The musings of a madman...

On today's date in 1968 on the day before being assassinated, MLK delivered what would be one of his most famous speeches . Fun history fact is that he almost didn't GIVE that speech... He was originally to come to Greensboro, NC and speak at a church that happens to be across the street from my best friend's house after moving some years ago, but changed his plans late in the proceedings. It seemed that he knew his time was near, though, as referenced toward the end of his speech, in the most memorable passage, with… “And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't really matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about

The date was April 2, 1984… The location was Seattle Washington’s King Dome. Participants were the feared-for-starting-5-black-guys (something still unheard of at the time) Georgetown Hoyas and the Phi Slamma Jamma-featured University of Houston Cougars. So yes, featuring several future Hall-of-Fame players with brown skin, this game was big because of Big John Thompson’s being a black coach to lead a black starting lineup from a private school that at the time might not have otherwise recruited them up against a bigger public school in the NCAA tournament. As we look back on this compared to the outcome of this or recent years’ tournaments, it is clearly representative of a time that the parity that they PRETEND the tournament has today was actually present. While the longshorts era has ushered in a time where the whitest of whitebread schools doesn’t feel so out of place starting 5 black dudes, in the Reagan era, it was quite the taboo for there to be 5 dudes on the whole of the camp

Warning, reblog to come for this one... I am gonna focus on the day at hand now for what it is and what I can relate it to. Thinking back to Summer 2003, following the Epic Battle of Godzilla and Mothra , and a couple weeks in the hospital, then a couple more in the house, I chanced venturing out to do my normal things... One of them, naturally would be to set about the task of getting my considerably long dreadlocks washed, because damned if I will wash it myself, even without a broken right shoulder, which I was sporting at the time. Anyway... The homie/then-coworker Tairi was also in the shop (we go to the same lady for this function) and had been there a short while before me. We shot the shit a few minutes, as we often did, what with being on the same team at work (when I was not on leave) and of similar age and general interests and such, compared to the bevy of single black women doing the stereotypical single black woman cackle around us. We no-homeaux needed one an

March 31, 1917… Before this date, what is NOW called the US Virgin Islands was known as the Danish West Indies. The cost of the purchase was 25 million dollars, which I REALLY hope you might have gathered from the title of this post. “but Phlip, what in the blue hell does this have to do with black history?” you ask? If you know anything about the West Indies, you know that is where the slaves were transported to (or through) when the US was making attempts to deter slave owners from importing them (link from my own archive, that). With that in mind, a great many of the black folks settled on the French (Haiti), Dutch (what we’re talking about now, among others) and mostly Spanish-controlled Caribbean nations. With that said, the white folks went to where they could own slaves or back home and the black folks became the majorities. With that in mind, the US Virgin Islands being a US Territory inhabited by brown people, this becomes a black history fact. Now, I look at the de

March 30, 1962 marks the date of birth of one Stanley Kirk Burrell, a rapper who could be heralded using the right language as the best rapper ever invented… How, you ask? Well, if Jay-Z, and then Lil Wayne laid claims to being the “best rapper alive” based upon their popularity and sales figures, BOTH would be served a cold hard lesson when it is explained that NEITHER had an album remain #1 for 21 solid weeks or had an album go diamond – even approaching DOUBLE diamond with over 18 million sold to date. Yes, the album marked the beginning of the end the first time hip hop started to die on us, what with the heavyhanded sample usages and poppy simple lyrics and dancing and shit, all of which made way for a certain Robert Van Winkle to step in and play Elvis to Hammer’s Chuck Berry. [ Phlip note – yeah, I said it!] Any old ways…. Today marks the date that Hammer was born into the world, and you can take that how you want – positive or otherwise. While you can chide him for t

On today’s date, in 1955 – 24 years, 3 months and 3 days prior to allowing myself and my twin to escape from her uterus – my mother was born. I thank my grandparents for that. Unfortunately, however, in the greater interest of continued black history, my mom is not famous, so I could only offer to put her BEFORE today’s topic of conversation… Today is the balding dude who wears the crazy suits on NBA TV and TNT for Knicks games, NBA Hall-of-Famer and wearer of #10 way back when the Knickerbockers were still a credible threat to win anything of substance… Walter “Clyde” Frazier was a 6’4” point guard with shooting guard tendencies as a scorer. While Willis Reed is heralded for inspiration in his limping back onto the court in game 7 of the 1970 NBA finals, the hero of the day was Frazier with his 36 points and 19 assists. His jersey hangs in the rafters of Madison Square Garden, evidence of why the current Knicks have so few available jersey numbers to choose f

^^^ Let the record show that I do not know that to be true, for the record... Anyway… On today’s date in 1990, President George Bush (Bush41, not Bush43) granted Olympic sprinter and pack-a-day smoker Jesse Owens a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal, which is synonymous with the Presidential Medal of Freedom as the highest civilian honor one can receive in the United States. Slightly off the point here is that, while the President ANNOUNCES and gives the Congressional Medal of Freedom, the actual granting of it is born of acts of congress, and both houses are required to put it through. With that said, George H. W. Bush might have delivered the medal – to Owens’ FAMILY, I might infer – he was just the messenger in such. The Congressional Gold Medal is given for outstanding accomplishment in the name of the US, and I am willing to bet that Owens’ showing up Hitler at the Berlin Olympics despite the irony of being a sprinter who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 35 years wa

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