Frances Perkins was having lunch in New York on March 25, 1911, when the sound of fire engines lured her and her companions onto the street to see what was taking place. Perkins – at the time the Executive Secretary of the New York City Consumers League – had been hard at work on industrial reform, advocating better fire protection for factories and a limit to the number of weekly working hours for women and children, among other worker... Read more
Carolyn Bryant (now Donham), whose accusations against Emmett Till led to his murder in 1955, has died at age 88. Bryant Donham was working in her family’s store in Money, Mississippi – a store which did a thriving business with Black sharecroppers who lived in the area – when 14-year-old Till, a youth from Chicago visiting relatives nearby, entered the store. He apparently spoke to Bryant Donham while attempting to purchase some candy or... Read more
Lester Tanner wasn’t trying to make a name for himself when he shared the story of the man who saved his life during World War II. But he did, nonetheless, when he revealed a story that his hero had never shared. Tanner gone on to become an attorney after serving in World War II. He was living in New York and was being interviewed by the New York Times regarding a real estate deal in which he had been... Read more
On March 21, 1960, a group of South African men from the township of Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg, chose to stage a protest of the country’s requirement that black South Africans carry “passbooks” to regulate their movement into and through the major cities. The law requiring “passbooks,” just one symbol of South Africa’s segregationist apartheid policies, mandated that black South Africans over the age of 16 carry identification, employment authorization, and authorization to move between the black townships to... Read more
Several years ago, I heard an address given by a leader who was nearing retirement; he expressed concern, with such a short time remaining to serve in his role, about what kind of legacy he would create. His comments were puzzling for me: This leader had been established in his vocation for decades, and he had enjoyed a number of years in the role from which he would retire. Surely, I thought, he must know that his legacy wouldn’t... Read more
On March 3, 1865, the eve of President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration, Lincoln signed into law an act which established a “Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands”. Debated in Congress for over a year before its enactment, the act established a federal Freedmen’s Bureau which was envisioned to provide federal protection and aid to nearly four million formerly enslaved persons who had been granted freedom by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation two years before. Having become increasingly convinced in... Read more
I think of my great-grandfather when I think of Frederick Douglass. I’m told that my great-grandfather, born into slavery in 1862, never learned to read or write. But he insisted, when his youngest son married a woman who could read and write, that she would become the teacher for all of the children in the family, and he built a schoolhouse on his land to provide a school where none was provided. The words, “Until we’re educated, we’ll always be... Read more
In 2017, I stumbled across an article about a statue of a physician named J. Marion Sims, who had lived and practiced medicine in Alabama and New York in the mid-19th century. Dr. Sims has been recognized as the “father of modern gynecology,” credited with having developed the speculum and other instruments now commonly used in the care of women. Sims was also credited with the pioneering the surgical repair of the vesicovaginal fistula, a condition in which a delivering... Read more
Thursday, February 1, 1968 was a cold, rainy day. Memphis sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker likely considered themselves fortunate that day, despite the cold rain: They were at least working, and getting paid. Memphis’ black sanitation workers could be sent home on rainy days – and if they weren’t working their regular garbage routes, they wouldn’t be paid for the day. But that day, the truck from which Cole and Walker were working was rolling through a... Read more
People often ask me why I’m not a fan of Black History Month. My explanation is simple: It’s impossible to compress the history, contributions and accomplishments of people whose lives are inextricably linked with this soil on which we’ve lived for 400 years in a 28-day period of time. It is also impossible to tell the history of black persons in this country without telling the story of all of us – black and white. Our history, since slavery, is... Read more
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