Kwanzaa places a premium and priority on African American History. The Kwanzaa symbol ‘Mat” represents tradition and history. The Kwanzaa principle Self-determination instructs that African Americans study, know, and build upon their history and honor and celebrate their heroes and heroines. Thus, we honor and celebrate the 86th year birthday of Malcolm X. Much...
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Fifty years ago, 14 black students from Tennessee State University were beaten and arrested during the Freedom Rides that helped integrate the South. For their courage, they were expelled from school, and informed of that decision by letter while still jailed in Mississippi. This year marks the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides. Read...
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One hundred and fifty years ago marked the beginning of the Civil War, a violent political conflict that would redefine the reach of American citizenship, and set in motion a perpetual struggle for the meaning and soul of America. Frederick Douglass still provides the best summation and analysis of the Civil War. For Frederick...
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On April 4th we remember and honor Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr., for the sacrifice he made on behalf of black people and humanity in general. Note that by reframing April 4th as King’s Sacrifice Day, we take focus away from his killer(s) and place it on the heroic and ultimate sacrifice MLK made...
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Lost in the narrative of the uprising in North Africa and the Middle East is the model and inspiration Arabs are drawing from Martin Luther King and by extension the 1960 African American freedom struggle . Depicted as a comic-book action hero, Martin Luther King trumpets justice, advocates nonviolent struggle, and “dreams of a...
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The problematic of Brown v Board of Education resulted in a disinvestment in black schools by black people. This along white working class resistance to busing and the goal of school integration has resulted in crisis in education among black youth that we see today and that is spelled out in A Call For...
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The landmark Brown v Board of Education 1954 Supreme Court ruling had far-reaching implication beyond outlawing legal segregation in public schools, opening a new era of education for blacks. Yet, the Promise of Brown never materialized, leaving a legacy of uneducated and unprepared black children. Read more: http://afro-americanstudies.com/blog/2011/03/the-promise-and-problematic-of-brown-v-board-of-education-part-one/
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Who Will Speak Our Legacy But Us? You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise -Maya Angelou The epic story of African American women rising from the ash of slavery is still and untold and undervalued...
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Indeed, African American women have been central and essential to the progress and achievement of America and beyond. They too “bathed people at the Euphrates when the dawns were young.” They were at the dawn of human civilization in ancient Egypt; they bore witness to the triumph of the human spirit during the Middle...
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Who Will Speak Our Legacy But us? The history of African American women is a corrective to racist and sexist history presented in the narrative of American history. Until recently, much of the history of black women was hidden or a footnote in Black and American history. Honesty and history compels us to recognize...
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