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Black history is American history, but it’s not treated as such. It’s sectioned off like the VIP section in the club, only without the VIP treatment. We’re relegated to just one month, and the shortest month of the year at that. In textbooks, Black history facts — the vast and rich tapestry of the history of Black life in America — are reduced to the same lessons about slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Those things will always be important, but they're not the whole story. We celebrate one Black leader as if he was the only. If you're interested in learning more about Black history, because again, Black history is your history, you'll probably have to look outside your classroom. Forgotten are luminaries like congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and deplorable incidents like the Tuskegee experiment.
Here are five key moments, developments and figures in Black history that you should probably know about.
1. The Establishment of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
When Blacks were enslaved, they were often banned from reading and writing. Many still risked their lives to learn. Post-Civil War, Blacks were generally denied admittance to white higher education institutions, so HBCUs were created to serve the post-secondary educational needs of Black Americans. The debate on whether the first HBCU was Cheyney University (1837) or Lincoln University (1854), both in Pennsylvania, is a never-ending one. While Cheyney existed before Lincoln, it didn’t award college degrees until 1914. Therefore, several scholars and historians consider Lincoln to be the first. Since their inception in the mid 1800s, HBCUs have been crucial institutions for nurturing Black culture, community, and professional networks in America. Today there are a little over 100 HBCUs (reports vary on numbers between 100-107). More than 80% of Blacks with degrees in medicine and dentistry received them from Howard or Meharry Medical School, both HBCUs — and those schools still account for almost 20% of those degrees for Black dentists and doctors. A few notable HBCU graduates include: Vice President Kamala Harris, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Dubois, Mary Mcleod Bethune, Toni Morrison, Oprah, Taraji P. Henson, Common, Debbie Allen, Spike Lee, and too many more to name. The first female Black billionaire graduated from an HBCU in Nashville, TN, which happens to be my alma mater (Tennessee State University). HBCU graduates tend to have immense pride in their school because they were not only well educated, but nurtured and affirmed by people who look like them.
2. The Development and Destruction of Black Wall Street (1900-1921)
Black Wall Street was an affluent Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the early 1900s. It was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country at a time where Blacks were living under Jim Crow laws. Black Wall Street was a hub filled with prominent Black doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. It encompassed 36 blocks of over 600 Black businesses with a population of 15,000. Six Black locals even owned planes, according to San Francisco Bay View. A doctor in the neighborhood owned the bus system, earning $500 a day in 1910.
On June 1, 1921 mobs of white residents destroyed Black Wall Street. Bombs were dropped from planes, stores were looted, businesses were burned, and close to 300 people were killed. History now marks the day as the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Reports on what led to the attack point to a Black man, Dick Rowland, allegedly assaulting a white woman, Sarah Page, in the elevator of a city building. Rowland tripped and grabbed the white woman’s arm to steady his fall, causing her to scream.
But in 1921 that was not a story whites would believe, and a bystander who heard the commotion assumed the worst. This type of fabricated story involving a Black man assaulting a white woman (even if there was no actual assault) was a common occurrence, and one that often had deathly consequences. Rowland was arrested and taken to the courthouse while a mob of angry whites gathered outside demanding the law turn him over to them. Armed Black World War I veterans also gathered outside the courthouse to make sure that Rowland was not lynched. Amid an altercation between a white man and a Black man, a gun went off. That was the beginning of the Tulsa Race Riot. Over the course of 24 hours a thriving Black community was ruined. Over 600 businesses were lost, Black families were left homeless after their homes were burned to the ground, and more than $1.5 million (the equivalent of $20 million in today’s dollars) of damage was done. The few surviving victims are still hoping for justice.
3. The Great Migration Out of the South (1916-1970)
More than six million Blacks migrated from the South to the North, Midwest, and West between 1916 and 1970. Southern Blacks were plagued by segregationist laws and unsatisfactory economic opportunities. The migration north allowed them to take advantage of the need for industrial laborers following the First World War. By the end of 1919 roughly 1 million Blacks had left the south. They usually traveled by train, boat, or bus. Between 1910-1920, the Black population grew by 66% in New York City, by 148% in Chicago, by 500% in Philadelphia, and by 611% in Detroit, where newly-arrived migrants were able to find jobs in factories, foundries, and slaughterhouses.
Though segregation wasn’t legal, Blacks still faced racism and discrimination. Competition for housing and federal laws that prevented Black people from living in certain neighborhoods prompted them to create their own enclaves in these major cities. Harlem was formerly an all-white neighborhood, but by the 1920s it housed 200,000 Blacks. The Great Migration also sparked a new era of political activism. The Great Depression of the 1930s considerably slowed down migration, but it picked back up in the years leading up to World War II. By 1970, when the Great Migration ended, the South was home to only half of American Blacks. For comparison, in 1900, 9 out of 10 Blacks lived in the South.
4. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment (1932-1972)
In 1932, 600 Black men enrolled in a study that was supposed to record the natural history of syphilis in Blacks. The research experiment took place at Tuskegee Institute, a historically Black university in Alabama. Of the 600 men, 399 had syphilis and 201 were “control subjects.” Most of the men were poor sharecroppers. These men were enticed with free meals on experiment days, rides to and from the clinic, medical exams, and guarantees that in case of death provisions would be made to their surviving families. In 1947, penicillin became the treatment for syphilis, but it was withheld from everyone participating in the study. Between the start of the study in 1932 and 1947 when penicillin was determined as the treatment, dozens of men had died and had infected their wives and children. The experiment on human beings led to public outcry and government review.
Evidence showed that “scientific research protocol routinely applied to human subjects was either ignored or deeply flawed to ensure the safety and well-being of the men involved.” The men never knew about the life-threatening consequences of the treatments they were receiving. The assistant secretary for health and scientific affairs officially ended the study in 1972 after a panel found it ethically unjustified. In 1973 attorney Fred Gray filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the men and their families. They were awarded $9 million dollars. There is a long history in this country of medical racism toward Blacks in the United States. If you meet a Black person who doesn’t like going to the doctor or who doesn’t trust medical professionals, do some research on Google. You’ll see there is a very real reason for this skepticism.
5. The election of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman (1924-2005)
Shirley Chisholm is my personal hero who didn’t get her just due when she was here. Chisholm was born on November 30, 1924 to Caribbean parents in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and her MA from Columbia University’s Teachers College. She was an educator who launched her political career by volunteering for white political clubs in Brooklyn. From 1953 to 1959 she was director of Hamilton-Madison Child Care Center in lower Manhattan and from 1959 to 1964 served as an educational consultant for New York City's Division of Day Care. She was an authority on early education and child welfare.
In 1968, she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from New York State’s 12th congressional district. Her campaign slogan was "Unbought and Unbossed," which was also the name of her 1970 autobiography. She won, becoming the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Chisholm was initially assigned to the House Agricultural Committee, then later worked on the food stamp program. Eventually she was assigned to the Education and Labor Committee but left to join the Rules Committee in 1977, of which she was the first Black woman member. She was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 and the Congressional Women's Caucus in 1977. On January 25, 1972 she announced her bid for presidency. Although Chisholm did not win, she won 10% of the vote at the Democratic National Convention and was the first Black woman to run for president. “When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being Black. Men are men,” she said.
Editor's note: This piece was originally published on February 28, 2016.
Related: Shirley Chisholm's Historic Presidential Run Was "Unbought and Unbossed"
