African-American Newspapers

As a child, I remember seeing the Pittsburgh Courier on racks in grocery stores and drugstores.  Founded in 1907, the Courier has quite a pedigree, but it is by no means the oldest African-American publication.  That distinction belongs to a weekly called Freedom's Journal.

Freedom's Journal was owned, written, edited, and otherwise operated by free blacks in New York.  It lasted for only two years.  But three decades after its birth, there were over 40 black-owned and -operated newspapers in the United States.







In 2018, PBS ran a documentary on the Courier, as a premier example of African-American newspapers.  Take a look at the video here.

Rachel Knight

During the Civil War, slaves, whether runaways or still in bondage, helped supply their peers, and Union sympathizes, with information and food.

Some of those sympathizers were the founders of what came to be known as the Free State of Jones, in what had been Jones County, Mississippi.  In the spring of 1864, Newton Knight and other deserters from the Confederate Army declared loyalty to the Union, overthrowing the Confederate authorities in Jones County.  They did away with the Confederacy's tax in kind system; redistributed Confederate supplies; and defended each other's farms and homes. The final skirmish of Knight and his supporters with the Confederacy took place on January 10, 1865 at Sal's Battery.  Knight's forces were successful in driving away Confederate infantry and cavalry.

One prominent member of the Knight company was Rachel, Newton Knight's common law wife.  Rachel was herself  an operative.  Rachel helped other Union sympathizers to evade recapture, and supplied them with tactical information on the movement of Confederate troops.

 



To the right, we see what the Smithsonian believes is an image of the real Rachel Knight.  To the left we see Rachel as she was portrayed in the film Free State of Jones.

Mae Jemison

The first female black astronaut to make it to space, Dr. Mae Jemison had a bit of an acting career as well. 


In 1993, the graduate of Stanford, and Cornell Medical School,  portrayed a transporter specialist named Lieutenant Palmer in an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation called Second Chances.

The Navy Cross

Harry Truman didn't integrate the armed forces of the United States until June 26, 1948.  Before that date, African-Americans were limited to support roles; the Navy in particular practiced a de facto form of segregation.

Dorie Miller's term of service in our Navy predated Truman's executive order of 1948.  Miller enlisted in the Navy in 1939.  Over two years, he worked his way up from mess attendant (read as busboy) to ship’s cook.  While doing so, in January, 1940, he was transferred to the battleship USS West Virginia.

When that ship was hit during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miller first tended to the wounded, and then manned an anti-aircraft gun, downing at least one Japanese plane.

For his valor during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller was awarded the Navy Cross by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

The Banjo

This quintessential American instrument originated, not in the Western Hemisphere, but in West Africa.  It was made from a hollowed-out gourd, strung with horse-hair, covered with an animal skin, and played with a honed\ stick.  Its African name was banjar.

Styles of banjos, and of banjo music, have developed and varied since the 1800s.  From slaves to jazz musicians to bluegrass artists like Earl Scruggs to themes like Dueling Banjos from the film Deliverance, , the banjo has helped define popular music in the United States.

More Than the Homestead Grays

My dad told me about watching the Homestead Grays of the Negro League; my mom told me about Lena Horne performing in Homestead.  Today I learned an interesting corollary to that last fact.

Homestead's Leona Theater

The Leona Theater in Homestead was the scene of a civil rights sit-in. In 1938, African Americans who'd been restricted to sitting in the balcony resisted the Jim Crow arrangement by taking seats on the first floor.  Several of the protesters were arrested. But when the Organization Committee of the USW (United Steel Workers) took control of Homestead city government in 1938, the city's Jim Crow laws were relaxed, the Leona changed its seating policy, and African Americans were free to sit anywhere in the theater

Malcolm Little

He's better known as Malcolm X. 

It's good to see an image of Malcolm X smiling ...

In my opinion, had his life not been cut short, he would have been as influential a leader of the African-American community, and of the American public in general, as was Dr. King.