Black History : America, Not About Negro History

The article “Controversial Blackness: The Historical Development & Future Trajectory of African American Studies,” was written by Martha Biondi, a European Associate Professor of African American Studies and History at Northwestern University.

The Negro Digs Up His Past by Arthur Schomburg is an article he wrote in 1925, in which he complaint that somehow through the years African American history has been questioned and denied as many claim that Africans have no history at all. He uses this paper to illustrate the importance of recording the collective accomplishments of African Americans and that we must at all costs save any evidence, so that things like this do not happen again in the future. He wants to make sure to leave no place for doubts that African Americans have a history and is irrefutable in the eyes of skeptics and the world. According to Schomburg, “Though it is orthodox to think of America as the one country where it is unnecessary to have a past, what is luxury for the nation as a whole becomes a prime social necessity for the Negro(Schomburg 231).” He emphasizes that blacks have to dig deep into their own history in order to hold their own against the current oppression. He wants to set the record straight and restore the history that was omitted, the history that was denied to them, a history that has somehow been stolen from them forever.

African American history is important to me because I learned how strong and courageous blacks were. African American history gives us knowledge and recognitions of black achievements. African American history is a huge part of our nation's history. It is important to study our history so we can learn about the black accomplishment. In school, they teach us about Rosa Parks and George Washington Carver. It was a great African American artist name Horace Pippin his painting told stories. I never heard of this man until studying African American history. Another young black horse trainer named James Jimmy Winkfield was never mentioned. He was nineteen years old when he won the Kentucky Derby. He was the youngest of seventeen

During my early years of school, I remember being taught white accomplishments and wondering if blacks and other people of color had made any significant contributions to today's world. I noticed that television consist of all white people. Throughout my research paper I hope to cover certain aspects of African American heritage. Aspects such as blacks making up the largest minority group in the United States, although Mexican-Americans are rapidly changing that. The contributions blacks have provided to our country are immeasurable. Unfortunately though rather than recognizing these contributions, white America would rather focus on oppressing and degrading these people. As a consequence American

Slavery began in the late 16th century to early 18th century. Africans were brought to American colonies by white masters to come and work on their plantations in the South. They were treated harshly with no payments for all their hard work. In addition, they lived under harsh living conditions, and this led to their resistance against these harsh conditions. The racism towards the African Americans who were slaves was at its extreme as they did not have any rights; no civil nor political rights.

In 1960 Ella Baker delivered a speech entitled “Bigger than a Hamburger” to what would come to be the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In this speech she argued to students who had been involved in the sit-ins that what they were fighting for was bigger than a hamburger and desegregating a lunch counter, but struggling for equality in all its forms. In a similar way, so too has the fight for quality education been bigger than a classroom. Ella Baker also argued that, “through the process of education, black people would be accepted in the American culture and they would be accorded their rights in proportion to the degree to which they qualified as being persons of learning and culture.” This is a testament to the over 200 year tradition within the black community of viewing education as inseparable with the concepts of freedom and citizenship. During slavery anyone found to be assembling in an effort to teach slaves to read and write received corporal punishment. Consequently, throughout Reconstruction education was pursued with a vengeance. Freedmen’s Bureau agents reported, “Colored men have paid their own money to prepare and furnish a room for a school.” The Rosenwald Fund, a charity organization headed by the president of the Sears Roebuck Company, donated funds to build black schools, but the funds had to be matched by those from the local school system. So black residents’ double taxed themselves in order to pay for these schools. Nearly every

In schools during the 1930’s, the education system failed to present authentic African American History in schools and African Americans were taught that their history meant nothing because most history books gave little or no space to the black man's presence in America.

America’s Reconstruction Era was the beginning of what was thought to be an African American’s breath of fresh air into an equal and just society. Instead, what resulted after the era was the rise of the Jim Crow laws that enabled racial separation, rather than uniting all of the races together. In the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896, the Supreme Court reached a consensus that enabled facilities to have “separate but equal” spaces. The Jim Crow laws were a disgrace to America’s past law system since it showed flaws in recognizing the ethicality of segregation. Most high school students have a basic understanding about the Jim Crow laws from the facts provided in their textbook and teachers, however, the students are overlooking the

My fellow students let me begin by wishing you all a very good morning. Today, I have with me two prizes, and with my two prizes I have two questions. Answer them correctly and they will be yours to have. My first question is “who can name America's first president?”.......Alright good, I have another one for you “ can you name the first person to get shot in the Boston Massacre?”........

It was soon my group’s turn to perform on stage. The Black History assembly was upon us and we within my group we were tasked with black history Past. Present. Future. Some of my group members were assigned Harriet Tubman, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Barack Obama among others. When Harriet went I smiled, when Diddy went I laughed, when Oprah went I seized. See I was tasked with Alvin Ailey; World famous dancer and one of the first black males to do it on a professional level. I didn’t know not a thing about ballet so I immediately thought of the impossible. I only knew how to dance hip-hop, so I researched him and found out the dance style he created and analyzed it. His dance style was fluid yet robust, as if he was a gust of pure everlasting

The centralized Theme portrayed in this reading is the social and mainly economic oppression faced by blacks at the end of the war to end wars. The black community, though weak according to the standards of white people, had very strong willpower and were prepared to gather together and work to receive the treatment they deserved as human beings. Yet it was noticed that though they had a very strong willpower, there were some behind the scenes faults that weakened the backing of the black leadership, causing disorder. Namely, the question answered here is how are blacks able to get their forces together to achieve a goal; and It is through strong, passionate leadership, as well as people willing to see a change that blacks work to accomplish their goals.

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Introduction to African American Studies was the class that I decided to take this summer because I am genuinely interested in learning more about the cultures and lifestyles of African Americans through out history and I want to further my knowledge beyond just learning about what was taught to me in secondary school. I do not know much about African American studies as I have not taken any courses on it or relating to it in the past but I hope that I can gain a lot of information on the topic through out this intellectual experience. I also hope to gain a better understanding of the history of Africans and African Americas and be able to dive deeper into this topic instead of just hitting the surface as I feel as though my previous experiences with this topic have covered. In just this first weeks lesson I have learned about the three great principles that characterize the “Black Intellectual Tradition” and how these three principles are used and perceived.

The newspapers covered many of the social and political problems of the South because it was the best communication to the

Before the Civil Rights Act while the Jim Crow Laws were still in effect, schools in the South were mandated to segregate students based on race. Meanwhile schools in other parts of the country were not forced to be segregated, with the exception of a few states that had no legislation or segregation was forbidden. In some extreme cases some blacks could not attend school. Schools were not the only institution effected by segregation, churches, restaurants, as well as other public facilities. The challenges faced by those who were forced to be segregated is unlawful and unfair that just because of the color of their skin they were not given the same opportunities as whites. The amount of opportunities that these students were not allowed is immense. Just because of someone’s race they felt that it was necessary to treat them like they were unequal or unworthy of a standard education. The pain that these families went through was not just because of schooling, but severe racism that they encountered on a daily basis. Do to these circumstances parents of those affected by segregation coordinated with civil rights groups like NAACP. This challenged discriminatory policies through litigation even though they had small success rate.