We want you to know the name Alice Ball. She was the first woman and first African American to earn a master’s degree in science from the College of Hawaii.
Ball remarkably developed a treatment for leprosy, but she passed away shortly after.
Arthur Dean, chair of the College of Hawaii’s chemistry department, took over the project, and renamed Ball’s method to the “Dean Method,” never crediting Ball for her work.
Author copies arrived of this bulky anthology of African ghost stories. Now I can say that my story was published in the same book as the legend, Amos Tutuola!
@jonathanpeterson@TheConversationUS@blackmastodon for sure if you're in a position of influence it's morally imperative to use it for good. I'm just never in such a position these days so when I do run across a jackwagon online I save my energy and move along.
@Beeks@TheConversationUS@blackmastodon no question, online culture wars are a womtf. I'll correct an obvious misstatement of fact and link to actual news. Happens all the time on reddit, when MAGAs living in rural Georgia want to talk about explosions in violent crime, for instance.
Let’s stop the denials, the what-aboutism, and the gaslighting and get about the real business of dismantling racism and extending the love of Christ to everyone. @clayrivers
OHF Weekly Editor in Chief
Black Americans who are attempting to trace their roots can get help from the Smithsonian. The institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) offers free genealogy sessions, both in person and online, teaching people how to interpret census records, find useful sources of information, and more. Here's more from @Smithsonianmag's Tracy Scott Forson, who got answers about her own family history from an NMAAHC session.
💛 “The Race Massacres They Never Taught Us About in School”
We all say we want our children to have the very best education, but is it really in their best interests to not tell them what we have done wrong, to not show them America’s feet of clay?
—Glenn Rocess
Do you, or have you ever, used a graphical user interface? If you use #Windows, #macOS, or any version of #Linux with a window manager or desktop environment, you can thank Dr. Clarence "Skip" Ellis.
Dr. Ellis worked at Xerox PARC, the research organization that developed the modern GUI. Icons, windows, the mouse, Ethernet-based networking, laser printing - all of these (and more) came out of PARC. Dr. Ellis led the team that created Officetalk, the first program to use icons and the Internet. He got his start at 15 years old showing a local tech company how to reuse punch cards, which was a game-changer back in 1958.
Oh, and he was also the first black man to earn a PhD in Computer Science.
@aires@blackmastodon
The first time I saw a mouse was way back in the day when I had an informal demo of the new Canadian Senate Debates production system from Xerox.
PS "back in the day" = so far back I can't remember exactly when.
"Issa Rae says she went from being “stupidly optimistic” early in her career to pessimistic about Black stories being made a priority in Hollywood. "
...
“It’s already happening,” the 39-year-old said. “You’re seeing so many Black shows get canceled, you’re seeing so many executives — especially on the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] side — get canned. You’re seeing very clearly now that our stories are less of a priority.” "
Prince's "Purple Rain" is 40. Here's a story from @ThisIsDig about the making of His Royal Badness's breakthrough album, film and tour. “There was no precedent for this,” Alan Leeds, Prince’s then tour manager, later recalled. “Rock’n’roll stars with a couple of hit albums did not make major movies. Let alone someone from the Black community having the gumption to do it in the mainstream.”