*On this date in 1969 the first performance played at the Harlem Cultural Festival. Also known as Black Woodstock, this was a series of music concerts that took place in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. The concerts celebrated African American music and culture and promoted the continued politics of black pride. Some of the artist included Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly & the Family Stone, Chuck Jackson, Abbey Lincoln & Max […]
learn more*On this date in 1924, The Racial Integrity Act was passed in the state of Virginia. The state’s General Assembly passed two laws that arose out of white concerns about eugenics and race. This was influenced by the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 due to the number of cases reported by doctors where they found genetic traits in whites that are […]
learn moreDakota County historian Heidi Langenfeld share some of stories about early black settlers in Hastings, Minnesota
learn more*On this date in 1866. The Treaty with Cherokee Nation was signed. This document constituted articles pertaining to African Cherokee Citizens and ended Slavery in the Cherokee Nation. it also exemplifies the historic intersectionality of the African American and Native American community. This voided a “pretended treaty” with Confederate Cherokees; granted amnesty to Cherokees; established a […]
learn more*On this date in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church, New York City. Given exactly one year before he was murdered, this was a major turning point in many powerful entities viewed the influence of this man to unite the countries citizens. Below is to complete text of […]
learn moreOn this date in 1967, African American boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and was immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in Louisville, Kentucky, the future three-time world champ changed his name to Muhammad […]
learn more*On this date in 2019 the United State Department of the Interior renamed Runaway Negro Creek to Freedom Creek. The body of water is a stream in Chatham County, Georgia, in the United States. The creek runs along the edge of Skidaway Island State Park. This century the former name of the creek attracted the attention of media commentators and on […]
learn more*On this date in 2019, the first black woman was elected mayor of Chicago, Illinois. Former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot easily won the Chicago mayor’s race earning support from every part of the city to defeat a longtime political insider. She also become the first openly gay person to lead the United States of Americas third-largest […]
learn more*On this date in 1954, the first Festa Confederada was celebrated. This partial preservation of the United States of America’s ‘Old South’ happens yearly at the end of April in Santa Barbara d’Oeste, near Sau Paulo, Brazil since 1954. With the historic confederate loss of the civil war, many southerners fled to brazil, some for racial beliefs, […]
learn more*Isaac Woodard Jr. was born on this date in 1919. He was a decorated African American World War IIveteran and hate crime victim. Woodard was born in Fairfield County, South Carolina, and grew up in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He attended local segregated schools, often underfunded for blacks during the Jim Crow years. On October 14, 1942, the 23-year-old Woodard enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Jackson in Columbia, […]
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