Applauding America's History-Z-A

The best place to start when talking about Black History Month & America is with Martin Waldseemuller, and Carter Woodson. Waldseemuller put America's name on the map and Woodson made sure African-Americans were counted in history.

In 1507 the map maker Martin Waldseemuller named North and South America, after Amerigo Vespucci Mundus Novus ("New World") was a Latin translation of a lost Italian letter sent from Lisbon to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. It describes a voyage to South America in 1501-1502. Mundus Novus was published in late 1502 or early 1503 and soon reprinted and distributed in numerous European countries. Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle isole nuovamente trovate in quattro suoi viaggi ("Letter of Amerigo Vespucci concerning the isles newly discovered on his four voyages"), known as Lettera al Soderini or just Lettera, was a letter in Italian addressed to Piero Soderini. Printed in 1504 or 1505, it claimed to be an account of four voyages to the Americas made by Vespucci between 1497 and 1504. It was the publication and widespread circulation of the letters that led Martin Waldseemüller to name the new continent America on his world map of 1507 in Lorraine. Along with placing the name on the map Waldseemüller also published Vespucci's accounts of his travels in a book.  

PROFESSOR CARTER GODWIN WOODSON (December 19, 1875 at New Canton in Buckingham County, Virginia) was an African American historian, educator, author, journalist and the founder of Black History Month. He is considered the first to conduct a scholarly effort to popularize the value of Black History. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland co-founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.Woodson was often ostracized by many African-American educators and intellectuals of the time because of his insistence on inviting special attention to one's race. At the time, these educators felt that it was wrong to teach or understand African-American history as in any way separate from a general (usually Eurocentric) view of American history. The NAACP did not welcome Dr. Woodson's ideas. According to these educators, "Negroes" were simply Americans, darker skinned, but with no history a part from that of any other. Thus Woodson's efforts to get Black culture and history into the curricula of institutions (even Historically Black ones) were often unsuccessful. Dr. Woodson's other far-reaching activities includes the organization in 1920 of the Associated Publishers, the oldest African American publishing company in the United States. The establishment of Negro History Week in 1926 (now known as Black History Month); and the initial publication of the Negro History Bulletin.

Activist--YUNG WING (Chinese: 容闳 Pinyin: Róng Hóng) was born November 17, 1828 in Zhuhai in Guangdong province. Wing studied in Robert Morrison's missionary schools as a boy and his classmates included Tong King-sing.Yung was the first Chinese student to graduate from a U.S. university, graduating from Yale College in 1854. Yung Wing was naturalized as an American citizen on October 30, 1852.

He persuaded the Qing Dynasty government to send young Chinese to the United States to study Western science and engineering. The Educational Mission was disbanded in 1881, but many of the students later returned to China and made significant contributions to China's civil services, engineering, and the sciences.

IDA B.WELLS (later known as Ida Wells-Barnett) was born July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Wells was an African American civil rights advocate, and led a strong cause against lynching. She was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, women's rights advocate, journalist and speaker.

(activist-THE LITTLE ROCK NINE) THELMA-MOTHERSHED-WAIR  was the youngest to begin going to Central High. She has a heart problem, which in turn made it harder for her to adjust. Wair graduated from Soutnern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill with a bachelor's degree in home economics and earned a master's in Guidance & Counseling and an Administrative Certificate in Education from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in 1970 and 1985, respectively. Wair served as an educator in the East St. Louis School System for 28 years before retiring in 1994 from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.

(inventors/scientist)SOMA WEISS, a native of Bystrica, was born in 1899 in Bestereze in Transylvania, then part of Hungary). He studied physiology and biochemistry in Budapest. Immediately after the end of World War I he immigrated to the USA and qualified in medicine in 1923. He was the first to describe the Carotid Sinus Hypersensitivity Syndrome. In 1925 with Hermann Blumgart performed the first application of in-vivo circulating blood radioactive tracers in 1929 with G. Kenneth Mallory described hemorrhagic lacerations of the cardiac orifice of the stomach due to vomiting: Mallory-Weiss syndrome.

(Author) MARIANNE WILLIAMSON (born July 8, 1952 in Houston, Texas) is a spiritual activist, author, lecturer and founder of the The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace. She has been characterized as "an ex-cabaret-singing Jew from Texas", and is sometimes associated with an urban myth concerning Nelson Mandela's 1994 inauguration speech as president of South Africa. “Our Deepest Fear”.

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