By 1947 the question of black civil rights in the South had become a national issue when a committee President Harry S. Truman appointed to study the issue called for legislation which among other things would to protect voting rights for Southern blacks and provide … Read More(1948) Harry S. Truman, “Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights”
In 1906, one year after the Niagara Movement was founded, it held its second annual meeting at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. W.E.B. Du Bois, a founding member and its titular leader, gave the address below to the assembled civil rights activists. The men of the … Read More(1906) W.E.B. Du Bois, “Men of Niagara”
On February 13, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech at the New York City Republican Club as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln. The speech, which also allowed Roosevelt to expound on his contemporary views of race in the United States, appears below. In his … Read More(1905) Theodore Roosevelt, “Lincoln and the Race Problem”
In 1913, 57-year-old John Edward Bruce, one of the leading black nationalist figures in the United States, founded the Loyal Order of the Sons of Africa with the goal of freeing the African continent from colonialism and unifying its people. In the speech below, given … Read More(1914) John Edward Bruce, “Sons of Africa”
In 1949 it was far from clear as to whether or when Great Britain would grant independence to Nigeria. Nonetheless 45 year old Nnamdi Azikiwe had already emerged as one of the leaders in the Nigerian independence campaign. He and other Nigerian nationalists took that … Read More(1949) Nnamdi Azikiwe Speaks at a Rally for Nigerian Independence at Trafalgar Square, London
Nigerian independence leader Nnamdi Azikiwe appeared before the Plenary Session of the British Peace Congress held in London on October 23, 1949. He used that occasion to educate his audience about Nigeria and Africa. He also used the opportunity to remind the peace advocates that … Read More(1949) Nnamdi Azikiwe Speaks before the British Peace Conference in London
Here Nnamdi Azikiwe, future first President of Nigeria, delivers an address to his fellow fraternity members at the Banneker High School Auditorium, Washington, D.C., on December 27, 1949, at the 35th Anniversary of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. I have travelled 8,500 miles in order … Read More(1949) Nnamdi Azikiwe Addresses Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity at its 35th Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.
In the following address given eleven years before Nigerian independence, Nnamdi Azikiwe calls for self-determination for the Ibo as they along with other ethnic groups march toward an inevitably free Nigeria. This address was delivered at the Ibo State Assembly held at Aba, Nigeria, on … Read More(1949) Nnamdi Azikiwe, “Address to the Ibo People”
Lamine Senghor was an early Senegalese nationalist. Born in Kaolack, Senegal in 1889, he served in the French Army between 1915 and 1919 and returned to Paris in 1922. Senghor joined the French Communist Party and ran as a ran as Communist Party candidate in … Read More(1927) Lamine Senghor, “The Negro’s Fight for Freedom”
In the years immediately following World War I, Prince Marc Kojo Tovalou Houènou was one of a small number of French Speaking Africans to openly challenge French rule on that continent. In his short book, L’Involutjon Métamorphoses et des Métempsychoses de l’univers, which was published … Read More(1924) Prince Marc Kojo Tovalou Houènou, “The Problem of Negroes in French Colonial Africa”
