Overview
This page is derived from an Ebony magazine
edition which drew up 20 Negro individuals which was thought to
have been the most influential in Black History. We have
included those 50 and have extended the list to more
contemporary individuals. We give the briefest information on
these individuals. But in many instances we provide links to
pages which provide much more extensive information along with
other resources to expand one's research on the individual or
topics related to the individual.
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Update
Racism: A
History, the 2007 BBC 3-part documentary explores
the impact of racism on a global scale. It was part of
the season of programs on the BBC marking the 200th
anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British
Empire. It's divided into 3 parts.
The first, The Colour of
Money . . .
Racism: A History [2007]—1/3
Begins the series by
assessing the implications of the relationship between Europe,
Africa and the Americas in the 15th century. It considers how
racist ideas and practices developed in key religious and
secular institutions, and how they showed up in writings by
European philosophers Aristotle and Immanuel Kant.
The second, Fatal Impact
. . .
Racism: A History [2007] - 2/3
Examines the idea of
scientific racism, an ideology invented during the 19th century
that drew on now discredited practices such as phrenology and
provided an ideological justification for racism and slavery.
The episode shows how these theories ultimately led to eugenics
and Nazi racial policies of the master race.
And the 3rd, A Savage
Legacy . . .
Racism: A History [2007] - 3/3
Examines the impact of
racism in the 20th century. By 1900 European colonial expansion
had reached deep into the heart of Africa. Under the rule of
King Leopold II, the Belgian Congo was turned into a vast rubber
plantation. Men, women and children who failed to gather their
latex quotas would have their limbs dismembered. The country
became the scene of one of the century's greatest racial
genocides, as an estimated 10 million Africans perished under
colonial rule.
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Four
Greats of the Black Experience
Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Mary McLeod Bethune and Martin Luther King Jr.—
received unanimous support from panel of 18 historians and
political scientists.
Eight
Near-Greats of the Black Experience
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Marcus Garvey,
Langston Hughes, A Philip Randolph, Carter G.
Woodson, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, and Booker
T. Washington.
The Fifty
(In descending order)
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Fannie Lou Doc 1 /
Fannie Lou Hamer Doc 2 /
Fannie Lou Hamer Doc 3 /
Fannie Lou Hamer Doc 4 /
Fannie Lou Hamer Doc 5
Fannie Lou
Hamer's speech at the 1964 DNC
Fannie Lou Hamer
(born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)
was an American voting rights activist and
civil rights leader. She was instrumental in organizing
Mississippi
Freedom Summer for the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later
became the Vice-Chair of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the
1964 Democratic National Convention in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her
plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the
Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation
as an electrifying speaker and constant activist of civil
rights. . . .
On August 23, 1962, Rev.
James Bevel, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and an associate of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a sermon in Ruleville,
Mississippi and followed it with an appeal to those assembled to
register to vote. . . . Hamer was the first volunteer. She
later said, "I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a
little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only
thing they could do was kill me, and it seemed they'd been
trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could
remember."
On August 31, she traveled
on a rented bus with other attendees of Bevel's sermon to
Indianola, Mississippi to register. In what would become a
signature trait of Hamer's activist career, she began singing
Christian hymns, such as "Go
Tell It on the Mountain" and "This
Little Light of Mine," to the group in order to bolster
their resolve. . . . Bob Moses . .. dispatched Charles McLaurin
. . . to find "the lady who sings the hymns". McLaurin found and
recruited Hamer. . . . On June 9, 1963, Hamer was on her way
back from
Charleston, South Carolina with other activists from a
literacy workshop. Stopping in
Winona, Mississippi, the group was arrested on a false
charge and jailed. Once in jail, Hamer and her colleagues were
beaten savagely by the police, almost to the point of death.
Released on June 12, she
needed more than a month to recover. . . Hamer was invited,
along with the rest of the MFDP [Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party] officers, to address the Convention's Credentials
Committee. She recounted the problems she had encountered in
registration, and the ordeal of the jail in Winona, and, near
tears, concluded: "All of this is on account we want to register
to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic
Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America,
the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have
to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be
threatened daily because we want to live as decent human
beings—in America?"
Senator
Hubert Humphrey (who was campaigning for the
Vice-Presidential nomination), [along with]
Walter Mondale, and
Walter Reuther, as well as
J. Edgar Hoover . . . suggested a compromise which would
give the MFDP two non-voting seats in exchange for other
concessions, and secured the endorsement of
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference for the plan. But
when Humphrey outlined the compromise, saying that his position
on the ticket was at stake, Hamer, invoking her Christian
beliefs, sharply rebuked him:
"Do you mean to tell me
that your position is more important than four hundred thousand
black people's lives? Senator Humphrey, I know lots of people in
Mississippi who have lost their jobs trying to register to vote.
I had to leave the plantation where I worked in
Sunflower County, Mississippi. Now if you lose this job of
Vice-President because you do what is right, because you help
the MFDP, everything will be all right.
God will take care of you. But if you take [the nomination]
this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil
rights, for poor people, for peace, or any of those things you
talk about. Senator Humphrey, I'm going to pray to Jesus for
you."
Future negotiations were
conducted without Hamer, and the compromise was modified such
that the Convention would select the two delegates to be seated,
for fear the MFDP would appoint Hamer. In the end, the MFDP
rejected the compromise, but had changed the debate to the point
that the Democratic Party adopted a clause which demanded
equality of representation from their states' delegations in
1968.—Wikipedia
First Ten
Frederick
Douglass (1817-1885)
Abolitionist, editor, author, lecturer and the major Black
leader of the 19th century is often called "The Father of the
Civil Rights Movement."
Douglass'
1845 Narrative Fourth of July Speech
Mary
McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)
Educator, civil rights leader, adviser to presidents was the
first Black woman to receive major federal appointment.
|
Robert
S. Abbott (1870-1940)
The Negro
Press in the United States Chicago Defender editor and publisher established a new type of
journalism and vigorously supported the Great Migration to
Northern Cities. |
 |
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Richard
Allen
(1760-1831) Minister and protest leader (above) is sometimes called
"The Father of the Negro." First Black bishop and AME
church leader was president of the first national Negro
convention. |
|
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Ella Baker
(1903-1988)
Civil rights leader played key leadership role in SCLC and
organized the Shaw University conference that led to the founding
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Her work goes back to northern
labor politics in the 1940's, and later with the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference. |
Although Ms. Baker worked with SCLC,
she clashed with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because she
did not believe in the "one great leader" model of
social change, but instead worked to empower thousands
of ordinary people to speak out. The impact of the work
of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),
with whom she was closely affiliated, showed the power
of such an approach. Since then, Ms. Baker's words have
been memorialized in Sweet Honey In The Rock's "Ella's
Song (We Who Believe In Freedom Cannot Rest)."
Source:
Who Was
Ella Baker
Next 15
Second
25 Third
25 And More
Source:
Lerone
Bennett Jr.,
Ebony,
Feb93, Vol. 48 Issue 4, p122, 11p
*In
1989. Reprinted and revised from February, 1989 EBONY.
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 1 December 2011
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