MS54 Booker T. Washington
  • Home
  • Admissions
  • About MS54
    • Who Was Booker T. Washington?
    • General Information
    • Mission Statement & Vision
    • Directory
    • Early Academy / School Day Schedule
    • Curriculum >
      • Summer Assignments & Supply Lists
      • Marking Periods, Honor Roll, Late/Missed Work
      • 8th Grade Promotional and Graduation Requirements
      • HIV/AIDS Education
    • Breakfast & Lunch
    • 6th Grade Academy
    • Equity Team
    • School Based Health Center (Nurse's Office)
  • Support MS54
    • Auction
    • Annual Appeal / Phone-a-thon
    • Volunteer
    • Fundraising and Community Events
    • Shop to Benefit MS54 - Amazon / Fairway / BoxTops
    • School Store
  • PTA & SLT
    • PTA Information & Minutes
    • PTA Reimbursement Form
    • Email the PTA
    • PTA Presentations
    • Newsletter Archive
    • SLT Information & Minutes
    • Email the SLT
    • School Wellness Council
    • Community Outreach
  • For Parents
    • What to Know & Who to Call
    • Parent Handbook
    • School Forms
    • Emergency Procedures & Storm Delays
    • DOE & District Resources / News >
      • Info and News on the Proposed Changes to the Specialized High School Admissions
    • Tutor Fair January 2019
    • Email the Parent Coordinator
    • Parent Engagement Thursdays
    • Class Parent Information
    • New Parent Information
  • For Students
    • Code of Conduct >
      • Honor Code
      • Cell Phone & Electronics
      • Dress Code
    • Activities >
      • Afterschool Program
      • Boys & Girls Basketball
      • Boys & Girls Soccer Team
      • Booker T. Quarterly Newspaper
      • Student Council
    • Library
    • High School Information
    • Community Service Partners
    • Backpacks
    • Metrocards / MTA Info
    • Free Microsoft Software
    • Dial A Teacher
  • Calendars

Black History Month 2019

Biographies shared by students during morning announcements as part of Black History Month
Picture
Picture
Known as the father of Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson was born in 1875 and died in 1950. He attended the University of Chicago, and later in 1912 received his PhD from Harvard University.

Carter devoted his life to making sure African Americans received equal rights. For example, in 1915, he helped establish the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which was a non-profit organization that dedicated its time to the study and respect of African-Americans.

In 1926, he proposed and launched the annual February observance of "Negro History Week" which was turned into Black History Month. February was chosen for the observance because of the overlap with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In 1976, this became what we now know as “Black History Month” which was made by black educators at Kent State University.

Woodson believed that education and increasing social and professional contacts between different races could reduce racism and he promoted the organized study of African-American history partially for that purpose.

Other notable actions Carter took upon himself were getting attached with the NAACP. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization made to advance justice for African Americans. In the NAACP he created a branch that black people can report any concerns that they have with their race which the NAACP can extend its operations into every part of the city."

Picture
Katherine Goble Johnson was one of the first three African-Americans students to be integrated into West Virginia University. She went on to work for NASA , putting her keen mathematical abilities to work in their research division.

Picture
Bessie Coleman worked hard in her childhood picking cotton and helping her mother with the laundry she took in. She educated herself and managed to graduate from high school. After seeing newsreels on Aviation, Coleman became interested in becoming a pilot, but no US flight schools would accept her because she was Black and female. After attending school in France, in 1921, Coleman became the firstBlack woman to earn a pilot’s license.
 
“The air is the only place free from prejudice.” Bessie Coleman
Mae Jemison – A doctor, who was the first African American woman chosen by NASA for the astronaut training program and the first African American woman to travel in space.
Picture
Benjamin Banneker – a self-educated mathematician. He was also a writer, compiler of almanacs and inventor. He constructed his own clock that struck each hour. He created puzzles that demonstrated his knowledge of trigonometry.

Picture
Garrett Morgan​ was an inventor. He first opened a sewing machine repair shop, but later went on to invent custom-made machines. One of his most famous inventions was the gas mask.

Picture
Édouard Manet, “La négresse (Portrait of Laure),” 1863
Laure
In the mid-1800s, the famous French painter Edouard Manet, painted Laure for the first time. Not much is known about Laure’s life, but the fact that she repeatedly allowed herself to be painted is extremely important for Black history because the paintings provide a rare window through which contemporary audiences can understand the role of Black women in this time period. With the scarcity of Black models as subjects in art during the 1860s, Laure carries the weight of visually representing a marginalized group of people through her portraits. If you want to learn more about Laure and see Manet’s paintings of her, the exhibit “Posing Modernity” has just moved from Columbia’s Wallach Gallery to Paris’ Musee D’Orsay and can be researched online.

Picture
Dorothy Lavinia Brown was an African American doctor, politician and one of the first Black female surgeons in the South.
 
In 1944, she enrolled at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee graduating in 1948 in the top third of her class. Brown started as an intern at Harlem Hospital in New York. With strong opposition to female surgeons, she was denied a surgical residency; but she did not let this stop her from becoming a surgeon. She went back to Meharry and got a residency there and completed it in 1954. Dorothy Brown became the first African-American female surgeon in the South.

In addition to her other firsts, in southern medicine, she also became the first single woman in Tennessee to adopt a child.
In 1966, she became the first African-American woman to be elected to the Tennessee State Legislature for a two-year term.
​

Brown spoke often on scientific, religious, medical, and political panels. . She wrote many essays and inspirational guides. She has also been given honorary degrees in Humanities from Bennett College and Cumberland University. Dorothy Brown, a pioneering Black female surgeon and Tennessee legislator, died of congestive heart failure on June 13, 2004, in Nashville.
MS54 Booker T. Washington
​103 West 107th Street
New York, NY 10025
Phone 212-678-2861
MS54 does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in admission to its programs, services, or activities, in access to them, in treatment of individuals, or in any aspect of their operations. The lack of English language skills shall not be a barrier to admission or participation in the district’s activities and programs. MS54 also does not discriminate in its hiring or employment practices.
© 2018 MS54 Booker T. Washington.  All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • Admissions
  • About MS54
    • Who Was Booker T. Washington?
    • General Information
    • Mission Statement & Vision
    • Directory
    • Early Academy / School Day Schedule
    • Curriculum >
      • Summer Assignments & Supply Lists
      • Marking Periods, Honor Roll, Late/Missed Work
      • 8th Grade Promotional and Graduation Requirements
      • HIV/AIDS Education
    • Breakfast & Lunch
    • 6th Grade Academy
    • Equity Team
    • School Based Health Center (Nurse's Office)
  • Support MS54
    • Auction
    • Annual Appeal / Phone-a-thon
    • Volunteer
    • Fundraising and Community Events
    • Shop to Benefit MS54 - Amazon / Fairway / BoxTops
    • School Store
  • PTA & SLT
    • PTA Information & Minutes
    • PTA Reimbursement Form
    • Email the PTA
    • PTA Presentations
    • Newsletter Archive
    • SLT Information & Minutes
    • Email the SLT
    • School Wellness Council
    • Community Outreach
  • For Parents
    • What to Know & Who to Call
    • Parent Handbook
    • School Forms
    • Emergency Procedures & Storm Delays
    • DOE & District Resources / News >
      • Info and News on the Proposed Changes to the Specialized High School Admissions
    • Tutor Fair January 2019
    • Email the Parent Coordinator
    • Parent Engagement Thursdays
    • Class Parent Information
    • New Parent Information
  • For Students
    • Code of Conduct >
      • Honor Code
      • Cell Phone & Electronics
      • Dress Code
    • Activities >
      • Afterschool Program
      • Boys & Girls Basketball
      • Boys & Girls Soccer Team
      • Booker T. Quarterly Newspaper
      • Student Council
    • Library
    • High School Information
    • Community Service Partners
    • Backpacks
    • Metrocards / MTA Info
    • Free Microsoft Software
    • Dial A Teacher
  • Calendars