"Where Faith Matters Today…and Always!"
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MEMORIAL & MUSEUM The mission of the African American Civil War Museum is to correct a great wrong in history that largely ignored the enormous contributions of the 209,145 members of the United States Colored Troops. It tells the stories and preserves for posterity the historic roles these brave men […]
When millions of African-Americans fled the South in search of a better life, they remade the nation in ways that are still being felt By Isabel Wilkerson SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE By (1963), millions of African-Americans had already testified with their bodies to the repression they had endured in the Jim Crow South by defecting to the North and […]
Elizabeth Keckly, Dressmaker and Confidante to Mary Todd Lincoln Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley ( February 1818 – May 1907) was a former slave who became a successful seamstress, civil rights activist, and author in Washington, DC. She was best known as the personal modiste and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. Keckley had moved to Washington in 1860 after […]
When You Are Lost, Thank Gladys West for Your GPS byCathy Dyson, The (Fredericksburg, Va.) Free Lance-Star /AP via militarytimes.com Gladys West was putting together a short bio about herself for a sorority function that recognized senior members of the group. She noted her 42-year career at the Navy base at Dahlgren and devoted one short-and-sweet line to the fact she […]
By Alexis Clark They were called “brown babies,” or “mischlingskinder,” a derogatory German term for mixed-race children. And sometimes they were just referred to as mutts. Born during the occupation years in Germany after World War II, the offspring of German women and African-American soldiers, their fathers were usually transferred elsewhere and their mothers risked social […]
Meet the man who created Black History Month By CNN Staff Updated 12:34 PM ET, Fri February 1, 2019 February marks Black History Month, a federally recognized, nationwide celebration that calls on all Americans to reflect on the significant roles that African-Americans have played in shaping US history. But how did this celebration come to […]
Cancer cells were taken from her body without permission. They led to a medical revolution. BY ADEEL HASSAN She never traveled farther than Baltimore from her family home in southern Virginia, but her cells have traveled around the earth and far above it, too. She was buried in an unmarked grave, but the trillions of those […]
by BREANNA EDWARDS via essence.com If you are a medical professional (particularly a Black medical professional), or just an overall Black history buff, you likely have heard of Mary Eliza Mahoney. For those who have been denied tales of Mahoney’s excellence, she is heralded as the first African-American licensed nurse. Mahoney worked in nursing for almost 40 years before retiring, but […]
Our visit to the National Memorial, a memorial to the named and unnamed victims of lynching, began in the rain. We toured the grounds and looked at row upon row of rectangular steel blocks inscribed with the names of victims in each county in which a lynching took place. We walked a winding path through […]
Citizens of Color, 1863-1890:Black society after the Civil War In the nineteenth century, there were five Black churches. That number was probably due more to the variety of beliefs than a reflection of the number of Black neighborhoods in Hartford. According to the Hartford Black History Project, “Although the Front Street Black Neighborhood was not the […]
‘We Can Be a Better Country If We Know These Stories.’ The Complicated History of African Americans in the Military By LILY ROTHMAN January 31, 2018 There are as many different kinds of war stories as there are people who have been called to fight. There are inspirational war stories, gruesome war stories, sad war stories. […]
Black History Month 2018 honors “African Americans in Times of War” like the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, who were highly decorated for their service in World War II. The theme for Black History Month in 2018 was “African Americans in Times of War” honoring those brave men and women who served their countries in the armed […]
Meet Bessie Blount Griffin, a physical therapist, inventor, and forensic scientist who invented an electronic feeding device in 1951 to help amputees feed themselves. She also invented the cardboard disposable emesis basis. A physical therapist working with wounded soldiers during World War II, Griffin realized that soldiers struggled with feeding themselves. She programmed a tube to […]
Charlotte Forten was born into a prominent African American family in Philadelphia. Her father, Robert, was the son of James Forten (1766-1842), was a businessman and antislavery activist who was a leader in Philadelphia’s free black community, and his wife, also named Charlotte, identified in census records as “mulatto.” The elder Charlotte, along with her three daughters […]