The Daily Motivator.

I first found out about Ralph Marston on Twitter( @ralphmarston).  A lot of my friends kept re-tweeting( re-posting what somebody already wrote) his quotes. They were profound, inspiring, motivating, intellectual, thought-provoking everything I look for in a quote. So I had to be one of his followers and boy was I happy. Everyday, multiple times a day Mr. Marston sends out quote after inspiring quote. I re-tweet them of course and even post them on my Facebook trying to spread the message and inspire others with Mr. Marston’s words. We all need to hear them from time to time.

So the other day after reading one of his quotes I asked myself, who is Ralph Marston?!? Where did he come from?!? Off I went in search of Ralph Marston. To my surprise, Ralph Marston is a regular guy with a family that was interested in the personal development of others. He is the author and publisher of The Daily Motivator, an online website of inspiring words, messages and quotes. He started writing inspirational messages for another website and from there his popularity grew. Sales sky-rocketed to the point that The Daily Motivator is now Mr. Marston’s primary source of income.

Ralph and his wife, Karen.

Click on the link below and learn more about Ralph Marston and his message:

http://greatday.com/

“When you truly desire to find a way, there is a way. Go back and remind yourself why you wanted to do it in the first place”. -Ralph Martson

This quote definitely fits the mood I’ve been in lately. I’ve been questioning if it was such a good idea to start this blog. I’ve been wondering if its something people really wanna even read. Its seems like everybody has a fashion, beauty and/or entertainment blog (which I have a few that I follow) which seems to be more of what people are into. Seems like people are only interested in “gossip & drama”. My blog is and always has been to inform, inspire, motivate, encourage & promote others. I still stand by the purpose and I hope that one day (soon) others do too : )

My President is Black and so is the New Disney Princess!!!

My mother, sister, nieces and I are Disney fanatics. We love everything and anything Disney. It started at very young age when my mother would take us to Walt Disney World during Christmas break. So naturally, we were excited to hear there was a new Disney movie with a brand new Princess. Since the last time we had a Disney Princess was Mulan in 1998. However, this Disney Princess is “unique”. Princess Tiana is the first African-American Disney Princess!!! It took 220 years for us to get a Black President and it took 73 years for us to get a Black Disney Princess, Better late than Never ; )

The Princess and the Frog is a 2009 American animated family film loosely based on E. D. Baker’s novel The Frog Princess, which was in turn inspired by the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale “The Frog Prince“. It is the 49th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics line.  Tiana, the main character, is also notable as Disney’s first African-American princess. The film opened in limited release in New York and Los Angeles on November 25, 2009, and released in wide on December 11, 2009. On February 2nd, 2010, the film received three Academy Award nominations: one for Best Animated Feature and two for Best Original Song.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_and_the_Frog

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/

 

There’s a Black Man in Space!!!

Guion “Guy” Bluford, Jr. (born November 22, 1942), is an engineer, retired Colonel from the United States Air Force and a former NASA Astronaut. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-8, Bluford became the first African American in space, and the second person of African ancestry, after the Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guion_Bluford

http://www.nasa.gov/

http://www.nmspacemuseum.org

“The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future… History must restore what slavery took away”.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, also known as Arthur Schomburg, (January 24,1874 –June 8, 1938), was a Puerto Rican historian, writer and activist in the United States who researched and raised awareness of the great contributions that Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Americans have made to society. He was an important intellectual figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Over the years he collected literature, art, slave narratives and other materials of African history, which was purchased to become the basis of the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, named in his honor, at the New York Public Library branch in Harlem.

“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Alfonso_Schomburg

http://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg

Do you know what’s inside the Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection?!?

Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) Assistant librarian, Library of Congress; bibliographer, author, politician, and historian was the son of a freed slave. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 3, 1852. In 1861, he went to work at the United States Senate Restaurant managed by his brother who was also a caterer. Murray became the personal assistant to the Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford at the age of nineteen. On April 2, 1879 he married Anna Evans with whom he had seven children. By 1881 he had risen to become assistant librarian. He joined the professional staff of the Library of Congress in 1871. He was eighteen years old, and only the second black American to work for the Library. Ten years later Murray was named assistant librarian, a position he held for forty-one years. Murray married educator Anna Jane Evans, and the couple became a major force in the social and civic life of the District of Columbia.

Murray began to compile a collection of books and pamphlets authored by African Americans at the request of Herbert Putnam, the successor to Spofford. The collection was to be an exhibition for the 1900 Paris Exposition on “Negro Authors”. In 1900 Murray published a list of the collections’ holdings to date and appealed for additions to the list through donations.

Within several months, his list had grown to eleven hundred titles. The Library of Congress’s “Colored Authors’ Collection” originated from his efforts. Now known as the “Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection”, it contains works dating from 1821 by such authors as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, and Alexander Crummell. Murray planned to expand his collection and create an encyclopedia of African-American achievement, unfortunately, the project never received sufficient support to become a reality.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Alexander_Payne_Murray

“I’ve learned not to pay attention to things that are negative and focus on the things that matter”.

Shani Davis (pronounced /ˈʃɑːni/; born August 13, 1982 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American speed skater who competes in both short track and long track speed skating. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Davis became the first black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual Winter Games sport (1,000 m) and the fifth black Winter Olympics medalist. He also won the silver in the 1,500 m. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, he became the first man to successfully defend his title in the 1,000 meters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis

“I’ve lived 27 years of my life and I have self-worth and I know what I am as a person…I don’t need anyone to define that for me if they’re paying attention to me once every four years, or just these two weeks of the Olympics.  I already have my self-definition, and I’m quite happy with it”.

Not only did Shani make history four years ago, being the first African-American to win gold medal in an individual Winter Olympics Games. He made history again, being the first man to defend his title & set another world record and of all months …Black History Month. Way to Go, Shani!!! : )

Blue 42 Hike Hike Hike!!!

Ernest Davis (December 14, 1939 – May 18, 1963) was an American football running back and the first African-American athlete to win the Heisman Trophy. Wearing number 44, Davis competed collegiately for Syracuse University before being drafted by the Washington Redskins, then almost immediately traded to the Cleveland Browns in December 1961. However, he would never play a professional game after being diagnosed with leukemia in 1962. He is the subject of the 2008 Universal Pictures movie biography The Express, based on the non-fiction book Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express, by Robert C. Gallagher.

 

“Some people say that I am unlucky. I don’t believe it. And I don’t want to sound as if I am particularly brave or unusual. Sometimes I still get down, and sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Nobody is just one thing all the time. But when I look back I can’t call myself unlucky. My 23rd birthday was December 14. In these years I have had more than most people get in a lifetime.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Davis

 

Tryin’ to make it Real compared to What!!!

Les McCann (born September 23, 1935, Lexington, Kentucky) is a soul jazz piano player and vocalist whose biggest successes came as a crossover artist into R&B and soul. In 1969, Atlantic Records released Swiss Movement, a recording of McCann with regular collaborator and saxophonist Eddie Harris and guest trumpeter Benny Bailey at that year’s Montreux Jazz Festival. The album contained the song “Compared To What,” and both the album and the single were huge Billboard pop chart successes. “Compared To What” featured political criticism of the Vietnam War. The song was not actually written by McCann; fellow Atlantic composer/artist Eugene McDaniels (A Hundred Pounds of Clay) wrote it years earlier. “Compared To What” was initially recorded and released by soul vocalist Roberta Flack. Her version appeared as the opening track on her debut recording, First Take (1969).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_McCann

To hear the sounds of Les McCann clink on the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRONbnyNpu8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p-1QJq_xhc&feature=related

“Love life, engage in it, give it all you’ve got. Love it with a passion, because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it”.

This is one of my most favorite poems from Maya Angelou:

The sun has come.
The mist has gone.
We see in the distance…
our long way home.
I was always yours to have.
You were always mine.
We have loved each other in and out of time.
When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun
and the first tree struggled up from the forest floor
I had always loved you more.
You freed your braids…
gave your hair to the breeze.
It hummed like a hive of honey bees.
I reached in the mass for the sweet honey comb there….
Mmmm…God how I love your hair.
You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance.
Lost, injured, hurt by chance.
I screamed to the heavens….loudly screamed….
Trying to change our nightmares into dreams…
The sun has come.
The mist has gone.
We see in the distance our long way home.
I was always yours to have.
You were always mine.
We have loved each other in and out
in and out
in and out
of time.