Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist and music educator, was considered the patriarch of the first family of New Orleans jazz. Marsalis passed away on April 1, 2020 of complications from the coronavirus (COVID-19), at the age of 85. He was one of the first … Read More … Read MoreEllis Marsalis (1934-2020)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] The Juneteenth Minidoc [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]In the article below, historian Quintard Taylor describes the origins and evolution of the Juneteenth holiday since 1865. Any bright high schooler or Constitutional law expert would say that African Americans were formally liberated when the Georgia legislature ratified the 13th Amendment … Read More … Read MoreJuneteenth: The Growth of an African American Holiday (1865- )
Philip Reid’s Lantern of the Dome of the United States Capitol, Washington D.C. “Image Ownership: Andreas Praefcke” Craftsman Philip Reid is best known as the enslaved African who worked on the casting of the Statue of Freedom which sits atop the Capitol building housing the … Read More … Read MorePhilip Reid (1820-1892)
John Brown (also known as “Fed” and “Benford”) of Southampton County, Virginia is best remembered as an escaped enslaved person who wrote an account of his bondage that was published in England in 1854. Brown was born about 1818 on the Betty Moore farm, three … Read More … Read MoreJohn Brown (AKA ‘Fed’ and ‘Benford’) (1818-1876)
Imari Obadele, black power activist, reparations advocate, and college professor, is best known as co-founder of the Republic of New Afrika. Obadele was born Richard Bullock Henry on May 2, 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His homemaker mother, Vera N. Robinson Henry, and his father, Walter … Read More … Read MoreImari Abubakari Obadele, I (1930-2010)
Regarding Websites: Web research can be very useful and lead to much useful and important information. While every effort has been made to list only “reliable” sites, researchers should be aware that control of sites change (often without notice) from time to time and, thus, … Read More … Read MoreAfrican American History: Research Guides & Websites
Rev. Peter Barrow moved his family from Mississippi to Spokane, Washington in 1889. Almost immediately upon arriving, he began to involve himself politically and religiously in the city’s early life. According to Union Army Pension Records, Barrow was born into slavery in 1840 near Petersburg, … Read More … Read MorePeter Barrow (1840-1906)
In the article below University of California, Riverside historian Ralph Crowder describes this fascinating but little known attempt by Joe Louis and Fidel Castro to encourage middle class African American tourism to Cuba in the first year of the new regime. When Fidel Castro successfully … Read More … Read MoreAfrican Americans and Cuba’s First Experiment in Castro-Era Tourism: The Joe Louis Commission in Post Revolutionary Havana, 1959-1960
Tommy Johnson is one of the most exemplary of all the Delta bluesmen. Though he recorded only fourteen titles between 1928 and 1930, almost all of these compositions became classics: for example “Big Road Blues,” “Cool Drink of Water,” and “Slidin’ Delta.” One of them, … Read More … Read MoreTommy Johnson (1896-1956)
Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, remains his most memorable oration. The entire speech appears below. I am happy to join with … Read More … Read More(1963) Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream”
