Fred’s Fabulous 60s and 70s It may be hard for anyone living in the rich commercialism of today to understand the climate of the late sixties and early seventies. You could make a good amount of cash in freelance photography. Poster art was big and companies were looking for new poster art material as well… Read More
Category: African-American Diary
Kitty Hawk Mutiny The USS Kitty Hawk riot was the first mass mutiny in the history of the U. S. Navy and were it not for military law, the incident might be passed off as a demonstration. Following the civil rights demonstrations of the 60s, White people went over board in trying to erase any… Read More
Racial Pandering in the 1970s Any Black person who grew up in the 1970s probably remember it as the era of racial pandering. It was common to be invited to a White friend’s party or social gathering just so they could show off their Black friend. I was often invited to parties by people who… Read More
WABX Free Concerts on Sundays on the WSU Campus Tartar Field After my first enlistment expired, I moved back to Detroit and enrolled in college at the Wayne State University. After first trying to get into the medical school, I decided to major in fine art, but later realizing where the money was, switched to… Read More
My Return Home from Vietnam When I returned from Vietnam in 1969, I made three decisions. One was going to Woodstock instead of the “New York City Soul Festival”, another was getting out of the navy when my enlistment expired, and yet another was moving back to Detroit. Upon arriving in Detroit, there were other… Read More
Pulling the race card (or How I got to meet Princess Grace) Princess Grace, Grace Patricia Kelly, was an American film actress who became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. While making a med cruise on board the USS Piper back in 1964, we received permission to pull into the… Read More
The President Is Dead Way back in 1963, while stationed on board the USS Piper, we pulled into the port of Djibouti, Africa as one of our scheduled Med cruise port calls. Djibouti, is a country located in the Horn of Africa in East Africa. It is bordered by Somalia in the south, Ethiopia in… Read More
Fred the Hunter During my stay in juvenile, my social worker was impressed with my art work and pulled enough strings to get me into a foster home run by the Wilcox family. They had two sons of their own, one younger than me and one older. Staying at their home had it’s drawbacks and… Read More
My One Minute Love Affair With Diana Ross When I was ready to enter high school, my mom got the idea in her head that I had to go to Cass Tech. Cass Technical High School was the best school in the city, but my grades were borderline. The school required an admissions exam and… Read More
My Days at Courville Elementary School My mom was always on a fanatical crusade to see that I got the very best education, long before she enrolled me into Cass Tech High School. My first memory of my elementary school days was when she enrolled me into Courville Elementary while we still lived on Minnesota… Read More
Moving on to Junior High in Detroit There wasn’t a graduation ceremony, but by the time I had grown old enough to start junior high school, my mom had moved us from the projects to a nicer second floor apartment in a two family home on Lemay street. This was a big change both in… Read More
My First Trip To Mississippi Still recalling my very first visit back to our family home in Gore Springs, Mississippi. At least the first trip that I was old enough to remember. It was way, way back in 1955, shortly after the lynching of Emmett Till in the little town of Money, Mississippi. Money is… Read More
Tales from my Childhood As a poor kid in Detroit, there were several ways to earn a little pocket change. If you had a bicycle, you could try to get a paper route. Another was to shine shoes. My local barber shop had a chair set up where you could shine the shoes of the… Read More
I was only three years old when my mother and father separated and divorced, so I never knew very much about my dad except that he was a strong person with a short temper. He came to visit us a few times as I was growing up until the last time I saw him he… Read More
Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Detroit in the early fifties, our neighborhood gang was composed of Black kids as well as the kids of European immigrants and there was even the girl next door that hung out with us for a while. We did fun things like exploring empty lots, laying in the… Read More
In 1950, Governor Talmadge leased shoreline to create Red Top Mountain State Park, and nearby established the first “Georgia State Park for Negroes.” The 345-acre park was named George Washington Carver Park, honoring the renowned Tuskegee Institute botanist and inventor. John Loyd Atkinson, an airman from Tuskegee, returned from World War II looking for a recreational… Read More
I am an American. I’ve been called Colored, Negro, Black, African American, high yellow, and even uncle Tom by some. I’ve also been called bubblehead, Super Fly, senior chief by others. But first and foremost I am an American. I will always be an American even though America isn’t a perfect country. I once swore… Read More
The U.S. Army ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ Took a 1,900-mile Bicycle Trek to St. Louis The Buffalo Soldiers were originally the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army, founded in 1864 in Buffalo, New York, USA, in response to the Civil War. While several African American regiments were part of the Union Army during the Civil War,… Read More
Rufus Buck Gang July 6th is the anniversary of the hanging of the Rufus Buck Gang- four black and Indian teens who tried to singlehandedly, violently halt the expansion of the burgeoning United States. You’ve never heard of them, but they stand among the most notorious and politically significant outlaws of the Old West. The… Read More