The 25 Most Influential African American Leaders in U.S. History

 

TheGrio.com named the 25 most influential African American leaders in U.S. History in commemoration of Martin Luther King Day."TheGrio is devoted to sharing the news, opinions, and contributions of black people in America and around the world," said Managing Editor David Wilson. "We are specifically interested in understanding what the past teaches us about this moment and, more importantly, how it helps us prepare for the future." 

Notable results:

-President Barack Obama is the only living leader among the Top 10

-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not among the Top 25, nor is he

among the Top 5 Legal and Business category

-While Rev. Jesse L. Jackson is among those named, Rev. Al Sharpton was not

among the Top 25

-Retired General Colin Powell is one of few conservatives to make the list

- Four women are among the top 10: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Ida B. Wells-

Barnett and Ella Baker

Full survey results are available at www.thegrio.com/specials/25-top-black-leaders.

First African American Woman Elected to the House of Representatives

 Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to the House of Representatives. She was elected in 1968 and represented the state of New York. She broke ground again four years later in 1972 when she was the first major party African-American candidate and the first female candidate for president of the United States

 

February is Black History Month

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in U.S. history. The event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

Robots to the Rescue

 

Japan’s robots can help rescue survivors and clear debris after disasters.

KITAKYUSHU CITY, JAPAN – Earthquake evacuations will never be the same. Meet T-53 Enryu®, a fearsome, 11-foot-tall robot with giant, multi-jointed arms and the growl of a tractor. Designed to rescue trapped victims, this ambidextrous creature can move into a devastated zone and pick up and toss aside heavy wooden blocks and other large debris like so many chopsticks.

Japan is Cool Robot Central. As fast as you can say, “Everything is go, Astro Boy!” a new model joins a staggering array of robots that play musical instruments, calm frazzled motorists, and gracefully two-step through TV commercials. There are robots that play soccer, dance, climb trees, and swim, not to mention all the functions they perform on auto assembly lines. Osaka University Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro has even spawned his own eerily lifelike, silicone-skinned twin.

Now, the nation that has long dominated industrial robotics is grappling with ways robots can tackle society’s other challenges. One is relieving firefighters of heavy-lifting burdens after an earthquake, thereby speeding rescues. Yet a more complicated problem looms, that of how Japan’s shrinking workforce will care for a growing elderly population.

Supermoon

Saturday night's full moon appeared 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal as its lunar orbit brought it close to the Earth. The moon came its closest to earth in 18 years, making it bigger and brighter than normal.

The occurrences, technically known as "lunar perigees," were previously visible in 1955, 1974, 1992, 1993 and 2005. But what makes this one particularly special is that it coincides with a full moon, which hasn't happened since 1993, according to Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

Knut The Polar Bear Dead: Famous Animal Dies In German Zoo

The world-famous bear died alone in his compound, bear keeper Heiner Kloes told The Associated Press.

"He was by himself in his compound, he was in the water, and then he was dead," said Kloes. "He was not sick, we don't know why he died."

A post mortem will be conducted on Monday to try pinpoint his cause of death, he said.

Between 600 and 700 people were at Knut's compound and saw the four-year-old bear die, German news agency DAPD reported.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit called Knut's death "awful."

"We all held him so dearly," Wowereit told daily newspaper B.Z. "He was the star of the Berlin zoos."

The polar bear rose to global fame after he was rejected by his mother when he was born in captivity on December 5, 2006. The fluffy cub was shown to the public 15 weeks later, and attendance at the zoo has roughly doubled since, officials said.

The resulting "Knutmania" led to a 2007 Vanity Fair cover with actor Leonardo DiCaprio shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, a film and plush likenesses. Though the zoo has never released exact numbers, Knut merchandise including postcards, key chains, candy and stuffed Knuts have brought in hundreds of thousands of euros.

Celebrate with Pi, Not Cake

The Chicago Tribune (3/14, Ford) reports that "Monday is Pi Day," in honor of "the number that expresses the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter" and "starts with 3.14159. Thus, March 14, or 3/14, for Pi Day." The celebration started in San Francisco in 1989 and "has spread around the world, and math teachers, students and other self-proclaimed math fans amused or intrigued by pi celebrate the number." The Tribune points out that "one highlight of many Pi Day events is a competitive recitation of the numerous digits of pi, which modern computers have calculated to a trillion decimal places." Chicago's Morgan Park Academy has a "record" of 312 digits, and one Walter Payton College Prep student who now attends Yale University "remembered a mind-blowing 500 digits."

 

Globaloria Game Demos

So this must be that "Back Button"
that the students were talking about.
I wonder what it tastes like?
I know they won't miss it, cause I heard them say
that they already had their "Next Button!"

The students are really working hard on their game demos. I'm really proud of them. They seem to be grasping the idea of Flash since we have been working on our Game Demos. We've gotten Drawing a Scene and Adding Scenes completed and uploaded. It took the students several tries to get their scenes working properly. They've learned to set up folders for each scene and to add the layers for each scene within that scene's folder. They've also learned to use the timeline and to set up each scene to go for 9 frames, such as GameIntro, TeamIntro, etc.  They learned that they needed a new layer for each object. They learned to make sure that they were on the layer that they thought they were on when they were adding something to their scene, such as making sure the text was on the text layer and not on the background layer. It took them one or two "do overs" to learn to do these things correctly. They've learned many things about frames and keyframes, such as how to insert frames, remove frames, insert keyframes, insert blank keyframes, clear keyframes, convert to keyframes, convert to blank keyframes. That was a long, hard process, but we all survived it and are better at Flash as a result of it. Whew!

Now,we are tackling buttons. Oh yeah, those awesome buttons that get you from one scene to the next scene or from one scene back to the previous scene. Thus far, the students have been able to get their next buttons to work properly. However, there seems to be a problem with their back buttons. The back buttons keep going to the next scene rather than to the previous scene, even though it appears the coding is correctly. The students even deleted the buttons, coding, etc. and started over on the back buttons, but the same thing happened. I spoke with my mentor, Bill, and he is going to look at the Flash file that one of the students uploaded to their team's wiki and let us know what is wrong. Hopefully, the students can get this corrected so the Adding Buttons Flash files can be uploaded. Next, we'll be working on Adding Animation. It's great how all the students are working on their game demos and helping each other when they run into problems. I go around and check on the different teams and offer any help that I can once they have tried to solve the flash problems and once other teams have tried to help them solve the flash issues.

Globaloria Presented to the West Virginia State Board of Education

Gaston and Idit Caperton shake hands with WVBOE Vice President Jenny Phillips

and President Pricilla Haden after presenting a Globaloria Progress Report. 

World Wide Workshop Newsletter, February, 2011:

 

On February 9th, Idit Caperton and former WV Governor Gaston Caperton were invited to make a special presentation to the West Virginia State Board of Education. Their talk focused on the readiness of Globaloria to be scaled to every middle school and high school across the state as an integrated component of the WVDE Global 21. As follow up, a Globaloria Stakeholders Committee is being convened by the newly appointed state superintendent, Dr. Jorea Marple, to present a roll-out plan to the Board in the fall of 2011. “We were thrilled with the opportunity to share a Globaloria progress report to the Board,” said Idit. “We discussed its role in preparing students for success in college and future careers, and its potential to transform teaching and learning in alignment with common core standards.” “West Virginia has been leading the nation in education innovation with computers, and we must commit to leap forward again and serve our students and teachers better,” said former Governor Caperton who is known for transforming education with technology in his state during 1989-1997.

 

The Final Torchbearer of “The War to End all Wars”

Frank Buckles' enlistment photo into the U.S. Army in 1917, left, 

and Buckles receives an American flag during Memorial Day activities 

at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, May 26, 2008.  (AP)

Frank Woodruff Buckles was born February 1, 1901, in Bethany, Missouri. He lived and attended schools in Coffey and Walker, Missouri, and at the age of 15 moved with his family to Oklahoma, where he worked at a bank and attended high school in Oakwood, a small frontier town.

Frank Woodruff Buckles enlisted in the United States Army on August 14, 1917, at the age of sixteen, after being turned away by the United States Marines and United States Navy due to his age. He was assigned serial number 15577, and assigned to Fort Logan, Colorado. He earned the rank of Corporal, and drove ambulances and motorcycles for the Army’s First Fort Riley Casual Detachment. He traveled across England and France and witnessed the European Theatre of World War I.

Following the signing of the Armistice in 1918, ending World War I, Corporal Buckles was assigned to a prisoner-of-war escort company to return prisoners to Germany. Corporal Buckles was discharged from the United States Army in 1920.

While working as a civilian for the American President Lines, a shipping company in Manila, Philippines, Corporal Buckles was captured by the Japanese on December 8, 1942, the day following the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. Corporal Buckles spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war in Japanese prison camps at Santo Tomas and Los Baños, and was rescued by the 11th Airborne Division on February 23, 1945. Corporal Buckles returned to the United States, married Audrey Mayo of Pleasanton, California, in 1946, and settled in the San Francisco, California area.

 Frank Woodruff Buckles retired from work in the shipping industry and in January, 1954, moved with his family to raise cattle on the 330 acre Gap View Farm near Charles Town, West Virginia, the area where his forefather, Robert Buckles, settled in 1732.

 With the death of 108-year-old Richard Landis on February 4, 2008, Frank Woodruff Buckles became the last surviving American World War I veteran. Corporal Buckles, as the lone survivor of the Great War, continued to serve America and dedicated his final years to ensuring that the sacrifices of his fellow “Doughboys” were properly commemorated by continuing relentlessly advocating for the refurbishing of the District of Columbia War Memorial and its establishment as the National World War I Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and in his home state of Missouri, and as the Honorary Chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation.

 Corporal Buckles was honored by presidents and high-ranking officials at the White House, on Capitol Hill, and at the Pentagon, and in 2008 was awarded the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Gold Medal of Merit and also the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’s Knight Commander of the Court of Honor by the Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. For his service during World War I, the United States government awarded Corporal Buckles the World War I Victory Medal and the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal and qualified him for four Overseas Service Bars, and he was awarded the Legion of Honor by French president Jacques Chirac.

 The last surviving American World War I veteran, Frank Woodruff Buckles, died at the age of 110 on February 27, 2011, at his home in Charles Town, West Virginia.

At the death of Frank Woodruff Buckles, a grateful nation rose up to give honor to the last survivor of a war in which five million Americans served and to a man who stood as a representative of his former comrades-in-arms and their sacrifices; and 

 Even as our nation mourns his passing, we also celebrate the remarkable life of Frank Woodruff Buckles, a true patriot and the final torchbearer of “the War to End all Wars.”

Bottle Rocket Challenge

All middle schools and high schools in West Virginia are invited to participate in the Bottle Rocket Challenge to take place in Clarksburg, WV on May 26, 2011.  The event is being sponsored by The Prodigy Foundation, Freedom Bank, RESA 7, the MAAC (Mid-Atlantic Aerospace Complex), and Fairmont State GEAR UP and it is after the WESTEST 2.  Each school that wants to take part must select one team consisting of no more than five 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and/or 12^th grade students and one teacher.  The school may conduct their rocket launch whenever it may be convenient to select participating team. 

The winning team from each school is invited to participate on May 26, 2011 in the Prodigy Foundation Bottle Rocket Challenge at Hite Field in Clarksburg, WV at 10:00 am.  If a school cannot reach Hite Field by 10:00 am, it will not matter.  The first team there will begin the launch and we will assign numbers to the teams as they arrive.  Each team will be provided with a launcher and water to propel the rockets. Also, lunch will be provided. Each student will also be given a tee shirt and the Rocket Boys book for participating, and will have an opportunity to have the book autographed by 4 of the original “Rocket Boys”.

The top three teams will be given individual prizes along with cash prizes totaling $1000 from Freedom Bank for their teacher to use to improve their classroom.  This event will be in conjunction with the WV Teacher Achievement Award from the Prodigy Foundation which will be given to a WV teacher in honor of the Rocket Boys mentor and teacher, Freida J. Riley.

In addition to  the launch the students will be judged on a presentation (5 minutes maximum) summarizing their design, scientific/engineering principles utilized, trial test flights, design insufficiencies (if there were any), and how they were overcome.  Students will be required to give this presentation after their test launch, and each team member must participate in giving the presentation. A separate prize will be given to the team with the best presentation.