Unit 4: Movements and Debates

Negritude Movement

Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, Négritude was a literary movement that was born out of the Paris intellectual environment of 1930s and 1940s. It is a product of Black writers joining together through the French language to assert their cultural identity. Although it originated in Paris, Négritude literature and art features African aesthetics and cultural elements. Négritude responded to the alienated position of blacks in history. The movement asserted an identity and pride for Black people around the world that was their own. It also emerged as African independence movements were taking place and was an expression of anticolonialism, influencing ways in which colonized people viewed themselves.

Negrismo Movement

Born in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean at the beginning of the 20th century, this was a literary movement that emerged alongside Négritude between World War I and World War II and spread throughout Latin America. Poets largely emphasized the biological and cultural hybridity of AfroCaribbean people. It was a celebration of Afro-diasporic culture, as artists produced songs and dances that emphasized African influences. Negrismo was a rejection of the Whitening movement of the late 19th century, which had repressed Afro-Latino culture, and attempted to establish the biological and cultural superiority of Whites.

Aime Cesaire

Born in Martinique in 1913, Césaire would later travel to Paris, where met Senegalese Léopold Senghor and French Guiana's Léon Damas. Together they started the journal L'Etudiant Noir (The Black Student) in 1934 to bring together students from Africa and the West Indies. The journal explored the expression of a Pan-African worldview under colonization. The concept of Négritude, a word coined by Césaire, would be founded on these ideas.

The Civil Rights Act of 1875

The Act became law on March 1, 1875. The new law required: "That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude." However, the law didn't last long. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1883, arguing that the 14th Amendment granted Congress the right to regulate the behavior of states, not individuals.

Brown v. Board of Education

In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the public schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

The G.I. Bill

The G.I. Bill, formally known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1944, this act provided II veterans with funds for college education, unemployment insurance, and housing. It put higher education within the reach of millions of veterans of WWII. It transformed the lives of a generation of young Americans, but African Americans were generally left out.

Redlining

Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities. Redlining has mostly been directed against African-Americans. The most common examples involve denial of credit and insurance, and the denial of healthcare. Thus denied access to credit, residents of redlined communities suffer from huge disadvantages as they are unable to build wealth and their communities fall into disrepair.

Federal Housing Administration's Underwriting Manual (1938)

the FHA's 1938 Underwriting Manual emphasized the negative impact of "infiltration of inharmonious racial groups" on credit risk. To limit that risk, it recommended restrictive covenants that prohibit "the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended," which had become increasingly common in the 1920s. For the next few decades, the FHA generally favored loans on new construction in suburban areas rather than urban areas with older housing or Black residents.

NAACP

The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909 and is America's oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was formed in New York City by White and Black activists to fight for the rights of African Americans. In the NAACP's early decades, its anti-lynching campaign was central to its agenda. During the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s, the group won major legal victories, and today the NAACP has more than 2,200 branches and some half a million members worldwide.

Rosa Parks

By the time Parks became famous for refusing to give up her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955, she was an established organizer and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. Parks not only showed active resistance by refusing to move, but also helped organize and plan the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At the time, Parks was a seamstress at a local department store and was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks helped spark the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to a White man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott lasted more than a year and ended only when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

National Urban League

The Urban League traces its roots to three organizations—the Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions Among Negroes in New York (founded in 1906), the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (founded 1906), and the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (founded 1910) - that merged in 1911 to form the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. The new interracial organization sought to help African Americans, especially those moving to New York City from rural locations in the South to find jobs and housing and generally to adjust to urban life.

A. Philip Randolph's 1941 March on Washington

The March on Washington Movement (MOWM), 1941-1946, organized by activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin was a tool designed to pressure the U.S. government into providing fair working opportunities for African Americans and desegregating the armed forces by threat of mass marches on Washington, D.C. during World War II. As a result, President Roosevelt was pressured into issuing Executive Order 8802 in 1941, prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry under contract to federal agencies. With this victory, Randolph and collaborators called off the march.

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's protest strategies of nonviolence and civil disobedience, in 1942 a group of Black and White students in Chicago founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Taking a leading role in sit-ins, picket lines, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Rides, and the 1963 March on Washington, the group worked alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders throughout the 1950s and mid-1960s. In 1966, under new guidance, CORE turned its focus from civil disobedience to becoming a Black separatist and Black Power organization.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Inspired by the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, and with the goal of redeeming "the soul of America" through nonviolent resistance, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957 to coordinate the action of local protest groups throughout the South. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the organization drew on the power and independence of Black churches to support its activities. The SCLC's leadership, most of whom were ministers, also believed that churches should be involved in political activism and held many of their meetings at Black churches, which became important symbols in the battle for civil rights.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. King sought equality and human rights for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and all victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind such events as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington, which helped bring about landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

The Selma Voting Rights March

The Selma Marches were a series of three marches that took place in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. These marches were organized to protest the blocking of Black Americans' right to vote by the systematic racist structure of the Jim Crow South. With the leadership of groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Selma Marches would become a watershed moment that led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded in 1960 in the wake of student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters across the South and became the major channel of student participation in the civil rights movement. Members of SNCC included prominent future leaders such as former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, Congressman John Lewis and NAACP chairman Julian Bond. By the mid-1960s, SNCC became more radical and began to alienate its White supporters, ultimately causing the organization to collapse.

Ella Baker

A largely behind-the-scenes civil rights organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. At the NAACP, she rose to become the organization's highest-ranking female member. She worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such Stokely Carmichael. Baker promoted grassroots organizing, was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and became the primary advisor and strategist of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Greensboro Sit-Ins

Civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth's and other establishments to change their segregationist policies.

Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. News of King's assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term.

Assassination of CORE Members

As part of the 1964 Freedom Summer voter-registration drive in Mississippi, CORE members James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (Goodman and Schwemer were white, Chaney was Black) were stopped for speeding on June 21, 1964. Booked at the county jail and eventually fined, released and escorted by police to the edge of town, they were not seen alive again. Their bodies were found more than a month later. All had been shot to death.

The Freedom Rides

Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use "whites-only" restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by arresting police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to the civil rights movement.

The March on Washington

Officially known as The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, this was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s now-iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.

Bayard Rustin

A close advisor to Martin Luther King and one of the most influential and effective organizers of the civil rights movement, Bayard Rustin organized and led a number of protests in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. While Rustin's homosexuality and former affiliation with the Communist Party led some to question King's relationship with him, King recognized the importance of Rustin's skills and dedication to the movement.

"I Have a Dream" Speech

Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. before a crowd of some 250,000 people at the 1963 March on Washington, this is one of the most famous speeches in history and one of the signature moments of the civil rights movement. Weaving in references to the country's Founding Fathers and the Bible, King used universal themes to depict the struggles of African Americans before closing with an improvised riff on his dreams of equality.

Pauli Murray

Murray worked to end segregation on public transport. Her activism in March 1940 led to Murray's arrest and imprisonment for refusing to sit at the back of a bus in Richmond, Virginia. In 1941, Murray enrolled at Howard University law school with the intention of becoming a civil rights lawyer. The following year she joined George Houser, James Farmer, and Bayard Rustin to form the nonviolence-focused Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). It was during her years at Howard that she became acutely aware of the oppression she faced as a woman, coining the term "Jane Crow" to describe her experience. In 1966, she was a co-founder of the National Organization for Women.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. By outlawing segregation, it finally overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, ending nearly 70 years of legalized segregation. Note that this 1964 Act finally gave African Americans what the 14th Amendment was supposed to give them back in 1868.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Literacy tests were outlawed. The use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th amendment (1964) to the Constitution, but the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections as well. Note that this 1965 Act finally gave African Americans what the 15th Amendment was supposed to give them back in 1870.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Born into a Mississippi sharecropping family, Fannie Lou Hamer spent much of her early life in the cotton fields before becoming a community organizer and leader in the civil rights movement. She became involved with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962, through which she led voting drives and relief efforts. In 1964, she co-founded and ran for Congress as a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, drawing national attention to their cause at that year's Democratic Convention.

Dorothy Height

Civil rights and women's rights activist who focused on the issues of African-American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, during which she helped organize The March on Washington in 1963 and worked with major civil rights leaders of the period, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and A. Philip Randolph.

Josephine Baker

American-born French dancer, singer and actress who was so discouraged by racism in the U.S. that she relocated to France, where she became one of the most celebrated entertainers of the era. She also aided the French resistance during WWII and received numerous French awards as a result. In the United States, she was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and refused to perform in front of segregated audiences. She worked with the NAACP, went on speaking tours, and was the only official female speaker at the March on Washington in 1963.

Nicolas Guillen

Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. Widely published in the 1920s, he became a Communist in the 1930s and would eventually serve for more than 30 years as president of the Unión Nacional de Escritores de Cuba (the National Cuban Writers' Union). Deeply influenced by American poet Langston Hughes, Guillén wrote about the social problems faced by Black people in both Cuba and the United States.

Charles Mingus

Born in 1922 in Arizona, and raised in Watts, California, Mingus is considered by many to be one of the jazz greats of all time, and one of the 20th Century's most important Black composers. He recorded over 100 albums, composed over 300 musical scores, and toured on four continents from the 1950s - 1970s. He wrote about not fitting in with Whites because he was Black, and not fitting in with African Americans because he was so light skinned. He confronted Southern racist attitudes of the time as reflected in his protest song about segregationist Governor Faubus of Arkansas in "Fables of Faubus." Columbia Records refused to allow him to include the lyrics, so it remained an instrumental. But in 1960, he re-released it with lyrics that mocked the foolishness of segregation.

"We Shall Overcome"

Gospel song that is associated heavily with the civil rights movement. The origins of the song are unclear, perhaps descended from "I'll Overcome Some Day," a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley, while the modern version of the song was first said to have been sung by tobacco workers during the 1945-1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike in South Carolina. In 1947, the song was published under the title "We Will Overcome." In 1959, the song began to be associated with the civil rights movement as a protest song and quickly became the movement's unofficial anthem. Famous musicians sang the song at rallies, folk festivals, and concerts in the North and helped make it widely known.

Malcolm X

As the nation's most visible proponent of Black Power, Malcolm X's challenge to the multiracial, nonviolent approach of Martin Luther King, Jr., helped set the tone for the ideological and tactical conflicts that took place within the Black freedom struggle of the 1960s. Born into poverty as Malcom Little, Malcolm spent his youth as a petty criminal, ending up in prison where he learned about and joined the Nation of Islam. When he got out, he rejected his "slave name," taking the name Malcolm X instead, and he soon became a minister in the Nation of Islam, and its most charismatic spokesperson. Articulate, passionate, and an inspirational orator, Malcolm X urged Black people to cast off the shackles of racism "by any means necessary," including violence. Eventually, Malcolm would break with the Nation of Islam, make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and return to the U.S. with a new, inclusive philosophy more aligned with King's. However, he was soon assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam.

The Year of Africa (1960)

The 1960s were a monumental decade for the people of the African continent, who saw the status quo of colonial rule by European powers, in place in most areas for three quarters of a century, dramatically disrupted. The most dramatic single year was 1960. During that year, Ghana abolished the monarchy and became a republic; South Africa saw the devastating Sharpeville massacre and the beginning of the anti-apartheid movement; and a full 17 countries gained their independence.

The Black Freedom Movement

A distinct era in the African American struggle for civil and human rights that began in the mid-1940s with a surge in public protest and ended in the mid-1970s. It encompasses both the Civil Rights Movement, which resulted in the elimination of Jim Crow laws, and the Black Power movement, which not only expanded on the gains of the Civil Rights Movement but also elevated African American racial consciousness.

Black Power

Black Power began as revolutionary movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Rather than focusing on integration, it emphasized racial pride, economic empowerment, self-reliance, self-determination, and the creation of political and cultural institutions. During this era, there was a rise in the demand for Black history courses, a greater embrace of African culture, and a spread of raw artistic expression displaying the realities of African Americans.

Nation of Islam

Religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A Black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African Americans. While describing itself as Islamic, its religious tenets, while phrased in Islamic terminology, differ considerably from mainstream Islamic traditions. During the time of Civil Rights Movement, the leader of the Nation of Islam was Elijah Muhammad, who recruited Malcolm X. Due primarily to the efforts of Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952, to 40,000 members by 1960.

The Black Panther Party

Established by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense first established neighborhood patrols and protected residents from police brutality. However, it ultimately evolved into a revolutionary group that fought for African American weapon rights, and financial compensation for years of racial exploitation. In addition to fighting for political and economic equality, the BPP became well known for providing access to medical clinics and free breakfasts for children. From the beginning, the FBI considered the Black Panthers an enemy of the U.S. government and used a combination of sabotage and misinformation to destroy them. The party officially dissolved in 1982.

The Free Breakfast for School Children Program

The Black Panther's Free Breakfast for Children Program began in Oakland, California in 1969, with a morning meal served in a church to 11 children. Within a year, it spread and the program was embraced by every city with a Black Panther Party chapter (a total of 36 sites) serving 20,000 children in Black communities. To make this possible, party members and volunteers solicited food donations from local grocery stores and worked with nutritionists to determine healthy options for school children.

Black is Beautiful Movement

Cultural movement that was started in the 1960s. The movement aims to dispel the racist notion that Black people's natural features, such as skin color, facial features, and hair, are inherently ugly. The movement also encouraged men and women to stop trying to eliminate African-identified traits by attempting to lighten or bleach their skin. The phrase "Black is beautiful" is meant to uplift the emotional and psychological well-being of Black people. It promotes the Black culture and identity, where the Black past is seen as an inspirational source of cultural pride. And it affirms the beauty of Black people's natural features, such as their variety of skin colors, hair styles and textures, as well as physical characteristics.

The Black Arts Movement

The Black Arts Movement was a Black nationalism movement that focused on music, literature, drama, and the visual arts made up of Black artists and intellectuals. This was the cultural section of the Black Power movement, in that its participants shared many of the ideologies of Black self-determination, political beliefs, and African American culture. The poet Amiri Baraka is widely considered to be the father of the Black Arts Movement, which began in 1965 and ended in 1975. They called for the creation of poetry, novels, visual arts, and theater to reflect pride in Black history and culture. This new emphasis was an affirmation of the autonomy of Black artists to create Black art for Black people as a means to awaken Black consciousness and achieve liberation.

Dashikis

A colorful garment that covers the top half of the body, worn mostly in West Africa. It has formal and informal versions and varies from simple draped clothing to fully tailored suits. A common form is a loose-fitting pullover garment, with an ornate V-shaped collar, and tailored and embroidered neck and sleeve lines.

Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is an annual celebration of African American culture from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called Karamu, usually on the sixth day. It was created by activist Maulana Karenga, who was looking for a way to bring the African American community together after the 1965 Watts Riots. Kwanzaa is based on African harvest festival traditions from various parts of West and Southeast Africa.

Adinkra

Adinkra are visual symbols that represent concepts and proverbs. They originated from the Gyaman people of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. Back then, they featured as prints on cloth which royals wore to important ceremonies. But they have transcended these Ghanaian and Ivorian origins. They now grace logos, clothing, furniture, architecture, and more. These new usages embody a global recognition of their profound cultural significance. Saturated with meaning, Adinkra have come to represent the richness of Akan culture in particular and African culture in general.

Sankofa Bird

Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana and is one of the Adinkra symbols. The literal translation of the word and the symbol is "it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind" and represents the quest for knowledge. The symbol is based on a mythical bird with its feet firmly planted forward with its head turned backwards. Thus, the Akan believe the past serves as a guide for planning the future. To the Akan, it is this wisdom in learning from the past which ensures a strong future.

The Combahee River Collective

Named in honor of Harriet Tubman's Combahee River Raid during the Civil War, this was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston, Massachusetts from 1974 to 1980. The Collective argued that both the White feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians. Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, and much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks began writing poetry as a teenager in Chicago and wrote more than 20 books during her prolific career. Her poems document the richness of Black urban life and the struggles of ordinary people in her community. In 1950, Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize.

"Maud Martha"

In 1953, Gwendolyn Brooks published her only novel, Maud Martha. The novel is a collection of vignettes, including "We're the Only Colored People Here," which trace the experiences of Maud Martha Brown from youth to adulthood on Chicago's South Side.

Shirley Chisholm

Chisholm was the first African American woman in Congress (1968) and was an outspoken advocate for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. She worked to expand the food stamp program and help to create the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Legislation she introduced also focused on gender and racial equality, and ending the Vietnam War. In 1971, she became a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Chisholm retired from Congress in 1983, taught at Mount Holyoke College, and co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women.

The Congressional Black Caucus

The Congressional Black Caucus was established in 1971 to put forth policy and legislation that ensured equal rights, opportunity, and access to Black Americans and other marginalized communities. It is a non-partisan body made up of African American members of Congress. The CBC was created during the high point of the Black Power Movement, when African Americans wanted greater political influence, and were gaining more seats in Congress.

Colin Powell

Powell was a decorated U.S. combat soldier, four-star general, and statesman who helped negotiate arms treaties with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He became the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), the highest military position in the Department of Defense. He was later appointed the first Black Secretary of State by George W. Bush in 2001, after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He served for four years, leaving the position in 2005.

Condoleezza Rice

From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first Black woman to hold the post. She helped successfully negotiate several agreements Israel and Palestine in the Middle East, worked actively to improve human rights Iran, and worked to negotiate nuclear treaties with North Korea, India, and other nations. Rice also served as President George W. Bush's Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold the position.

Barack Obama

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate and in 2004, he was elected a U.S. Senator. In 2008, he became the first African American to be elected president of the United States. As President, Obama pressed for a fair pay act for women, financial reform legislation, and efforts for consumer protection. In 2009, he became the fourth president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2010, Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare"), establishing the most sweeping reforms of the American healthcare system in modern history. In 2012, Obama was re-elected to a second term as President.

Kamala Harris

Harris is the first woman and the first African American to become Vice President of the United States of America. She became vice president after a lifetime of public service, having been elected the first female District Attorney of San Francisco in 2004, the first female or Black California Attorney General in 2011, and a United States Senator in 2017. In her current position as Vice President, Harris has fought for issues such as women's reproductive rights, gun reform, voting rights, and clean air and water.

The Black Hospital Movement

In the long era of segregation in America, Black doctors could not practice at White hospitals, and Black patients could not be treated there. Thus, African Americans in the medical profession began creating Black hospitals. These hospitals were vital and important institutions within the African-American community. In 1919, some 118 Black hospitals existed in the United States. In 1944, there were 124 in operation. Today, historically Black hospitals are virtually non-existent, as the Civil Rights Movement largely eliminated their need.

Meharry Medical College

Private historically Black medical school affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College, it was the first medical school for African Americans in the South.

National Medical Association

The nation's oldest and largest organization representing African American physicians and health professionals in the United States. It was founded at a time of extreme racism and segregation in American society, during which membership in the American Medical Association was restricted to Whites (the AMA would remain segregated until it was forced to desegregate with the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Established in 1895, the National Medical Association is the collective voice of more than 35,000 African American physicians

Onesimus

An enslaved African, Onesimus helped to save hundreds of Bostonians from smallpox in 1721. Left out of the history books, he taught others about the practice of inoculation, which was common in Africa and Asia long before vaccines were established.

Daniel Hale Williams

In 1891, Williams opened Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses, the country's first interracial hospital and nursing school. In 1893, he performed the world's first successful heart surgery on a man who had been stabbed in the chest. 1894, Dr. Williams became chief surgeon of Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C., the most prestigious medical post available to African Americans then. There, he made improvements that reduced the hospital's mortality rate. In 1895, he helped to organize the National Medical Association for Black professionals, who were barred from the American Medical Association.

Kizzmekia Corbett

Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett is a research fellow and the scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines & Immunopathogenesis Team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A viral immunologist by training, Corbett uses her expertise to develop vaccines for pandemic preparedness. She helped lead a team of scientists who made one of the most significant achievements in the history of immunizations: a highly effective, easily manufactured vaccine against Covid-19.

Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism can be understood as a wide-ranging social, political and artistic movement that dares to imagine a world where African-descended peoples and their cultures play a central role in the creation of that world. It focuses on Black history and culture and incorporates science-fiction, technology, and futuristic elements into literature, music, and the visual arts. Often using current social movements or popular culture as a backdrop, Afrofuturism focuses on works that examine the past, question the present, or imagine an optimistic future, and are meant to inspire a sense of pride in their audience.

Sun-Ra

Claiming to be born on the planet Saturn, Sun-Ra was a jazz composer and keyboard player who led a jazz big band in the 1970s known for its innovative instrumentation and the theatricality of its performances. His band included dancers, dressed in fantastical costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the space age, and Sun-Ra wore flowing robes and futuristic helmets. He is considered to be a pioneer of Afrofuturism.

Jessie Redmon Fauset

Jessie Redmon Fauset was an editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. Her literary work helped sculpt African-American literature in the 1920s as she focused on portraying a true image of African-American life and history. A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, her work often explored themes of racial identity, prejudice, and self-loathing. She saw colonialism as another means of denigrating Black people. She spent significant time in Paris and was involved with the Négritude movement.

Maya Angelou

From the late 1950s until 1962, Angelou lived in South Africa and Cairo, Egypt before heading to Accra, Ghana for an additional two years. She was one of many Black activists from America to traveled to West Africa and formed a small community there. Ghana's leader Kwame Nkrumah treated her with kindness, extending personal invitations for her and others to visit and welcoming them to become citizens.

Joe Louis

Joe Louis was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed "the Brown Bomber," Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. When Louis knocked out Nazi-endorsed German fighter Max Schmeling in 1938, he became an American hero. He was so famous that during World War II, he became a central figure in the U.S. government's campaign to boost morale. Never before had White Americans embraced a Black athlete as their representative to the world. In 1960, Louis visited Cuba at the invitation of Fidel Castro to discuss the possibility of promoting African American tourism to the island, particularly due to the racial discrimination faced by African Americans in the United States at the time.

Tuskegee Airmen

In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially activated the all-Black World War II fighter squadron known as The Tuskegee Airmen. They were the first Black pilots in U.S. military history. They trained at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama and Tuskegee Army Airfield. By the end of the war, 1,000 pilots had been trained. Known as the "Red Tails" for painting the tails of their plans red, the Tuskegee Airmen's primary job was to serve as escort pilots that shot down enemy aircraft and ensured that large bomber planes made it safely into enemy territory where they could drop their bombs. This highly decorated group of Black pilots had one of the lowest loss rates of any escort fighter groups during WWII.

James G. Thompson

James Gratz Thompson was a 26-year-old cafeteria worker at the Aircraft Corps in Wichita, Kansas. His eloquent 1942 letter to the Pittsburgh Courier inspired the Double V Campaign. He was named as director of the newspaper's campaign and remained with the Courier until he was drafted into service in February of 1943.

Double-V Campaign

Despite the opportunities promised to some African Americans during World War II, Thompson was relegated to working in the cafeteria at a local defense plant. In January 1942, Thompson wrote to the Pittsburgh Courier to call out the discrimination and inequality that African Americans experienced in the U.S. while fighting for freedom overseas. His question "Should I sacrifice to live half-American?" resonated with thousands of readers. It inspired the Courier to widely promote the concept of "double victory"—the idea that defeating tyranny abroad would also bring about the defeat of racism at home.

Mamie & Kenneth Clark

American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU). Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at City College of New York, and first Black president of the American Psychological Association. They were known for their 1940s experiments using dolls to study children's attitudes about race.

The Doll Test

In 1947, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted the "doll test" on Black children in Harlem, New York. The Clarks used identical dolls that differed only in skin color to study how segregation affected children's racial perceptions. The Clarks asked children aged 3-7 to identify the race of the dolls and which doll they preferred. The majority of children chose the white doll and associated it with positive qualities. The children associated the Black doll with negative qualities. The Clarks concluded that segregation, discrimination, and prejudice damaged the children's self-esteem and created feelings of inferiority. The doll test was key evidence in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of schools.

The Little Rock Nine

The Little Rock Nine were nine African American students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. It was a test of the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling, which declared that segregated schools were "inherently unequal." On September 4, 1957, the Little Rock Nine arrived at the school but were prevented from entering by the Arkansas National Guard. As a result, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to protect the students. Known as the "Little Rock Crisis," this situation gained worldwide attention and ended up becoming a major event in the Civil Rights Movement. By the end of September, all nine students had been admitted to the school.

The Fair Housing Act (1968)

The Fair Housing Act is a federal law that protects people from discrimination in housing. It applies to the sale, rental, and financing of housing and prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status. This meant that African Americans could no longer be systematically excluded from certain neighborhoods, allowing them greater access to better housing options across different communities.

Birmingham Children's Campaign

Nonviolent protest against segregation held by Black children on May 2-10, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. Over 1,000 children took place, largely consisting of middle and high school students. They were met with anger by White Birmingham citizens, and hostility by the police who used attack dogs and high-pressure water hoses against the protesters. Many of them were thrown in jail and expelled from school. However, all of this violence was caught by television cameras and shown to Americans on the nightly news. The protest is credited with causing a major shift in attitudes against segregation among Americans and with convincing President John F. Kennedy to publicly support federal civil rights legislation.

A. Philip Randolph

Asa Philip Randolph was a pioneering labor organizer who founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (the first major African American labor union), and who became one of the most influential political strategists of the twentieth century. His belief in organized labor's ability to counter workforce discrimination and his skill in planning non-violent protests helped gain employment advancements for African Americans. Randolph used his position within the labor movement to advocate for racial equality, pushing for desegregation in the military and employment practices. He was a central organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement

Mississippi Freedom Summer Project

The Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, also simply called "Freedom Summer," was a 1964 civil rights campaign focused on registering African American voters in Mississippi, where voter intimidation and discrimination were rampant. It involved hundreds of mostly White volunteers from across the country joining Black Mississippians to fight for voting rights, organized by groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Freedom Schools

The Freedom Schools were part of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, which aimed to end voter suppression and encourage Black youth to become active citizens. The schools were located in church basements, parks, and other makeshift settings. The curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, and African American history. The schools also taught the philosophy of the civil rights movement and constitutional rights. Freedom Schools encouraged students to become independent thinkers, problem solvers, and active political actors. The schools helped to provide a richer educational experience to African Americans than Mississippi's public schools offered.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Also referred to simply as the Freedom Democratic Party, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was a political party that existed in the state of Mississippi from 1964 to 1968 during the Civil Rights Movement. The party was organized by African Americans and Whites from Mississippi who were sympathetic to the Civil Rights Movement. The goals of the MFDP were to challenge the all-white Democratic Party in Mississippi and to encourage Black political participation

The Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCCO)

Civil rights coalition in Chicago that worked to end segregation in schools and housing. The CCCO formed in the early 1960s in response to dissatisfaction with the school superintendent. Black parents protested overcrowded schools and took legal action. In 1963 and 1964, the CCCO organized large school boycotts.

New York City School Boycott of 1964

Black and Puerto Rican New Yorkers were angry about segregated housing, schools, and neighborhoods. Schools that served mostly Black and Latino students had inferior facilities, less experienced teachers, and severe overcrowding. The New York City school boycott of 1964 was a large-scale protest against segregation in the city's public schools. It took place on February 3, 1964, and was one of the biggest demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement. More than 450,000 students boycotted school. Thousands of people rallied peacefully at City Hall, the Board of Education, and Governor Nelson Rockefeller's office. However, despite broad support, the boycott was unsuccessful in forcing immediate reform from the city's school board.

Elijah Muhammad

In 1931, Elijah Poole joined the Nation and changed his name to Elijah Muhammad. That same year, he quickly rose to power as NOI founder Wallace Fard named him Chief Minister of the Nation of Islam. As leader of the Nation of Islam, Muhammad dedicated himself towards expanding the organization by teaching against White supremacy. His teachings on Islam, Black nationalism, Black self-reliance, and economic self-help attracted many African Americans to the movement. Muhammad's views on race and his call for a separate Black nation made him a controversial figure. He opposed the Civil Rights Movement's emphasis on integration.

Afrocentricity

A theory and way of thinking that prioritizes African history, culture, and values. It's also a social change theory that aims to understand the experiences of people of African descent. It emerged as a counter to Eurocentrism, and seeks to treat people of the African diaspora as subjects rather than objects by valuing African interests, values, and perspectives.

Cornrows

A style of braiding the hair in narrow strips to form geometric patterns on the scalp. Cornrows have come to symbolize not just aesthetics, but heritage, community, and strength.

Jarena Lee

Jarena Lee was the first woman preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Born into a free Black family in New Jersey, Lee asked the founder of the AME church, Richard Allen, to be a preacher. Although Allen initially refused, after hearing her preach in 1819, Allen approved her preaching ministry, making Lee the nation's first African American woman preacher.

Alice Walker

Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist, whose works are noted for their insightful treatment of African American culture. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awarded for her novel "The Color Purple." Over the span of her career, Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections, twelve non-fiction works, and collections of essays and poetry.

Womanism

In 1983, feminist Alice Walker coined the term "womanist" in her book, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose." Womanism, or Black feminism, offers a space for Black feminists who have been erased from the mainstream feminist movement, which often centers straight White women who are seeking to be equal to straight White men. Womanism pushes back against people who tell Black feminists that they need to choose between fighting for Black liberation or female equality. By emphasizing the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression, "womanism" is a term that is broader than feminism, and focuses on Black women's unique experiences in America.

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues. During her extraordinary 35-year career, Professor Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality," developed the framework for critical race theory, created the #SayHerName campaign, worked to advance gender equality across the globe, and blazed a path forward for countless women in the legal academy.

Intersectionality

Scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" in 1989. Intersectionality is a way of understanding how multiple forms of discrimination overlap and create obstacles. The key idea is that people are shaped by their membership in multiple social categories, such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and more. These categories interact with each other in complex ways, and the interaction between categories can create compounding effects and tensions. As such, Intersectionality is a helpful framework for understanding how power, disadvantage, and inequality work in American society. Intersectionality can help explain how discrimination against Black women is different from general anti-Black racism or anti-female discrimination

Interlocking Systems of Oppression

Interlocking systems of oppression is a concept developed by Black feminists and highlights how various forms of discrimination and disadvantage, such as racism, sexism, and classism, intersect and reinforce each other, creating unique experiences of oppression for individuals. This is essentially another term for intersectionality and builds off of the work of Black women such as the Combahee River Collective, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Claudia Jones, bell hooks, and others

Patricia Hill Collins

A leading Black feminist scholar, Professor Collins is a social theorist whose research and scholarship have examined issues of race, gender, social class, and sexuality. Collins expanded on the theory of intersectionality to highlight the unique experiences of Black women, who face multiple layers of discrimination simultaneously. Collins' work highlights how these systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, and classism, are not simply separate but work together to create a complex web of disadvantage and privilege.

Audre Lorde

Self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice, as she believed there could be "no hierarchy of oppressions" among "those who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children." Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness, disability, and the exploration of Black female identity.

Spirituals

A genre of Christian music that is associated with African Americans, which merged sub-Saharan African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery. Spirituals are sometimes called sorrow songs or jubilee songs.

Blues

Blues is a musical genre that originated amongst African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. It incorporates spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from African American culture, and is a reflection of the struggles of African Americans who experienced slavery and segregation. It's characterized by a call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions.

Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

Gospel

Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. It can be traced to the early 17th century, although the tradition that came to be recognized as Black American gospel music emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Rhythm and Blues (R&B)

The term "rhythm and blues," often called "R&B," originated in the 1940s when it replaced "race music" as a general marketing term for all African American music, though it usually referred only to secular, not religious music. R&B combines elements of pop, gospel, blues and jazz with a strong back beat.

Hip-Hop

Although widely considered a synonym for rap music, the term hip-hop refers to a complex culture comprising a variety of elements, such as graffiti, dance and music. It originated in the predominantly African American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s and involved the contributions of Latino artists as well.

Rock & Roll

A type of popular dance music originating in the 1950s, characterized by a heavy beat and simple melodies. Rock and roll was an amalgam of rhythm and blues and country music, usually based on a twelve-bar structure and an instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums.