Black History Month - Page 3

Hampton University Honors Alumni for Black History Month

A Statement courtesy of Hampton University In celebration of Black History Month, we recognize and celebrate some of Hampton University’s alumni who have defined “the standard of excellence.” From Booker T. Washington to Alberta King to Ruth E. Carter, Hampton cultivates Black excellence. Our celebration of Black people and their outstanding accomplishments extends beyond a specific month, emphasizing the significance of Black excellence throughout the year. During this Black History Month, Hampton University invites you to join us in paying tribute to both contemporary and historical community members who have laid the foundation for the current era of young Black

From Black Panther to Activist: Gayle Fleming’s Legacy

By Gayle Fleming Fifty-six years ago, I, Gayle Fleming, walked into the Black Panther Party storefront headquarters on Grove Street — now Martin Luther King Jr. Way — in the heart of my native city of Oakland, California. I was a 19-year-old college student at Merritt College, a hothouse of Black activism and the place where the Panthers were founded. My awakening about the oppression of Black people began with reading W.E.B. Du Bois and my participation in a Black drama club. In October 1967, a few days after Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton was falsely arrested for the murder of a White police

Rep. Jamaal Bowman Renews Push for Federal Reparations Bill

By Juana Summers NPR’s Juana Summers talks with Democratic New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman about the effort to reintroduce H.R. 40, a bill that would create a task force to study reparations for Black Americans. Twenty years ago, the late Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan posed this question to a crowd of thousands. JOHN CONYERS: Reparations, not in the next century, not in 2185, not 10 years from now. But reparations when? Reparations when? SUMMERS: He was the original sponsor of H.R.40, a bill that would create a task force to study reparations for Black Americans, a bill named

The Origins and Impact of Black History Month Explained

By Scott Neuman February marks Black History Month, a tradition that got its start in the Jim Crow era and was officially recognized in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations. It aims to honor the contributions that African Americans have made and to recognize their sacrifices. Here are three things to know about Black History Month: It was Negro History Week before it was Black History Month In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, the scholar often referred to as the “father of Black history,” established Negro History Week to focus attention on Black contributions to civilization. According to the NAACP, Woodson —

The Origins and Legacy 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

Free Southern Theater and the Legacy of Black Arts in the South

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

Bloody Sunday in Selma Sparked the Voting Rights Act

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

1963 March on Washington and MLK’s Iconic Dream Speech

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

Top 10 Civil Rights Trail Sites to Visit in the U.S

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

The Voting Rights Act of 1965: History and Impact

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

1 2 3 4 5 … 9
Close

Never Miss A Story

Covering HBCUS
and The African American Community