Black History
Articles on the principle people and events in American Black History
Articles on the principle people and events in American Black History
The postwar years were the era of the integration of America's professional sports. Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, Bill Willis and others became household names. Beyond sports, black movie stars made had significant cultural milestones during the decade, while television appearances remained typed and relatively rare. Music, particularly rock and roll,…
Like they had following the Great War, black soldiers returned from WWII as champions of democracy to a society that treated them as second-class citizens. That older generation of “new negroes,” the first to come of age after both slavery and Plessy v. Ferguson, the famous case that legalized racial segregation…
When did slavery end in America? While it formally ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order of Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the total abolition of slavery was a process that occurred in fits and starts throughout the Civil War. When Did Slavery End in America? Such legislation…
The destructive acts of Union General William Sherman during the final year of the Civil War alone would involve a great many pages. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, Sherman’s troops destroyed houses and stripped farmland of all crops. “The city was so heavily bombed,” writes Thomas DiLorenzo, “that the residents had to resort…
Black history is the story of millions of African Americans residing in the United States who have struggled for centuries to fully claim the promises of liberty granted in the founding documents of the United States. The majority are descendants of Africans brought to the New World as property in…
Jackie Robinson played an important role in the end of racial segregation in American sports. When he became the first black player to in the major baseball leagues by signing with Brooklyn Dodgers, he broke a very important, unwritten color barrier in the sports world. He was a brilliant player,…
On February 12, 1909, a diverse group of people, whites, blacks and Jews founded the NAACP. Many founders were also part of the Niagra Movement. The goal of the group was to fight for civil rights in the U.S., and many claim that the 1908 Race Riot in Springfield, Illinois…
The Freedom Riders originally consisted of a group of 13 activists who fought for civil rights and against the segregation in interstate bus terminals in the American South. The Congress of Racial Equality originally recruited the group of Freedom Riders and they departed from Washington D.C., attempting to make use…
The answer is not so much about what Rosa Parks did - it was what she didn't do that set a series of events in motion that finally led to the end of segregation on all busses in Alabama. Rosa Parks' Arrest Rosa Parks got arrested on a municipal Montgomery…
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the largest, oldest and most well-known civil rights group. It was founded in February 1909 and now has over half a million members. The principal goal of the NAACP is to ensure social, economic and political equality of minorities in…