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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
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
John Stanley Hansen II (born August 29, 1949), best known as Stan "the Lariat" Hansen, is an American retired professional wrestler. Hansen is known for his stiff wrestling style, which he attributed to his poor eyesight, and for his gimmick as a loud, violent cowboy who wanted to fight everybody, which he further emphasized by appearing in interviews with a cowboy hat, leather vest and bullrope while often chewing on tobacco. Hansen became established as a massively successful and popular gaijin in Japanese professional wrestling where he eventually became more well-known and revered than he was in his native United States. In Japan's AJPW promotion, he held seven different championships. Overall he is a ten-time world champion. Outside of wrestling Hansen played a small role in the movie No Holds Barred in 1989 and in 2011 he released his co-written biography, The Last Outlaw.
All Japan Pro-Wrestling (全日本プロレス, Zen Nihon Puroresu; operating as All Japan Pro-Wrestling Co., Ltd. (オールジャパン・プロレスリング株式会社, Ōru Japan puroresuringu Kabushiki-gaisha) and usually abbreviated as AJPW or All Japan) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion. A promotion bult on the Ōdō (王道; "King's Road" or "Royal Road") style of wrestling, All Japan was founded on October 21, 1972 by Shohei "Giant" Baba after he and Antonio Inoki left the Japanese Wrestling Association to establish new promotions. Many wrestlers had left with Baba, with many more joining the following year when the JWA folded. From the mid-1970s, All Japan was firmly established as a contender for the largest wrestling promotion in Japan along with its rival New Japan Pro-Wrestling (founded by Inoki). Their roster had increased to include several wrestlers associated with the National Wrestling Alliance, such as Stan Hansen, Ric Flair, Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr., and Harley Race among others. Their native talent consisted of Baba, as well as the Baba-heralded ace Jumbo Tsuruta, Genichiro Tenryu, junior wrestler Masanobu Fuchi and the defected NJPW wrestler Riki Choshu. As the 1990s began and Tenryu had split from All Japan to form the Super World of Sports (SWS) promotion, stars like Tsuruta and Fuchi gave way to a younger generation; including the Four Heavenly Kings (プロレスの四天王, Puroresu no shiten'nō; also called the Four Pillars of Heaven): Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue as well as Jun Akiyama, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, and gaijin wrestler Steve Williams. These wrestlers, led to perhaps All Japan's most profitable period in the 1990s. Western journalists such as Dave Meltzer delivered high praise of All Japan and its wrestlers, including Misawa, Kobashi and Kawada. Several matches that include the Kings and others within All Japan in the 1990s were given five-stars or more by Meltzer, and some are even purported to be some of the greatest matches in wrestling history. In 1999, Giant Baba died and the promotion was run by his widow, Motoko. Misawa was named president but left in 2000 after disagreements with Motoko. Misawa created Pro Wrestling Noah and every single native wrestler besides Masanobu Fuchi and Toshiaki Kawada left All Japan. This led to a loss of All Japan's TV deal and a period of hardship for the company. In 2001, they entered a cross-promotion agreement with New Japan Pro-Wrestling which proved very successful, allowing All Japan to remain one of the larger promotions in the country, although now firmly behind NJPW. In January 2002, Keiji Muto defected to All Japan, and was officially appointed as its new president that September. He would then acquire the rights to the company and Baba family stock by early 2003. By mid-2005, All Japan's attendance had dropped and the promotion seemed to be in trouble again; but by 2007, All Japan had new sponsors and seemed to have recovered. With established wrestlers such as Muto and 2000s ace Suwama, as well as Satoshi Kojima, Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki providing experience and drawing power, younger wrestlers were given opportunities to develop. By 2010, those younger wrestlers were increasingly positioned to take on larger roles within the promotion. Although the promotion continued to operate without a major television deal, All Japan had maintained a continuous presence since its founding in 1972, making it one of Japan's longest-running wrestling promotions. Today, wrestlers such as Reiwa era ace Kento Miyahara, Yuma Aoyagi, Yuma Anzai and the Saito Brothers continue to represent All Japan nationally. All Japan is a member of the United Japan Pro-Wrestling association, with president Tsuyoki Fukuda being a director for the association; as such in UJPW, they have frequently collaborated with other wrestling promotions and freelance talents to boost their strengths.
Mitsuharu Misawa (三沢 光晴, Misawa Mitsuharu; born Mitsuharu Kotake (小竹 光晴), June 18, 1962 – June 13, 2009) was a Japanese professional wrestler and promoter. Regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, he is primarily known both his 18-year stint with All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), and his founding of Pro Wrestling Noah during the 2000 AJPW mass exodus. He was one quarter of the Four Heavenly Kings (プロレスの四天王, Puroresu no shiten'nō; also called the Four Pillars of Heaven) of AJPW, along with Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada, and Akira Taue; the quartet's matches and ring-psychology would become the basis of the ōdō (王道), or King's Road style of wrestling. Debuting in 1981, Misawa became the second wrestler to assume the Tiger Mask persona, which he maintained until the end of the decade. After the departure of Genichiro Tenryu and his exodus, Misawa unmasked in May 1990 and began a rivalry with company ace Jumbo Tsuruta. At the behest of company president Giant Baba, Misawa would lead a team of young talents known as the Super Generation Army (超世代軍, Chō Sedai-gun), which saw many different variants throughout the 1990s, mainly involving Misawa and Kobashi. Following Misawa's victory over Tsuruta on June 8, 1990, AJPW sold out every Tokyo event they held into early 1996, and, as Tsuruta receded from the main event due to hepatitis C, Misawa was cemented as AJPW's new top star and ace. He won the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship from Stan Hansen in August 1992 and held it for the longest reign in its history; he later held the title four more times between 1995 and 1999. During this period, he became known as the Standard Bearer of Future Generations (超世代軍の旗手, Chō Sedai-gun no Kishu; literally "the Standard Bearer of the Super Generation Army"). Misawa remained atop AJPW throughout the 1990s. Following the death of Giant Baba in 1999, Misawa inherited his position, but conflicts with Baba's widow and majority shareholder Motoko led to his removal in May 2000. Misawa then led a mass exodus of the promotion's talent to form Pro Wrestling Noah, which was successful in the first half of the decade; as business declined and top star Kobashi temporarily retired in 2006 due to kidney cancer, Misawa continued to work a full-time schedule despite mounting injuries for the company's survival. He sought to mentor Naomichi Marufuji, Takashi Sugiura, and Go Shiozaki to be flagbearers for the promotion in spite of his age. On June 13, 2009, during a tag team match in Hiroshima with Shiozaki against Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith, Misawa died after a backdrop suplex from Saito, and his death was attributed to the numerous injuries he had accrued for years before his death. Misawa is regarded by some as the greatest professional wrestler of all time, though the physical demands and consequences of the style in which he worked and the circumstances of his death have made his legacy (or at least that of ōdō) somewhat problematic. Misawa was an eight-time world champion and eight-time world tag team champion, having won the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship five times and the GHC Heavyweight Championship (which he was the inaugural holder of) three times. Fifty-three of the sixty-nine events at the Nippon Budokan that Misawa headlined were sellouts, a drawing record that has been compared to Bruno Sammartino's run at Madison Square Garden. Despite never working in the United States during the 1990s, Misawa had a significant influence upon independent wrestling through the popularity of his work among tape-traders in predominantly English-speaking countries. Misawa was named Wrestler of the Year by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (WON) on three occasions (1995, 1997 and 1999), and at the time of his death held the record for most WON five star matches, with 25, including one as Tiger Mask. Several of his matches have been dubbed some of the greatest of all time, including his match with Kawada on June 3, 1994, his match with Kenta Kobashi on March 1, 2003, and his and Kobashi's tag team match against Kawada and Taue (the Holy Demon Army) on June 9, 1995.
Daniel Eugene Spivey (born October 14, 1952) is an American retired professional wrestler best known under the ring names "Dangerous" Dan Spivey, Dangerous Dan, The Left Hand Man, Danny Spivey, Mr. America, and Waylon Mercy, initially working under the name Starship Eagle. Throughout his career, he has worked extensively for World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation, and All Japan Pro Wrestling. He retired from wrestling in 1995 due to injuries and now works in alcoholism counseling in his native Florida. Spivey spent a lot of his career as part of various tag teams and is especially known in the U.S. for teaming with Sid Vicious and then with "Mean" Mark Callous as "The Skyscrapers" in WCW and teaming with Mike Rotunda to form The U.S. Express in the WWF. He started his career teaming with Starship Coyote, collectively known as "American Starship". In Japan he teamed with various wrestlers over the years winning the World Tag Team Championship with Stan Hansen and teaming with Johnny Ace for long periods of time. His last wrestling persona, Waylon Mercy, was inspired by Robert De Niro's portrayal of Max Cady in the 1991 remake of Cape Fear. While he only worked a few matches under that name, he later inspired the creation of the Bray Wyatt character as Spivey worked with Windham Rotunda to initially develop it.
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 →Madam C.J. Walker
