"OUR RICH BLACK HERITAGE" :MINNIE M.G. COX

Today, with companies like Amazon receiving huge "government subsidies" and Black History Month right around the corner, I decided to present this short Martin Luther King Jr. speech that he made months before his untimely demise.The title of his speech is,"We Coming To Get Our Check." Please note that the speech can also be found on You-Tube. Personally, I feel that the video should be viewed at every school in our Black Communities, and several times in February, during Black History Month! In his speech Martin said,"Our government was giving away millions of acres of land---NOT ONLY did they give the land, they built land grant collages with GOVERNMENT MONEY to teach White People how to farm---NOT ONLY THAT, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming----NOT ONLY THAT, but they provided low interest rates in order to mechanize their farms ----NOT ONLY THAT, today these people are receiving millions of dollars not to farm and they are "THE VERY PEOPLE" telling the "BLACK MAN" that he needs to lift himself up by his own boot straps… this is what we are faced with! This is the reality! Now when we come to Washington in this campaign,"WE ARE COMING TO GET OUR CHECK!" Of course, we all know that Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated before he was able to make it to Washington to request that CHECK! Remember, although Martin Luther King Jr mentioned that this all was going on in the sixties, the U.S. government is still carrying on some of the same shenanigans in 2024. Except now they calling them "Government Subsidies!" Enough about that, let's get to this week's Black Pioneer! Minnie M. G.Cox was born in Lexington , Mississippi, in 1869. I couldn't find any records of her schooling before she enrolled at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee, around 1886. Within a couple of years of earning her Teaching degree, Minnie married Wellington Cox, who was a teacher and Principal of Indianola Colored School in Mississippi. By saving a part of all that they earned, Minnie and Wellington were able purchase about 160 acres of prime real-estate! Two things worthy of mentioning about the Cox Family is that around 1904, they opened one of the earliest Black-Owned Banks in Mississippi , The Delta Penny Savings Bank, and they founded one of the first Black-Owned Insurance Companies in the entire United States, The Mississippi Life Insurance Company! Another interesting fact about Minnie is that in 1891, she was one of the first Negroes in Mississippi to be appointed as Postmistress for the United States Postal Service, by President Benjamin Harrison.When Minnie served as Post-Mistress, the position could only be appointed by the president of the United States. Minnie held the position up until just after President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was elected as President of their United States. It seems that a White Man by the name of A.B. Weeks wanted her position, and he strongly resented that a Negro held the position as Postmaster! Eventually, Minnie decided it was best to resign her position. However, when she submitted her resignation to President Roosevelt, he had resignations about accepting her resignation,Lol! So she kept her position for a while longer.That is, until a group of White People started making trouble for Negroes in Indianola, Mississippi. Why the White People even went as far as having all of the Negro Businesses in town closed over this issue! Reluctantly, President Roosevelt finally accepted Minnie 's resignation and even allowed her to keep receiving her salary up until her term expired. Finally, President Roosevelt decided that it was best to just close the post office for awhile. So the post office remained closed for most of 1903, Sadly , when the post office reopened in 1904, it opened without Minnie as the town's Post-Mistress. Well, Minnie M.G. Cox died in 1933, and in 2008, a post office building in Indianola was named the Minnie Cox Post Office Building "in tribute to all that she accomplished by breaking barriers!"