Mississippi Today
On this day in 1901
Aug. 4, 1901
Louis Armstrong, trumpeter known around the globe as “Satchmo,” was born in an impoverished area of New Orleans known as “the Battlefield.”
“As a boy, he released his energy in a variety of ways — not always socially acceptable,” singer Mahalia Jackson wrote. “One of Louis’ last transgressions as a youth, at the age of 12, was to fire a gun into the air during a New Year’ Eve celebration. He was arrested and sent to reform school.”
The two-year stay had an unexpected effect on the lad — he learned to play the cornet. After his release, he gravitated to where he could listen to music, surviving by selling newspapers and whatever work he could find. He eventually befriended one of the great band leaders of the day, Joe “King” Oliver, who gave him his first cornet.
Armstrong’s inventive playing and gravelly voice reached far beyond jazz, prompting singer Bing Crosby to declare, “He is the beginning and end of music in America.”
He broke down barriers, becoming the first Black American to host a nationally broadcast radio show and made countless appearances on radio, television and film. Often silent on politics, Armstrong made his own stand for civil rights in 1957 when he balked at participating in a U.S. government-sponsored tour of the Soviet Union after nine Black students were blocked from entering a Little Rock school. Complaining about President Eisenhower’s handling of the problem and the way “they are treating my people in the South,” he turned down the government’s request. “It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country.”
In response to his comments, the FBI opened an investigation of him. He performed to the end, dying in 1971, a month before he would have celebrated his 70th birthday.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=382444
Mississippi Today
Podcast: Who, really, is pushing for an income tax elimination?
As Republican lawmakers begin a series of fall hearings to consider an elimination of the individual income tax, Mississippi Today‘s Adam Ganucheau, Bobby Harrison, and Geoff Pender break down the recent history of tax cut and the politics surrounding the idea.
READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1968
Sept. 9, 1968
Arthur Ashe won the U.S. Open Singles Tennis Championship, becoming the first Black man to ever win a Grand Slam event. That same year, he also won the U.S. Amateur Championships, becoming the only player to ever win both events in the same year. He bolted to the top of the tennis world, also winning Wimbledon and the Australian Open.
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Ashe began playing tennis at 7 and quickly encountered racism that prevented him from competing against white players and even from using the city‘s indoor courts. He and his family moved to St. Louis, where he learned the serve and volley game that made him famous. He also learned how to keep cool under pressure.
In 1963, he became the first Black player to play for the U.S. Davis Cup team. When the team won, Ashe was unable to keep the winnings because he was still classified as an amateur.
Considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, he retired in 1980, not long after suffering a heart attack, but continued to remain active, helping captain the Davis Cup teams to victory. He actively supported civil rights, too, joining a delegation that visited South Africa and writing a three-volume history of Black athletes, “A Hard Road to Glory,” which he later learned that Nelson Mandela had read in prison.
When Ashe underwent a second heart bypass surgery in 1983, he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. He later spoke out publicly about the disease and worked to raise awareness. “I do not like being the personification of a problem, much less a problem involving a killer disease, but I know I must seize these opportunities to spread the word,” he wrote in his memoir.
Not long after finishing “Days of Grace,” he died in 1993. That same year, he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the U.S. Open later named its new stadium after him. In 1996, the city of Richmond dedicated a statue of him on Monument Avenue, which previously commemorated only Confederate icons.
“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic,” Ashe wrote. “It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”
Today, the U.S. Open stadium bears Ashe’s name.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Jackson hospital adopts new test to detect life-threatening condition
The IntelliSep test runs a sample of blood through a machine to measure a patient’s likelihood of having sepsis. The machine squishes the white blood cells. It determines whether someone is not septic, possibly septic, or likely septic based on whether the cells flatten out or bounce back. “For every hour delay in treating sepsis, there’s an increase in mortality by 8%,” said St. Dominic’s chief medical officer Dr. Terry Dyess. “It’s the number one cause of death in hospitals, it’s the number one cause of readmissions to hospitals, and about one in every three patients that come through the hospital have sepsis,” she said.
Sepsis affects approximately 1.7 million adults in the United States each year and potentially contributes to more than 250?000 deaths, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study using data from 2009-2014..
Sepsis is difficult to detect in part because its symptoms – higher or lower body temperature, fatigue, pain, sleepiness, and more – are so general.
“Because we didn’t have this test to determine whether or not it’s sepsis so early on, you would kind of be forced to throw the kitchen sink at it to prevent the patient from deteriorating in the off chance that it is sepsis,” said Dan Woods, a registered nurse and senior director of Emergency Services and Hospital Throughput for St. Dominica. Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health, which owns St. Dominic, and the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center developed IntelliSep with Cytovale, a medical diagnostics company.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the IntelliSep in December 2022. It was first implemented at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2023. Earlier this month, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Health Network began using it in their emergency departments as well.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.St. Dominic’s Hospital is implementing an innovative test in its emergency department to detect sepsis, a body’s overreaction to infection that causes the immune system to attack its tissues and organs and is a leading cause of death in hospitals in the U.S.
-
Local News Video7 days ago
William Carey University enrollment continuing to increase
-
Mississippi Today3 days ago
On this day in 1955
-
Mississippi Today5 days ago
Some imprisoned in Mississippi remain jailed long after parole eligibility
-
Mississippi Today6 days ago
Mississippi regulators to solar boosters: Sit down and be quiet
-
Mississippi News6 days ago
Federal money heads to Webster County to build new jail
-
Mississippi Today7 days ago
Mississippi has nation’s lowest workforce participation rate, report shows
-
Local News Video5 days ago
Elementary Students to Help Revitalize Historical Mississippi City Cemetery
-
Mississippi News Video4 days ago
Only one Beaumont police officer on patrol