A New Feature: Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know!

Some Famous Birthdays Today

     I am a regular listener of the Tom Joyner Morning Show on WMMJ 102.3 (Not sure why I plugged them, but what the hay, they’re a cool station and they play a lot of stuff from my era!), and that’s where I got the idea to do a regular feature on my blog, The  'Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know’.  (The TJMS calls it "Little-known Black History Facts" but I don't want to get sued!!) This is supposedly “black history month” (what happens to our history the rest of the year?) but I don’t feel that the month of February (who chose the shortest month of the year anyway?) is anywhere near long enough to begin to teach our long and rich history. So, I'm going to be like Tom Joyner and McDonald’s, I'm going to honor Black History All Year Round!

This is the day that is observed as 'President's Day' in most areas of the country. However, the Presidents aren't the only reason today should be marked!

Two very famous black people have birthdays on this day, albeit 145 years apart. 

1. Born on February 17, 1818 was Frederick Douglass (1818-95). He was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist.

An abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. Upon his escape from slavery at age twenty, he adopted the name of the hero of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. Douglass immortalized his years as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). This and two subsequent autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), mark his greatest contributions to American culture. Written as antislavery propaganda and personal revelation, they are regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as classics of American autobiography. (Staff, 2009)

 

2. Also born on this day (but in 1963) was a superstar; basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known by his initials, MJ, is an American former professional basketball player, entrepreneur, and majority owner and chairman of the Charlotte Bobcats. 

His biography on the National Basketball Association (NBA) website states, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. (Wikipedia, 2013)

 

Staff, H. (2009). Frederick Douglass. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from History.com.

Wikipedia. (2013). Michael Jordan. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan