Introduction -
Less than a year prior to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the United States Congress issued His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama the congressional gold medal. Shortly before congress's decoration of the Tibetan leader-in-exile, Chinese authorities tightened security in the Tibet Autonomous Region and threatened action against Tibetans celebrating the region's Great...
Campaigns for the safety of ethnic minorities started becoming more popular after the disastrous blasts hit Carver Village, Miami on September 22nd. The ejection of the white population brought on an aura of hate towards the black community. The everlasting conflict of racism against Negroes grew every day and in the 1950’s they no longer felt safe and protected from the violence and...
H. S. Chamberlain had a problem on his plate back in the mid-twentieth century. Everyone sought cheap labor in the steel and coal industries, but feared employing certain groups of people because of their behavior. Blacks treated with trepidation were the majority of workers in these industries. For the most part, blacks saw nothing but discrimination and fell under the watchful eyes of white...
On November 2, 1943 Ralph W. Crego was elected into office as Mayor of Lansing in Michigan’s capital city. He would serve the City of Lansing for almost two decades until he was finally defeated in the election of 1961. During the long span of his eighteen years serving the city, Mayor Crego led Lansing through the 1940s and 50s - a period of urban renewal in the United States. Crego’s daughter,...
Betty DeRamus’ parents moved from Alabama to Detroit sometime in the early 1940’s where they settled in the Black Bottom neighborhood on Detroit’s eastside on St. Aubin Street. Betty grew up with another Black family with the last name Shephard, whom she believed at the time were her actual cousins and referred to them as so. When she was a bit older, her family moved to 2 different homes...
It all came to an end for Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore and on December 25th, 1951 when the Klu Klux Klan felt they had the power to decide someone’s destiny and planted a bomb in their home, killing them both instantly. Many may not recognize the name of Harry T. Moore, for he has been called an unsung hero, but there was grand reason why the K.K.K. did what they did and really didn’t...
Here comes the bride, all dressed in white. In mid-July 1950, many young couples were coming closer and closer to hearing the bridal march. New York jewellers were astounded by the sudden demand for engagement and wedding rings. According to W. Waters Schwab, the president of J.R. Wood & Sons, Inc., the increase was due to the Korean crisis. It was mere weeks before this escalation of ring...
Dr. Hermes Grillo had just arrived on his first assignment to a MASH unit during his tour in Korea. He served in a medical unit with the 1st Marine Division and the Fleet Marine Force. Once the doctor had to operate by the book, which means directly from a book. He recalled, “I had taken one medical book to Korea with me…I remember opening it to whatever page it was, which showed the hilum...
In 1951, Oliver Brown, along with twelve other families from other states, decided to forever shake the segregated and racist south by filling a lawsuit challenging public school segregation. Brown’s daughter Olivia, a third grader, was forced to attend an African American school miles away from her house, while an all-white school was only seven blocks away. She walked six blocks every morning...
Until the mid-twentieth century, the north-bordering area of Detroit's east side Black Bottom neighborhood was known as “Paradise Valley.” Its name referred to the high number of black-owned businesses that occupied Hastings Street and St. Antoine Street, the heart of the entrepreneurial neighborhood. At the time, it was the only place with businesses that would all serve blacks. In the 1940s,...