Breaking News! History in the Making
Black History Can Do More Than Counter White Racism
Black history is a movement of ideas targeted to redress the long history of anti-Blackness. Anti-Blackness is a totalizing system of thought that positions Black people, including their bodies, culture, and value systems, as bad or dysfunctional. But Black history does more than counter anti-Black ideologies; it also documents the social contexts, experiences, aesthetics, and intellectual pursuits of African Americans. This idea of both countering white racism and writing and creating from one’s standpoint—removed from the white gaze—is central to Black history.
In ‘South to America,’ Imani Perry travels below the Mason-Dixon to shed light on the soul of a nation
By Elaina Patton, NBC News In her new book, “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation,” Imani Perry engages with the long literary tradition of writing about one’s travels through the South. Joining writers such as Albert Murray, James Baldwin and V.S. Naipaul, the Alabama native charts…
Family trees fill in the gaps for Black people seeking their ancestral roots
By Curtis Bunn, NBC News Black people have been able to connect with the past and give new agency to their identities through building family trees and researching their family histories. Growing up in Philadelphia, Amber Jackson said she knew so little of her history that she felt disconnected from who she was. “They didn’t…
We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was
What is known about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? We know a great deal about the scale of human trafficking across the Atlantic Ocean and about the people aboard each ship. Much of that research is available to the public in the form of the SlaveVoyages database. A detailed repository of information on individual ships, individual voyages and even individual people, it is a groundbreaking tool for scholars of slavery, the slave trade and the Atlantic world. And it continues to grow. Last year, the team behind SlaveVoyages introduced a new data set with information.
Ida B. Wells, Black journalist and suffragist, honored with new Barbie doll
By Adela Suliman, Washington Post Black American journalist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells will have her likeness transformed into a Barbie doll to honor her historic achievements. Wells, who was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862 during the Civil War, went on to break boundaries as a prominent suffragist fighting to expand…
The Last Slave Ship review: the Clotilda, Africatown and a lasting American injustice
Ben Raines’s perceptive new book, The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning, is a welcome and affecting history lesson.
This story from long ago puts into context what the new spate of lawlessness in the US is all about. Raines tells a tale of racism and greed. Anyone who imagines that attempting to circumvent democracy is a new thing has forgotten the civil war.
Eighty years late: groundbreaking work on slave economy is finally published in UK?
In 1938, a brilliant young Black scholar at Oxford University wrote a thesis on the economic history of British empire and challenged a claim about slavery that had been defining Britain’s role in the world for more than a century.Slavery, Williams argues, was abolished in much of the British empire in 1833 because doing so at that time was in Britain’s economic self-interest – not because the British suddenly discovered a conscience.“ The capitalists had first encouraged West Indian slavery and then helped to destroy it,” he writes.
An old Virginia plantation, a new owner and a family legacy unveiled
His roots were deep in this part of Pittsylvania County, and he wanted to buy a place where his vast extended family, many of whom still live nearby, could gather. He didn’t know it had once been a plantation or that 58 people had once been enslaved there. He never considered that its past had anything to do with him.
Could Billionaire Robert F. Smith Become the NFL’s 1st Black Owner?
By Jay Connor, The Root The prolific philanthropist and entrepreneur would make our ancestors extremely proud. Apparently, actual billionaire Robert F. Smith—who spends his free time doing things like pouring money into organizations that focus on Black culture, education, and human rights, and paying the entire outstanding balance of student loans for Morehouse’s 2019 graduating class (which, by the…
Lusia ‘Lucy’ Harris, The Only Woman Ever Drafted In The NBA Draft, Passes Away At 66
By Travis Caldwell, CNN Lusia “Lucy” Harris, a star in women’s collegiate basketball during the 1970s and the first and only woman ever to be officially drafted by an NBA team, died Tuesday, according to a statement from her family as well as Delta State University. She was 66. “We are deeply saddened to share…
Oprah Set to Executive Produce Upcoming Sidney Poitier Documentary
Winfrey is set to executive produce a new documentary which will explore Poitier’s personal upbringing and professional rise to cultural preeminence, the latter of which cemented his place in history as the first Black man to ever win an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Black activists say Jan. 6 insurrection was part of white supremacist playbook
By Jessica Floyd, The Grio EXCLUSIVE: Voting rights advocates connect Capitol attack to racial riots throughout history that sought a common goal to strike fear in Black voters and anyone who validated their political power. LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter received a call from the Federal Bureau of Investigations on Jan. 6, 2021 notifying…
Louisiana Governor Pardons Homer Plessy From ‘Separate But Equal’ Ruling
By BET staff, BET News The landmark 1896 case solidified Jim Crow. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has pardoned Homer Adolph Plessy, of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. According to CBS, Edwards signed the pardon during a ceremony outside the former rail station in New Orleans where Plessy was arrested 130 years ago for sitting in a white area…
George Floyd’s 4-Year-Old Niece Shot While Sleeping in Houston Home on New Year’s Day
By Noah A. McGee, The Root.com Houston Police took four hours to arrive at the scene of the shooting. A shooting that occurred on New Year’s Day in Houston, Texas injured a 4-year-old girl, Arianna Delane, while she was sleeping. The girl turned out to be the niece of George Floyd, who was killed last year after…
Wrongfully Accused: The Exoneration of Black People
By Noah A. McGee, The Root.com Experts explain why we ‘re seeing so many high-profile exonerations of Black people in the United States during the last few decades. In 2021, a total of 132 people received exonerations: 81 of them were Black. Just a decade ago in 2011, only 40 Black people were exonerated. Since 1989 there’s…
Racism Declared A Public Health Crisis In New York
By Joshua Eferighe, BET News The declaration is to combat discrimination and racism in New York’s healthcare system. Racism is now a public health crisis in New York. The declaration is a part of a series of measures signed last week (December 23) by Governor Kathy Hochul in an effort to address the inequities in New York’s healthcare…
Texas governor considers George Floyd pardon for 2004 conviction
By Associated Press, via The Grio Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to decide if he will issue the posthumous pardon. Doling out pardons is a holiday tradition for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who around every Christmas grants them to a handful of ordinary citizens, typically for minor offenses committed years or decades ago. But one name…
Pioneering Black educator’s statue to replace Confederate statue at the Capitol
By Kynala Phillips, NBC News The statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, a civil rights activist born to former slaves, will represent Florida in the National Statuary Hall Collection, starting in 2022. Civil rights activist and Bethune-Cookman University founder Mary McLeod Bethune will soon make history again. She will be the first Black person to represent…
Sharon Bowen named first Black woman chair of NYSE Board
By Ny Magee, The Grio.com Her appointment follows senior leadership changes across the company. Sharon Bowen has made history as the newly named board chair of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Bowen, a finance and securities lawyer, is the first Black woman to be appointed to the position. She has been a member of the…
Trailblazing Black feminist and social critic bell hooks dies at 69
By Harrison Smith, Washington Post Trailblazing Black feminist bell hooks, whose graceful, probing and wide-ranging books sought to empower people of all races, classes and genders, anticipating and helping shape ongoing debates about justice and discrimination in the United States, died Dec. 15 at her home in Berea, Ky. She was 69. The cause was…
‘So Impactful’: Michigan Woman Opens Bookstore Celebrating Black Authors
By Angelina Velasquez, Atlanta Black Star A Michigan bookstore is giving Black authors the spotlight they have long deserved but often struggled to find. Socialight Society bookstore is a microshop, a store located inside another store, in this case Soul Nutrition, where book curator Nyshell Lawrence has made it a priority to give Black authors, especially those…