Pragmatic Obots Unite

Shooting down firebaggers & teabaggers one truth at a time...

Thursday Open Thread – African American Cowboys

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This week’s open thread has focused on famous African American Cowboys. Today’s theme will focus an African American Cowgirl.

Mary Fields, also known as Stagecoach Mary, was the first African-American woman employed as a mail carrier in the United States, driving her mail route by stagecoach from Cascade, Montana to St. Peter’s Mission, Montana. She was only the second American woman in all to work for the United States Postal Service. Born a slave circa 1832 in Hickman County, Tennessee (the exact year of her birth is uncertain) she was freed when American slavery was outlawed in 1865. For some time she worked repairing the buildings of a school for Native American girls in Montana called Saint Peter’s Mission a Catholic convent, eventually advancing to forewoman. While there, she formed a strong bond with Mother Amadeus. When the nuns moved to Montana and Mary learned of Mother Amadeus’ failing health, she went west to help out. Having nursed Mother Amadeus back to health, she decided to stay and help build the St. Peter’s mission school. She protected the nuns. Mary was a pistol-packing, hard-drinking woman, who needed nobody to fight her battles for her.

 
When turned away from the mission because of her behavior, the nuns financed her in her own business. She opened a cafe. Mary’s big heart drove her business into the ground several times because she would feed the hungry.In 1895, although approximately 60 years old, Fields was hired as a mail carrier since she was the fastest job applicant to hitch a team of six horses. She drove the route with horses and a mule named Moses and never missed a day, earning the nickname “Stagecoach” for her reliability. This was despite heavy snowfalls that sometimes made it necessary for her to deliver the mail on foot, once walking 10 miles back to the depot. When she retired she became friends with the actor Gary Cooper. She was a respected public figure in Cascade, and on her birthday each year the town closed its schools to celebrate.She died of liver failure in 1914 when she was a little bit over the age of 80.
 
 
***Information Courtesy of Wikipedia.org***

Thursday Open Thread: African-American Shoe Designers

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Good Morning Obots!
*secret handshake*

Today’s featured designer: Samanta Joseph of Samanta Shoes

When Samanta Joseph graduated with a degree in information technology several New York companies wanted her for their team.  It would have been good money but a passion for design trumped the paycheck, leading the Guyanese Native to establish Samanta Shoes in 2003.  Her husband Kelvin soon came aboard and together they’ve carved out a space for a collection both stylish and comfortable in a market often tone deaf to this need.  After doing trade shows where wholesalers sometimes place orders but fail to pay, the Josephs decided to build relationships with independent retailers who they could check out prior to extending credit.  Boutiques from here to Europe now carry the line, and if Sanaa Lathan, Rihanna, Tyra Banks and Queen Latifah are any indication of consumer demand, Samanta will be filling orders for years to come.

In the Guyanese household where Samanta Joseph grew up, she was expected to have a professional career. She studied and found work in computer information technology. Three years ago, however, Joseph, 29, decided to fulfill a designing passion she developed at 6 years old and launched Samanta Shoes with her husband, Kelvin, a CPA. But by now, she also had a mission in mind: helping professional women feel comfortable in stylish shoes. It is possible, Joseph says. “It’s all in the design.”

“Most women have flat feet, and most shoes are constructed from a high instep mold,” explains Joseph, who is also flat-footed. That forces the foot unnaturally into the narrow part of the shoe and applies pressure to the top and the ball of the foot. Samanta Shoes are made from a hybrid mold designed to accommodate a flat foot and a high instep. “It allows for more comfort and support.” The shoes are made with extra padding, and the company also has a firm rule on heel height. “We don’t go beyond three inches,” says Kelvin. “Anything over three inches has been proven to cause discomfort and the possibility of back pain.”

 

Thursday Open Thread: African-American Photographers

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The week is almost over Obots! Hang in there!

Today we look at some of the lesser known African-American Photographers featured in the Smithsonian Exhibition:  Reflections in Black – Smithsonia African American Phototpgrahy

Art and Activism
(presented at the Oakland Museum of California)

Jonathan Eubanks (active 1960s-90s), Black Panther Party member, Oakland, carrying “Free Huey” flag, Gelatin silver print, 1969
African American photographers were instrumental in motivating cultural change while documenting the beginnings of the civil rights and black power movements in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  In this section of the exhibition, marches, meetings, rallies and leading figures such as Malcolm X, H. Rap Brown and Thurgood Marshall are seen through the eyes of leading photojournalists of the day.
These decades also marked a time of new artistic approaches in photography. Some photographers moved beyond the traditional goal of objective reportage, using the power of narrative and metaphor to expand the awareness of the public and combat the negative stereotyping found in mainstream media culture.  Photographers sought to be “graphic historians,” creating a collective biography of African American people that would empower them in their struggle for civil rights, while at the same time providing evidence of the diversity of their individual histories, values and goals.

Some of the photographers included in this section are:

• Jonathan Eubanks (b. 1927), of Oakland, California, who employed a documentary style in chronicling the activities of the Black Panther Party. His photographs explore the personal worlds of party members as well as their encounters with police and the lives of their leaders.

• Chester Higgins, Jr. (b. 1946), a staff photographer for the New York Times, who has been documenting the African diaspora for more than thirty years. He is the photographer and author of several photo collections including “Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for People of Africa” (Bantam Books, 1994).
• Lewis Watts (b. 1946), a Bay Area photographer and assistant professor of art at U.C. Santa Cruz, who documents the customs and practices of African Americans living on the West Coast and in the South through photographs of their cultural landscapes — where they live, how they occupy and use space, and the traces they leave behind.
• Jean Weisinger (b. 1954), a self-taught photographer based in Oakland, California, who has traveled widely throughout the world photographing people of color, and has since the mid-1980s documented the political activities of African American women.
• Chandra McCormick (b. 1957), a native of New Orleans and a photojournalist, who has been documenting black life in Louisiana for the past 15 years. Her work has focused on sugar cane, sweet potato and cotton field workers; cultural rituals in New Orleans such as funerals and parades; and life in public housing developments.