There have been several posts in this blog discussing the interesting places where people of African descent reside (Our Neighbors to the North, Fleeting Glimpses, Early Black British, Seeking Home, Black Communities in Surprising Places). This post focuses on Afro-Turks. The geographic size and the duration of the Ottoman Empire, starting … Read More … Read MoreAfro-Turks
Arabella Fields was a singer and actress known as “The Black Nightingale” and had a storied career performing in Europe. She was born on January 31, 1879, as Sarah Arabella Middleton in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Early reports state she was performing at the young age of … Read More … Read MoreArabella Fields (1879-1933)
Alicia Keys is a rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, and pianist known for her unique blend of classical, R&B, jazz, neo-soul, and hip-hop. She writes and produces her own music. Her stage name, “Keys,” alludes to her being a pianist. Keys was born Alicia Augello Cook on January 25, 1981, … Read More … Read MoreAlicia Keys/Alicia Augello Cook (1981- )
In the speech below Angelina Grimke Weld, who was born to a prominent slaveholding family in Charleston, South Carolina, invites the women and men of Philadelphia to join her in the campaign against slavery. Men, brethren and fathers — mothers, daughters and sisters, what came … Read More … Read More(1838) Angelina Grimké Weld, “Speech in Pennsylvania Hall”
The Second Sudanese Civil War was an intense 22-year conflict between the central government in Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The war started in southern Sudan but spread to other places including the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile region. Two million … Read More … Read MoreSecond Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005)
The Coasters began on September 28, 1955, in Los Angeles, California after four of six members from another singing group, The Robins, broke off to start this new group. Bobby Nunn and Carl Gardner, leading vocalists of The Robins, were convinced by the up-and-coming composing/managing … Read More … Read MoreThe Coasters (1955- )
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 … Read More(1905) Roscoe Conkling Bruce, “Freedom Through Education”
The Songhai Empire was the largest and last of the three major pre-colonial empires to emerge in West Africa. From its capital at Gao on the Niger River, Songhai expanded in all directions until it stretched from the Atlantic Ocean (modern Senegal and Gambia) to … Read More … Read MoreSonghai Empire (ca. 1375-1591)
Between 1879 and 1880, six thousand Exodusters left Louisiana and Mississippi for Kansas. Their migration, prompted by the end of racially-integrated Reconstruction governments, by anti-black violence and by sharecropping and tenant farming, brought national attention including a Congressional hearing, and generated a national debate about … Read More … Read More(1879) Robert J. Harlan, “Migration is the Only Remedy for Our Wrongs”
The Mali Empire was the second of three West African empires to emerge in the vast savanna grasslands located between the Sahara Desert to the north and the coastal rain forest in the south. Beginning as a series of small successor trading states, Ancient Ghana, … Read More … Read MoreMali Empire (ca. 1200-1545 )
