African-American women breaking barriers in the military "It's important to find your voice" (KRBC, Abilene) Over the last decade, women serving in leadership roles has become more common and that includes in our nation's military. KRBC works to continue to highlight those who make a difference every day and put their lives on the line [...]
Mystery confines Estebanico, black explorer of US Southwest A drawing of Estebanico (The Brownsville Herald) A black Moroccan slave who explored present-day Texas, New Mexico and Arizona with Spanish conquistadors is credited with being the first person of African descent to enter the American Southwest, but he's all but absent from the [...]
Behind the new look of Houston's oldest park, a complex racial history (Texas Observer) Emancipation Park was the first public park in Houston, and it has a complicated history. Its story is one of racism and segregation, resistance and revitalization. Now that the park has been transformed by a $33.6 million renovation led by Phil [...]
African Americans Have Lost Untold Acres of Land Over the Last Century An obscure legal loophole is often to blame In the 45 years following the Civil War, freed slaves and their descendants accumulated roughly 15 million acres of land across the United States, most of it in the South. Land ownership meant stability and [...]
The East St. Louis Race Riot Left Dozens Dead, Devastating a Community on the Rise Three days of violence forced African-American families to run for their lives and the aftereffects are still felt in the Illinois city today Photo: Two National Guardsmen escort an African-American man in the tense summer weeks of 1917 in East [...]
How African Americans Use DNA Testing to Connect With Their Past Genetic tests have ushered in a new era of root-seeking and community-building, says social scientist Alondra Nelson Photo: Before genetic testing, the writer Alex Haley’s 1977 television miniseries "Roots" inspired many African Americans to start tracing their own ancestries. (The Atlantic) In 1977, Alondra [...]
Black Music Matters: Why We Celebrate African-American Music Appreciation Month (Newsweek) Even Elvis Presley, who has long been revered as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, was heavily influenced by the sound and swagger of Chuck Berry, a guitarist, singer and songwriter who forged a style of rhythm and blues back in the 1950s that [...]
Houston’s Oldest Park Debuts Its $33.6 Million Renovation Although Emancipation Park informally opened at the beginning of the year, the Juneteenth Festival will mark its grand reopening. (Photo: The park's new recreation center) Emancipation Park opened in the Third Ward in 1872, on a plot of land purchased for $800 by a group of former [...]
The black history of Memorial Day has been nearly wiped from public memory — here’s the real story (Photo: 107th U.S. Colored Infantry at Fort Corcora (Library of Congress) Union General John Logan is often credited with founding Memorial Day. The commander-in-chief of a Union veterans’ organization called the Grand Army of the Republic, Logan [...]
Louisiana's Pierre Landry: first black mayor in the U.S. (WGNO) Louisiana is home to many of American history’s well-kept secrets, including the story of Pierre Landry, who became the country’s first African-American mayor in 1868. River Road African-American Museum Executive Director Kathe Hambrick wants to keep Landry’s story alive for future generations. “I didn’t know [...]
