Category: Black History

By EJI Staff, EJI On August 3, 1919, several days of racial violence targeting Black communities in Chicago, Illinois, came to an end after intervention by the state militia. After five days of gunfire, beatings, and burnings, fifteen white people and twenty-three African Americans had been killed, 537 people injured, and 1,000 African American families were left […]

By Anna Claire Vollers, AL.com A letter written by one Civil Rights icon in remembrance of another is now for sale. Rosa Parks wrote a letter, detailing her thoughts about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to a Mr. Kessler. The letter, dated Oct. 6, 1981, is available on the website Moments in Time, at a price […]

Said artist Grace Lynne Haynes: Truth was “one of the first Black women to win a case against a white man.” By N. Jamiyla Chisholm, Colorlines Visual artist Grace Lynne Haynes debuted a new portrait of famed abolitionist Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) for the cover story of The New Yorker, titled “Sojourner Truth, Founding Mother,” the magazine announced July 27 via Twitter. The painting and […]

Sarah Elizabeth Ray’s efforts helped set the stage to desegregate public schools in America By Matthew Allen, theGrio The fight for civil rights is full of unsung heroes, especially women, and one of those sheroes in Sarah Elizabeth Ray is getting their story told through a new documentary. The Detroit Free Press posted a short documentary about Ray and […]

— HENRY SAPOZNIK In over 40 years of working with historic sound recordings, there has only been one record in which I had an irresistible burning interest and passionate curiosity to hear but one which a) no one had or b) had never even heard of: a single June, 1923 OKeh session credited to a […]

Images of his beating at Selma shocked the nation and led to swift passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; he was called the conscience of the Congress. By Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the […]

By Karen Attiah, The Washington Post As the Washington football team finally gives up its racist slur of a name, there is one major sports team that has avoided the spotlight and resisted meaningful engagement with the violent and racist implications of its name. To know the full history of the Texas Rangers is to understand that […]

By EJI Staff, EJI On the afternoon of Saturday, July 13, 1929, more than 200 black residents of North Platte, Nebraska, were driven out of the city by a mob of white residents. The mob targeted the entire black community with violence after a black man was accused of killing a local white police officer. […]

By Tulani Salahu-Din, Smithsonian I never fully realized the monumental role that massive numbers of children played in civil rights protests. Law enforcement arrested and jailed children by the thousands for days, and sometimes months, and their involvement helped to enable one of the greatest legal and social assaults on racism in the 20th century—the Civil Rights […]

Although she’s often overshadowed by her husband, Frederick Douglass, Anna made his work possible By Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian Magazine The story of Frederick Douglass’ hopes and aspirations and longing desire for freedom has been told—you all know it. It was a story made possible by the unswerving loyalty of Anna Murray.” So began Rosetta Douglass […]