BRAD PYE’S BOOK FOREWORD BY LEROY VAUGHN, MD, MBA, Historian

BRAD PYE’S BOOK FOREWORD 

BY LEROYVAUGHN, MD

        I was quite honored when Brad Pye Jr. asked me to write the foreword to his outstanding autobiographical book considering all the very distinguished people he could have chosen. Brad has uplifted the lives of thousands of people during his 60 plus years in Los Angeles and several of those deeds are outlined in this work. I am sure his toughest job was choosing which appreciation letters, tributes, and award documents to include in this outstanding compilation.

When I was recently asked who the real American heroes were, I answered that I most admired people who had dedicated their lives toward uplifting the lives of their fellow man and especially people less fortunate than themselves. In fact, I am in awe of people who have helped disenfranchised, bright, gifted, deserving, needy African Americans break through racial barriers and injustices. This esteemed group includes people like John Brown and Marcus Garvey. Brad Pye in my eyes has spent no less energy trying to help others.

John Brown dedicated his life toward the emancipation of all slaves. He actively campaigned to establish African American schools and helped Oberlin College to open its doors to “Negroes” in 1839. John Brown volunteered to personally teach Black farmers in New York how to clean up and plant farmland that he had convinced a wealthy New York landowner to donate. When slavery appeared to have no end, John Brown died trying to steal enough weapons to allow slaves to fight for their own freedom.

Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Harlem in 1918. His vision was to organize the Black race through race pride, education, self-reliance, and economic development. Garvey attempted to promote race pride by stressing the importance of the historical accomplishments of people of African descent. He said “we were once masters in art, science, and literature”, and “whatsoever a Black man has done a Black man can do.” Self-reliance and economic development was Garvey’s second major theme. His ultimate objective was to manufacture every marketable commodity and to establish factories that could employ and train thousands of Black workers. Although Marcus Garvey did not achieve all his goals, his spirit fortunately lives though the millions of people he has inspired and uplifted. I am convinced part of that spirit reached Brad Pye Jr.

Brad Pye Jr.’s humble beginning started in Plain Dealing, Louisiana. In 1943 at the age of 12, he convinced a person driving to Los Angeles to allow him to ride along for $5. His loving mother steered him toward friends and joined him six years later. Brad parlayed this non air-conditioned journey into a magnificent career as an award winning manager and sports editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper and as the sports director of multiple radio stations for many years including KGFJ, KJLH, KACE, and KDAY.

Brad’s outstanding sports journalism career provided him the opportunity to obtain a lofty civic stature and to befriend numerous sport owners and upper management personnel. He used those inroads to increase awareness of racial injustices and inequalities and to promote opportunities for qualified African Americans in numerous endeavors. For over 50 years Brad used his influence and “insider” leverage to help break racial barriers in every major sport including football, baseball, boxing, and track and field. Brad was there when Aaron Wade became the first African American to be named an American Football league (AFL) official and when Eldridge Dickey became the first Black American quarterback drafted into the NFL. As a good friend, recruiter, and “Administrative Assistant” to Oakland Raider owner Al Davis, Brad encouraged the first aggressive football recruiting from historically Black colleges. This foresight helped the Raiders win 3 Super bowl championships. It is also no coincidence that Al Davis hired Art Shell as the first Black American head football coach in the NFL.

In professional baseball, Brad also worked tirelessly to promote Black “firsts”. He and others wrote numerous letters and met personally with the late Dodger owner Walter O’Malley. Eventually, Emmet Ashford became the first African American umpire called up to the Major league. Brad and others like Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper also helped promote the acceptance of major league baseball stars like Sam Lacey and Jackie Robinson who became his very close friend.

Although Brad is well known for promoting prep athletes at major southern California universities like UCLA and USC, he is just as recognized for obtaining press box accommodations for Black journalists in Southern California. Black journalists are now a staple in the press boxes of the Dodgers, Lakers and all other major sporting events.

Brad Pye Jr.’s great career also touched the lives of numerous non athletes. Among those who thank him and sing his praises include the late Attorney Johnnie Cochran who thanked him for 30 years of friendship and promotion long before the national media “discovered” him. Personally, my story is not unlike Attorney Cochran. When I told Brad that I had difficulty establishing my private practice as the only Black Retinal specialist on the West Coast, he told me not to worry. He subsequently published my resume in the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper and appointed me to the State Boxing Commission and the State Athletic Commission. To demonstrate his trust, he even sent his mother to me shortly thereafter when she developed a retinal detachment. I cherish our 30 year friendship.

I am confident that after reading this autobiographic collection of letters, tributes, and awards, the reader will be amazed at what one man can accomplish for his fellow man when intensely motivated. Perhaps this book can inspire the reader to also help others.

LEROY W. VAUGHN, MD, MBA, Historian

Dr. Vaughn's book BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY opens with a review by Brad Pye, Jr. 

Five Black USA Presidents - Book - Black People And Their Place In World History by Dr. Leroy Vaughn

From the book

BLACK PEOPLE
AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY

by

Dr. Leroy Vaughn 

MD, MBA, Author, Historian, Humanitarian

(Text below bibliography)

Five Black Presidents Bibliography

Adler, D. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: Father of our Democracy. New York: Holiday House.

Bakhufu, A. (1993) The Six Black Presidents, Washington, D.C.: PIK2 Publications.

Bennett, L. (1988) Before the Mayflower. New Penguin Books.

Brodie, F. (1974) Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

Curtis, J. (1982) Return to These Hills: VT Yrs. of C. Coolidge. Woodstock, VT: Curtis-Lieberman Books.

Dennis, R. (1970) The Black People of America. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Erickson, E. (1974) Dimensions of a New Identity: Jefferson Lectures. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

Kane, J. (1981) Facts About the Presidents: From Geo. Washington to Ron. Reagan. NY: H. W. Wilson Co.

Mapp, A. (1987) Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity. New York: Madison Books.

Morrow, E. (1963) Black Man in the White House. New York: Coward-McCann Inc.

Remini, R. (1966) Andrew Jackson. New York: Harper and Row

Reuter, E. (1969) The Mulatto in the United States. Haskell House.

Rogers, J. (1965) Sex and Race. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing

Rogers, J. (1965) The Five Negro Presidents. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga Rogers Publishing.

Sullivan, M. (1991) Presidential Passions: Love Affairs of Am’s Pres..Wash..Johnson. NY: Shapolsky Pub.

Whitney, T. (1975) The Descendants of the Presidents. Charlotte, NC: Delmar Printing Co.

Five Black Presidents Text

Joel A. Rogers and Dr. Auset Bakhufu have both written books documenting that at least five former presidents of the United States had Black people among their ancestors.  If one considers the fact that European men far outnumbered European women during the founding of this country, and that the rape and impregnation of an African female slave was not considered a crime, it is even more surprising that these two authors could not document Black ancestors among an ever larger number of former presidents.  The presidents they name include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge.

The best case for Black ancestry is against Warren G. Harding, our 29th president from 1921 until 1923.  Harding himself never denied his ancestry.  When Republican leaders called on Harding to deny the "Negro" history, he said, "How should I know whether or not one of my ancestors might have jumped the fence." William Chancellor, a White professor of economics and politics at Wooster College in Ohio, wrote a book on the Harding family genealogy and identified Black ancestors among both parents of President Harding.  Justice Department agents allegedly bought and destroyed all copies of this book.  Chancellor also said that Harding's only academic credentials included education at Iberia College, which was founded in order to educate fugitive slaves.

Andrew Jackson was our 7th president from 1829 to 1837.  The Virginia Magazine of History, Volume 29, says that Jackson was the son of a White woman from Ireland who had intermarried with a Negro.  The magazine also said that his eldest brother had been sold as a slave in Carolina.   Joel Rogers says that Andrew Jackson Sr. died long before President Andrew Jackson Jr. was born. He says the president's mother then went to live on the Crawford farm where there were Negro slaves and that one of these men was Andrew Jr.'s father.  Another account of the "brother sold into slavery” story can be found in David Coyle's book entitled "Ordeal of the Presidency" (1960).

Thomas Jefferson was our 3^rd president from 1801 to 1809.  The chief attack on Jefferson was in a book written by Thomas Hazard in 1867 called "The Johnny Cake Papers."  Hazard interviewed Paris Gardiner, who said he was present during the 1796 presidential campaign, when one speaker states that Thomas Jefferson was “a mean-spirited son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father.”  In his book entitled "The Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson," Samuel Sloan wrote that Jefferson destroyed all of the papers, portraits, and personal effects of his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, when she died on March 31, 1776.  He even wrote letters to every person who had ever received a letter from his mother, asking them to return that letter.  Sloan says, "There is something strange and even psychopathic about the lengths to which Thomas Jefferson went to destroy all remembrances of his mother, while saving over 18,000 copies of his own letters and other documents for posterity."  One must ask, "What is it he was trying to hide?"

Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president from 1861 to 1865.  J. A. Rogers quotes Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, as saying that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate son of an African man.  William Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, said that Lincoln had very dark skin and coarse hair and that his mother was from an Ethiopian tribe.  In Herndon's book entitled "The Hidden Lincoln" he says that Thomas Lincoln could not have been Abraham Lincoln's father because he was sterile from childhood mumps and was later castrated.  Lincoln's presidential opponents made cartoon drawings depicting him as a Negro and nicknamed him “Abraham Africanus the First."

Calvin Coolidge was our 30th president, and he succeeded Warren Harding.  He proudly admitted that his mother was dark because of mixed Indian ancestry.  However, Dr. Bakhufu says that by 1800 the New England Indian was hardly any longer pure Indian, because they had mixed so often with Blacks.  Calvin Coolidge's mother's maiden name was "Moor."  In Europe the name "Moor" was given to all Black people just as the name Negro was used in America.

All of the presidents mentioned were able to pass for White and never acknowledged their Black ancestry.  Millions of other children who were descendants of former slaves have also been able to pass for White.  American society has had so much interracial mixing that books such as “The Bell Curve”, discussing IQ evaluations based solely on race, are totally unrealistic.

The Tuskegee Airmen

What Scientific Racism Did to The Blacks World Wide.

Two Popes Praying To The Black Madonna

Today, two popes of the Catholic Church, living at the same time in Rome, were praying to a Black Madonna in the Vatican, together, before the press. Times have changed but the reality remains the same. There is a historic power in praying to THE BLACK MADONNA too.

The image below is stock of the room where the historic prayer session happened, forgiveness and truth in action.  

The dynamic author Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian, Humanitarian and Honorary Nigerian Chief, in his powerful book BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY, tells the truth-story in the chapter "After Christ' he has an image of this statue of Saint Peter that stands at the Vatican too. 

BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY, tells the truth-story about the Black Madonna in the chapter "After Christ" pg 56-58 .pdf and paperback:   

THE BLACK MADONNA

Isis was a Black African goddess of Nile Valley civilizations whose worship eventually diffused to most of the ancient world. Isis was worshiped by the Nubians well over 300 years before the first Egyptian dynasty.  The Egyptians then gave the Isis religion to Greece, Rome, and western Asia. Gerald Massey says that the religious records of all the world’s religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are nothing more than copies of the religious records of the Black goddess Isis, her son Horus, and her husband Osiris. For example, Horus was the first child born from a virgin mother's immaculate conception, and he was said to have walked on water just as Jesus later did. The Black goddess Isis is also credited with resurrecting Osiris after he was murdered.

The first "Black Madonna and Child" statutes and portraits were of Isis and Horus, and these were taken throughout the world by the Roman Empire. When other religions became more popular, these statues were not destroyed, but simply had their names changed. In India, Isis and Horus became Maya and Buddha in Buddhism or Devaki and Krishna in Hinduism. The Chinese called Isis Kwa-yin, and the Japanese changed the name to Kwannon.

In his 1985 book entitled "The Cult of the Black Virgin", Ean Begg was able to identify over 450 images of a Black virgin and child in Europe with over 190 statutes in France alone. J. A. Rogers says that Paris was actually named for Isis because Para-Isis means "Place of Isis." He also says that Note Dame means "Our Lady" and that the cathedral is nothing more than an enlargement of the original Isis temple.

Millions of pilgrims visit the Black Madonna shrines annually because they are believed to possess magical powers, although the statues are now called Mary and Jesus. It is believed that only the Black statues are magical and all pilgrimages stopped whenever the statues were painted white. The Black Madonnas have been credited with healing towns of plagues, bringing dead babies to life, making infertile women pregnant, and saving nations during wars. Many crutches have been left at the feet of the Black Madonnas, who presumably gave their owners the power to walk. One of the most devoted pilgrims of the Black Madonna shrine in Poland was Pope John Paul II. He prayed to her image while recovering from his gun shot wound. She is credited with thousands of documented miracles including saving Poland from Russia in 1769. In 1968 alone, the Black Madonna shrine in Poland received over 66,000 thank you letters for healing and other miracles. Pilgrims frequently leave gold watches and rings at the feet of the Black Madonnas in appreciation.

Church literature absolutely refuses to acknowledge any association of Black Madonnas with Africa. Church officials claim that the Madonnas are Black because of smoke from candles and from dirt and old age. Church officials would never admit that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans made pilgrimages until 536 A.D. to the Isis temple at Philae, Egypt to seek the same miracles that current pilgrims seek from the Black Madonna shrines. Isis was recognized as a supreme miracle and magic worker and is also credited with teaching mankind the art of curing disease. Isis was able to restore life to the dead as she did with her husband Osiris and later with the infant Horus, who was brought back to life after he was killed by a scorpion's sting. Isis was the goddess of corn and grain, water and navigation, and even clothing. She was also called a divine granter of salvation for souls of mankind. The ancient Black Egyptians acknowledged Isis as the source of all their prosperity, including the Nile River.

Isis worship was so strong in Europe that Roman citizens ignored Emperors Augustus and Tuberous, who outlawed Isis worship and persecuted her priests. Emperor Caligulia finally bowed to public pressure and re-established the Isis worship. Emperor Justinian caused an unsuccessful armed insurrection in 536 A.D., when he ordered all Isis temples permanently closed.

Religion in general (and the cult of the Black Virgin Madonna in specific) is yet another example of the many elements of civilization and civilizing ideas which were brought from Africa into Europe.

BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY

is available:

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THE BLACK MADONNA BIBLIOGRAPHY

Begg, E. (1985) The Cult of the Black Virgin. New York: Penguin Books.
Budge, E. (1969) The Gods of the Egyptians. New York: Dover.
Doane, T. W. (1882) Bible Myths. New York: Truth Seeker Co.
Grabar, A. (1968) Christian Iconography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jameson, M. (1876) Legends of the Madonna. Boston: Osgood and Co.
MacQuitty, W. (1976) Island of Isis. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Morey, C.R. (1958) Christian Art. New York: Norton.
Patrick R. (1972) Egyptian Mythology. London: Octopus Books.
Rogers, J. A. (1967) Sex and Race. New York: Helga Rogers Publishing
Snowden, F. (1970) Blacks in Antiquity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Van Der Merr, F. (1967) Early Christian Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Van Sertima, I. (ed.) (1984) Black Women in Antiquity. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Witt, R. (1971) Isis in the Graeco-Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell.

Black People & Their Place In World History - Readings (playlist)

Part of humanity's mission is to shift from his-story to truth-story because only the truth can not only make us free, but help us solve our problems, like what's going on at Fukushima.

Pre-production is in process as this powerful history book, BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian, Humanitarian, Honorary Nigeria Chief, is being produced as a movie.  

The playlist above features about an hour of selected readings from the book including pieces on Who Created Civilization, Black Popes, Black Presidents, The Moors, Brownsville Texas and Black Soldiers, Black Wall Street, Blacks In The Military, Lynching and Strange Fruit.

Enjoy the playlist!  Subscribe to this blog to stay abreast of this movie's development.  

Black Women Of The Old West

From the book BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR PLACE IN WORLD HISTORY by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian: From the chapter After 1777: Independence - Section - Black Women of the Old West

"Although our novels and movies are filled with heroes from the old west, African American heroes are virtually never mentioned. Moreover, historians have also contributed to this unjust and unbalanced recording of our glorious western saga by completely ignoring the many accomplishments of Black men and women, despite the fact they were accurately reported in newspapers, government records, military reports, and pioneer memoirs. As members of a double minority, Black women have suffered an even greater historical injustice, although they were an integral part of the western fabric. Nothing more clearly demonstrates the contributions of Black women to the western tradition than the biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary Ellen Pleasant. 

Biddy Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s 300-wagon caravan. After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino, California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and the court freed all of Smith’s slaves. Now free, Mason and her three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Knowing what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of real estate including a commercial building, which provided her with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and churches. Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of First African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, now the oldest church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison. In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her unmarked gravesite and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’ first Black female property owner and philanthropist. 

Clara Brown (1806-1888) is another who dedicated her life to the betterment of others. She was born as a slave in Virginia and then sold at age three to the Brown family in Logan, Kentucky. At age 35, her master died, and her slave husband, son, and daughter were sold at auction to different owners. After 20 additional years in slavery, she was able to buy her freedom and immediately headed west to St. Louis. At age 55, she agreed to serve as cook and laundress in exchange for free transportation in a caravan headed for the gold mines of Colorado. Clara Brown established a laundry in Central City and as her resources expanded, she opened up her home, which served as a hospital, church, and hotel to the town’s less fortunate. Under her direction, the first Sunday school developed, and moreover, the whole town turned to her during illness because she was such a good nurse. Frequently, she even “grubstaked" miners who had no other means of support while they looked for gold in the mountains and was repaid handsomely for her kindness and generosity by those who struck pay dirt.” Far and wide, she was known as “Aunt Clara” and as “the Angel of the Rockies”. 

By the end of the Civil War, Clara Brown had accumulated several Colorado properties and over $10,000 in cash. Since slavery was over, she used her fortune to search for relatives in Virginia and Kentucky and returned with 34 of them including her daughter. She continued her philanthropy among the needy for the rest of her life and also spent large sums of money helping other Blacks come west. Upon her death at age 82, the Colorado Pioneers Association buried her with honors, and a plaque was placed in the St. James Methodist Church stating that her house was the first home of the church. 

Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1903), a former slave, moved to San Francisco in 1849 where she opened a successful boarding house, famous for cards, liquor, and beautiful women. She was also a partner of Thomas Bell, co-founder of the first “Bank of California.” As a businesswoman, she was called mercurial, cunning, cynical, and calculating, but personally she was softhearted and had a passion for helping the less fortunate who called her “the Angel of the West”. She was a leader in California for the protection of abused women and children and helped build and support numerous “safe havens” for them. Mary Ellen Pleasant hated slavery and frequently rode into the rural sections of California to rescue people held in bondage. Because of Pleasant, the entire Black community of San Francisco received a warning from one judge for “the insolent, defiant, and dangerous way that they interfered with those who were arresting slaves.” Mary Ellen Pleasant used most of her fortune to aid fugitive slaves. “She fed them, found occupations for them, and financially backed them in numerous small businesses.” In 1858, she gave $30,000 to John Brown to help finance his raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. This White abolitionist had hoped to capture the national armory and distribute the weapons to slaves for a massive insurrection. During the Civil War, Pleasant raised money for the Union cause and continued to fight for civil rights. Her tombstone epitaph read: “Mother of Civil Rights in California” and “Friend of John Brown”. 

Brief biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary Ellen Pleasant serve to illustrate the enormous contributions and accomplishments of Black women in the old west. Era Bell Thompson in “American Daughter” clearly states the problem: “Black women were an integral part of the western and American tradition. It both impairs their sense of identity and unbalances the historical record to continue to overlook the role of Black women in the development of the American west.”

BLACK WOMEN OF THE OLD WEST
Bibliography

Billington, M & Hardaway, E. (eds.) (1998) African Americans on the Western Frontier. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado.

Bruyn, K. (1970) Aunt Clara Brown: Story of a Black Pioneer - Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co.

James, E. & James J. (eds.) (1971) Notable American Women. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

 Katz, W. (1992) Black People Who Made the Old West, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Lerner, G. (1979) The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History. New York: Oxford University Press.

Myres, S. (1982) Westering Women: The Frontier Experience. 1880-1915. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Pelz, R. (1989) Black Heroes of the Wild West. Seattle: Open Hand Publishers.

Ravage, J. (1977) Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press.

Riley, G. (1981) Frontierswomen: The Iowa Experience. Ames: Iowa State University Press.

Savage, W. (1976) Blacks in the West. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Sterling, D. (1984) We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

Thompson, E. (1986) American Daughter. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society.