FYI October 25 & 26, 2019

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On This Day

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. (1880 – November 26, 1970) was a United States Army officer. He became the first African-American to rise to the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. military in 1940. He was the father of Air Force General Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

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1892 – Ida B. Wells publishes Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1] She arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that was centered on combating prejudice and violence, who fought for equality for African Americans, especially women.[2]

Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War. At the age of 16, she lost both her parents and her infant brother in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. She went to work and kept the rest of the family intact with the help of her grandmother. Wells moved with some of her siblings to Memphis, Tennessee, where she found better pay as a teacher. Soon she co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Wells news reporting covered incidents of racial segregation and inequality.

In the 1890s, Wells documented lynching in the United States through her indictment called “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases,” investigating frequent claims of whites that lynchings were reserved for black criminals only. Wells exposed lynching as a barbaric practice of whites in the South used to intimidate and oppress African Americans who created economic and political competition—and a subsequent threat of loss of power—for whites. A white mob destroyed her newspaper office and presses as her investigative reporting was carried nationally in black-owned newspapers.

Subjected to continued threats, Wells left Memphis for Chicago. She then married and had a family, while continuing her work writing, speaking, and organizing for civil rights and the women’s movement for the rest of her life. Wells was outspoken regarding her beliefs as a Black female activist and faced regular public disapproval, including from other leaders within the civil rights movement and the women’s suffrage movement. She was active in women’s rights and the women’s suffrage movement, establishing several notable women’s organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive speaker and traveled nationally and internationally on lecture tours.[3]

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Born On This Day

1800 – Maria Jane Jewsbury, English writer, poet, literary reviewer (d. 1833)[1]
Maria Jane Jewsbury (later Maria Jane Fletcher; 25 October 1800 – 4 October 1833) was an English writer, poet and reviewer. Her Phantasmagoria, or Essays on Life and Literature, Letters to the Young, Lays for Leisure Hours and The Three Histories were highly popular.[1] While bringing up brothers and sisters, she read avidly and wrote for the Manchester Gazette in 1821.[2] She mixed family duties with literary composition and friendship with many authors. Her religious advice tended to dogmatism and a feeling of Christian right.[3] Her first book, Phantasmagoria; or, Sketches of Life and Literature (1825), containing poetry and prose,[4] was noticed by William Wordsworth and Dorothy, whom she visited in Lancashire. Another friend was Felicia Hemans, with whom she stayed in Wales in summer 1828. Other friends were Barbara Hofland, Sara Coleridge, the Henry Roscoes, the Charles Wentworth Dilkes, the Samuel Carter Halls, the Henry Chorleys, and Thomas De Quincey.[3] Through Dilke, its editor, she began writing for the Athenaeum in 1830. She married Rev. William Kew Fletcher (died 1867) in 1832, at Penegoes, Montgomeryshire, against her father’s wishes. They sailed for India while she continued to write a journal, and poetry printed in the Athenaeum as The Oceanides.[5]

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1920 – Sarah Lee Lippincott, American astronomer and academic (d. 2019)
Sarah Lee Lippincott (October 26, 1920 – February 28, 2019),[2][3] also known as Sarah Lee Lippincott Zimmerman, was an American astronomer. She was professor emerita of astronomy at Swarthmore College and director emerita of the college’s Sproul Observatory. [4] She was a pioneer in the use of astrometry to determine the character of binary stars and search for extrasolar planets.

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FYI

Dolly Parton’s America
 
 
 
 
By Fernando Alfonso III, CNN: A fat cat named Cinderblock wins over the internet with its heartwarming workout routine
 
 
 
 
The Rural Blog: RTDNA’s Murrow Awards have many rural winners; E-Verify proposal would give legal status to farmworkers currently in the country illegally; Senate is a hurdle; EPA wants pesticide spray buffer-zone rule to exclude adjoining properties, members of farm families; Mobile clinic brings better contraception to South Texas; Eleven journalism values, most a century old but all still pertinent, with four modern updates, from Roy Peter Clark and more ->
 
 
 
 
Open Culture: Beautiful New Photo Book Documents Patti Smith’s Breakthrough Years in Music: Features Hundreds of Unseen Photographs and more ->
 
 
 
 
Kathryn’s Report: Piper PA-18AS-125 Super Cub, N1905A: Fatal accident occurred August 23, 2017 in Tyonek, Alaska; Loss of Engine Power (Total): Cessna 152, N714UY; accident occurred July 20, 2017 near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE), Broward County, Florida; Loss of Engine Power (Total): Beech C23, N6682U; accident occurred July 08, 2017 at Bartow Municipal Airport (KBOW), Polk County, Florida; Fuel Related: Cessna 172D Skyhawk, N2492U; accident occurred July 07, 2017 in Cape Coral, Lee County, Florida; Mooney M20J 201, N201BJ: Fatal accident occurred October 25, 2019 near American Falls Airport (U01), Power County, Idaho; Aerodynamic Stall / Spin: SlipStream Genesis, N3449; fatal accident occurred July 02, 2017 near Merrys Pymatuning Airport (PA01), Linesville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania
 
 
 
 
The Passive Voice: Once Again the Power of a Streak; The Internet Is for Everyone, Right? Not With a Screen Reader and more ->
 
 
 
 

Ideas

By Urban Shop Works: DIY Table Top Concrete Planter With Wood Inlay

Recipes

The Kitchn Fun in the Kitchen: Bloody Cheesecake Bars, Pizza Octopus Tentacles, Candy Eyeballs and more ->
 
 
The Kitchn: 100 Instant Pot Recipes and Tips
 
 
Little House Big Alaska: 100 Lessons to Learn from the GBBO
 
 
By In The Kitchen With Matt: Homemade Hash Browns