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Special Features: This Week in Black History
Friday, March 18, 2005; Page 7
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The Washington Informer is launching “This Week in Black History” to serve as a daily remembrance of how far we have come as well as how far we have to go. In the spirit of understanding and progress, we remember.
March 17 - Clark College granted charter by the state of Georgia, 1877. Clark College was founded in 1869 as Clark University by the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its purpose was to provide Blacks in the south with a formal education. The first bachelor’s degree was awarded in 1883. In 1940, the name was changed to Clark College. The college would later merge with Atlanta University (founded in 1865) in 1988 to establish Clark Atlanta University.
March 18 - Unita Blackwell, the first Black mayor in Mississippi, was born, 1933. Like many African Americans involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Blackwell was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1964 she was a delegate of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which participated in the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Blackwell served as a community development specialist with the National Council of Negro Women. In 1976, she became the first African American woman mayor in the state's history. She would later receive a master’s degree in regional planning from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Unita Blackwell received the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1992.
March 19 - Jan Matzeliger receives patent for the first machine to manufacture an entire shoe, 1883. It was widely believed by the shoe industry that no machine could be built to surpass the efficiency of a hand laster, but history has a way of lending itself to innovation. Within two years of his first prototype for his shoe machine, Matzeliger had perfected the machine and it was able to manufacture 700 pairs of shoes each day, compared to only 50 by the best laster. This would make shoes able to be produced in mass and affordable for the general public. An impossible task is brought to fruition.
March 20 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, White abolitionist, publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1851. The highly controversial antislavery novel questioned the status quo and shed light on the many issues of slavery and the depravity of African Americans during this time.
March 21 - Selma Freedom March begins, 1965. On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping outside. By the time they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, there over 25,000 supporters. Five months after the marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
March 22 - Marcus Garvey, a Black nationalist, arrives in America from Jamaica, 1916. His drive and efforts for equality for people of color worldwide had their roots in time spent in the impoverished and discriminatory lands of Central and South America. In 1914, Garvey organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League. In 1920, while living in New York City, Garvey outlined a plan to build an African nation-state. His nationalist ideas gained great support, and thousands enrolled in the UNIA. He began publishing the newspaper The Negro World and toured the United States spreading his vision of Black Nationalism to audiences. He was highly successful in gaining popularity and soon the association had over 1,100 branches in more than 40 countries. Most of these branches were located in the United States. He would go on to launch many business ventures, including the Black Star Shipping Line.
March 23 - National Urban League founded, 1910. The National Urban League has played a major role in the fight for equality. This organization grew out of the grassroots movement for freedom and opportunity that came to be called the Black Migrations, out of the South and into the North. In order to make the most of the opportunity to successfully adapt to urban life and to reduce the pervasive discrimination they faced, African-Americans would need to organize. For this reason, the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes was established on September 29, 1910 in New York City. Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes were integral in the founding the committee. Within the next year, they would merge with the Committee for the Improvement of Industrial Conditions Among Negroes in New York (est. 1906), and the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (est. 1905) to form the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. In 1920, this conglomerate adopted its present-day name, the National Urban League.
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
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