Dispatches From The Internets

In the aftermath of the Watts Riots of 1965, Jerry Varnado and James Garrett looked around and decided they needed to shake things up on the predominantly white campus of San Francisco State University. Together, they created the first Black Student Union and kicked off a campus movement that demanded schools of higher learning take the needs of their Black students seriously.

In 1724, the man who came to be known as Francisco Menéndez escaped his enslavement in South Carolina and sought refuge in Spanish-controlled Florida. His quest for freedom, made alongside a number of other Black slaves, was part of a series of events that led to the legal establishment of the first free Black community in the United States.

If you‘ve heard of Jane Bolin, it’s probably in the context of her becoming the first Black judge in the United States. It’s quite the accomplishment, no doubt, but Jane’s life was quite literally filled with firsts.

Given the often slow way in which systems of oppression—in this case, both white supremacy and the patriarchy—are broken down, it’s relatively surprising to discover that one woman, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, managed to to so much in her 64 years on this earth. She was the first Black woman to enter medical school in the United States and, upon graduation became the first Black woman physician. She was also the first Black woman to write a medical textbook—at a time when few Black people were even admitted into medical school—and the only woman to publish a medical book in the entirety of the 19th century! But even with all of those accolades, the thing that stands out most to me about Rebecca was her commitment to the most vulnerable.

Did you know that the first Black comic book hero debuted in 1947? “Lion Man” was a college-educated Black American sent to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) by the United Nations to investigate a uranium deposit. His story was but one of nine depicted in the first (and only) issue of All-Negro Comics, the first comic book created by an all Black team. That team was led by a journalist named Orrin Cromwell Evans.

While the term transgender is a recent development, trans people have always been with us. In the white supremacist system that dominates the United States and has declared cit-het people “normal” (and everyone else “abnormal”), being trans has never been easy, but it’s been especially dangerous for Black trans women. Knowing this, I am awestruck by the bravery of Lucy Hicks Anderson, a Black trans woman born in Kentucky in 1886, who became a renown socialite and hostess in 1940s California.

There are so many reasons to love and admire Maya Angelou. Most of these stem from her novels, poetry, and civil rights work, but I’m going to pick an unusual one: she was determined to be the first Black woman to conduct a cable car in San Francisco. And she succeeded at 16.

One of my fondest childhood memories was getting a Nintendo Entertainment System for my birthday. It wasn’t the expensive set with the robot and the gun (we were poor), but my mom somehow managed to scrape together the $199 (over $470 in today’s dollars) for the system. It opened up a whole new world for me. I only recently discovered that this fixture of my childhood was made possible by a Black engineer named Jerry Lawson.

It’s hard to believe how quickly the last year has gone. It has been a tremendous honor to work with Ace, Dezzie, Marcy, Olu, and Sara for these past 12 months. And while we wrap up our mentorship calls this month, I thought it would be a good idea to open up the application for my 2020–21 cohort.