'Bloody Sunday' 50th Anniversary

While more people are aware of it because of the movie Selma, today marks the 50th anniversary of the brutal breakup of the first Selma to Montgomery voting rights march by Alabama state troopers on March 7, 1965.

SNCC and local activists between 1961-1964 had been trying to organize voter registration drives despite massive resistance from Dallas County, Alabama officials in the county seat of Selma.

They convinced the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and SCLC to get involved and make Selma's intransigence to African-American voting a national concern.  They agreed, and began a series of demonstrations in January-February 1965 to the Dallas County Courthouse.

On February 17 protester Jimmy Lee Cooper was fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper and in response, a Selma to Montgomery protest march was scheduled for March 7.

Six hundred marchers assembled in Selma on Sunday, March 7, and, led by John Lewis and other SNCC and SCLC activists, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River en route to Montgomery. Just short of the bridge, they found their way blocked by Alabama State troopers and local police who ordered them to turn around. When the protesters refused, the officers shot teargas and waded into the crowd, beating the nonviolent protesters with billy clubs and ultimately hospitalizing over fifty people.
- See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/bloody-sunday-selma-alabama-march-7-1965#sthash.zCNiuu8L.dpuf

Six hundred marchers led by future congressman John Lewis and other SNCC and SCLC leaders set off for Montgomery and crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River.  

On the other side of it they were met by a wall of Alabama state troopers and local police demanding they turn back  When they refused,  the police responded by firing tear gas into the crowd and beating people with their billy clubs   They sent 50 people to the hospital, including John Lewis.

The violent beating of nonviolent protestors was televised around the world, and led Dr King to call for a second march that he led despite being torn by federal officials urging him to exercise patience and the SNCC and SCLC activist demanding action.

The second march happened on March 9, but King turned it around at the bridge, which exacerbated the developing tension between the civil rights movement elders and the younger activists in SCLC and the more militant SNCC demanding radical action and tactics to overcome the oppressive systems.

On March 21 the third successful march occurred under federal protection, and on August 6 the Voting Rights Act passed, spurred by the horrific violence of the Bloody Sunday march

Black Trans History Is Inspirational

TransGriot Note: This is a Black History Month post I wrote for the Transgender Law Center blog.

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'Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history."
Dr. Carter G. Woodson


I come from a family of historians that includes my late godmother Pearl Suel, who ran the Houston chapter of the Association For The Study Of Afro-American Life and History that Dr Woodson founded.   The local chapter is named after her.  As my mother and late father's high school history teacher, Ms Suel passed that love of history to my parents, and as their eldest child I was instilled with a deep love of my people's history and an insatiable curiosity to continue to seek it out.

One of the first questions I asked after my 1994 transition that wasn't gender related was, where is the history of African-American trans people?   What did my forebears accomplish?  What did they do to contribute to the advancement of trans human rights and knowledge of trans people while living their own complex trans lives?

These are questions that led me to seek out that history and eventually found TransGriot in 2006 as part of my ongoing effort to disseminate that history and tell the stories of trans people who share my ethnic background.

#WeExist., and what better time to point that unassailable fact  out than during Black History Month?

In a community which is being ravaged right now by over 18 murders since June, it's comforting to know that one of the people who jumped off the Stonewall Riots in 1969 was a girl like us in Marsha P. Johnson.    It's fantastic to note the story of African-American gender variant kids who 50 years ago this April launched the Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit In and Protest in Philadelphia to strike a blow against anti-trans discrimination.

It's fascinating to read the story of trans man and gospel singer Wilmer Broadnax, know that we had a trans girl like us in Althea Garrison elected to the Massachusetts state legislature in 1992, a JET Beauty of the Week in actress Ajita Wilson and had trailblazing leaders like Marcelle Cook-Daniels, Alexander John Goodrum, Dawn Wilson, Dr. Marisa Richmond, Lorrainne Sade Baskerville and Gloria Allen just to name a few.

Cant' forget that when the first all-trans performance of The Vagina Monologues happened in LA back in 2004, Valerie Spencer was part of it.

It's also wonderful to know that Black trans women rocking runways and photo shoots didn't start with Isis King or Arisce Wanzer, but Tracy Africa Norman who shot five ESSENCE magazine covers and had major print ad contracts in the late 70's and 80's.

It was also a revelation to find out via the Google Books online JET and EBONY electronic archives the first ever person that completed the now closed Johns Hopkins gender program was an African-American trans woman named Avon Wilson.   It was also inspiring to read the story of Carlett Brown as she attempted in 1953  when the world's attention was focused on Christine Jorgenson to become the 'First Negro Sex Change'.  

While we never found out if it happened for Carlett, we do know it did happen for Delisa Newton..

It's also inspiring to note the stories of people like Jim McHarris, Georgia Black, Lucy Hicks Anderson in an era in which the trans word wasn't around to label their lives.

We also have the stories of people like Lady Java striking the first blows against the odious LAPD Rule Number 9 and Miss Major, which will soon be documented for posterity on the silver screen.

Black trans history makers are in our midst today like Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Kylar Broadus, Diamond Stylz, Dr. Kortney Ziegler, Kye Allums, Fallon Fox, Tracee McDaniel, Dee Dee Chamblee, Tona Brown,  Rev Louis Mitchell, Angelica Ross and some Texas based blogger y'all may have heard of.

And yes, Black trans history also includes the stories of my trans sisters across the African Diaspora like Audrey Mbugua of Kenya, and my trans sisters of African heritage in Brazil, Great Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean.

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

We also need to pass this history down so that it serves to inspire the next generation of trans kids who are following in our footsteps, and point out Black trans people have a legacy and possibility models they can be proud of..

2014 US Little League World Series Champions!

The Jackie Robinson West Little Leaguers from Chicago have been making history ever since their arrival in Williamsport for the 2014 edition of the Little League World Series.


They were the first team from the Jackie Robinson West LL to make it to Williamsport since 1983 and the first all black squad since the 2002 team from Harlem.

Yesterday they accomplished something those other two teams hadn't.  With their 7-5 win over the Mountain Ridge LL in the US Championship game, they became the first ever all Black Little League team to become the US World Series Champions

The Chicago based JRW squad avenged their lopsided 13-2 August 17 loss to the team from Las Vegas to advance to the 2 PM CDT title game against Seoul, South Korea, who smashed defending international champion Japan 12-3 in their rematch to take the International World Series Championship crown.     

Best of luck to you Jackie Robinson West LL as you seek to make even more history later today and bring the Little League World Series Championship back to Chicago.