I Rise
Like the phoenix rising from the ashes
Actor Janelle Monaé (Hidden Figures) is set to star as the iconic entertainer Josephine Baker in a new TV series titled De La Resistance. So who was Josephine Baker? Exotic cabaret dancer, operatic singer, comedienne, first black movie star, and bisexual celebrity. Although all these titles frequently appear in searches connected to entertainer Josephine Baker, …
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group founded after the American Civil War to suppress and victimise newly freed African American slaves. Over the decades their targets have grown to include Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Catholics, Jews, atheists and Muslims as well as immigrants and homosexuals. On 24 …
The theme of Black History Month 2021 is Proud to Be. How did our ancestors reclaim their dignity and what made them proud to be after slavery? I grew up listening to a lot of uplifting songs that told me I should be proud to be black. Growing up during a time when the …
The brutal abduction and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on 28 August 1955, brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. It also spurred the emerging civil rights movement in America. Emmett Till – Early life Emmett Louis Till was born on 25 July 1941 the only son of Mami Carthan …
Madam C J Walker was an entrepreneur best known for inventing Black haircare products. She was a political social activist, philanthropist and the first female self-made millionaire. Early years Born Sarah Breedlove on 23 December 1867, Madam C J Walker was the first child in her family to be born into freedom after the signing …
Onesimus was an enslaved West African man whose African teachings helped to reduce the impact of the smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. Little is known about Onesimus before he was enslaved other than he was Coromantee (also known as Akan people from modern Ghana). Like many enslaved people his original name, age and date of …
You’ve heard of Rosa Parks but what do you know of Claudette Colvin? Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette did the exact same thing. Early life Claudette Austin was born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, to Mary Jane Gadson and C P Austin …
What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It is observed annually on 19 June. It is also called Emancipation Day, or Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. The term Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth. History of Juneteenth During the American Civil …
Marsha P Johnson was an outspoken transgender rights activist at the forefront of important moments in LGBTQ+ history. Her activism in the 1960s and 70s had an enormous impact on the LGBTQ+ community. Marsha P Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jnr on 24 August 1945 in New Jersey, United States. It was only after leaving …
What is Black Lives Matter? The Black Lives Matter movement started as a hashtag on social networks and officially began in the United States in 2013 after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in Florida. The movement grew to protest not just the justice system in America but police brutality against …
Viola Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the racist attack on Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street”, testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing to mark the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Viola Fletcher was 7 when a white mob destroyed the all-Black neighbourhood in Tulsa and killed 300 Black people. For nearly a century the …
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. Death and discrimination Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in voting based on race, efforts by civil rights organisations such as the Student …
Claudia Jones was a feminist, political activist, pioneering journalist, and visionary. She is known for being the ‘Mother of Caribbean Carnival in Britain’. Early years Claudia Jones was born on 21 February 1915 in Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. At the age of eight, her family emigrated to Harlem, New York following the post-war cocoa price crash …
There are many who claim that John Hanson was the first Black president of the United States, not Barack Obama. This tale is continuously shared on social media. Because many people believe that everything posted on Facebook or Twitter is the truth, lies will spread like wildfire and before you know it, it has taken …
Sandra Bland is another black life lost under hinky police circumstances. The 28-year-old’s death in a Texas county jail on 13 July, three days after a routine traffic stop turned into a confrontation has attracted scepticism and disbelief from many who have been following the case. Whilst concerned American’s continue to keep a tally of …
We’ve debunked the tale of how Black Friday came about, now we will fact check the crazy tale of the etymology of picnic. Have you heard the story about where the word picnic comes from? If you haven’t, you’ve been lucky so far. If you have, let’s fact check that story. Here’s another tall tale …
Originally written as a poem “Bitter Fruit” by Abel Meeropol became a song performed famously by Billie Holiday. Meeropol, a white, Jewish high school teacher from the Bronx and a member of the Communist Party wrote it as a protest against lynchings. His inspiration came from the photograph by Lawrence Beitler of the 1930 lynching …
In this post we fact check the origins of Black Friday and the Willie Lynch speech. Toni Braxton posted a call to boycott Black Friday on her Facebook page with an image of a slave auction and text claiming that Black Friday was linked to slave auctions the day after Thanksgiving. This post did the …
Greenwood, Tulsa was once a prosperous, modern, cultured Black community known as Black Wall Street until it was burned down by envious racists.
Harriet Tubman escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist. She led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom along the route of the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1822 to enslaved parents Harriet “Rit” Green, who was owned by Mary Pattison Brodess and Ben Ross, who was owned by Anthony …
Civil rights leader Rosa Parks was honoured with a commemorative statue in the US Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesday 27 February 2013. Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus for a white passenger in 1955 sparked a boycott that galvanised the movement for equal rights for Black people …
Ida B Wells was born into slavery on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her father, James, was a carpenter and her mother, Elizabeth, was a famous cook. Both parents were literate and taught Ida how to read at a young age. She was surrounded by political activists and grew up with a sense …
Fred Hampton was a political activist born August 30, 1948. He was killed as he lay in bed in his apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Murder of Fred Hampton is …
Crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, poor education, inferiority complex, low expectation, poverty, corruption, poor health, and underdevelopment plagues people of African descent globally – Why? 500 years later from the onset of Slavery and subsequent Colonialism, Africans are still struggling for basic freedom-Why? Filmed in five continents, and over twenty countries, 500 Years Later engages the authentic …
