Category: Black History

— EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On September 3, 1901, Alabama adopted a new state constitution that prohibited interracial marriage and mandated separate schools for Black and white children. The state constitutional convention’s primary purpose was to legally disenfranchise Black voters and the new constitution also included several electoral policies designed to suppress Black […]

Sanitation workers on strike. Mothers occupying vacant houses. These are our leaders. By William Spivey, Medium I recently wrote a story about “Why We Need a White History Month,” which discusses several things that aren’t generally taught and frankly that white people, especially along with everyone else, need to know about American History. I received […]

By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On August 30, 1956, the first day of school, mobs of white pro-segregationists guarded Mansfield High School and patrolled the streets threatening to use guns and other weapons to prevent Black children from registering. Outside the school, the mob hung an African American effigy at the top of […]

By Martha S. Jones, The Washington Post Martha S. Jones is a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and author of the forthcoming book “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.” When the 19th Amendment became law 100 years ago, women could no longer be barred […]

By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On August 26, 1874, sixteen African American men were seized from the Gibson County Jail in Trenton, Tennessee, and lynched. The group had been transferred from Picketsville, a neighboring town where they’d been arrested and accused of shooting at two white men. Around 2 a.m. that morning, a […]

By EJI Staff, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative On the night of August 25, 1956, several sticks of dynamite were thrown into the yard of Pastor Robert Graetz’s Montgomery, Alabama, home. The dynamite exploded, breaking the home’s front windows and damaging the front door. Pastor Graetz, a young white minister serving the city’s primarily African American […]

By Mikaela Lefrak, WAMU 88.5 A 1000-square-foot art installation depicting suffragist and civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells will go on display in D.C.’s Union Station on Aug. 24. British artist Helen Marshall created the portrait of Wells out of around 5,000 historic, black-and-white photographs from the suffrage movement. “We need to see her portrait, […]

By Stuart Emmrich, VOGUE Forty-eight years ago this summer, at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, a Black woman made history. The name of Shirley Chisholm, a 47-year-old congresswoman from New York, was placed into nomination for president of the United States. She collected 152 delegate votes, roughly 10% of the total cast, […]

From Yosemite to Biscayne Bay, these hidden figures helped save natural wonders and historic places. By James Edward Mills, National Geographic WHEN I BEGAN exploring the outdoors, I had no idea that Black people had played a vital role in the creation of Yosemite, one of my favorite national parks. I had never heard the story […]

By Elisa Turner, Hyperallergic MIAMI — The double portrait of father and son presents an extraordinarily intimate experience on the usually busy public plaza surrounding the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami which is currently closed.  On a recent weekend, the plaza was a lonely place baking in harsh sunlight, thanks to Covid-19 restrictions against […]