I’m highlighting Mary Eliza Mahoney today for two reasons. #1 She was the first African-American registered nurse and #2 Our past might be entwined as her name comes up when I trace my family history on my Dad’s side.

Her exact date of birth is questionable. Some sources say she was born in April and others May of 1845.

According to various sources, including ASU, Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S.A. She was born free on April 7 or May 7, 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts and became interested in nursing when she was a teenager. She worked for fifteen years at the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now Dimock Community Health Center) in Roxbury, Massachusetts as a cook, janitor, washerwoman and an unofficial nurse’s assistant. In 1878, at the age of thirty-three, she was admitted as a student into the hospital’s nursing program established by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Sixteen months later, she was one of four who completed the rigorous course (of forty-two who started with her). After graduation she worked primarily as a private duty nurse for the next thirty years all over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. She ended her nursing career as director of an orphanage in Long Island, New York, the position she had held for a decade. She never married.In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominately white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later known as the American Nurses Association or ANA). In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Mahoney gave the welcoming address at the first convention of the NACGN and served as the association’s national chaplain. Mary Eliza Mahoney died January 4, 1926. She is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.

In 1936, the NACGN created an award in honor of Mahoney for women who contributed to racial integration in nursing. This award was then continued by the ANA after the NACGN was dissolved in 1951. In 1976, fifty years after her death, Mary Eliza Mahoney was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame.

To read more about Mary Eliza Mahoney, click here.

If you know someone interested in nursing, there’s a Mary Mahoney scholarship given out to minority nursing students. There’s a site dedicated to Mary Mahoney. Please visit: http://www.marymahoney.org

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.

I originally posted this list on my teen site earlier this week.

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.

I’m highlighting Mary Eliza Mahoney today for two reasons. #1 She was the first African-American registered nurse and #2 Our past might be entwined as her name comes up when I trace my family history on my Dad’s side.

Her exact date of birth is questionable. Some sources say she was born in April and others May of 1845.

According to various sources, including ASU, Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S.A. She was born free on April 7 or May 7, 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts and became interested in nursing when she was a teenager. She worked for fifteen years at the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now Dimock Community Health Center) in Roxbury, Massachusetts as a cook, janitor, washerwoman and an unofficial nurse’s assistant. In 1878, at the age of thirty-three, she was admitted as a student into the hospital’s nursing program established by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Sixteen months later, she was one of four who completed the rigorous course (of forty-two who started with her). After graduation she worked primarily as a private duty nurse for the next thirty years all over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. She ended her nursing career as director of an orphanage in Long Island, New York, the position she had held for a decade. She never married.In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominately white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later known as the American Nurses Association or ANA). In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Mahoney gave the welcoming address at the first convention of the NACGN and served as the association’s national chaplain. Mary Eliza Mahoney died January 4, 1926. She is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.

In 1936, the NACGN created an award in honor of Mahoney for women who contributed to racial integration in nursing. This award was then continued by the ANA after the NACGN was dissolved in 1951. In 1976, fifty years after her death, Mary Eliza Mahoney was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame.

To read more about Mary Eliza Mahoney, click here.

If you know someone interested in nursing, there’s a Mary Mahoney scholarship given out to minority nursing students. There’s a site dedicated to Mary Mahoney. Please visit: http://www.marymahoney.org
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. This is the last opportunity to enter. You can check archives to enter on previous blog posts. (Sign up to mailing list so you’ll be alerted of the March contests–2 books and 1 DVD). 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.

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.

In the 1948 summer Olympics, Alice Coachman became the first African American woman to win a gold medal.

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

According to BlackAmericaWeb, Sarah Rector, a former slave, became one of the richest little girls in America in 1914. The headlines would read: “Oil Made Pickaninny Rich – Oklahoma Girl With $15,000 A Month Gets Many Proposals – Four White Men in Germany Want to Marry the Negro Child That They Might Share Her Fortune.”

$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