African-American History Month Profiles of Individuals and Events Contributing to American Identity and African-American History – US-VA History 2016.

African-American History Month Profiles of Individuals and Events Contributing to American Identity and African-American History – US-VA History 2016

African-American History Month, 1926 – the Present 0 Inevitably, the question is posed, “Why should we study Black History?” – most Americans have scarcely enough knowledge of general United States History to be informed citizens; why spend four weeks a year emphasizing the contributions of African-Americans? 0 The simple answer is historical bias. Up until the 1960s, the vast majority of historians were old, affluent, white men. Their narratives emphasized the contributions of old, affluent white men, and the lack of diversity of perspective diminished the quality of the historical narratives Americans were familiar with.

African-American History is American History… Black History is American History, and it always has been. We acknowledge the centrality of African-Americans during the Civil War, for example, and recognize the conflict as an event that resulted in the redefinition of American History. However, there are so many stories of African-American contributions to American history that we fail to recollect. African-American contributions are omnipresent but seldom have names and biographies attached… For example, who did more to cross the Delaware River in the famous painting by Leutze to the right? George Washington, standing bravely in the front of the pontoon boat, or the African-American rower, just behind Washington’s right knee? Even locally, the Battle of Great Bridge, which took place in Chesapeake, is only rarely considered as a conflict involving African-American combatants, on both sides. But it was ! Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by the German-American Emanuel Leutze, 1851

African-Americans in History At the end of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks lay dead. In fact, African-Americans – free and enslaved – made up about one-fifth of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. And this despite the fact that it was the British who offered freedom to enslaved men who enlisted!

Carter Woodson – Founder of Black History Month Carter Woodson was born in Fluvanna County, Virginia, and grew up in Buckingham County. In 1910, he became the second African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University (W.E.B. DuBois had been the first.) In 1916, Woodson established the Journal of Negro History, founding the scholarly journal to bring the contributions of African-Americans in United States history into greater acclaim. In 1926, he established Negro History Week in February, to correspond to the birthdates of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, two of the greatest contemporary heroes of African-American History. The holiday would later be expanded from one week to one month, starting in 1976.

Diversity in History: Inclusion VS. Exclusion

African-American History Profiles, 2016 Each of the individuals or events that follows are of importance to American History, and each profile has a theme related to our studies for the year. Be familiar with everyone in the slides that follow in order to be successful on the upcoming Black History Month test and quizzes.

Crispus Attucks Crispus Attucks is a prime example of the uncertainty surrounding the lives of African-Americans. Attucks was of mixed ancestry and is presumed to have been part African-American and part Wampanoag – that is, Native American. Some historians believe he was a runaway slave because there was an ad for a runaway slave from Framingham around the time he was a teenager. He later became a dockworker and seaman with ships operating out of Boston, Mass. This much we know for certain, though: He was murdered by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre, and was the fist American to shed blood in the movement for American independence. Today, he is commemorated around the nation, but particularly in African- American communities. Here in Norfolk, VA, the Crispus Attucks Theatre on Church St. is named in his honor.

Sally Hemings Sally Hemings was an enslaved woman who lived at Monticello and had a longstanding relationship with Thomas Jefferson which is cloaked in some mystery. It is believed that Sally Hemings was the half sister of Martha Jefferson, who passed away in her thirties. Hemings and Jefferson may have been the most esoteric mixed race family in American history at the time. Exactly the nature of Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings was historians cannot be certain. Because he held so much power over Sally and her children, it is difficult to declare with any certainty that the two were lovers who established an emotional connection.

Sally Hemings There are no illustrations of Sally Hemings, but there was plenty of political intrigue and rumor regarding her relationship with Thomas Jefferson during the course of her lifetime. The exact nature of their relationship cannot be known except through oral histories. She is presumed to have had six children with Thomas Jefferson, and to have had a longstanding love affair with the author of the Declaration of Independence which took her from Monticello to Paris and back again. Descendants of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship went on to find freedom for the most part; some “passed” as white, while others lived as free blacks after their manumission when Jefferson died. For many years, rumors of the affair were denied by Jefferson’s estate, which had sought to salvage his reputation. More recently, DNA evidence has removed much of the doubt that Jefferson was the father of several children with Hemings. How ironic that the author of the stirring words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable right; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” would enslave his own children? How ironic that he would deny them during his own lifetime?

York When the Corps of Discovery – know to most as the Lewis and Clark Expedition left St. Louis, MO for the Far West, exploring the entire Louisiana Territory for Thomas Jefferson, one African-American accompanied the expedition. His name was York, and he was William Clark’s personal slave. York is known to have been exceedingly popular with Native American tribes, many of whom had never seen an African-American before. He was the only member of the Corps of Discovery who went entirely unpaid during the three year expedition. Journal entries seem to suggest, however, that whenever the expedition voted on matters that influenced the entire group, he was allowed to participate in the balloting. York is known to have been freed by William Clark later is his life; although some accounts suggest that he refused to continue working for Clark and ran away. One even suggests that he joined a Native American tribe and lived among them as a man of some status until he died.

David Walker David Walker’s Appeal was published in 1829 and was one of the first tracts in American history to openly advocate for violence in order to end slavery. Walker was born free in North Carolina, and moved to Charleston, SC and later to Philadelphia during his youth. Later he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where slavery was illegal. Enraged by slavery in general, he worked as a salesman for Freedom’s Journal, an abolitionist paper published in New York which sold copies in Massachusetts. In 1829, he published the radical tract, Appeal. He died months after the publication of the journal. While many believe he was poisoned, tuberculosis is listed as his cause of death, and many historians remain convinced this is accurate.

Nat Turner Nat Turner’s rebellion took place in Southampton, VA during the late summer of 1831. Although it took place just down the road from us here in Virginia Beach, it’s a quiet part of our local history. The violence perpetuated by Turner and his followers resulted in the death of approximately 55 whites. The question afterwards: Why did he do it? If the fact that he was forced to live as a slave – and that he was forced to watch his loved ones and friends sold off into slaver in the West – isn’t enough of an answer, then we may misunderstand the perpetually violent nature of slavery to begin with. But the violence carried out was only half of the story of Nat Turner’s rebellion.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion For months after the slayings took place, Nat Turner could not be found. He was in hiding – most people believe in the Great Dismal Swamp region. While Turner was on the lam, Virginia’s lived in constant fear that the followers of Nat Turner would rise up upon them, and kill them when they were at their most vulnerable. When Turner and some of his followers were finally captured in October of 1831, the crisis waned. Over two hundred slaves who were believed to be a part of the conspiracy were put to death after the ordeal. Turner himself was hanged, and then skinned by townspeople eager to take parts of his body as souvenirs. The Virginia state legislature seriously considered banning slavery after the rebellion took place; however, they decided instead to ratchet up slave codes controlling the movements and liberty of enslaved people.

Richard Allen Richard Allen was the founder of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794. After attempting to work within an integrated church in Philadelphia and finding the racist practices and convictions of churchgoers there unseemly, Allen founded his own church in the city. Allen had been born as a slave in Philadelphia, and later sold to a plantation owner in Delaware. While growing up there, he and his siblings became involved a relief society managed by the Methodist Church. Allen would be ordained as a Methodist minister and eventually his master allowed him to purchase his own freedom. His story is important in two ways. First, it indicates the important role of the Methodist and Baptist churches in proselytizing enslaved people and free blacks – and their tendency to advocate for manumission in the years following the Revolutionary War. Secondly, by refusing to accept second class citizenship within the hierarchy of the Church, Allen helped to establish churches as the backbone of a separate and distinct African-American culture in the United States, which promoted the moral justice of ending slavery and promoting abolitionism. Churches were the center of many abolitionist societies and charitable groups; they would later become the center of the Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King’s SCLC is a prime example; or the 16 th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL.

Anthony Burns: Fugitive Slave Anthony Burns was a runaway slave from Virginia who had established a life for himself in Boston, MA in the early 1850s. Recall that during this period, sectional divisions over slavery had caused much animosity between the North and South. In 1850, when California entered the Union as a free state, one condition of the state’s entry was that the Fugitive Slave Law been strictly observed and enforced. In 1854, Anthony Burns was arrested in Boston and accused of being a runaway slave. Boston erupted into protest, and angry mobs attempted to prevent Burns imprisonment and deportation to his former master in Virginia, Charles Suttle. During a melee which took place as Burns was led from prison to the ship which would transport him back to slavery in Virginia, one federal officer was killed by an angry mob of abolitionists. Nevertheless, President Franklin Pierce insisted that the warrant for Burns deportation be executed; he was convinced that he must enforce the law to preserve the Union. Burns was eventually placed back into servitude. He was sold by Charles Suttle to a slave trader. Eventually an abolitionist society in Boston raised money to purchase his freedom. Burns moved to Canada and took up work as a Baptist minister there during the last years of his life. Sadly, he died from tuberculosis at the age of 28 in 1862.

Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass is perhaps the best known of all African-American abolitionists; only Harriet Tubman rivals him in this regard. As a runaway slave, he was forced to begin his career as an abolitionist speaker by declaring, “I stand before you this evening as a robber and a thief – I stole this head and this body.” Indeed, he had. Douglas went on to demand equality and liberty for all people. He was devoted to abolitionism first, editing an abolitionist newspaper called The North Star. But he was not limited in scope to African-Americans. He was also one of the only African-Americans to attend the Seneca Falls Convention and to endorse the Declaration of Sentiments, demanding woman’s suffrage in 1848. His career expanded during the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass was constantly petitioning for the acceptance of African-American soldiers into the Union Army; when he finally convinced Abraham Lincoln to acquiesce, two of his sons served in the war. After the Civil War, Frederick Douglass advocated for the passage of the 13 th, 14 th, and 15 th Amendments to the Constitution, all granting African-Americans greater liberty and legal equality in the nation. He took a leadership role within the Freedman’s Bureau’s Bank, and later went on to become the United States first African-American ambassador of color by accepting the post of charge d’affaires for the Dominican Republic. Later in his life, he worked alongside Ida B. Wells-Barnett to publicize acts of violence against blacks in the South, and campaigned for woman’s suffrage. He was hailed as a leader for African-American rights and within the women’s movement.

Dred Scott Dred Scott is known for one particularly important case – the Dred Scot decision of 1857. Interestingly, he was born in Southampton, VA, the same place Nat Turner’s Rebellion took place, in the 1790s. Scott moved away from the region the year before the uprising, and was eventually sold to Dr. John Emerson, a military doctor with whom he and his family moved about the nation. Scott attempted to purchase the freedom of his family after the Dr. Emerson passed away, but his widow, Irene Sanford, refused to allow this. Hence the famous lawsuit. Dred Scott made the strong argument that because he and his family had moved into regions were slavery was forbidden – not only by state law, but by national principles established as early as the Northwest Ordinance – he and his family should be free. If there was not such thing as legal slavery in these places, shouldn’t they have been free men and women?

Dred Scott V. Sanford Unfortunately for Dred Scott and his family, Chief Justice Roger Taney did not agree. The Supreme Court voted 7 – 2 against Dred Scott, and Taney wrote the famous opinion of the court. He concluded that African- Americans, whether they were enslaved or free, “had no rights which a white man was bound to respect.” In his opinion, the Founding Fathers had considered blacks to be less than human – three-fifths of a person, and property to boot. Therefore, the property rights of the slaveholder inviolable, and the enslaved had absolutely no recourse. Taney’s decision essential meant that not only was slavery legal in the South, but also, it was legal anywhere the owner of slaves wished to relocate. The Supreme Court asserted that slavery was now legal in the South, the West, and even the North! Northerners who opposed slavery were outraged, and largely ignored the verdict, which James Buchanan had hoped would end the slavery issue once and for all. Scott? He and his family were eventually freed, just months after the case was settled.

Congressman Robert Smalls Robert Smalls story is one of the most remarkable of the entire Civil War. During the 1860s, Small lived in Charleston, SC. When the Civil War broke out in April of 1861 and the first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter, Smalls was employed as a dockworker by the Confederate Navy. In May of 1862, Smalls risked everything by commandeering the CSS Planter and sailing the ship – along with his family and some of his braver friends – straight out of Charleston Harbor, past Confederate sentries at Forts Moultrie and Sumter along the way. He surrendered the ship to the Union Navy, and he and his family won their freedom in the process. During the Civil War, Robert Smalls actively advocated for African- American participation in the fight, and after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863, he piloted an ironclad vessel for the US Navy. In fact, he helped to lead an assault on Fort Sumter in 1863. After the Civil War, Smalls returned to South Carolina where he was elected to the House of Representatives during the Reconstruction. Smalls live demonstrated the major changes which took place for African-Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction era. Sadly, after the Reconstruction, he was accused to accepting a bribe and never re-elected to office. He was later pardoned for the crime, which many historians believe was contrived by power hungry white-supremacists who sought to ruin his reputation and take power from African-Americans who had been elected to office. During the years after Reconstruction, Smalls and many other blacks lost their political influence in South Carolina and throughout the South.

Booker T. Washington Booker T. Washington was one of the last African-American leaders who was actually born into slavery. He grew up in Virginia, and lived as a slave there until the age of nine, when the Civil War ended. Washington worked as a young man in the coal mines of West Virginia, eventually earning enough money to attend classes at Hampton Institute – today, Hampton University. He also attended the former Wayland Seminary School – today known as Virginia Union. As a leading student in both institutions of learning, Washington became active in the blossoming field of education in the post-Reconstruction South. He would become the leader of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he emphasized the need for vocational skills and work ethic instead of absolute individual rights and equality.

Booker T. Washington While his style of leadership is much criticized today for allowing gradualism, as a practical leader living in the South during Reconstruction, his methods were in many ways constructive. Many African-Americans had been robbed of an opportunity for education during the time of slavery, and very few had job skills which extended outside the realm of agricultural labor in the Deep South. Washington’s famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech encouraged African-Americans to focus first on the acquisition of education and vocational knowledge, and later to demand social and economic equality. Booker T. Washington was also the founder of the National Negro Business League and the author of the book Up From Slavery. His most active critic and rival of the period, W.E.B. DuBois, on the other hand, demanded immediate social and economic equality. Washington opened himself to some criticism by aligning himself with some of the wealthiest industrial leaders of the day – men like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie – who helped him to fund Tuskegee Institute with their philanthropic donations to the school. Both men, however, had mixed records with regards to the treatment of African-Americans and laborers in general.

W.E.B. DuBois W.E.B. DuBois was perhaps Booker T. Washington’s greatest rival, but the men had little in common in terms of life experience and upbringing. DuBois was born in a small New England town where the sort of transparent and violent racism Washington had experienced was rare. After attending Fisk University and encountering the segregated South as an undergraduate, he was accepted into Harvard University and became the first African-American to win a doctorate in History, publishing a thesis on the failures of the Reconstruction Period of United States history. After briefly teaching abroad in Germany, DuBois returned to the United States and took an active role in advocating for political, social, and economic justice for African-Americans. DuBois authored the book The Souls of Black Folk, and made the argument therein that all cultures are led by their greatest successes; he expected the “Talented Tenth” to lead all African- Americans to a better social condition.

W.E.B. DuBois Dubois considered himself a part of this “Talented Tenth” and began his work strongly. He led an international group to promote African-American business ventures known as the Niagara Movement, and was a co-founder of the NAACP – the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a group which he led as President for many years. Under his direction, the NAACP became the most important organization in American for challenging racist law in court; the NAACP legal fund was the forum from which Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall emerged, to lead the fight against segregation in the American South. Later in his life, DuBois became frustrated with the limited scope of the Civil Rights Movement in terms of economic and social justice, and joined the Communist Party. He left America, and died in Ghana on August 27 th, 1963 – just one day before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the famous “I Have a Dream Speech” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. W.E.B. DuBois, late in his life, meeting with Communist Chairman Mao Zedong of China.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett Ida B. Wells was an important Progressive reformer of the late 19 th and early 20 th Century, who’s muckraking articles exposed the practice of lynching across the South. Wells published detailed articles recounting the murders which took place across the South, including the names of prominent Southern whites who were participants in or complicit in the crimes. Her book, A Red Record, exposed the criminal behavior of hundreds of whites across the South, and the paralyzing violence which undermined all efforts towards economic and social justice for African- Americans in the United States. Ida B. Wells would go on to become one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP.)

Homer Plessy Homer Plessy was a creole in Louisiana, who had one great-grandparent who was African-American. In most aspects of his everyday life, he “passed” as white, as they said during the period. Plessy, however, was devoted to the principle of equality for all, and quite literally informed the conductors of the train that he was on that he was “colored.” When they removed him from the first class train cart, he became the center of one of the most important Supreme Court cases in all American history. Plessy and his lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that his rights – guaranteed under the 14 th Amendment to the Constitution – had been violated by the railroad company, and that any laws segregating public facilities were therefore unconstitutional.

Plessy V. Ferguson and The Civil Rights Movement Unfortunately, the Supreme Court did not rule in his favor in 1896. The majority ruling read, in part, “The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to the either.... If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of voluntary consent of the individuals.“ This ruling would establish the policy of “Separate but Equal” throughout the South for the next sixty years or more, validating segregation and the humiliating “Jim Crow” system which favored white supremacists over individual rights.

Carter Woodson Carter Woodson was born after slavery had come to an end, but both of his parents had been enslaved, and they valued his education. Although unable to afford formal schooling as a youth, he nevertheless applied himself to studying and eventually earned a high school diploma by proxy in West Virginia. He attended Berea college in Kentucky before and earned a Bachelor’s degree being accepted into the University of Chicago. He earned a Master’s degree at Chicago before being accepted into Harvard University. There, he became the second African-American to ever earn a doctorate in History. W.E.B. DuBois had been the first. Woodson worked as a teacher in the public schools of Washington D.C. before publishing his dissertation and becoming a member of the faculty at Howard University. While living in Washington, D.C. he worked with the local NAACP branch for several years; but eventually quit the organization because he found them to shrink from confrontation with white authority figures. Woodson sought a more radical stance, which would boycott businesses that engaged in racist practices or enforced segregation. Woodson began “Black History Month” humbly – it was called Negro History Week for many, many years. He chose February for the celebratory week, largely because it was the birth week of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In the 1970s, the celebration was expanded to Black History Month.

The Tulsa Riot of 1921

Tulsa’s Greenwood section – an African- American community which was known as “Black Wall Street” by some – was one of the most thriving and prosperous African-American communities in America during years following the First World War. It had competing grocery stores and movie theatres, a public transportation system, and an entrepreneurial spirit which had resulted in many well of residents. The community also consisted of diverse churches. Many of the men in the community had served in the American Expeditionary Force during the Great War, and came home with the expectation that their service would be acknowledged, and that they and future generations would be better treated and respected than former generations of African-Americans.

The Tulsa Riot of 1921 The Tulsa Riot started in 1921 innocently enough. A young shoe- shine boy named Dick Rowland stepped onto an elevator so that he could use the restroom. In the segregated part of the town he was working, the only restroom available for African-Americans was at the top floor of a nearby building. When he stepped in, one of two things happened. Either Rowland stepped on the foot of a girl named Sarah Page, or he brushed his hand on her behind. Accounts differ, and Page never pressed any charges regarding the matter. Some claim that the girl screamed out, others claim that another person in the elevator intervened first; but this much is certain. Dick Rowland was arrested, and taken to the local jail that day. By the afternoon, word was out that a black man had assaulted a white girl. The local newspaper advertised his location, and a lynch mob was organized directly.

The Tulsa Riot of 1921 When the word got out that Dick Rowland was to be lynched, a group of African- American men were sent to the prison in order to protect Rowland. There expectation was that Rowland should get a fair trial; however, they were also determined to prevent a lynching, and brought their guns. When the mob of whites who came to remove Rowland from prison and put him to death refused to leave the prison, shots were fired. Both whites and blacks were killed and injured. Over the next three days, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma became a virtual war zone. Fires were set in the Greenwood district of the city, and the firefighters who came to put out the flames were attacked. Men and women were murdered on the street arbitrarily. Church arsons took place. At one point, reports from the Chicago Defender indicate that a crop-duster was used to drop dynamite on the black neighborhoods of Tulsa, and the incendiary fires resulting killed dozens more. Although newspapers accounts from the period confirmed near one hundred deaths, rumors of a mass grave containing at least three times that number of African-Americans have persisted to the present. The Oklahoma state militia opened up machine gun fire on a handful of African-Americans who refused to lay down their arms during the third day of the fighting, ending the riot. Between two and three thousand African-Americans who had lived in Tulsa would never appear on the city’s census reports again. It is presumed that the vast majority of these people simply left the destroyed city and vowed never to return. However, with so many African-Americans unaccounted for in the city, the plausibility of a higher number of deaths is certainly not able to be ruled out.

Langston Hughes of the Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was a blossoming of African-American culture during the 1920s which took place in the New York neighborhood from which the movement gets its name. Writers like Countee Cullen, Zora Neal Hurston, and James Weldon Johnson all gained recognition for their works, which spent more time celebrating the virtues of African American culture than they did lamenting the legacy of slavery and oppression in the United States. But of all these writers, the author and poet Langston Hughes distinguished himself as the most influential. His career was long and he was a prolific writers. His most famous works are probably, “I, Too Dream America” and “Dream Deferred.”

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become.

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home— For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free.“ The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay?

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay— Except the dream that's almost dead today. O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME— Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

“Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again

Josh Gibson of the Negro Leagues Everyone knows about Jackie Robinson, number 42, who integrated Major League Baseball in 1947 by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. His role should not be underestimated as a contribution to greater equality in America. In fact, the sports world itself – the ultimate meritocracy – has always capture American attentions. But for many, many years, segregated sports worlds existed simultaneously. Major League Baseball forbid African-Americans to play, by “gentleman’s agreement” until the 1940s; meaning that some of the greatest baseball players in American history never had the opportunity to play against one another. Today, then, we consider the career of Josh Gibson, who played in the Negro Leagues. He was known as the black Babe Ruth; many, however, called Babe Ruth the white Josh Gibson. Since statistics were not kept for many Negro League contests, Gibson’s overall numbers are in doubt; the contention that he hit between 800 and 900 homeruns during career is often put forth. If he did, he would have been the greatest homerun hitter in all baseball history. Gibson played ball in the United States, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic during his career.

Josh Gibson An apocryphal account from the Wikipedia page: “In the last of the ninth at Pittsburgh, down a run, with a runner on base and two outs, Gibson hits one high and deep, so far into the twilight sky that it disappears from sight, apparently winning the game. The next day, the same two teams are playing again, now in Washington. Just as the teams have positioned themselves on the field, a ball comes falling out of the sky and a Washington outfielder grabs it. The umpire yells to Gibson, "You're out! In Pittsburgh, yesterday!”

The Freedom Riders In May of 1960, the law already stated the discrimination along interstate highway systems or the bus depots, motels, and restaurants that served them was illegal. In the summer of 1960, a group of white and black students led by James Farmer of CORE – the Congress of Racial Equality – attempted to test these laws. For their troubles, they were attacked, assaulted, firebombed, and eventually imprisoned by the state of Mississippi, before Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy intervened to help them make their way to their destination, New Orleans. Although they attempted to take busses the entire way to New Orleans, they eventually were forced to compromise and flight the last portion of the journey, from Jackson, MS to New Orleans.

The Freedom Riders Attacked in Anniston, Alabama, the Freedom Riders almost lost their lives when their bus was halted and firebombed along an interstate in Alabama.

Jim Zwerg and John Lewis of the Freedom Riders, Summer 1960 John Lewis stands near his friend Jim Zwerg, who had just taken a savage beating from white supremacists bend on ending the Freedom Rides of 1960. Lewis was eventually arrested for failure to comply with police orders. Instead of paying the fine for the offense, Lewis chose to go to jail, fearlessly, figuring that Mississippi would lose out.

The Detroit Riots of 1943

Many thousands of African-Americans chose to leave the South and take jobs in the military industrial complex during World War II. When they arrived in Northern cities, they often encountered segregation and racist hostilities, and no where was this more evident than in Detroit. In the middle of World War II, most American automobile manufacturers had completely converted their assembly lines to generate war materials: jeeps, tanks, airplanes, amphibious vehicles, and weaponry. African-Americans took some of the most dangerous jobs in this field, hoping to achieve what they called the “Double V” for victory. All Americans tended to flash a “V” to one another during this period, signifying victory over the Axis Powers. But for African-Americans, the “Double V” signified victory over fascism abroad and victory over segregation and discrimination at home! When African-Americans protested unfair treatment by the white citizens of Detroit and business owners, violence erupted.

The Detroit Riots The Double V was intended to mean victory against Hitler abroad and victory against racism at home. Never was the need for a double victory more apparent than when a massive race riot took place in Detroit in the middle of the war. When 50,000 African Americans moved into the city of under 300,000 mostly white residents, racism reared it’s ugly head. Over the course of three days that summer, 34 people were killed – including 25 African-Americans, most of whom were killed by police officers.

The Detroit Riots of 1943 – Political Cartoon Commentary

Actor and Activist Paul Robeson The actor Paul Robeson was graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey, and later attended graduated law school at Columbia. But he would not go on to be a lawyer. Robeson was more devoted to the stage, and dedicated his life to performance. He was both a singer and an actor, playing Othello in one of the longest running stage productions of the Shakespeare play, while starring in many feature films for both white and black audiences. Paul Robeson, though, was more than just an actor. He was also a voice for oppressed people around the globe. He was a leader of the so-called “Double V” campaign for African Americans – demanding victory over Hitler abroad and over racism and segregation at home. Robeson had always opposed fascism, speaking out against Hitler as early as the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War. But he also railed against colonialism, and supported the Pan-African movement of the 1950s, organizations which openly sympathized with communists. Robeson’s support for communist tactics in this regard got him blacklisted in Hollywood. During he height of the “Red Scare” any actor or actress labeled as pro-communist found it impossible to find work. Robeson – who was an internationally famous man – also had his passport revoked, preventing him from working abroad. In spite of all this, Robeson remained a leading voice for social justice in America throughout the Civil Rights Movement.

Medgar Evers Medgar Evers was a member of the United States Army during World War II, and participated in the invasion of Normandy during 1944. When he came home from serving his nation, however, he was not even able to vote in his home state of Mississippi. Evers used the GI Bill to attend school at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, where he studied business administration. He used his skills as an organizer and leader of men, however, to fight for greater social justice. After the Supreme Court ruling in Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka, KS, Evers was devoted to the long process of desegregation in his home state. He soon became the first NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) field marshal in the state of Mississippi, a position which brought him much fame, but also exposed him to much danger.

Medgar Evers, NAACP In Mississippi in 1955, a young man named Emmett Till was murdered in the town of Money, Mississippi by two white men. His crime? He had said the words, “Bye, baby!” to a white woman keeping shop in the local candy store. He was dragged out of his home in the middle of the night, shot to death, and then tied to a large metal rotor, where his body sank to the bottom of a nearby river. An all white jury acquitted the men who committed the crime. But during the trial, it was Medgar Evers who organized the black community to testify against the criminals, and it was he who snuck them out of town after they had testified, so they would not be killed. Evers attempted to keep constant media pressure on racist organizations in the South. Evers played a key role in insisting that the Brown V. Board of Education decision was enforced in Mississippi. When James Meredith attempted to integrate the University of Mississippi – Ole’ Miss – in 1962, it was Evers who organized the NAACP lawsuit and Evers who insisted that he receive protection. By the early 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was at full force. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was won. Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas was integrated. The Freedom Riders had made their historic attempt to integrate the interstate highway system, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had founded the SCLC and started non-violent confrontational tactics in Birmingham, AL. Evers had begun agitating for greater voter registration for African-Americans in Mississippi. It was in the summer of 1963 that Evers was gunned down in his own driveway after returning from work. The man who murdered him, Byron de la Beckwith, was never punished. When he died, he was wearing a t-shirt that read “Jim Crow Must Go.”

Victor Hugo Green’s Green Book Prior to the Supreme Court’s Brown V. Board of Education decision, discrimination against African-Americans was legal. African- American travelers along the United States interstates and highways never knew where strict segregation laws might prevent them from entering a restaurant or finding a hotel room. Hence, the need for Victor Hugo Green’s publication, The Green Book. In the publication, hotels, motels, and restaurants which were known to accept African-American customers and lodgers were listed – all across the country. Many African-American travelers relied upon the publication in order to travel safely.

Thurgood Marshall Before Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, he was prankster of a student at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he was twice suspended for his boorish behavior. He decided to pursue the law during his college years, earned his law degree from Howard University, where he was much influenced by the great Charles Hamilton Houston. After college returned to his native Baltimore, where he took up work with the local NAACP. Still under Houston’s tutelage, he would become on of the most influential lawyers before the Supreme Court in all American history.

Thurgood Marshall, Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka, KS In 1954, Thurgood successfully argued the Brown V. Board of Education, Topeka, KS case, winning the integration of all public schools in the United States, “with all deliberate speed.” The ruling would have longstanding implications across the United States of America. Marshall’s reputation was established.

Thurgood Marshall and Affirmative Action In the 1960s, Lyndon Baines Johnson selected Thurgood Marshall as the first ever African- American Supreme Court justice. His interpretation of the Constitution as a “living document” – and one which had been deeply flawed upon ratification – brought a unique and new perspective to the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall was a strong advocate for minority rights, women’s rights, the rights of the accused, and affirmative action while he was in office. When he decided to retire from the bench in the 1990s, George H.W. Bush replaced him on the Court with Clarence Thomas, a man who shares virtually none of Marshall’s views and rarely comments on any of his decisions with the Supreme Court.

Thurgood Marshall’s Bicentennial Speech I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago. For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at three-fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States. Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves" and "slavery" was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to be based on the population of "free Persons" in each State, plus three-fifths of all "other Persons." Moral principles against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the self-evident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Asa Philip Randolph A. Philip Randolph, during the 1920s was declared to be “the most dangerous Negro in America” by then Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. He was the leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a union for African-American men who worked on trains as ticket collectors and ushers, among many other things. Palmer might have done better to have worried about more dangerous men. Randolph was committed to non-violence, and always lived his life – and organized his protests with that in mind. You many not realize how familiar you are with his work.

Asa Philip Randolph During World War II, Philip Randolph became the leader of all African- Americans seeking work within the defense industry. Many of these high paying jobs were closed to African- American applicants. Randolph threatened several time to organize a million man protest march on Washington, D.C. to register displeasure about the obstacles to African-American workers. The tactic worked. In fact, not only were African-Americans allowed jobs within the defense industry, but also, after World War II, he used the threat of protest marches to help convince President Harry S Truman to integrate the United States military.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963 This, however, was perhaps Asa Philip Randolph’s finest hour. After decades of “threatening” a March on Washington, the march finally took place in August of 1963. It was here that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

The Norfolk 17 and Massive Resistance in Virginia

n 1954, the political organization of U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., controlled Virginia politics. Senator Byrd promoted the "Southern Manifesto" opposing integrated schools, which was signed in 1956 by more than one hundred southern officeholders. On February 25, 1956, he called for what became known as Massive Resistance. This was a group of laws, passed in 1958, intended to prevent integration of the schools. Pupil Placement Boards were created with the power to assign specific students to particular schools. Tuition grants were to be provided to students who opposed integrated schools. The linchpin of Massive Resistance was a law that cut off state funds and closed any public school that agreed to integrate. In September 1958 several schools in Warren County, Charlottesville, and Norfolk were about to integrate under court under. They were seized and closed, but the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals overturned the school-closing law. The General Assembly promptly repealed the compulsory school attendance law, making the operating of public schools a matter of local choice. But a simultaneous federal court verdict against the school-closing law based on the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment could not be evaded. Speaking to the General Assembly a few weeks later, Governor J. Lindsay Almond conceded defeat. Beginning on February 2, 1959, a few courageous black students integrated the schools that had been closed. Still, hardly any African American students in Virginia attended integrated schools.

Massive Resistance and “White Flight” By 1964, five years after the end of Massive Resistance, only 5 percent of black students in Virginia were attending integrated schools. The chief reason for this lack of progress was the Pupil Placement Board. In theory, the board could assign pupils to specific schools for any of a variety of reasons, not including race or color. "In actuality," writes historian Robert A. Pratt, "race was the only criterion considered; the Pupil Placement Board assigned very few black students to white schools in Virginia while it remained in operation." Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the national NAACP said, "Virginia has the largest and most successful token integration program in the country.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 denied federal funds to schools determined to be resisting integration. This resulted in a bit more compliance by Virginia schools. The Pupil Placement Boards gave way to freedom-of-choice plans that enabled each student to select his or her school. The hope of state officials was that most students would choose to stay where they were. Virtually no white students chose to go to mostly black schools. Another form of passive resistance was white flight, either to private schools, or out of cities with large black populations to outlying, mostly-white suburbs. In Richmond, for example, the percentage of white students plummeted from 45 to 21 percent between 1960 and 1975. It was hard to have integrated schools in a district that was 80 percent black. SOURCE: http://www.vahistorical.org/collections-and- resources/virginia-history-explorer/civil-rights-movement- virginia/passivehttp://www.vahistorical.org/collections-and- resources/virginia-history-explorer/civil-rights-movement- virginia/passive

“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of us associate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with his ability as an organizer of men, a leader, a minister, and a public speaker. His “I Have A Dream” speech has motivated generations of people to aspire towards greater equality and dignity for all people. But Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a philosopher, in many ways, and one of his most important contributions to the Civil Rights Movement was his consistent use of non- violent, civil disobedience in order to achieve goals. Non-violent civil disobedience was by no means passive or without consequences. Events like sit-ins and marches were practiced and organized so as to achieve maximum effect; and all of these activities required that participants be willing to suffer undeserved punishments without resorting to violence. As King stated in his “I Have a Dream Speech,” The notion that undeserved suffering was redemptive was essential to the movement, and must be used to motivate people to continue working towards justice despite the many obstacles they would face.

“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to jail on numerous occasions. He was once booked and jailed for speeding in Montgomery, Alabama, and he spent many days in a Birmingham Jail during the summer of 1963. King expressed his belief in post-conventional morality during these periods in prison, arguing that when the law itself is unjust and immoral – when the law itself goes against God, in his terms – then it would be immoral to follow the law! In the summer of 1963, King was imprisoned in Birmingham, AL for leading a protest march without a permit. He organized marches of schoolchildren during that summer, and mass arrests in the city caused tensions to escalate. Police dogs and fire hoses were turned on children and non- violent marches, inflicting serious injuries. When King was imprisoned, he was publically criticized by both black and white ministers in Birmingham, who complained that his tactics were causing more harm than good, and giving young men and women criminal records – whether the laws they broke were moral or immoral notwithstanding. King answered these complaints with his famous, “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.”

“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. “You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. It was after King’s release from prison in the summer of 1963 that he delivered the famous “I Have a Dream” Speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech, in many ways, transformed a nation, and the peaceful march caused President John F. Kennedy to meet with the leaders of SCLC and begin to propose major Civil Rights reforms. Sadly, Kennedy himself would not live to see these reforms enacted. But in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

“A Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. The summer of 1963 was one of the most critical seasons of the Civil Rights Movement. In Birmingham, schools were preparing to integrate in the fall of the year. After a tumultuous summer of marches; after King had spent much of the summer in a Birmingham prison cell; after the “I Have a Dream Speech” and the promise of Civil Rights legislation, the fall brought a horrifying and bitter loss. The weekend before the newly integrated schools were set to open, a bomb exploded at the 16 th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Below the church, five little girls were preparing a Sunday School lesson when the bomb blew. Four of the girls died. The arbitrary violence of white supremacists in Alabama was unrivaled anywhere… The city was nicknamed “Bombingham.” But this treacherous act brought the condemnation of the country.

Author James Baldwin James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924. Although at the time the Harlem Renaissance was at it’s peak, Baldwin grew up in a world that was largely divorced from the literary movement of the day. His family was quite poor, and he was always under the strict influence of his step-father, a minister in a local church. For a brief period during his teenage years, Baldwin took to the pulpit. But he decided that the Church was not for him. When he turned eighteen, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and tried to make it as a writer. Noticed by the already well accomplished Richard Wright. After Wright helped him to get a grant from a publishing company, Baldwin wen t to Paris to complete his work. He would live abroad for the majority of his life, spending long periods in both Paris and in Istanbul.

James Baldwin Baldwin’s writing was often at least part biographical. He described the difficulties of growing up as a black man in a nation that was dominated largely by powerful whites. He also continually discussed the equality of man, and advocated for many reforms – such as equality for and tolerance of homosexuals and interracial marriage – generations before the issue became mainstream topics of discussion. His novel The Fire Next Time put him on the cover of Time magazine during the 1960s. “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster…”

Selma and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 In 1965, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and Martin Luther King, Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference began a fifty mile march from Selma, AL to Montgomery to protest the obstacles to voter registration in the state for African-American voters. As the marchers, led by John Lewis, approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were attacked by Alabama State Troopers and savagely beaten. John Lewis, pictured to the right, had his skull fractured by a billy club. The incident was reported to the nation late in the evening of “Bloody Sunday” – March 7, 1965. Many Americans were watching a primetime movie at the time of the special report: “Judgment at Nuremburg.”

Selma and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 When Americans saw the brutality being used against non-violent protesters on a Sunday Morning in March of 1965, they were outraged and sought to make changes to the white supremacist system in the South. The President of the United States at the time, Lyndon Baines Johnson, introduced a bill to guarantee voting rights for African-Americans in the South. Before Congress, he stated “Even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too, because it is not just Negroes but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome…” The Voting Rights Act was passed into law in 1965.

Selma and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act prevented states from arbitrarily denying African-Americans the ballot by changing voting locations or placing any unfair restrictions on access to voter registration. This act, coupled with the ratification of the 24 th Amendment to the Constitution in 1964 which ended the poll tax, allowed much greater access to the ballot for African-Americans in Southern States.

The Case of Loving V. Virginia https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/loving-v-virginia-case-over-interracial-marriage

The Case of Loving V. Virginia Until the year 1967, interracial marriage was against the law in Virginia – and in various other states around the nation. The so-called “miscegenation” laws of the state were challenged in 1967 in this extraordinary case. Few cases were more aptly named than Loving v. Virginia, which pitted an interracial couple – 17-year-old Mildred Jeter, who was black, and her childhood sweetheart, 23- year-old white construction worker, Richard Loving – against Virginia's "miscegenation" laws banning marriage between blacks and whites. After marrying in Washington, D.C. and returning to their home state in 1958, the couple was charged with unlawful cohabitation and jailed. According to the judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents.... The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." Judge Bazile sentenced the Lovings to a year in prison, to be suspended if the couple agreed to leave the state for the next 25 years. The Lovings left Virginia and went to live with relatives in Washington, D.C. When they returned to visit family five years later, they were arrested for traveling together. Inspired by the civil rights movement, Mildred Loving wrote to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy for help. The couple was referred to the ACLU, which represented them in the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (1967). The Court ruled that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional.

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali was the greatest heavyweight champion of the world to ever put on boxing gloves. But he was much larger than that. Ali was born Cassius Clay, in Louisville, KY. Upset that he had had his bicycle stolen by a neighborhood bully, he began taking boxing lessons. By the time he was twenty, he had won both the Golden Gloves tournament of Champions and a gold medal with the United States Olympic team in Athens, Greece.

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali would go on to become the heavyweight champion of the world, and he participated in some of the most dramatic bouts in the history of fisticuffs: The Rumble in the Jungle – against George Foreman, and the Thrilla in Manila – his third match against Joe Frazier, who had defeated him in Madison Square Garden in New York City. But Ali’s most noteworthy accomplishments in terms of personal development may not have been in the ring at all.

Muhammad Ali – Anti War Activist In 1964, Muhammad Ali was drafted into the United States Army. He refused to serve, however, claiming “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” Having recently converted to Islam, joining Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam, Ali claimed conscientious objector status and refused to serve. In his own words, “The heavyweight champion of the world claimed, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” He was stripped of his heavyweight championship title, banned from fighting in the United States, and had his visa revoked, so he could not travel abroad either. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeFMyrWlZ68

Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let Us Build A New World Together” “In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed… It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system. That is easier said than done.” – Ella Baker

Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let Us Build A New World Together” It may not be readily apparent to everyone, but the role of African-American women in the Civil Rights movement was twice as difficult as that of men. African-American women were often considered second class soldiers in the Movement. For every Rosa Parks or Ruby Bridges who came to prominence, there were a dozen African-American women who’s sacrifices were not registered. Jo Ann Robinson, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer, and many other women are left out of the popular narrative of the Movement. Ella Baker falls into this category. And in some ways, that would be fine with her. She believed in the collective good rather than in individual recognitions. Indeed, one of her most popular quotations is “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let Us Build A New World Together” Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker would go on to become a leading organizer of three of the most influential organizations of the 20 th Century: The NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which she helped to found. Inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Baker started local organization of her own to encourage the non-violent protest against “Jim Crow” laws and to encourage voter registration. After helping to found the SCLC but finding that her voice was little acknowledged within the organization, Ella Baker left the organization in 1960 to help to organize the new student movements growing in the American South after the Greensboro Four’s sit-ins of February, 1960. In that year, Baker helped to found SNCC, a student run organization which made local reforms and constant activism their mantra. In 1964, it was Ella Baker’s organization that lead the dramatic voter registration drive known as “Freedom Summer” in Mississippi. As the Civil Rights Movement splintered during the late 1960s and throughout the end of the 20 th Century, Ella Jo Baker continued to encourage local reforms, and always considered herself a teacher of the young.

Ella Baker: Local Activist with A National Influence

Ella Baker and the SNCC: “Come Let Us Build A New World Together” “Until the killing of black men – black mothers’ sons – becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son – we, who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens!” - Ella Baker

Stokely Carmichael and the “Black Power” Doctrine Stokely Carmichael was once the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and he literally walked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965. However, even then Carmichael was beginning to articulate divergent viewpoints regarding the future of the Civil Rights Movement. Born in Trinidad and Tobago, he came to the United States as a youth and lived in Harlem. He attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and became involved with two important Civil Rights organizations, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which organized the Freedom Rides, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Never one to back down in the face of confrontation, Stokely Carmichael was arrested over thirty times; he spent a summer in prison in Mississippi for his efforts to integrate commuter trains in the state. He also participated in sit-in movements and various marches organized by his organization or larger, more mainstream groups like SCLC. By 1967, however Carmichael had started to have his doubts bout the non-violent, passive resistance, and civil disobedience advocated by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and decided to articulate a view that advanced the merits of “direct action.”

Stokely Carmichael and “Black Power” “In order for non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience.” Carmichael was not convinced that the powers of the government or local authorities always did, and he made that clear in his speeches and philosophical publications. The “Black Power” Movement, which would be adopted and advocated by many militant and disciplined groups in the United States, considered non-violence folly, and emphasized self-defense, self-reliance, and preparedness. Many groups, like Oakland’s Black Panther Party, considered Carmichael their spiritual leader, and began to “take back” their neighborhoods – both from crime and drugs, and from the local police, who they often viewed as brutal adversaries.

Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power” Black Power is the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary. Now we want to talk about violence. Because I understand now that some of your so-called Negro leaders have been saying that we violent. I won't deny it. Yeah, I'm violent. Somebody touch me, I'll break their arm. But the problem isn't one of violence, see. The problem is one of hitting back white people when they hit you. That's the real problem 'cause we've never done that all our lives. They've been able to walk over us, bomb our churches, beat us up, shoot into our houses, lynch us, and do everything they wanted to do and we would just sit there and whisper about it behind closed doors. It's a new day today! It's a new day today! But what really upsets me is that these people who talk about violence are not concerned about black people. Because there is more violence in our neighborhood on Friday and Saturday night than there is anyplace else, anyplace else. Yeah! We cut and we shoot each other more then we touch anybody in the world, and don't nobody talk out against that violence—nobody talking about it! And the reason they don't do it is because they don't give a damn about us. They're only concerned about white folk.

Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power” But what really upsets me is that these people who talk about violence are not concerned about black people. Because there is more violence in our neighborhood on Friday and Saturday night than there is anyplace else, anyplace else. Yeah! We cut and we shoot each other more then we touch anybody in the world, and don't nobody talk out against that violence—nobody talking about it! And the reason they don't do it is because they don't give a damn about us. They're only concerned about white folk…. If they were against violence, they would be preaching nonviolence in the black community, 'cause that's where we need it most. We need it there. We need to learn to love and to respect each other and stop cutting and shooting each other. But they don't care about us! They don't care about us, no! The only time you hear these preachers talk about nonviolence is when a honky hits you and you gettin' ready to take care of business. That's the only time you hear them, yeah! Then you see 'em on television, the only role they have is to condemn their own people. "Oh, we don't believe in violence, those vagabonds throwing rocks and bottles... Oh, yes we believe in the war in Vietnam. We think our boys should go over there and shoot. But we don't believe in violence at all." What is that junk? They gonna put you in a uniform and send you 8,000 miles to shoot a man who ain't never called you a nigger? Get outta here! Yeah!

Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power” And you get cats like Lyndon Baines Johnson get up on TV and say, "My fellow Americans, every night before I go to sleep, I ask myself what have I done to preserve peace in this country." Yeah. And yet he talking about preserving peace and dropping bombs all over Hanoi. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. And then he gets up before national TV, and he says, "Violence never accomplishes anything." Well if the honky believes it, tell him to use nonviolence in Vietnam! What they're saying is violence is OK against everybody except the white man, that's what they're saying. And you ought not to get fooled by it. You ought to understand, that in the world there exists, especially in this country, a victim and executioner relationship. We are the victims, and white people are the executioners. And they have kept us down by force and by violence. And that if we are violent, it's just that we have learned well from our teachers. Thank you very much. They have bombed our churches, they have shot us in the streets, they have lynched us, they have cattle-prodded us, they have thrown lye over us, they've dragged our children out in the night. We have been the recipients of violence for 400 years. We've just learned well how to use it today. Don't you ever condemn people for using violence. And those black preachers get up, you tell them to get the guts to condemn white folk for the violence they've heaped on us. If they can't do that, if they can't condemn the white folks, tell them to keep their mouths shut!

Stokely Carmichael on “Black Power” So don't you get caught up in no discussion about violence. We just making it crystal clear to the honky today that if he try to shoot us, we gonna kill him 'fore God get the news. Period! Now if he doesn't want to get shot, tell him to stay home. Cause they leave their beds and their wives at three o'clock in the morning and come to our community and go work out their frustration by shooting into our community. If they got frustrations, tell'em, "Go see a psychiatrist." So you got to understand that one in your mind, and don't got carried away with that nonsense about riots. You ought to understand, you ought to be proud of your black brothers in Nashville. You ought to be proud, because what happened was on Friday night two honky policemen going to walk into the middle of the neighborhood and gonna start beating up on a black brother. And when the other brothers told them they didn't have to, they gonna turn on them. But they forgot: It's a new day! It's a new day! See they didn't recognize that this generation is saying if you wear a sheet at night, or a badge in the day, if you put your filthy white hands on our beautiful black skin, we gonna TCB, period! Period! Period! - Stokely Carmichael, April 19, 1967

L. Douglas Wilder Douglas Wilder became the first African-American governor ever elected in the state of Virginia in 1990, and he was the first African-American to hold any governor’s office since the Reconstruction Period. Wilder was a graduate of Virginia Union University, where he initially studied Chemistry. He joined the US Army during the Korean War, and volunteered for combat duty; at one point, he an a fellow soldier took 19 Chinese soldiers prisoner during the famed Battle of Pork Chop Hill. Upon returning from Korea, Wilder chose to pursue a law degree and then started a political career by winning a special election to the Virginia State Senate. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1986 with Democrat Gerald Baliles; the then narrowly won election as governor in 1990. As governor, Wilder cut off all business ties between the state of Virginia and the apartheid government of South Africa. He was strongly in favor of gun control laws, was pro-choice on the abortion issue, and a strong advocate for the death penalty. Fourteen Virginians were put to death during his four years in office. After leaving the Governor’s Office, Douglas Wilder remained extremely involved in Democratic politics in the state. In 2005, he was elected Mayor of Richmond, VA, and he was enormously influential during his four years in office. He was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition. Wilder began a campaign for the Presidency briefly in 1992, and had a short lived attempt to run for the US Senate in 1994. L. Douglas Wilder, former Governor of Virginia and Mayor of Richmond, VA

Greekfest, 1989: A Race Riot in Virginia Beach, Virginia During my sophomore year at First Colonial High School, racial tensions were relatively high at First Colonial High School, due to a major riot which took place during the Labor Day weekend of 1989. In Virginia Beach, the riot is known as “Greekfest,” and you’ll not hear it advertised by the City Council anytime soon! But in 1989, it was national news, and one of the ugliest parts of our local history.

Greekfest, 1989 Traditionally, Greekfest was an end of the summer weekend party attended by mostly African-American fraternities and sororities all up and down the East Coast. Hundreds of thousands of visitors came to Virginia Beach every Labor Day weekend, which was just like every other weekend between July 4 th and Labor Day in Virginia Beach, with one notable difference: three out of four visitors during Greekfest were young and African-American. The partying and revelry which went on with Greekfest caused some unique problems, but it many of the concerns were typical of a busy weekend in Virginia Beach in the 1980s and 1990s. Pedestrian traffic made the roads almost impossible to drive. Noise violations were common, and public intoxication or open container laws were being broken until well into the evening. As with any gathering of thousands and thousands of people, fights broke out. For the VBPD, managing the event, keeping lanes open for emergency vehicles, and maintaining order on the streets was taxing and difficult – and it cost the city.

Greekfest, 1989 During the Labor Day Weekend in 1988, there had been problems at the Oceanfront as well. Fights had broken out, and property had been damaged in some of the hotels and businesses at the beach. There was a widespread belief among business leaders that the party had simply gotten to large, and that it would have to be managed differently in order to maintain public safety and allow businesses to operate. In 1989, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf decided to pro-actively prepare for the possibility of trouble in the city. She notified organizers of Greekfest that the party was not welcome in the city, called the Governor, and put the Virginia National Guard on standby in case beachgoers became rowdy. VBPD presence on the streets was noticeably ramped up on Friday and Saturday nights during the weekend, and many students were arrested for jaywalking, disorderly conduct, public intoxication and the like. Several fights broke out, and at times, the police were not able to manage the incidents quickly and efficiently. Accusations of excessive force and harassment were made against the VBPD. The disorder on the streets of Virginia Beach made national news coverage on Saturday. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN all broadcast reports from the tops of local hotels, showing the crowds below.

“Why Virginia Beach Happened” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1989, by Roy H. Campbell All the elements for a racial disturbance were there.. Tensions were high between an overwhelmingly white police force and tens of thousands of black college students, alumni and others who had come to Virginia Beach, Va., for the end-of-the-summer fraternity party known as Greekfest. For two days, from last Friday through Saturday, the black students felt harassed: They were cited for jaywalking; they were made to show their hotel keys when they entered the lobbies of their hotels; only a few of them at a time were allowed in some beachfront stores, and it seemed as if all of the shopkeepers were worried about shoplifters. "It was like 1963 or something," said Rita Goms, 20, a Lincoln University student who went to Greekfest the year before. Then, early Sunday morning, as hundreds of college students partied on Atlantic Avenue, from a black van came "Fight the Power," the anti- establishment song by the rap group Public Enemy and the hit single from the soundtrack of Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee's movie about race relations: Bum rush this show, you got to go for what you know to make everybody see, in order to fight the power that be, What we got to say is power to the people, no delay make everybody see, in order to fight the power that be. The crowd, according to Goms and others who were there, grew frenzied, swept away by the pulsing rap beat and the words that called for them to strike out against the powers that be, to fight back against the white oppressors. The disturbance that followed raises again the question of the relationship between rap music and violence. And also, when Do the Right Thing came out, some said it would cause a riot. People who were at Virginia Beach agree that the song did not cause the riot; the situation did. The song, however, played a role just as rock music played a role in anti-Vietnam protests in the late 1960s. And, at Virginia Beach, "fight the power" became the byword of the Labor Day weekend. On Atlantic Avenue, more people poured into the streets. They waved their fists and cursed police, chanting, "fight the power.“ Someone tossed a brick through a storefront window. The brick seemed to be the match that touched off a firestorm that turned into a violent looting and vandalism spree.

Greekfest, 1989 By dawn, 100 beachfront businesses were damaged, two people were injured by gunfire, scores were arrested and state police and the National Guard were patrolling the streets. Violence broke out again Sunday night as riot-clad police clashed with black youths in the streets. Hundreds more were arrested. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it and the FBI had formally opened a criminal investigation into whether civil rights had been violated and whether police had used excessive force during the disturbance at Virginia Beach. How did a traditional beach party turn into a riot? And why was Virginia Beach being accused of racism? The 1989 Greekfest seemed headed for disaster from the start. City officials announced earlier this year that the event had grown too large to be handled safely. They rebuffed efforts of the Philadelphia area promoters to hold events at the beach or at the Pavilion Civic Center. And the city council passed new stringent ordinances against jaywalking, loud radios and other actions that are traditionally associated with youths on Spring Break. City officials acknowledged that the new rules were in response to Greekfest. When it became apparent - all the hotels were booked by July - that thousands of black college students and alumni were still going to come to Virginia Beach for Labor Day weekend, Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf announced that the event was not welcome in the city. In August, she asked the governor to put the National Guard on standby alert because of the possibility of rowdy students. Despite all of this, and with wild rumors of the Ku Klux Klan and the skinheads planning to disrupt the event in mind, thousands of black college students headed for Virginia Beach. However, James Spruill, 23, a West Philadelphia resident and a 1987 graduate of Penn State University, said, "I went because every time I go, I have a good time. The girls are all out there and there are parties and it is just a fun thing to do at the end of the summer.

Greekfest, 1989 The event began in 1985, when the Philadelphia area group Theoroc Promotions, which sponsors the annual Greek Picnic in Fairmount Park, staged the first Greekfest in Virginia Beach. Five hundred people attended. The event grew until last year, when 40,000 people poured into Virginia Beach. Hotel owners complained of minor vandalism, and one event at the city's Pavilion resulted in crowd-control problems. Organizers say Greekfest is not unlike the better-known Spring Breaks at Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. For a few days, the college students - whether at Virginia Beach or Florida - party and try to meet members of the opposite sex. This year in Virginia Beach, the annual weekend began as usual: "Everybody was on parade, everybody was strutting their stuff," said Nathan Townsend, a Philadelphia designer who chaperoned a church group that visited the beach on Saturday. "I was with a group of older people and there was nothing threatening, it was just amazing.“ But some people at Greekfest said they felt unwanted. In the words of Wayne Byrd, 23, of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, there was "an air of racism." "They seemed to be afraid of us because we were black individuals," said Byrd, a Richmond, Va., native. Goms, who drove down from Lincoln's Chester County campus with 11 other students, said they felt so discriminated against that "we started carrying signs saying, 'Don't spend your money in Virginia Beach because they don't want us here.' "And some enterprising person printed T-shirts with Malcolm X on the front and a rap poem on the back that said the Greekfest was unwanted because of the students' "pigmentation." The T-shirts sold like hotcakes. And "Fight the Power" became an anthem of sorts. "The song hyped everybody more, but they were already upset and tired of the police harassing them," said Lisa Jordan, 19, a Virginia State University student. It was about 7:30 p.m. when police formed a wedge and began a sweep to clear the streets. Witnesses said the police rushed the crowd, beating the people with batons if they did not move quickly enough. One handcuffed youth was kicked by state police as he lay on the ground while across the street a crowd jeered and cried police brutality. Among other incidents, police stormed a supermarket and pushed and threw the black patrons out of the store.

Greekfest, 1989 Among those arrested was Gerald Howard, 39, of Southwest Philadelphia. Howard drove down to videotape Greekfest. On Sunday night, as he was filming the police sweep, he said a police officer grabbed him, threw him to the ground and beat him before arresting him. "I was filming them grabbing people and dragging them," said Howard, who has filed a police brutality complaint with the Virginia Beach Police Department. Howard spent the night in police custody with 100 others who he said committed only one crime: "Many of the guys in the detention center were guilty of being black and on the street.“ Against charges of excessive police force, Oberndorf said the police had to use such tactics because looting had started again on Sunday night. Reporters, merchants and festival participants, however, say there was no disturbance or trouble until the police sweep began. In the aftermath of all this, black leaders - while not condoning the looting - say the city mishandled the event from the beginning. Jack Gravely, president of the state NAACP, said the city overreacted to the crowd because its members were black. The NAACP will investigate the police action and then hold a hearing. E. Stephens Collins, one of the partners in the group that staged previous Greekfests but pulled out this year when the city refused permission to use the convention center, said, "Black kids just weren't welcome at the beach." He pointed to Philadelphia's Greek Picnic as an example of how well things can go when there is cooperation from the city. "We never had a problem," he said. Ed Tenuto, spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, said 60,000 people attended the July event this year and there were no arrests and no problems. "Our presence is in a service capacity - to help with traffic or things like this because we view this as one big party," he said.

Labor Day Weekends In the years since the Greekfest Riots took place, the City of Virginia Beach has worked to bring other major events to the city, starting with the American Music Festival – which did not feature Public Enemy or any other musicians of the hip-hop variety – and later converting to the Rock N’ Roll half marathon. Greekfest parties have gone elsewhere, and the crowds which attend Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach are very different. This, along with much more strict rules regarding traffic patterns and loitering on the Oceanfront from June to September, have changed our city’s main tourist attraction over the past 25 years.

Spike Lee: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks

Spike Lee Joints Since graduating from NYU’s Film School in 1983, Spike Lee has been one of the most creative and prolific producers in the American film industry. By tackling themes that are often controversial and unsettling, he has taken a leading role in social commentary and been an informed critic regarding policies and social custom in the United States. Not only has Spike Lee achieved critical acclaim; but also, he has had commercial success in a variety of genres. In addition to feature films and documentaries, many of Lee’s better known works have been music videos and even commercial advertisements, like Nike’s famous Mars Blackmon: “It’s Gotta Be the Shoes!” 0 She’s Gotta Have It 0 Do The Right Thing 0 Mo’ Better Blues 0 Malcolm X 0 Crooklyn 0 Clockers 0 Get On The Bus 0 4 Little Girls 0 He Got Game 0 When The Levees Broke 0 Red Hook Summer

Spike Lee Lee has acted in a host of his own films, almost all of which have received critical acclaim. He is known outside of his film making career as a die-hard sports fan and as a social commentator. He is often seen on the front row of Knicks games in MSG, and has more than once gotten into verbal spats with players – perhaps most notably with former Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller. He is also a huge New York Yankees fan. More importantly, however, Lee stays involved in social commentary…. sometimes, a little too involved. During the Trayvon Martin case in 2013 in Florida, he attempted to tweet out the address of George Zimmermann’s parents, provoking death threats against the family which live in the residence. He has also entered into feuds with the likes of Clint Eastwood over the need to include African-American characters in film, and for postulating conspiracy theories without ample evidence – for example, his half-hearted insistence that the US government wasn’t above allowing the Hurricane Katrina tragedy to persist just to move African-Americans out of the city of New Orleans.

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour Chuck D. Public Enemy Number One. The brains behind the influential rap group Public Enemy during the late 1980s and the 1990s, Chuck D was one of the most important lyricists and performers of the late 20 th Century, and he continues to influence hip-hop today. Many of his songs became anthems of the late 1980s and 1990s, including “Fight the Power,” “911 is a Joke,” and the classics “Can’t Truss It” and “Bring the Noise.”

Chuck D of Public Enemy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dql_kKCq4Oo

Maya Angelou One of the most influential poets of the 20 th Century – and the 21 st Century as well, at this point – Maya Angelou was able to transcend the many obstacles of her early life, including racism and sexual abuse, to become one of the leading voices of her age. Among many other accomplishments, she was asked to read original poetry at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings…” I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings: The free bird leaps on the back of the wind And floats downstream til the current ends And dips his wings in the orange sun rays And dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage Can seldom see through his bars of rage His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with fearful trill Of the things unknown but longed for still And his tune is heard on the distant hill, for The caged bird sings of freedom The free bird thinks of another breeze And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn And he names the sky his own. But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing The caged bird sings with a fearful trill Of things unknown but longed for still And his tune is heard on the distant hill For the caged bird sings of freedom. - by Maya Angelou

Author Toni Morrison Read as much as you can and try to find an American author that rivals Toni Morrison. Alongside Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Morrison is one of the greatest living authors. Her books include Sula, The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, Love, Beloved, and more recent works such as A Mercy and Home. Magical realism is one of the techniques Morrison applies consistently with great effect. More recently, her attention to detail in historical fiction has brought her to the attention of practicing historians. A Mercy, set in the Chesapeake region during the middle1600s, captures the emerging hierarchy of the free and the enslaved, and describes the ability of even the weakest members in that social hierarchy to find agency and purpose in their lives. Many of her other works bring the difficult realities of segregation and racism to light – while celebrating the independent, meaningful lives of African Americans across the United States – in both time and space.

Books By Toni Morrison

Henry Louis Gates Henry Louis Gates is a professor of history at Harvard University and a leading intellectual. He has authored several books, many of which argue that a Euro-centric version of American history is not an accurate portrayal of the past. Indeed, African-American perspectives – and the perspectives of women and other minority groups are essential to understanding history. Most recently, Henry Louis Gates created a documentary series entitled, “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.” He may, however, be most famous for his ridiculous arrest by police officers in Cambridge, MA, as he attempted to enter his own house. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3-Pjxksus

African-American History Month Profiles of Individuals and Events Contributing to American Identity and African-American History – US-VA History 2016.

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African-American History Month Profiles of Individuals and Events Contributing to American Identity and African-American History – US-VA History 2016.

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