3 R's of Racial Reconciliation

 

 There are many definitions for racial reconciliation.  At one point some people at Wheaton College asked their students, staff and alumni to define it in 6 words or less. My favorite of these definitions was ...

"Pursuit of equal partnership in relationships"

By that definition my 3 R's who were living in 1921 epitomized that definition in their greatest achievements.  Those 3 people are Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks.  Each of these people in their own way pursued an equal partnership in relationships and in doing so they shaped 20th century America.

 

                                                           Branch Rickey

                                                            Years lived before 1921: Forty

                                                            Years lived after 1921: Forty-four

Branch Rickey was a professional football and baseball player but was best known for being am innovative manager and general manager in Major League Baseball.  Among his innovations were the minor league system, spring training, and the use of advanced statistics.  

As a general manager, Rickey was a shrewd businessman. One example of this was is found in one of the innovations he brought to baseball.  He was the first general manager to mandate that all his players wear batting helmets. It turns out that Rickey owned stock in the company manufacturing those helmets.  

Rickey was also a devoted and vocal Christian. In 1965 according to Wikipedia Rickey's last audible words were "Now I'm going to tell you a story from the Bible about spiritual courage" .  These were his last words as he collapsed in the middle of a speech  , went into a coma for 26 days before dying on 12/9/1965.

Rickey's courage, Christian character and business acumen were all combined in his greatest lifetime achievement orchestrating the breaking of the color line in major league baseball.

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey make baseball history.

Jackie Robinson

Years lived before 1921: Two

Years lived after 1921: Fifty-one

On April `15, 1947 Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Becoming the first African American on a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in the 20th century.  Exactly fifty years later on 4/15/87 the MLB  retired #42 (Robinson's Jersey #) throughout the league.  Rickey had handpicked the four sport (baseball, football, track and basketball) UCLA standout to desegregate baseball.  One of the reasons Rickey picked Robinson aside from his obvious baseball prowess was his character.  Rickey thought Robinson had what it took to withstand the abuse that would be heaped on the first black baseball player.  

Robinson proved Rickey right and between his determination and his skill he successfully bridged the color gap in the National League.

One way Robinson demonstrated to Ricker that he was the right person to the job happened when Jackie was in the army.  Robinson had been drafted in 1942 and was serving in a tank division.  In 1944 he was on a desegregated Army bus but the bus driver ordered him to go to the back of the bus anyway.  Robinson refused, was arrested, and there was an attempt to get him court-martialed.  Robinson was acquitted.

Rosa Parks

Years lived before 1921: Eight

Years lived after 1921: Eighty-four

On December 1, 1955 a seamstress from Birmingham Alabama  refused to give her seat up to a white passenger.  This seamstress was of course Rosa Parks.  Like Robinson 15 years prior she was not legally obligated to give up her seat as she was sitting in the colored section at the time.  She was arrested, beginning a 1 year bus strike which eventually led to the end of segregation on public busses.

When I think of Rickey, Robinson and Rosa I think of ordinary people willing to take a stand for what is right.  I hope 100 years from now there r more people like that to celebrate.  For more A to Z challenge click here. 

If you are visiting from the road trip, you can get to the rest of my a to z posts by clicking here. 

 1921 Index In Progress 

Theme Reveal

A 

B

C

1921: A Tale of 13 Presidents

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R (This Post)

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

A To Z Reflection Post

                                                             

                                                            

Q is for Queens Consort

The first thing I checked when I decided that my theme would be  people alive in 1921 was to see who was born in 1921.  The second thing I did was to see if anyone famous who was born in 1921 was still alive in 2021. 

So when I noticed that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was approaching his 100th birthday, I tried to find a way to get him in my list.  When it came down to fit people letters I realized quickly that I could fill the dreaded Q spot by Philip's title.  

                Prince Philip

                                                                                 Years Lived Before 1921: Zero   

                                                                                 Years lived after 1921: One-hundred 

Born a Greek and Danish prince on a dining room table on the island of Corfu in June of 1921, Prince Philip left Greece 18 months later in a cot made from a fruit box when his family was exiled.  These fairy tale beginnings led to a very public life as the longest royal consort in the history of the British monarchy.  

He married his third cousin (through Queen Victoria) Princess Elizabeth of  England in 1947.  They were married 73 years.  Princess Elizabeth and he exchanged letters in 1939 when he was 18 and she was 13.  Philip joined the Royal Navy and served in the Navy during World War II. In 1952 when Princess Elizabeth became Queen upon the death of her father Philip became the Queen consort.  

Prince Philip dies on April 9, 2021 twelve days before the Queen's 95th birthday and two months and a day before he would have turned 100.

For more A to Z challenge click here.  

                                                 

P is for Prokofiev

Last year in my A to Z challenge on my blog Random Acts of Roller. My theme was State Capitals.  I stated in my introduction ...

My Theme will be Capitals. Due to the random nature of my blog, and specifically my mind, each entry may only be somewhat related to the capital mentioned. For example, it is entirely possible that Friday April third's entry will feature the Krispy Kreme themed love song I wrote in 1995 because I wrote it while living in Columbia, South Carolina where I encountered my first  Krispy Kreme.

I mention that here. because today's post about Sergei Prokofiev will tell you probably a lot more about me than Prokofiev. But let's at least start with Prokofiev.

Sergei Prokofiev

Years lived before 1921: Thirty

Years lived after 1921: Thirty Two

Sergei Sergyevich Prokofiev was born in April of 1891 in the Ukraine. . Sergei and I have something in commo that we both share the first name of our father but not our grandfather.  The way you can tell this with Prokofiev is that according to his Wikipedia page his father's name is Sergei Alexeyevich  Prokofiev. In Russian the 2nd name is the patronymic name which means it is derived from the father's name.  Boys names end in -ovich or -evich  and girls  patronyms  end in -ovna or -evna.  So Prokofiev's Dad's name was Sergei and  his paternal grandfathers name was Alexei. The way you can tell it with me, is cause I'm telling you. You'll have to take my word for it, as I don't have a Wikipedia page. 

I first became aware of the music of Prokofiev was when I was a kid watching the Disney version of Peter and the Wolf. It is narrated by actor Sterling Holloway best known as the original voice of Winnie The Pooh. Different instruments play different characters in the folk tale.

                                                    Sterling Holloway

                                                    Years lived before 1921: Fifteen

                                                    Years lived after 1921: Seventy-one

                                                    Winnie The Pooh aka Edward Bear

                                                    Years lived before 1921: zero

                                                    Years lived after 1921:100+

My family watched a lot of Disney, but we also listened to a lot of Alan Sherman also to a lot of the Boston Pop's conducted by Arthur Fiedler. In 1964 Sherman, Fiedler and the Pops produced an Album called Peter and the Commissar which is a parody of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.  This was a family favorite and I was overjoyed to see it available on Spotify.  

The next time I encountered Prokofiev was in the early 1990's I was living in Russia as a Southern Baptist missionary.  My job was to teach English classes and help start a student ministry.  In that capacity I got a lot of invitations from my students to experience traditional Russian culture.  I got invited to a a concert one afternoon and it was some sort of adaptation of Rome and Juliet.  As I watched the performance I realized that the instruments were kind of telling the story not exactly like Peter and the Wolf but there were some similarities.  At the break I looked again at the program and read in Russian that the composer had also writeen something called Peotr y Volk which in English is Peter and the Wolf.  

Here is the London Symphony Orchestra playing a famous selection from Romeo and Juliet ...

Well that was a more random look at Prokofiev.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Tomorrow we'll have to mind our p's and q's as we are dealing with royalty.  For more of the A to Z challenge click here.  

O is for Oskar.

 I don't know a lot about cancel culture, but I seem to hear and read a lot about it.  My best understanding of it is that with cancel culture people can be reduced to the worst thing (or most recent bad thing) that you've done and  other positive achievements are overlooked or forgotten in light of the bad.

Oskar Schindler was not a product of cancel culture.  He seemed to be more of the opposite.  Nazi, serial philanderer, spy, war profiteer are labels that could easily mar any good  you could otherwise accomplish.  But in Schindler we find an extremely flawed man remembered and revered for his greatest accomplishment.

Oskar Schindler

Years lived before 1921: Thirteen

Years lived after 1921: Fifty Three

I personally was raised thinking that life was like a moral bank ledger where you hoped your black ink outweighed your red.  I no longer feel that way.  In some ways like the hundreds of Jews that Schindler saved from death in concentration camps I was saved  by a conscious choice not of a flawed man but by a perfect God.  

For more A to Z challenge click here.

N is for Nevins: Guest Post

 

My youngest daughter when she heard about my a to z challenge theme this year asked if she could write about one of the Radium girls.  Since I don't know very much about the radium girls I asked her if she's be willing to write a guest post about one of them.  She chose Charlotte Nevins Purcell who she will be portraying in her high schools spring play, These Shining Lives.  

Charlotte Nevins Purcell

Radium Girl 

                                                                Years lived before 1921: Fifteen

                                                                Years lived after 1921: Sixty-seven

Charlotte Nevins Purcell was one of the dial painters who worked at the now infamous Radium Dial company in Ottawa, Illinois. She was one of the many women working at the company (now known as the 'Radium Girls') who painted watch faces with radium powder, which wasn't widely known to be harmful at the time. Because of this, she was also one of the many women who suffered from radium poisoning as a result of their work. Charlotte had to have her arm amputated because of the radium, which allowed her to live longer than many of the other women whos poisoning had taken effect in more vital areas. 

" A relative said: ‘She was pretty outspoken. She told people what she thought about things ... she spoke her mind about a lot of things.’ That perhaps explains why Charlotte played such an important role in the Illinois lawsuits. She and Catherine Donohue were ‘spokesmen for the other women’." - Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls, wrote about Purcell

Charlotte Purcell was evidently the kind of person who would not give up and would not stand for injustice.  According to family members, she once tied one end of a jump rope to a fence in order to be able to jump rope with only one arm, because of her amputation. This shows how she never let anything stop her, which is truly inspiring.

Thanks daughter! For more A to Z challenge click here.

M is for Merman

         Ethel Merman

"The Undisputed First Lady of The Musical Comedy Stage"

                                    Years lived before 1921: Thirteen

                                    Years lived after 1921: Sixty-three 

                                                    

If I was struggling for a Z in this years A to Z challenge I may have been able to get away with Merman as she was born Ethel Zimmerman and removed the "zim" from it when she went into show business. Merman who studied to be a stenographer found that for her , there was no business like show business, which became her signature tune.  Merman is best known for her Broadway performances in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy and Hello Dolly.  

 

Annie Oakley

Sharpshooting star Of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

                                         Years lived before 1921: Sixty-one

                                         Years lived after 1921: Five

"There's no Business like Showbusiness" Merman's signature song was from "Annie Get Your Gun" which is a musical about the life of Annie Oakley. Born Phoebe Ann Mosley in 1860 the 6 of 9 children to a Quaker family in rural Ohio.  She learned to hunt and trap at an early age out of necessity due to their family's poverty. Annie was a skilled shooter and was known locally for her expertise with a gun.  She met her future Frank Butler  husband, a travelling sharpshooter  when she was beat him in a shooting match.  He began courting her after his defeat and they were married in 1882 and joined Buffalo Bills Wild West Show in 1885.

A TO Z Easter Eggs

A To  Z Extra

Ethel Merman 28 years of "There's No Business Like Show Business" at Dave Out Loud. A rousing video splicing multiple performances of Merman's signature song including an appearance on The Muppet Show. 

   After you've looked at the additional content on my other blogs head back to The A to Z challenge and  continue exploring. .  

                                                    

L is for Lincoln

 

Robert Todd Lincoln

                                                                Years Lived Before 1921: Seventy-Eight

                                                                Years Lived After 1921: Five

Robert Lincoln was the first child of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln and the only one who survived past the age of 18. He served as secretary of War under James Garfield and then Chester A. Artur after Garfield's assassination.  In 1889 Lincoln became the U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom. He was the last U.S. minister to the U.K. His predecessor was the first U.S. ambassador to the U.K. Lincoln served 15 years as president of the Pullman Car Company after the death of George Pullman.

Lincoln was 21 when his father was assassinated and was present when his father died.  In his role as Garfield's Secretary of war he was a witness to Garfield's assassination. In 1901 Lincoln was in Buffalo attending the Pan-American exposition as part of his duties as President of Pullman when he witnessed the assassination of William McKinley.  

K is for Kid

In 1890, The Philadephia Quakers baseball team of the National League changed their name to the Philadephia Phillies and have been so for almost 125 years,  That 1990 team had not one but two players on it that are on my a to z challenge pf people living in 1921.  Neither of those players are remembered  for being baseball players.  One was Baseball player turned evangelist Billy Sunday who was featured here way back on April 2nd.  The other is William Jethro "Kid" Gleason who was the manager of the infamous 1919 Black Sox.  

              Kid Gleason

Years lived before 1921: Fifty-Five

Years lived after 1921: Twelve

        

J is for John and Johnson

I apologize for the tardiness of my J. I was right about to post my Jimmy Stewart post last night when my wife inquired if my Katharine Johnson post was finished. I checked my master list and much to my chagrin I had Stewart moved from J to S to get Katherine Johnson and John Glen into our A to Z orbit. So the good news Stewart's post will be ready when S rolls around later this month. The bad  news is J will be my first late entry of this years challenge and probably not the last.  

Katherine Johnson

                                                                     Years lived before 1921: Three

                                                                     Years lived after 1921: Ninety-nine 

Katherine Johnson (Left) Barack Obama (Center) Willie Mays (Right)

2015 Medal of Freedom ceremony at White House

John Glenn

                                                                           Years lived before 1921: Zero 

                                                                          Years lived after 1921: Ninety-Five

             John Glenn entering Friendship 7.

In 1962, multiple fledgling IBM computers were determining the trajectory of the Friendship 7 from take off to splashdown.  John Glenn who, like many astronauuts of his era, was weary of putting his life in the hands of computing machines, asked that Katherine Johnson do all the calculations manually and said "if she says they're good, then I'm ready to go." The rest is NASA history.

Click here for more of the A to Z Challenge.

                                                    
 

                                            

I is for Ingalls

 

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Years lived before 1921: Fifty-four

Years lived after 1921: Thirty-six 

Laura Ingalls Wilder is the  author of the Little House  books a somewhat fictionalized account of her life growing up on the American frontier. Laura was the 2nd of 5 children of Charles and Caroline Ingalls.  The only boy Charles Frederick Ingalls died when he was less than 1 year old.  Laura married Almanzo Wilder and they had 1  daughter, Rose.

                                                Carrie           Mary                   Laura

In 1921 all Laura's sisters, her mother and her daughter were all still living

.

Caroline Quiner Ingalls lived from 1839-1924 (83 years before 1921 and 3 after)

Laura's older sister Mary  was born in 1865 and died 4 years after her mother in 1928.  She lived 56 years before 1921 and 7 years after.

Laura's baby sister Grace was born in 1877, 44 years prior to 1921.  She passed away20 years later in 1941.

In 1921 Laura's sister Carrie turned 51 years of age.  When she died 25 years later, Laura became the last surviving child of her father and mother.

Almanzo Wilder  like my own grandfather was 10 years older than his wife. Almanzo lived 64 years before 1921 and lived 28 years after passing away in 1949.

Laura and Almanzo's daughter Rose was born in 1886 and died in 1968. She lived 35 years prior to 1921 and 47 years after that. Rose was the last living descendent of Charles and Carolyn, unless you count Laura's books which still enjoy a life of their own

I am posting this letter early which I hardly ever do.  I am taking the weekend off and will be back with the letter J on Monday.  Please go bak and enjoy more of  the challenge. 

H is for Hepburn

  

                                                            Katherine Hepburn

                                                            Years Lived Before 1921: Twelve

                                                            Years Lived After 1921: Eighty Two

Let's switch things up just a little today. Instead of delving into the biography of Katherine Hepburn.  I will list one movie from each decade of her film career.

1930's Little Women (1933) 

1940's Philadelphia Story (1940)

Nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress

1950's African Queen (1951)

 

Nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress

1960's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) 

Won  Academy Award for Best Actress

1970's Rooster Cogburn (1975)

1980's On Golden Pond (1981) 

Won Academy Award for Best Actress

In all, Hepburn was nominated 12 times for the Academy Award for best actress  and won 4 times which is pretty good for someone once dubbed box office poison.

A TO Z Easter Eggs

A To  Z Extra

 H is for Hundred at Random Acts of Roller. Discover 10 things that happened in 1921.  

After you've looked at the additional content from my other blogs head back to the challenge.

G is for George

 

George Washington Carver

Year lived before 1921: Fifty-seven

Years lived after 1921: Twenty-two

George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri in 1864. He was an educator , a  life long learner, a man of faith and science,   an accomplished artist and musician and a great humanitarian. He did not invent peanut butter as is often attributed to him. However, his work at The Tuskegee institute did not only help the African American students there it helped poor southern farmers, black and white, to be less dependent on farming one crop (generally cotton) and diversifying to crops such as but not limited to sweet potatoes and peanuts.

In 1894 Carver became  the first African American to earn a Bachelor's degree in science. He followed that up prior to the turn of the century  by earning his Masters of Agricultural degree at what was then called Iowa State Agricultural School.

In his almost 50 years at Tuskegee put all that science to practical use.  He would explain to his students and to local farmers that crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes would revitalize the soil ravaged by years of growing cotton.  Another problem with growing only cotton is that is not a food crop, so the farmers would need to borrow money for sustenance.  By switching to food crops, the farmer could sustain themselves with plenty remaining to sell at market.

When I decided on people who lived in 1921 for my theme for this years A to Z Challenge, George Washington Carver was the person I wanted to include most on the list.  When I was homeschooling my children I bought them a number of biographies written by janet & Geoff Benge.  

My kids enjoyed reading them and I enjoyed reading them as well.  Last year I found that the George Washington Carver biography was available at my library as a downloadable audio book.  I listened to it and rediscovered why I appreciated Carver when I learned about him in grade school.  

That does it for today's edition.  I'm just nutty about George Washington Carver. As you can tell by that horrible pun, I am also just nutty. Click here to return to the A to Z challenge.