Missy Elliott – Gossip Folks

Foxy Brown – I’ll Be

Salt n Pepa – None of Your Business

Mc Lyte – Paper Thin

Queen Pen – A Party Ain’t A Party

The first enslaved African to arrive in Florida whom we can document by name was a black man named Esteban or Stephen the Black. And, long before the explorers Lewis and Clark crossed the continent, he would traverse the land that later became the United States, through the Southwest, to the Pacific Ocean.

Esteban was born in West Africa and sold into slavery in a Portuguese town on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. According to the historian Robert Goodwin, Esteban was shipped to Spain as a slave from the town of Azemmour, in Morocco, in 1522. Andres Dorantes de Carranza purchased him and brought Esteban to Florida in April 1528.

Estevanico traveled with Dorantes to Hispaniola and Cuba with Pánfilo de Narváez’s ill-fated expedition of 1527 to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast. Estevanico became the first person from Africa known to have set foot in the present continental United States. After a failed settlement attempt near present day Tampa Bay, Florida the party made a series of makeshift boats to try and reach Mexico. The boats wrecked off the coast of Texas leaving only Estevanico, Dorantes, de Vaca and Castillo alive. Castillo’s ability as a faith healer was said to have helped them with the Indians who told them about the 7 wonders. The four had spent years enslaved on many of the Louisiana Gulf Islands. In 1534 they escaped into the American interior, contacting other Native American tribes along the way. The party traversed the continent as far as present-day southeastern Arizona, and through the Sonoran Desert to the region of Sinaloa in New Spain (present-day Mexico), where they were reunited with countrymen.

In Mexico City, the four survivors told stories of wealthy indigenous tribes to the North, which created a stir among the Spanish in the colony. While the other three men returned to Spain, Estevanico was sold to Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain. He employed Estevanico as a guide in expeditions to the North.

In 1539, Estevanico was one of four men who accompanied Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party with a group of indigenous servants. He was instructed to communicate by sending back crosses to the main party, with the size of the cross equal to the wealth discovered. One day, a cross arrived that was as tall as a person, causing de Niza to step up his pace to join the scouts. Estevanico had entered the Zuni village of Hawikuh (in present-day New Mexico). He had sent a gourd with a red feather, naive to the fact that it was the symbol for war, and they killed him and expelled the indigenous servants from the village. After seeing this, De Niza quickly returned to New Spain.

Accounts suggest the Zuni did not believe Estavanico’s story that he represented a party of whites, and that he was killed for demanding women andturquoise. Roberts and Roberts write that “still others suggest that Estevan, who was black and wore feathers and rattles, may have looked like a wizard to the Zuni.” Juan Francisco Maura suggested in 2002 that Estevanico was not killed by the Zuni, and that he and friends among the Indians faked his death so he could gain freedom.

***Information courtesy of The Root.com/Wikipedia.org***

Remember this?

“he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” —————– Mitt Romney, 6/8/12

CNN

Monday afternoon, second-grade teacher Tammy Glasgow was in her classroom when her husband shot her a text: “Storms are coming. Be careful.”

She tried to text back but her phone was out, and she couldn’t pull up websites to check the news.

Something had felt off for awhile that morning, Glasgow said. She knew the area. She knew what that could mean.

“It was kinda ominous, real humid, just had a bad feeling,” she said, walking with a CNN reporter on the school grounds now crowded with twisted metal, rebar and piles of concrete blocks. A bright yellow playground set stood out amid the gray.

Glasgow said that just before the twister hit, she went to the window. The kids were singing the National Anthem.

“You could just see it,” she said.

An announcement came on the loudspeaker to get to a safe place.

She quickly hustled 12 girls into a girls’ bathroom. A worried father who’d already shown up to the school helped get boys into the boys’ bathroom. Another teacher, a counselor and three other kids got in a closet, Glasgow said.

“Before I shut the doors [to the boys' bathroom], I said, ‘I’m gonna shut these doors. I love you.’” The boys looked at me a little strange.”

Glasgow’s own son was in the bathroom. She looked at him for a moment.

“I just said, ‘Watch over them. Take care of them.’”

Then she told the girls she loved them.

“We love you back!” they chimed.

The twister was on top of them.

“It was so loud you couldn’t hear anything and it was forever and ever,” Glasgow said. “I just assumed that it would be quick but it stayed and stayed. Stuff was falling on us. We had books on our heads.”

She looked up and apparently through the roof and saw the tornado. “It was just brown, huge, never ending … all the way up to the heavens.”

A cinderblock fell on her neck.

Finally, a light rain started and the sky got lighter.

She heard voices and the opening of doors. The kids were crying. But everyone was OK.

Lauryn Hill – Doo Wop (That Thing)

Yo Yo – Don’t Play With My Yo-Yo

Eve feat Gwen Stefani – Let Me Blow Ya Mind

Oaktown’s 3 5 7 – Yeah Yeah Yeah

Lil Kim – No Time

George Washington Gibbs, Jr. (November 7, 1916 – November 7, 2000), a sailor in the United States Navy, became the first African American to set foot on the continent of Antarctica, on the Antarctic Peninsula as a member of Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s third Antarctic expedition, also known as the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941) on January 14, 1940. Gibbs served as a gunner in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After 24 years service in the U.S. Navy, Gibbs retired in 1959 as a chief petty officer. Gibbs then attended the University of Minnesota, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. Gibbs worked in the personnel department of IBM at Rochester, Minnesota from 1963 to 1982.

George Gibbs was a civil rights leader who integrated the Elks Club at Rochester and several service clubs. In 1966 Gibbs helped organize the Rochester Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was also a civic leader who was president of the Rochester Kiwanis and the Rochester chapter of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association and was involved in several charitable organizations.

Gibbs Point on the Antarctic Peninsula was named for George W. Gibbs, Jr. on September 2, 2009. The Rochester, Minnesota school board named a new elementary school, dedicated on October 11, 2009, the George W. Gibbs Jr. Elementary School.

George W. Gibbs, Jr. was born in Jacksonville, Florida on November 7, 1916. He moved to Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brooklyn Technical School.Gibbs later received his General Education Diploma (GED).

After brief work in the Civilian Conservation Corps, Gibbs enlisted in the U.S. Navy from Macon, Georgia in 1935.He re-enlisted when his four-year period of enlistment expired. During his time in the Navy, Gibbs married Joyce Powell on September 26, 1953 in Portsmouth, Virginia. The Gibbs’s had a daughter, Leilani R. (Gibbs) Henry and a son, E. Anthony “Tony.

Gibbs was encouraged to apply for an assignment with the United States Antarctic Service. The U.S. Congress established the service to support Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s third polar expedition (1939–1941) intended “to consolidate previous American exploration and to examine more closely the land in the Pacific sector.” Gibbs was among forty U.S. Navy men chosen from 2,000 Navy applicants for a job with the expedition. Gibbs served as a Mess Attendant 1st Class aboard the lead expedition ship, U.S.S. Bear, but also worked as a cook and performed other tasks with the expedition. By the end of the expedition, Gibbs was an Officer’s Cook 3rd Class.

Gibbs helped to establish West Base (Little America III), near the Bay of Whales, and East Base on Stonington Island, Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula. He twice made round trips between the United States and Antarctica.

During the expedition, Gibbs helped catch Adelie penguins for the Smithsonian Institution.This was dangerous work because the men had to work from a rowboat in fog with a non-working radio. Only the sounding of the ship’s horn gave the men bearings to find their way back to the ship. During World War II, Gibbs served in combat in the Pacific.He was a gunner on the U.S.S. Atlanta.  

Gibbs remained in the U.S. Navy until 1959 when he retired as a chief petty officer. Among other awards, Gibbs received the Navy Good Conduct Medal and the silver United States Antarctic Expedition Medal.

After Gibbs retired from the Navy, he moved to Minneapolis, graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1963 with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Education. The Gibbs family then moved to Rochester, Minnesota, where Gibbs worked in the personnel department at IBM for 18 years. He also was housing administrator and international assignment representative for IBM.  Gibbs then founded his own employment company, Technical Career Placement, Inc., which he operated until 1999.

Gibbs became a civil rights leader and helped organize the Rochester, Minnesota Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He worked for civil rights in Rochester and on a national basis.Later, the Rochester, Minnesota branch of the NAACP presented Gibbs with the George Gibbs Humanitarianism Award. Gibbs’s daughter, who plans to publish a book about her father, has said that he was very persuasive, noting that only about 50 of the 350 members of the local NAACP chapter were black. Gibbs also worked with the Minnesota-North Dakota NAACP Conference.

In 1974, Gibbs was denied membership in the Rochester Elks Club, which made headlines and eventually led to breaking the color barrier at that club, an accomplishment also made by Gibbs at service clubs in Rochester.

George W. Gibbs, Jr. died on his 84th birthday, November 7, 2000.

Gibbs Point, a rock point on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northern area of Antarctica, was named for African American Antarctic explorer, George W. Gibbs, Jr. on September 2, 2009. On that date, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (U.S. Board on Geographic Names) confirmed the place name in Antarctica for Gibbs as the first black explorer to set foot on the continent. Gibbs Point is a rock point forming the northwest entrance to Gaul Cove, on the northeast of Horseshoe Island, Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula (67°48’22”S, 067°09’38”W).

Rochester Minnesota’s West Soldiers Field Drive was renamed in honor of Gibbs in 2002.

***Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org, Blackpast.org***

Oh…on this 3rd video, please…do not forget where you are and jump up in your place of employment trying to do the Butterfly!

Salt-N-Pepa – Do You Want Me

MC Lyte – Poor Georgie

Patra featuring Yo-Yo – Romantic Call 

JJ Fad – Supersonic

Queen Latifah – Latifah’s Had It Up To Here

In 2006 Sophia Danenberg became the first African American and first black woman from anywhere in the world to climb the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest in the Himalayas.  

Sophia Marie Scott was born in 1972 in Homewood, Illinois (a southern suburb of Chicago) to a Japanese mother and black father. She attended Homewood-Flossmoor High School, graduating in 1990.  Danenberg then studied environmental sciences and public policy at Harvard University, graduating in 1994, before going on to Keio University in Tokyo as a Fulbright Fellow. Danenberg then began her professional career with United Technologies in Japan and China, managing energy and indoor air quality projects, before moving to Hartford, Connecticut where she worked in green technology research programs at United Technologies.  

Danenberg became involved in mountaineering in 1999 after a childhood friend encouraged her to try rock climbing.  During this two year period, while doing technical climbs through her local Appalachian Mountain Club Chapter, she met her future husband David Danenberg.

Danenberg’s first major climb was at Mount Rainier, in Washington State in 2002.  Over the next two years she and David scaled Kilimanjaro (Kenya) 2002, Mount Baker, Washington, 2003, and Mount Kenya, 2003.  In 2005 she scaled five peaks: Grand Teton (Wyoming), Mount Katahdin (Maine), Mount McKinley (Alaska), Mount Tasman  (New Zealand), and Ama Dablam (Nepal).

In the spring of 2006, at age 34, with one week of planning, Sophia Danenberg began the climb of Mount Everest in the Nepal, the highest mountain in the world at 29,000 feet. Danenberg, along with eight people, signed up for an “unguided” climb which gave her the help of two Sherpas, weather reports, food, and oxygen.  Danenberg carried her own gear and pitched her own tent.  She had no guide on the climb to make decisions for her. On May 19, 2006, after two months climbing, she and her party reached the summit of Mount Everest.  

Danenberg, who had as of 2008 climbed 19 peaks, is now responsible for legislative and regulatory affairs for Global Environmental, Health, and Safety (EH&S) at United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney division. She is currently pursuing a master’s in economics at the University of Connecticut, as well as working with Hartford, Connecticut inner city programs. Most recently, Danenberg campaigned for Democratic Party Candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Election and became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

***Information courtesy of Blackpast.org***

Think about that for a second.

President Obama receiving honorary Doctor of Laws Degree (Photo: @ItsJustNaya)

*UPDATE: Video added below (h/t @TheObamaDiary)*

Hello, Morehouse! Thank you Dr. Wilson, the Board of Trustees; Congressman Cedric Richmond and Sanford Bishop – both proud alumni of this school; Congressman Hank Johnson and the great John Lewis; Mayor Reed, and all the members of the Morehouse family. Most of all, congratulations to this distinguished group of Morehouse Men, the Class of 2013! Some of you are graduating summa cum laude, some of you are graduating magna cum laude, and I know some of you are just graduating, “thank you Lordy.”

I see some good looking hats on the moms and grandmas here today. Which is appropriate, since we’re here on Sunday, and folks are in their Sunday best. Congratulations to all of you – the parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, family and friends who supported these young men in so many ways. This is your day, too. Just think about it – your sons and brothers have spent the last four years far from home and close to Spelman. And they still made it here today. So you must be doing something right. Graduates, give them a round of applause.

I know some of you had to wait in long lines to get into today’s ceremony. I would apologize, but it didn’t actually have anything to do with security. These graduates just wanted you to know what it’s like to register for classes. And this time of year brings a different kind of stress, with every senior stopping by Gloster Hall over the past week making sure your name was on the list of students who’ve met all the graduation requirements. If it wasn’t, you had to figure out why. Was it the library book you let your roommate borrow freshman year? Was it Dr. Johnson’s policy class? Did you get enough Crown Forum credits?

I can help with that last one. Today, I am exercising my power as President to declare this speech sufficient Crown Forum credits for any otherwise-eligible student to graduate. Consider it my graduation gift to you.

Graduates, I am humbled to stand here with all of you as an honorary Morehouse Man. And as I do, I’m mindful of an old saying: “You can always tell a Morehouse Man, but you can’t tell him much.” That makes my task today a little more difficult, I suppose. But I think it also reflects the sense of pride that has always been a part of the Morehouse tradition.

Benjamin Mays, who served as the president of Morehouse for almost 30 years, understood that tradition perhaps better than anyone. He said, “It will not be sufficient for Morehouse College, for any college, for that matter, to produce clever graduates… but rather honest men, men who can be trusted in public and private life – men who are sensitive to the wrongs, the sufferings, and the injustices of society and who are willing to accept responsibility for correcting [those] ills.”

It was that mission – not just to educate men, but to cultivate good men – that brought community leaders together just two years after the end of the Civil War. They assembled a list of 37 men, free blacks and freed slaves, who would make up the first prospective class of what later became Morehouse College. Most of those first students had a desire to become teachers and preachers – to better themselves so they could help others do the same.

A century and a half later, times have changed. But the “Morehouse Mystique” endures. Some of you probably came here from communities where everyone looked like you. Others may have come here in search of that kind of community. And I suspect that some of you probably felt a little bit of culture shock the first time you came together as a class in King’s Chapel. All of a sudden, you weren’t the only high school sports captain or student council president. All of a sudden, among a group of high achievers, you were expected to be something more.

That’s the unique sense of purpose that has always infused this place – the conviction that this is a training ground not only for individual success, but for leadership that can change the world.

READ THE FULL SPEECH HERE.