Taken from pbs.org

A Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders is firebombed

Despite two earlier Supreme Court decisions that mandated the desegregation of interstate travel facilities, black Americans in 1961 continued to endure hostility and racism while traveling through the South. The newly inaugurated Kennedy administration, embroiled in the Cold War and worried about the nuclear threat, did little to address domestic civil rights.

Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the self-proclaimed “Freedom Riders” came from all strata of American society—black and white, young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern. They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protest, aware that their actions could provoke a savage response but willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice.

Each time the Freedom Rides met violence and the campaign seemed doomed, new ways were found to sustain and even expand the movement. After Klansmen in Alabama set fire to the original Freedom Ride bus, student activists from Nashville organized a ride of their own. “We were past fear. If we were going to die, we were gonna die, but we can’t stop,” recalls Rider Joan Trumpauer-Mulholland. “If one person falls, others take their place.”

Later, Mississippi officials locked up more than 300 Riders in the notorious Parchman State Penitentiary. Rather than weaken the Riders’ resolve, the move only strengthened their determination. None of the obstacles placed in their path would weaken their commitment.

Read more about the Freedom Riders here.

By: Joshua R. Weaver for theroot.com

Kehinde Wiley

Contemporary painter Kehinde Wiley is set to debut his latest exhibition, “An Economy of Grace,” at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery on Saturday, May 5. In the painter’s first exhibition featuring female subjects, Wiley uses his urban baroque style to celebrate the beauty of black women, who, he claims, are often marginalized as subjects in the art world.

“This series of works attempts to reconcile the presence of black female stereotypes that surrounds their presence and/or absence in art history, and the notions of beauty, spectacle, and the ‘grand’ in painting,” Wiley says.

Read more about Kehinde Wiley here.

Study Finds Racial Bias Among Doctors

By Jessica Cumberbatch Anderson for the Huffington Post

In a study published in a March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers found that two-thirds of doctors harbored “unconscious” racial biases toward patients. When those biases were present, researchers found that doctors tended to dominate conversations with African-American patients, pay less attention to their personal and psychosocial needs and make patients feel less involved in making decisions about their health.

“It’s been really extensively shown that minorities don’t receive the same quality of health care as whites in the United States,” said Lisa A. Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., a professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the study. “I’ve been interested in the extent to which that is accounted for by the fact that a lot of minorities see physicians who are different from them culturally and racially, and that there might be some problems with cultural misunderstandings or miscommunication.”

Read more about the study here.

From thegrio.com

Breast Cancer Screening

African-American breast cancer survivors were satisfied with their cancer treatment, but most were never offered clinical trials opportunities or support services during or after their treatment, according to a study by a UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher and her community partner, Rev. Tammie Dynse.

The study, “The Unmet Needs of African-American Women with Breast Cancer,” involved interviews with 137 African-American women who survived breast cancer. Researchers sought to assess patients’ clinical experiences, concerns and needs, asking participants questions about their treatment, access to information, support services and clinical trials, insurance and employment status, general health and lingering effects of cancer treatment.

Read more of the story here.

By: Charlayne Hunter-Gault for The Root

With Bond set to be honored, a friend recalls how the college activist became a social-justice legend.

Julian Bond, lifelong civil rights activist

If ever there was a man for all seasons, Julian Bond certainly fits the bill — a man whose college-student activism challenged the lie of “separate but equal” all over the South and particularly in his home state of Georgia. He went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives and six in the Georgia Senate. Among other things, Julian also served four terms on the national board of the NAACP and was its chairman from 1998 to 2010.

Now the University of Virginia, located in a South that Julian helped change, is set to establish the H. Julian Bond Professorship of Civil Rights and Social Justice.

The article continues here.

From the African American Registry

By James Michael Brodie

Elijah McCoy

Elijah J. McCoy was born on this date in 1843. He was an African-American inventor and his work may have been the beginning of the phrase the “real McCoy.”

Born in Colchester, Canada, Elijah McCoy was one of 12 children of a family of runaway slaves who had used the Underground Railroad to escape from Kentucky. When he was 15, McCoy’s parents sent him to study mechanical engineering in Edinburgh, Scotland, because that training was impossible for Blacks to get in the United States. After finishing his schooling, McCoy returned to the United States with the hope of obtaining an engineering job. He was forced to accept a job as a locomotive fireman with the Michigan Central Railroad, a position that required that he shovel coal into the engine and apply oil in the moving parts of the machine.

Read more about the McCoy and his inventions here.

By Lisa Gittens-Williams, M.D. for the Huffington Post

Nearly one out of every six African-American babies in the United States is born premature. In Newark, New Jersey it’s one in five. I am a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, and every day I see women who are at risk of delivering early.

Preterm birth is a serious and costly health problem, and unfortunately African-American babies have the highest preterm birth rate of any other racial or ethic group. African-American women are more than one and a half times as likely to have a preterm baby compared to white women. The reasons for these differences are still under investigation, and actions to reduce the preterm birth rate in this population are underway.

Read more of the story here.

 By Kevin Noble Maillard of thegrio.com

Do barriers to interracial marriage still exist? Despite recent media reports that we are living in a “post-racial world” as the face of the American family changes, the numbers do not lie when showing that there is still resistance to black/white relationships.

Formally, all prohibitions on black/white interracial marriage have been removed. The Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia. This case made it legal for people to marry the person of their own choosing, regardless of race. No state government can block an interracial marriage after the ruling, the case determined.

Hearts did not change overnight, however. Some states did not change their laws after the ruling, even though they could not have been enforced. South Carolina and Alabama did not officially amend their laws until 1998 and 2000, respectively, and not without resistance. In 2009, Keith Bardwell, a Justice of the Peace in Louisiana, refused to perform the marriage of a black man and white woman. And just last year, a church in Kentucky banned interracial couples from membership.

What are your thoughts?

Read more of the story here.

Watch a trailer for the HBO movie, The Loving Story.

By Tom Gardner of the Daily Mail

The range of dish washing products have been branded racist

A company behind a new range of Afro style washing up sponges has been slammed for being racist.

Campaigners have attacked British makers Paladone for its latest range of dish cleaning products which caricatures black soul legend Diana Ross as having a brillo pad for a hairstyle.

The offending items, which have just gone on sale across the UK, have been likened to reproducing golliwogs or the Black and White Minstrels by reinforcing negative stereotypes.

What are your thoughts?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135711/Afro-washing-sponges-sale-leading-race-row.html#ixzz1tfKjzQUD

From the African American Registry

Duke Ellington

On this date in 1899, Duke Ellington was born. He was an African-American jazz composer, band leader, and pianist.

Born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C., into a middle-class family, he acquired the nickname Duke as a child for his manners, clothing, and personality. He began playing for friends and at parties and soon formed a small dance band named The Duke’s Serenaders. In 1923 Ellington moved to New York City, 4 years later Ellington began performing at The Cotton Club, the most prominent nightclub in the Harlem area of New York City at the time.

Read more about Duke Ellington here.