The TIPHC Newsletter is a weekly compendium of African American history topics relative to Texas, specifically, but nationally as well for Black history enthusiasts. However, if you're teaching or studying black history, the newsletter is also a useful tool for research, classroom discussions and assignments, and references. We welcome your feedback and submissions for
I have a true confession, of sorts, I must make. In this time of health crises, I find myself becoming more and more fearful of being in crowds. Let me be more specific: a group of more than five. What is so sad is that I used to love being in groups, at church,
How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect Hallie Quinn Brown and Other "Homespun Heroines" (neh.gov) Hallie Quinn Brown knew the power of black women and urged anyone who heard her to let it flourish. Read her remarks from 1889 and you might believe she saw the future
How Alvin Ailey’s ‘Revelations’ Has Helped Me Find My Way Back to Texas While quarantined and away from home, I keep coming back to the late Texan choreographer’s works—which are newly available to watch online. Photo: Alvin Ailey dancers perform in the "Move, Members, Move" section of Revelations, in 2011. (Earl Gibson/AP) (Texas Monthly)
A History of the Newly Resurgent 'Black National Anthem' Photo: Jon Batiste leads a protest March in Manhattan in June 2020, where he and his band performed "Lift Every Voice and Sing." (Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images) (Time Magazine) When the National Football League kicks off its season on Sept. 10, it will
How a century-old recording revealed the lost world of African-American cantors (Henry Sapoznik) The first few decades of the 20th century saw the rise of African-American synagogues simultaneously drawing inspiration from Jewish tradition and a Black worldview. What accounts for this rise is manyfold: Jim Crow laws which supplanted Reconstruction in the south drove
Why Thomas Jefferson's Anti-Slavery Passage Was Removed from the Declaration of Independence The Founding Fathers were fighting for freedom—just not for everyone. (History.com) With its soaring rhetoric about all men being “created equal,” the Declaration of Independence gave powerful voice to the values behind the American Revolution. Critics, however, saw a glaring contradiction: Many
Was Beethoven Black? Probably Not, but These Unsung Composers Were A music scholar examines the history of the decades-old theory, and what its permanence tells us about who is considered ‘canon’ in classical music Image: Debate over Beethoven's race sparked once again on Twitter last week. He is depicted here in a portrait by
Racial violence and a pandemic: How the Red Summer of 1919 relates to 2020 The wave of violence a century ago against Black Americans echoes how today, "people feel they have little to lose, and so much at stake," one historian said. Photo: Crowd of men and armed National Guard in front of the
In February 2020, I was asked to contribute an opinion piece for the PVAMU website. I submitted an essay describing what I called an Uncomfortable Truth of Black History Month. That “truth” focused on the black community’s continual efforts to prove it is worthy of recognition as contributors to American society. Even more so,