, safe spaces that empower our program participants to break down social stigmas, gain skills for human development and thus create positive social change in their own communities and our global community.” The organization “envisions a future, where race and gender are not social determinants of health, and where individuals are empowered to take on the path of self realization; that we may all join in the understanding that health is our collective heritage.”

An understanding of black men’s journey from commodification to criminalization gives Changa’s yoga practice a very special point of view. No matter what sort of ailments his students suffer from, his message for them remains the same: “You’re welcome here. Come and heal.” And they’ve taken it to heart. “Trauma is deeply intertwined in our existence. We get to express it here,” said one of the BMYI members. “Yoga brings balance. It puts everything I’ve ever went through into perspective.”

Changa hopes that attitude is one that ripples through the black male community, and he can see yoga transform and motivate black men in the same way it did for him. He’s set a goal to train and certify 1,000 yoga instructors aged 16-65 through BMYI, and this year, he’s going nationwide to make it happen on his “Health is Our Heritage Tour.” Pop-up workshops featuring dialogue circles, guided meditations, group life coaching, and of course, yoga sessions in six metropolitan cities will bring wellness to the black men exposed to it least but might need it the most.

It’s how now-47-year-old Changa is transforming his individual misfortune and personal enlightenment into something greater than himself. “We strengthen at an individual level in order to strengthen the community as a whole,” he says. In some circles, “namaste” – meaning, the divine in me recognizes the divine in you – is appropriated and overused, but at BMYI, black men seeing each other to wellness and truly being seen is nothing short of spiritual.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Learn more about the The Black Male Yoga Initiative and how to help or participate.

Read People Magazine’s feature on how Changa gives black men the space to love themselves.

Follow Changa’s journey on Instagram.
THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY 2020

DAY 23 — Lauren Simmons

Lauren Simmons - NYSE’s Fearless Brown Girl

Just a day before the Fearless Girl statue made her debut in New York’s Financial District, her real-life counterpart had already beaten her to the punch.

Lauren Simmons signed her name to the New York Stock Exchange’s constitution like thousands of traders who’d come before her, but unlike most of them, she was making history.

On March 6, 2017, 22-year-old Lauren became the youngest female, only full-time female (at the time), and second ever African-American female trader in the New York Stock Exchange’s 227-year history.

“There was silence on the trading floor. You could only hear the machines whirring. Everyone was in shock,” Lauren said of the day her trader’s exam results came in.

The reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected. As woman from Georgia with a Psychology degree and no experience in finance, it was a surprising turn of events for Lauren, as well. Her education, prior jobs and working skillsets almost read like potential aptitude test results – psychology major, statistics minor, genetic counselor, medical clinic intern, sales manager – but nothing really stuck for Lauren until she applied to a financial securities firm.

She’d moved to New York with no job or home of her own, but determined to make just about anything work, even a position that she was overqualified for in an unknown field. Intrigued by Lauren’s background and tenacity, one of the firm’s partners invited her to apply as a trader instead, and well, the rest became actual history.

“You don’t need 100 ‘yeses,’ you just need that one opportunity,” Lauren encourages.

And her field is one that could use a lot more opportunity for the women and people of color she represents. The same year Lauren became affectionately known as “The Lone Woman on Wall Street,” a Stanford University study showed that men made up 75% of the wealth management field and filled more than 80% of leadership roles. The 25% of women in the field were just as productive, and in some cases outperformed, but were 56% more likely to get fired for a mistake. The numbers are even more dismal when it comes to black female professionals in particular.

Lauren aims to change those statistics with both her presence and her reassurance as someone who’s braved the unknown. “We encourage men to take risks and make failures. And they’re rewarded for it,” Lauren says. “Women don’t get that opportunity as often, but I encourage us all to try.”

Her encouragement couldn’t be better timed. Both sitting presidents of the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are opportunity-seizing, ceiling-shattering women. The circumstances are a far cry from those in 1967 when Muriel Siebert became the first woman eligible to trade on the NYSE floor, and for efficiency’s sake, was accommodated with a single bathroom stall built right in the trading room.

There’s a proper bathroom now, but Lauren had her own minor struggle with accommodation as well: the jackets identifying traders in the hustle and bustle of the Exchange only come in men’s sizes. No problem for Lauren who’s built her whole career off the belief that to be successful, we have to “be uncomfortable to go after what we want. Do what you’re meant to do and do it well.”

She’s done just that. So well, in fact, that in addition to hundreds of starstruck articles by global authorities like Forbes and Fortune recognizing Lauren’s nontraditional journey to Wall Street, there’s already a biopic being filmed about her seemingly storybook – but in truth, determined – rise to one of America’s most historically exclusive occupations. In the meantime, Lauren’s hung up her trader’s jacket to pursue an even broader range of opportunities like worldwide speaking engagements and executive producing, because despite her success at the NYSE, she reminds her cheering onlookers that “I’m 25. I don’t know if I’ve found my purpose. But I’m open and fearless.”

And a bronze statue’s got nothing a black girl who can say that.

KEEP GOING BLACK IN HISTORY:

Follow Lauren’s day-by-day rise to the top on Instagram!

Peek into Lauren’s convo with 30-year financial service veteran Suzanne Shank, sharing their career experiences in Harper’s Bazaar.

Read a few of Lauren’s smart insights on finance, diversity, and more at U.S. News and World Report.