Attucks Community Alliance

03/05/2026

Simply stated: we had 3 four wheelers stolen from Attucks Community Center . If you have these, see these or know who took these please contact Diane Anderson, Dwain West or Attucks community center. We will be sharing photos and serial numbers to all shops - they will need keys. Feel free and please do share. Looking for photo of third four wheeler.

02/26/2026

“They were only six years old — and they carried a nation on their shoulders.

Look at their faces.

Children.
Ribbons in their hair.
School dresses pressed.
Eyes too young to understand hatred — yet forced to walk straight into it.

They are Gail Etienne, Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, and Tessie Prevost.

And in 1960, they changed America.

The Year America Tested Six-Year-Olds

Six years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation unconstitutional, much of the South still resisted integration with fury.

In New Orleans, federal courts ordered public schools to desegregate.

White families erupted in protest. Crowds screamed outside school buildings. Parents pulled their children out rather than let them share classrooms with Black students.

And into that storm walked four little girls.

On November 14, 1960, escorted by U.S. Marshals, Ruby Bridges entered William Frantz Elementary School. On that same day, Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Tessie Prevost entered McDonogh 19 Elementary.

They were six.

Six years old — walking past grown adults shouting slurs no child should ever hear.

Ruby Bridges would spend her entire first year in a classroom alone, taught by one teacher, Barbara Henry, because white parents refused to allow their children to sit beside her.

At McDonogh 19, the other three girls endured similar isolation. Windows shattered. Threats rang through the air. Their families faced economic retaliation and social punishment simply for believing their daughters deserved equal education.

But they kept walking.

The Hidden Cost of Courage

When we tell Civil Rights history, we often focus on speeches and marches — on towering figures at podiums.

But sometimes history is carried in pigtails and patent leather shoes.

These girls were not activists by choice. They were children whose parents believed in the Constitution more than they feared hatred. Their bravery was quiet but seismic.

The desegregation of New Orleans schools was not just a legal milestone. It was psychological warfare against white supremacy. The sight of a small Black girl calmly entering a formerly all-white school challenged an entire ideology.

The world saw photographs of Ruby Bridges flanked by federal marshals — and saw innocence confronted by bigotry.

Those images did what statistics could not. They humanized the struggle.

From Children to Women of Legacy

The image you see now — the adult women sitting together decades later — tells another story.

They survived.

They grew.

They raised families.

They carried trauma, yes — but also dignity.

Ruby Bridges would go on to become a lifelong advocate for racial equality, establishing the Ruby Bridges Foundation to promote tolerance and education.

Leona Tate founded the Leona Tate Foundation for Change, working to preserve the historic McDonogh 19 school building as a center for racial reconciliation.

Their childhood was interrupted — but their purpose endured.

A Larger Movement

Their story sits within a broader wave of the Civil Rights Movement:

The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–56

The sit-ins in Greensboro in 1960

The Freedom Rides of 1961

The Birmingham Campaign of 1963

The March on Washington

Each moment required bodies. Some adult. Some teenage. Some heartbreakingly young.

The integration of schools was not simply about desks and chalkboards. It was about access to opportunity — to textbooks, to funding, to futures long denied.

When these four girls stepped into those buildings, they cracked open doors that had been bolted for generations.

Why We Remember

Because they remind us that courage does not always roar.

Sometimes it ties a bow in its hair.
Sometimes it holds a lunchbox.
Sometimes it squeezes its mother’s hand and walks forward anyway.

They were children.

But their footsteps echoed across a nation.

And today, when we speak their names — Gail Etienne. Ruby Bridges. Leona Tate. Tessie Prevost — we honor not just their bravery, but the generations of Black parents who dared to believe their children deserved more.

They were six years old.

And they helped bend the arc of American history.”

From: Buymeacoffe.com

02/25/2026

02/23/2026

Rentiesville

“Located seventeen miles southwest of Muskogee, Rentiesville possesses a unique blend of musical and academic achievements. This all-Black town is home to famed blues-man D.C. Minner and his wife Selby who annually hosted the Dusk 'Til Dawn Blues Festival in Rentiesville, a festival that attracts blues artists and fans alike. DC and his wife Selby are both now deceased .

Also defining the small town, which was established in 1903, is its pivotal role in the Civil War. Oklahoma's most significant Civil War event, the Battle of Honey Springs, was fought in Rentiesville and is known as the "Gettysburg of the West."”

02/22/2026

In 1863, they charged Fort Wagner knowing many wouldn’t return.

The 54th Massachusetts didn’t just fight a battle —
they changed the narrative.

Courage has always been part of our history. 🖤

02/21/2026

Did you know! Washington, D.C., was designed with help from Benjamin Banneker, a brilliant self-taught Black astronomer and mathematician. He mapped out streets, buildings, and monuments, and even published detailed almanacs predicting eclipses and weather patterns. A Black scientist helped shape America’s capital. Black history unknown facts remind us how much was erased and almost forgotten.

02/18/2026

In 1821, a Black tailor solved a problem no one else could.
Then he used the money to buy people out of slavery—and raised a daughter who challenged segregation a century before Rosa Parks.

On March 3, 1821, a 30-year-old Black man walked into the U.S. Patent Office and quietly rewrote American history.

His name was Thomas L. Jennings.

That day, Jennings became the first African American ever granted a U.S. patent. But the patent itself was never the most extraordinary part of his story.

What he did with it was.

Born free in 1791 in New York City, Jennings worked as a master tailor, handling fine fabrics for wealthy clients—silks, wools, garments so delicate that a single stain could ruin them forever. Water destroyed these clothes. Soap made it worse. Expensive garments were thrown away because no one knew how to clean them.

Jennings refused to accept that limit.

Through careful experimentation, he developed a chemical process that cleaned fabric without water. He called it dry scouring—the foundation of what would later become the modern dry-cleaning industry, now worth billions worldwide.

His invention earned Patent No. 3306X.

But Jennings understood something deeper than profit.

In 1821, America was still a slaveholding nation. Enslaved people could not own patents—any invention they created legally belonged to their enslavers. Entire lifetimes of Black genius were stolen, erased, or credited to white men.

Jennings could patent his work only because he was free.

And he believed freedom meant nothing if others remained in chains.

So instead of retreating into comfort, Thomas L. Jennings turned success into resistance.

He used his earnings to fund abolitionist causes, finance court cases to free enslaved people, support the Underground Railroad, and organize campaigns for Black voting rights in New York. Through the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he helped strengthen Black institutions at a time when survival itself required structure.

He understood that being exceptional wasn’t enough.

You had to use your position to change the system.

That belief shaped his children—especially his daughter.

In 1854, Elizabeth Jennings Graham boarded a streetcar in New York City on her way to church, where she served as an organist. The conductor ordered her off because she was Black.

Elizabeth refused.

She was forcibly dragged from the car.

But she had been raised by a man who taught her that injustice must be confronted—not endured.

Elizabeth sued the streetcar company.

Her father paid for the legal fight, hiring top attorneys—including Chester A. Arthur, years before he became president.

Elizabeth won.

The court ruled that public streetcars in New York City could not discriminate based on race. That decision led directly to the desegregation of New York’s transit system.

This happened in 1854.

That is 101 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery.

Thomas L. Jennings died in 1856, but not before doing something extraordinary.

He didn’t just invent a process.
He funded freedom.

He didn’t just secure a patent.
He challenged oppression.

He didn’t just make history.
He raised someone who would change it.

His life proves that innovation and activism are not separate paths. The same mind that figured out how to clean delicate fabric without water understood that rights must be defended, freedom must be shared, and success carries responsibility.

Thomas L. Jennings was the first Black American to hold a U.S. patent.

But his greatest achievement was knowing that being first means nothing
if you don’t pull others through the door behind you.

That is how legacies are built.

02/17/2026

Reverend Jesse Jackson- “ Keep Hope Alive”. May he rest with the angels.

October 8, 1941 – February 17, 2026

“Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson began his activism in the 1960s and founded the organizations that later merged to form the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. Expanding his work into international affairs in the 1980s, he became a vocal critic of the Reagan administration and launched a presidential campaign in 1984. Initially viewed as a fringe candidate, he finished third for the Democratic nomination behind former Vice President Walter Mondale and Senator Gary Hart. He continued his activism and mounted a second presidential bid in 1988, finishing as the runner‑up to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
Jackson did not seek the presidency again, but in 1990 he was elected as the District of Columbia's shadow senator, serving one term during the Bush and Clinton administrations. Although initially critical of President Bill Clinton, he later became a supporter. Jackson hosted Both Sides with Jesse Jackson on CNN from 1992 to 2000. A critic of police brutality, the Republican Party, and conservative policies, he was widely regarded as one of the most influential African‑American activists of his era.”

02/16/2026

“Okmulgee was once home to Okmulgee Colored Agricultural and Normal University founded in 1892. One of Oklahoma’s first Black colleges! Created to educate African Americans after the Civil War ended. It later became part of Langston University!”

02/16/2026

“Mary Beatrice Kenner was one of the most prolific Black American women inventors of the 20th century, though her name is still not widely known.

In 1957, Kenner received a patent for her improved sanitary belt, a device designed to hold menstrual pads securely in place. Before modern adhesive pads became common, many women relied on belts or cloth systems that were often uncomfortable and unreliable. Kenner’s design helped reduce leakage and improve comfort, addressing a practical problem that few inventors had focused on at the time.

Her invention attracted interest from manufacturers, but at least one company withdrew after learning she was a Black woman. Despite the setback, Kenner continued inventing and went on to patent several other useful household devices.

Among her later inventions were a bathroom tissue holder designed to keep the roll from unraveling, a back washer that could be mounted in a bath or shower, and a tray attachment for walkers and wheelchairs. Altogether, she held five patents — a remarkable achievement given the barriers Black women faced in gaining access to funding, patents, and manufacturing support.

Kenner said she invented not for recognition, but to solve everyday problems. Her work shows how innovation often comes from lived experience and practical need.”

From African American archives.