[masterso]

I'm starting this thread so that members can list their favorite American figures of African descent. Please post a picture of the figures you admire if they haven't been posted already. Also tell us why you admire them. I'll start with a few of my own.

Buffalo Soldiers


Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The nickname was given to the "Negro Cavalry" by the Native American tribes they fought; the term eventually became synonymous with all of the African-American regiments formed in 1866.

Although several African-American regiments were raised during the Civil War to fight alongside the Union Army (including the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the many United States Colored Troops Regiments), the "Buffalo Soldiers" were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. Sources disagree on how the nickname "Buffalo Soldiers" began. According to the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, the name originated with the Cheyenne warriors in the winter of 1877, the actual Cheyenne translation being "Wild Buffalo." However, writer Walter Hill documented the account of Colonel Benjamin Grierson, who founded the 10th Cavalry regiment, recalling an 1871 campaign against Comanches. Hill attributed the origin of the name to the Comanche due to Grierson's assertions. Some sources assert that the nickname was given out of respect for the fierce fighting ability of the 10th cavalry. Other sources assert that Native Americans called the black cavalry troops "buffalo soldiers" because of their dark curly hair, which resembled a buffalo's coat. Still other sources point to a combination of both legends. The term Buffalo Soldiers became a generic term for all African-American soldiers. It is now used for U.S. Army units that trace their direct lineage back to the 9th and 10th Cavalry units whose service earned them an honored place in U.S. history.

In September 1867, Private John Randall of Troop G of the 10th Cavalry Regiment was assigned to escort two civilians on a hunting trip. The hunters suddenly became the hunted when a band of 70 Cheyenne warriors swept down on them. The two civilians quickly fell in the initial attack and Randall's horse was shot out from beneath him. Randall managed to scramble to safety behind a washout under the railroad tracks, where he fended off the attack with only his pistol until help from the nearby camp arrived. The Indians beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind 13 fallen warriors. Private Randall suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder and 11 lance wounds, but recovered. The Cheyenne quickly spread word of this new type of soldier, "who had fought like a cornered buffalo; who like a buffalo had suffered wound after wound, yet had not died; and who like a buffalo had a thick and shaggy mane of hair." Chuck Berry


Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics focusing on teen life and consumerism and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. A pioneer of rock music, Berry was a significant influence on the development of both the music and the attitude associated with the rock music lifestyle. With songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), Chuck Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, with lyrics successfully aimed to appeal to the early teenage market by using graphic and humorous descriptions of teen dances, fast cars, high-school life, and consumer culture, and utilizing guitar solos and showmanship that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music. His records are a rich storehouse of the essential lyrical, showmanship and musical components of rock and roll; and, in addition to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, a large number of significant popular-music performers have recorded Berry's songs. Though not technically accomplished, his guitar style is distinctive – he incorporated electronic effects to mimic the sound of bottleneck blues guitarists, and drew on the influence of guitar players such as Charlie Christian, and T-Bone Walker, to produce a clear and exciting sound that many later guitar musicians would acknowledge as a major influence in their own style. In the film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll! Eric Clapton states 'If you wanna play rock and roll - or any upbeat number - and you wanted to take a guitar ride you would end up playing like Chuck...because there is very little other choice. There's not a lot of other ways to play rock and roll other than the way Chuck plays it; he's really laid the law down..." In 1992 Keith Richards told Best of Guitar Player "Chuck was my man. He was the one who made me say 'I want to play guitar, Jesus Christ!'...Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do." Berry's showmanship has been influential on other rock guitar players, particularly his one-legged hop routine, and the "duck walk", which he first used as a child when he walked "stooping with full-bended knees, but with my back and head vertical" under a table to retrieve a ball and his family found it entertaining; he used it when "performing in New York for the first time and some journalist branded it the duck walk."

The rock critic Robert Christgau considers him "the greatest of the rock and rollers," while John Lennon said that "if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'." Ted Nugent said "If you don't know every Chuck Berry lick, you can't play rock guitar." Among the honors he has received, have been the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2000, and being named seventh on Time magazine's 2009 list of the 10 best electric guitar players of all-time. On May 14, 2002, Chuck Berry was honored as one of the first BMI Icons at the 50th annual BMI Pop Awards. He was presented the award along with BMI affiliates Bo Diddley and Little Richard.

Berry is included in several Rolling Stone "Greatest of All Time" lists. In September 2003, the magazine named him number 6 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". This was followed in November of the same year by his compilation album The Great Twenty-Eight being ranked 21st in the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[70] The following year, in March 2004, Berry was ranked fifth out of "The Immortals – The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In December 2004, six of his songs were included in the "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", namely "Johnny B. Goode" (# 7), "Maybellene" (# 18), "Roll Over Beethoven" (# 97), "Rock and Roll Music" (#128), "Sweet Little Sixteen" (# 272) and "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" (# 374). In June 2008, his song "Johnny B. Goode" ranked first place in the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time".

A statue 8 feet (2.4 m) tall of Berry, funded by donations, has been erected along the St. Louis Walk of Fame. The dedication ceremony attended by Berry was held on July 29, 2011.

---------- Post added 2011-12-18 at 19:25 ----------

Vivien Thomas



Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985) was an African-American surgical technician who developed the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was an assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock's experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Without any education past high school, Thomas rose above poverty and racism to become a cardiac surgery pioneer and a teacher of operative techniques to many of the country's most prominent surgeons. Vivien Thomas was the first African American without a doctorate degree to perform open heart surgery on a white patient in the United States. I discovered this great man when I watched the 2004 HBO film Something the Lord Made and was inspired by his perseverance in the face of adversity. He never felt sorry for himself. He just kept pushing.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivien_Thomas

[BalaGire]

I apologise for not being knowledgable with African-American history. When I went to school, there was little about the subject. But here are some that are my favs even if they are the mainstays.

FREDERICK DOUGLAS ; I read his book, he would trick the white kids into teaching him, (blacks could not be educated by law), to read and spell by saying "I know how to spell this _ _ _"(word he wanted)and write a bunch of letters in the dirt with a stick. "No it ain't how you spell it" they would reply, grab the stick away from him and write it in the dirt. BAM, into Fredericks memory bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass


MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr ; I like him because he wanted equality, but he wanted to do it peacefully. I also like him because in his "Dream" speach he tells how his dream had all peoples together, not the atrocities as they were before. I remember when he was shot. I couldn't believe that some people where I worked would rather not have another paid holliday than to have MLK day. (stupid)



SCOTT JOPLIN Scott Joplin was the first AA in the US to get a music contract at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. He was raised in an area and time that did not allow music education. He was taught by a German in private. He is sometimes refered to the king of RAG TIME music.
He wrote "Maple Leaf Rag", The Entertainer", "Weeping Willow" and many other tunes that are still played and played to this day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Joplin



ELIZABETH COTTON ; This is where the expression "Cotton Pickin'" comes from, not the cotton fields. This woman taught herslf to play guitar UPSIDE DOWN and bass ackwards!!! She's a south paw and flip a RH guitar. This song has been stolen in the US from almost every major performer there is, including Elvis. At 92, she ain't the girl she was but she's still in there.

[Sniliabiz]

[QUOTE=Hue-man;628197




[B]Chuck Berry[/B]



QUOTE]

Almost ANY R&R song today, pop to hip hop to metal, I don't care what genre, will have a berry lick or two if it has any guitar in it. He is the true king of rock n roll (IMO)

[kuzbaslachek]

Henry Ossawa Tanner was an African American artist best known for his style of painting. He was the first African American painter to gain international acclaim.

In 1879 Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His decision to attend the school came at an exciting time in the history of artistic institutional training. Art academies had long relied on tired notions of study devoted almost entirely to plaster cast studies and anatomy lectures. This changed drastically with the addition Thomas Eakins as “Professor of Drawing and Painting” to the Pennsylvania Academy. Eakins encouraged new methods such as study from live models, direct discussion of anatomy in male and female classes, and dissections of cadavers to further familiarity and understanding of the human body. Eakins’s progressive views and ability to excite and inspire his students would have a profound effect on Tanner. The young artist proved to be one of Eakins’s favorite students; two decades after Tanner left the Academy Eakins painted his portrait, making him one of a handful of students to be so honored. At the Academy Tanner befriended artists with whom he would keep in contact throughout the rest of his life, most notable of these being Robert Henri, one of the founders of the Ashcan School. During a relatively short time at the Academy, Tanner developed a thorough knowledge of anatomy and an ability to transfer his understanding of the weight and structure of the human figure to the canvas. Tanner is often regarded as a realist painter, focusing on accurate depictions of subjects. While his early works, such as "The Banjo Lesson" were concerned with everyday life as an African American, Tanner's later paintings focused mainly on the religious subjects for which he is now best known. It is likely that Tanner's father, a minister in the African Methodist Church, was a formative influence in this direction.

Tanner's body of work is not limited to one specific approach to painting. His works vary from meticulous attention to detail in some paintings to loose, expressive brushstrokes in others. Often both methods are employed simultaneously. The combination of these two techniques makes for a masterful balance of skillful precision and powerful expression. Tanner was also interested in the effects that color could have in a painting. Many of his paintings accentuate a specific area of the color spectrum. Warmer compositions such as "The Resurrection of Lazarus"(1896) and "The Annunciation"(1898) exude the intensity and fire of religious moments. They describe the elation of transcendence between the divine and humanity. Other paintings emphasize cooler, blue hues. Works such as "The Good Shepherd"(1903) and "Return of the Holy Women"(1904) evoke a feeling of somber religiosity and introspection. Tanner often experimented with the importance of light in a composition. The source and intensity of light and shadow in his paintings create a physical, almost tangible space and atmosphere while adding emotion and mood to the environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossawa_Tanner

[dietpillxanaxaxx]

^^^^ I've heard about the Buffalo soldiers...they should do a movie about them....

[rhiniddibiarmr]

^^^^ I've heard about the Buffalo soldiers...they should do a movie about them....

I think there was a movie called like that, but they were white.

[Gypejeva]

Some of my fave aframs:












---------- Post added 2012-01-04 at 19:33 ----------

If I were black I'd like to be like Denzel or Kravitz....... or at least as this dude:



This little fella is really cool:



---------- Post added 2012-01-04 at 19:35 ----------

I dont know if you guys consider her afram but I am inlove of this gal:

[Domovoy]

Zoe's not Afram. She's Puerto Rican and Dominican.

[MaugleeRobins]

^^^she could fiut as afram couldnt she???

[kuklame]

But her identity is Latina in the Us, she is from another culture, that is why she is not considered afram.

[MondayBlues]

^^^she could fiut as afram couldnt she???

She can pass as Afram, but this thread isn't about who can or can't fit as Afram. I created this thread to talk about the greatest Afram contributors to American (and Western) culture and history.

---------- Post added 2012-01-04 at 20:54 ----------


The Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen is the popular name of a group of African American pilots who fought in World War II. Formally, they were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American military aviators in the United States armed forces. During World War II, African Americans in many U.S. states still were subject to the Jim Crow laws. The American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subject to racial discrimination, both within and outside the army. Despite these adversities, they trained and flew with distinction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

[Obebtetibre]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgoo...ath_and_legacy

[Wvq9InTM]

micheal jordan



greatest basketball player, and the lead star in quite possibly the most ground breaking and culturally significant motion picture ever created...




























space jam.

[vNGiDaFX]

THE G.O.A.T!!!!

[wooclosmercob]

Michael Jackson:

[viagraman]

i think you can see the signs of ventiligo in his face there. his cheeks seem lighter, and pinkish. i wonder if he was covering it up with some sort of makeup etc.

[steevytraunse]

Jesse Owens


---------- Post added 2012-01-04 at 22:01 ----------



whether you like him or not .

[FelikTen]

obamas biracial though. we got dibs on half of that.










just the good half though.

[snislarne]

obamas biracial though. we got dibs on half of that.










just the good half though.

And we get dibs on the other half, He's one of us

So looks like you cannot define him as an Afram, regardless of his skin colour, his background is Anglo-Irish and Nilotic-Kenyan, so why was he put into this?

[fubyFrery]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali