Susie King Taylor — First Black Civil War Nurse
Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in 1848 in Savannah, Georgia
and given the name Susie Baker. Her grandmother was determined that
Susie would not be denied an education, even though it was a crime
at the time for black children to be educated. She sent Susie to a
friend to learn how to read and write. Susie also received other
“freedom lessons” from different families in Savannah. She once
recalled, “We went every day about nine o'clock, with our books
wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing
them.”
Susie grew up to become the first black Civil War nurse and the only
one known to have kept a diary, and she eventually recorded her
experiences in a book.
Susie Baker King Taylor
was the first African American to teach openly in a school for
former slaves in Georgia. As the author of
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States
Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers
, she was the only African American woman to publish a memoir of her
wartime experiences.
A History of the Black Pioneers
The first thing one needs in order to understand the history of this
regiment is a definition of the word "pioneer" as it pertained to
the military in the 18th Century.
Dr. Mark Dean an African American
Born 3/2/1957 is a Ph.D. from Stanford University, architect of the
modern personal computer, holds 3 of the original nine patents on
the computer that all PCs are based upon. He is in the National Hall
of Inventors and has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice
president with IBM. Dr. Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that
created people like Microsofts Bill Gates and Dell Computers Michael
Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back
directly to Dr. Dean. Other Black American Inventors John Stanard,
inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes
dryer, Alexander Miles the elevator, Lewis Latimer the electric
lamp. He led the team that developed the ISA bus, and he led the
design team responsible for creating the first one-gigahertz
computer processor chip.
IBM Fellow and vice president, Almaden Research Center
Mississippi Desegregation Suit Settled for $500 Million
By Michael A. Fletcher April 24, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/education/A55255-2001Apr23.html
Mississippi agreed yesterday to end more than a quarter-century of
legal battles over the desegregation of its higher education system,
reaching a $500 million settlement intended to remedy decades of
state-sanctioned racial discrimination.The agreement with the U.S.
Justice Department and a group of black Mississippians, filed
yesterday in federal court in Oxford, Miss., could mark the end of a
class action lawsuit initiated in 1975 to desegregate the state's
public colleges and universities. A federal judge must approve the
settlement.The lawsuit sought to improve academic programs and
facilities at the state's three historically black universities:
Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State. It alleged
that those schools offered educational opportunities inferior to
those at the state's five traditionally white universities because
of Mississippi's history of racial discrimination. After a
protracted legal battle and nine years of fighting over proposed
remedies, the state agreed to a major infusion of funds for the
long-underfunded black schools. [SNIP]
Mississippi Can Solve The Race Problem
February 9. 1998 Page 3 by James Meredith
Unbeknownst to most Americans,
Mississippi has always set the pattern for relations between the
races in America.
More than half of all people classifed as black in Mississippi were
classified as such between 1833 and 1890 because of their native
American blood rather than because of any African connection as most
people have been taught to believe.
It was Mississippi that perfected the plantation system for the most
efficient and effective use of slave labor. It was Mississippi that
violently established white supremacy as a way of life following
slavery.
It was Mississippi that established white supremacy as a
Constitutional, legal and official system of government in 1890.
A system copied by every state in the South and a Constitution that
still survives as law of the land in Mississippi to this very day.
Mississippi has always set the standard because it had the largest
percentage of black race population than any other state, therefore,
the most compelling reason to find a solution to deal with the
problem. Four times Mississippi got the answer wrong.
This time Mississippi, thanks to the leadership of Ole Miss,
Mississippi is getting it right. Mississippi has decided that Americas
is for everybody. Every citizen is entitled to every right and
privilege of citizenship and every citizen should shoulder every
burden of responsibility that citizenship requires. The only remaining
shor-coming is the lack of competititiveness of the black male in
Mississippi. He can not read, write, understand, or use the proper
English language.
As the first member of the black race to attend and graduate from
Ole Miss, I am personally taking on the responsibility of seeing to
it that the black male in Mississippi becomes proficient in the
proper use of the English languahge to at least the 5th grade level.
When the black male becomes competitive in the work force in
Mississippi the Race problem in America will be over.
The Daily Mississippian
February 15, 1998 by James Meredith
James H. Meredith Papers available at Mississippi University
Excerpts:
1540 -- Mississippi was at the top when the first European set foot
on Missippi soil, the
Choctow Nation
had the highest form of civilization in the Americas, corn was king,
Missippi was at the center of the nation, all roads led to the
Atalla District in central Missippi the governing district of the
Chocktow Nation.
1861 -- Mississippi at the top in slavery
1875 -- at the top in violence
1960 -- at the top in Football and Beauty Queens
John Figueroa
A poet, teacher and champion of Caribbean culture
John "Fig" Figueroa
was a man of many parts: a scholar and a gentleman, a broadcaster with
the BBC World service, a cricket buff, a critic and literary figure, a
francophile and hispanophile, a champion of Caribbean culture in all
its complexities, a writer with journalistic fluency in the best
sense, and above all else perhaps, a poet. He was the first native
West Indian to win a chair at what was to become the University of the
West Indies.
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