Open Door Christian Ministries

03/26/2022

What are you willing to sacrifice to go to the next Level?

04/04/2021

Happy Resurrection Day! He is risen!

But he is not here. He has risen from death, as he said he would. Come and see the place where his body was.

03/29/2021

Phillis Wheatley was the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry. She was born in West Africa and sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston. The Wheatleys encouraged Phillis to read and write, and encouraged her poetry when they took note of her talent. In 1768, Wheatley wrote “To The King’s Most Excellent Majesty,” in which she praised King George III for repealing the Stamp Act. In 1770, she gained significant acclaim for her poetic tribute to evangelist George Whitefield.

Many colonists were skeptical that an enslaved African was writing “excellent” poetry. Wheatley was forced to defend her authorship in court in 1772. After being examined by a group of Boston luminaries, including John Erving, John Hancock, and Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson, and Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver, it was concluded that she had written the poems ascribed to her. After the publication of her book, Poems on Various Subjects, in 1773, Wheatley was emancipated. She was honored by many of America’s founding fathers, including George Washington.

02/25/2021

In 1881, Lewis Latimer made the electric lightbulb a household item! He received a patent for inventing a method of producing carbon filaments, which made bulbs longer-lasting, more efficient & cheaper. Check out Lewis Latimer House Museum for awesome virtual science workshops!

02/25/2021

02/22/2021

Slave auctions and auction blocks where Black families were systematically destroyed by selling off individual members to the highest bidders, were plentiful during chattel slavery. Often leveraged as payment for debts that ran the spectrum from taxes to gambling wagers, black families had no more value or agency under chattel enslavement than that assigned by enslavers.

Georgia became the sight of the largest wholesale slave auction in U.S. history, when in 1859 roughly 436 men, women, and children were sold to extinguish the debts of Pierce M. Butler. The auction was named in newspapers as The Weeping Time.

02/22/2021

Celebrate the storied history of the black family with us for . On this day in 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, NY where he had been preparing to deliver a speech.

Forty years before his life was taken, the civil rights leader’s family lived in Omaha, Nebraska. On May 19, 1925, Malcolm Little was born the fourth of eight children to Louise Little, a homemaker, and Earl Little, a preacher, supporter of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, and active member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Throughout his early life, Little’s family moved around the country, to avoid racial harassment, especially with his father’s civil rights activism. "When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, 'a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home,'" Malcolm recalls. "Brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out."

His father moved their family from Omaha, Nebraska to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1926 and then to Lansing, Michigan, in 1928 to avoid further harassment by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1929, the Little family home was set ablaze by a racist white mob, and the squad of all-white law enforcement did nothing. Two years later, in 1931, Malcolm’s father was killed and although it was ruled a streetcar accident – voiding the large insurance policy he purchased to provide for his family – the family suspected foul play. The shock and grief experienced from her husband’s death ultimately led Louise Little to be committed to a mental institution in 1937. Malcolm and his siblings were separated and placed in foster homes.

02/18/2021

All hail the Queen! Mahala Jackson was born October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Charity Clark and Johnny Jackson, Biography.com reports. She started her career at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church, where she began singing at just 4-years-old, changing the spelling of her name to “Mahalia...

02/10/2021

Motown legend and Supremes co-founder Mary Wilson has died at age 76. In addition to her musical career, she became a bestselling author, motivational speaker, businesswoman, and US Cultural Ambassador.

"Wilson used her fame and flair to promote a diversity of humanitarian efforts including ending hunger, raising HIV/AIDS awareness and encouraging world peace," Wilson’s publicist shared.

📸: Rozette Rago for The New York Times

02/08/2021

Arthur Ashe was a tennis champion, who died of AIDS, today in 1993. At the time of his death, he had a five-year-old daughter. In his posthumously published autobiography, Days of Grace, the last chapter is a letter to his daughter about his love for her, and the type of person he wants her to be.