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Showing posts with the label segregation

The Albany Movement (1961-1962)

The Albany Movement was a desegregation campaign formed on November 17, 1961, in Albany, Georgia. Local activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Ministerial Alliance, the Federation of Woman’s Clubs, and the Negro Voters League joined together to create the movement. The Albany Movement challenged all forms of racial segregation and discrimination in the city. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC) joined the movement in December 1961.  SNCC members Charles Sherrod and Cordell Reagon traveled to Albany in October 1961 to help organize the local black community. Although earlier protests had occurred, black residents were frustrated with the city commission’s failure to address their grievances. Sherrod and Reagon organized workshops around nonviolent tactics for Albany’s African American residents in anticipation of a showdown with the local p...

The Jim Crow Laws

Laws which were state and local segregation laws enacted from 1876-1965, were passed to separate blacks and whites in as many aspects of life as possible. Supposedly aimed at making separate but equal accommodations for both races. The reality was that blacks were often treated as inferiors and put at a disadvantage, ultimately making racism and discrimination systemic. White supremacist organizations began to form, including the Ku Klux Klan in 1867, with the specific intent of terrorizing the black community. Enabled by Jim Crow laws and widespread corruption, lynchings—the extrajudicial execution of black men, women, and children—were one of the horrific results of this systemic racism and discrimination legally.

Thomas L. Jennings

(1791–1856) was an  African-American   tradesman  and  abolitionist  in in  New York City ,  New York . He was a  free black  who operated a tailoring and  dry-cleaning  business, and in 1821 was the  first African American  to be granted a  patent . Jennings became active in working for his race and civil rights for the black community. In 1831, he was selected as assistant secretary to the First Annual Convention of the People of Color in  Philadelphia ,  Pennsylvania , which met in June 1831. He helped arrange legal defense for his daughter,  Elizabeth Jennings , in 1854 when she challenged a private streetcar company's segregation of seating and was arrested. She was defended by the young  Chester Arthur , and won her case the next year. With two other prominent black leaders, Jennings organized the  Legal Rights Association  in 1855 in New York, which raised challenges to discr...

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson was a famous African-American athlete, singer, actor, and advocate for the civil rights of people around the world. He rose to prominence in a time when segregation was legal in the United States, and Black people were being lynched by racist mobs, especially in the South. Born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, Paul Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to graduate from Lincoln University, and his mother came from an abolitionist Quaker family. Robeson's family knew both hardship and the determination to rise above it. His own life was no less challenging. In 1915, Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University. Despite violence and racism from teammates, he won 15 varsity letters in sports (baseball, basketball, track) and was twice named to the All-American Football Team. He received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year, belonged to the Cap & Skull Honor Society, and gradu...