Wayne Miller's compelling B&W photos of Chicago 1946-1948 set to Muddy Water's "I feel like going home." (flash alert; via bifurcated rivets)
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 20, 2008 - 16 comments

If you hadn't heard of Jim Crow before, this is where you can find a brief history on the subject (along with a radio broadcast of some of the people who were involved). Bayard Rustin's Journey of Reconciliation: America's First Freedom Ride (You Don't Have To Ride "Jim Crow") was a precursor [audio and video] to the Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's. (Also, a look at the Jim Crow Museum and a walk down Jim Crow Road today.) [previously*]
posted by hadjiboy on Apr 2, 2008 - 24 comments

Time Magazine's 25 Most Important Films On Race
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 8, 2008 - 69 comments

40 acres and a mule has been a slogan of African-American economic aspirations ever since the legislation creating the Freedman's Bureau promised ex-slaves parcels not exceeding forty acres each, to the loyal refugees and freedmen. General William Tecumseh Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 decreed that the land on slave plantations be seized and distributed to freed slaves, but Andrew Johnson rescinded the order and vetoed expansion of the Freedman's Bureau. Both Henry Louis Gates and Dalton Conley have associated the failure to grant freed slaves their "40 acres and a mule" with the wealth gap between black and white Americans, but now an economics grad student, Melinda Miller, has brought important quantitative data to the debate in a new research paper. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 on Dec 14, 2007 - 43 comments

"Mr. President, pardon Papa Jack" In 1908 a former Texas dockworker and inventor named Jack Johnson became the first African American boxer to ever win the world heavyweight title. His victory sparked race riots and prompted a search for a "great white hope" (writer Jack London asked white fighters to "wipe that smirk off Johnson's face"). But then Johnson defeated two "white hopes", one of whom was the legendary Jim Jeffries. In 1912, authorities went after Johnson in court. His crime? Messin' with the white woman. Charges were brought against him for violating the Mann Act, a federal law that made it a crime to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes." He married the woman, but he was sentenced to a year in prison anyway. Johnson fled the country, living in Europe as a fugitive for seven years, losing his title Havana in 1915 to a much younger white opponent after a 26-round fight in 100-degree-plus heat (Johnson possibly threw the fight in exchange for leniency that he never received). He returned to the U.S. in 1920, surrendered and served a year. He never again was given a chance to reclaim the title. When he died in poverty aged 68 in a car crash, not one boxer attended his funeral. Now a group of US Senators (among them Hatch and McCain), prominent African Americans (Samuel L. Jackson, Jesse Jackson, many others) and boxing writers seek a posthumous Presidential pardon for "Papa Jack". (more inside)
posted by matteo on Jul 22, 2004 - 26 comments

"Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job." Strong words from a paragon of the African American community.
posted by the fire you left me on Jul 1, 2004 - 67 comments

Brown v Board of Education 50 years after a "landmark" decision not a lot seems to have changed in old Milwaukee.Via The Guardian
posted by johnny7 on May 15, 2004 - 5 comments

Charges of racism have been leveled against this president in the past. But this stunt even surprised me. Then I remembered a similar scene on the Capital steps. There hasn't been much media about it, so I'm wondering...is this a regional racism, such that it slid under the radar of the east and west coast news machines, or has the myth of rubbing the head of a black man for luck thankfully faded from the cultural unconscious?
posted by dejah420 on Mar 10, 2004 - 65 comments

'Come Out To Vote On November 6th' In Baltimore, Republicans are accusing Democrats of paying people to canvass African-American neighborhoods on Tuesday. Democrats are accusing Republicans of intimidating minority voters by planning to use members of the Fraternal Order of Police to serve as GOP poll workers. Meanwhile, a flyer being circulated in African-American communities 'reminds' readers to vote on November 6th - but only if all outstanding tickets, warrants, and outstanding rent payments have been paid.
posted by tpoh.org on Nov 4, 2002 - 34 comments

Reverse discrimination? Kathleen Carter, who is white, says that when she became chairman of the education department at historically black Delaware State University in 1995, she was told that she was usurping blacks' right to govern themselves and that whites in the department were trying to make blacks look bad. via Fark
posted by Rastafari on Mar 22, 2002 - 16 comments

Review of Nissan Car Loans Finds That Blacks Pay More A statistical study of more than 300,000 car loans arranged through Nissan dealers from March 1993 to last September — believed by experts to be the largest pool of car loan data ever analyzed for racial patterns — shows that black customers in 33 states consistently paid more than white customers, regardless of their credit histories. (Need free sign up access to NYTimes.com)
posted by Rastafari on Jul 3, 2001 - 21 comments

This article about the stereotyped Black man offered up by nearly every reality TV show broadcast in the US ends just as it's getting to the essence: why is this the "reality" the networks -- and damningly the audiences -- are choosing?
posted by sudama on Feb 20, 2001 - 80 comments

From the "We're in the 2000's, right?" file: Senator Jesse Helms continues to be an asshole, blocking *any* African-American judges from being appointed to the 4th Circut Court of Appeals. The court happens to preside over an area with the largest population of African-Americans anywhere in the country.
posted by mathowie on Feb 12, 2000 - 6 comments