Little Known Black History Facts
Doris “Dorie” Miller and his heroic actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 have forever enshrined the Navy serviceman in the annals of history. Although Miller was merely a cook, he commanded an anti-aircraft machine gun and saved countless soldiers during the attack. On May 27, 1942, he became the first Black person […]
Henrietta Bradberry, a Chicago housewife, didn’t sit idle as she minded the affairs of she and her husband’s home. On May 25, 1943, one of Mrs. Bradberry’s inventions, an innovative “bed rack,” would pass through the U.S. Patent Office. Bradberry’s bed rack was an attachment that could be applied to the end of a bed […]
Memorial Day holds a special place for many Americans, especially those who serve in the nation’s military. While past and current members of the armed forces are most certainly honored, what few realize is that the practice of celebrating America’s soldiers gained popularity due to a group of freed Blacks in the South. In the […]
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was the first Black general of the United States Air Force, following in the similar footsteps to his father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., who was the first Black general of the United States Army. Davis was born on December 18, 1912, in Washington, D.C., the second of three children born to […]
Dr. Vincent Gordon Harding, a civil rights activist and historian who also served as a speechwriter to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. Dr. Harding was also a notable professor at Denver’s Iliff School Of Theology, garnering praise for his teaching and leadership from his colleagues. He was 82. Born in Harlem, New York […]
Maj. Shawna Rochelle Kimbrell is the United States Air Force’s first Black fighter pilot, realizing a dream she’s been focused on since she was a little girl. Major Kimbrell knew when she was in the fourth grade that she wanted to be amongst the world’s most elite fighters initially considering becoming an astronaut, but then […]
Henry “Box” Brown was an escaped slave who took an inventive route to gain his freedom. After three decades of enslavement, Brown cleverly mailed himself in a wooden box to abolitionists in the North in order to become a free man. Brown was born into slavery in 1815 in Louisa County, Virginia. As a teenager, […]
This weekend is the 60th anniversary of the historic Brown V. Board Of Education Of Topeka, the court decision that marked the beginning of the end to legal segregation in public schools. But efforts to end racially segregated schools happened far before the May 17, 1954 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed it at last. Segregated […]
Activist and civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson is truly a living legend. In one of the most horrific examples of hatred in the Civil Rights Movement, Robinson was beaten and left for dead in the event known around the world as “Bloody Sunday.” Robinson, a longtime champion of equal rights for women before she […]
Twenty-nine years ago this week, Philadelphia’s Black mayor ordered the city to bomb its own citizens. MOVE, a black liberation group in Philadelphia, had had other confrontations with Philadelphia police, but this one ended in tragedy for a whole neighborhood. MOVE was launched in 1972 by John Africa, a dreadlocked messiah figure whose followers also […]
The mere mention of the Ku Klux Klan strikes some Black people with fear even to this very day. Between 1979 and the early 1980s however, a Black police officer went deep undercover and managed to become a member of the hate group. Sgt. Ron Stallworth, a retired officer who worked in Colorado, lived to […]
The New York City Teachers’ Strike of 1968, also referred to as the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis, caused a major split between Blacks and Jews in the city that still has ramifications today. The strike came as a result of the decentralization of schools in New York City, an experimental plan endorsed by then-mayor John Lindsay […]
