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African American Heritage Week: William Wells Brown
EnglishMajorLeagues
This week, I'm dedicating my posts to African American heritage, and I'll be highlighting some of the figures from American history that you may not have heard of. The first of these figures is the controversial novelist, William Wells Brown. Brown was born into slavery in either 1814 or 1815, to a Kentucky-based slave named Elizabeth and George W. Higgins, a white planter. His father did ... ...more
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The Importance of HBCUs in African American Heritage
Kelli Dolan
In honor of Black History Month and this week’s African American Heritage contest, I wanted to talk a little bit about HBCUs because of their social and cultural importance to higher education. HBCUs stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities; they’re schools that opened with the intention of educating Black Americans when segregation kept them from attending other colleges back ... ...more
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African American Mathematician Katherine Johnson Dies at Age of 101
In very happenstantial timing, mathematician Katherine Johnson has died at the age of 101 in the midst of Black History Month. Katherine Johnson was an African American woman who, through her mathematical work, helped make It possible for the first American astronaut to successfully orbit the Earth back in 1962. She was one of many incredible African American women to work for NASA, all of ... ...more
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Roanoke Teacher Dresses as Influential Black Figures for Black History Month
A teacher from Roanoke, Virginia, found a fun and impactful way to celebrate Black History Month and teach her students. History teacher, Chwanda McLaughlin, has spent every day in the month of February dressing as a different notable Black figures in history, both national and international figures, for Black History Month. She wanted to make her teaching more interactive and impactful for ... ...more
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On This Day in History: Charlotte E. Ray
Nothing like a good old On This Day in History for African American Heritage week! Did you know on this day in history Charlotte Ray became the first African American female lawyer in the United States? Charlotte Ray was born on January 13, 1850 in New York City, New York. Before becoming a lawyer, she was a teacher, and after attending the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth in ... ...more
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African American Heritage Week: Matthew Henson
Trekking further into lesser known African American figures, let's explore the life of Matthew Henson, the Arctic explorer. Henson was born in 1866 in Maryland to freed sharecropper parents. When his father died when Henson was seven years old, he was uprooted and sent to Washington, D.C. to live with his uncle, who paid for some education, but soon passed away. Henson attended a black public ... ...more
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African American Heritage Week: Alvin Ailey
Next on the list of influential figures, and dancing into our hearts, is the dancer, artistic director, and choreographer Alvin Ailey. Ailey was born in the Great Depression era, 1931, in Texas. He was raised by a single mother after his father left the family, and followed his mother around the state, and eventurally to Los Angeles, in 1941. It was there that Ailey discovered his love of ... ...more
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Book Recommendations: For African American Heritage Week
African American stories are so important in the world of literature and publishing, especially since white characters have dominated the space basically since mass publishing first took off. In a time of racial prejudice and segregation, few Black authors ever got book deals and authors of other races and nationalities rarely wrote Black characters. While the issue hasn’t totally been ... ...more
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African American Heritage Week: Claudette Colvin
The story of Rosa Parks' famous refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott, is widely known. However, lesser known is the story of Claudette Colvin, the first to stand up against bus segregation-- by sitting down. Colvin was born in 1939, but was raised by a great aunt and uncle in a poor district of Montgomery, Alabama. She attended Booker T. ... ...more
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African American Heritage Week: Why is Poverty Part of the Story?
I've been writing about influential African American figures all week, and I received a question in an email about my work. It reads thus: "Why did so many of the people you wrote about grow up poor? Not every black person is poor!" This is actually an excellent question. Why do so many influential black figures begin life in poverty? I'd like to say that this is a historical footnote that can ... ...more
