*Black history and American abortion are affirmed on this date in 1500. African women endured many crimes against humanity as part of the Middle Passage. White rape from enslavers, and forced childbearing to supply labor for the slave base agrarian culture of the 13 colonies, Antebellum South, and more. Beginning in the 17th century, abortion and […]
learn more*On this date in 1935, Grovey v. Townsend was decided. This United States Supreme Court decision held a reformulation of Texas’s white primaries system to be constitutional. The case was the third in a series of Court decisions known as the “Texas primary cases.” In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), Lawrence A. Nixon sued for damages under federal civil rights […]
learn more*The establishment of Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School is celebrated on this date in 1901. The fort was a military base and training facility on the south side of Des Moines, Iowa. There have been three forts called Fort Des Moines. Fort Des Moines No. 1 (1834–1837), a U.S. Army post that […]
learn more*On this date in 1932, Nixon v. Condon was decided. This was a voting rights case decided by the United States Supreme Court, which found the all-white Democratic Party primary in Texas unconstitutional. Nixon v. Condon was one of four cases brought to challenge the Texas all-white Democratic Party primary. The National Association for the […]
learn more*On this date in 2022, a 1947 Freedom Riders conviction was officially vacated. “We failed these men,” said Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour, who presided over the special session and at one point paused to gather himself after becoming emotional. “We failed their cause, and we failed to deliver justice in our community,” Baddour said. “And for […]
learn more*On this date in 1960, Burkina Faso gained independence from France. Starting in the early 1890s, during the white-European Berlin Conference, many white military officers attempted to claim parts of what is today Burkina Faso. At times these colonialists and their armies fought the local peoples; at times, they forged alliances with them and made treaties. […]
learn more*The Emancipation Reform of Russia was enacted on this date in 1861. also known as the Edict of Emancipation of Russia, it was the first and most important of the liberal reforms enacted during the reign of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. The reform effectively abolished serfdom throughout the Russian Empire. The 1861 Emancipation Manifesto […]
learn more*On this date in 1892, a young Black man was lynched in upstate (Orange County), New York. Robert Lewis was a 28-year-old Black man lynched in Port Jervis, New York. The mob accused Lewis of assaulting a white woman, Lena McMahon, in an incident by the Neversink River after she had possibly been meeting with her estranged […]
learn more*Black history and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) in America are affirmed on this date in 1969. The Weather Underground was a radical left militant organization active in the late 1960s and 1970s, founded on the campus of the University of Michigan. It was initially called the Weathermen. The WUO was organized that year as […]
learn more*On this date in 1858, the ship Commodore arrived from San Francisco. Among the 400 or 500 Emigrants were 35 black men of different trades and calling, chiefly intending to settle here. They were congregants of the First A.M.E. Zion Church of San Francisco. On Monday (the following day), drinking tea at Mrs. Blinkhorn’s with […]
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