The 7 U.S. Aiports Named For Famous Black Americans

by XQZT Editor | Jul 6, 2023 | Culture

With the renaming of James Herman Banning Ames Municipal Airport in Ames, Iowa on June 17, 2023, there are now seven airporst in the United States named in honor of a great Black American. The long journey to rename these insitutions serve as a reminder that there needs to be greater representation in our airspace and travel industries: only a tiny fraction of the nation’s 19,000 airports bear the names of African Americans.

We recognize National Air Traffic Control Day with these seven airports named for Black Americans, who are remembered every time we take flight from one of these locations.

James Herman Banning Ames Municipal Airport—Ames, Iowa

James Herman Banning cemented himself in the history of aviation when he became one of the first Black pilots to successfully fly from the United States’ west coast to the east coast in the early 1930s. As one of the most notable Black pilots in early aviation history, the Iowa resident was honored with a renaming ceremony of the Story County airport in 2023. There, travelers can also learn more about Banning’s record-setting accomplishments through an exhibit within one of the airport’s terminals.

Frederick Dougless Rochester International Airport—Rochester, New York

In 2021, Rochester, New York’s international airport was officially renamed to recognize the accomplishments of Black abolitionist and Rochester resident Frederick Douglass. Located in the third most populated city in the state of New York, the renaming of the airport started with a sculpture. “Our project ‘Re-energizing the Legacy of Frederick Douglass’ put 15 fibreglass monuments on the streets of the city of Rochester for the Frederick Douglass birthday Bicentennial, which was in 2018,” says Carvin Eisen, a professor at SUNY Brockport who helped spearhead the project. One of the sculptures now finds its home in the newly named aiport. “We suspect that somewhere around a million travelers a year come here. So this will be the first image that they see of Rochester and the last image that they take with them when they leave,” he delcares.

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport—Birmingham, Alabama

Celebrated activist Fred L. Shuttlesworth stood strong against Jim Crow laws and deadly racism to see civil rights reforms come to fruition. The Mount Meigs, Alabama, native worked with other activist organizations in the 1960s to organize the historic Freedom Rides, marches and boycotts in the name of equality. In 2008, Shuttlesworth’s name was added to the state’s largest airport to honor the pastor’s legacy.

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport—Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Ambitious Baltimore lawyer Thurgood Marshall made history in 1967 when he was named a justice on the nine-panel United States Supreme Court, the first Black American to ever hold the position. Throughout the entirety of his law career and his 25 years on the Bench, Marshall advocated and secured victories for women’s autonomy and civil rights. In 2005, the Maryland airport changed its name to the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to honor this civil rights pioneer.

Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport—Jackson, Mississippi

World War II veteran Medgar Evers dedicated his life to advocating for racial equality after returning home from the military. He worked tirelessly to desegregate education and eradicate Jim Crow in Mississippi, putting his own life on the line for change. His assassination in 1963 spurred an intense outcry within the Black community and a fiercer push for civil rights, with the Civil Rights Act being passed a year later. In January 2005, the international airport in Jackson, Mississippi, was renamed in honor of the civil rights martyr.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport—Atlanta, Georgia

The grandson of activist John Wesley Dobbs, Morehouse graduate Maynard Jackson made his own history as the first Black mayor of Atlanta. As he worked to reform the city’s police department during his two consecutive terms as mayor, he paid special attention to the city’s airport. After working to expand and modernize the facility, the city voted to rename the airport to pay homage to the former mayor after his death in 2003. Today, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport serves millions of travelers as one of the busiest airports in the United States.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport—New Orleans, Louisiana

Louis Armstrong is one of the most beloved figures in music and a staple of the budding jazz scene of the 1920s. While the raspy-voiced musician worked to revolutionize the genre with hits such as “What a Wonderful World,” the New Orleans native, known as “Satch,” left his mark on all of America. In 2001, Armstrong’s hometown renamed their local airport to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport to pay homage to the iconic Louisiana trumpeter.

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The Dignity Of Black Cemeteries: How Historic Burial Grounds Weathered Dehumanizing Effects Of Racism

by XQZT Editor | Jun 25, 2023 | News

A cemetery at New Roads, Louisiana, 1940. | Source: Smith Collection/Gado / Getty

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published a story about a Black cemetery in Buckhead, a prosperous Atlanta community.

The cemetery broke ground almost two centuries ago, in 1826, as the graveyard of Piney Grove Baptist Church. The church has been gone for decades; the cemetery now sits on the property of a townhouse development. It is overgrown, with most of its 300-plus graves unmarked.

The article describes how some of the buried’s descendants and family members are trying to get the property owner to clean up and take care of the cemetery.

Audrey Collins is one of those descendants. Her grandmother, Lenora Powell Thomas, is buried there, and a photograph of her grandmother’s headstone accompanied the article.

The headstone is not one of those polished markers that you are probably used to seeing. It is small, perhaps 18 inches tall. It has a rough, poured concrete base with a plaster inset, which includes the name of the funeral home, the name of Collins’ grandmother and the date of her death. Her name reads, “Mrs. Lenora Thomas.”

Those first three letters – Mrs. – might be the most important on the headstone.

The courtesy titles Mr., Mrs. and Miss rarely appear on headstones; usually it is just the first and last name.

But here, they serve an important function, reminding viewers of how Black Americans came up with creative ways to retain their dignity and weather the dehumanizing effects of racism.

Unworthy of honorifics

In September 1951, the Savannah Tribune, a Black newspaper, complained about a couple of items that had recently appeared in the white press.

One was a report of a white woman who was convicted of “operating and maintaining a lewd house.” The newspapers put “Mrs.” before her name. The second item was an announcement of the principals in the city’s “colored schools.” The names of the female principals were given without the courtesy titles of “Miss” or “Mrs.” The difference was literally Black and white.

When you hear about life in the Jim Crow South, you might think of segregated schools, city buses and lunch counters.

But subtler slights were part of everyday life. White Southerners refused to refer to African Americans with the courtesy titles Mr., Mrs. or Miss, depriving them of their dignity. In the late 1970s, Benjamin Mays, president of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, recounted how “‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Miss’ were signs of social equality. They didn’t call you that.”

This denial of Black dignity was pervasive. A 1935 study of 28 Southern white newspapers found none that used courtesy titles for Black Americans. In a 1964 article, the Atlanta Daily World noted that in the telephone book “Miss” or “Mrs.” appeared before the names of white women; for Black women, it was just “Susie Smith” or “Jenny Davis.”

Only in the 1960s did this begin to change. Mary Hamilton, a civil rights activist, was arrested at a demonstration in Gadsden, Alabama, in 1963. In the courtroom, the prosecutor asked her a question, addressing her as “Mary.”

“I won’t respond,” Hamilton said, “until you call me Miss Hamilton” – which is how he had been addressing white women on the stand. The judge ordered her to answer the question, and, when she refused, he sentenced her to a few days in jail for contempt of court.

Her appeal reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that judges and lawyers do have to use “Miss” and other honorifics for Black witnesses, just as they do for white people.

Dignity in death

In the 1940s, Black funeral directors in Atlanta came up with a way to combat this dehumanization: grave markers that anointed their dead with the courtesy titles that white society had denied them.

There are hundreds of headstones like Mrs. Thomas’ in older Black cemeteries in the Atlanta area. Most of those markers were made by Eldren Bailey, an artist who worked in concrete and plaster. They are beautiful in their simplicity. And they all clearly say “Mr.,” “Mrs.” or “Miss.”

These grave markers were sold as part of a funeral package, so they each bear the name of one of a dozen or so African American funeral homes in Atlanta: Hanley, Cox Brothers, Ivey Brothers, Haugabrooks, Sellers, Murdaugh and others.

One historian noted that “black funeral directors not only regularly participated in the ﬁght for racial equality but also made signiﬁcant contributions to the cause.” That was certainly true of Geneva Haugabrooks, who established the Haugabrooks Funeral Home in 1929. She was active in the Atlanta Negro Voters League, and she supported the Negro Motorist Green Book. In 1953, the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP honored her for “the valuable work she has done locally and nationally.”

I do not know who came up with the idea of using honorifics in these markers. Perhaps it was Mrs. Haugabrooks, whose funeral home appears on some of the oldest.

In any case, I believe they are worth preserving and remembering, as they restored, in death, a sense of dignity to people who had been denied it in life.

David B. Parker, Professor of History, Kennesaw State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Historic Black Burial Ground ‘Disrespected And Disregarded,’ Protesters Say

The post The Dignity Of Black Cemeteries: How Historic Burial Grounds Weathered Dehumanizing Effects Of Racism appeared first on NewsOne.

At International African American Museum opening, a reclaiming of sacred ground for enslaved kin

by XQZT Editor | Jun 25, 2023 | News

The $120 million facility features nine galleries that contain nearly a dozen interactive exhibits of more than 150 historical objects and 30 works of art.

When the International African American Museum opens to the public Tuesday in South Carolina, it becomes a new site of homecoming and pilgrimage for descendants of enslaved Africans whose arrival in the Western Hemisphere begins on the docks of the lowcountry coast.

Overlooking the old wharf in Charleston at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square-foot (14,000-square-meter) museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world.

It also includes a genealogy research center to help families trace their ancestors’ journey from point of arrival on the land.

Malika N. Pryor gives a tour in preparation for the opening of the International African American Museum on Friday, June 23, 2023, in Charleston, S.C. Overlooking the old wharf at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square foot museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

The opening happens at a time when the very idea of Black people’s survival through slavery, racial apartheid and economic oppression being quintessential to the American story is being challenged throughout the U.S. Leaders of the museum said its existence is not a rebuttal to current attempts to suppress history, but rather an invitation to dialogue and discovery.

“Show me a courageous space, show me an open space, show me a space that meets me where I am, and then gets me where I asked to go,” said Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO.

“I think that’s the superpower of museums,” she said. “The only thing you need to bring to this museum is your curiosity, and we’ll do the rest.”

The $120 million facility features nine galleries that contain nearly a dozen interactive exhibits of more than 150 historical objects and 30 works of art. One of the museum’s exhibits will rotate two to three times each year.

Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO and Dean, Phylicia Rashad, left, speak during the dedication ceremony for the opening of the International African American Museum on Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Charleston, S.C. Overlooking the old wharf at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square foot museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Upon entering the space, eight large video screens play a looped trailer of a diasporic journey that spans centuries, from cultural roots on the African continent and the horrors of the Middle Passage to the regional and international legacies that spawned out of Africans’ dispersal and migration across lands.

The screens are angled as if to beckon visitors towards large windows and a balcony at the rear of the museum, revealing sprawling views of the Charleston harbor.

One unique feature of the museum is its gallery dedicated to the history and culture of the Gullah Geechee people. Their isolation on rice, indigo and cotton plantations on coastal South Carolina, Georgia and North Florida helped them maintain ties to West African cultural traditions and creole language. A multimedia, chapel-sized “praise house” in the gallery highlights the faith expressions of the Gullah Geechee and shows how those expressions are imprinted on Black American gospel music.

On Saturday, the museum grounds buzzed with excitement as its founders, staff, elected officials and other invited guests dedicated the grounds in spectacular fashion.

The program was emceed by award-winning actress and director Phylicia Rashad and included stirring appearances by poet Nikky Finney and the McIntosh County Shouters, who perform songs passed down by enslaved African Americans.

“Truth sets us free — free to understand, free to respect and free to appreciate the full spectrum of our shared history,” said former Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, Jr. who is widely credited for the idea to bring the museum to the city.

Planning for the International African American Museum dates back to 2000, when Riley called for its creation in a State of the City address. It took many more years, through setbacks in fundraising and changes in museum leadership, before construction started in 2019.

Dr Johnnetta B. Cole specks during the dedication ceremony for the International African American Museum on Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Charleston, S.C. Overlooking the old wharf at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square foot museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world.(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Originally set to open in 2020, the museum was further delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by issues in the supply chain of materials needed to complete construction.

Gadsden’s Wharf, a 2.3-acre waterfront plot where it’s estimated that up 45% of enslaved Africans brought to the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries walked, sets the tone for how the museum is experienced. The wharf was built by Revolutionary War figure Christopher Gadsden.

The land is now part of an intentionally designed ancestral garden. Black granite walls are erected on the spot of a former storage house, a space where hunched enslaved humans perished awaiting their transport to the slave market. The walls are emblazoned with lines of Maya Angelou’s poem, “And Still I Rise.”

The museum’s main structure does not touch the hallowed grounds on which it is located. Instead, it is hoisted above the wharf by 18 cylindrical columns. Beneath the structure is a shallow fountain tribute to the men, women and children whose bodies were inhumanely shackled together in the bellies of ships in the transatlantic slave trade.

Guests tour the International African American Museum on Friday, June 23, 2023, in Charleston, S.C. Overlooking the old wharf at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square foot museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

To discourage visitors from walking on the raised outlines of the shackled bodies, a walkway was created through the center of the wharf tribute.

“There’s something incredibly significant about reclaiming a space that was once the landing point, the beginning of a horrific American journey for captured Africans,” said Malika Pryor, the museum’s chief learning and education officer.

Walter Hood, founder and creative director of Hood Design Studios based in Oakland, California, designed the landscape of the museum’s grounds. The designs are inspired by tours of lowcountry and its former plantations, he said. The lush grounds, winding paths and seating areas are meant to be an ethnobotanical garden, forcing visitors to see how the botany of enslaved Africans and their descendants helped shape what still exists today across the Carolinas.

The opening of the Charleston museum adds to a growing array of institutions dedicated to teaching an accurate history of the Black experience in America. Many will have heard of, and perhaps visited, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in the nation’s capital, which opened in 2016.

Lesser known Afrocentric museums and exhibits exist in nearly every region of the country. In Montgomery, Alabama, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the corresponding National Memorial for Peace and Justice highlight slavery, Jim Crow and the history of lynching in America.

Pryor, formerly the educational director of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, said these types of museums focus on the underdiscussed, underengaged parts of the American story.

“This is such an incredibly expansive history, there’s room for 25 more museums that would have opportunities to bring a new curatorial lens to this conversation,” she said.

The museum has launched an initiative to develop relationships with school districts, especially in places where laws limit how public school teachers discuss race and racism in the classroom. In recent years, conservative politicians around the country have banned books in more than 5,000 schools in 32 states. Bans or limits on instruction about slavery and systemic racism have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021.

Pryor said South Carolina’s ban on the teaching of critical race theory in public schools has not put the museum out of reach for local elementary, middle and high schools that hope to make field trips there.

“Even just the calls and the requests for school group visits, for school group tours, they number easily in the hundreds,” she said. “And we haven’t formally opened our doors yet.”

When the doors are open, all are welcome to reckon with a fuller truth of the Black American story, said Matthews, the museum president.

“If you ask me what we want people to feel when they are in the museum, our answer is something akin to everything,” she said.

“It is the epitome of our journey, the execution of our mission, to honor the untold stories of the African American journey at one of our nation’s most sacred sites.”

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