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Posts tagged as “NAACP”

Quote from Mary McLeod Bethune – Educator, Community Builder, Civil Rights Leader (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today we share a quote from and some facts about the mighty Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, activist and founder of Bethune-Cookman University and the National Council of Negro Women.

This GBN Daily Drop is based on the Monday, March 28 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, March 28th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today we offer a quote from esteemed educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune:

“Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.”

Born during Reconstruction in Maysville, South Carolina in 1875, Bethune was the 15th out of 17thchild of formerly enslaved parents Samuel and Patsy McIntosh McLeod, and the first of theirs born into freedom.

At an early age, Bethune pursued education any way she could, even if it meant walking eight miles each way to the only school around. After attending college in North Carolina and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Bethune became a teacher herself.

She eventually started a school of her own in Daytona, Florida with husband and fellow teacher Albertus Bethune, that evolved into what is now Bethune-Cookman University.

In her lifetime, Bethune went on to become a national advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his “Black” cabinet, represented the NAACP at the founding of the United Nations in 1945, raised money to open the first hospital for Black people in Daytona, Florida, founded the National Council of Negro Women and co-founded the United Negro College Fund.

To learn more about Bethune and her legacy, read Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents edited by Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith, Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida: Bringing Social Justice to the Sunshine State by Dr. Ashley N. Robinson, and Mary McLeod Bethune: Her Life and Legacy by Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long.

Also check out the 2016 documentary Mary McLeod Bethune – African Americans Who Left Their Stamp on History, the Mary McLeod Bethune documentary posted by Gig Bag Media on YouTube, and cookman.libguides.com to access newsreels, videos and audio recordings of Bethune herself.

In fact, here’s a taste of her voice from a 1949 radio broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt speaking on the importance of democracy, coalition and human rights:

[Excerpt from 1949 broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt]

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

20th Century Global Superstar, Activist and Spy Josephine Baker’s Cheeky Quote on Getting Ahead From Behind (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

We celebrate the iconic, internationally famous entertainer Josephine Baker in today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast with some history along with her humorously clever quote regarding her ticket to fame, fortune and freedom in her adopted homeland of France, and around the world.

It’s based on the Wednesday, March 23 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. Today we offer a quote from internationally famous singer and dancer Josephine Baker:

“My face and my rump were famous! I could honestly say that I’d been blessed with an intelligent derriere. Most people’s were only good to sit on.”

Born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, after stints in vaudeville and musical revues like Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along, Josephine Baker immigrated to France in the 1920s to find freedom and grow her talents into the pinnacle of singing, dancing, acting and comedic entertainment that brought her fortune and fame.

Known for her iconic “Banana Dance” in the Folies Bergere, Baker became a global sensation.

She was a member of the French Resistance during World War Two,  spied on the Nazis for her adopted homeland, spoke out for civil rights, worked with the NAACP, spoke at the March on Washington, and adopted 12 children from all races, countries and religions, calling them her Rainbow Tribe.

Baker passed in 1975 and in 2021, she became the first Black woman inducted into France’s National Panthéon.There is so much more to learn more about Bakers’ life and work, but you can start by reading 2018’s Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones, 2001’s Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart by one of her sons, Jean-Claude Baker, watch Baker’s movies, Princess Tam Tam, Siren of the Tropics and Zou Zou, which can be found in the Josephine Baker DVD Collection, the recently restored film from 1940 called The French Way, and there’s also 1991’s The Josephine Baker Story, an HBO movie starring Lynn Whitfield, also available on DVD.

The main documentary I found on her is 2018’s Josephine Baker: The Story of An Awakening, produced by Terranoa, which can currently be found in some PBS local listings.

There’s also the BBC Wales’ 2006 documentary Josephine Baker: The 1st Black Superstar, currently posted on YouTube.

Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music includes “J’ai Deux Amours” performed by Josephine Baker and employed under fair use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Even though most Americans think of today as Super Bowl Sunday, on GBN’s Daily Drop podcast bonus episode we instead celebrate what’s been the day’s other moniker since 2018 — #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, February 13th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Although today is known by most Americans as Super Bowl Sunday, for the past four years, thanks to Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry, it’s known among millions on Twitter and beyond as #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay.

#JanetJacksonAppreciationDay is where fans of Janet Jackson (aka “#JanFam”) flood their social media timelines with loving GIFs, memes, and videos of the legendary “Rhythm Nation” performer.

This annual trend began in 2018 in reaction to Justin Timberlake being invited to headline that year’s Super Bowl halftime. In 2004, when Jackson and Timberlake performed together at halftime, Jackson alone bore the blame for the “wardrobe malfunction” that occurred when Timberlake ripped a revealing part of her costume.

The moment that came to be called “Nipplegate” sparked controversy and damaged Jackson’s career for years while Timberlake’s soared.

Today’s #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay is particularly special because just a few weeks ago, the four-part documentary Janet Jackson and brother Randy Jackson executive produced on her life and career aired in the U.S. on Lifetime and A&E. In it, Janet shared footage and information from her life and career that had never seen or heard before by the public.

The widely watched doc set off a current surge of appreciation for Jackson’s contributions to popular culture in the following ways:

  1. top ratings in the U.S. and airings across the globe
  2. soaring iTunes sales and streams of her singles and albums, with Control hitting the #1 spot on the iTunes pop album charts 36 years after its release.
  3. Twitter and IG filled with fan and celebrity tributes alike.

As a #JanFam member myself since childhood – from Good Times, Diff’rent Strokes, the early albums and on – well, today I personally would like to appreciate Janet Jackson who, since 1989, has used her music to tackle and highlight issues such as racism, sexism, illiteracy, domestic violence and homophobia.

I wrote a piece on Good Black News about it last year and created a playlist to which I’ve included links in this episode’s show notes.

But I also appreciate Janet’s decades-long contributions to charities and causes such as the NAACP, the United Negro College Fund, Feeding America, and the American Foundation for AIDS Research, among so many others.

Currently, Janet is selling her vintage tour swag on The Real Real to support the non-profit organization Girls Leadership, which teaches girls to exercise the power of their voices through programs grounded in social emotional learning.

Some other sources that can help you get your Janet Jackson appreciation on are the incredible book in the 33 and 1/3 series dedicated to Velvet Rope by Ayanna Dozier, and Janet’s own 2011 part memoir, part health and lifestyle bestseller True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself written with David Ritz.

There’s also an awesome podcast called Janet Today, Janet Tomorrow, Janet Forever where cousins Courtney and Kam discuss Janet’s music and videos song by song, as well as conduct fun and informative interviews with musicians, dancers, stylists and the like who have worked with Janet throughout her career.

There’s also Janet Jackson’s own Instagram, her IG stories and Twitter, the hashtag #janfam to see posts from her devoted fan base and the hashtag #JanetsLegacyMatters, whose creators helped organize the grassroots push for Janet’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which happened in 2019.

And of course, you can always jump on social yourself and add to or check out the #JanetJacksonAppreciationDay tributes that are all for her! Links to everything I mentioned and more are provided in today’s show notes.

Additional sources:

This has been an extra-long bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Music used in today’s episode includes “The Knowledge” off Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation: 1814 album, “Control (The Video Mix)” from the Control: The Remixes album, “All For You” from the 2001 album of the same name, and “The Pleasure Principle (Dub Edit – The Shep Pettibone Mix)” from Control: The Remixes.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Btw, GBN’s Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 is 50% off at workman.com with code:50CAL until 2/28/22!

(paid links)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: February 5th – #OnThisDay in Black History (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Here is GBN’s Daily Drop for Saturday, February 5th, a bonus episode sharing some of the historical events #onthisday in Black History.

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

Bob Douglas, the “father of Black professional basketball”

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of GoodBlackNews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, February 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today I’m taking a look at some of the historical events in Black History that happened on this day. Because honestly, pick a day, any day, and I can tell you some good Black facts about it. And right now it’s February 5th, so were going to do that.

On February 5, 1972, Bob Douglas, owner and coach of the New York Renaissance who was known as “The Father of Black Professional Basketball”, became the first Black person elected and inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Then seventeen years later on the same date, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar became the first NBA player to score 38,000 points and to this day the former Lakers center remains the all-time leading scorer in the league with 38,387 points.

On February 5th, 1994, the white supremacist murderer of Mississippi NAACP field secretary and civil rights leader Medgar Evers was finally convicted and sentenced to life some thirty years after he perpetrated his hate crime.

We’d also like to mention some Aquarians born on this day – Major League Baseball homerun king Henry “Hank” Aaron, Saturday Night Live and Ladies Man comedian Tim Meadows, New Edition and “My Prerogative” singer Bobby Brown and Barrett Strong, singer of Motown’s very first hit single “Money (That’s What I Want).” Strong turns 81 years young today – Happy Birthday to one and all.

Today also would have been the 27th birthday of Trayvon Martin, who was unjustly murdered almost ten years ago. May he forever rest in peace and never be forgotten.

This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com [50% off until 2/28/22 with code:CAL50], Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

VETERANS DAY: Honoring WW II Sgt. Isaac Woodard, Whose Beating and Blinding by a South Carolina Police Chief Lead to the Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (IG: @lorilakinhutcherson; Twitter: @lakinhutcherson)

Sgt. Isaac Woodard enlisted and fought in World War II, defending democracy as part of a segregated combat support unit. During his time in the army, Woodard earned a battle star, the Good Conduct Medal as well as the Service Medal and World War II Victory Medal.

As he headed home to North Carolina by bus in 1946, hours after being honorably discharged, Woodard was beaten and blinded by police chief Lynwood Shull in Batesburg, South Carolina after a dispute with the bus driver over stopping for the restroom.

Thrown in jail and fined for being “drunk and disorderly,” the NAACP took up Woodward’s case, and national publicity followed, including radio programs by Orson Welles and songs by calypso artist Lord Invader (“God Made Us All”) and folk artist Woody Guthrie (“The Blinding of Isaac Woodard”).

The incident and outcry led to the U.S. Justice Department trying the case in federal court, where Shull was acquitted even after admitting to blinding Woodard.

Afterwards, President Harry S. Truman met with the NAACP and formed a Council on Civil Rights and established the Civil Rights Commission by Executive Order 9808 to study racial injustice and inequity and the need for civil rights to be enforced by the federal government.

This lead to Truman introducing the 1948 civil rights bill and issuing Executive Order 9981 to desegregate the Armed Forces. To learn more about Woodard, you can read Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring (2019) by Richard Gergel, or check out the PBS American Experience film The Blinding of Isaac Woodard, which aired earlier this year. You can watch the teaser above and see the full film here.

(paid link; featured image via pbs.org)

“Lift Every Voice And Sing”: James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson’s Anthem to Freedom (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

James Weldon Johnson,  an NAACP field secretary, civil rights activist, Broadway composer and professor who investigated and spoke out about lynchings in the first decades of the 20th century, also wrote the classic novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, first published in 1912.

But perhaps the publication Weldon is best known for was that of a song he wrote with his brother John Rosamond Johnson. In 1900, in honor of Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington as part of a tribute to Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday, they crafted a poem that was read by 500 schoolchildren entitled “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

The poem celebrated freedom as it recognized a brutal past never to be repeated. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was so well received that the brothers set it to music and by 1919 the NAACP dubbed it “the Negro national anthem.” It has functioned in that capacity ever since.

The Johnson brothers pictured on the cover of this 1973 version of the sheet music

Sung for decades at countless meetings, events, and ceremonies, a 1990 version of the song performed by Melba Moore (which can be heard here on GBN’s “Black Americana” playlist ) was entered into the Congressional Record and, in 2016, into the National Recording Registry.

Singing this song today makes as much sense as any other American anthem, as it is a song of independence from tyranny, inhumanity and injustice. It is sung in honor of Americans who died building this country by progeny who seek to embrace the liberty, hope and prosperity freedom promises.

Enjoy Aretha Franklin, whose voice literally was designated an American natural resource, singing the song we might all lift our voices to sing. Full lyrics published below.

R.I.P. Civil Rights Leader and Former National Urban League President Vernon Jordan, 85

Vernon Jordan, a civil rights movement activist and leader, former National Urban League president and adviser to former President Bill Clinton, died yesterday evening according to CNN. He was 85. His cause of death has not yet been released.

To quote cnn.com:

Born on August 15, 1935, Jordan grew up in the segregated South and graduated from DePauw University in Indiana in 1957, the only Black student in his class.

He then studied law at Howard University and began his career fighting segregation, starting with a lawsuit against University of Georgia‘s integration policy in 1961 on the behalf of two Black students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. Jordan accompanied the two students to the UGA admissions office that year through an angry mob of White students.

He worked as a field director for the NAACP and as a director of the Southern Regional Council for the Voter Education Project before he became president of the National Urban League. In 1980, he survived an assassination attempt on his life.

“Today, the world lost an influential figure in the fight for civil rights and American politics, Vernon Jordan. An icon to the world and a lifelong friend to the NAACP, his contribution to moving our society toward justice is unparalleled,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement Tuesday. “In 2001, Jordan received the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for a lifetime of social justice activism. His exemplary life will shine as a guiding light for all that seek truth and justice for all people.”

To read more about Jordan:

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Ida B. Wells – Journalist, Anti-Lynching Activist, Women’s Rights Advocate

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Ida B. Wells. Best known for being a late 19th/early 20th-century journalist, anti-lynching crusader and women’s rights advocate. In 2020, Wells received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and her face honored the centennial of the U.S. Suffragist Movement in a mosaic art installation in Washington D.C.’s Union Station.

Wells is a helluva historical figure who still far too few people know about. Her whole life is fascinating, so I’ll try to keep it short and focussed on her work. If you don’t have time for it now, right below is a great quote summing up Wells’ importance in the fight for equality and justice from the New York Times review of the 1999 biography on Wells:

Linda O. McMurry‘s important new biography, To Keep the Waters Troubled, tells the story of an extraordinary American who would have been at the very summit of our national pantheon except for two things: her sex and her race. But then again, being born into a society that promised individual freedom and personal power — just not to blacks, not to women and above all not to black women — was the source of Ida B. Wells’s remarkable story.”

Wells was one of the first African-American female journalists to run her own newspaper, was an outspoken feminist, suffragist, an international figure and speaker, and early leader in the Civil Rights Movement who helped found the NAACP with W.E.B. DuBois and others, and helped women get and consolidate their power around voting in Illinois when they won the right.

But what fascinates me the most is her near one-woman crusade against lynching, and how she used her investigative, reporting, and oratory skills not only to document lynchings in the 1890s, but also to disprove the lie that Black men were raping white women or committing crimes that justified their mob hangings.

Wells offered real proof that lynching was being used in the South as a way to control or punish Black people who competed with whites. Even after the offices of her newspaper, Free Speech and Headlight, were burned down and she had to relocate from Memphis to Chicago to escape death threats, Wells persisted with her work.

Although there was major resistance in the U.S., Wells garnered support from the British, who after reading her work and hearing her speeches (they also witnessed her being dragged unfairly in the American press), offered monetary support and formed the British Anti-Lynching Committee, which included prominent members such as the Duke of Argyll, the Archbishop of Canterbury, members of Parliament, and the editors of The Manchester Guardian, who put international pressure on the U.S. to address these horrific crimes against Black Americans.

Wells’ crusade against lynching started in 1889, when her friend Thomas Moss opened the Peoples Grocery in the “Curve,” a Black neighborhood just outside Memphis city limits. It did well and competed with a white-owned grocery store across the street.

In 1892, while Wells was out of town, a white mob invaded her friends’ store. During the altercation, three white men were shot and injured. Moss and two other black men were arrested and jailed pending trial. A white lynch mob stormed the jail and killed the three men.

After the lynching of her friends, Wells wrote an editorial and became an ersatz civil rights leader and firebrand, urging Blacks to leave Memphis altogether. More than 6,000 black people did leave Memphis; others organized boycotts of white-owned businesses. After being threatened with violence, Wells bought a pistol. She later wrote, “They had made me an exile and threatened my life for hinting at the truth.”

Wells began her investigation by looking at the charges given for her friends’ murders, which officially started her anti-lynching campaign. She spoke at various Black women’s clubs, and raised more than $500 to investigate lynchings and publish her findings. Wells found that Blacks were lynched primarily for social control reasons such as failing to pay debts, not appearing to give way to whites, competing with whites economically, or being drunk in public.

She found little basis for the frequent claim that Black men were lynched because they had sexually abused or attacked white women. This alibi seemed to have partly accounted for white America’s collective acceptance or silence on lynching, as well as its acceptance by many in the educated African-American community.

Wells published her findings in a pamphlet called Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. She followed it with an editorial that said, unlike the myth that white women were sexually at risk of attacks by Black men, most liaisons between Black men and white women were consensual.

Her editorial enraged white men in Memphis. On May 27, 1892, while she was away in Philadelphia, a white mob destroyed the offices of the Free Speech and Headlight.

To quote again from the 1999 New York Times Review:

“Wells exposed as false the most common justification for these lynchings: that they were necessitated by sexual ”outrages” committed by Black men against white women. Perhaps only a woman could have spoken out effectively against these charges, but doing so exposed Wells to attacks against her sexual character. Her willingness to talk openly about rape and interracial sex kept her from succeeding the aging Frederick Douglass as ”leader of the Afro-American race,” the most respected Negro in the United States among whites. This role went instead to a man and a nonmilitant, Booker T. Washington.”

In continued efforts to raise awareness and opposition to lynching, Wells spoke to groups in New York City, where her audiences included many leading African-American women.

On October 5, 1892, a testimonial dinner held at Lyric Hall, organized by political activists and clubwomen, Victoria Earle Matthews and Maritcha Remond Lyons, raised significant funds for Wells’ anti-lynching campaign. The Women’s Loyal Union of New York and Brooklyn was formed to organize Black women as an interest group who could act politically.

Wells toured Europe in her campaign for justice, but the first tour in 1893 didn’t go so well. Wells went to Great Britain at the invitation of Catherine Impey, a British Quaker. An opponent of imperialism and proponent of racial equality, Impey wanted to ensure that the British public learned about the problem of lynching in the U.S.

Wells accompanied her speeches with a photograph of a white mob and grinning white children posing near a hanged Black man; her talks created a sensation, but some in the audiences remained doubtful of her accounts. Wells intended to raise money and expose the U.S. lynching violence, but received so little funds that she had difficulty covering her travel expenses.

Before her second visit to Britain in 1894, the enterprising Wells worked to get some backing. Wells called on William Penn Nixon, editor of Daily Inter-Ocean, a Republican newspaper in Chicago, the only major white paper that persistently denounced lynching.

After Wells told Nixon about her planned tour, he asked her to write for the newspaper while in England, making her the first African-American woman to be a paid correspondent for a mainstream white newspaper. This time, Wells was highly effective in speaking to European audiences, who were shocked to learn about the rate of violence against Black people in the U.S.

Wells called for the formation of groups to formally protest the lynchings and helped catalyze anti-lynching groups in Europe, which tried to press the U.S. government to guarantee the safety of Black people in the South.

When she spoke at home to Black crowds, Wells was a one-woman precursor to the 1950s Deacons of Defense or the 1960s Black Panthers or even Malcolm X: she recommended that Black people arm themselves to defend against lynching:

“The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honour in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.”

Wells subsequently published The Red Record (1895), a 100-page pamphlet describing lynching in the U.S. since the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. It also covered Black people’s struggles in the South since the Civil War. The Red Record explored the alarmingly high rates of lynching in the United States (which was at a peak from 1880 to 1930).

Wells gave 14 pages of statistics related to lynching cases committed from 1892 to 1895; she also included pages of graphic accounts detailing specific lynchings. She notes that her data was taken from articles by white correspondents, white press bureaus, and white newspapers.

The Red Record had far-reaching influence in the debate about lynching. Her accounts grabbed the attention of Northerners who knew little about lynching or accepted the common explanation that black men deserved this fate.

(Ida B. Wells in Chicago in 1909 with her children: Charles, Herman, Ida and Alfreda Archivio GBB/Redux)

During this time, Wells also had to deal with dust-ups with white women suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard. Anthony was critical of Wells for getting “distracted” by her young son who she had to bring with her on occasion to speaking engagements.

Willard went out of her way to try to discredit Wells in the press after Wells called Willard out for being silent lynching and for making racist statements where she said Black people drank too much and threatened the safety of women. Wells clapped back at Willard in The Red Record with an entire chapter dedicated to discussing “Miss Willard’s Attitude.”

In 1896, Wells founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the National Afro-American Council. In Chicago, Wells also worked to improve conditions for its rapidly growing African-American population due to the Great Migration to northern industrial cities.

Wells worked on urban reform in Chicago during the last thirty years of her life. Wells began writing her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, in 1928 but never finished it; she died of uremia (kidney failure) in Chicago on March 25, 1931, at the age of 68.

In her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, the Ida B.Wells-Barnett Museum acts as a cultural center of African American history. Awards have been established in Wells’s name by the National Association of Black Journalists, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and the New York County Lawyers Assn., among others.

To learn more about Wells, consider reading her autobiography (which her youngest daughter worked for 40 years to get into print), Ida: A Sword Among Lions from 2009 by Paula J. Giddings, To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Linda O. McMurry from 2000 and To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Mia Bay from 2010.

Also consider clicking on the Southern Horrors and Red Record links to download her original works via Project Gutenberg, reading this npr.org piece https://www.npr.org/…/ida-b-wells-lasting-impact-on… or watching below:

https://youtu.be/8f7TUBvbgrI

#blackhistorymonth #gettheknowledge

(paid links)

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Shirley Chisholm, 1st Black Woman Elected to U.S. Congress, Presidential Candidate, Educator

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Shirley Chisholm. Best known as the first Black woman elected to U.S. Congress who also ran for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972.

“Fighting Shirley” — as she was known by many in Washington D.C. and her hometown district of Brooklyn, NY — was the oldest daughter of immigrant parents from Guyana and Barbados.

Chisholm worked as a nursery school teacher, got a degree in Child Education from Columbia University and by 1960, was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care.

Always aware of racial and gender inequality, Chisholm soon ventured into social justice work and politics by joining local chapters of the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the Urban League, as well as the Democratic Party club in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

In 1964, Chisholm ran for and became the 2nd African American in the New York State Legislature. After court-ordered redistricting in her neighborhood occurred to counter years of gerrymandering, in 1968 Chisholm ran for and won her congressional district seat.

While in the House of Representatives “Fighting Shirley” introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation, fought for racial and gender equality, the economically oppressed, and to end the Vietnam War.

Chisholm also fought against “old men that make up the Southern oligarchy” from Day One. She complained about her assignment to the Agricultural Committee — what did agriculture have to do with her constituents in Bedford-Stuyvesant, she argued — and won reassignment even though most Congressional freshmen never questioned their committee placements.

Chisholm was subsequently placed on the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Education and Labor Committee, where she was able to work on initiatives such as the Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

She was also a co-founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, and in 1977 became the first Black woman and 2nd woman ever to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee.

Chisholm’s quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination was thwarted at every turn. Chisholm was blocked from participating in televised primary debates, and only after taking legal action, was she permitted to make just one speech.

Still, many faithful followed the “Chisholm Trail” as she entered 12 primaries and garnered 152 of the delegates’ votes (10% of the total)—despite an under-financed and under-reported campaign.

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Daisy Bates, Civil Rights Activist, Newspaper Publisher, Little Rock Nine Organizer

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Daisy Bates.

President of the NAACP Arkansas chapter during the civil rights movement and co-publisher of The Arkansas State Press, a newspaper dedicated to advocacy journalism for African-Americans.

Bates is best known for organizing and shepherding the Little Rock Nine as they desegregated Central High in 1957 in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Ed. U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Bates regularly drove the students to and from school, hosted them in her home after school and worked tirelessly to ensure they were protected from violent crowds.

One of her most successful protection strategies was to get local ministers to escort the students to school, daring the white Christians protesting and hurling threats to attack men of the cloth. Bates’ plan worked, but she started to receive threats herself.

Rocks were thrown into her home, crosses were burned on her property, and bullet shells were sent to her in the mail. White advertisers boycotted her newspaper and eventually she had to shut it down.

Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine (Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo)
Bates received support from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who assured her, “World opinion is with you. The moral conscience of millions of white Americans is with you.” Bates was also elected to the executive committee of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
In 1960, Bates moved to New York City and wrote her memoir The Long Shadow of Little Rock, then later moved to Washington D.C., and worked for the Democratic National Committee.

Bates was also the only woman who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington during the official program, pledging that women would fight just as hard and long as the men until all Black people were free and had the vote.

Bates later served in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson and worked on anti-poverty programs. In 1968 she moved to the rural black community of Mitchellville, Arkansas and worked there to improve the lives of her neighbors by establishing a self-help program which was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and community center.