Black History – The Collection

Black History month is an annual celebration of achievements of African Americans and remembering their roles in U.S History. According to History.com, every U.S. president has designated the month of February as Black History Month since 1976. According to History.com, the story of Black History Month began in 1915, half a century after the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery in the United States. Acco...

Black History Month started off as "Negro History Week." Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves,  escaped poverty through education.  He attended Harvard where he earned his doctorate. Woodson noted that the history of  African Americans was often missing from textbooks or was incorrectly written, so he determined to bring about change.  He started the celebration of African American...

In honor of Black History Month, it is important to educate yourself on the many leaders that advocated for black lives both in the past and the present. Everybody is taught the story of Rosa Parks, but many other people influenced the rights of black people today. One woman in particular, Shirley Chisholm, helped pave the way for African American women in the world of politics. Shirley Chishol...

It is easy to think that segregation may not have happened close to home. However, even in  Richmond and Rosenberg segregation existed in public schools; this included Rosenberg Colored School (now Jackson Elementary), Crabb School, and M.R. Woods in Sugarland, (now M.R Woods Alternative Learning Center). A trailblazer for African American educators and students, A.W. Jackson was born in Booth,...

Rosa Parks grew up as a normal child but became a well-known face for the black community. On February 4, 1913, Rosa Parks was born. She grew up with her mom who was a teacher. As a child, she moved from the school she attended, Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes after her grandmother became ill. She faced discrimination growing up, so she became a participant in the civil rights movement from...

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856 in Virginia. He grew up with his mother, his father and his siblings. His mother was a cook for the plantation’s owner. His father was not known to him, but he was a white man. Washington was born into slavery, but he was then later freed along with his family. Later, he had started school. He had to work before school at his first job which...

The point of Black History Month has always been to not only celebrate our achievements but to remember. The good, the bad, and the ugly. There is much African American history that isn't spoken about in the same way Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks are. The best parts of our history are spotlighted every year, but what about the bad parts? What about the massacre of Black Wall Street...

Miss Cicely Tyson can be characterized as one of the good ones. Many people can watch her and see her light up a room. She was one of the first black women to appear on a daytime show and she's been a pioneer for not just black women in the entertainment industry, but women in general. The late actress Cicely Tyson was known for many roles in her long life-span. Some notable ones include "The Aut...

When one thinks about Black History Month they think of the most famous ones like Martin Luther King Jr, Harriet Tubman, and Michael Jackson. What some people don't understand is that the people who are behind the big influences have the most impact on others. Ella Baker is one of those leaders who hid in the shadows of others. When she was little her grandmother told her stories about slavery that...

Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer. Ali was born on January 17th, 1942, and passed away on June 3, 2016. He was one of the greatest boxers in American history. He was an Olympic gold medalist and the first fighter to win the world heavyweight championship on three separate occasions. Not only was he famous for boxing he was famous for spreading the message of black pride and the fight for b...

The Little Rock Nine was comprised of nine African American students who attended Central High School in Arkansas. Central High School was an all-white school, and their attendance was to test Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954, on May 17, Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregation, or Jim Crow Laws, in school was unconstitutional. It wasn’t until September of 1957, however, that the Li...

Born in 1925, Malcolm X was an African American Muslim who played a critical role during the civil rights movement. After he was released from prison, he strived to deliver the message that everyone has the power to change their destiny, while also giving his audience insight into his own story in the past. Before Malcolm X became a civil rights leader, he had spent six-and-a-half years in prison a...

Fannie Lou Hamer was born October 6, 1917, to sharecroppers Lou Ella and James Townsend in Montgomery County, Mississippi, and was their twentieth and last-child. Hamer grew up in a world connected to sharecropping. After marrying Perry Hamer in 1944 she and her husband worked on a plantation owned by B.D Marlowe and was also the plantation timekeeper since she was the only worker who could read o...

W.E.B. Du Bois was a journalist, educator, and civil rights activist. He was born in 1868, in Barrington Massachusetts. During this time in history, African-Americans weren't afforded the luxury of going to school and pursuing higher education. He was born into a mostly European town, where he did not experience the same sort of racism as the rest of the country held at the time. It wasn't until...

When the world found out that the sky was not the limit and the thought of a man on the moon no longer seemed impossible; endless possibilities began to transpire. The first man to see the earth from a whole new perspective, with feet planted on the moon, was Neil Armstrong. Fourteen years later, the first African American man to venture out into space was Guion S. Bluford. Originally a U.S. Air ...

Civil rights leader. Two-time democratic presidential candidate. International Negotiator. Jesse Jackson was born in Greensville, South Carolina on October 8, 1941. Jackson graduated high school with offers for a minor league baseball contract and a Big Ten football scholarship. He got a degree in sociology in 1964 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. In 1965, ...

Malcolm Little, also known as Malcolm X,  was an American-Muslim minister and human right's activist. Some saw him as a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks. He was a man who condemned white America for its crimes against black Americans. Others accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. Malcolm...

James Baldwin is one of the most important intellectuals in American history. He spoke with the utmost intelligence, striking awareness, and uncanny sensitivity about racial, gender, and religious issues that faced his world. He vigorously asserted an intricate articulation of the deemphasized black perspective. His scrupulous representation of the way black people in America view, and should view,...

Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American who was a victim of a racist attack. He was murdered in August 1955. He was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was accused of harassing a white woman at a grocery store. Instead of taking this accusation to the authorities, the family of the woman kidnapped Till and beat him so bad that he was unrecognizable. They tied him with barbed wire and disposed...

Kehinde Wiley is a New York City- based portrait painter who is known for his highly naturalistic painting of African Americans. Wiley was interested in art from a very young age. Wiley and his twin brother attended art school in California at age 11. The two boys along with their entire class became extremely competitive with each other, trying to out due the others no matter what they were doing....

Sojourner Truth was a women's rights activist and a civil rights activist. Truth was born as Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in the town of Swartekill, in Ulster County, New York. She died in her home in Battle Creek, Michigan on November 16, 1883. She was an African American abolitionist and an activist for women's rights. She is best known for one of her speeches on racial inequalities " Ain't I a woma...

The ongoing fight for LGBT+ rights has gained massive attention in the past years, but not many people know it was spearheaded by a black transgender woman, named Marsha P. Johnson. Born August 24, 1945, Johnson, assigned male at birth, would crossdress often in her youth, but would be reprimanded for doing so. After graduating high school and moving to Greenwich Village in New York City in 1966, ...