ORIGINS OF
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
(http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month)
The story of
Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth
Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. That September, the
Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E.
Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
(ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by
black Americans and other peoples of African descent. Known today as the
Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the
group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week
of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize
local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.
In the
decades the followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly
proclamations recognizing Negro History Week. By the late 1960s, thanks in part
to the Civil Rights Movement and a growing awareness of black identity, Negro
History Week had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.
President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976,
calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often
neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor
throughout our history.” Since then, every American president has designated
February as Black History Month.
10 Little
Known Black History Facts
1. Before
there was Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin.
Most people
think of Rosa Parks as the first person to refuse to give up their seat on a
bus in Montgomery, Alabama. There were actually several women who came before
her; one of whom was Claudette Colvin.
2. Martin
Luther King Jr. improvised the most iconic part of his “I Have a Dream Speech.”
The night
before the march, Dr. King began working on his speech with a small group of
advisers in the lobby of the Willard Hotel. The original speech was more
political and less historic, according to Clarence B. Jones, and it did not
include any reference to dreams. Onstage
near Dr. King, singer Mahalia Jackson reportedly kept saying, “Tell ‘em about
the dream, Martin,” and while no one will know if he heard her, it could likely
have been the inspiration he needed.
3. Inoculation
was introduced to America by a slave.
One of a
thousand people of African descent living in the Massachusetts colony, Onesimus
was a gift to the Puritan church minister Cotton Mather from his congregation
in 1706. Onesimus told Mather about the centuries old tradition of inoculation
practiced in Africa. By extracting the material from an infected person and
scratching it into the skin of an uninfected person, you could deliberately
introduce smallpox to the healthy individual making them immune. Onesimus’
traditional African practice was used to inoculate American soldiers during the
Revolutionary War and introduced the concept of inoculation to the United
States.
4. The
earliest recorded protest against slavery was by the Quakers in 1688.
Quakers,
also known as “The Society of Friends,” have a long history of abolition. But
it was four Pennsylvania Friends from Germantown who wrote the initial protest
in the 17th century. They saw the slave trade as a grave injustice against
their fellow man and used the Golden Rule to argue against such inhumane
treatment; regardless of skin color, “we should do unto others as we would have
done onto ourselves.”
5. Of the
12.5 million Africans shipped to the New World during the Transatlantic Slave
Trade, fewer than 388,000 arrived in the United States.
The
Transatlantic Slave Trade was underway from 1500-1866, shipping more than 12
million African slaves across the world. Over 400 years, the majority of slaves
(4.9 million) found their way to Brazil.
6. The
diverse history of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Originally
established to educate freed slaves to read and write, the first of the
Historically Black Colleges and Universities was Cheyney University in
Pennsylvania, established in 1837. By the time Jewish professors arrived, the
number of HBCUs had grown to 78. At a time when both Jews and African Americans
were persecuted, Jewish professors in the Black colleges found the environment
comfortable and accepting, often creating special programs to provide
opportunities to engage Blacks and whites in meaningful conversation, often for
the first time.
7. One in
four cowboys was Black, despite the stories told in popular books and movies.
In fact,
it's believed that the real “Lone Ranger” was inspired by an African American
man named Bass Reeves. Reeves had been born a slave but escaped West during the
Civil War where he lived in what was then known as Indian Territory. He
eventually became a Deputy U.S. Marshal, was a master of disguise, an expert
marksman, had a Native American companion, and rode a silver horse.
8. Esther
Jones was the real Betty Boop!
The iconic
cartoon character Betty Boop was inspired by a Black jazz singer in Harlem.
While there has been controversy over the years, the inspiration has been
traced back to Esther Jones who was known as “Baby Esther” and performed
regularly in the Cotton Club during the 1920s.
9. The first
licensed African American Female pilot was named Bessie Coleman.
Born in
Atlanta, Texas in 1892, Bessie Coleman grew up in a world of harsh poverty,
discrimination and segregation. Wild tales of flying exploits from returning
WWI soldiers first inspired her to explore aviation, but she faced a double
stigma in that dream being both African American and a woman.
She set her
sights on France in order to reach her dreams and began studying French. In
1920, Coleman crossed the ocean with all of her savings and the financial
support of Robert Abbott, one of the first African American millionaires. Over
the next seven months, she learned to fly and in June of 1921, the Fédération
Aéronautique Internationale awarded her an international pilot's license.
10. Interracial
marriage in the United Sates was banned in 1664 and not overturned until 1967.
These
marriages were prohibited and penalties included the enslavement, exile or
imprisonment of the white perpetrators. It would take three hundred years for
this law to be overturned. In 1967, Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred
Jeter, a Black woman, were married in the District of Columbia. When they
returned home to Virginia, they were arrested and convicted of violating the
state’s anti-miscegenation law. They each faced a year in jail and their case
went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found in favor of the Lovings in
the famous trial Loving v. Virginia. They ruled that prohibiting interracial
marriage on state and local levels was unconstitutional; this meant that
marriages between the races were legal in the country for the first time since
1664.
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