-January 31, 1919- October 24, 1972 -First black player in the MLB, making his debut in 1947 for the Brooklyn Dodgers. -His major league debut brought an end to approximately sixty years of segregation in professional baseball. -Him breaking of the baseball color line and his professional success symbolized these broader changes and demonstrated that the fight for equality was more than simply a political matter. -Martin Luther King said that he was “a legend and a symbol in his own time”, and that he “challenged the dark skies of intolerance and frustration.” -According to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robinson’s “efforts were a monumental step in the civil-rights revolution…
Black History Month- Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson
-December 19, 1875- April 3, 1950 -Founder of Black History -Historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study African American Life and History -Founder of the Journal of Negro History, now called The Journal of African-American History -Coming from a large, poor family, he could not regularly attend school. Through self-instruction, Woodson mastered the fundamentals of common school subjects by age 17. -Convinced that the role of his own people in American history and in the history of other cultures was being ignored or misrepresented among scholars. -He realized the need for research into the neglected past of African Americans. -His final professional appointment…
Black History Month- Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman – 1820 to March 10, 1913 -Born Araminta Harriet Ross -Born a slave in Maryland, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom, and later led more than 300 other slaves to the North and to Canada to their freedom, too. -The best-known conductor on the Underground Railroad. -She spoke against slavery and for women’s rights. -Acquainted with many of the social reformers and abolitionists of her time. -During the Civil War she served with the U.S. Army in South Carolina, as a nurse, scout, spy and soldier. -Most famously she led the Combahee River expedition, under the command of James Montgomery, helping to blow up Southern supply lines…
