Famous Black Firsts: Rebecca Davis Lee

Rebecca Davis Lee was born in 1831 Delaware. She was raised by her aunt in Pennsylvania that took care of sick neighbors during a time where poor sick Blacks were not a concern. After moving to Massachusetts she started nursing by 1852 and by 1860 she was accepted into the New England Female Medical College at a time where this was not happening much at all. When she graduated in 1864 she was the first Black woman in the US to earn a M.D degree and the only Black woman to graduate from the college. 

After the Civil War ended in 1865 she went to Richmond, Virginia and began missionary work for poor Blacks and worked for the Freedmen's Bureau to give medical care to freed slaves. During this time male doctors would ignore her and pharmacists would not fill prescriptions she requested. With her husband Dr. Arthur Crumpler while living in Boston she took in sick patients in her community. In 1883 she published Book Of Medical Discourse which was for women teaching them how to care for their families. There are no pictures of Lee and the ones you see online are of Mary Eliza Mahoney as if no one bothered to check past one page on Google. I found an image of a wax statue made of her.

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Famous Black Firsts: Diahann Caroll

Diahann Caroll was born on July 17th 1935 as Carol Diahann Johnson in the Bronx, New York. As a child her parents enrolled her in dance, modeling, and singing classes. When she was 15 years old she was already 6 feet tall and modeling for Ebony magazine. After high school she went to NYU and majored in sociology. At 18 she appeared on a program called Chance of a Lifetime. She won $1,000 for her performance of “Why Was I Born?” and won for the next four weeks. She soon began performing at nightclubs. 

She debuted in film in the movie Carmen Jones as a supporting role in 1954. In 1958 she made it to Broadway in the musical House of Flowers. She performed in more series and plays and won a Tony Award for best actress for the musical No Strings which was the first for a Black woman. In 1974 she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in the movie Claudine. 

She became known for her role in the 1968 series Julia. This show made her the first Black actress to star in her own television series where she was not portraying a domestic worker. For that she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1969.

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Johnny Panic: Superman Never Bragged 2 of 2

Click here for Part 1.

I fly back home and am still in a crumby mood. Stupid cops. Stupid city. Stupid poo waving hobo. I land and Ronica is standing on the porch with Milly floating with a tether attached otherwise she'd just keep going up. She wouldn't die in space or anything but space is big and finding a giggling baby in space is hard. Trust me. It happened once.

Ronica doesn't look happy.

“Hey, sexy ass” I say to her. She just looks at me. “Okay, fine. I screwed up.”

“Don't just say you 'screwed up', Walter” she tells me. Whenever she uses my real name that means she is mad at me. She's been using my real name a lot lately. “I told you to come back home because I knew you'd say something stupid.”

“You didn't tell me to come home you texted me” I say. Point: Me. “If you had called I would've known you were serious.”

“You need to fly back and apologize” she says. I laugh. She doesn't. “Don't make me call your mother.”

Famous Black Firsts: Astronaut Guion Stewart Bluford Jr.

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. was born November 22nd 1942 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Penn State in 1964 studying aerospace engineering he joined the Air Force and served during the Vietnam War. There he flew over 140 combat mission and won medals because that is what you do. 

After the war he went to the Air Force Institute of Technology and got a master's degree in aerospace engineering and got a Ph.D in 1978. 

That same year he was chosen for N.A.S.A. In August of 1983 Buford became the first Black person to travel into space. He was a mission specialist on the Challenger shuttle and participated in the first night launch. Funny. I've never thought about that before. 

He orbited the planet 98 times in 145 hours. That sounds insane. He went on three more space mission, his last two were in 1991 and 1992. He retired in 1993 after spending more than 688 hours in space. I haven't even spent that much time in water! He was inducted into the International Hall of Fame in 1997.

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The Story Of Dante

Dante was born on the planet Mars in 1979. Many do not know that Mars carried life and they can not be blamed for their ignorance for only Dante was the only being there. After digging through 15 miles of crusty crust he emerged and set his sights on the planet known as Earth. Using only the power of his mind he was teleported to Los Angeles, CA which would become his new home.

Upon landing on Earth he was taken in by a family that attempted to contain his ridiculous levels of creativity. Thankfully he refused to conform to their standards. As a teen he longed to return to his home world or Mars but the discovery of a man-made material known as Fruity Pebbles and vagina kept his feet firmly planted on Terra. Dante studied the 1,124 Sacred Levels of Passion that were created by gods whose names have not been spoken in thousands of years and made it his mission to please women in ways that would make them damn any other man that touched them for they knew they would never feel this good again.

Johnny Panic: Superman Never Bragged 1 of 2

A guy has taken over a bank armed with a stick with poo on the end of it. No gun. No knife. Just a poo stick. This is how my week was starting. This is stupid and I'm not sure why the police even called me. But here I am. 9 in the morning and standing in the entrance of a bank watching this guy, obviously homeless, waving a stick in the air. He looks at me and there isn't a hint of recognition in his face which means he is like crazy because everyone knows who I am.

Johnny Panic.

He comes barreling at me and I sonic shout at him when he's a few feet from me. The stick falls to the ground a second after he does clutching his head and screaming. I turn around and the police come storming in. News cameras are waiting outside and I am just not in the mood. Or as Zazz used to say when we were kids and he didn't have the words to describe it “The Angers.”

Last week my mother had to get surgery. I took her to China because they are all about them stem cells and while she is recovering I've been super bummed out. Ronica has been good at cheering me up and was in the process of cheering me up with her mouth when I got the call to deal with this. The police captain doesn't even thank me. He nods and keeps on walking towards the guy on the ground while some officers put gloves on.

Famous Black Firsts: Alexander Lucius Twilight

Alexander Lucius Twilight not only has one of the coolest names ever created, he was also the first Black person in the US to get a degree from college. Born on September 23rd 1795 in Corinth, Vermont his parents were both free. His father was mixed race and a Revolutionary War veteran. 

When he was 8 he started working on a nearby farm and until he was 20 read and learned mathematics. From there for the next six years he completed all secondary school courses and the first two of college level courses. When he graduated in 1823 it wasn't even widely known that he was the first Black to get a baccalaureate degree until someone else claimed that they were three years later. He began a career as a teacher in New York while studying theology and ministry. 

After four years of teaching he moved to Vermont to continue teaching during the week and holding church services on the weekend. In 1829 he was hired as a principal and served as a minister. He then raised money and designed a dormitory for out of town students. In 1836 he was elected to the Vermont General Assembly making him the first Black to be elected to state legislature.

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Famous Black Firsts: Lillian Lincoln Lambert

Lillian Lincoln Lambert is known as the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Business School. Born in Ballsville, Virginia she moved to New York after high school. The only work she could find was as a maid so she moved to Washington, D.C and worked in typing pools for the government and went to teachers college. When she was 22 she went to Howard University. There she met H. Naylor Fitzhugh who was one of the first Blacks to go to HBS and he became her mentor and eventually he convinced her to apply. 

When she arrived at the school she realized that she was the only Black woman there. In her class of 1,600 only 1 of 9 were Black and 35 of them were women. “In hindsight, it was best that I did not know. Had I known, I’m not sure I would have gone. It was a tumultuous time for the country. This was the era of the civil rights and women's rights movements. Martin Luther King would be assassinated the following spring.”They started a African-American Student Union to get the number of Blacks attending to increase. They increased the number within two years. Before she graduated she had not been interviewed for any jobs. She went back to her previous job and eventually became executive vice president of Unified Services. In 1976 she started her own company, Centennial One. What began with 20 part-time employees and an office that was formally her garage became one with 1,200 employees and made $20 million. By 1995 she was the first woman to serve the president of an international association of service contractors.

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Jigga What?!

A reporter from Cleveland named Kristi Capel that works, at the moment, as an anchor on Fox 8 News in the Morning is in some deep shit after using the term “jigaboo” to describe the singer Lady Gaga's music. While reporting on the Academy Awards with another anchor, Wayne Dawson, she watched the highlights of the show and let this sentence leave her lips. “It's hard to really hear her voice with all that jigaboo music that she does, or whatever you want to call it.” Then she paused for a moment and said it again. “Jigaboo. She has a gorgeous voice. I never knew. Very nice.” For anyone that doesn't know what that term means, here ya go.

Jigaboo: noun, plural jigaboos. Slang: extremely disparaging and offensive; a contemptuous term used to refer to a black person; used as a disparaging term for a black person. Jiggaboo or jigabo is from a Bantu verb tshikabo, meaning meek or servile.

Capel grew up in Northern Kentucky and was born in 1983 and is a former beauty pageant queen that went to some religious schools, studied public relations, meteorology, and broadcasting. After she realized that, oopsy, she said something offensive, she went on Twitter and said “I do apologize if I offended you, I didn't know the meaning behind it or that it was even a word” adding “Thank you for watching.” The same message was sent to multiple people. As someone that got a degree in public relations you'd think she would be able to whip up a better apology.

Famous Black Firsts: Director Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was born November 30th 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas. The school he went to was segregated because the town was so small that they couldn't afford to be non-segregated when he was a teen and while there Black were not allowed to play sports of go to any extracurricular activities. Parks says that once a teacher told him that going to college would be a waste of money. Sounds legit. 

When he was 14 his mother passed away and he moved in with other family members who quickly put him out on the streets. His first job was as a piano player in a brothel. I swear, those places must have been so much more prevalent back in the day. At the age of 25 he became inspired to start a career in photography. In 1940 he was encouraged to move to Chicago and he started a portrait business specializing in photos of rich women. In the 1950's he started working as a consultant on film production. Later on he directed his own documentaries about life as a Black in the ghetto. As well as being a photographer and a writer, he ended up directing his own book The Learning Tree in 1969 making him Hollywood's first Black director. Yeah. It took that long for that to happen. He also composed the music for the movie. His most well known film is Shaft. He's a bad mutha...

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Famous Black Firsts: Performer Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31st 1896. Some say that she was actually born in 1900. Her mother, Louise Anderson, was around 13 when she gave birth to Ethel after being raped by a man named John Waters that knew the family. Ethel was raised in poor neighborhoods and moved frequently. When talking about her childhood she said “I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family.” She was about 5 foot 9 ½ as a teenager which is worth noting because that is pretty tall for a chick period let alone back then. She got married when she was 13 years old but left her husband after abuse and worked as a maid. At 17 she attended a costume party and after being asked to sing wowed everyone to the point she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theater located in Baltimore. 

She later toured the vaudeville circuit and despite being this successful at such a young age she fell on hard times and began traveling with a carnival in freight cars. By 1919 she moved to Harlem and became a famous performer during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1949 she was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie Pinky making her the second Black after Hattie McDaniel to do such. In 1950 she starred in the television series Beulah but left the show after disagreeing with the portrayal of Blacks on the series. This show was the very first series to star a Black person. Oddly enough Hattie eventually replaced her.

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Let's Talk Turkey by Dante Ross

The last thing Tyler could remember was looking down at his receipt as he removed his card from the ATM machine. He had a bad habit of walking away from the machine as it beeped, alerting him to the fact that he was not as smart as he told himself.

$9,483.07.

That was how much he had in his account and it was the most he'd ever had. For the last ten months he'd been saving money from every single paycheck from the mail room. Every ache and pain he felt during the long bus rides home, paper cuts, constant sneezing from dust, and unimpressed looks from dates he got for his occupation was worth it for that $9,483.07.

“Almost awake.”

Tyler froze in place. Awake? Where was he? Who said that? Was he asleep? It was now registering that he could not feel his limbs. He tried to open eyes he could not blink. “Wheeeeeeeeeeere...?” he droned in a voice he did not recognize as his own.

Dante Bitches About Cosmo 12 Things a Guy Thinks Article

I hate Cosmo. Besides thinking that it is secretly run by gay men that hate women and want them to hate themselves I also think it is run by women that think men are idiots and post articles pretending to be men that say idiotic things women and men believe. I saw this article called 12 Things a Guy Thinks When You Sit On His Face that was allegedly written by a guy. I am not gonna post all twelve things because each one is equally stupid.

And by the way, I didn't pick that picture of Nicki Minaj. They did. That is the picture they choose to discuss what men think about when a woman is sitting on their faces. The picked a chick with a scary fake ass making a scary face singing what only I can imagine is a scary song. Some of you only clicked on this link because of that picture. Every chair she sits on becomes a throne of lies. I am gonna write a few things that I have thought because I can only speak for other men when it comes to mistakes. And the picture I use is way hotter. Let's begin.

Michelangelo of Butt Injections Under Arrest

Padge Victoria Windslowe aka Black Madam aka the “Michelangelo of Butt Injections” is in court fighting the crime of third degree murder after the death of a 20 year old exotic dancer, meaning stripper, back in 2011. These women would come to what were called “pumping parties” where they would have their asses injected. Now, you tell me that I am invited to an ass injection party then my brain goes to a whole other place. This is either gonna be the best party ever of the stuff of nightmares. 

There is one chick named Stephanie Matos of New York that told the jury that she paid $1,000 back in 2008 to inject her ass and she was filled with industrial-grade silicone. For anyone that isn't quite sure what that is, it is a sealant. Its not what fake boobs are filled with. Not the same thing. Black Madam don't care about that shit so she pumped a London chick full of the stuff, glued it shut with cotton balls added, and sent her on her way in a airport hotel. District attorney Carlos Vega said “What they didn't know was that this was not medical-grade silicone but silicone for machines, for use on tanks by the military and to lubricate car engines. It was poison.” But...big ass!

Don't Matter Just Don't Bite It

Quinno sent me this damned story earlier and all I said was “Nope.” A guy in Oklahoma almost lost his penis after his girlfriend, 31 year old Amber Ellis, tried to bite the damned thing off. This is another one of those stories that proves that women don't fight fair and take things to an 11 when a 4 is appropriate. After spending a night getting their drank on they ended up in an argument. By the way: if I am drinking and get into an argument I don't drink with that person ever again. 

While he was sleeping on the couch because that is where guys go after fights with women they wanna fuck later he woke up to having his dick treated like a chew toy. Somehow in this process she also hit him in the head with a laptop. Don't look at me. I don't know either. The reason they fought? He accused her of being too needy. He went to the hospital and got multiple stitches to fix his junk as well as being treated for injuries to his head (both of 'em), neck, face, and knee. That girl went bananas on his ass! Ellis was booked on charges of maiming as well as assault with a deadly weapon. Do they mean the laptop or her teeth? She is being held on $45,000 on each count which doing my LAUSD math means...millions.  

Famous Black Firsts: Banker Maggie Lena Walker

Maggie Lena Walker was born on July 15th 1867 in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother was a former slave and assistant cook in a mansion and her father was a butler and a writer. After the death of her father, she says murder the law says suicide, she and her mother moved. Her mother started a laundry business to support themselves. It is said that during this time she saw the huge difference between how Blacks and Whites were treated. Later in her life she taught grade school for a few years but was forced to leave after marrying. It was illegal for teachers to be married at the school. Don't ask me. 

In 1895 she began working with the Order of St. Luke's and quickly became their grand secretary. When she started they were on the verge of bankruptcy and a few years later she made a speech detailing what she had planned to save them and it worked. In 1902 she started the St . Luke Herald newspaper to spread news of what they were doing. In 1903 she opened the St. Luke Penny Saving Bank making her not just the first Black woman to open and run a bank, but the first woman period in the US. Two years later she opened St. Luke Emporium that gave Black women the chance to work and gave Black communities the chance to buy cheaper products.

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Famous Black Firsts: Entrepreneur Madam CJ Walker

Sarah Breedlove better known as Madam C.J . Walker was born on December 23rd 1867 in Delta, Louisiana and is regarded as the first female self-made millionaire. Her parents and siblings were all born into slavery and she was the first born free after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. This is where it gets kinda weird. At the age of 14 she married her brother to escape her step-mom's bad treatment and three years later had a daughter. Hmm. Okay. 

A few years later she moved and began working with her brothers who were all barbers. She worked as a washer barely making a dollar a day. She experienced hair issues because back then taking care of Black hair was a nightmare. In 1904 she began selling products for Annie Turnbo Malone who was a Black hair care entrepreneur. She later began making her own products and married a newspaper advertising salesman named Charles Joseph Walker. She then trained women in the art of selling hair care products. Her business grew and by 1917 she held her first Madam Walker Beauty Culturists convention. This is said to be the first national meeting of women in America brought together to discuss business practices. She let everyone know that getting involved in politics and philanthropy were important. Her business eventually expanded to Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti, and Jamaica.

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Dig Ol' Bick

The ladies love a big dick. A huge honking hog between a man's legs is what every man wants to have. So why would a Florida teen decided to get a penis reduction? Well, it may have to do with the fact that he was walking around with a damned football in between his legs. This unnamed teen that most people probably know as the kid that walks funny and all the sluts hit on went to the doctor because his junk was too big for sex. Chances are if your dick is 10 inches around no girl can take that and if she can you don't want to have sex with that girl. Now to give you an example of how big 10 inches around is, a soda can is 8.1875 inches around. That means you take a soda can and add about two more inches and you are looking at what he has to deal with or what you have to deal with depending on how freaky you are.

It was 10 inches around and 7 inches long and the doctor that treated the teen, Rafael Carrion, said “ It sounds like a man's dream a tremendously inflated phallus but unfortunately, although it was a generous length, its girth was just massive, especially around the middle.” I'm sure that having sex with him would feel like giving reverse birth. Yeah. Get that visual outta your head.

Old Lady Is Old

There is this story floating around of this 115 year old lady named Emma Morano. I was recently talking to Dashuh about how when someone is old as oxygen they drag them out on television and want to know the secret to longevity while I'm just like “Ugh. That's too long.” Besides the fact that most times someone is 100 years old they look 100 years old times two. I'd be pissed if you brought a hundred year old version of me out to the public. 

Even at her age she is just the fifth oldest person alive. Let me look up the number one real quick. Oh, god! Alright. This other old lady lives in Japan, is 116, and looks every bit of it. The image they used is her eating...something. Damn it. Why'd I do that? Morano lives in Italy and has lived through a lot of shit in 115 years. The questions people ask when someone is that old is are stupid. Just because she was alive doesn't mean she was, like, participating in things. To me it sounds like she lived long because she minded her own business. Her “secret” to being older than the vacuum cleaner is eating three raw eggs a day and being single. “I didn't want to be dominated by anyone.” She was married for a short time but separated in 1938. She also has family members that tickled death in their sleep like her sisters that died just before 100 and another that made it to 102. 

Famous Black Firsts: Thomas Mundy Peterson

Thomas Mundy Peterson was born on October 6th 1824 in Metuchen, New Jersey. It is not known if his father was a slave but his mother was and by the age of 21 she was freed according to her owners will. Peterson was a school custodian and handyman as well as a Republican. My, how times have changed. The only Black Republicans you hear about now have money. 

Under the new 15th Amendment he was able to vote in an election making him the first Black person to vote on March 31st 1870 stating “I was working for Mr. T. L. Kearny on the morning of the day of election, and did not think of voting until he came out to the stable where I was attending to the horses and advised me to go to the polls and exercise a citizen's privilege.” 

He was also the first Black person to serve on a jury and hold an elected office on the Middlesex County Commission. Peterson was given a gold medal as an award for being the first Black voter. $70 was raised for it which translates to over $1,000 now. Financial problems forced him to pawn it multiple times but it is now housed at the African American Xavier University of Louisiana.

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Famous Black Firsts: Nurse Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 7th 1845 to recently freed slaves from North Carolina. When she was 18 years she decided that she wanted to become a nurse. She began studying and by 1878 at the age of 33 she was accepted to the New England Hospital for Women and Children nursing school making her the first Black professional nurse in the US. This was also the first professional nursing program in America as well. By 1950 the hospital was equipped to handle male patients. Out of 42 students that started training she was one of the four that actually graduated. This training required a year working at the hospital's surgical, maternity, and medical wards as well as attend lectures. Oh, and they had to work as private nurses for four months. 

Mahoney was known by the families that she worked for privately for her calmness and professionalism. During this time, you know, the 1800's and all, she was also required to do household tasks as well as nurse. She was like “Pffft!” and didn't eat her meals with the staff. Her reputation grew and she started getting requests to work all around the country. She later became one of the first Black members of the American Nurses Association and when they were taking too long to bring in more Black nurses she supported the creation of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. For the next ten years she helped recruit nurses and by 1910 the number of Black women nurses was around 2,400. 1911 ran an orphanage in New York. She then fought for the right to vote for women and at the age of 76 was able to vote. She passed away in 1936 of breast cancer and a few years later the number of Black nurses doubled. She was inducted into the A.N.A Hall of Fame in 1976.

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Change of Heart by Tasty Taste and The Premature

The song you hated is now a music video. Change Of Heart is the story of an R&B singer that decides, mid-concert, to change his ways and sing about what he really wants.

Why Isn't Dante Dating? The Maddening

Any reason someone has for me to date someone I know I always have a dozen reasons why I should not for their every one. That is not to say that I don't know some women that in the past I would've been lucky to have as a girlfriend, but as of now...no. I have said in the past when someone would ask me why I wouldn't date some of the women I know and my response was “I know them too well.” What I mean by that is that I am immature and have seen some of the men they have dated and boned or heard what they did and the idea of following them skeeves me out. Not all the time but some. Mostly because my imagination is terribly vivid and some of the guys my friends have dated were far below me in terms of everything but goals.

Ah, goals.

Sometimes that is all you need to bed a woman. You don't even need to have something tangible. You can live on the couch in your mothers living room and chew your toenails while bitching about all the milk being gone but if you tell the right woman that you plan on getting a degree or about your small business that you've been planning (for the last 10 years but she doesn't need to know all that) her draws will explode off her body like a warm-up outfit at the start of an NBA game. “Oh, my god! He has such big dreams!”

Famous Black Firsts: Recognized Physician James Durham

This one is a good example of why it is not as easy to do these as you'd think. Though James Durham did something great, the dates of his birth and death are different depending on where you look and there are no pictures of him. Anywhere. Lots of folks have written about this guy and they are using a picture of James McCune Smith who was the first formally trained Black doctor. Durham was the first Black to practice medicine without a degree. Get it together, people. 

Born a slave in 1762 and having 10 siblings he was owned by different doctors. By the time he was 11 one of his masters hired him to help out with medical services. At the age of 20 he was making $3,000 a year which sounded real low until I did the conversion and saw that it came out to about $75,870 a year. If I made that much now I'd be happy let alone in the 1700's. 

Working as a nurse at the age of 21 he was able to buy his own freedom and set up his own medical business in New Orleans. It is said that he was popular due to the fact that he was able to speak three languages: English, Spanish, and French. In 1789 he saved more patients than any other physician from yellow fever after previously meeting Benjamin Rush who is known as the father of American medicine. In Philadelphia he learned that climate and disease were related. In 1801 his practice was restricted even though he knew what he was doing and good at his job because he did not have a formal medical degree. It is said that disappeared after 1801 or 1802 and died of a heart attack.

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This Nasty Sumbitch

My cousin tagged me in a post about this story. Not sure if that makes me a bad person or her. Either way, no matter what I do for the rest of my life I'll never be as bad as Georgia resident 26 year old Domonique Smith. At first he was arrested for stealing a bike because, well, some people miss the 1980's. Then a burglary was reported in Monday morning and they found out that Smith had been riding things other than a stolen bike. He had banged a body in a funeral home. The name of the dead woman that he had sex with has not been released but the family was notified. Know what? I wouldn't want to know. I don't need that phone call from the police. 

There is video evidence that shows that Smith was there between 7pm and 7am. The funeral home, Hill Watson Peoples Funeral Service, doesn't want to talk about this for reasons. What is also bad is that this kind of thing is extremely rare in Muscogee County. Not impossible or unheard of. But extremely rare. The funeral director, Cedric Hill, did say “We hold our families dear. We look for the best protection and security for the families we have served in this community for 65 years.” Turns out Smith was holding someone dear as well. He is being held on $20,000 bond and if he is convicted he can get one to 10 years in prison. 

Dante Vs. Nature 49

A 20 year old guy from Georgia named Benjamin Miller got his ass destroyed, literally, at Ciudad Rodrigo's Carnaval del Toro. A doctor that had to operate on him described his injuries as the “biggest goring wound” he had ever seen. For three hours there had to be repairs to his back muscles, thighs, and sphincter. Let that shit sink in for a moment. The horn entered through his left leg and immediately began searching for an exit. It found his asshole. I'm sure that every lunatic that goes to this, between 45,000 and 50,000, assumes that they may get hurt by the crowd but not an actual bull. Miller and two others were hurt but his injuries were enough to land him in surgery.

Famous Black Firsts: Whale Ship Captain Absalom Boston

When I first read this one I thought that the years had to be wrong. I couldn't imagine a Black man, free or not, being allowed to own and run their own whale ship back then. Absalom Boston, born 1785 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, was the first Black man to captain a whale ship with an all Black crew in 1822. Absalom was born to a former slave and Native American mother which was all the rage back then and even fairly recently. Both of my grandmothers were Native Americans that married Black men. His uncle, Prince Boston, was the first Black slave to win his freedom from a jury trial after refusing to give his money to his slave master in 1770. 

By the time he was 20 years old Absalom had enough o buy property and later got a license to open and run an inn. His ship, The Industry, did a six month journey and returned with 70 barrels of whale oil which was used to make oil for lamps, soap, and margarine. This journey is also remarkable for the fact that his entire crew survived. He retired shortly after this and ran for office as well as ran a business and became a leader of the community. He and another captain, Edward Pompey, led the abolitionist movement in Nantucket. In 1845 his daughter, Phebe Ann Boston, was kept from attending a public school. They obviously didn't know this family's history. Absalom fought and won a lawsuit against the municipal government to then integrate the public school system there.

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Famous Black Firsts: Williams Wells Brown

Williams Wells Brown who was born in 1814 was the first Black man to have novel published titled Clotel. In Montgomery, Kentucky he was born a slave to a mother that was also a slave. If you are wondering why his hair is so slick, its because he and his six brothers and sisters were fathered by the cousin of their master. He and his mother were sold to other owners despite his master and cousin making a deal not to. He was sold multiple times before he was 20 years old. He and his mother escaped slavery two times, the second time being successful. At the age of 20 he met his wife and had two daughters. In 1849 he left for England while estranged from his wife who passed away. That same year he was chosen as the representative of the US at the International Peace Congress in Paris. 

After his freedom was bought in 1854 he and his daughters were able to return to the US. A side note: his daughter Josephine Brown is arguably the first Black female to have a book published. While in the US Brown settled in Buffalo, New York. There he helped slaves escape by hiding them on steamboats which he worked on in his youth as a slave. The number the estimate from Brown alone is 69 which sounds kind of low, but not when you think of how many hundreds or thousands of us are alive today or in the past because of him.

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Famous Black Firsts: University Professor Charles Lewis Reason

Charles Lewis Reason was born on July 21st 1818 in New York. Both of his parents were free. He was a mathematician and educator and became the first Black to become a professor at a mostly White college, New York Central College in McGrawville. In 1847 he and Charles Bennett Ray founded the Society for the Promotion of Education for Black children. A few years later he was made professor of belles letters Greek, Latin, and French while also working as a professor of mathematics. Reason later worked in public schools as a reformer, teacher, and administrator. 

In 1873 he helped fight for and got the statute to integrate Black students into public schools. After this he became principal of Grammar School No. 80. New York has such weird names for their school. After suffering two strokes within five years he still continued working. He passed away five months after retiring. Reason also wrote poetry, was an activist, and abolitionist.

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Famous Black Firsts: Academy Award Winner Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel was born on June 10th, 1895 to former slaves in Wichita, Kansas. She was the youngest of 13 children as well. Yeesh. Growing up she performed with her brothers and sisters who also sang and did shows. At one point even though she was performing on well known and popular radio shows she still had to support herself by being a maid. She is best known for playing the character Mammy in Gone With The Wind but it turns out that she was in over 300 movies but only credited for 80. 

She also performed on stage, television, radio, and did comedy. Besides being the first Black person to win an Academy Award in 1940 (Best Supporting Actress) she was also the first Black woman to sing on the radio. I did not know that. She was also the first Black Academy Award winner to appear on a stamp back in 2006 and has two stars on the Walk of Fame. One for movies and the other for radio. When she was given the award she was criticized by some for the roles that she accepted. They wanted her to make a statement. She just wanted to act and make a living. “Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one.” 

Famous Black Firsts: Grammy Award Winner Ella Fitzgerald

Born on April 25th, 1917 Ella Fitzgerald was the first Black female to win a Grammy Award, two of them the first year it was even a thing to win. Within the 60 years that she spent recording music she won a total of 13 Grammy's and sold 40 million copies of over 70 albums. She was born in Newport News, Virginia to unmarried parents that separated within a year of her being born. Her mother got with another guy and they moved to New York as part of the Great Migration. At the age of 6 Ella began attending school. As a child she loved dancing and would perform for her family and students in school. After the death of her mother while Ella was still a teen, her grades dropped in school and she began ditching. 

After leaving home due to her abusive stepfather she worked as a look out at a brothel. After police found her she was placed in an orphanage and then a reformatory for girls. He eventually escaped and began singing at the age of 17, making her debut at the Apollo Theater. She was going to dance during Amateur Night but decided to sing after being intimated by a local dancing duo. She won the first prize of a whopping $25. That was a lot back then. She was discovered singing for pennies by someone in the industry and his manager was reluctant to bring in a homeless teen singer until he heard her sing. Ella performed with Benny Goodman and his orchestra even after his death as well as having her own side projects. In 1942 she debuted in a Abbott & Costello movie Ride 'Em Cowboy. Due to her undeniable talent, by the 1950's and 60's she was dubbed The First Lady Of Song. I had heard of Ella growing up from various sources and when listening to some of her songs I totally recognized her voice and even imitations of it from old cartoons I watched growing up. She passed away in 1996 after a series of debilitating illnesses at home.

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Dante Saves You: Bank Heist Edition

I know it has been a while since I tried to save you all. This time I am gonna teach you how to survive a bank heist in this Dante Saves You: Bank Heist Edition. I'm not gonna teach you how to survive being robbed. Nope. I am gonna teach you how to survive being on the other side of the law.

Let's say you have decided to rob a bank. There are many reasons why you'd make this dumb decision. If you really wanna rob people go into real estate. You are gonna need a team and getting a team is hard. Think of about four other people that you think could keep any secret. Hard, isn't it? Now try to think of that many that you could successfully pull off a robbery with. Even harder. But have no fear. That is why I am here to teach you how to survive this nonsense.

After The Float (Deprivation Tank)

So today I went to Float Lab in Venice, CA. I know I said I was going to the Westwood location but it turns out that they have not opened yet. Stupid internet. Click here for why I wanted to do this. Thankfully I called to double check things and found out the correct location to go to. Being fully aware that people hate reading here is a fast version of what it was like.

Look: Giant metal box with huge tanks of various gasses, liquids, and such to operate the deprivation tank. Also, it is blacker than Don Cheadle on Crenshaw in 1992.

Sound: Your own breathing, pulse, and sometimes the tank itself.

Taste: Bionic levels of salt if it gets in your mouth which it did after I showered.

Touch: I want to say wet but that doesn't even make sense since the water is your own temperature. It feels like you are just floating on nothing.

Overall: I would suggest anyone that wants peace and quiet, has joint pains, or wants to see weird shit.

Famous Black Firsts: Boston Police Horatio Julius Homer

There isn't a lot of information about today's FBF, Horatio Julius Homer. He grew up on a farm in Farmington, Connecticut. In 1873 he worked in a shoe factory and then a steamship in Boston. By 1878 he was assigned as a patrolman. Now, I have never been to Boston. Have no desire to go to Boston. But what I do know about Boston is that I do not like their accents and that there is a lot of racism there. So the fact that Homer became the first Black police officer in Boston that long ago is pretty damned incredible. By 1895 he was made a sergeant. 

Over a 40 year career he worked for about a dozen commissioners. It is said that he like Greek literature, was a Republican, and memorized a poem each day. The main reason any of this information about him is even known is because in 2010 Margaret Sullivan, a Boston police archivist, and Bob Anthony an officer in East Boston did the homework. After that, his unmarked grave was finally treated with proper respect.

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Famous Black Firsts: First Published Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley is someone that I have heard of when in school as far as being told that she was a poet. She was also the first Black woman to have a book published. Can't recall having to read anything that she wrote. Just knew that she was Black, a woman, and wrote. She was born in 1753 but that is a guesstimate. There are so many things about her life before she was bought as a slave. They think she was 7 years old when she was purchased by the Wheatley family which is where she got her name. Yes, that is how Black people got their names back in the day. Named after who owned us. USA! USA! USA! 

Anyhoot, she was given the name Phillis because, I'm not kidding, that was what the ship that she was brought from Africa was called. She was thankfully taught to read and write by the daughter and son of the family that owned her. By the age of 12 Phillis was reading Greek and Latin. She was so good that they let all the other slaves do the household work. She was taken to London where she began to spread her work and by the age of 25 she was freed from being a slave as according to the will of her now dead master. This sounds like a story. Three months later she married and had two children that died as infants. She continued to write even though she could not afford to have her work published. After the imprisonment of her husband she had to now do the work she was able to avoid while growing up. She died at the age of 31 and hours later so did her child. Wow. I think I know why I never heard the full story of her life in school. This is depressing.

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Famous Black Firsts: First Black Comic Book Artist Matt Baker

Clarence Matthew Baker also known as Matt Baker was born on December 10th, 1921 in Forsyth County, North Caroline. As a child his family moved to Pittsburgh. After high school he was drafted during World War 2 but a heart condition prevented him from being in it. He began studying art in New York City and became an outsourced comic book artist. What that means is that he was commissioned to do at from one particular person, kinda like an agent, and sent his work in. 

The first of his work that is actually confirmed is from a “Sheena Queen of the Jungle” story in 1944. He drew for many different comic book companies using the name Matt Bakerino before settling with Atlas Comics which eventually became Marvel Comics. He became the first Black comic book artist. With his art he drew Westerns, science fiction, and romance comics. He passed away from a heart attack at the age of 37. In 2009 he was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. As someone that draws till this day and started when I was about 4 years old it would've been cool to know about this guy during Black History Month growing up.

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Famous Black Firsts: First Commissioned Officer Henry Ossian Flipper

Henry Ossian Flipper was born on March 21st, 1856. He was the oldest of five brothers. Both of his parents were owned by a slave dealer. During Reconstruction he attended Atlanta University where he was encouraged to head to West Point. He and the other four Black students there were not exactly welcomed, but he got through it and became the first Black graduate of West Point. He earned a commission as a second lieutenant of the US Army cavalry. He then became the first Black officer to command troops in the Army. 

In 1881 was under the command of an Colonel that tolerated Black soldiers but hated seeing one that was an officer. Soon Flipper was asked to keep a location safe and realized that $2,000 was missing. He tried to cover this up knowing it could be used against him but was found out. He was arrested for embezzling government funds. He was eventually found innocent during a court martial but found guilty of, get this, “of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman” and dismissed from the military. Could you imagine knowing that you were set up for some dirty stuff like this and no one believing you after making a career in the military? Two other officers were guilty of embezzlement but neither were discharged because they were White. Flipper spent the rest of his life attempting to get this charge dismissed. He ended up working in Latin America as an assistant to the Secretary of the Interior before retiring in 1931. He died in 1940. In 1994 his family asked the military to review his court martial. They found the punishment and conviction harsher than it should've been. In February of 1999 Bill Clinton pardoned Flipper.

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Famous Black Firsts: First Female Principal Fanny Jackson Coppin

Fanny Jackson Coppin was born on January 8th, 1837. Her freedom was bought by an aunt when she was 12 years old. Let that sink in for a moment. She spent the rest of her young years working as a servant for an author and studying when she could. In 1860 she got into Oberlin College in Ohio which was the first college in the US to accept Black make and female students. Yeah. She had to deal with being Black as well as a woman back then. While studying as a student she taught reading and writing to Black students before graduating with a Bachelor's degree. 

Afterward she got a position at Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth and it was here where she became the first Black female school principal. She was promoted to the board of education to superintendent making her the first Black superintendent of a school in America but eventually went back to being a principal. She eventually married a reverend and in 1902 they headed to South Africa for missionary work. After about ten years her health forced here to come back to Philadelphia. Crazy how whenever I had female principals it just seemed totally normal. I never stopped to think that someone had to be the first one as well as the first Black one.

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Meet Four Of The Worst People On Earth

I like when you can get four dumb ass people off the street at once. I don't like when the reason that they have been removed from the streets is because they did something fucked up to a kid. Four adults, relatives of the 6 year old in question, were arrested after staging a kidnapping to teach him the dangers of talking to strangers. This all took place in Troy, Missouri. Nathan Wynn Firoved, 23, was asked by the boys aunt and his coworker, 38 year old Denise Kroutil, to kidnap the kid and scare him because he was “too nice” to people. By the time this is all said and done that will never be an issue again. 

Firoved tricked the boy into his truck while he was walking home on Monday and when the boy got into the truck he told him that he would “never see his mommy again.” Just to spice things up a bit he also told him that he would be “nailed to the wall of a shed.” The boy started crying because, you know, death threats, so Firoved showed him his gun and threatened to hurt him. He eventually covered the boys hands and feet then covered up his face while driving him around. He was taken into the basement of his home, which he didn't know was his home because his face was covered. One of his family members then took the boys pants off and told him that he was going to be sold into sex slavery. After some time the family untied him and told him about Stranger Danger.

Famous Black Firsts: Judge Macon Bolling Allen

Macon Bolling Allen was born on August 4th, 1816 and was the first Black that was license to practice law and to hold a judicial position here in America. He was born free and taught himself how to read and write growing up. His first job was as a teacher. Every sentence I just wrote is shocking considering what time period that was. After moving to Maine in the 1840's he began to study law and worked as a law clerk. After passing the bar exam he was given a license to practice law but couldn't really find any work since there were so few Blacks living in Maine at the time and White people were not having any of that. 

In 1845 he moved to Boston and after walking 50 miles to the bar exam testing site he passed the exam. The reason he walked so far was because he couldn't afford transportation. After having trouble making a living being a lawyer for a bunch of racists he decided to become a judge to make money. By 1848 he became a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County. Mind you, at the time he was not even considered a US citizen yet he was now officially a judge. After the American Civil War he moved to South Carolina and opened a law office where within two years he went from being a judge in the Inferior Court to probate judge for Charleston County. He kept on practicing law until he died at the age of 78.

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Famous Black Firsts: First Black Female To Enlist Cathay Williams

Born in 1844 Cathay Williams was the daughter of a free man from Missouri and a slave which meant for all intents and purposes, legally she was a slave. Yeah. I know. During the American Civil War captured slaves were considered contraband so they were forced to serve in the military as cooks and nurses. 

Cathay joined the Union army at the age of 17 by pretending to be a man named William Cathay. This means that Cathay was not only the first Black female to enlist as an American Soldier, but that she is the only one documented to have posed as a man and get in. She served in the 8th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Too many words.

After being present in multiple battles when the war ended she still wanted to continue. She joined the Regular Army and passed herself off as a man for three more years. It is said that only two other people knew her secret: a cousin and a friend who were also soldiers alongside her. After getting smallpox, I say it as if its a present, she was finally discovered by a doctor who snitched. She was discharged in 1868. Afterward she worked as a cook in New Mexico and then while living in Pueblo, Colorado her husband stole all her money and horses. She had his ass arrested and moved again working as a seamstress. By 1876 the story of her service got around but did her little to no good as by 1890 she got sick and could not get any disability help. A couple of other women had done what she did but they were White and got help from famous friends. No one is sure exactly when she died but they guesstimate around 1892 and no one knows where she is buried because Black. This woman was a champion of champions and schools should be ashamed that she was never talked about.

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Kids These Days 50

I had to stop laughing at this picture long enough to write this. There's a barbershop in Atlanta that is offering haircuts for free to parents who have kids who don't know how to behave themselves. A-1 Kutz offers what is called the Benjamin Button Special for free. In a world of anti-bullying it is funny that the new way for parents to discipline their children without having to do it themselves is shaming. Just let the others kids make fun of them and bully the bullies. Its perfect! Child shaming is the new form of raising your kids. 

Of course this can backfire and you'll have a kid that'll likely set your house on fire while you're sleeping or put you in one of those old folks homes where they punch in your sleep. But still. That haircut! I remember in school a kid had this. He said they gave him a reverse fade. I say they were ahead of their time in regards to punishing children. Plus he was a bad kid so I laughed and laughed. Just a few days ago I was talking to Cam about how having a bad haircut could ruin your month as a child. Like when my mother tried to cut my name into my head when I was around 12. Let me call her right now and see if she remembers. Okay. So after pretending she couldn't remember she said “Oh, there was something with the D.” What she means is that she had trouble cutting the curve where as A, N, T, and E were fairly simple. Then she called me weird and I said “You the one cutting names into heads!” Suffice to say, I've been cutting my own hair ever since.

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