todaysdocument:

jfklibrary:

September 12, 1962 — President John F. Kennedy speaks at Rice University Stadium, Houston, Texas, concerning the nation’s efforts in space exploration. In his speech the President discusses the necessity for the United States to become an international leader in space exploration and famously states, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

[Listen to JFK’s speech]

ALICE COACHMAN, 88

High Jump

Coachman was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and the only female American athlete to win gold in track and field at the 1948 Games.

carmarnicole:

Alice Coachman was the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal

She competed at the 1948 London Games. Her event? High jump

lbjlibrary:

“For the past three days the Nation has been shocked by reports of rioting and disorder in the streets of our largest and one of our proudest cities.”

—-LBJ’s Statement by the President on the Riots in New York City, July 21, 1964. The Harlem riots began on July 18, after the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old African American teenager. Photo via the Library of Congress.  

freemanssportingclub:

Nelson Mandela turns 94 today.  In his younger years, Mandela was a heavyweight boxer and in this photo he is sparring with Jerry Moloi on the roof of a Johannesburg building.

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela describes his love of boxing (and why he did it):

I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it.  I was intrigued by how one moved one’s body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced onself over a match. 

Boxing is egalitarian.  In the ring, rank, age, color, and wealth are irrelevant … I never did any real fighting after I entered politics.  My main interest was in training; I found the rigorous exercise to be an excellent outlet for tension and stress.  After a strenuous workout, I felt both mentally and physically lighter.  It was a way of losing myself in something that was not the struggle.  After an evening’s workout I would wake up the next morning feeling strong and refreshed, ready to take up the fight again.  (Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, page 193.)

Happy Birthday to the true definition of a fighter.

- Go Native FSC

auntada:

Commuter framed by a window aboard a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) bus in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1974 the system carried 73,727,000 passengers, an increase of 27 percent from 1970. Almost 90 percent of the increase came from people who had not ridden the bus before. They were attracted by a combination of a fare decrease from 40 to 15 cents, new buses, new routes, night services, passenger waiting shelters and fringe parking. June 1974

Jim Pickerell, photographer

National Archives, Series: DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern, compiled 1972 - 1977 

tballardbrown:

Recently discovered images from the great Gordon Parks show rarely seen color images from our civil rights history.

via Gordon Parks’s Alternative Civil Rights Photographs - NYTimes.com

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

Statement of Celia to Justice of the Peace, June 25, 1855

State of Missouri v Celia, A Slave

There is no known history for Celia before she was purchased at a slave auction by Robert Newsom in 1850. Newsom’s wife had died the previous year, and he had seemingly purchased 14 year old Celia as domestic help for his two daughters. 

On the way home from the slave auction, Newsom (who was 70) raped her. And, he raped her repeatedly after that. 

He made her convenient for his pleasure and put her in a small cabin about sixty feet behind the “big house.” He made countless, probably hundreds of trips to her cabin to use her for his sexual gratification.

As the years passed, Celia became pregnant twice and had two children by Robert Newsom. They also became his property and he never acknowledged them as his children. Arrangements like this were quite common in those days. They were never spoken of and any offspring were not considered children but chattel to add to the master’s wealth.

Celia became pregnant for a 3rd time in 1855. This pregnancy was particularly difficult for Celia and she was sick for at least four months. 

According to court testimony, Celia had told Newsom that she would hurt him if he raped her while she was still sick.

Despite her warning, he came into her cabin on the evening of June 23, 1855 to rape her. 

Celia had prepared to protect herself and had set a stick in a corner…When Celia heard Newsom approaching, she put more wood on the fire to create more light in the dark cabin.

Robert Newsom entered the cabin and drew close to Celia. He was speaking to her and leaned over her. Celia struck him with the stick. She later said that he never lifted a hand to protect himself but sank down on a stool then threw up his hands. Celia thought Newsom was trying to hit her so she swung the stick again. Both blows hit him in the face. Robert Newsom was dead.

Newsom lay dead on Celia’s floor an hour before she figured out what to do. She decided to burn the body.

After Newsom’s family realized he was to be missing, the trail of investigation eventually led to Celia, who eventually confessed and said that she only meant to harm, not kill Newsom. She was charged with first degree murder.

On the morning of June 25, 1855, the case of State of Missouri v Celia, a Slave began.

At some point during the trial, Celia gave birth to a stillborn baby.

In Missouri, at this time, the law stated that it was unlawful for a man to force sex upon “any woman.” The law also provided that if a woman killed a man who was trying to rape her, that would be considered a legitimate act of self-defense, not a crime. Celia’s lawyer used the law as it was written on the books. He argued that because the law protected “any woman” in this situation, the legislators must have meant to protect slave women too. The judge disagreed. Because Celia was a slave, that statute could not apply to her: she was not included in the phrase “any woman.” A slave woman had no rights over her body and could not legally resist her master’s sexual assaults.

On October 10, 1855, Celia was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang on November 16^th.

(via Black Women in America Encyclopedia and Celia-Murderer or Martyr? A Slave Fights Back)

nonplussedbyreligion:

Little Known History Fact: Native Caribbean tribes were also destroyed for their lands

I don’t know the date, or about the complete accuracy of this map.  I know Seminole was not originally a single tribe, it was a combination of Northern Floridian and Southern Georgian tribes that I don’t see on this map. What I do know is that several tribes including the Ciboney, Taino, Arawak, and Carib were in Jamaica, and most of the Caribbean as well.  This used to be the face of the Caribbean:

The loss of land, lives, and cultures was always the saddest part of history for me.  Schools in Jamaica, or at least the schools I attended, didn’t just quickly run through the true history of the Islands as I experienced in American schools with Native American history and slavery.  It was very important for national identity that we knew exactly where we came from.  

The national motto of Jamaica is “Out of Many, One People” and the Coat of Arms has two Indians on it representing the Taino and Arawak tribes.  The motto wasn’t always so wonderful though, it used to read “INDVS VTERQVE SERVIET VNI”- “The two Indians will serve as one” or “Both Indies will serve together.”  That motto represented the servitude these two great Caribbean tribes had been reduced to.  The Caribs were a bit tougher and those who weren’t killed off by diseases brought by Europeans, fought back.  Of all the tribes they lasted the longest, and live on now, but mainly through marrying slaves.  The last known speaker of the Carib language is said to have died in the 1920s.  A few other tribes also survived, but also through having children with people of other races.  There are no Native Caribbean tribes remaining.  However since many of these tribes made there way to the previously uninhabited West Indies from South America, I’ve always held hope that some remnants of their past exists there. 

Looking at maps like the one above reminds me of how many Native people lost their homes.  I live in Arizona now, a state with a large Native American population.  When I first moved here a tour guide told me I needed to be careful about wondering onto and breaking laws on Native lands.  He wasn’t telling me this out of respect for their land and laws, he was being a complete dick who felt they had no right to their own lands since this was America.  I didn’t bother telling him that every square mile of this country was their land; it would have been like talking to a wall. 

That time Booker T. Washington had dinner at the White House with Teddy Roosevelt, and it caused a ruckus.

Via @GeeDee215.

- Matt T