Mississippi Burning – The Assassination of Medgar Evers
June 12th, 1963 — 37-year-old civil rights organizer Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. In the early 1960s Evers served as the first…
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
On July 24, 1972, the Washington Star newspaper broke the story about the Tuskegee Institute syphilis experiment. From 1932 until 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service, in partnership with Tuskegee,…
World Famous Cotton Club Opens in Harlem
Opened in 1920, Harlem’s Cotton Club was a red-hot venue. However, despite its location, the club’s audience was whites-only, in stark contrast to its cast of all-Black performers that for…
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre of Black Wall Street
100 years ago, a white mob destroyed an American neighborhood called “Black Wall Street,” murdering an estimated 300 people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That incident — known as the 1921 Tulsa…
Garrett Morgan Uses His Newly Invented Gas Mask to Rescue Trapped Men
In 1916, 32 men were trapped in a mine near Lake Erie. Garrett Morgan saw an opportunity to prove his fireproof hood worked – and went in to rescue them.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams Performs First Open Heart Surgery
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was one of the few African-American surgeons of the early 1890s. He performed the first successful open-heart surgery at Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1893. James…
Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion of 1831
Born into slavery, Nat Turner was an enslaved African American preacher with an indomitable spirit. Deep within the hearts of his fellow enslaved brethren, he planted the seeds of hope…
Slavery in the American Colonies
In the 17th century, as the British colonies in the Americas were getting established in places like Jamestown, VA, the system of chattel slavery was also developing. Today, we’ll learn…
William Monroe Trotter – Editor, Realtor, Co-Founder of the Niagara Movement
William Monroe Trotter was a newspaper editor and a realtor in Boston, Massachusetts. He was famous in black history for strongly advocating for African American Civil Rights and also founded…
Henry McNeal Turner – First African American Chaplin in the US Military
Henry McNeal Turner, a black preacher, politician, and human rights advocate holds a major place in African American history for his tireless effort to see that blacks become free, return…