[Eoscstudents] Black History
Levenia Carey
lcarey at eosc.edu
Wed Feb 28 11:35:42 CST 2007
Here are a few more key players.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
QUICK FACTS
DID YOU KNOW?
Garrett A. Morgan (1875-1963) was the first black to receive a patent
for a safety hood and smoke protector. He demonstrated its worth in
1916 by rescuing workers trapped in a smoke-filled tunnel of the
Cleveland, Ohio, waterworks. Born on a farm near Paris, Kentucky,
Morgan became a very astute businessman and inventor in Cleveland.
Garrett A. Morgan liked to invent things. In 1913, he discovered a
material that straightened hair. The money he made with this product
let him work on other inventions. The Gas Mask was one of his most
famous. It helped save many lives during World War I.
In 1923, Garrett Morgan patented a three-way automatic traffic signal
which he sold to General Electric. The traffic lights that help you
cross the street safely today evolved from this invention.
Later he and his colleagues started the "Cleveland Call and Post" which
is today a popular African-American newspaper.
HENRY "HANK" AARON (1934- ) was a baseball player with the Atlanta
Braves who broke Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs. Born in Mobile,
Alabama, the third of eight children, Aaron began his professional
career in 1952 with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American
League. The Clowns paid him $200 a month, and Aaron led the league with
a .467 average his first season. The Braves, than based in Milwaukee,
purchased his contract for $10,000 in 1954. Three years later, he was
named National League MVP. When it became clear that he would probably
break Babe Ruth's record, Aaron received thousands of hate-filled
letters, some of which threatened his life. However, he went on to hit
his 715th home run on April 8, 1974, in a game against the Los Angeles
Dodgers. He retired in 1976 with a home run total of 755. Aaron became
a vice president with the Atlanta Braves and was elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1982. "I had to break the record," he said, "I had to
do it for Jackie [Robinson] and my people and myself and for everybody
who ever called me a nigger."
In 1893 * Nancy Green (1831-1898) a former slave from Montgomery County,
Kentucky, was the first Aunt Jemima and the world's first living
trademark. She made her debut at age fifty-nine at the Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, where she served pancakes in a booth. The Aunt
Jemima Mills Company distributed a souvenir lapel button which bore her
photograph and the caption, "I'se in town honey." The slogan later
became the slogan on the company's promotional campaign. Green was the
official trademark for three decades.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917- ), poet and novelist, was the first black to
win a Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Annie Allen." She became
established as a major American poet, and in 1976, she was the first
black woman inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters. A
sensitive interpreter of Northern ghetto life, she began to write poetry
at age seven; her poems were published in the Chicago Defender. From
1969 on, she has promoted the idea that blacks must develop their own
culture. She changed her writing style in an effort to become
accessible to the ordinary black reader. She was poet laureate of
Illinois for sixteen years, and is poetry consultant to the Library of
Congress. In 1989 she received a lifetime achievement award from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
Gwendolyn grew up in the Chicago suburb of Bronzeville. Education, art,
and music were very important to Gwendolyn's family, and she was
encouraged to express herself through writing. Her first poem was
published when she was only 13 years old. Her poems portray the lives
and suffering of inner-city African-Americans. Some of her poems are
especially appealing to children.
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