Past Voices
Past Voices – The storming of Attica D-Yard — One day that shows just how little black lives mattered – Lorraine Berry / Raw Story
Past Voices – Watch the (Indie) Works of Oscar Micheaux, Pioneering African-American Filmmaker – Justin Morrow / No film School
For a man the Producer’s Guild called the “most prolific independent filmmaker in American cinema,” African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux is a relatively obscure figure in…
Past Voices – George Washington Williams (1849 – 1891) / Blackpast.org
George Washington Williams was a 19th century American historian most famous for his volumes, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880;…
Past Voices – What Gun Control Advocates Can Learn From Abolitionists – Rebecca Onion / Slate
Slave ownership was once as entrenched in American life as gun ownership. Historical parallelism is a dangerous game. But in the days after the shootings…
Past Voices – William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass – The Abolitionists / PBS
The series “The Abolitionists,” premiered on PBS, January 15, 2013. The relationship between Garrison and Douglass evolved over time as evidenced by Douglass’s comment in his…
Past Voices – This black leader’s 130-year-old book prophetically predicted the rise of Donald Trump – Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856 -1928) / History News Network
Timothy Thomas Fortune was an orator, civil rights leader, journalist, writer, editor and publisher. He was the highly influential editor of the nation’s leading black…
Past Voices – A Blues for Albert Murray (1916 – 2013) – Thomas Chatterton Williams / The Nation
The name Albert Murray was never household familiar. Yet he was one of the truly original minds of 20th-century American letters. Murray, who died in…
Past Voices – Pride and Prejudice: The Early History of African Americans in Medicine by Russell W. Irvine
Travis J.A. Johnson, a member of the Class of 1908, is widely hailed as the first black graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons…
Past Voices – Martin Henry Freeman (1826 -1889) – Russell W. Irvine
Martin Henry Freeman’s life can be divided into two periods: his 37-year residence in America and his 25-year stay in Liberia, Africa. Freeman was born…
Past Voices – The Brown v. Board Decision : “The Impact of the Desegregation Process on the Education of Black Students ” (1983) – Russell W. Irvine and Jacqueline J. Irvine
Few, if any, events in this century have rivaled the impact of the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. l The decision…
Past Voices – Andrew Jackson’s Adopted Indian Son – Rebecca Onion / Slate
Was bringing home an Indian boy after slaughtering his family an act of compassion or of political expedience? Read more
Past Voices – Negroes and the Gun: A Winchester “in every Black home” – Nicholas Johnson / Wash Post
Past Voices – Cornelius Johnson and a Forgotten US Protest Against Hitler at the 1936 Olympic – Steven J. Niven / The Root –
Past Voices – Discovering a different side of black history in the archives of the black press – Rebecca Onion / Slate
‘Roller Skating Socials and a Black Rosie the Riveter.’ The black press has been the subject of several recent books, including James McGrath Morris’ Biography…
Past Voices – Richard Allen (1760 -1831) Founder of the AME Church
You must leave this section now.” “Wait until the prayer is over and I will go,” softly replied the black man, kneeling in prayer. “No,…
Past Voices – Barbara Jordan (1936 – 1996) ‘She Always Did Sound Like God’ – Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
She always did sound like God.” That is a quote from Molly Ivins, syndicated newspaper columnist and political commentator, in “Barbara Jordan: Brains, Courage And Pragmatism”…
Past Voices – Nina Simone ( 1933 – 2003 ) Interview
Nina Simone discussed black rights and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. in July 1968, a few months after his assassination, in an interview…
Past Voices – Hubert Harrison (1883 -1927) A Pioneering African – American Radical
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the Color Line. But what is the Color Line? It is the practice of the…
Past Voices – My Dungeon Shook: Letter To My Nephew…. James Baldwin (1924 -1987)
The Fire Next Time is a book by James Baldwin. It contains two essays: “My Dungeon Shook — Letter to my Nephew on the One…
Past Voices – In 1865, a writer took aim at the deadly dehumanization of black lives that plagued the US then as it does today – Taylor Lewis /The Nation
“It’s shocking how relevant this 150 year old denunciation of American racism is today.” Richard Kreitner Read the story
Past Voices – Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy ( 1925 – 1968) / On Guns and American Violence
“I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and…
Past Voices – William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs on ‘Black Rage’ / KRON News Footage From 1968
KRON News footage from September 2nd 1968 featuring views of William H. Grier & Price M. Cobb walking down Fillmore Street in San Francisco (between McAllister…
Past Voices – The Speech That Defined the Fight for Voting Rights in Congress – Jim Rutenberg / NYT
Fifty years ago today, on Aug. 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which effectively ended centuries of black disenfranchisement by…
Past Voices – Souls of White Folks – W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
“Souls of White Folks.” Originally published in 1920 as the second chapter in “Darkwater – Voices From Within the Veil.” I’m Intrigued “High in the tower,…
Past Voices – Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
Delivered at the Unveiling of The Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. April 14, 1876 The Occasion Friends and Fellow-citizens: “I warmly congratulate you…
Past Voices – The Story of Denmark Vesey – Thomas Wentworth Higginson / June 1861 Issue – The Atlantic
On Saturday afternoon, May 26th, 1822, a slave named Devany, belonging to Colonel Prioleau of Charleston, South Carolina, was sent to market by his mistress—the…
Past Voices – “The Negro Question” – Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
This text was written by Albert Einstein in 1946. I am writing as one who has lived among you in America only a little more…