On June 1, 1956, all NAACP offices in Alabama were forced to close, as a result of Attorney General John Patterson’s nine-year injunction against the civil rights organization. This left a void in local civil rights leadership and a desperate need for a new group … Read MoreAlabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR)
Nukina Yoshitaka, a scholar in American literature, wrote that he was motivated to found the Black Studies Association in Tokyo, Japan in October of 1954 because he believed Japanese under United States military control had a commonality with African Americans, as both groups had their … Read MoreBlack Studies Association (Kokujin Kenkyu no Kai) of Japan
The African Civilization Society (ACS) was founded in 1858 by Henry Highland Garnet who sought to encourage blacks Americans to emigrate to Africa. Garnet envisioned educated black Americans moving to the African Continent as cultural missionaries to lead the economic, political, and moral development of … Read MoreThe African Civilization Society (1858-1869)
In the nearly half century between 1900 and 1945, various political leaders and intellectuals from Europe, North America, and Africa met six times to discuss colonial control of Africa and develop strategies for eventual African political liberation. In the article that follows, historian Saheed Adejumobi … Read MoreThe Pan-African Congresses, 1900-1945
Frente Negra Brasileira (Brazilian Black Front) originated in the city of São Paulo, Brazil on September 16, 1931, and was the first Afro-Brazilian organization demanding full participating rights in Brazilian society. Headquartered in São Paulo, it spread around the country. Its complex structure included a … Read MoreFrente Negra Brasileira (1931-1938)
Founded in October of 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) became the most famous black power organization of the late 1960s. Newton and Seale met in 1965 at Merritt College where they were exposed to a burgeoning wave of Black Nationalism, … Read MoreBlack Panther Party (U.S.A.)
Aaron Dixon was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 2, 1949. He moved with his family to Seattle, Washington at a young age and grew up in the city’s historically black Central District. Influenced by his parents’ commitment to social justice, Dixon became one of the leading activists in the Seattle area … Read MoreAaron Dixon (1949- )
On February 1, 1960, four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, demanded service at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. When the staff refused to serve them, they stayed until the store closed. In the following days and weeks, this “sit-in” idea spread through the South. … Read MoreStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC (1960-1973)
During the summer of 1930 street vendor Wallace D. Fard appeared in Detroit, Michigan‘s Paradise Valley community, proclaiming himself to be the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI) and proselytizing among his customers according to his Islamic beliefs. Fard’s doctrine revolved around the claim … Read MoreNation of Islam (1930– )
Robert Franklin Williams was a militant civil rights leader whose open advocacy of armed self-defense anticipated the movement for “black power” in the late 1960s and helped inspire groups like the Student National Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Black Panther Party. Williams … Read MoreRobert F. Williams (1925-1996)
