A St. Louis civil-rights pioneer vanished without a trace almost 70 years ago.

A St. Louis civil-rights pioneer vanished without a trace almost 70 years ago. Now, the NAACP wants the feds to find him.

Sixty-eight years later, Gaines' whereabouts remains a mystery. For generations Lloyd Gaines was rarely mentioned among his descendants growing up in the family's rambling, three-story home just north of the Central West End.

Likewise, it's only been in recent decades that the University of Missouri has acknowledged its role in Gaines' historic struggle. In 1995 the school established a law scholarship in his honor and later named its Black Culture Center after Gaines and another black student denied admission to the university because of her race.

Should Gaines miraculously reappear today, he'd be 96 years old and free to practice law in Missouri. Last year the University of Missouri School of Law presented him with an honorary degree, and the state bar association granted him a posthumous law license.

 

 

What — if anything — authorities will discover in their investigation remains to be seen. Of the more than 100 civil-rights-era "cold cases" the NAACP has asked the Justice Department to investigate in recent years, Gaines' disappearance presents one of the toughest challenges. Few people with any firsthand knowledge of the case are still alive, and no corpse or remains have ever been found.

 

Did what happen to these dear souls....happen to this handsome, rail-thin  Black man?

 

 

The Wisdom Store

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RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious  Art  Of  Black  Life.

  Dr.  Ruby Mae Chapman , a Creative Child of the Universe,  a Critical Thinker, Writer, Artist, Crafter, Life Encourager, Scholar, Researcher, and Grant Writer.  Owner of the Wisdom Store, writings include “Life Interruptions, “Ask Ruby” ,”Miss Manners”  and  “Messy Manners”.  Dr. Ruby Mae is featured in newsletters and magazines.

 

 

 

 

For more inspiring readings visit my blogs: 

http://ask-ruby.blogspot.com/

http://lifesinterruptionsblog.wordpress.com/

 https://thewisdomstore.wordpress.com/

for more inspiring readings.

Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Owner

 

 

 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--- President of Black America

Martin Luther King Jr. - Acceptance Speech

Martin Luther King's Acceptance Speech, on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1964

 

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:

  I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice. I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.
Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace ...

After contemplation, I conclude that this award which I receive on behalf of that movement is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time - the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Negroes of the United States, following the people of India, have demonstrated that nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation. Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The tortuous road which has led from Montgomery, Alabama to Oslo bears witness to this truth. This is a road over which millions of Negroes are travelling to find a new sense of dignity. This same road has opened for all Americans a new era of progress and hope. It has led to a new Civil Rights Bill, and it will, I am convinced, be widened and lengthened into a super highway of justice as Negro and white men in increasing numbers create alliances to overcome their common problems.

I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid." I still believe that We Shall overcome!

This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.
Today I come to Oslo as a trustee, inspired and with renewed dedication to humanity. I accept this prize on behalf of all men who love peace and brotherhood. I say I come as a trustee, for in the depths of my heart I am aware that this prize is much more than an honor to me personally.
Every time I take a flight, I am always mindful of the many people who make a successful journey possible - the known pilots and the unknown ground crew.

So you honor the dedicated pilots of our struggle who have sat at the controls as the freedom movement soared into orbit. You honor, once again, Chief Lutuli of South Africa, whose struggles with and for his people, are still met with the most brutal expression of man's inhumanity to man. You honor the ground crew without whose labor and sacrifices the jet flights to freedom could never have left the earth. Most of these people will never make the headline and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvellous age in which we live - men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization - because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.

... peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

I think Alfred Nobel would know what I mean when I say that I accept this award in the spirit of a curator of some precious heirloom which he holds in trust for its true owners - all those to whom beauty is truth and truth beauty - and in whose eyes the beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.

The Wisdom Store

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RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious  Art  Of  Black  Life.

  Dr.  Ruby Mae Chapman , a Creative Child of the Universe,  a Critical Thinker, Writer, Artist, Crafter, Life Encourager, Scholar, Researcher, and Grant Writer.  Owner of the Wisdom Store, writings include “Life Interruptions, “Ask Ruby” ,”Miss Manners”  and  “Messy Manners”.  Dr. Ruby Mae is featured in newsletters and magazines.

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious Art of Black Life

email:  rubymaescollection@outlook.com

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Folk art focusing on the African Diaspora

Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Life’s Interruptions,  Co-Founder of Napolean & Ada Moton Chapman Institute, Folk Artist, Children’s Advocate, Scholar, Researcher and Writer

 

For more inspiring readings visit my blogs: 
http://ask-ruby.blogspot.com/
http://lifesinterruptionsblog.wordpress.com/

 http://thewisdomstore.wordpress.com/

for more inspiring readings.

 

The International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic transatlantic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Every year on 25 March, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system. The International Day also aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.

In order to more permanently honor the victims, a memorial has been erected at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The unveiling took place on 25 March 2015. The winning design for the memorial, The Ark of Return  by Rodney Leon, an American architect of Haitian descent, was selected through an international competition and announced in September 2013.

The Wisdom Store

Click the links below:

http://shops.half.ebay.com/rubychap62ruby

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious  Art  Of  Black  Life.

  Dr.  Ruby Mae Chapman , a Creative Child of the Universe,  a Critical Thinker, Writer, Artist, Crafter, Life Encourager, Scholar, Researcher, and Grant Writer.  Owner of the Wisdom Store, writings include “Life Interruptions, “Ask Ruby” ,”Miss Manners”  and  “Messy Manners”.  Dr. Ruby Mae is featured in newsletters and magazines.

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious Art of Black Life

email:  rubymaescollection@outlook.com

facebook: rubymaescollection

twitter: @rubymaescollect

Folk art focusing on the African Diaspora

Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Life’s Interruptions,  Co-Founder of Napolean & Ada Moton Chapman Institute, Folk Artist, Children’s Advocate, Scholar, Researcher and Writer

 

For more inspiring readings visit my blogs: 
http://ask-ruby.blogspot.com/
http://lifesinterruptionsblog.wordpress.com/

 http://thewisdomstore.wordpress.com/

for more inspiring readings.

Lest We Forget....

Mr. Carson turned his attention to slavery after describing photographs of poor immigrants displayed at the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. These new arrivals worked long hours, six or seven days a week, with little pay, he said. And before them, there were slaves.

“That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity,’’ he said. “There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

Celebrating Women History Month

Throughout history women have played integral roles in the success of social and civil movements. Women like Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Dr. Diane Nash, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and Dr. Dorothy Height - and countless others - initiated, planned and fully implemented the movements with little to no recognition. Often times, the movements they helped plan and represent stopped short of even addressing the issues affecting Black women.

Still, they persisted.

Their persistence, belief in, and support of social movements demonstrates the importance of Black women in the struggle for  Justice, Equality and Financial Equity.

“I was so blessed to be mentored by my mother and grandmothers. My mother and grandmothers not only believed in our people, but supported our movement every single day. As a young child and now as a grown woman, it was an honor to see my mother and grandmothers work up close, and hear, see, listening to their vision for our people. More importantly, I was able to see the amazing power of women and how important they are within our lives when were living, loving, and laughing out loud but most of all they are with us in celebrating our success.”

As we celebrate Women’s History Month continue to shed light on the recognition for the countless contributions of Black women, continue to call on your women relatives, (mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins), family and friends, most of all, call on your own ancestors and all of their there stories.  There are many so many compelling Black women in all of our families and lives, who have stood Black, boldly, beautifully, and brilliantly, helping to carve out a  piece of the American pie for our homes, schools, colleges and communities.

The Wisdom Store

Click the links below:

http://shops.half.ebay.com/rubychap62ruby

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious  Art  Of  Black  Life.

  Dr.  Ruby Mae Chapman , a Creative Child of the Universe,  a Critical Thinker, Writer, Artist, Crafter, Life Encourager, Scholar, Researcher, and Grant Writer.  Owner of the Wisdom Store, writings include “Life Interruptions, “Ask Ruby” ,”Miss Manners”  and  “Messy Manners”.  Dr. Ruby Mae is featured in newsletters and magazines.

RubyMae’s Collection:  Conscious Art of Black Life

email:  rubymaescollection@outlook.com

facebook: rubymaescollection

twitter: @rubymaescollect

Folk art focusing on the African Diaspora

Dr. Ruby Mae Chapman, Life’s Interruptions,  Co-Founder of Napolean & Ada Moton Chapman Institute, Folk Artist, Children’s Advocate, Scholar, Researcher and Writer

 

For more inspiring readings visit my blogs: 
http://ask-ruby.blogspot.com/
http://lifesinterruptionsblog.wordpress.com/

 http://thewisdomstore.wordpress.com/

for more inspiring readings.