February 19, 2020

In honor of Black History Month, today World Book remembers the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African Americans who served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II (1939-1945). The name Tuskegee Airmen is used most often to refer to combat pilots, but the group also included bombardiers, navigators, maintenance crews, and support staff. Members of the Tuskegee Airmen were the first African Americans to qualify as military aviators in any branch of the armed forces. Many became decorated war heroes. In 2007, the United States awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by Congress.

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African American pilots, crew, and support staff that served in the Army Air Corps during World War II (1939-1945). This photograph, taken in Ramitelli, Italy, in 1945, shows airmen at a tactical meeting. Credit: Library of Congress

Last February, the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., hosted an event called “African American Pioneers in Aviation and Space.” Among the special guests at the event was the Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee, who turned 100 years old in December 2019. McGee flew 409 aerial combat missions during World War II, the Korean War (1950-1953), and the Vietnam War (1957-1975). His military honors include the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and two Presidential Unit Citations. McGee was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2011.

Daniel “Chappie” James, one of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, poses with his P-51 Mustang fighter plane during the Korean War. Credit: U.S. Air Force

At the time of World War II, the U.S. War Department had a policy of racial segregation. Black soldiers were trained separately from white soldiers and served in separate units. They were not allowed into elite military units. In 1941, under pressure from African American organizations and Congress, the Army Air Corps began accepting black men and admitting them into flight training. The men were trained at Tuskegee Army Air Base, near Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), a college for black students in rural Alabama.

Credit: © African American History Month

The training program began in 1941. One of the first men to earn the wings of an Army Air Corps pilot was Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., who later became the first black general in the U.S. Air Force. Davis commanded the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the nation’s first all-black squadron, which trained at Tuskegee. The 99th operated in northern Africa. Davis later commanded the 332nd Fighter Group, which also trained at Tuskegee. The 332nd became known for its success escorting bombers on missions over Europe.

February 3, 2020

Today, February 3, marks 100 years since the 1920 formation of the Negro National League (NNL), the first of the official professional baseball Negro leagues. The Negro leagues were for black players, who were barred from playing alongside white players because of racial segregation. The Negro leagues operated until 1962.

The 1919 Chicago American Giants pose for the official team photo. In 1920, the manager Rube Foster (top row without uniform) led the team to the inaugural Negro National League title. Credit: Public Domain

An all-black professional baseball team existed as early as 1885. For many years, black teams played one another as independent teams. They also played all-white teams in exhibition games. Rube Foster, a former pitcher and the owner and manager of a black team, the Chicago American Giants, met with seven other team owners in Kansas City to form the Negro National League in 1920. The first season, the league included Foster’s American Giants and a second Chicago team known simply as the Giants as well as the Cincinnati Cuban Stars, Dayton Marcos, Detroit Stars, Indianapolis ABC’s, Kansas City Monarchs, and—somewhat confusingly—another Giants ball club in St. Louis. The teams did not play the same amount of games, and opponents often included independent black ball clubs in other cities, but the Chicago American Giants won the first title with a 43-17-2 record against NNL opponents.

Jackie Robinson, shown here sliding into home plate, was the first African American player in modern Major League Baseball. Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Credit: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann

The NNL operated successfully until 1931. After that, the two dominant leagues were a new Negro National League (1933-1948) and the Negro American League (1937-1962). The best players were featured in an annual all-star exhibition called the East-West Game, and from 1942 to 1948, the league champions met in the Negro World Series.

Satchel Paige pitched 18 seasons in the Negro leagues before entering Major League Baseball in 1948 at age 42. Credit: AP/Wide World

In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black player in modern Major League Baseball (MLB). After Robinson’s success with the Brooklyn Dodgers, MLB teams quickly signed star players from the Negro leagues, leading to the decline and eventual end of those leagues.

Larry Doby played for the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League before making his MLB debut with the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947. Credit: AP Photo

Baseball historians agree that many Negro league players would have succeeded in Major League Baseball. Such Negro league players as Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, and Satchel Paige later starred in MLB and were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Other Hall of Famers who spent their entire careers in the Negro leagues included Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, and Buck Leonard.

August 23, 2019

This weekend, August 23 to 25, a somber anniversary is taking place at the Chesapeake Bay city of Hampton, Virginia. It was there, at the town once known as Point Comfort, that African slaves were first brought to England’s American colonies in August 1619. Those first slaves, captured from Portuguese slave traders, were brought to Virginia 400 years ago in the English ship White Lion. Colonial officials traded food and supplies for the “20 and odd” Africans, beginning an ugly legacy of slavery. Slavery did not end in the United States until 1865, and its effects are felt to this day.

A historical marker details the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in English North America at Point Comfort, Virginia, in August 1619. Credit: National Park Service

Commemorative events in Hampton begin today with a ceremony at the Tucker Family Cemetery, where William Tucker, the first child born (in 1624) of those first slaves, is buried. William was the son of Anthony and Isabella, who, like their fellow captives, had been brought from the Kingdom of Ndongo in what is now the southwest African nation of Angola. Tomorrow, a new Commemoration and Visitor Center telling the story of those first slaves will open at Fort Monroe, the historic army fort in Hampton that is now a national monument. There will also be Black Heritage Tours, an educational African Landing Day Program, and a Commemoration Concert at the Hampton Coliseum. Sunday, a gospel music festival will highlight a “Day of Healing,” and the ceremonies will end with the release of butterflies and a nationwide ringing of bells. In addition, the Hampton History Museum is hosting events, and its traveling exhibit “1619: Arrival of the First Africans” is making its way around churches, community groups, libraries, and schools in Virginia.

Slaves were sold at public auctions in the southern United States. Pictures of blacks being sold like merchandise stirred much resentment in the North against slavery. Credit: Detail of The Slave Auction (1862), an oil painting on canvas by Eyre Crowe; Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York City

That first group of captive Africans in Virginia were classed along with indentured servants, because the colony did not yet have rules regarding slavery. Most indentured servants had a contract to work without wages for a master for four to seven years, after which they became free. Blacks brought in as slaves, however, had no right to eventual freedom, and they were sold at auction. Some Africans did gain their freedom, however, settling in the colonies and buying property. But racial prejudice among white colonists forced most free blacks to remain in the lowest levels of colonial society.

The slave population in America increased rapidly during the 1700′s as newly established colonies in the South created a great demand for plantation workers. By 1750, about 200,000 slaves lived mostly in the southern American colonies. The American Revolution (1775-1783) led to the birth of the United States, but all Americans were not yet considered “created equal.” By the early 1800′s, most Northern states had taken steps to end slavery, but more than 700,000 slaves lived in the South, and the numbers continued to increase. By 1860, the South held some 4 million slaves.

Many white Americans grew to feel that slavery was evil and violated the ideals of democracy. Such ideas were particularly widespread in the North, where slavery was less common. However, plantation owners and other supporters of slavery regarded it as natural to the Southern way of life. The North and the South thereby became increasingly divided over slavery. Eventually, the South rebelled against the North, starting the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the rebellious Southern states, and, in December 1865—after the South had surrendered—the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States officially ended slavery throughout the nation.

Racial prejudice against African Americans did not end there, however, and the decades after the Civil War were a constant struggle for equality. It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950′s and 1960′s that acts, amendments, and laws formally banned racial discrimination. Racial prejudice persists in much of America, however, and the struggle for fair treatment continues.

February 22, 2019

In honor of Black History Month, World Book looks at African American poet, playwright, and social worker Useni Eugene Perkins. As a writer, he is best known for his 1975 children’s poem “Hey Black Child.” Perkins composed this lyrical poem to celebrate black children in particular. However, the verse attempts to inspire all young people to dream big dreams and work to achieve their goals in life.

Hey Black Child by Useni Eugene Perkins and Bryan Collier. Credit: © Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Perkins’s poem was originally written as lyrics for a song in his children’s play Black Fairy (1975), but it quickly gained popularity as a stand-alone work in black classrooms and homes. Over the years, confusion has often surrounded the authorship of “Hey Black Child.” The poem has mistakenly been attributed to such African American writers as Maya Angelou and Countee Cullen. The popularity of the poem led to the creation of the 2017 picture book Hey Black Child, illustrated by Bryan Collier. The book helped to end the confusion over the poem’s creation.

Credit: © African American History Month

Eugene Perkins was born on Sept. 13, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois. He later added Useni as his first name. Perkins attended George Williams College, earning a B.S. degree in group social work in 1961 and an M.S. degree in administration in 1964. He has spent most of his adult life as a social worker in Chicago.

Throughout his life, Perkins has made contributions to African American poetry and drama, particularly works for children. He was a leader of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which rejected the literary forms and values of white culture. His poetry has been collected in Black Is Beautiful (1968), When You Grow Up: Poems for Children (1982) and Midnight Blues in the Afternoon and Other Poems (1984). He has written plays about such important black leaders in history as Steve Biko, W. E. B. Du Bois, Leadbelly, Paul Robeson, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, among others. Some of his plays for children have been collected in Black Fairy and Other Plays (1993).

February 13, 2019

Last week, in celebration of African American History Month, the African and Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, D.C., hosted an event called “Conversation on the Omar ibn Said Collection.” Omar ibn Said was a western African scholar who was captured and sold into slavery in the United States in the early 1800′s. Noted for his education and intelligence, Said—a Muslim who spoke Arabic—gained notoriety during his lifetime and wrote an autobiography in 1831.

Omar ibn Said in North Carolina in 1850. Credit: Yale University Beinecke Library (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Autobiography of Omar ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina is the only known memoir written in Arabic by a slave in the United States. The LOC’s Omar Ibn Said Collection includes the original manuscript of his autobiography, as well as texts written in Arabic by western African slaves held in countries other than the United States. The conversation on Said’s autobiography included an examination of Muslim communities in Africa and the people who continued to practice Islam after being forced into slavery.

Credit: © African American History Month

Omar ibn Said was born around 1770 in what is now Senegal. After years of schooling in Africa, he was enslaved and taken by ship to Charleston, South Carolina. Shortly after Said’s arrival in the United States, he escaped but was captured in North Carolina and briefly imprisoned. During his 16-day detainment, Said wrote in Arabic on the prison walls. His writing caught the attention of wealthy farmer James Owen, who purchased Said and apparently encouraged his literary efforts. Said then wrote his autobiography and many works related to the Qur’ān, the sacred book of the Muslims. Although highly critical of Christians who supported and participated in slavery, Said converted to Christianity during his captivity. He died in North Carolina in 1864. An English-language version of Said’s memoir was first published in 1925.

May 24, 2018

Last month, on April 26, the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened along with the new Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The sobering memorial and museum—separate places built to complement each other—are dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, and the injustice of dealing with racial segregation and discriminatory laws. They also detail the current burdens of African Americans facing unfair presumptions of guilt and excessive police violence.

The hanging memorials within the National Memorial for Peace and Justice detail the chilling history of the lynching of African Americans in the United States. Credit: Sonia Kapadia (licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The memorial and museum were created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organization committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Work on the memorial began in 2010 as EJI staff began investigating the history of lynchings in the American South. The numbers they came up with were staggering: more than 4,400 black people were lynched in the United States between 1877 and 1950.

Covering 6 acres (2.4 hectares), the Memorial for Peace and Justice details America’s history of racial inequality with unflinching glimpses of racial terror. The site includes sculptures and a central square with 800 hanging monuments that symbolize the brutal deaths of lynching victims. Each monument is peculiar to a county and state where lynchings took place, and each lists the names (when available) of victims and the dates when they were killed.

The memorial includes exhibits on the civil rights movement in the United States, with special attention paid to the local Montgomery bus boycotts of the 1950′s. Other exhibits deal with the contemporary issues of police violence and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The memorial displays writing from author Toni Morrison, words from civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., and a reflection space in honor of journalist and reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

A short walk away in Montgomery, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is built on the site of a former warehouse where enslaved black people were held before being bought and sold at a nearby auction site. Montgomery was once an important center of the slave trade in the American South, and many sites in the city chronicle this unfortunate history. Like the memorial, the 11,000-square-foot (1,022-square meter) museum details the chilling history of racism in the United States. First-person accounts tell the reality of living through the slave trade, and research materials and multimedia provide sobering details. The Legacy Museum also has exhibits on lynching, segregation, and the mass incarceration of African Americans.

February 23, 2018

World Book’s celebration of Black History Month continues with happy birthday wishes for African American leader W. E. B. Du Bois <<doo BOYS>>, who was born 150 years ago today on Feb. 23, 1868. During the first half of the 1900′s, Du Bois was the leading black opponent of racial discrimination in the United States. He also won fame as a historian and sociologist. Modern day historians still use Du Bois’s research on blacks in American society.

W. E. B. Du Bois was born 150 years ago today on Feb. 23, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

Du Bois was one of the first African Americans to express the idea of Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is the belief that all people of African descent have common interests and should work together to conquer prejudice. In 1900, Du Bois predicted that humanity’s chief problem of the new century would be “the color line.”

Credit: © African American History Month

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on Feb. 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He graduated from Fisk University in 1888. In 1895, he became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. degree at Harvard University. From 1897 to 1910, Du Bois taught history and economics at Atlanta University. In 1900, he attended the First Pan-African Conference in London, England. He later organized Pan-African conferences in Europe and the United States.

To fight racial discrimination, Du Bois founded the Niagara Movement in 1905. In 1909, he helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). From 1910 to 1934, he was editor of the NAACP magazine, The Crisis. Du Bois left the NAACP in 1934 and returned to the faculty at Atlanta University. From 1944 to 1948, he again worked for the NAACP. After 1948, Du Bois became increasingly dissatisfied with the slow progress of race relations in the United States. He moved to the west African country of Ghana in 1961. Du Bois died in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, on Aug. 27, 1963.

February 21, 2018

On Feb. 21, 1965, 53 years ago today, influential African American leader Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City. Malcolm X, an important defender of black rights, was once a prominent voice of the Nation of Islam (also called Black Muslims). The Nation of Islam is a religious group in the United States that preaches black nationalism. Malcolm X left the group, however, and was killed by Black Muslims who felt he had betrayed the group and its leader at the time, Elijah Muhammad.

Malcolm X, an influential African American leader, died 53 years ago today on Feb. 21, 1965. Credit: © Frank Castoral, Photo Researchers

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father was a follower of Marcus Garvey, a black leader who worked to establish close political and economic ties to Africa. In 1931, Malcolm’s father was found dead after being run over by a streetcar. Malcolm believed white racists were responsible for his father’s death. When Malcolm was 12 years old, his mother was committed to a mental hospital. Malcolm spent the rest of his childhood in foster homes, and he was discouraged by the prevalence of racial prejudice around him.

In 1946, Malcolm was arrested for burglary and joined the Nation of Islam while in prison. The Nation of Islam taught that white people were “devils.” After Malcolm was released from prison in 1952, he adopted X as his last name. The letter stood for the unknown African name of Malcolm’s slave ancestors.

Malcolm X quickly became the Nation of Islam’s most effective minister. He was a fiery orator, urging blacks to live separately from whites and to gain equality “by any means necessary.” But he became dissatisfied with the Nation of Islam, in part because the group avoided political activity.

Credit: © African American History Month

In 1964, Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam. Soon afterward, he traveled to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. He met Muslims of many ethnic backgrounds and rejected the view that all white people are devils. Malcolm X adopted the Muslim name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. After returning to the United States, he formed his own group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Malcolm X rejected nonviolence as a principle, but he sought cooperation with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists who favored militant (aggressive) nonviolent protests. But by this time, some Black Muslims had condemned Malcolm X as a hypocrite and traitor because of his criticisms of Elijah Muhammad. On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was fatally shot while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the crime. Malcolm’s views reached many people after his death through his Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965).

The Audubon Ballroom closed after Malcom X’s death. It was renovated and reopened as the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center in 2005.

February 8, 2018

In honor of Black History Month, today World Book looks at the Whitney Plantation, an open-air historical museum near New Orleans, Louisiana, dedicated to the victims of slavery in the United States. The sprawling Whitney Plantation Historic District includes fields of sugar cane, a French Creole barn, the opulent “Big House,” quarters in which enslaved people lived, and haunting ceramic statues of the “children of Whitney.” Whitney Plantation is one of many sites featured on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Statues of slave children await visitors to the Antioch Baptist Church which was relocated to Whitney Plantation. Credit: Corey Balazowich (licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0)

Whitney Plantation was originally known as Habitation Haydel after the family who owned it from the late 1700′s until after the American Civil War (1861-1865). According to an 1819 document, the Haydel family owned 40 men, 21 women, and 9 children. By 1860, there were 101 people enslaved on the Haydel property. The slaves worked the sugar cane and rice fields, maintained the many plantation buildings, and cooked, cleaned, and cared for the Haydel family—as well as for one another. After the war ended and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery in the United States in December 1865, distilling and sugar magnate Bradish Johnson purchased Habitation Haydel and renamed it in honor of his grandson, Harry Payne Whitney.

Credit: © African American History Month

New Orleans attorney and real estate developer John Cummings purchased the Whitney Plantation in 1999. He soon began turning it into a museum, and set about restoring the grounds, constructing new buildings, hiring artists and scholars, and digging into the plantation’s historical records. Cummings’s staff at Whitney obtained the oral histories of about 4,000 Louisiana slaves compiled by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930′s. Memorial walls constructed at Whitney list the single names of thousands of Louisiana slaves, and a “Field of Angels” remembers the many slave children who died at Whitney and other Louisiana plantations. Other installations and placards re-create the harsh lives of the slave population. The Whitney Plantation opened to visitors in 2014 and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992.