Today’s Black Fact: Venus and Serena Williams These ladies are a dynamic duo! Ranked in the top five in the world for the past two years, the prodigal Williams sisters have stunned the world. The key to their game is fast serves and strong returns that exhaust their opponents on the court. Still in their early 20’s, speculation abounds as to which of the sisters will ultimately prove to be the most successful player in the long-term. Nobody can question their talent on the court. They use speed and agility to overpower their opponents and have an in-your-face style of playing. Venus also has a 100-mile-plus serve that few can counter. She holds the record for the fastest serve ever recorded in history by a female–127.4 mph. Not since Althea Gibson won Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958 had an African-American woman won a Grand Slam tournament. In 1999, Serena won…
Today’s Black Fact: Arthur Ashe Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. was a professional tennis player, born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. During his career, he won three Grand Slam titles, putting him among the best ever from the United States. Ashe, an African American, was the first black player ever selected to the United States Davis Cup team and the only black man to ever win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, and Australian Open. He is also remembered for his efforts to further social causes. Ashe, the first African-American male to win a Grand Slam event, was an active civil rights supporter. He was a member of a delegation of 31 prominent African-Americans who visited South Africa to observe political change in the country as it approached racial integration. He was arrested on January 11, 1985, for protesting outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. during an…
Today’s Black Fact: Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court’s 96th justice and its first African-American justice. Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best remembered for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education. He argued more cases before the United States Supreme Court than anyone else in history. He served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after being appointed by President John F. Kennedy and then served as the Solicitor General after being appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. President Johnson nominated him to the United States Supreme Court in 1967. He won his first major civil rights case, Murray v. Pearson, 169 Md. 478 (1936). This was the…
Today’s Black Fact: Barbara Jordan Barbara Charline Jordan was an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. She received extensive support from former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who helped her secure a position on the House Judiciary Committee. In 1974, she made an influential, televised speech before the House Judiciary Committee supporting the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Johnson’s successor as President. In 1976, Jordan, mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter of Georgia, became instead the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech in New York that summer was ranked 5th in “Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th…
Today’s Black Fact: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he expanded American values to include the vision of a color blind society, and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. In 1964, King became the youngest…
Today’s Black Fact: Condoleezza Rice: American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66thUnited States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush. Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state, as well as the second African American (after Colin Powell), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright). Rice was President Bush’s National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that position. Rice began to learn French, music, figure skating and ballet at the age of three. At the age of fifteen, she began piano classes with the goal of becoming a concert pianist. While Rice ultimately did not become a professional pianist, she still practices often and plays with a chamber music group. She accompanied cellist Yo-Yo Ma playing Brahms’s Violin Sonata in D Minor at Constitution Hall in April 2002…
Today’s Black Fact: Hiram Rhodes Revels Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. He raised two black regiments during the Civil War and fought at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi. The Mississippi state legislature sent him to the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction where he became an outspoken opponent of racial segregation. Although Revels served in the Senate for just a year, he broke new ground for African Americans in Congress.
Today’s Black Fact: María de la Soledad Teresa O’brien Soledad O’Brien anchored a CNN special, Black in America, in July 2007. The program documented the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families forty years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. In the first installment, Soledad O’Brien investigated how James Earl Ray, an armed robber and escaped convict, had already spent a year on the run just a month before his path collided with Dr. King in Memphis, Tennessee. In “The Black Woman & Family,” O’Brien explored the varied experiences of black women and families and investigated the disturbing statistics of single parenthood, racial disparities between students and the devastating toll of HIV/AIDS. In April 2008, she became the first recipient of the Soledad O’Brien Freedom’s Voice Award, an award created in her name by Morehouse School of Medicine. “The award was created to…