Black History
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John Miles Lewis Remembered
Congressman and civil rights leader, John Lewis, was remembered today, Thursday, July 30, 2020, at his longtime place of worship, Ebenezer Baptist church. Congressman Lewis, the son of sharecroppers, was born on February 21, 1940 in Pike County, Alabama. Before his service in the House of Representatives, 5th Congressional District of Georgia (1987-2020), he was a civil rights icon. In 1961 Lewis became one of the original Freedom Riders; 13 activists who protested the segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations, as being unconstitutional. Three former presidents attended Representative Lewis’s funeral; Clinton, Bush and Obama, while President Carter, 95, and his wife, Rosalynn, were unable to attend. The Carter’s…
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Emancipation Proclamation
Juneteenth Emancipation Order June 19, 1865 commemorates the day General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas leading the union occupation force and bringing with them the news of the Emancipation Proclamation. Read more about the holiday of Juneteenth: “Emancipation wasn’t a gift bestowed on the slaves; it was something they took for themselves, …” New York Times Opinion Piece Washington Post Article on George Floyd Protest
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The Story of Cudjo Lewis
Cudjo Lewis, (ca. 1841-1935), (birth name of Oluale Kossola (Kazoola)), along with 120 others, was sold into slavery at the age of 19. The slave ship Clotilda travelled from the West African country of Benin ( Cudjo Lewis’s birth place) to Alabama in 1860 just one year prior to the Civil War (the bloodiest war in the history of the United States) that erupted on April 12, 1861. To learn about the life of Oluale Kossola you can read Zora Neale Hurston’s book Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”. Zora first attempted publication in 1931, but it took fifty-eight years after her death (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) to…
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Black History Month
It was Dec. 1, 1955 on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks, a NAACP member, bravely refused to allow a white man to have her seat. She refused to be sent to the back of the bus. We find it hard to imagine that one individual in a moment of choice and action can make a difference. We have grown cynical. We have given up before even trying, believing that without wealth, power, and a Super PAC on our team, it is an impossibility that an ordinary person can help facilitate change. And it is true that we are up against an advantaged few that often win…
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Ole Miss Riot
On Oct. 1, 1962 Mississippi University admitted James Meredith; their first black student. This Federally ordered act of integration resulted in a violent mob riot on the campus. Two people were killed and hundreds injured. Mississippi had segregationist laws that Governor Ross Barnett tried to uphold despite President Kennedy’s order to obey the federal law against segregation. The fight to preserve James Meredith’s civil right to attend the University of Mississippi is sometimes referred to as “the last battle of the Civil War”. Learn more about the facts and people involved.
