The foremost African American abolitionist in antebellum America, Frederick Douglass (ca. 1817-1895) was the first African American leader of national stature in United States history.

Frederick Douglass was born, as can best be determined, in February 1817 (he took the 14th as his birthday) on the eastern shore of Maryland. His mother, from whom he was separated at an early age, was a slave named Harriet Bailey. She named her son Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey; he never knew or saw his father. (Frederick adopted the name Douglass much later.) Douglass’s childhood, though he judged it in his autobiography as being no more cruel than that of scores of others caught in similar conditions, appears to have been extraordinarily deprived of personal . The lack of familial attachments, hard work, and sights of incredible fill the text of his early remembrances of the main plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd. In 1825 his masters decided to send him to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld.

Mrs. Auld, Douglass’s new mistress and a Northerner unacquainted with the techniques Southern slaveholders used to preserve docility in their slaves, treated young Douglass well. She taught him the rudiments of reading and writing until her husband stopped her. With this basic background he began his self-education.

Escape to Freedom

After numerous ownership disputes and after attempting to escape from a professional slave , Douglass was put to work in the Baltimore shipyards. There in 1838 he borrowed a African American sailor’s protection papers and by impersonating him escaped to New York. He adopted the name Douglass and married a free African American woman from the South. They settled in New Bedford, Mass., where several of their children were born.

Douglass quickly became involved in the antislavery movement, which was gaining impetus in the North. In 1841, at an meeting in , Mass., he delivered a moving speech about his experiences as a slave and was immediately hired as a lecturer by the Massachusetts Antislavery Society. By all accounts he was a forceful and even speaker. His self-taught prose and manner of speaking so inspired some Harvard students that they persuaded him to write his autobiography. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published in 1845. (Ten years later an enlarged autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, appeared. His third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, was published in 1881 and enlarged in 1892.) The 1845 publication, of course, meant exile for Douglass, a slave.

Fearing capture, Douglass fled to Britain, staying from 1845 to 1847 to speak on behalf of abolition and to earn enough money to purchase his freedom when he returned to America. Upon his return Douglass settled in Rochester, N.Y., and started publishing his newspaper, North Star (which continued to be published under various names until 1863).

In 1858, as a consequence of his fame and as unofficial spokesman for African Americans, Douglass was sought out by John Brown as a recruit for his planned attack on the Harpers Ferry arsenal. But Douglass could see no benefit from what he considered a plan and refused to his support.

Civil War and Reconstruction

The Civil War, beginning in 1861, raised several issues, not the least of which was what role the black man would play in his own liberation – since one of the main objectives of the war was of the slaves. Douglass kept this issue alive. In 1863, as a result of his continued insistence (as well as of political and military ), President Abraham Lincoln asked him to recruit African American soldiers for the Union Army. As the war proceeded, Douglass had two meetings with Lincoln to discuss the use and treatment of African American soldiers by the Union forces. In consequence, the role of African American soldiers was upgraded each time and their military effectiveness thereby increased.

The Reconstruction period laid serious responsibilities on Douglass. Politicians differed on the question of race and its corresponding problems, and as legislative battles were waged to establish the constitutional integrity of the slaves’ emancipation, Douglass was the one African American with enough to make suggestions.

In 1870 Douglass and his sons began publishing the New National Era newspaper in Washington, D.C. In 1877 he was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes to the post of U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia. From this time until approximately 2 years before his death Douglass held a succession of offices, including that of recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia and minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, as well as chargé d’affaires to Santo Domingo. He resigned his assignments in Haiti and Santo Domingo when he discovered that American businessmen were taking advantage of his position in their dealings with the Haitian government. He died in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 1895.

Further Reading

Douglass’s writings can be found in The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, edited by Philip S. Foner (4 vols., 1950-1955). Frederick Douglass, edited by Benjamin Quarles (1968), contains excerpts from Douglass’s writings, portrayals of him by his contemporaries, and appraisals by later historians.

Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (1948), is a well-written, scholarly biography. See also Philip S. Foner, Frederick Douglass: A Biography (1964), and , Free at Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass (1971). There is a biographical sketch of Douglass in William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising (1887; repr. 1968). Works that discuss Douglass at length are John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of American Negroes (1947; 3d ed. 1967); Louis Filler, The Crusade against Slavery, 1830-1860 (1960); and Martin Duberman, ed., The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists (1965).

I must admit Roots has changed my adult life- I watched it while I was little but didn’t understand what it meant pass Kunta Kinte getting his foot cut off. I watched Roots six months ago with my family and I learned so much about our history that I didn’t know. All the history that was unknown to me I found out by sitting down and watching this movie. After I was done I was sadden that my grandfather had passed away six years ago, it was so many things I wanted to ask him about our family history. I wanted to know where we originated? Was he a slave?

Roots gave me a new outlook on life and the struggles our people have overcome. On the night when Obama took the presidency tears pour down my eyes, not just because a black man won. It was because on that night everything that our people fought for, everything that they lost there life’s for. All the things they went through and suffered where not in vein. I knew our four founders who couldn’t even vote, the men and women who fought for the rights just to vote smiled down on us that night.

Roots, is very powerful and I feel this movie should be shown throughout high schools around the world. You cannot watch Roots and not take away what I have taken away from the experience. Our descendants fought for a chance for us to get an education, a chance for us to vote. They fought for a chance for us to go to the store and get waited on like a human beings. They stood up for us to have this free society that we take for granted. I can’t forget the women who bodies where taken against there free will. They were forced to have sex with anyone who took it, now in this day and age when we have a choice to respect our bodies. Women just loosely and freely give up there body to whomever. Women don’t understand that our ancestor wanted us to know that they fought and died so that one-day we will have a choice. One day we will have control over our bodies, that one-day we will make these men respect us.

I guess at least everything that they fought for didn’t die in vein; I take my hat off to Alex Haley and to all of our men and women who died for us to live free. NWMasssMedia is celebrating black history month with Roots please go out and by a copy and watch it with your family this movie changes life’s..

Alexander Murphy Palmer Haley- Born: August 11, 1921. Ithaca, New York. Died: February 10, 1992

Alexander Murphy Palmer Haley was born on August 11, 1921 in Ithaca, New York. He was the oldest child of Simon Alexander and Bertha Palmer Haley. At the time of his birth, his father was a graduate student at Cornell University and his mother was a music teacher.
As a young boy, Alex Haley first learned of his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte, by listening to the family stories of his maternal grandparants while spending his summers in Henning, Tennessee. According to family history, Kunta Kinte landed with other Gambian Africans in “Napolis” (Annapolis, Maryland) where he was sold into slavery.

Alex Haley’s quest to learn more about his family history resulted in his writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Roots. The book has been published in 37 languages, and was made into the first week-long television mini-series, viewed by an estimated 130 million people. Roots also generated widespread interest in genealogy.

Haley’s writing career began after he entered the U.S. Coast Guard in 1939. Haley was the first member of the U.S. Coast Guard with a Journalist designation. In 1999 the U.S. Coast Guard honored Haley by naming a Coast Guard Cutter after him. Haley’s personal motto, “Find the Good and Praise It,” appears on the ship’s emblem. He retired from the military after 20 years of service, and then continued writing.

Out of the service, he tried his hand at journalism in the private sector. His first successful article was an interview that appreared in Playboy Magazine in 1962. Alex next worked on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Published in 1965, it became Haley’s first major book.

It was about this time his thoughts then turned back to the family story of the African slave that he heard as a child. His work on the story, which he knew he had to write, became a primary focus of his writing efforts. He details his many years of research in the last chapter of Roots. First referred to as Before This Anger, it was eventually published in abbreviated form in 1974 by the Reader’s Digest. The completed version of Roots was placed on bookshelves in 1976. The award winning book and television mini-series introduced Kunta Kinte to the world.

Other Haley publications include A Different Kind of Christmas, a 1990 book about the underground railroad, and Queen, the story of Haley’s paternal ancestors. Queen was produced into a television mini-series, which first aired in the winter of 1993.

Perhaps one of Alex Haley’s greatest gifts was in speaking. He was a fascinating teller of tales. In great demand as a lecturer, both nationally and internationally, he was on a lecture tour in Seattle, Washington, when he died on February 10, 1992.

During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in one of the decade’s defining sitcoms, The Cosby Show, which aired eight seasons from 1984 to 1992. It was the number one show in America for five straight years (1985–89). The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family. He also produced the spin-off sitcom A Different World, which became second to The Cosby Show in ratings. He starred in the sitcom Cosby from 1996 to 2000 and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things for two seasons.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included him in his book, the 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 1976, Cosby earned a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For his doctoral research, he wrote a dissertation entitled, “An Integration of the Visual Media Via ‘Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids’ Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning”.

Cosby was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is one of four sons born to Anna Pearl (née Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby, Sr., who served as a sailor in the U.S. Navy. During much of his early childhood, Cosby’s father was away in the U.S. armed forces and spent several years fighting in World War II. As a student, he described himself as a class clown. Cosby was the captain of both the baseball team and the track and field team at Mary Channing Wister Public School in Philadelphia, as well as the class president. Early on, though, teachers noted his propensity for clowning around rather than studying. At Fitz Simmons Junior High, Cosby began acting in plays as well as continuing his devotion to playing sports. He went on to Central High School, an academically challenging magnet school, but his full schedule of playing football, basketball, baseball, and running track made it hard for him. In addition, Cosby was working before and after school, selling produce, shining shoes, and stocking shelves at a supermarket to help out the family. He transferred to Germantown High School, but failed the tenth grade. Instead of repeating, he got a job as an apprentice at a shoe repair shop, which he liked, but could not see himself doing the rest of his life. Subsequently, he joined the Navy, serving at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland and at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

While serving in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman for four years, Cosby worked in physical therapy with some seriously injured Korean War casualties,which helped him discover what was important to him. Then he immediately realized the need for an education, and finished his equivalency diploma via correspondence courses. He then won a track and field scholarship to Philadelphia’s Temple University in 1961–62, and studied physical education while running track and playing fullback on the football team. Cosby also joined the school’s chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.[citation needed]

As Cosby progressed through his undergraduate studies, he continued to hone his talent for humor, joking with fellow enlistees in the service and then with college friends. When he began bar tending at the Cellar, a club in Philadelphia, to earn money, he became fully aware of his ability to make people laugh. He worked his customers and saw his tips increase, then ventured onto the stage.

Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in comedy, though he would return to collegiate studies in the 1970s. He lined up gigs at clubs in Philadelphia and soon was off to New York City, where he appeared at The Gaslight Cafe starting in 1962. He lined up dates in Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He received national exposure on NBC’s The Tonight Show in the summer of 1963 which led to a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records, who released his debut LP Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right!, the first of a series of popular comedy albums, in 1964.

While many comics were using the growing freedom of that decade to explore controversial, sometimes risqué, material, Cosby was making his reputation with humorous recollections of his childhood. Many Americans wondered about the absence of race as a topic in Cosby’s stories. As Cosby’s success grew he had to defend his choice of material regularly; as he argued, “A white person listens to my act and he laughs and he thinks, ‘Yeah, that’s the way I see it too.’ Okay. He’s white. I’m Negro. And we both see things the same way. That must mean that we are alike. Right? So I figure this way I’m doing as much for good race relations as the next guy.”

Cosby remains an actively touring stand-up comedian, performing at theaters throughout the country.

Cosby has become an active member of The Jazz Foundation of America. Cosby became involved with the foundation in 2004. For several years, he has been a featured host for its annual benefit, A Great Night in Harlem, at the Apollo Theater in New York City.

Cosby met his future wife, Camille Olivia Hanks, while he was performing stand-up in Washington, D.C., in the early 1960s, and she was a student at the University of Maryland. They married on January 25, 1964, and had five children: daughters Erika Ranee (b. 1965), Erinn Chalene (b. 1966), Ensa Camille (b. 1973), and Evin Harrah (b. 1976), and son Ennis William (1969–1997). Their son Ennis was shot dead while changing a flat tire on the side of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles on January 16, 1997. Cosby maintains homes in Shelburne, Massachusetts, and Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

Awards and honors

1969: Received his third “Man of the Year” award from Harvard University’s performance group, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals
1998: Received the Kennedy Center Honor
2002: The Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to television
2003: The Bob Hope Humanitarian Award
2005: In a British poll to find The Comedian’s Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders
2009: Presented with the 12th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor
2011: Made an honorary Chief Petty Officer (Hospital Corpsman) in the United States Navy
Emmys

Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Series – Primetime Emmys
1966 I Spy – Alexander Scott
1967 I Spy – Alexander Scott
1968 I Spy – Alexander Scott

Outstanding Variety Or Musical Program – Primetime Emmys
1969 The Bill Cosby Special

Grammys

Best Comedy Performance – Grammy Awards
1965 I Started Out as a Child
1966 Why Is There Air?
1967 Wonderfulness
1968 Revenge
1969 To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With
1970 Sports
1987 Those of You with or Without Children, You’ll Understand

Best Recording for Children – Grammy Awards
1972 Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs
1971 The Electric Company – Cast member

Honorary degrees

Cosby has received honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities:

Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, December 5, 2008.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Carnegie Mellon University, May 20, 2007; he was also the keynote speaker for the commencement ceremony.
Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, May 8, 2004. Cosby was also the host of the school’s 60th Anniversary Concert in January 2006.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Baylor University, September 4, 2003, at the “Spirit Rally” for the Baylor and Central Texas communities.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Yale University, May 26, 2003.
Honorary Degree in 2003 presented by President William Harjo LoneFight from the Sisseton Wahpeton College on the Lake Traverse Reservation for his contributions to minority education.
Honorary Doctorate from West Chester University of Pennsylvania during the 2003 graduation ceremony.
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Haverford College, May 2002.
Honorary Degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Cincinnati in 2001.
Honorary Doctorate from Amherst College, May 1999. (Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa)
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Southern California, May 8, 1998.
Cosby served as the commencement speaker [45] and received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut, 18 May 1996.
Honorary LL.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, 1990. He also served as the commencement speaker in May 1997.

According to TV Guide, the show “was TV’s biggest hit in the 1980s, and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre and NBC’s ratings fortunes”. Originally, the show had been pitched to ABC, which rejected it. Entertainment Weekly stated that The Cosby Show helped to make possible a larger variety of shows based on people of African descent, from In Living Color to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The Cosby Show was based on comedy routines in Cosby’s standup act, which were based on his family life. Other sitcoms, such as Home Improvement and Everybody Loves Raymond, would later follow that pattern. The show spawned the spin-off A Different World, which ran for six seasons from 1987 to 1993.

The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an affluent African-American family living in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, New York, at 10 Stigwood Avenue. The patriarch is Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable, an obstetrician, son of a prominent jazz trombonist. The matriarch is his wife, attorney Clair Huxtable née Hanks. The two characters are then followed by their five children, four daughters and one son; Sondra, Denise, Theodore (Theo for short), Vanessa and Rudy. Despite its comedic tone, the show sometimes involves serious subjects, such as son Theo’s experiences dealing with dyslexia, inspired by Cosby’s son Ennis, who was also dyslexic. Teenage pregnancy is also a topic when Denise’s friend, Veronica, played by Lela Rochon, becomes pregnant.

Rather than make up excuses for his trials and tribulations, Nasty Nas said those incidents display his true self.
“The flaws, the mistakes I make — that’s the real me,” Jones, 39, said Tuesday at the 92nd St. Y. “It’s not so polished. It’s not a hit.” The often-controversial emcee was hit with a $10 million breach of contract lawsuit last month by a jilted New Jersey promoter over a failed New Year’s Eve appearance in Africa. He also had issues with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid taxes, which he admitted are still ongoing during his one-on-one with DeCurtis. “I could never imagine back then having a career that lasted even one decade,” he said. “At one point everyone around me was on parole — the next moment everyone owns mansions.” Jones still visits his old Long Island City stomping grounds on occasion, but prefers a more solitary lifestyle. The posh penthouses still feel foreign and the harsh streets all too familiar, he said. “I don’t go out unless I’m working. My quality time is when I’m doing nothing,” he said. (New York Daily News)

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According to Kim, she is expecting to give birth to baby KimYe this summer.

“I think until I really start seeing a belly it won’t really sink in. It’s just like a weird realization, but I think until you start seeing the physical changes, you know, and every day is different. … Once you’re past the three-month part, you know, you’re pretty safe. So [Kanye] just kind of goes off what he feels and he was feeling it that night, I guess — I’m due in July.” (“Today”

Kim also briefly spoke on the likelihood of spending the rest of her life as Mrs. West.

“You know it’s something that we talk about, but I think right now it’s focusing on the baby,” Kim said when asked about marriage. “I was always such a planner and you think your life is going to be a certain way and the best surprises just happen when you don’t plan. I’m just so content with how things are right now. We definitely want that in the future but I’m not in a rush.” (“Today”)

Before she can take Ye’s hand in marriage, Kim must first settle things with separated husband Kris Humphries.

In conjunction with legal handlings that have been drawn out since their October 2011 separation, Kim Kardashian is now saying she wants ex-husband Kris Humphries to pay for her hefty attorney fees. Because Humphries refuses to officially divorce Kardashian unless she acknowledges his claims that their marriage was a fraud, there’s a chance the couple technically will still be married at the time the reality star gives birth to her and boyfriend Kanye West’s baby in June — and Kardashian is none too pleased about that. But while people close to Humphries reportedly are urging him to settle the case and walk away, Kardashian is demanding that the Nets player take care of her lawyer’s bill after putting her through this ordeal for a year and a half. (Huffington Post)

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The Oxygen Network has caved under public pressure and canceled the much-anticipated reality show based on prolific breeder Shawty Lo and his 11 kids by 10 moms.

Daily Beast’s Allison Samuels states that, according to her sources, Oxygen has canceled the show amidst public protests and online petitions.

Samuels wrote that Oxygen at first defended the show, saying “It was not meant to be a stereotypical representation of everyday life for any one demographic or cross section of society.”

A Change.org petition that Lamb created reached more than 40,000 signatures from people demanding that the show not air.

“I love that the people who’ve signed the petition are from all backgrounds, ages, and countries,” writes Lamb. “This one elderly white man wrote me and said even he was tired of the stereotypical images of black people.”

She added: “My disdain for these shows really grew by leaps and bounds as minorities began to appear more and more in them. In an industry that’s never been overly interested in showcasing people of color or their lives, the notion that now we’d all of sudden become interesting just seemed too good to be true.”

“This show is about more than a rapper and his girlfriends,” Lamb writes. “This is a show about kids who had no choice in how they came into the world. This show sets them up to be ridiculed and made fun of. None of us should be OK with that.”

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Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood told Action News a man walking near 69th Street heard a child’s cries for help. He found the girl hiding under a jungle gym in a nearby park. She was wearing only a T-shirt in 30-degree temperatures.

Superintendent Michael Chitwood tells Action News, “The abducted little girl came running to him, screaming for help. All she had was a T-shirt on. And she said that she had run away from the people that had taken her.”

Nailla was taken to a local hospital to be evaluated for hypothermia, and to be reunited with her mother.

The little girl had been missing since 9:00 a.m. Monday morning when a woman wearing Muslim garb entered her school and signed her out of class 5 minutes after her mother dropped her off.

Police say the woman introduced herself as “Tiffany,” but her signature in the school visitor log was illegible.

Nailla was discovered missing when a caretaker from an after school program arrived at the school at 3 p.m. to pick her up.

Police say school officials checked the log book and realized a child was signed out of the school Monday morning. School officials then called Naila’s parents.

An Amber Alert was issued Monday night by Philadelphia police and Mayor Michael Nutter posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the girl’s safe return.

Nailla’s mother, Latifah Abdul-Rashid, told Action News the woman knew Nailla by name.

“A woman dressed in all black, all black gloves, niqab, and everything came in the school and went into my child’s classroom and told her teacher that she was me, her mother, and that she was taking her out to breakfast and Nailla was already signed out at the office and she took my child and left,” Latifah said.

Nailla’s regular teacher was off and a substitute teacher was working in her place.

The school district admits that basic security procedures already in place were violated by the school’s office staff who did not ask the woman for ID. Surveillance video shows the woman taking Nailla out of class at 8:50 a.m.

Nailla’s apparent abduction resulted in an outpouring of support and prayers from the public. But some observers are skeptical of the facts surrounding the girl’s disappearance.

Many believe Nailla knew her abductor, as evidenced by her willingness to leave with the woman.

“I don’t think that my child knew her. I think that my child thought that she was a familiar person because she was Muslim,” said Latifah Rashid, who herself is Muslim.

Police ask anyone with information on Nailla’s abductor to call 911.

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Police are searching for 5-year-old Nailla Robinson who was taken out of school by a woman dressed in Muslim garb pretending to be Nailla’s mother.

The abduction occurred at approximately 8:50 a.m. Monday morning. Nailla is described as 40 inches tall, 35 pounds, with medium skin tone, brown eyes and black curly hair. She was last seen wearing glasses, a light blue shirt, navy blue pants, and black and hot pink sneakers.

Nailla was abducted from the Bryant School located at 6001 Cedar Avenue in Philadelphia. She was abducted by a female wearing head-to-toe black Muslim-style clothing with black gloves.

Nailla’s mother, Latifah Abdul-Rashid, told Action News the woman knew Nailla by name.

“A woman dressed in all black, all black gloves, niqab, and everything came in the school and went into my child’s classroom and told her teacher that she was me, her mother, and that she was taking her out to breakfast and Nailla was already signed out at the office and she took my child and left,” Latifah said.

Surveillance images show Nailla entering the school and walking into class at 8:45 a.m.

At 8:50 a.m. a woman dressed in all black entered the school shortly after classes began, and was seen entering Nailla’s class. Nailla is seen walking out of class followed by the unidentified woman.

“I don’t know where she is and if anybody has seen her, please call,” Latifah said.

Police ask anyone with information about Nailla’s whereabouts to call 911.

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In a recent interview Chris explained,
“It was like a green room backstage. [Jay] comes in says what’s up to everybody. And it was cordial, ‘what’s up man, how you doing? Nice seeing you. I ain’t seen you in a minute.”
“It was real respectful, it was nothing like [what they said].”

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