Monday, May 03, 2021

Early May 2020 Information.

  

  

 

To know about Althea Gibson is to know about her story. In the beginning, Althea Gibson was born in the South at Silver, South Carolina on August 25, 1927. By 1930, Gibson and her family moved north to Philadelphia and then in Harlem, New York City. Harlem was massively different than South Carolina. Harlem had black people who came from the South, black people from the Caribbean, and black people who lived in New York City for centuries. It is a very urbanized environment. Althea Gibson never back down from adversity. She competed in sports with the boys, and she won many sporting events. At the age of 12 in 1939, she became the New York City's women's paddle tennis champion. By 1941, Althea entered and won her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship. By 1944, Althea moved into Wilmington, North Carolina. She lived with Dr. Hubert Eaton and her family. She attended Williston High School during the winter and spent summers in Lynchburg, Virginia with Dr. Robert W. Johnson and his family. Dr. Johnson had a huge influence in her life to inspire her to be more competitive and achieve her own dreams involving athletics. She worked on her tennis game by traveling to ATA tournaments. She graduated from high school in 1946. She continued to make history. In 1949,  Althea becomes the first black woman, and the second black athlete (after Reginald Weir), to play in the USTA’s National Indoor Championships. She lost narrowly in the second round in a rain-delayed, three-set match to Louise Brough, the reigning Wimbledon champion and former U.S. National winner. During the same year, she entered Florida A&M University on a full athletic scholarship. 

 

By 1950, she was the first African American to play the U.S. Nationals, at Forest Hills in Queens, NYC. She lost to Louise Brough in the 2nd round. By 1953, Althea Gibson graduated from Florida A&M University. The U.S. State Department sent Althea Gibson on a goodwill tour of Asia to play exhibition matches with Ham Richardson, Bob Perry, and Karol Fageros in 1955. Her life changed forever in 1956. In that year, Althea Gibson won the French Open singles and doubles at the French Open and Wimbledon (both with Angela Buxton). In 1957, Althea Gibson won Wimbledon and U.S. Nationals. She is the first African American to win either tournament. Upon her return home, Gibson became only the second black American, after Jesse Owens, to be honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City. In 1958, Althea repeated her single title wins at both Wimbledon and U.S. Nationals, and retired from tennis. She was the number-one-ranked woman in the world and in the United States in both 1957 and 1958, and was named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years, garnering over 80% of the votes in 1958. She also became the first black woman to appear on the covers of  Sports Illustrated and Time magazines. Later, she was signed to play a series of exhibition matches against Koral Fageros before Harlem Globetrotter basketball games in 1959. Her music record album Althea Gibson Sings was released in the same year. She performed 2 of its songs on The Ed Sullivan Show. She also appears as a celebrity guest on the TV panel show What’s My Line? and was cast as a slave woman in the  John Ford film The Horse Soldiers (1959).​ 

 

By 1960, she wrote her own memoir with Ed Fitzgerald, and it was published. The book is entitled, "I Always Wanted to Be Somebody." By 1964, at the age of 37 years old, Althea Gibson became the first African American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) out. She married William Darden until 1976 when they divorced. By 1976, she was appointed New Jersey’s athletic commissioner, the first woman in the country to hold such a role. Althea Gibson married Sydney Llewellyn in 1983. She passed away on September 28, 2003. By 2013, the U.S. Postal Service honored Althea Gibson with a commemorative stamp on August 23, unveiled on the U.S. Open grounds in Flushing, NY. She is the first female athlete in the Black Heritage Stamp Series. 

 

 

 

Ghana always remains a nation that is special in the hearts of the people of the black African Diaspora. It is a nation where many of our black Americans ancestors were sent against our wills to the Americas. Also, it is a homebase of the past and modern day Pan-African movement. W.E.B. DuBois lived in Ghana during the last years of his life to finish his African encyclopedia and promote black liberation. He is buried in the capital city of Accra. Also, civil rights leaders like Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, SNCC members, and other human being came into Ghana to develop social awareness about the importance to defeat international oppression. As of 2015, the number of African-American residents has been estimated at around 3,000 people, a large portion of whom live in Accra. Many of us view Ghana as part of the new era of the link with Africa along with other places in Africa. To encourage migration, or at least visits by African Americans, Ghana decided, in 2005, to offer them a special visa, but has not extended dual citizenship to African Americans. Fourteen years later, African-American author Jacqueline Woodson wrote, again in The New York Times, about her first visit to Ghana, where she found "a massive marketing campaign called 'Year of Return.'" The Year of Return, Ghana 2019 is an initiative of the government of Ghana that is intended to encourage African diasporans to come to Africa (specifically Ghana) to settle and invest in the continent. It was formally launched by President Nana Akufo-Addo in September 2018 in Washington, D.C. as a program for Africans in the diaspora to unite with Africans. Its year, 2019, is symbolic, as it commemorates 400 years  since the first enslaved Africans touched down in Jamestown, Virginia in the United States.  The program also recognizes the diaspora's achievements and sacrifices in the time since that event. Panafest is the biannual Pan African Historical Theater Project that welcomes African Americans and others in the African Diaspora to Ghana since 1992. The event promotes Pan-African unity. Ghana always is a blessed part of the Motherland of Africa. 

 

  

The human brain is a very important central organ. It is probably the most important organ of the human body other than the lungs and heart. Without the mind, the body will not exist physically. The human brain makes up a large part of the human nervous system. The nervous system includes the spinal cord and the nerves. The brain is made up of 3 major parts called the cerebrum, the brain-stem, and the cerebellum. That is why the brain controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs. The brain makes decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The skull bones of the head protects the brain. 

 

The largest part of the brain is called the cerebrum. It is made up of 2 cerebral hemispheres. Each hemisphere has an inner core composed of white matter and an outer surface or the cerebral cortex (made up of grey matter). The cortex has an outer layer called the neocortex and an inner allocortex. The neocortex is made up of six neuronal layers, while the allocortex has three or four. Each hemisphere is conventionally divided into four lobes – the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes. The frontal lobe is associated with executive functions including self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought, while the occipital lobe is dedicated to vision. Within each lobe, cortical areas are associated with specific functions, such as the sensory, motor and association regions. Although the left and right hemispheres are broadly similar in shape and function, some functions are associated with one side, such as language in the left and visual-spatial ability in the right. The hemispheres are connected by commissural nerve tracts, the largest being the corpus callosum.

 

There cerebrum is connected by the brainstem to the spinal cord. The brainstem is made up of the midbrain, the pons, and the medulla oblongata. The cerebellum is connected to the brainstem by pairs of tracts. Within the cerebrum is the ventricular system, consisting of four interconnected ventricles in which cerebrospinal fluid is produced and circulated. Underneath the cerebral cortex are several important structures, including the thalamus, the epithalamus, the pineal gland, the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the subthalamus; the limbic structures, including the amygdala and the hippocampus; the claustrum, the various nuclei of the basal ganglia; the basal forebrain structures, and the three circumventricular organs. The cells in the brains are neurons and supportive gilal cells. There are more than 86 billion neurons in the human brain and a more or less equal number of other cells. Brain activity is made possibly by the interconnections of neurons and their release of neurotransmitters in response to nerve impulses. Neurons connect to form neural pathways, neural circuits, and elaborate network systems. The whole circuitry is driven by the process of neurotransmission. The skulls protects the brain and it's suspended in cerebrospinal fluid. It's isolated from the bloodstream by the blood brain barrier. The brain can be damaged, experience disease, and be infected.  Damage can be caused by trauma, or a loss of blood supply known as a stroke. The brain is susceptible to degenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dementias including Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis. Psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and clinical depression, are thought to be associated with brain dysfunctions. The brain can also be the site of tumours, both benign and malignant; these mostly originate from other sites in the body. 

 

When a person studies the anatomy of the brain, that is called neuroantomy. The study of brain function is called neuroscience. Researchers study the brain using many methods. Some people use medical imaging technologies like functional neuroimaging and electroenecephalography (EEG)  recording are important in studying the brain.  The medical history of people with brain injury has provided insight into the function of each part of the The brain. Brain research has evolved over time, with philosophical, experimental, and theoretical phases. An emerging phase may be to simulate brain activity. For thousands of years, people have debated and research the relationship of the mind, body, and consciousness. The adult human brain weights about 2.6 to 3.1 pounds. It is about 2 percent of total body weight with a volume on average of about 1260 cm3 in men and 1130 cm3 in women.  There is substantial individual variation,  with the standard reference range for men being 1,180–1,620 g (2.60–3.57 lb)  and for women 1,030–1,400 g (2.27–3.09 lb). The brain heavily forms by the third weeks of the development of the embryonic ectoderm. The frontal lobe of the brain has the motor cortex that helps humans to move. While language functions were traditionally thought to be localized to Wernicke's area and Broca's area,  it is now mostly accepted that a wider network of cortical regions contributes to language functions. The brain also deals with cognition. It can deal with memory, manipulate information, and do other intellectual tasks. The prefrontal cortex deals with cognition, problem solving, and other reasoning functions. The brain uses up to 20 percent of the energy used by the human body, more than any other organs. For humans, blood glucose is the main source of energy for most cells and for normal functions of tissues including the brain. Brain metabolism normally relies upon blood glucose as an energy source, but during times of low glucose (such as fasting, endurance exercise, or limited carbohydrate intake), the brain uses ketone bodies for fuel with a smaller need for glucose. The brain can also utilize lactate during exercise.

 

There are tons of foods and actions done to improve human brain function as well. Scientists, nutritionists, and other experts say that a healthy diet (filled with fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Proteins can help the mind as well) including exercise are the best ways to improve the mind. It is very much clear that green, leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, collards, and broccoli are filled with brain healthy nutrients (like vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta carotene). Research shows that these plant based foods can help slow cognitive decline. Fatty fish with omega 3 fatty acids and unsaturated fats can lower blood levels of beta-amyloid—the protein that forms damaging clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. If someone doesn't want fish, he or she can ask a doctor for taking an omega-3 supplement, or choose terrestrial omega-3 sources such as flaxseeds, avocados, and walnuts. Berries have flavoids that can improve memory according to research. A study done by researchers at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital found that women who consumed two or more servings of strawberries and blueberries each week delayed memory decline by up to two-and-a-half years. It is no secret that peanuts, tea, coffee, and walnuts can improve the arteries, blood pressure, and the human mind (involving memory). Nuts have been linked to a sharper memory and slowing mental decline with healthy fats, antioxidants, and Vitamin E. Other foods (filled with carotenoids and flavonoids) that help with the brain are pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, lettuce, oranges, eggs, green tea, and beans. 

 

By Timothy

 


No comments: