Listen To and Vote Like Black Women

9,928 days, seven hours and 50 minutes. That's how long I was married to my late wife. Got married February 14, 1988 and she died in my arms April 19, 2015. Fortunately her friends got me remarried so I promised my present wife 18 more years. Gotta eat better and exercise.

Yes. Got my job because I was a volunteer here so the chance to make money, get benefits and fight for a good cause is a great way to end my public service career.

An event at the Carlyle Hotel in NYC last night gave me a fresh reminder that the fancy buildings of Classic New York were not built with even remotely tall people in mind.

I'm 6'3" -- tall but not, you know, NBA tall -- and yet these places always make me feel like I'm Wreck-It-Ralph

My mentions have folks calling Talarico a "fascist" and assuring me that black Texans would never ever vote for anyone who uses Christian language.

For the good of democracy, I'm begging some of you to take a long break from social media. It's not helping you and you're definitely not helping us.

Why Virginia’s January 6 Teaching Law Should Worry Everyone If the state can mandate history, is it still history?

I lost my cousin on 9-11 and have had to listen to all kinds of conspiracy theories about what happened and why. The state of New York mandates that it be taught through its curricular standards. That's how you do it. What Virginia is doing is dangerous. open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

God knew when, 66 years ago, she decided I should be a male because I could not, would not, survived as a Black woman. This gets a follow from me. Me and my wife will lift you up in prayer!

@editorialboard.bsky.social @rwack.bsky.social @deniseoliver-velez.bsky.social @dcpetterson.bsky.social @kitterface.bsky.social @harlinkearsley.bsky.social @almasuono.bsky.social #History #BlackSky #WomensHistoryMonth #WomenHistoryMonth

FIN/This is a statue dedicated to Ms. Wells in Memphis, TN -- a city that once literally burned down her printing press and ran her out of town.

Rest in peace, power and paradise, Queen.

To say Ida B. Wells Barnett was one of the most important journalists, voting and civil rights fighters ever is an understatement. She is in many national and international Halls of Fame, put on a quarter and was FINALLY awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020.

In the fight for women for the vote some white women didn't want Black women -- especially one like Wells -- taking the lead. Wells said "who gon check me boo" and marched RIGHT UP FRONT with everyone else during this key suffragette march in Washington, DC.

In addition to putting herself in danger, going to the south to get first-hand reports + chronicling lynchings? This Queen stood up against the rampant sexism that Black women could not lead civil rights organizations and helped, with WEB DuBois, to co-found the NAACP.

A mob destroyed her newspaper and put a bounty on Wells' head BECAUSE YOU ALREADY KNOW WHY. She took her movement to England, and established the British Anti-Lynching Society in 1894. She returned to the U.S. and settled in Chicago marying attorney+ newspaper editor Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895.

The murder of her friends turned Wells' into a human rights investigator. In “Southern Horrors,” and "A Red Record" her FIRST HAND research discovered it wasn'trape but lynch victims had challenged white authority or had successfully competed with whites in business or politics.

Listen. Between 1882 and 1968, an estimated 3,500 Black men, women, children and babies were lynched in America, mostly in the south to enforce white supremacy. Most of these lynching were the usually false lie of a Black man raping a white woman.

Anyone can interact

Wells said Black people should "save our money and leave a town which will neither protect our lives and property, nor give us a fair trial in the courts, but takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons." More than 6,000 Black people left Memphis. #FAFO

Before he died, Mr. Moss said "Tell my people to go west. There is no justice for them here." The wanton murder of her friends didn't just get Wells angry she got busy. She published an editorial echoing Moss's last words, told Black people to get out of dodge.

After a fight broke out between some white and Black kids and then white and Black men, white people thought Black people were planning to attack them all. A white mob attacked the store; 3 white men shot + wounded. The three owners were arrested and were lynched. Based on lies spread by the paper.

Three Black men—Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William "Henry" Stewart—opened the People's Grocery Company in Memphis across the street from a white-owned grocery store that had a monopoly there. It forced white businessmen to economically compete with Black businessmen.

Freedom ain't free y'all. She was fired from her job teaching in Memphis because she criticized the conditions in Memphis' Black schools but kept on writing, fighting and organizing.

All this changed March 9, 1892.

Peoples' Grocery.

You can't make this up.

Wells hired a lawyer, sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company AND WON! Unfortunately it was overturned on appeal. She began to write editorials in the Black Press that challenged Jim Crow laws in the South, bough a share of a paper in Memphis that was her platform fighting for civil rights.

While riding the train between her job and Memphis, teh conductor said she needed to go to the smoking car even though Wells had a first class ticket. She refused. OF COURSE two more conductors and passengers PHYSICALLY REMOVED her from the car but not after Wells punched two of them out.

To keep her family together, she got a job as a teacher in a Black elementary school near Holly Spring, MS with her grandmother and aunt caring for the children. Unfortunately THEY both died. so she moved to Memphis, TN and attended classes at my alma mater, Fisk University.

In September 1878, both of Ida's parents died during a yellow fever epidemic that also claimed one of her brothers. Wells had been visiting her grandmother's farm near Holly Springs at the time and was spared but had the responsibility of her raising her 6 brothers and sisters.

Wells was born enslaved in MS the 1st child of James and Elizabeth Wells. One of the few Black families freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, James became a trustee of what is now Rust College, was a staunch Republican (who opposed enslavement) and started a successful carpentry business.

"Ida: A Sword Among Lions" by Paula J. Giddings and "Ida B. the Queen" by Michelle Duster in addition to Ms. Well's articles and books about lynchings -- "The Red Record" -- are what I've read about this amazing heroine. This may be a longer than usual thread.

#WomensHistoryMonth THREAD 🧵Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, co-founder of the NAACP and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Queen Ida B. Wells-Barnett will, one day be on the Mt. Rushmore of the civil rights + voting rights movement.

Don't know about Ida B. Wells-Barnett?

Glad you asked.

I am so tired of this classless, clueless embarrassment of a president.

The pride and power of Iowa State basketball's Audi Crooks Audi Crooks hears the haters. But Iowa State's star inherited resilience from her mom and joy from her dad. Her high-scoring game is the ultimate counterpoint.

Spent some time in Iowa and went long on Iowa State’s Audi Crooks. Despite her dominance, she deals with a lot of negativity, especially about her body. But no matter what is said about her, Audi Crooks wears a smile. www.espn.com/womens-colle...

The reason why the Ayatollah was in power is because of the United States.

That's my TED talk.

@rwack.bsky.social bruh lost your handle for a minute!