Category Archives: history

God Loves Steve Jobs

This video is dedicated to anyone who loves technology, especially their MacBook, iPhone and iPod. And it is for the people who have been hurt by the hatred and anger of the Westboro Church people. This is for all of the military families, the musicians, my neighbors in Joplin and many others who have put up with unnecessary insults.

If your funeral is protested by Westboro Church, then it means you have done something RIGHT!

God LOVES you. God’s not mad at you! If people are leaving church feeling angry, sad, bitter, and judgemental, then the pastor should start listening to the “other” angels. God loves YOU!

I decided to create this video because I read how upset everyone felt that they announced they were going to protest. And I saw how God used this moment to show Westboro that they should take their own self-inventory and stop judging the lives of others. Even I know that the Bible says not to judge.

So I asked my Mom if we could drive to Topeka and she said “Yes!” So I grabbed my Casio and sunglasses. We had to drive through toll booths to get to Topeka. There’s nothing out in the middle of Kansas on I-70 except highway. We had Google searched the address of the church and followed it to, well, ummm, it wasn’t Westboro. Google has the directions mapped wrong! We drove into the hood and there was a church there, but it was not Westboro.

There were lots of things that went through my head. We almost gave up but my Mom suggested we drive to a McDonald’s and then re-map the address from there. And so we did and Google Maps sent us to a different location in Topeka. After a few one-way streets, we stumbled onto Westboro Baptist Church. I would not necessarily call it a church. I would call it a compound. It had dark brown wood fencing and green shrubbery that was at least 10 feet tall. It was in a neighborhood filled with modest homes. As with most small towns, you could see people standing out in the yards. Children riding tricycles and their parents sitting on the porch watching them. I guess I expected all hell to break loose (my Mom said I could say that), but it was peaceful.

So once we walked up to the church, one could notice the signs saying “No Trespassing” and notices that they have security cameras. But honestly, I can’t imagine anyone wanting anything they have badly enough to want to climb over 10 foot bushes and fencing. And rising above the walls were two flags. One was the American flag and the other flag that was raised higher than the American flag was a rainbow colored flag. That’s interesting since I usually see rainbows after tornadoes and rains in Kansas or when it represents gay people.

I expected someone to run out and tell us to get off the sidewalk. But no one came out.
I played some improvisational blues on my Casio keyboard to reflect the sadness and fear that was coming out of that entire compound. I wonder why anyone would want to go to a church that feels that way. Who are they afraid of? I can only imagine that they are afraid of themselves. I played long enough to get inspired to write my messages. Oh, there was so much to say! But I think I made my point. It was getting dark and I wanted to go home and get this out to all of the people who loved what Steve Jobs has done.

I hope people get the message that God is love. And who knows? Maybe the message of God’s love will reach Westboro’s church members. One can only dream, yes?

God’s not mad at you! God love’s you!

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She’ll Be Coming Around Negro Mountain When She Comes

Negro Mountain

My mom and I recently went on a trip to Washington D.C. It was an 18 hour drive there and back. As my mom was driving through Pennsylvania to D.C. we both saw a sign called, “Negro Mountain”. In about less than ten seconds our minds were just spinning around. Why was a mountain called Negro Mountain in Pennsylvania? Negro? We both didn’t have a clue why we had just seen a sign named “Negro Mountain.” So, I wrote the words “Negro Mountain” on a piece of paper for something to research when we got back home from our trip.

After having the best trip of a lifetime in Washington D.C., I am now home and I have researched Negro Mountain. Here’s some information I have found out about Negro Mountain. Negro Mountain is a 30-mile (48 km) long ridge of the Allegheny Mountains extending from Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, north to the Casselman River in Pennsylvania, USA. The summit, Mount Davis, is the highest point (3,213 feet) in Pennsylvania. Laurel Hill flanks Negro Mountain to the west, with Allegheny Mountain to the east.

The history of Negro Mountain has a number of local stories that have been circulating for many years. One story tells of a band of white soldiers or hunters that were in battle against Native Americans during colonial times and it all took place on Negro Mountain. Another story tells that the whites, who were fighting, had an African American companion who died valiantly during the fight. The popular story today is that it took place during the French and Indian War in the year 1756, when frontiersman Colonel Thomas Cresap led a force against Native Americans on the mountain. A member of his force, a black slave or a scout named, “Nemesis,” was killed in the battle. The mountain was accordingly named, “Negro Mountain,” in his honor.

After reading Negro on a sign, I wanted to find out what the word meant and define it. Negro in Spanish means “black”. It also means black in Portuguese. So if you see “Negro Baseball League,” it means, “Black Baseball League”. At first, I was disappointed about seeing the sign that said “Negro Mountain” as we were approaching Washington D.C., our country’s capitol. I was sad and it felt like it was an injustice. Yes, I was surprised! But after researching why Negro Mountain was called Negro Mountain, it makes me feel a little better. Although the stories have probably lost valuable true information and facts to why it was really called Negro Mountain, now I can understand its history. I don’t feel completely happy and positive about it because back then slaves were hanged in mountains and burned to death especially in 1765. So it could have been a mountain of many slave hangings or Native American hangings, too! That’s how I feel and this is my research about Negro Mountain.

Below is a link for more topics about Negro Mountain!

Amazon Books About Negroes

Miles Davis Report

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”
–Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was born in Alton, Illinois, on May 25, 1926. There were also two other children, an older sister and a younger brother. In 1928 the family moved to St. Louis, Illinois, where Davis’s father became a successful oral surgeon. At the age of thirteen his father gave him a trumpet and soon Davis joined his high school band. While still in high school he met and was coached by his earliest idol, the great St. Louis trumpeter Clark Terry.

Davis fathered two kids in 1944 in New York, City. He studied classical music then. He also enrolled in a school of music. Then in the early 1950′s he became addicted to heroin. But he soon fought the battle and came back to being successful three years later. In the 1970s Miles found that rock had replaced jazz as the music choice for the younger people, kids, generation. In order not to get left behind he started to perform with an electronic band. The sound was bubbling, dark, and dense, and it further decreased some jazz fans and many critics as well. Davis didn’t end it though. He though that that there are other powers music yet to be discovered.

So in the 1970s and between the 80′s he sure did continue group with electronic players. He played the organ instead of his laid back trumpet. He also began to play with his back to the audience. He loved to experiment being on the stage in front of people just to see how they would respond. How funny Davis with the art. At the end of the 70s things started to foreshadow lots of things and the electronic. Miles died on September 28, 1991, but his music, style, will always continue to influence not only jazz music, but popular culture as well.

Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Davis was noted as “one of the key figures in the history of jazz”. On November 5, 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a famous piece of work (music) in the US House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary. The measure also talks about jazz being a national treasure and pressures the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz musis and to never let it go anywhere. It passed with seceral votes of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.

3/5/2010

Mary Lou William’s Report

“During the years I was with Andy Kirk we starved almost. I remember not eating for practically a month several times. But we were very, very happy because the music was so interesting, and you forgot to eat, anyway.”

–Mary Lou Williams

Mary Lou Williams was born on May 10, 1910, in Atlanta, Georgia, as Mary Elfreda Winn. She never knew her father until she was in her twenties. Her mother drank and worked doing a lot of laundry to support the kids. Her mother also liked to play the reed organ and kept Mary there while she practiced. One day Mary began to play. Her mom was so astonished she dropped Mary and ran to tell the neighbors to watch Mary Play. Williams was able to play by ear. The easiest she could play was Ragtime. What was so amazing about Mary was that she never needed to read music, and she never needed lessons. Since Mary was already good at playing the piano and was able to perform the family thought of it as a ticket out of Atlanta and in 1914 they moved to Pittsburgh. When Marry moved there her first job was in a bar. She earned 20 dollars for playing the piano.

One of Marry’s nicknames was “The little piano girl”.

At the age of 12 she was already in a band. In 1922 after a African American there came to town to play one of the musicians got sick. Business Managers learned of William’s Power and Will to play. Williams didn’t stay in High School. She left in in the 1920′s to be in a famous act. She got married around then. She also started making her own recordings and people around world-wide began to notice her. She even got enough money to have almost a week long engagement.

In a show called the Seymour and Jennette Show she fell in love with a guy named John Williams. A couple years later they got married. Later, she then moved to Oklahoma. Within a couple of years the band moved its base to Kansas City. She became not only a full time pianist but a very nice musical arranger. Williams’ made very well arrangements. Everyone began to here about Mary as the biggest jazz bandleaders of the day. Soon she began working with Duke Ellington. In the 1930s, she was one of the leading Woman in Kansas City jazz scene. In 1940 her marriage and the Kirk band had started to break down. Williams broke up with Kirk and married a trumpet player “baker”.

In the 1970s she toured throughout the U.S. and Europe as both a solo artist and with a trio. Along the way she performed at numerous international jazz festivals on television even the White House. Williams’s made one last recording. The following year at the age of 69 she was diagnosed with cancer. It lasted for about two years. But she didn’t stop. She kept teaching at schools. She died in 1981. In 1990 she became the first woman instrumentalist honored wonderful glory. When she died, Williams left behind a musical legacy that few people of any gender or race can match.

By: Jada Kimbrough

3/5/10