Connecting the past to the present for a better future.
In 1919, my Dad was fourteen years old and living with his parents in Chicago, Illinois. He lived with his parents, siblings, and relatives lived in a mixed race neighborhood. He and his siblings attended integrated Wendell Phillips High School with Italian and other classmates. Years ago, his parents migrated from the South to escape …
World War I was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. It was one of the largest and deadliest wars in history. America was a segregated society and black people were considered second class citizens. Many black people were of the opinion that it was unfair …
According to the book, The Negro Pilgrimage In America, by C. L. Lincoln, the dream of peaceful relations between the races in the South was challenged by outbreaks of racial violence. Riots, lynching’s and disenfranchisement of black people continued. Only one thing, a law that was fairly administered to all citizens could protect minorities and …
According to the book, The Negro Pilgrimage In America, by C.L. Lincoln, “Segregation presented the poor white with a psychological release so strong that he simply overlooked the common lot he shared with the Negro. Awarded social certification as the Negro’s superior, the poor white flaunted the “white supremacy” code because it artificially inflated his …
For years, Southern states benefited from convict leasing. This practice added millions of dollars in revenue to state and local governments. It lowered the tax rate for average citizens and generated money for infrastructure. The firms that hired out prisoners and the employers who worked them to exhaustion profited the most. It served as a …
In the book, The Negro Pilgrimage In America, the author C. L. Lincoln wrote “The Black person’s place in society became a matter of law in every Southern state during the 1890’s. The long legal history of racial discrimination and segregation in the United States antedates the Civil War.” Lincoln wrote that slavery has been …
According to the book, Slavery And The Making of America by James and Lois Horton, in January 1865, months before the South’s surrender, U.S. General Sherman met with about twenty black community members in Savannah, Georgia and discussed what to do with confiscated Confederate land in Georgia, South Carolina and northern Florida. The Secretary of …
Many Black colleges and universities were founded after Reconstruction. An Army officer, General O.O. Howard, head of the Freedman’s Bureau, founded Howard University in Washington, D.C. Some other schools founded during the Reconstruction period are Fisk University in Nashville, Atlanta University, Hampton Institute in Virginia, Talladega College in Alabama, Tougaloo College in Mississippi, Morgan College …
According to C.L. Lincoln in his book, The Negro Pilgrimage in America, the Civil War ended at Appomattox Courthouse in central Virginia on April 9, 1865. There were some cries of vengeance by the Northerners for “treason” by the Southerners. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, was never brought to trial for his role. There were …
According to the book by C.L. Lincoln, The Negro Pilgrimage In America, by the middle of the nineteenth century, there were sectional differences as to whether new states admitted to the Union would be slaveholding or free. The Compromise of 1850 attempted to improve relations by setting up a balanced set of conditions for the …