Dr. Nell Irvin Painter was a historian for Princeton University and president of the American Historians' Organization. She grew up in California and was a child of The Great Migration - Americans from the South moved to escape Jim Crow laws and take advantage of new opportunities. How the Great Migration affected America has been [...]
Dorothy Porter Wesley was born in Warrenton, Virginia in 1905
The Dewy Decimal System organizes library material in a structure hierarchically by disciplines, such as philosophy, social sciences, science, technology, and history.It lists the categories, classes, and tables. It can be searched using a Relativ Index (their spelling).There is a Wikipedia entry about the system. It is helpful for the history of the index, and [...]
The Black Cabinet
The Black Cabinet was a group of appointed Black government workers with firsthand experience of the plight of the Black community during the Great Depression. Their primary organizer was Mary McLeod Bethune. Mary McLeod Bethune Was born in 1874; her parents and eight siblings were born enslaved, and Mary worked in the fields as a [...]
Lear Green lived at 153 South Broadway
This story has slipped by historians. Lear Green lived at 153 South Broadway, Baltimore, MD. In 1857 she had friends pack her in a crate and carry her to the nearby Light & Pratt streets, loaded on a ship, and shipped to Philadelphia. She was escaping slavery, and there would soon be a $150 reward [...]
Carrie Williams Clifford, a Poet and Activist
Carrie Williams Clifford's poetry spoke to inequality; from the views of sexism and racism. The first book of poetry was dedicated to her mother, the second to Black people in America. She spoke of the need to “change some evil heart, right some wrong and raise some arm strong to deliver.” She didn’t just write [...]
Sherman’s March To The Sea
Sherman’s March to the Sea would continue through November and December in 1865. In an ongoing battle near Waynesboro GA the Confederacy seemed successful. It was a minor irritant for the full force of the Union Army and quickly becomes debilitating for the south. It’s hard to call it a battle. But let’s look at [...]
Was there ever a worse year than 2020?
I have read so many posts about how bad 2020 is. It’s a bad year for America, Americans, and the world. But let’s not forget there have been promising developments, too. Case in point, a working vaccine we are all hoping to get soon. Well, 2021 has potential, at least! But let’s step back in [...]
Leaders of the Free World
1 In the lead up to WW2, FDR made the choice to position the US as the leader of the "Free World". What does this mean? It was clear there were two paths a government could take, authoritarian or liberal democracy. This difference, authoritarianism that benefits a small number of people, or democracy that benefits [...]
Summer 2020
Rioting in San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Knoxville, Charleston, and Montgomery. And this is just the list of large cities, many smaller protests and riots are happening all over the country. The reason, as usual, centers around race. This is America, so it usually is about race. Rampant unemployment. An economic slowdown. Recovering from a [...]
