Black History

In Honor of Black History month, HSK will daily highlight a person, place, or event that was significant for the progress and development of black american culture and values….

This is one of those events:

On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Scott v. Sanford, delivering a resounding victory to southern supporters of slavery and arousing the ire of northern abolitionists. During the 1830s, the owner of a slave named Dred Scott had taken him from the slave state of Missouri to the Wisconsin territory and Illinois, where slavery was outlawed, according to the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Upon his return to Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom on the basis that his temporary removal to free soil had made him legally free. The case went to the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and the majority eventually ruled that Scott was a slave and not a citizen, and thus had no legal rights to sue. According to the Court, Congress had no constitutional power to deprive persons of their property rights when dealing with slaves in the territories. The verdict effectively declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, ruling that all territories were open to slavery and could exclude it only when they became states. Continue Reading…

Today starts the month of February, which means the start of Black History month. So in addition to the traditional HSK Uncle Tom’s Cabin retreat, we will be highlighting great moments in African American history.

Without further ado..

In 1773 a Boston slave, Phyllis Wheatley, became the first African-American to publish a work. Continue Reading…

at his own expense!

There is a lesson to be learned from the legendary James Brown.

James Brown began his professional career at a time when rock and roll was opening new opportunities for black artists to connect with white audiences. But the path he took to fame did not pass through Top 40 radio or through The Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand. James Brown would make his appearance in all of those places eventually, but only after a decade spent performing almost exclusively before black audiences and earning his reputation as the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. On this day in 1962, he took a major step toward his eventual crossover and conquest of the mainstream with an electrifying performance on black America’s most famous stage—a performance recorded and later released as Live at the Apollo (1963), the first breakthrough album of James Brown’s career.

By the time 1962 rolled around, James Brown was one of the most popular figures on the R&B scene, not so much on the strength of his recordings, but on the strength of his live act. As he would throughout his long career, Brown ran his band, the Famous Flames, like a military unit, demanding of his instrumentalists and backing vocalists the same perfection he demanded of himself. Even in the middle of a performance, Brown would turn around and dish out fines for missed or flubbed notes, all without missing or flubbing a dance step himself. At the midnight show at the Apollo on October 24, 1962, however, every member of Brown’s band knew that the fines they faced would be far greater than normal. “You made a mistake that night,” band member Bobby Byrd told Rolling Stone magazine, “the fine would move from five or ten dollars to fifty or a hundred dollars.” Continue Reading…

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the most dynamic leaders of the civil rights movement, died yesterday at the age of 89. Shuttlesworth survived bombing attempts, beatings, and dozens of arrests in his attempts to end segregation in the South, and was key in making nonviolence a central tenet of the movement. In the early ’60s, harsh images of Shuttlesworth and other protesters being attacked in Birmingham, Alabama, by police with fire hoses, dogs, and truncheons shocked America and help spur an end to segregation.

“He was one of the most courageous men that I have ever known,” said Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King Jr. “I don’t know of anyone else that could have led the movement in Birmingham.” Shuttlesworth was beaten unconscious by a Ku Klux Klan mob when he tried to enroll his children in a white school in 1957. The year before, he suffered only minor injuries when 15 sticks of dynamite exploded beneath his bedroom window on Christmas Day. “I believe I was almost at death’s door at least 20 times,” Shuttlesworth recalled in 2001. “But when the first bomb went off, it took all fear from my mind. I knew God was with me like he was with Daniel in the lions’ den.”

Via Newser

Last night, I tuned into TV One as they profiled the Ohio Players on the Unsung series.

The Ohio Players are one of my favorite bands of all time. Know why? Because when I was six-years-old, I still can remember hearing ”SkinTight” before taking to the drums that I got for Christmas.

Countless groups have stolen ideas from the Ohio Players. Earth Wind and Fire and Con-Fun Shun are just a few of the groups who were imitating the Ohio Players’ front man “Leroy Sugarfoot Bonner”. Don’t believe me? Ask Larry Blackmon.

Here’s what Rick James once told me about the Ohio Players: Continue Reading…