Black History Part II
For our second newsletter of Black History Month, we’re highlighting five more individuals — a teacher turned civic activist, an escaped slave who joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War, a leader in the crusade for social and economic progress in Indianapolis, a minister whose name is associated with Thanksgiving Day in Indianapolis, and a Basketball Hall of Famer, "the greatest player to never play in the NBA." Their experiences are widely varied, but they are all examples of being the best person you can be and doing what you can to help others along the way.
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Mattie Coney
(5/30/1909 - 8/5/1988)
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Mattie Coney at the 1960 GOP Convention; Photo credit: Indiana Historical Society
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Mattie Coney was an Indianapolis schoolteacher and Black civic leader who cofounded a group known as Citizens Forum, a Black neighborhood improvement organization created in 1964. Born in Gallatin, Tennessee in 1909, Coney moved to Indianapolis with her family as an infant. After graduating from Shortridge High School in 1927, she worked her way through a two-year teacher’s training course at Butler University by carrying newspapers and working at the Ayres Tea Room. Coney also did postgraduate work at Indiana State University, Western Reserve University, and Columbia University and taught at Indianapolis Public Schools for over 30 years.
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Milton Robinson
(7/1/1840 - 7/18/1930)
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Milton Robinson is pictured in his Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) uniform with his two sons, William (L) and Frederick Douglas (R); Photo credit: indianahistory.org
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Milton Robinson was born a slave in Kentucky in 1840. During the Civil War, he fled from his Kentucky enslaver with the help of Indiana troops who had invaded the region. One of the officers let Robinson ride behind him on his horse, and he made his way to Indianapolis where he enlisted in the Union Army on May 13, 1863. After being sent to Massachusetts, Robinson became a member of the well-known 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. He served with this regiment until he mustered out on August 20, 1865, at Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
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Sam H. Jones
(3/3/1928 - 3/26/2006)
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Photo credit: indyencyclopedia.org
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Sam Jones was born in 1928 in Heidelberg, Mississippi. In 1950, he graduated from Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, then continued his education, earning an MA in Sociology in 1954 and an MSW in 1956, both from Atlanta University. His career with the Urban League, a civil rights and urban advocacy organization founded in 1910, began in 1955 when he accepted a position as Industrial Relations Secretary and Director of Vocational Education at the Cleveland Urban League. He later served as Executive Director of the Pontiac, Michigan Urban League from 1961-1963, and at St. Paul, Minnesota from 1963-1966.
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Reverend Mozel Sanders
(5/24/1924 - 9/1/1988)
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This large portrait of Rev. Mozel Sanders hangs in the Crown Hill Funeral Home.
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Rev. Mozel Sanders summed up his life with these words: “I once made a recording entitled ‘A Meeting with God,’ because I feel that as often as I meet someone in need, I have a meeting with God.” His name lives on today in the community-wide outreach that served 10,000 hot meals through its 2022 Thanksgiving Day outreach.
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Roger Brown
(5/22/1942 - 5/4/1997)
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Photo credit: iPacers.com
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Nicknamed “the Rajah,” Roger Brown, the very first player to wear an Indiana Pacers uniform, was considered by his coach, Bobby “Boom Baby” Leonard, to be one of the greatest one-on-one players in the game of basketball. He was the team’s original clutch player, the one to throw the ball to when a basket was needed. Teammate Mel Daniels once said the final play of the game should have been called “Give the ball to Roger and let’s go drink some beer.”
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