Cultural Histories.

 

 

The era of Presidents from George W. Bush to Joseph Biden changed the world today. After more than 20 years of this era of Presidents, we have massive changes in America. There is more political polarization with 299 GOP candidates denying the results of the 2020 election (which is disgraceful). We have Qanon extremists openly talking about the civil war in America. We have a racist and sexist like Donald Trump using a racist slur against Mitch McConnell's Asian American wife. You have the racist piece of work Tommy Tuberville (from Alabama) lying saying that democrats are pro-crime and want criminals to have reparations. We want reparations for black Americans, and we don't want white racists whitewashing history or promoting bigotry in our society (that we built with our blood, sweat, and tears for centuries). So, we have a long way to go in our times in late 2022. Also, in the span of 20+ years, we have witnessed the growth of the progressive movement. More protests for justice have existed in our time since the 1960's and the 1970's. We have witnessed a motivated human population seeking real social change against far-right extremism. President George W. Bush had an opportunity after 9/11 to be one of the greatest Presidents in American history. His 2 term Presidency ended with the Iraq War, the Katrina response disaster, and the recession. President Barack Obama wanted hope and change for everyday people. His Presidency saw economic growth after 2 terms and many historic cultural, social changes. Also, President Obama dealt with police brutality, racial discrimination in America, and other foreign policy issues. President Trump was overt in his hatred of people who disagree with him. He almost ruined America forever with Muslim bans, a lax response to the coronavirus pandemic, his obstruction of a criminal investigation, his lies about the 2020 election, his provocation of hate and violence, and his suppression of other democratic rights. Thankfully, he lost the 2020 election. Today, President Joe Biden had made many historic, progressive legislation a reality, and he has to deal with inflation, foreign policy issues, and other matters that are important. The Presidency may change, but they still have the same office and the same responsibility to improve upon the general welfare of the community of the United States of America. 

 

For almost 250 years, the American Presidency has existed in America. They represented some of the most famous, prominent people in human history from professors to lawyers. Some of them were outright racists, and some of them were very progressive human beings. Some were born in urban communities. Others were born in rural locations. Yet, all of them held a powerful office that influenced the lives of the whole nation of the United States of America in a prodigious fashion. It started with George Washington being the first U.S. President to deal with a youthful nation during the late 1700's. The current President is President Joe Biden who is dealing with many complex issues from the war in Ukraine to the situation of inflation (and higher oil prices in certain locations of America). I have lived through the Presidencies of Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden. Over the course of almost four decades of me living on this Earth, I have learned that the cause of freedom and justice continues, but we have to fight for the Dream in each subsequent generation. In every generation, there will be evil people who seek to ruin the foundations of a progressive society and good people who desire honor, truth, righteousness, and liberty for all people in the world. That is why we have to be on the right side of history in supporting voting rights, defending black human lives, standing up for our civil liberties, cleaning up the environment (and protecting animal species too), educating people on the truth, and treating fellow human beings as equals not as adversaries. That principle is engrained in our psyche for real. Life will continue in the Universe. At the end of the day, we have to build a foundation and legacy that will inspire and help future generations of people to achieve their goals and aspirations. 

 

He lived a life filled with the promotion of acting excellence. Later, he became a diplomat and film director. As one of the greatest actors in human history, Sidney Poitier could perform in thrillers, dramas, comedies, and autobiographies too. Poitier can eloquently describe his life and the legacy of the film industry in stark terms. Also, he gave inspiration to future black actors and actresses to achieve their dreams from Denzel Washington to Oprah Winfrey. From the location of the Bahamas to New York City, Sidney Poitier was active in civil rights activism, developing his communities, and being a voice for the oppressed. He earned two Golden Globe Awards, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award (BAFTA), and a Grammy Award for Best Spoken World Album. He was the first black actor to earn the Academy Award for Best Actor too in 1964. He loves his family including his six daughters (who are Beverly, Pamela, Sherri, Gina, Sydney Tamiia, and Anika), his 8 grandchildren, and his 3 great-grandchildren. Also, it is important to acknowledge his predecessors before his acting career. Canada Lee and Paul Robeson acted in non-stereotypical black roles even before Sidney Poitier (he was in his first major film of No Way Out in 1950).  Canada Lee and Paul Robeson laid a huge foundation which Sidney Poitier walked upon. Subsequently, Poitier laid a foundation where modern-day actors and actresses walk on like Morgan Freeman, Viola Davis, Jamie Foxx, Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, Sanaa Lathan, Morris Chestnut, Regina King, and other human beings with excellent experience in their own rights. Sidney Poitier's strength was that he not only showed the powerful roles of black people. He helped to give other human beings opportunities, changed minds, and showed the truth that you can be strong and dignified at the same time. That has nothing to do with respectability politics. It has to do with showing the diverse power of Blackness in everyday life. 

 

Cicely Tyson was the quintessential excellent, professional actress. She was born and raised in New York City (with Afro-Caribbean heritage), and she inspired black women including all people globally. Her grace, beauty, presence, and charisma shined in the world for decades. Working hard with earnest determination characterizes her life. That is why she lived to be almost 100 years old, and she still did roles well into her 90's. That takes dedication, power, and a true love for the art of acting. She acted in movies, TV shows, and theater. Her accomplishments in acting are well known as earning 3 Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody award. For portraying black women in a fair, complex, and non-stereotypical fashion in movies, Cicely Tyson always deserves our respect and honor. She guided a real path, so other actresses could shine along with others in this modern world of the 21st century. Sounder in 1972 was one of her greatest roles along with Moses. Both films, it outlined not only black pain, but it showed the resilient spirit of black humanity to overcome debilitating challenges forthrightly. Tons of people know her for playing Binta in the acclaimed series Roots in 1977. Roots changed the game in terms of genealogical research, especially among black Americans. Cicely Tyson also loved to be involved in theater. She was involved in plays like The Trip to Bountiful and Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. Also, one large part of Cicely Tyson's legacy is that it inspired tons of more black women to pursue their aspirations in film, directing, STEM, and other spheres of human living. Phylicia Rashad, Diana Ross, Lupita Nyong'o, Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, Janet Jackson, Michelle Obama, and other Sisters are inspired by her too. Her righteousness and her contributions to society inspire us all. 

 

Michael Jordan was born at Cumberland Hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, on February 17, 1963. His parents are the son of bank-employed Deloris Peoples Jordan and equipment supervisor James R. Jordan Sr. By 1968, Michael Jordan moved with his family to Wilmington, North Carolina. He attended Emsley A. Landey High School in Wilmington. His athletic career increased when Michael Jordan played basketball, baseball, and football. Michael Jordan once tried to play on the high school basketball varsity team during his sophomore year. He was 5 feet 11 inches tall. He was deemed too short to play at that level. His taller friend Harvest Leroy Smith was the only sophomore to make the team. Jordan worked on his skills to be the star of Laney's junior varsity team. He played in 40-point games too. The following summer, he grew four inches and trained constantly. He earned a spot on the varsity roster and he averaged more than 25 points per game over his final two seasons of the high school play. When he was a senior, Michael Jordan was selected to play in the 1981 McDonald's All-American Game and scored 30 points. He averaged 27 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 assists per game for the season. Many college basketball programs wanted him to play for their teams like Duke, North Carolina, South Carolina, Syracuse, and Virginia. In 1981, he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography. Michael Jordan decided to join the University of North Carolina. As a freshman in Dean Smith's team-oriented system at UNC, Michael Jordan was named ACC Freshman of the Year after he averaged 13.4 ppg on 53.4% shooting (field goal percentage). He made the game-winning jump shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown (which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing). Jordan later said that this shot that he made as the major turning point in his basketball career. 

Michael Jordan during his three seasons with Tar Heels, he averaged 17.7 ppg on 54.0% shooting, and added 5.0 rpg and 1.8 apg. Michael Jordan was selected by consensus to the NCAA All-American First Team in both his sophomore (1983) and junior (1984) seasons. After winning the Naismith and the Wooden College Player of the Year awards in 1984, Jordan left North Carolina one year before his scheduled graduation to enter the 1984 NBA draft. Jordan returned to North Carolina to complete his degree in 1986. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography. In 2002, Michael Jordan was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary men's basketball team honoring the 50 greatest players in ACC history.

 

Serena Williams was born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan to Oracene Price and Richard Williams. She is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, and full older sister Venus. She also has at least seven paternal half-siblings. When the children were young, the family moved to Compton, California, where she started playing tennis at age four. Her father home-schooled her and her sister, Venus. While he and subsequently her mother has been their official coaches, her other mentors have included Richard Williams, a Compton man who shared her father's name and subsequently founded The Venus and Serena Williams Tennis Tutorial Academy. When Williams was nine, she and her family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach, Florida so she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci, who provided her with additional coaching. Macci did not always agree with Williams's father but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls". Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, as he wanted them to "go slowly" and focus on schoolwork. Experiences of racism also influenced this decision, as he had heard white parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments. At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked number one among under-10 players in Florida. In 1995, when Serena Williams was in the ninth grade, her father pulled his daughters out of Macci's academy and took over all coaching at their home. When asked in 2000 whether it would have been more beneficial for them to have followed the normal path of playing regularly on the junior circuit, Williams responded, "Everyone does different things. I think for Venus and I, we just attempted a different road, and it worked for us."

Serena Williams’ parents wanted their daughter to wait until she was 16 to participate in professional tournaments. In 1995, just after turning 14, Williams planned to make her professional debut as a wild-card entry in the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland, California but was denied by the WTA owing to their age-eligibility restrictions. She subsequently filed an antitrust lawsuit against the women's tour but withdrew it at her parents' request. Her first professional event was in October 1995 at the Bell Challenge in Quebec, where she used a wild-card entry to circumvent age-eligibility rules. She lost in the first qualifying round to then-18-year-old American Annie Miller, winning just two games.

Williams did not play in a tournament in 1996. The next year, she lost in the qualifying rounds of three tournaments, before winning her first main-draw match in November at the Ameritech Cup Chicago. Ranked No. 304, she upset No. 7 Mary Pierce, and No. 4 Monica Seles, recording her first career wins over top 10 players and becoming the lowest-ranked player in the Open Era to defeat two top-10 opponents in one tournament. She ultimately lost in the semifinals to No. 5 Lindsay Davenport. She finished 1997 ranked No. 99.

Williams began 1998 at the Medibank International Sydney. As a qualifier ranked No. 96, she defeated No. 3 Davenport in the quarterfinals, before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals. Williams made her debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open, where she defeated sixth-seeded Irina Spîrlea in the first round, before losing to her sister, Venus, in the second round in the sisters' first professional match. She reached six other quarterfinals during the year, but lost all of them, including her first match against No. 1-ranked Martina Hingis at the Lipton International Players Championships in Key Biscayne, and her second match against Venus at the Italian Open in Rome. She failed to reach the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam tournament the remainder of the year, losing in the fourth round of the French Open to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario, and the third round of the US Open to Spîrlea. She withdrew from Wimbledon two games into a match with Virginia Ruano Pascual, after straining a calf muscle during the first set. She did win the mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open with Max Mirnyi, completing the Williams family's sweep of the 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slam tournaments. She won her first professional title in doubles at the U.S. National Indoor Championships in Oklahoma City with Venus, becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA title. They won two more doubles titles that year. Williams finished the year ranked No. 20 in singles.

A 16-year-old Serena and her sister Venus competed in a tennis "Battle of the Sexes" against Karsten Braasch at the 1998 Australian Open. At the time Braasch was 203rd in the ATP rankings. The sisters had claimed they could beat any man outside the top 200, and accepted his challenge. Braasch beat both of them, playing one set against each. The score versus Serena was 6–1 and 6–2 against Venus. Braasch said afterward, "500 and above, no chance." The sisters later tweaked the number to beating men outside the top 350.

Williams lost in the third round of the 1999 Australian Open to Sandrine Testud. A month later, Williams won her first professional singles title when she defeated Amélie Mauresmo in the final of the Open Gaz de France in Paris. With Venus also winning the IGA Superthrift Classic in Memphis, Tennessee, that day, the pair became the first sisters to win professional tournaments in the same week. In March of that year, at the Evert Cup in California, Williams won her first Tier I title, defeating Steffi Graf in the final. Soon afterward at the Miami Masters, Williams had her 16-match winning streak ended by her sister in the first all-sister singles final in WTA history, and she then made her top-10 debut, at No. 9. She then lost in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open and the German Open, and the third round of the French Open, where she and Venus won the women's doubles title. Williams then missed Wimbledon because of an injury. When she returned to the tour, Serena Williams won a Fed Cup singles match and then won the JPMorgan Chase Open in Los Angeles, beating Julie Halard-Decugis in the final. She then defeated in succession Grand Slam champions Kim Clijsters, Conchita Martínez, Monica Seles, and defending champion Lindsay Davenport to reach the US Open final, where she defeated No. 1, Hingis, to become the second African-American woman, after Althea Gibson in 1958, to win a Grand Slam singles tournament. The Williams sisters also won the doubles title at this tournament. To complete her 1999 season, Williams won a doubles match in the Fed Cup final against Russia. Williams ended the year ranked No. 4 in just her second full year on the main tour.

 

When I was a child during the 1990's, I watched the film Coffy. I was thinking about who is this gorgeous black woman is fighting the drug trade, using self-defense, being confident, and standing up for the poor, working-class people (especially black people)? This woman is Pam Grier. Pam Grier worked hard to be one of the greats of acting. Her role wasn't just involved in action movies. Pam Grier worked in dramas, thrillers, and other forms of entertainment for over five decades now. Pam Grier gave confidence to a new generation of young people after the 1960's. By the 1970's, fashion changed, the culture of society changed, and oppressed people wanted to show out to display their sense of creativity plus power. Gaining power legitimately has nothing to do with mocking others. It's about having a fair representation and true influence on the culture to make the world better. That is precisely why we can't be complacent about life. Life is a journey, and while we are here, we have to help people and fight for justice for all. Pam Grier was born in the South in North Carolina, but she lives on the West Coast. You fall in love with the architecture and the beautiful scenery of the West. I have been to the West and fell in love with the West's culture. Also, Pam Grier represented what we want any human being to be: bold, uncompromising, progressive, and having a sense of purpose to make sure that liberty for all is made into a reality. Pam Grier is the first modern-day black woman action star. Pam Grier loves rural farm culture and has been active politically to stand up for human rights in a forthright fashion. 

 

San Diego is a city on the move in California. It has almost 1.4 million people. It's the 8th most populous city in America. Known for its harbor, U.S. Armed Forces headquarters, healthcare, and biotechnology, San Diego is one of the most technological-based cities in the world. It's the second largest city in the state of California after Los Angeles. It is located on the Pacific Ocean on the Southern California coast. Also, it borders adjacent to the United States/Mexico border. Its motto is Simper Vigilans or Ever Vigilant in Latin. It was created on July 16, 1769. Democratic Mayor Todd Gloria has power in the city. It has over 372 total square miles of land and water. A lot of people don't know that the city's airport, San Diego International Airport, is the busiest single-runway airport in the world. There are tourism, international trade, engineering, and other forms of research. The original people of the area are the Kumeyaay people (who are Native Americans). 

By Timothy