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. Many of these accounts will be instant primary sources available to current visitors to BlackPast and to future historians. Each article is accompanied by a brief biography and photo of its author.
The article below, written for BlackPast.org by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., describes the role of gospel music in influencing almost all other African American musical genres and in turn impacting all American music. Professor Gates has published numerous books and produced and hosted … Read MoreHarmony In Transition: The Symbiotic Evolution of Gospel Music
In the article below historian Kathleen Thompson describes Taylor Electric Company, founded in 1922 and has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating Black-owned business in Chicago and one of the oldest in the United States. Taylor Electric Company is one of the oldest … Read MoreTaylor Electric Company (1922- )
In the article below University of Washington School of Public Health Professor Clarence Spigner challenges us to take a more nuanced look at the often-dismissed 1970s genre of so-called Blaxploitation films. During the 1970s, critics of Hollywood cinema gave birth to “Blaxploitation,” a conflation of … Read MoreBlaxploitation Reexamined: One Critic’s Reinterpretation
As you will see below, historians agree that the first twenty Africans landed in Virginia in 1619. What is in dispute is their exact status. Were they enslaved people from the beginning of their arrival or did they have some other status? Historian Malik Simba … Read MoreThe Evolution of Slavery in Virginia, 1619 to 1661
In the article below independent historian Clarence Spigner analyzes Sergeant Rutledge and the other major films of the college football star, early National Football League player, and actor Woody Strode. Sergeant Rutledge is a 1960 western film from Warner Brothers and the director John Ford. … Read MoreIn the Heat of the West: Woody Strode, Sergeant Rutledge, and the Buffalo Soldier
In the article below, attorney and Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Contributor Robert Gray describes the founding and early history of the oldest Black think tank in the United States. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (formerly the Joint Center for … Read MoreThe Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: A Brief History
On May 18, 2021, longtime University of Washington Professor Emeritus Thaddeus Spratlen died in Seattle, Washington at the age of 90. Few people knew his name, but his work transformed black economics in the United States. In the article below, Professor William Bradford, former Dean … Read MoreThaddeus H. Spratlen: Scholar and Philanthropist Generating Economic Change in Black America
In the article below, legal scholar Malik Simba explains the development of Critical Race Theory, the legal concept that has now become one of the most hotly debated topics in the ongoing cultural wars in the United States between political conservatives and political liberals. The … Read MoreCRITICAL RACE THEORY: A Brief History
In the article that follows Syracuse University historian Herbert G. Ruffin II takes us back in time to describe the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 on the eve of its 100-year anniversary. African American life and the passing down of wealth from one generation to … Read MoreWe Can Best Honor Our Past by Not Burying It: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921
In the article below, independent historian Robert Fikes describes a little-known civil rights campaign in the late 1920s to desegregate the nursing staff in San Diego area hospitals. The campaign for racial justice in San Diego and the United States is often portrayed as a … Read MoreGo Anyplace But Here, Please: The Fight to Train Black Nurses in San Diego
