Black History Month - February 22, 2017

We salute African Americans who've made and continue to make American history. To the artists, entrepreneur, business moguls, doctors and educators from the canvas to the stage. The poets, the authors, the inventors, innovators and trailblazers, we honor and remember them all, 365.

Happy Black History Month! According to Blackfacts.com it was on this day in black history.....

Legendary rap group from West Philadelphia, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince made history on this day. The two rap pioneers received the first rap Grammy Award, for Best Rap Performance, in 1989 for the single "Parents Just Don't Understand."

Ironically, that wasn't their biggest hit. The groups most successful single was "Summertime."

Basketball great, Julius Winfield Erving, better known as Dr. J was born on this day in Roosevelt, NY. He turns 49.

1911 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, better known as the "Bronze Muse" died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper wrote more than a dozen books, including 'Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects'(1854); 'Moses, a Story of the Nile'(1869);and 'Sketches of Southern Life'(1872).

Harper was the most famous female poet of her day and the most famous African-American poet of the 19th century. Also a well-known orator, she spoke frequently in public promoting equal rights for women and African-Americans. She worker for the Underground Railroad, and in 1896 she helped establish the National Association of Colored Women.

Frazier Baker was the first African American appointed postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina in 1897. Whites in the city were angry that Baker was given the position and launched a hate and intimidation campaign to force him to leave his post. They set Baker's home (which also served as the post office) on fire at 1 a.m. while he, his wife and six children were sleeping.

When Baker and his family tried to escape, they were met with gunfire. A bullet struck his two year old daughter, killing her while still in her mother's arms. The same bullet broke his wife's arm. When Baker opened the front door he was cut down in a hail of bullets and killed. Bakers wife and remaining four children survived the attack after running across the street to hide in the woods. Only two of them escaped without being wounded. Everyone else was hit by the gunfire. They were all denied medical attention, but survived anyway. Though Baker and his two year daughter were killed, the rest of his family survived.

The murders galvanized the anti-lynching movement to seek federal intervention. In April 1898, the Cleveland Gazette, a black newspaper, reported the horrific crime as follows:

Lake City, South Carolina—George Washington’s birthday was ushered in in this section on Tuesday morning, at 1 o’clock with the most revolting crime ever perpetrated . . . Postmaster Baker, an Afro-American of this little town, and his family at the time stated above were burned out of their home, the postmaster and a babe in arms killed, his wife and three daughters shot and maimed for life, and his son wounded.
Mr. Baker was appointed postmaster three months ago. Lake City is a town of 500 inhabitants, and the Afro-American population in the vicinity is large. There was the usual prejudiced protest at his appointment. Three months ago as the postmaster was leaving the office at night in company with several men of our class, he was fired on from ambush. Since then he moved his family into a house in which he also established the post office.
Last week Tuesday night a body of scoundrels (white) who were concealed behind buildings and fences in the neighborhood, riddled the building with shot and rifle bullets. They shot high and no one was hurt. It was simply an effort to intimidate him. A short time before Senators Tillman and McLauren and Congressman Horton had asked the postmaster general to remove Mr. Baker because of his color and the request had been refused. The refusal was wired here. Mr. Baker did not remove his family and gave no evidence of being frightened. Being a government official he felt confident of protection from Washington.
At 1 o’clock Tuesday morning a torch was applied to the post office and house. Back, just within the line of light, were over a hundred white brutes—murderers—armed with pistols and shotguns. By the time the fire aroused the sleeping family, consisting of the postmaster, his wife, four daughters, a son and an infant at the breast, the crowd began firing into the building. A hundred bullet holes were made through the thin boarding and many found lodgment in members of the family within.
The postmaster was the first to reach the door and he fell dead just within the threshold, being shot in several places. The mother had the baby in her arms and reached the door over her husband’s body, when a bullet crashed through its skull, and it fell to the floor. She was shot in several places. Two of the girls had their arms broken close to the shoulders and will probably lose them. Another of the girls is fatally wounded. The boy was also shot.
Only two of the seven occupants of the house escaped with slight injuries. The bodies of Mr. Baker and the infant were cremated in the building. All mail matter was destroyed. A coroner’s jury was impaneled Tuesday evening. It visited the charred remains and adjourned until today. Nothing will be done to apprehend the infernal brutes and murderers. The whelps that shot almost to death some time ago Isaac H. Loftin, the Afro-American postmaster of Hogansville, Ga, are still at liberty—walking the streets of that town, with more freedom than the man they all but murdered. No effort to arrest and punish them has ever been or ever will be made by local, state or federal authorities. The same will be true in this case. This is a great country, a great government! Not even Spain respects it.

For even more Black facts, click here. Other sources on information found at Blackinventor.com, Wikipedia.com, and Biography.com