Brandon K Hardison

I had an opportunity to know this young man because my baby girl and Andre attended the same private school for a while. He was older than her but since there were so few blacks at the school all of the stars got to know each other Kailee was on the "Big Screen" and theater while Andre was a private school football star in the state of GA. He decided to forgo his scholarship in college because of the head trauma he was taking and he wanted to always be an ME in college so he is pursuing that but working at Jim Ellis Automotive because we need new young talent to work on ice vehicles and EV vehicles. I got our VP of HR to support the marketing team to put this together for when I am in the community at career fairs, high schools, colleges, or chamber of commerce meetings. He has a bright future and we are paying him to learn the fine art of automotive tech and EV tech. Good job Mr. Payne!!

Jim Ellis Automotive Group Tech Recruitment Video This is "Jim Ellis Automotive Group Tech Recruitment Video" by Jim Ellis Automotive on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Black History Month Program - Walnut Grove High School - Georgia - Elizabeth Jennings (100 years before Rosa Parks) her father Thomas Jennings - First African American to receive a patent in The United States for his Invention of Dry Cleaning - The Attorney that won their case in court Chester Auther (21st President of the United States) and James Garfield 20th President of the U.S. who was assassinated and Auther took over as president. Four stories in one that the students and teachers didn't know about. I left them with Fritz Pollard - the first professional football player-coach in America since the Super Bowl was yesterday. This was the 9th HS/ University I spoke with this month. A well-behaved group (no one sleeping or on a device and when called on to read no problem) could summarize what they read.

Congratulations, to the team of Family Promise whose mission, is to help the downtrodden, forgotten, abused, and displaced families in the Atlanta Metro Area. I would like my brother William "Van" Hardison for letting me know about this worthy organization. The Jim Ellis Automotive Group is the largest automotive group in the entire Atlanta metro area and the largest family-owned christen automotive group in the state of Georgia. "Expect the Best"

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was a physician and author noted for his efforts to create opportunities for African Americans in science, specifically for medical doctors.

He was known both as the founder, editor and publisher of Medical and Surgical Observer (the first medical journal issued by an African American), as well as founding the University of West Tennessee College of Medicine and Surgery.

Today in our History – December 30, 1892 - Miles Vandahurst Lynk publishes 1st Black medical journal. (June 3, 1871 – December 29, 1956).

Lynk was born near Brownsville, Tennessee. He was named after two bishops, William Henry Miles and Richard H. Vandahurst, of the Christian Methodist Episcopal church in Jackson, Tennessee. Lynk attended Meharry Medical College for two years and graduated in 1891.

Later that year, aged 19, he opened his own practice becoming Jackson's first black doctor. On April 12, 1893, Lynk married Beebe Steven Lynk, one of the first African-American women chemists and chemistry teachers. Lynk died December 29, 1956, aged 85.

Lynk spent much time developing educational and professional opportunities for African American physicians. In 1890 he and his wife, Beebe Steven Lynk, established the University of West Tennessee graduating at least 155 physicians as well as a number of pharmacists, nurses, dentists, and, through its law school, attorneys during its twenty-three years of existence.

They took out a loan with their own home so they could purchase land for the college. Lynk was able to provide for African Americans who could not afford to go to school, and bring up the preparation that went in to going to medical school.

During his time as president of the medical department of the University of West Tennessee he contributed to the founding of the National Medical Association. Lynk received the Distinguished Service medal of the National Medical Association at their 57th annual convention.

In 1892, Lynk published the first national medical journal published for African-American practitioners. The Medical and Surgical Observer was stamped and labeled by the Library of the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, D.C., as the "Only Negro M.J. in America."

The journal connected the isolated African-American medical practitioners across the United States. Although the MSO was published for only about a year, it served as a forum for black medical professionals, who were typically not welcomed in white society and medical conversations at the time.

Its content informed African-American physicians of news and practical ideas
throughout the world of medicine that they had not been informed of in the past.

Since the journal existed during a time of racial segregation, its readers found this was another way to find information in order to compete with white medical practitioners.

Lynk also published several books on African-American history, including The Black Troopers, or the Daring Heroism of the Negro Soldiers in the Spanish–American War. It discusses the lives of African-American soldiers during the war. The first half of the book strictly explored the lives of black soldiers.

Lynk delved into the wealth of inequality they experienced, the impact of being drafted, and what that had on the soldier’s family, and the tribulations of being a soldier.

The second half of the book examined the soldiers who volunteered in the Army to serve their country regardless of the racial tension and inequality.

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GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was the first African American to be appointed to a US cabinet-level position.
Prior to his appointment as cabinet officer, he had served in the administration of President John F. Kennedy. In addition, he had served in New York State government, and in high-level positions in New York City.
During the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, he was one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed to positions and helped make up the Black Cabinet, an informal group of African-American public policy advisers. He directed federal programs during the administration of the New Deal, at the same time completing his doctorate in economics in 1934 at Harvard University.
Today in our History – December 29, 1907 - Robert Clifton Weaver (December 29, 1907 – July 17, 1997) was born.
Robert Clifton Weaver was born on December 29, 1907, into a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. His parents were Mortimer Grover Weaver, a postal worker, and Florence (Freeman) Weaver. They encouraged the boy in his academic studies. His maternal grandfather was Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, the first African American to graduate from Harvard in dentistry.
The young Weaver attended the M Street High School, now known as the Dunbar High School. The high school for blacks at a time of racial segregation had a national reputation for academic excellence.

Weaver went on to Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degree. He also earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics, completing his doctorate in 1934.
In 1934, Weaver was appointed as an aide to United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. In 1938, he became special assistant to the US Housing Authority. In 1942, he became administrative assistant to the National Defense Advisory Commission, the War Manpower Commission (1942), and director of Negro Manpower Service.
With a reputation for knowledge about housing issues, in 1934 the young Weaver was invited to join President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Black Cabinet. Roosevelt appointed a total of 45 prominent blacks to positions in executive agencies, and called on them as informal advisers on public policy issues related to African Americans, the Great Depression and the New Deal.
Weaver drafted the U.S Housing Program under Roosevelt, which was established in 1937. The program was intended to provide financial support to local housing departments, as a subsidy toward lowering the rent poor African Americans had to pay.
The program decreased the average rent from $19.47 per month to $16.80 per month. Weaver claimed the scope of this program was insufficient, as there were still many African Americans who made less than the average income.
They could not afford to pay for both food and housing. In addition, generally restricted to segregated housing, African Americans could not necessarily take advantage of other subsidized housing.
In 1944, Weaver became director of the Commission on Race Relations in the Office of the Mayor of Chicago. In 1945, he became director of community services for the Chicago-based American Council on Race Relations through 1948.
In 1949, Weaver become director of fellowship opportunities for the John Hay Whitney Foundation. In 1955, Weaver the first Black State Cabinet member in New York when he became New York State Rent Commissioner under Governor W. Averell Harriman. In 1960, he became vice chairman of the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board.
In 1961, Weaver became administrator of the United States Housing and Home Financing Agency (HHFA).
After election, Kennedy tried to establish a new cabinet department to deal with urban issues. It was to be called the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Postwar suburban development, following the construction of highways, and economic restructuring had drawn population and jobs from the cities. The nation was faced with a stock of substandard, aged housing in many cities, and problems of unemployment.
In 1961, while trying to create HUD, Kennedy had done everything short of promising the new position to Weaver. He appointed him Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), a group of agencies which Kennedy wanted to raise to cabinet status.
When Dr. Weaver joined the Kennedy Administration, whose Harvard connections extended to the occupant of the Oval Office, he held more Harvard degrees – three, including a doctorate in economics – than anyone else in the administration's upper ranks.
Some Republicans and southern Democrats opposed the legislation to create the new department. The following year, Kennedy unsuccessfully tried to use his reorganization authority to create the department.
As a result, Congress passed legislation prohibiting presidents from using that authority to create a new cabinet department, although the previous Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower administration had created the cabinet-level U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under that authority.
He contributed the compilation housing bill in 1961. He took part in lobbying for the Senior Citizens Housing Act of 1962.
In 1965, Congress approved the department. At the time, Weaver was still Administrator of the HHFA. In public, President Lyndon B. Johnson reiterated Weaver's status as a potential nominee but would not promise him the position. In private, Johnson had strong reservations. He often held pro-and-con discussions with Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the NAACP.]
Johnson wanted a strong proponent for the new department. Johnson worried about Weaver's political sense. Johnson seriously considered other candidates, none of whom was black.
He wanted a top administrator, but also someone who was exciting. Johnson was worried about how the new Secretary would interact with congressional representatives from the Solid South; they were overwhelmingly Democrat as most African Americans were still disenfranchised and excluded from the political system.
This was expected to change as the federal government enforced civil rights and the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As candidates, Johnson considered the politician Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago; and the philanthropist Laurence Rockefeller.
Ultimately, Johnson believed that Weaver was the best-qualified administrator. His assistant Bill Moyers had rated Weaver highly on potential effectiveness as the new secretary.
Moyers noted Weaver's strong accomplishments and ability to create teams. Ten days after receiving the report, the president put forward the nomination, and Weaver was successfully confirmed by the United States Senate.
Weaver served as Secretary of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968.
Weaver had expressed his concerns about African Americans' housing issue before 1930 in his article, "Negroes Need Housing", published by the magazine The Crisis of the NAACP after the Stock Market Crash.
He noted there was a great difference between the income of most African Americans and the cost of living; African Americans did not have enough housing supply because of many social factors, including the long economic decline of rural

areas in the South. He suggested a government housing program to enable all the African Americans the chance to buy or rent their house.
In 1945, Weaver began teaching at Columbia University.
In 1969, after serving under President Johnson, Weaver became president of Baruch College.
In 1970, Weaver became a distinguished professor of Urban Affairs at Hunter College in New York and taught there until 1978.
In 1935, Robert C. Weaver married Ella V. Haith. They adopted a son, who died in 1962.
Weavers served on the boards of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (1969–1978) and Bowery Savings Bank (1969–1980). He served in advisory capacities to the United States Controller General (1973–1997), the New City Conciliation and Appeals Board (1973–1984), Harvard University School of Design (1978–1983), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund and NAACP executive board committee (1978–1997).
Robert C. Weaver died age 89 on July 17, 1997, in Manhattan, New York.
Weaver received more than 30 honorary university degrees,[1] as well as the following:
• 1962: NAACP Spingarn Medal
• 1963: Russworm Award
• 1968:
o Albert Einstein Commemorative Award
o Merrick Moore Spaulding Award
• 1975: Public Service Award of the US General Accounting Office
• 1977: Frederick Douglass Award of the New York City Urban League
• 1978: Schomberg Collection Award
• 1985: Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1987: Equal Opportunity Day Award of the National Urban League
• 2000: Robert C. Weaver Federal Building HUD headquarters (which Weaver had dedicated in 1968)
• 2006: "Robert Clifton Weaver Way" NE in Washington, DC
• Undated: "Robert Weaver Avenue" "Robert Weaver Circle" inAustin, Texas

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GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion is best known as "Sugar", he is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor.
Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed from 1977 to 1997, winning world titles in five weight divisions; the lineal championship in three weight divisions; as well as the undisputed welterweight title.
He was part of "The Fabulous Four", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of himself, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler.
"The Fabulous Four" created a wave of popularity in the lower weight classes that kept boxing relevant in the post–Muhammad Ali era, during which he defeated future fellow International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees Hearns, Durán, Hagler, and Wilfred Benítez.
He was also the first boxer to earn more than $100 million in purses, and was named "Boxer of the Decade" in the 1980s. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1979 and 1981, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1976, 1979, and 1981.
In 2002, he was voted by The Ring as the ninth greatest fighter of the last 80 years; BoxRec ranks him as the 23rd greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound.
Today in our History – December 28, 1981 – Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard is named by Sports Illustrated magazine as the Sportsman of the Year, for World Welterweight champion from January 4, 1982. Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956).
By his last retirement in 1991, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard had become the first fighter to win titles in five divisions-every weight class from welteweight to light heavyweight.
He also had the distinction of being the first boxer ever to earn $100 million in purses. Handsome and glib outside the ring-and unusually crafty within it-Leonard beat a number of formidable opponents on his way to wealth and fame.
Sports Illustrated correspondent William Nack called Leonard “the very embodiment of the American dream,” and claimed that the engaging boxer’s career “is the paradigm for the sport.”
Melodrama played no small role in Sugar Ray Leonard’s professional life. He “retired” as early as 1976 and claimed to be through with boxing no fewer than four times; even at the age of 41, in 1997, Leonard insisted that he was still a competitive fighter, looking for a match.
His numerous comebacks were celebrated with a great deal of hoopla, attesting to Leonard’s healthy ego, but they also proved that the fighter possessed unusual degrees of stamina and determination.
Fighting through injuries that might have robbed him of his eyesight, overcoming drug abuse, and beating opponents who were expected to pulverize him became Ray Leonard’s signal achievements. As Nack put it, Leonard’s “was a remarkable performance, an exercise in guile, nerve, endurance and superior athleticism.”
Ray Charles Leonard was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on May 17,1956. He is named not after a boxer but after jazz great Ray Charles, because his mother wanted him to be a singer.
The fifth of seven children, Leonard grew up in Palmer Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Palmer Park is hardly a ghetto, but it is not a wealthy community by any means.
Sports Illustrated correspondent Rick Reilly called the area “a poor, mixed neighborhood with more than enough trouble to go around.”
Somehow the shy Ray Leonard was able to avoid the trouble. He sang with his sisters in a church choir and behaved himself in school. In a Washington Post interview, Leonard’s father called the fighter “a funny sort of kid” who “always hung back.” He continued: “It
Born May 17, 1956, in Wilmington, NC; son ofCiceroand Getha Leonard; married Juanita Wilkinson January 19, 1980 (divorced, 1991); married Bernadette Robi (a model), August 20, 1993; children: (first marriage) Ray Jr., Jarre!. £Education: Graduated from high school in Palmer Park, MD.
Amateurboxer, 1969-76; professional boxer, 1976-91. Became World Boxing Council (WBQ welterweight champion, 1979; won juniormiddleweight championship, 1981 ; became undisputed welterweight champion, 1981 ; in retirement, 1982-84; retired again after one fight, 1984-86; became middleweightchampion, 1987; became WBC super middleweight champion and light heavyweight champion, 1988; retired in 1991.
Boxingcommentator and analystfortelevision broadcasts; star of exercisevideo Boxout, 1993. professional boxer, onefight with HectorCamacho, March 1, 1997, retired again.
In the autumn of 1986, Leonard returned to serious training, challenged Marvin Hagler to a match, and began boasting that he could defeat one of the most savage and resourceful champions in middleweight history.
Leonard and Hagler squared off in the spring of 1987. “By all logic,” Nack wrote, “in the face of all history, Leonard should never have been in that ring in the first place.
Except for one sad, brief encounter with an unknown fighter in May 1984, he had not fought in five years and 50 days. And yet here he was, facing one of the most remorseless, murderous punchers in the ...middleweight division, without a single tune-up to hone his boxing skills. What he was trying to do was unprecedented in the history of this consuming sport.”
Amazingly, Leonard won the 12-round fight, deftly avoiding the punches of an aging Hagler. Nack declared that Leonard, the underdog, scored an “upset of upsets,” fought “magnificently, “and displayed “great courage and resolve.”
After the Hagler match, Leonard decided to improve his physique even further. He added bulk and muscle, worked on his stamina, and strengthened his hands by punching the big bag. On November 7, 1988 he added two more WBC titles to his list by defeating then-super middleweight and light heavyweight champion Donny Lalonde, for the fourth and fifth championship titles he would earn in his career.
Then, to the delight of promoters and boxing fans, he signed for a rematch with Thomas Hearns.
The Leonard-Hearns fight in June of 1989 was preceded by all the usual publicity, with each boxer predicting his own victory. At one press conference, Hearns suggested that Leonard had used steroids to enhance his musculature.
Leonard took the jibe in stride at the press conference, but afterwards he vehemently denied the suggestion, offering the counter opinion that Hearns had the proverbial “glass jaw.” Leonard told the Washington Post: ”I’m still ascending, still gaining altitude. I still have the desire, the self-discipline, the self-motivation.”
Determined though he may have been, Leonard was only able to fight Hearns to a draw-and Hearns knocked him down twice. The match remains one of the most controversial of either fighter’s careers.
Leonard took a year off after his meeting with Hearns to contemplate his future. With a 36-1-1 record, including 25 knockouts-and a fortune estimated at nearly $100 million-the specter of retirement began to loom again.
Instead Leonard decided to fight the WBC junior middleweight champion Terry Norris, a man 11 years his junior. “I knew I had to fight again, “Leonard told Sports Illustrated.”I have to know that I’ve taken my talent as far as it can go.
I want to be the guy who says, ’Leonard, it’s time to quit.’ I don’t want anybody else telling me that. It’s my life, my career, my decision.” Reserach more about this great American Champion and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

GM – FBF – Today’s American Champion event is The Legacy of Historically Black College and Universities on the Gridiron.

Today in our History – December 27, 1892 - Biddle College (now Johnson C. Smith University) played Livingstone College.

With a few exceptions, Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) were established in southern states after the Civil War. Private schools were most often religious affiliated.

The Morrill Act of 1890 required states to establish land grant colleges if African-Americans were excluded from attending existing state schools. With segregation rampant in the 100 years after the Civil War, the only alternative for African-American college bound students were HBCU’s.

The Foundation
The first HBCUs were founded in Pennsylvania and Ohio prior to the American Civil War, with the purpose of providing youths, who were largely prevented, due to racial discrimination, from attending established colleges and universities. The first two HBCUs were Cheyney University and Lincoln University both in Pennsylvania.
Cheyney

The oldest, chronologically, HBCU was founded on February 25th, 1837. The African Institute moved from its original home in Philadelphia to a farm 25 miles outside the city once it was owned by another Quaker named George Cheyney.

Until that point, it had been a secondary school. In 1914, it was renamed the Cheyney Training School for Teachers and became an institution of higher learning and awarded its first degree.

In those 77 years between its inception and its formalization as a university, 97 other historically black colleges and universities had been founded. Today the school is known as Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Although Cheyney no longer participates in football, their historical impact on and off the gridiron is undeniable.

Lincoln
The oldest, degree granting, HBCU was founded on April 29, 1854. Ashmun Institute was chartered by Presbyterian minister the Rev. John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson, who was a Quaker, to provide higher education in the arts and sciences for black men.

In 1866, the school was renamed Lincoln University in honor of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. After a 48 year hiatus, Lincoln football returned on August 30, 2008 where they defeated George Mason University 34-7.

Livingstone Mzimba (left) and Harry Mantanga (right), students from the eastern Cape, were ends on the Lincoln College football team in 1907 when this photograph was taken. After graduating, both returned to South Africa and became Presbyterian ministers.

Before the SEC & ACC there were HBCUs
On December 27, 1892 the first Black intercollegiate football game was played in North Carolina. Biddle College (now Johnson C. Smith University) played Livingstone College on Livingstone's snowy lawn.

Little did those men know, they would change the game of football forever. Research more about this great American Sport and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!