The musings of a madman...

This one will be short and sweet… On today’s date in 1861, black demonstrators in Charleston staged ride-ins on streetcars… As with any other”…-in,” this was born of their not being allowed service on the railway, and carried out in a nonviolent demand for equal servicing. It would be a little over one month following, on May 1, that the Charleston City Railway company would relent and allow everyone equal rights to ride in their streetcars. Don’t blame me for coming late in the day with a short post, there was simply very little to post on when I went into this.

Next time you go to work and see the sprinkler system, you should stop a moment and thank Thomas J Marshal. Yes, I know that a great many of the two of you have never heard of the guy… What He did on today’s date in 1872 was to get the patent for the fire extinguishing system that put together a system of pipes, valves and all that goodness to bring the water from the storage to delivery in the prevention/stoppage of your ass burning to death. That Patent # was 125,063. I wish I was able to find any more on the guy, but the fact remains that information on black inventors from the 19 th century will be scarce as can be, even on the 2011 internets. That said, not much more I can do but thank the dude for laying the groundwork for the systems that keep me safe indoors in industrial buildings.

I know this one will feel like a bit of a cop-out, but the fact remains that we all know I like to stick to things to completion. [ Phlip note – hence how I missed a day and went back the next and filled the gap instead of going on as if...] Well, y’all surely remember my March 7th post about Bloody Sunday, where the first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery was quashed by police, fire hoses, German Shepherds, billy clubs, Uncle Ruckus, seething racial hatred, Sarah Palin and a passive-aggressive President… [ Phlip note – most of that observed, the rest understood] Well on today’s date, ironically the same number of days later then as it has been between the posts now, the 8,000ish people had initially assembled and completed what had been 4-day trek. The beauty of this is that not all were black and that not all were Christian either, the power of what was right stepped across lines out of sheer necessity. As the group approached Montgomery county, more marchers joined. The l

Look, we've all seen it... It has been argued since it happened. Today was the day that, in 2002, Halle Berry won the Academy Award as best actress. This is black history because she was the first black woman to win it. The argument/discussion is because she had to get done by a white dude while screaming one of the most awkward "while being fucked" quotes I have heard before or since. Take what you will from it, I was going to post a vid of the scene, but decided against it.

Fellow basketball fans out there these days know PRECISELY who I speak of when they read the title of this one… Since Moses Malone, the closest we will have gotten to him in the current league as far as a 2-way player is my as-mentioned most improved player Kevin Love. Except for the fact that Kevin Love gets his on 100% effort in a league where such things are not exactly common. Moses Malone had to come up in a league where one needed to know how to take a punch and deliver one as well. Today marks the date that Moses was born, about 2ish hours up I-85 from me in Petersburg VA. A veteran of the old ABA and then in the NBA post-merger, Moses Malone retired after 19 professional seasons as the LAST holdover from the pre-merger ABA days. 1 – time NBA champion in 1983 1 – time NBA finals MVP (same year) 13 – time NBA All-Star 3 – time NBA MVP 2001 Naismith Hall-of-Fame inductee 2 nd all-time in free throws attempted and made … and the one that impresses me most,

Look, I know it sometimes feels like I am harping on this whole slave trade thing in these posts… I also know that I seem to find something completely new in my searches for things to use from day to day… March 22, 1794; Congress passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794, which made it illegal to build and equip a boat with the then-necessary tooling to transport slaves. The first person tried and convicted under the Act would not be for over 3 years, in which John Brown of Rhode Island lost his boat. In 1798, Congress went a step further to place a PER slave fine of a then-astronomical $300 on people convicted. Personally, as I read these, I find it quite odd that there was so much legislation, attention and general opposition to slavery in general for the whole of the time of its institution, yet it was allowed to last for so long in spite of. The act would be modified several times over the course of its effectiveness, receiving even an upgrade even

Those who love hip hop like I love hip hop know who the Extra P is... To those who don’t, take a moment on Google and Youtube to familiarize yourself. Today happens to be his 39 th birthday. Rather than bog the proceedings down with a bio that you can find on 50 different sites, I will let a video tell this one and call it a day.

March 20… This is ironically hilarious. Today, in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery novel that is said to be what led to the Civil War and with it, the end of slavery in America… What’s so ironic about that? Well, last week, ESPN aired “The Fab 5” documentary, in which Jalen Rose explained that the 18 year-old Jalen thought that black Duke players were “uncle Toms” Furthermore, Duke and Michigan – where Jalen played his own college ball – played a game in the NCAA tournament today as well. So now you can see how this could be both ironic and funny. Anyway, the book became the best-selling novel of the 19 th century. The focus of the story was the fictional Uncle Tom at the center of the story. From there, it explains the cruelties of slavery and presents the hypocrisy of a culture of love (Christianity) nurturing such a culture. [ Phlip note – at least that is how I took it] Anyway, the story progresses where Tom i

For those too lazy to read words and shit, start here and continue through your torrents until you have watched the movie... Anyway… On today’s date in 1966 – 7 years to the day prior to the birth of my older sister – Texas Western University, who you all know as University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) won the national championship against the University of Kentucky. What, ask you, does this have to do with black history? well… Black people LOVE basketball And… UTEP was the first southern university to integrate its athletics programs, and in turn became the first to GO AFTER black players… In 1966, this all came to a head with Don Haskins fielded an all-black basketball team and THEY won the national championship. Look, I know that an all black team is EXPECTED to take it all in 2011, though it just won’t happen these days. HOWEVER In 1966, I don’t even think black people could VOTE yet. [ Phlip note – wait, just one year removed… thanks, Google!] Back to the

Those who are inclined to refer to themselves as “activists” – and by “activists,” I mean the people who actually get off their asses and do shit instead of the passive aggressive type who sit on Twitter and berate people until their subject of ire loses interest and does something more important – knew what this post was about at the first lining. The whole “let me see your ID” was one of the reasons that people had such an issue with Apartheid in South Africa… People, most often black, were questioned and asked for their identification for little to no reason, then treated worse than I treat Bruiser when I come home to find a warm pseudo-chocolate treat on my floor when I come in from work. [ Phlip note – I whoop his ass and put him in a smallish cage] All this in the name of segregation, which was allowed to exist in South Africa under legal pretenses until 1992… Officially, the policy was called “Apartheid,” and was far more daunting than anything one might