$15,000 a month back then is probably the equivalent to millions a month now. I came across the most fascinating article the other day about Sarah Rector. Below is a short excerpt from the article and the link.

When she was born, Rector was given a rough, hilly allotment, considered worthless agriculturally, in Glenpool, 60 miles from where she and her family lived. Her father had petitioned the Muskogee County Court to sell the land, but he was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, for which he was required to continue paying taxes.

In 1913, when she was ten years old, large pools of oil were discovered on Rector’s land. One year later, her land produced so much oil that she had already yielded $300,000; her fortune was increasing at a rate of $10,000 per month. Her mother had died years earlier from tuberculosis. In 1914, her father died in prison, leaving her orphaned.

Even before her father’s death, Rector was appointed a guardian who was responsible for managing Rector’s money and providing for her education and care. The law at the time required full-blooded Indians, black adults and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with significant property and money, to be assigned “well-respected” white guardians who often cheated them out of their lands. There are stories of swindlers, oil tycoons and other unscrupulous types who kidnapped and murdered the children and adults to get their land.

Click on the link to read more: http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2009/02/18/sarah-rector-the-richest-colored-girl-in-the-world/comment-page-1/#comment-2773

Win an ebook copy of The Bad Twin by Shelia M Goss:

The Bad Twin is sibling rivalry at its best. Rose’s ultimate goal is to remain in the spotlight; preferable on the movie screen. To her fans, Rose is sincere, glamorous, and charitable; but to Violet, her twin, she’s a conniving, manipulative person that starves for constant attention.

When Violet gives a shocking interview about the life of Hollywood actress Rose to a popular magazine, all hell breaks loose. Can these sisters ever be friends, or will they always stand divided?

What do you have to do to enter? Leave a comment on this blog post. Contest ends on February 28, 2012. U.S. & Canada residents only. Avoid where prohibited by law.

In contrast, more than 200 feature-length films were released in 2011, and the titles topping the box office included Harry Potter, Transformers, and The Hangover: Part II—not exactly the Shakespeare and Bible stories of 1912. Many films were nearly three hours long, and most were close to two. Filming locations included Thailand, Bavaria, and a host of California studios, but no indoor stages.

The business of making movies has clearly expanded in scope and cost in the last hundred years, but what about the business of watching them?

From the Saloon to the Cinema

In the early days of commercial movie-making, newspapers celebrated the arrival of the new “nickelodeons,” or movie theaters, not as an innovative new form of entertainment, but as an alternative to the saloon. Instead of hanging out at the bar after work, working Americans would opt to pay anywhere between three cents and a nickel to watch a series of short movies. There were gangster films, period pieces, slapstick comedies—the same plots offered by today’s studios—but with screenings that averaged only twenty to forty minutes of runtime.  

The movies themselves might have been silent, but the theater was anything but. Theater owners almost always hired live accompaniment for the films, ranging from a local amateur on the piano to a full-blown orchestra. Studios even started distributing sheet music to go along with the film reels, eager to ensure that the musical accompaniment fit the piece. Of course, that didn’t stop musicians eager for a tip from bursting into “Yankee Doodle” during Richard III or starting Christmas carol sing-a-longs during the manger scene in From the Manger to the Cross. (Now you can see why the theater seemed like a legitimate alternative to the bar.)

In this anything-goes atmosphere, you would imagine that early theater owners let the customers do as they pleased. Not quite. The one thing that theater owners did not want in their buildings during the 1900s? A concession stand.

A Century of Snack History

To modern moviegoers, that might sound a bit strange. Concession stands are now a crucial part of movie theater profit margins and the overall theatergoing experience. Popcorn, candy, and other treats are now as much a part of going to the movie theater as the film itself.

However, it wasn’t always that way. In the early 1900s, movie theaters were accused of being low-brow entertainment, stealing valuable audiences and dollars from proper theatrical performances. In an effort to make themselves look more respectable, and closer to traditional playhouses, movie theaters wanted to avoid appearing like a carnivalesque spectacle. County fairs sold popcorn and peanuts; opera houses did not.

This unofficial attempt at stifling supply did not stifle demand, though, and independent snack vendors would line the streets outside of theaters, hawking their wares from mobile machines such as the Cretors popcorn wagon. Cretors machines, widely celebrated as the first commercial popcorn poppers, made it possible for vendors to produce popcorn in large, efficient batches that were ideal for catering to crowds. They proved to be huge hits with both vendors and customers, and today they’re recognized as the catalyst for the creation of the modern concession industry.

Indeed, these machines soon became part of the novelty of moviegoing. Steam-powered and marketed with mechanical mascots like the Tosty Rosty Man, mobile popcorn machines could roast peanuts, bake chestnuts, pop popcorn, and even prepare a cup of coffee. For the average citizen of 1912, this was a device of the future, and even standing in line to watch the machine at work was a new and interesting experience. There was also a wonderful variety of machines. Some were small wagons that could be wheeled into the theater (and hurriedly wheeled back out if management complained). Most were legged so that they could be carried from sales spot to sales spot. Still others were full-blown horse-drawn wagons.

As movie theaters became more and more accepted, and as the moviegoer love of snacks became clearer and clearer, owners caught on and moved the sales inside.

Today, concessions are an active part of the luxury. Upscale theaters have a bountiful host of options at including nachos, hot dogs, pizza, or fries. For drinks, there are slushies, tea, coffee, and a dozen different brands of soda.

However, some things have stayed constant from the hawk-your-wares heyday of independent concession stands. Popcorn remains the top-selling concession food in America, and many industry leaders of the 1900s are still producing machines, carts, and display cabinets. C. Cretors & Company, the inventors of the first commercial popcorn machine, has continued in the spirit of that initial patent to become worldwide innovators in popcorn and snack production. Spanning over 10 billion U.S. concession businesses, C. Cretors & Company’s product line encompasses the same infinite variety as the 1900s marketplace that gave birth to it. For example, the OriginatAir is a hot air popper and puffer that can make gourmet caramel corn, while the Mach 5 allows concession employees to switch between “salted” and “sweet” corn production. The machines can be decked out with features like salt and sugar dispensers, warming cabinets, butter topping dispensers. There are even eye-catching decorations like programmed LED signs or fluorescent lights.

In short, while the venues and production values may have changed, Americans are still looking for the same things from a movie-going experience that they wanted 100 years ago: entertainment, an escape, and of course, popcorn.

About C. Cretors and Company

Established in 1885, C. Cretors and Company is the leading designer and manufacturer of food processing and concession equipment providing a complete range of innovative food service solutions to companies around the world. Cretors is a renowned industry innovator, who in 1893 introduced the first patented steam driven popcorn machine that popped corn in oil. In 1967, Cretors’ Food Processing Division introduced a patented continuous production line featuring a hot air fluidized bed oven for high-volume popcorn production, ranging from 80 to 5,000 lbs. per hour.

Over the company’s long and storied history, its Foodservice Division offerings have expanded to include machines that produce and/or dispense cotton candy, nachos, caramel corn, and hot dogs, topping and dispensing equipment as well as warming and display cabinets.  Today, Cretors continues to reinvest in research and development to ensure constant improvements in everything from equipment manufacture to customer responsiveness to distributor network communications.

For more information about Cretors’ services and products, please visit www.cretors.com

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Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

To read more about Juneteenth, click here.

Here is a clip of Lena Horne (1917 – 2010) in one of my favorite old movies:

AA Book Reading List Suggestions

List compiled by Shelia M. Goss

Below is a list of books either by or about African-American pioneers. The books can be found at your local library or from an online retailer.

The early black history movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene.
Dagbovie, Pero Gaglo

Carter G. Woodson : the father of Black history
McKissack, Pat

Carter G. Woodson : a life in Black history
Goggin, Jacqueline Anne

Art from her heart : folk artist Clementine Hunter
Whitehead, Kathy

Clementine Hunter : the African house murals
Hunter, Clementine

Talking with Tebe : Clementine Hunter, memory artist
Hunter, Clementine

Coretta Scott King
Waxman, Laura Hamilton

Coretta Scott King : first lady of civil rights
Stanley, George E.

Coretta Scott King : civil rights activist
Rhodes, Lisa Renee

Minnie’s sacrifice ; Sowing and reaping ; Trial and triumph : three rediscovered novels
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins

A brighter coming day : a Frances Ellen Watkins Harper reader
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins

Three classic African-American novels
Brown, William Wells

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site : junior ranger activity book. DOC
United States. National Park Service.

Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark by Katherine Mellen Charron

Ready from Within: Septima Clark & the Civil Rights Movement, A First Person Narrative by Septima Poinsette Clark and Cynthia Stokes Brown

From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr.

Shelia M. Goss compiled this list for her in person lecture during Black History Month. She is the author of the young adult series – The Lip Gloss Chronicles: The Ultimate Test, Splitsville, and Paper Thin.

For more information or to sign up to The Lip Gloss Chronicles mailing list, visit www.thelipglosschronicles.com or www.sheliagoss.com.

Social activist Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912.

At an early age, she moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania. While in high school, Height was awarded a scholarship to New York University for her oratory skills, where she studied and earned her master’s degree.

Height began her career working as a caseworker with the New York City Welfare Department, but at the age of twenty-five, she began her career as a civil rights activist when she joined the National Council of Negro Women. She fought for equal rights for both African Americans and women, and in 1944 she joined the national staff of the YWCA. She remained active with the organization until 1977, and while there she developed leadership training programs and interracial and ecumenical education programs.

In 1957, Height was named president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held until 1997. During the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Height organized “Wednesdays in Mississippi,” which brought together black and white women from the north and South to create a dialogue of understanding. Leaders of the United States regularly took her counsel, including First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Height also encouraged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to desegregate schools and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint African American women to positions in government.

Height has served on a number of committees, including as a consultant on African affairs to the secretary of state, the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped and the President’s Committee on the Status of Women. Her tireless efforts for equal rights have earned her the praise and recognition of numerous organizations, as well. She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award and the NAACP Spingarn Medal. She has also been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2004, Height was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush.

To read more, go to History Makers.

Dorothy I. Height has received many awards and citations. See list compiled by NCNW:

• John F. Kennedy Memorial Award
• Hadassah Myrtle Wreath of Achievement
• Ministerial Interfaith Association Award
• Ladies Home Journal – Woman of the Year
• Congressional Black Caucus – Decades of Service
• President Ronald Reagan – Citizens Medal
• Franklin Roosevelt – Freedom Medal
• Essence Award
• Camille Cosby World of Children Award
• Caring Institute – Caring Award
• NAACP – Spingarn Medal
• National Women’s Hall of Fame
• President Bill Clinton – Presidential Medal of Freedom
• On Height’s 92nd birthday March 24, 2004, President George W. Bush presented her the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian and most distinguished award presented by the United States Congress.

Learn more about Dr. Dorothy Height by adding her book to your collection and sharing it with someone else.

According to the New Georgia Encylopedia, Few athletes have dominated a sport as thoroughly as Alice Coachman dominated the high jump. Named to five All-American teams, she won a gold medal in the 1948 Olympics, becoming the first African American woman to do so. She has been inducted into eight halls of fame.

Born in 1923 in Albany, GA, the fifth of Fred and Evelyn Coachman’s ten children, Coachman grew up in the segregated South. Barred from public sports facilities because of her race, Coachman used whatever materials she could piece together to practice jumping. Coping with a society that discouraged women from being involved in sports, Coachman struggled to develop as an athlete.

When Coachman finally got the chance to compete in the Olympics, in the 1948 London games, she qualified easily despite a back injury. She defeated her closest competitor, the British high jumper Dorothy Tyler, on the first jump of the finals, setting a record of 5 feet 6 1/8 inches. King George VI personally presented the gold medal to her.

Coachman returned to the United States a hero. After her Olympic victory she retired from athletics, even though she was only twenty-five and in excellent physical condition. She became the first African American woman to benefit from endorsements. She also taught, coached, and became involved in the Job Corps. Always a supporter of athletes, she later formed the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to young athletes and helps former Olympic athletes adjust to life after the games. During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta she was honored as one of the 100 greatest Olympic athletes in history.

To read more facts about Alice Coachman, visit her website: http://www.alicecoachman.org/bio_accomplishments.html

My nephew’s mom was named after the woman I’m highlighting today–Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987). I found out a few weeks ago that Septima’s mother communicated with Ms. Clark on numerous occasions and that’s how she ended up with the unique name.

Who is Septima Poinsette Clark? She was an American educator and civil rights activist. She is known as the “Queen mother” or “Grandmother of the American Civil Rights Movement.”

Clark was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1898. Her father, Peter Poinsette, was born a slave on the Joel Poinsette farm between the Waccamaw River and Georgetown. After the Civil War, he got a job as a caterer. Her mother, Victoria Warren Anderson Poinsette, was born in Charleston but raised in Haiti by her uncle, who took her and her two sisters there in 1864. She returned to Charleston after the Civil War and worked as a launderer.

Clark graduated from high school in 1916. Due to financial constraints, she was not able to attend college, but began work as a school teacher. As an African American, she was barred from teaching in the Charleston, South Carolina public schools, but was able to find a position teaching in a rural school district, on John’s Island, the largest of the Sea Islands.

In 1919, she returned to Charleston to teach sixth grade at Avery Normal Institute, a private academy for black children. In Charleston, she began attending meetings of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her first task with the NAACP was to knock on doors and ask people to sign petitions. One of the causes she petitioned for was to allow blacks to become principals in Charleston’s public schools.

Clark is most famous for establishing “Citizenship Schools” teaching reading to adults throughout the Deep South. While the project served to increase literacy, it also served as a means to empower Black communities. Citizenship schools were frequently taught in the back room of a shop so as to elude the violence of racist whites. The teachers of citizenship schools were often people who had learned to read as adults as well, as one of the primary goals of the citizenship schools was to develop more local leaders for people’s movements. Teaching people how to read helped countless Black Southerners push for the right to vote, but beyond that, it developed leaders across the country that would help push the civil rights movement long after 1964. The citizenship schools are just one example of the empowerment strategy for developing leaders that was core to the civil rights movement in the South.

To read her entire bio, click here.

I would also recommend a book co-authored by Septima Clark herself: Ready from Within: Septima Clark & the Civil Rights Movement, A First Person Narrative

$15,000 a month back then is probably the equivalent to millions a month now. I came across the most fascinating article the other day about Sarah Rector. Below is a short excerpt from the article and the link.

When she was born, Rector was given a rough, hilly allotment, considered worthless agriculturally, in Glenpool, 60 miles from where she and her family lived. Her father had petitioned the Muskogee County Court to sell the land, but he was denied because of certain restrictions placed on the land, for which he was required to continue paying taxes.

In 1913, when she was ten years old, large pools of oil were discovered on Rector’s land.  One year later, her land produced so much oil that she had already yielded $300,000; her fortune was increasing at a rate of $10,000 per month. Her mother had died years earlier from tuberculosis. In 1914, her father died in prison, leaving her orphaned.

Even before her father’s death, Rector was appointed a guardian who was responsible for managing Rector’s money and providing for her education and care. The law at the time required full-blooded Indians, black adults and children who were citizens of Indian Territory with significant property and money, to be assigned “well-respected” white guardians who often cheated them out of their lands. There are stories of swindlers, oil tycoons and other unscrupulous types who kidnapped and murdered the children and adults to get their land.

Click on the link to read more: http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2009/02/18/sarah-rector-the-richest-colored-girl-in-the-world/comment-page-1/#comment-2773

Norma Sklarek became the first black woman to be licensed as an architect in New York and California.

According to the African-American Registry website: From New York City she graduated from Barnard College (part of Columbia University) with a degree in architecture in 1950. Sklarek became the first African-American woman to be licensed as an architect in the United States with certification in New York State in 1954 and in California in 1962. She was the first African-American woman director of architecture at Gruen and Associates in Los Angeles. In 1966, she was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Some twenty years later, in 1985, she became the first African-American woman architect to form her own architectural firm: Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond. At the time, this was the largest woman-owned and mostly woman-staffed architectural firm. Among Sklarek’s designs are the City Hall in San Bernardino, California, the Fox Plaza in San Francisco, Terminal One at the Los Angeles International Airport and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. From 1989 to 1992, Sklarek was a principal at The Jerde Partnership.

There she was in charge of project management and review of the functional and technological aspects of projects. Norma Sklarek is now semi-retired serving as Chair of the AIA National Ethics Council.

In her honor, Howard University offers the Norma Merrick Sklarek Architectural Scholarship Award.

To learn more about Norma Sklarek, go to: http://www.essortment.com/all/normasklarek_rqbo.htm

Win a copy of Martin Luther King: The Essential Box Set:

The Landmark Speeches and Sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. By Clayborne Carson, Kris Shepard, Peter Holloran

What do you have to do to enter? Leave a comment on this blog post and there will be several other opportunities this month to enter but you have to check the bottom of random blog posts. (Sign up to mailing list so you’ll be alerted of new posts). The more you comment, the more chances you have to win. Contest ends on February 28, 2010. U.S. & Canada residents only. Avoid where prohibited by law.