Born into slavery as Frederick Douglass in 1818, this renowned lecturer and author would become one of the greatest public speakers of his time. After escaping slavery in 1838, Douglass joined the abo

Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Katherine Johnson is a powerhouse unlike any other. Entering college at the tender age of 15, Johnson’s advanced mathematical skill-set forced her environment t

In February 1951, a young African-American woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer. Unbeknownst to her, cells from her specific cancer were extrac

After graduating from Shaw University, Ella Baker moved to New York City and began her career as a grassroots organizer. Joining the NAACP in 1940, the Virginia native assisted in developing some of t

Black women and their commitment to freedom and equality has often been minimized in history books. However, with black women standing at the front of each decade, the intersectionality of gender, sex

After years of requesting an all-black unit in the National Guard, the governor of New York finally put the order into place. In January 1918, the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment, which would later

In 1965, one of the last traceable remnants of Jim Crow ideology were thought to be taken off the books with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Despite the implementation of the legislation, racial

The civil rights movement was an organized effort where African-Americans united and rallied to put black progressiveness at the forefront of a nation that sought to minimize and revoke rights.

In 1932 the United States Public Health Service commissioned a study on the effects of untreated syphilis. 600 poor black men from Alabama were selected to be a part of the study and were told that th

With a Jim Crow south alive and well, many black Americans migrated north. This migration resulted in the formation of a creative urban hub in Harlem, New York, and the Harlem Renaissance became a tim