Steve Pike

February 23rd is the birthday of Frances Dancy Hooks. In 1949, Mrs. Hooks, wife of the late Dr. Benjamin Hooks, began a career in education that would span 24 years.

She made a name for herself in the Memphis City School System. Among her many achievements was the co-founding of the Memphis Volunteer Placement Program, an effort to bring volunteer counselors to work with African American students.

In 1839, the invention of daguerreotype made it possible to capture and preserve a photographic image. The public was thrilled with the opportunity to be recorded for posterity, and the business of professional photography blossomed.

Memphis quickly embraced this new technology. Newspaper ads in the mid-1840s promoted itinerant daguerreotypists, but the earliest known advertisement for a permanent photo studio appeared in 1843 in the periodical American Eagle.

The ad stated:

The four Martin Brothers, W.S., J.B., A.T., and B.B., were remarkable men. Born in Mississippi in the 1880s, they moved to Memphis to attend LeMoyne.

The became important figures in medicine, politics, and sports. Two were doctors; two were pharmacists.

One, Dr. J.B. Martin, opened his own drug store in 1920. All were active in Republican politics.

The Martins owned the Memphis Red Sox, as well as the stadium in which the team played. They were the only African Americans in baseball to own both.

Founded two decades before the Civil War, Gray’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church is one of the oldest black congregations in the area. The church was organized as a congregation for freedmen and slaves and has continued to serve African Americans for more than 150 years.

The Memphis Red Sox was one of the most exciting teams in the Negro League in the 1930s-1940s.

Catcher Larry Brown created a lot of that excitement. He was known as one of the best catchers in the Negro League, a brilliant defender of home plate, throwing-out runners with cool precision and snagging wild pitches with ease.