Essay Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true. Image: Artwork by Adam Pendleton (The New York Times Magazine) In August 1619, just 12 years after the English settled Jamestown, Va., one year before the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock and some 157 years [...]
How Texas Prevented Black Women From Voting Decades After The 19th Amendment Texas ratified the 19th Amendment on June 28, 1919, then shut out black voters by creating the “white primary.” (Image credit: Michelle Lam/Houston Public Media) (Houston Public Media) In 1918, when she was 25 years old, Christia Adair went door-to-door organizing for [...]
Retracing Slavery’s Trail of Tears America’s forgotten migration – the journeys of a million African-Americans from the tobacco South to the cotton South Image: A coffle of slaves being marched from Virginia west into Tennessee, c. 1850. (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Virginia) (Smithsonian) The Slave Trail of Tears [...]
A Denver sculptor was the first black man trained as an astronaut ahead of Apollo 11, but he never made it to space Photo: Ed Dwight, Jr. poses for a portrait in his workspace at his studio in Denver. (Kelsey Brunner, The Denver Post) A new PBS mini-series profiles Ed Dwight Jr. and other [...]
While NASA Was Landing on the Moon, Many African-Americans Sought Economic Justice Instead For those living in poverty, the billions spent on the Apollo program, no matter how inspiring the mission, laid bare the nation’s priorities Photo: Reverend Ralph Abernathy, flanked by associates, stand on steps of a mockup of the lunar module displaying [...]
The Tyler Rose: The Story of UT’s Recruitment of Earl Campbell (Alcalde) In 1973, Darrell K Royal faced challenges landing top African-American high school football players, so he enlisted a team of recruiters. Led by Ken Dabbs, they set out to convince the state’s top running back, Tyler’s Earl Campbell, that The University of [...]
How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans The sweeping bill promised prosperity to veterans. So why didn’t black Americans benefit? Photo credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images (History) When Eugene Burnett saw the neat tract houses of Levittown, New York, he knew he wanted to buy one. [...]
These Black Pitmasters Are Hustling To Preserve Barbecue's Roots The popularity of Texas-style barbecue has white-washed a cuisine that was rooted in Native American and African heritage. These black pitmasters are trying to keep history intact. Photo: A tray of meats and sides from Matt Horn's Horn Barbecue in the Bay Area of Northern [...]
They Introduced the World to Songs of Slavery. It Almost Broke Them. The Jubilee Singers were a global sensation. But an aggressive touring schedule would leave the young performers exhausted, underpaid, and in some cases, dead. (Topic Magazine) It was late December of 1871, and Henry Ward Beecher, the minister of Plymouth Church in [...]
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, “The Black Swan” Born into slavery, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield broke barriers with every note she sang (JSTOR Daily) Her voice swooped and soared through complex operatic melodies, thrilling audiences in the antebellum North. She gave encore after encore to listeners who couldn’t get enough. She was Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, one of [...]
