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.
Reclaiming Kin Bookcover “Image Ownership: Public Domain” Genealogist Robyn Smith discusses the “roots” of her new book, The Best of Reclaiming Kin: Helpful Tips On Researching Your Roots.” The book is a compilation of posts from the popular website that focus on teaching family historians … Read MoreThe Best of Reclaiming Kin: Helpful Tips on Researching Your Roots
In the article below, Syracuse University historian Herbert Ruffin explores the rapid rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2013 as the most recent development in the ongoing struggle for racial and social justice in the United States. In the summer of 2013, three … Read MoreBlack Lives Matter: The Growth of a New Social Justice Movement
In the following account historian William L. Katz revisits an essay he first wrote in 1968 as the introduction to the reprinted volume of William Lloyd Garrison’s Thoughts on African Colonization which was first published in 1832. In the article below he describes the first … Read MoreAfrican America’s First Protest Meeting: Black Philadelphians Reject the American Colonization Society Plans for Their Resettlem
In the article below, independent scholar Robert Fikes Jr., explores a centuries-old process in the United States where African Americans with no visible African ancestry “pass” into the Caucasian race or other races to avoid the stigma associated with anti-black racial discrimination and social marginalization. … Read MoreThe Passing of Passing: A Peculiarly American Racial Tradition Approaches Irrelevance
Sometime in 2013, the African American consumer market exceeded the trillion dollar mark for the first time. To put this figure in perspective, that market is larger than the market for the entire nation of Spain. In the article below business historian Robert Weems briefly … Read MoreThe Trillion Dollar African American Consumer Market: Economic Empowerment or Economic Dependency?
In the extended article that appears below historians Daudi Abe and Quintard Taylor explore the history of African Americans in King County from 1858 to 2014. They analyze the forces which encouraged people of African ancestry to settle in the county and discuss the rapid … Read MoreFrom Memphis and Mogadishu: The History of African Americans in King County, Washington, 1858-2014
Lois Leveen occupies an unusual role as both historian and novelist. Leveen is the author of The Secrets of Mary Bowser, which is based on the true story of a black woman who became a Union spy in the Confederate White House during the Civil … Read MoreIs This Mary Bowser?: The Use and Misuse of Photographs to Reconstruct History
Eddie Gardner Crossing the Mississippi River at St. Louis, 1929 “Image Courtesty of Charles Kastner” In the following account, sports historian Charles Kastner describes the remarkable athletic career of Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner of Seattle, Washington. Gardner was arguably the greatest ultramarathoner in Pacific Northwest … Read MoreEddie “the Sheik” Gardner: An Ultramarathoning Legend and Unsung Hero in the Struggle for Racial Equality in America.
Cornelius Golightly at a Detroit School Board Meeting, Courtesy of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University In the following article Michigan State University professor John McClendon explores the remarkable life of little known early 20th century black intellectual Cornelius Golightly. Philosopher, teacher, … Read MoreDr. Cornelius Golightly (1917-1976): The Life of an Academic and Public Intellectual
In the account below historian Lorraine McConaghy uses the story of black sailor Robert Shorter to indicate that while the Civil War freed nearly four million slaves, it also set in motion the status decline of antebellum African American seamen. The eleven years Robert Shorter … Read MoreEleven Years in the U.S. Navy: The Strange Saga of Robert Shorter
