Breaking News! History in the Making
Learning the Reality of Racism
Author Craig S. Keener discusses learning about White priviledge in the Huffington Post Sometimes white people think that racism is a dead issue, because they do not experience it. Yet it is not wise to judge other people’s experience based on our non-experience. In 1991, I converted to the Black Church. Unlike my earlier conversion from…
This Day in Black History: Lorraine Hansberry is Born
From the African American Registry Lorraine Hansberry was born on this date in 1930. She was an African-American writer and activist for equal rights for Blacks. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born in Chicago, the daughter of Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl A. Hansberry, both active proponents of civil rights. Hansberry’s father worked with the NAACP…
This Day in History: Brown vs. Board of Education
On this day in 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education decision. Some of you may recall the Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll test, whereby children were shown two dolls- one black and one white-and asked which doll is ugly, which would they play with,…
Census: Minorities now surpass whites in US births
By HOPE YEN of the Associated Press For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing. New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes in the nation’s racial makeup and the prolonged impact of a weak…
Black history ‘undertaker’ loses treasures
By Tiffany Alexander, CNN Nathaniel Montague spent more than 50 of his 84 years chasing history, meticulously collecting rare and one-of-a-kind fragments of America’s past. Slave documents. Photographs. Signatures. Recordings. Montague — Magnificent Montague, as he’s been known since his days as a pioneering radio DJ — amassed an 8,000-piece collection reflecting names from the…
‘Why Don’t We Have Any White Kids?’
By N.R. KLEINFIELD of the New York Times IN seventh-grade English class, sun leaked in through the windows. Horns bleated outside. The assignment was for the arrayed students to identify a turning point in their lives. Was it positive or negative? They hunched over and wrote fervidly. Floriande Augustin, a first-year teacher at the school, invited…
Slave Graves, Somewhere, Complicate a Walmart’s Path
By Robbie Brown of the New York Times Dianne O’Neal still lives on the rustic cattle farm that her husband’s family has owned since his great-great-great-grandfather purchased the land in the 1830s. She still stays in a log cabin built from chestnut trees that his ancestors chopped by hand. But one aspect of the family’s…
This Day in Black History: Justice Prevails After 39 Years for Four Little Girls
From the African American Registry On this date in 2002, the last of the bomb killers of four Black children in Alabama was convicted. Closing the books on the deadliest crime of the civil rights era, a jury convicted an aging former Klansman of murder for the 1963 church bombing that shook the nation’s soul.…
Michelle Alexander’s Book May Give New Hope
By Sky Obercam for Clutch Magazine Do you ever wonder if many of us have been brainwashed into believing that impoverished Blacks, men in particular, are solely to blame for much of the problems we face as a community? Civil rights lawyer and scholar Michelle Alexander’s tireless research indicated just that, as well as a heartbreaking…
Stop the Pity, Unlock the Potential! A Campaign to Break Stereotypes of African Men
One project hopes to dispel stereotypes about African men by helping those men become leaders in their communities.
This Day in Black History: Louis Farrakhan is Born
The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage by Susan Altman On this date in 1933, Louis Farrakhan was born. He is an African-American religious leader in the Muslim community. in New York City, he was an outstanding student at Boston English High School and then attended Winston-Salem Teacher’s College. Farrakhan was an excellent musician; he played the…
This Day in Black History:Young Demonstrators March in Birmingham
From Black First: 2,000 years of extraordinary achievement On this date in 1963, young demonstrators marched on the Birmingham, AL City Hall for civil rights. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the protest began in the middle of bomb blasts and police brutality. City Commissioner of Public Safety, “Bull” Connor, ordered the arrest of…
Obama Backs Same-Sex Marriage
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL BARBARO of the New York Times President Obama declared for the first time on Wednesday that he supports same-sex marriage, putting the moral power of his presidency behind a social issue that continues to divide the country. “At a certain point,” Mr. Obama said in an interview in the Cabinet…
Research suggests infants begin to learn about race in the first year
Research into how children learn to recognize faces could help us understand race-based discrimination.
Rosa Parks Statue Installed In National Cathedral
From the Huffington Post Washington National Cathedral is preparing to dedicate a new carving of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks in a section of the church devoted to human rights. The Episcopal cathedral formally installs the new sculpture Thursday with a ceremony of evening prayer songs. The carving of Parks will join others on the…
Hate Crime Numbers Rise in U.S.
By Marian Wright Edelman for the Huffington Post In the first week of May a sixteen-month-old girl was shot and killed along with her mother, grandmother, and her mother’s boyfriend allegedly by Arizona white supremacist, border vigilante and longtime neo-Nazi J.T. Ready. The murders were the apparent result of domestic violence but were tragically little surprise…
Room4Debate: Are Public Schools Safe for Black Children?
By: Lynette Holloway of theroot.com On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Education released the Civil Rights Data Collection sample, which found that public school educators unfairly punish minority students. The Associated Press had previously reported on a preliminary release of the report. The survey of 7,000 school districts and 72,000 schools was conducted during the…
Room4Debate: Are Black Women Fat Because They Want to Be?
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, author Alice Randall describes the obsesity epidemic in the black community and argues that many black women want to be fat. Randall states: “What we need is a body-culture revolution in black America. Why? Because too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity…
This Day in Black History: The Chicago Defender was Founded
From the EBONY Pictorial History of Black America The Chicago Defender was founded on this date in 1905. The brainchild of Robert Abbott, it was one of the first African-American newspapers in this country to reach a circulation of more than 100,000. During the era classified by the historians as the “Great Migration,” 1915 to…
Kentucky Supreme Court Upholds SPLC’s Crushing Legal Victory Against Notorious Klan Leader
The former head of the KKK still owes $2.5 million to a victim of the group’s violence according to a recent appeals ruling.
This Day in Black History: The Freedom Rides Began
Taken from pbs.org 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.…