He was senior USAF pilot, accumulating well over 2,500 flight hours—2,000 of which were in jets. Lawrence flew many tests in the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to investigate the gliding flight of various unpowered spacecraft returning to Earth from orbit, such as the North American X-15 rocket-plane. NASA cited Lawrence for accomplishments and flight maneuver data that “contributed greatly to the development of the Space Shuttle.”
In June 1967, Lawrence successfully completed the Air Force Flight Test Pilot Training School at Edwards AFB, California. That same month he was selected by the USAF as an astronaut in the Air Force’s Manned Orbital Laboratory Program, thus becoming the first African-American astronaut candidate.
At the age of 16, he graduated in the top 10 percent from Englewood High School in Chicago. At the age of 20, he graduated from Bradley University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry.
After entering the U.S. Air Force, the 21 year old he was designated as a pilot after completing flight training at Malden Air Force Base.
He married Barbara Cress, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Cress of Chicago and at 25, he had completed an Air Force assignment as an instructor pilot in the T-33 training aircraft for the German Air Force.

Lawrence was killed on December 8, 1967, in the crash of an F-104 Starfighter at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The First Black Astronaut to go up in space

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 22, 1942. He was one of the four kids born to Guion Sr., a mechanical engineer and Lolita,a special education teacher. He graduated from Overbrook Senior High School in Philadelphia, in 1960, and obtained a Bachelors degree in Aerospace Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1964. Later, the same year, he married Linda Tull. The couple has two sons; Guion III and James.
Bluford’s first mission was STS-8 aboard Space Shuttle Challenger. It was Challenger’s first mission with night launching and night landing. The shuttle was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on August 30, 1983. Challenger landed at the Edwards Air Base in California on September 5, 1983, after completing 98 orbits of the Earth in 145 hours. He participated as a mission specialist in four missions, commissioned by NASA between 1983 and 1993. By the end of his fourth mission, Guion had completed 688 hours in space.

African American administrator, educator, and social activist.

credit:Wikipedia

American leaders regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government.
Height served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the Secretary of State, the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, and the President’s Committee on the Status of Women.
Born in Richmond, Virginia. At an early age, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania, a steel town in the suburbs of Pittsburgh.

Height was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon arrival, she was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students per year. She pursued studies instead at New York University, earning a degree in 1932, and a master’s degree in educational psychology the following year.

On March 25, 2010 Height was admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington D.C. for unspecified reasons. Her spokeswoman issued a statement stating that at that time she was in a “very serious, but stable” condition but that they were remaining optimistic about her recovery. On April 20, 2010, Height died at the age of ninety-eight. Her funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on April 29, 2010 was attended by President and Mrs Obama plus many dignitaries and notable people. She was later interred at Fort Lincoln Cemetery.

source:wikipedia.org

He was born the son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. As a young boy, he was inspired by the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which he heard on radio broadcasts. In those pivotal moments, he made a decision to become a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Ever since then, he has remained at the vanguard of progressive social movements and the human rights struggle in the United States.

As a student at Fisk University, John Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1961, he volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. Lewis risked his life on those Rides many times by simply sitting in seats reserved for white patrons. He was also beaten severely by angry mobs and arrested by police for challenging the injustice of Jim Crow segregation in the South.

He was elected to Congress in November 1986 and has served as U.S. Representative of Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since then. That District includes the entire city of Atlanta, Georgia and parts of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties. He is Senior Chief Deputy Whip for the Democratic Party in leadership in the House, a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, a member of its Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, and Chairman of its Subcommittee on Oversight.

William Harvey Carney (February 29, 1840 – December 8, 1908) was an American Civil War soldier and the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor.
Carney was born a slave in Norfolk, Virginia, but escaped to Massachusetts like his father through the Underground Railroad. They later bought the rest of the family out of slavery.
Carney served with the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry as a Sergeant and took part in the July 18, 1863, assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina. He received his medal for saving the American flag and planting it on the parapet and although wounded, holding it while the troops charged. But recognizing the Federal troops had to retreat under fire, Carney struggled back across the battlefield, and although wounded twice more, returned the flag to the Union lines. Before turning over the colors to another survivor of the 54th, Carney modestly said, “Boys, I only did my duty; the old flag never touched the ground!”
Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor May 23, 1900, nearly 40 years after his act of bravery. In later life, Carney was a postal employee and popular speaker at patriotic events. He died in Boston, Massachusetts, and is buried in the family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Engraved on his stone monument is a gold image of the Medal of Honor.

source:wikipedia.org – photo credit:old-photos.blogspot.com

The First African American to reach the rank of (four-star) general.

Born February 11, 1920 at Pensacola, Florida, he learned to fly while attending the Tuskegee Institute and after graduation in 1942 continued civilian flight training until he received appointment as a Cadet in the Army Air Corps in January 1943.

He was commissioned in July 1943 and throughout the remainder of World War II he trained pilots for the all-black 99th Pursuit Squardon and worked in other assignments. He was subsequently stationed in Ohio and in the Philippines.

During the Korean War he flew 101 missions in fighters. From 1953 to 1956 he was at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, receiving promotion to Major in that period. On graduating from the Air Command-Staff School in 1957, he was assigned to staff duty in Washington.

From 1960 to 1964, he was stationed in England and from 1964 to 1966 in Arizona and in 1966-67 in Vietnam where he flew 78 combat missions. By then a Colonel, he was Vice Commander of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Elgin Air Force Base, Florida, in 1967-69, and then promoted to Brigadier General, was named base commander of Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya.

In March 1970 be became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and advanced to Major General. In September 1974, with the rank of Lieutenant General, he became Vice Commander of the Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

In September 1975 he became the first black officer in the history of the United States military to attain 4-star full General rank. At that time he was named Commander of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), with responsibility for all aspects of the air defense of the United States and Canada. He was also much-sought after as a public speaker and devoted considerable time to addressing youth groups, particularly minority students.

General James died of a heart attack in February 1978 at the age of fifty-eight, 3 weeks after retiring from the Air Force.

source:www.arlingtoncemetery.net

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

Abraham Bolden was born into a poor family in East St. Louis, Illinois. After graduating from Lincoln University he spent four years as an Illinois State Trooper. His record was so outstanding that in 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him to the United States Secret Service. Based in Chicago, he won “two commendations for cracking counterfeiting rings”.

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed Bolden as part of the Secret Service White House detail. According to Jim Marrs (Crossfire: The Plt That Killed Kennedy), Bolden was personally selected by Kennedy “in an attempt to integrate the previously all-white Secret Service detail”.

Bolden spent only three months working for Kennedy. He complained about the “separate housing facilities for black agents on southern trips”. At a meeting with James J. Rowley, the head of the Secret Service, Bolden criticized the “general laxity and the heavy drinking among the agents who were assigned to protect the President”. As a result of these complaints, Bolden was sent back to the Chicago office and assigned to routine anti-counterfeiting duties.

Bolden claimed that in October, 1963, the Chicago Secret Service office received a teletype from the Federal Bureau of Investigation warning that an attempt would be made to kill President John F. Kennedy by a four-man Cuban hit squad when he visited the city on 2nd November. Armed with high-powered rifles, the men from “a dissident Cuban group”. According to investigative journalist Edwin Black, the Secret Service arrested two suspects, however, they were eventually released.

Abraham Bolden later discovered that this information was being kept from the Warren Commission. When he complained about this he was warned “to keep his mouth shut”. Bolden decided to travel to

Washington where he telephoned Warren Commission Counsel J. Lee Rankin. Bolden was arrested and taken back to Chicago where he was charged with discussing a bribe with two known counterfeiters. He was eventually found guilty of accepting a bribe and spent six years in prison. When he tried to draw attention to his case, he was placed in solitary confinement.

Sam DeStefano, one of the men who accused Bolden of this crime, was murdered in 1973. DeStefano was close to Sam Giancana, Charles Nicoletti and Richard Cain. It is believed that Cain murdered DeStefano. Soon afterwards, Cain himself was murdered.

Lamar Waldron claims in his book, Ultimate Sacrifice, that according to a Central Intelligence Agency memo, mobsters in Chicago were involved in framing Bolden on the bribery charges.

In 2008 Abraham Bolden published his book, The Echo from Dealey Plaza, an account of his time as a member of the White House Secret Service.

source:www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

Reuters – Oct 6, 2009
New Research to be Presented at JFK Assassination Conference
Partial list of presenting researchers and authors Abraham Bolden will reveal his personal story as the first African American to join the White House … read more

]]> http://blackgospelchoir.com/?feed=rss2&p=426 0 http://blackgospelchoir.com/?p=372 http://blackgospelchoir.com/?p=372#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:16:27 +0000 Black Gospel Choir http://blackgospelchoir.com/?p=372

Paul Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals and was the first black actor of the 20th century to portray Shakespeare’s Othello on Broadway. As of 2009 Robeson’s run in the 1943–45 Othello production still holds the record for the longest running Shakespeare play on Broadway. In line with Robeson’s vocal dissatisfaction with movie stereotypes, his roles in both the American and British film industries were some of the first parts ever created that displayed dignity and respect for the African American film actor, paving the way for Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte.

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The Story of “Amazing Grace” By Wintley Phipps

The author of the words was John Newton, the self-proclaimed wretch who once was lost but then was found, saved by amazing grace.
The origin of the melody is unknown. Most hymnals attribute it to an early American folk melody. The Bill Moyers special on “Amazing Grace” speculated that it may have originated as the tune of a song the slaves sang.

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Jester Hairston was born on July 9 in 1901. He was an African-American choral composer and actor. The grandson of slaves from the Hairston plantation at Belew’s Creek, North Carolina, Jester Hairston often had to suffer the indignities of Hollywood racism. Graduating with a high level of academic distinction from Tufts University, with a major in music, he also studied music at the famed Julliard School. He spent thirteen years as assistant conductor of the Hall Johnson Negro Choir where he often arranged and conducted choirs for Broadway.

He first came to Hollywood in 1936 to conduct the choir work and spent fifteen years on radio and TV’s Amos ‘n’ Andy despite the fact that the other black characters were played by white actors. Hairston’s early acting roles included playing a “Witch Doctor” in the 1955 film, Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle. TV fans perhaps best recognize Hairston as “Rolly Forbes” on the 1986 series Amen; his presence in Hollywood was often hidden on the other side of the camera. As one of the greatest choral music directors, Hairston composed or arranged more than 300 gospel spirituals in films such as Green Pastures and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. One of the first black actors in the Screen Actors Guild, among his notable works was the song “Amen” from the Sidney Poitier film, Lilies of the Field. Hairston died January 18, 2000, at the age of 98.

source:http://www.singers.com/choral/jesterhairston.html

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