Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985

The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act loop) is a decision-making model developed by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd in the early 1970s. He applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the operational level during military campaigns. The loop includes continuous collection of feedback and observations. This enables late commitment, which is an important element of agility. This is in contrast to the PDCA (plan–do–check–act) cycle which requires early commitment. It is often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes.[1] The approach explains how agility can overcome raw power in dealing with human opponents.
The OODA loop has become an important concept in litigation,[2] business,[3] law enforcement,[4] management education,[5][6] military strategy and cyber security, and cyberwarfare.[7] According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in an iterative cycle of "observe, orient, decide, act". An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly and/or more effectively than an opponent, can thereby get inside the opponent's decision cycle and gain the advantage.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has said he uses the OODA loop in scenario evaluation.[8][9][10]
Some scholars are critical of the concept. Aviation historian Michael Hankins, for example, writes that "the OODA loop is vague enough that its defenders and attackers can each see what they want to see in it. For some, the OODA concept's flexibility is its strength, but for others it becomes so generalized as to lose its usefulness." He concludes that "The OODA loop is merely one way among a myriad of ways of describing intuitive processes of learning and decision making that most people experience daily. It is not incorrect, but neither is it unique or especially profound."[11]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) A supposed five-slide set by Boyd.Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act loop) is a decision-making model developed by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd in the early 1970s. He applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the operational level during military campaigns. The loop includes continuous collection of feedback and observations. This enables late commitment, which is an important element of agility. This is in contrast to the PDCA (plan–do–check–act) cycle which requires early commitment. It is often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes. The approach explains how agility can overcome raw power in dealing with human opponents.
A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted, and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military unit in their command and control role through planning, analysis, and information gathering, as well as by relaying, coordinating, and supervising the execution of their plans and orders, especially in case of multiple simultaneous and rapidly changing complex operations. They are organised into functional groups such as administration, logistics, operations, intelligence, training, etc. They provide multi-directional flow of information between a commanding officer, subordinate military units and other stakeholders. A centralised general staff results in tighter top-down control but requires larger staff at headquarters (HQ) and reduces accuracy of orientation of field operations, whereas a decentralised general staff results in enhanced situational focus, personal initiative, speed of localised action, OODA loop, and improved accuracy of orientation. A commander "commands" through their personal authority, decision-making and leadership, and uses general staff to exercise the "control" on their behalf in a large unit. Most NATO nations, including the United States and most European nations, use the Continental Staff System which has origin in Napoleon's military. The Commonwealth Staff System, used by most of the Commonwealth, has its origin in the British military.
John Richard Boyd (January 23, 1927 – March 9, 1997) was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and Pentagon consultant during the second half of the 20th century. His theories have been highly influential in military, business, and litigation strategies and planning. Boyd authored "Aerial Attack Study" (immediately classified) in 1960. As leader of the Fighter Mafia, he is claimed to have inspired the Lightweight Fighter program (LWF), which produced the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and preceded McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. Boyd, together with Thomas Christie, created the Energy–Maneuverability theory of aerial combat (also immediately classified), which eventually (upon declassification) became the world standard for the design of fighter aircraft. He also developed the decision cycle known as the OODA loop, the process by which an entity reacts to an event.
Patterns of Conflict was a presentation by Colonel John Boyd outlining his theories on modern combat and how the key to success was to upset the enemy's "observation-orientation-decision-action time cycle or loop", or OODA loop. Patterns developed the idea of a "counter-blitz", a blitzkrieg in reverse, with numerous attacks followed by withdrawals to the rear. The aim was to confuse the enemy by presenting no apparent strategy, reveal the enemy's intentions through the strength of the response, and present a misleading picture of the defender's own actions in order to disrupt the attacker's future plan of action. First presented in 1976, Patterns grew enormously popular through the 1970s, and was re-presented on many occasions, including a personal presentation to Dick Cheney in 1981. A 1980 presentation to the US Marine Corps led to the development of an entirely new doctrinal system. Boyd's ideas also became the basis for the AirLand Battle, the US Army's European warfighting doctrine from 1982 into the late 1990s. Patterns has been widely regarded as one of the most influential works of warfighting theory of all time and has been compared to the writings of Sun Tsu. Based on Patterns and the work that followed, Boyd has been called "America's greatest military theorist".
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.