African American History

Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) was an American historian, a scholar and the founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson was instrumental in launching Negro History Week in 1926.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped shape the nation. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible part of our country's history.

This year's theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical scholars and health care providers. The theme is especially timely as we enter the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and placed unique burdens on Black health care professionals.

"There is no American history without African American history," said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in "everything we think of as 'American history.' "

First, there was Negro History Week.  Critics have long argued that Black history should be taught and celebrated year-round, not just during one month each year.

It was Carter G. Woodson, the "father of Black history," who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915. (ASNLH later became ASALH.)

The idea wasn't to place limitations but really to focus and broaden the nation's consciousness.  "Woodson's goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history in the field of history a 'serious area of study,' " said Albert Broussard, a professor of Afro-American history at Texas A&M University.

The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.  READ MORE...

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Black History Months Facts

1) The current population of Black and African Americans makes up 46.9 million, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. Also, 89.4% of African Americans age 25 and older had a high school diploma or higher in 2020, as Fox10 Phoenix reported.

2) A founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History organization, Carter G. Woodson, first had the idea of this month-long celebration. Woodson was born in 1875 to newly freed Virginia slaves. He later earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He worried that Black children were not being taught about their ancestors’ achievements in American schools in the early 1900s, as Fox 10 noted.

3) By the late 1960s, Negro History Week — the precursor for this month's celebrations and events — changed into what is now known as Black History Month.

4) The month of February was picked for Black History Month because it contained the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and Douglass, a former slave who did not know his precise birthday, celebrated his date of birth on Feb. 14.

5) ASALH has celebrated Negro History Week and Black History Month for 95 years.

6) Fifty years after the first celebrations, then-President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month at the country's 1976 bicentennial. Ford called on Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history," as History.com noted.

7) Forty years after Ford's recognition of Black History Month, then-President Barack Obama delivered this message, in part, from the White House: "Black History Month shouldn't be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes … It's about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans."

8) Canada also commemorates Black History Month in February.

9) At the time of Negro History Week's launch in 1926, Woodson believed the teaching of Black history was key to the physical and intellectual survival of the race within society: "If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated," he said in part, as the Journal of Negro History reported.

10) While this year's theme for Black History Month is Black health and wellness, past themes have included the family, Black migrations, and Black women in American culture and history, among others.

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A Proclomation on Black History Month, 2022

THE WHITE HOUSE

Each February, National Black History Month serves as both a celebration and a powerful reminder that Black history is American history, Black culture is American culture, and Black stories are essential to the ongoing story of America — our faults, our struggles, our progress, and our aspirations. Shining a light on Black history today is as important to understanding ourselves and growing stronger as a Nation as it has ever been. That is why it is essential that we take time to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of Black Americans, honor the legacies and achievements of generations past, reckon with centuries of injustice, and confront those injustices that still fester today.

Our Nation was founded on an idea: that all of us are created equal and deserve to be treated with equal dignity throughout our lives. It is a promise we have never fully lived up to but one that we have never, ever walked away from. The long shadows of slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining — and the blight of systemic racism that still diminishes our Nation today — hold America back from reaching our full promise and potential. But by facing those tragedies openly and honestly and working together as one people to deliver on America’s promise of equity and dignity for all, we become a stronger Nation — a more perfect version of ourselves.

Across the generations, countless Black Americans have demonstrated profound moral courage and resilience to help shape our Nation for the better. Today, Black Americans lead industries and movements for change, serve our communities and our Nation at every level, and advance every field across the board, including arts and sciences, business and law, health and education, and many more. In the face of wounds and obstacles older than our Nation itself, Black Americans can be seen in every part of our society today, strengthening and uplifting all of America.

Vice President Harris and I are deeply committed to advancing equity, racial justice, and opportunity for Black Americans as we continue striving to realize America’s founding promise. That began by building a Federal Government that looks like America: including the first Black Secretary of Defense, the first Black woman to head the Office of Management and Budget, the first Black man to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the first Black woman to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development in more than 40 years, the first Black chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, a Black Ambassador representing America at the United Nations, and the first Black and South Asian Vice President in our history. We have been proud to appoint accomplished Black Americans to serve in a vast array of roles across our Administration. I am prouder still to have already nominated eight Black women to serve as Federal appellate judges — matching in just 1 year the total number of Black women who have ever served on Federal appeals courts.

My Administration has worked hard to reverse decades of underinvestment in Black communities, schools, and businesses. Both the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are making historic investments in Black America — from vaccine shots in arms to checks in families’ pockets and tax cuts for working families with children to a landmark $5.8 billion investment in and support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And in my first year in office, the American Rescue Plan provided the full Child Tax Credit to the lower income families of more than 26 million children — who are disproportionately Black — and put us on a path to cut Black child poverty in half.

As the Infrastructure Law continues to be implemented, we will expand on that progress. Lead service lines that have contaminated the water of too many homes and schools in Black communities will be removed and replaced. We will deliver high-speed internet to every community so that no Black family is left behind in the 21st century economy. Historic investments in public transportation will help more people in more neighborhoods get to where good jobs actually are quickly and safely. We will reconnect Black neighborhoods cut off from opportunity by highways that were built to brush them aside. Long-standing environmental injustices that have hit Black communities the hardest will be remediated. We will deliver major investments in Black entrepreneurs and small businesses — including making the Minority Business Development Agency permanent and seeding it with a record $110 million in new resources to help level the playing field for Black businesses.

But this is only the start. To fulfill America’s promise for all, we will work tirelessly in the year ahead to deliver on my Build Back Better agenda, bringing down the costs that families face on child care, housing, education, health care, prescription drugs, and so much more. We will continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic with equity at the center of our response. We will not rest until we have protected the foundation of our democracy: the sacred right to vote. And we will fight to keep dismantling all of those structural inequities that have served as barriers for Black families for generations.

As we celebrate National Black History Month, let us all recommit ourselves to reach for that founding promise. Let us continue to fight for the equity, opportunity, and dignity to which every Black American is due in equal measure. Let us carry forward the work to build an America that is, in the beautiful words of the poet Amanda Gorman, “Bruised, but whole — benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free.“

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 2022 as National Black History Month. I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.


JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

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Saving US Dollars in Lebanon

Lebanon's government estimates that losses in the country's insolvent banks since the onset of the currency crisis fall somewhere in the neighbourhood of $69bn [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

Beirut, Lebanon – Members of professional syndicates and anti-establishment political parties gathered outside the Beirut headquarters of Lebanon’s commercial banks’ lobby last month to take a stand against a policy that has haunted savers in the country since it plunged into a financial and economic crisis over two years ago – lirafication.

“Lirafication” describes a policy that would allow commercial banks to return depositors’ funds currently locked in United States dollar savings accounts in Lebanese pounds, also known here as lira. Depositors now fear that Lebanon will incorporate lirafication into its economic recovery plan with the International Monetary Fund to bail out the country’s insolvent banks.

“This will take us to hyperinflation,” said Hassan Moughnieh, who leads the Association of Depositors in Lebanon. “This is very bad for the Lebanese economy.”

Such concerns may be well-founded. Lebanon plans on returning less than a quarter of some $109bn in trapped US dollar deposits in its recovery plan, according to a Reuters News Agency report. Several officials involved in drafting the plan have declined to comment about the matter to Al Jazeera.

Ad hoc lirafication has been happening since the country first started sliding into crisis in August 2019, when Lebanon’s banks began to withhold deposits in US dollar accounts.

Currently, depositors can withdraw from their dollar accounts in Lebanese pounds – but at an unfavourable exchange rate that wipes out 70 percent of the market value of those dollar savings, while helping banks trim their losses and expenses.

In the absence of official capital controls, banks have implemented their own withdrawal limits, making life extremely difficult for millions of Lebanese buckling under soaring inflation and rampant unemployment.  READ MORE...

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Will Putin Shut Off Europe's Gas?

Berlin, Germany – Determining the front lines of Europe’s potential energy conflict with Russia is no mean feat. Because should Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government decide to use what analysts often call Moscow’s “gas weapon”, the fallout would impact some European Union nations far more than others.

The variations in potential impacts stem from how different national energy markets are organised and legislated.

Around 35 percent of the EU’s natural gas comes from Russia. And as political tensions have mounted around the build-up of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, there has been much discussion of whether Russia, the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas, might weaponise that dependency to get its way.

Of the 167.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas Europe imported from Russia in 2020, Germany bought the most – 56.3 billion cubic meters – followed by Italy, with 19.7 billion, and the Netherlands, with 11.2 billion.

But what really determines a country’s vulnerability to Moscow’s energy export policies is not how much it buys but what part Russian gas plays in its national energy mix.  READ MORE...

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China & Russia Block USA at UN

China and Russia have delayed a US effort at the United Nations to impose sanctions on five North Koreans in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang, diplomats said.

The move by Beijing and Moscow came before a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on North Korea on Thursday – the second in two weeks – after Pyongyang fired tactical guided missiles this week.

China and Russia, however, placed a “hold” on the United States’s proposal on Thursday, which puts it in limbo.

China told council colleagues it needed more time to study the sanctions, while Russia said more evidence was needed to back the US request, the diplomats said.

Under current UN rules, the block period can last for six months. After that, another council member can extend the block for three more months, before the proposal is permanently removed from the negotiating table.

Monday’s test was North Korea’s fourth so far this year, with two previous launches involving “hypersonic missiles” capable of high speed and manoeuvring after liftoff, and another test last Friday using a pair of short-range missiles fired from train cars.

In a joint statement, seven UN Security Council members – the US, Albania, Brazil, France, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Britain – and Japan said on Thursday that the launches “demonstrate the regime’s determination to pursue weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs at all costs, including at the expense of its own people”.

“It is extremely important that Member States take the necessary steps to implement the sanctions in their jurisdictions, or risk providing a blank check for the DPRK regime to advance its weapons program,” the statement said, using an acronym for North Korea.  READ MORE...

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Black History Month

When I think of Black History Month, I no longer think of all the Blacks that have made contributions to America like MLK Jr. and George Washington Carver; instead, I think of the following:

• The killing of George Floyd
• Defund the police
• Black Lives Matter
• Critical Race Theory
• Slavery
• Crime
• Violence
• Killing Cops
• Racism
• Blaming whites for everything

Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently has been observed in Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Wikipedia

There are so many great accomplishments of African Americans but because of all the recent pointing the finger at whites for causing the problem that supposedly exists in the USA, most Americans are looking at the current negative results rather than the positive successes...

Personally, I do not see African American or Mexican Americans, or Greek Americans or Irish Americans or Spanish Americans or Italian Americans...  I see AMERICANS...  and, until the rest of you make this transition, then we will continue to remain DIVIDED...

And Down They Come

Millionaire Statistics

• The United States added 2,251,000 new millionaires from 2019 to 2020.
• The total number of millionaires in the US is 20.27 million.
• There are 788 billionaires in the United States.
• There are 323,443 millionaire households in New Jersey.
• 76% of US millionaires are white.
• New York is the city with the biggest concentration of ultra-rich millionaires with 24,660 UHNW.
• The United States’ millennial millionaires own an average of three properties with a real estate portfolio worth $1.4 million.
• About 44% of US-based millennial millionaires live in California.
• 43.4% of the world’s wealth is controlled by the top 1%.

1. How many millionaires are in the US in 2020?   (Source: Credit-Suisse)
The Global Wealth Report says that the total number of millionaires in the US is 20.27 million. The United States also added 2,251,000 new millionaires from 2019 to 2020 alone, which puts it at the very top of the list of countries with the most millionaires. Since the adult US population is around 250 million, that means that just over 8% of Americans are millionaires.

2. How many US millionaire households are there?   (Source: Spectrem)
A new survey has found that there are 13.61 million households that have a net worth of $1 million or more, not including the value of their primary residence. That’s more than 10% of households in the US.

3. What percentage of millionaires inherited their wealth?   (Source: Ramsey Solutions)
Only about 20% of Americans inherit their riches.  The rest of them (80%) are self-made, first-generation millionaires. Most millionaires have to work for the money and don’t get rich once a relative dies, according to “The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy” by Thomas J Stanley.

4. How many people are worth 10 million?   (Source: DQYDJ)
There are an estimated 1,456,336 households with a net worth of at least $10 million.  It is important to note that we are talking about a household, not an individual. So there may be more than one person earning in a single household.

5. How many multi-millionaires are in the US?   (Source: DQYDJ)
About 8,046,080 US households have a net worth of $2 million or more, covering about 6.25% of American households. 5,671,005 US households have a net worth of $3 million or more, covering about 4.41% of all US households.

6. How many multi-millionaires in the US have $50 million net assets? (Source: Credit-Suisse)
There are a total of 89,510 people in the United States with net assets of at least $50 million. This number equals 50.9% of the ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals over the world.

7. How many billionaires in the US are there?   (Source: Wealth-X)
According to a census report in 2020, there are 788 billionaires in the United States with a combined net worth of $3.431 trillion. In contrast, the United States had 404 billionaires in 2010.

8. How many millionaires are in Congress?   (Source: Center for Responsive Politics)
There are 229 millionaires in Congress. The exact number is hard to determine since Congress members reveal their finances in ranges. But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 43% of congress members had a net worth of over $1 million in 2018. That’s 43%, over seven times the national rate of 6%.

9. What is the average age of US millionaires?   (Source: Spectrem)
According to a report about the US millionaire population by age, the average age of US millionaires is 62 years old. About 38% of US millionaires are over 65 years of age. Only 1% are below 35. Millionaires on the West Coast are slightly older, as well.

10. What is the percentage of millionaires in America by race?   (Source: Statista)
According to the most recent data available, 76% of US millionaires were white or Caucasian. Black American and Asian millionaires each accounted for just 8%. Hispanics made up 7% of the total millionaire population.

11. What is the average age of US billionaires?   (Source: Wealth-X)
The average age of billionaires is slightly higher than that of millionaires at 65.9 years old. According to a 2016 report, only 46 people became billionaires before the age of 40. This further reaffirms that billionaires are not made overnight but are built through experience and time.

12. What is the average millennial millionaire’s net worth?   (Source: Coldwell Banker)
There are 618,000 millennial millionaires in the United States, and 93% of them have a net worth ranging from $1 to $2.49 million.  The boomers’ generation was the richest generation in the history of the United States. They are leaving huge piles of wealth to their Gen X and millennial descendants. However, many of these millennials are earning good money all by themselves as well.

13. What percentage of US wealth is managed by millionaires?   (Source: Federal Reserve)
According to the Federal Reserve, the top 10% in the US own 69.6% of the nation’s wealth. If you need a clearer example of financial inequality you just need to know that around a third of the US wealth (31.4%) is owned by the top 1%, which is almost 16 times more than the bottom 50% who own 2% of it.

14. How long did it take Billionaires to Earn Their First Million?   (Source: Visual Capitalist)
Most self-made billionaires earned their first million dollars within five years. Out of the top 100 billionaires in the world, over two-thirds (69%) made their first million in under ten years.

15. Which state has the highest percentage of millionaires?   (Source: Kiplinger)
According to a 2020 report, New Jersey wrested the top spot from Maryland when it comes to millionaire per capita. There are 323,443 millionaire households in New Jersey, thanks to its proximity to the Big Apple. With that concentration of wealth, it’s not surprising that the cost of living in the state is 13.4% higher than the US average.

16. Which state has the highest number of billionaires?   (Source: Forbes)
While California takes the lead here with 189 billionaires, the wealthiest Americans don’t live in these two states, Mark Zuckerberg being the only exception.  Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates both live in Washington, while Warren Buffett resides in Nebraska, and Elon Musk recently moved to Texas.

17. Where do millionaires invest their money?   (Source: The College Investor)
Investing in real estate is still the most popular of all millionaire investment and spending choices. For over 200 years, approximately 90% of the global millionaires have been spending their fortunes on real estate investments. This trend is expected to grow.

18. Which US city has the highest number of UHNW people?   (Source: Wealth-X)
New York is the city with the highest concentration of ultra-rich millionaires, with 24,660 UHNW. The second spot belongs to Los Angeles, with 16,295 millionaires. San Francisco is third, with 6,740 millionaires. Chicago and Miami take the fourth and fifth positions with 6,085 and 5,615 UHNW individuals, respectively.

19. How many properties are owned by the average American millionaire?   (Source: Statista)
The largest fraction (43%) of millionaires in the US owns only one house. Roughly 20% own two, and only 8.5% of them own five or more.  When it comes to millennial millionaires, they own an average of three properties with a real estate portfolio worth $1.4 million.

20. Which industries have the most UHNW individuals?   (Source: Wealth-X)
The finance and investment industry is definitely the industry with the most millionaires and UHNW people. Roughly 14% of all UHNW individuals engage in it as their primary industry. Industrial conglomerates come in second, with 9.1%, and they’re closely followed by the business and customer services industry at 9%.