A new resolution called H.R. 6336 has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives. The resolution will bring the Frederick Douglass historical statue to the U.S. Capitol. The statue has been sitting at One Judiciary Square (a government building) for years. The statue of Frederick Douglass will be the third African-American figure to be […]
As the civil rights movement and Brown vs. Board of Education was blatantly being ignored in most of Mississippi, the decision to send a young Chicago boy who needed structure to the South was made by his widowed mother, Mamie Till. Unaware of the depth of racism and Jim Crow in the South, 14-year-old Emmett […]
The country of Uganda has placed a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics for the first time since 1972. Olympic athlete Stephen Kiprotich won the gold in the men’s marathon. While Uganda competed and won a medal in the Atlanta games, they hadn’t had a gold to call their own in 40 years.
At 101 years old, Lee Wesley Gibson of Keatchie, Louisiana is the oldest surviving member of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Gibson served as a pullman porter for 38 years. Back in the day, the job of pullman porter was considered a middle-class position, something Gibson, who was raised by a poor single mom, took pride in.
U.S. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas became the first African-American to win the all-around Olympic gold and the first American athlete to win both the team gold in gymnastics and the all-around gold medal. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/news/little-known-black-history-fact/little-known-black-history-fact-gabby-douglas
President Barack Obama’s family lineage has supposedly been linked to the very first slave in the United States. Ironically, the slave, John Punch, has been connected to the President’s mother, who was white. Punch was an indentured servant in Virginia and is considered the first enslaved African in the colonies that formed America. He evidently […]
U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Emily Perez a.k.a. “Kobe” was the first black woman at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to reach the rank of Corps Commander Sergeant Major. She was nicknamed “Kobe” because she “always made the shots” according to family and friends. A 2005 graduate, Perez was fluent in German and a […]
Alfred Hair a.k.a “Freddie” of Fort Pierce, Florida was a black artist and student of a well-known white art teacher named A.E. Backus. Hair was born pre-civil rights and used painting as a release from the segregated south. His style of painting bright scenes of Florida, with no two paintings just alike, came to be […]
The word barbecue and the open-fire cooking technique came from the Caribbean amongst the Taino people around the late 17th century. The word barbecue itself means “sacred fire pit.” The unique way to cook meat spread into Spanish, French and American cultures when slaves were brought from the Caribbean. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/news/little-known-black-history-fact/little-known-black-history-fact-history-barbeque
Commander Wesley Brown became the first black Naval Academy graduate on June 3, 1949. Brown, who served in WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, was admitted to the Naval Academy with five other black candidates in 1945. The Howard University Graduate attended Annapolis alongside President Jimmy Carter, who was his friend and colleague […]
The Tuskegee Syphilis study was one of the most notorious biomedical experiments in U.S. history. In 1972, forty years ago, Jean Heller of the Washington Evening Star wrote in front page news “Syphilis Patients Died Untreated” making the forty-year experiment public knowledge and bringing shame to public health for the conspiracy. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/40462
English athlete Viv Anderson, a.k.a. “Spider,” was the first black football player to represent England in a full international match. In 1974, Anderson joined the Nottingham Forest team, helping them advance to first division, then win the European cup in 1979. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/39837
