Black Then https://blackthen.com/ Discovering Our History Tue, 19 Mar 2024 07:13:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Arthur C. Ford: First Black Appointed Commissioner of a New York City Agency https://blackthen.com/arthur-c-ford-first-black-appointed-commissioner-new-york-city-agency/ https://blackthen.com/arthur-c-ford-first-black-appointed-commissioner-new-york-city-agency/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 07:13:35 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=36640

Arthur C. Ford was one of the first blacks to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering from Montana State College (now Montana State University). Ford was later named president of New York City’s Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity, thus becoming the first African American to be appointed commissioner of a New York […]

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September 2: Grammy-Winning Musician Billy Preston Was Born Today in 1946 https://blackthen.com/september-2-grammy-winning-musician-billy-preston-was-born-today-in-1946/ https://blackthen.com/september-2-grammy-winning-musician-billy-preston-was-born-today-in-1946/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 01:11:44 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=46001

Photo credits: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images John, Paul, George and Ringo are the names that come to most people’s minds when they think of Britain’s enormously popular Beatles. But singer, songwriter and performer Billy Preston, was the honorary “Fifth Beatle,” because of his contributions on the keyboard to Let it Be, Abbey Road and The White Album. Born on Sept. 2, 1946, […]

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September 2: Wealthy Black Abolitionist James Forten Was Born Today in 1766 https://blackthen.com/september-2-wealthy-black-abolitionist-james-forten-was-born-today-in-1766/ https://blackthen.com/september-2-wealthy-black-abolitionist-james-forten-was-born-today-in-1766/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2024 19:07:18 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=45996

Photo credits: YouTube/Robert Douglass The businessman and abolitionist James Forten was born free in Philadelphia in 1766. He attended a Quaker school headed by abolitionist Anthony Benezet. At the age of fourteen he went to sea and became a powder boy on the Royal Louis, a colonial privateer under the command of Captain Stephen Decatur, father of the nineteenth-century naval […]

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Flash Black Photo: African American Dance Troupe II https://blackthen.com/flash-black-photo-african-american-dance-troupe-ii/ https://blackthen.com/flash-black-photo-african-american-dance-troupe-ii/#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:01:18 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=36944

At Black Then, we frequently see interesting photos that give us a glimpse into the past. They tend to show us a piece of black history that is often not covered in textbooks, in history classes, or shown in the media. In a photo that we found on Black History Album , we see this […]

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Long Before Misty Copeland, There Was Ballerina Raven Wilkinson https://blackthen.com/long-misty-copeland-ballerina-raven-wilkinson/ https://blackthen.com/long-misty-copeland-ballerina-raven-wilkinson/#respond Mon, 18 Mar 2024 06:55:24 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=18500

At the age of 20, Anne Raven Wilkinson became the first African-American woman to receive a contract to dance full time with a major ballet company, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo of New York City. Raven Wilkinson was born in New York City on February 2, 1935, to Anne James Wilkinson and Dr. Frost […]

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Remembering Boxing Great, Smokin’ Joe Frazier https://blackthen.com/remembering-boxing-great-smokin-joe-frazier/ https://blackthen.com/remembering-boxing-great-smokin-joe-frazier/#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:51:21 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=37062 Joe Frazier

Joe Frazier was born on this date in 1944. He was an African American boxer. Joseph William Frazier was born to Rubin and Dolly Frazier in Laurel Bay, Beaufort, South Carolina. He was always close to his father, who carried him when he was a toddler over the 10 acres of farmland the family owned. […]

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Poem: “Georgia Dusk: by Jean Toomer https://blackthen.com/poem-georgia-dusk-jean-toomer/ https://blackthen.com/poem-georgia-dusk-jean-toomer/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2024 18:48:21 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=36745 Jean Toomer was an African American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and modernism. Nathan Pinchback Toomer, who adopted the name Jean Toomer early in his literary career, was born in Washington, D.C. in 1894. His father Nathan Toomer (1839-1906) was a mixed-race freedman, born into […]

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Nigerian Civil War: The Beginning and End of the Republic of Biafra https://blackthen.com/nigerian-civil-war-the-beginning-and-end-of-the-republic-of-biafra/ https://blackthen.com/nigerian-civil-war-the-beginning-and-end-of-the-republic-of-biafra/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2024 12:45:49 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=4943

  The Nigerian Civil War was a violent, three-year, conflict between Nigeria and the seceded southeastern region of Nigeria- renamed Biafra. When the Republic Of Biafra renamed itself and seceded from Nigeria on May 30th, 1967, the war quickly began. The war prompted widespread international outcry due to widely publicized accounts of civilian casualties and […]

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September 1: Today in 1975, Daniel James Jr. Became America’s First Black Four-Star Air Force General https://blackthen.com/september-1-today-in-1975-daniel-james-jr-became-americas-first-black-four-star-air-force-general/ https://blackthen.com/september-1-today-in-1975-daniel-james-jr-became-americas-first-black-four-star-air-force-general/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2024 06:35:03 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=45991

Photo credits: United States Air Force Archives (af.mil) General Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. (pictured) was born on February 11, 1920, in Pensacola, Florida where he graduated from Washington High School in June 1937. From September 1937 to March 1942, he attended Tuskegee Institute, where he received a bachelor of science degree in physical education and […]

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Elmer Simms Campbell: First African-American Cartoonist to Publish in General-Circulation https://blackthen.com/elmer-simms-campbell-first-african-american-cartoonist-publish-general-circulation/ https://blackthen.com/elmer-simms-campbell-first-african-american-cartoonist-publish-general-circulation/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2024 00:33:04 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=20247

Elmer Simms Campbell was a renowned cartoonist and the first to publish his work in general-circulation magazines. Campbell was born on January 2, 1906. While attending high school, Campbell won a nationwide contest in cartooning. He later studied at the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. While working as a railroad dining-car waiter, […]

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September 1: America’s First Black-Authored Book of Poetry by Phillis Wheatley Was Published Today in 1773 https://blackthen.com/september-1-americas-first-black-authored-book-of-poetry-by-phillis-wheatley-was-published-today-in-1773/ https://blackthen.com/september-1-americas-first-black-authored-book-of-poetry-by-phillis-wheatley-was-published-today-in-1773/#respond Sat, 16 Mar 2024 18:26:43 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=45985

Photo credits: Scipio Moorhead/Culture Club/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Phillis Wheatley was only seven or eight years old when she was captured and taken from her home in West Africa. A slave ship brought her to Boston in 1761. Knowing nothing of the talents she would soon show the world, John Wheatley, a prosperous tailor, and his […]

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John Mercer Langston: Abolitionist, Educator, Activist, Attorney https://blackthen.com/john-mercer-langston-abolitionist-educator-activist-attorney/ https://blackthen.com/john-mercer-langston-abolitionist-educator-activist-attorney/#comments Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:21:26 +0000 https://blackthen.com/?p=19184

John Mercer Langston was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, activist, and politician. Langston was the first dean of the law school at Howard University, helped create the department, as well as the first president of what is now Virginia State University. Born free in Virginia to a freedwoman of mixed race and a white planter father, […]

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