heroes that walked among us

We would love to take the time to honor our Heroes "That Walked Among Us". Remembering all of our heroes and giving them the full credit they deserve. Enjoy your time at our museum and let us know in the Virtual Village your thoughts. Thank You!

*NOTE*

UNMUTE the video to hear the audio. Thank You!

HEADWINDS - EARLY PIONEERS

click each photo below to read their story!

The birth of aviation in the United States coincided with the era of Jim Crow, a climate of formal and informal racial discrimination. African Americans — as a group — found themselves excluded from most spheres of modern technology and from this new exciting realm of aviation. One young woman from Chicago broke this barrier of racial prejudices.

Bessie Coleman became one of the first African Americans to earn a pilot's license and to seek a career in aviation. She was joined by a small but growing number of air enthusiasts who shared her dream.

Visionary William J. Powell Jr. wrote the book, Black Wings, and organized a flying club in Los Angeles. James Herman Banning established impressive records as a long-distance flyer. Cornelius Coffey forged a new center for black aviators in Chicago.

famous black mathematicians

click each photo below to read their story!

Happy Juneteenth! On June 19, 1865, enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay, TX were notified that they, along with the more than 250,000 other enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree.

The contributions of African Americans throughout our nation’s history are numerous and significant. Today, we want to highlight and celebrate the Black mathematicians who have greatly impacted our nation and the future of mathematics.

major lynchings in the united states

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Lynching has been a major component of racial violence in the United States since the end of the Civil War. While Americans of every racial background have been subjected to this violence, a disproportionate number of lynchings have been in the U.S. South and most of the victims were African American women, men, and children.

This page brings together a variety of information on lynchings of blacks in the U.S. It includes an overview of black lynchings by the Equal Justice Initiative titled, Lynching in America, which with its listing of over 4,000 murders, is the most comprehensive report on lynching now available. The page also includes individual descriptions of some of the most horrific lynchings, documents from the campaign to end lynching, and a bibliography of the major works on the subject.

lynching in america

Racial terror lynchings were not limited to the South, but the Southern states had the most in the nation: over 4,oo between 1877 and 1950. Click on the map to check out a Virtual Interactive map of locations, number of lynchings in the state, and information!

famous speeches

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If I had a thousand tongues and each tongue were a thousand thunderbolts and each thunderbolt had a thousand voices, I would use them all today to help you understand a loyal and misrepresented and misjudged people.” These were the words of Joseph C. Price, founder and President of Livingston

College in North Carolina, who in 1890 delivered an address to the National Education Association annual convention held in Minneapolis. Price’s words reflect on the long tradition of African American oratory. Listed below are some of the most significant orations by African Americans with links to the actual speeches.

primary documents

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The following are documents which have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These documents are a starting point for additional research and discussions that help further our understanding of the history of people of African ancestry in the United States.

Capitals of All 53 Independent African Nations

Listed below are the capitals of all 53 independent African Nations. We believe this is the only such list and historical profile of these capitals on the Internet. We have also listed the capitals of majority-black nations in Latin America and the West Indies.

nation names

Abuja, Nigeria - Accra, Ghana - Addis Abba, Ethiopia - Algiers, Algeria - Antananarivo, Madagascar
Asmera, Eritrea - Bamako, Mali - Bangui, Central African Republic
Banjul, Gambia - Bissau, Guinea-Bissau - Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo

- Bujumbura, Burundi - Cairo, Egypt - Conakry, Guinea - Dakar, Senegal
- Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - Djibouti City, Djibouti - Freetown, Sierra Leone - Gaborone, Botswana
- Harare, Zimbabwe - Juba, South Sudan - Kampala, Uganda - Khartoum, Sudan
- Kigali, Rwanda - Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo - Libreville, Gabon
- Lilongwe, Malawi - Lome, Togo - Luanda, Angola - Lusaka, Zambia
- Malabo, Equatorial Guinea - Maputo, Mozambique - Maseru, Lesotho - Mbabane, Swaziland
- Mogadishu, Somalia - Monrovia, Liberia - Moroni, Comoros - Nairobi, Kenya
- N’Djamena, Chad - Niamey, Niger - Nouakchott, Mauritania - Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
- Port Louis, Mauritius - Pretoria, South Africa - Porto Novo, Benin - Praia, Cape Verde
- Rabat, Morocco - Tripoli, Libya - Tunis, Tunisia - Victoria, Seychelles
- Windhoek, Namibia - Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire - Yaoundé, Cameroon

THE NEGRO BASEBALL LEAGUES, 1920-1950

1924-Negro-League-World-Series-Teams-Kan

In 1920 the Negro National League was formed by Andrew “Rube” Foster, a former player and manager for various teams. Taking advantage of the growth of the Black Northern urban populations during and following World War I, and insisting on Black ownership of the teams, Foster lead a group of team owners to create the Negro National League (NNL) in Kansas City, Missouri on February 14, 1920. The league initially had eight teams: The Chicago American Giants, the Chicago Giants, the Cuban Stars (New York), the Dayton (Ohio) Marcos, the Detroit Stars, the Indianapolis ABC’s, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the St. Louis Giants. The NNL was soon followed in 1923 by a rival league, the Eastern Colored League. Between 1924 and 1927 the two leagues met in a world series but the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 forced both leagues to fold. Teams emerged in the South as well including the Memphis Red Sox, the Birmingham Black Barons, the Atlanta Black Crackers, and the Jacksonville Red Caps.

Black professional baseball, however, continued. Between 1931 and 1937 a number of teams were formed and then disbanded. The only survivors were the teams in the new Negro National League which operated from 1933 to 1936. Black players competed abroad often on teams in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela

In 1937, two regional leagues were formed, the Negro American League in the East and the reformulated Negro National League in the West. Beginning in 1937 the winners of each league met in a world series of Black baseball. These leagues continued during World War II, but in late 1945 Jackie Robinson, who had played one season with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro Leagues, signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization. By 1947, after a year in the minor league, Robinson became the first Black player in Major League Baseball since 1888. After Robinson signed with the Dodgers, other (white) major league teams began signing many of the stars of the Black baseball leagues. By the end of 1950 most of the the Black professional baseball leagues had disbanded although the Indianapolis Clowns, the inspiration for the 1976 film, The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings, continued playing until 1989. In all, approximately 3,400 players were part of the seven leagues operating between 1920 and 1950.

American All-Stars, 1945 on Tour in Caracas, Venezuela. Jackie Robinson, Far Left Front Row, Roy Campanella, Second From Left, Back RowDuring this centennial year, 2020, BlackPast is dedicating this page to the memory of the Negro National League and the other leagues that became Black professional baseball in the early decades of the 20th Century. We have assembled below profiles of many of the star players, the teams, and the owners. We have also added the names of often overlooked women professional baseball players of that era. If there are players, teams, or African American owners not linked here please let us know at brothersforum17@gmail.com

black teams before 1920

global african history

The following are short descriptions of the women and men who have contributed to the shaping of Global African history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources. For additional information please consult the print or website sources cited in the entry.

RACE, CRIME, AND INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Juvenile_convict_prison_laborers_United_

Race, crime, and incarceration have long been linked in the United States. This page explores its various manifestations including African American participation in organized crime including in particular the rise of gangs and gang violence, African Americans and the prison system, its impact on black life, and the people and organizations engaged in challenging and changing that system. As with our pages on Black Lives Matter and Racial Violence in the United States, we are constantly updating and invite you to make suggestions on other examples that should be included. Please send them to the Heroes Museum in our Virtual Village section.

Outlaws, Gangsters, and Gangs, Old and New:

Perspectives

Perspectives on African American History features accounts and descriptions of important but little known events in African American history recalled often by those who were witnesses or participants or viewpoints about historical developments shaping the contemporary black world.

101 AFRICAN AMERICAN FIRSTS

African American history is about much more than chronicling a series of “firsts.” The time and place of a breakthrough reflects not only remarkable individual achievement but is itself an indication of the progress or lack of progress of black people in realizing the centuries-old intertwined goals of freedom, equality, and justice.

African-American Firsts: Art and Literature

African-American Firsts: Government

Poet: Lucy Terry, 1746.
Published autobiography: Briton Hammon, 1760.
Poet (published): Phillis Wheatley, 1773.
Recognized artist: Joshua Johnston, 1790, portraiture.
Woman’s autobiography: Jarena Lee, 1831.
Male Novelist: William Wells Brown, 1853.
Woman novelist, Harriett Wilson, 1859.
Recognized photographer: James Conway Farley, 1885
Pulitzer prize winner:Gwendolyn Brooks, 1950.
Pulitzer prize winner in Drama: Charles Gordone, 1970
Poet Laureate: Robert Hayden, 1976.

Toni Morrison Image Courtesy of Timothy Greenfied-Sanders
Nobel Prize for Literature winner: Toni Morrison, 1993.
Woman Poet Laureate: Rita Dove, 1993.

African-American Firsts: Music and Dance

Published musical composition: Francis Johnson, 1817.
Theatrical company: The African Company, 1821.
Nationally recognized dance performer: William Henry Lane (Master Juba), 1845.
Member of the New York City Opera: Todd Duncan, 1945.
Member of the Metropolitan Opera Company: Marian Anderson, 1955.
Marian Anderson
Image Ownership: Public Domain
Male Grammy Award winner: Count Basie, 1958.
Woman Grammy Award winner: Ella Fitzgerald, 1958.
Principal dancer in a major dance company: Arthur Mitchell, 1959, New York City Ballet.

Officeholder in colonial America: Matthias de Souza, 1641
State elected official: Alexander Lucius Twilight, 1836.
Municipal elected official: John Mercer Langston, 1855.
County sheriff: Walter Burton, 1869.
State Supreme Court Justice: Jonathan Jasper Wright, 1870.
City mayor: Pierre Caliste Landry, 1868.
U.S. Representative: Joseph Rainey,1870.
U.S. Senator (appointed): Hiram Revels, 1870.
Governor (appointed): P.B.S. Pinchback, 1872.
Person to run for the presidency: George Edwin Taylor, 1904.
Woman legislator: Crystal Bird Fauset, 1938.
Woman Head of Peace Corps: Carolyn L. Robertson Payton, 1964.
U.S Senator (elected) Edward Brooke, 1966.
U.S. cabinet member: Robert C. Weaver, 1966.
Mayor of major city: Carl Stokes, 1967.
Woman U.S. Representative: Shirley Chisholm, 1969.
Woman cabinet officer: Patricia Harris, 1977.
Governor (elected): L. Douglas Wilder, 1989.
Woman mayor of a major U.S. city: Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly, 1991.
Woman U.S. Senator: Carol Mosely Braun, 1992.
U.S. Secretary of State: Colin Powell, 2001.
Woman Secretary of State: Condoleezza Rice, 2005.
Condoleeza Rice
Image Ownership: Public Domain
Major party nominee for President: Sen. Barack Obama, 2008.
U.S. President: Barack Obama, 2009.
Woman U.S. Attorney General: Loretta E. Lynch, 2015.

African-American Firsts: Military

U.S Army unit to have black men comprise more than half of its troops: 1st Rhode Island Regiment, 1778.
Commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy: Robert Smalls, 1863.
Commissioned officer above the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army: Major Martin R. Delany, 1865.
West Point graduate: Henry O. Flipper, 1877.
Graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy: Wesley A. Brown, 1949.
Congressional Medal of Honor winner: Sgt. William H. Carney, 1900.
Eugene Jacques Bullard Image Ownership: Public Domain
Combat pilot: Eugene Jacques Bullard, 1917.
General: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., 1940.
Woman general: Hazel W. Johnson, 1979.
Woman to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy: Janie L. Mines, 1980.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Colin Powell, 1989–1993.
Woman Rear Admiral in the United States Navy: Lillian Fishburne, 1998.

African-American Firsts: Science

Patent holder: Thomas L. Jennings, 1821.
Woman patent holder: Judy Reed, 1884.
Member of the National Academy of Sciences: David Harold Blackwell, 1965.
Astronaut: Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., 1967.
Astronaut to travel in space: Guion Bluford, 1983.
Head of the National Science Foundation: Walter E. Massey, 1990.
Woman astronaut: Mae Jemison, 1992.
Space Shuttle Commander: Frederick D. Gregory, 1998

African-American Firsts: Film and Theater

African-American Firsts: Law

African-American Firsts: Science

Published musical composition: Francis Johnson, 1817.
Theatrical company: The African Company, 1821.
Nationally recognized dance performer: William Henry Lane (Master Juba), 1845.
Member of the New York City Opera: Todd Duncan, 1945.
Member of the Metropolitan Opera Company: Marian Anderson, 1955.
Marian Anderson
Image Ownership: Public Domain
Male Grammy Award winner: Count Basie, 1958.
Woman Grammy Award winner: Ella Fitzgerald, 1958.
Principal dancer in a major dance company: Arthur Mitchell, 1959, New York City Ballet.

Elected municipal judge: Mifflin W. Gibbs, 1873
Editor, Harvard Law Review: Charles Hamilton Houston, 1919.
Federal Judge: William Henry Hastie, 1946.
Woman federal judge: Constance Baker Motley, 1966.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice: Thurgood Marshall, 1967.
President of the American Bar Association: Dennis Archer, 2002.

African-American Firsts: Diplomacy

Hospital dedicated to black patient care: The Georgia Infirmary, 1832.
M.D. degree: James McCune Smith, 1837.
M.D. degree from a U.S. Medical School: David Jones Peck, 1847.
Woman to receive an M.D. degree: Rebecca Lee Crumpler, 1864.
Female Dental Surgeon: Ida Gray Nelson Rollins, 1890.
Black-owned hospital: Provident Hospital founded by Daniel Hale Williams, 1891.
Heart surgery pioneer: Daniel Hale Williams, 1893.

U.S. ambassador: Ebenezer D. Bassett, 1869.
Nobel Peace Prize winner: Ralph J. Bunche, 1950.
Woman U.S. ambassador:Patricia Harris, 1965.
U.S. Representative to the UN: Andrew Young, 1977.

26 Little-Known Black History Facts

From the hidden figures that made an impact, essential Black inventors, change-making civil rights leaders, award-winning authors, and show-stopping 21st century women, Black history is rich in America. and Culture, and the Library of Congress are great ways to expand on your knowledge as well as learn little-known Black history facts to further your understanding of African American culture.

literature

1. Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to publish a book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773. Born in Gambia and sold to the Wheatley family in Boston when she was 7 years old, Wheatley was emancipated shortly after her book was released.

2. "Bars Fight," written by poet and activist Lucy Terry in 1746, was the first known poem written by a Black American. Terry was enslaved in Rhode Island as a toddler, but became free at age 26 after marrying a free Black man.

3. Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter, was the first novel published by an African American, in 1853. It was written by abolitionist and lecturer William Wells Brown.

important figures

1. William Tucker was the first known Black person to be born in the 13 colonies. He was born in Jamestown, Virginia in 1624. His parents were indentured servants and part of the first group of Africans brought to colonial soil by Great Britain.

2. Anthony Benezet, a white Quaker, abolitionist, and educator, is credited with creating the first public school for African American children in the early 1770s.

3. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1850 with a literary degree, Lucy Stanton became the first Black woman in America to earn a four-year college degree.

music and television

1. Dubbed "Hip-Hop's First Godmother" by Billboard, singer and music producer Sylvia Robinson produced the first-ever commercially successful rap record: "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang. And along with her husband, she co-owned the first hip-hop label, Sugar Hill Records.

2. Renowned singer and jazz pianist, Nat King Cole, was the first Black American to host a TV show: NBC's The Nat King Cole Show.

3. Stevie Wonder is not only the first Black artist to win a Grammy for Album of the Year for 1973's Innervisions, but the first and only musician to win Album Of The Year with three consecutive studio albums.

4. In 1981, Broadcast journalist Bryant Gumbel became the first Black person to host a network morning show when he joined NBC's Today Show.

5. In 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first Black person to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With the Wind. 24 years later, Sidney Poitier became the first Black man to win an Oscar for his leading role in Lilies of the Field.

14 People Who Broke Barriers to Make Black History

In honor of Black History Month, here's a look at 14 people who broke color barriers to become the first Black Americans to achieve historic accomplishments in politics, academics, aviation, entertainment and more.

click each photo below to read their story!

THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT

The Black Lives Matter Movement has grown into the largest black-led protest campaign since the 1960s. While specific goals and tactics vary by city and state, overall the movement seeks to bring attention to police violence against African Americans and in particular the use of deadly force against mostly unarmed civilians. While the issue of police brutality and unnecessary deadly force has been a focus point of black anger and frustration through much of the 19th and all of the 20th centuries, the violent death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in 2012 galvanized various efforts into a single national movement.

Due to the list of names we have branched this category out to its very own tab called "The Movement".

Click on this link here for direct access or under the Heroes Museum click the page listed, Thank You!

the incidents

(BEFORE BLM MOVEMENT WAS STARTED)

BERRY LAWSON CASE (1938)

On March 26, 1938, Berry Lawson, a twenty-seven-year-old African American waiter staying at the Mt. Fuji Hotel located on Yesler Way in downtown Seattle, Washington, was reportedly asleep in a chair in the hotel lobby. He was spotted by three Seattle Police Department officers, who approached Lawson to arrest him for loitering. An altercation ensued, and 90 minutes later, Lawson was pronounced dead at City Emergency Hospital with a fractured skull. According to the Seattle Times, the three officers, Patrolmen F.H. Paschal, W.F. Stevenson, and P.L. Whalen, “declared Lawson apparently was under the influence of a stimulant and broke away from them and plunged headlong down a flight of stairs.”

Almost immediately, local African American leaders began asking questions. Although an autopsy performed by King County Coroner Otto Mittlestadt found “several internal head injuries, a broken nose, and several bruises” and no evidence that Lawson was intoxicated, the coroner cleared the three officers of any wrongdoing. Days later, a delegation led by Rev. Fred Hughes, pastor at First AME Church; Rev. T.M. Davis, pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church; and newspaper publisher John O. Lewis met with Police Chief William Sears. In addition, Seattle Urban League executive secretary Joseph Sylvester Jackson organized a committee of community representatives to hold “protest meetings” with mayor-elect Arthur Langlie. Soon after, the city announced it would conduct an official investigation into Lawson’s death.

On April 8, Paschal, Stevenson, and Whalen were charged with second-degree murder in the death of Berry Lawson. They surrendered at the prosecuting attorney’s office and were held in lieu of $5,000 bail. Chief Sears suspended all three without pay and then fired them one month later. Meanwhile, Paschal, Stevenson, and Whalen made claims in the newspaper, suggesting that the real reason behind their prosecution was connected to something else. Stevenson stated, “I know the white slave interests are out to get us for our many arrests in recent “skid road” white slavery investigations. They’ve made numerous threats, but I figured it would be in the nature of physical violence—a knife in the back—but nothing like this.”

Intrigue around the case rose with the emergence of a “mystery witness.” Travis Downs was a white hairdresser who claimed he was paid $35 by Paschal, Stevenson, and Whalen and put on a train to Portland, Oregon the day Lawson died. Downs was to remain out of town while the case was being investigated, and he even produced an envelope he had received in Portland that the officers allegedly had sent; the envelope contained an additional $50. However, Sylvester Jackson persuaded Downs to return to Seattle, and he ultimately testified that he had seen the three officers beat Lawson.

On June 10, a little over two months after the death of Berry Lawson, all three officers were convicted on a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years each in prison. Following the verdict, legal appeals and political maneuvering kept the decision in limbo. The three officers were temporarily released until their convictions were upheld in January 1939 by the Washington State Supreme Court which ruled, “The officers used more force than was necessary in taking Lawson into custody.” In spite of this ruling, Washington Governor Clarence D. Martin pardoned Paschal and Stevenson later that spring and Whalen in December 1939. After receiving his freedom, Whalen took responsibility for Lawson’s death.

THE GROVELAND FOUR (1949)

The Groveland Four case was a 1940s example of injustice toward young African American men falsely accused of raping white women. The Groveland Four were four young black men, Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, who were accused of raping Norma Padgett, a 17-year-old white woman on July 16, 1949, in Lake County, Florida. Thomas was killed by Sheriff Willis McCall on July 26, 1949, during the search for the four while Irvin, Shepherd, and Greenlee were arrested.

Much of the early life of the Groveland Four is unknown. Ernest Thomas was married to Ruby Lee Jones. Charles Greenlee first arrived in Lake County, Florida in July 1949. Thomas had convinced Greenlee that he could find work in the county. Samuel Shepherd was a World War II veteran and the son of a prosperous local black farmer. Walter Irvin was also a World War II veteran.

On July 16, 1949, Thomas, Greenlee, Shepherd, and Irvin were accused of kidnapping and raping Norma Padgett and assaulting her husband Willie Padgett. According to her husband, their car broke down after the couple left a dance. Padgett claimed that the four black men stopped to offer them assistance but instead assaulted him and kidnapped his wife. After a manhunt, Greenlee, Shepherd, and Irvin were arrested and taken to Lake County jail, where they were tortured. Thomas avoided capture for a week, but he was killed by Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall.

The following day, as news spread around Lake County about the rape, a mob of more than 100 men gathered at the jail demanding that Greenlee, Shepherd, and Irvin be released to them. Sheriff McCall told the mob that the three had already been transferred to a state penitentiary, when in fact they were still in the Lake County Jail. The mob then vented its anger on the small Groveland African American community, shooting residents and setting fire to homes. Some whites, however, helped blacks escape the violence around the area. Meanwhile Greenlee, Shepherd, and Irvin were tried. Although medical evidence did not show signs of Padgett being raped, an all-white jury found the three men guilty. Shepherd and Irvin received the death penalty, while Greenlee received life in prison.

The U.S. Supreme Court later tossed out the three convictions, forcing a retrial in November 1951. As the three were being transported back to Lake County, Florida from the state penitentiary, Sheriff McCall shot and killed Shepherd and seriously wounded Irvin. Irvin’s retrial on November 13, 1952 resulted in another guilty verdict and death sentence from an all-white jury. In 1955, his sentence was reduced to life in prison by Florida Governor LeRoy Collins.

Walter Irvin was released from the state penitentiary in 1968 but died a year later from a heart attack. He was 39 years old. Charles Greenlee, the last surviving member of the Groveland Four, was released on parole in 1962 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. He died on April 18, 2012. at 78 years old. In 2017, the state issued an apology to the families of the Greenland Four. All four men were posthumously pardoned on January 11, 2019 by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

JOHNNY ROBINSON (1947-1963)

Johnny Robinson was a sixteen-year-old African American man who was shot and killed by Birmingham, Alabama police officer Jack Parker on September 15, 1963. Robinson’s death occurred on the same day as the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham that resulted in the deaths of four young girls earlier in the day. Thus, Robinson’s killing did not get much attention. His death, however, was an early inspiration for the Black Lives Matter Movement that emerged half a century later.

Robinson was born in 1947 to Johnny Brown and Martha Marie Robinson. He had a difficult upbringing and his childhood was marked by violence when his father was murdered by a neighbor. Robinson’s mother was left to take care of him and her two other children. As a child Robinson also witnessed the frequent anti-black racial violence of Birmingham itself. Fifty racially motivated bombings took place in the city between 1945 and 1963.

On September 15, 1963, Ku Klux Klan members planted a bomb at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, an African-American place of worship. Around 10:22 a.m., the bomb exploded, killing Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins. As news of the bombing spread across the city, racial tensions ran high. Later that afternoon Robinson, who initially was to join his sister for Sunday dinner, decided instead to go with his friends to a gas station located on 26th Street. Several white teenagers drove by Robinson and his friends, yelling racial slurs and waving Confederate flags. The white teenagers then threw bottles at Robinson and his friends who retaliated by throwing rocks at their car. When the police arrived, Robinson and his friends started to run. Officer Jack Parker, who was in the backseat of the police car holding a shotgun, fired the shot that hit Robinson in the back. Johnny Robinson died before reaching the hospital.

Parker would later give two different accounts of the shooting. In the first one he claimed that he shot in the air above Robinson’s head, and in the second account he said the shotgun went off accidentally. Other witnesses disputed both accounts, claiming to have heard two shotgun shots. Two Jefferson County Grand Juries opted not to charged Officer Parker for Robinson’s death. Robinson’s family was devastated by his loss which led his mother to later spend time in a psychiatric hospital. His younger brother and sister who know little about his death learned not to speak of it.

In the months following Robinson’s death, the deaths of the Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church received far more local and national attention. The Robinson murder went virtually unnoticed until 2013 when, partly because of the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement, he was inducted into the Birmingham’s Gallery of Distinguished Citizens fifty years after his murder. Officer Jack Parker died in 1977.

BOBBY HUTTON (1950-1968)

Robert James Hutton, also known as Bobby or Lil’ Bobby, was the first treasurer and recruit of the Black Panther Party(BPP) at just 16 years old. He was also the first member of the Party killed by the police.

Hutton was born in Jefferson County, Arkansas, to John D. Hutton and Dolly Mae Mitchner-Hutton on April 21, 1950. He was the youngest of three children. In 1953, when Hutton was three years old, his family moved to Oakland, Californiaafter being harassed by racist vigilante groups associated with the Ku Klux Klan.

In December 1966 at age 16, Hutton met BPP founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale at the North Oakland Anti-Poverty Center and became the first recruit and youngest member of the BPP. Hutton stated that he joined The Party because he wanted to make a difference in his community and that he believed in The Party’s Ten-Point Program.

On May 2, 1967, Hutton participated in a demonstration organized by the BPP at the California State Capitol Building in Sacramento, to protest the Mulford Act, which would prohibit the carrying of firearms in any public place. Hutton was arrested with several other BPP members for carrying weapons into the State Capital. Hutton was again arrested on May 22, 1967 for violating an 1887 law prohibiting the carrying of firearms adjacent to a jail.

On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and with riots raging across cities in United States, Hutton was traveling with Eldridge Cleaver and other BPP members in a car. The group confronted Oakland Police officers and during the confrontation, two police officers were shot. Hutton and Cleaver fled to an apartment building where they engaged in a 90-minute gun battle with the Oakland Police Department.

Ultimately, Cleaver was wounded, and Hutton voluntarily surrendered. According to Cleaver, although Hutton had stripped down to his underwear and had his hands raised in the air to prove that he was unarmed, Oakland Police shot Hutton more than 12 times, leading to his death. Police reports claimed that Hutton was attempting to run away and was wearing a trench coat and his hands were not visible. Cleaver later stated that one police officer that witnessed the shoot-out claimed that what the police did to Hutton “was first-degree murder.” And Bobby Seale has speculated that the Oakland Police shot Hutton believing that they were shooting him instead.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Cleaver failed to acknowledge that the group of BPP members were actively looking to ambush the Oakland Police in response to the assassination of King, and instead claimed the police attacked them in their car. In 1980 Cleaver admitted that he and Hutton had ambushed the police before the shoot-out that killed Hutton.

Hutton’s death became a rallying cry against police brutality across the nation. His funeral held on April 12, 1968 at the Ephesian Church of God in Berkeley, California was attended by approximately 1,500 mourners. A rally held later that day in West Oakland was attended by more than 2,000 people and included a eulogy by actor Marlon Brando.

Every year since Hutton’s death, friends and family have held a memorial service at DeFremery Park which was later renamed Bobby Hutton Park by the City of Oakland in 1998. Around the same time the Commemoration Committee for the Black Panther Party organized the Lil’ Bobby Hutton Literacy Campaign.

EULA MAE LOVE (1939-1979)

Eula Mae Love’s tragic death made history on the evening of January 3rd, 1979, in the front yard of her home, in the West Athens area of South Los Angeles, California. She died at the hands of two Los Angeles Police Department officers, Lloyd O’Callaghan (white) and Edward Hopson (black). Her case made history as the first police killing that pushed officials to lead more thorough investigations of excessive use of force by the police.

Born on August 8, 1939, in Louisiana, Love, who was 39 years old at the time of her death, was a widow. Her husband William died of sickle cell anemia six months prior to Love’s confrontation with the police. As a widow, Love was drowning in bills ranging from utility charges to mortgage payments. She struggled to support her three young daughters.

On January 3, 1979, a utility worker from Southern California Gas Company came to shut her gas off over a $66 unpaid gas bill. Love reportedly became distressed by his visit. She attacked the worker with a shovel and chased him off her property. Love then left her house to take out a few money orders from a nearby store, including the minimum $22.09 payment for the gas bill.

The first utility worker who was chased away by Love called the police. While Love was out, the gas company had sent over two more workers to collect the bill. Further infuriated by the new utility workers, Love went back into her house and grabbed an 11-inch boning knife. During that time, the police officers had arrived at the scene. When ordered to drop the knife, Love refused, turned away to walk back inside her house, and again turned back towards the officers, tossing the knife in their direction. The two officers immediately fired 12 shots from 8 and 12 feet away. Most of the bullets hit Love’s legs and lower body, but a fatal shot went through her chest. Love collapsed, dead. The officers then proceeded to handcuff her body on the grass.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney exonerated the two police officers involved in the shooting on April 17, 1979. The LAPD “Shooting Review Board” ruled the case to be within policy. These decisions prompted mass community protests and were later challenged by the Los Angeles Police Commission. The Commission concluded in its report that the shooting did not meet departmental standards. The police officers were guilty of exercising poor judgment. The Commission also challenged the Police Department’s Shooting Review Board, claiming that the board exonerated the officers based on faulty and incomplete evidence. Unfortunately, the commission was not backed by any legal law enforcement and so the exoneration stood.

Eula Love’s death led the way to reforming how law enforcement officers use deadly and excessive force. However, the Los Angeles Police Department was slow to change its policy or practices in the field.

Eula Mae Love is buried in Moses Cemetery, in her home state, Louisiana.

MICHAEL STEWART (1958-1983)

Michael Stewart was a New York City graffiti artist who died following an incident with the city’s transit police. Although not much is known about his early life, Stewart’s death entered the media on September 15, 1983 at 2:00 a.m. He was accused of writing on the subway station wall with a felt-tipped marker. One hour later, Stewart arrived at the police station with three arresting officers hogtied, covered in cuts and bruises, and unconscious. Stewart was taken to the hospital in a coma. He died 13 days later, having never regained consciousness.

When several students from the Parson’s School of Design reported that they witnessed Stewart’s beating from their dormitories, officers John Kostick, Henry Boerner, and Anthony Piscola were charged with criminally negligent homicide, assault, and perjury.

The court case experienced several complications, and ultimately the all-white jury only charged John Kostick for perjury. The other officers were declared not guilty on all points. The most poignant impediment was the city medical examiner Dr. Eliot Gross’ conflicting reports for the cause of death. Dr. Gross initially cited the cause of death to be cardiac arrest, which would have been unrelated to the injuries sustained. But a month after the initial proclamation he changed the cause of death to a spinal injury, which would have directly related to the abuse before Stewart’s arrival at the hospital. He later said that he changed his verdict for fear of public backlash. The three medical experts called to the witness stand during the case all gave different reports for the cause of death: asphyxiation from a blow to the neck, cardiac arrest from a blow to the side or chest, or intoxication and blunt-force-trauma.

The prosecution brought forward forty-eight witnesses, twenty-three of which were Parson’s students. The defense brought no witnesses forward during the case. Unfortunately, due in part to the conflicting reports of the medical examiners and the inability of the Parson’s students to identify a specific officer, the jury acquitted the officers on both the use of excessive force and official misconduct charges.

Michael Stewart’s case is one of many listed in the struggle against the unequal treatment of African Americans in the medical and legal system. Stewart’s attorney noted that every person in the courtroom was white. The only person of color was Michael Stewart. Steward could no longer speak for himself and the Medical examiner seemed to be confused about how Stewart died. One writer famously called Michael Stewart “the man nobody killed.”

Today, Stewart’s death continues to inspire graffiti artists and the general public to protest police brutality and create works of art that challenge Americans to reevaluate their society.

MULUGETA SERAW (1960-1988)

Born on October 21, 1960, 28-year-old Mulugeta Seraw moved to Portland, Oregon looking to further his education by obtaining a degree in business from Portland Community College, and working multiple jobs to provide for his wife and then six year old son, Henok, who remained in Ethiopia. However, this become a dream unrealized when he was bludgeoned to death by three male members of neo-Nazi hate groups, the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), and East Side White Pride.

Late in the evening on Friday, November 12, 1988, Kyle Brewster, Kenneth Murray “Death” Mieske, and Steve Strasser approached Seraw and two other Ethiopian immigrants on Southeast 31st Ave. in front of Seraw’s residence. The three verbally and physically assaulted Mulugeta and his colleagues using steel-toed boots. Mieske repeatedly hit Seraw with a baseball bat leaving him in a pool of his own blood. Seraw died the following day.

One week later, Brewster, Mieske, and Strasser were arrested and would be ultimately convicted. Mieske pleaded guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Brewster and Strasser pleaded guilty to assault and manslaughter charges resulting in 20-year sentences. In order to prevent attacks like this in the future, the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama brought a lawsuit on behalf of the Seraw family against Tom Metzger, a national leader of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Aryan Resistance, and his son John Metzger. The Center won a $12.5 million dollar judgement which bankrupted the Alabama Klux Klan and the Metzgers.

Moreover, the Seraw death led to large rallies in Portland attended by people of various racial backgrounds. These rallies which involved thousands of Portland residents, disavowed white supremacy and condemned WAR. The trial of the Mulugeta Seraw killers would also set a precedent in future cases and help build a large and permanent anti-racist movement in Portland.

In 2018, thirty years after Seraw’s death, the city of Portland began to memorialize Seraw through a series of signs erected near his residence in both English and Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. That same year Ted Wheeler, the Mayor of Portland, issued a proclamation declaring November 13, Mulugeta Seraw Day across the city. On October 11, 2018, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden addressed the U.S. Senate about the incident and declared that the death of Mulugeta Seraw was an affront to the values of all Oregonians.

PHILLIP PANNELL JR. (1973-1990)

Phillip Pannell Jr., a 16-year-old African American, was shot and killed by Teaneck, New Jersey Police Officer Gary Spath on April 10, 1990. Pannell’s death contributed to the growing awareness of police misconduct across the United States as related to young African Americans and helped lead to the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement twenty-three years later.

Philip Pannell Jr. was born on October 3, 1973 in Teaneck to Thelma Pannell-Dantzler and Phillip Pannell Sr. Pannell’s early life was difficult. He grew up with a father who struggled with drugs and alcohol and who was in and out of jail. Pannell himself got into trouble often fighting with the kids from outside his northeast Teaneck mostly Black neighborhood. The city of 38,000 was a mostly middle-class New York City suburb with a 25% Black population.

On April 10, 1990, someone called the Teaneck Police Department claiming he saw a boy with a gun among other teenagers in a schoolyard. Officers Gary Spath and Wayne Blanco responded to the call. When the officers arrived, they confronted Pannell who was holding the gun, a starter pistol that had been modified to hold bullets. Parnell and the other teenagers fled and Spath chased him, eventually opening fire and shooting the teenager in the back, instantly killing him. Spath said he shot Pannell as the teenager was turning around to fire on him. Many witnesses, however, said Pannell had his hands up when the shooting occurred. According to the police officers, a fully loaded .22 caliber pistol was recovered from the jacket pocket of Pannell.

An autopsy was conducted by the Bergen County Medical Examiner who originally indicated that Pannell was shot in the back with his hands down, supporting Spath’s account of him reaching for his gun. New Jersey Attorney General Robert Del Tufo, however, called the Bergen County Medical Examiner’s autopsy flawed and ordered a new autopsy. The second autopsy conducted by the state medical examiner, proved that Pannell had his hands up when he was shot in the back by Spath. That evidence supported witness accounts of the shooting.

Following the shooting Black residents of Teaneck staged a series of protest marches which attracted Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton to the town. Some of the marches turned violent. Many protesters felt that killing of Pannell was the result of racial profiling and police brutality. Spath was arrested and tried in 1994 on the charge of reckless manslaughter but was acquitted. Soon afterwards he retired from law enforcement. Also, in 1994, the Pannell family settled a civil rights lawsuit against Teaneck for $200,000. In 1995, Teaneck resident Mike Kelly wrote a book called Color Lines: The Troubled Dreams of Racial Harmony in an American Town.

RODNEY KING (1965-2012)

Rodney King, a Los Angeles taxicab driver, became the catalyst for the second major urban uprising in the city in the 20th Century. On March 3, 1991 King was the victim of a brutal police beating that occurred in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Caught on tape by local witness George Holliday, the video showed four L.A. police officers restraining and repeatedly striking King with their batons while six other officers stood by, soon gained international notoriety as the beating was broadcast around the world.

King was born in Sacramento, California in 1965, the year of the first Los Angeles Riot. He moved with his parents to Altadena, a Pasadena suburb, when he was 2. King’s parents cleaned offices and homes. His father, Roland King, died in his early 40s from pneumonia.

The incident which catapulted King to international prominence began at 12:30 am on March 3, when a California Highway Patrol team attempted to pull King over for speeding. Driving at speeds up to 115 mph, King led the police on a 7.8 mile high speed chase. King finally pulled over at a dark park entrance, but did not cooperate with officers and displayed erratic behavior. Officers present recall King displaying symptoms of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

King was shot twice with Taser stun darts, and then kicked and beaten with batons for eighty-one seconds before he was finally handcuffed. From the beating he suffered a broken cheekbone and multiple facial fractures, lacerations on the forehead, a fracture of the distal fibula in the right leg, and various bruises, contusions, and abrasions.

That King was African-American and the Los Angeles Police Department officers were white, and that the LAPD had a long record of brutality especially against African Americans, added to the sensation of the case.

Four LAPD officers were arrested and charged with assault and use of excessive force. At the request of the defense the trial was moved from downtown Los Angeles to suburban Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County, where a predominately white jury without any African Americans was chosen. At the April 1992 trial, three of the officers were exonerated and another was acquitted of all but one charge.

Announcement of the verdict spurred four days of rioting in Los Angeles beginning on April 29, 1992. A twenty-five-square block section of the city was torched. Fifty-four people died in the riots, two thousand were injured, and nearly ten thousand were arrested. More than eight hundred buildings were burned, and damage estimates neared a billion dollars. The riots also touched off similar outbursts in Las Vegas, Atlanta and other cities across the United States.

The officers charged with beating King were then prosecuted federally for civil rights violations. Two of the officers, Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell, were convicted on April 17, 1993, and sentenced to thirty months in prison.

Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million in his lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles. Since the incident he experienced continued run-ins with the law, including convictions of drunk driving and spousal abuse. King died at his home in Rialto, California on June 17, 2012. He was 47.

LATASHA HARLINS (1975-1991)

Latasha Harlins, whose short life came to a violent end in the midst of racial tensions in Los Angeles, California, became a major spark for the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Harlins was born on July 14, 1975 in East St. Louis, Illinois, to Crystal Harlins and Vester Acoff Sr. Acoff never met Latasha. Latasha’s younger brother, Vester Acoff Jr. was born in 1979, and her younger sister, Christina, was born in 1981.

The family moved from Illinois to South Central Los Angeles in 1981 when Latasha was six years old. They rented a place near 89th Street and Broadway, just a few blocks from where Latasha would later be murdered. Latasha’s mother, Crystal, who worked as a waitress in a local tavern, was found brutally shot on November 27, 1985, in a Los Angeles nightclub. The children’s maternal grandmother, Ruth Harlins, then raised Latasha and her siblings.

By the late 1980s, racial tensions were high in South Los Angeles, and especially between Korean storeowners and African American residents of the city. After the change in national immigration laws in 1965 a large number of Korean immigrants arrived in Los Angeles and by 1968 the first Korean-owned market opened in South Central LA. The area was recovering from the recent Watts Riots and Koreans began buying businesses because they were inexpensive and there wasn’t much competition. Longtime African American residents in the area at first welcomed the Koreans but eventually grew angry with them because they refused to hire black employees and often treated their customers poorly. By 1990, 65% of South Central businesses were Korean-owned and a 1992 survey of these storeowners revealed considerable racial prejudice against black customers and black people in general. Koreans in response argued that their attitudes evolved from high crime rates in the area and shop owner fears of shootings and burglaries.

Latasha Harlins became a victim of these racial tensions on the morning of Saturday, March 16, 1991. She entered Empire Liquor, which was owned by a Korean family, to purchase a bottle of orange juice. As she approached the counter, Soon Ja Du, one of the storeowners, accused her of stealing after seeing Harlins place the bottle in her backpack, despite her holding the $2 payment for the $1.79 price of the juice and approaching the counter to pay. Du grabbed the bag and the two women had a violent scuffle. Harlins threw the juice bottle back on the counter and turned to leave the store when Du pulled a .38-caliber handgun and shot 15-year-old Harlins in the back of the head.

Du was arrested and her trial was held on November 15, 1991. Security-camera footage which showed Harlins’ attempt to pay for the juice and the subsequent scuffle between the two women convinced a jury to find Du guilty of voluntary manslaughter and call for the maximum 16-year jail sentence. Judge Joyce Karlin, however, rejected the jury’s recommendation and instead sentenced Du to five years probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine.

The judge’s decision exacerbated racial tensions between African Americans and Korean immigrants. This tension, along with the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police on March 3, 1991, became a catalyst for the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Du’s store was looted, set on fire, and never reopened. Judge Karlin also became a target for numerous protests and later stepped down from the bench. The Harlins family received a $300,000 settlement from Du’s insurance company.

ABNER LOUIMA (1966- )

Abner Louima, an activist against police brutality, is unfortunately best known for being brutalized, sexually assaulted, and savagely beaten by New York Police Department officers in 1997.

Louima was born in 1966 in Thomassin, Haiti, the oldest of his parents’ four children. His father worked as a tailor and his mother was a homemaker. In the early 1980s, members of Louima’s family began to relocate to New York City to escape the political turbulence in Haiti. Louima remained in Haiti long enough to finish his education. He eventually received a degree in electrical engineering from the Ecole Nationale des Arts Métiers in Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital. In 1991, he immigrated to New York City and worked at a variety of places including a car dealership and a leather bag manufacturer. In addition, Louima took a handful of English classes at nearby Kingsborough Community College. He eventually settled into a job as a security guard.

On the night of August 9, 1997, Louima was at Club Rendez-Vous in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn when a fight broke out between two female club goers. He and other men attempted to stop the fight just before police officers from the NYPD’s 70th precinct responded to a call reporting the disturbance. Once officers arrived on the scene, a fight between them and club goers commenced. Justin Volpe, a NYPD 70th precinct officer, was punched and believed—incorrectly, as it turned out—that Louima had done it. He arrested Louima on charges of disorderly conduct, obstructing police, and resisting arrest.

On the way to the police station Louima was subjected to beatings by the police officers who used their fists, hand-held radios, and nightsticks. Once they arrived at the station Volpe took Louima to the bathroom, kicked and squeezed his testicles, and then sodomized him with the handle of a plunger. Volpe then pushed the handle of the plunger into Louima’s mouth. All these events occurred while Louima’s hands were handcuffed behind his back.

The following day Louima was brought to the Coney Island Hospital emergency room with multiple injuries including broken teeth and severe damage to his colon and bladder. The officers said his injuries were the result of “abnormal homosexual activities” but an ER nurse doubted these claims and called Louima’s family as well as NYPD’s Internal Affairs bureau. Her call initiated local and eventually national press coverage of the police officers’ brutal assault on Louima.

Officer Volpe was found guilty in December of 1999 of assaulting Louima and threatening his life. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Charles Schwartz, another NYPD 70th precinct officer, was convicted of assault on Louima in June of 2000 and sentenced to 15 years behind bars for assisting Volpe in the bathroom. Three other officers, Thomas Bruder, Michael Bellomo, and Thomas Wiese, were indicted in 2000 for trying to cover up the assault but their convictions were later overturned in 2002 due to a lack of evidence. Abner Louima was paid $8.7 million dollars as a result of a civil suit against the city, the largest police brutality settlement in New York City’s history. With the $5.8 million he kept after legal fees were assessed, he and his family established a charity in Haiti.

Louima now lives in Miami Lakes, Florida, with his wife Micheline, and their three children. He is a frequent speaker on police brutality and police-community relations.

AMADOU DIALLO (1976-1999)

Amadou Diallo was a Guinean immigrant who lived in Manhattan, New York, and is unfortunately best known for being killed by New York City police after he was fired upon forty-one times outside his place of residence. Diallo was born on September 2, 1976, in Liberia to his Guinean parents, Saikou Diallo and Kadiatou Diallo, and was the eldest of their four children. His parents’ business of exporting gemstones between Africa and Asia gave Amadou the opportunity to study in various countries, one of which was Thailand. Diallo studied both computer engineering and English. The latter led him to take an interest in American culture.

After the divorce of Diallo’s parents in 1989, he lived in Bangkok, Thailand, with his mother. He later left Bangkok for Guinea because he wanted to seek a blessing from his elders in order to pursue his dream of living in America and earning a college education. Diallo eventually received the blessing and traveled to the United States. In 1997 he arrived in New York City and went to work as bicycle messenger. He later worked as a street peddler selling gloves, socks, and videos.

On the early morning of February 4, 1999, four plainclothes New York City police officers were patrolling the neighborhood in which Diallo lived in the hopes of uncovering evidence that would lead to the arrest of a serial rapist who lived in the area. At around 12:40 a.m., the four officers exited their vehicle and approached Diallo while he was in the vestibule of his building. While it is unclear if they identified themselves as police officers, they nontheless sought to question Diallo who in turn did not respond to their request but instead reached into his back pocket. Upon seeing the object that was removed, one of the officers yelled “gun,” and all four officers began to shoot at Diallo. A total of forty-one shots were fired from the officers’ weapons. Nineteen shots hit Diallo’s body, and he was killed instantly. Neighbors called 911 after the shooting, and the attending officers called in the incident on their radios. Once other officers arrived on the scene, an investigation began. It was discovered that there was no gun and all that was lying next to Diallo’s body were a pager and a wallet.

Diallo was buried in Guinea where thousands of his fellow countrymen attended his funeral. The shooting catalyzed protests in the city of New York because many believed the officers had acted without restraint. The four officers who were responsible for the shooting death of Diallo were indicted and began trial on February 2, 2000. On February 25, 2000, all four of the officers were acquitted. In April of the same year, Diallo’s family sued the city of New York and the officers responsible for $61 million. The family would later settle for $3 million dollars. Some of the money was used to create the Amadou Diallo Foundation and scholarship fund in 2005. The Diallo killing would be the first of a series of high-profile police shoots that would eventually spark the Black Lives Matter movement.

PRINCE JONES (1975-2000)

The shooting death of 25-year-old Prince Jones by Prince Georges County, Maryland police officer Carlton Jones in Fairfax County, Virginia on September 1, 2000 added to the growing number of young unarmed African Americans murdered at the hands of law enforcement. Prince Jones’s death helped inspire the Black Lives Matter Movement thirteen years later.

Prince Jones was born Rockey Jones in 1975 to Prince C. Jones Sr and Dr. Mabel Jones in Fairfax County, Virginia. Much of his early life is unknown. At the time of his death, he was attending Howard University alongside his friend Ta-Nehisi Coates. He also was a personal trainer at a Washington D.C. gym and was slated to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Prince Jones and his fiancée Candace Carson had an infant daughter, Nina.

On September 1, 2000, Jones was driving his Jeep Cherokee when he encountered two undercover Prince George’s County, Maryland police officers who were driving separate unmarked vehicles. They followed Jones 16 miles from Hyattsville, Maryland to Fairfax County, Virginia. Jones at the time was driving to visit his fiancée while the undercover police officers were searching for a jeep similar to Jones’s vehicle that was tied to a stolen police weapon.

One of the undercover police officers, Carlton B. Jones, followed Prince Jones to Spring Terrace, a residential street located in Sleepy Hollow section of Falls Church. Prince Jones stopped his jeep to get out to identify himself. Officer Carlton Jones also identified himself as a police officer and flashed his gun at Jones. According to police reports Prince Jones then got back into his jeep and rammed it into the officer’s Mitsubishi Montero. In response, Officer Carlton Jones fired 16 times at Prince Jones who was still in the jeep, hitting him with six bullets. Prince Jones was able to drive off a short distance before crashing a few feet from his fiancée’s home. He would later die from his gunshot wounds at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

In October 2000, Fairfax County Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. refused to file criminal charges against Officer Jones. Six years later, in January 2006, a Prince George’s County Circuit Court Civil Jury declared that Prince Jones’s death at the hands of Prince Georges County police was wrongful and resulted from a criminal justice system that failed to hold police accountable for serious misconduct. Prince Jones’s daughter, Nina, was awarded $2.5 million in damages. In 2015, author Ta-Nehisi Coates released his book Between the World and Me where he described the life and death of his friend, Prince Jones.

ROGER OWENSBY JR. (1971-2000)

Roger Owensby Jr. was a twenty-nine-year-old African-American who died at the hands of Cincinnati Police officers during a scuffle in the Roselawn neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio in November 2000. Owens’ death at the hands of police—as well as the death the following year of Timothy Thomas under similar circumstances—helped spark the Cincinnati Riot in April 2001 and eventually helped inspire the Black Lives Matter Movement thirteen years later.

Roger Owensby Jr. was born on March 27, 1971 in Cincinnati, Ohio to Roger Owensby Sr. and Brenda Owensby. Owensby joined the U.S. Army in 1990 and served for eight years, rising to the rank of sergeant. He saw combat in the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) and afterwards served in Bosnia in 1996 where he was an Army cook. At the time of his death, Owensby had a nine-year-old daughter, Mylesha Owensby, and he had no previous police record.

On November 7, 2000, after leaving the Sunoco Mini-Mart in the Bond Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, Owensby was approach by two Cincinnati police officers, Robert Blaine Jorg and Patrick Caton. They stopped and searched him for a few minutes. Then, for reasons that are not clear, Owensby began to run from the officers. They pursued him and tackled him to the ground where they handcuffed him. He was put in their police car and died there. The Cincinnati Police initially investigated the incident but the Hamilton County Coroner’s office concluded that Owens either died as the result of a chokehold or by officers piling their weight on his chest as he lay on the ground.

The Hamilton County District Attorney filed charges of manslaughter and misdemeanor assault against Jorg and Caton on January 3, 2001. In the subsequent trials, Robert Blaine Jorg was found not guilty and Patrick Caton was freed because of a mistrial. Prosecutors did not attempt to try him again.

On November 6, 2001, the Owensby family filed a lawsuit which claimed that Officers Jorg and Caton had violated Roger Owensby’s civil rights. On March 17, 2006, U. S. District Court Judge S. Arthur Spiegal ordered the city of Cincinnati to pay $6.5 million dollars to the Owensby family after concluding that Officers Jorg and Caton had violated Owensby’s civil rights.

ORLANDO BARLOW (1974-2003)

In 2003 Orlando Barlow was shot in the back while attempting to surrender to Las Vegas, Nevada Police officers. His murder helped generate what would eventually become a national debate about police use of deadly force against unarmed citizens and the eventual organization of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Orlando Barlow was a resident of Clark County which surrounds Las Vegas. On February 28, 2003, Barlow was at a residence on the 7000 block of Rustling Wind, watching the children of a female acquaintance. The woman, whose name was undisclosed, called the police, reporting that a man with a sawed-off shotgun was at her home holding her and her children hostage. She said she feared for her life and the lives of her seven children inside the home. She called the police from a nearby convenience store because she did not have a phone in her home.

Police officers Jeremy Krough, James Vargas, Sean Hendrickson, and Brian Hartman arrived at the residence and began speaking with Barlow. The four officers convinced Barlow to come out of the residence. Barlow was ordered to walk backwards out of the home with his hands in the air. He was then ordered to his knees. Three officers approached Barlow with their weapons holstered to arrest him. Officer Brian Hartman, 50 feet away, fired one round at Barlow, fatally shooting him in the back. Barlow was just 28 years old.

Hartman was placed on administrative leave, pending an internal investigation. He later testified that he saw Barlow reach for his waistband while kneeling. He thought he was reaching for a gun, but Barlow was unarmed. A coroner ruled Barlow’s death “excusable. A federal probe into the investigation found that Hartman and the other officers printed t-shirts that said “BDRT” on them. The letters stood for “Baby’s Daddy Removal Team” and “Big Dogs Run Together” and that the officers sold these shirts for profit. Hartman later resigned from the force to avoid prosecution.

The Barlow family filed a wrongful death federal civil rights lawsuit in February of 2004 in the Clark County District Court. The lawsuit was later moved to Federal Court in Las Vegas. The suit cited wrongful death, civil rights violations, and the use of excessive force by officers. A $250,000 dollar settlement was reached out of court for the Barlow family.

HENRY GLOVER (1974-2005)

In 2005 Henry Glover was a resident of Algiers, New Orleans, Louisiana. He survived Hurricane Katrina, only to be brutally murdered by a New Orleans Police officer just days after the storm.

According to Glover’s fiancée, Rolanda Short, on the morning of September 2, 2005, Glover and friend Bernard Calloway left in search of food and supplies for the family. A few hours later, Short heard Calloway yelling outside that “Ace” had been shot. Glover’s nickname was “Ace,” and when she ran to the scene, Glover was lying in the street with a gunshot wound to his chest. Neighbor William Tanner drove the wounded Glover and his brother Edward King to nearby Habans Elementary School which had been commandeered by police officers. According to Tanner, New Orleans police officers put King and him in handcuffs and repeatedly beat them both, while Glover lay in the back of the car dying. The 31-year old father of five received no medical attention and died from his wounds in the vehicle.

New Orleans Police Officer Greg McRae took Tanner’s car keys, got into his car, and drove away with Glover’s body still inside. McRae drove the vehicle about a mile away by a levee, left the car running, and threw a flare into the vehicle. When the flare did not set a fire, McRae fired one shot into the car, which ignited it and walked away. Seven days later Glover’s remains were found in the vehicle by two volunteer first responders. The case initially went unreported until remains were found and the FBI began an investigation. Several years went by for the Glover family with no resolution.

The FBI investigation finally revealed that Officer David Warren was guarding a police substation in an Algiers strip mall when he observed two men in the lot who he thought were attempting to loot the mall. He fired what he believed to be a single “warning” shot at the two men, one of whom was Henry Glover. When this new information was discovered, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed by several members of the Glover family in June 2010.

In July of 2010, Officer David Warren was arrested for the murder of Henry Glover and Officer Greg McRae was arrested for filing a false report and other charges related to the case. After a trial in which Warren was found guilty on March 31, 2011, Judge Lance M. Africk sentenced him to 25 years and 9 months in federal prison on the charge of manslaughter with a firearm. At the end of the same trial, Judge Africk also sentenced Officer Greg McRae to 17 years and 3 months in prison on obstruction of justice for attempting to eliminate the body of Henry Glover.

On December 17, 2012, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the felony convictions of Warren and McRae related to the death of Glover and ordered a new trial for both men. The three-judge panel found, among other concerns, that the trials of the two men should have been conducted separately. On December 11, 2013, a jury acquitted Warren of the charges against him. McRae has yet to be retried. The current New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has settled several federal civil rights cases with the Glover family related to the fatal shooting and the burning of his body. The amounts of the settlements have been undisclosed.

KATHRYN JOHNSTON (1914-2006)

On November 21, 2006, Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old African American woman, was killed by undercover police officers at her home in Atlanta, Georgia. The killing contributed to the demands for police reform and accountability that helped inspire the Black Lives Matter Movement seven years later. Johnston was born June 26, 1914 in Atlanta. Much of her life story is unknown, but at the time of her death, she was living alone at a home on Neal Street, located in Northwest Atlanta.

On November 21, 2006, at around 7:00 p.m., Atlanta undercover police officers Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier, and Arthur Tesler raided her home in plain clothes, wearing bulletproof vests, and carrying riot shields. According to the official police report, the three officers entered without knocking or identifying themselves, searching for a man who had reportedly been selling illegal drugs at the residence. Johnston fired one shot from a revolver, and the officers returned fire, shooting thirty-nine times. Johnston was hit six times and killed instantly.

People living in the neighborhood speculated that the police had the wrong house during the raid, but the police denied that idea, saying undercover officers had made a drug purchase at the home earlier that day. The police stated that they served a “no knock” warrant because they believed their suspect would otherwise have time to hide evidence or escape after hearing an officer’s knock. Johnston’s neighbors said she kept a revolver for self-defense because she lived in a high-crime neighborhood; an elderly woman had recently been raped nearby. They also reported that Johnston had no history of involvement with the drug trade.

On February 7, 2007, the three officers went on trial for the murder of Kathryn Johnston. Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. brought felony murder and burglary indictments against the officers. During the trial, prosecutors claimed one of the officers planted three bags of marijuana in the house to counter the fact that no other drugs were found in the residence. Prosecutors also argued that after the shooting Officer Jason Smith called an informant, Alex White, and told him to falsely report that he had purchased crack cocaine at Johnston’s home earlier in the day.

On October 30, 2008, all three officers pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Kathryn Johnston, resulting in her death. Officers Smith and Junnier also pleaded guilty to state charges of voluntary manslaughter and making false statements. Smith later confessed to planting the bags of marijuana in Johnston’s house after the shooting occurred.

On February 24, 2009, U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes sentenced Officer Junnier to six years, Officer Tesler to five years, and Officer Smith to ten years in prison. In August 2010, the Johnston family was awarded $4.9 billion to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. In 2019, the Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park, was opened near Johnston’s home.

SEAN ELIJAH BELL (1983-2006)

Twenty-three-year-old Sean Elijah Bell, the victim of a violent police shooting in 2006, was born on May 18, 1983, to William and Valerie Bell. As a child, Bell was interested in acting and played baseball. According to Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Poultre, in an interview with television host Larry King, he had his mind set on becoming an electrician.

The Sean Bell shooting incident took place in the New York City, New York borough of Queens on November 25, 2006—the night of Bell’s bachelor party and the day before his wedding. Bell and two close friends were shot a total of fifty times by five uniformed and plainclothes undercover New York Police Department officers. Bell died, and two of his friends, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, were severely wounded. Police officers were on duty near Club Kalua, the name of the building where the shooting took place, which was reportedly housing a prostitution ring. After Guzman and another man got into an argument outside the club that resulted in a gun threat, Officer Gescard Isnora, concerned about possible violence, both informed Guzman and his friends that he was a police officer and also summoned other officers. Isnora assumed one of the men was reaching for his gun and fired into the car. The other officers followed suit and fired multiple shots.

On March 16, 2007, a grand jury indicted three of the five officers involved in the incident. Officer Isnora, who fired the first shot, and Officer Michael Oliver, who fired 31 of the 50 shots, were charged with first- and second-degree manslaughter, second-degree careless endangerment, and first- and second-degree assault. Detective Marc Cooper was charged with two counts of reckless endangerment. All three detectives pleaded not guilty at their arraignment on March 19, 2007. Isnora and Oliver were released on bond, and Cooper was released on his own recognizance. Oliver and Isnora initially faced up to twenty-five years in prison under their indictments.

Sean Bell’s death sparked brutal public criticism of the police and reminded many of the fatal Amadou Diallo shooting by other police officers in 1999. The tragedy soon became highly publicized and politicized by Reverend Al Sharpton and other New York City activists. Sharpton, who had led other protests against police brutality toward blacks, held a series of press conferences surrounded by the relatives of Bell, Benefield, and Guzman at Mary Immaculate Hospital where the wounded men were being treated. One law enforcement official said that, as the reality of the indicted officers’ decisions sank in, that the incident would have a strong impact on how detectives make decisions to use deadly force, especially those doing undercover work. The shooting also helped set the background for the later Black Lives Matter movement.

In April 2008, Justice Arthur J. Cooperman, who heard the case alone after the detectives surrendered their right to a jury, acquitted all three men of the charges filed against them.

DEAUNTA T. FARROW (1994-2007)

Twelve-year-old DeAunta T. Farrow, killed by West Memphis, Arkansas Police Officer Erik Sammis on June 22, 2007, was one of the youngest victims of a police shooting that year. His death sparked protests in West Memphis and brought national attention to another death of an unarmed black citizen at the hands of police officers. His shooting death was also an early inspiration for the Black Lives Matter Movement that would begin six years later.

DeAunta Farrow was born on September 7, 1994, in West Memphis, Arkansas to Robin Perkins and Debra Farrow. Much of his early life is unknown. Just prior to his death he graduated from the sixth grade at Maddux Elementary School in West Memphis.

On the evening of June 22, 2007, Farrow was walking with his 14-year-old cousin, Unseld Nash, Jr, from Farrow’s home to the nearby Steeplechase Apartments where Nash lived. Along the way the two made a stop at a gas station where they purchased soda pop and chips from the station’s convenience store, and continued down the street.

Farrow and Nash turned up the street leading to Nash’s apartment. At that point two undercover West Memphis police officers, Jimmy Evans and Sammis, who were on a stakeout in a narcotics investigation, appeared from a nearby dumpster. According to some eyewitnesses, the two police officers confronted the young men and soon afterwards Sammis, noticed something bulging in the 12-year-old’s coat pocket. As Farrow removed the item, Sammis shot and killed him. Sammis and the West Memphis police claim that Farrow pulled out a toy gun and made a gesture at the officers at which point, Sammis, fearing for his life and the life of his partner, shot the boy. Eyewitnesses claimed that Farrow pulled out the soda pop and chips he had just purchased.

The shooting death of Farrow generated outrage in the West Memphis African American community. Four days after the shooting, hundreds of angry residents packed a police commission meeting at the West Memphis City Hall where they demanded answers. They received none as city officials called for calm and asked that everyone wait for the results of a police investigation.

Farrow’s funeral was held on July 1, 2007 and drew 1,500 mourners who turned out to pay their respects. Rev. Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. flew down from New York City, New York and gave the eulogy at Farrow’s funeral. Sharpton used the service to demand more information about the shooting from city officials Meanwhile Debra Farrow filled a $125 million-dollar lawsuit against West Memphis Arkansas Police Department which remains undecided. On April 22, 2011, however, the U.S. Justice Department after its own investigation, ruled that the two West Memphis Police Officers, Sammis and Evans acted properly under the circumstances and thus could not be held liable for the death of Farrow.

TARIKA WILSON (1981-2008)

On January 4, 2008, Tarika Wilson, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot by Lima, Ohio, police officer Joseph Chavalia. She was unarmed and holding her one-year-old son, who was injured by the shot that killed his mother. The shooting, and the subsequent acquittal of the officer, highlighted racial inequality and the issue of police brutality and helped generate the Black Lives Matter movement during the next decade.

Wilson was killed during a police raid targeting her boyfriend, suspected drug dealer Anthony Terry, in her home. When police broke down the front door and entered the house, Wilson sheltered in a bedroom with her six young children. Officers shot and killed two of Terry’s dogs in the house, and Officer Chavalia mistook the sound of his fellow officers’ shots for hostile gunfire. He fired blindly in the direction of the bedroom where Wilson and her children hid, killing her instantly and injuring the baby in her arms. Her son later had his finger amputated.

Minutes after Wilson’s death, an angry crowd gathered outside and shouted at police. The next day, about 300 people participated in a march protesting the shooting, with several smaller marches in the following weeks. The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Lima the month after the shooting, meeting with community members and urging the prosecution of Officer Chavalia.

The population of Lima, a small city surrounded by the agricultural region of northwest Ohio, is about twenty-five percent black. However, in 2008 only two officers on the police force of seventy-seven were African American, and black residents testified that they had suffered years of abuse from white policemen. Wilson’s friends and family blamed police racism for her death.

In August 2008, an all-white jury acquitted Joseph Chavalia of criminal charges. He returned to the force but was not permitted to go on patrol. Two years after the shooting, Wilson’s family settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Lima for $2.5 million. Her mother and sisters have raised Wilson’s orphaned children in the years since her death.

OSCAR JULIUSS GRANT, III (1986-2009)

Oscar Juliuss Grant III was a resident of Oakland, California, and unfortunately is best known for being killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer in the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2009.

Grant was born to Oscar Grant Jr. and Wanda Johnson on February 27, 1986, in Oakland, California. At the time of his birth, Grant’s father was serving a life sentence for murder, thus making his mother a single parent. During his early years, Grant was active in his local church congregation and also enjoyed fishing, basketball, and baseball.

A combination of bad choices eventually led him to him drop out of Mount Eden High School in the tenth grade. Following this, Grant began escalation into trouble with the law and was arrested five times. At first, his offenses were for driving with broken lights, but then they morphed into drug dealing for which he was convicted and jailed. However, through all of this, his family life remained stable. He and his girlfriend, Sophina Mesa, welcomed a baby daughter, Tatiana, into the world in 2005.

In October of 2006, Grant was entangled in a traffic stop by the San Leandro police. He was carrying a loaded .380 pistol and made the decision to flee but was later arrested and sentenced to sixteen months in prison. He served his sentence in Alameda County Jail and Santa Rita Jail in Dublin until he was released in September of 2008. During his time in prison Grant earned his GED and acquired a passion for cutting hair. After his stint in prison, he wanted to follow this passion and become a barber.

At 2:00 a.m. on New Year’s Day in 2009, five BART police officers were dispatched to Fruitvale Station due to reports of two groups of young men fighting on the train. Passengers thought to be involved in the fight were singled out and detained by the BART officers. Grant was among those detained, although he was not involved in any altercations on that trip. He tried to explain this to a BART officer but was punched in the face by the officer. Grant was forced to his knees then his stomach by officers who wanted to put handcuffs on him. During this process, Johannes Mehserle, another BART officer, fired his weapon at Grant while he was detained on the ground. Grant was severely wounded, taken to Highland Hospital, and died later that day.

In 2010 Mehserle, arguing that he was going for his taser and mistakenly pulled his revolver, avoided being charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. He was instead found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. The controversial trial was moved from Oakland to Los Angeles. Tensions in the Bay area were cited as the reason for the move. The jury that convicted Mehserle in Los Angeles, however, had no African Americans serving on it. Grant’s death at the hands of police was part of a pattern of highly controversial police shootings across the United States involving black women and men and various police departments. These shooting eventually led to the Black Lives Matter Movement.

KIWANE ALBERT CARRINGTON (1994-2009)

Born in Champaign, Illinois on July 14, 1994, Kiwane Carrington was 15 years old when he was shot and killed by a Champaign police officer in 2009. The son of Rita Williams and Albert Carrington, he was a student at the READY Program School where he enjoyed working on computers and playing basketball.

Carrington’s mother Rita Williams passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2008, and Rhonda Williams, his aunt, had welcomed him into her home. On October 9, a rainy October afternoon, Carrington had forgotten his key to his aunt’s house. His class for the Regional Educational Alternative for Developing Youth program was canceled for the day, and he had no other plans. Locked out of that home, Carrington and his friend, Jeshaun Manning-Carter, made their way to the backyard with hopes of finding cover to get out of the rain.

A suspicious neighbor, who noticed the teens assumed they were attempting to break into the home, called the police and reported a burglary-in-progress. Champaign Police Chief R.T. Finney was the first to respond to the call and found the two boys in the backyard. Finney demanded that they get on the ground of the muddy yard. Knowing that he and his friend had done nothing wrong, Kiwane Carrington attempted to walk away. Finney reportedly grabbed Carrington, initiating a physical struggle between the two.

When Officer Daniel Norbits, a 14-year veteran of the Champaign police force, arrived at the Williams home, he did not know whether the boys were armed, but he drew his pistol as a precaution. Norbits stated that he fired his gun accidentally; the bullet had went through Carrington’s left elbow and into his heart. Within an hour of the initial confrontation, Carrington died at the Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois. Later, Champaign County’s State Attorney, Julia Reitz, announced Norbits would not be charged because the shooting was an accident, and there was no evidence that he intentionally fired his weapon.

It was later discovered that Officer Norbits was also involved in the Greg Brown case in 2000, where Champaign police officers physically beat Brown, a disabled man, in an alley. Brown later died of a heart attack because of the beating.

On October 14, 2009, a vigil was held outside of Rhonda Williams’s home to honor the life of her nephew, Kiwane Carrington. Hundreds of youths and community members showed up to pay their respects to their fallen friend and loved one.

In October 2010, Jeshaun Manning-Carter filed a lawsuit against the city of Champaign. In the suit, Manning-Carter and his mother contended that Chief Finney was the one guilty of shooting and killing Carrington, not Norbits. All six counts of the lawsuit were later dismissed by Judge Michael Q. Jones. The Kiwane Carrington case helped inspire the Black Lives Matter movement.

AIYANA MO’NAY STANLEY-JONES (2002-2010)

In 2010 Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones, a seven-year-old African American girl, was accidentally shot and killed during a raid that was conducted by the Detroit, Michigan Police Department’s Special Response Team. The killing contributed to raising national awareness of the ongoing issue of young unarmed African Americans being killed by police. It would also help inspire the creation of the Black Lives Matter Movement three years later.

Jones was born on July 20, 2002, to Charles Jones and Dominika Stanley in Detroit, Michigan. On May 14, 2010, Je’Rean Blake, a senior at Southeastern High School of Technology and Law was shot and killed near an intersection on Detroit’s east side. Later that day, Detroit Police identified Chauncey Owens as a suspect in the shooting and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Two days later, on May 16, police arrived at the house where Aiyana Jones lived, hoping to find Owens. At the time Owens was the boyfriend of Jones’s aunt LaKrystal Sanders, who was also living at the house. Police fired a flash grenade through the front window. What occurred next has been disputed by police officers, bystanders, and neighboring residents. According to the police, Officer Joseph Weekley was the first police officer to enter the home. Weekley claimed after he got through the front door that Jones’s paternal grandmother, Mertilla Jones, attempted to slap away the MP 5 submachine gun that he was holding. The slap caused the gun to fire with the bullets striking young Aiyana in the head and killing her instantly. Mertilla Jones was held overnight by Detroit police and then released. She later explained that she reached for her granddaughter when the grenade came through the window and that is what caused her to hit the officer’s gun.

Aiyana Jones’s funeral was held on May 22, 2010, at the Second Ebenezer Baptist Church in Detroit where Alfred (Al) Charles Sharpton Jr. gave the eulogy. On October 4, 2011, a Wayne County grand jury indicted Officer Joseph Weekley for involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun. Weekley’s trial began in June 2013 and ended in a mistrial when a jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial began on September 23, 2014 but on October 3, 2014, it was declared a mistrial after a second jury deadlocked on a verdict. On January 28, 2015, the remaining charge on Weekley, a misdemeanor for careless discharge of a firearm causing death, was dismissed. On May 21, 2016, nearly six years after Jones’s death, the Detroit chapter of Black Lives Matter organized the first rally in her memory.

DERRICK JONES (1983-2010)

Derrick Jones was an East Oakland, California barber who was shot and killedby officers of the Oakland Police Department on November 8, 2010. He was 37 years old at the time of his death. His death, along with those of many others including the well-known killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and the death in custody of Sandra Bland, helped spur the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement across the United States.

Derrick Jones was born in Oakland in 1983 (although the specific date is unknown) to parents Nellie and Frank Jones. At the time of his death he was married to Lanell Monique Jones and the couple had a two-year-old daughter, Demi. Jones was the owner of Kwik Cuts Barbershop in Oakland which was a well-known gathering place for members of the local community. He was also a member of the Church of Christ in Oakland.

On the night of November 8, 2010, Oakland police responded to a call regarding a domestic dispute between Jones and a woman at a nearby laundromat on Bancroft Avenue. Two police officers who responded to the call, Omar Daza-Quiroz and Ereiberto Perez-Angeles, claimed that when they arrived on the scene, they saw Jones running away. When he ignored commands to stop, they fired their Tasers but were unable to subdue him. They then claimed that as the chase continued, Jones reached to his pocket and as he attempted to turn towards the police, they started shooting upon seeing a shiny metal object in his hand. Jones was shot five times and died immediately from the wounds. An autopsy reveals he was shot several times in the front of his body and at least twice through his upper body. The metal object that was the focus of the officer’s attention was later found to be a small metal scale. Jones was the third unarmed person of color killed by police in Oakland in 2010.

Although Officers Daza-Quiroz and Perez-Angeles had a history of excessive use of force, the Alameda County District Attorney’s office in 2011 decided not to bring charges against them. The office held that the officers in this instance were responding appropriately because they were in fact in danger.

Jones’s case occurred in close proximity to the murder of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle and was another catalyst for protest and community unrest. Deeming his death unjustified, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for a fair and thorough investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was called in to work on the case.

In 2011, Joness’ widow Lanell Monique Jones sought $10 million in a lawsuit for the death of her husband but the case never went to court. In February 2013, the Oakland City Council paid a settlement of $225,000 to Jones’s parents, Nellie and Frank Jones, as well as his daughter Demi Jones, who was two years old at the time of her father’s death.

the black national anthem

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

LIFE EVERY VOICE AND SING
The Black National Anthem (1900)

Words: James Weldon Johnson

Music: John Rosamond Johnson

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY:

RESEARCH GUIDES & WEBSITES

Academic_class_Roger_Williams_University

Web research can be very useful and lead to much useful and important information. While every effort has been made to list only “reliable” sites, researchers should be aware that control of sites change (often without notice) from time to time and, thus, the reliability and point of view of the website may change (for better or worse). One of the best uses of web information is to locate good primary and secondary sources that should be directly examined. Websites also go out of existence, so, for scholarly work, they are not reliable sources, like a published work which, presumably, will always be available in some library (Library of Congress) for examination. Beware especially of quoting or otherwise relying upon unidentified opinions found on websites.

Basic guide to web research:

1. Use your library BEFORE you start your web research. You will learn many terms that will be useful in your web research. You should read at least one good, broad secondary source on the subject before starting your research.

2. Learn how to do web research. Google has a very good set of instructions. USE THEM!

3. Know the site you are using. Find out who is responsible for it. An example of a very good site is the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School (use Google to find it.)

4. Find the original printed source of the information given on the site. You may have to use your library sources or a research librarian to help you. Cite both the internet source and the printed source.

Major Research Guides and Resources

African American History

Freedom Narratives: Testimonies of West Africans from the Era of Slavery

Teacher Resources

Research Resources

Black Press USA
Excellent online news service provides current national and local news articles on this website sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the Black Press. Billed as “your independent source of news for the African American community,” the website includes links to Black Press online newspapers organized by state, a history section, press releases, and a search engine. A bit slow loading (as of 6/18/01), but highly recommended.

Ebony Online
Abstracts (not full text) of selected articles and features from current issue only. Abstracts function as a sort of expanded table of contents meant to lead the online reader to subscribe or otherwise seek out the physical magazine to continue reading the article of interest. No archived issues or articles, no search engine, no full table of contents or index.

Freedom’s Journal
Full text digitized copies of the nation’s first African American owned and operated newspaper, 1827-1829. The first 20 issues are currently (6/00) available free online, with the remaining 80 some issues scheduled to follow. Adobe Acrobat reader necessary, and available online for downloading if needed. From the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Library, a leader in the collection, preservation, and promotion of African American periodicals.

Google Cultural Institute: Black History and Culture
Google has gathered together a vast collection of more than 4,000 online primary sources including documents, photographs, and other artifacts that illustrate African American history. One document, for example, is Frederick Douglass’s handwritten 1857 letter to his former owner. Another shows the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, site of the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” attack on Civil Rights marchers by Alabama State Troopers.

Legal Defense Fund (NAACP) web page

Library of Congress – Map Collections, 1500-2003

NAACP Online
Homepage of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

National Archives (Washington, D.C.)

Vibe Online
Online version of this well-known youth-oriented music and culture magazine. Loaded with graphics, advertisements, illustrations, and articles.

Western Journal of Black Studies
Online index to this well-known literary research journal; includes links to the reference sections of articles from 1977-present. Some sections are available to online subscribers only; subscriptions available to individuals for a fee. Copies of this journal, 1997-present, are available

African american events

The following are short descriptions of major events which have contributed to the shaping of Global African history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources.

1942 BURMA ROAD RIOT, BAHAMAS

Labor-Day-March-Commemorating-the-Burma-

In 1942, during World War II, British military officials authorized the construction of two military air bases in the then British colony of the Bahamas. The main base would be located outside of Nassau, the colonial capital, near the airport and the other at the western end of the island of New Providence at a site called Satellite Field.

When construction began on what was locally known as “The Project,” British colonial officials announced that over 2,000 Bahamians would be employed to construct the bases. A local contractor, The Pleasantville Construction Company, was assigned to the project. It originally proposed to pay Bahamian workers eight shillings per day, the equivalent of two U.S. dollars. Local colonial officials objected and convinced the company to pay four shillings per day. Meanwhile white American workers who were imported to help build the bases were promised eight shillings.

When the local workers heard that the Americans were being paid more for the same work, they protested. When requests sent by the Bahamas Federation of Labor to the Colonial government for a pay increase were denied, workers decided to hold a protest demonstration. On June 1, 1942, thousands of Bahamian workers came to Bay Street via Burma Road in a march of solidarity. The men marched from the overwhelmingly black over-the-hill neighborhood into the Public Square in front of government offices. British Colonial Attorney General Eric Hallinan came outside to address the workers from the steps of the Colonial Secretary’s office, hoping to calm the crowd. Instead, his words turned the demonstration into a riot.

The workers headed down Bay Street in a furor, smashing windows of businesses and looting as they went along. For two days the riots ensued, and the city of Nassau was in a state of emergency. Five black Bahamian workers were killed during the riots and over thirty white men were injured. One hundred and fourteen workers were arrested for their roles in the riots and soon the local jails were filled with inmates. The Nassau jail had to stagger entry dates for the convicted to avoid overcrowding. Many of the protesters were sentenced to hard labor and some would spend almost a decade in prison for their participation in the riot. Some colonial officials promoted unsubstantiated rumors that the riot was promoted by fifth columnists in the Bahamas working in support of Nazi Germany.

Newspaper-Headline-on-the-Conspirace-of-

In response to the protests and riot, the government offered the workers a one shilling per day increase and a free meal at lunch. This action quelled the riot as more than half of the workers returned to work by June 4th. The unintended upshot of the Burma Road Riot was the rise of the Peoples Labor Party in the Bahamas, later led by Randol Fawkes. The Peoples Labor Party organized commemorative marches to remember the Burma Road Riot. As importantly, they joined with a growing number of political activists to demand independence from Great Britain. That independence finally came thirty- one years later on July 10, 1973.

THE FIREBURN LABOR RIOT, UNITED STATES

VIRGIN ISLANDS (1878)

Chattel slavery was practiced in the Danish West Indies from around 1650 until July 3, 1848, when Colonial Governor Peter von Scholten issued an emancipation proclamation. The Danish government, however, then enacted rules that kept people enslaved by contracts for another two years. Moreover, in 1847, a year before the Governor’s decree, the government instituted a gradual emancipation plan that freed the children born to enslaved laborers from that point would be free. It further stated that all slavery would cease entirely in 1859.

Given the confusion and uncertainty around emancipation, sugar plantation owners made sure that the lives of former slaves changed little after emancipation. Many ex-slaves were hired at the plantations where they were previously enslaved and offered one-year working contracts that included a small hut, a plot of land, and a little money. Unlike during slavery, these free workers did not receive food or any care from their employers prompting some of them to declare that the new conditions were worse that enslavement.

Each October 1 (Contract Day) workers were allowed to leave their plantations and enter into contracts with new plantation owners. On October 1, 1878, workers gathered on the island of St. Croix to protest wages and the harsh living conditions they were forced to live in. This gathering turned into a riot. Participants threw stones at Danish soldiers, who soon barricaded themselves in the town Fort on the island. The riots were said to be organized and led by three women: Mary Thomas, Axeline Elizabeth Salomon, and Mathilda McBean.

On October 4, 1878, British, French, and American warships arrived at St. Croix help stop the riots but were turned away by local Danish authorities. The next day Governor von Scholten issued a declaration that all laborers should return to their plantations or be declared “rebels.” The uprising continued but after two weeks many workers had returned to their plantations and the revolt ended. During the unrest nearly 100 people were killed and 50 houses were burned. Almost 900 acres of sugar were destroyed.

The Danes arrested approximately 400 people. Twelve were sentenced to death and immediately executed. Another 39 were sentenced, but 34 had their sentences commuted to shorter terms. Among the last group were Mary, Axeline, and Mathilda who were sent to the Women’s Prison, Christianshavn, in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1882. They then returned to Christiansted, St. Croix in 1887, to serve out the remainder of their sentences. These three women became known as “The Three Queens.”

In 2004, historian Wayne James discovered historical documents that suggested the role of a fourth Queen, Susanna Abramsen, also known as Bottom Belly. St. Croix has a Queen Mary Highway in her honor, and The Three Queens fountain was commissioned by the St. Thomas Historical Trust and unveiled in 2005 on St. Thomas. Each statue holds a tool in their hands used in the revolt; a flaming torch, a sugarcane knife, and a lantern. In 2018, artist Jeanette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle created the I Am Queen Mary monument in the port of Copenhagen. The statue is twenty-three feet tall and is Denmark’s first public monument to a black woman.

african american institutions

The following are short descriptions of the major institutions which have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources. For additional information please consult the print or website sources cited in the entry.

THE SPINGARN MEDAL (1915- )

The Spingarn Medal is the highest honor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Since 1915, it has been awarded annually for the highest achievement of a living African American in the preceding year or years. The twofold purpose of the award, according to the NAACP, is to call the attention of the American people to the existence of distinguished merit and achievement among Americans of African descent and to stimulate the ambition of African American youth.

The award was established in 1914 by Joel Elias Spingarn, chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors and one the organization’s first Jewish leaders, who wished, in his words, “to perpetuate the lifelong interest of my brother, Arthur B. Spingarn, of my wife, Amy E. Spingarn, and of myself in the achievements of the American Negro.” Spingarn joined the NAACP in 1913 after resigning his professorship at Columbia University over free-speech issues. He was instrumental in establishing the NAACP’s New York office, and he sponsored the award in an attempt to counter the negative depiction of Black people as criminals that was common in newspapers of the time.

The committee established to select Spingarn Medal recipients initially consisted of John Hope, president of Morehouse College, and John Hurst, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Spingarn, who was white, insisted the awards committee include prominent white individuals so as to ensure attention would be drawn to awardees in the mainstream press. Former president William H. Taft and Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, were later named to the awards committee.

The first recipient of the Spingarn Medal was Ernest E. Just, professor of biology at Howard University. The list of Spingarn awardees reads as a veritable Who’s Who of African Americans in fields such as politics, the military, medicine, arts, entertainment, and sports. Awardees include W. E. B. DuBois, George Washington Carver, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Duke Ellington, Colin Powell, and Sidney Poitier. Eleven women have won the Spingarn Medal. Two awardees received the medal posthumously. No award was made in 1938.

Upon Spingarn’s death in 1939, he left an endowment of $20,000 to enable the NAACP to continue giving the award in perpetuity. Today the awardee is selected by a nine-person committee with the presentation of the medal taking place at the NAACP’s annual convention.

MOUNT ZION UNITED METHODIST CHURCH (1816- )

Founded in 1816, Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, the oldest continuously operating African American church in Washington DC, is located at 1334 29th Street NW. The Georgetown community where the church now sits, was a central port for slave and tobacco trading in the early 1800s. At the time, one third of Georgetown’s population was Black with half enslaved and half free. The founders of Mt. Zion UMC were originally members of the Montgomery Street Church (now Dumbarton UMC) established in 1772. That church was 50% African American. In 1814, Following dissatisfaction with Montgomery Street segregation, Black members formed their own congregation called “The Meeting House.” Founders bought land on Mill Street (now 27th Street) from Henry Foxall, an officer of Montgomery Street Church. The Meeting House continued to be supervised and served by ministers of Montgomery.

The new church’s Sabbath School provided education for adults and children from 1823 to 1862. Later from 1840 and through Reconstruction, the church hosted schools sponsored by Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief Association and additional groups.

The name changed to “Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Church” in 1844 at the recommendation of Rev. Stephen Roszel, an anti-slavery leader and pastor of Montgomery. Following pushes for Black ministers to lead Black churches, in 1849 multiple Mt. Zion members left the church to start Union Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church, all in the District of Columbia. Before and during the Civil War, Mt. Zion was a station on the Underground Railroad, using a vault in the Old Methodist Burying Ground to hide runaway slaves for their passage north.

The current 29th Street location of Mt. Zion Church is on land purchased by the congregation in 1875 for $2,581 from Alfred Pope, a local Black businessman and Trustee of Mt. Zion. Mt. Zion relocated to the new site in 1880, after the original church structure burned down. The first cornerstone was laid in 1876, and construction was completed in 1884 under leadership of pastors Rev. Alexander Dennis and Rev. Edgar Murphy.

By 1896, Mt. Zion church membership grew to 700 people. Construction and expansions continued with a new community center called “Community House” in 1920 on property adjacent to Mt. Zion and led by Emma Williams, a social worker.

Membership declined in the late 1930s and 1940s as the Black population of Georgetown relocated as Whites now dominated this upper income neighborhood. In the mid-1950s, however, Mt. Zion’s membership grew again as it welcomed parishioners from the wider Metro DC area through provision of a transportation service. Mt. Zion owned three buses by the mid-1960s that brought congregants from across the city and its immediate suburbs.

In 1975, Mt. Zion Church and the adjacent Mt. Zion Cemetery became Historical Landmarks on the National Register of Historical Places.

Mt. Zion’s current membership includes multi-generational families since founding, and members from the wider Washington DC area as well as the Virginia and Maryland suburbs. Few members currently live in Georgetown. Mt. Zion continues community services throughout Greater Washington and maintains active involvement in Black History and Historical Tourism.

RACIAL VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1660

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Regrettably racial violence has been a distinct part of American history since 1660. While that violence has impacted almost every ethnic and racial group in the United States, it has had a particularly horrific effect on African American life. Listed below are some of the major incidents of racial violence profiled on BlackPast.org. They range from revolts of the enslaved to more recent urban uprisings such as the Rodney King Riot in Los Angeles in 1992. This page does not cover violence affecting a single individual such as lynchings or police shootings. We are constantly updating this list but if you think other incidents should be included please send their names and a brief description to rayaustin@brothersforum.org

Revolts of the Enslaved:

New York City Slave Uprising, 1712
The Stono Rebellion, 1739
New York City Slave Conspiracy, 1741
Gabriel Prosser Revolt, 1800
Igbo Landing Mass Suicide, 1803
Andry’s Rebellion, 1811
Denmark Vesey Conspiracy, 1822
Nat Turner Revolt, 1831
Amistad Mutiny, 1839
Creole Case, 1841
Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation, 1842

Cincinnati Riots, 1829
Anti-Abolition Riots, 1834
Cincinnati Race Riots, 1836
The Pennsylvania Hall Fire, 1838
Christina (Pennsylvania) Riot, 1851

Detroit Race Riot, 1863
New York City Draft Riots, 1863
Memphis Riot, 1866
New Orleans Massacre, 1866
Pulaski Race Riot, 1868
Camilla Massacre, 1868
Opelousas Massacre, 1868
The Meridian Race Riot, 1871
Chicot County Race War, 1871
The Colfax Massacre, 1873
Clinton (Mississippi) Riot, 1875
Hamburg Massacre, 1876
Carroll County Courthouse Massacre, 1886
Thibodaux Massacre, 1887
New Orleans Dockworkers’ Riot, 1894-1895
Virden, Illinois Race Riot, 1898
Wilmington Race Riot, 1898
Newburg, New York Race Riot, 1899

University of Georgia Desegregation Riot, 1961
Ole Miss Riot, 1962
Houston (Texas Southern University) Riot, 1967
Orangeburg Massacre, 1968
Jackson State Killings, 1970

Antebellum Urban Violence

Civil War, Reconstruction, and Post-Reconstruction Era Violence

College Campus Violence

Race Riots, 1900-1960

Robert Charles Riot (New Orleans), 1900
New York City Race Riot, 1900
Atlanta Race Riot, 1906
Springfield, Illinois Race Riot, 1908
The Slocum Massacre, 1910
East St. Louis Race Riot, 1917
Chester, Pennsylvania Race Riot, 1917
Houston Mutiny and Race Riot, 1917
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Race Riot, 1918
Charleston (South Carolina) Riot, 1919
Longview Race Riot, 1919
Washington, D.C. Riot, 1919
Chicago Race Riot, 1919
Knoxville Race Riot, 1919
Elaine, Arkansas Riot, 1919
Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921
Rosewood Massacre, 1923
Harlem Race Riot, 1935
Beaumont Race Riot, 1943
Detroit Race Riot, 1943
Columbia Race Riot, 1946
Peekskill Riot, 1949

Cambridge, Maryland Riot, 1963
The Harlem Race Riot, 1964
Rochester Rebellion, 1964
Jersey City Uprising, 1964
Paterson, New Jersey Uprising, 1964
Elizabeth, New Jersey Uprising, 1964
Chicago (Dixmoor) Riots, 1964
Philadelphia Race Riot, 1964
Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles), 1965
Cleveland’s Hough Riots, 1966
Chicago, Illinois Uprising, 1966
The Dayton, Ohio Uprising, 1966
Hunter’s Point, San Francisco Uprising, 1966
The Nashville Race Riot, 1967
Tampa Bay Race Riot, 1967
Newark Race Riot, 1967
Plainfield, New Jersey Riot, 1967
Detroit Race Riot, 1967
Flint, Michigan Riot, 1967
Tucson Race Riot, 1967
Grand Rapids, Michigan Uprising, 1967
The King Assassination Riots, 1968
Hartford, Connecticut Riot, 1969
Asbury Park Race Riot, 1970
Camden, New Jersey Riots, 1969 and 1971
Miami (Liberty City) Riot, 1980
Crown Heights (Brooklyn) New York Riot, 1991
Rodney King Riot, 1992
West Las Vegas Riot, 1992
St. Petersburg, Florida Riot, 1996

Urban Uprisings, 1960-2000

NATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORIC LANDMARKS BY STATE

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Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the U.S. Government and most states have identified landmarks associated with African American history. Listed below are the African American National Historic Landmarks by state, as certified by the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places, as well as some state landmarks.

ALABAMA

Birmingham:
Bethel Baptist Church, Parsonage, and Guard House
Bethal Baptist Church was built in 1926 in the African American working class neighborhood of Collegeville. Reverend Shuttlesworth, a well-known
civil rights leader was pastor of Bethel Baptist Church from 1953 to
1961. He participated in several desegregation protests that gave this
church national recognition.

Mobile:
The Campground
The Campground historic district has played an important role in the historical
development of the predominately black community of Mobile, Alabama
since the 1860s.

Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station
On May 20, 1961, the Freedom Riders were attacked by a local mob at this bus station. The repercussions of this one day brought Civil Rights struggles into sharp relief and caught national and international attention.

Selma:
Brown Chapel AME Church
This church served as a starting point for the Selma to Montgomery Marches in 1965, and it played a major role in events that led to the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Tuskegee:
Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site (Tuskegee University)
This university was part of the expansion of education for blacks in the South following the U.S. Civil War. A historically black college, it first opened in 1881, as Talladega College, with a student body of 30 and one teacher, Booker T. Washington. It features the laboratory of early 20th Century’s most famous African American scientist, George Washington Carver.

Tuscaloosa:
Foster Auditorium, University of Alabama
This is the site where Governor George Wallace in 1963 tried to prevent two black students from entering, resulting in Kennedy calling on the National Guard to allow them entry. This became famous as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door Incident.”

ARIZONA

Sierra Vista:
Fort Huachuca
This U.S. military fort was created during the Indian Wars of the 1870s and 1880s to protect settlers and travel routes, and later housed black troops or “Buffalo Soldiers” from 1913-1933.

ARKANSAS

Camden:
Camden Expedition Site
This is the site of a host of different Civil War Battle sites. The Poison Spring Battlefield site has significance for African American history, as it is a site where black Union troops suffered heavy casualties. Also, Jenkins Ferry Battlefield is where the Kansas Colored Regiments of the Civil War fought a battle against the Confederacy.

Fort Smith:

Bass Reeves Statue
This statue is dedicated to Bass Reeves who served as U.S. Deputy Marshal in the Indian Territory from 1875 to 1907 when Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territories were combined to become the State of

Oklahoma.

Little Rock:
Daisy Bates House
Mrs. Daisy Lee Gaston Bates resided at this address during the Central High School desegregation crisis in 1957-1958. The house served as a haven for the nine African American students who desegregated the school and a place to plan the best way to achieve their goals.

Little Rock Central High School
This is where the first major confrontation over the implementation of the Brown v. Board of Education 1954 Supreme Court ruling occurred, in 1957.

CALIFORNIA

Allensworth:
Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park
In August 1908 colonel Allen Allensworth and and four other settlers established this town 30 miles north of Bakersfield with the goal of constructing a thriving community, where blacks could create a better life for themselves outside of segregated U.S. society. It features many restored buildings, including the Colonel’s house, historic schoolhouse, Baptist church, and library.

Los Angeles:
The Bridget “Biddy” Mason Monument
This monument honors one of the first prominent citizens and landowners in Los Angeles during the 1850s and 1860s. Mason, a former enslaved person, founded First African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1872.

Historic Resources Associated with African Americans in Los Angeles, Multiple Property Sumbission
Between the 1890s and 1958, African American settlement patterns in
Los Angeles underwent several distinct phases. Central Avenue was the
hub for much of this period. These national historic sites housed
African American business and community organizations in the area,
including the Lincoln Theater.

Port Chicago:
Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial Park
On July 17, 1944, at Port Chicago, 320 men, mostly African American sailors, were instantly killed when two ships being loaded with ammunition for the Pacific theatre troops blew up. It was World War II’s worst homefront disaster.

COLORADO

Bent County:
Fort Lyon
Founded in 1867, Fort Lyon was in active service to one or more branches of the United States military for 133 years. Several companies of African American (Buffalo) soldiers were stationed here during the Indian Wars from the 1860s to the 1890s.

CONNECTICUT

Farmington:
First Church of Christ
This church was at the center of community life for Amistad captives and their famous 1840-1841 trial.

Austin F. Williams Carriagehouse
This site served as living quarters for the Amistad Africans on their way back to Africa, and as a “station” on the Underground Railroad.

DELAWARE

Newark:
Iron Hill School
This school is one of more than 80 schools for African-American children built between 1919 and 1928 as part of philanthropist Pierre Samuel du Pont’s “Delaware experiment.” Though small and modest, these school buildings incorporated the latest design concepts in Progressive era education.

Wilmington:
Howard High School
This is one of the schools directly associated with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Founded in 1867, Howard High School was the first school in Delaware to offer a complete high school education to black students and was one of the earliest black secondary schools in the Nation.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Washington:
Blagden Alley — Naylor’s Court Historic District
After the Civil War, many African Americans migrated to Washington and came to live in the alley dwellings of Blagden Alley and Naylor Court, among others. They were small and poorly constructed buildings, mainly of wood and brick. The living conditions were overcrowded and unsanitary. Only a handful of such alleys still exist. Also located in this historic district isthehome of
slave born Blanche K. Bruce, who was the first African American to serve
a full term in the U.S. Senate, from 1875-1881.

Charles Sumner School
Named after U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, a major figure in the fight for abolition of slavery and the establishment of equal rights for African Americans, it was one of the first public school buildings erected for the education of Washington’s black community. Since its dedication in 1872, the School’s history encompasses the growing educational opportunities available for the District of Columbia’s African Americans.

Frederick Douglass House
This 20-room colonial mansion is where Douglass lived for the last 13 years of his life. It has been preserved as a monument to the 19th century abolitionist.

Greater U Street Historic District
This historic district is significant as the center of Washington’s African American community between c.1900 and 1948, with African American owned and operated businesses, entertainment facilities, and fraternal and religious institutions.

John Philip Sousa Junior High School
This school stands as a symbol of the lengthy conflict that ultimately led to the racial desegregation of public schools by the Federal government in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Lincoln Park
This Park features the Mary McLeod Bethune memorial and the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. The
statue of Lincoln is at the East end of the park, whereas Bethune’s
statue lies to the West. Unveiled in 1974, this is the first monument to
a black person, or even a woman.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
This solid granite sculpture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stands in the “National Mall” in Washington, D.C. The monument, opened in August 2011, commorates King’s fight for civil rights and the year that the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law.

Mary Church Terrell House
This house, built between 1873 and 1877, was the home of Memphis-born Mary Church Terrell, who at age 86 led the successful fight to integrate eating places in the District of Columbia.

Mary McLeod Bethune’s Council House
This townhouse is where Bethune achieved her greatest recognition. It was the first headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and was Bethune’s last home in D.C. From here, she brainstormed programs and strategies to advance the interests of African American women.

Metropolitan AME Church
This is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal church in D.C., having been built in 1838. Throughout its history, the church has had parishioners who were very important in the history of Washington’s African American community, including Frederick Douglass and Altheia Turner. Funeral services for Frederick Douglass and former US Senator Blanche K. Bruce were held at the church.

Mount Zion Cemetary
This cemetery serves as a physical reminder of African American life and the evolving free black culture in the District of Columbia from the earliest days of the city to the present.

Ralph Bunche House
This house is where Dr. Ralph Bunche, the distinguished African American diplomat and scholar, from 1941 to 1947. Bunche served as a full professor at Howard University and as Undersecretary-General of the United Nations at this time. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949.

Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, FrederickDouglass Memorial Hall, and Founders Library, Howard University
From 1929, Howard Law School became an educational training ground,
through the vision of Charles Hamilton Houston, for the development of
activist black lawyers dedicated to securing the Civil Rights of all
people of color. Howard University is nationally significant as the
setting for the legal establishment of
racially desegregated public education.

Public Schools of Washington D.C.
This multiple site historic landmark includes Alexander Crummell School, William Syphax School, and Military Road School, all formerly African American segregated schools.

Striver’s Section Historic District
Since the earliest development of this district in the 1870s, the area has been associated with African American leaders in business, education, politics, religion, art, architecture, science and government. The most renowned of these figures was Frederick Douglass.

FLORIDA

Daytona Beach:
Howard Thurman House
Author, philosopher, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman spent most of his childhood in this late 19th-century house. His influential work influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and provided the philosophical foundation for a nonviolent civil rights movment.

The Mary McLeod Bethune Home
This was the residence of the educator and civil rights leader on the campus of Bethune Cookman College from the early 1920s until her death in 1955.

Florida Keys:
USS Alligator
Built in the Boston Navy yard in 1820, this warship saw duty in 1821 and 1822, patrolling the west coast of Africa on anti-slavery trade duty. The wreck of the U.S. Schooner Alligator can be found near the Alligator Reef Lighthouse on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Florida Keys, Florida.

Franklin County:
British Fort Gadsden
This fort was once a place where runaway slaves lived alongside Seminole Indians. It was built in 1814 as a base for recruiting Blacks and Indians during the War of 1812. The British abandoned it to their allies in 1815, after which it became a beacon for rebellious slaves.

Jacksonville:
American Beach Historic District
American Beach near Jacksonville, Florida, was founded in 1935 by the Afro-American Life Insurance Company of Jacksonville as an oceanfront resort for African Americans. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Bethel Baptist Institutional Church
Bethel Baptist Institutional Church is the oldest black Baptist Church in Florida. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Kingsley Plantation
This is the oldest known plantation in Florida, established in 1763. The plantation has been restored as a house museum. It displays exhibits and furnishings that depict plantation life during the period of 1763-1783.

Palm Beach:
Hurricane of 1928 African American Mass Grave
This is the burial site of approximately 674
victims, primarily African American agricultural workers, who were
killed in the hurricane of 1928 that devastated South Florida. It was
one of the worst natural disasters in American history.

St. Augustine:
Fort Mose
Fort Mose is the site of the first free African settlement in what is now the United States. Founded in 1738 by Spanish colonists offering asylum to slaves from the British Colonies, it is also one of the original sites on the southern route of the Underground Railroad.

Lincolnville Historic District
This historically black neighborhood was
originally founded in 1866 by former slaves. Jim Crow laws from 1890 and
1910 spurred the growth of Lincolnville’s black owned and operated
commercial enterprises, and in 1964 its politicized community
institutions became the sites and bases from which many Civil Rights
Movment marches began.

GEORGIA

Atlanta:
Atlanta University Center Historic District
Created in 1929, this consortium of historically black colleges includes the Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and the Morehouse School of Medicine. Students are able to cross-register at the other institutions in order to attain a broader collegiate experience. Several ot these institutions played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Martin Luther King Historic District
This National Historic Site located within several
blocks of Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue features King’s birthplace home,
gravesite, and the church where King served as assistant pastor.

Sweet Auburn Historic District
This historic African American neighborhood is where African American businesses moved after the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906.

Albany:
Mount Zion Baptist Church
Constructed in 1906, this brick church served as the religious, educational, and social center of Albany’s African American community, especially during the Civil Rights Movement.

Augusta:
Paine College Historic District
Representing one of the few institutions of higher education created by a biracial board of trustees in Georgia for African American students in 1882, Paine College Historic District is important for its role in education and African American heritage.

Midway:
Dorchester Academy Boys’ Dormitory
Dorchester Academy was founded by the American Missionary Association (AMA) following the Civil War as a primary school for black children in the 1890s. It is is nationally important as the primary site of the Citizenship Education Program sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) between 1961 and 1970.

Sapelo Island:
Behavior Cemetery
This cemetery is a unique post civil-war African American burial ground that reflects African American burial customs. The oldest tombstone death date is 1890, although tradition holds that burials have taken place at this location since antebellum times.

Vienna:

Vienna High and Industrial School
Built in 1959, Vienna High and Industrial school is as an excellent example of an equalization (an educational facility created to be equal among African-American and white students) school in Georgia and is significant in the areas of architecture, education, ethnic heritage and social history.

ILLINOIS

Chicago:
Chicago Bee Building
This is the home of the Chicago Bee, an African American newspaper commissioned to this building by black entrepeneur Anthony Overton in 1926.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett House
This was the former home of late 19th Century and early 20th Century civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells.

Robert S. Abbott House
Abbott lived in this house from 1926 to 1940. He founded the black newspaper, TheChicago Defender. Under Abbott, TheChicago Defender
encouraged blacks to migrate north. It was responsible for the large
northward migration of blacks during the first half of the 20th century.

Oscar Stanton DePriest House
This house was the residence of the first black American elected to the House of Representatives from a northern state.

Overton Hygienic Building
This is one site that has given the African American community in Chicago the name “Black Metropolis.” Established in the beginning of the 20th century by Anthony Overton, this commercial district developed in response to the restrictions and exploitation blacks experienced in the rest of the city, providing venues for African American professional businesses.

Wabash Avenue YMCA
This YMCA was a major social and educational center in the “Black Metropolis,” the center of Chicago’s African American culture in the early 1900s.

INDIANA

Angola:
Fox Lake Resort Community
The Fox Lake resort community was developed specifically for African Americans in the 1930s, when such communities were quite rare.

Richmond:
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Founded in 1836, this site is the oldest African American church in the state.

IOWA

Des Moines:
Burns United Methodist Church
Founded in 1866, this site is the oldest African American church in Iowa.

KANSAS

Fort Leavenworth:
Buffalo Soldiers Memorial Park
This park, on the grounds of historic Fort Leavenworth, is dedicated to the Buffalo Soldiers who served in garrisons throughout the West from 1866 through World War I.

Kansas City:
Quindaro Ruins
This town became an important station on the
Underground Railroad, with slave escpaing from Platte County and hiding
with local farmers before traveling to Nebraska for freedom. The town
was abandoned by most of the inhabitants with the outbreak of the Civil
War.

Nicodemus:
Nicodemus Historic District
This site is where a predominately black community was established in 1877 in western Kansas, during the reconstruction period after the Civil War. It is a symbol of the pioneering spirit of formerly enslaved people.

Topeka:
Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site
This is the site of two Topeka schools: Monroe Elementary School and Sumner Elementary School. Both played a significant role in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education.

KENTUCKY

Berea:
Lincoln Hall, Berea College
Founded in 1887 to educated both black and white students, this hall on the Berea College Campus served as the focus of civil rights activity for nearly a century.

Nicholasville:
Camp Nelson
Camp Nelson was a large Union quartermaster and commissary depot, recruitment and training center, and hospital facility established during the Civil War in June 1863. After March 1864, Camp Nelson became Kentucky’s largest recruitment and training center for black troops.

Simpsonville:
Whitney M. Young, Jr. Birthplace
Educator and civil rights Leader Whitney M. Young lived at this home until he was 15. He spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the South and turning the National Urban League into a strong grass roots organization for racial justice.

LOUISIANA

Alexandria:
Arna Wendell Bontemps House
This house is the birthplace of writer Arna Bontemps, a major figure in the African American literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Dorseyville:
St. John Baptist Church
Built between 1871 and 1875, the church is significant because it represents the earliest period of the African-American community in Dorseyville, which formed this town, located in sugar cane plantation fields, just after the Civil War.

Jackson:
Port Hudson
This was the site of a 48-day long Civil War siege, when 7,500 Confederates resisted some 40,000 Union soldiers for almost two months in 1863. Union casualties included 600 African-Americans of the First and Third Louisiana Native Guards.

New Orleans:
James H. Dillard Home
This is the former residence of Dillard, who spent most of his life improving the education of blacks in the U.S.

Eagle Saloon, Karnofsky Tailor Shop and House, and Iroquois Theater

In the first half of the twentieth century, South Rampart Street was once a flourishing entertainment and commercial district for African Americans containing drugstores, barber shops, theaters, live music venues, combination grocery stores/saloons, second-hand stores, saloons and pawn shops, of which these sites are an example.

Oscar:
Cherie Quarters Cabins
These twin cabins are all that remain of the slave quarters on the historic Riverlake Plantation. They are a rare surviving example of a once common building type in the antebellum south.

Springfield:
Carter Plantation
In 1817, Thomas Freeman became the first African-American man to own property in Livingston Parish when he acquired the pine forest in this area that he would transform into what has come to be known as the Carter Plantation.

Xavier:
Xavier University Main Building, Convent, and Library
Founded in 1915, this University provided a quality education to thousands of African Americans, principally from New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana, despite the widespread inequities during the Jim Crow era.

Wallace:
Evergreen Plantation
This Plantation home is a prime example of the major slave plantations found in the Antebellum period. It is composed of 39 buildings, including a main house and slave quarters. Parts of the movie Django Unchained were filmed at this plantation.

MAINE

Brunswick:
Harriet Beecher Stowe House
It was here that the author Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin between 1850 and 1852.

Portland:

Abyssinian Meeting House
This building was constructed between 1828 and 1831 to serve Portland, Maine’s African American community. Remodeled by the Congregation in the decade after the Civil War, it was used for religious, social, educational, and cultural events until its closing in 1916.

MARYLAND

Cambridge:
Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument
President Obama proclaimed this site a national monument in 2013. Its landscape is deeply associated with Tubman and the underground railroad, and is representative of the region in the early and mid 19th centuries. It includes the Jacobs Jackson Home Site, one of the first safe houses along the underground Railroad, Bezel Church, where African Americans worshipped at this time, Stewart’s Canal, which provided an escape route for slaves, and the James Cook Home Site, where Tubman was hired out as a child.

Harford County:
The Hosanna School
In 1867, the Freedmen’s Bureau established the Hosanna School, as known as the Berley School, to provide aid and education to former enslaved blacks and poor whites in the area.

Prince George’s County:
African American Historic Resources of Prince George’s County
Thomas Calloway House was the home of black lawyer and businessman Thomas Calloway in 1908, Ridgley Methodist Episcopal Church
in Landover was built in 1921 and was the spiritual and social center
of the formerly rural African American farming community of Ridgley.

Abraham Hall
was constructed in 1889 in Rossville for the Benevolent Sons and
Daughters of Abraham, a society established for the social welfare of African Americans. In Upper Marlboro, black Roman Catholics founded St. Mary’s

Beneficial Society
in 1880 to provide for the social welfare of their community. They constructed a Society Hall in 1892 to serve as a meeting place, social and political center, and house of worship.

MASSACHUSETTS

Boston:
African Meeting House
Around 1800, this site was the first meeting place of the African Baptist Church, the oldest African American church in the state.

Boston African American National Historic Site
In the heart of the Beacon Hill neighborhood, this site interprets fifteen pre-Civil war structures relating to the history of Boston’s 19th century African American community, including the Museum of Afro-American History’s African Meeting House, the oldest African American church in the U.S.

Bunker Hill Monument
This 221 foot statue commemorates the famous Revolutionary War Battle at Bunker Hill, in which a number of blacks fought alongside the colonists.

William C. Nell Residence
Nell was a leading black abolitionist and law student who refused to take an oath to be admitted to the bar because he did not want to support the Constitution of the U.S., which he felt compromised the powers of slaves. He organized meetings in support of the anti-slavery movement.

William Monroe Trotter House
This is where noted black journalist and civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter lived during the first decades of the twentieth century.

Cambridge:
Maria Baldwin House
This house was where Baldwin, the first female African-American principal in a Massachusetts school, lived from 1892 until she died in 1922. She was a leader in many community organizations and a sponsor for many charitable activities.

Great Barrington:
W.E.B. DuBois Boyhood Homesite
This is where prominent black sociologist, writer, and major figure in the black civil rights movement, W.E.B. DuBois, lived during the first half of the twentieth century.

Medford:
Royall House & Slave Quarters
This site is the home of the largest 18th century slaveholding family in Massachusetts. Today, it is a museum that houses archeaological artifacts and household items. The slave quarters are the only slave quarters still standing in the northern United States.

Northampton:
Dorsey-Jones House
Dorsey-Jones House was the home of two escaped slaves, Basil Dorsey (1810-1872) and Thomas H. Jones (1806-1890). Dorsey bought the home in 1849, and it became a haven for those escaping through the assistance of the Underground Railroad.

MICHIGAN

Detroit:
First Congregational Church of Detroit
This church served an important role as the last stop in a long journey for fugitive slaves taking the underground railroad to Canada.

Ossian Sweet House
This home of black physician Ossian Sweet became the site of a racial incident that resulted in a nationally publicized murder trial.

Second Baptist Church
Established in 1836 by 13 former slaves, this was the first African American Congregation in Michigan. Just miles away from the freedom that the Canadian border offered to escaped slaves, the church became a stop on the Underground Railroad.

MINNESOTA

St. Paul:
Pilgrim Baptist Church
Founded in 1863, this is the oldest black church in Minnesota.

MISSISSIPPI

Clarksdale:
WROX Building
From 1946-1954, this building served as the site of a radio station that catered to an African American audience. The second floor, home to WROX, remains unaltered from the time of the radio station’s occupancy.

Natchez:
Natchez National Cemetery
This cemetery is the final resting place of many blacks who fought in the U.S. Civil War. For example, Hiram R. Revels, the first black elected to U.S. Senate, recruited blacks for the Union side during the war.

Tougaloo:
Tougaloo College
Thishistorically black but integrated college was founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Association. During the 1950s and 1960s, it became a primary center of civil rights movement activity in Mississippi.

MISSOURI

Clarkton:
Charles and Betty Birthright House
For more than 40 years this house was home to the Birthrights, former slaves who achieved economic independence and prosperity while building close ties with the families that had held them in slavery, and the predominantly white citizenry of Clarkton and Dunklin Counties.

Diamond:
Carver National Monument
This monument commemorates the place where famous black scientist George Washington Carver was born and spent his childhood. He was discovered by Booker T. Washington in 1896. That same year, Carver joined the faculty of Tuskegee Institute where he conducted the research that made him famous.

Homestown:
Delmo Community Center
This community center was the historic social and political center of Homestown, originally known as South Wardell, one of ten communities constructed by the Farm Security Administration for displaced sharecroppers and tenant farmers following the January 1939 roadside sharecropper demonstration in Southeast Missouri.

Jefferson City:
Lincoln University
This university was launched through the generous philanthropy of former slaves who fought for their freedom during the Civil War. It began as a 22 square foot room in 1866, following the tenets of Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute.

St. Louis:
Old Courthouse (Jefferson National Expansion Memorial)
This is the courthouse where Dred Scott, the most famous fugitive slave of his day, first filed suit to gain his freedom in 1847.

Shelley House
This is the home that the J. D. Shelley family purchased in a fight for the right to live in a home of their choosing. As a result, the United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of restrictive racial covenants in housing in the landmark 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer.

MONTANA

Great Falls:
Union Bethel AME Church
The Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Great Falls, Montana, is one of the first-built and longest-used churches for African Americans in Montana.

NEBRASKA

Omaha:
Malcolm X House Site
Civil Rights activist Malcolm X was born in a now demolished house on this site.

NEVADA

Las Vegas:
Berkely Square
The Berkely Square subdivision, which is located in the area historically known as Las
Vegas’ Westside, consists of 148 Contemporary Ranch-style homes designed
by internationally-known African American architect Paul R. Williams.
It was built between 1954 and 1955 and was the first minority (African
American) built subdivision in Nevada.

Moulin Rouge Hotel
This was the first interracial hotel built in Las Vegas, constructed in 1955, at a time when black performers and visitors were denied access to casino and hotel dining areas and were forced to seek accomodation in black boarding houses. Despite community aims to preserve the site, all that remain of the structure are two pillars in an empty lot.

Reno:
Bethel AME Church
This church was a religious, social and political center of the African American community, initially for black settlers in Reno Nevada in the 1910s, and later for local civil rights activists during the 1960s.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Lee:
Cartland House
This building is where Moses Cartland, one of New Hampshire’s premier antislavery activists, aided those fleeing from slavery in the mid-19th century.

NEW JERSEY

Newark:
Newark Symphony Hall
Built in 1925, the Newark Symphony Hall saw its first African American performer, Marian Anderson, in 1940. Since then the hall has been a major venue for African American musical and performing artists. It continues to serve as a cultural center for the Greater Newark-New York City Region.

Paterson:

Hinchliffe Stadium
This stadium served as the home field for the New York Black Yankees between 1933 and 1937, and then again from 1939 to 1945. Hinchliffe is possibly the sole surviving regular home field for a Negro League baseball team in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Red Bank:
T. Thomas Fortune House
This National Historic Landmark was where former slave and leading black activist and journalist T. Thomas Fortune lived from 1901-1915.

NEW MEXICO

Albuquerque:
Philips Chapel Church, Las Cruces
This century-old church is the oldest African American religious institution in Southern New Mexico.

NEW YORK

Auburn:
Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, Harriet Tubman Residence, and Thompson AME Zion Church
These properties illustrate Harriet Tubman’s life in Auburn, New York, between 1859 and 1913. Her Home for the Aged is a charitable organization for aged and indigent African Americans which she founded; her residence; and, the Thompson AME Zion Church on Parker Street, where she worshipped.

Buffalo:
The Reverend J. Edward Nash, Sr. House
J. Edward Nash, Sr., the son of freed slaves, came to Buffalo from Virginia in 1892 to
serve as the pastor of the Michigan Street Baptist Church, an
appointment he held until 1953. Nash was well acquainted with African
American leaders on the national stage in his day, particularly Booker
T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. He
was instrumental in establishing branches of the National Urban League
and the NAACP in Buffalo.

Newburgh:
Newburgh Colored Burial Ground
The Newburgh Colored Burial Ground is a historic cemetery located on
land which today forms the grounds of the City Courthouse. Recent
excavation work and mapping of the cemetery have revealed over 100
graves dating from 1832-1867 with the possibility that additional graves may still be found.

New York:
Dunbar Apartments
This apartment complex, constructed in 1926, is located in Harlem. Labor reformer and unionist Asa Philip Randolph, one of many influential African Americans who lived at the Dunbar Apartments, helped to battle racism in American industry.

Hotel Theresa
The Hotel Theresa, built from 1912 to 1913, has been one of the
major social centers of Harlem. Serving from 1940 until the late 1960s,
when it was converted into office use, it was one of the most important
community institutions for African Americans in New York.

Ivey Delph Apartments
Built in 1951, this was the first large-scale project by and for African Americans in New York backed by a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage commitment.

Langston Hughes House
The Langston Hughes House is historically significant as the home of James Langston Hughes (1902-1967), author, poet, and one of the foremost figures in the Harlem Renaissance.

Paul Robeson Home
Paul Robeson, actor, singer, and civil rights activist, lived with his family lived in an apartment in this 13 story apartment
building from 1939-1941, upon his return from living and performing in
Europe.

St. Philips Protestant Episcopal Church
Founded in 1809, the church is the oldest African American Episcopal parish in New York City.

Brooklyn:
Weeksville Heritage Center
Weeksville Heritage Center is a multidisciplinary museum dedicated to preserving the history of the 19th century African American community of Weeksville, Brooklyn—one of America’s many free black communities.

Irvington-on-Hudson:
Villa Lewaro
Villa Lewaro, the home of early 20th Century cosmetics manufacturer, Madam C.J. Walker, was built in 1918 and designed by the first registered African American architect, Vertner Tandy. Walker used her home as a meeting site for race relations issues.

Niagara Falls:
Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area
This Heritage site commemorates and preserves the people, places, and stories connected to the Underground Railroad found within the City of Niagara Falls.

Peterboro:
Underground Railroad Site at the Gerrit Smith Estate
An active abolitionist, wealthy enterpriser Gerrit Smith (1797-1874), offered his estate as as a gathering place for abolitionists. It also served as a widely-recognized safe haven for refugees from enslavement en route to Canada on the Underground Railroad.

Rochester:
Underground Railroad Heritage Trail
This Heritage Trail follows the routes through Western New York of thousands of enslaved people who sought freedom in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Scipio:
Sherwood Equal Rights Historic District
This district is known for its association with numerous social reform movements, including abolitionism, the Underground Railroad, Native American rights, women’s rights, and education. Several of the properties within the district were owned by freed slaves.

NORTH CAROLINA

Greensboro:
F.W. Woolworth Building
The Woolworth’s Five & Dime in Greensboro, North Carolina, is historically significant for a unique sit-in that empowered student activists for the next decade and changed the face of segregation forever.

Ellerbe:
Liberty School
Historically important for its educational,
African American and architectural history, this former one-story school
was built in 1930 on the same site as a 19th century building for local
African American children.

Winston-Salem:
George Black House and Brickyard
African American brickmaker George H. Black lived and worked on this property from 1934 until his death. As early as the 1920s, Black’s work was sought-after for his traditional 18th and 19th century craftsmanship and techniques.

OHIO

Dayton:
Paul Laurence Dunbar House
Dunbar (1872-1906) holds the distinction of being the first African American poet to receive national acclaim since Phyllis Wheatly.

East Canton:
Clearview Golf Club
This golf club was founded and constructed by PGA Life Member William J. Powell in 1946, in response to segregationist policies of the time that prevented him from golfing on a public golf course in Ohio. Clearview Golf Club is the only golf course in the United States designed, built, owned and managed by an African-American.

Wilberforce:
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument
President Obama designated this site a National Monument in 2013. It is where Colonel Charles Young, the first African American to achieve the rank of colonel in the U.S. army, lived from 1864-1922. It preserves his post-Civil War military legacy.

OKLAHOMA

Boley:
Boley Historic District
This is the site where an all-black community was established in 1903. Begun as a camp for African-American railroad construction hands, this is the largest of the towns established in Oklahoma to provide African-Americans with the opportunity for self government in an era of white supremacy and segregation.

Norman:
Bizzell Library at the University of Oklahoma
This library is significant for its association with the historical movement to racially desegregate public higher education in the South in the mid-20th century. The university took part in the U.S. Supreme Court case that challenged the constitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Oklahoma City:
Calvary Baptist Church
This church was built in 1921 and served as the social and religious center of Oklahoma city’s black population. It is also the site where Oklahoma students organized “sit-ins” at segregated lunch counters in 1957.

Tulsa:
Mount Zion Baptist Church
This church was rebuilt after the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, and stands as a symbol of local African American Community.

Vinita:

Attucks School
A combined elementary, junior high and high school, Attucks School was one of seven such schools that served African Americans in Vinita, Craig County, Oklahoma, and was the only one that had a secondary school until after racial desegregation in the mid-1950s.

PENNSYLVANIA

Philadelphia:
John Coltrane House
This national landmark is where tenor saxophonist and American jazz pioneer John Coltrane lived from 1952 until two years before his death in 1967. A musician and composer, Coltrane played a central role in the development of jazz during the 1950s and 1960s.

Lorraine Apartments (Divine Lorraine Hotel)
This building was designed and constructed between 1892 and 1893 by architect Willis G. Hale. Father Divine, leader and head of the Divine Peace Mission Movement, acquired the building in 1948 and made it the center of the Peace Mission’s international religious, civil rights and social welfare activities.

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church
Mother Bethel, founded in 1793, is the oldest African American Church in Pennsylvania.

RHODE ISLAND

Providence:
Congdon Street Baptist Church
Founded in 1819, Congden Street Baptist Church is the oldest African American church in Rhode Island.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Charleston:
Historic Charleston’s Religious and Community Buildings
Certain buildings here, such as the Old Slave Mart, Old Bethel Methodist, and Emanuel AME are historically relevant to the African American Past. The Old Slave Mart is the only known extant building used as a slave auction gallery in South Carolina. The Emanuel AME was built in 1891 and is the oldest of such institutions in the South.

Columbia:
Carver Theater
Built circa 1941, Carver Theater was one of only two movie theaters exclusively for African Americans in Columbia. Since the other theater, the Capitol Theater, has been demolished, the Carver Theater is the only extant motion picture theater where African Americans could freely go to the movies.

Modjeska Monteith Simkins House
Simkins lived at this home from 1932 until her death. She served in leadership positions that were traditionally unavailable to women in the civil rights movement, especially in the areas of
public health reform and social reform in South Carolina.

Orangburg:
All Star Bowling Lane
In 1968, this bowling alley was still segregated, even four years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. local black leaders and members of the white business community had tried to persuade All Star to desegregate. Black students and police met in a a pivotal struggle here, resulting in the “Orangeburg Massacre” of 1968.

South Carolina College Historic District
This is the core of the historic campus at South
Carolina State University, known for mass student protests in 1960 and
afterwards, including lunch counter protests, and a race riot at All

Star Bowling Lanes.

St. Helena Island
Penn Center
Founded in 1862, Penn School was one of the first academic schools in the South to educate formerly enslaved West Africans. After the school closed in 1948, Penn became the first African American institution to protect and preserve the heritage of the Gullah Geechee community.

TENNESSEE

Fort Pillow:
Fort Pillow State Park
This well-preserved historic fort and 1,642 acre state park is where black troops were massacred by Confederate troops led by Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest in the Battle of Fort Pillow.

Memphis:
Beale Street Historic District
This street is the birthplace of the Blues style of music.

Mason Temple, Church of God in Christ
Built between 1940 and 1945, Mason Temple served as a focal point of civil rights activities in Memphis during the 1950s and 1960s. It was here that Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his prophetic “Mountaintop” speech on the eve of his assassination.

Nashville:
Fisk University, Jubilee Hall
This L-shaped six-story Victorian Gothic dormitory is the oldest and largest building at Fisk University and the oldest permanent building for the higher education of Negroes in the United States.

Pearl High School
Pearl High School grew out of an elementary school founded in 1883. It was one of the first high schools for African Americans in Tennessee. It became an educational center for the fine arts and music, and the school developed a nationally known football and basketball program.

TEXAS

Brownsville:
Palmito Ranch Battlefield
The last major battle of the U.S. Civil War was fought at this site, on May 12-13, 1865. Buffalo soldiers of the 62nd Infrantry Regiment played a major role in this battle.

Dallas:
Juanita Craft House
Craft played a crucial role in integrating two universities, the 1954 Texas State Fair, and Dallas theaters, restaurants, and lunch counters. Both Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr., visited her here to discuss the future of the civil rights movement.

Fort Davis:
Fort Davis National Historic Landmark
Buffalo Soldiers were stationed here during the late 19th Century Indian Wars in West Texas.

Fort Worth:
Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
This church, founded in 1787, originally had a tunnel beneath it that led to the bank of the Wasbash River for escaped slaves enrought to Canada on the Underground Railroad. Many of its early members were freed slaves brought to the area by Quakers.

Galveston:
Ashton Villa
On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of htis building and declared that all slaves were free, marking the date of the historic Juneteenth celebrations in Texas. Built in 1861, this historic home became the headquarters for both the Confederate Army and the Union Army at different times during the Civil War.

Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
This was the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Texas
created by freed blacks after the Civil War. It was an important worship
site for black slaves as early as 1848.

Houston:
Freedmen’s Town National Historic District
Freedman’s Town in Houston is the one of the first and the largest of
the post-Civil War black urban communities in Texas. The community was
created by former Texas slaves who upon hearing of their liberation,
left their plantations for the safety of Houston. Although African
Americans lived in Houston before and during the Civil War, Freedman’s
Town represents the first spatial community of black Houstonians in the
city.

Rutherford B.H. Yates House
Built in 1912, this historic house serves as a small museum to Yates, who founded the Yates Printing Compnay in 1922. It is dedicated to rpeserving the history of the Yates family and African American printing. It is located in the National Historic District of Freedmen’s Town in Houston.

Jacksboro:
Fort Richardson
This was the anchor of a defensive line of fortifications during the American Indian Wars that included forts Griffin and Concho. Two regiments of Buffalo Soldiers, the 10th Cavalry
Regiment and 24th Infantry Regiment, were stationed here.

San Angelo:
Fort Concho National Historic Landmark
This fort was established in 1867 to protect frontier settlements. Elements of all four regiments of the Buffalo Soldiers were stationed at the post during its active period.

Sweet Home:
Sweet Home Vocational and Agricultural High School
This historic African-American school is one of two extant buildings in Guadalupe County funded by the Julius Rosenwald School Building Program in 1924, with courses based on standardized plans designed by Booker T. Washington.

Waxahachie:
Joshua Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
This historic black church was built in 1917. Its first congregation was organized in 1876, by Rev. Joshua Goins, who started many African Methodist Episcopal churches across the state.

VIRGINIA

Alexandria:
African American Historic Resources of Alexandria
These landmarks include the Moses Hepburn Rowhouses, which were the property of Hepburn, a prominent black citizen and businessmen who had been born into slavery in 1809 and freed seven years later. The Dr. Albert Johnson House was the home of one of the city’s first licensed black physicians, Dr. Albert Johnson. The George L. Seaton House is where Seaton, a successful black entrepreneur and property owner, as well as a civic and political leader, lived. The historic Alfred Street Baptist Church (1855), Beulah Baptist Church (1863) and Davis Chapel (1834) served as historic churches for the black community, and the Odd Fellows Hall served as the site for multiple African American community organizations.

Charles City:
Berkeley Plantation
This is one of the largest slave plantations of Virginia, associated with William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison.

Farmville:
Robert Russa Moton High School
Constructed in 1939, this school played an important role in ending “separate but equal” educational facilities throughout the nation.

Hampton:
Buckroe (Bay Shore) Beach
Founded in 1890, Bay Shore Beach and Resort is the oldest recreational beach in Virginia for African Americans.

James River Area:
James River Plantations
Many of these historic plantations have restored quarters of the enslaved.

New Kent:
New Kent School and the George W. Watkins School
These schools are associated with public school desegregation after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. While Brown determined that separate schools were inherently unequal, it did not define the process by which schools would be desegregated. The 1968 Charles C. Green, et al., v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia, et al. decision defined the standards by which the Court judged whether a violation of the U.S. Constitution had been remedied in school desegregation cases.

Richmond:
Barton Heights Cemeteries
These cemeteries were established between 1815 and 1865 by black churches, fraternal orders, and benevolent organizations. They represent early efforts by African Americans to establish their own cemeteries through burial societies that offered death benefits.

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
Maggie Lena Walker grew to be a woman of national prominence. She was the first woman in the United States to found a bank and helped pave the way for African Americans and women to improve their lives and successes.

WEST VIRGINIA

Charleston:
Elizabeth Harden Gilmore House
Civil rights leader Elizabeth Harden Gilmore lived here from 1947 until her death in 1986. She pioneered efforts to integrate her state’s schools, housing, and public accommodations and to pass civil rights legislation enforcing such integration.

Malden:
African Zion Baptist Church
Founded in 1852, African Zion Baptist Church is the oldest African American church in West Virginia.

AFRICAN AMERICAN U.S. ENVOYS, DIPLOMATIC MINISTERS, AND AMBASSADORS SINCE 1869

Since 1776 when the United States sent its first envoy to France, men and later women diplomats have been assigned to be the nation’s offical representatives in global capitals and to international organiations where they are responsible for major foreign policy portfolios. Prior to 1893 those individuals were called (Diplomatic) Ministers and Envoys. Since that date they have been called Ambassadors. Regardless of the name used, these individuals have been Chiefs of Mission which means they head U.S. diplomatic delegations to their respective nations and organizations. The list below includes the African American women and men who have served in these diplomatic capacities beginning with Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett who was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to be Minister Resident and Consul General to Haiti in 1869.Photo of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

There are other 19th Century diplomatic officials, however, who have entries on BlackPast.org but who were never envoys, ministers, or ambassadors. They are William A. Liedesdorff who served as Vice Consul at Yerba Buena (now San Francisco) in 1845 when California was still part of Mexico, John L. Waller who was Consul at Tamatave, Madagascar from 1891 to 1894, Miflin Wistar Gibbs who held the same post from 1897 to 1901, Richard T. Greener who was Consul at Vladivostok, Russia from 1901 to 1905, and James Weldon Johnson, who was appointed Consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela and later Corinto, Nicargua. William Henry Hunt holds the distinction of having served in more diplomatic poste than any other African American. During his thirty-one year career he served as Consul in Tamatave, Madagascar, following Mifflin W. Gibbs there. He also served in France, Guadeloupe, the Azores, and Liberia.

Since 1949 African American ambassadors have represented the United States in nearly 100 nations as well as before Internatioal Organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union. Their names are included in specific categories as well. The entire list of African American U.S. Envoys, Ministers, and Ambassadors appears below. The list of Ambassadors includes all but the following four latest Ambassadors: Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, Costa Rica, 2015; Crystal Nix-Hines, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 2014; Michael A. Lawson, U.S. Representative to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), 2014; and, Ronald Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative, 2009. Their bios will be added below soon.

We at BlackPast.org would like to thank Ambassador Sylvia Gaye Stanfield, Carlton McLellen, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) and the dozens of volunteers from across the United States who helped make this page possible.

United States Ambassadors to the United Nations, 1977–

Andrew Young, 1977-1979

Donald McHenry, 1979-1981

Edward Perkins, 1992-1993

Susan Rice, 2009-2013

Ebenezer Don Carlos Basset, Haiti, 1869

John Mercer Langston, Haiti, 1877

James Milton Turner, Liberia, 1878

Henry Highland Garnet, Liberia, 1881

John E.W. Thompson, Haiti, 1885

Frederick Douglass, Haiti, 1889

Lester Aglar Walton, Liberia, 1935

Betty Eileen King, ECOSOC/UN, 1997

Pierre-Richard Prosper, At-Large: Office of War Crimes, 2001

Francis X. Taylor, At-Large: Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2001

Cindy L. Courville, African Union, 2006

Bonnie D. Jenkins, Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs, 2009

Ronald “Ron” Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative, 2009

William Kennard, European Union, 2010

Michael A. Battle, African Union, 2010

Ertharin Cousin, USUN/Rome, 2010

Suzan J. Cook: At-Large: International Religious Freedom, 2011

Rueben E. Brigety, II, African Union, 2013

Daniel W. Yohannes, Organiztaion for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2013

United States Envoys and Ministers, 1869-1935

United States Ambassadors to Global and Regional Organizations

United States Ambassadors Since 1949

Edward R. Dudley, Liberia, 1949

Jesse D. Locker, Liberia, 1953

Richard L. Jones, Liberia, 1955

John Howard Morrow, Guinea, 1959

Clifton R. Wharton, Sr., Norway, 1961

Will Mercer Cook, Niger, 1961, Senegal, 1964, Gambia, 1965

Carl T. Rowan, Finland, 1963

Clinton E. Knox, Benin, 1964

Patricia Roberts Harris, Luxembourg, 1965

Franklin Williams, Ghana, 1965

Hugh Smythe, Syrian Arab Republic, 1965, Malta, 1967

Elliott Skinner, Burkina Faso, 1966

Samuel C. Adams, Niger, 1968

Terence Todman, Chad, 1969, Guinea, 1972, Costa Rica, 1974, Spain, 1978, Denmark, 1983, Argentina, 1989

Samuel Z. Westerfield, Liberia, 1969

Clarence Clyde Ferguson, Jr., Uganda, 1970

Jerome Heartwell Holland, Sweden, 1970

John Reinhardt, Nigeria, 1971, First director of USIA

Charles J. Nelson, Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, 1971

W. Beverly Carter, Tanzania, 1972, Liberia, 1976

O. Rudolph Aggrey, Senegal and Gambia, 1973, Romania, 1977

David B. Bolen, Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland, 1974, German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 1977

Theodore R. Britton, Jr., Barbados and Grenada, 1974

Charles A. James, Niger, 1976

Ronald D. Palmer, Togo, 1976, Malaysia, 1981, Mauritius, 1986

Wilbert J. LeMelle, Kenya and Seychelles, 1977

Ulric Haynes, Algeria, 1977

Richard K. Fox, Trinidad & Tobago, 1977

William B. Jones, Haiti, 1977

Mabel M. Smythe, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, 1977

Maurice D. Bean, Burma, 1977

Anne F. Holloway, Mali, 1979

Horace G. Dawson, Botswana, 1979

Walter Carrington, Senegal, 1980, Nigeria, 1993

Barbara M. Watson, Malaysia, 1980

Melvin H. Evans, Trinidad and Tobago, 1981

Gerald E. Thomas, Guyana, 1981, Kenya, 1983

John Burroughs, Malawi, 1981, Uganda, 1988

Howard K. Walker, Togo, 1982, Madagascar and Comoros, 1989

George E. Moose, Benin, 1983, Senegal, 1988

Arthur W. Lewis, Sierra Leone, 1983

Edward Perkins, Liberia, 1985, South Africa, 1986, Australia, 1993

Irvin Hicks, Seychelles, 1985, Ethiopia, 1994

Cynthia Shepard Perry, Sierra Leone, 1986, Burundi, 1989

United States Ambassadors Since 1949 (continued)

Ruth Washington, Gambia, 1989

Leonard O. Spearman, Sr., Lesotho, 1990

Aurelia Erskine Brazeal, Micronesia, 1990, Kenya, 1993, Ethiopia, 2001

Steven J. Rhodes, Zimbabwe, 1990

Arlene Render, Gambia, 1990, Zambia, 1996, Cote d’Ivoire, 2001

Charles R. Baquet, III, Djibouti, 1991

Johnnie Carson, Uganda, 1991, Zimbabwe, 1995, Kenya, 1999

Kenton Wesley Keith, Qatar, 1992

Ruth A. Davis, Benin, 1992

Joseph Monroe Segars, Cape Verde, 1992

Leslie M. Alexander, Mauritius, 1993, Ecuador, 1996

Howard F. Jeter, Botswana, 1993, Nigeria 2000

Sidney Williams, Bahamas, 1994

Johnny Young, Sierra Leone, 1989, Togo, 1994, Slovenia, 2001

Carl B. Stokes, Seychelles, 1994

Jerome Gary Cooper, Jamaica, 1994

Bismark Myrick, Lesotho, 1995, Liberia, 1999

Mosina H. Jordan, Central African Republic, 1995

James A. Joseph, South Africa, 1995

John F. Hicks, Eritrea, 1996

Sharon P. Wilkinson, Burkina Faso, 1996, Mozambique, 2000

Shirley E. Barnes, Madagascar, 1998

William D. Clarke, Eritrea,1998

George Williford Boyce Haley, Gambia, 1998

Elizabeth McKune, Qatar, 1998

Robert C. Perry, Central African Republic

George McDade Staples, Rwanda, 1998, Cameroon/Equatorial Guinea, 2001

Charles R. Stith, Tanzania, 1998

Harriet L. Elam-Thomas, Senegal, 1999

Gregory L. Johnson, Swaziland, 1999

Delano Eugene Lewis, Sr., South Africa, 1999

Carol Moseley-Braun, New Zealand and Samoa, 1999

Sylvia Gaye Stanfield, Brunei, 1999

Diane E. Watson, Micronesia, 1999

Pamela Bridgewater, Benin, 2000, Ghana, 2005, Jamaica, 2009

Roy L. Austin, Trinidad and Tobago, 2001

Mattie R. Sharpless, Central African Republic, 2001

Wanda L. Nesbitt, Madagascar, 2001, Cote d’Ivoire, Namibia, 2010

James Irving Gadsen, Iceland, 2002

James David McGee, Swaziland, 2002, Madagascar, 2004, Zimbabwe, 2007

Larry Palmer, Honduras, 2002

Joseph Huggins, Botswana, 2002

Richard Lewis Baltimore, Oman, 2002

Charles Aaron Ray, Cambodia, 2002, Zimbabwe, 2009

Gail Denise Mathieu, Niger, 2002, Namibia, 2007

Harry K. Thomas, Jr., Bangladesh, 2003, Philippines, 2009, Zimbabwe, 2015

Roland W. Bullen, Guyana, 2003

Margarita Ragsdale, Djibouti, 2003

June Carter Perry, Lesotho, 2004, Sierra Leone, 2007

Jendayi E. Frazier, South Africa, 2004

Roger D. Pierce, Cape Verde, 2005

Bernadette Allen, Niger, 2006

Eric M. Bost, South Africa 2006

Gayleatha B. Brown, Benin, 2006

Clyde Bishop, Marshall Islands, 2006

Maurice S. Parker, Swaziland, 2007

John Withers, Albania, 2007

Joyce A. Barr, Namibia, 2007

Eunice Reddick, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, 2007

Barry L. Wells, Gambia, 2007

Marcia S. Bernicat, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, 2008, Bangladesh, 2015

John Jones, Guyana, 2008

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Liberia, 2008

C. Steven McGann, The Fiji Republics, 2008

Bisa Williams, Niger, 2009

Nicole Avant, Bahamas, 2009

Mary Jo Wills, Mauritius, 2009

Alfonso E. Lenhardt, Tanzania, 2009

Teddy B. Taylor, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, 2009

Beatrice Welters, Trinidad and Tobago, 2010

Helen Reed-Rowe, Palau, 2010

Susan Page, South Sudan, 2011

Pamela Spratlen, Kyrgyzstan, 2011, Uzbekistan, 2015

Adrienne S. O’Neal, Cape Verde, 2011

Frankie A Reed, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga & Tuvala, 2011

Sue K. Brown, Montenegro, 2012

Malika James, Swaziland, 2012

Gina Albercrombie-Winstanley, Malta, 2012

Tuli Mushingi, Burkina Faso, 2013

Patrick Gaspard, South Africa, 2013

Dwight L. Bush, Morocco, 2014

Cynthia Akuettah, Gabon, 2014

Brian A. Nichols, Peru, 2014

Todd D. Robinson, Guatemala, 2014

United States Ambassadors to Global and Regional Organizations

Betty Eileen King, ECOSOC/UN, 1997

Pierre-Richard Prosper, At-Large: Office of War Crimes, 2001

Francis X. Taylor, At-Large: Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 2001

Cindy L. Courville, African Union, 2006

Bonnie D. Jenkins, Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs, 2009

Ronald “Ron” Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative, 2009

William Kennard, European Union, 2010

Michael A. Battle, African Union, 2010

Ertharin Cousin, USUN/Rome, 2010

Suzan J. Cook: At-Large: International Religious Freedom, 2011

Rueben E. Brigety, II, African Union, 2013

Daniel W. Yohannes, Organiztaion for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2013

MUSEUMS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

he Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a museum documenting the history, art, and culture of the African diaspora. Their focus spans the migration of Africans across history, from the diaspora at the origin of human existence through the contemporary African Diaspora around the world.

AFRICA

Dahomey

Abomey: Musee Historique d. Abomey

Senegal

Dakar: Museum of Black Civilizations

Dakar: La Maison des Esclaves

Dakar: Musée de la Femme Henriette-Bathily

Dakar: Musée des Forces Armées Senegalaise

Dakar: Musée Théodore-Monod d’Art Africain IFAN

Dakar: Place du Souvenir Africain

South Africa

Capetown: District Six Museum South African History

Robben Island: Robben Island Museum

Johannesburg: South Africa Apartheid Museum

Mthatha: Nelson Mandela Museum

LATIN AMERICA

Brazil

Sao Paulo: Museu Afro Brasil

NORTH AMERICA

Canada

Chatham, Ontario: Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society

Halifax, Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia Museum

Shelburne, Nova Scotia: The Black Loyalist Heritage Society

Toronto Ontario: Black Heritage Society

Toronto, Ontario: Harriett Tubman Research Institute

Victoria, British Columbia: The British Columbia Black History Awareness Society

THE WEST INDIES

The Netherlands Antilles

Curaçao: Museum Kura Hulanda

THE COMMANDERS: ADMIRALS AND GENERALS IN THE UNITED STATES MILITARY, 1940–

General_Vincent_K__Brooks_Reviewing_UN_T

On October 25, 1940, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was appointed Brigadier General in the United States Army by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, becoming the first African American general in the history of the United States Military. Since then nearly 400 other African American women and men have been appointed to that rank. The highest rank in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps is General (four star), followed by Lieutenant General (three star), Major General (two star) and Brigadier General (one star). Five men have held the rank of General of the Army (five star), George C. Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and Henry H. Arnold, who later became the only five-star general in the Air Force. The five-star rank is no longer attainable. In the Navy the top rank is “Admiral” (four star) followed by Vice Admiral (three star), and Rear Admiral (two star). In the Navy the rank of Fleet Admiral is rarely given. Only four men, William D. Leahy, Ernest J. King, Chester W. Nimitz, and William F. Halsey, Jr. have been named Fleet Admiral.

Listed below are African American men and women who have attained the rank of Admiral in the Navy or General in the Army or Air Force. No African American has yet attained the rank of General in the Marine Corps.

Additionally there are profiles of other significant African generals and admirals along with the black generals and admirals who have served in the military in other nations.

Four Star Navy Admirals

Other Admirals:

Four Star Army Generals

Joseph Paul Reason, 1997

Cecil Eugene Diggs Haney, 2012

Janine Michelle Howard, 2014

Samuel Lee Gravely

Gerald E. Thomas

Lawrence Chambers Audrey F. Manley Joycelyn M. Elders

David L. Brewer III

David Satcher

Lillian Fishburne

Barry C. Black

Regina Marcia Benjamin

Roscoe Robinson, Jr., 1982

Colin Powell, 1989

Johnnie E. Wilson, 1996

Larry R. Ellis, 2001

William Ward. 2006

Lloyd J. Austin, 2010

Dennis Via, 2012

Vincent K. Brooks 2013

Other

Army Generals:

Four Star Air Force Generals

Benjamin O. Davis Sr.

Frederic E. Davison

John Q. Taylor King

Julius W. Becton

Hazel Johnson

Arthur J. Gregg

Henry Doctor, Jr.

Edward Honor, Sr.

Calvin Augustine Hoffman Waller

Marvin Delano Brailsford

Andrew P. Chambers, Jr.

James Reginald Hall, Jr.

Fred A. Gordon

Robert Earl Gray

Joe Nathan Ballard

Samuel Emanuel Ebbesen

Billy King Solomon

Larry R. Jordan

Russel L. Honoré

Alonzo Earl Short, Jr.

Francis Xavier Taylor

Michael D. Rochelle

Daniel “Chappie” James, 1975

Bernard P. Randolph, 1987

Lloyd W. Newton, 1997

Lester Lyles, 1999

Edward A. Rice Jr., 2010

Larry O. Spencer, 2014

Darren W. McDew, 2014

THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: SEATTLE AND THE NATION

On October 15, 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale launched the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, later dropping for Self Defense (BPP), in Oakland, California. Their aim was to build a Revolutionary Black Political Party to give voice to the conditions in the Black community and take direct action to address them. The foundation of the BPP was based in the Declaration of Independence of the United States, which states, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” and the creation of the BPP 10 Point Platform and Program which in essence outlined the efforts that the BPP would undertake. The first program launched by the Party was the Police Alert Patrols which were designed to halt the murder of unarmed Black citizens as stated in point number 7 of the 10 Point Program. Two years later, on April 20, 1968, the Seattle Chapter of the BPP was founded by a small group of men and women from Seattle.

THE SEATTLE CHAPTER:

The Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party was founded by a collection of Seattle activists including brothers Aaron and Elmer Dixon in 1968. The founders and early members include:

Welton Armistead
Rashad “T” Birdsong
Henry Boyer
Willie Brazier
Mark Cook
Leonard Dawson Jr.
Asali Dickson
Melvin Dickson
Gwen Dixon
Michael Dixon
Carolyn Downs
Larry Gossett
Ronald Jackson Lewis “Lewjack” Jackson
Earl Jennings

TagawaAnthony Ware (Frank Muhammad)

Bobby WhiteClifton Wyatt

Kathi HalleyBobby HardingArthur HarrisCurtis HarrisValentine HobbsRosita HollandWayne JenkinsKathy JonesVanetta MolsonJoanne MotinWarren (Na’eem Shareef) Myers Chester NorthingtonGary OwensJoyce RedmonLinda RichardsonSteve PhillipsMike

Relevant Media:

Shaun Scott, “In Defense of Call-Out Culture“, City Arts Magazine, February 1, 2018
Marcus Harrison Green, “Black Carpet Roll Out for the Black Panther,” South Seattle Emerald, February 13, 2018,
Matthew Gulick, Louder Than Words—The University of Puget Sound Acknowledges the Black Panthers, Trail, Puget Sound University Dave Davison, “UPS Observes Black History Month with treasures from Black Panther Party archive, Tacoma Weekly, February 8, 2018,
Ashley Archibald, “Black Panther Party brings history, lessons to new generation,” Real Change News, September 7, 2016, .
Patricia Murphy, “The bunker is gone but the Black Panthers’ work lives on in Seattle“, KUOW, April 6, 2018,
Patricia Murphy, “These Black Panthers marched on Seattle Streets 50 years ago,” KUOW, March 30, 2018,
“The injustices MLK fought are still present in Seattle today,” The Seattle Times, April 4, 2018
Donald Amble, “Former Black Panther Party captain discusses crack cocaine epidemic,” Daily Lobo, April 4, 2018

Ideas and Institutions Inspired by the Seattle Panthers

Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center Bibliography:
Books Related to the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party

The National Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party
The Ten Point Platform and Program
Black Panther Party’s Free Medical Clinics (1969-1975)

AFRICAN AMERICAN STATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES SINCE 1870

Jonathan_Jasper_Wright_Marker_Historic_M

Since the first African American, Jonathan Jasper Wright, was appointed to the State Supreme Court of South Carolina in 1870, black men and women have slowly but steadily obtained seats on the highest state courts across the nation. Listed below are the first African Americans elected or appointed to the highest courts in their respective states. As you can see, there are many justices who await volunteers to write their profiles.

Alabama

Oscar Adams, Jr., 1980

Arkansas

George Howard, Jr., 1977

California

Wiley W. Manuel, 1977

Colorado

Gregory Kellam Scott, 1992

Connecticut

Robert Davis Glass, 1987

Delaware

Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, 2020

Florida

Joseph W. Hatchett, 1975

Georgia

Robert Benham, 1989

Illinois

Charles E. Freeman, 1990

Indiana

Myra C. Selby, 1995

Kentucky

William E. McAnulty, Jr. 2005

Louisiana

Revius Oliver Ortique, Jr., 1992

Maryland

Harry A. Cole, 1977

Massachusetts

Roderick Ireland, 1997

Michigan

Otis M. Smith, 1961

Minnesota

Alan Page, 1993

Mississippi

Reuben V. Anderson, 1985

Missouri

Ronnie L. White, 1995

Nevada

Michael Douglas, 2004

New Jersey

James Coleman, Jr., 1944

New York

Harold A. Stevens, 1955

North Carolina

Henry Frye, 1983

Ohio

Robert Morton Duncan, 1969

Oklahoma

Tom Colbert, 2004

Oklahoma

Court of Criminal Appeals* David B. Lewis, 2005

Oregon

Adrienne C. Nelson, 2018

Pennsylvania

Robert C. Nix, Jr. 1972

South Carolina

Jonathan Jasper Wright, 1870

Tennessee

George H. Brown, 1980

Texas

Wallace B. Jefferson, 2001

Texas

Court of Criminal Appeals* Louis Sturns, 1990

Virginia

John Charles Thomas, 1983

Washington

Charles Z. Smith, 1988

West Virginia

Franklin D. Cleckley, 1994

Wisconsin

Louis B. Butler, Jr. 2004

THE BARACK OBAMA section

Tribute to the singularly important event in African American history, the election of the first black president, through the Obama Page. From this central point visitors can find all information on or linked to BlackPast related to President Obama, his family, the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, and his administration

The Speeches of Barack Obama:

Speech at the Democratic National Convention, Boston, July 27, 2004

Speech on Race, Philadelphia, March 18, 2008

Election Night Victory Speech, Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008

(2009) President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

A New Beginning Between the United States and the Muslim World, Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009

(2013) President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address

President Barack Obama, “Eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney,” 2015

President Barack Obama Farewell Address, January 10, 2017

African American Cabinet Members:

Eric Holder, Attorney General

Lisa Perez Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Regina Marcia Benjamin, Surgeon General (Designee) of the United States

Ron Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative

Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

Anthony Foxx, U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Jeh Johnson, U.S.Secretary of Homeland Security

Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney General

Predecessors: Previous African American Candidates for the Presidency:

George Edwin Taylor

Shirley Chisholm, Democrat, 1972

Jesse Jackson, Democrat, 1984, 1988

Alan Keyes, Republican, 2000

Carol Moseley Braun, Democrat, 2004

Al Sharpton, Democrat, 2004

Herman Cain, Republican, 2012

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Rev. Wright’s Sermon: Confusing God and Government, 2003

U.S. Senator Roland Burris

Van Jones

Barack Hussein Obama Sr.

Election Map of the United States, November 4, 2008: The Obama Victory

Election Map of the United States, November 6, 2012: The Obama Victory

Books on Obama:

Bibliography

Photo Gallery:

Controversy:

election map:

Essence Magazine Photo Gallery

The Chicago Tribune Photo Gallery

America Online Photo Gallery

The New Obama Team and New York Times Magazine photo gallery “Obama’s Team

Time Magazine

Boston.com

Flickr – Barack Obama on Election Night

Rolling Stone Magazine

Youtube – 2008 Newspaper Covers and Huffington Post

Flickr – Inauguration Festivities

THE GENEALOGY PAGE

John_Henry_Taylor_Brownsville_Tennessee_

Nonetheless, because of the often related history and genealogy interests of our online users, we have listed below African American and General genealogy websites that may be useful for those seeking to research personal or family history.

African American Genealogy Resources:

African-American Genealogy: 80 Top Resources for Finding Your African American Ancestor

African American Family History Resources

African Ancestry

African Heritage

AfriGeneas Genealogy and History Forum

African American Genealogy: An Online Interactive Guide for Beginners

Afriquest

Family Search: African American Online Genealogy Records

Finding Records of Your African American Ancestors, 1870 to the Present

National Archives and Records Administration: African-American Research

Nomini Hall Slave Legacy Project

Northwest African American Museum Genealogy Center

Our Black Ancestry.com

Reclaiming Kin: Taking Back What Was Once Lost

RootsWeb.com

The Digital Library on American Slavery

General Genealogy Resources:

Ancestry.com

Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet

The DNA Ancestry Project

FamilySearch

Freedmen’s Bureau Files

Hannibal Square Project

MyFamily.com

National Geographic Genographic Project

Social Security Death Index

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide To Genealogy

USGenWeb Project, The

World Connect Project

How to Research and Preserve Your Family’s History

The Best of Reclaiming Kin: Helpful Tips on Researching Your Roots by Robyn Smith

Individual Family Histories:

Moncure Family, The

Record of Enslaved People of the Skinner Family of North Carolina

ROBERT FIKES’S CORNER

Welcome to Robert Fikes’s Corner, a collection of articles, lists, and other features reflecting various aspects of African American history. Robert Fikes is the reference librarian at San Diego State University and an independent historian. His biography page is linked here. From that page you may contact him directly.

Click Images below to View Information!

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, AND MATHEMATICS (STEM) PEOPLE HIDDEN NO MORE

The 2016 book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, and the subsequent film by the same name released later that year, introduced the world to three remarkable women, Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, all mathematicians for NASA who in the early 1960s helped put the first U.S. astronauts in space. There are hundreds of other little known pioneers in mathematics and other STEM fields who are now profiled on BlackPast. Our goal is the end their obscurity. Many of those little-known women and men are listed below in their respective fields. Learn about their lives and accomplishments in their profiles. There are far more individuals who only await volunteers to write their profiles.

CLICK IMAGES BELOW FOR LIST OF NAMES

Explore Global African History

PETER SEXFORD MAGUBANE (1932- )

Peter Magubane is a South African photojournalist best known for his photos that exposed that nation’s Apartheid injustice and humanitarian crisis to the west. He was born outside Johannesburg, in Vrededorp, on January, 18, 1932, and grew up in Sophiatown.

Magubane started his photographic career at Drum magazine doing menial tasks, but eventually was accepted on the photographic staff in 1954. Drum had an audience of mainly black people and liberal whites.
At Drum, Magubane covered social issues: the treatment of prisoners, the Immorality Act, the oppressive pass laws, and the African National Congress’s Defiance Campaign. In the 1950s, the media was allowed to expose Apartheid. His photos of the Sharpeville Massacre were picked up by Time magazine in 1960. Partly because of that exposure, the South African government cracked down on all types of expression in the 1960s and 1970s.

Magubane left South Africa briefly and exhibited his work in Europe. He also studied in Boston, Massachusetts between 1965 and 1966 but returned to his homeland to work for the Rand Daily Mail, a major Johannesburg newspaper.

Magubane put himself at great risk photographing in the Apartheid era. He was harassed, brutalized, shot, had film destroyed, and was banned from working as a photojournalist. He recalled hiding his Leica camera in a hollowed-out bible on one occasion, and a loaf of bread on another.

In 1969 he was arrested and imprisoned for 586 days. After his release, he was accused by the government of being a communist and a terrorist. He was banned from talking to more than one person at once or attending gatherings for five years. This ban prevented him from working in photojournalism. The bans were seriously enforced and upon breaking one of them, he was arrested and served another six months in jail.

When the ban expired, Magubane resumed work for the Rand Daily Mail. The timing allowed him to cover the Soweto Uprisings in 1976. During one assault that year, a policeman fractured his nose, hospitalizing him. He was subsequently arrested and detained for 123 days. Despite the danger, Magubane worked for Time from 1978 to 1988, continuing to photograph life under Apartheid.

Magubane’s work also explored the child labor that was prevalent in South Africa. His work in this area led to his 1982 book Black Child. After Apartheid ended in 1990, he focused on cultural traditions, and vanishing cultures. Magubane’s work has been collected in books, and featured in Life, the New York Times, National Geographic, and Time. He has been awarded honorary doctorates and has been recognized for meritorious service by former president Nelson Mandela. His peers awarded him the Leica Medal of Excellence for Lifetime Achievement in 1997 and he received the Cornell Capa Award in 2010.

COLORED MARINE EMPLOYMENT BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION (1921-1934)

The Colored Marines Employment Benevolent Association (CMEBA) was organization that united black maritime cooks and stewards who were seeking employment in Seattle. In the process it challenged the racism of the all-white, Maritime Cooks and Stewards Association of the Pacific (MCSAP). The CMEBA was founded in 1921 by labor recruiter James Roston. The goal of CMEBA was to “steer clear of labor or trade unions and their activities” and “to promote peaceful relations between employers and employees.”

When the CMEBA was founded in 1921 they allied themselves with the Seattle Shipowners and Operators Association to break a MCSAP-led strike. From then until1934 the CMEBA withheld support from unions, which created tension between the CMEBA and the MCSAP who competed directly for maritime jobs.

In the early 1930s the younger leaders of the CMEBA were concerned with the pay cuts and the deteriorating working conditions that were affecting their workplace. They felt that they should align themselves with workers of all races. Two of these young leaders stood out: Revels Cayton and Fred Sexias, who no longer wanted to follow the anti-union stance of the CMEBA. They instead felt it was time to join the MCSAP which was also moving from its previous position as an all-white union.

Revels Cayton, the younger son of Seattle newspaperman and civic activist Horace Cayton Sr, was committed, like his father, to the idea of black civil rights. While the older Cayton was a staunch Republican, Revels Cayton had become a key member of the Communist Party. That involvement led him to urge the end of the racial divide among maritime unions.

In 1934 the CMEBA and the MCSAP merged into one organization. Some three hundred CMEBA members joined the Seattle branch of the MCSAP. Revels Clayton and Fred Sexias became officers in the organization. The merger of the CMEBA and the MCSAP was a big breakthrough in race relations on the Seattle waterfront. The new merged union now championed racial justice as an important labor issue. It would be some years, however before other Seattle unions would follow the lead of the CMEBA and the MCSAP and merge.

Stewards_on_the_H_F_Alexander_ca_1925.jp

BROTHERHOOD OF SLEEPING CAR PORTERS (1925-1978)

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was a labor union organized by African American employees of the Pullman Company in August 1925 and led by A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster. Over the next twelve years, the BSCP fought a three-front battle against the Pullman Company, the American Federation of Labor, and the anti-union, pro-Pullman sentiments of the majority of the black community. Largely successful on each front, the BCSP is a significant institution in both the labor and civil rights history of the twentieth century United States.

The BSCP faced long odds in 1925. Despite its charismatic leadership, the union attracted only a small number of rank and file workers and at no point before 1937 did it enroll a majority of porters. Most black leaders outside the organization distrusted labor unions and, moreover, viewed George Pullman, whose company provided jobs, relatively high incomes, and a modicum of services to black employees, as an important ally of the black community, a reputation Pullman assiduously exploited in his effort to undermine the nascent union. Meanwhile, while the AFL granted federal-local status to individual BSCP locals, it refused to charter the all-black union as a full-fledged international.

Transforming his newspaper, the Messenger, into a propaganda vehicle for the BSCP and tirelessly campaigning on behalf of the union, over time Randolph convinced black leaders, clergymen, and newspaper editors that Pullman’s paternalism masked what was in fact a servile position for blacks within the company and a subtle recapitulation of the master-slave relationship. In the process, the BSCP became both a vehicle and a symbol of black advancement and, according to one historian, helped facilitate the "rise of protest politics in black America."

On the labor front, the BSCP survived an aborted strike in 1928 and a precipitous drop in membership due to company opposition and the hardship of the Great Depression. A favorable turn in the political climate brought about by the New Deal, combined with the persistence of union leaders and members finally forced the company to recognize the BSCP in 1935. The AFL granted the BSCP an international charter that same year and, after protracted negotiations, the union won its first contract in 1937. Randolph used the BSCP and his own position in the AFL-CIO leadership as a wedge for breaking down racial segregation in the American labor movement. The BSCP also remained a source of inspiration and activism in African American communities, providing a training ground for future civil rights leaders like C.L. Dellums, E.D. Nixon, and of course Randolph himself.

BSCP membership eroded steadily in the 1950s and 1960s due to the overall decline of the railroad industry. In 1971, it experienced a brief resurgence with the rise of Amtrak, a government-sponsored railway passenger service. However, in 1974 Amtrak made a contract with a rival union, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union. The move was the final blow for the BSCP. In 1978 the BSCP merged with the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, now known as the Transportation Communications International Union.

LANSINÉ KABA (1941- )

Educator and politician Lansiné Kaba was born in 1941 in the city of Kankan, Guinea when Guinea was still under French colonial rule. In Guinea, he was educated through the traditional Education system as well as Muslim teachers. He moved to France in 1956 where he attended the prestigious Lycée-Henri IV in Paris for High School. At Lycée-Henri IV he studied Literature and Humanities. Kaba remained in France after Guinea gained its independence in 1958, and then studied at the Paris-Sorbonne University, a public research University dedicated to the Humanities. He graduated with a Ph.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1970.

Lansiné Kaba began teaching African history at the University of Minnesota in 1970. In 1974, he published The Wahhabiyya: Islamic Reform and Politics in French West Africa, 1945-1960 through Northwestern University Press. The book earned him the 1975 Melville J. Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association for the best work in English in African Studies. In 1986 he became the head of the African Studies at the University of Minnesota and remained in this position until 1995. In 1989 he published, Le non de la Guinée à De Gaulle, a book in which he goes into detail on the historic referendum vote in Guinea for Independence from France on September 28, 1958. In 1991, he discussed President Kwame Nkrumah’s rise in Ghana and Ghana’s search for African Unity post-independence in the novel Kwame Nkrumah ou le rêve de l’unité africaine. In 1995 he wrote about the absence of democracy in Africa in Lettre à un ami sur la politique et le bon usage du pouvoir. From 1996 to 2001 he was the Dean at the Honors college of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Kaba was briefly involved with Guinean politics in 1990s when he founded Parti National Pour Le Développement et la démocratie also known as the National Party for Development and Democracy (PNDD) in 1992. Kaba ran for president of Guinea through the PNDD in the 1998 Presidential Election in which Lansana Conté won his second term. The PNDD became a part of Guinea’s 44 political parties that merged when Alpha Condé became the president of Guinea in 2008, after the death of Lansana Conté.

From 1998 to 2001 Lansiné Kaba served as the President to the US International African Studies Association. In 2005 he released a book on a Sufi leader in Kankan under Colonial rule titled Cheikh Mouhammad Chérif et son temps, 1874-1955. In 2009 he became a faculty member at the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Department of History at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1994)

Beginning on April 7, 1994 and lasting until mid-July of the same year, the Rwandan Genocide was the government-mandated killing of Tutsis and Hutu political moderates. Having commenced in the capital city of Kigali, the violence spread rapidly throughout the Rwandan countryside where, in less than 100 days, an estimated 20 percent of the Tutsi population of Rwanda was slain.

In 1959 a Belgian-backed Hutu coup d’état deposed the Tutsi monarch, King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, prompting an estimated 130,000 Tutsi civilians to flee to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda amid anti-Tutsi violence by the Hutu. Proclaiming their right to return, in 1987 Ugandan Tutsi refugees formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which included a formidable military wing.

When the RPF army invaded northern Rwanda on October 1, 1990, the Rwandan Civil War ensued. When no clear victor emerged, Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, under intense international pressure to negotiate with the RPF, signed the first of the Arusha Accords with the RPF in August of 1992. The Arusha Accords initiated an immediate cease-fire, as well as a power-sharing arrangement in his government. Yet while promoting peace to the world to avoid sanctions, Habyarimana simultaneously advocated violence against Tutsis in order to maintain popular support among his increasingly-radicalized Hutu supporters.

In February of 1993 the RPF violated the Arusha cease-fire, killing hundreds of Hutu civilians. This violence destroyed the fragile alliance between the RPF and Hutu groups opposed to Habyarimana’s government. Appealing to Hutu youth enraged over these atrocities, the government-operated Radio Télévision Libre Mille-Collines (RTLM) began broadcasting anti-Tutsi and pro-Hutu Power rhetoric.

On October 21, 1993 neighboring Burundi’s first democratically-elected president Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by members of the Tutsi-dominated Burundi military. Consequently, ethnic relations in Rwanda dramatically deteriorated. Then, on April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down by unknown assailants, triggering the genocide.

Within hours of the attack, death orders were issued by the RTLM, the Kangura newspaper, and other government-run media in Rwanda, resulting in the systematic killing of prominent Tutsi politicians in the capital city of Kigali. The murderous rampage then spread to the countryside, where in a little over three months an estimated 800,000 Tutsi men, women, and children were indiscriminately raped, tortured, and killed by Rwandan Hutu militiamen. Though United Nations (UN) peacekeeping troops were initially deployed, they were withdrawn as the violence precipitously escalated.

The genocide ended in July 1994 when armed Tutsi rebels invaded from neighboring Burundi, defeating the Hutus and halting any further killing. At the time of the massacre, the Hutu comprised around 85% of the total Rwandan population.

EJI’s new report, Reconstruction in America, documents nearly 2,000 more confirmed racial terror lynchings of Black people by white mobs in America than previously detailed.

The report examines the 12 years following the Civil War when lawlessness and violence perpetrated by white leaders created an American future of racial hierarchy, white supremacy, and Jim Crow laws—an era from which our nation has yet to recover.

Chapter 1

Journey to Freedom

Emancipation and Citizenship

“Just before the war, a white preacher, he come to us slaves and says: ‘Do you want to keep your homes where you get all to eat, and raise your children, or do you want to be free to roam around without a home, like the wild animals? If you want to keep your homes you better pray for the South to win. All that wants to pray for the South to win, raise your hand.’ We all raised our hands ‘cause we was scared not to, but we sho’ didn’t want the South to win.”1

THIS STORY CONTAINS 118 PAGES OF HISTORY*

WE HAVE PROVIDED A LINK TO READ IN FULL PDF FILE.

Read the full book here: https://biturl.top/e6Jnay

MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION

The bill, in effect proposes a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners and in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened. He must of necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed as to the nature and character of our institutions than he who, coming from abroad, has to some extent, at least, familiarized himself with the principles of a Government to which he voluntarily entrusts life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.40

In February 1867, Congress approved the First Reconstruction Act, which outlined a process for restoring the Confederate states to the Union, and sent it to President Andrew Johnson for review and signature. Remembered by some as “a champion of the white South,”41Johnson denounced and vetoed the bill, calling it an attempt to “coerce the [Southern] people into the adoption of principles and measures to which it is known that they are opposed and upon which they have an undeniable right to exercise their own judgment.”42

Johnson preferred a more lenient policy that would cancel Confederate debt, pardon former Confederates in exchange for their pledged loyalty to the Union, and restore former Confederate states to the Union once they denounced secession and wrote new constitutions that abolished slavery. Johnson instituted this policy of “Presidential Reconstruction”—which did not require Southern states to guarantee voting rights for Black men or involve Black people in the writing of new state constitutions—when he took office following President Lincoln’s 1865 assassination.

By 1867, Congress had grown frustrated that former Confederate leaders were controlling Southern state governments and actively working to undermine Emancipation and the Reconstruction Amendments.43 In March 1867, Congress overrode President Johnson’s veto and the First Reconstruction Act became law.

The act implemented “Reconstruction” as a longer period of post-war transition that empowered African American men as an electorate and excluded former government officials who had aided the Confederacy.44 It divided 10 former Confederate states into five Reconstruction districts held under federal military control and led by commanding generals. Tennessee was excepted, since it had been readmitted to the Union in 1866. Each state had to complete a series of requirements to earn full federal restoration; the first was to hold a state convention of elected delegates and draft a new constitution establishing voting rights for men of all races.

Over the next two years, three additional laws were passed to form the collective Reconstruction Acts. Together, they authorized the commanding military generals to register voters and hold elections for delegates;45declared that “the governments then existing in the rebel States . . . were not legal state governments;”46and authorized the election of state officials and representatives to Congress while the new state constitution was up for ratification.47

To earn full restoration to the Union, these states had to write new constitutions, have the constitutions ratified by a majority of voters, elect new officials under the new constitutional guidelines, ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and secure reinstatement from Congress.

The 10 former Confederate states held their required constitutional conventions between November 5, 1867, and February 8, 1869. Of the 1,027 total delegates who participated, 258—nearly 1 in 4—were African American men. In some states their numbers were much greater. Black men made up the majority of delegates at the South Carolina convention, nearly half in Louisiana, and more than a third in Florida.48

Even with the protection of federal troops and the force of federal law, Black people empowered to participate in the remaking of the South faced violence at the hands of resentful white mobs. At least 26 African American delegates to constitutional conventions were victims of Ku Klux Klan attacks.49Newberry, South Carolina, delegate Lee A. Nance was shot and killed outside of his home in October 1868. That same month, a Black man named Benjamin Randolph was shot in the head while riding a train, one day after giving a controversial political speech in Abbeville, South Carolina. “Future generations will look back with horror,” read a resolution by the South Carolina legislature following Mr. Randolph’s murder, “upon the parties who, in open daylight, made an attack on him from behind.”50

As Reconstruction continued, violent white resistance to Black political power, citizenship rights, and freedom spread terror throughout the South, diminishing Black electoral influence and restoring to office many former Confederate officials who still promoted white supremacist policies.

Terror campaigns enabled white people opposed to racial equality to gain control of most Southern state legislatures. By 1876, pro-Reconstruction officials controlled state governments in only three of the former Confederate states.

THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU

In March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide formerly enslaved people with basic necessities and to oversee their condition and treatment in the former Confederate states. In practice, the Bureau often fell short at this vast and historic undertaking, as white mobs and institutions throughout the South continued to oppress, attack, and exploit African Americans during Reconstruction. Local Bureau offices served as central community locations to document reports of violence committed against freed people, register Black people to vote, verify labor contracts between formerly enslaved people and employers, provide food and medical care, establish schools, and perform marriages.132 The offices often faced both internal and external impediments to carrying out these functions.

Many of the Bureau’s difficulties began when it was established as a division of the War Department and authorized to operate for only one year after the war’s end. Congress appropriated no budget for the Bureau and instead left its staffing and funding to the military133—an institution ill-suited for the task of overseeing the complex social restructuring required to counter the effects of centuries of enslavement and entrenched racial hierarchies. Some lawmakers proposed making the Bureau a permanent, independent agency or making it part of the Interior Department but those ideas met bipartisan opposition.134In 1866, President Johnson vetoed Congress’s first attempt to extend the Bureau’s operations beyond one year. The measure was rewritten and passed over a second veto.135

Bureau offices were poorly staffed and under-resourced, unable to cope with the numerous needs of formerly enslaved people still facing widespread violence and discrimination alongside the trauma and poverty borne of generations in bondage. The Bureau Commissioner’s office was responsible for overseeing operations in the entire former Confederacy with a staff of just 10 clerks. As of 1868, the Bureau had only 900 officials to serve millions of formerly enslaved people across the South.136

Local Bureau offices quickly became targets for racist violence. Many white people in the South saw the Bureau as a symbol of unjust federal occupation and resented that federal officials were working to assist formerly enslaved people while Southern white communities remained devastated by the failed Confederate rebellion. White Southerners greatly hindered the Bureau’s ability to enforce federal law by denying its authority. When two freedwomen brought a case against a white man named Maynard Dyson in Virginia in 1866, he ignored the Freedmen’s Court’s summons and refused to comply with the court’s order that he compensate the women. Dyson’s attitude was common, and strained resources rendered the Bureau largely powerless to force compliance.137

In many instances, white Southerners’ disregard for the Bureau escalated to violence against schools and teachers that educated Black children. In 1869, a white mob burned down a freedmen’s school in Clinton, Tennessee. A teacher later explained in a letter to the Bureau that, days before the fire, the school had raised the American flag to celebrate the recent presidential inauguration of former Union General Ulysses S. Grant.138Bureau records document many attacks on schools, including in Travis County, Texas;139Queen Anne’s County, Maryland;140and Rockbridge County, Virginia.141In 1868, the white owner of a Clarksville, Tennessee, building that freed people wanted to use for a school declared that he would rather “burn it to the ground than rent it for a ‘nigger school.’”142

In the face of waning political will to protect Black people’s lives and rights and under growing political pressure from the South, Congress unceremoniously dismantled the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1872—seven years after the war’s end, five years before the end of Reconstruction, and at the height of deadly violence targeting African Americans. Today the Bureau’s records supply some of the most detailed descriptions of the Reconstruction era, while also documenting the agency’s own shortcomings and failures.

“The passing of a great human institution before its work is done leaves a legacy of striving for other men,” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1901.143 While the Freedmen’s Bureau was launched as a federal effort to provide support and protection to formerly enslaved people as they struggled to exercise new freedoms, the inadequate and incomplete commitment to that purpose enabled fierce white resistance to undermine the Bureau’s effectiveness, and ensured that the work of protecting Black freedom would remain an unfulfilled task for years to come.

Opelousas, Louisiana

In states throughout the South, elections triggered mass violence that indiscriminately terrorized Black communities, killing dozens or hundreds and sending a clear message to many more that political activity would result in death.

In the fall of 1868, the town of Opelousas was the site of Louisiana’s deadliest Reconstruction-era massacre.193 Over the course of about two weeks, white citizens terrorized African Americans to suppress Black voter turnout in the upcoming election, killing an estimated 200 people and devastating the local community.

Louisiana’s Reconstruction government had adopted a new state constitution that April. In compliance with the Fifteenth Amendment, it declared that Black men were entitled to vote and guaranteed Black children access to education.194Former Confederates seeking to regain power and restore white supremacy in the state opposed these provisions. They also resented the federal officials and white Northerners present in Louisiana to enforce Black civil rights. The desire to keep Black people oppressed after Emancipation was especially strong in Opelousas, the seat of St. Landry Parish. Though the parish was home to just 14,000 people, an estimated 3,000 white male residents were members of the Seymour Knights—a branch of the white supremacist Knights of the White Camelia, which was similar to the Ku Klux Klan.195

Soon after the Civil War’s end, a local city ordinance announced: “No Negro or freedman shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission from his employer, specifying the object of his visit and the time necessary for the accomplishment of the same.”196

White residents of Opelousas grew increasingly resentful of Black voting rights as the 1868 election approached. On September 28, a group of local white men threatened and then severely beat Emerson Bently, a white man who’d written an article that exposed local voter intimidation. Mr. Bently had moved to Louisiana from Ohio to teach with the local Freedmen’s Bureau. Also a voting rights advocate and newspaper editor, he was a rare white ally of Black voters in St. Landry Parish and had been threatened repeatedly before the attack.197

After hearing about the attack on Mr. Bently, Black men in the community armed themselves for protection and 27 were soon arrested or killed by white mobs. Over the next two weeks, armed white men patrolled Opelousas and surrounding communities, terrorizing and killing Black residents indiscriminately. By some estimates, the violence killed at least 30 white people—including some who were targeted by mobs for being sympathetic to Black rights—and left an estimated 200 Black people dead.198

Press accounts of the violence were skewed because white mobs destroyed the printing presses used by progressive publications and killed a white man who worked as an editor of the pro-Reconstruction St. Landry Progress newspaper. White supremacist newspapers dominated post-massacre reporting and flooded the press with inaccurate tales of a “race riot.” It would be eight years before another progressive newspaper was launched in the parish.199

Weeks after the massacre, a Franklin, Louisiana, newspaper victoriously declared, “The negroes in St. Landry are, for the first time since the war, polite and well disposed, and work well.”200

Our white people deeply regret the necessity which compelled the citizens of St. Landry to kill and cripple so many negroes in the late Opelousas riot, but the negroes for more than a year have laughed at the warnings and advice given them by the planters and citizens of that parish . . . a fight was inevitable. It was the last and only effectual argument that could be used with the negro . . . A carpet-bag editor and his miserable, incendiary sheet caused the riot. The editor escaped, and a hundred dead negroes, and perhaps a hundred more wounded and crippled . . . are the upshot of the business.201

The brutal attacks in Opelousas terrorized Black voters into silence. Former Union General Ulysses S. Grant won the 1868 presidential election without a single vote from St. Landry Parish. Recounting this “remarkable case,” W.E.B. Du Bois later observed: “Here occurred one of the bloodiest riots on record, in which the Ku Klux killed and wounded over 200 Republicans, hunting and chasing them for two days and nights through fields and swamps . . . [P]rior to the Presidential election in November, 1868, half the state was overrun by violence, and midnight raids, secret murders, and open riot kept the people in constant terror.”202

Reconstruction Violence

Beyond the South

Reconstruction violence was not limited to the South. Deep racial hostility and the terrifying threat of violence permeated life for Black people across the country, even in the 16 “free states” where slavery had been mostly abolished before the Civil War.

As disagreements over the continuation of slavery escalated into a more prominent political dispute in the 1840s and 1850s, people in the North feared that Emancipation in the South would bring a wave of Black migrants to their states. Anti-Black sentiment grew more explicit in the North and states like Iowa, Illinois, and Oregon took steps to ban Black migration.214

By 1860, Black people in the North—who comprised less than 2 percent of the population—were subjected to discrimination and resentment in every aspect of their lives.215In July 1863, several days of “draft riots” broke out in lower Manhattan in New York City. White mobs angered by the threat of being drafted to serve in the Union Army and resentful of fighting a Civil War to end slavery randomly attacked Black people on sight. The violence was quelled by state militia and federal troops, but not before more than 100 people were killed, most of them Black men.216

In the years after the Civil War, Black people in the North faced prejudice and presumptions of guilt whenever a crime was discovered and suffered brutal violence at the hands of white mobs without any trial or process.

In 1866, a Black teenager named John Taylor was lynched by a mob of 200 white people in Mason, Michigan.217John was enslaved at birth in Nelson County, Kentucky.218He joined the Union Army at age 14, and later enlisted in the Michigan Colored Infantry.219After he was accused of killing a white girl near Lansing, the 17-year-old was denied a trial. A white mob convinced that a legal execution was “too good for such a wretch” seized him from jail.220Press accounts described his torturous murder at the hands of a mob yelling messages of anti-Black racial hatred.221

The next year, in Georgetown, Colorado, Edward Bainbridge was accused of fighting with a white man in a local bar.222A white lynch mob kidnapped him from jail and left his body “dangling in the air.”223

Black people in the North were also targeted for exercising their citizenship rights. In 1871, on election day in Philadelphia, three Black men named Octavius Catto, Isaac Chase, and Jacob Gordon were killed by white mobs wielding violence to suppress the Black vote.224

In summer 1875, a large crowd gathered at the local fairgrounds in Hancock County, Indiana, to watch the lynching of a Black man named William Kemmer. Mr. Kemmer, whose last name was also reported as “Keimer,” had been accused of assaulting a white woman. He died in a public spectacle lynching before he could prove his innocence. Thousands reportedly gathered to view his corpse and read a note the lynch mob had pinned to his coat: “It is the verdict of one hundred and sixty men at Hancock, Rush and Shelby, that his life is inadequate to meet the demands of justice.”225

While Reconstruction-era violence was most frequent in the South, Black people living in the North and West also faced lynchings, racially motivated violence, and bigotry that continued for decades.

Sexual Violence

Targeting Black Women

Black women seeking to assert the rights of citizenship and freedom after Emancipation faced dangers based on their race and sex just as they had for generations while enslaved. Black women were killed in the same lynchings and massacres that took the lives of Black men, but they were also more likely to suffer the trauma of sexual violence.

In May 1870, 15 white men raped a Black woman while other members of the mob lynched her husband. Days later in the same North Carolina community, another white mob raped a Black woman and “afterwards stuck their knives in various parts of her body.”235 News of incidents like these spread through the entire African American community, devastating Black women with the terror of their dual vulnerability.

Enslaved Black women had no legal means to resist or protect themselves from sexual assault by white slaveowners. As early as the 1830s, Black abolitionist Maria Stewart called for the law to recognize Black women as full humans with rights to control their bodies and to grant or withhold consent, but reality lagged far behind.236In Missouri in 1855, a young enslaved Black woman named Celia was convicted of murder and hanged for killing a white man who had enslaved and repeatedly raped her. The court rejected her self-defense claim, concluding that enslaved Black women had no right to resist white slaveowners’ sexual advances.237

White Southerners were determined to maintain the economic exploitation and political dominance they had enjoyed during slavery, and white men refused to relinquish their freedom to violate Black women with impunity. Even before the Civil War’s end, Southern state legislatures implemented laws providing different sexual protections to white women and Black women. The Georgia Code of 1861 specified a mandatory sentencing range for raping a white woman but let courts decide whether and how to punish rapes of Black women.238

Indifferent and complicit law enforcement officers undermined federal attempts to protect Black women. In October 1866, a Freedmen’s Bureau agent delivered arrest warrants for two white men accused of beating a Black woman named Silvey Soilean and killing her son, but the local Louisiana sheriff refused to arrest them.239 That summer in Louisiana, Bureau records reveal an even more devastating story:

Capt. N. B. Blanton, Sparta, reports Cuff Canara, freedman, and Dan Docking, white, had a quarrel because Docking had twice committed a rape on the freedman’s wife. Canara started to Agent of Bureau, was tracked by hounds for ten miles and fired on by Dan Docking, Norman Docking, and John Palmer. Shot in left side of back & (illegible) finally reached agent, having killed 3 out of 4 of the dogs. Warrants issued for arrest of parties but they have not been found, and from statement of people does not think they will be arrested, the people appearing to think the freedman had committed the greater crime by killing the dogs, than the man who shot him.240

Scholar Estelle Freedman writes that white people “deepened the association of rape as an act committed by a Black man against a white woman” during Reconstruction and “presumed that Black women either welcomed [forced sexual relations with white men] or had no moral purity to defend.”241 The same white men who professed a fanatical concern for white women’s purity and safety held tightly to the social and legal view of Black women as promiscuous, lacking virtue, and without the right to refuse the lust of any white man.

This particular narrative of racial difference shielded white men from shame and consequence when they employed sexual assault as yet another means of terrorizing Black communities during Reconstruction. In 1868, after a white Virginia judge was accused of assaulting a Black woman, he tried the case himself, jailed the woman overnight, and forced her husband to pay court fees.242In June 1866, also in Virginia, a Black woman named Peggy Rich reported that a white man named James Smith had assaulted her. He attacked Ms. Rich again after he was released on bail and was later acquitted of both charges.243

In September 1866, a Black woman named Rhoda Ann Childs reported to the Freedmen’s Bureau that eight white planters had come to her Georgia home demanding to see her husband. When they learned Mrs. Childs was alone, the men kidnapped, beat, and sexually assaulted her. Mrs. Childs’s affidavit describes that one of the men “ran his pistol into me, and said he had a hell of a mind to pull the trigger,” and several of the men restrained her while one “applied the strap to my private parts until fatigued into stopping, and I was more dead than alive.” After another of the men—a former Confederate soldier—raped Mrs. Childs, the mob robbed her home and beat her daughters.244

In 1871, Harriet Simril testified before a Joint Congressional Committee that three white men had raped her in Columbia, South Carolina, after her husband refused to vote for the white supremacist ticket. In a courageous statement to federal lawmakers, Ms. Simril named her attackers and described their brutality: “spitting in my face and throwing dirt in my eyes . . . and after that they dragged me out into the big road, and they ravished me out there.”245 The details of the attack were deemed too obscene for inclusion in the committee’s published volumes but the defiant courage Ms. Simril and so many other Black women exhibited in reporting such attacks stands as enduring evidence of the sexualized terror Black women suffered during Reconstruction and their determination to survive.

Racial Terror and

Reconstruction: A State Snapshot

Alabama

EJI has documented nearly 200 Reconstruction-era victims of Alabama racial violence, including those lynched, assaulted, raped, or killed throughout the state and including victims killed in massacres in Mobile, Barbour, and Greene counties. Perpetrators and supporters of this violence were never prosecuted. Some went on to hold elected office, including Governor George Houston, for whom Houston County is named, and Governor Braxton Bragg Comer.150

Arkansas

After the Civil War’s end, many Black people who had fled slavery during the war were homeless, living in abandoned Union soldier camps or other makeshift settlements. In March 1866, after a disagreement between former Confederate soldiers and emancipated Black people living in a refugee camp near Pine Bluff, the camp was burned down and 24 Black men, women, and children were found dead, hanging from trees.151

Delaware

In 1865, Delaware legislators refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and Governor Gove Saulsbury declared that Black people were a “subordinate race.”152In 1867, Black Union Army veteran William “Obie” Evans was lynched in Leipsic in Kent County after being accused of burning down a white man’s barn. Later reports acknowledged his likely innocence.153

Florida

Many Black men killed in Reconstruction violence in Florida were targeted for exercising their political rights. In Columbia County in 1869, a politically active Black man named Lisher Johnson was abducted by a white mob and never seen again, though his hat, shoes, and clothes were found in the woods. The next year in the same county, another Black man named Robert Jones was shot and killed in his home after a white man threatened him for voting for pro-Reconstruction candidates.154

Georgia

In Georgia, the site of extensive racial violence during Reconstruction, EJI has documented more than 300 acts of murder and other attacks, including the November 1868 massacre of Perry Jeffreys, his wife, and four sons in McDuffie County. After learning that Mr. Jeffreys (or Jeffers) planned to vote for presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant, white mobs attacked the family, hanged Mrs. Jeffreys and shot and burned one son; days later, they seized Mr. Jeffreys and three sons from a train as they tried to flee and shot them to death in the woods.155

Illinois

In February 1874, after a white woman was robbed and killed in Carbondale, a Black man named Charles Wyatt deemed “suspicious” for spending a $20 bill was arrested for the crime. As a lynch mob of over 400 white men gathered, authorities moved Mr. Wyatt to Murphysboro, but the mob followed, seized Mr. Wyatt from jail, and hanged him without trial.156

Indiana

In 1871, George Johnston, Squire Taylor, and a man identified only by the surname Davis were lynched in Clark County. A mob of about 70 white men hanged the three Black men from the same tree after they were accused of killing a white family. Soon after the men were lynched without trial, the press reported evidence that they were innocent.157

Iowa

In 1850, just four years after Iowa became a state, its legislature passed a law banning settlement by free Black people, mirrored after an act the territorial legislature had passed in 1839. Radical state legislators managed to repeal the law in 1864, but that same year Iowa’s legislative majority rejected a proposed bill to extend voting rights to Black men.158

Kansas

Luke Barnes, James Ponder, and Lee Watkins—three Black men—were arrested and accused of killing a white man in Ellis County in 1869. Before they could be tried or defended, a white mob seized the men from jail and hanged them from the trestle of the nearby railroad, where they were found dead the next morning.159

Kentucky

EJI has documented racial violence in at least 37 Kentucky counties. On election day in 1870, violence broke out in Harrodsburg, Mercer County, as white men angered by the presence of Black voters supporting pro-Reconstruction candidates clashed with Black crowds. One white man and four Black people were killed, and 15 to 20 Black people were wounded.160

Louisiana

During Reconstruction, Louisiana was the site of repeated massacres in places like Colfax, Opelousas, New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, Orleans Parish, and West Feliciana Parish that killed hundreds of Black people and traumatized countless more in order to suppress Black voting rights.161 EJI has documented more than 1,000 lynchings and other incidents of racial violence in Louisiana during the 12-year Reconstruction period; this exceeds the number of racial terror lynchings documented in the state during the 80-year period that followed Reconstruction.

Maryland

The “border state” of Maryland did not join the Confederacy, but it legally permitted slavery until November 1, 1864, when its new state constitution went into effect. Although the state constitution marked the legal end of slavery, the last enslaved people were likely not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865. During Reconstruction, Maryland was the site of violent and sometimes deadly racial terror. In Harford County alone, a Black man named Isaac Moore was lynched in 1868 and a Black man named Jim Quinn was lynched in 1869.162

Michigan

In March 1863, just two months after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, white mobs in Detroit angered by growing migration of freedmen to the city and outraged by the trial of a mixed-race man accused of assault waged violent attacks on the city’s Black community, killing at least one Black man and leaving hundreds of Black people homeless.163Anti-Black violence continued in the state during Reconstruction, including the 1866 lynching of John Taylor near Lansing.164

Mississippi

During Reconstruction, Black people in Mississippi were the targets of repeated massacres, including in Vicksburg in December 1874, where white mobs attacked and killed at least 50 Black citizens who had organized to protest the removal of their elected Black sheriff, Mr. Peter Crosby.165

Missouri

Many Black people were lynched in Missouri during the Reconstruction era, including George Bryan in Livingston County in 1873; Edmund Moore in Charleston County in 1875; and Raphael Williams in Platte County in 1876.166

New York

In 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, New York voters elected Governor Horatio Seymour, the “white man’s candidate” and a strong supporter of Southern slavery.167A year later, a mob of up to 3,000 people lynched a Black man named Robert Mulliner in Newburgh.168Weeks later, white mobs resentful of the Union draft attacked and killed dozens of Black people in the New York City Draft Riots.169

North Carolina

The Ku Klux Klan and other white mobs exacted assaults and murder at the slightest allegation during this era. In 1869 in Orange County, after a young Black man named Wright Woods was accused of expressing interest in a young white woman, four white men abducted Mr. Woods from work. He was missing for nearly a week before a neighbor found vultures surrounding his hanging corpse. A note attached to his foot reportedly read: “If the law will not protect virtue, the rope will.”170

Ohio

In 1865, Ohio voters elected Governor Jacob Dolson Cox, a Union Army General who supported President Andrew Johnson’s limited view of Reconstruction and opposed enforcing voting rights for Black people in the South.171In 1876, a mob of 50 white men lynched a Black man identified only by the name “Ulrey” in Urbana, Champaign County.172

Oregon

Oregon’s 1857 constitution banned Black people from living in the state and aimed to prevent the mass migration of freedmen if and when slavery was abolished in the South. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, invalidated this ban but the state did not officially repeal it until 1926.173

Pennsylvania

Though Pennsylvania began legally abolishing slavery in 1780, the 1860 census was the first to document no enslaved Black people residing within the state and the issue of racial equality remained controversial during and after the Civil War.174In 1871, white mobs in Philadelphia terrorized Black communities on election day to discourage voting and killed at least three Black men.175In 1874, a Black man named Albert Brown was lynched in Bradford County.176

South Carolina

In 1860, South Carolina was one of only two states in the nation with more enslaved residents than free. It was also the first state to secede from the Union in 1861 and like much of the South, ended the war “grimly determined that freedom would not substantially alter the condition of the former slaves.”177Racial violence by the Klan and other white mobs grew so widespread and deadly during Reconstruction that it attracted federal investigation, led to passage of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, and caused President Grant to declare martial law later that year.178 In Abbeville County alone, Freedmen’s Bureau records document 77 acts of racial violence against Black people within seven months in 1868—that amounts to a whipping, rape, shooting, or lynching once every three days.

Tennessee

EJI has documented more than 200 incidents of racial violence in Tennessee during Reconstruction, including the 1866 Memphis Massacre and the 1874 lynching of 16 Black men in Trenton, Gibson County. Just weeks after the war’s end, white men attacked and killed 20 Black Union soldiers in Memphis on May 1, 1865, based on doubtful rumors that the Black men were planning to attack white Confederate veterans who had massacred Black soldiers at Fort Pillow during the war.179

Texas

Lynchings and other violence documented in Texas during the Reconstruction era span more than 45 counties and include a deadly massacre in the Brazos County community of Millican in 1868. That July, after a local Black preacher began organizing Millican’s Black community to defend itself against the growing threat of Klan violence, Klansmen fired on a group of Black people investigating a rumored lynching. Over the next two days, hundreds of white men from neighboring towns terrorized the local Black community and dozens more Black victims were killed. Scholars today estimate 150 Black people were killed but the exact death toll remains unknown.180

Virginia

In 1869, a mob of white men abducted two Black men named Jacob Berryman and Charles Brown from jail and hanged them without trial.181 EJI has documented more than 120 incidents of Reconstruction-era racial violence in 40 Virginia counties—even more than the number of racial terror lynchings documented in the state between 1877 and 1950.

West Virginia

In 1874, a mob of 20 white men abducted and lynched a Black man named John Taliaferro from jail in Martinsburg, Berkeley County. News of his death was reported under the headline, “A Sample of Southern Justice.”182

Wisconsin

In 1861, a young Black man named George Marshall Clark was lynched in Milwaukee after he and another Black man were accused of getting into a drunken fight with three white men who were also intoxicated. After one of the white men died from his injuries, a mob of up to 50 white men seized Mr. Clark from jail and hanged him.183Mr. Clark’s companion was later tried, acquitted, and smuggled out of the city to avoid the same fate.184

Memphis, Tennessee

the memphis massacre

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Memphis and other large Southern cities became popular destinations for newly emancipated Black people in search of safety, resources, and opportunity. As the site of a Freedmen’s Bureau office and a base for federal troops, Memphis was a particularly sought-after location and it experienced a Black population surge.251

Within a year of the war’s end, tensions in Memphis were high, particularly between white Irish immigrants—who comprised most of the city’s police force—and Black residents—who were regularly subjected to police harassment and brutality for appearing “suspicious.”252White newspapers worsened this situation by encouraging white Memphis residents to view Black people as dangerous and lawless.253

In May 1866, a group of Black Union soldiers in uniform were socializing on the streets of South Memphis days after they had been discharged when four white police officers ordered them to disperse.254The frustrated soldiers refused to leave255and the ensuing argument escalated into a shootout.256No one was injured except a white officer who accidentally shot himself in the hand, but word of the conflict spread rapidly.257Angry white mobs formed and proceeded to inflict terror on South Memphis, where the majority of Black people lived. City recorder John C. Creighton encouraged the deadly attack by telling the mob: “Boys, I want you to go ahead and kill every damned one of the nigger race and burn up the cradle.”258

From May 1 to 3, white mobs indiscriminately beat, robbed, tortured, shot, raped, and killed Black men, women, and children. They also destroyed property and looted anything of value.259At least 90 Black homes were destroyed by fire, many with residents still inside, and the mobs burned down all of the city’s Black churches and schools.260

African American survivors later recounted the brutal violence to a Congressional committee formed to investigate the massacre. One woman testified that when her 16-year-old daughter, Rachel Hatcher, tried to save a neighbor from his burning home, a white mob surrounded the building and shot the young girl to death.261Another witness reported that a white mob shot guns into the Freedmen’s Hospital and injured patients, including a small, paralyzed child.262

African Americans received little protection from local authorities during the attacks, as the city’s mayor was reportedly drunk throughout the massacre263and many law enforcement officials joined the roving mobs.264“Instead of protecting the rights of persons and property as is their duty,” the Freedmen’s Bureau’s investigation later concluded, “[local police] were chiefly concerned as murderers, incendiaries, and robbers. At times they even protected the rest of the mob in their acts of violence.”265Union troops stationed in the city provided little help, claiming their forces were too small to take on the deadly white mobs.266

Even after the massacre’s toll of death and destruction was revealed, Memphis’s white community refused to take responsibility. A Freedmen’s Bureau investigation reported that most white people only regretted the financial costs of the violence.267 An editorial in The Memphis Argus, a white-owned newspaper, declared, “The whole blame of this most tragical and bloody riot lies, as usual, with the poor, ignorant, deluded Blacks.” The paper attributed the massacre to Black gun ownership:

[W]e cannot suffer the occasion to pass without again calling the attention of the authorities to the indispensable necessity of disarming these poor creatures, who have so often shown themselves utterly unfit to be trusted with firearms. On this occasion the facts all go to show that but for this much-abused privilege accorded to them by misguided and misjudging friends, there would have been no riot. . . . The universal questions asked on all corners of the streets is, “Why are not the negroes disarmed?”268

No white people were ever held legally accountable for their participation in the Memphis Massacre.269

Capitals of All 54 Independent African Nations

Listed below are the capitals of all 54 independent African Nations. We believe this is the only such list and historical profile of these capitals on the Internet. We have also listed the capitals of majority-black nations in Latin America and the West Indies.

Abuja, Nigeria⠀
Accra, Ghana⠀
Addis Abba, Ethiopia⠀
Algiers, Algeria⠀
Antananarivo, Madagascar⠀
Asmera, Eritrea⠀
Bamako, Mali⠀
Bangui, Central African Republic⠀
Banjul, Gambia⠀
Bissau, Guinea-Bissau⠀
Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo⠀
Bujumbura, Burundi⠀
Cairo, Egypt⠀
Conakry, Guinea⠀
Dakar, Senegal⠀
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania⠀
Djibouti City, Djibouti⠀
Freetown, Sierra Leone⠀
Gaborone, Botswana⠀
Harare, Zimbabwe⠀
Juba, South Sudan⠀
Kampala, Uganda⠀
Khartoum, Sudan⠀
Kigali, Rwanda⠀
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo⠀
Libreville, Gabon⠀
Lilongwe, Malawi⠀
Lome, Togo⠀
Luanda, Angola⠀
Lusaka, Zambia⠀
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea⠀
Maputo, Mozambique⠀
Maseru, Lesotho⠀
Mbabane, Swaziland⠀
Mogadishu, Somalia⠀
Monrovia, Liberia⠀
Moroni, Comoros⠀
Nairobi, Kenya⠀
N’Djamena, Chad⠀
Niamey, Niger⠀
Nouakchott, Mauritania⠀
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso⠀
Port Louis, Mauritius⠀
Pretoria, South Africa⠀
Porto Novo, Benin⠀
Praia, Cape Verde⠀
Rabat, Morocco⠀
Tripoli, Libya⠀
Tunis, Tunisia⠀
Victoria, Seychelles⠀
Windhoek, Namibia⠀
Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire⠀
Yaoundé, Cameroon

GLOBAL AFRICAN HISTORY

The following are short descriptions of individuals, places and events which have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These encyclopedia entries serve as a starting point for much more inclusive descriptions and discussions that appear in other sources.

Coming Soon

OUTKAST (1992-2007)

Outkast is a southern hip hop group from Atlanta, Georgia which includes Andre Lauren “Andre 3000″ Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton. The two formed the group after they met at the Lenox Square Shopping Mall in Atlanta in 1992. After graduating from high school in 1993, Benjamin and Patton signed a record deal with Laface Records. In 1994, their first album was released. It was called Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik and featured singles including “Player’s Ball,” “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik,” and “Git Up, Git Out.” The album was certified platinum, selling over a million units and winning the 1995 Source Award Best New Rap of the Year.

In 1996, Outkast released their second album, ATLiens with the singles “Elevators (Me &You),” “ATLiens,“ and “Jazzy Belle.” This album sold over two million units. In 1998, the group released their third album, Aquemini, that feature singles “Rosa Parks,” “Skew It on the B.B.Q.,” and “Da Art of Storytelling” (Pt.1). This album also sold over two million units and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1999.

In 2000, Outkast released their fourth studio album, Stankonia, that feature the hit songs “B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad),” “Ms. Jackson,” and “So Fresh, So Clean.” This album would be a certified quadruple platinum because it sold over four million units. It also won two Grammy Awards in 2002. In 2003, Outkast release their fourth album, Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below that included the singles “Hey Ya!”, “The Way You Move,” and “Roses.” Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below is by far the group’s bestselling group album. It was certified diamond after selling more than eleven million units. Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below also won three Grammy Awards in 2004. In 2006, Outkast released their final album, Idlewild, featuring singles, “Mighty O,” “Morris Brown,” and “Hollywood Divorce.” The album sold a million units and was nominated for two Grammys in 2007.

After the group broke up in 2007, Benjamin and Patton pursued solo careers. Benjamin appeared on many music artists’ songs, including John Legend and Beyoncé Knowles. Benjamin also developed an acting career, appearing in the 2006 films, Idlewild and Charlotte’s Web (2006) and he had an animated cartoon series on Cartoon Network called “Class of 3000,” which aired from 2006 to 2008. In 2008, Benjamin launched his clothing line called “Benjamin Bixby.

Patton released four studio albums during his post-Outkast career, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (2010), Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors (2012), Big Grams (2015), and Boomiverse (2017). In 2014, “Outkast reunited with a national group tour that celebrated the 20th anniversary of their first album.

Benjamin was at one time in a relationship with Erica “Erykah Badu” Wright. The couple have one son, Seven Sirius Benjamin, in 1997. Patton is married to Sherlita Patton. The couple have three children together. Patton also has another son from a previous relationship.

THE BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE: A BRIEF HISTORY

Birmingham_Civil_Rights_Institute_Alabama_Photo_by_Eric_Allix_Rogers_CC_BY-NC-ND_2.0.jpg

In the account that follows, Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr., the President and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute describes the museum’s origins in the powerful and poignant story of the struggle for racial justice in Alabama’s largest city in the 1960s.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of black and white Birmingham citizens had a dream: to take the lessons learned and victories gained during Alabama’s Civil Rights Movement and create an educational and research center that would influence the struggle for human rights all over the world. Why Birmingham as the location for such an institution? In the 1950s and 1960s, Birmingham was the scene of some of the greatest resistance to racial desegregation in America.

In 1956, a group of black ministers, under the leadership of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, organized the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). The group believed a more direct, nonviolent attack on racism was necessary. Birmingham was the place where an undaunted desire for equality and unfailing commitment to nonviolence were met with hostile jeers, degrading intimidation, vicious dogs, fire hoses and bombs. However, the quest for freedom and equality persevered. The story of the ministers, their churches and congregations—the foot soldiers of the Movement—are told collectively throughout the galleries of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

In 1992, after almost a decade of thoughtful planning and coalition building, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) opened its doors. It was strongly supported by the City of Birmingham, by almost every major business in the city and hundreds of committed individuals of all races. An impressive building, designed by architect Max Bond of New York, the Institute stands at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Sixth Avenue North, the anchor in Birmingham’s Civil Rights District.

This well-manicured heritage tourism area includes the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where four young girls were killed when Klansmen planted a bomb there in 1963; Kelly Ingram Park, where most of the confrontations took place and commemorative statues now stand like sentinels; the Fourth Avenue Business District, Birmingham’s historic African-American commercial district; and the historic Carver Theatre, home of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. The Civil Rights District is a key component in the City of Birmingham’s Master Plan.

BCRI has built award-winning exhibits, secured national and international recognition as a leading source of civil rights information, developed a nationally important oral history project, and hosted comprehensive educational programs and conferences, many in collaboration with leading community organizations. The Institute brings to life both the anguish and the accomplishments of the long march to freedom through interactive, multi-media exhibits, and an impressive oral history collection that records first-hand accounts from over 465 of the Movement’s courageous followers and celebrated leaders–and is still growing. In July 2005, BCRI was accredited by the American Association of Museums becoming only the second African American specific, non-profit fully accredited museum in the country.

The Institute’s mission is to promote civil and human rights worldwide through education. BCRI serves as a national center for education and professional development on the American Civil Rights Movement and is one of the country’s top heritage-tourism sites. Its galleries are filled daily with schoolchildren and scholars of all ethnic groups and visitors from across the country and throughout the world, in addition to Alabama residents. The Institute has, in fact, proven to be a major destination attraction for Birmingham and Alabama: over 1,700,000 people have visited since it opened. According to surveys conducted by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel, an overwhelming majority of visitors to the Institute traveled to Birmingham specifically to tour the Institute—over 95%. In the 14 years since it opened, the Institute has had an enormous positive impact on the local and statewide economy, contributing almost $20 million annually. This figure includes $5.7 million in direct spending by visitors; $12.4 million in ripple economic impact; and $1.8 million in salaries and direct purchases by BCRI.

Birmingham, Alabama today is a city transformed by social progress, a city whose businesses and institutions thrive, in part, because of its diversity. It is a city strengthened by the process of reconciliation—a city that has endured. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute tells the story of that transformation.

black inventors

Most people have heard about famous inventions like the light bulb, the cotton gin and the iPhone. But there are countless other, often overlooked inventions that make our daily lives easier. Among the creative innovators behind these devices are African-American inventors. From the traffic light to the ironing board, see a list of products that have sprung from the minds of black inventors.

black inventors

PAGE 1

Air Conditioning Unit | Frederick M. Jones | 1949

Almanac | Benjamin Banneker | 1771

Auto Cut-Off Witch | Granville T. Woods | 1839

Auto Fishing Device | George Cook | 1899

Baby Buggy | William H. Richardsong 1889

Biscuit Cutter | Alexander P. Ashbourne | 1875

Blood Plasma Bag | Charles Drew | 1945

Chamber Commode | Thomas Elkins | 1897

Clothes Dryer | George T. Sampson | 1971

Curtain Rod | Samuel R. Scrottron | 1892

Curtain Rod Support | William S. Grant | 1896

Door Knob & Door Stop | Osbourn Dorsey | 1878

Egg Beater | Willie Johnson | 1884

Electric Lamb Bulb | Lewis Latimer | 1882

Elevator | Alexander Miles | 1867

Eye Protector | Powell Johnson | 1880

Fire Escape Ladder | Joseph W. Winters | 1878

PAGE 2

Golf Tee | George T. Grant | 1899

Guitar | Robert F. Fleming. Jr. | 1886

Hair Brush | Lydia O. Newman | 1898

Hand Stamp | Walter B. Purvis | 1883

Ice Cream Scoop | Alfred L. Cralle | 1897

Insect Destroyer Gun | Albert C. Richardson | 1899

Ironing Board | Sarah Boone | 1887

Key Chain | Fredrick J. Loudin | 1894

Lantern | Michael C. Harvey | 1884

Lawn Sprinkler | John H. Smith | 1897

Lemon Squeezer | John Thomas White | 1893

Lock | Washington A. Martin | 1893

Lubricating Cup | Elihas Mcoy | 1895

Lunch Pail | James Robinson | 1887

Mail Box | Paul L. Downing | 1891

Mop | Thomas W Stewart | 1893

Peanut Butter | George W. Carver | 1896

Pencil Sharpener | John L. Love | 1897

Record Player Arm | Joseph H. Dickinson | 1819

Rolling Pin | John W. Reed | 1864

Shampoo Headrest | Charles Orren Bailiff | 1898

Spark Plug | Edmond Berger | 1839

Stethoscope | Thomas A. Carrington | 1876

Straightening Comb | Madam C. J. Walker | 1905

Street Sweeper | Charles B. Brooks | 1890

Phone Transmitter | Granville T. Woods | 1884

In too many communities, the fairness, reliability, and integrity of the legal system have been compromised by clear evidence of racial bias in the selection of juries.1 Unrepresentative juries not only exclude and marginalize communities of color, they also produce wrongful convictions and unfair sentences that disproportionately burden Black people and people of color. Our failure to remedy this longstanding problem of racial bias imperils the legitimacy of the U.S. legal system.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that an “[e]qual opportunity to participate in the fair administration of justice is fundamental to our democratic system.”2The Court has insisted that eliminating racial bias in the selection of juries is necessary “to preserve the public confidence upon which our system of criminal justice depends.”3

In most communities in America, Black people and people of color are significantly underrepresented in the jury pools from which jurors are selected. The law requires that the proportion of Black people in a jury pool must match Black representation in the overall population,4 but courts routinely fail to enforce these requirements. Legal standards created by the courts make it difficult to prove discrimination and have led to a failure to address racially discriminatory practices.

When Black people and people of color do get called for jury service, they are still removed unfairly. There is widespread racial bias in the selection of key leadership roles such as the grand jury foreperson—who has significant power to shape the conduct and outcome of legal proceedings, at least in some jurisdictions.5 In criminal trials, prosecutors and judges often remove Black people after unfairly claiming they are unfit to serve on juries.

Even if people of color successfully navigate all of these barriers to jury service, they can be excluded by lawyers who have the right to use “peremptory strikes” to remove otherwise qualified jurors for virtually any reason—or no reason at all.

Chapter 1

a history of discrimination

in jury selection

Emancipation and Citizenship

A jury made up of ordinary citizens acts as a “bulwark” of liberty for individuals accused of a crime by reining in overzealous or corrupt prosecutors and exposing judges who fail to protect the rights of the accused.10

In addition to shielding individual defendants from government overreach, juries embody and sustain democracy itself by providing an “opportunity for ordinary citizens to participate in the administration of justice.”11 Jury service empowers ordinary citizens to become “instruments of public justice” in their own communities.12 But throughout our country’s history, perpetrators of racial violence, terrorism, and exploitation of disfavored groups have escaped accountability because their criminal behavior has been ignored by all-white juries.

Black people have been excluded from jury service since America’s founding.

To justify the mass enslavement of Black people in a country that espoused freedom and liberty, an elaborate and complex mythology emerged based on the idea that Black people were not fully human and were inherently inferior to white people. This false narrative was woven into the legal system, which became a critical mechanism to enforce white supremacy.

The Constitution denied Black people the right to serve on juries13by classifying enslaved Black people as property.14Most states also excluded free Black people from jury service and denied them the right to a jury trial,15 leaving African Americans unprotected from abusive prosecutions and unfair convictions and sentences. This exclusion also allowed for the murder, rape, assault, and economic exploitation of Black women and men, because all-white juries refused to hold the perpetrators accountable.

Black citizens made progress toward political equality during the 12-year period after the Civil War known as Reconstruction. Under the protection of federal troops stationed in the South to enforce the newly established rights of formerly enslaved people, many Black men voted and were elected to local, state, and federal government positions, including 16 African Americans who served in Congress.16

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which outlawed race-based discrimination in jury selection.17The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, ratified in 186818and 1870,19respectively, guaranteed Black men the right to vote and serve on juries and provided legal protections against racial discrimination.20

Racially integrated juries in some jurisdictions enforced the rights of Black defendants and held white perpetrators of racial violence accountable for their crimes.21In most of the South, however, the failure to enforce anti-discrimination laws meant that Black people continued to be denied the basic rights of citizenship, including jury service.22

THIS STORY CONTAINS 112 PAGES OF HISTORY*

WE HAVE PROVIDED A LINK TO READ IN FULL PDF FILE.

Read the full book here: https://eji.org/report/race-and-the-jury/

AFTER THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: FINDING THE AFRICAN NORTH AMERICANS WHO RETURNED FROM CANADA

The Underground Railroad which fugitive slaves followed from the antebellum South to Canada is now a well-known story. But what of those who returned? In his ongoing research, University of Texas at El Paso historian Adam Arenson explores this little-known aspect of nineteenth- century African American history: the return of blacks from Canada to the U.S. after the Civil War.

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs recalled his return to the United States with ambivalence. Born free in Philadelphia in 1823, Gibbs had sought his fortune among the 49ers in California, but by 1858 he had found the hardening racial attitudes of California and the rest of the United States suffocating. Gibbs had gone to Victoria, British Columbia, where he was elected to the City Council in 1866. Content and prosperous, Gibbs nevertheless was enthralled by the Emancipation Proclamation, the defeat of the Confederacy, and the promise of Reconstruction. In 1870, he decided to return south.

“En route my feelings were peculiar,” Gibbs wrote later in his memoir, recalling the moment. “A decade had passed, fraught with momentous results in the history of the nation. I had left California disfranchised and my oath denied… I was returning, and on touch of my country’s soil to have a new baptism through the all-pervading genius of universal liberty. I had left politically ignoble; I was returning panoplied with the nobility of an American citizen.”

Testing the country’s transformation, Gibbs visited his brother, Jonathan Gibbs, the first African American secretary of state in Florida, and attended an African-American political convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Inspired by what he saw, Mifflin Gibbs moved to Arkansas, where he became the first African American elected as a municipal judge. He later served in numerous Republican administrations, and concluded his memoir, published in 1902, with a description of his visit with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Despite these personal successes, a doubt remained in Gibbs’ mind, one that rang out from the moment of his return to the United States. “The [Reconstruction] amendments to the Constitution…born in the seething cauldron of civil war…had been passed,” Gibbs wrote, “but was their inscription a record of the crystallization of public sentiment?” Would the promise of equal rights hold in the United States, for those born enslaved, those fugitives for freedom, those who returned to work for its promise?

As Gibbs witnessed in the late nineteenth century, Reconstruction’s new birth of freedom waxed and waned. Like the thousands of other African North Americans returning during the Civil War and Reconstruction, Gibbs came armed with the power of comparison: When struggling for social equality and access to political participation in the United States, these men and women could consider their experiences in Canada as they formulated notions of freedom after slavery.

Canada has been understood as a mid-nineteenth century Promised Land for slaves escaping via the Underground Railroad. For the four million slaves in the United States and their abolitionist supporters, those that made it across the northern border—a precise figure is unknown, but it was likely between 20,000 and 40,000 fugitives—represented a repudiation of the slave system, and a new claim for liberty for those of African descent living in North America.

Yet after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, at least 3,000 African Americans returned to the United States, eager to join the fight against slavery. Some became soldiers; others served as they could. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, born in Delaware, had founded an integrated school and edited the Provincial Freeman in Ontario in the 1850s. In 1863, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she served as a paid recruiting officer for the U.S. Army, embracing the U.S. Colored Troops’ Civil War fighting as the greatest form of black self-reliance. After the war, others, like Mifflin Gibbs, went back to the South, following family ties, and anxious to contribute to the struggle for racial equality. Shadd Cary and Gibbs left letters and memoirs; some left only traces of their movements in U.S. Census documents, their children marked as “Black” or “Mulatto,” with birthplaces in Canada.

As African North Americans explored new points of reference for their claims concerning political, cultural, and economic rights, they encountered the international context of late-nineteenth-century North American politics. They were able to link American Reconstruction and Canadian Confederation to German and Italian unification and to see the relevance of calls for civil rights for ethnic minorities in the new nation-states of Europe as well as in the increasingly controlling colonial regimes around the globe. African North Americans saw the power of alternatives and the opportunity, seized around the world, to radically alter the rights offered by and responsibilities placed upon governments, in the name of liberty.

Recently, the historian Michael Wayne has shown that the story of most black Canadians being fugitive slaves and most living in all-black communities and most returning to the United States is contradicted by evidence from the Canadian censuses. Using U.S. and Canadian Census records, Civil War pension files, newspapers, letters, and memoirs in both countries, as well as literary and artistic representations, I am constructing an extensive analysis of the African North American communities in Canada and the United States, from the beginnings of the Underground Railroad to the death of the emancipation generation, roughly stretching from the 1830s to the 1920s.

While the decision on whether to stay or return to the United States during the Civil War and Reconstruction is the central question of my research, I am also comparing and contrasting the experience of various groups: those who fled to Canada; their Canadian-born children; those who returned to fight for the Union during the Civil War; those who returned during Reconstruction; those who stayed in Canada throughout; and those who moved between the two countries; and those who entered a wider African Diaspora following the collapse of Reconstruction.

The first stage of this research has been the creation of a large database, tracking the name, age, “color,” family relations, employment, education, military service, and citizenship data (where available) from the U.S. and Canadian Censuses from 1850 to 1930, Civil War muster rolls, pension files, and other sources.

But my interest in this story came from something far more personal and affecting than long columns of numbers, a surprise found while researching my first book, on St. Louis and the Civil War Era. At a librarian’s suggestion, I examined the record for five members of the 72nd Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry, who had enlisted in Missouri. Among the hundreds of men signing up for military service and a chance at equal rights during the Civil War, these men were specially marked, as “natives of Canada”—opening a wealth of questions. Did these men have a claim on U.S. citizenship? Was their involvement in the war legal? Did it open up Canada to attack from the Confederacy? Clearly these men felt an affinity for the Union cause after the Emancipation Proclamation—what would they gain, and what would they lose from their enlistments?

After these five men I found dozens more, children of fugitive slaves returning to fight in the land of their parents. I began searching for those who had themselves escaped or fled but returned to fight during the war, like Mary Ann Shadd’s brothers, or afterward, like Mifflin Gibbs. I considered the importance of the Fourth of July, 1870, debate over extending the (lily-white) Naturalization Act “to aliens of African nativity and to persons of African descent” as a result of their service, the first such change in U.S. history.

Clearly, the action of these men, and their efforts to reclaim attachment to the United States, extended the citizenship debates around the 14th and 15th Amendments to encompass those claiming a place within the United States long denied their families. Others, however, became frustrated with the failures of Reconstruction, seeking new lives in Jamaica, or Liberia, or by traveling the ever-widening African North American Diaspora. My ongoing research describes the thousands of African Americans in Canada determined to grasp their freedom in the era of U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, in whatever country or way that made it possible.

This is a story of political awakening and economic advancement, of broken promises and cultural struggles. It takes a story familiar to all U.S. and Canadian residents and changes our focus, asking crucial questions about the era of emancipation and connecting the story of African Americans during Reconstruction to a global story of national consolidation and tightening racial regimes. Through the power of comparison and the recovery of forgotten stories, I am discovering and documenting what happens After the Underground Railroad.

Given my ongoing research and the difficulty in finding these stories, I welcome comments, questions, and especially those with family stories to tell to contact me, as I work to find as many of these stories as I can.

KANO, NIGERIA (7TH C.?- )

Kano, also known as Kano City, is located in the northern region of Nigeria on the Jakara River. It is the capital of Kano state and in 2006 boasted a population of 2,828,861 people making it the second largest city in Nigeria. Many of the city’s inhabitants are of Hausa, Fulani, or Abagagyawa descent.

Kano and its surrounding area are believed to have first been settled between the 5th and 7th centuries by a Gaya tribe blacksmith who came to Dalla Hill in search of iron. Around the tenth century Bayajidda Abuyazid, said to be an exiled Baghdad (present-day Iraq) prince, took control of the area and founded the Kano kingdom along with six other Hausa city-states, Daura, Katsina, Zazzau, Gobir, Rano, and Biram. He named Kano as the capital city. His grandson Bagauada became the first king of Kano and ruled from 999 till 1063.

Under the third king of Kano, Sakri Gijimasu, the construction of the city’s famed walls began and would continue for centuries. The Islamic religion was introduced to Kano by scholars from the Mali empire in the 1340s and was adopted throughout the city and the kingdom. Muhammad Rumfa came to power in 1463 and reigned until 1499. Under his guidance the city of Kano enjoyed great prosperity and growth. He expanded the Emir’s Palace and was responsible for more residents converting to Islam. During this time Kano was a major trade hub for gold and African slaves and was also an essential city along the trans-Saharan trade routes that ran from West Africa to North Africa. In the early 19th century, the Fulani conquered Hausaland and Kano became the capital of an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate. The city was eventually taken over by the British in 1903 and would become incorporated into British Nigeria.

Kano became the capital of Kano state in 1967 following Nigeria’s independence from the British in 1960. The city is split into six main districts: Fagge, the Syrian Quarters, Sabon Gari, the Nasarawa, Bompai, and the original walled area. Each district is further divided into numerous small neighborhoods. The city is known for its livestock trade, production of peanuts, textile making, light manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, furniture, plastics, and more recently, automobile production.

Kano is also a major transportation center. A number of highways coverage in the city and railroads connect it to Lagos and Port Harcourt on the Nigerian coast. Kano’s international airport allows travelers to fly to major African and European cities. Kano is also home to a number of educational institutions such as Bayero University, Kano State Institute for Higher Education, an agricultural research institute, and an Arabic law school.

THE SECOND ITALO-ABYSSINIAN WAR (1935–1936)

The Second Italo-Abyssinian War was Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, a process it began after the 1885 Partition of Africa. Italy was defeated in its first attempt at conquest at the battle of Adwa in 1896, allowing Ethiopia to become the only African nation to remain free of European control. Italian colonial forces however still remained in neighboring Eritrea and Somalia, and it was only a matter of time before the two nations would clash again.

The prospect of war increased dramatically after the fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, took control of Italy in 1922. He sought Ethiopia for its resources but also to salvage the pride of the only European nation defeated by an African country. Taking Ethiopia would have also completed the Italian domination over the Horn of Africa.

The initial conflict that sparked the war took place at Wal Wal, an oasis in the Ogaden Desert in 1934. On November 22, 1934, Italian forces marched fifty miles into Ethiopia and clashed with Ethiopian troops at Wal Wal, leaving one hundred and fifty Ethiopians and two Italians dead. The League of Nations evaluated the conflict and exonerated both nations, although Italy was the clear aggressor. Great Britain and France, which dominated the League, hoped to prevent Italy from becoming an ally of Nazi Germany. Taking advantage of this situation, Mussolini signed agreements with France and the United Kingdom, thus isolating Ethiopia and forcing it to face Italy alone.

The impending attack from the Italians prompted Emperor Haile Selassie I to recruit and mobilize the Army of the Ethiopian Empire. His approximately half-million-man legion was armed with mostly bows and spears, with the exception of those who owned outdated rifles, some of which remained from the conflict forty years earlier. Only a quarter of the army had any combat training. With a miniscule arsenal of outdated artillery and anti-tank or aircraft guns, and a handful of planes including some piloted by African Americans and other volunteers, the Ethiopian nation was poorly prepared for the second Italian invasion.

By contrast, Italy learned lessons from its earlier defeat. By 1935 it had sent twelve Italian infantry divisions, approximately six hundred and eighty-five thousand troops to the Italian colonies surrounding Ethiopia. Italy also recruited additional soldiers from those colonies. Beyond that, they also had heavy artillery, ground and air vehicles, and extensive supplies.

The war began on October 3, 1935, when General Emilio De Bono marched his troops over the Mareb River into Ethiopia before Italy officially issued a declaration of war. Emperor Selassie instead declared war on Italy, but the invading forces advanced rapidly into northern Ethiopia, taking both Adigrat and Adowa by October 6. The latter was where the Italians had been defeated in 1896. By mid-October, Italian troops had taken the ancient city of Axum, and by November 8, they had conquered Mek’ele as well. Nonetheless, Mussolini was impatient with what he called De Bono’s slow advance and replaced him with Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio.

In an attempt to test Italy’s new commander and rally his own nation, Selassie ordered a Christmas Offensive, counterattack against the Italians. Although the Ethiopians were initially successful and won the Battle of Dembeguina Pass where they defeated one thousand Eritrean troops under Italian command, the Italians continued their steady advance across the nation. On May 5, 1936, they took the capital Addis Ababa, and Emperor Haile Selassie was exiled and fled to Palestine and eventually to England. Mussolini then named King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy as the Emperor of Ethiopia.

When World War II began in September 1939, Great Britain declared war on Italy. Two years later on April 6, 1941, British and Ethiopian troops drove the Italians out of Addis Abba and restored Emperor Haile Selassie as head of the Ethiopian government. Ironically, Ethiopia was the first nation liberated from Axis powers in World War II.

black inventors who changed the world

Lonnie G. Johnson

SUPER SOAKER

An anonymous source said of the Super Soaker®: "I got fired from a job once because of my Super Soaker. I guess that's what happens when you accidentally drench a customer when you're trying to get a co-worker who ducks."

Famous black inventor and scientist Lonnie G. Johnson probably didn't have that little scenario in mind when he invented the Super Soaker squirt gun, but it is one of the countless memories that can be recalled by those who were young enough to enjoy the Super Soaker after its release in 1989.

Johnson's resume boasts work with the US Air Force and NASA (including work on the Galileo Jupiter probe and Mars Observer project), a nomination for astronaut training and more than 40 patents, but it's for a squirt gun that he's best known. Johnson conceived of a novelty water gun powered by air pressure in 1982 when he conducted an experiment at home on a heat pump that used water instead of Freon. This experimentation, which resulted in Johnson shooting a stream of water across his bathroom into the tub, led directly to the development of the Power Drencher, the precursor to the Super Soaker.

Lonnie G. Johnson now has his own company, Johnson Research and Development, and continues to do work for NASA

Frederick McKinley Jones

REFRIGERATOR INVENTIONS

Anytime you see a truck on the highway transporting refrigerated or frozen food, you're seeing the work of Frederick McKinley Jones.

One of the most prolific Black inventors ever, Jones patented more than 60 inventions in his lifetime. While more than 40 of those patents were in the field of refrigeration, Jones is most famous for inventing an automatic refrigeration system for long haul trucks and railroad cars.

Before Jones' invention, the only way to keep food cool in trucks was to load them with ice. Jones was inspired to invent the system after talking with a truck driver who lost his whole cargo of chicken because he couldn't reach his destination before the ice melted. As a solution, the African-American inventor developed a roof-mounted cooling system to make sure food stayed fresh.

In addition to that refrigerator invention, Jones also invented an air-conditioning unit for military field hospitals, a refrigerator for military field kitchens, a self-starting gas engine, a series of devices for movie projectors and box-office equipment that gave tickets and made change. Jones was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology in 1991 – the first Black inventor to ever receive such an honor

Marie Van Brittan Brown

HOME SECURITY SYSTEMS

While home security systems today are more advanced than ever, back in 1966 the idea for a home surveillance device seemed almost unthinkable. That was the year famous African-American inventor Marie Van Brittan Brown, and her partner Albert Brown, applied for an invention patent for a closed-circuit television security system – the forerunner to the modern home security system.

Brown's system had a set of four peep holes and a camera that could slide up and down to look out each one. Anything the camera picked up would appear on a monitor. An additional feature of Brown's invention was that a person also could unlock a door with a remote control.

A female black inventor far ahead of her time, Marie Van Brittan Brown created an invention that was the first in a long string of home-security inventions that continue to flood the market today.

George Crum

POTATO CHIP

Every time a person crunches into a potato chip, he or she is enjoying the delicious taste of one of the world's most famous snacks – a treat that might not exist without the contribution of black inventor George Crum.

The son of an African-American father and a Native American mother, Crum was working as the chef in the summer of 1853 when he incidentally invented the chip. It all began when a patron who ordered a plate of French-fried potatoes sent them back to Crum's kitchen because he felt they were too thick and soft.

To teach the picky patron a lesson, Crum sliced a new batch of potatoes as thin as he possibly could, and then fried them until they were hard and crunchy. Finally, to top them off, he added a generous heaping of salt. To Crum's surprise, the dish ended up being a hit with the patron and a new snack was born!

Years later, Crum opened his own restaurant that had a basket of potato chips on every table. Though Crum never attempted to patent his invention, the snack was eventually mass-produced and sold in bags – providing thousands of jobs nationwide.

Dr. Philip Emeagwali

WORLD'S FASTEST COMPUTER

Dr. Philip Emeagwali, who has been called the "Bill Gates of Africa," was born in Nigeria in 1954. Like many African schoolchildren, he dropped out of school at age 14 because his father could not continue paying Emeagwali's school fees. However, his father continued teaching him at home, and everyday Emeagwali performed mental exercises such as solving 100 math problems in one hour. His father taught him until Philip "knew more than he did."

Growing up in a country torn by civil war, Emeagwali lived in a building crumbled by rocket shells. He believed his intellect was a way out of the line of fire. So he studied hard and eventually received a scholarship to Oregon State University when he was 17 where he obtained a BS in mathematics. He also earned three other degrees – a Ph.D. in Scientific computing from the University of Michigan and two Masters degrees from George Washington University.

The noted black inventor received acclaim based, at least in part, on his study of nature, specifically bees. Emeagwali saw an inherent efficiency in the way bees construct and work with honeycomb and determined computers that emulate this process could be the most efficient and powerful. In 1989, emulating the bees' honeycomb construction, Emeagwali used 65,000 processors to invent the world's fastest computer, which performs computations at 3.1 billion calculations per second.

Dr. Philip Emeagwali's resume is loaded with many other such feats, including ways of making oil fields more productive – which has resulted in the United States saving hundreds of millions of dollars each year. As one of the most famous African-American inventors of the 20th century, Dr. Emeagwali also has won the Gordon Bell Prize – the Nobel Prize for computation. His computers are currently being used to forecast the weather and to predict the likelihood and effects of future global warming.

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson

TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, a theoretical physicist and famous black inventor, has been credited with making many advances in science. She first developed an interest in science and mathematics during her childhood and conducted experiments and studies, such as those on the eating habits of honeybees. She followed this interest to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she received a bachelor, and doctoral degree, all in the field of physics. In doing so she became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. from MIT.

Jackson conducted successful experiments in theoretical physics and used her knowledge of physics to foster advances in telecommunications research while working at Bell Laboratories. Dr. Jackson conducted breakthrough basic scientific research that enabled others to invent the portable fax, touch tone telephone, solar cells, fiber optic cables, and the technology behind caller ID and call waiting.

Currently, Jackson is the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological research university in the United States, and recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top 50 universities. The mission of Rensselaer since its founding in 1824 has been to "apply science to the common purposes of life." Dr. Jackson's goal for Rensselaer is "to achieve prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university, with global reach and global impact."

Garret A. Morgan

TRAFFIC SIGNAL AND GAS MASK INVENTOR

George Alcorn

IMAGING X-RAY SPECTROMETER

Not many inventors have resumes as impressive as George Edward Alcorn's. Among his credits, the African-American inventor received a B.A. in physics, a master's degree in nuclear physics and a Ph.D in atomic and molecular physics. On top of that, Alcorn worked for the likes of Philco-Ford, Perkin-Elmer, IBM and NASA, created over 20 different inventions and was granted eight patents.

Despite such impressive credentials, Alcorn is probably most famous for his innovation of the imaging x-ray spectrometer – a device that helps scientists better understand what materials are composed of when they cannot be broken down. Receiving a patent for his method in 1984, Alcorn's inclusion of the thermomigration of aluminum in the spectrometer was regarded as a major innovation by experts in the field. The invention led to Alcorn's reception of the NASA Inventor of the Year Award.

And that wasn't the only award George Edward Alcorn received. Along with being awarded a NASA medal for his work in recruiting minority scientists and engineers, he also won the Government Executives Magazine's prestigious Technology Leadership Award for the Airborne Lidar Topographical Mapping System. And, in 2001, Alcorn was awarded special congressional recognition for his efforts in helping Virgin Islands businesses through application of NASA technology and technology programs.

George Alcorn's work as an educator should not be overlooked either. He held positions at both Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia, where he taught courses in electrical engineering. He also was an organizer and mentor for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's (UMBC's) Myerhoff Program, which works to promote minority Ph.Ds in science and mathematics.