Official Western Ave. Clothing

01/04/2025

Oseola McCarty was just five feet tall and weighed less than one hundred pounds. She quit school in the 6th grade when her grandmother that raised her became ill and needed care. “I would have gone back.” she said, “But the people in my class had done gone on, and I was too big. I wanted to be with my class.” Instead she worked. She washed clothes and she saved. "Every month I'd save the same and put it away. I was consistent." She saved more than she could ever need. So in 1995, in her late 80s, she donated $300,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi, the college in her hometown, to finance a scholarship for low-income students.
In her words, "'I wanted to share my wealth with the children.” said Miss McCarty, whose only real regret is that she never went back to school. “I never minded work, but I was always so busy, busy. Maybe I can make it so the children don't have to work as hard as I did.'"

11/24/2024

11/02/2024

10/21/2024

Vaz, the actor and activist who founded the NAACP Image Awards, passed away at 101 on October 4, 2024. Vaz became the first Black woman to work as a stunt double in Hollywood, notably for Cicely Tyson on Mission: Impossible. She founded the NAACP Image Awards in 1967 to recognize people of color in the entertainment industry. Vaz will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025.

Source: Variety

10/21/2024

Marie Van Brittan Brown's 1966 invention is why many of us feel secure at home today. 💡🔒 Her groundbreaking home security system had a camera that could move between four peepholes, showing who’s at the door on a TV monitor. She even added a two-way microphone and a panic button to call the police. Inspired by safety concerns in her Queens neighborhood, Marie's patent (U.S. Patent 3,482,037) laid the foundation for modern security systems and CCTV. Her legacy lives on.

09/09/2024

The first-ever rap hit song produced was Rapper’s Delight in the summer of 1979. Three rappers named the Sugar Hill Gang recorded it and it was produced by Sugar Hill Records.
This is Sylvia ROBINSON then, the CEO and founder of Sugar Hill Records AND the Producer of Rapper’s Delight and a little later, The Message by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five in 1982. It is said that Melle Mel did not want to record the seven-minute rap song that shared brutal honesty of social issues in the city at the time, but she insisted. And she was right. Both rap songs became instant hits that made history by putting rap music, created by the voiceless in the streets of NYC, front and center for the rest of America.
This woman started it all. This woman is responsible for the start of rap.

08/20/2024

A group photograph was taken in 1958 in Harlem, USA. The same picture with the same people standing where they stood in 1958 was repeated in 1996. Most of the people had passed on. May we learn to appreciate and love one another. In 50 years' time, most of us would have passed on. And it is happening little by little, step by step every year. Think about this, and let's love, tolerate, and appreciate each other.