Recording Your Family History

08/16/2025

08/15/2025

Rebecca Lee Crumpler made history in March 1864 as the first Black American woman to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree in the United States. A physician, nurse, and one of the first female physician-authors of the 19th century, she published A Book of Medical Discourses (1883), focusing on maternal and pediatric care—one of the first medical books by an African American.

Despite facing severe racism and sexism—male physicians often dismissed her prescriptions and opinions—she persevered, dedicating herself to her patients.

Legacy:

The Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical groups for African-American women, bears her name.

Her Boston home is featured on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.

In 2019, Virginia declared March 30 (National Doctors Day) as Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day.

Syracuse University’s Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society supports diverse students entering health fields.

She and her husband now have granite headstones honoring her pioneering role in medicine.

08/15/2025

08/14/2025

Learn how to use Sanborn Maps for property research. These are some of the earliest block by block maps of the City with streets and addresses visible, dating back to 1885!

08/14/2025

Langston Hughes once slipped a poem under a dinner plate at a hotel — because the white editor dining there wouldn’t meet with him.
That poem made it into print. It was the beginning of a literary career that gave voice to the hopes and heartaches of Black America.
Hughes didn’t write for critics — he wrote for the people.
Jazz, blues, bars, buses, barbershops — his poetry carried rhythm and struggle, laughter and fire. He called it “low-down folks’ poetry,” but there was nothing low about it.
He chronicled Harlem like a historian with a trumpet. He fought off the literary elite who wanted him to clean up his language, his politics, his people.
He refused. “I, too, sing America,” he wrote. “They’ll see how beautiful I am.”
Openly q***r in a time that erased such identities, Hughes kept his private life guarded. But his work spoke to loneliness, longing, and the need to belong.
He traveled the world, flirted with communism, and never stopped fighting with his pen — not for prestige, but for recognition.
Langston Hughes didn’t just write about America. He held a mirror up to it.
And he dared to say: We are part of this story. We are the heartbeat in the background. Now listen.

08/10/2025

08/10/2025

Otis Redding wrote the biggest song of his life — and died in a plane crash just three days before it was released.
In the fall of 1967, Otis Redding walked into a studio in Memphis and sang something different.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t wild. It didn’t sound like the soul-shaking, church-floor-shaking man who gave us “Try a Little Tenderness.”
It was quieter. Slower. Sadder.
He had just come back from the Monterey Pop Festival — one of the few Black performers in a sea of white rock acts — and blew the roof off the place. That performance lit a fire under him. He knew he had more to say.
So he wrote a song about loneliness. About stillness. About waiting for something that never comes.
“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”
He whistled at the end of it.
“I’ll fix that later,” he said. He never got the chance.
Three days after that recording session, Otis’s private plane crashed into Lake Monona in Wisconsin. He was 26.
The song came out posthumously — and became the first #1 hit of his career. The first posthumous #1 in history.
The world finally caught up to Otis Redding.
But the man who created that sound, that feeling, that ache — never got to hear it on the radio.
He didn’t die in scandal. He didn’t burn out.
He was just gone — too soon, too fast, and too young for the legacy he was about to step into.

08/08/2025

The award-winning artist had to evacuate from New Orleans and watch terror unfold on his hometown from a hotel room. But Jon Batiste also had a very important audition and no time to prepare. He shares his never-before-told Katrina story with Times-Picayune columnist Will Sutton.

08/07/2025

The inventor of the automatic traffic light was Garrett Morgan, an African American inventor whose innovative contributions left a lasting impact on modern society. In 1923, Morgan patented the automatic traffic light, an improvement on the manual version. His design included warning signals, making it safer and more efficient to regulate vehicle traffic. This invention became a cornerstone for enhancing road safety in cities worldwide.

In addition to the traffic light, Morgan also invented a gas mask designed to protect against toxic gases and carbon monoxide. Inspired to act after witnessing a mine disaster, Morgan used his invention to help rescue trapped workers, showcasing the life-saving potential of his creation. The gas mask later became widely used in fires, industrial accidents, and other emergencies, saving countless lives.

Garrett Morgan inventions not only demonstrate his technical ingenuity but also his deep commitment to public safety and well-being. His legacy serves as an inspiring reminder of how innovation can profoundly improve both daily life and critical emergency responses.
Credits: I like this

01/16/2025

“The Negro Mother” by Langston Hughes
Children, I come back today
To tell you a story of the long dark way
That I had to climb, that I had to know
In order that the race might live and grow.
Look at my face dark as the night
Yet shining like the sun with love’s true light
I am the child they stole from the sand
three hundred years ago in Africa’s land.
I am the dark girl who crossed the wide sea
Carrying in my body the seed of the free.
I am the woman who worked in the field
Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield.
I am the one who labored as a slave,
Beaten and mistreated for the work I gave
Children sold away from me, husband sold, too.
No safety , no love, no respect was I due.
Three hundred years in the deepest South:
But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth .
God put a dream like steel in my soul.
Now, through my children, I’m reaching the goal.
Now, through my children, young and free,
I realize the blessings deed to me.
I couldn’t read then. I couldn’t write.
I had nothing, back there in the night.
Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears,
But I kept trudging on through the lonely years.
Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun,
But I had to keep on till my work was done:
I had to keep on! No stopping for me
I was the seed of the coming Free.
I nourished the dream that nothing could smother
Deep in my breast, the Negro mother.
I had only hope then, but now through you,
Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true:
All you dark children in the world out there,
Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair.
Remember my years, heavy with sorrow.
And make of those years a torch for tomorrow.
Make of my pass a road to the light
Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night.
Lift high my banner out of the dust.
Stand like free men supporting my trust.
Believe in the right, let none push you back.
Remember the whip and the slaver’s track.
Remember how the strong in struggle and strife
Still bar you the way, and deny you life.
But march ever forward, breaking down bars.
Look ever upward at the sun and the stars.
Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers
Impel you forever up the great stairs.
For I will be with you till no white brother
Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother.
Photo: Jackson, Mississippi circa 1935.

01/16/2025