October 2019 - PopHistory.org

Sheridan Technical College Celebrates 45 Years of Accreditation

October 31, 2019

Sheridan Technical College Celebrates 45 Years of Accreditation

Congratulations to Sheridan Technical College for completing 45 years of accredited status by the Council on Occupational Education, a national accrediting agency of higher education institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Sheridan Technical, which initially became accredited with the Council in 1974, has undergone self-studies and reviews every six years to maintain its accreditation. The college will be recognized during the Council’s annual meeting in Reno, Nevada on November 13 – 15, 2019. Sheridan Technical Director Thomas Moncilovich and Assistant Director Annette Johnson will represent the college and accept the award at the annual meeting in Reno.

The award of accreditation is based on an evaluation to demonstrate that the institution meets not only the standards of quality of the Council, but also the needs of students, the community and employers. Sheridan Tech was one of the first institutions to be accredited under the Council.

Sheridan Technical College offers career and technical study programs affording students the opportunity to gain skills in high-wage, high-demand occupational fields and compete successfully in the global workforce. Under the direction of licensed and certified teaching professionals, students engage in full or part time training in 47 career and technical education programs using the latest industry-approved technology and equipment.

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ABOUT BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“Committed to educating all students to reach their highest potential.”

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) is the sixth-largest school district in the nation and the second-largest in the state of Florida. BCPS is Florida’s first fully accredited school system since 1962. BCPS has nearly 270,000 students and approximately 175,000 adult students in 241 schools, centers and technical colleges, and 89 charter schools. BCPS serves a diverse student population, with students representing 204 different countries and 191 different languages. To connect with BCPS, visit browardschools.com, follow us on Twitter @browardschools, on Facebook at facebook.com/browardschools.com and download the free BCPS mobile app.

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BCPS and The Flying Classroom Host 2019 STEM Fest

October 30, 2019

WHO:
Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) Students, Families and Staff

WHAT:
BCPS, together with The Flying Classroom, will host the 2019 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Fest

WHEN:
Saturday, November 2, 2019
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

WHERE:
Broward College, Judson A. Samuels South Campus

Next to building 99, the Emil Buehler Aviation Institute
7200 Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, FL 33024

WHY:
STEM Fest is a great opportunity for students to take part in over 15 different hands-on STEM activities, visit STEM displays and interactive booths, engage in presentations and view helicopters, planes, cars and aviation facilities. In addition, students and families can take part in a variety of STEM projects, including an interactive science show, bounce house and rock wall. Students will also have the opportunity to meet The Flying Classroom’s Captain Barrington Irving. This event is free and open to the public.

Participating partners include South Regional/Broward College Library, Star Lab from the Museum of Discovery and Science, Code Ninjas, Broward College of Aviation, Civil Air Patrol and many more. For information about this free event, contact the Title I, Migrant and Special Programs Department at 754-321-1400 or Flying Classroom at 305-547-9508.

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO COVER THIS EVENT.

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ABOUT BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“Committed to educating all students to reach their highest potential.” Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) is the sixth-largest school district in the nation and the second-largest in the state of Florida. BCPS is Florida’s first fully accredited school system since 1962. BCPS has nearly 270,000 students and approximately 175,000 adult students in 241 schools, centers and technical colleges, and 89 charter schools. BCPS serves a diverse student population, with students representing 204 different countries and 191 different languages. To connect with BCPS, visit browardschools.com, follow us on Twitter @browardschools, on Facebook at facebook.com/browardschools.com and download the free BCPS mobile app.

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Harriet Tubman becomes the first African American woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp

Year: 1978

Month Day: February 01

Antislavery crusader and Civil War veteran Harriet Tubman becomes the first African American woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp, the first in the Post Office’s Black Heritage Series. Tubman’s appearance on stamps was emblematic both of the progress made in recognizing African Americans’ contributions to American history and of the ongoing effort to put abolitionists on equal footing with slaveowners in the nation’s historical canon.

Tubman was a singular figure of the abolition movement, a slave who escaped captivity in Maryland and made at least 19 trips back to free more slaves. Tubman is estimated to have helped several hundred slaves find freedom in Canada via the Underground Railroad and is said to have “never lost a passenger.” During the Civil War, she freed 700 more when she led Union forces on a raid on Combahee Ferry in South Carolina. In her later life, though she had little money of her own, Tubman worked to house and feed the poor and became an important figure in the fight for women’s suffrage. Despite these extraordinary efforts, which earned her the epithet “the Moses of her people,” Tubman did not receive a pension for her services in the war until 1889 and died with little to her name.

Her deeds were not forgotten, however, and in the wake of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements there was a push to recognize overlooked figures like Tubman. Her inclusion in the Black Heritage Series put her alongside figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., Booker T. Washington and Jackie Robinson and spread her image around the country. In 2016, following years of calls from activists, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Tubman’s face would replace that of President Andrew Jackson, a slaveowner and avowed white supremacist, on the twenty-dollar bill. The following year, however, Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, cancelled the switch, saying, “We’ve got a lot more important issues to focus on.” In response, a grassroots movement began to stamp Tubman’s image over that of Jackson.

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Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses”

Year: 1989

Month Day: February 14

Salman Rushdie likely understood he would cause a controversy when he published a novel titled The Satanic Verses. The book mocked or at least contained mocking references to the Prophet Muhammad and other aspects of Islam, in addition to and a character clearly based on the Supreme Leader of Iran. On February 14, 1989, that Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued just about the strongest response possible, calling on “all brave Muslims” to kill Rushdie and his publishers.

Although many of the most controversial things said about Islam and Muhammad in the book come from the mouths of disreputable or comic characters, it was undeniably critical and insulting. The title refers to passages said to have been removed from the Qur’an in which the Prophet spoke the words of Satan instead of God, and many were particularly incensed by the depiction of a brothel where the prostitutes shared the names of Muhammad’s wives. Khomeini, who had suddenly deposed a U.S.-backed monarch a decade before, was the leader of a group of clerics who had turned Iran into a theocracy. As such, he was perhaps the most prominent Shi’a authority in the world. Muslims around the world had already condemned The Satanic Verses—it was publicly burnt in Bolton, UK, sparked a deadly riot in Pakistan and was banned entirely in multiple Muslim countries—but Khomeini’s fatwa brought the controversy to new heights.

Booksellers the world over, including many Barnes & Noble stores in the United States, refused to sell The Satanic Verses for fear of retribution. Many that did sell it were bombed. Free speech advocates and anti-religious figures vociferously defended Rushdie, but many Muslim leaders and even moderate Muslim cultural figures outright condemned him or at least stated he had gone too far. Rushdie apologized both to the Ayatollah and to Muslims around the world in 1989 and 1990, but protests and violence continued. The novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991, while its Italian translator was critically wounded by an assailant. Rushdie later said he regretted apologizing.

A fatwa is a judgement issued by a religious scholar and can only be repealed by that same scholar, meaning that the fatwa against Rushdie could never be taken back after the Ayatollah’s death in June of 1989. In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would neither “support nor hinder” Rushdie’s assassination, and private groups inside Iran and elsewhere continue to raise money to put towards the bounty on his head. Though Rushdie has had to hire security teams and has received countless threats since the book’s publication, no assassin has yet come close to killing him. The author, who was knighted in 2007, said that year that he saw the fatwa as “a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat.” While Rushdie remains unharmed, the backlash to his novel is responsible for dozens of deaths and injuries around the world, one of the deadliest—and possibly the most widespread—instances of conflict between religious fundamentalists and free-speech activists of the 20th century.

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Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School Receives Dart Foundation Grant

October 29, 2019

Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School Receives Dart Foundation Grant

Thanks to a grant from the Dart Foundation, Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School students enjoy a traditional classroom transformed into an active learning center.

Congratulations to Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School for receiving a $98,700 grant from the Dart Foundation. The grant funds have been used to enhance the delivery of instruction in Information Technology (IT) programs by enhancing curriculum and content, while developing job-specific skills and creating an authentic work-base culture.

Atlantic Technical has transitioned a traditional classroom into an active learning center aimed at fostering a collaborative educational environment that mirrors real-world situations and its challenges. This project supports programs through access to improved technology and specialized furniture. Students have access to a variety of collaborative work areas combined with enhanced lecture spaces that make use of portable and tabletop white-boards, network equipment stations, and multimedia areas for use in brainstorming, problem-solving and presentations.

WHO:
School Board Members, Superintendent Robert W. Runcie, Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School Students, Staff, Dart Foundation Representatives and Community Members

WHAT:
Ribbon cutting and donor recognition event for the transitioned collaborative IT lab. A traditional classroom has been modified with flexible seating, movable workstations and technology that promote creativity, productivity and collaboration aligned with the 21^st century workplace.

WHEN:
Tuesday, November 5, 2019, at 10:30 a.m.

WHERE:
Atlantic Technical College and Technical High School
4700 Coconut Creek Parkway
Building 1, Administration Building
Coconut Creek, FL 33063

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO COVER THIS EVENT.

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ABOUT BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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BCPS Turnaround Arts Program Students to Perform on Stage with Black Violin

Students perform with Black Violin

WHO:

Students from Bethune Elementary School, Walker Elementary School and Black Violin

WHAT:

Students from Bethune Elementary and Walker Elementary will perform with award winning artist Black Violin as part of its Dreamers Dream event.

WHERE:

Broward Center for the Performing Arts

Mary N Porter Riverview Ballroom

201 SW 5th Avenue

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312

WHEN:

Sunday, October 27, 2019, at 3:30 p.m.

WHY:

As part of the Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts program, Bethune Elementary and Walker Elementary students were selected to perform with Turnaround Arts artists and BCPS alumni, Black Violin. In September, the students had the opportunity to visit Washington, D.C. for the opening festival of REACH, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts facility expansion, and perform with Black Violin. Black Violin artists Kev Marcus and Wil B. were so impressed by the students’ performances, they invited the students to join them on stage again at their Dreamers Dream event this weekend.

The Turnaround Arts is a program of the Kennedy Center that transforms schools through the strategic use of the arts. For more information visit, turnaroundarts.kennedy-center.org/. For more information on Black Violin, visit turnaroundarts.kennedy-center.org/portfolio/black-violin/.

Dreamers Dream, hosted by the Black Violin Foundation is a fundraiser event, providing scholarships to youth who would like to continue their musical education through a program that fosters musical creativity and innovation.

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO COVER THIS EVENT.

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ABOUT BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“Committed to educating all students to reach their highest potential.”

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Parents and Students Preview BCPS Magnet and Innovative Programs During Exposition for 2020/21 School Year

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) students and families will have the opportunity to discover a variety of BCPS magnet and innovative programs available for the 2020/21 school year. The Exposition allows students and families to preview programs before the School Choice application window, which opens December 2, 2019. View the Exposition flyer.

With nearly 170 magnet and innovative programs ranging from Performing and Visual Arts, STEM, International Baccalaureate, Cambridge, Pre-Law, Pre-Med, Integrated Career and Academic Networks, students and families can select from a wide variety of School Choice options for all grade levels. For more information on the District’s magnet and innovative programs, visit browardschools.com/innovativeprograms.

The Magnet and Innovative Programs Exposition is taking place on the following dates:

Elementary and Middle School Exposition – There are two dates/locations from which families may choose:

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

6 – 8:30 p.m.

Attucks Middle School

3500 N 22 Avenue

Hollywood, FL 33020

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

6 – 8:30 p.m.

Bair Middle School

9100 NW 21 Manor

Sunrise, FL 33322

High School Exposition:

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

6 – 8:30 p.m.

South Plantation High School

1300 SW 54 Avenue

Plantation, FL 33317

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ABOUT BROWARD COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

“Committed to educating all students to reach their highest potential.”

Source

The NAACP is founded

Year: 1909

Month Day: February 12

On February 12, 1909, the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, a group that included African American leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett announced the formation of a new organization. Called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, it would have a profound effect on the struggle for civil rights and the course of 20th Century American history.

The conference that led to the NAACP’s founding had been called in response to a race riot in Illinois. The founders also noted the disturbing trends of lynchings, which reached their peak not during or immediately after the Civil War but in the 1890s and early 1900s, as segregation laws took effect across the South and white supremacists once again gained total control of state governments. Many of the organization’s early members came from the Niagara Movement, a group created by black activists who were opposed to the concepts of conciliation and assimilation.

In its early years, the NAACP spread awareness of the lynching epidemic by means of a 100,000-person silent march in New York City. It also won a major legal victory in 1915, when the Supreme Court declared an Oklahoma “grandfather clause” that allowed whites to bypass voting restrictions unconstitutional. Perhaps its most famous legal victory came in 1954, when NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund founder Thurgood Marshall won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Marshall went on to become the first African American Supreme Court justice in 1967. In addition to other legal victories during the Civil Rights Era, the NAACP helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, as well as the Mississippi Freedom Summer, a seminal voter registration drive. The campaign came two years after an NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, was assassinated at his home in Jackson.

Due to its prominent members, landmark legal victories, and lobbying for laws like the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, the NAACP holds a place of distinction in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. It remains the largest and oldest active civil rights group in the nation, and its emphasis on voter registration, legal defense and activism have set an example for subsequent groups to follow.

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Three protestors die in the Orangeburg Massacre

Year: 1968

Month Day: February 08

On the night of February 8, 1968, police officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina open fire on a crowd of young people during a protest against racial segregation, killing three and wounding around 30 others. The killing of three young African Americans by state officials, four years after racial discrimination had been outlawed by federal law, has gone down in history as the Orangeburg Massacre.

After decades of protests across the country, segregation was abolished in the United States by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While its passage was a major victory, many racists throughout the South simply refused to obey it, knowing local police would not care to enforce. In early February of 1968, a group of activists in Orangeburg tried to convince one such man, Harry Floyd, to desegregate his bowling alley, but he refused. Several days of expanding protests followed, during which protesters damaged a window of the bowling alley, police responded with arrests and beatings, and unrest spread to the nearby campus of South Carolina State University, a historically black college.

The night of the 8th, officers of the South Carolina Highway Patrol responded to a bonfire on the campus. When a protester pried a banister from an abandoned house and threw it at an officer, the police opened fire. The Highway Patrol would subsequently claim, and newspapers would subsequently report, that the students had used firebombs and even sniper rifles to attack before the police fired; however, multiple investigations of the incident failed to turn up any evidence to support the claims. The police barrage claimed the lives of two SCSU students, Samuel Hammond, Jr. and Henry Smith, as well as a local high school student, Delano Middleton, who had been sitting near the protest waiting for his mother to get off work.

The killings sparked outrage across the nation, but the Governor of South Carolina blamed “black power advocates” rather than his police. The massacre is still commemorated by the university and others in South Carolina, but social commentators have noted that its place in America’s collective memory is not as prominent that of the similar Kent State and Jackson State Massacres, both of which occurred during anti-Vietnam War protests and which collectively claimed the lives of six white students in 1970. Shootings on college and high school campuses continue to plague the United States, as does police violence against African Americans—nearly 1,000 people are killed by police every year, and black people are 2.5 times more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than white people.

READ MORE: Segregation in the United States

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First paper currency is issued in the Colonies

Updated:: Dec 9, 2019
Original:: Oct 24, 2019

Year: 1690

Month Day: December 10

On December 10, 1690, a failed attack on Quebec and subsequent near-mutiny force the Massachusetts Bay Colony to issue the first paper currency in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

France and Britain periodically attacked each other’s North American colonies throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries. In 1690, during one such war, Governor William Phips of Britain’s Massachusetts Bay Colony made a promise he could not keep. After leading a successful invasion of the French colony of Arcadia, Phips decided to raid Quebec City, promising his volunteer troops half the loot in addition to their usual pay. Soldiers were typically paid in coins, but shortages of official currency in the colonies sometimes forced armies to temporarily issue IOUs—in one case, in the form of cut-up playing cards—which troops were allowed to exchange for goods and services until receiving their actual pay. Despite Phips’ grand promise, he failed to take the city, returning to Massachusetts with a damaged fleet and no treasure.

With a shortage of coins and nothing else to pay the troops with, Phips faced a potential mutiny. With no other option, on December 10th, 1690, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered the printing of a limited amount of government-backed, paper currency to pay the soldiers. A few months later, with tax season approaching, a law was passed removing the limit on how much currency could be printed, calling for the immediate printing of more, and permitting the use of paper currency for the payment of taxes.

The currency was initially unpopular for anything except paying taxes, and was phased out. Within a few years, however, paper currency would return to Massachusetts. The Bank of England began issuing banknotes in 1695, also to pay for war against the French, and they became increasingly common throughout the 18th Century. Paper money continued to stoke controversy throughout the early history of the United States, and it was tied to the value of gold for a surprisingly long time. It was not until 1973 that President Richard Nixon officially ended the international convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold.

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