Our Black History

The man behind the camera is LIFE photographer, Gordon Parks, who would say a portrait was a forceful “weapon of choice,” in the struggle against inequality. Parks was on assignment in September 1956 in the suburbs of the deep South under the Jim Crow segregation laws. Only twenty of the dozens of photos he took were published for the article and it was his foundation, the Gordon Parks Foundation that uncovered the rest of his photographs, thought lost forever, until last Spring..

William Henry Dorsey never imagined that there would be a National Scrapbooking Day (May 4), and most present-day scrapbookers probably never have heard of Dorsey. But Dorsey, the son of an escaped slave, was one of the most prolific scrapbook makers in the United States.

Nursing has come a long way over the years, and its evolution – at least politically – owes much to the exceptional service, advocacy and determination of African Americans in the profession. From the inspirational Harriet Tubman to the feisty Mary Eliza Mahoney, these 10 women stand as shining examples to any aspiring nurse.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Relatives of four black girls killed when Ku Klux Klan members bombed an Alabama church are split over how to mark the crime 50 years later, with some favoring a congressional medal honoring the victims and others seeking...

To those that say slavery wasn't all that bad and, in fact, was GOOD for African Americans, I can only say this: 'How 'bout YOU take a turn in the fields wearing chains and THEN tell us how it was?...

In an ongoing revisionist history effort, Southern schools and churches still pretend the war wasn't about slavery

(RNS) Fighting in the Muslim country of Mali in western Africa has delayed the American tour of a unique exhibit featuring centuries-old texts and artifacts from Timbuktu, an ancient center of Islamic learning.

The very idea of “slave action figures” is something that was anticipated a few years ago by conceptual videographer and filmmaker, Pierre Bennu, whose “Black Moses Barbie” trilogy depicts the Underground Railroad in a series of mock commercials featuring the fictitious “Black Moses” Barbie Doll.

In the red-light district of St Louis in 1895, a pimp shot a man dead in an argument over a hat. The ballad telling the story has been recorded by hundreds of bluesmen and jazzers - and even the Clash. It also helped create modern-day rap. Cecil Brown tells the remarkable tale of Stagolee

This African American History Month, meet Troy Demps, 86, who is trying to preserve the haunting art of "hymn-lining". A celebrated tradition that dates back to slavery, hymn lining incorporates African tonal languages and rhythmic and percussive hand clapping and stomping.

Knowing that we can learn so much about our history from the foods our ancestors ate, culinarian historian Michael Twitty is on a mission to trace his family history through his ancestors’ culinary experiences.

AFRICANGLOBE - For me, one of the most haunting of all the images captured by Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is of an Ethiopian prince and his captor. The picture illustrates the paradoxes of Britain’s 19th century imperial adventure.

The legacy of slavery still persists in many black churches, even though it’s been 150 years since President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves.

It isn’t possible to tell the story of the Civil War without recourse to the million photographic images that were created, some of the best of which are part of a new museum exhibition.

We might be going out on a limb here, but we're guessing that most of our readers aren't hardcore Civil War historians.

"On September 14, 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States. (President McKinley had been assassinated.) One of his first actions was requesting the presence of Booker T. Washington so that they could discuss civil rights issues. 

Section 5 is as necessary today as it was in 1965, when Alabama state troopers beat freedom marchers in Selma.

McComb, Miss., was a battleground in the war for voting rights in the South. But now residents disagree over whether Mississippi and eight other states need federal approval for voting changes.

Actor/producer Jesse Williams says Quentin Tarantino's film "Django Unchained" subordinates black characters and fails to illuminate the history of slavery.

Vanderbilt University Archive of interviews (audio and transcript) of over 40 civil rights leaders.

As Southern whites sink into economic despair, more and more are retreating into a fictional past.