Stokely Carmichael was, in the 60s, a powerful critic of the nonviolence movement:
“Dr. King’s policy was… your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved… [but] in order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”
Black women are always criticized for being “angry.” Audre Lorde in 1981 flipped the script:
From the 1950s until 1961, NAACP chapter leader Robert F. Williams fought hard for equality.
While he was down for civil demonstrations and peaceful protest, one thing he refused to be was a sitting duck.
Williams was the first outspoken leader to advocate for gun ownership among Black communities as protection against racial violence.
He secured an NRA charter specifically to organize a rifle club known as the Black Armed Guard. These 60 brothers had weapons ready to use against lynch mobs looking for a fight.
Working on a Pullman train was one of the few jobs available to Black people after the Civil War.
But conditions were terrible - wages were low, workers often had 70-hour weeks, and they had to spend half their pay on uniforms, meals, and housing!
When workers got organized to demand better working conditions, Pullman retaliated by firing them, spying on meetings, and buying “support” from Black churches, who denounced the organizers. But they wouldn’t give up.
During a time when most Black folks didn’t own large plots of land, the Reverend Isaac Simmons of Amite County, Mississippi owned 270 acres!
He grew crops and sold lumber, working the land with his family. But in 1941, word got around that reverend’s land sat on oil...
Six white men decided they wanted the land, but Reverend Simmons sought the help of a lawyer to ensure it would go to his progeny.
The Stono Slave Rebellion kicked off on September 9, 1793 with a group of 20 rebels killing two South Carolina gun shop owners before arming themselves, heading south to Florida for freedom, rescuing other slaves along the route, and destroying any oppressors who dared block their way.
But time was of the essence as 20 white militia men closed in.
The rebellion ended with dozens of enslaved and slaveowners killed, while those enslaved who survived the standoff were captured and executed.
Nigerian-Cameroonian musician “Prince” Nico Mbarga created an international hit bigger than the Beatles’ bestseller “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”
So why couldn’t record label executives recognize they had a global sensation on their hands?
Nico Mbarga grew up in rural Ikom, Nigeria struggling to explore his passion for music while helping provide for his widowed mother and siblings.
When the Biafran Civil War broke out in 1967, the conflict offered Mbarga his first opening to dream bigger.
James Meredith knew what it was like to face racist threats - he was the first Black student at Ole Miss. Now he faced a new danger.
He walked along Highway 51 through Mississippi, with purpose and poise - and without fear. But his resolve would soon be shaken.
It was 1966, and he’d organized the “March Against Fear” - an attempt to show Black Southerners that, despite racist threats, they had nothing to fear when registering to vote.
He was, in some respects, wrong. On only the second day of the march, Meredith was shot, hospitalizing him.
Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance was historic for the unapologetic Blackness she displayed. Her rendition of “Lift Every Voice And Sing” at the festival was broadcast to tens of millions of viewers across the world, bringing the classic to a new audience.
Why is the song so significant that she’d open the biggest festival concert EVER with it?
“Lift Every Voice And Sing” was originally written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, and his brother John wrote the music. The very first performance of the poem was by Florida schoolchildren in 1900.
Content Warning: The following story contains graphic details about rape, sexual assault, and torture.
Rape. Sexual exploitation. Depraved violence. This was the reality of our enslaved ancestors. And while we often discuss the disturbing sexual abuse women faced, men also were victims.
Masters wanted to totally control their “property” and sexual violence was wielded as a weapon. For example, if an enslaved man was having a relationship with an enslaved woman the master desired, castration or genital mutilation was a likely consequence.
In October 1912, the murder of a young white woman named Mae Crow, and the rape of another, incited violence across the northern Georgia county of Forsyth.
With torches and nooses in hand, vigilantes lynched innocent Black men - first Rob Edwards, next teenagers Oscar Daniel and Ernest Knox - before hunting for others.
Every single one of Forsyth’s 1,098 Black residents was driven out of town that night.