history

The legacy of the “3/5ths Compromise” in the U.S. Constitution is often misunderstood.

Counting enslaved people was what SLAVERS wanted. The higher a state’s population, the more power it got in Congress. So if enslaved people were counted, slave OWNERS got more power. 

Today, it’s the opposite - we need to be counted, but now they don’t want us to be.

Dick Gregory had a choice to make as he left the army and pursued a comedy career.

No Black comedian had ever broken out of segregated nightclubs into mainstream success. Should he try to appeal to white audiences so he could cross over? Or stay true to himself and his people?

A breakthrough opportunity to perform at a major club appeared in the ‘60s - to a wealthy, white audience - and Gregory made his choice.

“It looks a lot like slavery,” said Kyra Lambert, a basketball player, at a recent forum for Black student-athletes. 

But the connection between Black athletes and slavery is even more direct than many think.

The Queen of Soul passed away in 2018, leaving a lasting legacy of hit songs, 18 of which won Grammy awards. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award, was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Now, her life story will soon become a major film.

According to The Root, it will chronicle her “rise to fame in the 1960s and 1970s and some of her tumultuous relationships.”

Brown v. Board of Education didn’t settle much in the fight for equality in education. Barbara Pace Hunt, Iris Mae Welch, and Myra Elliott learned that the hard way in 1956 as Georgia State University fought the federal mandate to integrate. 

Upon applying, the school insisted that only an impossible recommendation letter from white alumni would do.

As Hunt v. Arnold raged in federal court, a state-sponsored character assassination campaign ensued.

The Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma held a thriving self-sufficient community known as Black Wall Street. 

Out of jealousy, a mob of Ku Klux Klan members burned every establishment to the ground, terrorized inhabitants, and killed hundreds.

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre traumatized generations, yet many Americans still have no clue such a devastating act of racial violence ever occurred.  

In 1912, Black people believed in promises of racial progress made by Woodrow Wilson ahead of his presidential election.

But once installed, he changed his mind about equality altogether. 

The House declared intermarriage a felony, the Post Master separated white clerks from Black, and even the Treasury and Navy were resegregated on his watch.

In 1978, Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt joined the Black Panthers, and rose up the ranks to lead the Los Angeles chapter.

But because he was a “powerful leader,” he was targeted - an FBI informant within the Panthers eventually took him down.

When a SWAT team raided Pratt’s home late one night, they had every intention of assassinating him. Their vile plan failed.