1.
Oscar Micheaux
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Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an African American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. He produced both silent films and sound films when the changed to incorporate speaking actors. Micheaux was born on a farm in Metropolis, Illinois on January 2,1884 and he was the fifth child born to Calvin S. and Belle Micheaux, who had a total of 13 children. In his later years, Micheaux added an “e” to his last name and his father was born a slave in Kentucky. Because of its surname, his fathers family appears to have associated with French-descended settlers. French Huguenot refugees had settled in Virginia in 1700, their descendants took slaves west when they migrated into Kentucky after the American Revolutionary War, in his later years, Micheaux wrote about the social oppression he experienced as a young boy. To give their children education, his parents relocated to the city for better schooling, Micheaux attended a well-established school for several years before the family eventually ran into money troubles and were forced to relocate to the farm. Unhappy, Micheaux became rebellious and discontented and his struggles caused internal problems within his family. His father was not happy with him and sent him away to do marketing within the city, Micheaux found pleasure in this job because he was able to speak to many new people and learned many social skills that he would later reflect within his films. When Micheaux was 17 years old, he moved to Chicago, Illinois to live with his older brother, then working as a waiter. Micheaux became dissatisfied with what he viewed as his brother’s way of living “the good life. ”He rented his own place and found a job in the stockyards and he worked many different jobs, moving from the stockyards to the steel mills. After being “swindled out of two dollars” by an employment agency, Micheaux decided to become his own boss and his first business was a shoeshine stand, which he set up at a white suburban barbershop, away from Chicago competition. He learned the basic strategies of business and started to save money and this job was an informal education for Micheaux. He profited financially, and also gained contacts and knowledge about the world through traveling as well as an understanding for business. Micheaux moved to Dallas, South Dakota, where he bought land and this experience inspired his first novels and films. His neighbors on the frontier were all white, some recall that rarely sat at a table with his white neighbors. Micheaux’s years as a homesteader allowed him to more about human relations. While farming, Micheaux wrote articles and submitted them to the press, the Chicago Defender published one of his earliest articles
2.
Evelyn Preer
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Evelyn Preer, born Evelyn Jarvis, was a pioneering African-American stage and screen actress and blues singer of the 1910s through the early 1930s. Evelyn was known within the community as The First Lady of the Screen. She was the first black actress to earn celebrity and popularity, born Evelyn Jarvis in Vicksburg, Mississippi, she migrated with her mother to Chicago after her father died prematurely. She completed grammar and high school in the city, Jarvis began her performance career in early vaudeville and minstrel shows. She changed her surname to Preer and her first film role was in Oscar Micheauxs 1919 debut film The Homesteader, when she was 23. Micheaux promoted Preer as his leading actress with a tour of personal appearances. Her most well-known film role is in his Within Our Gates and it is the only known surviving Micheaux film to feature her, although she appeared in more of his works. Micheaux was such a film director that he has been dubbed the Father of Afro-American Cinema. Micheaux developed many of his subsequent films to showcase Preers extraordinary versatility and these included The Brute, The Gunsaulus Mystery, Deceit, Birthright, The Devil’s Disciple, The Conjure Woman and The Spider’s Web. These Micheaux titles are presumed lost, Preer was lauded by both the black and white press for her ability to continually succeed in ever more challenging roles. She was known for refusing to play roles that she believed demeaned African Americans, in 1920, Evelyn Preer joined The Lafayette Players in Chicago. The theatrical stock company was founded in 1915 by Anita Bush, a stage and film actress known as “The Little Mother of Black Drama. ”Bush and her acting troupe toured the US to bring legitimate theatre to black audiences, at a time when theatres were racially segregated by law in the South. By the mid-1920s, Preer began garnering attention from the white press and she began to appear in crossover films. In 1923, she acted in the Ethiopian Art Theatres production of The Chip Womans Fortune by Willis Richardson and this was the first dramatic play by an African-American playwright to be produced on Broadway. In 1926, Preer had a stint on Broadway in David Belasco’s production of Lulu Belle. Preer supported and understudied the actress Lenore Ulric in the role of Edward Sheldons steamy drama of a Harlem prostitute. She garnered acclaim in Sadie Thompson, in a West Coast revival of Somerset Maugham’s play about a fallen woman and she rejoined the Lafayette Players for that production in their first show in Los Angeles at the Lincoln Center. Under the leadership of Robert Levy, Preer and her colleagues performed in the first New York-style play featuring black players to be produced in California and that year she also appeared in Rain, a play adapted from Maughams short story by the same name
3.
Silent film
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A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large cities, pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise, an orchestra would play from sheet music. The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively, the early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as talkies, sound films, or talking pictures. A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent feature films are believed to be completely lost, the earliest precursors of film began with image projection through the use of a device known as the magic lantern. This utilized a glass lens, a shutter and a persistent light source, such as a powerful lantern and these slides were originally hand-painted, but still photographs were used later on after the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century. The invention of a practical photography apparatus preceded cinema by only fifty years, the next significant step towards film creation was the development of an understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. This experience was further demonstrated through Rogets introduction of the thaumatrope, the first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a horses gallop, the oldest surviving film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and Kinetoscope equipment, due to Edisons lack of securing an international patent on his film inventions, similar devices were invented around the world. The Lumière brothers, for example, created the Cinématographe in France, the Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical device than both of Edisons as it combined a camera, film processor and projector in one unit. In contrast to Edisons peepshow-style kinetoscope, which one person could watch through a viewer. Their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture, the invention of celluloid film, which was strong and flexible, greatly facilitated the making of motion pictures. This film was 35 mm wide and pulled using four sprocket holes and this doomed the cinematograph, which could only use film with just one sprocket hole. From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into maturity in the silent era. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style, the silent era was also pioneering era from a technical point of view
4.
Intertitle
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In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as dialogue intertitles, film scholar Kamilla Elliott identifies one of the earliest uses of intertitles in the 1901 British film Scrooge, or, Marleys Ghost. The first Academy Awards presentation in 1929 included an award for Best Title Writing that went to Joseph W. Farnham for no specific film, the award was never given again, as intertitles went out of common use due to the introduction of talkies. In modern film, intertitles are used to supply an epigraph, such as a poem, however, they are most commonly used as part of a historical dramas epilogue to explain what happened to the depicted characters and events after the conclusion of the story proper. The development of the soundtrack slowly eliminated their utility as a narrative device, for instance, intertitles were used as a gimmick in Frasier. The BBCs drama Threads uses them to location, date. Law & Order used them to not only the location. Guy Maddin is a filmmaker known for recreating the style of older films. Some locally produced shows, such as quiz bowl game shows, intertitles have had a long history in the area of amateur film as well. The efforts of home movie aficionados to intertitle their works post-production have led to the development of a number of approaches to the challenge. Frequently lacking access to high quality film dubbing and splicing equipment, intertitles may be printed neatly on a piece of paper, a card, or a piece of cardboard and filmed, or they may be formed from adhesive strips and affixed to glass. In the early 1980s, digital recording technology improved to the point where intertitles could be created in born-digital format, several specialty accessories from this period such as Sonys HVT-2100 Titler and cameras such as Matsushitas Quasar VK-743 and Zenith VC-1800 could be used to generate intertitles for home movies. Early 1980s video game consoles and applications catering to the scene were also adapted for the generation. Among these were included the ColecoVision, the Magnavox Odyssey², the Bally Astrocade, acknowledgment Billing Character generator Closing credits Credit Digital on-screen graphic Lower third Opening credits Subtitle Supertitle Title sequence WGA screenwriting credit system
5.
Jim Crow laws
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Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted after the Reconstruction period, these continued in force until 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in 1890 with a separate. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to available to European Americans. This body of law institutionalized a number of economic, educational, the U. S. military was also segregated, as were federal workplaces, initiated in 1913 under President Woodrow Wilson. By requiring candidates to submit photos, his administration practiced racial discrimination in hiring and these Jim Crow laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. The phrase Jim Crow Law can be found as early as 1892 in the title of a New York Times article about voting laws in the South, as a result of Rices fame, Jim Crow by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning Negro. When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation which were directed against blacks at the end of the 19th century, during the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U. S. South for freedmen, the African Americans who had formerly been slaves, extensive voter fraud was also used. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, in 1877, a national Democratic Party compromise to gain Southern support in the presidential election resulted in the governments withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, Democratic Redeemer governments legislated Jim Crow laws, grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate whites to vote but gave no relief to most blacks. Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures, in Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the states population. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0. 5% of eligible black men, in 27 of the states 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer, in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was. The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that voters were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896–1904. The growth of their middle class was slowed. Alabama had tens of thousands of poor whites disenfranchised and those who could not vote were not eligible to serve on juries and could not run for local offices. They effectively disappeared from political life, as they could not influence the state legislatures, like schools, Jim Crow public libraries were underfunded and often stocked with secondhand books and other resources
6.
Ku Klux Klan
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Historically the KKK used terrorism, both physical assault and murder, against groups or individuals whom they opposed. All three movements have called for the purification of American society, and all are considered right-wing extremist organizations, the first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South during the Reconstruction Era, with numerous chapters across the South, it was suppressed around 1871, through federal law enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes, robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be terrifying, the second group was founded in 1915, and it flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, particularly in urban areas of the Midwest and West. This second organization adopted a white costume and used code words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings. The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in the form of small, local and they have focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists. It is classified as a group by the Anti-Defamation League. As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000, the second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to Americas Anglo-Saxon blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK, the manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities, Beginning in April,1867, the members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. Although there was little organizational structure above the level, similar groups rose across the South and adopted the same name. Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement promoting resistance, for example, Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a chapter in Nashville, Tennessee. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies, it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871, the government passed the Enforcement Acts. The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives and it seriously weakened the black political establishment through its use of assassinations and threats of violence, it drove some people out of politics. Rable argues that the Klan was a failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic leaders of the South. He says, the Klan declined in strength in part because of weaknesses, its lack of central organization. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its central objective – the overthrow of Republican state governments in the South, for instance, the Red Shirts are credited with helping elect Wade Hampton as governor in South Carolina
7.
Great Migration (African American)
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The Great Migration was the movement of 5 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1915 and 1960. Until 1910, more than 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the American South, in 1900, only one-fifth of African-Americans living in the South were living in urban areas. By 1970, more than 80 percent of African-Americans lived in cities, in sheer numbers it outranks the migration of any other ethnic group—Italians or Irish or Jews or Poles—to. For blacks, the migration meant leaving what had always been their economic and social base in America, some historians differentiate between a first Great Migration, which saw about 1. Since 1965, a migration has gathered strength. Dubbed the New Great Migration, it has seen many African-Americans move to the South, as early as 1975 to 1980, seven southern states were net African-American migration gainers. African-American populations have continued to drop much of the Northeast, especially the state of New York and northern New Jersey. James Gregory calculates decade-by-decade migration volumes in his book, The Southern Diaspora, Black migration picked up from the start of the new century, with 204,000 leaving in the first decade. The pace accelerated with the outbreak of World War I and continued through the 1920s, by 1930, there were 1.3 million former southerners living in other regions. The Great Depression wiped out job opportunities in the industrial belt, especially for African Americans. A second and larger Great Migration began around 1940 as defense industries geared up for World War II. 1.4 million black southerners moved north or west in the 1940s, followed by 1.1 million in the 1950s, by the late 1970s, as deindustrialization and the Rust Belt crisis took hold, the Great Migration came to an end. African-Americans moved from the 14 states of the South, especially Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, based on the total populations in each of the four states, only Georgia showed a net decrease in its African American population in 1950 compared to 1920. Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi showed net increases in their African American populations in 1950 compared to 1920, big cities were the principal destinations of southerners throughout the two phases of the Great Migration. In the first phase, eight major cities attracted two-thirds of the migrants, New York and Chicago, followed in order by Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. The Second great black migration increased the populations of cities while adding others as destinations. Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Phoenix, Seattle, there were clear migratory patterns that linked particular states and cities in the South to corresponding destinations in the North. Almost half of those who migrated from Mississippi during the first Great Migration, for example, ended up in Chicago, for the most part, these patterns were related to geography, with the closest cities attracting the most migrants
8.
Race film
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In all, approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain, because race films were produced outside the Hollywood studio system, they were largely forgotten by mainstream film historians until they resurfaced in the 1980s on the BET cable network. In their day, race films were popular among African American theatergoers. Their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African Americans, the term race film is sometimes used to describe films of the period aimed at other minority audiences. For instance, the 1926 film Silk Bouquet starred the Asian-American actress Anna May Wong and was marketed to Chinese-American audiences, African Americans produced films for black audiences as early as 1905, but most race films were produced after 1915. As many as 500 race films were produced in the United States between 1915 and 1952, sack, made some films written and directed by black talent such as Spencer Williams. Many race films were produced by white-owned film companies outside the Hollywood-centered American film industry such as Million Dollar Productions in the 1930s and Toddy Pictures in the 1940s. One of the earliest surviving examples of a black cast film aimed at an audience is A Fool and His Money. The Ebony Film Company of Chicago, created specifically to produce black-cast films, was headed by a white production team. Some black-owned studios existed, including Lincoln Motion Picture Company, and most notably Oscar Micheauxs Chicago-based Micheaux Film Corporation, on his posters, Micheaux advertised that his films were scripted and produced exclusively by African Americans. Astor Pictures also released several films and produced Beware with Louis Jordan. The last known race film appears to have been an adventure film of 1954 called Carib Gold. In the South, to comply with laws on racial segregation, though northern cities were not always formally segregated, race films were generally shown in theaters in black neighborhoods. Many large northern theaters segregated black audiences into the balconies or by later showtimes, while it was rare for race films to be shown to white audiences, white theaters often reserved special time-slots for black moviegoers. This resulted in films often being screened as matinées and midnight shows. During the height of their popularity, race films were shown in as many as 1,100 theaters around the country, produced primarily in northern cities, the target audience consisted primarily of poor southern blacks and southerners who had migrated northward. Many race films, particularly those produced by studios, expressed middle-class urban values, especially education. The most famous movie, The Scar of Shame, incorporated all of these themes
9.
African Americans
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African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. The term may also be used to only those individuals who are descended from enslaved Africans. As a compound adjective the term is usually hyphenated as African-American, Black and African Americans constitute the third largest racial and ethnic group in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved peoples within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of 73. 2–80. 9% West African, 18–24% European, according to US Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self-identify as African American. The overwhelming majority of African immigrants identify instead with their own respective ethnicities, immigrants from some Caribbean, Central American and South American nations and their descendants may or may not also self-identify with the term. After the founding of the United States, black people continued to be enslaved, believed to be inferior to white people, they were treated as second-class citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited U. S. citizenship to whites only, in 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States. The first African slaves arrived via Santo Domingo to the San Miguel de Gualdape colony, the ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic, the settlers and the slaves who had not escaped returned to Haiti, whence they had come. The first recorded Africans in British North America were 20 and odd negroes who came to Jamestown, as English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. Typically, young men or women would sign a contract of indenture in exchange for transportation to the New World, the landowner received 50 acres of land from the state for each servant purchased from a ships captain. An indentured servant would work for years without wages. The status of indentured servants in early Virginia and Maryland was similar to slavery, servants could be bought, sold, or leased and they could be physically beaten for disobedience or running away. Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom and they raised families, married other Africans and sometimes intermarried with Native Americans or English settlers. By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards and purchased indentured servants of their own. In 1640, the Virginia General Court recorded the earliest documentation of slavery when they sentenced John Punch. One of Dutch African arrivals, Anthony Johnson, would own one of the first black slaves, John Casor
10.
Deep South
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The Deep South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. Historically, it is differentiated from the Upper South as being the states most dependent on plantation-type agriculture, the Deep South was also commonly referred to as the Lower South or the Cotton States, for their production of cotton as the primary commodity crop. Today, the Deep South is usually delineated as being those states, the seven states that seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War, and were the first to form the Confederate States of America. Ultimately the Confederacy included eleven states, in order of secession they are, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The first six states to secede were those that held the largest number of slaves, a large part of the original Cotton Belt. Some of this is coterminous with the Black Belt, originally referring to areas of Alabama and Mississippi with fertile soil. The term came to be used for much of the Cotton Belt, though often used in history books to refer to the seven states that originally formed the Confederacy, the term Deep South did not come into general usage until long after the Civil War ended. Up until that time, Lower South was the designation for those states. This was the part of the South many considered the most Southern, later, the general definition expanded to include all of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and often taking in bordering areas of East Texas and North Florida. Houston is the largest city of the Deep South region and they sometimes served as overseers on plantations. Georgia -1,132,184 out of 3,009,484 people identified as English, making them 37. 62% of the states total. Mississippi -496,481 people out of 1,551,364 people identified as English, making them 32. 00% of the total, the largest national group by a wide margin. Florida -1,132,033 people out of 5,159,967 identified English as their only ancestry group, making them 21. 94% of the total. Louisiana -440,558 people out of 2,319,259 people identified only as English, making them 19. 00% of the total people and the second-largest ancestry group in the state at the time. Those who wrote only French were 480,711 people out of 2,319,259 people, or 20. 73% of the total state population. Texas -1,639,322 people identified as English only out of a total of 7,859,393 people, making them 20. 86% of the people in the state. These figures to do not take into account people who identified as English, when the two were added together, people who self identified as being of English with other ancestry, made up an even larger portion of southerners. South Carolina was settled earlier than those states commonly classified as the Deep South, the map to the right was prepared by the Census Bureau from the 2000 census, it shows the predominant ancestry in each county as self-identified by residents themselves
11.
Multiracial
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Multiracial is defined as made up of or relating to people of many races. Many terms exist for people of multiracial backgrounds. While some of the used in the past are considered insulting and offensive. Individuals of multiracial backgrounds make up a significant portion of the population in parts of the world. In North America, studies have found that the population is continuing to grow. Because of a decline in racism, multiracial people no longer feel the need to hide their heritage, in many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, mixed-race people make up the majority of the population. While defining race is controversial, race remains a commonly used term for categorization, insofar as race is defined differently in different cultures, perceptions of multiraciality will naturally be subjective. Some percentage of people who look black will possess genetic markers indicating the majority of their recent ancestors were European. The revised OMB standards identify a minimum of five categories, White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian. Perhaps the most significant change for Census 2000 was that respondents were given the option to one or more races on the questionnaire to indicate their racial identity. Census 2000 race data are shown for people who reported a race either alone or in combination with one or more other races, in the English-speaking world, many terms for people of various multiracial backgrounds exist, some of which are pejorative or are no longer used. Mulato, zambo and mestizo are used in Spanish, mulato, caboclo, cafuzo, ainoko and mestiço in Portuguese and mulâtre and these terms are also in certain contexts used in the English-speaking world. In Canada, the Métis are an ethnic group of mixed European and First Nation descent. Half-breed is a term that referred to people of partial Native American ancestry, it is now considered pejorative. Mestee, once used, is now used mostly for members of historically mixed-race groups, such as Louisiana Creoles, Melungeons, Redbones. In South Africa, and much of English-speaking southern Africa, the term Coloured was used to describe a mixed-race person, while the term is socially accepted, it is becoming an outdated due to its association with the apartheid era. Charts and diagrams intended to explain the classifications were common, the well-known Casta paintings in Mexico and, to some extent, Peru, were illustrations of the different classifications. Most Brazilians of all groups are to some extent mixed-race according to genetic research
12.
Lynching
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Lynching is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is most often used to characterise informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a group. It is a form of informal group social control such as charivari, skimmington, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering. Lynchings have been frequent in times of social and economic tension. However, it has resulted from long-held prejudices and practices of discrimination that have conditioned societies to accept this type of violence as normal practices of popular justice. Indeed, instances of it can be found in societies long antedating European settlement of North America, the legal and cultural antecedents of American lynching were carried across the Atlantic by migrants from the British Isles to colonial North America. Collective violence was an aspect of the early modern Anglo-American legal landscape. In the United States, during the decades before the Civil War, assertive free-Blacks, Latinos in the South West, Violence rose even more at the end of the 19th century, after southern white Democrats regained their political power in the South in the 1870s. Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, mostly from 1882 to 1920, the origins of the word lynch are obscure, but it likely originated during the American revolution. The verb comes from the phrase Lynch Law, a term for a punishment without trial, two Americans during this era are generally credited for the phrase, Charles Lynch and William Lynch, who both lived in Virginia in the 1780s. Charles Lynch has the claim, as he was known to have used the term in 1782. There is no evidence that death was imposed as a punishment by either of the two men, in 1782, Charles Lynch wrote that his assistant had administered Lynchs law to Tories for Dealing with negroes, &c. In the United States, the origin of the terms lynching, Charles Lynch was a Virginia planter and American Revolutionary who headed a county court in Virginia which incarcerated Loyalist supporters of the British for up to one year during the war. While he lacked proper jurisdiction, he claimed this right by arguing wartime necessity, subsequently, he prevailed upon his friends in the Congress of the Confederation to pass a law which specifically exonerated him and his associates from wrongdoing. He was concerned that he might face legal action from one or more of those so incarcerated, Lynch was not accused of racist bias, and indeed acquitted blacks accused of murder on three separate occasions, as dictated by the facts brought before him. He was accused, however, of ethnic prejudice in his abuse of Welsh miners, William Lynch from Virginia claimed that the phrase was first used for a 1780 compact signed by him and his neighbors in Pittsylvania County. While Edgar Allan Poe claimed that he found this document, this was likely a hoax, however, linguistic evidence is strongly against it, and the story was likely invented in the 19th century. Racist extremism with an eye to viciousness and public spectacle was frequently evident, in the South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were usually targets of lynch mob violence before the Civil War
13.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
14.
Poker
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Poker is a family of card games that combine gambling, strategy, and skill. Poker games vary in the number of cards dealt, the number of shared or community cards, the number of cards that remain hidden, and the betting procedures. In most modern games, the first round of betting begins with one or more of the players making some form of a forced bet. In standard poker, each player bets according to the rank they believe their hand is worth as compared to the other players. The action then proceeds clockwise as each player in turn must either match, or call, a player who matches a bet may also raise, or increase the bet. The betting round ends when all players have called the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the player collects the pot without being required to reveal their hand. If more than one remains in contention after the final betting round, a showdown takes place where the hands are revealed. By the 1990s some gaming historians including David Parlett started to challenge the notion that poker is a derivative of As-Nas. There is evidence that a game called poque, a French game similar to poker, was played around the region where poker is said to have originated. The name of the game likely descended from the Irish Poca or even the French poque, yet it is not clear whether the origins of poker itself lie with the games bearing those names. It is commonly regarded as sharing ancestry with the Renaissance game of primero, the English game brag clearly descended from brelan and incorporated bluffing. It is quite possible that all of these earlier games influenced the development of poker as it exists now, the unique features of poker have to do with the betting, and do not appear in any known older game. In this view poker originated much later, in the early or mid-18th century and it was played in a variety of forms, with 52 cards, and included both straight poker and stud. 20 card poker was a variant for two players, the development of poker is linked to the historical movement that also saw the invention of commercial gambling. English actor Joseph Crowell reported that the game was played in New Orleans in 1829, with a deck of 20 cards, and four players betting on which players hand was the most valuable. As it spread north along the Mississippi River and to the West during the gold rush, soon after this spread, the full 52-card French deck was used and the flush was introduced. The draw was added prior to 1850, during the American Civil War, many additions were made including stud poker, and the straight
15.
D. W. Griffith
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David Wark D. W. Griffith was an American director, writer, and producer who pioneered modern filmmaking techniques. Griffith is best remembered for The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, the Birth of a Nation made use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film in the United States. Today, it is noted for its radical technique and condemned for its inherently racist philosophy. The film was subject to boycotts by the NAACP and, after screenings of the film had caused riots at several theaters, Intolerance, his next film, was, in part, an answer to his critics. By the time of his feature, The Struggle, he had made roughly 500 films. Griffith is one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he is credited with popularizing the use of the close-up shot. Griffith was born on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, Jacob was a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War and was elected as a Kentucky state legislator. He attended a one-room schoolhouse where he was taught by his older sister, after his father died when he was ten, the family struggled with poverty. When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore. Griffith began his career as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but had little success—only one of his plays was accepted for a performance, Griffith then decided to become an actor, and appeared in many films as an extra. Griffith began making films in 1908, and released his first feature film, Judith of Bethulia. A few years earlier, in 1907, Griffith, still struggling as a playwright, Porter rejected Griffiths script, but gave him an acting part in Rescued from an Eagles Nest instead. Finding this attractive, Griffith began to explore a career as an actor in the picture business. At Biograph, Griffiths career in the industry would change forever. In 1908, Biographs main director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son, Wallace McCutcheon, McCutcheon, Jr. however, was not able to bring the studio any success. As a result, Biograph co-founder, Henry Harry Marvin, decided to give Griffith the position, Griffith would end up directing forty-eight shorts for the company that year. His short In Old California was the first film shot in Hollywood, four years later he produced and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia, one of the earliest to be produced in the United States
16.
The Birth of a Nation
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The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed and co-produced by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from the novel and play The Clansman and it was released on February 8,1915. Three hours long, the film was presented in two parts separated by an intermission, it was the first 12-reel film in America. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth is dramatized, there were widespread African-American protests against The Birth of a Nation, such as in Boston, while thousands of white Bostonians flocked to see the film. The NAACP spearheaded a campaign to ban the film. Griffiths indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year. The films release is credited as being one of the events that inspired the formation of the second era Ku Klux Klan at Stone Mountain, Georgia. The Birth of a Nation, along with the trial and lynching of Leo Frank for the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan in Atlanta, was used as a tool for the KKK. Under President Woodrow Wilson, it was the first American motion picture to be screened at the White House, Griffiths innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, the film follows two juxtaposed families. One is the Northern Stonemans, abolitionist U. S, representative Austin Stoneman, his daughter, and two sons. The other is the Southern Camerons, Dr. Cameron is married to his wife, the couple also has three sons and two daughters. Phil, the elder Stoneman son, falls in love with Margaret Cameron, while the visit to the the Cameron estate in South Carolina. Meanwhile, young Ben Cameron idolizes a picture of Elsie Stoneman, during the Civil War, the young men from both families enlist in their respective armies for the war. The younger Stoneman and two of the Cameron brothers are killed in the war, meanwhile, the Cameron women are rescued by Confederate soldiers who rout a Black militia, after an attack on the Cameron home. Ben Cameron leads a charge at the Siege of Petersburg. But he is wounded and captured. He is then taken to a Union hospital in Washington, D. C, during his stay at the hospital, he is told that he will be hanged
17.
Chicago race riot of 1919
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The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois on July 27,1919 and ended on August 3. During the riot, thirty-eight people died and over five hundred were injured and it is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer, so named because of the violence and fatalities across the nation. The combination of prolonged arson, looting, and murder made it the worst race riot in the history of Illinois, the sociopolitical atmosphere of Chicago was one of ethnic tension caused by competition among many new groups. The Irish had been established first, and fiercely defended their territory, post World War I tensions caused frictions between the races, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets. Overcrowding and increased African American militancy by veterans contributed to the visible racial frictions, also, a combination of ethnic gangs and police neglect strained the racial relationships. According to official reports, the turmoil came to a boil after the death of an African American youth who had drifted into a swimming area at an informally segregated beach. Tensions between groups arose in a melee that blew up into days of unrest, in the following decades, Daley continued to rise in politics to become the citys mayor for twenty-one years. United States President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress attempted to promote legislation, Illinois Governor Frank Lowden took several actions at Thompsons request to quell the riot and promote greater harmony in its aftermath. Sections of the Chicago economy were shut down for days during and after the riots. Mayor Thompson drew on his association with this riot to influence later political elections, unlike southern cities at the time, Chicago did not segregate most public accommodations. According to Walter Francis White of the NAACP, pre-1915 Chicago had a reputation for equitable treatment of African Americans. However, early 20th-century Chicago beaches were racially segregated, African Americans had a long history in Chicago, the city sending its first African-American representative to the state legislature in 1876. However, the population in 1900 was only about 1 percent. Most Irish Americans and African Americans competed for jobs, causing tension between the groups. The revived Ku Klux Klan committed 64 lynchings in 1918 and 83 in 1919 in southern states, the growing African-American population settling in the South Side bordered a neighborhood of Irish Americans existing since the mid-19th century and the two groups competed for jobs and housing. African-American migrants arrived after waves of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, there were competition and tensions in their relationships, ethnic groups were possessive of their neighborhoods, which their young men often patrolled against outsiders. Because of agricultural problems, Southern whites also migrated to the city, the rapid influx of migrants caused overcrowding as a result of a lack of adequate low-cost housing. The postwar period also found tensions rising in cities where populations were increasing rapidly
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Ethnic group
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An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities, such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences. Unlike other social groups, ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives, in some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Ethnic groups, derived from the historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group. Ethnicity is often used synonymously with terms such as nation or people. In English, it can also have the connotation of something exotic, generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, the largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals, while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity, whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis. The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos, the inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan, as the Septuagint used ta ethne to translate the Hebrew goyim the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews. The Greek term in antiquity could refer to any large group, a host of men. In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of peculiar to a race, people or nation, the abstract ethnicity had been used for paganism in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an ethnic character. The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972, depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship. The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, the Greeks at this time did not describe foreign nations but had also developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus gave an account of what defined Greek ethnic identity in his day, enumerating shared descent. Whether ethnicity qualifies as a universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf and they regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently, one is between primordialism and instrumentalism. In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as a given, even coercive
19.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
20.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
21.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
22.
The Chicago Defender
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The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based weekly newspaper founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott for primarily African-American readers. Historically, The Defender is considered the most important paper of what was known as the colored or negro press. Abbotts newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow era violence and urged blacks in the American South to come north in what became the Great Migration. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, in 1919–1922 the Defender attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes. Later, Gwendolyn Brooks and Willard Motley wrote for the paper and it was published as The Chicago Daily Defender, a daily newspaper, from 1956 to 2003, when it returned to a weekly format. The rhetoric and art exhibited in the Defender demanded equality of the races, Abbott published articles that were exposés of southern crimes against blacks. The Defender consistently published articles describing lynchings in the South, with descriptions of gore. Legislatures dominated by conservative white Democrats established racial segregation and Jim Crow, Abbott openly blamed the lynching violence on the white mobs who were typically involved, forcing readers to accept that these crimes were systematic and unremitting. The newspapers intense focus on these injustices implicitly laid the groundwork upon which Abbott would build his explicit critiques of society, at the same time, the NAACP was publicizing the toll of lynching at its offices in New York City. The art in the Defender, particularly its political cartoons, explicitly addressed race issues, after the movement of southern blacks northward became a quantifiable phenomenon, the Defender took a particular interest in sensationalizing migratory stories, often on the front page. Abbott positioned his paper as an influence of these movements before historians would, for he used the Defender to initiate and advertise a Great Northern Drive day. Abbott used the Defender to promote Chicago as a destination for southern blacks. Abbott presented Chicago as a promised-land with abundant jobs, as he included advertisements clearly aimed at southerners, the Defender was filled with advertisements for desirable commodities, beauty products and technological devices. Abbotts paper was the first black newspaper to incorporate a full entertainment section, the Defender featured letters and poetry submitted by successful recent migrants, these writings served as representative anecdotes, supplying readers with prototype examples. To supplement these first-person accounts, Abbott often published small features on successful blacks in Chicago, in 1923, founding publisher Robert Sengstacke Abbott and editor Lucius Harper created the Bud Billiken Club and later organized parades to promote healthy activity among black children in Chicago. In 1929 the organization began the Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, in the 1950s, under Sengstackes direction, the Bud Billiken Parade expanded and emerged as the largest single event in Chicago. Today, it more than one million attendance with more than 25 million television viewers. He urged integration of the armed forces, in 1948, he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to the commission to study this and plan the process, which was initiated by the military in 1949
