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, [...]
The Damning History Behind UT’s ‘The Eyes of Texas’ Song Student athletes wrote a letter urging officials to change the tune, which has racist origins. (Texas Monthly) On June 4, after one of their first in-person practices since the coronavirus outbreak, the Texas Longhorns football team lined up outside Darrell K Royal—Texas Memorial Stadium [...]
The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened Released 50 years ago, the infamous report found that poverty and institutional racism were driving inner-city violence (Smithsonianmag.com) Pent-up frustrations boiled over in many poor African-American neighborhoods during the mid- to late-1960s, setting off riots that rampaged out of control from block to block. [...]
Jacob Lawrence’s ‘Struggle’ Series Prepares to Be Seen by a New Generation For the first time in decades, view a major reimagining of the battles that made the nation (Image: Victory and Defeat, Panel 13 from "Struggle: From the History of the American People," 1954-56, by Jacob Lawrence. (Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross. [...]
One of the Earliest Memorial Day Ceremonies Was Held by Freed Slaves At the close of the Civil War, freed slaves in Charleston honored fallen Union soldiers. (History.com) Memorial Day was born out of necessity. After the American Civil War, a battered United States was faced with the task of burying and honoring the [...]
How the U.S. Navy’s First Black Officers Helped Reshape the American Military Image: U.S. Navy bombers in flight over their carrier, circa 1944, the year the first African-American sailors were selected for the Navy's Officer Candidate School. (Getty Images) (Time.com) This year marks the 75th anniversary of the United States victory over Germany and [...]
3 Africans in Mexico City Grave Tell Stories of Slavery’s Toll The men might have been among the earliest to be stolen from their homeland and brought to the Americas. Image: The skulls and modified teeth of three people taken from Africa and buried hundreds of years ago in a mass grave in Mexico [...]
The Rediscovered African American Last Supper Sculpture Will Stay in DC Studio Acting Conservatory has decided to keep the mammoth frieze, which it found by accident when renovating its new home. (Washington.com) Last fall, a demolition crew working on the new home of Studio Acting Conservatory in Columbia Heights made a startling discovery behind [...]
Al Edwards, former state rep behind bill that created Juneteenth, dies at 83 Photo: Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston, left, talks to (then) Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, during a session Thursday, May 15, 2003, at the Capitol in Austin. (AP Photo/Kelly West) (Houston Chronicle) Al Edwards, the former Houston legislator who introduced the bill that [...]
How the Harlem Renaissance Sparked a New African American Identity Photo: Singer and dancer Josephine Baker (1906-1975), a fixture of Harlem Renaissance nightclubs, on a tiger rug around 1925. (Hulton Archive/Getty images) (history.howstuffworks.com) From poetry and prose to music, painting, sculpture and more, the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance produced an unprecedented [...]
