Dr. Ida Gray

Born as Sarah Breedlove - was a highly successful entrepreneur, widely considered to be the first female, black or white self-accomplished millionare. Walker was known and respected not only for her business acumen but for her inspirational political and social advocacy and her philanthropy.

The daughter of former slaves, Walker worked initially as a washerwoman until she devised a hair care and grooming system to meet the needs of African-American women in 1905. Supervising the manufacture of a variety of products, she also developed an enormous marketing network, headquartered in Indianapolis, that employed thousands of African-American women and was the largest African-American owned business in the nation. Walker encouraged women's economic independence by training others and by serving as a powerful role model.

As the wealthiest African-American woman of her time, Walker used her prominent position to oppose racial discrimination, and her massive wealth to support civic, educational and social institutions to assist African-Americans.

To learn more about Madam C. J. Walker go to Walagata.com

Dr. Samuel L. Kountz was born in 1930 in Lexa, Arkansas. He graduated at Mechanical and Normal College of Arkansas. Later he completed his graduate studies and earned Masters Degreee at University of Arkansas. He was the first black to become a student at the University of Arkansas Medical School. Dr. Kountz was a leader in kidney transplant surgery He performed more than 500 kidney transplants. His major medical milestone was the transplant of a kidney from a mother to a daughter. When the kidney is taken from the body of the donor there is often a lapse of several hours before it can be transplanted into the receiving person. Dr. Kountz helped to develop the prototype of a machine that can preserve the kidney up to 50 hours. He also discovered that the drug methylprednisolone is useful to help reserve the acute rejection of a transplanted kidney.

At the age of eight, Dr. Kountz, the son of a Baptist minister, decided to become a doctor. He flunked the entrance exam at Arkansas AM&N College in his home state. However, he was determined to go to college and appealed to the college president, who gave him another chance. To show his appreciation, Kountz earned A's and B's. Kountz received a Bachelor of Science from Arkansas Mecahnical and Normal College [now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff] in 1952. He obtained a master's degree in Biochemistry at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; later, he was one of the first African Americans admitted to its medical school (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock -- 1958). Following graduation, he served as an intern at San Francisco County Hospital.

Dr. Kountz served as an Associate Professor of Surgery at Stanford University from 1965 to 1967. From 1967 to 1970 Dr. Kountz served as Associate Professor at the University of California. He was appointed Professor of Surgery and Chairman of the Department at the State University of New York (SUNY), Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York beginning in 1972. Dr. Kountz served as Surgeon-in-Chief of Kings County Hospital. As an authority on kidney transportation, he performed an operation on the NBCToday Show.

Dr. Samuel L. Kountz participated in the first West Coast kidney transplant in 1959. Prior to the development of Kountz's technique of detecting and treating rejection of transplanted kidneys, less than five per cent of the transplant patients survived for more than two years.

It took three years of experimentation with dogs in London and the United States to develop the technique. While in London on a surgery fellowship, Dr. Kountz discovered that committed cells of the host attacked and destroyed the small blood vessels of the transplanted kidney, thus causing the kidney to die from lack of blood supplied oxygen. The technique he and his associates at Stanford Medical School developed permits doctors to watch the fall of the kidney blood supply following surgery and to administer specific amounts of drugs to the patient at carefully timed intervals to overcome the rejection process.

I've been very disappointed in Tavis's constant criticism of Barack Obama.  When I used to enjoy his commentaries now listening to it is difficult to digest. Tavis later contradicted himself on Tom Joyner's show after his nagging judgments of Obama were called out by the black populace.

Tavis continuously stated that Obama was going to have a Christopher Columbus moment and discover the true America, one in which whites would be less then receptive toward the idea of a so called Black President.  Most of the states that he have won are predomitately white with blacks at less than 10%.

Tavis's utmost love for black folk is undeniable, however, his behavior represents everything wrong with Black America; our leaders have too much ego, and are by far too jealous of another brother or sister's success to offer up our support.

It's bad that he didn't go after the other candidates in this fashion.  There have been mistakes made in both the Clinton and Obama campaigns but Tavis (who claims to be neutral) insists on calling Senator Obama out ....Shame on you Tavis! 

How can one assume any black man to be naive to our issues?  Just because Obama also has white lineage, doesn't mean he is colorblind or more capable of catching a cab in this country. Sigh... Looks like Tavis is the one discovering the new Americas, and I'm liking it!

Tavis my man, open your eyes!  Senator Obama is living the dream that MLK had that "one day we will not be judged by the color of our skin, but the content of our character". 

Related Sites:

Tavis Smiley vs. Barack Obama: Dr. Boyce Watkins

Smiley: He's Catching Hell

Clnton, Obama, Navagating the Water

Black Commentator, Critisizing Obama, Causes Firestorm

Who Died and Made Tavis King

Cathy Williams (1844 - 1892) was the first recorded African American female to serve in the United States Army.

 

Williams was born in Independence, Missouri in September 1844. Her mother was a slave, and her father a free person of color. During her adolescence, Williams worked as a house slave on the Johnson Plantation on the outskirts of Jefferson City, Missouri. She was freed in 1861 when the Union forces occupied Jefferson City during the Civil War. However, at that time, freed slaves were officially designated by the Union as "contraband," and many were seized and forced to serve in military support roles (such as cooks, laundresses or nurses.) At age seventeen, Cathy Williams was impressed in this manner into the 8th Indiana volunteer infantry, commanded by Col. William Plummer Benton.

 

For the next several years, Williams travelled alongside the infantry, accompanying the soldiers on their marches throughout Arkansas, Louisiana and Georgia. She was present at the Battle of Pea Ridge and the Red River Campaign. At one time she was transferred to Little Rock, where she would have seen uniformed African-American men serving as soldiers in the military, a sight that may have inspired her interest in military service. At another time, Williams was transferred to Washington, D.C., where she served as a part of General Philip Sheridan's command. When the war finally ended, Williams was stationed at Jefferson Barracks.

 

On November 15, 1866, Cathy Williams decided to enlist, and joined up with the United States Regular Army in St. Louis, Missouri. Being relatively tall (5'9") and physically tough after many years of forced marches and hard physical labor, Williams apparently had no problem passing a cursory physical exam. She initially signed on for a three-year tour of duty under the name "William Cathay."

 

Two other soldiers in her unit knew her secret. One was a cousin of Williams', and one was a "particular friend" who may have been a romantic interest. Neither man ever revealed Williams' true identity.

 

Shortly after "William Cathay" enlisted, she contracted smallpox. Inevitably, she had to be hospitalized, but managed to disguise her gender even from the military doctors. As quickly as possible, Williams rejoined her unit, which had been posted in New Mexico.

 

Williams' enlistment lasted just under two years. Possibly due to the lingering effects of smallpox, the New Mexico heat or the cumulative effects of years of marching, her body began to show signs of strain, and she was frequently hospitalized. The post surgeon discovered her true gender and informed the post commander, who discharged her on October 14, 1868.

 

After her discharge, Cathy Williams worked as a cook at Fort Union, New Mexico, then moved to Pueblo, Colorado. She was married for a time, but it ended badly when Williams' husband stole money and a team of horses from her, and she had him arrested. After this, she moved to Trinidad, Colorado, and made her living as a seamstress. She may also have owned a boarding house. It was at this time that Williams' story first became public knowledge. A reporter from St. Louis heard rumors of a female African-American who had served in the military, and came to hear her story. A brief description of Williams' life and military service, told in her own words, was published in the St. Louis Daily Times on January 2, 1876.

 

In late 1889 or early 1890, Williams entered a local hospital for an unrecorded illness and remained there for some time. In June 1891, she applied for a disability pension based on her military service.

 

There was precedent for granting pension pay to a female soldier. Both Deborah Sampson and Mary Hayes McCauley (better known as Molly Pitcher) had been granted pensions after disguising themselves as men to serve in the American Revolutionary War. Sampson's cause had been championed by none other than Paul Revere. However, Williams had no influential friends to intercede with her in Washington.

 

In September 1891, a doctor employed by the Pension Bureau examined Cathy Williams. Despite the fact that she suffered from neuralgia and diabetes, all her toes had been amputated, and she could only walk with the aid of a crutch, the doctor determined that she did not qualify to receive disability payments. Her application was rejected.

 

Cathy Williams' exact date of death is unknown, but it is generally assumed that she died shortly after being denied her pension, sometime in 1892. Her grave would have been marked with a wooden tombstone, and so her final resting place is also unknown.

 

Just as the pipes in your home accumulate a slimy, protein build-up, your colon accumulates a build-up of thick, sticky mucus, and poorly digested food debris on its sides. A narrow passageway is created, which slows up the drainage of the foodstuffs you eat. This build-up occurs when you eat the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.), and when your diet is deficient in fiber and water.

The following foods/drinks from the SAD diet clog up your colon and cause poor colon health:

1. White flour acts like glue.

2. Fats are very sticky.

3. Meat stimulates the production of sticky mucus to help break down poorly digested meat.

4. Dairy is the most mucus-forming substance you could put in your mouth.

5. Alcohol, soda, coffee, and other caffeinated drinks stimulate your kidneys to excrete more water than it should to flush these toxic drinks from your body. This causes chronic dehydration. Dehydration causes you to lose more water out of your colon, which causes the fecal matter and mucus to become hard and stick to the sides of the colon.

A healthy colon is about five feet long, two and a half inches in diameter, and weighs two to three pounds. The average American's colon weighs ten to fifteen pounds.

The colon's main function is to remove water from the chyme (digesting food particles) and bulk up the stool. Friendly bacteria continue to further break down any partially digested food/meat substances. Friendly bacteria make nutrients such as vitamin K and some of the B vitamins. Your colon should eliminate its contents every 8-12 hours. Ideally, your stool should be a foot long, 1 inch around, and partially floating. When the bowel is impacted, however, problems arise such as constipation, hemorrhoids, ulcerative colitis and colon cancer. Common symptoms resulting from accumulated toxins in the bowel can include headaches, bad breath, allergy symptoms, PMS, fatigue, depression, irritability, bloating, and frequent infections.

Ways to clense the colon:

 1. Laxatives

 2. Enemas

3. Herbal Supplements

4. Oxygen-based Cleansers (considered the best) and 

5. Colon Hydrotherapy (my personal favorite).

In this amusing parody of the popular YouTube video, "Yes I Can", which featured stars like Will.I.Am and Scarlett Johansson, voters try to sing along with John McCain's rhetoric but find themselves too disturbed to keep up with it.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 11) -- The Pentagon is charging six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 terror attacks on America, and will seek the death penalty.

 

Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann says the charges lay out a long-term sophisticated plan by the al-Qaida organization to attack the United States of America. The attack over six years ago killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military tribunal system, says the six include Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attacks, in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed in the fields of western Pennsylvania.

Military prosecutors will ask for the death penalty for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, according to a second official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the charges had not been announced.

Among those held at Guantanamo is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the attack six years ago in which hijacked planes were flown into buildings in New York and Washington. Five others are expected to be named in sworn charges.

"The department has been working diligently to prepare cases and bring charges against a number of individuals who have been involved in some of the most grievous acts of violence and terror against the United States and our allies," Whitman said.

Prosecutors have been working for years to assemble the case against suspects in the attacks that prompted the Bush administration to launch its global war on terror.

 

Bessie Coleman-The First FlyGirl 

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), popularly known as "Queen Bess," was the first African American woman to become an airplane pilot, and the first American woman to hold an international pilot license.

Bessie Coleman was born in Texas in 1892. During World War I, she read about the air war in Europe. She became interested in flying and became convinced she should be up there, not just reading about it. She started looking for a flying school but what she didn't realize was that she had two strikes against her: She was a woman and she was black.

She heard that Europe had a more liberal attitude toward women and people of color so she learned to speak French and earned enough money to go to Paris to get her license. She encountered many problems but would not let go of her dream and earned her license on June 15, 1921 from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale She returned to the U.S. and began teaching other black women to fly, giving lectures and performing at flying exhibitions.

As she gained increasing fame as a barnstorming air circus performer in a war-surplus Jenny Trainer, she became known as "Queen Bessie." On April 30, 1926, while practicing for a show in Orlando, Florida, she was thrown from the plane and fell to her death.

To learn more about this early aviator, visit Wikipedia.com

WASHINGTON - Amid the poetry and promise of Barack Obama's election-night address came this hard truth: "There will be setbacks," he said, "and we will make mistakes."

Whether intentional or not, the Illinois Senator set the tone for the grueling next phase of his presidential campaign. Senator Hillary Clinton will look to set him back. And she will seize on every mistake.

The rivals fought to a draw on Super Tuesday, splitting the delegates almost evenly while each emerged with bragging rights. Obama won the most states. Clinton seized delegate-rich California and New York.

The calendar now favors Obama, whose strength among blacks and upscale, educated voters gives him the edge in states holding contests this month.

He also has a cash advantage after raising more than twice as much as Clinton in January.

So why worry? Despite Obama's successes so far, it's hard to argue with Bill Clinton  that it's a "roll of the dice" to vote for a freshman senator less than four years removed from the Illinois legislature. Obama still has much to prove. The potential for setbacks and mistakes is high. (Snip)

The good news for Obama: A majority of Democratic voters want change, and 70 percent of those voters backed the Senator.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time," Obama told supporters Tuesday night. "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

That is a killer line, the kind the sends chills down voters' spines. But it was another line, much earlier in the address, that reflected a more pragmatic side of Obama. The side that wonders and worries about what the his-and-her Clinton candidacy has in store for him.

Indeed, there will setbacks and mistakes, Obama told the adoring crowd, and "that is why we need all the help we can get."

You can read the full article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_campaignplus/20080206/ap_ca/on_deadline_super_tuesday

Her admirers believe she combines the poise of Jackie Kennedy with the brain of Hillary Clinton and the uncomplicated charm of Laura Bush. Many Democrats believe she will be a powerful asset to her husband's presidential campaign.

Michelle Obama, educated at Princeton and Harvard Law School, is described by friends as Senator Barack Obama's "true north". Her salary is twice his and she still spends most of her week looking after the couple's daughters Malia, eight, and Sasha, five, at their Chicago home.

Whereas the tortuous and sometimes tawdry history of Mrs Clinton's marriage could hamper her attempt to return to the White House as president, Mr Obama's wholesome and stable marriage is likely to boost his already highly favourable image among voters.

With her high cheekbones and elegant, 5ft 11in frame, Mrs Obama, 43, is already one half of what Ebony magazine declared the hottest of America's "10 Hottest Couples". In this month's edition they adorn the cover, along with the headline: "America's Next First Couple?"

She vets her husband's speeches and lets him bounce policy ideas off her. She occasionally chides him for neglecting his fatherly duties and insists that whenever he is home he reads Harry Potter to his children, makes the bed and takes out the rubbish. When he was elected a senator two years ago, Mr Obama, 45, publicly hailed the former Michelle LaVaughn Robinson as "the love of my life" and "the biggest star in the Obama family".

He has praised her for running the family home with "a general's efficiency" while he is the "dreamer".

She serves as vice-president for external relations at the University of Chicago Hospitals. On weekdays, she rises at 4.30am to run on the treadmill before making breakfast.

Mrs Obama is adept at keeping her husband's feet on the ground. Before he addressed the Democratic convention in 2004, which launched his national political career, she turned his tension into laughter by urging him: "Just don't screw it up, buddy!"

Already, she has been crucial to his career. A native of Chicago's South Side, she introduced Mr Obama, born of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya and brought up in Hawaii and Indonesia, to mainstream African-American life.

Her late father was a water pump operator and her mother, a former secretary, still lives in the humble one-bedroom flat the family moved to when Michelle was one.

The couple met when she was a lawyer at the Chicago firm Sidley & Austin and she was assigned to look after the intern, then studying at Harvard Law School, from which she had already graduated. They were the only two black people at the firm and she at first thought it would be "tacky" and "predictable" for them to date.

She eventually succumbed and their first date was dinner and the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing.

She later teased him that the movie choice was an attempt to burnish his black credentials with her. He would recall that she allowed him to touch her knee.

Mr Obama currently spends four days a week in Washington while his wife and daughters remain in Chicago. It was a difficult decision. His wife now jokes that "he's come to understand the wisdom of my plan".

He told Ebony that his wife demands exacting standards. "I still forget stuff. As Michelle likes to say, 'You are a good man, but you are still a man'. "I leave my socks around. I'll hang my pants on the door. I leave newspapers laying around. But she lets me know when I'm not acting right. After 14 years, she's trained me reasonably well."

The couple have appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show together and Mrs Obama has been delighted to meet Stevie Wonder, a childhood idol, and Spike Lee as what she calls her husband's "star power" has grown.

He told Ebony that she would have been a formidable politician herself and made clear he is glad Mrs Clinton, and not his wife, is his opponent.

"She's blunt, so she can tell me things that maybe other people are afraid to tell me," he said. "If I ever ran against her, I would be in trouble."

From the Yes We Can Campaign

Related Site: http://www.dipdive.com/

 Barack Obama delivered a marvelous victory speech in South Carolina. He reiterated the themes of his campaign (hope, change) but also leveled some attacks on the Clintons' recent campaign tactics. Overall, it was one of his greatest speeches. Best Line: "The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future."

Here's my interpetation of this statement:  The Clintons and the Obamas have a lot in common: When Bill Clinton first ran for president, he was around the same age that Obama is today.  Like Bill had, Barack has a progressive view of what America can become. They both offered hope and change after so many years of Republican control.  They both came from humble beginnings. The both of them are married to beautiful,  strong and intelligent women who are attorneys.  Also like Bill, Barak has chrisma, is charming and likeable.