Memorable Events in Black History

Memorable Events in Black History This page is about sharing facts about people known in black history as well as people unlnown in black history. If there's someone you want me to post about that I probably haven't posted about, feel free to message me at any time!
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Hello, everybody! Welcome to the Memorable Events in Black History fan page! On this page, you will see memorable events in black history. From accomplishments to record breaking moments to historic patents to much more! The reason I created this page is because the world should know that not all blacks are up to no good. We honor those who paved the way for us so we can have a better life. When you visit this page, you have the right to post a black history fact about anyone who is famous or even from around your area. Also, debates are welcome! With all that being said, I hope and pray that this page is a success and with your help, it can be. I hope you get something out of what's being posted. I am Raephel 'Ralph' Young, your creator of the page! Enjoy your time here!

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Let's take the time out to wish R&B sensation John Legend a happy birthday today! John Legend (born 12/28/1978) was born...
12/30/2020

Let's take the time out to wish R&B sensation John Legend a happy birthday today! John Legend (born 12/28/1978) was born John Roger Stephens in Springfield, Ohio. He is the son of Phyllis, a seamstress, and Ronald Stephens, a factory worker and former National Guardsman. Throughout his childhood, Stephens was homeschooled on and off by his mother. At age four, he began playing the piano and at age seven, he performed with his church choir. When he was ten, his parents divorced. At the age of 12, Stephens attended North High School, from which he graduated four years later. He graduated salutatorian. He was student body president of Springfield North High School his senior year. According to Stephens, he was offered scholarships to Harvard University, Georgetown University and Morehouse College. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied English with an emphasis on African American literature. While in college, he helmed Counterparts, a co-ed jazz and pop a cappella group as president (1997–1998) and musical director (1998–1999). Stephens' lead vocals on the group's recording of Joan Osborne's "One of Us" received critical acclaim landing the song on the track list of the 1998 Best of Collegiate a Cappella compilation CD. Stephens was also a member of the prestigious Sphinx Senior Society while an undergraduate at Penn. While in college, Stephens was introduced to Lauryn Hill by a friend. Hill hired him to play piano on "Everything Is Everything", a song from her album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. During this period, Stephens took time to hold a number of shows around Philadelphia, eventually expanding his audience base to New York, Boston, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. He finished college in 1999, and thereafter began producing, writing, and recording his own music. He released two albums independently; his self-titled demo (2000) and Live at Jimmy's Uptown (2001), which he sold at his shows. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Stephens began working as a management consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. During this time, he began working on his demo and began sending his work to various record labels. In 2001, Devo Springsteen introduced Stephens to then up-and-coming hip-hop artist Kanye West; Stephens was hired to sing during the hooks of West's music. After signing to West's label, he chose his stage name from an idea that was given to him by poet J. Ivy, due to what he perceived as Stephens' "old-school sound". J. Ivy stated, "I heard your music and it reminds me of that music from the old school. You sound like one of the legends. As a matter of fact, that's what I'm going to call you from now on! I'm going to call you John Legend." After J. Ivy continued to call him by the new moniker "John Legend," others quickly caught on, including Kanye West, and the name stuck. In spite of John's reluctance to change his stage name from John Stephens to John Legend he eventually announced his new artist name as John Legend. Stephens' vocals can be heard on several tracks including Alicia Keys' "You Don't Know My Name", Jay-Z's "Encore", Kanye West's "Never Let Me Down", also featuring Jay-Z and J. Ivy, Dilated Peoples' "This Way" and Slum Village's "Selfish". Stephens released his debut album, Get Lifted, in December 2004. It debuted at number thirteen on the billboard 200, selling 12,000 copies in its first week. It went on to sell 540,300 copies in the United States and was certified gold by the RIAA. It has sold 850,000 copies worldwide. The album produced two singles: "Ordinary People" which debuted at 39 on the hot 100, peaking at 29 and "Used to Love U" which debuted at 45 and peaked at 30. The first single from his second album, Once Again, was "Save Room". The album was released October 24, 2006, and boasts production from Kanye West, Raphael Saadiq, and will.i.am. In an interview with MTV, he said that this album contained his favorite song that he had written to date, entitled "Again". He said he came up with the idea for the song and wrote some of it while sitting on a subway. He stated that the song was also the inspiration for the album's title. In August 2006, Stephens appeared in an episode of Sesame Street. He performed a song entitled "It Feels Good When You Sing a Song", a duet with Hoots the Owl. He also performed during the pregame show of Super Bowl XL in Detroit and the halftime show at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game. John Legend interviewed on the Red Carpet during the Toronto International Film Festival, 2008. Stephens released his third studio album, Evolver, in October 2008. Rapper Andre 3000 of OutKast is featured on the first single of the album on a song entitled "Green Light". "It's going to be a surprise for a lot of John Legend fans, because it is a lot more upbeat than John is — than people think John is," Andre insisted. "I was actually happy to hear it. This is a cool John Legend song". The next single from Evolver was confirmed as "Everybody Knows". Speaking in July 2008 to noted UK R&B writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning Blues & Soul magazine, he explained his reasons for calling the album Evolver: "Well, I think people sometimes come to expect certain things from certain artists. They expect you to kind of stay in the same place you were at when you started out. Whereas I feel I want my career to be defined by the fact that I'm NOT gonna stay in the same place, and that I'm always gonna try new things and experiment. So, as I think this album represents a manifestation of that, I came up with the title 'Evolver'." In 2009, Stephens performed in The People Speak, a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. John Legend and The Roots teamed up to record a collaborative album, Wake Up!, which was released on September 21, 2010. The first single released from the album was "Wake Up Everybody" featuring singer Melanie Fiona and rapper Common; a video for the song has been released. "Hard Times" is the second single. In February 2011, John won three Grammy Awards (one by himself and two with The Roots) at the 53rd Annual Grammy Music Awards Ceremony. Legend won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for "Shine", and he and The Roots won Grammy Awards for Best R&B Album (Wake Up!) and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for "Hang On In There". In March 2011 Legend and the Roots won two NAACP Image Awards –one for Outstanding Album (Wake Up!) and one for Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration. Summer 2011, Legend completed a 50-date tour as a guest for British soul band Sade. In the San Diego stop, Legend confirmed that he is working on his next studio album and played a new song called "Dreams". Later, via his official website, he revealed the official title of the album to be Love In the Future, and debuted part of a new track called "Caught Up". The album will be produced by Legend himself, along with Kanye West and Dave Tozer. This same production team worked on Legend's previous albums Get Lifted and Once Again. Legend was granted an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Howard University at the 144th Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 12, 2012. Legend was a judge on the ABC music show Duets along with Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Nettles and Robin Thicke. Legend's spot was originally for Lionel Richie but he had to leave the show due to a scheduling conflict. Duets debuted on Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 8/7c. He released his fourth studio album, Love in the Future, on September 3, 2013, debuting number 4 on the Billboard 200, selling 68,000 copies in its first week. The album was nominated for Best R&B album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. Legend's third single of the album named, "All Of Me" became a big success peaking at #1 on both the iTunes charts and Billboard Hot 100. The song is a ballad that was dedicated to his wife that he recently married, and has been performed at the "56th Annual Grammy Awards". In 2014, Legend paired with the rapper Common to write the song "Glory", featured in the film Selma, which chronicled the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. The song won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Legend and Common performed "Glory" at the 87th Academy Awards on February 22, 2015. Legend was featured on Meghan Trainor's debut studio album on track 6 "Like I'm Gonna Lose You." On February 1, 2015, he sang "America the Beautiful" in the opening ceremony of Super Bowl XLIX. He provided guest vocals on Kelly Clarkson's song "Run Run Run" for her album Piece by Piece (Kelly Clarkson album) . He also co-wrote and provided vocals for French DJ David Guetta's song "Listen", as part of the album of the same name. John Legend released his new album Darkness and Light, with first single "Love Me Now," on December 2, 2016 with songs featuring Chance the Rapper and Miguel. For the 2017 film Beauty and the Beast, Legend and Ariana Grande performed a duet on the title track, a remake of the 1991 original version sung by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson. On December 19, 2017, NBC announced that Legend had been cast in the title role in the live concert production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Marcy Avenue Armory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The production was broadcast live on NBC television on April 1, 2018 (the date of Easter Sunday that year in Western Christianity). On May 8, 2018, Google choose John Legend as one of the six new Google Assistant voices. Legend was one of the only celebrities to appear and speak out in the Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly. The six-part docuseries details sex abuse allegations spread over four decades against acclaimed R&B singer R. Kelly. It highlights women who claim that the singer and record producer for decades used his power and influence to sexually and physically abuse women and underage girls. Legend lambasted R. Kelly during his interview in the final episode of the series, asserting that "R. Kelly has brought so much pain to so many people. Time's up for R. Kelly." Despite countless public allegations and controversies concerning Kelly, Legend stands as the only major recording artist willing to come forward and speak against him in the documentary. In response to fans who labeled him as "brave" for his actions, Legend stated the following on Twitter ahead of the program's debut: "To everyone telling me how courageous I am for appearing in the doc, it didn't feel risky at all. I believe these women and don't give a f**k about protecting a serial child rapist. Easy decision." Executive producer Dream Hampton revealed that it was "incredibly difficult" to get men and women who had artistically collaborated with Kelly to come forward, including those who had criticized him. During an interview with Detroit Free Press she said, "We asked Lady Gaga. We asked Erykah Badu. We asked Céline Dion. We asked Jay-Z. We asked Dave Chappelle. [They're] people who have been critical of him. That makes John Legend even more of a hero for me." On May 21, 2019, Legend was the winning coach on The Voice and won the competition with his artist Maelyn Jarmon. In November 2019, Legend was named People's Sexiest Man Alive. Legend was working on a seventh album. On May 13, 2020, he announced the album would be titled Bigger Love. It was released on June 19. On May 28, 2020, Legend received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music. Legend is featured on Carrie Underwood's Christmas album, My Gift. Legend wrote his featured track entitled "Hallelujah". Happy birthday once again, John Legend! Today is his 42nd birthday!

12/30/2020

On this day in 1816, the American Colonization Society was founded. The American Colonization Society (in full, The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America) was the primary vehicle to support the return of free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa. It helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22 as a place for freedmen. Among its founders were Charles Fenton Mercer, Henry Clay, John Randolph, and Richard Bland Lee. Paul Cuffee, a wealthy mixed-race New England shipowner and activist, was an early advocate of settling freed blacks in Africa. He gained support from black leaders and members of the US Congress for an emigration plan. In 1811 and 1815–16, he financed and captained successful voyages to British-ruled Sierra Leone, where he helped African-American immigrants get established. Although Cuffee died in 1817, his efforts may have "set the tone" for the American Colonization Society (ACS) to initiate further settlements. The ACS was a coalition made up mostly of evangelicals and Quakers who supported abolition, and Chesapeake slaveholders who understood that unfree labor did not constitute the economic future of the nation. They found common ground in support of so-called "repatriation". They believed blacks would face better chances for full lives in Africa than in the U.S. The slaveholders opposed state or federally mandated abolition, but saw repatriation as a way to remove free blacks and avoid slave rebellions. From 1821, thousands of free black Americans moved to Liberia from the United States. Over twenty years, the colony continued to grow and establish economic stability. In 1847, the legislature of Liberia declared the nation an independent state. Critics have said the ACS was a racist society, while others point to its benevolent origins and later takeover by men with visions of an American empire in Africa. The Society closely controlled the development of Liberia until its declaration of independence. By 1867, the ACS had assisted in the movement of more than 13,000 Americans to Liberia. From 1825 to 1919, it published a journal, the African Repository and Colonial Journal. After that, the society had essentially ended, but did not formally dissolve until 1964, when it transferred its papers to the Library of Congress.

Let's take the time out to wish legendary actor Denzel Washington a happy birthday today! Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (...
12/30/2020

Let's take the time out to wish legendary actor Denzel Washington a happy birthday today! Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. (born 12/28/1954) was born in Mount Vernon, near New York City. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem. His father, Reverend Denzel Hayes Washington, Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, served as an ordained Pentecostal minister, and also worked for the Water Department and at a local department store, S. Klein. Washington attended grammar school at Pennington-Grimes Elementary School in Mount Vernon, until 1968. When he was 14, his parents broke up, and his mother sent him to a private preparatory school, Oakland Military Academy, in New Windsor, New York. "That decision changed my life," Washington later said, "because I wouldn't have survived in the direction I was going. The guys I was hanging out with at the time, my running buddies, have now done maybe 40 years combined in the penitentiary. They were nice guys, but the streets got them." After Oakland, Washington next attended Mainland High School, a public high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1970 to 1971. Washington was interested in attending Texas Tech University: "I grew up in the Boys Club in Mount Vernon, and we were the Red Raiders. So when I was in high school, I wanted to go to Texas Tech in Lubbock just because they were called the Red Raiders and their uniforms looked like ours." Washington attended Texas College, and earned a B.A. in Drama and Journalism from Fordham University in 1977. At Fordham he played collegiate basketball as a guard under coach P. J. Carlesimo. After a period of indecision on which major to study and dropping out of school for a semester, Washington worked as creative arts director at an overnight summer camp, Camp Sloane YMCA in Lakeville, Connecticut. He participated in a staff talent show for the campers and a colleague suggested he try acting. Returning to Fordham that fall with a renewed purpose and focus, he enrolled at the Lincoln Center campus to study acting and was given the title roles in both Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones and Shakespeare's Othello. Upon graduation he attended graduate school at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where he stayed for one year before returning to New York to begin a professional acting career. Washington spent the summer of 1976 in St. Mary's City, Maryland, in summer stock theater performing Wings of the Morning, the Maryland State play, which was rewritten for him by incorporating an African-American character/narrator. [citation needed] He also filmed a series of commercials in the Fruit of the Loom ensemble, as Grapes. Shortly after graduating from Fordham, Washington made his professional acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma, and his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 film Carbon Copy. Washington shared a 1982 Distinguished Ensemble Performance Obie Award for playing Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production A Soldier's Play which premiered November 20, 1981. A major career break came when he starred as Dr. Phillip Chandler in the television hospital drama St. Elsewhere which ran from 1982 to 1988 on NBC. He was one of only a few African American actors to appear on the series for its entire six-year run. Washington also appeared in several television, motion picture, and stage roles such as the films A Soldier's Story (1984), Hard Lessons (1986) and Power (1986). In 1987 Washington starred as South African anti-apartheid political activist Steven Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 1989 Washington won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing a defiant self-possessed ex-slave soldier in the film Glory. Also that year he appeared in the film The Mighty Quinn, and as the conflicted and disillusioned Reuben James, a British soldier who, despite a distinguished military career, returns to a civilian life where racism and inner city life leads to vigilantism and violence in For Queen and Country. In 1991, Washington starred as Bleek Gilliam in the Spike Lee film Mo' Better Blues. In 1992, he starred as Demetrius Williams in the romantic drama Mississippi Masala. Washington was reunited with Lee to play one of his most critically acclaimed roles as the title character of 1992's Malcolm X. His performance as the black nationalist leader earned him another nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The next year he played the lawyer of a gay man with AIDS in the 1993 film Philadelphia. During the early and mid-1990s, Washington starred in several successful thrillers, including The Pelican Brief and Crimson Tide, as well as in the comedy Much Ado About Nothing. 1996, he played a US Army officer, despondent about a deadly mistake he made, investigates a female chopper commander's worthiness for the Medal of Honor in Courage Under Fire with Meg Ryan. Also in 1996, alongside Whitney Houston in the romantic drama The Preacher's Wife. In 1998, Washington starred in Spike Lee's film He Got Game. Washington played a father serving a six-year prison term who is propositioned by the warden to a temporary parole on the terms that he must convince his top-ranked high-school basketball player son (Ray Allen) into signing with the governor's alma mater, Big State. The film also marked the third time that Spike Lee and Washington worked on a film together. In 1999, Washington starred in The Hurricane, a film about boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter whose conviction for triple murder was overturned after he had spent almost 20 years in prison. A former reporter who was angry at seeing the film portray Carter as innocent despite the overturned conviction began a campaign to pressure Academy Award voters not to award the film Oscars. Washington did receive a Golden Globe Award in 2000 and a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for the role. He also presented the Arthur Ashe ESPY Award to Loretta Claiborne for her courage and appeared as himself in the end of The Loretta Claiborne Story film. In 2000, Washington appeared in the Disney film Remember the Titans which grossed over $100 million at the United States box office. When Washington won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Movie in 2000, as he noted: "No African-American has won best actor in the Golden Globes since Sidney Poitier, until I did". He was the first Black actor to win the award in 36 years. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor in his next film, the 2001 cop thriller Training Day as Detective Alonzo Harris, a rogue and evil Los Angeles cop with questionable law-enforcement tactics. Washington was the second African-American performer to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, the first being Sidney Poitier who happened to receive an Honorary Academy Award the same night that Washington won. Washington holds the record (six so far) for most Oscar nominations and most wins (two so far) by an actor or actress of African descent. After appearing in 2002's box office success, the health care-themed John Q., Washington directed his first film, a well-reviewed drama called Antwone Fisher, in which he also co-starred. Between 2003 and 2004, Washington appeared in a series of thrillers that performed generally well at the box office, including Out of Time, Man on Fire, and The Manchurian Candidate. In 2006, he starred in Inside Man, a Spike Lee-directed bank heist thriller co-starring Jodie Foster and Clive Owen, and Déjà Vu released in November 2006. In 2006, Denzel worked alongside multi-talented Irish off-rock band The Script on their new project combining music and Hollywood. The hybrid of genres was critically acclaimed but didn't receive much mainstream attention due to a legal conflicts between the Script's record label and Denzel's studio commitments. In 2007, he co-starred with Russell Crowe, for the second time after Virtuosity in 1995, in American Gangster. Washington directed and starred in the drama The Great Debaters with Forest Whitaker. Washington next appeared in the 2009 film The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, directed by Tony Scott as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber opposite John Travolta. Washington was last seen onstage in the summer of 1990 in the title role of the Public Theater's production of Shakespeare's Richard III and in 2005, after a 15-year hiatus, he appeared onstage again in another Shakespeare play as Marcus Brutus in Julius Caesar on Broadway. The production's limited run was a consistent sell-out averaging over 100% attendance capacity nightly despite receiving mixed reviews. Washington is planning a leading role in the classic play A Raisin in the Sun. In 2010, Washington starred in The Book of Eli, a post-Apocalyptic drama set in the near future. Also in 2010, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable, about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying a dangerous cargo. The film was directed by Tony Scott, and was the fifth and final collaboration between the two, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009). On June 13, 2010, Washington won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role in the play Fences. In 2012, Washington starred in Flight, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House. In preparation for his role in Safe House, Washington subjected himself to a torture session that included waterboarding. In 2013, Washington started in 2 Guns, along side Mark Walberg. In 2014 he starred in The Equalizer, an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series of same name starring Edward Woodward. In 2016, Washington starred as one of the leads in the remake of 1960 western film of the same name, The Magnificent Seven, alongside Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, and Peter Sarsgaard. Principal photography began on May 18, 2015, in the north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The film premiered on September 8, 2016 at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States in conventional and IMAX theatres on September 23, 2016. In The Magnificent Seven, Washington plays Sam Chisolm ("the Bounty Hunter"), a duly sworn warrant officer from Wichita, Kansas who goes after bad guys. Washington's character was renamed from Chris Adams (played by Yul Brynner in the original film) to Sam Chisolm. It is Washington's first Western film. Washington did not watch Western films growing up since it was the end of the Western era in the movies. Moreover, he and his siblings were barred from going to the cinema since his father was a minister in a church. They instead grew up watching biblical films like King of Kings and The Ten Commandments. However, he has admitted seeing portions of Rawhide and Bonanza shows. He did not watch the original film in preparation for this but has watched Seven Samurai. Fuqua said that Washington, whom he has twice collaborated with, was his first choice to be cast irrespective of which role. The producers were skeptical whether he would take the job since it was a Western film. Fuqua then flew to New York City to negotiate with Washington, who accepted the offer. In 2016, Washington directed the film Fences, co-starring Viola Davis and based on Wilson's play of the same name, with a script by Wilson. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Washington plays a former Negro league baseball player working as a waste collector who struggles to provide for his family and come to terms with the events of his life. The film was released on December 16, 2016, by Paramount Pictures. For his performance, Washington was nominated in the Best Actor category for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award. The film was nominated for three other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won Davis her first Oscar, in the Best Supporting Actress category. In 2017, Washington starred in the legal drama film Roman J. Israel, Esq.. While the film received mixed reviews, his performance was praised by critics and led to nominations for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award, Washington's ninth Oscar nomination overall, and his sixth for Best Actor. Happy birthday once again, Denzel Washington! Today is his 66th birthday!

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This guy had a great life and thanks for letting us know you love us man!!!!?
Check me out!
I think that I would believe more things said on these type of websites like black live matter. It seems as though it has 2 be a publicity stunt and not help the communities. Show how u r taking away homelessness and show how to not be racial. 1 wrong doesn't fix another. I'm malato and I see it. The excuses. If a person is really mad they would do what is needed. Just like when u c a loved 1 u really love and they get hurt and u do anything 2 get them back. Then there is this false reality that this is any bodies land but the native americans. It has been blown out of perapectiv we because they would of continued to fight 2 the death and that became apparent and they knew they would never really b safe unless it became agreeable. The history is a lie. Just like the world being flat. When they knew it was round they wanted that a secret too.