Black History Month - Page 2

The Origins Of Black History Month, Explained

By Candace Mcduffie Black History Month is fast approaching. Although we should celebrate Black excellence 365 days a year, the origins of the historic month should also be acknowledged. For those who are unsure how it began, Black History Month initially began as a 7-day celebration in 1926. That year, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History proclaimed that the second week of February become know as “Negro History Week.” This provision would finally celebrate what Black Americans contributed to the history of the US. The esteemed historian Carter G. Woodson, whose parents were enslaved, worked with other leaders and

The Black Arts Movement and the politics of emancipation.

By Elias Rodriques In the 1960s, the Free Southern Theater, an organization founded by a group of activists with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), traveled to a church in a predominantly Black, rural corner of Mississippi. There they staged Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, an absurdist drama about characters conversing as they wait for someone who never arrives. The play may have seemed like a strange choice—who would imagine that Beckett might connect with rural Black Americans in the throes of the civil rights movement?—but it found at least one admirer in civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer. “I guess

How Selma’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement

By Christopher Klein The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act. Nearly a century after the Confederacy’s guns fell silent, the racial legacies of slavery and Reconstruction continued to reverberate loudly throughout Alabama in 1965. On March 7, 1965, when then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and faced brutal attacks by oncoming state troopers, footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and galvanized the fight against racial injustice. The passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 months earlier had done little in some parts of the state to

The March on Washington

Courtesy of History.com The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Lead-Up to the March on Washington In 1941, A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and an elder statesman of

10 Significant Landmarks Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail

by Larry Bleiberg In Little Rock, Arkansas, history was made at a high school, where soldiers escorted nine students past taunting crowds to integrate a formerly all-white campus. In Greensboro, North Carolina, it unfolded at a lunch counter, where months of sit-ins won the right for customers of any race to order a cup of coffee. Today, it’s easy for travelers to visit these places, thanks to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, a public initiative launched in 2018 that links more than 100 key sites across 15 states and the District of Columbia. The 10 destinations described below vividly help recount

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Courtesy of History.com, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Selma to Montgomery March Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency in November 1963 upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the presidential race of 1964, Johnson was officially elected in a landslide victory and used

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Courtesy of History.com, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and passed additional civil rights legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lead-up to the Civil Rights Act Following the Civil War, a trio

8 Key Laws That Advanced Civil Rights

By Mehrunnisa Want Since the abolishment of slavery, the U.S. government has passed several laws to address discrimination and racism against African Americans. The “peculiar institution” of slavery was abolished nearly a hundred years after the Declaration of Independence called for freedom and equality for all in 1776. But it took another century before landmark legislation would begin to address basic civil rights for African Americans. This slow progress was the product of decades of work amongst anti-slavery constitutionalists, activists and abolitionists. They agitated in Congress, the courts and the streets. The fruits of their labor were not enacted immediately and were often

‘Black Rosies’: The Forgotten African American Heroines of the WWII Homefront

By Aaron Randle From shipyards to factories to government administrative offices, Black women worked to battle authoritarianism abroad and racism at home. Rosie the Riveter—the steely-eyed World War II heroine with her red bandanna, blue coveralls and flexed bicep—stands as one of America’s most indelible military images. Positioned under the maxim “We Can Do It,” the “Rosie” image has come to broadly represent the steadfast American working woman, and more specifically, the millions of female laborers who kept the factories and offices of the U.S. defense industries humming. What the iconic Rosie image doesn’t convey is the diversity of that work force—specifically

Six Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement

By Hadley Meares While their stories may not be widely known, countless dedicated, courageous women were key organizers and activists in the fight for civil rights. Without these women, the struggle for equality would have never been waged. “Women have been the backbone of the whole civil rights movement,” activist Coretta Scott King asserted in the magazine New Lady in 1966. Here are a few of their stories. 1. Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray (1910–1985) Brandeis University professor Dr. Pauli Murray, 1970. (Credit: AP Photo) The Draftswoman of Civil Rights Victories The writings of The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray were a cornerstone of Brown v. Board of

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