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(1963) George Wallace, “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever”
By 1963 Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace had emerged as the leading opponent to the growing civil rights movement.  Six months later he gained international notoriety for his stand in the door of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of two black students, Vivian Malone and James
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Source: Black Past
Jan
14
1963
Brown, Willie Lewis, Jr. (1934- )
This State Legislator and Mayor was born in Mineola, Texas, to Willie L. Brown, Sr., and Minnie (Boyd) Lewis on March 20, 1934. After migrating to San Francisco, California in 1951, Brown worked as a janitor in order to subsidize his education at San Francisco State University. Upon his arrival in
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Source: Black Past
Mar
20
1934
Verrett, Shirley (1931-2010)
Shirley Verrett was a distinguished mezzo-soprano and soprano opera singer. Born in New Orleans on May 31, 1931, one of five children to strict Seventh Day Adventists, her father was a successful building contractor. She came from a musical family, her mother often sang in the house and her father
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Source: Black Past
George H. White
George H. White, the only African American member of the U.S. House of Representatives, (1896) and the first to introduce an antilynching bill, born. He also founded Whitesboro, N,J, as a haven for African Americans escaping Southern racism.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Dec
18
1852
Brown, Wesley (1927-2012)
Wesley Brown earned distinction in 1949 as the first African American to graduate from the United States Naval Academy.  Wesley Brown grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended Dunbar High School.  A “voracious reader,” Brown joined the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
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Source: Black Past
Racial Uplift, Black Power, and Reparations on the Kansas Frontier: Abram T. Hall, Edward P. McCabe, and John W. Niles
In the article below independent historian Charlotte Hinger explores the concept of racial uplift, black electoral power and reparations for slavery in the ideals of three early citizens of Nicodemus, the most famous 19th Century black town in the
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Source: Black Past
Crossing Boundaries of Race, Crossing Boundaries of Love
In the following article, Dr. Gary B. Nash, Director, National Center for History in the Schools and Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, describes his new book, Forbidden Love: The Hidden History of Mixed-Race America.  His book provides a counter narrative
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Source: Black Past
The Trillion Dollar African American Consumer Market: Economic Empowerment or Economic Dependency?
Collective African American net income (spending power) now exceeds $1 trillion dollars annually. Because of this economic reality, a wide variety of contemporary companies continually create marketing campaigns to effectively reach this important segment of the U.S. consumer market. Yet, in the
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Christo Rey New York High School
Bob Jones University v. United States (1983)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Illinois Math and Science Academy
City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989)
? APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 87-998. Argued October 5, 1988 Decided January 23, 1989 Appellant city adopted a Minority Business Utilization Plan (Plan) requiring prime contractors awarded city construction contracts to subcontract at least 30%
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Boston Professional Chapter
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was an internationally acclaimed African American author, poet, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. She was born as Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a rough childhood and was sent to live with her grandparents after her own parents’ divorce. At
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Source: Black History Resources
Scarborough, Danny (1947-1989)
Danny Lyon Scarborough made his mark in the world in two arenas, as an innovative, Emmy Award-winning choreographer/dancer, and as one of the first well-known African Americans to go public about having AIDS.  Born on July 27, 1947, he grew up on a farm near Wake Forest, North Carolina.  He was
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Source: Black Past
Gossett, Larry (1945-- )
Born on February 21, 1945 in Seattle to parents, Nelmon and Johnnie Carter Gossett, Larry Gossett has been a dedicated public servant for over 40 years. After graduating from Franklin High School, he was a VISTA volunteer in Harlem (1966-1967). Gossett attended the University of Washington, where
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Source: Black Past
Feb
21
1945
Arroyo, Martina (1936- )
Born to a Puerto Rican father and African American mother, Martina Arroyo was a world-renowned operatic soprano from the 1960s through 1989, the year of her professional retirement. She and her contemporaries were the first generation of African American opera soloists to attain international
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Source: Black Past
NAACP petition on racism, "An Appeal to the
NAACP petition on racism, An Appeal to the World, presented to United Nations at Lake Success.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA)
Oct
23
1947
Gwendolyn Brooks, poet, first Black awarded a Pulitzer Prize (poetry) in 1950.
Gwendolyn Brooks, poet, first Black awarded a Pulitzer Prize (poetry) in 1950. Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas but grew up in Chicago. She is a witty poet who satirizes blacks and whites and attacks racial discrimination. She uses black language and rituals to proclaim black solidarity.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
May
1
1950
The Quest for Land and Freedom on Canada's Western Prairies: Black Oklahomans in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1905-1912
Many Canadians feel pride about their country’s role in the operation of the Underground Railroad, a well known part of racial history in North America. The secret anti-slavery network helped nearly fifteen thousand African Americans flee their bondage in the United States for freedom in Eastern
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Source: Black Past
May
31
1911
Negritude Movement
The literary movement, Negritude, was born out of the Paris intellectual environment of 1930s and 1940s. It is a product of black writers joining together through the French language to assert their cultural
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Source: Black Past
Hunt, William Henry (1863-1951)
William Henry Hunt, African American U.S. diplomat, was born a slave in Tennessee in 1863. Hunt claimed to have been born on June 29, 1869, so he could get into school at the age of twenty-six posing as a twenty-year-old, a lie he kept to his grave. Although June 29 might have been his actual day
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Source: Black Past
Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate the New York City Fire Department
In the following article Ginger Adams Otis, a staff writer at the New York Daily News and a longtime city reporter, describes her more-than-decade-long research following the evolution of a landmark civil rights case brought by the Vulcan Society, a determined group of activist black New York City
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Source: Black Past
Metropolitan AME Church, Washington D.C. (1821- )
Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (AME) is the oldest continuously operating black church in the District of Columbia.  Metropolitan AME is also designated by the AME Church (the black denomination founded in 1787 by Richard Allen) as the National Cathedral of African
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Christo Rey New York High School
Jan
9
1894
Robinson, Jack (Jackie) Roosevelt (1919–1972)
When Jackie Robinson took the field on April 15, 1947 wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, he became the first African American in over fifty years to play on a major league baseball team. In the process, he broke through baseball’s color line that had relegated African American players to the
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Pride Academy
Randolph, Asa Philip
Randolph, Asa Philip, 1889–1979, U.S. labor leader, b. Crescent City, Fla., attended the College of the City of New York. As a writer and editor of the black magazine The Messenger, which he helped to found, Randolph became interested in the labor movement. In 1917 he organized a small union of
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Source: Fact Monster - Black History
Sponsored by Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA)
(1970) Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, “I Am For the Equal Rights Amendment.”
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm became in 1968 the first African American woman elected to Congress.  Four years later in 1972, she launched a bid to become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, another first for an African American woman.  Throughout her career in Congress
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Source: Black Past
Aug
10
1970
From Finland to “Not in My Neighborhood”: Antero Pietila's Journey To and Through Racially Divided America
In the article below Antero Pietila, longtime reporter for the Baltimore Sun, describes his arrival as a Finnish immigrant in the United States as the nation was being convulsed by the Civil Rights Movement.  Pietila describes his initial introduction into the nations racial dilemma through Harlem
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Source: Black Past
Gentrification, Integration or Displacement?: The Seattle Story
In the following article, Henry W. McGee, Jr., a Seattle University Professor of Law and Central District resident, discusses the recent dramatic transformation of the area from a predominately working class African American community into an area of high income white, Asian American and African
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Pride Academy
Miller, Thomas E. (1849-1938)
Politician and educator, Thomas E. Miller was born in Ferrebeeville, Beaufort County, South Carolina on June 17, 1849.  Miller was the son of free black parents, and moved with them to Charleston, South Carolina in 1851 where he attended the all-black schools in the city.  After the Civil
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Source: Black Past
Apr
8
1938
“Going South: William Fontaine’s Trip to Virginia, 1948”
In the following article drawn from his book, Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine, University of Pennsylvania historian Bruce Kuklick introduces us to the world of  philosopher William Fontaine, one of the few African American faculty members at an Ivy League
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by NSBE Boston
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist who is best known for using non-violent civil disobedience tactics to secure equal rights for African Americans. He was named Michael King Jr. at birth but later changed his name to Martin Luther King Jr. He was born on January
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Source: Black History Resources
Jan
15
1929
Highland Beach, Maryland (1893- )
Highland Beach, Maryland, the oldest of the major black resort towns, was founded along the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in 1893 by Charles and Laura Douglass.  Charles Douglass was the son of prominent abolitionist and 19th century civil rights activist Frederick Douglass. Major Charles
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Source: Black Past
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