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Black History Timeline Black LDS History Black U.S. History 1619: First African slaves arrive in what would become the United States. 1816: American Colonization Society formed. At the urging of Charles Fenton Mercer, a Federalist member of the Virginia state assembly, Presbyterian minister Robert Finley helps found the organization which is devoted to bring free blacks from what would later be Liberia to the United States. Despite being overtly anti-slavery, ACS members were openly racist and frequently argued that free blacks would be unable to assimilate into white society. Source: Wikipedia 1815: A.M.E. Church Founded The African Methodist Episcopal...

February is designated "Black History Month." Thus, it feels rather appropriate to bring up some black history and relate it to UMass. In short, UMass's black history, like this nation's black history, reflects pretty poorly on the school's treatment of blacks. The figures for minority and Afro-American access are dismal and do not look like they are getting much better unless drastic changes occur. This is a tragic and untenable phenomenon that must be dealt with. If we look around the UMass campus, sometimes it feels like Hitler won WWII and somehow managed to invade and conquer the United States...

President Bush met this morning with President Amadou Touré of Mali in the Oval Office TranscriptThis afternoon President Bush celebrated African American History Month in the East Room Enoy your visit to Sanity Island

Bush calls modern-day noose displays 'deeply offensive' February 12, 2008 16:00 EST WHITE HOUSE (AP) -- President Bush says recent displays of nooses are disturbing, and show that some Americans are losing sight of suffering that African Americans have endured throughout history. Marking African American history month at the White House, Bush says the era of lynching is "a shameful chapter in American history." He says displaying a noose "is not a harmless prank," and that the word "lynching" shouldn't be mentioned in jest. Bush says the noose is a symbol of "gross injustice," and that Americans should agree that...

Leesburg -- Several Lee County High parents voiced their disapproval Friday, when the school held a Black History Assembly for the black students only. White students were told they could not attend. Only about 19% of the Lee County High School student body is black. Principal Kevin Dowling said he held the black student only assembly to talk to them about test scores, so that none of them would be embarrassed. In Georgia and in Lee County, the black students test scores as a whole are lagging behind white students. In the assembly, Dowling had black parents and teachers talk...

At least 25 bombers being escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen over Europe during World War II were shot down by enemy aircraft, according to a new Air Force report. The report contradicts the legend that the famed black aviators never lost a plane to fire from enemy aircraft...

On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima... Sadly, Sgt McPhatter's experience is not mirrored in Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood's big-budget, Oscar-tipped film of the battle for the Japanese island that opened on Friday in the US. While the film's battle scenes show scores of young soldiers in combat, none of them are African-American. Yet almost 900 African-American troops took part in the battle of Iwo Jima, including Sgt McPhatter...

A portrait of a dashing young sea captain often called the "Black Admiral" was supposed to be a centerpiece for an exhibition of paintings from the Revolutionary War era about black patriots and loyalists. But the portrait, often seen in books on African-American history, was recently discovered to be a fraud. Peter Williams, an expert on painting restoration, was hired to clean the portrait for an exhibit at the historic Fraunces Tavern Museum titled "Fighting for Freedom: Black Patriots and Black Loyalists." But with a quick dab of special paint remover, he discovered that black paint concealed a portrait of...

Parents will be surprised -- at times shocked -- to learn that leading colleges and universities have used the February Black History Month to lash out angrily at whites, to spread socialist ideas, and to honor the Black Panthers, according to a statement released by the Young America's Foundation. They claim that missing from many Black History Month campus activities were positive messages and discussions about the accomplishments that blacks have made in business, education, government, and science. They also complain that "too few black conservative speakers, such as Ward Connerly, Walter Williams, and Star Parker, were invited to provide...

Black History Month Becoming Obsolete? Racism Results in High Rate of Abortion among African-Americans By Terry VanderheydenWASHINGTON, February 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – February is Black History Month in the US, but at least one organization is questioning whether there will be any African-Americans to commemorate the event, as abortion is preferentially committed against the group.One analyst argues that the discrepancy can be traced back to the racist foundation of America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Author Juluette Bartlett Pack, in her essay, A Historical View of Eugenics and Its Role in Abortion in Black America, states, “I argue that there...

So much for the Republican "outreach" to black voters, with only 2 percent of blacks "approving" of the president's performance. If only blacks knew of the true history of the Democratic Party. "Black History Month" has been observed for 29 years, yet many blacks know little to nothing about the parties' respective roles in advancing or hindering the civil rights of blacks. How many blacks know that following the Civil War, 23 blacks -- 13 of them ex-slaves -- were elected to Congress, all as Republicans? The first black Democrat was not elected to Congress until 1935, from the state...

TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) - Lt. Col. Herbert Carter is 86 years old and ready for deployment. More than 60 years after his World War II tour with the pioneering black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, Carter's new mission will be shorter, though no less courageous. Carter is one of seven aging Tuskegee Airmen traveling this weekend to Balad, Iraq - a city ravaged by roadside bombs and insurgent activity - to inspire a younger generation of airmen who carry on the traditions of the storied 332nd Fighter Group. "I don't think it hurts to have someone who can empathize...

<p>After a day of ceremonies, Gov. James E. McGreevey signed into law yesterday a bill that requires that African-American history be incorporated into the core curriculum of New Jersey's public schools.</p> <p>The legislation establishes a 19-member panel known as the Amistad Commission, whose members will include New Jersey's secretary of state, education commissioner and the chairman of the executive board of the President's Council. The commission will approve textbooks that accurately portray the role of African-Americans in U.S. history.</p>

Family breakdown Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, says "the destruction of the black family" today can be traced to a single man from England who purposely paid a visit to Virginia during the early 18th century. "In 1712, British slave owner Willie Lynch was invited to the colony of Virginia to teach his methods of keeping slaves under control to American slave owners," Mr. Rangel says. "Almost 300 years later, the techniques that he prescribed seem to have not only been successful in controlling slaves, but lasting as a means of weakening and destroying the black family." Mr....

CHICAGO - Former Negro Leagues star Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe, believed to be the oldest living professional baseball player, died Thursday. He was 103. Radcliffe, given his singular nickname by sports writer Damon Runyon after catching Satchel Paige in the first game of a doubleheader in the 1932 Negro League World Series and pitching a shutout in the second game, died from complications after a long bout with cancer, the Chicago White Sox said. Radcliffe was frequently in the crowd at U.S. Cellular Field and occasionally visited the White Sox clubhouse. He made it a tradition in recent years to...

Pennsylvania Legislator Asks District to Reconsider "unnecessary" Black History Requirement The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The speaker of the state House urged the city school district to reconsider what he called an "unnecessary" requirement that high school students take an African-American history course in order to graduate. "I would like to see them master basic reading, writing and arithmetic," Speaker John Perzel said in a letter Tuesday to James Nevels, chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission. "Once we have them down pat, I don't care what they teach. ... They should understand basic American history before we go...

Some people are asking: How can the Philadelphia public school system mandate teaching African and African American history? But others of us are asking: How have school officials justified not teaching it in a school district where nearly two-thirds of all students are African American? America is so diverse that we should be teaching the stories of all its people, whether it is Greco-Roman history, including Greek mythology; Ireland's potato famine; the exodus of Eastern Europeans to America; or the roles so many other groups played here, including Italians, Germans, Asians and Latinos. This should all be part of the...

Black History Course Mandated for Philadelphia Schools By Monisha Bansal CNSNews.com Correspondent June 13, 2005 CNSNews.com) - The Philadelphia public school system, citing the fact that blacks encompass two-thirds of its student population, will require all students to take an African-American history course starting in September. But a conservative critic calls the decision divisive and claims Philadelphia parents "are sacrificing their children to a bunch of America-hating black liberals." Joe Lyons, spokesperson for the School District of Philadelphia, said there has been a public outcry since the 1960s "to include more emphasis on African-American history and culture in our curriculum."...

Years before the Civil War, a free black washerwoman is believed to have made her living laundering the clothes of University of Virginia students and professors. Little of her story is known, but a new archeological discovery may help unearth her place in history. Archeologists have uncovered evidence of two additional graves on university grounds, a dozen years after archeologists found 12 other grave shafts nearby. The discovery could shed some light on the people who lived - and now rest - on UVa land, said Mary Hughes, university landscape architect. “We don’t know fully what these explorations mean, but...

PHILADELPHIA - In what could be a first in the United States, the Philadelphia school system will soon require that all high school students take a year of African and African-American studies. Leaders of the school district, where two-thirds of students are black, hope the course will not only keep those students interested in their academic work but also give others a more accurate view of history. “We have the opportunity ... to do something under our watch that is really going to do right by our students, to say, ‘We’ve come from some pretty great places,”’ said assistant superintendent...

Philly Schools to Require African History Class to Graduate NewsMax.com Wires Thursday, June 9, 2005 PHILADELPHIA -- City high school students will be required to take a class in African and African American history to graduate, a move that education experts believe is unique in the nation. The requirement in the 185,000-student district, which is about two-thirds black, begins with September's freshman class, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday. The yearlong course covers subjects including classical African civilizations, civil rights and black nationalism, said Gregory Thornton, the district's chief academic officer. The other social studies requirements are American history, geography and...

Three decades after students demanding African-American studies in city schools clashed with police, the district will require all high schoolers to take a full-year course on the subject. Philadelphia, whose public schools are two-thirds black, may be the first U.S. school district to require the class. "I think it's a promise that we are many, many years late in filling," said Cecilia Cannon, an assistant superintendent for curriculum. "We have the opportunity ... to do something under our watch that is really going to do right by our students. To say, 'We've come from some pretty great places.'" The course...

In what could be a unique move nationally, the Philadelphia School District will require every high school student to take a separate course in African and African-American history to graduate, beginning with this September's freshman class. Both national and local officials said yesterday that they knew of no other district requiring such a course, particularly one focused on African history, for graduation. The School Reform Commission voted unanimously in February to offer courses in both areas at every high school, and said it would consider making one or both courses a graduation requirement. Wednesday, district officials confirmed that they would...

Baltimore Airport Renamed for Marshall By GRETCHEN PARKER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 20 minutes ago ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The governor signed a bill Tuesday renaming Baltimore-Washington International Airport for Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Beginning Oct. 1, the airport will be known as Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed the bill as civil rights leaders and lawmakers looked on. "Our purpose is to honor a great mind who did the most to end legal segregation in America," said state Delegate Emmett Burns, a Baptist minister who introduced the bill.

NEW YORK -- Reflecting vividly on that day 57 years and about a dozen miles away, Rachel Robinson smiled through the memories. "My big concern that morning was, how do I get to Brooklyn (from the hotel)? It was a hoary morning getting to the park," she said. "My five-month-old baby was dressed in California clothes, and he was chilled. "But Ruth Campanella's mom had a fur coat and she draped it over him, and I went to warm up his bottle, then we were all right." Rachel Robinson shrugged lightly. "Maybe that was my way of defending against the...

PHILADELPHIA - Frederick Clinton Branch, the first black commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, died Sunday at a Philadelphia hospital. Branch, whose wartime service on a merchant ship in the Pacific helped earn him a spot in Officer Candidate School, was 82. He was made a lieutenant of the U.S. Marine Corps on Nov. 10, 1945, the 170th anniversary of the founding of the Marines. Branch had previously been rejected for a spot in Officer Training School, and was instead drafted in 1942 while he was a student at Temple University. He had been striving for a Marine commission after...

Published In: New Coalition News & Views Publication Date: January 1, 2005 Publisher: The New Coalition for Economic and Social Change On October 2, 2004, Lee H. Walker addressed The Philadelphia Society’s fall meeting. This year’s topic was “Black History and Conservative Principles.” His remarks were made during a panel discussion, which he moderated, and were delivered as follows. Black conservatism has been an overlooked aspect of American history since the collapse of Reconstruction. Any comprehensive history of black American thought that ignores or isolates the conservative influence will be lopsided. Conferences like this are usually held during the month...

WOODBURY -- Jeffrey Brace was a black slave in the 1700s who endured many hardships. But in a book first published in 1810, and again last year, Brace describes his time spent in a section of what was then Woodbury as a "glorious era of (his) life." The African native was captured there when he was 16 and taken to Milford, where he was owned by a series of cruel masters who beat and abused him, according to the book "The Blind African Slave, or memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, nicknamed Jeffrey Brace." The first edition of the book, an "as...

WASHINGTON - After a disappointing year of raising money, the project to build a National Mall memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. enters a critical phase with a looming rival for donors' dollars. Organizers insist there are plenty of generous people willing to give to both the King project and a proposed National Museum of African American History and Culture, which last month got a major boost when President Bush said the building belongs on the mall. "I do not believe we'll be in direct competition," said Harry Johnson, president of the King Memorial Foundation. "I believe there is enough...

-----Having learned nothing, Kerry now boosts Stalinist W.E.B. Du Bois Why has John Kerry sponsored a Senate resolution honoring a Stalinist who championed racial separatism? The Soviet Union awarded W.E.B. Du Bois the Lenin Peace Prize. Maoist China staged a national holiday in his honor in 1959. Now, for reasons unexplained, the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nominee seeks to honor Du Bois too. Kerry's efforts to honor Du Bois have been joined by fellow Bay State Democrat Ed Markey, who, along with more than three-dozen colleagues, has advanced a similar resolution in the House of Representatives. Both resolutions await floor...

DETROIT -- Bill Cosby wasn't the first to urge African Americans to work hard, mentor others and raise responsible children. Is the message getting through? A Southern preacher traveled the country in the 1950s, encouraging blacks to speak standard English, spend wisely and lower the black-on-black crime rate. Those things, said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were the keys to integration and self-sufficiency. By the time King reached downtown Detroit in 1963 to preview his "I Have a Dream" speech, Tijuana Morris says, King had moved far from his message of hard work and self- dependence. "We need to stop...

Reading Free Blacks Out of HistoryBy Anita L. WillsHistory News Network | February 28, 2005 "We reside among you and yet are strangers; natives and not citizens; surrounded by the freest people and most Republican Institutions in the world and yet enjoying none of the immunities of freedom though we are not slaves we are not yet free." -- Memorial of the Free People of Color, African Repository, December 1826, Baltimore MDAfrican American History month is a month in which Americans celebrate the history of people of African descent. It is a sharing of a culture long ignored by the...

From golden sunrise to the West By Kelly Milner rep7@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle CHEYENNE - Frankie Jones hoped a speaker Saturday helped put Tarzan to rest. "The only concept most people have of Africa is a white man swinging on a tree to save the black people," Jones said. "Every time I see it, it makes me fighting mad." Jones is a member of the Love and Charity Club Inc. that sponsored a Black History Month event Saturday called "Looking Back and Moving Forward." The Rev. Clinton Lewis was the speaker for the service, which was held at...

The month of February has begun and so has the celebration of Black History Month in the nation, schools and communities. Throughout this time, many noteworthy leaders, citizens, scientists and soldiers who fought in wars and conflicts will be recognized. However, there is one group of African Americans who will receive no recognition again this year during this month. I am speaking of black Confederates who served and fought to defend their homeland from what they believed to be an armed invasion. Advertisement The South was home to some 4 million who lived there and had roots going back more...

GOP's Proud Black Legacy [part way down the article] The House Policy Committee's 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar offers 365 examples of GOP support for women, blacks, and other minorities, often over Democratic objections. Among its highlights: "To stop the Democrats' pro-slavery agenda, anti-slavery activists founded the Republican party, starting with a few dozen men and women in Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854," the calendar notes. "Democratic opposition to Republican efforts to protect the civil rights of all Americans lasted not only throughout Reconstruction, but well into the 20th century. In the south, those Democrats who most bitterly opposed equality...

I'm glad Black History Month is just about over. Soon, we can all go back to believing that race only matters to race mongers, and that the average person doesn't care whether someone is black or white or Asian or Hispanic -- except maybe when they are choosing a neighborhood to live in, a school for their children, or a church service to attend. I'm glad Black History Month is over because I'm sick of sharing black history with ungrateful white people -- notice I said ungrateful, not "all" white people. They have no idea how difficult it was to...

Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, OSP     The early years of Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, the foundress of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, have been delineated more by oral tradition than by anything else. Elizabeth was born in the 1780s, a native of the Caribbean where havoc was constantly being created by both weather and the will of man. Her country of birth is not documented but oral tradition says she was born in Haiti and moved with her family to Santiago, Cuba.  She received an excellent education and in the early 1800s Elizabeth left Cuba and settled in the United States. By 1813, Providence directed her to Baltimore, Maryland where a...

They trace their roots to Jamaica, Trinidad, Nigeria, Somalia. So, why do so many black Canadian youth identify with a particular U.S. black experience — the condition reflected in pop cultural portrayals of poverty, violence and isolation? Even in our schools, there seems to be an over-emphasis on African American culture and history. "When we learned about Canadian history, we didn't learn so much about black people in Canadian history," says 22-year-old Taysea Hall, a fourth-year psychology student at York University who has lived in Brampton since moving from Jamaica when she was 7. "But as part of black history,...

HOUSTON - Maj. Robert H. Lawrence, America’s first black astronaut, had already traveled far by the time he was selected as a military astronaut in 1967. His death later that year in a tragic accident not only cut short a promising career, it led full recognition of his accomplishments and hard-won status to be obscured for decades. Only after his supporters traveled their own difficult journey was Lawrence accorded his proper place in space history. Lawrence was a 31-year-old Air Force officer when he was selected in 1967 to join a small team of military officers training for a planned...

1870 African American congressman sworn in Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Mississippi, is sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress. During the Civil War, Revels, a college-educated minister, helped form African American army regiments for the Union cause, started a school for freed men, and served as a chaplain for the Union army. Posted to Mississippi, Revels remained in the former Confederate state after the war and entered into Reconstruction-era Southern politics. In 1867, the first Reconstruction Act was passed by a Republican-dominated U.S. Congress, dividing the South into five...

ITHACA, NY—Instead of pride at the accomplishments of African-Americans, students in Ithaca are being taught that “black history” is little more than exercises in “simulated racism,” and reinforced stereotypes.According to the Ithaca Journal, middle school students spent the day engaged in classes such as "Jim Crow Simulation" as part of a “diversity” program called "Black History, what does it mean to me?” According to the Journal, one of the ways that the school helped students “understand racism” was to break them into groups. Once broken into groups, the students “were instructed to take a brief written test, not knowing there...

The Houston Chronicle's Gregory Clay has a healthy attempt for Black History this year. Actually make it about legitimate Black History. No rappers no athletes need apply. The Obama Factor thought it nice to recognize that Clay actually did have a good reason for putting Barack Obama on the list.(Two actually) He is only the 5th black senator in the history of the U.S. Senate, and equally impressive he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Whatever Obama's failings in consistency in his public policy, the Obama Factor has no problem acknowledging these legitimate and impressieve accomplishments...

President Bush left the White House this morning to visit the great state of Michigan to address the Detroit Economic Club, giving remarks about his budget, tax reform, job training, confronting problems and finding solutions now, and sharing his boundless optimism about the U.S. economy,before returning to the Whitehouse this afternoon. He then spoke at the Black History Month celebration in the East Room at the White House. First Lady Laura Bush went to George Washington Elementary School in Baltimore, MD to promote the new White House initiative to keep young boys from drugs, sex and violence, and also returned...

From yesterdays paperWDN civil rights series introduced By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE, News Editor In Sunday's edition, the Daily News will begin publishing a month-long series of stories focusing on local people, places and events vital to the civil rights movement. Area, state and national perspectives on the movement and its long-range implications will be provided in the stories, which will run through the final weekend of next month. February is Black History Month. The occasional series will examine legal and cultural gains sparked by the movement, but it also will take into account the progress civil rights activists say must...

Lessons about inventor George Washington Carver or slave rebellion leader Nat Turner no longer will be relegated to the 28 days of February — or to black history classes — in Maryland public schools, but will shape the foundation of an expansive new curriculum. Students will learn about blacks' contributions to society in a variety of classes — such as science, music, language arts and American history — in a new, year-round curriculum called "An African American Journey," state school officials said yesterday.

Slavery reference in text riles mom By BRIDGET GUTIERREZ The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 09/28/04 When Michele Mitchell sat down to study history with her daughter last spring, she assumed the third-grade book wouldn't say much about black history. But she wasn't prepared to read that slaves were "brought" here to "help" others. "It belittles, for me, the experience," said Mitchell, who is African-American. "I understand it's third grade . . . [but] I had a major issue with the word 'help.' "Onika, now in fourth grade, remembers trying not to cry when her class read about slaves "helping" pick cotton...

U.S. Election HistoryDate: Aug 01, 2004 - 06:01 PM History of Blacks in the U.S. Senate C L Steplock Throughout the history of the United States, there have been only two blacks elected to the U.S. Senate. Prior to 1914, senators were not elected, but selected by the legislators of the states that they represented. Legal citizens voted for members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The first African American popularly elected to the Senate was Republican Senator Edward Brooke. Hiram Revels of Mississippi was the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. Sworn into office...

The remains of 20,000 African men, women and children have lain beneath the busy streets of New York for 300 years, waiting to tell their stories on the extent of slavery in the city. In March 1992, leading African-America archaeologist Michael Blakey arrived at the burial ground in downtown Manhattan. "I had read about these people documented as chattel, " he said. "Now I was going to learn about these Africans in New York as human beings." A haunting sight greeted him. Being winter, work was taking place under a translucent plastic tent. "I'd really never seen an excavation like...

Vessel named for black Civil War hero (excerpted) Army's $25 million ship will help supply troops around the world The Associated Press The U.S. Army and VT Halter Marine on Wednesday christened a new supply ship in honor of a black Civil War hero. The MG Robert Smalls is a logistics support vessel. It is named in honor of Robert Smalls, who 142 years ago commandeered a Confederate steamer and turned it over to Union sailors blockading Charleston's harbor. It is the first Army vessel named for a Civil War hero and the first to bear the name of a...

<p>If you want to save the nation's largest African-American history museum, you call someone who can command not only attention but dollars.</p> <p>So, officials at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History called Damon Keith, senior judge on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, two Fridays ago. He summoned two dozen Detroit businessmen and businesswomen to his chambers the next morning. And before they left that March 27 meeting, the judge had $1 million in pledges and a commitment that those business leaders would approach other executives to help maintain the museum.</p>