It’s time to recognize Sally Hemings as a first lady of the United States Photo: A man reads a plaque about Sally Hemings at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's estate in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, June 16, 2018. (Steve Ruark / Associated Press) (Los Angeles Times) It is now widely understood that my ancestor Sally Hemings, [...]
Lincoln moved to end slavery on New Year’s Day 1863. It went on for three more years. Image: The first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before President Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet, painted by F.B. Carpenter. (Library of Congress) (Washington Post) On New Year’s morning of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln hosted a three-hour reception in the White [...]
The Unsolved Mystery of the First People Killed During the Civil Rights Movement Law enforcement knew who killed Harry and Harriette Moore on Christmas in 1951. So why wasn’t justice served? Photo: Harriette and Harry Moore. (Credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images) (History.com) It was a double celebration: Christmas, and the Moores’ 25th [...]
Terrorized African-Americans Found Their Champion in Civil War Hero Robert Smalls The formerly enslaved South Carolinian declared that whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans, but few took the explosive claim seriously—until now Image: Harper’s Weekly reports on “The Steamer ‘Planter’ and Her Captor,” June 14, 1862 (Library of Congress Prints and photographs division) (Smithsonian) In May [...]
The Photos That Lifted Up the Black Is Beautiful Movement For over 50 years, the photographer Kwame Brathwaite captured African-American beauty and fashion, giving visual power to black power. Image: Untitled (Photo shoot at a school for one of the many modeling groups who had begun to embrace natural hairstyles in the 1960s), 1966. Credit: [...]
SHOWCASING A LEGACY Exhibit showcases history of Waco's African-American high school Image: Items provided by A.J. Moore High School alumni will rotate in and out of the exhibit at the East Waco Library on a regular basis. Staff photo, Rod Aydelotte (Waco Tribune-Herald) What tells a high school’s story? Its building? Student achievements? Successful [...]
Texas will finally teach that slavery was main cause of the Civil War Slavery has been upgraded to the primary cause in the curriculum, however states’ rights and sectionalism will still be taught as “contributing factors” Image: Confederate troops on the Las Moras, Texas (Public Domain) (Smithsonian.com) Last week, the Texas Board of Education voted [...]
The plan to sell Texas to Great Britain Stephen Pearl Andrews, a lawyer, Houston socialite, and abolitionist, concocted a plan to free Texas’ slaves—with a hint of treason. (JSTOR Daily) In 1843, a New England lawyer almost managed to sell Texas to Great Britain. A convinced abolitionist practicing law in what was then the [...]
Documenting The History Of Mob Violence Against African-American Veterans Image, above: A black airman from New York City reads the “Colored Waiting Room” sign in the segregated Terminal Station in Atlanta, Georgia, 1956.. (Bettman/Getty Images.) (NPR) In Montgomery, Ala., earlier this year, social justice advocates unveiled a memorial to thousands of African-Americans murdered by lynch [...]
Historic black neighborhoods disappear all the time. But they don't have to. Houston takes center stage in a movement to preserve communities of color Image: The Whole Foods Market 365 mural reflects Independence Heights' roots. (Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Staff photographer) (Houston Chronicle) This week, Houston takes center stage in a national movement to preserve communities [...]
