Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Bed-Stuy


Bed-stuy, brooklyn is a well known area in brooklyn. Bed-stuy is known for the positive an the negative. The positives about Bed-stuy is that the area is full of culture and diversity. Many different cultures of the caribbean. The negatives about Bed-stuy is that it is well known for crime. Although the crime rate in Bed-stuy may have dropped it is still known as a bad area. Bed-stuy seems to be changing everyday many buildings and new houses are built. Some people may say that white people are taking over Bed-stuy.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Friday, March 7, 2008

The Why Question


Why did all the dinosaurs die?

There is now widespread evidence that a meteorite impact was at least the partial cause for this extinction. Impact craters are visible on most planets in our solar system. A spectacular example of this was witnessed in 1994, when Jupiter was struck by a series of cometary fragments. Some of these impact blasts were larger than the Earth's diameter. Other factors such as extensive release of volcanic gases, climatic cooling, sea-level change, low reproduction rates, poison gases from a comet, or changes in the Earth's orbit or magnetic field may have contributed to this extinction event.

Who are the experts?

Dinosaur experts are called paleontologist and the people that dig up the fossils are called archaeologist.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Questions 4 Dr. Shabaka

1. How is the economy doing in Liberia?

2. What is being done to better the lives of Liberians in Liberia?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Malcolm X




Malcolm Little was born in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, to Earl Little and Louise Helen. In 1943 he moved to New York City. There he worked again briefly for the New Haven Railroad. Malcolm found work as a shoe shiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub. After some time in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery and steering prostitutes. During this time, his friends and acquaintances called him "Detroit Red". Between 1943 and 1946, when he was arrested and jailed in Massachusetts, Malcolm traveled between Boston and New York City three more times. In early 1946, Malcolm returned to Boston. On January 12, he was arrested for burglary trying to steal a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop. Two days later, Malcolm was indicted for carrying firearms. On January 16, he was charged with Grand Larceny and Breaking and Entering. Malcolm was sentenced to eight to ten years in Massachusetts State Prison. On August 7th, 1952, Malcolm received parole and was released from prison. In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm went to meet Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. Soon after their meeting, he changed his last name to "X". Malcolm explained the name by saying, "The 'X' is meant to symbolize the rejection of 'slave names' and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place. The 'X' is also the brand that many slaves received on their upper arm." This was the reason that led many members of the Nation of Islam to change their last names to X. Malcolm was a minister and spokesmen for the nation of Islam. On February 21, 1965 in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!" As Malcolm and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance,[20] a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 16 times. Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom. Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Malcolm's funeral was held on February 27, 1965, at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, also in Harlem.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

African American Lives


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aalives/

Watch:Channel 13 February 13, 2008 9:00

1. Who is Dr. Henry Gates?
Henry Louis Gates, Jr, is one of the most powerful academic voices in America. In 1997 Gates was voted one of Time Magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans." An article in Time asserted, "Combine the braininess of the legendary black scholar W.E.B. DuBois and the chutzpah of P.T. Barnum, and the result is Henry Louis Gates, Jr." He is most recognized for his extensive research of African American history and literature, and for developing and expanding the African American Studies program at Harvard University. The first black to have received a Ph.D. from Cambridge, Gates is the author of many books, articles, essays, and reviews, and has received numerous awards and honorary degrees. Gates, who has displayed an endless dedication to bringing African-American culture to the public, has co-authored, co-edited, and produced some of the most comprehensive African-American reference materials in the country. Booklist declared that Gates "is doing for African Americans in the U.S. what Tocqueville did for Europeans."

Gates was born on September 16, 1950, in Keyser, West Virginia, a city surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains. Gates's father, Henry Louis, Sr. worked at the local paper mill during the day, and worked at the telephone company as a janitor at night. His mother, Pauline Coleman Gates, cleaned houses in addition to caring for her two children. Gates described his father as being an extraordinary storyteller and credited his mother with instilling a great deal of self-confidence in both he and his brother. She was fascinated by the teachings of Malcolm X but also wanted her children to be able to work and live within an integrated society. Pauline was involved with her children's education and was the first black PTA member in their community. As Louis entered his teenage years his mother began a long struggle with depression and was hospitalized. Profoundly affected, the young Gates made a deal with God: If his mother came home from the hospital, he would devote his life to Christ. His mother did come home and Gates became heavily involved with his church, but as the 1960s unfolded with race riots, assassinations, and anti-war movements, he turned his focus outward.



2. Choose an interviewee and discuss the following:
The historical events of his/ her family.
Discuss the historical significant.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Eulogy for the Martyred Children: sept. 18,1963



This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God. They entered the stage of history just a few years ago, and in the brief years that they were privileged to act on this mortal stage, they played their parts exceedingly well. Now the curtain falls; they move through the exit; the drama of their earthly life comes to a close. They are now committed back to that eternity from which they came.
These children—unoffending, innocent, and beautiful—were the victims of one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. Yet they died nobly. They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.
And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. (Speak) They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. (Mmm) They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.
And so my friends, they did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah. Mmm) The holy Scripture says, "A little child shall lead them." (Well) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Well) from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham (Yeah) to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future. (Mmm) Indeed, this tragic event may cause the white South to come to terms with its conscience. (Yeah)
And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here that in spite of the darkness of this hour, (Well) we must not despair. (Well) We must not become bitter, (Yeah. That’s right) nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. (Mmm) No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.
May I now say a word to you, the members of the bereaved families? It is almost impossible to say anything that can console you at this difficult hour and remove the deep clouds of disappointment which are floating in your mental skies. But I hope you can find a little consolation from the universality of this experience. Death comes to every individual. There is an amazing democracy about death. It is not aristocracy for some of the people, but a democracy for all of the people. Kings die and beggars die; rich men and poor men die; old people die and young people die. Death comes to the innocent and it comes to the guilty. Death is the irreducible common denominator of all men.
I hope you can find some consolation from Christianity's affirmation that death is not the end. Death is not a period that ends the great sentence of life, but a comma that punctuates it to more lofty significance. Death is not a blind alley that leads the human race into a state of nothingness, but an open door which leads man into life eternal. Let this daring faith, this great invincible surmise, be your sustaining power during these trying days.
Now I say to you in conclusion, life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. (Mmm) It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. (Yeah) Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. (Yeah) But if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him, (Yeah. Well) and that God is able (Yeah) to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace. (Mmm)
And so today, you do not walk alone. You gave to this world wonderful children. (Mmm) They didn’t live long lives, but they lived meaningful lives. (Well) Their lives were distressingly small in quantity, but glowingly large in quality. (Yeah) And no greater tribute can be paid to you as parents, and no greater epitaph can come to them as children, than where they died and what they were doing when they died. (Yeah) They did not die in the dives and dens of Birmingham, (Well) nor did they die discussing and listening to filthy jokes. (Yeah) They died between the sacred walls of the church of God (Yeah) and they were discussing the eternal meaning (Yes) of love. This stands out as a beautiful, beautiful thing for all generations. (Yes) Shakespeare had Horatio to say some beautiful words as he stood over the dead body of Hamlet. And today, as I stand over the remains of these beautiful, darling girls, I paraphrase the words of Shakespeare (Well): Good night, sweet princesses. (Mmm) Good night, those who symbolize a new day. (Yeah) And may the flight of angels (That’s right) take thee to thy eternal rest. God bless you.
What do you think about this speech?
What do you think was his strong points in the speech?