Black History -

White Man Tried for Killing Black Sharecroppers in Georgia; Racial Violence Continues | Equal Justice Initiative

April 5, 2020April 5, 2020African American History, Black History

Beginning on April 5, 1921, a local white plantation owner named John Williams stood trial in rural Georgia for allegedly killing 11 black sharecroppers to try to escape federal charges for illegally holding them in debt slavery. Although slavery was officially abolished in 1865, African Americans faced continued slavery-like conditions in systems of peonage — […]

Reuben Micou Lynched in Winston County, Mississippi | Equal Justice Initiative

April 2, 2020April 11, 2020African American History, Black History ...

On April 2, 1933, a mob of white men broke into the Winston County jail in Louisville, Mississippi to lynch a 65-year-old black man named Reuben Micou. Mr. Micou had been arrested after he was accused of getting into an altercation with a prominent local white man. By EJI Staff, Equal Justice InitiativeFeatured Image, Library of […]

Louisiana Lynch Mob Claims Federal Law Cannot Punish Them; Supreme Court Later Agrees | Equal Justice Initiative

April 1, 2020June 24, 2020African American History, Black History

By EJI Staff, EJI On April 1, 1875, the Supreme Court finished hearing arguments in United States v. Cruikshank, a case that asked whether the federal government had the power to punish white men convicted of slaughtering dozens of black people in Louisiana. Two years earlier, on April 13, 1873, hundreds of white men clashed with […]

Fannie Lou Hamer | PBS

March 3, 2020March 3, 2020African American History, Black History

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the 20th child of Lou Ella and James Lee Townsend, sharecroppers east of the Mississippi Delta. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] She first joined her family in the cotton fields at the age of six. Although she managed to complete several years of school, by adolescence she was picking hundreds of […]

Before Making Military History, She Witnessed One Of History’s Worst Race Riots | NPR WAMU 88.5

March 2, 2020March 2, 2020African American History, Black History ...

Olivia Hooker was a 6-year-old in Tulsa, Okla., when a race riot destroyed her community as well as her own home. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] In less than 24 hours, mobs of white men destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses in the Greenwood District, an affluent African American neighborhood of Tulsa. It’s estimated as many as […]

6 myths about the history of Black people in America | Vox

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020African American History, Black History

Six historians weigh in on the biggest misconceptions about black history, including the Tuskegee experiment and enslaved people’s finances. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] To study American history is often an exercise in learning partial truths and patriotic fables. Textbooks and curricula throughout the country continue to center the white experience, with Black people often quarantined to a […]

Don’t pit slavery descendants against black immigrants. Racism doesn’t know the difference. | USA Today

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020African American History, Black History

An anti-African, anti-black-immigrant stance is shortsighted. As we celebrate Black History Month, we should not divide the black community. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Should African American/black identity be defined by descendants of slavery, or by African ancestry? This increasingly bitter debate in the black community is undermining the spirit of Black History Month. At the center of […]

Ten “Must Watch” Black History Documentaries | PBS

February 17, 2020February 17, 2020African American History, Black History

Documentaries can open windows to our past. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Through the lens of talented filmmakers, we can re-live iconic moments in history like the 1963 March on Washington or climb aboard a Greyhound bus to join the Freedom Riders on their journey through the Jim Crow South. Documentaries offer rich insight into our society and […]

Nearly 100 Years After Tulsa Massacre, City Plans to Search Cemetery for Victims | The New York Times

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020African American History, Black History

In one of the worst instances of racist violence in American history, a group of white people slaughtered black residents of Tulsa. For decades, city leaders rarely acknowledged it in public. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Archaeologists plan to excavate part of a cemetery in Tulsa, Okla., to see if it holds the remains of black residents slaughtered […]

Who Really Killed Malcolm X? | The New York Times

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020African American History, Black History ...

Fifty-five years later, the case may be reopened. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] For more than half a century, scholars have maintained that prosecutors convicted the wrong men in the assassination of Malcolm X. Now, 55 years after that bloody afternoon in February 1965, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is reviewing whether to reinvestigate the murder. Some new […]