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DARIEN, Ga. (AP) — Residents of one of the few remaining Gullah-Geechee communities on the Southeast coast opened new appeals Monday against soaring property values that brought them big tax hikes, fearful they could be forced off lands their families have owned since their ancestors were freed from slavery. The African-American residents of the tiny […]

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A Connecticut school is under fire from parents who say a field trip that purported to immerse students in the underground railroad experience went way too far. James and Sandra Baker, parents of a student at Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy, testified at a Hartford Board of Education hearing on Tuesday night–as the Hartford Court […]

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NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Abused in life and death, an enslaved man known as Mr. Fortune will be honored with an elaborate funeral more than 200 years after he died in Connecticut. Fortune’s remains will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda in Hartford on Thursday before taken by state police escort to Waterbury […]

If You Missed It, Little Known Black History Facts, Originals

In the mid 18th century, there lived a slave on a Waterbury, Connecticut plantation named Fortune.  He was owned by a famous bone surgeon named Dr. Preserved Porter. Fortune, his wife Dinah and their three children served the Porters on a 75 acre-farm. Fortune had an additional son named Africa, born in 1772. The family […]

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DIRGIN, Texas (AP) — Ida Finley smiles wistfully, recalling how she used to cook for an entire East Texas community — nearly all descendants of slaves. The children would grab cornbread, greens and cookies from her kitchen while their parents grew vegetables in a tiny creekside village hidden among pine forests. “It’s been so long,” […]

If You Missed It, Little Known Black History Facts, Originals

Fearn Plantation in Danville, Virginia was the last capital of the Confederacy. Thomas Fearn purchased the land in 1783 from William Wynn, both of whom were founders of Danville, Virginia. On the land is a historic cemetery where a tombstone still reads “Fearn’s Burying Ground.” A single chimney and artifacts of a slave house still […]

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President Barack Obama visits Africa’s Goree Island and “The Door of No Return”, the place where locals say was used to hold slaves before herding them onto ships bound for America. Watch video below taken by journalist April D. Ryan. (Photo: AP)

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GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gettysburg’s small African-American community proudly tells stories of ancestors who fought in the Civil War, of a young woman who shook President Abraham Lincoln‘s hand and of the men who buried thousands of bodies after the battle. But they also speak of a struggle to preserve that history and of discrimination […]

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — The leg irons that restrained abolitionist John Brown after his failed 1859 raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry are being sold Saturday in Texas, but two historical parks dedicated to his legacy can’t afford to bid on them. Dallas-based Heritage Auctions estimates the shackles are worth at least $10,000, […]

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PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Fourteen slaves who petitioned the New Hampshire Legislature for their freedom during the Revolutionary War were granted posthumous emancipation Friday when the governor signed a largely symbolic bill that supporters hope will encourage future generations to pursue social justice. A group of 20 slaves who had fought in the war submitted […]

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Michelle Obama said Wednesday that stories of toil and sweat by slaves once held at a historic home within sight of the White House are an important part of U.S. history, including her own personal story, and are “as vital to our national memory as any other.” The first lady commented as […]

If You Missed It, Little Known Black History Facts, Originals

Edisto Island in South Carolina is home to two of the nation’s oldest slave cabins. Cabins found on the island date back to the 1850’s. At the Point of Pines Plantation, there were cabins of 75 black slaves who lived in the two-room homes before and after Emancipation. The Point of Pines village held residents […]