Kaepernick Ain’t The Only One
In recent months, Colin Kaepernick transitioned from headlines that praised his protest of the national anthem, to headlines that praised his charitable contributions. In addition to fighting famine in Somalia, he supported Meals on Wheels with $50,000 to assist the elderly in the U.S.
But Kaepernick isn’t the first athlete to use his [or her] power of celebrity to make a political stance or impact social good.
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, an NBA player for the Denver Nuggets refused to honor the national anthem during the 1995-1996 NBA season.
It all started on March 10, 1966, when Abdul-Rauf sat down in the middle of the anthem, stating that the American flag was “a symbol of oppression, of tyranny.”
Abdul-Rauf, a Muslim, also cited religious reasons for his rejection of the national anthem: “I’m a Muslim first and a Muslim last. My duty is to my creator, not to a nationalistic ideology.”
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The NBA suspended him without pay – using a rule that requires players to “stand and line up in a dignified posture”during both the U.S. and Canadian anthem. In response, Abdul-Rauf decided to stand during the national anthem. But rather than place his hand on his chest, he held them up in prayer.
For the rest of his career, Abdul-Rauf endured great scrutiny and criticism for his activism. He ultimately left the NBA and closed his career by playing for a variety of international clubs.
But there are still current NBA players protesting – to this day.
David West, NBA veteran and current forward for the Golden State Warriors, has subtly protested the U.S. national anthem for years Long before Kaepernick took a knee, West stood (and continues to stand) last in line and two feet behind his teammates during the “Star Spangled Banner.” While Kaepernick’s protest sought to raise awareness on racial injustice in America, West explains that his reasons are much deeper:
“I can’t start talking about civic issues. I can’t start talking about civility and being a citizen if motherf——don’t even think I’m a human being. How can you talk about progress and how humans interrelate with one another when you don’t recognize our humanity? We got to somehow get that straight first so we’re on the same playing field. And that’s how I feel.”
But even David took a note from his athletic, activist-minded predecessors who used their position and influence to impact a variety of social issues during their lifetimes.
Paul Robeson, a former NFL player that retired to devote his career to the arts, also used his influence to impact social justice efforts. As a frequent speaker, marcher and avid activist in the 1940s, the State Department ultimately revoked his passport in response to his activism. In Robeson’s own words, “as an artist I [came] to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.”
And, it wasn’t just the men who used the court, gym or camera to impart political knowledge on the masses — the women did so as well.
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Althea Gibson, the first Black woman to compete on the world tennis tour and to win a Grand Slam in 1956, eventually became the New Jersey State Commissioner of Athletics. She set her sights high, later challenging Democrat Frank J. Dodd for the New Jersey Senate in 1977.
And there’s even more: Hank Aaron, Jackie Robinson, Wilma Rudolph – the list continues. Perhaps Kaepernick, Abdul-Rauf or West have a political career in their future? But even if not, we certainly appreciate their activism, support, and public protests today. #Salute.
Via Sports Illustrated and Fusion.
The post Kaepernick Ain’t The Only One appeared first on PushBlack.
While the wedding of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline “Jackie O” Lee Bouvier was one of the most highly anticipated social events of the season, everyone’s eyes were glued to one thing: Jackie O’s wedding dress. And until now, the dress designer’s identity was kept a secret.
Many wealthy families and others in high society referred to Ann Lowe, one of the first Black high fashion designers, as their “best kept secret”. Not only did she design Jackie O’s wedding gown, she also designed actress Olivia de Havilland’s Oscar gown.
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Lowe was born in Alabama in 1898. Her grandmother was an enslaved dressmaker who opened a business after the Civil War. Her grandmother and her mother worked as dressmakers in her grandmother’s business. Lowe’s mother died when she was 16, forcing her to take over the family business.
Soon after, she married an older man and had one child named Arthur. The marriage didn’t last long. The wife of a Tampa business tycoon invited her to create dresses for her and her daughters. Lowe jumped at the opportunity against her husband’s wishes. She said that it was her chance to make the pretty gowns that she wanted to make. She left against her husband wishes and soon after they divorced.
Though she was happy making dresses, she wanted to do more. She took a sabbatical and enrolled in S. T. Taylor Design School in New York City. Shocked they enrolled a Black student, the headmaster tried to discourage her from attending the school. She had to take her classes in a room alone. Despite the racism, she endured and graduated.
Ten years later, she moved permanently to New York City and took jobs as an in-house seamstress at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Henri Bendel and other high-end stores. She opened a business in New York and designed for socialites, famous families and Hollywood stars. Her clients often went to her because they could get a high-fashion dress at a much cheaper rate.
Though she was popular among the social elite and generated lots of business, she didn’t have the best business acumen. She nearly went bankrupt.
When she was commissioned to make Jackie O’s dress, she charged only $500 compared to the $1,500 most other designers would have charged. Ten days before the wedding, 10 of the 15 gowns Lowe made were destroyed when a pipe burst.
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She rushed to recreate the gowns, suffering a $2,200 loss. When delivering the dress, they demanded she enter through the service door. She refused, saying she wouldn’t deliver the dresses unless she went through the front.
Her son started managing her business affairs and things were looking up. However, after her son died, her businesses floundered, and she owed $12,800 in back taxes. To make matters worse, she was losing her eyesight. However, she continued working.
She retired at 71 and lived the rest of her life in Queens, New York.
Although unknown to the masses in her heyday, Lowe is now getting the recognition she deserves. Both the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology are displaying her gowns.
Find out more about Ann Lowe in the books Fancy Party Gowns and Something To Prove.
In PushBlack’s spirit of highlighting those behind the scenes, today we celebrate Bernadine Anderson – Hollywood’s first African American female makeup artist.
In a time when Hollywood production studios rarely cast Black actors, let alone Black stagehands, Anderson was fortunate enough to start her career with Warner Bros. According to her interview with the Smithsonian, Anderson filed a class action lawsuit in order to gain access to Hollywood’s exclusive environments that discriminated against her because of the color of her skin. Eventually, she was awarded and completed a three-year apprenticeship with Warner Bros., which ultimately launched her career.
Anderson worked with various members of the Black Stuntmen’s Association in order to make their faces, forms, and figures mimic that of the primary artist. Often, she shaped the looks of doubles, triples, and even quadruples who performed the stunts of actors including Eddie Murphy in Boomerang (1992), Laurence Fishburne in Bad Company (1995), and various cast members in both Harlem Nights (1989) and What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993).
But Anderson worked with more than Black actors. At the actress’ request, Anderson also worked as the makeup artist for Jane Fonda – a position she held for eight years throughout the early 1970s.
In her own words, one of the highlights of her career was the ability to travel on “the studio’s dime.” Anderson made history by breaking into the industry not only as a woman, but as a Black woman during a time when the cards were stacked against her.
Hear Bernadine Anderson tell a bit of her story during a Smithsonian interview here.
The post The Black Makeup Artist You Need to Know appeared first on PushBlack.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall’s historic appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the nation’s first African-American Justice, Marshall exemplified an unyielding commitment to the fight for equality for marginalized groups.
Throughout his twenty-four year tenure on the Supreme Court, Marshall championed Civil Rights issues and made tremendous strides, combining legislation and political activism.
Upon being denied entry to University of Maryland Law School due to his race, Marshall’s first-hand experience with racial discrimination prepared him for a life of dismantling injustice and intolerance.
Of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he prevailed in 29, which made him the most winningest Justice of all-time up to that point.
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Marshall appeared to always be on the right side of history as seen through his involvement as legal counsel for the NAACP and his impressive voting record in major cases. Marshall proudly sided with the victors in the famous Roe v. Wade case protecting women’s rights to abortion.
Most notably, he spearheaded one of the most important cases of the 20th century, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Marshall’s ingenious use of the U.S. Constitution to refute the “separate but equal” doctrine and undermine years of racial segregation cemented him as one of the nation’s greatest legal figures.
It is truly unbelievable that 50 years have passed since Thurgood Marshall began his remarkable career as a Supreme Court Justice. Though his compassion for disenfranchised communities was unmatched by his peers, he fearlessly pressed forward without their support.
The fact that none of his Supreme Court decisions have ever been overturned clearly reveals the permanent impression Marshall left on the legal field. The undeniable impact of his work on race relations in America solidifies his place among the most influential Civil Rights pioneers of our generation with the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.
The post Thurgood Marshall Was the Right Man at the Right Time appeared first on PushBlack.
The official functions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are extensive, but one of their most notable priorities is the protection of civil rights. Ironically, however, the FBI has violated the civil rights of African-Americans on numerous occasions. Here are a few times the FBI backpedaled on its stated mission.
Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI worked to suppress dissent across various social movements including the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, and the women’s movement. As Hoover’s largest targeted group, African-Americans neither had to exhibit violence nor be perceived as having liberal, radical, or subversive ideas to justify surveillance under Hoover’s FBI. Simply “being Black was enough.”
During the height of the civil rights movement, with a fear in the rise of communism and under the guise of “national security,” FBI agents were directed to surveil African-Americans in churches, classrooms, college campuses, bookstores, places of employment, and especially within Black student organizations.
And, even if Black people were not in the community in which an FBI agent was assigned, the agent would be expected to file a form communicating this or else risk being charged with failure to perform. Just being Black justified surveillance since “Hoover saw the civil rights movement…as presenting the greatest threats to the stability of the American government since the Civil War,”…”these people were enemies of the state.“
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The FBI also targeted organizational leadership to stifle the movement’s progress. COINTELPRO (or, the Counterintelligence Program) targeted Black Americans that fought against segregation and racism in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1956 to 1971, COINTELPRO was constructed to spy on and infiltrate Black organizations, with a special focus towards systematically denigrating their leaders.
In 1963, the FBI ramped up its focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with then Assistant Director William Sullivan recommending for “increased coverage of communist influence on the Negro.” The FBI’s “goal in targeting Dr. King was clear: to find ‘avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader,’ [since] the FBI was concerned that he might become a ‘messiah.’” Through bugging hotel rooms as well as photographic and physical observation, the FBI used gained clues in an attempt to “blackmail him into suicide” and break up his marriage.
The FBI also targeted the Black Panther Party, primarily through informants playing dual roles as party members and FBI co-conspirators. “Agents sent anonymous letters encouraging violence between street gangs and the Panthers” which resulted in “the killings of four BPP members and numerous beatings and shootings.”
Working alongside local police departments, the FBI would call for raids and vehicle stops, and also had a hand in the raid and killing of Black Panter Party leader Fred Hampton. Though narrated as a shootout between Panthers and raiding police forces, “a federal investigation [later] showed that only one shot was fired by the Panthers….[and] police fired 82 to 99 shots.”
This surveillance and systematic targeting continue today. An investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in California found that police departments used detailed consumer data and social media aggregators to track Black protestors. Johnetta “Netta” Elzie, co-founder of the policy platform Campaign Zero has explained that her surveillance manifested in at least two years worth of phone tapping and being followed home by police after protests. Not to mention, the Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since its inception.
The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department have an entangled history with the Black community. Our quest for rights are perceived as a threat to national security; and our attempts to mobilize are threatened by co-conspirators. However, these institutions have demonstrated what their response will be to Black political mobilization. Therefore, let’s be all the more steadfast and informed in our quest towards justice, equality, and empowerment of our community.
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The post How to Stall Our Movement’s Progress: Operate as the FBI appeared first on PushBlack.
More often than not, white allies present themselves as well-meaning individuals who may show up to a protest or perhaps denounce their white privilege on social media. It’s always easy to talk the talk, but when it comes time to walk, some would rather sit out.
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After more than 70 women accused former Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment and sexual assault, accusations of sexual misconduct against powerful men have come en masse.
As more people come forward with their stories, we’re reminded of the woman whose case first put sexual harassment on the national stage: Anita Hill.
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Her 1991 case against then Circuit Judge Clarence Thomas was the first time that many in the country even heard the term sexual harassment.
Hill never wanted this to be public. She privately told the FBI of Thomas’ behavior, but someone leaked the tape to the public.
It created a media frenzy, and many news outlets doubted her claims.
While Hill was adamant about her claims, Thomas called the case a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks” by white liberals.
That line was enough to seal the deal. Thomas would go on to be confirmed 52-48 as a Supreme Court Associate Justice.
Hill has given her thoughts on the recent sexual misconduct accusations against men in Hollywood, politics and other industries.
She says that these cases live and die on the “basis of believability.” The women who accused Weinstein, Hill says, were easy to believe because of the myth that only beautiful women can be harassed.
“It didn’t seem that far-fetched to people that this would happen to beautiful starlets who we all know and love,” she told The New Yorker.
Though many are happy that accusers are now speaking out on sexual harassment, Hill says that the basis of believability needs to transfer to the everyday person.
As more people come forward with their own experiences, it’s important that we listen and not be so quick to take away their merit.