Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called “the first lady of civil rights”, and “the mother of the freedom movement.” Born February 4, 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, Parks grew up when racism and discrimination was a norm in African American cultures. She made a name for herself in civil rights circles when she refused to obey a white bus driver and move to the back of the bus, so someone white could take her seat in the front of the bus. Parks’ act of defiance became a major player in the civil rights movement and caught the attention of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

Click HERE to read Rosa Parks Bio

Below we take a look at the life of Rosa Parks through a timeline of the major events in her life…

1913 – This Rosa Parks timeline starts on February 4, 1913 when Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Alabama. Her parents were James McCauley, a carpenter and Schoolteacher Leona McCauley

1928 - She attends Booker T. Washington High School for ninth grade, but drops out when her grand mother becomes seriously ill and subsequently dies

1932 – December 18: Marries Raymond Parks, a barber, at 19.

1945 – WW2 ends and Rosa Parks receives her certificate for voting after three attempts

1946 – June 3: The U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel

Aug 10: Race riots occur in Athens, Alabama

1949 - Rosa and her husband Raymond work with Montgomery branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP’s) programs. Rosa Parks acts as secretary and later a youth leader

1955 - August: Rosa Parks meets Martin Luther King

November 25: The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in buses and all waiting rooms involved in interstate travel
December 1: Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give her seat on the bus to a white passenger. She is arrested, fingerprinted, jailed by police and fined $14.
December 5: She stands trial and is found guilty of breaking the segregation laws.
December 5: Martin Luther King becomes the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was organized due to protest against the incident involving Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott begins which will last 381 days.

1956 – January: Rosa Parks loses her job as a seamstress at Montgomery Fair

December 21: The Montgomery buses are desegregated and black passengers could legally take any seat on the city’s buses

1979 – Rosa Parks receives NAACP’s Spingarn Medal

1987 - Rosa founds the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development with long time friend Elaine Eason Steele which offers guidance to young blacks

1992 – Rosa publishes her first book, “Rosa Parks My Story”

1998 - April 21: The Rosa Parks Museum and Library is opened at her arrest site in Montgomery, Alabama

September 2: The Rosa L. Parks Learning Center is opened. Rosa is also inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame

2003 - October 29: Rosa Parks is honored with the International Institute Heritage Hall of Fame Award. She is then diagnosed with progressive dementia.

2005 – October 24: Rosa Parks dies on in her Detroit home

“I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.” – Rosa Parks

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways “Soul Train” Changed America

The 40th anniversary celebrations for “Soul Train” traced a remarkable journey for a former Chicago police officer who got his start in broadcasting when he pulled over a radio executive in a traffic stop and then had to build up his pioneering show one step at a time.

Cornelius, who became an icon defining black culture in America for decades, died at his California home Wednesday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 75.

While the South Side native and his show left Chicago decades ago for Los Angeles, his legacy has lived on here – in the “Don Cornelius Way” street sign west of downtown, in the teens and performers who boogied onstage during the early days of “Soul Train” and in the audiences who were glued to their televisions every Saturday to see the newest dance moves and styles.

To television viewers – especially those in Chicago – Cornelius was the epitome of cool. An impeccably dressed cat whose voice was as smooth as his demeanor and who rubbed elbows with the biggest stars in music and the most promising up-and-comers.

Which is why Chicago Ald. Walter Burnett says it was so much fun to see Cornelius let his guard down last year when the city gave him an honorary street sign.

“Don was just in rare form,” said Burnett, whose ward the sign is in. “He just wanted to talk and talk and talk. … He broke down because he was with his friends.”

The sign is outside the studios of WCIU-TV, where “Soul Train” got its start in 1970. It began as a local program and aired nationally from 1971 to 2006.

Cornelius came back to town last year for the sign’s unveiling and for a 40th anniversary celebration of the show. An anniversary concert featured acts such as soul singer Jerry “Iceman” Butler, the Impressions and the Chi-Lites.

Butler recalled that Cornelius seemed particularly pleased to be back home in Chicago.

“In his introduction, he talked about how much Chicago meant to him and even though he was transplanted now to California, that this would still be home and the home of `Soul Train,’” said Butler, now a Cook County Commissioner.

At the sign unveiling, Chicago was just as happy to see Cornelius, Burnett said.

“That was a wonderful day, it took people back, man, to the `Soul Train’ days,” he said. “I came in my leather jacket, people came with their Afro wigs on and their bell bottoms, people were dancing in the crowd. It was packed. … It was a beautiful thing.”

Cornelius got his start in broadcasting while working as a Chicago police officer. He pulled over Roy Wood, then news director of black radio station WVON-AM, who “was amazed at this police officer’s voice,” said Melody Spann Cooper, current president of WVON. Wood offered Cornelius a job in the newsroom, and he said yes.

Cooper said that while Cornelius was from Chicago, his influence was national.

“He was the original social network,” she said. “Before we had internet or Facebook, we all gathered around that television every Saturday to see what people were listening to, what we were dancing to.

“Don Cornelius helped shape black culture at a time coming out of the Civil Rights era, when America had not been exposed to the social side of who we were,” she said.

But “Soul Train” didn’t start out big, and Butler recalled getting a call to come over and perform on the show on the day it was to make its inaugural syndicated broadcast.

“I think Gladys Knight and the Pips were originally scheduled to come and do it and they got jammed up and couldn’t come and I was the stand-in, so I went and did it,” he said.

Though he appreciated being called, Butler suggested that it was Cornelius who was the more grateful one.

“Well, you know, this is going to sound arrogant but at the time I did `Soul Train’ I meant more to the show than he meant to me. He was dealing with a South Side perspective and I was dealing with a nationwide perspective.”

But, he said, Cornelius’ career took off as the significance of the show grew and grew.

“Over time, he became the show to be on if you wanted to be anybody in this business,” said Butler.

Butler, who played with the likes of Otis Redding and was once a member of the Impressions, along with Curtis Mayfield, sang for Cornelius at the 40th anniversary show. Along with two original Impressions and the singer who replaced the late Mayfield, Butler performed his 1969 hit “Only The Strong Survive.”

Butler recalled Cornelius walking a little slower, but otherwise seeming to be in good health and in good spirits.

SEE ALSO:

5 Things We Learned From Don Cornelius

Don Cornelius: We Wish You Love, Peace, And Sooul!

SEE ALSO:

Don Cornelius Dead Of Apparent Suicide

Don Cornelius, We Wish You Love, Peace, And Soul

1) How to start and build a business: “Soul Train” was not a show that some big corporation gave to Don Cornelius. It was his baby. Cornelius started off in Chicago with a hot local show and eventually took the show to national syndication.  He saw a void in entertainment and filled it.  He carried his dream to the national level, and now his vision remains a perpetual piece of Black entertainment history.   Most of us have dreams, but most of those dreams die. Find your dream, learn how to create your dream, and then put your heart into building that dream.  You’ll be amazed at what you can do.

2) Edu-tainment really does work when it’s done properly: “Soul Train” did what BET’s “106& Park” should have done – it entertained Black people while encouraging us to develop our minds.   I recall seeing the video of a 19-year old Rev. Al Sharpton on the show, and another with Jesse Jackson sporting the coolest Afro I’d ever seen.  Don understood the importance of maintaining a double bottom line of social responsibility and corporate profitability, and he earned his millions conscientiously.

3) There is a lot of value in creating your own platforms: Most Black entertainers are excellent at performing their craft but know very little about the business models that bring their work to a wider audience.   Rather than hoping that some other show would grant media space for Black entertainers, brother Don took matters into his own hands. As a result, scores of Black superstars were born who never would have existed otherwise.  That’s what you call making something out of nothing.

4) Black is always beautiful: The ongoing theme on “Soul Train” was “Blackness.”  Cornelius always kept it authentic. The show allowed us to be cool, funky, intelligent, progressive, wild, and creative without being endlessly scrutinized by the descendants of our historical oppressors.  Don used his opportunity as a chance to tell all of us that we can be special if we choose to be, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.

5) The true power of Ujamaa: Ujamaa is the concept of unity, working together, and supporting one another, especially in the area of economics.  When we created our Ujamaa initiative to support Black-owned businesses, we were inspired by the  likes of Don Cornelius, whose show got off the ground via sponsorship from the Johnson Products Company, a Black-owned enterprise. By conjoining Black consumers with Black businesses and Black entertainment, Cornelius was able to create one of the greatest economic and entertainment empires in Black American history.  There’s no limit to what we can do when we work together.

Goodbye Don Cornelius, you were oh so special to all of us.  You were the guardian of our collective soul, and a piece of that soul will be carried with you into heaven.  May you always rest in peace.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

SEE ALSO:

Soul Train Dance Lines From The Past

Five Ways “Soul Train” Changed America

SEE ALSO:

BlackPlanet Members Discuss Don Cornelius’ Death

Hop On Board! Five Memorable Soul Train Lines

“And you can bet your money, it’s all gonna be a stone gas, honey!” Before Cornelius was the host of one of the first, longest-running, weekly, black-oriented, music-variety shows on television with “Soul Train,” Cornelius was selling life insurance in his hometown of Chicago. Soon after, Cornelius left his $250-a-week job for a $50-a-week gig at a popular radio station.  Many folks in his inner circle thought that when he took a pay cut, he had lost a few brain cells, but Cornelius was determined to try his hand at broadcasting in 1966.

His disc jockey stints eventually led Cornelius to a job as a sports anchorman on an ethnic-programming Chicago television station.  It was during this time that Cornelius hatched the idea for a Black-oriented dance show and pitched it to the station heads.  The dance show idea was well-received. Still, while station owners allowed Cornelius to produce it, they stipulated that Cornelius  would have to bankroll it. Cornelius soon came up with the name “Soul Train,” because of a local promotion that he spearheaded in 1969.

The show first aired in October 1971 and was instantly a mega hit, with its riveting musical performances and dancers that were the fashion plates of the times. Soul Train made both young and old want to jump out of bed on Saturday mornings.

A man on a mission, Cornelius tried to get sponsors for his pilot but could not generate any interest because the show included an all-Black cast.  After pounding the pavement to try and sell his idea, retailer Sears, Roebuck & Co. decided to get on board with Cornelius’ venture.

Even though the retailer’s contribution was nominal, Cornelius made it work.  He persuaded the head honchos at WCIU-TV to allow him to air the show five days a week for one hour at a time. “Soul Train” premiered on the station on August 17, 1970.  Soon after, buzz began to spread about the show.

Cornelius was the show’s host, producer, and salesman and did not draw one cent from it until local advertisers began to recognize the program’s value and started signing on.

As the show grew in popularity, Cornelius began thinking about national syndication.  He approached the Johnson Products Co., the country’s leading Black-owned company, and they made the decision to advertise on the show along with Sears.  So in 1971, Cornelius moved his operations from Chi-Town to Hollywood.  At the time, Dick Clark hosted “American Bandstand” and had no other competitors until Cornelius came on the scene with his lean mean Soul Train machine.

Cornelius is credited for providing opportunities and exposure to Black performers.  “Soul Train” showcased creme de la creme acts, such as The Jackson 5, Billy Preston, Curtis Mayfield, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Temptations, the Whispers, the Moments, and the list is endless. Urban kids wanted to emulate featured dancers’ fashions, hairstyles, and shoes.  And the dance steps, oh those dance steps! The robot, the whichaway, the bump?  If you didn’t know how to dance, you could learn how to bust a move just by watching a “Soul Train” dancer.

The dapper Don stopped hosting the wildly popular show in 1993, and it ceased production in 2006.  “Soul Train,” which director Spike Lee once referred to as the “urban music time capsule,” was never cancelled, but instead, it was actually purchased from Cornelius by a production company called “MadVision” back in 2008.

Over the recent years, “Soul Train” spawned a series of franchises that includes the Soul Train Music Awards, the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards, and the Soul Train Christmas Starfest.  Cornelius was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame in 1995 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.

In 2009, Cornelius, who had a troubled marriage, was sentenced to three years probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor spousal battery.  In his divorce case that year, he also mentioned having significant health issues.

Don Cornelius, you will certainly be missed, “and as always in parting, we wish you “love, peace and soooul!”

SEE ALSO:

Five Ways “Soul Train” Changed America

Why Soul Train Will Never Leave America’s Station

“It’s probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s now in the hands of somebody else,” said Aaron, who retired in 1976. “My hope today…is the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.”

Aaron congratulates Barry Bonds:

Aaron – born Henry Louis Aaron in Mobile, AL – knows plenty about dreams. He quit high school in 1951 to play for the Indianapolis Clowns in the Negro League. He started in the major league’s in 1954. He broke Babe Ruth’s record in 1974.

“I thought, we’ve come along way baby,” Aaron said in an interview regarding breaking’s Ruth’s record, “From Mobile, Ala., to breaking the most prestigious record in baseball. I feel very proud of myself like I had shown everybody that I could play major league baseball.”

Breaking Ruth’s record not only showed the world that Aaron could play major league baseball, but it was another signpost of what would become African-Americans’ domination of professional sports.

Aaron on breaking Ruth’s record:

A few notable achievements:
• Aaron made the All-Star team every year from 1955 until 1975.
• Won three Gold Glove Awards.
• Won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1957

Read Aaron’s bio here.

Read Newsone’s black 3,000 hitmakers. Read the full story.

Baltimore’s history as one of the southernmost free cities for African Americans during the era of abolition has resulted in an incredible wealth and depth of black history, culture and heritage.
Take advantage of special events, exhibits and programs all over the city this and every month.
Fourth Annual Reginald F. Lewis Museum High School Juried Art Show
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
January 14 – February 26, 2012

This year’s theme, “Building Community through Civic Engagement,” focuses on improving
communities through civic or political actions. In partnership with the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA).
Celebrate Black History Month at the B&O
B&O Railroad Museum
February 1-29, 2012
Mon– Sat 10:00am – 4:00pm
Sun 11:00am – 4:00pm
Celebrate the contributions of African Americans to the railroad industry. Learn about these men and women who filled vital jobs along the B&O Railroad’s line and understand how significant social issues, such as segregation, affected railroading.
African Dancing and Drumming
Enoch Pratt Free Library – Govans & Orleans Street Branches
February 2 & 7, 2012 at 6:30pm
An evening of African dancing and drumming performed by the Nazu Dance Company, under the artistic direction of Nai Zou Oliver.
From Fortune to Henrietta Lacks and Beyond
Enoch Pratt Free Library – Central Branch
February 6, 2012 at 7:30pm
This panel discussion will examine ethics in medical education, research, treatment, and practice and explore the parallels between Fortune’s story and that of Henrietta Lacks. Panelists include: Professor Taunya Lovell-Banks, University of Maryland School of Law; Dr. Curt Civin, University of Maryland School of Medicine; David Lacks, son of Henrietta Lacks; Ysaye Barnwell, composer and curator of the Fortune’s Bones Project. Moderator: Kojo Nnamdi, WAMU-FM.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK HERE.

James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. His parents divorced when he was a small child, and his father moved to Mexico. His grandmother raised him until he was thirteen, when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in Lincoln, Illinois, that Hughes began writing poetry. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. During these years, he held odd jobs as an assistant cook, launderer, and a busboy, and traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In November 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’s first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930 his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature.

Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in Montage of a Dream Deferred. His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen, Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed “Langston Hughes Place.”

In addition to leaving us a large body of poetic work, Hughes wrote eleven plays and countless works of prose, including the well-known “Simple” books: Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Stakes a Claim, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple’s Uncle Sam. He edited the anthologies The Poetry of the Negro and The Book of Negro Folklore, wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Big Sea and co-wrote the play Mule Bone with Zora Neale Hurston.

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994)
Dear Lovely Death (1931)
Fields of Wonder (1947)
Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)
Freedom’s Plow (1943)
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
One-Way Ticket (1949)
Scottsboro Limited (1932)
Selected Poems (1959)
Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)
The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)
The Weary Blues (1926)

Prose

Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes (1973)
I Wonder as I Wander (1956)
Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)
Not Without Laughter (1930)
Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001)
Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)
Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)
Simple Takes a Wife (1953)
Simple’s Uncle Sam (1965)
Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)
Tambourines to Glory (1958)
The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980)
The Big Sea (1940)
The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)
The Ways of White Folks (1934)

Drama

Black Nativity (1961)
Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000)
Don’t You Want to Be Free? (1938)
Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963)
Little Ham (1935)
Mulatto (1935)
Mule Bone (1930)
Simply Heavenly (1957)
Soul Gone Home (1937)
The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000)

Poetry in Translation

Cuba Libre (1948)
Gypsy Ballads (1951)
Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957)

Translation

Masters of the Dew (1947)

Photos by Online Editor @robinrazzi

Baltimore, you have done it again. Your outpouring of support was awesome. Thanks to you we were able to donate truckloads of toys to the U.S. Marines “Toys For Tots” campaign. We were out and about in the community at Mondawmin Mall as well as the WalMarts in Owings Mills, Arundel Mills and Catonsville.  Thank you for making a child’s holiday season memorable.