User:CaptJayRuffins/sandbox

Draft: Pyrrhan Society
The Pyrrhan Society is a fraternal order of Female Firefighters, and sister Female EMS paramedics and emergency personnel.

Etymology
In Latin the word pyrrhus means red from the Greek adjective πυρρός, purrhos, i.e. "flame coloured", "the colour of fire" or simply "red" or "reddish".[2] Pyrrha was evidently named after her red hair. Horace (Ode, i. 5) and Ovid describes her as red haired

First-Born
In Greek mythology, Epimetheus and Pandora had but one daughter, Pyrrha, a flame haired beauty whose name has been associated with Fiery, and also with Pyre, or fire. The roman poet Ovid wrote of her. Ovid said that water and heat are the sources of life – “because when heat and moisture blend in due balance, they conceive: these two, these are the origin of everything. Though fire and water fight, humidity and warmth create all things; that harmony” When Zeus decided to end decided to end the Bronze Age with the great deluge, Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha, were the only survivors. Even though he was imprisoned, Prometheus who could see the future and had foreseen the coming of this flood told his son, Deucalion, to build an ark and, thus, they survived. Pyrrha carries her mother’s Jar containing Hope (Elpis) and is covered in her mother’s silvery protective cloak and helm. The first- born then goes on with her husband to re-populate the world with mortals drawn from the stones of Gaia, the earth-mother.

How many women are firefighters?
In the States, approx. 35-40,000 women serve in volunteer and reserve positions in fire service, with a few hundred holding ranks above Lieutenant or captain, with less than 200 at the level of district, battalion, division or assistant Chief. Many serve temporarily during the dry wild lands fire season in western states when the need increases.. Women are firefighters around the world as well. The greatest numbers are to be found in Great Britain, with more than 260 women firefighters and a similar amount serving as volunteers. Women firefighters can also be found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Chile, France, Germany, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Panama, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago. 98 female firefighters are known to have died in the line of duty, including 23 Britons killed during the Blitz.

The obstacles that confront fire service women in this decade are the same ones that faced any traditionally excluded group making inroads in a new workplace. These issues stem from the history and tradition of firefighting as a male endeavor, and from societal constraints regarding men’s and women’s roles and perceived capabilities.

The main barriers to women’s full participation in firefighting can be summarized as follows:

Resistance from some elements of the workforce Sexual harassment and other hostile behavior based on gender Skepticism about women’s competence as firefighters Emotional attachment to an all-male work environment Uncertainty over behavioral expectations in a mixed-gender workforce Perceived threat to self-image (i.e., being a firefighter does not bolster one’s manhood if women can do it) Distrust of women’s motivation for becoming firefighter

Institutional barriers

Fire stations built to accommodate only one sex in sleeping, bathing, restroom and changing facilities Inadequate policies regarding firefighter pregnancy and reproductive safety, and inadequate information about the risks of firefighting to pregnancy Hair and grooming policies based on men’s styles and needs Protective gear and uniforms designed to fit men, not women Lack of child-care options for workers on 24-hour shifts

Effects of the male firefighting tradition, and of societal beliefs about women and men

Women may not believe they can be competent firefighters Women may not have the support of their spouse/partner in pursuing a fire service career Perceived conflict between a woman’s self-image as a woman and her work as a firefighter Discomfort with the “pioneer” role (i.e., many women who would like to be firefighters don’t want to be the first women on the job or the only woman in their firehouse) Distrust of the fire department’s motivation for hiring women and what level of real support will be provided in the long run Lack of public support for women’s presence in the fire service, based on a general perception that women can not do the job and are just being hired because of “affirmative action”

Obstacles that are not gender-specific — that all firefighters face

Physically demanding and dangerous occupation High level of stress due to exposure to trauma and tragedy Work schedule requiring nights and weekends away from home Sleep deprivation due to work schedule and stress

History of Female Firefighters in America

Women have been firefighters for 200 years. The earliest woman firefighter we know of was Molly Williams, who was a slave to a ‘Knickerbocker’ in New York City and ‘volley’ to Oceanus Engine Company #11 about 1815.

In the eighteen twenties, a French-Indian woman named Marina Betts joined bucket brigades in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brigade members formed a line to pass along buckets of water to firemen. She was famous for dunking buckets of water on men who didn’t help putting out fires but stood by to watch.

An early female firefighter is the San Francisco heiress, Lillie Hitchcock Coit. In 1859 she was made an honorary member of Knickerbocker Engine Company #5 after helping them drag the heavy engine up to a fire on Telegraph Hill. She had been saved from a fire as a child in the early 50’s. The company gave her a gold fireman’s badge bearing #5 and she continued to show up at fires to help. A provision in her bequest led to the construction of a memorial tower on telegraph hill.

One night in 1875, there was a big fire at a lumber mill in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Adelheid von Buckow(Disston) joined the volunteers from the only fire department in town and helped to pump water on the fire. She later married a member of the fire department, and the men voted her into the fire company in 1904 as a member also.

Girton Ladies’ College in Girton, Great Britain, which is now a part of Cambridge University, had an all-women’s fire brigade from 1878 until 1932. Between 1910 and 1920, women’s volunteer fire brigades formed in Los Angeles, California, and Silver Spring, Maryland.

Engine Co.#1 in West Haven, Connecticut in 1895 had the services of Carrie Rockefeller, who as a regular member of the company pulled fire apparatus to fire scenes.

The Manhattan Place Volunteer Fire Brigade, later renamed the Society Fire department is a small (3-member crew) led by Captain Marie Stack in 1912 on the outskirts of L.A.

At the age of 50 In the late 1920’s, Emma Vernell joined Westside Hose Company #1, after her husband who was a firefighter at the company died in the line of duty. She was the first woman officially recognized as a firefighter by the State of New Jersey. 10 years later Augusta Chasans became a volunteer firefighter in that state,.

Forestry
The first all-woman forest firefighting crew in California was employed by the California Department of Forestry and formed at the start of WWII. The crew consisted of a forewoman, 2 truck drivers, the firefighters, and a cook. These were the first women during (42') and following the war; those known to have been paid for fire suppression work were wildland firefighting crews working for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). An all-female BLM crew fought forest fires in Alaska during the summer of 1971, and a crew of USFS women spent 71’ and 72’ firefighting in Montana.

The first female recruit to the BLM in 1971 was terminated after one day on the job, and told that if she could find 12 more women to qualify she'd be rehired. She found 24. The BLM went co-ed the following year.

In 1944 New Jersey had the Bradley Gardens Volunteer Fire Company of women who replaced the men sent off to fight in the Pacific and European theatres during WWII. In Illinois women served in the departments at Scott Field and the Savanna Ordnance Depot where munitions were stored.

Modern Times
In the 1960’s All-female fire brigades formed in Woodbine, Texas and King County, California. By the 1970’s, it became more common for women to join within the ranks of volunteer fire departments and work side-by-side with their male peers, and as an institution all-women fire-brigades began to fade away.

The Woodbine Ladies Fire Department had 23 members and bought the apparatus, a 1942 Ford Pumper, with the proceeds for raffles and bake sales. They serve the community for 11 years with training supplied by the U.S.Forest Service.

In the 60's Jo Carol Hamilton, at 5'3" and 105lbs reports that she can handle a 1 1/2" hose by herself, "..it's all in knowing how." Serving at the Shirley Volunteer Fire Department putting out grass fires she eventually becomes chief.

The Firettes of King County, Washington, due to a shortage of male volunteers in 1962 serve as firefighters on the King County Fire District #44 in the daytime hours when the men were otherwise working.

Sandra Forcier, who was hired by the City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina as a Public Safety Officer, on July 1, 1973 was the first woman to be paid for fighting fires. Forcier transferred to a firefighting only position four years later. She started as a combination police officer and firefighter. Battalion Chief Sandra (Forcier) Waldron retired from Winston-Salem in 2004.

Judith Livers (now Judith Brewer) was hired by the Arlington County Fire Department in Arlington County, Virginia, in 1974 as a firefighter, becoming the first female ever hired in a professional firefighting position (excluding Forest service). Helping her husband study fire science (he was also a firefighter), Livers learned about firefighting and was motivated to become a firefighter herself. She retired from Arlington County at the rank of battalion chief in late 1999. Judith Livers is credited as the firstborn in a paid job as a modern American firefighter.

Chiefs
There are more than thirty thousand fire departments in the United States. This year, at least twenty-five had women as top-level chiefs. The first known female fire chief in the U.S. was Ruth E. Capello. Ruth Capello was born in 1922 and became fire chief of the Butte Falls fire department in Butte Falls, Oregon in 1973. She died at the age of 70 in 1992. The first female head of a career fire department, Chief Rosemary Bliss in Tiburon, California, became fire chief in 1993. In 2005 a woman took over command of the Fire Department in Monterey Park, California. It is the third city where Cathy Orchard has worked as a firefighter beginning in1984. She has been, in order; Fire Chief, City of Monterey Park Fire Department, Shift Battalion Chief and Training Officer, MPFD, Company Officer, Laguna Beach Fire Department, Captain, LBFD, Firefighter and Paramedic and Engineer, Poway Fire Department and a Volunteer at GSP Rescue of California, serving at every level of firefighting.

Orange County Fire Rescue made history when Bessie Hudson was named the first black female battalion chief in Orlando, Florida's history. Hudson made lieutenant in 2004, overcoming obstacles including racism and her own humble beginnings in the dept in 1981.

Rosemary Robert Cloud is the first African American Female Fire Chief in the United States. A firefighter in the Atlanta F.D., she rose thru the ranks to become Assistant Chief of Hartsfield International Airport in charge of Fire Operations. She has a BS from National-Louis University and attended the NFA. The City of East Pointe, Georgia where she in 2002 became the fire chief, has seen her mentor youth through leadership programs and the creation and implementation of numerous community service public safety programs. She retired in 2015.

Nebraska native and Missouri City Firefighter Michelle Braswell was promoted to battalion chief on the Missouri City Fire and Rescue Service in 2009 who is now one of three Batt. Chiefs in that city.

In 2008 the City of Glendale, Calif produced a report on diversity that examined the status of hiring in other large cities. The reports highlights the presence of women and the difficulties faced, pointing out that both San Diego and San Francisco had female fire chiefs. While San Diego diversified as a result of a Consent Decree, S.F. diversified due to a court challenge and the strong fire associations in San Francisco which conducted outreach to increase the number of female applicants for fire positions.

Noted Service
Many women were in fire service prior to 1974. The first were volunteer firefighters in small-town and urban settings, who date back to the 1800’s at least. Molly Williams was the first known female firefighter, an African-American woman held as a slave who worked on Oceanus Engine Company #11 in New York City in 1815. Molly wore a calico dress and apron to fight fires along with the men. Molly considered herself “as good a fire laddie as many of the boys.” Women have also worked as fire lookouts since the early 1900’s and, beginning in the mid-1970’s, as seasonal firefighters in the wildland sector.

By the mid-1970’s, women were becoming career firefighters here and there throughout the country. Among them there were a number of African-American women, including Genois Wilson in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1975 and Toni McIntosh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1976. Carolyn Mitchell becomes the firstborn in 1977 at the Kansas City Fire Department in Missouri. In 1978, Beatrice Rudder, whose father John E. was the first black commissioned officer in the US Marine corps, became the first female firefighter in Wash., D.C. Genois Wilson, a leader in educating fire safety for deaf children pioneered the first such classes in Indiana. In 1980, a firefighter in Ohio named Terese Floren was asked to curate a class on women in the fire and rescue service. Nobody was quite sure how many existed, or where to find them. Terese Floren contacted about 60 out of about two hundred names. Floren later became executive director of Women in the Fire Service, whose membership had grown from fewer than 200 to about 1,000. In the United States in 2002, approximately 2% of all firefighters were female. In 1982 the UWF (United Women Firefighters) was founded by attorney Brenda Berkman.

Brenda Berkman forced the issue of gender discrimination within the FDNY into the courts in 1982. Her courageous stand produced hostility and fear in her opponents. She became the target of extreme, uncensored harassment, as did some, but not all, of the other women firefighters. She is also the first firefighter to be named a White House Fellow in 1996. She later donated her collection of files and memorabilia to the New York Public Library along with the founding documents of the UWF. JoAnn Jacobs had a very different experience. Jacobs was one of the first 11 women and the first African-American woman to enter the FDNY. Her career in the FDNY had its challenges, but overall she experienced acceptance and tolerance. She also was a leader of the UWF.

In November 1982, eleven women—including Berkman and Jacobs—graduated from the academy and joined the ranks of the FDNY, the first women in history to do. Since then the numbers in the FDNY has grown, with 44 female firefighters currently serving in the force of 10,000. Many early female recruits recount their experiences of harassment in the firehouses as a result of being split up and sent singly into houses of men they didn't know.

Promotions, Firsts and LODD's
Bonnie Beers became Seattle's first female firefighter in 1978 and spent 30 years serving the community. In 2008 she retired a role model to other female firefighters and an inspiration for having held her ground facing gender discrimination, bullying, harassment and put-downs from the all male fire dept. She remained closeted during her time on the force and did not address the issue then, having since spoken publicly on the many gender issues she faced.

In 1985, Debra Pryor was firstborn by the Fire Department in Berkeley, California. In Berkeley, she was the city’s first female firefighter, paramedic and paramedic supervisor, and the first woman to hold the titles of lieutenant, captain, assistant chief, deputy chief and fire chief. She retired to accolades as the nation’s second black female fire chief.

Chief Rosemary Roberts Cloud, fire chief for the city of East Point, Georgia and the first African American female fire chief in the United States began her firefighting career in Atlanta, Georgia as a member of the CAFD in 1987. She retired in 2015.

In 2002 African-American Ella MCNair is promoted to Lieutenant by the FDNY. She had quit the FDNY in 1988 but returned to the job 2 years later. The following year Berkman is promoted to Captain, another first. In 2003 Rochelle "Rocky" Jones of New York is promoted to Battalion Chief, FDNY. Bonnie Bleskachek is made Chief of the Minneapolis Fire Department in 2005, making her the first female chief of the department and the first openly gay fire chief of any big city.

Probie Josephine Smith is also making history as the first daughter of an FDNY member killed on 9-11 to become a firefighter herself.

Brenda Cowan (May 9, 1963 – February 13, 2004), Lexington, Kentucky's first black female firefighter, Died in the line of duty on February 13, 2004. According to Women in the Fire Service, Lieutenant Cowan is the first black female career firefighter ever to die in the line of duty. She had served with the Lexington Fire Department for twelve years. She was on her first tour of duty after being promoted when the call came for a domestic dispute with injuries. The IABPFF awarded her the Medal of Valor for her service.

Legislative action as a result of this Line Of Duty Death

In March 2005, the Brenda D. Cowan Act, Senate Bill 217, unanimously passed the Kentucky Senate. The bill would amend KRS 508.025, relating to assault in the third degree, to provide that a person is guilty of assault in the third degree when he causes or attempts to cause physical injury to emergency medical services personnel, organized fire department members, and rescue squad personnel.

December 9, 2014 Philadelphia, PA (Fox 29) - A female firefighter was killed while battling a fire in the basement of a home in Philadelphia’s West Oak Lane Section. Early Tuesday afternoon, one of 150 women serving in the Philadelphia Fire Department. Mayor Nutter identified the fallen hero as 36-year-old Lt. Joyce Craig-Lewis, a decorated firefighter and Philadelphia native.

Current Womens Associations
The United Women Firefighters Association (UWF) testified at hearings held by the NY City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice in 2013 that the FDNY still had unfair testing practices that keep women out of firefighting, and that hazing and sexual harrassment in the firehouses was still an issue, besides the lack of adequate female facilities. The UWF was founded in 1982 by Brenda Berkman.

i-Women began in the fall of 1982, with the publication of its first newsletter. The organization officially incorporated in 1983, and held its first conference in 1985. Angela Hughes is currently a Fire Lieutenant with the Baltimore County Fire Department in Maryland. She began her passion with the fire service at the age of sixteen as a volunteer with the local fire department. Her professional career began in 1989 as a Paramedic with the Baltimore City Fire Department. Her experience includes functioning as a Paramedic/Firefighter, Fire Specialist and Fire Marshall. She is the current president of i-Women, the successor to the UWF organization.

They have about 600 members, primarily in the United States, but also in Canada, Trinidad, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and Australia. These include career, seasonal, and volunteer women and men involved in all aspects of the structural and wildland fire service and EMS, and at all ranks. They produced the 2008 study of women in firefighting, a National Report Card on Women in Firefighting that is still being used as a reference on the professional fire services and the role of women.

The Women in Fire Service placed the number of women in firefighting professionally in 2006 at 6,160 actively serving at all levels.

The San Francisco Fire Department is a diverse and professional modern fire dept which has a professional organization for women, the United Fire Service Women (UFSW). They sponsor an annual summer camp (Camp Blaze) for women to practice firefighting skills and learn about fire service. They also host the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation (AARBF) which provides services to Californians who have suffered burn injuries. Camp Blaze, a free annual camp to practice firefighting skills for women pursuing careers was established in California in 1996 by women firefighters from California and Washington states.

Regina Wilson, A FDNY academy instructor and Vulcan Society member, in 2013 was elected President of the 75 year old society, the first organization to publicly support female firefighters being hired to the FDNY, providing mentoring and classes to those taking the firefighter exam.

Overseas in Great Britain, Dany Cotton (born Danielle Cotton in 1969) is a British firefighter, now (2012) Assistant Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade.She is also the National Chair (GB) of Networking Women in the Fire Service (WFS UK). Dany is the highest ranking operational female in the UK's fire and rescue service, and was the first firefighter to receive the Queen's Fire Service Medal.

Odd Fellows Windmill, Hollis NY
The Odd Fellows are one of the earliest and oldest fraternal societies, but their early history is obscure and largely undocumented. Odd Fellows (or Oddfellows; also Odd Fellowship''' or Oddfellowship ) is an international fraternity consisting of lodges first documented in 1730 in London.

History


In 1882 a number of Odd Fellows of Brooklyn proposed that a home for aged members and their wives or widows be built on Long Island. By 1891 26 lodges organized and a site was selected at Hollis, Queens. The Long Island I.O.O.F. Home Association began constructing the compound which included the windmill and the dedication was held on June 7th, 1892. Eleven acres were purchased from H.P. Berger on South Street, between Farmers Blvd and Hollis Ave. A parade of craftsmen and well wishers 5,000 strong were in the line of march from Jamaica to Hollis. Over a 1,000 fraternal brethren arrived for the days festivities. There were over 8,000 English speaking Odd Fellows on Long Island at the time.

The association president, Francie E. Pouch of the Magnolia lodge read his remarks to the crowd, as did leaders of the Artistic, Crusaders, Mayflower, Fidelity lodges and a marching band performed. Lodges had vied for the honor of furnishing and decorating the home. By then 37 lodges were part of the association.

Building and Windmill


As first constructed, the home had 18 rooms and a barn which opened in May, 1892. However, what made the Odd Fellows Home unique was its windmill. The tower windmill held two 4,000-gallon water tanks that supplied all the home's needs via plumbing. The windmill was a vital part of the compound's infrastructure, and it became a symbol of the Odd Fellows Home. Later, a 75x75ft expansion was added to the home, which included a banquet hall on the first floor and more rooms on the second. The porches were screened, and there were sun parlors and smoking rooms on either side. Each parlor had a library with one designated for light reading with magazines and newspapers and the other with more intellectual books. Lodges decorated each room according to their preferences, resulting in an eclectic mix of styles.

The Odd Fellows Home in Hollis was the first of its kind to allow craftsmen's wives and widows to be integrated as residents, with 17 couples initially residing in the compound. The Odd Fellows Home became a vital institution, serving the community for over a century.

20th Century
By 1929 47 homes for the aged, indigent odd fellows and orphans were reported across the country.

In 1938 there were 33 Odd Fellows still in residence in the home at 194-10 109th rd.

By the 1950s the home had seen a drop in Odd Fellows as did many sister lodges across the country. It had transitioned into an orphanage and with a rise in bureaucratic rules governing such places, the homes governing body decided to close the orphanage. The neighborhood was predominantly white until the mid-1950s, and the orphans who lived there came from this area. However, in 1955, the region south of the railroad began experiencing an influx of African-American and Caribbean immigrants, which caused a demographic shift in the orphanage's inhabitants. Additionally, due to the phenomenon of white flight, the Odd Fellows no longer wanted to deal with the administrative challenges and decided to shut down the orphanage. Any children still in residence were transferred to other homes and the compound closed it's doors.

The Jamaica Water Company had became the supplier of water from wells and via the Aquaduct built along the Conduit Blvd and the windmill, in dis-use, languished.

Demolition
In 2004 it was demolished.

Johnny Allen
Johnny “The Duke” Allen (b.1953) is an American, New York radio DJ who rose to fame on 107.5 WBLS-FM in New York City, and is recognized as one of the founding fathers of Urban Contemporary R&B style radio. Host of a popular show at Disco92/WKTU With 30+ years in the business, his mentors were Gerry Bledsoe at WWRL-AM and Frankie Crocker who hired him as a Disc Jockey at WBLS-FM, an Inner City Broadcasting company owned by Percy Sutton. He later moved to WKTU-FM and when (the original incarnation lasted from 1978-85) that station changed to a rock format (KROCK) he moved to WRKS-FM, aka KISS. He later returned to 103.5FM at KTU during the period of Contemporary R&B.

---Early Life---

Johnny grew up in Hollis and attended Andrew Jackson High School in St.Albans, Queens.

---Urban Contemporary---

The Duke was a student at Queensborough in Bayside, NY when he started hanging around the WWRL radio station on weekends, fetching lunch and running errands for DJ’s Bledsoe, Gary Byrd, Bobby Jay and Hank Spann. The program director at the sister station decided that his enthusiasm and voice deserved a shot at the mike, and he was hired by the program director to DJ the early afternoon program at WBLS. Until the advent of WKTU and the disco fad, Crockers programming at WBLS of "Urban Contemporary" was the dominant blend of R&B on the airwaves.

The first station to go all disco in the NY radio market was WKTU. It later became Disco92/WKTU, an eclectic mix of dj’s whom played the club style and quickly shot up the charts to take the #1 slot in the Arbitron ratings. While WBLS, Labeled by Crocker as Urban Contemporary stuck with that format, WKTU quickly grew into a rival for the R&B market by catering to club music and 12’ DJ mix platters that were created by club DJ’s. By 1985 the emergence of Rap and Hip-Hop led to a decline of market share, and by 1985 rock became the format at the station.

Now at I-Heart radio, Allen hosts WKTU's "Classic Soul Injection" which airs Sunday morning, 8-10am.

new article
Joseph Deighton Gibson Jr. (May 13, 1920-January 30, 2000) was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA and was a radio Disc Jockey and actor. He attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. from 1940-42' He married to Elsie Harris-Gibson and together they have two children. He died on January 30, 2000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA of Prostate Cancer.

To his radio buddies his nickname was “jockey” but he achieved notoriety for his annual black radio convention where he was “Jack the Rapper”, at an all-inclusive black/urban music showcase and convention that came to epitomize Hip-Hop. He is the father of ‘Black Appeal’ radio and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

History
Gibson began his career in radio under the wing of one of radio’s legends, Al Benson, a jive patter talking DJ of the Be-bop school at Chicago’s WJJD.

Benson, The ‘old swingmaster’ (born Arthur Bernard Leaner, Jackson, Miss. 1910) as he was known, had come to radio in 1945 as a pastor but was not allowed to sell airtime, so he switched to become a secular DJ, and mentored some of the black DJ’s at WGES and WJJD. He rapidly rose to fame in Chicago playing swing and Be-Bop jazz. His phenomenal appeal was due to the black jive talk he peppered between the music. He was the first DJ to speak with a black southern accent and frequently used ‘street slang’. He came to this by way of his previous employment with the Works Progress Administration as an interviewer. He was - his bond with the black migrants to northern cities was from his ‘mushmouth’, the first black radio ‘personality jock’. He was the first to play hit urban blues records on air and with success at selling airtime the station was immensely popular. When Jack Gibson went to work for him at WJJD a bell rang, and thus was born the idea of Black appeal radio.

in 1949 Gibson left WJJD and became a founder of a new station, WERD in Atlanta. WERD was the first radio station owned by a black person, and the first voice heard on it was ‘Jockey Jack’. He and Jesse Blayton, Jr. flipped the switch on a money losing top-40 station. The station played the new R & B, a mix of gospel vocal styles, swing-band instrumentals and electrified urban blues which Benson popularized after WWII. R & B was outselling jazz in the black music market, but had little traction on air as DJ’s (there were other black themed stations) did not play it, preferring the big-band format which was popular. The use of ‘down back home’ street patter and the R&B music was popular with the youth culture and was considered ‘gangsta’ and a bit obscene. Along with other Benson inspired DJ’s a new wave of rhyming and signifying African-americans hit American urban centers on air, with boastful patter, the ‘dozens’ and rhyming at the end of sentences which became de-jure. The first to do that was a former baseball announcer named Lavada Durst, known as Doctor Hep Cat, who spieled rhyme that wasn’t obscene and was the pre-courser to today’s rap and hip-hop. There was also Holmes Bailey (Daddy-O Daylie) the rapping bartender, who did his entire show in rhyme. Daddy-O was responsible for the Be-bop revolt in jazz vernacular, creating a hipster idiom that be-bop artist Dizzy Gillespie credits him for making it popular with modern jazz lovers in the 50’s and 60’s.

Rappers Delight
''Jumpin’ jills and jivin' cats,

''Upstate Gates in Stetson hats,

''Lace your boots and tighten your wig,

''Here’s some jive, can you dig?

''I’m Doctor Hep Cat, on the scene,

''With a stack of shellac in my record machine,

''I’m hip to the tip, and bop to the top,

I’m long time coming and I just won’t stop.”  Doctor Hep Cat. 1948 KVET Austin

Durst published a pamphlet called “The Jives of Doctor Hep Cat” which had his radio rhymes and a dictionary of “jive talk”. For much of the 50’s and well into the 60’s Doctor Hep Cat ruled the late-night in Austin. These DJ’s did not assimilate the culture, they were populists, putting on the airwaves music and speech black folk used in the street. They set the stage for the birth of Black appeal radio stations in the post war era of swing and Be-Bop. When Hal Jackson (Inner City Broadcasting Corporation head) entered mass market radio he put his own stamp on black radio, and with WWRL he found greater audiences broadcasting the patter of the inner city. When his station WLIB purchased WBLS and the FM radio audiences came to understand there was more to music than top-40, disc jockeys like Frankie Crocker and his urban contemporary cohorts, Johnnie Allen, Vaughn ‘Quiet Storm’ Harper and Ken ‘Spider’ Webb went from just some ‘jive turkeys’ to number one in their market; then to number one radio station in the country.

Gibson was part of a generation of radio personalities that talked “jive” or the hip-speak of the day, lending colorful, jargon-filled and often-rhymed commentaries to the listening audience in-between record spins. They had names like Tommy “Dr. Jive” Smalls, “Genial” Gene Potts, John “Honey Boy” Hardy and “Long Tall Lanky Larry Dean.” He would go on the air in his ‘Jockey Jack’ persona, wearing real silks, playing bugle calls from the track Kentucky derby style, talking about ‘riding the hits’.

1953 found him as program director at WMBM and then at WFEC. The following year he was back at WERD. WERD had its studios in the same building as the famed Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When Dr. King wanted to alert the masses about an upcoming rally, he would bang on the ceiling of his office, which was directly under WERD’s air studio. Responding to Dr. King’s signal, Jack would lower his microphone through the studio window, down one flight to the SCLC window, where Dr. King would grab the mic to announce his calls to protest.

Mello Yello
In 1955 Gibson founded the National Association of Radio Announcers for Black DJs. In the 60’s it was renamed the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA).

In 1963 he went on the staff of Motown records as a public relations specialist. In 1969 he moved to STAX records and stayed until 1972. In 1976 he began the publication of a 2 sided pamphlet called ‘Mello Yello’ about the radio industry.

He recounts in his autobiography, “When we went to get it copied, the man told us he could give us a good deal if we used this goldenrod paper stock, which was a sunshine-yellow. Guess he was overstocked with that color. I didn’t mind, because, if nothing else, that wild color would get the newsletter noticed.”

"Jack the Rapper's Mello Yello", is the oldest and largest circulated Black radio/music trade publication in America. ''“I think I just called it the same thing I had called it at Stax — “Telling It Like It T-I-S-is!” And, of course, since I was rappin’ my ass off, as usual, I just kept going by “Jack the Rapper.” I did a pick of the week, and rated the top singles and albums, but I added something new. I decided to run my own style of editorial pieces about the condition of the black music industry. If there was somebody to be told on, I was ready and willing to do it. The ending line was always the same: “Stay black till I get back.” ''

Family Affair
Gibson figured that he could build a black music annual convention similar in structure to Billboard Magazine’s yearly confab, except that his emphasis would be different. The very first “Jack the Rapper Family Affair” was held at the Colony Square in Atlanta, Georgia in June 1977.

It was set in what Gibson would always refer to as “Martin’s Town”. Major labels such as CBS Records provided sponsorship. There were seminars about radio programming and music production. Parties abounded. And amongst all of that, Minister Louis Farrakhan was one of the maiden Family Affair’s keynote speakers.

That first Family Affair was a big success, and along with Sidney Miller’s annual Black Radio Exclusive conference in Los Angeles, the black music industry could rely on at least two opportunities to network, strategize, promote fellowship and party hearty. By the third year of the Family Affair, it had outgrown Colony Square. So it was held at Peachtree Plaza in 1979 and ’80. That year, Jack recounted in his autobiography, '' we had a wild night with George Clinton and his Dr. Funkenstein act. Bob Marley was there too; I believe it was his last appearance before his death. By 1981, we moved the convention to Dunfey’s and booked the entire hotel. Since Dunfey’s had a pool, we added a pool party to the convention schedule, and somebody sponsored that. It was at Dunfey’s that Eddie Murphy made an appearance at the Family Affair. After that we moved to the Marriot.''

Rap Wars
At the 1993 conference, Gibson recalls sitting in a panel discussion in one of the hotel parlor rooms, only to hear a rumbling sound coming from one of the other rooms. A chair-throwing, fist-flying commotion had broken out at one of the rap industry panels. Rumors swirled that it was a manifestation of a growing war between camps representing Suge Knight’s Death Row Records and Campbell’s Skyywalker Records.

''“I certainly didn’t want that violence any more than anybody else did. Many of my backers blamed me, because I had refused to ban rappers from the convention. But how could I ban the rappers? They are just as viable as any other black music, and I was not about to engage in some sort of modern-day segregation practice. I guess it was just one of those cases of having to pay for your beliefs. Well, I was paying, all right. I was flat on my ass.”''

He relocated the 1994 Family Affair from Atlanta to Orlando in order to avoid the past incidents that marred recent conferences. Young, hustling entrepreneurs like Sean “Puffy” Combs and artists Guru, Heavy D, Das Efx and Redman were earnestly in attendance that year. Yet, some of the rough action that occurred in Orlando was documented in the 1997 Miramax film Rhyme & Reason, as recorded for a television news report. So many of the talented artists who got their start at the Family Affair developed into superstars. The seminars and discussions gave the behind-the-scenes people in the industry a chance to bounce new ideas off each other. They returned to their respective companies equipped with some fresh concepts, ready to make some changes. But the show was over, the last convention was in 1997 and extra security failed to secure the venue.

Radio Disc Jockey
Nathanial Dowd Gaston Williams (Oct. 19, 1907 - October 27, 1983) was a High School teacher, a Disc Jockey on Black Appeal radio and a Journalist and editor who was born on Beale St. in Memphis, Tenn. Known for his ‘’jive’’ patter on the air, Nat D. had 10% of African-Americans in the U.S. listening to his program and heralded the changing radio style which helped to create “Black appeal radio”, which it turn led to the urban contemporary listening format of black radio in the 60’s and 70’s.

In 1948, Nat D. became the first black radio announcer in Memphis when he began broadcasting for WDIA-AM, and is in the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. A 2015 Legacy inductee, radio air personality Nat D. Williams is now featured in the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame. In 2017 he was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. There is a historical marker outside the former site of the Palace theatre where he was often master of ceremonies, placed there by Tennessee Historical Commission on the 300 block of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

Early Life and Career
Born on Beale st, then known as a jazz haunt in Memphis, he went to Nashville, earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Tennessee State University, a public university and HBCU; becoming a high school teacher at Booker T. Washington H.S. upon returning to Memphis in 1930. Since 1928 He had been an at large journalist for black newspaper Memphis World. Williams was best known for Amateur Night on Beale Street, which he began in 1935 at the Old Palace Theater. He was not known as a musician but rather as promoter, entertainer and mentor to black youth. Rufus Thomas, a musician whom also is in the Memphis music hall of fame, attended Booker T. Washington where he met Mr. Williams, a history teacher who schooled him in both academics and comedy routines and who, after graduation, brought Rufus in as his sidekick hosting Amateur Night at the Palace Theater. Another of his students went on to the state legislature, Judge Benjamin Hooks would also head the NAACP. In 1935 Nat D. was also a co-founder with Dr. Ransom Q. Venson of the Cotton Makers Jubilee and is credited with giving the celebration its name. The depression era cotillion was black organized, with it's Kings and Queens and Krewes, and continued thru the 90's, steadily losing the parades, the grand Memphis parties, the fireworks and the hurley burley of the midway, a raucous gathering to promote itself and king cotton, itself a bygone celebration of when the city was epicenter of the cotton crop. The black court held the Jubilees, the white court a carnival, which survives to this day. It is still known as the Memphis Carnival.

WDIA-AM
A history teacher in the Memphis City schools for 42 years, he found time to marry and had 2 children while working as a teacher, disc Jockey and empresario. Williams had a revue at the Old Palace Theater called Amateur Night on Beale Street. Two of the famous amateurs whom did not get the 'gong' but garnered audience aprobation were Elvis Aaron Presley and Riley King. Presley was later called the 'King' of rock and roll, Riley was better known later as 'Blues Boy', AKA B.B.King. The audience there was harsh, reducing many in stature, If you could survive the unsympathetic crowds, your star would rise.

As a pioneering DJ at radio station WDIA and one of the first black announcers on air, his Tan Town Jubilee was broadcast across the Mississippi delta and reached both black and white audiences, introducing them to blues and gospel, mixed with the jazz and swing which the other ‘big band’ oriented ‘black’ (read: white owned and programmed by white announcers; see WLAC) outlets did not play. His overwhelming success caused the station’s programming to change into an all black format. Before that there was still no such thing as a black disc jockey openly promoted south of the Mason-Dixon line, thus, in creating the new Memphis sound the station WDIA birthed Black programming which spread throughout the south and mid-west; as a result stations began hiring black DJ’s instead of using white announcers to program black music and black appeal radio was born.

In the 50's both Rufus Thomas and Riley King were disc jockeys at WDIA. The advent of shellac recording platters had begun to push out the live performances on the radio, as a market teens and young adults preferred the music of the jukeboxes as it was outrageous, the jive patter sprinkled between the records was fresh and distinctly black in origin on these upstart radio stations; contrary to expectations, this did not turn off the white audience, which in turn contributed to the rise of Rock and Roll music. The new Memphis sound peaked in the 60's and 70's with STAX records

Later Career
As a journalist, His columns ran in various newspapers, one of them, Down on Beale started in 1931 and on June 1st, 1955, one column was read into the Congressional Record. His 'Dark Shadows' written under the pseudonym D. Natural ran from 1951 to 1971. In 1951, he joined the staff of a new African-American newspaper in Memphis, the Tri-State Defender. The position was first city editor. The column 'A point of view' began in 1966 and had a run in black newspapers around the country. At WDIA, He was a gatekeeper, watching for lyrics that were obscene to WDIA’s audience and detrimental to black radio. He was also a cultural historian, having come up on Beale street when it was Memphis. Nat D. kept doing his afternoon show - never missing a shift - until he retired from the air due to a stroke in 1972 and Rufus Thomas replaced him on air.

Death and Legacy
He is buried in New Park Cemetery in Memphis. ''Well, yes-siree, it’s Nat Dee on the Jamboree, coming at thee on seventy-three (on the dial), WDIA. Now, whatchubet.'' His influence in 'jive' talk radio extended to WERD, which ran with the format under 'Jockey Jack' when the black owned station made its debut in 1949. Elvis, Bobby Blue Bland, Rufus thomas and Riley King all got their start on amateur night. Radio disc jockeys copied his format and black appeal radio thrived. The Cotton jamboree was a Memphis institution annually for 30+ years. Nat D. was a history teacher that left a mark.

Holmes Daylie
Holmes Daylie (born1920 d. 2/06/2003) was a personality Jock on radio stations in the 40's that rhymed and rapped and was one of the early pioneers of Black-Appeal Radio. His upbeat patter and rhyming delivery from the 1940s to the 1970's on stations WMAQ-AM, WAIT-AM, WGN-AM and other broadcast outlets and Television stations brought Daddy-O-Bailey as he was known fame and following amongst both black and white audiences.

Early life
His mother died giving birth and his father passed away 5 years later, then an older brother, (he was the youngest of 12 siblings,) took him in. In 1938 he graduated Morgan Park High School where he was a standout on the schools basketball team. This got him a six month stint with the Harlem Globetrotters, which travelled around the country putting on basketball shows for African-Americans. Serving up tricks learned with the Globetrotters at his next job, He took to bartending and put their showmanship to the trade, spinning bottles, rhyming behind the bar while bouncing ice cubes with pratfalls to wow the crowd. His oldest friend, Dempsey Travis, recalled him as the trickster entertainer to customers while serving them drinks, flipping ice cubes behind him into glasses, saying I'm as nice as a mother's advice, and keeping a steady banter going. While serving drinks at the whites only El Grotto Supper Club in the Pershing Hotel the host of the Today Show, Dave Garroway, caught his spiel and recommended that he put his talents to a better medium, suggesting radio.

Career
The late 40's in Chicago had Al Benson and Jockey Jack on the air and Daddy-O became a radio host, his jazz knowledge, honed working in the entertainment district and his rhyming made him a standout on air. Those who heard him thought he was friends with the musicians, he spoke like them and his friend Travis, who was a piano player, recalled that he sounded like a 'hepcat', in the jive argot of the day. One of his favorite musicians was Elenora Fagens and he knew Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong from seeing their acts at the clubs where he had bartended. The Ramsey Louis Trio credited him with getting them their big break with an audition at Chess Records in the 50's. Grammy Award-winning pianist Ramsey Lewis later recalled, "One night he came through and said, `Hey, you guys are pretty good. You should have an album out" and he set them up with the producers, Leonard and Phil Chess. The record didn't pan out but Daddy-O played it on his radio program and the resulting buzz got the group bookings. He was the un-official manager for the group for a number of years, along with the bassist Eldee Young and drummer Redd Holt whom also played with Lewis. He was active in the NAACP, His civic activities included the Urban League and Operation PUSH, Rev. Jesse Jackson's organization in Chicago. He later became a co-owner of a Bowling Alley, the Starlite Bowling Lanes on 87th Street.

Jamaican origins
In AM broadcasting, the dramatic ionospheric changes that occur overnight in the mediumwave band drive a unique broadcast license scheme, with entirely different transmitter power output levels and directional antenna patterns to cope with skywave propagation at night. Very few stations are allowed to run without modifications during dark hours, typically only those on clear channels in North America. Many stations have no authorization to run at all outside of daylight hours. Otherwise, there would be nothing but interference on the entire broadcast band from dusk until dawn without these modifications.

AM radio at many stations were limited by the 'broadcast Day' as special licenses were required to transmit at night. Those that had such licenses were heard far out to sea and in the Caribbean, where Jocko Henderson and Jockey Jack were American DJ's that were listened to at night from broadcast transmitters that were located in Florida. Jocko came to have an outsized influence on Jamaican Emcees during the 50's as the R & B music played on the Miami stations was different from that played on JBC which re-broadcast BBC and local music styles. In Jamaica, DJ's would setup large sound systems in towns out on the roadside, playing music for informal gatherings, mostly folks who wandered into town looking for excitement at the end of the week. There the DJ's would allow 'Toasts' by an Emcee, which copied the style of the American DJ's listened to on AM transistor radios. It was by this method that Jive talk, rapping and rhyming was transposed to the island and locally the style was transformed by 'Jamaican lyricism', or the locals patois.

Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s in New York City from the multicultural exchange between African-American youth from the United States and young immigrants and children of immigrants from countries in the Caribbean. As a matter of fact, what would be later described as 'block parties' in the US was a reality since the 1950s all over Jamaica, as MCs (called DJs in Jamaica) were talking and rapping over records at 'sound system' parties since at least 1949. Some were influenced by the vocal style of the earliest African-American radio MCs (including Jocko Henderson's Rocket Ship Show of the 1950s, which rhymed and was influenced by scat singing), which could be heard over the radio in Jamaica.

The first records by Jamaican DJs, including Sir Lord Comic (The Great Wuga Wuga, 1967) came as part of the local dance hall culture, which featured 'specials,' unique mixes or 'versions' pressed on soft discs or acetate discs, and rappers (called DJs) such as King Stitt, Count Machuki, U-Roy, I-Roy, Big Youth and many others. Recordings of talk-over, which is a different style from the dancehall's DJ style, were also made by Jamaican artists such as Prince Buster and Lee "Scratch" Perry (Judge Dread) as early as 1967, somehow rooted in the 'talking blues' tradition. The first full length Jamaican DJ record was a duet on a Rastafarian topic by Kingston ghetto dwellers U-Roy and Peter Tosh named Righteous Ruler (produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry in 1969). The first DJ hit record was Fire Corner by Coxsone's Downbeat sound system DJ, King Stitt that same year; 1970 saw a multitude of DJ hit records in the wake of U-Roy's early, massive hits, most famously Wake the Town and many others. As the tradition of remix (which also started in Jamaica where it was called 'version' and 'dub') developped, established young Jamaican DJ/rappers from that period, who had already been working for sound systems for years, were suddenly recorded and had many local hit records, widely contributing to the reggae craze triggered by Bob Marley's impact in the 1970s. The main Jamaican DJs of the early 1970s were King Stitt, Samuel The First, Count Machuki, Johnny Lover (who 'versioned' songs by Bob Marley and the Wailers as early as 1971), Dave Barker, Scotty, Lloyd Young, Charlie Ace and others, as well as soon-to-be reggae stars U-Roy, Dennis Alcapone, I-Roy, Prince Jazzbo, Prince Far I, Big Youth and Dillinger. In fact Dillinger scored the first international rap hit record with Cocaine in my Brain in 1976 (based on the Do It Any Way You Wanna Do rhythm by People's Choice as re-recorded by Sly and Robbie), where he even used a New York accent, consciously aiming at the new NYC rap market. The Jamaican DJ dance music was deeply rooted in the sound system tradition that made music available to poor people in a very poor country where live music was only played in clubs and hotels patronized by the middle and upper classes. By 1973 Jamaican sound system enthusiast DJ Kool Herc moved to the Bronx, taking with him Jamaica's sound system culture, and teamed up with another Jamaican, Coke La Rock, at the mike. Although other influences contributed to the birth of hip hop in New York, and although it was downplayed in most US books about hip hop, the main root of this culture is obviously Jamaican. The roots of rap in Jamaica are explained in detail in Bruno Blum's book. .

Bethesda Missionary
 Jamaica First German Presbyterian Church is a historic Presbyterian church located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens County, New York. The church was built in 1900, and is a Late Gothic Revival style, in a de-shingled Shingle Style with a steep slate gable roof. It features twelve large pointed arched windows and an 80 foot tall square bell tower. The church is the first building for a German speaking congregation founded in 1902. Also on the property is a manse. The manse was built in 1907, and is a 2 1/2-story frame residence that has not been used since 1971.

Early History
Built in 1900 in a de-shingled Shingle Style", this was originally the First German Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, and the house at left (partially boarded-up) was the manse. The first pastor, Reverend Christopher Bauer presented the morning sermon in german for the elders of the community, and the evening service was in english, to accommodate the younger brethren who were born in america. Originally 40 members joined in to build the church and the manse, by 1906 it had grown to 86 parishioners and had 106 minors attending sunday school. With the passing of some key founders the church fell on hard times, resorting to donations to help pay the mortgage.

This portion of Jamaica in the early 20th century was primarily German immigrants and farm laborers supplying produce to Fulton st (Jamaica Ave) farmers markets. In 1910 - During Sunday evening service the reverend was proceeding thru a particularly laudatory period of his service when he suddenly paused and gripped the lectern. Frightened, the women in the pews began to cry and men rushed forward to aid the pastor. Indicating his heart, he was placed on cushions and the doctor summoned. It was too late, by the time the doctor arrived the pastor had passed due to chronic heart disease and a coronary brought on by excitement. Rev. Ferdinand O. Zesch, 58, passed while giving the sermon at the 1st German Presbyterian and this was reported in the New York Times and New York Observer.

In 1914 the congregation changed its name to the Hillside Presbyterian Church of Queens and in 1962 merged with the Jamaica Hillside Presbyterian Church, Queens, N.Y. The active congregaton since 1969 has been known as the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, NY, having merged with the original English church and is officially part of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

It is now home to the Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church congregation.

Bethesda Missionary
In 1984 Bethesda took over the building and proceeded to restore the stained glass windows and pews. The sanctuary and lectern were restored and the organ, originally built in 1937 by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ company for the church in Southampton, N.Y., it had five ranks of pipes which was increased to 11 in a 1975 re-build.

The Regal-Spear Building (Queens)
The Spear Building is a four-story building that was a Hat factory and wax novelty manufacturer in it's 20's heyday, in 2017 it was designated to the National Register of Historical places as an example of an intact early 20th-century reinforced concrete factory complex. It is located at 94-15 100 street, between 94th and 95th Ave one block from Atlantic Ave in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens, New York City, and is best known as the location of the Regal-Spear Factory.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was named a National Historical Landmark in 2017.

1920
The Regal Hat company of Chicago and the Spear Company of New York merged on May 01, 1920 to be known as the Regal-Spear Co., manufacturers of cloth headwear and childrens novelties. The Spear company experienced labor unrest later in 1920 when the labor force locked out of the Woodhaven factory in Ozone, Queens At the time the company was listed as serving 22,000 customers.

The factory building on 100 St., was once home to Regal-Spear Co., which produced hats and was touted as the largest cloth headwear house in the world was also home to the Columbia Wax Products Co., a manufacturer of novelty candles.

Present
A report prepared by Gregory Dietrich Preservation Consulting, a landmark preservation group, described the building’s architecture and stated it's historical value qualified it for historic registry status. The report concluded “The Spear & Company factory is not only significant for embodying the practical benefits of reinforced-concrete factory construction, but also for its simplicity and utility as exhibited by a restrained eclectic utilitarian design.”

The status also makes property owners eligible for tax credits to rehabilitate the structures.

Andrew Coumo, NYS governor designated the site eligible for historical status in 2017 along with 20 others, saying “The Empire State proudly celebrates its diverse culture and rich heritage, and with the addition of these significant sites to the Registers of Historic Places, we will continue to honor all of the great things that make New York, New York,” The statement had announced 21 sites around NYS. “Listing these landmarks will honor the contributions made by so many New Yorkers throughout our vast history, and helps advance efforts to preserve and improve these important historic sites for future generations.”

The city Economic Development Corp. announced in 2016 the site will be rehabilitated to accommodate 24 businesses and 80 skilled workers due to a $10 million grant and $3.7 million loan from the EDC.

The businesses that will work out of the space are expected to employ woodworkers, set builders, metal workers, home goods manufacturers and more at an average salery of $51,500 per year, based on EDC projections.

Cell Tower
The site is also home to a 95foot tall cellular re-transmission tower that stands above the surrounding wood frame homes and trees of the adjacent 100st abandoned right of way of the LIRR. The interior has completed gutting and new roofing is in place in July 2018.

Meadowmere
Meadowmere, Queens is a neighborhood in the hamlet of Rosedale which is part of Jamaica, NY. It is connected to Meadowmere Park in Woodmere that is part of the Five Towns area of Hempstead, NY. The Five Towns, which consists of the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst, the hamlets of Hewlett, Inwood and Woodmere abut New York City’s Rosedale community at Meadowmere.

History


Meadowmere, Queens and Meadowmere Park, Nassau are connected by a single road and a 75-foot-long (23 m) wooden bridge spanning Hook Creek. The springs of the creek originate beneath one of the parking lots of nearby Green Acres Mall, and emerges behind the Walmart Supercenter. The creek has been engineered and emerges on the queens side in nearby Hook Creek park before flowing thru 300 acres of wetlands to Jamaica Bay, subsequently passing between the two hamlets. The mall was built in 1956 on the northern portion of Curtiss Airfield. Prior to 1956, the mall was once a small airport which operated until 1947. Before that, as part of Roosevelt Field, in May 1927, operating from a hangar at Curtiss Field, Charles Lindbergh used the Roosevelt Field runway for the takeoff of the Spirit of St. Louis on his flight to Paris during his solo cross atlantic trip. In 1963, as part of planning the parkways of NYC, Architect Robert Moses using eminent domain seized portions of Hook Creek for a failed extension of the Nassau Expressway. In 2010, after 60 years of wrangling the city installed sewer systems in Rosedale communities. Rising sea levels and increased storm surges such as superstorm Sandy devastated the communities and many homes on the waterfront were lost, with residents living for months out of the volunteer firehouse in Meadowmere Park. Streets had been raised 3-4 feet but that was not enough for Sandy’s surges, which placed most homes under 5 feet of water. As a result many homes are in the process of being elevated in Meadowmere Park and the wooden bridge will be strengthened and widened to accommodate emergency vehicles.

Geography


Unlike the rest of the borough of Queens, the hamlet has 3 roads that do not conform to queens borough naming convention, simply named 1st, 2nd and 3rd streets. The Rockaway Blvd side separates the streets from the Five Towns Shopping Center mall. The bridge into Nassau county’s Meadowmere Park is the only portion of that county as seen looking west from Queens. As it is along the main East-West flight path to the JFK’s runway which is approximately 1 mi away from the Hook Creek Bridge low flying aircraft pass by at 5min intervals. By 1969, the bridge was in need of repair. In 2016 $2.4million in grant funding was secured to repair the 110 year old foot bridge and in 2018 the first contract of $243,615 was approved by the Hempstead town board. The improvement will not open it to regular traffic as it’s redesigned to provide emergency access for ambulances in addition to the other narrow meandering road of East Avenue, the only road into the small peninsula.

40.636236,-73.719542

Geography
Unlike the rest of the borough of Queens, the hamlet has 3 roads that do not conform to queens borough naming convention, simply named 1st, 2nd and 3rd streets. The Rockaway Blvd side separates the streets from the Five Towns Shopping Center mall. The bridge into Nassau county’s Meadowmere Park is the only portion of that county as seen looking west from Queens. As it is along the main East-West flight path to the JFK’s runway which is approximately 1 mi away from the Hook Creek Bridge low flying aircraft pass by at 5min intervals. By 1969, the bridge was in need of repair. In 2016 $2.4million in grant funding was secured to repair the 110 year old foot bridge and in 2018 the first contract of $243,615 was approved by the Hempstead town board. The improvement will not open it to regular traffic as it’s redesigned to provide emergency access for ambulances in addition to the other narrow meandering road of East Avenue, the only road into the small peninsula.

40.636236,-73.719542

Jenny Davis
Jenny L. Davis June 29, 1982 is an American linguist and education specialist who studied Spanish Language and Literature at Oklahoma state University for her BA, receiving her Phd from the University of Colorado at Boulder. A world traveler having been to England (Wales -1998), Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Spain (attending Universidad de Granada), New Zealand, France, Japan and Canada; She teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign where she is an assistant professor of linguistics. She is a book author from Mannford, Oklahoma and a citizen of the Chickasha tribe.

Education
Davis was born in Mannford, Oklahoma on June 29, 1982 and moved to Urbana Illinois in 2014. Her mother was a member of the Chickasha tribe and she was raised on the rez. She was awarded a bachelor's degree in Linguistics from the University of Colorado in 2011 and defended her Phd dissertation in 2014. She was a Post-doctoral fellow at the University of Kentucky and a Henry Roe Cloud fellow at Yale University.

In January of 2019 her podcast about the revitalization of the Chickasha language and how Indigenous activism led her to the importance of skill sharing amongst the disciplines of ethnobotany, documentary filmmaking, cultural productions and Dance was broadcast on the podcast Ideas on Fire and was sponsored by the ‘MA in Critical Studies Program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art’.

Linguistics and Indigenous Peoples
She has been working with the Chickasha language for ten years and began documenting the attention given to access to the language in the Indigenous community. She noticed how it became a thing in the community, with Chickasha appearing on T-shirts, bumper stickers and on signs in the local community. With the language now available to second and third generations of first-language Native speakers she followed the trend and published a book on the topic. In her position as director of the Native American and Indigenous Languages Lab project on the Urbana Champaign campus she is an engaged anthropologist working with communities from Mexico and Latin America in linguistic studies.

She earned a doctoral degree in linguistics from University of Colorado in 2014, having attended the school in order to ensure that she would be where the cultural studies would intermix with Native tribes. Her activism with the Two Spirit Movement within the United States and Canada extends to other types of Indigenous causes and also marginalized communities within the movement such as LGBT rights activism.

Davis’ best-known work is the book “Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance” (2018) which investigated how ‘talking indian’, or using an indigenous language is spoken of colloquially. The older members of the Chickasha community use the phrase over calling the specific ‘Chikashshanompa’ or ‘Chickasaw’ language by its proper name.

The Two Spirit Movement
Two-Spirit (also two spirit or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some indigenous North Americans to describe certain people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial role in their cultures. While most people mistakenly associate the term with "LGBT Native", the term and identity of two-spirit "does not make sense" unless it is contextualized within a Native American or First Nations framework and traditional cultural understanding. The term was adopted by consensus in 1990 at an Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering to encourage the replacement of the outdated, and now seen as inappropriate, anthropological term berdache.

Davis was Co-Director of the Two-Spirit Society of Denver, Colorado for two and a half years.

Published works
Jenny Davis’ published works include:


 * “Talking Indian: Identity and Language Revitalization in the Chickasaw Renaissance”. Davis, 2018.


 * The naif, the sophisticate, and the party girl: Regional and Gender Stereotypes in Breton language web videos. Gender and Language, Equinox Publishing 2012

Philosophy
“My research analyzes the intersections of language, ethnicity, and Identity, with a focus on indigenous language use and language revitalization”.

new article
Alberta Odell Jones (1930 - August 5, 1965) was an African-American civil right icon and Attorney who was murdered by unknown person(s). She was one of the first African-American women to pass the Kentucky bar and the first female appointed city attorney in Jefferson County.

Education
Jones graduated from Louisville Central High School and went to the Louisville Municipal College for Negroes. LMC later merged with the University of Louisville during desegregation and Jones graduated third in her class. She attended University of Louisville Law School for one year, transfering to Howard University School of Law for her degree, graduating fourth in her class.

After graduating she began practicing law and took on a prominent client early in his career, a young boxer who later changed his name from Cassius Clay to Mohammed Ali, introducing him to trainer Archie Moore of California. She was appointed in February 1965 to the Louisville Domestic Relations Court, where she was a prosecutor.

Activist
Jones was also active in the civil rights movement, taking part in protest marches in Louisville and attending the March on Washington in August, 1963. Upon returning from Washington She formed the Independent Voters Association of Louisville and was very involved with the Louisville chapter of the Urban League. She rented voting machines and taught African Americans how to use the machines to vote. She was also active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Another of her causes was a fundraising effort to pay the medical bills of a young man, James “Bulky” Welch, who lost his arms saving his dog trapped under a train, purchasing him prosthetic arms by auctioning a car.

Unsolved Murder
Her killing was first attributed to drowning and her body was retrieved from the Ohio river, however, her car was found several blocks from the Sherman Minton Bridge with blood inside and a subsequent autopsy determined that she had been subjected to several severe blows to the head before entering the water. Her killing was never solved. The belated murder investigation by Louisville police contributed to her murder never being solved. The follow-up police investigation determined that she had been beaten unconscious with a brick and witnesses recalled seeing a body tossed by three un-identified men from the bridge, where her purse was later found.

Feature Story
In 2017, efforts were made to reopen the Jones case and it became a cause celeb.

E.A.Robinson - Inventor
Elbert R. Robinson (1869-1935) was a nineteenth-century African American inventor whose first Patent was for an Electric Railway Trolley. It was his first invention.

Annual report of the Commissioner of Patents, United states Patent Office pg 309 Sept 19th, 1893

Nashville, Tennessee Patent #503-720 Electric railway trolley

EDWARD A. ROBINSON, OF MONTREAL, CANADA, ASSIGNOR.

To ELLISON EDWARD. WORKMAN, OF MONTREAL, CANADA, AND JOSEPH ROBINSON, of NEW YORK, N Y

CONNECTER FOR TRAIN PiPES. UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. # 1,856,656 Patented May 3, 1932

Application filed September 25, 1920, Serial No. 412,647. Renewed September 22, 1931.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_inventors_and_scientists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Woods http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/granville-woods.html

Robinson, Edward W., Boston Assignor of one-half

to E.B.Welch, Cambridge Mass

Apparatus for automatically stopping railway trains #492-837 March 7th, 1893

Effect on First Nations
The overt institutional racism of the past has clearly had a profoundly devastating and lasting effect on visible minorities and Aboriginal communities throughout Canada. European cultural norms have imposed themselves on Native populations in Canada, and Aboriginal communities continue to struggle with foreign systems of governance, of justice, of education, and of livelihood. Visible Minorities struggle with education, employment and negative contact with the legal system across Canada.

Perhaps most palpable is the dysfunction and familial devastation caused by residential schools. Hutchins states; "Many of those who attended residential schools have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, suffering from such symptoms as panic attacks, insomnia, and uncontrollable or unexplainable anger. Many also suffer from alcohol or drug abuse, sexual inadequacy or addiction, the inability to form intimate relationships, and eating disorders. Three generations of Native parents lost out on learning important parenting skills usually passed on from parent to child in caring and nurturing home environments, and the abuse suffered by students of residential schools has begun a distressing cycle of abuse within many Native communities." The lasting legacy of residential schools is but only one facet of the problem.

The Hutchins report continues; "Aboriginal children continue to struggle with mainstream education in Canada. For some Indian students, English remains a second language, and many lack parents with sufficient education themselves to support them. Moreover, schooling in Canada is based on an English written tradition, which is different from the oral traditions of the Native communities. For others, it is simply that they are ostracised for their 'otherness'; their manners, their attitudes, their speech or a hundred other things which mark them out as different. Aboriginal populations continue to suffer from poor health. They have seven years less life expectancy than the overall Canadian population and almost twice as many infant deaths. While Canada as a nation routinely ranks in the top three on the United Nations Human Development Index, its on-reserve Aboriginal population, if scored as a nation, would rank a distant and shocking sixty-third."

As Perry Bellegarde National Chief, Assembly of First Nations, points out, racism in Canada today is for the most part, a covert operation. Its central and most distinguishing tenet is the vigour with which it is consistently denied. There are many who argue that Canada's endeavors in the field of human rights and its stance against racism have only resulted in a "more politically correct population who have learnt to better conceal their prejudices". In effect, the argument is that racism in Canada is not being eliminated, but rather is becoming more covert, more rational, and perhaps more deeply imbedded in our institutions. That racism is alive is evidenced by the recent referendum in British Columbia by which the provincial government is asking the white majority to decide on a mandate for negotiating treaties with the Indian minority. The results of the referendum will be binding, the government having legislatively committed itself to act on these principles if more than 50% of those voting reply in the same way. Moreover, although it has been revised many times, "the Indian Act remains legislation which singles out a segment of society based on race". Under it, the civil rights of First nations peoples are "dealt with in a different manner than the civil rights of the rest of Canadian citizens".

The Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba, the Donald Marshall Inquiry in Nova Scotia, the Cawsey Report in Alberta and the Royal Commission of Aboriginal People all agree, as far as Aboriginal people are concerned, racism in Canadian society continues institutionally, systematically and individually.

Daisy Tapley
Daisy Tapley (1882-1925) was a classical singer (Contralto) and vaudeville performer. Born Daisy Robinson in Michigan in 1882, she was raised in Chicago where she studied piano and organ with celebrated musicians including Emil Liebling, Clarence Eddy, and later with Pedro Tinsley. At age twelve She became the featured organist at Chicago's Quinn Chapel as a musical prodigy. As a teenager, Robinson began training her voice after listening to recordings of the British contralto, Clara Butt. In 1910 Daisy made history by being the first African American woman to record commercially in a duet with Carroll Clark.

Early life


In 1901 she married a Vaudeville musician, Henri Green Tapley, the couple did not have children. In 1903 they toured Britain with the Bert Williams and George Walker Company's production of In Dahomey, an elaborate play which performed at Buckingham Palace in London. It was also "the first full length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house". The play contained original props, music and scenery. During the tour she met and connected with a young soprano, Minnie Brown, who would later become Daisy's significant other, moving in with her back in Harlem as a domestic companion.

While in Britain, Daisy performed in concert as a classical pianist and met with the Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor as well as her musical idol, Clara Butt. The two become close. Butt persuaded Tapley to give up performing vaudeville and resume what she had trained for as a classical musician. She followed Butt's advice and set up a music studio in her Harlem apartment, establishing a lucrative music practice where she taught both voice and keyboard. Although she and Henri Tapley never divorced, the two had separate lives close to one-another. Minnie Brown kept traveling and performed in Russia for a time, eventually returning to the US and moving in with Daisy.

In 1913, Jesse Shipp, the stage manager for the London performance of In Dahomey, produced and directed a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado for the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C. The production featured Daisy Tapley singing the role of Katisha.

In 1922 she was performing in negro plays and recitals at Carnegie Hall before mixed audiences.

Activism
While she was primarily a musician, Daisy Tapley became prominent in many social movements of her time including prominent roles in the 1917 NAACP- Silent March protesting African-American racial violence; the Dyer bill and the Anti-Lynching movement, and she participated in planning many fund-raising concerts which benefitted 'race' causes. With the return of 'the Gallant Fifteenth' from the European theatre in 1919 Tapley was head of the soup kitchen at the Y 'Hut' in Harlem, which had over 200 beds for returning black servicemen. By the early 1920s, she had become New York's musical doyen with a celebrated reputation as a classical performer. She associated with celebrated personalities including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Scott Joplin, Harry Burleigh, W.E.B. DuBois, James Reese Europe, Alice Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson, Will Marion Cook, and Ada Overton Walker, the hoi-polloi of the early Harlem Renaissance. Her affiliation with Roland Hayes, whom she promoted early in his career, would be pivotal for both artists. Their collaboration lasted for close to two decades.

This is during an era of Jim Crow in which African-Americans were often subjected to extreme conditions as artists and performers, which included routine racial violence and prejudice in lodgings and bookings. Many performers maintained incredibly high musical standards and personal dignity, as did Tapley throughout her relatively brief life.

Death


Tragedy struck in late summer of 1924 while Daisy was rehearsing for an opera performance, she received test results indicating a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She died in February 1925 and was buried in Sag Harbor where she kept a summer home in Eastville.

Discography
Audio Recording I surrender all                                                                                                                                                                                Tapley, Daisy, performing. Clark, Carroll, performing. Columbia A961. Matrix/Take: 19153/2. Contributor: Clark, Carroll - Van Deventer, Judson W. - Tapley, Daisy - Weeden, W. S. Date:  1910-12-07  (Source- Library of Congress)

Mary E. Bell House
The Mary E. Bell House is a historic house and National Historic Landmark at 66 Railroad Avenue approximately 1/10th mile south of the Long Island rail road in Center Moriches, L.I. Built in 1872 by Selah Smith of Huntington who purchased the land, it is significant in the area of ethnic history for the Smith and Bell families and the African-American AME Zion community of Center Moriches during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

History
[Bell House.JPG|thumb|left|House seen in 1910] Selah W. Smith was a farm hand and his wife Mary Ann was a laundress. They had five daughters, Alice, Ada, Ida, Mary E., and Hannah whom lived with their parents in 1880. The expansion (Ca.1880) on the home was likely done to accommodate Mary’s laundry business. The family had maintained a garden on the land north of the house. The Smiths walked the short block south to attend the AME church, which had become the center of African-American worship in Center Moriches and drew congregants from surrounding hamlets. When pastor Abraham Perdue passed away in 1888 followed shortly thereafter by his wife, Mary E. Smith and Annie Arch of Manorville kept the small congregation going in the next decade.

In 1895, Mary E. married a day laborer, Ernest Bell of North Carolina, and by 1900 the family with children Ethel, Alice and Lillian were the sole occupants of the house.

During the latter 1890s, Mary E. Bell became an adherent of the AME Zion’s Varick Christian Endeavor Society, founded by James Varick in 1896. His liberation of female roles in the Zion sect (Founded 1821) would play a pivotal role in the Center Moriches AME congregation. In 1897, the congregation would break from the AME to officially become African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ). The AME Zion was the first to ordain female elders and deacons, allowing female delegates to its conference in 1897 to vote for trustees.

Christian Endeavor societies, like the Y.M.C.A., were very popular during the late 1890’s among protestant denominations. Their progressive focus was on attracting and keeping young adults, mainly men, active in the life of the congregations and the community as was possible. Most of these Societies, (over 800 by 1902 comprising 20,000 youths. ) were run by women. Mary E. Bell would become the local leader of the Varick Christian Endeavor Society in Center Moriches from its beginnings as a co-ed social group with activities such as dinners, picnics and other service projects like food banks and providing educational assistance such as tutors and weekly bible classes.

From the turn of the century until it closed in 1914, the small church was dependent on Mary Bell and Annie Arch for it’s survival, Ministers came and visited from the AME Zion and members were lost from various causes, relocations and deaths also contributed to its demise. Annie would in summer and winter come over from her farm in Manorville to worship with her friends and the remaining congregants. After it closed its doors, Mary bell continued to hold church gatherings in her house informally, by 1915 her husband Earnest would become institutionalized and would remain so until his death in 1950. Mary and the girls, Alice (b.1898) and Lillian, with son Eugene (b.1902) were in the house in 1920 when the church’s fortunes began to turn due to the great migration. African-Americans from the south had come to work on the farms of L.I. and the AME Zion sent a minister, Rev. William E. Wright, to take the reins of the congregation. When Mary Bell died, her beloved church took on a new name, the Bell AME Zion Church, so named in her honor.

Alice Bell
Alice Bell, who was born at #66 Railroad Ave, would inherit the house from her mother. Between the 1920’s and the 1950’s she would figure prominently in the AMEZ church of Center Moriches as it grew and prospered. A trustee, she served on the Ladies Aid society and was prominent in the fundraising activities of the organization. When the church outgrew the elder building musical events were held to fund a new church, events that drew attendance from outside the congregation with dinners and other programs held at her house. By 1954 she was also famous for her sweet potato pies, they would be her most prominent featured dish at gatherings and fundraisers for the rest of her life. Alice never wed, or drove an automobile, she lived a quiet life, active in her church and kept working as a housekeeper. She was honored by the church in her later years, ordained a Deaconess and elevated to membership in the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society, a major outreach of the AME Zion church in the 1980’s.

Alice Bell died in 1996, the house was taken from the family for tax liabilities and legal wrangling caused it to become a deteriorating rental property for the next decade, for which demolition loomed in 2009. The Bell AME Zion church advocated for it to be preserved and in 2011 the Town of Brookhaven passed a resolution designating the ‘’’Mary E. Bell house’’’ a historic landmark and took ownership of the property, working in partnership with the Ketcham Inn Foundation to formally reopen the house as a contributing property in the Center Moriches Historic District. It opened as a historic site on June 22nd, 2019 and made available to the public for as an event space. Shingle Style was pioneered by Henry Hobson Richardson in his design for the William Watts Sherman House, also in Newport. This style of Victorian architecture, featuring the extensive use of wooden shingles on the exterior, acquired some popularity in the late nineteenth century. The Isaac Bell House exemplifies this through its unpainted wood shingles, simple window and trim detail, and multiple porches. It combines elements of the English Arts and Crafts movement philosophy, colonial American detailing, and features a Japanese-inspired open floor plan and bamboo-style porch columns. Interior features include inglenook fireplaces, natural rattan wall coverings, wall paneling and narrow-band wooden floors.

During its life, the house served the African-American community during a time when the local church closed it’s doors for a brief space and the house became the second home to the congregation in the integrated community. With the help of Bert Seides, a preservationist, the house was proposed for historic preservation in 2011 by the Ketcham Inn Foundation, which partnered with Brookhaven on its restoration, and now operates it as a special event space and museum.

Landmark status
The Mary E. Bell House was declared a Brookhaven town landmark in 2011, Gov. Andrew Cuomo placed it on the nominating list for 2020 for advancement to state and National Historic Landmark status in September.

Images
DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Mary E., House Category:Buildings and structures in Suffolk County, New York Category:National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) by county Category:Houses completed in 1870 Category:National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York Category:National Register of Historic Places in Brookhaven (town), New York Category:Historic district contributing properties in New York (state) Category:National Historic Landmarks in Rhode Island Category:Shingle Style houses Category:Historic American Buildings Survey in Rhode Island Category:National Register of Historic Places in Newport, Rhode Island Category:Historic district contributing properties in Rhode Island Category:Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Rhode Island Category:Shingle Style architecture in Rhode Island

Japanese bridge
Japanese style bridge.

Jennifer Jones Austin
Jennifer Jones Austin (b.1969) - Jennifer Barkley Jones was born and raised in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, N.Y. to a Baptist preacher Rev. William Augustus Jones Jr. (February 24, 1934 – February 4, 2006) and Natalie Barkley Jones (nee. Brown), a corporate arts-curator. She is the forth generation of faith speakers in her family, her father was minister of Bethany Baptist Church for over 40 years and was a confidante of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Civil Rights era. In 2009 she was diagnosed with Leukemia and given no chance of survival; marshalling her network of contacts and her husband’s, together they were able to add 13,000 potential donors of color to the NMDP registry. Failing to find a match among the 8 million donors on the registry, her doctors discovered that stem cells from 2 african-american male baby’s umbilical cords were, and she was treated and is recovering from the cancer. She is currently the CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA).

Career
She lives in historic Prospect- Lefferts Manor, a Brooklyn neighborhood close to Prospect Park, with her husband Shawn V. Austin, an insurance executive, and son, Channing. A daughter, Kennedy, attends Wellesley College. Jones graduated from Rutgers University and received her law degree from Fordham University in 1993.

As senior vice president of United Way of New York City, Jones Austin led and achieved community level and systems improvements in education, financial stability and health for low-income individuals and families. She was appointed New York City’s first family services coordinator by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, and was responsible for leading several early education and juvenile justice, child welfare, health and domestic violence survivor initiatives.

Her recent memoir, “Consider It Pure Joy,” chronicled her search for a bone marrow donor.

Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA), an anti-poverty, policy and advocacy organization with 200 member human services agencies operating throughout New York City. Mayor de Blasio appointed Ms. Jones Austin as Board Chair in March 2020. She has served as a Board Member since October 2014. Prior to joining FPWA, Ms. Jones Austin served as Senior Vice President of United Way NYC, Family Services Coordinator for Mayor Bloomberg, Deputy Commissioner for the NYC Administration for Children's Services; Civil Rights Deputy Bureau Chief for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and Vice President for LearnNow/Edison Schools Inc. Ms. Jones Austin has chaired and served on several boards and commissions, including serving as Co-Chair of NYC Mayor de Blasio's Transition, Chair of the NYC Procurement Policy Board, and Co-Chair of the New York State Supermarket Commission. She currently is a Board Member of the National Action Network, the New York Blood Center, the NYC Board of Correction, and the Fund for Public Housing.

History
Among the immigrants of many ethnic groups, who come to the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, there was a significant number of Poles, who for various reasons left their homeland. Relatively many of them settled in Brooklyn, especially in the southern part of the town of Gowanus, Brooklyn. In 1904, Bishop McDonnell of Brooklyn installed the current cornerstone for a Gothic church of brick and Belleville gray stone. The front facade on 24th street had a central tower which rose to a height of 176feet above the sidewalk, flanked by shorter steeples on both sides. The project when completed in 1911 included a school and rectory.

The parochial school was the province of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth order of nuns, founded in Rome, Italy in 1875 by Frances Siedliska, a Polish noblewoman; it closed in 1996. As of 2015, there are over 1,300 members of the order in Australia, Belarus, England, France, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, the Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United States of America.



That building period was at the occurrence of a schism in the Roman Catholic church, with reformist Lithuanian and Polish congregants bemoaning the lack of Polish speaking priests in the clergy. The reform movement among European immigrants began in the 1870's, immigrants wanted to establish their own parishes where priests would speak their language, but received little support from American bishops who were mainly of Irish and German descent. In 1884, a meeting of American bishops in Baltimore decided that property of parishes belonged not to the community that financed it but to the diocese. Lawsuits between pastors and parishioners over the property were quite common. In protest of such policies, the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) was established in 1897.

In the meantime, a number of parish-related organizations were formed such as:


 * Polish National Alliance (pol. Związek Narodowy Polski w USA),
 * Polish Women's Alliance of American - PWAA (pol. Związek Polek W Ameryce),
 * Polish Roman Catholic Union of America (pol. Zjednoczenie Polskie Rzymsko-Katolickie),
 * Polish Falcons (pol. ''Polskie Towarzystwo Gimnastyczne "Sokół"'),
 * (pol.) Macierz Polska,
 * (pol.) Towarzystwo Bratniej Pomocy Studentów (pot. Bratniak,
 * St. Anne's Society (pol. Towarzystwo św. Anny),
 * Polish American Citizen Club (pol. Polsko-Amerykański Klub Obywatelski),
 * Polish Army Veterans Association in America (pol. Stowarzyszenie Weteranów Armii Polskiej w Ameryce (SWAP)),
 * (pol.) Koło Dramatu i Śpiewu

The architect for the 1904 building was T. Edwards of Dorchester, MA.

Between 1906-1908 three Felician nuns from Buffalo were brought in to teach in the basement of the church. In 1911 a school was completed including a hall in the basement for parish functions. By 1926 school enrollment increased from an initial 103 students to 642. Eight nuns and two lay teachers were hired with approximately 60 students per class.

In 1919 a two-manual organ was installed by the Tellers-Kent Organ Company at St. Casamir. It was a divided organ, placed in the gallery facing the nave, with a detached key console. After the merger in 1980, the organ was relocated to Our Lady of Czestochowa.

After Fr. Chmielinski's death in 1937, Rev Bartula is appointed pastor followed by Rev. Naguszewski. In 1940 Cardinal William O'Connell entrusts the parish to the Franciscan fathers. Fr. Michael Cieslik. O.F.M. is the first Franciscan pastor and serves until 1942. In 1942, Fr. Stephen Musielak, O.F.M. is appointed pastor and serves as pastor until 1957. During that time, a club for teenagers and young adults was organized using the lower church hall for a meeting place. Fr. Musielak played a leading role in the settling of the post World War II wave of new Polish immigrants helping them locate family and friends in the US and finding lodging, securing employment, establishing residence and obtaining medical care. From 1943-1951 post WWII immigrants and non-Polish families from Old Colony Housing Project create mixed school enrollment. Classes are divided into two separate groups--1. exclusively in English and 2. Polish language as well as English.

In 1957 Fr. Angelus Zator is named pastor and services until 1966. In 1961 the church celebrates its 75th Diamond Jubilee with a concelebrated Mass.

In 1966 Rev. Edwin Agonis, OFM becomes pastor.

In 1973 Rev Manual Wolkanowski OFM is appointed pastor through 1979. In 1978 Karol Jozef Wojtyla is elected Pope and takes the name, John Paul II.

In 1980, St. Casamir, a polish church in Williamsburg was closed and the congregants joined with Our Lady of Częstochowa, at which time the church assumed the new name of '''Our Lady of Częstochowa-St. Casamir'''. In 1996, the church celebrates its 100th Anniversary.

Pastors

 * Fr. Jan M. Chmieliński (1893–1934)
 * Fr. Peter Bartula (1935–1938),
 * Fr. Edward B. Naguszewski (1936–1940).

In 1940 Cardinal William Henry O'Connell entrusted the parish to the care of the Conventual Franciscans Fathers:
 * Fr. Michael Cieślik OFM Conv (1940–1942)
 * Fr. Stephen Musielak OFM Conv (1942–1957)
 * Fr. Angelus Zator OFM Conv (1957–1966)
 * Fr. Alfred Stopyra OFM Conv (1966–1967)
 * Fr. Edwin Agonis OFM Conv (1967–1973)
 * Fr. Manual Wolkanowski OFM Conv (1973–1979)
 * Fr. John Bambol OFM Conv (1979–1985)
 * Fr. Andrew Skiba OFM Conv (1985–1991)
 * Fr. Paul Miśkiewicz OFM Conv (1991–1994)


 * In 1994 the parish was taken over by Conventual Franciscans from Polish Prowincja Matki Bożej Niepokalanej in Warszawa, Poland:


 * Fr. Andrzej Sujka OFM Conv (1994–2000)
 * Fr. Miroslaw Podymniak OFM Conv (2001–2006)
 * Fr. Jerzy Auguścik OFM Conv (2006–2008)
 * Fr. Andrzej Urbaniak OFM Conv (2008 - suspended in 2012)
 * Fr. Jan Łempicki OFM Conv (2013–2015)
 * Fr. Jerzy Żebrowski OFM Conv (2015–)

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Rev Thomas James
Rev. Thomas James, Jr. (1620-1698) was a prominent Puritan minister in East Hampton, Long Island, during the late 17th century. In 1648, the first inhabitants of East Hampton arrived, having mostly migrated from Maidstone, a town in Kent, England. Prior to reaching eastern Long Island, they made a stopover in Lynn, Massachusetts, and then moved on to Connecticut. Their journey to America was primarily driven by religious persecution and oppressive governmental regulations. These settlers sought not just religious freedom, but also civil liberties.

Early Years
He was born in 1620 in Newbury, Massachusetts, and received his education at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1643. After completing his studies, he served as a schoolteacher in Ipswich and Rowley before moving to East Hampton in 1650 to become the minister of the town's Congregational Church (Later 1st. Presbyterian).

Rev. Thomas James Jr. was the son of a minister with the same name who had emigrated from Lincolnshire, England with his family. The senior James (1595 - 1683) had first settled in Boston in 1632 before moving to the Charlestown church for 3 1/2 years and then later to New Haven, Connecticut. However, Rev. James Sr. was not well-liked by his congregation in New Haven and eventually returned to England, while his son remained in America.

The East Hampton Town Trustees felt comfortable with Governor Winthrop of Connecticut and had gone to see him about finding a minister. Rev. Thomas James Jr. was eventually hired for the position in August of 1651, having also been invited to be a chaplain on Gardiner's Island by Lion Gardiner.

Rev. James Jr. was highly regarded by Judge Henry P. Hedges, who described him as "learned, resolutely just, sincere, fearless, active, and had a powerful personality." He was also considered a "feisty Puritan" and was well-versed in public affairs, in addition to his role as a guide in politics, laws, morals, and religion.

In those times, attending church on Sunday mornings was mandatory, and those who did not attend were fined one shilling. Additionally, a fine of 10 shillings was imposed on anyone caught working on the Sabbath, and those who refused to pray were sent to the stockade.

Rev. James Jr. was also expected to give two-hour sermons on Sunday mornings. Sunday was considered a day of rest, so there was little else for people to do. These strict rules and expectations reflect the Puritan emphasis on strict religious and moral codes, which were enforced by both social pressure and legal consequences.

Home life


It is probable that Rev. Thomas James got married for the first time in Connecticut to an unknown person. On September 2, 1669, he married Katherine Blux from Southampton for his second marriage. Although there is information that he had ten children, it is unclear which wife was the mother of all of them, and the birth dates of the children are also unknown. Some of his children married into nearby families. Peregrine Stansborough of Sagaponack married Rev. Thomas James's daughter, Sarah, on December 15, 1664, suggesting that Sarah was likely from his first marriage.

When Rev. James was hired, his salary was 45 English pounds per year, which was twice what Lion Gardiner had offered him to be the minister on Gardiner's Island. The following year, his salary went up to 50 pounds. His salary was paid from the taxes collected from the citizens, and he was exempt from paying taxes himself.

As part of his compensation, Rev. James was given a home and 12 acres of land, some of which was used for fuel and the rest for farming. He was also given the privilege of being the first person to grind grain at the mill on Monday, which was the second day of the week.

Rev. James's house was located next to the Gardiner house on what is now James Lane. The Meeting House, where Rev. James preached, was also located on the same property, which is now the South End Cemetery. The cemetery was originally the South End Burying Ground, and it was connected to the church or Meeting House. The whole area was fenced in for protection.

Rev. James also interacted with the local Native American population, the Montauks. He learned the Indian language and taught them the English language. The Indians sometimes even worshiped with him. The friendly relationship between the colonists and the Native Americans is what led the Sachem Wyandanch to consider an alliance with the town.

Town Trustee
Rev. James served as the minister of the East Hampton church for almost 50 years, from 1650 until his death in 1698. During his tenure, he was highly respected by his parishioners and was known for his dedication to their rights and interests.

Rev. James was not only the Town minister but also a member of the Town Trustees, and he was elected repeatedly. He also served as the Clerk of the Trustees, likely due to his writing skills, and was responsible for keeping the Town Records. However, he did not keep good records of births, deaths, and marriages for the church or the town, and these dates are missing from the records. The reason for this is unclear, with some speculating that he was too busy with other duties or that there had been a fire that destroyed the records.

The Town Trustees had various responsibilities, including hiring someone to ring the church bell, renting church pews, and finding a leader for psalm singing. They also enacted laws against slander and personal violence, which were based on the laws in Connecticut.

Arrest
In 1686, Rev. James became involved in a dispute with the government of New York, which had jurisdiction over East Hampton. He and several other East Hampton citizens were arrested for protesting against being part of New York and for selling whale oil in Connecticut without paying taxes. Rev. James preached a fiery sermon in support of his parishioners, which led to a warrant being issued for his arrest. He spent three weeks in jail before being released on the grounds that he was a loyal subject of King James II.

Rev. James was not alone in his opposition to the state government. Many other towns and villages in what is now known as Long Island were also unhappy with the way they were being governed by the New York colony. In fact, in 1683, a number of towns including East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold banded together to form the Duke of York's Laws. These laws allowed for a greater degree of local self-governance, and were seen as a way for the colonists to protect their rights.

Despite these efforts, the state government continued to exert its influence over East Hampton and other towns. In 1691, the New York colony passed a new law that revoked the Duke of York's Laws and brought all of Long Island under the control of the state government. This move was deeply unpopular with many of the colonists, who saw it as a violation of their rights and freedoms.

Writings
Rev. James was a prolific writer and is known for his publication, "The Book of Common Prayer Reformed According to the Plan of the Late Dr. Samuel Clarke," which was printed in 1690. He also wrote extensively on theological subjects and was a respected scholar.

During the mid-1690s, Rev. James was unable to perform all of his duties, prompting the Trustees to appoint Rev. Nathaniel Huntting as his assistant. Despite this, Rev. James still carried out some of his responsibilities. Rev. Huntting owned the property where the Huntting Inn, also known as The Palm, is located today.

Passing
Rev. Thomas James died on June 16, 1698, and was buried in the South End Burying Ground in East Hampton. He was remembered by his parishioners as a dedicated minister who always had their interests at heart. His final wishes were that he be buried in a manner that would allow him to face his congregation on the day of resurrection. His gravestone bears the inscription, "MR. THOMAS JAMES DYED THE 16 DAY OF JUNE IN THE YEARE 1698 HE WAS MINISTAR OF THE GOSPELL AND PASTUR OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST."

Jockey jack
Joseph Deighton Gibson, Jr.: Pioneer of Black Music Conventions

Joseph Deighton Gibson, Jr. (May 13, 1920 – January 30, 2000) was an American radio disc jockey and actor. He attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri from 1940 to 1942, earning a bachelor's degree in science. He is regarded as the father of the Black appeal radio format.

History
Gibson began his career in radio under the wing of Al Benson, one of radio’s legends, a jive-patter-talking disc jockey (DJ) of the Be-Bop school at Chicago’s WJJD.

Benson, the ‘Old Swingmaster’ (born Arthur Bernard Leaner in 1920 in Jackson, Mississippi) as he was known, had come to radio in 1943 as a pastor, but was prohibited from selling airtime, so he switched to become a secular DJ, and mentored some of the Black DJ’s at WGES and WJJD. He rapidly rose to fame in Chicago, Illinois playing swing and Be-Bop jazz. His phenomenal appeal was due to the Black jive talk he peppered between songs. He was the first DJ to speak with a Black southern accent, and frequently used ‘street slang’. He came to this by way of his previous employment with the Works Progress Administration as an interviewer. His bond with the Black migrants to northern cities was from his ‘mushmouth,’ as the first Black radio ‘personality jock.’ He was the first to play hit urban blues records on air, and with success at selling airtime, the station became immensely popular. When Jack Gibson came to work for him at WJJD a bell rang, and thus was born the idea of Black appeal radio. 'Jockey Jack' was born here. In publicity stills, Gibson was pictured straddling a microphone and turntable in jockey silk outfits, and he gained a following playing to a Black audience.

Also he had parts in the anthology Destination Freedom, a series written by Richard Durham, dedicated to the retelling the lives of notable Negros in the Americas. In 1949, Gibson left WJJD to found a new station, WERD in Atlanta, Georgia. WERD was the first radio station to be owned by a Black person, and the first voice heard on it was ‘Jockey Jack.’ He and Jesse Blayton Jr. flipped the switch on a money-losing big-band station. The station played the new Rhythm and Blues (R&B)—a mix of gospel vocal styles, swing-band instrumentals, and electrified urban blues which Benson had helped to popularize after WWII. R&B was outselling jazz in the Black music market but had little traction on-air as DJs at other Black-themed stations did not play it, preferring the then-popular big-band format. The use of ‘back home’ street patter and R&B music was popular with the youth culture and was considered ‘gangsta’ and a bit obscene. Along with other Benson-inspired DJ’s, a new wave of rhyming and signifying African-American culture hit American urban centers on air, with boastful patter, the ‘dozens,’ and rhyming at the end of sentences which became de jure. The first to do that was a former Negro League baseball announcer named Lavada Durst, known as Doctor Hep Cat, who spieled rhyme that was not obscene and was the precursor to modern rap and hip-hop. There was also Holmes (Daddy-O) Daylie, the rapping bartender who did his entire show in rhyme. Daddy-O was responsible for the Be-Bop revolution in jazz vernacular, creating a hipster idiom that Be-Bop artist Dizzy Gillespie credits for popularizing with modern jazz lovers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Rappers Delight
Jumpin’ jills and jivin' cats,

Upstate Gates in Stetson hats,

Lace your boots and tighten your wig,

Here’s some jive, can you dig?

I'm Doctor Hep Cat, on the scene,

With a stack of shellac in my record machine,

I'm hip to the tip, and bop to the top,

I'm long time coming and I just won't stop.

—Doctor Hep Cat, KVET Austin, 1948

Durst published a pamphlet called “The Jives of Doctor Hep Cat” which included his radio rhymes and a dictionary of “jive talk.” For much of the 1950s and well into the 1960s Doctor Hep Cat ruled the late-night in Austin, Texas. These DJs did not assimilate the culture; they were populists, broadcasting music and speech that Black folk used in the street. This set the stage for the birth of Black appeal radio stations in the post-war era of swing and Be-Bop. When Hal Jackson (Inner City Broadcasting Corporation head) entered mass-market radio he put his own stamp on Black radio, one that eschewed fast-talking jive, and with WWRL he found greater audiences broadcasting in the smoother patter of the inner city. When his station WLIB purchased WBLS and FM radio audiences came to understand there was more to music than top-40, disc jockeys like Frankie Crocker and his urban contemporary cohorts Johnny 'The Duke' Allen, Vaughn 'Quiet Storm' Harper, and Ken ‘Spider’ Webb went from just some ‘jive turkeys’ to number one in their market, then to the number-one radio station in the country.

Gibson would go on the air in his ‘Jockey Jack’ persona, wearing real silks, playing bugle calls from the track Kentucky-derby style, talking about ‘riding the hits.’ (During 1951–1953, both Gibson and Dean were working at WLOU Louisville, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Derby.) The year 1953 found him as program director at WMBM, and then at WFEC. The following year he was back at WERD.

Mello Yello
In 1955, Gibson founded the National Association of Radio Announcers for Black DJs. In the 1960s it was renamed the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers (NATRA). Bringing together disparate elements of Black Appeal Radio under one body placed Gibson at the head of the table, and as the father he declared, '"I slapped this baby's bottom and brought it to life!"' In 1963 Gibson joined the staff of Motown records as a public-relations (PR) manager. While there, he mentored the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson Five, and Stevie Wonder, and as Director of International PR, he often provided their first introductions to the public on stage. In 1969 he moved to STAX records, where he remained until 1972. In 1976 he began publication of a two-sided trade pamphlet called "Mello Yello," about the radio industry.

"Jack the Rapper's Mello Yello" is the oldest and largest-circulated Black radio/music trade publication in America.

Family Affair
To his peers in radio his nickname was “Jockey Jack,” and he achieved renown for his annual Black radio convention, where he was known as Jack the Rapper, for an all-inclusive Black/urban music showcase and convention. He is listed in the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. In 1989, he was inducted into the Black Radio Hall of Fame.

Gibson was a radio personality at WERD, a station that shared a building with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In a unique collaboration, whenever Dr. King needed to broadcast announcements about upcoming rallies, he would signal Gibson by knocking on the ceiling of his office, situated just below the WERD studio. Gibson, heeding the call, would dangle his microphone out of the studio window, lowering it to the SCLC office window below. Dr. King would then take the microphone and speak directly to the listeners, issuing his powerful calls to action for civil rights protests.

Jack Gibson, known as "Jockey Jack," became famous for his work at WERD, which was indeed the first African-American owned radio station in the United States, launched in Atlanta in 1949. His role as a disc jockey there contributed significantly to his prominence. He was a key figure in the emergence of a new style of radio broadcasting. He was among a cohort of influential African-American radio personalities who infused their programs with vibrant language, known as "jive," which resonated with the cultural dynamics of the time. This jargon was characterized by rhythmic, rhyming slang that added a distinct flavor to their commentaries and music programming. These disc jockeys, “Genial” Gene Potts, Tommy “Dr. Jive” Smalls, “Long Tall Lanky Larry Dean” and John “Honey Boy” Hardy with their catchy monikers, played a crucial role in shaping the radio landscape and were instrumental in popularizing the music and culture of African-Americans across the nation.

His signature "This is the Jockey playing the hits on WERD — 860 on your dial — the good word station — the only all-Negro station in Atlanta, Georgia…” gave listeners a place to visualize the Afro-centric view on the air.

Embracing his on-air moniker "Jockey Jack" with a sense of humor, he went as far as to wear authentic jockey silks during his radio shifts, fully embodying the persona that listeners across Atlanta had come to enjoy.

After his career as a DJ, Gibson transitioned to a role at Motown Records in 1961 as a promotions executive. At record previews he introduced new artists such as Steveland Wonder, the Jackson 5 and many Motown hitmakers It was here that he conceived the idea of creating a newsletter to promote the label's artists. In the 1970s, with encouragement from his wife Sadye, he evolved the newsletter into a comprehensive black music industry tipsheet named Mello Yello. The distinctive name came from the color of the paper on which it was printed, chosen to make the publication visually pop among rivals. However, inside the industry, there was a running belief that the name 'Mello Yello' was also a tongue-in-cheek reference to Gibson's own very light skin tone.

Gibson was a visionary in the black music industry, and is known for his pivotal role in creating and organizing annual conventions that celebrated and propelled the growth of black music. Inspired by the success of Dick Clark's American Bandstand, Gibson recognized the need for a platform that specifically catered to the vibrant black music scene in the late 70’s.

He drew inspiration from Don Cornelius, who created "Soul Train" after seeing the success of "American Bandstand," Gibson envisioned his own black music convention. It would parallel Billboard Magazine's annual event but with a unique focus. In 1977, the inaugural Jack The Rapper Family Affair took place in Atlanta, Georgia—affectionately termed by Gibson as "Martin's Town." It attracted major sponsorship from entities like CBS Records and featured seminars on radio and music production, alongside vibrant parties

This event was a hit and, together with Sidney Miller's Black Radio Exclusive conference in Los Angeles, provided the black music industry with significant networking, strategizing, fellowship, and celebration opportunities.

The convention featured seminars on radio programming, music production, and networking opportunities, creating an atmosphere of camaraderie and celebration. Remarkably, the first Family Affair even welcomed Minister Louis Farrakhan as one of its keynote speakers, adding a powerful cultural and political dimension to the event.

The success of the Family Affair convention paved the way for other influential gatherings within the black music industry. Sidney Miller's annual Black Radio Exclusive (BRE) conference in Los Angeles became another significant event where networking, strategizing, and fellowship thrived. The Impact Convention in Washington, D.C., the Young Black Programmer's Coalition conference, and Tom Silverman's New Music Seminar were among the other notable conventions that followed suit. Each of these events provided a platform for black artists, industry professionals, and enthusiasts to connect, exchange ideas, and celebrate the contributions of black music professionals.

His conventions were instrumental in connecting individuals to the past, present, and future of black music culture. Attending these gatherings meant immersing oneself in a dynamic tapestry of talent, creativity, and innovation. They allowed for the exploration of industry trends, the discovery of emerging artists, and the forging of invaluable connections that propelled careers forward.

Gibson's unwavering vision and dedication to fostering community within the black music industry left an indelible mark. His conventions became essential annual events, where the power of black music was showcased, celebrated, and propelled to new heights.

Gangsta Rap
The Family Affair convention faced several challenges that ultimately led to its decline. While the convention gained popularity and recognition for its inclusive approach, there were certain incidents and changing social dynamics that impacted its future.

One notable incident occurred during a late 1980s Family Affair convention, where a Saturday night reception sponsored by Skyywalker Records took an unexpected turn. The headline performance featured the controversial group 2 Live Crew and their explicit lyrics. To add to the discomfort, approximately 30 dancers from a nearby gentlemen's entertainment facility joined the group on stage. This unexpected display clashed with the socially conservative values of many radio DJ’s used to broadcast rules of decorum, who were perhaps unprepared for such explicit content. This incident, which showcased a clash of cultural expectations, may have caused some attendees to question the direction of the convention.

Additionally, as societal norms evolved and the music industry shifted, the Family Affair convention faced challenges in keeping pace with the changing landscape. The convention had initially embraced the emerging hip-hop industry and maintained an open-minded approach toward its inclusion. However, the evolving nature of hip-hop, with its explicit lyrics and provocative performances, may have created a disconnect with the convention's traditionally more conservative audience. The clash between the convention's original intent and the changing dynamics of the music industry may have contributed to its decline.

During the 1993 conference, a violent brawl erupted in one of the panel discussions involving representatives from Death Row Records and Skyywalker Records, disrupting a session with a loud commotion. After the fight, the room was in disarray with furniture scattered. The police intervened, evacuating the area. The incident cast a shadow over the event, sparking discussions about self-sabotage within the community. This altercation at the Family Affair, which was originally created to unite the black R&B music industry against discrimination, highlighted emerging internal conflicts within the scene.

As chaos escalated at later Family Affairs, Gibson held his ground amidst criticism. He defended his inclusive stance, saying:

"I certainly didn't want that violence any more than anybody else. Many supporters pointed fingers at me for not excluding rappers from the event. But excluding rappers was out of the question—they're a legitimate part of black music, and I wasn't going to segregate based on genre. It seemed like a situation where standing by your convictions came with a price. And indeed, I was paying that price, quite literally knocked off my feet."

The root cause of the turmoil at the 1993 conference can be traced back to the cultural shift in hip-hop during the early 1990s. The genre evolved from its African-consciousness roots to embracing a more violent image, mirroring the rise of the street crack trade. As law enforcement cracked down on the drug trade, individuals from that world increasingly moved into the rap industry. Simultaneously, music industry professionals, even those with college educations and middle-class backgrounds, began adopting tougher personas to align with the genre's shift from socially conscious lyrics to those glorifying criminal lifestyles. This cultural pivot towards a more aggressive and crime-centric image in hip-hop was reflected in the behaviors and altercations at events like the Family Affair conference.

Moreover, as time passed, the generational shift within the black music industry also played a role in the convention's demise. The socially conservative audience, many of whom had personally witnessed the sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and were accustomed to a different era of music and entertainment, faced difficulty adapting to the evolving cultural expressions and performances showcased at the convention. This generational gap may have hindered the convention's ability to resonate with a broader audience and maintain its relevance.

These factors, including the clash of cultural expectations, the evolving nature of the music industry, and the generational shift within its audience, contributed to the decline of the Family Affair convention. Despite its eventual demise, the convention remains a significant part of black music history, highlighting the challenges and complexities of navigating cultural dynamics within the industry.

By the third year, the Family Affair had outgrown Colony Square, so it was moved to Peachtree Plaza in 1979 and 1980. "After that we moved to the Marriot."

In 1985 Gibson was involved with the effort to un-ban Stevie Wonder, whose records were banned in South Africa after his acceptance of an Academy award in the name of Nelson Mandela. Some 230 radio stations joined his call to salute the singer/songwriter on his birthday.

In 1986 Gibson was honored by the Smithsonian Institution for his work promoting Black radio.

In 1987, after learning that soul singer Jackie Wilson had been buried next to his mother in an unmarked grave, Gibson launched what is today known as a crowd-sourcing fundraiser for a marker and tomb for the pair. A prisoner in Kansas donated 50 cents, and by May donations were estimated at $10,000, often donated in $1 increments, to build a mausoleum and headstone with the inscription, "And now, no more lonely teardrops" for the singer.

The Jack the Rapper Family Affair was where influential people in Black urban radio gathered and listened to what record companies had to offer. Performing live could launch a new act's career, and affirmed the viability of older, established musicians like Prince and Whitney Houston. When Rap emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, up-and-coming Rap acts flocked to the Family Affairs, confusing the name 'Jack the Rapper' and also attracting an element who caused hotel venues to rethink their relationship with Gibson's affairs.

Rap Wars
''

Gibson relocated the 1994 Family Affair from Atlanta to Orlando, Florida to deter incidents that had marred recent conferences. It had grown to over 5,000 attendees and claimed an annual $13.8 million influx of business to Atlanta. People who wanted to hobnob with celebrities were buying tickets on-site to party, and these crowds overwhelmed the venues and organizers alike, as Jill Gibson-Bell, Gibson's daughter, recalled. A security issue also presented itself. There were many talented artists who started at a Family Affair who developed into superstars. There were seminars that gave people in the industry an opportunity to exchange ideas, and they often returned to their jobs equipped with fresh concepts, ready to make changes. But the show was over, and extra security failed to secure the venue. It was killed by the very acts Gibson had defended who brought the street to the 'family friendly' upscale convention.

In 1996, the entirety of Gibson's books, records, and photographs was donated to the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University. That year Gibson also was named to the Entertainment Committee for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Gibson moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1990 and was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1998.

Personal life
Gibson was married to Sadye Gibson for 47 years; they had two children. She died in 1990. His second wife, Elsie Harris-Gibson, currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Gibson died of prostate cancer on January 30, 2000, at age 79 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

new table
List of tidemills in brooklyn, Queens and long island

Gerritson's mill
Gerritsen's Mill, Gravesend

Gerretsen's Mill at Gravesend, L. I., also known as Johannes Gerritsen's Mill, derived its name from Johannes Gerritsen, a miller in the area of Marine park, Brooklyn. The mill was situated near what is now known as Garritson's Creek and Mill Pond, formerly referred to as the Strome Kil. The origin of the name can be traced back to historical references, including an Indian deed mentioning land belonging to Hugh Garretson, likely referring to the same location.

History
Johannes Gerritsen, identified as a miller of Gravesend, is documented in historical records, including his will dated December 20th, 1765, found in the New York Surrogate's office. In his will, he bequeathed his estate to his son, Samuel Gerritsen, along with specific legacies to be paid. Johannes Gerritsen's lineage can be linked to Samuel Geretsen, as noted by Tunis G. Bergen in "Early Settlers of Kings County." It is inferred that Johannes Gerritsen was likely a son of Samuel Geretsen, born sometime after 1700.

The tradition of naming children after grandparents, common among Dutch families, is evident in the Gerritsen family, further supporting the connection between Johannes and Samuel Geretsen. Subsequent records, such as the will of Samuel Garritsen probated in 1822, continue to document the family's ownership and involvement in the mill's operation and land ownership in Gravesend. The mill's lineage continues through subsequent generations, as evidenced by the will of Samuel Garritsen, of Gravesend, recorded in Liber 2 of the Kings County Surrogate's office and probated in 1822. In his will, Samuel bequeaths his grist mill and farm to his son, John S., while also naming his daughters, Jane and Elizabeth. He appoints his son-in-law, John Lott, and his grandson, Van Brunt Magaw, as executors.

Van Brunt Magaw, born September 7th, 1783, and died March 18th, 1831, was the son of Colonel Robert Magaw, a distinguished Revolutionary War officer, and Marritje, daughter of Colonel Rutgert Van Brunt. Van Brunt Magaw married Adriana, daughter of Louwrens Voorhees and Jannetie, daughter of Samuel Garritson, on November 2nd, 1811.

Elizabeth Garritsen married John Lott, the second son of and Catharine Vanderbilt. They resided on the farm purchased by Judge Lott from the heirs of Philip Nagel, which he later bequeathed to John Lott upon his death. Their son, Samuel G. Lott, was the father of Theodore Lott.

The lineage of the mill's ownership further unfolds with the probate of John S. Gerretson's will on September 2nd, 1864, recorded in Liber 28. John S. Gerretson, identified as a miller of Gravesend, leaves his farm, meadows, and mill to his son, Samuel J. Gerretsen, and another farm acquired from the Stillwells to his son, Simon C. Gerretsen.

Samuel J. Gerretsen's will, recorded on October 31st, 1876, and made on May 4th of the same year, reveals the continuation of the family's legacy. He bequeaths all his property, both real and personal, to his two daughters, Mary C., widow of Abraham Ditmas Polhemus, and Helen B., wife of Stephen H. Herriman, both residing in Brooklyn.

The genealogical record of the family provides insight into Samuel J. Gerretsen's marriage to Jane, daughter of Jacob Van Brunt and Esther Vanderbilt, born May 14th, 1803, and died November 20th, 1861. Their children include Mary C., born July 7th, 1822, who married Abraham D. Polhemus in 1846, and Helen B., born November 15th, 1824, who married Stephen H. Herriman on April 25th, 1853.

The ownership of the property underwent further changes over the years. On December 20th, 1864, Samuel J. Gerretsen transferred a portion of the property to his son-in-law, Abraham Ditmas Polhemus. Subsequently, on November 14th, 1879, the executors of Abraham D. Polhemus's will sold the premises he had acquired to Helen V. B. Herriman. Following the passing of Stephen H. Herriman, who inherited his wife's interest in the property, it was bequeathed to his three children: William S. Herriman, Maria Bell Hazen, and Helen Herriman. Upon William S. Herriman's demise, he left his share of the Gravesend property to his sister, Maria Bell Hazen.

In 1899, Mrs. Hazen and Miss Herriman sold the estate to the Honorable [[|William Collins Whitney

William C. Whitney]]. Under his ownership, the property underwent extensive renovations, reconstruction, and landscaping, transforming it into one of the most remarkable country estates in the vicinity of New York. Upon William C. Whitney's passing, his son, Harry Payne Whitney, inherited the property and assumed ownership. Historic homesteads of Kings County ...

by

Ditmas, Charles Andrew, 1887-1938 ppg.94