Sir Lady Java Interview

Sir Lady Java was one of our trans pioneers and elders who worked with Lena Horne, Redd Foxx and others as the premiere female illusionist of the 60s and 70's.

She was not only #BlackTransExcellence in her day, Lady Java was also a trans rights warrior, helping to take down the odious LAPD Rule Number 9.

Lady Java is still with is.  She's living in Los Angeles these days and now doing interviews talking about her life and 'her people' as she calls girls like us. 

Check out this

Queens At Heart Documentary

One of the New Year's resolutions I also made in relation to the blog was a renewed commitment to documenting and uncovering our history. 

Queens At Heart is a 1967 documentary that focuses on four trans women, Misty, Vicky, Sonja and Simone and the drag ball scene of the time.   It also gives people a glimpse of the world our trans pioneers were navigating at the time    It was a world in which you were breaking the law and faced arrest if you were crossdressing or wearing feminine clothes while transitioning at the time.

The Houston anti-crossdressing ordinance even had a provision in which women could be arrested if they were caught wearing fly front jeans

Thanks ti Misty, Vicky, Sonja and Simone for consenting to do these interviews with Jay Martin that serve as a time capsule like slice of life.of that time.

I was in kindergarten when this documentary was released, so I felt like I was staring into the eyes of my trans ancestors while watching it.   It also gives us a idea of how far we have come since the 1960's when it comes to our understanding of transsexuality, how we discuss trans issues.

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.

Muhammad Ali 1942-2016

So saddened to hear that another one of our community icons has gone on to join the ancestors.

Muhammad Ali, 1960 light heavyweight Olympic champion, three time world boxing champion, humanitarian, father and beloved civil rights advocate passed away in a Phoenix area hospital on June 3..

Much of my childhood and teen years spanned his remarkable boxing career.  Him becoming the heavyweight champion three times.  The three fights with Joe Frazier including the 'Thrilla In Manila'. .The 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire in which he rope a doped George Foreman into defeat.

While his long battle with Parkinson's .Disease robbed him of his verbal loquaciousness, he still remained one of the world's most beloved figures and humanitarian .  He helped negotiate the release of 14 American hostages before Desert Storm kicked off in 1991.    

He received the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron to start the Atlanta Games in 1996.

I also lived in his hometown of Louisville, and visited the Muhammad Ali Center several times in the period I lived there after its 2006 opening for different events..

 His hometown is also feeling the loss.

Said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer in a statement.: “The values of hard work, conviction and compassion that Muhammad Ali developed while growing up in Louisville helped him become a global icon. As a boxer, he became The Greatest, though his most lasting victories happened outside the ring. Muhammad leveraged his fame as a platform to promote peace, justice and humanitarian efforts around the world, while always keeping strong ties to his hometown. Today, Muhammad Ali’s fellow Louisvillians join the billions whose lives he touched worldwide in mourning his passing, celebrating his legacy, and committing to continue his fight to spread love and hope."
Congressman John Yarmuth (D) said in a statement, "The word champion has never fit a man better. Muhammad Ali was a champion for peace, a champion for justice, and a champion for equality. He was a man who gained fame in a violent game, but immortality as a gentle and caring soul. In the ring, there was no one better, but his contributions to humanity managed to eclipse his boxing prowess."

But to many of us, and especially those of us who grew up during the 60's and 70's, he was simply The Greatest.

Rest in power and peace Champ/  You've earned it.

50th Anniversary Of The Final Four Game That Changed History

The NCAA Men's Final Four comes to my hometown this weekend.  How apropos is it that we're hosting the game at NRG Stadium at a time in which we also are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1966 Final Four title game between Texas Western (now UTEP) and number one ranked Kentucky that changed not only history, but had a major impact of how NCAA men's basketball is played today.

The story is also depicted in the 2006 movie Glory Road.

That Final Four game played on March 19, 1966 pitted the number four ranked Miners against the Adolph Rupp coached Wildcat team that had NBA legends Pat Riley and Louie Dampier in their lineup.

It's also a point of pride for us in Houston because David Lattin, one of the starters in that historic NCAA title game is from here.  That game also marked the first time that five African-Americans started in an NCAA title game,and they were playing against a one loss Kentucky team with an all white lineup.  

While that is something we don't even think about in 2016, because the SEC and the now disbanded Texas-Arkansas based Southwest Conference were segregated and refused to recruit Black players, this was a big deal in 1966.  It was also a big deal because in addition to this seminal title game being played with the African-American Civil Rights Movement as a backdrop, there were less than complimentary stereotypes about Black basketball players at the time as well.   The Texas Western players also faced in their 27-1 title run racism from fans, other players and referees as they marched toward their date with destiny.

David Lattin, Bobby Joe Hill, Orsten Artis, Harry Flournoy and Willie Worsley shocked the world by upsetting the heavily favored Wildcats 72-65  It's also cool to note that David Lattin's grandson, Khadeem Lattin ( and whose mother BTW is WNBA Houston Comets legend Monica Lamb) playing for the Oklahoma Sooners, one of the four teams competing for the NCAA title here in Houston this weekend

 It is also fitting that during this weekend in which the Final Four returns to the Lone Star State, the 1966 NCAA championship team will be honored at halftime.on Saturday.

As I said in my 45th anniversary TransGriot post concerning that historic game, the Texas Western players that night in Cole Field House on the University of Maryland campus were playing not only for a title, they were playing for the dignity of a people.

They also ended up with their win,.changing NCAA college basketball forever.

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.

1965 Baldwin vs. Buckley Debate

"It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion that one-ninth of its population is beneath them.  Until the moment comes when we, the Americans, are able to accept the fact that my ancestors are both black and white, that on that continent we are trying to forge a new identity, that we need each other, that I am not a ward of America, I am not an object of missionary charity, I am one of the people who built this country-- until this moment comes there is scarcely any hope for the American dream.  If the people are denied participation in it, by their very presence they will wreck it.  And if that happens it is a very grave moment for the West."
-James Baldwin, 1965 Cambridge University debate    

50 years ago writer James Baldwin  accepted an invitation from Cambridge University's Cambridge Union Society to debate William F. Buckley, Jr., the father of modern conservatism and the young founder of the conservative leaning National Review magazine.

The debate topic was 'Has the American Dream Been Achieved At The Expense Of The American Negro?' 

Baldwin in addition to being a prominent writer, was one of the intellectual voices of the Civil Rights Movement.  Buckley was had voiced his opposition to desegregation in the pages of the National Review in 1961 but was a few years from his status as 'The Father of Modern Conservatism'.

Both got their opportunity to argue their points, and when it was over the Cambridge Union Society members voted on the proposition.   Baldwin trounced Buckley 540-160.  

Enjoy this debate, because sadly, many of the points Baldwin makes are still valid in 2015 and explain much of the racial animus we are currently dealing with.

Moni's Thoughts On The 35th Anniversary Of The Houston Anti-Crossdressing Ordinance Repeal

I, wanted to post this on the anniversary date, but with all the breaking news that week, slipped my mind I needed to finish my thoughts about what this August 12, 1980 anniversary date meant to me as a trans Houstonian who graduated from high school three months before the odious ordinance died 

This ordinance was hated not only by the Houston trans community but by the Houston lesbian community and the drag community as well.

Little did I know that when I stepped outside dressed as moi in June 1980, anytime I stepped inside Studio 13 and sat in the audience watching a show or was just hanging out in Montrose en femme prior to that date, I was violating Section 28-42.4 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, AKA the Houston Anti-Crossdressing Ordinance that was the harassment weapon of choice for HPD their aimed at the Houston TBLG community at the time.

I'd seen Anne Mayes and coverage of her fight in the early 70's to not be harassed by Herman Short's HPD oppressors on the local news, and it was my first inkling that there was a name for what I was feeling at the time as a pre-teenager. 

Anne after her genital surgery and a 1978 Houston Chronicle interview dropped out of sight in the Houston trans community.  I wish I could tell her thank you for standing up for me and future generations of trans Houstonians who received the blessing of not knowing what it was like to go to jail for simply wanting to put on the clothes that matched who we are as people.

I would also love to talk to her simply to get a taste of what the late 60's- early 70's were like for trans historical purposes.

I wouldn't meet Judge Phyllis Frye until a decade and a half later, but she at that time had been working for three and a half years to kill that ordinance to make it easier for hers, mine and future generations of trans Houstonians to be able to walk the streets without being messed with by HPD.

I also wasn't aware of it until much later that our paths crossed while I was a UH freshman and she was at the UH law school working on her law degree. 

When she accomplished that on August 12, 1980 I was still working on my census enumerator summer job and wasn't aware that the lobbying work she was doing at City Hall would have such a ginormous impact.

It's also fitting to revisit this seeing that we have an ongoing attempt by a transphobe to inject anti-trans hatred into our city charter.

So Houston trans younglings, the next time y'all go out, you drag artists get or stage, or you lesbians decide you wish to wear a pair of jeans while out and about, say thank you to Phyllis, Anne and Rita Wanstrom   who enabled you to do so.

50th Anniversary Of The Astrodome Opening

It's been long since overshadowed by the 2002 opening of NRG Stadium, but fifty years ago on this date the Harris County Domed Stadium, better known to the rest of you peeps as the Astrodome, opened as the world's first multi-purpose domed stadium.

'The Eighth Wonder Of The World' was an iconic part of my childhood as I not only attended Astros baseball, Oilers, UH Cougars and TSU Tigers football games in its cavernous space, but  the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Texas high school football playoff games, concerts and other events also happened there.

I even worked at the Dome's concessions company for several years during college from 1981-1986.

The Astrodome was the dream of Judge Roy Hofheinz, who conceptualized it as early as 1952.   When Houston was granted a National League expansion franchise in 1960 that started play in 1962 as the Colt .45's, it was after the Hofheinz led expansion group promised to build a covered stadium to deal with our blast furnace summers.

Construction on the Dome began on January 3, 1962 and was completed ahead of schedule in November 1964.

It opened on this date with a sold out exhibition game between the Astros and the New York Yankees attended by President Lyndon Johnson and the First Lady, Texas Governor John Connally, and Houston Mayor Louie Welch.

The Dome would host the nationally televised 1968 'Game of The Century' between the University of Houston and UCLA that not only established a college basketball attendance record that wasn't broken until 2003, it set the stage for March Madness and proved college basketball had a viable TV audience. 

The 1973 'Battle of The Sexes' tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King was also played there, and as many of you are aware, the 1992 GOP National 'Culture War' convention nominated President George HW Bush was  also hosted under its domed roof.

One of my fave Dome events was the 1980 Luv Ya Blue pep rally that happened after the Oilers controversial 27-13 AFC championship game loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.  After my father dropped me off on the Fannin Street side of the stadium, I had to climb the locked seven foot barbed wire topped security fence surrounding the Astrodome perimeter and got inside the stadium just before the fire marshal ordered no more people be allowed in because it was beyond capacity.



I still had a memorable evening despite all that work to get in there.    

I also enjoyed it when I got to go to the Astrodome for TSU games.  Because my dad was the Tigers radio play by play announcer, I got to sit in the press box, act as a spotter during the game, and enjoy the press level cafeteria with its delicious food and bottomless soda cups as the Tigers engaged in gridiron battles against their SWAC foes.

And yes, there was one day I was working at the Dome during a high school football doubleheader that involved the (boo hiss) Jack Yates Lions. 

As I was sitting outside the concession stand I managed at the Dome's west gate taking a break, three young flamboyant Black drag queens on hormones sashayed through the crowd

A cluster of ten kids were following them laughing as they paid it no mind until they got to where I was sitting with one of the HPD cops working security.  Stuff got real as sistah girl's wig got snatched off her head and they had to start chasing the wig thieves playing keep away with it as they ran down the ramp to the lower level

We;re still trying to figure out how to repurpose it so it is around for another generation of Houstonians.   So on the 50th anniversary of its opening, the Dome will be opened for a birthday celebration starting at 6 PM.    It was added to the National Register of Historic Places last year so it doesn't suffer the fate of the Kingdome, the Hubert H Humphrey Metrodome and the RCA Dome. 

But I'm going so I can once again even if just for a moment, stand inside the stadium that triggered so many childhood memories for me and hundreds of thousands of Houstonians.

'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

Halloween 1962 NYC Ball Raid

I was talking about the drag balls that happened in various locales around the country on Halloween in an earlier post.   Those balls occurring on that evening usually drew big crowds and the po-po's looked the other way in terms of enforcing the anti-crossdressing laws that were on the books in many cities at that time.

So what happened when you had those events on days besides Halloween and you were en femme? 

Well, you got arrested for violating the anti-crossdressing law.  The one in Houston was only repealed in August 1980.

And sometimes there were Halloween nights in which the po-po's decided they weren't going to look the other way and enforce the law that was on the books.

These are photos of a Halloween 1962 raid on the Artists' Exotic Carnival and Ball at the Manhattan Center  in New York.

Seven years later, it was peeps being tired of the consistent harassment by NYPD and the constant raids of gay bars that led to the Stonewall Rebellion.

So the next time you're able to gather at a venue to have a ball, or walk the street as yourself without consistent harassment or threat of arrest, take a moment to think about your elders who fought to express themselves in a more hostile climate.

They fought the powers that be of the times so we'd have a better world to live in, and it's time for us to do the same for the next generation of gender variant kids..

Malcolm X-The Ballot Or The Bullet Speech

This April 4, 1964 speech delivered by Malcolm X at Cleveland's Cory Methodist Church is ranked (number 7) as one of the 100 Greatest Speeches in American history. 

It is sadly, in the wake of what's happening in Ferguson, MO still relevant 50 years later..

45th Anniversary Of Apollo 11 Moon Landing

After blasting off from Pad 39A in Florida and a three day journey to enter lunar orbit, the world is waiting as astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin leave Columbia pilot Michael Collins behind to orbit the Moon as they climb into the lunar module Eagle.

It's on them to fulfill the challenge that President John F. Kennedy laid down to the nation and Congress in 1961 of landing on the moon and safely returning to earth .

As the Eagle descends toward its landing area in the Sea of Tranquility, Armstrong has to improvise to manually pilot the ship past an area of rocky boulders with the Eagle's onboard computers signaling alarms as he's doing so. 

Finally at 3:18 PM CDT  the lunar module is on the surface of the moon with 30 seconds of fuel left and Armstrong radios, "Houston, Tranquility Base here,  The Eagle has landed." as cheers and the tension breaks in Mission Control. 

At 9:56 PM CDT Armstrong is ready to begin the EVA and plant his foot on the lunar surface as half a billion people watch on television screens around the globe.   As he climbs down the ladder from Eagle and steps onto the surface he proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." (› Play Audio)



He's joined by Aldrin as the duo explore the lunar surface for two and a half hours.  They collect rock samples, take photographs, and leave behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew members, leave their footprints in the lunar soil and a plaque on one of Eagle's legs before blasting off to dock with Collins in Columbia and head back to Earth.   

With the splashdown in the North Pacific on July 24, President Kennedy's challenge to the nation had been successfully fulfilled.  

Over the next three and a half years I'd get to witness ten more Americans land on the moon and safely return.  

I'd also in April 1970 agonize and pray with the rest of the world for the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts after a service module oxygen tank explosion enroute to the moon cancelled the landing at Fra Mauro and they had the use the lunar module Aquarius as a 'lifeboat' to get home.

Gene Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 said as the Challenger prepared to leave the lunar surface on the final Apollo lunar mission in December 1972,"We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace, and hope for all mankind."

It's past time this nation did so.

45th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Launch

On July 16, 1969 my space junkie self was up on a warm summer Houston morning like everyone else in the country and the world nervously awaiting the launch of Apollo 11 on live television. 

Meanwhile to the southeast of me down in Clear Lake, Mission Control was keeping a watchful eye on their monitors and Launch Pad 39A.  They too along with their counterparts in Florida were awaiting the launch of the ginormous Saturn V rocket from Cape Kennedy that would propel Neil Armstrong, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin and Michael Collins toward the Moon and their rendezvous with history. 

At 8:32 AM CDT the Saturn V rocket roared to life and slowly lifted off from its launchpad enroute to the Moon.   12 minutes later it was in Earth orbit and after one and a half trips around the planet the third stage of the Saturn V fired up on its translunar injection burn to send Apollo 11 to the Moon.



 

50th Anniversary Of The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Signing

I was a mere toddler when this event happened, but it was a critical one in determining the type of America I got to grow up in as an African-American child.

On this date in 1964, with the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr as one of the witnesses, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act into law.

It was the signature legislation of the Civil Rights Movement.  The law barred segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 It fundamentally changed our country for the better with its passage and when the voting rights, fair housing, and other civil rights legislation was passed in its trailblazing wake followed by court cases that further validated, clarified and built upon that landmark legislation. . 

Here's what President Johnson had to say about the Civil Rights Act at the time when he signed it.  

50th Anniversary Of The Freedom Summer Murders

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Freedom Summer, which was a ten week coordinated civil rights campaign organized by the four Mississippi branches of CORE, SNCC, SCLC and the NAACP under the Council of Federated Organization coalition banner. 

The Freedom Summer campaign was designed to register African-American voters in Mississippi, which at the time had only 6.7% of its Black population registered because of the measures put in place to suppress it such as poll taxes, subjective literacy tests, onerous voter registration forms and grandfather clauses.

It also set up Freedom Houses, Freedom Schools and community centers to support the African-American population in many Mississippi small towns.   

Over 1000 out of state volunteers came to Mississippi to help the local Blacks participating in the Freedom Summer Project.   Two of them were New Yorkers Michael Schwerner, who was a CORE organizer and his summer volunteer Andrew Goodman.   They were paired with local CORE organizer James Chaney.

Of course, Freedom Summer was met by violent resistance by the Klan, the White Citizens Councils and other white segregationists in the state.  Black churches were bombed and burned along with Black businesses, Freedom Summer volunteers were beaten or arrested.

On June 21, 1964 Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were sent to Longdale, MS to investigate the June 16 burning of the Mt Zion Baptist Church in which they had intended to set up a Freedom School to aid the voter registration drive in Neshoba County.    

After their investigation, the civil rights workers were enroute back to COFO headquarters in Meridian when they were falsely arrested in Philadelphia, MS, detained until after nightfall, and released into a Klan ambush.  

Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were killed and their bodies buried in an earthen dam under construction.   They were found weeks later after an intensive search.

The perps were eventually convicted in 1967.  Edgar Ray Killen's original trial deadlocked, and he wasn't convicted until 2005.

The murders of the civil rights workers and the national outrage behind it helped galvanized support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965. 

 

Dr. King's I've Been To The Mountaintop Speech

45 years ago today Dr. King was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers.  He gave this "I've Been To The Mountaintop' speech which sadly turned out to be the last of his brilliant but oh so brief life.





The next day April 4, an assassin's bullet took his life as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

This is the full speech


H/T Michael's Rant     

Trans Pioneer April Ashley Receives Her MBE

I wrote about this when it happened back in June, and in a morning investiture ceremony held at Buckingham Palace last Thursday, trans pioneer April Ashley was awarded the Member of the British Empire (MBE) as part of the annual Queen Birthday Honors list.

The now 77 year old Ashley  was one of the first persons from Great Britain who underwent SRS back in 1960, became a successful actress and model, appeared in the Road To Hong Kong movie with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and became a trans human rights advocate..

She was also one of the parties in the horrible 1970 Corbet v Corbett divorce case that set a grossly negative marriage precedent for transpeople in Great Britain by not allowing them to get married until it was reversed in 2004 by the British Gender Recognition Act.

Ashley received the Member of the British Empire in the investiture ceremony from Prince Charles for her long time work as a British trans human rights advocate, and congratulations to her for a well deserved honor.

Ashley said that for over half a century she had "been writing to people and helping people and I've written thousands and thousands of letters".

"Strangely enough although it was transgender, it was also gay and lesbian [people writing to me] and women desperate for divorces," she said.

About her gender reassignment surgery in 1960 and being awarded the MBE Ashley said, "To me it was just a normal thing to do - I never thought I was doing anything special quite frankly, so to be suddenly awarded this is astonishing."

Bella Jay, who organizes the annual Sparkle event in Manchester, UK said the former model had "faced many struggles in life, which perhaps people don't really understand in the more tolerant and open society in which we live today".

"Achieving real transgender equality is a big issue for many people in modern Britain, but all too often it either fails to gain any real publicity or is misunderstood," said Jay in a BBC interview.

"I congratulate April on the award which recognizes her achievements and again helps bring the issues facing the trans-community into the public eye.

Ashley's trans cousins across the Pond and around the world that she was an inspiration and beacon of hope to in the 60's and beyond also join our British cousins in recognizing April Ashley, MBE as well.

50th Anniversary of The Cuban Missile Crisis

On this date in 1962 a USAF U-2 reconnaissance aircraft mission flown by Major Richard Heyser took 928 photos in six minutes over the San Cristobal, Cuba area.   His flight captured images of what turned out to be a Soviet SS-4 medium range nuclear missile site under construction. 

That discovery triggered what has become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It was thirteen intense days in which the US military went to Defcon 2 alert for the first and only time in its history, and the world nervously watched as the United States and Soviet Union came dangerously close to global nuclear war.

The TransGriot was a mere five months old when all of this drama was unfolding, and the SS-4 missiles were there as part of Operation Anadyr, the Soviet mission to secretly introduce three MRBM and two IRBM regiments to Cuba that totalled 80 missiles, Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle medium range bombers, and the troops, SA-2 surface to air missiles and MiG fighters to protect those installations.

There was an advance guard of four Foxtrot diesel-electric attack subs deployed each armed a 10 kiloton nuclear-tipped torpedo.  Ominously they were issued conflicting rules of engagement before leaving the Soviet Union as part of the plan to establish the forward deployment ballistic missile sub base at Mariel. 
 
Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership were not too happy about being surrounded by American Jupiter missiles based on the soil of NATO allies such as Turkey and the Polaris missile sub base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

Because of the then Soviet leader bragging that their factories were producing nuclear missiles 'like sausages' the perceived missile gap became an issue in the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy presidential campaign that once Kennedy won the presidency, he began to address it by expanding what was in reality an American missile lead.

The increasing hostility between Cuba's Fidel Castro and the US, the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and Castro's embrace of communism and seeking out the Soviets as an ally against the American bully gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to redress the missile gap imbalance as they saw it.

The USSR would do so by installing ballistic missiles into Cuba, setting up a forward deployment naval base at Mariel similar to Holy Loch for their ballistic missile subs and keep it secret until the IRBM and MRBM missile launch sites were operational.  That would force the Americans and President Kennedy to accept the fait accompli situation.

But a complex and large undertaking such as Operation Anadyr wasn't going to remain a secret forever, and enough intel started leaking out of Cuba to the point that the CIA began stepping up U-2 overflights of the island in August 1962 with the missions being taken over by the Air Force two months later..

The Cuban Missile Crisis was thirteen days of nerve racking military moves, countermoves and diplomacy at the United Nations and behind the scenes.  Florida became a staging ground for a major US military buildup and what would have been had it been launched the biggest amphibious invasion since D-Day. 

In the hindsight we thankfully have today, the ground invasion would have been a disaster.  Little did we know at the time there was a 40,000 man deployed Soviet motorized combat brigade in Cuba armed with 12 nuclear tipped FROG-2 battlefield missiles and orders that allowed the Soviet commander on the scene to use them without getting clearance from Moscow first.




The US military at the beginning of the crisis went on Defcon 3 alert as B-52 bombers and Polaris ballistic missile subs were dispatched and ICBM's were prepped for launch.  ExComm met at the White House as the hawks and doves debated and argued over what to do about the situation.  

President Kennedy eventually settled on a naval blockade as a first step short of launching the bombing raid and invasion of Cuba to remove them.

The news that missiles were in Cuba was announced to the American public and the world during an October 22 White House address to the nation. 

As the announcement to the American public and the world of the quarantine zone and its establishment by US naval forces was occurring 27 Soviet ships were steaming toward it as the world watched and wondered if World War III was imminent.

On October 23 the first hopes that sanity was breaking out occurred as several Soviet ships approaching the quarantine line stopped and turned back. 

But the crisis was far from over.  While political pressure was mounting with the November 1962 midterm elections fast approaching, and our hawks including SAC commander General Curtis LeMay were pressuring President Kennedy to use military action to remove the missiles, on the other side Castro was urging Khrushchev to use the missiles if Cuba was invaded.

An Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane being shot down over Cuba on the orders of a local Soviet commander on October 27 only added to the stress level the leaders of both superpowers faced. 

A new message was received from Moscow offering a deal by which the missiles in both Turkey and Cuba would be removed and the USA and Soviet Union would jointly guarantee the security of both nations.

President Kennedy insisted that the missiles in Cuba must be removed, offered to end the naval blockade and pledged not to invade Cuba if that happened.  If the deal was rejected, the US would commence with the invasion of Cuba in 24 hours  .

But when the message was delivered to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Attorney General Robert Kennedy added a private message that once this was done, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey that was one of the Soviet sore points instigated the crisis would be withdrawn a few months later.

The deal was done, Khrushchev announced on October 28 they were withdrawing the missiles from Cuba to the disgust of Castro, the crisis wound down over the next few months and in April 1963 the Jupiter missiles were quietly withdrawn from Turkey.

The 'hotline' between Washington and Moscow was installed to ensure rapid direct communications in future conflicts between the two superpowers. The Nuclear Test Ban treaty was negotiated and eventually signed and the world exhaled afer coming dangerously close to nuclear annihilation.