Violet King was the first Black woman admitted to the Alberta Bar, and to practice law in Canada. King was born October 18, 1929, in Calgary, Alberta. King’s parents arrived in Calgary in 1919. Her father, John, worked as a sleeping car porter with the Canadian Pacific Railway and her mother, Stella, worked as a […]
Eighty-five years ago, two young African-American men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, were lynched in the town center of Marion, Ind. The night before, on Aug. 6, 1930, they had been arrested and charged with the armed robbery and murder of a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and the rape of his companion, Mary Ball. […]
Camara Laye was an African writer from Guinea. He was the author of The African Child, a novel based loosely on his own childhood, and The Radiance of the King. Both novels are among the earliest major works in Francophone African literature. Laye was born in Kouroussa, a town in what was then the colony […]
D. Webster Davis was a teacher, poet, and lecturer in Richmond and Manchester. Born into slavery, Davis became a teacher in 1879, working in Richmond public schools for thirty-three years. In 1896 he was ordained a pastor. He also worked as an editor in the 1890s, but his literary ambitions centered mostly on poetry. His […]
Chancellor Williams was an African-American sociologist, historian, and writer. He is recognized for his work on African civilizations before their encounters with the Europeans; his major noted work is The Destruction of Black Civilization. Williams was born on December 22, 1893, in Bennettsville, South Carolina, as the last of five children. His father was born into slavery but […]
The Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based nonprofit that challenges racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, released a vivid retelling of America’s direct transition from slavery to mass incarceration. Illustrated by Molly Crabapple and written/narrated by EJI founder, Bryan Stevenson (read more about him here, here andhere), the video traces the twisted path of a familiar story […]
Gloria Richardson is one of the many women in Black history that have earned their stripes by being fearless in the face of danger. One of the most famous pictures of her is a black and white photo featuring Gloria pushing a bayonet out of her face. It has stood the test of time, and […]
Jacqueline Olive is a documentary filmmaker living in Florida. Her most recent project is the feature film, Always in Season, which aims to explore the history of violence and terrorism that Blacks faced through lynching, as well as ongoing efforts to reconcile and seek justice for the heinous race-based murders of Black people for over […]
The nickname “Prince of Darkness” is usually attributed to a malevolent individual who causes mayhem, misery, and sorrow. This person is the embodiment of fear. Sometimes Satan is referred to as the “Prince of Darkness.” Jeremiah G. Hamilton would be given this moniker over several decades of staking his claim in New York’s financial world […]
African American man posing on an Indian motorcycle. circa 1920’s Vintage African American photography courtesy of Black History Album, The Way We Were. Found On Flicker.com in Black History Album
A new report has uncovered shocking details about the history of lynchings in the United States and their legacy today. After five years of exhaustive research and interviews with local historians and descendants of lynching victims, the Equal Justice Initiative found white Southerners lynched nearly 4,000 black men, women and children between 1877 and 1950 […]
In February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the building of the Alaska Highway. However, the problem was not the authorization; it was who would actually do the work. At first, the government hired civilian contractors for the roadway, but most of the task fell at the hands of the Army Corps of Engineers, this particular […]
