usnatarchives:

On Wednesday, February 27, at noon, author Eric L. Muller will discuss his book “Colors of Confinement.”

This program will also be streamed live over the National Archives UStream channel.

In 1942, Bill Manbo and his family were forced from their Hollywood home into an internment camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Using Kodachrome film, Manbo captured community celebrations and recorded his family’s struggle to maintain a normal life. Eric L. Muller uses these photos to describe Japanese American life in the camps.

The program will be held in the McGowan Theater at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. The program is FREE. A book signing will follow the program.

(via todaysdocument)

themuseologist:

The Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center is posting a Call to Latina Artists 18 years and older for our 3rd Annual Latina Art Exhibition, 2013. If you, or someone you know is a Latina artist and interested in showing pieces that explore the views and lives of Latina women by Latina women, please be sure to pass this along! The application deadline is April 17th at Midnight (Arizona Time). 

If you have any further questions, please contact the Curators:

Gina Azima - ginaazima@live.com (480) 466-9101 
Jose Andres Giron - joseandresgiron@gmail.com (602)-300-2752

I thought I might Signal Boost this here. Please pass it on!

zuky:

auntada:

In 1917, tennis champion Lucy Diggs Slowe (July 4, 1885 - October 21, 1937) became the first African-American woman to win a major sports title when she won the national title of the American Tennis Association tournament.  It was one of several “firsts” she would achieve in her lifetime.

As an undergraduate at Howard University, Slowe was a founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., which in 1908 became the first sorority founded by African-American women. In 1919, Slowe was appointed principal of Shaw Junior High School, the first black junior high school in Washington, D.C.  In 1922, Slowe returned to Howard as the University’s first Dean of Women. During her years at Howard (where she worked until her death in 1937), Slowe helped organize two professional organizations for women, the National Association of College Women (1924) and the National Council of Negro Women (1935). Both organizations still provide advocacy and support for women today. 

Amazing. You really won’t meet a bigger sports nerd than me and I have never heard of her until now. Lucy Diggs Stowe, paving the way for Althea Gibson and the Williams sisters, on top of being a school principal, a university dean, and an accomplished organizer and advocate. History is full of unsung heroes. We don’t know their names or faces but we enjoy the fruits of their work.

(via turdlewexler)

blackinasia:

todayinlaborhistory:

Today in labor history, February 11, 1903:  Japanese and Mexican laborers unite to form the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association to fight the labor contractor responsible for hiring at the American Beet Sugar Company in Oxnard, California.  They refused to work until their grievances were addressed and by the first week in March, over 90% of the county’s beet industry labor force had joined the JMLA, bringing the sugar industry to a standstill.  The laborers ultimately won most of their demands.

Solidarity.

zuky:

inothernews:

Today I learned that the first player of Chinese descent in the National Hockey League, Larry Kwong, played all of one shift in one game for the New York Rangers in 1948; and was reminded that the first Asian-American to play in the NBA was Wat Misaka, who played three games for the Knicks in 1947. 

Good story, surprisingly from the NY Times which hasn’t exactly shown itself to be up on hockey. As a Chinese guy who grew up in Montreal playing hockey since I was 6 in the 1970s and 80s, I can only imagine what it was like in the 40s and 50s. 

From the Times piece:

Asked about the game [the only game in which he played for the Rangers], Kwong paused for a long time. 

“I was quite disappointed because I was only used for about a minute in the last period,” he said. “I didn’t get a real chance to show what I can do.” […]

“I liked New York City very much,” he said, “but when that happened, I said I’m going to a team that I knew wanted me in Quebec.”

The next season, as the Rangers sank to last place, Kwong joined the Valleyfield Braves and played against the likes of Beliveau, Moore and Jacques Plante. Under Coach Toe Blake, Kwong led the Braves to the Canadian club championship in 1951 and was among the scoring leaders in the highly competitive Quebec Senior Hockey League.

So he found a better home for his skills in Quebec than in New York. Nevertheless, he ended up running a grocery store with his brother. Today he lives in Calgary. He turns 90 in June. Wearing two prosthetic legs, he still makes it to every home game. The article ends:

With assistance from Chad Soon, a schoolteacher in Vernon, Kwong has received belated recognition for being an N.H.L. pioneer. The Calgary Flames saluted him at the Saddledome in 2008. He was featured in “Lost Years,” a 2011 documentary about the Chinese-Canadian experience, and he was inducted this year into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.

Kwong said he had not heard from the Rangers since 1948.

“It’s possible that I’ve been overlooked,” he said. “Who knows? I felt that I did my share for the team.”

calumet412:

The Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey, 1927, Chicago.

Although not from Chicago, Ma Rainey was discovered by Chicago-based Paramount Records. She would go on to record the lion’s share of her greatest recordings while calling the city her home-away-from-home.

Do yourself a favor and search for her online recordings. From her not-so-subtle references to sex and other scandalous subjects (like her own proclivity for sleeping with women), her music is like no other.

(via optimistic-red-velvet-walrus)

DVD “Japanese American History Unknown” to be distributed to schools for free in US and Japan ›

coolchicksfromhistory:

Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson, Alabama’s first female physician.

Halle was a 24 year old widow raising a daughter when she decided to attend the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.  She graduated with honors in 1891 and accepted a position as the resident physician at the Tuskegee Institute.  Before she began her job, Halle needed to pass the Alabama Medical Board exam, an unusually difficult multi-day test.  When she passed the exam, Halle became the first female physician of any race licensed by the state of Alabama.  

Halle was responsible for the health of 450 students at Tuskegee.  She also taught classes, established a nursing school, and founded a clinic for local residents.  Halle left Tuskegee in 1894 when she remarried and moved with her husband to Allen University in South Carolina.  The couple had three sons before Halle died from childbirth complications in 1901 at the age of 36.

coolchicksfromhistory:

Mrs. Juliann Jane Tillman, preacher of the A.M.E. Church, Engraving by Peter Duval, after a painting by Alfred Hoffy, Philadelphia, 1844.  

Although little is known about the preacher pictured here, Juliann Jane Tillman, African Methodist Episcopal church records acknowledge that the first bishop, Richard Allen, recognized that some women possessed evangelical and teaching gifts. Although women were not allowed to become church leaders in the early years, they were permitted to teach and preach. Some became itinerant evangelists. Today, the A.M.E. Church allows women to pastor churches and hold other high offices within the church hierarchy.

classicladiesofcolor:

La Lupe’s high-energy performances caused quite a stir throughout Latin America—especially on the music scene in her homeland, Cuba. 

However, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, her performances were deemed “anti-revolutionary” and in 1962, she was exiled to Mexico, then the United States.