Poet, novelist and U.S. diplomat, James Weldon Johnson is probably best known to millions as the author of the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the black national anthem. Johnson was also a civil rights activist and was Executive Secretary of the National Association … Read More(1923) James Weldon Johnson, “Our Democracy and the Ballot”
By the standards of African American history, Bishop Randall Albert Carter is a little known figure. Born in Fort Valley, Georgia on January 1, 1867, he was educated at Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina and Paine College in Augusta, Georgia. An active pastor in … Read More(1923) Bishop Randall Albert Carter, “Whence and Whither“
Wyatt Mordecai Johnson was born in Paris, Tennessee in 1890. A lifelong educator, Johnson held degrees from a number of institutions including a 1911 A.B. from Morehouse College and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Howard University. Three years after his graduation from Howard he … Read More(1922) Wyatt Mordecai Johnson, “The Faith of the American Negro“
William Pickens was born in 1881, the year Tuskegee Institute was founded. By the time of Booker T. Washington’s death in 1915, Pickens at age 35 had already become a major spokesperson on the direction of black education in the United States. Born in South … Read More(1919) William Pickens, “The Kind of Democracy the Negro Expects”
Robert Russa Moton is best known as the successor to Booker T. Washington as president of Tuskegee Institute. He assumed the presidency of the institution shortly after Washington’s death in 1915. Moton’s life reflects striking parallels to his predecessor. Like Washington, he was born on … Read More(1916) Robert R. Moton, “A Life of Achievement“
Through much of U.S. military history, officers serving in the armed forces have rarely commented publicly on social issues of the day. One exception to this tradition appears below, a speech by Captain Charles Young, Ninth Cavalry, at Stanford University. In December, 1903 Young was … Read More(1903) Captain Charles Young Speaks At Stanford University
Roscoe Conkling Bruce, born in 1879, was the only son of U.S. Senator Blanche K. Bruce and his wife Josephine. He attended Phillips Exeter and graduated from Harvard Phi Beta Kappa in 1902. Bruce became an educator. From 1903 to 1906 he supervised Tuskegee Institute’s … Read More(1905) Roscoe Conkling Bruce, “Freedom Through Education”
In January 1901, at the beginning of a new century, George H. White was ending his term as a Congressman from North Carolina’s Second Congressional District. Realizing that he was bringing to a close a thirty two year period when nearly forty Southern African Americans … Read More(1901) Congressman George H. White’s Farewell Address To Congress
Long termed a “race riot,” the turmoil that enveloped Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898 is now called an armed insurrection. White supremacists drove from power all of the black and white elected officials of this predominately African American city in what was believed … Read More(1898) Rev. Charles S. Morris Describes The Wilmington Massacre of 1898
On September 18, 1895 Booker T. Washington gave an address to the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition which became known as the “Atlanta Compromise Speech.” The address appears below. Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Board of Directors, and Citizens: One-third of the population of … Read More(1895) Booker T. Washington, “The Atlanta Compromise Speech”
