What is Black History Month?

Black History Month was designed to educate people on the pain and suffering throughout history that Blacks encountered to receive equal rights and freedom. Americans have recognized Black History annually ever since 1926 which was first known as “Negro History Week” and then converted to “Black History Month.” Although Blacks have been part of our country's history since the colonial times, it was not until the 20th century that they received a respectable honor in the history books.

What is Voting Rights Act of 1965?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created a huge change for African Americans throughout the South. The Voting Rights Act prohibited states from using literacy tests, interpreting the Constitution. It also ended many other practices used to exclude African Americans from voting. Prior to the Voting Rights Act only about twenty-three percent of Blacks were registered to vote, but by 1969 after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the number of registered Blacks to vote nearly tripled to sixty-one percent.

African-Americans who've made a difference...

Who is Harriet Tubman?

[1820-1913] Harriet Tubman was one of the most well known Underground Rail Road conductors. She was born a slave in Maryland around 1820. At the age of five or six she started to work as a house servant, then at age 13 she began to work on the fields. In 1949 Tubman had great fear that she was going to be sold so she decided to escape the plantation making her way to Pennsylvania. She moved to Philadelphia to get a job and save money to help her family escape slavery. By 1856, the reward for Tubman's capture reached $40,000 due to the number of slaves she helped rescue to freedom.

Who is Rosa Parks?

[1913-2005] Rosa Parks is known as the “Mother of Modern Day Civil Rights Movement” by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested for breaking the Montgomery segregation law that started a boycott of city bus lines that lasted 381 days. This event later led to the 1956 Supreme Court ruling the declaration of demonstration illegal on public buses. Over the years, Rosa Parks received many awards including the Medal of Freedom Award, presented by President Clinton in 1996.

Who is George Washington Carver

[1860-1943] George Washington Carver was born in Missouri on the Moses Carver plantation. He was born into slavery. At an early age he developed whooping cough which restricted him to chores involving cooking and sewing. Although education wasn’t an option for slaves, Carver was determined to be come educated, and by doing so he taught himself how to read. At the age of 12 he left home to attend a Black school which consisted of one teacher to 75 students. In his later years he was accepted to Iowa State College where he studied botany, learning about plants and farming. He became the best botany student on campus. He made more than 300 products from peanuts. He even made soap and ink from peanuts. In all, George Washington Carver created 75 products from pecans and including the invention of a building material for walls made from cotton stalks. This incredible scientist left an incredible mark in society.

Who is Maya Angelou?

Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928. She is an author, poet, historian, songwriter, playwright, dancer, stage and screen producer, director, performer, singer, and civil rights activist. Maya Angelou is the first black woman director in Hollywood, she has written, produced, directed, and starred in productions for stage, film, and television. In 1971, she wrote the original screenplay and musical score for the film Georgia, Georgia, and was both author and executive producer of a five-part television miniseries, "Three Way Choice." She has also written and produced many prize-winning documentaries, including "Afro-Americans in the Arts," a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. Angelou was asked by President Clinton to write and recite a poem for his inauguration ceremony.

Who is Martin Luther King, Jr.?"

Martin Luther King attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College. In 1957, he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide leadership for the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. let non-violent marches throughout the South to advance the rights and freedoms of blacks. To this day, Martin Luther King, Jr. remains a powerful force in American history. Unfortunately, on the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

Martin Luther King Jr.: I have a Dream

Watch Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech - I have a Dream

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

2007 Black Facts