Happy Black History Month 2019

Black History Month may only happen in the shortest month of our calendar, but for me, every month is Black History Month.   Our greatness as a people is not limited to just these 28 days of the year.

It also didn't stop with the Civil Rights Movement.

Over the last month I have been gleefully celebrating with our 17 new African American women judges here in my home county as they take their judicial benches and go through their investiture ceremonies.

During Sunday's upcoming Super Bowl in the ATL between the Cheatriots Patriots and the Rams, the Rams cheerleading squad will make history as the first male cheerleaders in Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies  take the a Super Bowl sideline.

The New Orleans Saints, the Rams' NFC championship game opponent,  also had a male cheerleader as part of their squad in Jesse Hernandez

To drive home the point once again that Black trans people are Black people, we are doing our part to blaze new trails ourselves.   Back in December Breanna Sinclaire made her debut with the San Francisco Opera .  Sinclaire also happens to be the first trans woman to sing the national anthem at a professional sports event, doing so for both the Oakland A's in 2015 and the San Francisco Giants last year. 

Also proud of Raquel Willis making history by becoming in December the first trans executive editor at OUT Magazine. 

Black trans men are also blazing trails.   Filmmaker and tech entrepreneur Dr Kortney Ryan Ziegler became the first trans masculine person named to EBONY magazine's Power 100 List

And yes, myself and Alvin McEwen are poised to make a little history ourselves.  If either of our names are called during the GLAAD Media Awards, it would be the first time that any blog has won the Outstanding Blog category multiple times since it began in 2011. 

I'm also happy to see as this month starts Senator Kamala Harris pick up the torch that Shirley Chisholm left behind and embark on her hopefully successful campaign to become the first woman and second Black president of the United States. 

We'll have to wait until 2020 to see how that plays out for her. 

Happy Black History Month 2019!

50th Anniversary Of The 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's  'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech. 

It was delivered at the Mason Temple (Church Of God In Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, TN on the evening of April 3, 1968.    Unfortunately it would turn out to be Dr. King's last speech and the last night he would live in our plane of existence.   The next day he was assassinated aa he left Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel .

Dr. King had been in Memphis to lend his support to striking sanitation workers.

Here's the entire 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' speech for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Meet The 1st Black Player Ever On The US Olympic Hockey Team

FOX Noise's John Moody may hate the diverse US Winter Olympic team, but I don't. 

One of the cool benefits of that team diversity is we have Black History being made by our 2018 winter Olympians in several events.   One of those events is hockey.

Because of a dispute with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) concerning several issues, the NHL refused to allow its players to participate in the Olympics this year.   That meant for the first time in three decades, the US team was going to be composed primarily of collegiate players.   One of the collegiate players who was selected to play on this men's Olympic hockey squad was Jordan Greenway of Canton, NY.

And with that selection, Greenway makes history.  When he steps on the ice at PyeongChang on February 14 the first African American ever to play on a USA Olympic hockey team.

“I dreamed of [it] as a kid, and I didn’t think it was going to happen before I graduated college, but I’m fortunate that it did, and I just couldn’t be more excited!” Greenway said in a CNN interview.

The 20 year old Greenway is also the tallest player on the team at 6 feet 5 inches and 238 pounds.  He was drafted by the NHL's Minnesota Wild in 2015, but decided to complete his college education at Boston University . Greenway also has a younger brother, JD who plays the sport.

“I’m the first African American to play hockey for the United States at the Olympics but hopefully I’m the first of many,” Greenway said. “Hopefully these kids go out, try something different, play hockey, and hopefully I see a lot more playing in the near future.”

I'll have even more incentive to not only watch the USA men's Olympic hockey team, but root for its success.   The last time a USA men's team won gold was when I was a high school senior at Lake Placid in 1980

Erin Jackson Is Going To The Olympics!

24 year old Erin Jackson has only been participating in long track speed skating full time for four months.   Coming into the US Olympic Speed Skating Trials in West Allis, WI she had posted a personal best 39.51 time in the 500m back on December 23 in Salt Lake City.

But the former University of Florida engineering student and inline skater from Ocala, FL picked a great time to set new personal best times, and did so when the pressure was highest.

"I really wasn't expecting any of this, just coming in as a newbie, just trying to do the best I can. " said Jackson. "A couple of weeks ago I was still in the 40's.  So this has all happened pretty fast."

The best she can is going to take her to Pyeongchang, South Korea and the Winter Olympics.

She went 39.22 in her first heat during the Trials Friday night, and even faster in her second heat at 39.04 to become the first Black female athlete ever to qualify for a US Olympic long track speed skating team.

Jackson finished third in the 500m, behind her Ocala, FL homegirl Brittany Bowe and Heather Bergsma to punch her ticket to Pyeongchang.

February 8 and the start of the upcoming Winter Games is getting more interesting by the day with all this Black Girl Magic happening.

50th Anniversary of Thurgood Marshall Becoming First Black SCOTUS Justice

With all the horrible news coming out of Las Vegas concerning our latest domestic terrorist attack,  almost slipped my mind that today was the 50th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall being sworn in as the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Marshall  had been nominated by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on June 13, 1967 following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark.   He bad already made history by becoming the first African American to be appointed as the United States Solicitor General in 1965,

Marshal was confirmed by a US Senate vote of 69-11 on August 30, 1967, and was the 96th person to become a US Supreme Court justice. 

He served from August 30, 1967 until he retired due to poor health on October 1, 1991

The New H-Town Emancipation Avenue Signs Are Up!

I've known this was going to happen since January, but the city of Houston a month before Juneteenth finally has put the new street signs up on the street formerly known as Dowling Ave.

The city followed HISD's lead in renaming eight schools that were named for Confederates, and that at times contentious renaming took effect at the start of the 2016-17 academic year.

Texas State Rep Garnet Coleman (D-Houston) started the push to rename the street a year ago.  It was originally named for Houston businessman Dick Dowling, a Confederate war hero from the 1863 Second Battle of the Sabine Pass.  

Dowling and his 47 artillery armed troops faced and fought off a Union invasion flotilla of 22 ships, armed with four gunboats and artillery of its own and 18 transports with an Union invasion force of 5000 men.   Thanks to the inept execution of the Union invasion plan, Dowling and his men managed  to disable and capture two Union gunboats and 200 soldiers as the rest of the Union flotilla retreated to New Orleans.  

The victory was celebrated with much hyperbole throughout the Confederacy and the city of Houston, with Dowling being promoted to the rank of major, but after the war dying during a Houston yellow fever epidemic in 1867.  

The street traverses the historical heart of the predominately Black and southside Third Ward neighborhood near downtown.   It passes Emancipation Park, which sits on the corner of Elgin and now Emancipation Ave, and that park also has historical and emotional significance for Black Houstonians.

Freedmen led by the Rev. Jack Yates, the first pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, the oldest Black church in Houston, raised $800 to purchase the ten acres of land that Emancipation Park now sits on to have their Juneteenth celebrations.

Emancipation Park when it opened in 1872 was Texas' first public park.   It was also the only one in the entire city of Houston open to Blacks , so it was rather insulting that a street named for a man who fought as part of an armed rebellion to keep us enslaved ran past that historic park that is directly tied to the early Juneteenth celebrations in Texas.

Until the Juneteeth Parade moved downtown, it used to come down Emancipation Ave to terminate at the park for the subsequent festival that happened there.  Went to more of a few of them with my brother and my late Grandmother Tama as a child as we grabbed a spot in the park to watch the parade go by..  

In addition to city council unanimously voting to change the name of the street, it also repaved much of Emancipation Avenue in conjunction with the $33 million renovation of Emancipation Park that will be celebrated on Juneteenth 2017..

But so happy to see the new Emancipation Avenue signs

Bethune-Cookman Students Are Part Of A Distinguished Heritage Of HBCU Protest

For those of you tripping because Secretary of (Miseducation  Betsy DeVos' megabucks couldn't save her from getting dragged by the Bethune-Cookman Class of 2017 not feeling having their graduation ruined by her WTF level appearance at the school, y'all need to back up off the younglings.

Moni is proud of you, Bethune-Cookman Class of 2017, for being just the latest examples of a long distinguished history of HBCU student activists fighting injustice that in many ways changed not only their campuses, but America for the better.

The Greensboro Sit-In in 1960 was powered by students from HBCU's North Carolina A&T and the all women's Bennett College.   The Nashville Sit-in's by Fisk University students

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)  in addition to being founded on the Shaw University campus in April 1960 as a result of a meeting of 125 students from 10 states organized by Ella Baker, was led by future DC mayor Marion Barry (1960-61) and future congressman John Lewis (1963-66) .

SNCC would go on, powered by HBCU trained student leaders, to initiate the most important and impactful campaigns of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.  In fact, when the March on Washington was held in August 1963, John Lewis spoke at the event because he was SNCC's chair at the time and the youngest speaker there.

The Freedom Rides, a concept pioneered by Bayard Rustin, was resurrected in May 1961 by CORE, and suspended after a Freedom Rider bus was firebombed in Birmingham, AL, thanks to the leadership of Diane Nash,  took over the project.

Nash had attended the conference that led to the founding of SNCC and at 22 was a veteran of the Nashville Student Movement and the leader of the Nashville Sit in Campaigns  .

Even in my hometown and home state of Texas HBCU student leadership at HBCU's Texas Southern University in Houston and Prairie View A&M University norwest of H-town have stood tall for our people and pushed change.

A series of sit-in's organized by TSU students led to Houston city fathers, fearful of the violence that happened elsewhere in the South and losing their bids for NASA Mission Control at JSC and the Major League Baseball expansion team that became the Houston Astros in 1962, cutting a series of deals with TSU administration, Black Houston business and religious leaders that not only resulted in the desegregation of Houston lunch counters, restaurants and hotels,  but led to African-American Houstonians being guaranteed 10% of the construction jobs, and post construction employment opportunities at the Astrodome,

When the Eighth Wonder of the World opened in April 1965, it did so as an integrated stadium thanks to those TSU student protesters.

Meanwhile, up US 290, Prairie View, A&M University students have been engaged since 1972 in a pitched with Waller County concerning their voting rights.  It is a predominately Black county even before we add the over 9000 students enrolled at PVAMU

It is predominately white (and GOP) Waller County officials who have long sought to suppress the ability of PVAMU students to exercise their right to vote by using whatever voter suppression tactic necessary including denial of an on campus polling place.

Waller County eventually lost voting rights lawsuits filed to ensure the voting rights of PVAMU students, and the students at Pantherland now enjoy an on campus polling place.  But they are still fighting Waller County and its repressive officials tooth and nail to ensure there is no slippage of the hard won rights they do enjoy.

The death of Sandra Bland near the PVAMU campus only heightens the urgency of that fight.with Waller County.

With the election of 45, it is the energy and passion of our youth, just like they did in the 60's and in subsequent decades fighting for human rights for themselves and our community, that will not only lead to those human rights gains for themselves but for our community as a whole.

And many of them will be continuing the proud tradition of HBCU's protesting injustice as they do so.

Coretta Scott King's 1986 Letter About Jeff Sessions

US Senate Rule 19 doesn't affect me.   Here's the letter that Senator/Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)tried to read in the Senate chambers last night about Jeff Sessions that the Republican majority was 'scurred' of her doing and censured her for doing so, but allowed three white male Democratic senators to read.

Thus continuing the long tradition of racist Republicans suppressing the voices of Black women.

Hmm, wonder if McConnell would have used Rule 19 on Sen Cory Booker or Sen. Kamala Harris had they tried to read it?

Here's the text of Coretta Scott King's letter in opposition to Sessions getting a federal judgeship.

***

The introduction:.
Dear Senator Thurmond:I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are deep and lasting.

Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts.

Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.

For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.

I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions’ confirmation and I request that my statement as well as this letter ‘be made a part of the’ hearing record.

          I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Sessions.

Sincerely,Coretta Scott King

Here's the text of Coretta Scott King's letter about Sessions.

Statement of Coretta Scott King on the Nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III for the United States District Court Southern District of AlabamaSenate Judiciary CommitteeThursday, March 13, 1986

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

 Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to express my strong opposition to the nomination of Jefferson Sessions for a federal district judgeship for the Southern District of Alabama. My longstanding commitment which I shared with my husband, Martin, to protect and enhance the rights of Black Americans, rights which include equal access to the democratic process, compels me to testify today.Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen. Mr. Sessions’ conduct as U.S. Attorney, from his politically motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal violations of civil rights laws, indicates that he lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.

The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States. I was privileged to join Martin and many others during the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was particularly impressed by the determination to get the franchise of blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County. As he wrote, “Certainly no community in the history of the Negro struggle has responded with the enthusiasm of Selma and her neighboring town of Marion. Where Birmingham depended largely upon students and unemployed adults (to participate in non-violent protest of the denial of the franchise), Selma has involved fully 10 percent of the Negro population in active demonstrations, and at least half the Negro population of Marion was arrested on one day.” Martin was referring of course to a group that included the defendants recently prosecuted for assisting elderly and illiterate blacks to exercise that franchise. ln fact, Martin anticipated from the depth of their commitment twenty years ago, that a united political organization would remain in Perry County long after the other marchers had left. This organization, the Perry County Civic League, started by Mr. Turner, Mr. Hogue, and others as Martin predicted, continued “to direct the drive for votes and other rights.” In the years since the Voting Rights Act was passed, Black Americans in Marion, Selma and elsewhere have made important strides in their struggle to participate actively in the electoral process. The number of Blacks registered to vote in key Southern states has doubled since 1965. This would not have been possible without the Voting Rights Act.
However, Blacks still fall far short of having equal participation in the electoral process. Particularly in the South, efforts continue to be made to deny Blacks access to the polls, even where Blacks constitute the majority of the voters. It has been a long up-hill struggle to keep alive the vital legislation that protects the most fundamental right to vote. A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those rights by Black people should not be elevated to the federal bench.
The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods. Twenty years ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery, the fear of voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody heads in Selma and Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote at the time, “it was not just a sick imagination that conjured up the vision of a public official, sworn to uphold the law, who forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of Negro children; who ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to his sickbed; who clubbed a Negro woman registrant, and who callously inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities upon nonviolent Negroes peacefully petitioning for their constitutional right to vote.”
Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to American democracy that we can not tolerate any form of infringement of those rights. Of all the groups who have been disenfranchised in our nation’s history, none has struggled longer or suffered more in the attempt to win the vote than Black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot box denied so persistently and intently. Over the past century, a broad array of schemes have been used in attempts to block the Black vote. The range of techniques developed with the purpose of repressing black voting rights run the gamut from the — straightforward application of brutality against black citizens who tried to vote to such legalized frauds as “grandfather clause” exclusions and rigged literacy tests. The actions taken by Mr. Sessions in regard to the 1984 voting fraud prosecutions represent just one more technique used to intimidate Black voters and thus deny them this most precious franchise. The investigations into the absentee voting process were conducted only in the Black Belt counties where blacks had finally achieved political power in the local government. Whites had been using the absentee process to their advantage for years, without incident. Then, when Blacks realizing its strength, began to use it with success, criminal investigations were begun.
In these investigations, Mr. Sessions, as U.S. Attorney, exhibited an eagerness to bring to trial and convict three leaders of the Perry County Civic League including Albert Turner despite evidence clearly demonstrating their innocence of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, in initiating the case, Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behavior by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks by his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr. Sessions sought to punish older black civil rights activists, advisors and colleagues of my husband, who had been key figures in the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. These were persons who, realizing the potential of the absentee vote among Blacks, had learned to use the process within the bounds of legality and had taught others to do the same. The only sin they committed was being too successful in gaining votes.
The scope and character of the investigations conducted by Mr. Sessions also warrant grave concern. Witnesses were selectively chosen in accordance with the favorability of their testimony to the government’s case. Also, the prosecution illegally withheld from the defense critical statements made by witnesses. Witnesses who did testify were pressured and intimidated into submitting the “correct” testimony. Many elderly blacks were visited multiple times by the FBI who then hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand jury in Mobile when they could more easily have testified at a grand jury twenty miles away in Selma. These voters, and others, have announced they are now never going to vote again.
I urge you to consider carefully Mr. Sessions’ conduct in these matters. Such a review, I believe, raises serious questions about his commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American citizens and consequently his fair and unbiased judgment regarding this fundamental right. When the circumstances and facts surrounding the indictments of Al Turner, his wife, Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue are analyzed, it becomes clear that the motivation was political, and the result frightening — the wide-scale chill of the exercise of the ballot for blacks, who suffered so much to receive that right in the first place. Therefore, it is my strongly-held view that the appointment of Jefferson Sessions to the federal bench would irreparably damage the work of my husband, Al Turner, and countless others who risked their lives and freedom over the past twenty years to ensure equal participation in our democratic system.
The exercise of the franchise is an essential means by which our citizens ensure that those who are governing will be responsible. My husband called it the number one civil right. The denial of access to the ballot box ultimately results in the denial of other fundamental rights. For, it ‘ is only when the poor and disadvantaged are empowered that they are able to participate actively in the solutions to their own problems.
We still have a long way to go before we can say that minorities no longer need be concerned about discrimination at the polls. Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans are grossly underrepresented at every level of government in America. If we are going to make our timeless dream of justice through democracy a reality, we must take every possible step to ensure that the spirit and intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution is honored.
The federal courts hold a unique position in our constitutional system, ensuring that minorities and other citizens without political power have a forum in which to vindicate their rights. Because of his unique role, it is essential that the people selected to be federal judges respect the basic tenets of our legal system: respect for individual rights and a commitment to equal justice for all. The integrity of the Courts, and thus the rights they protect, can only be maintained if citizens feel confident that those selected as federal judges will be able to judge with fairness others holding differing views.
I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite judgment, competence, and sensitivity to the rights guaranteed by the federal civil rights laws to qualify for appointment to the federal district court. Based on his record, I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my husband’s dream that he envisioned over twenty years ago. I therefore urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to deny his confirmation.
I thank you for allowing me to share my views.

Unfortunately this racist man was nominated by 45 to become the next Attorney General of the United States and was just confirmed in a straight party line vote.

And you Bernie or Busters and third party voters in swing states greased the skids for this to happen..

Black Trans People Are STILL Making Black History

"Black trans history is also vitally important to point out to Black cis people, our allies and our detractors we not only exist, we have lives that are part of the kente cloth fabric of the African American community.  

We also need to pass that history down so that it serves to inspire the next generation of trans kids who are following in our footsteps and point out that Black trans people have a legacy and possibility models they can be proud of."
-TransGriot   February 26, 2015
 
It's the first day of the 2017 edition of Black History Month, and Black trans folks are doing their part to not only uplift our community, but blaze historic trails and territory while they do so.  We're still role modelling #BlackTransExcellence in the 21st century as well, no matter what age we are..

My trans elder Tracey Norman, after making history back in the 70's and 80's by becoming a model with five ESSENCE covers to her credit and major advertising contracts like Clairol, Ultra Sheen and Avon Cosmetics before she was shadily outed during a sixth ESSENCE photo shoot, triumphantly returned to the modeling world last year.

Still waiting for y'all ESSENCE to make it right and hire my trans elder for another photo shoot.

We were represented at the National Women's March in DC by Janet Mock and Raquel Willis, who are both trailblazing women in their own rights.  Sharron Cooks not only was a speaker at the Philadelphia Women's March, but last summer became only the second African American trans woman to become a Democratic National Convention delegate and the first from Pennsylvania.

At that same DNC Philly convention, Dr Marisa Richmond (the first African-American DNC trans delegate) was the official timekeeper of the convention making sure the speakers stayed on schedule.

Angelica Ross was nominated for an Emmy Award and Her Story is still garnering positive recognition and awards nominations.   The reality TV show Strut featured models Isis King, Arisce Wanzer, Dominique Jackson and Laith Ashley,

Amiyah Scott with the debut of the FOX show Star, became the first out trans person of  any ethnic background to play a trans major character in a scripted dramatic series.

Although she missed out on that television historical note, Laverne Cox will continue to blaze trails when she debuts on the CBS legal drama Doubt on February 15 as attorney Cameron Wirth, which is a major character on that show.

Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham are both running for the Minneapolis City Council and vying to become the first Black trans people elected to public office since Althea Garrison got elected to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1992.

If they are successful, they would also make history by become the first out trans people of any ethnic background to be elected to the city council of a city larger than 250,000 in population.

Even our Black trans kids are trailblazers.  Trinity Neal told me she would be making history, and she's making good on that promise.   She was not only one of the people featured in the recent National Geographic 'Gender Revolution' issue, she was also featured in a recent ESSENCE magazine article.

Was happy to see her during #CC17, and I suspect this won't be the last time I'm writing about this trailblazing teen

And yeah, there was some blogger y'all know who was making history as well last year.   She became the first transperson of any ethnic background to receive Harvard's Phillips Brooks House Association's Robert Coles Call of Service Award.   Some of the previous winners of it?   BLM co-founder Alicia Garza, Marian Wright Edelman and Vice President Al Gore.

So yes, Black trans people are still making Black history, and we are proudly doing so in various fields   Can't wait to see what history we collectively make in 2017.

The ISS Will Finally Get A Black Astronaut On It!

NASA has launched 14 African Americans into space through it history.   Thanks to the movie Hidden Figures, we now know that African-American women played a prominent role in America's first manned space mission.

But NASA hasn't sent an African American astronaut to the International Space Station,  and that is thankfully about to change.

On Wednesday NASA announced that Dr. Jeanette J. Epps would become the first African American to board and stay on the ISS.   She will join fellow astronaut Andrew Feustel as a flight engineer on Expedition 56 to the ISS that will launch in May 2018 ,and will stay onboard for Expedition 57

Epps has a PhD in aerospace engineering, and has been a NASA astronaut since 2009

The Syracuse, NY native will become when that May 2018 launch happens the 13th woman to spend time on the ISS and only the fourth African American woman to fly in space.

She's currently training for that historic mission, and looking forward to seeing it happen.  .

Looking Forward To Seeing 'Hidden Figures'

As a native Houstonian who also grew up as a space junkie, loved it when we got to do a field trip to NASA stating in our junior high school years.    There was also the one I earned with my writing skills in ninth grade for a joint NASA-HISD contest that got me a nonstandard tour of the Johnson Space Center and a chance to meet the first group of African-American shuttle astronauts that included Dr. Mae Jemison,  Dr Ron McNair and Charles Bolden.

Even as well versed in Black history as I have been, I was unaware of the stories of Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, who were African-American women working in NASA's Langley, VA computation facility..

Computers do that task now, but before they were developed to handle that task human beings crunched the numbers.

Johnson  (who is still here with us at age 98), Vaughan and Jackson were part of the group of women mathematicians called computers who cross checked the math the male engineers were doing that would get John Glenn into orbit around the Earth.

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, and stars Taraji P Henson as Katherine Goble Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as Mary Winston Jackson.

Math prodigy Katherine is plucked from the computing room and assigned to the Space Task Force team that will calculate the launch coordinates and trajectory of the Atlas rocket that will launch Glenn into space.  

Of course, this being 1961 Virginia, she is met with a double whammy of gender and racist indifference,  One engineer played by Jim Parsons named Paul Stafford stands out in not giving her a warm welcome to the male dominated unit.  Because of the segregation of the day, the nearest bathroom for her to use is in a distant building on the NASA Langley campus  

Vaughan does the work of a supervisor, being in charge of several dozen computers, but doesn't get the title or the money that comes with it. is treated with condescension by her boss played by Kirsten Dunst, and is repeatedly denied promotion.

Jackson has a more understanding Polish born boss, but she too runs into Jim Crow segregation when she is denied the opportunity to take the graduate level physics courses she needs to qualify for the engineering opening she wants and has to sue to do so..

Houston, naturally is one of the cities in which this movie is opening in limited release, with it opening in the rest of the country on January 13.   I hope you'll go see this movie.

Human Rights Activist Viola Desmond To Become First Canadian Woman On Canadian Currency

I've talked about on the blog beautician and businesswoman Viola Desmond, who nine years before Rosa Parks did so in the US, the then 32 year old was arrested for sitting in the 'White Only' section of a theater in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia while waiting for her car to be repaired.

Her action challenged anti-Black discrimination in Canada and ultimately resulted in 1954 of the repeal of segregation laws in the province of Nova Scotia.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Bank of Canada governor Steven Poloz announced during an event in Gatineau, Quebec on Wednesday  that out of the thousands of Canadian women nominated to be on the $10 bill in the wake of Prime Minister Trudeau's announcement on International Women's Day it would happen, the person selected would be Viola Desmond.

Starting in 2018, she will become the person that people will see on Canadian $10 banknotes besides Queen Elizabeth II.

"It's a big day for a woman to be on a banknote. It's a really big day to have my big sister on a banknote," said her 89 year old sister Wanda Robson about the honor.  
Desmond was previously honored with a Canadian postage stamp in 2012 and having a Halifax, NS harbor ferry boat named for her.

It was the culmination of a process in which 10,000 names were submitted across Canada for the honor,  

The criteria for the persons submitted to be on the $10 banknote were they had to be Canadians either by birth or by naturalization, the nominee. demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievement or distinction in any field benefitting the people of Canada in the service of Canada and had to be deceased for at least 25 years. Desmond passed away in 1965 at age 50

I'd say taking down Jim Crow style segregation in Nova Scotia qualifies.  You also have to think about the fact that she as a Black woman owned her own business during that late 1940's time period time

When I asked writer Renee Martin about it,  she stated that she hopes it leads to Canadians expanding the teaching about her life that only happens in limited amounts in Grade 10 and Atlantic Canada and coming clean about the fact that anti-Black racism exists in the Great White North

But it's still amazing for me as a child of the African diaspora to see an African descended woman becoming the first Canadian woman of any ethnic background to be featured on her nation's currency.

Meet Our DNC 2016 Black Trans Delegates

Trans people have been part of the DNC convention landscape since 2000, but it wasn't until 2008 that we African American trans folks got our first out trans delegate  in Tennessee's Marisa Richmond.  She was in the Mile High City for that historic convention that Sen. Barack Obama was nominated at, and eventually won the presidency while carrying our party's label a few months later.
 

In 2012 Richmond was joined in Charlotte by another person used to making history.   Trailblazing trans leader Kylar Broadus of Missouri became our first out Black trans masculine delegate.

This year in Philadelphia we have a record contingent of 27 trans people in the Wells Fargo Center house and attending the various events and panels  Marisa Richmond is attending her third consecutive DNC convention, but this time she is making history again by serving as the DNC convention's official timekeeper.

But fear not dear readers.  Just as in 2012, the #DNCinPhilly event will have Black trans masculine and Black trans feminine delegate representation in the house for the second consecutive event as part of this record trans DNC contingent thanks to Pennsylvania homegirl Sharron Cooks and Merrick Moses of Maryland.

Both Cooks and Moses will be attending their first DNC convention, and both of our trans siblings are excited to be at another historic Democratic convention as we nominate Sec. Hillary Clinton for president.

"It is an honor and a privilege to be a part of the democratic electoral political process. I am so excited and thrilled to be a first time delegate for Pennsylvania Congressional District 1 especially since Philadelphia is the DNC host city," Cooks said.

She's also proud to be representing the Black trans feminine community here at #DNCinPhilly, and is cognizant of the importance of being here.

"This experience is so humbling, educational and is an amazing opportunity to network with lobbyists and legislators, which I believe is very valuable, because as a community organizer, advocate and activist; it helps when it comes to securing the rights and protections for the LGBTQ community," she added.

Merrick Moses echoed Cooks' excitement about being at his first convention/  He felt honored to be there in Philadelphia and part of the record trans DNC contingent and the Maryland delegation..  He's proud of representing the Black trans community and the state of Maryland. He also been pleased about the diversity being showcased to America an the world at this #DNCinPhilly event. "We have a large number of LGBT delegates, and I am so happy the party has been intentional about showing our diversity." he said. "It's been interesting, I'm loving the experience and hope that more Black trans folks join us in 2020."
Well, I'm working on it.

Both Cooks and Moses have also expressed interest in wanting to meet each other, exchange information and take photos with each other before the convention closes Thursday

Thanks to you and Sharron for repping our community in Philadelphia and making a little Black trans history while doing so.

Thanks to both of you for not only being witnesses to American history being made at this DNC convention, but actually playing a part in making it happen on behalf of the people you're  representing  in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

TransGriot Update: Sharron and Merrick finally met on Wednesday ...

Happy 87th Birthday, Dr King!

Today is what would have been the 87th birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest Americans our people have ever produced, as Tavis Smiley has said..

While our conservative friends like to focus on the Dr King pre-August 1963, the reality is that Dr King had a lot more profound things to say about America beyond the  March on Washington  'I Have A Dream' speech.

Much of what he wrote and said not only during his all too brief life, and especially post August 1963 is just as fresh and relevant in 2016 America as it was at the time when he uttered those words.

And yes, he is a sterling example of speaking truth to power.

This is an excerpt from the 1967 'Beyond Vietnam' speech that he gave at New York's Riverside Church one year before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.   I think it is so appropriate that we read and heed those words in this critical election year for our country.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin—we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

Happy birthday Dr. King.  America is a much better nation because of you, and had you been blessed with longevity, would be an even better nation.   That's up to us to make that dream of yours a reality.

The Fascinating Story Of Mary Jones

The ongoing mission of TransGriot is to unearth nuggets of our trans history so that we drive home the point that trans people didn't just pop up in the second half of the 20th century.

We have not only been part of the divers mosaic of human life, we have also been as I have stated more than a few times on this blog, part of the kente cloth fabric of the Black community.

Thanks to Mey from Autostraddle and Transas City, I was introduced to another historic Black trans person in the story of Mary Jones.

Jones was born Peter Sewally, and spent time in New Orleans working with call girls there.  In addition to making their beds, she would welcome their clients and collect the money.

She was encouraged by them to wear feminine attire because in her words, 'She looked better in them' and continued to do so during her time living in New Orleans.  Jones became a New York resident in the 1830's and in addition to making a living engaging in sex work, also was a pickpocket.

It was that second talent that got her in trouble in 1836 for lifting a wallet containing $99 ($2600 in current US currency) from a white john she'd slept with.   When she was arrested, interrogated and strip searched it was discovered she not only had male genitalia, but a leather device in the shape of a vagina she wore around her waist to keep her clients from learning her secret.

When police searched her home they discovered more wallets, trinkets and watches she'd liberated from her wealthy clients who were fearful of reporting the thefts in an increasingly morally conservative time period.    

At her sensationalized trial that began on June 11, 1836, she testified that she had always dressed in femme attire while living in New Orleans and attending parties amongst our people.   But this trial was also happening in the wake of recent anti-abolition and anti-amalgamation riots, and it was unlikely she as a Black gender variant person was going to escape punishment for the crimes committed against New York's upper class citizens in that environment n which as she was led into the courtroom was jeered, accosted and prodded.

The media also humiliated her, referred to her as 'the Man-Monster' and revved up the hysteria

Hmm, Thus setting the trend that has continued in today's media climate of demonizing Black trans women.

Sarcastic moment over, back to the story.

On June 18 she was convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to five years imprisonment.  Upon being released from serving the grand larceny sentence, Jones was convicted and sentenced to another five months in Sing Sing for crossdressing.

After serving that time, Jones disappeared from recorded history.
 
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Black Trans History Is A Fascinating And Evolving Story

I was surprised, pleased and honored to see a meme created by TransMusePlanet that quotes me on the importance of Black trans history. 

It's why my blog is named TransGriot and one of the reasons it exists.   While I'm writing many of the posts here to chronicle it and pass it on to my transpeeps that wish to get acquainted with it, it needs to also be seen by my cis Black family and our human rights allies.

I come from a family of historians.  My late godmother Pearl Suel was the founding president of the Houston chapter of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life, wrote the first Black history curriculum for HISD and taught history at the collegiate and high school level.  

That's where she encountered my mother, who was one of her star students, and my late father.   My mom got her bachelors in history, and passed that love of history to me.  I was involved in History Prep Bowl academic competitions in junior high as was captain of the team in my 8th grade year.

My dad was an admirer of Marcus Garvey.   I also count amongst my friends several collegiate history professors teaching at institutions across the country.

The love of history runs deep in my life, and I am keenly aware of the importance of it for marginalized groups and how it can be used to empower them.

Our opponents are aware of the power of history as well, which is why they work hard to keep you from not only having knowledge of your history, but seek to whitewash or eradicate any mention of it every chance they get.  It is no accident that one of the things our Texas conservafool majority is up to is trying to rewrite the history books so that their misdeeds and failures are glossed over.

One of the first questions I pondered when I transitioned in 1994 was about trans history and Black trans people's contributions to it.  Who are our heroes and sheroes?   Who are the people who preceded me and set the table for our community at the time I encountered it?   What can I do to help make this community better than when I first started hearing about it in 1975?

This blog is one part of the answer to that question.   We not only need to know our Black trans history, but Black cis people ignorant of our trans existence and the contributions we have made to the Black community.   Black trans people are part of the kente cloth fabric of the African-American community and the African Diaspora, and just didn't pop up out of nowhere in the second half of the 20th Century.

While we have known that trans actresses like Alexandra Billings, Alicia Brevard, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn and Candis Cayne existed, it was a current actress in Laverne Cox, no stranger to making history and blazing trails, was thrilled to find out that she was walking in the path of a girl like us actress named Ajita Wilson. 

Diamond Stylz and I still chuckle about the time she busted a cis woman on the Net who made the erroneous comment as a joke there would never be a transfeminine JET Beauty of the Week, only to be informed by Diamond, armed with the links to the info,  that Ajita Wilson had done that as well.

There have also been some colorful characters in our history such as Lexington, Kentucky resident James 'Sweet Evening Breeze' Herndon, Georgia Black, Lady Java, Jim McHarris, and Lucy Hicks Anderson to remind us they were fighting to be their true selves in conditions and a time period far more hostile to Black people be they cis or trans.

Back in 1992 we had a transperson named Althea Garrison elected to the Massachusetts state legislature, and hopefully that will happen again in my lifetime.

And while trans models of all ethnic backgrounds like Geena Rocero, Lea T and Andreja Pejic are probably aware there has been a long stylish line of  trans models dating back to the 60's starting with April Ashley. our current Black trans models like Isis King and Arisce Wanzer are also aware of and hopefully inspired by the fact they were preceded on the catwalks and magazine covers by Tracy Africa Norman. 

We know that Miss Major and Marsha P Johnson raised hell at Stonewall a mere 4 years after a group of African-American gender variant kids in Philadelphia kicked off a trans-themed protest at Dewey's Lunch Counter.

And speaking of Black trans leaders, it isn't just Black trans women who have been fighting for and shaping the direction of our movement.   Black trans men like Marcelle Cook-Daniels, Alexander John Goodrum and Kylar Broadus have also been handling their human rights business.

We have people who were plaintiffs in human rights court cases like Patricia Underwood and Patti Shaw, just to name two of them.

We have people in the religious leadership ranks like Rev. Yeshua Holiday, Rev. Carmarion Anderson, and Rev Lawrence T. Richardson among others making the case that Black trans people are also people of faith.

We have had trans trailblazers in the music world like Wilmer Broadnax, Jordana LeSesne, Jaila Simms and Tona Brown who cover many types of musical genres with others following in their trailblazing footsteps..

Black trans history isn't just a recitation of past accomplishments. We have people making history today in tech entrepreneurs like Dr. Kortney Ziegler and Angelica Ross.  We have people in academia like Dr Van Bailey, Dr Kai Green, and Dr. Marisa Richmond.  

And I can't forget Kye Allums and my WMMA sis Fallon Fox.   Kye broke ground as a NCAA Div I collegiate basketball player, and Fallon is kicking butts and taking names in the octagon while representing our community and our athletically inclined transpeeps blazing trails and busting stereotypes in the sports world

And I'm still doing my part to not only help chronicle our Black trans history, but help make some of it as well.  Stories of back in the day Black trans people  that once were untold are now being discovered and told to a new generation of trans people to educate and inspire them to greater heights.

And that telling of our Black trans history is a crucial piece of building up our Black trans kids resistance to the urge to end their lives prematurely, and reinforce the point that #BlackTransLivesMatter.

We still have much human rights work left to do and much left to accomplish.   We have an amazing and evolving story to tell as Black trans people.   I'm proud to do my part as a trans writer walking in the footsteps of Roberta Angela Dee to bring it to you.