Serendipity and Life – 44 Years.
Richard Wright was born 4 September 1908 in Roxie, Mississippi, and died 28 November 1960 in Paris, France Wright, the grandson of a slave, was born on the Rucker plantation in Adams County, Mississippi, just outside of Natchez.His family soon moved to Memphis, Tennessee. While in Memphis, his father Nathaniel, a former sharecropper, abandoned the family. His mother, a schoolteacher, had to support herself and her children. In 1949, Wright contributed to the anti-communist anthology The God That Failed; his essay had been published in the Atlantic Monthly three years earlier and was derived from the unpublished portion of Black Boy. He was invited to join the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which he rejected, correctly suspecting that it had connections with the CIA. The CIA and FBI had Wright under surveillance from 1943. Due to McCarthyism, Wright was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio executives in the 1950s, but he starred as teenager Bigger Thomas (Wright was 42) in an Argentinian film version of Native Son in 1950.
His three masterpieces Uncle Tom’s Children, Native Son, and Black Boy—are a crowning achievement for him and for American literature.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born near Stonewall, Texas, on August 27, 1908, in a small farmhouse in a poor area on the Pedernales River, often referred to as LBJ, was the thirty-sixth POTUS, serving from 1963-1969; died January 22, 1973 In conjunction with the civil rights movement,Johnson overcame southern resistance and convinced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964. Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, Johnson told an aide, “We have lost the South for a generation,” anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson’s Democratic Party. In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, that outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time. In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a “hooded society of bigots”, and warned them to “return to a decent society before it’s too late.” He turned the themes of Christian redemption to push for civil rights, thereby mobilizing support from churches North and South. He was the “favorite son” candidate of the Texas delegation at the Party’s national convention in 1956. .
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King’s father was born “Michael King”, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was initially named “Michael King, Jr.”, until the family traveled to Europe in 1934 and visited Germany. His father soon changed both of their names to Martin to honor the German Protestant Martin Luther.[2] He had an older sister, Willie Christine King (born September 11, 1927) and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King (July 30, 1930 – July 1, 1969). King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of the black sanitary public works employees, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.
On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address at Mason Temple, the World Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King’s flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.In the close of the last speech of his career, in reference to the bomb threat, King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968 while he was standing on the motel’s second floor balcony.
On the international scene, King’s legacy included influences on the Black Consciousness Movement and Civil Rights Movement in South Africa. King’s work was cited by and served as an inspiration for Albert Lutuli, another black Nobel Peace prize winner who fought for racial justice in that country.
Barack Hussein Obama II He is the first African American to be a major party’s nominee for President of the United States Obama was born on August 4 1961 Kapiolani Medical Center Honolulu, Hawaii to a Barack Obama, Sr. a Black Kenyan, born in Nyang’oma Kogelo Siaya District Kenya and Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student.They separated when he was two years old and later divorced. He was raised by his mothers parents in the USA.
His three masterpieces Uncle Tom’s Children, Native Son, and Black Boy—are a crowning achievement for him and for American literature.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born near Stonewall, Texas, on August 27, 1908, in a small farmhouse in a poor area on the Pedernales River, often referred to as LBJ, was the thirty-sixth POTUS, serving from 1963-1969; died January 22, 1973 In conjunction with the civil rights movement,Johnson overcame southern resistance and convinced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964. Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, Johnson told an aide, “We have lost the South for a generation,” anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson’s Democratic Party. In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, that outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time. In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a “hooded society of bigots”, and warned them to “return to a decent society before it’s too late.” He turned the themes of Christian redemption to push for civil rights, thereby mobilizing support from churches North and South. He was the “favorite son” candidate of the Texas delegation at the Party’s national convention in 1956. .
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King’s father was born “Michael King”, and Martin Luther King, Jr. was initially named “Michael King, Jr.”, until the family traveled to Europe in 1934 and visited Germany. His father soon changed both of their names to Martin to honor the German Protestant Martin Luther.[2] He had an older sister, Willie Christine King (born September 11, 1927) and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King (July 30, 1930 – July 1, 1969). King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of the black sanitary public works employees, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.
On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address at Mason Temple, the World Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King’s flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane.In the close of the last speech of his career, in reference to the bomb threat, King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968 while he was standing on the motel’s second floor balcony.
On the international scene, King’s legacy included influences on the Black Consciousness Movement and Civil Rights Movement in South Africa. King’s work was cited by and served as an inspiration for Albert Lutuli, another black Nobel Peace prize winner who fought for racial justice in that country.
Barack Hussein Obama II He is the first African American to be a major party’s nominee for President of the United States Obama was born on August 4 1961 Kapiolani Medical Center Honolulu, Hawaii to a Barack Obama, Sr. a Black Kenyan, born in Nyang’oma Kogelo Siaya District Kenya and Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student.They separated when he was two years old and later divorced. He was raised by his mothers parents in the USA.
