A Chaotic Resonance

The most important man to the Civil Rights Movement: Emmett Till

Emmett Louis “Bobo” Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager from Chicago, Illinois who was brutally murdered in a region of Mississippi known as the Mississippi Delta in the small town of Money in Leflore County. His murder was one of the key events that energized the nascent American Civil Rights Movement. The main suspects for the crime–both caucasian men–were acquitted, but later admitted to committing the crime. Till’s mother had an open casket funeral to let everyone see how her son had been brutally killed. He had been shot and beaten; he was then thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire to work as a weight. His body remained in the river for three days until it was discovered and retrieved by two fishermen.

…At the Australian Open, the unseeded Williams defeated fifth seeded Nadia Petrova of Russia in the third round 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. It was Williams’ first win over a top 10 player since her defeat of Lindsay Davenport in the 2005 Australian Open final. In the fourth round, Williams defeated the eleventh-seeded Jelena Janković of Serbia 6-3, 6-2. She then defeated sixteenth seeded Shahar Peer in the quarterfinals 3-6, 6-2, 8-6 and tenth seeded Nicole Vaidišová 7-6(5), 6-4 in the semifinals. In the final, Williams defeated top seeded and second ranked Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-2 in 63 minutes to take her third Australian Open singles title. The victory elevated her ranking from 81st to 14th in the world. Williams dedicated the win to her deceased sister, Yetunde Price…

Serena Williams

…Williams turned professional on October 31, 1994. In the second round of her first professional tournament in Oakland, Williams was up a set and a service break against top seed Arantxa Sanchez Vicario before losing the match. That was the only tournament Williams played in 1994. She remained a part time player on the tour during the next two years, playing only three tournaments in 1995 and five tournaments in 1996.

Williams began to play regularly on the tour in 1997. The highlight of her year was playing the U.S. Open for the first time, where she lost in the final to Martina Hingis 6-0, 6-4 after defeating Irina Spirlea in a three-set semifinal.

In 1998, Williams teamed with Justin Gimelstob to win the mixed doubles title at the Australian Open and the French Open. Her sister Serena Williams won the other two Grand Slam mixed doubles titles of the year, completing a “Williams Family Mixed Doubles Grand Slam.”

In 1999, Williams won the tournament in Miami, defeating Jana Novotna, Steffi Graf, and her sister Serena Williams in successive matches. Venus and Serena teamed to win the doubles titles at the French Open and the U.S. Open, becoming the first sister team to win a Grand Slam doubles title in the 20th century.

In 2000, Williams won the singles title at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open and two gold medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The Williams sisters also won the Wimbledon doubles title for the first time.

Williams successfully defended her Wimbledon and U.S. Open singles titles in 2001. At the U.S. Open, Williams won the tournament without dropping a set, defeating Serena Williams in the final 6-2, 6-4. The Williams sisters won the Australian Open doubles title for the first time, completing a career Grand Slam in doubles for the pair.

In February 2002, Williams became the top ranked player in the world, the first African American player to garner that spot since the computer rankings began in 1975…

Venus Williams

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which explicitly outlawed racial segregation of public education facilities (legal establishment of separate government-run schools for blacks and whites), ruling so on the grounds that the doctrine of “separate but equal” public education could never truly provide black Americans with facilities of the same standards available to white Americans. A companion case dealt with the constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia, (not a state and therefore not subject to the Fourteenth Amendment), Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).

Brown v. Board of Education

…As of January 2007, Woods has won 55 official money events on the PGA Tour and at 30 years and 7 months old, became the youngest to the 50-win mark. At the close of his first eleven seasons, Tiger had eclipsed the all time eleven-season PGA Tour total win record of 52 (set by Byron Nelson) and total majors record of 11 (set by Jack Nicklaus). He also has 20 other individual professional titles, and two team titles in the two-man WGC-World Cup. With his victory at the 2006 WGC-American Express Championship, he became the first player in PGA Tour history to win at least eight times in three seasons. His victory in the Buick Invitational on January 28, 2007 placed him 2nd for the longest PGA Tour win streak at 7 straight. Only Byron Nelson’s streak of 11 wins in 1945 is longer. He has successfully defended a title 17 times on the PGA Tour, has finished runner-up 20 times, and has won 27% (55 out of 201) of his professional starts on the PGA Tour. He has a 38–3 winning record when leading after 54 holes in TOUR events, and owns the lowest career scoring average and the most career earnings of any player in PGA Tour history. He has been the PGA Tour Money Winner seven times, trailing Jack Nicklaus by one, the PGA Player of the Year a record eight times, and has won the Byron Nelson Award a record seven times. Woods is one of five players (along with Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player) to have won all four professional major championships in his career, known as the “Career Grand Slam”, and was the youngest to do so. Bobby Jones won all four of what were in his era considered major championships. With Woods’s win in the 2005 Open Championship, he became the second golfer (after Nicklaus) to have won all four majors more than once. At the 2003 TOUR Championship, it was widely reported in the print media that he set “an all-time record for most consecutive cuts”, starting in 1998, with 114 (passing Byron Nelson’s previous record of 113) and that he extended this mark to 142 before it ended on May 13, 2005 at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship.[20] Many[21][22][23][24] consider this to be one of the most remarkable golf accomplishments of all time, given the margin by which he broke the old record (and against stronger fields in terms of depth than those in Nelson’s day)[25][26][27] and given that during the streak, the next longest streak by any other player was usually only in the 10s or 20s…

Tiger Woods

Texas Western College, then a small and unknown school tucked away in the far corner of West Texas, came out of nowhere to pull the biggest upset in the history of college basketball in 1966. The Miners’ 72-65 victory over the University of Kentucky, coached by the legendary Adolph Rupp, in the finals of the NCAA Tournament topped one of the most remarkable stories in the history not only of basketball, but of all sports. It’s a story of triumph of character and heart over hardship and seemingly impossible odds. Their accomplishment also had a big impact on society. For the first time, five African-Americans started in the finals of the NCAA Tournament. The victory overcame many prejudices against the ability of African-American athletes to function in a team concept and opened doors for them throughout the South and other parts of the country.

…By the end of the war, the 332d had claimed 113 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down (including 3 Me-262 jets), a patrol boat run aground by machine-gun fire, and destruction of numerous fuel dumps, trucks and trains. The group flew more than 15,000 sorties on 1,500 missions. The unit received recognition through official channels, and won two Presidential Unit Citations, 744 Air Medals, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars and several Silver Stars.

In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946. About 445 deployed overseas, and 150 Airmen lost their lives in training or combat…

The Tuskegee Airmen

“When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.”

Jesse Owens

“No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never, ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

Barack Obama

Today, Barack Obama announced he will be running for President in 2008.