George Coleman Poage 1880-1962 #Olympian

George Poage

George Coleman Poage (November 6, 1880–April 11, 1962) was the first African-American athlete to win a medal in the Olympic Games, winning two bronze medals at the 1904 games in St. Louis.

The Milwaukee Athletic Club sponsored Poage to compete in the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. Many prominent African-American leaders had called for a boycott of the games to protest racial segregation of the events in St. Louis. An integrated audience was not allowed at either the Olympics or the World’s Fair as the organizers had built segregated facilities for the spectators. Poage chose to compete in four events and became the first African-American to medal in the Games by winning the bronze in both the 200-yard and 400-yard hurdles.

Sculptor Elmer Petersen created this statue of George Poage for the city of La Crosse.

From Wikipedia and Google

Ann Cole Lowe 1898 – 1981

Ann Cole Lowe (1898 – February 25, 1981) was an American fashion designer and the first African American to become a noted fashion designer. Lowe’s one-of-a-kind designs were a favorite among high society matrons from the 1920s to the 1960s. In 1953, she designed the ivory silk taffeta wedding dress worn by Jacqueline Bouvier when she married Senator John F. Kennedy.

Image from Pinterest

Oscar D. Micheaux | Black Filmmaker

OD Michaeux

Oscar Devereaux Micheaux January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was an African American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers, Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race film, and has been described as “the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century”. He produced both silent films and sound films when the industry changed to incorporate speaking actors.

From Wikipedia and Google

Quotable – August Wilson

August Wilson – (1945-2005) two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences, The Piano Lesson, King Hedley II, Ma Rainy’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Jitney and Radio Golf. Image from the Boston Globe.

“You can put law on paper but that don’t make it right.”

“You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.”

“My early attempts writing plays, which are very poetic, did not use the language that I work in now. I didn’t recognize the poetry in everyday language of black America. I thought I had to change it to create art.”

“Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone’s disbelief.”

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”

Quotable – Toni Morrison

                                                  Toni Morrison
                   (African-American novelist and professor)
                                Image from Pinterest

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”

Quotable – W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois (1868-1963) sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, editor, and author. Image from AAIHS.

“A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.”

“The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”

Quotable – Langston Hughes 1902-1967

James Mercer Langston Hughes – an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Image from NYDailynews.

“I swear to the Lord I still can’t see why Democracy means Everybody but me.”

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?… Or does it explode?”

“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”

Quotable – Morgan Freeman

An American actor, producer, and narrator, Freeman won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby (2004), He has received Oscar nominations for his performances in Street Smart (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Invictus (2009). He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He got his break as part of the cast of the 1970s children’s program The Electric Company.
Morgan Freeman is ranked as the 3rd highest box office star with over $4.316 billion total box office gross, an average of $74.4 million per film. Image from Google.

“You’re going to relegate my history to a month.”

“I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”

“When I was a teenager, I began to settle into school because I’d discovered the extracurricular activities that interested me: music and theater.”

“The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit.”

“Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen – that stillness becomes a radiance.”