Black History: Russell Simmons

posted by elev8.com

Michael Buckner/WireImage

Russell Simmons is best known for being the Co-founder of Def Jam Records, and was a force behind the hip-hop revolution and launching the careers of such acts as the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Run-DMC.

The entrepreneur and philanthropist was born in 1957 in New York City. Simmons left college to pursue his passion in promoting upcoming hip hop artists and in 1984, he and partner Rick Rubin founded Def Jam Records. Def Jam signed the forerunners of the hip hop movement including the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Run-DMC.

Simmons saw this as the beginning of building a hip hop empire. Rush Communications firm was comprised of Baby Phat clothing company, television shows, a magazine, advertising company and a management company. His production company produced films including The Nutty Professor and Krush Groove.

Simmons helped to found the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, the Rush Philanthropic Organization and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. He actively supports PETA and was named Goodwill Ambassador to fight war, poverty and HIV/AIDS. Simmons also authored a book, Do You! 12 Laws To Access The Power In You To Achieve Happiness And Success.

Simmons married model Kimora Lee Simmons in 1998 for ten years. Daughters Ming and Aoki resulted from that union.

Black History: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The U.S. government's 40-year experiment on black men with syphilis

"The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens... clearly racist." —President Clinton's apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the eight remaining survivors, May 16, 1997

For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.

The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

Using Human Beings as Laboratory Animals

Taliaferro Clark, Head of the U.S. Public Health Service at the outset of the experiment.

The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers' grossly disadvantaged lot in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free medical care—almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before—these unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones, author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified as “the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.”

The study was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as opposed to whites—the theory being that whites experienced more neurological complications from syphilis, whereas blacks were more susceptible to cardiovascular damage. How this knowledge would have changed clinical treatment of syphilis is uncertain.

Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit, from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. It took almost forty years before someone involved in the study took a hard and honest look at the end results, reporting that “nothing learned will prevent, find, or cure a single case of infectious syphilis or bring us closer to our basic mission of controlling venereal disease in the United States.”

When the experiment was brought to the attention of the media in 1972, news anchor Harry Reasoner described it as an experiment that “used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”

A Heavy Price in the Name of Bad Science

To ensure that the men would show up for a painful and potentially dangerous spinal tap, the PHS doctors misled them with a letter full of promotional hype: “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment.” The fact that autopsies would eventually be required was also concealed.

By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis. How had these men been induced to endure a fatal disease in the name of science?

To persuade the community to support the experiment, one of the original doctors admitted it “was necessary to carry on this study under the guise of a demonstration and provide treatment.” At first, the men were prescribed the syphilis remedies of the day—bismuth, neoarsphenamine, and mercury— but in such small amounts that only 3 percent showed any improvement.

These token doses of medicine were good public relations and did not interfere with the true aims of the study. Eventually, all syphilis treatment was replaced with “pink medicine”—aspirin.

To ensure that the men would show up for a painful and potentially dangerous spinal tap, the PHS doctors misled them with a letter full of promotional hype: “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment.” The fact that autopsies would eventually be required was also concealed.

As a doctor explained, “If the colored population becomes aware that accepting free hospital care means a post-mortem, every darky will leave Macon County...” Even the Surgeon General of the United States participated in enticing the men to remain in the experiment, sending them certificates of appreciation after 25 years in the study.

Following Doctors' Orders

It takes little imagination to ascribe racist attitudes to the white government officials who ran the experiment, but what can one make of the numerous African Americans who collaborated with them? The experiment's name comes from the Tuskegee Institute, the black university founded by Booker T. Washington. Its affiliated hospital lent the PHS its medical facilities for the study, and other predominantly black institutions as well as local black doctors also participated. A black nurse, Eunice Rivers, was a central figure in the experiment for most of its forty years.

The Veterans' Administration Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. Some of the study's post-mortem exams were conducted here.

The promise of recognition by a prestigious government agency may have obscured the troubling aspects of the study for some. A Tuskegee doctor, for example, praised “the educational advantages offered our interns and nurses as well as the added standing it will give the hospital.” Nurse Rivers explained her role as one of passive obedience: “we were taught that we never diagnosed, we never prescribed; we followed the doctor's instructions!”

It is clear that the men in the experiment trusted her and that she sincerely cared about their well-being, but her unquestioning submission to authority eclipsed her moral judgment. Even after the experiment was exposed to public scrutiny, she genuinely felt nothing ethical had been amiss.

One of the most chilling aspects of the experiment was how zealously the PHS kept these men from receiving treatment. When several nationwide campaigns to eradicate venereal disease came to Macon County, the men were prevented from participating. Even when penicillin—the first real cure for syphilis—was discovered in the 1940s, the Tuskegee men were deliberately denied the medication.

During World War II, 250 of the men registered for the draft and were consequently ordered to get treatment for syphilis, only to have the PHS exempt them. Pleased at their success, the PHS representative announced: “So far, we are keeping the known positive patients from getting treatment.” The experiment continued in spite of the Henderson Act (1943), a public health law requiring testing and treatment for venereal disease, and in spite of the World Health Organization's Declaration of Helsinki (1964), which specified that “informed consent” was needed for experiments involving human beings.

Blowing the Whistle

The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the experiments performed by Nazi doctors on Jewish victims during World War II. Yet the PHS offered the same defense offered at the Nuremberg trials — they were just carrying out orders.

The story finally broke in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, in an article by Jean Heller of the Associated Press. Her source was Peter Buxtun, a former PHS venereal disease interviewer and one of the few whistle blowers over the years. The PHS, however, remained unrepentant, claiming the men had been “volunteers” and “were always happy to see the doctors,” and an Alabama state health officer who had been involved claimed “somebody is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

Under the glare of publicity, the government ended their experiment, and for the first time provided the men with effective medical treatment for syphilis. Fred Gray, a lawyer who had previously defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, filed a class action suit that provided a $10 million out-of-court settlement for the men and their families. Gray, however, named only whites and white organizations as defendants in the suit, portraying Tuskegee as a black and white case when it was in fact more complex than that—black doctors and institutions had been involved from beginning to end.

The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the appalling experiments performed by Nazi doctors on their Jewish victims during World War II. Yet in addition to the medical and racist parallels, the PHS offered the same morally bankrupt defense offered at the Nuremberg trials: they claimed they were just carrying out orders, mere cogs in the wheel of the PHS bureaucracy, exempt from personal responsibility.

The study's other justification—for the greater good of science—is equally spurious. Scientific protocol had been shoddy from the start. Since the men had in fact received some medication for syphilis in the beginning of the study, however inadequate, it thereby corrupted the outcome of a study of “untreated syphilis.”

The Legacy of Tuskegee

In 1990, a survey found that 10 percent of African Americans believed that the U.S. government created AIDS as a plot to exterminate blacks, and another 20 percent could not rule out the possibility that this might be true. As preposterous and paranoid as this may sound, at one time the Tuskegee experiment must have seemed equally farfetched.

Who could imagine the government, all the way up to the Surgeon General of the United States, deliberately allowing a group of its citizens to die from a terrible disease for the sake of an ill-conceived experiment? In light of this and many other shameful episodes in our history, African Americans' widespread mistrust of the government and white society in general should not be a surprise to anyone.

1. All quotations in the article are from Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, James H. Jones, expanded edition (New York: Free Press, 1993).

Read more: Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (History, Facts, Bad Blood, Bad Science) — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html#ixzz1n3jbI8qZ



Read more: Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (History, Facts, Bad Blood, Bad Science) — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html#ixzz1n3jKilkd

Black History: Stokely Carmichael Coined the Phrase "Black Power!"

Stokely Carmichael was born in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 29th June, 1941. Carmichael moved to the United States in 1952 and attended high school in New York City. He entered Howard University in 1960 and soon afterwards joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

In 1961 Carmichael became a member of the Freedom Riders. After training in non-violent techniques, black and white volunteers sat next to each other as they travelled through the Deep South. Local police were unwilling to protect these passengers and in several places they were beaten up by white mobs. In Jackson, Mississippi, Carmichael was arrested and jailed for 49 days in Parchman Penitentiary. Carmichael also worked on the Freedom Summer project and in 1966 became chairman of SNCC.

On 5th June, 1966, James Meredith started a solitary March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, to protest against racism. Soon after starting his march he was shot by sniper. When they heard the news, other civil rights campaigners, including Carmichael, Martin Luther King and Floyd McKissick, decided to continue the march in Meredith's name.

When the marchers got to Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael and some of the other marchers were arrested by the police. It was the 27th time that Carmichael had been arrested and on his release on 16th June, he made his famous Black Power speech. Carmichael called for "black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community". He also advocated that African Americans should form and lead their own organizations and urged a complete rejection of the values of American society.

The following year Carmichael joined with Charles V. Hamilton to write the book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (1967). Some leaders of civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), rejected Carmichael's ideas and accused him of black racism.

Carmichael also adopted the slogan of "Black is Beautiful" and advocated a mood of black pride and a rejection of white values of style and appearance. This included adopting Afro hairstyles and African forms of dress. Carmichael began to criticize Martin Luther King and his ideology of nonviolence. He eventually joined the Black Panther Party where he became "honorary prime minister".

When Carmichael denounced United States involvement in the Vietnam War, his passport was confiscated and held for ten months. When his passport was returned, he moved with his wife, Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, where he wrote the book, Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism (1971).

Carmichael, who adopted the name, Kwame Ture, also helped to establish the All-African People's Revolutionary Party and worked as an aide to Guinea's prime minister, Sekou Toure. After the death of Toure in 1984 Carmichael was arrested by the new military regime and charged with trying to overthrow the government. However, he only spent three days in prison before being released.

Stokely Carmichael died of cancer on 15th November, 1998.

Black History: Norbert Rillieux

Norbert Rillieux (March 17, 1806-October 8, 1894) was an African-American inventor and engineer who invented a device that revolutionized sugar processing. Rillieux's multiple effect vacuum sugar evaporator (patented in 1864) made the processing of sugar more efficient, faster, and much safer. The resulting sugar was also superior. His apparatus was eventually adopted by sugar processing plants all around the world.

Rillieux was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. His mother had been a slave and his father was a wealthy white sugar plantation owner. Norbert's brilliance was noticed early in his life. He was educated in Paris, France, and later taught engineering in Paris. Rillieux published many steam engineering papers.

While in Paris, Rillieux learned that the boiling point of liquids is reduced as the pressure is reduced (like in a vacuum). Rillieux applied this to the processing of sugar, heating the cane sugar in a vacuum, and re-using the steam in the processing procedure. This resulted in a highly efficient mechanical process that replaced the old, laborious, dangerous, and costly method of processing sugar by hand that was called the "Jamaica train."

Black History: Blanche Kelso Bruce

Information from Wikipedia.

Bruce was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia near Farmville to Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia plantation owner, and an African-American house slave named Polly Bruce. He was treated comparatively well by his father, who educated him together with his legitimate half-brother. When Blanche Bruce was young, he played with his half-brother. As Blanche Bruce was born enslaved, because of his mother's status, his father legally freed him and arranged for an apprenticeship so he could learn a trade.^[1]

Bruce's house at 909 M Street NW in Washington, D.C. was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1975

In 1850, Bruce moved to Missouri after becoming a printer's apprentice. After the Union Army rejected his application to fight in the Civil War, Bruce taught school and attended Oberlin College in Ohio for two years. Then he went to work as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River. In 1864, he moved toHannibal, Missouri, where he established a school for blacks.

During Reconstruction, Bruce became a wealthy landowner in the Mississippi Delta. He was appointed to the positions of Tallahatchie County registrar of voters and tax assessor before winning an election forsheriff in Bolivar County. He later was elected to other county positions, including tax collector and supervisor of education, while he also edited a local newspaper. In February 1874, Bruce was elected by the state legislature to the Senate as a Republican. On February 14, 1879, Bruce presided over the U.S. Senate becoming the first African-American (and the only former slave) to do so.^[2] Bruce served as theDistrict of Columbia recorder of deeds in 1891–93, and again as register of the treasury until his death in 1898.

On June 24, 1878, Bruce married Josephine Beal Willson (1853–February 15, 1923) of Cleveland, Ohio amid great publicity; the couple traveled to Europe for a four-month honeymoon. Their only child, Roscoe Conkling Bruce was born in 1879. He was named for New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, Bruce's mentor in the Senate. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Blanche Bruce on his list of100 Greatest African Americans.^[3]

Black History Moment: The Dred Scott Decision of 1857

The Dred Scott Decision

Period: 1850s

On March 6, 1857, in a small room in the Capitol basement, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in the territories.
In 1846, a Missouri slave, Dred Scott, sued for his freedom. Scott argued that while he had been the slave of an army surgeon, he had lived for four years in Illinois, a free state, and Wisconsin, a free territory, and that his residence on free soil had erased his slave status. In 1850 a Missouri court gave Scott his freedom, but two years later, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed this decision and returned Scott to slavery. Scott then appealed to the federal courts.
For five years, the case proceeded through the federal courts. For more than a year, the Court withheld its decision. Many thought that the Court delayed its ruling to ensure a Democratic victory in the 1856 elections. Then, in March 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney announced the Court's decision. By a 7-2 margin, the Court ruled that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the territories.
All nine justices rendered separate opinions, but Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion that expressed the position of the Court's majority. His opinion represented a judicial defense of the most extreme proslavery position.
The chief justice made two sweeping rulings. The first was that Dred Scott had no right to sue in federal court because neither slaves nor free blacks were citizens of the United States. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the chief justice wrote, blacks had been "regarded as beings of an inferior order" with "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
Second, Taney declared that Congress had no right to exclude slavery from the federal territories since any law excluding slavery property from the territories was a violation of the Fifth Amendment prohibition against the seizure of property without due process of law. For the first time since Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Court declared an act of Congress unconstitutional.
Newspaper headlines summarized the Court's rulings:

SLAVERY ALONE NATIONAL--THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE UNCONSTITUTIONAL--NEGROES CANNOT BE CITIZENS--THE TRIUMPH OF SLAVERY COMPLETE.

In a single decision, the Court sought to resolve all the major constitutional questions raised by slavery. It declared that the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights were not intended to apply to black Americans. It stated that the Republican Party platform--barring slavery from the western territories--was unconstitutional. And it ruled that Stephen Douglas's doctrine of "popular sovereignty"--which stated that territorial governments had the power to prohibit slavery--was also unconstitutional.
Republicans reacted with scorn. The decision, said the New York Tribune, carried as much moral weight as "the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington barroom." Many Republicans--including an Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln--regarded the decision as part of a slave power conspiracy to legalize slavery throughout the United States.
The Dred Scott decision was a major political miscalculation. In its ruling, the Supreme Court sought to solve the slavery controversy once and for all. Instead the Court intensified sectional strife, undercut possible compromise solutions to the divisive issue of the expansion of slavery, and weakened the moral authority of the judiciary.


http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=334

Black History: Moms Mabley

Moms Mabley was born on March 19, 1894 in Brevard, North Carolina. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio and entered the “chitlin circuit” of African American entertainment venues. She later performed in Harlem's Cotton Club and was the first female comedian to appear at the Apollo Theater. Mabley appeared in films, on television and recorded two dozen comedy albums. She died in 1975.

Profile

(born March 19, 1894, Brevard, North Carolina, U.S.—died May 23, 1975, White Plains, New York) American comedian who was one of the most successful black vaudeville performers. She modeled her stage persona largely on her grandmother, who had been a slave. Wise, clever, and often ribald, Mabley dressed in frumpy clothes and used her deep voice and elastic face (and, in later years, her toothlessness) to great effect.

Loretta Aiken was one of 12 children. Her father died when she was 11 years old. By age 15 she had borne two children. To escape a despised stepfather, she moved to Cleveland, Ohio. There she was first exposed to performers and their lives, and she soon chose show business as a career and entered the “chitlin circuit” of venues that catered to African American audiences. After a brother objected to her career choice, she took a stage name, borrowing that of a boyfriend and fellow entertainer, Jack Mabley. She is said to have been given the nickname Moms because of her compassion for other performers. Discovered by the vaudeville team known as Butterbeans and Susie, she went to New York City with them and made her debut at Connie's Inn. She later performed in such noted venues as Harlem's Cotton Club. She was the first female comedian to appear at the Apollo Theater, and she became a regular there, appearing more often than any other act in that theatre's history.

Mabley, for many years the only female African American comic, was sometimes underestimated because of her standard jokes about old men and her use of sexual innuendo. Nonetheless, she possessed great comic timing and a remarkable ability to ad lib. She was also a sly and astute social commentator, as she revealed in comments such as “There ain't nothing wrong with young people. Jus' quit lyin' to 'em.” In addition to live stand-up comedy, Mabley appeared in a number of films—including Boarding House Blues (1948) andAmazing Grace (1974)—and on television programs such as The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Several of her comedy performances were recorded live, including Moms Mabley, the Funniest Woman in the World (1960), her first of some two dozen comedy albums.

A Moment in Black History: Football pioneer- Andrew Watson

Football pioneer: Andrew Watson - the first black international

By Tom McGowan, CNN

December 22, 2011 -- Updated 1931 GMT (0331 HKT)

(CNN) -- Modern football is a melting pot of cultures, as players from a variety of ethnic backgrounds share top billing as superstars.

It is not always a comfortable mix, as can be seen by the recent racism rows involving John Terry and Luis Suarez.

But football's pantheon of stars has not always been such a rich multicultural tapestry. Far from it.

Back in the sport's infancy in the late 1800s, in its homeland of white-dominated Britain, there were no official leagues and only a handful of domestic cup competitions.

International matches were the pinnacle of competition, with England and Scotland contesting the first in 1872 -- and few were played outside the UK and Ireland until the formation of FIFA in 1904 .

And it was Scotland which, in 1881, provided football with its first black international player -- British Guiana-born Andrew Watson.

"He was the son of a Glasgow merchant who traded out in the West Indies and parts of South America as well," curator of the Scottish Football Museum Richard McBrearty told CNN.

"It's a story of the time, I suppose. Andrew would've been born out of wedlock to a wealthy white merchant and his mother who was native to British Guiana."

He is a hugely important figure within football. He captained Scotland against England, which was absolutely the highest accolade you could have at the time
Richard McBrearty

Social attitudes of the time meant that Watson, while enjoying financial support and a good education, was never truly recognized and acknowledged by his father.

"Anything that had to be signed, due to school or education, was usually done through an intermediary," McBrearty explained. "So he was recognized as being of the blood, but there was a distance."

Early records of Watson show him joining Glasgow team Parkgrove -- which at the time enjoyed a higher profile than now-famous neighbors Glasgow Rangers -- in both a playing and off-pitch capacity.

In his role as match secretary, Watson created history by becoming the first black football administrator. In 1880 he joined Queen's Park, the biggest of the Glasgow clubs and Scotland's preeminent football power.

The following year he represented Scotland in his first of three international outings, captaining the country in a landmark 6-1 victory over England at London's Oval ground -- now an international cricket venue.

"Even to this day with some of the fantastic teams England have played over the years, such as the Hungarians of 1953 and Pele's Brazil, that victory for Scotland remains England's heaviest defeat on home soil," said McBrearty.

The Scotland team led by Watson pioneered a revolutionary passing game at a time when football was played in a very individual manner.

He's massively important to global football, not just Scottish football, not just British football
Richard McBrearty

"He is a hugely important figure within football. He captained Scotland against England, which was absolutely the highest accolade you could have at the time. It was also at a time when Scotland were very successful in international football," McBrearty said.

"The way the game was played at that time, Scotland were devising a short passing game. The margin of victory was because Scotland were the first to promote a real team-based passing ethos. Watson was right at the forefront of that."

Despite his prominent role in the national team, Watson still occasionally encountered abuse which was symbolic of a less enlightened age.

"What we come across in a very polite article about Watson is that he encountered 'splenetic players' on the field. Now that suggests to me that the color of his skin was a subject of attack," McBrearty said.

"That's an insight into the fact that, even in that time, this was clearly happening and Watson had to rise above that as a footballer and more widely as a human being."

Watson's demeanor off the pitch is something McBrearty believes is also of note, saying he had a reputation as a gentleman.

"Certainly there is widespread praise that he wins. The adoration that he has is clearly because he manages to rise above the difficulties that he encounters on the field of play."

After leaving Queen's Park, Watson headed to England to play for the now-defunct Swifts club in London.

McBrearty believes Watson became the first black player to play in the English FA Cup during the 1882-83 season.

Watson passed away in Sydney, Australia in 1902 aged 44, but McBrearty thinks the contribution he made to football has paved the way for the big-name black players we see in the game today.

"He's massively important to global football, not just Scottish football, not just British football. He's one of the first few pioneers. He played international football, he captained the international team and they happened to be the best there was at that time.

"As football spreads across the globe with black players who are now among the best in the world, and you look at the legacy of fantastic Brazilian players like Pele and Garrincha, it really stems back to guys like Watson."

Navy Ship “Medgar Evers” Named After Slain Civil Rights Icon

posted by praisedc.com

SAN DIEGO  — The widow of Medgar Evers broke a bottle of champagne against the hull of a new Navy ship that has been named in honor of the slain civil rights leader.


Myrlie Evers was among a thousand people who attended the christening of the USNS Medgar Evers in San Diego on Saturday.

Naval officials, politicians, local citizens and members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were on hand to hear a speech honoring Evers by Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy.
The 689-foot cargo ship will deliver food, ammunition, fuel and other provisions to Navy combat ships at sea.
The vessel was built in San Diego by General Dynamics NASSCO.

Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran and field secretary for the NAACP, was shot to death in 1963.