Tricia London's Comments

Mrs. London,

To answer your first question, I was not born with the name Kweisi Mfume. My name used to be Frizzell Gerald Gray, but I changed it after my aunt came back from a trip to Ghana. She suggested that I take that name because I had expressed a wish to connect with my African roots and because the name means "conquering son of kings".

Today, I am a trustee for the Enterprise Foundation, the Morgan State University Board of Regents, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Also, I am on the advisory committee for the Harvard JFK School of Gov.

If you would like, you can find more info about your first question on http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Mfume-Kweisi.html and for your second question on http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&inPS=true&prodId=GVRL&userGroupName=mlin_s_avonmid&resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&contentSegment=9781414428871&isBOBIndex=true&docId=GALE|CX2690000019#568

Mrs. London,

My cousin Simeon Wright was the one who actually was called upon to donate my casket. Originally, there was going to be a memorial set up in honor of my mother and I until someone took the money and placed it back in this old shed at the cemetery. Finally, when my cousin had seen what they did with my casket without notifying anyone he took it in his hands and donated it to the Smithsonian. Man was I raging when I heard what they did to it.There were many museums that would have loved it, but this one stood out because it was a civil rights museum. My coffin is now on display there to represent that my death actually happened. That I existed and I was not just a picture in a book, but this was my real life that people need to remember. I am glad with my cousin's choice on my coffin's location and couldn't be more proud of it's purpose and what it stands as for people today.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/QA-Simeon-Wright.html?c=y&page=2

Mrs. London,

On Christmas Day, 1957, my home was bombed soon after multiple rallies to desegregate buses in Birmingham. The bombing did not injure me, but in 1957 I was beaten with whips and chains as I tried to integrate an all-white public school.

Early in my life, I was a telegraph operator and I loved baseball. So much I would forward baseball reports from the telegraph office to local pool  using a foghorn. I loved how the announcers would recreate the game from the telegraph reports. I eventually became the radio voice of the Barons, commenting on baseball. I used the line  "shooting the bull"  so much during the  games that I ended up with the nickname "Bull" Connor.

http://www.coloredreflections.com/decades/Decade.cfm?Dec=2&Typ=2&Sty=1&SID=220

http://www.bhamwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bull_Connor

Mrs.London,

 I donated those papers in appreciation of my enlightenment and inspiration there. I donated my papers in 1964 which was the year my stature on the global stage was confirmed, when I got my Nobel Peace Prize. The Press conference was On Monday, May 20, 1967.

Yes Tricia, I was! Thank you for noticing, I'm flattered!  Although I dropped out of high school I went back to school and studied at the Carnegie Institute of Detroit to become a medical lab technician.  There, I graduated with top honors and received a gold trophy for my academic achievement.     

Mrs. London, I was in fact born in Kosciusko, Mississippi of both Choctaw and African American heritage. The Choctaw were a group of Native American people formerly living in central and southern parts of Mississippi. The Choctaws were removed to an Indian territory in the 1830s. Before this time period, my descendants lived in the Mississippi area for about two thousand years. 

http://www.answers.com/topic/james-meredith

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbcworldservice/2886142008/

Mrs. London, 

Many people attended Medgar's ceremony.  To name a few, the current NAACP President, Benjamin Jealous, attended along with Vernon Jordan, a civil rights icon, and B.B. King, a Blues Legend from Mississippi.  Other people who attended include William Bell (R&B artist),  Tamilah Mann (gospel artist), and Angella Christie (saxophonist).  Frank X. Walker and Minrose Gwin also had a book signing and reading for Remembering Medgar Evers: Writing the Long Civil Rights Movement, which they wrote all about Medgar, his assassination, and his accomplishments. President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder were also there.

http://www.eversinstitute.org/

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/medgar-evers-widow-myrlie-cant-let-dream-die-130016462.html

http://medgareverstributegala.eventbrite.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Medgar-Evers-Movement-University/dp/0820335649

well it was very difficult but my Grandmother said, "There's God there." So, my Grandmother taught me to say the 23rd psalms.

"A psalm of David.

Also I wore my saddle shoes, my grandmother always made sure I polished them before I went to school.

http://digital.wustl.edu/e/eop/eopweb/bea0015.0713.009melbapattillobeals.html

http://www.bartleby.com/108/19/23.html

Mrs. London,

To address your question, I founded CORE with an interracial group of students on the Campus of the University of Chicago. This included myself alongside Bernice Fisher, James R. Robinson, Joe Guinn, George Houser, Bayard Rustin, and Homer Jack. I would like to say, though, I did much of the preliminary work necessary in getting this organization approved. For this reason, I'd say my part in finding CORE was somewhat more significant than everyone else's. To begin with, in 1942, CORE was originally named the Committee of Racial Equality. About a year later, the name was changed to the Congress of Racial Equality. George Houser and myself were the main leaders of CORE and I was the first national director. I hope this answers your question.

Thank you and have a lovely evening.

(For More Information:

http://www.core-online.org/History/history.htm

http://www.congressofracialequality.org/core-facts.html)

Mrs. London,

I'm a bit confused by your question. The second half of my answer was about what I am doing for work now, but is there something else you wanted to know?

Boston University is my own school. I studied here and this university means a lot to me. I think it is a great university. I felt like this university deserved the papers. They will take care of these papers. I feel as though this is the best place to keep them.

“When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman who lived in the 20^th century and who dared to be a catalyst of change.  I don’t want to be remembered as the first black woman who went to Congress.  And I don’t even want to be remembered as the first woman who happened to be black to make the bid for the presidency. I want to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20^th century.  That’s what I want.”

When I talk Barbadian accent because when I was younger I went to schools in Barbados. 

Yes of course, Ms. London. This movie reflects on my life as a young girl. It is based off of a book I co-wrote titled the same, Selma Lord Selma. I wrote about how I met Martin Luther King Jr. He taught me a lot about life. He came to Selma to help us African Americans. He is my hero. This movie explains how I use to skip school and go to meetings. It also portrayed the harsh environment we lived in, socially. We originally started our march protest when a dear friend of mine was killed by the whites. His name was Jimmie Lee Jackson. We marched from Selma to Montgomery. Basically, this movie explained how I went from an average little girl stuck in a racist world struggling with society; to a little girl sticking up for our freedom and equality. I was the youngest marcher in the crowd. In August of 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights act into law. This movie shows the transition from a cruel world resisting blacks from having voting rights, to a place where a black man can vote with pride. Though women couldn't vote until later on, it still was a first step to a big goal. This wouldn't have happened if we didn't stand up for what we believe in. MLK taught me that! Oh, and by the way, Jurnee Smollett plays me and she is a fantastic actress. She really portrayed my life well. I would recommend the book and movie to everyone, it's really inspirational. Looking back, I still can't believe my childhood and what I had went through. 

Tricia, I succeeded Ralph Abernathy in 1977 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The SCLC stands for Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The goal of the SCLC was to promote non-violent resistance to discrimination & segregation. Our belief was that if we maintained the peacefulness in our protest, the acts of rules and violent encounters would make a drastic decrease.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004391F/sclc.htm

I attended with famous poet Langston Hughes, Nigeria's first presisdent Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah.

In the New York times Taylor Branch stated that "In Mississippi, Bob Moses was the equivalent of Martin Luther King".