Every day of the month, we here at Mocha Girls Read encourage you to sit a kid down and introduce them to an African American superstar! The awesome thing about Black History month is we are getting to know some REALLY cool things about us; things that are apart of our everyday lives! We have contributed to this society in such a revolutionary way that every kid should be proud.
Let’s get into some ‘Mocha’ history!
Zelda Jackson “Jackie” Ormes became the 1st nationally syndicated African-American woman cartoonist in 1937. The “Touchy Brown” series appeared in the black-owned Pittsburgh Courier and 1937 and in fourteen syndicated newspapers. Over the course of 30 years Ormes produced four separate comic strips. Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, Candy, Touchy Brown heartbeats, and Patty Jo ‘N’ Ginger. She included paper dolls and her Sunday pages, called ‘Torchy’s Togs’. Unfortunately, Ormes’ success was limited, because her cartoons were only printed in black-owned newspapers.
http://lambiek.net/artists/o/ormes_jackie.htm
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the 1st all-black movie production unit in the country founded in 1915 in Omaha and incorporated in 1916 in LA. LMP produced three shorts & two feature-length films; The Realization of a Negro’s Ambition (1916),Trooper of Company K (1917) ,The Law of Nature (1917), A Man’s Duty (1919),By Right of Birth (1921). Oh, 7 the logo for LMP was a head of Abe Lincoln!
http://www.hollywoodheritage.org/newsarchive/summer01/birchard.html
Freedom’s Journal was the 1st African American owned and operated newspaper in the United States. It was founded by free born African Americans John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish on March 16, 1827 in New York City; this was to empower the black population and they hoped that a black newspaper would encourage literacy and intellectual development. By the beginning of the American Civil War, three decades later, there were over 40 black-owned and operated newspapers .
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah%2Ffreedom-s-journal-1827-1829
GARRETT AUGUSTUS MORGAN March 4, 1877 – August 27, 1963 born in Paris, Kentucky, was an African American inventor/businessman. He was the 1st person to patent a traffic signal, developed the gas mask to rescue miners trapped underground in a noxious mine. After, Morgan produce gas masks for the US Army, a safety hood and smoke protector for firefighters, a zig-zag sewing machine attachment, a hair straightener, hair dying lotions, de-curling hair combs and started his own sewing equipment and repair shop, used equipment he made (and invented) himself. He helped found the Cleveland Association of Colored Men and was the 1st African American in Cleveland to own an automobile.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/page/m/morgan.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_A._Morgan
George Crum invented the potato chip in 1853 he was a Native/ African American chef at the Moon Lake Lodge resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. French fries were popular at the restaurant and one day a diner complained that the fries were too thick Crum finally made fries that were too thin to eat with a fork, hoping to annoy the customer. The customer, surprisingly enough, was happy and Saratoga Potato Chips were invented!
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/18040/bio_of_inventor_george_crum_who_invented.html
Happy Black History Month!
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