*Michael Jackson’s brother Randy has donated $60,000 to a Children’s Hospital patient in Los Angeles to pay for her medical bills – just as he had promised. According to X17online, Jackson was moved by the plight of 11-year-old Treasure Dearsaw, who suffers from a vascular malformation which has resulted in the swelling of her […]
Alberta Hunter was a jazz and blues artist who was in high demand all over the world in the 1920’s. Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1895, Hunter came from a poor family. To pursue her dream of singing, she packed up and moved to Chicago. A teenage Hunter worked as a potato peeler to earn […]
*The New Orleans Saints have recruited Oscar-nominated actor and humanitarian Brad Pitt to narrate “America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints,” a documentary about the team’s Super Bowl XLIV victory against the Indianapolis Colts. The film debuts on the NFL Network on Sept. 8, the night before the Saints’ first game of the regular season. […]
In 1865, a slave and mother named Margaret Garner would become the defendant in one of the longest and most public slave trials in history. Garner and her husband, Robert, worked as slaves all of their lives, so when the Underground Railroad presented an opportunity for escape, they gathered their four children and went to […]
We live in such a fast-paced world, it’s hard to get people to think about anything that happened yesterday, let alone seven months ago. Since the horrific earthquake took place in Haiti in January, a lot has happened internationally, nationally, locally and in our own personal lives. Before we left for vacation, I got […]
Archeologists at the National Park Service in Frederick County, Maryland have found slave artifacts from an 18th century, 748-acre plantation called L’Hermitage, located on the Monocacy National Battlefield. The experts dug in the area for months with radar, discovering remnants of four cabins that made up the small slave village. The main house still […]
Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux, also known as the “Happy Am I Preacher,” was a native of Buckroe Beach, Virginia and a devout Baptist. He was named for his Jewish grandfather and Black/French and Indian mother. He was forced to quit school in the fourth grade to help his family peddle fish to the military […]
There are many men that have made contributions to aeronautics through NASA, but the work of the female scientists is little known – scientists like Katherine G. Johnson. Johnson has made a significant mark in NASA’s history, playing a key role in their use of digital electronic computers. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/21458
Former slave Belinda Royall was born in Ghana, Africa in 1712. She became one of the first slaves to argue for reparations, suggesting that a slave had the right to financial compensation for their work. This was in the early 19th century. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/21423
As a young boy growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Dr. George Jenkins had a powerful advantage over many of his peers – he had a dream. It was a dream that kept him off his crime-ridden streets dedicated to his schoolwork. It was a dream that helped him to inspire two friends he […]
A slave by the name of York was the only black out of the 40 explorers in the Meriwether Lewis – William Clark expedition. Described as a large man raised on little protein and mostly starch, York was owned by Clark’s family, along with his parents, Old York and Rose, his siblings, then later, […]
Fundraising and restoration efforts are underway for the historic Howard Theater in Washington D.C., which celebrates its centennial anniversary this year. Located on T Street NW in Shaw, the theater was known as the “largest colored theater in the world,” established before the legendary Apollo or the Regal. It was the first full-size theater in […]
