StrictlyRepresentin

Clara B. Williams college professors did not allow her inside the classroom because she was Black. But that didn’t stop her. She took notes from the hallway–standing up! She eventually graduated at the age of 51 and lived to 108 years old and saw her 3 sons become doctors. —Clara Belle Drisdale Williams [1885-1993] was the valedictorian of the graduating class of Prairie New Normal and Independent College, now (Prairie View A & M University) in 1908. She enrolled at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in the fall of 1928, after taking some courses at the University of Chicago. While she worked as a teacher at Booker T. Washington School in Las Cruces, she also took college courses during the summer. Many of her professors would not allow her inside the classroom, she had to take notes from the hallway; she was also not allowed to walk with her class to get her diploma. She married Jasper Williams in 1917; their three sons became physicians. She became a great teacher of black students by day, and by night she taught their parents, former slaves, home economics. In 1961, New Mexico State University named a street on its campus after Williams; in 2005 the building of the English department was renamed Clara Belle Williams Hall. In 1980 Williams was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws degree by NMSU, which also apologized for the treatment she was subjected to as a student. She died at 108 years old.

Engineer and entrepreneur, Jerry Lawson, created the technology that paved the way for modern gaming. His groundbreaking technology became the foundation for Atari, Nintendo and Sega.

34 years ago today, Dr. Huey P. Newton, the Co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was shot and killed in the streets of Oakland, California. On August 22, 1989, co-founder of the Black Panther Party For Self Defense (BPP) Huey P. Newton was murdered. Newton was fatally shot on Center Street in the Lower Bottoms neighborhood of West Oakland by a 24-year-old Black Guerrilla Family member. His last words to his killer before being shot twice in the head were, You can kill my body, and you can take my life, but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!” Newton’s killer, Tyrone Robinson, was convicted of the murder in 1991 and sentenced to up to 32 years to life in prison. Born in born in Monroe, Louisiana February 17, 1942, Huey Newton attended the University of California, Santa Cruz and studied law attaining his Bachelor’s Degree and PhD. While Newton attended Merritt College in California, Newton and his comrade, Chairman Bobby Seale, organized the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966 with Huey as Minister of Defense. The BPP achieved national and international recognition through their active role in the Black Liberation Movement and in politics dealing with race relations of the 1960s and 1970s. The Party’s political agenda included better housing, better jobs, and proper education for all Black people, which was all documented in their Ten-Point Program. In the years leading up to Newton’s death, the BPP was under heavy ridicule from the powers that be and classified as a hate group. In time the BPP was dismantled as it’s leaders were either killed, imprisoned or addicted to drugs. Still even today the works an ideas of the prolific leader Huey P. Newton live on. (black panther party formation thread below)

something to think about...

Ganga Zumbi, the African Spartacus. Was born in Kongo in 1630, enslaved and shipped to Brazil to work as a plantation slave. Managed to escape, raised an army of enslaved Africans and founded his own kingdom of Palmares, with a palace and court. THREAD