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. For additional information please consult the print or website sources cited in the entry.
In the five years following the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passed and the states ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. These amendments permanently ended slavery and granted African Americans access to civil rights and suffrage as citizens of the United … Read MoreThe Enforcement Act of 1870 (1870-1871)
The Second Emancipation Proclamation was an envisioned executive order proposed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the civil rights movement which they urged President John F. Kennedy to issue. As the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln to … Read MoreSecond Emancipation Proclamation (1962)
The Almoravids, or al-Murabitun as they called themselves, were an Islamic Berber dynasty that established an empire in Morocco and eventually took it over a wide region of Northwest Africa including modern Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and part of Algeria. The emprire stretched as far south … Read MoreThe Almoravids/al-Murabitun (1040–1147)
John Andrew Burroughs Jr. was an equal opportunity advocate and diplomat who was born in Washington, D.C. on July 31, 1936. He spent his youth in Washington, D.C. before moving to the Midwest to attend the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. While there … Read MoreJohn Andrew Burroughs, Jr. (1936-2014)
The Black Belt Republic was a proposed black autonomous state in the American Deep South proposed by African American communists and for a time endorsed by the Soviet Union and the international communist community. The Black Belt itself is a crescent shaped band of predominately … Read MoreBlack Belt Republic (1928-1934)
The black Magus, or King, in Renaissance Adoration pictures is an enigmatic figure as no black African king is known to have visited Europe during this period. However, blacks, at the time, were known in a wide range of other guises from slaves to saints. … Read More[King Magi] The Black Magus (ca. 1350- )
The legend of Prester John, a wealthy Christian king with a kingdom somewhere outside of the Western European realm, pervaded European thought throughout the Middle Ages. The limited understanding of the unexplored regions of the world and the inability to find his kingdom resulted in … Read MorePrester John
John Chilembwe was a Baptist educator and political leader who organized an uprising against British colonial rule in Nyasaland (today Malawi). Though details about Chilembwe’s early life are largely undocumented, it is believed that he was born in the Chiradzulu region of Nyasaland sometime around … Read MoreJohn Chilembwe (ca. 1871-1915)
The Civil Rights Movement and investigative journalism combined in the early 1960s, inciting a nation to address the growing problem of poverty in America. A 1963 New York Times series on Appalachian poverty and Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962) inspired discontent young Americans as … Read MoreWar on Poverty
The literary movement, Negritude, was born out of the Paris intellectual environment of 1930s and 1940s. It is a product of black writers joining together through the French language to assert their cultural identity. Aimé Césaire was the first to coin the word in his … Read MoreNegritude Movement
