Black History: Serena Williams

Serena Williams, is the highest paid female athlete and a three-time Olympian (2000, 2008, 2012); Four-time Olympic medalist (4 golds). With sister, Venus, is the winningest doubles tennis team in Olympic history and will look to match the Olympic record for overall tennis medals (5).

Black History: Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten (January 5, 1893 — June 29, 1987) was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter. A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. Her approach involved using a right-handed guitar (usually in standard tuning), not re-strung for left-handed playing, essentially, holding a right-handed guitar upside down. This position required her to play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as “Cotten picking”.

Black History: Mae C. Jemison

Received this teaching aid in my email and thought it would be a great share. Learn something, share something, enjoy!

Read Aloud: Mae Among the Stars

Responsibility of Black Folks

A message: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoHsfObjGVg/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY= All the best during this Black History Month.

The Proclamation

In 1991, we cannot tolerate this type of dismissal of any one Black woman’s experience or this attack upon our collective character without protest, outrage, and resistance. As women of African descent, we express our vehement opposition to the policies represented by the placement of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.

“What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July?”

Speech, 1852: Frederick Douglass, “What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July” Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) was the best known and most influential African American leader of the 1800s. He was born a slave in Maryland but managed to escape to the North in 1838. He traveled to Massachusetts and settled in New Bedford, working […]

We All Bound Up Together

We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul. You tried that in the case of the Negro. You pressed him down for two centuries; and in so doing you crippled the moral strength and paralyzed the spiritual energies of the white men of the country. When the hands of the black were fettered, white men were deprived of the liberty of speech and the freedom of the press. Society cannot afford to neglect the enlightenment of any class of its members.

Poem: Eliza Harris by Frances Harper

BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild,A woman swept by us, bearing a child;In her eye was the night of a settled despair,And her brow was o’ershaded with anguish and care. She was nearing the river—in reaching the brink,She heeded no danger, she paused not to think!For she is […]

I AM WOMAN: A Timeline

I think it’s a necessary part of the continuing story I’m trying to show and tell about our roots and our trajectories. Our struggles and our joys. The way we make do and make better no matter our starting points. We, Black Women, are magnificent in all our statuses, throughout any affliction or oppression, we not only continue to rise, we shine, we illuminate our surroundings and provide routes of escape for others to follow.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO. HIS ASPIRATIONS AND GRIEVANCES.

From a 1896 interview: “Miss Brown, who has herself been a witness of the atrocities of a lynching mob, drew a scathing picture of the attitude the United States Government in this matter. When negroes were cruelly murdered, not in isolated cases, but by threes and fours at a time, the Executive would not meddle with the liberties of particular States. But when property was in danger, as in the case of the Chicago riots, the Executive was ready enough to send in soldiers and militiamen.” Sounds like today, 2021.

#americarising

We can do better.