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BlackFacts Minute: February 1

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Black Facts for February 1st

1982 - Moore, Amzie (1911–1982)

Amzie Moore was a prominent figure in the Mississippi civil rights movement and voter registration campaign. He was born on September 23, 1911, on the Wilkins plantation near Greenwood, Mississippi, to black sharecropper parents. When Moore was fourteen, his mother died leaving him to care for himself by picking cotton in Drew, Mississippi. While living with different family members and friends, Moore attended Stone Street High School in Greenwood. He performed household chores and worked part-time jobs at a café, hotel, and gin.

In 1935 Moore accepted a federal post office job in Cleveland, a rare position for African Americans to assume in the Deep South. In the same year, his yearning for black economic development and empowerment drove his interests in politics. When Moore registered to vote in 1935, an almost impossible feat for Mississippi blacks, he could vote only in general elections and not the primaries. Experiencing the economic downturn of the Depression, Moore switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the early 1940s, Moore secured a federal loan to build a brick house with in-door plumbing and married Ruth Carey, a beautician, whom he divorced in 1961.

When the United States entered World War II, Moore joined and served in a segregated army from 1942 to 1946. His experiences in China, Burma, and India influenced his decision to bring about social change when he returned to the United States. In 1946 he returned to Cleveland and opened a combination service station, beauty shop, and restaurant with a loan from the Standard Life Insurance Company. His success in business led him to start a movement for economic development with T.R.M. Howard, Aaron Henry, and Medgar Evers. In 1951 they founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, and, five years later, Moore was elected president of the Cleveland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  

The 1960s civil rights movement in Mississippi

1960 - Children's Books on African American Freedom Fighters

The following childrens books not only provide an introduction to the lives of African-American freedom fighters your children should know about, but among them they also provide a historical overview of the fight for civil rights in the last several centuries up to the present, including the eras of slavery and the civil rights movement. All would be enhanced by family or classroom discussion about them. These books should be shared year round, not just during Black History Month. Please keep scrolling down to find information about all 11 books.

Andrea Davis Pinkneys award-winning book is written for 9-12 year olds. It presents the dramatic stories of 10 women, including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ella Josephine Baker, Rosa Parks, and Shirley Chisholm. The first page of each biography faces a stunning portrait, with striking allegorical images, by artist Stephen Alcorn.  (Harcourt, 2000. ISBN: 015201005X) Read my review of Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters.

This large picture book biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. was written by Doreen Rappaport, with dramatic and moving cut paper collage and watercolor artwork by Bryan Collier. Quotations by the civil rights leader are highlighted throughout the book, which also includes helpful authors and illustrators notes, a timeline, and other resources. (Jump at the Sun, Hyperion Books, 2001. ISBN: 9780786807147) Read my review of .

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers is a fascinating nonfiction book about an elite group of African American soldiers during World War II.  Author Tanya Lee Stone details the experiences and achievements of the group of soldiers known as the Triple Nickels as they overcame prejudice and broke down barriers.  (Candlewick Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780763665487) Read librarian Jennifer Kendalls book review of .

The narrator of Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins is a

1871 - Long, Jefferson Franklin (1836-1907)

Jefferson Franklin Long, a Republican who represented Georgia in the 41st Congress, was the first black member to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives, and was the only black representative from Georgia for just over a century. Long was born a slave in Knoxville, Georgia on March 3, 1836. Little is known of his early years, however by the end of the civil war he had been educated and was working as a tailor in the town of Macon. He was prosperous in business and involved in local politics.

By 1867 he had become active in the Georgia Educational Association and had traveled through the state on behalf of the Republican Party.  He also served on the state Republican Central Committee.  In 1869 Long chaired a special convention in Macon, Georgia which addressed the problems faced by the freedmen.

In December of 1870 Georgia held elections for two sets of congressional representatives – one for the final session of the 41st Congress (the first two of which Georgia had missed due to delayed readmission to the Union), and one for the 42nd Congress, set to begin in March of 1871. Georgia Republicans nominated Long, an African American, to run for the 41st congress, while Thomas Jefferson Speer, a white American, was chosen to run for the 42nd. Long was elected on January 16th, 1871.

In his only speech to Congress on February 1, 1871, Long opposed a measure which would remove voting restrictions on ex-Confederate political leaders because he felt these men still posed a threat to African Americans political freedom if allowed to regain power. His opposition failed, however, and the bill was approved by the House and two weeks later became a law without President Grant’s signature. Long’s turn in office expired less than one month later.

Jefferson Franklin Long returned to Georgia to campaign for the Republicans.  He addressed a gathering of freedmen and women in Macon on Election Day, 1872.  The freedmen then marched to the polls. A riot broke out shortly after armed whites attacked the group.  Four

2020 - a history timeline when African Americans begin using the Internet

Arthur McGee’s Black Online Directory hotlinks and his energy in keeping them straight was THE FIRST open-source list of Black Online User Communities at the time and he knew every SYSOP operator.

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April 1992

An AfroNet BBS fido-link advertises in Boston Bay State Banner free dialup

Boston hop by sysop William Murrell launches the SpiritDatatreetm  

BBS “Blackware” public “online discussion forum on The Afronet.

Murrell’s AfroNet connected Boston Bulletin Board System (BBS) running the PC BOARD host software using host brand name SpiritDatatree, launches the first “BLACKWARE” online forum chat channel ( Twitter-like but pre-Twitter ) and distributes it across the Afronet Fidonet system of hosts connected to each other in cities on the East and West Coast.

source: Bay State Banner

February 1994

Summit: African Americans in the Telecommunications Age – Washington DC, Capitol Hill

Invitation to form brain-trust, to propel a talented tenth, to create a modern-day Niagra Movement, to ensure that all Black Americans are fully participating in the Telecommunications Age dubbed “The Age of Light” Sponsored by American Visions magazine,co-sponsored by Congressional Black Caucus Foundation

March 1994

The Newspaper  warns African Americans to get aboard the online communications Highway”If Blacks don’t take the blinks off, our eyes and get on board now, we will once again be on the outside looking in, begging for jobs that should have been ours to give,” writes William Reed

Source: Oakland Post

1994 March

White House Report: Black

1960 - North Carolina Agriculture & Technical State University (1891- )

The Morrill Act of 1890 created an opportunity for African Americans in higher education. The 1890 act specifically prohibited payments of federal money to any state which discriminated against blacks in admission to tax-supported colleges or universities; however, states could receive money if they provided “separate but equal” institutions for African Americans.  In 1891, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the establishment of the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race.  Although funds were not allocated to erect any building, the Board of Trustees of the new A&M College made temporary arrangements for classrooms and student housing at Shaw University in Raleigh, a private institution affiliated with the Baptist Church and the oldest historically black college in the South.

The Board of Trustees chose Greensboro over five other North Carolina cities for the permanent location of the new college.  Greensboro city leaders offered fourteen acres of land east of the downtown area and $11,000 toward construction of academic buildings. The State of North Carolina supplemented that amount by an additional $2,500. The central building, a brick structure designed by Dr. J.O. Crosby, the college’s first president, was built by students of the Department of Industries.

North Carolina A&M College opened in Greensboro in the fall of 1893.  The original courses of study included agriculture, languages and literature, mathematics, business and industrial sciences, and mechanics.  For its eight years, the school operated as a co-educational college. After 1901, women were no longer admitted for study.  

A&M experienced rapid growth, both in the size of its campus and with new undergraduate programs and some graduate programs added. In 1915, the institution became known as The Negro Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina. In 1928, women were again admitted.

On February 1, 1960, four students from the college made history.  On that date David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair,

1834 - Henry McNeal Turner Born

Henry McNeal Turner was born on what is now Hannah Circuit, near Newberry, which was then in Abbeville County, South Carolina. Young Turner was bound out to the hardest king of labor in the cotton fields and the blacksmiths trade in Abbeville until his manhood at age 12.

He possessed an insatiable craving for knowledge. In some way he procured an old Websters Blue Back Spelling Book. An elderly white lady and a boy with whom he played taught him the alphabet and to spell as far as two-syllable words, but he no farther then as he was caught in the unspeakable act of learning to read. He found an old slave who did not know a letter, but was a prodigy in sounds and could pronounce anything spelled to him. This helper to Henry was moved to another plantation, and he was again left to his own resources. His mother hired a white lady to give him lessons every Sabbath, but the neighbors were so indignant that they threatened to have the law on her, as it was then against the law to teach a Negro the alphabet.

Three years later, at the age of fifteen, Henry was given work in a lawyers office at the Abbeville Court House. The men in the office were impressed with his excellent memory and taught him, in defiance of the law, to read accurately, history, theology, and even works on law. He continued to pursue his studies alone, and later went to New Orleans, then to Missouri, and still later to Baltimore, where he had charge of a small mission. Here he studied grammar, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, and theology under eminent teachers.

Reverend Turner joined the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1848 and was licensed to preach in 1853. He was ordained Deacon in 1860 and Elder in 1862. At the beginning of the Civil War (which was called War of the Rebellion at that time), he was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln as the first Negro Chaplain in the United States Army, and served with distinction throughout. In 1865, the Reverend Henry McNeal Turner, later elected to Bishop, moved to Georgia from South

1865 - Stewart, William P. (1839–1907)

William P. Stewart, a Civil War veteran, was also an early black settler in Snohomish County, Washington. Stewart was born on December 9, 1839, as a free person of color to Walden and Henrietta Stewart in Sangamon County, Illinois. He had five other siblings, four brothers and one sister, and was living in Forest, Wisconsin, in 1860.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln resisted the idea of African Americans serving in the military. By 1862, however, he was convinced that in order to militarily weaken the Confederacy, slavery had to be abolished in those states of rebellion (Emancipation Proclamation) and that the recruitment of black men into the Union Army was necessary. When the recruitment drive reached Illinois, William P. Stewart enlisted into the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment on February 1, 1865, at the age of twenty-five. The almost 56 farmer served for less than a year in the Union Army fighting for the unity of the nation and the freedom for nearly four million enslaved blacks.

In the last few months of the war, Stewart and his comrades fought near Petersburg and in the Appomattox Campaign in Virginia. Stewart, however, suffered severe diarrhea in the trenches in Petersburg, which excused him from active duty. Instead, he served as a mess cook assistant. In May 1865, the regiment was sent to a final assignment in Texas along the Rio Grande River as part of the XXV Corps, an all-black unit stationed along the border with Mexico to challenge French control of that nation. Some black soldiers actually crossed the Rio Grande to fight with troops loyal to Mexican President Benito Juarez. While in Texas, Stewart contracted rheumatism, a fate many soldiers experienced.  In November 1865, the 29th Infantry disbanded.

Stewart moved back to Wisconsin and married Elizabeth “Eliza” Thornton on October 25, 1868, in Logansville. The couple had one son, Vay, a year later in 1869. Stewart lived and worked as a lumber laborer in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, until he and his family

2007 - (Press Release) BlackPast.org Opens World of Black History to the World of Internet Users

206-985-8553 phone

206-299-9182 fax

SEATTLE, WA -- History buffs, students and general internet users are not limited to Black History Month to find a wealth of black history resources and information.  BlackPast.org, founded by nationally renowned professor of African American history Dr. Quintard Taylor of the University of Washington, opens the world of black history to millions of internet users all year long.   

BlackPast.org’s extensive content is free and accessible to the public 24 hours a day.  The site has more than 3,000 pages, including: an online encyclopedia with nearly 1,800 original entries; over 100 speeches by African American activists; over 120 primary source documents; four gateway pages with links to 50 digital archive collections; 75 major African American museums and research centers; and over 500 links other websites related to African America.  The site also has extensive bibliographies and timelines in African American history.  In fact, Google ranks BlackPast.org’s timeline in African American history as one of the leading sites on the Internet in its category.   Its five searchable bibliographies include more than 2,000 books on the African American historical experience.  

Taylor ensures the information on BlackPast.org retains credibility by verifying and editing each of the original encyclopedia entries contributed by over 300 academic, independent, and student historians from across the United States, Europe and Asia.  Among the contributors are leading historians from major universities such as Clayborne Carson of Stanford and Henry Louis Gates of Harvard as well as regional historians such as Amy Essington of California State University, Long Beach, and Susan Anderson of Los Angeles.  BlackPast.orgs credibility has made it the official sources for information on African America for leading research libraries in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.

Taylor, Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington, is a leading expert on