USPS Releases Robert Robinson Taylor

The 38th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors architect and educator Robert Robinson Taylor (1868–1942). For more than three decades, Taylor supervised the design and construction of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama while also overseeing the school’s programs in industrial education and the building trades. He is believed to have been both the first black graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the country’s first academically trained black architect. Through his calm leadership and quiet dignity, he earned the admiration of colleagues and students alike while expanding opportunities for African Americans in fields that had largely been closed to them.

This stamp features a photograph of Taylor taken circa 1890, when he was around 22 years old and a student at MIT.

In 1892, after graduating from MIT, this young man from Wilmington, North Carolina, accepted an offer from educator and activist Booker T. Washington to teach at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he soon set about shaping the appearance of the burgeoning school. Over the course of nearly 40 years, Taylor designed dozens of essential buildings, including libraries, dormitories, lecture halls, industrial workshops, and a handsome chapel, transforming a makeshift campus on an abandoned plantation into a confident, state-of-the-art institution.

Taylor’s work as a teacher and administrator was equally vital to the Tuskegee mission. While overseeing programs to train skilled artisans, he also established a curriculum with a certificate to help graduates enter collegiate architecture programs or earn entry-level positions at firms. His work furthered Booker T. Washington’s dream of fostering not just African-American builders and carpenters, but architects who could plan the buildings as well.

Art director Derry Noyes designed this stamp.

The Robert Robinson Taylor stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.

Buy this stamp: https://store.usps.com/store/browse/productDetailSingleSku.jsp?productId=S_472904

Carl Heastie: First African American Assembly Speaker in New York.

Feb. 4, New York Assemblyman Carl Heastie of the Bronx became the first African-American Assembly speaker in the state’s history. While calling for a desire to create a “government as good as its people,” Heastie has a long road ahead to earn the trust of voters who have seen Albany mired in corruption for years.

Heastie told those in attendance in Albany that he hoped to created an office of ethics compliance to clean up the under-the-table dealings that have defined New York government in the recent past. Heastie, after all, is taking over for Sheldon Silver, who’s been charged with taking close to $4 million in kickbacks, and the new speaker was close to the disgraced Silver, who still maintains his Assembly position while dealing with his legal issues.

Read more: Carl Heastie elected new Assembly Speaker

Origins of Black History Month

National African American History Month had its origins in 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (“ASALH”). Through this organization Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of African Americans.

In 1975, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Week urging all Americans to "recognize the important contribution made to our nation's life and culture by black citizens." In 1976 this commemoration of black history in the United States was expanded by ASALH to Black History Month, also known as African American History Month, and President Ford issued the first Message on the Observance of Black History Month that year. In subsequent years, Presidents Carter and Reagan continued to issue Messages honoring African American History Month.

In 1986 Congress passed Public Law 99-244 (PDF, 142KB) which designated February 1986 as "National Black (Afro-American) History Month.” This law noted that February 1, 1986 would “mark the beginning of the sixtieth annual public and private salute to Black History.” The law further called upon to President to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe February 1986 as Black History Month with the appropriate ceremonies and activities. President Reagan issued Presidential Proclamation 5443 which proclaimed that “the foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of this struggle for freedom and equal opportunity.” This proclamation stated further that this month was a time “to celebrate the many achievements of African Americans in every field from science and the arts to politics and religion."

In January 1996, President Clinton issued Presidential Proclamation 6863 for “National African American History Month." The proclamation emphasized the theme for that year, the achievements of black women from Sojourner Truth to Mary McLeod Bethune and Toni Morrison. In February 1996 the Senate passed Senate Resolution 229 commemorating Black History Month and the contributions of African American U.S. Senators.

Since 1996, Presidents have issued annual proclamations for National African American History Month. On February 1, 2011 President Obama issued a Proclamation reflecting on this year’s theme of “African Americans and the Civil War” as we commemorate the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the Civil War.

Rosa Parks' archive opening to public at Library of Congress

[SOURCE] Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, reflected later on how it felt to be treated less than equal and once feistily wrote of how tired she was of being "pushed around" — parts of her history long hidden away.

Beginning Wednesday at the Library of Congress, researchers and the public will have full access to Parks' archive of letters, writings, personal notes and photographs for the first time. The collection will provide what experts call a more complex view of a woman long recalled in history for one iconic image — that of a nonviolent seamstress who inspired others to act at the dawning of the civil rights era.

A protracted legal battle between her heirs and friends had kept the collection from public view for years. But in 2014, philanthropist Howard Buffett bought the collection and placed it on long-term loan at the national library.

"I think it's one of the first times we're actually able to read her voice, and it just totally goes against this image of the quiet seamstress," said Margaret McAleer, an archivist at the library. "Her writings are phenomenally powerful."

"I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn't take it anymore," she wrote. "When I asked the policeman why we had to be pushed around, he said he didn't know. 'The law is the law. You are under arrest.' I didn't resist."

Parks' archive provides scholars and the public with a fuller sense of her life and faith, her personality and her pain, said library historian Adrienne Cannon.

"It's important because we see Rosa Parks in a kind of almost frozen, iconic image — a hero that is not really real flesh and blood," Cannon said. "Here we get a sense of a woman that is really full flesh and blood."

The collection may surprise people by revealing Parks had an aggressive edge and supported more radical actions seeking equality over the years, archivists said. She used her symbolic status to support Malcolm X, Black Panther gatherings and the Wilmington 10 in North Carolina.

The library now holds about 7,500 manuscript items and 2,500 photographs from Parks, including the Bible she kept in her pocket, letters from admirers and her Presidential Medal of Freedom. A small exhibit is planned for March. All the items will be digitized and posted online.

Artifacts such as Parks' clothing, furniture and a pillbox hat she may have worn on the Montgomery bus, will find homes elsewhere. The library plans to place them with other museums or institutions that can conserve and display Parks' belongings. The library already is in talks with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture, now under construction on the National Mall, to possibly house some items.

Why Black History Month Matters

Rutgers Today talked to Khadijah White about why Black History Month is important as the university plans a series of events in observance. White, an assistant professor of journalism and media studies in the School of Communication and Information, researches race, gender and politics in media. She has written about race, social movements, media, and politics for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Root, Huffington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times, Quartz and other publications. White is also a regular contributor to the online magazine, Role/Reboot.

Why is Black History Month relevant?

There has long been a contention among student and teacher activists that educators in this country, who are predominantly white, would not teach about black history at all if it weren’t for people explicitly setting aside space and time for it. Now, at least for this month, students can learn about how African Americans quite literally built this society and provided its foundation in so many ways. American history has been shaped around the marginalization and exclusion of African Americans in many arenas. As a result, there are lots of obstacles that have kept African Americans from being fully integrated or recognized in American history. Their accomplishments have often been occluded. Take technological invention, for instance. Black inventors often didn’t get credit for their inventions, and when they did manage to get patents, white inventors often tried to steal them. Granville Woods, for instance, an engineer and inventor with more than 50 patents to his name, often had to fight off attempts by white inventors to steal his patents. Woods is often called “the black Edison,” which I think is really a shame.

What are the most important issues Americans should be discussing during Black History Month?

We should reflect on how far we’ve come – and we’re really good at that – but also on how short we’ve fallen. One of the reasons for the recent popularity of the movie Selma, one of the reasons it strikes a chord with so many Americans, is that it reminds us that the issues that people were fighting for back in 1965 are still relevant now – voting rights, in particular. Some parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have been cut back, and the “voter ID” laws being proposed and passed in many states are a new way to make it more difficult for people to vote. Incarceration is another – there are now more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. And the decline of public education, another major issue during the civil rights movement, has turned these sacred institutions into school-to-prison pipelines.

What’s the most important thing African Americans are saying that the rest of America should hear?

I think lots of African Americans are saying, look, it’s good that we have a black president, and, yes, we have come a long way. But African Americans are falling behind and discriminated against in all kinds of measures – housing, employment, health care, the justice system, education, police killings of black citizens. The decline of public education in this country disproportionately affects African Americans and people are fighting for access to water in Detroit. People should really check out what’s happening with #BlackLivesMatter, which has been trending on social media in recent months. People born after the sixties so often say they wish they were born at a time when a movement was rising up, and here’s a movement that’s happening right now.

Is Nicki Minaj's Malcom X cover disrespectful?

It seems like Nicki Minaj has decided to take the ignorance displayed expressed last year by her fellow Young Money rapper Lil Wayne to a new level. Last year Lil Wayne used Emmit Till's name in a disrespectful manner in a song.

Not to be out done Nicki Minaj has used the iconic photo of Malcom X looking out a window and holding a rifle on the cover of her newly released single, Looking Ass Nigga. Check out the cover below.

I find this photo to be extremely disrespectful and shows that Nicki Minaj has a lot to learn about black history. And to make matters worse it has been released during Black History Month. SMDH! What do you think?

Civil War Recruiting posters for blacks.

Check out these poster used to recruit free black men to the US Army during the Civil War. If you like history, African American history, and American history these should interest you.

Shirley Chisholm stamp released by US Postal Service.

The Shirley Chisolm Stamp is the 37th stamp in the Black Heritage series features a painting of Chisholm by artist Robert Shetterly. The compelling portrait is taken from a series of paintings titled “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp.

After her election to Congress, Chisholm scored another historic first in 1972 when she declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President. She later wrote of her unsuccessful bid, “The next time a woman runs, or a black, or a Jew or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start...I ran because somebody had to do it first.”

The Shirley Chisholm stamps are being issued as Forever” stamps in self-adhesive sheets of 20. Forever stamps are always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail” one-ounce rate.

Buy the stamp here: USPS.COM

Michael Drake named as next Ohio State University president

[ SOURCE ] Dr. Michael V. Drake, the current chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, has been named president of Ohio State University, making him the first

African-American to lead the state’s largest university system.

The decision to recruit the trained medical doctor to lead the 63,964-student campus headquartered in Columbus was greeted with excitement by faculty, administrators and students.

“The hiring of Dr. Michael V. Drake as The Ohio State University’s 15th president is monumental,” said Dr. James L. Moore III, associate provost of diversity and inclusion, director of the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male and the EHE Distinguished Professor of Urban Education at OSU. “As one who believes deeply in the mission of Ohio State, I stand ready to assist Dr. Drake and his team with helping the institution continue to be a major force in Ohio and beyond.”

The OSU board of trustees voted yesterday to formally accept the recommendation of an 18-member search committee. They offered Drake the job, ending a six-month search to replace Dr. E. Gordon Gee, who retired last July.

Drake, 63, will begin his new post on June 30.