#African american history

[usnatarchives]

Dr. Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to travel in space. Born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Jemison’s journey into the stars is a testament to the power of dreams and determination. 🚀

[iridessence]

Bessie Downing, 1900s. Mary Everhard Collection

[jstor]

Dorothy Porter is known as the "Dewey Decimal Decolonizer."

Dorothy Porter was an African American librarian who worked to challenge and decolonize library systems, including the Dewey Decimal System, which traditionally marginalized non-Western perspectives and cultures. She advocated for more inclusive classification systems that better represented diverse voices and histories.

Porter's work emphasized the importance of equity and representation within library collections, aiming to create spaces that reflect the richness and complexity of human experiences. Her efforts have contributed to ongoing discussions and actions toward decolonizing library practices worldwide.

Read more about Dorothy Porter here.

[nemfrog]

I have given the world my songs. Elizabeth Catlett. 1947.

West Harlem Art Fund

[alwaysbewoke]

Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable was born in Saint-Domingue, Haiti (French colony) during the Haitian Revolution. At some point he settled in the part of North America that is now known as the city of Chicago and was described in historical documents as "a handsome negro" He married a Native American woman, Kitiwaha, and they had two children. In 1779, during the American Revolutionary War, he was arrested by the British on suspicion of being an American Patriot sympathizer. In the early 1780s he worked for the British lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac on an estate at what is now the city of St. Clair, Michigan north of Detroit. In the late 1700's, Jean-Baptiste was the first person to establish an extensive and prosperous trading settlement in what would become the city of Chicago. Historic documents confirm that his property was right at the mouth of the Chicago River. Many people, however, believe that John Kinzie (a white trader) and his family were the first to settle in the area that is now known as Chicago, and it is true that the Kinzie family were Chicago's first "permanent" European settlers. But the truth is that the Kinzie family purchased their property from a French trader who had purchased it from Jean-Baptiste. He died in August 1818, and because he was a Black man, many people tried to white wash the story of Chicago's founding. But in 1912, after the Great Migration, a plaque commemorating Jean-Baptiste appeared in downtown Chicago on the site of his former home. Later in 1913, a white historian named Dr. Milo Milton Quaife also recognized Jean-Baptiste as the founder of Chicago. And as the years went by, more and more Black notables such as Carter G. Woodson and Langston Hughes began to include Jean-Baptiste in their writings as "the brownskin pioneer who founded the Windy City." In 2009, a bronze bust of Jean-Baptiste was designed and placed in Pioneer Square in Chicago along the Magnificent Mile. There is also a popular museum in Chicago named after him called the DuSable Museum of African American History.

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[reasonsforhope]

"South Carolina is preparing to put up its first individual statue for an African American on its Statehouse lawn, honoring a man who put on Confederate clothes in order to steal a slaveholder’s ship and sail his family and a dozen others to freedom during the Civil War.

But Robert Smalls��isn’t just being honored for his audacious escape. He spent a decade in the US House, helped rewrite South Carolina’s constitution to allow Black men equality after the Civil War and then put up a valiant but doomed fight when racists returned to power and eliminated nearly all of the gains Smalls fought for.

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson can’t wait to bring his children to the Statehouse to finally see someone who is Black like them being honored.

“The man has done so many great things, it’s just a travesty he has not been honored until now. Heck, it’s also a travesty there isn’t some big Hollywood movie out there about his life,” said Johnson, a Democrat from a district just a few miles from the Statehouse.

The idea for a statue to Smalls has been percolating for years. But there was always quiet opposition preventing a bill from getting a hearing. That changed in 2024 as the proposal made it unanimously through the state House and Senate on the back of Republican Rep. Brandon Cox of Goose Creek.

“South Carolina is a great state. We’ve got a lot of history, good and bad. This is our good history,” Cox said.

What will the Robert Smalls memorial look like?

The bill created a special committee that has until January 15 to come up with a design, a location on the Statehouse lawn and the money to pay for whatever memorial they choose.

But supporters face a challenging question: What best honors Smalls?

If it’s just one statue, is it best to honor the steel-nerved ship pilot who waited for all the white crew to leave, then mimicked hand signals and whistle toots to get through Confederate checkpoints, while hoping Confederate soldiers didn’t notice a Black man under the hat in the pale moonlight in May 1862?

Or would a more fitting tribute to Smalls be to recognize the statesman who served in the South Carolina House and Senate and the US House after the Civil War? Smalls bought his master’s house in Beaufort in part with money made for turning the Confederate ship over to Union forces, then allowed the man’s penniless wife to live there when she was widowed.

Or is the elder Smalls who fought for education for all and to keep the gains African Americans made during the Civil War the man most worth publicly memorializing? Smalls would see a new constitution in 1895 wipe out African Americans’ right to vote. He was fired from his federal customs collector job in 1913 when then President Woodrow Wilson purged a large number of Black men out of government jobs.

Or would it be best to combine them all in some way? That’s how Republican Rep. Chip Campsen, an occasional ship pilot himself, sees honoring one of his favorite South Carolinians.

“The best way to sum up Robert Smalls’ life is it was a fight for freedom as a slave, as a pilot and as a statesman,” Campsen said."

-via AP, Octtober 23, 2024

[mimi-0007]

For the ppl in the back!!

[ts-wicked-wonders]

Black history: Did you know?

Phillis Wheatley was only 12 when she became the first female African American author published.

Despite Phyllis Wheatley’s fame, we know surprisingly little about her early life. She was taken from her home in Africa when she was seven or eight, and sold to the Wheatley family in Boston. The family taught her to read and write, and encouraged her to write poetry as soon as they witnessed her talent for it. In 1773, Phyllis published her first poem, making her the first African American to be published. She was only 12 at the time.

Read more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley

[door]

BLACK CRAFTSPEOPLE DIGITAL ARCHIVE

From 1619 to beyond, Black craftspeople, both free and enslaved, worked to produce the valued architecture, handcrafts, and decorative arts of the American South. The Black Craftspeople Digital Archive seeks to enhance what we know about Black craftspeople by telling both a spatial story and a historically informed story that highlights the lives of Black craftspeople and the objects they produced. The first and second phases of this project focus on Black craftspeople living and laboring in the eighteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry and mid-nineteenth century Tennessee.

[queerism1969]

[usnatarchives]

Happy Birthday to Guion Stewart Bluford, Jr., Ph.D. (born November 22, 1942), (Col, USAF, Ret.), is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who was the first African American in space.

[todaysdocument]

Letter from Andrew S. Evans to President Harry S. Truman

Collection HST-OFF: Official Files (Truman Administration)Series: Official FilesFile Unit: Segregation, July 1948-June 1949, OF 93b

3228-Hiatt Pl. N.W.

Wash; 10, DC

June 20, 1949

Dear Mr. President,

I live about three yards from a white playground, yet it is a public school playground. I am a colored boy and not allowed to go on it. All the white boys enjoy playing with me. But I am put off by the adult managers. I am writing you for a consideration because my playground is 4 or 5 blocks away. My parents are afraid of me being hit by cars. I am eleven yrs. old. Please answer.

Sincerely,

Andrew S. Evans

[added by hand in pencil "6 child's letter" "93-B" 'X93 miscel"]

[mintaikk]

Pov: Fred Hampton's grave is regularly shot at by police 🥲

(That's his son at his grave)

And people still argue that police racism isn't a thing :/

[writinghistorylit]

[alwaysbewoke]