PEOPLE: Black History Month 2023 Honors women and men whose education and skills were used to help build a grateful nation and a united people
AGN.News Team
February 23, 2023
WASHINGTON (AGN.News) – Black History Month 2023 honors many of the women and men of color who were gifted with practical education and skills to help build a grateful nation and a united people.
As America grew into a united republic there was a need for educated men and women regardless of color to aid in country-building by creating nationwide network of workers.
From its founding – America’s leaders knew of this need and came to realize one basic fact – it would require hundreds of thousands of hands to join in the effort if the country was to become a leader on the world stage.
Early in 1619, many people of color were forcibly brought into the equation. Over the next 400 years – plus 4 – there have been millions of Black people who’ve worked diligently to make this a great nation and a model for the world to follow.
Today, we can take notice of some of these men and women who’ve been assets to building a grateful nation. They’ve sacrificed their own lives and culture to bring their best to the nation.
Sarah Bickford a prominent Black woman
Sarah Gammon Brown Bickford (1856-1931) was born into slavery in what has been accepted as the town of Jonesborough, Tennessee, founded in 1779, according to some historians. It’s also known as “Tennessee’s oldest town”.
Bickford’s parents were sold during the Civil War and she told people she never saw them again.
After the Civil War, Sarah went to live with her aunt, Nancy Gammon, in Knoxville, and Gammon’s husband, Isaac, who became the first African American alderman in Knoxville. Sarah took their last name, becoming Sarah Gammon.
In the 1870s she headed to the Montana goldfields, along the way she traded work as a nanny for what she needed to care for herself. Along the way she even traded work for transportation.
In 1871, Sarah Gammon was in Montana Territory, trading passage for work as a nanny for John Luttrell Murphy. After arriving in the gold rush town of Virginia City (then the territorial capital) she started looking for better economic opportunities.
She worked briefly as a chambermaid at the Madison Hotel before marrying miner John Brown in 1872.
In 1880, Sarah Gammon Brown sued for divorce on the grounds of abuse and abandonment. She received full custody of her seven-year-old daughter Eva.
Sarah Bickford started her own business
Now a single mother, she worked briefly for French-Canadian immigrant Adaline Laurin. Realizing working for herself was the best option as a single mother, she opened her own business, the New City Bakery and Restaurant. She regularly advertised her bakery in the local Virginia City newspaper, the Madisonian.
According to the advertisement, “Mrs. Sallie Brown, proprietess,” offered “board by the day or week,” “lunch and dinner at all hours,” “fresh bread, cake, pies and confectionery constantly on hand.”
Sarah Bickford: Owner of Utility Company
In 1883, Sarah Brown married white miner and farmer Stephen Eben Bickford. This marriage occurred before the state of Montana passed a law prohibiting interracial marriage in 1909.
Stephen Bickford died in 1890, leaving Sarah with four children (three girls and a boy) and two-thirds ownership in the Virginia City Waterworks.
She ultimately became sole owner of the Virginia City Water Company, becoming the first and only woman in Montana—and probably the nation’s only female African American—to own a utility company.
Sarah Bickford took business classes
Sarah took an active role in the utility business; she took a business class by correspondence and in 1890, she purchased the remaining third of the waterworks, becoming sole proprietor.
She also purchased a local building (known as the Hangman’s Building because during its construction, Vigilantes hung five men they judged to be outlaws from the roof beam) for her office.
Sarah Bickford was a hands-on manager. She visited every customer and was her own bill collector. She remained a well-respected member of the community until her death on July 19, 1931.
In 2012, the State of Montana honored Sarah Bickford by inducting her into the Gallery of Outstanding Montanans.
First African American Minority Leader
Hakeem Sekou Jeffries (born August 4, 1970) is an American politician and attorney who has been House Minority Leader and leader of the House Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2023.
Jeffries is in his sixth House term, having represented New York’s 8th congressional district, anchored in southern and eastern Brooklyn, since 2013.
Before his election to Congress in 2012, Jeffries served three terms in the New York State Assembly, representing the 57th district, and worked as a corporate lawyer. He chaired the House Democratic Caucus from 2019 to 2023 and in November 2022 was elected caucus leader unopposed, succeeding Nancy Pelosi.
Hakeem Jeffries was born in New York City, at Brooklyn Hospital Center to his mother Laneda Jeffries, a social worker, and his father Marland Jeffries, a state substance-abuse counselor.
Jeffries grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and his heritage traces back to Virginia, Georgia, Maryland (former slave states), and Cape Verde, an archipelago and island country in the central Atlantic Ocean located at the westernmost point of continental Africa.
He attended New York University School of Law, where he was a member of the New York University Law Review. He graduated in 1997 with a Juris Doctor degree.
Jeffries, like millions of Black people can trace their heritage back to former slave countries, colonies and states. Despite their ancestry, African Americans like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have proven their unyielding loyalty to the United States of America.
Benjamin Banneker: Successful Black Author
Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) was an African American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author. He was a landowner who also worked as a surveyor and farmer.
Born in Baltimore County, Maryland, to a free African American mother and a father who had formerly been enslaved, Banneker had little or no formal education and was largely self-taught.
He became known for assisting Major Andrew Ellicott in a survey that established the original borders of the District of Columbia, the federal capital district of the United States.
Banneker’s knowledge of astronomy helped him author a commercially successful series of almanacs. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson on the topics of slavery and racial equality.
Abolitionists, civil rights advocates, and advocates for racial equality promoted and praised Banneker’s works. Although a fire on the day of Banneker’s funeral destroyed many of his papers and belongings, one of his journals and several of his remaining artifacts did survive the fire.
With no formal education, Banneker taught himself. He used his knowledge to help build the nation’s capital and a now-grateful nation. We celebrate his accomplishments because his drive to help grow this nation is a model for not only Black Americans but all Americans.
Unevidenced stories of Black people not being able to teach themselves as a subordinate people is and can be disputed by the story of Benjamin Banneker.
UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
Linda Thomas-Greenfield (born 1952) is an American diplomat who is the United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Joe Biden. She served as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 2013 to 2017.
President Biden nominated Thomas-Greenfield to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Thomas-Greenfield was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 23, 2021.
She was confirmed by a 78–20 vote to be the UN Ambassador; she was subsequently confirmed, by a vote of 78–21, to be the U.S. representative to the General Assembly of the UN.
Thomas-Greenfield was born in 1952 in Baker, Louisiana. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana State University in 1974, and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1975.
During UW-Madison’s spring 2018 commencement ceremony, Thomas-Greenfield was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law by Chancellor Rebecca Blank.
Black History is America’s History
Black families all across America and the around the world are celebrating the women and men who struggled to bring their best talents and skills to the local and national community.
While many Americans look back to the time when racial superiority was the order of the day, many have found bringing back those bi-gone days is a lesson in futility. Every nation that has attempted to reinstate the subjugating events of the past have failed to accomplish their goal.
Realizing Black history is America’s history, more and more people of various cultures have learned to accept Black culture as a special asset to America. Black culture is America’s culture.
They’ve benefited from Black people and their culture. From food on the dinner table to the design of their clothes, hair styles, and their homes began with an idea – an idea created by Black people and Black culture.
As a united people, America has increased number of Black History events. Black culture along with celebrations to honor the women and men who used their education and skills to build a better America has benefited everyone.
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