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The word ‘wolf’ brings up images of a massive grey and white canid, prowling the forests and tundra of such states as Michigan, Wyoming, and Alaska, just to name a few. This subspecies of wolf is well-known. It’s the one heard about in fairytales, seen on documentaries and in books. But the grey wolf is only one of many subspecies of wolves which roam the United States.

One such subspecies is the Mexican grey wolf, typically seen in the southwestern United States and Mexico. Known as ‘el lobo’, this wolf can be found primarily in the states of New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, as well as in parts of Mexico. The Mexican grey wolf is smaller than its cousins to the north, standing at only 25-32 inches tall. Its coat is a mixture of grey, buff, rust and black, and they can have very distinctive markings. They have long legs and can run up to 40 miles (65KM) an hour.

As previously mentioned, these wolves reside in the mountainous regions of the southwestern United States, as well as Mexico. They live and hunt in a pack, with a complex social structure consisting of a mated pair of alpha wolves and their offspring. In captivity, Mexican grey wolves can live up to fifteen years. It is estimated that they live roughly ten years in the wild.

Biodiversity continues to be an issue, as today’s population is descended from only five wolves: four males and one pregnant female. In the years between 1977 and 1980, these wolves were bred as the basis for a new generation. Although this saved the species from extinction, it provided conservationists with a limited gene pool.

Currently, there are 196 Mexican grey wolves in the wild. It is estimated that over a thousand Mexican wolves roamed the southwest during the 1900’s, but the population has since been decimated by human predation. Due to increasingly low numbers of elk, mule deer, and other prey in the wild, wolves have been forced to find food elsewhere, typically on cattle ranches. From the early twentieth century until 1976 (when the Mexican wolf was declared to be an endangered species), they were shot or poisoned either by private individuals protecting their cattle or by government agents, in accordance with legislation current at the time.

In the 1970’s, the Mexican grey wolf was considered extinct in the wild, and a binational conservation effort began. By breeding the wolves in captivity, zoologists were able to release a small population of Mexican grey wolves back into their natural habitat. This population continues to grow, but slowly. Conservation efforts continue, with new legislation being introduced as recently as 2022. With the right resources and patience, the number of Mexican grey wolves will continue to grow.

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Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela known throughout the world as a revolutionary and political leader who aided in the dismantling of Apartheid; Black South Africans whose lives were filled with fear due to the historical racist and prejudicial governmental policies of South Africa found their hero in Mandela. The world craved such a leader, as Black South Africans lives were filled with violence, fear and the struggle to end racism, and they were severely affected by policies enacted and intended to make them feel subservient and inferior to White South Africans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (/mænˈdɛlə/;[1] Xhosa: [xolíɬaɬa mandɛ̂ːla]; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalised racism and fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997.

A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party’s white-only government established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that privileged whites, Mandela and the ANC committed themselves to its overthrow. He was appointed president of the ANC’s Transvaal branch, rising to prominence for his involvement in the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the 1955 Congress of the People. He was repeatedly arrested for seditious activities and was unsuccessfully prosecuted in the 1956 Treason Trial. Influenced by Marxism, he secretly joined the banned South African Communist Party (SACP). Although initially committed to nonviolent protest, in association with the SACP he co-founded the militant uMkhonto we Sizwe in 1961 and led a sabotage campaign against the government. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1962, and, following the Rivonia Trial, was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the state.

Mandela served 27 years in prison, split between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison. Amid growing domestic and international pressure and fears of racial civil war, President F. W. de Klerk released him in 1990. Mandela and de Klerk led efforts to negotiate an end to apartheid, which resulted in the 1994 multiracial general election in which Mandela led the ANC to victory and became president. Leading a broad coalition government which promulgated a new constitution, Mandela emphasised reconciliation between the country’s racial groups and created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses. Economically, his administration retained its predecessor’s liberal framework despite his own socialist beliefs, also introducing measures to encourage land reform, combat poverty and expand healthcare services. Internationally, Mandela acted as mediator in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial and served as secretary-general of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999. He declined a second presidential term and was succeeded by his deputy, Thabo Mbeki. Mandela became an elder statesman and focused on combating poverty and HIV/AIDS through the charitable Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Mandela was a controversial figure for much of his life. Although critics on the right denounced him as a communist terrorist and those on the far-left deemed him too eager to negotiate and reconcile with apartheid’s supporters, he gained international acclaim for his activism. Globally regarded as an icon of democracy and social justice, he received more than 250 honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He is held in deep respect within South Africa, where he is often referred to by his Thembu clan name, Madiba, and described as the “Father of the Nation”.

https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/assets/pdf/mandela100-booklet.pdf

“Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way.” Those who are voteless cannot be expected to continue paying taxes to a government which is not responsible to them. People who live in poverty and starvation cannot be expected to pay exorbitant house rents to the government and local authorities. We furnish the sinews of agriculture and industry. We produce the work of the gold mines, the diamonds and the coal, of the farms and industry, in return for miserable wages. Why should we continue enriching those who steal the products of our sweat and blood? Those who exploit us and refuse us the right to organise trade unions? …

I am informed that a warrant for my arrest has been issued, and that the police are looking for me. … Any serious politician will realise that under present-day conditions in this country, to seek for cheap martyrdom by handing myself to the police is naive and criminal. We have an important programme before us and it is important to carry it out very seriously and without delay. I have chosen this latter course, which is more difficult and which entails more risk and hardship than sitting in gaol. I have had to separate myself from my dear wife and children, from my mother and sisters, to live as an outlaw in my own land. I have had to close my business, to abandon my profession, and live in poverty and misery, as many of my people are doing. … I shall fight the government side by side with you, inch by inch, and mile by mile, until victory is won. What are you going to do? Will you come along with us, or are you going to cooperate with the government in its efforts to suppress the claims and aspirations of your own people? Or are you going to remain silent and neutral in a matter of life and death to my people, to our people? For my own part I have made my choice. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

“THE STRUGGLE IS MY LIFE,” PRESS STATEMENT ISSUED WHILE UNDERGROUND IN SOUTH AFRICA, 26 JUNE 1961

In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions. In the absence of these safeguards the phrase “equality before the law,” in so far as it is intended to apply to us, is meaningless and misleading. All the rights and privileges to which I have referred are monopolized by whites, and we enjoy none of them.

(I)consider myself neither morally nor legally obliged to obey laws made by a parliament in which I am not represented. That the will of the people is the basis of “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society…. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” The authority of government is a principle universally acknowledged as sacred throughout the civilised world, and constitutes the basic foundations of freedom and justice. It is understandable why citizens, who have the vote as well as the right to direct representation in the country’s governing bodies, should be morally and legally bound by the laws governing the country.

It should be equally understandable why we, as Africans, should adopt the attitude that we are neither morally nor legally bound to obey laws which we have not made, nor can we be expected to have confidence in courts which enforce such laws. … I hate the practice of race discrimination, and in my hatred I am sustained by the fact that the overwhelming majority of mankind hate it equally. I hate the systematic inculcation of children with colour prejudice and I am sustained in that hatred by the fact that the overwhelming majority of mankind, here and abroad, are with me in that. I hate the racial arrogance which decrees that the good things of life shall be retained as the exclusive right of a minority of the population, and which reduces the majority of the population to a position of subservience and inferiority, and maintains them as voteless chattels to work where they are told and behave as they are told by the ruling minority. I am sustained in that hatred by the fact that the overwhelming majority of mankind both in this country and abroad are with me.

Nothing that this court can do to me will change in any way that hatred in me, which can only be removed by the removal of the injustice and the inhumanity which I have sought to remove from the political and social life of this country.

COURT STATEMENT, PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA, 15 OCTOBER–7 NOVEMBER 1962

Mandela, we love you for what you stood for
The right for equality
The right to end racism
The right to be human
The right for governmental policies to be just, and
The right to be free.

The post Nelson Medela first appeared on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

The post Nelson Medela appeared first on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

“No, I’m not an American. I’m one of the 22 million Black people
who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million
Black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but
disguised hypocrisy. So, I’m not standing here speaking to you
as an American, or a patriot or a flag saluter, or a flag-waver-no not I.
I’m speaking as a victim of this American System.
And I see America through the eyes of the victim.
I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.”

“And why was he our ‘Shining Black Prince’?
Selected Quotes from Malcolm X: Nation Time: Spring 1997
https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Malcolm_X/513.Malco
lm.X.Selected.Quotes.pdf

One of the most influential figures of the Civil Rights Movement was Malcolm X. Unlike Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s non-violent mission for equality and the end of discrimination not only for Blacks but for all races, Malcolm X commanded attention throughout the world.

“Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the black community.

Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with relatives after his father’s death and his mother’s hospitalization. He engaged in several illicit activities, eventually being sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1946 for larceny and breaking and entering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X Malcolm’s childhood was fraught with misfortune yet he never stopped looking forward to another day in which to excel even to the extent of educating himself while in prison.

“…Malcolm X was one of the most articulate and powerful leaders of black America during the 1960s. A street hustler convicted of robbery in 1946, he spent seven years in prison, where he educated himself and became a disciple of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam. In the days of the civil rights movement, Malcolm X emerged as the leading spokesman for black separatism, a philosophy that urged black Americans to cut political, social, and economic ties with the white community. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, the capital of the Muslim world, in 1964, he became an orthodox Muslim, adopted the Muslim name El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and distanced himself from the teachings of the black Muslims. He was assassinated in 1965.

In the following excerpt from his autobiography (1965), coauthored with Alex Haley and published the year of his death, Malcolm X describes his self-education… It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of a homemade education.

I became increasingly frustrated. at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out there – I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional. How would I sound writing in slang, the way I would say it, something such as, “Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat, Elijah Muhammad-“

Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.

It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversations he was in, and I had tried to emulate him. But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn’t contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese. When I
just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said. So I had come to the Norfolk Prison Colony still going through only book-reading motions. Pretty
soon, I would have quit even these motions, unless I had received the motivation that I did.

I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary – to study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn’t even write in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school.

I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages. I’d never realized so many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying. In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting.

I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words – immensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I’d written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the words whose meanings I didn’t remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary first page right now, that “aardvark” springs to my mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a longtailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.

I was so fascinated that I went on – I copied the dictionary’s next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionary’s A section had filled a whole tablet-and I went on into the B’s. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words.

I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors,… and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.”

http://www.lattc.edu/Lattc/media/lattc_media/PDFs/Learning-to-Read-by-MalcolmX-PDF.pdf

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
New York, June 1965
CHAPTER ONE NIGHTMARE

“When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night. Surrounding the house, brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out. My mother went to the front door and opened it. Standing where they could see her pregnant condition, she told them that she was alone with her three small children, and that my father was away, preaching, in Milwaukee. The Klansmen shouted threats and warnings at her that we had better get out of town
because “the good Christian white people” were not going to stand for my father’s “spreading trouble” among the “good” Negroes of Omaha with the “back to Africa” preachings of Marcus Garvey.

My father, the Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister, a dedicated organizer for Marcus Aurelius Garvey’s U.N.I.A. (Universal Negro Improvement Association). With the help of such disciples as my father, Garvey, from his headquarters in New York City’s Harlem, was raising the banner of black-race purity and exhorting the Negro masses to return to their ancestral
African homeland-a cause which had made Garvey the most controversial black man on earth.

Still shouting threats, the Klansmen finally spurred their horses and galloped around the house, shattering every window pane with their gun butts. Then they rode off into the night, their torches flaring, as suddenly as they had come.”

https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/malcom-x.pdf
Advocacy and teachings while with Nation “From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation’s teachings. These included beliefs:

• that black people are the original people of the world[99]
• that white people are “devils”[2] and
• that the demise of the white race is imminent.[3]

Louis E. Lomax said that “those who don’t understand biblical prophecy wrongly label him as a racist and as a hate teacher, or as being anti-white or as teaching Black Supremacy”.[100] He was accused[ of being antisemitic. [101] In 1961, Malcolm X spoke at a NOI rally alongside George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of the American Nazi Party; Rockwell claimed that there was overlap between black nationalism and white supremacy.[102]

One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to end disenfranchisement of African Americans, but the Nation of Islam forbade its members from participating in voting and other aspects of the political process.[103] The NAACP and other civil rights organizations denounced him and the Nation of Islam as irresponsible extremists whose views did not represent the common interests of African Americans.[104][105]

Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement.[106] He called Martin Luther King Jr. a “chump”, and said other civil rights leaders were “stooges” of the white establishment.[107][G] He called the 1963 March on Washington “the farce on Washington”,[109] and said he did not know why so many black people were excited about a demonstration “run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn’t like us when he was alive”.[110]

While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X advocated the complete separation of African Americans from whites. He proposed that African Americans should
return to Africa and that, in the interim, a separate country for black people in America should be created.[111][112] He rejected the civil rights movement’s strategy of nonviolence, arguing that black people should defend and advance themselves “by any means necessary”.[113] His speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, who were generally African Americans in northern and western cities. Many of them —tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect[114]—felt that he articulated their complaints better than did the civil rights movement.[115][116]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X

Malcolm X a great but controversial leader is remembered by memorials and tributes that include the first home he was brought up in which is now a historical monument. Malcolm X is also portrayed in the movies, TV and on stage.

Malcolm X was a great leader known for his beliefs that not everyone liked. But he proved to everyone that despite being incarcerated for seven years he put his time to good use through selfeducation turning out to be the most prolific, educated speaker that there was in the United States.

We welcome the holiday that celebrates Malcolm X for we live in a democracy where both sides must be heard; the good, the bad and the ugly that rears its head because of the suffering, racial
discrimination and fear and torture of Blacks.

Let us look forward to another day for great leaders to appear to lead us to justice for the benefit of all races in the United States

The post Malcolm X first appeared on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

The post Malcolm X appeared first on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

Harriet Tubman an abolitionist renown.  

We thank God for her spirit, her strength and her love for her fellow men.  

We’ll remember her birthday this March to tell her story of the love for mankind, 

despite the cruelty that she, the slaves and the fugitives received  

by the merciless slave masters bent on slavery. 

March 10 is the day on which it is said that Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross) famously known as an abolitionist was born. As most Blacks who were born into slavery in the 1800s, Harriet was like them but became a hero when she escaped from slavery and helped other enslaved people escape from their masters or bondage. 

Harriet was born in Dorchester County, Maryland where she lived a horrific life like most slaves being beaten and whipped by her slave masters and even experiencing a life-threatening head injury that induced visions and dreams she attributed to the works of God. She became deeply religious because of her Methodist upbringing and these visions and dreams.     

“She often fought illness in her childhood, but as she grew older, the “sickly” young household girl grew stronger and even became a fieldhand. On a secluded plantation during her adolescence, Tubman attempted to warn an escaping slave that his master was nearby. She was caught between the slave and his master when the two confronted each other. The master slung a lead weight at the escapee, but hit Tubman in the head. The force of the blow “broke her skull and drove a piece of her bandana” into her head. The head injury would cause her to have headaches, fainting spells, and visions for the rest of her life. In 1844, she married a free black man named John Tubman. Around this time, she hired a lawyer to investigate her family’s slave contracts. The lawyer found her mother should have been freed at the age of 45, meaning that some of her siblings should have been born free.” 

https://www.crf-usa.org/images/pdf/gates/Harriet-Tubman-End-of-Slavey.pdf 

In the mid-1800s she escaped to Philadelphia to return to help those she left behind; she helped her family to escape and led many others to their freedom.  

“The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. This law required the United States government to actively assist slave holders in recapturing freedom seekers. Under the United States Constitution, slave holders had the right to reclaim slaves who ran away to free states. With the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the federal government had to assist the slave holders. No such requirement had existed previously.” https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Fugitive_Slave_Law_of_1850 

Harriet tried to find and help slaves in captivity escape and this included John Tubman who she later found out had remarried to a woman named Caroline thereby ending her quest to find him. Frederick Douglass an abolitionist was also said to have worked with Tubman in helping fugitives.  

“There is evidence to suggest that Tubman and her group stopped at the home of abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.[63] In his third autobiography, Douglass wrote: “On one occasion I had eleven fugitives at the same time under my roof, and it was necessary for them to remain with me until I could collect sufficient money to get them on to Canada. It was the largest number I ever had at any one time, and I had some difficulty in providing so many with food and shelter. … “[64] The number of travelers and the time of the visit make it likely that this was Tubman’s group.[63] 

Douglass and Tubman admired one another greatly as they both struggled against slavery. When an early biography of Tubman was being prepared in 1868, Douglass wrote a letter to honor her. He compared his own efforts with hers, writing: 

The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day – you in the night. … The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown – of sacred memory – I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.[65]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman 

In 11 years, Tubman helped rescue 70 slaves in what was said to have taken 13 trips that included family members. Tubman was called “Moses” because of her efforts to free and rescue the slaves from their slave masters and to help fugitives to escape to the north.  

She was devout and dedicated to God aided by visions, premonitions and the voice of God which is said to sometimes be attributed to her head injury. Although a religious woman she would not hesitate to use a gun which she carried for her protection and the protection of the slaves, even to the point of using it on them if they ever turned back to their plantation. 

“Despite the efforts of the slaveholders, Tubman and the fugitives she assisted were never captured. Years later, she told an audience: “I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”[3]… 

Scouting and the Combahee River Raid 

“When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Tubman considered it an important step toward the goal of liberating all Black people from slavery.[107] She renewed her support for a defeat of the Confederacy, and in early 1863 she led a band of scouts through the land around Port Royal.[108] The marshes and rivers in South Carolina were similar to those of the Eastern Shore of Maryland; thus, her knowledge of covert travel and subterfuge among potential enemies was put to good use.[108] Her group, working under the orders of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, mapped the unfamiliar terrain and reconnoitered its inhabitants. She later worked alongside Colonel James Montgomery, and provided him with key intelligence that aided in the capture of Jacksonville, Florida.[109]  

Later that year, Tubman became the first woman to lead an armed assault during the Civil War.[110] When Montgomery and his troops conducted an assault on a collection of plantations along the Combahee River, Tubman served as a key adviser and accompanied the raid. On the morning of June 2, 1863, Tubman guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters leading to the shore.[111] Once ashore, the Union troops set fire to the plantations, destroying infrastructure and seizing thousands of dollars worth of food and supplies.[112] When the steamboats sounded their whistles, slaves throughout the area understood that they were being liberated. Tubman watched as slaves stampeded toward the boats. “I never saw such a sight”, she said later,[113] describing a scene of chaos with women carrying still-steaming pots of rice, pigs squealing in bags slung over shoulders, and babies hanging around their parents’ necks. Although their owners, armed with handguns and whips, tried to stop the mass escape, their efforts were nearly useless in the tumult.[112] As Confederate troops raced to the scene, steamboats packed full of slaves took off toward Beaufort.[114] 

More than 750 slaves were rescued in the Combahee River Raid.[115][113] Newspapers heralded Tubman’s “patriotism, sagacity, energy, [and] ability”,[116] and she was praised for her recruiting efforts – most of the newly liberated men went on to join the Union army.[116] Tubman later worked with Colonel Robert Gould Shaw at the assault on Fort Wagner, reportedly serving him his last meal.[117] She described the battle by saying: “And then we saw the lightning, and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.”[118] 

For two more years, Tubman worked for the Union forces, tending to newly liberated slaves, scouting into Confederate territory, and nursing wounded soldiers in Virginia.[119] She also made periodic trips back to Auburn to visit her family and care for her parents.[120] The Confederacy surrendered in April 1865; after donating several more months of service, Tubman headed home to Auburn.[121] 

During a train ride to New York in 1869, the conductor told her to move from a half-price section into the baggage car. She refused, showing the government-issued papers that entitled her to ride there. He cursed at her and grabbed her, but she resisted and he summoned two other passengers for help. While she clutched at the railing, they muscled her away, breaking her arm in the process. They threw her into the baggage car, causing more injuries. As these events transpired, other white passengers cursed Tubman and shouted for the conductor to kick her off the train.[122] Her act of defiance became a historical symbol, later cited when Rosa Parks refused to move from a bus seat in 1955.[123][124]” 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman 

Harriet Tubman,  

your legacy and dream continues,  

until the day when slavery,  

is abolished throughout the world. 

The post Harriet Tubman first appeared on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

The post Harriet Tubman appeared first on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..

The snow leopard is one of nature’s most beautiful creatures. As of 2021, the snow leopard is no longer considered an endangered species. However, the population is still at risk due to illegal poaching and the encroachment of society into the cats’ habitat. So, although it has been moved from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on the Endangered Species list, the snow leopard is still at risk. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the snow leopard is still on track to lose over ten percent of its wild population over the next three generations.

The natural habitat of the snow leopard is primarily in the mountainous areas of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan. Their defining features include a white pelt, with a pattern of dark rosettes and spots. Additionally, the leopard has a tail that is longer than most other cats, in order to assist with balance on steep mounds of snow. Unfortunately, the snow leopard’s distinctive coat makes it a prize for poachers. The bones and other body parts are also used in traditional Asian medicine.

Snow leopards are known to be extremely elusive. Their territory spans over twelve countries, and they live in snowy, mountainous terrain. This makes gathering data on the cat difficult. For this reason, the wild snow leopard population is believed to be between 4,000 and 6,500 in number, and researchers are unable to narrow down that number to a more specific figure.

In addition to poachers, snow leopards face a variety of other threats, including human encroachment on territory and “retaliatory killings”–the leopards are killed by farmers in the area to protect their livestock. Due to humans pushing further into their territory, snow leopards find it increasingly difficult to find food, not only due to industrialization, but because a snow leopard’s prey is also hunted by the surrounding humans.

Snow leopards are capable of bringing down prey that is up to three times their own weight. A typical diet would include blue sheep, Argali wild sheep, ibex, marmots, deer and other, smaller, animals. Because these animals are also consumed by humans, the number of prey in these mountainous areas is dwindling, leading the snow leopards to attack local livestock instead and the aforementioned retaliatory killings by farmers.

According to the Snow Leopard Trust, there has never been a verified instance of a snow leopard attacking a human. The Trust focuses its efforts on protecting the snow leopard by partnering with local communities and creating incentives for those communities to preserve snow leopards.

A snow leopard can live between ten and twelve years in the wild. In captivity, their level of survival sharply increases to twice that, at 22 years. Snow leopards mature quickly. Initially, they are totally reliant on their mother, and their eyes do not open until they are seven days old. At two months old, cubs are able to eat solid food. At three months, they are able to learn basic hunting skills. Between 18 and 22 months, the cubs are ready to leave their mother. It is estimated that male snow leopards reach maturity by age four. Females maturation is harder to pin down, due to scant information. However, it

is estimated that a female snow leopard is ready to have her first litter by age three.

Mating season is the only time you will see more than one of these solitary cats. From January to mid-March, males and females travel together for a few days. Once that time is done, and the female leopard is pregnant, she retreats to a secluded den site. Pregnancy typically lasts between 93 and 110 days. Her cubs are usually born that June or July, and she becomes their sole caretaker, providing food and warmth, and teaching them how to survive in the wild. Once the cubs are ready, they separate from their mother and strike out on their own.

We continue to gather details about this “Ghost of the Mountains,” but information remains scarce. Their spotted white coats are unique, and unlike other big cats, they cannot roar, but can make other sounds such as a mew, purr, growl or hiss. They also make a low puffing sound called a “pusten” or “chuff.” This is a non-aggressive sound, and can indicate contentment, or be used to communicate with other snow leopards in the area. It is often used as a greeting.

There is still much to learn about these beautiful animals. Researchers continue their work with the people of Central Asia and the Himalayas to preserve and protect the snow leopard. Yet, the snow leopard remains elusive, which only adds to its mystique. Although sometimes misunderstood, this great cat is harmless to humans and is a key part in the planet’s continuing ecology.

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Martin Luther King Jr., (Michael King Jr., 1929-1968) known internationally throughout the world as one of the greatest mediators of all time, is honored yearly. Brought up as a Christian, he followed in his father’s footsteps (Martin Luther King, Sr.) by becoming a Baptist Minister. A man who took it upon himself to eradicate discrimination against blacks along with his wife, Coretta Scott King, his leaders and activists, helped dismantle the barriers that for so long held blacks from having equal rights. The civil rights movement which began in 1955 led to the enactment of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of which Martin Luther King Jr. was the President. Martin’s mission was to do what ever was necessary in a non-violent way to dismantle discrimination, violence and oppression against blacks which included the use of civil disobedience. ​

​For too long, the laws protected whites in order for blacks to be subservient. He was tired and so were blacks in the South, throughout the United States and around the world, so King participated in and led marches for their civil rights including the right to vote, desegregation and labor rights. King was also instrumental in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott which was a protest against the segregation policies of public transit. ​

​December 5, 1955, the Monday after Rosa Parks sat in the white area of the bus and refused to give her seat to a white person, she was arrested due to the segregation laws on public transit, only permitting her to sit in the back of the bus. King led many nonviolent protest marches and was the key figure helping organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered a speech that electrified the nation with his “I have a Dream speech” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Part of his speech is listed below because the reinforcement of what King did for the world to change the discriminatory practices and laws need to be remembered by all.

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self‐evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.​

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.​

​I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.​

I have a dream today!​

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:​

Free at last! Free at last!​

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

1964 saw the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to King for dismantling racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, Martin was instrumental in organizing two marches from Selma to Montgomery in the fight for the right to vote with activists of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1968, Martin was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee when he planned a national occupation of Washington, D.C.​

​Martin Luther King Jr. Day is King’s birthday which is a federal holiday signed into bill on November 3, 1983 by President Ronald Reagan for the third Monday of each January. ​

Martin Luther King Day In Ohio​

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY COMMISSION​

​“The Ohio Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission (Commission) was established in 1985 by Executive Order. Today, the DAS Administrative Support Division provides support to the commission.​

The Commission is a statewide advocate of Dr. King’s principles of nonviolence and annually honors Ohio’s citizens who work to promote diversity and eliminate discrimination through nonviolent methods. Each year, the Commission presents awards to Ohioans to celebrate the life of Dr. King, whose teachings encourage nonviolent actions to secure equal rights for all Americans. The commemorative celebration is held each January in downtown Columbus. ​
​
The Commission strives to carry out Dr. King’s dream of service to others throughout the entire year through various events (Ohio, Department of Administrative Services).”​

​For further information on the 37th Annual MLK Awards please go their website: ​

https://das.ohio.gov/Divisions/Equal-Opportunity/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Holiday-Commission​

Awards are presented in the following categories.​

• Governor’s Humanitarian Award​
• Individual Award​
• Organization Award​
• Collaborative Effort Award​
• Youth: Capturing the Vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

King’s legacy continues throughout generations, ​

never to be forgotten for what he did for mankind.​

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“When racism rears its ugly head against you should you take action to stop the pain you feel of being discriminated against the laws that aren’t right the laws to protect only whites!”

When one hears about the Civil Rights era, it immediately brings to mind activists; Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and organizations like the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There are also many other leaders and activists that are in history books throughout the United States and the World. In 1955, a teenager stood up for her rights and was arrested even before the infamous Rosa Parks stand. Rosa Parks, who worked for the NAACP as the secretary for the Montgomery Chapter, was arrested for not getting up from her seat for a White man on a bus.

Claudette Colvin, a Black teenager attended Booker T. Washington High School, only 15 at the time, didn’t want her constitutional rights violated even though segregation on public transit was the law. Whites were to be seated in the front of the bus, and if there were no seats left for Whites than Blacks had to get up from their seats at the back for Whites to be seated.  Colvin lived in troubled times; times when segregation divided the nation so that Blacks took a back seat to the lives of Whites. Segregation was the norm and the daily lives of all who traveled the public transit until Colvin took a stand.

In Montgomery, Alabama, Colvin is said to be a pioneer, one who led the way and helped end segregation on public transit. When she was forcibly removed from the bus and arrested on March 2, 1955, her attorney, Fred Gray, along with four other plaintiffs filed a federal case, in Federal District Court, February 1, 1956, Browder vs. Gayle, to challenge segregation on public transit. A three-judge panel found the law unconstitutional which was appealed to the Supreme Court where it upheld the state court ruling, finding the law unconstitutional.

“Browder v. Gayle 142 F. Supp. 707 (M.D. Ala. 1956) Decided Jun 5, 1956 709 *709 RIVES, Circuit Judge. Statement of the Case. The purpose of this action is to test the constitutionality of both the statutes of the State of Alabama and the ordinances of the City of Montgomery which require the segregation of the white and colored races on the motor buses of the Montgomery City Lines, Inc., *711 a common carrier of passengers in said City and its police jurisdiction.

1 2 711 1 Title 48, § 301(31a, b, c), Code of Alabama of 1940, as amended, which provide: “§ 301(31a). Separate accommodations for white and colored races. — All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races, but such accommodations for the races shall be equal. All motor transportation companies or operators of vehicles carrying passengers for hire in this state, whether intrastate or interstate passengers, shall at all times provide equal but separate accommodations on each vehicle for the white and colored races. The conductor or agent of the motor transportation company in charge of any vehicle is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the division of the vehicle designated for the race to which the passenger belongs; and, if the passenger refuses to occupy the division to which he is assigned, the conductor or agent may refuse to carry the passenger on the vehicle; and, for such refusal, neither the conductor or agent of the motor transportation company nor the motor transportation company shall be liable in damages. Any motor transportation company or person violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars for each offense; and each day’s violation of this section shall constitute a separate offense. The provisions of this section shall be administered and enforced by the Alabama public service commission in the manner in which provisions of the Alabama Motor Carrier Act of 1939 are administered and enforced. (1945, p. 731, appvd. July 6, 1945.)”

For the complete case see below: https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Browder-v.-Gayle.pdf

According to Jonathan Gold in his article, “The Browder in Browder v. Gayle. On April 29, 1955, Aurelia Browder, like so many other black residents of Montgomery, was mistreated on a city bus. According to her testimony in the civil case, she was forced by the bus driver “to get up and stand to let a white man and a white lady sit down.” Three other plaintiffs, Mary Louise Smith, Claudette Colvin and Susie McDonald, had reported similar mistreatment. The cumulative effect of these “demeaning, wretched, intolerable impositions and conditions,” as boycott organizer Jo Ann Robinson referred to them, inspired Montgomery’s black community to begin developing plans for a boycott that eventually began after the arrest of Rosa Park.”
For further reading: https://www.learningforjustice.org/sites/default/files/general/TT53%20Browder%20v.%20Gayle.pdf

“Nine months after Claudette Colvin’s arrest, local activist Rosa Parks took similar action. She refused to give up her bus seat to a white rider and got arrested. Colvin’s actions raised awareness, but Parks’s actions set off a boycott of the Montgomery bus lines. Thousands of Black residents rode the bus to work, often for white employers. After Parks’s arrest, though, they refused to ride for an entire year (National Youth Summit 2020).” https://americanhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/file-uploader/NYS%20Case%20Study%E2%80%93Student%20Kit%20FINAL4.pdf

Colvin’s case unlike Rosa Parks’s “was dropped by civil rights campaigners because Colvin was unmarried and pregnant during the proceedings.[6][7] It is now widely accepted that Colvin was not accredited by civil rights campaigners at the time due to her circumstances. Rosa Parks stated: “If the white press got ahold of that information, they would have [had] a field day.  The record of her arrest and adjudication of delinquency was expunged by the district court in 2021, with the support of the district attorney for the county in which the charges were brought more than 66 years before.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin

When people, no matter their race, color or creed cannot take any more discriminatory and racist acts towards them, their only recourse is to take action. Humanity needs people like Colvin and the others who took a stand for their rights despite the consequences.

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Self Care Supports is a student-run organization whose mission includes connecting, motivating and aiding teens while bringing awareness to mental health through free, educational and helpful resources. Self Care Supports is a website designed to motivate and encourage individuals to help improve their mental health. By connecting teens with each other to create friendships, and by also providing free resources and recommendations, our goal is to bring more awareness to mental health issues and mental illnesses.

Pamela Clark, Executive Director, stated, “Ms. Yue is a bright and upcoming star. We are so proud of her and are proud to be part of her new organizations. This is our second partnership with Ms. Yue; we recently partnered with her other organization titled Empowering Youth in Business, otherwise known as EYB, which is a student-run organization that strives to offer underprivileged youth in the United States with free business, entrepreneurship and economics resources and opportunities.”

You can learn more by visiting her websites.

https://www.selfcaresupports.org/

Home | Empowering Youth in Business | Youth Education

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Edgewood Club All Sports Camp, located in River Vale, NJ, has hosted its second year of camp for 4-12 year olds. Edgewood has successfully been operating under COVID-19 Camp Policies and Procedures. Campers may choose to attend the summer camp from 8 AM – 2 PM or 8 AM – 4 PM.

As part of the CDC guidelines, all camp staff are undergoing health checks, which  includes “temperature checks, screening questions, and self-reporting” (CDC Guidelines). Each morning, head counselors are recording temperatures of their assigned group counselors and campers upon their arrival at camp.

• Staff members are trained to abide by COVID-19 protocol themselves and advise their campers to follow COVID-19 safety procedures. Counselors have been provided with a fanny pack containing hand-sanitizer, rubber gloves, additional face masks, and first aid kits.

• Hand sanitizer is also provided to all campers and counselors before and after sport activities and before and after lunch and snack. 25 hand sanitizers have been placed throughout the camp, and expected to be frequently used by all camp participants.

• In bathrooms, campers and counselors must wash their hands for at least 20 seconds.

• Counselors must wear rubber gloves while filling water bottles, serving lunches and snacks, and when providing first aid to campers and counselors.

• Counselors are required to wear face masks everywhere, including inside the Clubhouse and outside at the pool area and lunchfield. However, campers are required to wear face masks inside the Clubhouse but are not required to wear face masks outside (CDC Guidelines).

• First Aid Kits contain bandages and anti-bacterial wipes.

Current counselors have shared the following thoughts about the many COVID-19 safety expectations at Edgewood:

Counselor Mary Petito from Red Group: “In terms of protocols, I think that the camp definitely stressed it. We did try our best where it was needed. It was definitely a challenge, considering how many kids there were, but it was completely doable.”

Counselor Jacob Steinberg from Orange Group: “Edgewood and the administrators have done their very best to adhere to the protocols as best as possible. Having all the counselors wearing masks, having kids’ temperatures checked every morning, and using frequent hand-sanitizer throughout the day has definitely been very beneficial.”

While COVID-19 protocols like hand-washing and temperatures are being implemented, the Edgewood Club All Sports Camp has also addressed the concern of social-distancing in the best way possible during circumstances like swimming, playing tennis, eating lunch, and arriving at camp.

• Pool: Though campers are permitted to swim, Edgewood has resolved concerns about COVID-19 spreading through pools by increasing the chlorine level in the pool, since the CDC states that the “disinfection of water (with chlorine or bromine) should inactivate the virus” (CDC Guidelines).

• Tennis: All campers must bring their own tennis rackets and water bottles. Camp counselors and instructors are only allowed to clean up tennis equipment such as tennis balls and hoppers. Each group transitions throughout sports, so one group plays while another group gets a water-break–this helps the camp maintain small groups and implement social-distancing among campers.

• Lunch: Chairs and tables are cleaned with anti-bacterial wipes before campers proceed to lunch. No more than 8 campers are allowed at one table.

• Arrival and Dismissal: Campers are arranged in single-file and spaced six feet apart from each other.

The dedicated efforts by all staff members and campers in following COVID-19 protocol has earned the All Edgewood Sports Camp official recognition from the New Jersey State Health Department with a Camp Satisfactory placard. Camp Director Nicole Moore was very impressed with her staff in helping her provide “a well-deserved safe, healthy and enjoyable summer for our campers!”

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The post Edgewood Country Club All Sports Camp COVID-19 Protocol appeared first on New Heights Educational Group, Inc..