Black History Heroes

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races — The Voice of Black America’s Early Freedom Struggle

2026-02-09T21:09:00.000-08:00

The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races stands as one of the most influential publications in African American history. Founded in 1910 as the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis became a powerful vehicle for truth-telling, advocacy, and cultural pride at a time when Black Americans faced widespread violence, legal segregation, and systematic exclusion from public life.

Founding and Editorial Leadership

Scholar, activist, and founding editor of The Crisis*,
whose leadership shaped the intellectual direction
of the early civil rights movement.*

Under the founding editorship of W. E. B. Du Bois, the magazine combined journalism, art, photography, literature, and political commentary to challenge racist narratives and demand justice. It was not merely a publication—it was a movement in print.

The Crisis was established in November 1910, just one year after the founding of the NAACP. The title itself reflected Du Bois’s belief that the United States was facing a moral and democratic crisis over race relations. As editor from 1910 to 1934, Du Bois shaped the magazine into a fearless voice against injustice.

Du Bois, already a renowned scholar and activist, used The Crisis to document lynchings, expose racial violence, critique discriminatory laws, and mobilize public opinion. He famously declared that the magazine existed to “set forth those facts and arguments which show the danger of race prejudice.”

By 1918, The Crisis had grown to a circulation of over 100,000 readers, making it one of the most widely read African American periodicals in the nation.

Purpose and Mission

The core mission of The Crisis was twofold:

To promote a progressive, dignified image of African American life
To call for social justice, civil rights, and an end to racial violence

At a time when mainstream media routinely portrayed Black Americans through degrading stereotypes—or erased them entirely—The Crisis published photographs of Black professionals, soldiers, students, artists, and families. These images directly countered racist propaganda and asserted Black humanity and excellence.

The magazine also served as a national record of racial injustice. It printed detailed reports on lynchings, race riots, voter suppression, and segregation, often naming victims and perpetrators when other outlets would not.

Advocacy Against Violence and Lynching

One of the most courageous roles of The Crisis was its unflinching coverage of lynching and racial terror. Du Bois understood that silence enabled violence. The magazine published statistics, editorials, and eyewitness accounts documenting the brutality inflicted on Black communities across the United States.

Issues from the 1910s—particularly during and after World War I—highlighted the contradiction of Black soldiers fighting for democracy abroad while being denied basic rights at home. The September 1918 issue, for example, confronted the racial hypocrisy of wartime America head-on.

Art, Culture, and the New Negro

Beyond political advocacy, The Crisis played a pivotal role in nurturing Black artistic expression. It published poetry, short stories, essays, and illustrations that helped lay the groundwork for what would become the Harlem Renaissance.

Writers and artists featured in The Crisis included Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Jessie Redmon Fauset, who served as literary editor, was instrumental in elevating Black literature within the magazine’s pages. Special issues—such as The Christmas Crisis of 1915—blended cultural celebration with political purpose, demonstrating that joy, faith, and resistance could coexist.

Legacy and Historical Importance

The Crisis remains one of the longest-running civil rights magazines in the world and is still published today. Its early decades, however, remain its most historically significant period—when the printed page became a battleground for truth, dignity, and freedom.

The magazine helped shape national conversations on race, influenced legal and political activism, and preserved a visual and written archive of Black life in the early 20th century. It stands as a testament to the power of independent Black media and intellectual leadership.

Florence Price: Arkansas-born Pioneer in American Classical Music

2026-01-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

Florence Beatrice Price stands as one of the most inspiring figures in American music history—a Black woman whose talent and perseverance helped redefine what was possible in a world that too often excluded voices like hers. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on April 9, 1887, Price’s life was shaped by early musical promise, academic excellence, and a determination to be heard on the nation’s grandest stages.

Early Life and Musical Roots

Florence Price (née Smith) grew up in a mixed-race, middle-class family in Little Rock. Her mother, a skilled music teacher, introduced her daughter to the piano at a very young age, and Price gave her first public performance at just four years old. By age eleven, she had already published her first musical composition, a remarkable achievement that hinted at the lifelong creativity to come. She graduated as valedictorian from Capitol Hill School at fourteen and soon after enrolled at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she completed degrees in both piano and organ performance.

While at the conservatory, Price studied with accomplished composers and teachers, mastering European classical traditions while nurturing her own distinctive voice. Records show that, due to the rampant racial discrimination of the era, she initially registered as being from “Pueblo, Mexico” to avoid prejudice against Black students—a stark reminder of the societal barriers she faced even as her gifts shone brightly.

Early Career: Teaching and Family

After graduating in 1906, Price returned to Arkansas to teach music. She held positions at the Cotton Plant-Arkadelphia Academy and Shorter College before becoming head of the music department at Atlanta’s Clark University, a historically Black institution. In 1912 she married Thomas J. Price, an attorney, and the couple had three children. During this period, she continued composing and performing, showing versatility as a pianist, organist, teacher, and composer.

However, life in the segregated South was difficult. Widespread racism and violent oppression made it hard for Black artists to thrive. In 1927, Price and her family moved north to Chicago, seeking broader opportunities and a more vibrant artistic community. There she became part of a network of musicians—including contralto Marian Anderson and pianist Margaret Bonds—who championed Black composers and performers.

Breaking Barriers in Symphonic Music

Price’s most historic achievement came in 1933, when her Symphony No. 1 in E Minor was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under conductor Frederick Stock. This marked the first time a major American orchestra played a symphony by an African-American woman, a watershed moment in classical music. Critics praised the work’s emotional depth and structural integrity, and the performance helped establish Price’s reputation beyond regional circles.

Style-wise, Price’s music blended African-American spirituals, blues, and folk melodies with the formal techniques of European classical tradition. Her orchestral, chamber, and piano works—numbering over 300 compositions—often incorporated rich rhythmic variety and lyrical expression, creating music both deeply rooted in tradition and vividly personal. She wrote four symphonies, multiple concertos, art songs, choral works, and solo piano pieces throughout her career.

Challenges and Later Life

Despite her undeniable talent, Price faced persistent obstacles. Classical music institutions of her day were dominated by white male composers and performers, and women—especially Black women—were often sidelined or ignored. Price experienced this firsthand: although she continued composing throughout the 1930s and 1940s, many of her later works went unperformed during her lifetime. She wrote candidly in a letter that the combination of gender bias and racial prejudice created barriers that were “unfortunately” difficult to overcome.

Price continued to teach and compose in Chicago until her death from a stroke on June 3, 1953, at age 66. After her passing, much of her music faded from the public eye—a fate shared by many underrepresented artists of her era.

Rediscovery and Legacy

Interest in Florence Price’s work surged decades later. In 2009, a cache of her unpublished manuscripts was discovered in an old house in Illinois, drawing musicologists and performers back to her remarkable oeuvre. These rediscovered scores included previously unknown works that have since been performed and recorded worldwide.

In recent years, Price’s music has experienced a renaissance: orchestras regularly include her symphonies in their programming, and recordings of her works have won major accolades—including a Grammy Award. Her trailblazing achievements have been celebrated in festivals, scholarly research, and community commemorations, solidifying her place in the canon of American composers.

Why Her Story Matters

Florence Price’s life exemplifies resilience, artistic brilliance, and the power of creative expression to transcend barriers. She not only broke significant racial and gender barriers in classical music, but she also expanded the expressive possibilities of the art form by honoring her cultural heritage within symphonic tradition.

Today, Price’s legacy continues to inspire musicians and listeners alike, reminding us that diversity enriches culture and that genius can flourish even in the face of adversity.

Essential Listening: Florence Price

These works are widely available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and classical streaming platforms:

Symphony No. 1 in E Minor (1932)

Why it matters: The first symphony by a Black woman performed by a major U.S. orchestra (Chicago Symphony, 1933).

Piano Concerto in One Movement

Songs to Marian Anderson

Standout pieces:
“My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”
“Songs to a Dark Virgin”

Symphony No. 3 in C Minor

Anna Julia Cooper: Educator, Scholar & Black Womanist Pioneer

2026-01-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Anna Julia Cooper stands among the most remarkable figures in American history — a thinker, educator, writer, and activist whose life spanned from slavery to the modern Civil Rights era. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 10, 1858, Cooper’s journey from bondage to academe reshaped the landscape of African American education and feminist thought.

A Life Begun in Slavery, Transformed by Education

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was born into slavery, the daughter of an enslaved woman, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and likely the white man who enslaved her family. After emancipation, she began her formal education in 1868 at St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh — a school founded to educate formerly enslaved people. Even as a young student, Cooper demonstrated exceptional commitment to learning and justice. She successfully petitioned for access to the same courses as male classmates and began teaching mathematics at the age of ten.

Cooper graduated in 1877 and, after the tragic death of her husband George Cooper two years later, pursued higher education at Oberlin College in Ohio. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1884 and a master’s degree in 1888, making her one of the first African American women in the United States to achieve these academic honors.

From the Classroom to the World Stage

In 1887, Cooper moved to Washington, D.C., to teach at the prestigious M Street High School (later Dunbar High School) — the first public high school for Black students in the nation’s capital. She taught mathematics, science, Latin, and literature and became principal in 1902. Under her leadership, M Street earned a reputation for academic excellence, and many of its graduates went on to attend Ivy League and other top colleges.

However, Cooper’s insistence on a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum drew resistance from the all-white school board, which wanted vocational training instead. In 1906, she was controversially removed as principal. Yet Cooper continued teaching at the school until her retirement in 1930.

A Voice for Black Women and Human Rights

While Cooper’s work as an educator was transformative, her influence extended far beyond the classroom. In 1892 she published A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, one of the earliest and most powerful texts in Black feminist thought. In it, she argued that Black women occupy a unique position at the intersection of race and gender oppression — and that their full liberation was essential to the advancement of American democracy. This work remains foundational in studies of race, gender, and social justice.

Cooper’s activism was also practical and organizational. She helped found the Colored Women’s League of Washington, D.C., co-organized national gatherings of Black women activists, and participated in the Pan-African Conference in London in 1900. She created “colored” branches of the YMCA and YWCA to support young Black migrants and worked throughout her life to advance educational and social opportunities for African Americans.

Scholar, Leader, and Legacy

Never one to slow down, Cooper returned to graduate study in her later years. After studying at Columbia University, she enrolled at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and in 1925, at age 66, became the fourth African American woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D. Her doctoral dissertation examined the French Revolution and slavery — a scholarly achievement that added yet another dimension to her remarkable intellectual life.

After retiring from teaching, Cooper served as president and registrar of Frelinghuysen University, a community institution for working adults in Washington, D.C., even offering her own home as a classroom space.

Anna Julia Cooper died on February 27, 1964, at the age of 105 — having lived through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the World Wars, and the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. Her legacy endures in educational institutions, feminist scholarship, and the continuing fight for racial and gender justice.

The Black Power Couple in Entertainment

2025-12-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

Celebrating Love, Creativity, and Cultural Influence

In the world of entertainment, certain partnerships transcend ordinary collaboration. These couples do more than share the spotlight—they shape culture, challenge norms, and inspire generations. On Black History Heroes, we honor the love stories and legacies of power couples whose influence reaches far beyond their romantic bonds. Today, we spotlight three iconic duos: Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis, Ashford & Simpson, and Beyoncé & Jay-Z.

Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis: A Legacy of Art and Activism

Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis weren’t only partners in life—they were lifelong collaborators in purpose. Meeting in Harlem in the 1940s, their union blossomed into a partnership that blended artistry with activism. Both actors commanded respect on stage and screen, but they also used their voices to combat racial injustice.

Ruby Dee’s rich performances—ranging from theater to television—broke barriers for Black actresses. Ossie’s commanding presence lit up Broadway and Hollywood alike. Together, they starred in projects that reflected the Black experience with depth and dignity.

Yet their influence stretched far beyond entertainment. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fought for civil rights, and used their platforms to speak truth to power. Their marriage, which lasted more than five decades, stood as a testament to love, mutual respect, and shared commitment to justice.

Ashford & Simpson: The Songwriters Who Found Harmony in Love

Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson began as formidable songwriting partners before becoming one of music’s most celebrated couples. Their journey began in the Brill Building—the legendary hub of songwriters in 1960s New York. There, they penned hits for icons like Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, and Diana Ross.

Their talent was undeniable, but it was their chemistry—both musical and personal—that made them unforgettable. The duo didn’t just write love songs—they lived them. Hits like "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" and "Found a Cure" became soundtracks for countless lives because Ashford and Simpson understood the art of connection.

As performers, they dazzled audiences with smooth harmonies and heartfelt storytelling. Offstage, their marriage became a model of creative partnership built on respect and mutual inspiration. Ashford & Simpson proved that shared passion can fuel love, legendary artistry and a family business empire.

Beyoncé & Jay-Z: Modern Royalty in Music and Influence

Few couples in modern entertainment match the cultural impact of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. Individually, they are giants in music; together, they are architects of an empire.

Beyoncé emerged from her Houston roots to become a global superstar with unmatched vocal prowess, visionary performances, and a message of empowerment. Jay-Z rose from Brooklyn to become one of hip-hop’s most influential figures—a rapper, entrepreneur, and cultural force. When these two worlds converged, the result was something bigger than fame.

Their collaborations, whether on stage or in the studio, have pushed artistic boundaries. Albums like Everything Is Love blend personal narrative with broader cultural commentary. Beyond music, they support causes that uplift Black communities, from criminal justice reform to initiatives that expand opportunities for young artists.

Together, Beyoncé and Jay-Z exemplify how partnership can amplify individual excellence into global influence.

Why These Couples Matter

Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis, Ashford & Simpson, and Beyoncé & Jay-Z are more than couples—they are cultural icons who redefined what it means to lead, love, and create strong family legacies together. Their stories are but a few of the Black power couples in entertainment, and serve as powerful reminders that love and collaboration can fuel change, challenge stereotypes, and elevate Black excellence on the world stage.

As we celebrate Black history and heritage, we honor these couples for their artistry, resilience, and enduring impact on entertainment and beyond.

Professor Merze Tate — Scholar, Educator, and Global Trailblazer

2025-08-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

When it comes to celebrating Black history, certain figures shine brightly because of their ability to carve new paths where none existed before. Professor Merze Tate (b. 2/6/1905, Blanchard, Michigan – d. 6/27/1996) was one such pioneer. Scholar, teacher, and international thinker, she broke racial and gender barriers at every turn. Her life story is one of “firsts,” but it is also a testament to persistence, vision, and a lifelong dedication to education and global understanding.

Roots of Determination

Merze Tate was born on October 24, 1905, in Blanchard, Michigan, a small rural town where educational and professional opportunities for African Americans were extremely limited. She grew up in a modest household and learned early the value of hard work and perseverance. From a young age, she walked miles to attend school, often helping her family with chores before and after classes. Despite these challenges, Tate excelled academically, demonstrating a natural curiosity and determination that would define her life. Her early experiences instilled in her a belief that education could be a powerful tool for personal advancement and social change, laying the foundation for the groundbreaking career that would follow. Trailblazing Scholar at Western Michigan University.

Tate’s pursuit of education led her to Western Michigan Teachers College (today’s Western Michigan University), where she graduated in 1927. She became the first African American student to earn a degree from the college and achieved the highest GPA in her class. Her exceptional academic record reflected not only intelligence but also extraordinary discipline and resilience.

A Historic Journey to Oxford

In 1932, Tate was admitted to The Society of Oxford Home-Students -- now known as St. Anne's College -- becoming the first African American woman to study at Oxford University. It was an extraordinary achievement during a time when both racial segregation and gender discrimination restricted access to higher education.

Her dedication and scholarship culminated in 1935, when she became the first African American to be awarded a B.Litt. degree by Oxford. Her studies in international and diplomatic history showcased her academic brilliance and laid the groundwork for her future contributions to global diplomacy.

Advanced Scholarship and a Career at Howard University

After Oxford, Tate continued her education in the United States, earning a Ph.D. in government and international relations from Radcliffe College (Harvard University’s coordinate institution for women at the time). She joined the faculty at Howard University in 1942, where she would teach for 35 years.

At Howard, Tate focused on international relations, disarmament, and diplomacy, mentoring generations of students who would go on to shape law, policy, and academia. She was recognized for her rigorous scholarship and insistence that students understand global dynamics, emphasizing how international events shaped domestic realities.

Advising Eisenhower

In the late 1940s, Tate’s expertise reached the highest levels of government when she advised General Dwight D. Eisenhower on issues related to disarmament. This appointment was extraordinary at a time when women of color were largely excluded from policy-making circles, underscoring her recognition as a leading intellectual in international affairs.

Beyond the classroom, Tate was a world traveler and educator. She founded a travel club at Crispus Attucks High School, taking students on cultural excursions to broaden their horizons. Her travels—from Europe to India and across the Pacific—provided both inspiration and research material for her scholarly works. Tate’s dedication to education extended beyond her own achievements, as she encouraged students to engage with the world and pursue knowledge as a means of empowerment.

Legacy and Honors

Professor Merze Tate passed away on July 8, 1996, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire. Her life’s work opened doors for future generations of African American scholars and women in academia. Her honors include:

The Merze Tate College at Western Michigan University,

Recognition from the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association,
The Merze Tate Explorers program inspired by her travel club,
Induction into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, and
A reading room at Oxford University named in her honor.
Her archival collections, including photo albums, scrapbooks, and letters, document her travels, teaching, and global engagement. These materials are housed at Western Michigan University and offer an inspiring window into her life and scholarship.

Why Professor Tate Matters Today

Merze Tate’s story reminds us that barriers—no matter how entrenched—can be broken. She was more than a “first”; she was a visionary who believed in the transformative power of education, global awareness, and mentorship. Celebrating her life honors a Black history hero whose courage, intellect, and pioneering spirit continue to inspire generations of scholars, educators, and leaders worldwide.

The Safe Bus Company: A Legacy of Black Entrepreneurship in Winston-Salem

2025-04-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Photo: Mrs. Mary Miller Burns Green, the first woman to serve as the president of the Safe Bus Company. Her father and uncle, Elijah and Joseph Miller (respectively), were 2 out of the 13 original owners of Safe Bus Company.

In 1926, amidst the pervasive segregation of the American South, a group of African American entrepreneurs in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, came together to form the Safe Bus Company—a pioneering endeavor that would become the largest Black-owned transportation company in the nation.

Origins in Segregation

Prior to the establishment of Safe Bus, the predominantly Black neighborhoods of East Winston lacked access to public transportation. The city's trolley services, operated by Southern Public Utilities Company, did not extend into these areas, leaving residents reliant on a fragmented network of approximately 35 independent jitney operators. These jitneys, while providing essential services, were often uncoordinated and sometimes unsafe.

On April 24, 1926, Clarence T. Woodland brought together 21 jitney operators to establish a transportation service aimed at serving the African-American community, focusing on areas of the city that lacked adequate public transit options. Recognizing the need for a more reliable and organized transportation system, 13 African American businessmen pooled their resources, each contributing their life savings to purchase shares totaling $100,000. On May 26, 1926, they officially chartered the Safe Bus Company, named to reflect their commitment to providing safe and dependable service to their community .

Growth and Community Impact

Photo: the thirteen original owners of Safe Bus, a pioneering group of Black Entrepreneurs out of North Carolina who started a mass transportation company in Winston-Salem.

Under the leadership of its first president, Harvey F. Morgan, Safe Bus rapidly expanded. By 1935, the company was transporting 8,000 passengers daily and employed 75 individuals, with an annual payroll of $65,000. The company's success was a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit and resilience of its founders and the community they served .

Safe Bus not only provided essential transportation but also became a symbol of Black economic empowerment. It offered stable employment opportunities for Black residents, including positions as drivers, conductors, and administrative staff. The company's operations were a source of pride, demonstrating the capacity of African Americans to manage and sustain significant enterprises.

Challenges and Transition

The 1960s brought significant social changes, including the Civil Rights Movement and the desegregation of public facilities. In 1968, Safe Bus began offering services to all city residents, marking a significant shift from its original mission of serving the Black community exclusively. This expansion led to increased competition and a decline in ridership, as many white passengers preferred to use the newly integrated services .

Despite these challenges, Safe Bus continued to operate until 1972, when the Winston-Salem Transit Authority purchased its assets. This transition marked the end of an era for the company but ensured that its legacy lived on within the city's public transportation system .

Legacy

The Safe Bus Company's story is a powerful example of Black entrepreneurship and community resilience. It stands as a testament to the ability of African Americans to create and sustain enterprises that not only served their immediate needs but also contributed to the broader social and economic fabric of their communities.

Today, the legacy of Safe Bus is preserved through historical accounts and exhibits, reminding us of the importance of community-driven initiatives in shaping the history and progress of American society.

Black History Heroes Book Recommendations

2024-12-08T07:49:00.006-08:00

Here is a comprehensive list of notable historians of African descent, along with some of their published works. This list is not presented in any particular order of importance.

1. J.A. Rogers (Joel Augustus Rogers)

Born: January 6, 1880, Negril, Jamaica
Died: March 26, 1966, New York City, USA
Notable Works:
- Sex and Race (1941)
- The World's Great Men of Color (1946)
- J.A. Rogers' History of the Negro (1936)
- From Superman to Man (1917)

2. Carter G. Woodson

Born: December 19, 1875, New Canton, Virginia, USA
Died: April 3, 1950, Washington, D.C., USA
Notable Works:
- The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933)
- The Negro in Our History (1922)
- A Century of Negro Migration (1918)
- The African Background Outlined (1936)

3. John Hope Franklin

Born: January 2, 1915, Rentiesville, Oklahoma, USA
Died: March 25, 2009, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Notable Works:
- From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (1947)
- Race and History (1989)
- The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views (1999)
- The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-First Century (2006)

4. W.E.B. Du Bois

Born: February 23, 1868, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA
Died: August 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana
Notable Works:
- The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
- The Philadelphia Negro (1899)
- Black Reconstruction in America (1935)
- The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races (magazine, 1910–1934)

5. Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

Born: January 24, 1874, Santurce, Puerto Rico
Died: June 10, 1938, Harlem, New York, USA
Notable Works:
- The Negro Digs Up His Past (1921)
- The Black Man in the World (1925)
- The Afro-American in the World (1933)

6. Yosef Ben-Jochannan

Born: December 31, 1918, Ethiopia
Died: March 19, 2015, New York City, USA
Notable Works:
- We the Black Jews: Witness to the Tribes (2003)
- African Origins of the Major "Western" Religions (1993)
- Africa: Mother of Western Civilization (1997)
- Black Man of the Nile and His Family (1972)

7. Chancellor Williams

Born: August 22, 1898, Bennettsville, South Carolina, USA
Died: December 7, 1992, Washington, D.C., USA
Notable Works:
- The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.(1971)
- The Rebirth of African Civilization (1987)

8. John Henrik Clarke

Born: January 1, 1915, Union Springs, Alabama, USA
Died: July 16, 1998, New York City, USA
Notable Works:
- Africans at the Crossroads (1991)
- Christopher Columbus and the African Holocaust (1991)
- Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa (1987)

9. Merze Tate

Born: May 9, 1905, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
Died: 1996, USA
Notable Works:
- The United States and the Caribbean (1941)
- The International Relations of the Caribbean (1947)
- The United States and International Organization (1948)

10. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Born: September 16, 1950, Piedmont, West Virginia, USA
Notable Works:
- The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism (1988)
- Colored People: A Memoir (1994)
- The African American National Biography (2008, co-editor)
- Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (2019)

11. Dorothy B. Porter

Born: February 25, 1938, Washington, D.C., USA
Died: November 2008, USA
Notable Works:
- Early Negro Writing: 1760 - 1873:

12. James Monroe Trotter

Born: September 17, 1842, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Died: February 23, 1892, USA
Notable Works:
- Music and Some Highly Musical People (1878)

13. Ivan Van Sertima

Born: January 9, 1935, Georgetown, Guyana
Died: May 25, 2009, New Jersey, USA
Notable Works:
- They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (1976)
- African Presence in Early America (1985)
- The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1972)

14. Cheikh Anta Diop

Born: December 29, 1923, Diourbel, Senegal
Died: February 7, 1986, Dakar, Senegal
Notable Works:
- The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974)
- Precolonial Black Africa (1960)
- Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology (1981)
- The Cultural Unity of Black Africa (1991)

This list highlights the significant contributions of historians from Africa and the African diaspora. Their works have specifically shaped the understanding of the global history and culture of Black people of African descent. If you have read any of these books and would like to make a statements regarding the book, do leave this in the comments. If you have additional recommendations of notable historians, leave them in the comments for others who enjoy these historical topics.

The Remarkable Journey of Matthew Henson: From Humble Beginnings to the North Pole

2024-12-08T06:19:00.007-08:00

Matthew Henson’s life is a testament to perseverance, courage, and determination. Born on August 8, 1866, in the small town of Nanjemoy, Maryland, Henson was one of the most significant explorers in American history. His remarkable contributions, especially to the race to the North Pole, have often been overshadowed by his white counterparts, but his story deserves recognition for its trailblazing spirit.

Early Life and African Heritage

Matthew Henson was born to parents who were both of African descent. His father, a free Black man, left the family when Henson was still a toddler, and his mother died when he was about 11 years old. Left orphaned, Henson moved to Washington, D.C., where he was taken in by an aunt and uncle. In his early teens, he was able to find work as a cabin boy on merchant ships. His work as a seaman would soon expose him to a world of exploration, an opportunity that would change the course of his life.

Henson’s African heritage was an important part of his identity, though in the segregated America of his time, it often presented challenges. Despite these barriers, Henson’s skills and determination earned him respect in the world of Arctic exploration, where his talents as a navigator and his ability to adapt to harsh conditions would be his ticket to fame.

A Life at Sea and Introduction to Arctic Exploration

At the age of 18, Henson set off on a new adventure when he joined a ship heading to the Caribbean, learning navigation and the skills of a seaman along the way. He would continue his seafaring work for several years, traveling to ports around the world. It was on one of these trips that he encountered Robert E. Peary, a U.S. Navy engineer and explorer. Peary, who had begun his career in Arctic exploration, saw promise in Henson and hired him as a personal assistant for a trip to Greenland in 1887.

This was the beginning of Henson’s long association with Peary and his eventual rise to prominence in the exploration community. Over the next two decades, Henson traveled repeatedly to the Arctic, learning the skills of survival in the frozen wilderness. Peary, impressed by his resilience, made Henson an essential member of his exploration team. Henson was not only a trusted assistant, but also took on the role of a skilled navigator, and his work was crucial to the success of Peary’s expeditions.

Navigating the North Pole

The quest to reach the North Pole was one of the most ambitious and dangerous challenges of the early 20th century. For years, Peary and Henson, along with a team of Inuit guides, had been pushing northward, battling harsh conditions and treacherous terrain. The race to the pole was marked by failure and frustration, but Henson’s dedication never wavered.

In 1909, after many years of preparation and several expeditions, Peary, Henson, and their team of Inuit guides finally reached what they believed to be the North Pole. However, the controversy over who actually made it first has clouded the achievement. Both Peary and Henson claimed to have been the first men to reach the pole, but there were disputes over the exact coordinates and the legitimacy of their claim. Despite this, historians agree that Henson played a crucial role in the expedition and was indispensable to its success. He was the one who navigated and led the way, ensuring that they moved in the right direction despite the blizzards, icy conditions, and lack of landmarks.

Legacy and Recognition

Although Henson was not widely recognized in his lifetime for his achievements, his contributions to the polar expeditions were finally acknowledged decades later. In 1937, he became one of the first Black members of the Explorers Club in New York. In 1954, after decades of living in relative obscurity, he was awarded a gold medal by the National Geographic Society in recognition of his role in reaching the North Pole. However, it wasn’t until long after his death in 1955 that Henson received the full recognition he deserved.

In the years following his death, Henson's story began to capture the imagination of a new generation. His pioneering spirit and perseverance were finally celebrated as a key part of America's history of exploration. In 1988, his remains were reburied next to Robert Peary at Arlington National Cemetery, where he was finally honored as a hero of Arctic exploration.

Today, Henson is remembered as one of the most accomplished explorers of the 20th century. Despite the racial prejudices he faced, his achievements have become an enduring symbol of resilience and excellence. Henson’s journey from an orphaned child of African descent to one of the most important figures in polar exploration serves as an inspiration to all who dare to dream beyond the boundaries imposed by society.

Ralph Bunche | Political Scientist and Diplomat

2023-11-05T21:14:00.003-08:00

Ralph Johnson Bunche (b. 8/7/1904 - d. 12/9/1971)

Ralph Johnson Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 7, 1904 to Olive Agnes and Fred Bunche. His family moved to Toledo, Ohio for a while before returning to Detroit in 1909. In 1914, at the age of 10 years old, Bunche’s family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where they hoped the dry weather would improve his parents’ health. Unfortunately, both of his parents died two years after the move to New Mexico. The young Bunche then moved to Los Angeles with his two sisters to live with his grandmother, affectionally called “Nana”, who had been born into slavery. In Los Angeles, Bunche embraced his responsibility within his household, taking on all types of odd jobs while he pursued his education.

THE SCHOLAR

Bunche represented Black Excellence before it became a term of art. In Los Angeles, he graduated as valedictorian of Jefferson High School. By 1927, we find Bunche again earning the distinction of valedictorian — but now as a UCLA college graduate, majoring in international relations. In 1928, he completed his master’s degree at Harvard University in political science. In 1932-33, he was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship that afforded him the opportunity to conduct research into his dissertation topic comparing the colonial rule of France in the colonies of Dahomey and Togoland.

Upon completing his PhD in political science from Harvard University, Bunche’s dissertation was awarded the Topaz Prize for outstanding research on comparative politics from Harvard University’s Department of Government. Bunche would go on to complete postdoctoral research in anthropology at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and Capetown University in South Africa. From 1928 to 1950, he chaired the Department of Political Science at Howard University. From 1950-1952, he taught at Harvard University.

THE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

Ralph Bunche with
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In addition to his scholastic work, Bunche was active in both civil rights and human rights movements. In 1936, he published his first book “A World View of Race”, which argued that “race is a social concept which can be and is employed effectively to rouse and rationalize emotions [and] an admirable device for the cultivation of group prejudices.”

Bunche was a member of the so-called Black Cabinet, whom then U.S. president Theododre Roosevelt consulted with on race issues. In 1963, he was present at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin. In 1965, he supported the civil rights march in Montgomery, Alabama, organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. Bunche was known to lend his influence as a speaker and writer to civil rights organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Bunche was a leading actor in ending colonialism. He helped facilitate the global struggle of colonized nations seeking decolonization from European nations using international institutions like the United Nations. In 1945, Bunche served on the delegations charged with drafting the United Nation’s charter. Much of this work was completed through the United Nation’s Trusteeship Department, which was charged with troubleshooting the decolonization process for many countries in the mid-20th century. He often urged African-Americans to take on positions within the United Nations.

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER

Ralph Bunche at the United Nations

From June 1947 to August 1949, the Arab-Israeli conflict had escalated into fighting in Palestine. Bunche is known for his significant service in brokering an armistice agreement between Egypt and what would become the State of Israel. He was initially appointed assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and later as principal secretary of the United Nations Palestine Commission. The commission was charged with carrying out a proposed partition approved by the United Nations General Assembly. The commission worked from the island of Rhodes as their headquarters. The proposed partition fell through, however, and fighting intensified between the Arabs and Jews.

Count Folke Bernadotte was appointed by the United Nations as a mediator in the escalated conflict. Ralph Bunche was appointed to assist Folke. On September 17, 1948, four months after his appointment, Folke was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the underground Jewish Lehi group. This was a Zionist paramilitary militant organization that was led by Yitzhak Shamir, whom would become Prime Minister of Israel in 1983. Bunche was named acting United Nations mediator on Palestine, but conducted all of the commission’s affairs from the island of Rhodes.

In 1949, an armistice agreement between Palestine and Israel was brokered after eleven months, which effectively halted the violent Middle East crisis. Bunche returned back to the United States as a hero. On December 10, 1950, he became the first person of African descent to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering the armistice agreement.

THE MEDIATOR

Ralph Bunche with Patrice Lumumba,
former Prime Minister of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo

Bunche served as a mediator in many global conflicts areas. This includes the Sinai (1956), the Congo (1960), Yemen (1963), Cyprus (1964), India-Pakistan war (1965) and Bahrain (1970). In 1971, he retired from the United Nations. Bunche died six months after his retirement. In 2003, UCLA’s Center for African American Studies was renamed after Bunche to commemorate a hundred years since his birth.

“Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting,” said Bunche. “Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity — a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.”

Edmond Albius: The Black Man That Revolutionized the Global Production of Vanilla

2023-11-04T18:44:00.003-07:00

Edmond Albius (b. 1829 - d. 8/9/1880)
(Image: circa 1863)

Many of us know and love vanilla, which is now grown to flavor an array of the foods we have come to love. There are little known historical facts about how vanilla became a common staple in many kitchen pantries and cupboards today. First, many do not know that vanilla is produced from the vanilla orchid, which has about 110 specie variations within the orchid family. Yes, an orchid. The second little known fact about vanilla is that a Black man, Edmond Albius, taught European planters how to hand pollinate the orchid that made way for a global production of the vanilla bean.

Arab traders knew the island of Réunion as Dina Morgabin, translated as the “Western Island”, an island located in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar. Around 1507, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to settle in the region. The Portuguese settlement was nominal. By 1642, the French began to occupy the island to house its convicts -- French mutineers expelled from Madagascar. By 1665, the French introduced the forced labor of enslaved Africans from the region to the island.

Edmond Albius was born in 1829 and enslaved under the French occupation of Réunion. His mother had died during his birth and he would later give himself the surname Albius, adopted from the word alba "white" in reference to the vanilla orchid's color. When Edmond was born, slavery still existed in Réunion and would not be abolished until December 20, 1848. Edmond was taught basic botany by his French enslaver, Féréol Bellier Beaumont.

Flat-leaved vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia)

In the 1820s, the vanilla bean was brought to Réunion by the French colonists. The problem with growing vanilla in the region was that there were no insects to pollinate the vanilla orchid. At a very young age, Edmond was known as a young horticulturalist with profound knowledge on the cultivation of plants. In 1841, by the age of 12 years old, Edmond invented a quick hand pollination technique that involved the use of a thin blade of grass or stick coupled with a thumb gesture that lifts the rostellum that separates the female stigma from the male anther. This allowed for the manual pollination technique of smearing the sticky pollen from the anther to the stigma.

To this day, this hand-pollination technique of the vanilla orchid is used in nearly all vanilla production. After the successful introduction of the technique in Réunion, it was soon introduced to Madagascar by the French colonists. Madagascar remains one the world’s leading vanilla producers to this day, based on the hand-pollination technique of the vanilla orchid introduced by a Black man -- Edmond Albius. While it is said that there were petitions to the government of Réunion to provide Edmond some form of monetary compensation for his significant contribution to the economy, the petitions were ultimately unsuccessful. Edmond died in poverty in St. Suzanne, Réunion in1880.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser: A Black Union Spy in the Confederate White House ...

2022-04-17T16:33:00.001-07:00

A. G. Gaston: The Black Business Titan Advancing African-American Entrepreneurship in Alabama

2020-02-17T13:13:00.003-08:00

A. G. Gaston (b. 7/4/1892 - d. 1/19/1996)

When considering the incredible obstacles surmounted by A. G. Gaston and his outstanding business successes, one wonders why his legacy is not recounted and revered more in the books, journals and chronicles of Black history. A towering business figure in Alabama, Gaston overcame poverty and racial discrimination to build a multi-million dollar business empire in the heart of the South. You will respect his conglomerate when you learn that his enterprises included an insurance company, two cemeteries, a savings and loan bank, a business college, a couple radio stations, a motel, a construction company and multiple real estate holdings.

Arthur George Gaston was born in Demopolis, Alabama to Tom and Rosa McDonald Gaston. His father was a railroad worker who died soon after Gaston’s birth. His mother worked in Greensboro, Alabama as a family cook to the wealthy Jewish businessman A. B. Loveman, the founder of the largest department store in Alabama —Loveman’s of Alabama. Gaston spent his early years in Demopolis with Joe and Idella Gaston, his paternal grandparents. It is reported that, while poor, his grandparent’s house was the only one with a swing — and opportunity the young, entrepreneurial Gaston used to charge the local children to ride the swing. By 1905, at the age of 13, Gaston would move back with his mother, this time to Birmingham, Alabama where she accompanied the relocated Loveman family.

Early Life in Birmingham

Gaston’s mother enrolled him in the Tuggle Institute when they arrived in Birmingham. The Tuggle Institute was a privately run charitable school for African American, the namesake of the social reformer Carrie Tuggle. The school was modeled after the Booker T. Washington industrial educational schools, which emphasized developing trade skills and small businesses. In fact, Booker T. Washington visited the Tuggle Institute on numerous occasions to give inspirational speeches to the students. Gaston was naturally influenced by the philosophy of “pulling ones self up by his or her boot straps”, which was the hallmark of Washington’s message. After completing the tenth grade, Gaston left the school and started working selling the black-owned newspaper founded by Oscar W. Adams in 1907, the Birmingham Reporter. The young Gaston also started working as a bellman at the Battle House Hotel in Mobile, Alabama.

In 1913, Gaston enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the all-Black Ninety-second Infantry Division that was deployed in World War I combat in 1917. Of his $20 monthly military pay, it is reported that Gaston sent $15 home towards his first real estate mortgage investment in Birmingham. When he returned to Birmingham after the war, Gaston drove a delivery truck for a dry-cleaning company. He also worked in Fairfield, Alabama as a Tennessee Coal and Iron Company miner. While there, Gaston sold lunch sandwiches to his co-workers and eventually became a lending source to them.

The Booker T. Washington Burial Society & The Booker T. Washington Business College

By 1923 Gaston founded his first business, the Booker T. Washington Burial Society, the same year he married Creole Smith. While working in the coal mines, Gaston undoubtedly saw many early deaths from what we now recognize as harsh and unsafe working conditions in the mines. The need for poor Blacks to have affordable funeral burial services was not lost of Gaston, and as a result the fraternal order burial society was developed, along with the funeral services. Gaston attracted members from local church congregations, as well as his sponsorship of local radio programs aimed at African Americans. By 1932, Gaston has established the Booker T. Washington Insurance Company, which not only offered burial services, but also life insurance, health insurance and accident insurance. He would branch this business off into casket manufacturing and the operation of two cemeteries. In 1923, he entered a partnership with his father-in-law A. L. Smith and started the Smith & Gaston Funeral Home on real estate he bought and renovated near Kelly Ingram Park in downtown Birmingham.

Booker T. Washington Business College in Alabama

By 1938, Gaston’s first wife Creole Smith Gaston died. In 1939, he married Minnie L. Gardner Gaston. Always one to recognize a market demand, he and his second wife founded the Booker T. Washington business school after noticing a shortage of skilled administrative staff in the community to operate his businesses.

Growing His Alabama Black Businesses & Giving Back

Gaston continued expanding his empire. In the early 1950s, he responded to the difficulties African-Americans faced securing home loans from White-owned banks and opened the Citizens Federal Savings and Loan Association. This became the first Black-owned financial institution in Birmingham since the Alabama Penny Savings Bank closed 40 years earlier. Gaston also developed the Vulcan Realty and Investment Company. He started manufacturing, bottling and distributing a soda called Joe Louis Punch. He started the A. G. Gaston Home for Senior Citizens and the A. G. Gaston Motel. The motel, which became a refuge, met the great demand of African Americans traveling through the South during the 1950s where few White-owned hotels and restaurants welcomed Black people. Delving into media, Gaston also owned and operated two radio stations — WAGG-AM and WENN-FM — as well as provided public relation services for other businesses through S & G Public Relations Company. It was very clear that Gaston did not come to play with us.

Book Available on Amazon

Gaston gave back to the community. He donated $50,000 to establish the A. G. Gaston Boys Club in Birmingham. During the Birmingham civil rights movement In the 1960s, Gaston was sometimes criticized as being an accommodationist. It is not lost on history, however, that it was his wealth that was crucial to the achievement of the efforts of the civil rights movement. For example, Gaston provided civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr. with reduced costs accommodations at his motel. When King was arrested in 1963, it was Gaston who bailed him out of jail. His support of the civil rights movement lead to his motel being bombed on May 12, 1963. His home was bombed in September 1963. In 1976, Gaston was kidnapped and tortured with a hammer before he was rescued by the police.

Gaston has been bestowed with many honors. In 1975, he received an honorary law degree from Pepperdine University. Black Enterprise magazine named him “Entrepreneur of the Century in 1992. Gaston published his autobiography, Green Power: The Successful Way of A. G. Gaston in 1968. Read more about A. G. Gaston in the biography Black Titan, A. G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire. New York: One World, 2004. His goal was to inspire Black entrepreneurship. His powerful life and words should not be lost on the generations.

Charlottes E. Ray: First African-American Woman Lawyer and First Woman Admitted to Practice Law Before the D.C. Supreme Court

2020-02-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

Early Black Woman Attorney Charlotte E. Ray

On January 13, 1850, Charlotte E. Ray was born in New York City. She was one of seven children born to Charles Bennett Ray and Charlotte Augusta Ray (nia Burroughs). Her father was a minister, abolitionist and assisted Africans escaping U.S. slavery through passage on the Underground Railroad — a network of people assisting African refugees along the geographic passages that could ultimately lead to freedom.

An ardent student, Ray attended the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington D.C. In the late 1860s, Ray served as a teacher at a predatory school associated with Howard University. She would later apply for admission to Howard University law school using the name “C.E. Ray”. The school’s law program only admitted men. It is speculated that she used her initials to keep her gender a secret until acceptance.

Ultimately, Ray was admitted to law school and excelled in her studies, reportedly focusing on corporate law. One of her classmates described her as an “apt scholar,” according to the book Notable Black American Women. In 1872, Ray graduated from law school. On April 23, 1872, she was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia. Her admission marked her as 1) the third woman in U.S. history to be admitted to practice law, 2) the first African-American female attorney in the country, and 3) the first women to be admitted to the D.C. bar and the first woman to be admitted to practice law before its Supreme Court.

By 1873, Ray opened her own law office focusing on the area of law she excelled in, namely, commercial law. She advertised her legal services in newspapers such as the New National Era, a weekly newspaper published by Frederick Douglass — the only paper of its day published and edited by people of African descent. Douglass celebrated Ray’s graduation in his newspaper. In one published article, Douglass reports that Charlotte E. Ray is “the first colored lady in the world to graduate in law.”

While Ray served as a commercial lawyer, there is evidence that she was also active as a trial attorney. She was the first woman to practice and argue a case in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. On June 3, 1875, Ray submitted pleadings in the case of Gadley vs. Gadley, No. 4278, in the District of Columbia Supreme Court. In this case, Ray represented a woman who was petitioning for a divorce against her husband for whom she charged physical domestic abuse and habitual drunkenness.

As a solo practitioner who was both a woman and a person of African descent, it was difficult for Ray to get clients due to racism and gender discrimination. In fact, in 1875, only a couple years into Ray’s practice of law, the United States Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, made a decisive decision against women. The question before the Court was whether “since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, a woman, who is a citizen of the United States and the State of Missouri, is a voter in that State, notwithstanding the provision of the constitution and laws of the State, which confine the right of suffrage to men alone.” The U.S. Supreme Court answered that question with a resounding no, a woman gained no rights to vote in such a situation. The respondent in that case, a female Missouri citizen, would gain no right to the franchise. The Happersett Court rejected the argument that a woman, born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which she resides, has the right to suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship, which no State constitution can abridge.

This was the environment that Ray, a young Black woman practicing law, was face with in America. While Washington D.C. was one of the most diverse cities in the U.S., with a population of African Americans representing approximately a third of the capital city, after four years, Ray closed her law practice and moved to Brooklyn, New York. In N.Y., she worked as a public school teacher and became a member of the National Association of Colored Women. On January 4, 1911, at age 60, Charlotte E. Ray died in New York. On March 2006, The Northeastern University School of Law in Boston chapter of Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity International honored her legacy by naming their newly chartered chapter after her, in recognition of her place as the first female African American attorney in the United States.

Dusé Mohamed Ali: An Early Influence on the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple of America

2020-02-02T13:08:00.001-08:00

Dusé Mohamed Ali

Dusé Mohamed Ali (b. 11/21/1866 – d. 6/25/1945, Lagos, Nigeria) was born in Alexandria, Egypt to Abdul Salem Ali, an Egyptian army officer, and a Nubian mother who was a national of Sudan but whose name is unknown. In 1876, at the age of 10, a young Ali went to England with a French officer friend of his father for schooling. Six years later, Ali returned to Egypt to settle his father’s estate. In September 1882, Ali’s father died after serving in the Egyptian military against the British in the Battle of Tel el-Kebir in Kassassin, Canal Zone, Egypt. Ali soon thereafter return to England, spending most of his adult life outside of Egypt, traveling widely within pan-African communities in Great Britain, Nigeria and the United States.

Before his father died, Ali intended to study as a doctor but subsequently decided that he wanted to act and write. After completing his studies at the University of London, Ali began to perform in London and the British Isles in such productions as Othello and the Merchant of Venice. Ali established a stage career as a touring Shakespearean actor, performing in North America and the British provinces. He wrote and produced various plays, including The Jew’s Revenge (1903), A Cleopatra Night (1907), and the musical comedy Lily of Bermuda (1909). In London, Ali founded the Hull Shakespeare Society.

His early fame as an international scholar occurred after he published a short history of Egypt, reportedly the first such work written by an indigenous Egyptian in modern times. The book, The Land of the Pharaohs, received critical acclaim when it was published in 1911. In its introduction, Ali states that he was inspired to undertake the historical account because of the “continual growth of misrepresentation in the English Press touching on Egyptian affairs.” He goes on to state that “Roosevelt Guildhall peroration has proved the last straw of a most weighty bundle” — referencing U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt’s speech on Great Britain and Africa at Guildhall in London.

In Roosevelt’s1910 speech at Guildhall, he asserts that in Egypt, Britain’s treating all religions with fairness caused an anti-foreign movement in which “murder on a large or small scale is expected to play a leading part.” The British government’s response to the speech was to send Lord Kitchener to Egypt as Consul-General to suppress what was seen as a socialist tendency among the young Nationalist party in Egypt. The London Spectator reported on the Guildhall speech stating “We thank Mr. Roosevelt once again for giving us so useful a reminder of our duty.” It was these series of events that led Ali to embark on addressing the historical account in his book The Land of the Pharaohs.

Duse Mohamed Ali:
The Autobiography

Fleet Street Office in London of
African Times & Orient Review
(Columbia Digital Library Collection)

Also an avid community organizer, Ali founded the Anglo-Ottoman Society in London and the Indian Muslim Soldiers’ Widows’ and Orphans’ War Fund. He was active in the League of Justice of the Afro-Asian Nations and the African Progress Union, an association of West Indian and African exiles founded in London in 1913. In addition to community activism, Ali published works in the London-based weekly New Age, at the time edited by Alfred Richard Orange, writing articles on Egyptian nationalism and global pan-African oppression.

In 1911, the First Universal Races Congress was held at the University of London for four days — 7/26/1911 to 7/29/1911 — featuring speakers from various countries to discuss how to improve race relations and how to combat racism impacting global African communities in the world. Ali helped with the arrangements for the even and met a number of the prominent West African merchants and professionals in attendance at the four-day event. With the help of Sierra Leone-born journalist John Eldred Jones, Ali soon thereafter published the first political journal produced by and for Black people — The African Times and Orient Review. This pan-African journal was launched as a monthly publication in June 1912, described as a “monthly devoted to the interests of the coloured races of the world.” The Oxford Companion to Black British History describes the journal as a “militant magazine” that was committed to the “exposure of various colonial injustices.”

The August 1912 issue of the African Times and Orient Review included a letter by J.E. Casey Hayford titled “A Tribute From Africa”. Hayford was a Ghanaian lawyer, educator, writer and statesman, who would go on to led the first meeting of the National Congress of British West Africa in London in 1920. In 1911, Hayford had published the novel Ethiopia Unbound. By 1927, Hayford was elected to the Ghana Legislative Council.

When the Jamaican-born Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. arrived in Britian in 1912, he became closely associated with Ali. In fact, Ali would become a mentor to Garvey as a staff member of the African Times and Orient Review. Garvey never converted to Islam but it is said that he learned a number of the basic tenets of Islam from Ali. He also learned a lot from Ali about pan-Africanism, the struggle of African people around the world against European oppression.

July 1912 Issue of the
African Times Orient Review

From July to December 1913, the London-based African Times Orient Review was published monthly. From March 24 to August 18, 1914, it was published weekly. By the time the Great War (World War I) broke out on July 28, 1914, the journal was banned by Britain in India and its African colonies. The British government reported Ali as a ‘notorious disseminator of sedition.” In November 1917, a British colonial official stated that “in the old days the magazine was considered to be of doubtful loyalty, owing to Duse Mohamed’s pan-Ethiopian programme.” The journal stopped publishing after October 1918. The Great War ended November 11, 1918. Ali’s publication was relaunched as Africa and Orient Review, publishing from January 1920 to December 1920.

After closing the London-office of Africa and Orient Review in 1920, Ali would arrive in the United States at Michigan in 1921. In Detroit, he founded the Universal Islamic Society. He never returned back to Britain. In the U.S., Ali worked with Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) movement based in Harlem, New York. He was a contributing writer for the UNIA’s Negro World publication and is noted as the head of its Africa section. In July 1921, Ali traveled to Nigeria and was welcomed at the Shitta Mosque at Lagos but would soon return back to the United States. In 1922, wearing his characteristic fez hat, Ali made many appearances among Detroit’s Black Muslim community. It is often speculated that Ali’s presence in Detroit impacted W. D. Fard Muhammad’s development of the Nation of Islam out of Detroit, which was founded in 1930. He may have also had a relationship with Noble Drew Ali and the rise of the Moorish Science Temple of America. The Moorish Science Temple of America, is reported to have been established in the United States as early as 1913. There is undoubtedly a lot of room for scholarship in this area. By June 1928, a final single journal issue is reported to have been published By Ali in New York under the title “Africa”.

In 1931, Ali is reported to have returned to Lagos to watch over business interests in the cocoa industry. He settled in Lagos, and was appointed editor of the Nigerian Daily Times. On October 3, 1932, Ali produced the play A Daughter of Pharaoh in the Glover Memorial Hall in Lagos. He also became the editor of the Daily Telegraph in Nigeria. By July 1933, he launched The Comet, a weekly newspaper in Lagos. On June 25, 1945, at the age of 78, Ali died in the African Hospital in Lagos after a protracted illness. He is buried at the Okesuna Muslim Cemetery in Nigeria.

Carlos Alexander Cooks and the Development of Black Nationalism

2020-02-01T22:50:00.001-08:00

It is likely that you have never heard of Carlos Alexander Cooks, though he has profoundly shaped the development of Black Nationalism in the U.S. Cooks was born in the Dominican Republic, Caribbean on 6/23/1913 to James Henry Cooks and Alice Cooks. His parents were originally from the neighboring island of St. Martin.

Descriptzto James Henry Cooks and Alice Cooks, who were originally from the neighboring island of St. Martin. His education took place mostly in Santo Domingo until moving to New York in 1929 where he went on to higher learning.

Cooks’ intellect was recognized from an early age. He attended the leadership school in the Voodoo Sacré Society. He became involved in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), where both his father and uncle were among the many St. Martiners who were members of the organization led by Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr.

Cooks went on join the Garvey Union and its Universal African Legion. Marcus Garvey played a central role in shaping Cooks’ political career. At age nineteen, Cooks was knighted by Garvey, becoming an official and active member of the UNIA. In the years between Garvey's death (1940) and the appearance of Malcolm X in Harlem (1954) Cooks was one of the most important Black nationalist figures in Harlem and the United States. In fact, after Marcus Garvey was deported, Carlos Cooks led the Advance Division of the UNIA.

Black Nationalism from Garvey to Malcolm

On 6/23/1941, on his birthday, Cooks would found the African Nationalist Pioneer Movement (ANPM). Born out of Garvey's UNIA, Cooks envisioned the ANPM as "an educational, inspirational, instructive, constructive and expansive society... composed of people desirous of bringing about a progressive, dignified, cultural, fraternal and racial confraternity among the African peoples of the world.” On the streets of Harlem in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, the ANPM kept the spirit of the UNIA alive, capturing the political pulse of the Black Nationalist community.

In September 1941, months after Cooks founded the ANPM, writer Jane Cooke Wright wrote the following in the New York Age newspaper: “The Honorable Carlos Cooks, an important character in the advance division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, exemplifies the views of Marcus Garvey. He preaches the supremacy of the Blacks. This wishful thinking, he believes will someday come true. At present the white people in Europe are killing each other off and therefore the final battle will be between the whites and the Blacks on the sands of Africa.”

Cooks was committed to Black economic achievement. It is said that it was Cooks who coined the phrase “BUY BLACK” as an economic solution in African-American communities across the U.S. On 5/5/1966, Cooks died in Harlem New York at the age of 52.

When Black Folks Owned Baseball Stadiums in Memphis: Dr. John B. Martin, The Martin Brothers & The Negro League

2018-06-01T04:59:00.001-07:00

Memphis Red Sox players in front of dugout.

Dr. John B. Martin (1885-1973), often referred to as J. B. Martin, was president of Negro League associations and owned the Memphis Red Sox (1923-1950) and the Chicago American Giants (1937-1950) baseball teams. While many people often refer to the "Negro League", this is a general term used to refer to a number of associations that included the Negro National League, the Negro American League, the Negro Southern League, as well as smaller leagues such as the Negro Dixie League. J. B. Martin served as president of the National Southern League, the National American League and the Negro Dixie League was one of the several Negro leagues created during the time organized during the time organized American baseball was segregated.

A Black-owned Sports Stadium: An Enterprising Black Family

The Memphis Red Sox was a Negro League baseball team founded in 1923 by J. B. Martin and Dr. B. B. Martin, brothers in a prominent African-American family in Memphis. The Martin brothers were both dentists with prominent dental practices. J. B. Martin was a dentist, pharmacist, operated a funeral parlor, invested in real estate and Republican political leader. He built the Martin baseball park where he owned and operated the concession stands. He also owned a hotel nearby the baseball field in Memphis, as well as enterprises on Beale Street.

J.B. Martin's family members were also quite enterprising. In addition to a dental practice, his brother Dr. B. B. Martin acted as the Red Sox business manager and served as an officer in the National Southern League. Dr. A. T. Martin worked as a general practitioner for fifty years and worked with the Red Sox for 25 years. Dr. William S. Martin, was superintendent of the Collins Chapel Hospital for 35 years, in addition to serving as an officer for the Red Sox and the Negro American League, as well as serving as president of the Negro Southern League. The four Martins, all Black doctors, were prominent in the Memphis community and within the Negro League franchises.

Negro League's Black-owned Martin Stadium in Memphis.

In 1920, the Martin brothers built Martin Stadium on what is now Crump Boulevard and Danny Thomas, making the Red Sox one of the few baseball clubs in the Negro League with their own ballpark. Most Negro League teams played in white team parks when the white teams were on the road. Not only did the Memphis Red Sox have a stadium, J. B. Martin also owned a hotel near the park. The baseball park was built from scratch, but not without resistance from the White supremacy establishment in Memphis under what was called the "Crump Machine." Edward Hull Crump governed Memphis for decades through manipulation of both the Black and White vote into a political machine that enabled him to control Memphis politics. When J. B. Martin, a Black Republican, denounced Crump in 1939, Crump responded with mounting pressure on Martin using the Memphis police, such as targeting Martin's Beale Street businesses with raids. The Martin Stadium originally had a capacity of 3,000, but grew to nearly 7,000 seat capacity. It was demolished in 1961.

The Memphis Red Sox

The Memphis Red Sox were initially organized by Robert S. Lewis, a Memphis funeral director, in the early 1920s. When the Martin's purchased the independent team in 1924, the team joined the Negro National League and B. B. Martin acted as the Red Sox business manager. In 1926, the franchise left the Negro National League and joined the newly-established Negro Southern League for its inaugural season. In 1932, it rejoined the Negro Southern League with subsequent seasons as an independent team. In 1937, the Red Sox became a charter member of the Negro American League, where they remained until their dissolution in 195X. Four players associated with the Memphis Red Sox were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Satchel Paige, James "Cool Papa" Bell, Willy Wells, and Turkey Steams.

The Chicago American Giants

The Negro Leagues began to diminish after Brooklyn's Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. In 1949, J. B. Martin leased the Chicago American Giants to William Little because he wanted to spend more tie managing the affairs of the Negro American League Martin appointed Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe as manager of the Chicago American Giants in 1950. This was three years after Jackie Robinson broke the color line. Martin was concerned about Black players joining Major League teams so he instructed Radcliffe to sign White players. The team disbanded in 1952. The Negro American League disbanded after its 1962 season.

Isaac Burns Murphy: The Great Black Horse Jockey from Kentucky

2017-08-19T16:33:00.002-07:00

Photo: Isaac Burns Murphy

(b. 1/2/1861 - d. 2/12/1896)

When we think of horse racing today we are hard-pressed to remember the time in the sports history when Black jockeys dominated the sport. As a matter of fact, all but one of the 15 jockeys riding in the first Kentucky Derby were African Americans. Isaac Burns Murphy was the first Black jockey to win three Kentucky Derbys and is considered one of the greatest American Thoroughbred horse racing jockeys in history.

"There is no chance that his record of winning will ever be surpassed," said Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro, referring to his 44% victory rate that has never been equaled.

Isaac was born January 2, 1861, in Lexington, Kentucky. His father was Jerry Burns (aka Jerry Skillman), a free man who was worked as a bricklayer before joining the U.S. Colored Troops in the U.S. Civil War. He died as a prisoner of war at Camp Nelson. His mother, America Burns, soon after changed Isaac's last name to Murphy as a tribute to her father Green Murphy.

Photo: Isaac Burns Murphy in action at the horse races.

America Burns, Isaac's mother, worked as a laundress for Richard Owings of the Owings and Williams Racing Stable in prime horse territory. He quickly became acquainted with horses and launched his racing career at an early age. On September 15, 1875, at the age of 14, he won his first horse racing victory when he rode Glentina at Crab Orchard Park in Lexington, Kentucky. This was the first of 628 career victories.

Isaac holds a record number of impressive wins. In 1882, he won 49 of 51 starts at Saratoga, New York. In 1883, 1885 and 1886, he won races at the Hindoo Stakes. In 1884, 1890 and 1891, he won Kentucky Derbys. In 1884, 1885, 1886 and 1888, he won four races at the American Derby in Washington Park in Chicago. On May 23, 1887, he won the Latonia Derby in Kentucky. On June 25, 1890, he won in a neck-to-neck race against the great horse jockey Ed "Snapper" Garrison, a White jockey, in New York City.

The Prince of Jockeys:

The Life of Isaac Burns Murphy

By 1891, Isaac began to develop an off-season weight problem -- ballooning to 140 pounds. While this doesn't sound like much for a man, it is hefty for a horse jockey who aims to be light on his horse. Unfortunately, his constant efforts to lose weight adversely impacted his healthy. By 1895, Isaac had caught pneumonia.

On February 12, 1896, at the young age of 35, he died of heart failure leaving a widow behind, Lucy Murphy (nia Carr). For many decades his incredible sports legacy was forgotten, symbolized by an unmarked grave in Lexington's African Cemetery No. 2 , an historical cemetery purchased by The Colored People's Union Benevolent Society No. 2 in 1869.

In 1955, Isaac was the first person to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. He was regarded by many as the greatest of all jockeys due to his record as having the highest winning average than any jockey in racing history during his lifetime. It wasn't until 1948, more than 50 years after his death, that someone broke his record of three Kentucky Derby victories. The National Turf Writers Association have given out the Isaac Murphy Award since 1995 to jockeys with the highest winning average in North American racing.

Resources: The Search for Isaac Murphy's Parents, Pamela Lions Brygar, CG (2009)

Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls, Escaped Slave Turned Union Hero (A Book Review)

2017-05-10T11:48:00.001-07:00

Photograph: Robert Smalls, U.S. Civil War Hero

I wish to make a public confession about reading the book Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero by Cate Lineberry. I approached it with great skepticism. I had read U.S. Civil War books before and none of them really impressed me. In fact, I found many of them down-right boring, mired in the details of military actions – a very "White" and "male" genre.

The story of Robert Smalls in Be Free or Die, which will be published by St. Martin's Press on June 20, 2017, has changed my view. I had certainly read nothing like this before. The spectacular tale of Robert Smalls was not simply that he escaped slavery in South Carolina with his family and a band of other enslaved African Americans, but that he did so by stealing and navigating a Confederate ship into the hands of the Union navy across an armed-military fortified Charleston Harbor.

I'm not being flippant when I reveal that my first thought after reading the book was, why had I never read about Smalls in my history books. Not only was his journey unbelievably courageous, but he was a central character in the Civil War action who would go on to become a U.S. Congressman. An American hero of the U.S. Civil War, Robert Smalls story should not be lost on this generation.

The Great Escape from Slavery

The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls

In 1862, it was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina. The young nation was in its second year of civil war. Robert Smalls was born into slavery among the Gullah, a distinctive community of Africans who had inhabited the coastal regions of the U.S.'s Carolinas since the beginning of slavery in the states -- which is to say from the beginning, In 1862, Smalls was 23 years old and working on a Confederate steamer. He and a crew of fellow Africans had devised a plan to steal a Confederate steamer and arrange to escape with their families across the Charleston Harbor to nearby Union forces.

In Be Free or Die, Lineberry does a crafting an exciting historical tale and chronicling Smalls' great escape from slavery. She includes highlights of Smalls' remarkable career with the Union forces, such as his becoming the nation's first Black captain of an Army vessel and serving as a five-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina.

As a storyteller, Lineberry does a great job of bringing the reader along for the journey. The reader joins Smalls on each encounter with a Confederate combat ship and is able to take a glimpse into the life of someone who is a wanted by the Confederates, constantly living under the threat of retaliation -- even after the war ended!

The journeys away from South Carolina to the North provides readers insight into the activism of civil society groups boldly assisting the efforts against slavery, such as the work of the well-known Frederick Douglass, but also less well known members of the Black clergy whose church memberships became sanctuaries for Africans escaping slave states. Also a treat are the book's lesser known historical facts, like Abraham Lincoln's plan to colonize Panama as a resettlement of the newly freed enslaved Africans.

Be Free or Die is an excellent summer read that retells the U.S. Civil War story, but also introduces many to Robert Smalls -- one of the great Civil War heroes.

Early Life of Lewis Latimer: Son of Escaped African Slaves Becomes Electric Lighting Innovator

2017-04-30T16:59:00.002-07:00

Photo: Lewis Howard Latimer

Lewis Howard Latimer's story begins before he was born, but I guess that may be said about all of our stories. The years leading up to Lewis' birth were particularly interesting because his parents George and Rebecca Latimer made a firm decision to escape Virginia's slavery. According to Dr. Winifred Latimer Norman, Lewis' granddaughter, the family's papers recount the determination of his mother Rebecca to "not be the mother of a slave."

Lewis Latimer's Parents Escape Slavery

In 1842, Rebecca Latimer devised a very peculiar plan to escape slavery. She and her husband George would escape slavery by his passing as White and acting as his more hued wife's master. They did leave Norfolk, Virginia accompanied as master and servant. They headed for Baltimore and continued to Boston, Massachusetts. This is the family history Lewis Latimer was born into on September 4, 1848, the youngest of four children, in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

When the Latimer's arrived in Boston, George was immediately recognized. He was imprisoned as a fugitive slave. Rebecca had escaped capture. George's owner refused to give up his efforts to have him returned to Norfolk, Virginia as his personal property. Fortunately, the Latimers arrived in a Boston that had a strong slavery abolition movement brewing. Bostonians did not like the fact that their tax dollars were being used to enforce the fugitive slave law. George Latimer's case became a slavery abolitionist cause.

William Lloyd Garrison publicized the case in his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. It included a letter from Frederick Douglass regarding the community's efforts to secure George Latimer's freedom. After a month's stay in jail, Black abolitionist purchased his freedom from his owner for $400.00. Rebecca remained a fugitive, coming in and out of family life as she could. According to the family records, Rebecca worked at jobs that allowed her protection from detection in spaces were the fugitive slave law was still enforced. Eventually, George Latimer's high profile case garnered the signature of 65,000 Massachusetts citizens that led to the passage of a state law that "all judges, justices of the peace, and officers of the commonwealth, are forbidden, under heavy penalties, to aid or act in any manner in the arrest, detention, or delivery of any person claimed as a fugitive slave."

Lewis Latimer Contributions to Electric Lighting

In light of his family's history, it is no surprise that the young Lewis would want to participate in the U.S. Civil War. In 1864, at the age 16 years, Lewis lied about his age and enlisted in the Union Navy. He would serve aboard the USS Massasoit and saw military action on the James River in Virginia near the plantations where his parents had been enslaved.

Lewis Latimer Returns to Boston

After the U.S. Civil War ended, Lewis returned to Boston. He secured a job as an office assistant in the patent law firm of Crosby and Gould. Here, he became fascinated with the mechanical drawings the draftsmen prepared for the U.S. Patent Office. Lewis taught himself mechanical drawing. Soon, he was hired at the firm as a patent draftsman. He stayed with the patent firm for twelve years and became its chief draftsman. He believed, as many during that time, that patenting inventions was the way to wealth.

In Boston, Lewis also met Alexander Graham Bell. According to his journal, he made the drawings for Bell's first patent application for the telephone. In 1879, Lewis left Boston with Mary, his new bride, and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut -- a kind of silicon valley of technology innovation at its time. In 1881, Lewis' patent for the "Incandescent Electric Light Bulb with Carbon Filament" was sold to the United States Electric Company. In 1882, Lewis patented a process for efficiently manufacturing the carbon filament, as well as developed the now famous threaded socket for his improved bulb. In 1890, Lewis wrote the first book on electric lighting, "Incandescent Electric Lighting". He went on to innovate and was a major contributor to the international installation of public electric lights. Lewis contributed to public lightings in Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and London.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser: A Union Military Spy in the Southern Confederate White House

2017-03-29T14:13:00.001-07:00

Mary Elizabeth Bowser

The story of Mary Elizabeth Bowser is one of intrigue and espionage during the U.S. Civil War. She is among a number of Black women who served as spies for the Union. The most well-known Union spy is Harriet Tubman, who worked in South Carolina and Florida.

Like much about Mary, her exact birth and date of death are shrouded in mystery. Many commentaries report that she was likely born in 1839 as Mary Elizabeth Richards into slavery on the plantation of John and Elizabeth Van Lew near Richmond, Virginia. John Van Lew was a wealthy hardware merchant. In 1851, when John Van Lew died, his widow Elizabeth freed Mary and all of the other enslaved Africans on the Van Lew plantation. A staunch abolitionist and Quaker, Elizabeth also purchased many of her former slave's family members owned by others. She would also free them in an effort to bring the families back together.

Recognizing Mary's keen intelligence, Elizabeth sent her north to attend the Quaker School for Negroes in Philadelphia. After Mary graduated she returned to Richmond and married Wilson Bowser, a free Black man on April 16, 1861. This was only a few days before the U.S. Civil War began. The couple settled near Richmond and Mary maintained a close relationship with Elizabeth.

A southern lady, Elizabeth had earned quite a reputation for her sympathies. Dubbed "Crazy Bet", she encouraged this personae to cover the very serious espionage work for the Union when the Civil War began. She organized an intricate spy operation in support of the Union by using her resources and connections in the Confederate capital. It is said that her mansion was outfitted with many secret doors that led to secret rooms that became a safe haven for African fugitives who also supplied Elizabeth with information that she transcribed into cipher codes sent to Union officers, which included General Ulysses S. Grant.

Elizabeth's operation became so sophisticated that she planned to send a spy to the white house of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Mary Elizabeth Bowser, an able actress like Elizabeth herself, would become "Ellen Bond", a dull-witted, but able servant for the White House of the Confederacy.

Once settled in Davis's home, Mary played her role well. She pretended to be slow-thinking. No one suspected that she could read, for this would have been illegal within the Confederate states. Mary read warfare dispatches as she cleaned the house. She listened keenly to the conversations of the Confederate men as she served them meals. These military communications would be relayed back to the Van Lew mansion. Elizabeth coded information, which was placed inside of false eggs or printed on dress patterns -- to be passed to her network of Union agents.

Jefferson Davis eventually began to suspect that there was a leak. The Union was learning entirely too much, as the most secret communications of the cabinet were divulged. In the last days of the war, suspicion fell on Mary and she fled from the Davis's house in January 1865. Her last act for the Union was an attempt to burn down the Confederate White House, but this was unsuccessful.

Even after the war, Elizabeth never revealed Mary's espionage work. We know about this information today from others, such as Thomas McNiven, another Union spy in Richmond who was a baker. The Thomas McNiven Papers report that Mary "was working right in the Davis home and had a photographic mind. Everything she saw on the Rebel president's desk, she could repeat word for word. Unlike most colored, she could read and write. She made a point of always coming out to my wagon when I made deliveries at the Davis' home to drop information."

After the Civil War ended, the U.S. federal government destroyed its records related to Southern spies during Reconstruction to protect their lives. There was, however, a journal known to have been written by Bowser herself. It is said to have chronicled her wartime work, but the journal was lost by the Bowser family around 1952. There is no record of Bowser's life after the war. There is no exact date known regarding her death. In 1995, the U.S. government honored the service of Mary Elizabeth Bowser by inducting her in the Military Intelligence Corp Hall of Fame.

Edward Wilmot Blyden on Liberia

2017-03-03T13:51:00.002-08:00

Edward Wilmot Blyden (b. 8/3/1832 - d. 2/7/1912)

On August 3,1832, Edward Wilmot Blyden was born in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Island, West Indies. He is considered by many historians as the father of Pan-Africanism. His writings and speeches are amongst the earliest works on the subject of Africans returning to the continent after the impact of the European Trans-Atlantic slave trade, even predating the influence of the late Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr..

Blyden was an educator, writer and diplomat who became very active in the United States and in West Africa. He is noted to be among the first three Africans admitted to Harvard Medical School. He would later become an active political figure in Liberia, the West African nation settled by free and freed Africans primarily from the Americas and West Indies.

When he married Sarah Yates, of the prominent Yates family of Liberia, he would be joining the prominent family of Beverly Page Yates, the Liberian vice-president from 1856-1860. The Blydens had three children.

While in West Africa, Blyden also taught in Sierra Leone where he became an influential intellectual force. A frequent commentator on the political and historical actions of African nations to their global diaspora, Blyden spoke publicly on Ethiopia's win on November 16, 1875 at the Battle of Gundet against an Egypt led by colonial Arabs. Both Blyden and his contemporary, Martin Robinson Delany, praised the Gundet win as an African victory.

A Pan-African Perspective of the Battle of Gundet, Ethiopia

Below is one of the many public speeches by Edward Wilmot Blyden. Published July 27, 1857, this speech addresses some of the pressing issues facing the new settlers at Liberia -- many of whom were newly freed from the Americas. Blyden addressed the problem that arises when a populace is driven by a desire to be "rich", as seen by the conspicuous consumption patterns Blyden notes in the new inhabitants to Liberia. In this speech, Blyden also brings to the forefront of his listeners the economic perils ofdependence on the foreign aid of the United States.

* * * *

Liberia as She is; and the Present Duty of her Citizens

[An Independence Day address given at Monrovia, July 27, 1857

African Repository, November 1857, pp. 328-32.]

What then…are the moral causes of the present evils in Liberia? … … as a people we have been in too much haste to be rich. Relinquishing the pursuit of those attributes that would fit us for the faithful discharge of our peculiar duties as men, as Liberians, as an infant nation, we have used every possible measure to enhance our pecuniary importance; and in the precipitate efforts at wealth, we have not been careful as to what means we have employed. The desire to be rich, or to appear to be rich, pervades all classes. The love of money…has grown upon us to such a degree that all other avenues of distinction seem but trifling in comparison of those which lead to the acquisition of money. To be rich seems with many “the chief end of man”. Hence, no talents, no endowment of the mind, no skill or knowledge, no amount of education, is appreciated only so far as it will pay…. This fact has operated greatly in retarding the literary progress of our youth….

CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION

Another cause of our adversity may be seen in the unjustifiable extravagance in which we indulge; in that luxury of expenditure for houses, for dress, for furniture, for food, constantly made the reprehensible remark by thinking foreigners. We are in dreadful error in regard to our country, if we suppose we are truly prosperous. Our prosperity is not real; it is false; it is fictitious. The prosperity of a nation is real when the springs of the prosperity are contained within itself, in the hands of its citizens; when it depends for its existence upon its own resources; when it is independent. But this is not the case in Liberia. We are, as a nation, upheld by foreigners. We are entirely dependent upon foreigners for our schools, for churches, for preachers, for teachers. Most of the talent of the country is in the employ and at the control of foreigners. Those thus employed must ever hold their talents and their efforts subservient, not to what they conceive to be the interests of their country, but to the desires and direction of foreign employers…. What we wish to bring before our minds today is the humiliating fact, that nearly all the talent of Liberia—talent not in ordinary men, but in our principal men—is supported by foreign means and controlled by foreign influence. And yet, in the face of these humbling realities, we boast of our civilization, of our prosperity, of our independence, and indulge in unjustifiable extravagance… * * * … the money lavished upon houses, which add nothing to health and comfort; upon dress, which does not increase the dignity and beauty of personal appearance; the large sums laid out in expensive furniture, … the great amount consumed in the luxuries of the table would go a great way in keeping our streets clear of weeds, in felling the dense forests around us, in reclaiming the wilderness, in cultivating the soil, in civilizing our … brethren. … Look at the numbers who … in order to advance to, or maintain this [extravagant] style of living, flock to the fostering arms and sheltering wings of these [foreign] societies. Thus dis- honesty stalks abroad under the semblance of piety; and impiety assumes the appearance of religion for the sake of gain. And … this extravagant manner of living…are made in the minds of many the standard of respectability…we attach more importance to display than to reality. There is very little that is substantial about us… * * * …It is our duty to learn that there are other objects of infinitely greater importance than wealth in our rising country…A higher destiny is ours: our duty and privilege is the laying of the foundation of future empires in Africa… … It is our duty to curtail our superfluous expenditures. There should be retrenchment of our expenditures for splendid edifices….Let our surplus means be beneficially expended; let it be vested in the improvement of our country, in placing our prosperity upon a safer and more permanent foundation—in rendering ourselves independent… … It is our duty to labor. We dwell in a country rich in resources, which with little exertion can be called forth in sufficient variety and abundance to render us comfortable and independent. But there is a fatal lack of productive industry among us…. The commerce of the country has always been in such articles as our citizens have had no part in producing; hence we acquire wealth from this source without helping to create it. We purchase the palm oil and camwood and ivory from the natives giving them in exchange articles of foreign production …. The prosperity arising from our commerce is almost as evanescent as that based on missionary appropriations. Foreigners on the one hand, and the natives on the other, are our supporters. * * * … we must either abandon our state of utter dependency upon foreigners, by creating the means of supplying our own wants, or relinquish our profession of liberty as a nation. A state of dependency is entirely incongruous with a state of liberty…. …The…rich and fertile soil…invites us to its cultivation. Nothing should be allowed to interfere between us and the soil…

Maria W. Stewart's 1833 Speech to the African Masonic Hall in Boston

2017-02-27T03:20:00.001-08:00

On February 27, 1833, the African-American activist and slavery abolitionist, Maria W. Stewart delivers a speech at the African Masonic Hall in Boston, Massachusetts titled "On African Rights and Liberty". Stewart is known in history as the first woman -- of any race -- to give public lectures in the United States. This is one of four speeches that confirms Stewart's place in history. The focus of her lectures encouraged African-Americans to reach for education and political rights.

African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States, and excite in his bosom a lively, deep, decided and heart-felt interest. When I cast my eyes on the long list of illustrious names that are enrolled on the bright annals of fame among the whites, I turn my eyes within, and ask my thoughts, "Where are the names of our illustrious ones?" It must certainly have been for the want of energy on the part of the free people of color, that they have been long willing to bear the yoke of oppression. It must have been the want of ambition and force that has given the whites occasion to say, that our natural abilities are not as good, and our capacities by nature inferior to theirs. They boldly assert, that, did we possess a natural independence of soul, and feel a love for liberty within our breasts, some one of our sable race, long before this, would have testified it, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which we labor. We have made ourselves appear altogether unqualified to speak in our own defense, and are therefore looked upon as objects of pity and commiseration. We have been imposed upon, insulted and derided on every side; and now, if we complain, it is considered as the height of impertinence. We have suffered ourselves to be considered as Bastards, cowards, mean, faint-hearted wretches; and on this account, (not because of our complexion) many despise us, and would gladly spurn us from their presence.

These things have fired my soul with a holy indignation, and compelled me thus to come forward; and endeavor to turn their attention to knowledge and improvement; for knowledge is power. I would ask, is it blindness of mind, or at stupidity of soul, or the want of education, that has caused our men who are 60 to 70 years of age, never to let their voices be heard, or nor their hands be raised in behalf of their color? Or has it been for the fear of offering the whites? If it has, O ye fearful ones, throw of your fearfulness, and come forth in the name of the Lord, and in the strength of the God of Justice, and make yourselves useful and active members in society; for they admire a noble and patriotic spirit in others; and should they not admire it in us? If you are men, convince them that you possess the spirit of men; and as your day, so shall your strength be. Have the sons of Africa no souls? feel they no ambitious desires? shall the chains of ignorance forever confine them? shall the insipid appellation of "clever negroes," or "good creatures," any longer content them? Where can we find among ourselves the man of science, or a philosopher, or an able statesman, or a counsellor at law? Show me our fearless and brave, our noble and gallant ones. Where are our lecturers on natural history, and our critics in useful knowledge? There may be a few such men among us, but they are rare. It is true, our fathers bled and died in the revolutionary war, and others fought bravely under the command of Jackson, in defense of liberty. But where is the man that has distinguished himself in these modern days by acting wholly in the defense of African rights and liberty? There was one, although he sleeps, his memory lives.

I am sensible that there are many highly intelligent gentlemen of color in those United States, in the force of whose arguments, doubtless, I should discover my inferiority; but if they are blest with wit and talent, friends and fortune, why have they not made themselves men of eminence, by striving to take all the reproach that is cast upon the people of color, and in endeavoring to alleviate the woes of their brethren in bondage? Talk, without effort, is nothing; you are abundantly capable, gentlemen, of making yourselves men of distinction; and this gross neglect, on your part, causes my blood to boil within me. Here is the grand cause which hinders the rise and progress of the people of color. It is their want of laudable ambition and requisite courage.

Individuals have been distinguished according to their genius and talents, ever since the first formation of man, and will continue to be while the world stands. The different grades rise to honor and respectability as their merits may deserve. History informs us that we sprung from one of the most learned nations of the whole earth; from the seat, if not the parent of science; yes, poor, despised Africa was once the resort of sages and legislators of other nations, was esteemed the school for learning, and the most illustrious men in Greece flocked thither for instruction. But it was our gross sins and abominations that provoked the Almighty to frown thus heavily upon us, and give our glory unto others. Sin and prodigality have caused the downfall of nations, kings and emperors; and were it not that God in wrath remembers mercy; we might indeed despair; but a promise is left us; "Ethiopia shall again stretch forth her hands unto God."

But it is of no use for us to boast that we sprung from this learned and enlightened nation, for this day a thick mist of moral gloom hangs over millions of our race. Our condition as a people has been low for hundreds of years, and it will continue to be so, unless, by true piety and virtue, we strive to regain that which we have lost. White Americans, by their prudence, economy and exertions, have sprung up and become one of the most flourishing nations in the world, distinguished for their knowledge of the arts and sciences, for their polite literature. While our minds are vacant, and starving for want of knowledge, theirs are filled to overflowing. Most of our color have been taught to stand in fear of the white man, from their earliest infancy, to work as soon as they could walk, and call "master," before they scarce could lisp the name of mother . Continual fear and laborious servitude have in some degree lessened in us that natural force and energy which belong to man; or else, in defiance of opposition, our men, before this, would have nobly and boldly contended for their rights. But give the man of color an equal opportunity with the white from the cradle to manhood, and from manhood to the grave, and you would discover the dignified statesman, the man of science, and the philosopher. But there is no such opportunity for the sons of Africa, and I fear that our powerful one's are fully determined that there never shall be. For bid, ye Powers on high, that it should any longer be said that our men possess no force. O ye sons of Africa, when will your voices be heard in our legislative halls, in defiance of your enemies, contending for equal rights and liberty? How can you, when you reflect from what you have fallen, refrain from crying mightily unto God, to turn away from us the fierceness of his anger, and remember our transgressions against us no more forever. But a God of infinite purity will not regard the prayers of those who hold religion in one hand, and prejudice, sin and pollution in the other; he will not regard the prayers of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Is it possible, I exclaim, that for the want of knowledge, we have labored for hundreds of years to support others, and been content to receive what they chose to give us in return? Cast your eyes about, look as far as you can see; all, all is owned by the lordly white, except here and there a lowly dwelling which the man of color, midst deprivations, fraud and opposition, has been scarce able to procure. Like king Solomon, who put neither nail nor hammer to the temple, yet received the praise; so also have the white Americans gained themselves a name, like the names of the great men that are in the earth, while in reality we have been their principal foundation and support. We have pursued the shadow, they have obtained the substance; we have performed the labor they have received the profits; we have planted the vines, they have eaten the fruits of them.

I would implore our men, and especially our rising youth, to flee from the gambling board and the dance-hall; for we are poor, and have no money to throw away. I do not consider dancing as criminal in itself, but it is astonishing to me that our young men are so blind to their own interest and the future welfare of their children, as to spend their hard earnings for this frivolous amusement; for it has been carried on among us to such an unbecoming extent, that it has became absolutely disgusting. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Had those men among us, who have had an opportunity, turned their attention as assiduously to mental and moral improvement as they have to gambling and dancing, I might have remained quietly at home, and they stood contending in my place. These polite accomplishments will never enroll your names on the bright annals of tune, who admire the belle void of intellectual knowledge, or applaud the dandy that talks largely on politics, without striving to assist his fellow in the revolution, when the nerves and muscles of every other man forced him into the field of action. You have a right to rejoice, and to let your hearts cheer you in the days of your youth; yet remember that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. Then, O ye sons of Africa, turn your mind from these perishable objects, and contend for the cause of God and the rights of man. Form yourselves into temperance societies. There are temperate men among you; then why will you any longer neglect to strive, by your example, to suppress vice in all its abhorrent forms? You have been told repeatedly of the glorious results arising from temperance, and can you bear to see the whites arising in honor and respectability, without endeavoring to grasp after that honor and respectability also?

But I forbear. Let our money, instead of being thrown away as heretofore, be appropriated for schools and seminaries of learning for our children and youth. We ought to follow the example of the whites in this respect. Nothing would raise our respectability, add to our peace and happiness, and reflect so much honor upon us, as to be ourselves the promoters of temperance, and the supporters, as far as we are able, of useful and scientific knowledge. The rays of light and knowledge have been hid from our view; we have been taught to consider ourselves as scarce superior to the brute creation; and have performed the most laborious part of American drudgery. Had we as a people received, one half the early advantages the whites have received, I would defy the government of these United States to deprive us any longer of our rights.

I am informed that the agent of the Colonization Society has recently formed an association of young men, for the purpose of influencing those of us to go to Liberia who may feel disposed. The colonizationists are blind to their own interest, for should the nations of the earth make war with America, they would find their forces much weakened by our absence; or should we remain here, can our "brave soldiers," and "fellow-citizens," as they were termed in time of calamity, condescend to defend the rights of the whites, and be again deprived of their own, or sent to Liberia in return? Or, if the colonizationists are real friends to Africa, let them expend the money which they collect, in erecting a college to educate her injured sons in this land of gospel light and liberty; for it would be most thankfully received on our part, and convince us of the truth of their professions, and save time, expense and anxiety. Let them place before us noble objects, worthy of pursuit, and see if we prove ourselves to be those unambitious negroes they term us. But ah! methinks their hearts are so frozen towards us, they had rather their money should be sunk in the ocean than to administer it to our relief; and I fear, if they dared, like Pharaoh, king of Egypt, they would order every male child among us to be drowned. But the most high God is still as able to subdue the lofty pride of these white Americans, as He was the heart of that ancient rebel. They say, though we are looked upon as things, yet we sprang from a scientific people. Had our men the requisite force and energy, they would soon convince them by their efforts both in public and private, that they were men, or things in the shape of men. Well may the colonizationists laugh us to scorn for our negligence; well may they cry, "Shame to the sons of Africa." As the burden of the Israelites was too great for Moses to bear, so also is our burden too great for Moses to bear, so also is our burden too great for our noble advocate to bear. You must feel interested, my brethren, in what he undertakes, and hold up his hands by your good works, or in spite of himself, his soul will become discouraged, and his heart will die within him; for he has, as it were, the strong bulls of Bashan to contend with.

It is of no use for us to wait any longer for a generation of well educated men to arise. We have slumbered and slept too long already; the day is far spent; the night of death approaches; and you have sound sense and good judgement sufficient to begin with, if you feel disposed to make a right use of it. Let every man of color throughout the United States, who possesses the spirit and principles of a man, sign a petition to Congress, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and grant you the rights and privileges of common free citizens; for if you had had faith as a grain of mustard seed, long before this the mountains of prejudice might have been removed. We are all sensible that the Anti-Slavery Society has taken hold of the arm of our whole population, in' order to raise them out of the mire. Now all we have to do is, by a spirit of virtuous ambition to strive to raise ourselves; and I am happy to have it in my power thus publicly to say, that the colored inhabitants of this city, in some respects, are beginning to improve. Had the free people of color in these United States nobly and boldly contended for their rights, and showed a natural genius and talent, although not so brilliant as some; had they help up, encouraged and patronized each other, nothing could have hindered us from being a thriving and flourishing people. There has been a fault among us. The reason why our distinguished men have not made themselves more influential is, because they fear that the strong current of opposition through which they must pass, would cause their downfall and prove their overthrew. And what gives rise to this opposition? Envy. And what has it amounted to? Nothing. And who are the cause of it? Our whited sepulchers, who want to be great, and don't know how; who love to be called of men 'Rabbi, Rabbi, who put on false sanctity, and humble themselves to their brethren, for the sake of acquiring the highest place in the synagogue, and the uppermost seats at the feast. You, dearly beloved, who are the genuine followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, are not so culpable. As I told you, in the very first of my writing, I tell you again, I am but as a drop in the bucket — as one particle of the small dust of the earth. God will surely raise up those among us who will plead the cause of virtue, and the pure principles of morality, more eloquently than I am able to do.

It appears to me that America has become like the great city of Babylon, for she has boasted in her heart, — I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow? She is indeed a seller of slaves and the souls of men; she has made the Africans drunk with the wine of her fornication; she has put them completely beneath her feet, and she means to keep them there; her right hand supports the reins of government, and her left hand the wheel of power, and she is determined not to let go her grasp. But many powerful sons and daughters of Africa will shortly arise, who will put down vice and immorality among us, and declare by Him that sitteth upon the throne, that they will have their rights; and if refused,' I am afraid they will spread horror and devastation around. I believe that the oppression of injured Africa has come up before the Majesty of Heaven; and when our cries shall have reached the ears of the Most High, it will be a tremendous day for the people of this land; for strong is the arm of the Lord God Almighty.

Life has almost lost its charms for me; death has lost its sting and the grave its terrors; and at times I have a strong desire to depart and dwell with Christ, which is far better. Let me entreat my white brethren to awake and save our sons from dissipation, and our daughters from ruin. Lend the hand of assistance to feeble merit, plead the cause of virtue among our sable race; so shall our curses upon you be turned into blessings; and though you should endeavor to drive us from these shores, still we will cling to you the more firmly; nor will we attempt to rise above you: we will presume to be called your equals only.

The unfriendly whites first drove the native American from his much loved home. Then they stole our fathers from their peaceful and quiet dwellings, and brought them hither, and made bond-men and bond-women of them and their little ones; they have obliged our brethren to labor, kept them in utter ignorance, nourished them in vice, and raised them in degradation; and now that we have enriched their soil, and filled their coffers, they say that we are not capable of becoming like white men, and that we never can rise to respectability in this country. They would drive us to a strange land. But before I go, the bayonet shall pierce me through. African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man of color in these United States, and excite in his bosom a lively, deep, decided and heart-felt interest.

Reverend Absalom Jones and the Early U.S. Anti-Slavery Resistance

2017-01-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Absalom Jones was born into U.S. slavery at Sussex, Delaware on November 7, 1756. His mother and father were separated from him when he was sold and they were taken together Pennsylvania. He taught himself to read and was allowed to marry. Remarkably, he purchased his wife's freedom in 1778 in order that their children would be free. By 1784, Jones had purchased his freedom. Three years later, in 1787, with Richard Allen, Jones established the Free African Society, a mutual aid society.

In 1793, the Fugitive Slave Act was established in the United States to aid slave owners in recovering those enslaved persons of African descent who escaped captivity. On January 2, 1800, Jones led a group of free Africans living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in presenting a petition to the U.S. Congress calling for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as to act to end the robust slave trade of Africans to the United States.

The U.S. House voted 85-1 to reject the petition. Who was the lone voice of dissent against slavery? Massachusetts Congressman George Thacher opposed the movement in overwhelming opposition to the petition by his political colleagues. Thacher condemned slavery as "a cancer of immense magnitude, that would sometime destroy the body politic, except a proper legislation should prevent the evil."

Fugitive Slave Act was enforced by U.S. Marshals

In contrast, South Carolinia Congressman John Rutledge, Jr. comments in support of the all-white male institution's action defeating the efforts of the anti-slavery petition was that “this new fangled French philosophy of liberty and equality” would not be heard among the men, most of whom were owners of enslaved Africans.

Against the backdrop of a slave society that was formally enforced by a legal system willing to play an active role in policing runaway slaves, in 1816, Rev. Jones would remain an active abolitionist. In 1816, he formed the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) church and became the first American of African descent to be ordained as a minister in the Methodist church.

But the early resistance was already on record. The trajectory of change had been marked. After the 1793 Haitian Revolution, rumors of slave rebellions in the U.S. abound as thousands of Haitian refugees began to flood American ports in such places as New Orleans. In fact, one day prior to the presentation of the anti-slavery petition, on January 1, 1800, Gabriel Prosser had conspired to seize Richmond, Virginia with a force of over 1,000 enslaved Africans. The plan was uncovered before it could be unleashed on Richmond's slaveholding residents. Afterwards, public executions and the deportation of nearly a dozen Africans to the West Indies would occur.

Additionally, in 1800, the same year the anti-slavery petition was presented and defeated, two abolitionists were born, Nat Turner and John Brown. While the slave-based economy of the U.S. would continue for many decades afterward, the later military actions of the abolitionists, Turner and Brown, would continue the inevitable trajectory towards freedom that would ultlimately lead to the U.S. Civil War and end of slavery in 1865.

The actions of great leaders like Rev. Absalom Jones must not be forgotten by the generations of African Americans who now enjoy freedom from physical slavery. The works of these great leaders must serve as inspiration and lessons in resistance to all forms of injustice -- however uniquely framed. The struggle for justice in the United States has never been achieved through passive engagement or simply by by petitioning those who wield the hammer of injustice. “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” said Frederick Douglass, “it never has and it never will.”

Sadie Alexander: An Early African-American Lawyer and Civil Rights Activist

2016-11-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

Sadie Tenner Mossell Alexander (b. 1/2/1898 - d. 11/1/1989)

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander accomplished many "firsts" in her lifetime. Born January 2, 1898 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Alexander would go on to become the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Economics and the first African-American woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and become a Pennsylvania lawyer.

Born Sadie Tanner into a prominent African-American family, she grew up in the home of her uncle Henry Ossawa Tanner, the internationally renowned painter. Her grandfather was Benjamin Tucker Tanner, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church and editor of both the African Methodist Episcopal Review (1884-1888) and the Christian Record (1868-1884). Aaron Albert Mossell, her father, was a graduate of Lincoln University and the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1888. Louis Baxter Moore, her uncle, was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Henry Ossawa Tanner

Sadie Tanner attended high school at the famous M Street High School in Washington D.C., which was later named Dunbar High School. She was encouraged by her mother and the historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson to continue her education. She was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania and by 1918, she received a Bachelors of Science degree in Education with honors. In 1919, she received a Masters of Art degree in Economics. By 1921, she received a Ph.D. in Economics from the Wharton School of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, becoming the first woman of African descent to receive a Ph.D. in Economics. Active in the leadership of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, community development issues were very important to Alexander. This was reflected in the topic of her doctoral dissertation: "The Standard of Living Among One Hundred Negro Migrant Families in Philadelphia."

Alexander with sisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Alexander became an actuary with the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, a Black-owned insurance company in the then booming Black Wall Street in Durham, North Carolina. In 1923, Alexander married Raymond Pace Alexander, an alumni of Harvard Law School and recently barred as an attorney in Pennsylvania. Shortly after marrying Raymond Pace Alexander, she returned to school to study law.

By 1927, Alexander became the first African-American woman to receive an L.L.B. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was also admitted to Pennsylvania State Bar as an attorney. Alexander was joining a tradition started by Lutie Lytle, the first African-American woman lawyer in the United States. Attorney Lytle had received her law degree in 1897 from the Tennessee Law School.

"The heyday was Reconstruction, really," states law professor Judith Kilpatrick, author of the Arkansas Law Review "(Extra)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950," speaking on the practice of law by African Americans before and after Reconstruction, a brief historical period immediately proceeding the end of the U.S. Civil War. By 1890, like many other states, Arkansas began to pass laws "that forced Black people out of public office and made it impossible to vote," says Kilpatrick.

Attorney Sadie Alexender

By the time Alexander joined her husband's law firm, African American lawyers were faced with significant state-imposed legal challenges to the civil rights secured after the U.S. Civil War. Together with her husband, Alexander challenged Jim Crow laws, fighting against segregation and discrimination in Philadelphia's restaurants, hotels, and theaters. She was the first African-American woman to serve as assistant city solicitor of Philadelphia, and was elected secretary of the National Bar Association in 1943, the first woman to hold a national office in the NBA.

'Black professional women may shed light on the unique experience of a group that has conquered double discrimination," states McLean Tobin, author of The Black Female Ph.D. "In most cases being both Black and female produces a defeating situation. Sadie Alexander overcame this 'double jeopardy,' and paved the way for her sisters to pursue doctoral degrees."

In 1947, U.S. President Harry S. Truman appointed Alexander to the President's Committee on Civil Rights. During her tenure under this federal appointment, the report "To Secure These Rights", became the basis for future civil right policy making. In 1959, Alexander opened her own law office and practiced there for nearly 20 years. In 1974, Alexander received a fifth degree from the University of Pennsylvania, an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. By 1976, she closed her law office and joined the law firm of Atkinson, Myers and Archie. She maintained an active membership in nearly three dozen local and national civic organizations while practicing law. On November 1, 1989, attorney Alexander died at the age of 91 in her beloved Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Banneker's 1791 Letter to Thomas Jefferson; Jefferson's Reply

2016-08-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

First published in 1791, Benjamin Banneker's
almanacs were widely distributed publications.

Benjamin Banneker (b. 11/9/1731, Maryland – d. 10/9/1806) was an astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, farmer, author of almanacs and one of the three city surveyors for Washington D.C. As a country, the U.S. was not quite 20 years old when Banneker was appointed city planner to the District of Columbia by U.S. President George Washington. Banneker's 1793 almanac contained what would be the earliest known policing plan for the new nation -- which had just won its freedom from Britain, titled "A Plan of Peace-office for the United States." Benjamin Banneker certainly had many successes and he did not allow the prosperity of his personal estate to dictate his politics. An record of human rights activism in the British colonies and early nation could easily include his writings. A vocal anti-slavery activist, Banneker publicly deplored the treatment of Negroes in the United States of America, as illustrated in his letter to Thomas Jefferson -- penned August of 1791, nearly 10 years before Jefferson was elected to the U.S. presidency.

BENJAMIN BANNEKER'S LETTER TO THOMAS JEFFERSON (August 1791)

I am fully sensible of that freedom, which I take with you in the present occasion, a liberty which seemed to me scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished and dignified station in which you stand, and the almost general prejudice and prepossession, which is so prevalent in world against those of my complexion.

I suppose it is truth too well attested . . . to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments.

Sir, I hope I may safely admit . . . that you are a man less inflexible in sentiments of this nature, than many others; that you are measurably friendly, and well disposed towards us; and that you are willing and ready to lend your aid and assistance to our relief, from those many distresses, and numerous calamities to which we are reduced.

. . . if this is founded in truth, I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions, which so generally prevails with respect to us; and that your sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are, that one universal Father hath given being to us all; and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties; and that however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or color, we are all in the same family and stand in the same relation to him.

. . . if these are sentiments of which you are fully persuaded, I hope you cannot but acknowledge, that it is the indispensable duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under . . .

. . . I have long been convinced, that if your love . . . for those inestimable laws, which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof; neither could you rest satisfied short of the most active effusion of your exertions, in order to the promotion from any state of degradation, to which the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.

. . . I freely and cheerfully acknowledge, that I am of the African race, and that color which is natural to them of the deepest dye; and it is under a sense of the most profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, that I now confess to you that I am not under that state of tyrannical thraldom, and inhuman captivity, to which too many of my brethren are doomed, but that I have abundantly tasted of the fruition of those blessings, which proceed from that free and unequalled liberty with which you are favored; and which, I hope, you will willingly allow you have mercifully received, from the immediate hand of that Being, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect Gift.

. . . suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms and tyranny of the British crown were exerted . . . in order to reduce you to a state of servitude: look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; reflect on that time, in which every human aid appeared unavailable, in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your miraculous and providential preservation; you cannot but acknowledge, that the present freedom and tranquility . . . is the peculiar blessing of Heaven.

This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horror of its condition. . . . your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

. . . tender feelings for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity, and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.

. . . I suppose that your knowledge of the situation of my brethren, is too extensive to need a recital here; neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which they may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and as Job proposed to his friends, 'put your soul in their souls' stead'; thus shall your hearts be enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards them; and thus shall you need neither the direction of myself or others, in what manner to proceed herein.

And now, Sir, although my sympathy and affection for my brethren hath caused my enlargement thus far, I ardently hope, that your candor and generosity will plead with you in my behalf, when I make known to you, that it was not originally my design; but having taken up my pen in order to direct to you, as a present, a copy of my Almanac, which I have calculated for the succeeding year, I was unexpectedly and unavoidably led thereto.

This calculation . . . is the product of my arduous study, in this most advanced stage of life; for having long had unbounded desires to become acquainted with the secrets of nature, I have had to gratify my curiosity herein through my own assiduous application to Astronomical Study, in which I need not recount to you the many difficulties and disadvantages which I have had to encounter.

And although I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year . . . yet finding myself under several engagements to Printers of this State, to whom I had communicated my design, on my return to my place of residence, I industriously applied myself thereto, which I hope I have accomplished with correctness and accuracy; a copy of which I have taken the liberty to direct to you, and which I humbly request you will favorably receive; . . . I choose to send it to you in manuscript . . . that thereby you might not only have an earlier inspection, but that you might also view it in my own hand writing.

JEFFERSON'S REPLY TO BANNEKER (August 30, 1791, Philadelphia)

Sir --

-- I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the Almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colours of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America. I can add with truth that no one wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit. I have take the liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of Society; because I considered it a document to which your whole colour had a right for their justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

I am, with great esteem, sir, your most obedient servant,

THO. JEFFERSON