After finally breaking free from British control, the island of Jamaica was struggling - poverty, racism, and unfair taxation kept the Black population from self-determination.
A Quaker abolitionist, James Phillipo, was able to purchase a bit of land and establish the first town for free Black people in the entire Caribbean/West Indies - Sligoville.
It’s a sad truth: there are only a handful of Black farmers left. One reason why is the Great Migration, which saw millions of Black people leave the South due to racism throughout the 20th century. Another reason?
It’s been much harder for Black people to pass down farms. “My kids never saw me do nothing but struggle to stay on my farm,” explained farmer John Boyd, Jr. It’s even more difficult when legal documents like deeds and wills are hard to come by.
Mainstream music awards have been doing Black women artists wrong for decades. Did you know Aretha Franklin was NEVER nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys?
Well, MTV is finally acknowledging a legendary hitmaker for something we’ve known for decades. That legend is Missy Elliott. And she DESERVES the Video Vanguard Award.
Black Christians express their faith in and worship God in a number of deeply-held traditions.
From the outside looking in, it’s easy to misunderstand the place of tradition within the contemporary struggle for liberation. And yet, there is value to be found.
The tradition of wearing your “Sunday’s best” is when churchgoers adorn their heads with glorious hats, their bodies with starched up dresses or suits, and their soles with shined shoes.
About 70% of Black Americans have low or no swimming ability, putting them at risk any time they come into contact with water.
Black children are FIVE TIMES more likely to drown than white children! Hundreds of Black children drown EVERY year. The reasons for this are complex.
For decades, city pools and beaches were legally off-limits to Black people, and only wealthy suburban families could afford backyard pools.
We see it every day: homelessness, poverty, and hunger are all things we view as almost normal. Yet, the thought of violent crime stands out as something much scarier to most.
But there’s another perspective on inequality that you need to know about.
A Pew Research Center reports that people think crime has been increasing around the country, but the opposite is true! According to FBI data, violent crime has DECREASED by nearly HALF between 1993 and 2017. News and sensationalized reporting influence our perceptions.
Massachusetts sea captain Paul Cuffee confronted problems head-on.
In 1812, he was accused of violating a trade embargo with Great Britain and their new colony Sierra Leone. When his ship was seized, he took the matter up with President James Madison himself.
Madison returned Cuffee’s property, but was captivated by one particular radical idea. Cuffee planned to sail to and resettle free Black folks in Sierra Leone, a country already populated by Black Revolutionary War veterans.
Joe Budden recently came under fire for implying that Carnival just about being a “ho.” This self-hate, ignorance, and sexism happens when we don’t know the true history of our people’s cultural traditions. So what is Carnival really about?
Originally an African pagan celebration, Carnival was appropriated by Europeans, connected with Catholic celebrations around Holy Week, and turned into high-society masquerade balls.
When Europeans kidnapped and took enslaved Black people to the Caribbean and the Americas, they continued these Holy Week celebrations.
Allen Allensworth was born into slavery, but escaped - and then rose the ranks in the US Army during and after the Civil War.
Remembering his childhood in slavery, he dreamed of a society of Black people who could educate themselves, take care of each other, and thrive free from racism.
In collaboration with a handful of Black community leaders, he did just that! Together they founded Solito, CA, in 1908 - which was quickly renamed Allensworth, after its founder.
“This project is, above all, an attempt to set the record straight. To finally… tell the truth,” explains Nikole Hannah-Jones, who created the 1619 Project.
One article connects today’s terrible workplace conditions to slavery. Another explains that America’s refusal of Universal Health Care is right in line with its racist history.
Through these and dozens of other articles - nearly all by Black writers - the project retells the history of America by centering the people who built it: the enslaved.