http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/24099 During the summer of 1919, racially-charged attacks against African-Americans rose heavily in 26 United States cities. This time period came to be labeled by James Weldon Johnson and the NAACP as the Red Summer.
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/24025 George Gibbs Jr. is the first black man to arrive at Antarctica, also known as the South Pole.
Benjamin Harrison Fletcher was a strong figurehead of labor before and during World War I who was imprisoned for his work as a leader of the his interracial “Local 8” labor organization, deemed a radical union. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23986
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23889 Ophelia Settle Egypt was a social worker and sociologist known for helping former slaves and free blacks discover their freedoms and tell their stories. Setting the stage for the Works Progress Administration that would develop a decade after she made her mark, Egypt would help her Fisk University colleague, Charles Johnson, interview 100 ex-slaves […]
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23853 William Lewis of Berkley, Virginia made several strides in black history, which include becoming the first black to play collegiate level football, the first black All-American athlete, and the first black assistant U.S. attorney general.
In 1860, a white family of wealthy landowners by the last name of Halstead gifted one acre of land to the blacks of Rye, New York to be used as a burial ground for black Civil-War Veterans. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23819
Charles Alston (a.k.a. “Spinky”) of Charlotte, North Carolina was an artist who taught the best of the Harlem Renaissance. Among Alston’s students was the great painter Jacob Lawrence. To earn a living while studying his craft, Alston was an illustrator, designing album covers for Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23791
At 33rd Street and Wabash Avenue in Chicago, the first black amusement park called Joyland brought joy to children and adults alike for years. Joyland Park was established in 1923 by W.C.S. & S Amusement Company. Joyland was designed to entertain the growing number of African-Americans in the Bronzeville neighborhood of south side Chicago. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23558
At around seven years old, Jacobus Capitein of Ghana was kidnapped from his parents in sub-saharan Africa and sent to the Dutch, where he was purchased by Arnold Steenhard. Steenhard gave Capitein as a gift to Jacob Van Goch, who took him to Holland in 1728 (Goch was actually the one to give him the […]
Canadian boxer Sam Langford developed a reputation of being one of the most hard-hitting and punishing boxers in history, though he never placed as a an American champion. In his first two years of professional boxing, Langford would defeat the great lightweight boxer, Joe Gans. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/23262
Before the National Basketball Association was the NBA, there was the Black Five Era, or the period of The Black Fives. Any basketball team back in the late 19th century up to 1947 was referred to as the Fives. But the term Black Fives came from the five starting players that would make up the […]
Blues Hall of Fame inductee Sonny Terry was a blind blues legend of the harmonica who played with other greats of the blues, including Brownie McGhee and Woody Guthrie. Born Saunders Terrell, the Greensboro, North Carolina native was known for his use of whoopin’, hollering and imitating sounds of fox hunts in his music. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_black_diaspora_news/22998
