Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 7...

Would you ever take your butt to the freezing cold Arctic and explorer stuff? I think not. At least I wouldn't. That place is practically desolate, only ice (that's slowly melting), polar bears, and fish. That definitely ain't easy livin' there!

But this guy...

Matthew Alexander Henson. He grew up in the M (Maryland) in the D[M]V. When he was a teenager he had a job as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. For years he was able to travel the world and learn everything there is to learn about seamanship. However, he experienced a lot of racism and prejudice during his time on the ship and left once he turned 18. He was offered a job as a servant on an expedition to Nicaragua, during the expedition his skills and talents really shined and he was later asked to be apart of an expedition that would eventually land him in the North Pole. After two decades Henson and a group of people known as the Innuit reached the North Pole on April 7, 1909. Although, it was years before he received and credit for leading such a dangerous expedition, he eventually did, receiving a memorial in honor of the great explorer at the Maryland State House. Henson overcame adversity and showed complete perseverance. Y'all can read more about him here.

Peace & Love
-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 6...

Everybody and their mama knows her...

BEYONCE!!

She is such an amazing and talented artist! She has SO many firsts its hard to keep track of. Not to mention an adorable new baby named Blue Ivy! She's also very kind. And an amazing business woman. This post is gonna be super short, I'm just gonna let you know how amazing she is, very simply. Even though she has MANY accomplishments and "Firsts" as an African American woman. However, in light of keeping it short and trying to get some more posts out since I'm such a slack blogger, that recently got a new job that I'll tell you all about later. I'll give y'all five Beyonce accomplishments/firsts facts instead.

1. She's the first African American female artist to top the 4 million mark.

2. First female to be awarded the International Artist Award at the American Music Awards.

3. First and ONLY woman to have a single and album simultaneously topping the charts in two different countries.

4. African American female artist with the most magazine covers...EVER!

5. She was also the first and ONLY African American to ever be on the cover of Forbes Magazine.

If y'all want to see the HUGE list of her accomplishments go here.

Peace & Love
-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 5...

Y'all heard of the movie Roots right?

Stupid question. I'm sure you have... Who hasn't?

But alot of people forget about the actual author of the monumental book, that was later made into a movie that changed the WORLD.

Alex Haley...

Mr. Haley is the genius behind the cultural phenomonom!

Even though that movie is like A WEEK LONG! Well they call it a mini-series, I call it a movie. Its soo worth it to watch it, even a little bit of it.

Not many people know that the story is an adaptation of the history of his ancestors. This man deserves so much more credit than he receives, because he really changed alot of people, especially the people of the 1970s who still had a very racist mentality. He made people open their eyes and realize what our ancestors went through, and how much they suffered, and after being dragged from our homeland, beaten, raped, or maybe even killed, then forced to work in unbearable conditions and not even get decent food, clothes OR an education. I wasn't around when the movie first came out, but my mama says that it made alot of white people feel bad, she said that for a few weeks random people would come up to her and my aunts and uncles and apologize. Weird right? If you want to know more about Haley just go here, and if you want to know more about the story/movie Roots go here.

Peace & Love
-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 4...

Todays awfully late post is on this little lady here....

Her name is Linda Brown, and she was the first African American child to attempt to desegregate schools in Kansas with the help of the NAACP and her family was one of thirteen families to initiate the infamous lawsuit Brown vs. Board of Education, which was named after her family since they were the first family to decide to take legal action. Linda Brown was a third grader from Topeka, Kansas that wanted a better education at a better school, with better books, and better classrooms. She had to travel about 2 miles just to go to her bus stop, then go to an all Black school, which meant she had to wake up really early everyday. However, there was an all White just a few blocks away, but she wasn't allowed to go there because of the color of her skin, how rude is that! The NAACP took the case to the United States Supreme Court in the fall of 1951 and 3 years later it ended victoriously. All kids, white and black could sit in a classroom together with the same books and share a quality education. And education I wish alot of young kids would appreciate now-a-days. Despite being ridiculed, talked down to, and humiliated and called names everyday, Linda stuck with it, and she was brave and it paid off in the end. You can read a little more about her here.

I'll be shooting out a few more of these, so I might post these consecutively or wait a hour or two between each, I don't want to overload y'all!

Peace & Love

-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 3...

This Jamaican Guy.

And boy do I LOVE Jamaican food.

Curry Chicken. Jerk Chicken. Roti Bread. Coco Bread. Rice & Peas. Chicken Patties. Coconut Soda.... YUM! (I'm drooling on my laptop right now...OK, slight exaggeration, but you get the idea!)

Anyways getting back on topic, his name is Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr.

Garvey was a member of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements.He was apart of the Back-to-Africa movement that helped return people of African decent back to their native and ancestral lands. Garvey founded the UNIA, Universal Negro Improvement Association. He inspired other to want to know and get in touch with their African roots. He was even sentenced to 5 years in prison for some fraud stuff. Garvey received alot of backlash and negativity because some people thought that his actions were a little to extreme. I don't want to give you all a major history lesson, but you can read more about him here. I'll also put in a picture of the Marcus Garvey wax figure from the Great Black Wax Museum in Baltimore, Maryland that I went to during my Washington, DC vacation which you can read about here.

This is the wax version of Marcus Garvey from the museum in Baltimore. It looks a little creepy, I know. That whole museum was a little creepy, if you were there alone, you might pee your pants...I'm just sayin'!

I'm happy I'm getting this up before "tomorrow" we just came back from dinner at Applebee's and OMG! There were so many empty tables, but we waited like 20 minutes...why? No idea! They lost a ton of points for that, and they were slow, and the server we had was new, so...yeah, you know how that is. Besides that I did the 2 for $20 with my sister and we shared onion rings and I had the three-cheese chicken penne pasta and it was delish! I'm still stuffed, but hey! Pasta does that to ya! L0l!

Quick.

This will be super quick! I just walked in the house, and I'm about to leave again in like 2 minutes, they're downstairs screaming my name now. So the Black History Post might be late. Sorry! But I'll get it up as soon as I get back home, I just need to write a little more and tweak it just a hair! Love y'all!

Peace & Love

-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 2...

Broadway.

I am a Musical WHORE! OK maybe that's a little extreme, but I love musicals.

Rent. West Side Story. Grease (I secretly always wanted to be a Pink Lady). The Wiz. Mary Poppins.
Annie (My sisters favorite, she sings EVERY song obnoxiously!). Fiddler on the Roof. Dream Girls....

And so much more. When I FINALLY make it to New York...Broadway will be my first stop!

So on to the actual HISTORY part of this blog challenge.

This guy.



James Hubert Blake or Eubie Blake

He was the first African American to compose and produce a Broadway musical that was written AND directed by African Americans. And lets face it, a good musical, especially on Broadway is absolutely nothing without an amazing composition. The musical Shuffle Along in 1921 was very popular among both black & white people. His ragtime music was a hit. I'm sure if I was actually in that era I would have enjoyed it as well, but I enjoy almost ALL musicals...hey don't judge me! But I won't sit here and give you a complete bio, you can read it all here yourselves. Its 9 something PM, when I realized "Oh My Lanta! I didn't post and it'll be 12 AM soon!" I hurried to my laptop, did a quick little research and got steadily distracted with my nieces fighting each other ninja style(as always) but I was determined to pump this post out before February 3rd. But you all know I am the queen of procrastination, and for this I can only apologize and continue to be myself! L0l! This was the first time I got on my computer all day actually. Hmmm, wonder who I'll write about tomorrow. Sometimes, I wish I was working on Western Time, that would save me 3 lovely hours! But hey! Wouldn't change these lovely Southern roots for the world, it was just a simple thought. Well, now I'm rambling, so....yeah...bye!

Peace & Love
-Tiffani

Black History Month Blog Challenge: Day 1...

The first GREAT African American is...

Don Cornelius

I thought he would be very fitting for the first day of Black History Month, seeing how he passed away today. This was extremely sad, and incredibly shocking to me, especially me and my mama (I can use bad grammar all I want) we were just talking about him and his show yesterday. For those of you that don't know Don Cornelius was the creator, producer, host and most importantly OWNER of the hit musical variety & popular dance show Soul Train! The show first aired in 1971. My mama always talks about how her and her brothers and sisters would watch Soul Train for the latest fashion and dance moves, then imitate it and the next party or dance. She also told me that my uncle had a MASSIVE fro' back in the day! Haha! In the 70s African Americans never really owned any television programs, however Don did. Many shows tried to compete with his (ex. American Bandstand) but couldn't.  He had many legendary performers from The Jackson Five, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, to Diana Ross. He had white performers as well, such as David Bowie and Elton John(Benny & The Jets is one of my FAVE songs!) I mean, c'mon Soul Train is iconic, even it that wasn't your era. He was a pioneer for African Americans to own televisions shows and for people like Oprah to have their own cable television network. So many famous people have come out of Soul Train, just being dancers. Rosie Perez, the group Shalamar, Rerun, and choreographer to the stars Laurie Ann Gibson. However not famous, the small Asian woman with hair down to her butt, was very iconic. I still remember watching her on old rerun episodes. Because of Don Cornelius African American weddings, birthday parties, and family reunions are now SO much more fun when your dancing down a Soul Train line doing the bump with your favorite cousin that you only get to see once a year. Another great African American pioneer paving the way. Rest in Peace Mr. Don Cornelius! 

Yay! Got it posted before the 1st is over! And I've already started drafting the post for tomorrow *pats self on back*

I usually sign out of my posts "Peace & Love" but seeing the topic, I thought THIS would be more fitting:

Love, Peace...and Souuuuuuuuul!!

-Tiffani

The Start of a New Month!

Today marks the first day of Black History Month! I hope its a prosperous month, no violence, no ignorance, and nothing that makes the African American race look bad. I pray that people stop falling victim to all the NEGATIVE stereotypes. Good for me, I've always been a good girl. However, some people are products of their environment. But I'm a country girl, turned suburban girl! Now that I live in North Carolina with my sister, I see that its my job to teach my nieces a little about African American History. I took the class in high school, and its also my minor. I just sort of love History in general. I want them to know all the amazing contributions African American made to the world. Not just the basics that everybody knows like Martin Luther King Jr. or Harriet Tubman. Although their contributions were great, its a WHOLE lot more, that not really talked about that much. I think everyday I'll post a little bio & history and a not-so-well-know African American that has done something great. It'll be a great challenge for me, since it seems that I constantly takes the hiatuses! L0l! But I'm up for the challenge *brave girl face & pose*

I'll get started on the first "official" entry right after I post this one! I'm already gonna give you guys 29 GUARANTEED posts! :) Don't I feel accomplished! L0l! It's all for y'all!

Peace & Love

-Tiffani!