February 1, 2019

Today, February 1, is National Freedom Day in the United States. The observance commemorates the day in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln signed a resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution to outlaw slavery. The resolution became the Thirteenth Amendment, and it was ratified by the states on Dec. 6, 1865. The amendment ended slavery in all parts of the United States. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, had freed only the slaves in the Confederate States that were still in rebellion against the Union.

On Feb. 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed the resolution proposing an amendment to outlaw slavery in the United States. February 1 is now an observance known as National Freedom Day. Credit: © Alan Freed, Shutterstock

In 1941, Richard R. Wright, Sr., an 86-year-old retired U.S. Army officer who was born a slave in 1855, created the National Freedom Day Association and led the push to have an observance formally recognized. His hard work paid off, but unfortunately he died in July 1947 before the observance was signed into law. On June 30, 1948, Congress authorized the president to proclaim the first day of February in each year as National Freedom Day. President Harry S. Truman made Feb. 1, 1949, the first such day. The purpose of the annual observance is to “promote goodwill, harmony, and equal opportunity among all citizens, and to rededicate the nation to the ideal of freedom.”

In the 1940′s, Richard R. Wright, Sr., led the push to create National Freedom Day. Credit: University of Pennsylvania Archives

Wright was born in Georgia and worked in education and local politics before serving as a paymaster in the Army. He later served as the first president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, a historically black school that is now Savannah State University.

August 28, 2018

Fifty years ago this week, from Aug. 26 to 29, 1968, political leaders gathered for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to nominate that party’s candidate for president of the United States. The convention is normally a festive, hopeful, and inspiring event, but few things were “normal” in the United States of 1968. The ongoing Vietnam War was a point of bitter contention among the American public. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy had produced shock, grief, and anger in the country. Racial tensions were high, and social and political divides had never been sharper. Political protests turned violent during the convention, and America watched on television as police battled the people in the streets of Chicago.

Protesters confront National Guard troops on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue during the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 26, 1968. Credit: Library of Congress

Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, second only in power in the Democratic party to President Lyndon B. Johnson, was prepared for unrest. The city’s police were out in force for the convention, the National Guard had been mobilized, and steel barrier walls topped with barbed wire were ready to slide into place. A heatwave and taxi driver strike added to the kindling of political discord, and as protesters took advantage of the convention’s media spotlight to plead their cases, the ingredients were ready for confrontation.

Richard J. Daley, the mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976, was one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the United States. Credit: AP Photo

People from across the country came to Chicago to participate in protests during the convention. People stridently called for racial equality, radical political change, an end to the war in Vietnam, and other causes. Protests took place around the city, and roaring chants and catcalls greeted political delegates as they emerged from cars to enter the International Amphitheatre on Chicago’s south side (the indoor arena was torn down in 1999). Inside the convention, there was yelling too. Delegates strongly disagreed on who should replace President Johnson—who had chosen not to run for a second full term—on the Democratic presidential ticket. The death of Robert Kennedy had opened a void in Democratic leadership, and the contenders to fill that void vastly differed on the country’s issues.

Democratic presidential candidate Hubert H. Humphrey addresses the crowd at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 29, 1968. Credit: AP Photo

Many Chicago police officers, on edge and pushed to the limit of their tolerance, began beating protesters who would not respond to orders to withdraw, move aside, or quiet down. Protesters responded by hurling rocks and other projectiles at the police, and the commotion turned to riot. Police sprayed people with mace and fired tear gas into the crowds. Hundreds of people were arrested, often with great physical violence, and many protesters and police were injured. Many innocent bystanders were also hurt, including members of the media trying to cover the unrest.

Television news broadcast the mayhem around the country, and people connected the violence with the Democratic Party. The eventual Democratic presidential nominee, Johnson’s Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, did not please many Democratic voters. Humphrey lost to the Republican “law and order” candidate Richard M. Nixon in the election. Nixon lost favor with Americans, however. The president promised to end U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but he increased air raids and sent American troops into battle for five more years. In 1974, after his Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned while under criminal investigation, Nixon too resigned to prevent being impeached because of the Watergate scandal.

September 27, 2016

On Saturday, September 24, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opened to the public in Washington, D.C. Located on the National Mall, the museum details the history of slavery, the period of Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, segregation, and civil rights. It also highlights African Americans’ achievements in the arts, entertainment, military, politics, sports, and other aspects of the wider culture. The NMAAHC is a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture stands on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Credit: © Alan Karchmer, National Museum of African American History and Culture

President Barack Obama, together with his family, helped dedicate the museum. “This national museum helps to tell a richer and fuller story of who we are,” he said. “Hopefully, this museum can help us to talk to each other. And more importantly, listen to each other. And most importantly, see each other. Black and white and Latino and Native American and Asian American—see how our stories are bound together.” In 2009, Obama made history as the first African American president of the United States. His speech on Saturday came amid racial tensions stirred by recent police shootings of black men in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The dedication ceremony of the National Museum of African American History and Culture took place on Sept. 24, 2016, in Washington, D.C. Credit: © National Museum of African American History and Culture

Former President George W. Bush, who authorized construction of the museum in 2003, joined President Obama at the NMAAHC dedication. “A great nation,” he said, “does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and it corrects them.”

Cultural material collected by the museum includes works of art, historical artifacts, photographs, moving images, archival documents, electronic data, audio recordings, books, and manuscripts. The museum’s notable collections include the Harriet Tubman Collection, featuring dozens of artifacts that belonged to the underground railroad leader; the Ernest C. Withers Photography Collection; and the Black Fashion Museum Collection. The $540-million museum was designed by Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye, who was inspired by Yoruban art from West Africa.

June 22, 2016

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters demonstrate outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some hold portraits of slain civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Credit: Library of Congress

On June 20, after an investigation that continued for more than half a century, federal and Mississippi authorities officially closed the books on one of the most heinous, racially motivated criminal cases in the history of the United States civil rights movement. Known as the “Freedom Summer” murder case or the “Mississippi Burning” murder case, it was notable as the first successful federal prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi. Outrage over the case helped gain passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In June 1964, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two white civil rights volunteers from New York City, and James Chaney, a black volunteer from Meridian, Mississippi, were working together in Meridian as part of the “Freedom Summer” campaign to help African Americans register to vote. The campaign was organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights organization. At that time, many Southern States had used various methods to deprive blacks of their voting rights. On June 21, the three men were on their way to investigate the burning of an African American church in Neshoba County when they were taken into custody for speeding by a sheriff deputy. After the men were released from county jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a Ku Klux Klan mob followed their car, forced it off the road, and shot the men to death. The volunteers’ station wagon was found three days later. Initially classified as a missing persons case, the men’s disappearance sparked national outrage and an investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI found the bodies of the three men 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

In 1967, 18 men were tried on federal civil rights charges in the case. An all-white jury convicted seven of them of violating the civil rights of the Freedom Summer volunteers. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state never brought charges. None of the convicted men served more than six years in prison. The plot leader, Edgar Ray Killen, a Baptist minister, avoided a trial due to a hung jury. Killen was finally convicted in a 2005 trial based on new evidence unveiled in 2000. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he remains today at age 91.

In 2010, federal authorities reopened the investigation in search of evidence to allow them to convict the remaining suspects. However, that investigation came to a halt 18 months ago after a witness backed out at the last minute after pledging to sign a sworn statement that would have implicated a suspect, according to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

Monday’s decision means that no other suspects in the case will be prosecuted. “It has been a thorough and complete investigation,” Hood said. “I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them accountable; however, we have determined that there is no likelihood of any additional convictions… Our state and our entire nation are a much better place because of the work of those three young men and others in 1964 who only wanted to ensure that the rights and freedoms promised in our Constitution were afforded to every single one of us in Mississippi.” In 2014, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Presidential Medals of Freedom.

Other World Book articles

• Evers, Medgar
• Freedom riders
• Meredith, James

March 5, 2015

Yesterday, a United States Department of Justice (DOJ) inquiry cleared Darren Wilson, a white police officer, of violating the civil rights of Michael Brown. Brown was an unarmed African American teenager whom Wilson shot during a confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014. The department found that witnesses’ claims that Brown had been surrendering when he was shot were not believable. “There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson’s stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety,” the Justice Department report stated.

On March 3, a separate Justice Department investigation found that Ferguson police had regularly violated the constitutional rights of African Americans. The report noted that blacks had been ticketed and arrested in far greater proportion than their share of the city’s population. The report also identified three city workers as having sent racist e-mails. Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said one of the three employees had been fired and that the other two were under investigation. Knowles outlined a number of reforms the city had implemented to address some of the Justice Department’s concerns. “We must do better not only as a city but as a state and a country. We must all work to address issues of racial disparity in all aspects of our society,” Knowles said.

According to the Justice Department report, one aspect of policing problems in Ferguson centered around using tickets and arrests as a means of funding the city’s budget. The police department and city hall of Ferguson became focused on maximizing the number of tickets, arrests, and citations written by the police in order to fill budgetary gaps caused by low tax revenue. Officers in Ferguson were arresting far more blacks than whites, so black citizens of Ferguson came to feel more and more resentful of this misuse of authority. Meanwhile, Ferguson police saw African Americans not as citizens to be protected, but as “sources of revenue,” according to the DOJ.

People watched as stores burned in November 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Protests erupted when a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, the unarmed, black 18-year-old whose fatal shooting had sparked earlier protests. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Attorney General Eric Holder stated that a “highly toxic environment” existed between Ferguson police officers and the city’s African American residents before Wilson shot and killed Brown in 2014. “It’s not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Holder said. In August 2014, people in Ferguson protested both the shooting and what many believed was a history of unfair treatment of blacks by white authorities. The protests at times involved damage to property, and national media broadcast images of protesters pitted against police clad in riot gear. In November, protests flared anew after prosecutors announced the St. Louis County grand jury’s decision not to indict (bring criminal charges against) Wilson. Some protesters threw objects at police and set a number of buildings and vehicles on fire.

Other World Book articles:

• African American Civil Rights Movement Since 1954 (a Timeline)

• Racism

December 4, 2014

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice will launch a civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner. Garner, an African American man, died after being placed in an apparent chokehold by a white New York City police officer. The announcement came after a grand jury in New York City decided against charging the officer with murder or a related crime.

Garner was stopped on a street in the New York City borough of Staten Island on July 17 on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes. During a confrontation with police, he was wrestled to the ground and restrained by force. He later died. The entire incident was caught on tape, which shows the police officer using what appears to be chokehold, a maneuver that New York City police are barred from using. New York City’s medical examiner ruled earlier that Eric Garner’s death was, in fact, a homicide and that a chokehold contributed to it.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has announced a federal investigation into the death of Eric Garner by a New York City police officer. (U.S. Department of Justice)

The grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officer triggered street protests last night in New York City, including a sit-in in Grand Central Station that disrupted the evening commute. Activists are calling for a march in Washington, D.C., next week. Yesterday’s protests came on the heel of race-related unrest last week in St. Louis and other U.S. cities after a grand jury decided against indicting another white police officer who had shot dead a young black man in Ferguson, Missouri. Making the announcement, Attorney General Holder stated that he is continuing a review of how to heal a “breakdown in trust” between police and minority communities.

Additional World Book article:

• African Americans