Past Voices
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