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May 11 15 tweets 4 min read Read on X
On this day in 1892, Alonzo Lonnie Clayton became the youngest jockey to ever win the Kentucky Derby.

He won the race at the age of 15 & still holds the record as the youngest winning rider

Did you know a black man won the very 1st Kentucky Derby in 1875?

BLACK JOCKEYS THREAD Image
Did you also know that the very first assembly of photographs to create a motion picture was a two-second clip of a Black man on a horse?
On May 17, 1875, Oliver Lewis won the very 1st Kentucky Derby.

He and his horse, Aristides, won by a reported two lengths, setting a new American record time for a mile-and-a-half race. Image
In the 19th century, when horse racing was America’s most popular sport, formerly enslaved men populated the ranks of jockeys and trainers & black men won more than half of the first 25 runnings of the Kentucky Derby.
Jimmy Winkfield was the last black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby.

He rode back to back winners of the Derby in 1901 and 1902. Image
In 1903 with the advent of Jim Crow Laws, he emigrated to Russia riding for Tsar Nicholas II and competing at racetracks all over Europe.

He won the Russian Oaks 5 times, the Russian Derby 4 times and the Warsaw Derby 2.
Jimmy Winkfield was only the second jockey to ride back to back winners of the Kentucky Derby.

The first to accomplish it was Isaac Murphy. The feat would not be duplicated until 1967.
Isaac Burns Murphy is considered one of the greatest riders in American Thoroughbred horse racing history

He rode in 11 Kentucky Derbies and won in 3 of them on Buchanan in 1884, Riley in 1890, and Kingman in 1891. Image
Dudley Allen, from U.S. Colored Cavalry enlistee in Civil War to first African American to own a Kentucky Derby winner, Kingman, in 1891.
After years of success, black men began getting fewer jobs on the racetrack, losing promotions and opportunities to ride top horses.

White jockeys also started to openly demand segregated competition.
In a 1905 Washington Post article titled “Negro Rider on Wane,” the writer insisted that black men were inferior and thus destined to disappear from the track, as Native Americans had inevitably disappeared from their homelands.
In the 1882 Derby, the black jockey jockey "Babe" Hurd, who rode Apollo, to victory.

Apollo had not raced as a two-year old. This was the origin of the "Apollo Curse:"
The Curse of Apollo is one of the longest, if not the longest curses in sports.

It’s a long-standing trend bettors believe justifies not backing any horse in the Kentucky Derby that was unraced as a two-year-old.
In 1971 at age of 17, Cheryl White became the first black female jockey.

She was also the first woman at a major track to win five thoroughbred races. She rode over 750 winners during her 21-year career. Image
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More from @AfricanArchives

May 12
On this day in 1862, Robert Smalls stole a Confederate Ship and sailed it to Freedom disguised as a captain, freeing his crew and their families.

A THREAD! Image
In 1862, Robert Smalls was serving as the pilot of a steam powered, Confederate ship, The CSS Planter. It was transporting large guns out of Charleston Harbor and deliver them to Union Navy forces on blockade duty Image
On the evening of 12th May 1862, The ship was docked and the confederate officers left the ship to spend the night on shore, leaving the slave crew on board. Rob had gotten permission to bring the crew’s families on board for the evening, as long as they were gone before curfew.
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May 9
The late Patrice Lumumba was the first legally elected prime minister of D.R Congo.

He was assassinated in 1961 following a military coup supported by U.S.A & Belgian imperialism which was admitted by US State Dept in 2013 authorized by president Eisenhower.

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For 126 years, the US and Belgium have played key roles in shaping Congo's destiny. In April 1884, seven months before the Berlin Congress, the US became the first country in the world to recognise the claims of King Leopold II of the Belgians to the territories of the Congo.
In the few months prior to his assassination, Lumumba had been the first elected prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, newly founded on June 30, 1960.
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Apr 26
65 years ago today, Mack Parker was murdered by a white mob. It’s considered one of the last civil rights era lynchings.

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Mack Charles Parker was a 23-year-old truck driver who had returned to his hometown of Lumberton, Mississippi, after receiving a general discharge following two years in the Army. Image
On the morning of February 24, 1959, Parker was awakened by Marshal Ham Slade and several deputies, who alleged that he had raped a young white woman, June Walters, the night before.
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Apr 25
The Banyole of the ancient kingdom Of Uganda practiced and perfected C-Section long before the Europeans.

While Europeans mainly concentrated on saving the baby, the ugandans were performing the operation successfully saving both.

A THREAD Image
Caesarean section was considered a life-threatening procedure in England that was only to be undertaken in the direst of circumstances and facing the decision on whether to save the life of the mother or baby.
The first successful C-section done in Africa ("success" defined as both surviving) is usually credited to Irish surgeon James Barry (Margaret Ann Bulkley), who performed the operation in Cape Town, South Africa. Image
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Apr 20
On this day in 1939, Billie Holiday recorded the first great protest song of the Civil Rights Movement, 'Strange Fruit’

The Chilling Story of Strange Fruit and Billie Holiday.

A THREAD!
"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by Jewish-American writer, teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol, under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, as a protest against lynchings and later set it to music.
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The song soon came to Billie Holiday's attention & after so many frequent requests of that song, she closed out EVERY performance with it. The waiters would stop serving ahead of time for complete silence, the room would darken, a spotlight would shine on Holiday's face… Image
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Apr 15
112 years ago today, Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche, the only black passenger on RMS Titanic, died when it sank.

THREAD
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Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche was the son of a white French army captain and a Haitian woman who was a descendant of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti.
Laroche’s uncle, Dessalines M. Cincinnatus, was president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912. Image
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