System Critical

03/28/2023

A new book by Ibram X. Kendi, author of "How to Be an Antiracist," comes as school libraries are banning books that challenge Americans to address systemic racism. Kendi speaks to CNN about this backlash and why he still has hope for the future.

08/29/2022

In August 1865, Jourdon Anderson, a freedman living in Dayton, Ohio, addressed a letter to his former enslaver, Col. Patrick H. Anderson, in Tennessee. He wrote in response to a request from Patrick to return to work on the farm where he was enslaved just a year prior.

This correspondence was dictated by Jourdon to a local abolitionist, Valentine Winters, who submitted a copy of the letter to the Cincinnati Commercial. Over the next several months, Jourdon’s letter saw publication in newspapers across the United States.

“Sir - I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you... Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again. As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864…

Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores… I served you faithfully for 32 years, and Mandy 20 years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back…

If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations...

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up...I would rather stay here and starve and die…than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson

P.S. - Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.”

Jourdon Anderson never returned to Tennessee.

Image: Jourdon (Jordan) Anderson, date unknown

08/29/2022

August 28, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till is kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered in Mississippi for allegedly "flirting" with Carolyn Bryant 4 days earlier.

KIDNAPPING:
Between 2 a.m. - 3:30 a.m., Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam drove to Mose Wright's (Till's Uncle) house. Milam was armed with a pistol and a flashlight. He asked Wright if he had 3 boys in the house from Chicago.

Till was sharing a bed with another cousin; there were 8 people in the small two-bedroom cabin.

Milam asked Wright to take them to "the n*gger who did the talking". Till's great-aunt offered the men money, but Milam refused as he rushed Emmett to put on his clothes. Mose Wright informed the men that Till was from up north and didn't know any better. The men marched Till out to the truck. Wright said he heard them ask someone in the car if this was the boy, and heard someone say "yes".

MURDER:
They tied up Till in the back of a green pickup truck and drove toward Money, Mississippi. They took Till back to Bryant's Groceries and recruited two Black men. The men then drove to a barn in Drew.

They pistol-whipped him on the way and reportedly knocked him unconscious. Willie Reed, who was 18 years old at the time, saw the truck passing by. Reed recalled seeing two white men in the front seat, and "two Black males" in the back.

In an interview with William Bradford Huie that was published in Look magazine in 1956, Bryant and Milam said that they intended to beat Till and throw him off an embankment into the river to frighten him.

While they were beating Till, he called them bastards, declared he was as good as they, and said that he had sexual encounters with white women.

They put Till in the back of their truck, drove to a cotton gin to take a 70-pound fan—the only time they admitted to being worried, thinking that by this time in early daylight they would be spotted and accused of stealing—and drove for several miles along the river looking for a place to dispose of Till. They shot him by the river and weighted his body with the fan.

08/29/2022

These books are beloved by readers everywhere, but they're also heavily targeted by conservatives

08/29/2022

After the Civil War, thousands of emancipated Black people placed newspaper ads in search of their families. Today, their messages are helping their descendants find their people.

08/21/2022

08/21/2022

08/21/2022

May 30, 1965: Vivian Malone became the 1st African-American to graduate from the University of Alabama in it's 134 years of existence, earning a degree in Business management.

Vivian Juanita Malone-Jones was one of the 1st two African American students to enroll at the University of Alabama.

She became famously known when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked her and James Hood from enrolling at University of Alabama in June 1963.

08/21/2022

June 3, 1949: Wesley Anthony Brown became the 1st African American graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland.

Wesley Anthony Brown served in the Korean War and the Vietnam War and served in the U.S. Navy from May 2, 1944-June 30, 1969.

Wesley Brown attended Howard University.

AWARDS & HONOR:
🎖Brown received the American Theater Ribbon and World War II Victory Medal.

🎖He was recognized with the 2009 National Society of Black Engineers Golden Torch Legacy Award-First Honoree.

🎖The Wesley Brown Field House at the U.S. Naval Academy is named in his honor.

🎖Brown was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

08/21/2022

June 5, 2008: Every MLB team symbolically drafted surviving members of the Negro Leagues.

Baseball Channel TV streamed the Negro Leagues Draft live in front of several hundred people at The Milk House at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex. The fans saw MLB tie up some of its loose ends, and were brought face to face with living baseball history.

The ceremonial draft was the idea of Hall of Fame player Dave Winfield, vice president of the San Diego Padres.

08/21/2022

June 10, 1977: Lucy Harris of Delta State was drafted by the New Orleans Jazz in the 7th round of the NBA Draft, becoming the 1st woman ever selected by an NBA team.

⚠Denise Long was selected by the San Francisco Warriors in the 1969 Draft, however, the league voided the Warriors' selection, thus Harris became the 1st and ONLY woman ever officially drafted.⚠

Lusia Harris-Stewart was a former basketball player.

Harris is considered to be one of the pioneers of women's basketball. She played for Delta State University and won 3 consecutive Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, National Championships, the predecessors to the NCAA championships, from 1975-1977.

In international level, she represented the United States' national team and won the silver medal in the 1976 Olympic Games, the 1st women's basketball tournament in the Olympic Games. She played professional basketball with the Houston Angels of the Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL).

NBA DRAFT:
Harris did not express an interest to play in the NBA and declined to try out for the Jazz. It was later revealed that she was pregnant at the time, which made her unable to attend the Jazz's training camp.

She was selected ahead of 33 other male players, including the Jazz's 8th round selection, Dave Speicher from the University of Toledo.

LEGACY:
🏀For her achievements and contributions to the Delta State University, Harris was inducted to the Delta State's Hall of Fame in 1983.

🏀In 1992 she became the 1st African-American woman inducted in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

🏀In 1999, Harris, along with her college coach, Margaret Wade, and her teammates in the national team, Nancy Lieberman, Ann Meyers and Pat Head, were among the 26 inaugural inductees to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

🏀She has also been named to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.

08/21/2022

June 25, 1876: Isaiah Dorman was shot and killed by Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He's known as the only Black man killed in the fight.

Dorman's body was found just out of the timber, near Charley Reynolds's and he was buried on the Reno Battlefield.

He was reinterred in 1877 at Custer National Cemetery.

Isaiah Dorman was an interpreter for the United States Army during the Indian Wars.

Dorman accompanied the detachment of Major Marcus Reno into the battle. As Reno’s command came under attack, the Major ordered the remaining soldiers to dash for a nearby hill. In the confusion, Dorman got left behind.