Celebrate Black History Month with Black History Facts!
Updated: Feb 28
The 1st February marks the beginning of Black History Month for 2023, a month which celebrates and remembers the achievements of African Americans all over the world. This month and beyond, join us in celebrating all the amazing history of African Americans that couragesly paved the way in our world.
“The mere imparting of information is not education. Above all things, the effort must result in making a man think and do for himself.”
– Carter G. Woodson, often called the “Father of Black History.” Woodson was an American historian, author, and journalist.
Additionally, he founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In February 1926, Carter was behind the launch of “Negro History Week,” which eventually turned into Black History Month.
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“A Tradition of Activism – The Niagara Movement”:
On July 11, 1905, W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter convened a conference of Black leaders to renounce Booker T. Washington’s accommodation-ism. They met at Niagara Falls, in Ontario, Canada, because hotels on the U.S. side of the falls barred African Americans.
The 29 men in attendance set forth a platform that demanded freedom of speech and criticism; a free press; manhood suffrage; abolition of all caste distinctions based on race or color; recognition of the principle of human brotherhood; belief in the dignity of labor; and a united effort to realize these ideals under wise and courageous leadership.
The organization they formed, the Niagara Movement, met annually until 1910. It was one of the organizations that paved the way for the formation of the NAACP.
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Throughout American history, Black religious leaders have not only ministered to the spiritual needs of communities, but also birthed and led social movements rooted in resisting injustices from slavery to our current moment.
African American activists with spiritual conviction like Eldridge Cleaver, Mahalia Jackson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Coretta and Martin Luther King led as prophets in seasons of social protest, bore witness to wrongs while lighting pathways to freedom for many.
Learn more about those who resisted injustice while drawing from spiritual and humanistic convictions and practices at the National Museum of African American History and Culture website, "Spirit In the Dark" Searchable Museum. Learn More at https://www.searchablemuseum.com/foundations-of-faith
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Photo description: Ella Baker alongside Actress/Activist, Ruby Dee at the Jeannette Rankin news conference 1/3/1968
During Black History Month, we are honoring leaders like Ella Baker, unsung heroes in our history.
Although she has often been called “The mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Ella Baker somehow still remains largely unknown outside of activist circles. Growing up in the North Carolina, it was her grandmothers’ stories about life under slavery that inspired Bakers passion for social justice. As an adult, she became an organizer within the NAACP and helped co-found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led. She also helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Baker’s approach was to teach volunteers that they possessed the power to advocate for themselves and become activist in their own communities. In addition to working alongside some of the most noted civil rights leader such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr., she also mentored many emerging activists, like Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
We believe the best way to honor Ms. Baker’s legacy is to inspire people to imagine new possibilities, lead with solutions, and engage communities to drive positive change. Join us and keep her story going. Share this to spread the word!
Further reading on Ella Baker:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/02/us/little-known-black-history-figures/
Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Movement by: Barbara Ransby
Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Movement by: Barbara Ransby
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Whether enslaved or free, African Americans—like so many Americans—viewed education as the key to changing their status. Communities banded together to build and support public schools. When acquiring an education was illegal, African Americans labored together and alongside white abolitionists to establish institutions of higher learning. After the Civil War, the government laid the foundation for public education for all citizens. However, the end of Reconstruction hastened a return to localized control of segregated school systems in the South; thus Reconstruction’s initial progress was soon halted. In 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson solidified the practice of “separate but equal” education. Separate public education for African Americans were limited to elementary schools, which often possessed inadequate facilities. These schools also received fewer and inferior resources, including used, outdated books and audio visuals. Despite these and other obstacles, African Americans sought education—from basic reading and writing to advanced intellectual pursuits—and established colleges and universities to ensure a stellar legacy of achievement. Featured photos:
Graduating Class of Bowie State University 1941 History credit: @nmaahc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until the early nineteenth century, the mention of blacks in white mainstream
newspapers was often connected with a crime. That state of affairs was
challenged on March 16, 1827, when a four-page, four-column weekly newspaper was established. This was no ordinary paper.
Freedom’s Journal, as it was called, was the first black-owned and operated newspaper in U.S. history. The year it came into being, slavery was officially abolished in the state of New York.
Begun by a group of free black men in New York City, the paper served to counter racist commentary published in the mainstream press. Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm served, respectively, as its senior and junior editors.
The paper lasted from 1827 to 1829, spanning 103 issues in two volumes. As a result of Freedom’s Journal, more than 300,000 black Northerners had access to knowledge of world events and current issues that directly impacted blacks.
Spotlight:
Dorothy E. Brunson
The First Black Woman to Own and Operate Radio and
Television Stations!
Brunson, owner of WEBB (1360 AM) is pictured in her office in this undated file photo.
Further Reading:
Books
Dann, Martin. The Black Press, 1827-1890: The Quest for National Identity. New
York: G.P. Putnam Sons, 1971.
Penn, I. Garland. The Afro-American Press and its Editors. Salem, New
Hampshire: Ayer Company, Publishers, Inc., 1891.
“Our resistance is in our voice”
#ANationsStory #APeoplesJourney #blackhistoryfacts
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Audre Lorde was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. Born to West Indian immigrant parents from Grenada, Lorde was raised in Manhattan and published her first poem while still in high school. She served as a librarian in New York public schools before her first book of poetry was published in 1968
Lorde earned her BA from Hunter College and MLS from Columbia University. She was a librarian in the New York public schools throughout the 1960s. Her career as a teacher and a writer spanned decades and though she died almost 30 years ago, much of the work she left behind is still cherished and quoted today.
As a poet, she is well known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called powerful, melodic, and intense by the Poetry Foundation. A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”, Her poetry largely deals with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, homophobia, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity.
Lorde’s honors and awards included a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A professor of English at John Jay College and Hunter College, Lorde was poet laureate of New York from 1991-1992. Warrior Poet (2006), by Alexis De Veaux, is the first full-length biography of Audre Lorde.
For more information on Audrey Lorde…
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/audre-lorde
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A trailblazer in broadcasting and journalism, Maxie Cleveland "Max" Robinson, Jr. was the first Black person to anchor the nightly network news.
Robinson was born May 1, 1939, the second of four children in Richmond, Virginia. After graduating from segregated Armstrong High School, Robinson attended Oberlin College,[1] where he was freshman class president; however, he left before graduating. Robinson briefly served in the United States Air Force and was assigned to the Russian Language School at Indiana University before receiving a medical discharge. From there he returned back to Virginia where he began working in radio.
Robinsons television career started in 1959, when he was hired for a news job at WTOV-TV in Portsmouth, Virginia. Because he was black, Robinson had to read the news while hidden behind a slide of the station's logo. One night, Robinson had the slide removed, and was fired the next day. He later went to WRC-TV in Washington, DC, and stayed for three years, winning six journalism awards for coverage of civil-rights events such as the riots that followed the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Robinson also won two regional Emmys during this time for a documentary he made on black life in Anacostia entitled The Other Washington
He received rave reviews for his smooth delivery and rapport with the camera. After being noticed by Roone Arledge, ABC News moved him to Chicago and named him one of three co-anchors on “World News Tonight,” which also featured Frank Reynolds in Washington and Peter Jennings in London. Later in his career, Robinson became increasingly outspoken about racism and the portrayal of African Americans in the media. He also sought to mentor young Black broadcasters and was one of the 44 founders of the National Association of Black Journalists.
For more information on Max Robinson
https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/botwc-firsts/meet-max-robinson-the-first-black-news-anchor
https://aaregistry.org/story/one-of-the-best-of-tv-news-max-robinson/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Robinson
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The Black Joy movement is what many scholars, journalists, authors, and others are describing as resistance, resilience, and reclamation of Black Humanity.
Life brings everyone challenges, disappointments, losses, and unexpected difficulties, regardless of race. But when race is added to the mix, the situation is compounded exponentially. When people live in a world that devalues them because they are black or brown as well as dismisses their contributions to the larger society, Black Joy is and has been an effective tool that has allowed individuals and groups to shift the impact of negative narratives and events in their favor.
Additionally, enslaved Africans understood that they were not free. And yet they believed and knew that there were generations coming after them that would be free. That kind of empowering Black Joy gave them the will to hold on and press forward, no matter what situations confronted them.
Black Joy spotlight:
Author and podcast host Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts discusses how exploring personal joy led her to write her new essay collection, Black Joy.
In 2022, Tracey’s critically-acclaimed book, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration (Gallery/Simon and Schuster) was published. Black
Joy won the 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Instructional.
Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration
is available in print, ebook, and audiobook wherever books are sold.
#BlackJoy #blackhistory #blackresilience #blackhistoryisamericanhistory #APeoplesJourney