African-American History Month
Profiles of Individuals and Events Contributing to American Identity and
African-American History – US-VA History 2016
African-American History
Month, 1926 – the Present
0 Inevitably, the question is posed, “Why should we study
Black History?” – most Americans have scarcely enough
knowledge of general United States History to be informed
citizens; why spend four weeks a year emphasizing the
contributions of African-Americans?
0 The simple answer is historical bias. Up until the 1960s,
the vast majority of historians were old, affluent, white
men. Their narratives emphasized the contributions of old,
affluent white men, and the lack of diversity of perspective
diminished the quality of the historical narratives
Americans were familiar with.
African-American
History is American
History…
Black History is American History, and
it always has been. We acknowledge
the centrality of African-Americans
during the Civil War, for example, and
recognize the conflict as an event that
resulted in the redefinition of
American History. However, there are
so many stories of African-American
contributions to American history that
we fail to recollect. African-American
contributions are omnipresent but
seldom have names and biographies
attached… For example, who did more
to cross the Delaware River in the
famous painting by Leutze to the
right? George Washington, standing
bravely in the front of the pontoon
boat, or the African-American rower,
just behind Washington’s right knee?
Even locally, the Battle of Great Bridge,
which took place in Chesapeake, is
only rarely considered as a conflict
involving African-American
combatants, on both sides. But it was !
Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by the
German-American Emanuel Leutze, 1851
African-Americans in History
At the end of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks lay dead. In fact,
African-Americans – free and enslaved – made up about one-fifth of the
Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. And this despite the fact
that it was the British who offered freedom to enslaved men who enlisted!
Carter Woodson – Founder of
Black History Month
Carter Woodson was born in Fluvanna County,
Virginia, and grew up in Buckingham County. In
1910, he became the second African-American to
earn a doctorate from Harvard University (W.E.B.
DuBois had been the first.) In 1916, Woodson
established the Journal of Negro History,
founding the scholarly journal to bring the
contributions of African-Americans in United
States history into greater acclaim. In 1926, he
established Negro History Week in February, to
correspond to the birthdates of Abraham Lincoln
and Frederick Douglas, two of the greatest
contemporary heroes of African-American
History. The holiday would later be expanded
from one week to one month, starting in 1976.
Diversity in History: Inclusion
VS. Exclusion
African-American History
Profiles, 2016
Each of the individuals or events that follows are of importance to
American History, and each profile has a theme related to our
studies for the year. Be familiar with everyone in the slides that
follow in order to be successful on the upcoming Black History
Month test and quizzes.
Crispus Attucks
Crispus Attucks is a prime example of the
uncertainty surrounding the lives of
African-Americans. Attucks was of mixed
ancestry and is presumed to have been
part African-American and part
Wampanoag – that is, Native American.
Some historians believe he was a
runaway slave because there was an ad
for a runaway slave from Framingham
around the time he was a teenager. He
later became a dockworker and seaman
with ships operating out of Boston, Mass.
This much we know for certain, though:
He was murdered by British soldiers
during the Boston Massacre, and was the
fist American to shed blood in the
movement for American independence.
Today, he is commemorated around the
nation, but particularly in AfricanAmerican communities. Here in Norfolk,
VA, the Crispus Attucks Theatre on
Church St. is named in his honor.
Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings was an enslaved
woman who lived at Monticello and
had a longstanding relationship with
Thomas Jefferson which is cloaked in
some mystery. It is believed that Sally
Hemings was the half sister of Martha
Jefferson, who passed away in her
thirties. Hemings and Jefferson may
have been the most esoteric mixed
race family in American history at the
time. Exactly the nature of Jefferson’s
relationship with Hemings was
historians cannot be certain. Because
he held so much power over Sally and
her children, it is difficult to declare
with any certainty that the two were
lovers who established an emotional
connection.
Sally Hemings
There are no illustrations of Sally Hemings, but there was plenty of political intrigue and rumor
regarding her relationship with Thomas Jefferson during the course of her lifetime. The exact nature
of their relationship cannot be known except through oral histories. She is presumed to have had six
children with Thomas Jefferson, and to have had a longstanding love affair with the author of the
Declaration of Independence which took her from Monticello to Paris and back again. Descendants of
the Jefferson-Hemings relationship went on to find freedom for the most part; some “passed” as white,
while others lived as free blacks after their manumission when Jefferson died. For many years,
rumors of the affair were denied by Jefferson’s estate, which had sought to salvage his reputation.
More recently, DNA evidence has removed much of the doubt that Jefferson was the father of several
children with Hemings. How ironic that the author of the stirring words, “We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable right; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” would enslave his
own children? How ironic that he would deny them during his own lifetime?
York
When the Corps of Discovery – know to most as the Lewis and Clark Expedition
left St. Louis, MO for the Far West, exploring the entire Louisiana Territory for
Thomas Jefferson, one African-American accompanied the expedition. His name
was York, and he was William Clark’s personal slave. York is known to have been
exceedingly popular with Native American tribes, many of whom had never seen
an African-American before. He was the only member of the Corps of Discovery
who went entirely unpaid during the three year expedition. Journal entries seem
to suggest, however, that whenever the expedition voted on matters that
influenced the entire group, he was allowed to participate in the balloting. York
is known to have been freed by William Clark later is his life; although some
accounts suggest that he refused to continue working for Clark and ran away.
One even suggests that he joined a Native American tribe and lived among them
as a man of some status until he died.
David Walker
David Walker’s Appeal was published in 1829 and was one of the first tracts in American history to openly
advocate for violence in order to end slavery. Walker was born free in North Carolina, and moved to
Charleston, SC and later to Philadelphia during his youth. Later he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where
slavery was illegal. Enraged by slavery in general, he worked as a salesman for Freedom’s Journal, an
abolitionist paper published in New York which sold copies in Massachusetts. In 1829, he published the
radical tract , Appeal. He died months after the publication of the journal. While many believe he was
poisoned, tuberculosis is listed as his cause of death, and many historians remain convinced this is accurate.
Nat Turner
Nat Turner’s rebellion took place in Southampton, VA during the late summer of 1831. Although it
took place just down the road from us here in Virginia Beach, it’s a quiet part of our local history.
The violence perpetuated by Turner and his followers resulted in the death of approximately 55
whites. The question afterwards: Why did he do it? If the fact that he was forced to live as a slave
– and that he was forced to watch his loved ones and friends sold off into slaver in the West – isn’t
enough of an answer, then we may misunderstand the perpetually violent nature of slavery to
begin with. But the violence carried out was only half of the story of Nat Turner’s rebellion.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion
For months after the slayings took place,
Nat Turner could not be found. He was
in hiding – most people believe in the
Great Dismal Swamp region. While
Turner was on the lam, Virginia’s lived in
constant fear that the followers of Nat
Turner would rise up upon them, and kill
them when they were at their most
vulnerable. When Turner and some of
his followers were finally captured in
October of 1831, the crisis waned. Over
two hundred slaves who were believed
to be a part of the conspiracy were put to
death after the ordeal. Turner himself
was hanged, and then skinned by
townspeople eager to take parts of his
body as souvenirs. The Virginia state
legislature seriously considered banning
slavery after the rebellion took place;
however, they decided instead to ratchet
up slave codes controlling the
movements and liberty of enslaved
people.
Richard Allen
Richard Allen was the founder of the first African
Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794. After attempting
to work within an integrated church in Philadelphia and
finding the racist practices and convictions of
churchgoers there unseemly, Allen founded his own
church in the city. Allen had been born as a slave in
Philadelphia, and later sold to a plantation owner in
Delaware. While growing up there, he and his siblings
became involved a relief society managed by the
Methodist Church. Allen would be ordained as a
Methodist minister and eventually his master allowed
him to purchase his own freedom. His story is
important in two ways. First, it indicates the important
role of the Methodist and Baptist churches in
proselytizing enslaved people and free blacks – and their
tendency to advocate for manumission in the years
following the Revolutionary War. Secondly, by refusing
to accept second class citizenship within the hierarchy of
the Church, Allen helped to establish churches as the
backbone of a separate and distinct African-American
culture in the United States, which promoted the moral
justice of ending slavery and promoting abolitionism.
Churches were the center of many abolitionist societies
and charitable groups; they would later become the
center of the Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther
King’s SCLC is a prime example; or the 16th St. Baptist
Church in Birmingham, AL.
Anthony Burns: Fugitive Slave
Anthony Burns was a runaway slave from Virginia who
had established a life for himself in Boston, MA in the
early 1850s. Recall that during this period, sectional
divisions over slavery had caused much animosity
between the North and South. In 1850, when California
entered the Union as a free state, one condition of the
state’s entry was that the Fugitive Slave Law been
strictly observed and enforced. In 1854, Anthony Burns
was arrested in Boston and accused of being a runaway
slave. Boston erupted into protest, and angry mobs
attempted to prevent Burns imprisonment and
deportation to his former master in Virginia, Charles
Suttle. During a melee which took place as Burns was
led from prison to the ship which would transport him
back to slavery in Virginia, one federal officer was killed
by an angry mob of abolitionists. Nevertheless,
President Franklin Pierce insisted that the warrant for
Burns deportation be executed; he was convinced that
he must enforce the law to preserve the Union. Burns
was eventually placed back into servitude. He was sold
by Charles Suttle to a slave trader. Eventually an
abolitionist society in Boston raised money to purchase
his freedom. Burns moved to Canada and took up work
as a Baptist minister there during the last years of his
life. Sadly, he died from tuberculosis at the age of 28 in
1862.
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass is perhaps the best
known of all African-American
abolitionists; only Harriet Tubman
rivals him in this regard. As a runaway
slave, he was forced to begin his career
as an abolitionist speaker by declaring,
“I stand before you this evening as a
robber and a thief – I stole this head
and this body.” Indeed, he had.
Douglas went on to demand equality
and liberty for all people. He was
devoted to abolitionism first, editing
an abolitionist newspaper called The
North Star. But he was not limited in
scope to African-Americans. He was
also one of the only African-Americans
to attend the Seneca Falls Convention
and to endorse the Declaration of
Sentiments, demanding woman’s
suffrage in 1848. His career expanded
during the Civil War.
Frederick Douglass
During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass
was constantly petitioning for the
acceptance of African-American soldiers
into the Union Army; when he finally
convinced Abraham Lincoln to acquiesce,
two of his sons served in the war. After the
Civil War, Frederick Douglass advocated for
the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution, all
granting African-Americans greater liberty
and legal equality in the nation. He took a
leadership role within the Freedman’s
Bureau’s Bank, and later went on to become
the United States first African-American
ambassador of color by accepting the post of
charge d’affaires for the Dominican
Republic. Later in his life, he worked
alongside Ida B. Wells-Barnett to publicize
acts of violence against blacks in the South,
and campaigned for woman’s suffrage. He
was hailed as a leader for African-American
rights and within the women’s movement.
Dred Scott
Dred Scott is known for one particularly
important case – the Dred Scot decision
of 1857. Interestingly, he was born in
Southampton, VA, the same place Nat
Turner’s Rebellion took place, in the
1790s. Scott moved away from the
region the year before the uprising, and
was eventually sold to Dr. John
Emerson, a military doctor with whom
he and his family moved about the
nation. Scott attempted to purchase the
freedom of his family after the Dr.
Emerson passed away, but his widow,
Irene Sanford, refused to allow this.
Hence the famous lawsuit. Dred Scott
made the strong argument that because
he and his family had moved into
regions were slavery was forbidden –
not only by state law, but by national
principles established as early as the
Northwest Ordinance – he and his
family should be free. If there was not
such thing as legal slavery in these
places, shouldn’t they have been free
men and women?
Dred Scott V. Sanford
Unfortunately for Dred Scott and his family,
Chief Justice Roger Taney did not agree. The
Supreme Court voted 7 – 2 against Dred
Scott, and Taney wrote the famous opinion
of the court. He concluded that AfricanAmericans, whether they were enslaved or
free, “had no rights which a white man was
bound to respect.” In his opinion, the
Founding Fathers had considered blacks to
be less than human – three-fifths of a
person, and property to boot. Therefore, the
property rights of the slaveholder inviolable,
and the enslaved had absolutely no recourse.
Taney’s decision essential meant that not
only was slavery legal in the South, but also,
it was legal anywhere the owner of slaves
wished to relocate. The Supreme Court
asserted that slavery was now legal in the
South, the West, and even the North!
Northerners who opposed slavery were
outraged, and largely ignored the verdict,
which James Buchanan had hoped would
end the slavery issue once and for all. Scott?
He and his family were eventually freed, just
months after the case was settled.
Congressman Robert Smalls
Robert Smalls story is one of the most remarkable of the
entire Civil War. During the 1860s, Small lived in
Charleston, SC. When the Civil War broke out in April of
1861 and the first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter,
Smalls was employed as a dockworker by the Confederate
Navy. In May of 1862, Smalls risked everything by
commandeering the CSS Planter and sailing the ship –
along with his family and some of his braver friends –
straight out of Charleston Harbor, past Confederate
sentries at Forts Moultrie and Sumter along the way. He
surrendered the ship to the Union Navy, and he and his
family won their freedom in the process. During the Civil
War, Robert Smalls actively advocated for AfricanAmerican participation in the fight, and after Abraham
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863, he
piloted an ironclad vessel for the US Navy. In fact, he
helped to lead an assault on Fort Sumter in 1863. After
the Civil War, Smalls returned to South Carolina where he
was elected to the House of Representatives during the
Reconstruction. Smalls live demonstrated the major
changes which took place for African-Americans during
the Civil War and Reconstruction era. Sadly, after the
Reconstruction, he was accused to accepting a bribe and
never re-elected to office. He was later pardoned for the
crime, which many historians believe was contrived by
power hungry white-supremacists who sought to ruin his
reputation and take power from African-Americans who
had been elected to office. During the years after
Reconstruction, Smalls and many other blacks lost their
political influence in South Carolina and throughout the
South.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington was one of the
last African-American leaders who was
actually born into slavery. He grew up
in Virginia, and lived as a slave there
until the age of nine, when the Civil War
ended. Washington worked as a young
man in the coal mines of West Virginia,
eventually earning enough money to
attend classes at Hampton Institute –
today, Hampton University. He also
attended the former Wayland Seminary
School – today known as Virginia
Union. As a leading student in both
institutions of learning, Washington
became active in the blossoming field of
education in the post-Reconstruction
South. He would become the leader of
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where
he emphasized the need for vocational
skills and work ethic instead of
absolute individual rights and equality.
Booker T. Washington
While his style of leadership is much criticized today for
allowing gradualism, as a practical leader living in the
South during Reconstruction, his methods were in many
ways constructive. Many African-Americans had been
robbed of an opportunity for education during the time
of slavery, and very few had job skills which extended
outside the realm of agricultural labor in the Deep
South. Washington’s famous “Atlanta Compromise”
speech encouraged African-Americans to focus first on
the acquisition of education and vocational knowledge,
and later to demand social and economic equality.
Booker T. Washington was also the founder of the
National Negro Business League and the author of the
book Up From Slavery. His most active critic and rival of
the period, W.E.B. DuBois, on the other hand, demanded
immediate social and economic equality. Washington
opened himself to some criticism by aligning himself
with some of the wealthiest industrial leaders of the
day – men like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie
– who helped him to fund Tuskegee Institute with their
philanthropic donations to the school. Both men,
however, had mixed records with regards to the
treatment of African-Americans and laborers in general.
W.E.B. DuBois
W.E.B. DuBois was perhaps Booker T.
Washington’s greatest rival, but the men
had little in common in terms of life
experience and upbringing. DuBois was
born in a small New England town where
the sort of transparent and violent racism
Washington had experienced was rare.
After attending Fisk University and
encountering the segregated South as an
undergraduate, he was accepted into
Harvard University and became the first
African-American to win a doctorate in
History, publishing a thesis on the failures
of the Reconstruction Period of United
States history. After briefly teaching
abroad in Germany, DuBois returned to
the United States and took an active role in
advocating for political, social, and
economic justice for African-Americans.
DuBois authored the book The Souls of
Black Folk, and made the argument
therein that all cultures are led by their
greatest successes; he expected the
“Talented Tenth” to lead all AfricanAmericans to a better social condition.
W.E.B. DuBois
Dubois considered himself a part of this “Talented
Tenth” and began his work strongly. He led an
international group to promote African-American
business ventures known as the Niagara
Movement, and was a co-founder of the NAACP –
the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, a group which he led as President
for many years. Under his direction, the NAACP
became the most important organization in
American for challenging racist law in court; the
NAACP legal fund was the forum from which
Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall
emerged, to lead the fight against segregation in
the American South. Later in his life, DuBois
became frustrated with the limited scope of the
Civil Rights Movement in terms of economic and
social justice, and joined the Communist Party. He
left America, and died in Ghana on August 27th,
1963 – just one day before the Rev. Dr. Martin
W.E.B. DuBois, late in his life,
Luther King, Jr. delivered the famous “I Have a
meeting with Communist
Dream Speech” on the steps of the Lincoln
Chairman Mao Zedong of China.
Memorial.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Ida B. Wells was an important
Progressive reformer of the late 19th
and early 20th Century, who’s
muckraking articles exposed the
practice of lynching across the South.
Wells published detailed articles
recounting the murders which took
place across the South, including the
names of prominent Southern whites
who were participants in or complicit
in the crimes. Her book, A Red Record,
exposed the criminal behavior of
hundreds of whites across the South,
and the paralyzing violence which
undermined all efforts towards
economic and social justice for AfricanAmericans in the United States. Ida B.
Wells would go on to become one of the
co-founders of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP.)
Homer Plessy
Homer Plessy was a creole in Louisiana,
who had one great-grandparent who was
African-American. In most aspects of his
everyday life, he “passed” as white, as
they said during the period. Plessy,
however, was devoted to the principle of
equality for all, and quite literally
informed the conductors of the train that
he was on that he was “colored.” When
they removed him from the first class
train cart, he became the center of one of
the most important Supreme Court cases
in all American history. Plessy and his
lawyers argued before the Supreme
Court that his rights – guaranteed under
the 14th Amendment to the Constitution
– had been violated by the railroad
company, and that any laws segregating
public facilities were therefore
unconstitutional.
Plessy V. Ferguson and The
Civil Rights Movement
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not rule in
his favor in 1896. The majority ruling read, in
part, “The object of the Fourteenth Amendment
was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality
of the two races before the law, but in the nature
of things it could not have been intended to abolish
distinctions based on color, or to enforce social, as
distinguished from political equality, or a
commingling of the two races upon terms
unsatisfactory to the either. ... If the two races are
to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be
the result of voluntary consent of the individuals.“
This ruling would establish the policy of “Separate
but Equal” throughout the South for the next sixty
years or more, validating segregation and the
humiliating “Jim Crow” system which favored
white supremacists over individual rights.
Carter Woodson
Carter Woodson was born after slavery had come to an end, but
both of his parents had been enslaved, and they valued his
education. Although unable to afford formal schooling as a
youth, he nevertheless applied himself to studying and
eventually earned a high school diploma by proxy in West
Virginia. He attended Berea college in Kentucky before and
earned a Bachelor’s degree being accepted into the University of
Chicago. He earned a Master’s degree at Chicago before being
accepted into Harvard University. There, he became the second
African-American to ever earn a doctorate in History. W.E.B.
DuBois had been the first. Woodson worked as a teacher in the
public schools of Washington D.C. before publishing his
dissertation and becoming a member of the faculty at Howard
University. While living in Washington, D.C. he worked with the
local NAACP branch for several years; but eventually quit the
organization because he found them to shrink from
confrontation with white authority figures. Woodson sought a
more radical stance, which would boycott businesses that
engaged in racist practices or enforced segregation. Woodson
began “Black History Month” humbly – it was called Negro
History Week for many, many years. He chose February for the
celebratory week, largely because it was the birth week of both
Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In the 1970s, the
celebration was expanded to Black History Month.
The Tulsa Riot of 1921
The Tulsa Riot of 1921
Tulsa’s Greenwood section – an AfricanAmerican community which was
known as “Black Wall Street” by some –
was one of the most thriving and
prosperous African-American
communities in America during years
following the First World War. It had
competing grocery stores and movie
theatres, a public transportation
system, and an entrepreneurial spirit
which had resulted in many well of
residents. The community also
consisted of diverse churches. Many of
the men in the community had served
in the American Expeditionary Force
during the Great War, and came home
with the expectation that their service
would be acknowledged, and that they
and future generations would be better
treated and respected than former
generations of African-Americans.
The Tulsa Riot of 1921
The Tulsa Riot started in 1921 innocently enough. A young shoeshine boy named Dick Rowland stepped onto an elevator so that
he could use the restroom. In the segregated part of the town he
was working, the only restroom available for African-Americans
was at the top floor of a nearby building. When he stepped in,
one of two things happened. Either Rowland stepped on the foot
of a girl named Sarah Page, or he brushed his hand on her behind.
Accounts differ, and Page never pressed any charges regarding
the matter. Some claim that the girl screamed out, others claim
that another person in the elevator intervened first; but this
much is certain. Dick Rowland was arrested, and taken to the
local jail that day. By the afternoon, word was out that a black
man had assaulted a white girl. The local newspaper advertised
his location, and a lynch mob was organized directly.
The Tulsa Riot of 1921
When the word got out that Dick Rowland was to be lynched, a group of AfricanAmerican men were sent to the prison in order to protect Rowland. There
expectation was that Rowland should get a fair trial; however, they were also
determined to prevent a lynching, and brought their guns. When the mob of
whites who came to remove Rowland from prison and put him to death refused to
leave the prison, shots were fired. Both whites and blacks were killed and injured.
Over the next three days, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma became a virtual war zone.
Fires were set in the Greenwood district of the city, and the firefighters who came
to put out the flames were attacked. Men and women were murdered on the
street arbitrarily. Church arsons took place. At one point, reports from the
Chicago Defender indicate that a crop-duster was used to drop dynamite on the
black neighborhoods of Tulsa, and the incendiary fires resulting killed dozens
more. Although newspapers accounts from the period confirmed near one
hundred deaths, rumors of a mass grave containing at least three times that
number of African-Americans have persisted to the present. The Oklahoma state
militia opened up machine gun fire on a handful of African-Americans who
refused to lay down their arms during the third day of the fighting, ending the riot.
Between two and three thousand African-Americans who had lived in Tulsa would
never appear on the city’s census reports again. It is presumed that the vast
majority of these people simply left the destroyed city and vowed never to return.
However, with so many African-Americans unaccounted for in the city, the
plausibility of a higher number of deaths is certainly not able to be ruled out.
Langston Hughes of the
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a
blossoming of African-American culture
during the 1920s which took place in the
New York neighborhood from which the
movement gets its name. Writers like
Countee Cullen, Zora Neal Hurston, and
James Weldon Johnson all gained
recognition for their works, which spent
more time celebrating the virtues of
African American culture than they did
lamenting the legacy of slavery and
oppression in the United States. But of all
these writers, the author and poet
Langston Hughes distinguished himself as
the most influential. His career was long
and he was a prolific writers. His most
famous works are probably, “I, Too Dream
America” and “Dream Deferred.”
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where
Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand
I came To build a "homeland of the free.“
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's,
Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
“Let America Be America Again,”
by Langston Hughes
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes, I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again
Josh Gibson of the Negro Leagues
Everyone knows about Jackie Robinson, number 42, who
integrated Major League Baseball in 1947 by joining the
Brooklyn Dodgers. His role should not be
underestimated as a contribution to greater equality in
America. In fact, the sports world itself – the ultimate
meritocracy – has always capture American attentions.
But for many, many years, segregated sports worlds
existed simultaneously. Major League Baseball forbid
African-Americans to play, by “gentleman’s agreement”
until the 1940s; meaning that some of the greatest
baseball players in American history never had the
opportunity to play against one another. Today, then, we
consider the career of Josh Gibson, who played in the
Negro Leagues. He was known as the black Babe Ruth;
many, however, called Babe Ruth the white Josh Gibson.
Since statistics were not kept for many Negro League
contests, Gibson’s overall numbers are in doubt; the
contention that he hit between 800 and 900 homeruns
during career is often put forth. If he did, he would have
been the greatest homerun hitter in all baseball history.
Gibson played ball in the United States, Mexico, and the
Dominican Republic during his career.
Josh Gibson
An apocryphal account from the
Wikipedia page:
“In the last of the ninth at
Pittsburgh, down a run, with a
runner on base and two outs,
Gibson hits one high and deep, so
far into the twilight sky that it
disappears from sight, apparently
winning the game. The next day,
the same two teams are playing
again, now in Washington. Just as
the teams have positioned
themselves on the field, a ball
comes falling out of the sky and a
Washington outfielder grabs it.
The umpire yells to Gibson, "You're
out! In Pittsburgh, yesterday!”
The Freedom Riders
In May of 1960, the law already stated
the discrimination along interstate
highway systems or the bus depots,
motels, and restaurants that served
them was illegal. In the summer of
1960, a group of white and black
students led by James Farmer of CORE
– the Congress of Racial Equality –
attempted to test these laws. For their
troubles, they were attacked,
assaulted, firebombed, and eventually
imprisoned by the state of Mississippi,
before Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy intervened to help them
make their way to their destination,
New Orleans. Although they
attempted to take busses the entire
way to New Orleans, they eventually
were forced to compromise and flight
the last portion of the journey, from
Jackson, MS to New Orleans.
The Freedom Riders
Attacked in Anniston, Alabama, the Freedom Riders almost lost their lives
when their bus was halted and firebombed along an interstate in Alabama.
Jim Zwerg and John Lewis of the
Freedom Riders, Summer 1960
John Lewis stands near his friend Jim Zwerg, who had just taken a savage beating from
white supremacists bend on ending the Freedom Rides of 1960. Lewis was eventually
arrested for failure to comply with police orders. Instead of paying the fine for the
offense, Lewis chose to go to jail, fearlessly, figuring that Mississippi would lose out.
The Detroit Riots of 1943
The Detroit Riots of 1943
Many thousands of African-Americans chose to leave the South and
take jobs in the military industrial complex during World War II.
When they arrived in Northern cities, they often encountered
segregation and racist hostilities, and no where was this more
evident than in Detroit. In the middle of World War II, most
American automobile manufacturers had completely converted their
assembly lines to generate war materials: jeeps, tanks, airplanes,
amphibious vehicles, and weaponry. African-Americans took some
of the most dangerous jobs in this field, hoping to achieve what they
called the “Double V” for victory. All Americans tended to flash a “V”
to one another during this period, signifying victory over the Axis
Powers. But for African-Americans, the “Double V” signified victory
over fascism abroad and victory over segregation and discrimination
at home! When African-Americans protested unfair treatment by
the white citizens of Detroit and business owners, violence erupted.
The Detroit Riots
The Double V was intended to
mean victory against Hitler abroad
and victory against racism at home.
Never was the need for a double
victory more apparent than when a
massive race riot took place in
Detroit in the middle of the war.
When 50,000 African Americans
moved into the city of under
300,000 mostly white residents,
racism reared it’s ugly head. Over
the course of three days that
summer, 34 people were killed –
including 25 African-Americans,
most of whom were killed by police
officers.
The Detroit Riots of 1943 –
Political Cartoon Commentary
Actor and Activist Paul Robeson
The actor Paul Robeson was graduate of Rutgers
University in New Jersey, and later attended graduated
law school at Columbia. But he would not go on to be a
lawyer. Robeson was more devoted to the stage, and
dedicated his life to performance. He was both a singer
and an actor, playing Othello in one of the longest running
stage productions of the Shakespeare play, while starring
in many feature films for both white and black audiences.
Paul Robeson, though, was more than just an actor. He
was also a voice for oppressed people around the globe.
He was a leader of the so-called “Double V” campaign for
African Americans – demanding victory over Hitler
abroad and over racism and segregation at home.
Robeson had always opposed fascism, speaking out
against Hitler as early as the 1930s during the Spanish
Civil War. But he also railed against colonialism, and
supported the Pan-African movement of the 1950s,
organizations which openly sympathized with
communists. Robeson’s support for communist tactics in
this regard got him blacklisted in Hollywood. During he
height of the “Red Scare” any actor or actress labeled as
pro-communist found it impossible to find work.
Robeson – who was an internationally famous man – also
had his passport revoked, preventing him from working
abroad. In spite of all this, Robeson remained a leading
voice for social justice in America throughout the Civil
Rights Movement.
Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers was a member of the United
States Army during World War II, and
participated in the invasion of Normandy
during 1944. When he came home from
serving his nation, however, he was not
even able to vote in his home state of
Mississippi. Evers used the GI Bill to attend
school at Alcorn State University in
Mississippi, where he studied business
administration. He used his skills as an
organizer and leader of men, however, to
fight for greater social justice. After the
Supreme Court ruling in Brown V. Board of
Education, Topeka, KS, Evers was devoted
to the long process of desegregation in his
home state. He soon became the first
NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People) field
marshal in the state of Mississippi, a
position which brought him much fame, but
also exposed him to much danger.
Medgar Evers, NAACP
In Mississippi in 1955, a young man named Emmett Till was murdered
in the town of Money, Mississippi by two white men. His crime? He had
said the words, “Bye, baby!” to a white woman keeping shop in the local
candy store. He was dragged out of his home in the middle of the night,
shot to death, and then tied to a large metal rotor, where his body sank
to the bottom of a nearby river. An all white jury acquitted the men who
committed the crime. But during the trial, it was Medgar Evers who
organized the black community to testify against the criminals, and it
was he who snuck them out of town after they had testified, so they
would not be killed. Evers attempted to keep constant media pressure
on racist organizations in the South. Evers played a key role in insisting
that the Brown V. Board of Education decision was enforced in
Mississippi. When James Meredith attempted to integrate the
University of Mississippi – Ole’ Miss – in 1962, it was Evers who
organized the NAACP lawsuit and Evers who insisted that he receive
protection. By the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was at full
force. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was won. Central High School in
Little Rock, Arkansas was integrated. The Freedom Riders had made
their historic attempt to integrate the interstate highway system, and
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had founded the SCLC and started
non-violent confrontational tactics in Birmingham, AL. Evers had begun
agitating for greater voter registration for African-Americans in
Mississippi. It was in the summer of 1963 that Evers was gunned down
in his own driveway after returning from work. The man who
murdered him, Byron de la Beckwith, was never punished. When he
died, he was wearing a t-shirt that read “Jim Crow Must Go.”
Victor Hugo Green’s
Green Book
Prior to the Supreme Court’s Brown V. Board of
Education decision, discrimination against
African-Americans was legal. AfricanAmerican travelers along the United States
interstates and highways never knew where
strict segregation laws might prevent them
from entering a restaurant or finding a hotel
room. Hence, the need for Victor Hugo Green’s
publication, The Green Book. In the publication,
hotels, motels, and restaurants which were
known to accept African-American customers
and lodgers were listed – all across the country.
Many African-American travelers relied upon
the publication in order to travel safely.
Thurgood Marshall
Before Thurgood Marshall was the first
African-American to sit on the
Supreme Court of the United States, he
was prankster of a student at Lincoln
University in Pennsylvania, where he
was twice suspended for his boorish
behavior. He decided to pursue the
law during his college years, earned his
law degree from Howard University,
where he was much influenced by the
great Charles Hamilton Houston. After
college returned to his native
Baltimore, where he took up work with
the local NAACP. Still under Houston’s
tutelage, he would become on of the
most influential lawyers before the
Supreme Court in all American history.
Thurgood Marshall, Brown V.
Board of Education, Topeka, KS
In 1954, Thurgood
successfully argued the
Brown V. Board of
Education, Topeka, KS
case, winning the
integration of all public
schools in the United
States, “with all deliberate
speed.” The ruling would
have longstanding
implications across the
United States of America.
Marshall’s reputation was
established.
Thurgood Marshall and
Affirmative Action
In the 1960s, Lyndon Baines
Johnson selected Thurgood
Marshall as the first ever AfricanAmerican Supreme Court justice.
His interpretation of the
Constitution as a “living document”
– and one which had been deeply
flawed upon ratification – brought
a unique and new perspective to
the Supreme Court. Thurgood
Marshall was a strong advocate for
minority rights, women’s rights,
the rights of the accused, and
affirmative action while he was in
office. When he decided to retire
from the bench in the 1990s,
George H.W. Bush replaced him on
the Court with Clarence Thomas, a
man who shares virtually none of
Marshall’s views and rarely
comments on any of his decisions
with the Supreme Court.
Thurgood Marshall’s Bicentennial Speech
I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find
the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the
government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social
transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and
human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a
concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.
For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the
document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind
the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free
Persons." On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were
counted for representational purposes at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and
thirty years.
These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The
Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate
commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New
Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced
in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States.
Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves" and
"slavery" was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to
be based on the population of "free Persons" in each State, plus three-fifths of all "other Persons." Moral principles
against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which
the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the self-evident truths "that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness."
Asa Philip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph, during the 1920s
was declared to be “the most
dangerous Negro in America” by then
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
He was the leader of the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters, a union for
African-American men who worked
on trains as ticket collectors and
ushers, among many other things.
Palmer might have done better to
have worried about more dangerous
men. Randolph was committed to
non-violence, and always lived his life
– and organized his protests with that
in mind. You many not realize how
familiar you are with his work.
Asa Philip Randolph
During World War II, Philip Randolph
became the leader of all AfricanAmericans seeking work within the
defense industry. Many of these high
paying jobs were closed to AfricanAmerican applicants. Randolph
threatened several time to organize a
million man protest march on Washington,
D.C. to register displeasure about the
obstacles to African-American workers.
The tactic worked. In fact, not only were
African-Americans allowed jobs within the
defense industry, but also, after World War
II, he used the threat of protest marches to
help convince President Harry S Truman
to integrate the United States military.
The March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom, August 28, 1963
This, however, was perhaps Asa Philip Randolph’s finest hour. After decades of
“threatening” a March on Washington, the march finally took place in August of 1963.
It was here that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
The Norfolk 17 and Massive
Resistance in Virginia
The Norfolk 17 and Massive
Resistance in Virginia
n 1954, the political organization of U.S. Senator Harry
F. Byrd, Sr., controlled Virginia politics. Senator Byrd
promoted the "Southern Manifesto" opposing
integrated schools, which was signed in 1956 by more
than one hundred southern officeholders. On February
25, 1956, he called for what became known as Massive
Resistance. This was a group of laws, passed in 1958,
intended to prevent integration of the schools. Pupil
Placement Boards were created with the power to
assign specific students to particular schools. Tuition
grants were to be provided to students who opposed
integrated schools. The linchpin of Massive Resistance
was a law that cut off state funds and closed any public
school that agreed to integrate. In September 1958
several schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and
Norfolk were about to integrate under court under.
They were seized and closed, but the Virginia Supreme
Court of Appeals overturned the school-closing law.
The General Assembly promptly repealed the
compulsory school attendance law, making the
operating of public schools a matter of local choice.
But a simultaneous federal court verdict against the
school-closing law based on the "equal protection"
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment could not be
evaded. Speaking to the General Assembly a few weeks
later, Governor J. Lindsay Almond conceded defeat.
Beginning on February 2, 1959, a few courageous
black students integrated the schools that had been
closed. Still, hardly any African American students in
Virginia attended integrated schools.
Massive Resistance and
“White Flight”
By 1964, five years after the end of Massive Resistance, only 5
percent of black students in Virginia were attending integrated
schools. The chief reason for this lack of progress was the Pupil
Placement Board. In theory, the board could assign pupils to specific
schools for any of a variety of reasons, not including race or color. "In
actuality," writes historian Robert A. Pratt, "race was the only
criterion considered; the Pupil Placement Board assigned very few
black students to white schools in Virginia while it remained in
operation." Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the national NAACP
said, "Virginia has the largest and most successful token integration
program in the country.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 denied federal
funds to schools determined to be resisting integration. This resulted
in a bit more compliance by Virginia schools. The Pupil Placement
Boards gave way to freedom-of-choice plans that enabled each
student to select his or her school. The hope of state officials was
that most students would choose to stay where they were. Virtually
no white students chose to go to mostly black schools.
Another form of passive resistance was white flight, either to private
schools, or out of cities with large black populations to outlying,
mostly-white suburbs. In Richmond, for example, the percentage of
white students plummeted from 45 to 21 percent between 1960 and
1975. It was hard to have integrated schools in a district that was 80
percent black.
SOURCE: http://www.vahistorical.org/collections-andresources/virginia-history-explorer/civil-rights-movementvirginia/passive
“A Letter From a Birmingham
Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Most of us associate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. with his ability as an organizer of men, a
leader, a minister, and a public speaker. His “I Have
A Dream” speech has motivated generations of
people to aspire towards greater equality and
dignity for all people. But Martin Luther King, Jr.
was also a philosopher, in many ways, and one of
his most important contributions to the Civil
Rights Movement was his consistent use of nonviolent, civil disobedience in order to achieve
goals. Non-violent civil disobedience was by no
means passive or without consequences. Events
like sit-ins and marches were practiced and
organized so as to achieve maximum effect; and all
of these activities required that participants be
willing to suffer undeserved punishments without
resorting to violence. As King stated in his “I Have
a Dream Speech,” The notion that undeserved
suffering was redemptive was essential to the
movement, and must be used to motivate people to
continue working towards justice despite the many
obstacles they would face.
“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,”
by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. went to jail on
numerous occasions. He was once booked
and jailed for speeding in Montgomery,
Alabama, and he spent many days in a
Birmingham Jail during the summer of 1963.
King expressed his belief in post-conventional
morality during these periods in prison,
arguing that when the law itself is unjust and
immoral – when the law itself goes against
God, in his terms – then it would be immoral
to follow the law! In the summer of 1963,
King was imprisoned in Birmingham, AL for
leading a protest march without a permit. He
organized marches of schoolchildren during
that summer, and mass arrests in the city
caused tensions to escalate. Police dogs and
fire hoses were turned on children and nonviolent marches, inflicting serious injuries.
When King was imprisoned, he was publically
criticized by both black and white ministers
in Birmingham, who complained that his
tactics were causing more harm than good,
and giving young men and women criminal
records – whether the laws they broke were
moral or immoral notwithstanding. King
answered these complaints with his famous,
“Letter From a Birmingham Jail.”
“A Letter From a Birmingham
Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You express a great deal of anxiety
over our willingness to break laws.
This is certainly a legitimate concern.
Since we so diligently urge people to
obey the Supreme Court's decision of
1954 outlawing segregation in the
public schools, at first glance it may
seem rather paradoxical for us
consciously to break laws. One may
want to ask: "How can you advocate
breaking some laws and obeying
others?" The answer lies in the fact
that there are two types of laws: just
and unjust. I would be the first to
advocate obeying just laws. One has
not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws.
Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I
would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all."
“A Letter From a Birmingham
Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was after King’s release
from prison in the summer
of 1963 that he delivered
the famous “I Have a Dream”
Speech at the March on
Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial. The
speech, in many ways,
transformed a nation, and
the peaceful march caused
President John F. Kennedy to
meet with the leaders of
SCLC and begin to propose
major Civil Rights reforms.
Sadly, Kennedy himself
would not live to see these
reforms enacted. But in
1964, the Civil Rights Act
was signed into law.
“A Letter From a Birmingham
Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
The summer of 1963 was one of the most
critical seasons of the Civil Rights
Movement. In Birmingham, schools were
preparing to integrate in the fall of the
year. After a tumultuous summer of
marches; after King had spent much of the
summer in a Birmingham prison cell; after
the “I Have a Dream Speech” and the
promise of Civil Rights legislation, the fall
brought a horrifying and bitter loss. The
weekend before the newly integrated
schools were set to open, a bomb
exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church
in Birmingham. Below the church, five
little girls were preparing a Sunday School
lesson when the bomb blew. Four of the
girls died. The arbitrary violence of white
supremacists in Alabama was unrivaled
anywhere… The city was nicknamed
“Bombingham.” But this treacherous act
brought the condemnation of the country.
Author James Baldwin
James Baldwin was born in Harlem,
New York, in 1924. Although at the
time the Harlem Renaissance was at
it’s peak, Baldwin grew up in a world
that was largely divorced from the
literary movement of the day. His
family was quite poor, and he was
always under the strict influence of
his step-father, a minister in a local
church. For a brief period during his
teenage years, Baldwin took to the
pulpit. But he decided that the
Church was not for him. When he
turned eighteen, he moved to
Greenwich Village in New York City
and tried to make it as a writer.
Noticed by the already well
accomplished Richard Wright. After
Wright helped him to get a grant from
a publishing company, Baldwin wen t
to Paris to complete his work. He
would live abroad for the majority of
his life, spending long periods in both
Paris and in Istanbul.
James Baldwin
Baldwin’s writing was often at least
part biographical. He described the
difficulties of growing up as a black
man in a nation that was dominated
largely by powerful whites. He also
continually discussed the equality
of man, and advocated for many
reforms – such as equality for and
tolerance of homosexuals and
interracial marriage – generations
before the issue became
mainstream topics of discussion.
His novel The Fire Next Time put
him on the cover of Time magazine
during the 1960s.
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists
on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster…”
Selma and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965
In 1965, the Student
Non-Violent
Coordinating
Committee and Martin
Luther King, Jr’s
Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
began a fifty mile march
from Selma, AL to
Montgomery to protest
the obstacles to voter
registration in the state
for African-American
voters. As the marchers,
led by John Lewis,
approached the
Edmund Pettus Bridge,
they were attacked by
Alabama State Troopers
and savagely beaten.
John Lewis, pictured to
the right, had his skull
fractured by a billy club.
The incident was reported to the nation late in the
evening of “Bloody Sunday” – March 7, 1965. Many
Americans were watching a primetime movie at the time
of the special report: “Judgment at Nuremburg.”
Selma and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965
When Americans saw the brutality being used
against non-violent protesters on a Sunday
Morning in March of 1965, they were outraged
and sought to make changes to the white
supremacist system in the South. The
President of the United States at the time,
Lyndon Baines Johnson, introduced a bill to
guarantee voting rights for African-Americans
in the South. Before Congress, he stated “Even
if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over.
What happened in Selma is part of a far larger
movement which reaches into every section
and state of America. It is the effort of
American Negroes to secure for themselves the
full blessings of American life. Their cause
must be our cause, too, because it is not just
Negroes but really it is all of us who must
overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and
injustice. And we shall overcome…” The Voting
Rights Act was passed into law in 1965.
Selma and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act
prevented states from
arbitrarily denying
African-Americans the
ballot by changing voting
locations or placing any
unfair restrictions on
access to voter
registration. This act,
coupled with the
ratification of the 24th
Amendment to the
Constitution in 1964
which ended the poll tax,
allowed much greater
access to the ballot for
African-Americans in
Southern States.
The Case of Loving V. Virginia
https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/loving-v-virginia-case-over-interracial-marriage
The Case of Loving V. Virginia
Until the year 1967, interracial marriage was against the
law in Virginia – and in various other states around the
nation. The so-called “miscegenation” laws of the state
were challenged in 1967 in this extraordinary case.
Few cases were more aptly named than Loving v. Virginia,
which pitted an interracial couple – 17-year-old Mildred
Jeter, who was black, and her childhood sweetheart, 23year-old white construction worker, Richard Loving –
against Virginia's "miscegenation" laws banning marriage
between blacks and whites. After marrying in
Washington, D.C. and returning to their home state in
1958, the couple was charged with unlawful cohabitation
and jailed. According to the judge in the case, Leon M.
Bazile, "Almighty God created the races white, black,
yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate
continents.... The fact that he separated the races shows
that he did not intend for the races to mix." Judge Bazile
sentenced the Lovings to a year in prison, to be
suspended if the couple agreed to leave the state for the
next 25 years.
The Lovings left Virginia and went to live with relatives in
Washington, D.C. When they returned to visit family five
years later, they were arrested for traveling together.
Inspired by the civil rights movement, Mildred Loving
wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for help.
The couple was referred to the ACLU, which represented
them in the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v.
Virginia (1967). The Court ruled that state bans on
interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali was the
greatest heavyweight
champion of the world to
ever put on boxing gloves.
But he was much larger
than that. Ali was born
Cassius Clay, in Louisville,
KY. Upset that he had had
his bicycle stolen by a
neighborhood bully, he
began taking boxing
lessons. By the time he was
twenty, he had won both
the Golden Gloves
tournament of Champions
and a gold medal with the
United States Olympic team
in Athens, Greece.
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali would go on to
become the heavyweight
champion of the world, and he
participated in some of the most
dramatic bouts in the history of
fisticuffs: The Rumble in the
Jungle – against George Foreman,
and the Thrilla in Manila – his
third match against Joe Frazier,
who had defeated him in Madison
Square Garden in New York City.
But Ali’s most noteworthy
accomplishments in terms of
personal development may not
have been in the ring at all.
Muhammad Ali – Anti War Activist
In 1964, Muhammad Ali was drafted into
the United States Army. He refused to
serve, however, claiming “I ain’t got no
quarrel with them Viet Cong.” Having
recently converted to Islam, joining
Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam, Ali claimed
conscientious objector status and refused
to serve. In his own words, “The
heavyweight champion of the world
claimed, “Why should they ask me to put
on a uniform and go ten thousand miles
from home and drop bombs and bullets on
brown people in Vietnam while so-called
Negro people in Louisville are treated like
dogs and denied simple human rights?” He
was stripped of his heavyweight
championship title, banned from fighting in
the United States, and had his visa revoked,
so he could not travel abroad either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeFMyrWlZ68
Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let
Us Build A New World Together”
“In order for us as poor and
oppressed people to become a
part of a society that is
meaningful, the system under
which we now exist has to be
radically changed… It means
facing a system that does not lend
itself to your needs and devising
means by which you change that
system. That is easier said than
done.” – Ella Baker
Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let
Us Build A New World Together”
It may not be readily apparent to everyone, but the role of
African-American women in the Civil Rights movement was twice
as difficult as that of men. African-American women were often
considered second class soldiers in the Movement. For every
Rosa Parks or Ruby Bridges who came to prominence, there were
a dozen African-American women who’s sacrifices were not
registered. Jo Ann Robinson, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer, and
many other women are left out of the popular narrative of the
Movement. Ella Baker falls into this category. And in some ways,
that would be fine with her. She believed in the collective good
rather than in individual recognitions. Indeed, one of her most
popular quotations is “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”
Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let
Us Build A New World Together”
Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker would go on to become a leading
organizer of three of the most influential organizations of the 20th Century: The
NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which she helped to found.
Inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Baker started local organization of
her own to encourage the non-violent protest against “Jim Crow” laws and to
encourage voter registration. After helping to found the SCLC but finding that
her voice was little acknowledged within the organization, Ella Baker left the
organization in 1960 to help to organize the new student movements growing
in the American South after the Greensboro Four’s sit-ins of February, 1960. In
that year, Baker helped to found SNCC, a student run organization which made
local reforms and constant activism their mantra. In 1964, it was Ella Baker’s
organization that lead the dramatic voter registration drive known as “Freedom
Summer” in Mississippi. As the Civil Rights Movement splintered during the late
1960s and throughout the end of the 20th Century, Ella Jo Baker continued to
encourage local reforms, and always considered herself a teacher of the young.
Ella Baker: Local Activist with
A National Influence
Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let
Us Build A New World Together”
“Until the killing of black
men – black mothers’ sons
– becomes as important to
the rest of the country as
the killing of a white
mother’s son – we, who
believe in freedom cannot
rest until this happens!”
- Ella Baker
Stokely Carmichael and the
“Black Power” Doctrine
Stokely Carmichael was once the President of the Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and he literally
walked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during
the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965. However, even
then Carmichael was beginning to articulate divergent
viewpoints regarding the future of the Civil Rights
Movement. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, he came to the
United States as a youth and lived in Harlem. He attended
Howard University in Washington, D.C., and became
involved with two important Civil Rights organizations, the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which organized the
Freedom Rides, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee. Never one to back down in the face of
confrontation, Stokely Carmichael was arrested over thirty
times; he spent a summer in prison in Mississippi for his
efforts to integrate commuter trains in the state. He also
participated in sit-in movements and various marches
organized by his organization or larger, more mainstream
groups like SCLC. By 1967, however Carmichael had
started to have his doubts bout the non-violent, passive
resistance, and civil disobedience advocated by Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., and decided to articulate a view that
advanced the merits of “direct action.”
Stokely Carmichael and “Black Power”
“In order for non-violence to work, your
opponent must have a conscience.”
Carmichael was not convinced that the
powers of the government or local
authorities always did, and he made that
clear in his speeches and philosophical
publications. The “Black Power”
Movement, which would be adopted and
advocated by many militant and
disciplined groups in the United States,
considered non-violence folly, and
emphasized self-defense, self-reliance,
and preparedness. Many groups, like
Oakland’s Black Panther Party,
considered Carmichael their spiritual
leader, and began to “take back” their
neighborhoods – both from crime and
drugs, and from the local police, who
they often viewed as brutal adversaries.
Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power”
Black Power is the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation
by any means necessary.
Now we want to talk about violence. Because I understand now that some of
your so-called Negro leaders have been saying that we violent. I won't deny it.
Yeah, I'm violent. Somebody touch me, I'll break their arm. But the problem
isn't one of violence, see. The problem is one of hitting back white people when
they hit you. That's the real problem 'cause we've never done that all our lives.
They've been able to walk over us, bomb our churches, beat us up, shoot into
our houses, lynch us, and do everything they wanted to do and we would just
sit there and whisper about it behind closed doors. It's a new day today! It's a
new day today!
But what really upsets me is that these people who talk about violence are not
concerned about black people. Because there is more violence in our
neighborhood on Friday and Saturday night than there is anyplace else,
anyplace else. Yeah! We cut and we shoot each other more then we touch
anybody in the world, and don't nobody talk out against that violence—nobody
talking about it!
And the reason they don't do it is because they don't give a damn about us.
They're only concerned about white folk.
Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power”
But what really upsets me is that these people who talk about violence are not
concerned about black people. Because there is more violence in our
neighborhood on Friday and Saturday night than there is anyplace else,
anyplace else. Yeah! We cut and we shoot each other more then we touch
anybody in the world, and don't nobody talk out against that violence—nobody
talking about it!
And the reason they don't do it is because they don't give a damn about us.
They're only concerned about white folk…. If they were against violence, they
would be preaching nonviolence in the black community, 'cause that's where
we need it most. We need it there. We need to learn to love and to respect each
other and stop cutting and shooting each other. But they don't care about us!
They don't care about us, no!
The only time you hear these preachers talk about nonviolence is when a
honky hits you and you gettin' ready to take care of business. That's the only
time you hear them, yeah! Then you see 'em on television, the only role they
have is to condemn their own people. "Oh, we don't believe in violence, those
vagabonds throwing rocks and bottles... Oh, yes we believe in the war in
Vietnam. We think our boys should go over there and shoot. But we don't
believe in violence at all." What is that junk? They gonna put you in a uniform
and send you 8,000 miles to shoot a man who ain't never called you a nigger?
Get outta here! Yeah!
Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power”
And you get cats like Lyndon Baines Johnson get up on TV and say, "My fellow
Americans, every night before I go to sleep, I ask myself what have I done to
preserve peace in this country." Yeah. And yet he talking about preserving peace
and dropping bombs all over Hanoi. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. And then
he gets up before national TV, and he says, "Violence never accomplishes
anything." Well if the honky believes it, tell him to use nonviolence in Vietnam!
What they're saying is violence is OK against everybody except the white man,
that's what they're saying. And you ought not to get fooled by it. You ought to
understand, that in the world there exists, especially in this country, a victim and
executioner relationship. We are the victims, and white people are the
executioners. And they have kept us down by force and by violence. And that if
we are violent, it's just that we have learned well from our teachers. Thank you
very much.
They have bombed our churches, they have shot us in the streets, they have
lynched us, they have cattle-prodded us, they have thrown lye over us, they've
dragged our children out in the night. We have been the recipients of violence for
400 years. We've just learned well how to use it today. Don't you ever condemn
people for using violence. And those black preachers get up, you tell them to get
the guts to condemn white folk for the violence they've heaped on us. If they can't
do that, if they can't condemn the white folks, tell them to keep their mouths
shut!
Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power”
So don't you get caught up in no discussion about violence. We just making it
crystal clear to the honky today that if he try to shoot us, we gonna kill him
'fore God get the news. Period!
Now if he doesn't want to get shot, tell him to stay home. Cause they leave their
beds and their wives at three o'clock in the morning and come to our
community and go work out their frustration by shooting into our community.
If they got frustrations, tell'em, "Go see a psychiatrist."
So you got to understand that one in your mind, and don't got carried away
with that nonsense about riots. You ought to understand, you ought to be proud
of your black brothers in Nashville. You ought to be proud, because what
happened was on Friday night two honky policemen going to walk into the
middle of the neighborhood and gonna start beating up on a black brother. And
when the other brothers told them they didn't have to, they gonna turn on
them. But they forgot: It's a new day! It's a new day!
See they didn't recognize that this generation is saying if you wear a sheet at
night, or a badge in the day, if you put your filthy white hands on our beautiful
black skin, we gonna TCB, period! Period! Period!
- Stokely Carmichael, April 19, 1967
L. Douglas Wilder
Douglas Wilder became the first African-American
governor ever elected in the state of Virginia in 1990,
and he was the first African-American to hold any
governor’s office since the Reconstruction Period.
Wilder was a graduate of Virginia Union University,
where he initially studied Chemistry. He joined the US
Army during the Korean War, and volunteered for
combat duty; at one point, he an a fellow soldier took
19 Chinese soldiers prisoner during the famed Battle of
Pork Chop Hill. Upon returning from Korea, Wilder
chose to pursue a law degree and then started a
political career by winning a special election to the
Virginia State Senate. He was elected Lieutenant
Governor in 1986 with Democrat Gerald Baliles; the
then narrowly won election as governor in 1990. As
governor, Wilder cut off all business ties between the
state of Virginia and the apartheid government of South
Africa. He was strongly in favor of gun control laws,
was pro-choice on the abortion issue, and a strong
advocate for the death penalty. Fourteen Virginians
were put to death during his four years in office. After
leaving the Governor’s Office, Douglas Wilder remained
extremely involved in Democratic politics in the state.
In 2005, he was elected Mayor of Richmond, VA, and he
was enormously influential during his four years in
office. He was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal
Guns Coalition. Wilder began a campaign for the
Presidency briefly in 1992, and had a short lived
attempt to run for the US Senate in 1994.
L. Douglas Wilder, former
Governor of Virginia and
Mayor of Richmond, VA
Greekfest, 1989: A Race Riot in Virginia
Beach, Virginia
During my sophomore year at First Colonial High School, racial tensions were relatively high at First
Colonial High School, due to a major riot which took place during the Labor Day weekend of 1989. In
Virginia Beach, the riot is known as “Greekfest,” and you’ll not hear it advertised by the City Council
anytime soon! But in 1989, it was national news, and one of the ugliest parts of our local history.
Greekfest, 1989
Traditionally, Greekfest was an end of the summer weekend party
attended by mostly African-American fraternities and sororities all up
and down the East Coast. Hundreds of thousands of visitors came to
Virginia Beach every Labor Day weekend, which was just like every
other weekend between July 4th and Labor Day in Virginia Beach, with
one notable difference: three out of four visitors during Greekfest
were young and African-American.
The partying and revelry which went on with Greekfest caused some
unique problems, but it many of the concerns were typical of a busy
weekend in Virginia Beach in the 1980s and 1990s. Pedestrian traffic
made the roads almost impossible to drive. Noise violations were
common, and public intoxication or open container laws were being
broken until well into the evening. As with any gathering of thousands
and thousands of people, fights broke out. For the VBPD, managing the
event, keeping lanes open for emergency vehicles, and maintaining
order on the streets was taxing and difficult – and it cost the city.
Greekfest, 1989
During the Labor Day Weekend in 1988, there had been problems at the
Oceanfront as well. Fights had broken out, and property had been damaged
in some of the hotels and businesses at the beach. There was a widespread
belief among business leaders that the party had simply gotten to large, and
that it would have to be managed differently in order to maintain public safety
and allow businesses to operate.
In 1989, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf decided to pro-actively
prepare for the possibility of trouble in the city. She notified organizers of
Greekfest that the party was not welcome in the city, called the Governor, and
put the Virginia National Guard on standby in case beachgoers became rowdy.
VBPD presence on the streets was noticeably ramped up on Friday and
Saturday nights during the weekend, and many students were arrested for
jaywalking, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and the like. Several fights
broke out, and at times, the police were not able to manage the incidents
quickly and efficiently. Accusations of excessive force and harassment were
made against the VBPD. The disorder on the streets of Virginia Beach made
national news coverage on Saturday. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN all broadcast
reports from the tops of local hotels, showing the crowds below.
“Why Virginia Beach Happened”
Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1989, by Roy H. Campbell
All the elements for a racial disturbance were there.. Tensions were high between an overwhelmingly white
police force and tens of thousands of black college students, alumni and others who had come to Virginia Beach,
Va., for the end-of-the-summer fraternity party known as Greekfest. For two days, from last Friday through
Saturday, the black students felt harassed: They were cited for jaywalking; they were made to show their hotel
keys when they entered the lobbies of their hotels; only a few of them at a time were allowed in some
beachfront stores, and it seemed as if all of the shopkeepers were worried about shoplifters. "It was like 1963
or something," said Rita Goms, 20, a Lincoln University student who went to Greekfest the year before.
Then, early Sunday morning, as hundreds of college students partied on Atlantic Avenue, from a black van came
"Fight the Power," the anti- establishment song by the rap group Public Enemy and the hit single from the
soundtrack of Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee's movie about race relations:
Bum rush this show, you got to go
for what you know to make everybody see,
in order to fight the power that be,
What we got to say is power to the people,
no delay make everybody see,
in order to fight the power that be.
The crowd, according to Goms and others who were there, grew frenzied, swept away by the pulsing rap beat
and the words that called for them to strike out against the powers that be, to fight back against the white
oppressors. The disturbance that followed raises again the question of the relationship between rap music and
violence. And also, when Do the Right Thing came out, some said it would cause a riot. People who were at
Virginia Beach agree that the song did not cause the riot; the situation did. The song, however, played a role just
as rock music played a role in anti-Vietnam protests in the late 1960s. And, at Virginia Beach, "fight the power"
became the byword of the Labor Day weekend. On Atlantic Avenue, more people poured into the streets. They
waved their fists and cursed police, chanting, "fight the power.“ Someone tossed a brick through a storefront
window. The brick seemed to be the match that touched off a firestorm that turned into a violent looting and
vandalism spree.
Greekfest, 1989
By dawn, 100 beachfront businesses were damaged, two people were injured by gunfire,
scores were arrested and state police and the National Guard were patrolling the streets.
Violence broke out again Sunday night as riot-clad police clashed with black youths in the
streets. Hundreds more were arrested. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department announced that
it and the FBI had formally opened a criminal investigation into whether civil rights had been
violated and whether police had used excessive force during the disturbance at Virginia Beach.
How did a traditional beach party turn into a riot? And why was Virginia Beach being accused
of racism?
The 1989 Greekfest seemed headed for disaster from the start. City officials announced earlier
this year that the event had grown too large to be handled safely. They rebuffed efforts of the
Philadelphia area promoters to hold events at the beach or at the Pavilion Civic Center. And
the city council passed new stringent ordinances against jaywalking, loud radios and other
actions that are traditionally associated with youths on Spring Break. City officials
acknowledged that the new rules were in response to Greekfest. When it became apparent all the hotels were booked by July - that thousands of black college students and alumni were
still going to come to Virginia Beach for Labor Day weekend, Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf
announced that the event was not welcome in the city. In August, she asked the governor to
put the National Guard on standby alert because of the possibility of rowdy students.
Despite all of this, and with wild rumors of the Ku Klux Klan and the skinheads planning to
disrupt the event in mind, thousands of black college students headed for Virginia Beach.
However, James Spruill, 23, a West Philadelphia resident and a 1987 graduate of Penn State
University, said, "I went because every time I go, I have a good time. The girls are all out there
and there are parties and it is just a fun thing to do at the end of the summer.
Greekfest, 1989
The event began in 1985, when the Philadelphia area group Theoroc Promotions, which
sponsors the annual Greek Picnic in Fairmount Park, staged the first Greekfest in Virginia
Beach. Five hundred people attended. The event grew until last year, when 40,000 people
poured into Virginia Beach. Hotel owners complained of minor vandalism, and one event at
the city's Pavilion resulted in crowd-control problems.
Organizers say Greekfest is not unlike the better-known Spring Breaks at Daytona Beach and
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For a few days, the college students - whether at Virginia Beach or
Florida - party and try to meet members of the opposite sex. This year in Virginia Beach, the
annual weekend began as usual: "Everybody was on parade, everybody was strutting their
stuff," said Nathan Townsend, a Philadelphia designer who chaperoned a church group that
visited the beach on Saturday. "I was with a group of older people and there was nothing
threatening, it was just amazing.“ But some people at Greekfest said they felt unwanted. In the
words of Wayne Byrd, 23, of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, there was "an air of racism."
"They seemed to be afraid of us because we were black individuals," said Byrd, a Richmond,
Va., native.
Goms, who drove down from Lincoln's Chester County campus with 11 other students, said
they felt so discriminated against that "we started carrying signs saying, 'Don't spend your
money in Virginia Beach because they don't want us here.' "And some enterprising person
printed T-shirts with Malcolm X on the front and a rap poem on the back that said the
Greekfest was unwanted because of the students' "pigmentation." The T-shirts sold like
hotcakes. And "Fight the Power" became an anthem of sorts.
"The song hyped everybody more, but they were already upset and tired of the police
harassing them," said Lisa Jordan, 19, a Virginia State University student. It was about 7:30
p.m. when police formed a wedge and began a sweep to clear the streets. Witnesses said the
police rushed the crowd, beating the people with batons if they did not move quickly enough.
One handcuffed youth was kicked by state police as he lay on the ground while across the
street a crowd jeered and cried police brutality. Among other incidents, police stormed a
supermarket and pushed and threw the black patrons out of the store.
Greekfest, 1989
Among those arrested was Gerald Howard, 39, of Southwest Philadelphia. Howard drove
down to videotape Greekfest. On Sunday night, as he was filming the police sweep, he said a
police officer grabbed him, threw him to the ground and beat him before arresting him. "I
was filming them grabbing people and dragging them," said Howard, who has filed a police
brutality complaint with the Virginia Beach Police Department.
Howard spent the night in police custody with 100 others who he said committed only one
crime: "Many of the guys in the detention center were guilty of being black and on the
street.“ Against charges of excessive police force, Oberndorf said the police had to use such
tactics because looting had started again on Sunday night. Reporters, merchants and
festival participants, however, say there was no disturbance or trouble until the police
sweep began.
In the aftermath of all this, black leaders - while not condoning the looting - say the city
mishandled the event from the beginning. Jack Gravely, president of the state NAACP, said
the city overreacted to the crowd because its members were black. The NAACP will
investigate the police action and then hold a hearing. E. Stephens Collins, one of the
partners in the group that staged previous Greekfests but pulled out this year when the city
refused permission to use the convention center, said, "Black kids just weren't welcome at
the beach."
He pointed to Philadelphia's Greek Picnic as an example of how well things can go when
there is cooperation from the city. "We never had a problem," he said. Ed Tenuto,
spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, said 60,000 people attended the July
event this year and there were no arrests and no problems. "Our presence is in a service
capacity - to help with traffic or things like this because we view this as one big party," he
said.
Labor Day Weekends
In the years since the Greekfest Riots
took place, the City of Virginia Beach
has worked to bring other major
events to the city, starting with the
American Music Festival – which did
not feature Public Enemy or any
other musicians of the hip-hop
variety – and later converting to the
Rock N’ Roll half marathon.
Greekfest parties have gone
elsewhere, and the crowds which
attend Labor Day weekend in
Virginia Beach are very different.
This, along with much more strict
rules regarding traffic patterns and
loitering on the Oceanfront from
June to September, have changed our
city’s main tourist attraction over
the past 25 years.
Spike Lee: 40 Acres and a
Mule Filmworks
Spike Lee Joints
Since graduating from NYU’s Film School
in 1983, Spike Lee has been one of the
most creative and prolific producers in the
American film industry. By tackling
themes that are often controversial and
unsettling, he has taken a leading role in
social commentary and been an informed
critic regarding policies and social custom
in the United States. Not only has Spike
Lee achieved critical acclaim; but also, he
has had commercial success in a variety of
genres. In addition to feature films and
documentaries, many of Lee’s better
known works have been music videos and
even commercial advertisements, like
Nike’s famous Mars Blackmon: “It’s Gotta
Be the Shoes!”
0 She’s Gotta Have It
0 Do The Right Thing
0 Mo’ Better Blues
0 Malcolm X
0 Crooklyn
0 Clockers
0 Get On The Bus
0 4 Little Girls
0 He Got Game
0 When The Levees Broke
0 Red Hook Summer
Spike Lee
Lee has acted in a host of his own films,
almost all of which have received critical
acclaim. He is known outside of his film
making career as a die-hard sports fan and as
a social commentator. He is often seen on
the front row of Knicks games in MSG, and
has more than once gotten into verbal spats
with players – perhaps most notably with
former Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller.
He is also a huge New York Yankees fan.
More importantly, however, Lee stays
involved in social commentary…. sometimes,
a little too involved. During the Trayvon
Martin case in 2013 in Florida, he attempted
to tweet out the address of George
Zimmermann’s parents, provoking death
threats against the family which live in the
residence. He has also entered into feuds
with the likes of Clint Eastwood over the
need to include African-American characters
in film, and for postulating conspiracy
theories without ample evidence – for
example, his half-hearted insistence that the
US government wasn’t above allowing the
Hurricane Katrina tragedy to persist just to
move African-Americans out of the city of
New Orleans.
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour
Chuck D. Public Enemy Number One. The brains behind the influential rap group Public
Enemy during the late 1980s and the 1990s, Chuck D was one of the most important lyricists
and performers of the late 20th Century, and he continues to influence hip-hop today. Many of
his songs became anthems of the late 1980s and 1990s, including “Fight the Power,” “911 is a
Joke,” and the classics “Can’t Truss It” and “Bring the Noise.”
Chuck D of Public Enemy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dql_kKCq4Oo
Maya Angelou
One of the most influential poets of
the 20th Century – and the 21st
Century as well, at this point –
Maya Angelou was able to
transcend the many obstacles of
her early life, including racism and
sexual abuse, to become one of the
leading voices of her age. Among
many other accomplishments, she
was asked to read original poetry
at the first inauguration of
President Bill Clinton in 1993.
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings…”
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings:
The free bird leaps on the back of the wind
And floats downstream til the current ends
And dips his wings in the orange sun rays
And dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings with fearful trill
Of the things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill, for
The caged bird sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
And he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
- by Maya Angelou
Author Toni Morrison
Read as much as you can and try to find an
American author that rivals Toni Morrison.
Alongside Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, and
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Morrison is one of the
greatest living authors. Her books include Sula,
The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Love, Beloved,
and more recent works such as A Mercy and
Home. Magical realism is one of the techniques
Morrison applies consistently with great effect.
More recently, her attention to detail in
historical fiction has brought her to the
attention of practicing historians. A Mercy, set
in the Chesapeake region during the
middle1600s, captures the emerging hierarchy
of the free and the enslaved, and describes the
ability of even the weakest members in that
social hierarchy to find agency and purpose in
their lives. Many of her other works bring the
difficult realities of segregation and racism to
light – while celebrating the independent,
meaningful lives of African Americans across the
United States – in both time and space.
Books By Toni Morrison
Henry Louis Gates
Henry Louis Gates is a professor of
history at Harvard University and a
leading intellectual. He has authored
several books, many of which argue that a
Euro-centric version of American history
is not an accurate portrayal of the past.
Indeed, African-American perspectives –
and the perspectives of women and other
minority groups are essential to
understanding history. Most recently,
Henry Louis Gates created a documentary
series entitled, “The African Americans:
Many Rivers to Cross.” He may, however,
be most famous for his ridiculous arrest
by police officers in Cambridge, MA, as he
attempted to enter his own house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3-Pjxksus