Page 21 - Provoke Magazine Vol2

Huey Newton founded the Afro-American Society and was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, serving as its minister of de- fense during much of the 1960s. Later he turned to community service for the poor. Newton concentrated on community out- reach programs and the Black Panthers spon- sored sickle-cell anemia tests, free food and shoes. In January, 1969, the first Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program was
They were fugitive slaves who had escaped from Kentucky to Canada via helpers through the Underground Railroad. Elijah McCoy was edu- cated in black schools of Colchester Township due to the 1850 Common Schools act which segregated the Upper Canada schools in 1850. At age 15, in 1859, Elijah McCoy was sent to Edinburgh, Scotland for an apprenticeship and study. After some years, he was certified in Scotland as a mechanical engineer. When Elijah McCoy arrived in Michigan, he was Unable to
Provokeusmag.com 21
HUEY NEWTON IDA B. WELLS ELIJAH MCCOY
2.17.1942 - 8.22.1989
7.16.1862 - 3.25.1931 5.02.1844 - 10.10.1929
After a friend of hers was lynched in Mem- phis in 1892, Wells wrote an angry editorial in the Free Speech. In it, she told her fellow black citizens, “There is therefore only one thing left that we can do; save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons.” After this ed- itorial appeared, hundreds of black people be-
initiated at St. Augustine’s Church in Oak- land. By the end of the year, the Panthers set up kitchens in cities across the nation, feed- ing over 10,000 children every day before they went to school. Black Panther Party, original- ly named Black Panther Party for Self-De- fense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to patrol African Amer- ican neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventu- ally developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Ameri- cans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all Af- rican Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans. At its peak in the late 1960s, Panther mem- bership exceeded 2,000 and the organization operated chapters in several major American cities. The FBI viewed the Black Panthers as an enemy of the U.S. government and sought to dismantle the party. To this end, its coun- terintelligence program (COINTELPRO) used agent provocateurs, sabotage, misinfor- mation, and lethal force. The FBI’s escalating campaign against the Black Panthers culmi- nated in December 1969. That month a police raid in Chicago resulted in the death of local Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, and sev- eral days later there was a five-hour police shoot-out at the party’s Southern California headquarters. The measures employed by the FBI were so extreme that the director of the agency later publicly apologized for “wrong- ful uses of power.” (Imdb.com ; Britannica. com ; National Archives)
gan to move away from Memphis. There were other factors — resolutions made at a public protest meeting also urged departure, and the Oklahoma Territory was eager for new settlers — but Wells’ words encouraged the exodus. About 20 percent of the city’s black population (approximately 6,000 people) left. Following death threats and the destruction of the Free Speech’s offices, Wells herself was among those who exited Memphis. Her writing skills es- calated as she was commissioned to write for major black newspapers across the country. Wells-Barnett, according to Schechter, was led as much by her religious beliefs as her devotion to racial uplift. Her successes in the anti-lynch- ing campaign, the reform movement and the black women’s club movement stemmed from a religious theology. Ida B. Wells was an inte- gral part of the progressive movement, using her passion about social justice and her skills as a journalist to fight for racial and gender equality accomplishments as an advocate for equal rights, fighting against segregation, unfair practices of the law, lynching and other social injustices.
(Sarah Kettler ; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; Essence.com; Chicago Tribune)
The Legacy
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
find an engineering position in the United States, so he took a job working for a railroad and subsequent- ly invented a lubrication device to make railroad op- eration more efficient. Similar automatic oilers had been patented previously; one is the displacement lubricator, which had already attained widespread use. McCoy continued to refine his devices and de- sign new ones; 50 of his patents dealt with lubricat- ing systems.
This creativity gave McCoy an honored status in the black community that has persisted to this day. He continued to invent until late in life, obtaining as many as 57 patents. Most of these were related to lu- brication, but others also included a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. Lacking the capital with which to manufacture his lubricators in large num- bers, he usually assigned his patent rights to his em- ployers or sold them to investors. Lubricators with the McCoy name were not manufactured until 1920, near the end of his career. He formed the Elijah Mc- Coy Manufacturing Company to produce his works.
1974, the state of Michigan put an historical marker (P25170) at the McCoy’s’ former home at 5720 Lin- coln Avenue and at his gravesite.
1975, Detroit celebrated Elijah McCoy Day by placing a historic marker at the site of his home. The city also named a nearby street for him
1994, Michigan installed a historical marker (S0642) at his first workshop in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
2001, McCoy was inducted into the National Inven- tors Hall of Fame in AlWWexandria, Virginia.
2012, the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional U.S. Pat- ent and Trademark Office (the first USPTO satellite office) was opened in Detroit, Michigan. (BlackInventer.com ; Wikipedia ; Biography.com; ETHW.Org)
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