Celebrate Black Heroes on Black History Month
February marks Black History Month, a month-long observance in the United States and Canada that recognizes the significant contributions of African-Americans to American history, as well as the historical legacies of the African diaspora. We hope you’ll find the stories below, and the scholarship they include in full, a valuable resource for classroom or leisure reading.
Carter G. Woodson, The Father of Black History Month
Erin Blakemore February 12, 2015 The origins of Black History Month date back to 1926, when a historian named Carter G. Woodson spearheaded “Negro History Week.”
Why MLK Believed Jazz Was the Perfect Soundtrack for Civil Rights
Ashawnta Jackson October 16, 2019Jazz, King declared, was the ability to take the “hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.”
The 1910 Report That Disadvantaged Minority Doctors
Jessie Wright-Mendoza May 3, 2019A century ago, the Flexner Report led to the closure of 75% of U.S. medical schools. It still explains a lot about today’s unequal access to healthcare.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, “The Black Swan”
Erin Blakemore May 6, 2019Born into slavery, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield broke barriers with every note she sang.
The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom
Ashawnta Jackson July 10, 2020Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.
How St. Louis Domestic Workers Fought Exploitation
Livia Gershon January 26, 2021Without many legal protections under the New Deal, Black women organized through the local Urban League.
The Alpha Suffrage Club and Black Women’s Fight for the Vote
Ashawnta Jackson September 8, 2020Black women’s experiences in the suffrage movement show that the Nineteenth Amendment marked one event in the fight for the vote, not an endpoint.
How Black Communities Built Their Own Schools
Allison C. Meier August 4, 2020 Rosenwald schools, named for a philanthropist, were funded mostly by Black people of the segregated South.
The New Negro and the Dawn of the Harlem Fenaissance
Ashawnta Jackson January 25, 2021In 1925, an anthology of Black creative work heralded the arrival of a movement that had been years in the making.
Who Were the Montford Point Marines?
Anna Hiatt June 26, 2019The first African-American recruits in the Marine Corps trained at Montford Point, eventually ending the military’s longstanding policy of racial segregation.
In the McCarthy Era, to Be Black was to Be Red
Mohammed Elnaiem November 13, 2019The Marxist sympathies of Black radical leaders like Paul Robeson, Alice Childress, and Lorraine Hansberry made them targets for the FBI.
Searching for Black Queer History in Sensational Newspapers
Erin Blakemore March 14, 2019Sometimes finding the stories of marginalized populations demands reading between the lines.
The Mob Violence of the Red Summer
Matthew Wills May 14, 2019In 1919, a brutal outburst of mob violence was directed against African Americans across the United States. White, uniformed servicemen led the charge.
Tuskegee University’s Hidden Audio Collections
Evan Towle and Karyn Anonia February 21, 2020The archives of the historically black Tuskegee University recently released recordings from 1957 to 1971, with a number by powerful civil rights leaders.
Article by JSTOR Daily, February, 2021; More: http://bit.ly/2ZKxYOx