On this date in History .... 1827:
“Freedom’s Journal” became the first
black-owned and operated newspaper in the United
States, established the same year that slavery was abolished in New York
state. The paper’s primary purpose was
to counter the other pro-slavery and racist papers already in publication. The
editors began their first publication with the words, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have
others spoken for us. Too long has the publick (sic) been deceived by
misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly."
It not only
provided local and national news but also published weddings, birth and death
announcements, job postings for African Americans and profiled successful
African-Americans such as Phyllis Wheatley (first published black poet). Its
two-year existence helped over forty black-owned newspapers become established
by the Civil War.
All issues of the
paper can be found at the Wisconsin Historical Society (this link):
click here to read "Freedom's Journal"
On this date in history .... 1926:
The first “Negro History Week”, the precursor to “National Black History
Month”, is
observed.
It was the brainchild of Carter
G. Woodson, the son of former slaves who is considered the Father of Black
History. The second week of February was selected since it included the
birthdates of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
After becoming the
2nd Black American to graduate from Harvard with a Ph.D. (W.E.B.
DuBois was the first), he began working to include history of Black Americans
in mainstream history. He was bothered that history books largely ignored the
black population. One Harvard professor told him, “The Negro has no history”
and Woodson set out to prove otherwise. He noted that African-American contributions "were overlooked,
ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the
teachers who use them."
As a child, he
went to school during the four months a year allowed to black children and
learned to read from the Bible and newspapers. He worked in coal mines before
he was able to attend high school. He completed
a 4-year high school curriculum in just two years. In 1920, as dean of School
of Liberal Arts at Howard University, he created the first African-American
survey course and founded the Associated Negro Publishers to promote publishing
for African-Americans
He once wrote:
“If you can control a man’s
thinking, you don’t have to worry about his actions. If you can determine what
a man thinks you do not have to worry about what he will do. If you can make a
man believe that he is inferior, you don’t have to compel him to seek an
inferior status, he will do so without being told and if you can make a man
believe that he is justly an outcast, you don’t have to order him to the back
door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the
very nature of the man will demand that you build one.”
He didn’t live long enough to see his “Negro
History Week” turn into “Black History Month” but his devotion to putting the
contributions of African Americans into the history books have been
far-reaching.
Quoting from Wikipedia:
“Woodson was ostracized by some of his
contemporaries because of his insistence on defining a category of history
related to ethnic culture and race. At the time, these educators felt that it
was wrong to teach or understand African-American history as separate from more
general American history. According to these educators, "Negroes"
were simply Americans, darker skinned, but with no history apart from that of
any other. Thus Woodson's efforts to get Black culture and history into the
curricula of institutions, even historically Black colleges, were often unsuccessful.
Today African-American studies have become specialized fields of study in
history, music, culture, literature and other areas; in addition, there is more
emphasis on African-American contributions to general American culture. The
United States celebrates Black History Month.”
.
