African American History Perspectives

Sea Isle City, New Jersey, The Niagara Movement, and the Early 20th Century Struggle for Racial Justice
In the article below New Jersey historian Dr. Joseph A. LaRosa allows us a glimpse into the rarely discussed last...
February 10th, 2025

Charles Frederick Page, Inventor of the Bi-Ballooned Flyable Airship, 1903
The story of Orville and Wilbur Wright and their first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903, is...
February 3rd, 2025

Harmony In Transition: The Symbiotic Evolution of Gospel Music
The article below, written for BlackPast.org by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., describes the role of gospel music in...
February 17th, 2024

Taylor Electric Company (1922- )
In the article below historian Kathleen Thompson describes Taylor Electric Company, founded in 1922 and has the distinction of being...
January 16th, 2024

Blaxploitation Reexamined: One Critic’s Reinterpretation
In the article below University of Washington School of Public Health Professor Clarence Spigner challenges us to take a more...
February 26th, 2022

The Evolution of Slavery in Virginia, 1619 to 1661
As you will see below, historians agree that the first twenty Africans landed in Virginia in 1619. What is in...
January 13th, 2022

In the Heat of the West: Woody Strode, Sergeant Rutledge, and the Buffalo Soldier
In the article below independent historian Clarence Spigner analyzes Sergeant Rutledge and the other major films of the college football...
November 28th, 2021

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: A Brief History
In the article below, attorney and Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Contributor Robert Gray describes the founding and...
August 12th, 2021

Thaddeus H. Spratlen: Scholar and Philanthropist Generating Economic Change in Black America
On May 18, 2021, longtime University of Washington Professor Emeritus Thaddeus Spratlen died in Seattle, Washington at the age of...
August 11th, 2021