Black History Month for 2025

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She started out at the age of 8 yrs old creating beautiful care packages for homeless women. After passing homeless people on her way to school each day, Khloe Thompson asked herself what could she do. She ended up launching her own charity, Khloe Kares, to help vulnerable women in her community.

She has given away over 20,000 hygiene Kare Bags to vulnerable women. The reusable bags, that she often sews herself, are filled with essential supplies like shampoo, soap, and toothbrushes. Organizations have come onboard as community partners.

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Her website, Khloe Kares, shares their mission,

LOCALLY:
Spreading awareness and improving the lives of underserved homeless women and youth by providing the necessary tools needed to successfully transition from the streets into stable housing.

INTERNATIONALLY:
Partner with African communities, to expand, develop, and provide safe access to those without access to safe water.

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Khloe is now 17 yrs old and has also co-founded Peachtree Pads after her mom got sick from using single use menstrual pads. After doing much research, Khloe learned that single use feminine products were full of harmful plastics and chemicals. PeachTree Pads are designed to be comfortable, sustainable and better for our bodies.

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George Robert Carruthers: Astronautical Engineer and Astronomer

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October 1, 1939 – December 26, 2020

"Astronautical engineer and astronomer George Robert Carruthers, a name well-known and dearly regarded in the space science community, and a good friend of the National Air and Space Museum, passed away on Saturday, December 26 after a long illness. His fame derives in part from the fact that he developed and built a compact and powerful ultraviolet electronographic telescope, which became the first (and still the only) astronomical instrument sent to the Moon. It was placed on the lunar surface on Apollo 16 in 1972, and it performed extremely well, leading to enhanced knowledge of the Earth’s outermost atmosphere and of the vast spaces between the stars and galaxies invisible to the eye."
 
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I'm giving honor to Robert Crooks, 1828-1904, a man of color who survived the Donner Party journey. I wish there was a pic of him that I could share. I have read several accounts and records of the tragedy. I don't recall a family by the name of Crooks or a servant named Robert mentioned. Servants, however, were not noted as travelers during that time in history. This would explain Robert not being mentioned in any Donner Party survivor lists. 😢 I ran across his obituary during my research. He would have been about 18 yrs old when he made the journey through the Sierra Nevadas.

From OurStory website:

Born in Missouri in the early 1800’s, African American Robert Crooks was a survivor of the ill fated Donner Party traveling through the Sierra Nevadas in 1846-47. He was a servant for a family of the same name who were part of this tragic journey to California. Servants were not acknowledged as travelers and often over looked in history.

At the age of 35 years, Robert registered to vote 6 Sept.1870, Eden Twp, Alameda Co., CA. He worked as a laborer and is listed in the census. In 1898, Crooks was one of twenty-seven Sonoma County pioneers who were recognized as being in California before gold was discovered in January 1848. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, in an article that appeared in the paper on December 15, 1897, noted that Crooks and other pioneers would be feted at a Jubilee Celebration in San Francisco in January 1898.

Crooks died on May 17, 1904 in Santa Rosa, California. His father was b. VA; his mother, KY. The day after his death, The San Francisco Call ran a short article, which was the obit below.

Wednesday, May 18, 1904
Donner Party Survivor Dies, Santa Rosa, California

Robert Crooks, a *****, who was one of the survivors of the Donner party, passed away this afternoon at the County Hospital, where he had been spending his remaining days. Crooks was a native of Missouri, aged 76 years, and death was due to heart failure. When the Donner party departed from their Eastern homes for California, Crooks was a servant in the family of that name and elected to come with them on the trip.

Buried at:
Sebastopol Memorial Lawn Cemetery
Sebastopol, Sonoma County, California, USA
 
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Remembering Viola Gregg Liuzzo, who was an activist in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. She was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan for her efforts. She was the only known white female killed during the civil rights movement. She was born Viola Gregg on April 11, 1925, in California, Pennsylvania. She spent much of her childhood in rural towns of Georgia and Tennessee, where she witnessed the racial injustices that African Americans often suffered in the South, before moving to Michigan as a teenager.

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She eventually settled in Detroit with second husband James Liuzzo, an official with the Teamsters union, and her five children (two from a previous marriage). A high school dropout, Viola Liuzzo returned to school to train as a medical laboratory assistant, before enrolling at Wayne State University in 1963.

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Also politically and socially active, Liuzzo became a member of the Detroit chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Wikipedia gives a particularly good account of her amazing commitment and outstanding activities fighting for civil and human rights.

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FilmFreeway on Vimeo tells the story of two Detroit women, one black and one white, who bonded around child-rearing and formed a close friendship unusual for the times. Sarah Evans taught her best friend Viola Liuzzo about the NAACP and the Civil Rights movement. After the police beatings of peaceful marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, Viola was determined to support the movement in person—a decision that ended her life.


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Biography.com

Wikipedia

Statue unveiling honors civil rights martyr Viola Liuzzo
 
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