Famed contralto Marian Anderson made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 7, 1955, as Ulrica in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. She was the first African American to perform with the company.
Read More Marian AndersonAfter the tumult and triumphs of 2020, here are the achievements that shaped the first year following the country’s racial reckoning. By Dodai Stewart Kamala Harris became the first Black woman — and the first woman of color — sworn into the office of Vice President of the United States. Amanda Gorman, a Black writer and,…
Read More What Made Black History in 2021?By DAN GOLDBERG 05/25/2020 Commander Daniel W. Armstrong, a tall, handsome, aristocratic-looking man with an upright gait and an immaculate uniform, looked the 16 black men over. He was the white officer in charge of the black camp, a man whose willingness to work with African American enlistees earned praise from the higher-ups in Washington. “Do you…
Read More The Golden Thirteen: The Forgotten Story of How 13 Black Men Broke the Navy’s Toughest Color BarrierBy Precious Fondren For most of her life, Debra Willett had a vague idea about who her grandfather was. She knew he had fought in France in World War I at some point. But she didn’t grasp the importance of what her grandfather, who died in 1956, had accomplished until she began doing some genealogy research…
Read More Honoring the Forgotten Harlem Hellfighters: An Exceptional Unit of Black SoldiersMilitary.com | By Bethanne Kelly Patrick The opportunity for African-Americans to enlist and serve in the Marine Corps came in 1942 as the Corps began to recruit qualified African-American men. The men who enlisted in response completed recruit training at Montford Point, North Carolina during a time and place where racism and segregation were a part of everyday…
Read More The Montford Point MarinesBy Clay Risen Published Aug. 22, 2021 Updated Sept. 1, 2021 Lucille Times, whose encounter with a bus driver in Montgomery, Ala., in June 1955 led her to begin a one-woman boycott of the city’s public transportation, an act of defiance that inspired a mass boycott six months later after another Black woman, Rosa Parks, was charged with defying…
Read More Lucille Times, Who Inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dies at 100On October 16, 1833, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett was born near Litchfield, Connecticut to free black parents who held prominent roles in Connecticut’s free black community. Bassett’s father was a businessman who had served as one of Connecticut’s Black Governors — an honorary leadership role in the state’s black community — and his grandfather was…
Read More The United States’ First African-American DiplomatFire Shut Up in My Bones is in the running for best American opera of the 21st century. By James Jorden • 09/28/21 12:13pm After over a year and a half of silence, the Metropolitan Opera came roaring back last night with a captivating new opera to open its 2021-2022 season. Terence Blanchard’s tuneful Fire Shut Up in My…
Read More Premiere of ‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ Sets the Reopened Met Ablaze“In 2004, at the Unity journalists of color convention in Washington, Gwen Ifill coined the phrase “missing white woman syndrome,” joking that “if there is a missing white woman you’re going to cover that every day.” It is not that these white women should matter less, but rather that all missing people should matter equally. Race should…
Read More Missing White Woman SyndromeEbony magazine rolled out a quiz in April 1952 that asked, “WHICH ONE IS NEGRO? WHICH IS WHITE?” How many can you guess correctly? (Answers at the end of the blog.) From Essence.com: Passing follows the story of two Black women, former childhood friends Irene Redfield (Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Negga), both of whom are able to convincingly…
Read More PassingSeptember 9, 2021 by Neely Tucker (Library of Congress) Descendants of Venture Smith gather at his gravesite in East Haddam, Connecticut, during the town’s 2019 Venture Smith Day. Photo courtesy of Venture Smith Day Celebration Committee. Delighted to write this post with Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. “I was born at Dukandarra,…
Read More Venture Smith: The First Slave NarrativeSeptember 9, 2021 by Neely Tucker (Library of Congress) Descendants of Venture Smith gather at his gravesite in East Haddam, Connecticut, during the town’s 2019 Venture Smith Day. Photo courtesy of Venture Smith Day Celebration Committee. Delighted to write this post with Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. “I was born at Dukandarra,…
Read More Venture Smith: The First Slave NarrativePeace-Of-Mind During America’s Gilded Age, Clarence King was a famous geologist, friend of wealthy, famous, and powerful men. He was a larger-than-life character whose intellect and wanderlust pushed him to survey far-flung regions of the western U.S. and South America and develop an abiding appreciation of non-Western culture and people. What his family and wealthy…
Read More Clarence KingIf … one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you’d be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. James Baldwin By LaGarrett King Jun 17, 2021, 10:00pm MDT Miseducation, defined,…
Read More Why our schools aren’t doing justice to the complexities of Black historyWant to learn more about African-American history? Think you know a lot and want to fill in some gaps? Need something to back up your wolf tickets at the barbershop? Here are some resources to help. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America…
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