Sometimes the achievement is to make it through to the blessing on the other side of your challenge! Listen to the wisdom of George Washington Carver, the great inventor and innovator who took the peanut and made it shine. He wrote:

In these strenuous times, we are likely to become morbid and look constantly upon the
dark side of life, and spend entirely too much time considering and brooding over what
we can't do, rather than what we can do, and instead of growing morose and
despondent over opportunities that are shut from us, let us rejoice at the many
unexplored fields in which there is unlimited fame and fortune to the successful explorer.

Explore the "can-do" things in your life and move, thrive and live abundantly!

SpectrumTalk Blogger James Fouther, Jr.

James Ellis Fouther, Jr. is the inspirational architect and spiritual leader of the United Church of Montbello. This northeast Denver based, progressive community of Christians embraces and welcomes folks of all backgrounds, races and levels of need. The church itself has been a groundbreaker in many ways. It has led the effort to feed hundreds of families and individuals through the Montbello Cooperative Ministries Food bank and sponsored refugee families from different parts of Africa.

While James is a pastor who embraces the need for ministers to be serious scholars, his bachelor of arts degree is from Illinois Wesleyan University, his master's degree is from the Chicago Theological Seminary, and his doctorate degree is from Eden Theological Seminary. James comments on current issues as well as spiritual, motivational, religious and funny matters on SpectrumTalk as well as his own blog site at http://revjamesfoutherjr.blogspot. com.

“Aunt Clara” - First Black Resident of the Colorado Territory

Clara Brown was a slave at birth, in Virginia, in 1800. She married at 18, and had four children. They were split up when the slave owner's estate was sold.

At 57, upon the death of her owner, Brown was freed and moved to Kansas where she opened a laundry. From there she went to Central City, Colo., where she opened another laundry. She bought mining claims and brought ex-slaves west.

"Aunt Clara's" home was used as a hospital, hotel or refuge.

In 1882, three years before she died, she found a daughter from whom she'd been separated for 30 years.

Brown is memorialized with a leaded-glass window in the Colorado Capitol, and in 1932, the Central City Opera House Association dedicated a chair to her.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson

Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Jackson also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Chicago American and Chicago Today for 11 years. He covered the 1963 March on Washington; the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign; The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's, Chicago campaign; and riots in Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Henson went to Top of the World

When explorer Robert Edwin Peary reached the North Pole in 1909, Matthew Alexander Henson was the only American who accompanied him. Henson, an African American born on a farm in Maryland in 1867, went on expeditions with Peary for more than 20 years, as his personal assistant and dog driver.

Peary eventually became obsessed with arctic exploration. After numerous trips to Greenland between 1893 and 1905, Peary became convinced that he could become the first man to stand at the North Pole. Henson accompanied Peary on these trips to Greenland and became an integral part of his plans.

In 1906, along with others, Peary and Henson set out from Greenland on their first attempt to reach the North Pole. They came within 160 miles, but were forced to turn back because of unseasonably warm weather.

They tried again in 1909. By the end of March they were within 150 miles of their goal. Because of sickness, Henson left Peary behind on April 6, and went ahead. Peary followed later and teamed up with Henson. They thought they were there. However, there has been conflicting questions ever since as to who was the first man to reach the top of the world.

Henson received several honors for his part in the 1908-1909 expedition. He wrote the book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. His biography, Dark Companion, written by Bradley Robinson, was published in 1947.

Henson died in 1955.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson

Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Jackson also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Chicago American and Chicago Today for 11 years. He covered the 1963 March on Washington; the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign; The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's, Chicago campaign; and riots in Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Malone - Beauty School Entrepreneur

Annie M. Malone founded her first beauty school in 1900, at age 31, in Lovejoy, Ill. Moving the school to St. Louis two years later, she peddled her highly popular “Wonderful Hair Grower” throughout the South.

One of her agents was Madame C. J. Walker, later famous as a rival beauty-empire builder and the first Black woman millionaire.

To fend off imitations of her product, Malone copyrighted the trade name “Poro.” By 1918, she built a Poro College.

Within eight years, her agents were in every state, Canada, Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, Central and South America, Africa and the Philippines. The firm’s daily $5,000 gross during the peak period boosted Malone’s estimated net worth to $14 million.

Following Depression loses, she moved to Chicago, headquartering in five mansions that occupied nearly half of a south-side block. By the time of her death in 1957, Malone had set up 32 beauty schools nationwide.

Black History Month Blogger Bob Jackson

Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Jackson also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Chicago American and Chicago Today for 11 years. He covered the 1963 March on Washington; the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign; The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's, Chicago campaign; and riots in Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

from www.natlove.com

Love was a Real Cowboy

Nat Love was a Black cowboy in the Old West. Born a slave in Davidson County, Tenn., in 1854, Love was better known as “Deadwood Dick.” He worked in cattle drives from the western United States to Mexico for 20 years.

Love left home at 15 and went to work as a cowboy near Dodge City, Kan.
His autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as Deadwood Dick (1907), has many cowboy tales about such famous western characters as Bat Masterson, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill and Jesse James.

Love died in 1921.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson

Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Vesey - Leader of Slave Insurrection

Historians know little about the early life of Denmark Vesey, a Black freeman who planned a slave revolt that involved 9,000 Blacks.
Vesey, born in 1767, bought his freedom from his owner in 1800. He worked as a carpenter in Charleston, S.C., until he began to plan the slave revolt. The revolt never took place, but the threat of it caused South Carolina to pass severe laws restricting the education, movement and occupation of free blacks and slaves.

In 1822, Vesey organized about 9,000 free Blacks and slaves and prepared to attack several South Carolina cities. But some of the slaves told their owners, and several Blacks were arrested and gave information that led to the capture of Vesey and several others.
Vesey and 35 of his leaders were hanged in 1822, and several others were sold.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson
Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Motley, First African-American Female to sit on Federal Bench

Constance Motley was the first Black female United States District Court judge. She was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966.
She served in the New York District.

Motley was born Sept. 14, 1921, in New Haven, Conn. She finished her undergraduate education at Fiske University in Nashville, Tenn., and New York University in 2 ½ years. She graduated from Columbia Law School in 1946.

In her senior year at Columbia, she got a job as a clerk with former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. She worked for 20 years with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Motley was elected to the New York Senate in 1964, and is the only woman to be elected president of the Manhattan Borough. From 1982 to 1986, she served as judge of the Southern District of New York.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson
Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.

Photo from poetryfoundation.org

Brooks named Poet Laureate of Illinois

Gwendolyn Brooks was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. She won in 1950 for the poem, Annie Allen, a ballad that told the tragedy of Black life in Chicago.

Born in Topeka, Kan. in 1917, Brooks attended school in Chicago, where she spent most of her life. Her father a janitor, and her mother a school teacher, loved literature, raised their children with The Harvard Classics and recited poetry to them.

At 7, Brooks showed her first poem to her mother, who told her she was going to be a “lady Paul Lawrence Dunbar,” one of the first Black American writers to achieve prominence.

Brooks was named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. She was consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress.

Black History Blogger Bob Jackson
Bob Jackson starts blogging on SpectrumTalk about great African Americans during Black History Month. Jackson, a Chicago native, is a retired staff writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he worked for 22 years, starting in 1982. He wrote the column CITYSCAPE, and specializes in writing about ethnic minority affairs.
Jackson also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Chicago American and Chicago Today for 11 years. He covered the 1963 March on Washington; the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign; The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's, Chicago campaign; and riots in Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.