Early February 2026 Updates.

  

Charles Taze Russell was the founder of the Jehovah Witness, and he was a notorious false prophet. Yet, people want to know who was he? What did he do? So, here is the truth about his life. Charles Taze Russell lived from February 16, 1852, to October 31, 1916. He was born up North in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He was born to Scotch-Irish parents who are the immigrant Joseph Lytle Russell and Ann Eliza Birney. Russell was the 2nd of five children. Two of them survived into adulthood. His mother died when he was nine years old. The Russells lived in Philadelphia for a time. They later moved into Pittsburgh. The family were members of the Presbyterian Calvinist Church. When Charles was in his early teens, his father made him a business partner of his Pittsburgh haberdashery store. By the time Charles Taze Russell was 12 years old, he wrote business contracts for customers and given charge of some of his father's other clothing stores. When he was 13 years old, he left the Presbyterian Church to be part of the Congregational Church. During his days as a younger person, he was known to chalk Bible verses on fence boards and city sidewalks in trying to convert unbelievers. He talked about the punishment of hell awaiting the unfaithful. When he was 16, something changed in Charles Taze Russell. That was when he had a discussion with a childhood friend. They talked about the faults perceived in Christianity (such as contradictions in creeds, along with medieval traditions) led Russell to question his faith. He investigated various other religions, but concluded that they did not provide the answers he was seeking. In 1870, at age eighteen, he attended a presentation by Adventist minister Jonas Wendell. Russell later said that, although he had not entirely agreed with Wendell's arguments, the presentation had inspired him with a renewed zeal and belief that the Bible is the word of God. 

On March 13, 1879, Russell married Maria Frances Ackley after a few months' acquaintance. The couple separated in 1897. Russell blamed the marriage breakup on disagreements over Maria Russell's insistence on a greater editorial role in Zion's Watch Tower magazine. A later court judgment noted that he had labelled the marriage "a mistake" three years before the dispute over her editorial ambitions had arisen. Maria Russell filed a suit for legal separation in the Pennsylvania courts of common pleas at Pittsburgh in June 1903. In 1906, she filed for divorce under a claim of mental cruelty. She was granted a separation, with alimony, in 1908. Maria Russell died at the age of 88 in St. Petersburg, Florida, on March 12, 1938, from complications related to Hodgkin's disease. Russell spread his religious views with charisma. He claimed no special revelation for his teachings or no special authority on his behalf. He wanted to gather believers in God for "harvest time" not found a new denomination. He viewed himself as an ambassador of Christ. By 1870, Russell and his father established a group with a number of acquaintances to undertake an analytical study of the Bible and the origins of Christian doctrine, creed, and tradition. The group, strongly influenced by the writings of Millerite Adventist ministers George Storrs and George Stetson, who were also frequent attendees, concluded that many of the primary doctrines of the established churches, including the Trinity, hellfire, and inherent immortality of the soul, were not substantiated by the scriptures. Obviously, I disagree with Russell as the Trinity, hellfire, and inherent immortality of the soul, are definitely found in the Scriptures. Russell studied the literature of Adventist writer Nelson Barbour called Herald of the Morning, in January 1876. Barbour promoted the falsehood that Christians who had died would be raised in April 1878. Russell sponsored a speech by Barbour in St. George's Hall, Philadelphia in August 1876 and attended other lectures by Barbour.  

Russell, who had previously rejected prophetic chronology, was moved to devote his life to what he was convinced were now the last two years before the invisible, spiritual return of Christ. He sold his five clothing stores for approximately $300,000 (current value $8,858,000). With Russell's encouragement and financial backing, Barbour wrote an outline of their views in Three Worlds and the Harvest of This World, published in 1877. A text Russell had previously written, titled The Object and Manner of our Lord's Return, was published concurrently through the offices of the Herald of the Morning. Russell was eager to lead a Christian revival and called two separate meetings of Christian leaders in Pittsburgh. Russell's ideas, particularly stressing the imminence of the rapture and the second advent of Christ, were rejected both times. When 1878 arrived, failure of the expected rapture brought great disappointment for Barbour and Russell, and their associates and readers. But one of Russell's associates claimed that Russell was not upset. Russell and Barbour disagreed with each other on the theology of "Christ's ransom," so they split apart from each other. Russell withdrew his financial support and started his own journal, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, publishing his first issue in July 1879. Barbour formed The Church of the Strangers that same year, continuing to publish Herald of the Morning. 

In 1881, Russell founded Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society (which led to the Jehovah's Witnesses itself), with William Henry Conley as president and Russell as secretary-treasurer; they intended to disseminate tracts, papers, doctrinal treatises, and Bibles. All materials were printed and bound by Russell's privately owned Tower Publishing Company for an agreed price, then distributed by colporteurs. The Society was incorporated in 1884, with Russell as president, and in 1886, its name was changed to Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. In 1908, Russell transferred the headquarters of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society to Brooklyn, New York where it remained until 2016, when it was relocated to Warwick, New York. Charles Taze Russell used the Watch Tower Society to expand his ministry. He promoted his Bible Study group from New England, the Virginians, Ohio, and other places. People elected him "Pastor" yearly. He promotes his written sermons. Food for Thinking Christians was one of his many works. He had six volumes in the Studies in the Scriptures series like Divine Plan of the Ages in 1886, The Time is at Hand, etc. He worked with Clayton J. Woodworth, George H. Fisher, and Joseph Rutherford, then the new president of the Watch Tower Society. Charles Taze Russell had a unique theology. He agreed with Protestants and Baptists on justification by faith alone, the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and in Armageddon. He parted ways with Protestants, Baptists, and Catholics by rejecting the Trinity, he believed in the heavenly resurrection of 144,000 righteous people, he made false prophecies about the Second coming of Christ invisibly, and he followed pyramidology (which is mysticism that teaches that prophecies are found in the composition of the Great Pyramid). He also followed Christian Zionism. He attacked spiritualism. Russell was accused of adultery which he denied. In January 1917, Joseph Franklin Rutherford was elected president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, despite disputes over the election process. Further disputes arose over interpretation of sections of Russell's will dealing with the future contents of Zion's Watch Tower magazine, as well as who, if anyone, had authority to print new literature. By the end of the 1920s, nearly three-quarters of the Bible Student congregations had rejected. Rutherford's on-going changes in organizational structure, doctrinal interpretations, and congregational practices, some of which began to appear in material printed by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society as early as 1917. Many Bible Students were disaffected by Rutherford's rejection of Russell's views regarding his role in the restoration of the "truth" and support of the Great Pyramid as having been built under God's direction.

Those remaining supportive of Rutherford adopted the new name "Jehovah's witnesses" in 1931. They renamed their magazine as The Watchtower. Many of the most prominent Bible Students who had left the society held their own meeting in October 1929 to gather other dissenters; the First Annual Bible Students Reunion Convention was held in the old Pittsburgh "Bible House" long used by Russell. These conventions were held yearly, but the process of 'regathering' took nearly twenty years. During the later part of his life, Russell's health has declined, especially during the last three years of his life. 

During his final ministerial tour of the western and southwestern United States, he became increasingly ill with cystitis but ignored advice to abandon the tour. Russell died on October 31, 1916, at age 64 near Pampa, Texas, while returning to Brooklyn by train. An associate of Russell stated that Russell's body at age 64 was more worn out than that of his father who died at age 84. He was buried outside of Pittsburgh in United Cemetery, Ross Township, Pennsylvania. The gravesite is marked by a headstone. Nearby stood a 7-foot-tall (2.1 m) pyramid memorial erected by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in 1921. The pyramid memorial was vandalized and subsequently removed in September 2021.

Latoya Shauntay Snell is a motivational speaker, chef, writer, and ultramarathon runner. She promotes body positivity and inclusivity in fitness. She was unjustly heckled back in 2017 at the New York Marathon. No one should be heckled. She wants her story to inspire other human beings to achieve thier goals. She promotes running to deal with changing her life. Snell was introduced to the group Black Girls RUN! This is a run club that encourages and motivates black women to promote a healthy lifestyle while supporting them in every step of their journey. Latoya told the truth that, "I refuse to stop being an adrenaline junkie for fitness and I'm at a place where I've embraced being an activist for the body positivity movement, advocate for health at all sizes, and inclusion of people from all walks of life." Each person is different, and unique fitness actions matter and can be used by a diversity of humanity. She is a powerlifter too. She loves her husband and family too. 

 

Dr. Louis Wade Sullivan is a physician, author, and educator. He was once the Secretary of the Untied States Department of Health and Human Service during the President George H. W. Bush's administration. He is the Founding Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine. He was born in Atlanta, and his family moved into rural Blakely, Georgia. Sullivan wanted to be involved in healthcare since he was a child. He graduated in 1950 as Class Salutatorian from Atlanta's Booker T. Washington High School. He graduated from Morehouse magna cum laude in 1954. He earned his medical degree, cum laude from Boston University in 1958. He studied at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Thorndike Memorial Laboratory of Harvard Medical School, Boston City Hospital. He married E. Ginger Williamson, an attorney since September 23, 1995. The couple has three children. He organized the Sullivan Alliance in January 2005 to help minorities in the healthcare workplace. He is the chairman of the Atlanta-based National Health Museum to educate and inspire Americans to live healthier lives. He promotes daily exercise along with his wife in the Annual Sullivan 5K Run/Walk on Martha's Vineyard in Oak Bluff's Massachusetts. 

 

Anna Julia Haywood was born as a slave in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1858. She and her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, were enslaved by George Washington Haywood, one of the sons of North Carolina's longest-serving state Treasurer John Haywood, who helped found the University of North Carolina. Either George, who enslaved her mother, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, who enslaved her older brothers, Rufus and Andrew, was probably Anna's father; Anna's mother refused to clarify paternity. George became state attorney for Wake County, North Carolina, and together with a brother owned a plantation in Greene County, Alabama. Julia Anna Haywood Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had the two aforementioned older brothers.  Andrew, enslaved by Fabius J. Haywood, later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born enslaved and became the leader of the musical group Stanley's Band. 

In 1868, when Cooper was nine years old, she received a scholarship and began her education at the newly opened Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, founded by the local Episcopal diocese to train teachers to educate the formerly enslaved and their families. The Reverend J. Brinton offered Cooper a scholarship to help pay for her expenses. According to Mark S. Giles, a Cooper biographer, "the educational levels offered at St. Augustine ranged from primary to high school, including trade-skill training." During her 14 years at St. Augustine's, she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student who showed equal promise in both liberal arts and analytical disciplines such as mathematics and science; her subjects included languages (Latin, French, Greek), English literature, math, and science. Although the school had a special track reserved for women – dubbed the "Ladies' Course" – and the administration actively discouraged women from pursuing higher-level courses, Cooper fought for her right to take a course reserved for men by demonstrating her academic ability. During this period, St. Augustine's pedagogical emphasis was on training young men for the ministry and preparing them for additional training at four-year universities. One of these men, George A. C. Cooper, would later become her husband. He died after only two years of marriage. Anna Julia Cooper's academic excellence allowed her to tutor to younger children. This tutoring helped her to pay for her educational expenses. After completing her studies, she remained at the institution as an instructor.  In the 1883–1884 school year, she taught classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music; she is not listed as faculty in the 1884–1885 year, but in the 1885–1886 year she is listed as "Instructor in Classic, Rhetoric, Etc." Her husband's early death may have contributed to her ability to continue teaching; if she had stayed married, she might have been encouraged or required to withdraw from the university to become a housewife.

After her husband's death, Cooper entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the study designated for men, graduating in 1884. Given her academic qualifications, she was admitted as a sophomore. She often attempted to take four classes, rather than three as was prescribed by the college; she also was attracted to Oberlin by its reputation for music, but was unable to take as many classes in piano as she would have wished. Among her classmates were fellow black women Ida Gibbs (later Hunt) and Mary Church Terrell. At Oberlin, Cooper was part of the "LLS", "one of the two literary societies for women, whose regular programs featured lectures by distinguished speakers as well as singers and orchestras." After teaching briefly at Wilberforce University, she returned to St. Augustine's in 1885. She then returned to Oberlin and earned an M.A. in mathematics in 1888, making her one of the first two black women – along with Mary Church Terrell, who received her M.A. in the same year - to earn a master's degree. In 1890–91 she published an essay on "Higher Education of Women", which argued for the benefits of black women being trained in classical literature, referring to both Socrates and Sappho among her examples, and demonstrated an interest in access to education which would inform much of her later career. In writing this essay, she preceded W. E. B. Du Bois' similar arguments in "Of the Training of Black Men" (The Souls of Black Folk, 1903) by almost a decade. In 1900, she made her first trip to Europe to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in London, and then toured Europe: After visiting the cathedral towns of Scotland and England, she went to Paris for the World Exposition. "After a week at the Exposition, she went to Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, thence to Munich and other German towns, and then to Italy through Rome, Naples, Venice, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and Florence."

 

There are many rules in professional wrestling. Professional wrestlers nominally compete under rules promulgated by wrestling promotions. However, the rules are not legitimate standards for sporting activity, instead serving as a basis to advance plotlines, similar to the artificial constraints imposed in other fictional universes. Sociologist Thomas S. Henricks has argued the rules serve as a basis for a structuralist moral order, serving to advance plot lines involving charismatic heroes applying an instrumentally rationalist approach to social conflicts. 

Professional wrestlers do not follow an industry-standard set of rules, unlike most sporting events, which generally have a governing body to regulate competitions. While each promoter can set their own standards, promoters have long understood that fans enjoy professional wrestling more when all matches appear to follow a consistent set of rules. The rules described in this section represent common standards but may not precisely align with the ruleset of any specific promotion. Matches are staged between two or more sides ("corners"). Each corner may consist of one wrestler, or a team of two or more. Most team matches are nominally governed by tag team rules. Other matches present under the premise of a free-for-alls, with multiple combatants but no teams. In all variants, there can be only one winning team or wrestler.

Matches generally take place within a wrestling ring, an elevated square canvas mat with posts on each corner. A cloth apron hangs over the edges of the ring. Three horizontal ropes or cables surround the ring, suspended with turnbuckles which are connected to the posts. For safety, the ropes are padded at the turnbuckles and cushioned mats surround the floor outside the ring. Guardrails or a similar barrier enclose this area from the audience. Wrestlers are generally expected to stay within the confines of the ring, though matches sometimes end up moving outside the ring, and even into the audience. The match can end in a fall by pinning the opponent for three seconds, submission, disqualification of the opposnent, countout, and knocking out the opponent. Most wrestling matches last for a set number of falls. Some matches can last for 20, 30, or 60 minutes in an Iron Man Match. Referres are involved in professional wrestlign matches. The referree acts as the final abritator in the fictional rules. Special guest referres are common.Tag team matches have unique rules too. People tag to allow another part of the team to participate in the match. Disqualification can come by illegal hold or moves, deliberate injury to an opponent, outisde infterence, unjust striking, low blow, laying hands on the referre, pulling an opponent's mask off during the match, and other actions. There can be a draw or no contest. 

There is new information that I found about my family tree.  I found out that my paternal 5th cousin is Akia Raqirah Muaawiy. Her parents are Akil McNiel and my 5th cousin Rosa Gaskins McNeil (b. 1973). Rosa Gaskins McNeil married Akil McNiel on April 5, 1997 at Newark, New Jersey. The parents of Rosa Gaskins McNeil are Samuel Bruster Gaskins III (b. 1953) and Rosie May Johnson (b. 1952). The parents of Samuel Bruster Gaskins III were Samuel Gaskins Jr. (1928-1999) and Lola May Six (b. 1932). The sister of Samuel Bruster Gaskins III is Barbara Ann Gaskins Kellam (b. 1957). The parents of my fourth cousin Lola May Six were Welton Reuben Collins and Lavenia Firby (b. 1917). The parents of Lavenia Firby were Daisey Furbey (b. 1902) and John Six. The parents of Daisey Furbey were Edward Ferby (b. 1870) and Mary Susan Brickhouse (1873-1945). The parents of my 1st cousin Mary Susan Brickhosue were Benjamin Brickhouse III (b. 1844) and Mary Perkins (b. 1844). The parents of my 3rd great-grandaunt Mary Perkins were my 4th great-grandparents George Perkins (b. 1815) and Esther Perkins (b. 1816).

 

By Timothy