Green and Eco-Friendly Baby Shower Ideas

Even baby showers can be environment friendly, too. As a party planner or the expectant parents, here are some baby shower party ideas to help celebrate the occasion with a green theme.

1.   Set a sustainable venue.

In line with your intention, choose the perfect setting.  If weather permits, an outdoor potluck picnic is a relaxed way to enjoy the party.  Remember also to bring containers where guests can carry home leftovers, reducing food waste.  Another fun way to eliminate the use of disposable plastic ware in a party is to host an afternoon tea, where you could ask the guests to bring their favorite tea cup and saucer.

2.  The seasoned menu

Make the most out of the available seasonal organic products by including these in your menu.  Banish excess by managing the menu well.  Consider the amount of expected guests.  Focus on a single high quality entreé and include some locally baked bread and sandwiches or side dishes made up of vegetables and fruits in season. 

3.  Gifts of green

To go with the theme, give the guests a list of suggested gifts with the invitation.  Here are some suggestions:

• A frozen meal for the expectant parents to rely upon during the first weeks of sleepless nights
• rarely used or worn-once clothes or shoes for the baby
• barely used toys
• cloth diapers or reusable diapers (make sure you include the details of the store where they can buy these)

4.  Sustainable wrapping

Encourage the guests to bring out their creativity in wrapping the gifts with sustainable gift wrappers.  Instead of traditional gift wrapping paper, they may use receiving blankets, a beautiful scarf, old paper maps, etc.  Bows and ribbons can be substituted with pine cones or wooden teething rings.

5.  Pass it on

Make the event personalized both for the receiver and the giver by asking the guests to bring along something they can pass on to the new parents, such as a book they have read to their baby, a framed picture of the mom when she was a baby, and many other ideas that have a  personal touch to it.

6.  Invitations

Online invitations are very popular now, but if you should choose to give out printed invites, use recycled paper which can also be personally decorated with environmentally friendly materials.

7.  Gather and immortalize wishes

Pass around a journal-type book where guests can write simple yet poignant messages for the mom.  This can later serve as her coffee table book of wisdom.  Well- wishes, poems,  or messages like, “What I wish most for you is…” or “Looking back, I wish I would have known…” Along with recycling, reusing, and reducing, going green is also a spiritually uplifting practice.

8.  A beautiful remembrance

Mark the occasion with a lovely, one-of-a-kind gift for the baby.  Ask the family and friends to leave a painted handprint of their palm on an oversized plant pot to be kept in the nursery.  Gather pieces of fabric and invite the guests to cut out a heart shape, write their name on it and, with a fabric glue, adhere it to a pillowcase, that the baby can use to rest on.  Don’t worry if the project looks a bit crude or imperfect, the intention already is.

 

9.  Lifelong tokens

As party favors for the guests to take home, give out packets of seeds for spring.  Better than any token will be the memories that family and friends take with them long after the party is over.  

10.  Thanking them

To make your appreciation remembered, print out pictures of the party.  Cut and glue a photo to a discarded tough cardboard and “laminate” with wide transparent tape, then attach a craft magnet to the back.  Insert this in an envelope and write “Thank you for making this day “picture-perfect.”  This personal remembrance helps preserve memories as well as the environment.

The Burrowing Owl and Its Unusual Habitat

Owls are creatures of mystery and beauty.  But the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia) is considered a comical character, having an everlasting quizzical appearance on its face. It bears bright yellow eyes, striking white eyebrows, and long featherless legs.

Some owls nest in trees, but the burrowing owl does its nesting underground. A lot of owls spend most of their time in the forests, but the burrowing owl is home on the flatlands. And while some owls live a lonesome existence, this one loves company and, as long as a dependable food supply is ready, lives in pocket-size colonies with others of its kind.

image via Wikipedia

The burrowing owl is slightly larger than a robin and weighs in at about six ounces. It is among the smallest raptors. But it makes up for its petite size with lots of attitude. While the typical owl is rather secretive, you can go up a burrowing owl without it fleeing away. Upright atop a mound close the entry to its burrow, the owl will pivot its head to look out as you begin to get closer — its eyes can not move like ours do - and, as it gets agitated, it will start to bob up and down. That's a signal you have gotten a little too close.

When the burrowing owl senses threat, aside from its distinguishing bobbing motion, it will ruffle up its feathers to look larger. Both the male and female burrowing owls could try to chase off trespassers. As a final resort, the owl, rather than flying away, will go down into its hole for safety.

Capable of digging a nest with the use of its bill and talons, the burrowing owl virtually always captures another animal's deserted hole and executes a home make over. It will utilize the former homes of prairie dogs, ground squirrels, badgers, and, in Florida, the burrows dug by tortoises and armadillos are also a favorite. The completed burrows can measure up to 8 feet long, with the real nest area as deep as 3 feet underground. Every nest burrow will have at the least one turn, and there's constantly a mound of dirt at the entryway to function as a lookout post.

The burrowing owl is much easier to spot than other owls, not only since it lives out in the open, but because it's more active on daylight hours. Trees are rarely part of its home ground, so it loves to sit on fence posts or other elevated area while looking on for flying insects or small scuttling rodents. This owl utilizes an assortment of hunting techniques: chasing and running grasshoppers and beetles over the ground, swooping downward from a perch as it spots moving target, or even getting large insects in flight. Different from other owls, the burrowing owl also would eat fruit and seeds.

image via Wikipedia

As many digging creatures (ground squirrels, prairie dogs, etc.) are regarded pests and efforts have been made to eradicate them, fewer nesting places stay on for burrowing owls to use. And because the owls require comparatively flat land as a living area (about an acre per owl), they're frequently forced to contend with others needing the same environment — housing developers and farmers.

Luckily, they're moderately patient of the presence of persons. Burrowing owls have turned out to be more difficult to find, but it is worth the effort. Among the ways we locate them is by gradually driving little-used roads through and through agricultural areas where irrigation canals surround the pavement. The owls occasionally nest in holes in the canal walls and utilize the top of the wall as a lookout.

Up until 1975, burrowing owls were quite commonly seen in many states on the western side of Mississippi Valley, California, and in Canada.  In the last decades, beginning in the 1980s, a steady decline in the number of burrowing owls has been observed.  This is mainly due to the continuous loss of their habitat brought about by urban and agricultural developments especially in flat land areas. 

With the loss of habitat, these owls have been trying to adapt to whatever available areas they could find.  Nowadays, one may be lucky enough to find a burrowing owl.  Some have seen them nesting in irrigation canal walls, and abandoned pipes

References:

Birds of the World by Jason A. Mobley

Bizarre Birds by Jonathan P. Latimer and Karen Stray Nolting

Owls of the United States and Canada By Wayne Lynch

Urban Wilderness: When Humans and Wild Animals Become Neighbors

The wild creatures that occupy the urban wilderness are not like the wild creatures that live in the natural wilderness away from people. They won't eat the same food drink from the same streams, climb the same trees, build their nests from the same materials, den in the same hollows or interact with man in the same manner as normal wild animals do. While they may look alike, keep in mind that they're not the same, at least not in their manner of thinking or habits.

Not all species can adapt in the city’s urban wilderness, and those that do are perhaps altered forever. Is this what we have to anticipate in the near future as the last few left over open spaces are reduced down to stamp-size plots? If we wish to keep a healthy, workable wild population of all the creatures found in the natural, unexploited environment, there have to be enough wild spaces to accommodate the broad range of biological diversity. To have the best of all worlds, there must be large protected areas where man and wildlife don't ever commingle.

image source

It's nice to see wildlife living in the city. Some enjoy feeding the birds from backyard feeders, and it's fun to spy a turkey vulture gliding over the house and a skunk tottering down the street when leaving for work in the morning. But is it truly a good thing that these wild creatures live here, in such close proximity to people? It is otherwise not natural for a few of these animals to have these types of interactions.

The wild animals that currently live in our artificial suburban and urban wilderness give us an unequaled opportunity to study and observe them, which should be done. And not just in a conversational, casual, random way. It must be required that biologists and ecologists and other scientists to check out these unique backyard relationships that are happening around where we live so we can determine what becomes of all these different wild species when we come in their natural habitats and remold them for our own use.

As we take part in the arduous process of attempting to figure all this out, we also have to take a long, mindful look at how we humans supervise ourselves. Otherwise, we could well become one with the very creatures we are straining to save. And if that materializes, what new wilderness would we humans discover ourselves forced to live in, and who (or what) would attempt to save us?

How to Keep Raccoons Out of Your Yard

 Urban raccoons get it good having their very own lawns full of scrumptious earthworms and tasty beetles, hot tubs, swimming pools, and free showers (sprinklers) to wash in before they go to bed before the sun rises.

When raccoons are not digging into your pile of garbage to check if last night's dinner fits their taste or sniffling for the tree frogs in your geraniums, they could be sleeping in hollow trees, attics, unused basements, or inside the cool storm drains in the summer when it is not raining. If they get bored, they sneak in via the cat door and rummage through your kitchen cabinets to see what sort of dry breakfast foods you've got. Suburban raccoons grow a lot larger than their wilder country cousins since they eat the very same fattening foods that we humans consume.

 

Here are a few tips on how to deal with raccoons

•           Do not feed the raccoons. You'll be helping to make them tamer than they already are. You'll also be teaching them to depend on humans for food rather than learning to scrounge and hunt naturally.

•           Address their lawn rolling humanely. Throughout the fall, winter, and spring months, raccoons would prowl your front and backyards searching for earthworms, lawn beetle larvae, and other tasty critters that inhabit your lawn. They forage along the grass using their hand-like paws, bundling up huge strips of your lawn by doing this. The impact can be rather shocking when you open your back door and look into the remains of your lawn the next morning. There are several ways to deal humanely with raccoon lawn rollers. Among the best solutions is the Scarecrow brand motion-activated sprinkler, which you can but at many hardware and garden supply stores. When raccoons, deer, skunks, and your neighbor's cat are observed by the sprinkler's optic sensor, it shoots a harmless but surprising blast of water at them, typically scaring them off. Then it resets and waits for the next intruder.

A swift and dirty way to protect your lawn of raiding raccoons is to get a roll of chicken wire from the hardware store and just roll it over the area of the lawn where the raccoons are digging.  Stake it down with wooden pegs. Once the raccoons can not get to your lawn, they will go bother your neighbors. You can leave it on lawn permanently. When the grass grows up through the wire mesh, just mow it.

 •          Clean up rooftop bathrooms. Shake roofs are usually the raccoon outhouses of choice. For some reason, raccoons choose to do their flushing on rooftops. This can actually be a serious problem. The first thing is to dispose of the feces (use gloves, wear mask and use plastic bags to contain their feces) and hose down to clean up the area. Raccoons can carry a kind of roundworm that can be passed along to humans. Then spray a dog repellant and leave them around the problem area. 

Study Tips to Avoid Mental Block

A mental block is defined as the failure to continue a train of thought. It is often described as a temporary inability to recall a name or other information. Here are practical tips on avoiding mental block.

1. Have a preview of your lesson by reading ahead what your teacher may discuss in the near future.

2. As you read you may mark or underline important points.

3. Pause for a while and review in your mind, using your own words, what you have understood.

4. After reading and understanding the whole chapter/ subject matter, take down notes.

5. In your note taking, use some symbols (“retrieval cues) which would help you retrieve of recall what you have studied.

6. Review your notes night after night and discuss them with others. You may read other references.

7. You may scan your notes the night before the exam, but make sure you get enough sleep of at least 7-8 hours.

8. After waking up early in the morning, meditate or have a devotion to pray, looking at the bright side of life. Sing joyfully while taking a shower. Eat a good breakfast with less carbohydrates and more protein.

9. Be confident believing that you have done your best and now you are ready for the exam. Never cram. Give your mind enough rest.

10. During the test, answer the easy items first and then go back to the difficult ones later. This time you can use your “retrieval cues.”

Teaching Children to Enjoy Dental Visits

Many people don’t enjoy dental visits, yet there is an increasing number of children who anticipate their appointments as excitedly as if they were going to the park. These children began their visits at an early age before serious problems occurred. They view their dentist as a friend.


By the age of three, all twenty of the deciduous, or primary, teeth have emerged.  This is the time the first appointment should be scheduled.  The initial visit, while establishing a positive attitude toward dentistry that will last a lifetime, is also essential for the child’s general health.

Healthy teeth contribute favourably to the child’s attitude about himself and the dentist.  The primary teeth should be cared for as diligently as permanent teeth. They serve the same functions and aid in the good health of the permanent teeth.  They affect speech and appearance and enable chewing of foods necessary for good nutrition.  Another reason for taking care of primary teeth is that children who are victims of dental neglect often avoid foods that are difficult or painful to chew.  This results in improper nourishment.  In addition, primary teeth maintain spaces for the permanent teeth and aid in the proper growth of the child’s jaw.

In making your child’s first dental appointment, choose a time early in the morning after the child has had sufficient rest.  Avoid scheduling the initial visit around an emotional experience such as the birth of a new brother or sister.  The dental appointment can further confuse a child already upset by this kind of change in his life.
Most of children’s fear of dental visits originate at home or are based on what parents tell them.  Never threaten a child with dentistry or use it as a means of punishment.  Neither should you bribe the child to cooperate, because he equates bribery with unpleasantness.  Refrain from discussion or display of anxiety in the child’s presence, particularly at the dental office.
A child’s positive outlook about dentistry, early visits, and regular checkups are as important as correct home care.  Parental enthusiasm is the key to ensuring your child’s happiness with the dentist, which will in turn please the dentist with a well-mannered, eager new patient.

Lessons We Learn From Life's Darkness

Darkness in life is like a cocoon to a butterfly. As nature has its painful way of strengthening or developing a butterfly in order to prepare it for the life outside, we as persons gain strength when we struggle through the darkness of a life crisis. Dark times often become our ‘cocoon’ which God uses to strengthen us.

Here are lessons we can learn from darkness:

In the darkness we yield control of our lives.
Our society places a high value on independence, self sufficiency, and achievement. While those can be positives, they can also keep us from trusting God in our lives. It is in darkness when we let go, when we have no one to turn to and we have exhausted all our resources, we search for a higher being beyond our abilities.
In the darkness we learn the value of light.

Often the blessings received and enjoyed are taken for granted until there is deprivation. The sheer contrast of light and dark, good and bad, positive and negative is what makes it possible to deeply appreciate the beauty of the light. “The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome,” says Helen Keller. “The hilltop hour would not be so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

In the darkness our sense of compassion is heightened.

“A deep distress has humanized my soul,” wrote William Wordsworth. Those who emerge from a dark and difficult time often have a deeper desire to help others who are suffering. There is a strong sense that the suffering should not be wasted. When we have been through a crisis situation and have survived, helping others overcome a situation similar to what we have been through does not seem to be a burdensome thing to do.

In the darkness we learn more readily.

There is a vast difference between intellectual awareness of truth which pierces the heart through an experience of darkness. “Truth which is told is quick to be forgotten; truth which is discovered lasts a lifetime,” writes Biblical scholar William Barclay. A time of darkness is often when our greatest growth and learning takes place. It is in the dark valley where we simplify life, clarify values, sort out priorities, and discover which friends are true and which friends are not.
In darkness we are more open to God.

The opportunity of seeing clearly is absent in the darkness. Because our vision is blurred, our mind is confused and our spirit is hurting, we turn to turn to God with a great hunger. We turn to seek a higher being who may be able to know the purpose or end result of our bleak situation. We seek hope, and if there is none to be seen in all elements in our life, we soon realize that there is a God who will give it to us and who understands what we are going through.

In the darkness we learn to live by faith not merely by sight.

During the dark and difficult times we acknowledge our helplessness and turn our lives over to God’s care and guidance. It is a common irony that people, after they have struggled and fought with what they think is the right way, and still lose the battle, will then try to put everything in God’s hands. What if we remember to trust God first? He is in control of everything in the first place. We often forget that fact.
In the darkness we become less judgmental.

Troubles, trials, and tragedies reveal our vulnerability and weakness. Those times strip us of arrogance making us less judgmental of others. Most of us become more accepting, understanding, and kind after we have been through a fiery trial.

Finally it is from the darkness that we emerge stronger, wiser, and more resilient. It is when we are falling into the depths that we experience the majesty and power of God’s promises. In the biography film The Hiding Place, Betsie Ten Boom said to Corrie, her sister that “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” – a statement of faith of God’s timeless and boundless love.

Internet Safety Tips When Your Child Wants to Blog

Blogs are increasing in popularity not only among adults but with teens and children as well. Children are also more and more getting interested in blogging. With the growing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, blogging has grown to be another new hobby. Internet users have a variety of options available to them for publishing and maintaining a journal online. Because children are exposed to a variety of blogs accessible online on a daily basis, it is not unusual that they may be influenced to make one of their own, too.

Read more: Internet Safety Tips When Your Child Wants to Blog

How to Deal With Infant Colic

Colic is not some strange disease that you should worry about. As a matter of fact, it is really rather common especially to infants who are barely a year old. Still, the constant screaming and fidgeting can worry many parents, specially if this is the first time that they have came across such a problem. After all constant crying could be the result of a lot of things not just a colic.
This is the reason why it's crucial for parents to understand just what colic is and to recognize its signs and symptoms.

Read more:  How to Deal With Infant Colic

The Benefits of Being a Work At Home Parent

The practice of incorporating entrepreneurship with parenting has been practiced throughout history especially since the era of merchants and artisans flourished. This class of entrepreneurs worked closer to their households, with children present in the work setting. Times changed during the historical circumstances such as the Industrial Revolution when children were expected to stay away from their parent's places of work. However, the present economic trends and circumstances brought demands for dual working parents. Many social consequences as a result of lack of responsible parenthood due to the absence of parents, compelled many people to choose to stay at home. This gave rise to the concept of career and family balance which makes the work at home parenting concept a practical and sensible proposition.

Read more:  The Benefits of Being a Work At Home Parent

Family Time Activities: Yard Sports

It is normal that sometimes, people get bored, and burned out. You may be in dire need of a hobby or pastime.  Why not try sports activities to get your heart pumping lively again and help you get back in good shape?  Not only will you be having good exercise but you will be leading off a valuable family past time.  Doing sports activities is a perfect way to spend time with your kids.  So perhaps it’s about time you get up from your computer desk, and go outside for some sports activities.
Read more: Family Time Activities: Yard Sports 

Tsunami Warning by Taylor Morrison: A Book Review

The Tsunami Warning written by Taylor Morrison published by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (April 30, 2007) is a book highly recommended for readers between the ages 9 -12.

It revealed the factual unveiling of the deficiency in tsunami detection and warning systems particularly in the countries along the coast of the Indian Ocean including the Atlantic coast of the US.  The disastrous 2004 tsunami along the Indian Ocean coastline became a grim reminder for governments of various nations to set up warning systems for tsunamis.  Along the Pacific Coast, a sensor was installed way back in 1946 after a tsunami struck Hilo, Hawaii. 

In this book Taylor Morrison also mentions the earthquake in the Aleutian Island that precedes the tsunami that struck Hawaii without a warning in 1946.  Tracing back further a few hours back, the wave that moved toward Hawaii originated from Unimak Island, Alaska particularly from the destruction of Scotch Cap Lighthouse. This book offered some information on the operational tsunami warning systems during the time which eventually prompted the Coast and Geodetic Survey to further develop a better warning system.
The graphics used in the book are reminiscent of the 1940 popular visual art style distinguishable by its palette of green, gray, and black differing from the typically bright colored children’s books commonly found on the bookstore racks.

It revolves around the themes of environmentalism, engineering developments, and the power of Nature’s fury presented in a very effective writing style.

Black History: The Harlem Renaissance

The pursuit for freedom and equality for African Americans has been defended on numerous fronts.  But there's no question that in the arena of the arts, the share of black America has been so fundamental that it has greatly comforted racial tensions and shifted the image of black culture deeply in the eyes of all Americans.  Several have criticized the world of such black performing artists like Bill Cosby, Richard Prior and Eddie Murphy. But these creative people together with artists in literature, poetry, painting, music and all the arts have imparted an acceptance of black culture that has promoted the appreciation of African Americans by all individuals more than anything else ever can do.

Read more:  Black History: The Harlem Renaissance
 

The Triumph of Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics

There have been several truly memorable moments in black history where the conspicuous incorrectness of racial discrimination has been dramatically put on display. The 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany might be one of the most dramatic because of what the madman wanted to happen and what actually happened.

Hitler was delighted to host the Olympics because he felt it was a chance to put on display one of his center philosophical concepts which was the superiority of the Aryan race. Or to put it more bluntly, Hitler desired to show the superiority of the white man on the Olympic fields. Retrospecting on his arrogance, and knowing what we do today, you marvel how he could have been so profoundly wrong about something. But if he had never questioned that theory, he should have granted it serious review after the Berlin Olympics.

Read more:  The Triumph of Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics
 

The Legacy of Rosa Parks

In any great movement which brings about great change in a nation or a people, there is something called a watershed moment. A watershed moment is that one signature event that activated the onslaught of great and historic change. In American history, that watershed moment could be the Boston Tea Party. But in the context of black history, particularly when we take into account the central role that the civil rights movement has played in black history in this country, there’s really just one watershed instance that nearly anybody who understands black history will point to.

That event happened on December 1, 1955 on a simple city bus when a black woman by the name of Rosa Parks got on that bus.  When the bus turned crowded, the bus driver ordered Ms. Parks to give up her seat to a white man as was the cultural order of things at that time.  But Rosa Parks was not concerned in seeing that cultural order of things continue.  She refused to give up that seat. 

The explosion of outrage and social change that was brought out by that one simple act of civil disobedience is the watershed moment that anybody affected by the civil rights movement points to at the most significant event in modern black history.  Rosa Parks was apprehended for not giving her seat up that day and the trial for that act of civil disobedience brought in to the national spotlight another important leader in the civil rights movement by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

This single event began to intensify and gather energy in the black community.  It was a stirring and somewhat frightening time as the black community was energized and began to organize around these two brave leaders and the result was the most powerful civil rights protests in the history of the movement came about which pertained be known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

There are numerous reasons why such a simple event has had so much powerful effect on a people like it did on the black community of the 1950s.  Undoubtedly the frustration and gathering power of a movement was already building up in the black community.  A situation like this can best be identified as a tinderbox that is just awaiting for a spark for it to explode into fire.  Once that simple black woman ultimately decided that she was no longer going to live in servitude to the white man and she placed her foot down and said NO, and that was the spark that set the civil rights movement in motion.

Rosa Parks wasn't a trained instigator or a skilled manipulator of organizations.  Because she was merely a citizen and a simple woman with simple every day needs, that itself was a potent statement that this was the time for the community to take action and bring about change.  She wasn't even looking to start a nation changing civil rights movement when she turned down to give up her bus seat.  As she said afterwards in an interview about the event…

"I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen of Montgomery, Alabama.”  Then, in her autobiography, "My Story" she expounded that…  “People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true.  I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day.  I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then.  I was forty-two.  No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”

Rosa Parks gained the right to be treated as a human being for herself and for her people across America and even around the world with her simple act of civil disobedience.  She is an inspiration to us all that we likewise must demand the right of simple human dignity for all people who are citizens of this great land.  And the story of Rosa Park’s audacity shows that if we assert what is right, then we may succeed.

The Legacy of George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver proved his leadership by contributing to the welfare of his people, doing something that would last generations down the line.  His unselfish spirit became an inspiration to all of humanity.

George Washington Carver is probably most well recognized for his breakthroughs on the use of the peanut.  Although it’s a fact that Carver was credited with more than 300 discoveries on the new and various uses for the common peanut, his concepts did not stop there.  He carried on with his researches to discover significant uses for the other common agricultural products such as the soybeans, sweet potato, and pecans.

Read more:  The Legacy of George Washington Carver 

 

The Inspiring Legacy of Thurgood Marshall

There can be no more phenomenal instance in the life of Thurgood Marshall or in black history itself as during 1967, President Lyndon Johnson ordained Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. This appointment exemplified a long uphill climb to see African American leaders assume important roles of influence in the local, state and federal governments all-over America. For all of the fierce social protests and struggles “on the streets” in the 1960s and 1970s headed by celebrated black leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, it can be contended that the lasting influence Thurgood Marshall in his time on the Supreme Court caused just as much impact to enhance the lives of black Americans as any different leader of his time.

While you look at the time frame that Thurgood Marshall exhibited his leadership at a national level, this was a landmark time period in which he made great steps to take this country from one still being impacted by the attitudes and social systems of slavery and a past full of discrimination to a society on a bright path to turn into a truly integrated society of the future.

Read more:  The Inspiring Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
 

Black History: Thirteenth Amendment - Abolition of Slavery

 Retrospecting on it now, it’s virtually amazing to any modern American that we ever called for something like The Thirteenth Amendment. The very fact that the United States government had to call for this step to outlaw slavery in this country once and for all tells us that the more emancipated way we think in modern times wasn’t always the way life was considered just a few hundred years ago. In light of the long uphill scramble black history in this country represents, it is worthwhile to look back at this elementary but powerful amendment which plainly states…
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Read more:  Black History: Thirteenth Amendment - Abolition of Slavery

The Fifteenth Amendment and Equal Protection of US Citizens

As the Civil War came to an end, it was crucial to take the big achievements and transition them into the law of the land before any ground was lost as reconstruction brought back the nation to one country instead of two warring parties.  The turmoil of society that the abolition of slavery symbolized and the monumental surge forward for black history was so important that it was crucial to make it permanent with amendments to the constitution so the gains built during that bloody battle wouldn't be lost again.

Read more:  The Fifteenth Amendment and Equal Protection of US Citizens

Some Heroic Achievements of Black American Soldiers in US History

The legacy of military heroism and accomplishment by African Americans is in truth a source of pride for African Americans in all walks of life.  But the changes the military has gone through to live with the presence of black men in uniform has very much mirrored the conflicts for integration in society at large. 

The account of truly heroic achievements by African American soldiers is much as honorable as any in military history.  They include…

*          March 3, 1770 – The very first American to die in the Revolutionary war was a black soldier named Crispus Attucks.  He was killed when British soldiers fired on a peaceful gathering in Boston, Massachusetts beginning the war that lead to America’s independence.

*          In World War II – Vernon J. Baker assumed leadership in assaulting dug in German machine gun emplacements destroying 6 and killing twenty six German soldiers.  He received the Congressional Metal of Honor for his courage.

*          December 7, 1941 – On the horrendous Pearl Harbor attacks, a black galley cook by the name of Dorie Miller on board the USS West Virginia rushed to the deck as his fellow soldiers lay injured and dying all around him.  He valiantly took charge of the machine gun emplacement on the deck and fought off the dive bombers keeping them from further killing and injuring his comrades in arms.  For his bravery, Dorie Miller received the first Silver Star of World War II.

These are just a couple of the hundreds of stories of courage and great service to country made by black men throughout America’s history.  Inside the military, racial prejudice has long gone by the wayside because when men endure side by side in battle, they're brothers first, fellow soldiers second and people of race a remote third if at all.  Battles have a way of equalizing all men and true soldiers know that.  So the military has been a chance to cultivate equality and acceptance since it is a culture where being a good solider is constantly more significant than any petty prejudices any man may carry.

But it took longer for the armed forces as an institution to catch up with what soldiers knew instinctively on the battlefield – that all men are equal when they're brothers in arms.  Finally on July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order Number 9981 which declared in no uncertain terms what the U.S. Military’s policy was bearing on racial segregations…

"It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale."

We can be thankful for fearless leadership such as President Truman’s and for the leadership of the military establishment to lay out the tone for the eventual social condemnation of segregation.  While it is too bad that American has had to sustain an army to fight her enemies over the centuries, there's no question that the high ethical and moral conduct that is necessary for military men to perform in combat follows those men into society when their service to their country is done. 

And that is among the many reasons that the integration of the military dictated that not only would racism no longer be allowed by the American military, it would soon be deemed ignorant and unacceptable in American society as well.  While there's still work to be done to make that dream a fact, achievements like these we have laid the groundwork for a better world of integration for all American citizens.

Great Moments In Black History

Black History: The Legendary Harriet Tubman

Sometimes when we think of legionary outlaws who devoted their life efforts to help a downtrodden and persecuted people, figures like Robin Hood or some other dashing male hero comes to mind.  In black history, we really have such a character but this champion of her people didn't ride the forests with merry men.  Harriet Tubman, a modest and diminutive black woman truly measures up as such a profoundly legendary figure that her efforts would rival Robin Hood’s or any other hero of cultural legend.  Its a small wonder she was often pertained to as “Moses of her People.”

Harriett Tubman was born in 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland to a slave family of the estate owned by Anthony Thompson.  During her slave years, she bore many hardships and cruel treatment which left her with scars and even as susceptibleness to epileptic seizures that resulted from a head injury.  It was usual for slaves to change hands and that was part of Harriet’s life as well.  Finally in 1849, she escaped to freedom but she by far didn't run away from her people.

In the next few years Harriet Tubman became a true warrior for the redemption of her people who were locked away in slavery.  Harriet did not just find a safe place and count her blessings for making it to freedom.  She figured the need for the Underground Railroad in the salvation of hundreds of those a lot like her and it became her life’s mission to preserve the regional stations of that railroad for as long as it required to give liberty to all who had the bravery to flee slavery via that resource.

Harriet Tubman demonstrated the kind of courage, resourcefulness and intellect that a field general for any army would be proud to boast.  When totaled, Tubmen lead 13 separate missions to bring African Americans to freedom along the Underground Railroad. That implies that she personally lead over seventy slaves to freedom and had a solid influence on the freeing of at least that many more.  And by holding the Underground Railroad operational and out of the reach of slave hunters and authorities who tried to shut it down, she indirectly was influential in the redemption of hundreds, possibly thousands more.  Who can say how many prosperous and influential black families in this country nowadays owe the lives of their ancestors and the success they have accomplished since those dark days to the brave work of Harriet Tubman.

When Civil War came, Harriet did not retire gratified that she had done her work for her people.  She continued to work inexhaustibly for abolitionist movements and to do her part for the war effort.  She became among the first ever female spies for the North during the war and her military skills were so well developed that she actually was installed in a position of leadership to command the raid on Combahee Ferry in 1863.
After the Civil War was over, Harriet Tubman carried on her work on behalf of abolitionist movements and for women’s rights until she retired to pen her memoirs.  Her contribution during this pivotal time in black history was so venerated that the US Postal Service honored her with a stamp in 1978.
There have been several heroes and heroines in the long uphill struggle for liberation, equality, and freedom for African Americans in this country.  During this barbarous time when Harriet Tubman stood in the gap for her people, the plight of black Americans was as much life-or-death as any other time in history.  Small wonder her name is revered as among the icons of the fight for freedom before the Civil War.  And small wonder she was referred to as Moses to Her People and will be thought of in that way for generations to come.

Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom