Category Archives: Civil Rights Movement

Rev. Al Sampson: A Voice for Action

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Date:
Sun, 1938-11-27

Albert “Al” Sampson was born on this date in 1938. He is an African-American activist and minister.

Born in Everett, Massachusetts, he graduated from Everett High School in 1956, where he won the high school oratorical contest his senior year. While attending Shaw University, he was called to the ministry and received his B.A. in 1963. During that time, Sampson was president of the Shaw student body and the campus, city, and state chapters of the NAACP. He was arrested during Raleigh’s student sit-ins and was selected by his fellow students to introduce the first public accommodations bill in North Carolina history.

He became involved with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1962 and served as campaign manager for Leroy Johnson, Georgia’s first Black state senator. Sampson was ordained by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1966. He earned his master’s degree in cultural studies from Governors State University in 1973 and his master’s of divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in 1977. He also worked with the Reverend James Bevel to help organize Resurrection City for King’s Poor People’s Campaign.

He was Martin Luther King’s National Housing Director, traveling to Europe to look at Industrial Housing Systems. He brought the first model affordable home to Chicago’s West Side in a joint venture with the Amish Community of Nappannee, Indiana.

Reverend Sampson became pastor of Fernwood United Methodist Church in Chicago in 1975, where he continues today. He played an important role in the campaign of Mayor Harold Washington as a member of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment.

Sampson is president of the National Black Farmers Harvest and Business Trade Cooperative and serves on numerous boards and organizations that stress the economic development of the Black community. Sampson is a former board member of the largest Black-owned bank in America, and held the position of International Vice-President for Training Allied Workers International Union (the only Black independent union recognized by the US Labor Department).

He is listed in “Who’s Who Among Black Americans” (1989-1995) and was one of the spokespersons for the first Million Man March in 1995. He served as a scholar- consultant for the Black Heritage Bible and is currently the president of the Metropolitan Council of Black Churches in Chicago.

Reference: Reverend Al Sampson

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June 17th New York City NAACP is holding a silent march

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Last year in New York City, police stopped and interrogated black men and boys between the ages 14 and 24 a total of 168,126 times.
The total population of black men and boys aged 14 through 24 in New York City is 158,406.
That means the amount of times police stopped black men and boys in this age group exceeds the total number living in the city.
In fact, last year, more than 85% of the 685,000 people stopped by the NYPD were African American or Latino, most of them children and young adults. This is up from less than 100,000 stops a decade ago. Then, like now, 90% of those stopped are completely innocent.
All this adds up to nothing less than the most aggressive street-level racial profiling program in the country.
On June 17th, we’re demanding an end to this alarming and abusive practice. The NAACP is holding a silent march in New York City to call for an end to New York’s notorious “stop and frisk” program. Our marchers won’t be speaking, so I need you to write the messages that will serve as their voices during the march.
Help the NAACP end the abuse of stop and frisk. Create a message for the banners, signs, and posters carried by thousands through the streets of New York on June 17th:

http://action.naacp.org/silent-march-message

In contrast to previous demonstrations, we will march in silence as an illustration of both the tragedy and serious threat that stop and frisk and other forms of racial profiling present to our society. The silent march was first used in 1917 by the NAACP – then just eight years old – to draw attention to race riots that tore through communities in East St. Louis, Illinois, and build national opposition to lynching.
Now, 95 years later, we will use this powerful protest to shine a light on the great injustice of stop and frisk and begin rebuilding national opposition to racial profiling. The march will be the first step in a nationwide federal and state-level campaign to address the problem of racial profiling.
Because we will remain silent as we march, your words will be especially important.
If you’re outraged that police, security guards and even community watch volunteers in so many neighborhoods continue to treat young people of color differently, or if you’re concerned for your children, or your neighbors’ and friends’ children, then channel these emotions into a message of 15 words or less and share it with us today. We will pick five messages to print for the march.
Be the voice of the silent marchers on June 17th. Submit your message for our protest signs today:
http://action.naacp.org/silent-march-message
Thank you,
Ben
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President & CEO
NAACP

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The Loving Family

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Photo Booth

The view from The New Yorker’s photo department.

In 1950, a young man from Central Point, Virginia, went seven miles down the road to hear some music. Seven brothers named the Jeters were on that night, playing bluegrass in a farmhouse. The young man had come for the music, but couldn’t help noticing a young woman in the audience. The man, Richard Loving, was white; the woman, Mildred Jeter, was black and Cherokee. Seventeen years later, as a result of their meeting, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, along with anti-miscegenation laws in fifteen other states, ending the legal prohibitions against interracial marriage.

Patricia Stephens Due Dies

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The New York Times

“Unsung Foot Soldiers.”

Patricia Stephens Due, whose belief that, as she put it, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things” propelled her to leadership in the civil rights movement — but at a price, including 49 days in a stark Florida jail — died on Tuesday in Smyrna, Ga. She was 72.

Ericka Huggins, Former Black Panther Party Leader, to Speak at Gonzaga

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The Melding of Spiritual Activism and Social Justice is the title of a lecture to be given by Ericka Huggins on February 13 at 7 pm at Gonzaga University’s Jepson Wolff Auditorium. Ms Huggins is an “activist, poet, professor, and former Black Panther Party Leader and political prisoner”.

 

On This Day

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Tue, 1926-01-05

On this date, Hosea Williams was born in, 1926. He was an African-American civil rights activist.