When Shirley Chisholm ran for president, 1972

Before Carol Moseley Braun, before Barack Obama, before Hillary Clinton, Shirley Chisholm was both the first woman and the first African American to run for the nomination of a major party for President of the United States. Already the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress in 1968, Chisholm made her ambitious attempt to win the White House decades before her country was ready for her, garnering just 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.

Robert Gottlieb was first an intern in Chisholm’s Congressional office and later hired as the student coordinator for her presidential campaign, which would come to rely heavily on the support of college students. “She was unafraid of anybody,” says Gottlieb. “Her slogan was ‘unbought and unbossed.’ She was really unbossed.” Read about her campaign in this in-depth story from Smithsonian.com.

Down That Road: Ruth Loretta Freeman-Bush

Another item in the series highlighting women throughout the history of PVAMU as this year the school celebrates it’s 140th anniversary.

April 13, 2016Freeman Bush

Born in 1918 to Neil and Pearl Freeman in Liberty Texas, Ruth Loretta Freeman-Bush entered Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College in 1934. While at Prairie View, she played on the women’s basketball team and was a state champion debater.  She graduated in 1938 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education.

After teaching for a few years in her hometown at Liberty High School, she received a special invitation from President W.R. Banks to return to Prairie View. President Banks wanted to nominate her to apply for the Women’s Army Corps (WAAC). Freeman-Bush accepted the nomination and was subsequently admitted into the Officers Training School for WAACs. Not long after being commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in 1942, she was promoted to the rank of Captain in 1943.  In 1946, at the first convention of the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America convention in Chicago, she was selected as one of the seven vice commanders, receiving the highest number of votes casted.

Though she lived a short life, she lived a productive life highlighted by the many commendations she received. She was honored by the YMCA of Chicago for her service as a military recruiting officer. The National Negro Museum and Historical Foundation, Inc. recognized her for her “courage and devotion to the ideal upon which American Democracy was founded.”  The Governor of Illinois, Dwight H. Green, recognized her meritorious service to “enlist women for the Army General Hospital duties in the United States Army…” She, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, was recognized by the NAACP Youth Council of Chicago as one of the ten most “outstanding American.”

She married Ernest Bush in Chicago in 1947. Mr. Bush tragically passed away in 1950.

SOA Final Review, Independence Heights Project

soa review independence heightsThe public is invited to the Final Review of the SOA students’ Independence Heights Project – Public Space/Plaza, Economic and Community Development Project. The juried review will include images and models produced by the students for the historic Houston neighborhood’s redevelopment.

The review will take place on Thursday, May 5, from 1-5:50 p.m. in Studios 303 & 304, School of Architecture, Nathelyne Archie Kennedy Building.

Professor John Okello assisted with the project’s programming in collaboration with TIPHC Director Michael Hurd. The instructor of records is Juanita T. Jimenez, adjunct assistant professor and assistant director TIPHC. Tanya Debose, exec. Dir. Of the Independence Heights Redevelopment Council and other community leaders will be in attendance. For more information, contact professor Jimenez, 936-261-9808.

“Life with Lillian” read-in event at TSU

The centennial read-in event, “Life with Lillian,” will celebrate the life and works of Lillian Jones Horace, the earliest known African-American female novelist. Horace was a native of Jefferson, Texas. The event will be held on Friday, Apr. 29, from Noon to 2 p.m. in the Robert Terry Library at Texas Southern University. For more information, contact Dr. Karen Kossie-Chernyshev at 713-313-7890 or kossie_kl@tsu.edu. (See TIPHC Bookshelf below)

In Brief

  • April 27, 1903: W.E.B. Du Bois’ book, “The Souls of Black Folk,” was published. In it, Du Bois rejected the gradualism advocated by Booker T. Washington and called for active resistance to racist policies. He died on August 27, 1963, the eve of the March on Washington.
  • April 29, 1945: The book that Richard Wright, son of a sharecropper from Roxie, Mississippi, wrote about his upbringing, “Black Boy,” becomes the top selling book in the U.S. His novel, “Native Son,” is considered one of the best novels of the 20th century.
  • May 1, 1866: Three days of race riots in Memphis, one of the bloodiest outbreaks of Reconstruction, left 46 black residents and two white residents dead, five black women raped and 91 homes, four churches and eight schools destroyed by fires. Fighting had already taken place between black soldiers and white Memphis policemen. The Freedman’s Bureau reported the police had been treating the African-American soldiers with brutality. False rumors spread among the white community that black citizens were planning an armed rebellion. No one was ever arrested or prosecuted for the killings.
  • May 1, 1884: Moses Fleetwood Walker, the first African-American baseball player, made his Major League debut. He was one of several African-American baseball players to play professionally before the teams became all white again. It was another 63 years before Jackie Robinson made his debut.
  • May 1, 1950: Gwendolyn Brooks, an accomplished poet whose formative works appeared in “The Chicago Defender,” became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize.

TIPHC Bookshelf

lillian jonesPublished scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page — including a featured selection — and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “Recovering Five Generations Hence, The Life and Writing of Lillian Jones Horace,” edited by Karen Kossie-Chernyshev.

In 1916, before Marcus Garvey gained fame for advocating black economic empowerment and a repatriation movement, Jefferson, Texas native Lillian B. Jones Horace wrote a back-to-Africa novel, Five Generations Hence, the earliest published novel on record by a black woman from Texas and the earliest known utopian novel by any African American woman. The book languished after its initial publication and was consigned to a collection owned by the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society and housed at the Fort Worth Public Library. There, scholar and author Karen Kossie-Chernyshev rediscovered Horace’s work in the course of her efforts to track down and document a literary tradition that has been largely ignored by both the scholarly community and general readers. In this book, the full text of Horace’s Five Generations Hence, annotated and contextualized by Kossie-Chernyshev, is once again presented for examination by scholars and interested readers.

This Week In Texas Black History, Apr. 24-30, 2016

UNCF24 – On this date in 1944, The United Negro College Fund was incorporated with 27 member schools (now 38). Mary Branch, president of Tillotson College in Austin, helps to establish the organization. The UNCF’s mission is to enhance the quality of education by raising operating funds for their member colleges and universities, providing financial support to deserving students, and increasing access to technology for students and faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Both The Non-Profit Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy have ranked UNCF among the top 10 charitable educational organizations in the country.

 

wormley25 – Robert Leon Wormley, who opened the first black-owned insurance agency (Wormley-Mitchell & Associates) in Austin in 1954, died on this day at age 82 in 2010. A Minneapolis, Minn. native, Wormley was a Civil Rights activist who helped picket businesses that practiced segregation and worked to improve life for Austin’s black community. He worked on poverty issues for Govs. Preston Smith and John Connelly. Wormley was the first black member of the Independent Insurance Agents of Austin.

 

 

 

JEdwardPerry29 – This date marks the birth of physician J. Edward Perry in 1870 in Clarksville, Texas. Born to former slaves, Perry graduated from Bishop College in Marshall in 1891 then from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. in 1895. On November 1, 1910 he founded the Perry Sanitarium and Training School for Nurses (and doctors) to tend black patients in Kansas City. The sanitarium was renamed Wheatley-Provident Hospital in 1915 and Dr. Perry served as its superintendent from 1910 until 1930. At age 76, Perry came out of retirement to serve as executive director of the Houston Negro Hospital in March 1947. Through his dedicated efforts, the hospital became accredited and affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine.

 

 

 

wesley29 – In 1892, Carter W. Wesley, newspaperman and political activist, was born on this day in Houston. Wesley received a B.A. degree from Fisk University in Nashville in 1917, entered the Army and became one of the first black officers in the U.S. military. After serving in World War I, he earned a law degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and in 1927 returned to Houston where he bought into a newly formed publishing company which owned the Houston Informer newspaper. In 1934, he became publisher and used the paper as a platform to battle racism and to speak on behalf African Americans. Wesley was also a founder of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers across the United States.

 

carl-gardner29 — Carl Edward Gardner, an original member of the 1950’s R&B/Rock and Roll group The Coasters, was born on this day in 1928 in Tyler. Gardner moved to Los Angeles in 1952 and sang with The Robins, a group that included Bobby Nunn, from 1954-1955. Gardner and Nunn left the Robins to help form the Coasters in the fall of 1955. Gardner led on such Coasters’ hits as ‘Poison Ivy,’ ‘Yakety Yak‘ and ‘Charlie Brown.’ The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987 as the first vocal group receiving that honor. The Coasters had six gold records (million sellers).

Blog: Ron Goodwin, author, PVAMU history professor

Ron Good goodwinwin’s bi-weekly blog appears exclusively for TIPHC/TBHPP. Goodwin is a San Antonio native and Air Force veteran. Generally, his column will address contemporary issues in the black community and how they relate to black history. He and the TIPHC/TBHPP staff welcome your comments. His latest blog is, “Youthful Indiscretions.” Read it

Submissions Wanted

Historians, scholars, students, lend us your…writings. Help us produce the most comprehensive documentation ever undertaken for the African American experience in Texas. We encourage you to contribute items about people, places, events, issues, politics/legislation, sports, entertainment, religion, etc., as general entries or essays. Our documentation is wide-ranging and diverse, and you may research and write about the subject of your interest or, to start, please consult our list of suggested biographical entries and see submission guidelines. However, all topics must be approved by TIPHC/TBHPP editors before beginning your research/writing.

We welcome your questions or comments via email or telephone – mdhurd@pvamu.edu, .