Haile Selassie became Ethiopia’s final emperor on this day in 1930, ruling the country for over four decades before he was exiled from power. He is remembered not just as the head of an African nation but as a deity in the Rastafarian religion. November 2 is seen among Rastafarian practitioners as a holy day. […]
In the late 60’s in Chicago, tensions between white police officers and Black city residents were tense. Observing the mistreatment of Black people, Black officers on the Chicago force formed the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League to serve as a bridge of communication and protector for their respective communities. The AAPL was formed by Edward “Buzz” Palmer, […]
Black circus performers have found varying levels of fame over the years, but little is known about the stars of Europe. Olga Kaira, better known as Miss LaLa, dazzled audiences across the continent and was the subject of one of the art world’s most prized works. Anna Olga Albertina Brown was born April 21, 1858 […]
Blacks oppressed by white and violent hate groups across the Deep South saw reason to celebrate on this day in 1988. The Ku Klux Klan and the Southern White Knights of Forsyth County, Ga. were ordered to pay nearly $1 million to its Black victims. On January 17, 1987, around 55 marchers gathered in the […]
William Peyton Hubbard, the first notable Black elected official in Toronto, and will be honored this weekend with the unveiling of a park in his name. Hubbard, the son of slaves, came to politics when he was in his fifties. Hubbard was born in 1842 in an area just outside of Toronto known as “The Bush,” […]
Dr. Justina L. Ford was a pioneering physician who practiced medicine in Colorado, despite facing the barriers of race and gender. Dr. Ford, better known as the “Lady Doctor,” was rumored to have delivered 7,000 babies in her lifetime and was the lone Black female doctor in the state for the first half of the […]
Comedian and author Dick Gregory has been active since the ’60’s and is showing no signs of slowing down. Gregory turns 84 today and the activist remains fiery and opinionated as ever. Richard Claxton Gregory was born in 1932 in St. Louis. A star track and field athlete, Gregory ran for two years as a […]
The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund is the first civil and human rights law firm, established in 1940 by late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The early seeds of the LDF can be traced to the year before when prominent Black attorney Charles Hamilton Houston helped bolster the NAACP’s legal department. Houston, a former vice-dean and dean […]
Racial cleansings have occurred in America at various instances throughout history. But in 1912, an incident in Forsyth County, Ga. is remembered as the largest case of Black expulsion ever recorded. Back in September of that year, two white women were attacked at separate intervals, allegedly by Black residents of the predominately white county. Ellen […]
Marques Brownlee was once called the best technology reviewer on the planet by a former top executive at Google. While Brownlee has never made such a claim for himself, his popular YouTube channel is one of the most-watched on the social media network. Brownlee, 22, is a native of Maplewood, N.J. He came by his […]
The nation’s first Black-owned television station, WGPR, officially debuted on this day in 1975 in Detroit, Mich.. The station was the brainchild of William V. Banks, a son of a Kentucky sharecropper who also created Detroit’s first Black-owned radio station bearing the same call letters. William Venoid Banks was a Detroit attorney and leader of […]
In times past, African-Americans have pretended to pass as a white person to avoid harassment and discrimination. The reverse has happened many times as well,(think Rachel Dolezal) as in the case of Rev. L.M. Fenwick, who was a white pastor pretending to be Black. The Fenwick case is curious and not rich in detail, although historians […]
