BLACK HISTORY MONTH featuring: Hazel I Jackson

Hazel I Jackson , a native of South Carolina, earned a bachelor’s degree in secondary English education from South Carolina State College and a master’s of education degree from Temple University.  She did post-graduate work at Delaware University.    Prior to moving to Lancaster in 1952, she taught four years in the public schools of South Carolina. 

In 1961, Lancaster Sertoma Club began a mission to help African-Americans who had been deprived of job opportunities to get into their qualified fields.  Every time she applied for a teaching postiion, she had to supply a picture along with the application, so school boards knew she was African-American.   She was rejected 12 times–“not because of her credentials.”  But, she didn’t let that stop her.  It just inspired her to work harder to get a foot in the door as a subsitute teacher.  Eventually, she was hired as an English teacher  for seventh and eighth grade classes, at the former Hand Junior High School. She was the first African-American woman  teacher in Lancaster. 

She continued teaching in city schools until 1970, when she was chosen as the first African-American faculty member, an assistant professor of English and African-American literature at the former Millersville State Teachers College. 

 In 1980, she was instrumental in renaming Higbee Elementary as Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary.  She aslo chaired the M.L. King scholarship fund.  And, along with Professor Bruce Kellner, initiated courses in African-American literature and instituted a Black Expressions program at Millersville, in which African-American students could perform in music, literature, drama, poetry and art. 

Mrs. Jackson’s own artistic side showed through as she turned herself into a playwright and director.  She wrote the play “From Trial to Triumph,” based on the life of Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  The play was performed not only locally at Bethel AME Church, but also for the Harrisburg district and in the Philadelphia area.  She helped with the script for Bethel’s Underground Railroad program.  She also wrote “Profiles of Courage,”  a play depicting the lives of famous African-American men and women, and “King of Kings,” a religious drama.

When she retired from Millersville University in 1994, she was honored with a $10,000 scholarship named the Hazel I. Jackson Scholarship Fund, the first scholarship the university has given in the name of an African-American.  Mrs Jackson currently resides in Lancaster County,  and serves as a Steward at Bethel AME Church of Churchtowne, Lancaster PA.

Are You A Survivor?

Romans 8:35, 37 (NIV)

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” 

 

Most of us, at one time or another in our lives, have experienced some very devastating events and circumstances.  It is safe to say that some of us have survived circumstances that would have caused others to be destroyed emotionally, or have serious breakdowns.  These events can cause us to remain in a state of “helplessness or victimization” for the rest of our lives.  In the case of those affected by hurricane Katrina in New Orleans; I can’t think of any catastrophe or carnage more devastating than what they had to live through.  Some of them are still displaced, homeless, and emotionally distraught.  As I watched the casualties captured on film through the documentary by Spike Lee; “When the Levees Broke,” it was almost impossible for me to comprehend how anyone could survive such devastation in order to get their lives back to some type of normalcy. 

ARE YOU A SURVIVOR?

Well, we have a choice as to whether or not we will remain a victim or progress onward toward survival and emerging triumphantly.   Romans 8:35-37;   lets us know that there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God.  Nothing?  No, nothing!  Nothing that we face keeps God from coming to our rescue.  He will use all His power to ensure that we are victorious and triumphant in every area of our lives.    It is His will that we not only survive but, that we are more than conquerors. 

To be more than a conqueror is to be a survivor.  Not only that you survived but, that you mastered a difficult situation, overcame a difficult problem, denied all the odds, and defeated the enemy.  2Cor. 2: 14 says, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ.”  That means that it doesn’t matter what the circumstance, God will cause us to survive and win. 

Of course, not of our own strength, but through His power.  In and of our own strength we not strong enough to survive some difficulties.  There are situations that we could never make it through alone.  But, Thanks be to God we are not alone.  He loves us so much that He causes us to win. 

Ladies, there is only one way we can be defeated;  if we quit, or refuse to survive. 

PRAYER:  Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us enough to see us through every trial and circumstance we face.  It is your unfailing love that causes us to triumph over all things.  Strengthen us where we are weak or scared.  We are more than conquerors in You.  IN JESUS’ NAME, AMEN.  

“God Cares for You” by Ronda M Harris

1 Peter 5:7 (King James Version)

 7Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

 

In our lives we are faced, at times, with many challenging situations. Some of these challenges have the potential to cause us great embarrassment, shame and may be even guilt.  I know, personally, all too well of how these unrelenting burdens can cause you much grief.  From secret sins to the collapsing of a promising relationship-to a public embarrassment of a private matter, all give way to the possible scrutiny of others.  This possibility is what many times, drives us to isolate ourselves from the comfort of God’s love. It should be  at these times,  we draw near to the Father, but we don’t. Other people’s opinions serve as a nail that hammers us to the wall of pain, and doesn’t remedy the ill in our souls. The power of someone’s opinion can release a domino effect of negative emotions within us, and for that reason alone do we struggle. My encouragement to you is to take your burdens to the Lord in prayer because he cares for you. Do not become a prisoner of someone else’s opinion. What “they” say and what “they” think should take a back seat in order to allow God’s love and care for you to take priority. 1 Peter 2:7 (kjv) Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Prayer Focus: Father we thank you for your love that is extended toward us. Strengthen us when we are struggling with personal situations that are uncomfortable, painful or embarrassing. Help us to humble ourselves in your presence that you may exalt us above the place of pain and shame. Help us to understand just how much you really do love and care for us. In Jesus’  Name,  Amen.

 

 

BLACK HISTORY MONTH featuring: Dr Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson

Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson was the first female physician to pass the Alabama state medical examination and was the first woman physician at Tuskegee Institute.  She was the eldest of nine children born to African Methodist Episcopal bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner and Sarah Elizabeth Miller in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1864.  Her brother, Henry Ossawa Tanner, became a noted artist.  Shortly after Halle was born the Tanners moved to Philadelphia where the children were educated.    

In the middle 1880s Halle Tanner worked with her father on the AME Church Review.  In 1886 she married Charles E. Dillon and the two moved to Trenton, New Jersey where they had a daughter, Sadie.  Charles Dillon died of an unknown cause and Halle Tanner Dillon moved back to Philadelphia to live with her parents.  Tanner decided to become a physician and enrolled at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.  The only African American woman in her class, Tanner graduated with an M.D. and high honors after three years of study in 1891.  While at the college, she learned of a job opportunity as resident physician at Tuskegee Institute.  She contacted Booker T. Washington, the Principal of Tuskegee.  Washington appointed her and helped her prepare for the Alabama state medical examination.

Dr. Tanner Dillon sat for the ten day examination and passed.  She served at Tuskegee University as a physician, pharmacist, teacher, and ran a private practice for 3 years.  While at Tuskegee she founded a training school for nurses and a dispensary (pharmacy).  In 1894 she married her second husband, Reverend John Quincy Johnson, an aspiring theologian and mathematics professor at Tuskegee Institute.  The couple moved to Nashville where Reverend Johnson pursued a graduate degree in divinity while serving as pastor of Saint Paul’s AME Church.  Dr. Tanner Dillon Johnson, meanwhile, resumed her medical practice.  The couple had three more children but in 1901 Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson died of complications resulting from childbirth.

NATIONAL BLACK HIV/AIDS AWARENESS DAY

Febuary 7, 2009

NATIONAL BLACK  HIV/AIDS AWARENESS DAY

GET EDUCATED!

GET TESTED!

GET INVOLVED!

GET TREATED!

BLACK LIFE IS WORTH SAVING

BLACK HISTORY MONTH featuring: Maria W Stewart

Stewart, Maria Miller (1803-1879)

Maria Miller was born a free-black in Hartford, Connecticut.  Little is known about her early life.  She married James Stewart in 1826 and took up public speaking in order to support herself after her husband’s death three years later.  Cheated out of her inheritance by corrupt white Boston businessmen, Stewart relied upon income from teaching and her public speaking engagements.  As one of the first women to speak in public, Stewart was not always well-received.  In a speech to a mixed audience of men and women, she asked, “What if I am a Woman,” reminding her audience that women since ancient times had been revered for their wisdom and accomplishments.  According to Stewart, free blacks had not accorded women the same respect.

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In September 1832, Maria W. Stewart delivered at Boston’s Franklin Hall one of the first public lectures ever given by an American woman. Her speech, directed to the women of the African American Female Intelligence Society, called on black women to acquire equality through education. The speech appears below.

Oh, do not say you cannot make anything of your children; but say, with the help and assistance of God, we will try. Perhaps you will say that you cannot send them to high schools and academies. You can have them taught in the first rudiments of useful knowledge, and then you can have private teachers, who will instruct them in the higher branches.

It is of no use for us to sit with our hands folded, hanging our heads like bulrushes lamenting our wretched condition; but let us make a mighty effort and arise. Let every female heart become united, and let us raise a fund ourselves; and at the end of one year and a half, we might be able to lay the cornerstone for the building of a high school, that the higher branches of knowledge might be enjoyed by us.

Do you ask, what can we do? Unite and build a store of your own. Fill one side with dry goods and the other with groceries. Do you ask, where is the money? We have spent more than enough for nonsense to do what building we should want. We have never had an opportunity of displaying our talents; therefore the world thinks we know nothing…

Few white persons of either sex are willing to spend their lives and bury their talents in performing mean, servile labor. And such is the horrible idea I entertain respecting a life of servitude, that if I conceived of there being no possibility of my rising above the condition of servant, I would gladly hail death as a welcome messenger. Oh, horrible idea, indeed to possess noble souls, aspiring after high and honorable acquirements, ¬yet confined by the chains of ignorance and poverty to lives of continual drudgery and toil.

Neither do I know of any who have enriched themselves by spending their lives as house domestics, washing windows, shaking carpets, brushing boots or tending upon gentlemen’s tables. I have learned, by bitter experience, that continued hard labor deadens the energies of the soul, and benumbs the faculties of the mind; the ideas become confined, the mind barren. Continual hard labor irritates our tempers and sours our dispositions; the whole system becomes worn out with toil and fatigue, and we care but little whether we live or die.

I do not consider it derogatory, my friends, for persons to live out to service. There are many whose inclination leads them to aspire no higher: and I would highly commend the performance of almost anything for an honest livelihood; but where constitutional strength is wanting, labor of this kind in its mildest form is painful: and, doubtless, many are the prayers that have ascended to heaven from Afric’s daughters for strength to perform their work. Most of our color have dragged out a miserable existence of servitude from the cradle to the grave. And what literary acquirements can be made, or useful knowledge derived, from either maps, books, or charts, by those who continually drudge from Monday morning until Sunday noon? . . .

O ye fairer sisters, whose hands are never soiled, whose nerves and muscles are never strained, go learn by experience! Had we had the opportunity that you have had to improve our moral and mental faculties, what would have hindered our intellects from being as bright, and our manners from being as dignified, as yours? Had it been our lot to have been nursed in the lap of affluence and ease, and to have basked beneath the smiles and sunshine of fortune, should we not have naturally supposed that we were never made to toil? And why are not our forms as delicate and our constitutions as slender as yours? Is not the workmanship as curious and complete? . . .